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Senator North

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glimpse of you." Betty liked Senator Shattuc, and held him in high esteem, but at that moment she would willingly have set fire to his political beard. She was used to self-control, however, and she chatted pleasantly with him for ten minutes, while her heart seemed to descend to a lower rib, and her brain reiterated that eternal question of woman which must reverberate in the very ears of Time himself. He came at last, and Senator Shattuc amiably got up and let him pass in, then took the chair behind the old man and asked him a few good- natured questions before turning to Betty again. "I started to come some time ago," said Senator North, "but I was detained in one of the corridors. It is hard to escape being buttonholed. This time it was by a young woman from my State who wants a position in the Pension Office. If it had been a man I should have ordered him about his business, but of course one of your charming sex in distress is another matter. However, I got rid of her, and here I am." "I knew you were coming. I should have waited for you." Now that he was there she subdued her exuberance of spirit; but she permitted her voice to soften and her eyes to express something more than hospitality. He was looking directly into them, and his hard powerful face was bright with pleasure. "It suddenly occurred to me that you might be up here," he said; "and I lost no time finding out." He lowered his voice. "Did you go? Has it turned out all right?" "Yes, I went! I'll tell you all about it on Sunday. I never had such a painful experience." "Well, I'm glad you had it. You would have felt a great deal worse if you had shirked it. However--Yes?" Senator Shattuc was asking him if he thought the Democratic Senator was in his usual form. "No," he said, "I don't. What is he wasting his wind for, anyway? We'll pass the bill, and he's all right with his constituents. They know there's no more rabid watch-dog of the Treasury in America." "I suspect it does him good to bark at us," said Senator Shattuc. The old man looked uneasy. "Ain't that a great speech?" he asked. The two Senators laughed. "Well, it's better than some," said Shattuc. "And few can make a better when he's got a subject worthy of him," he added kindly. "That's perlite, seein' as you're a Republican. I allow as I'll go. Good-day, marm. I'll never forgit as how you told me you'd bin all over Yurrup and that there ain't no modern buildin' so fine as our new Library. Good-day to ye, sirs." Senator Shattuc shook him warmly by the hand. Senator North nodded, and Betty gave him a smile which she meant to be cordial but was a trifle absent. She wished that Senator Shattuc would follow him, but he sat down again at once. He, too, felt at home in that gallery, and it had never occurred to him that one Senator might be more welcome there than another. Senator North's face hardened, and Betty, fearing that he would go, said hurriedly,-- "Ar'n't you ever going to speak again? I have heard you only once." "I rarely make set speeches, although I not infrequently engage in debate--when some measure comes up that needs airing." "You ought to speak oftener, North," said Senator Shattuc. "You always wake us up." "You have no business to go to sleep. If I talked when I had nothing to say, you'd soon cease to be waked up. Our friend over there has put three of our esteemed colleagues to sleep. He'll clear the galleries in a moment and interfere with Norris's record.--I suppose you have never seen that memorable sight," he said to Betty: "an entire gallery audience get up and walk out when a certain Senator takes the floor?" "How very rude!" "The great American public loves a show, and when the show is not to its taste it has no hesitation in making its displeasure known." "Why do you despise the great American public? You never raise your voice so that any one in the second row up here can hear you." "I have no love for the gallery. Nor do I talk to constituents. When it is necessary to talk to my colleagues, I do so, and it matters little to me whether the reporters and the public hear me or not. When my constituents are particularly anxious to know what stand I have taken on a certain question, I have the speech printed and send it to them; but as a rule they take my course for granted and let me alone." "But tell me, Mr. North," said Betty, squaring about and putting her questions so pointedly that he, perforce, must answer them, "would you really not like to make a speech down there that would thrill the nation, as the speeches of Clay and Webster used to? And you could make a speech like that. _Why_ don't you?" "My dear Miss Madison, if I attempted to thrill the American people by lofty emotions and an impassioned appeal to their higher selves, I should only bring down a storm of ridicule from seven-eighths of the American press. I could survive that, for I should not read it, but my effort would be thrown away. The people to whom it was directed would feel ashamed of what thrill was left in it after it had reached them through the only possible medium. This is the age--in this country--of hard practical sense without any frills, or thrills. It is true that there is a certain amount of sham oratory surviving in the Senate, but the very fact that it is sham protects it from the press. The real thing would irritate and alarm the spirits of mediocrity and sensationalism which dominate the press to-day. A sensational speech, one in which a man makes a fool of himself, it delights in, and it encourages him by half a column of head-lines. A speech by a great man, granted that we had one, carried away by lofty patriotism and striving to raise his country, if only for a moment, to his own pure altitude, would make the press feel uneasy and resentful, and it would neutralize every word he uttered by the surest of all acids, ridicule. An American statesman of to-day must be content to legislate quietly, to use his intellect and his patriotism in the Committee Room, and to keep a sharp eye on the bills brought forward by other Committees. As for speeches, those look best in the Record which make no appeal to the gallery. There, you cannot say I have not made you a speech!" "Well, make me another, and tell me why you even consider the

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