were Scotch pioneers among the spurs of the Alleghenies; and there
still lived these twain, in fashion little changed--MacNair a lawyer at
the court-house town, and Jabel Blake the creator, reviver, and
capitalist of the hamlet of Ross Valley. Jabel was hard, large, bony, and
dark, with pinched features and a whitish-gray eye, and a keen, thin,
long voice high-pitched, every separate accent of which betrayed the love
of money.

"It's an expensive trip," said Jabel Blake; "it's a costly trip. More
men are made poor, Arthur MacNair, by travellin' than by sickness.
Twice a year to Pittsburg and twice to Phildelfy is the whole of my
gadding. I stop, in Phildelfy, at the Camel Tavern, on Second Street,
and a very expensive house--two dollars a day. At Washington they rob
everybody, I'm told, and I shall be glad to get away with my clothes."

"Tut! Jabel," said MacNair, "brother Elk has taken rooms for me at
Willards', and for the little time you stay at the capital you can
lodge with us. A man who has elected a Congressman in spite of the
Pennsylvania Railroad shouldn't grudge one visit in his life-time to
Washington."

"Oh!" said Jabel, "I don't know as I begrudge that, though your
election, Arty, cost me four hundred and seven dollars and--I've got
it here in a book."

"I know that," said MacNair quietly; "don't read it again, Jabel. You
behaved like a sturdy, indignant man, paid all my expenses, though you
protested against an election in a moral land involving the
expenditure of a dime, and though you pass for the closest man west of
the mountains. And here we are, going upon errands of duty, as little
worldly as we can be, yet not anxious to belittle ourselves or our
district."

"I'd cheerfully given more, Arty, to beat that corporation. A
twenty-dollar bill or so, you know! But money is tight. I've scraped
and scraped for years to start my bank at Ross Valley, and every
dollar wasted retards the village. You boys have cost me a sight of
money. There's Elk's sword and horse, and the schooling of both of
you, and the burying of your father, Jim MacNair, eighteen years ago
this May. Dear! dear!"

The Honorable Perkiomen Trappe, catching a part of this remark,
observed that Jabel Blake, judging by his appearance, shouldn't have
buried MacNair's father, but devoured him. Jabel's unfeeling remark
gave MacNair no apparent pain; but he said:

"Jabel, don't speak to Elk about father. He is not as patient as he
should