you."

Again Aristabulus glanced at Steadfast, and Steadfast threw back the
look of surprise, for, to both it was matter of real astonishment
that any man should be so indifferent to the resolutions of a meeting
that had been regularly organized, with a chairman and secretary at
its head, and which so unequivocally professed to be the public.

"I am reluctant to discharge this duty, Mr. Effingham, but as you
insist on its performance it must be done. In the first place, they
resolved that your father meant to give them the Point."

"A decision that must clearly settle the matter, and which will
destroy all my father's own resolutions on the same subject. Did they
stop at the Point, Mr. Bragg or did they resolve that my father also
gave them his wife and children?"

"No, sir, nothing was said concerning the latter."

"I cannot properly express my gratitude for the forbearance, as they
had just as good a right to pass this resolution, as to pass the
other."

"The public's is an awful power, Mr. Effingham!"

"Indeed it is, sir, but fortunately, that of the republic is still
more awful, and I shall look to the latter for support, in this
'crisis'--that is the word, too, is it not, Mr. John Effingham?"

"If you mean a change of administration, the upsetting of a stage, or
the death of a cart-horse; they are all equally crisises, in the
American vocabulary."

"Well, Mr. Bragg, having resolved that it knew my late father's
intentions better than he knew them himself, as is apparent from the
mistake he made in his will, what next did the public dispose of, in
the plenitude of its power?"

"It resolved, sir, that it was your duty to carry out the intentions
of your father."

"In that, then, we are perfectly of a mind; as the public will most
probably discover, before we get through with this matter. This is
one of the most pious resolutions I ever knew the public to pass. Did
it proceed any farther?"

Mr. Bragg, notwithstanding the long-encouraged truckling to the sets
of men, whom he was accustomed to dignify with the name of the
public, had a profound deference or the principles, character, and
station of Mr. Effingham, that no sophistry, or self-encouragement in
the practices of social confusion, could overcome; and he paused
before he communicated the next resolution to his employers. But
perceiving that both the latter and his cousin were quietly waiting
to hear it, he was fain to overcome his scruples.

"