“Well, he didn’t say a great deal—­he isn’t much of a talker, you know, but what he did say was to the point.  It seems that your man, Prescott, doesn’t come from Brampton, in the first place, and Grant says that while he likes soldiers, he hasn’t any use for the kind that want to lie down and make the government support ’em.  I’ll tell you what I found out.  Worthington and Duncan wired the President this morning, and they’ve gone up to the White House now.  They’ve got a lot of railroad interests back of them, and they’ve taken your friend Sutton into camp; but I managed to get the President to promise not to do anything until he saw you tomorrow afternoon at two.”

Jethro sat silent so long that the senator began to think he wasn’t going to answer him at all.  In his opinion, he had told Jethro some very grave facts.

“W-when are you going to see the President again?” said Jethro, at last.

“To-morrow morning,” answered the senator; “he wants me to walk over with him to see the postmaster-general, who is sick in bed.”

“What time do you leave the White House?—­”

“At eleven,” said the senator, very much puzzled.

“Er—­Grant ever pay any attention to an old soldier on the street?”

The senator glanced at Jethro, and a twinkle came into his eye.

“Sometimes he has been known to,” he answered.

“You—­you ever pay any attention to an old soldier on the street?”

Then the senator’s eyes began to snap.

“Sometimes I have been known to.”

“Er—­suppose an old soldier was in front of the White House at eleven o’clock—­an old soldier with a gal suppose?”

The senator saw the point, and took no pains to restrain his admiration.

“Jethro,” he said, slapping him on the shoulder, “I’m willing to bet a few thousand dollars you’ll run your state for a while yet.”

CHAPTER V

“Heard you say you was goin’ for a walk this morning, Cynthy,” Jethro remarked, as they sat at breakfast the next morning.

“Why, of course,” answered Cynthia, “Cousin Eph and I are going out to see Washington, and he is to show me the places that he remembers.”  She looked at Jethro appealingly.  “Aren’t you coming with us?” she asked.

“M-meet you at eleven, Cynthy,” he said.

“Eleven!” exclaimed Cynthia in dismay, “that’s almost dinner-time.”

“M-meet you in front of the White House at eleven,” said Jethro, “plumb in front of it, under a tree.”

By half-past seven, Cynthia and Ephraim with his green umbrella were in the street, but it would be useless to burden these pages with a description of all the sights they saw, and with the things that Ephraim said about them, and incidentally about the war.  After New York, much of Washington would then have seemed small and ragged to any one who lacked ideals and a national sense, but Washington was to Cynthia