Colonel Sellers
Act III

(A lapse of two months. A shabbily furnished
room in COLONEL SELLERS house. Enter
SELLERS & CLAY HAWKINS.)

SELLERS

[Excuse the appearance of things, Clay. I am about to redecorate and fix up my house.] Sit down my boy.

[(Clay sits at table.)

Yes, yes, it's as you were saying Clay, Si Hawkins isn't the man he used to be, he don't grasp an idea as he once did. But your brother Fayette is a rising young man, he'll make his mark some day. Senator Dilworthy writes that he has great influence in Washington. He knows the President, and he knows all the Congressmen and Senators, and their wives and daughters. All this proves why Lafayette will put through the Columbia River appropriation] without buying a [single] vote, and the moment he does, he's worth a million.

CLAY

Why Colonel, the whole appropriation is only $200,000.

SELLERS

[True,] but the appropriation breeds railroads, railroads breed population, up go the town lots into the thousands, do you see?

CLAY

What railroad?

SELLERS
(Confidentially.)

Why the Salt Lake Pacific extension is going to run right through the heart of Napoleon.

CLAY

I don't see why it should. [Napoleon is fully] twenty miles out of the straight line of the road.

 

Page Navigation