at a big profit as soon as this naval base bill is passed. Then that
company will squeeze the Government for the best part of the hundred
millions that are to be spent."

The Senator sank back in his chair and gazed at his two opponents.

Those two statesmen jumped to their feet.

"Come, Stevens, let him do what he will. We cannot stay here to be
insulted by the ravings of a madman," cried the Pennsylvanian. But he
brought his associate to a standstill midway to the door. "By the way,
Langdon, what is it you are going to do in the Senate this afternoon?"
he asked, "You said you were going to make us honest against our will.
You know you can't do anything."

Bud Haines turned his face toward the speaker and grinned broadly, to
the Senator's intense discomfort.

"I'll do more than that," announced Langdon, rising and pounding a
fist into his open hand. "I'll make you and Stevens more popular than
you ever were in your lives before."

"Bah!" shouted Peabody.

"I'll do even more yet. I'm going to make you generous--patriots. And,
I regret to say, I'll give you the chance to make the hits of your
careers."

The polished hypocrites looked at him, too astonished to move.

"How? What?" they gasped.

Swept on by his own enthusiasm and the force of his own courageous
honesty, the voice of the Southerner rose to oratorical height.

"This afternoon," he exclaimed, "when the naval base committee makes
its report, I will rise in my place and declare that for once in the
history of the Senate men have been found who place the interests of
the Government they serve above any chance of pecuniary reward. These
men are the members of the naval base committee.

"With this idea in view, realizing that dishonest men would try to
make money out of the Government, these members of the naval base
committee, after they settled on Altacoola, went out quietly and
secured control of all the land that will be needed for the naval
base, and these men secured this at a very nominal figure. Now they
are ready to turn over their land to the Government at exactly what
they paid for it, without a cent of profit.

"Then they're going to sit up over there in that Senate. They're going
to realize that a new kind of politics has arrived in Washington--the
kind that I and lots of others always thought there was here.

"And, gentlemen"--he advanced on his colleagues triumphantly--"when
I, Senator Langdon of Mississippi, your creation in politi