The next afternoon, when Mr. Isaac D. Worthington happened to be sitting alone in the office of the Truro Railroad at the capital, there came a knock at the door, and Mr. Bijah Bixby entered.  Now, incredible as it may seem, Mr. Worthington did not know Mr. Bixby—­or rather, did not remember him.  Mr. Worthington had not had at that time much of an experience in politics, and he did not possess a very good memory for faces.

Mr. Bixby, who had, as we know, a confidential and winning manner, seated himself in a chair very close to Mr. Worthington—­somewhat to that gentleman’s alarm.  “How be you?” said Bijah, “I-I’ve got a little bill here—­you understand.”

Mr. Worthington didn’t understand, and he drew his chair away from Mr. Bixby’s.

“I don’t know anything about it, sir,” answered the president of the Truro Railroad, indignantly; “this is neither the manner nor the place to present a bill.  I don’t want to see it.”

Mr. Bixby moved his chair up again.  “Callate you will want to see this bill, Mr. Worthington,” he insisted, not at all abashed.  “Jethro Bass sent it—­you understand—­it’s engrossed.”

Whereupon Mr. Bixby drew from his capacious pocket a roll, tied with white ribbon, and pressed it into Mr. Worthington’s hands.  It was the Truro Franchise Bill.

It is safe to say that Mr. Worthington understood.

CHAPTER XVI

There are certain instruments used by scientists so delicate that they have to be wrapped in cotton wool and kept in ductless places, and so sensitive that the slightest shock will derange them.  And there are certain souls which cannot stand the jars of life—­souls created to register thoughts and sentiments too fine for those of coarser construction.  Such was the soul of the storekeeper of Coniston.  Whether or not he was one of those immortalized in the famous Elegy, it is not for us to say.  A celebrated poet who read the letters to the Guardian—­at Miss Lucretia Penniman’s request—­has declared Mr. Wetherell to have been a genius.  He wrote those letters, as we know, after he had piled his boxes and rolled his barrels into place; after he had added up the columns in his ledger and recorded, each week, the small but ever increasing deficit which he owed to Jethro Bass.  Could he have been removed from the barrels and the ledgers, and the debts and the cares and the implications, what might we have had from his pen?  That will never be known.

We left him in the lobby of the Opera House, but he did not go in to see the final act of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”  He made his way, alone, back to the hotel, slipped in by a side entrance, and went directly to his room, where Cynthia found him, half an hour later, seated by the open window in the dark.

“Aren’t you well, Dad?” she asked anxiously.  “Why didn’t you come to see the play?”

“I—­I was detained Cynthia,” he said.  “Yes—­I am well.”