Not that either would have died for the other, but he would have lied and plotted and defrauded and stopped at nothing short of murder for him, which, considering the money appetites of the pair and those schemes they had for feeding them, should be vastly more important.
When Senator Hanway came to Washington, John Harley and his wife, Barbara Hanway-Harley as she preferred to style herself, came with him.
Senator Hanway made his home with the Harleys, when now he was a widower; and the trio, with the daughter, Dorothy--named for the Senator's wife--who lost her boot heel when Richard lost his heart, made up a family of four, and took their place in Capital annals.
John Harley had a red and jovial face that promised conviviality.

It was the custom with John Harley to slap a new acquaintance on the shoulder and hail him as "Old Man." He was long of body, short of leg, apoplectic as to neck--a girthy, thick, explosive, boisterous gentleman, who could order a good dinner and could eat one.

He could find you a fair bottle of wine, and then assist in emptying it.

He aimed at the open and frank and generous, and was willing you should think him of high temper, one who would on provocation deal a knock-down blow.
Senator Hanway was his opposite, being of no more color than a monk and of manners as precisely soft as a lady's.

He never raised his voice, never lost his temper; he strove for an accurate gentility--to give the lie to noble foes at home--and far from owning any ferocities of fist, retorted to a heated person who charged him with flat falsehood by a mere shrug of the shoulders and a simple: "I refuse to discuss it, sir!" And all with a high air that left his opponent gasping and helpless and floundering with the feeling that he had been somehow most severely and completely, not to say most righteously, rebuked.
There you have vague charcoal sketches of Senator Hanway and John Harley; you may note as wide a difference between the two as lies between warclubs and poisons.