Something of this impatience was expressed by the cries of the crowd that gathered in the station at Joliet, after the train had rolled by the high stone walls of the penitentiary, and Garwood, growing more accustomed to his position, allowed himself to enjoy, as he saw men peering curiously in at him, the distinction a man feels in riding in a private car.
But the day was fully awake now, and the national excitement that for a week had found its dynamic center in that car, began to impress itself upon its occupants; the newspaper correspondents who traveled with the candidate began to make notes now and then after they had learned the name of the town they were passing; while jacketed darkies began to slip about in their morning work, and at last the candidate himself came into the salon, clean and fresh, blinking his eyes in the sun, as he smiled in a courtly way and said, as if they were members of his suite traveling with a king:
“Gentlemen, good morning.”
And then he looked about him as if he had lost something.
“Is the colonel up yet?” he asked.
His secretary at that instant appeared, pursued by a black porter whisking at his blue clothes with a long, thin broom.
“Ah,” he said, “there you are. Did you rest well?”
“Fairly,” said the colonel. “Papers come yet?”
Before the candidate could reply, the chairman of the state central committee had taken Garwood by the sleeve and drawn him up before the candidate.
“This is Mr. Garwood, our candidate for Congress in the Thirteenth District.”