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 tonight," said Riley, in a voice which had nothing mocking in it--to an unaccustomed ear.
"Oh, tonight, 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 tomorrow evening--for San Francisco next morning."
"Just so.... What are you going to do tomorrow?"
"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 2 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 a while, 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 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, buttonholed 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 of 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 3d 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 warn'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 August he sold the buggy and bought the remains of an old sulky--said he just wanted to see those green Tennesseans stare and gawk when they saw him come a-ripping along in a sulky--didn't believe they'd ever heard of a sulky in their lives.