Page:Despotism and democracy; a study in Washington society and politics (IA despotismdemocra00seawiala).pdf/16

 *ion seemed only to have patronised briefly in order to desert permanently. But the rooms and the situation suited Thorndyke perfectly, and he had spent there all of the five terms of Congress which he had served. Thorndyke's remaining in that locality secretly surprised Crane, a man from the Middle West. He himself had an apartment in a modish hotel, which cost him more than he could afford and was not half so comfortable as Thorndyke's. But then Thorndyke was born to that which Crane was toilsomely achieving—for this vigorous product of the Middle West was sent into the world with enormous ambitions of all sorts, and not the least of these was social ambition. And combined with this social ambition was a primitive enjoyment of society such as the Indian gets out of his pow-wows with unlimited tobacco and fire-water. Crane, although bred on the prairie, cared nothing for fields and woods and the skies of night and the skies of morning. Men, women, and their affairs alone interested him. Thorndyke, on the contrary, although town-bred, cared for the God-made things, and at that very moment was studying with interest the great tulip-tree, dark and dank before