bother the effect! — What is it they do do? How do they proceed? You know perfectly well — and it is all bosh, too. Come, now, how do they proceed?”
“Why they proceed right and regular — and it ain’t bosh, Washington, it ain’t bosh. They appoint a committee to investigate, and that committee hears evidence three weeks, and all the witnesses on one side swear that the accused took money or stock or something for his vote. Then the accused stands up and testifies that he may have done it, but he was receiving and handling a good deal of money at the time and he doesn’t remember this particular circumstance — at least with sufficient distinctness to enable him to grasp it tangibly. So of course the thing is not proven — and that is what they say in the verdict. They don’t acquit, they don’t condemn. They just say, ‘Charge not proven.’ It leaves the accused in a kind of a shaky condition before the country, it purifies Congress, it satisfies everybody, and it doesn’t seriously hurt anybody. It has taken a long time to perfect our system, but it is the most admirable in the world, now.”
“So one of those long stupid investigations always turns out in that lame silly way. Yes, you are correct. I thought maybe you viewed the matter differently from other people. Do you think a Congress of ours could convict the devil of anything if he were a member?”
“My dear boy, don’t let these damaging delays prejudice you against Congress. Don’t use such strong language; you talk like a newspaper. Congress has inflicted frightful punishments on its members — now you know that. When they tried Mr. Fairoaks, and a cloud of witnesses proved him to be — well, you know what they proved him to be — and his own testimony and his own confessions gave him the same character, what did Congress do then? — come!”
“Well, what did Congress do?”
“You know what Congress did, Washington. Congress intimated plainly enough, that they considered him almost a stain upon their body; and without waiting ten days, hardly, to think the thing over, they rose up and hurled at him a resolution declaring that they disapproved of his conduct! Now you know that, Washington.”
“It was a terrific thing — there is no denying that. If he had been proven guilty of theft, arson, licentiousness, infanticide, and defiling graves, I believe they would have suspended him for two days.”
“You can depend on it, Washington. Congress is vindictive, Congress is savage, sir, when it gets waked up once. It will go to any length to vindicate its honor at such a time.”
“Ah well, we have talked the morning through, just as usual in these tiresome days of waiting, and we have reached the same old result; that is to say, we are no better off than when we began. The land bill is just as far away as ever, and the trial is closer at hand. Let’s give up everything and die.”
“Die and leave the Duchess to fight it out all alone? Oh, no, that won’t do. Come, now, don’t talk so. It is all going to come out right. Now you’ll see.”
“It never will, Colonel, never in the world. Something tells me that. I get more tired and more despondent every day. I don’t see any hope; life is only just a trouble. I am so miserable, these days!”
The Colonel made Washington get up and walk the floor with him, arm in arm. The good old speculator wanted to comfort him, but he hardly knew how to go about it. He made many attempts, but they were lame; they lacked spirit; the words were encouraging; but they were only words — he could not get any heart into them. He could not always warm up, now, with the old Hawkeye fervor. By and by his lips trembled and his voice got unsteady. He said:
“Don’t give up the ship, my boy — don’t do it. The wind’s bound to fetch around and set in our favor. I know it.”
And the prospect was so cheerful that he wept. Then he blew a trumpet-blast that started the meshes of his handkerchief, and said in almost his breezy old-time way:
“Lord bless us, this is all nonsense! Night doesn’t last always; day has got to break some time or other. Every silver lining has a cloud behind it, as the poet says; and that remark has always cheered me; though — I never could see any meaning to it. Everybody uses it, though, and everybody gets comfort out of it. I wish they would start something fresh. Come, now, let’s cheer up; there’s been as good fish in the sea as there are now. It shall never be said that Beriah Sellers — Come in?”
It was the telegraph boy. The Colonel reached for the message and devoured its contents:
“I said it! Never give up the ship! The trial’s postponed till February, and we’ll save the child yet. Bless my life, what lawyers they have in New-York! Give them money to fight with and the ghost of an excuse, and they: would manage to postpone anything in this world, unless it might be the millennium or something like that. Now for work again my boy. The trial will last to the middle of March, sure; Congress ends the fourth of March. Within three days of the end of the session they will be done putting through the preliminaries then they will be ready for national business. Our bill will go through in forty-eight hours, then, and we’ll telegraph a million dollars to the jury — to the lawyers, I mean — and the verdict of the jury will be ‘Accidental murder resulting from justifiable insanity’ — or something to, that effect, something to that effect. — Everything is dead sure, now. Come, what is the matter? What are you wilting down like that, for? You mustn’t be a girl, you know.”
“Oh, Colonel, I am become so used to troubles, so used to failures, disappointments, hard luck of all kinds, that a little good news breaks me right down. Everything has been so hopeless that now I can’t stand good news at all. It is too good to be true, anyway. Don’t you see how our bad luck has worked on me? My hair is getting gray, and many nights I don’t sleep at all. I wish it was all over and we could rest. I wish we could lie down and just forget everything, and let it all be just a dream that is done and can’t come back to trouble us any more. I am so tired.”
“Ah, poor child, don’t talk like thatcheer up — there’s daylight ahead. Don’t give up. You’ll have Laura again, and — Louise, and your mother, and oceans and oceans of money — and then you can go away, ever so far away somewhere, if you want to, and forget all about this infernal place. And by George I’ll go with you! I’ll go with you — now there’s my word on it. Cheer up. I’ll run out and tell the friends the news.”
And he wrung Washington’s hand and was about to hurry away when his companion, in a burst of grateful admiration said:
“I think you are the best soul and the noblest I ever knew, Colonel Sellers! and if the people only knew you as I do, you would not be tagging around here a nameless man — you would be in Congress.”
The gladness died out of the Colonel’s face, and he laid his hand upon Washington’s shoulder and said gravely:
“I have always been a friend of your family, Washington, and I think I have always tried to do right as between man and man, according to my lights. Now I don’t think there has ever been anything in my conduct that should make you feel justified in saying a thing like that.”
He turned, then, and walked slowly out, leaving Washington abashed and somewhat bewildered. When Washington had presently got his thoughts into line again, he said to himself, “Why, honestly, I only meant to compliment him — indeed I would not have hurt him for the world.”
CHAPTER LII.
