A Strange Discovery | Page 4

the machinery sweetly hum as the sheets of
treasury-notes fall in cascades to the floor, to be cut apart, packed in
bundles, and sent to any citizen who wants them on his own
unendorsed note--_un_endorsed, Pickles, and at two per cent.! Ever
study logic, Pickles? No! Well, no matter; my brain's full enough of the
stuff for both of us. If the American citizen is honest--which I opine
that he is--the scheme will work like a charm; if he is

_dis_honest--which God forbid, and let no man assert--then let the
country sink--and the sooner the better. I pity the imbecile that can't see
this point. The people--and is this country for the people, or is it
not?--follow me, Pickles: the people obtain plenty of money, the stores
get it, the factories and importers get it, and commerce hums." Here the
doctor was for a moment diverted by some objective impression; and
without a word of excuse to the little man, he swung himself into his
buggy, which stood waiting, and drove rapidly away; whilst the
diminutive man, after a moment of weak indecision, shuffled off down
the street. I later learned that these talks of Doctor Castleton's were, as
regards the element of verity, thrown off as writers of fiction throw off
fancies. Sometimes he defended opinions that were in fierce conflict
with the ideas of his auditors; but he generally talked to please them,
frequently assuming as his own, and in exaggerated form, the hobbies,
notions, or desires of his auditors. In the incident just recorded, the
doctor probably had not, as a matter of fact, been stating his real
opinions, though for the moment he may have imagined that he was an
uncompromising "Paper-money man" or "Greenbacker," as a member
of one of the minor political parties of the day was termed: the little
man was poor, and Doctor Castleton had simply been drawing for him
a picture of delights--at least, so I conjectured. This propensity of the
doctor sometimes led to startling surprises and results, and, once at
least, to a discovery of weighty consequence--as we shall soon
perceive.
It was novelty for me, and under the circumstances often quite
refreshing, to witness the manner in which Americans treated the
mighty subjects of life, and spoke of the great and powerful persons of
the earth. It was an abundant source of entertainment for me to ask
almost anybody with whom I happened to be conversing, for his
opinion on some great subject or of some noted personage; for the reply
was always to me unique, sometimes very amusing, and not
infrequently instructive. On the way for the second time from our
evening meal to my room, I stopped for a moment in the "Gentlemen's
sitting-room," where I in part overheard a conversation between an
elderly and a middle-aged man. I afterward learned that the younger
man was a lawyer, by name Lill; that he was well known throughout

the State, a man of cultivation, very conventional in his private life, but
an unequivocal dissenter on almost every great social question; a man
of high honor, and unquestionable personal habits, for whom exalted
public office had often waited if only he could have modified his
expressed opinions to less inharmony with those of men who held the
reins of power. It seemed that these two men had not met for a year or
more; and as I entered the room they were comparing experiences, in a
leisurely, confidential, sympathetic way. As I came within hearing, the
lawyer had just started in afresh, after a laugh and a pause.
Settling-down his features, and assuming a more-news-to- be-told
manner, with a pinch of fine-cut tobacco between finger and thumb
ready to go into his mouth, and leaning slightly forward to keep the
tobacco-dust from his shirt-front, he said, "Well, David, I read the
Bible through again last winter, and I must continue to think it a very
immoral book. Its teaching is really bad. Why, sir, what would you
think of such d---d outrageous teaching if anybody were at this time to
promulgate it with an implication of any practical relation to present
events?" And so he continued, somewhat, though not greatly, to the
horror of his companion, who seemed to be a Christian--at least by
descent. On another day, after the mid-day meal, as I again entered this
room, I observed a new-comer in conversation with what I took to be a
small delegation of Bellevue business men. I was afterward presented
to this new arrival, when I learned that his name was Rowell--General
Rowell; a name which I thought I had seen in the newspapers at home.
He was a large man of prepossessing appearance, and gave me the
impression of considerable mental force and activity. I heard him say