“Would I?” cried the youth, delighted.  “Try me.”  He departed, treading on air.  Alice Windham shook a finger at her guest.  “Dave, you mustn’t trifle with our little protege....  But you did it charmingly.  Tell me, will you have to go about now, kissing babies and all that sort of thing?”

“No doubt,” he answered gaily.  “So I’ll practice on your little Bob.”  He caught the child up in his arms.  “Got a kiss for Uncle Dave?” he asked.

Robert’s response was instant and vehement.  Laughing, Broderick took from an inner pocket a long and slender parcel, which he unwrapped with tantalizing slowness.  It revealed at last a gaily painted monkey-on-a-stick which clambered up and down with marvelous agility when Broderick pulled a string.

“This, my little man,” he said half soberly, “is how we play the game of politics.”  He made the jointed figure race from top to bottom while his eyes were rather grim.  “Here, you try it, Bobbie,” he said.  “I’ve played with it long enough.”

Broderick came to them aglow with triumph.  He was a big man now, a national figure.  Only a short time ago he had been a discredited boss of municipal politics.  Now he was going to Washington.  He had made William Gwin, the magnificent, do homage.  He had all of the federal patronage for California.  For years it had gone to Southern men.  San Francisco’s governmental offices had long been known as “The Virginia Poorhouse.”  Now its plums would be apportioned to the politicians of the North.

Everywhere one heard the praise of Broderick’s astuteness.  He had a way of making loyal friends.  A train of them had followed him through years of more or less continuous defeat and now they were rejoicing in the prospect of reward.

He was explaining this to Alice.  Trying to at least.  “One has to pay his debts,” he told her.  “These men have worked for me as hard as any factory slaves.  And without any definite certainty of compensation.  Do you remember young Waters who came here last December to congratulate me?  Yes, of course, he was Benito’s clerk.  I’d forgotten that.  Well, what did that young rascal do but grow a beard and hire out as a waiter in the Magnolia Hotel.  He overheard some plots against me in a corner of the dining room.  And thus we were prepared to checkmate all the movements of the enemy....  I call that smart.  I’ll see that he gets a good berth.  A senate clerkship.  Something of the sort.”

“When do you leave?” asked Alice quickly.

“Tomorrow....  Gwin is going also.  I’ll stop over in New York.”  He smiled at her.  “When I left there I told my friends I’d not return until I was a senator.  Eight years ago that was....  And now I’m making good my promise.”  He laughed boyishly.

“You’re very happy over it, aren’t you, Dave?” she said with a shadow of wistfulness.

“Why, yes, to be sure,” he answered.  His eyes held hers.  “I’ll miss you, of course....  All of you.”  He spoke with a touch of restraint.