Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1909-05-21
A Senator'S Foes.

to buy him off.
An old wheel horse called on Sena-
tor Hardman in a careless way and
talked about the lieutenant governor
ship and what would naturally follow
1t. Lieutenant governors had come to
be presidents. The senator nodded his
head in the affirmative. but did not rise
to the bait. The old wheel horse limited
at the financial obligations the ring
would be under If a certain new sena-
tor went straight" and Hardman
opened the door and held it open until
the other had passed out.
The ring employed a bureau to hunt
up Hardmans record, and there was
gnashing of teeth when the report
came back that all was clear. There
was not even the robbery of henrQost
in his boyhood days on which to found
charge against him. He had once
been engaged to be married, and 1t was
whispered that the girl had learned
something against his character and
broken the engagement. A detective
was sent west to hunt up the female
and offer her thousand dollars to ex-
pose the senator, but the officer was
too late. She had married q butcher
two weeks before he found her, and
the husband threw the sleuth out.
female lobbyist tried to throw her
charms about the senator, and pitfall
was nicely arranged, but he glided over
1t and escaped. 1t was at length real
lied that the battle must be fought out
knee to knee, and the ring girded up its
loins for the combat. Hardman was
hunting up facts and statistics for a
telling speech against rings and graft
ers. He worked quietly, but faithfully,
and he finally gathered such a mass of
evidence in favor of the stand that he
had taken from the first that his enc
mics became alarmed and desperate.
When the senator's notes were at last
completed he put them in the form of
speech, and the copy was given to
female typist to be transposed into
print There was no fear of trickery in
that. 1t did not seem to Hardman that
young woman who was seeking to
support a widowed mother could prove
recreant to her trust. Nevertheless in
tuc last lNO uOuIS luc was
left with her she sold him out for
money and turned everything over to
the enemy. The ring shouted in glee.
He was baked. The statistics that had
been dug up out of the past would new
err see daylight. The senator's facts
and figures and denunciations had van
ished into thin air. The speech that
was TO be the effort of his life would
remain undelivered. He had promised
much, but he would be unable to de-
liver the goods and his downfall would
follow.
Hardman could not go over the
ground again. The ring had made that
impossible. Without his statistics his
speech would not amount to more than
general denunciation. No trust or cor
poration cared for that They had been
denounced for years and years. and yet
their dividends were growing all the
time. A few hundred dollars had
bought the honesty of q trusted girl
and drawn the sting of an honest sena-
tor, and the ring spoke of it as an in
terposition of Providence.
Three days more and had all gone
well the senator would have been
ready TO open his batteries. He sat in
his room of an evening with his head
on his hand and knew that he was q
beaten and vanquished man. He had
promised much, and he could do moth
ing. At the end of his term the people
would want him no longer AS he sat
thus in his bitterness the door opened,
nd r;,l lie IL.
to look at her twice before he recog-
nized her as the typist who had sold
him out. He did not upbraid her. There
was no scowl on his face as he re-
garded her and waited for her to speak.
"They lied to me-" she finally said.
"Yes?
Mother was i'll, and we were in 9TH
er trouble, and IL didn't think
speech amounted to so very much
make up another"
Yes? Two or three hundred dollars
seemed a great sum to you. If men
sell their honesty, why shouldn't wom-
en?"
"But mother died, STRIP sobbed the
girl. Il wanted to get her to the hos.
pital, but she-she died."
81 am sorry for that. I believe her
death leaves you alone in the worldT
yves, sir. I'd have brought it soon
err only there was the funeral. and
thought 1t was only just a speech.
Was it to be a great speech" ~
"Well, l hoped So"
But mother said it was ard that we
shouldn't use a penny of the money
and that I'd done very wrong. She
said ! must get it back and give up
the money, and here is the copy"
"The speech" exclaimed the senator
as he reached her side you don't tell
me that you have got the speech back!'
"This is it, sir"
"And where-where"-
"In the next room down the hall" -
"In Senator Blanks room! Bless