A sudden snore from Wigman, who had fallen asleep in his chair, startled the party once more into laughter.
“Happy Wigman!” said Robson. “He smiles. He is dreaming of slavery extension into benighted, slaveless Mexico,—of Cuba annexed, and her stupidly mild slave-code reformed,—of tawny-hued houries, metifs, and quarteroons fanning him while he reposes,—of unnumbered Yankees howling over their lost trade, and kneeling vainly for help to him,—to Wigman! Profound Wigman! Behold the great man asleep! Happy Texas in having such a representative! Happy Jeff Davis in having such a counsellor! Gentlemen, my feelings grow too effusive. I must leave you. The dinner has been good. The wine has been good. I must make one criticism, however. The young gentlemen are degenerate. They do not drink. Look at them. They are perfectly sober. What is the world coming to? At our hotels, where twenty years ago we used to see fifty—yes, a hundred—champagne bottles on the dinner-table, we now don’t see ten. And yet men talk of the progress of the age! ’T is all a delusion. The day of juleps has gone by. We are receding in civilization. Wigman is a type of the good old times,—a landmark, a pattern for the rising generation. To his immortal honor be it recorded, that after that most heroic achievement of this or any other age, the subjugation of Anderson’s little starving garrison in Sumter by Beauregard, Wigman started in a small boat for the fort. Wigman landed. Wigman was the first to land. He entered one of the bomb-proofs. The first thought of a vulgar mind would have been to fly the victorious flag. Not so Wigman. On a shelf he saw a bottle. With a sublime self-abandonment he saw nothing else. He seized it; he uncorked it; he drank from it. And it was not till he had exhausted the last drop, that he learnt from the surgeon it was poison. O posterity! don’t be ungrateful and forget this picture when you think of Sumter. Our Wigman was saved to us by an emetic. Hand him down, ye future Hildreths and Motleys of America. Unconscious Wigman! He responds with another rhoncus. Mr. Sanderson, I leave him to your generous care. Gentlemen, good by!” And without waiting for a reply, Robson received his hat from the attentive waiter, waved a bow to the party, and waddled out of the hall.
Mr. Sanderson, seeing that a bottle of Chateau Margaux was but half emptied, sighed that he had not detected it sooner. Filling a goblet with the purple fluid, he drained it in long and appreciative draughts, rolling the smooth juice over his tongue, and carefully savoring the bouquet. Having emptied this bottle, he sighted another nearly two thirds full of champagne. Sanderson felt a pang at the thought that there was a limit to man’s ability to quaff good liquor. He, however, went up to the attack bravely, and succeeded in disposing of two full tumblers. Then a spirit of meek content at his bibulous achievements seemed to come over him. He put his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, leaned back, and benignantly said, “This warm weather has made me a trifle thirsty.”
Wigman suddenly started from his sleep, wakened by the cessation of noise. Sanderson rose, and assisted the Senator to his feet. “Come, my dear fellow,” said he, “it’s time to adjourn. Good by, young gentlemen!” And arm in arm the two worthies staggered out of the hall, each under the impression that the other was the worse for liquor, and each affectionately counselling the other not to expose himself.
Vance still sat at his table, and from behind a newspaper glanced occasionally at the two young men who had so excited his interest.
“Now, Kenrick,” said Onslow, “now that Robson the impenetrable, and Wigman the windy, and Sanderson the beastly, are out of the way, tell me what you mean by your incomprehensible conduct. When we met at table to-day, the first time for five years, I did not dream that you were other than you used to be, the enthusiastic champion of the South and its institutions.”
“You wonder,” replied Kenrick, “that I should express my detestation of the Rebellion and its cause,—of the Confederacy and its corner-stone,—that I should differ from my father, who believes in slavery. How much more reasonably might I wonder at your apostasy from truths which such a man as your father holds!”
“My father is an honorable man,—an excellent man,” said Onslow; “but—”
“But,” interrupted Kenrick, “if you were sincere just now in the epithet you flung at me, you consider him also a traitor. Now a traitor is one who betrays a trust. What trust has your father betrayed?”
“He does not stand by his native State in her secession from the old Union,” answered Onslow.