University of Virginia Library

51. CHAPTER LI.

DECEMBER, 18—, found Washington Hawkins and
Col. Sellers once more at the capitol of the nation,
standing guard over the University bill. The former gentleman
was despondent, the latter hopeful. Washington's distress
of mind was chiefly on Laura's account. The court
would soon sit to try her case, he said, and consequently a
great deal of ready money would be needed in the engineering
of it. The University bill was sure to pass, this time,
and that would make money plenty, but might not the help
come too late? Congress had only just assembled, and delays
were to be feared.

“Well,” said the Colonel, “I don't know but you are more
or less right, there. Now let's figure up a little on the preliminaries.
I think Congress always tries to do as near right
as it can, according to its lights. A man can't ask any fairer
than that. The first preliminary it always starts out on, is
to clean itself, so to speak. It will arraign two or three dozen
of its members, or maybe four or five dozen, for taking bribes
to vote for this and that and the other bill last winter.”

“It goes up into the dozens, does it?”

“Well, yes; in a free country like ours, where any man

can run for Congress and anybody can vote for him, you
can't expect immortal purity all the time—it ain't in nature.
—Sixty or eighty or a hundred and fifty people are bound to
get in who are not angels in disguise, as young Hicks the
correspondent says; but still it is a very good average; very
good indeed. As long as it averages as well as that, I think
we can feel very well satisfied. Even in these days, when
people growl so much and the newspapers are so out of
patience, there is still a very respectable minority of honest
men in Congress.”

“Why a respectable minority of honest men can't do any
good, Colonel.”

“Oh, yes it can, too.”

“Why, how?”

“Oh, in many ways, many ways.”

“But what are the ways?”

“Well—I don't know—it is a question that requires time;
a body can't answer every question right off-hand. But it
does do good. I am satisfied of that.”

“All right, then; grant that it does good; go on with the
preliminaries.”

“That is what I am coming to. First, as I said, they will
try a lot of members for taking money for votes. That
will take four weeks.”

“Yes, that's like last year; and it is a sheer waste of the
time for which the nation pays those men to work—that is
what that is. And it pinches when a body's got a bill waiting.”

“A waste of time, to purify the fountain of public law?
Well, I never heard anybody express an idea like that before.
But if it were, it would still be the fault of the minority,
for the majority don't institute these proceedings. There is
where that minority becomes an obstruction—but still one
can't say it is on the wrong side.—Well, after they have finished
the bribery cases, they will take up cases of members
who have bought their seats with money. That will take
another four weeks.”

“Very good; go on. You have accounted for two-thirds
of the session.”

“Next they will try each other for various smaller irregularities,
like the sale of appointments to West Point cadetships,
and that sort of thing—mere trifling pocket-money enterprises
that might better be passed over in silence, perhaps,
but then one of our Congresses can never rest easy till it has
thoroughly purified itself of all blemishes—and that is a thing
to be applauded.”

“How long does it take to disinfect itself of these minor
impurities?”

“Well, about two weeks, generally.”

“So Congress always lies helpless in quarantine ten weeks
of a session. That's encouraging. Colonel, poor Laura will
never get any benefit from our bill. Her trial will be over
before Congress has half purified itself.—And doesn't it occur
to you that by the time it has expelled all its impure members
there may not be enough members left to do business
legally?”

“Why I did not say Congress would expel anybody.”

“Well won't it expel anybody?”

“Not necessarily. Did it last year? It never does. That
would not be regular.”

“Then why waste all the session in that tomfoolery of trying
members?”

“It is usual; it is customary; the country requires it.”

“Then the country is a fool, I think.”

“Oh, no. The country thinks somebody is going to be expelled.”

“Well, when nobody is expelled, what does the country
think then?”

“By that time, the thing has strung out so long that the
country is sick and tired of it and glad to have a change on
any terms. But all that inquiry is not lost. It has a good
moral effect.”

“Who does it have a good moral effect on?”

“Well—I don't know. On foreign countries, I think.

We have always been under the gaze of foreign countries.
There is no country in the world, sir, that pursues corruption
as inveterately as we do. There is no country in the world
whose representatives try each other as much as ours do, or
stick to it as long on a stretch. I think there is something
great in being a model for the whole civilized world, Washington.”

“You don't mean a model; you mean an example.”

“Well, it's all the same; it's just the same thing. It shows
that a man can't be corrupt in this country without sweating
for it, I can tell you that.”

“Hang it, Colonel, you just said we never punish anybody
for villainous practices.”

“But good God we try them, don't we! Is it nothing to
show a disposition to sift things and bring people to a strict
account? I tell you it has its effect.”

“Oh, bother the effect!—What is it they do do? How do
they proceed? You know perfectly well—and it is all bosh,
too. Come, now, how do they proceed?”

“Why they proceed right and regular—and it ain't bosh,
Washington, it ain't bosh. They appoint a committee to
investigate, and that committee hears evidence three weeks,
and all the witnesses on one side swear that the accused took
money or stock or something for his vote. Then the accused
stands up and testifies that he may have done it, but he was
receiving and handling a good deal of money at the time and
he doesn't remember this particular circumstance—at least with
sufficient distinctness to enable him to grasp it tangibly. So
of course the thing is not proven—and that is what they say
in the verdict. They don't acquit, they don't condemn.
They just say, `Charge not proven.' It leaves the accused
in a kind of a shaky condition before the country, it purifies
Congress, it satisfies everybody, and it doesn't seriously hurt
anybody. It has taken a long time to perfect our system,
but it is the most admirable in the world, now.”

“So one of those long stupid investigations always turns
out in that lame silly way. Yes, you are correct. I thought

maybe you viewed the matter differently from other people.
Do you think a Congress of ours could convict the devil of
anything if he were a member?”

“My dear boy, don't let these damaging delays prejudice
you against Congress. Don't use such strong language; you
talk like a newspaper. Congress has inflicted frightful punishments
on its members—now you know that. When they
tried Mr. Fairoaks, and a cloud of witnesses proved him to be
—well, you know what they proved him to be—and his own
testimony and his own confessions gave him the same character,
what did Congress do then?—come!”

“Well, what did Congress do?”

“You know what Congress did, Washington. Congress
intimated plainly enough, that they considered him almost a
stain upon their body; and without waiting ten days, hardly,
to think the thing over, they rose up and hurled at him a resolution
declaring that they disapproved of his conduct! Now
you know that, Washington.”

“It was a terrific thing—there is no denying that. If he
had been proven guilty of theft, arson licentiousness, infanticide,
and defiling graves, I believe they would have suspended
him for two days.”

“You can depend on it, Washington. Congress is vindictive,
Congress is savage, sir, when it gets waked up once. It
will go to any length to vindicate its honor at such a time.”

“Ah well, we have talked the morning through, just as
usual in these tiresome days of waiting, and we have reached
the same old result; that is to say, we are no better off than
when we began. The land bill is just as far away as ever,
and the trial is closer at hand. Let's give up everything and
die.”

“Die and leave the Duchess to fight it out all alone? Oh,
no, that won't do. Come, now, don't talk so. It is all going
to come out right. Now you'll see.'

“It never will, Colonel, never in the world. Something
tells me that. I get more tired and more despondent every

day. I don't see any hope; life is only just a trouble. I am
so miserable these days!”

The Colonel made Washington get up and walk the floor
with him, arm in arm. The good old speculator wanted to
comfort him, but he hardly knew how to go about it. He
made many attempts, but they were lame; they lacked spirit;
the words were encouraging, but they were only words—he
could not get any heart into them. He could not always
warm up, now, with the old Hawkeye fervor. By and by
his lips trembled and his voice got unsteady. He said:

“Don't give up the ship, my boy—don't do it. The
wind's bound to fetch around and set in our favor. I know it.”

And the prospect was so cheerful that he wept. Then he
blew a trumpet-blast that started the meshes of his handkerchief,
and said in almost his breezy old-time way:

“Lord bless us, this is all nonsense! Night doesn't last
always; day has got to break some time or other. Every
silver lining has a cloud behind it, as the poet says; and that

remark has always cheered me, though I never could see any
meaning to it. Everybody uses it, though, and everybody
gets comfort out of it. I wish they would start something
fresh. Come, now, let's cheer up; there's been as good fish
in the sea as there are now. It shall never be said that Eschol
Sellers—. Come in?”

It was the telegraph boy. The Colonel reached for the
message and devoured its contents.

“I said it! Never give up the ship! The trial's postponed
till February, and we'll save the child yet. Bless my
life, what lawyers they have in New York! Give them
money to fight with, and the ghost of an excuse, and they
would manage to postpone anything in this world, unless it
might be the millennium or something like that. Now for
work again, my boy. The trial will last to the middle of
March, sure; Congress ends the fourth of March. Within
three days of the end of the session they will be done putting
through the preliminaries, and then they will be ready for
national business. Our bill will go through in forty-eight
hours, then, and we'll telegraph a million dollars to the jury
—to the lawyers, I mean—and the verdict of the jury will be
`Accidental murder resulting from justifiable insanity'—or
something to that effect, something to that effect. Everything
is dead sure, now. Come, what is the matter? What
are you wilting down like that, for? You mustn't be a
girl, you know.”

“Oh, Colonel, I am become so used to troubles, so used to
failures, disappointments, hard luck of all kinds, that a little
good news breaks me right down. Everything has been so
hopeless that now I can't stand good news at all. It is too
good to be true, anyway. Don't you see how our bad luck
has worked on me? My hair is getting gray, and many
nights I don't sleep at all. I wish it was all over and we
could rest. I wish we could lie down and just forget everything,
and let it all be just a dream that is done and can't
come back to trouble us any more. I am so tired.”

“Ah, poor child, don't talk like that—cheer up—there's

daylight ahead. Don't give up. You'll have Laura again,
and Louise, and your mother, and oceans and oceans of
money—and then you can go away, ever so far away somewhere,
if you want to, and forget all about this infernal
place. And by George I'll go with you! I'll go with you
—now there's my word on it. Cheer up. I'll run out and
tell the friends the news.”

And he wrung Washington's hand and was about to hurry
away when his companion, in a burst of grateful admiration
said:

“I think you are the best soul and the noblest I ever knew,
Colonel Sellers! and if the people only knew you as I do,
you would not be tagging around here a nameless man—you
would be in Congress.”

The gladness died out of the Colonel's face, and he laid his
hand upon Washington's shoulder and said gravely:

“I have always been a friend of your family, Washington,
and I think I have always tried to do right as between man
and man, according to my lights. Now I don't think there
has ever been anything in my conduct that should make you
feel justified in saying a thing like that.”

He turned, then, and walked slowly out, leaving Washington
abashed and somewhat bewildered. When Washington
had presently got his thoughts into line again, he said to himself,
“Why, honestly, I only meant to compliment him—indeed
I would not have hurt him for the world.”