He had so much to say, and they had so much to say, that none of them knew where to begin. The consequence was a genuine hubbub of voices and a babble of sounds. Hiram Blake, as his relative, naturally claimed his attention. These two talked in whispers for quite a while and the things that Barry learned from his uncle made him very happy indeed. His mother was well and contented, and pleased with the progress that he was making in Washington.
After he had finished his talk with his uncle, Barry turned his attention to Mr. Smithers. He had to shake hands with him again and again in order to convince himself that it was really the old schoolmaster himself in the flesh that stood before him. Mr. Daniel Smithers, it might be said, parenthetically, was a different person in Washington from Mr. Smithers in Cleverly. He was dressed neatly and in good taste, and had indulged in the luxury of a shave and a hair cut. Mr. Smithers, like most men of his class in the east, was not only highly educated, but was a man of great capacity, and from the moment he landed in Washington he had been fairly drinking in knowledge. He absorbed facts and figures and information generally as a sponge absorbs water. While the other members of the party had been indulging in the pleasure that comes from viewing monuments and paintings, Mr. Smithers had been making the rounds of the departments, and picking up odd bits of information concerning the government of the country, that he was to retain in his wonderful head the rest of his life. He visited the Treasury, Patent Office, and the computing department of the Census Bureau.
Barry looked at him in open-eyed wonder. He had the usual amount of boyish enthusiasm upon the subject of sight-seeing, but he could not understand the motive that would lead a man to visit what he considered the dullest departments of the Government.
"What in the world did you visit the Census Bureau for?" he asked.
"To satisfy the curiosity which I inherited from Mother Eve," was the dry response.
"But," protested Barry, "it is nothing but figures, and to me figures are so dry."
"Well, it is all a question of taste, my boy. To my mind there is nothing in the world so romantic and so fascinating as figures. I would sooner add up a column of figures any day in the week than read the finest poem that was ever written."
Barry shook his head.
"I can't understand that feeling," he said.
"I suppose not, but anyhow, this census business has a special attraction for me. I wondered how they computed the figures after they gathered them."