XV

Hamilton, on his way home, stopped in at the chambers of Troup.

“Bob,” he said, “you are to wind up my law business.  I am to be Secretary of the Treasury.”

Troup half rose with an exclamation of impatience.  “Good heavens!” he exclaimed.  “Have you not an introductory line in your nature?  It has been bad enough to have been anticipating this, without having it go straight through one like a cannon-ball.  Of course it is no use to reason with you—­I gave that up just after I had assumed that you were a small boy whom it was the duty of a big collegian to protect, and you nearly demolished my not too handsome visage with your astonishing fists for contradicting you.  But I am sorry.  Remain at the bar and you have an immediate prospect of wealth, not too many enemies, and the highest honours.  Five years from now, and you would lead not only the bar of New York but of the whole country.  Jay may be the first Chief Justice, but you would be the second—.”

“Nothing would induce me to be Chief Justice.  I should be bored to death.  Can you fancy me sitting eternally and solemnly in the middle of a bench, listening to long-winded lawyers?  While I live I shall have action—.”

“Well, you will have action enough in this position; it will burn you out twenty years before your time.  And it will be the end of what peace and happiness a born fighter could ever hope to possess; for you will raise up enemies and critics on every side, you will be hounded, you will be the victim of cabals, your good name will be assailed—.”

“Answer this:  do you know of anyone who could fill this office as advantageously to the country as I?”

“No,” said Troup, unwillingly.  “I do not.”

Hamilton was standing by the table.  He laid his hand on a volume of Coke, expanding and contracting it slowly.  It was perhaps the most beautiful hand in America, and almost as famous as its owner.  But as Troup gazed at it he saw only its superhuman suggestion of strength.

“The future of this country lies there,” said Hamilton.  “I know, and you know, that my greatest gift is statesmanship; my widest, truest knowledge is in the department of finance; moreover, that nothing has so keen and enduring a fascination for me.  I could no more refuse this invitation of Washington’s than I could clog the wheels of my mind to inaction.  It is like a magnet to steel.  If I were sure of personal consequences the most disastrous, I should accept, and without hesitation.  For what else was the peculiar quality of my brain given me?  To what other end have I studied this great question since I was a boy of nineteen—­wild as I was to fight and win the honours of the field?  Was ever a man’s destiny clearer, or his duty?”

“I have no more to say,” said Troup, “but I regret it all the same.  Have you heard from Morris—­Gouverneur?”

“Oh, yes, I had a long screed, in almost your words, spiced with his own particular impertinence.  Will you wind up my law business?”