The house was built and furnished by contract, and Mrs.Wickersham took pride in the fact that it was much finer than the Wentworth mansion on Washington Square, and more expensive than the house of the Yorkes, which was one of the big houses on the avenue, and had been the talk of the town when it was built ten years before.

Will Stirling, one of the wags, said that it was a good thing that Mr.Wickersham did not take the contract for himself.
Mr.Wickersham, having spent a considerable sum in planning and preparing his Southern enterprise, and having obtained a charter from the legislature of the State that gave him power to do almost anything he wished, suddenly found himself balked by the fact that the people in the mountain region which he wished to reach with his road were so bitterly opposed to any such innovation that it jeopardized his entire scheme.

From the richest man in that section, an old cattle-dealer and lumberman named Rawson, to Tim Gilsey, who drove the stage from Eden to Gumbolt Gap, they were all opposed to any "newfangled" notions, and they regarded everything that came from carpet-baggers as "robbery and corruption." He learned that "the most influential man down there" was General Keith, and that his place was for sale.
"I can reach him," said Mr.Wickersham, with a gleam in his eye.

"I will have a rope around his neck that will lead him." So he bought the place.
Fortunately, perhaps, for Mr.Wickersham, he hinted something of his intentions to his counsel, a shrewd old lawyer of the State, who thought that he could arrange the matter better than Mr.Wickersham could.
"You don't know how to deal with these old fellows," he said.
"I know men," said Mr.Wickersham, "and I know that when I have a hold on a man--" "You don't know General Keith," said Mr.Bagge.The glint in his eye impressed the other and he yielded.
So Mr.Wickersham bought the Keith plantation and left it to Greene Bagge, Esq., to manage the business.

Mr.Bagge wrote General Keith a diplomatic letter eulogistic of the South and of Mr.Wickersham's interest in it, and invited the General to remain on the place for the present as its manager.
General Keith sat for some time over that letter, his face as grave as it had ever been in battle.