Peggy O'Neal. Alfred Henry Lewis
be great without being dangerous.”
Duff Green was no more urgent on the point of a Florida governorship. He was not so dim but he saw his failure and accepted it with what grace he might.
“I don't know how the Vice-President may take it!” he murmured at the close.
“As to that,” said the General, and his words fell with a suspicious sharpness, as from one smelling to a threat; “as to that, the Vice-President must sustain himself very patiently. I know those who would hold other conduct on the Vice-President's part as excessively misplaced. They might even teach the Vice-President a similar conclusion. You should tell him that; since I see you act by his request and as his agent.”
Here the General looked hard at Duff Green. Already I caught a shadow of those jealous differences to come between the General and Calhoun—differences that would seem, for the separation of the White House and the Vice-Presidency, constructed of the Constitution. These offices never have agreed—never have been true friends in any administration. It was the less important in this instance, since, secretly and unknown to him, Calhoun for over a decade had been the General's enemy. On that February evening which Duff Green so distinguished as “excellent” the General was by no means distant from the fact's discovery.
“You do wrong, Mr. President,” faltered Duff Green, his affable nose as pale as paper now, “when you say I am Calhoun's agent. The Vice-President knows nothing of this. It was by accident I became aware of his anxiety touching the Florida governorship. I give you my honor, Mr. President; I give you my honor!”
“Let it pass; it's of no mighty consequence.” Then impatiently, “Don't call me 'Mr. President' until I'm President. It will be bad enough after inauguration, I take it.”
Here poor Duff Green was visibly disturbed. I said nothing to relieve him. Indeed, I didn't utter a dozen words while he remained; as I've told you, I misliked Duff Green, with his face the color of a violin and his airs of fussy consequence.
“But here, Duff,” resumed the General, coming himself to the rescue of our visitor, who might be described as sinking for the third and last time in the deep waters of his own confusion, “here, Duff, is something I much desire you to do. It is a list of the cabinet as I intend its construction on the hocks of my inaugural. There are reasons why it should be printed; the Major”—here he indicated me, and with a dry note in his voice which I understood—“approves the names and thinks they should be given to the public. Get them in the next Telegraph. Here, I'll read them.” And the General reached for his horn-framed glasses and began from a paper he'd taken from his pocket. “Van Buren, Secretary of State; Ingham, the Treasury; Eaton, for the War Office.” I saw Duff Green look sharply up. Somehow, while I found protest in his glance, I could not believe the promised cabinet selection of Eaton unpleasant to him. From that moment I knew him for no well-wisher of the General—to be thus pleased with a prospect of hot water! The General drove ahead: “Branch for the Navy; Berrien for the Department of Justice; and lastly, Barry, Postmaster General. There you have it. New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky; the North, the West, and the South—two each; and none for the Yankee East, since to that hard region where men, to make them smart, are raised on foxes' ears and thistle tops, I owe no debts. There is the list. Let me see it in print.” And the General placed the paper in Duff Green's hands.
The General turned to fill his infallible pipe; he would have it ready to shatter into smithereens should provocation come. Duff Green fingered the folded paper with timid air while the General fished for a coal with the little table tongs. For myself, I said nothing; since it was to be done, it might as well see ink—that cabinet list. As the General straightened his tall, slight form, his tobacco-lighting accomplished, Duff Green, breathing pursily from a dash of trepidation, could not forbear comment.
“I suppose you would like my thoughts on this list?” Duff Green took care to give his supposition the rising turn of query.
“And why do you suppose so?” said the General, his tone something grim.
“Only because I supposed you'd like the thoughts of everybody.” Duff Green fawned with his voice in a half-fright. It is ill to pester a lion, being no lion-tamer. “I supposed you'd like the thoughts of everybody,” he repeated.
“Quite right!” said the General, pretending return of sunshine. “And what are your thoughts?”
“The list will be welcome,” he answered, gaining confidence from the General's mollified features; “the list will be welcome save in one particular. The selection for your Secretary of War, Mr. President—”
Here Duff Green came to a stop, utterance wholly at a halt. Nor did I blame him, for now the General gloomed in truly savage sort. The General waved his pipe; but he did not break it. Probably he did not think Duff Green worth a pipe.
“And what of Mr. Eaton?” demanded the General at last.
“It's Mrs. Eaton,” gasped the other, while his fear shook him until he quaked like a custard; “it's Mrs. Eaton. Our society will not receive her; that is, our ladies won't. Mr. President, she's a tavern-keeper's daughter—he kept this identical Indian Queen, as you must know. Mrs. Eaton's origin is too low for such station; and besides they say—and—and—Mr. President, really, our ladies won't receive her into society.” Duff Green ran visibly aground and could go no further.
“Mark you this, Duff Green,” and the General's eyes sparkled, while he kept his voice in hand; “mark you this! If a 'low origin' be the social argument, then I am minded of no palace as the habitat of my own bringing up. But here I tell you: I've not come to the White House to be ruled. Once I was set to the defence of New Orleans. The society of that great city was against me, and I put society under martial law; a society legislature was thereby shocked, and I dissolved it; a society Frenchman murmured against this, and I marched him out of town with two bayonets at his back; a society American denounced the expulsion, and I clapped him in irons; a society judge issued a writ of release, and I arrested him. Incidentally, I beat Pakenham and his English, and did what I was sent to do. Now I've been ordered to Washington by the public and given duties to perform. I look to find here conditions of sympathy and friendship and support. If they be not here, I'll construct them; if, being here, they fail me, I'll supply their places. Notably, should I get up some morning to discover myself without a newspaper”—Duff Green sweats now and pricks up his ears—“there shall one grow instantly from the ground like any Jonah's gourd. Your ladies will not receive Mrs. Eaton whose 'origin is low!' And for that cogent reason Mr. Eaton must not be Secretary of War! Man, have I been lifted to a presidency to consult wives and gossips in picking my constitutional advisers? Go; print that list—print it as I give it you;—go!”
The breath of the General's indignation carried Duff Green into the hall; and even when the door was closed behind him, I could follow by ear as he fled towards the stair with a fat shuffle that told of terror.
“The man exhausts me,” said the General, as he refilled his pipe.
“I think I'll write to Frank Blair.”
“Why?” and the General looked up.
“We should have him ready to start a Jackson paper in Washington when Duff Green deserts.”
When I turned out on the next morning I found the fogs and mists of the day before departed and blown aside, and a bright sky overhead. There was no frost; but on the contrary a fine spring promise in the air that smelled in one's nostril like the breath of budding trees. The roads, too, were more in the way of reform, and here and there a dry spot showed in profert of what would be. Altogether it was quite an April rather than a February morning. I finished shaving and dressing and called Jim to brush my coat. A hostler before he became a valet, Jim was used to accompany these brush-labors with an aspiration like unto the escape of steam; a sound held sovereign by him for giving a horse's coat a gloss, and therefore good for mine. I had gone forth in an earlier day to break Jim of these stable tricks, but, making no headway, wisely gave it up, and Jim hissed on unchecked. There be things your African won't learn; there be things