Lincoln by Gore Vidal Page A

never make old bones, I fear—I intend to look after the Lincoln family, a large one, for a change, and sickly, I should think, wonderfully sickly, from the glimpse I had of them yesterday.” Mr. Thompson was smiling, without knowing it, thought David, who was aware that actors’ tricks were not exclusive to actors, only the knowledge of them was.
    “Well, you may not get your chance. There’s talk he’ll be shot today.”
    “Oh, the wild boys.” David found disappointing Mr. Thompson’s contemptuous dismissal of the dedicated young men of the National Volunteers. “General Scott will shoot the whole lot full of holes before the day’s over. Which reminds me, fix a draft for his dropsy and take it straight across the road to the War Department, the new one up the street. The prescription’s in the back.”
    As David entered the familiar back room, he felt as if he had left all life behind. But what else could he do? As he mixed General Scott’s prescription, he toyed with the idea of going south, to Montgomery, to join the army that Mr. Davis was supposed to be raising. But wasn’t the army just another form of imprisonment? David wanted a world to conquer, any world, no matter how small. Idly, he wondered if he could seduce Annie; he decided that he could, but if he did, the greatest of all prison doors would then swing shut upon him: marriage, children and years of making up prescriptions for the likes of General Scott. It was too late to be General Scott when he grew up; you had to go to West Point for that, or serve a long time in the ranks. Were he better-looking, he might be an actor. After all, he could learn lines; and was a lot better at making believethan most of the touring-company players who came to town. But how was he ever to begin? A single warm tear was inadvertently added to General Scott’s prescription.
    While David Herold was enjoying a bearable amount of self-pity, John Hay was already at work in Parlor Suite One with Nicolay. Two large crates lay open on the floor and Hay was transferring folders filled with applications, affidavits, supplications, yellowed newspaper cuttings and fervent prayers from the room’s wardrobe to the cases. “We have received, personally, nine hundred and twelve applications for jobs,” said Hay, studying the last of the folders.
    “It seems more like nine thousand,” Nicolay still retained a slight German accent which Hay enjoyed imitating. Nicolay sat at a table, making a report to the President on which applications seemed promising.
    “How much longer does this go on?”
    “Until we leave office.”
    “I had no idea,” said Hay, who had indeed had none. “I thought a few people might show up and he’d give them a postmaster’s job and that was that. But we’re going to have to deal with all thirty million Americans before we’re through.”
    “Less the twelve million or so Mr. Davis has to find jobs for.” In the distance, there was a premonitory roll of drums.
    “Did you know Mr. Seward was thick as thieves with Mr. Davis, right up to a few weeks ago, when he left town and the Union?”
    Nicolay nodded. “The Tycoon wanted the two of them to talk as much as possible.”
    Hay frowned. “Do you think Mr. Seward’s really serious about taking himself out of the Cabinet?” Hay had been present in Lincoln’s parlor when the Albany Plan had been revealed. The New York delegation, echoing Seward, had insisted that Lincoln exclude Chase from the Cabinet, which should be made up entirely of Whigs, instead of the four Democrats and three Whigs that Lincoln had in mind. When Lincoln had reminded the New Yorkers that he, too, was a Whig, which evened things, they had still been intransigent. They warned the Tycoon that Seward would not serve with Chase, to which Lincoln replied that he would be sorry to give up his first Cabinet slate in favor of a second list which he had prepared; but if that was the case, then he would appoint that good Whig