The clerks and cub pilot agreed so approvingly that the actor, lover of lines, was inspired to go on at more length. He remarked, in effect, that he had never seen so striking an instance of a parent's natural traits growing into--blemishes--in one inheritor and into graces in another. Yet to know Gideon Hayle was to read the riddle. As quick to anger as his sons, as full of mirth as his daughter; open-hearted, wrong-headed, generous, tyrannous, valorous, contemptuous of all book wisdom yet an incessant, keen inquirer with a fantastical explanation of his own for everything in nature, science, politics, or religion. Implacable in his prejudices, he---- "Yes," interrupted the first clerk, with amazing irrelevancy, "but a man of Henry Clay's experience ought to have known better. Kossuth is a gentleman who--well, general, how are you now? Mr. Gilmore, you know the general? Senator, you know Mr. Gilmore?" "Assuredly!" The condescending senator had known Mr. Gilmore, "a day by contact but long by fame." The general was civil but not suave. He remembered the player's hard names for the committee's dead scheme. "Taking care of Henry Clay, too, sir?" he asked him. "With so many pleasanter cares"--that meant Ramsey--"you might let Henry Clay take care of himself." "That's something," put in the second clerk, flushing defensively, while the senator, with cigar cocked one way and his silk hat another, drew Gilmore aside, "that's something Henry Clay never does." "Right, young man. He merely tries. Th-there's no one in the nation has t-tried harder or f-failed worse!" The youth turned to his work at the high desk. "Sir," said the general to the first clerk, who rose, "the senator and I have been up to your texas----" "Contrary to orders," mildly said the first clerk. "I admit it, sir, but our intentions were only th-the k-kindest. It seems to us, sir, or to me--us or me, sir, as you will--that th-those sons of our old friend Hayle are not getting justice." "They ought to be mighty glad of that, general." "S-s-sir, they'd rather have it! We admit, of course,--we or I--I, if you prefer, sir, or if the senator prefers--I admit they are not unbiassed." "No, I admit they're not." "Th-they are supe-perbly stiff-necked and illogical young barons from four centuries back, sir, without a f-f-fault that isn't a v-v-virtue overdrawn--or out of date." The speaker turned to the actor and senator and they to him: "If those boys have the pride of L-l-lucifer, Mr. Gilmore, they have also his intrep-idity. Th-they may be as high-headed as giraffes, sir, but they're as s-s-straightf-f-forward as a charging bull! Mr. clerk, the splendid surge of their imp-pulses should excuse their f-f-foibles even if their s-s-souls were _not_ wr-wri-writhing under the lash of a new whip on old sores, sir." "Will you just make that a little clearer, general?" "I will," softly put in the senator--"by your leave, general?" With limp majesty the general waved permission.