041 - The Gilded Age a Tale of Today Chapter 40

men with false reports. King Henry the Fourth, as may be readily believed, Colonel Beriah Sellars 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 center 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 tomorrow would be judgment day work. While congress is incession, 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 worshiped Pariah Cellars 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 Lama of the United States, that might have come to the nearest to his idea of a position, and next to that, he would have luxuriated in the irresponsible omniscience of the special correspondent. Colonel 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. Takes 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. I must send the President some from my cellar. I was really mortified the other day at dinner to see Blake Bay 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 resident, says, I grant, why don't you take Santo Domingo, annexed 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 him off in Greenback's 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 conversations to suit the newspaper demand. People used to wonder in the winters of eighteen seventy blank, an eighteen seventy blank 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 Colonel 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 pain 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 mister Henry Brierly, who was buzzing about the capital 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. We understand that a philanthropic plan is on foot in relation to the colored race that will,

if successful, revolutionize the whole character of Southern industry. An experimental institution is in contemplation in Tennessee which will do for that state what the Industrial School at Zurich did for Switzerland. We learn that approaches have been made to the heirs of the late Honorable Silas Hawkins of Missouri in reference to a lease of a portion of their valuable property in East Tennessee. Senator Dilworthy, it is understood, is inflexibly opposed to any arrangement that will not give

the government absolute control. Private interests must give way to the public good. It is to be hoped that Colonel Sellers, who represents the heirs, will be led to see the matter in this light. 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? Maybe three, maybe four, said the colonel. It's worth more than the

Bank of England. If they will not lease, said Washington, let him 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 judge that he wanted my experience in starting. Well, 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 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 his 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 Colonel 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 rue 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. End of chapter forty