Col.

Selby had just come to Washington, and taken lodgings in Georgetown.
His business was to get pay for some cotton that was destroyed during the war.

There were many others in Washington on the same errand, some of them with claims as difficult to establish as his.

A concert of action was necessary, and he was not, therefore, at all surprised to receive the note from a lady asking him to call at Senator Dilworthy's.
At a little after three on Wednesday he rang the bell of the Senator's residence.

It was a handsome mansion on the Square opposite the President's house.