"I haven't got a 'job' in hand," Tom answered; "your herds of stock and the Judge's coal mines and cotton fields are different matters." He passed on and saw that when his name was announced the Senator looked up from his work with a fretted movement of the head. "Mr. De Willoughby of Talbot's Cross-roads?" he said. Tom bowed. He became conscious of appearing to occupy too much space in the room of a busy man who had plainly been irritated. "I was told by Judge Rutherford that you had kindly consented to see me," he said. The Senator tapped the table nervously with his pencil and pushed some papers aside. "Well, I find I have no time to spare this morning," was his brutally frank response. "I have just been forced to give the time which might have been yours to a little hoosier who made his way in, heaven knows how, and refused to be ordered out. He had a claim, too, and came from your county and said he was an old friend of yours." "He is not an old enemy," answered Tom. "There is that much foundation in the statement." "Well, he has occupied the time I had meant to give you," said the Senator, "and I was not prepossessed either by himself or his claim." "I think he's a man to gain a claim," said Tom; "I'm afraid I'm not." "It is fair to warn you that I am not friendly to claims made by the families of men who lived in a hot-bed of secession," said the Senator. He had been badgered too much this morning, and this big, rather convincing looking applicant worried him. "I have an appointment at the White House in ten minutes." "Then this is no place for me," said Tom. "No man is likely to be friendly to a thing he has no time to talk of. I will bid you good-morning." "Good-morning," returned the Senator, brusquely. Tom went away feeling that he was a blunderer. The fact was that he was a neophyte and, it was true, did not possess the qualities which make a successful lobbyist. Mr. Stamps had wheedled or forced his way into the great man's apartment and had persisted in remaining to press his claim until he was figuratively turned out by the shoulders. Big Tom had used only such means to obtain the interview as a gentleman might; he had waited until he was called to take his turn, and so had lost his chance. When he had found the Senator hurried and unwilling to spend time on him he had withdrawn at once, not feeling Mr. Stamps's method to be possible. "I suppose I ought to have stayed and buttonholed him in spite of himself," he thought, ruefully. "I'm a greenhorn; I suppose a man in my place ought to stand his ground whether it's decent or indecent, and make people listen to what he has to say, and be quite willing to be kicked downstairs after he has said it. I'm a disgrace to my species--and I don't think much of the species."