"Don't you like it?" "Hit looks like circus day--I got the headache already." A telegram was brought in. "Been seein' a lot about you in the papers," said the judge, and the Pope waved wearily to a pile of dailies. There were columns about him in those papers--about his meteoric rise: how he started a poor boy in the mountains, studied by candle-light, taught school in the hills: how a vision of their future came to him even that early and how he clung to that vision all his life, turning, twisting for option money on coal lands, making a little sale now and then, but always options and more options and sales and more sales, until now the poor mountain boy was a king among the coal barons of the land. "Judge," said the Pope, "the votin's started down home." "How's it goin'?" "Easy." "Been spendin' any money?" "Not a cent." "Ole Bill Maddox is." "Why, judge, I'm the daddy an' grandaddy o' that town. I built streets and sidewalks for it out o' my own pocket. I put up two churches for 'em. I built the water-works, the bank, an' God knows what all. Ole Bill Maddox can't turn a wheel against _me_." The little judge was marvelling: here was a man who had refused all his life to run for office, who could have been congressman, senator, governor; and who had succumbed at last. "Jim, what in blue hell do you want that office fer?" "To make folks realize their duties as citizens," said the Pope patiently; "to maintain streets and sidewalks and water-works and sewers an' become an independent community, instead o' layin' back on other folks!" "How about all them churches you been buildin' all over them mountains--air they self-sustainin'?" "Well, they do need a little help now and then." The judge grunted. Through the morning many cards were brought the Pope, but the doctors allowed no business. To amuse himself the Pope sent the judge into the sitting-room to listen to the million-dollar project of one sleek young man, and the judge reported: "Nothin' doin'--he's got a bad eye." "Right," said the Pope. At twelve o'clock the judge looked at his watch: "Dinner-time." And the Pope ordered his old mountain friend cabbage, bacon, and greens. "Judge, I got to sleep now. I've got a car down below. After dinner you can take a ride or you can take a walk." "You can't git me into a automobile an' I'm afeard to walk. I'd git run over. I'll jus' hang aroun'." Another telegram was brought in. "Runnin' easy an' winnin' in a walk," said the Pope. "It's a cinch. You can open anything else that comes while I'm asleep." The judge himself had not slept well on the train; so he took off his boots, put his yarn-stockinged feet in one chair, and sitting up in another took a nap. An hour later the Pope called for him. The last telegram reported that he was so far ahead that none others would be sent until the committee started to count ballots.