Paris to eat sumptuous dinners and attend modelartist entertainments, while thousands are toiling to supply the means for their base pleasures! As if a Frederick Douglas must be brutified into a slave in order that a Slidell may give Sybarite banquets and drive his neat span through the Champs Elysées!” "What should we do with the blacks after we had freed them? "Let them alone! Let them do for themselves. The difficulties in the way are all those of the imagination." "I like the moderation of your views as to confiscation." "When the mass of the people at the South," continued Vance, 66 come to see, as they will eventually, that we have been fighting the great battle of humanity and of freedom, for the South even more than for the North, for the white man even more than for the black, there will be such a reaction as will obliterate every trace of rancour that internecine war has begotten. But I have talked too much. I have occupied too much of your time." "Oh, no! I delight to meet with men who come to me, thinking how they may benefit, not them selves, but their country. The steam-tugs you gave us off the mouths of the Mississippi we would gladly have paid thirty thousand dollars for. I wish I could meet your views in regard to the enlistment of black troops; but-but-that pear isn't yet ripe. Failing that, you shall have any place you want in the Butler and Farragut expedition against New Orleans. As for your young friends-what did you say their names are?" "Robert Onslow and Charles Kenrick." "Oh, yes! Onslow, you say, has been a captain in the Rebel service. Both the young men shall be honourably placed where they can distinguish themselves. I'll speak to Stanton about them this very day. Let me make a note of it." The President drew from his pocket a memorandum-book, and hastily wrote a line or two. Vance rose to take his leave. "Mr. President," said he, "I thank you for this interview. But there's one thing in which you've disappointed me." "Ah! you think me rather a slow coach, eh?" "Yes; but that wasn't what I alluded to." "What then?" "From what I've read about you in the news papers, I expected to have to hear one of your stories." 66 A smile full of sweetness and bonhommie broke over the President's careworn face as he replied: Really! Is it possible? Have you been here all this time without my telling you a story? Sit down, Mr. Vance, and let me make up for my remissness." Vance resumed his seat. The President ran his fingers through his long, carelessly disposed hair, pushing it aside from his forehead, and said: "Once on a time the king of beasts, the lion, took it into his head he would travel into foreign parts. But before leaving his kingdom he installed an old 'coon as viceroy. The lion was absent just four months to a day; and on his return he called all the principal beasts to hear their reports as to the way in which affairs had been managed in his absence. Said the fox, "You left an old imbecile to rule us, sire. No sooner were you gone than a rebellion broke out, and he appointed for our leader a low-born mule, whose cardinal maxim in military matters was to put off till to-morrow whatever could be just as well done to-day; whose policy was a masterly inactivity instead of a straightforward movement on the enemy's works.' Said the sheep, "The 'coon could have had peace if he had listened to me and others who wanted to draw it mild and to compromise. Such a bloodthirsty wretch as the 'coon ought to be expelled from civilised society.' Said the horse, 'He is too slow.' Said the ox, 'He is too fast.' Said the jackass, 'He doesn't know how to bray; he can't utter an inspiring note.' Said the pig, 'He is too full of his jokes and stories.' Said the magpie, 'He is a liar and a thief.' Said the owl, 'He is no diplomatist.' Said the tiger, 'He is too conservative.' Said the beaver, He is too radical.' 'Stop!' roared the king-shut up, every beast of you!' At once there was silence in the assembly. Then, turning to his viceroy, the lion said, 'Old 'coon, I wish no better proof that you have been faithful than all this abuse from opposite parties. You have done so well, that you shall be reinstalled for another term of four months!"" "And what did the old 'coon say to that?" asked Vance. "The old 'coon begged to be excused, protesting that he had experienced quite enough of the charms of office." The President held out his hand. Vance pressed it with a respectful cordiality, and withdrew from the White House. 46 CHAPTER III. COMPARING NOTES. But thou art fled, Like some frail exhalation which the dawn Robes in its golden beams-ah! thou hast fled; Shelley. Nor many weeks after the conversation (not altogether imaginary) at the White House, a young man in the uniform of a captain lay on the sofa in a room at Willard's Hotel in Washington. He lay reading a newspaper, but the paleness of his face showed that he had been suffering either from illness or a serious wound. This young man was Onslow. In a cavalry skirmish at Winchester, in which the Rebels had been handsomely routed, he had been shot through the lungs, the ball coming out at his back. There was one chance in a thousand that the direction taken by the ball would be such that the wound should not prove fatal; and this thousandth chance happened in his favour. Thanks to a naturally vigorous constitu |