University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
COUNTING UNHATCHED CHICKENS.

“Mr. Hollowbread!” stared Mrs. Warden,
marveling that Josie had chosen, as her
champion, an old gentleman instead of one
of the youthful Solons whom she was in the
habit of selecting—first one, and then another,
or, perhaps, half a dozen together—for the
future service and glory of her daughter.

“You could not possibly do better,” she
immediately added, well pleased that her
coquettish young friend should be so easily
contented, and hoping that she might stay

so. “Mr. Hollowbread is one of the solid
old members—one of the most respectable
men, for ability and character, that we have
—and really worth having for a backer, I do
assure you. But is he interested — bewitched
and bewildered—already?” she asked, a
sudden pang of jealousy shooting through
her heart at the thought that this rival claim
might win before her own.

Thereupon Josie narrated the adventures
of the previous evening, including every one
of Mr. Hollowbread's gentilities and duckings.
She told the tale in her incomparable
style, flinging it out in a perfect torrent of
unhesitating, gleeful prattle, and giggling
the while with the malicious fun of those
demi-gods (if there be such) who pass their
time in laughing at poor humanity.

There are rare persons, and usually they
are, I believe, women, who have this talent
of brisk, dashing, irresistible narration — a
talent which comes to them by fits and starts,
and which has an air of inspiration. It is
useless to describe them; it is impossible to
give an adequate report of them; the charm
lies in the fluency and in the manner. The
delivery of a comic passage by a first-class
actor can alone render a fair idea of this extraordinary
natural power. Mrs. Warden
laughed over the Hollowbread disasters until
she screamed and cried, and held her
hands to her sides. Even Belle, though disposed
to criticise Josie for her traveling
freedoms, could not help being amused.

“There is no fool like an old fool,” commented
Mrs. Warden at last, not in the least
meaning herself, though a flirt at forty-five.

“That is no compliment to Mrs. Murray,”
said Belle, recovering her self-possession so
far as to disapprove of that lady, and to desire
to give her a little dig.

“We can't choose who shall like us,” answered
the mother. “You don't admire Mr.
Hamilton Bray, and yet he admires you.”

This, by-the-way, was a reference to a
courtship which Mrs. Warden wanted to discourage,
as not offering an alliance grand
enough for her daughter. It has doubtless
been observed already that she was excessively
proud of Belle, and in her waspish way
very fond of her.

“Oh, do let Mr. Bray pass!” pouted the
girl. “I don't like even to hear about him.
You needn't be afraid that we shall ever
come to terms. We disagree too much on a
subject that he takes a great interest in. He
thinks he is amazingly clever, and I think
he isn't.”

“He is clever enough to admire you,
miss,” bragged mamma.

“Oh, that doesn't require any cleverness,”
put in Josie, normally quick at a compliment,
and in the present case anxious to please.

“Josie Murray, you are an angel!” said
the elder lady. “Now to pay you for that,
we will go back to Mr. Hollowbread. I ad
vise you to keep him in view. Among other
things, he is very rich. Oh, yes, indeed! A
million or so — that is, so every body says.
He might answer for a husband, if you don't
mind hair-dye and some other extras.”

“Is he so rich?” stared our heroine.
“Then what does he stay in Congress for?”

“Why, what would you have him do?”
asked Mrs. Warden, who had long since been
bitten by the Washington madness, and
thought politics the noblest of earthly pursuits.

“If I were a rich man, I would never do
a stitch of work,” was the sybaritic answer.
“I would spend my money; I would have a
palatial residence; I would give dinners and
parties; I would take the lead in society;
I would swing between New York and Europe.
Why, it would be sufficient occupation
and amusement for one year to build
and fit up and furnish one's own house,”
continued this little worldling, who, in trying
to imagine herself a man, remained a
woman. “Such houses as they are getting
now in the upper part of New York! Oh,
they have improved greatly since you were
there. Every year makes a difference for
the better. I know a dozen, twenty—perhaps
fifty—residences, where the mere front-doors
cost from five hundred to a thousand
dollars each. Now, imagine what you go
into when you pass through a thousand dollars
to get to it. It is something like the
palace of Aladdin, or Solomon's Temple.”

Mrs. Warden, and even her graver, wiser
daughter, was evidently interested. The
woman of our day is fascinated by the
mere idea of lavishing money in profusion.
Doubtless the reason is not far to seek; it is
no longer her business to earn, but merely
to spend; she has ceased to be a producer,
and become merely a consumer. The fault
lies not upon any individual, but upon all
society.

“Heavenly doors!” pursued Josie, warming
with her subject. “Panelings and carvings
three inches deep; plaques of bronze
from France; windows in Bohemian glass!
And then you go in over parquetries of oak
and black-walnut, laid in lozenges and all
sorts of patterns. I like encaustic tiles the
best, though. I wish you could see some
of the hall - chairs they make now. Mr.
Griper Jinks's chairs have griffins at the sides
supporting the family shield (he has ancestors
just about as much as an ape), and they
are all of the most elaborately carved oak
and rose-wood, and cost a hundred apiece.
Stair-carpets are Aubusson, now fifteen dollars
a yard, though the Dutch rugs are coming
in. Wilton has completely gone out.
Room carpets are generally Aubusson, made
to order, fifteen dollars the yard. Mrs. Jared
Jones's suite of three parlors used up about
one thousand dollars in carpets alone. And
the pier-glasses cost as much more.”

“It is wicked,” said Belle.

“Yes; think of the heathen, who might
be converted with only one pier - glass,” laughed Josie.

“I wish I could be as sinful,” sighed Mrs.
Warden, her black eyes sparkling with both
pleasure and envy. “Well, when my claim
comes in! Mr. Jared Jones is dead, isn't
he? What are curtains made of now?”

“Lace, damask, satin — any thing,” answered
Josie. “Yes, Mr. Jared Jones is
dead. Lambrequins and draperies are in
style, if you fancy them; and of course most
people do.”

“Do poor people fancy them much?” asked
Belle.

“Pshaw! what have poor people to do
with it?” sputtered mamma, impatient at
this interruption to the fairy tale. “They
get their living by making these very things,
and that is enough for them. Of course one
wants lambrequins or draperies.”

“Yes, a window looks bare with nothing
but lace,” agreed Josie. “Brussels costs
one hundred and twenty-five dollars a window,
and Cluny insertion two hundred. But
I know some houses — Mrs. Manikin's and
old Griper Jinks's, for instance—where they
have real-thread lace, fifteen hundred dollars
a window! Put on six hundred for damask
and two hundred for lambrequins, and you
get something worth making a courtesy to.
Just think of it! twenty-three hundred dollars
a window—forty-six hundred dollars
for the two!” exclaimed the penniless Cleopatra,
her mouth absolutely watering.
“And then the furniture—oh! They make
chair-covers now of Gobelin or Cretonne;
you can imagine the cost. And the furniture
is suitable — two thousand dollars a
room! And that is nothing. I know one
ebony cabinet, inlaid with ivory, that came
to two thousand; and then there are tables
of inlaid marquetry and tables of Florentine
mosaic, some of them twelve or fifteen hundred
apiece; all sorts of lovely gimcracks at
fabulous prices. Twenty-five hundred dollars
is moderate for the fitting-up of a parlor
in mere chairs, sofas, and upholstery; there
are some which cost ten times that. And
this, mind you, doesn't include the statues
and pictures and bronzes, and albums of engravings,
and that sort of artistic finishing.
Oh, when you come to that, there is no footing
it up. A real first-class, tip-top, nobby
and snobby New York parlor represents a
fortune. Of course I don't mean that people
in good style keep all their art in their
parlors. Every body who is any body has a
gallery, now. But I never cared so much
for walls full of paintings. They are very
pretty, and of course they are chic. But I
should be satisfied with a handsome suite
of rooms, say three parlors; and well fitted
up, say ten or twenty thousand apiece.”

“I should be satisfied with less,” sighed
Mrs. Warden, who knew by experience how
hard it is to get money, even in small quantities.

Belle said nothing. She had no special
taste for expenditure, and could not catch
fire at the thought of it. It was wonderful
that such a straightforward, sensible, judicial
young person should be the child of such
an excitable, adventurous, flirtish, sly old
pussy-cat as Mrs. Hooker Warden.

The explanation is that Belle was in every
respect, physically and intellectually and
morally, the image of her deceased father,
James Warden, a lawyer of more than ordinary
ability, who had been too conscientious
to plead unjust causes, and who had won fees
and fame but slowly. This resemblance the
mother had often noted and lamented, with
a sarcastic, impatient, whimsical pathos worthy
of study rather than of sympathy.

“Belle is James all over,” she often said.
“It is like being married twice to the same
man. I wish to gracious that my girl had
been born a boy. She is altogether too gentlemanly
for petticoats. There was a mistake
somewhere, and it will always keep us
in a muddle. As a man, she would be perfect;
but as a woman, she is a failure. If
she would only use her beauty, as other handsome
girls do, she could have any body, or
do any thing. But she won't use it — she
won't!”

To return to the interview between the
three ladies, we will say that there was much
more delightful discourse about palatial residences,
their outfittings, and their occupants.
Cornices and ceilings were described and discussed;
so were frescoes, of course in oil-colors
and of Italian delineation; so were crystal
finger-plates and bronze door-knobs and
sconces; so were dinner-sets and breakfast-sets
and tea-sets; so were dresses and bonnets.

And the chain which linked all these luxurious
items—the sentiment which made this
conversation a delight to the speakers—was
not an appreciation of art or of perfect handiwork,
but satisfaction in mere outlay. It
was the cost, the expenditure, the ostentatious
extravagance, which made Josie Murray
smack her lips, so to speak, as she discoursed
of New York grandeur.

Listening to her frequent reference to the
price of things, one could easily divine the
feeling which had brought her to Washington,
and set her feet in the ways of the claimant.
She desired money, and was willing to
obtain money in any permitted fashion, for
the mere purpose of making a show with it.
Satan himself, after six thousand years of going
up and down in the earth, and walking
to and fro in it, could hardly have been more
worldly.

As for Mrs. Warden, we must do her the
justice to state that, while she was quite as
covetous in her longings, and as little punctilious

as to the ways and means of satisfying
them, the leading motive of her rapacity
was love for her daughter, a trait amiable
even in a harpy.

“But, my dear, business before pleasure,”
said Mrs. W., at last. “We must stop talking
about these fine things, and see how we
are to get them. I shall have to introduce
you to some Congressmen of the available
sort. Your excellent relatives are dreadfully
other-worldly, as you say, and won't take
you among the people you need to know.
The only political principalities and powers
that they consort with are such old-styled
grandees as Senator Ledyard and Representative
Payson, who never touch any thing
but national measures, and put their moral
pocket-handkerchiefs to their noses when
they see a private claim. Mr. Hollowbread,
too, he wants to belong to that monastic set,
and, moreover, he is a kind of Mr. Facing-Both-Ways,
and, finally, he is as slow as an
armadillo. Honestly, I don't believe you can
get much good work out of the creature.”

“I have claims on two others,” said Josie.
“Edgar Bradford is a very old friend of mine,
and Mr. Sykes Drummond is member from
my district.”

Mrs. Warden's great black eyes snapped
and sparkled with jealousy. Bradford was
one of the chiefest of the promising young
men whom she intended for Belle; and Drummond
she had settled upon as one who might
do, in case all his betters should fail. She
was an odd woman, was Mrs. Warden, and
her jealous vanity was one of her queerest
streaks.

It is a whimsical but serious fact that she
could on occasion set her own dowager cap
at Bradford, Drummond, and other youth
with a pertness which gave them both entertainment
and uneasiness. A doting parent,
but an untamable old flirt, she would
labor in one moment to make a market for
Belle, and in the next to cut her out.

We may as well mention here that Bradford
had a profound respect and an almost
tender liking for the daughter, qualified by a
considerable disesteem for the unwise, scheming,
coquetting, grinning mother.

“Dear me, don't I know them?” exclaimed
Mrs. Warden, with a smirk which claimed
intimacy and almost ownership. “Drummond
is here very frequently; and as for
Edgar Bradford—you must ask Belle about
him.”

“I have nothing in the world to tell you
about him, Mrs. Murray,” snapped the young
lady appealed to; “that is, nothing special.
He is a very fine man—at least, in some
things. Colonel Julian Murray has a high
opinion of him, and says he will make a noble
Congressman.”

“How you do quote Colonel Murray forever
and forever!” put in Mrs. Warden, jealous
of every body whom her child admired.
“You have such a passion for fussy, fastidious
red-tapists! I wish he would help us
untie our red-tape; then I would admire
him.”

“You admire him as it is, mamma,” said
Belle; and truly enough, for Mrs. Warden's
cap was often pointed at the colonel; “and
I do believe that you respect him more than
you would if he should push our absurd
claim.”

“Absurd!” flamed out the mother, as ready
to argue for her appropriation with a woman
or with a baby as with a Congressman, so
nearly had she become a monomaniac on the
subject.

“Oh, well, never mind about that,” pursued
the girl, in a tone which was doubtless
too impatient and quelling for a daughter.
“But as for Mr. Bradford, it certainly is absurd
to refer Mrs. Murray to me for information
about him. I dare say she knows him
far better than I do.”

“Oh no!” protested Josie.

But she could hardly help smiling as she
uttered this denial. She remembered how
she had in other days felt the young man's
arm around her waist and his mustache
against her cheek. She knew him better
than she had ever known any male being,
except her late husband, “poor Augustus.”

“But Mr. Bradford will be no help to you,
I am afraid, my dear,” insinuated Mrs. Warden,
who was far too sly herself to believe
Josie's “Oh no,” and remained jealous. “He
has a young man's fancy for being a national-measure
Congressman, and he frowns on
claimants in general, though he is civil to
us. You had better see what you can do
with Mr. Hollowbread, and perhaps keep an
eye on Sykes Drummond. There is Mr.
Bowie, too. Southern members are very
useful in these days. They are mostly carpet-baggers,
you know, and want their share
of what is going. It is dreadfully shabby,
of course. A Congressman ought not to
take any thing for getting a claimant's money,
especially a lady's; but they do. I am
sorry to say it, for the honor of my country.
That is, a good many of them do, and one
has to put up with it. There is precious
little of pure justice and honor in these
days. You will find it out when you have
toiled and moiled inside politics as I have
for the last six or eight sessions.”

“Six or eight sessions!” exclaimed Josie.
“If it takes as long as that—well, I sha'n't
be as young as I am now, for one thing.”

“What better can one do? It is great
fun,” answered the veteran intriguer, a lobbyist
who had learned to love lobbying, notwithstanding
an unprofitable experience of
it.

“One might get married,” suggested Josie.

“You can do that en passant; it might be
the wisest thing. After all, there is no man
who will work for one like one's own husband.

What with law and custom and public
opinion to push him, a husband does
pretty well, and he sticks. At all events, he
is generally better by far than any one else.
After studying the world a good deal, I have
come to the conclusion that there is no man
so useful as a husband.”

“Why don't you get married yourself?”
smilingly inquired Josie.

“Because I should posion the man,” broke
in Belle. “I don't agree with my mother
half the time, but I won't share her with
any body.'

Mrs. Warden leaned forward and slapped
her daughter on the shoulder in a petting
fashion.

“But I shall get my claim without going
up the aisle for it, and that will be nicer,”
she laughed. “Oh, you needn't shake your
head, Belle; I know that I shall get it. I
can fix the exact amount. I shall get just
one hundred thousand dollars.”

“I hope so,” said Josie; “but there will
be nothing left for me.”

“One grant is an argument for another,”
judged Mrs. Warden. “Besides, we must
join hands; we must work together. Meet
us at the President's reception to-morrow
evening, and I will introduce you to ever
so many useful people. Tell Colonel Julian
Murray from me that he must take you
there; and get the rector and his wife to
go. The more respectably you are escorted,
the better you will start in your business.
Nice people in Washington are just good for
that, to help along people who can't afford
to be quite so nice.”

“And so you will chaperon me? A thousand
thanks!” said Josie, gratefully, as she
took her leave.