[Personal.]
Washington, D. C.
Along toward morning, 1887.
_Cashier World Office_, New York.--
|MY DEAR SIR: You will doubtless be surprised to hear from me so soon,
as I did not promise when I left New York that I would write you at all
while here. But now I take pen in hand to say that the Senate and House
of Representatives are having a good deal of fun with me, and hope you
are enjoying the same great blessing. You will wonder at first why I
send in my expense account before I send in anything for the paper, but
I will explain that to you when I get back. At first I thought I would
not bother with the expense account till I got to your office, but I can
now see that it is going to worry me to get there unless I hear from you
favorably by return mail.
When I came here I fell into the mad whirl of society, and attracted a
good deal of attention by my cultivated ways and Jeffersonian method of
sleeping with a different member of Congress every night.
I have not written anything for publication yet, but I am getting
material together that will make people throughout our broad land open
their eyes in astonishment. I shall deal fairly and openly with these
great national questions, and frankly hew to the line, let the chips
fall where they may, as I heard a man say to-day on the floor of the
house--the Willard House, I mean. But I believe in handling great
political matters without gloves, as you will remember, if you have
watched my course as justice of the peace and litterateur. Candor is my
leading characteristic, and if you will pardon me for saying so in the
first letter you ever received from me I believe there is nothing about
my whole character which seems to challenge my admiration for myself any
more than that.
Congressmen and their wives are daily landing at the great national
Castle Garden and looking wildly around for the place where they
are told they will get their mileage. On every hand all is hurry and
excitement. Bills are being introduced, acquaintances renewed, and punch
bowls are beginning to wear a preoccupied air.
I have been mingling with society ever since I came here, and that is
one reason I have written very little for publication, and did not send
what I did write.
Yesterday afternoon my money gave out at 3:20, and since that my mind
has been clearer and society has made fewer demands on me. At first I
thought I would obtain employment at the Treasury Department as exchange
editor in the greenback room. Then I remembered that I would get very
faint before I could go through a competitive examination, and, in the
meantime, I might lose social caste by wearing my person on the outside
of my clothes. So I have resolved to write you a chatty letter about
Washington, assuring you that I am well, and asking you kindly to
consider the enclosed tabulated bill of expenses, as I need the money to
buy Christmas presents and get home with.
Poker is one of the curses of national legislation. I have several times
heard prominent foreigners say, in their own language--think ing,
no doubt, that I could not understand them--that the members of the
American Congress did not betray any emotion on their countenances.
One foreigner from Liverpool, who thought I could not understand his
language, said that our congressmen had a way of looking as though they
did not know very much. When he afterwards played poker with those same
men he saw that the look was acquired. One man told me that his vacant
look had been as good as $50,000 to him, whether he stood pat or drew to
an ostensible flush while really holding four bullets.
So far I have not been over to the Capitol, preferring to have Congress
kind of percolate into my room, two or three at a time; but unless you
can honor the inclosed way-bill I shall be forced to go over to the
House to-morrow and write something for the paper. Since I have been
writing this I have been led to inquire whether it would be advisable
for me to remain here through the entire session or not. It will be
unusually long, lasting perhaps clear into July, and I find that the
stenographers as a general thing get a pretty accurate and spicey
account of the proceedings, much more so than I can, and as you will see
by inclosed statement it is going to cost more to keep me here than I
figured on.
My idea was that board and lodgings would be the main items of expense,
but I struck a low-priced place, where, by clubbing together with some
plain gentlemen from a distance who have been waiting here three
years for political recognition, and who do not feel like surrounding
themselves with a hotel, we get a plain room with six beds in it. The
room overlooks, the District of Columbia, and the first man in has the
choice of beds, with the privilege of inviting friends to a limited
number. We lunch plainly in the lower part of the building in a
standing position without restraint or finger-bowls. So board is not the
principal item of expense, though of course I do not wish to put up at a
place where I will be a disgrace to the paper.
I wish that you would, when you send my check, write me frankly whether
you think I had better remain here during the entire season or not. I
like the place first rate, but my duties keep me up nights to a late
hour, and I cannot sleep during the day, because my roommates annoy me
by doing their washing and ironing over an oil stove.
I know by what several friends have said to me that Congress would like
to have me stay here all winter, but I want to do what is best for the
paper.
I saw Mr. Cleveland briefly last evening at his home, but he was
surrounded by a crowd of fawning sycophants, so I did not get a chance
to speak to him as I would like to, and don't know as he would have
advanced the amount to me anyway. He is very firm and stubborn, I
judged, and would yield very little indeed, especially to
Yours truly,
Bill Nye.
The following bill looks large in the aggregate, but when you come to
examine each item by itself there is really nothing startling about it,
and when you remember that I have been here now four days and that this
is the first bill I have sent in to the office during that time, I
know you will not consider it out of the way, especially as you are
interested in seeing me make a good paper of the _World_, no matter what
the expense is.
We are having good open winter weather and stock is looking well so far.
I fear you will regard the item for embalming as exorbitant, and it is
so, but I was compelled to pay that price, as the man had to be shipped
a long distance, and I did not want to shock his friends too much when
he met them at the depot.
[Illustration: 0024]
I will probably remain here until I hear from you favorably. I have met
several members of Congress for whom I have voted at various times off
and on, but they were cold and haughty in their intercourse with me.
I have been invited to sit on the floor of the House until I get some
other place to stay, but I hate to ride a free horse to death.
b. n.