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Harte, Bret, 1836-1902

"The Story of a Mine"

In the histories of this great country I have read of you, I have
learned your orations. I have longed to hear you in your own pulpit
deliver the creed of my ancestors. To hear you, of yourself, speak, ah!
Madre de Dios! what shall I say,--speak the oration eloquent,--to make
the--what you call--the debate, that is what I have for so long
hoped. Eh! Pardon,--you are thinking me foolish,--wild, eh?--a small
child,--eh?"
Becoming more and more dialectical as she went on, she said suddenly, "I
have you of myself offended. You are mad of me as a bold, bad child? It
is so?"
The Senator, as visibly becoming limp and weak again behind his
entrenchments, managed to say, "Oh, no!" then, "really!" and finally,
"Tha-a-nks!"
"I am here but for a day. I return to California in a day, as it were
to-morrow. I shall never, never hear you speak in your place in the
Capitol of this great country?"
The Senator said hastily that he feared--he in fact was convinced--that
his duty during this session was required more at his desk, in the
committee work, than in speaking, &c.


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