“To Texas you shall go. Would you venture to face Colonel Hyde?”
“With these green goggles I would face any of my old masters; and the scalds upon my face would alone prevent my being known.”
“I can get you a pass from the Mayor himself, so that you’d not be molested. Find Hyde, and bring him to me at any cost. Money will do it. When can you start?”
“By the next boat,—in half an hour.”
“All right. Make your home at Bernard’s when you return. The house is mine. Here’s the direction. Here’s a pass from the Mayor which I’ve filled up for you. And here’s money, which you needn’t stop to count. Good by!”
And, with a grasp of the hand, they parted, and Peek quitted the hotel to take the boat for Galveston.
He had no sooner gone than Vance went down-stairs to the dining-hall. Most of the guests had finished their dinners; but at a small table near that at which he took his seat were a company of four, lingering over the dessert.
Senator Wigman, a puffy, red-faced man, had been holding forth on the prospective glories of the Confederacy.
“Yes, sir,” said he, refilling his glass with Burgundy, “with the rest of the world we’ll trade, but never, never with the Yankees. Not one pound of cotton shall ever go from the South to their accursed cities; not one ounce of their steel or their manufactures shall ever cross our borders.” And Wigman emptied his glass at a single gulp.
“Good for Wigman!” exclaimed Mr. Robson, a round, full-faced young man, rather fat, and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles. “But what about Yankee ice, Wigman? Will you deprive us of that also? And tell me, my Wigman, why is it that, since you despise these Yankees so intensely, you allow your children to remain at school in Massachusetts? Isn’t that a little inconsistent, my Wigman?”