closed eyelids.

"Our scheme of Government contemplates, I think, a diffuse
responsibility, my dear Rockland. While a president has a constitutional
right to act alone, he has no moral right to act contrary to the tenets
and traditions of his party, or to the advice of the party leaders, for
the country accepts the candidate, the party and the party advisers as a
whole and not severally.

"It is a natural check, which by custom the country has endorsed as
wise, and which must be followed in order to obtain a proper
organization. Do you follow me, Governor, and do you endorse this
unwritten law?"

If Rockland had heard this at second hand, if he had read it, or if it
had related to someone other than himself, he would have detected the
sophistry of it. But, exhilarated by wine and intoxicated by ambition,
he saw nothing but a pledge to deal squarely by the organization.

"Senator," he replied fulsomely, "gratitude is one of the tenets of my
religion, and therefore inversely ingratitude is unknown to me. You and
the organization can count on my loyalty from the beginning to the end,
for I shall never fail you.

"I know you will not ask me to do anything at which my conscience will
rebel, nor to make an appointment that is not entirely fit."

"That, Rockland, goes without saying," answered the Senator with
dignity. "I have all the wealth and all the position that I desire. I
want nothing now except to do my share towards making my native land