“They are as straightforward as a lot of children,” he said. “They have nothing to hide, and they wouldn’t know how to hide it if they had. It would be rather a joke if——” And he laughed again.
“If what?” asked Rutherford.
“Ah, well! if that very fact was the thing which carried them through,” his laugh ending in a shrewd smile.
This carried the ingenuous mind of his companion beyond its depth.
“I don’t see where the joke would come in,” he said, rather ruefully. “I should have thought nothing else would do it for them.”
Farquhar slapped him on the shoulder.
“So you would,” he said. “That’s why you are the best advocate they could have. You are all woven out of the same cloth. You stand by them—and so will I.”
Judge Rutherford seized his hand and shook it with affectionately ardent pumpings.
“That’s what I wanted to make sure of,” he said. “I’m going to work at this thing, and I want a man to help me who knows the ropes. Lord, how I should like to go back to Hamlin and tell Jenny and the boys that I’d put Tom through.”
And as they walked up the enclosed road to the Capitol he devoted himself to describing anew Big Tom’s virtue, popularity, and witticisms.