Page:Convalescent willis.djvu/27

Washington (of whom he told us nothing except that he saw him every day for years), brought up the "pension" matter, and he stated his case—urging it much more strenuously when he found I had a General among my acquaintances. Seeing his hate, which he had thrown into the corner behind the door on entering the library, I took it up while he was talking, and inquired into its history. He had bought it in his ninety-ninth year, and worn it ever since—now three years. It had evidently been sat upon and slept upon, and used for the receiving and conveying away of potatoes and cold victuals—the shape long since gone, if it ever had one, and the band supplied by a piece of coarse twine. It was perhaps a "two shilling felt," to being with; but the honor it had had, in covering a head while it stepped into its second century, gave it a value—to say nothing of the wear-out it had received, upon a brain whose boyish recklessness and jollity a hundred years had failed to sober or make sorry! Oh, I wanted that hat! Stepping into the entry, I brought him my Idlewild broadbrim, with its spacious silk band—a hat, the first glance at which "warranted the man to own a cow"—and proposed a "swap." It was amusing to see the cunning old chap assume a value for his hat immediately on finding it was wanted, and dodge all admission that he was making a good bargain. He only agreed, finally, on condition of my "speaking to my friend the General about his pension."