ment had never attended Shelby's departures.

"Goin' to use it yourself?" he inquired.

"Is the station agent aching to know?"

"Nope," returned William, frankly. "He didn't ask."

"Then you needn't. Now get Mr. Bowers's residence, and ask if he is
there."

"Got him," announced the clerk presently, as if he had trapped a rat,
and stood expectantly aside. To his disappointment Shelby merely made
an immediate appointment at the Bowers's home. More bitter still, he
took the message with him.

"Lightning has struck," Shelby greeted the old man ten minutes later,
handing him the telegram. "I've been ordered down to the Boss. This
means make or break."

The Hon. Seneca Bowers unslung his glasses and slowly read the summons.

"I guess it had to come," he commented.

"Oh, yes. Things have reached lowest ebb. In fact, they're so low
that you must put up my car fare."

Bowers assented readily.

"Whatever you need you shall have, Ross. You must go in good style."

Shelby pocketed the sum which he thought would meet his travelling
expenses and listened to his friend's rather dolorous words of
encouragement.

"I think he'll do right by you," Bowers concluded feebly. "I think
he'll do right."

Shelby jerked a grim smile.

"The Boss always does right--when it pays."

In the smoking-room of the Pullman that night the traveller was
accosted by an unctuous person who looked like a race-track tout. He
would have described himself as a man "interested" in legislation; he
had been described by other people as a lobbyist, but that was in the
days before the machine absorbed the lobby.

"And how does the Hon. Calvin Ross Shelby find himself?" beamed the
new-comer, dropping into a seat alongside. "Busy days in Tuscarora,
eh?"

"Yes; busy days, Krantz," assented the harassed man, concealing his
annoyance under a cordial greeting. If ever he had needed a quiet hour
it was now, and he had sought the smoking-compartment because with a
carful of women and children it seemed to promise solitude.

"Shall miss you around Albany this winter," Krantz said feelingly,
exploring the pockets of his horsey waistcoat for a cigar. "We always
got along so well together."

Shelby was silent under this moving reminiscence.

"I'll have some of my Washington friends look you up," pursued the man.
"They're good fellows, all of 'em."

"Thanks," said Shelby, without enthusiasm. "Better wait till I'm
elected."

"My dear si