“My dear boy, don’t let these damaging delays prejudice you against Congress.  Don’t use such strong language; you talk like a newspaper.  Congress has inflicted frightful punishments on its members—­now you know that.  When they tried Mr. Fairoaks, and a cloud of witnesses proved him to be—­well, you know what they proved him to be—­and his own testimony and his own confessions gave him the same character, what did Congress do then?—­come!”

“Well, what did Congress do?”

“You know what Congress did, Washington.  Congress intimated plainly enough, that they considered him almost a stain upon their body; and without waiting ten days, hardly, to think the thing over, the rose up and hurled at him a resolution declaring that they disapproved of his conduct!  Now you know that, Washington.”

“It was a terrific thing—­there is no denying that.  If he had been proven guilty of theft, arson, licentiousness, infanticide, and defiling graves, I believe they would have suspended him for two days.”

“You can depend on it, Washington.  Congress is vindictive, Congress is savage, sir, when it gets waked up once.  It will go to any length to vindicate its honor at such a time.”

“Ah well, we have talked the morning through, just as usual in these tiresome days of waiting, and we have reached the same old result; that is to say, we are no better off than when we began.  The land bill is just as far away as ever, and the trial is closer at hand.  Let’s give up everything and die.”

“Die and leave the Duchess to fight it out all alone?  Oh, no, that won’t do.  Come, now, don’t talk so.  It is all going to come out right.  Now you’ll see.”

“It never will, Colonel, never in the world.  Something tells me that.  I get more tired and more despondent every day.  I don’t see any hope; life is only just a trouble.  I am so miserable, these days!”

The Colonel made Washington get up and walk the floor with him, arm in arm.  The good old speculator wanted to comfort him, but he hardly knew how to go about it.  He made many attempts, but they were lame; they lacked spirit; the words were encouraging; but they were only words—­he could not get any heart into them.  He could not always warm up, now, with the old Hawkeye fervor.  By and by his lips trembled and his voice got unsteady.  He said: 

“Don’t give up the ship, my boy—­don’t do it.  The wind’s bound to fetch around and set in our favor.  I know it.”

And the prospect was so cheerful that he wept.  Then he blew a trumpet-blast that started the meshes of his handkerchief, and said in almost his breezy old-time way: 

“Lord bless us, this is all nonsense!  Night doesn’t last always; day has got to break some time or other.  Every silver lining has a cloud behind it, as the poet says; and that remark has always cheered me; though —­I never could see any meaning to it.  Everybody uses it, though, and everybody gets comfort out of it.  I wish they would start something fresh.  Come, now, let’s cheer up; there’s been as good fish in the sea as there are now.  It shall never be said that Beriah Sellers —­Come in?”