So it went on until past midnight, and the club began to empty, and I was left with a few friends about me. When they went I took Slocum up to my room for a last cigar before bed. We had some private matters to settle in connection with the election. "You pulled out all right, Van," he said when we were alone. "But there wasn't much margin." "I trusted Carmichael--I knew John wouldn't go back on me." We sat and smoked awhile in silence. Now that I had picked the plum, the feeling came over me that Slocum ought to have had it. With that idea I burst out at last:-- "I've been thinking of one thing all along, Slo--and that is: What can I do for you when I am Senator? Name what you want, man, and if it's in my power to get it, it shall be yours. Without you I'd never have been here, and that's sure." "I never cared much for politics," he replied thoughtfully. "I guess there isn't anything I want, which is more than most of your friends can say!" "Something in the diplomatic service?" I suggested. He shook his head. "How about a Federal judgeship--you can afford to go out of practice." "Yes, I can afford to go on the bench!" he replied dryly. "But it's no use to talk of it." "What do you mean?" "You ought to know, Van, that that is one thing that can't be bought in this country, not yet. I could no more get an appointment on the Federal bench than you could!" "You mean on account of that old story? That's outlawed years ago!" "You think so? The public forgets, but lawyers remember, and so do politicians. The President may make rotten appointments anywhere else, but if he should nominate me for the Circuit bench there would be such a howl go up all over that he would have to withdraw me. And he knows too much to try any such proposition." It was no use to argue the question, for the lawyer had evidently been over the whole matter and knew the facts. "It isn't that bribery matter, Van, alone; I have been hand and glove with you fellows too long to be above suspicion. My record is against me all through. It isn't worth talking about.... I have had my pay: I am a rich man, richer than I ever expected to be when I put foot in Chicago. I have no right to complain." But I felt that, in spite of all he said, that wasn't enough--somehow the money did not make it square for him. As the night passed, he warmed up more than I had ever known him to in all the years we had worked together, and he let me see some way inside him. I remember he said something like this:--