The Honorable Heman Atkins sat in the library of his Washington home,
before a snapping log fire, reading a letter. Mr. Atkins had, as he
would have expressed it, "served his people" in Congress for so many
years that he had long since passed the hotel stage of living at the
Capital. He rented a furnished house on an eminently respectable street,
and the polished doorplate bore his name in uncompromising characters.

The library furniture was solid and dignified. Its businesslike
appearance impressed the stray excursionist from the Atkins district,
when he or she visited the great man in whose affairs we felt such a
personal interest. Particularly impressive and significant was a map of
the district hanging over the congressman's desk, and an oil painting
of the Atkins mansion at Bayport, which, with the iron dogs and urns
conspicuous in its foreground, occupied the middle of the largest wall
space.

The cheery fire was very comforting on a night like this, for the sleet
was driving against the windowpanes, the sidewalks were ankle deep in
slush, and the wet, cold wind from the Potomac was whistling down the
street. Somewhere about the house an unfastened shutter slammed in the
gusts. Mr. Atkins should have been extremely comfortable as he sat there
by the fire. He had spent many comfortable winters in that room. But now
there was a frown on his face as he read the letter in his hand. It was
from Simpson, and stated, among other things, that Cyrus Whittaker had
been absent from Bayport for over two weeks, and that no one seemed
to know where he had gone. "The idea seems to be that he started for
Washington," wrote Tad; "but if that is so, it is queer you haven't
seen him. I am suspicious that he is up to something about that harbor
business. I should keep my eye peeled if I was you."