Playing the mischief :: :: University of Virginia Library

“I haven't inquired into it all, Mr. Ironman.
But I don't believe there is much truth
in it. The writer of the article, as I hear
from Hollowbread, is Dave Shorthand. Now
Shorthand is a drunken, maliguant liar. I
know something of him, for he was with us
a while in the field. He was a correspondent
of the Personal Advertiser, and just suited
to his rascally journal. He would forage
around every head-quarters after whisky, and
get back to his tent too drunk to get into it. I
have known him to plunge through the front-door,
go clean out through the rear-flap, and
sleep outside all night. Our general put him
under guard for publishing official news, and
he revenged himself by maligning our corps
in his scoundrelly paper. He would lurk
ten miles from a battle-field, under protection
of the brave men who were bleeding and dying
in the front, and write letters of solid
slanders against them. Such wholesale lies,
too!—simple, pure inventions of Satan!—not
even a foundation of truth. At the Red River,
where we fought side by side with the
Sixteenth corps, he represented that we were
broken through by the enemy, and that the
Sixteenth corps had to march over us. At
the Opequan, where we lost sixteen hundred
men in stubborn fighting, he described us as
lying down five miles from the battle-field,
and refusing to advance. For mean and
wicked malice I never heard the like of these
stories. To malign gallant fellows who were
at that very moment struggling and falling
on the field of honor seems to me the most
devilish and contemptible work with which
a man could foul himself. The fellow well
deserved to be horse whipped to death.”

Even the dull mind and shallow emotional
nature of Ironman were stirred to indignation
by this statement.

“By Jove, I agree with you!” he said. “I
should think it was never too late to horsewhip
such a fellow as that.”

“Very likely this story about Mrs. Murray
is equally false,” continued Bradford.

“Well, perhaps so,” conceded the senator,
looking a little disappointed. “I'll—I tell
you what I'll do; I'll inquire into it myself,”
he added, rising.

“Do oblige me by letting it alone,” interposed
Mrs. Ironman, with such firmness that
the great man sat down again.

Shortly after this Belle Warden took her
departure, and presently Miss Ledyard followed.

“They did not speak up for Mrs. Murray;
they don't like her,” observed the senator,
with unusual keenness; to which remark
his wife and Bradford vouchsafed no reply,
and the talk about the Appleyard business
ended there.

He was quite correct in his inference. Although
Belle knew Josie familiarly, while
Elinor Ledyard had only heard of her, they
agreed in not approving of her. Women
in general, whether nice women or naughty
ones, were apt to dislike our heroine sooner
or later. It is one of the most serious disadvantages
of clever ladies of her style of
cleverness, that they get the ill-opinion and
ill-will of their own sex. Still a new-comer
in Washington, Josie had won the repute
of being an “awful flirt,” a flirt who carried
coquetry to the verge of the inexcusable,
and who respected no other woman's rights.

We know already how she was hated by
Squire Nancy Appleyard, and wherefore.
Various other young women likewise disliked
her because she had more or less
eclipsed and supplanted them. Mrs. John
Vane abominated her as a rival queen of
society, and Jessie Cohen wished her harm
as a rival snitor for appropriations. Elinor
Ledyard, who knew her only by sight and
by hearsay, disapproved of her as a coquette
and an intriguer, and did not wish to know
her more familiarly.

Generally speaking, only the men liked
her, and the ruder, wilder sort of men at
that. To the men, therefore — that is, to
Josie's natural companions and intimates—
our story must return. They courted a good
deal in those days, but not, as yet, with matrimonial
intentions, barring the zealous Hollowbread.

Mr. Drummond, for instance, kept apart
from her society for quite a time after the
Appleyard rencontre. It seemed to him that
Mrs. Murray beguiled him into more disappointments
and scrapes than her mere society
was worth. She had a smile which
sowed wild hopes; her whole manner was
full of promises of rich rewards; yet nothing
happened to his advantage or pleasure.
In the financial dialect of her other hard-used
and ill-requited friend, Mr. Fred. Curbstone,
she did not redeem her notes. Moreover,
Drummond suspected that she was
quite capable of laughing at him for his absurd
misadventure in the avenue.

To be sure, he took care of his own fame
in that matter, and so necessarily did her a
service. Looking up Dave Shorthand, he
bullied him, collared him, shook his teeth
nearly out of his head, and eventually gave
him a contemptuous ten-dollar bill, thereby
inducing him to sign and publish a complete
retraction of his Appleyard history, to the
effect that the alleged single combat was
merely the invention of a hard-driven reporter.
The editorial department added
that this reporter had been discharged, a
statement which Shorthand himself suggested
to the manager, receiving therefor a
slight gratuity and increased confidence.

But, although Drummond thus served Mrs.
Murray, none the less did he avoid her for a

time. Of course this did not suit her, for
while she did not like him personally, and
was determined not to walk the street again
with him for a season, she wanted his good-will
and his Congressional influence. So,
when they at last met at a reception, she
said to him, in a tone of plaintive reproach,

“How long it is since you have called on
me!”

“It must be a week — haw, haw!” he
laughed.

“That seems a long time,” she murmured,
lifting her eyes pathetically, as if such absences
were difficult to bear.

“Business before pleasure,” answered
Drummond, who suspected that she was secretly
making game of him, and felt little
less than vindictive.

“My society can hardly be a pleasure
when it gets people into trouble,” was the
next utterance of Josie's humility.

“Oh, that doesn't matter—that affair in
the avenue,” he declared, promptly. It had
mattered a good deal, though; it had made
a raw on his thick-skinned soul. But he did
not like to have it supposed that any thing
could get the better of him or make him
wince. “It was a mere trifling farce, and
will soon be forgotten.”

Josie was indignant at his coarseness and
selfishness. He did not allude to the fact
that she, too, had suffered, and for his misdemeanor;
he was certainly the most unmannerly
and egotistic man that a lady was
ever civil to.

But she showed no vexation, for she was
an enviably even-tempered little witch, and
always preferred to propitiate unpleasant
people, especially when there was nothing
to be got by fighting them.

“I was not thinking so much of that,”
she said; “I didn't mind it myself when I
saw that you didn't mind it. I was thinking
more of the fact that I have troubled
you to look into my business without placing
it in your hands. It will all be righted
and explained some day. You have been
very good and very patient. I don't know
how I can thank you sufficiently.”

How could even a sulky, sore-headed Drummond
resist such persistent sweetness? He
looked at her lovely face, and he felt that
he must get away from her at once, or he
should not be able to keep out of her snares.

“If Hollowbread breaks down, and you
need other help in that job, don't fail to call
on me,” he muttered, making a movement
to go.

“You must see me now and then,” answered
Josie, as he turned away. “Don't
forget that you are my member.”

Meanwhile she was a good deal annoyed
by his leaving her, and could hardly help
pouting with humiliation and disappointment.
To lose even one man was always a
grief to Josie, whatever shoals of other men
she might be fishing among at the time,
and however successful her angling might
be. In these very days dozens of Congressmen
and department people had their
noses to her hook.

Notwithstanding the retraction of the
Newsmonger, the avenue scandal was pretty
generally accepted as true by the knowing
ones, and it made her a more attractive notoriety
than ever. Every day some fresh
man about town got himself introduced to
her, and joined the pack of her more or less
unlikely admirers.

These gallants did not find her what they
had expected. What they had looked for
and wanted was a wild hoiden, ready to be
pleased with any rough-and-ready attention,
and prompt to rush into any risky adventure.
What they found was a woman of
society, coquettish, but evidently able to
take care of herself, and talkative, but
alarmingly clever. It was impossible to
despise her, except from a delicately fastidious
point of view, a point to which these
gentlemen had not attained. Indeed, they
were irresistibly driven to respect and admire
her, such of them as had brains enough
to appreciate her abilities.

“An't she a stunner!” chuckled a certain
honorable heavy-weight, Senator Pickens
Rigdon, addressing himself to the Honorable
R. L. Bower, a representative from his
own State. “By George! I don't understand
how a woman can be as bright as that in
all the bloom of youth and loveliness. One
expects it, perhaps, in an old girl like Dowager
Ironman or Duenna Warden! But at
sweet two-and-twenty, without a furrow on
her brow or a blemish on her cheeks, it is
simply and beautifully miraculous. I'll be
blasted to everlasting blastation if she isn't
a blasted sight smarter than half our Congressmen—yes,
blast it, two-thirds of them!”

In justice to the strength of Mr. Rigdon's
style, it must be stated that he used epithets
far more vigorous than “blasted”—such epithets
as Northern gentlemen of his social
position rarely handle in these degenerate
days.

He was a superbly tall and large man,
with vast shoulders, mighty chest, and noble
limbs, and with an erect, proud, and yet
easy carriage. His head was very big; his
curling, slightly silvered chestnut hair was
long and abundant; his spacious chops were
magnificently chubby and rosy; his hazel
eyes were at once fierce and merry. In his
breath there was a strong scent of whisky,
tempered with tobacco.

Mr. R. L. Bower was a man of very different
and much less agreeable appearance.
Tall, slender, very haggard in feature, very
swarthy and malarious in complexion, he
had a watchful, saturnine glance, and an air
of suave self-possession, which put one in
mind of certain professional gamblers. He

likewise smelled very much like a bar where
liquors have been spilled, and where cigar-stumps
have been laid about. But his refreshments
had not given him that joviality
which twinkled in the florid visage of Senator
Rigdon.

“Yes, she is brighter than some Congressmen,”
assented Bower; “and she might have
more influence if she was under the right
management. Heavens! how that girl
might pull wires and haul in appropriations!”

“It would be a desecration!” growled Rigdon.
“Bower, you are a carpet-bagger at
heart, you know. You are always scheming
how to fill the scandalous carpet-bag. I disapprove
of you, and forgive you. These are
evil times. The great, grand, sublime old
Southern gentleman is no more. We, degenerate
scions of a noble stock, must live
and let live. It is an evil age; I hate it and
bear it. I am in the condition of an Indian
tied to the torture-stake. I say to the carpet-baggers
and lobbyists, `Begin ye your
torments, your threats are in vain; for the
sons of Alkmoonah will never complain.'
But as for using this lovely widow, fresh
from her craped sorrows, to rob the public
treasury, it is a desecration, and I denounce
it. I admire and respect her with a Southern
enthusiasm. I will do it. If any man
tries to prevent me, I'll knock him down,
blast him! There she goes now!—lovely
Murray! I never see her pass without longing
to sing, `Thou, thou reignest in this
boo-oo-som.' There, she has entered the
supper-room, leaning and smiling on Turveydrop
Hollowbread. Lovely Murray, fare
thee well!”

Calhoun Clavers, who was passing at the
moment, overheard the close of this vinous
oration. We must call to mind that Clavers
loved Mrs. Murray with all the passion of
youth and all the chivalry of a long-staple
region. Well, this admirably sentimental
youngster, hearing his goddess apostrophized
in a loud, free manner by a person who
smelled of whisky, was instantly filled with
beautiful indignation. He halted and faced
Mr. Rigdon with such a stare of gentlemanly
ferocity as might have turned a commonplace,
peaceable American of the North into
stone.

The senator could not help noticing the
look, and being roused by it; he glared back
at Clavers, as a mature grizzly bear might
glare at a juvenile tiger. It was a gaze of
inquiry and amazement, verging on wrath.

Possibly there would have been words, a
quarrel, a challenge, and a duel, but for the
providential arrival of the great banker, Mr.
Simeon Allchin. Clavers lost sight of Rigdon
behind the vast bulk of the financier,
and decided to pursue his way without demanding
explanations and apologies. Brave,
pugnacious, sentimental, adolescent, type of
a jeunesse which is fast passing from among
us, move on, and let us have peace!

“A nice little investment went by us just
now, gentlemen,” murmured Allchin, speaking
with a rich, mellow, juicy voice, and a
radiantly greasy smile, both of which had
been very useful to him in banking. “That
little Mrs. Murray would be well worth looking
after.”

“One wife answers my purpose,” answered
the senator, slapping the banker's tallowy
shoulder with perfect freedom, though his
account was overdrawn. “How is it with
yourself?”

An ugly light came into Mr. Bower's hollow
black eyes, and for a moment he looked
capable of knifing Mr. Rigdon. There was
a vile charge of bigamy lying against him
in court, and consequently he was sensitive
to jokes about having more wives than one.

“Oh, I don't allude to courtships and
flirtations and dalliances—ha, ha!” hastily
chuckled Mr. Allehin, taking care not to
glance at the honorable Bower, and smiling
in a way which was equivalent to paying
out gold, so eager was he to make things
pleasant. “Bless you, senator—ha, ha!—at
my time of life, and with my development
—ha, ha! But this little Mrs. Murray is
really — really — ha, ha!” And here his
spacious countenance became fairly puckered
with cheerful cunning. “Really she is
quite an investment—a good claim for one
or two hundred thousand!—a good, sound,
honest, genteel, lady-like claim! Why not
help her through with it? Any advances
that might be necessary I could furnish.
Then, you see—I am a little selfish in the
matter, ha, ha! — she could invest through
me—invest to her profit and mine—a nice
little thing all round eh? Just consider it
in confidence, you two gentlemen. We will
talk it over some other time. Drop in to
dinner to-morrow. A plate or two always
ready for a friend. Good-evening.”

And Mr. Allchin, pretty sure that honorable
gentlemen, who were indebted at his
bank, would not rage permanently against
him for suggesting a profitable job, smiled
and bowed himself away.

“Bower, these are evil days,” grinned
Senator Rigdon. “In these days a Congressman
can be insulted by any body with impunity,
and, by the Lord! with justice. But
I am a born Southron, and, in a small, upcountry
way, a Southern gentleman, and I
don't quite like it. I feel that the insult
is just, but also that it is grievous. I decline
the job which this money-changer proposed;
but it may do for a born Yankee and
carpet-bagger like yourself, Bower. And the
young woman is pretty; moreover, handsome
is that handsome pays. Put her in your carpet-bag,
and go along with her.”

“Mr. Rigdon,” broke out Bower, his black
eyes flashing again, “you recur a little too

frequently to my Yankeeism and carpetbaggism.
If we were living in the old
times—”

“Yes, Bower, if we were living in the old
times, we would fight. I shouldn't be able
to bear you. And you wouldn't be able to
bear me. But misery makes strange bedfellows.
Here we are in Congress, which
wouldn't have happened in the old times,
and we mustn't fight, for fear of being laughed
off the political stage. The world is
more moral than it used to be, Bower; the
devil has introduced a new kind of morality.
God bless us! what is the nation coming to,
when a couple of poor shoats can't kill each
other, and thus do their best toward rendering
humanity a service? Ah, there is
the lovely Murray again! This time it is
the beautiful Beauman who is inhaling her
sweetness. And the talented Bray walks
close behind, waiting for his chance to adore
and be adored. And all around I behold
Congressmen smiling and prostrating themselves.
She will have small trouble in putting
her claim through, and she will jilt a
baker's dozen before the season is over.”

Well, we have told enough of this sort of
thing, perhaps, to give a vague idea of the
impression which Josie made in Washington
society, and of her chances of success in
pushing her suit.