“Van Buren may surprise us,” said he, “and show me wrong besides; but this is what I think. You are to bear in mind, also, that his selection to be at my cabinet right hand was not personal but political. Here is how I hold him.” Now the General spoke with a thoughtful, measured flow of speech, as though his eye were turned to introspection, and he read, as one reads a page of print, his estimate of him whom he sought to weigh. “Van Buren is essentially furtive, lurking, cat-like. He delights in moonlight politics and follows the byways. He avoids the eye, is seldom in the show ring, and, in making his excursions, sticks to the lanes and keeps off the highways. Few men see, and fewer know, Van Buren. He is sly rather than bold; chicanes rather than assails; and when attacked he does not fight in that strifish sense of hard knocks. He poisons the springs and streams and standing water; and then he falls back into the hills. Van Buren does with snares what others do by blows; traps while others hunt. And yet, in a feline way, he likes trouble. Set out a bowl of milk and a bowl of blood, and turn your back. If sure of unobservation, he will lap the blood. But if you stare at him, he dissembles with the milk, purring with fervor sedulous. Ever secret, Van Buren knows of no harder fate than mere discovery. His points of power are his egotism, his skill for sly effort, his talent as a trader of politics. Marcy is of another sort. Marcy is vigorous where Van Buren is fine. If a band of music were to go by, Marcy would regard the bass drum as the great instrument. Van Buren would prefer the piccolo. Marcy does his war work with an axe. When any homicide of politics enforces itself upon Van Buren he moves with sack and bowstring. He waits until midnight, and then, with victim gagged and bagged and bound, drowns him in the Bosphorus of party.” Even as the General spoke, Van Buren was trudging up the street; for it would appear that he had come into town the hour before, and now made speed to pay his respects to the General.