General, let me congratulate you, sir; General, you’ve done a great work,
sir;–you’ve done a great work for the niggro; Gentlemen allow me the
honor to introduce my friend General Sellers, the humane friend of the
niggro. Lord bless me; you’ll’ see the newspapers say, General Sellers
and servants arrived in the city last night and is stopping at the Fifth
Avenue; and General Sellers has accepted a reception and banquet by the
Cosmopolitan Club; you’ll see the General’s opinions quoted, too–
and what the General has to say about the propriety of a new trial and
a habeas corpus for the unfortunate Miss Hawkins will not be without
weight in influential quarters, I can tell you.”
“And I want to he the first to shale your faithful old hand and salute
you with your new honors, and I want to do it now–General!” said
Washington, suiting the action to the word, and accompanying it with all
the meaning that a cordial grasp and eloquent eyes could give it.
The Colonel was touched; he was pleased and proud, too; his face answered
for that.
Not very long after breakfast the telegrams began to arrive. The first
was from Braham, and ran thus:
“We feel certain that the verdict will be rendered to-day. Be it
good or bad, let it find us ready to make the next move instantly,
whatever it may be:”
That’s the right talk,” said Sellers. That Graham’s a wonderful man.
He was the only man there that really understood me; he told me so
himself, afterwards.”
The next telegram was from Mr. Dilworthy:
“I have not only brought over the Great Invincible, but through him
a dozen more of the opposition. Shall be re-elected to-day by an
overwhelming majority.”
“Good again!” said the Colonel. “That man’s talent for organization is
something marvelous. He wanted me to go out there and engineer that
thing, but I said, No, Dilworthy, I must be on hand here,–both on
Laura’s account and the bill’s–but you’ve no trifling genius for
organization yourself, said I–and I was right. You go ahead, said I —
you can fix it–and so he has. But I claim no credit for that–if I
stiffened up his back-bone a little, I simply put him in the way to make
his fight–didn’t undertake it myself. He has captured Noble–.
I consider that a splendid piece of diplomacy–Splendid, Sir!”
By and by came another dispatch from New York:
“Jury still out. Laura calm and firm as a statue. The report that the
jury have brought her in guilty is false and premature.”
“Premature!” gasped Washington, turning white. “Then they all expect
that sort of a verdict, when it comes in.”
And so did he; but he had not had courage enough to put it into words.
He had been preparing himself for the worst, but after all his
preparation the bare suggestion of the possibility of such a verdict
struck him cold as death.
The friends grew impatient, now; the telegrams did not come fast enough:
even the lightning could not keep up with their anxieties. They walked
the floor talking disjointedly and listening for the door-bell. Telegram
after telegram came. Still no result. By and by there was one which
contained a single line:
“Court now coming in after brief recess to hear verdict. Jury ready.”
“Oh, I wish they would finish!” said Washington. “This suspense is
killing me by inches!”
Then came another telegram:
“Another hitch somewhere. Jury want a little more time and further
instructions.”
“Well, well, well, this is trying,” said the Colonel. And after a pause,
“No dispatch from Dilworthy for two hours, now. Even a dispatch from him
would be better than nothing, just to vary this thing.”
They waited twenty minutes. It seemed twenty hours.
“Come!” said Washington. “I can’t wait for the telegraph boy to come all
the way up here. Let’s go down to Newspaper Row–meet him on the way.”
While they were passing along the Avenue, they saw someone putting up a
great display-sheet on the bulletin board of a newspaper office, and an
eager crowd of men was collecting abort the place. Washington and the
Colonel ran to the spot and read this: