HOW IT BECAME UNFINISHED BUSINESS
The closing of the ---- Congress was not unlike the closing of the
several preceding Congresses. There was the same unbusiness-like,
impractical haste; the same hurried, unjust, and utterly inadequate
adjustment of unfinished, ill-digested business, that would not have
been tolerated for a moment by the sovereign people in any private
interest they controlled. There were frauds rushed through; there were
long-suffering, righteous demands shelved; there were honest, unpaid
debts dishonored by scant appropriations; there were closing scenes
which only the saving sense of American humor kept from being utterly
vile. The actors, the legislators themselves, knew it, and laughed
at it; the commentators, the Press, knew it and laughed at it; the
audience, the great American people, knew it and laughed at it. And
nobody for an instant conceived that it ever, under any circumstances,
might be otherwise.
The claim of Roscommon was among the Unfinished Business. The claimant
himself, haggard, pathetic, importunate, and obstinate, was among the
Unfinished Business. Various Congressmen, more or less interested in
the success of the claim, were among the Unfinished Business. The member
from Fresno, who had changed his derringer for a speech against the
claimant, was among the Unfinished Business. The gifted Gashwiler,
uneasy in his soul over certain other Unfinished Business in the shape
of his missing letters, but dropping oil and honey as he mingled with
his brothers, was King of Misrule and Lord of the Unfinished Business.
Pretty Mrs. Hopkinson, prudently escorted by her husband, but
imprudently ogled by admiring Congressmen, lent the charm of her
presence to the finishing of Unfinished Business. One or two editors,
who had dreams of a finished financial business, arising out of
Unfinished Business, were there also, like ancient bards, to record with
paean or threnody the completion of Unfinished Business. Various unclean
birds, scenting carrion in Unfinished Business, hovered in the halls or
roosted in the Lobby.
The lower house, under the tutelage of the gifted Gashwiler, drank
deeply of Roscommon and his intoxicating claim, and passed the
half-empty bottle to the Senate as Unfinished Business. But, alas! in
the very rush, and storm, and tempest of the unfinishing business, an
unlooked-for interruption arose in the person of a great Senator whose
power none could oppose, whose right to free and extended utterance at
all times none could gainsay. A claim for poultry, violently seized by
the army of Sherman during his march through Georgia, from the hen-coop
of an alleged loyal Irishman, opened a constitutional question, and with
it the lips of the great Senator.
For seven hours he spoke eloquently, earnestly, convincingly. For seven
hours the old issues of party and policy were severally taken up and
dismissed in the old forcible rhetoric that had early made him famous.
Interruptions from other Senators, now forgetful of Unfinished Business,
and wild with reanimated party zeal; interruptions from certain Senators
mindful of Unfinished Business, and unable to pass the Roscommon bottle,
only spurred him to fresh exertion. The tocsin sounded in the Senate
was heard in the lower house. Highly-excited members congregated at
the doors of the Senate, and left Unfinished Business to take care of
itself.
Left to itself for seven hours, Unfinished Business gnashed its false
teeth and tore its wig in impotent fury in corridor and hall. For seven
hours the gifted Gashwiler had continued the manufacture of oil
and honey, whose sweetness, however, was slowly palling upon the
congressional lip; for seven hours Roscommon and friends beat with
impatient feet the lobby, and shook fists, more or less discolored, at
the distinguished Senator. For seven hours the one or two editors were
obliged to sit and calmly compliment the great speech which that night
flashed over the wires of a continent with the old electric thrill. And,
worse than all, they were obliged to record with it the closing of the
---- Congress, with more than the usual amount of Unfinished Business.
A little group of friends surrounded the great Senator with hymns of
praise and congratulations. Old adversaries saluted him courteously as
they passed by with the respect of strong men. A little woman with a
shawl drawn over her shoulders, and held with one small brown hand,
approached him timidly:
“I speak not the English well,” she said gently, “but I have read much.
I have read in the plays of your Shakspeare. I would like to say to
you the words of Rosalind to Orlando when he did fight: 'Sir you have
wrestled well, and have overthrown more than your enemies.'” And with
these words she was gone.
Yet not so quickly but that pretty Mrs. Hopkinson, coming,--as Victrix
always comes to Victor, to thank the great Senator, albeit the faces of
her escorts were shrouded in gloom,--saw the shawled figure disappear.
“There,” she said, pinching Wiles mischievously, “there! that's the
woman you were afraid of. Look at her. Look at that dress. Ah, Heavens!
look at that shawl. Didn't I tell you she had no style?”
“Who is she?” said Wiles sullenly.
“Carmen de Haro, of course,” said the lady vivaciously. “What are you
hurrying away so for? You're absolutely pulling me along.”
Mr. Wiles had just caught sight of the travel-worn face of Royal
Thatcher among the crowd that thronged the stair-case. Thatcher appeared
pale and distrait: Mr. Harlowe, his counsel, at his side, rallied him.
“No one would think you had just got a new lease of your property, and
escaped a great swindle. What's the matter with you? Miss De Haro
passed us just now. It was she who spoke to the Senator. Why did you not
recognize her?”
“I was thinking,” said Thatcher gloomily.
“Well, you take things coolly! And certainly you are not very
demonstrative towards the woman who saved you to-day. For, as sure as
you live, it was she who drew that speech out of the Senator.”
Thatcher did not reply, but moved away. He HAD noticed Carmen de Haro,
and was about to greet her with mingled pleasure and embarrassment.
But he had heard her compliment to the Senator, and this strong,
preoccupied, automatic man, who only ten days before had no thought
beyond his property, was now thinking more of that compliment to another
than of his success; and was beginning to hate the Senator who had saved
him, the lawyer who stood beside him, and even the little figure that
had tripped down the steps unconscious of him.