“Well, can’t you see what you’re doing?” muttered the tall young man thickly.

Haines smiled.  The chap who has played halfback four years on his college eleven and held the boxing championship in his class is apt to be good-natured.  He does not have to take offense easily.  Besides, Randolph Langdon was plainly under the influence of whisky.  So Haines smiled pleasantly at the taller young man.

“Beg your pardon—­my fault,” Haines said.

“Well, don’t let it occur again,” mumbled Langdon, as he strolled with uneven dignity toward the door.  Bud Haines laughed.

“I guess young Langdon is going to be one of the boys, isn’t he?”

“He’s already one of them when it comes to a question of fluid capacity,” laughed some one behind him, and Bud whirled to meet the gaze of his friend, Dick Gullen, representative of one of the big Chicago dailies.

“You down here to see Langdon, too?” commented Bud.

Cullen nodded.  “Queer roost where this Senator is to hang out, isn’t it?”

“He can’t be a rich one, then,” suggested Haines.

Cullen chuckled.

“Perhaps he’s an honest one.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.  You always were original, Dickie,” commented Haines, dryly.  “By the way, what do you know about him?”

“Nothing, except that the Evening Call printed a picture of his eldest daughter—­says she’s the queen daughter of the South, a famous beauty, rich planter for a father, mother left her a fortune—­”

“She’ll cut quite a social caper with this hotel’s name on her cards, won’t she?” broke in Haines, as he led Cullen to a seat to await the expected legislator, whose train was late.

“I don’t know very much about him myself,” said Haines.  “All I’ve been able to discover is that Stevens said the word which elected him, and that looks bad.  Great glory!  When I think what a Senator of the right sort has a chance to do here in Washington—­a nonpartisan, straight-out-from-the-shoulder man!” He paused to shako his head in disgust.  “You know these fellows here in the Senate don’t even see their chance.  Why, if you and I didn’t do any more to hold our jobs than they do, we’d be fired by wire the first day.  They know just the old political game, that’s all.”

“Its a great game, though, Bud,” sighed Cullen, longingly, for, like many newspaper men, he had the secret feeling that he was cut out to be a great politician.

“Sure, it’s a great game, as a game,” agreed Haines.  “So is bridge, and stud poker, and three-card monte, and flim-flam generally.  Take this new man Langdon, for instance.  Chosen by Stevens, he’ll probably be perfectly obedient, perfectly easy going, perfectly blind and—­perfectly useless.  What’s wanted now is to get the work done, not play the game.”

Thoroughly a cynic through his years of experience as a newspaper man, which had shown the inside workings of many important phases of the seemingly conventional life of this complex world, Cullen pretended unbounded enthusiasm.