"That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you before. Go, take your
infamous beef contract out of this establishment. The Interior
Department has nothing whatever to do with subsistence for the army."
I went away. But I was exasperated now. I said I would haunt them;
I would infest every department of this iniquitous government till that
contract business was settled. I would collect that bill, or fall, as
fell my predecessors, trying. I assailed the Postmaster-General;
I besieged the Agricultural Department; I waylaid the Speaker of the
House of Representatives. They had nothing to do with army contracts for
beef. I moved upon the Commissioner of the Patent Office.