They laid their plans with skill worthy of their training. The State library building was across from the Capitol, and they were connected by tunnel. “I never saw before,” said the Senator, “what that tunnel was for, but I see now what a great thing it is. We'll get him in at the west door of the library—we can drive right up to it, you know, and then we walk him through the tunnel. That's a stone floor”—the Senator was chuckling with every sentence—“so I guess they won't be carpeting it. There's a little stairway running up from the tunnel—-and say, we must telephone over and arrange about those keys. There'll be a good deal of climbing, but the Prince is a good fellow, and won't mind. It wouldn't be safe to try the elevator, for Harry Weston would be in it taking somebody a bundle of tacks. The third floor is nothing but store rooms; we'll not be disturbed up there, and we can look right down the rotunda and see the whole show. Of course we'll be discovered in time; some one is sure to look up and see us, but we'll fix it so they won't see us before we've had our fun, and it strikes me, McVeigh, that for two old fellows like you and me we've put the thing through in pretty neat shape.”
It was a very small and unpretentious party which stepped from the special at Water Street a little before two. The Prince was wearing a long coat and an automobile cap and did not suggest anything at all formidable or unusual. “You've saved the country,” Senator Patton whispered in an aside. “He was getting bored. Never saw a fellow jolly up so in my life. Guess he was just spoiling for some fun. Said it would be really worth while to see somebody who wasn't looking for him.”
Senator Bruner beamed. “That's just the point. He's caught my idea exactly.”
It went without a hitch. “I feel,” said the Prince, as they were hurrying him through the tunnel, “that I am a little boy who has run away from school. Only I have a terrible fear that at any minute some band may begin to play, and somebody may think of making a speech.”
They gave this son of a royal house a seat on a dry-goods box, so placed that he could command a good view, and yet be fairly secure. The final skirmish was on in earnest. Two State Senators—coatless, tieless, collarless, their faces dirty, their hair rumpled, were finishing the stair carpet. The chairman of the appropriations committee in the House was doing the stretching in a still uncarpeted bit of the corridor, and a member who had recently denounced the appropriations committee as a disgrace to the State was presiding at the hammer. They were doing most exquisitely harmonious team work. A railroad and anti-railroad member who fought every time they came within speaking distance of one another were now in an earnest and very chummy conference relative to a large wrinkle which had just been discovered on the first landing. Many men were standing around holding their backs, and many others were deeply absorbed in nursing their fingers. The doors of the offices were all open, and there was a general hauling in of furniture and hanging of pictures. Clumsy but well-meaning fingers were doing their best with “finishing touches.” The Prince grew so excited about it all that they had to keep urging him not to take too many chances of being seen.
“And I'll tell you,” Senator Bruner was saying, “it isn't only because I knew it would be funny that I wanted you to see it; but—well, you see America isn't the real America when she has on her best clothes and is trying to show off. You haven't seen anybody who hasn't prepared for your coming, and that means you haven't seen them as they are at all. Now here we are. This is us! You see that fellow hanging a picture down there? He's president of the First National Bank. Came over a little while ago, got next to the situation, and stayed to help. And—say, this is good! Notice that red-headed fellow just getting up from his knees? Well, he's president of the teamsters' union—figured so big in a strike here last year. I call that pretty rich! He's the fellow they are all so afraid of, but I guess he liked the idea of the boys doing it themselves, and just sneaked in and helped.—There's the Governor. He's a fine fellow. He wouldn't be held up by anybody—not even to get ready for a Prince, but he's worked like a Trojan all day to make things come his way. Yes sir—this is the sure-enough thing. Here you have the boys off dress parade. Not that we run away from our dignity every day, but—see what I mean?”
“I see,” replied the Prince, and he looked as though he really did.
“You know—say, dodge there! Move back! No—too late. The Governor's caught us. Look at him!”
The Governor's eyes had turned upward, and he had seen. He put his hands on his back—he couldn't look up without doing that—and gave a long, steady stare. First, Senator Bruner waved; then Senator Patton waved; then Mr. McVeigh waved; and then the Prince waved. Other people were beginning to look up. “They're all on,” laughed Patton, “let's go down.”
At first they were disposed to think it pretty shabby treatment. “We worked all day to get in shape,” grumbled Harry Weston, “and then you go ring the curtain up on us before it's time for our show to begin.”