straight-out-from-the-shoulder man!" He paused to shako his head in
disgust. "You know these fellows here in the Senate don't even see
their chance. Why, if you and I didn't do any more to hold our jobs
than they do, we'd be fired by wire the first day. They know just the
old political game, that's all."

"Its a great game, though, Bud," sighed Cullen, longingly, for, like
many newspaper men, he had the secret feeling that he was cut out to
be a great politician.

"Sure, it's a great game, as a game," agreed Haines. "So is bridge,
and stud poker, and three-card monte, and flim-flam generally. Take
this new man Langdon, for instance. Chosen by Stevens, he'll probably
be perfectly obedient, perfectly easy going, perfectly blind
and--perfectly useless. What's wanted now is to get the work done, not
play the game."

Thoroughly a cynic through his years of experience as a newspaper man,
which had shown the inside workings of many important phases of the
seemingly conventional life of this complex world, Cullen pretended
unbounded enthusiasm.

"Hear! hear!" he shouted. "All you earnest citizens come vote for
Reformer Haines. I'm for you, Bud. What do I get in your cabinet? I've
joined the reformers, too, and, like all of them, me for P-U-R-I-T-Y
as long as she gives me a meal ticket."

But not even Cullen could make Haines consider his views on the
necessity of political regeneration to be ridiculous. His optimism
could not be snuffed out, for he was a genuine believer that the