“The cream’s in the drippin’s,” corrected Still.
“Not of this cow,” said Leech.
Leech soon came to be regarded as quite a financier. He talked learnedly of bonds and debentures, of per cents, and guarantees, and dividends, of which more than half the body did not even know the meaning. Once, when he was speaking of the thousands of “bonds” he would put on a railway to the mile, one of his confrères asked what he would put in so many barns.
“Ain’t you heah him say he’s gwine have a million o’ stock?” asked another colored statesman, contemptuously. The answer was satisfactory.
The amount of spoil which in time was found to be divided was something of which not even Leech himself, at first, had any idea. The railways, the public printing, insurance, and all internal improvements, were fertile fields for the exercise of his genius. He was shortly an undisputed power. He followed his simple rule: he led. “When someone offered a resolution to put down new matting in the Assembly hall, Leech amended to substitute Brussels carpet. To prove his liberality he added mahogany furniture, and handsome pier-glasses. The bills went up into the scores of thousands; but that was nothing. As Leech said, they did not pay them. If rumors were true, not only did Leech not pay the bills, he partly received their proceeds. His aspirations were growing every day. He had no trouble in carrying his measures through. He turned his committee-room—or one of his rooms, for he had several—into a saloon, where he kept whiskey, champagne, and cigars always free for those who were on his side. “Leech’s bar” became a State institution. It was open night and day for the whole eight years of his service. He said he found it cheaper than direct payment, and then he lumped all the costs in one item and had them paid by one appropriation bill, as “sundries.” Why should he pay, he asked, for expenditures which were for the public benefit? And, indeed, why? As for himself, he boasted with great pride when the matter came up at a later time, that he never touched a drop.
He had “found the very field for his genius.” He boasted to Still: “I always knew I had sense. Old Krafton thinks he’s running the party. But I’m a doin’ it. Some day he’ll wake up and find I’m not only a doin’ that, but a runnin’ the State too. I mean to be governor.” His blue eyes twinkled pleasantly.
“Don’t wake him up too soon,” counselled Still.
One of the statesman’s acts was to obtain a charter for a railway to run from the capital up through his county to the mountains. Among the incorporators were himself, Hiram Still, Still’s son, and Mr. Bolter.
“How will you build this road?” asked Mr. Haskelton, an old gentleman who had been a Union man always—one of the few old residents of the State in the body.
“Oh! we’ll manage that,” declared Leech, lightly. “We are going to teach you old moss-backs a few things.” And they did. He had an act passed making the State guarantee the bonds. The old resident raised a question as to the danger to the credit of the State if it should go into the business of endorsing private enterprises.