Part 9 (2/2)
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 cla.s.ses, the politicians,--and only then when they had been defeated as politicians, and when their const.i.tuents 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 const.i.tution 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 t.i.tle 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 Const.i.tutional 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 circ.u.mvolved 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 pa.s.sive; 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 demiG.o.ds, 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 a.s.similation 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 s.h.i.+rt, 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!”--pus.h.i.+ng 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, pus.h.i.+ng 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.
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