It was the middle of the afternoon when the General looked into my workshop, pipe in mouth, and said with a twinkle in his eye, a twinkle that was both mirthful and hard: “Major, I take it you and I will go to that dinner to-night?”
The General would put this as though it were a question; not because it stood unsettled and unsaid as a thing resolved, but it was the way of him when he would pay you a compliment to pretend a consultation, and coax you into a council, hoping you would advise those things he was already resolved upon like iron and which were often half performed.
For all I was aware of this talent on the General's part to be polite, and was certain, when he glanced in through my door, that both of us would be of the band about those Indian Queen tables, I was quick to humor his whim for the mysterious and undecided. I looked up as one who turns a new proposal on the wheel of his thoughts.
“It is my idea,” said I at last, with the air of a man who likes the notion's flavor, “that your presence would work for good. I should say we might better go. We may count the enemy, and that at least should be something.”
“You are right,” returned the General. “We will go; and I think, too, it might be good policy to let the foe count us.”
The Indian Queen was a crowded hostelry that night. The halls and waiting rooms of the tavern were thronged of eminent ones. Some were present to attend the Jefferson dinner; others casually for gossip and to hear the news.
As the General and I would be going up the stair, my eye was caught by the heavy shoulders and lion face of Webster coming down.
“There's too much Secession in the wind for me,” remarked Webster, as the General asked if he were going away.
“You did not leave the Senate for that,” responded the General. “If Secession be here, it's a reason for remaining.”
Webster shrugged his big shoulders and went on.