who was at that time not
only Secretary of the Senate of the United States, but the proprietor of
the _Chronicle_ newspaper in Washington, of the _Press_ in Philadelphia,
"both daily," as the Colonel once said, which very simple and commonplace
expression became a popular by-word. Colonel Forney wanted a managing
editor for the _Press_, and, as I found in due time, not so much a man of
enterprise and a leader--that _he_ supplied--nor yet one to practically
run the journal--that his son John, a young man of eighteen, supplied--so
much as a steady, trustworthy, honest _pivot_ on which the compass could
turn during his absences--and that _I_ supplied. I must, to explain the
situation, add gently that John, who could not help it considering his
experiences, was, to put it mildly, a little irregular, rendering a
steady manager absolutely necessary. It was a great pity, for John the
junior was extremely clever as a practical managing editor, remembering
everything, and knowing--what I never did or could--all the little
tricks, games, and wiles of all the reporters and others employed.

Colonel Forney was such a remarkable character, and had such a great
influence for many years in American politics, that as I had a great deal
to do with him--very much more than was generally known--at a time when
he struck his greatest political _coup_, in which, as he said, I greatly
aided him, I will here dwell on him a space. Before I knew him I called
him Warwick the King-maker, for it was generally admitted that it was to
his intense hatred of Buchanan, added to his speech-making, editing, and
tremendously vigorous and not always over-scrupulous intriguing, that
"Ten-cent Jimmy" owed his defeat. At this time, in all presidential
elections, Pennsylvania turned the scale, and John Forney could and did
turn Pennsylvania like a Titan; and he frankly admitted that he owed the
success of his last turn to me, as I shall in time relate.

Forney's antipathies were always remarkably well placed. He hated
Buchanan; also, for certain personal reasons, he hated Simon Cameron; and
finally it came to pass that he hated Andrew Johnson with a hatred of
twenty-four carats--an _aquafortis_ detestation--and for a most singular
cause.

One night when this "President by the pistol, and smallest potato in the
American garden of liberty," was making one of his ribald speeches, after
having laid out Horace Greeley, some one in the crowd cried--

"Now gi