University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

NO miracle having of late been performed for
the benefit of Dorman (who, indeed, may
have been altogether beyond the pale of heavenly
interferences), he was as ungraciously fashioned
and as disagreeably discolored as ever.

Earthly soap and water, it seemed, could not
wash away that suspicious smear of charcoal and
ashes which constituted his complexion, or which,
perhaps, only hid its real tint.

Blurred, blotched, smoke-dried, wilted, uneasy,
and agile, he looked and acted, as he had always
looked and acted, to mortal eyes, like either a
singed monkey or a bleached goblin, who had
some unquenched sparks on his hide that would
not let him be quiet.

To this brownie in bad preservation the person
who accompanied him offered a pleasing contrast.
He was a man of near seventy, but still slender

in build and of an upright carriage; his face was
long, venerably wrinkled, firm in expression, and
yet unctuous with mildness and benevolence; his
hair was long, straight, thin, and of a gray which
verged on the reverend gloss of pure whiteness;
his whole an was marked by a curious staidness
and circumspectness which seemed to promise
ascetic virtue. One would have said that here
was a soul which had dwelt long on the pillar of
self-sacrifice. If there was a certain sharpness
amounting almost to cunning in the half-shut,
faded, cold gray eyes, it might have been acquired,
of course, by wary spying into the ambushes of
this wicked world, and be only a proof of that
serpent-like wisdom which goes properly with the
harmlessness of the dove. If there was a show
of grip about the close-shut mouth, as though it
could hang on to an advantage like a mastiff to a
bone, perhaps it might have resulted from a
dogged struggle to hold fast to the right. On
the whole, this gentleman's appearance was well
calculated to inspire instant and entire confidence,
providing the beholder were disposed by education
to put faith in exteriors of the Puritanized
cast.

“How are you, Vane?” exclaimed Dorman, cordially
extending one of those hands which had
such an air of having been rubbed in a fireplace.
“Glad to see you at last where you belong; glad
to see one right man in the right place. Let me
make you acquainted with the Honorable Mr.
Sharp, one of the leading members from the good
old Whetstone State,” he explained referring to
a well-known Commonwealth. “Of course you
have heard of Mr. Simon Sharp, the great financier
and practical statesman. Mr. Sharp, this is
honest John Vane, the workingman's man, the
plain people's man. By Beelzebub!” he added
(for he had very odd fashions of swearing), “I'm
glad to bring you two gentlemen together. You
both travel the honest track. You'll make a
team.”

Mr. Vane and Mr. Sharp shook hands respectfully,
and said what pleasant things they could

think of. Our member noted with some surprise
that his famous and puissant visitor had a singularly
soft, ingratiating, obsequious, nay, even
sycophantic utterance, and that his manner was
not only deferential, but slightly anxious and
nervous and embarrassed, as if he were a needy
tradesman eager to propitiate a difficult customer.
Moreover, he was unctuously and little less than
stickily profuse in compliments, pouring them
forth with a liberality which reminded one of oil
dripping from a castor-bean press. He repeated
over and over such lubricating commonplaces as,
“I thank you truly, Mr. Vane. You are really
much too kind. You do me too high an honor.
This from you, my dear sir, is more than I
deserve. I am delighted to have the pleasure of
your acquaintance. I hope to learn statesmanship
from you, sir. I trust that you will find me
a zealous scholar. We have all been, as it were,
waiting for you. O, thank you kindly!” when a
seat was urged upon him. “You are really too
urbane and thoughtful. I thank you heartily.”

At last, emerging with difficulty from a wilderness
of bowings and scrapings, they all three got
settled creakily on such unstable chairs as the
dingy parlor afforded. Mr. Dorman now opened
his dry, blackened, baked lips, and took the lead
in the conversation.

“Just in Washington, Vane. I came on about
my little job, and I thought I'd drop in to see
how you found yourself; and as I was strolling
along I met Friend Sharp.”

Here he glanced at that worthy person, who
was thereby driven to nod and smile in confirmation
of the tale, although the fact was that Dorman
had looked him up at his residence and
besought him eagerly to call on Vane.

“And it's a lucky circumstance, I think,” continued
Darius, with one of his unpleasing smiles,
—a grimace which seemed to express suffering
rather than joy, as though he had sat down upon
an unhealed burn. “You see, Friend Sharp is
one of the oldest sailors in this ship of state, and

knows all the ropes, and the way to the caboose,
and everything.”

“O, Mr. Dorman! you do me too much honor!”
put in Mr. Sharp, with a meek, uneasy
air. “I scarcely know a rope, and know nothing
about the caboose. You are really too obliging.
But you mean a compliment, and I thank you
kindly.”

“I must have my little joke,” winked Darius.
“Well, at any rate, Friend Sharp is a man who
knows how to keep out of traps and to show
others how to steer clear of them. Now you,
Vane, have got a great measure on your mind
and conscience. It's a great and good measure;
there's no use in disputing it. The only question
is, whether it is best to push it now, or
wait awhile. Will hurrying it up do good or do
harm? Mr. Simon Sharp is just the person to
tell you.”

“Well, gentlemen,” said Vane, with an elevating
sense of making a revelation, while the truth
was that Sharp already knew all about his proposed

bill—“well, gentlemen, I want to abolish
the franking privilege.”

The member from the old Whetstone State
bowed, stretched out one of his smiles into an
adulatory grin, and whispered in his greasiest
voice, “Certainly, Mr. Vane, certainly!”

“You agree with me!” rejoiced Honest John.
“Well, I'm glad of securing one leading voice in
the House.”

“In principle—in principle,” Mr. Sharp continued
to grin; “yes, in principle I entirely agree
with you. You have suggested a measure which
touches my conscience, and I need not say that
I thank you kindly. You will find many sympathizers
with your idea in Congress, sir. All honest,
fair-minded, intelligent, and patriotic members
long to do away with that expensive nuisance
which so corrupts our national morality and
overloads our mail-bags. The trouble is that the
fellows who want a re-election—” And here the
good soul shook his venerable head sadly over

the character of the fellows who wanted a re-election.

“But ain't there enough popular men and sound
patriots to carry it, in spite of those chaps?” asked
Vane, anxiously.

“You see, there are so many who want a re-election!”
explained Mr. Sharp, gently. “In fact,
almost everybody gets around to that state of
mind after two years.”

“Do you mean to say that all Congressmen
think of is how to get another term?” exclaimed
Honest John, rather indignant at the insinuation.

“No, no, by no means!” implored the Whetstone
State representative. “Pray don't understand
me as even suggesting such a calumny.
They think of many other things,” he added,
remembering certain objects of general interest
which he did not choose to mention; “but this
particular measure, you see—the stoppage of electioneering
documents, etc.—touches every man's
chances in the end.”

“I see it does,” grumbled our upright and

brave member. “But what has that got to do
with a fellow's duty?”

This allusion to duty may not have seemed
germane or important to Mr. Sharp; at all events
he did not give himself the trouble to oil it with
any commentaries.

“Horace Greeley worked at this abuse for
years,” he pursued. “Horace was an honest
politician and a very potent editor. He did his
best, and he failed.”

“And you mean to say that a man who isn't
a shaving to Horace Greeley won't succeed any
better than he did,” inferred John Vane, with a
lowliness which shows that he had some sense.

“I don't mean to say that you are only a
shaving to Mr. Greeley,” responded Mr. Sharp,
politely. “By no means, sir. On the contrary,
you quite remind me of Mr. Greeley,” he added,
running his eyes over Vane's cherubic face and
portly figure. “He was not so well-favored a
man as you, sir; but still you remind me of him,
—remind me very agreeably. Both self-made

men, also; I say it with profound respect.” He
bowed here, and indeed he kept bowing all the
while, like an earthenware mandarin. “And both
honest, known to the world as such, eminent for
it!” he emphasized, with a grin which could have
bitten a quarter out of a mince-pie. “Ah, well, sir!
so much the worse!” he resumed. “An honest
man can't do away with the franking privilege.
A rogue might, for he would offer something in
place of it, and so, perhaps, carry his point by
a sort of bargain. No, Mr. Vane; you must
really excuse me for contradicting your honorable
hopes, but a gentleman of your character can't
repeal the franking privilege,—at least not for
years to come. That is my sorrowful, but candid
belief.”

John Vane stared at Mr. Simon Sharp with
wonder and dismay. The venerable man had
begun all right on this matter, and then in the
most rational and natural manner, had ended all
wrong. Was this the way that people learned to

reason by dint of sitting for several terms in
Congress?

“If you could only become useful,—generally
useful, you understand,—you might try your bill
with some chance of success,” resumed Mr. Sharp,
after some moments of meditation. “A man
who is known to be useful,”—and he laid a very
strong emphasis on the word,—“such a man can
propose almost anything, and carry—well, carry
something.”

“Well, how can I get to be useful?” inquired
the zealous neophyte from Slowburgh.

“I'll tell you,” smiled the veteran, at the same
time hitching his chair forward confidentially, as
if being useful were a sort of patent-right or
other precious secret, not to be communicated to
the public.