Something in Carrington's habitual attitude and manner towards himself had long struck him as peculiar, and this connection with Mrs.Baker had suggested to the Senator the idea that it might be well to have an eye on both.

Mrs.
Baker was a silly woman, as he knew, and there were old transactions between Ratcliffe and Baker of which she might be informed, but which Ratcliffe had no wish to see brought within Mrs.Lee's ken.

As for the fiction invented to set Keen in motion, it was an innocent one.
It harmed nobody.

Ratcliffe selected this particular method of inquiry because it was the easiest, safest, and most effectual.

If he were always to wait until he could afford to tell the precise truth, business would very soon be at a standstill, and his career at an end.
This little matter disposed of; the Senator from Illinois passed his afternoon in calling upon some of his brother senators, and the first of those whom he honoured with a visit was Mr.Krebs, of Pennsylvania.
There were many reasons which now made the co-operation of that high-minded statesman essential to Mr.Ratcliffe.The strongest of them was that the Pennsylvania delegation in Congress was well disciplined and could be used with peculiar advantage for purposes of "pressure." Ratcliffe's success in his contest with the new President depended on the amount of "pressure" he could employ.