"At that moment, sir, there would be what I live for in the name 'Blue.'" Picault drew a deliberative puff at his cigar, and lowered it again. "You will not, then, do me the honor of a personal interview?" he asked, smiling unprovokably still. "Cease, cease!" replied Haviland, "It will soon be the noon of plain words!" The tempter with nice discernment, perceiving that this short and bold interview was useless, and that he ought to withdraw, put his cigar between his lips, puffed a "Good-day, gentlemen," and turned back meditatively, along the path towards the pines of the Manoir. "Au plaisir!" returned Zotique to him with facetious exactitude. Haviland was furious. "Shall the children of these men, enriched perhaps and elevated through their crimes," he exclaimed, "pretend in time to come that they obtained their 'Honorables,' and Knighthoods, and seats on the Bench of Justice, and of Cabinets fairly from their country, and were the world's great and true? Forbid it, and forbid that their names should live except in memory of their paltriness!" "But dear Mr. Chrysler," he added in a moment, "you must not take us for party bigots. The masses of the Bleus are honest, and any day our own name may be desecrated by a clique of knaves, our principles represented by the other name." CHAPTER XXII. THE MANUFACTORY OF REFLECTIONS. Haviland's approaching election kept him very busy from this time forward, and deluged him with interviews, canvasses, meetings, great and little, and perpetual calls on his attention. His conscientiousness made him work almost unremittingly, for he determined his part in the struggle to be far more than a matter of mere verbiage and smiles. Mr. Chrysler, like a sensible fellow-Member, quite comprehended the situation, and was content to note the admirable way in which his friend did everything; to receive a smile or friendly direction here and there, and to fall back on the attentions of l'Honorable, and the over-zealous Zotique. He felt his entry free, however, to the office where Haviland was principally employed, and which was not uninteresting of itself. There the young man had gathered a library of statistical volumes and other statesman's lore, with busts of Thiers and Caesar and strangely ideal and unlike the rest,--a pure white classic mask of Minerva on the wall opposite his chair, as if to strike the note of a higher life; while Breboeuf, curious little object, devoured some blue-book in a corner. Now what were those great aims of Haviland's? NATION-MAKING, we know in general. But what was the work upon which he was employed as the means? On the occasion of one of Chrysler's quiet entries, Haviland rose from his table as the light began to fall, threw off his toils with a breath of relief, and turning towards the older gentleman, called his attention to a large green tin case of pigeon-holes and drawers of different sizes, labelled. "Here," he said, "is my manufactory of reflections."