“Good evening, Cap’n Townsend,” he said. “Well, here I am, you see.”
“Glad to see you, Mooney,” declared the captain. “It was good of you to come. You are pretty busy these days, I expect. Have a chair.”
Mooney took the chair which was offered him. He crossed his knees.
“Why, yes,” he admitted. “Yes, I am pretty busy just now, that’s a fact. Never too busy to oblige an old friend though. I happened to be in Trumet when your letter came and I was very glad to drive up and see you. I was sorry to hear of your sickness. You look quite like yourself again. As well as you ever did, I should say.”
If there was a very slight hint of patronage in the Congressman’s manner it was no more than should be expected of a Congressman. And in this case it was unintentional. The Honorable Mooney was not wholly at ease concerning the purpose of this interview to which he had been summoned. The letter he had received was brief and polite. If Mr. Mooney could make it convenient to drop in at the Harniss house some evening soon, Foster Townsend would consider his doing so a favor. There was a little matter, of interest to both, to be talked over. He—Townsend—had not been well or he should come to Trumet. Mooney had replied by telegraph naming this Wednesday evening at nine. And in the interval between the receipt of the letter and that moment he had been wondering what the little matter of interest might be. There was but one which offered itself as a probability, and that little matter was all right, settled beyond change. Nevertheless—well, the Honorable Alpheus was not entirely free from curiosity, perhaps even from anxiety.
Foster Townsend received the gratifying assurance concerning his robust appearance with a rather dubious shake of the head.
“I don’t know, Mooney,” he observed. “When a man of my age has been as sick as I was he doesn’t get up again in a minute. However, I’m not dead, and that is something. No, I’m not even as dead as—well, as some folks think I am. Have a cigar?”
Mooney accepted the cigar. Townsend also took one and they lit and smoked. The captain mentioned the fine weather they had for the past few days, also the promise of a good cranberry crop that fall.
“You will be glad of that, Mooney,” he observed. “Everybody knows you are the father of that cranberry bill that has done so much for us in this section.”
The Congressman glanced at him. The Townsend face was grave, there was not even the faintest twinkle in the Townsend eye. Nevertheless Mr. Mooney’s slight uneasiness became a shade less slight. Was this man making fun of him? It was time he found out.