rded way of telling me he knew I had a hand in
bringing it about.

"So I did," replied I. "He was your only chance. He won't be able to get
a campaign fund of so much as a quarter of a million, and the best
workers of his party will at heart be against him. Simpson would have
had--well, Goodrich could and would have got him enough to elect him."

Burbank's eyes twitched. "I think you're prejudiced against Senator
Goodrich, Harvey," said he in his gentlest tone. "He is first of all a
loyal party man."

"Loyal fiddlesticks!" replied I. "He is agent of the Wall Street
crowd--they're his party. He's just the ordinary machine politician,
with no more party feeling than--than--" I smiled--"than any other man
behind the scenes."

Burbank dodged this by taking it as a jest. He always shed my frank
speeches as humor. "Prejudice, prejudice, Harvey!" he said in mild
reproof. "We need Goodrich, and--"

"Pardon me," I interrupted. "We do not need him. On the contrary, we
must put him out of the party councils. If we don't, he may try to help
Scarborough. The Senate's safe, no matter who's elected President; and
Goodrich will rely on it to save his crowd. He's a mountain of vanity
and the two defeats we've given him have made every atom of that vanity
quiver with hatred of us."

"I wish you could have been here when he called," said Burbank. "I am
sure you would have changed your mind."

"When does he resign the chairmanship of the national committee?" I
asked. "He agreed to plead bad health and resign within two weeks after
the convention."

Burbank gave an embarrassed cough. "Don't you think, Harvey," said he,
"that, to soothe his vanity, it might be well for us--for you--to let
him stay on there--nominally, of course? I know _you_ care nothing for
titles."

Instead of being angered by this attempt to cozen me, by this exhibition
of treachery, I felt disgust and pity--how nauseating and how hopeless
to try to forward one so blind to his own interests, so easily
frightened into surrender to his worst enemies! But I spoke very quietly
to him. "The reason you want me to be chairman--for it is you that want
and need it, not I--the reason I _must_ be chairman is because the
machine throughout the country must know that Goodrich is out and that
your friends are in. In what other way can this be accomplished?"

He did not dare try to reply.

I went on: "If he stays at the head of the national committee
Scarborough will be e