g functions.

"When I enter a room without you, and make your excuses, they must make
the most of my black face; and they make the most of it, but they don't
love me," he said. "Still it is a thing to be borne if it saves you when
you need all your forces. What does it matter? I have never expected to
be smiled at for my own sake as they smile at me for yours."

In these days of close companionship each found in each new qualities
increasing the tie between them. Latimer felt himself fed by the public
affection surrounding the man who was his friend. He was thrilled by the
applause which thundered forth at his words; he was moved by the mere
sense of his success, and the power he saw him unknowingly exercise
through mere physical charm.

"I am nearer being a happy, or at least a peaceful, man than I had ever
thought to be," he said to Baird; "your life seems to fill mine, and I am
less lonely." Which was indeed a truth.

On the evening of the day on which big Tom had caught his glimpse of the
two strangers in the corridor of the Capitol, Baird dined at the house of
the Senator, whose adverse mood had promised such small encouragement to
the De Willoughby claim. And in the course of the meal the host spoke of
both claim and claimants.

"The man is a sort of Colossus," he said, "and he looked all the heavier
and bigger because my last visitor had been the smallest and most
insignificant of the hoosier type."

"Is this man a hoosier?" was asked.

"No. He has lived among the most primitive, and Rutherford tells me is a
sort of county institution; but he is not a hoosier. He has a large,
humane, humorous face, and a big, humorous, mellow voice. I should rather
have liked the fellow, confound him, if I hadn't lost my patience before
he came into the room."

"Did he tell you the story of the claim?" enquired his married daughter.

"No, I didn't let him. I was feeling pretty sick of claims, and I had no
time."

"Oh, father, I wish you had let him tell it," exclaimed the pretty young
woman. "The truth is, I am beginning to be interested in that claim
myself. I am in love with Judge Rutherford and his stories of Jenny and
Tom Scott. His whole soul is bound up in 'pushing this thing
through'--that's what he calls it. He is the most delightful lobbyist I
ever met. He is like a bull in a china shop--though I don't believe
anyone ever saw a bull in a china shop."

"He does not know enough to give his friends a rest," sai