Cabineteer Van Buren gives dinners, and asks the pretty Peg to perform as hostess. With a wise eye on the General, he incites Cabineteer Barry, who is a bachelor, to burst into similar dinners, with the pretty Peg in command. By his suggestion, Minister Vaughn of the English and Minister Krudener of the Russians, who like Cabineteer Barry are bachelors, follow amiable suit. They give legation dinners, at which the pretty Peg presides. The General adopts these brilliant examples with the White House. The pretty Peg finds herself in control of such society high ground as the English and Russian legations, two Cabinet houses besides her own, and last and most important the White House itself. It is a merry even if a savage war, and the pretty Peg is everywhere victorious.
Not everywhere! Mrs. Calhoun, as war-chief of the “Ladies of Washington,” with Mrs. Ingham, Mrs. Branch, and Mrs. Berrien about her as a staff, refuses to yield. These four indomitables and their beflounced and be-feathered followers, noses uptilted in scorn of the pretty Peg, prosecute their battle to the acrid end.
In the earlier stages, the General, his angry thoughts on Statesman Clay, inclines to the belief that these attacks on the pretty Peg are of that defeated personage's connivance, and says so to Wizard Lewis.
Wizard Lewis, when the General is inaugurated, is for returning to his Cumberland home, but finds himself restrained by the lonesome General.
“What!” cries the latter, “would you leave me now, after doing more than all the rest to land me here?”
Upon which reproach, Wizard Lewis remains, and lives in the White House with the General. It befalls that with the earliest slanders of the ophidians, Dominie Ely and Dominie Campbell, the General goes to Wizard Lewis with accusations against Statesman Clay.
“It's that pit-viper, Henry Clay!” cries the General. “Major, the pet employment of that scoundrel is the vindication of good women!”
Wizard Lewis holds to a different view. He declares that the secret impulse of this base war is Statesman Calhoun, and proves it as events unfold.
“And yet,” asks the General, “why should he assail little Peg? Both he and Mrs. Calhoun called upon her and Major Eaton, and congratulated them on their marriage.”