hen
an American senator, Toombs began to prod Lamar about his speech in the
House upon the occasion of the death of Charles Sumner. Lamar was not
quick to quarrel, though when aroused a man of devilish temper and
courage. The subject had become distasteful to him. He was growing
obviously restive under Toombs' banter. The ladies of the household
apprehending what was coming left the table.

Then Lamar broke forth. He put Toombs' visit to Grant, "crawling at the
seat of power," against his eulogy of a dead enemy. I have never heard
such a scoring from one man to another. It was magisterial in its
dignity, deadly in its diction. Nothing short of a duel could have
settled it in the olden time. But when Lamar, white with rage, had
finished, Toombs without a ruffle said, "Lamar, you surprise me," and
the host, with the rest of us, took it as a signal to rise from table
and rejoin the ladies in the drawing-room. Of course nothing came of it.

Toombs was as much a humorist as an extremist. I have ridden with
him under fire and heard him crack jokes with Minie balls flying
uncomfortably about. Some one spoke kindly of him to old Ben Wade.
"Yes, yes," said Wade; "I never did believe in the doctrine of total
depravity."

But I am running ahead in advance of events.

VI

There came in 1853 to the Thirty-third Congress a youngish, dapper
and graceful man notable as the only Democrat in the Massachusetts
delegation. It was said that he had been a dancing master, his wife a
work girl. They brought with them a baby in arms with the wife's sister
for its nurse--a mis-step which was quickly corrected. I cannot now tell
just how I came to be very intimate with them except that they lived at
Willard's Hotel. His name had a pretty sound to it--Nathaniel Prentiss
Banks.

A schoolmate of mine and myself, greatly to the mirth of those about us,
undertook Mr. Banks' career. We were going to elect him Speaker of
the next House and then President of the United States. This was
particularly laughable to my mother and Mrs. Linn Boyd, the wife of the
contemporary Speaker, who had very solid presidential aspirations of his
own.

The suggestion perhaps originated with Mrs. Banks, to whom we two were
ardently devoted. I have not seen her since those days, more than sixty
years ago. But her beauty, which then charmed me, still lingers in my
memory--a gentle, sweet creature who made much of us boys--and two years
later when Mr. Banks was