Passing through the back parlor, he espied us. "Oh, Mrs. Pryor! _Hang it all!_" he ruefully exclaimed, as he went aloft. When Mrs. Hancock took charge of the situation, he returned to us.
"And so the general has sent you over to represent him at the funeral! Tell him I am all right; but by the bye, how many people came over with you?"
"Those two," indicating the party now descanting to Mrs. Hancock upon the fine collection of autographs.
"Had the result been different, a fleet could not have brought them all! However, the canes are coming in as well as the quilts. We shall not lack for fire-wood this winter, nor for covering."
Mrs. Hancock was soon relieved of her kind friends, and both she and the general accompanied us on a "little walk" proposed by him. "I shall not be lonely here," he told us; "a new ship comes in sight every day; and I've plenty to do. I must have all these leaves swept up, too. I'm a happier man than Garfield this day. Only," he added sadly, "I cannot reward my friends."
Mrs. Hancock opened the gate of her little garden and gathered a souvenir posy for Gordon, and so we parted from the two—so great, so dignified in the hour of defeat.
When I reached home, it was well I had a _douceur_ for my general. He held in his hand the _New York Tribune_ of the day, and pointed an indignant finger to a communication in which the public was warned against the incendiary principles of "persons in the family of a noted Southern lawyer, now resident on Brooklyn Heights, who had, in the moment of the nation's rejoicing, displayed in a window a piratical flag, deep-bordered and ominous." My poor little jest with my neighbor! My humble black shawl!
Having had an invitation to lunch with Mrs. Grant at the Fifth Avenue Hotel next day, I thought it wise, as well as agreeable, to accept, seeing I had been published as a suspicious character. I needed Republican support.
I told Mrs. Grant of my interview with General Hancock. "Nice fellow! Nice fellow!" she exclaimed with feeling. "You know I'm a Democrat," she said. "What's more, I'm _Secesh_, particularly as the Republicans wouldn't nominate Ulysses for a third term."
"Oh, but," said I, "you mustn't forget the story of the Fisherman and the Flounder."