"Sept. 5.--I had a long talk with the Police Commissioner to-day. I can trust him the way I used to trust Mr. Seaton, Lucy. I told him the truth about Luigi and me and he promised to do what he could to ferret out the truth about my people. If I could only know that my father was half-way decent, no matter what my mother was, it would make an enormous difference to me." Enoch turned another year of pages. "Oct. 12.--Lucy, the Police Commissioner says he has to believe that Luigi's mistress was my mother. He advises me to close that part of my life for good and all and give myself to politics. Easy advice! But I am going to play the game straight in spite of Minetta Lane." Enoch paused long over this entry, then turned on again. "Nov. 6.--Well, my dear, shake hands with Congressman Huntingdon. Yes, ma'am! It's true! Aren't you proud of me? And, Lucy, listen! Don't have any illusions on how I got there. It wasn't brains. It wasn't that the people wanted me to put over any particular idea or ideal for them. I simply so intrigued them with flights of oratory that they decided I was a natural born congressman! Well, bless 'em for doing it, anyhow, and I'll play the game for them. If I ever had had a father I'd like to talk politics with him. He must have had some decency in him, or I'd have been all bad, like my mother. Or maybe I'm a throw-back from two degenerate parents. Well, we'll end the breed with me. "Lucy, it would have been romantic if I could have cleaned out Minetta Lane and other New York rookeries. But it would have been about like satisfying one's self with washing a boy's face when his body was a mass of running sores. We've got to cure the sores and in order to do that we've got to find the cause. No one thing is going to prove a panacea. I wonder if it's possible to teach children so thoroughly that each one owes a certain amount of altruistic, clean service to his local and his federal government that an honest, responsible citizenry would result?" Enoch drank of the ice water and continued to turn the close-written pages. "April 12.--I don't boast much about my career as a Congressman. I've been straight and I've gabbed a good deal. That about sums up my history. If I go back as Police Commissioner, I shall feel much more useful.