Apparently, he waits the coming of a visitor, for he wheels without surprise, as a fashionably dressed gentleman is ushered in by a servant. “Ah, Wirt!” he cries; “be seated, please. You got my note?” William Wirt is thirty-five--a clean, well-bred example of the conventional Virginia gentleman. He accepts the proffered chair; but with the manner of one only half at ease, as not altogether liking the reason of his White House presence. “Your note, Mr. President?” he repeats. “Oh, yes; I received it. What you propose is highly flattering. And yet--and yet----” “And yet what, sir?” breaks in Jefferson impatiently. “Surely, I propose nothing unusual? You are practicing at the Richmond bar. I ask you to conduct the case against Colonel Burr.” “Nothing unusual, of course,” returns Wirt, who, gifted of a keen political eye, hungrily foresees a final attorney generalship in what he is about. “And yet, as I was about to say, there are matters which should be considered. There is George Hay, for instance; he is the Government’s attorney for the Richmond district. It is his province as well as duty to prosecute Colonel Burr; he might resent my being saddled upon him. Have you thought of Mr. Hay?” “Thought of him? Hay is a dullard, a blockhead, a respectable nonentity! no more fit to contend with Colonel Burr and those whom he will have about him, than would be a sucking babe. He is of no courage, no force, sir; he seems to think that, now he is the son-in-law of James Monroe, he has done quite enough to merit success in both law and politics. No; there is much depending on this trial, and I desire you to try it. Burr must be convicted. The black Federal plot to destroy this republic and set a monarchy in its stead, a plot of which he himself is but a single item, must be nipped in the bud. Moreover, you will find that I am to be on trial even more than is Colonel Burr. The case will not be ‘The People against Aaron Burr.’ but ‘The Federalists against Thomas Jefferson.’ Do you understand? I am the object of a Federal plot, as much as is the Government itself! John Marshall, that arch Federalist, will be on the bench, doing all he can for the plotters and their instrument, Colonel Burr. It is no time to risk myself on so slender a support as George Hay. It is you who must conduct this cause.” Wirt is a bit scandalized by this outburst; especially at the reckless dragging in of Chief Justice Marshall. He expostulates; but is too much the courtier to let any harshness creep into either his manner or his speech. “You surely do not mean to say,” he begins, “that the chief justice----”