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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5821-h.zip b/5821-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..88ac60f --- /dev/null +++ b/5821-h.zip diff --git a/5821-h/5821-h.htm b/5821-h/5821-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d15bb93 --- /dev/null +++ b/5821-h/5821-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3340 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>THE GILDED AGE, By Twain and Warner, Part 4</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>THE GILDED AGE, Part 4</h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 4. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gilded Age, Part 4. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 20, 2004 [EBook #5821] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 4. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<br><hr> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + +<center><h1>THE GILDED AGE</h1> +</center><br> +<center><h3>A Tale of Today</h3> +</center><br><br> +<center><h2>by<br><br> Mark Twain<br> and <br>Charles Dudley Warner</h2> +</center><br><br> +<center><h3>1873</h3> +</center> +<br><br> + +<center><h3>Part 4.</h3></center> + +<br><br> + + +<center><a name="Bookcover"></a><img alt="Bookcover.jpg (118K)" src="images/Bookcover.jpg" height="1028" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<a name="Frontpiece"></a><center><img alt="Frontpiece.jpg (96K)" src="images/Frontpiece.jpg" height="863" width="571"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<center><a name="Titlepage"></a><img alt="Titlepage.jpg (38K)" src="images/Titlepage.jpg" height="993" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<center><h2>CONTENTS</h2> +</center> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> + +<a href="#ch28">CHAPTER XXVIII</a><br> +Visit to Headquarters in Wall Street—How Appropriations Are Obtained +and Their Cost +<br><br> + +<a href="#ch29">CHAPTER XXIX</a><br> +Philip's Experience With the Rail—Road Conductor—Surveys His Mining +Property +<br><br> +<a href="#ch30">CHAPTER XXX</a><br> +Laura and Col Sellers Go To Washington On Invitation of Senator Dilworthy + <br><br> +<a href="#ch31">CHAPTER XXXI</a><br> +Philip and Harry at the Boltons'—Philip Seriously Injured—Ruth's First Case +of Surgery +<br><br> +<a href="#ch32">CHAPTER XXXII</a><br> +Laura Becomes a Famous Belle at Washington +<br><br> +<a href="#ch33">CHAPTER XXXIII</a><br> +Society in Washington—The Antiques, the Parvenus, and the Middle Aristocracy +<br><br> +<a href="#ch34">CHAPTER XXXIV</a><br> +Grand Scheme For Disposing of the Tennessee Land—Laura and Washington Hawkins +Enjoying the Reputation of Being Millionaires +<br><br> +<a href="#ch35">CHAPTER XXXV</a><br> +About Senators—Their Privileges and Habits +<br><br> +<a href="#ch36">CHAPTER XXXVI </a><br> +An Hour in a Book Store + +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + + +<center><h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</center> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +91. <a href="#p251">AT HEADQUARTERS</a> <br> +92. <a href="#p253">TOUCHING A WEAK SPOT</a> <br> +93. <a href="#p254">CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEE, $10,000</a>, <br> +94. <a href="#p255">MALE LOBBYIST, $3,000</a> 255 <br> +95. <a href="#p255">FEMALE LOBBYIST, $3,000</a> <br> +96. <a href="#p255">HIGH MORAL SENATOR, $3,000</a> <br> +97. <a href="#p256">COUNTRY MEMBER, $500</a> <br> +98. <a href="#p259">DOCUMENTARY PROOF</a> <br> +99. <a href="#p262">COLONEL SELLERS DESPONDENT</a> <br> +100. <a href="#p263">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +101. <a href="#p265">THE MONARCH OF ALL HE SURVEYS</a> <br> +102. <a href="#p266">PHILIP THRUST FROM THE R. R. CAR</a> <br> +103. <a href="#p268">THE JUSTICE</a> <br> +104. <a href="#p269">"MINE INN"</a> <br> +105. <a href="#p271">A PLEASING LANDLORD</a> <br> +106. <a href="#p272">PHILIP HIRED THREE WOODSMEN</a><br> +107. <a href="#p273">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +108. <a href="#p277">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +109. <a href="#p279">BRO. BALAAM</a> <br> +110. <a href="#p286">THE FIRE PANIC</a> <br> +111. <a href="#p287">RUTH ASSISTS IN DRESSING PHILIP'S ARM</a> <br> +112. <a href="#p291">THE FIRST RECEPTION</a> <br> +113. <a href="#p294">VANITY COLLAPSED</a> <br> +114. <a href="#p297">THE ATTACHES OF THE ANTIQUES</a> <br> +115. <a href="#p301">HON. OLIVER HIGGINS</a> <br> +116. <a href="#p302">PAT O'RILEY AND THE "OULD WOMAN"</a> <br> +117. <a href="#p304">HON. P. OREILLE AND LADY</a> <br> +118. <a href="#p306">AN UNMISTAKABLE POTATO MOUTH</a> <br> +119. <a href="#p310">THE THREE PATIENTS</a> <br> +120. <a href="#p313">TAIL PIECE</a> <br> +121. <a href="#p317">DELIBERATE PERSECUTION</a> <br> +122. <a href="#p321">"IT IS ONLY ME"</a> <br> +123. <a href="#p324">"ALL CONGRESSMEN DO THAT"</a> <br> +124. <a href="#p326">A TRICK WORTH KNOWING</a> <br> +125. <a href="#p327">COL. SELLERS ENLIGHTENING THE BOHEMIANS</a> <br> +126. <a href="#p328">LAURA IN THE BOOK STORE</a><br> +127. <a href="#p333">VERY AGREEABLE</a> <br> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Whatever may have been the language of Harry's letter to the Colonel, +the information it conveyed was condensed or expanded, one or the other, +from the following episode of his visit to New York:</p> + +<p>He called, with official importance in his mien, at No.— Wall street, +where a great gilt sign betokened the presence of the head-quarters of +the "Columbus River Slack-Water Navigation Company." He entered and +gave a dressy porter his card, and was requested to wait a moment in a +sort of ante-room. The porter returned in a minute; and asked whom he +would like to see?</p> + +<p>"The president of the company, of course."</p> + +<p>"He is busy with some gentlemen, sir; says he will be done with them +directly."</p> + +<p>That a copper-plate card with "Engineer-in-Chief" on it should be +received with such tranquility as this, annoyed Mr. Brierly not a little. +But he had to submit. Indeed his annoyance had time to augment a good +deal; for he was allowed to cool his heels a frill half hour in the +ante-room before those gentlemen emerged and he was ushered into the presence. +He found a stately dignitary occupying a very official chair behind a +long green morocco-covered table, in a room with sumptuously carpeted and +furnished, and well garnished with pictures.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p251"></a><img alt="p251.jpg (48K)" src="images/p251.jpg" height="481" width="537"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Good morning, sir; take a seat—take a seat."</p> + +<p>"Thank you sir," said Harry, throwing as much chill into his manner as +his ruffled dignity prompted.</p> + +<p>"We perceive by your reports and the reports of the Chief Superintendent, +that you have been making gratifying progress with the work.—We are all +very much pleased."</p> + +<p>"Indeed? We did not discover it from your letters—which we have not +received; nor by the treatment our drafts have met with—which were not +honored; nor by the reception of any part of the appropriation, no part +of it having come to hand."</p> + +<p>"Why, my dear Mr. Brierly, there must be some mistake, I am sure we wrote +you and also Mr. Sellers, recently—when my clerk comes he will show +copies—letters informing you of the ten per cent. assessment."</p> + +<p>"Oh, certainly, we got those letters. But what we wanted was money to +carry on the work—money to pay the men."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, certainly—true enough—but we credited you both for a large +part of your assessments—I am sure that was in our letters."</p> + +<p>"Of course that was in—I remember that."</p> + +<p>"Ah, very well then. Now we begin to understand each other."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't see that we do. There's two months' wages due the men, +and——"</p> + +<p>"How? Haven't you paid the men?"</p> + +<p>"Paid them! How are we going to pay them when you don't honor our +drafts?"</p> + +<p>"Why, my dear sir, I cannot see how you can find any fault with us. I am +sure we have acted in a perfectly straight forward business way.—Now let +us look at the thing a moment. You subscribed for 100 shares of the +capital stock, at $1,000 a share, I believe?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, I did."</p> + +<p>"And Mr. Sellers took a like amount?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Very well. No concern can get along without money. We levied a ten per +cent. assessment. It was the original understanding that you and Mr. +Sellers were to have the positions you now hold, with salaries of $600 a +month each, while in active service. You were duly elected to these +places, and you accepted them. Am I right?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"Very well. You were given your instructions and put to work. By your +reports it appears that you have expended the sum of $9,610 upon the said +work. Two months salary to you two officers amounts altogether to +$2,400—about one-eighth of your ten per cent. assessment, you see; which +leaves you in debt to the company for the other seven-eighths of the +assessment—viz, something over $8,000 apiece. Now instead of requiring +you to forward this aggregate of $16,000 or $17,000 to New York, the +company voted unanimously to let you pay it over to the contractors, +laborers from time to time, and give you credit on the books for it. +And they did it without a murmur, too, for they were pleased with the +progress you had made, and were glad to pay you that little +compliment—and a very neat one it was, too, I am sure. The work you did fell short +of $10,000, a trifle. Let me see—$9,640 from $20,000 salary $2;400 +added—ah yes, the balance due the company from yourself and Mr. Sellers +is $7,960, which I will take the responsibility of allowing to stand for +the present, unless you prefer to draw a check now, and thus——"</p> + +<p>"Confound it, do you mean to say that instead of the company owing us +$2,400, we owe the company $7,960?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes."</p> + +<p>"And that we owe the men and the contractors nearly ten thousand dollars +besides?"</p> + +<p>"Owe them! Oh bless my soul, you can't mean that you have not paid these +people?"</p> + +<p>"But I do mean it!"</p> + +<p>The president rose and walked the floor like a man in bodily pain. His +brows contracted, he put his hand up and clasped his forehead, and kept +saying, "Oh, it is, too bad, too bad, too bad! Oh, it is bound to be +found out—nothing can prevent it—nothing!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p253"></a><img alt="p253.jpg (26K)" src="images/p253.jpg" height="463" width="289"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Then he threw himself into his chair and said:</p> + +<p>"My dear Mr. Brierson, this is dreadful—perfectly dreadful. It will be +found out. It is bound to tarnish the good name of the company; our +credit will be seriously, most seriously impaired. How could you be so +thoughtless—the men ought to have been paid though it beggared us all!"</p> + +<p>"They ought, ought they? Then why the devil—my name is not Bryerson, by +the way—why the mischief didn't the compa—why what in the nation ever +became of the appropriation? Where is that appropriation?—if a +stockholder may make so bold as to ask."</p> + +<p>The appropriation?—that paltry $200,000, do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Of course—but I didn't know that $200,000 was so very paltry. Though I +grant, of course, that it is not a large sum, strictly speaking. But +where is it?"</p> + +<p>"My dear sir, you surprise me. You surely cannot have had a large +acquaintance with this sort of thing. Otherwise you would not have +expected much of a result from a mere INITIAL appropriation like that. +It was never intended for anything but a mere nest egg for the future and +real appropriations to cluster around."</p> + +<p>"Indeed? Well, was it a myth, or was it a reality? Whatever become of +it?"</p> + +<p>"Why the—matter is simple enough. A Congressional appropriation costs +money. Just reflect, for instance—a majority of the House Committee, +say $10,000 apiece—$40,000; a majority of the Senate Committee, the same +each—say $40,000; a little extra to one or two chairman of one or two +such committees, say $10,000 each—$20,000; and there's $100,000 of the +money gone, to begin with. Then, seven male lobbyists, at $3,000 +each—$21,000; one female lobbyist, $10,000; a high moral Congressman or +Senator here and there—the high moral ones cost more, because they. +give tone to a measure—say ten of these at $3,000 each, is $30,000; then +a lot of small-fry country members who won't vote for anything whatever +without pay—say twenty at $500 apiece, is $10,000; a lot of dinners to +members—say $10,000 altogether; lot of jimcracks for Congressmen's wives +and children—those go a long way—you can't sped too much money in that +line—well, those things cost in a lump, say $10,000—along there +somewhere; and then comes your printed documents—your maps, your tinted +engravings, your pamphlets, your illuminated show cards, your +advertisements in a hundred and fifty papers at ever so much a +line—because you've got to keep the papers all light or you are gone up, you +know. Oh, my dear sir, printing bills are destruction itself. Ours so +far amount to—let me see—10; 52; 22; 13;—and then there's 11; 14; +33—well, never mind the details, the total in clean numbers foots up +$118,254.42 thus far!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p254"></a><img alt="p254.jpg (18K)" src="images/p254.jpg" height="347" width="289"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<center><a name="p255"></a><img alt="p255.jpg (40K)" src="images/p255.jpg" height="917" width="311"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><a name="p256"></a><img alt="p256.jpg (16K)" src="images/p256.jpg" height="359" width="309"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes indeed. Printing's no bagatelle, I can tell you. And then +there's your contributions, as a company, to Chicago fires and Boston +fires, and orphan asylums and all that sort of thing—head the list, you +see, with the company's full name and a thousand dollars set +opposite—great card, sir—one of the finest advertisements in the world—the +preachers mention it in the pulpit when it's a religious charity—one of +the happiest advertisements in the world is your benevolent donation. +Ours have amounted to sixteen thousand dollars and some cents up to this +time."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. Perhaps the biggest thing we've done in the advertising line +was to get an officer of the U. S. government, of perfectly Himmalayan +official altitude, to write up our little internal improvement for a +religious paper of enormous circulation—I tell you that makes our bonds +go handsomely among the pious poor. Your religious paper is by far the +best vehicle for a thing of this kind, because they'll 'lead' your +article and put it right in the midst of the reading matter; and if it's +got a few Scripture quotations in it, and some temperance platitudes and +a bit of gush here and there about Sunday Schools, and a sentimental +snuffle now and then about 'God's precious ones, the honest hard-handed +poor,' it works the nation like a charm, my dear sir, and never a man +suspects that it is an advertisement; but your secular paper sticks you +right into the advertising columns and of course you don't take a trick. +Give me a religious paper to advertise in, every time; and if you'll just +look at their advertising pages, you'll observe that other people think a +good deal as I do—especially people who have got little financial +schemes to make everybody rich with. Of course I mean your great big +metropolitan religious papers that know how to serve God and make money +at the same time—that's your sort, sir, that's your sort—a religious +paper that isn't run to make money is no use to us, sir, as an +advertising medium—no use to anybody—in our line of business. I guess +our next best dodge was sending a pleasure trip of newspaper reporters +out to Napoleon. Never paid them a cent; just filled them up with +champagne and the fat of the land, put pen, ink and paper before them +while they were red-hot, and bless your soul when you come to read their +letters you'd have supposed they'd been to heaven. And if a sentimental +squeamishness held one or two of them back from taking a less rosy view +of Napoleon, our hospitalities tied his tongue, at least, and he said +nothing at all and so did us no harm. Let me see—have I stated all the +expenses I've been at? No, I was near forgetting one or two items. +There's your official salaries—you can't get good men for nothing. +Salaries cost pretty lively. And then there's your big high-sounding +millionaire names stuck into your advertisements as stockholders—another +card, that—and they are stockholders, too, but you have to give them the +stock and non-assessable at that—so they're an expensive lot. Very, +very expensive thing, take it all around, is a big internal improvement +concern—but you see that yourself, Mr. Bryerman—you see that, yourself, +sir."</p> + +<p>"But look here. I think you are a little mistaken about it's ever having +cost anything for Congressional votes. I happen to know something about +that. I've let you say your say—now let me say mine. I don't wish to +seem to throw any suspicion on anybody's statements, because we are all +liable to be mistaken. But how would it strike you if I were to say that +I was in Washington all the time this bill was pending? and what if I +added that I put the measure through myself? Yes, sir, I did that little +thing. And moreover, I never paid a dollar for any man's vote and never +promised one. There are some ways of doing a thing that are as good as +others which other people don't happen to think about, or don't have the +knack of succeeding in, if they do happen to think of them. My dear sir, +I am obliged to knock some of your expenses in the head—for never a cent +was paid a Congressman or Senator on the part of this Navigation Company."</p> + +<p>The president smiled blandly, even sweetly, all through this harangue, +and then said:</p> + +<p>"Is that so?"</p> + +<p>"Every word of it."</p> + +<p>"Well it does seem to alter the complexion of things a little. You are +acquainted with the members down there, of course, else you could not +have worked to such advantage?"</p> + +<p>"I know them all, sir. I know their wives, their children, their +babies—I even made it a point to be on good terms with their lackeys. I know +every Congressman well—even familiarly."</p> + +<p>"Very good. Do you know any of their signatures? Do you know their +handwriting?"</p> + +<p>"Why I know their handwriting as well as I know my own—have had +correspondence enough with them, I should think. And their +signatures—why I can tell their initials, even."</p> + +<p>The president went to a private safe, unlocked it and got out some +letters and certain slips of paper. Then he said:</p> + +<p>"Now here, for instance; do you believe that that is a genuine letter? +Do you know this signature here?—and this one? Do you know who those +initials represent—and are they forgeries?"</p> + +<p>Harry was stupefied. There were things there that made his brain swim. +Presently, at the bottom of one of the letters he saw a signature that +restored his equilibrium; it even brought the sunshine of a smile to his +face.</p> + +<p>The president said:</p> + +<p>"That one amuses you. You never suspected him?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I ought to have suspected him, but I don't believe it ever +really occurred to me. Well, well, well—how did you ever have the nerve +to approach him, of all others?"</p> + +<p>"Why my friend, we never think of accomplishing anything without his +help. He is our mainstay. But how do those letters strike you?"</p> + +<p>"They strike me dumb! What a stone-blind idiot I have been!"</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p259"></a><img alt="p259.jpg (36K)" src="images/p259.jpg" height="465" width="421"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Well, take it all around, I suppose you had a pleasant time in +Washington," said the president, gathering up the letters; "of course you +must have had. Very few men could go there and get a money bill through +without buying a single"</p> + +<p>"Come, now, Mr. President, that's plenty of that! I take back everything +I said on that head. I'm a wiser man to-day than I was yesterday, I can +tell you."</p> + +<p>"I think you are. In fact I am satisfied you are. But now I showed you +these things in confidence, you understand. Mention facts as much as you +want to, but don't mention names to anybody. I can depend on you for +that, can't I?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course. I understand the necessity of that. I will not betray +the names. But to go back a bit, it begins to look as if you never saw +any of that appropriation at all?"</p> + +<p>"We saw nearly ten thousand dollars of it—and that was all. Several of +us took turns at log-rolling in Washington, and if we had charged +anything for that service, none of that $10,000 would ever have reached +New York."</p> + +<p>"If you hadn't levied the assessment you would have been in a close place +I judge?"</p> + +<p>"Close? Have you figured up the total of the disbursements I told you +of?"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't think of that."</p> + +<p>"Well, lets see:</p> + +<center> +<table summary=""> + + +<tr><td>Spent in Washington, say, </td><td>$191,000</td></tr> +<tr><td>Printing, advertising, etc, say </td><td>$118,000</td></tr> +<tr><td>Charity, say, </td><td>$16,000</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td> Total, </td><td>$325,000</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>The money to do that with, comes from—</td></tr> +<tr><td>Appropriation, </td><td>$200,000</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>Ten per cent assessment on capital of</td></tr> +<tr><td> $1,000,000 </td><td>$100,000</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td> Total, </td><td>$300,000</td></tr> + + + + +</table> +</center> + + +<p>"Which leaves us in debt some $25,000 at this moment. Salaries of home +officers are still going on; also printing and advertising. Next month +will show a state of things!"</p> + +<p>"And then—burst up, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"By no means. Levy another assessment"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see. That's dismal."</p> + +<p>"By no means."</p> + +<p>"Why isn't it? What's the road out?"</p> + +<p>"Another appropriation, don't you see?"</p> + +<p>"Bother the appropriations. They cost more than they come to."</p> + +<p>"Not the next one. We'll call for half a million—get it and go for a +million the very next month."—"Yes, but the cost of it!"</p> + +<p>The president smiled, and patted his secret letters affectionately. He +said:</p> + +<p>"All these people are in the next Congress. We shan't have to pay them a +cent. And what is more, they will work like beavers for us—perhaps it +might be to their advantage."</p> + +<p>Harry reflected profoundly a while. Then he said:</p> + +<p>"We send many missionaries to lift up the benighted races of other lands. +How much cheaper and better it would be if those people could only come +here and drink of our civilization at its fountain head."</p> + +<p>"I perfectly agree with you, Mr. Beverly. Must you go? Well, good +morning. Look in, when you are passing; and whenever I can give you any +information about our affairs and pro'spects, I shall be glad to do it."</p> + +<p>Harry's letter was not a long one, but it contained at least the +calamitous figures that came out in the above conversation. The Colonel +found himself in a rather uncomfortable place—no $1,200 salary +forthcoming; and himself held responsible for half of the $9,640 due the +workmen, to say nothing of being in debt to the company to the extent of +nearly $4,000. Polly's heart was nearly broken; the "blues" returned in +fearful force, and she had to go out of the room to hide the tears that +nothing could keep back now.</p> + +<p>There was mourning in another quarter, too, for Louise had a letter. +Washington had refused, at the last moment, to take $40,000 for the +Tennessee Land, and had demanded $150,000! So the trade fell through, +and now Washington was wailing because he had been so foolish. But he +wrote that his man might probably return to the city soon, and then he +meant to sell to him, sure, even if he had to take $10,000. Louise had a +good cry-several of them, indeed—and the family charitably forebore to +make any comments that would increase her grief.</p> + +<p>Spring blossomed, summer came, dragged its hot weeks by, and the +Colonel's spirits rose, day by day, for the railroad was making good +progress. But by and by something happened. Hawkeye had always declined +to subscribe anything toward the railway, imagining that her large +business would be a sufficient compulsory influence; but now Hawkeye was +frightened; and before Col. Sellers knew what he was about, Hawkeye, in a +panic, had rushed to the front and subscribed such a sum that Napoleon's +attractions suddenly sank into insignificance and the railroad concluded +to follow a comparatively straight coarse instead of going miles out of +its way to build up a metropolis in the muddy desert of Stone's Landing.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p262"></a><img alt="p262.jpg (35K)" src="images/p262.jpg" height="477" width="495"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The thunderbolt fell. After all the Colonel's deep planning; after all +his brain work and tongue work in drawing public attention to his pet +project and enlisting interest in it; after all his faithful hard toil +with his hands, and running hither and thither on his busy feet; after +all his high hopes and splendid prophecies, the fates had turned their +backs on him at last, and all in a moment his air-castles crumbled to +ruins abort him. Hawkeye rose from her fright triumphant and rejoicing, +and down went Stone's Landing! One by one its meagre parcel of +inhabitants packed up and moved away, as the summer waned and fall +approached. Town lots were no longer salable, traffic ceased, a deadly +lethargy fell upon the place once more, the "Weekly Telegraph" faded into +an early grave, the wary tadpole returned from exile, the bullfrog +resumed his ancient song, the tranquil turtle sunned his back upon bank +and log and drowsed his grateful life away as in the old sweet days of +yore.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p263"></a><img alt="p263.jpg (15K)" src="images/p263.jpg" height="191" width="389"> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch29"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Philip Sterling was on his way to Ilium, in the state of Pennsylvania. +Ilium was the railway station nearest to the tract of wild land which +Mr. Bolton had commissioned him to examine.</p> + +<p>On the last day of the journey as the railway train Philip was on was +leaving a large city, a lady timidly entered the drawing-room car, and +hesitatingly took a chair that was at the moment unoccupied. Philip saw +from the window that a gentleman had put her upon the car just as it was +starting. In a few moments the conductor entered, and without waiting an +explanation, said roughly to the lady,</p> + +<p>"Now you can't sit there. That seat's taken. Go into the other car."</p> + +<p>"I did not intend to take the seat," said the lady rising, "I only sat +down a moment till the conductor should come and give me a seat."</p> + +<p>"There aint any. Car's full. You'll have to leave."</p> + +<p>"But, sir," said the lady, appealingly, "I thought—"</p> + +<p>"Can't help what you thought—you must go into the other car."</p> + +<p>"The train is going very fast, let me stand here till we stop."</p> + +<p>"The lady can have my seat," cried Philip, springing up.</p> + +<p>The conductor turned towards Philip, and coolly and deliberately surveyed +him from head to foot, with contempt in every line of his face, turned +his back upon him without a word, and said to the lady,</p> + +<p>"Come, I've got no time to talk. You must go now."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p265"></a><img alt="p265.jpg (50K)" src="images/p265.jpg" height="563" width="455"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The lady, entirely disconcerted by such rudeness, and frightened, moved +towards the door, opened it and stepped out. The train was swinging +along at a rapid rate, jarring from side to side; the step was a long one +between the cars and there was no protecting grating. The lady attempted +it, but lost her balance, in the wind and the motion of the car, and +fell! She would inevitably have gone down under the wheels, if Philip, +who had swiftly followed her, had not caught her arm and drawn her up. +He then assisted her across, found her a seat, received her bewildered +thanks, and returned to his car.</p> + +<p>The conductor was still there, taking his tickets, and growling something +about imposition. Philip marched up to him, and burst out with,</p> + +<p>"You are a brute, an infernal brute, to treat a woman that way."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you'd like to make a fuss about it," sneered the conductor.</p> + +<p>Philip's reply was a blow, given so suddenly and planted so squarely in +the conductor's face, that it sent him reeling over a fat passenger, who +was looking up in mild wonder that any one should dare to dispute with a +conductor, and against the side of the car.</p> + +<p>He recovered himself, reached the bell rope, "Damn you, I'll learn you," +stepped to the door and called a couple of brakemen, and then, as the +speed slackened; roared out,</p> + +<p>"Get off this train."</p> + +<p>"I shall not get off. I have as much right here as you."</p> + +<p>"We'll see," said the conductor, advancing with the brakemen. The +passengers protested, and some of them said to each other, "That's too +bad," as they always do in such cases, but none of them offered to take a +hand with Philip. The men seized him, wrenched him from his seat, +dragged him along the aisle, tearing his clothes, thrust him from the +car, and, then flung his carpet-bag, overcoat and umbrella after him. +And the train went on.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p266"></a><img alt="p266.jpg (72K)" src="images/p266.jpg" height="909" width="563"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The conductor, red in the face and puffing from his exertion, swaggered +through the car, muttering "Puppy, I'll learn him." The passengers, when +he had gone, were loud in their indignation, and talked about signing a +protest, but they did nothing more than talk.</p> + +<p>The next morning the Hooverville Patriot and Clarion had this "item":—</p> + + + <center><p>SLIGHTUALLY OVERBOARD.</p></center> + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> + + <p>"We learn that as the down noon express was leaving H—— yesterday + a lady! (God save the mark) attempted to force herself into the + already full palatial car. Conductor Slum, who is too old a bird to + be caught with chaff, courteously informed her that the car was + full, and when she insisted on remaining, he persuaded her to go + into the car where she belonged. Thereupon a young sprig, from the + East, blustered like a Shanghai rooster, and began to sass the + conductor with his chin music. That gentleman delivered the young + aspirant for a muss one of his elegant little left-handers, which so + astonished him that he began to feel for his shooter. Whereupon Mr. + Slum gently raised the youth, carried him forth, and set him down + just outside the car to cool off. Whether the young blood has yet + made his way out of Bascom's swamp, we have not learned. Conductor + Slum is one of the most gentlemanly and efficient officers on the + road; but he ain't trifled with, not much. We learn that the + company have put a new engine on the seven o'clock train, and newly + upholstered the drawing-room car throughout. It spares no effort + for the comfort of the traveling public." + </p> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Philip never had been before in Bascom's swamp, and there was nothing +inviting in it to detain him. After the train got out of the way he +crawled out of the briars and the mud, and got upon the track. He was +somewhat bruised, but he was too angry to mind that. He plodded along +over the ties in a very hot condition of mind and body. In the scuffle, +his railway check had disappeared, and he grimly wondered, as he noticed +the loss, if the company would permit him to walk over their track if +they should know he hadn't a ticket.</p> + +<p>Philip had to walk some five miles before he reached a little station, +where he could wait for a train, and he had ample time for reflection. +At first he was full of vengeance on the company. He would sue it. He +would make it pay roundly. But then it occurred to him that he did not +know the name of a witness he could summon, and that a personal fight +against a railway corporation was about the most hopeless in the world. +He then thought he would seek out that conductor, lie in wait for him at +some station, and thrash him, or get thrashed himself.</p> + +<p>But as he got cooler, that did not seem to him a project worthy of a +gentleman exactly. Was it possible for a gentleman to get even with such +a fellow as that conductor on the letter's own plane? And when he came +to this point, he began to ask himself, if he had not acted very much +like a fool. He didn't regret striking the fellow—he hoped he had left +a mark on him. But, after all, was that the best way? Here was he, +Philip Sterling, calling himself a gentleman, in a brawl with a vulgar +conductor, about a woman he had never seen before. Why should he have +put himself in such a ridiculous position? Wasn't it enough to have +offered the lady his seat, to have rescued her from an accident, perhaps +from death? Suppose he had simply said to the conductor, "Sir, your +conduct is brutal, I shall report you." The passengers, who saw the +affair, might have joined in a report against the conductor, and he might +really have accomplished something. And, now! Philip looked at leis +torn clothes, and thought with disgust of his haste in getting into a +fight with such an autocrat.</p> + +<p>At the little station where Philip waited for the next train, he met a +man—who turned out to be a justice of the peace in that neighborhood, +and told him his adventure. He was a kindly sort of man, and seemed very +much interested.</p> + +<p>"Dum 'em," said he, when he had heard the story.</p> + +<p>"Do you think any thing can be done, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Wal, I guess tain't no use. I hain't a mite of doubt of every word you +say. But suin's no use. The railroad company owns all these people +along here, and the judges on the bench too. Spiled your clothes! Wal, +'least said's soonest mended.' You haint no chance with the company."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p268"></a><img alt="p268.jpg (11K)" src="images/p268.jpg" height="279" width="253"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>When next morning, he read the humorous account in the Patriot and +Clarion, he saw still more clearly what chance he would have had before +the public in a fight with the railroad company.</p> + +<p>Still Philip's conscience told him that it was his plain duty to carry +the matter into the courts, even with the certainty of defeat. +He confessed that neither he nor any citizen had a right to consult his +own feelings or conscience in a case where a law of the land had been +violated before his own eyes. He confessed that every citizen's first +duty in such case is to put aside his own business and devote his time +and his best efforts to seeing that the infraction is promptly punished; +and he knew that no country can be well governed unless its citizens as +a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians +of the law, and that the law officers are only the machinery for its +execution, nothing more. As a finality he was obliged to confess that he +was a bad citizen, and also that the general laxity of the time, and the +absence of a sense of duty toward any part of the community but the +individual himself were ingrained in him, am he was no better than the +rest of the people.</p> + +<p>The result of this little adventure was that Philip did not reach Ilium +till daylight the next morning, when he descended sleepy and sore, from a +way train, and looked about him. Ilium was in a narrow mountain gorge, +through which a rapid stream ran. It consisted of the plank platform on +which he stood, a wooden house, half painted, with a dirty piazza +(unroofed) in front, and a sign board hung on a slanting pole—bearing +the legend, "Hotel. P. Dusenheimer," a sawmill further down the stream, +a blacksmith-shop, and a store, and three or four unpainted dwellings of +the slab variety.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p269"></a><img alt="p269.jpg (21K)" src="images/p269.jpg" height="315" width="289"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>As Philip approached the hotel he saw what appeared to be a wild beast +crouching on the piazza. It did not stir, however, and he soon found +that it was only a stuffed skin. This cheerful invitation to the tavern +was the remains of a huge panther which had been killed in the region a +few weeks before. Philip examined his ugly visage and strong crooked +fore-arm, as he was waiting admittance, having pounded upon the door.</p> + +<p>"Yait a bit. I'll shoost—put on my trowsers," shouted a voice from the +window, and the door was soon opened by the yawning landlord.</p> + +<p>"Morgen! Didn't hear d' drain oncet. Dem boys geeps me up zo spate. +Gom right in."</p> + +<p>Philip was shown into a dirty bar-room. It was a small room, with a +stove in the middle, set in a long shallow box of sand, for the benefit +of the "spitters," a bar across one end—a mere counter with a sliding +glass-case behind it containing a few bottles having ambitious labels, +and a wash-sink in one corner. On the walls were the bright yellow and +black handbills of a traveling circus, with pictures of acrobats in human +pyramids, horses flying in long leaps through the air, and sylph-like +women in a paradisaic costume, balancing themselves upon the tips of +their toes on the bare backs of frantic and plunging steeds, and kissing +their hands to the spectators meanwhile.</p> + +<p>As Philip did not desire a room at that hour, he was invited to wash +himself at the nasty sink, a feat somewhat easier than drying his face, +for the towel that hung in a roller over the sink was evidently as much a +fixture as the sink itself, and belonged, like the suspended brush and +comb, to the traveling public. Philip managed to complete his toilet by +the use of his pocket-handkerchief, and declining the hospitality of the +landlord, implied in the remark, "You won'd dake notin'?" he went into +the open air to wait for breakfast.</p> + +<p>The country he saw was wild but not picturesque. The mountain before him +might be eight hundred feet high, and was only a portion of a long +unbroken range, savagely wooded, which followed the stream. Behind the +hotel, and across the brawling brook, was another level-topped, wooded +range exactly like it. Ilium itself, seen at a glance, was old enough to +be dilapidated, and if it had gained anything by being made a wood and +water station of the new railroad, it was only a new sort of grime and +rawness. P. Dusenheimer, standing in the door of his uninviting +groggery, when the trains stopped for water; never received from the +traveling public any patronage except facetious remarks upon his personal +appearance. Perhaps a thousand times he had heard the remark, "Ilium +fuit," followed in most instances by a hail to himself as "AEneas," with +the inquiry "Where is old Anchises?" At first he had replied, "Dere +ain't no such man;" but irritated by its senseless repetition, he had +latterly dropped into the formula of, "You be dam."</p> + +<p>Philip was recalled from the contemplation of Ilium by the rolling and +growling of the gong within the hotel, the din and clamor increasing till +the house was apparently unable to contain it; when it burst out of the +front door and informed the world that breakfast was on the table.</p> + +<p>The dining room was long, low and narrow, and a narrow table extended its +whole length. Upon this was spread a cloth which from appearance might +have been as long in use as the towel in the barroom. Upon the table was +the usual service, the heavy, much nicked stone ware, the row of plated +and rusty castors, the sugar bowls with the zinc tea-spoons sticking up +in them, the piles of yellow biscuits, the discouraged-looking plates of +butter. The landlord waited, and Philip was pleased to observe the +change in his manner. In the barroom he was the conciliatory landlord. +Standing behind his guests at table, he had an air of peremptory +patronage, and the voice in which he shot out the inquiry, as he seized +Philip's plate, "Beefsteak or liver?" quite took away Philip's power of +choice. He begged for a glass of milk, after trying that green hued +compound called coffee, and made his breakfast out of that and some hard +crackers which seemed to have been imported into Ilium before the +introduction of the iron horse, and to have withstood a ten years siege +of regular boarders, Greeks and others.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p271"></a><img alt="p271.jpg (24K)" src="images/p271.jpg" height="317" width="505"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The land that Philip had come to look at was at least five miles distant +from Ilium station. A corner of it touched the railroad, but the rest +was pretty much an unbroken wilderness, eight or ten thousand acres of +rough country, most of it such a mountain range as he saw at Ilium.</p> + +<p>His first step was to hire three woodsmen to accompany him. By their +help he built a log hut, and established a camp on the land, and then +began his explorations, mapping down his survey as he went along, noting +the timber, and the lay of the land, and making superficial observations +as to the prospect of coal.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p272"></a><img alt="p272.jpg (51K)" src="images/p272.jpg" height="465" width="585"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The landlord at Ilium endeavored to persuade Philip to hire the services +of a witch-hazel professor of that region, who could walk over the land +with his wand and tell him infallibly whether it contained coal, and +exactly where the strata ran. But Philip preferred to trust to his own +study of the country, and his knowledge of the geological formation. +He spent a month in traveling over the land and making calculations; +and made up his mind that a fine vein of coal ran through the mountain +about a mile from the railroad, and that the place to run in a tunnel was +half way towards its summit.</p> + +<p>Acting with his usual promptness, Philip, with the consent of Mr. Bolton, +broke ground there at once, and, before snow came, had some rude +buildings up, and was ready for active operations in the spring. It was +true that there were no outcroppings of coal at the place, and the people +at Ilium said he "mought as well dig for plug terbaccer there;" but +Philip had great faith in the uniformity of nature's operations in ages +past, and he had no doubt that he should strike at this spot the rich +vein that had made the fortune of the Golden Briar Company.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p273"></a><img alt="p273.jpg (14K)" src="images/p273.jpg" height="245" width="269"> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch30"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Once more Louise had good news from her Washington—Senator Dilworthy was +going to sell the Tennessee Land to the government! Louise told Laura in +confidence. She had told her parents, too, and also several bosom +friends; but all of these people had simply looked sad when they heard +the news, except Laura. Laura's face suddenly brightened under it—only +for an instant, it is true, but poor Louise was grateful for even that +fleeting ray of encouragement. When next Laura was alone, she fell into +a train of thought something like this:</p> + +<p>"If the Senator has really taken hold of this matter, I may look for that +invitation to his house at, any moment. I am perishing to go! I do long +to know whether I am only simply a large-sized pigmy among these pigmies +here, who tumble over so easily when one strikes them, or whether I am +really—." Her thoughts drifted into other channels, for a season. +Then she continued:— "He said I could be useful in the great cause of +philanthropy, and help in the blessed work of uplifting the poor and the +ignorant, if he found it feasible to take hold of our Land. Well, that +is neither here nor there; what I want, is to go to Washington and find +out what I am. I want money, too; and if one may judge by what she +hears, there are chances there for a—." For a fascinating woman, she +was going to say, perhaps, but she did not.</p> + +<p>Along in the fall the invitation came, sure enough. It came officially +through brother Washington, the private Secretary, who appended a +postscript that was brimming with delight over the prospect of seeing the +Duchess again. He said it would be happiness enough to look upon her +face once more—it would be almost too much happiness when to it was +added the fact that she would bring messages with her that were fresh +from Louise's lips.</p> + +<p>In Washington's letter were several important enclosures. For instance, +there was the Senator's check for $2,000—"to buy suitable clothing in +New York with!" It was a loan to be refunded when the Land was sold. +Two thousand—this was fine indeed. Louise's father was called rich, but +Laura doubted if Louise had ever had $400 worth of new clothing at one +time in her life. With the check came two through tickets—good on the +railroad from Hawkeye to Washington via New York—and they were +"dead-head" tickets, too, which had beep given to Senator Dilworthy by the +railway companies. Senators and representatives were paid thousands of +dollars by the government for traveling expenses, but they always +traveled "deadhead" both ways, and then did as any honorable, high-minded +men would naturally do—declined to receive the mileage tendered them by +the government. The Senator had plenty of railway passes, and could. +easily spare two to Laura—one for herself and one for a male escort. +Washington suggested that she get some old friend of the family to come +with her, and said the Senator would "deadhead" him home again as soon as +he had grown tired, of the sights of the capital. Laura thought the +thing over. At first she was pleased with the idea, but presently she +began to feel differently about it. Finally she said, "No, our staid, +steady-going Hawkeye friends' notions and mine differ about some +things—they respect me, now, and I respect them—better leave it so—I will go +alone; I am not afraid to travel by myself." And so communing with +herself, she left the house for an afternoon walk.</p> + +<p>Almost at the door she met Col. Sellers. She told him about her +invitation to Washington.</p> + +<p>"Bless me!" said the Colonel. "I have about made up my mind to go there +myself. You see we've got to get another appropriation through, and the +Company want me to come east and put it through Congress. Harry's there, +and he'll do what he can, of course; and Harry's a good fellow and always +does the very best he knows how, but then he's young—rather young for +some parts of such work, you know—and besides he talks too much, talks a +good deal too much; and sometimes he appears to be a little bit +visionary, too, I think the worst thing in the world for a business man. +A man like that always exposes his cards, sooner or later. This sort of +thing wants an old, quiet, steady hand—wants an old cool head, you know, +that knows men, through and through, and is used to large operations. +I'm expecting my salary, and also some dividends from the company, and if +they get along in time, I'll go along with you Laura—take you under my +wing—you mustn't travel alone. Lord I wish I had the money right +now. —But there'll be plenty soon—plenty."</p> + +<p>Laura reasoned with herself that if the kindly, simple-hearted Colonel +was going anyhow, what could she gain by traveling alone and throwing +away his company? So she told him she accepted his offer gladly, +gratefully. She said it would be the greatest of favors if he would go +with her and protect her—not at his own expense as far as railway fares +were concerned, of course; she could not expect him to put himself to so +much trouble for her and pay his fare besides. But he wouldn't hear of +her paying his fare—it would be only a pleasure to him to serve her. +Laura insisted on furnishing the tickets; and finally, when argument +failed, she said the tickets cost neither her nor any one else a +cent—she had two of them—she needed but one—and if he would not take the +other she would not go with him. That settled the matter. He took the +ticket. Laura was glad that she had the check for new clothing, for she +felt very certain of being able to get the Colonel to borrow a little of +the money to pay hotel bills with, here and there.</p> + +<p>She wrote Washington to look for her and Col. Sellers toward the end of +November; and at about the time set the two travelers arrived safe in the +capital of the nation, sure enough.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p277"></a><img alt="p277.jpg (12K)" src="images/p277.jpg" height="199" width="473"> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch31"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2></center> +<br> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<br> She the, gracious lady, yet no paines did spare +<br> To doe him ease, or doe him remedy: +<br> Many restoratives of vertues rare +<br> And costly cordialles she did apply, +<br> To mitigate his stubborne malady. +<br> +<br> Spenser's Faerie Queens. +<br> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Henry Brierly was exceedingly busy in New York, so he wrote Col. +Sellers, but he would drop everything and go to Washington.</p> + +<p>The Colonel believed that Harry was the prince of lobbyists, a little too +sanguine, may be, and given to speculation, but, then, he knew everybody; +the Columbus River navigation scheme was, got through almost entirely by +his aid. He was needed now to help through another scheme, a benevolent +scheme in which Col. Sellers, through the Hawkinses, had a deep interest.</p> + +<p>"I don't care, you know," he wrote to Harry, "so much about the niggroes. +But if the government will buy this land, it will set up the Hawkins +family—make Laura an heiress—and I shouldn't wonder if Beriah Sellers +would set up his carriage again. Dilworthy looks at it different, +of course. He's all for philanthropy, for benefiting the colored race. +There's old Balsam, was in the Interior—used to be the Rev. Orson Balsam +of Iowa—he's made the riffle on the Injun; great Injun pacificator and +land dealer. Balaam'a got the Injun to himself, and I suppose that +Senator Dilworthy feels that there is nothing left him but the colored +man. I do reckon he is the best friend the colored man has got in +Washington."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p279"></a><img alt="p279.jpg (17K)" src="images/p279.jpg" height="325" width="307"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Though Harry was in a hurry to reach Washington, he stopped in +Philadelphia; and prolonged his visit day after day, greatly to the +detriment of his business both in New York and Washington. The society +at the Bolton's might have been a valid excuse for neglecting business +much more important than his. Philip was there; he was a partner with +Mr. Bolton now in the new coal venture, concerning which there was much +to be arranged in preparation for the Spring work, and Philip lingered +week after week in the hospitable house. Alice was making a winter +visit. Ruth only went to town twice a week to attend lectures, and the +household was quite to Mr. Bolton's taste, for he liked the cheer of +company and something going on evenings. Harry was cordially asked to +bring his traveling-bag there, and he did not need urging to do so. +Not even the thought of seeing Laura at the capital made him restless in +the society of the two young ladies; two birds in hand are worth one in +the bush certainly.</p> + +<p>Philip was at home—he sometimes wished he were not so much so. He felt +that too much or not enough was taken for granted. Ruth had met him, +when he first came, with a cordial frankness, and her manner continued +entirely unrestrained. She neither sought his company nor avoided it, +and this perfectly level treatment irritated him more than any other +could have done. It was impossible to advance much in love-making with +one who offered no obstacles, had no concealments and no embarrassments, +and whom any approach to sentimentality would be quite likely to set into +a fit of laughter.</p> + +<p>"Why, Phil," she would say, "what puts you in the dumps to day? You are +as solemn as the upper bench in Meeting. I shall have to call Alice to +raise your spirits; my presence seems to depress you."</p> + +<p>"It's not your presence, but your absence when you are present," began +Philip, dolefully, with the idea that he was saying a rather deep thing. +"But you won't understand me."</p> + +<p>"No, I confess I cannot. If you really are so low, as to think I am +absent when I am present, it's a frightful case of aberration; I shall +ask father to bring out Dr. Jackson. Does Alice appear to be present +when she is absent?"</p> + +<p>"Alice has some human feeling, anyway. She cares for something besides +musty books and dry bones. I think, Ruth, when I die," said Philip, +intending to be very grim and sarcastic, "I'll leave you my skeleton. +You might like that."</p> + +<p>"It might be more cheerful than you are at times," Ruth replied with a +laugh. "But you mustn't do it without consulting Alice. She might not. +like it."</p> + +<p>"I don't know why you should bring Alice up on every occasion. Do you +think I am in love with her?"</p> + +<p>"Bless you, no. It never entered my head. Are you? The thought of +Philip Sterling in love is too comical. I thought you were only in love +with the Ilium coal mine, which you and father talk about half the time."</p> + +<p>This is a specimen of Philip's wooing. Confound the girl, he would say +to himself, why does she never tease Harry and that young Shepley who +comes here?</p> + +<p>How differently Alice treated him. She at least never mocked him, and it +was a relief to talk with one who had some sympathy with him. And he did +talk to her, by the hour, about Ruth. The blundering fellow poured all +his doubts and anxieties into her ear, as if she had been the impassive +occupant of one of those little wooden confessionals in the Cathedral on +Logan Square. Has, a confessor, if she is young and pretty, any feeling? +Does it mend the matter by calling her your sister?</p> + +<p>Philip called Alice his good sister, and talked to her about love and +marriage, meaning Ruth, as if sisters could by no possibility have any +personal concern in such things. Did Ruth ever speak of him? Did she +think Ruth cared for him? Did Ruth care for anybody at Fallkill? Did +she care for anything except her profession? And so on.</p> + +<p>Alice was loyal to Ruth, and if she knew anything she did not betray her +friend. She did not, at any rate, give Philip too much encouragement. +What woman, under the circumstances, would?</p> + +<p>"I can tell you one thing, Philip," she said, "if ever Ruth Bolton loves, +it will be with her whole soul, in a depth of passion that will sweep +everything before it and surprise even herself."</p> + +<p>A remark that did not much console Philip, who imagined that only some +grand heroism could unlock the sweetness of such a heart; and Philip +feared that he wasn't a hero. He did not know out of what materials a +woman can construct a hero, when she is in the creative mood.</p> + +<p>Harry skipped into this society with his usual lightness and gaiety. +His good nature was inexhaustible, and though he liked to relate his own +exploits, he had a little tact in adapting himself to the tastes of his +hearers. He was not long in finding out that Alice liked to hear about +Philip, and Harry launched out into the career of his friend in the West, +with a prodigality of invention that would have astonished the chief +actor. He was the most generous fellow in the world, and picturesque +conversation was the one thing in which he never was bankrupt. With Mr. +Bolton he was the serious man of business, enjoying the confidence of +many of the monied men in New York, whom Mr. Bolton knew, and engaged +with them in railway schemes and government contracts. Philip, who had +so long known Harry, never could make up his mind that Harry did not +himself believe that he was a chief actor in all these large operations +of which he talked so much.</p> + +<p>Harry did not neglect to endeavor to make himself agreeable to Mrs. +Bolton, by paying great attention to the children, and by professing the +warmest interest in the Friends' faith. It always seemed to him the most +peaceful religion; he thought it must be much easier to live by an +internal light than by a lot of outward rules; he had a dear Quaker aunt +in Providence of whom Mrs. Bolton constantly reminded him. He insisted +upon going with Mrs. Bolton and the children to the Friends Meeting on +First Day, when Ruth and Alice and Philip, "world's people," went to a +church in town, and he sat through the hour of silence with his hat on, +in most exemplary patience. In short, this amazing actor succeeded so +well with Mrs. Bolton, that she said to Philip one day,</p> + +<p>"Thy friend, Henry Brierly, appears to be a very worldly minded young +man. Does he believe in anything?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Philip laughing, "he believes in more things than any +other person I ever saw."</p> + +<p>To Ruth, Harry seemed to be very congenial. He was never moody for one +thing, but lent himself with alacrity to whatever her fancy was. He was +gay or grave as the need might be. No one apparently could enter more +fully into her plans for an independent career.</p> + +<p>"My father," said Harry, "was bred a physician, and practiced a little +before he went into Wall street. I always had a leaning to the study. +There was a skeleton hanging in the closet of my father's study when I +was a boy, that I used to dress up in old clothes. Oh, I got quite +familiar with the human frame."</p> + +<p>"You must have," said Philip. "Was that where you learned to play the +bones? He is a master of those musical instruments, Ruth; he plays well +enough to go on the stage."</p> + +<p>"Philip hates science of any kind, and steady application," retorted +Harry. He didn't fancy Philip's banter, and when the latter had gone +out, and Ruth asked,</p> + +<p>"Why don't you take up medicine, Mr. Brierly?"</p> + +<p>Harry said, "I have it in mind. I believe I would begin attending +lectures this winter if it weren't for being wanted in Washington. But +medicine is particularly women's province."</p> + +<p>"Why so?" asked Ruth, rather amused.</p> + +<p>"Well, the treatment of disease is a good deal a matter of sympathy. +A woman's intuition is better than a man's. Nobody knows anything, +really, you know, and a woman can guess a good deal nearer than a man."</p> + +<p>"You are very complimentary to my sex."</p> + +<p>"But," said Harry frankly; "I should want to choose my doctor; an ugly +woman would ruin me, the disease would be sure to strike in and kill me +at sight of her. I think a pretty physician, with engaging manners, +would coax a fellow to live through almost anything."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid you are a scoffer, Mr. Brierly."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, I am quite sincere. Wasn't it old what's his name? +that said only the beautiful is useful?"</p> + +<p>Whether Ruth was anything more than diverted with Harry's company; Philip +could not determine. He scorned at any rate to advance his own interest +by any disparaging communications about Harry, both because he could not +help liking the fellow himself, and because he may have known that he +could not more surely create a sympathy for him in Ruth's mind. That +Ruth was in no danger of any serious impression he felt pretty sure, +felt certain of it when he reflected upon her severe occupation with her +profession. Hang it, he would say to himself, she is nothing but pure +intellect anyway. And he only felt uncertain of it when she was in one +of her moods of raillery, with mocking mischief in her eyes. At such +times she seemed to prefer Harry's society to his. When Philip was +miserable about this, he always took refuge with Alice, who was never +moody, and who generally laughed him out of his sentimental nonsense. +He felt at his ease with Alice, and was never in want of something to +talk about; and he could not account for the fact that he was so often +dull with Ruth, with whom, of all persons in the world, he wanted to +appear at his best.</p> + +<p>Harry was entirely satisfied with his own situation. A bird of passage +is always at its ease, having no house to build, and no responsibility. +He talked freely with Philip about Ruth, an almighty fine girl, he said, +but what the deuce she wanted to study medicine for, he couldn't see.</p> + +<p>There was a concert one night at the Musical Fund Hall and the four had +arranged to go in and return by the Germantown cars. It was Philip's +plan, who had engaged the seats, and promised himself an evening with +Ruth, walking with her, sitting by her in the hall, and enjoying the +feeling of protecting that a man always has of a woman in a public place. +He was fond of music, too, in a sympathetic way; at least, he knew that +Ruth's delight in it would be enough for him.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he meant to take advantage of the occasion to say some very +serious things. His love for Ruth was no secret to Mrs. Bolton, and he +felt almost sure that he should have no opposition in the family. Mrs. +Bolton had been cautious in what she said, but Philip inferred everything +from her reply to his own questions, one day, "Has thee ever spoken thy +mind to Ruth?"</p> + +<p>Why shouldn't he speak his mind, and end his doubts? Ruth had been more +tricksy than usual that day, and in a flow of spirits quite inconsistent, +it would seem, in a young lady devoted to grave studies.</p> + +<p>Had Ruth a premonition of Philip's intention, in his manner? It may be, +for when the girls came down stairs, ready to walk to the cars; and met +Philip and Harry in the hall, Ruth said, laughing,</p> + +<p>"The two tallest must walk together" and before Philip knew how it +happened Ruth had taken Harry's arm, and his evening was spoiled. He had +too much politeness and good sense and kindness to show in his manner +that he was hit. So he said to Harry,</p> + +<p>"That's your disadvantage in being short." And he gave Alice no reason +to feel during the evening that she would not have been his first choice +for the excursion. But he was none the less chagrined, and not a little +angry at the turn the affair took.</p> + +<p>The Hall was crowded with the fashion of the town. The concert was one +of those fragmentary drearinesses that people endure because they are +fashionable; tours de force on the piano, and fragments from operas, +which have no meaning without the setting, with weary pauses of waiting +between; there is the comic basso who is so amusing and on such familiar +terms with the audience, and always sings the Barber; the attitudinizing +tenor, with his languishing "Oh, Summer Night;" the soprano with her +"Batti Batti," who warbles and trills and runs and fetches her breath, +and ends with a noble scream that brings down a tempest of applause in +the midst of which she backs off the stage smiling and bowing. It was +this sort of concert, and Philip was thinking that it was the most stupid +one he ever sat through, when just as the soprano was in the midst of +that touching ballad, "Comin' thro' the Rye" (the soprano always sings +"Comin' thro' the Rye" on an encore)—the Black Swan used to make it +irresistible, Philip remembered, with her arch, "If a body kiss a body" +there was a cry of "Fire!"</p> + +<p>The hall is long and narrow, and there is only one place of egress. +Instantly the audience was on its feet, and a rush began for the door. +Men shouted, women screamed, and panic seized the swaying mass. +A second's thought would have convinced every one that getting out was +impossible, and that the only effect of a rush would be to crash people +to death. But a second's thought was not given. A few cried:</p> + +<p>"Sit down, sit down," but the mass was turned towards the door. Women +were down and trampled on in the aisles, and stout men, utterly lost to +self-control, were mounting the benches, as if to run a race over the +mass to the entrance.</p> + +<p>Philip who had forced the girls to keep their seats saw, in a flash, the +new danger, and sprang to avert it. In a second more those infuriated +men would be over the benches and crushing Ruth and Alice under their +boots. He leaped upon the bench in front of them and struck out before +him with all his might, felling one man who was rushing on him, and +checking for an instant the movement, or rather parting it, and causing +it to flow on either side of him. But it was only for an instant; the +pressure behind was too great, and, the next Philip was dashed backwards +over the seat.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p286"></a><img alt="p286.jpg (59K)" src="images/p286.jpg" height="609" width="513"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>And yet that instant of arrest had probably saved the girls, for as +Philip fell, the orchestra struck up "Yankee Doodle" in the liveliest +manner. The familiar tune caught the ear of the mass, which paused in +wonder, and gave the conductor's voice a chance to be heard—"It's a +false alarm!"</p> + +<p>The tumult was over in a minute, and the next, laughter was heard, and +not a few said, "I knew it wasn't anything." "What fools people are at +such a time."</p> + +<p>The concert was over, however. A good many people were hurt, some of +them seriously, and among them Philip Sterling was found bent across the +seat, insensible, with his left arm hanging limp and a bleeding wound on +his head.</p> + +<p>When he was carried into the air he revived, and said it was nothing. +A surgeon was called, and it was thought best to drive at once to the +Bolton's, the surgeon supporting Philip, who did not speak the whole way. +His arm was set and his head dressed, and the surgeon said he would come +round all right in his mind by morning; he was very weak. Alice who was +not much frightened while the panic lasted in the hall, was very much +unnerved by seeing Philip so pale and bloody. Ruth assisted the surgeon +with the utmost coolness and with skillful hands helped to dress Philip's +wounds. And there was a certain intentness and fierce energy in what she +did that might have revealed something to Philip if he had been in his +senses.</p> + +<p>But he was not, or he would not have murmured "Let Alice do it, she is +not too tall."</p> + +<p>It was Ruth's first case.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p287"></a><img alt="p287.jpg (93K)" src="images/p287.jpg" height="845" width="565"> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch32"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Washington's delight in his beautiful sister was measureless. He said +that she had always been the queenliest creature in the land, but that +she was only commonplace before, compared to what she was now, so +extraordinary was the improvement wrought by rich fashionable attire.</p> + +<p>"But your criticisms are too full of brotherly partiality to be depended +on, Washington. Other people will judge differently."</p> + +<p>"Indeed they won't. You'll see. There will never be a woman in +Washington that can compare with you. You'll be famous within a +fortnight, Laura. Everybody will want to know you. You wait—you'll +see."</p> + +<p>Laura wished in her heart that the prophecy might come true; and +privately she even believed it might—for she had brought all the women +whom she had seen since she left home under sharp inspection, and the +result had not been unsatisfactory to her.</p> + +<p>During a week or two Washington drove about the city every day with her +and familiarized her with all of its salient features. She was beginning +to feel very much at home with the town itself, and she was also fast +acquiring ease with the distinguished people she met at the Dilworthy +table, and losing what little of country timidity she had brought with +her from Hawkeye. She noticed with secret pleasure the little start of +admiration that always manifested itself in the faces of the guests when +she entered the drawing-room arrayed in evening costume: she took +comforting note of the fact that these guests directed a very liberal +share of their conversation toward her; she observed with surprise, that +famous statesmen and soldiers did not talk like gods, as a general thing, +but said rather commonplace things for the most part; and she was filled +with gratification to discover that she, on the contrary, was making a +good many shrewd speeches and now and then a really brilliant one, and +furthermore, that they were beginning to be repeated in social circles +about the town.</p> + +<p>Congress began its sittings, and every day or two Washington escorted her +to the galleries set apart for lady members of the households of Senators +and Representatives. Here was a larger field and a wider competition, +but still she saw that many eyes were uplifted toward her face, and that +first one person and then another called a neighbor's attention to her; +she was not too dull to perceive that the speeches of some of the younger +statesmen were delivered about as much and perhaps more at her than to +the presiding officer; and she was not sorry to see that the dapper young +Senator from Iowa came at once and stood in the open space before the +president's desk to exhibit his feet as soon as she entered the gallery, +whereas she had early learned from common report that his usual custom +was to prop them on his desk and enjoy them himself with a selfish +disregard of other people's longings.</p> + +<p>Invitations began to flow in upon her and soon she was fairly "in +society." "The season" was now in full bloom, and the first select +reception was at hand that is to say, a reception confined to invited +guests. Senator Dilworthy had become well convinced; by this time, that +his judgment of the country-bred Missouri girl had not deceived him—it +was plain that she was going to be a peerless missionary in the field of +labor he designed her for, and therefore it would be perfectly safe and +likewise judicious to send her forth well panoplied for her work.—So he +had added new and still richer costumes to her wardrobe, and assisted +their attractions with costly jewelry-loans on the future land sale.</p> + +<p>This first select reception took place at a cabinet minister's—or rather +a cabinet secretary's mansion. When Laura and the Senator arrived, about +half past nine or ten in the evening, the place was already pretty well +crowded, and the white-gloved negro servant at the door was still +receiving streams of guests.—The drawing-rooms were brilliant with +gaslight, and as hot as ovens. The host and hostess stood just within +the door of entrance; Laura was presented, and then she passed on into +the maelstrom of be-jeweled and richly attired low-necked ladies and +white-kid-gloved and steel pen-coated gentlemen and wherever she moved +she was followed by a buzz of admiration that was grateful to all her +senses—so grateful, indeed, that her white face was tinged and its +beauty heightened by a perceptible suffusion of color. She caught such +remarks as, "Who is she?" "Superb woman!" "That is the new beauty from +the west," etc., etc.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p291"></a><img alt="p291.jpg (53K)" src="images/p291.jpg" height="533" width="467"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Whenever she halted, she was presently surrounded by Ministers, Generals, +Congressmen, and all manner of aristocratic, people. Introductions +followed, and then the usual original question, "How do you like +Washington, Miss Hawkins?" supplemented by that other usual original +question, "Is this your first visit?"</p> + +<p>These two exciting topics being exhausted, conversation generally drifted +into calmer channels, only to be interrupted at frequent intervals by new +introductions and new inquiries as to how Laura liked the capital and +whether it was her first visit or not. And thus for an hour or more the +Duchess moved through the crush in a rapture of happiness, for her doubts +were dead and gone, now she knew she could conquer here. A familiar face +appeared in the midst of the multitude and Harry Brierly fought his +difficult way to her side, his eyes shouting their gratification, so to +speak:</p> + +<p>"Oh, this is a happiness! Tell me, my dear Miss Hawkins—"</p> + +<p>"Sh! I know what you are going to ask. I do like Washington—I like it +ever so much!"</p> + +<p>"No, but I was going to ask—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am coming to it, coming to it as fast as I can. It is my first +visit. I think you should know that yourself."</p> + +<p>And straightway a wave of the crowd swept her beyond his reach.</p> + +<p>"Now what can the girl mean? Of course she likes Washington—I'm not +such a dummy as to have to ask her that. And as to its being her first +visit, why bang it, she knows that I knew it was. Does she think I have +turned idiot? Curious girl, anyway. But how they do swarm about her! +She is the reigning belle of Washington after this night. She'll know +five hundred of the heaviest guns in the town before this night's +nonsense is over. And this isn't even the beginning. Just as I used to +say—she'll be a card in the matter of—yes sir! She shall turn the +men's heads and I'll turn the women's! What a team that will be in +politics here. I wouldn't take a quarter of a million for what I can do +in this present session—no indeed I wouldn't. Now, here—I don't +altogether like this. That insignificant secretary of legation is—why, +she's smiling on him as if he—and now on the Admiral! Now she's +illuminating that, stuffy Congressman from Massachusetts—vulgar +ungrammatcal shovel-maker—greasy knave of spades. I don't like this +sort of thing. She doesn't appear to be much distressed about me—she +hasn't looked this way once. All right, my bird of Paradise, if it suits +you, go on. But I think I know your sex. I'll go to smiling around a +little, too, and see what effect that will have on you"</p> + +<p>And he did "smile around a little," and got as near to her as he could to +watch the effect, but the scheme was a failure—he could not get her +attention. She seemed wholly unconscious of him, and so he could not +flirt with any spirit; he could only talk disjointedly; he could not keep +his eyes on the charmers he talked to; he grew irritable, jealous, and +very, unhappy. He gave up his enterprise, leaned his shoulder against a +fluted pilaster and pouted while he kept watch upon Laura's every +movement. His other shoulder stole the bloom from many a lovely cheek +that brushed him in the surging crush, but he noted it not. He was too +busy cursing himself inwardly for being an egotistical imbecile. An hour +ago he had thought to take this country lass under his protection and +show her "life" and enjoy her wonder and delight—and here she was, +immersed in the marvel up to her eyes, and just a trifle more at home in +it than he was himself. And now his angry comments ran on again:</p> + +<p>"Now she's sweetening old Brother Balaam; and he—well he is inviting her +to the Congressional prayer-meeting, no doubt—better let old Dilworthy +alone to see that she doesn't overlook that. And now its Splurge, of New +York; and now its Batters of New Hampshire—and now the Vice President! +Well I may as well adjourn. I've got enough."</p> + +<p>But he hadn't. He got as far as the door—and then struggled back to +take one more look, hating himself all the while for his weakness.</p> + +<p>Toward midnight, when supper was announced, the crowd thronged to the +supper room where a long table was decked out with what seemed a rare +repast, but which consisted of things better calculated to feast the eye +than the appetite. The ladies were soon seated in files along the wall, +and in groups here and there, and the colored waiters filled the plates +and glasses and the, male guests moved hither and thither conveying them +to the privileged sex.</p> + +<p>Harry took an ice and stood up by the table with other gentlemen, and +listened to the buzz of conversation while he ate.</p> + +<p>From these remarks he learned a good deal about Laura that was news to +him. For instance, that she was of a distinguished western family; that +she was highly educated; that she was very rich and a great landed +heiress; that she was not a professor of religion, and yet was a +Christian in the truest and best sense of the word, for her whole heart +was devoted to the accomplishment of a great and noble enterprise—none +other than the sacrificing of her landed estates to the uplifting of the +down-trodden negro and the turning of his erring feet into the way of +light and righteousness. Harry observed that as soon as one listener had +absorbed the story, he turned about and delivered it to his next neighbor +and the latter individual straightway passed it on. And thus he saw it +travel the round of the gentlemen and overflow rearward among the ladies. +He could not trace it backward to its fountain head, and so he could not +tell who it was that started it.</p> + +<p>One thing annoyed Harry a great deal; and that was the reflection that he +might have been in Washington days and days ago and thrown his +fascinations about Laura with permanent effect while she was new and +strange to the capital, instead of dawdling in Philadelphia to no +purpose. He feared he had "missed a trick," as he expressed it.</p> + +<p>He only found one little opportunity of speaking again with Laura before +the evening's festivities ended, and then, for the first time in years, +his airy self-complacency failed him, his tongue's easy confidence +forsook it in a great measure, and he was conscious of an unheroic +timidity. He was glad to get away and find a place where he could +despise himself in private and try to grow his clipped plumes again.</p> + +<p>When Laura reached home she was tired but exultant, and Senator Dilworthy +was pleased and satisfied. He called Laura "my daughter," next morning, +and gave her some "pin money," as he termed it, and she sent a hundred +and fifty dollars of it to her mother and loaned a trifle to Col. +Sellers. Then the Senator had a long private conference with Laura, and +unfolded certain plans of his for the good of the country, and religion, +and the poor, and temperance, and showed her how she could assist him in +developing these worthy and noble enterprises.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p294"></a><img alt="p294.jpg (17K)" src="images/p294.jpg" height="179" width="457"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch33"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>Laura soon discovered that there were three distinct aristocracies in +Washington. One of these, (nick-named the Antiques,) consisted of +cultivated, high-bred old families who looked back with pride upon an +ancestry that had been always great in the nation's councils and its wars +from the birth of the republic downward. Into this select circle it was +difficult to gain admission. No. 2 was the aristocracy of the middle +ground—of which, more anon. No. 3 lay beyond; of it we will say a word +here. We will call it the Aristocracy of the Parvenus—as, indeed, the +general public did. Official position, no matter how obtained, entitled +a man to a place in it, and carried his family with him, no matter whence +they sprang. Great wealth gave a man a still higher and nobler place in +it than did official position. If this wealth had been acquired by +conspicuous ingenuity, with just a pleasant little spice of illegality +about it, all the better. This aristocracy was "fast," and not averse to +ostentation.</p> + +<p>The aristocracy of the Antiques ignored the aristocracy of the Parvenus; +the Parvenus laughed at the Antiques, (and secretly envied them.)</p> + +<p>There were certain important "society" customs which one in Laura's +position needed to understand. For instance, when a lady of any +prominence comes to one of our cities and takes up her residence, all the +ladies of her grade favor her in turn with an initial call, giving their +cards to the servant at the door by way of introduction. They come +singly, sometimes; sometimes in couples; and always in elaborate full +dress. They talk two minutes and a quarter and then go. If the lady +receiving the call desires a further acquaintance, she must return the +visit within two weeks; to neglect it beyond that time means "let the +matter drop." But if she does return the visit within two weeks, it then +becomes the other party's privilege to continue the acquaintance or drop +it. She signifies her willingness to continue it by calling again any +time within twelve-months; after that, if the parties go on calling upon +each other once a year, in our large cities, that is sufficient, and the +acquaintanceship holds good. The thing goes along smoothly, now. +The annual visits are made and returned with peaceful regularity and +bland satisfaction, although it is not necessary that the two ladies +shall actually see each other oftener than once every few years. Their +cards preserve the intimacy and keep the acquaintanceship intact.</p> + +<p>For instance, Mrs. A. pays her annual visit, sits in her carriage and +sends in her card with the lower right hand corner turned down, which +signifies that she has "called in person;" Mrs. B: sends down word that +she is "engaged" or "wishes to be excused"—or if she is a Parvenu and +low-bred, she perhaps sends word that she is "not at home." Very good; +Mrs. A. drives, on happy and content. If Mrs. A.'s daughter marries, +or a child is born to the family, Mrs. B. calls, sends in her card with +the upper left hand corner turned down, and then goes along about her +affairs—for that inverted corner means "Congratulations." If Mrs. B.'s +husband falls downstairs and breaks his neck, Mrs. A. calls, leaves her +card with the upper right hand corner turned down, and then takes her +departure; this corner means "Condolence." It is very necessary to get +the corners right, else one may unintentionally condole with a friend on +a wedding or congratulate her upon a funeral. If either lady is about to +leave the city, she goes to the other's house and leaves her card with +"P. P. C." engraved under the name—which signifies, "Pay Parting Call." +But enough of etiquette. Laura was early instructed in the mysteries of +society life by a competent mentor, and thus was preserved from +troublesome mistakes.</p> + +<p>The first fashionable call she received from a member of the ancient +nobility, otherwise the Antiques, was of a pattern with all she received +from that limb of the aristocracy afterward. This call was paid by Mrs. +Major-General Fulke-Fulkerson and daughter. They drove up at one in the +afternoon in a rather antiquated vehicle with a faded coat of arms on the +panels, an aged white-wooled negro coachman on the box and a younger +darkey beside him—the footman. Both of these servants were dressed in +dull brown livery that had seen considerable service.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p297"></a><img alt="p297.jpg (39K)" src="images/p297.jpg" height="409" width="557"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The ladies entered the drawing-room in full character; that is to say, +with Elizabethan stateliness on the part of the dowager, and an easy +grace and dignity on the part of the young lady that had a nameless +something about it that suggested conscious superiority. The dresses of +both ladies were exceedingly rich, as to material, but as notably modest +as to color and ornament. All parties having seated themselves, the +dowager delivered herself of a remark that was not unusual in its form, +and yet it came from her lips with the impressiveness of Scripture:</p> + +<p>"The weather has been unpropitious of late, Miss Hawkins."</p> + +<p>"It has indeed," said Laura. "The climate seems to be variable."</p> + +<p>"It is its nature of old, here," said the daughter—stating it apparently +as a fact, only, and by her manner waving aside all personal +responsibility on account of it. "Is it not so, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Quite so, my child. Do you like winter, Miss Hawkins?" She said "like" +as if she had, an idea that its dictionary meaning was "approve of."</p> + +<p>"Not as well as summer—though I think all seasons have their charms."</p> + +<p>"It is a very just remark. The general held similar views. He +considered snow in winter proper; sultriness in summer legitimate; frosts +in the autumn the same, and rains in spring not objectionable. He was +not an exacting man. And I call to mind now that he always admired +thunder. You remember, child, your father always admired thunder?"</p> + +<p>"He adored it."</p> + +<p>"No doubt it reminded him of battle," said Laura.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think perhaps it did. He had a great respect for Nature. +He often said there was something striking about the ocean. You remember +his saying that, daughter?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, often, Mother. I remember it very well."</p> + +<p>"And hurricanes... He took a great interest in hurricanes. And animals. +Dogs, especially—hunting dogs. Also comets. I think we all have our +predilections. I think it is this that gives variety to our tastes."</p> + +<p>Laura coincided with this view.</p> + +<p>"Do you find it hard and lonely to be so far from your home and friends, +Miss Hawkins?"</p> + +<p>"I do find it depressing sometimes, but then there is so much about me +here that is novel and interesting that my days are made up more of +sunshine than shadow."</p> + +<p>"Washington is not a dull city in the season," said the young lady. +"We have some very good society indeed, and one need not be at a loss for +means to pass the time pleasantly. Are you fond of watering-places, Miss +Hawkins?"</p> + +<p>"I have really had no experience of them, but I have always felt a strong +desire to see something of fashionable watering-place life."</p> + +<p>"We of Washington are unfortunately situated in that respect," said the +dowager. "It is a tedious distance to Newport. But there is no help for +it."</p> + +<p>Laura said to herself, "Long Branch and Cape May are nearer than Newport; +doubtless these places are low; I'll feel my way a little and see." Then +she said aloud:</p> + +<p>"Why I thought that Long Branch—"</p> + +<p>There was no need to "feel" any further—there was that in both faces +before her which made that truth apparent. The dowager said:</p> + +<p>"Nobody goes there, Miss Hawkins—at least only persons of no position in +society. And the President." She added that with tranquility.</p> + +<p>"Newport is damp, and cold, and windy and excessively disagreeable," said +the daughter, "but it is very select. One cannot be fastidious about +minor matters when one has no choice."</p> + +<p>The visit had spun out nearly three minutes, now. Both ladies rose with +grave dignity, conferred upon Laura a formal invitation to call, aid then +retired from the conference. Laura remained in the drawing-room and left +them to pilot themselves out of the house—an inhospitable thing, +it seemed to her, but then she was following her instructions. She +stood, steeped in reverie, a while, and then she said:</p> + +<p>"I think I could always enjoy icebergs—as scenery but not as company."</p> + +<p>Still, she knew these two people by reputation, and was aware that they +were not ice-bergs when they were in their own waters and amid their +legitimate surroundings, but on the contrary were people to be respected +for their stainless characters and esteemed for their social virtues and +their benevolent impulses. She thought it a pity that they had to be +such changed and dreary creatures on occasions of state.</p> + +<p>The first call Laura received from the other extremity of the Washington +aristocracy followed close upon the heels of the one we have just been +describing. The callers this time were the Hon. Mrs. Oliver Higgins, +the Hon. Mrs. Patrique Oreille (pronounced O-relay,) Miss Bridget +(pronounced Breezhay) Oreille, Mrs. Peter Gashly, Miss Gashly, and Miss +Emmeline Gashly.</p> + +<p>The three carriages arrived at the same moment from different directions. +They were new and wonderfully shiny, and the brasses on the harness were +highly polished and bore complicated monograms. There were showy coats +of arms, too, with Latin mottoes. The coachmen and footmen were clad in +bright new livery, of striking colors, and they had black rosettes with +shaving-brushes projecting above them, on the sides of their stove-pipe +hats.</p> + +<p>When the visitors swept into the drawing-room they filled the place with +a suffocating sweetness procured at the perfumer's. Their costumes, as +to architecture, were the latest fashion intensified; they were +rainbow-hued; they were hung with jewels—chiefly diamonds. It would have been +plain to any eye that it had cost something to upholster these women.</p> + +<p>The Hon. Mrs. Oliver Higgins was the wife of a delegate from a distant +territory—a gentleman who had kept the principal "saloon," and sold the +best whiskey in the principal village in his wilderness, and so, of +course, was recognized as the first man of his commonwealth and its +fittest representative.</p> + +<p>He was a man of paramount influence at home, for he was public spirited, +he was chief of the fire department, he had an admirable command of +profane language, and had killed several "parties." His shirt fronts +were always immaculate; his boots daintily polished, and no man could +lift a foot and fire a dead shot at a stray speck of dirt on it with a +white handkerchief with a finer grace than he; his watch chain weighed a +pound; the gold in his finger ring was worth forty five dollars; he wore +a diamond cluster-pin and he parted his hair behind. He had always been, +regarded as the most elegant gentleman in his territory, and it was +conceded by all that no man thereabouts was anywhere near his equal in +the telling of an obscene story except the venerable white-haired +governor himself. The Hon. Higgins had not come to serve his country in +Washington for nothing. The appropriation which he had engineered +through Congress for the maintenance, of the Indians in his Territory +would have made all those savages rich if it had ever got to them.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p301"></a><img alt="p301.jpg (18K)" src="images/p301.jpg" height="487" width="253"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>The Hon. Mrs. Higgins was a picturesque woman, and a fluent talker, and +she held a tolerably high station among the Parvenus. Her English was +fair enough, as a general thing—though, being of New York origin, she +had the fashion peculiar to many natives of that city of pronouncing saw +and law as if they were spelt sawr and lawr.</p> + +<p>Petroleum was the agent that had suddenly transformed the Gashlys from +modest hard-working country village folk into "loud" aristocrats and +ornaments of the city.</p> + +<p>The Hon. Patrique Oreille was a wealthy Frenchman from Cork. Not that he +was wealthy when he first came from Cork, but just the reverse. When he +first landed in New York with his wife, he had only halted at Castle +Garden for a few minutes to receive and exhibit papers showing that he +had resided in this country two years—and then he voted the democratic +ticket and went up town to hunt a house. He found one and then went to +work as assistant to an architect and builder, carrying a hod all day and +studying politics evenings. Industry and economy soon enabled him to +start a low rum shop in a foul locality, and this gave him political +influence. In our country it is always our first care to see that our +people have the opportunity of voting for their choice of men to +represent and govern them—we do not permit our great officials to +appoint the little officials. We prefer to have so tremendous a power as +that in our own hands. We hold it safest to elect our judges and +everybody else. In our cities, the ward meetings elect delegates to the +nominating conventions and instruct them whom to nominate. The publicans +and their retainers rule the ward meetings (for every body else hates the +worry of politics and stays at home); the delegates from the ward +meetings organize as a nominating convention and make up a list of +candidates—one convention offering a democratic and another a republican +list of incorruptibles; and then the great meek public come forward at +the proper time and make unhampered choice and bless Heaven that they +live in a free land where no form of despotism can ever intrude.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p302"></a><img alt="p302.jpg (21K)" src="images/p302.jpg" height="333" width="327"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Patrick O'Riley (as his name then stood) created friends and influence +very, fast, for he was always on hand at the police courts to give straw +bail for his customers or establish an alibi for them in case they had +been beating anybody to death on his premises. Consequently he presently +became a political leader, and was elected to a petty office under the +city government. Out of a meager salary he soon saved money enough to +open quite a stylish liquor saloon higher up town, with a faro bank +attached and plenty of capital to conduct it with. This gave him fame +and great respectability. The position of alderman was forced upon him, +and it was just the same as presenting him a gold mine. He had fine +horses and carriages, now, and closed up his whiskey mill.</p> + +<p>By and by he became a large contractor for city work, and was a bosom +friend of the great and good Wm. M. Weed himself, who had stolen +$20,600,000 from the city and was a man so envied, so honored,—so +adored, indeed, that when the sheriff went to his office to arrest him as +a felon, that sheriff blushed and apologized, and one of the illustrated +papers made a picture of the scene and spoke of the matter in such a way +as to show that the editor regretted that the offense of an arrest had +been offered to so exalted a personage as Mr. Weed.</p> + +<p>Mr. O'Riley furnished shingle nails to, the new Court House at three +thousand dollars a keg, and eighteen gross of 60-cent thermometers at +fifteen hundred dollars a dozen; the controller and the board of audit +passed the bills, and a mayor, who was simply ignorant but not criminal, +signed them. When they were paid, Mr. O'Riley's admirers gave him a +solitaire diamond pin of the size of a filbert, in imitation of the +liberality of Mr. Weed's friends, and then Mr. O'Riley retired from +active service and amused himself with buying real estate at enormous +figures and holding it in other people's names. By and by the newspapers +came out with exposures and called Weed and O'Riley "thieves,"—whereupon +the people rose as one man (voting repeatedly) and elected the two +gentlemen to their proper theatre of action, the New York legislature. +The newspapers clamored, and the courts proceeded to try the new +legislators for their small irregularities. Our admirable jury system +enabled the persecuted ex-officials to secure a jury of nine gentlemen +from a neighboring asylum and three graduates from Sing-Sing, and +presently they walked forth with characters vindicated. The legislature +was called upon to spew them forth—a thing which the legislature +declined to do. It was like asking children to repudiate their own +father. It was a legislature of the modern pattern.</p> + +<p>Being now wealthy and distinguished, Mr. O'Riley, still bearing the +legislative "Hon." attached to his name (for titles never die in America, +although we do take a republican pride in poking fun at such trifles), +sailed for Europe with his family. They traveled all about, turning +their noses up at every thing, and not finding it a difficult thing to +do, either, because nature had originally given those features a cast in +that direction; and finally they established themselves in Paris, that +Paradise of Americans of their sort.—They staid there two years and +learned to speak English with a foreign accent—not that it hadn't always +had a foreign accent (which was indeed the case) but now the nature of it +was changed. Finally they returned home and became ultra fashionables. +They landed here as the Hon. Patrique Oreille and family, and so are +known unto this day.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p304"></a><img alt="p304.jpg (16K)" src="images/p304.jpg" height="317" width="307"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Laura provided seats for her visitors and they immediately launched forth +into a breezy, sparkling conversation with that easy confidence which is +to be found only among persons accustomed to high life.</p> + +<p>"I've been intending to call sooner, Miss Hawkins," said the Hon. Mrs. +Oreille, "but the weather's been so horrid. How do you like Washington?"</p> + +<p>Laura liked it very well indeed.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gashly—"Is it your first visit?"</p> + +<p>Yea, it was her first.</p> + +<p>All—"Indeed?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Oreille—"I'm afraid you'll despise the weather, Miss Hawkins. +It's perfectly awful. It always is. I tell Mr. Oreille I can't and +I won't put up with any such a climate. If we were obliged to do it, +I wouldn't mind it; but we are not obliged to, and so I don't see the use +of it. Sometimes its real pitiful the way the childern pine for +Parry—don't look so sad, Bridget, 'ma chere'—poor child, she can't hear Parry +mentioned without getting the blues."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gashly—"Well I should think so, Mrs. Oreille. A body lives in +Paris, but a body, only stays here. I dote on Paris; I'd druther scrimp +along on ten thousand dollars a year there, than suffer and worry here on +a real decent income."</p> + +<p>Miss Gashly—"Well then, I wish you'd take us back, mother; I'm sure I +hate this stoopid country enough, even if it is our dear native land."</p> + +<p>Miss Emmeline Gashly—"What and leave poor Johnny Peterson behind?" [An +airy genial laugh applauded this sally].</p> + +<p>Miss Gashly—"Sister, I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself!"</p> + +<p>Miss Emmeline—"Oh, you needn't ruffle your feathers so: I was only +joking. He don't mean anything by coming to, the house every +evening—only comes to see mother. Of course that's all!" [General laughter].</p> + +<p>Miss G. prettily confused—"Emmeline, how can you!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. G.—"Let your sister alone, Emmeline. I never saw such a tease!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Oreille—"What lovely corals you have, Miss Hawkins! Just look at +them, Bridget, dear. I've a great passion for corals—it's a pity +they're getting a little common. I have some elegant ones—not as +elegant as yours, though—but of course I don't wear them now."</p> + +<p>Laura—"I suppose they are rather common, but still I have a great +affection for these, because they were given to me by a dear old friend +of our family named Murphy. He was a very charming man, but very +eccentric. We always supposed he was an Irishman, but after be got rich +he went abroad for a year or two, and when he came back you would have +been amused to see how interested he was in a potato.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p306"></a><img alt="p306.jpg (19K)" src="images/p306.jpg" height="327" width="307"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>He asked what it +was! Now you know that when Providence shapes a mouth especially for the +accommodation of a potato you can detect that fact at a glance when that +mouth is in repose—foreign travel can never remove that sign. But he +was a very delightful gentleman, and his little foible did not hurt him +at all. We all have our shams—I suppose there is a sham somewhere about +every individual, if we could manage to ferret it out. I would so like +to go to France. I suppose our society here compares very favorably with +French society does it not, Mrs. Oreille?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. O.—"Not by any means, Miss Hawkins! French society is much more +elegant—much more so."</p> + +<p>Laura—"I am sorry to hear that. I suppose ours has deteriorated of +late."</p> + +<p>Mrs. O.—"Very much indeed. There are people in society here that have +really no more money to live on than what some of us pay for servant +hire. Still I won't say but what some of them are very good people—and +respectable, too."</p> + +<p>Laura—"The old families seem to be holding themselves aloof, from what I +hear. I suppose you seldom meet in society now, the people you used to +be familiar with twelve or fifteen years ago?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. O.—"Oh, no-hardly ever."</p> + +<p>Mr. O'Riley kept his first rum-mill and protected his customers from the +law in those days, and this turn of the conversation was rather +uncomfortable to madame than otherwise.</p> + +<p>Hon. Mrs. Higgins—"Is Francois' health good now, Mrs. Oreille?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. O.—(Thankful for the intervention)—"Not very. A body couldn't +expect it. He was always delicate—especially his lungs—and this odious +climate tells on him strong, now, after Parry, which is so mild."</p> + +<p>Mrs. H:—"I should think so. Husband says Percy'll die if he don't have +a change; and so I'm going to swap round a little and see what can be +done. I saw a lady from Florida last week, and she recommended Key West. +I told her Percy couldn't abide winds, as he was threatened with a +pulmonary affection, and then she said try St. Augustine. It's an awful +distance—ten or twelve hundred mile, they say but then in a case of this +kind—a body can't stand back for trouble, you know."</p> + +<p>Mrs. O.—"No, of course that's off. If Francois don't get better soon +we've got to look out for some other place, or else Europe. We've +thought some of the Hot Springs, but I don't know. It's a great +responsibility and a body wants to go cautious. Is Hildebrand about +again, Mrs. Gashly?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. G.—"Yes, but that's about all. It was indigestion, you know, and +it looks as if it was chronic. And you know I do dread dyspepsia. We've +all been worried a good deal about him. The doctor recommended baked +apple and spoiled meat, and I think it done him good. It's about the +only thing that will stay on his stomach now-a-days. We have Dr. Shovel +now. Who's your doctor, Mrs. Higgins?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. H.—"Well, we had Dr. Spooner a good while, but he runs so much to +emetics, which I think are weakening, that we changed off and took Dr. +Leathers. We like him very much. He has a fine European reputation, +too. The first thing he suggested for Percy was to have him taken out in +the back yard for an airing, every afternoon, with nothing at all on."</p> + +<p>Mrs. O. and Mrs. G.—"What!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. H.—"As true as I'm sitting here. And it actually helped him for +two or three days; it did indeed. But after that the doctor said it +seemed to be too severe and so he has fell back on hot foot-baths at +night and cold showers in the morning. But I don't think there, can be +any good sound help for him in such a climate as this. I believe we are +going to lose him if we don't make a change."</p> + +<p>Mrs. O. "I suppose you heard of the fright we had two weeks ago last +Saturday? No? Why that is strange—but come to remember, you've all +been away to Richmond. Francois tumbled from the sky light—in the +second-story hall clean down to the first floor—"</p> + +<p>Everybody—"Mercy!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. O.—"Yes indeed—and broke two of his ribs—"</p> + +<p>Everybody—"What!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. O. "Just as true as you live. First we thought he must be injured +internally. It was fifteen minutes past 8 in the evening. Of course we +were all distracted in a moment—everybody was flying everywhere, and +nobody doing anything worth anything. By and by I flung out next door +and dragged in Dr. Sprague; President of the Medical University no time +to go for our own doctor of course—and the minute he saw Francois he +said, 'Send for your own physician, madam;' said it as cross as a bear, +too, and turned right on his heel, and cleared out without doing a +thing!"</p> + +<p>Everybody—"The mean, contemptible brute!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. O—"Well you may say it. I was nearly out of my wits by this time. +But we hurried off the servants after our own doctor and telegraphed +mother—she was in New York and rushed down on the first train; and when +the doctor got there, lo and behold you he found Francois had broke one +of his legs, too!"</p> + +<p>Everybody—"Goodness!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. O.—"Yes. So he set his leg and bandaged it up, and fixed his ribs +and gave him a dose of something to quiet down his excitement and put him +to sleep—poor thing he was trembling and frightened to death and it was +pitiful to see him. We had him in my bed—Mr. Oreille slept in the guest +room and I laid down beside Francois—but not to sleep bless you no. +Bridget and I set up all night, and the doctor staid till two in the +morning, bless his old heart.—When mother got there she was so used up +with anxiety, that she had to go to bed and have the doctor; but when she +found that Francois was not in immediate danger she rallied, and by night +she was able to take a watch herself. Well for three days and nights we +three never left that bedside only to take an hour's nap at a time. +And then the doctor said Francois was out of danger and if ever there was +a thankful set, in this world, it was us."</p> + +<p>Laura's respect for these, women had augmented during this conversation, +naturally enough; affection and devotion are qualities that are able to +adorn and render beautiful a character that is otherwise unattractive, +and even repulsive.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gashly—"I do believe I would a died if I had been in your place, +Mrs. Oreille. The time Hildebrand was so low with the pneumonia Emmeline +and me were all, alone with him most of the time and we never took a +minute's sleep for as much as two days, and nights. It was at Newport +and we wouldn't trust hired nurses. One afternoon he had a fit, and +jumped up and run out on the portico of the hotel with nothing in the +world on and the wind a blowing liken ice and we after him scared to +death; and when the ladies and gentlemen saw that he had a fit, every +lady scattered for her room and not a gentleman lifted his hand to help, +the wretches! Well after that his life hung by a thread for as much as +ten days, and the minute he was out of danger Emmeline and me just went +to bed sick and worn out. I never want to pass through such a time +again. Poor dear Francois—which leg did he break, Mrs. Oreille!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. O.—"It was his right hand hind leg. Jump down, Francois dear, and +show the ladies what a cruel limp you've got yet."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p310"></a><img alt="p310.jpg (34K)" src="images/p310.jpg" height="329" width="583"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Francois demurred, but being coaxed and delivered gently upon the floor, +he performed very satisfactorily, with his "right hand hind leg" in the +air. All were affected—even Laura—but hers was an affection of the +stomach. The country-bred girl had not suspected that the little whining +ten-ounce black and tan reptile, clad in a red embroidered pigmy blanket +and reposing in Mrs. Oreille's lap all through the visit was the +individual whose sufferings had been stirring the dormant generosities of +her nature. She said:</p> + +<p>"Poor little creature! You might have lost him!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. O.—"O pray don't mention it, Miss Hawkins—it gives me such a +turn!"</p> + +<p>Laura—"And Hildebrand and Percy—are they—are they like this one?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. G.—"No, Hilly has considerable Skye blood in him, I believe."</p> + +<p>Mrs. H.—"Percy's the same, only he is two months and ten days older and +has his ears cropped. His father, Martin Farquhar Tupper, was sickly, +and died young, but he was the sweetest disposition.—His mother had +heart disease but was very gentle and resigned, and a wonderful ratter." + +<blockquote><blockquote> +As impossible and exasperating as this conversation may sound to a +person who is not an idiot, it is scarcely in any respect an exaggeration +of one which one of us actually listened to in an American drawing +room—otherwise we could not venture to put such a chapter into a book which, +professes to deal with social possibilities.—THE AUTHORS.] +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>So carried away had the visitors become by their interest attaching to +this discussion of family matters, that their stay had been prolonged to +a very improper and unfashionable length; but they suddenly recollected +themselves now and took their departure.</p> + +<p>Laura's scorn was boundless. The more she thought of these people and +their extraordinary talk, the more offensive they seemed to her; and yet +she confessed that if one must choose between the two extreme +aristocracies it might be best, on the whole, looking at things from a +strictly business point of view, to herd with the Parvenus; she was in +Washington solely to compass a certain matter and to do it at any cost, +and these people might be useful to her, while it was plain that her +purposes and her schemes for pushing them would not find favor in the +eyes of the Antiques. If it came to choice—and it might come to that, +sooner or later—she believed she could come to a decision without much +difficulty or many pangs.</p> + +<p>But the best aristocracy of the three Washington castes, and really the +most powerful, by far, was that of the Middle Ground: It was made up of +the families of public men from nearly every state in the Union—men who +held positions in both the executive and legislative branches of the +government, and whose characters had been for years blemishless, both at +home and at the capital. These gentlemen and their households were +unostentatious people; they were educated and refined; they troubled +themselves but little about the two other orders of nobility, but moved +serenely in their wide orbit, confident in their own strength and well +aware of the potency of their influence. They had no troublesome +appearances to keep up, no rivalries which they cared to distress +themselves about, no jealousies to fret over. They could afford to mind +their own affairs and leave other combinations to do the same or do +otherwise, just as they chose. They were people who were beyond +reproach, and that was sufficient.</p> + +<p>Senator Dilworthy never came into collision with any of these factions. +He labored for them all and with them all. He said that all men were +brethren and all were entitled to the honest unselfish help and +countenance of a Christian laborer in the public vineyard.</p> + +<p>Laura concluded, after reflection, to let circumstances determine the +course it might be best for her to pursue as regarded the several +aristocracies.</p> + +<p>Now it might occur to the reader that perhaps Laura had been somewhat +rudely suggestive in her remarks to Mrs. Oreille when the subject of +corals was under discussion, but it did not occur to Laura herself. +She was not a person of exaggerated refinement; indeed, the society and +the influences that had formed her character had not been of a nature +calculated to make her so; she thought that "give and take was fair +play," and that to parry an offensive thrust with a sarcasm was a neat +and legitimate thing to do. She some times talked to people in a way +which some ladies would consider, actually shocking; but Laura rather +prided herself upon some of her exploits of that character. We are sorry +we cannot make her a faultless heroine; but we cannot, for the reason +that she was human.</p> + +<p>She considered herself a superior conversationist. Long ago, when the +possibility had first been brought before her mind that some day she +might move in Washington society, she had recognized the fact that +practiced conversational powers would be a necessary weapon in that +field; she had also recognized the fact that since her dealings there +must be mainly with men, and men whom she supposed to be exceptionally +cultivated and able, she would need heavier shot in her magazine than +mere brilliant "society" nothings; whereupon she had at once entered upon +a tireless and elaborate course of reading, and had never since ceased to +devote every unoccupied moment to this sort of preparation. Having now +acquired a happy smattering of various information, she used it with good +effect—she passed for a singularly well informed woman in Washington. +The quality of her literary tastes had necessarily undergone constant +improvement under this regimen, and as necessarily, also; the duality of +her language had improved, though it cannot be denied that now and then +her former condition of life betrayed itself in just perceptible +inelegancies of expression and lapses of grammar.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p313"></a><img alt="p313.jpg (38K)" src="images/p313.jpg" height="453" width="525"> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch34"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p>When Laura had been in Washington three months, she was still the same +person, in one respect, that she was when she first arrived there—that +is to say, she still bore the name of Laura Hawkins. Otherwise she was +perceptibly changed.—</p> + +<p>She had arrived in a state of grievous uncertainty as to what manner of +woman she was, physically and intellectually, as compared with eastern +women; she was well satisfied, now, that her beauty was confessed, her +mind a grade above the average, and her powers of fascination rather +extraordinary. So she, was at ease upon those points. When she arrived, +she was possessed of habits of economy and not possessed of money; now +she dressed elaborately, gave but little thought to the cost of things, +and was very well fortified financially. She kept her mother and +Washington freely supplied with money, and did the same by +Col. Sellers—who always insisted upon giving his note for loans—with interest; he was +rigid upon that; she must take interest; and one of the Colonel's +greatest satisfactions was to go over his accounts and note what a +handsome sum this accruing interest amounted to, and what a comfortable +though modest support it would yield Laura in case reverses should +overtake her.</p> + +<p>In truth he could not help feeling that he was an efficient shield for +her against poverty; and so, if her expensive ways ever troubled him for +a brief moment, he presently dismissed the thought and said to himself, +"Let her go on—even if she loses everything she is still safe—this +interest will always afford her a good easy income."</p> + +<p>Laura was on excellent terms with a great many members of Congress, and +there was an undercurrent of suspicion in some quarters that she was one +of that detested class known as "lobbyists;" but what belle could escape +slander in such a city? Fairminded people declined to condemn her on +mere suspicion, and so the injurious talk made no very damaging headway. +She was very gay, now, and very celebrated, and she might well expect to +be assailed by many kinds of gossip. She was growing used to celebrity, +and could already sit calm and seemingly unconscious, under the fire of +fifty lorgnettes in a theatre, or even overhear the low voice "That's +she!" as she passed along the street without betraying annoyance.</p> + +<p>The whole air was full of a vague vast scheme which was to eventuate in +filling Laura's pockets with millions of money; some had one idea of the +scheme, and some another, but nobody had any exact knowledge upon the +subject. All that any one felt sure about, was that Laura's landed +estates were princely in value and extent, and that the government was +anxious to get hold of them for public purposes, and that Laura was +willing to make the sale but not at all anxious about the matter and not +at all in a hurry. It was whispered that Senator Dilworthy was a +stumbling block in the way of an immediate sale, because he was resolved +that the government should not have the lands except with the +understanding that they should be devoted to the uplifting of the negro +race; Laura did not care what they were devoted to, it was said, (a world +of very different gossip to the contrary notwithstanding,) but there were +several other heirs and they would be guided entirely by the Senator's +wishes; and finally, many people averred that while it would be easy to +sell the lands to the government for the benefit of the negro, by +resorting to the usual methods of influencing votes, Senator Dilworthy +was unwilling to have so noble a charity sullied by any taint of +corruption—he was resolved that not a vote should be bought. Nobody +could get anything definite from Laura about these matters, and so gossip +had to feed itself chiefly upon guesses. But the effect of it all was, +that Laura was considered to be very wealthy and likely to be vastly more +so in a little while. Consequently she was much courted and as much +envied: Her wealth attracted many suitors. Perhaps they came to worship +her riches, but they remained to worship her. Some of the noblest men of +the time succumbed to her fascinations. She frowned upon no lover when +he made his first advances, but by and by when she was hopelessly +enthralled, he learned from her own lips that she had formed a resolution +never to marry. Then he would go away hating and cursing the whole sex, +and she would calmly add his scalp to her string, while she mused upon +the bitter day that Col. Selby trampled her love and her pride in the +dust. In time it came to be said that her way was paved with broken +hearts.</p> + +<p>Poor Washington gradually woke up to the fact that he too was an +intellectual marvel as well as his gifted sister. He could not conceive +how it had come about (it did not occur to him that the gossip about his +family's great wealth had any thing to do with it). He could not account +for it by any process of reasoning, and was simply obliged to accept the +fact and give up trying to solve the riddle. He found himself dragged +into society and courted, wondered at and envied very much as if he were +one of those foreign barbers who flit over here now and then with a +self-conferred title of nobility and marry some rich fool's absurd daughter. +Sometimes at a dinner party or a reception he would find himself the +centre of interest, and feel unutterably uncomfortable in the discovery. +Being obliged to say something, he would mine his brain and put in a +blast and when the smoke and flying debris had cleared away the result +would be what seemed to him but a poor little intellectual clod of dirt +or two, and then he would be astonished to see everybody as lost in +admiration as if he had brought up a ton or two of virgin gold. Every +remark he made delighted his hearers and compelled their applause; he +overheard people say he was exceedingly bright—they were chiefly mammas +and marriageable young ladies. He found that some of his good things +were being repeated about the town. Whenever he heard of an instance of +this kind, he would keep that particular remark in mind and analyze it at +home in private. At first he could not see that the remark was anything +better than a parrot might originate; but by and by he began to feel that +perhaps he underrated his powers; and after that he used to analyze his +good things with a deal of comfort, and find in them a brilliancy which +would have been unapparent to him in earlier days—and then he would make +a note, of that good thing and say it again the first time he found +himself in a new company. Presently he had saved up quite a repertoire +of brilliancies; and after that he confined himself to repeating these +and ceased to originate any more, lest he might injure his reputation by +an unlucky effort.</p> + +<p>He was constantly having young ladies thrust upon his notice at +receptions, or left upon his hands at parties, and in time he began to +feel that he was being deliberately persecuted in this way; and after +that he could not enjoy society because of his constant dread of these +female ambushes and surprises. He was distressed to find that nearly +every time he showed a young lady a polite attention he was straightway +reported to be engaged to her; and as some of these reports got into the +newspapers occasionally, he had to keep writing to Louise that they were +lies and she must believe in him and not mind them or allow them to +grieve her.</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p317"></a><img alt="p317.jpg (51K)" src="images/p317.jpg" height="549" width="461"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Washington was as much in the dark as anybody with regard to the great +wealth that was hovering in the air and seemingly on the point of +tumbling into the family pocket. Laura would give him no satisfaction. +All she would say, was:</p> + +<p>"Wait. Be patient. You will see."</p> + +<p>"But will it be soon, Laura?"</p> + +<p>"It will not be very long, I think."</p> + +<p>"But what makes you think so?"</p> + +<p>"I have reasons—and good ones. Just wait, and be patient."</p> + +<p>"But is it going to be as much as people say it is?"</p> + +<p>"What do they say it is?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, ever so much. Millions!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it will be a great sum."</p> + +<p>"But how great, Laura? Will it be millions?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you may call it that. Yes, it will be millions. There, now—does +that satisfy you?"</p> + +<p>"Splendid! I can wait. I can wait patiently—ever so patiently. Once I +was near selling the land for twenty thousand dollars; once for thirty +thousand dollars; once after that for seven thousand dollars; and once +for forty thousand dollars—but something always told me not to do it. +What a fool I would have been to sell it for such a beggarly trifle! It +is the land that's to bring the money, isn't it Laura? You can tell me +that much, can't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I don't mind saying that much. It is the land.</p> + +<p>"But mind—don't ever hint that you got it from me. Don't mention me in +the matter at all, Washington."</p> + +<p>"All right—I won't. Millions! Isn't it splendid! I mean to look +around for a building lot; a lot with fine ornamental shrubbery and all +that sort of thing. I will do it to-day. And I might as well see an +architect, too, and get him to go to work at a plan for a house. I don't +intend to spare and expense; I mean to have the noblest house that money +can build." Then after a pause—he did not notice Laura's smiles "Laura, +would you lay the main hall in encaustic tiles, or just in fancy patterns +of hard wood?"</p> + +<p>Laura laughed a good old-fashioned laugh that had more of her former +natural self about it than any sound that had issued from her mouth in +many weeks. She said:</p> + +<p>"You don't change, Washington. You still begin to squander a fortune +right and left the instant you hear of it in the distance; you never wait +till the foremost dollar of it arrives within a hundred miles of +you," —and she kissed her brother good bye and left him weltering in his dreams, +so to speak.</p> + +<p>He got up and walked the floor feverishly during two hours; and when he +sat down he had married Louise, built a house, reared a family, married +them off, spent upwards of eight hundred thousand dollars on mere +luxuries, and died worth twelve millions.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch35"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2></center> +<br> + +<p> +Laura went down stairs, knocked at/the study door, and entered, scarcely +waiting for the response. Senator Dilworthy was alone—with an open +Bible in his hand, upside down. Laura smiled, and said, forgetting her +acquired correctness of speech,</p> + +<p>"It is only me."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p321"></a><img alt="p321.jpg (47K)" src="images/p321.jpg" height="487" width="529"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Ah, come in, sit down," and the Senator closed the book and laid it +down. "I wanted to see you. Time to report progress from the committee +of the whole," and the Senator beamed with his own congressional wit.</p> + +<p>"In the committee of the whole things are working very well. We have +made ever so much progress in a week. I believe that you and I together +could run this government beautifully, uncle."</p> + +<p>The Senator beamed again. He liked to be called "uncle" by this +beautiful woman.</p> + +<p>"Did you see Hopperson last night after the congressional prayer +meeting?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He came. He's a kind of—"</p> + +<p>"Eh? he is one of my friends, Laura. He's a fine man, a very fine man. +I don't know any man in congress I'd sooner go to for help in any +Christian work. What did he say?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he beat around a little. He said he should like to help the negro, +his heart went out to the negro, and all that—plenty of them say that +but he was a little afraid of the Tennessee Land bill; if Senator +Dilworthy wasn't in it, he should suspect there was a fraud on the +government."</p> + +<p>"He said that, did he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And he said he felt he couldn't vote for it. He was shy."</p> + +<p>"Not shy, child, cautious. He's a very cautious man. I have been with +him a great deal on conference committees. He wants reasons, good ones. +Didn't you show him he was in error about the bill?"</p> + +<p>"I did. I went over the whole thing. I had to tell him some of the side +arrangements, some of the—"</p> + +<p>"You didn't mention me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. I told him you were daft about the negro and the philanthropy +part of it, as you are."</p> + +<p>"Daft is a little strong, Laura. But you know that I wouldn't touch this +bill if it were not for the public good, and for the good of the colored +race; much as I am interested in the heirs of this property, and would +like to have them succeed."</p> + +<p>Laura looked a little incredulous, and the Senator proceeded.</p> + +<p>"Don't misunderstand me, I don't deny that it is for the interest of all +of us that this bill should go through, and it will. I have no +concealments from you. But I have one principle in my public life, which +I should like you to keep in mind; it has always been my guide. I never +push a private interest if it is not Justified and ennobled by some +larger public good. I doubt Christian would be justified in working for +his own salvation if it was not to aid in the salvation of his fellow +men."</p> + +<p>The Senator spoke with feeling, and then added,</p> + +<p>"I hope you showed Hopperson that our motives were pure?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he seemed to have a new light on the measure: I think will vote +for it."</p> + +<p>"I hope so; his name will give tone and strength to it. I knew you would +only have to show him that it was just and pure, in order to secure his +cordial support."</p> + +<p>"I think I convinced him. Yes, I am perfectly sure he will vote right +now."</p> + +<p>"That's good, that's good," said the Senator; smiling, and rubbing his +hands. "Is there anything more?"</p> + +<p>"You'll find some changes in that I guess," handing the Senator a printed +list of names. "Those checked off are all right."</p> + +<p>"Ah—'m—'m," running his eye down the list. "That's encouraging. What +is the 'C' before some of the names, and the 'B. B.'?"</p> + +<p>"Those are my private marks. That 'C' stands for 'convinced,' with +argument. The 'B. B.' is a general sign for a relative. You see it +stands before three of the Hon. Committee. I expect to see the chairman +of the committee to-day, Mr. Buckstone."</p> + +<p>"So, you must, he ought to be seen without any delay. Buckstone is a +worldly sort of a fellow, but he has charitable impulses. If we secure +him we shall have a favorable report by the committee, and it will be a +great thing to be able to state that fact quietly where it will do good."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I saw Senator Balloon"</p> + +<p>"He will help us, I suppose? Balloon is a whole-hearted fellow. I can't +help loving that man, for all his drollery and waggishness. He puts on +an air of levity sometimes, but there aint a man in the senate knows the +scriptures as he does. He did not make any objections?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly, he said—shall I tell you what he said?" asked Laura +glancing furtively at him.</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"He said he had no doubt it was a good thing; if Senator Dilworthy was in +it, it would pay to look into it."</p> + +<p>The Senator laughed, but rather feebly, and said, "Balloon is always full +of his jokes."</p> + +<p>"I explained it to him. He said it was all right, he only wanted a word +with you,", continued Laura. "He is a handsome old gentleman, and he is +gallant for an old man."</p> + +<p>"My daughter," said the Senator, with a grave look, "I trust there was +nothing free in his manner?"</p> + +<p>"Free?" repeated Laura, with indignation in her face. "With me!"</p> + +<p>"There, there, child. I meant nothing, Balloon talks a little freely +sometimes, with men. But he is right at heart. His term expires next +year and I fear we shall lose him."</p> + +<p>"He seemed to be packing the day I was there. His rooms were full of dry +goods boxes, into which his servant was crowding all manner of old +clothes and stuff: I suppose he will paint 'Pub. Docs' on them and frank +them home. That's good economy, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, but child, all Congressmen do that. It may not be strictly +honest, indeed it is not unless he had some public documents mixed in +with the clothes."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p324"></a><img alt="p324.jpg (34K)" src="images/p324.jpg" height="445" width="419"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"It's a funny world. Good-bye, uncle. I'm going to see that chairman."</p> + +<p>And humming a cheery opera air, she departed to her room to dress for +going out. Before she did that, however, she took out her note book and +was soon deep in its contents; marking, dashing, erasing, figuring, and +talking to herself.</p> + +<p>"Free! I wonder what Dilworthy does think of me anyway? One . . . +two. . .eight . . . seventeen . . . twenty-one,. . 'm'm . . . +it takes a heap for a majority. Wouldn't Dilworthy open his eyes if he +knew some of the things Balloon did say to me. There. . . . +Hopperson's influence ought to count twenty . . . the sanctimonious +old curmudgeon. Son-in-law. . . . sinecure in the negro institution +. . . .That about gauges him . . . The three committeemen . . . . +sons-in-law. Nothing like a son-in-law here in Washington or a +brother-in-law . . . And everybody has 'em . . .Let's see: . . . +sixty-one. . . . with places . . . twenty-five . . . persuaded—it is +getting on; . . . . we'll have two-thirds of Congress in time . . . +Dilworthy must surely know I understand him. Uncle Dilworthy . . . . +Uncle Balloon!—Tells very amusing stories . . . when ladies are not +present . . . I should think so . . . .'m . . . 'm. Eighty-five. +There. I must find that chairman. Queer. . . . Buckstone acts . . +Seemed to be in love . . . . . I was sure of it. He promised to +come here. . . and he hasn't. . . Strange. Very strange . . . . +I must chance to meet him to-day."</p> + +<p>Laura dressed and went out, thinking she was perhaps too early for Mr. +Buckstone to come from the house, but as he lodged near the bookstore she +would drop in there and keep a look out for him.</p> + +<p>While Laura is on her errand to find Mr. Buckstone, it may not be out of +the way to remark that she knew quite as much of Washington life as +Senator Dilworthy gave her credit for, and more than she thought proper +to tell him. She was acquainted by this time with a good many of the +young fellows of Newspaper Row; and exchanged gossip with them to their +mutual advantage.</p> + +<p>They were always talking in the Row, everlastingly gossiping, bantering +and sarcastically praising things, and going on in a style which was a +curious commingling of earnest and persiflage. Col. Sellers liked this +talk amazingly, though he was sometimes a little at sea in it—and +perhaps that didn't lessen the relish of the conversation to the +correspondents.</p> + +<p>It seems that they had got hold of the dry-goods box packing story about +Balloon, one day, and were talking it over when the Colonel came in. +The Colonel wanted to know all about it, and Hicks told him. And then +Hicks went on, with a serious air,</p> + +<p>"Colonel, if you register a letter, it means that it is of value, doesn't +it? And if you pay fifteen cents for registering it, the government will +have to take extra care of it and even pay you back its full value if it +is lost. Isn't that so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I suppose it's so.".</p> + +<p>"Well Senator Balloon put fifteen cents worth of stamps on each of those +seven huge boxes of old clothes, and shipped that ton of second-hand +rubbish, old boots and pantaloons and what not through the mails as +registered matter! It was an ingenious thing and it had a genuine touch +of humor about it, too. I think there is more real: talent among our +public men of to-day than there was among those of old times—a far more +fertile fancy, a much happier ingenuity. Now, Colonel, can you picture +Jefferson, or Washington or John Adams franking their wardrobes through +the mails and adding the facetious idea of making the government +responsible for the cargo for the sum of one dollar and five cents? +Statesmen were dull creatures in those days. I have a much greater +admiration for Senator Balloon."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p326"></a><img alt="p326.jpg (24K)" src="images/p326.jpg" height="463" width="287"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Yes, Balloon is a man of parts, there is no denying it"</p> + +<p>"I think so. He is spoken of for the post of Minister to China, or +Austria, and I hope will be appointed. What we want abroad is good +examples of the national character.</p> + +<p>"John Jay and Benjamin Franklin were well enough in their day, but the +nation has made progress since then. Balloon is a man we know and can +depend on to be true to himself."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p327"></a><img alt="p327.jpg (57K)" src="images/p327.jpg" height="539" width="585"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>"Yes, and Balloon has had a good deal of public experience. He is an old +friend of mine. He was governor of one of the territories a while, and +was very satisfactory."</p> + +<p>"Indeed he was. He was ex-officio Indian agent, too. Many a man would +have taken the Indian appropriation and devoted the money to feeding and +clothing the helpless savages, whose land had been taken from them by the +white man in the interests of civilization; but Balloon knew their needs +better. He built a government saw-mill on the reservation with the +money, and the lumber sold for enormous prices—a relative of his did all +the work free of charge—that is to say he charged nothing more than the +lumber world bring." "But the poor Injuns—not that I care much for +Injuns—what did he do for them?"</p> + +<p>"Gave them the outside slabs to fence in the reservation with. Governor +Balloon was nothing less than a father to the poor Indians. But Balloon +is not alone, we have many truly noble statesmen in our country's service +like Balloon. The Senate is full of them. Don't you think so Colonel?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I dunno. I honor my country's public servants as much as any one +can. I meet them, Sir, every day, and the more I see of them the more I +esteem them and the more grateful I am that our institutions give us the +opportunity of securing their services. Few lands are so blest."</p> + +<p>"That is true, Colonel. To be sure you can buy now and then a Senator or +a Representative but they do not know it is wrong, and so they are not +ashamed of it. They are gentle, and confiding and childlike, and in my +opinion these are qualities that ennoble them far more than any amount of +sinful sagacity could. I quite agree with you, Col. Sellers."</p> + +<p>"Well"—hesitated the, Colonel—"I am afraid some of them do buy their +seats—yes, I am afraid they do—but as Senator Dilworthy himself said to +me, it is sinful,—it is very wrong—it is shameful; Heaven protect me +from such a charge. That is what Dilworthy said. And yet when you come +to look at it you cannot deny that we would have to go without the +services of some of our ablest men, sir, if the country were opposed +to—to—bribery. It is a harsh term. I do not like to use it."</p> + +<p>The Colonel interrupted himself at this point to meet an engagement with +the Austrian minister, and took his leave with his usual courtly bow.</p> + + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> +<center><h2><a name="ch36"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2></center> +<br> + +<br><br><br> +<center><a name="p328"></a><img alt="p328.jpg (101K)" src="images/p328.jpg" height="909" width="569"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p> +In due time Laura alighted at the book store, and began to look at the +titles of the handsome array of books on the counter. A dapper clerk of +perhaps nineteen or twenty years, with hair accurately parted and +surprisingly slick, came bustling up and leaned over with a pretty smile +and an affable—</p> + +<p>"Can I—was there any particular book you wished to see?"</p> + +<p>"Have you Taine's England?"</p> + +<p>"Beg pardon?"</p> + +<p>"Taine's Notes on England."</p> + +<p>The young gentleman scratched the side of his nose with a cedar pencil +which he took down from its bracket on the side of his head, and +reflected a moment:</p> + +<p>"Ah—I see," [with a bright smile]—"Train, you mean—not Taine. George +Francis Train. No, ma'm we—"</p> + +<p>"I mean Taine—if I may take the liberty."</p> + +<p>The clerk reflected again—then:</p> + +<p>"Taine . . . . Taine . . . . Is it hymns?"</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't hymns. It is a volume that is making a deal of talk just +now, and is very widely known—except among parties who sell it."</p> + +<p>The clerk glanced at her face to see if a sarcasm might not lurk +somewhere in that obscure speech, but the gentle simplicity of the +beautiful eyes that met his, banished that suspicion. He went away and +conferred with the proprietor. Both appeared to be non-plussed. They +thought and talked, and talked and thought by turns. Then both came +forward and the proprietor said:</p> + +<p>"Is it an American book, ma'm?"</p> + +<p>"No, it is an American reprint of an English translation."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Yes—yes—I remember, now. We are expecting it every day. It +isn't out yet."</p> + +<p>"I think you must be mistaken, because you advertised it a week ago."</p> + +<p>"Why no—can that be so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am sure of it. And besides, here is the book itself, on the +counter."</p> + +<p>She bought it and the proprietor retired from the field. Then she asked +the clerk for the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table—and was pained to see +the admiration her beauty had inspired in him fade out of his face. +He said with cold dignity, that cook books were somewhat out of their +line, but he would order it if she desired it. She said, no, never mind. +Then she fell to conning the titles again, finding a delight in the +inspection of the Hawthornes, the Longfellows, the Tennysons, and other +favorites of her idle hours. Meantime the clerk's eyes were busy, and no +doubt his admiration was returning again—or may be he was only gauging +her probable literary tastes by some sagacious system of admeasurement +only known to his guild. Now he began to "assist" her in making a +selection; but his efforts met with no success—indeed they only annoyed +her and unpleasantly interrupted her meditations. Presently, while she +was holding a copy of "Venetian Life" in her hand and running over a +familiar passage here and there, the clerk said, briskly, snatching up a +paper-covered volume and striking the counter a smart blow with it to +dislodge the dust:</p> + +<p>"Now here is a work that we've sold a lot of. Everybody that's read it +likes it"—and he intruded it under her nose; "it's a book that I can +recommend—'The Pirate's Doom, or the Last of the Buccaneers.' I think +it's one of the best things that's come out this season."</p> + +<p>Laura pushed it gently aside her hand and went on and went on filching +from "Venetian Life."</p> + +<p>"I believe I do not want it," she said.</p> + +<p>The clerk hunted around awhile, glancing at one title and then another, +but apparently not finding what he wanted.</p> + +<p>However, he succeeded at last. Said he:</p> + +<p>"Have you ever read this, ma'm? I am sure you'll like it. It's by the +author of 'The Hooligans of Hackensack.' It is full of love troubles and +mysteries and all sorts of such things. The heroine strangles her own +mother. Just glance at the title please,—'Gonderil the Vampire, or The +Dance of Death.' And here is 'The Jokist's Own Treasury, or, The Phunny +Phellow's Bosom Phriend.' The funniest thing!—I've read it four times, +ma'm, and I can laugh at the very sight of it yet. And +'Gonderil,'—I assure you it is the most splendid book I ever read. I know you will +like these books, ma'm, because I've read them myself and I know what +they are."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I was perplexed—but I see how it is, now. You must have thought +I asked you to tell me what sort of books I wanted—for I am apt to say +things which I don't really mean, when I am absent minded. I suppose I +did ask you, didn't I?"</p> + +<p>"No ma'm,—but I—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I must have done it, else you would not have offered your services, +for fear it might be rude. But don't be troubled—it was all my fault. +I ought not to have been so heedless—I ought not to have asked you."</p> + +<p>"But you didn't ask me, ma'm. We always help customers all we can. +You see our experience—living right among books all the time—that sort +of thing makes us able to help a customer make a selection, you know."</p> + +<p>"Now does it, indeed? It is part of your business, then?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm, we always help."</p> + +<p>"How good it is of you. Some people would think it rather obtrusive, +perhaps, but I don't—I think it is real kindness—even charity. Some +people jump to conclusions without any thought—you have noticed that?"</p> + +<p>"O yes," said the clerk, a little perplexed as to whether to feel +comfortable or the reverse; "Oh yes, indeed, I've often noticed that, +ma'm."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they jump to conclusions with an absurd heedlessness. Now some +people would think it odd that because you, with the budding tastes and +the innocent enthusiasms natural to your time of life, enjoyed the +Vampires and the volume of nursery jokes, you should imagine that an +older person would delight in them too—but I do not think it odd at all. +I think it natural—perfectly natural in you. And kind, too. You look +like a person who not only finds a deep pleasure in any little thing in +the way of literature that strikes you forcibly, but is willing and glad +to share that pleasure with others—and that, I think, is noble and +admirable—very noble and admirable. I think we ought all—to share our +pleasures with others, and do what we can to make each other happy, do +not you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed. Yes, you are quite right, ma'm."</p> + +<p>But he was getting unmistakably uncomfortable, now, notwithstanding +Laura's confiding sociability and almost affectionate tone.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed. Many people would think that what a bookseller—or perhaps +his clerk—knows about literature as literature, in contradistinction to +its character as merchandise, would hardly, be of much assistance to a +person—that is, to an adult, of course—in the selection of food for the +mind—except of course wrapping paper, or twine, or wafers, or something +like that—but I never feel that way. I feel that whatever service you +offer me, you offer with a good heart, and I am as grateful for it as if +it were the greatest boon to me. And it is useful to me—it is bound to +be so. It cannot be otherwise. If you show me a book which you have +read—not skimmed over or merely glanced at, but read—and you tell me +that you enjoyed it and that you could read it three or four times, then +I know what book I want—"</p> + +<p>"Thank you!—th—"</p> + +<p>—"to avoid. Yes indeed. I think that no information ever comes amiss +in this world. Once or twice I have traveled in the cars—and there you +know, the peanut boy always measures you with his eye, and hands you out +a book of murders if you are fond of theology; or Tupper or a dictionary +or T. S. Arthur if you are fond of poetry; or he hands you a volume of +distressing jokes or a copy of the American Miscellany if you +particularly dislike that sort of literary fatty degeneration of the +heart—just for the world like a pleasant spoken well-meaning gentleman +in any, bookstore. But here I am running on as if business men had +nothing to do but listen to women talk. You must pardon me, for I was +not thinking.—And you must let me thank you again for helping me. +I read a good deal, and shall be in nearly every day and I would be sorry +to have you think me a customer who talks too much and buys too little. +Might I ask you to give me the time? Ah-two-twenty-two. Thank you +very much. I will set mine while I have the opportunity."</p> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><a name="p333"></a><img alt="p333.jpg (27K)" src="images/p333.jpg" height="411" width="501"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>But she could not get her watch open, apparently. She tried, and tried +again. Then the clerk, trembling at his own audacity, begged to be +allowed to assist. She allowed him. He succeeded, and was radiant under +the sweet influences of her pleased face and her seductively worded +acknowledgements with gratification. Then he gave her the exact time +again, and anxiously watched her turn the hands slowly till they reached +the precise spot without accident or loss of life, and then he looked as +happy as a man who had helped a fellow being through a momentous +undertaking, and was grateful to know that he had not lived in vain. +Laura thanked him once more. The words were music to his ear; but what +were they compared to the ravishing smile with which she flooded his +whole system? When she bowed her adieu and turned away, he was no longer +suffering torture in the pillory where she had had him trussed up during +so many distressing moments, but he belonged to the list of her conquests +and was a flattered and happy thrall, with the dawn-light of love +breaking over the eastern elevations of his heart.</p> + +<p>It was about the hour, now, for the chairman of the House Committee on +Benevolent Appropriations to make his appearance, and Laura stepped to +the door to reconnoiter. She glanced up the street, and sure enough—</p> + + + +<br><br> +<hr> +<br><br> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 4. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 4. *** + +***** This file should be named 5821-h.htm or 5821-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/2/5821/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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/dev/null +++ b/5821.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2971 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 4. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gilded Age, Part 4. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +Release Date: June 20, 2004 [EBook #5821] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 4. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE GILDED AGE + +A Tale of Today + +by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner + +1873 + + +Part 4. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +Whatever may have been the language of Harry's letter to the Colonel, +the information it conveyed was condensed or expanded, one or the other, +from the following episode of his visit to New York: + +He called, with official importance in his mien, at No.-- Wall street, +where a great gilt sign betokened the presence of the head-quarters of +the "Columbus River Slack-Water Navigation Company." He entered and +gave a dressy porter his card, and was requested to wait a moment in a +sort of ante-room. The porter returned in a minute; and asked whom he +would like to see? + +"The president of the company, of course." + +"He is busy with some gentlemen, sir; says he will be done with them +directly." + +That a copper-plate card with "Engineer-in-Chief" on it should be +received with such tranquility as this, annoyed Mr. Brierly not a little. +But he had to submit. Indeed his annoyance had time to augment a good +deal; for he was allowed to cool his heels a frill half hour in the +ante-room before those gentlemen emerged and he was ushered into the +presence. He found a stately dignitary occupying a very official chair +behind a long green morocco-covered table, in a room with sumptuously +carpeted and furnished, and well garnished with pictures. + +"Good morning, sir; take a seat--take a seat." + +"Thank you sir," said Harry, throwing as much chill into his manner as +his ruffled dignity prompted. + +"We perceive by your reports and the reports of the Chief Superintendent, +that you have been making gratifying progress with the work.--We are all +very much pleased." + +"Indeed? We did not discover it from your letters--which we have not +received; nor by the treatment our drafts have met with--which were not +honored; nor by the reception of any part of the appropriation, no part +of it having come to hand." + +"Why, my dear Mr. Brierly, there must be some mistake, I am sure we wrote +you and also Mr. Sellers, recently--when my clerk comes he will show +copies--letters informing you of the ten per cent. assessment." + +"Oh, certainly, we got those letters. But what we wanted was money to +carry on the work--money to pay the men." + +"Certainly, certainly--true enough--but we credited you both for a large +part of your assessments--I am sure that was in our letters." + +"Of course that was in--I remember that." + +"Ah, very well then. Now we begin to understand each other." + +"Well, I don't see that we do. There's two months' wages due the men, +and----" + +"How? Haven't you paid the men?" + +"Paid them! How are we going to pay them when you don't honor our +drafts?" + +"Why, my dear sir, I cannot see how you can find any fault with us. I am +sure we have acted in a perfectly straight forward business way.--Now let +us look at the thing a moment. You subscribed for 100 shares of the +capital stock, at $1,000 a share, I believe?" + +"Yes, sir, I did." + +"And Mr. Sellers took a like amount?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Very well. No concern can get along without money. We levied a ten per +cent. assessment. It was the original understanding that you and Mr. +Sellers were to have the positions you now hold, with salaries of $600 a +month each, while in active service. You were duly elected to these +places, and you accepted them. Am I right?" + +"Certainly." + +"Very well. You were given your instructions and put to work. By your +reports it appears that you have expended the sum of $9,610 upon the said +work. Two months salary to you two officers amounts altogether to +$2,400--about one-eighth of your ten per cent. assessment, you see; which +leaves you in debt to the company for the other seven-eighths of the +assessment--viz, something over $8,000 apiece. Now instead of requiring +you to forward this aggregate of $16,000 or $17,000 to New York, the +company voted unanimously to let you pay it over to the contractors, +laborers from time to time, and give you credit on the books for it. +And they did it without a murmur, too, for they were pleased with the +progress you had made, and were glad to pay you that little compliment +--and a very neat one it was, too, I am sure. The work you did fell short +of $10,000, a trifle. Let me see--$9,640 from $20,000 salary $2;400 +added--ah yes, the balance due the company from yourself and Mr. Sellers +is $7,960, which I will take the responsibility of allowing to stand for +the present, unless you prefer to draw a check now, and thus----" + +"Confound it, do you mean to say that instead of the company owing us +$2,400, we owe the company $7,960?" + +"Well, yes." + +"And that we owe the men and the contractors nearly ten thousand dollars +besides?" + +"Owe them! Oh bless my soul, you can't mean that you have not paid these +people?" + +"But I do mean it!" + +The president rose and walked the floor like a man in bodily pain. His +brows contracted, he put his hand up and clasped his forehead, and kept +saying, "Oh, it is, too bad, too bad, too bad! Oh, it is bound to be +found out--nothing can prevent it--nothing!" + +Then he threw himself into his chair and said: + +"My dear Mr. Brierson, this is dreadful--perfectly dreadful. It will be +found out. It is bound to tarnish the good name of the company; our +credit will be seriously, most seriously impaired. How could you be so +thoughtless--the men ought to have been paid though it beggared us all!" + +"They ought, ought they? Then why the devil--my name is not Bryerson, by +the way--why the mischief didn't the compa--why what in the nation ever +became of the appropriation? Where is that appropriation?--if a +stockholder may make so bold as to ask." + +The appropriation?--that paltry $200,000, do you mean?" + +"Of course--but I didn't know that $200,000 was so very paltry. Though I +grant, of course, that it is not a large sum, strictly speaking. But +where is it?" + +"My dear sir, you surprise me. You surely cannot have had a large +acquaintance with this sort of thing. Otherwise you would not have +expected much of a result from a mere INITIAL appropriation like that. +It was never intended for anything but a mere nest egg for the future and +real appropriations to cluster around." + +"Indeed? Well, was it a myth, or was it a reality? Whatever become of +it?" + +"Why the--matter is simple enough. A Congressional appropriation costs +money. Just reflect, for instance--a majority of the House Committee, +say $10,000 apiece--$40,000; a majority of the Senate Committee, the same +each--say $40,000; a little extra to one or two chairman of one or two +such committees, say $10,000 each--$20,000; and there's $100,000 of the +money gone, to begin with. Then, seven male lobbyists, at $3,000 each +--$21,000; one female lobbyist, $10,000; a high moral Congressman or +Senator here and there--the high moral ones cost more, because they. +give tone to a measure--say ten of these at $3,000 each, is $30,000; then +a lot of small-fry country members who won't vote for anything whatever +without pay--say twenty at $500 apiece, is $10,000; a lot of dinners to +members--say $10,000 altogether; lot of jimcracks for Congressmen's wives +and children--those go a long way--you can't sped too much money in that +line--well, those things cost in a lump, say $10,000--along there +somewhere; and then comes your printed documents--your maps, your tinted +engravings, your pamphlets, your illuminated show cards, your +advertisements in a hundred and fifty papers at ever so much a line +--because you've got to keep the papers all light or you are gone up, you +know. Oh, my dear sir, printing bills are destruction itself. Ours so +far amount to--let me see--10; 52; 22; 13;--and then there's 11; 14; 33 +--well, never mind the details, the total in clean numbers foots up +$118,254.42 thus far!" + +"What!" + +"Oh, yes indeed. Printing's no bagatelle, I can tell you. And then +there's your contributions, as a company, to Chicago fires and Boston +fires, and orphan asylums and all that sort of thing--head the list, you +see, with the company's full name and a thousand dollars set opposite +--great card, sir--one of the finest advertisements in the world--the +preachers mention it in the pulpit when it's a religious charity--one of +the happiest advertisements in the world is your benevolent donation. +Ours have amounted to sixteen thousand dollars and some cents up to this +time." + +"Good heavens!" + +"Oh, yes. Perhaps the biggest thing we've done in the advertising line +was to get an officer of the U. S. government, of perfectly Himmalayan +official altitude, to write up our little internal improvement for a +religious paper of enormous circulation--I tell you that makes our bonds +go handsomely among the pious poor. Your religious paper is by far the +best vehicle for a thing of this kind, because they'll 'lead' your +article and put it right in the midst of the reading matter; and if it's +got a few Scripture quotations in it, and some temperance platitudes and +a bit of gush here and there about Sunday Schools, and a sentimental +snuffle now and then about 'God's precious ones, the honest hard-handed +poor,' it works the nation like a charm, my dear sir, and never a man +suspects that it is an advertisement; but your secular paper sticks you +right into the advertising columns and of course you don't take a trick. +Give me a religious paper to advertise in, every time; and if you'll just +look at their advertising pages, you'll observe that other people think a +good deal as I do--especially people who have got little financial +schemes to make everybody rich with. Of course I mean your great big +metropolitan religious papers that know how to serve God and make money +at the same time--that's your sort, sir, that's your sort--a religious +paper that isn't run to make money is no use to us, sir, as an +advertising medium--no use to anybody--in our line of business. I guess +our next best dodge was sending a pleasure trip of newspaper reporters +out to Napoleon. Never paid them a cent; just filled them up with +champagne and the fat of the land, put pen, ink and paper before them +while they were red-hot, and bless your soul when you come to read their +letters you'd have supposed they'd been to heaven. And if a sentimental +squeamishness held one or two of them back from taking a less rosy view +of Napoleon, our hospitalities tied his tongue, at least, and he said +nothing at all and so did us no harm. Let me see--have I stated all the +expenses I've been at? No, I was near forgetting one or two items. +There's your official salaries--you can't get good men for nothing. +Salaries cost pretty lively. And then there's your big high-sounding +millionaire names stuck into your advertisements as stockholders--another +card, that--and they are stockholders, too, but you have to give them the +stock and non-assessable at that--so they're an expensive lot. Very, +very expensive thing, take it all around, is a big internal improvement +concern--but you see that yourself, Mr. Bryerman--you see that, yourself, +sir." + +"But look here. I think you are a little mistaken about it's ever having +cost anything for Congressional votes. I happen to know something about +that. I've let you say your say--now let me say mine. I don't wish to +seem to throw any suspicion on anybody's statements, because we are all +liable to be mistaken. But how would it strike you if I were to say that +I was in Washington all the time this bill was pending? and what if I +added that I put the measure through myself? Yes, sir, I did that little +thing. And moreover, I never paid a dollar for any man's vote and never +promised one. There are some ways of doing a thing that are as good as +others which other people don't happen to think about, or don't have the +knack of succeeding in, if they do happen to think of them. My dear sir, +I am obliged to knock some of your expenses in the head--for never a cent +was paid a Congressman or Senator on the part of this Navigation Company." + +The president smiled blandly, even sweetly, all through this harangue, +and then said: + +"Is that so?" + +"Every word of it." + +"Well it does seem to alter the complexion of things a little. You are +acquainted with the members down there, of course, else you could not +have worked to such advantage?" + +"I know them all, sir. I know their wives, their children, their babies +--I even made it a point to be on good terms with their lackeys. I know +every Congressman well--even familiarly." + +"Very good. Do you know any of their signatures? Do you know their +handwriting?" + +"Why I know their handwriting as well as I know my own--have had +correspondence enough with them, I should think. And their signatures +--why I can tell their initials, even." + +The president went to a private safe, unlocked it and got out some +letters and certain slips of paper. Then he said: + +"Now here, for instance; do you believe that that is a genuine letter? +Do you know this signature here?--and this one? Do you know who those +initials represent--and are they forgeries?" + +Harry was stupefied. There were things there that made his brain swim. +Presently, at the bottom of one of the letters he saw a signature that +restored his equilibrium; it even brought the sunshine of a smile to his +face. + +The president said: + +"That one amuses you. You never suspected him?" + +"Of course I ought to have suspected him, but I don't believe it ever +really occurred to me. Well, well, well--how did you ever have the nerve +to approach him, of all others?" + +"Why my friend, we never think of accomplishing anything without his +help. He is our mainstay. But how do those letters strike you?" + +"They strike me dumb! What a stone-blind idiot I have been!" + +"Well, take it all around, I suppose you had a pleasant time in +Washington," said the president, gathering up the letters; "of course you +must have had. Very few men could go there and get a money bill through +without buying a single" + +"Come, now, Mr. President, that's plenty of that! I take back everything +I said on that head. I'm a wiser man to-day than I was yesterday, I can +tell you." + +"I think you are. In fact I am satisfied you are. But now I showed you +these things in confidence, you understand. Mention facts as much as you +want to, but don't mention names to anybody. I can depend on you for +that, can't I?" + +"Oh, of course. I understand the necessity of that. I will not betray +the names. But to go back a bit, it begins to look as if you never saw +any of that appropriation at all?" + +"We saw nearly ten thousand dollars of it--and that was all. Several of +us took turns at log-rolling in Washington, and if we had charged +anything for that service, none of that $10,000 would ever have reached +New York." + +"If you hadn't levied the assessment you would have been in a close place +I judge?" + +"Close? Have you figured up the total of the disbursements I told you +of?" + +"No, I didn't think of that." + +"Well, lets see: + +Spent in Washington, say, ........... $191,000 +Printing, advertising, etc., say .... $118,000 +Charity, say, ....................... $16,000 + + Total, ............... $325,000 + +The money to do that with, comes from +--Appropriation, ...................... $200,000 + +Ten per cent. assessment on capital of + $1,000,000 ..................... $100,000 + + Total, ............... $300,000 + +"Which leaves us in debt some $25,000 at this moment. Salaries of home +officers are still going on; also printing and advertising. Next month +will show a state of things!" + +"And then--burst up, I suppose?" + +"By no means. Levy another assessment" + +"Oh, I see. That's dismal." + +"By no means." + +"Why isn't it? What's the road out?" + +"Another appropriation, don't you see?" + +"Bother the appropriations. They cost more than they come to." + +"Not the next one. We'll call for half a million--get it and go for a +million the very next month."--"Yes, but the cost of it!" + +The president smiled, and patted his secret letters affectionately. He +said: + +"All these people are in the next Congress. We shan't have to pay them a +cent. And what is more, they will work like beavers for us--perhaps it +might be to their advantage." + +Harry reflected profoundly a while. Then he said: + +"We send many missionaries to lift up the benighted races of other lands. +How much cheaper and better it would be if those people could only come +here and drink of our civilization at its fountain head." + +"I perfectly agree with you, Mr. Beverly. Must you go? Well, good +morning. Look in, when you are passing; and whenever I can give you any +information about our affairs and pro'spects, I shall be glad to do it." + +Harry's letter was not a long one, but it contained at least the +calamitous figures that came out in the above conversation. The Colonel +found himself in a rather uncomfortable place--no $1,200 salary +forthcoming; and himself held responsible for half of the $9,640 due the +workmen, to say nothing of being in debt to the company to the extent of +nearly $4,000. Polly's heart was nearly broken; the "blues" returned in +fearful force, and she had to go out of the room to hide the tears that +nothing could keep back now. + +There was mourning in another quarter, too, for Louise had a letter. +Washington had refused, at the last moment, to take $40,000 for the +Tennessee Land, and had demanded $150,000! So the trade fell through, +and now Washington was wailing because he had been so foolish. But he +wrote that his man might probably return to the city soon, and then he +meant to sell to him, sure, even if he had to take $10,000. Louise had a +good cry-several of them, indeed--and the family charitably forebore to +make any comments that would increase her grief. + +Spring blossomed, summer came, dragged its hot weeks by, and the +Colonel's spirits rose, day by day, for the railroad was making good +progress. But by and by something happened. Hawkeye had always declined +to subscribe anything toward the railway, imagining that her large +business would be a sufficient compulsory influence; but now Hawkeye was +frightened; and before Col. Sellers knew what he was about, Hawkeye, in a +panic, had rushed to the front and subscribed such a sum that Napoleon's +attractions suddenly sank into insignificance and the railroad concluded +to follow a comparatively straight coarse instead of going miles out of +its way to build up a metropolis in the muddy desert of Stone's Landing. + +The thunderbolt fell. After all the Colonel's deep planning; after all +his brain work and tongue work in drawing public attention to his pet +project and enlisting interest in it; after all his faithful hard toil +with his hands, and running hither and thither on his busy feet; after +all his high hopes and splendid prophecies, the fates had turned their +backs on him at last, and all in a moment his air-castles crumbled to +ruins abort him. Hawkeye rose from her fright triumphant and rejoicing, +and down went Stone's Landing! One by one its meagre parcel of +inhabitants packed up and moved away, as the summer waned and fall +approached. Town lots were no longer salable, traffic ceased, a deadly +lethargy fell upon the place once more, the "Weekly Telegraph" faded into +an early grave, the wary tadpole returned from exile, the bullfrog +resumed his ancient song, the tranquil turtle sunned his back upon bank +and log and drowsed his grateful life away as in the old sweet days of +yore. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +Philip Sterling was on his way to Ilium, in the state of Pennsylvania. +Ilium was the railway station nearest to the tract of wild land which +Mr. Bolton had commissioned him to examine. + +On the last day of the journey as the railway train Philip was on was +leaving a large city, a lady timidly entered the drawing-room car, and +hesitatingly took a chair that was at the moment unoccupied. Philip saw +from the window that a gentleman had put her upon the car just as it was +starting. In a few moments the conductor entered, and without waiting an +explanation, said roughly to the lady, + +"Now you can't sit there. That seat's taken. Go into the other car." + +"I did not intend to take the seat," said the lady rising, "I only sat +down a moment till the conductor should come and give me a seat." + +"There aint any. Car's full. You'll have to leave." + +"But, sir," said the lady, appealingly, "I thought--" + +"Can't help what you thought--you must go into the other car." + +"The train is going very fast, let me stand here till we stop." + +"The lady can have my seat," cried Philip, springing up. + +The conductor turned towards Philip, and coolly and deliberately surveyed +him from head to foot, with contempt in every line of his face, turned +his back upon him without a word, and said to the lady, + +"Come, I've got no time to talk. You must go now." + +The lady, entirely disconcerted by such rudeness, and frightened, moved +towards the door, opened it and stepped out. The train was swinging +along at a rapid rate, jarring from side to side; the step was a long one +between the cars and there was no protecting grating. The lady attempted +it, but lost her balance, in the wind and the motion of the car, and +fell! She would inevitably have gone down under the wheels, if Philip, +who had swiftly followed her, had not caught her arm and drawn her up. +He then assisted her across, found her a seat, received her bewildered +thanks, and returned to his car. + +The conductor was still there, taking his tickets, and growling something +about imposition. Philip marched up to him, and burst out with, + +"You are a brute, an infernal brute, to treat a woman that way." + +"Perhaps you'd like to make a fuss about it," sneered the conductor. + +Philip's reply was a blow, given so suddenly and planted so squarely in +the conductor's face, that it sent him reeling over a fat passenger, who +was looking up in mild wonder that any one should dare to dispute with a +conductor, and against the side of the car. + +He recovered himself, reached the bell rope, "Damn you, I'll learn you," +stepped to the door and called a couple of brakemen, and then, as the +speed slackened; roared out, + +"Get off this train." + +"I shall not get off. I have as much right here as you." + +"We'll see," said the conductor, advancing with the brakemen. The +passengers protested, and some of them said to each other, "That's too +bad," as they always do in such cases, but none of them offered to take a +hand with Philip. The men seized him, wrenched him from his seat, +dragged him along the aisle, tearing his clothes, thrust him from the +car, and, then flung his carpet-bag, overcoat and umbrella after him. +And the train went on. + +The conductor, red in the face and puffing from his exertion, swaggered +through the car, muttering "Puppy, I'll learn him." The passengers, when +he had gone, were loud in their indignation, and talked about signing a +protest, but they did nothing more than talk. + +The next morning the Hooverville Patriot and Clarion had this "item":-- + + SLIGHTUALLY OVERBOARD. + + "We learn that as the down noon express was leaving H---- yesterday + a lady! (God save the mark) attempted to force herself into the + already full palatial car. Conductor Slum, who is too old a bird to + be caught with chaff, courteously informed her that the car was + full, and when she insisted on remaining, he persuaded her to go + into the car where she belonged. Thereupon a young sprig, from the + East, blustered like a Shanghai rooster, and began to sass the + conductor with his chin music. That gentleman delivered the young + aspirant for a muss one of his elegant little left-handers, which so + astonished him that he began to feel for his shooter. Whereupon Mr. + Slum gently raised the youth, carried him forth, and set him down + just outside the car to cool off. Whether the young blood has yet + made his way out of Bascom's swamp, we have not learned. Conductor + Slum is one of the most gentlemanly and efficient officers on the + road; but he ain't trifled with, not much. We learn that the + company have put a new engine on the seven o'clock train, and newly + upholstered the drawing-room car throughout. It spares no effort + for the comfort of the traveling public." + +Philip never had been before in Bascom's swamp, and there was nothing +inviting in it to detain him. After the train got out of the way he +crawled out of the briars and the mud, and got upon the track. He was +somewhat bruised, but he was too angry to mind that. He plodded along +over the ties in a very hot condition of mind and body. In the scuffle, +his railway check had disappeared, and he grimly wondered, as he noticed +the loss, if the company would permit him to walk over their track if +they should know he hadn't a ticket. + +Philip had to walk some five miles before he reached a little station, +where he could wait for a train, and he had ample time for reflection. +At first he was full of vengeance on the company. He would sue it. He +would make it pay roundly. But then it occurred to him that he did not +know the name of a witness he could summon, and that a personal fight +against a railway corporation was about the most hopeless in the world. +He then thought he would seek out that conductor, lie in wait for him at +some station, and thrash him, or get thrashed himself. + +But as he got cooler, that did not seem to him a project worthy of a +gentleman exactly. Was it possible for a gentleman to get even with such +a fellow as that conductor on the letter's own plane? And when he came +to this point, he began to ask himself, if he had not acted very much +like a fool. He didn't regret striking the fellow--he hoped he had left +a mark on him. But, after all, was that the best way? Here was he, +Philip Sterling, calling himself a gentleman, in a brawl with a vulgar +conductor, about a woman he had never seen before. Why should he have +put himself in such a ridiculous position? Wasn't it enough to have +offered the lady his seat, to have rescued her from an accident, perhaps +from death? Suppose he had simply said to the conductor, "Sir, your +conduct is brutal, I shall report you." The passengers, who saw the +affair, might have joined in a report against the conductor, and he might +really have accomplished something. And, now! Philip looked at leis +torn clothes, and thought with disgust of his haste in getting into a +fight with such an autocrat. + +At the little station where Philip waited for the next train, he met a +man--who turned out to be a justice of the peace in that neighborhood, +and told him his adventure. He was a kindly sort of man, and seemed very +much interested. + +"Dum 'em," said he, when he had heard the story. + +"Do you think any thing can be done, sir?" + +"Wal, I guess tain't no use. I hain't a mite of doubt of every word you +say. But suin's no use. The railroad company owns all these people +along here, and the judges on the bench too. Spiled your clothes! Wal, +'least said's soonest mended.' You haint no chance with the company." + +When next morning, he read the humorous account in the Patriot and +Clarion, he saw still more clearly what chance he would have had before +the public in a fight with the railroad company. + +Still Philip's conscience told him that it was his plain duty to carry +the matter into the courts, even with the certainty of defeat. +He confessed that neither he nor any citizen had a right to consult his +own feelings or conscience in a case where a law of the land had been +violated before his own eyes. He confessed that every citizen's first +duty in such case is to put aside his own business and devote his time +and his best efforts to seeing that the infraction is promptly punished; +and he knew that no country can be well governed unless its citizens as +a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians +of the law, and that the law officers are only the machinery for its +execution, nothing more. As a finality he was obliged to confess that he +was a bad citizen, and also that the general laxity of the time, and the +absence of a sense of duty toward any part of the community but the +individual himself were ingrained in him, am he was no better than the +rest of the people. + +The result of this little adventure was that Philip did not reach Ilium +till daylight the next morning, when he descended sleepy and sore, from a +way train, and looked about him. Ilium was in a narrow mountain gorge, +through which a rapid stream ran. It consisted of the plank platform on +which he stood, a wooden house, half painted, with a dirty piazza +(unroofed) in front, and a sign board hung on a slanting pole--bearing +the legend, "Hotel. P. Dusenheimer," a sawmill further down the stream, +a blacksmith-shop, and a store, and three or four unpainted dwellings of +the slab variety. + +As Philip approached the hotel he saw what appeared to be a wild beast +crouching on the piazza. It did not stir, however, and he soon found +that it was only a stuffed skin. This cheerful invitation to the tavern +was the remains of a huge panther which had been killed in the region a +few weeks before. Philip examined his ugly visage and strong crooked +fore-arm, as he was waiting admittance, having pounded upon the door. + +"Yait a bit. I'll shoost--put on my trowsers," shouted a voice from the +window, and the door was soon opened by the yawning landlord. + +"Morgen! Didn't hear d' drain oncet. Dem boys geeps me up zo spate. +Gom right in." + +Philip was shown into a dirty bar-room. It was a small room, with a +stove in the middle, set in a long shallow box of sand, for the benefit +of the "spitters," a bar across one end--a mere counter with a sliding +glass-case behind it containing a few bottles having ambitious labels, +and a wash-sink in one corner. On the walls were the bright yellow and +black handbills of a traveling circus, with pictures of acrobats in human +pyramids, horses flying in long leaps through the air, and sylph-like +women in a paradisaic costume, balancing themselves upon the tips of +their toes on the bare backs of frantic and plunging steeds, and kissing +their hands to the spectators meanwhile. + +As Philip did not desire a room at that hour, he was invited to wash +himself at the nasty sink, a feat somewhat easier than drying his face, +for the towel that hung in a roller over the sink was evidently as much a +fixture as the sink itself, and belonged, like the suspended brush and +comb, to the traveling public. Philip managed to complete his toilet by +the use of his pocket-handkerchief, and declining the hospitality of the +landlord, implied in the remark, "You won'd dake notin'?" he went into +the open air to wait for breakfast. + +The country he saw was wild but not picturesque. The mountain before him +might be eight hundred feet high, and was only a portion of a long +unbroken range, savagely wooded, which followed the stream. Behind the +hotel, and across the brawling brook, was another level-topped, wooded +range exactly like it. Ilium itself, seen at a glance, was old enough to +be dilapidated, and if it had gained anything by being made a wood and +water station of the new railroad, it was only a new sort of grime and +rawness. P. Dusenheimer, standing in the door of his uninviting +groggery, when the trains stopped for water; never received from the +traveling public any patronage except facetious remarks upon his personal +appearance. Perhaps a thousand times he had heard the remark, "Ilium +fuit," followed in most instances by a hail to himself as "AEneas," with +the inquiry "Where is old Anchises?" At first he had replied, "Dere +ain't no such man;" but irritated by its senseless repetition, he had +latterly dropped into the formula of, "You be dam." + +Philip was recalled from the contemplation of Ilium by the rolling and +growling of the gong within the hotel, the din and clamor increasing till +the house was apparently unable to contain it; when it burst out of the +front door and informed the world that breakfast was on the table. + +The dining room was long, low and narrow, and a narrow table extended its +whole length. Upon this was spread a cloth which from appearance might +have been as long in use as the towel in the barroom. Upon the table was +the usual service, the heavy, much nicked stone ware, the row of plated +and rusty castors, the sugar bowls with the zinc tea-spoons sticking up +in them, the piles of yellow biscuits, the discouraged-looking plates of +butter. The landlord waited, and Philip was pleased to observe the +change in his manner. In the barroom he was the conciliatory landlord. +Standing behind his guests at table, he had an air of peremptory +patronage, and the voice in which he shot out the inquiry, as he seized +Philip's plate, "Beefsteak or liver?" quite took away Philip's power of +choice. He begged for a glass of milk, after trying that green hued +compound called coffee, and made his breakfast out of that and some hard +crackers which seemed to have been imported into Ilium before the +introduction of the iron horse, and to have withstood a ten years siege +of regular boarders, Greeks and others. + +The land that Philip had come to look at was at least five miles distant +from Ilium station. A corner of it touched the railroad, but the rest +was pretty much an unbroken wilderness, eight or ten thousand acres of +rough country, most of it such a mountain range as he saw at Ilium. + +His first step was to hire three woodsmen to accompany him. By their +help he built a log hut, and established a camp on the land, and then +began his explorations, mapping down his survey as he went along, noting +the timber, and the lay of the land, and making superficial observations +as to the prospect of coal. + +The landlord at Ilium endeavored to persuade Philip to hire the services +of a witch-hazel professor of that region, who could walk over the land +with his wand and tell him infallibly whether it contained coal, and +exactly where the strata ran. But Philip preferred to trust to his own +study of the country, and his knowledge of the geological formation. +He spent a month in traveling over the land and making calculations; +and made up his mind that a fine vein of coal ran through the mountain +about a mile from the railroad, and that the place to run in a tunnel was +half way towards its summit. + +Acting with his usual promptness, Philip, with the consent of Mr. Bolton, +broke ground there at once, and, before snow came, had some rude +buildings up, and was ready for active operations in the spring. It was +true that there were no outcroppings of coal at the place, and the people +at Ilium said he "mought as well dig for plug terbaccer there;" but +Philip had great faith in the uniformity of nature's operations in ages +past, and he had no doubt that he should strike at this spot the rich +vein that had made the fortune of the Golden Briar Company. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +Once more Louise had good news from her Washington--Senator Dilworthy was +going to sell the Tennessee Land to the government! Louise told Laura in +confidence. She had told her parents, too, and also several bosom +friends; but all of these people had simply looked sad when they heard +the news, except Laura. Laura's face suddenly brightened under it--only +for an instant, it is true, but poor Louise was grateful for even that +fleeting ray of encouragement. When next Laura was alone, she fell into +a train of thought something like this: + +"If the Senator has really taken hold of this matter, I may look for that +invitation to his house at, any moment. I am perishing to go! I do long +to know whether I am only simply a large-sized pigmy among these pigmies +here, who tumble over so easily when one strikes them, or whether I am +really--." Her thoughts drifted into other channels, for a season. +Then she continued:-- "He said I could be useful in the great cause of +philanthropy, and help in the blessed work of uplifting the poor and the +ignorant, if he found it feasible to take hold of our Land. Well, that +is neither here nor there; what I want, is to go to Washington and find +out what I am. I want money, too; and if one may judge by what she +hears, there are chances there for a--." For a fascinating woman, she +was going to say, perhaps, but she did not. + +Along in the fall the invitation came, sure enough. It came officially +through brother Washington, the private Secretary, who appended a +postscript that was brimming with delight over the prospect of seeing the +Duchess again. He said it would be happiness enough to look upon her +face once more--it would be almost too much happiness when to it was +added the fact that she would bring messages with her that were fresh +from Louise's lips. + +In Washington's letter were several important enclosures. For instance, +there was the Senator's check for $2,000--"to buy suitable clothing in +New York with!" It was a loan to be refunded when the Land was sold. +Two thousand--this was fine indeed. Louise's father was called rich, but +Laura doubted if Louise had ever had $400 worth of new clothing at one +time in her life. With the check came two through tickets--good on the +railroad from Hawkeye to Washington via New York--and they were +"dead-head" tickets, too, which had been given to Senator Dilworthy by +the railway companies. Senators and representatives were paid thousands +of dollars by the government for traveling expenses, but they always +traveled "deadhead" both ways, and then did as any honorable, high-minded +men would naturally do--declined to receive the mileage tendered them by +the government. The Senator had plenty of railway passes, and could. +easily spare two to Laura--one for herself and one for a male escort. +Washington suggested that she get some old friend of the family to come +with her, and said the Senator would "deadhead" him home again as soon as +he had grown tired, of the sights of the capital. Laura thought the +thing over. At first she was pleased with the idea, but presently she +began to feel differently about it. Finally she said, "No, our staid, +steady-going Hawkeye friends' notions and mine differ about some things +--they respect me, now, and I respect them--better leave it so--I will go +alone; I am not afraid to travel by myself." And so communing with +herself, she left the house for an afternoon walk. + +Almost at the door she met Col. Sellers. She told him about her +invitation to Washington. + +"Bless me!" said the Colonel. "I have about made up my mind to go there +myself. You see we've got to get another appropriation through, and the +Company want me to come east and put it through Congress. Harry's there, +and he'll do what he can, of course; and Harry's a good fellow and always +does the very best he knows how, but then he's young--rather young for +some parts of such work, you know--and besides he talks too much, talks a +good deal too much; and sometimes he appears to be a little bit +visionary, too, I think the worst thing in the world for a business man. +A man like that always exposes his cards, sooner or later. This sort of +thing wants an old, quiet, steady hand--wants an old cool head, you know, +that knows men, through and through, and is used to large operations. +I'm expecting my salary, and also some dividends from the company, and if +they get along in time, I'll go along with you Laura--take you under my +wing--you mustn't travel alone. Lord I wish I had the money right now. +--But there'll be plenty soon--plenty." + +Laura reasoned with herself that if the kindly, simple-hearted Colonel +was going anyhow, what could she gain by traveling alone and throwing +away his company? So she told him she accepted his offer gladly, +gratefully. She said it would be the greatest of favors if he would go +with her and protect her--not at his own expense as far as railway fares +were concerned, of course; she could not expect him to put himself to so +much trouble for her and pay his fare besides. But he wouldn't hear of +her paying his fare--it would be only a pleasure to him to serve her. +Laura insisted on furnishing the tickets; and finally, when argument +failed, she said the tickets cost neither her nor any one else a cent +--she had two of them--she needed but one--and if he would not take the +other she would not go with him. That settled the matter. He took the +ticket. Laura was glad that she had the check for new clothing, for she +felt very certain of being able to get the Colonel to borrow a little of +the money to pay hotel bills with, here and there. + +She wrote Washington to look for her and Col. Sellers toward the end of +November; and at about the time set the two travelers arrived safe in the +capital of the nation, sure enough. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + + She the, gracious lady, yet no paines did spare + To doe him ease, or doe him remedy: + Many restoratives of vertues rare + And costly cordialles she did apply, + To mitigate his stubborne malady. + Spenser's Faerie Queens. + +Mr. Henry Brierly was exceedingly busy in New York, so he wrote Col. +Sellers, but he would drop everything and go to Washington. + +The Colonel believed that Harry was the prince of lobbyists, a little too +sanguine, may be, and given to speculation, but, then, he knew everybody; +the Columbus River navigation scheme was, got through almost entirely by +his aid. He was needed now to help through another scheme, a benevolent +scheme in which Col. Sellers, through the Hawkinses, had a deep interest. + +"I don't care, you know," he wrote to Harry, "so much about the niggroes. +But if the government will buy this land, it will set up the Hawkins +family--make Laura an heiress--and I shouldn't wonder if Beriah Sellers +would set up his carriage again. Dilworthy looks at it different, +of course. He's all for philanthropy, for benefiting the colored race. +There's old Balsam, was in the Interior--used to be the Rev. Orson Balsam +of Iowa--he's made the riffle on the Injun; great Injun pacificator and +land dealer. Balaam'a got the Injun to himself, and I suppose that +Senator Dilworthy feels that there is nothing left him but the colored +man. I do reckon he is the best friend the colored man has got in +Washington." + +Though Harry was in a hurry to reach Washington, he stopped in +Philadelphia; and prolonged his visit day after day, greatly to the +detriment of his business both in New York and Washington. The society +at the Bolton's might have been a valid excuse for neglecting business +much more important than his. Philip was there; he was a partner with +Mr. Bolton now in the new coal venture, concerning which there was much +to be arranged in preparation for the Spring work, and Philip lingered +week after week in the hospitable house. Alice was making a winter +visit. Ruth only went to town twice a week to attend lectures, and the +household was quite to Mr. Bolton's taste, for he liked the cheer of +company and something going on evenings. Harry was cordially asked to +bring his traveling-bag there, and he did not need urging to do so. +Not even the thought of seeing Laura at the capital made him restless in +the society of the two young ladies; two birds in hand are worth one in +the bush certainly. + +Philip was at home--he sometimes wished he were not so much so. He felt +that too much or not enough was taken for granted. Ruth had met him, +when he first came, with a cordial frankness, and her manner continued +entirely unrestrained. She neither sought his company nor avoided it, +and this perfectly level treatment irritated him more than any other +could have done. It was impossible to advance much in love-making with +one who offered no obstacles, had no concealments and no embarrassments, +and whom any approach to sentimentality would be quite likely to set into +a fit of laughter. + +"Why, Phil," she would say, "what puts you in the dumps to day? You are +as solemn as the upper bench in Meeting. I shall have to call Alice to +raise your spirits; my presence seems to depress you." + +"It's not your presence, but your absence when you are present," began +Philip, dolefully, with the idea that he was saying a rather deep thing. +"But you won't understand me." + +"No, I confess I cannot. If you really are so low, as to think I am +absent when I am present, it's a frightful case of aberration; I shall +ask father to bring out Dr. Jackson. Does Alice appear to be present +when she is absent?" + +"Alice has some human feeling, anyway. She cares for something besides +musty books and dry bones. I think, Ruth, when I die," said Philip, +intending to be very grim and sarcastic, "I'll leave you my skeleton. +You might like that." + +"It might be more cheerful than you are at times," Ruth replied with a +laugh. "But you mustn't do it without consulting Alice. She might not. +like it." + +"I don't know why you should bring Alice up on every occasion. Do you +think I am in love with her?" + +"Bless you, no. It never entered my head. Are you? The thought of +Philip Sterling in love is too comical. I thought you were only in love +with the Ilium coal mine, which you and father talk about half the time." + +This is a specimen of Philip's wooing. Confound the girl, he would say +to himself, why does she never tease Harry and that young Shepley who +comes here? + +How differently Alice treated him. She at least never mocked him, and it +was a relief to talk with one who had some sympathy with him. And he did +talk to her, by the hour, about Ruth. The blundering fellow poured all +his doubts and anxieties into her ear, as if she had been the impassive +occupant of one of those little wooden confessionals in the Cathedral on +Logan Square. Has, a confessor, if she is young and pretty, any feeling? +Does it mend the matter by calling her your sister? + +Philip called Alice his good sister, and talked to her about love and +marriage, meaning Ruth, as if sisters could by no possibility have any +personal concern in such things. Did Ruth ever speak of him? Did she +think Ruth cared for him? Did Ruth care for anybody at Fallkill? Did +she care for anything except her profession? And so on. + +Alice was loyal to Ruth, and if she knew anything she did not betray her +friend. She did not, at any rate, give Philip too much encouragement. +What woman, under the circumstances, would? + +"I can tell you one thing, Philip," she said, "if ever Ruth Bolton loves, +it will be with her whole soul, in a depth of passion that will sweep +everything before it and surprise even herself." + +A remark that did not much console Philip, who imagined that only some +grand heroism could unlock the sweetness of such a heart; and Philip +feared that he wasn't a hero. He did not know out of what materials a +woman can construct a hero, when she is in the creative mood. + +Harry skipped into this society with his usual lightness and gaiety. +His good nature was inexhaustible, and though he liked to relate his own +exploits, he had a little tact in adapting himself to the tastes of his +hearers. He was not long in finding out that Alice liked to hear about +Philip, and Harry launched out into the career of his friend in the West, +with a prodigality of invention that would have astonished the chief +actor. He was the most generous fellow in the world, and picturesque +conversation was the one thing in which he never was bankrupt. With Mr. +Bolton he was the serious man of business, enjoying the confidence of +many of the monied men in New York, whom Mr. Bolton knew, and engaged +with them in railway schemes and government contracts. Philip, who had +so long known Harry, never could make up his mind that Harry did not +himself believe that he was a chief actor in all these large operations +of which he talked so much. + +Harry did not neglect to endeavor to make himself agreeable to Mrs. +Bolton, by paying great attention to the children, and by professing the +warmest interest in the Friends' faith. It always seemed to him the most +peaceful religion; he thought it must be much easier to live by an +internal light than by a lot of outward rules; he had a dear Quaker aunt +in Providence of whom Mrs. Bolton constantly reminded him. He insisted +upon going with Mrs. Bolton and the children to the Friends Meeting on +First Day, when Ruth and Alice and Philip, "world's people," went to a +church in town, and he sat through the hour of silence with his hat on, +in most exemplary patience. In short, this amazing actor succeeded so +well with Mrs. Bolton, that she said to Philip one day, + +"Thy friend, Henry Brierly, appears to be a very worldly minded young +man. Does he believe in anything?" + +"Oh, yes," said Philip laughing, "he believes in more things than any +other person I ever saw." + +To Ruth, Harry seemed to be very congenial. He was never moody for one +thing, but lent himself with alacrity to whatever her fancy was. He was +gay or grave as the need might be. No one apparently could enter more +fully into her plans for an independent career. + +"My father," said Harry, "was bred a physician, and practiced a little +before he went into Wall street. I always had a leaning to the study. +There was a skeleton hanging in the closet of my father's study when I +was a boy, that I used to dress up in old clothes. Oh, I got quite +familiar with the human frame." + +"You must have," said Philip. "Was that where you learned to play the +bones? He is a master of those musical instruments, Ruth; he plays well +enough to go on the stage." + +"Philip hates science of any kind, and steady application," retorted +Harry. He didn't fancy Philip's banter, and when the latter had gone +out, and Ruth asked, + +"Why don't you take up medicine, Mr. Brierly?" + +Harry said, "I have it in mind. I believe I would begin attending +lectures this winter if it weren't for being wanted in Washington. But +medicine is particularly women's province." + +"Why so?" asked Ruth, rather amused. + +"Well, the treatment of disease is a good deal a matter of sympathy. +A woman's intuition is better than a man's. Nobody knows anything, +really, you know, and a woman can guess a good deal nearer than a man." + +"You are very complimentary to my sex." + +"But," said Harry frankly; "I should want to choose my doctor; an ugly +woman would ruin me, the disease would be sure to strike in and kill me +at sight of her. I think a pretty physician, with engaging manners, +would coax a fellow to live through almost anything." + +"I am afraid you are a scoffer, Mr. Brierly." + +"On the contrary, I am quite sincere. Wasn't it old what's his name? +that said only the beautiful is useful?" + +Whether Ruth was anything more than diverted with Harry's company; Philip +could not determine. He scorned at any rate to advance his own interest +by any disparaging communications about Harry, both because he could not +help liking the fellow himself, and because he may have known that he +could not more surely create a sympathy for him in Ruth's mind. That +Ruth was in no danger of any serious impression he felt pretty sure, +felt certain of it when he reflected upon her severe occupation with her +profession. Hang it, he would say to himself, she is nothing but pure +intellect anyway. And he only felt uncertain of it when she was in one +of her moods of raillery, with mocking mischief in her eyes. At such +times she seemed to prefer Harry's society to his. When Philip was +miserable about this, he always took refuge with Alice, who was never +moody, and who generally laughed him out of his sentimental nonsense. +He felt at his ease with Alice, and was never in want of something to +talk about; and he could not account for the fact that he was so often +dull with Ruth, with whom, of all persons in the world, he wanted to +appear at his best. + +Harry was entirely satisfied with his own situation. A bird of passage +is always at its ease, having no house to build, and no responsibility. +He talked freely with Philip about Ruth, an almighty fine girl, he said, +but what the deuce she wanted to study medicine for, he couldn't see. + +There was a concert one night at the Musical Fund Hall and the four had +arranged to go in and return by the Germantown cars. It was Philip's +plan, who had engaged the seats, and promised himself an evening with +Ruth, walking with her, sitting by her in the hall, and enjoying the +feeling of protecting that a man always has of a woman in a public place. +He was fond of music, too, in a sympathetic way; at least, he knew that +Ruth's delight in it would be enough for him. + +Perhaps he meant to take advantage of the occasion to say some very +serious things. His love for Ruth was no secret to Mrs. Bolton, and he +felt almost sure that he should have no opposition in the family. Mrs. +Bolton had been cautious in what she said, but Philip inferred everything +from her reply to his own questions, one day, "Has thee ever spoken thy +mind to Ruth?" + +Why shouldn't he speak his mind, and end his doubts? Ruth had been more +tricksy than usual that day, and in a flow of spirits quite inconsistent, +it would seem, in a young lady devoted to grave studies. + +Had Ruth a premonition of Philip's intention, in his manner? It may be, +for when the girls came down stairs, ready to walk to the cars; and met +Philip and Harry in the hall, Ruth said, laughing, + +"The two tallest must walk together" and before Philip knew how it +happened Ruth had taken Harry's arm, and his evening was spoiled. He had +too much politeness and good sense and kindness to show in his manner +that he was hit. So he said to Harry, + +"That's your disadvantage in being short." And he gave Alice no reason +to feel during the evening that she would not have been his first choice +for the excursion. But he was none the less chagrined, and not a little +angry at the turn the affair took. + +The Hall was crowded with the fashion of the town. The concert was one +of those fragmentary drearinesses that people endure because they are +fashionable; tours de force on the piano, and fragments from operas, +which have no meaning without the setting, with weary pauses of waiting +between; there is the comic basso who is so amusing and on such familiar +terms with the audience, and always sings the Barber; the attitudinizing +tenor, with his languishing "Oh, Summer Night;" the soprano with her +"Batti Batti," who warbles and trills and runs and fetches her breath, +and ends with a noble scream that brings down a tempest of applause in +the midst of which she backs off the stage smiling and bowing. It was +this sort of concert, and Philip was thinking that it was the most stupid +one he ever sat through, when just as the soprano was in the midst of +that touching ballad, "Comin' thro' the Rye" (the soprano always sings +"Comin' thro' the Rye" on an encore)--the Black Swan used to make it +irresistible, Philip remembered, with her arch, "If a body kiss a body" +there was a cry of "Fire!" + +The hall is long and narrow, and there is only one place of egress. +Instantly the audience was on its feet, and a rush began for the door. +Men shouted, women screamed, and panic seized the swaying mass. +A second's thought would have convinced every one that getting out was +impossible, and that the only effect of a rush would be to crash people +to death. But a second's thought was not given. A few cried: + +"Sit down, sit down," but the mass was turned towards the door. Women +were down and trampled on in the aisles, and stout men, utterly lost to +self-control, were mounting the benches, as if to run a race over the +mass to the entrance. + +Philip who had forced the girls to keep their seats saw, in a flash, the +new danger, and sprang to avert it. In a second more those infuriated +men would be over the benches and crushing Ruth and Alice under their +boots. He leaped upon the bench in front of them and struck out before +him with all his might, felling one man who was rushing on him, and +checking for an instant the movement, or rather parting it, and causing +it to flow on either side of him. But it was only for an instant; the +pressure behind was too great, and, the next Philip was dashed backwards +over the seat. + +And yet that instant of arrest had probably saved the girls, for as +Philip fell, the orchestra struck up "Yankee Doodle" in the liveliest +manner. The familiar tune caught the ear of the mass, which paused in +wonder, and gave the conductor's voice a chance to be heard--"It's a +false alarm!" + +The tumult was over in a minute, and the next, laughter was heard, and +not a few said, "I knew it wasn't anything." "What fools people are at +such a time." + +The concert was over, however. A good many people were hurt, some of +them seriously, and among them Philip Sterling was found bent across the +seat, insensible, with his left arm hanging limp and a bleeding wound on +his head. + +When he was carried into the air he revived, and said it was nothing. +A surgeon was called, and it was thought best to drive at once to the +Bolton's, the surgeon supporting Philip, who did not speak the whole way. +His arm was set and his head dressed, and the surgeon said he would come +round all right in his mind by morning; he was very weak. Alice who was +not much frightened while the panic lasted in the hall, was very much +unnerved by seeing Philip so pale and bloody. Ruth assisted the surgeon +with the utmost coolness and with skillful hands helped to dress Philip's +wounds. And there was a certain intentness and fierce energy in what she +did that might have revealed something to Philip if he had been in his +senses. + +But he was not, or he would not have murmured "Let Alice do it, she is +not too tall." + +It was Ruth's first case. + + + + +CHAPTER, XXXII. + +Washington's delight in his beautiful sister was measureless. He said +that she had always been the queenliest creature in the land, but that +she was only commonplace before, compared to what she was now, so +extraordinary was the improvement wrought by rich fashionable attire. + +"But your criticisms are too full of brotherly partiality to be depended +on, Washington. Other people will judge differently." + +"Indeed they won't. You'll see. There will never be a woman in +Washington that can compare with you. You'll be famous within a +fortnight, Laura. Everybody will want to know you. You wait--you'll +see." + +Laura wished in her heart that the prophecy might come true; and +privately she even believed it might--for she had brought all the women +whom she had seen since she left home under sharp inspection, and the +result had not been unsatisfactory to her. + +During a week or two Washington drove about the city every day with her +and familiarized her with all of its salient features. She was beginning +to feel very much at home with the town itself, and she was also fast +acquiring ease with the distinguished people she met at the Dilworthy +table, and losing what little of country timidity she had brought with +her from Hawkeye. She noticed with secret pleasure the little start of +admiration that always manifested itself in the faces of the guests when +she entered the drawing-room arrayed in evening costume: she took +comforting note of the fact that these guests directed a very liberal +share of their conversation toward her; she observed with surprise, that +famous statesmen and soldiers did not talk like gods, as a general thing, +but said rather commonplace things for the most part; and she was filled +with gratification to discover that she, on the contrary, was making a +good many shrewd speeches and now and then a really brilliant one, and +furthermore, that they were beginning to be repeated in social circles +about the town. + +Congress began its sittings, and every day or two Washington escorted her +to the galleries set apart for lady members of the households of Senators +and Representatives. Here was a larger field and a wider competition, +but still she saw that many eyes were uplifted toward her face, and that +first one person and then another called a neighbor's attention to her; +she was not too dull to perceive that the speeches of some of the younger +statesmen were delivered about as much and perhaps more at her than to +the presiding officer; and she was not sorry to see that the dapper young +Senator from Iowa came at once and stood in the open space before the +president's desk to exhibit his feet as soon as she entered the gallery, +whereas she had early learned from common report that his usual custom +was to prop them on his desk and enjoy them himself with a selfish +disregard of other people's longings. + +Invitations began to flow in upon her and soon she was fairly "in +society." "The season" was now in full bloom, and the first select +reception was at hand that is to say, a reception confined to invited +guests. Senator Dilworthy had become well convinced; by this time, that +his judgment of the country-bred Missouri girl had not deceived him--it +was plain that she was going to be a peerless missionary in the field of +labor he designed her for, and therefore it would be perfectly safe and +likewise judicious to send her forth well panoplied for her work.--So he +had added new and still richer costumes to her wardrobe, and assisted +their attractions with costly jewelry-loans on the future land sale. + +This first select reception took place at a cabinet minister's--or rather +a cabinet secretary's mansion. When Laura and the Senator arrived, about +half past nine or ten in the evening, the place was already pretty well +crowded, and the white-gloved negro servant at the door was still +receiving streams of guests.--The drawing-rooms were brilliant with +gaslight, and as hot as ovens. The host and hostess stood just within +the door of entrance; Laura was presented, and then she passed on into +the maelstrom of be-jeweled and richly attired low-necked ladies and +white-kid-gloved and steel pen-coated gentlemen and wherever she moved +she was followed by a buzz of admiration that was grateful to all her +senses--so grateful, indeed, that her white face was tinged and its +beauty heightened by a perceptible suffusion of color. She caught such +remarks as, "Who is she?" "Superb woman!" "That is the new beauty from +the west," etc., etc. + +Whenever she halted, she was presently surrounded by Ministers, Generals, +Congressmen, and all manner of aristocratic, people. Introductions +followed, and then the usual original question, "How do you like +Washington, Miss Hawkins?" supplemented by that other usual original +question, "Is this your first visit?" + +These two exciting topics being exhausted, conversation generally drifted +into calmer channels, only to be interrupted at frequent intervals by new +introductions and new inquiries as to how Laura liked the capital and +whether it was her first visit or not. And thus for an hour or more the +Duchess moved through the crush in a rapture of happiness, for her doubts +were dead and gone, now she knew she could conquer here. A familiar face +appeared in the midst of the multitude and Harry Brierly fought his +difficult way to her side, his eyes shouting their gratification, so to +speak: + +"Oh, this is a happiness! Tell me, my dear Miss Hawkins--" + +"Sh! I know what you are going to ask. I do like Washington--I like it +ever so much!" + +"No, but I was going to ask--" + +"Yes, I am coming to it, coming to it as fast as I can. It is my first +visit. I think you should know that yourself." + +And straightway a wave of the crowd swept her beyond his reach. + +"Now what can the girl mean? Of course she likes Washington--I'm not +such a dummy as to have to ask her that. And as to its being her first +visit, why bang it, she knows that I knew it was. Does she think I have +turned idiot? Curious girl, anyway. But how they do swarm about her! +She is the reigning belle of Washington after this night. She'll know +five hundred of the heaviest guns in the town before this night's +nonsense is over. And this isn't even the beginning. Just as I used to +say--she'll be a card in the matter of--yes sir! She shall turn the +men's heads and I'll turn the women's! What a team that will be in +politics here. I wouldn't take a quarter of a million for what I can do +in this present session--no indeed I wouldn't. Now, here--I don't +altogether like this. That insignificant secretary of legation is--why, +she's smiling on him as if he--and now on the Admiral! Now she's +illuminating that, stuffy Congressman from Massachusetts--vulgar +ungrammatcal shovel-maker--greasy knave of spades. I don't like this +sort of thing. She doesn't appear to be much distressed about me--she +hasn't looked this way once. All right, my bird of Paradise, if it suits +you, go on. But I think I know your sex. I'll go to smiling around a +little, too, and see what effect that will have on you" + +And he did "smile around a little," and got as near to her as he could to +watch the effect, but the scheme was a failure--he could not get her +attention. She seemed wholly unconscious of him, and so he could not +flirt with any spirit; he could only talk disjointedly; he could not keep +his eyes on the charmers he talked to; he grew irritable, jealous, and +very, unhappy. He gave up his enterprise, leaned his shoulder against a +fluted pilaster and pouted while he kept watch upon Laura's every +movement. His other shoulder stole the bloom from many a lovely cheek +that brushed him in the surging crush, but he noted it not. He was too +busy cursing himself inwardly for being an egotistical imbecile. An hour +ago he had thought to take this country lass under his protection and +show her "life" and enjoy her wonder and delight--and here she was, +immersed in the marvel up to her eyes, and just a trifle more at home in +it than he was himself. And now his angry comments ran on again: + +"Now she's sweetening old Brother Balaam; and he--well he is inviting her +to the Congressional prayer-meeting, no doubt--better let old Dilworthy +alone to see that she doesn't overlook that. And now its Splurge, of New +York; and now its Batters of New Hampshire--and now the Vice President! +Well I may as well adjourn. I've got enough." + +But he hadn't. He got as far as the door--and then struggled back to +take one more look, hating himself all the while for his weakness. + +Toward midnight, when supper was announced, the crowd thronged to the +supper room where a long table was decked out with what seemed a rare +repast, but which consisted of things better calculated to feast the eye +than the appetite. The ladies were soon seated in files along the wall, +and in groups here and there, and the colored waiters filled the plates +and glasses and the, male guests moved hither and thither conveying them +to the privileged sex. + +Harry took an ice and stood up by the table with other gentlemen, and +listened to the buzz of conversation while he ate. + +From these remarks he learned a good deal about Laura that was news to +him. For instance, that she was of a distinguished western family; that +she was highly educated; that she was very rich and a great landed +heiress; that she was not a professor of religion, and yet was a +Christian in the truest and best sense of the word, for her whole heart +was devoted to the accomplishment of a great and noble enterprise--none +other than the sacrificing of her landed estates to the uplifting of the +down-trodden negro and the turning of his erring feet into the way of +light and righteousness. Harry observed that as soon as one listener had +absorbed the story, he turned about and delivered it to his next neighbor +and the latter individual straightway passed it on. And thus he saw it +travel the round of the gentlemen and overflow rearward among the ladies. +He could not trace it backward to its fountain head, and so he could not +tell who it was that started it. + +One thing annoyed Harry a great deal; and that was the reflection that he +might have been in Washington days and days ago and thrown his +fascinations about Laura with permanent effect while she was new and +strange to the capital, instead of dawdling in Philadelphia to no +purpose. He feared he had "missed a trick," as he expressed it. + +He only found one little opportunity of speaking again with Laura before +the evening's festivities ended, and then, for the first time in years, +his airy self-complacency failed him, his tongue's easy confidence +forsook it in a great measure, and he was conscious of an unheroic +timidity. He was glad to get away and find a place where he could +despise himself in private and try to grow his clipped plumes again. + +When Laura reached home she was tired but exultant, and Senator Dilworthy +was pleased and satisfied. He called Laura "my daughter," next morning, +and gave her some "pin money," as he termed it, and she sent a hundred +and fifty dollars of it to her mother and loaned a trifle to Col. +Sellers. Then the Senator had a long private conference with Laura, and +unfolded certain plans of his for the good of the country, and religion, +and the poor, and temperance, and showed her how she could assist him in +developing these worthy and noble enterprises. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +Laura soon discovered that there were three distinct aristocracies in +Washington. One of these, (nick-named the Antiques,) consisted of +cultivated, high-bred old families who looked back with pride upon an +ancestry that had been always great in the nation's councils and its wars +from the birth of the republic downward. Into this select circle it was +difficult to gain admission. No. 2 was the aristocracy of the middle +ground--of which, more anon. No. 3 lay beyond; of it we will say a word +here. We will call it the Aristocracy of the Parvenus--as, indeed, the +general public did. Official position, no matter how obtained, entitled +a man to a place in it, and carried his family with him, no matter whence +they sprang. Great wealth gave a man a still higher and nobler place in +it than did official position. If this wealth had been acquired by +conspicuous ingenuity, with just a pleasant little spice of illegality +about it, all the better. This aristocracy was "fast," and not averse to +ostentation. + +The aristocracy of the Antiques ignored the aristocracy of the Parvenus; +the Parvenus laughed at the Antiques, (and secretly envied them.) + +There were certain important "society" customs which one in Laura's +position needed to understand. For instance, when a lady of any +prominence comes to one of our cities and takes up her residence, all the +ladies of her grade favor her in turn with an initial call, giving their +cards to the servant at the door by way of introduction. They come +singly, sometimes; sometimes in couples; and always in elaborate full +dress. They talk two minutes and a quarter and then go. If the lady +receiving the call desires a further acquaintance, she must return the +visit within two weeks; to neglect it beyond that time means "let the +matter drop." But if she does return the visit within two weeks, it then +becomes the other party's privilege to continue the acquaintance or drop +it. She signifies her willingness to continue it by calling again any +time within twelve-months; after that, if the parties go on calling upon +each other once a year, in our large cities, that is sufficient, and the +acquaintanceship holds good. The thing goes along smoothly, now. +The annual visits are made and returned with peaceful regularity and +bland satisfaction, although it is not necessary that the two ladies +shall actually see each other oftener than once every few years. Their +cards preserve the intimacy and keep the acquaintanceship intact. + +For instance, Mrs. A. pays her annual visit, sits in her carriage and +sends in her card with the lower right hand corner turned down, which +signifies that she has "called in person;" Mrs. B: sends down word that +she is "engaged" or "wishes to be excused"--or if she is a Parvenu and +low-bred, she perhaps sends word that she is "not at home." Very good; +Mrs. A. drives, on happy and content. If Mrs. A.'s daughter marries, +or a child is born to the family, Mrs. B. calls, sends in her card with +the upper left hand corner turned down, and then goes along about her +affairs--for that inverted corner means "Congratulations." If Mrs. B.'s +husband falls downstairs and breaks his neck, Mrs. A. calls, leaves her +card with the upper right hand corner turned down, and then takes her +departure; this corner means "Condolence." It is very necessary to get +the corners right, else one may unintentionally condole with a friend on +a wedding or congratulate her upon a funeral. If either lady is about to +leave the city, she goes to the other's house and leaves her card with +"P. P. C." engraved under the name--which signifies, "Pay Parting Call." +But enough of etiquette. Laura was early instructed in the mysteries of +society life by a competent mentor, and thus was preserved from +troublesome mistakes. + +The first fashionable call she received from a member of the ancient +nobility, otherwise the Antiques, was of a pattern with all she received +from that limb of the aristocracy afterward. This call was paid by Mrs. +Major-General Fulke-Fulkerson and daughter. They drove up at one in the +afternoon in a rather antiquated vehicle with a faded coat of arms on the +panels, an aged white-wooled negro coachman on the box and a younger +darkey beside him--the footman. Both of these servants were dressed in +dull brown livery that had seen considerable service. + +The ladies entered the drawing-room in full character; that is to say, +with Elizabethan stateliness on the part of the dowager, and an easy +grace and dignity on the part of the young lady that had a nameless +something about it that suggested conscious superiority. The dresses of +both ladies were exceedingly rich, as to material, but as notably modest +as to color and ornament. All parties having seated themselves, the +dowager delivered herself of a remark that was not unusual in its form, +and yet it came from her lips with the impressiveness of Scripture: + +"The weather has been unpropitious of late, Miss Hawkins." + +"It has indeed," said Laura. "The climate seems to be variable." + +"It is its nature of old, here," said the daughter--stating it apparently +as a fact, only, and by her manner waving aside all personal +responsibility on account of it. "Is it not so, mamma?" + +"Quite so, my child. Do you like winter, Miss Hawkins?" She said "like" +as if she had, an idea that its dictionary meaning was "approve of." + +"Not as well as summer--though I think all seasons have their charms." + +"It is a very just remark. The general held similar views. He +considered snow in winter proper; sultriness in summer legitimate; frosts +in the autumn the same, and rains in spring not objectionable. He was +not an exacting man. And I call to mind now that he always admired +thunder. You remember, child, your father always admired thunder?" + +"He adored it." + +"No doubt it reminded him of battle," said Laura. + +"Yes, I think perhaps it did. He had a great respect for Nature. +He often said there was something striking about the ocean. You remember +his saying that, daughter?" + +"Yes, often, Mother. I remember it very well." + +"And hurricanes... He took a great interest in hurricanes. And animals. +Dogs, especially--hunting dogs. Also comets. I think we all have our +predilections. I think it is this that gives variety to our tastes." + +Laura coincided with this view. + +"Do you find it hard and lonely to be so far from your home and friends, +Miss Hawkins?" + +"I do find it depressing sometimes, but then there is so much about me +here that is novel and interesting that my days are made up more of +sunshine than shadow." + +"Washington is not a dull city in the season," said the young lady. +"We have some very good society indeed, and one need not be at a loss for +means to pass the time pleasantly. Are you fond of watering-places, Miss +Hawkins?" + +"I have really had no experience of them, but I have always felt a strong +desire to see something of fashionable watering-place life." + +"We of Washington are unfortunately situated in that respect," said the +dowager. "It is a tedious distance to Newport. But there is no help for +it." + +Laura said to herself, "Long Branch and Cape May are nearer than Newport; +doubtless these places are low; I'll feel my way a little and see." Then +she said aloud: + +"Why I thought that Long Branch--" + +There was no need to "feel" any further--there was that in both faces +before her which made that truth apparent. The dowager said: + +"Nobody goes there, Miss Hawkins--at least only persons of no position in +society. And the President." She added that with tranquility. + +"Newport is damp, and cold, and windy and excessively disagreeable," said +the daughter, "but it is very select. One cannot be fastidious about +minor matters when one has no choice." + +The visit had spun out nearly three minutes, now. Both ladies rose with +grave dignity, conferred upon Laura a formal invitation to call, aid then +retired from the conference. Laura remained in the drawing-room and left +them to pilot themselves out of the house--an inhospitable thing, +it seemed to her, but then she was following her instructions. She +stood, steeped in reverie, a while, and then she said: + +"I think I could always enjoy icebergs--as scenery but not as company." + +Still, she knew these two people by reputation, and was aware that they +were not ice-bergs when they were in their own waters and amid their +legitimate surroundings, but on the contrary were people to be respected +for their stainless characters and esteemed for their social virtues and +their benevolent impulses. She thought it a pity that they had to be +such changed and dreary creatures on occasions of state. + +The first call Laura received from the other extremity of the Washington +aristocracy followed close upon the heels of the one we have just been +describing. The callers this time were the Hon. Mrs. Oliver Higgins, +the Hon. Mrs. Patrique Oreille (pronounced O-relay,) Miss Bridget +(pronounced Breezhay) Oreille, Mrs. Peter Gashly, Miss Gashly, and Miss +Emmeline Gashly. + +The three carriages arrived at the same moment from different directions. +They were new and wonderfully shiny, and the brasses on the harness were +highly polished and bore complicated monograms. There were showy coats +of arms, too, with Latin mottoes. The coachmen and footmen were clad in +bright new livery, of striking colors, and they had black rosettes with +shaving-brushes projecting above them, on the sides of their stove-pipe +hats. + +When the visitors swept into the drawing-room they filled the place with +a suffocating sweetness procured at the perfumer's. Their costumes, +as to architecture, were the latest fashion intensified; they were +rainbow-hued; they were hung with jewels--chiefly diamonds. It would +have been plain to any eye that it had cost something to upholster these +women. + +The Hon. Mrs. Oliver Higgins was the wife of a delegate from a distant +territory--a gentleman who had kept the principal "saloon," and sold the +best whiskey in the principal village in his wilderness, and so, of +course, was recognized as the first man of his commonwealth and its +fittest representative. + +He was a man of paramount influence at home, for he was public spirited, +he was chief of the fire department, he had an admirable command of +profane language, and had killed several "parties." His shirt fronts +were always immaculate; his boots daintily polished, and no man could +lift a foot and fire a dead shot at a stray speck of dirt on it with a +white handkerchief with a finer grace than he; his watch chain weighed a +pound; the gold in his finger ring was worth forty five dollars; he wore +a diamond cluster-pin and he parted his hair behind. He had always been, +regarded as the most elegant gentleman in his territory, and it was +conceded by all that no man thereabouts was anywhere near his equal in +the telling of an obscene story except the venerable white-haired +governor himself. The Hon. Higgins had not come to serve his country in +Washington for nothing. The appropriation which he had engineered +through Congress for the maintenance, of the Indians in his Territory +would have made all those savages rich if it had ever got to them. + +The Hon. Mrs. Higgins was a picturesque woman, and a fluent talker, and +she held a tolerably high station among the Parvenus. Her English was +fair enough, as a general thing--though, being of New York origin, she +had the fashion peculiar to many natives of that city of pronouncing saw +and law as if they were spelt sawr and lawr. + +Petroleum was the agent that had suddenly transformed the Gashlys from +modest hard-working country village folk into "loud" aristocrats and +ornaments of the city. + +The Hon. Patrique Oreille was a wealthy Frenchman from Cork. Not that he +was wealthy when he first came from Cork, but just the reverse. When he +first landed in New York with his wife, he had only halted at Castle +Garden for a few minutes to receive and exhibit papers showing that he +had resided in this country two years--and then he voted the democratic +ticket and went up town to hunt a house. He found one and then went to +work as assistant to an architect and builder, carrying a hod all day and +studying politics evenings. Industry and economy soon enabled him to +start a low rum shop in a foul locality, and this gave him political +influence. In our country it is always our first care to see that our +people have the opportunity of voting for their choice of men to +represent and govern them--we do not permit our great officials to +appoint the little officials. We prefer to have so tremendous a power as +that in our own hands. We hold it safest to elect our judges and +everybody else. In our cities, the ward meetings elect delegates to the +nominating conventions and instruct them whom to nominate. The publicans +and their retainers rule the ward meetings (for every body else hates the +worry of politics and stays at home); the delegates from the ward +meetings organize as a nominating convention and make up a list of +candidates--one convention offering a democratic and another a republican +list of incorruptibles; and then the great meek public come forward at +the proper time and make unhampered choice and bless Heaven that they +live in a free land where no form of despotism can ever intrude. + +Patrick O'Riley (as his name then stood) created friends and influence +very, fast, for he was always on hand at the police courts to give straw +bail for his customers or establish an alibi for them in case they had +been beating anybody to death on his premises. Consequently he presently +became a political leader, and was elected to a petty office under the +city government. Out of a meager salary he soon saved money enough to +open quite a stylish liquor saloon higher up town, with a faro bank +attached and plenty of capital to conduct it with. This gave him fame +and great respectability. The position of alderman was forced upon him, +and it was just the same as presenting him a gold mine. He had fine +horses and carriages, now, and closed up his whiskey mill. + +By and by he became a large contractor for city work, and was a bosom +friend of the great and good Wm. M. Weed himself, who had stolen +$20,600,000 from the city and was a man so envied, so honored,--so +adored, indeed, that when the sheriff went to his office to arrest him as +a felon, that sheriff blushed and apologized, and one of the illustrated +papers made a picture of the scene and spoke of the matter in such a way +as to show that the editor regretted that the offense of an arrest had +been offered to so exalted a personage as Mr. Weed. + +Mr. O'Riley furnished shingle nails to, the new Court House at three +thousand dollars a keg, and eighteen gross of 60-cent thermometers at +fifteen hundred dollars a dozen; the controller and the board of audit +passed the bills, and a mayor, who was simply ignorant but not criminal, +signed them. When they were paid, Mr. O'Riley's admirers gave him a +solitaire diamond pin of the size of a filbert, in imitation of the +liberality of Mr. Weed's friends, and then Mr. O'Riley retired from +active service and amused himself with buying real estate at enormous +figures and holding it in other people's names. By and by the newspapers +came out with exposures and called Weed and O'Riley "thieves,"--whereupon +the people rose as one man (voting repeatedly) and elected the two +gentlemen to their proper theatre of action, the New York legislature. +The newspapers clamored, and the courts proceeded to try the new +legislators for their small irregularities. Our admirable jury system +enabled the persecuted ex-officials to secure a jury of nine gentlemen +from a neighboring asylum and three graduates from Sing-Sing, and +presently they walked forth with characters vindicated. The legislature +was called upon to spew them forth--a thing which the legislature +declined to do. It was like asking children to repudiate their own +father. It was a legislature of the modern pattern. + +Being now wealthy and distinguished, Mr. O'Riley, still bearing the +legislative "Hon." attached to his name (for titles never die in America, +although we do take a republican pride in poking fun at such trifles), +sailed for Europe with his family. They traveled all about, turning +their noses up at every thing, and not finding it a difficult thing to +do, either, because nature had originally given those features a cast in +that direction; and finally they established themselves in Paris, that +Paradise of Americans of their sort.--They staid there two years and +learned to speak English with a foreign accent--not that it hadn't always +had a foreign accent (which was indeed the case) but now the nature of it +was changed. Finally they returned home and became ultra fashionables. +They landed here as the Hon. Patrique Oreille and family, and so are +known unto this day. + +Laura provided seats for her visitors and they immediately launched forth +into a breezy, sparkling conversation with that easy confidence which is +to be found only among persons accustomed to high life. + +"I've been intending to call sooner, Miss Hawkins," said the Hon. Mrs. +Oreille, "but the weather's been so horrid. How do you like Washington?" + +Laura liked it very well indeed. + +Mrs. Gashly--"Is it your first visit?" + +Yea, it was her first. + +All--"Indeed?" + +Mrs. Oreille--"I'm afraid you'll despise the weather, Miss Hawkins. +It's perfectly awful. It always is. I tell Mr. Oreille I can't and +I won't put up with any such a climate. If we were obliged to do it, +I wouldn't mind it; but we are not obliged to, and so I don't see the use +of it. Sometimes its real pitiful the way the childern pine for Parry +--don't look so sad, Bridget, 'ma chere'--poor child, she can't hear Parry +mentioned without getting the blues." + +Mrs. Gashly--"Well I should think so, Mrs. Oreille. A body lives in +Paris, but a body, only stays here. I dote on Paris; I'd druther scrimp +along on ten thousand dollars a year there, than suffer and worry here on +a real decent income." + +Miss Gashly--"Well then, I wish you'd take us back, mother; I'm sure I +hate this stoopid country enough, even if it is our dear native land." + +Miss Emmeline Gashly--"What and leave poor Johnny Peterson behind?" [An +airy genial laugh applauded this sally]. + +Miss Gashly--"Sister, I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself!" + +Miss Emmeline--"Oh, you needn't ruffle your feathers so: I was only +joking. He don't mean anything by coming to, the house every evening +--only comes to see mother. Of course that's all!" [General laughter]. + +Miss G. prettily confused--"Emmeline, how can you!" + +Mrs. G.--"Let your sister alone, Emmeline. I never saw such a tease!" + +Mrs. Oreille--"What lovely corals you have, Miss Hawkins! Just look at +them, Bridget, dear. I've a great passion for corals--it's a pity +they're getting a little common. I have some elegant ones--not as +elegant as yours, though--but of course I don't wear them now." + +Laura--"I suppose they are rather common, but still I have a great +affection for these, because they were given to me by a dear old friend +of our family named Murphy. He was a very charming man, but very +eccentric. We always supposed he was an Irishman, but after be got rich +he went abroad for a year or two, and when he came back you would have +been amused to see how interested he was in a potato. He asked what it +was! Now you know that when Providence shapes a mouth especially for the +accommodation of a potato you can detect that fact at a glance when that +mouth is in repose--foreign travel can never remove that sign. But he +was a very delightful gentleman, and his little foible did not hurt him +at all. We all have our shams--I suppose there is a sham somewhere about +every individual, if we could manage to ferret it out. I would so like +to go to France. I suppose our society here compares very favorably with +French society does it not, Mrs. Oreille?" + +Mrs. O.--"Not by any means, Miss Hawkins! French society is much more +elegant--much more so." + +Laura--"I am sorry to hear that. I suppose ours has deteriorated of +late." + +Mrs. O.--"Very much indeed. There are people in society here that have +really no more money to live on than what some of us pay for servant +hire. Still I won't say but what some of them are very good people--and +respectable, too." + +Laura--"The old families seem to be holding themselves aloof, from what I +hear. I suppose you seldom meet in society now, the people you used to +be familiar with twelve or fifteen years ago?" + +Mrs. O.--"Oh, no-hardly ever." + +Mr. O'Riley kept his first rum-mill and protected his customers from the +law in those days, and this turn of the conversation was rather +uncomfortable to madame than otherwise. + +Hon. Mrs. Higgins--"Is Francois' health good now, Mrs. Oreille?" + +Mrs. O.--(Thankful for the intervention)--"Not very. A body couldn't +expect it. He was always delicate--especially his lungs--and this odious +climate tells on him strong, now, after Parry, which is so mild." + +Mrs. H:--"I should think so. Husband says Percy'll die if he don't have +a change; and so I'm going to swap round a little and see what can be +done. I saw a lady from Florida last week, and she recommended Key West. +I told her Percy couldn't abide winds, as he was threatened with a +pulmonary affection, and then she said try St. Augustine. It's an awful +distance--ten or twelve hundred mile, they say but then in a case of this +kind--a body can't stand back for trouble, you know." + +Mrs. O.--"No, of course that's off. If Francois don't get better soon +we've got to look out for some other place, or else Europe. We've +thought some of the Hot Springs, but I don't know. It's a great +responsibility and a body wants to go cautious. Is Hildebrand about +again, Mrs. Gashly?" + +Mrs. G.--"Yes, but that's about all. It was indigestion, you know, and +it looks as if it was chronic. And you know I do dread dyspepsia. We've +all been worried a good deal about him. The doctor recommended baked +apple and spoiled meat, and I think it done him good. It's about the +only thing that will stay on his stomach now-a-days. We have Dr. Shovel +now. Who's your doctor, Mrs. Higgins?" + +Mrs. H.--"Well, we had Dr. Spooner a good while, but he runs so much to +emetics, which I think are weakening, that we changed off and took Dr. +Leathers. We like him very much. He has a fine European reputation, +too. The first thing he suggested for Percy was to have him taken out in +the back yard for an airing, every afternoon, with nothing at all on." + +Mrs. O. and Mrs. G.--"What!" + +Mrs. H.--"As true as I'm sitting here. And it actually helped him for +two or three days; it did indeed. But after that the doctor said it +seemed to be too severe and so he has fell back on hot foot-baths at +night and cold showers in the morning. But I don't think there, can be +any good sound help for him in such a climate as this. I believe we are +going to lose him if we don't make a change." + +Mrs. O. "I suppose you heard of the fright we had two weeks ago last +Saturday? No? Why that is strange--but come to remember, you've all +been away to Richmond. Francois tumbled from the sky light--in the +second-story hall clean down to the first floor--" + +Everybody--"Mercy!" + +Mrs. O.--"Yes indeed--and broke two of his ribs--" + +Everybody--"What!" + +Mrs. O. "Just as true as you live. First we thought he must be injured +internally. It was fifteen minutes past 8 in the evening. Of course we +were all distracted in a moment--everybody was flying everywhere, and +nobody doing anything worth anything. By and by I flung out next door +and dragged in Dr. Sprague; President of the Medical University no time +to go for our own doctor of course--and the minute he saw Francois he +said, 'Send for your own physician, madam;' said it as cross as a bear, +too, and turned right on his heel, and cleared out without doing a +thing!" + +Everybody--"The mean, contemptible brute!" + +Mrs. O--"Well you may say it. I was nearly out of my wits by this time. +But we hurried off the servants after our own doctor and telegraphed +mother--she was in New York and rushed down on the first train; and when +the doctor got there, lo and behold you he found Francois had broke one +of his legs, too!" + +Everybody--"Goodness!" + +Mrs. O.--"Yes. So he set his leg and bandaged it up, and fixed his ribs +and gave him a dose of something to quiet down his excitement and put him +to sleep--poor thing he was trembling and frightened to death and it was +pitiful to see him. We had him in my bed--Mr. Oreille slept in the guest +room and I laid down beside Francois--but not to sleep bless you no. +Bridget and I set up all night, and the doctor staid till two in the +morning, bless his old heart.--When mother got there she was so used up +with anxiety, that she had to go to bed and have the doctor; but when she +found that Francois was not in immediate danger she rallied, and by night +she was able to take a watch herself. Well for three days and nights we +three never left that bedside only to take an hour's nap at a time. +And then the doctor said Francois was out of danger and if ever there was +a thankful set, in this world, it was us." + +Laura's respect for these, women had augmented during this conversation, +naturally enough; affection and devotion are qualities that are able to +adorn and render beautiful a character that is otherwise unattractive, +and even repulsive. + +Mrs. Gashly--"I do believe I would a died if I had been in your place, +Mrs. Oreille. The time Hildebrand was so low with the pneumonia Emmeline +and me were all, alone with him most of the time and we never took a +minute's sleep for as much as two days, and nights. It was at Newport +and we wouldn't trust hired nurses. One afternoon he had a fit, and +jumped up and run out on the portico of the hotel with nothing in the +world on and the wind a blowing liken ice and we after him scared to +death; and when the ladies and gentlemen saw that he had a fit, every +lady scattered for her room and not a gentleman lifted his hand to help, +the wretches! Well after that his life hung by a thread for as much as +ten days, and the minute he was out of danger Emmeline and me just went +to bed sick and worn out. I never want to pass through such a time +again. Poor dear Francois--which leg did he break, Mrs. Oreille!" + +Mrs. O.--"It was his right hand hind leg. Jump down, Francois dear, and +show the ladies what a cruel limp you've got yet." + +Francois demurred, but being coaxed and delivered gently upon the floor, +he performed very satisfactorily, with his "right hand hind leg" in the +air. All were affected--even Laura--but hers was an affection of the +stomach. The country-bred girl had not suspected that the little whining +ten-ounce black and tan reptile, clad in a red embroidered pigmy blanket +and reposing in Mrs. Oreille's lap all through the visit was the +individual whose sufferings had been stirring the dormant generosities of +her nature. She said: + +"Poor little creature! You might have lost him!" + +Mrs. O.--"O pray don't mention it, Miss Hawkins--it gives me such a +turn!" + +Laura--"And Hildebrand and Percy--are they--are they like this one?" + +Mrs. G.--"No, Hilly has considerable Skye blood in him, I believe." + +Mrs. H.--"Percy's the same, only he is two months and ten days older and +has his ears cropped. His father, Martin Farquhar Tupper, was sickly, +and died young, but he was the sweetest disposition.--His mother had +heart disease but was very gentle and resigned, and a wonderful ratter." +--[** As impossible and exasperating as this conversation may sound to a +person who is not an idiot, it is scarcely in any respect an exaggeration +of one which one of us actually listened to in an American drawing room +--otherwise we could not venture to put such a chapter into a book which, +professes to deal with social possibilities.--THE AUTHORS.] + +So carried away had the visitors become by their interest attaching to +this discussion of family matters, that their stay had been prolonged to +a very improper and unfashionable length; but they suddenly recollected +themselves now and took their departure. + +Laura's scorn was boundless. The more she thought of these people and +their extraordinary talk, the more offensive they seemed to her; and yet +she confessed that if one must choose between the two extreme +aristocracies it might be best, on the whole, looking at things from a +strictly business point of view, to herd with the Parvenus; she was in +Washington solely to compass a certain matter and to do it at any cost, +and these people might be useful to her, while it was plain that her +purposes and her schemes for pushing them would not find favor in the +eyes of the Antiques. If it came to choice--and it might come to that, +sooner or later--she believed she could come to a decision without much +difficulty or many pangs. + +But the best aristocracy of the three Washington castes, and really the +most powerful, by far, was that of the Middle Ground: It was made up of +the families of public men from nearly every state in the Union--men who +held positions in both the executive and legislative branches of the +government, and whose characters had been for years blemishless, both at +home and at the capital. These gentlemen and their households were +unostentatious people; they were educated and refined; they troubled +themselves but little about the two other orders of nobility, but moved +serenely in their wide orbit, confident in their own strength and well +aware of the potency of their influence. They had no troublesome +appearances to keep up, no rivalries which they cared to distress +themselves about, no jealousies to fret over. They could afford to mind +their own affairs and leave other combinations to do the same or do +otherwise, just as they chose. They were people who were beyond +reproach, and that was sufficient. + +Senator Dilworthy never came into collision with any of these factions. +He labored for them all and with them all. He said that all men were +brethren and all were entitled to the honest unselfish help and +countenance of a Christian laborer in the public vineyard. + +Laura concluded, after reflection, to let circumstances determine the +course it might be best for her to pursue as regarded the several +aristocracies. + +Now it might occur to the reader that perhaps Laura had been somewhat +rudely suggestive in her remarks to Mrs. Oreille when the subject of +corals was under discussion, but it did not occur to Laura herself. +She was not a person of exaggerated refinement; indeed, the society and +the influences that had formed her character had not been of a nature +calculated to make her so; she thought that "give and take was fair +play," and that to parry an offensive thrust with a sarcasm was a neat +and legitimate thing to do. She some times talked to people in a way +which some ladies would consider, actually shocking; but Laura rather +prided herself upon some of her exploits of that character. We are sorry +we cannot make her a faultless heroine; but we cannot, for the reason +that she was human. + +She considered herself a superior conversationist. Long ago, when the +possibility had first been brought before her mind that some day she +might move in Washington society, she had recognized the fact that +practiced conversational powers would be a necessary weapon in that +field; she had also recognized the fact that since her dealings there +must be mainly with men, and men whom she supposed to be exceptionally +cultivated and able, she would need heavier shot in her magazine than +mere brilliant "society" nothings; whereupon she had at once entered upon +a tireless and elaborate course of reading, and had never since ceased to +devote every unoccupied moment to this sort of preparation. Having now +acquired a happy smattering of various information, she used it with good +effect--she passed for a singularly well informed woman in Washington. +The quality of her literary tastes had necessarily undergone constant +improvement under this regimen, and as necessarily, also; the duality of +her language had improved, though it cannot be denied that now and then +her former condition of life betrayed itself in just perceptible +inelegancies of expression and lapses of grammar. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +When Laura had been in Washington three months, she was still the same +person, in one respect, that she was when she first arrived there--that +is to say, she still bore the name of Laura Hawkins. Otherwise she was +perceptibly changed.-- + +She had arrived in a state of grievous uncertainty as to what manner of +woman she was, physically and intellectually, as compared with eastern +women; she was well satisfied, now, that her beauty was confessed, her +mind a grade above the average, and her powers of fascination rather +extraordinary. So she, was at ease upon those points. When she arrived, +she was possessed of habits of economy and not possessed of money; now +she dressed elaborately, gave but little thought to the cost of things, +and was very well fortified financially. She kept her mother and +Washington freely supplied with money, and did the same by Col. Sellers +--who always insisted upon giving his note for loans--with interest; he was +rigid upon that; she must take interest; and one of the Colonel's +greatest satisfactions was to go over his accounts and note what a +handsome sum this accruing interest amounted to, and what a comfortable +though modest support it would yield Laura in case reverses should +overtake her. + +In truth he could not help feeling that he was an efficient shield for +her against poverty; and so, if her expensive ways ever troubled him for +a brief moment, he presently dismissed the thought and said to himself, +"Let her go on--even if she loses everything she is still safe--this +interest will always afford her a good easy income." + +Laura was on excellent terms with a great many members of Congress, and +there was an undercurrent of suspicion in some quarters that she was one +of that detested class known as "lobbyists;" but what belle could escape +slander in such a city? Fairminded people declined to condemn her on +mere suspicion, and so the injurious talk made no very damaging headway. +She was very gay, now, and very celebrated, and she might well expect to +be assailed by many kinds of gossip. She was growing used to celebrity, +and could already sit calm and seemingly unconscious, under the fire of +fifty lorgnettes in a theatre, or even overhear the low voice "That's +she!" as she passed along the street without betraying annoyance. + +The whole air was full of a vague vast scheme which was to eventuate in +filling Laura's pockets with millions of money; some had one idea of the +scheme, and some another, but nobody had any exact knowledge upon the +subject. All that any one felt sure about, was that Laura's landed +estates were princely in value and extent, and that the government was +anxious to get hold of them for public purposes, and that Laura was +willing to make the sale but not at all anxious about the matter and not +at all in a hurry. It was whispered that Senator Dilworthy was a +stumbling block in the way of an immediate sale, because he was resolved +that the government should not have the lands except with the +understanding that they should be devoted to the uplifting of the negro +race; Laura did not care what they were devoted to, it was said, (a world +of very different gossip to the contrary notwithstanding,) but there were +several other heirs and they would be guided entirely by the Senator's +wishes; and finally, many people averred that while it would be easy to +sell the lands to the government for the benefit of the negro, by +resorting to the usual methods of influencing votes, Senator Dilworthy +was unwilling to have so noble a charity sullied by any taint of +corruption--he was resolved that not a vote should be bought. Nobody +could get anything definite from Laura about these matters, and so gossip +had to feed itself chiefly upon guesses. But the effect of it all was, +that Laura was considered to be very wealthy and likely to be vastly more +so in a little while. Consequently she was much courted and as much +envied: Her wealth attracted many suitors. Perhaps they came to worship +her riches, but they remained to worship her. Some of the noblest men of +the time succumbed to her fascinations. She frowned upon no lover when +he made his first advances, but by and by when she was hopelessly +enthralled, he learned from her own lips that she had formed a resolution +never to marry. Then he would go away hating and cursing the whole sex, +and she would calmly add his scalp to her string, while she mused upon +the bitter day that Col. Selby trampled her love and her pride in the +dust. In time it came to be said that her way was paved with broken +hearts. + +Poor Washington gradually woke up to the fact that he too was an +intellectual marvel as well as his gifted sister. He could not conceive +how it had come about (it did not occur to him that the gossip about his +family's great wealth had any thing to do with it). He could not account +for it by any process of reasoning, and was simply obliged to accept the +fact and give up trying to solve the riddle. He found himself dragged +into society and courted, wondered at and envied very much as if he were +one of those foreign barbers who flit over here now and then with a +self-conferred title of nobility and marry some rich fool's absurd +daughter. Sometimes at a dinner party or a reception he would find +himself the centre of interest, and feel unutterably uncomfortable in the +discovery. Being obliged to say something, he would mine his brain and +put in a blast and when the smoke and flying debris had cleared away the +result would be what seemed to him but a poor little intellectual clod of +dirt or two, and then he would be astonished to see everybody as lost in +admiration as if he had brought up a ton or two of virgin gold. Every +remark he made delighted his hearers and compelled their applause; he +overheard people say he was exceedingly bright--they were chiefly mammas +and marriageable young ladies. He found that some of his good things +were being repeated about the town. Whenever he heard of an instance of +this kind, he would keep that particular remark in mind and analyze it at +home in private. At first he could not see that the remark was anything +better than a parrot might originate; but by and by he began to feel that +perhaps he underrated his powers; and after that he used to analyze his +good things with a deal of comfort, and find in them a brilliancy which +would have been unapparent to him in earlier days--and then he would make +a note, of that good thing and say it again the first time he found +himself in a new company. Presently he had saved up quite a repertoire +of brilliancies; and after that he confined himself to repeating these +and ceased to originate any more, lest he might injure his reputation by +an unlucky effort. + +He was constantly having young ladies thrust upon his notice at +receptions, or left upon his hands at parties, and in time he began to +feel that he was being deliberately persecuted in this way; and after +that he could not enjoy society because of his constant dread of these +female ambushes and surprises. He was distressed to find that nearly +every time he showed a young lady a polite attention he was straightway +reported to be engaged to her; and as some of these reports got into the +newspapers occasionally, he had to keep writing to Louise that they were +lies and she must believe in him and not mind them or allow them to +grieve her. + +Washington was as much in the dark as anybody with regard to the great +wealth that was hovering in the air and seemingly on the point of +tumbling into the family pocket. Laura would give him no satisfaction. +All she would say, was: + +"Wait. Be patient. You will see." + +"But will it be soon, Laura?" + +"It will not be very long, I think." + +"But what makes you think so?" + +"I have reasons--and good ones. Just wait, and be patient." + +"But is it going to be as much as people say it is?" + +"What do they say it is?" + +"Oh, ever so much. Millions!" + +"Yes, it will be a great sum." + +"But how great, Laura? Will it be millions?" + +"Yes, you may call it that. Yes, it will be millions. There, now--does +that satisfy you?" + +"Splendid! I can wait. I can wait patiently--ever so patiently. Once I +was near selling the land for twenty thousand dollars; once for thirty +thousand dollars; once after that for seven thousand dollars; and once +for forty thousand dollars--but something always told me not to do it. +What a fool I would have been to sell it for such a beggarly trifle! It +is the land that's to bring the money, isn't it Laura? You can tell me +that much, can't you?" + +"Yes, I don't mind saying that much. It is the land. + +"But mind--don't ever hint that you got it from me. Don't mention me in +the matter at all, Washington." + +"All right--I won't. Millions! Isn't it splendid! I mean to look +around for a building lot; a lot with fine ornamental shrubbery and all +that sort of thing. I will do it to-day. And I might as well see an +architect, too, and get him to go to work at a plan for a house. I don't +intend to spare and expense; I mean to have the noblest house that money +can build." Then after a pause--he did not notice Laura's smiles "Laura, +would you lay the main hall in encaustic tiles, or just in fancy patterns +of hard wood?" + +Laura laughed a good old-fashioned laugh that had more of her former +natural self about it than any sound that had issued from her mouth in +many weeks. She said: + +"You don't change, Washington. You still begin to squander a fortune +right and left the instant you hear of it in the distance; you never wait +till the foremost dollar of it arrives within a hundred miles of you," +--and she kissed her brother good bye and left him weltering in his dreams, +so to speak. + +He got up and walked the floor feverishly during two hours; and when he +sat down he had married Louise, built a house, reared a family, married +them off, spent upwards of eight hundred thousand dollars on mere +luxuries, and died worth twelve millions. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + +Laura went down stairs, knocked at/the study door, and entered, scarcely +waiting for the response. Senator Dilworthy was alone--with an open +Bible in his hand, upside down. Laura smiled, and said, forgetting her +acquired correctness of speech, + +"It is only me." + +"Ah, come in, sit down," and the Senator closed the book and laid it +down. "I wanted to see you. Time to report progress from the committee +of the whole," and the Senator beamed with his own congressional wit. + +"In the committee of the whole things are working very well. We have +made ever so much progress in a week. I believe that you and I together +could run this government beautifully, uncle." + +The Senator beamed again. He liked to be called "uncle" by this +beautiful woman. + +"Did you see Hopperson last night after the congressional prayer +meeting?" + +"Yes. He came. He's a kind of--" + +"Eh? he is one of my friends, Laura. He's a fine man, a very fine man. +I don't know any man in congress I'd sooner go to for help in any +Christian work. What did he say?" + +"Oh, he beat around a little. He said he should like to help the negro, +his heart went out to the negro, and all that--plenty of them say that +but he was a little afraid of the Tennessee Land bill; if Senator +Dilworthy wasn't in it, he should suspect there was a fraud on the +government." + +"He said that, did he?" + +"Yes. And he said he felt he couldn't vote for it. He was shy." + +"Not shy, child, cautious. He's a very cautious man. I have been with +him a great deal on conference committees. He wants reasons, good ones. +Didn't you show him he was in error about the bill?" + +"I did. I went over the whole thing. I had to tell him some of the side +arrangements, some of the--" + +"You didn't mention me?" + +"Oh, no. I told him you were daft about the negro and the philanthropy +part of it, as you are." + +"Daft is a little strong, Laura. But you know that I wouldn't touch this +bill if it were not for the public good, and for the good of the colored +race; much as I am interested in the heirs of this property, and would +like to have them succeed." + +Laura looked a little incredulous, and the Senator proceeded. + +"Don't misunderstand me, I don't deny that it is for the interest of all +of us that this bill should go through, and it will. I have no +concealments from you. But I have one principle in my public life, which +I should like you to keep in mind; it has always been my guide. I never +push a private interest if it is not Justified and ennobled by some +larger public good. I doubt Christian would be justified in working for +his own salvation if it was not to aid in the salvation of his fellow +men." + +The Senator spoke with feeling, and then added, + +"I hope you showed Hopperson that our motives were pure?" + +"Yes, and he seemed to have a new light on the measure: I think will vote +for it." + +"I hope so; his name will give tone and strength to it. I knew you would +only have to show him that it was just and pure, in order to secure his +cordial support." + +"I think I convinced him. Yes, I am perfectly sure he will vote right +now." + +"That's good, that's good," said the Senator; smiling, and rubbing his +hands. "Is there anything more?" + +"You'll find some changes in that I guess," handing the Senator a printed +list of names. "Those checked off are all right." + +"Ah--'m--'m," running his eye down the list. "That's encouraging. What +is the 'C' before some of the names, and the 'B. B.'?" + +"Those are my private marks. That 'C' stands for 'convinced,' with +argument. The 'B. B.' is a general sign for a relative. You see it +stands before three of the Hon. Committee. I expect to see the chairman +of the committee to-day, Mr. Buckstone." + +"So, you must, he ought to be seen without any delay. Buckstone is a +worldly sort of a fellow, but he has charitable impulses. If we secure +him we shall have a favorable report by the committee, and it will be a +great thing to be able to state that fact quietly where it will do good." + +"Oh, I saw Senator Balloon" + +"He will help us, I suppose? Balloon is a whole-hearted fellow. I can't +help loving that man, for all his drollery and waggishness. He puts on +an air of levity sometimes, but there aint a man in the senate knows the +scriptures as he does. He did not make any objections?" + +"Not exactly, he said--shall I tell you what he said?" asked Laura +glancing furtively at him. + +"Certainly." + +"He said he had no doubt it was a good thing; if Senator Dilworthy was in +it, it would pay to look into it." + +The Senator laughed, but rather feebly, and said, "Balloon is always full +of his jokes." + +"I explained it to him. He said it was all right, he only wanted a word +with you,", continued Laura. "He is a handsome old gentleman, and he is +gallant for an old man." + +"My daughter," said the Senator, with a grave look, "I trust there was +nothing free in his manner?" + +"Free?" repeated Laura, with indignation in her face. "With me!" + +"There, there, child. I meant nothing, Balloon talks a little freely +sometimes, with men. But he is right at heart. His term expires next +year and I fear we shall lose him." + +"He seemed to be packing the day I was there. His rooms were full of dry +goods boxes, into which his servant was crowding all manner of old +clothes and stuff: I suppose he will paint 'Pub. Docs' on them and frank +them home. That's good economy, isn't it?" + +"Yes, yes, but child, all Congressmen do that. It may not be strictly +honest, indeed it is not unless he had some public documents mixed in +with the clothes." + +"It's a funny world. Good-bye, uncle. I'm going to see that chairman." + +And humming a cheery opera air, she departed to her room to dress for +going out. Before she did that, however, she took out her note book and +was soon deep in its contents; marking, dashing, erasing, figuring, and +talking to herself. + +"Free! I wonder what Dilworthy does think of me anyway? One . . . +two. . .eight . . . seventeen . . . twenty-one,. . 'm'm . . . +it takes a heap for a majority. Wouldn't Dilworthy open his eyes if he +knew some of the things Balloon did say to me. There. . . . +Hopperson's influence ought to count twenty . . . the sanctimonious +old curmudgeon. Son-in-law. . . . sinecure in the negro institution +. . . .That about gauges him . . . The three committeemen . . . . +sons-in-law. Nothing like a son-in-law here in Washington or a brother- +in-law . . . And everybody has 'em . . . Let's see: . . . sixty- +one. . . . with places . . . twenty-five . . . persuaded--it is +getting on; . . . . we'll have two-thirds of Congress in time . . . +Dilworthy must surely know I understand him. Uncle Dilworthy . . . . +Uncle Balloon!--Tells very amusing stories . . . when ladies are not +present . . . I should think so . . . .'m . . . 'm. Eighty-five. +There. I must find that chairman. Queer. . . . Buckstone acts . . +Seemed to be in love . . . . . I was sure of it. He promised to +come here. . . and he hasn't. . . Strange. Very strange . . . . +I must chance to meet him to-day." + +Laura dressed and went out, thinking she was perhaps too early for Mr. +Buckstone to come from the house, but as he lodged near the bookstore she +would drop in there and keep a look out for him. + +While Laura is on her errand to find Mr. Buckstone, it may not be out of +the way to remark that she knew quite as much of Washington life as +Senator Dilworthy gave her credit for, and more than she thought proper +to tell him. She was acquainted by this time with a good many of the +young fellows of Newspaper Row; and exchanged gossip with them to their +mutual advantage. + +They were always talking in the Row, everlastingly gossiping, bantering +and sarcastically praising things, and going on in a style which was a +curious commingling of earnest and persiflage. Col. Sellers liked this +talk amazingly, though he was sometimes a little at sea in it--and +perhaps that didn't lessen the relish of the conversation to the +correspondents. + +It seems that they had got hold of the dry-goods box packing story about +Balloon, one day, and were talking it over when the Colonel came in. +The Colonel wanted to know all about it, and Hicks told him. And then +Hicks went on, with a serious air, + +"Colonel, if you register a letter, it means that it is of value, doesn't +it? And if you pay fifteen cents for registering it, the government will +have to take extra care of it and even pay you back its full value if it +is lost. Isn't that so?" + +"Yes. I suppose it's so.". + +"Well Senator Balloon put fifteen cents worth of stamps on each of those +seven huge boxes of old clothes, and shipped that ton of second-hand +rubbish, old boots and pantaloons and what not through the mails as +registered matter! It was an ingenious thing and it had a genuine touch +of humor about it, too. I think there is more real: talent among our +public men of to-day than there was among those of old times--a far more +fertile fancy, a much happier ingenuity. Now, Colonel, can you picture +Jefferson, or Washington or John Adams franking their wardrobes through +the mails and adding the facetious idea of making the government +responsible for the cargo for the sum of one dollar and five cents? +Statesmen were dull creatures in those days. I have a much greater +admiration for Senator Balloon." + +"Yes, Balloon is a man of parts, there is no denying it" + +"I think so. He is spoken of for the post of Minister to China, or +Austria, and I hope will be appointed. What we want abroad is good +examples of the national character. + +"John Jay and Benjamin Franklin were well enough in their day, but the +nation has made progress since then. Balloon is a man we know and can +depend on to be true to himself." + +"Yes, and Balloon has had a good deal of public experience. He is an old +friend of mine. He was governor of one of the territories a while, and +was very satisfactory." + +"Indeed he was. He was ex-officio Indian agent, too. Many a man would +have taken the Indian appropriation and devoted the money to feeding and +clothing the helpless savages, whose land had been taken from them by the +white man in the interests of civilization; but Balloon knew their needs +better. He built a government saw-mill on the reservation with the +money, and the lumber sold for enormous prices--a relative of his did all +the work free of charge--that is to say he charged nothing more than the +lumber world bring." "But the poor Injuns--not that I care much for +Injuns--what did he do for them?" + +"Gave them the outside slabs to fence in the reservation with. Governor +Balloon was nothing less than a father to the poor Indians. But Balloon +is not alone, we have many truly noble statesmen in our country's service +like Balloon. The Senate is full of them. Don't you think so Colonel?" + +"Well, I dunno. I honor my country's public servants as much as any one +can. I meet them, Sir, every day, and the more I see of them the more I +esteem them and the more grateful I am that our institutions give us the +opportunity of securing their services. Few lands are so blest." + +"That is true, Colonel. To be sure you can buy now and then a Senator or +a Representative but they do not know it is wrong, and so they are not +ashamed of it. They are gentle, and confiding and childlike, and in my +opinion these are qualities that ennoble them far more than any amount of +sinful sagacity could. I quite agree with you, Col. Sellers." + +"Well"--hesitated the, Colonel--"I am afraid some of them do buy their +seats--yes, I am afraid they do--but as Senator Dilworthy himself said to +me, it is sinful,--it is very wrong--it is shameful; Heaven protect me +from such a charge. That is what Dilworthy said. And yet when you come +to look at it you cannot deny that we would have to go without the +services of some of our ablest men, sir, if the country were opposed to +--to--bribery. It is a harsh term. I do not like to use it." + +The Colonel interrupted himself at this point to meet an engagement with +the Austrian minister, and took his leave with his usual courtly bow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + +In due time Laura alighted at the book store, and began to look at the +titles of the handsome array of books on the counter. A dapper clerk of +perhaps nineteen or twenty years, with hair accurately parted and +surprisingly slick, came bustling up and leaned over with a pretty smile +and an affable-- + +"Can I--was there any particular book you wished to see?" + +"Have you Taine's England?" + +"Beg pardon?" + +"Taine's Notes on England." + +The young gentleman scratched the side of his nose with a cedar pencil +which he took down from its bracket on the side of his head, and +reflected a moment: + +"Ah--I see," [with a bright smile]--"Train, you mean--not Taine. George +Francis Train. No, ma'm we--" + +"I mean Taine--if I may take the liberty." + +The clerk reflected again--then: + +"Taine . . . . Taine . . . . Is it hymns?" + +"No, it isn't hymns. It is a volume that is making a deal of talk just +now, and is very widely known--except among parties who sell it." + +The clerk glanced at her face to see if a sarcasm might not lurk +somewhere in that obscure speech, but the gentle simplicity of the +beautiful eyes that met his, banished that suspicion. He went away and +conferred with the proprietor. Both appeared to be non-plussed. They +thought and talked, and talked and thought by turns. Then both came +forward and the proprietor said: + +"Is it an American book, ma'm?" + +"No, it is an American reprint of an English translation." + +"Oh! Yes--yes--I remember, now. We are expecting it every day. It +isn't out yet." + +"I think you must be mistaken, because you advertised it a week ago." + +"Why no--can that be so?" + +"Yes, I am sure of it. And besides, here is the book itself, on the +counter." + +She bought it and the proprietor retired from the field. Then she asked +the clerk for the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table--and was pained to see +the admiration her beauty had inspired in him fade out of his face. +He said with cold dignity, that cook books were somewhat out of their +line, but he would order it if she desired it. She said, no, never mind. +Then she fell to conning the titles again, finding a delight in the +inspection of the Hawthornes, the Longfellows, the Tennysons, and other +favorites of her idle hours. Meantime the clerk's eyes were busy, and no +doubt his admiration was returning again--or may be he was only gauging +her probable literary tastes by some sagacious system of admeasurement +only known to his guild. Now he began to "assist" her in making a +selection; but his efforts met with no success--indeed they only annoyed +her and unpleasantly interrupted her meditations. Presently, while she +was holding a copy of "Venetian Life" in her hand and running over a +familiar passage here and there, the clerk said, briskly, snatching up a +paper-covered volume and striking the counter a smart blow with it to +dislodge the dust: + +"Now here is a work that we've sold a lot of. Everybody that's read it +likes it"--and he intruded it under her nose; "it's a book that I can +recommend--'The Pirate's Doom, or the Last of the Buccaneers.' I think +it's one of the best things that's come out this season." + +Laura pushed it gently aside her hand and went on and went on filching +from "Venetian Life." + +"I believe I do not want it," she said. + +The clerk hunted around awhile, glancing at one title and then another, +but apparently not finding what he wanted. + +However, he succeeded at last. Said he: + +"Have you ever read this, ma'm? I am sure you'll like it. It's by the +author of 'The Hooligans of Hackensack.' It is full of love troubles and +mysteries and all sorts of such things. The heroine strangles her own +mother. Just glance at the title please,--'Gonderil the Vampire, or The +Dance of Death.' And here is 'The Jokist's Own Treasury, or, The Phunny +Phellow's Bosom Phriend.' The funniest thing!--I've read it four times, +ma'm, and I can laugh at the very sight of it yet. And 'Gonderil,' +--I assure you it is the most splendid book I ever read. I know you will +like these books, ma'm, because I've read them myself and I know what +they are." + +"Oh, I was perplexed--but I see how it is, now. You must have thought +I asked you to tell me what sort of books I wanted--for I am apt to say +things which I don't really mean, when I am absent minded. I suppose I +did ask you, didn't I?" + +"No ma'm,--but I--" + +"Yes, I must have done it, else you would not have offered your services, +for fear it might be rude. But don't be troubled--it was all my fault. +I ought not to have been so heedless--I ought not to have asked you." + +"But you didn't ask me, ma'm. We always help customers all we can. +You see our experience--living right among books all the time--that sort +of thing makes us able to help a customer make a selection, you know." + +"Now does it, indeed? It is part of your business, then?" + +"Yes'm, we always help." + +"How good it is of you. Some people would think it rather obtrusive, +perhaps, but I don't--I think it is real kindness--even charity. Some +people jump to conclusions without any thought--you have noticed that?" + +"O yes," said the clerk, a little perplexed as to whether to feel +comfortable or the reverse; "Oh yes, indeed, I've often noticed that, +ma'm." + +"Yes, they jump to conclusions with an absurd heedlessness. Now some +people would think it odd that because you, with the budding tastes and +the innocent enthusiasms natural to your time of life, enjoyed the +Vampires and the volume of nursery jokes, you should imagine that an +older person would delight in them too--but I do not think it odd at all. +I think it natural--perfectly natural in you. And kind, too. You look +like a person who not only finds a deep pleasure in any little thing in +the way of literature that strikes you forcibly, but is willing and glad +to share that pleasure with others--and that, I think, is noble and +admirable--very noble and admirable. I think we ought all--to share our +pleasures with others, and do what we can to make each other happy, do +not you?" + +"Oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed. Yes, you are quite right, ma'm." + +But he was getting unmistakably uncomfortable, now, notwithstanding +Laura's confiding sociability and almost affectionate tone. + +"Yes, indeed. Many people would think that what a bookseller--or perhaps +his clerk--knows about literature as literature, in contradistinction to +its character as merchandise, would hardly, be of much assistance to a +person--that is, to an adult, of course--in the selection of food for the +mind--except of course wrapping paper, or twine, or wafers, or something +like that--but I never feel that way. I feel that whatever service you +offer me, you offer with a good heart, and I am as grateful for it as if +it were the greatest boon to me. And it is useful to me--it is bound to +be so. It cannot be otherwise. If you show me a book which you have +read--not skimmed over or merely glanced at, but read--and you tell me +that you enjoyed it and that you could read it three or four times, then +I know what book I want--" + +"Thank you!--th--" + +--"to avoid. Yes indeed. I think that no information ever comes amiss +in this world. Once or twice I have traveled in the cars--and there you +know, the peanut boy always measures you with his eye, and hands you out +a book of murders if you are fond of theology; or Tupper or a dictionary +or T. S. Arthur if you are fond of poetry; or he hands you a volume of +distressing jokes or a copy of the American Miscellany if you +particularly dislike that sort of literary fatty degeneration of the +heart--just for the world like a pleasant spoken well-meaning gentleman +in any, bookstore. But here I am running on as if business men had +nothing to do but listen to women talk. You must pardon me, for I was +not thinking.--And you must let me thank you again for helping me. +I read a good deal, and shall be in nearly every day and I would be sorry +to have you think me a customer who talks too much and buys too little. +Might I ask you to give me the time? Ah-two-twenty-two. Thank you +very much. I will set mine while I have the opportunity." + +But she could not get her watch open, apparently. She tried, and tried +again. Then the clerk, trembling at his own audacity, begged to be +allowed to assist. She allowed him. He succeeded, and was radiant under +the sweet influences of her pleased face and her seductively worded +acknowledgements with gratification. Then he gave her the exact time +again, and anxiously watched her turn the hands slowly till they reached +the precise spot without accident or loss of life, and then he looked as +happy as a man who had helped a fellow being through a momentous +undertaking, and was grateful to know that he had not lived in vain. +Laura thanked him once more. The words were music to his ear; but what +were they compared to the ravishing smile with which she flooded his +whole system? When she bowed her adieu and turned away, he was no longer +suffering torture in the pillory where she had had him trussed up during +so many distressing moments, but he belonged to the list of her conquests +and was a flattered and happy thrall, with the dawn-light of love +breaking over the eastern elevations of his heart. + +It was about the hour, now, for the chairman of the House Committee on +Benevolent Appropriations to make his appearance, and Laura stepped to +the door to reconnoiter. She glanced up the street, and sure enough-- + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Age, Part 4. +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED AGE, PART 4. *** + +***** This file should be named 5821.txt or 5821.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/2/5821/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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