WHEN he reached his rooms that afternoon, Senator Ratcliffe found there, as he expected, a choice company of friends and admirers, who had beguiled their leisure hours since noon by cursing him in every variety of profane language that experience could suggest and impatience stimulate.

On his part, had he consulted his own feelings only, he would then and there have turned them out, and locked the doors behind them.
So far as silent maledictions were concerned, no profanity of theirs could hold its own against the intensity and deliberation with which, as he found himself approaching his own door, he expressed between his teeth his views in respect to their eternal interests.

Nothing could be less suited to his present humour than the society which awaited him in his rooms.

He groaned in spirit as he sat down at his writing-table and looked about him.

Dozens of office-seekers were besieging the house; men whose patriotic services in the last election called loudly for recognition from a grateful country.
They brought their applications to the Senator with an entreaty that he would endorse and take charge of them.