73. CHAPTER LXXIII.
THE BELCH PLATFORM.
“My dear Newt, as a friend who has the highest respect
for you, and the firmest faith in your future, I am sure you
will allow me to say one thing.”
“Oh! certainly, my dear Belch; say two,” replied Abel, with
the utmost suavity, as he sat at table with General Belch.
“I have no peculiar ability, I know,” continued the other,
“but I have, perhaps, a little more experience than you. We
old men, you know, always plume ourselves upon experience,
which we make do duty for all the virtues and talents.”
“And it is trained for that service by being merely a synonym
for a knowledge of all the sins and rascalities,” said Abel,
smiling, as he blew rings of smoke and passed the decanter to
General Belch.
“True,” replied the other; “very true. I see, my dear
Newt, that you have had your eyes and your mind open.
And since we are going to act together—since, in fact, we are
interested in the same plans—”
“And principles,” interrupted Abel, laying his head back,
and looking with half-closed eyes at the vanishing smoke.
“Oh yes, I was coming to that—in the same plans and principles,
it is well that we should understand each other perfectly.”
General Belch paused, looked at Abel, and took snuff.
“I think we do already,” replied Abel.
“Still there are one or two points to which I would call
your attention. One is, that you can not be too careful of
what you say, in regard to its bearing upon the party; and
the other is, a general rule that the Public is an ass, but you
must never let it know you think so. If there is one thing
which the party has practically proved, it is that the people
have no will of their own, but are sheep in the hands of the
shepherd.”
The General took snuff again.
“The Public, then, is an ass and a sheep?” inquired Abel.
“Yes,” said the General, “an ass in capacity, and in preference
of a thistle diet; a sheep in gregarious and stupid following.
You say `Ca, ca, ca,' when you want a cow to follow
you; and you say `Glorious old party,' and `Intelligence of
the people,' and `Preference of truth to victory,' and so forth,
when you want the people to follow you.”
“An ass, a sheep, and a cow,” said Abel. “To what other
departments of natural history do the people belong, General?”
“Adders,” returned Belch, sententiously.
“How so?” asked Abel, amused.
“Because they are so cold and ungrateful,” said the General.
“As when, for instance,” returned Abel, “the Honorable
Watkins Bodley, having faithfully served his constituency, is
turned adrift by—by—the people.”
He looked at Belch and laughed. The fat nose of the General
glistened.
“No, no,” said he, “your illustration is at fault. He did
not faithfully serve his constituency. He was not sound upon
the great Grant question.”
The two gentlemen laughed together and filled their glasses.
“No, no,” resumed the General, “never forget that the
great thing is drill—discipline. Keep the machinery well
oiled, and your hand upon the crank, and all goes well.”
“Until somebody knocks off your hand,” said Abel.
“Yes, of course—of course; but that is the very point.
The fight is never among the sheep, but only among the
shepherds. Look at our splendid system, beginning with
Tom, Jim, and Ned, and culminating in the President—the
roots rather red and unsightly, but oh! such a pretty flower,
all broadcloth, kid gloves, and affability—contemplate the superb
machinery,” continued the General, warming, “the primaries,
the ward committees, the—in fact, all the rest of it—
see how gloriously it works—the great result of the working
of the whole is—”
“To establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, promote
the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity,” interrupted Abel, who had been
scanning the Constitution, and who delivered the words with
a rhetorical pomp of manner.
General Belch smiled approvingly.
“That's it—that's the very tone. You'll do. The great
result is, who shall have his hand on the crank. And there
are, therefore, always three parties in our beloved country.”
Abel looked inquiringly.
“First, the ins, who are in two parties—the clique that
have, and the clique that haven't. They fight like fury among
themselves, but when they meet t'other great party they all
fight together, because the hopes of the crank for each individual
of each body lie in the party itself, and in their obedience
to its discipline. These are two of the parties. Then
there is the great party of the outs, who have a marvelous
unanimity, and never break up into quarrelsome bodies until
there is a fair chance of their ousting the ins. I say these
things not because they are not pretty obvious, but because,
as a man of fashion and society, you have probably not attended
to such matters. It's dirty work for a gentleman. But I
suppose any of us would be willing to pick a gold eagle out
of the mud, even if we did soil our fingers.”
“Of course,” replied Abel, in a tone that General Belch did
not entirely comprehend—“of course no gentleman knows any
thing of politics. Gentlemen are the natural governors of a
country; and where they are not erected into a hereditary
governing class, self-respect forbids them to mix with inferior
men—so they keep aloof from public affairs. Good Heavens!
what gentleman would be guilty of being an alderman in this
town! Why, as you know, my dear Belch, nothing but my
reduced circumstances induces me to go to Congress. By-the-by—”
“Well, what is it?” asked the General.
“I'm dreadfully hard up,” said Abel. “I have just the
d — est luck you ever conceived, and I must raise some
money.”
The fat nose glistened again, while the General sat silently
pondering.
“I can lend you a thousand,” he said, at length.
“Thank you. It will oblige me very much.”
“Upon conditions,” added the General.
“Conditions?” asked Abel, surprised.
“I mean understandings,” said the General.
“Oh! certainly,” answered Abel.
“You pledge yourself to me and our friends that you will
at the earliest moment move in the matter of the Grant; you
engage to secure the votes somehow, relying upon the pecuniary
aid of our friends who are interested; and you will repay
me out of your first receipts. Ele will stand by you through
thick and thin. We keep him there for that purpose.”
“My dear Belch, I promise any thing you require. I only
want the money.”
“Give me your hand, Newt. From the bottom of my soul
I do respect a man who has no scruples.”
They shook hands heartily, and filling their glasses they
drank “Success!” The General then wrote a check and a little
series of instructions, which he gave to Abel, while Abel
himself scribbled an I.O.U., which the General laid in his
pocket-book.
“You'll have an eye on Ele,” said the General, as he buttoned
his coat.
“Certainly—two if you want,” answered Abel, lazily, repeating
the joke.
“He's a good fellow, Ele is,” said Belch; “but he's largely
interested, and he'll probably try to chouse us out of something
by affecting superior influence. You must patronize
him to the other men. Keep him well under. I have a high
respect for cellar stairs, but they mustn't try to lead up to the
roof. Good-by. Hail Newt! Senator that shall be!” laughed
the General, as he shook hands and followed his fat nose out
of the door.
Left to himself, Abel walked for some time up and down
his room, with his hands buried in his pocket and a sneering
smile upon his face. He suddenly drew one hand out, raised
it, clenched it, and brought it down heavily in the air, as he
muttered, contemptuously,
“What a stupid fool! I wonder if he never thinks, as he
looks in the glass, that that fat nose of his is made to lead
him by.”
For the sagacious and fat-nosed General had omitted to
look at the little paper Newt handed to him, thinking it would
be hardly polite to do so under the circumstances. But if
he had looked he would have seen that the exact sum they
had spoken of had been forgotten, and a very inconsiderable
amount was specified.
It had flashed across Abel's mind in a moment that if the
General subsequently discovered it and were disposed to make
trouble, the disclosure of the paper of instructions which he
had written, and which Abel had in his possession, would ruin
his hopes of political financiering. “And as for my election,
why, I have my certificate in my pocket.”
