usual‚ÅÝ‚Äîsee?‚Äù
‚ÄúIt‚Äôs a hard pill‚ÅÝ‚Äîbut all right.‚Äù
‚ÄúLeave the rest to me; I‚Äôm hand in glove with Alwyn. I‚Äôll put stuff into him that‚Äôll make him wave the bloody shirt at the next meeting of the Bethel Literary‚ÅÝ‚Äîsee? Then I‚Äôll go to Cresswell and say, ‚ÄòDangerous nigger‚ÅÝ‚Äî, just as I told you.‚Äô He‚Äôll begin to move things. You see? Cresswell is in with Smith‚ÅÝ‚Äîboth directors in the big Cotton Combine‚ÅÝ‚Äîand Smith will call Alwyn down. Then we‚Äôll think further.‚Äù
“Stillings, you look like a fool, but you’re a genius.” And Teerswell fairly hugged him. A few more details settled, and some more whiskey consumed, and Teerswell went home at midnight in high spirits. Stillings looked into the glass and scowled.
“Look like a fool, do I?” he mused. “Well, I ain’t!”
Congressman Cresswell was stirred to his first political activity by the hint given him through Stillings. He not only had a strong personal dislike for Alwyn, but he regarded the promise to him of a high office as a menace to the South.
The second speech which Alwyn made at the Bethel Literary was, as Stillings foresaw, a reply to the stinging criticisms of certain colored papers engineered by Teerswell, who said that Alwyn had been bribed to remain loyal to the Republicans by a six thousand dollar office. Alwyn had been cut to the quick, and his reply was a straight out defence of Negro rights and a call to the Republican Party to redeem its pledges.
Caroline Wynn, seeing the rocks for which her political craft was headed, adroitly steered several newspaper reports into the waste basket, but Stillings saw to it that a circumstantial account was in the Colored