A Foregone Conclusion | Page 3

"I really had a kind of hope in
coming to your excellency."
"I am not an excellency," interrupted Mr. Ferris, conscientiously.
"Many excuses! But now it seems a mere bestiality. I was so ignorant

about the other matter that doubtless I am also quite deluded in this."
"As to that, of course I can't say," answered Mr. Ferris, "but I hope
not."
"Why, listen, signore!" said Don Ippolito, placing his hand over that
pocket in which he kept his linen handkerchief. "I had something that it
had come into my head to offer your honored government for its
advantage in this deplorable rebellion."
"Oh," responded Mr. Ferris with a falling countenance. He had received
so many offers of help for his honored government from sympathizing
foreigners. Hardly a week passed but a sabre came clanking up his dim
staircase with a Herr Graf or a Herr Baron attached, who appeared in
the spotless panoply of his Austrian captaincy or lieutenancy, to accept
from the consul a brigadier-generalship in the Federal armies, on
condition that the consul would pay his expenses to Washington, or at
least assure him of an exalted post and reimbursement of all outlays
from President Lincoln as soon as he arrived. They were beautiful men,
with the complexion of blonde girls; their uniforms fitted like kid
gloves; the pale blue, or pure white, or huzzar black of their coats was
ravishingly set off by their red or gold trimmings; and they were hard
to make understand that brigadiers of American birth swarmed at
Washington, and that if they went thither, they must go as soldiers of
fortune at their own risk. But they were very polite; they begged pardon
when they knocked their scabbards against the consul's furniture, at the
door they each made him a magnificent obeisance, said "Servus!" in
their great voices, and were shown out by the old Marina, abhorrent of
their uniforms and doubtful of the consul's political sympathies. Only
yesterday she had called him up at an unwonted hour to receive the
visit of a courtly gentleman who addressed him as Monsieur le Ministre,
and offered him at a bargain ten thousand stand of probably obsolescent
muskets belonging to the late Duke of Parma. Shabby, hungry,
incapable exiles of all nations, religions, and politics beset him for
places of honor and emolument in the service of the Union;
revolutionists out of business, and the minions of banished despots,
were alike willing to be fed, clothed, and dispatched to Washington
with swords consecrated to the perpetuity of the republic.
"I have here," said Don Ippolito, too intent upon showing whatever it
was he had to note the change in the consul's mood, "the model of a

weapon of my contrivance, which I thought the government of the
North could employ successfully in cases where its batteries were in
danger of capture by the Spaniards."
"Spaniards? Spaniards? We have no war with Spain!" cried the consul.
"Yes, yes, I know," Don Ippolito made haste to explain, "but those of
South America being Spanish by descent"--
"But we are not fighting the South Americans. We are fighting our own
Southern States, I am sorry to say."
"Oh! Many excuses. I am afraid I don't understand," said Don Ippolito
meekly; whereupon Mr. Ferris enlightened him in a formula (of which
he was beginning to be weary) against European misconception of the
American situation. Don Ippolito nodded his head contritely, and when
Mr. Ferris had ended, he was so much abashed that he made no motion
to show his invention till the other added, "But no matter; I suppose the
contrivance would work as well against the Southerners as the South
Americans. Let me see it, please;" and then Don Ippolito, with a
gratified smile, drew from his pocket the neatly finished model of a
breech-loading cannon.
"You perceive, Signor Console," he said with new dignity, "that this is
nothing very new as a breech-loader, though I ask you to observe this
little improvement for restoring the breech to its place, which is
original. The grand feature of my invention, however, is this secret
chamber in the breech, which is intended to hold an explosive of high
potency, with a fuse coming out below. The gunner, finding his piece
in danger, ignites this fuse, and takes refuge in flight. At the moment
the enemy seizes the gun the contents of the secret chamber explode,
demolishing the piece and destroying its captors."
The dreamy warmth in Don Ippolito's deep eyes kindled to a flame; a
dark red glowed in his thin cheeks; he drew a box from the folds of his
drapery and took snuff in a great whiff, as if inhaling the sulphurous
fumes of battle, or titillating his nostrils with grains of gunpowder. He
was at least in