day and do nothing while I can wear the finest broadcloth and set still, too, it won’t do for us to forget the pit from which we was dug, and I don’t forget it neither, no more than I forgit favors shown when I was not fust cut.  You, sir, rode on the ’Liza Ann with that crony of yours—­Hastings was his name—­and you paid me han’some, though I didn’t ask nothin’; and ther’s your brother—­Frank, I call him.  I don’t forgit that he used to speak to me civil when I was nobody, and now, though I’m a Dimocrat, as everybody knows me knows, and everybody most does know me, for Shannondale allus was my native town, I’m goin’ to run him into Congress, if it takes my bottom dollar, and anybody, Republican or Dimocrat; who don’t vote him ain’t my friend, and must expect to feel the full heft of my—­my—­’

‘Powerful disapprobation,’ Arthur said, softly, and Peterkin continued: 

‘Thank you, sir, that’s the word—­powerful, sir, powerful, powerful,’ and he glowered threateningly at two or three young men in white kids and high shirt collars, who were known to prefer the opposing candidate.

Peterkin had finished his harrangue, and was wiping his wet face with his handkerchief, when Arthur, who had listened to him with well-bred attention, said: 

’I thank you, Captain Peterkin, for your interest in my brother, who, if he succeeds, will, I am sure, owe his success to your influence, and be grateful in proportion.  Perhaps you have a bill you would like him to bring before the House?’

‘No,’ Peterkin said, with a shake of the head.  ’My Bill is a little shaver, eight or nine years old; too young to go from home, but’—­and he lowered his voice:  a little—­’I don’t mind saying that if there should be a chance, I’d like the post-office fust-rate.  It would be a kind of hist, you know, to see my name in print, Captain Joseph Peterkin, P.M.’

Here the conversation ended, and the aspirant for the post-office, who had tired himself out, stepped aside and gave place to others who were anxious to renew their acquaintance with Arthur.  It was between one and two o’clock in the morning when the party finally broke up, and, as the Peterkins had been the first to arrive, so they were the last to leave, and Mrs. Peterkin found herself again in the gentlemen’s dressing-room, looking after her wraps.  But they were not there, and after a vain and anxious search she said to her husband: 

’Joe, somebody has stole my things, and ’twas my Indian shawl, too, and gold-headed pin, with the little diamond.’

Mrs. Tracy was at once summoned to the scene, and the missing wraps were found in the ladies’ room, where Harold had carried them, but the gold-headed shawl-pin was gone and could not be found.

Lucy, the girl in attendance, said, when questioned, that she knew nothing of the pin or Mrs. Peterkin’s wraps either, except that on first going up to the room after the lady’s arrival, she found Harold Hastings fumbling them over, and that she sent him out with a sharp reprimand.  Harold was then looked for and could not be found, for he had been at home and in bed for a good two hours.  Clearly, then, he knew something of the pin; and Peterkin and his wife said good-night, resolving to see the boy the first thing in the morning, and demand their property.