"You don't mean to say," asked Philip, "that he went in without paying
anything?"

"Not a cent, not a dash cent, as I can hear," repeated Mr. Bigler,
indignantly. "I call it a swindle on the state. How it was done gets
me. I never saw such a tight time for money in Harrisburg."

"Were there no combinations, no railroad jobs, no mining schemes put
through in connection with the election?

"Not that I knew," said Bigler, shaking his head in disgust. "In fact it
was openly said, that there was no money in the election. It's perfectly
unheard of."

"Perhaps," suggested Philip, "it was effected on what the insurance
companies call the 'endowment,' or the 'paid up' plan, by which a policy
is secured after a certain time without further payment."

"You think then," said Mr. Bolton smiling, "that a liberal and sagacious
politician might own a legislature after a time, and not be bothered with
keeping up his payments?"

"Whatever it is," interrupted Mr. Bigler, "it's devilish ingenious and
goes ahead of my calculations; it's cleaned me out, when I thought we had
a dead sure thing. I tell you what it is, gentlemen, I shall go in for
reform. Things have got pretty mixed when a legislature will give away a
United States senatorship."

It was melancholy, but Mr. Bigler was not a man to be crushed by one