University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER XXVIII.

WHATEVER may have been the language of Harry's
letter to the Colonel, the information it conveyed was
condensed or expanded, one or the other, from the following
episode of his visit to New York:

He called, with official importance in his mien, at No.——,
Wall street, where a great gilt sign betokened the presence
of the head-quarters of the “Columbus River Slack-Water
Navigation Company.” He entered and gave a dressy porter
his card, and was requested to wait a moment in a sort of
ante-room. The porter returned in a minute, and asked whom
he would like to see?

“The president of the company, of course.”

“He is busy with some gentlemen, sir; says he will be done
with them directly.”

That a copper-plate card with “Engineer-in-Chief” on it
should be received with such tranquility as this, annoyed Mr.
Brierly not a little. But he had to submit. Indeed his
annoyance had time to augment a good deal; for he was
allowed to cool his heels a full half hour in the ante-room
before those gentlemen emerged and he was ushered into the
presence. He found a stately dignitary occupying a very
official chair behind a long green morocco-covered table, in a

[ILLUSTRATION]

AT HEADQUARTERS.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 251. In-line image of a fat man in his office. Another man is entering the room being led by a servant.] room sumptuously carpeted and furnished, and well garnished
with pictures.

“Good morning, sir; take a seat—take a seat.”

“Thank you sir,” said Harry, throwing as much chill into
his manner as his ruffled dignity prompted.

“We perceive by your reports and the reports of the Chief
Superintendent, that you have been making gratifying progress
with the work.—We are all very much pleased.”

“Indeed? We did not discover it from your letters—
which we have not received; nor by the treatment our drafts
have met with—which were not honored; nor by the reception
of any part of the appropriation, no part of it having
come to hand.”

“Why, my dear Mr. Brierly, there must be some mistake.
I am sure we wrote you and also Mr. Sellers, recently—when
my clerk comes he will show copies—letters informing you
of the ten per cent. assessment.”

“Oh, certainly, we got those letters. But what we wanted
was money to carry on the work—money to pay the men.”

“Certainly, certainly—true enough—but we credited you
both for a large part of your assessments—I am sure that was
in our letters.”

“Of course that was in—I remember that.”

“Ah, very well then. Now we begin to understand each
other.”

“Well, I don't see that we do. There's two months' wages
due the men, and——”

“How! Haven't you paid the men?”

“Paid them! How are we going to pay them when you
don't honor our drafts?”

“Why, my dear sir, I cannot see how you can find any
fault with us. I am sure we have acted in a perfectly straight
forward business way. Now let us look at the thing a moment.
You subscribed for 100 shares of the capital stock, at $1,000
a share, I believe?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“And Mr. Sellers took a like amount?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. No concern can get along without money.
We levied a ten per cent. assessment. It was the original
understanding that you and Mr. Sellers were to have the positions
you now hold, with salaries of $600 a month each, while
in active service. You were duly elected to these places, and
you accepted them. Am I right?”

“Certainly.”

“Very well. You were given your instructions and put
to work. By your reports it appears that you have expended
the sum of $9,640 upon the said work. Two months
salary to you two officers amounts altogether to $2,400—
about one-eighth of your ten per cent. assessment, you see;
which leaves you in debt to the company for the other seveneighths
of the assessment—viz, something over $8,000 apiece.
Now instead of requiring you to forward this aggregate of
$16,000 or $17,000 to New York, the company voted unanimously
to let you pay it over to the contractors, laborers from
time to time, and give you credit on the books for it. And
they did it without a murmur, too, for they were pleased with

the progress you had made, and were glad to pay you that
little compliment—and a very neat one it was, too, I am sure.
The work you did fell short of $10,000, a trifle. Let me see
—$9,640 from $20,000—salary $2,400 added—ah yes, the
balance due the company from yourself and Mr. Sellers is
$7,960, which I will take the responsibility of allowing to
stand for the present, unless you prefer to draw a check now,
and thus——”

“Confound it, do you mean to say that instead of the company
owing us $2,400, we owe the company $7,960?”

“Well, yes.”

“And that we owe the men and the contractors nearly ten
thousand dollars besides?”

“Owe them! Oh bless my soul, you can't mean that you
have not paid these people?”

“But I do mean it!”

The president rose and walked the floor like a man in
bodily pain. His brows contracted, be put his hand up and
clasped his forehead, and kept saying, “Oh, it is too bad, too

bad, too bad! Oh, it is bound to be found out—nothing
can prevent it—nothing!”

Then he threw himself into his chair and said:

“My dear Mr. Brierson, this is dreadful—perfectly dreadful.
It will be found out. It is bound to tarnish the good
name of the company; our credit will be seriously, most
seriously impaired. How could you be so thoughtless—the
men ought to have been paid though it beggared us all!”

“They ought, ought they? Then why the devil—my
name is not Bryerson, by the way—why the mischief didn't
the compa—why what in the nation ever became of the appropriation?
Where is that appropriation?—if a stockholder
may make so bold as to ask.”

“The appropriation?—that paltry $200,000, do you
mean?”

“Of course—but I didn't know that $200,000 was so very
paltry. Though I grant, of course, that it is not a large sum,
strictly speaking. But where is it?”

“My dear sir, you surprise me. You surely cannot have
had a large acquaintance
with this sort of thing.
Otherwise you would not
have expected much of a
result from a mere initial
appropriation like that. It
was never intended for anything
but a mere nest egg
for the future and real appropriations
to cluster
around.”

“Indeed? Well, was it a
myth, or was it a reality?
Whatever become of it?”

“Why the matter is simple enough. A Congressional appropriation
costs money. Just reflect, for instance. A
majority of the House Committee, say $10,000 apiece—
$40,000; a majority of the Senate Committee, the same each

[ILLUSTRATION]

MALE LOBBYIST, $3,000.
FEMALE LOBBYIST, $3,000.
HIGH MORAL SENATOR, $3,000.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 255. In-line images of three people: a man, a woman, and a balding older man dressed in black.] —say $40,000; a little extra to one or two chairmen of one
or two such committees,
say $10,000 each—$20,000;
and there's $100,000 of the
money gone, to begin with.
Then, seven male lobbyists,
at $3,000 each—$21,000;
one female lobbyist, $10,
000; a high moral Congressman
or Senator here
and there—the high moral
ones cost more, because they
give tone to a measure—
say ten of these at $3,000
each, is $30,000; then a
lot of small-fry country
members who won't vote
for anything whatever without
pay—say twenty at
$500 apiece, is $10,000; a
lot of dinners to members
—say $10,000 altogether;
lot of jimcracks for Congressmen's
wives and children—those
go a long way
—you can't spend too much
money in that line—well,
those things cost in a lump,
say $10,000—along there
somewhere;—and then
comes your printed documents
— your maps, your
tinted engravings, your
pamphlets, your illuminated
show cards, your advertisements
in a hundred and
fifty papers at ever so much
a line—because you've got to keep the papers all right or
you are gone up, you know. Oh, my dear sir, printing
bills are destruction itself. Ours, so far amount to—let me
see—10; 52; 22; 13;—and
then there's 11; 14; 33—
well, never mind the details,
the total in clean numbers
foots up $118,254.42
thus far!”

“What!”

“Oh, yes indeed. Printing's
no bagatelle, I can tell
you. And then there's
your contributions, as a company,
to Chicago fires and
Boston fires, and orphan
asylums and all that sort
of thing—head the list, you see, with the company's full
name and a thousand dollars set opposite—great card, sir—
one of the finest advertisements in the world—the preachers
mention it in the pulpit when it's a religious charity—one of
the happiest advertisements in the world is your benevolent
donation. Ours have amounted to sixteen thousand dollars
and some cents up to this time.”

“Good heavens!”

“Oh, yes. Perhaps the biggest thing we've done in the
advertising line was to get an officer of the U. S. government,
of perfectly Himmalayan official altitude, to write up
our little internal improvement for a religious paper of enormous
circulation—I tell you that makes our bonds go handsomely
among the pious poor. Your religious paper is by
far the best vehicle for a thing of this kind, because they'll
`lead' your article and put it right in the midst of the reading
matter; and if it's got a few Scripture quotations in it,
and some temperance platitudes and a bit of gush here and
there about Sunday Schools, and a sentimental snuffle now
and then about `God's precious ones, the honest hard-handed
poor,' it works the nation like a charm, my dear sir, and

never a man suspects that it is an advertisement; but your
secular paper sticks you right into the advertising columns
and of course you don't take a trick. Give me a religious
paper to advertise in, every time; and if you'll just look at
their advertising pages, you'll observe that other people think
a good deal as I do—especially people who have got little
financial schemes to make everybody rich with. Of course I
mean your great big metropolitan religious papers that know
how to serve God and make money at the same time—that's
your sort, sir, that's your sort—a religious paper that isn't
run to make money is no use to us, sir, as an advertising
medium—no use to anybody in our line of business. I
guess our next best dodge was sending a pleasure trip of
newspaper reporters out to Napoleon. Never paid them a
cent; just filled them up with champagne and the fat of the
land, put pen, ink and paper before them while they were
red-hot, and bless your soul when you come to read their
letters you'd have supposed they'd been to heaven. And if a
sentimental squeamishness held one or two of them back from
taking a less rosy view of Napoleon, our hospitalities tied his
tongue, at least, and he said nothing at all and so did us no
harm. Let me see—have I stated all the expenses I've been
at? No, I was near forgetting one or two items. There's
your official salaries—you can't get good men for nothing.
Salaries cost pretty lively. And then there's your big high-sounding
millionaire names stuck into your advertisements as
stockholders—another card, that—and they are stockholders,
too, but you have to give them the stock and non-assessable
at that—so they're an expensive lot. Very, very expensive
thing, take it all around, is a big internal improvement concern—but
you see that yourself, Mr. Bryerman—you see that,
yourself, sir.”

“But look here. I think you are a little mistaken about
it's ever having cost anything for Congressional votes. I
happen to know something about that. I've let you say your
say—now let me say mine. I don't wish to seem to throw
any suspicion on anybody's statements, because we are all
liable to be mistaken. But how would it strike you if I were

to say that I was in Washington all the time this bill was
pending?—and what if I added that I put the measure
through myself? Yes, sir, I did that little thing. And moreover,
I never paid a dollar for any man's vote and never
promised one. There are some ways of doing a thing that
are as good as others which other people don't happen to
think about, or don't have the knack of succeeding in, if they
do happen to think of them. My dear sir, I am obliged to
knock some of your expenses in the head—for never a cent
was paid a Congressman or Senator on the part of this Navigation
Company.

The president smiled blandly, even sweetly, all through
this harangue, and then said:

“Is that so?”

“Every word of it.”

“Well it does seem to alter the complexion of things a
little. You are acquainted with the members down there, of
course, else you could not have worked to such advantage?”

“I know them all, sir. I know their wives, their children,
their babies—I even made it a point to be on good terms
with their lackeys. I knew every Congressman well—even
familiarly.”

“Very good. Do you know any of their signatures? Do
you know their handwriting.”

“Why I know their handwriting as well as I know my
own—have had correspondence enough with them, I should
think. And their signatures—why I can tell their initials,
even.”

The president went to a private safe, unlocked it and got
out some letters and certain slips of paper. Then he said:

“Now here, for instance; do you believe that that is a
genuine letter? Do you know this signature here?—and
this one? Do you know who those initials represent—and
are they forgeries?”

Harry was stupefied. There were things there that made
his brain swim. Presently, at the bottom of one of the
letters he saw a signature that restored his equilibrium; it
even brought the sunshine of a smile to his face.

[ILLUSTRATION]

DOCUMENTARY PROOF.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 259. In-line image of a man handing another man a document while they stand in a parlor filled with books.]

The president said:

“That name amuses you. You never suspected him?”

“Of course I ought to have suspected him, but I don't
believe it ever really occurred to me. Well, well, well—
how did you ever have the nerve to approach him, of all
others?”

“Why my friend, we never think of accomplishing anything
without his help. He is our mainstay. But how do
those letters strike you?”

“They strike me dumb! What a stone-blind idiot I have
been!”

“Well, take it all around, I suppose you had a pleasant
time in Washington,” said the president, gathering up the
letters; “of course you must have had. Very few men
could go there and get a money bill through without buying
a single—”

“Come, now, Mr. President, that's plenty of that! I take
back everything I said on that head. I'm a wiser man to-day
than I was yesterday, I can tell you.”

“I think you are. In fact I am satisfied you are. But
now I showed you these things in confidence, you understand.
Mention facts as much as you want to, but don't
mention names to anybody. I can depend on you for that,
can't I?”

“Oh, of course. I understand the necessity of that. I
will not betray the names. But to go back a bit, it begins to
look as if you never saw any of that appropriation at all?”

“We saw nearly ten thousand dollars of it—and that was
all. Several of us took turns at log-rolling in Washington,
and if we had charged anything for that service, none of that
$10,000 would ever have reached New York.”

“If you hadn't levied the assessment you would have been
in a close place I judge?”

“Close? Have you figured up the total of the disbursements
I told you of?”

“No, I didn't think of that.”

“Well, lets see:

             

Spent in Washington, say,	$191,000
Printing, advertising, etc., say,	118,000
Charity, say,	16,000
Total,	$325,000
“The money to do that with, comes from— Appropriation,	$200,000
Ten per cent. assessment on capital of $1,000,000,	100,000
Total,	$300,000

“Which leaves us in debt some $25,000 at this moment.
Salaries of home officers are still going on; also printing and
advertising. Next month will show a state of things!”

“And then—burst up, I suppose?”

“By no means. Levy another assessment.”

“Oh, I see. That's dismal.”

“By no means.”

“Why isn't it? What's the road out?”

“Another appropriation, don't you see?”

“Bother the appropriations. They cost more than they
come to.”

“Not the next one. We'll call for half a million—get it
and go for a million the very next month.”

“Yes, but the cost of it!”

The president smiled, and patted his secret letters affectionately.
He said:

“All these people are in the next Congress. We shan't
have to pay them a cent. And what is more, they will work
like beavers for us—perhaps it might be to their advantage.”

Harry reflected profoundly a while. Then he said:

“We send many missionaries to lift up the benighted races
of other lands. How much cheaper and better it would be
if those people could only come here and drink of our civilization
at its fountain head.”

“I perfectly agree with you, Mr. Beverly. Must you go?
Well, good morning. Look in, when you are passing; and
whenever I can give you any information about our affairs
and prospects, I shall be glad to do it.”

Harry's letter was not a long one, but it contained at least
the calamitous figures that came out in the above conversation.
The Colonel found himself in a rather uncomfortable
place—no $1,200 salary forthcoming; and himself held
responsible for half of the $9,640 due the workmen, to say
nothing of being in debt to the company to the extent of
nearly $4,000. Polly's heart was nearly broken; the “blues”
returned in fearful force, and she had to go out of the room
to hide the tears that nothing could keep back now.

There was mourning in another quarter, too, for Louise
had a letter. Washington had refused, at the last moment,
to take $40,000 for the Tennessee Land, and had demanded
$150,000! So the trade fell through, and now Washington
was wailing because he had been so foolish. But he wrote
that his man might probably return to the city, soon, and
then he meant to sell to him, sure, even if he had to take
$10,000. Louise had a good cry—several of them, indeed—
and the family charitably forebore to make any comments
that would increase her grief.

[ILLUSTRATION]

COLONEL SELLERS DESPONDENT.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 262. In-line image of a woman comforting a man as he sits beside a window.]

Spring blossomed, summer came, dragged its hot weeks by,
and the Colonel's spirits rose, day by day, for the railroad
was making good progress. But by and by something happened.
Hawkeye had always declined to subscribe anything
toward the railway, imagining that her large business would
be a sufficient compulsory influence; but now Hawkeye was
frightened; and before Col. Sellers knew what he was about,
Hawkeye, in a panie, had rushed to the front and subscribed
such a sum that Napoleon's attractions suddenly sank into
insignificance and the railroad concluded to follow a comparatively
straight course instead of going miles out of its way
to build up a metropolis in the muddy desert of Stone's
Landing.

The thunderbolt fell. After all the Colonel's deep planning;
after all his brain work and tongue work in drawing
public attention to his pet project and enlisting interest in it;
after all his faithful hard toil with his hands, and running
hither and thither on his busy fect; after all his high hopes
and splendid prophecies, the fates had turned their backs on

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 499EAF. Page 263. Tail-piece image of a river with a fallen tree in the center of it.] him at last, and all in a moment his air-castles crumbled to
ruins about him. Hawkeye rose from her fright triumphant
and rejoicing, and down went Stone's Landing! One by one
its meagre parcel of inhabitants packed up and moved away,
as the summer waned and fall approached. Town lots were
no longer salable, traffic ceased, a deadly lethargy fell upon
the place once more, the “Weekly Telegraph” faded into an
early grave, the wary tadpole returned from exile, the bull-frog
resumed his ancient song, the tranquil turtle sunned his
back upon bank and log and drowsed his grateful life away
as in the old sweet days of yore.