"Yes; it is. What do you want?"

"Hey? Is this where the Honorable Heman Atkins lives?"

"Yes, yes, I tell you! This is Mr. Atkins speaking. What do you want?"

"Oh! is that you, Heman? This is Whittaker--Cy Whittaker. Understand?"

Mr. Atkins understood. Yet for an instant he did not reply. He had been
thinking, as he sat by the fire, of certain persons and certain ugly,
though remote, possibilities. Now, from a mysterious somewhere, one of
those persons was speaking to him. The hand holding the receiver shook
momentarily.

"Hello! I say, Heman, do you understand? This is Whittaker talkin'."

"I--er--understand," said the congressman, slowly. "Well, sir?"

"I'm here in Washin'ton."

"I have been informed that you were in the city. Well, sir?"

"Oh! knew I was here, did you? Is that so? Who told you? Tad wrote, I
suppose, hey?"

The congressman did not reply immediately. This man, whom he disliked
more than anyone else in the world, had an irritating faculty of putting
his finger on the truth. And the flippancy in the tone was maddening.
Mr. Atkins was not used to flippancy.