fatherly manner that was as
much of a sham as anything else about him--I don't know whether I was
more incensed at him or his victim, who received it with evident pride
and satisfaction. Nevertheless he ventured to falter out:--

"Has anything been done yet?"

"Well, no; I can't say that anything--that is, that anything has been
COMPLETED; but I may say we are in excellent position for an
advance--ha, ha! But we must wait, my young friend, wait. What is it
the Latin philosopher says? 'Let us by all means hasten slowly'--ha,
ha!" and he turned to me as if saying confidentially, "Observe the
impatience of these boys!" "I met, a moment ago, my old friend and
boyhood's companion, Jim McGlasher, chief of the Bureau for the
Dissemination of Useless Information, and," lowering his voice to a
mysterious but audible whisper, "I shall see him again to-morrow."

The "All aboard!" of the railway omnibus at this moment tore me from
the presence of this gifted legislator and his protege; but as we drove
away I saw through the open window the powerful mind of Gashwiler
operating, so to speak, upon the susceptibilities of Mr. Dobbs.

I did not meet him again for a week. The morning of my return I saw
the two conversing together in the hall, but with the palpable
distinction between this and their former interviews, that the gifted
Gashwiler seemed to be anxious to get away from his friend. I heard him
say something about "committees" and "to-morrow," and when Dobbs turned
his freckled face toward me I saw that he had got at last some
expression into it--disappointment.

I asked him pleasantly how he was getting on.

He had not lost his pride yet. He was doing well, although such was
the value set upon his friend Gashwiler's abilities by his brother
members that he was almost always occupied with committee business. I
noticed that his clothes were not in as good case as before, and he
told me that he had left the hotel, and taken lodgings in a by-street,
where it was less expensive. Temporarily of course.

A few days after this I had business in one of the great departments.
From the various signs over the doors of its various offices and
bureaus it always oddly reminded me of Stewart's or Arnold and
Constable's. You could get pensions, patents, and plants. You could
get land and the seeds to put in it, and the Indians to prowl round it,
and what not. There was a perpetual clanging of office desk bells, and
a running