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Updated: May 2, 2025
I heard another step in a half-hidden hallway beyond, but this was not the step which I awaited; it was that of a man, slow, feeble, hesitating. I started forward as a face appeared at the parted curtains. A glad cry welcomed me in turn. A tall, bent form approached me, and an arm was thrown about my shoulder. It was my whilom friend, our ancient scientist, Von Rittenhofen!
"Sir," said he to Von Rittenhofen presently, "we ourselves are young, yet I trust not lacking in a great nation's interest in the arts and sciences. It occurs to me now that in yourself we have opportunity to add to our store of knowledge in respect to certain biological features." The old gentleman rose and bowed.
The stern figure of Calhoun, furnishing courage for a people, even as he had for a president, loomed large in the public prints. Late as it was when I reached Washington, I did not hesitate to repair at once to the residence of Mr. Calhoun; and I took with me as my best adjutant my strange friend Von Rittenhofen, who, I fancied, might add detailed information which Mr. Calhoun would find of value.
I went on to show her the nature of the device, as it had been explained to me by old Doctor von Rittenhofen. "How curious!" she mused, as it became more plain to her. "Life, love, eternity! The beginning and the end of all this turmoil about passing on the torch of life. It is old, old, is it not? Tell me, who was the wise man who described all this to you?"
It was not until long after the discovery of gold in California had set us all to thinking that I was reminded of the strange story of the old German, Von Rittenhofen, of finding some pieces of gold while on one of his hunts for butterflies. I followed out his vague directions as best I might. We found gold enough to make us rich without our land. That claim is staked legally.
If you could, then, take service with us now, we should be proud to make you such return as your scientific attainments deserve." Few could resist the persuasiveness of Mr. Calhoun's speech, certainly not Von Rittenhofen, who thus found offered him precisely what he would have desired. I was pleased to see him so happily situated and so soon.
Von Rittenhofen positively glowed at this. "Ach, what an honor!" he began again. "Meantime," resumed Calhoun, "not to mention the value which that research would have for us, we could also find use, at proper remuneration, for your private aid in making up a set of maps of that western country which you know so well, and of which even I myself am so ignorant.
"I shall not tell you what nickname they gif me in Oregon," he added, smiling; "but my real name iss Wolfram von Rittenhofen. Berlin, it wass last my home. Tell me, you go soon to Oregon?" "That is very possible," I answered; and this time at least I spoke the truth.
Calhoun, I had agreed to take my old friend Doctor von Rittenhofen upon a short journey among the points of interest of our city, in order to acquaint him somewhat with our governmental machinery and to put him in touch with some of the sources of information to which he would need to refer in the work upon which he was now engaged.
It would serve no purpose for me to disclose myself, either in or out of the apartments of the baroness, and it would not aid me to be seen idling about the neighborhood in a city where there was so much reason to suppose strangers were watched. I resolved to wait until the next morning, and to take my friend Von Rittenhofen with me.
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