Baker.
"But how did you do it? did they take bribes?"
"Some of them did. Some of them liked suppers and cards and
theatres and all sorts of things. Some of them could be led, and
some had to be driven like Paddy's pig who thought he was going
the other way. Some of them had wives who could talk to them,
and some--hadn't," said Mrs. Baker, with a queer intonation in her
abrupt ending.
"But surely," said Mrs. Lee, "many of them must have been
above--I mean, they must have had nothing to get hold of; so that
you could manage them."
Mrs. Baker laughed cheerfully and remarked that they were very
much of a muchness.
"But I can't understand how you did it," urged Madeleine; "now,
how would you have gone to work to get a respectable senator's
vote--a man like Mr.
Ratcliffe, for instance?"
"Ratcliffe!" repeated Mrs. Baker with a slight elevation of voice
that gave way to a patronising laugh. "Oh, my dear! don't mention
names. I should get into trouble. Senator Ratcliffe was a good
friend of my husband's. I guess Mr. Carrington could have told you
that. But you see, what we generally wanted was all right enough.
We had to know where our bills were, and jog people's elbows to
get them reported in time. Sometimes we had to convince them
that our bill was a proper one, and they ought to vote for it. Only
now and then, when there was a great deal of money and the vote
was close, we had to find out what votes were worth. It was mostly
dining and talking, calling them out into the lobby or asking them
to supper.
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