I had fixed on February fifteenth as the date on which I would telegraph a formal demand for an interview. On February eleventh, he surrendered--he wired, asking me to come. I took a chance; I wired back a polite request to be excused as I had urgent business in Chicago. And twenty-four hours later I passed within thirty miles of Rivington on my way to Chicago with Carlotta--we were going to see Junior, hugely proud of himself and his twenty-seven dollars a week. At the Auditorium a telegram waited from Burbank: He hoped I would come as soon as I could; the matters he wished to discuss were most important. Toward noon of the third day thereafter we were greeting each other--he with an attempt at his old-time cordiality, I without concealment of at least the coldness I felt. But my manner apparently, and probably, escaped his notice. He was now blind and drunk with the incense that had been whirling about him in dense clouds for three months; he was incapable of doubting the bliss of any human being he was gracious to. He shut me in with him and began confiding the plans he and Goodrich had made--cabinet places, foreign posts, and so forth. His voice, lingering and luxuriating upon the titles--"my ambassador to his Brittanic Majesty," "my ambassador to the German Emperor," and so on--amused and a little, but only a little, astonished me; I had always known that he was a through-and-through snob. For nearly an hour I watched his ingenuous, childish delight in bathing himself in himself, the wonderful fountain of all these honors. At last he finished, laid down his list, took off his nose-glasses. "Well, Harvey, what do you think?" he asked, and waited with sparkling eyes for my enthusiastic approval. "I see Goodrich drove a hard bargain," said I. "Yet he came on his knees, if you had but realized it." Burbank's color mounted. "What do you mean, Sayler?" he inquired, the faint beginnings of the insulted god in his tone and manner. "You asked my opinion," I answered, "I'm giving it. I don't recall a single name that isn't obviously a Goodrich suggestion. Even the Roebuck appointment--" "Sayler," he interrupted, in a forbearing tone, "I wish you would not remind me so often of your prejudice against Senator Goodrich. It is unworthy of you. But for my tact--pardon my frankness--your prejudice would have driven him away, and with him a support he controls--" I showed my amusement. "Don't smile, Sayler," he protested with some anger in his smooth, heavy voice. "You are not the only strong man in the party. And I venture to take advantage of our long friendship to speak plainly to you. I wish to see a united party. One of my reasons for sending for you was to tell you how greatly I am distressed and chagrined by the attacks on Senator Goodrich in our papers." "Did you have any other reason for sending for me?" said I very quietly. "That was the principal one," he confessed. "Oh!" I exclaimed. "What do you mean, Sayler?"