Playing the mischief :: :: University of Virginia Library

But Christmas was only coming as yet,
and so there was time to be killed before
Josie could take her adventurous journey
with Mr. Hollowbread, if indeed, she ever
should take it.

Meanwhile, as she was going constantly
to parties and receptions, she could not well
avoid meeting the deceived Sykes Drummond.
Not that she sought to avoid him!
No, no! Josie was no such timid and awkward
intriguer as that; on the contrary,
she was eager to find the young Congressman
and make things right with him.

In her abundant dealings with our noble
but simple sex, she had discovered that the
best way to treat a man whom she had deluded
and humbled was to make a confession
of error to him, and tell him she was “so
sorry!”

In this manner she kept her friends and
admirers, more especially such as were not
worth keeping. It was an easy policy to
her, for she was by nature remarkably coolheaded,
even-tempered, and averse to quarrels,
like many other persons whose affections
are not deep, and who are what we call
false-hearted.

Thus it happened that she was cordial to
her saturnine friend whenever she met him,
and caught at the first opportunity to tell
him what mischief she had been up to.

“I am perfectly delighted to have a chance
at you,” she said to him when they encountered
at the great and good Smyler's reception.
“Won't you do me the favor to conduct
me to some lodge in this wilderness
of stupidity, where I can whisper a word in
confidence?” And when they were as much
alone as they could be in Mr. Smyler's dreadful
jam of gnests, she continued, “I have
got myself into such trouble!”

“Oh no!” grinned Sykes. “Clever as you
are, Mrs. Murray! It isn't possible! However,
I am very credulous, and might believe
any thing you say, if you say it long
enough.”

“But I am not at all clever, Mr. Drummond,
and I really have made an awful
blunder.”

“I wish I knew all about it, Mrs. Murray.”

“I don't know that I can tell you, I am so
ashamed of it.”

“If I were not a healthy man, Mrs. Murray,
I should have a fit with curiosity, and
die on the spot—haw, haw!”

“But I assure you that it gives me great
annoyance and anxiety. And here you are
laughing at it!”

“Do let me know what it is. You shall
have floods of sympathy.”

“And help, Mr. Drummond?”

“Word of a Congressman—haw, haw!”

“Well—it is excessively annoying to think
of—but I have had the folly to give my papers
to Mr. Hollowbread—that is, to let him
coax them out of me.”

Sykes habitually held a pretty firm bridle-rein
over his expression, but just now he
could not help showing that he was considerably
annoyed.

“There were some reasons for it,” continued
Josie. “You see he is an old gentleman—”

“Pretty hard, that, on Hollowbread—haw,
haw!” interrupted Drummond.

“You mustn't!” said Josie, pressing his
arm with her own, as if involuntarily.
“You shouldn't laugh about it. A man who
has lived as long as he has, has a right to
be an old gentleman. But, seriously now,

don't you see that his age makes a difference
to me? My friends and family would
be the less likely to grumble at my putting
my claim in the hands of a man old enough
to be my father.”

“But your enemies, too, would be the less
likely to grumble. That also is worth consideration.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Drummond?”

“He won't bring any thing to pass, Mrs.
Murray. He can't. He wasn't born to bring
any thing to pass. He is an old fetich and
figure-head and wooden image.”

“Oh, dear! And I knew it! And yet I
did it!”

“Has he actually got the papers?” inquired
Sykes, unable to fully accept such
bad news at once.

“Yes,” whispered Josie, as if horror-struck.
“What can I do?”

“Get them away from him.”

“I will. I must. I will get them just as
soon as I can.”

And yet, far from meaning to get them,
she distinctly purposed and intended to let
them remain just where they were—at least
for the present. She had a plan in her little
head, and, by-the-way, it may be worth
stating that much of her life was guided by
plans, although her conduct generally had
the air of being impulsive and little more
than instinctive.

Her present project, however, was a simple
one, and not greatly above the invention
of a pussy-cat. It was to keep Mr. Drummond
opiated with apologies and coquetries
until it should appear plainly whether she
needed his help or not. Mr. Hollowbread
might turn out a “fetich,” and do nothing;
or he might labor hard and still accomplish
nothing. Bradford, the man in whom she
had most hoped, was already a deserter.
When bowstrings of that tried and trusted
sort failed, she could not have too many new
ones on hand.

Well, the apologies and the coquetries
did their business. Drummond was a hard
man to keep in harness when he did not see
it to be his interest to stay there; but in
the present case he had a master-hand to
tackle him, and he could not even desire to
kick out of the traces.

A hard creature he was in every way: ambitious,
selfish, unsympathetic, unsensitive,
tyrannical, and cruel; greedy of power over
his fellow-beings, and pleased to show that
power by tormenting them; a man of rude
commands, scornful laughter, coarse practical
jokes, and blunt sarcasms. Persons of
his own sex could exercise no influence over
him, except through downright superior
might of muscle or of intellect.

As for women, they had just one hold on
him—the hold which a lioness has upon a
lion: an appeal to his ravening passions.
The intensity of his nature in this respect
appeared plainly in his hanging under-lip,
his dusky and yet almost flaming black
eyes, and his darkly pale, Oriental complexion.
A woman of sensibility could not talk
with him five minutes without feeling that
she was called upon to engage in a struggle
of sex with sex for the mastery. To some
such women he was alarming and little less
than horrible, while to others he was alarming
and fascinating. The result of this
characteristic of temperament was, that a
coquette of unusual ability could, to some
extent, rule him. Now, for possibly the first
time in his life, he was made a tool of by a
woman.

And Josie led him without liking him,
which was something to her credit. Flirt
and intriguer as she was, she had some fine
feminine traits, if we may not even call them
beautiful. Nature had given her a sensibility
which was not so much moral as æsthetic
or artistic, but which enabled her to distinguish
perfectly between noble and ignoble
characters, and to consider the former
“lovely,” and the latter “horrid.”

She was exquisitely capable of discovering
and appreciating lofty souls, and also
lofty features of incomplete souls. She admired
old Colonel Murray enthusiastically,
because he had been a brave soldier and an
honorable man. While she laughed at the
rector for his whimsical devotion to his old
wife, she liked him for that very devotion,
and longed to tell him so to his face. Although
Bradford's aversion to swindling
legislation stood in her way, she respected
him, and was all the more anxious to win
his affection because of it. For the wavering
Hollowbread she felt some contempt, and
for the frankly wicked Drummond a good
deal of dislike.

True, she was “possessed,” and dearly
loved to flirt with weak men and naughty
ones, especially when they could be useful.
But she was too clever, too instinctively
intelligent and artistically sensitive, to be
much dazzled by them. They were not as
fine as the honorable colonel and the fastidious
Bradford; they would not make such
loyal and puissant protectors to a woman in
the struggle of life: of this she was permanently
sure, although the surety did not often
influence her choice of company. For
Josie was sadly controlled by that love of
peril, and that monkey-like desire to be a
danger and a mischief to others which we
have expressed by saying that she was “possessed.”

Well, the conversation between her and
Drummond continued, and of course a certain
amount of coquetry also.

“Tell me something that is pleasant,” said
Josie. “I have cried to-day over my silly
blunder, and I feel woefully low-spirited.”

“I can only tell you that you don't look
as if you had cried at all,” returned Drummond,

glancing with rude admiration at the
lovely face which was turned up to his. “It
is one of the handsome days with you, as I
have heard women put it; of course, I mean
one of the handsomest days.”

“You are very good to tell me so. I get
so few compliments! Now, you being a
man and a Congressman, you fare differently.
You have only to make a speech to see
your name in all the papers.”

“To see it blackened in all the papers—
haw, haw! Here I have just made a speech
against Hollowbread's stupid plan for issuing
more debased money, and at least forty of
our asinine journals abused me for it inside
of forty hours. Every quarrelsome beggar
who wanted some money cheap flew at me
in print, or bribed his editor with ten dollars
to fly at me.”

“Do editors take ten-dollar bribes?”

“Yes, and five-dollar ones,” declared
Drummond, who was in an ill humor with
the brotherhood of the Press, and disposed
to libel it. “I have repeatedly got articles
inserted as leaders for that enormous compensation—haw,
haw!”

Josie's head fairly hummed with a plan
to raise forty dollars somehow, and bribe the
Tribune, Times, Herald, and World to come
out for the claim. But she did not forget
her womanly duty of entertaining Mr. Drummond,
and she continued the dialogue without
intermission, as became a born and trained
queen of society.

“You shouldn't mind such pitiful criticism.
You know you are right, and you
shouldn't mind a five-dollar opposition.”

“Ah! but it tells all the same. The mass
of the people don't know how things are
bought and sold inside politics; they take
the theatrical sheet-iron thunder for the
voice of God. Do you remember Carlyle's
description of the population of Great Britain!
Eighteen millions of people, mostly
fools! It just covers our ground — haw,
haw! The five-dollar per column opposition
has its effect, and a prodigious effect. Nothing
can beat it but an opposition at ten dollars
per column. That is the main reason
why we Congressmen are greedy for money.
We get enough to live on, but not enough
to bribe on. And, to bribe others, we must
take bribes. I tell you, Mrs. Murray, that
this state is rottener than Denmark. Well,
there is one comfort, it gives us a chance.
If George Washington's Congress of old-style,
high-stepping country notables was
sitting now, you and I couldn't get our claims
through.”

This was a plainness of speech which Josie
did not relish. In a general way, no woman
wants to have the mask stripped off from
things. If she likes wickedness at all, she
likes it well covered and with a fine complexion,
and revolts from a clear showing of
the skeleton beneath.

But Josie did not exhibit her artistic dissatisfaction
to Mr. Drummond; she only
said to herself that he was “horrid,” and
talked on with a smiling face.

“I want to get Mr. Smyler to help you
when you come to put in my bill,” she observed.
“Do you think I could coax him?”

“You could coax almost any body but
Smyler. Mr. T. M. C. A. Smyler is an-incarnation
of prunes, prisms, and propriety.”

“Oh!” muttered Josie, not much pleased
with the insinuation that she was not a
suitable person to influence proper men.

“Mr. Smyler can only be coaxed in one
way,” continued Drummond, without observing
that he had said an uncivil thing
and made a disagreeable impression, so
coarse was his spiritual texture. “He neither
smokes, nor drinks, nor stays away from
church, nor indulges in any other vice which
societies have been formed to put down.
He banks on his decency and orthodoxy.
There is just one method of moving him—
give him a check.”

“Isn't it abominable!” exclaimed Josie,
who had no check to give, and who also
wanted to please the sarcastic Drummond.

“Abominable? Haw, haw! that's good.
Why, it's the correct thing here, Mrs. Murray.
Congress doesn't mind, because it is
used to it; and the sovereign people doesn't
mind, because it doesn't know it. Why,
look at this prim Smyler now, as sanctimonious
as Ananias! He has twelve hundred
every quarter from one contractor alone, and
no doubt other bonuses which I haven't yet
discovered, but which all Congress more or
less suspects. Do we think any the less of
him? We can't. The people believe in
him, and put him high in authority. We
can only wonder, admire, and go and do
likewise—haw, haw!—hoping to be rewarded
in like fashion. There is nothing that
succeeds like success.”

Drummond honestly despised and hated
hypocrisy, and valued himself much on that
contempt and that hate. But he was far
from being a good man, and indeed almost
his only worthy trait was the frankness of
his wickedness, if we may apply the word
worthy to a truly satanic impudence of guilt.
He was a thoroughly bad man, and extremely
injurious to people whose morals were in
a leaky state, leading them to believe that
their wrecks of conscience were not worth
saving and refitting. It was a bad sign for
his district that it should confer its highest
honor upon such an open-mouthed, brazen-faced
sinner. It was a far worse sign for
that district than if it had been deceived
and cajoled into giving its vote to the demure,
bribable Smyler. A hypocrite at least
admits that there is such a thing as virtue,
and accords a sort of homage to it. As long
as he wears the mask of goodness, you may
honor goodness by honoring him; but to

vote for such an undisguised, blatant, bragging
scoundrel as Drummond is very much
like voting open-eyed for the devil with his
horns, hoofs, and tail on. It must certainly
have been a very wicked district, or else a
district inhabited mainly by idiots, which
elected this diabolic youngster.

“Do you know I get a little tired of hearing
so much about politics as I do hear
in Washington?” presently remarked Josie,
whose forte, we remember, was flirting.

“Haw, haw!” roared Drummond. “So
hearing about hypocrisy and bribery is hearing
about politics, is it? Well, that isn't
bad — that is pretty near it. It's a good
enough shot to let us quit the subject. Suppose
we walk on, if you don't object? I am
prodigiously proud of showing you on my
arm.”

“Then we are a proud couple,” answered
the ready Josie.

But she uttered the phrase with little
heart, for as yet she did not like Mr. Drummond.
Even the admiring gaze which he
bent upon her struck her somewhat unpleasantly,
so rude and domineering and greedy
was it, so like the stare of a marauding soldier
in a sacked city, or of a pirate aboard a
rich prize. He indeed was pleased with her,
and went on talking his rough brightest and
courtliest. But we will not listen to him
further at present.

Mr. Hollowbread passed them, as usual a
radiant vision of tailoring, bowing to the
lady as tenderly as if he still had her slipper
in his left breast-pocket, and then looking
after her cavalier with a countenance of
jealous gloom. Next Pendleton Beauman
and Calhoun Clavers went by together, receiving
between them one of Josie's sweetest
smiles, a smile rich enough to cut up like
a bridal-cake and divide among many, and
dream over. Then Hamilton Bray made a
bumptious, condescending bow, and was contemptuously
stared at, not to say grinned at,
by Drummond.

Black-eyed, dark-skinned Mrs. Warden
they saw in the distance, leaning on the
gaunt form of the great General Bangs, and
smirking almost hysterically in his hard, impudent
face, as if she were pleading with
that chief of all subtlety and swindling for
her own cherished swindle. There were
higher and worthier personages, too; there
were men whose hands had never been soiled
by a dirty dollar; there were Winthrop Ledyard
of the Senate and Stuyvesant Clinton
of the Cabinet, and others of a stamp not yet
lost, thank Heaven!

“And here is your adorer,” said Josie, smiling
involuntarily as she caught sight of the
beardless face and manly costume of Squire
Nancy Appleyard. “Dear me, doesn't she
look at me savagely! Don't let us go near
her; I know she'll step on my train.”

Miss Appleyard was indeed staring at
them with a fixed, indignant, scornful expression
noticeable to the dullest observer.
What made the matter worse was that her
singular raiment rendered her very conspicuous,
so that she was the mark of many curious
eyes.

“See here,” said Drummond to his companion,
“I must stop this impertinence at
once. Would you object to taking Mr. Hollowbread's
arm while I say a word to that
young attorney?”

“Oh, certainly,” assented Josie, quite excited
with curiosity, amusement, and perhaps
a little alarm.

So Hollowbread was beckoned to and made
happy, while Drummond marched sternly up
to Squire Nancy, obviously at that moment
a most wretched Bloomer.