Quodlibet Part 13

"Why as to that, old friend," replied Fog with a good-natured laugh, at the same time laying his hand on Mr. Grant's shoulder, "you can't call _that_ a fault. Every politician has a short memory--he'd be no politician without it. Mine's no shorter than the rest. Sir, let me tell you, the great secret of the success of the immutable, New-Light, Quodlibetarian Democracy, is in the shortness of the memory. Still, I would like to know what you mean by the remark."

"I mean to say," replied Mr. Grant, "that when you and Nicodemus Handy were endeavoring to persuade me to take an interest in your bank, you didn't think it so undemocratic as you seem to do to-day."

"It is impossible for me to remember what I said on the occasion to which you allude, sir," returned Fog; "but my principles have always been the same. I could not have gone against them, sir; morally impossible."

"And I told you that your bank was a humbug," continued Mr. Grant.

"Ay, ay," rejoined Fog; "that's the old song. You Whigs are monstrous good at prophesying after the result is known."

"You admit, I suppose," said Mr. Grant, "that this Bank of Quodlibet has exploded?"

"Burst, sir, into a thousand tatters," replied Fog.

"You admit that there is a large amount of paper money afloat?"

"A genuine Whig crop," answered Fog: "enough to make a stack as large as the largest in your barnyard."

"You admit the derangement of values all over the country?"

"Yes, and of the people too, if you make it a point."

"The failures of traders and of banks?"

"Yes."

"This is reasonable, Mr. Fog. Now, you shall judge whether the Whigs prophesy _before_ or _after_ the result," said Mr. Grant, as he thrust his hand into his skirt pocket and drew forth a pamphlet. "I expected to meet you to-day, and I have brought you a doc.u.ment for your especial perusal. It is the speech of a Whig member of Congress, made in 1834, upon the Removal of the Deposits;--you will find the leaf turned down at page 32; and, as you are a good reader, I wish you would favor this company by reading it aloud, where you see it scored in the margin."

"Not I," replied Theodore; "that's four years ago. The statute of limitation bars that."

"He's afeard to read it," said Abel Brawn to some five or six persons, who had collected around the steps during this conversation. "Mr.

Grant's mighty particular with his doc.u.ments, and ain't to be shook off in an argument."

"The., you ain't afeard, old fellow?" said Flan Sucker. "Walk into him, The. Read it."

"Give me the book," said Fog, "and let's see what it is. Speech by Horace Binney--eh? Who's he? I think I have heard the name. Well, for the sake of obliging a friend, I'll read.--_Conticuere omnes_--which means listen." Fog then read as follows:--

"It is here that we find a pregnant source of the present agony--it is in the clearly avowed design to bring a second time upon this land the curse of an unregulated, uncontrolled State-Bank paper currency. We are again to see the drama which already, in the course of the present century, has pa.s.sed before us, and closed in ruin. If the project shall be successful----"

"What project?" inquired Fog.

"The destruction of the Bank of the United States, and the refusal to create another in its place," answered Mr. Grant.

Theodore read on--

"If the project shall be successful, we are again to see these paper missiles shooting in every direction through the country--a derangement of all values,--a depreciated circulation--a suspension of specie payments;--then a further extension of the same detestable paper--a still greater depreciation--with failures of traders and failures of banks in its train--to arrive at last at the same point from which we departed in 1817."

"A rank forgery," said Theodore Fog, "printed for the occasion."

"That won't do," replied Mr. Grant; "I have been the owner of this pamphlet ever since 1834 myself."

"Then Binney is a Dimmycrat," said Sim Travers, "and you are trying to pa.s.s him off on us for a Whig. Sound Dimmycratic doctrine and true prophecy."

"Huzza for Binney!" shouted Flan Sucker, "a tip-top Dimmycrat, whoever he is!--I never heard of him before."

"Yes," said Mr. Grant, "one ounce of his Democracy is worth a ton weight of the best you will find in the Globe. But read on, a little further below, where you see it scored."

"I have an innate and mortal aversion to reading," returned Fog.

"It must be gone through," said Flan Sucker,--"because them sentiments is the rale Dimmocracy, and we want to hear them. So, go it, The!--Yip--listen boys, to the doctrine."

"Well," said Fog, "if you will have it--as the pillory said to the thief, 'lend me your ears.'"

"I thank the Secretary," he began with a discreet voice, reading where Mr. Grant appointed for him, "for the disclosure of this plan. I trust in G.o.d it will be defeated: that the Bank of the United States, while it is in existence, may be sustained and strengthened by the public opinion, and interests of the people, to defeat it: that the sound and sober State banks of the Union may resist it--for it is their cause: that the poor men and laborers in the land may resist it--for it is a scheme to get from every one of them a dollar's worth of labor for fifty cents, and to make fraud the currency of the country as much as paper. Sir, the Bank of the United States, in any other relation than to the currency and property of the country, is as little to me as to any man under heaven; but after the prime and vigor of life are pa.s.sed, and the power of acc.u.mulation is gone, to see the children stripped, by the monstrous imposture of a paper currency, of all that the father's industry had provided for them--this, sir, may well excuse the warmth that denounces this plan, as the precursor of universal dismay and ruin."

"I'll read no more," said Fog, giving back the book, with a theatrical flourish of his arm, to Mr. Grant; "it is nothing more than stealing our principles from us, and then bringing them up to break our heads."

"It is good Whig prophecy, four years before its fulfillment," said Mr.

Grant, "and which has come true to the letter. It shows you that we set our faces against your increase of banks in the very beginning; gave you warning of what was to come; painted the very evils of this day so plainly before your eyes that nothing but willful blindness prevented you from seeing them; and now, when it has all fallen out as it was foretold, you attempt to make us responsible to the people for your measures."

"Sir," said Fog, rather evading the argument, as it is an admirable part of the New-Light system to do when it pinches, "the New-Light Democracy changes its measures, but never its principles. We go, sir, for the will of the people--that's the principle which lies at the bottom of all our actions. If the people are for new measures, we frankly come out with them. Now, sir, the people are _against_ the banks--they are _for_ the Independent Treasury: of course, then, you know where to find _us_. You can't get round us--there we are."

"I'll not dispute that point with you," replied Mr. Grant; "you have been changing from bad to worse ever since you have had the control of affairs. I only wanted to remind you that the present distress of the country is the work of your own hands, and that you have brought it about with your eyes open."

Saying these words Mr. Grant walked off toward the stable, where he mounted his horse and rode out of the Borough.

As soon as the old gentleman was gone, Theodore Fog remarked that he had not had as dry a talk for some years, and proposed to the company a general visit to the bar.

"They talk of _distress_," said he. "Mr. Grant has gone off with his head full of that notion of distress; it's a famous Whig argument, that.

But what distress is there? Drinking's as cheap; eating's as cheap as ever; so is lying. Eating, drinking, and lying, are the three princ.i.p.al occupations of man. Lying _down_, I mean, metaphorically for sleeping.

Where's the distress, then? Mere panic--false alarm--a Whig invention!

The country is better off than it ever was before. Not for men who trade upon credit, I allow--not for merchants and s.h.i.+ppers in general--not for your fellows that go about for jobs--not for farmers--not for regular laborers--not for mechanics, with families on their hands, and perhaps not for single ones neither;--but first-rate for lawyers, bar-keepers, and brokers, for marshals and sheriffs--capital for constables--nonpareil for postmasters, contractors, express-riders, and office-holders; and glorious for fellows that are fond of talking and have nothing to do:--these are the very gristle of the New-Light Democracy, and make a genteel majority at the elections."

"Mr. Fog," said Jesse Ferret, "I am so well pleased at your reading for Mr. Grant this morning, that I'm determined to give you a treat;--help yourself and your friends. Gentlemen, walk up."

"Glad you liked it, old buck," replied Fog. "Bless your heart, I'm used to such things. A political man must always be ready for rubbers; never would get a gloss if it wasn't for brus.h.i.+ng. That Binney's a smart fellow; but every word of that speech was whispered into his ear by Benton; I know the fact personally. He and Benton sit up every night of their lives together in Was.h.i.+ngton, playing old sledge and drinking c.o.c.ktail: that accounts for Binney's Democracy. Gentlemen, our friend Ferret's treat--we'll drink his health--a worthy, persuadable, amenable man--so here's to him. Wait for the word--Jesse Ferret, a gentleman and a scholar, an antiquarian and a tavern-keeper--long life to him!"

CHAPTER XVI.

A RAPID REVIEW OF ONE YEAR--WHAT THE AUTHOR IS COMPELLED TO PRETERMIT--THE PRESIDENT'S "SOBER SECONDTHOUGHT" MESSAGE RECEIVED AT QUODLIBET WITH GREAT REJOICING--THE AUTHOR COMMUNES WITH HIS READER TOUCHING NEW-LIGHT PRINCIPLES--ILl.u.s.tRATIONS OF THEM--REMARKABLE DEXTERITY OF THE SECRETARY--INTERESTING LETTER FROM THE HON. MIDDLETON FLAM--DAWNING OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CANVa.s.s--THE NORTHERN MAN WITH SOUTHERN PRINCIPLES AND HIS MANNIKIN.

Time held his course. Another year went by, and brought us to the sixth since the Removal. The year which I pa.s.s over was marked by many public and domestic incidents worthy of note in the history of Quodlibet.

Gladly would I have tarried to entertain my reader with some of these; but I am admonished of the necessity of bringing these desultory annals to a close. Especially might I find much to interest many of those who will peruse these pages, in the private and personal affairs of the Borough; some of the events of the bygone year being of a nature to kindle up pathetic emotions in their bosoms. The blank despair of Agamemnon Flag when he first heard of the flight of Nicodemus Handy; his melancholy visits of consolation to the bereaved family; the disinterested avowal of his long-smothered and smouldering love to the heiress apparent; and his offer of his hand and fortune--consisting of a new suit of clothes, and a horse and gig, purchased on credit--to this dejected lady; his still blanker despair, his disappointment and vows of revenge when, after listening to his suit, he found it announced that she had sailed without him, to make the grand tour of Europe; and finally, the stoical philosophy with which he renounced all claim to the reversionary interest in the one hundred and sixty thousand dollars taken from the bank, as well as the net proceeds of Handy Place, and the rows of buildings, finished and unfinished, in Quodlibet--these incidents would furnish an episode of tenderness and pa.s.sion without a parallel since the Medea of Euripides.

But these excursions are foreign from the purpose of this book, and I am sure would be disallowed by the respectable committee at whose instance I have entered upon this task. Indeed, they have explicitly enjoined that I divulge nothing under their sanction, touching the concerns of Quodlibet which in any manner borders upon the romantic. Upon these subjects their caution is, Nulli tacuisse nocet, tutum silentii praemium.

I must, therefore, reluctantly pretermit all such matter--reserving for some other occasion the gratification of the public curiosity therein.