I was deeply moved. And yet I rejoiced--for I had survived. I said with emotion, "Give it me. The government will settle now." He waved me back, and said there was something yet to be done first.
"Where is this John Wilson Mackenzie?" said he.
"Dead."
"When did he die?"
"He didn't die at all--he was killed."
"How?"
"Tomahawked."
"Who tomahawked him?"
"Why, an Indian, of course. You didn't suppose it was the superintendent of a Sunday-school, did you?"
"No. An Indian, was it?"
"The same."
"Name of the Indian?"
"His name? I don't know his name."
"Must have his name. Who saw the tomahawking done?"
"I don't know."
"You were not present yourself, then?"
"Which you can see by my hair. I was absent.
"Then how do you know that Mackenzie is dead?"
"Because he certainly died at that time, and have every reason to believe that he has been dead ever since. I know he has, in fact."
"We must have proofs. Have you got this Indian?"
"Of course not."
"Well, you must get him. Have you got the tomahawk?"
"I never thought of such a thing."
"You must get the tomahawk. You must produce the Indian and the tomahawk. If Mackenzie's death can be proven by these, you can then go before the commission appointed to audit claims with some show of getting your bill under such headway that your children may possibly live to receive the money and enjoy it. But that man's death must be proven. However, I may as well tell you that the government will never pay that transportation and those traveling expenses of the lamented Mackenzie. It may possibly pay for the barrel of beef that Sherman's soldiers captured, if you can get a relief bill through Congress making an appropriation for that purpose; but it will not pay for the twenty-nine barrels the Indians ate."
"Then there is only a hundred dollars due me, and that isn't certain! After all Mackenzie's travels in Europe, Asia, and America with that beef; after all his trials and tribulations and transportation; after the slaughter of all those innocents that tried to collect that bill! Young man, why didn't the First Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division tell me this?"
"He didn't know anything about the genuineness of your claim."
"Why didn't the Second tell me? why didn't the, Third? why didn't all those divisions and departments tell me?"
"None of them knew. We do things by routine here. You have followed the routine and found out what you wanted to know. It is the best way. It is the only way. It is very regular, and very slow, but it is very certain."
"Yes, certain death. It has been, to the most of our tribe. I begin to feel that I, too, am called."
"Young man, you love the bright creature yonder with the gentle blue eyes and the steel pens behind her ears--I see it in your soft glances; you wish to marry her--but you are poor. Here, hold out your hand--here is the beef contract; go, take her and be happy Heaven bless you, my children!"
This is all I know about the great beef contract that has created so much talk in the community. The clerk to whom I bequeathed it died. I know nothing further about the contract, or any one connected with it. I only know that if a man lives long enough he can trace a thing through the Circumlocution Office of Washington and find out, after much labor and trouble and delay, that which he could have found out on the first day if the business of the Circumlocution Office were as ingeniously systematized as it would be if it were a great private mercantile institution.
THE CASE OF GEORGE FISHER
--[Some years ago, about 1867, when this was first published, few people believed it, but considered it a mere extravaganza. In these latter days it seems hard to realize that there was ever a time when the robbing of our government was a novelty. The very man who showed me where to find the documents for this case was at that very time spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in Washington for a mail steamship concern, in the effort to procure a subsidy for the company-a fact which was a long time in coming to the surface, but leaked out at last and underwent Congressional investigation.]
This is history.