The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1913-08-04
CHAPTER III.



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 fattering.
IF Joan of Arc had been brought
up in the alleys" once observed the
Honorable Tim Neligan, and if she's
been nursed on iron tonic and learned
her alphabet from George AIDES fables,
she'd have been a 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. Ex-
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 heT-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 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
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 f1ne-looking, rather
portly man of early middle age-the
Honorable 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 MASTER
orders, had slated as next speaker of
the house. Yes, and perhaps If all
one heard were true, for a far higher
Office later On.
Wanda Kelly knew this And, thanks
to overheard scraps of amen-corner
| talk, she knew much more. She had
often seen Robertson. Now and then
she had received a careless nod from
him or from his stately young wife,
Blake's only daughter, who so often
while congress was in session ran
down from the Robertson house in
New York for a sojourn of a day or
two with her husband and father at
the capital
| Yet Wanda wasted fewer thoughts
| Just now on the celebrity than on the
much younger man with whom he was
talking. And perhaps her thoughts
had telepathic power. For, as Robert
son strolled out into the foyer, his
companion crossed directly to the
down at the girl.
Wanda did not see him. Or, if she
did, it was not with her eyes. And
before he could speak, the telephone
buZzer rasped out.
Wanda" said the young man who
was leaning over the rail.
| It was the third time he had broker
in. But, busy rafting the switch pegs
/ she did not hear.
Wanda Kenyi" he exclaimed, ex
asperated.
She looked up with a suddennes:
that startled him.
"Well?" she asked sharply.
/ 'Will-will you marry me?" hs
blurted, her unexpected word and looi
/ driving the speech from his lips al