Maxwell he knew fairly well to be one of the most narrow minded type of politicians, honest enough so far as that went, but without a shred of real patriotism or any faintest glimmer of sense on matters of public welfare. His little soul revolved in a jerky and contracted orbit about the party. This orbit never took him out of sight of the "party." Under good men and bad in office, under defeat and under victory, under the varying vicissitudes of fortune that his meagre political life had known for forty years, he had never gone back on the party. He had held one or two minor offices in the course of his career and was deeply grateful to the party for recognising his right to an office. But when the party ignored him and put in some other creature, Maxwell never complained. To change the figure from the satellite and the orbit to a living organism, Maxwell was like Bill Syke's dog; no matter how the party treated him, he licked its hand just the same and showed the same loyalty and affection for the party when it kicked him down stairs as when it fed him at the pie counter. In forty years Maxwell had not learned a new idea or grown an inch in political stature. He was a party man and was proud of it. His one great virtue was that he was honest. He voted regularly for all sorts of thieves and boodlers and scoundrels nominated by the party, but he had in some marvelous fashion known only to his Maker, kept himself clear of all personal bribery and political trickery. All this Paul knew quite well, and he was not able to despise Maxwell on account of his one redeeming factor. But the slavery that had tied Maxwell body and soul all his life was so foreign to Paul's whole makeup that he could not understand it and he had to repress his natural desire to explode over Maxwell's talk. But he did manage to say quite calmly: "Mr. Maxwell, I appreciate your plea for the party, but I don't see things as you do. While I accepted the nomination, as you say, at the hands of the party, I distinctly outlined my views at the time and made no pledges that bind me either to the party or to measures, if these measures conflict with my own sense of what is for the best interests of the people. I think the people who elected me understand that I am free to act in that way. And, frankly, that is the way I intend to act. There may be some mistakes in some of these bills. It would be strange if there wasn't. But I believe they are for the good of all the people or, of course, I would not urge them." Maxwell shook his head doubtfully. "This reform business has gone too far. My friends here know that. Judge Livingston can tell you how the people out his way feel."