“K-kind of mixin’ up in politics, hain’t you, Cynthy?  P-President say he’d give you the postmastership, Eph?” he asked.

“He didn’t say nothin’ about it, Jethro,” answered Ephraim slowly; “I callate he has other views for the place, and he was too kind to come right out with ’em and spoil our mornin’.  You see, Jethro, I wahn’t only a sergeant, and Brampton’s gittin’ to be a big town.”

“But, surely,” cried Cynthia, who could scarcely wait for him to finish, “surely you’re going to give Cousin Eph the post-office, aren’t you, Uncle Jethro?  All you have to do is to tell the President that you want it for him.  Why, I had an idea that we came down for that.”

“Now, Cynthy,” Ephraim put in, deprecatingly.

“Who else would get the post-office?” asked Cynthia.  “Surely you’re not going to let Mr. Sutton have it for Dave Wheelock!”

“Er—­Cynthy,” said Jethro, slyly, “w-what’d you say to me once about interferin’ with women’s fixin’s?”

Cynthia saw the point.  She perceived also that the mazes of politics were not to be understood by a young woman, of even by an old soldier.  She laughed and seized Jethro’s hands and pulled him from the bed.

“We won’t get any dinner unless we hurry,” she said.

When they reached the dining room she was relieved to discover that the party in the corner had gone.

In the afternoon there were many more sights to be viewed, but they were back in the hotel again by half-past four, because Ephraim’s Wilderness leg had its limits of endurance.  Jethro (though he had not mentioned the fact to them) had gone to the White House.

It was during the slack hours that our friend the senator, whose interest in the matter of the Brampton post office out-weighed for the present certain grave problems of the Administration in which he was involved, hurried into the Willard Hotel, looking for Jethro Bass.  He found him without much trouble in his usual attitude, occupying one of the chairs in the corridor.

“Well,” exclaimed the senator, with a touch of eagerness he did not often betray, “did you see Grant?  How about your old soldier?  He’s one of the most delightful characters I ever met—­simple as a child,” and he laughed at the recollection.  “That was a masterstroke of yours, Bass, putting him under that tree with that pretty girl.  I doubt if you ever did anything better in your life.  Did they tell you about it?”

“Yes,” said Jethro, “they told me about it.”

“And how about Grant?  What did he say to you?”

“W-well, I went up there and sent in my card.  D-didn’t have to wait a great while, as I was pretty early, and soon he came in, smokin’ a black cigar, head bent forward a little.  D-didn’t ask me to sit down, and what talkin’ we did we did standin’.  D-didn’t ask me what he could do for me, what I wanted, or anything else, but just stood there, and I stood there.  F-fust