The man who thus burst into Senator Norman's sitting room at nine o'clock in the morning without waiting for an invitation was an unpleasant but important personage--none other than J. J. Thompson (one never thought of calling him "Mr."), Norman's private political manager in all matters that involved handling the people's vote.
He was a short, stoutish, belligerent type, about forty-five, with thin, untidy hair, a thin, untidy moustache, and, somewhere between the moustache and the hair, a pair of small blue eyes, which seemed incapable of any other expressions than aggressiveness and anger. Senator Norman--the real Norman--had long found him nearly as disagreeable as the reader will find him, but so useful in many political contingencies that he had never been able to bring himself to dispense with him.
Having popped explosively into the room, Thompson stopped short at sight of the three women. For the first instant or two he did not notice Merriam, who had quietly slipped into the great armchair that faced the gas log, with his back almost squarely to the room.
"Good morning, Mr. Thompson," said Aunt Mary. "We were just having breakfast."
Alicia and Mollie June still sat at the table, and Simpson stood a little at one side. Thompson knew who the two girls were, and they knew who he was, but he had never been presented in Norman's family except to Miss Norman--a fact which he resented keenly,--so they did not speak. Alicia sat back in her chair and stared insolently, while Mollie June leaned forward and rearranged a rose in the bowl.
"I'm sorry to break in this way," Thompson said--even he was slightly abashed,--"but I've got to speak to the Senator."
"Come back a little later, Mr. Thompson," ventured Merriam in a hoarse whisper.
The "Mr." was a false note, and its effect was to anger Thompson.
"No!" he cried, the pugnacious gleam that was never far below the surface of his little eyes appearing in them. "I've got to speak to you now! I've got a right to!"
He advanced. He would have passed the table so as to approach Merriam. But there was only a narrow space on either side of it, and in one of those avenues stood Simpson behind Alicia, while Aunt Mary had quietly moved into the other, standing with her hand on the back of the chair in which Merriam had been sitting. So Thompson found himself barricaded, as it were, and stopped short and shouted across the table and over the head of Mollie June.