Yes, of course it wouldn't be right to stay here.

If I-- well, perhaps I could just drop him a line and put it off a little while and satisfy him in that way.

It would be--well, it would mar everything to have him require me to come instantly." Another reflective pause-- then: "And yet if he should do that I don't know but--oh, dear me--home! how good it sounds! and a body is excusable for wanting to see his home again, now and then, anyway." He went to one of the telegraph offices in the avenue and got the first end of what Barrow called the "usual Washington courtesy," where "they treat you as a tramp until they find out you're a congressman, and then they slobber all over you." There was a boy of seventeen on duty there, tying his shoe.

He had his foot on a chair and his back turned towards the wicket.

He glanced over his shoulder, took Tracy's measure, turned back, and went on tying his shoe.