University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
A LYING COUNSELOR AND A TATTLING
STATESMAN.

“I should value any advice from you,
General,” observed Mr. Hollowbread, politely,
for he was very anxious to please the
potent chairman of the Committee on Spoliations.

Mr. Bangs returned no thanks of any sort
for this compliment, and did not so much as
look at his colleague in legislation. He was
a bearish, business-like man, eagerly intent
all the while upon bringing things to pass,
and not given to spending time or mind in
courtesies.

Tilting back his chair, rummaging with
both hands in his trowsers-pockets, and
staring at the wall as if he were seeing clean
through it, he thought out a fabrication.

“Deny the whole thing,” was his conclusion.
“That is, so far as concerns Mrs. Murray.
That's her name, I believe. Deny
that she was walking with Drummond.
Say that she was just going into this shop
when the fracas occurred. Say that she had
no more to do with it, or with the causes
that led to it, than the people on the other
side of the street, or the man in the moon.
And, by-the-way, Drummond had better do
the denying. I don't see why he shouldn't;
he can't want to hurt Mrs. Murray. Besides,
I can bring him to do the amiable

thing, I know. He often wants an axe
ground in my committee.”

Mr. Hollowbread, notwithstanding his deep
anxiety about the matter in hand, could
hardly help smiling at this wholesale proposition.
The impudent mendacity of General
Bangs was well known, not to say favorably
known in Congress, and had become a sort of
standing joke among his brother honorables.
It was looked upon as characteristically humorous,
like the droll exaggerations of Mark
Twain or the whimsies of Artemus Ward.

People were as little surprised and as
much diverted at hearing a whapper from
Bangs as they were at reading an extravaganza
in “Roughing It,” or a cacographic
quip in Josh Billings's “Alminax.” I allude,
of course, to people who knew the great
wire-puller familiarly “inside politics;” for
among the worthy citizens outside of that
charmed circle there were hosts who held
him truthful and noble. All his life he
had lied; even in the army, that school of
honor for most men, he had lied; at the
head of patriots and heroes, he had trumpeted
countless falsehoods.

We may be allowed, perhaps, to devote one
brief passage to the career of this brassy
being as a soldier. Early in the war, and
while yet a complete ignoramus in military
affairs, he had been appointed to high command
because he was a man of parts, and because
he proclaimed himself a man of influence.
All through the struggle he had held
eminent positions, giving orders to officers
of far greater ability than himself, and to
many thousand soldiers of far greater courage.

Never but twice had he been under fire,
and then only by dint of blundering — a
blundering promptly rectified. Never had
he devised a campaign, and never overlooked
a field of victory. His real battles were carried
on in his tent, or oftener in superb quarters
in the midst of cities, surrounded by a
staff of newspaper correspondents. These
heroes of the pen did for him all the fighting
that he directed or knew how to direct.
They did it on paper, and under his dictation.
They wrote out his strategy and his
tactics, and forwarded them for prompt publication.
They put him at the head of columns
on columns of print. No other general
in history has won so many battles which
were never fought, or which were fought
under the management of others. They
were devoted to him, these Dugald Dalgettys
of the press, and for cause. He entreated
them kindly; he was hail-fellow-well-met
with the meanest of them; they could always
have access to his presence, whoever
else was excluded; they could have tents and
beasts and rations and commissary whisky
for the asking. Greatest favor of all, he
furnished them with important information
—or rather he feigned so to do.

In short, he was the most wonderful general
that the world had seen since the Golden
Age, and it is not likely that he will be paralleled
until the coming of the millennium.

And, strange as it may seem in view of
this absurd history, Daniel Bangs was a man
of ability, ambition, perseverance, and resolution.
Where there was no peril of bodily
harm, and no likelihood of ruinous defeat, he
could show great mental and moral force.
He had more wire-pulling cunning, more
adroitness in managing men through their
weaknesses and vices, than any other American
of his day. He loved power dearly, enjoyed
the exercise of it, smacked his lips
over it, rollicked in it. He wanted to be
President, not with the hope of initiating
noble measures, but solely for the ostentation
of the thing, for the pleasure of giving orders.
He was the stubbornest puppy, and
the most regardless of dirt, that ever tugged
and snarled at a root. No labor could tire
him; no succession of failures could discourage
him; no exposure or scorn could shame
him.

If he had possessed sense of honor enough
to know how to appear honorable, and morality
enough to perceive that most of his
countrymen are moved by moral sentiments,
he would have been a far more successful
man than he was, and probably he would
have been a greater one. As things stood,
there was not the remotest hope of his becoming
President; he could not climb so
high as the Senate, but must stop in the
House; and even there he could only preside
over a third-rate committee.

Yet, in this minor sphere there was some
authority, and consequently some joy, for
this brawling, insolent man. It was a pleasure
to him to see the comparatively respectable
Hollowbread looking up to him for the
sake of getting a naughty axe ground and a
shabby subterfuge managed.

“I'll see that Drummond writes the proper
letter,” he promised, jovially. “We'll get
the mud of this fracas rubbed off your lovely
claimant. By-the-way, who is the author
of the story in the Newsmonger?”

“It is a low, drunken beast named Shorthand,”
stated Mr. Hollowbread.

“Oh, Dave Shorthand!” laughed the general,
who had an amazing memory for persons
as well as for facts. “I remember the
coon. He was one of my correspondents in
the field. I'll send for him, and tell him to
retract his nonsense, and slip his retraction
into the Newsmonger. He'll do any thing
that I want him to.”

Mr. Hollowbread bowed his thanks cheerfully,
and yet with an inner sense of humiliation;
then, straightening himself up to the
demands of his shoulder-braces, he took his
departure.

Meantime there was a gabble and giggle
about the Appleyard mélée in society proper.

Perhaps we can best give an idea of it by
reporting a brief dialogue which Belle Warden
listened to during a call on Mrs. Senator
Ironman. The persons whom she found
there were the lady of the house, the middle-aged
and dandified and Dundrearyish senator,
and that dashing, sumptuous young
brunette, Mrs. John Vane.

Ironman, by-the-way, was a fervent admirer
of this rather loud and glaring Cleopatra,
and frequently managed to be present
when she made her visits. Mrs. Ironman, a
lady of excellent temper and worldly good
sense, was perfectly aware of her husband's
infatuation, but made no attempt to dispel
it, lest he might do worse.

When Belle was announced, the eminent
legislator skipped to the door and waited on
her into the parlor, for he had the manners
of fine society, and was gallant to all pretty
women. But as soon as the salutations
were uttered, he turned eagerly to his favorite.

“I say, Mrs. Vane, why not go on with
your story?” he pleaded, in his simpering
way. “I dare say Miss Warden would be
delighted to hear it.”

“Some nonsense from the Newsmonger, my
dear,” nodded Mrs. Ironman, who despised
her husband's passion for small gossip, but
let him enjoy it. He was incurable, she admitted;
there was no doing any thing with
such a goose. You might as well let him
hiss and cackle as he was born to do.

“Oh, I dare say Miss Warden has read it,”
observed Mrs. Vane, who had the grace not
to want to appear a tattler. “Every body
has, I believe, except this benighted family.”

“I never read the Newsmonger,” said Belle;
and the respectable statement was true of
her, though not of her mother.

“It's something about Squire Appleyard
—that little Bloomer, you know—and a fellow
in the House named Drummond, and
that little Mrs. Murray, you know,” interposed
Ironman, impatient to get at his
sugar-plum of scandal.

“Yes, and it's too funny for any thing,”
laughed Olympia Vane. “That poor Mrs.
Murray! I don't see how she can stay on
here.”

“Oh, she's a rival of yours,” observed Mrs.
Ironman, who quite liked Josie, and who
sometimes liked to quench Mrs. V.

“No rival at all; Mrs. Vane has no rivals,”
declared the senator, eagerly. “That is,
among the new-comers,” he added, remembering
the presence of his wife and of Belle.

“You will see that she won't run away,”
persisted Mrs. Ironman. “Who ever leaves
Washington for a scandal?”

Olympia, remembering, perhaps, that she
had been talked about in connection with
the senator, turned rather hot under this remark,
and made no comment.

“I move that we proceed with the story,”
said the impatient Ironman. “Miss Warden
must be dying to hear it.”

“I can't do justice to it,” Olympia responded,
sulkily, for the hostess's insinuations
had not pleased her, and she was one
of the “huffy” sort.

She told it, nevertheless, and told it with
minuteness and gusto, so anxious was she to
put down Josie Murray. The senator listened
with shouts and spasms of laughter;
he threw back his little baldish head, and
opened his weak mouth widely; he stretched
out his long, thin legs convulsively, and
nearly slipped from his chair. There never
was a more jovial diguitary since the days
when dignitaries kept jesters.

“So the Bloomer did the cowhiding, and
the little widow looked on!” he shrieked.

“No, she didn't look on, she just ran right
away—the more shame to her!” giggled the
triumphing Olympia. “It does seem to me
that I would not have done that. I would
have tried to save my admirer.”

“I do believe you would, Mrs. Vane,” simpered
the senator, admiringly and almost
gratefully. Perhaps he imagined a scene in
which Mrs. Ironman should attempt to flog
him, and Olympia should come to his rescue.

“He was not worth the saving,” declared
the hostess. “A man who gets himself into
such a position, and then does not know how
to get out of it without being caned, should
be left to suffer.”

“He must be an enormously amusing ass,
that Drummond,” judged the member of the
Upper House. “I think I shall have to have
him here.”

“No, no,” objected Mrs. Ironman, with quiet
resolution. “There are some things that
I won't permit.”

The senator seemed to perceive that on
this question the majority was against him,
and he succumbed at once with unremonstrating,
unruffled good-nature, as he always
did when his wife spoke in a certain tone.
Meantime Belle Warden had not once smiled
over Mrs. Vane's scandalous narrative. It
was plain enough to her that that lady's desire
in rehearsing it was to discredit a rival
in society; and for such a motive she was
capable of feeling as thorough a contempt as
the manliest gentleman that ever breathed.
At the same time, having carefully studied
Josie's ways, and judged her to be unprincipled,
she had no wish to step forward as
her champion.

“You don't care for this sort of trash, my
dear,” said Mrs. Ironman to her, with a
glance of approbation which was very severe
upon the other two. “I like it in you.”

The senator, as impervious to contempt as
an idiot could be, continued to giggle over
the Appleyard farce. Mrs. John Vane, however,
started in visible anguish and anger,
and seemed to be upon the point of rustling
out of the house. But just then a servant

announced Miss Elinor Ledyard, the daughter
of the veteran and famous senator of
that name—one of those Congressmen whom
we may call statesmen, one of those who deserve
the title of Honorable. Now, if Olympia
desired any one thing more than all others,
it was to be invited to this gentleman's
receptions and dinners. Accordingly, the
beautiful tuft-hunter composed her soul and
her skirts to remain during the call of Miss
Ledyard.

Elinor was a young lady of agreeable appearance,
and yet not handsome enough to
be considered a beauty. Her loveliness consisted
largely in a thoroughly lady-like carriage,
and in an expression of perfect purity
and moral nobility. Her figure was too tall
and slender to be altogether fine, and her
forehead was larger and heavier than belongs
to feminine grace. Her short-sightedness
obliged her to wear eyeglasses, but she
looked only the more interesting and distinguished
because of them, as is the case
with persons of patrician countenance. We
ought to state, by-the-way, that this admirable
young woman has no part to play in
our history, and that we shall not even see
her honorable father and the respectable
legislators with whom he was familiar. It
is the misfortune of one who writes the history
of a claimant, that he can not be fastidious
in his company, nor give much space
to personages of high worth. We have introduced
Miss Ledyard mainly to show that
we concede the presence of delicately pure
souls in the political circles of Washington.

It was curious to note that, although this
girl was scarcely twenty years old, the full-blown
Olympia Vane courtesied to her with
an eager, smiling trepidation indicative of a
palpitating desire to please. But Senator
Ironman was too obtuse to note the presence
of superior purity, or to be quelled by any
revelation of womanly dignity. He soon alluded
to the Appleyard scandal; he urged
Mrs. Vane to tell it anew, which she, with a
wink at him and a glance at Miss Ledyard,
refused to do; finally, in an effort to rehearse
it himself, he broke down like Lord Dundreary
on the threshold of a “widdle.” By
this time the four ladies were in an awkward
condition of gravity and anxiety. But the
senator, conscious of his lofty position and
quite unconscious of his low abilities, was
not in the least discomposed.

“It's the drollest thing, by Jove, that I
ever heard,” he giggled. “Miss Elinor, what
does your father think of it?”

“I do not suppose he has heard of it,” returned
the young lady, calmly, marveling at
this wonderful lawgiver.

Not for the first time in her life, but for
the first time in years, Mrs. Ironman blushed
for her husband.

“My dear, do you suppose that Senator
Ledyard reads the Newsmonger?” she said to
him. “His time is valuable.”

“Oh yes, by Jove! and all our time is valuable,”
declared Ironman. “But it isn't every
fellow that can fag at it all the while,
like Ledyard. By Jove, I don't see how he
can stand such an amount of heavy reading
—debates, history, political economy, international
law, and all that sort of thing—
positively fatiguing to think of. Now, most
of us need a little recreation here and there
—something to make a fellow laugh—something
jolly, you know, Miss Elinor. And
this Appleyard fracas is the jolliest thing
I've heard of in a month.”

“Since we must talk of it, I will say that
I am very sorry for the Murrays,” observed
Mrs. Ironman. “They are thoroughly excellent
and thoroughly respectable people.
It is an insult to decent society that they
should be annoyed by such disgraceful articles.”

“I agree with you, Mrs. Ironman,” said
Belle, heartily. “They are perfectly admirable.
It is a shame to drag them before
the public in this way.”

“Do you mean that young Mrs. Murray is
admirable?” asked Olympia Vane, forgetting
what little prudence she had, and taking up
the endgels for her scandal. “If she got into
the affair, it is because she went into it.”

“I have heard of her,” observed Miss Ledyard.
“People say she is charming, but
gay.”

“That is putting it very gently, Miss Ledyard,”
smiled Olympia, anxious to hold converse
with the daughter of the greatest of
all senators, and at the same time to injure
her rival.

“I know nothing against her,” disclaimed
the young lady. “I meant no more than I
said.”

With these words she turned away from
Mrs. Vane; and the latter, though not over-bright,
felt that she was rebuked; indeed,
she put it to herself that she was snubbed.
Judging also that she had made an unfavorable
impression upon Mrs. Ironman and Belle
Warden, she squared her shoulders upon all
three of the ladies, chatted a minute in her
loud style with the senator, and then bridled
out of the house.

Just at this moment Edgar Bradford dropped
in, and Ironman resumed his babble
about the Appleyard affair.