The General for ten full minutes smoked up and down, I silent, and the room otherwise still save for the tick-ticking of the clock. At last he spoke smilingly and off to one side. “You remember that sagacious doctor who was yesterday called from Baltimore to amend me after my journey? 'I'll do anything you say,' I told him, 'save give up coffee and tobacco.' 'Then you'll die,' he retorted, 'since it is coffee and tobacco which are killing you.' 'Then I'll die,' I replied, 'since coffee and tobacco are all that are left worth living for.' He quit the place in a fury of heat, did that doctor.” The General grinned. There was another pause; then he swung back to my Eaton warning, while his face again showed grave and firm. “Sir, Mrs. Eaton--Peg, as we call her--is as spotless as a star. My wife knew her, loved her.” His tone was tender, while his glance sought the miniature where from the table it followed him up and down with its eyes. “Timberlake's habits were unfortunate; his suicide was due to that. There was never a doubt of Peg in his soul; never a question of her conduct. I know this; I do not guess. What!”--here his voice began to rise with choler--“what! are we to guide by nameless slanders? Eaton is my friend, honorable, high of mind, honorably married to the woman he loves! I will not, by anything I do or fail to do, arm villification. Into my cabinet he goes though every bow in hell be bent against it.” Smash! went the General's pipe upon the hearth. It was the manner of the man when driven of anger. First and last he smashed pipes by the gross. “That is not the song of it!” I stubbornly protested. Then I put out what was true; that he should look at this thing from the point of his presidency. There was the public interest; his faith to the public must be dwelt on.