Chapter VI

MR. SMOOTH FINDS HIS PATH TO THE WHITE HOUSE A DIFFICULT ONE.

"'Good morning, Mr. Smooth!' saluted the fat man behind the mahogany, as I entered the office, having escaped from my perilous position in the seventh story. In addition, he took a lunar observation all along down my hull, which he said was a mighty tough sort of craft, and had received no damage for which the house could be held responsible.

"As if to make the picture more complete, a number of anxious-looking individuals (all firm friends of Uncle Sam) crowded about me, each putting some curious question in reference to my expectations and the Executive and his gifts. Many of these important gentry had proboscises largely developed and very red; indeed, the reddest nose was strongest evidence of the best office-seeker; albeit, some waggishly inclined gentleman had said that the most generously red-nosed man always esteemed his deserts to be no less than that of United States Minister at some very fashionable foreign Court, where the good red of a well-developed nose was significant of pure blood. 'Well now, gents,' I returned, 'you needn't be trying to poke your political fun at this citizen! Young America is all right yet. Put me on the track of Mr. Pierce's whereabouts.' Seeing they were facetiously inclined, I summoned that independence so necessary to a citizen of standing. At this moment, one more politely inclined than the rest, stepped forward, and commenced giving me the ins and outs of the way to see the Brigadier, who, lie said, was surrounded by many fairweather courtiers. Stepping politely to the door, he, with grace not unbecoming, raised a well-gloved hand, and half whispered:--Mr. Smooth will walk into the avenue--keep on the West side--join the throng (they are all officials in embryo)--be sure and look as serious as they do; and with them you will arrive at the 'White House' to take your place and chance.' Oh! chance! 'There is no missing the way, Mr. Smooth; get behind some well-dressed citizen--one who looks as if he were in pursuit of something the means of securing which he had made sure. Follow that man!' I thanked him for his civility,--he seemed one of Uncle Sam's bone-breakers, and sallied out under the happy contemplation that a gentleman from Cape Cod was on a par with the same species of mankind from South Carolina. It was true that with what little aristocracy we boasted--and in that little there was truly a great blessing, inasmuch as it illustrated the fact of there being one spot on this earth where common sense had got the better of refined sense--was founded in the possession of 'niggers,' the number giving rank in the scale. In the small but very aristocratic atmosphere of democratic South Carolina it had been proposed to establish an order of the American garter, the means entitling to membership being the possession of a very large number of fat negroes and negresses: and to ingratiate the august order it was proposed to make Colonel Wade Hampton first knight, and Lady Tyler first knightess. The reader, Mr. Smooth feels assured, will pardon this little digression, which he will set down to my love for that darling little State.

"I soon muddled my way along with the crowd, among which there were very long faces, very short faces, and faces from which nothing could be extracted--the comic faces always kept behind! As a matter of policy I got behind the man who had the longest and most quizzical face; for he gave out signs of seeing daylight through political darkness. I made his acquaintance, and found him of the free-and-easy school. 'On your way to see the General, stranger?' I inquired, edging up to him in a polite sort of way--at the same time keeping up the free-and-easy. 'No,' he answered with a laconic air, and a half significant shrug of the shoulder, 'I'm merely strolling this way, leisurely contemplating. I take it you have not been long in the Capital?' he added. 'You are right on that point, citizen,' said I in return.

"'Expecting a good appointment?' he continued to inquire, philosophically. 'Well, it may be: s'pose you're in for a Ministership, if you come out a martyr,' I replied, adding a Western wink which is given with both eyes. He very good-naturedly acknowledged that I had hit the mark, gave me his arm, said we must look in somewhere by the way-side and taste a small drop of Young American whiskey, which would have the effect of making stronger our friendship. This we did, drinking a good time to Mr. Pierce. No sooner was the whiskey down than all his ideas came straight up. He said he was none of yer small fry;--like thunder he had stumped it for General Pierce; like electricity he had down in Georgia and Western Alabama carried everything for true democracy. 'Reckon Mr. Smooth never was down South?' he concluded, in parenthesis. I assured him I never was; but that I had heard it was great of office-holders, and persons who would, with every consideration for the Union in general, hold the federal government very fast. To this he merely bowed in confirmation. To another question, which was rather of a delicate nature, he said the South did not so much value the emoluments of office; but her sons reverenced the noble qualities of their forefathers, with whom dignity was inherent,--and it was they that were best qualified to maintain and spread its influence for the benefit of the nation. It was the dignity of the nation, made manifest in its government, the South sought to maintain. So said my friend, whose name was Pringle Pierpont--well acquainted with Uncle Sam. All of a sudden he laughed outright, saying I was ignorant of the _why and how to do, diplomacy_ of Washington. What it is impossible to get you must always say you never wanted; and what is within your reach, always say was far beyond our expectations. Meantime, be a philosopher, and act with apparent indifference to what is going on around you: never tell a friend you are worth less than one hundred thousand dollars. Upon such an hypothesis you may face the General, talk profound (here and there in parenthesis letting out your knowledge of foreign affairs), but never give him to understand that you can extract crooked and put straight ideas into his head--above all, be sure and feel as independent as a wood-sawyer at two dollars a day. Play well your face, and a spoil of the game just won will be yours. Marcy is father of this principle! Heed not the sympathy between your heart and head,--while the one feels high never let the other play low. Accept anything the General may be pleased to offer, adding that it is in respect to his great talent and your anxiety to keep respectable his foreign affairs; and think how you belie your conscience the while. Now, Smooth, you will see how open-armed the General will be to see me!'

"I told Mr. Pierpont how glad I was to hear it, seeing that it might be the means of putting me through on the same hook. Without hesitation, he said he would do what he could. Had I fought in the Mexican war the case would have been different--had I been true to the South, the case had been very different: the distinctions here enumerated brought down the scale. 'However, the General and me are one, having fought by his side in Mexico, and you shall be put through.' So saying, we proceeded on our way, reaching in a few minutes the White House, the gardens of which we found transplanted with citizens--set here and there as thick as the gardener's tulips. Before the circular carriage-way that sweeps to the great entrance, filed a rampart of moody faces. Mr. Mulligan said they were there for the study of Botany, he believed. Near the great portico stood the tall figure of a man plainly dressed in blackest broadcloth; he sauntered about as if contemplating some hopeless game of party. Another looked as if he had just sprung from a dressing-case to present himself before Grandpapa Marcy, in the hope of his personal appearance making stronger his claims to a very acceptable appointment. A third had a woe-begone smile on his face, and seemed studying the nature of a plant that would soon need a careful hand. When accosted concerning his musings, he said he had done battle right manfully for the democracy; and now Mr. Pierce's only reply was, that his demands were of so hard a nature as to render it impossible for him to knock under. I told him that I would take the small points of Mr. Pierce's ideas, and the strong points of Mr. Marcy's, and from them try to work out the P's and Q's of his case.

"'You don't know if the General is at home, do you?' I inquired of him, with as much good intention as it were possible to put in a question. 'Know nothing about him since he's possessed himself of the White House!--My name is Major Sykes, of the Hard Shells, New York! I know as little of him as the country did before he was elected:--now and then I see him smoking a long nine while laying off at his ease, his dirty boots sticking out of the east window.' Here I interrupted by asking if it were possible such charges could be true. 'True!' (exclaimed he, more gritty than ever), 'true as daylight; the nation may bless itself if he stops there. Be careful, my down-east friend, be careful. He will sell you for a mess of corn for his black pig. Down-east will stand no chance until Down-south gets satisfactorily served: a wondrous change has come over the General since he left the granite hills of his native State, where he did the law trade in a small way. Now--Smooth, I think they call you, says he--if I be not much mistaken the General will create a Babylon of parties, the result of which will render it difficult to define his own position. If the General would but get up a _cross_ between southern secessionists and northern free-soilers, how happily it would illustrate his policy.' Clasping his hand, 'Major Sykes,' said I, 'I pity you.'

"'And so do I you,' he replied quickly. 'And when you come face to face with the General, think of Uncle Sam, but don't forget yourself,--_that is the motto!_' Saying thus, he started off, much after the fashion of a man who feels somewhat fudgy. Duly esteeming the position of a man who has that in his composition which gives power to manliness, and has higher motives than political for its aims, I made my way to the entrance of the White House, whistling Yankee Doodle as I went. The closer I got to the great doors the more violent became the crowd, until at last it ended in a jam of bodies. 'Not so fast!' exclaimed an anxious individual, whose eyes darted terror from their very sockets. 'Gentlemen!--it's my turn,' re-echoes another half-stifled voice. 'Was not I in the city seven weeks before the inauguration? and didn't I carry everything for the General down in Pennsylvania?' roars a tall individual, whose hat had received what may be called a shocking smash. Then they swayed forward in a serf of bodies. Now it poised, as if for breath; then again it swayed onward, threatening limb and wind. An exceedingly lean gentleman, with a hard brown face, and a patch over his left eye, cried out to the figure that stood bowing at the door, and demanded that his card be first taken to the General, whom he was kind enough to declare a right good fellow and a most intimate friend of his. 'Perhaps you have a claim that way!' retorts a sharp voice, which belonged to a sturdy figure well out at the elbows. He declared he had driven the whigs out of Old North Carolina--had carried strong the, State for Pierce and posterity. Another individual near by, and who seemed inclined to doubt the assertion, suggested whether it were not more probable he carried all the _watering_ establishments of that renowned state, seeing that his nose and eyes had stood the storm of spirits. No one ever heard of his carrying anything else! 'True,' rejoined another: 'he can drink his way through a democratic canvass, tell the most amiable lies, absorb any amount of chaffing, and stands less at swearing than any other man in the country: more than all, he can demolish the King's English at a stroke.' Such pulling, hauling, squeezing and yawning, 'cussin' and swearing--such cross-firing, crooked joking, and slang jibes, never before was seen in such perfect medley. In calmer moments, even the hard-fisted, iron-hearted, unterrified and never-washed democracy would have shed a few blushes over it. Old democracy was nowhere--Young America was triumphant; his sprouts were up and coming.

"'Clear the way there!' I exclaimed, raising my voice to a point. 'Mr. Smooth will walk in, and himself present his card to the General.' The crowd looked amazed,--begun to give way. 'Mr. Smooth, citizens,' continued I, motioning as if it were my intention to speechify, 'is something of a body--don't stand none of your small fritters. Mr. Smooth--like the principles of his party--was intended for cutting a figure in the world; he will unmask aristocracy, whip creation, and demonstrate the truth of manifest destiny.' Then they all shouted a fashionable hee-haw, by which they hoped to drive me off the track; but it was no go. 'Clar the way,' says I, 'or I'll split the crowd like a thousand of bricks!' I accompanied the word with a terrible look, at which they filed right and left as I chased square up to the inner door, where stood a stiff sort of person, whose clothes had grown on him--so tight were they. Surprised at my sudden approach, he first gave many nervous winks and blinks, and then added the silly airs of my Lord Spoonbill's menial, who, with hair buttered and powdered, knew but the servilities of flunkeyism. 'Is the General at home?' I demanded, adding before he had time to answer, that if he had a spare lucifer I'd have no objection to taking a smoke with him. With the consequence of a sleepy congressman, he inquired if my business with the General was special. He seemed to have the keeping of the General, much after the fashion of a keeper who guards the wild animal of a menagerie.

"'You must send up your card: it's a question whether he is out of his morning gown and slippers, however!' Here the man looked doubtingly at the card, then gave his head a significant shake.

"'General ain't got so mighty big since he moved from New Hampshire?' I inquired, as the fellow hesitated and again viewed me from the extreme points. 'Now, Uncle Sam, to you I would say a word, hoping, in the spirit of a very good christian, that it may be received as wholesome advice. You, Sam, are forgetting that fame which should reflect us in future ages; you, Sam, are assisting those who would lay sullied hands on our pure republicanism--who would sink it in the political slough, and build over it the reeking bastard of a pitiable tyranny. Stretch out thy hand, Sam, that we may cease to cut before the world and the rest of mankind so sorry a figure. Sam! you have sent your little villains out upon the world; recall them ere they prove themselves great fools at our expense.'

"Well, to go back:--I began to push my way past the flunkey, when he summoned his brass and said I couldn't come in--that I must slide myself into costume of the eight stripe! This to me was neither diplomatic nor polite. And being deemed impolite, according to the rules of our Young America, I placed the broad front of my knuckle-bones between his observators, (just to bring out his spunk), and demanded to know what they charged in Washington for a few knockings-down. To which he elongated himself, and with cool assurance said it had never before been his fortune to be put through the process--hence he was not prepared to figure up the amount. A place called limbo, he said, was just over at the corner; that I better keep an eye to it. This last saying gave the crowd outside furniture for a good laugh; they, the citizens, set to quizzing me about the hang of my breeches, which they were pleased to call diplomatic. This, I inferred, was in consequence of Grandpapa Marcy having gone to there was no knowing how deep into the breeches business, hoping thereby to prevent plain American citizens making very unplain apes of themselves when abroad. Indeed, neighbor Marcy would demonstrate to the world that cloth and diplomacy were two very different things. And this doctrine my Uncle Buck--all praise to his name--fully endorsed,--that is, he proved himself the only American minister not given to purloined crests and crimson cloth.

"'Smooth is a nine-cornered citizen in the rough: he needs polishing down with a federal holly-stone before he can be admitted into good society:' a voice like the creaking of a door resounded through the passage. Being a rough sort of citizen didn't affect me as long as I had the straight up-and-down principles within. Well, I got up the go-a-head, and walked in steady. 'T'wont do! citizen Smooth!' interposes the flunkey, putting out his right hand as his face reddened into a blaze. 'Young America must keep within bounds; he must conform to the established etiquette before he can see the General.' Not liking to be out of sorts, I turned to him, and with the best kind of good nature told him not to come within grasping distance.

"Lord bless yer soul, Uncle Sam! I told him it was always good policy to keep civil to distinguished individuals, and treating his insolence as Captain Ingraham would an Austrian proclamation, I kept onward (that's the motto!) until the passage-way opened into a gorgeously decorated hall, the motto on the door of which I surveyed until my head begun to ache. The General seems to have got him a snug and well-ordained establishment, thought I. But the fixings were rather more profuse than democracy in its simplicity had led me to suppose its taste appreciated. But there was no concealing the fact, that the democracy--its love of simplicity not excepted--did pay large sums now and then for showy fixtures and grand failures. The short-comings of the New Hampshire law-shop were extinct--elegance everywhere met the eye. While enjoying my meditations one flunkey approached another, telling him to keep a keen eye on that fellow--meaning me. Then a slim figure done up in dignity and tight clothes approached me with a polite bow: 'Please remember this is the President's mansion,' said he, viewing my perpendicular as if he questioned whether my length was all real growth. Seeing that the establishment belonged to Uncle Sam, I assured him he was a little too impertinent.

"'Now, neighbor!' says I to the citizen, don't deceive yourself by supposing the General has got his aristocracy up like this before he has lodged three months in the White House. I'm an independent citizen; come to put some straight policy into the General, who, with the assistance of his grind-stone man, Fourney, unfortunately has got everything into a twist. My name (sometimes they call me Squire) is Solomon Smooth. It don't matter what they call me now, for be it known, ye men of titles, all the fishermen in our district have become judges and generals. This is the result of that necessity that makes negro-drivers of the south captains and majors. 'But the President,' said he, 'has got such a fearful load of business on his hands this morning, it will be impossible he can see Mr. Smooth, nor are the apartments in a state to be seen by visitor--' 'Always in the suds!' I interrupted. 'No! that ain't it,' he continued, half trembling of fear; 'but the President is new, nor yet has got into the straight way of doing crooked business.'

"'Never mind that,' replied I, 'Smooth's an independent citizen, who must not be interfered with while taking a turn round the establishment: he neither stands on ceremony nor political point-making.' The fact was, Mr. Smooth had a very wholesome hatred of the nonsense of ceremony, and always pitied that complacency of Uncle John Bull who, like a well-worn and faithful pack-horse, never flinched under the heavy burden of that precious legacy called royal blood, which, said blood, was fast absorbing the vital blood of the nation. May our Union always be spared the degradation of such blood!

"The fellow, seeing I was not to be outdone, gave it up for a bad job, and contented himself with following me here and there, keeping a fixed eye on my motions, as if he feared I was going to become enamoured of some of Mr. Pierce's chambermaids, which said commodity was acknowledged to be very pretty, and much admired by Jones, who did the fashionable at Willard's. It having been said that the General, like Jackson, would keep himself, I endeavored to persuade the fellow to show me his nook. He only shook his head and said it wouldn't do: so I took a careless stroll through the loose apartments, and ceased only when my sight was gratified. 'Well!' says the flunkey, adding a deep sigh and a despairing shake of the head, 'it's no use trying to control this citizen; he's of the fast school, without bowels.'

"'You may believe it!' returned I, advancing toward a broad circular stairway that wound downward far into the regions below, where I expected to find Fourney and Company holding the General down upon the grindstone, while Uncles Caleb and Jeff turned, and Marcy stood by to say when enough of the rough was got off. 'There! in my soul he's going down into the kitchen!' The fellow bawled out as I passed down, and soon disappeared, saying it was just the winding way I sought; and, though the things to be seen in the vortex to which it led might be dangerously dear to the nation, the proof would at least be convincing. On I went, the way darkening as I advanced.