The Senator gathered up the lines as if he had a suspicion of the business referred to, and therefore desired to drive on, but Mr. Peters in a distressful tone of voice implored him to wait a moment. "I want to ask a favor," he said. "Wouldn't do it if it wan't for the fact that they are all down there shakin' for dear life. I want to give you my note for ten dollars for thirty days. You know I'll take it up." "Yes, if you should happen to find it," the Senator replied. "Come, now, Senator, don't talk that way. You might give this here man that was blowed up a bad opinion of me. I've got the good opinion of everybody else, and I don't want the bad respects of a man that has fell down in amongst us." "Bugg, how many of your thirty-day notes do you suppose I've got?" "Why, none," he declared in great surprise. "I can show you twenty at least," said the Senator. "Well, now," Mr. Peters began to drawl, "this here is news to me, and mighty sad news at that. Huh, I don't see how I could have made such a mistake." "I was the one that made the mistake," the Senator replied. "Now don't say that, Talcom. Dang it, haven't I always voted for you? Why, Sir, at the last election I went to the polls with a chill on me, and I shook so hard it took two men to hold me still long enough to shove my ticket in. Oh, I don't deny that I might owe you a note or so--may be the addition of another son-in-law kept me from payin' it--but all my gals are married now, and I don't look for any big increase in the family till my sister and her husband come from over in Arkansas to live with me; and as they ain't well and will have to pick their way along the best they can, I'll have time to take up a half a dozen notes by the time they git here." "What do you want with the money, Bugg?" "Why, I need about five bushels of wheat. That's what I want with it." "Well, here," said the Senator, taking out a notebook, "I'll give you an order on my overseer for five bushels of wheat." "Talcom, by gosh you move me, and I am fit right now to drap a tear in the palm of your hand. Yes, Sir, you can come nearer makin' me cry than any man I ever run across." The Senator gave him the order, and we drove on, leaving him in the road to whine his gratitude and loudly to swear that at the next election he would vote all right, even if it should take a dozen men to hold him up. "Why do you permit such fellows to rob you?" I asked.