George Gildersleeve shook his head incredulously at this statement, and the doctor continued: "Now, if you will take the trouble to instruct yourself a bit, you will find out what Englishmen can do. Read, for instance, an account of the battle of Waterloo. Talk of Homeric heroes! What's Achilles and the well-greaved Greeks to the Iron Duke and the Guards?—what's Ajax Telamon to Shaw the Life-guardsman? tell me that—tell me that?" Shaw the Life-guardsman was the doctor's favorite hero, and he never failed, when the occasion offered, to bring him in as the compeer of all the paladins of old, from Hector to Roland.
"Ah! there was fighting such as the world ne'er saw before," continued the doctor, kindling with enthusiasm. "Not the famous Macedonian phalanx nor the Roman legion held their ground so stoutly as the squares of British linesmen when the steel-clad squadrons of cuirassiers broke against them in vain."
"That was all very well when you fought them Frenchmen and Greeks. But when you tackled us, you found a different sort of people to deal with, I reckon. Old Put, and Jackson, and Gineral Scott, were too much for you, old man," returned George, with a shake of the head that ought to have settled matters.
Dr. Wattletop's nose glowed with a fiercer heat, and if looks could have scorched a man, Gildersleeve would have shrivelled on the spot; but the chances are that even the glances of that pleasant dame Medusa would have fallen harmless on the pachydermatous master of the Archimedes Works.
"Why, confound it, man, you talk like an ass. Should her Gracious Majesty, the Queen of England, ever deign to notice the vaporings of your politicians, and take it into her head to resent them, she'd send the Channel fleet over here and knock your blasted country into flinders in no time, and dammit, I wish she would!" and with that volley the doctor turned on his heel, and left abruptly, to work off his choler by an additional tramp of a mile or two.
"How are you to convince a pig-headed, obstinate man like that?" said George, turning to his book-keeper. "He's so prejudiced that he won't listen to reason, and must have his own way."
VI.
While all the efforts of man, long-repeated, to change the baser metals into gold have proved futile, it is no less certain that gold, in revenge, has been successful in transmuting man. The power of its moral alchemy is seen in individuals like Rufus Heath. Poor, he would have remained a fawning toady, but wealth transformed him into a haughty, arrogant aristocrat at heart. No Somerset or Rohan was ever more so. Starting in life without other capital than a moderate education, tact, and industry, his first aim was to acquire wealth. His tastes were luxurious and refined, and to gratify them wealth was necessary. So to succeed he was plastic and serviceable to his employers, and assiduous in courting useful friends. A good name is a great stepping-stone, and to secure this he was correct and respectable in his conduct and demeanor. "Correctness," in fact, was his religion and code of morality. Of course, right and wrong were relative terms, and it was not to be expected that any one should live up to the exact letter of the law. A margin was allowable.
Nevertheless, decorum and all outward observances were due to society, and indispensable. Acting on this principle, there was no more popular and respected young man at twenty-one, in Belton, than Rufus Heath, nor one with brighter prospects. Counsellor Hull, his patron, declared that the young lawyer promised to be an ornament to the profession; and when the Counsellor was called to the bench, Rufus Heath succeeded to his practice. Exempt from gross vices, and gifted with an elastic conscience, the thriving lawyer successfully pursued his calling, until his marriage with Miss Obershaw crowned his pecuniary prosperity. Now the influence of riches made itself manifest, and it almost seemed as if the precious metals had been injected into his veins. He stiffened, became cold and imperturbable, laid aside his urbanity, and his ill-concealed pride and contempt for the less prosperous betrayed itself. And now that he had tasted all the joys that affluence can give, and tasted them unto satiety, he craved the flattering unction of distinction. Ambition was now his god. He was a politician, but a successful one only so far as he had been assisted by his wealth and family connections. He owed it to these powerful auxiliaries that he had spent a term in Congress. But he had gained no prominence there. He lacked oratorical ability, and without it, it is scarcely possible to attain eminence in a republic. His daintiness, moreover, caused him to recoil from contact with the masses, and though he strove to overcome this repugnance when the occasion called for it, he had never entirely succeeded. Perseverance, intrigue, and a lavish expenditure of money, were the means he relied on to ascend the first steps of political preferment. Once fairly launched as a public man, he doubted not his ability to make his way and mark as a statesman or a diplomat. To become Governor of his State was his present aim, and he had laid his plans to secure the nomination from his party as a candidate at the next election. To this end a host of emissaries, with money at command, were at work throughout the State. The Belton Sentinel, the organ in the county of Mr. Heath's party, advocated his interest with tremendous energy, persistency, and abundance of adjectives. Finnegass, the editor, was a poor printer, whose shop, presses, types, and all were mortgaged to Rufus Heath. This well-known fact furnished an unfailing quantity of sarcasm to the Passaic County Argus, the opposition sheet, that invariably alluded to Finnegass as the "minion" or "serf," either "pampered" or "truckling," of the "aristocrat on the cliff." These amenities were treated by the editor of the Sentinel with complete indifference, until once (stung into retorting by some particularly sharp gibe) he referred to the Argus as an "obscure sheet of no circulation, edited by a low, ignorant felon." Obscurity and "no circulation" were accusations too atrocious to be borne, and the editor of the Argus flung them back, with indignation, in the teeth of his defamer. This brought out sworn statements of copies issued by the two presses, and much evidence on both sides was published; for the rival editors were ready to go to any lengths to exculpate their respective papers from so heinous a charge as obscurity or want of "circulation." As for the personalities, they were treated as mild banter, tending to enliven the canvass, and stimulate partisans.