“Wall,” says I, “the cast-iron love and devotion I feel for that man don’t show off the brightest in hours of joy and peace. It towers up strongest in dangers and troubles.” And then I went on to tell him how Josiah wanted to come there as a senator, and what a dangerous place I had always heard Washington wuz, and how I had felt it was impossible for me to lay down on my goose-feather pillow at home, in peace and safety, while my pardner was a-grapplin’ with dangers of which I did not know the exact size and heft. Then, says I, solemnly, “I ask you, not as a politician, but as a human bein’, would you dast to let Josiah come?”
The President didn’t act surprised a mite. And finally he told me, what I had always mistrusted, but never knew, that Josiah had wrote to him all his political views and aspirations, and offered his help to the government. And says he, “I think I know all about the man.”
“Then,” says I, “you see he is a good deal like other men.”
And he said, sort o’ dreamily, “that he was.”
And then again silence rained. He was a-thinkin’, I knew, on all the deep dangers that hedged in Josiah Allen and America if he come. And a-musin’ on all the probable dangers of the Plan. And a-thinkin’ it over how to do jest right in the matter,—right by Josiah, right by the nation, right by me.
Finally the suspense of the moment wore onto me too deep to bear, and I says, in almost harrowin’ tones of anxiety and suspense,—
“Would it be safe for my pardner to come to Washington? Would it be safe for Josiah, safe for the nation?” Says I, in deeper, mournfuller tones,—
“Would you—would you dast to let him come?”
Pity and good feelin’ then seemed to overpower for a moment the statesman and courteous diplomat.
And he said, in gentle, gracious tones, “If I tell you just what I think, I would not like to say it officially, but would say it in confidence, as from an Allen to an Allen.”