e said that."

Jack roamed all over the Capitol, for the Legislature was not in
session, and the building was open to sight-seers. There were many of
them, and from visitors, workmen, and some boys whom he met, Jack
managed to find out many interesting things.

The Assembly Chamber seemed to him a truly wonderful room, and upon the
floor were several groups of people admiring it.

He saw one visitor seat himself in the Speaker's chair. "There's room
in that chair for two or three small men," said Jack; "I'll try it by
and by."

So he did.

"The Speaker was a boy once, too, and so was the Governor," he said to
himself aloud.

"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."

It was the first real letter he had ever written, and it seemed a great
thing to do--ten times more important than writing a composition, and
almost equal to editing the _Eagle_.

"I'll just put in everything," he thought, "just as it came along, and
they'll know what I've been doing."

It took a long time to write the letter, but it was done at last, and
when he put down his pen he exclaimed:

"Hard work always makes me hungry! I wonder if it