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Saving an occasional burst of impatience, or coarse assertion of his mastery, his good-humour remained to him, but it had now a sordid alloy of distrust; and though his eyes should twinkle and all his face should laugh, he would sit holding himself in his own arms, as if he had an inclination to hoard himself up, and must always grudgingly stand on the defensive.
Though oppressed with important engagements, I would nevertheless set off with the stage of this day for Georgetown and the Oaks if I could have been assured of finding preparations ready made for the contemplated journey of Theodosia and the boy; but as you may have left home without attending to this point, it seemed probable that I might make a fruitless journey of nine hundred miles; fruitless, except the pleasure of passing one day at the Oaks, and even this with the alloy of your absence.
Their slimy harvest being gathered, and duly smoked and dried, they gave it for safe-keeping to Champlain, and set out to hunt beavers. It was deep in the winter before they came back, reclaimed their eels, built their birch cabins again, and disposed themselves for a life of ease, until famine or their enemies should put an end to their enjoyments. These were by no means without alloy.
As a nation we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal. We now practically read it, 'all men are created equal, except negroes. When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, 'all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics. When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
The aim of historians everywhere to give a clear and vivid account, and the desire of Napoleonic enthusiasts to represent their hero as always thinking clearly and acting decisively, have fused trusty ores and worthless slag into an alloy which has passed for true metal.
My happiness in this respect, however, was not without alloy; for my son Thomas, from some cause unknown to me, from the time he was a small lad, always called his brother John, a witch, which was the cause, as they grew towards manhood, of frequent and severe quarrels between them, and gave me much trouble and anxiety for their safety.
And he taught me all that he knew; taught me all that he had learned in a lifetime of fighting for the emperor, of mending the complicated machines in the armory, of contact with the chemists who wrought the secret alloy, and the chiefs who led the army. Some of this he taught me when I was not yet a man.
It would be interesting to see how the pure gold of scientific truth found by the two philosophers was mingled by the two statesmen with just that quantity of alloy which was necessary for the working.
It does, however, resemble the tin in its whiteness, but it acquires a lustre far brighter than tin; in fact, this alloy hardly falls short of silver itself in its brilliance when polished. The first duty that Lord Rosse had to undertake was the construction of this tremendous mirror, six feet across, and about four or five inches thick.
"We will give you eighteen and sixpence each for them, sir," he said, "which is about the intrinsic value of a sovereign; and, as you are probably aware, sir, English gold coinage contains a certain amount of alloy, without which it would speedily deteriorate in circulation, just as the old guinea used to; but there is no doubt that I have just lost you three shillings by cutting up those coins."
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