Congress encountered him affably; when he was not present they spoke
ferociously of him and his craft, as convicts curse a guard behind his
back, and for much a convict's reason.

It was the same at the club without the affability. Present or absent,
there they turned unsparing back upon him. Richard's status as a
newspaper man had been explained and fixed, and they of the club liked
him less than before. The Fopling feeling towards the press predominated
at the club, and although Richard was never openly snubbed--his
shoulders were too wide for that--besides, some sigh of those hand-grips
with Storri had gone about--the feeling was manifest. This cool distance
pleased Richard rather than otherwise, and he went often to the club to
enjoy it. It was parcel of his affected cynicism to like an enemy.

When Richard came to Washington it is more than a chance that he was a
patriot. But as he went about he saw much to blunt the sentiment. A
statesman is one who helps his country; a politician is one who helps
himself. Richard found shoals of the latter and none of the other class.
One day he asked Speaker Frost, whom he met in Senator Hanway's study,
his definition of a statesman.

"A statesman," said that epigrammatist, "is a dead politician."

Richard frequented House and Senate galleries; it was interesting to
watch the notables transacting their fame. The debates were a cross-fire
of deceit. Not a member gave his true reasons for the votes he cast; he
gave what he wanted the world to think were his reasons. Finance was on
the carpet in that hour, and bimetallism and monometallism, silver
versus gold, were in everyone's mouth. Richard saw that the goldbugs
hailed from money--lending constituencies, while the silverbugs were