“Just that. He’ll stand all sorts of criticism about his start in life. In fact, he revels in talking of his rise to anyone who’ll listen. But when it comes to guying anything in his present exalted——”
“What does the ‘R. R.’ at the end of his name over the gate stand for? I’ve seen the inscription often enough, but——”
“‘Railroader.’ He uses it as a sort of title. Life for him is one long railroad, and——”
“And now we’re to do him honor at the terminus?”
“If you like to put it that way. Perhaps ‘junction’ would hit it closer. It was awfully good of you, Grace, to come. I——”
“Of course it was. If I didn’t want a try at Washington I’d never have dared it. It will be in all the papers to-morrow. He’ll see to that. And then—I hate to think what everyone will say. I suppose we’re the first civilized people who ever passed under that atrocious hanging mortuary chapel, aren’t we?”
“Hardly as bad as that. If it’s any comfort to you, there are plenty more in the same box as ourselves, to-night.”
“But surely everybody in Granite can’t want to run for Congress?”
“No. But enough people have axes of their own to grind to make it worth their while to visit the Conover whetstone. When a man who can float companies at a word, boom or smash a dozen different stocks, swing the Legislature, make himself heard from here to Washington, and carries practically every newspaper in the Mountain State in his vest pocket; when——”
“When such a man whistles, there are some people who find it wise not to be deaf. But what on earth does he want us for?”