"Yes, my boy," said a lady, who was near enough to hear him; "so they were. So were all the presidents, and some went barefoot and lived in log-cabins."
"Well, I've often gone barefoot," said Jack, laughing.
"Many boys go barefoot, but they can't all become governors," she said, pleasantly.
She looked at Jack for a moment, and then said with a smile, "You look like a bright young man, though. Do you suppose you could ever be Governor?"
"Perhaps I could," he said. "It can't be harder to learn than any other business."
The lady laughed, and her friends laughed, and Jack arose from the Speaker's chair and walked away.
He had seen enough of that vast State House. It wearied him, there was so much of it, and it was so fine.
"To build this house cost twenty tons of gold!" he said, as he went out through the lofty doorway. "I wish I had some of it. I've kept my nine dollars yet, anyway. The Governor's right. I don't know what he meant, but I'll never be just the same fellow again."
It was so. But it was not merely seeing the Capitol that had changed him. He was changing from a boy who had never seen anything outside of Crofield and Mertonville, into a boy who was walking right out into the world to learn what is in it.
"I'll go to the hotel and write to father and mother," he said; "and I have something to tell them."