House, a general in the field and a Governor of Massachusetts, but was a
faded old man, very commonplace, and except for the little post he held
under Government pitiably helpless.

Colonel George Walton was one of my father's intimates and an imposing
and familiar figure about Washington. He was the son of a signer of the
Declaration of Independence, a distinction in those days, had been mayor of
Mobile and was an unending raconteur. To my childish mind he appeared to
know everything that ever had been or ever would be. He would tell me
stories by the hour and send me to buy him lottery tickets. I afterward
learned that that form of gambling was his mania. I also learned that many
of his stories were apocryphal or very highly colored.

One of these stories especially took me. It related how when he was on a
yachting cruise in the Gulf of Mexico the boat was overhauled by pirates,
and how he being the likeliest of the company was tied up and whipped to
make him disgorge, or tell where the treasure was.

"Colonel Walton," said I, "did the whipping hurt you much?"

"Sir," he replied, as if I were a grown-up, "they whipped me until I was
perfectly disgusted."

An old lady in Philadelphia, whilst I was at school, heard me mention
Colonel Walton--a most distinguished, religious old lady--and said to me,
"Henry, my son, you should be ashamed to speak of that old villain
or confess that you ever knew him," proceeding to give me his awful,
blood-curdling history.

It was mainly a figment of her fancy and prejudice, and I repeated it