The Gilded Age - Mark Twain [169]
Philip, to keep him from some new foolishness, persuaded him to go with him to Philadelphia, and give his valuable services in the mining operations at Ilium.
The law took its course with Laura. She was indicted for murder in the first degree, and held for trial at the summer term. The two most distinguished criminal lawyers in the city had been retained for her defence, and to that the resolute woman devoted her days, with a courage that rose as she consulted with her counsel and understood the methods of criminal procedure in New York.
She was greatly depressed, however, by the news from Washington. Congress adjourned and her bill had failed to pass the Senate. It must wait for the next session.
CHAPTER 48
—In our werking, nothing us availle; For lost is all our labour and travaille, And all the cost a twenty devil way Is lost also, which we upon it lay.
CHAUCER.
He moonihoawa ka aie.
HAWAIIAN PROVERB.
It had been a bad winter, somehow, for the firm of Pennybacker, Bigler and Small. These celebrated contractors usually made more money during the session of the legislature at Harrisburg than upon all their summer work, and this winter had been unfruitful. It was unaccountable to Bigler.
“You see, Mr. Bolton,” he said, and Philip was present at the conversation, “it puts us all out. It looks as if politics was played out. We’d counted on the year of Simon’s1 re-election. And, now, he’s re-elected, and I’ve yet to see the first man who’s the better for it.”
“You don’t mean to say,” asked Philip, “that he went in without paying anything?”
“Not a cent, not a dash cent, as I can hear,” repeated Mr. Bigler, indignantly. “I call it a swindle on the state. How it was done gets me. I never saw such a tight time for money in Harrisburg.”
“Were there no combinations, no railroad jobs, no mining schemes put through in connection with the election?”
“Not that I know,” said Bigler, shaking his head in disgust. “In fact it was openly said, that there was no money in the election. It’s perfectly unheard of.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Philip, “it was effected on what the insurance companies call the ‘endowment,’ or the ‘paid up’ plan, by which a policy is secured after a certain time without further payment.”
“You think then,” said Mr. Bolton smiling, “that a liberal and sagacious politician might own a legislature after a time, and not be bothered with keeping up his payments?”
“Whatever it is,” interrupted Mr. Bigler, “it’s devilish ingenious, and goes ahead of my calculations; it’s cleaned me out, when I thought we had a dead sure thing. I tell you what it is, gentlemen, I shall go in for reform. Things have got pretty mixed when a legislature will give away a United States senatorship.”
It was melancholy, but Mr. Bigler was not a man to be crushed by one misfortune, or to lose his confidence in human nature, on one exhibition of apparent honesty. He was already on his feet again, or would be if Mr. Bolton could tide him over shoal water for ninety days.
“We’ve got something with money in it,” he explained to Mr. Bolton, “got hold of it by good luck. We’ve got the entire contract for Dobson’s Patent Pavement2 for the city of Mobile. See here.”
Mr. Bigler made some figures; contract so much, cost of work and materials so much, profits so much. At the end of three months the city would owe the company three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars—two hundred thousand of that would be profits. The whole job was worth at least a million to the company—it might be more. There could be no mistake in these figures; here was the contract, Mr. Bolton knew what materials were worth and what the labor would cost.
Mr. Bolton knew perfectly well from sore experience that there was always a mistake in figures when Bigler or Small made them, and he knew that he ought to send the fellow about his business. Instead of that, he let him talk.
They only wanted to raise fifty thousand dollars to carry on the contract—that expended they would have city bonds. Mr. Bolton said he hadn’t the