But if there was a stinger to it, he must have lost it in the shuffle; for he opens up a line of talk that I didn't have the key to at all. Mr. Gordon tells me afterwards it was English politics and that Sir Peter was tryin' to register me as a Conservative. Anyway, I've promised to vote for Balfour, or somebody like that next election; so I'm goin' to send word to Little Tim that he needn't come around. Had to do it, just to please the old gent. By the time we'd got to the little cups of black he'd switched to something else. "I don't suppose you know anything about railroads?" says he to Mr. Gordon. Then it was my grin. Railroads is what Pyramid plays with, you know. He's a director on three or four lines himself, and is always lookin' for more. It's about as safe to leave a branch road out after nightfall when Gordon's around as it would be to try to raise watermelons in Minetta Lane. He grinned, too, and said something about not knowing as much about 'em as he did once. With that Sir Peter lights up one of Mr. Gordon's Key West night-sticks and cuts adrift on the railroad business. That made the boss kind of sick at first. Railroads was something he was tryin' to forget for the evenin'. But there wasn't any shuttin' the old jay off. And say! he knew the case-cards all right. There was too much high finance about it for me to follow close; but anyways I seen that it made Mr. Gordon sit up and take notice. He'd peg in a question now and then, and got the old one so stirred up that after a while he shed the bucket, lugged out one of his bags, and flashed a lot of papers done up in neat little piles. He said it was a report he was goin' to make to some board or other, if ever the decimals would quit bothering him long enough. Well, that sort of thing might keep Mr. Gordon awake, but not for mine. Half-way to Baltimore I turns in, leaving 'em at it. I had a good snooze, too. Mr. Gordon comes to my bunk in the mornin', very mysterious. "Shorty," says he, "we're in. I've got to go up to the State Department for an hour or so, and while I'm gone I'd like you to keep an eye on Sir Peter. If he takes a notion to wander off, you persuade him to stay until I get back." "What you say goes," says I. I shoved up the shade and sees that they'd put the Adeline down at the end of the train-shed. About all I could see of Washington was the top of old George's headstone stickin' up over a freight-car. I fixed myself up and had breakfast, just as if I was in a boardin'-house, and then sits around waitin' for Sir Peter. He an' Danvers shows up after a while, and the old gent calls for tea and toast and jam. Then I knows he's farther off his base than ever. Think of truck like that for breakfast! But he gets away with it, and then says to Danvers: "Time we were off for the city, my man."