of intertwined influences, any one of which alone would be useless, but
which taken together were not to be broken through; to revive the lost
art of the Roman retiarius, who from a safe distance threw his net over
his adversary, before attacking with the dagger; this was Ratcliffe's
intention and towards this he had been directing all his manipulation
for weeks past. How much bargaining and how many promises he found it
necessary to make, was known to himself alone. About this time Mrs. Lee
was a little surprised to find Mr. Gore speaking with entire confidence
of having Ratcliffe's support in his application for the Spanish
mission, for she had rather imagined that Gore was not a favourite with
Ratcliffe. She noticed too that Schneidekoupon had come back again and
spoke mysteriously of interviews with Ratcliffe; of attempts to unite
the interests of New York and Pennsylvania; and his countenance took on
a dark and dramatic expression as he proclaimed that no sacrifice of the
principle of protection should be tolerated. Schneidekoupon disappeared
as suddenly as he came, and from Sybil's innocent complaints of
his spirits and temper, Mrs. Lee jumped to the conclusion that Mr.
Ratcliffe, Mr. Clinton, and Mr.

Krebs had for the moment combined to sit heavily upon poor
Schneidekoupon, and to remove his disturbing influence from the scene,
at least until other men should get what they wanted. These were merely
the trifling incidents that fell within Mrs. Lee's observation. She felt
an atmosphere of bargain and intrigue, but she could only imagine how
far it extended. Even Carrington, when she spoke to him about it, only
laughed and shook his head:

"Those matters are private, my dear Mrs. Lee; you and I are not meant to
know such things."

This Sunday afternoon Mr. Ratcliffe's object was to arrange the little
manoeuvre about Carson of Pennsylvania, which had disturbed him in
church.

His efforts were crowned with success. Krebs accepted Carson and
promised to bring him forward at ten minutes' notice, should the
emergency arise.

Ratcliffe was a great statesman. The smoothness of his manipulation was
marvellous. No other man in politics, indeed no other man who had ever
been in politics in this country, could--his admirers said--have brought
together so many hostile interests and made so fantastic a combination.
Some men went so far as to maintain that he would "rope in the President
himself before the old man had time