However fascinating the subject, I do not propose to make a whole book about Eliphalet.  Yet sidelights on the life of every great man are interesting.  And there are a few incidents in his early career which have not gotten into the subscription biographical Encyclopaedias.  In several of these volumes, to be sure, we may see steel engravings of him, true likenesses all.  His was the type of face which is the glory of the steel engraving,—­square and solid, as a corner-stone should be.  The very clothes he wore were made for the steel engraving, stiff and wiry in texture, with sharp angles at the shoulders, and sombre in hue, as befit such grave creations.

Let us go back to a certain fine morning in the September of the year 1857, when Mr. Hopper had arrived, all unnoticed, at the age of two and thirty.  Industry had told.  He was now the manager’s assistant; and, be it said in passing, knew more about the stock than Mr. Hood himself.  On this particular morning, about nine o’clock, he was stacking bolts of woollen goods near that delectable counter where the Colonel was wont to regale his principal customers, when a vision appeared in the door.  Visions were rare at Carvel & Company’s.  This one was followed by an old negress with leathery wrinkles, whose smile was joy incarnate.  They entered the store, paused at the entrance to the Colonel’s private office, and surveyed it with dismay.

“Clar t’ goodness, Miss Jinny, yo’ pa ain’t heah!  An’ whah’s Ephum, dat black good-fo’-nuthin’!”

Miracle number one,—­Mr. Hopper stopped work and stared.  The vision was searching the store with her eyes, and pouting.

“How mean of Pa!” she exclaimed, “when I took all this trouble to surprise him, not to be here!  Where are they all?  Where’s Ephum?  Where’s Mr. Hood?”

The eyes lighted on Eliphalet.  His blood was sluggish, but it could be made to beat faster.  The ladies he had met at Miss Crane’s were not of this description.  As he came forward, embarrassment made him shamble, and for the first time in his life he was angrily conscious of a poor figure.  Her first question dashed out the spark of his zeal.

“Oh,” said she, “are you employed here?”

Thoughtless Virginia!  You little know the man you have insulted by your haughty drawl.

“Yes.”

Then find Mr. Carvel, won’t you, please?  And tell him that his daughter has come from Kentucky, and is waiting for him.”

“I callate Mr. Carvel won’t be here this morning,” said Eliphalet.  He went back to the pile of dry goods, and began to work.  But he was unable to meet the displeasure in her face.

“What is your name?” Miss Carvel demanded.

“Hopper.”

“Then, Mr. Hopper, please find Ephum, or Mr. Hood.”

Two more bolts were taken off the truck.  Out of the corner of his eye he watched her, and she seemed very tall, like her father.  She was taller than he, in fact.