Evans looked around behind the telegraph-sheet as if seeking an explanation. He gazed quizzically at the messenger-boy, but that young gentleman only grinned and then looked solemn.
"Well," Evans muttered, "what the devil's up Robbie's back now?"
He sat down and thought the thing over awhile. Then he constructed a reply.
"WASHINGTON, Jan. 9th, 191-.
"W. D. ROBERTSON, Atty.-General,
"Columbia, S.C.
"Your telegram received. If it is official I decline to answer. Entre nous I will be thirty-one on the 29th of February at something like twenty minutes past three in the morning—they didn't have a stopwatch in the house. I vote in Cherokee County, Pacolet precinct, generally of late in a cigar-box in the shed-room of Jake Sims's store where Gus Herndon used to run a barber-shop when you and I were young, Maggie. Why? EVANS RUTLEDGE."
"Send that collect, youngster. We'll make old Robbie pay for his impertinence."
"Look here, sonny," he called to the boy who had gotten out the door, "bring any answer to that down to the Capitol. I am going to have a look at the Senate."
He was sitting beside Lola DeVale in the members' gallery when the answer came.