“Olive's still scared to death for fear I'll get run into, or run over somebody or somethin',” he observed. “I tell her I can navigate that car now the way I used to navigate the old President Hayes, and I could do that walkin' in my sleep. There's a little exaggeration there,” he added, with a grin. “It takes about all my gumption when I'm wide awake to turn the flivver around in a narrow road, but I manage to do it. . . . Well, what are you doin' in here, Al?” he added. “Readin' the Item's prophesy about how big your majority's goin' to be?”
Albert smiled. “I dropped in here to wait for you, Grandfather,” he replied. “The novel-writing mill wasn't working particularly well, so I gave it up and took a walk.”
“To the parsonage, I presume likely?”
“Well, I did stop there for a minute or two.”
“You don't say! I'm surprised to hear it. How is Helen this mornin'? Did she think you'd changed much since you saw her last night?”
“I don't know. She didn't say so if she did. She sent her love to you and Grandmother—”
“What she had left over, you mean.”
“And said to tell you not to tire yourself out electioneering for me. That was good advice, too. Grandfather, don't you know that you shouldn't motor all the way to Trumet and back a morning like this? I'd rather—much rather go without the votes than have you do such things.”
Captain Zelotes seated himself in his desk chair.
“But you ain't goin' to do without 'em,” he chuckled. “Obed Nye—he's chairman of the Trumet committee—figgers you'll have a five-to-one majority. He told me to practice callin' you 'the Honorable' because that's what you'd be by Tuesday night of week after next. And next winter Mother and I will be takin' a trip to Washin'ton so as to set in the gallery and listen to you makin' speeches. We'll be some consider'ble proud of you, too, boy,” he added, with a nod.