d charged
fifteen shillings too much. Meanwhile the man had died, and the General
made a claim of fifteen shillings on his estate, which was paid. Again,
one of his tenants brought him the rent. The exact change of fourpence
was required. The man tendered a dollar, and asked the General to credit
him with the balance against the next year's rent. The General refused
and made him ride nine miles to Alexandria and back for the fourpence.
On the other hand, he sent to a shoemaker in Alexandria to come and
measure him for shoes. The man returned word that he did not go to any
one's house to take measures, and the General mounted his horse and rode
the nine miles to him. One of his rules was to pay at taverns the same
sum for his servants' meals as for his own. An inn-keeper brought him a
bill of three-and-ninepence for his own breakfast, and three shillings
for his servant. He insisted upon adding the extra ninepence, as he did
not doubt that the servant had eaten as much as he. What do you say to
these anecdotes? Was this meanness or not?"

Ratcliffe was amused. "The stories are new to me," he said. "It is just
as I thought. These are signs of a man who thinks much of trifles; one
who fusses over small matters. We don't do things in that way now that
we no longer have to get crops from granite, as they used to do in New
Hampshire when I was a boy."

Carrington replied that it was unlucky for Virginians that they had not
done things in that way then: if they had, they would not have gone to
the dogs.

Gore shook his head seriously; "Did I not tell you so?" said he. "Was
not this man an abstract virtue? I give you my word I stand in awe
before him, and I feel ashamed to pry into these details of his life.
What is it to us how he thought proper to apply his principles to
nightcaps and feather dusters? We are not his body servants, and we
care nothing about his infirmities. It is enough for us to know that he
carried his rules of virtue down to a pin's point, and that we ought,
one and all, to be on our knees before his tomb."

Dunbeg, pondering deeply, at length asked Carrington whether all this
did not make rather a clumsy politician of the father of his country.

"Mr. Ratcliffe knows more about politics than I. Ask him," said
Carrington.

"Washington was no politician at all, as we understand the word,"
replied Ratcliffe abruptly. "He stood outside of politics. The thing
couldn't be done to-day. The people don't like