The Other Fellow

THE senator had made his bargain, but he still pondered it dubiously at odd moments, and occasionally played with a disposition to break it.

“ Of course I am free to cut loose,” he muttered, lolling back in his easychair with the air of a man who tries to believe that he is master of the situation. “ At all events, I am not bound to stand by my bond, if the — the Other Fellow does n’t stand by his.”

lie had an aversion, we may suspect, to thinking distinctly of his partner in agreement, or to calling him by his name. Hence perhaps it was that, even in the solitude of his own room, even in the privacy of his own sou!, he alluded to him as “ the Other Fellow.”

41 It is a monstrous offer,” continued Senator Wesley, puffing away at a thirty-cent cigar. 41 1 have n’t the least idea that he can carry it out. If he does n’t fulfill it to the minutest particular, I shall feel perfectly free to cut loose from him.”

But as he thought over the events of the day it seemed to him probable, and even alarmingly certain, that the Other Fellow was indeed discharging his part of the compact. The same men who up to yesterday were Sending him urgent dunning letters had mailed him thankful receipts and solicited a continuance of his custom. Who paid them? His banker had not only returned him his protested notes canceled, but had noticed him that a draft of ten thousand lollars had been passed to his credit. Who sent it? The senator smiled as he thought how astonished Mr. Bursary must have looked over that paper, and how he might perhaps have smelt of it to see if he could detect an odor of brimstone.

Moreover, how was it that Mace, the importer, had all of a sudden taken a fancy to give him baskets of champagne anil boxes of Havanas? Did the old fellow want some change made in the tariff? Or had he set his grocery soul upon the project of getting a United States senator lo one of his dinner parties ? Or were these showers of luxuries results of the princely interference of the Other Fellow? At all events, — and here Mr. Wesley took a cautions, investigating puff, — there seemed to be no flavor of sulphur in the cigars. Had he perceived such a taint, how quickly would he have thrown down the abominable weed, and abjured his tremendous bargain ! At least, so he thought, and quite distinctly, too, absurd as the thought seemed. Meantime, it is not at all certain what he would have done in such a case. There arc times and circumstances when a certain sort of man would rather smoke brimstone regalias than none at all.

Presently the senator fell into a more cheerful, and, as he said to himself, a more rational frame. Why should he wonder at his newly-blossomed prosperity, and attribute to it any roots deeper than the healthful soil of earth? Had he not simply accepted yesterday evening the presidency of the Great Consolidated llailroad Company ? Was not his honest, above-hoard salary therefrom a clear twenty thousand a year ? Was he not at the head of one of the wealthiest and most influential combinations of capital in the whole republic? And voters, too! — voters by the wardful! There were ten thousand workmen, more or less, under his direction; they could turn the scale in more than one congressional district which he named to himself; they might change the political complexion of a potent State which he knew of.

To be sure, his duties as president were rather nominal than real; he was something like the queen of England, — he wais a ceremony. He knew nothing whatever about railroads; could not say whether locomotives were high-pressure or low-pressure; could hardly tell an II rail from a T. Nothing whatever would he have to do with purchases, or rates of fare, or payment of coupons, or division of profits. It was some other fellow — and probably that Other Fellow— who really had rule. 11 is own business was merely to let himself be called president, to lend all the dignity of his character and office to the Great Consolidated, and to see that its interests did not suffer In the councils of the nation. For these things was he to draw his twenty thousand a year, and to get that respectable commission on the new bonds, second mortgage.

All the same, his power was indisputably great, and his revenue promised to be enormous. No wonder that merchandising men hurried in their receipts, and reverentially begged him to order more. Probably the Great Consolidated had traded at their counters over night, or had simply and straightforwardly drawn its auriferous finger over his debits. Likewise Willi Bursary the banker, and Mace the importer. There was no need of supposing anything other-worldly, or even extraordinary, to account for the fact that a railroad president, with ever so much a year, should find himself out of debt. No wonder, either, that all of a sudden all sorts of men should obviously regard him with increased deference; no wonder, for instance, that his brother senators had that day hearkened to him with an attention and respect which they had never before accorded.

As he thought of these things, and of the solid pecuniary causes which undoubtedly lay at the bottom of them, he drew a deep sigh of repose and satisfaction. What a restfulness there was in being out of debt, and especially out of that confounded land speculation, with its mire of sinking values and of mortgages! What a joy it was to have his pockets once more full, and in fact running over! What a luxury to smoke such cigars, and not even think of the expense sufficiently to say, Curse it!

“I have made a ten - strike! M he laughed aloud. “ And I am one of the youngest members of the senate; yes, and upon my soul one of the best-looking. 1 ’

He was indeed, as United States senators go, a man of considerable personal charms. More than one lovely feminine lobbyist had called on Senator Matthew Wesley with the intent of captivating, and had gone away captivated, feeling that she would gladly give up her claim and its shadowy millions for the slenderest chance of that man’s impecunious love. More than one youthful lady, fresh and undefiled from the bosom of her home, had watched him with bright eyes from the gallery, and said to her intimate friend, or shyly thought to herself, “ Is n’t he splendid! ”

Well, the place perhaps lent its glorv to him, and added to the brilliance of his natural halo. To my masculine optics he was not so much beautiful as uncommonly good-looking. His broad shoulders, capacious chest, and might v limbs needed about twenty pounds off to make them Apollonean. There was the merest atom too much of double chin appended to his otherwise comely aquiline countenance. His expression was manly and intelligent, certainly, but a little too domineering, and a little hard ened. On the other hand (what was then unusual in our upper house), he retained in his cheeks something of the smoothness and bloom of youth., and sported on his head an abundant crown of flossy hair. Take him all in all, — his upright vigor, his chestnut, curls, and his senatoriahty, — he might fairly be called a handsome man, if indeed one ought not to say splendid.

Of a sudden the senator’s cigar, though only half smoked out, tasted badly. It seemed to him that there was, in fact, a flavor of brimstone about it. He threw it into the fire, where, instead of burning quietly, as a cigar should, it blazed up in a blue flame and disappeared almost in a moment. What was the matter with it,—or with him? He had only heard a strange foot in the passage and an extremely gentle tap on his door. The most commonplace circumstances will sometimes affect us singularly, and give us irrational, uot to say unearthly, impressions. Healthy and muscular and broad of chest as the senator was, it cost him an effort to say audibly, “ Come in.”

The man who entered did not seem the sort of man to inspire fear. He was, to be sure, attired in solid black from bead to foot, like that mysterious personage who frequented the witch-meetings of early New England, and whose office it seems to have been to record the names of neophytes in a large volume. But, after all, it was only a morningsuit of black cheviot ; it was such a suit as many a quiet business man wears to his office. And that — a quiet business man — is just, what he would have been taken for by any one who did not know better, as perhaps the senator did.

The. appearance of the stranger was not only quiet, but at first sight very attractive. His expression was vivacious, cultivated, and agreeable, barring that he sometimes threw out a glance of startling keenness, verging on the disseetive and satirical. His carriage was graceful, noiseless, alert, supple as dancing, and yet daintily well bred. his features were Oriental; his complexion dark and clear pallor; his eyes black, serene, and penetrating. It was impossible to guess his birthplace, unless indeed he might be a Philadelphian, or possibly a Baltimorean. It was equally difficult to divine his age, except so far as to say that he seemed to be in the prime of life. The smile witli which he entered was so courteous, and at the same time so clever, that any one who did not. know him (as the senator dirl) would have called it fascinating.

“ You have a charming suite of rooms,” he said, glancing with the air of a virtuoso over Wesley’s carved furniture, bronzes, and other costly nicknacks.

“Yes; and preciously am I in debt for them! ” grumbled the senatorial sybarite, who could not help wanting to quarrel with something or somebody, so fretted was he by the presence of his visitor.

“ I should suppose that all that must now he by-gones,” smiled the — the Other Fellow.

I may as well state here that I have only an unsupported suspicion as to the real name of this personage, and shall therefore usually mention him by the title which was oftenest accorded to him in Wesley’s thoughts and conversation.

“ It is a by-gone matter, — the financial embarrassment, — is it not?” he added, in a tone of business-like insistence, qualified by his gracious smile.

“ Oh — yes — certainly,” stammered the senator. “ I forgot myself. I am so used to being dunned, you know! The truth is that I haven’t heard the cry of the creditor to-day, and suppose I am out of the woods.”

“ I thought we must have seen to all those little matters,” nodded the visitor. “ Of course, too, you got a notice from the bank, — one half of your salary paid in advance.”

“ But, really, you ought to have taken the bills out of the ten thousand,” urged the honorable, who was curiously anxious not to be paid too much, and indeed felt just then as if he would like not to be paid anything.

“ Oh, trifles, trifles! ” smiled the Other Fellow. “ You don’t yet know what it is to be president of a railroad. We don’t count so close in our corporation. And now,—if you will excuse me,— as to business? ”

The conscript father turned deadly pale before this suggestion. It seemed as if he must have understood that “ business ” meant nothing less than mounting a chariot of fire and dashing into the mouth of a volcano, or some still hotter orifice.

“ I have hardly been able to do much as yet,” he gasped. “ Only talked a little in private with senators.”

“ Yes, very good,” bowed the Other Fellow approvingly. 11 The most telling work Is done in private. Of course you haven’t had time to accomplish much. You can’t expect to build your Rome in a day.”

The senator cringed. He was of honorable descent, and he represented a most honorable ancient State, and he had hitherto been an honorable legislator. It did not at all please him to have this hill — this huge piece of jobbery and trickery and bribery — called his Rome. And yet, on reflection, so it must be. AVas he not president of the Great Consolidated, and in receipt of its unstinted salaries and perquisites?

“It will hardly do for you, the chief of our corporation, to speak or vote in favor of our bill—your bill.”

The visitor said this with a brisk, clear, positive utterance, which was evidently the natural speech of a clear, prompt, vigorous mind.

By way of assent the senator shook his head — his big and once virtuous and still respected head — with great energy.

“ By all means not,” responded the Other Fellow, in a tone which was thoroughly business-like, though not without a flavor of the sardonic. One might divine that, even while he felt obliged to treat of legislative corruption in a sensible and practical spirit, it still afforded him entertainment.

“ AVell, let us hear what you have to suggest, secretary,” observed the honorable. “I should like to see exactly how far your views accord with mine.”

The actual manager of the Great Consolidated was not abashed by this assumption of independence and even of superiority on the part of the nominal manager. In his lucid, instructive, professional way, and smiling his sarcastic yet playful smile, he went on to give the conscript father a policy.

“ You wilt of course be an example of modesty, self-abnegation, and dignity. It will be well to say, in a few of your best sentences, that, as a legislator, you can do nothing for this hill. But in private, as an interested individual, as the lawful trustee of our interests, you must necessarily be our advocate. You know all these gentlemen, and you have the right to approach them, and you will not fail to use it. There must be confidential communications, hopeful views and expectancies, suggestions of public profit; yes, and of private profit. There must be argument where argument is best, a promise of voters where those are needed, and something on the nail where that has to be. Of course, no one expects you to bother with scrip and greenbacks. Give me the names and probable amounts, and T will see to the settlements. AVe must not be nice, and we must not be stingy. The directors don’t expect to get much work for nothing. Carpet-baggers, etc., must live, as well as other men.”

“ And you really think we will have to allow some dirty jobbery? ” groaned AVesley, staring weakly at the secretary. He had hitherto proudly imagined himself a man of immense moral muscle; buthe felt very feeble as he gazed into the depths of those intelligent eyes, and into the mazes of that sardonic smile.

“ AA hat is the other company allowing? The other company must be beaten. You have heard of the necessitv of fighting fire with fire.”

“I should think a lady might push some of these inquiries with advantage,” sighed the honorable, looking about him for somebody to hold the hottest end of his poker.

“ I will send you half a dozen,” said the Other Fellow, the scoff of his smile softening into mocking hilarity. ‘1 Dear, lovely, innocent creatures! There is nothing like an Eve for a tempter.”

Even the troubled senator could not help grinning for a moment. He had been sorely and also amusingly beset by apple-offering Eves during his term in the Eden of state-craft.

“ Well, it must be done, and it will be done! ” he declared, much cheered by this hope of help from guardian angels.

“ I trust so; no reasonable doubt of it,” replied the visitor. “ And now as to your personal affairs? lias everything been cleared up? ”

“ Everything. I don’t know why I should n’t be perfectly jolly. Only a bachelor is apt to be lonely, I suppose vou know. I shall have to set up either a wife or a valet.”

“ Both are procurable. I should recommend the valet, as being the least trouble.”

“Exactly. Yes, I want a valet, or rather a man of all work: a fellow who can cook as well as shave ami brush clothes; a fellow who can do a lot of things,” insisted the senator, feeling a grim need of distractions. “ Yes, I want a valet, — a Frenchified sort of valet.”

“ So I have understood,” said the Other Fellow.

Mr. Wesley stared. How had the man understood it? Not heretofore from the senatorial lips, certainly.

“ And I have taken the liberty to bring you just the person,” continued the secretary: “a man who can shave, make a vol-au-vent, do anything. He is waiting in the hall below.”

The senator did not want to say “ Call him up,” but, somehow or other, he could not Help saying it. Thereupon appeared, gently stepping and obsequious, a tall, brown, grave man of uncertain age, glossily black in hair and duskily black in eyes, and clothed, like the secretary, in black from bead to foot. His name, he said, was Blasorious, his parentage Transylvanian, and his native language Latin. But he spoke English without hesitation or foreign accent, and professed besides a knowledge of several other vulgar tongues.

“ I don’t know about hiring a college professor,” remarked the senator, somewhat daunted by so much learning, and moreover instinctively afraid of this sable Blasorious.

“ I only profess couriership,” meekly bowed the linguist. “I am merely a courier, glad to turn valet. I shall be humbly thankful to enter your service, sir. ”

The senator did not want him. He looked from the black suit of the courier to the black suit of the railroad secretary. Jt seemed to him that there was a dark and wizard conspiracy between these two sombre costumes. But all the same, and for reasons which he could not formulate, he engaged Blasorious.

Then the interview terminated, and the honorable Wesley presently retired to rest, if rest he could find in those days.

In the morning, thanks to Transylvanian cookery, he had a most delicious breakfast. There was, to be sure, one ugly moment. It was when Blasorious removed the covers, and the senator, looking up at his dusky eyes, seemed to see sparks issuing from them, followed by a very little smoke. For a breath he half expected that blue flames and an odor of sulphur would arise from the dishes. But the exquisite flavor of the breakfast made amends for that instant of disagreeable foreboding. There never had been, to his knowledge, such ambrosial cafe au lait, such a bi/tec aux pommes, such a galantine de volatile, such a bottle of sauterne. Wesley went up to the senate hall in high spirits, and fought (confidentially) for the Great Consolidated like a Trojan.

In the evening an equally wonderful dinner, all French and strange and exquisite, restored his jaded powers. Only there was Blasorious glooming over the table like an Afreet, and sparkling and smoking altogether too much out of his awful eyes. The senator began to call him (quite to himself at first) “ Blazes.” he thought seriously of discharging lam, in spite of his unparalleled cookery and handiness. But there were reasons against that; he never quite understood what they were, only that they were sufficient. One act of independence, however, he did allow himself: he deeided that he would not revel in the company of Blazes alone. It became his habit, in these opulent days, to invite a friend or so to dinner, and frequently to breakfast. And of these guests, by the way, the secretary was never one. He was only another Blazes, even more distasteful than the Transylvanian himself, and not to be seen on any account except under stress of necessity.

We must not forget, in these scenes of affluence and festivity, the bill of the Great Consolidated. We lack, it is true, the space and the necessary familiarity with affairs of statesmanship to speak of it as fully as it deserves. But we can say that it prospered, thanks to the eloquence (confidential) of our senator, and to the outspoken, manly, noble utterances of patriots who saw tlie need of just such a measure. It. went smoothly from stage to stage; it was read a first time, a second time, and, for aught I know, a tenth time; it throve in a style fit to gladden the heart of a nation. Not understanding the minutiae of all this success, we had better thus record it in one satisfactory lump.

But the senator had to work hard to secure his triumph. He bad to buttonhole in the halls, and to beckon into the cloak-room, and to circulate from desk to desk, and to dine and wine at his lodgings, not a little. He had to see a great deal of certain ladies who saw a great deal of certain honorables. It was all very trying to him until he met Mrs. Wilhelmina Norman, the pretty young widow of an army officer, left on the world with only a four-hundred-dollar pension, and driven thereby to take such gleanings of labor as might be dropped in her way by careless mankind. She was a lobby ess, alas, but a very interesting one, and also very pitiful, — Mr. Wesley did not divine bow interesting and pitiful until one day, after a private and strictly business interview with her, he noted that her delicate blonde face was pale and weary, and that her blue eyes had (lie humble pathos of eyes which have recently wept.

“ What is the matter, Mrs. Norman?*' he inquired, with great gentleness, for she put him in mind of a sister whom he had lost,—lost out of the world. ‘ ‘ I am afraid you are overworking on our account. Are volt ill? ”

The voice of compassion sapped the barriers of womanly reserve, and tears flowed in spite of a struggle to bar them, though they flowed silently. Oh, the sensibility to pity and tenderness of a woman from whom a great love has been withdrawn, leaving her alone in life!

“ Ah, my dear lady,” said the senator with compunction, “ I have done harm instead of good! I beg your pardon.”

Little by little the story of her grief, or rather of a single one of many griefs, came out. She had been treated with an impertinence, which she would not describe, by a man so great that she hardly dared murmur his name.

“ And it is all because I am in this business!” she sobbed, hysterically. “ Oh, I hate it! T hate it! ”

The senator was not a good man himself, but he reddened with wrath over the tale. Yet what could he do? The influential personage in question could not be punished, an;] must not even be affronted. Nor could poor, pretty Mrs. Norman be spared from her thorny but all-important labors. The bill, the priceless bill of the Great Consolidated, was at stake.

“ Ah, my dear lady,” he groaned, “ 1 pity you! Ii is a horrid shame. You are too good for this work. But that is just it. It is your very innocence and freshness and modesty that make you strong here. These men are used to brazen women, and are little influenced by them. But you,—just because you are a lady in demeanor and soul, — you are potent. You are the mightiest of all our helpers. I will see that you are well rewarded for your trouble, — yes, and your troubles. Don’t abandon us.”

The result of this interview, or rather the result of the senator’s compassion and genlleness, was that Mrs. Norman believed him to be one of the best, of men, and gave him her simple confidence and worship. And because she did that, and because he became aware of it, he began (o put her higher in his soul than all other women.

If Wesley could in these days have seen only Mrs. Norman, or even only his comparatively tough and unsympathetic table intimates, he would have been, on the whole, a comfortably minded legislator, in spite of his hated labors for the Great Consolidated. But there, at, every meal, indeed haunting his lodgings at all hours, wTas that infernal, smokyeyed Afreet of a Blasorious. There, too, dropping in every evening, was that sable-suited, sardonic secretary, the most potent and intimidating sprite of the two. By the way, it was impossible for him to justify' to himself or to anybody else the singular fear in which he held these two beings. They did not seem to produce any special impression upon Ids habitual guests or his chance visitors. he felt tolerably sure of this, for he watched anxiously to see. From time to time, moreover, he would sound people on the subject.

“ Odd-looking fellow, that valet of mine,” he observed to paunchy, crimson-wattled Judge Mulberry, — taking good care, of course, that Blazes was out of hearing.

“ Yes, rather; what is he? ” gobbled Mulberry, pitching into the perdreau truffe at a tremendous rate.

■“ A Transylvanian. Speaks Latin as his mother tongue.”

“Bless my soul!” stared Mulberry. “ By Jove, I ’d keep a Latin professor of cookery myself, if I could afford it. Wesley, y ou ain’t going to send off that partridge yet, are you? The next dish can’t be half so good.”

“ But have y ou ever remarked his eyes? ” inquired the senator, helping the judge to the remaining perdreau. “ I half think the man is a gypsy.”

“ What ’s the matter with his eyes? ” mumbles Mulberry', his great mouth full of partridge and truffles.

“ Why, really, I hardly know,” stammers Wesley. “Perhaps it’s the expression: something like sparks, yrou know, followed by smoke.”

Mulberry’s own eyes (which certainly had no sparks nor smoke in them, being altogether too watery) were lifted in astonished inquiry to his entertainer’s face

“ Look here, Wesley! ” he warned, in a stertorious voice. “ You M better look out for y ourself. Your nerves are getting out of order. A number of men have remarked it. Come, now, shove that burgundy' over here, and ring in your next course and go at it like a man.”

“ Ah — well,” sighed the senator incompris, tinkling his solid silver bell (chased with the figures and names of the four evangelists), and then averting his eyes from the door, so that he might not see the entering Blasorious.

The rest of his dinner passed in something like a great sandy desert of thirst. Mulberry drank everything on the table, except water, and really risked going home tipsy, all to spare his friend’s nerves. Then, still out of pure kindness, he hiccoughed, “ Wesley, my hoy, let’s co to the theatre and see the ballet.”

“ Very good,” agreed the senator. “ Anything to get away from that confounded Blazes ! ”

“ What! Your man? ” stared Mulberry. “ If you don’t like him, why don’t you ship him? ”

The unhappy president of the Great Consolidated made no reply'. It was impossible to explain to his friend, and in fact it was impossible to explain to himself, why there was no possibility of turning off Blasorious.

“I didn’t mean Blazes,” he stammered. “ I was thinking of that Other Fellow; I mean that confounded secretary. He is here nearly every' evening. ’ ’

“Oh! 1 dare say. Business out of hours be hanged! I never attend to anything after session.”

“ And then he is such a disagreeable chap! ” continued Wesley, plaintively.

“Disagreeable?” dissented Mulberry. “ I don’t find him so. One of the most gentlemanly, entertaining, bright fellows that I ever met. I’d like to have him along.”

The senator did not take up the question. If he had gone into it, and had stated what he suspected as to the secretary. or even what he had plainly discerned in him, Mulberry would simply have jxxih-poohed at it all, and advised him. with his burgundied breath, to take care of his nerves.

‘‘ Staggering old crapulence! ” he said to himself, looking askant at his wheezing, heavy-footed friend. “He has three bottles in him this very minute, and preaches austerities and macerations to me.’7

At this moment Blasorious entered, and said, in his bass-drum voiee and excellent English, “ Gentlemen, the carriage is ready.77

“ What!’7 exclaimed Wesley in downright terror, remembering that he had not ordered a carriage.

That’s all right, Blazes,'7 put in the undisturbed Mulberry, as little surprised as three bottles of wine need be. “ You are the softest-footed and quickest, - wilted man in your line of life that T ever saw. There’s a dollar for you. T wish it were a hundred.”

Blasorious thanked him in grateful double-bass, and pocketed the gratuity in the most commonplace fashion, as if he: had been any ordinary domestic.

They now went out to the carriage, the judge bunting against the senator several times during the brief journey, and meanwhile lecturing him on the perils of the jovial bowl.

“ What are you staring at, Wesley? ” he demanded, when they reached the pavement.

“ 1 wanted to see who that was on the box,” explained the senator, with the air of a man who is not yet quite free of suspicions.

“ Why, it’s the coachman, of course! ” grumbled and gasped Mulberry, as he struggled into the vehicle with the aid of Blasorious. “ Ilaiig these Washington carriages! Their doors remind me of the eye of the scriptural needle. Only an anaconda can twist into one without scraping his coat-tails off. What are you craning out of the window for, Wesley? 77

“ Who was that got on to the box? ” asked the senator, actual!' trembling with terror. “ I’m sure that somebody got on to the box.”

“Let him, and let him stay there!” puffed the judge. “ No room for him inside, after we ’re in. I dare say it’s some bosom friend of the nigger, — or perhaps an applicant after your signature.”

“Oh, it’s that infernal Blazes!77 groaned Wesley. “ What is he following me for ? ’7

“ Going to spend that dollar on a ticket, probably. But why should n’t he attend us? We shall want him to help us out, with all this blubber and burgundy aboard.”

“Ob, well — it’s all right,77 sighed the senator, wearied of his comrade’s Stupidity, and attributing it to the three bottles. “I don’t care so much fo him. I was afraid it was the Other Eel low.”

“Well, T wasn’t,” said the judge, and chuckled a good deal over his own wit, which, by the way, seemed rather vapory to him next morning.

It is not necessary to describe the stale marvels of (lie theatre. One can perhaps best give an idea of the entertainment by stating that Judge Mulberry went fast asleep in his box, and snored out a whole wine cellar of opinions, while the senator passed his time in anxiously watching the audience to see if he could discern the dreaded visage of the Other Fellow, it was surely' not a pleasant life that be was leading. I hardly know which he liked least, — his yesterdays, or his to-days, or his to-morrows. And yet he was flush of money and potent in great affairs and high in dignity; he was an object of jealousy to more than one stronger man, and of envy to many a happier one.

Perhaps his health was shaken a little, though he would not admit it. He certainly did not look quite well, — not as well as a few days previous, when he was “ poor but honest.” He was as broad and muscular as ever, but there were haggard lines on his countenance, and there was an anxious expression in his eyes, Ilis doctor, old YVedderburne, met him, stopped him, stared at him, ^nil said, “ Working too hard, ain’t you? Do you sleep well ? ’ ’

“ Now look here!!f protested the senator peevishly, “ 1 suppose Mulberry has been talking to you about me, confound him! ”

The doctor said, “ No,” but Wesley did n’t believe him. he was quite confident in these days that this man and that one and the other one talked about him, and always to his disadvantage.

“ Oh, I know Judge Mulberry! ” he laughed excitedly. “He's a babbling old busybody. lie’s been spreading a report that my nerves are shaky. A man always says that of his friend when his own hide is as full as a Spanish wine-skin. ”

Old Wedilerburne roared, rubbed his hands prodigiously over the joke, and kept on studying the senator out of the corners of his wrinkled eyes.

“ Very good on Mulberry,” he giggled. “ I shall have to tell him that. By the way, Wesley, don’t you really need a little stimulus? ”

“Well, perhaps I do,” conceded the senator. “ I am taking something.”

“Yes—what?” asked the doctor. “ That’s the main point. What kind of stuff is it? ”

Little by little Wesley confessed to light potations of various good wines, with a glass of brandy and water now and then, or possibly whisky instead.

“ Too much variety,” gently commented old Wedderburne. “ Mixing drinks in that way won’t do. You ’ll spoil your stomach next, and then you won’t sleep. Which one oE all these things suits you best ? ”

“I — I think whisky — good old Bourboti.”

“ Then stick to plain wlusk)', senator. Try that,—just for awhile, you know, —and put a little quinine in it. You know our air, — very malarious. Good morning.”

“ Confound these doctors! ” muttered file senator, as he hastily walked off in the opposite direction, though he was going nowhere in particular. “ Always hinting that a fellow is an interesting sasel However, I ’ll try the whisky, — yes, and the quinine. Does he want to gag me down to a thimbleful? What does Mulberry go talking about me for! What does he know about it! If he were in my place, and saw the people I have to see, he would get into a hogshead of mixed drinks and live there.”

Turning a corner, he stumbled upon Blasorious, marching along with a cigar box under his arm, all with tlie most commonplace air possible. How can even a superior man endure such encounters with equanimity and patience? For a moment the senator forgot las terrors in Ins rage, and broke out upon the valet like an indignant lion.

“ What do you mean, sir? ” he demanded. “ T want to know, once for all, what is the purpose of this behavior ! ’ ’

“ T was carrying home these regalias, sir,” replied Blazes, apparently much dismayed, as well as astonished. “ You sent me for them, sir.”

“That’s all right,” quavered and choked the senator. “ But that isn't what I ’m talking about. You know as well as I do. What are your eyes so infernally black for? And what makes you sparkle them so? ”

If Blasorious were an imp of any sort, he was certainly a timorous one, or else he had a knack of counterfeiting timidity. Looking more surprised than ever, and also more alarmed, he stammered out. “ A great many people in my country have black eyes, sir. I did n’t know that I sparkled them.”

“They sparkle like Tophet!” declared the senator. “ And that is n’t the worst of it; you make smoke come out of them.”

Blasorious, apparently in utter confusion of mind, rubbed his optics with the back of his hand.

“Oh, that ’s the way you stop it, is it?” stared Wesley. “ Well, now, don’t let ’s have any more of it. Carry the cigars home. And look here! let me have quinine and whisky for dinner, or I 'll know the reason why.”

Blasorious, who had probably never before heard of such a table drink, gave him so broad a stare that the senator trembled even in his moment of victory, and was glad to turn away.

“ There he goes, blazing and smoking again! ” be muttered. “ One of ns two will burn up some day. But I ’ll talk to him about it. I will speak. I’m not going to be flamed at and vapored at in silence. And I ’ll speak to the Other Follow, too. I don’t care what he is. T 'll say my say about these things, if I am nothing but a human being.”

That evening the secretary of the Great Consolidated called on him to discuss the chances of the bill. He was as clear, as business-like, as clever, and, one might say, as epigrammatic as usual.

“ Everything lias been done that a corporation can do,” he said. “ I believe that you have done everything that a senator can do. Nothing is left hut prophecy. Shall we win? ”

“ How can I tell?” grumbled Wesley, who had resolved, as we know, on some sort of robe 11 ion against'—one hardly knows what. “ Why do you expect me to prophesy? ”

“ When a man can’t see through the veil himself, it is a relief to get another man to pretend to see through it,” smiled the secretary.

“ Look here, now, I ’in tired of this,” protested the senator, though with less pluck than he had hoped to muster. “ What’s the sense of your saying, We men ! You know what you are, and you know that I know.”

“ True, in this business, 1 am not a man, — I am an agent,” conceded the Other Fellow, without changing a muscle of his spiriluel countenance.

“Yes, you are an agent, —a devil of an agent!” said Wesley, turning pale. “ Then, what do you talk about being a mail for? I call it hypocrisy, I do. I don’t like it.”

“ Oh, I have certain claims to the character,” the secretary continued to smile, though he looked a little surprised, — perhaps at being detected, the senator thought. “I have my human motives arid objects. I want to accumulate property for the sake of — well, its influence. That is passably human.”

“Property! influence! My gracious, how little I seem to care about those things now!” groaned Wesley. “A week ago I was mad to be mighty and rich. And here I am both, and 1 don’t care. What is wealth? A delusion!”

“ Almost the only real property that we have is the yesterday which we enjoyed and have n’t yet forgotten,” philosophized the Other Fellow.

“Did you enjoy your yesterday?” sternly asked the senator. The poor, bewildered, horrified man was thinking of indefinite periods passed amid wailings and gnashings of teeth.

“It would n’t seem very fine to a United States senator.”

“ IIow would it seem to a senator of hell? ”

It appeared to Wesley that he had the fellow there. But the secretary merely smiled, lit another of the corporation cigars, and replied, “ Senator, you are a deeper man than I even supposed. I am not accustomed to meet congressmen who interest themselves in otherworld mysteries. Some day I should like to lake a drive with you, and compare philosophies and theologies. Just now — well, I must get back to the office. Good night to you.”

Office! Where was his office ? Where did the hypocritical wretch pass his nights? Our poor friend Wesley believed that it was deep under ground.

Really, it must be very uncomfortable to have familiar acquaintance with a demon or two, though ever so high-toned in their demeanor, and courteous in their approaches, and instructive in their conversation. Just think of such an Avernian couple, free to drop in upon you at any moment; shedding a faint scent of brimstone through your rooms in spite of all their eau de Cologne; sparkling and smoking occasionally out of their too brilliant and expressive eyes; taking an interest in your temporal welfare, which makes you tremble all the more for your futurities; and treating your natural fretfulness with the composed urbanity of a cat playing with a disabled mouse! It is my belief that no man who finds himself delivered to such company can be otherwise than extremely miserable.

In these distresses the senator went much for comfort, as troubled men do go, to a woman. Under immense grief we often forget to cry for help, and long mainly for sympathy. When we most keenly feel that we arc failures, then do TTB most need the presence of a worshiper. In poor little Mrs. Norman, who knew well what pangs there are in sorrow, the afflicted senator found one who could divine and could soothe. Moreover, she bowed before him; she undisguisedly looked up to him as the greatest man of her acquaintance, if not of her era; to him, the consciously fallen and prostrate, she offered the fragrant incense and sweet sacrifice of adoration.

To a congressman who is utterly cast down and bruised in spirit, there may be something inexpressibly soothing and precious in the love of a female lobbyist. And that consolation — altogether ineffective practically, but still brimming full of mercies — was the possession of our harassed senator.

' “ I wish you were well,” the fair, gentle little lady said to him. “ If you were only well, you would he happy. You are so able, so influential, so successful! If you could get rid of this — this something that preys on your strength, you would be perfectly contented and cheerful. Don’t you know' that you would? ” she insisted, with that pretty smile of mingled authority and propitiat ion which is characteristic of the woman who has been married.

The senator was so attracted by the smile that he answered tenderly, “I should still lack one thing to perfect happiness.”

Mrs. Norman half divined his meaning, and a rose or two bloomed in her cheek. But he did not continue in this happy pastoral strain. Of a sudden, the flood of his troubles rolled back upon him, and he began to talk, or rather babble, about them, in the broken fashion of one who speaks out of a nightmare.

“ But, Mrs. Norman, I can't get well, as you call it. You don’t know my — my complaint. It is one that people don’t cure of. Nonsense! I am well enough. It is n’t health that I want. It is ease ’ ’ —

“ What? ” whispered the lady, full of eagerness to know and to console.

“ Persecution,” he dared to explain. “ I am followed and watched,” he added, looking about him. “ There is a conspiracy. Oh, it is useless to talk, — useless to tell you this. Yon can’t help. For Heaven’s sake, don’t repeat this!”

But Mrs. Norman must talk. “ Followed? ” she inquired. “Why don’t you inform the police? How dare anybody conspire against a United States senator! Do let me talk about it. Perhaps I can advise, woman as I am.”

It overjoyed her to think, or hope, that perhaps she could help him. The emotion sent new roses into her delicate cheeks, and a liquid radiance into her blue eyes, making her momentarily beautiful. The senator, deeply touched and interested, leaned forward, seized her slender hand, and imprinted on it a kiss of gratitude, near akin to love. Then, seeing that he had greatly agitated her, he said, “ Forgive me. I could not help thanking you at once. You shall know some day how much I respect and prize you.”

Nlrs. Norman’s breath came so thick that for twenty seconds she could not speak; and during that brief interval the sombre flood once more rolled over the senator’s head.

“ All, there are too many of them!” he groaned. “ At first there was one; then only two; but now there arc half a dozen. The police! ” he scoffed ; “ what could the police do? If we had archangels for police, to he sure! But 1 don’t know of any angels in Washington. I don’t believe one has been here these twenty years, — except you, Mrs. Norman.”

“ And I am a lobbyist,” she laughed, seeking to turn all into a joke, and so distract him from his troubles.

“ There are worse people than lobbyists,” he said grimly, “and some of them are United States senators. No wonder I am followed and compassed about with a great cloud of — oh, such witnesses! ”

Glancing here, with an air of fixed horror, at one end of her tiny parlor, he rose suddenly and hurried away, scarcely muttering a good night. Running to her window, she presently saw him walking rapidly down the street, occasionally looking over his shoulder. Then, before seeking her rest, site knelt down and sobbed a prayer for him.

The senator had told the truth in his sad confessions to the only being for whom he now cared. During the last twenty - four hours the creatures who haunted and harassed him had increased in numbers and waxed mighty in power of torment. Besides the secretary and Blasorious, there were other black-vestured personages who scorned to have the right to follow him everywhere, walking dose behind him in the streets, sitting opposite him in the street-cars, and even intruding among the sacred arm-chairs of the senate-chamber. Often and often he wondered what his fellow-members and fellow-citizens thought of seeing him attended by such a sombre committee. “ Will it be supposed,” he said to himself, with a desperate laugh, “ that I am running for the presidency of Topliet ? ”

On the morning after the above interview with Mrs. Norman, while he was making his last appeals (confidential) to his fellow conscript fathers in favor of the bill, one of these fuliginous gentlemen attended him at every step, whispering the keenest suggestions and the aptest phrases. It is impossible to describe his horror at this dark proximity, or his wonder at the wicked cleverness of these assistances. How glad he would have been to get rid of the creature, and yet how poorly he would have argued without him! In vain did he shake 11is head, wave his hand majestically, and mutter, 4Go out of the cloak-room ! ” The agent—or whatever wc ought to call him — seemed to know that he was privileged, and would not depart. And, what was strangest of all to Wesley, he tould not perceive that other senators objected to the fellow’s presence, or appeared in the least surprised at it.

The bill passed. With all this marvelous lobbying, how could it help passing? It went to the House, and Senator Wesley went with it, and the dusky agent also. There likewise it passed, and without debate. It was as good, as law. The corporation of the Great Consolidated rejoiced in all its members, from the sprucest white - eravated director down to the greasiest oiler of axles.

But did the successful and now opulent president share in the wide-spread gratulatiou? He hastened away from the scene of his triumph with the air of a rogue who believes himself followed by detectives. Seeing the secretary —that awful Other Fellow — approaching him with a smile of congratulation, he actually dodged down a side hall, and ran away from him, his face wearing an expression of horror which passers-by never forgot. Reaching the city, he entered a lawyer’s office, and made his will, down to the very witnessing and sealing. His whole estate, one is agreeably surprised to learn, he left to Mrs. Wilhelmina Norman.

Next, he stopped in at old Wedderburne’s office, not so much because he thought himself in need of medical care as because he wanted to shake off a tall man in black velvet, who followed him persistently.

“ Well, Wesley, how are you to-day ? ” asked the doctor, staring at him with rather an unpleasant fixedness.

The senator leaned forward, and replied in an agitated whisper, “Is that fellow a friend of yours? ”

“Which fellow?” murmured Wedderburne, without even turning to look in the direction indicated.

“ Why, good Lord! this foreigner here; this chap in the opera costume,— long feather in his cap.”

“ Speak out, senator,” said the doctor, cheeriugly. “ You need n't restrain yourself on his account. There ’s no harm in the poor, silly fellow, and I don’t think he understands English.”

“And there’s his infernal dog!” groaned Wesley, with unallayed terror. “That infernal, big, black brute of a dog ! By Jove, it’s Mephistoplieles! No, it is n’t; it’s Blazes. It’s Mephistopheles and Blazes in one. Doctor, I always suspected it.”

lie said this with such an agony of conviction and horror that the seasoned old physician felt tears of pity come into his eyes.

“ Now, look here, my dear friend, don’t be worried,” he said. “There’s no harm in these chaps. Plenty of men have seen them, and haven’t been hurt by them. Don’t get agitated about a simpleton in fancy-ball costume. I know how to manage those jokers.”

“ But what are you going to do with him?” pleaded the trembling senator. “ There he stands, the infernal scoundrel, waiting for me. And there are more of them in the street. Don’t you hear them? They’ve been calling after me all the way from the Capitol.”

“ Let them call,” said Wedderburne. “You are too tired to attend to their nonsense now. You are worn out, senator, with this incessant work. Wliat you want is sleep. ”

“Sleep! I can’t sleep. Give me some whisky, doctor. Perhaps I could sleep on your sofa, if I had some whisky.”

“ Try a little chloral first. The whisky can wait.”

With much difficulty the doctor persuaded his patient to take a dose of chloral, and then gently led him home. Blasorious opened the door, and the senator uttered a shriek. Wedderburne whispered some errand to the valet, and the latter hurried away at his usual speedy pace.

“ You see I can manage these fellows,” nodded the doctor. “ Now, come upstairs with me. I ’ll put you to bed and sit up with you.”

But the senator could not sleep. “Where is the whisky?” he begged. “ I can’t shut my eyes without it.”

At last a wine-glass of liquor was given him, strongly dosed with bromide of pojassium.

Now came a dolorous struggle between the strength of the medicine and the “trength of (lie possession. The senator tossed and tumbled for hours, cursing his haunting tormentors, striving to rise and fly from them, praying piteously for strong drink, and then again cursing, or weeping. Eventually he fell into a succession of short dozes, from which he started up screaming with terror. After each waking the doctor gave him beef tea, or other small doses of nourishment. But still the persecutors came, and the immense horror continued. The room swarmed with men in black costume, attended by huge black dogs or indescribable monsters. The personage whom Wesley chiefly dreaded, however, was the secretary of the great railroad corporation, or, as he constantly called him, the Other Fellow.

“Don’t let him in!” be implored. “Don’t let him Come near me! he brought all the others. He commands them. They only want to carry me away because he bids them. There! don’t you see him sitting in the window? He wants me to jump out with him.” Then, after a long pause, addressing the tempter, “ Jump out yourself, if you like it!”

“ That’s right,” observed tlie doctor, almost smiling. “That’s the way to treat those fellows. Now try a little more beef tea, Wesley, and then take another nap.”

There was a slumber now which seemed likely to last. The doctor leaned back in his chair, watched Ids patient with eyes of satisfaction, and smiled like a seraph. He believed, with the greatjoy of a physician in such moments, that he had beaten a terrible malady. Five minutes later Judge Mulberry softly entered the room, and whispered to him that Mrs. Wedderburne had been taken seriously ill.

“ How can I leave this man? ” gasped the doctor. “You know wliat has got him.”

“ Oh, I know,—expected it,” said the judge. “ Go and look to your wife, and come back here. I ’ll see to Wesley.”

But the judge was elderly, and had dined copiously. After a time — he never knew how long — he awoke from a refreshing nap, and found his patient gone.

The next that was known of the senator he knocked gently, about ten in the evening, at the door of Mrs. Norman’s parlor. He was dressed with unusual care, and there was a pleasant smile on his face.

“ Why, Mr. Wesley! ” she exclaimed, delighted to see him, late as it was.

“ Come in. IIow well and gay you are looking! Success suits you, does n’t it, now ? ”

“ Yes, I am very well and very happy,’ he replied, gazing about him with a rapt expression, as though the air were full of ravishing sights. “ And I am all the happier for not being too late to see you, my dear lady.”

A sweet illusion had come over the terrible judgment which afflicted this unhappy misdoer. It is possible enough that for him, as for other men who have been in his lamentable case, the figures of demons and tormentors had changed delusively into shapes of celestial sweetness and brightness, perhaps playing on those golden harps which Bunvan heard ringing from the walls of the heavenly city.

“ 1 am perfectly happy,” he repeated, still smiling. “1 should say that the air was full of fairies, — lovely fairies. And you are the loveliest of them all.”

She laughed heartily, and also blushed heartily, as she was wont to do. She had not a suspicion but that he was speaking with jocose exaggeration, and talking of fairies figuratively, meaning thereby pleasant thoughts, or triumphant hopes.

“ And now, my dear child, I have one simple thing to say to you,” he added, fixing his eyes upon her with indescribable longing and tenderness. “I have learned to admire you and love you. Will you be my wife? ”

All unknowing that this was a voice out of the land of shadows and great darkness, she leaned forward in obedience to its irresistible summons, and lay upon his heart. He put his arm around her, drew her firmly against his breast, and kissed her once. Then, of a sudden, he started; his face assumed an expression of unutterable aversion and horror; he stared at her neck as if he saw it twined with deadly reptiles.

“ Oh, my God! ” he exclaimed, pushing her from him. “ And you, too! ”

In the next moment he had reached an open window, and disappeared through it with a loud cry.

Mrs. Norman shrieked also, but she did not faint. In one minute she had rushed down three stories and reached the granite pavement below. There she saw Blasorious lifting up the body of her lover, and gazing with a fixed, dusky stare into his lifeless eyes, while from a carriage which halted at that moment came a darkly-attired personage, whom she recognized as the secretary.

“Is he dead?” she asked a dozen times, with loud sobs and gaepings, while they lifted the suicide into the vehicle. “ Oh, what made him do it? ”

“ An overworked brain,” whispered the secretary out of the window, “ is what we shall have to say. Drive on! ’

J. W. DeForest .