Every hour brings new arrivals. A colored delegation from Alexandria has arrived. It was promised they should see the President at 1 o’clock. It is now past the hour, but still they wait patiently. It seems to be the colored man’s fate to wait. There is a silent grandeur about this resignation. It is like the march of the centuries. Art has portrayed it in the face of the Egyptian sphynx.
A few Senators have seen the President. General Butler has dashed in there where none of the rest are allowed to go. No one saw a messenger depart with his card. He went in, disappeared for a moment only, and now flings himself again amongst the throng. He takes a cigar from a side pocket and a barbarous arrangement of some kind from another. With the last thing he is going to kindle a fire. He strikes the flint against the serpent, and something clicks like the lock of a gun. One! two! three! Civilization and Barbarism once more embrace and General Butler has lighted his cigar by the flame, and at the same time, like the blaze of a comet, he has disappeared.
The weary, weary waiters! The sun begins to blink askance, and to creep into western windows. A man says: “This is the tenth day I have waited to see the President.” Some of the people who were always to be found haunting Andrew Johnson have transferred themselves to President Grant. These are the barnacles, or fungi, which every administration inherits from its predecessor. A pale woman in weeds seems to shrink away behind the friendly covering of an open door. Her face is tear-stained. A feeble little child sits calmly by her side. There is much to attract sympathy to the woman. The joyousness of infancy seems to be trampled out of the innocent child. Little sickly bud, growing in the shadow of grief, God help thee!
In the space of one hour audience day will be over, and the disappointed will go, to return again on the morrow.
A FUND OF REMINISCENCES AT THE COMMAND OF THE JOURNAL CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
For more than a score of years strangers visiting the House of Representatives may have noticed, at the right hand yet a little below the speaker, a dignified, majestic man, who says the least, yet, perhaps, we may say, does the most, for the country of any man within hearing of the Speaker’s voice. The name of this man is John M. Barclay, and without his presence, or another equally potent in his place, the House of Representatives might be likened to a locomotive deprived of its beloved steam. The business of the House can proceed with an indifferent Speaker, weakness and effeminacy in other officers can be borne; but the man whose business it is to keep a faithful record of all that is done in the House has to get his commission from his Creator, and then have it approved by the man who happens to be elected Clerk of the House. It is Mr. Barclay’s duty to hand down the archives of the nation to other generations. For the last twenty years his mind has been a river through which the work of the House of Representatives has found its way into history. In this noisy, turbulent House it is his place to catch that which is proper and legitimate and fix it in permanent form for the benefit of the whole country. The Clerk of the House is the responsible figure-head for this most important position, but Mr. Barclay is the power behind the throne. In the clamor for office, petitions few or none are sent up for the one Mr. Barclay occupies. A man to take his place must have a perfect understanding of parliamentary law. When the House is in session, not for a moment must his attention wander from the points of discussion. The reporters in the gallery can enjoy their little siestas, give and take from each other; but Mr. Barclay must depend upon himself. So long has he occupied this position, so admirably has he performed his difficult duties, that he may now be compared to an exquisite piece of machinery. He never gives offence. In early years he was a Whig, in later a Republican; but so just is he that partisan sentiments are entirely overlooked, and both parties in the House reverence him alike.