forty thousand dollars for the nomination, and went to Congress. It
was the year of a Democratic landslide, and they could have elected
Reggie Mann if they had felt like it. I went to Washington to live
the next winter, and Price was there with a whole army of lobbyists,
fighting for free silver. That was before the craze, you know, when
silver was respectable; and Price was the Silver King. I saw the
inside of American government that winter, I can assure you."

"Tell me about it," said Montague.

"The Democratic party had been elected on a low tariff platform,"
said Mrs. Billy; "and it sold out bag and baggage to the
corporations. Money was as free as water--my brother could have got
his forty thousand back three times over. It was the Steel crowd
that bossed the job, you know--William Roberts used to come down
from Pittsburg every two or three days, and he had a private
telephone wire the rest of the time. I have always said it was the
Steel Trust that clamped the tariff swindle on the American people,
and that's held it there ever since."

"What did Price do with his silver mines?" asked Montague.

"He sold them," said she, "and just in the nick of time. He was on
the inside in the campaign of '96, and I remember one night he came
to dinner at our house and told us that the Republican party had
raised ten or fifteen million dollars to buy the election. 'That's
the end of silver,' he said, and he sold out that very month, and
he's been freelancing it in Wall Street ever since."

"Have you met him yet?" asked Mrs. Billy, after a pause.