The bill passed without an opening vote. To-morrow it would be taken
up by the House. Already was it fixed to glide through that body on
rubber tires. Blandford, Grayson, and Plummer, all wheel-horses and
orators, and provided with plentiful memoranda concerning the deeds
of pioneer Briscoe, had agreed to furnish the motive power.

The San Saba lobby and its _protégé_ stumbled awkwardly down the
stairs and out into the Capitol yard. Then they herded closely and
gave one yell of triumph. But one of them--Buck-Kneed Summers it
was--hit the key with the thoughtful remark:

"She cut the mustard," he said, "all right. I reckon they're goin'
to buy Lon's steer. I ain't right much on the parlyment'ry, but I
gather that's what the signs added up. But she seems to me, Lonny,
the argyment ran principal to grandfather, instead of paint. It's
reasonable calculatin' that you want to be glad you got the Briscoe
brand on you, my son."

That remarked clinched in Lonny's mind an unpleasant, vague
suspicion to the same effect. His reticence increased, and he
gathered grass from the ground, chewing it pensively. The picture
as a picture had been humiliatingly absent from the Senator's
arguments. The painter had been held up as a grandson, pure and
simple. While this was gratifying on certain lines, it made art
look little and slab-sided. The Boy Artist was thinking.

The hotel Lonny stopped at was near the Capitol. It was near to the
one o'clock dinner hour when the appropriation had been passed by
the Senate. The hotel clerk told Lonny that a famous artist from New
York had arrived in town that day and was in the hotel. He was on