HOW THEY TALKED POLITICS AT MR. GWYNN's
In accord with the requests of Mr. Gwynn, which with them had those
graver aspects the requests of royalty possess for London shopkeepers,
the President and General Attorney of the Anaconda Airline came to
Washington. The Anaconda president was a short, corpulent man, with dark
skin, eyes black as beads, round, alert face, and a nose like the ace of
clubs. The General Attorney was no taller than his superior officer, but
differed from him in a figure so spare and starved that it snapped its
fingers at description. As though to make amends for a niggardliness of
the physical, Providence had conferred upon our legal one a prodigious
head. A facetious opponent once said that he had a seven and a half hat
and a six and a half belt, being, as steamboat folk would put it,
over-engined for his beam. Both the President and the General Attorney
were devoted to their company, and neither would have scrupled to loot
an orphanage or burn a church had such drastic measure been demanded by
Anaconda interests. Once in town, these excellent officers lost no time
in presenting themselves at Mr. Gwynn's. To their joy that unbending
personage was so good as to grant them a personal audience. Richard was
present--such, as you have discovered, being the invariable usage with
Mr. Gwynn. After the latter had shaken each visitor by the hand, a shake
of mighty formality, he sat in state while Richard did the talking.
Mr. Gwynn was a spectacle of gravity when posed in a chair. He
established himself on the edge of that piece of furniture, and for all
the employment he gave its back it might as well have been a stool. Mr.
Gwynn maintained himself bolt-upright, chin pointed high, with a general
rigidity of attitude that made one fear he had swallowed the poker as a
preliminary to the interview, and was bearing himself in accordance with
the unyielding fact. The result was highly effective, and gave Mr. Gwynn
a kingly air not likely to be wasted on impressionable ones such as the
President and General Attorney. When the four were seated, Richard,
using the potential name of Mr. Gwynn, proceeded to speak, while Mr.
Gwynn at measured intervals creaked concurrence.
It had been decided by Mr. Gwynn, so Richard laid bare, that the future
of the Anaconda would be advanced by the nomination of Senator Hanway
for the Presidency. It would pleasure Mr. Gwynn were he to hear that the
President and General Attorney shared this conclusion. If such were the
flattering case, Mr. Gwynn would be delighted to have the President and
General Attorney call upon Senator Hanway, and consider what might be
done towards the practical furtherance of his hopes. In short, the
situation, word and argument, was precisely the same as when the
visitors came on in the affair of Speaker Frost. Incidentally, Mr. Gwynn
was to give a dinner in honor of Senator Hanway. It was understood that
certain of that statesman's friends would take advantage of the occasion
to announce his candidacy. The President and General Attorney were to be
invited to the dinner. Mr. Gwynn would esteem it an honor if they found
it convenient to be present and lend countenance to the movement in
Senator Hanway's favor.
Throughout this setting forth, the President and General Attorney took
advantage of pauses and periods to bow and murmur agreement with Mr.
Gwynn's opinions and desires as Richard reeled them off; the murmurs and
nods were as "Amens," and must have been gratifying to Mr. Gwynn.
Nothing could give the President and General Attorney so much
satisfaction as the elevation of Senator Hanway to the White House. They
were a unit with Mr. Gwynn; they believed that not alone the future of
the Anaconda but the prosperity of the nation, not to say the round
advantage of the world at large, would be subserved thereby. They would
confer with Senator Hanway as Mr. Gwynn suggested.
So hot were they that the President and General Attorney, with Richard,
at once sought Senator Hanway; since it was no later than eleven in the
morning they caught that great statesman before he started for the
Senate. He greeted them with dignified warmth, and, aided by Richard,
who conversationally went ahead to break the ice, the trio quickly came
to an understanding.
Senator Hanway talked with a freedom that was of itself a compliment,
when one remembers how it had ever been his common strategy in this
business of President-catching to appear both ignorant and indifferent.
Senator Hanway explained that the thing just then was the nomination. It
would be necessary to control the coming National Convention. Governor
Obstinate was a formidable figure; he was popular with the people; and,
although Governor Obstinate was a man who would prove most perilous if
armed with those thunderbolts of veto and patronage wherewith the
position of chief executive would clothe his hand, Senator Hanway was
sorry to say there were many among the leading spirits of party who
cared so little for the public welfare and so much for their own that
they would push Governor Obstinate's fortunes as a method of making
personal capital in their home regions with the ignorant herd. Senator
Hanway would not go into the details of what in his opinion might be
accomplished by the President and General Attorney and the great railway
system they controlled. It would be wiser, and perhaps in better
taste,--here Senator Hanway smiled with becoming modesty,--if others
were permitted to do that. If his good friends of the Anaconda who had
come so far in his honor--a mark of regard which he, Senator Hanway,
could never forget nor underestimate--gave him their company to the
Capitol, he would be proud to make them acquainted with Senators Gruff
and Loot and Toot and Drink and Dice and others of his friends, and
those gentlemen would go more deeply into the affair. The President and
General Attorney, he was sure, could so exert the Anaconda influence
that the delegations from those States through which it ran might be
selected and controlled.
Senator Hanway and the President and General Attorney departed in high
good feeling to meet with those statesmen named, while Richard sought
Bess to hear word of his Dorothy and receive that letter which was
already the particular ray of sunshine in days which were cloudy and
dark.
It would do mankind no service to break in at this place with wideflung
descriptions of Mr. Gwynn's dinner. It is among things strange that the
world in the matter of proposing a candidate for public favor or
celebrating a victory has made little or no advance from earliest ages.
It has been immemorial custom when one had a candidate on his hands and
desired to obtain for him the countenance of men, to give a dinner for
those who were reckoned leaders of sentiment and, first filling them
with meat and wine, make them stirring speeches to bring them to the
candidate's support. From the initial dinner sub-dinners would radiate,
and others be born of these, until a whole population might be
considered fed and filled with food and speeches, and the candidate
dined, not to say dinned, into the popular heart, or, what is the same
thing, the popular stomach--in either case the popular regard. In
celebrations the procedure was equally archaic. Did some admiral win a
sea fight or some general a land fight or some candidate a ballot fight,
instantly one-half the population marched in the middle of the street
while the other half banked the curbs in screaming, kerchief-waving
lines of admiration. And thus has it ever been since that far-distant
morning of Eternity, when Time with his scythe let down the bars and
went upon his mowing of the meadows of men's existences. Mr. Gwynn, you
may be sure, has nothing novel to propose; wherefore at this crisis he
gives a dinner, as doubtless did Nero and Moses and Noah and Adam and
others of the mighty dead on similar occasions in their day.
Mr. Gwynn's dinner began with Senator Gruff. This wise man, with the
sanction of Senator Hanway, intimated to Richard the uses of such a
festival. Mr. Gwynn was not in politics; his dinner table would be
neutral ground. When therefore some fiery orator, carefully primed and
cocked, suddenly exploded into eloquent demands that Senator Hanway
offer himself for the White House, subject of course, as the phrase is,
to the action of his party's convention thereafter to assemble, it would
have a look of spontaneity that was of prime importance. No other could
do this so well as Mr. Gwynn; no other table would so escape that charge
of personal interest which the friends of Governor Obstinate might be
expected to make. The very fact of Mr. Gwynn being an Englishman would
defend it. Mr. Gwynn, at the word of Richard, was willing to serve the
views of Senator Gruff, and the dinner was arranged.
There were full sixty present, including Speaker Frost and those high
officials of the Anaconda. Mr. Gwynn had also dispatched an invitation
to Mr. Bayard, and Richard inclosed therewith a personal note which had
for its result the bringing of that astrologer of stocks, albeit dinners
political were not precisely his habit.
"Who is your friend Gwynn?" asked Mr. Bayard, the afternoon before the
dinner.
"I'll explain Mr. Gwynn later," replied Richard. "He is quite devoted to
my interests, I assure you, and to nothing else."
"I can well believe so," returned Mr. Bayard, who had already half
solved the enigma of Mr. Gwynn. "I begin to fear that you are a
quixotic, not to say an eccentric, not to add a most egotistical young
man. At that I'm not prepared to say you are wrong. One is justified in
extreme concealments to avoid those animals the snobs."
Mr. Gwynn, the picture of all that was imperial, sat at the table's
head, with Senator Hanway on his right. At the foot was Senator Gruff,
who, if not the founder, might be called the architect of the feast,
since, with the exception of Mr. Bayard, he had pricked off the list of
guests. Mr. Harley, sad and worn with thoughts of Storri, sat next to
Senator Gruff, while Mr. Bayard and Richard occupied inconspicuous
places midway of the board.
When in the procession of courses the dinner attained to birds, a famous
editor of the Middle West, who had been consuming wine with diligence to
the end that he be fluent, addressed the table's head. He recited the
public interests; then, paying a tribute to their party as the guardian
of those interests, he wound up in words of fire with the declaration
that Senator Hanway must be the next standard-bearer of that party. The
cheering was tremendous, considering the small numbers to furnish it.
When the joyful sounds subsided, Senator Hanway, in a few placid, gentle
sentences, explained his flattered amazement, and how helplessly he was
in the hands of his friends, who would do with him as they deemed best
for party welfare and for public good. He had not sought this honor, he
did not look for the nomination; his own small estimate of his powers
and importance, an estimate which gentlemen who heard him must be aware
of, was proof of it. But no man might set his inclinations against a
popular demand. Private preferences must yield, private plans must be
abandoned. The country was entitled to the services of every citizen,
the party was at liberty to command the name of every member. Believing
these things, and owing what he did to both public and party, Senator
Hanway must acquiesce. He thanked his friends for thus distinguishing
him; he gave himself passively to their will. There was a second tempest
of approbation when Senator Hanway was through.
Senator Gruff proposed the health of the President of the Anaconda. That
potentate of railways made a short, jerky oration. He gave his hearty
concurrence to the proposal of Senator Hanway to be President. He did
this as a patriot and not as the head of a great railway. The Anaconda
would take no part in politics; it never did. The Anaconda was a
business, not a political, concern; it would do nothing unbecoming a
corporation of discretion and repute. However, he, the President, was
more or less acquainted with sentiment in those regions threaded by the
Anaconda. He made no doubt, nay, he could squarely promise, that the
delegations from those States, as he knew and read their people's
feeling, would go to the next convention instructed for Senator Hanway.
More applause, and a buzz of congratulatory whispers. The powerful
Anaconda, that political dictator of a region so vast that it was washed
by two oceans, was to champion Senator Hanway.
Senator Coot, whose home-State was shaky beneath his Senate feet, and
who was therefore anxiously afraid lest he himself be committed to a
position on the perilous subject of finance that might provoke his
destruction, now addressed the table. He yielded to no one in his
admiration for Senator Hanway. In view of what had been proposed,
however, he, Senator Coot, would like to ask Senator Hanway to define
his position in that controversy of Silver versus Gold.
No one was looking for this, no such baleful curiosity had been
anticipated. It was Senator Gruff that came to the rescue, and Richard,
to whom the scene was new and full of interest, could not admire too
deeply the dexterity wherewith he held the shield of his humor between
Senator Hanway and the shaft of that interrogatory.
Senator Gruff thought the question premature. The convention was months
away; sentiment had been known to shift in a day like the bed of a river
and seek new channels with its currents. Senator Gruff distrusted the
wisdom of binding anybody at that time to a hard and fast declaration
whether for silver or gold or both. He was sure that on soberer thought
his friend Senator Coot would see the impropriety of his question.
Senator Coot declined to see the impropriety to which Senator Gruff had
adverted. To commit himself to any gentleman's canvass was to commit
himself to that gentleman's opinions. Those opinions might not be
consistent with ones held by his, Senator Coot's, constituents, to whom
he must in all things adhere. He, Senator Coot, was no one to buy pigs
in pokes--if Senator Hanway would forgive a homely expression which was
not intended as personal to himself. Senator Coot must insist upon his
question.
Senator Gruff still came forward in defense. He said he had heard that
Senator Coot's native State of Indiana was originally settled by people
who had started for the West but lost their nerve. In view of the
timidity and weak irresolution of his Senate brother, he, Senator Gruff,
was inclined to credit the tradition. He must protest against
question-asking at this time. Senator Gruff must even warn his friend
Senator Coot that to ask a question now might result in later disaster
to himself.
On that point of question-putting, might he, Senator Gruff, impart a
word of counsel? A question was often a trap to catch the questioner.
One should step warily with a question. A man who puts a question should
never fail to know the answer in advance. When he pulls the trigger of a
question, as when he pulls the trigger of a gun, he must look out for
the kick. Many a perfect situation had been destroyed by the wrong
question asked in the dark. Senator Gruff begged permission to tell a
story.
"Once a good and optimistic dominie," said Senator Gruff, "was being
shown through Sing Sing Prison. In his company went a pessimist who took
darkling views of humanity in the lump, and particularly what fractions
of the lump had gotten themselves locked up. The pessimist could see no
good in them.
"'But you are wrong,' argued the dominie. 'There's good in the worst
among them all. Stay; I'll prove it.' Then, turning to the guard: 'Sir,
please bring us to the very worst character who is prisoner here.' On
their way to the abandoned one, the dominie observed to the pessimist:
'I'll guarantee, by a few adroit questions, to so develop the good side
of this fallen creature that you will be driven to confess its
existence.'
"They traveled the corridors, and finally the guard threw open a cell
wherein was a man whose face was so utterly brutal that its softest
expression was a breach of the peace. The man, who was in for life, had
committed an atrocious murder.
"The only thing in the cell besides the man was a rat, which--wheel
within wheel--was confined in a little cage. This rat was the prisoner's
darling; the guard said that he would draw blood from his arm to feed
it. The good dominie--who knew his business--instantly seized upon the
rat for his cue.
"'And you love the rat?' he said to the prisoner.
"'I love it better than my life!' cried the prisoner. 'There isn't
anything I wouldn't sacrifice for that rat.'
"'There,' said the good dominie, wheeling on the pessimist, who was
visibly subdued by the poor prisoner's love for his humble pet, 'there,
you see! Here is a captive wretch whose estate is hopeless. He wears the
brand of a felon and is doomed to stone-caged solitude throughout his
life. And yet, without friends or light or liberty, with everything to
sour and harden and promote the worst that's in him, he finds it in his
heart to love! From those white seed which were planted by Providence in
the beginning that beautiful love springs up to blossom in a dreary
prison, and, for want of a nobler object, waste its tender fragrance on
a rat. It touches me to the heart!' and the good dominie watered the
floor of the cell with his tears.
"The pessimist had no more to say; he murmured his contrition and
declared that he had received a lesson. He would never again distrust or
contradict the existence of that spark of divine goodness which, at the
bottom of every nature like a diamond at the bottom of a pit, would live
quenchless through the ages to save the soul at last.
"The good dominie and the reformed pessimist were retiring, when the
dominie paused, like Senator Coot, to ask one question--the only one he
couldn't have answered in advance.
"'Why, my poor man, do you love that rat?'
"The prisoner's face became more brutal with the light of a diabolical
joy.
"'Why do I love him?' he cried. Then, with a chuckle of fiendish
exultation: 'Because he bit the warden.'"
The adroit Senator Gruff might have found it hard to show the
application of his story. That, however, was not going to worry the
sagacious Senator Gruff. He reckoned only upon raising a laugh at the
anxious Senator Coot's expense which would silence that question-asking
personage, who was more afraid of present ridicule, being sensitive,
than of future condemnation by his constituents. The yarn succeeded in
winning peals of laughter, and without giving Senator Coot a chance to
reply or repeat his poking about to discover the position of Senator
Hanway upon the issue of finance, Senator Gruff proposed the health of
Mr. Bayard.
"And perhaps," remarked Senator Gruff, "that eminent authority on
markets, and therefore upon finance, will favor us with his views on
money. I do not hesitate," concluded Senator Gruff, turning to Mr.
Bayard, "to cast you into the breach, because, of all who are here, you
are the one best qualified and, I might add, least afraid to be heard.
You have no constituents to be either shocked at your opinions or to
punish their expression."
Senator Coot's curiosity touching Senator Hanway's money position, a
fatal curiosity that had it not been smothered might have spread, was
overwhelmed in a general desire to hear Mr. Bayard. The great speculator
was known to every statesman about the table, and the whisper of
conversation became hushed.
"As said the gentleman who has so honored me,"--here Mr. Bayard bowed to
Senator Gruff, who complimented him by lifting his glass,--"there are no
reasons why I should not give you my beliefs of money. I will tell you
what I would and would not do for a currency, if I were business manager
of a country. I would not coin silver money, because the low intrinsic
value of such currency would make it a cumbrous one. I would not coin
both silver and gold, because of the impossibility of maintaining an
equality of values between the two coins. I would coin gold and nothing
but gold, because it offers those qualities, important above others in a
money metal, of high value and high durability."
"But is there gold enough to furnish all the money required?" asked
Senator Coot, who was nervously interested.
"For centuries," replied Mr. Bayard, who began to feel a warmer interest
than he had in any situation or any topic for over thirty years, "for
centuries production has been filling the annual lap of the world with
millions upon millions of gold. No part of it has been lost, none
destroyed. For every possible appropriation there exists a plenty, even
a plethora, of gold. And let me say this: there is a deal of claptrap
talked and written and printed and practiced concerning this business of
a currency, a subject which when given a right survey presents no
difficulty. Mankind has been taught that in the essence of things fiscal
your question of currency is as intricate and involved as was the
labyrinth of Minos. And then, to add ill-doing to ill-teaching, our own
crazy-patch system of finance has been in every one of its patches cut
and basted and stitched with an interest of politics or of private gain
to guide the shears and needle of what money-tailor was at work. A
country, if it would, could have a circulating medium, and all coined
yellow gold, of two hundred dollars, or five hundred dollars, or one
thousand dollars per capita for population, and, beyond the expense of
the mint, without costing that country a shilling. One, being business
manager of the nation, as fast as the mints would work could pour forth
an unbroken stream of gold money, half-eagles, eagles, and double
eagles, to what breadth and depth for a whole circulation one would, and
never spend a shilling beyond the working of the mints.
"Observe, now; as a nation we have a business manager. He holds in his
fingers five twenty-dollar gold pieces. He buys one hundred dollars'
worth of gold bullion with them. The public, if it would, might buy gold
as freely as does any private individual. Our business manager gets the
bullion, while the other, a gold miner perhaps, takes the gold coin.
Then our business manager stamps the bullion he has bought--one hundred
dollars' worth--into five new twenty-dollar gold pieces.
"With these in his palm he is ready for another bargain with the gold
miner. Again the miner gets the gold pieces, and again our business
manager gets one hundred dollars' worth of yellow bullion. This he
coins; and being thereby re-equipped with five more new twenty-dollar
pieces he returns to the experiment.
"This barter and this coinage might go on while a grain of the world's
gold remained uncoined. At the finish, our business manager would have
only one hundred yellow dollars in his fist; but there would be billions
coined and stamped and in circulation. And the country would be neither
in nor out a dollar. I am talking of coinage, not taxation, remember.
"Once in circulation the law would protect the money from being clipped
or mutilated or melted down. Once money, always money, and he who alters
its money status we lock up as a felon. There is no legal reason and no
moral reason and no market reason to militate against what I have
outlined as a policy. Finance as a science is simpler than the science
of soap-boiling, although the money-changers in the temple for their own
selfish advantage prefer you to think otherwise."
"Your wholesale consumption of gold," interrupted Senator Coot, "would
raise the price of gold beyond measure."
"Wherein would lie the harm? So that it did not disturb the comparative
prices of soap and pork and sugar and flour and lumber and on through
the list of a world's commodities--and it would not--no one would
experience either jolt or squeeze. With wheat at a dollar a bushel, a
reduction to ten cents a bushel would work no injury if at the same time
every other commodity in its price fell ninety per cent. To merely
multiply the 'price' of gold, a metal which when it isn't money is
jewelry, would cut no more important figure in the economy of life than
would the making of one thousand marks upon a thermometer where now we
make one hundred. Suppose, instead of one hundred degrees, we scratched
off one thousand degrees on a thermometer in the same space: would it
make the weather any hotter? I grant you a cautious business manager
would not walk in among the gold-sellers and purchase ten billion
dollars' worth of gold in a day; and for the same reason that a cautious
cowboy wouldn't ride in among a bunch of cattle and flap a blanket. Not
because there lurks inherent peril in so doing, but for that in the
timid ignorance of the herd it would produce a stampede."
"But don't you see," objected Senator Coot, who was learned in the cant
of currency and believed it, "don't you see that what you propose, by
putting up the price of gold and putting down the price of everything
else, would multiply riches in the hands of the creditor class? Wouldn't
it work injustice to the debtors of the land?"
"Without pausing to guess," said Mr. Bayard, "for that is all one might
do, whether the extravagant coinage of gold would promote its 'price,' I
will submit that such contention should be disregarded. It is too
general, and too incessant. If such were permitted the rank of argument,
it would trip up every tariff, every appropriation, every governmental
thing.
"Also, one must not put a too narrow limit upon the term 'creditor
class.' Every man with a dollar in his pocket, or who owns a farm or a
horse or a bolt of cloth or one hundred bushels of wheat, belongs to the
extent of that dollar or farm or horse or bolt of cloth or one hundred
bushels of wheat to the creditor class. The world is his debtor, and he
has it in pawn and pledge to him for the value of that dollar or farm or
horse or cloth or wheat. Now, a tariff law can be and frequently is
framed so as to lift or lower the 'prices' of all or any of these. If
your argument be good it should be just as potent to prevent a tariff
law that augments riches in one hand or detracts from riches in another,
as to prevent a coinage law that does the same.
"Properly speaking, there can be no separation of mankind into creditor
and debtor classes, since, as we have seen, every man with a dollar's
worth of property is in the creditor class to the extent of that dollar,
while the world is in the debtor class and owes him therefor. There can
be but two classes: those who own something, and those who don't. There
lies the sole natural division; and not a law is framed, whether it be
for a tariff or an appropriation or an army or a navy or a coinage or a
bond issue or what you will, that does not, in lesser or greater degree,
add to or take from the riches of some man or men. No government can go
its clumsy necessary way without stepping on somebody's toes, and if one
cannot have a currency because to have it will help this individual or
hurt that one, by the same token one cannot have a government at all.
"However," concluded Mr. Bayard, "I think your talked-of advance in a
gold 'price' born of coined billions might prove in the test to be
imaginary rather than real. There has been ever a gold-ghost to frighten
folk. There was once a time when men talked of resuming specie payment,
and the public hung away from it, fearful and trembling, like an
elephant about to cross a bridge. Horace Greeley cried, 'The way to
resume is to resume!' and every dollar-dullard called him crazy. And
yet, as the simple sequel demonstrated, the elephant need not have
shivered, the bridge was wholly safe, and Horace Greeley was right."
Senator Gruff, whom Mr. Gwynn had privately requested to assume control
so far as speeches and toasts and sentiments to be expressed were
involved, now held forth in terms of flowery compliment concerning Mr.
Bayard. He thanked that able gentleman for his theory of finance.
Senator Gruff would not discuss its soundness; this was not the time nor
yet the place. He would say, however, that it was unique and
interesting.
Referring to what Mr. Bayard had called our "crazy-patch" system of
currency, he, Senator Gruff, was willing to make this statement. The
greenbacks, as all knew, were exempt from taxation. To discover how far
greenbacks and their exemption had been made to affect the whole taxes
of the several States, he, Senator Gruff, the year before had addressed
a letter to every county tax-gatherer in the country. He had asked each
to state the amount of greenbacks returned that year for his particular
county as exempt.
"I received a reply," said Senator Gruff, "from every county auditor
between Eastport and San Diego, Vancouver's and the Florida Keys. The
aggregate of greenbacks returned exempt for that one year was over
thirteen billions of dollars, while, as we know, the entire amount of
greenbacks extant in the country is but a shadow above two hundred and
forty millions. I shall make no comment on the miracle, and cite it only
as an incidental expression of one element of our money system."
Senator Gruff, continuing, recurred to the pushing forward of Senator
Hanway as a Presidential candidate. It was, while unexpected by him, a
movement so full of righteous politics that he confessed heartfelt
gratification thereat. Senator Gruff would suggest that one and only one
gentleman among those present be selected to furnish the story to the
press.
"In that way," explained Senator Gruff, "we will escape the confusion
sure to be the consequence should a half-dozen of us answer inquiries."
Senator Gruff, by common acclaim, was pitched upon as the one to deal
with the papers.
"Why, then," returned Senator Gruff, with a quizzical eye, "I foresaw
this honorable occasion and prepared for it. I shall give what we have
done to the _Daily Tory_, whose intelligent representative is with us as
a guest." And thereupon Senator Gruff, while a smile went round at this
evidence of fullest preparation for the unexpected, a smile which he met
with a merry face, drew from his pocket a document and passed it over to
Richard. In another moment a messenger was called; the story went on the
wire, and the candidacy of Senator Hanway was formally declared.
Senator Hanway, as the dinner neared its close, proposed the health of
Mr. Gwynn. In response, that remarkable man filled a goblet to the brim,
arose, and bowed with gravity and condescension to Senator Hanway.
Everybody stood up, and Mr. Gwynn's health was drunk with proper
solemnity.
The highbred conduct of Mr. Gwynn from the beginning had been worthy of
him as an old-school English gentleman. He said nothing; but he took
wine with a decorous persistency that was almost pious and seemed like a
religious rite. It should be observed that while he drank twice as much
as did any other gentleman, not excepting Mr. Harley himself, it in no
whit altered the stony propriety of his visage. There came no color to
his cheek; nor did the piscatorial eye blaze up, but abode as pikelike
as before. Also, with every bumper Mr. Gwynn became more rigid, and more
rigid still, as though instead of wine he quaffed libations of starch.
Of those who experienced Mr. Gwynn's kingly hospitality that night there
departed none who failed to carry with him a multiplied respect for his
host--a respect which with the President and General Attorney of the
Anaconda fair mounted to veneration. Altogether, from the standpoint of
everyone except the alarmed Senator Coot, the affair was not a dinner,
but a victory.
It was ten o'clock the morning after, and Richard had just reached the
street. From across the way came a gentleman who apparently had been
waiting for him to appear. It was none other than Mr. Sands, that
warlike printer whom Richard rescued from the Africans and set to work.
Richard had not had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Sands since bestowing
those benefits upon him.
"There was nothing to come for," explained Mr. Sands when Richard
mentioned that deprivation. "I wouldn't bother you now, only, being in
the business, I've naturally a nose for news. I thought I might put you
onto a scoop for the _Daily Tory_. Would a complete copy, verbatim, of
the coming report of Senator Hanway's committee on Northern Consolidated
be of any service to you?"