“There’s a good fellow, I should say,” he had remarked to the member at the desk next to him. “Doesn’t know what to do, exactly—isn’t quite sure what he has come for—but means to accomplish it, whatsoever it may turn out to be, to the best of his ability. He’d be glad to make friends. He’s used to neighbours and unceremonious intimacies.”
He made friends with him himself and found the acquaintance of interest at times. The faithfully reproduced atmosphere of Barnesville had almost a literary colour. Occasionally, though not frequently, he encouraged delineation of Jenny and Tom Scott and Thacker and “the boys.” He had even inhaled at a distance vague whiffs of Sophronia’s waffles.
On the morning after the evening spent at Dupont Circle Judge Rutherford frankly buttonholed him in the lobby.
“Farquhar,” he said, “I’m chock full of a story. It kept me awake half the night. I want to ask your advice about it. It’s about a claim.”
“You shouldn’t have let it keep you awake,” replied Farquhar. “Claims are not novel enough. It’s my opinion that Washington is more than half populated just now with people who have come to present claims.”
Judge Rutherford’s countenance fell a little as the countenance of an enthusiast readily falls beneath the breath of non-enthusiasm.
“Well,” he said, “I guess there are plenty of them—but there are not many like this. You never heard such a story. It would be worth listening to, even if you were in the humour to walk ten miles to kick a claim.”
Farquhar laughed.
“I have been in them, Guv’nor,” he said. “The atmosphere is heavy with carpet-baggers who all have a reason for being paid for something by the Government. There’s one of them now—that little Hoosier hanging about the doorway. He’s from North Carolina, and wants pay for a herd of cattle.”
In the hall outside the lobby a little man stood gazing with pale small eyes intent upon the enchanted space within. He wore a suit of blue jeans evidently made in the domestic circle. He scanned each member of Congress who went in or out, and his expression was a combination of furtive eagerness and tentative appeal.