our job no good to-day, Tom," he said, benignly.
"He'd 'a' kicked me out ef I hadn't 'a' bin small--jest same es you was
gwine ter that time I come to talk to ye about Sheby. He's a smarter man
than you be, an' he seed the argyment I hed to p'int out to you. Ye won't
help your job none to-day!"

"I haven't got a 'job' in hand," Tom answered; "your herds of stock and
the Judge's coal mines and cotton fields are different matters."

He passed on and saw that when his name was announced the Senator looked
up from his work with a fretted movement of the head.

"Mr. De Willoughby of Talbot's Cross-roads?" he said. Tom bowed. He
became conscious of appearing to occupy too much space in the room of a
busy man who had plainly been irritated.

"I was told by Judge Rutherford that you had kindly consented to see me,"
he said.

The Senator tapped the table nervously with his pencil and pushed some
papers aside.

"Well, I find I have no time to spare this morning," was his brutally
frank response. "I have just been forced to give the time which might
have been yours to a little hoosier who made his way in, heaven knows
how, and refused to be ordered out. He had a claim, too, and came from
your county and said he was an old friend of yours."

"He is not an old enemy," answered Tom. "There is that much foundation in
the statement."

"Well, he has occupied the time I had meant to give you," said the
Senator, "and I was not prepossessed either by himself or his claim."

"I think he's a man to gain a claim," said Tom; "I'm afraid I'm not."

"It is fair to warn you that I am not friendly to claims made by the
families of men who lived in a hot-bed of secession," said the Senator.
He had been badgered too much this morning, and this big, rather
convincing looking applicant worried him. "I have an appointment at the
White House in ten minutes."

"Then this is no place for me," said Tom. "No man is likely to be
friendly to a thing he has no time to talk of. I will bid you
good-morning."

"Good-morning," returned the Senator, brusquely.

Tom went away feeling that he was a blunderer. The fact was that he was a
neophyte and, it was true, did not possess the qualities which make a
successful lobbyist. Mr. Stamps had wheedled or forced his way into the
great man's apartment and had persisted in remaining to press his claim
until he was figuratively turned out by the shoulders. Big Tom had used
only such means to obtain the inter