United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
It was a very small and unpretentious party which stepped from the
special at Water Street a little before two. The Prince was wearing
a long coat and an automobile cap and did not suggest anything at
all formidable or unusual. “You've saved the country,” Senator Patton
whispered in an aside. “He was getting bored. Never saw a fellow jolly
up so in my life. Guess he was just spoiling for some fun. Said it would
be really worth while to see somebody who wasn't looking for him.”
Senator Bruner beamed. “That's just the point. He's caught my idea
exactly.”
It went without a hitch. “I feel,” said the Prince, as they were
hurrying him through the tunnel, “that I am a little boy who has run
away from school. Only I have a terrible fear that at any minute some
band may begin to play, and somebody may think of making a speech.”
They gave this son of a royal house a seat on a dry-goods box, so placed
that he could command a good view, and yet be fairly secure. The final
skirmish was on in earnest. Two State Senators--coatless, tieless,
collarless, their faces dirty, their hair rumpled, were finishing the
stair carpet. The chairman of the appropriations committee in the House
was doing the stretching in a still uncarpeted bit of the corridor, and
a member who had recently denounced the appropriations committee as a
disgrace to the State was presiding at the hammer. They were doing most
exquisitely harmonious team work. A railroad and anti-railroad member
who fought every time they came within speaking distance of one another
were now in an earnest and very chummy conference relative to a large
wrinkle which had just been discovered on the first landing. Many men
were standing around holding their backs, and many others were deeply
absorbed in nursing their fingers. The doors of the offices were all
open, and there was a general hauling in of furniture and hanging of
pictures. Clumsy but well-meaning fingers were doing their best with
“finishing touches.” The Prince grew so excited about it all that they
had to keep urging him not to take too many chances of being seen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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