“It is all very well for a parcel of men such as Adams and Hancock and their agitating like, to sit safely away in Philadelphia, and send us a stranger to take charge of us,” grumbled the portly man, in his downright way.
“But, surely,” remonstrated the thin-faced man, “you would not call General Washington a stranger.”
“He is a stranger to me, sir,” spoke the portly one, in an injured tone. “And he is from the South. Why could we not have had one of our own people? Answer me that!”
But the thin-faced man shook his head.
“Congress should know what it is about,” said he. “It must know that the general is fitted for his work, or it would not have sent him.”
“What work?” blustered the portly man, and his voice was loud and domineering. “What work, I ask you, sir?”
But the thin man again shook his head and looked blank.
“The work to be done is to drive the British out of Boston,” stated the red-faced man with the portly figure. “To drive them out of Boston so that we can go back and resume our trades and occupations. That’s what he’s sent to do. But,” and he challenged the room with both voice and eye, “how is he going to do it?”
“Faith,” laughed a gray-haired major, who stood near, “he has him there.”
But the thin-faced man unexpectedly had an answer.