Until now he had put by all active political ambitions. From time to time, tempting prospects of office-holding had come to him; he had waved them aside. But now, his private fortune having passed the mark of two millions, and his business being geared to run practically on its own momentum and smoothly, he felt, and his formal card to the voters so stated, that he might with possible profit to the commonwealth devote the energies of his seasoned years to public service as a public servant. Quote: If the people by the expression of their will at the approaching primaries indicated him as the choice of his party for this high position, then so be it; his opponent would find him ready for the issue. End quote. All the morning and all the afternoon until he left his office he was receiving the congratulations of associates and well-wishers upon Miss Bracken's engagement and likewise upon his own decision to run for Senator. His desk telephone was jingling constantly. He stopped in at his club on the way home--the Metropolis Club it was, and the most exclusive one in town--and there he held a sort of levee. Whole-hearted support was promised him by scores, literally. The most substantial men in the whole city gathered about him, endorsing him for the step he had taken and pledging themselves to work for him and predicting his easy nomination and his equally easy election. The state generally went Republican--not always, but three times out of four on an average. Under this barrage of applause he unbent somewhat, showing more warmth, more geniality, than he had shown anywhere for a good long while. He did not unbend too far, though, but just far enough. The club cynic, an aged and petulant retired physician, watching the scene in the club library from his regular seat by the tall marble fireplace, remarked under his voice to the first deputy club cynic, who now bore him company and who would succeed him on his death: "Haughty as hell, even now, ain't he? Notice this, Ike--he's not acknowledging the enthusiasm of that flock of bootlickers that are swarming around him yonder, he's merely accepting it as his proper due. What does the man think he is anyhow--God Almighty?" "Humph!" answered the deputy. "You rate our budding statesman too low. Down in that Calvinistic soul of his he may sometimes question the workings of the Divine Scheme, but you bet he never has questioned his own omnipotence--the derned money-changing pouter pigeon. Look at him, all reared back there with one hand on his heart and the other under his coat-tails--like a steel engraving of Daniel Webster!"