University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.
MR. HOLLOWBREAD ON PROBATION.

Josie gave Mr. Hollowbread one hasty and
furtive glance, not unlike the look which
we cast at a dentist's instruments when he
invites us to sit down in his stuffed chair;
then she decided, with a spasm of the heart
(or, perhaps, it might have been only the
diaphragm), that she could not possibly accept
him; at least, not that afternoon.

“I—can not,” she faltered, speaking more
frankly and conclusively than was polite or
politic, so urgent was that internal recoil.

Mr. Hollowbread's massive and splendidly
florid countenance turned to a bluish
pallor. Strong-minded as he was in a general
way, and inured to the vicissitudes of
love-making by much experience, this refusal
was a severe blow to him.

For a few seconds he remained paralyzed,
with his piteous, dumb mouth a little ajar,
like a young robin who has died in the act
of asking for a worm. During that awful
moment there was, perhaps, more vitality in
the straps, pads, braces, and springs of his
raiment than there was in the pulpy carcass
which it kept in shape. This anguish
was so unconcealably immense as to be sublime,
startling, and even menacing.

Josie herself felt that it was no cheerful
spectacle to see a Congressman in ruins.
Moreover, she became suddenly fearful of
losing her advocate, of changing him possibly
into an enemy, and so of risking the success
of her claim.

“At least, I must have time—you have so
surprised me!” she added. “You ought, in
fairness, to give me time to consider such a
serious matter as this.”

“I will, Mrs. Murray!” gasped the drowning
Hollowbread, clutching at the straw
which she held out to him. “I am aware
that it is a serious matter to you.”

“It is such a great step — to propose to
one—marriage!” sobbed Josie, tears springing
into her eloquent eyes, though from
what source of feeling we can not explain.

“Pardon me, Mrs. Murray!” begged the
truly loving and therefore deeply humble
Hollowbread. “I have been too hasty with
you. I have behaved like a brute. I ask
your forgiveness.”

It was very touching, this tender-hearted
meekness of a love-lorn old statesman; but
Josie, although intelligent enough to perceive
its pathos, was too selfish to be moved
by it; she was looking at her own side of
the worry.

“Then we will not think of it any more
for the present, Mr. Hollowbread,” she insinuated,
cheerfully, as she wiped away her
pair of tears.

“We will think of it, I hope,” prayed the
Congressman; “at least, I shall not and can
not cease to think of it. We will not, however,
speak of it until such a time as you
may fix. I only venture to beg that it may
not be set far distant.”

“I shall want a great deal of time,” said
Josie, venturing one of her musical, roguish
giggles, with the intent of diminishing the
gravity of the occasion.

“Allow me to trust not more than a
week.”

“Oh, Mr. Hollowbread!—a week! What
a hurry you are in! One would think we
were not going to live more than a month
or two. Do consider how hard it would be
for me to settle a life-long matter so soon!
Rome was not built in a day; and this is a
Rome to me—a woman's Rome. I think—
yes, I know by experience—that marriage
should not be entered on lightly,” she added,
with an air of sad remembrance, as if
poor Augustus had behaved worse to her
than she to him. “And so you must have
patience, and give me a chance to meditate
—a long, long chance. Can't you guess
how much time I want?”

“A fortnight,” guessed Hollowbread, with
a smile; for her manner was more encouraging
than her words, and his courage had
risen.

“A fortnight!” Josie laughed outright.
“Oh, what a mannish man! Just like all of
them—in a hurry to get, and in a hurry to
throw away; now for this plaything, and
now for that one.”

“Ah, Mrs. Murray, you do me injustice,”
sighed Hollowbread. “I assure you most
solemnly that my whole soul is interested in
this matter, and that my life-long happiness
depends on your decision. How can I help
desiring to escape from suspense?”

“No, no; I don't do you injustice,” declared
Josie, determined not to let the dialogue
drift back into the pathetic and strenuous.
“I do you the justice to believe that
you are so wise, so kind, so truly my best
counselor and friend, as to want me to
weigh your offer thoughtfully, and to decide
my future carefully. Well, to do that I
must have time—much more time than you
speak of. I must have three months!” she
concluded, remembering that by then the
session would be ended, and the fate of her
claim settled.

“It is a long period,” gently remonstrated
the deeply disappointed Congressman.

“It is long; but it is short compared with
the rest of my life—at least I hope so, Mr.
Hollowbread, don't you? It will be short
to you because you will be absorbed in great
labors and noble measures. And as for me,
would you have me decide in a fortnight, at
the risk of repenting in a year?”

“I would have you do what you believe
to be best for yourself,” answered the self-abnegation
of profound affection.

“Oh, thank you!” smiled Josie, leaping
adroitly at the martyr-like concession, and
perhaps thinking the while that within a
year she might be married to Bradford.
“That is so like you, Mr. Hollowbread—so
kind, so considerate, so good! I shall always
be grateful to you for this great favor.
And now one other thing—something very,
very important. This must all be a secret
—a profound secret.”

“On my word and honor,” bowed Hol
lowbread, with the solemnity of a President
taking the oath to support the Constitution.
“And allow me, Mrs. Murray, to mention
still one other thing, also, as it seems to me,
important. I consider myself engaged to
you until your answer is received. You are
free, but I am bound.”

Josie returned no response to this, and
made believe not to have heard him.

“I shall wait, but with an anxiety which
I can not express,” he continued, anxious to
get one cheering word.

“It shall be the previous question when
it does come up,” she laughed, quoting a
Congressional phrase in the way of light-hearted
slang, still with a hope of giving
the whole transaction a humorous and trivial
character.

“It is the only question with me,” replied
Mr. Hollowbread, heaving a grave and almost
sorrowful sigh.

She saw that he could not be induced to
make merry over his offer, and it seemed to
her the part of prudence to change the subject.

“Are you doing any thing interesting in
Congress?” was her next utterance.

“Nothing of any moment whatever,” he
answered, with a scarcely concealed impatience,
being utterly unable at that moment
to talk of legislative matters.

“When shall I get my money, Mr. Hollowbread?”
she now asked, thinking it a
good time to stir him up about the claim.

In justice to her intellect, I must add
that she put this cruel question with a full
knowledge that it was cruel. But why
should she not demand hard things of him
when he had demanded so hard a thing of
her? In truth, she felt a little vindictive
toward him because of his offer.

“Ah!” He fairly started, remembering
all at once that she expected work of him,
and judging that he must succeed in it or
fail to win her. “Well, I am keeping the
claim under my eye, and hope well of it,”
he faltered, knowing that he had not done
much. “I have mentioned it repeatedly to
the gentlemen of the Spoliation Committee,
and trust that they will reach it in the
course of a few days, or perhaps it would
be safer to say in two or three weeks. The
truth is, that I have not yet been able to fix
upon the amount to be demanded,” confessed
Mr. Hollowbread, whose prime faults, as
we recollect, were idleness and procrastination.
“I want a great deal for you, but do
not see my way clear to prove a right to a
great deal.”

“Why, claim what other people do,” advised
Josie, with a woman's breadth of view
in giving counsel. “Claim two hundred
thousand dollars, and get what you can.”

“It is not a wise way, I fear,” sighed
Hollowbread, who mildly abominated such
ways, and was ashamed to enter into them.

“Claims advanced in that manner are less
likely to succeed than those which present
a plausible case for the whole sum demanded.
Moreover, I desire, and you desire, that
your suit should be a strictly reputable one,
and not open to newspaper exposures and
Congressional investigations. Well, I have
ventured to think that sixty thousand dollars
might do; and that sum could easily be
figured up by means of interests and proper
conjectures of values; that is, if we ignore
the first payment as insufficient and not
worth considering. What I want and need
is, to get word from Mr. Drinkwater as to
whether he remembers any other burned
property besides the mere barn. If he does,
and will make affidavit to that effect, we
are strong. We might demand sixty thousand,
or thereabouts, imperatively; might
perhaps go up to a hundred thousand, with
good hopes of success.”

“Oh dear!” sighed Josie.

She had heard all this, or pretty much the
same sort of thing, over and over. It seemed
as if Mr. Hollowbread and other high
and mighty people could talk everlastingly
about her business, and never bring it a bit
the nearer to a satisfactory termination.
Sometimes the subject, with its apparently
immovable inertia, weighed oppressively on
her young spirits.

“To-morrow is the last day before recess,”
she added, in a tone of discouragement.

“And nothing could have been done,” declared
Mr. Hollowbread, perceiving that he
was blamed, and wincing under it. “During
recess,” he continued, “and properly
during the latter part of it, so as to get
Drinkwater here by the opening of the next
sitting, somebody will have to look up the
old gentleman. I have written to him in
vain. I think I shall go on to see him personally.”

“And I—shall I go too?” asked Josie.

She had once promised to take the trip,
but that Appleyard fracas had shaken her
adventurous soul a trifle, and made her
somewhat afraid of exposing herself to public
tattle.

“It would help me very much,” affirmed
the lover, hoping, of course, that it would
help him to her hand, in which case he
wanted nothing further of fortune.

“I will go,” she said, with a gay little air
of defiance. “It can be managed somehow
without people knowing. I should enjoy
the fun of arguing and coaxing evidence
out of old Mr. Drinkwater.”

It was all characteristic of her, the audacity
of the promise, and the levity with which
it was given. Josie's behavior was so habitually
risky, that many light-hearted persons
were always hoping she would commit some
dreadful impropriety, and thus furnish them
with a relishing cud of scandal.

Possibly a few of my readers are in this
frame of expectation concerning the little
witch. If so, I can hardly wonder, or blame
them as uncharitable.

“But there is something else to be done,”
she went on. “There is the Committee of
Spoliations to make sure of, and you never
have let me come near it. Tell me, now, do
you think that is quite judicious? I only
know what people say. They say that in
these affairs evidence is not the only thing
necessary; they say that favor is the great
point. If you want your bill, the honorable
gentlemen of the committee must be made
favorable. Other ladies attend to this; they
see the honorable gentlemen, they interview
them; and then somehow the honorable gentlemen
become favorable. It does seem to
me that I could interview them as effectually
as any body. Of course, if they are favorable
we can go higher in our damages,
and not run any risk in doing so. Don't
you think I had better see the honorable
gentlemen?”

“I supposed that you might find it unpleasant
to discuss your affairs with these
people,” mumbled Mr. Hollowbread, pronouncing
the word “people” as if he would
have preferred to say “fellows,” or even
“blackguards,” and showing clearly in his
manner that he did not fancy the proposed
interviewing. “It might, I must concede,
be well that you should do it,” he admitted,
not daring to tell his beloved a flat lie, and
ashamed to expose his jealousy. “And yet
I should be very sorry.”

Sorry, indeed! He was honest there, honest
and earnest. So “tender and true” was
the love of this old beau for this young coquette
that he held her in solemn reverence.
She was the light of the world to him; he
wanted to approach her with obeisances and
genuflections; he could have burned candles
before her and waved incense.

To such a devotee, such a ritualist in posse,
it was dreadful to think of exposing his idol
to men who would admire her without worshiping
her, and who would probably pay
her an audacious courtesy which to him
must seem mere profanation.

The act, moreover, would be au admission
of his own insufficiency as an advocate, and
might be understood as conceding his own
inferiority in influence compared with those
fellows of the Spoliation Committee.

As he thought of carrying the queen of
his heart before the potent and domineering
General Bangs, he angrily compared himself
to the menial and humble Nubian in Gérome's
picture, who sets down Cleopatra, nude, in
the presence of Cæsar.

It was partly because he had feared lest this
degradation might come, and had looked forward
to it with disgust, that he had plunged
that morning into his proposal of marriage.
He had said to himself that if she would accept

his hand and his considerable fortune,
then he could induce her to drop her wretched
claim and all its attendant defilements.
Possessed as he was by these feelings, we
may conceive that he should be sorrowful
and annoyed when Josie jumped gayly at
the notion of interviewing the Spoliations
Committee.

“Of course I had better see them,” she persisted.
“If they were ladies you could do
best with them, but as they are gentlemen I
shall do best.”

“I am not so sure that they are gentlemen,”
Mr. Hollowbread could not help answering.
Not wishing to appear unamiable
or otherwise disagreeable to her, he said it
with a smile; but that smile was much like
the grin of a dog who sees another dog about
to smell of his bone.

It was really exasperating just then to remember
the last dialogue which he had heard
in the committee-room about Mrs. Murray's
affairs.

“Hollowbread,” General Bangs had barytoned
at him, “you had better bring on your
little lady; we want to ask her a few questions,
and see whether she is worth encouraging
at this expense.”

Then General Hornblower had winked offensively,
not to say disgustingly, at Bangs,
and remarked, in his suave bass, “Certainly,
general. Our friend keeps his interesting
client too much to himself. We are not
yet absolutely certain that there is a Mrs.
Murray.”

“Ah, that is important,” was Bangs's repartee.
“We must make sure that there is a
claimant, and that the claimant is of the sex
alleged.”

To which Mr. Hollowbread had merely ventured
to reply, trembling the while through
all his pads and springs and compressers,

“Gentlemen, you will find that the claimant
is a lady in every sense of the word.”

“Are they so disagreeable?” asked Josie,
in response to his sneer at these wretches.
“I think I shall know how to manage them.
Don't you think I will? Besides, I want to
do something for myself. It is proper that
I should, and it is artistic. I am the Hamlet
of the play, and it won't do to leave Hamlet
out of `Hamlet.”'

“It may be best that you should talk
with them,” sighed Mr. Hollowbread, with
the calmness of well-bred woe.

“Can't you bring them here?” she inquired.
“That would help keep them on
their behavior. I could see them in the entry,
and have spittoons brought for them.”

He was delighted, as she had intended
that he should be, with this rough satire on
his fellow-lawgivers.

“It would be well enough for them,” he
laughed. “But, unfortunately, custom compels
them to transact their business at the
Capitol. We shall have to bow to the prej
udices of a stupid but stubborn world. When
women come to vote, things will be better
managed, and nicer.”

“They will be nicer for the ruling dowagers
and frights, perhaps; but for the pretty
ones, they won't be as nice as they are now.
The beauties will lose all their influence and
empire. The probability is that they will
be banished or beheaded, together with the
young men who like them.”

“I believe you are right,” said Mr. Hollowbread,
staring at her with an air of surprise
and admiration, like one who gets new light
on a dark subject. “The strong-minded
movement is really a rebellion of the ugly
against the rule of the beautiful. May that
evil day when belles are to be extirpated not
come in my time!”

“It would kill you,” laughed Josie, returning
his gaze with a glance of satirical approbation.
“You would wither and die if
you could not see pretty women about you.”

“I should not have the patience to wither,”
affirmed the portly old beau. “I should
commit the happy dispatch.”

Josie laughed again, and right heartily.
It was unspeakably comical to think of Mr.
Hollowbread laboriously cutting through
all that more or less visible padding and
bandaging. One might easily imagine him
as getting tired and sitting down to rest
long before he reached his epidermis.

“When shall we go to see the animals?”
she asked, presently, referring to the honorable
committee-men.

“Well, I scarcely know,” hesitated Mr.
Hollowbread, very unwilling to show his
menagerie.

“Now is as good a time as another,” decided
this persistent puss. “Let us go at
once.”