University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
SENDING FOR MORE BEAUS.

Yes, notwithstanding the searing of many
flirtations, Mr. Hollowbread was much interested
in Josephine; and notwithstanding an
extensive and painstaking study of womankind,
he was at least equally puzzled by her.

That she could not be a needy female of
plebeian bringing-up, humbly intent on some
crumb of a clerkship in the Treasury, he had
already perceived. This fact, indeed, he had
not been able to settle upon firmly by dint
of mere optical study.

True, it was obvious enough that she had
good clothes and a stylish air; but then
American women of all classes are apt to
caparison themselves well, and to possess
some refinement of bearing and expression;
and even our representative of the people
had occasionally been beguiled into temporarily
respecting a milliner as if she were
the daughter of a social grandee; a sort of

blunder, by-the-way, which mortified him,
even when he liked the milliner.

But before Josephine had uttered five sentences
he had taken note of her cultivated
voice, and had set her down for a lady.
There was no mistaking that neat, distinct,
musical, delightful enunciation, without a
stammer of awkwardness or a mince of affectation.
It was as different, he thought,
from the whining, drawling and mumbling
of the lowly bred as is the step of a gentleman
from the shuffle of a clod-hopper.

Nevertheless, he had observed (with satisfaction,
we may add) that she was an audacious
flirt. He could not quite understand
how she could belong on the select heights
of society and yet coquet with him so promptly
and forwardly as she had done. It occurred
to him that she might be making game
of him; and this thought led him to glance
at her once suspiciously and almost sternly.

He knew that he was elderly, and that
young people often scoff at old beaus; and
consequently he felt a little—just a little—
shy of being drawn into positions which
might subject him to rebuffs; for rebuffs he
had sometimes encountered, even in office-worshiping
Washington. Once — and his
honorable blood boiled as he remembered it
—a mere Treasury girl had slapped his face
for—for just nothing at all, as he put it to
himself.

But on second thoughts it did not seem
possible that this gracious and patrician
creature would beguile a mature stranger
into conversation with the vulgar intent of
giving him a humiliation. She must have
had some serious purpose in volunteering
speech, in alluring him onward with that
intimate tone of gayety, and in hinting at
a confidence, so that he felt encouraged to
continue the dialogue and to give it a cant
toward love-making.

On the whole, he felt safer in adventuring
with ladies than with women of low degree.
The former were clever enough to divine him
without blunt explanations, and they would
know how to check him without punching
his head.

“Of course,” he said to himself—“of course
she wants something, and I shall have to get
it for her. I wonder if it will cost me much
trouble?” he grumblingly added, for he was
an indolent old public functionary, and hated
to pay for even his coquetries in hard work.

“I am most anxious, perhaps I may venture
to say impetuously anxious, to know
what your confession can be about,” he continued,
aloud, looking at Josephine with a
sort of trained and veteran tenderness, such
as sexagenarian eyes are capable of.

“And I want very much to have you want
to know it,” she laughed, prettily. “When
I think that your curiosity is really intolerable,
then perhaps I will tell you something.”

“There is no use in rubbing a match which
is already lighted,” he said. “You are more
likely to put it out than to make it burn
better.”

Josephine knew a clever speech when she
heard it, and she admired clever speeches
very much. She was so pleased with Hollowbread's
simile of the lighted match, that
she felt tempted to reward him for it by
telling him her secret at once. But on second
thoughts it seemed wisest not to confide
such a weighty matter to him until she
knew him better and could entirely trust his
good-will.

“That is very well,” she nodded with her
intelligent little head in an approving manner.
“That is just as nicely said as can
be. But you must keep alight a few days
longer. When we meet again—when society
has introduced us ceremoniously—then I
will see.”

“But how am I to look you up and plead
for this introduction unless I know your
name?”

“My name is—do you think I am going to
say Norval?—no, it is Murray.”

Mr. Hollowbread bowed reverentially, but
he looked a little blank. Of the hundred
thousand souls of Washington, he, of course,
knew only a few hundred, and he could not,
at the moment, remember that any one of
them was a Murray.

“I suppose that you political people are
rarely acquainted with clergymen.”

“We are most anxious to be acquainted
with them. Slander asserts that we need
their intimacy.”

“I am a niece of the Reverend John Murray,
of St. Albans.”

Mr. Hollowbread bowed again; here was
solid social footing at last; here was unclouded
respectability.

“I shall hereafter hear him preach every
Sunday,” he said, with decorous gayety.

“I wouldn't, if I were you. He is a good
and nice man, but he isn't at his best in
preaching.”

“I shall at least have the pleasure of looking
at his family pew,” added Mr. Hollowbread,
smiling pointedly at the young lady
who would be one of the occupants of that
inclosure.

“The family pew shall show what gratitude
pews can feel.”

Mr. Hollowbread, despite of all his seasoning
experiences with womanhood, began to
be afraid of this young creature. She was
so self-possessed, so prompt in reply, and, as
it seemed to him, so clever, that she was
downright alarming. She had as yet said
nothing disagreeable; but suppose she should
try her adroit wits at that business? It was
clear enough to him that if she chose to be
satirical she could take the skin off. Nevertheless,
her manner was so lady-like, and her
smile was so encouraging, that he ventured
one more advance:

“I don't see how looking at the rector's
pew will enable me to call at the rector's
house.”

“Nor I,” she laughed, and continued to
watch him roguishly; but with a roguishness
which was very enticing.

“I shall have to discover some friend who
knows the family, and who will do me the
great favor of presenting me.”

“I hope you will not find it difficult,” responded
the audacious Josephine.

“No obstacles shall balk me,” affirmed Mr.
Hollowbread, absolutely coloring—the delighted
old lady-killer—with pride and pleasure.

After that there was much further talk,
all of an agreeable, amicable nature, and
some of it quite flattering to Hollowbread.
It was a long time since he had had such an
exciting, fascinating adventure with such a
young and pretty and bright and aristocratic
woman. To be sure, he did not yet know at
all what he was to do with her, nor quite what
he wanted to do. Youthful as she was, she
could hardly think of being his wife; and,
on his part, he had not the least notion of
getting married. In fact, he hardly looked
into the future at all; he was simply basking
in the coquettish present. It was delicious
to be saying nice things to a lovely lady
of not more than twenty-two, who did not
resent or repel or evade his elderly courtship
a bit, and who, on the contrary, seemed to
relish it not a little.

But, in being thus gracious, Josephine had
other objects in view than merely securing
the present company and future acquaintance
of Hollowbread. After a time she began
to talk of Mr. Drummond, and of Mr.
Beauman, and even of the as yet unseen Mr.
Bradford.

“Was Mr. Beauman a member of Congress?”
she inquired.

No; Mr. Beauman was not a member, he
stated; Mr. Beauman was a gentleman in
search of diplomatic duty; he was likely to
go abroad before long.

“Mr. Drummond is a member,” she continued;
“and, by-the-way, he must be from
my district. I think I have heard that our
representative is a Mr. Sykes Drummond.”

“Ah, indeed!” carelessly responded Hollowbread,
who was not anxious to be sent
after Drummond. “Probably, then, this is
the man—the rather loud-talking person
who spoke to me some time ago—a little
rough in his manners, you may have noticed.”

Josephine perceived that her companion
did not like Drummond, and she turned
aside from the subject for a little.

“I am not acquainted with him,” she said.
The only Congressman whom I know is Mr.
Bradford. He is an old acquaintance and
friend. I should really like to see him.”

This hint, although a disagreeable one to
Hollowbread, was so plain that he could not
evade it.

“If you will excuse me a moment, I will
go and search for Mr. Bradford,” he volunteered,
if it could be called volunteering
when he was thus crowded up to the business.

“Oh, I am so sorry to trouble you!” she
apologized; but as she flashed her eyes upon
him, both flatteringly and imploringly, the
poor man could do nothing but go.

Had he looked behind him and seen the
smile with which she contemplated his expansive
back, he would have been indignant;
and had she followed him and discovered
the trick which he played upon her, she also
might have lost her temper, sweet as it was.
Mr. Hollowbread, steadying himself by the
seats, marched with ponderous procrastination
down the alley, set his beaver on firmly
before opening the door, got himself over the
connecting gangway as carefully as if he
were an elephant, and, continuing to journey
in the leisurely fashion of a procession or a
caravan, at last arrived in the presence of
Messrs. Drummond, Bradford, and Beauman.

“How de do, Bradford?” he sighed out in
a husky way, and sat down to take his ease.

“Ah! Mr. Chairman of Finance!” replied
Bradford; “glad to see you here. We have
business with you.”

Bradford, by-the-way, was a man of about
twenty-eight, well built, and above the average
height, with regular and slightly florid
features, straight hair of a light chestnut
color, contemplative and poetical hazel eyes,
and a strangely varying expression of face,
sometimes absolutely feminine in its sweetness,
sometimes resolute, imperious, and almost
combative. It seemed as if he must
be in temper and character a mixture, or,
perhaps, one might say, an alternation of
man and woman.

“Oh, bother business!” groaned Mr. Hollowbread,
as if he had nothing on his mind,
and wished for nothing there.

“Bradford and I are a unit,” said Drummond.
“We both think the same small-beer
of your bill for issuing more counterfeit
money—haw, haw!” he added, with one of
his insolent bursts of merriment. “There
is too much water in our financial whisky
already. Every drop that you add only
spoils the punch. We shall vote against
you.”

“I am sorry for it, gentlemen,” sighed
Hollowbread, who rather hated the subject,
even when people agreed with him on it.
Small-talk was his forte, and he ought to
have been on the House Gossiping Committee,
if there is such a thing. “I am exceedingly
sorry for it, on your account. You
will get yourselves at loggerheads with the
American people.”

“If the American people wants more debased
money, it is an ass,” loudly affirmed

Drummond, with another of his insolent
horse-laughs, scattering chopped feed and
bran, as it were, in the face and eyes of his
senior.

Mr. Hollowbread simply yawned and
breathed hard, as if he were utterly weary
of the topic. He hated Drummond, and considered
him an insolent, noisy brute, and never
talked to him when he could help it.

“Of course we understand that increasing
the volume of irredeemable currency doesn't
increase the amount of money in the country,”
put in Bradford. “You diminish the
purchasing power of the paper dollars just
in proportion as you add to their number.”

“I know that,” rather sulkily conceded
Hollowbread. “I suppose that only our
carpet-baggers and wild-cat members, and
self-made gentry, are ignorant of that. But
my policy is not one of permanent inflation.
It is an alternation of judicious inflation
and judicious contraction. For instance, I
would make money abundant, to move the
crops, and then draw it in again after they
have got East.”

“In other words, when the Western farmers
are selling their corn you would debase
the currency, so as to let New York pay them
a few cents less on the bushel. But when
those same farmers come to pay for their
winter and spring goods, you would tighten
the money market, so as to fleece them a
little on every axe and shovel. Up to a certain
point the plan works well for the middlemen
and the speculators, and the manufacturers
and the importers; but how does
it work for the farmers? If they knew just
what you are trying to do, they would curse
the day when you were born.”

“The great West is all for an issue of the
greenback reserve,” seemed to Mr. Hollowbread
a sufficing answer. “I agree with it.
The reserve should be issuable. We must
have an elastic end to our currency.”

“A coin currency, with one end of the
rope in our gold-mines and the other in the
markets of Europe, is the only elastic one
possible.”

“We can make one out of paper.”

“Let me give you a plan,” said Bradford.
“Enter into a monetary convention
with Austria. Agree to take her shin-plasters
if she will take ours. Then when we
run short of paper dollars, we can call in a
few hundred millions of paper swanzigers,
and vice versa. There would be a sort of
elasticity in that, especially if each Government
printed and issued vigorously, to get
ahead of the other, or to move the crops.”

“Haw! haw!” roared Drummond, who
was quite able to enjoy another man's cleverness
when it heaped scorn upon still another
man.

“Of course that is pushing the idea to an
absurdity,” returned Hollowbread, addressing
himself to Bradford, and turning his Aja
cean shield of a back upon Drummond. “I
understand as well as any man the folly of
the phrase `cheap money.”'

“Then why not explain the folly of it to
your fellow-inflationists?” demanded Bradford.
“There is your Sea Island friend,
Chevalier, elocutionizing away for cheap
money, and swearing that the South must
have it or collapse. Has he forgotten the
time when he had cheap money, and when
it took a bale of it to buy a bale of cotton?”

“Oh, Chevalier explains that what he
wants is cheap interest,” grinned Hollowbread,
the false-hearted trimmer, who had
pretended to support Chevalier in debate.

“Then let him demand specie payments,”
exclaimed Bradford. “A debased currency
always raises the rate of interest. If you dilute
a man's capital down to half its value,
and pay him his interest in diluted money
worth fifty cents on the dollar, of course he
must double his interest to keep his income
at the old level, and he will get as much
more as possible to recover the loss on his
principal.”

“There is no use in arguing with these
dunces, Mr. Bradford,” sighed Hollowbread.
“They are carried away by the phrase
`cheap money,' and can't be made to see the
nonsense of it. They will have it, this bogus
money. And I bow. I may not agree
with the sovereign people's opinion, but I
feel bound to bow to it.”

“And I don't. We are not representatives
of the people in the sense of representing
its ignorance.”

“We are not representatives of the people
at all,” laughed Drummond. “We are representatives
of the wire-pullers and log-rollers
who run the primary meetings.”

“Gentlemen, I don't know that I care to
argue so many huge questions as you raise,”
smiled Mr. Hollowbread, with the air of a
man who knows how wise he is in evading
the trouble of showing useless wisdom.
“What I am positive about,” he added,
counterfeiting a yawn, “is that the palace-car
is a better one to snooze in than this. I
shall return to my bower.”

Thereupon, without saying a word to
Bradford or Drummond concerning Josephine
Murray's desire to see them, he blandly
made his way back to her. Her countenance
fell a little when he re-appeared unattended,
but she was intelligent enough not to express
her disappointment in words.

“Those fellows have really been very ingenious
in hiding themselves,” he sighed,
puffily, as if he had been hunting them at
full speed. “One would think that they
had jumped off the cars.”

“Do Congressmen often do that?” asked
Josephine.

“Very frequently—when they are disappointed
in love,” smiled Mr. Hollowbread.
“Who knows how I shall end!”