There were, of course, two or three other parties, small and without hope of success, so that the men who belonged to them could honestly say what they thought, but it was not considered respectable or dignified to belong to any of these smaller parties, and the men who adhered to them were ridiculed and ostracized and made to feel ashamed.
Everywhere in Washington, where all depend in some way upon the Government, in the cloak rooms of the two houses of Congress, in the rotundas and lobbies of hotels, in the clubs and bar-rooms, in drawing rooms and parlors, and in the secret chambers of the White House itself, men talked of nothing but these national conventions. In Congress business was dragging. The usual daily sessions were held, and perfervid speeches were delivered, but there was no legislation, which was perhaps just as well. Both parties feared just then the possible effect legislation might have on the voters, and each sought to put the other in an unpopular attitude before the people. In a word, as the correspondents wrote in the lengthened specials they wired to their newspapers each night, the politicians at Washington were playing politics.
To Garwood, however, this life was full and satisfying. To saunter over to the House at noon, to saunter back, to lean at the corner of the little bar in the Arlington, one foot cocked over the other, his broad hat on the back of his head, and the Havana cigar between his teeth tilted at an angle parallel with the line of his hat brim, thus preserving to the eye the symmetry of the whole striking picture he knew he made--this was existence for him.
"You'll be on yoah state delegation to the national convention, I take it, suh?" Colonel Bird would say to him.
"Well," Garwood would reply, "I don't know yet whether I'll go on at large or not. It'll all depend on the situation when we get down to Springfield. Unless the boys feel that I could do more good somewhere else, I'll go on. Anyway, I'll go from the district."
"Well, you'll be theah, I'm suah, suh. Boy--make us anothah of those mint juleps. And, boy!--if you will allow me, suh----" the colonel bowed in his courtly old-school way to Garwood--"don't mash the mint this time, just pinch the sprigs, oah twis' them, so as to avoid the bittah flavah you othahwise impaht to yoah concoction. I find it ve'y difficult, Colonel," the old gentleman continued, turning to Garwood, "to get a julep made prope'ly out of Kentucky."