The President. Alfred Henry Lewis
thought the less of it, since Mr. Harley had given him some glint of the measureless millions of Mr. Gwynn, and he deduced from this stiff turning towards Richard, this brittle deference, nothing save a theory that Mr. Gwynn, by virtue of his tremendous riches, had grown too great to do his own listening and thinking. It was as plain, as it was proper, that he should hire them done, precisely as he hired a groom for his horses or a valet to superintend his clothes. Senator Hanway, himself, was at bottom impressed by nothing so much as money, and was quite prepared to believe that one of the world's wealthiest men—for such he understood to be the case of Mr. Gwynn—would prove in word and deed and thought a being wholly different from everyone about him. Wherefore, his heaped millions accounted in Mr. Gwynn for what otherwise might have been considered by Senator Hanway as queernesses.
To add to this, Mr. Gwynn was of a certain select circle of English exclusives; Senator Hanway had learned that much from his sister, Mrs. Hanway-Harley. It was to be expected then that he would have someone about him to furnish brains for his deliberations, and to make up his mind as a laundress makes up shirts. Senator Hanway, knowing these things of Mr. Gwynn, was in no wise surprised that he possessed in his service one who was hearer, talker, and decider, just as ancient kings kept folk about whose business was to make witty retorts for them and conduct sparkling conversations in their stead, they themselves being too royal for anything so much beneath that level of exalted inanity, which as all men know is the only proper mark of princely minds. Something of this raced hit or miss through Senator Hanway's thoughts, as Mr. Gwynn presented Richard and then relapsed—hinge by hinge as though his joints were rusty with much aristocratic unbending—into a chair.
Richard gave him no space to dwell upon the phenomenon. He came forward with a little atmosphere of deference; for Richard had his own deep designs. Then, too, Senator Hanway was white of hair and twice his age, to say nothing of being a certain young lady's uncle.
"Mr. Gwynn has told me of you," said he. Then pushing straight for the point after methods of his own, he continued: "What is it the Anaconda Airline can do? Mr. Gwynn is quite convinced, from what he has been told of those positions you have from time to time assumed in the Senate, that his own interest with that of every railway owner lies in following your leadership. Indeed, I think he has decided to adopt whatever suggestion you may make." Richard glanced towards Mr. Gwynn, and that great man gave his mandarin bow.
Senator Hanway, while smitten of vague amazement at Mr. Gwynn's acquiescent spirit, accepted it without pause. However marvelous it might be, at least he himself ran no risk. More than that, on second thought it did not occur to him as so peculiarly unusual; a Senator in a measure becomes inured to the wondrous.
Senator Hanway did not reply directly to Richard's query. Direct replies were not the habit of this practiced one. He made a speech full of flattering generalities. He spoke of Richard's connection with the Daily Tory, and expanded upon the weight and influence of that journal. Also, with a beaming albeit delicate patronage which Richard stomached for reasons of his own, he intimated complimentary things of Richard himself and seemed to congratulate the Daily Tory on the services of one so keen, so sure, so graphic; which last was the more kind, since Senator Hanway could have known no single reason for assuming anything of the sort. He told Richard that he hoped to see him personally every day. Here Richard broke in on the Senatorial flow to ask if he might wait upon Senator Hanway every morning at eleven.
"For I am warned by Mr. Gwynn," explained Richard, with an alert mendacity which would have done honor, to Senator Hanway himself, "that he will hold anything short of calling upon you once a day as barefaced neglect of his interests."
"Certainly, sir; most barefaced!" creaked Mr. Gwynn, giving the mandarin bow.
Senator Hanway would be graciously pleased to see Richard every morning at eleven. Also, he would aid him, as far as was proper, with a recount of what gusts and windy currents of news were moving in the upper ethers of government.
Then, having been polite, Senator Hanway got down to business and stated that Mr. Frost, if Speaker, would favor a certain pooling bill, much desired by railways, and particularly dear to the Anaconda Airline. On the obdurate other hand, Mr. Hawke was an enemy to pooling bills and railways. Mr. Gwynn's interest was plainly with Mr. Frost.
"Not that I care personally for the success of Mr. Frost," remarked Senator Hanway, "but I know how the railways desire that pooling bill, and how that pooling bill is a darling measure with Mr. Frost."
"Which brings us back," observed Richard, who never took his eye off a question, once put, until he saw it mated with an answer, "to Mr. Gwynn's first interrogatory: What can the Anaconda Airline do?"
Senator Hanway explained. The Anaconda Airline could press down the weights of its influence upon those twenty-three members. The Anaconda influence might better be exerted through its President and General Attorney, and perhaps what special attorneys were local to the congressional districts of those twenty-three.
"Mr. Gwynn," observed Richard, "anticipated something of the kind, and I think is prepared to request those officers you name to come to Washington."
"They shall be requested, sir; certainly, sir," rasped Mr. Gwynn. Richard's words seemed ever to reverberate in Mr. Gwynn's noble interior as in a cavern, and thereafter to issue forth by way of his mouth in the manner of an echo. "Certainly, sir; they shall be requested," repeated the cavernous Mr. Gwynn.
"Now this is highly gratifying," said Senator Hanway. "And you will have them call upon me, too, I've no doubt. You should wire them at once; the caucus, you know, isn't ten days away; Congress convenes on the first Monday of next month."
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