“Yes, he is selfish, and yes, I am his friend,” the young man answered, smiling; “at least, he seems willing to be mine. I am saying nothing against him that I have not said to him. If you’ll come back with me up the elevator I’ll tell him he’s a self-seeker and selfish, and with no thought above his own interests. He won’t mind. He’d say I cannot comprehend his motives. Why, you’ve only to look at his record. When the Venezuelan message came out he attacked the President and declared he was trying to make political capital and to drag us into war, and that what we wanted was arbitration; but when the President brought out the Arbitration Treaty he attacked that too in the Senate and destroyed it. Why? Not because he had convictions, but because the President had refused a foreign appointment to a friend of his in the South. He has been a free silver man for the last ten years, he comes from a free silver state, and the members of the legislature that elected him were all for silver, but this last election his Wall Street friends got hold of him and worked on his feelings, and he repudiated his party, his state, and his constituents and came out for gold.” “Well, but surely,” Arkwright objected, “that took courage? To own that for ten years you had been wrong, and to come out for the right at the last.” Livingstone stared and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s all a question of motives,” he said indifferently. “I don’t want to shatter your idol; I only want to save you from counting too much on him.” When Arkwright called on the morrow Senator Stanton was not at home, and the day following he was busy, and could give him only a brief interview. There were previous engagements and other difficulties in the way of his going which he had not foreseen, he said, and he feared he should have to postpone his visit to Cuba indefinitely. He asked if Mr. Arkwright would be so kind as to call again within a week; he would then be better able to give him a definite answer.