Hugo interested himself in politics and the appearance of politics. He read the Congressional Record, he talked with everyone he met, he went daily to the Capitol and listened to the amazing pattern of harangue from the lips of innumerable statesmen. In looking for a cause his eye fell naturally on the problem of disarmament. Hugo saw at once that it was a great cause and that it was bogged in the greed of individuals. It is not difficult to become politically partisan in the Capitol of any nation. It was patent to Hugo that disarmament meant a removal of the chance for war; Hugo hated war. He moved hither and thither, making friends, learning, entertaining, never exposing his plan—which his new friends thought to be lobbying for some impending legislation.

He picked out an individual readily enough. Some of the men he had come to know were in the Senate, others in the House of Representatives, others were diplomats, newspaper reporters, attachés. Each alliance had been cemented with care and purpose. His knowledge of an enemy came by whisperings, by hints, by plain statements.

Congressman Hatten, who argued so eloquently for laying down arms and picking up the cause of humanity, was a guest of Hugo’s.

“Danner,” he said, after a third highball, “you’re a sensible chap. But you don’t quite get us. I’m fighting for disarmament—”

“And making a grand fight—”

The Congressman waved his hand. “Sure. That’s what I mean. You really want this thing for itself. But, between you and me, I don’t give a rap about ships and guns. My district is a farm district. We aren’t interested in paying millions in taxes to the bosses and owners in a coal and iron community. So I’m against it. Dead against it—with my constituency behind me. Nobody really wants to spend the money except the shipbuilders and steel men. Maybe they don’t, theoretically. But the money in it is too big. That’s why I fight.”

“And your speeches?”

“Pap, Danner, pure pap. Even the yokels in my home towns realize that.”

“It doesn’t seem like pap to me.”

“That’s politics. In a way it isn’t. Two boys I was fond of are lying over there in France. I don’t want to make any more shells. But I have to think of something else first. If I came from some other district, the case would be reversed. I’d like to change the tariff. But the industrials oppose me in that. So we compromise. Or we don’t. I think I could put across a decent arms-limitation bill right now, for example, if I could get Willard Melcher out of town for a month.”

“Melcher?”