" There was no less a sum than forty-seven
thousand dollars, in three separate payments, charged to
him at the Navy Department as long ago as the second and
third years of the Civil War. At the Navy they had his
receipts for it. Not that he had been in that department
then any more than he was now. He was then chief clerk
in the Bureau of Internal Improvement, as he was now
Commissioner there. But this was when the second Rio
Grande expedition was fitted out; and from Mr. Molyneux's
knowledge of Spanish, and his old connection with the
Santa Fe trade, this particular matter had been intrusted
to him.
"Yes, dear mamma!"
"Well, papa has it all down on his own cashbook; that
book he carries in his breast-pocket. There are the
three payments, and then all the transfers he made to the
different people. One, was that old white-haired
Spaniard with the harelip, who used to come here at the
back door, so that he should not be seen at the
Department. But it was before you remember. The others
were in smaller sums. But the whole thing was done in
three weeks, and then the expedition sailed, and papa had
enough else to think of, and has never thought of it
since, till ten or fifteen days ago, when somebody in the
Eleventh Auditor's office discovered this charge, and his
receipt for this money."
"Well, dear mamma?"
"Well, dear child, that is all, but that now the
newspapers have got hold of it, and the Committee on
Retrenchment, who are all new men, with their reputations
to make, have got hold of it, and some of them really
think, you know, that papa has stolen the money!" And
she broke down crying again.
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