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These gentle words soothed my troubled breast, and I went away. But the
servants of a nation can know no peace. I had hardly reached my den in
the Capitol, and disposed my feet on the table like a representative,
when one of the Senators on the Conchological Committee came in in a
passion and said:
"Where have you been all day?"
I observed that, if that was anybody's affair but my own, I had been to a
Cabinet meeting.
"
To a Cabinet meeting? I would like to know what business you had at a
Cabinet meeting?"
I said I went there to consult--allowing for the sake of argument that he
was in any wise concerned in the matter. He grew insolent then, and
ended by saying he had wanted me for three days past to copy a report on
bomb-shells, egg-shells, clamshells, and I don't know what all, connected
with conchology, and nobody had been able to find me.
This was too much. This was the feather that broke the clerical camel's
back. I said, "Sir, do you suppose that I am going to work for six
dollars a day? If that is the idea, let me recommend the Senate
Committee on Conchology to hire somebody else. I am the slave of no
faction! Take back your degrading commission. Give me liberty, or give
me death!"
335
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