This is section twenty eight of The Gilded Age. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain The Gilded Age, A Tale of to Day by Mark Twain and C. D. Warner, Chapter twenty seven. 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 mion at number blank Wall Street, where a great gilt sign betokened the presence of the headquarters of the Columbus River Slackwater Navigation Company. He entered and gave a dressy porter his card, and was requested to wait a moment in a sort of ante chamber. 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 gentleman. Sir, says he will be done with them directly, that a copperplate car guard with engineer in chief on it should be received with such tranquility as this annoyed mister 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 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 perceived, 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 mister Brierly, there must be some mistake. I am sure we wrote you and also mister Sellers recently. When my clerk comes, he will show copies letters informing you of the ten
percent 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 remembered 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 do 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 straightforward business way. Now let us look at the thing a moment. You subscribed for one hundred shares of the capital stock at one thousand dollars a share. I believe, yes, sir, I did, and mister Sellers took a like amount. Yes, sir, very well.
No concern can get along without money. We levied a ten percent assessment. It was the original understanding that you and mister Sellers were to have the positions you now hold with salaries of six hundred dollars 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 nine thousand, six hundred and ten dollars upon the said work two months salary to you two officers amounts altogether to two thousand, four hundred dollars, about one eighth of your ten percent assessment, you see, which leaves you in debt to the company for the other seven eighths
of the assessment viz. Something over eight thousand dollars apiece. Now, instead of requiring you to forward this aggregate of sixteen thousand dollars or seventeen thousand dollars 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
ten thousand dollars a trifle. Let me see nine thousand, six hundred and forty dollars from twenty thousand dollars salary two thousand, four hundred dollars added, I asked, The balance due the company from yourself and mister Sellers is seven thousand, nine hundred sixty dollars, 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 two thousand, four hundred dollars, we owe the company seven thousand, nine hundred and sixty dollars. Well, yes, and that we owe the men and the contractor's nearly ten thousand dollars besides, oh 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.
He 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 mister Bryerson, 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 that the
man ought to have been paid? Though it beggared us all, but they ought ought they? Then? Why the devil my name is not Brierson, by the way, Why the mischief didn't the company? 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 two hundred thousand dollars? Do you mean? Of course? But I didn't know that two hundred thousand dollars 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 ten thousand dollars apiece, forty thousand dollars. A majority of the Senate committee the same each, say forty thousand dollars. A little extra to one or two chairmen of one or two such committees, say ten thousand dollars each, twenty thousand dollars, and then there's one hundred thousand dollars of
the money gone to begin with. Then seven male lobbyists at three thousand dollars each twenty one thousand dollars, one female lobbyist ten thousand dollars. 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 three thousand dollars each thirty thousand dollars. Then a lot of small fry country members who won't vote for anything whatever without pay, say twenty at five hundred
dollars a piece is ten thousand dollars. A lot of dinners to members, say ten thousand dollars altogether, a lot of jim cracks 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,
ten thousand dollars along there somewhere. And then comes your printed documents, your maps, your tinted engravings, your pamphlets, your illuminated show cards, your advertisements in one 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 ten fifty two twenty two thirteen, And then there's eleven fourteen thirty three. Well,
never mind the details. The tot in clear numbers foots up one hundred eighteen thousand, two hundred and fifty four dollars and forty two cents thus far. Oh yes, indeed, printing's no bactell 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 US government, of perfectly Himalayan official altitude to write up our little internal improvement for
a religious paper of enormous circulation. I tell you that makes as 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'll 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 accessible at that, So they're an expensive lot, very very expensive thing. Take it all round is a big internal improvement concern. But you see that yourself, mister 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 in 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 know 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 correspond Condon's 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 in 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. The President said, that one 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 the others? Why, my friend, we never think of accomplishing anything without his help. He is our main stay. But how do those letters strike you? They strike me dumb? What a stone blind idiot? I have been. Well, take it all round. 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, mister 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 to tarns at log Rolling in Washington. And if we had charged anything for that service, none of that ten thousand dollars
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, let's see spent in Washington, say one hundred and ninety one thousand dollars, printing, advertising, et cetera, say one hundred eighteen thousand dollars. Charity say sixteen thousand
dollars total three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. The money to do that with comes from appropriation two hundred thousand dollars, ten percent assessment on capital of one million dollars one hundred thousand dollars total three hundred thousand dollars, which leaves us in debt some twenty five thousand dollars. 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. 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 and 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 Awhile, 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 agree with you,
mister Beverley. 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 one thousand, two hundred dollars salary forthcoming, and himself held responsible for half of the nine thousand, six hundred and forty dollars due the workmen, to say nothing of being in debt to the company to the extent of nearly four thousand dollars. 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 morning in another quarter two, for Louise had a letter. Washington had refused at the last moment to take forty thousand dollars for the Tennessee land, and had demanded one hundred and fifty thousand. 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 ten thousand dollars.
Louise had a good cry, several of them, indeed, and the family charitably forbore to make any comments that would increase her grief. 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 Colonel Sellers knew what he was about, Hawkeye, in a panic, 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 feet, after all his high hopes and splendid prophecies, the fates had turned their backs on 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 stones Landing. One by one. Its meager parcel of inhabitants packed up and moved away. As the summer waned and fall approached, town lots were no longer saleable, traffic ceased, A deadly lethargy fell upon the place once more. The weakly telegraph faded into an early grave. The waried tadpole returned from exile.
The bullfrog 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. End of Chapter twenty eight.