needed--that appointment for Hagley. What I said about Senators an'
such was all wild words--nothin' in 'em. Why, how could there be,
Senator?" This query was a happy afterthought which Sanders craftily
suggested in a designedly artless manner.

"Just what I thought and know!" exclaimed Langdon, sharply. "It
couldn't be; it isn't possible. Now you go, sir, and let it be your
greatest disgrace that you are not fit to enter any gentleman's
house."

"Oh, don't rub it in too hard, Senator. You may need my help some day,
but you'll have to deliver the goods beforehand."

"I said, 'Go!'"

"I'm goin', but here's a tip. Don't blame me for fightin' you. I've
got to fight to live. I'm a human bein', an' humans are pretty much
the same all over the world; all except you--you're only half natural.
The rest of you is reformer."

After Sanders' departure the Colonel sat at his table, his head
resting in his hand, the events of the day crowding his brain
bewilderingly.

"The battles of peace are worse than any Beauregard ever led me into,"
he murmured. "Fighting o conquer oneself is harder than turning the
left flank of the Eighth Illinois in an enfilading fire."

But the new Senator from Mississippi did not know that for him the
wars of peace had only just begun, that perhaps his own flesh and