d pencil between
the palms of his hands. Mr. Jones watched him and pitied him, as one
watches and pities a child who is fooling with firearms. "He don't know
I'm loaded," thought Jones.

"Well," said the President, "when you get your town started so that
there will be some prospect of getting a little business, we shall be
only too glad to put in a spur for you."

Jones had been looking out through an open window, watching the
law-makers of Kansas going up the wide steps of the State House. The
fellows from the farm climbed, the town fellows ran up the steps.

"Spur!" said Jones, wheeling around from the window and walking toward
the President's desk, "I don't want no spur; I want a side track
that'll hold fifty cars, and I want it this week,--see?"

"Now look here, Mr. Jones, this is sheer nonsense. We get wind at
Wakefield and water at Turner's Tank; now, what excuse is there for
putting in a siding half-way between these places?"

Again Mr. Jones, rubbing the point of his chin with the ball of his
thumb, gave the President a pitying glance.

"Say!" said Jones, resting the points of his long fingers on the table,
"I'm goin' to build a town. You're goin' to build a side track. I've
already set aside ten acres of land for you, for depot and yards. This
land will cost you fifty dollars per, _now_. If I have to come back
about this side track, it'll cost you a hundred. Now, Mr. President, I
wish you good-mornin'."

At the door Jones paused and looked back. "Any time this week will do;
good-mornin'."

The President smiled and turned to his desk. Presently he smiled again;
then he forgot all about Mr. Jones and the new town, and went on with
his work.

Mr. Jones went down and out and over to the House to watch the men make
laws.

* * * * *

In nearly every community, about every capital, State or National, you
will find men who are capable of being influenced. This is especially
true of new communities through which a railway is being built. It has
always been so, and will be, so long as time expires. I mean the time of
an annual pass. It is not surprising, then, that in Kansas at that time,
the Grasshopper period,--before prohibition, Mrs. Nation, and religious
dailies,--the company had its friends, and that Mr. Jones, an honest
farmer with money to spend, had his.

Two or three days after the interview with Mr. Jones, the President's
"friend" came over to the railroad buildin