Page:Despotism and democracy; a study in Washington society and politics (IA despotismdemocra00seawiala).pdf/229

 *ular and temperate as that of a boarding-school miss, but when local elections were impending, or a national convention was on hand, Thorndyke had known the old gentleman to go for a fortnight at a time almost without eating or sleeping, and then come out looking as fresh as a daisy. So Thorndyke was a little sceptical about his boss's possible retirement from the field, and took it that the Senator had been trying some sort of an intellectual bunco game upon him.

When the adjournment of Congress was reached, Thorndyke took the first train to his northern home. It was a comfortable old place, on the skirts of an old colonial town left high and dry among more progressive places; but shady, serene, and comfortable in the extreme. Here, in the house where he and his father and his grandfather and great-grandfather were born, Thorndyke's summers were spent with his sister Elizabeth, a gentle, sweet-faced creature, who had not walked for many years, but whose mind and hands were busy doing such good as lay in their reach.

Down in the town before a wooden one-story office with a porch, hung a battered tin sign, which