"Well, what did you get? Washington is a well-ordered community with a
high moral tone--it is said to have fewer scandals than any city in
the country--and there is no sordid commercial atmosphere to lower it.
It is the great city of leisure in everything but legislation and
paying calls; so it seems to me that it would be the last place to
fondle in its bosom ninety distinguished scoundrels. But go on. What
did you learn in Boston and New York?"

"That a little of everything is represented in the Senate,--that is
about what it amounts to. There are unquestionably men there who
bought their seats from legislatures, and there are men who are agents
for trusts, syndicates, and railroad corporations, as well as three
party bosses--"

"Ninety Senators leave a large margin for a number of loose fish. What
I want to know is, how do the big men stand--North, Maxwell, Ward,
March--and fifteen or twenty others, all the men who are the Chairmen
of the big Committees? The New England men seem to have charge of
everything of importance in the House and of a good deal in the
Senate."

"Some of the Southern and North-western and most of the New England
States seem to have honest enough legislatures," said Emory,
unwillingly. "But that leaves plenty of others. Only a few of the
Western States are above suspicion, and as for New York, Pennsylvania,
and Delaware, they would not waste time defending themselves; and as
no Senators are better than the people that elect them--"

"Oh, yes, they are sometimes--look at the Senator from Delaware. I too