“Alpaca is--well, it’s a stuff they wear out West in the country when they dress up. I suppose they wear it because the country is so dusty, and black alpaca catches and shows every bit of dust. And when you touch it it makes your teeth ache and the gooseflesh rise all over you. A basque--it’s a sort of waist, only it’s little and tight and short on the hips and low in the collar, and it pulls under the arms--I can’t describe a basque. It has to be seen. My idea of future punishment is to dress for a thousand years in black alpaca made with a basque, and to have to rub your hands over it every five minutes.” XII Pope, as Mrs. Ballantyne explained to Frothingham, was an Eastern Senator--a multi-millionaire, sent to the Senate because he practically supported, that is, “financed,” the machine of his party in his State, besides making large contributions to its national machine. “So the ‘Boss,’ as they call the leader of the party in that State,” she said, “sold Mr. Pope one of the Senatorships, keeping the other for himself. Mr. Ballantyne is the leader, the master, of his party in _his_ State and, while he’s too modest to tell it, is one of the masters of the party in the nation. He could be President if it weren’t for the disgusting prejudice among the people against all who happen to have a little something”--“a little something” being Mrs. Ballantyne’s modest way of speaking of their millions. “But,” she went on, “old Mr. Pope is a nonentity. He sits in his seat and votes the way they tell him to and is nice to everybody. Mr. Ballantyne suspects he’s getting ready to buy the Vice-Presidency.” “How much does that cost?” asked Frothingham. “It’ll cost him half a million if the chances of our party’s carrying the election are good; if they’re not so good, perhaps he can get it for a quarter of a million. But they may not dare nominate him. They may have to take some popular poor man. The ‘many-headed monster,’ as Shakespeare calls it, has been grumbling of late. We have a hard task in our country, Lord Frothingham, to keep the people with property in control.” “It’s the same all over the world nowadays, I fancy,” said Frothingham. “One has to apologise for being well born or for living in decent style. The trouble with the lower classes at home is that they don’t have to work hard enough. They used to be too busy to look about and make themselves and everybody uncomfortable by doing what they call thinking.” “That’s the trouble with our lower classes, too,” answered Mrs. Ballantyne, in her grandest manner. “We educate too much.” The carriage rushed into the brilliantly lighted entrance of Senator Pope’s house. Frothingham saw Ysobel’s face, saw that she was having a violent attack of silent laughter. And he understood why. “The young ’un has a sense of humour,” he said to himself. “It’s ridiculous for these beggars to pose and strut before they’ve had time to brush the dirt off their knees and hands.”