The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

The Hawkinses are under the weather now, but their Tennessee property is

millions when it comes into market.”

“Of course, Colonel. Not the least offense intended. But you can see

she is a fascinating woman. I was only thinking, as to this

appropriation, now, what such a woman could do in Washington. All

correct, too, all correct. Common thing, I assure you in Washington; the

wives of senators, representatives, cabinet officers, all sorts of wives,

and some who are not wives, use their influence. You want an

appointment? Do you go to Senator X? Not much. You get on the right

side of his wife. Is it an appropriation? You’d go ‘straight to the

Committee, or to the Interior office, I suppose? You’d learn better than

that. It takes a woman to get any thing through the Land Office: I tell

you, Miss Laura would fascinate an appropriation right through the Senate

and the House of Representatives in one session, if she was in

Washington, as your friend, Colonel, of course as your friend.”

“Would you have her sign our petition?” asked the Colonel, innocently.

Harry laughed. “Women don’t get anything by petitioning Congress; nobody

does, that’s for form. Petitions are referred somewhere, and that’s the

last of them; you can’t refer a handsome woman so easily, when she is

present. They prefer ’em mostly.”

The petition however was elaborately drawn up, with a glowing description

of Napoleon and the adjacent country, and a statement of the absolute

necessity to the prosperity of that region and of one of the stations on

the great through route to the Pacific, of the, immediate improvement of

Columbus River; to this was appended a map of the city and a survey of

the river. It was signed by all the people at Stone’s Landing who could

write their names, by Col. Beriah Sellers, and the Colonel agreed to have

the names headed by all the senators and representatives from the state

and by a sprinkling of ex-governors and ex-members of congress. When

completed it was a formidable document. Its preparation and that of more

minute plots of the new city consumed the valuable time of Sellers and

Harry for many weeks, and served to keep them both in the highest

spirits.

In the eyes of Washington Hawkins, Harry was a superior being, a man who

was able to bring things to pass in a way that excited his enthusiasm.

He never tired of listening to his stories of what he had done and of

what he was going to do. As for Washington, Harry thought he was a man

of ability and comprehension, but “too visionary,” he told the Colonel.

The Colonel said he might be right, but he had never noticed anything

visionary about him.

“He’s got his plans, sir. God bless my soul, at his age, I was full of

plans. But experience sobers a man, I never touch any thing now that

hasn’t been weighed in my judgment; and when Beriah Sellers puts his

judgment on a thing, there it is.”

Whatever might have been Harry’s intentions with regard to Laura, he saw

more and more of her every day, until he got to be restless and nervous

when he was not with her.

That consummate artist in passion allowed him to believe that the

fascination was mainly on his side, and so worked upon his vanity, while

inflaming his ardor, that he scarcely knew what he was about. Her

coolness and coyness were even made to appear the simple precautions of a

modest timidity, and attracted him even more than the little tendernesses

into which she was occasionally surprised. He could never be away from

her long, day or evening; and in a short time their intimacy was the town

talk. She played with him so adroitly that Harry thought she was

absorbed in love for him, and yet he was amazed that he did not get on

faster in his conquest.

And when he thought of it, he was piqued as well. A country girl, poor

enough, that was evident; living with her family in a cheap and most

unattractive frame house, such as carpenters build in America, scantily

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