Mr. Wiles was too clever to appear to notice the sudden lapse in the Congressman’s dignity, and only said, with his right eye: 

“Can you?”

“By G-d, I will, or I don’t know how to represent Remus.”

Mr. Wiles thanked him with his right eye, and looked a dagger with his left.  “Good,” he said, and added persuasively:  “Does she live here?”

The Congressman nodded assent.  “An awfully handsome woman,—­a particular friend of mine!” Mr. Gashwiler here looked as if he would not mind to have been rallied a little over his intimacy with the fair one; but the astute Mr. Wiles was at the same moment making up his mind, after interpreting the Congressman’s look and manner, that he must know this fair incognita if he wished to sway Gashwiler.  He determined to bide his time, and withdrew.

The door was scarcely closed upon him when another knock diverted Mr. Gashwiler’s attention from his proofs.  The door opened to a young man with sandy hair and anxious face.  He entered the room deprecatingly, as if conscious of the presence of a powerful being, to be supplicated and feared.  Mr. Gashwiler did not attempt to disabuse his mind.  “Busy, you see,” he said shortly, “correcting your work!”

“I hope it is acceptable?” said the young man timidly.

“Well—­yes—­it will do,” said Gashwiler; “indeed I may say it is satisfactory on the whole,” he added with the appearance of a large generosity; “quite satisfactory.”

“You have no news, I suppose,” continued the young man, with a slight flush, born of pride or expectation.

“No, nothing as yet.”  Mr. Gashwiler paused as if a thought had struck him.

“I have thought,” he said, finally, “that some position—­such as a secretaryship with me—­would help you to a better appointment.  Now, supposing that I make you my private secretary, giving you some important and confidential business.  Eh?”

Dobbs looked at his patron with a certain wistful, dog-like expectancy, moved himself excitedly on his chair seat in a peculiar canine-like anticipation of gratitude, strongly suggesting that he would have wagged his tail if he had one.  At which Mr. Gashwiler became more impressive.

“Indeed, I may say I anticipated it by certain papers I have put in your charge and in your name, only taking from you a transfer that might enable me to satisfy my conscience hereafter in recommending you as my—­ahem!—­private secretary.  Perhaps, as a mere form, you might now, while you are here, put your name to these transfers, and, so to speak, begin your duties at once.”

The glow of pride and hope that mantled the cheek of poor Dobbs might have melted a harder heart than Gashwiler’s.  But the senatorial toga had invested Mr. Gashwiler with a more than Roman stoicism towards the feelings of others, and he only fell back in his chair in the pose of conscious rectitude as Dobbs hurriedly signed the paper.