The inquirer passed to the right, entering a wide room with tables, books, heavy chairs, discreetly shaded lamps.  At one table, drawn close to the light and poring over a printed page, sat a gentleman whose personality was not without distinction.  The gray hair brushed back from a heightening forehead might have proclaimed him even beyond middle age, and his stature, of about medium height, acknowledged easy living in its generous habit.  The stock and cravat of an earlier day gave a certain austerity to the shrewd face, lighted by a pair of keen gray eyes, which now turned to greet the new-comer.  He rose, and both bowed formally before they advanced to take each other by the hand.  They were acquaintances, if not intimate friends.  Evidently this particular club no more enlisted its members from this or that political party than did either of the leading parties call upon any certain section for their membership.

“I am fortunate to find you here in Washington, my dear Sir,” began the gentleman from Kentucky.  “It is something of a surprise.”

The wrinkles about the other’s eyes deepened in an affable smile.  “True,” said he, “in the last twelve years I have three times sought to get back into Washington!  Perhaps it would have been more seemly for me to remain in the decreed dignified retirement.”

They joined in a laugh at this, as they both drew up chairs at the table side.

“You see,” resumed the last speaker, “I am not indeed intruding here in national affairs, but only choose Washington for to-night.  I have been thinking of a pleasure journey into the West, down the Ohio River—­”

“Will you have snuff?” began his companion.  “This is no import, I assure you, but is made by one of my old darkeys, on my plantation in Kentucky.  He declares he puts nothing into it but straight leaf.”

“My soul!” exclaimed the other, sneezing violently.  “I suspect the veracity of your darkey.  It is red pepper that he uses!”

“All the better, then, to clear our minds, my dear Sir.  But let me first send for another product of my state, to assuage these pains.”  He beckoned to a servant, who presently, returned with tray and glasses.

“And now,” he resumed, “what you say of your journey interests me immensely.  No doubt you propose going down the river as far as Missouri?  The interest of the entire country is focused there to-day.  Ah, yonder is the crux of all our compromise!  Safe within the fold herself, that is to say above the fatal line of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, her case is simply irresistible in interest to-day, both for those who argue for and those who talk against the extension of slavery into our other territories.”

“Yet your administration, to-day, my dear Sir, calls this ‘finality.’  Believe me, it is no more than a compromise with truth and justice!  The entire North demands that slavery shall halt.”