After luncheon, the party, walking toward the public reception room, were met by five or six old men with very white beards. Two of them walked slowly as if weakened by sickness, one walked on crutches, and one had lost an arm, his coat-sleeve being pinned to his breast. Mr. Mechlin stopped to shake hands with them, saying to his wife to go on, that he wished to speak with these gentlemen. On rejoining the party, Mr. Mechlin was asked by Miss Gunther where these venerable old gentlemen came from.
“They looked like a little troop of patriarchs,” Miss Selden added. “What can they want at the Capitol?”
“They want bread,” Mr. Mechlin replied. “Those men should be pensioned by our Government, but it is not done because Congress has not seen fit to do it. The three oldest of those men are veterans of the Mexican War. For twenty-five years they have been asking the Government to grant them a pension, a little pittance to help them along in their old age, but it is not done. Year after year the same prayers and remonstrances are repeated in vain. Congress well knows how valuable were the services of those who went to Mexico to conquer a vast domain; but, now we have the domain, we don't care to be grateful or just. It would perhaps be a matter of perfect indifference to half of our Congress should they hear that all those poor veterans died of starvation.”
CHAPTER XXI.—Looking at the Receding Dome.
There was one thing that the gay New Yorkers, under Mrs. Mechlin's chaperoning, had to do before they left the capital. They must make an excursion across the Potomac to Arlington, and visit the tomb of Washington. Patriotism, she said, imposed this duty upon them, which must be fulfilled with due reverence.
“Therefore,” Mrs. Mechlin added, “they would have a picnic under the glorious trees in the Arlington grounds.”
“Let our libations be on that sacred spot,” said George; “we will pour wine on the grave of Washington—that is, we will go close to it and drink it.”
“You mean that we will drink the wine and rub the bottle devoutly upon the monument, as the Irish woman did when she cured her rheumatism,” Bob Gunther added.
“It is awful how unpatriotic and irreverent are the young men nowadays,” Miss Gunther said.
“Yes; it makes me weep,” added Arthur Selden, blinking.