After Congressmen and Cabinet men, Richard studied Washington itself. The common condition--speaking now of residents, and not of those who were mere sojourners within the city's walls--he found to be one of idleness, the common trait an insatiable bent for gossip. Government was the sole product of the place, the one grist ground at those mills. No one was made to labor more than six hours of the twenty-four. And the term labor meant no more than one-tenth its definition in any other town. Wherefore, even those most engaged of the citizenry had leisure to settle the world's most perplexing concerns, and they generously devoted it to that purpose. Nor were they abashed by any insignificance of their personal estate. Familiarity does not breed contempt, it breeds conceit. Those who dwell close to the hub of government, even though they build departmental fires, sweep departmental floors, and empty departmental waste baskets, from nearness of contact and a daily perusal of your truly great, come at last to look upon themselves as beings of tremendous importance--and all after the self-gratulatory example of the thoughtful fly on the chariot wheel in the fable. The least of them beholds a picture of the government in every looking-glass into which he peers. Storri talked with Mr. Harley; Mr. Harley talked with Senator Hanway. These conferences were of Credit Magellan; in particular they had concern with the overthrow of Northern Consolidated. Congress had been in session ten days when Senator Hanway, one morning, asked Richard to call that evening at nine. "There is something which your paper should print," said Senator Hanway. Richard was with Senator Hanway in the latter's study sharp upon the hour set. Dorothy was not there; her mother had carried her and the yellow-haired sorceress, Bess, to the theater. It is to be doubted, even if she were free, whether Dorothy's interest in her political studies would have carried her through a night session. Besides, the preoccupied Senator Hanway had begun to observe that Richard looked at Dorothy more than he listened to him, and while he suffered no disturbance by virtue of this discovery, the present was an occasion when he wanted Richard's undivided attention. Once seated, Senator Hanway went to the heart of the affair; he made himself clear, for years of debate had educated him to lucidity. What he desired was a plain, sequential rehearsal in the _Daily Tory_ of those claims and charges against Northern Consolidated.