While Van Buren was in talk with the General, our first greetings being done, I strove to come by some true account of one who was like to make for much weight in the scales. He was round, short, and by no means superb or imposing. Standing between the General and myself, and both of us above six feet, he seemed something stunted. There was a quiet twinkle in his gray, intelligent eye that he drew from his tavern-keeping sire of Kinderhook; the latter being of shrewd Dutch stock, born to count pennies and to save them, and whose profits with his inn found partial coinage in an education above bottles and taprooms for his son. There hovered an oily peace about Van Buren; it showed on him like painted color. I was not tremendously impressed of him, I grant you; albeit, before all was done, I came to better learn him. The man, for a best simile, was like so much quicksilver. Bright and of surprising weight, he rolled away from a touch and never failed to fit himself scrupulously and plausibly into every inequality which the surface he rested on presented. He came to be, as you may think, precisely the man for the General; since, while the one was as apt for heat as Sahara, and as much the home of hurricanes, the other under no stress was ever known to give or take offence. He would be without quills, this Van Buren, and yet no porcupine in his rattling armor went about more perfect to his own defence or so equal for the problem of his own security. Van Buren made no lengthy stay with us; there was a hand-shake, a talk of a moment, a bow, and he was back to his quarters in the Indian Queen. “And what do you say of him?” asked the General, when now his new secretary was gone. “Why, sir,” I replied, “I should call your story of the man a good one. But he does not look so strong as you would make him.” “Why, then,” returned the General, “neither does any other thing of silk.” Then, after a pause: “Just as an insinuation is stronger than a direct charge, so is Van Buren stronger than other men. I warrant you, as we stand here with all our wisdom, he holds our measures more nearly than we hold his.” The General, you are to observe, and whether early or late, never said a word to Van Buren of Peg and the villain forays against her fame; the General was too proud for that. The defence of Peg seemed a thing personal to his heart; with him it owned no place in politics or the business of the state. Therefore, he would ask no man's aid, and folk on that quarrel might be neutral or pick their sides and go what ways they would.