He meant to accept the Treasury
and he was ready to back himself with a heavy wager to get the
government entirely into his own hands within six weeks. His
contempt for the Hoosier Stone-cutter was unbounded, and his
confidence in himself more absolute than ever.
Busy as he was, the Senator made his appearance the next evening
at Mrs.
Lee's, and finding her alone with Sybil, who was occupied with her
own little devices, Ratcliffe told Madeleine the story of his week's
experience.
He did not dwell on his exploits. On the contrary he quite ignored
those elaborate arrangements which had taken from the President
his power of volition. His picture presented himself; solitary and
unprotected, in the character of that honest beast who was invited
to dine with the lion and saw that all the footmarks of his
predecessors led into the lion's cave, and none away from it. He
described in humorous detail his interviews with the Indiana lion,
and the particulars of the surfeit of lobster as given in the
President's dialect; he even repeated to her the story told him by
Mr. Tom Lord, without omitting oaths or gestures; he told her how
matters stood at the moment, and how the President had laid a trap
for him which he could not escape; he must either enter a Cabinet
constructed on purpose to thwart him and with the certainty of
ignominious dismissal at the first opportunity, or he must refuse an
offer of friendship which would throw on him the blame of a
quarrel, and enable the President to charge all future difficulties to
the account of Ratcliffe's "insatiable ambition.
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