The Gilded Age - Mark Twain [147]
“It cannot be shown that a man is a knave merely for owning that stock. I am not distressed about the National Improvement Relief Measure.”
“Oh indeed I am not trying to distress you. I only wished to make good my assertion that I knew you. Several of you gentlemen bought of that stock (without paying a penny down) received dividends from it, (think of the happy idea of receiving dividends, and very large ones, too, from stock one hasn’t paid for!) and all the while your names never appeared in the transaction; if ever you took the stock at all, you took it in other people’s names. Now you see, you had to know one of two things; namely, you either knew that the idea of all this preposterous generosity was to bribe you into future legislative friendship, or you didn’t know it. That is to say, you had to be either a knave or a—well, a fool—there was no middle ground. You are not a fool, Mr. Trollop.”
“Miss Hawkins you flatter me. But seriously, you do not forget that some of the best and purest men in Congress took that stock in that way?”
“Did Senator Blank?”
“Well, no—I believe not.”
“Of course you believe not. Do you suppose he was ever approached, on the subject?”
“Perhaps not.”
“If you had approached him, for instance, fortified with the fact that some of the best men in Congress, and the purest, etc., etc., what would have been the result?”
“Well, what would have been the result?”
“He would have shown you the door! For Mr. Blank is neither a knave nor a fool. There are other men in the Senate and the House whom no one would have been hardy enough to approach with that Relief Stock in that peculiarly generous way, but they are not of the class that you regard as the best and purest. No, I say I know you Mr. Trollop. That is to say, one may suggest a thing to Mr. Trollop which it would not do to suggest to Mr. Blank. Mr. Trollop, you are pledged to support the Indigent Congressmen’s Retroactive Appropriation which is to come up, either in this or the next session. You do not deny that, even in public. The man that will vote for that bill will break the eighth commandment in any other way, sir!”
“But he will not vote for your corrupt measure, nevertheless, madam!” exclaimed Mr. Trollop, rising from his seat in a passion.
“Ah, but he will. Sit down again, and let me explain why. Oh, come, don’t behave so. It is very unpleasant. Now be good, and you shall have the missing page of your great speech. Here it is!”—and she displayed a sheet of manuscript.
Mr. Trollop turned immediately back from the threshold. It might have been gladness that flashed into his face; it might have been something else; but at any rate there was much astonishment mixed with it.
“Good! Where did you get it? Give it me!”
“Now there is no hurry. Sit down; sit down and let us talk and be friendly.”
The gentleman wavered. Then he said:
“No, this is only a subterfuge. I will go. It is not the missing page.”
Laura tore off a couple of lines from the bottom of the sheet.
“Now,” she said, “you will know whether this is the handwriting or not. You know it is the handwriting. Now if you will listen, you will know that this must be the list of statistics which was to be the ‘nub’ of your great effort, and the accompanying blast the beginning of the burst of eloquence which was continued on the next page—and you will recognize that there was where you broke down.”
She read the page. Mr. Trollop said:
“This is perfectly astounding. Still, what is all this to me? It is nothing. It does not concern me. The speech is made, and there an end. I did break down for a moment, and in a rather uncomfortable place, since I had led up to those statistics with some grandeur; the hiatus was pleasanter to the House and the galleries than it was to me. But it is no matter now. A week has passed; the jests about it ceased three or four days ago. The whole thing is a matter of indifference to me, Miss Hawkins.”
“But you apologized,