“Well, my age, for one thing.  I haven’t any gray hairs.”

Langdon waved this objection aside.

“I might arrange to pool ages with you.  Sometimes I think we want young men in politics, like you.”

The reporter shook his head.

“Old in age and young in politics, like you, Senator Langdon,” he replied.  “Politics I sometimes think is pure hypocrisy and sometimes something worse.  A man gets disgusted with the trickery and dishonesty and corruption.”

“Then,” drawled Langdon, “the thing to do is to jump in and stop it!  I read in the newspapers a great deal about corruption.  The gentlemen in national politics whom I have had the honor of knowing—­Senator Moseley, an intimate friend of thirty years; my present colleague, Senator Stevens, and others—­have been as honest as the day is long.”

“But the days do get short in November, when Congress meets, don’t they?” laughed Haines, rising.  “I’m afraid I’ve taken too much of your time, and I seem to have talked a lot.”

Langdon was amused.

“Does look like I’d been interviewing you.  I reckon each one of us has got a pretty good notion of what the other man’s like.  I wanted it that way, and I like you, Mr. Haines.  I’ve got a proposition to make to you.  They tell me I’ll need a secretary.  Now, I think I need just such a young man as you.  I don’t know just exactly what the work would be or what the financial arrangements should be, but I think you and I would make a pretty good team.  I wish you’d come.”  He turned to his daughter, with a smile.  “What do you think of that, Hope Georgia?  Isn’t your dad right?”

Smiling her approval, the young girl squeezed her father’s hand in her enthusiasm.

“I think it’s a splendid idea, dad; just great!  Won’t you come, Mr. Haines?  We—­eh—­I—­I know my father would like to have you.”

As he stood before his two new-found friends—­for such Haines now considered the Mississippian and his daughter—­he could not suppress feelings of surprise tinged with uncertainty.  He had, like other newspaper men, received offers of employment from politicians who desired to increase their influence with the press.  Sometimes the salary offered had been large, the work so light that the reporter could “earn” the money and yet retain his newspaper position, a scantily disguised species of bribery, which had wrecked the careers of several promising reporters well known to Haines, young men who had been thus led into “selling their columns” by unscrupulous machine dictators.

Haines knew that the Mississippian had no ulterior purpose to serve in his offer, yet he must have time to think over the proposal.

“I thank you, Senator,” he finally said.  “I appreciate the opportunity, coming from you, but I’ve never thought of giving up the newspaper profession.  It’s a fascinating career, one that I am too fond of to leave.”

Langdon started to reply, when a delightfully modulated Southern voice interrupted: