The old is going; the new is coming. Wealth, office,
power are at auction. Who bids highest? who hates with most
venom? who intrigues with most skill? who has done the dirtiest,
the meanest, the darkest, and the most, political work? He shall
have his reward.
Senator Ratcliffe was absorbed and ill at ease. A swarm of
applicants for office dogged his steps and beleaguered his rooms in
quest of his endorsement of their paper characters. The new
President was to arrive on Monday. Intrigues and combinations, of
which the Senator was the soul, were all alive, awaiting this
arrival. Newspaper correspondents pestered him with questions.
Brother senators called him to conferences. His mind was
pre-occupied with his own interests. One might have supposed
that, at this instant, nothing could have drawn him away from the
political gaming-table, and yet when Mrs. Lee remarked that she
was going to Mount Vernon on Saturday with a little party,
including the British Minister and an Irish gentleman staying as a
guest at the British Legation, the Senator surprised her by
expressing a strong wish to join them. He explained that, as the
political lead was no longer in his hands, the chances were nine in
ten that if he stirred at all he should make a blunder; that his
friends expected him to do something when, in fact, nothing could
be done; that every preparation had already been made, and that
for him to go on an excursion to Mount Vernon, at this moment,
with the British Minister, was, on the whole, about the best use he
could make of his time, since it would hide him for one day at
least.
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