such a dramatic scandal was Heaven-sent. Charles and Henry Adams
jumped at it like salmon at a fly, with as much voracity as Jay
Gould, or his ame damnee Jim Fisk, had ever shown for Erie; and
with as little fear of consequences. They risked something; no
one could say what; but the people about the Erie office were not
regarded as lambs.

The unravelling a skein so tangled as that of the Erie Railway
was a task that might have given months of labor to the most
efficient District Attorney, with all his official tools to work
with. Charles took the railway history; Henry took the so-called
Gold Conspiracy; and they went to New York to work it up. The
surface was in full view. They had no trouble in Wall Street, and
they paid their respects in person to the famous Jim Fisk in his
Opera-House Palace; but the New York side of the story helped
Henry little. He needed to penetrate the political mystery, and
for this purpose he had to wait for Congress to meet. At first he
feared that Congress would suppress the scandal, but the
Congressional Investigation was ordered and took place. He soon
knew all that was to be known; the material for his essay was
furnished by the Government.

Material furnished by a government seldom satisfies critics or
historians, for it lies always under suspicion. Here was a
mystery, and as usual, the chief mystery was the means of making
sure that any mystery existed. All Adams's great friends -- Fish,
Cox, Hoar, Evarts, Sumner, and their surroundings -- were
precisely the persons most mystified. They knew less than Adams
did; they sought information, and frankly admitted that their
relations with the White House and the Treasury were not