“The papers have rather skinned me; but on the whole, I’ll do very well. They say it isn’t respectable to be a senator these days, but they oughtn’t to hold it up against a man that he’s rich. If the Lord put silver in the mountains of Montana and let me dig it out, it’s nothing against me, is it?”
“Decidedly not! And if you want to invest it in a senatorship it’s the Lord’s hand again.”
“Why sure!” and the Senator from Montana winked once more. “But it’s expensive. I’ve got to be elected again next winter—I’m only filling out Billings’ term—and I’m not sure I can go up against it.”
“But you are nothing if not unselfish. If the good of the country demands it you’ll not falter, if I know you.”
“There’s hot water heat in this hotel, so please turn off the hot air. I saw your foreman in Helena the last time I was out there, and he was sober. I mention the fact, knowing that I’m jeopardizing my reputation for veracity, but it’s the Lord’s truth. Of course you spent Christmas at the old home in England—one of those yule-log and plum-pudding Christmases you read of in novels. You Englishmen—”
“My dear Sanderson, don’t call me English! I’ve told you a dozen times that I’m not English.”
“So you did; so you did! I’d forgotten that you’re so damned sensitive about it;” and Sanderson’s eyes regarded Armitage intently for a moment, as though he were trying to recall some previous discussion of the young man’s nativity.
“I offer you free swing at the bar, Senator. May I summon a Montana cocktail? You taught me the ingredients once—three dashes orange bitters; two dashes acid phosphate; half a jigger of whisky; half a jigger of Italian vermuth. You undermined the constitutions of half Montana with that mess.”
Sanderson reached for his hat with sudden dejection.
“The sprinkling cart for me! I’ve got a nerve specialist engaged by the year to keep me out of sanatoriums. See here, I want you to go with us to-night to the Secretary of State’s push. Not many of the Montana boys get this far from home, and I want you for exhibition purposes. Say, John, when I saw Cinch Tight, Montana, written on the register down there it increased my circulation seven beats! You’re all right, and I guess you’re about as good an American as they make—anywhere—John Armitage!”