“It’s an expensive trip,” said Jabel Blake; “it’s a costly trip.  More men are made poor, Arthur MacNair, by travellin’ than by sickness.  Twice a year to Pittsburg and twice to Phildelfy is the whole of my gadding.  I stop, in Phildelfy, at the Camel Tavern, on Second Street, and a very expensive house—­two dollars a day.  At Washington they rob everybody, I’m told, and I shall be glad to get away with my clothes.”

“Tut!  Jabel,” said MacNair, “brother Elk has taken rooms for me at Willards’, and for the little time you stay at the capital you can lodge with us.  A man who has elected a Congressman in spite of the Pennsylvania Railroad shouldn’t grudge one visit in his life-time to Washington.”

“Oh!” said Jabel, “I don’t know as I begrudge that, though your election, Arty, cost me four hundred and seven dollars and—­I’ve got it here in a book.”

“I know that,” said MacNair quietly; “don’t read it again, Jabel.  You behaved like a sturdy, indignant man, paid all my expenses, though you protested against an election in a moral land involving the expenditure of a dime, and though you pass for the closest man west of the mountains.  And here we are, going upon errands of duty, as little worldly as we can be, yet not anxious to belittle ourselves or our district.”

“I’d cheerfully given more, Arty, to beat that corporation.  A twenty-dollar bill or so, you know!  But money is tight.  I’ve scraped and scraped for years to start my bank at Ross Valley, and every dollar wasted retards the village.  You boys have cost me a sight of money.  There’s Elk’s sword and horse, and the schooling of both of you, and the burying of your father, Jim MacNair, eighteen years ago this May.  Dear! dear!”

The Honorable Perkiomen Trappe, catching a part of this remark, observed that Jabel Blake, judging by his appearance, shouldn’t have buried MacNair’s father, but devoured him.  Jabel’s unfeeling remark gave MacNair no apparent pain; but he said: 

“Jabel, don’t speak to Elk about father.  He is not as patient as he should be, and perhaps in Washington they disguise some of the matters which we treat bluntly and openly.  There’s Kitty Dunlevy, you know, and she is a little proud.”

The glazed, whitish eye of Jabel bore the similitude of a beam of satisfaction.

“It’s nothing agin you boys,” he said, “that Jim MacNair, your father, didn’t do well.  He wronged nobody but himself, as I made the stonecutter say over his grave. That cost me upwards of eleven dollars, so I did my duty by him.  You boys don’t seem to have his appetite for liquor.  You are a member of Congress, and Elk was one of the bravest ginerals in the war; and I don’t see, if he saves his money and his health, but he is good enough even for Judge Dunlevy’s girl.”