“My dear sir, you surprise me.  You surely cannot have had a large acquaintance with this sort of thing.  Otherwise you would not have expected much of a result from a mere initial appropriation like that.  It was never intended for anything but a mere nest egg for the future and real appropriations to cluster around.”

“Indeed?  Well, was it a myth, or was it a reality?  Whatever become of it?”

“Why the—­matter is simple enough.  A Congressional appropriation costs money.  Just reflect, for instance—­a majority of the House Committee, say $10,000 apiece—­$40,000; a majority of the Senate Committee, the same each—­say $40,000; a little extra to one or two chairman of one or two such committees, say $10,000 each—­$20,000; and there’s $100,000 of the money gone, to begin with.  Then, seven male lobbyists, at $3,000 each —­$21,000; one female lobbyist, $10,000; a high moral Congressman or Senator here and there—­the high moral ones cost more, because they. give tone to a measure—­say ten of these at $3,000 each, is $30,000; then a lot of small-fry country members who won’t vote for anything whatever without pay—­say twenty at $500 apiece, is $10,000; a lot of dinners to members—­say $10,000 altogether; lot of jimcracks for Congressmen’s wives and children—­those go a long way—­you can’t sped too much money in that line—­well, those things cost in a lump, say $10,000—­along there somewhere; and then comes your printed documents—­your maps, your tinted engravings, your pamphlets, your illuminated show cards, your advertisements in a hundred and fifty papers at ever so much a line —­because you’ve got to keep the papers all light or you are gone up, you know.  Oh, my dear sir, printing bills are destruction itself.  Ours so far amount to—­let me see—­10; 52; 22; 13;—­and then there’s 11; 14; 33 —­well, never mind the details, the total in clean numbers foots up $118,254.42 thus far!”

“What!”

“Oh, yes indeed.  Printing’s no bagatelle, I can tell you.  And then there’s your contributions, as a company, to Chicago fires and Boston fires, and orphan asylums and all that sort of thing—­head the list, you see, with the company’s full name and a thousand dollars set opposite —­great card, sir—­one of the finest advertisements in the world—­the preachers mention it in the pulpit when it’s a religious charity—­one of the happiest advertisements in the world is your benevolent donation.  Ours have amounted to sixteen thousand dollars and some cents up to this time.”

“Good heavens!”

“Oh, yes.  Perhaps the biggest thing we’ve done in the advertising line was to get an officer of the U. S. government, of perfectly Himmalayan official altitude, to write up our little internal improvement for a religious paper of enormous circulation—­I tell you that makes our bonds go handsomely among the pious poor.  Your religious paper is by far the best vehicle for a thing of this kind, because