Playing the mischief :: :: University of Virginia Library

During the last forty-eight hours Mr. Hollowbread
had forgiven his lovely traveling
companion for laughing at his duckings, and
had come to long to see her once more.

He had discovered her some minutes before
her eyes fell upon him, and had made
himself very disagreeable to a number of
persons in his efforts to reach her.

Her beckoning gesture redoubled his energy;
he separated wives from husbands,
parents from children, and button-holing
constituents from members; he burst
through tons and tons of crowding humanity,
and placed himself by her side.

“I am so delighted!” exclaimed Josie,

with a trill and a quiver, as if words alone
could not express all her joy. “What a
piece of good luck to meet you, and just
when I needed some one terribly!” she added,
letting her limpid eyes dwell steadily
upon his, as if they were fascinated by his
watery gaze. “You know all my friends
here? Isn't that nice! And now can you
introduce me to the President?”

“I shall be proud to do so,” declared Mr.
Hollowbread, staring at her with admiration.
He had been smitten with her in her
traveling-dress, but in her evening-costume
she was far more splendid. The stuff, the
colors, and the minutiæ he was man enough
not to notice, but he was also sufficiently
masculine to appreciate a brilliant general
effect, especially when it included fine arms
and shoulders.

“I was afraid you would never care to
meet me again after our awful night adventure,”
continued Josie.

“Because I came out of it in such a ridiculous
plight?” he answered, remembering
how she had laughed at him, but no longer
in anger. “I don't wonder you were amused
at the figure I cut.”

“I was not amused at it,” asserted Josie.
“Did you see me laugh after I got into the
porch? It was at the astonishment in my
good relatives' faces.”

The fib was conceived with as much
promptness as it was uttered. And it was
a useless fib; a truthful explanation of her
giggle as the result of nervous excitement
would have answered just as well; but this
agreeable young woman told white lies by
instinct—told them more easily than not.

“But you were amused with my claim,”
she added, in a whisper, lifting her ripe
young mouth as near to his stand-up collar
as she could get it.

“Never!” affirmed Mr. Hollowbread, with
double-bass solemnity, bending toward her
the while in unpremeditated tenderness, so
strongly was he attracted by her gaze, her
manner, her beauty, her fragrance.

“Will you promise to look into it seriously
some day?”

“I will.” And he was quite grave about
it by this time, as well he might be, considering
its nature.

“I am very grateful. If you do, I shall
hope. Well, now introduce us to the great
soldier of the age.”

She had nearly said “the great man of the
age;” but it occurred to her that Mr. Hollowbread
might feel himself disparaged and belittled
thereby; she was clever enough to
remember that, and to use the word “soldier.”

“Colonel Bradford, will you lead the column?”
said Hollowbread, with a ponderous
jocularity for which we must pardon him,
considering that a Congressman is not under
obligations to run over with wit, and
has a good many temptations to be dull.
“We veterans will support you.”

“Close up, then,” returned Bradford, who
had served his three years in the field, and
at times used a military phrase unconsciously.

They still had a warfare to wage before
they could attain to the exalted host of the
evening. From the site of that colossus
they were separated by a door-way guarded
by two six-foot dragons of the Washington
police force, each setting his shoulder firm
against his own door-post, and griping his
comrade's hands across the passage. Outside
clung, hung, swarmed, and pushed a
huge cluster of visitors, as closely packed
as swarming bees around the mouth of a
hive, and wearing the clothes off each other's
backs in their struggle for entrance.
Inside stood an usher, who watched the
hard-laboring Grand Lama, noted vigilantly
the progress which he made in getting
rid of his worshipers, and from time to time
waved the policemen a signal. Then up
went the official arms; a dozen or so of the
outsiders plunged through, ducking, and
stumbling, and treading on each other;
then down came the official barrier again,
amidst much fighting and scolding.

Our three ladies bore this new trial with
that patience and that courage which woman,
as we have all heard a thousand times,
displays in the great emergencies of life,
meaning parties, receptions, picnics, and the
like. The men were helpful, also, in the
brutish fashion of their gender, worthy of
scorn and gratitude. Mr. Bradford pulled
with all his muscle, and Mr. Hollowbread
pushed with all his avoirdupois.

At last our adventurers were face to face
with the brief, sturdy, simple-mannered,
much-enduring man who wore out the most
formidable of all insurrections, and who
saved his country. We will not report Mrs.
Warden's speech: she no doubt said the correct
thing, for the Executive smiled upon
her; moreover, she must have been unanswerable,
for he made no response. Bradford,
who still remembered his soldierly
training, and who held in profound respect
his ancient commander, passed by him with
an official bow, not even taking his tired
hand.

Now came the turn of the elder Congressman,
and of his two handsome young ladies.
Josie Murray was tremulously alive to the
greatness of the occasion, violently interested
in the tranquil hero whom she saw so
near her, and, to her credit be it said, not a
little awed by him. For half a minute she
had been staring at him with two dilated,
sparkling, black eyes, which fairly seemed
to eat him up, so hungry was their wonder.
There was a pathetic air of uncomplaining
endurance in his otherwise expressionless
face, which she was clever enough to note

at the first glance, and which moved her
deepest sympathy. It seemed to say that
he hated these ceremonies of triumph, and
that he had found the labors which won
them more supportable. Moreover, the
square-built man looked physically weary
already, and almost painfully anxious to
have his ovation end. No wonder, for he
had already shaken a thousand-hands, and
there were thousands more itching to grapple
him. The laurels had been very well,
but the palms, or, rather, the fists, were too
much.

“Mr. President, I hope I see you well this
evening,” said Mr. Hollowbread, with rather
more grandeur of intonation than became
the commonplace words, being indeed a
very loose fit for them.

The President may have felt moved to answer,
in the blunt language of pretty Molly
Hopkins, “None the better for seeing you.”
But he did not; he merely moved his lips
mechanically, and smiled almost imperceptibly;
he knew the Congressman perfectly,
but he had nothing just then to say to him.

“Allow me to present to you my two
charming friends, Mrs. Murray and Miss Warden,”
continued Hollowbread, waving his
hand superbly toward the ladies, and punching
the head of another lady behind him
with his elbow.

Belle Warden, pitying the jaded great man,
bowed profoundly in silence, and slid on to
her mother. But Josephine Murray, though
her temples were fairly throbbing with awe,
was resolved to speak to the hero, and get
one precious word of response.

“Is not this almost as bad as a victory?”
she asked, while all the blood in her heart
rushed to her cheeks, and made her dazzling.

“It is, madame; they are both great
trials,” answered the modest, war-worn man,
breaking out into a hearty smile, so pleased
was he at being understood. But that was
all; he had nothing more to say to her;
indeed, there was no chance to say more.
Fifty fresh fellow - citizens and citizenesses
had forced their way through the police barrier,
and were upon him like the Philistines
upon Samson. Josephine still hungered for
executive conversation, but, much delighted
with the memorable word she had got, was
crowded and hustled into making her courtesy
of departure.

“He is perfectly delightful!” she exclaimed
to her Congressman, speaking so loud that
the Pater Patriæ must have heard her, and,
indeed, fully meaning that he should hear
her.

“I am glad you find him so,” grumbled
Hollowbread, who had often criticised his
chief magistrate for not being sociable. “No
doubt every body does his best to be charming
to Mrs. Murray,” he added, with one of
those bows whereby an old beau usually
italicizes his compliments. “The misfortune
is that all of us can't please her.”

“All of you would just please me,” laughed
Josie, speaking the exact truth concerning
herself, though she uttered it jestingly.

“That is what I had suspected,” he replied,
not without a pang at his heart; no great
matter of a pang, to be sure; a mere twinge,
but prophetic.

“Then you have done me great wrong,”
declared Josie, looking up to his many-veined,
Port-wine face with such innocent, beseeching
eyes as would have deluded a much
younger Lothario.

And Mr. Hollowbread, old and experienced,
and knowing and wicked as he might be,
was very considerably deluded. “Really
likes me—tickled with a Congressman—we
shall hear about the claim soon,” he chuckled
in his heart, with an odd mixture of credulity
and shrewdness. For he had learned
by dint of many adventures that women, at
least such women as he usually stumbled
upon in Washington, were not inclined to
give themselves away, but rather to sell.
“We must live and let live,” he used to say;
“we must pay for our luxuries, or do without.”

By this time they were alone in that huge,
jostling, humming assemblage. Belle Warden,
looking upon Mr. Hollowbread as Josie's
special captive, had promptly and joyfully
left him to her, taking the unoccupied arm
of Bradford. Moreover, our adroit little heroine
did really propose to say a word concerning
her claim, and had, therefore, intentionally
allowed the Warden party to drift
far ahead of her.

“You called me Miss Murray the other day,
and now you call me Mrs. Murray,” she said.
“Have you learned that I have been married
in the mean time?”

“I have instituted investigations,” confessed
the legislator, with the smile of a man
who knows that he pays a compliment. “I
have gathered some particulars of your history.”

Josie was encouraged; it looked like fascination.
Gentlemen, and especially elderly
gentlemen of much business, do not usually
worry themselves with inquiries about a
lady, unless they are considerably interested
in her.

“You had better catechise me on that subject
hereafter,” she murmured, weighing a
little, just a very delicate little, upon the
Hollowbread arm. “But now let us talk
business. Will you really look into my
claim some day, and see if it amounts to any
thing?”

“I assure you that I will give my most
serious attention to it, at any time and in
any place which you will designate.”

“I have heard that there are committee-rooms
somewhere. Do ladies ever come to
them?”

“Oh, the highest ladies in the land,” asseverated
Mr. Hollowbread, without even
wiping his mouth after the clumsy and slobbering
falsehood. His manner, however, was
so humid with humbug, that Josie instantly
suspected him of lying.

“Perhaps you had better call on me at my
uncle's, if you would be so kind,” she said.
“Since I have been introduced to you by
Mrs. Warden, I can present you as an acquaintance,”
she added, not in the least forgetting
that there had been no such introduction.
But it is necessary sometimes to
suggest to a man what he ought to say in
case he should be asked an awkward question.

“I shall be happy to call to-morrow morning,
at twelve o'clock precisely, if convenient
to you. You have some documents, some few
little papers, I suppose?”

“Oh yes, and good ones. Mr. Frederic
Curbstone, a New York banker, a friend of
my husband, made them out for me. He
heard of this claim somehow, and he said I
ought to have the money.”

Now, Mr. Curbstone, as our Congressman
knew, was a sort of elegant sharper. He
was a broker in New York, and a lobbyist in
Washington. He bribed Treasury clerks to
give him guesses as to what the Secretary
was going to do with the “elastic end” of
the currency; then he sold these guesses as
solid facts to bankers, who valued themselves
on being too much for their fellow-men; and
sometimes, when his “points” turned out
well, he got, in addition, a percentage on
profits.

Mr. Hollowbread had not the highest confidence
in claim-certificates which had been
furnished by Mr. Frederic Curbstone. But
he was too judicious to say any thing more
or less than that he had no doubt all would
be satisfactory. To keep this claim in his
own hands, and thus to see as much as possible
of the lovely claimant, was a purpose
on which he had already set his heart. Of
course, if it was a swindle, he would not really
push it; at least, so the respectable gentleman
assured himself at present. But,
meantime, he would have many agreeable
interviews with Mrs. Murray, and perhaps
be useful to her in some other way.

“I must beg one thing of you,” he urged,
in a tone of affectionate counsel. “Do me
the favor, and, perhaps I may say, do yourself
the service, not to mention this affair
to any other Congressman, at least not till I
have looked into it. The less it is bruited,
that is, while we are getting it into shape,
you know, the more likely it is to win. There
is an awful amount of greediness and selfishness
in this political witch-caldron. The
number of claimants is simply — immense!
The Treasury of this gigantically prosperous
country has not money enough to satisfy
one-tenth of them. If your business were
known, you would be the mark of jealousy—
a shining mark!” he added, gorgeously. “Rival
claimants, miserable, envious charlatans,
you understand, would work against your no
doubt just suit, merely to favor themselves.
The jackals of the lobby would sneak in to
demand a share. Oh, it is horrible!” and
Mr. Hollowbread made a wry face over the
corruption he was exposing. “Believe me,
my dear Mrs. Murray, that your best hope of
success lies in absolute silence and discretion;
that is, until you are fully prepared
to go before the House.”

“Of course,” nodded Josie, thoughtfully.
With all her coquetting and other levities,
she was entirely in earnest about this claim,
and solemnly greedy for the public money.
“I promise you that no one but yourself
shall know a word of it,” she added, with
such a look of earnestness and veracity that
Mr. Hollowbread believed her, as, indeed, she
believed herself for the moment.

She was charming to look at just then;
much more charming even than usual. She
indulged a blessed hope that she would soon
be rich enough to dress better than most
women, and, perhaps, to keep a carriage.
She was thoroughly grateful to this old
political trimmer, who had pledged himself
to support her cause, and whose assistance
she believed to be synonymous with victory,
such was her faith in a Congressman and
so little did she know of politics. She was
in a condition to affirm that she should thank
him, and that she might come to like him
very much, or, possibly, to love him. All
these gems of emotion sparkled in her expression,
and gave her an air of being as
good as she certainly was pretty.

Yet in another minute she had forgotten
her gratitude, and wanted to get away from
Mr. Hollowbread. She saw the Wardens
snug in a corner, blockaded there by a
splendidly gold-laced and copper-nosed old
commodore, while Mr. Edgar Bradford was
sailing about alone at his own sweet will.

In a very short time she had towed her
venerable beau alongside the young man, although
Hollowbread did not at all want to
cruise in that direction.

“Have you seen my uncle and aunt, Mr.
Bradford?” she asked, with an affectionately
eager look, as though anxious to find the old
people.

“I saw them a minute ago drifting into
the next room. They were peeping and
peering in all directions, as if their only object
in life was to find their niece.”

“I really ought to get back to them,”
sighed Josie. Here she gave her old friend
an appealing glance, and at the same time
made a piteous little wry mouth indicative
of the fact that the good and great Hollowbread
was insupportable. Of course, the
young gentleman could do nothing less than
say:

“Do let me take you to them.”

“I am so much obliged to you, Mr. Hollowbread!”
smiled Josie, giving his arm a
gentle pressure, and dropping it joyfully.
“Recollect, I am to see you to-morrow!”

Then away she flitted, leaving her venerable
admirer in a state of widower despondency,
and not at all hopeful that he could
make the rest of the evening pleasant to
himself.