When Washington left the breakfast table he could have worshiped that

man. Washington was one of that kind of people whose hopes are in the

very, clouds one day and in the gutter the next. He walked on air, now.

The Colonel was ready to take him around and introduce him to the

employment he had found for him, but Washington begged for a few

moments

in which to write home; with his kind of people, to ride to-day's new

interest to death and put off yesterday's till another time, is nature

itself. He ran up stairs and wrote glowingly, enthusiastically, to his

mother about the hogs and the corn, the banks and the eye-water--and

added a few inconsequential millions to each project. And he said that

people little dreamed what a man Col. Sellers was, and that the world

would open its eyes when it found out. And he closed his letter thus:

So make yourself perfectly easy, mother-in a little while you shall have

everything you want, and more. I am not likely to stint you in anything,

I fancy. This money will not be for me, alone, but for all of us.

I want all to share alike; and there is going to be far more for each

than one person can spend. Break it to father cautiously--you understand

the need of that--break it to him cautiously, for he has had such cruel

hard fortune, and is so stricken by it that great good news might

prostrate him more surely than even bad, for he is used to the bad but

is grown sadly unaccustomed to the other. Tell Laura--tell all the

children. And write to Clay about it if he is not with you yet. You may

tell Clay that whatever I get he can freely share in-freely. He knows

that that is true--there will be no need that I should swear to that to

The Gilded Age