Mr. Clayton stared at the paper. “‘The bishop,’” he repeated, “’is a splendid type of the pure negro.’  I must have mistaken the bishop for the Congressman!  But how in the world did Jack get the thing balled up?  I ’ll call up the store and demand an explanation of him.

“Jack,” he asked, “what kind of a looking man was the fellow you gave the note to at the depot?”

“He was a very wicked-looking fellow, sir,” came back the answer.  “He had a bad eye, looked like a gambler, sir.  I am not surprised that you did n’t want to entertain him, even if he was a Congressman.”

“What color was he—­that ’s what I want to know—­and what kind of hair did he have?”

“Why, he was about my complexion, sir, and had straight black hair.”

The rules of the telephone company did not permit swearing over the line.  Mr. Clayton broke the rules.

“Was there any one else with him?” he asked when he had relieved his mind.

“Yes, sir, Bishop Jones of the African Methodist Jerusalem Church was sitting there with him; they had traveled from Washington together.  I drove the bishop to his stopping-place after I had left Mr. Brown at the hotel.  I did n’t suppose you ’d mind.”

Mr. Clayton fell into a chair, and indulged in thoughts unutterable.

He folded up the paper and slipped it under the family Bible, where it was least likely to be soon discovered.

“I ’ll hide the paper, anyway,” he groaned.  “I ’ll never hear the last of this till my dying day, so I may as well have a few hours’ respite.  It ’s too late to go back, and we ’ve got to play the farce out.  Alice is really sick with disappointment, and to let her know this now would only make her worse.  Maybe he ’ll leave town in a day or two, and then she ’ll be in condition to stand it.  Such luck is enough to disgust a man with trying to do right and live up to his principles.”

Time hung a little heavy on Mr. Clayton’s hands during the day.  His wife was busy with the housework.  He answered several telephone calls about Alice’s health, and called up the store occasionally to ask how the business was getting on.  After lunch he lay down on a sofa and took a nap, from which he was aroused by the sound of the door-bell.  He went to the door.  The evening paper was lying on the porch, and the newsboy, who had not observed the diphtheria sign until after he had rung, was hurrying away as fast as his legs would carry him.

Mr. Clayton opened the paper and looked it through to see if there was any reference to the visiting Congressman.  He found what he sought and more.  An article on the local page contained a resume of the information given in the morning paper, with the following additional paragraph:——­

“A reporter, who called at the Forest Hill this morning to interview Representative Brown, was informed that the Congressman had been invited to spend the remainder of his time in Groveland as the guest of Mr. William Watkins, the proprietor of the popular livery establishment on Main Street.  Mr. Brown will remain in the city several days, and a reception will be tendered him at Mr. Watkins’s on Wednesday evening.”