“Who’s up here? Why, the nerve. For your information, Mr. Abraham Lincoln is up here.”
Lincoln tries to shush Swille, but Swille signals him that it doesn’t matter.
“You’ll do no such thing.” Hands over the phone, to Lincoln, “Says he’s coming up here to arrest you …
“Look, Lee, if you don’t get those men off my property I’m going to create an energy crisis and take back my railroads, and on top of that I’ll see that the foreign countries don’t recognize you. And if that’s not all, I’ll take back my gold. Don’t forget; I control the interest rates …
“Now that’s more like it … Now you’re whistling ‘Dixie’ … No, I won’t tell Davis … Forget it … That’s fine.” Turns to Lincoln, “Says he’s going to send an escort up here to see to it that your men return safely to your yacht, The River Queen. Lee said he was preparing to blow it up but will call it off in deference to your comfort …”
Turning back to the phone, “What’s that? … Oh, you don’t have to come up here and play nigger for three days for punishment; anyway, who will run your side of the war? Look, Lee, I got to go now.” Hangs up. To trio, “Boy, when you say gold, they jump. And speaking of gold, Mr. President, I’m going to give you some.”
“Why, Mr. Swille, now that you mention it,” Lincoln says, fidgeting and pushing his feet, “I didn’t come all the way through Confederate lines just to pass the time of day. We need some revenue bad. Why, we’re as broke as a skeeter’s peeter. I’m leaning toward the peace plan originally proposed by Horace Greeley of the New York paper … it’s called … Well, the plan is called …” Lincoln reaches into his coat pocket for a piece of paper. “Ah, Mr. Swille, I didn’t bring my glasses, would you read it?” Lincoln hands the piece of paper to Swille.
“And cut the formalities, Mr. Swille. You can call me Abe.” Lincoln, once again, reaches out for a handshake, but Swille is too busy reading to notice. Lincoln, embarrassed, puts his hand in his pocket.
Swille takes the paper and examines it. “I … well, your writing, your aide’s writing, is nearly illegible. Here, Uncle Robin, can you make this out?”
Robin looks at it. “Compensatory Emancipation it says, Massa Swille.”
“Compensatory Emancipation, that’s it! Sure enough is, Mr. Swille. It goes like this. We buy the war and the slaves are over. No, like this. We buy the slaves. That’s it. We buy the slaves or the bondsmen and then they pay the South seven and a half percent interest. No, dog bite it. How did it go? My aides have been going over it with me ever since we started out from The River Queen. I got it! We buy up all the slaves and then tell them to go off somewhere. Some place like New Mexico, where nobody’s hardly seen a cloud and when they do show up it looks like judgment day, and where the cactus grows as big as eucalyptus trees, where you have to walk two miles to go to the outhouse and then freeze your can off in the cold desert until it’s your turn and then the outhouse is so dark you sit on a rattlesnake. Other times I think that maybe they ought to go to the tropics where God made them. You know, I’ve been reading about this African tribe that lived in the tropics so long they trained mosquitoes to fight their enemies. Fascinating, don’t you think? I need that gold bad, Mr. Swille. Whatever I decide, it’ll come in handy.”
“Sure, sure, Lincoln, I know. You’ll decide what’s best. I know that the war is even-steven right now, and this gold will help out. I’ll take a chance on your little Union. The nerve of that guy Lee. I’m going to take back that necklace I gave Mrs. Jefferson Davis. Why, they can’t do that to me. Just for that …” Swille goes to his safe, removes some bags of gold and places them on his desk. “That ought to do it, Mr. President, and if you’re in need of some more, I’ll open up Fort Knox and all that you guys wheelbarrow out in an hour you can have.”
“Why, thank you, Mr. Swille. You’re a patriotic man. But all of this gold, really, I …”
“Take it. Take it. A long-term loan, Lincoln. I’ll fix these Confederates. That Lee. Sits on his horse as if he was Caesar or somebody.”
“The Confederates are innocent, Mr. Swille. The other day one of them was tipping his hat and curtsying, and one of my snipers plugged him. And in the Chattanooga campaign, Grant tells me that once he was ascending Lookout Mountain and the Confederate soldiers saluted him. ‘Salute to the Commanding General,’ they were saying.”
The men share a chuckle on this one.
“My generals may look like bums, with their blouses unbuttoned and their excessive drinking and their general ragged appearances, but they know how to fight. Why, that Grant gets sick at the sight of the blood and gets mad when you bring up even the subject of war, and he’s never read a military treatise — but he can fight. His only notion of warfare is, ‘Go where the enemy is and beat hell out of him.’ Crude though it may sound, it seems to work.”
“You know, Mr. President, I’m beginning to like you. Here, have a Havana. I have three homes there. Ought to come down some time, Mr. President, play some golf, do some sailing on my yacht. Get away from the Capitol.”
“Well, I don’t know, Mr. Swille. I’d better not leave town with a war going on and all.”
“Where did they get the idea that you were some kind of brooding mystic, tragic and gaunt, a Midwest Messiah with hollow cheeks? I was saying to myself, ‘How can a smart corporation lawyer like this Lincoln be so way-out.’ ”
“I keep my mouth shut, Mr. Swille. And when I can’t think quick enough I walk over to the window, put my fingers into my lapels, throw my head back and gaze toward the Washington Monument, assuming a somber, grave and sulfurous countenance. It impresses them, and the myths fly.”
“You know, Mr. Lincoln, I wish you’d do something about that fugitive-slave law you promised to enforce during the campaign. There are three of my cocoas at large. I’d like to bring them back here. Teach them a lesson for running away. They’re giving the rest of the cocoas around here ideas. They’re always caucusing, not admitting any of my white slaves or the white staff — they pass codes to one another, and some of them have taken to writing.
“They’re in contact, so it seems, with slaves in the rest of the country, through some kind of intricate grapevine, so Cato my graffado tells me. Sometimes he gets blackened-up with them so’s they won’t know who he’s working for. He’s slow but faithful. So faithful that he volunteered for slavery, and so dedicated he is to slavery, the slaves voted him all-Slavery. Sent him to General Howard’s Civilizing School. You should have heard my son, who was an authority on sables. He said they’re so trusting and kindhearted. I sent him to the Congo to check for some possible energy resources, though he told them he was looking for the source of the Nile. They’re so trusting.
“He was majoring in some kind of thing called anthropology in one of those experimental colleges. You know the young. First I wanted him to go to Yale, like me. Then I saw that the little stinker had an angle. What a cover. Anthropologists. We used to send priests, but they were too obvious.”
“You must be very proud of him, Mr. Swille.”
“He was doing well until … until these Congo savages captured him and … and … well.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, was he …?”
“You might say that he was killed. But, Mr. President, we all have our trials. An unpleasant subject. A smart one he was, like your Todd. Very inquisitive. It’s upon my son’s advice that I don’t permit any of the employees to use the telephone. I permit Uncle Robin to use it because he’s such a simple creature he wouldn’t have the thought powers for using it deviously. He’s been in the house for so long that he’s lost his thirst for pagan ways and is as good a gentleman as you or me.”