of
a bench, listening to long-winded lawyers? While I live I shall have
action--."

"Well, you will have action enough in this position; it will burn you
out twenty years before your time. And it will be the end of what peace
and happiness a born fighter could ever hope to possess; for you will
raise up enemies and critics on every side, you will be hounded, you
will be the victim of cabals, your good name will be assailed--."

"Answer this: do you know of anyone who could fill this office as
advantageously to the country as I?"

"No," said Troup, unwillingly. "I do not."

Hamilton was standing by the table. He laid his hand on a volume of
Coke, expanding and contracting it slowly. It was perhaps the most
beautiful hand in America, and almost as famous as its owner. But as
Troup gazed at it he saw only its superhuman suggestion of strength.

"The future of this country lies there," said Hamilton. "I know, and you
know, that my greatest gift is statesmanship; my widest, truest
knowledge is in the department of finance; moreover, that nothing has so
keen and enduring a fascination for me. I could no more refuse this
invitation of Washington's than I could clog the wheels of my mind to
inaction. It is like a magnet to steel. If I were sure of personal
consequences the most disastrous, I should accept, and without
hesitation. For what else was the peculiar quality of my brain given me?
To what other end have I studied this great question since I was a boy
of nineteen--wild as I was to fight and win the honours of the field?
Was ever a man's destiny clearer, or his duty?"

"I have no more to say," said Troup, "but I regret it all the same.
Have you heard from Morris--Gouverneur?"

"Oh, yes, I had a long screed, in almost your words, spiced with his own
particular impertinence. Will you wind up my law business?"

"Oh, of course," said Troup.

The new Congress, made up, though it was, of many of the ablest men in
the country, had inherited the dilatory methods of the old, and did not
pass an act establishing the Treasury Department until the 2d of
September. Hamilton's appointment to this most important portfolio at
the disposal of the President was looked upon as a matter of course. It
created little discussion, but so deep a feeling of security, that even
before the reading of his famous Report business had revived to some
extent. This Report upon the public credit was demanded of him at once,
but it was not until