It was one afternoon when the General came to me with a request that I seek out Noah at the Indian Queen and confer with him over the merits of a gentleman who lusted to hold a certain office. “This individual comes to me well spoken of,” said the General, “and yet I would know more of him, and that from one who has no axe to be grinded.” While I made ready for my walk to the Indian Queen, the General unpouched another piece of interesting news. “By the way,” said he, “our Peg has settled on April as a time for that dinner and ball. She would have had it sooner; but she does not now need the White House for any direct aid to her arms. She will save it for the close, and make the affair a sort of celebration.” “It is a good thought,” said I. “It is wiser, since she has won her way with what should be her own resources, not to subtract from that success by any full blown movement of the White House upon the scene. Mean folk would say she could not have come through without you to be her ally.” “And that is my notion, too!” coincided the General. “Peg's position is complete; the White House now would but divide her glory. We will offer her our East Room courtesies in April, and let it be for an old-time Roman triumph as when a victor returns from war. Peg well deserves a triumph; the Vice-Presidential coterie and all whom it might control have moved heaven and earth for Peg's disaster and pulled and hauled like common sailor-folk on any rope to do her harm.” “Does not April,” said I, “mark an unheard-of span for your social season? I had thought it might end with Lent.” “And so it would,” smiled the General, “if now we were only Federalists like Adams, and remembered the Church of England as a guide. This, however, is a Presbyterian administration; wherefore, we shall abide none of your Lents, but drink and dance and dine as far into spring flowers as we will.” “Being the earliest instance,” added I, “when to drink and to dance and to dine were called an evidence of Calvinism.” Noah was pen-employed over certain wisdom which should find subsequent exposition in his paper. “There are large money influences,” remarked Noah, thoughtfully, when we had talked a moment, “which have grown alluringly friendly about my associate, Watson Webb. They are offering a loan to our paper of fifty thousand dollars. You know”--this with his satirical air--“how papers are ever in want of a loan. These money folk bank on that to win us; perhaps, too, they find hope in my being a Jew.” “And what would your associate do?” I asked. “To be frank,” returned Noah, “he grants admiring ear to this song of siren money. I think we shall part company--Webb and I.” “And yet,” said I, with a bent for banter, “you are ever in one kind or another laying emphasis on your Jewish readiness for gold. Now you see it is the Jew who can not be moved, while our Gentile, with an eye to the yellow chance, would not be found so sentimental.”