WHO LOBBIED FOR IT
It was a midsummer's day in Washington. Even at early morning, while the
sun was yet level with the faces of pedestrians in its broad, shadeless
avenues, it was insufferably hot. Later the avenues themselves shone
like the diverging rays of another sun,--the Capitol,--a thing to be
feared by the naked eye. Later yet it grew hotter, and then a mist arose
from the Potomac, and blotted out the blazing arch above, and presently
piled up along the horizon delusive thunder clouds, that spent their
strength and substance elsewhere, and left it hotter than before.
Towards evening the sun came out invigorated, having cleared the
heavenly brow of perspiration, but leaving its fever unabated.
The city was deserted. The few who remained apparently buried themselves
from the garish light of day in some dim, cloistered recess of shop,
hotel, or restaurant; and the perspiring stranger, dazed by the outer
glare, who broke in upon their quiet, sequestered repose, confronted
collarless and coatless specters of the past, with fans in their hands,
who, after dreamily going through some perfunctory business, immediately
retired to sleep after the stranger had gone. Congressmen and Senators
had long since returned to their several constituencies with the various
information that the country was going to ruin, or that the outlook
never was more hopeful and cheering, as the tastes of their constituency
indicated. A few Cabinet officers still lingered, having by this time
become convinced that they could do nothing their own way, or indeed
in any way but the old way, and getting gloomily resigned to their
situation. A body of learned, cultivated men, representing the highest
legal tribunal in the land, still lingered in a vague idea of earning
the scant salary bestowed upon them by the economical founders of the
Government, and listened patiently to the arguments of counsel, whose
fees for advocacy of claims before them would have paid the life income
of half the bench. There was Mr. Attorney-General and his assistants
still protecting the Government's millions from rapacious hands,
and drawing the yearly public pittance that their wealthier private
antagonists would have scarce given as a retainer to their junior
counsel. The little standing army of departmental employes,--the
helpless victims of the most senseless and idiotic form of discipline
the world has known,--a discipline so made up of caprice, expediency,
cowardice, and tyranny that its reform meant revolution, not to be
tolerated by legislators and lawgivers, or a despotism in which half
a dozen accidentally-chosen men interpreted their prejudices or
preferences as being that Reform. Administration after administration
and Party after Party had persisted in their desperate attempts to fit
the youthful colonial garments, made by our Fathers after a by-gone
fashion, over the expanded limits and generous outline of a matured
nation. There were patches here and there; there were grievous rents
and holes here and there; there were ludicrous and painful exposures of
growing limbs everywhere; and the Party in Power and the Party out of
Power could do nothing but mend and patch, and revamp and cleanse and
scour, and occasionally, in the wildness of despair, suggest even the
cutting off the rebellious limbs that persisted in growing beyond the
swaddling clothes of its infancy.
It was a capital of Contradictions and Inconsistencies. At one end of
the Avenue sat the responsible High Keeper of the military honor, valor,
and war-like prestige of a great nation, without the power to pay his
own troops their legal dues until some selfish quarrel between Party
and Party was settled. Hard by sat another Secretary, whose established
functions seemed to be the misrepresentation of the nation abroad by
the least characteristic of its classes, the politicians,--and only then
when they had been defeated as politicians, and when their constituents
had declared them no longer worthy to be even THEIR representatives.
This National Absurdity was only equaled by another, wherein an
ex-Politician was for four years expected to uphold the honor of a flag
of a great nation over an ocean he had never tempted, with a discipline
the rudiments of which he could scarcely acquire before he was removed,
or his term of office expired, receiving his orders from a superior
officer as ignorant of his special duties as himself, and subjected to
the revision of a Congress cognizant of him only as a politician. At the
farther end of the Avenue was another department so vast in its extent
and so varied in its functions that few of the really great practical
workers of the land would have accepted its responsibility for ten times
its salary, but which the most perfect constitution in the world handed
over to men who were obliged to make it a stepping stone to future
preferment. There was another department, more suggestive of its
financial functions from the occasional extravagances or economies
exhibited in its payrolls,--successive Congresses having taken other
matters out of its hands,--presided over by an official who bore the
title and responsibility of the Custodian and Disburser of the Nation's
Purse, and received a salary that a bank-President would have
sniffed at. For it was part of this Constitutional Inconsistency and
Administrative Absurdity that in the matter of honor, justice, fidelity
to trust, and even business integrity, the official was always expected
to be the superior of the Government he represented. Yet the crowning
Inconsistency was that, from time to time, it was submitted to the
sovereign people to declare if these various Inconsistencies were not
really the perfect expression of the most perfect Government the
world had known. And it is to be recorded that the unanimous voices of
Representative, Orator, and Unfettered Poetry were that it was!
Even the public press lent itself to the Great Inconsistency. It was
as clear as crystal to the journal on one side of the Avenue that the
country was going to the dogs unless the SPIRIT of the Fathers once more
reanimated the public; it was equally clear to the journal on the other
side of the Avenue that only a rigid adherence to the LETTER of the
Fathers would save the nation from decline. It was obvious to the
first-named journal that the “letter” meant Government patronage to
the other journal; it was patent to that journal that the “shekels” of
Senator X really animated the spirit of the Fathers. Yet all agreed
it was a great and good and perfect government,--subject only to the
predatory incursions of a Hydra-headed monster known as a “Ring.” The
Ring's origin was wrapped in secrecy, its fecundity was alarming; but
although its rapacity was preternatural, its digestion was perfect
and easy. It circumvolved all affairs in an atmosphere of mystery;
it clouded all things with the dust and ashes of distrust. All
disappointment of place, of avarice, of incompetency or ambition, was
clearly attributable to it. It even permeated private and social life;
there were Rings in our kitchen and household service; in our public
schools, that kept the active intelligences of our children passive;
there were Rings of engaging, handsome, dissolute young fellows, who
kept us moral but unengaging seniors from the favors of the fair; there
were subtle, conspiring Rings among our creditors, which sent us into
bankruptcy and restricted our credit. In fact it would not be hazardous
to say that all that was calamitous in public and private experience
was clearly traceable to that combination of power in a minority over
weakness in a majority--known as a Ring.
Haply there was a body of demigods, as yet uninvoked, who should
speedily settle all that. When Smith of Minnesota, Robinson of Vermont,
and Jones of Georgia returned to Congress from these rural seclusions
so potent with information and so freed from local prejudices, it was
understood, vaguely, that great things would be done. This was always
understood. There never was a time in the history of American politics
when, to use the expression of the journals before alluded to, “the
present session of Congress” did not “bid fair to be the most momentous
in our history,” and did not, as far as the facts go, leave a vast
amount of unfinished important business lying hopelessly upon its
desks, having “bolted” the rest as rashly and with as little regard to
digestion or assimilation as the American traveller has for his railway
refreshment.
In this capital, on this languid midsummer day, in an upper room of one
of its second-rate hotels, the Honorable Pratt C. Gashwiler sat at
his writing-table. There are certain large, fleshy men with whom the
omission of even a necktie or collar has all the effect of an indecent
exposure. The Hon. Mr. Gashwiler, in his trousers and shirt, was a sight
to be avoided by the modest eye. There were such palpable suggestions of
vast extents of unctuous flesh in the slight glimpse offered by his open
throat that his dishabille should have been as private as his business.
Nevertheless, when there was a knock at his door he unhesitatingly said,
“Come in!”--pushing away a goblet crowned with a certain aromatic herb
with his right hand, while he drew towards him with his left a few proof
slips of his forthcoming speech. The Gashwiler brow became, as it were,
intelligently abstracted.
The intruder regarded Gashwiler with a glance of familiar recognition
from his right eye, while his left took in a rapid survey of the papers
on the table, and gleamed sardonically.
“You are at work, I see,” he said apologetically.
“Yes,” replied the Congressman, with an air of perfunctory
weariness,--“one of my speeches. Those d----d printers make such a mess
of it; I suppose I don't write a very fine hand.”
If the gifted Gashwiler had added that he did not write a very
intelligent hand, or a very grammatical hand, and that his spelling was
faulty, he would have been truthful, although the copy and proof before
him might not have borne him out. The near fact was that the speech
was composed and written by one Expectant Dobbs, a poor retainer of
Gashwiler, and the honorable member's labor as a proof-reader was
confined to the introduction of such words as “anarchy,” “oligarchy,”
“satrap,” “palladium,” and “Argus-eyed” in the proof, with little
relevancy as to position or place, and no perceptible effect as to
argument.
The stranger saw all this with his wicked left eye, but continued to
beam mildly with his right. Removing the coat and waistcoat of Gashwiler
from a chair, he drew it towards the table, pushing aside a portly,
loud-ticking watch,--the very image of Gashwiler,--that lay beside him,
and, resting his elbows on the proofs, said:
“Well?”
“Have you anything new?” asked the parliamentary Gashwiler.
“Much! a woman!” replied the stranger.
The astute Gashwiler, waiting further information, concluded to receive
this fact gaily and gallantly. “A woman?--my dear Mr. Wiles,--of course!
The dear creatures,” he continued, with a fat, offensive chuckle,
“somehow are always making their charming presence felt. Ha! ha! A man,
sir, in public life becomes accustomed to that sort of thing, and
knows when he must be agreeable,--agreeable, sir, but firm! I've had my
experience, sir,--my OWN experience,”--and the Congressman leaned back
in his chair, not unlike a robust St. Anthony who had withstood one
temptation to thrive on another.
“Yes,” said Wiles impatiently, “but d--n it, she's on the OTHER SIDE.”
“The other side!” repeated Gashwiler vacantly.
“Yes, she's a niece of Garcia's. A little she devil.”
“But Garcia's on our side,” rejoined Gashwiler.
“Yes, but she is bought by the Ring.”
“A woman!” sneered Mr. Gashwiler; “what can she do with men who won't be
made fools of? Is she so handsome?”
“I never saw any great beauty in her,” said Wiles shortly, “although
they say that she's rather caught that d----d Thatcher, in spite of
his coldness. At any rate, she is his protegee. But she isn't the sort
you're thinking of, Gashwiler. They say she knows, or pretends to know,
something about the grant. She may have got hold of some of her uncle's
papers. Those Greasers were always d----d fools; and, if he did anything
foolish, like as not he bungled or didn't cover up his tracks. And with
his knowledge and facilities too! Why, if I'd--” but here Mr.
Wiles stopped to sigh over the inequalities of fortune that wasted
opportunities on the less skillful scamp.
Mr. Gashwiler became dignified. “She can do nothing with us,” he said
potentially.
Wiles turned his wicked eye on him. “Manuel and Miguel, who sold out to
our man, are afraid of her. They were our witnesses. I verily believe
they'd take back everything if she got after them. And as for Pedro, he
thinks she holds the power of life and death over him.”
“Pedro! life and death,--what's all this?” said the astonished
Gashwiler.
Wiles saw his blunder, but saw also that he had gone too far to stop.
“Pedro,” he said, “was strongly suspected of having murdered Concho, one
of the original locators.”
Mr. Gashwiler turned white as a sheet, and then flushed again into an
apoplectic glow. “Do you dare to say,” he began as soon as he could
find his tongue and his legs, for in the exercise of his congressional
functions these extreme members supported each other,--“do you mean to
say,” he stammered in rising rage, “that you have dared to deceive
an American lawgiver into legislating upon a measure connected with a
capital offense? Do I understand you to say, sir, that murder stands
upon the record--stands upon the record, sir,--of this cause to which,
as a representative of Remus, I have lent my official aid? Do you mean
to say that you have deceived my constituency, whose sacred trust
I hold, in inveigling me to hiding a crime from the Argus eyes of
justice?” And Mr. Gashwiler looked towards the bell-pull as if about
to summon a servant to witness this outrage against the established
judiciary.
“The murder, if it WAS a murder, took place before Garcia entered upon
this claim, or had a footing in this court,” returned Wiles blandly,
“and is no part of the record.”
“You are sure it is not spread upon the record?”
“I am. You can judge for yourself.”
Mr. Gashwiler walked to the window, returned to the table, finished his
liquor in a single gulp, and then, with a slight resumption of dignity,
said:
“That alters the case.”
Wiles glanced with his left eye at the Congressman. The right placidly
looked out of the window. Presently he said quietly, “I've brought you
the certificates of stock; do you wish them made out in your own name?”
Mr. Gashwiler tried hard to look as if he were trying to recall the
meaning of Wiles's words. “Oh!--ah!--umph!--let me see,--oh, yes, the
certificates,--certainly! Of course you will make them out in the name
of my secretary, Mr. Expectant Dobbs. They will perhaps repay him for
the extra clerical labor required in the prosecution of your claim. He
is a worthy young man. Although not a public officer, yet he is so near
to me that perhaps I am wrong in permitting him to accept a fee for
private interests. An American representative cannot be too cautious,
Mr. Wiles. Perhaps you had better have also a blank transfer. The stock
is, I understand, yet in the future. Mr. Dobbs, though talented and
praiseworthy, is poor; he may wish to realize. If some--ahem! some
FRIEND--better circumstanced should choose to advance the cash to him
and run the risk,--why, it would only be an act of kindness.”
“You are proverbially generous, Mr. Gashwiler,” said Wiles, opening
and shutting his left eye like a dark lantern on the benevolent
representative.
“Youth, when faithful and painstaking, should be encouraged,” replied
Mr. Gashwiler. “I lately had occasion to point this out in a few remarks
I had to make before the Sabbath school reunion at Remus. Thank you, I
will see that they are--ahem!--conveyed to him. I shall give them to him
with my own hand,” he concluded, falling back in his chair, as if
the better to contemplate the perspective of his own generosity and
condescension. Mr. Wiles took his hat and turned to go. Before he
reached the door Mr. Gashwiler returned to the social level with a
chuckle:
“You say this woman, this Garcia's niece, is handsome and smart?”
“Yes.”
“I can set another woman on the track that'll euchre her every time!”
Mr. Wiles was too clever to appear to notice the sudden lapse in the
Congressman's dignity, and only said, with his right eye:
“Can you?”
“By G-d, I WILL, or I don't know how to represent Remus.”
Mr. Wiles thanked him with his right eye, and looked a dagger with his
left. “Good,” he said, and added persuasively: “Does she live here?”
The Congressman nodded assent. “An awfully handsome woman,--a particular
friend of mine!” Mr. Gashwiler here looked as if he would not mind to
have been rallied a little over his intimacy with the fair one; but
the astute Mr. Wiles was at the same moment making up his mind, after
interpreting the Congressman's look and manner, that he must know this
fair incognita if he wished to sway Gashwiler. He determined to bide his
time, and withdrew.
The door was scarcely closed upon him when another knock diverted Mr.
Gashwiler's attention from his proofs. The door opened to a young man
with sandy hair and anxious face. He entered the room deprecatingly, as
if conscious of the presence of a powerful being, to be supplicated and
feared. Mr. Gashwiler did not attempt to disabuse his mind. “Busy, you
see,” he said shortly, “correcting your work!”
“I hope it is acceptable?” said the young man timidly.
“Well--yes--it will do,” said Gashwiler; “indeed I may say it is
satisfactory on the whole,” he added with the appearance of a large
generosity; “quite satisfactory.”
“You have no news, I suppose,” continued the young man, with a slight
flush, born of pride or expectation.
“No, nothing as yet.” Mr. Gashwiler paused as if a thought had struck
him.
“I have thought,” he said, finally, “that some position--such as a
secretaryship with me--would help you to a better appointment. Now,
supposing that I make you my private secretary, giving you some
important and confidential business. Eh?”
Dobbs looked at his patron with a certain wistful, dog-like expectancy,
moved himself excitedly on his chair seat in a peculiar canine-like
anticipation of gratitude, strongly suggesting that he would have wagged
his tail if he had one. At which Mr. Gashwiler became more impressive.
“Indeed, I may say I anticipated it by certain papers I have put in
your charge and in your name, only taking from you a transfer that might
enable me to satisfy my conscience hereafter in recommending you as
my--ahem!--private secretary. Perhaps, as a mere form, you might now,
while you are here, put your name to these transfers, and, so to speak,
begin your duties at once.”
The glow of pride and hope that mantled the cheek of poor Dobbs might
have melted a harder heart than Gashwiler's. But the senatorial toga
had invested Mr. Gashwiler with a more than Roman stoicism towards the
feelings of others, and he only fell back in his chair in the pose of
conscious rectitude as Dobbs hurriedly signed the paper.
“I shall place them in my portman-tell,” said Gashwiler, suiting the
word to the action, “for safe keeping. I need not inform you, who are
now, as it were, on the threshold of official life, that perfect and
inviolable secrecy in all affairs of State”--Mr. G. here motioned toward
his portmanteau as if it contained a treaty at least--“is most essential
and necessary.”
Dobbs assented. “Then my duties will keep me with you here?” he asked
doubtfully.
“No, no,” said Gashwiler hastily; then, correcting himself, he added:
“that is--for the present--no!”
Poor Dobbs's face fell. The near fact was that he had lately had notice
to quit his present lodgings in consequence of arrears in his rent, and
he had a hopeful reliance that his confidential occupation would carry
bread and lodging with it. But he only asked if there were any new
papers to make out.
“Ahem! not at present; the fact is I am obliged to give so much of my
time to callers--I have to-day been obliged to see half a dozen--that
I must lock myself up and say 'Not at home' for the rest of the day.”
Feeling that this was an intimation that the interview was over, the
new private secretary, a little dashed as to his near hopes, but still
sanguine of the future, humbly took his leave.
But here a certain Providence, perhaps mindful of poor Dobbs, threw into
his simple hands--to be used or not, if he were worthy or capable of
using it--a certain power and advantage. He had descended the staircase,
and was passing through the lower corridor, when he was made the
unwilling witness of a remarkable assault.
It appeared that Mr. Wiles, who had quitted Gashwiler's presence as
Dobbs was announced, had other business in the hotel, and in pursuance
of it had knocked at room No. 90. In response to the gruff voice that
bade him enter, Mr. Wiles opened the door, and espied the figure of
a tall, muscular, fiery-bearded man extended on the bed, with the
bedclothes carefully tucked under his chin, and his arms lying flat by
his side.
Mr. Wiles beamed with his right cheek, and advanced to the bed as if
to take the hand of the stranger, who, however, neither by word or sign
responded to his salutation.
“Perhaps I'm intruding?” said Mr. Wiles blandly.
“Perhaps you are,” said Red Beard dryly.
Mr. Wiles forced a smile on his right cheek, which he turned to the
smiter, but permitted the left to indulge in unlimited malevolence.
“I wanted merely to know if you have looked into that matter?” he said
meekly.
“I've looked into it and round it and across it and over it and through
it,” responded the man gravely, with his eyes fixed on Wiles.
“And you have perused all the papers?” continued Mr. Wiles.
“I've read every paper, every speech, every affidavit, every decision,
every argument,” said the stranger as if repeating a formula.
Mr. Wiles attempted to conceal his embarrassment by an easy,
right-handed smile, that went off sardonically on the left, and
continued: “Then I hope, my dear sir, that, having thoroughly mastered
the case, you are inclined to be favorable to us?”
The gentleman in the bed did not reply, but apparently nestled more
closely beneath the coverlids.
“I have brought the shares I spoke of,” continued Mr. Wiles,
insinuatingly.
“Hev you a friend within call?” interrupted the recumbent man gently.
“I don't quite understand!” smiled Mr. Wiles. “Of course any name you
might suggest--”
“Hev you a friend, any chap that you might waltz in here at a moment's
call?” continued the man in bed. “No? Do you know any of them waiters
in the house? Thar's a bell over yan!” and he motioned with his eyes
towards the wall, but did not otherwise move his body.
“No,” said Wiles, becoming slightly suspicious and wrathful.
“Mebbe a stranger might do? I reckon thar's one passin' in the hall.
Call him in,--he'll do!”
Wiles opened the door a little impatiently, yet inquisitively, as
Dobbs passed. The man in bed called out, “Oh, stranger!” and, as Dobbs
stopped, said, “Come yar.”
Dobbs entered a little timidly, as was his habit with strangers.
“I don't know who you be--nor care, I reckon,” said the stranger. “This
yer man”--pointing to Wiles--“is Wiles. I'm Josh Sibblee of Fresno,
Member of Congress from the 4th Congressional District of Californy.
I'm jist lying here, with a derringer into each hand,--jist lying here
kivered up and holdin' in on'y to keep from blowin' the top o' this
d----d skunk's head off. I kinder feel I can't hold in any longer. What
I want to say to ye, stranger, is that this yer skunk--which his name
is Wiles--hez bin tryin' his d--dest to get a bribe onto Josh, and Josh,
outo respect for his constituents, is jist waitin' for some stranger to
waltz in and stop the d--dest fight--”
“But, my dear Mr. Sibblee, there must be some mistake,” said Wiles
earnestly.
“Mistake? Strip me!”
“No! No!” said Wiles, hurriedly, as the simple-minded Dobbs was about to
draw down the coverlid.
“Take him away,” said the Hon. Mr. Sibblee, “before I disgrace my
constituency. They said I'd be in jail afore I get through the session.
Ef you've got any humanity, stranger, snake him out, and pow'ful quick,
too.”
Dobbs, quite white and aghast, looked at Wiles and hesitated. There was
a slight movement in the bed. Both men started for the door; and the
next minute it closed very decidedly on the member from Fresno.