Well, I'll think
about that. 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. Tracy finished writing his telegram
and waited, still waited, and still waited, for that performance to
finish, but there didn't seem to be any finish to it; so finally Tracy
said:
"Can't you take my telegram?"
The youth looked over his shoulder and said, by his manner, not his
words:
"Don't you think you could wait a minute, if you tried?"
However, he got the shoe tied at last, and came and took the telegram,
glanced over it, then looked up surprised, at Tracy.
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