University of Virginia Library

40. CHAPTER XL.

AS may be readily believed, Col. Eschol Sellers was by this
time one of the best known men in Washington. For
the first time in his life his talents had a fair field.

He was now at the centre of the manufacture of gigantic
schemes, of speculations of all sorts, of political and social
gossip. The atmosphere was full of little and big rumors and
of vast, undefined expectations. Everybody was in haste, too,
to push on his private plan, and feverish in his haste, as if in
constant apprehension that to-morrow would be Judgment
Day. Work while Congress is in session, said the uneasy
spirit, for in the recess there is no work and no device.

The Colonel enjoyed this bustle and confusion amazingly;
he thrived in the air of indefinite expectation. All his own
schemes took larger shape and more misty and majestic proportions;
and in this congenial air, the Colonel seemed even
to himself to expand into something large and mysterious.
If he respected himself before, he almost worshipped Eschol
Sellers now, as a superior being. If he could have chosen
an official position out of the highest, he would have been
embarrassed in the selection. The presidency of the republic
seemed too limited and cramped in the constitutional

restrictions. If he could have been Grand Llama of the United
States, that might have come the nearest to his idea of a
position. And next to that he would have luxuriated in
the irresponsible omniscience of the Special Correspondent.

Col. Sellers knew the President very well, and had access
to his presence when officials were kept cooling their heels
in the waiting-room. The President liked to hear the Colonel
talk, his voluble ease was a refreshment after the
decorous dullness of men who only talked business and government,
and everlastingly expounded their notions of justice
and the distribution of patronage. The Colonel was as much
a lover of farming and of horses as Thomas Jefferson was.
He talked to the President by the hour about his magnificent
stud, and his plantation at Hawkeye, a kind of principality
he represented it. He urged the President to pay
him a visit during the recess, and see his stock farm.

“The President's table is well enough,” he used to say,
to the loafers who gathered about him at Willard's, “well
enough for a man on a salary, but God bless my soul, I
should like him to see a little old-fashioned hospitality—
open house, you know. A person seeing me at home might
think I paid no attention to what was in the house, just let
things flow in and out. He'd be mistaken. What I look to
is quality, sir. The President has variety enough, but the

quality! Vegetables of course you can't expect here. I'm
very particular about mine. Take celery, now—there's only
one spot in this country where celery will grow. But I am
surprised about the wines. I should think they were manufactured
in the New York Custom House. I must send the
President some from my cellar. I was really mortified the
other day at dinner to see Blacque Bey leave his standing in
the glasses.”

When the Colonel first came to Washington he had
thoughts of taking the mission to Constantinople, in order to
be on the spot to look after the dissemination of his Eye
Water, but as that invention was not yet quite ready, the
project shrank a little in the presence of vaster schemes.
Besides he felt that he could do the country more good by
remaining at home. He was one of the Southerners who
were constantly quoted as heartily “accepting the situation.”

“I'm whipped,” he used to say with a jolly laugh, “the
government was too many for me; I'm cleaned out, done for,
except my plantation and private mansion. We played for a
big thing, and lost it, and I don't whine, for one. I go for
putting the old flag on all the vacant lots. I said to the
President, says I, `Grant, why don't you take Santo Domingo,
annex the whole thing, and settle the bill afterwards.' That's
my way. I'd take the job to manage Congress. The South
would come into it. You've got to conciliate the South,
consolidate the two debts, pay 'em off in greenbacks, and go
ahead. That's my notion. Boutwell's got the right notion
about the value of paper, but he lacks courage. I should
like to run the treasury department about six months. I'd
make things plenty, and business look up.”

The Colonel had access to the departments. He knew all
the senators and representatives, and especially the lobby.
He was consequently a great favorite in Newspaper Row, and
was often lounging in the offices there, dropping bits of
private, official information, which were immediately caught
up and telegraphed all over the country. But it used to
surprise even the Colonel when he read it, it was embellished

to that degree that he hardly recognized it, and the hint was
not lost on him. He began to exaggerate his heretofore
simple conversation to suit the newspaper demand.

People used to wonder in the winters of 187- and 187-,
where the “Specials” got that remarkable information with
which they every morning surprised the country, revealing
the most secret intentions of the President and his cabinet,
the private thoughts of political leaders, the hidden meaning
of every movement. This information was furnished by
Col. Sellers.

When he was asked, afterwards, about the stolen copy of
the Alabama Treaty which got into the “New York Tribune,”
he only looked mysterious, and said that neither he nor
Senator Dilworthy knew anything about it. But those whom
he was in the habit of meeting occasionally felt almost certain
that he did know.

It must not be supposed that the Colonel in his general
patriotic labors neglected his own affairs. The Columbus
River Navigation Scheme absorbed only a part of his time,
so he was enabled to throw quite a strong reserve force of
energy into the Tennessee Land plan, a vast enterprise
commensurate with his abilities, and in the prosecution of
which he was greatly aided by Mr. Henry Brierly, who was
buzzing about the capitol and the hotels day and night, and
making capital for it in some mysterious way.

“We must create a public opinion,” said Senator Dilworthy.
“My only interest in it is a public one, and if the
country wants the institution, Congress will have to yield.”

It may have been after a conversation between the Colonel
and Senator Dilworthy that the following special despatch was
sent to a New York newspaper:—

When Washington Hawkins read this despatch, he went
to the Colonel in some anxiety. He was for a lease, he
didn't want to surrender anything. What did he think the
government would offer? Two millions?

“May be three, may be four,” said the Colonel, “it's
worth more than the bank of England.”

“If they will not lease,” said Washington, “let 'em make it
two millions for an undivided half. I'm not going to throw
it away, not the whole of it.”

Harry told the Colonel that they must drive the thing
through, he couldn't be dallying round Washington when
Spring opened. Phil wanted him, Phil had a great thing on
hand up in Pennsylvania.

“What is that?” inquired the Colonel, always ready to
interest himself in anything large.

“A mountain of coal; that's all. He's going to run a tunnel
into it in the Spring.”

“Does he want any capital?” asked the Colonel, in the
tone of a man who is given to calculating carefully before he
makes an investment.

“No. Old man Bolton's behind him. He has capital,
but I judged that he wanted my experience in starting.”

“If he wants me, tell him I'll come, after Congress adjourns.
I should like to give him a little lift. He lacks enterprise—
now, about that Columbus River. He doesn't see his chances.
But he's a good fellow, and you can tell him that Sellers
won't go back on him.”

“By the way,” asked Harry, “who is that rather handsome
party that's hanging 'round Laura? I see him with her
everywhere, at the Capitol, in the horse cars, and he comes to
Dilworthy's. If he weren't lame, I should think he was going
to run off with her.”

“Oh, that's nothing. Laura knows her business. He has
a cotton claim. Used to be at Hawkeye during the war—

Selby's his name, was a Colonel. Got a wife and family
Very respectable people, the Selby's.”

“Well, that's all right,” said Harry, “if it's business. But
if a woman looked at me as I've seen her at Selby, I should
understand it. And it's talked about, I can tell you.”

Jealousy had no doubt sharpened this young gentleman's
observation. Laura could not have treated him with more
lofty condescension if she had been the Queen of Sheba,
on a royal visit to the great republic. And he resented it,
and was “huffy” when he was with her, and ran her errands,
and brought her gossip, and bragged of his intimacy with
the lovely creature among the fellows at Newspaper Row.

Laura's life was rushing on now in the full stream of
intrigue and fashionable dissipation. She was conspicuous
at the balls of the fastest set, and was suspected of being
present at those doubtful suppers that began late and ended
early. If Senator Dilworthy remonstrated about appearances,
she had a way of silencing him. Perhaps she had some hold
on him, perhaps she was necessary to his plan for ameliorating
the condition of the colored race.

She saw Col. Selby, when the public knew and when it did
not know. She would see him, whatever excuses he made,
and however he avoided her. She was urged on by a fever
of love and hatred and jealousy, which alternately possessed

her. Sometimes she petted him, and coaxed him and tried
all her fascinations. And again she threatened him and
reproached him. What was he doing? Why had he taken no
steps to free himself? Why didn't he send his wife home?
She should have money soon. They could go to Europe,—
anywhere. What did she care for talk?

And he promised, and lied, and invented fresh excuses for
delay, like a cowardly gambler and roué as he was, fearing to
break with her, and half the time unwilling to give her up.

“That woman doesn't know what fear is,” he said to himself,
“and she watches me like a hawk.”

He told his wife that this woman was a lobbyist, whom he
had to tolerate and use in getting through his claims, and
that he should pay her and have done with her, when he succeeded.