MY INVESTMENT IN THE FAR WEST.
“A golden opportunity, sir; Fortune knocking at your door, as she knocks but once in a man’s lifetime; and if you refuse to let her in, excuse me, sir, but you will repent it—you will.”
Such were the persuasive words of Colonel Coriolanus Sling, as he cracked his filberts and sipped his sherry in the snug dining-room of my villa at Stamford Hill. The Colonel, as his name indicates pretty clearly, was an eminent citizen of the model republic, not long arrived on British ground, and the bearer of an introductory letter from my esteemed friend Cassius Corkey, a late Secretary of Legation. I had given a little dinner in honour of my new acquaintance; the repast had gone off pleasantly enough, and the ladies had left us four gentlemen to our wine and politics, when the Colonel uttered the above remarks.
It was early autumn, and, if the flower-beds of the garden were somewhat faded, the shrubberies of Magnolia Villa had still a cheerful aspect; and the lawn, as seen through the French windows, was smooth and trim as a gigantic piece of Genoa velvet. Not a weed, not a withered leaf, marred the neatness of the bright gravel of the walks: the fountain was in full play, liberally sprinkling the goldfish in the little marble basin; and the transparent walls of the conservatory showed a wealth of many-tinted flowers within. There may be larger and more stately residences than Magnolia Villa, but I flatter myself that few proprietors could make more of four and a half acres of ground, imperial measurement, than your humble servant, George Bulkeley. We were, as I have said, four in company—the Colonel; young Tom Harris of the Stock Exchange; a friend and countryman of the Colonel’s, by name Dr Titus A. C. Bett; and myself.
“Why, Colonel Sling,” answered I, doubtfully, “I don’t quite know about that. The distance, you see, is great, and the risk may be——”
“Nothing at all!” interrupted my guest, warmly; “I pledge you the honour, sir, of a free-born citizen of the U-nited States, nothing at all! The plum, sir, is ripe, and ready to drop into your mouth spontaneous; and I may safely assure you, sir, that nothing but my gratitude for your hospitality would have induced me to promulgate a scheme so out-and-out auriferous as the Great Nauvoo and Nebraska Railway will eventuate.”
I did not always find it in my power to follow the Colonel through all the windings of an argument. His exuberant diction was occasionally too much for me; but the drift of what he said was pretty clear, and I was greatly struck with it.
Tom Harris, who had been staring at the Colonel with his round eyes very wide open, here ventured to say that he supposed there would be considerable expenditure before any returns could be expected.
“Guess you’d better shut up,” said, or rather snuffled, Dr Titus A. C. Bett. “I have documents in my pocket to substantiate the number of miles metalled, and the bridges, and the viaducts, and general plant. A mere flea-bite of outlay, sir, would suffice to establish another of those mighty arteries of communication in respect to which America, it’s pretty much admitted, whips the world; and none but a soft-horn, sir, would have the least dubiosity about it.”
The Doctor and the Colonel were compatriots, one being a Boston man and the other a New-Yorker, but they were very unlike each other in aspect and manner. For whereas the Colonel was six feet two inches high, at the very least computation, and had an eagle beak, keen dark eyes, and a forest of lank black hair streaming around his sallow face; the Doctor was a little man of five feet three, or thereabouts, with weak eyes, spectacles, a head almost bald, and a little wizened countenance. Furthermore, the Colonel was a soft-spoken man, with conciliatory manners and a peculiarly honeyed tone; and though he smoked prodigiously, he consumed tobacco in no other way. The Doctor, on the other hand, was quarrelsome and warlike to a degree, capped every anecdote, contradicted everybody, hummed and buzzed in society like an angry wasp, and kept a silver box full of quids in his coat-pocket. These two were partners. Ill-natured people were malicious enough to say that the Colonel’s department was cajolery, and the Doctor’s bullying, in the joint interest of the firm. I gave no ear to these unkind rumours, and indeed I justly considered the Colonel to be a man of superior abilities and remarkable eloquence. He did not omit, on this occasion, to spread a little soothing salve on the wounds which his countryman’s rudeness had inflicted.