The Mena weekly star., 1913-09-04

"rm Sorry" She Said. q Didn't Know
 1t Meant So Much to You" dove!" grumbled Tom. And he'll bawl Mister Thomas Blake!' in that disreputable place for solid hour if l don't go and choke him off"
 Wanda watched her suitor hurry away in search of his quarry, and her dark eyes took on a tenderer light than ever he had seen iii them. Then, at sound of a chance word behind her. she became all at once her alert busi- nesslike self again. She glanced into a little mirror that swung obliquely from the top of the switchboard. Tn this bit of glass, without turning. she. could command a full view of the amen corner a few feet to the rear Of the switchboard rail
 Three men had seated themselves there. One she recognized as the Hon Tim Nelisan; and a second as tl~ Hon. Silas Gregg, a leggy and tow, headed representative from Kansas The third of the trio was an iron-gray man of clean-cut face and scrupulously well groomed aspect.
 Wanda knew him well, by sight. For whenever political crises swept Wash ington he was as certain to appear as are vultures to congregate for the feast. He was Ralph Van Dyke, & New Yorker and counsel for great Of kA est legal minds in America, And he had so carefully trained that mind to the million dark intricacies of corpora tion law as to be doubly worth the an nual fortune he reaped from the inter ests. What Jim Blake was in politics, Ralph Van Dyke was in corporation law The chance word Wanda had just overheard had been spoken by him.
 Are things still going as badly with the Mullins bill as when you wired me today?" he had asked Neligan.
 oh returned Neligan, i've had the house cinched when it was reported. We'd have passed it. hands down, if we could have jammed it through then. But now-we may as well stand up to facts-were as good as licked"
 But. gentlemen urged Van Dyke impatiently,> this bill has to pass"
 Sure it has" gloomily assented Neligan. "Only it can't. Unless some thing eNplodes Standish before it comes to a vote Oh, it's the people! They're reform-crazy. They don't know what they want, and nine years out of ten they don't want anything except to stay asleep and let the right crowd handle the country. But when a man like Staudish gets them to listen to him, they all wake up and yell for re- form and purity in politics as hard as a waking baby squalls for its bottle They've made him popular idol"
 "The people!" scoffed Van Dyke They make an idol one minute and overturn it the next"
 That's right" agreed Gregg, but the Mullins bill will be defeated before they get time to overturn Standish. The people are awake. They really seem to have an idea we ought to keep some of our promises. And, say! After all, we did promise them lot of things"
 Did we?" echoed Neligan. "We made our platform look like a cross section of the Ten Commandments fringed with pages of Pilgrims Prog ress. Yah That's the trouble. We're over-promised,"
 "If we could loosen Standish's pull with the parsons" said Neligan. "we'o have him against the ropes in one round"
 Now you are talking sanity" ap proved the lawyer That was just what was waiting to suggest"
 Well, we didn't wait for you to sug gest it." retorted Neligan. We aren't cooperation law-contortionists, per haps, but we've got a few grains oi we tried We put good men on the case to look up Standish's record-tc find one break that we could hang 8 story on."
 "Well?"
 Well. from their reports, Standish seems to have led a life that would make Saint Anthony and Sir Galahad and the Pilgrim fathers look like bunch of soused Tenderloin rounders.
 You're sure your men left nothing uneovered?"
 Do you think we'd overlook any ,hiner when fha wbofa game hangs or it9"
 That's right, Van Dyke" supple mented Gregg. We've been over Standish's record with a microscope ia nlLa ihL