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5

Now in the moments before the Senate was about to begin the chamber resembled a sort of tan, marble-paneled fishbowl in which pageboys in their white shirts and black pants darted about like minnows distributing bills and copies of the legislative calendar to all the desks, whisking off stray specks of dust, shoving the spittoons carefully out of sight, checking the snuff boxes to make sure they were full, joking and calling to one another across the big brown room. A few clerks and secretaries drifted in, the parliamentarian and his assistant stood at one of the doors talking, the clerk of the Senate and the sergeant at arms stood talking at another, the first reporters waiting to see Bob Munson wandered into the well of the Senate and stood about exchanging chaff. At his desk on the majority side, Dave Grant, secretary to the Majority, busied himself with papers and made last-minute calls to senatorial offices advising the expected schedule of business for the day, and at his desk on the minority side Bert Hallam, secretary to the Minority, did the same. Above in the public galleries the tourists settled themselves in an excited, peering bustle; a few senatorial wives and special guests entered the family gallery to the Chair’s left, a few dark-skinned individuals of indeterminate nationality took their places in the diplomatic gallery directly across from him, a few reporters came into the press gallery directly above and behind him. From his personal office across the Senators’ lobby, behind the chamber, Harley Hudson peeped out quickly and then went in again, but not before several tourists had spotted him and exclaimed delightedly to one another. The press corps grew in front of Bob Munson’s desk and in front of that of Warren Strickland of Idaho, the Minority Leader, directly across the center aisle. Paul Hendershot of Indiana, the first Senator to appear, came on the floor like some bright old peering bird and took his seat toward the back of the room; he was followed quickly by Cecil Hathaway of Delaware, John Baker of Kentucky, Bob Randall of New Jersey, and Powell Hanson of North Dakota. For a moment the four of them stopped to talk, a little knot of laughing, congenial men, then broke up and went to their respective desks. Murfee Andrews of Kentucky, loaded down with books and documents, came in prepared to do battle on the pending Federal Reserve bill; he was followed by his two principal antagonists, Taylor Ryan of New York and Julius Welch of Washington, looking fully as determined as he. It was ten minutes to noon on the day of the Leffingwell nomination and the Senate, with the exception of minor changes here and there, looked exactly as it had at ten minutes to noon in 1820, 1890, 1910, 1935, 1943, or any other time. As if by concerted agreement the Majority Leader entered down the center aisle, the Minority Leader entered from the side, and the press moved in on them both as they shook hands and gave one another friendly greeting while the tourists stared and twittered up above.

“How’s the weather?” Warren Strickland murmured; Bob Munson grinned, pulled him close, and whispered in his ear, “Still cloudy and uncertain.” The Minority Leader laughed and started to move across the aisle to his desk.

“Don’t go away, Warren,” AP said. “We’ve got things to ask you both.”

“I don’t know anything,” Senator Strickland said with his quick ironic smile, coming back to lean against Bob Munson’s desk. “You ask Bobby. He knows everything, that’s his job.”

“Bobby,” Senator Munson announced firmly, “doesn’t know anything either.”

“Oh, come now, Senator,” the Baltimore Sun said. “Surely you can do better than that. How soon are you going to get action on the nomination?”

“I believe Senator August will probably make an announcement as soon as his plans are firmed up,” Bob Munson said.

“He didn’t make any announcement at the White House,” the New York Herald Tribune observed.

“Oh, was he at the White House?” Senator Munson asked.

“As if you didn’t know,” the Evening Star said amiably. Bob Munson smiled.

“Tom ought to be the one to say,” he said. “It’s his committee, after all.”

“Is it, Senator?” the Post asked skeptically. “I thought you and the President ran it.”

“Not quite,” Senator Munson said. “Not quite. What else can we do for you boys?”

“You haven’t done anything for us yet,” AP advised him. “How many votes have you got, Bob? How many have you got, Warren? Let’s be specific here.”

“I think I have quite a few,” Senator Munson said. “Warren thinks he has quite a few, and of course Seab Cooley thinks he has quite a few.”

“Will yours stay hitched, though?” the Times asked. Warren Strickland gave the Majority Leader a poke in the arm.

“Not the way mine will,” he said with a satisfied laugh.

Bob Munson laughed too, as noncommittally as possible.

“Leffingwell’s in trouble then?” UPI said.

“My boy,” said Bob Munson, “have you ever known Bob Leffingwell when he wasn’t in trouble?” Everybody laughed and he added quickly: “Don’t quote me on that.”

“Seriously, Senator,” said the Baltimore Sun, seriously, “how does it look to you right now?”

“It looks,” said Bob Munson slowly, “like a terrific fight.”

“Can we quote you?” the Star asked quickly.

“Yes,” Senator Munson said thoughtfully. “Isn’t that right, Warren?”

Senator Strickland nodded and cleared his throat.

“From nearly all precedents of past presidential nominations for the Cabinet,” he said carefully while the reporters scribbled hastily away, “Mr. Leffingwell will ultimately be confirmed. However, the issues involved here are so complex and the times in which we live are so serious, that there will undoubtedly be a most thorough Senate debate which could conceivably result in the defeat of this nomination.”

“In other words,” Bob Munson said with a twinkle, poking the Minority Leader in the arm in his turn, “like I said, a terrific fight.”

“Right,” Warren Strickland conceded with a smile, “but I knew they needed something more than one sentence from you to make a story.”

“Not these boys,” Bob Munson said jovially. “All they need is one word and they’re off to the races with a two-column story.”

“That’s what’s known as experience, Senator,” the Star said, and at that moment the warning bell began to ring. Harley Hudson entered the chamber and took the Chair, Senator Strickland crossed to his desk and remained standing, Senator Munson and his other colleagues rose, the press sprinted off the floor, the room quieted down, and the session began as the Vice President banged his gavel. Carney Birch stepped forward and began the prayer, and Bob Munson realized with a start that as usual, everybody was trying to get into the act and not the least of these was Carney. This time it was even more flagrant than usual.

“Our Father,” the Senate chaplain was droning in his snuffling way, “in these days of stress and strain when men are called upon to bear great burdens, give this Senate the strength and charity to ascertain of each who would serve his nation his true nature and purpose, lest through inadvertence and oversight there slip into seats of power those who would misguide and mislead this great people to whom You have given so much—”

The Reverend Carney Birch, Bob Munson reflected, was one of those ministers who go around slapping God on the back. A small, bulgy man with bad breath and an unctuous manner, he patronized both the Deity and his fellow men with serene assurance. “The Lord will do it for you!” Carney often promised, in a tone which indicated that he was both in a position to know and in a position to chastise the Lord if He didn’t follow through. He was made further insufferable by the fact that he took with great seriousness the title, “the Hundred-and-First Senator,” which had been conferred upon him many years ago in an unwise moment by a whimsical feature-writer for the Associated Press. This sobriquet Carney treasured, and he never missed an opportunity to live up to it, hanging around the floor for hours after the prayer was over, hobnobbing with great familiarity with people like Orrin Knox, who was too polite to object, and Blair Sykes, who didn’t give a damn, breaking in on confidential conversations, running up from time to time to whisper in the Vice President’s ear, and generally making himself beloved of all. But there was no getting rid of him; he was pastor of the church downtown to which Reverdy Johnson belonged, Reverdy had gotten him the chaplaincy twenty years ago, and every time anyone tried to oust him the Star and the Post would come forth with stern editorials beginning, “It is with great regret that we note that political partisanship is threatening the proper place of religion in the United States Senate.” That always stopped that. So Carney stayed on, getting older and bulgier and more odorous and more obnoxious, one of those situations the Senate suffers with placid patience because it just isn’t worth anybody’s time to go through the fight necessary to get it straightened out.

Well-launched, he was repeating, reasserting, and reinforcing his admonition to the Senate to watch its p’s and q’s about Bob Leffingwell, and to the Lord to help it out. “O Lord!” he cried, and, “O Lord!” Bob Munson thought with impatient annoyance, “why doesn’t he shut up and let us get on with it?” Just then his eye caught that of Harley Hudson and before he stopped to think he had winked and Harley had winked back. The exchange brought his fellow Michigander squarely into his thoughts, and with him the President’s health, and for a second the Senator looked full at the Vice President with a quizzical expression that brought an immediate reaction from Harley. A worried little grimace crossed his face, he struggled with it, but it was too much for him; his lips formed the silent question, “What’s the matter?” above Carney’s bobbing head. Bob Munson shook his head hurriedly in a small, hasty gesture and deliberately looked away, concentrating on the flag behind Harley’s chair. Carney droned finally to a fervent conclusion and Senator Munson went smoothly into the routine of the day, asking unanimous consent that the reading of the journal of yesterday’s proceedings be dispensed with and then suggesting the absence of a quorum.

“The absence of a quorum is suggested,” Harley said in a tone that indicated he was still worried, “and the Clerk will call the roll.”

Bob Munson sat down and began looking busily through his papers, but just as he had anticipated, he was aware that Harley was gesturing to Powell Hanson to take the Chair and was getting ready to come down from the dais to see him. A second later the Vice President slid into the seat beside him.

“What is it, Bob?” he whispered at once, and Senator Munson thought with a sigh that while the Vice President was wonderfully goodhearted and an awfully nice guy in many ways, he certainly had not been equipped by temperament or nature for either the role he had to play, or the role he might be called upon to play. Politics, he reflected as he had so many times, did some of the damnedest things sometimes; a rather guilty reflection, since he himself had had so much to do with it, in this particular instance.

“Nothing,” Bob Munson said firmly. “Not a thing, Harley.” But he had spoken without taking into account the fact that on one particular subject the Vice President, like all Vice Presidents, had developed a nervous instinct that was almost infallible.

“Is anything wrong with the President?” Harley asked tensely. Senator Munson dropped his papers and swung about in his chair to face him full on, a gesture that was not lost on the press gallery above.

“Nothing,” he said in a savage whisper between his teeth, “is wrong with the President. Now stop acting like a damned fool and get back to the Chair where you belong.”

“Well, I can’t help but worry, Bob,” Harley Hudson murmured apologetically. “I just can’t help but worry.”

“Take my word for it,” Senator Munson said in the same deliberate tone, “there is no reason for you to worry.” Then after these lies, necessary if Harley was not to go spinning right up through the ceiling out of sheer nervous tension, he decided instantaneously on the only diversion that would calm the Vice President down.

“I was talking to him about an hour ago,” he went on quietly, turning back and relaxing in his chair, “and he said to tell you that he wants you to work very closely with me on the Leffingwell nomination. All that’s wrong with him is that he feels you have been cold-shouldering him a little lately, and he’s somewhat hurt about it, that’s all.”

“I?” Harley Hudson said in an audible cry of amazement which he promptly reduced to an agonized whisper. “I? Why, Bob, I’ve done my level best to cooperate with him in every way. You know that, Bob.”

“Well, he gets ideas, you know,” Bob Munson said soothingly. “There’s so much pressure and tension in that office, sometimes a man overlooks his real friends a little. I’m sure it’s just a passing thing, and the way to wash it out altogether is for you to pitch in with me and get this thing through as fast as we can. Then he’ll know he was mistaken.”

“Anything you say, Bob,” the Vice President said humbly. “You know you can count on me all the way. You tell him so, too.”

“He’ll be pleased to hear it, Harley,” Senator Munson said comfortably. “Now why don’t you go back there and talk to Paul Hendershot? Calm the old boy down, put a good face on it—you know how to do it. Let me know what he says.”

“Sure thing, Bob,” Harley said in a relieved tone. “I’ll go talk to him right now.”

“Think up an excuse first,” Bob Munson advised, “otherwise he’ll be suspicious.”

“Sure, Bob,” Harley said. “I sure will.” Bob Munson clapped him on the back as he rose.

“Okay, Harley,” he said soothingly. “There’ll be plenty to keep you occupied on this one.”

“Good,” the Vice President said fervently. “Good.”

Senator Munson turned back to his desk with a sigh audible enough so that Warren Strickland stirred in his chair across the aisle. The Majority Leader looked at the Minority Leader and the Minority Leader winked. The Majority Leader grinned, shook his head, and winked back.

“Mr. Lytle!” the Clerk said in a tone full of reproof, for so far only eight Senators had answered the call and he was halfway down the list. “Mr. Mason!… Mr. McKee!… Mr. Monroe!…”

Remembering the national convention at which Harley had received the vice-presidential nomination—that convention from which so many subsequent tensions in the Senate had stemmed—Bob Munson reflected that the Vice President’s story was in some ways so standard and in some ways so startling that it probably represented pretty much the mean of American politics. A wealthy businessman in Michigan who had never taken much interest in public affairs, he had suddenly been catapulted into the race for Governor when the original nominee had died in mid-campaign. Harley, in his florid, jowling, graying style, was a handsome and well-preserved fifty-three at the time, fortunately possessed of the ability to make a reasonably forceful and commanding speech. He had gone through the tensions of the campaign in good shape, had been elected by a large vote, had managed to perform his duties without visible stumbling, and a year later had been boomed for the Presidency by Bob Munson and Roy Mulholland, who had joined forces in a complicated cross-ruff by which they hoped to hold the delegation in line for the present incumbent of the White House, then only an amiable and rather enigmatic Governor of California. Orrin Knox had been the Governor’s principal opponent, and for a while Harley, having sense enough to assess his own boom for what it was, had leaned very strongly toward Senator Knox in spite of his own Senators’ pressure for the Governor. Like all timid men, when he decided to become stubborn he had been fearsomely so, and it had been touch-and-go right up to the night of the balloting as to who would control the Michigan delegation. In a final showdown Harley had won and they had thought they were going for Orrin Knox. At some point during the evening, however—and Bob Munson never knew exactly what happened, for neither of them would tell him—there had been some sort of friction between Harley and Orrin, and that had done it; Harley had cast Michigan’s unanimous vote for the Governor. The minute his words were out, Senator Munson and Senator Mulholland had fought their way across the roaring hall to the California delegation and promptly gone to work. An hour later the news was out that Harley was the nominee’s choice for Vice President, a job to which he had been re-elected four years later, not so much because he had done anything notable but just because he had not gotten in anybody’s way, and so the President, not wanting to stir up any trouble in the new convention, had taken the customary easy way out and permitted him to run again.

This tale, no different in essentials from that of twenty men who had held the nation’s second office, had just those elements of fantasy and cold-blooded practicality that seem to go into many and many an American political success. A shift here, a shift there, a change of timing somewhere else, a fluke that happened or a fluke that didn’t, and Harley M. Hudson would not be Vice President of the United States. As it turned out, however, he was; no worse and no better than most selected by just the same process of fluke and no-fluke, but under present circumstances on a spot he half-sensed and wholly feared, in which he might presently be called upon to be considerably better than most, for his country’s sake. Bob Munson sighed heavily again, and this time did not wink at Warren Strickland. He would have to hold Harley’s hand as it had never been held before, if that happened. Indeed, the whole Congress would have to hold it, as best they could, if Harley was to make out in the way he would have to if he was to succeed.

“Mr. Parrish!” the clerk said, becoming steadily more aggrieved, for by now only about thirty Senators were on the floor, and a quorum was fifty-one, “Mr. Root!… Mr. Ryan!… Mr. Starr!… Mr. Sykes!…”

“That was a touching scene,” Stanley Danta observed, sliding into the chair vacated by the Vice President, the chair that was actually Seab Cooley’s as senior member and president pro tempore of the Senate. Seab had not yet come in to claim it this morning, and, “Where is he and what’s he up to?” was not the least of the Majority Leader’s worries at the moment.

“He’s worried about the nomination,” Bob Munson explained casually. Senator Danta smiled.

“He’s worried, period. I hope you reassured him.”

“Don’t I always?” Senator Munson asked. “Half my time is spent reassuring Harley. What do you hear?”

“I’ll be a good second-generation Yankee and answer a question with a question,” Senator Danta said. “What do you hear?”

“I haven’t had time to hear much,” Bob Munson confessed. “Michigan needed me this morning. I never got away from the office and made precious few calls.”

“Well, I,” said Stanley Danta, “have been a good boy. I’ve been checking, just the way you said. As of the moment I find five sure votes for Bob Leffingwell, sixteen doubtfuls, and seven opposed.”

“Who’s sure?” Bob Munson wanted to know. The sures, Stanley explained, were Murfee Andrews of Kentucky, Dick Althouse of Maryland, Cliff Boland of Mississippi, Powell Hanson of North Dakota—and Stanley Danta.

“That’s a handsome nest egg to start with,” Senator Munson remarked dryly. “What about Brig?”

“Brig,” Stanley Danta said, “is being elusive. I think he suspects, no doubt with reason, that you have designs on him if this thing gets into a real hassle. And of course he knows it’s going to.”

“I haven’t any designs on him,” Bob Munson said. “I just want him in line, that’s all. Of course if Tom August had to appoint a subcommittee to handle hearings, it would look good all around if Brig could chair it. But that’s not ‘designs.’”

“No?” Senator Danta smiled. “He can see you coming a mile away.”

“Hmph,” Senator Munson said.

“Mr. Wannamaker!…” the clerk said with an air of sadness as he came to the end with only forty Senators in the chamber, “Mr. Welch!… Mr. Whiteside!… Mr. Wilson!”

Senator Munson rose. He didn’t know where all his distinguished colleagues were, but he knew they would drift in sooner or later.

“Mr. President,” he said, “I ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with.”

“Without objection,” said Powell Hanson in the Chair, “it is so ordered.”

“Mr. President,” Bob Munson said, “I move that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the pending business, Calendar No. 1453, Senate bill 1086, a bill to amend the Federal Reserve Act.”

“Mr. President!” cried Murfee Andrews promptly from his side of the chamber, and, “Mr. President!” shouted Taylor Ryan loudly from his.

“The Senator from Kentucky,” Powell said, recognizing one of his own, and Murfee Andrews, with a triumphant smile at his opponent, launched into what was obviously to be a lengthy speech. Senator Munson sat down.

“Have you seen Orrin?” he asked. “Your beautiful daughter is due here in another five minutes to have lunch with me, and I thought maybe he would like to join us. You too, if you like, of course.”

“Thanks,” Stanley smiled. “I think I can make it. No, I haven’t seen Illinois’s most indignant son. Nor, for that matter, have I seen South Carolina’s. Do you suppose what I suppose?”

“Lord, I hope not,” said Senator Munson emphatically. “I hope not! That’s why I want to have lunch with him. Maybe I can head him off before Seab gets to him.”

Senator Danta gestured toward the side door.

“Lo, he comes,” he said, and indeed Orrin did, striding in with his bustling, purposeful air, a large briefcase in one hand, some books, some papers, a general manner of being able to solve the world’s problems completely, at once, in the most practical and sensible way that they could possibly be solved. Bob Munson turned around and gestured to Tom Trummell of Indiana, sitting a couple of rows back. Senator Trummell came forward in his gravely ponderous and humorless way, but with a pleasant smile, and took the Majority Leader’s chair. “Let’s go,” said Senator Munson to Senator Danta, and they beelined for Senator Knox.

“Well,” AP said to UPI as the three Senators went past the press table on their way in to the Senators’ private dining room, “I guess Orrin Knox must be putting his price pretty high.”

“Apparently,” UPI said, “he can name it.”

Inside the small, dark, crowded room with its hustle and bustle of Senators, their families and/or constituents, they found Crystal Danta already seated at a table in the corner chatting with Bessie Adams of Kansas, who was just finishing. Bessie looked up and smiled in her pleasantly grandmotherly way that never missed a trick, and the slightest glint of amusement came into her eyes.

“Bob,” she said, “Stanley—Orrin—what a distinguished gathering! I suppose you’re going to talk about the wedding. That’s what we’ve been talking about.”

“If I know my daughter,” Stanley Danta said with a smile, “and if I know the senior Senator from Kansas, the talk has ranged farther afield than that.” Senator Adams smiled blandly.

“We can’t imagine what you mean, Stanley,” she said. “It was mostly about the wedding, wasn’t it, Crystal?”

“Mostly,” Crystal agreed, “and anyway, the Senator didn’t give me the slightest hint of how she intends to vote on the nomination.”

“I didn’t expect she would have,” Senator Munson said. “I know Bessie.” And his tone for a second sounded so forlorn that Elizabeth Ames Adams burst out laughing.

“Poor Bob,” she said lightly. “Poor Bobby! He has so many problems, and I am one of them. But don’t despair, Robert. Right and justice will triumph in the end.”

“Thanks so much,” Bob Munson said with a reluctant smile. “I wish I were sure of that.”

“If you were more sure of what they are,” Senator Adams told him suavely, “then you might be more sure of whether they would. But I must run along and get back up to the floor.”

“Have you got an amendment to the Federal Reserve bill?” Orrin Knox asked with interest. Senator Adams shook her head.

“No, actually I’ve just got an editorial from the Topeka Capital on Bob Leffingwell that I want to put in the Record.”

“That was fast work,” Senator Danta said. “Did they wire it to you?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Senator Adams, “they did. That’s how important they think it is, out where I come from. Have a good lunch. I’ll see you all later.”

“So long, Bess,” Bob Munson said. “Don’t slip on any banana peels.”

“Not before I vote on Bob Leffingwell,” Senator Adams assured him pleasantly as she left.

“Hmph,” Senator Munson said.

“I think it’s very exciting,” Crystal Danta observed with a wicked little chuckle as they sat down and prepared to order. Senator Munson looked at her sternly.

“I’ve spanked you before, young lady,” he said, “and I might do it again.”

“Right here?” Crystal asked. “Oh, Uncle Bob, do.”

Orrin Knox laughed.

“That would be a sensation, wouldn’t it?” he observed. “Yes, Uncle Bob, do.”

“Order your lunch, everybody,” Bob Munson directed them. “It’s on me.”

Around the room as they did so his practiced eye fell on Bessie’s junior colleague, the careful and homespun Harold Kidd, eating with his wife; Donald W. Merrick of Colorado, looking as usual as though he hated the world—How do some people get elected? Bob Munson thought—Cecil Hathaway of Delaware, talking in his usual furious, shotgun fashion to George Keating of Nebraska, already well gone in his daily battle with the bottle; Charles W. McKee of North Dakota, handsome and vacant, with pudgy, pompous Bob Randall of New Jersey and white-haired, kindly Archibald Joslin of Vermont; Stonewall Jackson Phillips of Tennessee, looking competent and able and with that sort of closed-off efficiency that many young and ambitious men in politics develop, being courteous and attentive to peppery old Newell Albertson of West Virginia, who just happened to be chairman of Interstate Commerce Committee and violently opposed to an airlines bill that Stoney was quite anxious to have passed; Kenneth Hackett, lean and strange, talking to his self-possessed, noncommittal little colleague from Wisconsin, Magnus Hollingsworth; and portly, self-important Ben Mason of Rhode Island, hailing purse-lipped, eternally disapproving Walter Calloway of Utah to come join him and “these wonderful folks from Providence who’ve just dropped in to see me.”

All of these perceptive gentlemen, Bob Munson saw, were quite as interested in observing him and his intriguing party as he was in observing them; and after collecting a number of sidewise glances that slid rapidly over his table and visibly registered surprise and interest, he turned deliberately to his menu and gave the waiter his order. As he did so Orrin Knox gave a chuckle at his side.

“Everybody certainly wonders why we’re here, don’t they?” he asked in a teasing tone. Bob Munson contemplated several strategies in a split second and chose the only one that worked with Orrin, complete honesty.

“Oh, they know,” he said blandly. “And so do we, don’t we?”

Senator Knox chuckled again.

“I dare say,” he said. Stanley Danta chuckled too.

“Bob has a devious plot in mind, Orrin,” he said cheerfully. “He just wants your vote.”

“Not only that,” Senator Munson said candidly. “I want your complete, one hundred percent, all-out support.”

“Have I always had yours?” Senator Knox asked quietly, and Bob Munson recognized with annoyance that there was that God damned convention again.

“Most times,” he said thoughtfully. “Yes, I think I can say most times.” Then he looked Orrin straight in the eye. “Haven’t you?” he asked bluntly.

Senator Knox laughed in an unamused way.

“When it suited your purpose, Bob,” he said tartly. “When it suited.”

“Isn’t that how we all support each other?” Senator Munson asked calmly. “You’re a realist, Orrin. That’s the only way anything ever gets done in the American government—when it suits the purposes of enough people.”

“Hmph,” said Senator Knox. Then he remarked casually, “I suppose Seab is mustering the troops against him already.”

“You ought to know,” Senator Munson said quickly, a shot in the dark, but he could see it had gone home, for Senator Knox started a little, then broke into a laugh.

“I should,” he admitted.

“I hope you didn’t sign anything,” Senator Danta said dryly.

“It was all verbal,” Orrin Knox said with a grin. “He wanted something in blood, but I wouldn’t give it to him.”

“Well, that’s good,” Bob Munson said. “I guess there’s still hope for our side, then.”

“Some,” Orrin Knox said seriously. “But I don’t like it. If I support him it’s going to be as an intellectual exercise and not because my heart is in it.”

“Oh, well, if that’s your only scruple,” Bob Munson said comfortably, “you’ll have lots of company there.”

“Why,” Senator Knox demanded in an exasperated tone, “why did he have to appoint someone who—”

“I know,” Senator Munson said cheerfully. “It’s a question to which we will never know the answer, I’m sure. Anyway, I take it you’re in a position of benevolent neutrality at the moment.”

Senator Knox snorted.

“A rather flowery way to put it,” he said. Senator Danta smiled.

“Not neutral and not benevolent, eh, Orrin?” he said, and Senator Knox laughed.

“I wouldn’t say that, either,” he said.

“Well, what I would say,” Crystal Danta broke in firmly, “is that that’s enough business for now. I want to talk about me and Hal. We went shopping before lunch.”

“I suppose you spent all his money,” his father said.

“A good part of it,” Crystal said cheerfully. “He might as well get used to it. We got some pretty things, though.”

“I’m sure of it,” Orrin Knox said with a smile.

“Well, we did. You’ll see.”

“There’s Brig,” Stanley Danta told Bob Munson. His daughter sighed.

“You see?” she said. “I try to brighten the day for Senators of the United States, and they go right back to business in spite of me.”

“It’s tough,” her father agreed. “Ask him over, Bob.”

The first shift was changing in the dining room, and people like determinedly homespun George R. Bowen of Iowa and squat, portly, toad-shaped Walter S. Turnbull of Louisiana, and their constituents, were beginning to replace Donald Merrick and Benjamin Mason, and their constituents. Senator Anderson, standing in the doorway, was obviously looking for a friendly face and company. Bob Munson raised a hand and waved and the Senator from Utah came over promptly in his pleasant, easy way to greet them all as they made room for him at the table.

“Crys,” he said, “I’m delighted to see you. Everything all set for the big day?”

“Well, not quite,” she said with a laugh. “After all, it’s still three weeks off, and an awful lot can be done in three weeks, you know.”

“Women,” Brigham Anderson said. “How they do love to fuss. How’s Hal bearing up?”

“At the moment,” Crystal Danta said, “he acts as though he likes it. I imagine he may get skittish before the day arrives, though.”

“I imagine,” Senator Anderson said. Then he turned to the Majority Leader. “Well, Robert,” he said, with just the slightest trace of challenge in his voice, “what vital information have you got to impart this afternoon?”

Bob Munson smiled.

“I’m more interested in what you have to impart,” he said.

“Not a thing,” Brig said pleasantly, hailing a waiter and ordering soup, coffee, and a piece of pie, “not a thing. The sovereign state of Utah is in good shape, and so is its senior Senator. I can’t speak for its junior today.”

Orrin Knox gave an abrupt laugh.

“He was in here a little while ago,” he said, “looking as pickle-faced as usual.”

“He compensates for my frivolity,” Brigham Anderson said with his quick grin. “Stanley, are we going to get that atomic power bill through next week?”

“Ask the Majority Leader,” Senator Danta said. “I’m agreeable.”

“I guess we can get to it soon,” Senator Munson said.

“I suppose you’ll want to get the decks cleared as soon as possible,” Senator Anderson said. “I hear this Leffingwell business is going to be a rush job.”

“What do you mean, a rush job?” Bob Munson said indignantly. “I’m not rushing anybody. Where did you hear that?”

“I ran into Tom August a while ago,” Brig said. “I got the impression the word was out to ram it through on the double. Next Monday was what I gathered from his obscure murmurings, which seems like a real zippy schedule if you can do it, Bob.”

Senator Munson looked pained.

“Tom always messes everything up,” he said candidly. “Of course I think the President would like it to move, but I doubt if it can be done by next Monday. Certainly it can’t if Tom goes around blabbing his plans to everybody.”

“He tells me there’ll be a special committee meeting tomorrow morning,” Senator Anderson said. “Will you be in town, Orrin?”

Senator Knox frowned.

“I hadn’t planned to be,” he said. “I was going to Illinois for the weekend. But I guess I’ll cancel that.”

“I too,” Brigham Anderson said. “I have to make a speech in New York tomorrow night and was planning to get up to the big city early. But I guess I’ll catch a late plane, now.”

“We thought it would be a good idea to get started on it,” Bob Munson said defensively, “because chances are it will be somewhat lengthy.”

“Somewhat,” Brig said. “Have you talked to Seab?”

“Everybody has talked to Seab,” Senator Munson said sourly. “He’s going to perform on schedule.”

“Then it will be more than somewhat,” Senator Anderson said. “I hear you have plans for me too, Bob.”

“Oh, hell,” Senator Munson said disgustedly. “Can’t Tom keep anything secret?”

“You know he can’t,” Orrin Knox said flatly. “He’s the biggest fool in the Senate.”

“Oh, don’t be harsh,” Stanley Danta said charitably. “He means well in his own odd way.”

“I suppose,” Orrin conceded, “but it’s mighty odd, sometimes.”

“I’m not sure I want to chair any subcommittee, Bob,” Brigham Anderson said quietly. “In a way, I have a prejudice as strong as Seab’s.”

“That’s one reason we want you to do it,” Senator Munson said. “If you’re in charge everybody will know it hasn’t been stacked in his favor, and at the same time they’ll know he’s getting an absolutely fair and considerate hearing.”

“That is true,” Orrin Knox told him. “You have a wonderful reputation for fairness, Brig.”

“Aw, shucks, Senators,” Brigham Anderson said mockingly. “You make me feel all over funny. I still don’t see why I have to get stuck with it, though.”

“For just the reasons we’ve said,” Bob Munson remarked. “It’s practically inevitable.”

Senator Anderson looked at him thoughtfully, and across his handsomely candid young face there came the intent, worried expression his colleagues knew so well in moments of stress.

“I have lots of qualms, Bob,” he said soberly. “Not only national qualms, but personal qualms. Maybe it’s a premonition, or something, but I feel I shouldn’t get mixed up too directly in this.”

“Somebody has to do the Senate’s dirty jobs, Brig,” Stanley Danta said quietly. “If there weren’t a group of us who were willing, they’d never get done, would they?”

The senior Senator from Utah gave the senior Senator from Connecticut a quick smile and his worried expression eased.

“You’re such a nice person, Stanley,” he said. “You really are. Such a gentleman and such a fine one. How can I withstand pressure like that?”

“We’ll all feel better about it, Brigham,” Orrin Knox said.

“That does it,” said Brig with a grin. “I’m lost. Crys, did you ever see such a snow job?”

“You’re up against three old hands,” Crystal told him, “and you haven’t got a chance. I knew you were lost the minute you came in the doorway.”

“You should have warned me,” Brigham Anderson said.

“Oh, it’s fun to watch,” Crystal assured him. “I’ve been brought up on that sort of thing, remember. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

“Poor Hal,” Senator Anderson said with a sigh. “A heartless woman awaits him.”

“Very,” Crystal Danta said softly with a smile. “Oh, so very.”

Suddenly through the Senate side of the Capitol the two rings of the bell for a quorum began their insistent, repeated call, and Bob Munson looked at Stanley Danta in surprise.

“What do you suppose—?” He asked, and just then the slight, brisk figure of Dave Grant, secretary to the Majority, appeared at the door and came to the table with a harried look on his usually impassive face.

“Paul Hendershot is up,” he told Bob Munson. “He’s asked for a quorum and he says he’s going to make a speech about Bob Leffingwell. You’d better get up there.”

“So had we all,” said Orrin Knox. “You go ahead, Bob. I’ll get the check.”

“Thanks, Orrin,” Senator Munson said. “Sorry to rush, Crys, but you know how it is.”

“I was born in a ballot box,” Crystal Danta smiled. “I know.”

* * *

The minute he stepped on the floor Bob Munson could sense that major events were under way, for as always when the Senate was about to get into a hot debate there was an electric tension in the air. Senator Hendershot was standing impassively at his desk, a slight scowl on his face, while the clerk droned again through the roll; around the chamber there was a kind of instinctive tightening-up and battening-down-the-hatches. Members were putting their papers aside and settling back, the pageboys were darting about again, bringing glasses of water to those who thought they might be impelled to speak; above in the public galleries the tourists were leaning forward eagerly, the press gallery was rapidly filling up. There was a general eddying-about all over the chamber, and this time the clerk was not having any trouble getting a quorum. Well over fifty Senators had come in already, Harley Hudson was back in the Chair, and the stage was set. Bob Munson just had time to reach his seat, say a hurried thank you to Senator Trummell and smile at Warren Strickland across the way when the Clerk concluded triumphantly:

“Mr. Wannamaker! Mr. Welch! Mr. Whiteside! Mr. Wilson!”

And the Vice President, after a hurried consultation with the Clerk, made it official.

“Sixty-eight Senators having answered to their names,” he announced, “a quorum is present.”

Senator Munson jumped up. “Mr. President!” he said, just as Paul Hendershot said the same. Paul looked distinctly annoyed, and Senator Munson hastened to reassure him.

“Mr. President,” he said, “I just wanted to ask the distinguished Senator from Indiana how long he intends to speak, because for the benefit of other Senators, I desire to seek a unanimous-consent agreement on the pending Federal Reserve bill as soon as he concludes. Was the Senator planning to speak for fifteen minutes or so?”

At this there was a quick murmur of laughter and far over on the other side John Winthrop of Massachusetts snorted and remarked with audible sarcasm, “Nice try, Bobby!”

“I have no idea at all how long I intend to speak,” Paul Hendershot said dryly, looking about the chamber in his peering, storklike way, “but I think I can assure the distinguished Majority Leader that it is apt to be slightly more than fifteen minutes. In fact,” he added with one of his sudden bursts of indignation, “since the Senator asks, maybe it will be fifteen hours!”

“Attaboy, Paul,” said Cecil Hathaway sotto voce, somewhere in the back. “You tell him, kid.” Bob Munson smiled pleasantly.

“While I am sure we would all find fifteen hours of the Senator from Indiana edifying,” he said, “he is normally so incisive, so cogent, and so expeditious that I still anticipate that fifteen minutes will be more like it. I was only asking the Senator.”

“That’s the trouble!” Paul Hendershot snapped, unappeased. “That’s the way this whole shabby business is being handled. Rush, rush, rush, from the very first moment. I think—in fact, I am prepared to say it for a fact, that there is a deliberate, underhanded attempt to railroad this nomination through the Senate.”

At this Bob Munson flushed angrily, and he was glad to see that Stanley Danta, Orrin Knox, and Lafe Smith were all on their feet, and that across the aisle Warren Strickland was rising deliberately to his.

“Now, see here!” he said with a touch of real anger in his voice. “I have not been party, nor has anyone I know, including the President, been party to any attempt to railroad through any nomination. I resent the remarks of the Senator from Indiana, Mr. President. I regard them as a deliberate, underhanded insult to me personally. I take them as a personal affront.”

“That may be,” Senator Hendershot said angrily, “that may be. I am sorry if the Senator takes my remarks personally. If he takes them personally, I apologize. But someone somewhere in some secret seat of power in some place in this government is trying to railroad this nomination through. It is not the distinguished Majority Leader. It is not the distinguished President of the United States. It is, perhaps, no one known to God or man. But someone is doing it, and the Senator knows it.”

“Mr. President,” Warren Strickland said quietly, forestalling a retort from Senator Munson, “Mr. President, it seems to me that just possibly, at this beginning of what promises to be a long and controversial episode, that Senators might refrain, at least at this stage of the game, from personal imputations and allegations. Not only is it against the rules of the Senate, but it is against the rules of common sense. We have to live with each other, and remarks such as those of the Senator from Indiana do not contribute to our living together in harmony. I regret that the distinguished Senator from Indiana has seen fit to indulge in such language so early in the debate over the nomination, and I am sure that upon reflection he will wish to modify his language in future. Courtesy and common sense would seem to make such a course advisable.”

“I know what I think,” Paul Hendershot said in a milder tone, “but if I have offended anyone, as I said, I apologize. Now, Mr. President,” he went on, as the others resumed their seats, the tension lessened a little, and the Senate and galleries settled down again to listen, “what is behind this peculiar nomination as it comes up to us from the White House?”

Up at the Chair Senator Munson was in hurried conference with the Vice President.

“For Christ’s sake,” he whispered heatedly, “what did you say to Paul?”

“I didn’t say anything to the old bastard,” Harley whispered back with equal heat. “He started right in on me the minute I got to him. He said Seab had been talking to him about it, and he agreed with Seab, and he was going to say so. I asked him to wait until next week, and you saw how he obliged.”

Bob Munson shook his head angrily.

“He’s hopeless,” he said. “Thanks anyway, Harley. Don’t give up. There are plenty of others that need attention.”

“I won’t,” the Vice President whispered. “You can count on me, Bob.”

“Is there some sinister plot against the stability of this Republic?” Paul Hendershot was demanding, pacing back and forth behind his desk, as Bob Munson returned to his seat. “Is this some devious design by which we will be betrayed behind our backs by high officials presumably entrusted with our safety?”

At his side Senator Munson noted that the adjoining desk had finally been claimed by its rightful occupant. Seab was sitting with his legs stretched out, his hands folded across his ample stomach among the lodge and Phi Beta Kappa keys, his head forward in a half-drowsing way. But he wasn’t asleep, Senator Munson saw; a little pleased smile was on his lips and he was humming “Dixie” quietly beneath his breath.

“Dum-de-dum-dum-dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum-dum,” he was humming as Bob Munson leaned toward him fiercely.

“Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” he said in a savage whisper.

“Didn’t think of Paul, did you, Bob?” Seab asked softly. “Didn’t expect him to blow up, did you, now?”

“I’m not surprised,” Senator Munson said. “I’m just surprised you’re not in it. Since when did you hide behind somebody else to do your dirty work for you? One thing I thought you had, Seab, was the courage of your convictions.”

“So I have, Bob,” Senator Cooley said placidly. “So I have. I’ll be talking in a minute.”

“I hope so,” Senator Munson told him, “because I want to answer.”

“Are there not other patriotic men, better equipped to fill this great office, to whom we could accord confirmation more willingly?” Senator Hendershot demanded, and Senator Cooley rose slowly at his desk.

“Mr.—President,” he said softly, and the room quieted down. “Will the Senator from Indiana yield for just a moment to me?”

“I am glad to yield to the distinguished and able Senator from South Carolina,” Paul Hendershot said promptly.

“Can it be?” Senator Cooley asked softly and slowly. “Can—it—really—be, Senators, that this is the only man of all the millions in this great Republic, who is so distinguished and so able and so filled with his country’s interests, that he must be named to this high post? Can it be that there is no—other—man? I find it hard to believe, Senators. I find it mighty hard to believe. Of course, now, I may be mistaken. It may be he is the—only—one. It may be there is no other among us who has the ability and the integrity and the patriotism and the concern for America of this man. But doesn’t it seem a little strange to you, Senators, that he should be the—only—one?”

“Mr. President, will the Senator yield?” Lafe Smith asked crisply from his desk off to the side. Senator Cooley looked around slowly and a paternal smile came gently over his face.

“I am always delighted to yield,” he said softly, “to our able and accomplished young colleague who always knows so much about what we all should do.”

“That may be,” Lafe snapped, flushing, “but if it is, it is immaterial. Does the Senator presume to think he knows more than the President does about what is needed for the office of Secretary of State at this critical juncture of our affairs? Does he think he knows better who the President can work with than does the President himself? I learned early when I came here of the omniscience of the distinguished president pro tempore of the Senate, with all his long decades of service, but I did not learn then nor have I learned since that he is infallible on all subjects under God’s blue sky.”

Senator Cooley smiled in his placid way.

“Now there, Senators,” he said in a tone of wistful regret, “you have an example of the passions this man Leffingwell can arouse. Able young Senators, reared in the ways of their fathers, taught to be courteous at their mothers’ knees, turn on their elders and rend them because of their passions over this disturbing man. It’s disgraceful!” he roared suddenly, raising one hand high above his head and bringing it down in a great angry arc to strike his desk with a bone-jarring crack. “It’s disgraceful that this man should upset the Senate so! Let us have done with him, Senators: Let us reject his nomination! Let us say to the President of the United States, give us a patriot! Give us a statesman! Give us an American!”

A spattering of applause broke from the galleries and Harley Hudson banged his gavel hastily.

“The galleries will be advised,” he said sternly, “that they are here as guests of the Senate and as such they are not permitted to make demon-strations of any kind. The galleries will please observe the rules of the Senate.”

“Mr. President,” Bob Munson said icily, standing side by side with Seab but looking industriously at the Chair, “will the Senator from Indiana yield to me?”

“I yield,” Paul Hendershot said.

“The Senator from South Carolina,” Bob Munson said bitterly, turning his back on him and facing the Senate, “brings to bear all his famous eloquence and invective on Robert Leffingwell. It is not the first time that he has opposed Robert Leffingwell, and it will not be the last; but I venture to assert that his efforts on this occasion will meet with the same success with which they have met on other occasions. Colorful language and dramatic oratory, Mr. President, are not what the Senate needs on this occasion. This occasion is too serious for that. The Senate needs a sober and careful appraisal of this nominee to determine, in its own time and in its own high wisdom, whether he is fitted to fill the great office of Secretary of State of the United States to which the President has appointed him. The Senate is not in a mood for stunts, Mr. President. The matter is worthy of better than that from us.”

At this the visitors in the galleries who hadn’t applauded the first time broke into a rather hasty riffle of approval of their own, and again the Vice President started to gavel them to silence. Half a dozen Senators were on their feet shouting, “Mr. President!” however, so Harley thought better of it and hastily recognized Brigham Anderson.

For a moment, in one of those mutually appraising lulls that come in a heated debate, the senior Senator from Utah looked slowly around the chamber, aware of Henry Lytle sitting nervously on the edge of his chair nearby, of Archibald Joslin across the aisle looking upset in a dignified sort of way, of Johnny DeWilton, white-topped and stubborn, of George Keating watching blearily, and Nelson Lloyd listening intently, of the scattering of clerks, administrative assistants, and members of the House who had come in to stand along the walls as they so often did during major Senate clashes, of the tourists gawping and the press gallery scribbling furiously above, and the pulsating tension in the room. Then he looked directly at the Vice President and began to speak in a calm and level voice.

“Mr. President,” he said slowly, “it is obvious already what all of us have known would be the case since we first heard of this nomination this morning. It has startled, and in some cases dismayed, the Senate. It has created already intense controversy and even bitterness. It has begun to divide us even before we have had a chance to unite on the only issue that should concern us here: can this man represent the United States in the councils of the world as we in the Senate wish it to be represented? The Senator from South Carolina asks if he is the only man who can do the job. That, I submit, is not the question. He is the only man before us, nominated by the President of the United States, to do the job. It is beside the point who else might do it; he is the only man selected to do it. It is up to us now to determine whether he can or not, on his own merits and in his own right. It is this question to which our energies should, indeed must, be directed now.… Senators will recall that I have had occasion in the past to be critical of this nominee, indeed on one occasion to oppose and vote against him. It may be that I shall have occasion to do so again before this nomination is disposed of. The point now is that this nomination is not disposed of, that it has only begun to be disposed of; and that as of now, I do not know what I shall do on this nominee. Nor, I submit, does any honest Senator who is not blinded by prejudice or personal spleen know what he will do on this nominee. That is a secret the future holds, and I submit that we would be better advised now to leave it with the future, until this nomination has gone to committee and come out upon the floor in regular order for us to debate and vote upon.”

“Mr. President!” several Senators said insistently as Brigham Anderson sat down, and Harley saw fit to recognize Orrin Knox. Paul Hendershot protested at once.

“Mr. President,” he said in his acerbic way, “I believe I have the floor. I am not aware that the Senator from Illinois has asked me to yield to him, and I am not aware that I have yielded to him. I did not think I would have to instruct the Vice President in the rules of the Senate.”

For once Harley looked really angry, and the Senate thought, with some delight, that for once it might see him provoked into angry retort. And for once, it was not disappointed.

“The Senator from Indiana,” he said coldly, “is not equipped to instruct the Vice President in anything, let alone the rules of the Senate. The Senator from Indiana has the floor and may dispose of it as he pleases.”

“Very well,” Senator Hendershot said tartly, “then I yield to the Senator from Illinois.”

“The Senator from Illinois,” Harley said in the same cold voice, “is recognized by grace of the Senator from Indiana.”

Amid a general titter, Orrin stood stolidly at his desk, absent-mindedly rearranging the papers upon it. When the titter died he looked up and far away, as though he were seeing things the Senate could not see. This trick of his always brought silence, and it did now.

“Mr. President,” he said in his flat Midwestern tones, “I thank the Senator from Indiana for his courtesy, and I commend the Vice President upon his. It is not easy for the Vice President to preside over the Senate when passions are stirred as they are on this nomination. The Vice President at best does not have an easy job, and in my opinion he discharges it in a manner that should bring the commendation rather than the criticism of Senators who are privileged to work with him.”

At this unexpected and startling compliment, uttered against a background of their differences at the convention, Orrin’s shattered presidential hopes, his intermittent bitterness toward Harley since, and all the rest of it, there was an audible murmur which the Senator from Illinois ignored. The Vice President, looking first astounded, then greatly pleased, bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment. Senator Knox went on, in the same rather faraway manner.

“Mr. President,” he said, “what is the issue here? It is not, as the senior Senator from South Carolina says, whether this man is the only man who can do the job; it is, as the senior Senator from Utah says, that he is the only man before us who has been selected to do the job. Like the Senator from Utah, I too am in doubt about this nomination; I too have opposed Mr. Leffingwell in the past, and I too may do so again in this instance. But I do not know at this minute whether I will or not, and I too submit that no Senator of integrity who really has the interests of his country at heart in this time of her deep trouble can know at this minute either. There is much involved here, Mr. President; much that has not yet even begun to be brought out. We have barely scratched the surface of this nomination and all its implications. I too,” he said, his voice rising suddenly, his left arm shooting out before him with a paper still held tightly in his hand, his whole body twisting with the vigor of his utterance, “I too would like to take the easy way out, Mr. President. I too would like to demagogue. I too would like to say, ‘This man did something to me once, and so I will oppose him forever!’ I too would like to imply that there is ‘some sinister plot against the Republic’ The point is, I do not know, and neither does anybody else. It is so much poppycock to say anybody knows. It is nonsense. It is demagoguery. I will have none of it. I will give him a fair hearing and I will make up my mind after the facts are in. Who among you”—and he turned slowly full around, searching from face to face while the Senate sat in absolute silence—“who among you is so petty, so uncharitable, and yes, so unpatriotic, that he will do otherwise in this hour of his country’s need?”

After which, having proved that Seab was among his equals when it came to rafter-raising, he sat slowly down and returned to the impassive perusal of his papers while the galleries and Harley went once more through their little routine of impulsive applause and cautionary gavel banging.

“All right,” Paul Hendershot said bitterly. “All right. Then I will ask the distinguished Senator from Minnesota a question, I will ask him this, if he will give me an answer: is it not true that the President of the United States called in the Senator from Minnesota this morning and asked him to rush this nomination through, perhaps by next Monday afternoon, if he could possibly do it? Is it not true that this plan was concurred on by the Senator from Minnesota and the distinguished Majority Leader? I want to know the answer to that, Mr. President, and then I yield the floor.”

Tom August got up slowly in his protesting, mole-like way, and looked around the chamber as if seeking solace and support. Apparently he thought he saw neither, for he gripped his desk so hard the press gallery could see his knuckles turn white, and when he spoke it was in his usual soft voice but with an unusual edge of angry resentment.

“Mr. President,” he said softly, “I do not like the tone of the senior Senator from Indiana, nor did I, earlier, like the tone of the senior Senator from South Carolina. These are not tones normally heard in the Senate, Mr. President, and it seems to me there has been a strange loss of courtesy here this afternoon. It is not becoming to the Senate, and I, as one member, protest it. The Senator from Indiana asks if the President of the United States did not ask me to, as he puts it, ‘rush this nomination through,’ when we talked this morning. I am not privileged to divulge my conversations with the President of the United States, and even if I were, I doubt if I should divulge them to the Senator, that is the senior Senator, from Indiana. However, I say this only: the President of the United States very naturally wishes this nomination expedited as much as possible. I assured him that insofar as it lay in my power I would cooperate to this end, subject always to the wishes of the Senate. This, I venture to state, is nothing sinister; it is the natural request of a President and it is the natural rejoinder of a member of his own party who happens to be chairman of the great Committee on Foreign Relations.” And with an asperity very rare to him, he added as he sat down, “I would suggest to the Senator from Indiana and the Senator from South Carolina that if they think they can make anything of that, they do so.”

“Mr. President,” Senator Hendershot began angrily, “Mr. President—” But Senator Cooley forestalled him.

“Mr.—President,” he said in his slow, deliberate, opening manner, “again I beseech Senators to contemplate for a moment the spectacle we are making of ourselves here. Who is causing this bitterness and hatred and division among us? Robert—A.—Leffingwell. Who is disrupting the friendly and cordial flow of legislative interchange, so necessary to our country’s welfare? Robert—A.—Leffingwell. Who is turning this Senate into a cockpit of angry emotions? Robert—A.—No, Senator, no, Senator, I will not yield. I see my friend, the distinguished senior Senator from Michigan, the great Majority Leader of this Senate, who has sat beside me—or, rather, I should say, beside whom I have sat—for all these many years, Mr. President, in the greatest brotherhood and love and harmony—he is on his feet, Mr. President, seeking recognition, asking me to yield—still beside me, Mr. President, but oh, what a difference! Now he stands beside me in bitterness and hate, no longer my brother, no longer my companion in this great legislative body, Mr. President, his face contorted with passion, his tongue thickened with hate, and why, Mr. President?” He bent low toward the Senate, his voice sank far down, and the answer came in a gusty whisper that swept the room: “Because of Robert A. Leffingwell! No, Mr. President, I will not yield to my former brother, or to those other great and distinguished Senators whom I see ranged eagerly before me, the great Senator from Illinois, Mr. Knox, the great Senator from Utah, Mr. Anderson, the kindly and always patient Senators from Connecticut and Idaho, Mr. Danta and Mr. Strickland, my able and determined young friend from Ioway, Mr. Smith—no, Mr. President, I will not yield to them for they, too, turn to me faces full of hate because of Robert A. Leffingwell. I abominate him, Mr. President!” he shouted abruptly, striking his desk so violently that the ink pot hopped out of its slot and sprayed its contents across his midriff, while the galleries gasped. “I abominate him! He is no good, Mr. President! He is evil, Mr. President! He will destroy our beloved America, Mr. President! I beg of you, Senators”—and both arms rose high above his head in an evangelical exhortation—“I beg of you, if you love our dear country, reject this man!” For a long moment he held the pose and then his arms came slowly down.

“And now, Mr. President,” he said softly, turning to Senator Munson with a sleepy little ironic smile, “if my brother the distinguished Majority Leader will permit me, I am an old man, and I should like to sit down.”

And he did so, making no attempt to clean his clothes, but only allowing his coat to fall open a little wider so that all could see his scars of battle.

Of the many courses open to Bob Munson at that moment, he chose the one that long experience told him was best under the circumstances.

“Mr. President,” he said with a calmness that cost him, but he knew he must display it, “I suggest that the Senate return to the regular order of business, the Federal Reserve bill. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on the bill and all amendments thereto at 4 PM Monday, the time between now and then to be divided equally between the Majority and Minority Leaders.”

“Without objection,” Harley Hudson said rapidly—and perhaps because the transition of mood was so abrupt, there was none—“it is so ordered.”

“I yield twenty minutes to the senior Senator from Washington, Mr. Welch,” Senator Munson said and sat down, reaching over as he did so to pick up Seab’s empty inkwell from the floor and, without looking at him, replace it carefully in its socket on the desk.

* * *

An hour later, after extending Julius Welch’s time for the third time running, he turned his chair over to Tom Trummell again and went back to the cloakroom, just off the floor at the back, still ignoring Seab and going out of his way to avoid Paul Hendershot. There were many times and many occasions in the Senate when a sharp exchange on the floor was followed by backslapping and wisecracking and amicable interchanges that wiped out animosities and soothed bruised feelings; but there were other times when matters went too deep for easy persiflage and the sting was longer dying. This was one of them; Senator Munson was in no mood yet to pretend that what had happened was just a jolly romp among good friends, and obviously the others weren’t either. Seab hadn’t spoken for an hour, and Paul Hendershot ostentatiously turned his back when the Majority Leader started up the aisle. Bob Munson had the sinking, unhappy feeling that comes when something that everybody has been talking about casually as bad suddenly turns out to be actually as bad as everybody has been saying. In the short space of an hour anger had been fortified, resentments had been strengthened, patterns of opposition had been frozen; it was suddenly a different Senate, in relation to Bob Leffingwell and in relation to itself, from what it had been an hour ago; and it seemed an ominous change. He knew he was not alone in this feeling, for there was a certain subdued air about the Senate that came when its members knew beyond all evading that they were really in for it. After the heated exchange of the afternoon, they knew it now, and since the Senate is composed in the main of amiable gentlemen who like each other and had much rather get along together than tear each other apart, the Majority Leader was not the only man who felt glum.

Nonetheless, if they were in for it, they were in for it, he reflected as he pushed open the swinging glassed doors and entered the cloakroom, and they all might as well get down to business about it. On the tide of this thought he looked about the noisy little room, now jammed with Senators lounging on the sofas, sitting in the chairs, and busy on the telephones, and picked out Powell Hanson of North Dakota and Lafe Smith sitting together at one side. Powell raised a hand in greeting and made room for him on the sofa. Lafe’s greeting was terse.

“That old son of a bitch,” he said. “His able young colleague, am I, betraying what I learned at my mother’s knee, am I? He lost a vote by being so damned smart.”

“Did he?” Bob Munson asked curiously. Lafe paused and then grinned.

“Well,” he said honestly, “maybe not, I don’t know. But he lost a friend, anyway.”

“Did he ever have one?” Powell Hanson asked, and Bob Munson smiled.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I’m one, his dearly beloved brother and companion. I don’t begrudge Seab his little show; you’ll have to admit it’s about the best in the Senate. And I think in the long run it loses him more than it gains him, so I don’t mind if he wants to put it on. It may help me, when all’s said and done.”

“You’ll need help,” Charles Abbott of New Hampshire observed, coming over and breaking in as was his wont. His face of a very old angel who had taken a detour through hell looked even more raddled than usual today, Bob Munson noted; what in God’s name did Charlie do at nights? It was something everybody wondered and nobody knew.

“You going to give it to me?” Senator Munson asked, and Senator Abbott looked at him with that innocent candor that usually precedes senatorial evasion. This time, however, the answer was surprisingly direct, considering the place and circumstances.

“Are we going to get that atomic sub contract for the Portsmouth Navy yard?” Charlie Abbott asked.

This, Bob Munson knew, was the sort of thing he was going to be running into repeatedly as the Leffingwell nomination progressed, and he might as well set his pattern right now, particularly since several Senators nearby had overheard the challenge and had quieted to listen for his answer to it.

“We’ll have to wait and see, Charlie,” he said crisply. “If you help us, we’ll help you.”

“You help first,” Senator Abbott said pleasantly, but with a little tightening around his eyes.

“Run along, Charlie,” Senator Munson said, starting to turn back to Lafe and Powell. “I haven’t got time to play games today.” Senator Abbott placed a hand tightly on his shoulder.

“God damn it,” he said angrily, “my people need that contract. We have eight hundred unemployed in that town right now, and Portsmouth isn’t any metropolis. That’s a lot of people for a town that size, Bob. The Administration had better come through on this, or by God, there’ll be trouble, not only out there”—he gestured toward the floor—“but up there at the polls. We could lose New Hampshire next year, Bob. It’s changing fast and it’s got troubles.”

“Haven’t we all,” said Bob Munson dryly. Then he moderated his tone.

“See here, Charlie,” he said, looking beyond him at Cecil Hathaway of Delaware and Ed Parrish of Nevada and Rhett Jackson of North Carolina, all of whom were listening intently, “the President is aware of your situation there, and he wants to do the best he can for you, and I think you’ll find Portsmouth won’t be forgotten. But it’s not going to be remembered on any blackmail basis, I give you my word as Majority Leader on that. Now if you want to come in with us on Bob Leffingwell, wonderful, your support will be welcome and valuable. If you don’t, we’ll make out. It’s up to you Charlie. I’ll be hoping to hear from you favorably one of these days soon.”

Senator Abbott looked at him for a long moment, and Senator Munson looked impassively back. The eyes of the Senator from New Hampshire fell first.

“Okay, Bob,” he said, but coldly. “We’ll have to see.”

“I guess we will, Charlie,” Bob Munson said, unmoved, as Charles Abbott walked away. Ed Parrish waved ironically from across the room.

“Another day, another dollar,” he observed dryly; and Bob Munson, aware that here was one vote he could probably count on, laughed out loud.

“I hope so,” he said. Senator Parrish smiled.

“I’m sure of it,” he said. “Pride goeth before a surrender, particularly where Charlie’s concerned.”

“Of course,” Cecil Hathaway remarked, “you may find all of us that difficult too, you know, Bobby.”

Senator Munson smiled, but his reply was pointed.

“I trust you all heard the answer he got,” he said, and Cecil Hathaway grinned.

“How could we help it,” he asked, “when you were so careful to make sure we would?”

Bob Munson laughed.

“You’re just too sharp, Ceece,” he said. “I can’t have any secrets around here.”

“Not from us who know and love you,” Ceece said jovially. “That’s for sure.”

“Tell me,” Bob Munson said as the others turned away and he could concentrate again on his two younger colleagues, “what are you going to do, Powell?”

“I’m for him,” Senator Hanson said promptly, his trim blond head nodding vigorously. “I always have been, as you know.”

“Yes,” Bob Munson said, “one man who’s never had any doubts about Bob Leffingwell. You’re a rarity, my boy.”

“It’s largely a matter of conviction,” Powell Hanson said. “We see things pretty much alike, Bob and I, in spite of the fact that I, unlike him, am not engaged in any sinister plots against the Republic.”

“What got into Paul?” Lafe asked, and Powell snorted.

“He’s always been a damned isolationist,” he said, “he’s never changed.”

“Apparently Indiana hasn’t either,” Bob Munson observed. “They keep sending him back.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Powell said. “Something people forget, sometimes: if our people didn’t like us, we wouldn’t be here.”

“A little truism that is overlooked by some of our higher and mightier publications now and then,” Senator Munson agreed. “I’d like your help on this, Powell, if you’re willing.”

“Gladly,” Senator Hanson said. “I’ll do whatever I can, Bob.”

“Let me know what you hear,” Senator Munson said, rising. “I’m going over to the other cave and talk to Warren Strickland for a minute.”

“Send for us if you need help,” Cecil Hathaway called as he started out the door. Bob Munson laughed.

“I think my passport is still good,” he said.

As he traversed the short distance from his own side across the center aisle past the main door to the Minority cloakroom, he noted that Taylor Ryan was now up and arguing bluntly with Jay Welch on the Federal Reserve bill while Murfee Andrews cast in waspish comments whenever he got the chance. Harley had left the Chair and disappeared somewhere, gracious gray Lloyd B. Cavanaugh of Rhode Island was sitting in for him, and in the Majority Leader’s own chair Tom Trummell had given way to John J. McCafferty of Arkansas, a wispy little old man of eighty-three who always looked as though he would blow away in the next high wind but somehow clung to the well-riveted affections of the people of Arkansas in spite of it. Irving Steinman of New York was sitting in for Warren Strickland in the Minority Leader’s chair, soberly signing correspondence and ignoring the debate as he did so. Elsewhere about the floor Senator Munson spotted Clement Johnson of Delaware, apple-cheeked and bright-eyed, chatting amiably with chunky little Leo P. Richardson of Florida, who was sitting on the edge of his chair and swinging his legs, which were just too short to reach the floor. Dick McIntyre of Idaho, small, dark and swarthy as befitted his Indian blood, was gesticulating violently to Raymond Robert Smith of California, tall, elegant, handsome, and faintly, just faintly, willowy; Lief Erickson of Minnesota, big, bluff and biting, was talking forcefully to Porter Owens of Montana, small, hostile-looking and obviously unimpressed; and Luis Valdez of New Mexico, young, earnest and bespectacled, was arguing suavely with Seab Cooley’s dark-eyed, dark-visaged colleague from South Carolina, H. Harper Graham. In the galleries above the tourists were thinning out, only a corporal’s guard of wire service reporters manned the press gallery; the afternoon was wearing on. He pushed open the door of the Minority cloakroom and walked in to be greeted by the usual jocular ribbing that always greeted his rare appearances in that enemy enclave.

“Lock up the silver!” Allen Whiteside of Florida cried in his jolly, plum-pudding way. “We’re being invaded!”

“Under which king, Bezonian?” demanded Verne Cramer of South Dakota lazily from a sofa where he was stretched out full length with a pillow under his head, “Speak or die.”

“The wits they have in the Minority,” Bob Munson said wonderingly. “Why is it they can never get control of the government?”

“It’s our contention,” said John Winthrop of Massachusetts in his dryly twinkling way, “that the nation prefers quality to quantity.”

“That’s no way to build post offices,” Bob Munson observed.

“Or conduct a foreign policy either, hm, Bobby?” Winthrop of Massachusetts suggested. Senator Munson made a face.

“It must be nice to have all the fun and none of the responsibility,” he said, and John Able Winthrop snorted.

“I never heard it put with such classic simplicity,” he said. “I only wish you’d tell me how to vote, if it’s as simple as all that.”

“I could tell you,” Bob Munson said, “but you wouldn’t listen.”

“I might,” Winthrop of Massachusetts said. “I may. But not yet awhile, My Yankee ancestors caution me to go slow on this one.” He clucked between his teeth in a parody of his Yankee ancestors and smiled blandly at the Majority Leader. “Yes siree bob, Bob,” he said.

“You and your Yankee ancestors,” Senator Munson said. “I wonder if your grandfather and mine had all these headaches when they sat in the Senate together from Massachusetts.”

“First World War?” Senator Winthrop said. “I guess they did. Probably felt the end of the world had come then, too.”

“I suppose,” Bob Munson said. “Only this time it probably has. Where’s Warren, Win? I thought I’d find him in here.”

“He’ll be back shortly. He got a call from the White House and decided to take it in his private office down the hall.”

“The White House?” Senator Munson said. “The President’s really working, isn’t he?”

“Didn’t he tell you he was going to call Warren?” John Winthrop asked in surprise. “I thought to hear Paul Hendershot talk that the two of you were in cahoots in some big plot to stampede us.”

“When did anybody ever stampede the Senate?” Bob Munson asked, and his tone was sufficiently wistful so that Senator Winthrop laughed.

“You sound as though you wished it were possible, Bobby,” he said. “What’s the matter, is life getting complicated?”

“It wasn’t so very at noon,” Senator Munson admitted, “but it is now. Anybody made any estimates over here?”

“Just what Warren says he told you this morning,” Senator Winthrop said. “It hasn’t changed much since then.”

“Maybe Seab has increased the tally some,” Senator Munson suggested, making the sounding he had come over to make; Senator Winthrop showed an expression of distaste.

“Seab,” he said, “is overdoing it already. I knew he would, but not this soon. That stuff goes big with the galleries, and you can see what the press is making of it”—and he held up the final edition of the Star with a banner headline reading SENATE IN BITTER ROW ON LEFFINGWELL—“but it doesn’t go big here. At least not with the old hands who count.”

“Well, I hope not,” Senator Munson said thoughtfully, peering out through the glass of the doorway into the Senate chamber just in time to see Albert G. Cockrell of Ohio go sweeping by with his slickly handsome good looks, his covey of adoring aides, and his hot-pants yen for the White House, “I hope not.”

“Anyway,” Allen Whiteside spoke up with a chuckle from across the cloakroom, “you know the Minority can always be convinced by a sound and logical argument from you, Robert. It’s like the dentist said to the salesgirl in Woody’s lingerie department—”

Bob Munson held up a hand.

“Not today, Al,” he said in a pleading tone. “I’m too weak to stand your little funnies. All I want is your lousy vote.”

Senator Whiteside gave one of his total laughs that started at the top of his head and worked down gradually, with many secondary earthquakes and other seismological disturbances, through his ample paunch to the tip of his toes.

“Ho, ho, ho,” he chortled like some cynical old Santa Claus who had been around for a long time, which he had, “do you now? And what will you give me for that?”

“I didn’t come over here to bargain,” Bob Munson said. “I just had to slap Charlie Abbott down about that sub contract and I’m not about to come over and bargain with the Minority when I won’t bargain with my own side.”

“You’ll bargain, Bob,” Allen Whiteside said shrewdly. “Not right now, but you’ll bargain. The day’s going to come, on this one.”

“We’ll see,” Senator Munson said. “What are you reading, Verne?”

“The Federalist,” Verne Cramer of South Dakota said in his lazy, half-mocking way. “I take a refresher course in it about once a year, right after I reread the unexpurgated Arabian Nights. What’s on your mind?”

“Ha,” Bob Munson said tersely. Senator Cramer laughed.

“Tell the Prez to call me,” he suggested. “Maybe I can be had, with the right persuasion.”

“Ha,” Bob Munson said again, and looking once more through the glass into the chamber he finally saw Warren Strickland appear down the center aisle, tap Irving Steinman on the shoulder with a smile, and reclaim his seat at the Minority Leader’s desk.

“Take care,” Senator Munson advised the Minority cloakroom’s inhabitants, and went down to take back his own seat from John J. McCafferty. The ancient junior Senator from Arkansas was asleep, which didn’t matter because Taylor Ryan had the floor for an hour’s time on the Federal Reserve bill and was droning along in his sleek Princetonian way. When Senator Munson touched Senator McCafferty on the arm the old man jumped and looked up with a sheepish smile.

“Sorry, Bob,” he said apologetically, rising somewhat shakily to his feet. “Just dropped off. Taylor isn’t—he doesn’t—well, you know Taylor. I just dropped off.”

“No harm done,” Bob Munson said with a smile. “I would have, too. By the way, where’s Arly Richardson?”

“Haven’t seen him all day,” said Arly’s colleague. “Probably cooking up hell someplace.”

“For me,” Bob Munson said, and the old man chuckled thinly.

“Wouldn’t know, Bob,” he said. “Wouldn’t tell if I did know.”

“Thanks, John,” Senator Munson said. “Don’t get caught pinching the waitresses.”

Senator McCafferty looked startled, then laughed so violently Senator Munson thought he would fall down.

“Better that than some other ways, Bob,” he said between chokes of laughter. “Better that than some others!”

“Bring me some of that goat-gland extract, will you?” Bob Munson requested. “I could use it.”

But at this Senator McCafferty was completely overcome, and gesturing Bob Munson away with a gnarled and withered hand he went laughing and choking and wheezing and chuckling and staggering back to his desk at the side of the room while Senator Munson watched and marveled that he could make it without falling down.

The afternoon was drawing on apace, he noted, and he was beginning to get that restless, impatient feeling he usually did around 5 PM. It ought to be time to quit pretty soon, and he was ready for it. He hunched his chair across the aisle to a place alongside Warren Strickland’s and leaned against his arm confidentially.

“I hear you got the word,” he said, and the Minority Leader smiled.

“I see you hear I got the word,” he said blandly.

“Was there anything I should know?” Senator Munson asked. Senator Strickland looked even blander.

“Just a chat between old friends,” he said, “on the parlous times in which we live.”

“You told him how many votes you could deliver for him,” Bob Munson suggested.

“I estimated how many votes I could deliver against him,” Warren Strickland said. “He seemed startled but undismayed.”

“That’s my boy,” Bob Munson said.

“I told him the Administration could probably make some headway on this side of the aisle,” Senator Strickland said seriously. “Particularly if Seab keeps on performing.”

“And Orrin doesn’t join him,” Bob Munson said glumly.

“Orrin?” Senator Strickland asked, surprised. “He certainly didn’t sound much like it this afternoon.”

“Orrin is a fair-minded man,” Senator Munson said, “but he didn’t commit himself to anything.… Let’s get out of here,” he added abruptly. “It’s almost five and we’ve all got to get ready for Dolly’s.”

“I’m game,” Warren Strickland said, surveying the floor which now was empty of everyone save Taylor Ryan, Murfee Andrews, Julius Welch, and a handful of clerks and pageboys. “Taylor ought to be just about through.”

And so, in five more minutes, he was, concluding with a spiteful flourish that threatened to provoke Murfee and Julius into lengthy rejoinders. Senator Munson, however, was on his feet in a flash asking for recognition, and Harley Hudson, back in the Chair for the concluding moments of the session, hurriedly gave it to him.

“Mr. President,” Bob Munson said firmly, “I move that the Senate stand in recess until twelve noon on Monday next.”

“Without objection,” said Harley, banging his gavel, “it is so ordered,” and at once the pageboys began leaping about the chamber, shoving papers into desks, banging desk covers, shouting and calling to one another again in the big tan fishbowl of a room as the last tourists left, the press gallery emptied out, and the Majority Leader and his few remaining colleagues moved slowly out the doors.

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Framed