When my old friend Riley and I were newspaper correspondents in Washington, in the winter of ’67, we were coming down Pennsylvania Avenue one night, near midnight, in a driving storm of snow, when the flash of a street-lamp fell upon a man who was eagerly tearing along in the opposite direction. This man instantly stopped, and exclaimed:
“This is lucky! You are Mr. Riley, ain’t you?”
Riley was the most self-possessed and solemnly deliberative person in the republic. He stopped, looked his man over from head to foot, and finally said:
“I am Mr. Riley. Did you happen to be looking for me?”
“That’s just what I was doing,” replied the man joyously, “and it’s the biggest luck in the world that I’ve found you. My name is Lykins. I’m one of the teachers of the high school, San Francisco. As soon as I heard the San Francisco postmastership was vacant, I made up my mind to get it; and here I am.”
“Yes,” said Riley slowly, “as you have remarked, … Mr. Lykins, … here you are. And have you got it?”
“Well, not exactly got it, but the next thing to it. I’ve brought a petition, signed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and all the teachers, and by more than two hundred other people. Now I want you, if you’ll be so good, to go around with me to the Pacific delegation, for I want to rush this thing through and get along home.”
“If the matter is so pressing, you will prefer that we visit the delegation to-night,” said Riley, in a voice that had nothing mocking in it—to an unaccustomed ear.
“Oh, to-night, by all means! I haven’t got any time to fool around. I want their promise before I go to bed: I ain’t the talking kind, I’m the doing kind.”
“Yes, … you’ve come to the right place for that. When did you arrive?”
“Just an hour ago.”
“When are you intending to leave?”
“For New York to-morrow evening—for San Francisco next morning.”
“Just so. … What are you going to do to-morrow?”
“Do! Why, I’ve got to go to the President with the petition and the delegation, and get the appointment, haven’t I?”
“Yes, … very true; … that is correct. And then what?”
“Executive session of the Senate at two P.M.,—got to get the appointment confirmed,—I reckon you’ll grant that?”
“Yes, … yes,” said Riley meditatively, “you are right again. Then you take the train for New York in the evening, and the steamer for San Francisco next morning?”
“That’s it,—that’s the way I map it out.”
Riley considered awhile, and then said:
“You couldn’t stay … a day … well, say two days longer?”
“Bless your soul, no! It’s not my style. I ain’t a man to go fooling around;—I’m a man that does things, I’ll tell you.”
The storm was raging, the thick snow blowing in gusts. Riley stood silent, apparently deep in a reverie, during a minute or more, then he looked up and said: “Have you ever heard about that man who put up at Gadsby’s once? … But I see you haven’t.”
He backed Mr. Lykins against an iron fence, button-holed him, fastened him with his eye, like the Ancient Mariner, and proceeded to unfold his narrative as placidly and peacefully as if we were all stretched comfortably in a blossomy summer meadow instead of being persecuted by a wintry midnight tempest.
“I will tell you about that man. It was in Jackson’s time. Gadsby’s was the principal hotel, then. Well, this man arrived from Tennessee about nine o’clock, one morning, with a black coachman and a splendid four-horse carriage, and an elegant dog, which he was evidently fond and proud of; he drove up before Gadsby’s and the clerk and the landlord and everybody rushed out to take charge of him, but he said, ‘Never mind,’ and jumped out and told the coachman to wait—said he hadn’t time to take anything to eat, he only had a little claim against the Government to collect, would run across the way, to the Treasury, and fetch the money, and then get right along back to Tennessee, for he was in considerable of a hurry.
“Well, about eleven o’clock that night he came back and ordered a bed and told them to put the horses up—said he would collect the claim in the morning. This was in January, you understand— January, 1834—the 3rd of January—Wednesday.
“Well, on the 5th of February he sold the fine carriage and bought a cheap second-hand one—said it would answer just as well to take the money home in, and he didn’t care for style.
“On the 11th of August he sold a pair of the fine horses—said he’d often thought a pair was better than four, to go over the rough mountain-roads with, where a body had to be careful about his driving—and there wasn’t so much of his claim but he could lug the money home with a pair easy enough.
“On the 13th of December he sold another horse—said two weren’t necessary to drag that old light vehicle with—in fact, one could snatch it along faster than was absolutely necessary, now that it was good solid winter weather, and the roads in splendid condition.
“On the 17th of February, 1835, he sold the old carriage and bought a cheap second-hand buggy—said a buggy was just the trick to skim along mushy, slushy early-spring roads with, and he had always wanted to try a buggy on those mountain-roads, anyway.
“On the 1st of August he sold the buggy and bought the remains of an old sulky—said he just wanted to see those green Tennesseans stare when they saw him come a-ripping along in a sulky; didn’t believe they’d ever heard of a sulky in their lives.
“Well, on the 29th of August he sold his coloured coachman— said he didn’t need a coachman for a sulky—wouldn’t be room enough for two in it, anyway—and said it wasn’t every day that Providence sent a man a fool who was willing to pay nine hundred dollars for such a third-rate negro as that—been wanting to get rid of the creature for years, but didn’t like to throw him away.
“Eighteen months later—that is to say, on the 15th of February, 1837—he sold the sulky and bought a saddle—said horseback-riding was what the doctor had always recommended him to take, and dog’d if he wanted to risk his neck going over those mountain-roads on wheels in the dead of winter, not if he knew himself.
“On the 9th of April he sold the saddle—said he wasn’t going to risk his life with any perishable saddle-girth that ever was made, over a rainy, miry April road, while he could ride bareback and know and feel he was safe; always had despised to ride on a saddle, anyway.
“On the 24th of April he sold his horse—said ‘I’m just fifty-seven to-day, hale and hearty—it would be a pretty howdy-do for me to be wasting such a trip as that, and such weather as this, on a horse, when there ain’t anything in the world so splendid as a tramp on foot through the fresh spring woods and over the cheery mountains, to a man that is a man; and I can make my dog carry my claim in a little bundle anyway, when it’s collected. So to-morrow I’ll be up bright and early, make my little old collection, and mosey off to Tennessee, on my own hind legs, with a rousing good-bye to Gadsby’s.’
“On the 22nd of June he sold his dog, said, ‘Dern a dog, anyway, where you’re just starting off on a rattling bully pleasure-tramp through the summer woods and hills—perfect nuisance—chases the squirrels, barks at everything, goes a-capering and splattering around in the fords—man can’t get any chance to reflect and enjoy nature—and I’d a blamed sight rather carry the claim myself, it’s a mighty sight safer; a dog’s mighty uncertain in a financial way— always noticed it—well, good-bye, boys—last call—I’m off for Tennessee with a good leg and a gay heart, early in the morning.’ ”
There was a pause and a silence—except the noise of the wind and the pelting snow. Mr. Lykins said impatiently: “Well?”
Riley said: “Well, that was thirty years ago.”
“Very well, very well: what of it?”
“I’m great friends with that old patriarch. He comes every evening to tell me good-bye. I saw him an hour ago: he’s off for Tennessee early to-morrow morning—as usual; said he calculated to get his claim through and be off before night-owls like me have turned out of bed. The tears were in his eyes, he was so glad he was going to see his old Tennessee and his friends once more.”
Another silent pause. The stranger broke it: “It that all?”
“That is all.”
“Well, for the time of night, and the kind of night, it seems to me the story was full long enough. But what’s it all for?”
“Oh, nothing in particular.”
“Well, where’s the point of it?”
“Oh, there isn’t any particular point to it. Only, if you are not in too much of a hurry to rush off to San Francisco with that postoffice appointment, Mr. Lykins, I’d advise you to ‘put up at Gadsby’s’ for a spell, and take it easy. Good-bye. God bless you!”
So saying, Riley blandly turned on his heel and left the astonished school-teacher standing there, a musing and motionless snow image shining in the broad glow of the street-lamp.
He never got that post-office.