The two brothers sat together in the main room; the day, at the windows, was growing grayer, and they were silent for a while.

The face of Elk MacNair had been growing long during the whole afternoon, but with an assumed gayety he had sought to make the hours pass pleasantly, and when his thoughtful and modest brother endeavored to argue with him that his legal labors were wearing him out, Elk MacNair turned the conversation off in a cheerful way by saying: 

“Arthur, I have arranged that you shall have the chairmanship of a first-rate committee.”

“How arranged it?”

“Oh, these things can be managed, you know.  Every good position in Washington has to be begged for, or brought about by strategic approaches.  I know the Speaker and the Speaker’s friends below him, and the old chairman of the committee where I wish you to be; and, among us all, you have obtained the rare distinction, for a new member, of going to the head of one of the best of the second-class committees.”

“I do not like this, Elk,” said Arthur.  “I hope I am without ambition, particularly of that sort which would annihilate processes and labors, and seek to obtain distinction by an easy path.  I do not know that I shall make a speech during the whole of this Congress, although I shall try to be in my seat every day, and to vote when I am well informed.  What committee is it that you have been at such pains to put me at the head of it?”

“The Committee on Ancient Contracts.”

Arthur MacNair, who had not much color at the best of times, turned a little pale.

“Elk,” said he, “there is a bad sound in that word ‘contracts.’  Of course, I do not take much stock in the widespread scandal about our Government giving away contract work to do from base or personal considerations; but I have a little belief that one ought to avoid even the appearance of evil.  I think I must refuse to go on that committee.”

Elk MacNair seemed to grow darker and older, and his face assumed an intensity of expression which his brother did not perceive.

“Pshaw!  Arty,” he said, with agitation, “everything here goes by friends.  You brought with you no renown, no superstition, nothing which would entitle you to the Speaker’s consideration.  He might have put you, but for me, away down on the Committee on Revolutionary Pensions.”

“I think I would like that committee,” said Arthur MacNair quietly.  “In it I might be the means of doing gratitude to some old and needy hero.  I like those tasks which involve no notoriety.  At home, in our church and among our townsfolks, I always tried to get on the societies which are unknown to public fame; and there, any little thing which I can diligently do brings its own reward.  I must decline to go on the Committee on Ancient Contracts, Elk!”

The younger brother, with his dark burning eyes, met at this point the cool, unsuspecting glance of the country lawyer, and something in it seemed to embarrass even his worldliness, for he rose from his seat and threw up his hands impatiently.