The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1913-08-12
CHAPTER II.
The Girl and the Boy.

The Hotel Keswick telephone girl
was character. Even the politicians
who made the big Washington cara.
vansary their headquarters recognized
that. Some of them had sought to I'M.
bend from their labors at law-building
and law-sapping long enough to try to
improve their casual acquaintance with
her. But they had one and all aban
doned the effort.
Not that Miss Wanda Kelly was In
the very least shy. No, she had a re-
sponsive word for everybody. Only,
sometimes that word had a queer way
Of soaring instead Of flattering.
IF Joan of Arc had been brought
up In the alleys" once observed the
Honorable Tim Neligan, land II she's
been nursed on iron tonic and learned
her alphabet from George AIDES fables,
she'd have been dead ringer for Wan
da Kelly"
To which the more or less Honor
able Jim Blake had made reply:
Maybe that hello girl was all Wan.
da when she started out. But a Kes.
wick switchboard course has made
her all Kelly. l don't know why no
one reports her for being fresh. Elk.
cept, maybe, that he'd have to tell
what he said to her to bring out the
fresh comeback"
In any case, no one did report Wan.
da Kelly. There, in an alcove under
the great garish stairway, she sat day
after day manipulating her racks OF
switches. To her left were the tele.
phone booths; to her right the CORR.
dor where all the political world pass.
ed her in review. Behind her-and
when voices CHANGED to be raised in
eagerness or dispute, in easy ear-shot
was a spot where far more history
was made than in the Capitol itself
This historic place was a deep niche
known to local fame as the amen
corner" 1t was off the beaten track
Of the corridor, yet a vantage-point
whence everything was visible. Here
Jim Blake-long, lean, saturnine mas.
ter of the machine-had a way of sit.
ting, his eternal cigar in one corner
of his mouth his SLOUGH hat aslant on
his head or under his chair. And here,
like filings to the magnet, the men who
CLEANED in Jim's wake, and whose po.
litical life hung on his curt nod, would
cluster.
One evening as the dinner crowd
was drifting along the corridor toward
the huge dining-rooms, Wanda noted
that the amen corner held but two
men. Both of them she knew, and
both were very evidently awaiting Jim
Blake's return from the Capitol. More
than one passer-by along the corridor
nudged his companions and pointed
out the elder of the corners two occu.
pants.
The object Of these surreptitious
glances was a flne-looking, rather
portly man of early middle age-the
Mark Robertson, former
governor of New York, present repre-
sentative In congress from the same
state and-equally important-Jim
Blake's son-in-law. More-he was the
man whom the machine, at Its masters
orders, had slated as next speaker of
he house. Yes. and perhaps IL all
'ne heard we're true. for a far higher
,fflce later on.
Wanda Kelly knew this. And, thanks
o overheard scraps of amen-corner
ak. she knew much more. She had
'ften seen Robertson. Now and then
The had received, careless nod from
Tim or from his stately young wife.
3lake's only daughter, who SO often
While congress was in session ran |
lown from the Robertson house In
Jew York for sojourn OF a day or
NO with her husband and father at !
he capital.
Yet Wanda wasted fewer thoughts .