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 finds no rest. Incessantly he is pestered by the reproaches of the disappointed, and by the impatience of those who are still expectants. He begins to doubt whether the patronage business has not made him more enemies than friends. Fortunate he is if he does not find himself forced to run away once more, without leaving his address behind, into some solitude far from the maddening crowd. And yet he may have to fear that quiet solitude more than the distracting bustle he has escaped; for it will bring to him moments of self-contemplation when memories will rise up before him of promises made to be broken, of confidence invited to be betrayed, and of honor and self-respect lost, never to be retrieved. And yet, of the political debts which the spoils system seduced him to contract, only the most pressing have been paid.

So far he has gone only through the experience of the first months after the incoming of the new administration while Congress was not in session. The time arrives for Congress to meet, and now he thinks he will atone for it all by giving his whole soul to that duty for the performance of which he really was elected. But, alas! the old torment will not let him go. The men with claims who have not been provided for are still dogging his heels or mercilessly pelting him with letters, and like an errand boy they keep him running from Department to Department. Every new chance opening revives the pressure.