"The damned Yankees!" he sneered. "They think they've got the brains of
the nation."
"Why not make a speech on the subject?" she suggested.
He laughed. The matter under discussion was the cotton-goods schedule of
the new tariff bill, about which really he knew a little; his wife
placed every temptation to knowledge before him, even inspiring Senator
Smith to ask him to defend that schedule against the low-tariff
advocate. Mary Cresswell worked with redoubled energy, and for nearly a
week Harry staid at home nights and studied. Thanks to his wife the
speech was unusually informing and well put, and the fact that a
prominent free-trader spoke the same afternoon gave it publicity, while
Mr. Easterly saw to the press despatches.
Cresswell subscribed to a clipping-bureau and tasted the sweets of
dawning notoriety, and Mrs. Cresswell arranged a select dinner-party
which included a cabinet officer, a foreign ambassador, two
millionaires, and the leading Southern Congressmen. The talk came
around to the failure of the Senate to confirm Mr. Vanderpool, and it
was generally assumed that the President would not force the issue.
Who, then, should be nominated? There were several suggestions, but the
knot of Southern Congressmen about Mrs. Cresswell declared emphatically
that it must be a Southerner. Not since the war had a prominent
Southerner represented America at a first-class foreign court; it was
shameful; the time was ripe for change.
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