Grey remarked, "Quite right, as Henry Clay once said, 'There is nothing as melancholy as the old age of a dinner; who, sir, shall pronounce its epitaph?' That, sir, I call eloquence. No more wine, thank you." As he spoke, he drew a large Cabana from his waistcoat pocket and lighted it from one of the candles on the table.
Rivers remarked, "We will find it warmer in the library."
When the two men settled down to pipe or cigar at the library fire, John, who had felt the rôle of host rather difficult, was eager to get a look at the Tribune which lay invitingly on the table, and presently caught the eye of Mr. Grey.
"I see you have the Tribune" he said. "A mischief-making paper—devilish. I presume Penhallow takes it to see what the other side has to say. Very wise, sir, that."
Rivers, unwilling to announce his friend's political opinions, said, smiling, "I must leave Mr. Penhallow to account for that wicked journal."
Grey sat up with something like the alert look of a suddenly awakened terrier on his thin face. "I presume the captain (he spoke of him usually as the captain) must be able to control a good many votes in the village and at the iron-works."
"I rather fancy," said Rivers, "that he has taken no active part in the coming election."
"Unnecessary, perhaps. It is, I suppose, like my own county. We haven't a dozen free-soil voters. 'Bleeding Kansas' is a dead issue with us. It is bled to death, politically dead, sir, and buried."
"Not here," said John imprudently. "Uncle James says Buchanan will carry the State by a small majority, but he may not carry this county."
"Then he should see to it," said Grey. "Elect Fremont, my boy, and the Union will go to pieces. Does the North suppose we will endure a sectional President? No, sir, it would mean secession—the death-knell of the Union. Sir, we may be driven to more practical arguments by the scurrilous speeches of the abolitionists. It is an attack on property, on the ownership of the inferior race by the supremely superior. That is the vital question."