Nevertheless, neither party would accept
defeat, and for the next few weeks the war of hospitality was fast and
furious. We dined together nearly every day, sometimes at my expense,
sometimes at theirs. We drove, rode, walked, played at billiards and made
many a night of it; but youth and temperance (in drink) pulled me through
without serious inroads on my health. We had early come to an
understanding and a deadlock. Failing to get the slenderest clew to the
location of the cotton I offered them one-fourth if they would surrender
it or disclose its hiding-place; they offered me one-fourth if I would
sign a permit for its shipment as private property.
All things have an end, and this amusing contest finally closed. Over the
remains of a farewell dinner, unusually luxurious, as befitted the
occasion, we parted with expressions of mutual esteem--not, I hope,
altogether insincere, and the ultimate fate of the cotton is to me
unknown. Up to the date of my departure from the agency not a bale of it
had either come into possession of the Government or found an outlet. I am
sometimes disloyal enough to indulge myself in the hope that they baffled
my successors as skilfully as they did me. One cannot help feeling a
certain tenderness for men who know and value a good dinner.
Another corrupt proposal that I had the good fortune to be afraid to
entertain came, as it were, from within. There was a dare-devil fellow
whom, as I know him to be dead, I feel justified in naming Jack Harris.
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