And  now,  we  '11  also  say  you  had  an  old  friend
like  Escott,  to  whom  you  felt  somehow  driven  to
confide  these  plans,  as  they  slowly  and  gradually
unfolded  themselves  before  your  own  mind.  That,
Margaret,  would  be  something  like  my  own  case
in  former  days,  now  gone  forever.
"  But  you  see  "  (Eldon's  voice  grew  somewhat
sterner),  '*  I  confided  those  plans  again  and  again
to  Escott,  —  I  don't  know  why  I  tried  so  many


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ALONZO  ELDON  AND  THE  INDIAN  FIGHT.      247

times,  —  and  always  I  met  the  same  scornfully  un-
appreciative  reception  from  him."  Eldon  brought
his  hands  together  with  a  great  blow  at  always.
"  He  had  no  practical  sense,  you  see ;  he  scorned
means ;  he  had  no  more  notion  of  the  fitness  of
things  than  when  he  gave  his  mule  to  that  blub-
bering fool  of  a  Sam  Paddington  during  the  In-
dian fight,  and  then  later  mourned  with  such  com-
fortless remorse  for  the  instant's  delay  which,  as
he  fancied,  had  destroyed  poor  Molesworth's  life.
Escott's  moral  sense  has  sometimes  such  a  singu-
lar obliquity.  He 's  so  tolerant  of  the  vileness  of
wretches  like  Paddington;  he's  so  inconsiderate
to  men  like  me.  He  laments  over  every  kind  of
little  flaw  in  a  public  man's  conduct,  oyer  every
little  concession  to  expediency,  every  little  device
of  a  sort  without  which,  as  I  assure  you  upon  my
sacred  honor,  political  and  business  and  even  so-
cial life  would  be  impossible.  And  it  was  that
bitter  intolerance  that  he  used  to  show  to  me.
