To get back to Austen.  On St. Valentine’s Day of that year when, to tell the truth, he was seated in his office scribbling certain descriptions of nature suggested by the valentines in Mr. Hayman’s stationery store, the postman brought in a letter from young Tom Gaylord.  Austen laughed as he read it.  “The Honourable Galusha Hammer is well named,” young Tom wrote, “but the conviction has been gaining ground with me that a hammer is about as much use as a shovel would be at the present time.  It is not the proper instrument.”  “But the ‘old man’” (it was thus young Tom was wont to designate his parent) “is pig-headed when he gets to fighting, and won’t listen to reason.  If he believes he can lick the Northeastern with a Hammer, he is durned badly mistaken, and I told him so.  I have been giving him sage advice in little drops—­after meals.  I tell him there is only one man in the State who has sense enough even to shake the Northeastern, and that’s you.  He thinks this a pretty good joke.  Of course I realize where your old man is planted, and that you might have some natural delicacy and wish to refrain from giving him a jar.  But come down for an hour and let me talk to you, anyway.  The new statesman from Leith is cutting a wide swath.  Not a day passes but his voice is heard roaring in the Forum; he has visited all the State institutions, dined and wined the governor and his staff and all the ex-governors he can lay his hands on, and he has that hard-headed and caustic journalist, Mr. Peter Pardriff, of the State Tribune, hypnotized.  He has some swells up at his house to hear his speech on national affairs, among them old Flint’s daughter, who is a ripper to look at, although I never got nearer to her than across the street.  As you may guess, it is something of a card for Crewe to have Flint’s daughter here.”

Austen sat for a long time after reading this letter, idly watching the snow-clouds gathering around Sawanec.  Then he tore up the paper, on which he had been scribbling, into very small bits, consulted a time-table, and at noon, in a tumult of feelings, he found himself in a back seat of the express, bound for the capital.

Arriving at the station, amidst a hurry and bustle of legislators and politicians coming and going, many of whom nodded to him, he stood for a minute in the whirling snow reflecting.  Now that he was here, where was he to stay?  The idea of spending the night at the Pelican was repellent to him, and he was hesitating between two more modest hostelries when he was hailed by a giant with a flowing white beard, a weather-beaten face, and a clear eye that shone with a steady and kindly light.  It was James Redbrook, the member from Mercer.

“Why, how be you, Austen?” he cried, extending a welcome hand; and, when Austen had told him his dilemma:  “Come right along up to my lodgings.  I live at the Widow Peasley’s, and there’s a vacant room next to mine.”

Austen accepted gratefully, and as they trudged through the storm up the hill, he inquired how legislative matters were progressing.  Whereupon Mr. Redbrook unburdened himself.