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+Project Gutenberg's Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich, by Leacock
+#3 in our series by Stephen Leacock
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+Title: Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich
+
+Author: Leacock, Stephen, 1869-1944
+
+Release Date: May, 2003  [Etext #4020]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[The actual date this file first posted = 10/11/01]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Project Gutenberg's Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich, by Leacock
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+
+Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich
+
+By Stephen Leacock, 1869-1944
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+I    A Little Dinner with Mr. Lucullus Fyshe
+
+II   The Wizard of Finance
+
+III  The Arrested Philanthropy of Mr. Tomlinson
+
+IV   The Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown
+
+V    The Love Story of Mr. Peter Spillikins
+
+VI   The Rival Churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph
+
+VII  The Ministrations of the Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing
+
+VIII The Great Fight for Clean Government
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE: A Little Dinner with Mr. Lucullus Fyshe
+
+The Mausoleum Club stands on the quietest corner of the
+best residential street in the City. It is a Grecian
+building of white stone. About it are great elm trees
+with birds--the most expensive kind of birds--singing in
+the branches.
+
+The street in the softer hours of the morning has an
+almost reverential quiet. Great motors move drowsily
+along it, with solitary chauffeurs returning at 10.30
+after conveying the earlier of the millionaires to their
+downtown offices. The sunlight flickers through the elm
+trees, illuminating expensive nurse-maids wheeling valuable
+children in little perambulators. Some of the children
+are worth millions and millions. In Europe, no doubt,
+you may see in the Unter den Linden avenue or the Champs
+Elysees a little prince or princess go past with a
+clattering military guard of honour. But that is nothing.
+It is not half so impressive, in the real sense, as what
+you may observe every morning on Plutoria Avenue beside
+the Mausoleum Club in the quietest part of the city. Here
+you may see a little toddling princess in a rabbit suit
+who owns fifty distilleries in her own right. There, in
+a lacquered perambulator, sails past a little hooded head
+that controls from its cradle an entire New Jersey
+corporation. The United States attorney-general is suing
+her as she sits, in a vain attempt to make her dissolve
+herself into constituent companies. Near by is a child
+of four, in a khaki suit, who represents the merger of
+two trunk-line railways. You may meet in the flickered
+sunlight any number of little princes and princesses far
+more real than the poor survivals of Europe. Incalculable
+infants wave their fifty-dollar ivory rattles in an
+inarticulate greeting to one another. A million dollars
+of preferred stock laughs merrily in recognition of a
+majority control going past in a go-cart drawn by an
+imported nurse. And through it all the sunlight falls
+through the elm trees, and the birds sing and the motors
+hum, so that the whole world as seen from the boulevard
+of Plutoria Avenue is the very pleasantest place imaginable.
+
+Just below Plutoria Avenue, and parallel with it, the
+trees die out and the brick and stone of the City begins
+in earnest. Even from the Avenue you see the tops of
+the sky-scraping buildings in the big commercial streets,
+and can hear or almost hear the roar of the elevated
+railway, earning dividends. And beyond that again the
+City sinks lower, and is choked and crowded with the
+tangled streets and little houses of the slums.
+
+In fact, if you were to mount to the roof of the Mausoleum
+Club itself on Plutoria Avenue you could almost see the
+slums from there. But why should you? And on the other
+hand, if you never went up on the roof, but only dined
+inside among the palm trees, you would never know that
+the slums existed which is much better.
+
+There are broad steps leading up to the club, so broad
+and so agreeably covered with matting that the physical
+exertion of lifting oneself from one's motor to the door
+of the club is reduced to the smallest compass. The richer
+members are not ashamed to take the steps one at a time,
+first one foot and then the other; and at tight money
+periods, when there is a black cloud hanging over the
+Stock Exchange, you may see each and every one of the
+members of the Mausoleum Club dragging himself up the
+steps after this fashion, his restless eyes filled with
+the dumb pathos of a man wondering where he can put his
+hand on half a million dollars.
+
+But at gayer times, when there are gala receptions at
+the club, its steps are all buried under expensive carpet,
+soft as moss and covered over with a long pavilion of
+red and white awning to catch the snowflakes; and beautiful
+ladies are poured into the club by the motorful. Then,
+indeed, it is turned into a veritable Arcadia; and for
+a beautiful pastoral scene, such as would have gladdened
+the heart of a poet who understood the cost of things,
+commend me to the Mausoleum Club on just such an evening.
+Its broad corridors and deep recesses are filled with
+shepherdesses such as you never saw, dressed in beautiful
+shimmering gowns, and wearing feathers in their hair that
+droop off sideways at every angle known to trigonometry.
+And there are shepherds, too, with broad white waistcoats
+and little patent leather shoes and heavy faces and
+congested cheeks. And there is dancing and conversation
+among the shepherds and shepherdesses, with such brilliant
+flashes of wit and repartee about the rise in Wabash and
+the fall in Cement that the soul of Louis Quatorze would
+leap to hear it. And later there is supper at little
+tables, when the shepherds and shepherdesses consume
+preferred stocks and gold-interest bonds in the shape of
+chilled champagne and iced asparagus, and great platefuls
+of dividends and special quarterly bonuses are carried
+to and fro in silver dishes by Chinese philosophers
+dressed up to look like waiters.
+
+But on ordinary days there are no ladies in the club,
+but only the shepherds. You may see them sitting about
+in little groups of two and three under the palm trees
+drinking whiskey and soda; though of course the more
+temperate among them drink nothing but whiskey and Lithia
+water, and those who have important business to do in
+the afternoon limit themselves to whiskey and Radnor, or
+whiskey and Magi water. There are as many kinds of
+bubbling, gurgling, mineral waters in the caverns of the
+Mausoleum Club as ever sparkled from the rocks of Homeric
+Greece. And when you have once grown used to them, it is
+as impossible to go back to plain water as it is to live
+again in the forgotten house in a side street that you
+inhabited long before you became a member.
+
+Thus the members sit and talk in undertones that float
+to the ear through the haze of Havana smoke. You may hear
+the older men explaining that the country is going to
+absolute ruin, and the younger ones explaining that the
+country is forging ahead as it never did before; but
+chiefly they love to talk of great national questions,
+such as the protective tariff and the need of raising
+it, the sad decline of the morality of the working man,
+the spread of syndicalism and the lack of Christianity
+in the labour class, and the awful growth of selfishness
+among the mass of the people.
+
+So they talk, except for two or three that drop off to
+directors' meetings; till the afternoon fades and darkens
+into evening, and the noiseless Chinese philosophers turn
+on soft lights here and there among the palm trees.
+Presently they dine at white tables glittering with cut
+glass and green and yellow Rhine wines; and after dinner
+they sit again among the palm-trees, half-hidden in the
+blue smoke, still talking of the tariff and the labour
+class and trying to wash away the memory and the sadness
+of it in floods of mineral waters. So the evening passes
+into night, and one by one the great motors come throbbing
+to the door, and the Mausoleum Club empties and darkens
+till the last member is borne away and the Arcadian day
+ends in well-earned repose.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"I want you to give me your opinion very, very frankly,"
+said Mr. Lucullus Fyshe on one side of the luncheon table
+to the Rev. Fareforth Furlong on the other.
+
+"By all means," said Mr. Furlong.
+
+Mr. Fyshe poured out a wineglassful of soda and handed
+it to the rector to drink.
+
+"Now tell me very truthfully," he said, "is there too
+much carbon in it?"
+
+"By no means," said Mr. Furlong.
+
+"And--quite frankly--not too much hydrogen?"
+
+"Oh, decidedly not."
+
+"And you would not say that the percentage of sodium
+bicarbonate was too great for the ordinary taste?"
+
+"I certainly should not," said Mr. Furlong, and in this
+he spoke the truth.
+
+"Very good then," said Mr. Fyshe, "I shall use it for
+the Duke of Dulham this afternoon."
+
+He uttered the name of the Duke with that quiet, democratic
+carelessness which meant that he didn't care whether half
+a dozen other members lunching at the club could hear or
+not. After all, what was a duke to a man who was president
+of the People's Traction and Suburban Co., and the
+Republican Soda and Siphon Co-operative, and chief director
+of the People's District Loan and Savings? If a man with
+a broad basis of popular support like that was proposing
+to entertain a duke, surely there could be no doubt about
+his motives? None at all.
+
+Naturally, too, if a man manufactures soda himself, he
+gets a little over-sensitive about the possibility of
+his guests noticing the existence of too much carbon in
+it.
+
+In fact, ever so many of the members of the Mausoleum
+Club manufacture things, or cause them to be manufactured,
+or--what is the same thing--merge them when they are
+manufactured. This gives them their peculiar chemical
+attitude towards their food. One often sees a member
+suddenly call the head waiter at breakfast to tell him
+that there is too much ammonia in the bacon; and another
+one protest at the amount of glucose in the olive oil;
+and another that there is too high a percentage of nitrogen
+in the anchovy. A man of distorted imagination might
+think this tasting of chemicals in the food a sort of
+nemesis of fate upon the members. But that would be very
+foolish, for in every case the head waiter, who is the
+chief of the Chinese philosophers mentioned above, says
+that he'll see to it immediately and have the percentage
+removed. And as for the members themselves, they are
+about as much ashamed of manufacturing and merging things
+as the Marquis of Salisbury is ashamed of the founders
+of the Cecil family.
+
+What more natural, therefore, than that Mr. Lucullus
+Fyshe, before serving the soda to the Duke, should try
+it on somebody else? And what better person could be
+found for this than Mr. Furlong, the saintly young rector
+of St. Asaph's, who had enjoyed the kind of expensive
+college education calculated to develop all the faculties.
+Moreover, a rector of the Anglican Church who has been
+in the foreign mission field is the kind of person from
+whom one can find out, more or less incidentally, how
+one should address and converse with a duke, and whether
+you call him, "Your Grace," or "His Grace," or just
+"Grace," or "Duke," or what. All of which things would
+seem to a director of the People's Bank and the president
+of the Republican Soda Co. so trivial in importance that
+he would scorn to ask about them.
+
+So that was why Mr. Fyshe had asked Mr. Furlong to lunch
+with him, and to dine with him later on in the same day
+at the Mausoleum Club to meet the Duke of Dulham. And
+Mr. Furlong, realizing that a clergyman must be all things
+to all men and not avoid a man merely because he is a
+duke, had accepted the invitation to lunch, and had
+promised to come to dinner, even though it meant postponing
+the Willing Workers' Tango Class of St. Asaph's until the
+following Friday.
+
+Thus it had come about that Mr. Fyshe was seated at lunch,
+consuming a cutlet and a pint of Moselle in the plain
+downright fashion of a man so democratic that he is
+practically a revolutionary socialist, and doesn't mind
+saying so; and the young rector of St. Asaph's was sitting
+opposite to him in a religious ecstasy over a _salmi_ of
+duck.
+
+"The Duke arrived this morning, did he not?" said Mr.
+Furlong.
+
+"From New York," said Mr. Fyshe. "He is staying at the
+Grand Palaver. I sent a telegram through one of our New
+York directors of the Traction, and his Grace has very
+kindly promised to come over here to dine."
+
+"Is he here for pleasure?" asked the rector.
+
+"I understand he is--" Mr. Fyshe was going to say "about
+to invest a large part of his fortune in American
+securities," but he thought better of it. Even with the
+clergy it is well to be careful. So he substituted "is
+very much interested in studying American conditions."
+
+"Does he stay long?" asked Mr. Furlong.
+
+Had Mr. Lucullus Fyshe replied quite truthfully, he would
+have said, "Not if I can get his money out of him quickly,"
+but he merely answered, "That I don't know."
+
+"He will find much to interest him," went on the rector
+in a musing tone. "The position of the Anglican Church
+in America should afford him an object of much
+consideration. I understand," he added, feeling his way,
+"that his Grace is a man of deep piety."
+
+"Very deep," said Mr. Fyshe.
+
+"And of great philanthropy?"
+
+"Very great."
+
+"And I presume," said the rector, taking a devout sip of
+the unfinished soda, "that he is a man of immense wealth?"
+
+"I suppose so," answered Mr. Fyshe quite carelessly. "All
+these fellows are." (Mr. Fyshe generally referred to the
+British aristocracy as "these fellows.") "Land, you know,
+feudal estates; sheer robbery, I call it. How the
+working-class, the proletariat, stand for such tyranny
+is more than I can see. Mark my words, Furlong, some day
+they'll rise and the whole thing will come to a sudden
+end."
+
+Mr. Fyshe was here launched upon his favourite topic;
+but he interrupted himself, just for a moment, to speak
+to the waiter.
+
+"What the devil do you mean," he said, "by serving
+asparagus half-cold?"
+
+"Very sorry, sir," said the waiter, "shall I take it
+out?"
+
+"Take it out? Of course take it out, and see that you
+don't serve me stuff of that sort again, or I'll report
+you."
+
+"Very sorry, sir," said the waiter.
+
+Mr. Fyshe looked at the vanishing waiter with contempt
+upon his features. "These pampered fellows are getting
+unbearable." he said. "By Gad, if I had my way I'd fire
+the whole lot of them: lock 'em out, put 'em on the
+street. That would teach 'em. Yes, Furlong, you'll live
+to see it that the whole working-class will one day rise
+against the tyranny of the upper classes, and society
+will be overwhelmed."
+
+But if Mr. Fyshe had realized that at that moment, in
+the kitchen of the Mausoleum Club, in those sacred
+precincts themselves, there was a walking delegate of
+the Waiters' International Union leaning against a
+sideboard, with his bowler hat over one corner of his
+eye, and talking to a little group of the Chinese
+philosophers, he would have known that perhaps the social
+catastrophe was a little nearer than even he suspected.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"Are you inviting anyone else tonight?" asked Mr. Furlong.
+
+"I should have liked to ask your father," said Mr. Fyshe,
+"but unfortunately he is out of town."
+
+What Mr. Fyshe really meant was, "I am extremely glad
+not to have to ask your father, whom I would not introduce
+to the Duke on any account."
+
+Indeed, Mr. Furlong, senior, the father of the rector of
+St. Asaph's, who was President of the New Amalgamated
+Hymnal Corporation, and Director of the Hosanna Pipe and
+Steam Organ, Limited, was entirely the wrong man for Mr.
+Fyshe's present purpose. In fact, he was reputed to be
+as smart a man as ever sold a Bible. At this moment he
+was out of town, busied in New York with the preparation
+of the plates of his new Hindu Testament (copyright);
+but had he learned that a duke with several millions to
+invest was about to visit the city, he would not have
+left it for the whole of Hindustan.
+
+"I suppose you are asking Mr. Boulder," said the rector.
+
+"No," answered Mr. Fyshe very decidedly, dismissing the
+name absolutely.
+
+Indeed, there was even better reason not to introduce
+Mr. Boulder to the Duke. Mr. Fyshe had made that sort of
+mistake once, and never intended to make it again. It
+was only a year ago, on the occasion of the visit of
+young Viscount FitzThistle to the Mausoleum Club, that
+Mr. Fyshe had introduced Mr. Boulder to the Viscount and
+had suffered grievously thereby. For Mr. Boulder had no
+sooner met the Viscount than he invited him up to his
+hunting-lodge in Wisconsin, and that was the last thing
+known of the investment of the FitzThistle fortune.
+
+This Mr. Boulder of whom Mr. Fyshe spoke might indeed
+have been seen at that moment at a further table of the
+lunch room eating a solitary meal, an oldish man with a
+great frame suggesting broken strength, with a white
+beard and with falling under-eyelids that made him look
+as if he were just about to cry. His eyes were blue and
+far away, and his still, mournful face and his great bent
+shoulders seemed to suggest all the power and mystery of
+high finance.
+
+Gloom indeed hung over him. For, when one heard him talk
+of listed stocks and cumulative dividends, there was as
+deep a tone in his quiet voice as if he spoke of eternal
+punishment and the wages of sin.
+
+Under his great hands a chattering viscount, or a sturdy
+duke, or a popinjay Italian marquis was as nothing.
+
+Mr. Boulder's methods with titled visitors investing
+money in America were deep. He never spoke to them of
+money, not a word. He merely talked of the great American
+forest--he had been born sixty-five years back, in a
+lumber state--and, when he spoke of primeval trees and
+the howl of the wolf at night among the pines, there was
+the stamp of reality about it that held the visitor
+spellbound; and when he fell to talking of his hunting-lodge
+far away in the Wisconsin timber, duke, earl, or baron
+that had ever handled a double-barrelled express rifle
+listened and was lost.
+
+"I have a little place," Mr. Boulder would say in his
+deep tones that seemed almost like a sob, "a sort of
+shooting box, I think you'd call it, up in Wisconsin;
+just a plain place"--he would add, almost crying--"made
+of logs."
+
+"Oh, really," the visitor would interject, "made of logs.
+By Jove, how interesting!"
+
+All titled people are fascinated at once with logs, and
+Mr. Boulder knew it--at least subconsciously.
+
+"Yes, logs," he would continue, still in deep sorrow;
+"just the plain cedar, not squared, you know, the old
+original timber; I had them cut right out of the forest."
+
+By this time the visitor's excitement was obvious. "And
+is there game there?" he would ask.
+
+"We have the timber-wolf," said Mr. Boulder, his voice
+half choking at the sadness of the thing, "and of course
+the jack wolf and the lynx."
+
+"And are they ferocious?"
+
+"Oh, extremely so--quite uncontrollable."
+
+On which the titled visitor was all excitement to start
+for Wisconsin at once, even before Mr. Boulder's invitation
+was put in words.
+
+And when he returned a week later, all tanned and wearing
+bush-whackers' boots, and covered with wolf bites, his
+whole available fortune was so completely invested in
+Mr. Boulder's securities that you couldn't have shaken
+twenty-five cents out of him upside down.
+
+Yet the whole thing had been done merely incidentally
+round a big fire under the Wisconsin timber, with a dead
+wolf or two lying in the snow.
+
+So no wonder that Mr. Fyshe did not propose to invite
+Mr. Boulder to his little dinner. No, indeed. In fact,
+his one aim was to keep Mr. Boulder and his log house
+hidden from the Duke.
+
+And equally no wonder that as soon as Mr. Boulder read
+of the Duke's arrival in New York, and saw by the _Commercial
+Echo and Financial Undertone_ that he might come to the
+City looking for investments, he telephoned at once to
+his little place in Wisconsin--which had, of course, a
+primeval telephone wire running to it--and told his
+steward to have the place well aired and good fires
+lighted; and he especially enjoined him to see if any of
+the shanty men thereabouts could catch a wolf or two, as
+he might need them.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"Is no one else coming then?" asked the rector.
+
+"Oh yes. President Boomer of the University. We shall be
+a party of four. I thought the Duke might be interested
+in meeting Boomer. He may care to hear something of the
+archaeological remains of the continent."
+
+If the Duke did so care, he certainly had a splendid
+chance in meeting the gigantic Dr. Boomer, the president
+of Plutoria University.
+
+If he wanted to know anything of the exact distinction
+between the Mexican Pueblo and the Navajo tribal house,
+he had his opportunity right now. If he was eager to hear
+a short talk--say half an hour--on the relative antiquity
+of the Neanderthal skull and the gravel deposits of
+the Missouri, his chance had come. He could learn as much
+about the stone age and the bronze age, in America, from
+President Boomer, as he could about the gold age and the
+age of paper securities from Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Boulder.
+
+So what better man to meet a duke than an archaeological
+president?
+
+And if the Duke should feel inclined, as a result of his
+American visit (for Dr. Boomer, who knew everything,
+understood what the Duke had come for), inclined, let us
+say, to endow a chair in Primitive Anthropology, or do
+any useful little thing of the sort, that was only fair
+business all round; or if he even was willing to give a
+moderate sum towards the general fund of Plutoria
+University--enough, let us say, to enable the president
+to dismiss an old professor and hire a new one-that surely
+was reasonable enough.
+
+The president, therefore, had said yes to Mr. Fyshe's
+invitation with alacrity, and had taken a look through
+the list of his more incompetent professors to refresh
+his memory.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+The Duke of Dulham had landed in New York five days before
+and had looked round eagerly for a field of turnips, but
+hadn't seen any. He had been driven up Fifth Avenue and
+had kept his eyes open for potatoes, but there were none.
+Nor had he seen any shorthorns in Central Park, nor any
+Southdowns on Broadway. For the Duke, of course, like
+all dukes, was agricultural from his Norfolk jacket to
+his hobnailed boots.
+
+At his restaurant he had cut a potato in two and sent
+half of it to the head waiter to know if it was Bermudian.
+It had all the look of an early Bermudian, but the Duke
+feared from the shading of it that it might be only a
+late Trinidad. And the head waiter sent it to the chef,
+mistaking it for a complaint, and the chef sent it back
+to the Duke with a message that it was not a Bermudian
+but a Prince Edward Island. And the Duke sent his
+compliments to the chef, and the chef sent his compliments
+to the Duke. And the Duke was so pleased at learning this
+that he had a similar potato wrapped up for him to take
+away, and tipped the head waiter twenty-five cents,
+feeling that in an extravagant country the only thing to
+do is to go the people one better. So the Duke carried
+the potato round for five days in New York and showed it
+to everybody. But beyond this he got no sign of agriculture
+out of the place at all. No one who entertained him seemed
+to know what the beef that they gave him had been fed
+on; no one, even in what seemed the best society, could
+talk rationally about preparing a hog for the breakfast
+table. People seemed to eat cauliflower without
+distinguishing the Denmark variety from the Oldenburg,
+and few, if any, knew Silesian bacon even when they tasted
+it. And when they took the Duke out twenty-five miles
+into what was called the country, there were still no
+turnips, but only real estate, and railway embankments,
+and advertising signs; so that altogether the obvious
+and visible decline of American agriculture in what should
+have been its leading centre saddened the Duke's heart.
+Thus the Duke passed four gloomy days. Agriculture vexed
+him, and still more, of course, the money concerns which
+had brought him to America.
+
+Money is a troublesome thing. But it has got to be thought
+about even by those who were not brought up to it. If,
+on account of money matters, one has been driven to come
+over to America in the hope of borrowing money, the
+awkwardness of how to go about it naturally makes one
+gloomy and preoccupied. Had there been broad fields of
+turnips to walk in and Holstein cattle to punch in the
+ribs, one might have managed to borrow it in the course
+of gentlemanly intercourse, as from one cattle-man to
+another. But in New York, amid piles of masonry and
+roaring street-traffic and glittering lunches and palatial
+residences one simply couldn't do it.
+
+Herein lay the truth about the Duke of Dulham's visit
+and the error of Mr. Lucullus Fyshe. Mr. Fyshe was thinking
+that the Duke had come to _lend_ money. In reality he had
+come to _borrow_ it. In fact, the Duke was reckoning that
+by putting a second mortgage on Dulham Towers for twenty
+thousand sterling, and by selling his Scotch shooting
+and leasing his Irish grazing and sub-letting his Welsh
+coal rent he could raise altogether a hundred thousand
+pounds. This for a duke, is an enormous sum. If he once
+had it he would be able to pay off the first mortgage on
+Dulham Towers, buy in the rights of the present tenant
+of the Scotch shooting and the claim of the present
+mortgagee of the Irish grazing, and in fact be just where
+he started. This is ducal finance, which moves always in
+a circle.
+
+In other words the Duke was really a poor man--not poor
+in the American sense, where poverty comes as a sudden
+blighting stringency, taking the form of an inability to
+get hold of a quarter of a million dollars, no matter
+how badly one needs it, and where it passes like a
+storm-cloud and is gone, but poor in that permanent and
+distressing sense known only to the British aristocracy.
+The Duke's case, of course, was notorious, and Mr. Fyshe
+ought to have known of it. The Duke was so poor that the
+Duchess was compelled to spend three or four months every
+year at a fashionable hotel on the Riviera simply to save
+money, and his eldest son, the young Marquis of Beldoodle,
+had to put in most of his time shooting big game in
+Uganda, with only twenty or twenty-five beaters, and with
+so few carriers and couriers and such a dearth of elephant
+men and hyena boys that the thing was a perfect scandal.
+The Duke indeed was so poor that a younger son, simply
+to add his efforts to those of the rest, was compelled
+to pass his days in mountain climbing in the Himalayas,
+and the Duke's daughter was obliged to pay long visits
+to minor German princesses, putting up with all sorts of
+hardship. And while the ducal family wandered about in
+this way--climbing mountains, and shooting hyenas, and
+saving money, the Duke's place or seat, Dulham Towers,
+was practically shut up, with no one in it but servants
+and housekeepers and gamekeepers and tourists; and the
+picture galleries, except for artists and visitors and
+villagers, were closed; and the town house, except for
+the presence of servants and tradesmen and secretaries,
+was absolutely shut. But the Duke knew that rigid parsimony
+of this sort, if kept up for a generation or two, will
+work wonders, and this sustained him; and the Duchess
+knew it, and it sustained her; in fact, all the ducal
+family, knowing that it was only a matter of a generation
+or two, took their misfortune very cheerfully.
+
+The only thing that bothered the Duke was borrowing money.
+This was necessary from time to time when loans or
+mortgages fell in, but he hated it. It was beneath him.
+His ancestors had often taken money, but had never borrowed
+it, and the Duke chafed under the necessity. There was
+something about the process that went against the grain.
+To sit down in pleasant converse with a man, perhaps
+almost a gentleman, and then lead up to the subject and
+take his money from him, seemed to the Duke's mind
+essentially low. He could have understood knocking a man
+over the head with a fire shovel and taking his money,
+but not borrowing it.
+
+So the Duke had come to America, where borrowing is
+notoriously easy. Any member of the Mausoleum Club, for
+instance, would borrow fifty cents to buy a cigar, or
+fifty thousand dollars to buy a house, or five millions
+to buy a railroad with complete indifference, and pay it
+back, too, if he could, and think nothing of it. In fact,
+ever so many of the Duke's friends were known to have
+borrowed money in America with magical ease, pledging
+for it their seats or their pictures, or one of their
+daughters--anything.
+
+So the Duke knew it must be easy. And yet, incredible as
+it may seem, he had spent four days in New York, entertained
+everywhere, and made much of, and hadn't borrowed a cent.
+He had been asked to lunch in a Riverside palace, and,
+fool that he was, had come away without so much as a
+dollar to show for it. He had been asked to a country
+house on the Hudson, and, like an idiot--he admitted it
+himself--hadn't asked his host for as much as his train
+fare. He had been driven twice round Central Park in a
+motor and had been taken tamely back to his hotel not a
+dollar the richer. The thing was childish, and he knew
+it. But to save his life the Duke didn't know how to
+begin. None of the things that he was able to talk about
+seemed to have the remotest connection with the subject
+of money. The Duke was able to converse reasonably well
+over such topics as the approaching downfall of England
+(they had talked of it at Dulham Towers for sixty years),
+or over the duty of England towards China, or the duty
+of England to Persia, or its duty to aid the Young Turk
+Movement, and its duty to check the Old Servia agitation.
+The Duke became so interested in these topics and in
+explaining that while he had never been a Little Englander
+he had always been a Big Turk, and that he stood for a
+Small Bulgaria and a Restricted Austria, that he got
+further and further away from the topic of money, which
+was what he really wanted to come to; and the Duke rose
+from his conversations with a look of such obvious distress
+on his face that everybody realized that his anxiety
+about England was killing him.
+
+And then suddenly light had come. It was on his fourth
+day in New York that he unexpectedly ran into the Viscount
+Belstairs (they had been together as young men in Nigeria,
+and as middle-aged men in St. Petersburg), and Belstairs,
+who was in abundant spirits and who was returning to
+England on the _Gloritania_ at noon the next day, explained
+to the Duke that he had just borrowed fifty thousand
+pounds, on security that wouldn't be worth a halfpenny
+in England.
+
+And the Duke said with a sigh, "How the deuce do you do
+it. Belstairs?"
+
+"Do what?"
+
+"Borrow it," said the Duke. "How do you manage to get
+people to talk about it? Here I am wanting to borrow a
+hundred thousand, and I'm hanged if I can even find an
+opening."
+
+At which the Viscount had said, "Pooh, pooh! you don't
+need any opening. Just borrow it straight out--ask for
+it across a dinner table, just as you'd ask for a match;
+they think nothing of it here."
+
+"Across the dinner table?" repeated the Duke, who was a
+literal man.
+
+"Certainly," said the Viscount. "Not too soon, you know--say
+after a second glass of wine. I assure you it's absolutely
+nothing."
+
+And it was just at that moment that a telegram was handed
+to the Duke from Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, praying him, as he
+was reported to be visiting the next day the City where
+the Mausoleum Club stands, to make acquaintance with him
+by dining at that institution.
+
+And the Duke, being as I say a literal man, decided that
+just as soon as Mr. Fyshe should give him a second glass
+of wine, that second glass should cost Mr. Fyshe a hundred
+thousand pounds sterling.
+
+And oddly enough, at about the same moment, Mr. Fyshe
+was calculating that provided he could make the Duke
+drink a second glass of the Mausoleum champagne, that
+glass would cost the Duke about five million dollars.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+So the very morning after that the Duke had arrived on
+the New York express in the City; and being an ordinary,
+democratic, commercial sort of place, absorbed in its
+own affairs, it made no fuss over him whatever. The
+morning edition of the _Plutopian Citizen_ simply said,
+"We understand that the Duke of Dulham arrives at the
+Grand Palaver this morning," after which it traced the
+Duke's pedigree back to Jock of Ealing in the twelfth
+century and let the matter go at that; and the noon
+edition of the _People's Advocate_ merely wrote, "We learn
+that Duke Dulham is in town. He is a relation of Jack
+Ealing." But the _Commercial Echo and Financial Undertone_,
+appearing at four o'clock, printed in its stock-market
+columns the announcement: "We understand that the Duke
+of Dulham, who arrives in town today, is proposing to
+invest a large sum of money in American Industrials."
+
+And, of course, that announcement reached every member
+of the Mausoleum Club within twenty minutes.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+The Duke of Dulham entered the Mausoleum Club that evening
+at exactly seven of the clock. He was a short, thick man
+with a shaven face, red as a brick, and grizzled hair,
+and from the look of him he could have got a job at sight
+in any lumber camp in Wisconsin. He wore a dinner jacket,
+just like an ordinary person, but even without his Norfolk
+coat and his hobnailed boots there was something in the
+way in which he walked up the long main hall of the
+Mausoleum Club that every imported waiter in the place
+recognized in an instant.
+
+The Duke cast his eye about the club and approved of it.
+It seemed to him a modest, quiet place, very different
+from the staring ostentation that one sees too often in
+a German hof or an Italian palazzo. He liked it.
+
+Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Furlong were standing in a deep alcove
+or bay where there was a fire and india-rubber trees and
+pictures with shaded lights and a whiskey-and-soda table.
+There the Duke joined them. Mr. Fyshe he had met already
+that afternoon at the Palaver, and he called him "Fyshe"
+as if he had known him forever; and indeed, after a few
+minutes he called the rector of St. Asaph's simply
+"Furlong," for he had been familiar with the Anglican
+clergy in so many parts of the world that he knew that
+to attribute any peculiar godliness to them, socially,
+was the worst possible taste.
+
+"By Jove," said the Duke, turning to tap the leaf of a
+rubber tree with his finger, "that fellow's a Nigerian,
+isn't he?"
+
+"I hardly know," said Mr. Fyshe, "I imagine so"; and he
+added, "You've been in Nigeria, Duke?"
+
+"Oh, some years ago," said the Duke, "after big game,
+you know--fine place for it."
+
+"Did you get any?" asked Mr. Fyshe.
+
+"Not much," said the Duke; "a hippo or two."
+
+"Ah," said Mr. Fyshe.
+
+"And, of course, now and then a giro," the Duke went on,
+and added, "My sister was luckier, though; she potted a
+rhino one day, straight out of a doolie; I call that
+rather good."
+
+Mr. Fyshe called it that too.
+
+"Ah, now here's a good thing," the Duke went on, looking
+at a picture. He carried in his waistcoat pocket an
+eyeglass that he used for pictures and for Tamworth hogs,
+and he put it to his eye with one hand, keeping the other
+in the left pocket of his jacket; "and this--this is a
+very good thing."
+
+"I believe so," said Mr. Fyshe.
+
+"You really have some awfully good things here," continued
+the Duke. He had seen far too many pictures in too many
+places ever to speak of "values" or "compositions" or
+anything of that sort. The Duke merely looked at a picture
+and said, "Now here's a good thing," or "Ah! here now is
+a very good thing," or, "I say, here's a really good
+thing."
+
+No one could get past this sort of criticism. The Duke
+had long since found it bullet-proof.
+
+"They showed me some rather good things in New York," he
+went on, "but really the things you have here seem to be
+awfully good things."
+
+Indeed, the Duke was truly pleased with the pictures,
+for something in their composition, or else in the soft,
+expensive light that shone on them, enabled him to see
+in the distant background of each a hundred thousand
+sterling. And that is a very beautiful picture indeed.
+
+"When you come to our side of the water, Fyshe," said
+the Duke, "I must show you my Botticelli."
+
+Had Mr. Fyshe, who knew nothing of art, expressed his
+real thought, he would have said, "Show me your which?"
+But he only answered, "I shall be delighted to see it."
+
+In any case there was no time to say more, for at this
+moment the portly figure and the great face of Dr. Boomer,
+president of Plutoria University, loomed upon them. And
+with him came a great burst of conversation that blew
+all previous topics into fragments. He was introduced to
+the Duke, and shook hands with Mr. Furlong, and talked
+to both of them, and named the kind of cocktail that he
+wanted, all in one breath, and in the very next he was
+asking the Duke about the Babylonian hieroglyphic bricks
+that his grandfather, the thirteenth Duke, had brought
+home from the Euphrates, and which every archaeologist
+knew were preserved in the Duke's library at Dulham
+Towers. And though the Duke hadn't known about the bricks
+himself, he assured Dr. Boomer that his grandfather had
+collected some really good things, quite remarkable.
+
+And the Duke, having met a man who knew about his
+grandfather, felt in his own element. In fact, he was so
+delighted with Dr. Boomer and the Nigerian rubber tree
+and the shaded pictures and the charm of the whole place
+and the certainty that half a million dollars was easily
+findable in it, that he put his eyeglass back in his
+pocket and said.
+
+"A charming club you have here, really most charming."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Fyshe, in a casual tone, "a comfortable
+place, we like to think."
+
+But if he could have seen what was happening below in
+the kitchens of the Mausoleum Club, Mr. Fyshe would have
+realized that just then it was turning into a most
+uncomfortable place.
+
+For the walking delegate with his hat on sideways, who
+had haunted it all day, was busy now among the assembled
+Chinese philosophers, writing down names and distributing
+strikers' cards of the International Union and assuring
+them that the "boys" of the Grand Palaver had all walked
+out at seven, and that all the "boys" of the Commercial
+and the Union and of every restaurant in town were out
+an hour ago.
+
+And the philosophers were taking their cards and hanging
+up their waiters' coats and putting on shabby jackets
+and bowler hats, worn sideways, and changing themselves
+by a wonderful transformation from respectable Chinese
+to slouching loafers of the lowest type.
+
+But Mr. Fyshe, being in an alcove and not in the kitchens,
+saw nothing of these things. Not even when the head
+waiter, shaking with apprehension, appeared with cocktails
+made by himself, in glasses that he himself had had to
+wipe, did Mr. Fyshe, absorbed in the easy urbanity of
+the Duke, notice that anything was amiss.
+
+Neither did his guests. For Dr. Boomer, having discovered
+that the Duke had visited Nigeria, was asking him his
+opinion of the famous Bimbaweh remains of the lower Niger.
+The Duke confessed that he really hadn't noticed them,
+and the Doctor assured him that Strabo had indubitably
+mentioned them (he would show the Duke the very passage),
+and that they apparently lay, if his memory served him,
+about halfway between Oohat and Ohat; whether above Oohat
+and below Ohat or above Ohat and below Oohat he would
+not care to say for a certainty; for that the Duke must
+wait till the president had time to consult his library.
+
+And the Duke was fascinated forthwith with the president's
+knowledge of Nigerian geography, and explained that he
+had once actually descended from below Timbuctoo to Oohat
+in a doolie manned only by four swats.
+
+So presently, having drunk the cocktails, the party moved
+solemnly in a body from the alcove towards the private
+dining-room upstairs, still busily talking of the Bimbaweh
+remains, and the swats, and whether the doolie was, or
+was not, the original goatskin boat of the book of Genesis.
+
+And when they entered the private dining-room with its
+snow-white table and cut glass and flowers (as arranged
+by a retreating philosopher now heading towards the Gaiety
+Theatre with his hat over his eyes), the Duke again
+exclaimed,
+
+"Really, you have a most comfortable club--delightful."
+
+So they sat down to dinner, over which Mr. Furlong offered
+up a grace as short as any that are known even to the
+Anglican clergy. And the head waiter, now in deep
+distress--for he had been sending out telephone messages
+in vain to the Grand Palaver and the Continental, like
+the captain of a sinking ship--served oysters that he had
+opened himself and poured Rhine wine with a trembling
+hand. For he knew that unless by magic a new chef and a
+waiter or two could be got from the Palaver, all hope
+was lost.
+
+But the guests still knew nothing of his fears. Dr. Boomer
+was eating his oysters as a Nigerian hippo might eat up
+the crew of a doolie, in great mouthfuls, and commenting
+as he did so upon the luxuriousness of modern life.
+
+And in the pause that followed the oysters he illustrated
+for the Duke with two pieces of bread the essential
+difference in structure between the Mexican _pueblo_ and
+the tribal house of the Navajos, and lest the Duke should
+confound either or both of them with the adobe hut of
+the Bimbaweh tribes he showed the difference at once with
+a couple of olives.
+
+By this time, of course, the delay in the service was
+getting noticeable. Mr. Fyshe was directing angry glances
+towards the door, looking for the reappearance of the
+waiter, and growling an apology to his guests. But the
+president waved the apology aside.
+
+"In my college days," he said, "I should have considered
+a plate of oysters an ample meal. I should have asked
+for nothing more. We eat," he said, "too much."
+
+This, of course, started Mr. Fyshe on his favourite topic.
+"Luxury!" he exclaimed, "I should think so! It is the
+curse of the age. The appalling growth of luxury, the
+piling up of money, the ease with which huge fortunes
+are made" (Good! thought the Duke, here we are coming to
+it), "these are the things that are going to ruin us.
+Mark my words, the whole thing is bound to end in a
+tremendous crash. I don't mind telling you, Duke-my
+friends here, I am sure, know it already--that I am more
+or less a revolutionary socialist. I am absolutely
+convinced, sir, that our modern civilization will end in
+a great social catastrophe. Mark what I say"--and here
+Mr. Fyshe became exceedingly impressive--"a great social
+catastrophe. Some of us may not live to see it, perhaps;
+but you, for instance, Furlong, are a younger man; you
+certainly will."
+
+But here Mr. Fyshe was understating the case. They were
+all going to live to see it, right on the spot.
+
+For it was just at this moment, when Mr. Fyshe was talking
+of the social catastrophe and explaining with flashing
+eyes that it was bound to come, that it came; and when
+it came it lit, of all places in the world, right there
+in the private dining-room of the Mausoleum Club.
+
+For the gloomy head waiter re-entered and leaned over
+the back of Mr. Fyshe's chair and whispered to him.
+
+"Eh? what?" said Mr. Fyshe.
+
+The head waiter, his features stricken with inward agony,
+whispered again.
+
+"The infernal, damn scoundrels!" said Mr. Fyshe, starting
+back in his chair. "On strike: in this club! It's an
+outrage!"
+
+"I'm very sorry sir. I didn't like to tell you, sir. I'd
+hoped I might have got help from the outside, but it
+seems, sir, the hotels are all the same way."
+
+"Do you mean to say," said Mr. Fyshe, speaking very
+slowly, "that there is no dinner?"
+
+"I'm sorry, sir," moaned the waiter. "It appears the chef
+hadn't even cooked it. Beyond what's on the table, sir,
+there's nothing."
+
+The social catastrophe had come.
+
+Mr. Fyshe sat silent with his fist clenched. Dr. Boomer,
+with his great face transfixed, stared at the empty
+oyster-shells, thinking perhaps of his college days. The
+Duke, with his hundred thousand dashed from his lips in
+the second cup of champagne that was never served, thought
+of his politeness first and murmured something about
+taking them to his hotel.
+
+But there is no need to follow the unhappy details of
+the unended dinner. Mr. Fyshe's one idea was to be gone:
+he was too true an artist to think that finance could be
+carried on over the table-cloth of a second-rate restaurant,
+or on an empty stomach in a deserted club. The thing must
+be done over again; he must wait his time and begin anew.
+
+And so it came about that the little dinner party of Mr.
+Lucullus Fyshe dissolved itself into its constituent
+elements, like broken pieces of society in the great
+cataclysm portrayed by Mr. Fyshe himself.
+
+The Duke was bowled home in a snorting motor to the
+brilliant rotunda of the Grand Palaver, itself waiterless
+and supperless.
+
+The rector of St. Asaph's wandered off home to his rectory,
+musing upon the contents of its pantry.
+
+And Mr. Fyshe and the gigantic Doctor walked side by side
+homewards along Plutoria Avenue, beneath the elm trees.
+Nor had they gone any great distance before Dr. Boomer
+fell to talking of the Duke.
+
+"A charming man," he said, "delightful. I feel extremely
+sorry for him."
+
+"No worse off, I presume, than any of the rest of us,"
+growled Mr. Fyshe, who was feeling in the sourest of
+democratic moods; "a man doesn't need to be a duke to
+have a stomach."
+
+"Oh, pooh, pooh!" said the president, waving the topic
+aside with his hand in the air; "I don't refer to that.
+Oh, not at all. I was thinking of his financial position--an
+ancient family like the Dulhams; it seems too bad
+altogether."
+
+For, of course, to an archaeologist like Dr. Boomer an
+intimate acquaintance with the pedigree and fortunes of
+the greater ducal families from Jock of Ealing downwards
+was nothing. It went without saying. As beside the
+Neanderthal skull and the Bimbaweh ruins it didn't count.
+
+Mr. Fyshe stopped absolutely still in his tracks. "His
+financial position?" he questioned, quick as a lynx.
+
+"Certainly," said Dr. Boomer; "I had taken it for granted
+that you knew. The Dulham family are practically ruined.
+The Duke, I imagine, is under the necessity of mortgaging
+his estates; indeed, I should suppose he is here in
+America to raise money."
+
+Mr. Fyshe was a man of lightning action. Any man accustomed
+to the Stock Exchange learns to think quickly.
+
+"One moment!" he cried; "I see we are right at your door.
+May I just run in and use your telephone? I want to call
+up Boulder for a moment."
+
+Two minutes later Mr. Fyshe was saying into the telephone,
+"Oh, is that you, Boulder? I was looking for you in vain
+today--wanted you to meet the Duke of Dulham, who came in
+quite unexpectedly from New York; felt sure you'd like
+to meet him. Wanted you at the club for dinner, and now
+it turns out that the club's all upset--waiters' strike
+or some such rascality--and the Palaver, so I hear, is
+in the same fix. Could you possibly--"
+
+Here Mr. Fyshe paused, listening a moment, and then went
+on, "Yes, yes; an excellent idea--most kind of you. Pray
+do send your motor to the hotel and give the Duke a bite
+of dinner. No, I wouldn't join you, thanks. Most kind.
+Good night--"
+
+And within a few minutes more the motor of Mr. Boulder
+was rolling down from Plutoria Avenue to the Grand Palaver
+Hotel.
+
+What passed between Mr. Boulder and the Duke that evening
+is not known. That they must have proved congenial company
+to one another there is no doubt. In fact, it would seem
+that, dissimilar as they were in many ways, they found
+a common bond of interest in sport. And it is quite likely
+that Mr. Boulder may have mentioned that he had a
+hunting-lodge--what the Duke would call a shooting-box--in
+Wisconsin woods, and that it was made of logs, rough
+cedar logs not squared, and that the timber wolves and
+others which surrounded it were of a ferocity without
+parallel.
+
+Those who know the Duke best could measure the effect of
+that upon his temperament.
+
+At any rate, it is certain that Mr. Lucullus Fyshe at
+his breakfast-table next morning chuckled with suppressed
+joy to read in the _Plutopian Citizen_ the item:
+
+"We learn that the Duke of Dulham, who has been paying
+a brief visit to the City, leaves this morning with Mr.
+Asmodeus Boulder for the Wisconsin woods. We understand
+that Mr. Boulder intends to show his guest, who is an
+ardent sportsman, something of the American wolf."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+And so the Duke went whirling westwards and northwards
+with Mr. Boulder in the drawing-room end of a Pullman
+car, that was all littered up with double-barrelled
+express rifles and leather game bags and lynx catchers
+and wolf traps and Heaven knows what. And the Duke had
+on his very roughest sporting-suit, made, apparently, of
+alligator hide; and as he sat there with a rifle across
+his knees, while the train swept onwards through open
+fields and broken woods, the real country at last, towards
+the Wisconsin forest, there was such a light of genial
+happiness in his face that had not been seen there since
+he had been marooned in the mud jungles of Upper Burmah.
+
+And opposite, Mr. Boulder looked at him with fixed silent
+eyes, and murmured from time to time some renewed
+information of the ferocity of the timber-wolf.
+
+But of wolves other than the timber-wolf, and fiercer
+still into whose hands the Duke might fall in America,
+he spoke never a word.
+
+Nor is it known in the record what happened in Wisconsin,
+and to the Mausoleum Club the Duke and his visit remained
+only as a passing and a pleasant memory.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO: The Wizard of Finance
+
+Down in the City itself, just below the residential street
+where the Mausoleum Club is situated, there stands
+overlooking Central Square the Grand Palaver Hotel. It
+is, in truth, at no great distance from the club, not
+half a minute in one's motor. In fact, one could almost
+walk it.
+
+But in Central Square the quiet of Plutoria Avenue is
+exchanged for another atmosphere. There are fountains
+that splash unendingly and mingle their music with the
+sound of the motor-horns and the clatter of the cabs.
+There are real trees and little green benches, with people
+reading yesterday's newspaper, and grass cut into plots
+among the asphalt. There is at one end a statue of the
+first governor of the state, life-size, cut in stone;
+and at the other a statue of the last, ever so much larger
+than life, cast in bronze. And all the people who pass
+by pause and look at this statue and point at it with
+walking-sticks, because it is of extraordinary interest;
+in fact, it is an example of the new electro-chemical
+process of casting by which you can cast a state governor
+any size you like, no matter what you start from. Those
+who know about such things explain what an interesting
+contrast the two statues are; for in the case of the
+governor of a hundred years ago one had to start from
+plain, rough material and work patiently for years to
+get the effect, whereas now the material doesn't matter
+at all, and with any sort of scrap, treated in the gas
+furnace under tremendous pressure, one may make a figure
+of colossal size like the one in Central Square.
+
+So naturally Central Square with its trees and its
+fountains and its statues is one of the places of chief
+interest in the City. But especially because there stands
+along one side of it the vast pile of the Grand Palaver
+Hotel. It rises fifteen stories high and fills all one
+side of the square. It has, overlooking the trees in the
+square, twelve hundred rooms with three thousand windows,
+and it would have held all George Washington's army. Even
+people in other cities who have never seen it know it
+well from its advertising; "the most homelike hotel in
+America," so it is labelled in all the magazines, the
+expensive ones, on the continent. In fact, the aim of
+the company that owns the Grand Palaver--and they do not
+attempt to conceal it--is to make the place as much a
+home as possible. Therein lies its charm. It is a home.
+You realize that when you look up at the Grand Palaver
+from the square at night when the twelve hundred guests
+have turned on the lights of the three thousand windows.
+You realize it at theatre time when the great string of
+motors come sweeping to the doors of the Palaver, to
+carry the twelve hundred guests to twelve hundred seats
+in the theatres at four dollars a seat. But most of all
+do you appreciate the character of the Grand Palaver when
+you step into its rotunda. Aladdin's enchanted palace
+was nothing to it. It has a vast ceiling with a hundred
+glittering lights, and within it night and day is a
+surging crowd that is never still and a babel of voices
+that is never hushed, and over all there hangs an enchanted
+cloud of thin blue tobacco smoke such as might enshroud
+the conjured vision of a magician of Baghdad or Damascus.
+
+In and through the rotunda there are palm trees to rest
+the eye and rubber trees in boxes to soothe the mind,
+and there are great leather lounges and deep armchairs,
+and here and there huge brass ash-bowls as big as Etruscan
+tear-jugs. Along one side is a counter with grated wickets
+like a bank, and behind it are five clerks with flattened
+hair and tall collars, dressed in long black frock-coats
+all day like members of a legislature. They have great
+books in front of them in which they study unceasingly,
+and at their lightest thought they strike a bell with
+the open palm of their hand, and at the sound of it a
+page boy in a monkey suit, with G.P. stamped all over
+him in brass, bounds to the desk and off again, shouting
+a call into the unheeding crowd vociferously. The sound
+of it fills for a moment the great space of the rotunda;
+it echoes down the corridors to the side; it floats,
+softly melodious, through the palm trees of the ladies'
+palm room; it is heard, fainter and fainter, in the
+distant grill; and in the depths of the barber shop below
+the level of the street the barber arrests a moment-the
+drowsy hum of his shampoo brushes to catch the sound--as
+might a miner in the sunken galleries of a coastal mine
+cease in his toil a moment to hear the distant murmur of
+the sea.
+
+And the clerks call for the pages, the pages call for
+the guests, and the guests call for the porters, the
+bells clang, the elevators rattle, till home itself was
+never half so homelike.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"A call for Mr. Tomlinson! A call for Mr. Tomlinson!"
+
+So went the sound, echoing through the rotunda.
+
+And as the page boy found him and handed him on a salver
+a telegram to read, the eyes of the crowd about him turned
+for a moment to look upon the figure of Tomlinson, the
+Wizard of Finance.
+
+There he stood in his wide-awake hat and his long black
+coat, his shoulders slightly bent with his fifty-eight
+years. Anyone who had known him in the olden days on his
+bush farm beside Tomlinson's Creek in the country of the
+Great Lakes would have recognized him in a moment. There
+was still on his face that strange, puzzled look that it
+habitually wore, only now, of course, the financial papers
+were calling it "unfathomable." There was a certain way
+in which his eye roved to and fro inquiringly that might
+have looked like perplexity, were it not that the _Financial
+Undertone_ had recognized it as the "searching look of a
+captain of industry." One might have thought that for
+all the goodness in it there was something simple in his
+face, were it not that the _Commercial and Pictorial Review_
+had called the face "inscrutable," and had proved it so
+with an illustration that left no doubt of the matter.
+Indeed, the face of Tomlinson of Tomlinson's Creek, now
+Tomlinson the Wizard of Finance, was not commonly spoken
+of as a _face_ by the paragraphers of the Saturday magazine
+sections, but was more usually referred to as a mask;
+and it would appear that Napoleon the First had had one
+also. The Saturday editors were never tired of describing
+the strange, impressive personality of Tomlinson, the
+great dominating character of the newest and highest
+finance. From the moment when the interim prospectus of
+the Erie Auriferous Consolidated had broken like a tidal
+wave over Stock Exchange circles, the picture of Tomlinson,
+the sleeping shareholder of uncomputed millions, had
+filled the imagination of every dreamer in a nation of
+poets.
+
+They all described him. And when each had finished he
+began again.
+
+"The face," so wrote the editor of the "Our Own Men"
+section of _Ourselves Monthly_, "is that of a typical
+American captain of finance, hard, yet with a certain
+softness, broad but with a certain length, ductile but
+not without its own firmness."
+
+"The mouth," so wrote the editor of the "Success" column
+of _Brains_, "is strong but pliable, the jaw firm and yet
+movable, while there is something in the set of the ear
+that suggests the swift, eager mind of the born leader
+of men."
+
+So from state to state ran the portrait of Tomlinson of
+Tomlinson's Creek, drawn by people who had never seen
+him; so did it reach out and cross the ocean, till the
+French journals inserted a picture which they used for
+such occasions, and called it _Monsieur Tomlinson, nouveau
+capitaine de la haute finance en Amerique_; and the German
+weeklies, inserting also a suitable picture from their
+stock, marked it _Herr Tomlinson, Amerikanischer Industrie
+und Finanzcapitan_. Thus did Tomlinson float from
+Tomlinson's Creek beside Lake Erie to the very banks of
+the Danube and the Drave.
+
+Some writers grew lyric about him. What visions, they
+asked, could one but read them, must lie behind the quiet,
+dreaming eyes of that inscrutable face?
+
+They might have read them easily enough, had they but
+had the key. Anyone who looked upon Tomlinson as he stood
+there in the roar and clatter of the great rotunda of
+the Grand Palaver with the telegram in his hand, fumbling
+at the wrong end to open it, might have read the visions
+of the master-mind had he but known their nature. They
+were simple enough. For the visions in the mind of
+Tomlinson, Wizard of Finance, were for the most part
+those of a wind-swept hillside farm beside Lake Erie,
+where Tomlinson's Creek runs down to the low edge of the
+lake, and where the off-shore wind ripples the rushes of
+the shallow water: that, and the vision of a frame house,
+and the snake fences of the fourth concession road where
+it falls to the lakeside. And if the eyes of the man are
+dreamy and abstracted, it is because there lies over the
+vision of this vanished farm an infinite regret, greater
+in its compass than all the shares the Erie Auriferous
+Consolidated has ever thrown upon the market.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+When Tomlinson had opened the telegram he stood with it
+for a moment in his hand, looking the boy full in the
+face. His look had in it that peculiar far-away quality
+that the newspapers were calling "Napoleonic abstraction."
+In reality he was wondering whether to give the boy
+twenty-five cents or fifty.
+
+The message that he had just read was worded, "Morning
+quotations show preferred A. G. falling rapidly recommend
+instant sale no confidence send instructions."
+
+The Wizard of Finance took from his pocket a pencil (it
+was a carpenter's pencil) and wrote across the face of
+the message: "Buy me quite a bit more of the same yours
+truly."
+
+This he gave to the boy. "Take it over to him," he said,
+pointing to the telegraph corner of the rotunda. Then
+after another pause he mumbled, "Here, sonny," and gave
+the boy a dollar.
+
+With that he turned to walk towards the elevator, and
+all the people about him who had watched the signing of
+the message knew that some big financial deal was going
+through--a _coup_, in fact, they called it.
+
+The elevator took the Wizard to the second floor. As he
+went up he felt in his pocket and gripped a quarter, then
+changed his mind and felt for a fifty-cent piece, and
+finally gave them both to the elevator boy, after which
+he walked along the corridor till he reached the corner
+suite of rooms, a palace in itself, for which he was
+paying a thousand dollars a month ever since the Erie
+Auriferous Consolidated Company had begun tearing up the
+bed of Tomlinson's Creek in Cahoga County with its
+hydraulic dredges.
+
+"Well, mother," he said as he entered.
+
+There was a woman seated near the window, a woman with
+a plain, homely face such as they wear in the farm kitchens
+of Cahoga County, and a set of fashionable clothes upon
+her such as they sell to the ladies of Plutoria Avenue.
+
+This was "mother," the wife of the Wizard of Finance and
+eight years younger than himself. And she, too, was in
+the papers and the public eye; and whatsoever the shops
+had fresh from Paris, at fabulous prices, that they sold
+to mother. They had put a Balkan hat upon her with an
+upright feather, and they had hung gold chains on her,
+and everything that was most expensive they had hung and
+tied on mother. You might see her emerging any morning
+from the Grand Palaver in her beetle-back jacket and her
+Balkan hat, a figure of infinite pathos. And whatever
+she wore, the lady editors of _Spring Notes_ and _Causerie
+du Boudoir_ wrote it out in French, and one paper had
+called her a _belle chatelaine_, and another had spoken of
+her as a grande dame, which the Tomlinsons thought must
+be a misprint.
+
+But in any case, for Tomlinson, the Wizard of Finance,
+it was a great relief to have as his wife a woman like
+mother, because he knew that she had taught school in
+Cahoga County and could hold her own in the city with
+any of them.
+
+So mother spent her time sitting in her beetle jacket in
+the thousand-dollar suite, reading new novels in brilliant
+paper covers. And the Wizard on his trips up and down to
+the rotunda brought her the very best, the ones that cost
+a dollar fifty, because he knew that out home she had
+only been able to read books like Nathaniel Hawthorne
+and Walter Scott, that were only worth ten cents.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"How's Fred?" said the Wizard, laying aside his hat, and
+looking towards the closed door of an inner room. "Is he
+better?"
+
+"Some," said mother. "He's dressed, but he's lying down."
+
+Fred was the son of the Wizard and mother. In the inner
+room he lay on a sofa, a great hulking boy of seventeen
+in a flowered dressing-gown, fancying himself ill. There
+was a packet of cigarettes and a box of chocolates on a
+chair beside him, and he had the blind drawn and his eyes
+half-closed to impress himself.
+
+Yet this was the same boy that less than a year ago on
+Tomlinson's Creek had worn a rough store suit and set
+his sturdy shoulders to the buck-saw. At present Fortune
+was busy taking from him the golden gifts which the
+fairies of Cahoga County, Lake Erie, had laid in his
+cradle seventeen years ago.
+
+The Wizard tip-toed into the inner room, and from the
+open door his listening wife could hear the voice of the
+boy saying, in a tone as of one distraught with suffering.
+
+"Is there any more of that jelly?"
+
+"Could he have any, do you suppose?" asked Tomlinson
+coming back.
+
+"It's all right," said mother, "if it will sit on his
+stomach." For this, in the dietetics of Cahoga County,
+is the sole test. All those things can be eaten which
+will sit on the stomach. Anything that won't sit there
+is not eatable.
+
+"Do you suppose I could get them to get any?" questioned
+Tomlinson. "Would it be all right to telephone down to
+the office, or do you think it would be better to ring?"
+
+"Perhaps," said his wife, "it would be better to look
+out into the hall and see if there isn't someone round
+that would tell them."
+
+This was the kind of problem with which Tomlinson and
+his wife, in their thousand-dollar suite in the Grand
+Palaver, grappled all day. And when presently a tall
+waiter in dress-clothes appeared, and said, "Jelly? Yes,
+sir, immediately, sir; would you like, sir, Maraschino,
+sir, or Portovino, sir?" Tomlinson gazed at him gloomily,
+wondering if he would take five dollars.
+
+"What does the doctor say is wrong with Fred?" asked
+Tomlinson, when the waiter had gone.
+
+"He don't just say," said mother; "he said he must keep
+very quiet. He looked in this morning for a minute or
+two, and he said he'd look in later in the day again.
+But he said to keep Fred very quiet."
+
+Exactly! In other words Fred had pretty much the same
+complaint as the rest of Dr. Slyder's patients on Plutoria
+Avenue, and was to be treated in the same way. Dr. Slyder,
+who was the most fashionable practitioner in the City,
+spent his entire time moving to and fro in an almost
+noiseless motor earnestly advising people to keep quiet.
+"You must keep very quiet for a little while," he would
+say with a sigh, as he sat beside a sick-bed. As he drew
+on his gloves in the hall below he would shake his head
+very impressively and say, "You must keep him very quiet,"
+and so pass out, quite soundlessly. By this means Dr.
+Slyder often succeeded in keeping people quiet for weeks.
+It was all the medicine that he knew. But it was enough.
+And as his patients always got well--there being nothing
+wrong with them--his reputation was immense.
+
+Very naturally the Wizard and his wife were impressed
+with him. They had never seen such therapeutics in Cahoga
+County, where the practice of medicine is carried on with
+forceps, pumps, squirts, splints, and other instruments
+of violence.
+
+The waiter had hardly gone when a boy appeared at the
+door. This time he presented to Tomlinson not one telegram
+but a little bundle of them.
+
+The Wizard read them with a lengthening face. The first
+ran something like this, "Congratulate you on your daring
+market turned instantly"; and the next, "Your opinion
+justified market rose have sold at 20 points profit";
+and a third, "Your forecast entirely correct C. P. rose
+at once send further instructions."
+
+These and similar messages were from brokers' offices,
+and all of them were in the same tone; one told him that
+C. P. was up, and another T. G. P. had passed 129, and
+another that T. C. R. R. had risen ten--all of which
+things were imputed to the wonderful sagacity of Tomlinson.
+Whereas if they had told him that X. Y. Z. had risen to
+the moon he would have been just as wise as to what it
+meant.
+
+"Well," said the wife of the Wizard as her husband finished
+looking through the reports, "how are things this morning?
+Are they any better?"
+
+"No," said Tomlinson, and he sighed as he said it; "this
+is the worst day yet. It's just been a shower of telegrams,
+and mostly all the same. I can't do the figuring of it
+like you can, but I reckon I must have made another
+hundred thousand dollars since yesterday."
+
+"You don't say so!" said mother, and they looked at one
+another gloomily.
+
+"And half a million last week, wasn't it?" said Tomlinson
+as he sank into a chair. "I'm afraid, mother," he continued,
+"it's no good. We don't know how. We weren't brought up
+to it."
+
+All of which meant that if the editor of the _Monetary
+Afternoon_ or _Financial Sunday_ had been able to know what
+was happening with the two wizards, he could have written
+up a news story calculated to electrify all America.
+
+For the truth was that Tomlinson, the Wizard of Finance,
+was attempting to carry out a _coup_ greater than any as
+yet attributed to him by the Press. He was trying to lose
+his money. That, in the sickness of his soul, crushed by
+the Grand Palaver, overwhelmed with the burden of high
+finance, had become his aim, to be done with it, to get
+rid of his whole fortune.
+
+But if you own a fortune that is computed anywhere from
+fifty millions up, with no limit at the top, if you own
+one-half of all the preferred stock of an Erie Auriferous
+Consolidated that is digging gold in hydraulic bucketfuls
+from a quarter of a mile of river bed, the task of losing
+it is no easy matter.
+
+There are men, no doubt, versed in finance, who might
+succeed in doing it. But they have a training that
+Tomlinson lacked. Invest it as he would in the worst
+securities that offered, the most rickety of stock, the
+most fraudulent bonds, back it came to him. When he threw
+a handful away, back came two in its place. And at every
+new coup the crowd applauded the incomparable daring,
+the unparalleled prescience of the Wizard.
+
+Like the touch of Midas, his hand turned everything to
+gold.
+
+"Mother," he repeated, "it's no use. It's like this here
+Destiny, as the books call it."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+The great fortune that Tomlinson, the Wizard of Finance,
+was trying his best to lose had come to him with wonderful
+suddenness. As yet it was hardly six months old. As to
+how it had originated, there were all sorts of stories
+afloat in the weekly illustrated press. They agreed mostly
+on the general basis that Tomlinson had made his vast
+fortune by his own indomitable pluck and dogged industry.
+Some said that he had been at one time a mere farm hand
+who, by sheer doggedness, had fought his way from the
+hay-mow to the control of the produce market of seventeen
+states. Others had it that he had been a lumberjack who,
+by sheer doggedness, had got possession of the whole
+lumber forest of the Lake district. Others said that he
+had been a miner in a Lake Superior copper mine who had,
+by the doggedness of his character, got a practical
+monopoly of the copper supply. These Saturday articles,
+at any rate, made the Saturday reader rigid with sympathetic
+doggedness himself, which was all that the editor (who
+was doggedly trying to make the paper pay) wanted to
+effect.
+
+But in reality the making of Tomlinson's fortune was very
+simple. The recipe for it is open to anyone. It is only
+necessary to own a hillside farm beside Lake Erie where
+the uncleared bush and the broken fields go straggling
+down to the lake, and to have running through it a creek,
+such as that called Tomlinson's, brawling among the stones
+and willows, and to discover in the bed of a creek--a
+gold mine.
+
+That is all.
+
+Nor is it necessary in these well-ordered days to discover
+the gold for one's self. One might have lived a lifetime
+on the farm, as Tomlinson's father had, and never discover
+it for one's self. For that indeed the best medium of
+destiny is a geologist, let us say the senior professor
+of geology at Plutoria University. That was how it
+happened.
+
+The senior professor, so it chanced, was spending his
+vacation near by on the shores of the lake, and his time
+was mostly passed--for how better can a man spend a month
+of pleasure?--in looking for outcroppings of Devonian rock
+of the post-tertiary period. For which purpose he carried
+a vacation hammer in his pocket, and made from time to
+time a note or two as he went along, or filled his pockets
+with the chippings of vacation rocks.
+
+So it chanced that he came to Tomlinson's Creek at the
+very point where a great slab of Devonian rock bursts
+through the clay of the bank. When the senior professor
+of geology saw it and noticed a stripe like a mark on a
+tiger's back--a fault he called it--that ran over the face
+of the block, he was at it in an instant, beating off
+fragments with his little hammer.
+
+Tomlinson and his boy Fred were logging in the underbrush
+near by with a long chain and yoke of oxen, but the
+geologist was so excited that he did not see them till
+the sound of his eager hammer had brought them to his
+side. They took him up to the frame house in the clearing,
+where the chatelaine was hoeing a potato patch with a
+man's hat on her head, and they gave him buttermilk and
+soda cakes, but his hand shook so that he could hardly
+eat them.
+
+The geologist left Cahoga station that night for the City
+with a newspaper full of specimens inside his suit-case,
+and he knew that if any person or persons would put up
+money enough to tear that block of rock away and follow
+the fissure down, there would be found there something
+to astonish humanity, geologists and all.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+After that point in the launching of a gold mine the rest
+is easy. Generous, warm-hearted men, interested in geology,
+were soon found. There was no stint of money. The great
+rock was torn sideways from its place, and from beneath
+it the crumbled, glittering rock-dust that sparkled in
+the sun was sent in little boxes to the testing laboratories
+of Plutoria University. There the senior professor of
+geology had sat up with it far into the night in a darkened
+laboratory, with little blue flames playing underneath
+crucibles, as in a magician's cavern, and with the door
+locked. And as each sample that he tested was set aside
+and tied in a cardboard box by itself, he labelled it
+"aur. p. 75," and the pen shook in his hand as he marked
+it. For to professors of geology those symbols mean "this
+is seventy-five per cent pure gold." So it was no wonder
+that the senior professor of geology working far into
+the night among the blue flames shook with excitement;
+not, of course, for the gold's sake as money (he had no
+time to think of that), but because if this thing was
+true it meant that an auriferous vein had been found in
+what was Devonian rock of the post-tertiary stratification,
+and if that was so it upset enough geology to spoil a
+textbook. It would mean that the professor could read a
+paper at the next Pan-Geological Conference that would
+turn the whole assembly into a bedlam.
+
+It pleased him, too, to know that the men he was dealing
+with were generous. They had asked him to name his own
+price or the tests that he made and when he had said two
+dollars per sample they had told him to go right ahead.
+The professor was not, I suppose, a mercenary man, but
+it pleased him to think that he could, clean up sixteen
+dollars in a single evening in his laboratory. It showed,
+at any rate, that businessmen put science at its proper
+value. Strangest of all was the fact that the men had
+told him that even this ore was apparently nothing to
+what there was; it had all come out of one single spot
+in the creek, not the hundredth part of the whole claim.
+Lower down, where they had thrown the big dam across to
+make the bed dry, they were taking out this same stuff
+and even better, so they said, in cartloads. The hydraulic
+dredges were tearing it from the bed of the creek all
+day, and at night a great circuit of arc lights gleamed
+and sputtered over the roaring labour of the friends of
+geological research.
+
+Thus had the Erie Auriferous Consolidated broken in a
+tidal wave over financial circles. On the Stock Exchange,
+in the downtown offices, and among the palm trees of the
+Mausoleum Club they talked of nothing else. And so great
+was the power of the wave that it washed Tomlinson and
+his wife along on the crest of it, and landed them fifty
+feet up in their thousand-dollar suite in the Grand
+Palaver. And as a result of it "mother" wore a beetle-back
+jacket; and Tomlinson received a hundred telegrams a day,
+and Fred quit school and ate chocolates.
+
+But in the business world the most amazing thing about
+it was the wonderful shrewdness of Tomlinson.
+
+The first sign of it had been that he had utterly refused
+to allow the Erie Auriferous Consolidated (as the friends
+of geology called themselves) to take over the top half
+of the Tomlinson farm. For the bottom part he let them
+give him one-half of the preferred stock in the company
+in return for their supply of development capital. This
+was their own proposition; in fact, they reckoned that
+in doing this they were trading about two hundred thousand
+dollars' worth of machinery for, say ten million dollars
+of gold. But it frightened them when Tomlinson said "Yes"
+to the offer, and when he said that as to common stock
+they might keep it, it was no use to him, they were
+alarmed and uneasy till they made him take a block of it
+for the sake of market confidence.
+
+But the top end of the farm he refused to surrender, and
+the friends of applied geology knew that there must be
+something pretty large behind this refusal; the more so
+as the reason that Tomlinson gave was such a simple one.
+He said that he didn't want to part with the top end of
+the place because his father was buried on it beside the
+creek, and so he didn't want the dam higher up, not for
+any consideration.
+
+This was regarded in business circles as a piece of great
+shrewdness. "Says his father is buried there, eh? Devilish
+shrewd that!"
+
+It was so long since any of the members of the Exchange
+or the Mausoleum Club had wandered into such places as
+Cahoga County that they did not know that there was
+nothing strange in what Tomlinson said. His father was
+buried there, on the farm itself, in a grave overgrown
+with raspberry bushes, and with a wooden headstone
+encompassed by a square of cedar rails, and slept as many
+another pioneer of Cahoga is sleeping.
+
+"Devilish smart idea!" they said; and forthwith half the
+financial men of the city buried their fathers, or
+professed to have done so, in likely places--along the
+prospective right-of-way of a suburban railway, for
+example; in fact, in any place that marked them out for
+the joyous resurrection of an expropriation purchase.
+
+Thus the astounding shrewdness of Tomlinson rapidly became
+a legend, the more so as he turned everything he touched
+to gold.
+
+They narrated little stories of him in the whiskey-and-soda
+corners of the Mausoleum Club.
+
+"I put it to him in a casual way," related, for example,
+Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, "casually, but quite frankly. I said,
+'See here, this is just a bagatelle to you, no doubt,
+but to me it might be of some use. T. C. bonds,' I said,
+'have risen twenty-two and a half in a week. You know as
+well as I do that they are only collateral trust, and
+that the stock underneath never could and never can earn
+a par dividend. Now,' I said, 'Mr. Tomlinson, tell me what
+all that means?' Would you believe it, the fellow looked
+me right in the face in that queer way he has and he
+said, 'I don't know!'"
+
+"He said he didn't know!" repeated the listener, in a
+tone of amazement and respect. "By Jove! eh? he said he
+didn't know! The man's a wizard!"
+
+"And he looked as if he didn't!" went on Mr. Fyshe.
+"That's the deuce of it. That man when he wants to can
+put on a look, sir, that simply means nothing, absolutely
+nothing."
+
+In this way Tomlinson had earned his name of the Wizard
+of American Finance.
+
+And meantime Tomlinson and his wife, within their suite
+at the Grand Palaver, had long since reached their
+decision. For there was one aspect and only one in which
+Tomlinson was really and truly a wizard. He saw clearly
+that for himself and his wife the vast fortune that had
+fallen to them was of no manner of use. What did it bring
+them? The noise and roar of the City in place of the
+silence of the farm and the racket of the great rotunda
+to drown the remembered murmur of the waters of the creek.
+
+So Tomlinson had decided to rid himself of his new wealth,
+save only such as might be needed to make his son a
+different kind of man from himself.
+
+"For Fred, of course," he said, "it's different. But out
+of such a lot as that it'll be easy to keep enough for
+him. It'll be a grand thing for Fred, this money. He
+won't have to grow up like you and me. He'll have
+opportunities we never got." He was getting them already.
+The opportunity to wear seven dollar patent leather shoes
+and a bell-shaped overcoat with a silk collar, to lounge
+into moving-picture shows and eat chocolates and smoke
+cigarettes--all these opportunities he was gathering
+immediately. Presently, when he learned his way round a
+little, he would get still bigger ones.
+
+"He's improving fast," said mother. She was thinking of
+his patent leather shoes.
+
+"He's popular," said his father. "I notice it downstairs.
+He sasses any of them just as he likes; and no matter
+how busy they are, as soon as they see it's Fred they're
+all ready to have a laugh with him."
+
+Certainly they were, as any hotel clerk with plastered
+hair is ready to laugh with the son of a multimillionaire.
+It's a certain sense of humour that they develop.
+
+"But for us, mother," said the Wizard, "we'll be rid of
+it. The gold is there. It's not right to keep it back.
+But we'll just find a way to pass it on to folks that
+need it worse than we do."
+
+For a time they had thought of giving away the fortune.
+But how? Who did they know that would take it?
+
+It had crossed their minds--for who could live in the
+City a month without observing the imposing buildings of
+Plutoria University, as fine as any departmental store
+in town?--that they might give it to the college.
+
+But there, it seemed, the way was blocked.
+
+"You see, mother," said the puzzled Wizard, "we're not
+known. We're strangers. I'd look fine going up there to
+the college and saying, 'I want to give you people a
+million dollars.' They'd laugh at me!"
+
+"But don't one read it in the papers," his wife had
+protested, "where Mr. Carnegie gives ever so much to the
+colleges, more than all we've got, and they take it?"
+
+"That's different," said the Wizard. "He's in with them.
+They all know him. Why, he's a sort of chairman of
+different boards of colleges, and he knows all the heads
+of the schools, and the professors, so it's no wonder
+that if he offers to give a pension, or anything, they
+take it. Just think of me going up to one of the professors
+up there in the middle of his teaching and saying; 'I'd
+like to give you a pension for life!' Imagine it! Think
+what he'd say!"
+
+But the Tomlinsons couldn't imagine it, which was just
+as well.
+
+So it came about that they had embarked on their system.
+Mother, who knew most arithmetic, was the leading spirit.
+She tracked out all the stocks and bonds in the front
+page of the _Financial Undertone_, and on her recommendation
+the Wizard bought. They knew the stocks only by their
+letters, but this itself gave a touch of high finance to
+their deliberations.
+
+"I'd buy some of this R.O.P. if I was you," said mother;
+"it's gone down from 127 to 107 in two days, and I reckon
+it'll be all gone in ten days or so."
+
+"Wouldn't 'G.G. deb.' be better? It goes down quicker."
+
+"Well, it's a quick one," she assented, "but it don't go
+down so steady. You can't rely on it. You take ones like
+R.O.P. and T.R.R. pfd.; they go down all the time and
+you know where you are."
+
+As a result of which, Tomlinson would send his instructions.
+He did it all from the rotunda in a way of his own that
+he had evolved with a telegraph clerk who told him the
+names of brokers, and he dealt thus through brokers whom
+he never saw. As a result of this, the sluggish R.O.P.
+and T.R.R. would take as sudden a leap into the air as
+might a mule with a galvanic shock applied to its tail.
+At once the word was whispered that the "Tomlinson
+interests" were after the R.O.P. to reorganize it, and
+the whole floor of the Exchange scrambled for the stock.
+
+And so it was that after a month or two of these operations
+the Wizard of Finance saw himself beaten.
+
+"It's no good, mother," he repeated, "it's just a kind
+of Destiny."
+
+Destiny perhaps it was.
+
+But, if the Wizard of Finance had known it, at this very
+moment when he sat with the Aladdin's palace of his golden
+fortune reared so strangely about him, Destiny was
+preparing for him still stranger things.
+
+Destiny, so it would seem, was devising Its own ways and
+means of dealing with Tomlinson's fortune. As one of the
+ways and means, Destiny was sending at this moment as
+its special emissaries two huge, portly figures, wearing
+gigantic goloshes, and striding downwards from the halls
+of Plutoria University to the Grand Palaver Hotel. And
+one of these was the gigantic Dr. Boomer, the president
+of the college, and the other was his professor of Greek,
+almost as gigantic as himself. And they carried in their
+capacious pockets bundles of pamphlets on "Archaeological
+Remains of Mitylene," and the "Use of the Greek Pluperfect,"
+and little treatises such as "Education and Philanthropy,"
+by Dr. Boomer, and "The Excavation of Mitylene: An
+Estimate of Cost," by Dr. Boyster, "Boomer on the Foundation
+and Maintenance of Chairs," etc.
+
+Many a man in city finance who had seen Dr. Boomer enter
+his office with a bundle of these monographs and a fighting
+glitter in his eyes had sunk back in his chair in dismay.
+For it meant that Dr. Boomer had tracked him out for a
+benefaction to the University, and that all resistance
+was hopeless.
+
+When Dr. Boomer once laid upon a capitalist's desk his
+famous pamphlet on the "Use of the Greek Pluperfect," it
+was as if an Arabian sultan had sent the fatal bow-string
+to a condemned pasha, or Morgan the buccaneer had served
+the death-sign on a shuddering pirate.
+
+So they came nearer and nearer, shouldering the passers-by.
+The sound of them as they talked was like the roaring of
+the sea as Homer heard it. Never did Castor and Pollux
+come surging into battle as Dr. Boomer and Dr. Boyster
+bore down upon the Grand Palaver Hotel.
+
+Tomlinson, the Wizard of Finance, had hesitated about
+going to the university. The university was coming to
+him. As for those millions of his, he could take his
+choice--dormitories, apparatus, campuses, buildings,
+endowment, anything he liked but choose he must. And if
+he feared that, after all, his fortune was too vast even
+for such a disposal, Dr. Boomer would show him how he
+might use it in digging up ancient Mitylene, or modern
+Smyrna, or the lost cities of the Plain of Pactolus. If
+the size of the fortune troubled him, Dr. Boomer would
+dig him up the whole African Sahara from Alexandria to
+Morocco, and ask for more.
+
+But if Destiny held all this for Tomlinson in its
+outstretched palm before it, it concealed stranger things
+still beneath the folds of its toga.
+
+There were enough surprises there to turn the faces of
+the whole directorate of the Erie Auriferous Consolidated
+as yellow as the gold they mined.
+
+For at this very moment, while the president of Plutoria
+University drew nearer and nearer to the Grand Palaver
+Hotel, the senior professor of geology was working again
+beside the blue flames in his darkened laboratory. And
+this time there was no shaking excitement over him. Nor
+were the labels that he marked, as sample followed sample
+in the tests, the same as those of the previous marking.
+Not by any means.
+
+And his grave face as he worked in silence was as still
+as the stones of the post-tertiary period.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE: The Arrested Philanthropy of Mr. Tomlinson
+
+"This, Mr. Tomlinson, is our campus," said President
+Boomer as they passed through the iron gates of Plutoria
+University.
+
+"For camping?" said the Wizard.
+
+"Not exactly," answered the president, "though it would,
+of course, suit for that. _Nihil humunum alienum_, eh?"
+and he broke into a loud, explosive laugh, while his
+spectacles irradiated that peculiar form of glee derived
+from a Latin quotation by those able to enjoy it. Dr.
+Boyster, walking on the other side of Mr. Tomlinson,
+joined in the laugh in a deep, reverberating chorus.
+
+The two had the Wizard of Finance between them, and they
+were marching him up to the University. He was taken
+along much as is an arrested man who has promised to go
+quietly. They kept their hands off him, but they watched
+him sideways through their spectacles. At the least sign
+of restlessness they doused him with Latin. The Wizard
+of Finance, having been marked out by Dr. Boomer and Dr.
+Boyster as a prospective benefactor, was having Latin
+poured over him to reduce him to the proper degree of
+plasticity.
+
+They had already put him through the first stage. They
+had, three days ago, called on him at the Grand Palaver
+and served him with a pamphlet on "The Excavation of
+Mitylene" as a sort of writ. Tomlinson and his wife had
+looked at the pictures of the ruins, and from the appearance
+of them they judged that Mitylene was in Mexico, and they
+said that it was a shame to see it in that state and that
+the United States ought to intervene.
+
+As the second stage on the path of philanthropy, the
+Wizard of Finance was now being taken to look at the
+university. Dr. Boomer knew by experience that no rich
+man could look at it without wanting to give it money.
+
+And here the president had found that there is no better
+method of dealing with businessmen than to use Latin on
+them. For other purposes the president used other things.
+For example at a friendly dinner at the Mausoleum Club
+where light conversation was in order, Dr. Boomer chatted,
+as has been seen, on the archaeological remains of the
+Navajos. In the same way, at Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's Dante
+luncheons, he generally talked of the Italian _cinquecentisti_
+and whether Gian Gobbo della Scala had left a greater
+name than Can Grande della Spiggiola. But such talk as
+that was naturally only for women. Businessmen are much
+too shrewd for that kind of thing; in fact, so shrewd
+are they, as President Boomer had long since discovered,
+that nothing pleases them so much as the quiet, firm
+assumption that they know Latin. It is like writing them
+up an asset. So it was that Dr. Boomer would greet a
+business acquaintance with a roaring salutation of,
+"_Terque quaterque beatus_," or stand wringing his hand
+off to the tune of "_Oh et presidium et dulce decus meum_."
+
+This caught them every time.
+
+"You don't," said Tomlinson the Wizard in a hesitating
+tone as he looked at the smooth grass of the campus, "I
+suppose, raise anything on it?"
+
+"No, no; this is only for field sports," said the president;
+"_sunt quos curriculo_--"
+
+To which Dr. Boyster on the other side added, like a
+chorus, "_pulverem Olympicum_."
+
+This was their favourite quotation. It always gave
+President Boomer a chance to speak of the final letter
+"m" in Latin poetry, and to say that in his opinion the
+so-called elision of the final "m" was more properly a
+dropping of the vowel with a repercussion of the two last
+consonants. He supported this by quoting Ammianus, at
+which Dr. Boyster exclaimed, "Pooh! Ammianus: more dog
+Latin!" and appealed to Mr. Tomlinson as to whether any
+rational man nowadays cared what Ammianus thought?
+
+To all of which Tomlinson answered never a word, but
+looked steadily first at one and then at the other. Dr.
+Boomer said afterwards that the penetration of Tomlinson
+was wonderful, and that it was excellent to see how
+Boyster tried in vain to draw him; and Boyster said
+afterwards that the way in which Tomlinson quietly refused
+to be led on by Boomer was delicious, and that it was a
+pity that Aristophanes was not there to do it justice.
+
+All of which was happening as they went in at the iron
+gates and up the elm avenue of Plutoria University.
+
+The university, as everyone knows, stands with its great
+gates on Plutoria Avenue, and with its largest buildings,
+those of the faculties of industrial and mechanical
+science, fronting full upon the street.
+
+These buildings are exceptionally fine, standing fifteen
+stories high and comparing favourably with the best
+departmental stores or factories in the City. Indeed,
+after nightfall, when they are all lighted up for the
+evening technical classes and when their testing machinery
+is in full swing and there are students going in and out
+in overall suits, people have often mistaken the university,
+or this newer part of it, for a factory. A foreign visitor
+once said that the students looked like plumbers, and
+President Boomer was so proud of it that he put the phrase
+into his next Commencement address; and from there the
+newspapers got it and the Associated Press took it up
+and sent it all over the United States with the heading,
+"Have Appearance of Plumbers; Plutoria University
+Congratulated on Character of Students," and it was a
+proud day indeed for the heads of the Industrial Science
+faculty.
+
+But the older part of the university stands so quietly
+and modestly at the top end of the elm avenue, so hidden
+by the leaves of it, that no one could mistake it for a
+factory. This, indeed, was once the whole university,
+and had stood there since colonial days under the name
+Concordia College. It had been filled with generations
+of presidents and professors of the older type with long
+white beards and rusty black clothes, and salaries of
+fifteen hundred dollars.
+
+But the change both of name and of character from Concordia
+College to Plutoria University was the work of President
+Boomer. He had changed it from an old-fashioned college
+of the by-gone type to a university in the true modern
+sense. At Plutoria they now taught everything. Concordia
+College, for example, had no teaching of religion except
+lectures on the Bible. Now they had lectures also on
+Confucianism, Mohammedanism Buddhism, with an optional
+course on atheism for students in the final year.
+
+And, of course, they had long since admitted women, and
+there were now beautiful creatures with Cleo de Merode
+hair studying astronomy at oaken desks and looking up at
+the teacher with eyes like comets. The university taught
+everything and did everything. It had whirling machines
+on the top of it that measured the speed of the wind,
+and deep in its basements it measured earthquakes with
+a seismograph; it held classes on forestry and dentistry
+and palmistry; it sent life classes into the slums, and
+death classes to the city morgue. It offered such a vast
+variety of themes, topics and subjects to the students,
+that there was nothing that a student was compelled to
+learn, while from its own presses in its own press-building
+it sent out a shower of bulletins and monographs like
+driven snow from a rotary plough.
+
+In fact, it had become, as President Boomer told all the
+businessmen in town, not merely a university, but a
+_universitas_ in the true sense, and every one of its
+faculties was now a _facultas_ in the real acceptance of
+the word, and its studies properly and truly _studia_;
+indeed, if the businessmen would only build a few more
+dormitories and put up enough money to form an adequate
+_fondatum_ or _fundum_, then the good work might be looked
+upon as complete.
+
+As the three walked up the elm avenue there met them a
+little stream of students with college books, and female
+students with winged-victory hats, and professors with
+last year's overcoats. And some went past with a smile
+and others with a shiver.
+
+"That's Professor Withers," said the president in a
+sympathetic voice as one of the shivering figures went
+past; "poor Withers," and he sighed.
+
+"What's wrong with him?" said the Wizard; "is he sick?"
+
+"No, not sick," said the president quietly and sadly,
+"merely inefficient."
+
+"Inefficient?"
+
+"Unfortunately so. Mind you, I don't mean 'inefficient'
+in every sense. By no means. If anyone were to come to
+me and say, 'Boomer, can you put your hand for me on a
+first-class botanist?' I'd say, 'Take Withers.' I'd say
+it in a minute." This was true. He would have. In fact,
+if anyone had made this kind of rash speech, Dr. Boomer
+would have given away half the professoriate.
+
+"Well, what's wrong with him?" repeated Tomlinson, "I
+suppose he ain't quite up to the mark in some ways, eh?"
+
+"Precisely," said the president, "not quite up to the
+mark--a very happy way of putting it. _Capax imperii nisi
+imperasset_, as no doubt you are thinking to yourself.
+The fact is that Withers, though an excellent fellow,
+can't manage large classes. With small classes he is all
+right, but with large classes the man is lost. He can't
+handle them."
+
+"He can't, eh?" said the Wizard.
+
+"No. But what can I do? There he is. I can't dismiss him.
+I can't pension him. I've no money for it."
+
+Here the president slackened a little in his walk and
+looked sideways at the prospective benefactor. But
+Tomlinson gave no sign.
+
+A second professorial figure passed them on the other
+side.
+
+"There again," said the president, "that's another case
+of inefficiency--Professor Shottat, our senior professor
+of English."
+
+"What's wrong with _him_?" asked the Wizard.
+
+"He can't handle _small_ classes," said the president.
+"With large classes he is really excellent, but with
+small ones the man is simply hopeless."
+
+In this fashion, before Mr. Tomlinson had measured the
+length of the avenue, he had had ample opportunity to
+judge of the crying need of money at Plutoria University,
+and of the perplexity of its president. He was shown
+professors who could handle the first year, but were
+powerless with the second; others who were all right with
+the second but broke down with the third, while others
+could handle the third but collapsed with the fourth.
+There were professors who were all right in their own
+subject, but perfectly impossible outside of it; others
+who were so occupied outside of their own subject that
+they were useless inside of it; others who knew their
+subject, but couldn't lecture; and others again who
+lectured admirably, but didn't know their subject.
+
+In short it was clear--as it was meant to be--that the
+need of the moment was a sum of money sufficient to enable
+the president to dismiss everybody but himself and Dr.
+Boyster. The latter stood in a class all by himself. He
+had known the president for forty-five years, ever since
+he was a fat little boy with spectacles in a classical
+academy, stuffing himself on irregular Greek verbs as
+readily as if on oysters.
+
+But it soon appeared that the need for dismissing the
+professors was only part of the trouble. There were the
+buildings to consider.
+
+"This, I am ashamed to say," said Dr. Boomer, as they
+passed the imitation Greek portico of the old Concordia
+College building, "is our original home, the _fons et
+origo_ of our studies, our faculty of arts."
+
+It was indeed a dilapidated building, yet there was a
+certain majesty about it, too, especially when one
+reflected that it had been standing there looking much
+the same at the time when its students had trooped off
+in a flock to join the army of the Potomac, and much the
+same, indeed, three generations before that, when the
+classes were closed and the students clapped three-cornered
+hats on their heads and were off to enlist as minute men
+with flintlock muskets under General Washington.
+
+But Dr. Boomer's one idea was to knock the building down
+and to build on its site a real _facultas_ ten storeys
+high, with elevators in it.
+
+Tomlinson looked about him humbly as he stood in the main
+hall. The atmosphere of the place awed him. There were
+bulletins and time-tables and notices stuck on the walls
+that gave evidence of the activity of the place. "Professor
+Slithers will be unable to meet his classes today," ran
+one of them, and another "Professor Withers will not meet
+his classes this week," and another, "Owing to illness,
+Professor Shottat will not lecture this month," while
+still another announced, "Owing to the indisposition of
+Professor Podge, all botanical classes are suspended,
+but Professor Podge hopes to be able to join in the
+Botanical Picnic Excursion to Loon Lake on Saturday
+afternoon." You could judge of the grinding routine of
+the work from the nature of these notices. Anyone familiar
+with the work of colleges would not heed it, but it
+shocked Tomlinson to think how often the professors of
+the college were stricken down by overwork.
+
+Here and there in the hall, set into niches, were bronze
+busts of men with Roman faces and bare necks, and the
+edge of a toga cast over each shoulder.
+
+"Who would these be?" asked Tomlinson, pointing at them.
+"Some of the chief founders and benefactors of the
+faculty," answered the president, and at this the hopes
+of Tomlinson sank in his heart. For he realized the class
+of man one had to belong to in order to be accepted as
+a university benefactor.
+
+"A splendid group of men, are they not?" said the president.
+"We owe them much. This is the late Mr. Hogworth, a man
+of singularly large heart." Here he pointed to a bronze
+figure wearing a wreath of laurel and inscribed GULIEMUS
+HOGWORTH, LITT. DOC. "He had made a great fortune in the
+produce business and wishing to mark his gratitude to
+the community he erected the anemometer, the wind-measure,
+on the roof of the building, attaching to it no other
+condition than that his name should be printed in the
+weekly reports immediately beside the velocity of the
+wind. The figure beside him is the late Mr. Underbugg,
+who founded our lectures on the Four Gospels on the sole
+stipulation that henceforth any reference of ours to the
+four gospels should be coupled with his name."
+
+"What's that after his name?" asked Tomlinson.
+
+"Litt. Doc.?" said the president. "Doctor of Letters,
+our honorary degree. We are always happy to grant it to
+our benefactors by a vote of the faculty."
+
+Here Dr. Boomer and Dr. Boyster wheeled half round and
+looked quietly and steadily at the Wizard of Finance. To
+both their minds it was perfectly plain that an honourable
+bargain was being struck.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Tomlinson," said the president, as they emerged
+from the building, "no doubt you begin to realize our
+unhappy position. Money, money, money," he repeated
+half-musingly. "If I had the money I'd have that whole
+building down and dismantled in a fortnight."
+
+From the central building the three passed to the museum
+building, where Tomlinson was shown a vast skeleton of
+a Diplodocus Maximus, and was specially warned not to
+confuse it with the Dinosaurus Perfectus, whose bones,
+however, could be bought if anyone, any man of large
+heart; would come to the university and say straight out,
+"Gentlemen, what can I do for you?" Better still, it
+appeared the whole museum which was hopelessly antiquated,
+being twenty-five years old, could be entirely knocked
+down if a sufficient sum was forthcoming; and its curator,
+who was as ancient as the Dinosaurus itself, could be
+dismissed on half-pay if any man had a heart large enough
+for the dismissal.
+
+From the museum they passed to the library, where there
+were full-length portraits of more founders and benefactors
+in long red robes, holding scrolls of paper, and others
+sitting holding pens and writing on parchment, with a
+Greek temple and a thunderstorm in the background.
+
+And here again it appeared that the crying need of the
+moment was for someone to come to the university and say,
+"Gentlemen, what can I do for you?" On which the whole
+library, for it was twenty years old and out of date,
+might be blown up with dynamite and carted away.
+
+But at all this the hopes of Tomlinson sank lower and
+lower. The red robes and the scrolls were too much for
+him.
+
+From the library they passed to the tall buildings that
+housed the faculty of industrial and mechanical science.
+And here again the same pitiful lack of money was everywhere
+apparent. For example, in the physical science department
+there was a mass of apparatus for which the university
+was unable to afford suitable premises, and in the
+chemical department there were vast premises for which
+the university was unable to buy apparatus, and so on.
+Indeed it was part of Dr. Boomer's method to get himself
+endowed first with premises too big for the apparatus,
+and then by appealing to public spirit to call for enough
+apparatus to more than fill the premises, by means of
+which system industrial science at Plutoria University
+advanced with increasing and gigantic strides.
+
+But most of all, the electric department interested the
+Wizard of Finance. And this time his voice lost its
+hesitating tone and he looked straight at Dr. Boomer as
+he began,
+
+"I have a boy--"
+
+"Ah!" said Dr. Boomer, with a huge ejaculation of surprise
+and relief; "you have a boy!"
+
+There were volumes in his tone. What it meant was, "Now,
+indeed, we have got you where we want you," and he
+exchanged a meaning look with the professor of Greek.
+
+Within five minutes the president and Tomlinson and Dr.
+Boyster were gravely discussing on what terms and in what
+way Fred might be admitted to study in the faculty of
+industrial science. The president, on learning that Fred
+had put in four years in Cahoga County Section No. 3
+School, and had been head of his class in ciphering,
+nodded his head gravely and said it would simply be a
+matter of a _pro tanto_; that, in fact, he felt sure that
+Fred might be admitted _ad eundem_. But the real condition
+on which they meant to admit him was, of course, not
+mentioned.
+
+One door only in the faculty of industrial and mechanical
+science they did not pass, a heavy oak door at the end
+of a corridor bearing the painted inscription: Geological
+and Metallurgical Laboratories. Stuck in the door was a
+card with the words (they were conceived in the courteous
+phrases of mechanical science, which is almost a branch
+of business in the real sense): Busy--keep out.
+
+Dr. Boomer looked at the card. "Ah, yes," he said. "Gildas
+is no doubt busy with his tests. We won't disturb him."
+The president was always proud to find a professor busy;
+it looked well.
+
+But if Dr. Boomer had known what was going on behind the
+oaken door of the Department of Geology and Metallurgy,
+he would have felt considerably disturbed himself.
+
+For here again Gildas, senior professor of geology, was
+working among his blue flames at a final test on which
+depended the fate of the Erie Auriferous Consolidated
+and all connected with it.
+
+Before him there were some twenty or thirty packets of
+crumpled dust and splintered ore that glittered on the
+testing-table. It had been taken up from the creek along
+its whole length, at even spaces twenty yards apart, by
+an expert sent down in haste by the directorate, after
+Gildas's second report, and heavily bribed to keep his
+mouth shut.
+
+And as Professor Gildas stood and worked at the samples
+and tied them up after analysis in little white cardboard
+boxes, he marked each one very carefully and neatly with
+the words, PYRITES: WORTHLESS.
+
+Beside the professor worked a young demonstrator of last
+year's graduation class. It was he, in fact, who had
+written the polite notice on the card.
+
+"What is the stuff, anyway?" he asked.
+
+"A sulphuret of iron," said the professor, "or iron
+pyrites. In colour and appearance it is practically
+identical with gold. Indeed, in all ages," he went on,
+dropping at once into the classroom tone and adopting
+the professional habit of jumping backwards twenty
+centuries in order to explain anything properly, "it has
+been readily mistaken for the precious metal. The ancients
+called it 'fool's gold.' Martin Frobisher brought back
+four shiploads of it from Baffin Land thinking that he
+had discovered an Eldorado. There are large deposits of
+it in the mines of Cornwall, and it is just possible,"
+here the professor measured his words as if speaking of
+something that he wouldn't promise, "that the Cassiterides
+of the Phoenicians contained deposits of the same sulphuret.
+Indeed, I defy anyone," he continued, for he was piqued
+in his scientific pride, "to distinguish it from gold
+without a laboratory-test. In large quantities, I concede,
+its lack of weight would betray it to a trained hand.
+but without testing its solubility in nitric acid, or
+the fact of its burning with a blue flame under the
+blow-pipe, it cannot be detected. In short, when
+crystallized in dodecahedrons--"
+
+"Is it any good?" broke in the demonstrator.
+
+"Good?" said the professor. "Oh, you mean commercially?
+Not in the slightest. Much less valuable than, let us
+say, ordinary mud or clay. In fact, it is absolutely good
+for nothing."
+
+They were silent for a moment, watching the blue flames
+above the brazier.
+
+Then Gildas spoke again. "Oddly enough," he said, "the
+first set of samples were undoubtedly pure gold--not the
+faintest doubt of that. That is the really interesting
+part of the matter. These gentlemen concerned in the
+enterprise will, of course, lose their money, and I shall
+therefore decline to accept the very handsome fee which
+they had offered me for my services. But the main feature,
+the real point of interest in this matter remains. Here
+we have undoubtedly a sporadic deposit--what miners call
+a pocket--of pure gold in a Devonian formation of the
+post-tertiary period. This once established, we must
+revise our entire theory of the distribution of igneous
+and aqueous rocks. In fact, I am already getting notes
+together for a paper for the Pan-Geological under the
+heading, Auriferous Excretions in the Devonian Strata:
+a Working Hypothesis. I hope to read it at the next
+meeting."
+
+The young demonstrator looked at the professor with one
+eye half-closed.
+
+"I don't think I would if I were you." he said.
+
+Now this young demonstrator knew nothing or practically
+nothing, of geology, because he came of one of the richest
+and best families in town and didn't need to. But he was
+a smart young man, dressed in the latest fashion with
+brown boots and a crosswise tie, and he knew more about
+money and business and the stock exchange in five minutes
+than Professor Gildas in his whole existence.
+
+"Why not?" said the professor.
+
+"Why, don't you see what's happened?"
+
+"Eh?" said Gildas.
+
+"What happened to those first samples? When that bunch
+got interested and planned to float the company? Don't
+you see? Somebody salted them on you."
+
+"_Salted_ them on me?" repeated the professor, mystified.
+
+"Yes, salted them. Somebody got wise to what they were
+and swopped them on you for the real thing, so as to get
+your certified report that the stuff was gold."
+
+"I begin to see," muttered the professor. "Somebody
+exchanged the samples, some person no doubt desirous of
+establishing the theory that a sporadic outcropping of
+the sort might be found in a post-tertiary formation. I
+see, I see. No doubt he intended to prepare a paper on
+it, and prove his thesis by these tests. I see it all!"
+
+The demonstrator looked at the professor with a sort of
+pity.
+
+"You're on!" he said, and he laughed softly to himself.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"Well," said Dr. Boomer, after Tomlinson had left the
+university, "what do you make of him?" The president had
+taken Dr. Boyster over to his house beside the campus,
+and there in his study had given him a cigar as big as
+a rope and taken another himself. This was a sign that
+Dr. Boomer wanted Dr. Boyster's opinion in plain English,
+without any Latin about it.
+
+"Remarkable man," said the professor of Greek; "wonderful
+penetration, and a man of very few words. Of course his
+game is clear enough?"
+
+"Entirely so," asserted Dr. Boomer.
+
+"It's clear enough that he means to give the money on
+two conditions."
+
+"Exactly," said the president.
+
+"First that we admit his son, who is quite unqualified,
+to the senior studies in electrical science, and second
+that we grant him the degree of Doctor of Letters. Those
+are his terms." "Can we meet them?"
+
+"Oh, certainly. As to the son, there is no difficulty,
+of course; as to the degree, it's only a question of
+getting the faculty to vote it. I think we can manage
+it."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Vote it they did that very afternoon. True, if the members
+of the faculty had known the things that were being
+whispered, and more than whispered, in the City about
+Tomlinson and his fortune, no degree would ever have been
+conferred on him. But it so happened that at that moment
+the whole professoriate was absorbed in one of those
+great educational crises which from time to time shake
+a university to its base. The meeting of the faculty that
+day bid fair to lose all vestige of decorum in the
+excitement of the moment. For, as Dean Elderberry Foible,
+the head of the faculty, said, the motion that they had
+before them amounted practically to a revolution. The
+proposal was nothing less than the permission of the use
+of lead-pencils instead of pen and ink in the sessional
+examinations of the university. Anyone conversant with
+the inner life of a college will realize that to many of
+the professoriate this was nothing less than a last wild
+onslaught of socialistic democracy against the solid
+bulwarks of society. They must fight it back or die on
+the walls. To others it was one more step in the splendid
+progress of democratic education, comparable only to such
+epoch-making things as the abandonment of the cap and
+gown, and the omission of the word "sir" in speaking to
+a professor.
+
+No wonder that the fight raged. Elderberry Foible, his
+fluffed white hair almost on end, beat in vain with his
+gavel for order. Finally, Chang of Physiology, who was
+a perfect dynamo of energy and was known frequently to
+work for three or four hours at a stretch, proposed that
+the faculty should adjourn the question and meet for its
+further discussion on the following Saturday morning.
+This revolutionary suggestion, involving work on Saturday,
+reduced the meeting to a mere turmoil, in the midst of
+which Elderberry Foible proposed that the whole question
+of the use of lead-pencils should be adjourned till that
+day six months, and that meantime a new special committee
+of seventeen professors, with power to add to their
+number, to call witnesses and, if need be, to hear them,
+should report on the entire matter _de novo_. This motion,
+after the striking out of the words _de novo_ and the
+insertion of _ab initio_, was finally carried, after which
+the faculty sank back completely exhausted into its chair,
+the need of afternoon tea and toast stamped on every
+face.
+
+And it was at this moment that President Boomer, who
+understood faculties as few men have done, quietly entered
+the room, laid his silk hat on a volume of Demosthenes,
+and proposed the vote of a degree of Doctor of Letters
+for Edward Tomlinson. He said that there was no need to
+remind the faculty of Tomlinson's services to the nation;
+they knew them. Of the members of the faculty, indeed,
+some thought that he meant the Tomlinson who wrote the
+famous monologue on the Iota Subscript, while others
+supposed that he referred to the celebrated philosopher
+Tomlinson, whose new book on the Indivisibility of the
+Inseparable was just then maddening the entire world. In
+any case, they voted the degree without a word, still
+faint with exhaustion.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+But while the university was conferring on Tomlinson the
+degree of Doctor of Letters, all over the City in business
+circles they were conferring on him far other titles.
+"Idiot," "Scoundrel," "Swindler," were the least of them.
+Every stock and share with which his name was known to
+be connected was coming down with a run, wiping out the
+accumulated profits of the Wizard at the rate of a thousand
+dollars a minute.
+
+They not only questioned his honesty, but they went
+further and questioned his business capacity.
+
+"The man," said Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, sitting in the
+Mausoleum Club and breathing freely at last after having
+disposed of all his holdings in the Erie Auriferous, "is
+an ignoramus. I asked him only the other day, quite
+casually, a perfectly simple business question. I said
+to him. 'T.C. Bonds have risen twenty-two and a half in
+a week. You know and I know that they are only collateral
+trust, and that the stock underneath never could and
+never would earn a par dividend. Now,' I said, for I
+wanted to test the fellow, 'tell me what that means?'
+Would you believe me, he looked me right in the face in
+that stupid way of his, and he said, 'I don't know!'"
+
+"He said he didn't know!" repeated the listener
+contemptuously; "the man is a damn fool!"
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+The reason of all this was that the results of the
+researches of the professor of geology were being whispered
+among the directorate of the Erie Auriferous. And the
+directors and chief shareholders were busily performing
+the interesting process called unloading. Nor did ever
+a farmer of Cahoga County in haying time with a thunderstorm
+threatening, unload with greater rapidity than did the
+major shareholders of the Auriferous. Mr. Lucullus Fyshe
+traded off a quarter of his stock to an unwary member of
+the Mausoleum Club at a drop of thirty per cent, and
+being too prudent to hold the rest on any terms, he
+conveyed it at once as a benefaction in trust to the
+Plutorian Orphans' and Foundlings' Home; while the
+purchaser of Mr. Fyshe's stock, learning too late of his
+folly, rushed for his lawyers to have the shares conveyed
+as a gift to the Home for Incurables.
+
+Mr. Asmodeus Boulder transferred his entire holdings to
+the Imbeciles' Relief Society, and Mr. Furlong, senior,
+passed his over to a Chinese mission as fast as pen could
+traverse paper.
+
+Down at the office of Skinyer and Beatem, the lawyers of
+the company, they were working overtime drawing up deeds
+and conveyances and trusts in perpetuity, with hardly
+time to put them into typewriting. Within twenty-four
+hours the entire stock of the company bid fair to be in
+the hands of Idiots, Orphans, Protestants, Foundlings,
+Imbeciles, Missionaries, Chinese, and other unfinancial
+people, with Tomlinson the Wizard of Finance as the senior
+shareholder and majority control. And whether the gentle
+Wizard, as he sat with mother planning his vast benefaction
+to Plutoria University, would have felt more at home with
+his new group of fellow-shareholders than his old, it
+were hard to say.
+
+But, meantime, at the office of Skinyer and Beatem all
+was activity. For not only were they drafting the
+conveyances of the perpetual trusts as fast as legal
+brains working overtime could do it, but in another part
+of the office a section of the firm were busily making
+their preparations against the expected actions for fraud
+and warrants of distraint and injunctions against disposal
+of assets and the whole battery of artillery which might
+open on them at any moment. And they worked like a corps
+of military engineers fortifying an escarpment, with the
+joy of battle in their faces.
+
+The storm might break at any moment. Already at the office
+of the _Financial Undertone_ the type was set for a special
+extra with a heading three inches high:
+
+             COLLAPSE
+     OF THE ERIE CONSOLIDATED
+    ARREST OF THE MAN TOMLINSON
+       EXPECTED THIS AFTERNOON
+
+Skinyer and Beatem had paid the editor, who was crooked,
+two thousand dollars cash to hold back that extra for
+twenty-four hours; and the editor had paid the reporting
+staff, who were crooked, twenty-five dollars each to keep
+the news quiet, and the compositors, who were also crooked,
+ten dollars per man to hold their mouths shut till the
+morning, with the result that from editors and sub-editors
+and reporters and compositors the news went seething
+forth in a flood that the Erie Auriferous Consolidated
+was going to shatter into fragments like the bursting of
+a dynamite bomb. It rushed with a thousand whispering
+tongues from street to street till it filled the corridors
+of the law courts and the lobbies of the offices, and
+till every honest man that held a share of the stock
+shivered in his tracks and reached out to give, sell, or
+destroy it. Only the unwinking Idiots, and the mild
+Orphans, and the calm Deaf mutes and the impassive Chinese
+held tight to what they had. So gathered the storm, till
+all the town, like the great rotunda of the Grand Palaver,
+was filled with a silent "call for Mr. Tomlinson,"
+voiceless and ominous.
+
+And while all this was happening, and while at Skinyer
+and Beatem's they worked with frantic pens and clattering
+type there came a knock at the door, hesitant and uncertain,
+and before the eyes of the astounded office there stood
+in his wide-awake hat and long black coat the figure of
+"the man Tomlinson" himself.
+
+And Skinyer, the senior partner, no sooner heard what
+Tomlinson wanted than he dashed across the outer office
+to his partner's room with his hyena face all excitement
+as he said:
+
+"Beatem, Beatem, come over to my room. This man is
+absolutely the biggest thing in America. For sheer calmness
+and nerve I never heard of anything to approach him. What
+do you think he wants to do?"
+
+"What?" said Beatem.
+
+"Why, he's giving his entire fortune to the university."
+
+"By Gad!" ejaculated Beatem, and the two lawyers looked
+at one another, lost in admiration of the marvellous
+genius and assurance of Tomlinson.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Yet what had happened was very simple.
+
+Tomlinson had come back from the university filled with
+mingled hope and hesitation. The university, he saw,
+needed the money and he hoped to give it his entire
+fortune, to put Dr. Boomer in a position to practically
+destroy the whole place. But, like many a modest man, he
+lacked the assurance to speak out. He felt that up to
+the present the benefactors of the university had been
+men of an entirely different class from himself. It was
+mother who solved the situation for him.
+
+"Well, father," she said, "there's one thing I've learned
+already since we've had money. If you want to get a thing
+done you can always find people to do it for you if you
+pay them. Why not go to those lawyers that manage things
+for the company and get them to arrange it all for you
+with the college?"
+
+As a result, Tomlinson had turned up at the door of the
+Skinyer and Beatem office.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"Quite so, Mr. Tomlinson," said Skinyer, with his pen
+already dipped in the ink, "a perfectly simple matter.
+I can draw up a draft of conveyance with a few strokes
+of the pen. In fact, we can do it on the spot."
+
+What he meant was, "In fact, we can do it so fast that
+I can pocket a fee of five hundred dollars right here
+and now while you have the money to pay me."
+
+"Now then," he continued, "let us see how it is to run."
+
+"Well," said Tomlinson, "I want you to put it that I give
+all my stock in the company to the university."
+
+"All of it?" said Skinyer, with a quiet smile to Beatem.
+
+"Every cent of it, sir," said Tomlinson; "just write down
+that I give all of it to the college."
+
+"Very good," said Skinyer, and he began to write, "I,
+so-and-so, and so-and-so, of the county of so-and-so--
+Cahoga, I think you said, Mr. Tomlinson?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the Wizard, "I was raised there."
+
+"--do hereby give, assign, devise, transfer, and the
+transfer is hereby given, devised and assigned, all those
+stocks, shares, hereditaments, etc., which I hold in the
+etc., etc., all, several and whatever--you will observe,
+Mr. Tomlinson, I am expressing myself with as great
+brevity as possible--to that institution, academy, college,
+school, university, now known and reputed to be Plutoria
+University, of the city of etc., etc."
+
+He paused a moment. "Now what special objects or purposes
+shall I indicate?" he asked.
+
+Whereupon Tomlinson explained as best he could, and
+Skinyer, working with great rapidity, indicated that the
+benefaction was to include a Demolition Fund for the
+removal of buildings, a Retirement Fund for the removal
+of professors, an Apparatus Fund for the destruction of
+apparatus, and a General Sinking Fund for the obliteration
+of anything not otherwise mentioned.
+
+"And I'd like to do something, if I could, for Mr. Boomer
+himself, just as man to man," said Tomlinson.
+
+"All right," said Beatem, and he could hardly keep his
+face straight. "Give him a chunk of the stock--give him
+half a million."
+
+"I will," said Tomlinson; "he deserves it."
+
+"Undoubtedly," said Mr. Skinyer.
+
+And within a few minutes the whole transaction was done,
+and Tomlinson, filled with joy, was wringing the hands
+of Skinyer and Beatem, and telling them to name their
+own fee.
+
+They had meant to, anyway.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"Is that legal, do you suppose?" said Beatem to Skinyer,
+after the Wizard had gone. "Will it hold water?"
+
+"Oh, I don't think so," said Skinyer, "not for a minute.
+In fact, rather the other way. If they make an arrest
+for fraudulent flotation, this conveyance, I should think,
+would help to send him to the penitentiary. But I very
+much doubt if they can arrest him. Mind you, the fellow
+is devilish shrewd. You know, and I know that he planned
+this whole flotation with a full knowledge of the fraud.
+_You_ and _I_ know it--very good--but we know it more from
+our trained instinct in such things than by any proof.
+The fellow has managed to surround himself with such an
+air of good faith from start to finish that it will be
+deuced hard to get at him."
+
+"What will he do now?" said Beatem.
+
+"I tell you what he'll do. Mark my words. Within twenty-four
+hours he'll clear out and be out of the state, and if
+they want to get him they'll have to extradite. I tell
+you he's a man of extraordinary capacity. The rest of us
+are nowhere beside him."
+
+In which, perhaps, there was some truth.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"Well, mother," said the Wizard, when he reached the
+thousand-dollar suite, after his interview with Skinyer
+and Beatem, his face irradiated with simple joy, "it's
+done. I've put the college now in a position it never
+was in before, nor any other college; the lawyers say so
+themselves."
+
+"That's good," said mother.
+
+"Yes, and it's a good thing I didn't lose the money when
+I tried to. You see, mother, what I hadn't realized was
+the good that could be done with all that money if a man
+put his heart into it. They can start in as soon as they
+like and tear down those buildings. My! but it's just
+wonderful what you can do with money. I'm glad I didn't
+lose it!"
+
+So they talked far into the evening. That night they
+slept in an Aladdin's palace filled with golden fancies.
+
+And in the morning the palace and all its visions fell
+tumbling about their heads in sudden and awful catastrophe.
+For with Tomlinson's first descent to the rotunda it
+broke. The whole great space seemed filled with the
+bulletins and the broadside sheets of the morning papers,
+the crowd surging to and fro buying the papers, men
+reading them as they stood, and everywhere in great
+letters there met his eye:
+
+            COLLAPSE
+      OF THE ERIE AURIFEROUS
+
+     THE GREAT GOLD SWINDLE
+
+   ARREST OF THE MAN TOMLINSON
+      EXPECTED THIS MORNING
+
+So stood the Wizard of Finance beside a pillar, the paper
+fluttering in his hand, his eyes fixed, while about him
+a thousand eager eyes and rushing tongues sent shame into
+his stricken heart.
+
+And there his boy Fred, sent from upstairs, found him;
+and at the sight of the seething crowd and his father's
+stricken face, aged as it seemed all in a moment, the
+boy's soul woke within him. What had happened he could
+not tell, only that his father stood there, dazed, beaten,
+and staring at him on every side in giant letters:
+
+     ARREST OF THE MAN TOMLINSON
+
+"Come, father come upstairs," he said, and took him by
+the arm, dragging him through the crowd.
+
+In the next half-hour as they sat and waited for the
+arrest in the false grandeur of the thousand-dollar
+suite-Tomlinson, his wife, and Fred-the boy learnt more
+than all the teaching of the industrial faculty of Plutoria
+University could have taught him in a decade. Adversity
+laid its hand upon him, and at its touch his adolescent
+heart turned to finer stuff than the salted gold of the
+Erie Auriferous. As he looked upon his father's broken
+figure waiting meekly for arrest, and his mother's
+blubbered face, a great wrath burned itself into his
+soul.
+
+"When the sheriff comes--" said Tomlinson, and his lip
+trembled as he spoke. He had no other picture of arrest
+than that.
+
+"They can't arrest you, father," broke out the boy.
+"You've done nothing. You never swindled them. I tell
+you, if they try to arrest you, I'll--" and his voice
+broke and stopped upon a sob, and his hands clenched in
+passion.
+
+"You stay here, you and mother. I'll go down. Give me
+your money and I'll go and pay them and we'll get out of
+this and go home. They can't stop us; there's nothing to
+arrest you for."
+
+Nor was there. Fred paid the bill unmolested, save for
+the prying eyes and babbling tongues of the rotunda.
+
+And a few hours from that, while the town was still
+ringing with news of his downfall, the Wizard with his
+wife and son walked down from their thousand-dollar suite
+into the corridor, their hands burdened with their
+satchels. A waiter, with something between a sneer and
+an obsequious smile upon his face, reached out for the
+valises, wondering if it was still worth while.
+
+"You get to hell out of that!" said Fred. He had put on
+again his rough store suit in which he had come from
+Cahoga County, and there was a dangerous look about his
+big shoulders and his set jaw. And the waiter slunk back.
+
+So did they pass, unarrested and unhindered, through
+corridor and rotunda to the outer portals of the great
+hotel.
+
+Beside the door of the Palaver as they passed out was a
+tall official with a uniform and a round hat. He was
+called by the authorities a _chasseur_ or a _commissionaire_,
+or some foreign name to mean that he did nothing.
+
+At the sight of him the Wizard's face flushed for a
+moment, with a look of his old perplexity.
+
+"I wonder," he began to murmur, "how much I ought--"
+
+"Not a damn cent, father," said Fred, as he shouldered
+past the magnificent _chasseur_; "let him work."
+
+With which admirable doctrine the Wizard and his son
+passed from the portals of the Grand Palaver.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Nor was there any arrest either then or later. In spite
+of the expectations of the rotunda and the announcements
+of the _Financial Undertone_, the "man Tomlinson" was _not_
+arrested, neither as he left the Grand Palaver nor as he
+stood waiting at the railroad station with Fred and mother
+for the outgoing train for Cahoga County.
+
+There was nothing to arrest him for. That was not the
+least strange part of the career of the Wizard of Finance.
+For when all the affairs of the Erie Auriferous Consolidated
+were presently calculated up by the labours of Skinyer
+and Beatem and the legal representatives of the Orphans
+and the Idiots and the Deaf-mutes they resolved themselves
+into the most beautiful and complete cipher conceivable.
+The salted gold about paid for the cost of the incorporation
+certificate: the development capital had disappeared,
+and those who lost most preferred to say the least about
+it; and as for Tomlinson, if one added up his gains on
+the stock market before the fall and subtracted his bill
+at the Grand Palaver and the thousand dollars which he
+gave to Skinyer and Beatem to recover his freehold on
+the lower half of his farm, and the cost of three tickets
+to Cahoga station, the debit and credit account balanced
+to a hair.
+
+Thus did the whole fortune of Tomlinson vanish in a night,
+even as the golden palace seen in the mirage of a desert
+sunset may fade before the eyes of the beholder, and
+leave no trace behind.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+It was some months after the collapse of the Erie Auriferous
+that the university conferred upon Tomlinson the degree
+of Doctor of Letters _in absentia_. A university must keep
+its word, and Dean Elderberry Foible, who was honesty
+itself, had stubbornly maintained that a vote of the
+faculty of arts once taken and written in the minute book
+became as irrefragable as the Devonian rock itself.
+
+So the degree was conferred. And Dean Elderberry Foible,
+standing in a long red gown before Dr. Boomer, seated in
+a long blue gown, read out after the ancient custom of
+the college the Latin statement of the award of the degree
+of Doctor of Letters, "Eduardus Tomlinsonius, vir
+clarrisimus, doctissimus, praestissimus," and a great
+many other things all ending in _issimus_.
+
+But the recipient was not there to receive. He stood at
+that moment with his boy Fred on a windy hillside beside
+Lake Erie, where Tomlinson's Creek ran again untrammelled
+to the lake. Nor was the scene altered to the eye, for
+Tomlinson and his son had long since broken a hole in
+the dam with pickaxe and crowbar, and day by day the
+angry water carried down the vestiges of the embankment
+till all were gone. The cedar poles of the electric lights
+had been cut into fence-rails; the wooden shanties of
+the Italian gang of Auriferous workers had been torn down
+and split into fire wood; and where they had stood, the
+burdocks and the thistles of the luxuriant summer conspired
+to hide the traces of their shame. Nature reached out
+its hand and drew its coverlet of green over the grave
+of the vanished Eldorado.
+
+And as the Wizard and his son stood upon the hillside,
+they saw nothing but the land sloping to the lake and
+the creek murmuring again to the willows, while the
+off-shore wind rippled the rushes of the shallow water.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR: The Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown
+
+Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown lived on Plutoria Avenue in a vast
+sandstone palace, in which she held those fashionable
+entertainments which have made the name of Rasselyer-Brown
+what it is. Mr. Rasselyer-Brown lived there also.
+
+The exterior of the house was more or less a model of
+the facade of an Italian palazzo of the sixteenth century.
+If one questioned Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown at dinner in regard
+to this (which was only a fair return for drinking five
+dollar champagne), she answered that the facade was
+_cinquecentisti_, but that it reproduced also the Saracenic
+mullioned window of the Siennese School. But if the guest
+said later in the evening to Mr. Rasselyer-Brown that he
+understood that his house was _cinquecentisti_, he answered
+that he guessed it was. After which remark and an interval
+of silence, Mr. Rasselyer-Brown would probably ask the
+guest if he was dry.
+
+So from that one can tell exactly the sort of people the
+Rasselyer-Browns were.
+
+In other words, Mr. Rasselyer-Brown was a severe handicap
+to Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. He was more than that; the word
+isn't strong enough. He was, as Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown
+herself confessed to her confidential circle of three
+hundred friends, a drag. He was also a tie, and a weight,
+and a burden, and in Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's religious
+moments a crucifix. Even in the early years of their
+married life, some twenty or twenty-five years ago, her
+husband had been a drag on her by being in the coal and
+wood business. It is hard for a woman to have to realize
+that her husband is making a fortune out of coal and wood
+and that people know it. It ties one down. What a woman
+wants most of all--this, of course, is merely a quotation
+from Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's own thoughts as expressed to
+her three hundred friends--is room to expand, to grow.
+The hardest thing in the world is to be stifled: and
+there is nothing more stifling than a husband who doesn't
+know a Giotto from a Carlo Dolci, but who can distinguish
+nut coal from egg and is never asked to dinner without
+talking about the furnace.
+
+These, of course, were early trials. They had passed to
+some extent, or were, at any rate, garlanded with the
+roses of time.
+
+But the drag remained.
+
+Even when the retail coal and wood stage was long since
+over, it was hard to have to put up with a husband who
+owned a coal mine and who bought pulp forests instead of
+illuminated missals of the twelfth century. A coal mine
+is a dreadful thing at a dinner-table. It humbles one so
+before one's guests.
+
+It wouldn't have been so bad--this Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown
+herself admitted--if Mr. Rasselyer-Brown _did_ anything.
+This phrase should be clearly understood. It meant if
+there was any one thing that he _did_. For instance if he
+had only _collected_ anything. Thus, there was Mr. Lucullus
+Fyshe, who made soda-water, but at the same time everybody
+knew that he had the best collection of broken Italian
+furniture on the continent; there wasn't a sound piece
+among the lot.
+
+And there was the similar example of old Mr. Feathertop.
+He didn't exactly _collect_ things; he repudiated the name.
+He was wont to say, "Don't call me a collector, I'm _not_.
+I simply pick things up. Just where I happen to be, Rome,
+Warsaw, Bucharest, anywhere"--and it is to be noted what
+fine places these are to happen to be. And to think that
+Mr. Rasselyer-Brown would never put his foot outside of
+the United States! Whereas Mr. Feathertop would come back
+from what he called a run to Europe, and everybody would
+learn in a week that he had picked up the back of a violin
+in Dresden (actually discovered it in a violin shop),
+and the lid of an Etruscan kettle (he had lighted on it,
+by pure chance, in a kettle shop in Etruria), and Mrs.
+Rasselyer-Brown would feel faint with despair at the
+nonentity of her husband.
+
+So one can understand how heavy her burden was.
+
+"My dear," she often said to her bosom friend, Miss Snagg,
+"I shouldn't mind things so much" (the things she wouldn't
+mind were, let us say, the two million dollars of standing
+timber which Brown Limited, the ominous business name of
+Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, were buying that year) "if Mr.
+Rasselyer-Brown _did_ anything. But he does _nothing_. Every
+morning after breakfast off to his wretched office, and
+never back till dinner, and in the evening nothing but
+his club, or some business meeting. One would think he
+would have more ambition. How I wish I had been a man."
+
+It was certainly a shame.
+
+So it came that, in almost everything she undertook Mrs.
+Rasselyer-Brown had to act without the least help from
+her husband. Every Wednesday, for instance, when the
+Dante Club met at her house (they selected four lines
+each week to meditate on, and then discussed them at
+lunch), Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown had to carry the whole
+burden of it--her very phrase, "the whole burden"--alone.
+Anyone who has carried four lines of Dante through a
+Moselle lunch knows what a weight it is.
+
+In all these things her husband was useless, quite useless.
+It is not right to be ashamed of one's husband. And to
+do her justice, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown always explained to
+her three hundred intimates that she was _not_ ashamed of
+him; in fact, that she _refused_ to be. But it was hard to
+see him brought into comparison at their own table with
+superior men. Put him, for instance, beside Mr. Sikleigh
+Snoop, the sex-poet, and where was he? Nowhere. He couldn't
+even understand what Mr. Snoop was saying. And when Mr.
+Snoop would stand on the hearth-rug with a cup of tea
+balanced in his hand, and discuss whether sex was or was
+not the dominant note in Botticelli, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown
+would be skulking in a corner in his ill-fitting dress
+suit. His wife would often catch with an agonized ear
+such scraps of talk as, "When I was first in the coal
+and wood business," or, "It's a coal that burns quicker
+than egg, but it hasn't the heating power of nut," or
+even in a low undertone the words, "If you're feeling
+_dry_ while he's reading--" And this at a time when everybody
+in the room ought to have been listening to Mr. Snoop.
+
+Nor was even this the whole burden of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown.
+There was another part of it which was perhaps more _real_,
+though Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown herself never put it into
+words. In fact, of this part of her burden she never
+spoke, even to her bosom friend Miss Snagg; nor did she
+talk about it to the ladies of the Dante Club, nor did
+she make speeches on it to the members of the Women's
+Afternoon Art Society, nor to the Monday Bridge Club.
+
+But the members of the Bridge Club and the Art Society
+and the Dante Club all talked about it among themselves.
+
+Stated very simply, it was this: Mr. Rasselyer-Brown
+drank. It was not meant that he was a drunkard or that
+he drank too much, or anything of that sort. He drank.
+That was all.
+
+There was no excess about it. Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, of
+course, began the day with an eye-opener--and after all,
+what alert man does not wish his eyes well open in the
+morning? He followed it usually just before breakfast
+with a bracer--and what wiser precaution can a businessman
+take than to brace his breakfast? On his way to business
+he generally had his motor stopped at the Grand Palaver
+for a moment, if it was a raw day, and dropped in and
+took something to keep out the damp. If it was a cold
+day he took something to keep out the cold, and if it
+was one of those clear, sunny days that are so dangerous
+to the system he took whatever the bartender (a recognized
+health expert) suggested to tone the system up. After
+which he could sit down in his office and transact more
+business, and bigger business, in coal, charcoal, wood,
+pulp, pulpwood, and woodpulp, in two hours than any other
+man in the business could in a week. Naturally so. For
+he was braced, and propped, and toned up, and his eyes
+had been opened, and his brain cleared, till outside of
+very big business, indeed, few men were on a footing with
+him.
+
+In fact, it was business itself which had compelled Mr.
+Rasselyer-Brown to drink. It is all very well for a junior
+clerk on twenty dollars a week to do his work on sandwiches
+and malted milk. In big business it is not possible. When
+a man begins to rise in business, as Mr. Rasselyer-Brown
+had begun twenty-five years ago, he finds that if he
+wants to succeed he must cut malted milk clear out. In
+any position of responsibility a man has got to drink.
+No really big deal can be put through without it. If two
+keen men, sharp as flint, get together to make a deal in
+which each intends to outdo the other, the only way to
+succeed is for them to adjourn to some such place as the
+luncheon-room of the Mausoleum Club and both get partially
+drunk. This is what is called the personal element in
+business. And, beside it, plodding industry is nowhere.
+
+Most of all do these principles hold true in such manly
+out-of-door enterprises as the forest and timber business,
+where one deals constantly with chief rangers, and
+pathfinders, and wood-stalkers, whose very names seem to
+suggest a horn of whiskey under a hemlock tree.
+
+But--let it be repeated and carefully understood--there
+was no excess about Mr. Rasselyer-Brown's drinking.
+Indeed, whatever he might be compelled to take during
+the day, and at the Mausoleum Club in the evening, after
+his return from his club at night Mr. Rasselyer-Brown
+made it a fixed rule to take nothing. He might, perhaps,
+as he passed into the house, step into the dining-room
+and take a very small drink at the sideboard. But this
+he counted as part of the return itself, and not after
+it. And he might, if his brain were over-fatigued, drop
+down later in the night in his pajamas and dressing-gown
+when the house was quiet, and compose his mind with a
+brandy and water, or something suitable to the stillness
+of the hour. But this was not really a drink. Mr.
+Rasselyer-Brown called it a _nip_; and of course any man
+may need a _nip_ at a time when he would scorn a drink.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+But after all, a woman may find herself again in her
+daughter. There, at least, is consolation. For, as Mrs.
+Rasselyer-Brown herself admitted, her daughter, Dulphemia,
+was herself again. There were, of course, differences,
+certain differences of face and appearance. Mr. Snoop
+had expressed this fact exquisitely when he said that it
+was the difference between a Burne-Jones and a Dante
+Gabriel Rossetti. But even at that the mother and daughter
+were so alike that people, certain people, were constantly
+mistaking them on the street. And as everybody that
+mistook them was apt to be asked to dine on five-dollar
+champagne there was plenty of temptation towards error.
+
+There is no doubt that Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown was a
+girl of remarkable character and intellect. So is any
+girl who has beautiful golden hair parted in thick bands
+on her forehead, and deep blue eyes soft as an Italian
+sky.
+
+Even the oldest and most serious men in town admitted
+that in talking to her they were aware of a grasp, a
+reach, a depth that surprised them. Thus old Judge
+Longerstill, who talked to her at dinner for an hour on
+the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission,
+felt sure from the way in which she looked up in his face
+at intervals and said, "How interesting!" that she had
+the mind of a lawyer. And Mr. Brace, the consulting
+engineer, who showed her on the table-cloth at dessert
+with three forks and a spoon the method in which the
+overflow of the spillway of the Gatun Dam is regulated,
+felt assured, from the way she leaned her face on her
+hand sideways and said, "How extraordinary!" that she
+had the brain of an engineer. Similarly foreign visitors
+to the social circles of the city were delighted with
+her. Viscount FitzThistle, who explained to Dulphemia
+for half an hour the intricacies of the Irish situation,
+was captivated at the quick grasp she showed by asking
+him at the end, without a second's hesitation, "And which
+are the Nationalists?"
+
+This kind of thing represents female intellect in its
+best form. Every man that is really a man is willing to
+recognize it at once. As to the young men, of course
+they flocked to the Rasselyer-Brown residence in shoals.
+There were batches of them every Sunday afternoon at five
+o'clock, encased in long black frock-coats, sitting very
+rigidly in upright chairs, trying to drink tea with one
+hand. One might see athletic young college men of the
+football team trying hard to talk about Italian music;
+and Italian tenors from the Grand Opera doing their best
+to talk about college football. There were young men in
+business talking about art, and young men in art talking
+about religion, and young clergymen talking about business.
+Because, of course, the Rasselyer-Brown residence was
+the kind of cultivated home where people of education
+and taste are at liberty to talk about things they don't
+know, and to utter freely ideas that they haven't got.
+It was only now and again, when one of the professors
+from the college across the avenue came booming into the
+room, that the whole conversation was pulverized into
+dust under the hammer of accurate knowledge.
+
+The whole process was what was called, by those who
+understood such things, a _salon_. Many people said that
+Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's afternoons at home were exactly
+like the delightful _salons_ of the eighteenth century:
+and whether the gatherings were or were not _salons_ of
+the eighteenth century, there is no doubt that Mr.
+Rasselyer-Brown, under whose care certain favoured guests
+dropped quietly into the back alcove of the dining-room,
+did his best to put the gathering on a par with the best
+saloons of the twentieth.
+
+Now it so happened that there had come a singularly slack
+moment in the social life of the City. The Grand Opera
+had sung itself into a huge deficit and closed. There
+remained nothing of it except the efforts of a committee
+of ladies to raise enough money to enable Signor Puffi
+to leave town, and the generous attempt of another
+committee to gather funds in order to keep Signor Pasti
+in the City. Beyond this, opera was dead, though the fact
+that the deficit was nearly twice as large as it had been
+the year before showed that public interest in music was
+increasing. It was indeed a singularly trying time of
+the year. It was too early to go to Europe; and too late
+to go to Bermuda. It was too warm to go south, and yet
+still too cold to go north. In fact, one was almost
+compelled to stay at home--which was dreadful.
+
+As a result Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown and her three hundred
+friends moved backwards and forwards on Plutoria Avenue,
+seeking novelty in vain. They washed in waves of silk
+from tango teas to bridge afternoons. They poured in
+liquid avalanches of colour into crowded receptions, and
+they sat in glittering rows and listened to lectures on
+the enfranchisement of the female sex. But for the moment
+all was weariness.
+
+Now it happened, whether by accident or design, that just
+at this moment of general _ennui_ Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown and
+her three hundred friends first heard of the presence in
+the city of Mr. Yahi-Bahi, the celebrated Oriental mystic.
+He was so celebrated that nobody even thought of asking
+who he was or where he came from. They merely told one
+another, and repeated it, that he was _the_ celebrated
+Yahi-Bahi. They added for those who needed the knowledge
+that the name was pronounced Yahhy-Bahhy, and that the
+doctrine taught by Mr. Yahi-Bahi was Boohooism. This
+latter, if anyone inquired further, was explained to be
+a form of Shoodooism, only rather more intense. In fact,
+it was esoteric--on receipt of which information everybody
+remarked at once how infinitely superior the Oriental
+peoples are to ourselves.
+
+Now as Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown was always a leader in
+everything that was done in the best circles on Plutoria
+Avenue, she was naturally among the first to visit Mr.
+Yahi-Bahi.
+
+"My dear," she said, in describing afterwards her experience
+to her bosom friend, Miss Snagg, "it was _most_ interesting.
+We drove away down to the queerest part of the City, and
+went to the strangest little house imaginable, up the
+narrowest stairs one ever saw--quite Eastern, in fact,
+just like a scene out of the Koran."
+
+"How fascinating!" said Miss Snagg. But as a matter of
+fact, if Mr. Yahi-Bahi's house had been inhabited, as it
+might have been, by a streetcar conductor or a railway
+brakesman, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown wouldn't have thought it
+in any way peculiar or fascinating.
+
+"It was all hung with curtains inside," she went on,
+"with figures of snakes and Indian gods, perfectly weird."
+
+"And did you see Mr. Yahi-Bahi?" asked Miss Snagg.
+
+"Oh no, my dear. I only saw his assistant Mr. Ram Spudd;
+such a queer little round man, a Bengalee, I believe. He
+put his back against a curtain and spread out his arms
+sideways and wouldn't let me pass. He said that Mr.
+Yahi-Bahi was in meditation and mustn't be disturbed."
+
+"How delightful!" echoed Miss Snagg.
+
+But in reality Mr. Yahi-Bahi was sitting behind the
+curtain eating a ten-cent can of pork and beans.
+
+"What I like most about eastern people," went on Mrs.
+Rasselyer-Brown, "is their wonderful delicacy of feeling.
+After I had explained about my invitation to Mr. Yahi-Bahi
+to come and speak to us on Boohooism, and was going away,
+I took a dollar bill out of my purse and laid it on the
+table. You should have seen the way Mr. Ram Spudd took
+it. He made the deepest salaam and said, 'Isis guard you,
+beautiful lady.' Such perfect courtesy, and yet with the
+air of scorning the money. As I passed out I couldn't
+help slipping another dollar into his hand, and he took
+it as if utterly unaware of it, and muttered, 'Osiris
+keep you, O flower of women!' And as I got into the motor
+I gave him another dollar and he said, 'Osis and Osiris
+both prolong your existence, O lily of the ricefield,'
+and after he had said it he stood beside the door of the
+motor and waited without moving till I left. He had such
+a strange, rapt look, as if he were still expecting
+something!"
+
+"How exquisite!" murmured Miss Snagg. It was her business
+in life to murmur such things as this for Mrs.
+Rasselyer-Brown. On the whole, reckoning Grand Opera
+tickets and dinners, she did very well out of it.
+
+"Is it not?" said Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. "So different
+from our men. I felt so ashamed of my chauffeur, our new
+man, you know; he seemed such a contrast beside Ram Spudd.
+The rude way in which the opened the door, and the rude
+way in which he climbed on to his own seat, and the
+_rudeness_ with which he turned on the power--I felt
+positively ashamed. And he so managed it--I am sure he
+did it on purpose--that the car splashed a lot of mud
+over Mr. Spudd as it started."
+
+Yet, oddly enough, the opinion of other people on this
+new chauffeur, that of Miss Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown
+herself, for example, to whose service he was specially
+attached, was very different.
+
+The great recommendation of him in the eyes of Miss
+Dulphemia and her friends, and the thing that gave him
+a touch of mystery was--and what higher qualification
+can a chauffeur want?--that he didn't look like a chauffeur
+at all.
+
+"My dear Dulphie," whispered Miss Philippa Furlong, the
+rector's sister (who was at that moment Dulphemia's second
+self), as they sat behind the new chauffeur, "don't tell
+me that he is a chauffeur, because he _isn't_. He can
+chauffe, of course, but that's nothing."
+
+For the new chauffeur had a bronzed face, hard as metal,
+and a stern eye; and when he put on a chauffeur's overcoat
+some how it seemed to turn into a military greatcoat;
+and even when he put on the round cloth cap of his
+profession it was converted straightway into a military
+shako. And by Miss Dulphemia and her friends it was
+presently reported--or was invented?--that he had served
+in the Philippines; which explained at once the scar upon
+his forehead, which must have been received at Iloilo,
+or Huila-Huila, or some other suitable place.
+
+But what affected Miss Dulphemia Brown herself was the
+splendid rudeness of the chauffeur's manner. It was so
+different from that of the young men of the _salon_. Thus,
+when Mr. Sikleigh Snoop handed her into the car at any
+time he would dance about saying, "Allow me," and "Permit
+me," and would dive forward to arrange the robes. But
+the Philippine chauffeur merely swung the door open and
+said to Dulphemia, "Get in," and then slammed it.
+
+This, of course, sent a thrill up the spine and through
+the imagination of Miss Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown, because
+it showed that the chauffeur was a gentleman in disguise.
+She thought it very probable that he was a British
+nobleman, a younger son, very wild, of a ducal family;
+and she had her own theories as to why he had entered
+the service of the Rasselyer-Browns. To be quite candid
+about it, she expected that the Philippine chauffeur
+meant to elope with her, and every time he drove her from
+a dinner or a dance she sat back luxuriously, wishing
+and expecting the elopement to begin.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+But for the time being the interest of Dulphemia, as of
+everybody else that was anybody at all, centred round
+Mr. Yahi-Bahi and the new cult of Boohooism.
+
+After the visit of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown a great number
+of ladies, also in motors, drove down to the house of
+Mr. Yahi-Bahi. And all of them, whether they saw Mr.
+Yahi-Bahi himself or his Bengalee assistant, Mr. Ram
+Spudd, came back delighted.
+
+"Such exquisite tact!" said one. "Such delicacy! As I
+was about to go I laid a five dollar gold piece on the
+edge of the little table. Mr. Spudd scarcely seemed to
+see it. He murmured, 'Osiris help you!' and pointed to
+the ceiling. I raised my eyes instinctively, and when I
+lowered them the money had disappeared. I think he must
+have caused it to vanish."
+
+"Oh, I'm sure he did," said the listener.
+
+Others came back with wonderful stories of Mr. Yahi-Bahi's
+occult powers, especially his marvellous gift of reading
+the future.
+
+Mrs. Buncomhearst, who had just lost her third husband--by
+divorce--had received from Mr. Yahi-Bahi a glimpse into
+the future that was almost uncanny in its exactness. She
+had asked for a divination, and Mr. Yahi-Bahi had effected
+one by causing her to lay six ten-dollar pieces on the
+table arranged in the form of a mystic serpent. Over
+these he had bent and peered deeply, as if seeking to
+unravel their meaning, and finally he had given her the
+prophecy, "Many things are yet to happen before others
+begin."
+
+"How _does_ he do it?" asked everybody.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+As a result of all this it naturally came about that Mr.
+Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram Spudd were invited to appear at
+the residence of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown; and it was understood
+that steps would be taken to form a special society, to
+be known as the Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society.
+
+Mr. Sikleigh Snoop, the sex-poet, was the leading spirit
+in the organization. He had a special fitness for the
+task: he had actually resided in India. In fact, he had
+spent six weeks there on a stop-over ticket of a
+round-the-world 635 dollar steamship pilgrimage; and he
+knew the whole country from Jehumbapore in Bhootal to
+Jehumbalabad in the Carnatic. So he was looked upon as
+a great authority on India, China, Mongolia, and all such
+places, by the ladies of Plutoria Avenue.
+
+Next in importance was Mrs. Buncomhearst, who became
+later, by a perfectly natural process, the president of
+the society. She was already president of the Daughters
+of the Revolution, a society confined exclusively to the
+descendants of Washington's officers and others; she was
+also president of the Sisters of England, an organization
+limited exclusively to women born in England and elsewhere;
+of the Daughters of Kossuth, made up solely of Hungarians
+and friends of Hungary and other nations; and of the
+Circle of Franz Joseph, which was composed exclusively
+of the partisans, and others, of Austria. In fact, ever
+since she had lost her third husband, Mrs. Buncomhearst
+had thrown herself--that was her phrase--into outside
+activities. Her one wish was, on her own statement, to
+lose herself. So very naturally Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown
+looked at once to Mrs. Buncomhearst to preside over the
+meetings of the new society.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+The large dining-room at the Rasselyer-Browns' had been
+cleared out as a sort of auditorium, and in it some fifty
+or sixty of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's more intimate friends
+had gathered. The whole meeting was composed of ladies,
+except for the presence of one or two men who represented
+special cases. There was, of course, little Mr. Spillikins,
+with his vacuous face and football hair, who was there,
+as everybody knew, on account of Dulphemia; and there
+was old Judge Longerstill, who sat leaning on a gold-headed
+stick with his head sideways, trying to hear some fraction
+of what was being said. He came to the gathering in the
+hope that it would prove a likely place for seconding a
+vote of thanks and saying a few words--half an hour's
+talk, perhaps--on the constitution of the United States.
+Failing that, he felt sure that at least someone would
+call him "this eminent old gentleman," and even that was
+better than staying at home.
+
+But for the most part the audience was composed of women,
+and they sat in a little buzz of conversation waiting
+for Mr. Yahi-Bahi.
+
+"I wonder," called Mrs. Buncomhearst from the chair, "if
+some lady would be good enough to write minutes? Miss
+Snagg, I wonder if you would be kind enough to write
+minutes? Could you?"
+
+"I shall be delighted," said Miss Snagg, "but I'm afraid
+there's hardly time to write them before we begin, is
+there?"
+
+"Oh, but it would be all right to write them _afterwards_,"
+chorussed several ladies who understood such things;
+"it's quite often done that way."
+
+"And I should like to move that we vote a constitution,"
+said a stout lady with a double eye-glass.
+
+"Is that carried?" said Mrs. Buncomhearst. "All those in
+favour please signify."
+
+Nobody stirred.
+
+"Carried," said the president. "And perhaps you would be
+good enough, Mrs. Fyshe," she said, turning towards the
+stout lady, "to _write_ the constitution."
+
+"Do you think it necessary to _write_ it?" said Mrs. Fyshe.
+"I should like to move, if I may, that I almost wonder
+whether it is necessary to write the constitution--unless,
+of course, anybody thinks that we really ought to."
+
+"Ladies," said the president, "you have heard the motion.
+All those against it--"
+
+There was no sign.
+
+"All those in favour of it--"
+
+There was still no sign.
+
+"Lost," she said.
+
+Then, looking across at the clock on the mantel-piece,
+and realizing that Mr. Yahi-Bahi must have been delayed
+and that something must be done, she said:
+
+"And now, ladies, as we have in our midst a most eminent
+gentleman who probably has thought more deeply about
+constitutions than--"
+
+All eyes turned at once towards Judge Longerstill, but
+as fortune had it at this very moment Mr. Sikleigh Snoop
+entered, followed by Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram Spudd.
+
+Mr. Yahi-Bahi was tall. His drooping Oriental costume
+made him taller still. He had a long brown face and liquid
+brown eyes of such depth that when he turned them full
+upon the ladies before him a shiver of interest and
+apprehension followed in the track of his glance.
+
+"My dear," said Miss Snagg afterwards, "he seemed simply
+to see right through us."
+
+This was correct. He did.
+
+Mr. Ram Spudd presented a contrast to his superior. He
+was short and round, with a dimpled mahogany face and
+eyes that twinkled in it like little puddles of molasses.
+His head was bound in a turban and his body was swathed
+in so many bands and sashes that he looked almost circular.
+The clothes of both Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Ram Spudd were
+covered with the mystic signs of Buddha and the seven
+serpents of Vishnu.
+
+It was impossible, of course, for Mr. Yahi-Bahi or Mr.
+Ram Spudd to address the audience. Their knowledge of
+English was known to be too slight for that. Their
+communications were expressed entirely through the medium
+of Mr. Snoop, and even he explained afterwards that it
+was very difficult. The only languages of India which he
+was able to speak, he said, with any fluency were Gargamic
+and Gumaic both of these being old Dravidian dialects
+with only two hundred and three words in each, and hence
+in themselves very difficult to converse in. Mr. Yahi-Bahi
+answered in what Mr. Snoop understood to be the Iramic
+of the Vedas, a very rich language, but one which
+unfortunately he did not understand. The dilemma is one
+familiar to all Oriental scholars.
+
+All of this Mr. Snoop explained in the opening speech
+which he proceeded to make. And after this he went on to
+disclose, amid deep interest, the general nature of the
+cult of Boohooism. He said that they could best understand
+it if he told them that its central doctrine was that of
+Bahee. Indeed, the first aim of all followers of the cult
+was to attain to Bahee. Anybody who could spend a certain
+number of hours each day, say sixteen, in silent meditation
+on Boohooism would find his mind gradually reaching a
+condition of Bahee. The chief aim of Bahee itself was
+sacrifice: a true follower of the cult must be willing
+to sacrifice his friends, or his relatives, and even
+strangers, in order to reach Bahee. In this way one was
+able fully to realize oneself and enter into the Higher
+Indifference. Beyond this, further meditation and
+fasting--by which was meant living solely on fish, fruit,
+wine, and meat--one presently attained to complete Swaraj
+or Control of Self, and might in time pass into the
+absolute Nirvana, or the Negation of Emptiness, the
+supreme goal of Boohooism.
+
+As a first step to all this, Mr. Snoop explained, each
+neophyte or candidate for holiness must, after searching
+his own heart, send ten dollars to Mr. Yahi-Bahi. Gold,
+it appeared, was recognized in the cult of Boohooism as
+typifying the three chief virtues, whereas silver or
+paper money did not; even national banknotes were only
+regarded as do or, a halfway palliation; and outside
+currencies such as Canadian or Mexican bills were looked
+upon as entirely boo, or contemptible. The Oriental view
+of money, said Mr. Snoop, was far superior to our own,
+but it also might be attained by deep thought, and, as
+a beginning, by sending ten dollars to Mr. Yahi-Bahi.
+
+After this Mr. Snoop, in conclusion, read a very beautiful
+Hindu poem, translating it as he went along. It began,
+"O cow, standing beside the Ganges, and apparently without
+visible occupation," and it was voted exquisite by all
+who heard it. The absence of rhyme and the entire removal
+of ideas marked it as far beyond anything reached as yet
+by Occidental culture.
+
+When Mr. Snoop had concluded, the president called upon
+Judge Longerstill for a few words of thanks, which he
+gave, followed by a brief talk on the constitution of
+the United States.
+
+After this the society was declared constituted, Mr.
+Yahi-Bahi made four salaams, one to each point of the
+compass, and the meeting dispersed.
+
+And that evening, over fifty dinner tables, everybody
+discussed the nature of Bahee, and tried in vain to
+explain it to men too stupid to understand.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Now it so happened that on the very afternoon of this
+meeting at Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's, the Philippine chauffeur
+did a strange and peculiar thing. He first asked Mr.
+Rasselyer-Brown for a few hours' leave of absence to
+attend the funeral of his mother in-law. This was a
+request which Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, on principle, never
+refused to a man-servant.
+
+Whereupon, the Philippine chauffeur, no longer attired
+as one, visited the residence of Mr. Yahi-Bahi. He let
+himself in with a marvellous little key which he produced
+from a very wonderful bunch of such. He was in the house
+for nearly half an hour, and when he emerged, the notebook
+in his breast pocket, had there been an eye to read it,
+would have been seen to be filled with stranger details
+in regard to Oriental mysticism than even Mr. Yahi-Bahi
+had given to the world. So strange were they that before
+the Philippine chauffeur returned to the Rasselyer-Brown
+residence he telegraphed certain and sundry parts of them
+to New York. But why he should have addressed them to
+the head of a detective bureau instead of to a college
+of Oriental research it passes the imagination to conceive.
+But as the chauffeur duly reappeared at motor-time in
+the evening the incident passed unnoticed.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+It is beyond the scope of the present narrative to trace
+the progress of Boohooism during the splendid but brief
+career of the Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society. There could be
+no doubt of its success. Its principles appealed with
+great strength to all the more cultivated among the ladies
+of Plutoria Avenue. There was something in the Oriental
+mysticism of its doctrines which rendered previous belief
+stale and puerile. The practice of the sacred rites began
+at once. The ladies' counters of the Plutorian banks were
+inundated with requests for ten-dollar pieces in exchange
+for banknotes. At dinner in the best houses nothing was
+eaten except a thin soup (or bru), followed by fish,
+succeeded by meat or by game, especially such birds as
+are particularly pleasing to Buddha, as the partridge,
+the pheasant, and the woodcock. After this, except for
+fruits and wine, the principle of Swaraj, or denial of
+self, was rigidly imposed. Special Oriental dinners of
+this sort were given, followed by listening to the reading
+of Oriental poetry, with closed eyes and with the mind
+as far as possible in a state of Stoj, or Negation of
+Thought.
+
+By this means the general doctrine of Boohooism spread
+rapidly. Indeed, a great many of the members of the
+society soon attained to a stage of Bahee, or the Higher
+Indifference, that it would have been hard to equal
+outside of Juggapore or Jumbumbabad. For example, when
+Mrs. Buncomhearst learned of the remarriage of her second
+husband--she had lost him three years before, owing to
+a difference of opinion on the emancipation of women--she
+showed the most complete Bahee possible. And when Miss
+Snagg learned that her brother in Venezuela had died--a
+very sudden death brought on by drinking rum for seventeen
+years--and had left her ten thousand dollars, the Bahee
+which she exhibited almost amounted to Nirvana.
+
+In fact, the very general dissemination of the Oriental
+idea became more and more noticeable with each week that
+passed. Some members attained to so complete a Bahee, or
+Higher Indifference, that they even ceased to attend the
+meetings of the society; others reached a Swaraj, or
+Control of Self, so great that they no longer read its
+pamphlets; while others again actually passed into Nirvana,
+to a Complete Negation of Self, so rapidly that they did
+not even pay their subscriptions.
+
+But features of this sort, of course, are familiar wherever
+a successful occult creed makes its way against the
+prejudices of the multitude.
+
+The really notable part of the whole experience was the
+marvellous demonstration of occult power which attended
+the final seance of the society, the true nature of which
+is still wrapped in mystery.
+
+For some weeks it had been rumoured that a very special
+feat or demonstration of power by Mr. Yahi-Bahi was under
+contemplation. In fact, the rapid spread of Swaraj and
+of Nirvana among the members rendered such a feat highly
+desirable. Just what form the demonstration would take
+was for some time a matter of doubt. It was whispered at
+first that Mr. Yahi-Bahi would attempt the mysterious
+eastern rite of burying Ram Spudd alive in the garden of
+the Rasselyer-Brown residence and leaving him there in
+a state of Stoj, or Suspended Inanition, for eight days.
+But this project was abandoned, owing to some doubt,
+apparently, in the mind of Mr. Ram Spudd as to his astral
+fitness for the high state of Stoj necessitated by the
+experiment.
+
+At last it became known to the members of the Poosh, or
+Inner Circle, under the seal of confidence, that Mr.
+Yahi-Bahi would attempt nothing less than the supreme
+feat of occultism, namely, a reincarnation, or more
+correctly a reastralization of Buddha.
+
+The members of the Inner Circle shivered with a luxurious
+sense of mystery when they heard of it.
+
+"Has it ever been done before?" they asked of Mr. Snoop.
+
+"Only a few times," he said; "once, I believe, by Jam-bum,
+the famous Yogi of the Carnatic; once, perhaps twice, by
+Boohoo, the founder of the sect. But it is looked upon
+as extremely rare. Mr. Yahi tells me that the great danger
+is that, if the slightest part of the formula is incorrectly
+observed, the person attempting the astralization is
+swallowed up into nothingness. However, he declares
+himself willing to try."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+The seance was to take place at Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's
+residence, and was to be at midnight.
+
+"At midnight!" said each member in surprise. And the
+answer was, "Yes, at midnight. You see, midnight here is
+exactly midday in Allahabad in India."
+
+This explanation was, of course, ample. "Midnight,"
+repeated everybody to everybody else, "is exactly midday
+in Allahabad." That made things perfectly clear. Whereas
+if midnight had been midday in Timbuctoo the whole
+situation would have been different.
+
+Each of the ladies was requested to bring to the seance
+some ornament of gold; but it must be plain gold, without
+any setting of stones.
+
+It was known already that, according to the cult of
+Boohooism, gold, plain gold, is the seat of the three
+virtues--beauty, wisdom and grace. Therefore, according
+to the creed of Boohooism, anyone who has enough gold,
+plain gold, is endowed with these virtues and is all
+right. All that is needed is to have enough of it; the
+virtues follow as a consequence.
+
+But for the great experiment the gold used must not be
+set with stones, with the one exception of rubies, which
+are known to be endowed with the three attributes of
+Hindu worship, modesty, loquacity, and pomposity.
+
+In the present case it was found that as a number of
+ladies had nothing but gold ornaments set with diamonds,
+a second exception was made; especially as Mr. Yahi-Bahi,
+on appeal, decided that diamonds, though less pleasing
+to Buddha than rubies, possessed the secondary Hindu
+virtues of divisibility, movability, and disposability.
+
+On the evening in question the residence of Mrs.
+Rasselyer-Brown might have been observed at midnight wrapped
+in utter darkness. No lights were shown. A single taper,
+brought by Ram Spudd from the Taj Mohal, and resembling
+in its outer texture those sold at the five-and-ten store
+near Mr. Spudd's residence, burned on a small table in
+the vast dining-room. The servants had been sent upstairs
+and expressly enjoined to retire at half past ten.
+Moreover, Mr. Rasselyer-Brown had had to attend that
+evening, at the Mausoleum Club, a meeting of the trustees
+of the Church of St. Asaph, and he had come home at eleven
+o'clock, as he always did after diocesan work of this
+sort, quite used up; in fact, so fatigued that he had
+gone upstairs to his own suite of rooms sideways, his
+knees bending under him. So utterly used up was he with
+his church work that, as far as any interest in what
+might be going on in his own residence, he had attained
+to a state of Bahee, or Higher Indifference, that even
+Buddha might have envied.
+
+The guests, as had been arranged, arrived noiselessly
+and on foot. All motors were left at least a block away.
+They made their way up the steps of the darkened house,
+and were admitted without ringing, the door opening
+silently in front of them. Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram
+Spudd, who had arrived on foot carrying a large parcel,
+were already there, and were behind a screen in the
+darkened room, reported to be in meditation.
+
+At a whispered word from Mr. Snoop, who did duty at the
+door, all furs and wraps were discarded in the hall and
+laid in a pile. Then the guests passed silently into the
+great dining room. There was no light in it except the
+dim taper which stood on a little table. On this table
+each guest, as instructed, laid an ornament of gold, and
+at the same time was uttered in a low voice the word
+Ksvoo. This means, "O Buddha, I herewith lay my unworthy
+offering at thy feet; take it and keep it for ever." It
+was explained that this was only a form.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"What is he doing?" whispered the assembled guests as
+they saw Mr. Yahi-Bahi pass across the darkened room and
+stand in front of the sideboard.
+
+"Hush!" said Mr. Snoop; "he's laying the propitiatory
+offering for Buddha."
+
+"It's an Indian rite," whispered Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown.
+
+Mr. Yahi-Bahi could be seen dimly moving to and fro in
+front of the sideboard. There was a faint clinking of
+glass.
+
+"He has to set out a glass of Burmese brandy, powdered
+over with nutmeg and aromatics," whispered Mrs.
+Rasselyer-Brown. "I had the greatest hunt to get it all
+for him. He said that nothing but Burmese brandy would
+do, because in the Hindu religion the god can only be
+invoked with Burmese brandy, or, failing that, Hennessy's
+with three stars, which is not entirely displeasing to
+Buddha."
+
+"The aromatics," whispered Mr. Snoop, "are supposed to
+waft a perfume or incense to reach the nostrils of the
+god. The glass of propitiatory wine and the aromatic
+spices are mentioned in the Vishnu-Buddayat."
+
+Mr. Yahi-Bahi, his preparations completed, was now seen
+to stand in front of the sideboard bowing deeply four
+times in an Oriental salaam. The light of the single
+taper had by this time burned so dim that his movements
+were vague and uncertain. His body cast great flickering
+shadows on the half-seen wall. From his throat there
+issued a low wail in which the word wah! wah! could be
+distinguished.
+
+The excitement was intense.
+
+"What does wah mean?" whispered Mr. Spillikins.
+
+"Hush!" said Mr. Snoop; "it means, 'O Buddha, wherever
+thou art in thy lofty Nirvana, descend yet once in astral
+form before our eyes!'"
+
+Mr. Yahi-Bahi rose. He was seen to place one finger on
+his lips and then, silently moving across the room, he
+disappeared behind the screen. Of what Mr. Ram Spudd was
+doing during this period there is no record. It was
+presumed that he was still praying.
+
+The stillness was now absolute.
+
+"We must wait in perfect silence," whispered Mr. Snoop
+from the extreme tips of his lips.
+
+Everybody sat in strained intensity, silent, looking
+towards the vague outline of the sideboard.
+
+The minutes passed. No one moved. All were spellbound in
+expectancy.
+
+Still the minutes passed. The taper had flickered down
+till the great room was almost in darkness.
+
+Could it be that by some neglect in the preparations,
+the substitution perhaps of the wrong brandy, the
+astralization could not be effected?
+
+But no.
+
+Quite suddenly, it seemed, everybody in the darkened room
+was aware of a _presence_. That was the word as afterwards
+repeated in a hundred confidential discussions. A _presence_.
+One couldn't call it a body. It wasn't. It was a figure,
+an astral form, a presence.
+
+"Buddha!" they gasped as they looked at it.
+
+Just how the figure entered the room, the spectators
+could never afterwards agree. Some thought it appeared
+through the wall, deliberately astralizing itself as it
+passed through the bricks. Others seemed to have seen it
+pass in at the farther door of the room, as if it had
+astralized itself at the foot of the stairs in the back
+of the hall outside.
+
+Be that as it may, there it stood before them, the
+astralized shape of the Indian deity, so that to every
+lip there rose the half-articulated word, "Buddha"; or
+at least to every lip except that of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown.
+From her there came no sound.
+
+The figure as afterwards described was attired in a long
+_shirak_, such as is worn by the Grand Llama of Tibet, and
+resembling, if the comparison were not profane, a modern
+dressing-gown. The legs, if one might so call them, of
+the apparition were enwrapped in loose punjahamas, a word
+which is said to be the origin of the modern pyjamas;
+while the feet, if they were feet, were encased in loose
+slippers.
+
+Buddha moved slowly across the room. Arrived at the
+sideboard the astral figure paused, and even in the
+uncertain light Buddha was seen to raise and drink the
+propitiatory offering. That much was perfectly clear.
+Whether Buddha spoke or not is doubtful. Certain of the
+spectators thought that he said, 'Must a fagotnit', which
+is Hindustanee for "Blessings on this house." To Mrs.
+Rasselyer-Brown's distracted mind it seemed as if Buddha
+said, "I must have forgotten it" But this wild fancy she
+never breathed to a soul.
+
+Silently Buddha recrossed the room, slowly wiping one
+arm across his mouth after the Hindu gesture of farewell.
+
+For perhaps a full minute after the disappearance of
+Buddha not a soul moved. Then quite suddenly Mrs.
+Rasselyer-Brown, unable to stand the tension any longer,
+pressed an electric switch and the whole room was flooded
+with light.
+
+There sat the affrighted guests staring at one another
+with pale faces.
+
+But, to the amazement and horror of all, the little table
+in the centre stood empty--not a single gem, not a fraction
+of the gold that had lain upon it was left. All had
+disappeared.
+
+The truth seemed to burst upon everyone at once. There
+was no doubt of what had happened.
+
+The gold and the jewels had been deastralized. Under the
+occult power of the vision they had been demonetized,
+engulfed into the astral plane along with the vanishing
+Buddha.
+
+Filled with the sense of horror still to come, somebody
+pulled aside the little screen. They fully expected to
+find the lifeless bodies of Mr. Yahi-Bahi and the faithful
+Ram Spudd. What they saw before them was more dreadful
+still. The outer Oriental garments of the two devotees
+lay strewn upon the floor. The long sash of Yahi-Bahi
+and the thick turban of Ram Spudd were side by side near
+them; almost sickening in its repulsive realism was the
+thick black head of hair of the junior devotee, apparently
+torn from his scalp as if by lightning and bearing a
+horrible resemblance to the cast-off wig of an actor.
+
+The truth was too plain.
+
+"They are engulfed!" cried a dozen voices at once.
+
+It was realized in a flash that Yahi-Bahi and Ram Spudd
+had paid the penalty of their daring with their lives.
+Through some fatal neglect, against which they had fairly
+warned the participants of the seance, the two Orientals
+had been carried bodily in the astral plane.
+
+"How dreadful!" murmured Mr. Snoop. "We must have made
+some awful error."
+
+"Are they deastralized?" murmured Mrs. Buncomhearst.
+
+"Not a doubt of it," said Mr. Snoop.
+
+And then another voice in the group was heard to say,
+"We must hush it up. We _can't_ have it known!"
+
+On which a chorus of voices joined in, everybody urging
+that it must be hushed up.
+
+"Couldn't you try to reastralize them?" said somebody to
+Mr. Snoop.
+
+"No, no," said Mr. Snoop, still shaking. "Better not try
+to. We must hush it up if we can."
+
+And the general assent to this sentiment showed that,
+after all, the principles of Bahee, or Indifference to
+Others, had taken a real root in the society.
+
+"Hush it up," cried everybody, and there was a general
+move towards the hall.
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Buncomhearst; "our wraps!"
+
+"Deastralized!" said the guests.
+
+There was a moment of further consternation as everybody
+gazed at the spot where the ill-fated pile of furs and
+wraps had lain.
+
+"Never mind," said everybody, "let's go without them--don't
+stay. Just think if the police should--"
+
+And at the word police, all of a sudden there was heard
+in the street the clanging of a bell and the racing gallop
+of the horses of the police patrol wagon.
+
+"The police!" cried everybody. "Hush it up! Hush it up!"
+For of course the principles of Bahee are not known to
+the police.
+
+In another moment the doorbell of the house rang with a
+long and violent peal, and in a second as it seemed, the
+whole hall was filled with bulky figures uniformed in
+blue.
+
+"It's all right, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown," cried a loud,
+firm voice from the sidewalk. "We have them both. Everything
+is here. We got them before they'd gone a block. But if
+you don't mind, the police must get a couple of names
+for witnesses in the warrant."
+
+It was the Philippine chauffeur. But he was no longer
+attired as such. He wore the uniform of an inspector of
+police, and there was the metal badge of the Detective
+Department now ostentatiously outside his coat.
+
+And beside him, one on each side of him, there stood the
+deastralized forms of Yahi-Bahi and Ram Spudd. They wore
+long overcoats, doubtless the contents of the magic
+parcels, and the Philippine chauffeur had a grip of iron
+on the neck of each as they stood. Mr. Spudd had lost
+his Oriental hair, and the face of Mr. Yahi-Bahi, perhaps
+in the struggle which had taken place, had been scraped
+white in patches.
+
+They were making no attempt to break away. Indeed, Mr.
+Spudd, with that complete Bahee, or Submission to Fate,
+which is attained only by long services in state
+penitentiaries, was smiling and smoking a cigarette.
+
+"We were waiting for them," explained a tall police
+officer to the two or three ladies who now gathered round
+him with a return of courage. "They had the stuff in a
+hand-cart and were pushing it away. The chief caught them
+at the corner, and rang the patrol from there. You'll
+find everything all right, I think, ladies," he added,
+as a burly assistant was seen carrying an armload of furs
+up the steps.
+
+Somehow many of the ladies realized at the moment what
+cheery, safe, reliable people policemen in blue are, and
+what a friendly, familiar shelter they offer against the
+wiles of Oriental occultism.
+
+"Are they old criminals?" someone asked.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. They've worked this same thing in four cities
+already, and both of them have done time, and lots of
+it. They've only been out six months. No need to worry
+over them," he concluded with a shrug of the shoulders.
+
+So the furs were restored and the gold and the jewels
+parcelled out among the owners, and in due course Mr.
+Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram Spudd were lifted up into the patrol
+wagon where they seated themselves with a composure worthy
+of the best traditions of Jehumbabah and Bahoolapore. In
+fact, Mr. Spudd was heard to address the police as "boys,"
+and to remark that they had "got them good" that time.
+
+So the seance ended and the guests vanished, and the
+Yahi-Bahi Society terminated itself without even a vote
+of dissolution.
+
+And in all the later confidential discussions of the
+episode only one point of mysticism remained. After they
+had time really to reflect on it, free from all danger
+of arrest, the members of the society realized that on
+one point the police were entirely off the truth of
+things. For Mr. Yahi-Bahi, whether a thief or not, and
+whether he came from the Orient, or, as the police said,
+from Missouri, had actually succeeded in reastralizing
+Buddha.
+
+Nor was anyone more emphatic on this point than Mrs.
+Rasselyer-Brown herself.
+
+"For after all," she said, "if it was not Buddha, who
+was it?"
+
+And the question was never answered.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE: The Love Story of Mr. Peter Spillikins
+
+Almost any day, on Plutoria Avenue or thereabouts, you
+may see little Mr. Spillikins out walking with his four
+tall sons, who are practically as old as himself.
+
+To be exact, Mr. Spillikins is twenty-four, and Bob, the
+oldest of the boys, must be at least twenty. Their exact
+ages are no longer known, because, by a dreadful accident,
+their mother forgot them. This was at a time when the
+boys were all at Mr. Wackem's Academy for Exceptional
+Youths in the foothills of Tennessee, and while their
+mother, Mrs. Everleigh, was spending the winter on the
+Riviera and felt that for their own sake she must not
+allow herself to have the boys with her.
+
+But now, of course, since Mrs. Everleigh has remarried
+and become Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins there is no need to
+keep them at Mr. Wackem's any longer. Mr. Spillikins is
+able to look after them.
+
+Mr. Spillikins generally wears a little top hat and an
+English morning coat. The boys are in Eton jackets and
+black trousers, which, at their mother's wish, are kept
+just a little too short for them. This is because Mrs.
+Everleigh-Spillikins feels that the day will come some
+day--say fifteen years hence--when the boys will no longer
+be children, and meantime it is so nice to feel that they
+are still mere boys. Bob is the eldest, but Sib the
+youngest is the tallest, whereas Willie the third boy is
+the dullest, although this has often been denied by those
+who claim that Gib the second boy is just a trifle duller.
+Thus at any rate there is a certain equality and good
+fellowship all round.
+
+Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins is not to be seen walking with
+them. She is probably at the race-meet, being taken there
+by Captain Cormorant of the United States navy, which
+Mr. Spillikins considers very handsome of him. Every now
+and then the captain, being in the navy, is compelled to
+be at sea for perhaps a whole afternoon or even several
+days; in which case Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins is very
+generally taken to the Hunt Club or the Country Club by
+Lieutenant Hawk, which Mr. Spillikins regards as awfully
+thoughtful of him. Or if Lieutenant Hawk is also out of
+town for the day, as he sometimes has to be, because he
+is in the United States army, Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins
+is taken out by old Colonel Shake, who is in the State
+militia and who is at leisure all the time.
+
+During their walks on Plutoria Avenue one may hear the
+four boys addressing Mr. Spillikins as "father" and "dad"
+in deep bull-frog voices.
+
+"Say, dad," drawls Bob, "couldn't we all go to the ball
+game?"
+
+"No. Say, dad," says Gib, "let's all go back to the house
+and play five-cent pool in the billiard-room."
+
+"All right, boys," says Mr. Spillikins. And a few minutes
+later one may see them all hustling up the steps of the
+Everleigh-Spillikins's mansion, quite eager at the prospect,
+and all talking together.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Now the whole of this daily panorama, to the eye that
+can read it, represents the outcome of the tangled love
+story of Mr. Spillikins, which culminated during the
+summer houseparty at Castel Casteggio, the woodland
+retreat of Mr. and Mrs. Newberry.
+
+But to understand the story one must turn back a year or
+so to the time when Mr. Peter Spillikins used to walk on
+Plutoria Avenue alone, or sit in the Mausoleum Club
+listening to the advice of people who told him that he
+really ought to get married.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+In those days the first thing that one noticed about Mr.
+Peter Spillikins was his exalted view of the other sex.
+Every time he passed a beautiful woman in the street he
+said to himself, "I say!" Even when he met a moderately
+beautiful one he murmured, "By Jove!" When an Easter hat
+went sailing past, or a group of summer parasols stood
+talking on a leafy corner, Mr. Spillikins ejaculated,
+"My word!" At the opera and at tango teas his projecting
+blue eyes almost popped out of his head.
+
+Similarly, if he happened to be with one of his friends,
+he would murmur, "I say, _do_ look at that beautiful girl,"
+or would exclaim, "I say, don't look, but isn't that an
+awfully pretty girl across the street?" or at the opera,
+"Old man, don't let her see you looking, but do you see
+that lovely girl in the box opposite?"
+
+One must add to this that Mr. Spillikins, in spite of
+his large and bulging blue eyes, enjoyed the heavenly
+gift of short sight. As a consequence he lived in a world
+of amazingly beautiful women. And as his mind was focused
+in the same way as his eyes he endowed them with all the
+virtues and graces which ought to adhere to fifty-dollar
+flowered hats and cerise parasols with ivory handles.
+
+Nor, to do him justice, did Mr. Spillikins confine his
+attitude to his view of women alone. He brought it to
+bear on everything. Every time he went to the opera he
+would come away enthusiastic, saying, "By Jove, isn't it
+simply splendid! Of course I haven't the ear to appreciate
+it--I'm not musical, you know--but even with the little
+that I know, it's great; it absolutely puts me to sleep."
+And of each new novel that he bought he said, "It's a
+perfectly wonderful book! Of course I haven't the head
+to understand it, so I didn't finish it, but it's simply
+thrilling." Similarly with painting, "It's one of the
+most marvellous pictures I ever saw," he would say. "Of
+course I've no eye for pictures, and I couldn't see
+anything in it, but it's wonderful!"
+
+The career of Mr. Spillikins up to the point of which we
+are speaking had hitherto not been very satisfactory, or
+at least not from the point of view of Mr. Boulder, who
+was his uncle and trustee. Mr. Boulder's first idea had
+been to have Mr. Spillikins attend the university. Dr.
+Boomer, the president, had done his best to spread abroad
+the idea that a university education was perfectly suitable
+even for the rich; that it didn't follow that because a
+man was a university graduate he need either work or
+pursue his studies any further; that what the university
+aimed to do was merely to put a certain stamp upon a man.
+That was all. And this stamp, according to the tenor of
+the president's convocation addresses, was perfectly
+harmless. No one ought to be afraid of it. As a result,
+a great many of the very best young men in the City, who
+had no need for education at all, were beginning to attend
+college. "It marked," said Dr. Boomer, "a revolution."
+
+Mr. Spillikins himself was fascinated with his studies.
+The professors seemed to him living wonders.
+
+"By Jove!" he said, "the professor of mathematics is a
+marvel. You ought to see him explaining trigonometry on
+the blackboard. You can't understand a word of it." He
+hardly knew which of his studies he liked best. "Physics,"
+he said, "is a wonderful study. I got five per cent in
+it. But, by Jove! I had to work for it. I'd go in for it
+altogether if they'd let me."
+
+But that was just the trouble--they wouldn't. And so in
+course of time Mr. Spillikins was compelled, for academic
+reasons, to abandon his life work. His last words about
+it were, "Gad! I nearly passed in trigonometry!" and he
+always said afterwards that he had got a tremendous lot
+out of the university.
+
+After that, as he had to leave the university, his trustee,
+Mr. Boulder, put Mr. Spillikins into business. It was,
+of course, his own business, one of the many enterprises
+for which Mr. Spillikins, ever since he was twenty-one,
+had already been signing documents and countersigning
+cheques. So Mr. Spillikins found himself in a mahogany
+office selling wholesale oil. And he liked it. He said
+that business sharpened one up tremendously.
+
+"I'm afraid, Mr. Spillikins," a caller in the mahogany
+office would say, "that we can't meet you at five dollars.
+Four seventy is the best we can do on the present market."
+
+"My dear chap," said Mr. Spillikins, "that's all right.
+After all, thirty cents isn't much, eh what? Dash it,
+old man, we won't fight about thirty cents. How much do
+you want?"
+
+"Well, at four seventy we'll take twenty thousand barrels."
+
+"By Jove!" said Mr. Spillikins; "twenty thousand barrels.
+Gad! you want a lot, don't you? Pretty big sale, eh, for
+a beginner like me? I guess uncle'll be tickled to death."
+
+So tickled was he that after a few weeks of oil-selling
+Mr. Boulder urged Mr. Spillikins to retire, and wrote
+off many thousand dollars from the capital value of his
+estate.
+
+So after this there was only one thing for Mr. Spillikins
+to do, and everybody told him so--namely to get married.
+"Spillikins," said his friends at the club after they
+had taken all his loose money over the card table, "you
+ought to get married."
+
+"Think so?" said Mr. Spillikins.
+
+Goodness knows he was willing enough. In fact, up to this
+point Mr. Spillikins's whole existence had been one long
+aspiring sigh directed towards the joys of matrimony.
+
+In his brief college days his timid glances had wandered
+by an irresistible attraction towards the seats on the
+right-hand side of the class room, where the girls of
+the first year sat, with golden pigtails down their backs,
+doing trigonometry.
+
+He would have married any of them. But when a girl can
+work out trigonometry at sight, what use can she possibly
+have for marriage? None. Mr. Spillikins knew this and it
+kept him silent. And even when the most beautiful girl
+in the class married the demonstrator and thus terminated
+her studies in her second year, Spillikins realized that
+it was only because the man was, undeniably, a demonstrator
+and knew things.
+
+Later on, when Spillikins went into business and into
+society, the same fate pursued him. He loved, for at
+least six months, Georgiana McTeague, the niece of the
+presbyterian minister of St. Osoph's. He loved her so
+well that for her sake he temporarily abandoned his pew
+at St. Asaph's, which was episcopalian, and listened to
+fourteen consecutive sermons on hell. But the affair got
+no further than that. Once or twice, indeed, Spillikins
+walked home with Georgiana from church and talked about
+hell with her; and once her uncle asked him into the
+manse for cold supper after evening service, and they
+had a long talk about hell all through the meal and
+upstairs in the sitting-room afterwards. But somehow
+Spillikins could get no further with it. He read up all
+he could about hell so as to be able to talk with Georgiana,
+but in the end it failed: a young minister fresh from
+college came and preached at St. Osoph's six special
+sermons on the absolute certainty of eternal punishment,
+and he married Miss McTeague as a result of it.
+
+And, meantime, Mr. Spillikins had got engaged, or
+practically so, to Adelina Lightleigh; not that he had
+spoken to her, but he considered himself bound to her.
+For her sake he had given up hell altogether, and was
+dancing till two in the morning and studying action bridge
+out of a book. For a time he felt so sure that she meant
+to have him that he began bringing his greatest friend,
+Edward Ruff of the college football team, of whom Spillikins
+was very proud, up to the Lightleighs' residence. He
+specially wanted Adelina and Edward to be great friends,
+so that Adelina and he might ask Edward up to the house
+after he was married. And they got to be such great
+friends, and so quickly, that they were married in New
+York that autumn. After which Spillikins used to be
+invited up to the house by Edward and Adelina. They both
+used to tell him how much they owed him; and they, too,
+used to join in the chorus and say, "You know, Peter,
+you're awfully silly not to get married."
+
+Now all this had happened and finished at about the time
+when the Yahi-Bahi Society ran its course. At its first
+meeting Mr. Spillikins had met Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown.
+At the very sight of her he began reading up the life of
+Buddha and a translation of the Upanishads so as to fit
+himself to aspire to live with her. Even when the society
+ended in disaster Mr. Spillikins's love only burned the
+stronger. Consequently, as soon as he knew that Mr. and
+Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown were going away for the summer, and
+that Dulphemia was to go to stay with the Newberrys at
+Castel Casteggio, this latter place, the summer retreat
+of the Newberrys, became the one spot on earth for Mr.
+Peter Spillikins.
+
+Naturally, therefore, Mr. Spillikins was presently
+transported to the seventh heaven when in due course of
+time he received a note which said, "We shall be so
+pleased if you can come out and spend a week or two with
+us here. We will send the car down to the Thursday train
+to meet you. We live here in the simplest fashion possible;
+in fact, as Mr. Newberry says, we are just roughing it,
+but I am sure you don't mind for a change. Dulphemia is
+with us, but we are quite a small party."
+
+The note was signed "Margaret Newberry" and was written
+on heavy cream paper with a silver monogram such as people
+use when roughing it.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+The Newberrys, like everybody else, went away from town
+in the summertime. Mr. Newberry being still in business,
+after a fashion, it would not have looked well for him
+to remain in town throughout the year. It would have
+created a bad impression on the market as to how much he
+was making.
+
+In fact, in the early summer everybody went out of town.
+The few who ever revisited the place in August reported
+that they hadn't seen a soul on the street.
+
+It was a sort of longing for the simple life, for nature,
+that came over everybody. Some people sought it at the
+seaside, where nature had thrown out her broad plank
+walks and her long piers and her vaudeville shows. Others
+sought it in the heart of the country, where nature had
+spread her oiled motor roads and her wayside inns. Others,
+like the Newberrys, preferred to "rough it" in country
+residences of their own.
+
+Some of the people, as already said, went for business
+reasons, to avoid the suspicion of having to work all
+the year round. Others went to Europe to avoid the reproach
+of living always in America. Others, perhaps most people,
+went for medical reasons, being sent away by their doctors.
+Not that they were ill; but the doctors of Plutoria
+Avenue, such as Doctor Slyder, always preferred to send
+all their patients out of town during the summer months.
+No well-to-do doctor cares to be bothered with them. And
+of course patients, even when they are anxious to go
+anywhere on their own account, much prefer to be sent
+there by their doctor.
+
+"My dear madam," Dr. Slyder would say to a lady who, as
+he knew, was most anxious to go to Virginia, "there's
+really nothing I can do for you." Here he spoke the truth.
+"It's not a case of treatment. It's simply a matter of
+dropping everything and going away. Now why don't you go
+for a month or two to some quiet place, where you will
+simply _do nothing?_" (She never, as he knew, did anything,
+anyway.) "What do you say to Hot Springs,
+Virginia?--absolute quiet, good golf, not a soul there,
+plenty of tennis." Or else he would say, "My dear madam,
+you're simply _worn out_. Why don't you just drop everything
+and go to Canada?--perfectly quiet, not a soul there,
+and, I believe, nowadays quite fashionable."
+
+Thus, after all the patients had been sent away, Dr.
+Slyder and his colleagues of Plutoria Avenue managed to
+slip away themselves for a month or two, heading straight
+for Paris and Vienna. There they were able, so they said,
+to keep in touch with what continental doctors were doing.
+They probably were.
+
+Now it so happened that both the parents of Miss Dulphemia
+Rasselyer-Brown had been sent out of town in this fashion.
+Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's distressing experience with
+Yahi-Bahi had left her in a condition in which she was
+utterly fit for nothing, except to go on a Mediterranean
+cruise, with about eighty other people also fit for
+nothing.
+
+Mr. Rasselyer-Brown himself, though never exactly an
+invalid, had confessed that after all the fuss of the
+Yahi-Bahi business he needed bracing up, needed putting
+into shape, and had put himself into Dr. Slyder's hands.
+The doctor had examined him, questioned him searchingly
+as to what he drank, and ended by prescribing port wine
+to be taken firmly and unflinchingly during the evening,
+and for the daytime, at any moment of exhaustion, a light
+cordial such as rye whiskey, or rum and Vichy water. In
+addition to which Dr. Slyder had recommended Mr.
+Rasselyer-Brown to leave town.
+
+"Why don't you go down to Nagahakett on the Atlantic?"
+he said.
+
+"Is that in Maine?" said Mr. Rasselyer-Brown in horror.
+
+"Oh, dear me, no!" answered the doctor reassuringly.
+"It's in New Brunswick, Canada; excellent place, most
+liberal licence laws; first class cuisine and a bar in
+the hotel. No tourists, no golf, too cold to swim--just
+the place to enjoy oneself."
+
+So Mr. Rasselyer-Brown had gone away also, and as a result
+Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown, at the particular moment of
+which we speak, was declared by the Boudoir and Society
+column of the _Plutorian Daily Dollar_ to be staying with
+Mr. and Mrs. Newberry at their charming retreat, Castel
+Casteggio.
+
+The Newberrys belonged to the class of people whose one
+aim in the summer is to lead the simple life. Mr. Newberry
+himself said that his one idea of a vacation was to get
+right out into the bush, and put on old clothes, and just
+eat when he felt like it.
+
+This was why he had built Castel Casteggio. It stood
+about forty miles from the city, out among the wooded
+hills on the shore of a little lake. Except for the
+fifteen or twenty residences like it that dotted the
+sides of the lake it was entirely isolated. The only way
+to reach it was by the motor road that wound its way
+among leafy hills from the railway station fifteen miles
+away. Every foot of the road was private property, as
+all nature ought to be. The whole country about Castel
+Casteggio was absolutely primeval, or at any rate as
+primeval as Scotch gardeners and French landscape artists
+could make it. The lake itself lay like a sparkling gem
+from nature's workshop--except that they had raised the
+level of it ten feet, stone-banked the sides, cleared
+out the brush, and put a motor road round it. Beyond that
+it was pure nature.
+
+Castel Casteggio itself, a beautiful house of white brick
+with sweeping piazzas and glittering conservatories,
+standing among great trees with rolling lawns broken with
+flower-beds as the ground sloped to the lake, was perhaps
+the most beautiful house of all; at any rate, it was an
+ideal spot to wear old clothes in, to dine early (at
+7.30) and, except for tennis parties, motor-boat parties,
+lawn teas, and golf, to live absolutely to oneself.
+
+It should be explained that the house was not called
+Castel Casteggio because the Newberrys were Italian: they
+were not; nor because they owned estates in Italy: they
+didn't nor had travelled there: they hadn't. Indeed, for
+a time they had thought of giving it a Welsh name, or a
+Scotch. But the beautiful country residence of the
+Asterisk-Thomsons had stood close by in the same primeval
+country was already called Penny-gw-rydd, and the woodland
+retreat of the Hyphen-Joneses just across the little lake
+was called Strathythan-na-Clee, and the charming chalet
+of the Wilson-Smiths was called Yodel-Dudel; so it seemed
+fairer to select an Italian name.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"By Jove! Miss Furlong, how awfully good of you to come
+down!"
+
+The little suburban train--two cars only, both first
+class, for the train went nowhere except out into the
+primeval wilderness--had drawn up at the diminutive
+roadside station. Mr. Spillikins had alighted, and there
+was Miss Philippa Furlong sitting behind the chauffeur
+in the Newberrys' motor. She was looking as beautiful as
+only the younger sister of a High Church episcopalian
+rector can look, dressed in white, the colour of
+saintliness, on a beautiful morning in July.
+
+There was no doubt about Philippa Furlong. Her beauty
+was of that peculiar and almost sacred kind found only
+in the immediate neighbourhood of the High Church clergy.
+It was admitted by all who envied or admired her that
+she could enter a church more gracefully, move more
+swimmingly up the aisle, and pray better than any girl
+on Plutoria Avenue.
+
+Mr. Spillikins, as he gazed at her in her white summer
+dress and wide picture hat, with her parasol nodding
+above her head, realized that after all, religion, as
+embodied in the younger sisters of the High Church clergy,
+fills a great place in the world.
+
+"By Jove!" he repeated, "how awfully good of you!"
+
+"Not a bit," said Philippa. "Hop in. Dulphemia was coming,
+but she couldn't. Is that all you have with you?"
+
+The last remark was ironical. It referred to the two
+quite large steamer trunks of Mr. Spillikins that were
+being loaded, together with his suit-case, tennis racket,
+and golf kit, on to the fore part of the motor. Mr.
+Spillikins, as a young man of social experience, had
+roughed it before. He knew what a lot of clothes one
+needs for it.
+
+So the motor sped away, and went bowling noiselessly over
+the oiled road, and turning corners where the green boughs
+of the great trees almost swished in their faces, and
+rounding and twisting among curves of the hills as it
+carried Spillikins and Philippa away from the lower domain
+or ordinary fields and farms up into the enchanted country
+of private property and the magic castles of Casteggio
+and Penny-gw-rydd.
+
+Mr. Spillikins must have assured Philippa at least a
+dozen times in starting off how awfully good it was of
+her to come down in the motor; and he was so pleased at
+her coming to meet him that Philippa never even hinted
+that the truth was that she had expected somebody else
+on the same train. For to a girl brought up in the
+principles of the High Church the truth is a very sacred
+thing. She keeps it to herself.
+
+And naturally, with such a sympathetic listener, it was
+not long before Mr. Spillikins had begun to talk of
+Dulphemia and his hopes.
+
+"I don't know whether she really cares for me or not,"
+said Mr. Spillikins, "but I have pretty good hope. The
+other day, or at least about two months ago, at one of
+the Yahi-Bahi meetings--you were not in that, were you?"
+he said breaking off.
+
+"Only just at the beginning," said Philippa; "we went to
+Bermuda."
+
+"Oh yes, I remember. Do you know, I thought it pretty
+rough at the end, especially on Ram Spudd. I liked him.
+I sent him two pounds of tobacco to the penitentiary last
+week; you can get it in to them, you know, if you know
+how."
+
+"But what were you going to say?" asked Philippa.
+
+"Oh yes," said Mr. Spillikins. And he realized that he
+had actually drifted off the topic of Dulphemia, a thing
+that had never happened to him before. "I was going to
+say that at one of the meetings, you know, I asked her
+if I might call her Dulphemia."
+
+"And what did she say to that?" asked Philippa.
+
+"She said she didn't care what I called her. So I think
+that looks pretty good, don't you?"
+
+"Awfully good," said Philippa.
+
+"And a little after that I took her slippers home from
+the Charity Ball at the Grand Palaver. Archie Jones took
+her home herself in his car, but I took her slippers.
+She'd forgotten them. I thought that a pretty good sign,
+wasn't it? You wouldn't let a chap carry round your
+slippers unless you knew him pretty well, would you, Miss
+Philippa?"
+
+"Oh no, nobody would," said Philippa. This of course,
+was a standing principle of the Anglican Church.
+
+"And a little after that Dulphemia and Charlie Mostyn
+and I were walking to Mrs. Buncomhearst's musical, and
+we'd only just started along the street, when she stopped
+and sent me back for her music--me, mind you, not Charlie.
+That seems to me awfully significant."
+
+"It seems to speak volumes," said Philippa.
+
+"Doesn't it?" said Mr. Spillikins. "You don't mind my
+telling you all about this Miss Philippa?" he added.
+
+Incidentally Mr. Spillikins felt that it was all right
+to call her Miss Philippa, because she had a sister who
+was really Miss Furlong, so it would have been quite
+wrong, as Mr. Spillikins realized, to have called Miss
+Philippa by her surname. In any case, the beauty of the
+morning was against it.
+
+"I don't mind a bit," said Philippa. "I think it's awfully
+nice of you to tell me about it."
+
+She didn't add that she knew all about it already.
+
+"You see," said Mr. Spillikins, "you're so awfully
+sympathetic. It makes it so easy to talk to you. With
+other girls, especially with clever ones, even with
+Dulphemia. I often feel a perfect jackass beside them.
+But I don t feel that way with you at all."
+
+"Don't you really?" said Philippa, but the honest admiration
+in Mr. Spillikin's protruding blue eyes forbade a sarcastic
+answer.
+
+"By Jove!" said Mr. Spillikins presently, with complete
+irrelevance, "I hope you don't mind my saying it, but
+you look awfully well in white--stunning." He felt that
+a man who was affianced, or practically so, was allowed
+the smaller liberty of paying honest compliments.
+
+"Oh, this old thing," laughed Philippa, with a contemptuous
+shake of her dress. "But up here, you know, we just wear
+anything." She didn't say that this old thing was only
+two weeks old and had cost eighty dollars, or the equivalent
+of one person's pew rent at St. Asaph's for six months.
+
+And after that they had only time, so it seemed to Mr.
+Spillikins, for two or three remarks, and he had scarcely
+had leisure to reflect what a charming girl Philippa had
+grown to be since she went to Bermuda--the effect, no
+doubt, of the climate of those fortunate islands--when
+quite suddenly they rounded a curve into an avenue of
+nodding trees, and there were the great lawn and wide
+piazzas and the conservatories of Castel Casteggio right
+in front of them.
+
+"Here we are," said Philippa, "and there's Mr. Newberry
+out on the lawn."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"Now, here," Mr. Newberry was saying a little later,
+waving his hand, "is where you get what I think the finest
+view of the place."
+
+He was standing at the corner of the lawn where it sloped,
+dotted with great trees, to the banks of the little lake,
+and was showing Mr. Spillikins the beauties of Castel
+Casteggio.
+
+Mr. Newberry wore on his short circular person the summer
+costume of a man taking his ease and careless of dress:
+plain white flannel trousers, not worth more than six
+dollars a leg, an ordinary white silk shirt with a rolled
+collar, that couldn't have cost more than fifteen dollars,
+and on his head an ordinary Panama hat, say forty dollars.
+
+"By Jove!" said Mr. Spillikins, as he looked about him
+at the house and the beautiful lawn with its great trees,
+"it's a lovely place."
+
+"Isn't it?" said Mr. Newberry. "But you ought to have
+seen it when I took hold of it. To make the motor road
+alone I had to dynamite out about a hundred yards of
+rock, and then I fetched up cement, tons and tons of it,
+and boulders to buttress the embankment."
+
+"Did you really!" said Mr. Spillikins, looking at Mr.
+Newberry with great respect.
+
+"Yes, and even that was nothing to the house itself. Do
+you know, I had to go at least forty feet for the
+foundations. First I went through about twenty feet of
+loose clay, after that I struck sand, and I'd no sooner
+got through that than, by George! I landed in eight feet
+of water. I had to pump it out; I think I took out a
+thousand gallons before I got clear down to the rock.
+Then I took my solid steel beams in fifty-foot lengths,"
+here Mr. Newberry imitated with his arms the action of
+a man setting up a steel beam, "and set them upright and
+bolted them on the rock. After that I threw my steel
+girders across, clapped on my roof rafters, all steel,
+in sixty-foot pieces, and then just held it easily, just
+supported it a bit, and let it sink gradually to its
+place."
+
+Mr. Newberry illustrated with his two arms the action of
+a huge house being allowed to sink slowly to a firm rest.
+
+"You don't say so!" said Mr. Spillikins, lost in amazement
+at the wonderful physical strength that Mr. Newberry must
+have.
+
+"Excuse me just a minute," broke off Mr. Newberry, "while
+I smooth out the gravel where you're standing. You've
+rather disturbed it, I'm afraid."
+
+"Oh, I'm awfully sorry," said Mr. Spillikins.
+
+"Oh, not at all, not at all," said his host. "I don't
+mind in the least. It's only on account of McAlister."
+
+"Who?" asked Mr. Spillikins.
+
+"My gardener. He doesn't care to have us walk on the
+gravel paths. It scuffs up the gravel so. But sometimes
+one forgets."
+
+It should be said here, for the sake of clearness, that
+one of the chief glories of Castel Casteggio lay in its
+servants. All of them, it goes without saying, had been
+brought from Great Britain. The comfort they gave to Mr.
+and Mrs. Newberry was unspeakable. In fact, as they
+themselves admitted, servants of the kind are simply not
+to be found in America.
+
+"Our Scotch gardener," Mrs. Newberry always explained
+"is a perfect character. I don't know how we could get
+another like him. Do you know, my dear, he simply won't
+allow us to pick the roses; and if any of us walk across
+the grass he is furious. And he positively refuses to
+let us use the vegetables. He told me quite plainly that
+if we took any of his young peas or his early cucumbers
+he would leave. We are to have them later on when he's
+finished growing them."
+
+"How delightful it is to have servants of that sort,"
+the lady addressed would murmur; "so devoted and so
+different from servants on this side of the water. Just
+imagine, my dear, my chauffeur, when I was in Colorado,
+actually threatened to leave me merely because I wanted
+to reduce his wages. I think it's these wretched labour
+unions."
+
+"I'm sure it is. Of course we have trouble with McAlister
+at times, but he's always very reasonable when we put
+things in the right light. Last week, for example, I was
+afraid that we had gone too far with him. He is always
+accustomed to have a quart of beer every morning at
+half-past ten--the maids are told to bring it out to him,
+and after that he goes to sleep in the little arbour
+beside the tulip bed. And the other day when he went
+there he found that one of our guests who hadn't been
+told, was actually sitting in there reading. Of course
+he was _furious_. I was afraid for the moment that he would
+give notice on the spot."
+
+"What _would_ you have done?"
+
+"Positively, my dear, I don't know. But we explained to
+him at once that it was only an accident and that the
+person hadn't known and that of course it wouldn't occur
+again. After that he was softened a little, but he went
+off muttering to himself, and that evening he dug up all
+the new tulips and threw them over the fence. We saw him
+do it, but we didn't dare say anything."
+
+"Oh no," echoed the other lady; "if you had you might
+have lost him."
+
+"Exactly. And I don't think we could possibly get another
+man like him; at least, not on this side of the water."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"But come," said Mr. Newberry, after he had finished
+adjusting the gravel with his foot, "there are Mrs.
+Newberry and the girls on the verandah. Let's go and join
+them."
+
+A few minutes later Mr. Spillikins was talking with Mrs.
+Newberry and Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown, and telling Mrs.
+Newberry what a beautiful house she had. Beside them
+stood Philippa Furlong, and she had her arm around
+Dulphemia's waist; and the picture that they thus made,
+with their heads close together, Dulphemia's hair being
+golden and Philippa's chestnut-brown, was such that Mr.
+Spillikins had no eyes for Mrs. Newberry nor for Castel
+Casteggio nor for anything. So much so that he practically
+didn't see at all the little girl in green that stood
+unobtrusively on the further side of Mrs. Newberry.
+Indeed, though somebody had murmured her name in
+introduction, he couldn't have repeated it if asked two
+minutes afterwards. His eyes and his mind were elsewhere.
+
+But hers were not.
+
+For the Little Girl in Green looked at Mr. Spillikins
+with wide eyes, and when she looked at him she saw all
+at once such wonderful things about him as nobody had
+ever seen before.
+
+For she could see from the poise of his head how awfully
+clever he was; and from the way he stood with his hands
+in his side pockets she could see how manly and brave he
+must be; and of course there was firmness and strength
+written all over him. In short, she saw as she looked
+such a Peter Spillikins as truly never existed, or could
+exist--or at least such a Peter Spillikins as no one else
+in the world had ever suspected before.
+
+All in a moment she was ever so glad that she accepted
+Mrs. Newberry's invitation to Castel Casteggio and hadn't
+been afraid to come. For the Little Girl in Green, whose
+Christian name was Norah, was only what is called a poor
+relation of Mrs. Newberry, and her father was a person
+of no account whatever, who didn't belong to the Mausoleum
+Club or to any other club, and who lived, with Norah, on
+a street that nobody who was anybody lived upon. Norah
+had been asked up a few days before out of the City to
+give her air--which is the only thing that can be safely
+and freely given to poor relations. Thus she had arrived
+at Castel Casteggio with one diminutive trunk, so small
+and shabby that even the servants who carried it upstairs
+were ashamed of it. In it were a pair of brand new tennis
+shoes (at ninety cents reduced to seventy-five) and a
+white dress of the kind that is called "almost evening,"
+and such few other things as poor relations might bring
+with fear and trembling to join in the simple rusticity
+of the rich.
+
+Thus stood Norah looking at Mr. Spillikins.
+
+As for him, such is the contrariety of human things, he
+had no eyes for her at all.
+
+"What a perfectly charming house this is," Mr. Spillikins
+was saying. He always said this on such occasions, but
+it seemed to the Little Girl in Green that he spoke with
+wonderful social ease.
+
+"I am so glad you think so," said Mrs. Newberry (this
+was what she always answered); "you've no idea what work
+it has been. This year we put in all this new glass in
+the east conservatory, over a thousand panes. Such a
+tremendous business!"
+
+"I was just telling Mr. Spillikins," said Mr. Newberry,
+"about the work we had blasting out the motor road. You
+can see the gap where it lies better from here, I think,
+Spillikins. I must have exploded a ton and a half of
+dynamite on it."
+
+"By Jove!" said Mr. Spillikins; "it must be dangerous
+work eh? I wonder you aren't afraid of it."
+
+"One simply gets used to it, that's all," said Newberry,
+shrugging his shoulders; "but of course it is dangerous.
+I blew up two Italians on the last job." He paused a
+minute and added musingly, "Hardy fellows, the Italians.
+I prefer them to any other people for blasting."
+
+"Did you blow them up yourself?" asked Mr. Spillikins.
+
+"I wasn't here," answered Mr. Newberry. "In fact, I never
+care to be here when I'm blasting. We go to town. But I
+had to foot the bill for them all the same. Quite right,
+too. The risk, of course, was mine, not theirs; that's
+the law, you know. They cost me two thousand each."
+
+"But come," said Mrs. Newberry, "I think we must go and
+dress for dinner. Franklin will be frightfully put out
+if we're late. Franklin is our butler," she went on,
+seeing that Mr. Spillikins didn't understand the reference,
+"and as we brought him out from England we have to be
+rather careful. With a good man like Franklin one is
+always so afraid of losing him--and after last night we
+have to be doubly careful."
+
+"Why last night?" asked Mr. Spillikins.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't much," said Mrs. Newberry. "In fact, it
+was merely an accident. Only it just chanced that at
+dinner, quite late in the meal, when we had had nearly
+everything (we dine very simply here, Mr. Spillikins),
+Mr. Newberry, who was thirsty and who wasn't really
+thinking what he was saying, asked Franklin to give him
+a glass of hock. Franklin said at once, 'I'm very sorry,
+sir, I don't care to serve hock after the entree!'"
+
+"And of course he was right," said Dulphemia with emphasis.
+"Exactly; he was perfectly right. They know, you know.
+We were afraid that there might be trouble, but Mr.
+Newberry went and saw Franklin afterwards and he behaved
+very well over it. But suppose we go and dress? It's
+half-past six already and we've only an hour."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+In this congenial company Mr. Spillikins spent the next
+three days.
+
+Life at Castel Casteggio, as the Newberrys loved to
+explain, was conducted on the very simplest plan. Early
+breakfast, country fashion, at nine o'clock; after that
+nothing to eat till lunch, unless one cared to have
+lemonade or bottled ale sent out with a biscuit or a
+macaroon to the tennis court. Lunch itself was a perfectly
+plain midday meal, lasting till about 1.30, and consisting
+simply of cold meats (say four kinds) and salads, with
+perhaps a made dish or two, and, for anybody who cared
+for it, a hot steak or a chop, or both. After that one
+had coffee and cigarettes in the shade of the piazza and
+waited for afternoon tea. This latter was served at a
+wicker table in any part of the grounds that the gardener
+was not at that moment clipping, trimming, or otherwise
+using. Afternoon tea being over, one rested or walked on
+the lawn till it was time to dress for dinner.
+
+This simple routine was broken only by irruptions of
+people in motors or motor boats from Penny-gw-rydd or
+Yodel-Dudel Chalet.
+
+The whole thing, from the point of view of Mr. Spillikins
+or Dulphemia or Philippa, represented rusticity itself.
+
+To the Little Girl in Green it seemed as brilliant as
+the Court of Versailles; especially evening dinner--a
+plain home meal as the others thought it--when she had
+four glasses to drink out of and used to wonder over such
+problems as whether you were supposed, when Franklin
+poured out wine, to tell him to stop or to wait till he
+stopped without being told to stop; and other similar
+mysteries, such as many people before and after have
+meditated upon.
+
+During all this time Mr. Spillikins was nerving himself
+to propose to Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown. In fact, he
+spent part of his time walking up and down under the
+trees with Philippa Furlong and discussing with her the
+proposal that he meant to make, together with such topics
+as marriage in general and his own unworthiness.
+
+He might have waited indefinitely had he not learned,
+on the third day of his visit, that Dulphemia was to go
+away in the morning to join her father at Nagahakett.
+
+That evening he found the necessary nerve to speak, and
+the proposal in almost every aspect of it was most
+successful.
+
+"By Jove!" Spillikins said to Philippa Furlong next
+morning, in explaining what had happened, "she was awfully
+nice about it. I think she must have guessed, in a way,
+don't you, what I was going to say? But at any rate she
+was awfully nice--let me say everything I wanted, and
+when I explained what a fool I was, she said she didn't
+think I was half such a fool as people thought me. But
+it's all right. It turns out that she isn't thinking of
+getting married. I asked her if I might always go on
+thinking of her, and she said I might."
+
+And that morning when Dulphemia was carried off in the
+motor to the station, Mr. Spillikins, without exactly
+being aware how he had done it, had somehow transferred
+himself to Philippa.
+
+"Isn't she a splendid girl!" he said at least ten times
+a day to Norah, the Little Girl in Green. And Norah always
+agreed, because she really thought Philippa a perfectly
+wonderful creature. There is no doubt that, but for a
+slight shift of circumstances, Mr. Spillikins would have
+proposed to Miss Furlong. Indeed, he spent a good part
+of his time rehearsing little speeches that began, "Of
+course I know I'm an awful ass in a way," or, "Of course
+I know that I'm not at all the sort of fellow," and so
+on.
+
+But not one of them ever was delivered.
+
+For it so happened that on the Thursday, one week after
+Mr. Spillikins's arrival, Philippa went again to the
+station in the motor. And when she came back there was
+another passenger with her, a tall young man in tweed,
+and they both began calling out to the Newberrys from a
+distance of at least a hundred yards.
+
+And both the Newberrys suddenly exclaimed, "Why, it's
+Tom!" and rushed off to meet the motor. And there was
+such a laughing and jubilation as the two descended and
+carried Tom's valises to the verandah, that Mr. Spillikins
+felt as suddenly and completely out of it as the Little
+Girl in Green herself--especially as his ear had caught,
+among the first things said, the words, "Congratulate
+us, Mrs. Newberry, we're engaged."
+
+After which Mr. Spillikins had the pleasure of sitting
+and listening while it was explained in wicker chairs on
+the verandah, that Philippa and Tom had been engaged
+already for ever so long--in fact, nearly two weeks, only
+they had agreed not to say a word to anybody till Tom
+had gone to North Carolina and back, to see his people.
+
+And as to who Tom was, or what was the relation between
+Tom and the Newberrys, Mr. Spillikins neither knew or
+cared; nor did it interest him in the least that Philippa
+had met Tom in Bermuda, and that she hadn't known that
+he even knew the Newberry's nor any other of the exuberant
+disclosures of the moment. In fact, if there was any one
+period rather than another when Mr. Spillikins felt
+corroborated in his private view of himself, it was at
+this moment.
+
+So the next day Tom and Philippa vanished together.
+
+"We shall be quite a small party now," said Mrs. Newberry;
+"in fact, quite by ourselves till Mrs. Everleigh comes,
+and she won't be here for a fortnight."
+
+At which the heart of the Little Girl in Green was glad,
+because she had been afraid that other girls might be
+coming, whereas she knew that Mrs. Everleigh was a widow
+with four sons and must be ever so old, past forty.
+
+The next few days were spent by Mr. Spillikins almost
+entirely in the society of Norah. He thought them on the
+whole rather pleasant days, but slow. To her they were
+an uninterrupted dream of happiness never to be forgotten.
+
+The Newberrys left them to themselves; not with any
+intent; it was merely that they were perpetually busy
+walking about the grounds of Castel Casteggio, blowing
+up things with dynamite, throwing steel bridges over
+gullies, and hoisting heavy timber with derricks. Nor
+were they to blame for it. For it had not always been
+theirs to command dynamite and control the forces of
+nature. There had been a time, now long ago, when the
+two Newberrys had lived, both of them, on twenty dollars
+a week, and Mrs. Newberry had made her own dresses, and
+Mr. Newberry had spent vigorous evenings in making
+hand-made shelves for their sitting-room. That was long
+ago, and since then Mr. Newberry, like many other people
+of those earlier days, had risen to wealth and Castel
+Casteggio, while others, like Norah's father, had stayed
+just where they were.
+
+So the Newberrys left Peter and Norah to themselves all
+day. Even after dinner, in the evening, Mr. Newberry was
+very apt to call to his wife in the dusk from some distant
+corner of the lawn:
+
+"Margaret, come over here and tell me if you don't think
+we might cut down this elm, tear the stump out by the
+roots, and throw it into the ravine."
+
+And the answer was, "One minute, Edward; just wait till
+I get a wrap."
+
+Before they came back, the dusk had grown to darkness,
+and they had redynamited half the estate.
+
+During all of which time Mr. Spillikins sat with Norah
+on the piazza. He talked and she listened. He told her,
+for instance, all about his terrific experiences in the
+oil business, and about his exciting career at college;
+or presently they went indoors and Norah played the piano
+and Mr. Spillikins sat and smoked and listened. In such
+a house as the Newberry's, where dynamite and the greater
+explosives were everyday matters, a little thing like
+the use of tobacco in the drawing-room didn't count. As
+for the music, "Go right ahead," said Mr. Spillikins;
+"I'm not musical, but I don't mind music a bit."
+
+In the daytime they played tennis. There was a court at
+one end of the lawn beneath the trees, all chequered with
+sunlight and mingled shadow; very beautiful, Norah thought,
+though Mr. Spillikins explained that the spotted light
+put him off his game. In fact, it was owing entirely to
+this bad light that Mr. Spillikins's fast drives, wonderful
+though they were, somehow never got inside the service
+court.
+
+Norah, of course, thought Mr. Spillikins a wonderful
+player. She was glad--in fact, it suited them both--when
+he beat her six to nothing. She didn't know and didn't
+care that there was no one else in the world that Mr.
+Spillikins could beat like that. Once he even said to
+her.
+
+"By Gad! you don't play half a bad game, you know. I
+think you know, with practice you'd come on quite a lot."
+
+After that the games were understood to be more or less
+in the form of lessons, which put Mr. Spillikins on a
+pedestal of superiority, and allowed any bad strokes on
+his part to be viewed as a form of indulgence.
+
+Also, as the tennis was viewed in this light, it was
+Norah's part to pick up the balls at the net and throw
+them back to Mr. Spillikins. He let her do this, not from
+rudeness, for it wasn't in him, but because in such a
+primeval place as Castel Casteggio the natural primitive
+relation of the sexes is bound to reassert itself.
+
+But of love Mr. Spillikins never thought. He had viewed
+it so eagerly and so often from a distance that when it
+stood here modestly at his very elbow he did not recognize
+its presence. His mind had been fashioned, as it were,
+to connect love with something stunning and sensational,
+with Easter hats and harem skirts and the luxurious
+consciousness of the unattainable.
+
+Even at that, there is no knowing what might have happened.
+Tennis, in the chequered light of sun and shadow cast by
+summer leaves, is a dangerous game. There came a day when
+they were standing one each side of the net and Mr.
+Spillikins was explaining to Norah the proper way to hold
+a racquet so as to be able to give those magnificent
+backhand sweeps of his, by which he generally drove the
+ball halfway to the lake; and explaining this involved
+putting his hand right over Norah's on the handle of the
+racquet, so that for just half a second her hand was
+clasped tight in his; and if that half-second had been
+lengthened out into a whole second it is quite possible
+that what was already subconscious in his mind would have
+broken its way triumphantly to the surface, and Norah's
+hand would have stayed in his--how willingly--! for the
+rest of their two lives.
+
+But just at that moment Mr. Spillikins looked up, and he
+said in quite an altered tone.
+
+"By Jove! who's that awfully good-looking woman getting
+out of the motor?"
+
+And their hands unclasped. Norah looked over towards the
+house and said:
+
+"Why, it's Mrs. Everleigh. I thought she wasn't coming
+for another week."
+
+"I say," said Mr. Spillikins, straining his short sight
+to the uttermost, "what perfectly wonderful golden hair,
+eh?" "Why, it's--" Norah began, and then she stopped. It
+didn't seem right to explain that Mrs. Everleigh's hair
+was dyed. "And who's that tall chap standing beside
+her?" said Mr. Spillikins.
+
+"I think it's Captain Cormorant, but I don't think he's
+going to stay. He's only brought her up in the motor from
+town." "By Jove, how good of him!" said Spillikins; and
+this sentiment in regard to Captain Cormorant, though
+he didn't know it, was to become a keynote of his existence.
+
+"I didn't know she was coming so soon," said Norah, and
+there was weariness already in her heart. Certainly she
+didn't know it; still less did she know, or anyone else,
+that the reason of Mrs. Everleigh's coming was because
+Mr. Spillikins was there. She came with a set purpose,
+and she sent Captain Cormorant directly back in the motor
+because she didn't want him on the premises.
+
+"Oughtn't we to go up to the house?" said Norah.
+
+"All right," said Mr. Spillikins with great alacrity,
+"let's go."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Now as this story began with the information that Mrs.
+Everleigh is at present Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins, there
+is no need to pursue in detail the stages of Mr.
+Spillikins's wooing. Its course was swift and happy. Mr.
+Spillikins, having seen the back of Mrs. Everleigh's
+head, had decided instantly that she was the most beautiful
+woman in the world; and that impression is not easily
+corrected in the half-light of a shaded drawing-room;
+nor across a dinner-table lighted only with candles with
+deep red shades; nor even in the daytime through a veil.
+In any case, it is only fair to state that if Mrs.
+Everleigh was not and is not a singularly beautiful woman,
+Mr. Spillikins still doesn't know it. And in point of
+attraction the homage of such experts as Captain Cormorant
+and Lieutenant Hawk speaks for itself.
+
+So the course of Mr. Spillikins's love, for love it must
+have been, ran swiftly to its goal. Each stage of it was
+duly marked by his comments to Norah.
+
+"She _is_ a splendid woman," he said, "so sympathetic. She
+always seems to know just what one's going to say."
+
+So she did, for she was making him say it.
+
+"By Jove!" he said a day later, "Mrs. Everleigh's an
+awfully fine woman, isn't she? I was telling her about
+my having been in the oil business for a little while,
+and she thinks that I'd really be awfully good in money
+things. She said she wished she had me to manage her
+money for her."
+
+This also was quite true, except that Mrs. Everleigh had
+not made it quite clear that the management of her money
+was of the form generally known as deficit financing. In
+fact, her money was, very crudely stated, nonexistent,
+and it needed a lot of management.
+
+A day or two later Mr. Spillikins was saying, "I think
+Mrs. Everleigh must have had great sorrow, don't you?
+Yesterday she was showing me a photograph of her little
+boy--she has a little boy you know--"
+
+"Yes, I know," said Norah. She didn't add that she knew
+that Mrs. Everleigh had four.
+
+"--and she was saying how awfully rough it is having him
+always away from her at Dr. Something's academy where he
+is."
+
+And very soon after that Mr. Spillikins was saying, with
+quite a quaver in his voice,
+
+"By Jove! yes, I'm awfully lucky; I never thought for a
+moment that she'd have me, you know--a woman like her,
+with so much attention and everything. I can't imagine
+what she sees in me."
+
+Which was just as well.
+
+And then Mr. Spillikins checked himself, for he
+noticed--this was on the verandah in the morning--that
+Norah had a hat and jacket on and that the motor was
+rolling towards the door.
+
+"I say," he said, "are you going away?"
+
+"Yes, didn't you know?" Norah said. "I thought you heard
+them speaking of it at dinner last night. I have to go
+home; father's alone, you know."
+
+"Oh, I'm awfully sorry," said Mr. Spillikins; "we shan't
+have any more tennis."
+
+"Goodbye," said Norah, and as she said it and put out
+her hand there were tears brimming up into her eyes. But
+Mr. Spillikins, being short of sight, didn't see them.
+
+"Goodbye," he said.
+
+Then as the motor carried her away he stood for a moment
+in a sort of reverie. Perhaps certain things that might
+have been rose unformed and inarticulate before his mind.
+And then, a voice called from the drawing-room within,
+in a measured and assured tone,
+
+"Peter, darling, where are you?"
+
+"Coming," cried Mr. Spillikins, and he came.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+On the second day of the engagement Mrs. Everleigh showed
+to Peter a little photograph in a brooch.
+
+"This is Gib, my second little boy," she said.
+
+Mr. Spillikins started to say, "I didn't know--" and then
+checked himself and said, "By Gad! what a fine-looking
+little chap, eh? I'm awfully fond of boys."
+
+"Dear little fellow, isn't he?" said Mrs. Everleigh.
+"He's really rather taller than that now, because this
+picture was taken a little while ago."
+
+And the next day she said, "This is Willie, my third
+boy," and on the day after that she said, "This is Sib,
+my youngest boy; I'm sure you'll love him."
+
+"I'm sure I shall," said Mr. Spillikins. He loved him
+already for being the youngest.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+And so in the fulness of time--nor was it so very full
+either, in fact, only about five weeks--Peter Spillikins
+and Mrs. Everleigh were married in St. Asaph's Church on
+Plutoria Avenue. And the wedding was one of the most
+beautiful and sumptuous of the weddings of the September
+season. There were flowers, and bridesmaids in long veils,
+and tall ushers in frock-coats, and awnings at the church
+door, and strings of motors with wedding-favours on
+imported chauffeurs, and all that goes to invest marriage
+on Plutoria Avenue with its peculiar sacredness. The face
+of the young rector, Mr. Fareforth Furlong, wore the
+added saintliness that springs from a five-hundred dollar
+fee. The whole town was there, or at least everybody that
+was anybody; and if there was one person absent, one who
+sat by herself in the darkened drawing-room of a dull
+little house on a shabby street, who knew or cared?
+
+So after the ceremony the happy couple--for were they
+not so?--left for New York. There they spent their
+honeymoon. They had thought of going--it was Mr.
+Spillikins's idea--to the coast of Maine. But Mrs.
+Everleigh-Spillikins said that New York was much nicer,
+so restful, whereas, as everyone knows, the coast of
+Maine is frightfully noisy.
+
+Moreover, it so happened that before the
+Everleigh-Spillikinses had been more than four or five
+days in New York the ship of Captain Cormorant dropped
+anchor in the Hudson; and when the anchor of that ship
+was once down it generally stayed there. So the captain
+was able to take the Everleigh-Spillikinses about in New
+York, and to give a tea for Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins
+on the deck of his vessel so that she might meet the
+officers, and another tea in a private room of a restaurant
+on Fifth Avenue so that she might meet no one but himself.
+
+And at this tea Captain Cormorant said, among other
+things, "Did he kick up rough at all when you told him
+about the money?"
+
+And Mrs. Everleigh, now Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins, said,
+"Not he! I think he is actually pleased to know that I
+haven't any. Do you know, Arthur, he's really an awfully
+good fellow," and as she said it she moved her hand away
+from under Captain Cormorant's on the tea-table.
+
+"I say," said the Captain, "don't get sentimental over
+him."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+So that is how it is that the Everleigh-Spillikinses came
+to reside on Plutoria Avenue in a beautiful stone house,
+with a billiard-room in an extension on the second floor.
+Through the windows of it one can almost hear the click
+of the billiard balls, and a voice saying, "Hold on,
+father, you had your shot."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX: The Rival Churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph
+
+The church of St. Asaph, more properly call St. Asaph's
+in the Fields, stands among the elm trees of Plutoria
+Avenue opposite the university, its tall spire pointing
+to the blue sky. Its rector is fond of saying that it
+seems to him to point, as it were, a warning against the
+sins of a commercial age. More particularly does he say
+this in his Lenten services at noonday, when the businessmen
+sit in front of him in rows, their bald heads uncovered
+and their faces stamped with contrition as they think of
+mergers that they should have made, and real estate that
+they failed to buy for lack of faith.
+
+The ground on which St. Asaph's stands is worth seven
+dollars and a half a foot. The mortgagees, as they kneel
+in prayer in their long frock-coats, feel that they have
+built upon a rock. It is a beautifully appointed church.
+There are windows with priceless stained glass that were
+imported from Normandy, the rector himself swearing out
+the invoices to save the congregation the grievous burden
+of the customs duty. There is a pipe organ in the transept
+that cost ten thousand dollars to install. The
+debenture-holders, as they join in the morning anthem,
+love to hear the dulcet notes of the great organ and to
+reflect that it is as good as new. Just behind the church
+is St. Asaph's Sunday School, with a ten-thousand dollar
+mortgage of its own. And below that again on the side
+street, is the building of the Young Men's Guild with a
+bowling-alley and a swimming-bath deep enough to drown
+two young men at a time, and a billiard-room with seven
+tables. It is the rector's boast that with a Guild House
+such as that there is no need for any young man of the
+congregation to frequent a saloon. Nor is there.
+
+And on Sunday mornings, when the great organ plays, and
+the mortgagees and the bond-holders and the
+debenture-holders and the Sunday school teachers and the
+billiard-markers all lift up their voices together, there
+is emitted from St. Asaph's a volume of praise that is
+practically as fine and effective as paid professional
+work.
+
+St. Asaph's is episcopal. As a consequence it has in it
+and about it all those things which go to make up the
+episcopal church--brass tablets let into its walls,
+blackbirds singing in its elm trees, parishioners who
+dine at eight o'clock, and a rector who wears a little
+crucifix and dances the tango.
+
+On the other hand, there stands upon the same street,
+not a hundred yards away, the rival church of St.
+Osoph--presbyterian down to its very foundations in
+bed-rock, thirty feet below the level of the avenue. It
+has a short, squat tower--and a low roof, and its narrow
+windows are glazed with frosted glass. It has dark spruce
+trees instead of elms, crows instead of blackbirds, and
+a gloomy minister with a shovel hat who lectures on
+philosophy on week-days at the university. He loves to
+think that his congregation are made of the lowly and
+the meek in spirit, and to reflect that, lowly and meek
+as they are, there are men among them that could buy out
+half the congregation of St. Asaph's.
+
+St. Osoph's is only presbyterian in a special sense. It
+is, in fact, too presbyterian to be any longer connected
+with any other body whatsoever. It seceded some forty
+years ago from the original body to which it belonged,
+and later on, with three other churches, it seceded from
+the group of seceding congregations. Still later it fell
+into a difference with the three other churches on the
+question of eternal punishment, the word "eternal" not
+appearing to the elders of St. Osoph's to designate a
+sufficiently long period. The dispute ended in a secession
+which left the church of St. Osoph practically isolated
+in a world of sin whose approaching fate it neither denied
+nor deplored.
+
+In one respect the rival churches of Plutoria Avenue had
+had a similar history. Each of them had moved up by
+successive stages from the lower and poorer parts of the
+city. Forty years ago St. Asaph's had been nothing more
+than a little frame church with a tin spire, away in the
+west of the slums, and St. Osoph's a square, diminutive
+building away in the east. But the site of St. Asaph's
+had been bought by a brewing company, and the trustees,
+shrewd men of business, themselves rising into wealth,
+had rebuilt it right in the track of the advancing tide
+of a real estate boom. The elders of St. Osoph, quiet
+men, but illumined by an inner light, had followed suit
+and moved their church right against the side of an
+expanding distillery. Thus both the churches, as decade
+followed decade, made their way up the slope of the City
+till St. Asaph's was presently gloriously expropriated
+by the street railway company, and planted its spire in
+triumph on Plutoria Avenue itself. But St. Osoph's
+followed. With each change of site it moved nearer and
+nearer to St. Asaph's. Its elders were shrewd men. With
+each move of their church they took careful thought in
+the rebuilding. In the manufacturing district it was
+built with sixteen windows on each side and was converted
+at a huge profit into a bicycle factory. On the residential
+street it was made long and deep and was sold to a
+moving-picture company without the alteration of so much
+as a pew. As a last step a syndicate, formed among the
+members of the congregation themselves, bought ground on
+Plutoria Avenue, and sublet it to themselves as a site
+for the church, at a nominal interest of five per cent
+per annum, payable nominally every three months and
+secured by a nominal mortgage.
+
+As the two churches moved, their congregations, or at
+least all that was best of them--such members as were
+sharing in the rising fortunes of the City--moved also,
+and now for some six or seven years the two churches and
+the two congregations had confronted one another among
+the elm trees of the Avenue opposite to the university.
+
+But at this point the fortunes of the churches had
+diverged. St. Asaph's was a brilliant success; St. Osoph's
+was a failure. Even its own trustees couldn't deny it.
+At a time when St. Asaph's was not only paying its interest
+but showing a handsome surplus on everything it undertook,
+the church of St. Osoph was moving steadily backwards.
+
+There was no doubt, of course, as to the cause. Everybody
+knew it. It was simply a question of men, and, as everybody
+said, one had only to compare the two men conducting the
+churches to see why one succeeded and the other failed.
+
+The Reverend Edward Fareforth Furlong of St. Asaph's was
+a man who threw his whole energy into his parish work.
+The subtleties of theological controversy he left to
+minds less active than his own. His creed was one of
+works rather than of words, and whatever he was doing he
+did it with his whole heart. Whether he was lunching at
+the Mausoleum Club with one of his church wardens, or
+playing the flute--which he played as only the episcopal
+clergy can play it--accompanied on the harp by one of
+the fairest of the ladies of his choir, or whether he
+was dancing the new episcopal tango with the younger
+daughters of the elder parishioners, he threw himself
+into it with all his might. He could drink tea more
+gracefully and play tennis better than any clergyman on
+this side of the Atlantic. He could stand beside the
+white stone font of St. Asaph's in his long white surplice
+holding a white-robed infant, worth half a million dollars,
+looking as beautifully innocent as the child itself, and
+drawing from every matron of the congregation with
+unmarried daughters the despairing cry, "What a pity that
+he has no children of his own!"
+
+Equally sound was his theology. No man was known to preach
+shorter sermons or to explain away the book of Genesis
+more agreeably than the rector of St. Asaph's; and if he
+found it necessary to refer to the Deity he did so under
+the name of Jehovah or Jah, or even Yaweh in a manner
+calculated not to hurt the sensitiveness of any of the
+parishioners. People who would shudder at brutal talk of
+the older fashion about the wrath of God listened with
+well-bred interest to a sermon on the personal
+characteristics of Jah. In the same way Mr. Furlong always
+referred to the devil, not as Satan but as Su or Swa,
+which took all the sting out of him. Beelzebub he spoke
+of as Behel-Zawbab, which rendered him perfectly harmless.
+The Garden of Eden he spoke of as the Paradeisos, which
+explained it entirely; the flood as the Diluvium, which
+cleared it up completely; and Jonah he named, after the
+correct fashion Jon Nah, which put the whole situation
+(his being swallowed by Baloo or the Great Lizard) on a
+perfectly satisfactory footing. Hell itself was spoken
+of as She-ol, and it appeared that it was not a place of
+burning, but rather of what one might describe as moral
+torment. This settled She-ol once and for all: nobody
+minds moral torment. In short, there was nothing in the
+theological system of Mr. Furlong that need have occasioned
+in any of his congregation a moment's discomfort.
+
+There could be no greater contrast with Mr. Fareforth
+Furlong than the minister of St. Osoph's, the Rev. Dr.
+McTeague, who was also honorary professor of philosophy
+at the university. The one was young, the other was old;
+the one could dance the other could not; the one moved
+about at church picnics and lawn teas among a bevy of
+disciples in pink and blue sashes; the other moped around
+under the trees of the university campus with blinking
+eyes that saw nothing and an abstracted mind that had
+spent fifty years in trying to reconcile Hegel with St.
+Paul, and was still busy with it. Mr. Furlong went forward
+with the times; Dr. McTeague slid quietly backwards with
+the centuries.
+
+Dr. McTeague was a failure, and all his congregation knew
+it. "He is not up to date," they said. That was his
+crowning sin. "He don't go forward any," said the business
+members of the congregation. "That old man believes just
+exactly the same sort of stuff now that he did forty
+years ago. What's more, he preaches it. You can't run a
+church that way, can you?"
+
+His trustees had done their best to meet the difficulty.
+They had offered Dr. McTeague a two-years' vacation to
+go and see the Holy Land. He refused; he said he could
+picture it. They reduced his salary by fifty per cent;
+he never noticed it. They offered him an assistant; but
+he shook his head, saying that he didn't know where he
+could find a man to do just the work that he was doing.
+Meantime he mooned about among the trees concocting a
+mixture of St. Paul with Hegel, three parts to one, for
+his Sunday sermon, and one part to three for his Monday
+lecture.
+
+No doubt it was his dual function that was to blame for
+his failure. And this, perhaps, was the fault of Dr.
+Boomer, the president of the university. Dr. Boomer, like
+all university presidents of today, belonged to the
+presbyterian church; or rather, to state it more correctly,
+he included presbyterianism within himself. He was of
+course, a member of the board of management of St. Osoph's
+and it was he who had urged, very strongly, the appointment
+of Dr. McTeague, then senior professor of philosophy, as
+minister.
+
+"A saintly man," he said, "the very man for the post. If
+you should ask me whether he is entirely at home as a
+professor of philosophy on our staff at the university,
+I should be compelled to say no. We are forced to admit
+that as a lecturer he does not meet our views. He appears
+to find it difficult to keep religion out of his teaching.
+In fact, his lectures are suffused with a rather dangerous
+attempt at moral teaching which is apt to contaminate
+our students. But in the Church I should imagine that
+would be, if anything, an advantage. Indeed, if you were
+to come to me and say, 'Boomer, we wish to appoint Dr.
+McTeague as our minister,' I should say, quite frankly,
+'Take him.'"
+
+So Dr. McTeague had been appointed. Then, to the surprise
+of everybody he refused to give up his lectures in
+philosophy. He said he felt a call to give them. The
+salary, he said, was of no consequence. He wrote to Mr.
+Furlong senior (the father of the episcopal rector and
+honorary treasurer of the Plutoria University) and stated
+that he proposed to give his lectures for nothing. The
+trustees of the college protested; they urged that the
+case might set a dangerous precedent which other professors
+might follow. While fully admitting that Dr. McTeague's
+lectures were well worth giving for nothing, they begged
+him to reconsider his offer. But he refused; and from
+that day on, in spite of all offers that he should retire
+on double his salary, that he should visit the Holy Land,
+or Syria, or Armenia, where the dreadful massacres of
+Christians were taking place, Dr. McTeague clung to his
+post with a tenacity worthy of the best traditions of
+Scotland. His only internal perplexity was that he didn't
+see how, when the time came for him to die, twenty or
+thirty years hence, they would ever be able to replace
+him. Such was the situation of the two churches on a
+certain beautiful morning in June, when an unforeseen
+event altered entirely the current of their fortunes.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"No, thank you, Juliana," said the young rector to his
+sister across the breakfast table--and there was something
+as near to bitterness in his look as his saintly,
+smooth-shaven face was capable of reflecting--"no, thank
+you, no more porridge. Prunes? no, no, thank you; I don't
+think I care for any. And, by the way," he added, "don't
+bother to keep any lunch for me. I have a great deal of
+business--that is, of work in the parish--to see to, and
+I must just find time to get a bite of something to eat
+when and where I can."
+
+In his own mind he was resolving that the place should
+be the Mausoleum Club and the time just as soon as the
+head waiter would serve him.
+
+After which the Reverend Edward Fareforth Furlong bowed
+his head for a moment in a short, silent blessing--the
+one prescribed by the episcopal church in America for a
+breakfast of porridge and prunes.
+
+It was their first breakfast together, and it spoke
+volumes to the rector. He knew what it implied. It stood
+for his elder sister Juliana's views on the need of
+personal sacrifice as a means of grace. The rector sighed
+as he rose. He had never missed his younger sister
+Philippa, now married and departed, so keenly. Philippa
+had had opinions of her own on bacon and eggs and on lamb
+chops with watercress as a means of stimulating the soul.
+But Juliana was different. The rector understood now
+exactly why it was that his father had exclaimed, on the
+news of Philippa's engagement, without a second's
+hesitation, "Then, of course, Juliana must live with you!
+Nonsense, my dear boy, nonsense! It's my duty to spare
+her to you. After all, I can always eat at the club; they
+can give me a bite of something or other, surely. To a
+man of my age, Edward, food is really of no consequence.
+No, no; Juliana must move into the rectory at once."
+
+The rector's elder sister rose. She looked tall and sallow
+and forbidding in the plain black dress that contrasted
+sadly with the charming clerical costumes of white and
+pink and the broad episcopal hats with flowers in them
+that Philippa used to wear for morning work in the parish.
+
+"For what time shall I order dinner?" she asked. "You
+and Philippa used to have it at half-past seven, did you
+not? Don't you think that rather too late?"
+
+"A trifle perhaps," said the rector uneasily. He didn't
+care to explain to Juliana that it was impossible to get
+home any earlier from the kind of _the dansant_ that
+everybody was giving just now. "But don't trouble about
+dinner. I may be working very late. If I need anything
+to eat I shall get a biscuit and some tea at the Guild
+Rooms, or--"
+
+He didn't finish the sentence, but in his mind he added,
+"or else a really first-class dinner at the Mausoleum
+Club, or at the Newberrys' or the Rasselyer-Browns'--
+anywhere except here."
+
+"If you are going, then," said Juliana, "may I have the
+key of the church."
+
+A look of pain passed over the rector's face. He knew
+perfectly well what Juliana wanted the key for. She meant
+to go into his church and pray in it.
+
+The rector of St. Asaph's was, he trusted, as broad-minded
+a man as an Anglican clergyman ought to be. He had no
+objection to any reasonable use of his church--for a
+thanksgiving festival or for musical recitals for
+example--but when it came to opening up the church and
+using it to pray in, the thing was going a little too
+far. What was more, he had an idea from the look on
+Juliana's face that she meant to pray for _him_. This, for
+a clergy man, was hard to bear. Philippa, like the good
+girl that she was, had prayed only for herself, and then
+only at the proper times and places, and in a proper
+praying costume. The rector began to realize what
+difficulties it might make for a clergyman to have a
+religious sister as his house-mate.
+
+But he was never a man for unseemly argument. "It is
+hanging in my study," he said.
+
+And with that the Rev. Fareforth Furlong passed into the
+hall took up the simple silk hat, the stick and gloves
+of the working clergyman and walked out on to the avenue
+to begin his day's work in the parish.
+
+The rector's parish viewed in its earthly aspect, was a
+singularly beautiful place. For it extended all along
+Plutoria Avenue, where the street is widest and the elm
+trees are at their leafiest and the motors at their very
+drowsiest. It lay up and down the shaded side streets of
+the residential district, darkened with great chestnuts
+and hushed in a stillness that was almost religion itself.
+There was not a house in the parish assessed at less than
+twenty-five thousand, and in very heart of it the Mausoleum
+Club, with its smooth white stone and its Grecian
+architecture, carried one back to the ancient world and
+made one think of Athens and of Paul preaching on Mars
+Hill. It was, all considered, a splendid thing to fight
+sin in such a parish and to keep it out of it. For kept
+out it was. One might look the length and breadth of the
+broad avenue and see no sign of sin all along it. There
+was certainly none in the smooth faces of the chauffeurs
+trundling their drowsy motors; no sign of it in the
+expensive children paraded by imported nursemaids in the
+chequered light of the shaded street; least of all was
+there any sign of it in the Stock Exchange members of
+the congregation as they walked along side by side to
+their lunch at the Mausoleum Club, their silk hats nodding
+together in earnest colloquy on Shares Preferred and
+Profits Undivided. So might have walked, so must have
+walked, the very Fathers of the Church themselves.
+
+Whatever sin there was in the City was shoved sideways
+into the roaring streets of commerce where the elevated
+railway ran, and below that again into the slums. Here
+there must have been any quantity of sin. The rector of
+St. Asaph's was certain of it. Many of the richer of his
+parishioners had been down in parties late at night to
+look at it, and the ladies of his congregation were joined
+together into all sorts of guilds and societies and bands
+of endeavour for stamping it out and driving it under or
+putting it into jail till it surrendered.
+
+But the slums lay outside the rector's parish. He had no
+right to interfere. They were under the charge of a
+special mission or auxiliary, a remnant of the St. Asaph's
+of the past, placed under the care of a divinity student,
+at four hundred dollars per annum. His charge included
+all the slums and three police courts and two music halls
+and the City jail. One Sunday afternoon in every three
+months the rector and several ladies went down and sang
+hymns for him in his mission-house. But his work was
+really very easy. A funeral, for example, at the mission,
+was a simple affair, meaning nothing more than the
+preparation of a plain coffin and a glassless hearse and
+the distribution of a few artificial everlasting flowers
+to women crying in their aprons; a thing easily done:
+whereas in St. Asaph's parish, where all the really
+important souls were, a funeral was a large event,
+requiring taste and tact, and a nice shading of delicacy
+in distinguishing mourners from beneficiaries, and private
+grief from business representation at the ceremony. A
+funeral with a plain coffin and a hearse was as nothing
+beside an interment, with a casket smothered in hot-house
+syringas, borne in a coach and followed by special
+reporters from the financial papers.
+
+It appeared to the rector afterwards as almost a shocking
+coincidence that the first person whom he met upon the
+avenue should have been the Rev. Dr. McTeague himself.
+Mr. Furlong gave him the form of amiable "good morning"
+that the episcopal church always extends to those in
+error. But he did not hear it. The minister's head was
+bent low, his eyes gazed into vacancy, and from the
+movements of his lips and from the fact that he carried
+a leather case of notes, he was plainly on his way to
+his philosophical lecture. But the rector had no time to
+muse upon the abstracted appearance of his rival. For,
+as always happened to him, he was no sooner upon the
+street than his parish work of the day began. In fact,
+he had hardly taken a dozen steps after passing Dr.
+McTeague when he was brought up standing by two beautiful
+parishioners with pink parasols.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Furlong," exclaimed one of them, "so fortunate
+to happen to catch you; we were just going into the rectory
+to consult you. Should the girls--for the lawn tea for
+the Guild on Friday, you know--wear white dresses with
+light blue sashes all the same, or do you think we might
+allow them to wear any coloured sashes that they like?
+What do you think?"
+
+This was an important problem. In fact, there was a piece
+of parish work here that it took the Reverend Fareforth
+half an hour to attend to standing the while in earnest
+colloquy with the two ladies under the shadow of the elm
+trees. But a clergyman must never be grudging of his
+time.
+
+"Goodbye then," they said at last. "Are you coming to
+the Browning Club this morning? Oh, so sorry! but we
+shall see you at the musicale this afternoon, shall we
+not?"
+
+"Oh, I trust so," said the rector.
+
+"How dreadfully hard he works," said the ladies to one
+another as they moved away.
+
+Thus slowly and with many interruptions the rector made
+his progress along the avenue. At times he stopped to
+permit a pink-cheeked infant in a perambulator to beat
+him with a rattle while he inquired its age of an episcopal
+nurse, gay with flowing ribbons. He lifted his hat to
+the bright parasols of his parishioners passing in
+glistening motors, bowed to episcopalians, nodded amiably
+to presbyterians, and even acknowledged with his lifted
+hat the passing of persons of graver forms of error.
+
+Thus he took his way along the avenue and down a side
+street towards the business district of the City, until
+just at the edge of it, where the trees were about to
+stop and the shops were about to begin, he found himself
+at the door of the Hymnal Supply Corporation, Limited.
+The premises as seen from the outside combined the idea
+of an office with an ecclesiastical appearance. The door
+was as that of a chancel or vestry; there was a large
+plate-glass window filled with Bibles and Testaments,
+all spread open and showing every variety of language in
+their pages. These were marked, Arabic, Syriac, Coptic,
+Ojibway, Irish and so forth. On the window in small white
+lettering were the words, HYMNAL SUPPLY CORPORATION, and
+below that, HOSANNA PIPE AND STEAM ORGAN INCORPORATED,
+and Still lower the legend BIBLE SOCIETY OF THE GOOD
+SHEPHERD LIMITED.
+
+There was no doubt of the sacred character of the place.
+Here laboured Mr. Furlong senior, the father of the Rev.
+Edward Fareforth. He was a man of many activities;
+president and managing director of the companies just
+mentioned, trustee and secretary of St. Asaph's, honorary
+treasurer of the university, etc.; and each of his
+occupations and offices was marked by something of a
+supramundane character, something higher than ordinary
+business. His different official positions naturally
+overlapped and brought him into contact with himself from
+a variety of angles. Thus he sold himself hymn books at
+a price per thousand, made as a business favour to himself,
+negotiated with himself the purchase of the
+ten-thousand-dollar organ (making a price on it to himself
+that he begged himself to regard as confidential), and
+as treasurer of the college he sent himself an informal
+note of enquiry asking if he knew of any sound investment
+for the annual deficit of the college funds, a matter of
+some sixty thousand dollars a year, which needed very
+careful handling. Any man--and there are many such--who
+has been concerned with business dealings of this sort
+with himself realizes that they are more satisfactory
+than any other kind.
+
+To what better person, then, could the rector of St.
+Asaph's bring the quarterly accounts and statements of
+his church than to Mr. Furlong senior.
+
+The outer door was opened to the rector by a sanctified
+boy with such a face as is only found in the choirs of
+the episcopal church. In an outer office through which
+the rector passed were two sacred stenographers with hair
+as golden as the daffodils of Sheba, copying confidential
+letters on absolutely noiseless typewriters. They were
+making offers of Bibles in half-car-load lots at two and
+a half per cent reduction, offering to reduce St. Mark
+by two cents on condition of immediate export, and to
+lay down St. John f.o.b. San Francisco for seven cents,
+while regretting that they could deliver fifteen thousand
+Rock of Ages in Missouri on no other terms than cash.
+
+The sacred character of their work lent them a preoccupation
+beautiful to behold.
+
+In the room beyond them was a white-haired confidential
+clerk, venerable as the Song of Solomon, and by him Mr.
+Fareforth Furlong was duly shown into the office of his
+father.
+
+"Good morning, Edward," said Mr. Furlong senior, as he
+shook hands. "I was expecting you. And while I think of
+it, I have just had a letter from Philippa. She and Tom
+will be home in two or three weeks. She writes from Egypt.
+She wishes me to tell you, as no doubt you have already
+anticipated, that she thinks she can hardly continue to
+be a member of the congregation when they come back. No
+doubt you felt this yourself?"
+
+"Oh, entirely," said the rector. "Surely in matters of
+belief a wife must follow her husband."
+
+"Exactly; especially as Tom's uncles occupy the position
+they do with regard to--" Mr. Furlong jerked his head
+backwards and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder
+in a way that his son knew was meant to indicate St.
+Osoph's Church.
+
+The Overend brothers, who were Tom's uncles (his name
+being Tom Overend) were, as everybody knew, among the
+principal supporters of St. Osoph's. Not that they were,
+by origin, presbyterians. But they were self-made men,
+which put them once and for all out of sympathy with such
+a place as St. Asaph's. "We made ourselves," the two
+brothers used to repeat in defiance of the catechism of
+the Anglican Church. They never wearied of explaining
+how Mr. Dick, the senior brother, had worked overtime by
+day to send Mr. George, the junior brother, to school by
+night, and how Mr. George had then worked overtime by
+night to send Mr. Dick to school by day. Thus they had
+come up the business ladder hand over hand, landing later
+on in life on the platform of success like two corpulent
+acrobats, panting with the strain of it. "For years,"
+Mr. George would explain, "we had father and mother to
+keep as well; then they died, and Dick and me saw daylight."
+By which he meant no harm at all, but only stated a fact,
+and concealed the virtue of it.
+
+And being self-made men they made it a point to do what
+they could to lessen the importance of such an institution
+as St. Asaph's Church. By the same contrariety of nature
+the two Overend brothers (their business name was Overend
+Brothers, Limited) were supporters of the dissentient
+Young Men's Guild, and the second or rival University
+Settlement, and of anything or everything that showed a
+likelihood of making trouble. On this principle they
+were warm supporters and friends of the Rev. Dr. McTeague.
+The minister had even gone so far as to present to the
+brothers a copy of his philosophical work "McTeague's
+Exposition of the Kantian Hypothesis." and the two brothers
+had read it through in the office, devoting each of them
+a whole morning to it. Mr. Dick, the senior brother,
+had said that he had never seen anything like it, and
+Mr. George, the junior, had declared that a man who could
+write that was capable of anything.
+
+On the whole it was evident that the relations between
+the Overend family and the presbyterian religion were
+too intimate to allow Mrs. Tom Overend, formerly Miss
+Philippa Furlong, to sit anywhere else of a Sunday than
+under Dr. McTeague.
+
+"Philippa writes," continued Mr. Furlong "that under the
+circumstances she and Tom would like to do something for
+your church. She would like--yes, I have the letter
+here--to give you, as a surprise, of course, either a
+new font or a carved pulpit; or perhaps a cheque; she
+wishes me on no account to mention it to you directly,
+but to ascertain indirectly from you, what would be the
+better surprise."
+
+"Oh, a cheque, I think," said the rector; "one can do so
+much more with it, after all."
+
+"Precisely," said his father; he was well aware of many
+things that can be done with a cheque that cannot possibly
+be done with a font.
+
+"That's settled then," resumed Mr. Furlong; "and now I
+suppose you want me to run my eye over your quarterly
+statements, do you not, before we send them in to the
+trustees? That is what you've come for, is it not?"
+
+"Yes," said the rector, drawing a bundle of blue and
+white papers from his pocket. "I have everything with
+me. Our showing is, I believe, excellent, though I fear
+I fail to present it as clearly as it might be done."
+
+Mr. Furlong senior spread the papers on the table before
+him and adjusted his spectacles to a more convenient
+angle. He smiled indulgently as he looked at the documents
+before him.
+
+"I am afraid you would never make an accountant, Edward,"
+he said.
+
+"I fear not," said the rector.
+
+"Your items," said his father, "are entered wrongly.
+Here, for example, in the general statement, you put down
+Distribution of Coals to the Poor to your credit. In the
+same way, Bibles and Prizes to the Sunday School you
+again mark to your credit. Why? Don't you see, my boy,
+that these things are debits? When you give out Bibles
+or distribute fuel to the poor you give out something
+for which you get no return. It is a debit. On the other
+hand, such items as Church Offertory, Scholars' Pennies,
+etc., are pure profit. Surely the principle is clear."
+
+"I think I see it better now," said the Rev. Edward.
+
+"Perfectly plain, isn't it?" his father went on. "And
+here again. Paupers' Burial Fund, a loss; enter it as
+such. Christmas Gift to Verger and Sexton, an absolute
+loss--you get nothing in return. Widows' Mite, Fines
+inflicted in Sunday School, etc., these are profit; write
+them down as such. By this method, you see, in ordinary
+business we can tell exactly where we stand: anything
+which we give out without return or reward we count as
+a debit; all that we take from others without giving in
+return we count as so much to our credit."
+
+"Ah, yes," murmured the rector. "I begin to understand."
+
+"Very good. But after all, Edward, I mustn't quarrel with
+the mere form of your accounts; the statement is really
+a splendid showing. I see that not only is our mortgage
+and debenture interest all paid to date, but that a number
+of our enterprises are making a handsome return. I notice,
+for example, that the Girls' Friendly Society of the
+church not only pays for itself, but that you are able
+to take something out of its funds and transfer it to
+the Men's Book Club. Excellent! And I observe that you
+have been able to take a large portion of the Soup Kitchen
+Fund and put it into the Rector's Picnic Account. Very
+good indeed. In this respect your figures are a model
+for church accounts anywhere."
+
+Mr. Furlong continued his scrutiny of the accounts.
+"Excellent," he murmured, "and on the whole an annual
+surplus, I see, of several thousands. But stop a bit,"
+he continued, checking himself; "what's this? Are you
+aware, Edward, that you are losing money on your Foreign
+Missions Account?"
+
+"I feared as much," said Edward.
+
+"It's incontestable. Look at the figures for yourself:
+missionary's salary so much, clothes and books to converts
+so much, voluntary and other offerings of converts so
+much why, you're losing on it, Edward!" exclaimed Mr.
+Furlong, and he shook his head dubiously at the accounts
+before him.
+
+"I thought," protested his son, "that in view of the
+character of the work itself--"
+
+"Quite so," answered his father, "quite so. I fully admit
+the force of that. I am only asking you, is it worth it?
+Mind you, I am not speaking now as a Christian, but as
+a businessman. Is it worth it?"
+
+"I thought that perhaps, in view of the fact of our large
+surplus in other directions--"
+
+"Exactly," said his father, "a heavy surplus. It is
+precisely on that point that I wished to speak to you
+this morning. You have at present a large annual surplus,
+and there is every prospect under Providence--in fact,
+I think in any case--of it continuing for years to come.
+If I may speak very frankly I should say that as long as
+our reverend friend, Dr. McTeague, continues in his charge
+of St. Osoph's--and I trust that he may be spared for
+many years to come--you are likely to enjoy the present
+prosperity of your church. Very good. The question arises,
+what disposition are we to make of our accumulating
+funds?"
+
+"Yes," said the rector, hesitating.
+
+"I am speaking to you now," said his father "not as the
+secretary of your church, but as president of the Hymnal
+Supply Company which I represent here. Now please
+understand, Edward, I don't want in any way to force or
+control your judgment. I merely wish to show you
+certain--shall I say certain opportunities that present
+themselves for the disposal of our funds? The matter can
+be taken up later, formally, by yourself and the trustees
+of the church. As a matter of fact, I have already written
+to myself as secretary in the matter, and I have received
+what I consider a quite encouraging answer. Let me explain
+what I propose."
+
+Mr. Furlong senior rose, and opening the door of the
+office,
+
+"Everett," he said to the ancient clerk, "kindly give me
+a Bible."
+
+It was given to him.
+
+Mr. Furlong stood with the Bible poised in his hand.
+
+"Now we," he went on, "I mean the Hymnal Supply Corporation,
+have an idea for bringing out an entirely new Bible."
+
+A look of dismay appeared on the saintly face of the
+rector.
+
+"A new Bible!" he gasped.
+
+"Precisely!" said his father, "a new Bible! This one--
+and we find it every day in our business--is all wrong."
+
+"All wrong!" said the rector with horror in his face.
+
+"My dear boy," exclaimed his father, "pray, pray, do not
+misunderstand me. Don't imagine for a moment that I mean
+wrong in a religious sense. Such a thought could never,
+I hope, enter my mind. All that I mean is that this Bible
+is badly made up."
+
+"Badly made up?" repeated his son, as mystified as ever.
+
+"I see that you do not understand me. What I mean is
+this. Let me try to make myself quite clear. For the
+market of today this Bible"--and he poised it again on
+his hand, as if to test its weight, "is too heavy. The
+people of today want something lighter, something easier
+to get hold of. Now if--"
+
+But what Mr. Furlong was about to say was lost forever
+to the world.
+
+For just at this juncture something occurred calculated
+to divert not only Mr. Furlong's sentence, but the fortunes
+and the surplus of St. Asaph's itself. At the very moment
+when Mr. Furlong was speaking a newspaper delivery man
+in the street outside handed to the sanctified boy the
+office copy of the noonday paper. And the boy had no
+sooner looked at its headlines than he said, "How dreadful!"
+Being sanctified, he had no stronger form of speech than
+that. But he handed the paper forthwith to one of the
+stenographers with hair like the daffodils of Sheba, and
+when she looked at it she exclaimed, "How awful!" And
+she knocked at once at the door of the ancient clerk and
+gave the paper to him; and when he looked at it and saw
+the headline the ancient clerk murmured, "Ah!" in the
+gentle tone in which very old people greet the news of
+catastrophe or sudden death.
+
+But in his turn he opened Mr. Furlong's door and put down
+the paper, laying his finger on the column for a moment
+without a word.
+
+Mr. Furlong stopped short in his sentence. "Dear me!" he
+said as his eyes caught the item of news. "How very
+dreadful!"
+
+"What is it?" said the rector.
+
+"Dr. McTeague," answered his father. "He has been stricken
+with paralysis!"
+
+"How shocking!" said the rector, aghast. "But when? I
+saw him only this morning."
+
+"It has just happened," said his father, following down
+the column of the newspaper as he spoke, "this morning,
+at the university, in his classroom, at a lecture. Dear
+me, how dreadful! I must go and see the president at
+once."
+
+Mr. Furlong was about to reach for his hat and stick when
+at that moment the aged clerk knocked at the door.
+
+"Dr. Boomer," he announced in a tone of solemnity suited
+to the occasion.
+
+Dr. Boomer entered, shook hands in silence and sat down.
+
+"You have heard our sad news, I suppose?" he said. He
+used the word "our" as between the university president
+and his honorary treasurer.
+
+"How did it happen?" asked Mr. Furlong.
+
+"Most distressing," said the president. "Dr. McTeague,
+it seems, had just entered his ten o'clock class (the
+hour was about ten-twenty) and was about to open his
+lecture, when one of his students rose in his seat and
+asked a question. It is a practice," continued Dr. Boomer,
+"which, I need hardly say, we do not encourage; the young
+man, I believe, was a newcomer in the philosophy class.
+At any rate, he asked Dr. McTeague, quite suddenly it
+appears; how he could reconcile his theory of transcendental
+immaterialism with a scheme of rigid moral determinism.
+Dr. McTeague stared for a moment, his mouth, so the class
+assert, painfully open. The student repeated the question,
+and poor McTeague fell forward over his desk, paralysed."
+
+"Is he dead?" gasped Mr. Furlong.
+
+"No," said the president. "But we expect his death at
+any moment. Dr. Slyder, I may say, is with him now and
+is doing all he can."
+
+"In any case, I suppose, he could hardly recover enough
+to continue his college duties," said the young rector.
+
+"Out of the question," said the president. "I should not
+like to state that of itself mere paralysis need
+incapacitate a professor. Dr. Thrum, our professor of
+the theory of music, is, as you know, paralysed in his
+ears, and Mr. Slant, our professor of optics, is paralysed
+in his right eye. But this is a case of paralysis of the
+brain. I fear it is incompatible with professorial work."
+
+"Then, I suppose," said Mr. Furlong senior, "we shall
+have to think of the question of a successor."
+
+They had both _been_ thinking of it for at least three
+minutes. "We must," said the president. "For the moment
+I feel too stunned by the sad news to act. I have merely
+telegraphed to two or three leading colleges for a _locum
+tenens_ and sent out a few advertisements announcing the
+chair as vacant. But it will be difficult to replace
+McTeague. He was a man," added Dr. Boomer, rehearsing in
+advance, unconsciously, no doubt, his forthcoming oration
+over Dr. McTeague's death, "of a singular grasp, a breadth
+of culture, and he was able, as few men are, to instil
+what I might call a spirit of religion into his teaching.
+His lectures, indeed, were suffused with moral instruction,
+and exercised over his students an influence second only
+to that of the pulpit itself."
+
+He paused.
+
+"Ah yes, the pulpit," said Mr. Furlong, "there indeed
+you will miss him."
+
+"That," said Dr. Boomer very reverently, "is our real
+loss, deep, irreparable. I suppose, indeed I am certain,
+we shall never again see such a man in the pulpit of St.
+Osoph's. Which reminds me," he added more briskly, "I
+must ask the newspaper people to let it be known that
+there will be service as usual the day after tomorrow,
+and that Dr. McTeague's death will, of course, make no
+difference--that is to say--I must see the newspaper
+people at once."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+That afternoon all the newspaper editors in the City were
+busy getting their obituary notices ready for the demise
+of Dr. McTeague.
+
+"The death of Dr. McTeague," wrote the editor of the
+_Commercial and Financial Undertone_, a paper which had
+almost openly advocated the minister's dismissal for five
+years back, "comes upon us as an irreparable loss. His
+place will be difficult, nay, impossible, to fill. Whether
+as a philosopher or a divine he cannot be replaced."
+
+"We have no hesitation in saying," so wrote the editor
+of the _Plutorian Times_, a three-cent morning paper, which
+was able to take a broad or three-cent point of view of
+men and things, "that the loss of Dr. McTeague will be
+just as much felt in Europe as in America. To Germany
+the news that the hand that penned 'McTeague's Shorter
+Exposition of the Kantian Hypothesis' has ceased to write
+will come with the shock of poignant anguish; while to
+France--"
+
+The editor left the article unfinished at that point.
+After all, he was a ready writer, and he reflected that
+there would be time enough before actually going to press
+to consider from what particular angle the blow of
+McTeague's death would strike down the people of France.
+
+So ran in speech and in writing, during two or three
+days, the requiem of Dr. McTeague.
+
+Altogether there were more kind things said of him in
+the three days during which he was taken for dead, than
+in thirty years of his life--which seemed a pity.
+
+And after it all, at the close of the third day, Dr.
+McTeague feebly opened his eyes.
+
+But when he opened them the world had already passed on,
+and left him behind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN: The Ministrations of the Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing
+
+"Well, then, gentlemen, I think we have all agreed upon
+our man?"
+
+Mr. Dick Overend looked around the table as he spoke at
+the managing trustees of St. Osoph's church. They were
+assembled in an upper committee room of the Mausoleum
+Club. Their official place of meeting was in a board room
+off the vestry of the church. But they had felt a draught
+in it, some four years ago, which had wafted them over
+to the club as their place of assembly. In the club there
+were no draughts.
+
+Mr. Dick Overend sat at the head of the table, his brother
+George beside him, and Dr. Boomer at the foot. Beside
+them were Mr. Boulder, Mr. Skinyer (of Skinyer and Beatem)
+and the rest of the trustees.
+
+"You are agreed, then, on the Reverend Uttermust
+Dumfarthing?"
+
+"Quite agreed," murmured several trustees together.
+
+"A most remarkable man," said Dr. Boomer. "I heard him
+preach in his present church. He gave utterance to thoughts
+that I have myself been thinking for years. I never
+listened to anything so sound or so scholarly."
+
+"I heard him the night he preached in New York," said
+Mr. Boulder. "He preached a sermon to the poor. He told
+them they were no good. I never heard, outside of a Scotch
+pulpit, such splendid invective."
+
+"Is he Scotch?" said one of the trustees.
+
+"Of Scotch parentage," said the university president. "I
+believe he is one of the Dumfarthings of Dunfermline,
+Dumfries."
+
+Everybody said "Oh," and there was a pause.
+
+"Is he married?" asked one of the trustees. "I understand,"
+answered Dr. Boomer, "that he is a widower with one child,
+a little girl."
+
+"Does he make any conditions?"
+
+"None whatever," said the chairman, consulting a letter
+before him, "except that he is to have absolute control,
+and in regard to salary. These two points settled, he
+says, he places himself entirely in our hands."
+
+"And the salary?" asked someone.
+
+"Ten thousand dollars," said the chairman, "payable
+quarterly in advance."
+
+A chorus of approval went round the table. "Good,"
+"Excellent," "A first-class man," muttered the trustees,
+"just what we want."
+
+"I am sure, gentlemen," said Mr. Dick Overend, voicing
+the sentiments of everybody, "we do _not_ want a cheap man.
+Several of the candidates whose names have been under
+consideration here have been in many respects--in point
+of religious qualification, let us say--most desirable
+men. The name of Dr. McSkwirt, for example, has been
+mentioned with great favour by several of the trustees.
+But he's a cheap man. I feel we don't want him."
+
+"What is Mr. Dumfarthing getting where he is?" asked Mr.
+Boulder.
+
+"Nine thousand nine hundred," said the chairman.
+
+"And Dr. McSkwirt?"
+
+"Fourteen hundred dollars."
+
+"Well, that settles it!" exclaimed everybody with a burst
+of enlightenment.
+
+And so it was settled.
+
+In fact, nothing could have been plainer.
+
+"I suppose," said Mr. George Overend as they were about
+to rise, "that we are quite justified in taking it for
+granted that Dr. McTeague will never be able to resume
+work?"
+
+"Oh, absolutely for granted," said Dr. Boomer. "Poor
+McTeague! I hear from Slyder that he was making desperate
+efforts this morning to sit up in bed. His nurse with
+difficulty prevented him."
+
+"Is his power of speech gone?" asked Mr. Boulder.
+
+"Practically so; in any case, Dr. Slyder insists on his
+not using it. In fact, poor McTeague's mind is a wreck.
+His nurse was telling me that this morning he was reaching
+out his hand for the newspaper, and seemed to want to
+read one of the editorials. It was quite pathetic,"
+concluded Dr. Boomer, shaking his head.
+
+So the whole matter was settled, and next day all the
+town knew that St. Osoph's Church had extended a call to
+the Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing, and that he had accepted
+it.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Within a few weeks of this date the Reverend Uttermust
+Dumfarthing moved into the manse of St. Osoph's and
+assumed his charge. And forthwith he became the sole
+topic of conversation on Plutoria Avenue. "Have you seen
+the new minister of St. Osoph's?" everybody asked. "Have
+you been to hear Dr. Dumfarthing?" "Were you at St.
+Osoph's Church on Sunday morning? Ah, you really should
+go! most striking sermon I ever listened to."
+
+The effect of him was absolute and instantaneous; there
+was no doubt of it.
+
+"My dear," said Mrs. Buncomhearst to one of her friends,
+in describing how she had met him, "I never saw a more
+striking man. Such power in his face! Mr. Boulder introduced
+him to me on the avenue, and he hardly seemed to see me
+at all, simply scowled! I was never so favourably impressed
+with any man."
+
+On his very first Sunday he preached to his congregation
+on eternal punishment, leaning forward in his black gown
+and shaking his fist at them. Dr. McTeague had never
+shaken his fist in thirty years, and as for the Rev.
+Fareforth Furlong, he was incapable of it.
+
+But the Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing told his congregation
+that he was convinced that at least seventy per cent of
+them were destined for eternal punishment; and he didn't
+call it by that name, but labelled it simply and forcibly
+"hell." The word had not been heard in any church in the
+better part of the City for a generation. The congregation
+was so swelled next Sunday that the minister raised the
+percentage to eighty-five, and everybody went away
+delighted. Young and old flocked to St. Osoph's. Before
+a month had passed the congregation at the evening service
+at St. Asaph's Church was so slender that the offertory,
+as Mr. Furlong senior himself calculated, was scarcely
+sufficient to pay the overhead charge of collecting it.
+
+The presence of so many young men sitting in serried
+files close to the front was the only feature of his
+congregation that extorted from the Rev. Mr. Dumfarthing
+something like approval.
+
+"It is a joy to me to see," he remarked to several of
+his trustees, "that there are in the City so many godly
+young men, whatever the elders may be."
+
+But there may have been a secondary cause at work, for
+among the godly young men of Plutoria Avenue the topic
+of conversation had not been, "Have you heard the new
+presbyterian minister?" but, "Have you seen his daughter?
+You haven't? Well, say!"
+
+For it turned out that the "child" of Dr. Uttermust
+Dumfarthing, so-called by the trustees, was the kind of
+child that wears a little round hat, straight from Paris,
+with an upright feather in it, and a silk dress in four
+sections, and shoes with high heels that would have broken
+the heart of John Calvin. Moreover, she had the distinction
+of being the only person on Plutoria Avenue who was not
+one whit afraid of the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing.
+She even amused herself, in violation of all rules, by
+attending evening service at St. Asaph's, where she sat
+listening to the Reverend Edward, and feeling that she
+had never heard anything so sensible in her life.
+
+"I'm simply dying to meet your brother," she said to Mrs.
+Tom Overend, otherwise Philippa; "he's such a complete
+contrast with father." She knew no higher form of praise:
+"Father's sermons are always so frightfully full of
+religion."
+
+And Philippa promised that meet him she should.
+
+But whatever may have been the effect of the presence of
+Catherine Dumfarthing, there is no doubt the greater part
+of the changed situation was due to Dr. Dumfarthing
+himself.
+
+Everything he did was calculated to please. He preached
+sermons to the rich and told them they were mere cobwebs,
+and they liked it; he preached a special sermon to the
+poor and warned them to be mighty careful; he gave a
+series of weekly talks to workingmen, and knocked them
+sideways; and in the Sunday School he gave the children
+so fierce a talk on charity and the need of giving freely
+and quickly, that such a stream of pennies and nickels
+poured into Catherine Dumfarthing's Sunday School Fund
+as hadn't been seen in the church in fifty years.
+
+Nor was Mr. Dumfarthing different in his private walk of
+life. He was heard to speak openly of the Overend brothers
+as "men of wrath," and they were so pleased that they
+repeated it to half the town. It was the best business
+advertisement they had had for years.
+
+Dr. Boomer was captivated with the man. "True scholarship,"
+he murmured, as Dr. Dumfarthing poured undiluted Greek
+and Hebrew from the pulpit, scorning to translate a word
+of it. Under Dr. Boomer's charge the minister was taken
+over the length and breadth of Plutoria University, and
+reviled it from the foundations up.
+
+"Our library," said the president, "two hundred thousand
+volumes!"
+
+"Aye," said the minister, "a powerful heap of rubbish,
+I'll be bound!"
+
+"The photograph of our last year's graduating class,"
+said the president.
+
+"A poor lot, to judge by the faces of them," said the
+minister.
+
+"This, Dr. Dumfarthing, is our new radiographic laboratory;
+Mr. Spiff, our demonstrator, is preparing slides which, I
+believe, actually show the movements of the atom itself,
+do they not, Mr. Spiff?"
+
+"Ah," said the minister, piercing Mr. Spiff from beneath
+his dark brows, "it will not avail you, young man."
+
+Dr. Boomer was delighted. "Poor McTeague," he said--"and
+by the way, Boyster, I hear that McTeague is trying to
+walk again; a great error, it shouldn't be allowed!--poor
+McTeague knew nothing of science."
+
+The students themselves shared in the enthusiasm, especially
+after Dr. Dumfarthing had given them a Sunday afternoon
+talk in which he showed that their studies were absolutely
+futile. As soon as they knew this they went to work with
+a vigour that put new life into the college.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Meantime the handsome face of the Reverend Edward Fareforth
+Furlong began to wear a sad and weary look that had never
+been seen on it before. He watched the congregation
+drifting from St. Asaph's to St. Osoph's and was powerless
+to prevent it. His sadness reached its climax one bright
+afternoon in the late summer, when he noticed that even
+his episcopal blackbirds were leaving his elms and moving
+westward to the spruce trees of the manse.
+
+He stood looking at them with melancholy on his face.
+"Why, Edward," cried his sister, Philippa, as her motor
+stopped beside him, "how doleful you look! Get into the
+car and come out into the country for a ride. Let the
+parish teas look after themselves for today."
+
+Tom, Philippa's husband, was driving his own car--he was
+rich enough to be able to--and seated with Philippa in
+the car was an unknown person, as prettily dressed as
+Philippa herself. To the rector she was presently introduced
+as Miss Catherine Something--he didn't hear the rest of
+it. Nor did he need to. It was quite plain that her
+surname, whatever it was, was a very temporary and
+transitory affair.
+
+So they sped rapidly out of the City and away out into
+the country, mile after mile, through cool, crisp air,
+and among woods with the touch of autumn bright already
+upon them, and with blue sky and great still clouds white
+overhead. And the afternoon was so beautiful and so bright
+that as they went along there was no talk about religion
+at all! nor was there any mention of Mothers' Auxiliaries,
+or Girls' Friendly Societies, nor any discussion of the
+poor. It was too glorious a day. But they spoke instead
+of the new dances, and whether they had come to stay, and
+of such sensible topics as that. Then presently, as they
+went on still further, Philippa leaned forwards and talked
+to Tom over his shoulder and reminded him that this was
+the very road to Castel Casteggio, and asked him if he
+remembered coming up it with her to join the Newberry's
+ever so long ago. Whatever it was that Tom answered it
+is not recorded, but it is certain that it took so long
+in the saying that the Reverend Edward talked in tete-a-tete
+with Catherine for fifteen measured miles, and was unaware
+that it was more than five minutes. Among other things
+he said, and she agreed--or she said and he agreed--that
+for the new dances it was necessary to have always one
+and the same partner, and to keep that partner all the
+time. And somehow simple sentiments of that sort, when
+said direct into a pair of listening blue eyes behind a
+purple motor veil, acquire an infinite significance.
+
+Then, not much after that, say three or four minutes,
+they were all of a sudden back in town again, running
+along Plutoria Avenue, and to the rector's surprise the
+motor was stopping outside the manse, and Catherine was
+saying, "Oh, thank you ever so much, Philippa; it was
+just heavenly!" which showed that the afternoon had had
+its religious features after all. "What!" said the
+rector's sister, as they moved off again, "didn't you
+know? That's Catherine Dumfarthing!"
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+When the Rev. Fareforth Furlong arrived home at the
+rectory he spent an hour or so in the deepest of deep
+thought in an armchair in his study. Nor was it any ordinary
+parish problem that he was revolving in his mind. He was
+trying to think out some means by which his sister Juliana
+might be induced to commit the sin of calling on the
+daughter of a presbyterian minister.
+
+The thing had to be represented as in some fashion or
+other an act of self-denial, a form of mortification of
+the flesh. Otherwise he knew Juliana would never do it.
+But to call on Miss Catherine Dumfarthing seemed to him
+such an altogether delightful and unspeakably blissful
+process that he hardly knew how to approach the topic.
+So when Juliana presently came home the rector could find
+no better way of introducing the subject than by putting
+it on the ground of Philippa's marriage to Miss
+Dumfarthing's father's trustee's nephew.
+
+"Juliana," he said, "don't you think that perhaps, on
+account of Philippa and Tom, you ought--or at least it
+might be best for you to call on Miss Dumfarthing?"
+
+Juliana turned to her brother as he laid aside her bonnet
+and her black gloves.
+
+"I've just been there this afternoon," she said.
+
+There was something as near to a blush on her face as
+her brother had ever seen.
+
+"But she was not there!" he said.
+
+"No," answered Juliana, "but Mr. Dumfarthing was. I stayed
+and talked some time with him, waiting for her."
+
+The rector gave a sort of whistle, or rather that blowing
+out of air which is the episcopal symbol for it.
+
+"Didn't you find him pretty solemn?" he said.
+
+"Solemn!" answered his sister. "Surely, Edward, a man in
+such a calling as his ought to be solemn."
+
+"I don't mean that exactly," said the rector; "I
+mean--er--hard, bitter, so to speak."
+
+"Edward!" exclaimed Juliana, "how can you speak so. Mr.
+Dumfarthing hard! Mr. Dumfarthing bitter! Why, Edward,
+the man is gentleness and kindness itself. I don't think
+I ever met anyone so full of sympathy, of compassion with
+suffering."
+
+Juliana's face had flushed It was quite plain that she
+saw things in the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing--as some
+one woman does in every man--that no one else could see.
+
+The Reverend Edward was abashed. "I wasn't thinking of
+his character," he said. "I was thinking rather of his
+doctrines. Wait till you have heard him preach."
+
+Juliana flushed more deeply still. "I heard him last
+Sunday evening," she said.
+
+The rector was silent, and his sister, as if impelled to
+speak, went on,
+
+"And I don't see, Edward, how anyone could think him a
+hard or bigoted man in his creed. He walked home with me
+to the gate just now, and he was speaking of all the sin
+in the world, and of how few, how very few people, can
+be saved, and how many will have to be burned as worthless;
+and he spoke so beautifully. He regrets it, Edward,
+regrets it deeply. It is a real grief to him."
+
+On which Juliana, half in anger, withdrew, and her brother
+the rector sat back in his chair with smiles rippling
+all over his saintly face. For he had been wondering
+whether it would be possible, even remotely possible,
+to get his sister to invite the Dumfarthings to high tea
+at the rectory some day at six o'clock (evening dinner
+was out of the question), and now he knew within himself
+that the thing was as good as done.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+While such things as these were happening and about to
+happen, there were many others of the congregation of
+St. Asaph's beside the rector to whom the growing situation
+gave cause for serious perplexities. Indeed, all who were
+interested in the church, the trustees and the mortgagees
+and the underlying debenture-holders, were feeling anxious.
+For some of them underlay the Sunday School, whose
+scholars' offerings had declined forty per cent, and
+others underlay the new organ, not yet paid for, while
+others were lying deeper still beneath the ground site
+of the church with seven dollars and a half a square foot
+resting on them.
+
+"I don't like it," said Mr. Lucullus Fyshe to Mr. Newberry
+(they were both prominent members of the congregation).
+"I don't like the look of things. I took up a block of
+Furlong's bonds on his Guild building from what seemed
+at the time the best of motives. The interest appeared
+absolutely certain. Now it's a month overdue on the last
+quarter. I feel alarmed."
+
+"Neither do I like it," said Mr. Newberry, shaking his
+head; "and I'm sorry for Fareforth Furlong. An excellent
+fellow, Fyshe, excellent. I keep wondering Sunday after
+Sunday, if there isn't something I can do to help him
+out. One might do something further, perhaps, in the way
+of new buildings or alterations. I have, in fact,
+offered--by myself, I mean, and without other aid--to
+dynamite out the front of his church, underpin it, and
+put him in a Norman gateway; either that, or blast out
+the back of it where the choir sit, just as he likes. I
+was thinking about it last Sunday as they were singing
+the anthem, and realizing what a lot one might do there
+with a few sticks of dynamite."
+
+"I doubt it," said Mr. Fyshe. "In fact, Newberry, to
+speak very frankly, I begin to ask myself, Is Furlong
+the man for the post?"
+
+"Oh, surely," said Mr. Newberry in protest.
+
+"Personally a charming fellow," went on Mr. Fyshe; "but
+is he, all said and done, quite the man to conduct a
+church? In the _first_ place, he is _not_ a businessman."
+
+"No," said Mr. Newberry reluctantly, "that I admit."
+
+"Very good. And, _secondly_, even in the matter of his
+religion itself, one always feels as if he were too little
+fixed, too unstable. He simply moves with the times.
+That, at least, is what people are beginning to say of
+him, that he is perpetually moving with the times. It
+doesn't do, Newberry, it doesn't do." Whereupon Mr.
+Newberry went away troubled and wrote to Fareforth Furlong
+a confidential letter with a signed cheque in it for the
+amount of Mr. Fyshe's interest, and with such further
+offerings of dynamite, of underpinning and blasting as
+his conscience prompted.
+
+When the rector received and read the note and saw the
+figures of the cheque, there arose such a thankfulness
+in his spirit as he hadn't felt for months, and he may
+well have murmured, for the repose of Mr. Newberry's
+soul, a prayer not found in the rubric of King James.
+
+All the more cause had he to feel light at heart, for as
+it chanced, it was on that same evening that the
+Dumfarthings, father and daughter, were to take tea at
+the rectory. Indeed, a few minutes before six o'clock
+they might have been seen making their way from the manse
+to the rectory.
+
+On their way along the avenue the minister took occasion
+to reprove his daughter for the worldliness of her hat
+(it was a little trifle from New York that she had bought
+out of the Sunday School money--a temporary loan); and
+a little further on he spoke to her severely about the
+parasol she carried; and further yet about the strange
+fashion, specially condemned by the Old Testament, in
+which she wore her hair. So Catherine knew in her heart
+from this that she must be looking her very prettiest,
+and went into the rectory radiant.
+
+The tea was, of course, an awkward meal at the best.
+There was an initial difficulty about grace, not easily
+surmounted. And when the Rev. Mr. Dumfarthing sternly
+refused tea as a pernicious drink weakening to the system,
+the Anglican rector was too ignorant of the presbyterian
+system to know enough to give him Scotch whiskey.
+
+But there were bright spots in the meal as well. The
+rector was even able to ask Catherine, sideways as a
+personal question, if she played tennis; and she was able
+to whisper behind her hand, "Not allowed," and to make
+a face in the direction of her father, who was absorbed
+for the moment in a theological question with Juliana.
+Indeed, before the conversation became general again the
+rector had contrived to make a rapid arrangement with
+Catherine whereby she was to come with him to the Newberry's
+tennis court the day following and learn the game, with
+or without permission.
+
+So the tea was perhaps a success in its way. And it is
+noteworthy that Juliana spent the days that followed it
+in reading Calvin's "Institutes" (specially loaned to
+her) and "Dumfarthing on the Certainty of Damnation" (a
+gift), and in praying for her brother--a task practically
+without hope. During which same time the rector in white
+flannels, and Catherine in a white duck skirt and blouse,
+were flying about on the green grass of the Newberrys'
+court, and calling, "love," "love all," to one another
+so gaily and so brazenly that even Mr. Newberry felt that
+there must be something in it.
+
+But all these things came merely as interludes in the
+moving currents of greater events; for as the summer
+faded into autumn and autumn into winter the anxieties
+of the trustees of St. Asaph's began to call for action
+of some sort.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"Edward," said the rector's father on the occasion of
+their next quarterly discussion, "I cannot conceal from
+you that the position of things is very serious. Your
+statements show a falling off in every direction. Your
+interest is everywhere in arrears; your current account
+overdrawn to the limit. At this rate, you know, the end
+is inevitable. Your debenture and bondholders will decide
+to foreclose; and if they do, you know, there is no power
+that can stop them. Even with your limited knowledge of
+business you are probably aware that there is no higher
+power that can influence or control the holder of a first
+mortgage."
+
+"I fear so," said the Rev. Edward very sadly.
+
+"Do you not think perhaps that some of the shortcoming
+lies with yourself?" continued Mr. Furlong. "Is it not
+possible that as a preacher you fail somewhat, do not,
+as it were, deal sufficiently with fundamental things as
+others do? You leave untouched the truly vital issues,
+such things as the creation, death, and, if I may refer
+to it, the life beyond the grave."
+
+As a result of which the Reverend Edward preached a series
+of special sermons on the creation for which he made a
+special and arduous preparation in the library of Plutoria
+University. He said that it had taken a million, possibly
+a hundred million years of quite difficult work to
+accomplish, and that though when we looked at it all was
+darkness still we could not be far astray if we accepted
+and held fast to the teachings of Sir Charles Lyell. The
+book of Genesis, he said was not to be taken as meaning
+a day when it said a day, but rather something other than
+a mere day; and the word "light" meant not exactly light
+but possibly some sort of phosphorescence, and that the
+use of the word "darkness" was to be understood not as
+meaning darkness, but to be taken as simply indicating
+obscurity. And when he had quite finished, the congregation
+declared the whole sermon to be mere milk and water. It
+insulted their intelligence, they said. After which, a
+week later, the Rev. Dr. Dumfarthing took up the same
+subject, and with the aid of seven plain texts pulverized
+the rector into fragments.
+
+One notable result of the controversy was that Juliana
+Furlong refused henceforth to attend her brother's church
+and sat, even at morning service, under the minister of
+St. Osoph's.
+
+"The sermon was, I fear, a mistake," said Mr. Furlong
+senior; "perhaps you had better not dwell too much on
+such topics. We must look for aid in another direction.
+In fact, Edward, I may mention to you in confidence that
+certain of your trustees are already devising ways and
+means that may help us out of our dilemma."
+
+Indeed, although the Reverend Edward did not know it, a
+certain idea, or plan, was already germinating in the
+minds of the most influential supporters of St. Asaph's.
+
+Such was the situation of the rival churches of St. Asaph
+and St. Osoph as the autumn slowly faded into winter:
+during which time the elm trees on Plutoria Avenue shivered
+and dropped their leaves and the chauffeurs of the motors
+first turned blue in their faces and then, when the great
+snows came, were suddenly converted into liveried coachmen
+with tall bearskins and whiskers like Russian horseguards,
+changing back again to blue-nosed chauffeurs the very
+moment of a thaw. During this time also the congregation
+of the Reverend Fareforth Furlong was diminishing month
+by month, and that of the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing
+was so numerous that they filled up the aisles at the
+back of the church. Here the worshippers stood and froze,
+for the minister had abandoned the use of steam heat in
+St. Osoph's on the ground that he could find no warrant
+for it.
+
+During the same period other momentous things were
+happening, such as that Juliana Furlong was reading,
+under the immediate guidance of Dr. Dumfarthing, the
+History of the Progress of Disruption in the Churches of
+Scotland in ten volumes; such also as that Catherine
+Dumfarthing was wearing a green and gold winter suit with
+Russian furs and a Balkan hat and a Circassian feather,
+which cut a wide swath of destruction among the young
+men on Plutoria Avenue every afternoon as she passed.
+Moreover by the strangest of coincidences she scarcely
+ever seemed to come along the snow-covered avenue without
+meeting the Reverend Edward--a fact which elicited new
+exclamations of surprise from them both every day: and
+by an equally strange coincidence they generally seemed,
+although coming in different directions, to be bound for
+the same place; towards which they wandered together with
+such slow steps and in such oblivion of the passers-by
+that even the children on the avenue knew by instinct
+whither they were wandering.
+
+It was noted also that the broken figure of Dr. McTeague
+had reappeared upon the street, leaning heavily upon a
+stick and greeting those he met with such a meek and
+willing affability, as if in apology for his stroke of
+paralysis, that all who talked with him agreed that
+McTeague's mind was a wreck.
+
+"He stood and spoke to me about the children for at least
+a quarter of an hour," related one of his former
+parishioners, "asking after them by name, and whether
+they were going to school yet and a lot of questions like
+that. He never used to speak of such things. Poor old
+McTeague, I'm afraid he is getting soft in the head." "I
+know," said the person addressed. "His mind is no good.
+He stopped me the other day to say how sorry he was to
+hear about my brother's illness. I could see from the
+way he spoke that his brain is getting feeble. He's losing
+his grip. He was speaking of how kind people had been to
+him after his accident and there were tears in his eyes.
+I think he's getting batty."
+
+Nor were even these things the most momentous happenings
+of the period. For as winter slowly changed to early
+spring it became known that something of great portent
+was under way. It was rumoured that the trustees of St.
+Asaph's Church were putting their heads together. This
+was striking news. The last time that the head of Mr.
+Lucullus Fyshe, for example, had been placed side by side
+with that of Mr. Newberry, there had resulted a merger
+of four soda-water companies, bringing what was called
+industrial peace over an area as big as Texas and raising
+the price of soda by three peaceful cents per bottle.
+And the last time that Mr. Furlong senior's head had been
+laid side by side with those of Mr. Rasselyer-Brown and
+Mr. Skinyer, they had practically saved the country from
+the horrors of a coal famine by the simple process of
+raising the price of nut coal seventy-five cents a ton
+and thus guaranteeing its abundance.
+
+Naturally, therefore, when it became known that such
+redoubtable heads as those of the trustees and the
+underlying mortgagees of St. Asaph's were being put
+together, it was fully expected that some important
+development would follow. It was not accurately known
+from which of the assembled heads first proceeded the
+great idea which was presently to solve the difficulties
+of the church. It may well have come from that of Mr.
+Lucullus Fyshe. Certainly a head which had brought peace
+out of civil war in the hardware business by amalgamating
+ten rival stores and had saved the very lives of five
+hundred employees by reducing their wages fourteen per
+cent, was capable of it.
+
+At any rate it was Mr. Fyshe who first gave the idea a
+definite utterance.
+
+"It's the only thing, Furlong," he said, across the lunch
+table at the Mausoleum Club. "It's the one solution. The
+two churches can't live under the present conditions of
+competition. We have here practically the same situation
+as we had with two rum distilleries--the output is too
+large for the demand. One or both of the two concerns
+must go under. It's their turn just now, but these fellows
+are business men enough to know that it may be ours
+tomorrow. We'll offer them a business solution. We'll
+propose a merger."
+
+"I've been thinking of it," said Mr. Furlong senior, "I
+suppose it's feasible?"
+
+"Feasible!" exclaimed Mr. Fyshe. "Why look what's being
+done every day everywhere, from the Standard Oil Company
+downwards."
+
+"You would hardly, I think," said Mr. Furlong, with a
+quiet smile, "compare the Standard Oil Company to a
+church?" "Well, no, I suppose not," said Mr. Fyshe, and
+he too smiled--in fact he almost laughed. The notion
+was too ridiculous. One could hardly compare a mere church
+to a thing of the magnitude and importance of the Standard
+Oil Company.
+
+"But on a lesser scale," continued Mr. Fyshe, "it's the
+same sort of thing. As for the difficulties of it, I
+needn't remind you of the much greater difficulties we
+had to grapple with in the rum merger. There, you remember,
+a number of the women held out as a matter of principle.
+It was not mere business with them. Church union is
+different. In fact it is one of the ideas of the day and
+everyone admits that what is needed is the application
+of the ordinary business principles of harmonious
+combination, with a proper--er--restriction of output
+and general economy of operation."
+
+"Very good," said Mr. Furlong, "I'm sure if you're willing
+to try, the rest of us are."
+
+"All right," said Mr. Fyshe. "I thought of setting Skinyer,
+of Skinyer and Beatem, to work on the form of the
+organization. As you know he is not only a deeply religious
+man but he has already handled the Tin Pot Combination
+and the United Hardware and the Associated Tanneries. He
+ought to find this quite simple."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Within a day or two Mr. Skinyer had already commenced
+his labours. "I must first," he said, "get an accurate
+idea of the existing legal organization of the two
+churches."
+
+For which purpose he approached the rector of St. Asaph's.
+"I just want to ask you, Mr. Furlong," said the lawyer,
+"a question or two as to the exact constitution, the form
+so to speak, of your church. What is it? Is it a single
+corporate body?"
+
+"I suppose," said the rector thoughtfully, "one would
+define it as an indivisible spiritual unit manifesting
+itself on earth." "Quite so," interrupted Mr. Skinyer,
+"but I don't mean what it is in the religious sense: I
+mean, in the real sense." "I fail to understand," said
+Mr. Furlong.
+
+"Let me put it very clearly," said the lawyer. "Where
+does it get its authority?"
+
+"From above." said the rector reverently.
+
+"Precisely," said Mr. Skinyer, "no doubt, but I mean its
+authority in the exact sense of the term."
+
+"It was enjoined on St. Peter," began the rector, but
+Mr. Skinyer interrupted him.
+
+"That I am aware of," he said, "but what I mean is--where
+does your church get its power, for example, to hold
+property, to collect debts, to use distraint against the
+property of others, to foreclose its mortgages and to
+cause judgement to be executed against those who fail to
+pay their debts to it? You will say at once that it has
+these powers direct from Heaven. No doubt that is true
+and no religious person would deny it. But we lawyers
+are compelled to take a narrower, a less elevating point
+of view. Are these powers conferred on you by the state
+legislature or by some higher authority?"
+
+"Oh, by a higher authority, I hope," said the rector very
+fervently. Whereupon Mr. Skinyer left him without further
+questioning, the rector's brain being evidently unfit
+for the subject of corporation law.
+
+On the other hand he got satisfaction from the Rev. Dr.
+Dumfarthing at once.
+
+"The church of St. Osoph," said the minister, "is a
+perpetual trust, holding property as such under a general
+law of the state and able as such to be made the object
+of suit or distraint. I speak with some assurance as I
+had occasion to enquire into the matter at the time when
+I was looking for guidance in regard to the call I had
+received to come here."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"It's a quite simple matter," Mr. Skinyer presently
+reported to Mr. Fyshe. "One of the churches is a perpetual
+trust, the other practically a state corporation. Each
+has full control over its property provided nothing is
+done by either to infringe the purity of its doctrine."
+
+"Just what does that mean?" asked Mr. Fyshe.
+
+"It must maintain its doctrine absolutely pure. Otherwise
+if certain of its trustees remain pure and the rest do
+not, those who stay pure are entitled to take the whole
+of the property. This, I believe, happens every day in
+Scotland where, of course, there is great eagerness to
+remain pure in doctrine."
+
+"And what do you define as _pure_ doctrine?" asked Mr. Fyshe.
+
+"If the trustees are in dispute," said Mr. Skinyer, "the
+courts decide, but any doctrine is held to be a pure
+doctrine if _all_ the trustees regard it as a pure doctrine."
+
+"I see," said Mr. Fyshe thoughtfully, "it's the same
+thing as what we called 'permissible policy' on the part
+of directors in the Tin Pot Combination."
+
+"Exactly," assented Mr. Skinyer, "and it means that for
+the merger we need nothing--I state it very frankly--except
+general consent."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+The preliminary stages of the making of the merger followed
+along familiar business lines. The trustees of St. Asaph's
+went through the process known as 'approaching' the
+trustees of St. Osoph's. First of all, for example, Mr.
+Lucullus Fyshe invited Mr. Asmodeus Boulder of St. Osoph's
+to lunch with him at the Mausoleum Club; the cost of the
+lunch, as is usual in such cases, was charged to the
+general expense account of the church. Of course nothing
+whatever was said during the lunch about the churches or
+their finances or anything concerning them. Such discussion
+would have been a gross business impropriety. A few days
+later the two brothers Overend dined with Mr. Furlong
+senior, the dinner being charged directly to the
+contingencies account of St. Asaph's. After which Mr.
+Skinyer and his partner, Mr. Beatem, went to the spring
+races together on the Profit and Loss account of St.
+Osoph's, and Philippa Overend and Catherine Dumfarthing
+were taken (by the Unforeseen Disbursements Account) to
+the grand opera, followed by a midnight supper.
+
+All of these things constituted what was called the
+promotion of the merger and were almost exactly identical
+with the successive stages of the making of the Amalgamated
+Distilleries and the Associated Tin Pot Corporation;
+which was considered a most hopeful sign.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"Do you think they'll go into it?" asked Mr. Newberry of
+Mr. Furlong senior, anxiously. "After all, what inducement
+have they?"
+
+"Every inducement," said Mr. Furlong. "All said and done
+they've only one large asset--Dr. Dumfarthing. We're
+really offering to buy up Dr. Dumfarthing by pooling our
+assets with theirs."
+
+"And what does Dr. Dumfarthing himself say to it?"
+
+"Ah, there I am not so sure," said Mr. Furlong; "that
+may be a difficulty. So far there hasn't been a word from
+him, and his trustees are absolutely silent about his
+views. However, we shall soon know all about it. Skinyer
+is asking us all to come together one evening next week
+to draw up the articles of agreement."
+
+"Has he got the financial basis arranged then?"
+
+"I believe so," said Mr. Furlong. "His idea is to form
+a new corporation to be known as the United Church Limited
+or by some similar name. All the present mortgagees will
+be converted into unified bondholders, the pew rents will
+be capitalized into preferred stock and the common stock,
+drawing its dividend from the offertory, will be distributed
+among all members in standing. Skinyer says that it is
+really an ideal form of church union, one that he thinks
+is likely to be widely adopted. It has the advantage of
+removing all questions of religion, which he says are
+practically the only remaining obstacle to a union of
+all the churches. In fact it puts the churches once and
+for all on a business basis."
+
+"But what about the question of doctrine, of belief?"
+asked Mr. Newberry.
+
+"Skinyer says he can settle it," answered Mr. Furlong.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+About a week after the above conversation the united
+trustees of St. Asaph's and St. Osoph's were gathered
+about a huge egg-shaped table in the board room of the
+Mausoleum Club. They were seated in intermingled fashion
+after the precedent of the recent Tin Pot Amalgamation
+and were smoking huge black cigars specially kept by the
+club for the promotion of companies and chargeable to
+expenses of organization at fifty cents a cigar. There
+was an air of deep peace brooding over the assembly, as
+among men who have accomplished a difficult and meritorious
+task.
+
+"Well, then," said Mr. Skinyer, who was in the chair,
+with a pile of documents in front of him, "I think that
+our general basis of financial union may be viewed as
+settled."
+
+A murmur of assent went round the meeting. "The terms
+are set forth in the memorandum before us, which you have
+already signed. Only one other point--a minor one--remains
+to be considered. I refer to the doctrines or the religious
+belief of the new amalgamation."
+
+"Is it necessary to go into that?" asked Mr. Boulder.
+
+"Not entirely, perhaps," said Mr. Skinyer. "Still there
+have been, as you all know, certain points--I won't say
+of disagreement--but let us say of friendly
+argument--between the members of the different
+churches--such things for example," here he consulted
+his papers, "as the theory of the creation, the salvation
+of the soul, and so forth, have been mentioned in this
+connection. I have a memorandum of them here, though the
+points escape me for the moment. These, you may say, are
+not matters of first importance, especially as compared
+with the intricate financial questions which we have
+already settled in a satisfactory manner. Still I think
+it might be well if I were permitted with your unanimous
+approval to jot down a memorandum or two to be afterwards
+embodied in our articles."
+
+There was a general murmur of approval. "Very good," said
+Mr. Skinyer, settling himself back in his chair. "Now,
+first, in regard to the creation," here he looked all
+round the meeting in a way to command attention--"Is it
+your wish that we should leave that merely to a gentlemen's
+agreement or do you want an explicit clause?"
+
+"I think it might be well," said Mr. Dick Overend, "to
+leave no doubt about the theory of the creation."
+
+"Good," said Mr. Skinyer. "I am going to put it down then
+something after this fashion: 'On and after, let us say,
+August 1st proximo, the process of the creation shall be
+held, and is hereby held, to be such and such only as is
+acceptable to a majority of the holders of common and
+preferred stock voting pro rata.' Is that agreed?"
+
+"Carried," cried several at once.
+
+"Carried," repeated Mr. Skinyer. "Now let us pass on"--here
+he consulted his notes--"to item two, eternal punishment.
+I have made a memorandum as follows, 'Should any doubts
+arise, on or after August first proximo, as to the
+existence of eternal punishment they shall be settled
+absolutely and finally by a pro-rata vote of all the
+holders of common and preferred stock.' Is that agreed?"
+
+"One moment!" said Mr. Fyshe, "do you think that quite
+fair to the bondholders? After all, as the virtual holders
+of the property, they are the persons most interested.
+I should like to amend your clause and make it read--I
+am not phrasing it exactly but merely giving the sense
+of it--that eternal punishment should be reserved for
+the mortgagees and bondholders."
+
+At this there was an outbreak of mingled approval and
+dissent, several persons speaking at once. In the opinion
+of some the stockholders of the company, especially the
+preferred stockholders, had as good a right to eternal
+punishment as the bondholders. Presently Mr. Skinyer,
+who had been busily writing notes, held up his hand for
+silence.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "will you accept this as a compromise?
+We will keep the original clause but merely add to it
+the words, 'but no form of eternal punishment shall be
+declared valid if displeasing to a three-fifths majority
+of the holders of bonds.'"
+
+"Carried, carried," cried everybody.
+
+"To which I think we need only add," said Mr. Skinyer,
+"a clause to the effect that all other points of doctrine,
+belief or religious principle may be freely altered,
+amended, reversed or entirely abolished at any general
+annual meeting!"
+
+There was a renewed chorus of "Carried, carried," and
+the trustees rose from the table shaking hands with one
+another, and lighting fresh cigars as they passed out of
+the club into the night air.
+
+"The only thing that I don't understand," said Mr. Newberry
+to Dr. Boomer as they went out from the club arm in arm
+(for they might now walk in that fashion with the same
+propriety as two of the principals in a distillery merger),
+"the only thing that I don't understand is why the Reverend
+Mr. Dumfarthing should be willing to consent to the
+amalgamation."
+
+"Do you really not know?" said Dr. Boomer.
+
+"No."
+
+"You have heard nothing?"
+
+"Not a word," said Mr. Newberry.
+
+"Ah," rejoined the president, "I see that our men have
+kept it very quiet--naturally so, in view of the
+circumstances. The truth is that the Reverend Mr.
+Dumfarthing is leaving us."
+
+"Leaving St. Osoph's!" exclaimed Mr. Newberry in utter
+astonishment.
+
+"To our great regret. He has had a call--a most inviting
+field of work, he says, a splendid opportunity. They
+offered him ten thousand one hundred; we were only giving
+him ten thousand here, though of course that feature of
+the situation would not weigh at all with a man like
+Dumfarthing."
+
+"Oh no, of course not," said Mr. Newberry.
+
+"As soon as we heard of the call we offered him ten
+thousand three hundred--not that that would make any
+difference to a man of his character. Indeed Dumfarthing
+was still waiting and looking for guidance when they
+offered him eleven thousand. We couldn't meet it. It was
+beyond us, though we had the consolation of knowing that
+with such a man as Dumfarthing the money made no
+difference."
+
+"And he has accepted the call?"
+
+"Yes. He accepted it today. He sent word to Mr. Dick
+Overend our chairman, that he would remain in his manse,
+looking for light, until two-thirty, after which, if we
+had not communicated with him by that hour, he would
+cease to look for it."
+
+"Dear me," said Mr. Newberry, deep in reflection, "so
+that when your trustees came to the meeting--"
+
+"Exactly," said Dr. Boomer--and something like a smile
+passed across his features for a moment "Dr. Dumfarthing
+had already sent away his telegram of acceptance."
+
+"Why, then," said Mr. Newberry, "at the time of our
+discussion tonight, you were in the position of having
+no minister."
+
+"Not at all. We had already appointed a successor."
+
+"A successor?"
+
+"Certainly. It will be in tomorrow morning's papers. The
+fact is that we decided to ask Dr. McTeague to resume
+his charge."
+
+"Dr. McTeague!" repeated Mr. Newberry in amazement. "But
+surely his mind is understood to be--"
+
+"Oh not at all," interrupted Dr. Boomer. "His mind appears
+if anything, to be clearer and stronger than ever. Dr.
+Slyder tells us that paralysis of the brain very frequently
+has this effect; it soothes the brain--clears it, as it
+were, so that very often intellectual problems which
+occasioned the greatest perplexity before present no
+difficulty whatever afterwards. Dr. McTeague, I believe,
+finds no trouble now in reconciling St. Paul's dialectic
+with Hegel as he used to. He says that so far as he can
+see they both mean the same thing."
+
+"Well, well," said Mr. Newberry, "and will Dr. McTeague
+also resume his philosophical lectures at the university?"
+
+"We think it wiser not," said the president. "While we
+feel that Dr. McTeague's mind is in admirable condition
+for clerical work we fear that professorial duties might
+strain it. In order to get the full value of his remarkable
+intelligence, we propose to elect him to the governing
+body of the university. There his brain will be safe
+from any shock. As a professor there would always be the
+fear that one of his students might raise a question in
+his class. This of course is not a difficulty that arises
+in the pulpit or among the governors of the university."
+
+"Of course not," said Mr. Newberry.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Thus was constituted the famous union or merger of the
+churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph, viewed by many of
+those who made it as the beginning of a new era in the
+history of the modern church.
+
+There is no doubt that it has been in every way an eminent
+success.
+
+Rivalry, competition, and controversies over points of
+dogma have become unknown on Plutoria Avenue. The
+parishioners of the two churches may now attend either
+of them just as they like. As the trustees are fond of
+explaining it doesn't make the slightest difference. The
+entire receipts of the churches, being now pooled, are
+divided without reference to individual attendance. At
+each half year there is issued a printed statement which
+is addressed to the shareholders of the United Churches
+Limited and is hardly to be distinguished in style or
+material from the annual and semi-annual reports of the
+Tin Pot Amalgamation and the United Hardware and other
+quasi-religious bodies of the sort. "Your directors,"
+the last of these documents states, "are happy to inform
+you that in spite of the prevailing industrial depression
+the gross receipts of the corporation have shown such an
+increase as to justify the distribution of a stock dividend
+of special Offertory Stock Cumulative, which will be
+offered at par to all holders of common or preferred
+shares. You will also be gratified to learn that the
+directors have voted unanimously in favour of a special
+presentation to the Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing on the
+occasion of his approaching marriage. It was earnestly
+debated whether this gift should take the form, as at
+first suggested, of a cash presentation, or as afterwards
+suggested, of a written testimonial in the form of an
+address. The latter course was finally adopted as being
+more fitting to the circumstances and the address has
+accordingly been prepared, setting forth to the Rev. Dr.
+Dumfarthing, in old English lettering and wording, the
+opinion which is held of him by his former parishioners."
+
+The "approaching marriage" referred of course to Dr.
+Dumfarthing's betrothal to Juliana Furlong. It was not
+known that he had ever exactly proposed to her. But it
+was understood that before giving up his charge he drew
+her attention, in very severe terms, to the fact that,
+as his daughter was now leaving him, he must either have
+someone else to look after his manse or else be compelled
+to incur the expense of a paid housekeeper. This latter
+alternative, he said, was not one that he cared to
+contemplate. He also reminded her that she was now at a
+time of life when she could hardly expect to pick and
+choose and that her spiritual condition was one of, at
+least, great uncertainty. These combined statements are
+held, under the law of Scotland at any rate, to be
+equivalent to an offer of marriage.
+
+Catherine Dumfarthing did not join her father in his new
+manse. She first remained behind him, as the guest of
+Philippa Overend for a few weeks while she was occupied
+in packing up her things. After that she stayed for
+another two or three weeks to unpack them. This had been
+rendered necessary by a conversation held with the Reverend
+Edward Fareforth Furlong, in a shaded corner of the
+Overend's garden. After which, in due course of time,
+Catherine and Edward were married, the ceremony being
+performed by the Reverend Dr. McTeague whose eyes filled
+with philosophical tears as he gave them his blessing.
+
+So the two churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph stand side
+by side united and at peace. Their bells call softly back
+and forward to one another on Sunday mornings and such
+is the harmony between them that even the episcopal rooks
+in the elm trees of St. Asaph's and the presbyterian
+crows in the spruce trees of St. Osoph's are known to
+exchange perches on alternate Sundays.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT: The Great Fight for Clean Government
+
+"As to the government of this city," said Mr. Newberry,
+leaning back in a leather armchair at the Mausoleum Club
+and lighting a second cigar, "it's rotten, that's all."
+
+"Absolutely rotten," assented Mr. Dick Overend, ringing
+the bell for a second whiskey and soda.
+
+"Corrupt," said Mr. Newberry, between two puffs of his
+cigar.
+
+"Full of graft," said Mr. Overend, flicking his ashes
+into the grate.
+
+"Crooked aldermen," said Mr. Newberry.
+
+"A bum city solicitor," said Mr. Overend, "and an infernal
+grafter for treasurer."
+
+"Yes," assented Mr. Newberry, and then, leaning forwards
+in his chair and looking carefully about the corridors
+of the club, he spoke behind his hand and said, "And the
+mayor's the biggest grafter of the lot. And what's more,"
+he added, sinking his voice to a whisper, "the time has
+come to speak out about it fearlessly."
+
+Mr. Overend nodded. "It's a tyranny," he said.
+
+"Worse than Russia," rejoined Mr. Newberry.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+They had been sitting in a quiet corner of the club--it
+was on a Sunday evening--and had fallen into talking,
+first of all, of the present rottenness of the federal
+politics of the United States--not argumentatively or with
+any heat, but with the reflective sadness that steals
+over an elderly man when he sits in the leather armchair
+of a comfortable club smoking a good cigar and musing on
+the decadence of the present day. The rottenness of the
+federal government didn't anger them. It merely grieved
+them.
+
+They could remember--both of them--how different everything
+was when they were young men just entering on life. When
+Mr. Newberry and Mr. Dick Overend were young, men went
+into congress from pure patriotism; there was no such
+thing as graft or crookedness, as they both admitted, in
+those days; and as for the United States Senate--here
+their voices were almost hushed in awe--why, when they
+were young, the United States Senate--
+
+But no, neither of them could find a phrase big enough
+for their meaning.
+
+They merely repeated "as for the United States Senate--"
+and then shook their heads and took long drinks of whiskey
+and soda.
+
+Then, naturally, speaking of the rottenness of the federal
+government had led them to talk of the rottenness of the
+state legislature. How different from the state legislatures
+that they remembered as young men! Not merely different
+in the matter of graft, but different, so Mr. Newberry
+said, in the calibre of the men. He recalled how he had
+been taken as a boy of twelve by his father to hear a
+debate. He would never forget it. Giants! he said, that
+was what they were. In fact, the thing was more like a
+Witenagemot than a legislature. He said he distinctly
+recalled a man, whose name he didn't recollect, speaking
+on a question he didn't just remember what, either for
+or against he just couldn't recall which; it thrilled
+him. He would never forget it. It stayed in his memory
+as if it were yesterday.
+
+But as for the present legislature--here Mr. Dick Overend
+sadly nodded assent in advance to what he knew was coming--
+as for the present legislature--well--Mr. Newberry had had,
+he said, occasion to visit the state capital a week before
+in connection with a railway bill that he was trying
+to--that is, that he was anxious to--in short in connection
+with a railway bill, and when he looked about him at the
+men in the legislature--positively he felt ashamed; he
+could put it no other way than that--ashamed.
+
+After which, from speaking of the crookedness of the
+state government Mr. Newberry and Mr. Dick Overend were
+led to talk of the crookedness of the city government!
+And they both agreed, as above, that things were worse
+than in Russia. What secretly irritated them both most
+was that they had lived and done business under this
+infernal corruption for thirty or forty years and hadn't
+noticed it. They had been too busy.
+
+The fact was that their conversation reflected not so
+much their own original ideas as a general wave of feeling
+that was passing over the whole community.
+
+There had come a moment--quite suddenly it seemed--when
+it occurred to everybody at the same time that the whole
+government of the city was rotten. The word is a strong
+one. But it is the one that was used. Look at the aldermen,
+they said--rotten! Look at the city solicitor, rotten!
+And as for the mayor himself--phew!
+
+The thing came like a wave. Everybody felt it at once.
+People wondered how any sane, intelligent community could
+tolerate the presence of a set of corrupt scoundrels like
+the twenty aldermen of the city. Their names, it was
+said, were simply a byword throughout the United States
+for rank criminal corruption. This was said so widely
+that everybody started hunting through the daily papers
+to try to find out who in blazes were aldermen, anyhow.
+Twenty names are hard to remember, and as a matter of
+fact, at the moment when this wave of feeling struck the
+city, nobody knew or cared who were aldermen, anyway.
+
+To tell the truth, the aldermen had been much the same
+persons for about fifteen or twenty years. Some were in
+the produce business, others were butchers, two were
+grocers, and all of them wore blue checkered waistcoats
+and red ties and got up at seven in the morning to attend
+the vegetable and other markets. Nobody had ever really
+thought about them--that is to say, nobody on Plutoria
+Avenue. Sometimes one saw a picture in the paper and
+wondered for a moment who the person was; but on looking
+more closely and noticing what was written under it, one
+said, "Oh, I see, an alderman," and turned to something
+else.
+
+"Whose funeral is that?" a man would sometimes ask on
+Plutoria Avenue. "Oh just one of the city aldermen," a
+passerby would answer hurriedly. "Oh I see, I beg your
+pardon, I thought it might be somebody important."
+
+At which both laughed.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+It was not just clear how and where this movement of
+indignation had started. People said that it was part of
+a new wave of public morality that was sweeping over the
+entire United States. Certainly it was being remarked in
+almost every section of the country. Chicago newspapers
+were attributing its origin to the new vigour and the
+fresh ideals of the middle west. In Boston it was said
+to be due to a revival of the grand old New England
+spirit. In Philadelphia they called it the spirit of
+William Penn. In the south it was said to be the reassertion
+of southern chivalry making itself felt against the greed
+and selfishness of the north, while in the north they
+recognized it at once as a protest against the sluggishness
+and ignorance of the south. In the west they spoke of it
+as a revolt against the spirit of the east and in the
+east they called it a reaction against the lawlessness
+of the west. But everywhere they hailed it as a new sign
+of the glorious unity of the country.
+
+If therefore Mr. Newberry and Mr. Overend were found to
+be discussing the corrupt state of their city they only
+shared in the national sentiments of the moment. In fact
+in the same city hundreds of other citizens, as
+disinterested as themselves, were waking up to the
+realization of what was going on. As soon as people began
+to look into the condition of things in the city they
+were horrified at what they found. It was discovered,
+for example, that Alderman Schwefeldampf was an undertaker!
+Think of it! In a city with a hundred and fifty deaths
+a week, and sometimes even better, an undertaker sat on
+the council! A city that was about to expropriate land
+and to spend four hundred thousand dollars for a new
+cemetery, had an undertaker on the expropriation committee
+itself! And worse than that! Alderman Undercutt was a
+butcher! In a city that consumed a thousand tons of meat
+every week! And Alderman O'Hooligan--it leaked out--was
+an Irishman! Imagine it! An Irishman sitting on the police
+committee of the council in a city where thirty-eight
+and a half out of every hundred policemen were Irish,
+either by birth or parentage! The thing was monstrous.
+
+So when Mr. Newberry said "It's worse than Russia!" he
+meant it, every word.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Now just as Mr. Newberry and Mr. Dick Overend were
+finishing their discussion, the huge bulky form of Mayor
+McGrath came ponderously past them as they sat. He looked
+at them sideways out of his eyes--he had eyes like plums
+in a mottled face--and, being a born politician, he knew
+by the very look of them that they were talking of
+something that they had no business to be talking about.
+But,--being a politician--he merely said, "Good evening,
+gentlemen," without a sign of disturbance.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Mayor," said Mr. Newberry, rubbing
+his hands feebly together and speaking in an ingratiating
+tone. There is no more pitiable spectacle than an honest
+man caught in the act of speaking boldly and fearlessly
+of the evil-doer.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Mayor," echoed Mr. Dick Overend, also
+rubbing his hands; "warm evening, is it not?"
+
+The mayor gave no other answer than that deep guttural
+grunt which is technically known in municipal interviews
+as refusing to commit oneself.
+
+"Did he hear?" whispered Mr. Newberry as the mayor passed
+out of the club.
+
+"I don't care if he did," whispered Mr. Dick Overend.
+
+Half an hour later Mayor McGrath entered the premises of
+the Thomas Jefferson Club, which was situated in the rear
+end of a saloon and pool room far down in the town.
+
+"Boys," he said to Alderman O'Hooligan and Alderman
+Gorfinkel, who were playing freeze-out poker in a corner
+behind the pool tables, "you want to let the boys know
+to keep pretty dark and go easy. There's a lot of talk
+I don't like about the elections going round the town.
+Let the boys know that just for a while the darker they
+keep the better."
+
+Whereupon the word was passed from the Thomas Jefferson
+Club to the George Washington Club and thence to the
+Eureka Club (coloured), and to the Kossuth Club (Hungarian),
+and to various other centres of civic patriotism in the
+lower parts of the city. And forthwith such a darkness
+began to spread over them that not even honest Diogenes
+with his lantern could have penetrated their doings.
+
+"If them stiffs wants to make trouble," said the president
+of the George Washington Club to Mayor McGrath a day or
+two later, "they won't never know what they've bumped up
+against."
+
+"Well," said the heavy mayor, speaking slowly and cautiously
+and eyeing his henchman with quiet scrutiny, "you want
+to go pretty easy now, I tell you."
+
+The look which the mayor directed at his satellite was
+much the same glance that Morgan the buccaneer might have
+given to one of his lieutenants before throwing him
+overboard.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Meantime the wave of civic enthusiasm as reflected in
+the conversations of Plutoria Avenue grew stronger with
+every day.
+
+"The thing is a scandal," said Mr. Lucullus Fyshe. "Why,
+these fellows down at the city hall are simply a pack of
+rogues. I had occasion to do some business there the
+other day (it was connected with the assessment of our
+soda factories) and do you know, I actually found that
+these fellows take money!"
+
+"I say!" said Mr. Peter Spillikins, to whom he spoke, "I
+say! You don't say!"
+
+"It's a fact," repeated Mr. Fyshe. "They take money. I
+took the assistant treasurer aside and I said, 'I want
+such and such done,' and I slipped a fifty dollar bill
+into his hand. And the fellow took it, took it like a
+shot."
+
+"He took it!" gasped Mr. Spillikins.
+
+"He did," said Mr. Fyshe. "There ought to be a criminal
+law for that sort of thing."
+
+"I say!" exclaimed Mr. Spillikins, "they ought to go to
+jail for a thing like that."
+
+"And the infernal insolence of them," Mr. Fyshe continued.
+"I went down the next day to see the deputy assistant
+(about a thing connected with the same matter), told him
+what I wanted and passed a fifty dollar bill across the
+counter and the fellow fairly threw it back at me, in a
+perfect rage. He refused it!"
+
+"Refused it," gasped Mr. Spillikins, "I say!"
+
+Conversations such as this filled up the leisure and
+divided the business time of all the best people in the
+city.
+
+In the general gloomy outlook, however, one bright spot
+was observable. The "wave" had evidently come just at
+the opportune moment. For not only were civic elections
+pending but just at this juncture four or five questions
+of supreme importance would be settled by the incoming
+council. There was, for instance, the question of the
+expropriation of the Traction Company (a matter involving
+many millions); there was the decision as to the renewal
+of the franchise of the Citizens' Light Company--a vital
+question; there was also the four hundred thousand dollar
+purchase of land for the new addition to the cemetery,
+a matter that must be settled. And it was felt, especially
+on Plutoria Avenue, to be a splendid thing that the city
+was waking up, in the moral sense, at the very time when
+these things were under discussion. All the shareholders
+of the Traction Company and the Citizens' Light--and they
+included the very best, the most high-minded, people in
+the city--felt that what was needed now was a great moral
+effort, to enable them to lift the city up and carry it
+with them, or, if not all of it, at any rate as much of
+it as they could.
+
+"It's a splendid movement!" said Mr. Fyshe (he was a
+leading shareholder and director of the Citizens' Light),
+"what a splendid thing to think that we shan't have to
+deal for our new franchise with a set of corrupt
+rapscallions like these present aldermen. Do you know,
+Furlong, that when we approached them first with a
+proposition for a renewal for a hundred and fifty years
+they held us up! Said it was too long! Imagine that! A
+hundred and fifty years (only a century and a half) too
+long for the franchise! They expect us to install all
+our poles, string our wires, set up our transformers in
+their streets and then perhaps at the end of a hundred
+years find ourselves compelled to sell out at a beggarly
+valuation. Of course we knew what they wanted. They meant
+us to hand them over fifty dollars each to stuff into
+their rascally pockets."
+
+"Outrageous!" said Mr. Furlong.
+
+"And the same thing with the cemetery land deal," went
+on Mr. Lucullus Fyshe. "Do you realize that, if the
+movement hadn't come along and checked them, those
+scoundrels would have given that rogue Schwefeldampf four
+hundred thousand dollars for his fifty acres! Just think
+of it!"
+
+"I don't know," said Mr. Furlong with a thoughtful look
+upon his face, "that four hundred thousand dollars is an
+excessive price, in and of itself, for that amount of
+land."
+
+"Certainly not," said Mr. Fyshe, very quietly and decidedly,
+looking at Mr. Furlong in a searching way as he spoke.
+"It is _not_ a high price. It seems to me, speaking purely
+as an outsider, a very fair, reasonable price for fifty
+acres of suburban land, if it were the right land. If,
+for example, it were a case of making an offer for that
+very fine stretch of land, about twenty acres, is it not,
+which I believe your Corporation owns on the _other_ side
+of the cemetery, I should say four hundred thousand is
+a most modest price."
+
+Mr. Furlong nodded his head reflectively.
+
+"You had thought, had you not, of offering it to the
+city?" said Mr. Fyshe.
+
+"We did," said Mr. Furlong, "at a more or less nominal
+sum--four hundred thousand or whatever it might be. We
+felt that for such a purpose, almost sacred as it were,
+one would want as little bargaining as possible."
+
+"Oh, none at all," assented Mr. Fyshe.
+
+"Our feeling was," went on Mr. Furlong, "that if the city
+wanted our land for the cemetery extension, it might have
+it at its own figure--four hundred thousand, half a
+million, in fact at absolutely any price, from four
+hundred thousand up, that they cared to put on it. We
+didn't regard it as a commercial transaction at all. Our
+reward lay merely in the fact of selling it to them."
+
+"Exactly," said Mr. Fyshe, "and of course your land was
+more desirable from every point of view. Schwefeldampf's
+ground is encumbered with a growth of cypress and evergreens
+and weeping willows which make it quite unsuitable for
+an up-to-date cemetery; whereas yours, as I remember it,
+is bright and open--a loose sandy soil with no trees and
+very little grass to overcome."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Furlong. "We thought, too, that our
+ground, having the tanneries and the chemical factory
+along the farther side of it, was an ideal place for--"
+he paused, seeking a mode of expressing his thought.
+
+"For the dead," said Mr. Fyshe, with becoming reverence.
+And after this conversation Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Furlong
+senior understood one another absolutely in regard to
+the new movement.
+
+It was astonishing in fact how rapidly the light spread.
+
+"Is Rasselyer-Brown with us?" asked someone of Mr. Fyshe
+a few days later.
+
+"Heart and soul," answered Mr. Fyshe. "He's very bitter
+over the way these rascals have been plundering the city
+on its coal supply. He says that the city has been buying
+coal wholesale at the pit mouth at three fifty--utterly
+worthless stuff, he tells me. He has heard it said that
+everyone of these scoundrels has been paid from twenty-five
+to fifty dollars a winter to connive at it."
+
+"Dear me," said the listener.
+
+"Abominable, is it not?" said Mr. Fyshe. "But as I said
+to Rasselyer-Brown, what can one do if the citizens
+themselves take no interest in these things. 'Take your
+own case,' I said to him, 'how is it that you, a coal
+man, are not helping the city in this matter? Why don't
+you supply the city?' He shook his head, 'I wouldn't do
+it at three-fifty,' he said. 'No,' I answered, 'but will
+you at five?' He looked at me for a moment and then he
+said, 'Fyshe, I'll do it; at five, or at anything over
+that they like to name. If we get a new council in they
+may name their own figure.' 'Good,' I said. 'I hope all
+the other businessmen will be animated with the same
+spirit.'"
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Thus it was that the light broke and spread and illuminated
+in all directions. People began to realize the needs of
+the city as they never had before. Mr. Boulder, who owned,
+among other things, a stone quarry and an asphalt company,
+felt that the paving of the streets was a disgrace. Mr.
+Skinyer, of Skinyer and Beatem, shook his head and said
+that the whole legal department of the city needed
+reorganization; it needed, he said, new blood. But he
+added always in a despairing tone, how could one expect
+to run a department with the head of it drawing only six
+thousand dollars; the thing was impossible. If, he argued,
+they could superannuate the present chief solicitor and
+get a man, a _good_ man (Mr. Skinyer laid emphasis on this)
+at, say, fifteen thousand there might be some hope.
+
+"Of course," said Mr. Skinyer to Mr. Newberry in discussing
+the topic, "one would need to give him a proper staff of
+assistants so as to take off his hands all the _routine_
+work--the mere appearance in court, the preparation of
+briefs, the office consultation, the tax revision and
+the purely legal work. In that case he would have his
+hands free to devote himself entirely to those things,
+which--in fact to turn his attention in whatever direction
+he might feel it was advisable to turn it."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Within a week or two the public movement had found definite
+expression and embodied itself in the Clean Government
+Association. This was organized by a group of leading
+and disinterested citizens who held their first meeting
+in the largest upstairs room of the Mausoleum Club. Mr.
+Lucullus Fyshe, Mr. Boulder, and others keenly interested
+in obtaining simply justice for the stockholders of the
+Traction and the Citizens' Light were prominent from the
+start. Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, Mr. Furlong senior and others
+were there, not from special interest in the light or
+traction questions, but, as they said themselves, from
+pure civic spirit. Dr. Boomer was there to represent the
+university with three of his most presentable professors,
+cultivated men who were able to sit in a first-class club
+and drink whiskey and soda and talk as well as any
+businessman present. Mr. Skinyer, Mr. Beatem and others
+represented the bar. Dr. McTeague, blinking in the blue
+tobacco smoke, was there to stand for the church. There
+were all-round enthusiasts as well, such as Mr. Newberry
+and the Overend brothers and Mr. Peter Spillikins.
+
+"Isn't it fine," whispered Mr. Spillikins to Mr. Newberry,
+"to see a set of men like these all going into a thing
+like this, not thinking of their own interests a bit?"
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Mr. Fyshe, as chairman, addressed the meeting. He told
+them they were there to initiate a great free voluntary
+movement of the people. It had been thought wise, he
+said, to hold it with closed doors and to keep it out of
+the newspapers. This would guarantee the league against
+the old underhand control by a clique that had hitherto
+disgraced every part of the administration of the city.
+He wanted, he said, to see everything done henceforth in
+broad daylight: and for this purpose he had summoned them
+there at night to discuss ways and means of action. After
+they were once fully assured of exactly what they wanted
+to do and how they meant to do it, the league he said,
+would invite the fullest and freest advice from all
+classes in the city. There were none he said, amid great
+applause, that were so lowly that they would not be
+invited--once the platform of the league was settled--to
+advise and co-operate. All might help, even the poorest.
+Subscription lists would be prepared which would allow
+any sum at all, from one to five dollars, to be given to
+the treasurer. The league was to be democratic or nothing.
+The poorest might contribute as little as one dollar:
+even the richest would not be allowed to give more than
+five. Moreover he gave notice that he intended to propose
+that no actual official of the league should be allowed
+under its by-laws to give anything. He himself--if they
+did him the honour to make him president as he had heard
+it hinted was their intention--would be the first to bow
+to this rule. He would efface himself. He would obliterate
+himself, content in the interests of all, to give nothing.
+He was able to announce similar pledges from his friends,
+Mr. Boulder, Mr. Furlong, Dr. Boomer, and a number of
+others.
+
+Quite a storm of applause greeted these remarks by Mr.
+Fyshe, who flushed with pride as he heard it.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," he went on, "this meeting is open for
+discussion. Remember it is quite informal, anyone may
+speak. I as chairman make no claim to control or monopolize
+the discussion. Let everyone understand--"
+
+"Well then, Mr. Chairman," began Mr. Dick Overend.
+
+"One minute, Mr. Overend," said Mr. Fyshe. "I want everyone
+to understand that he may speak as--"
+
+"May I say then--" began Mr. Newberry.
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Newberry," said Mr. Fyshe, "I was wishing
+first to explain that not only may _all_ participate but
+that we _invite_--"
+
+"In that case--" began Mr. Newberry.
+
+"Before you speak," interrupted Mr. Fyshe, "let me add
+one word. We must make our discussion as brief and to
+the point as possible. I have a great number of things
+which I wish to say to the meeting and it might be well
+if all of you would speak as briefly and as little as
+possible. Has anybody anything to say?"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Newberry, "what about organization and
+officers?"
+
+"We have thought of it," said Mr. Fyshe. "We were anxious
+above all things to avoid the objectionable and corrupt
+methods of a 'slate' and a prepared list of officers
+which has disgraced every part of our city politics until
+the present time. Mr. Boulder, Mr. Furlong and Mr. Skinyer
+and myself have therefore prepared a short list of offices
+and officers which we wish to submit to your fullest,
+freest consideration. It runs thus: Hon. President Mr.
+L. Fyshe, Hon. Vice-president, Mr. A. Boulder, Hon.
+Secretary Mr. Furlong, Hon. Treasurer Mr. O. Skinyer, et
+cetera--I needn't read it all. You'll see it posted in
+the hall later. Is that carried? Carried! Very good,"
+said Mr. Fyshe.
+
+There was a moment's pause while Mr. Furlong and Mr.
+Skinyer moved into seats beside Mr. Fyshe and while Mr.
+Furlong drew from his pocket and arranged the bundle of
+minutes of the meeting which he had brought with him. As
+he himself said he was too neat and methodical a writer
+to trust to jotting them down on the spot.
+
+"Don't you think," said Mr. Newberry, "I speak as a
+practical man, that we ought to do something to get the
+newspapers with us?"
+
+"Most important," assented several members.
+
+"What do you think, Dr. Boomer?" asked Mr. Fyshe of the
+university president, "will the newspapers be with us?"
+
+Dr. Boomer shook his head doubtfully. "It's an important
+matter," he said. "There is no doubt that we need, more
+than anything, the support of a clean, wholesome unbiassed
+press that can't be bribed and is not subject to money
+influence. I think on the whole our best plan would be
+to buy up one of the city newspapers."
+
+"Might it not be better simply to buy up the editorial
+staff?" said Mr. Dick Overend.
+
+"We might do that," admitted Dr. Boomer. "There is no
+doubt that the corruption of the press is one of the
+worst factors that we have to oppose. But whether we can
+best fight it by buying the paper itself or buying the
+staff is hard to say."
+
+"Suppose we leave it to a committee with full power to
+act," said Mr. Fyshe. "Let us direct them to take whatever
+steps may in their opinion be best calculated to elevate
+the tone of the press, the treasurer being authorized to
+second them in every way. I for one am heartily sick of
+old underhand connection between city politics and the
+city papers. If we can do anything to alter and elevate
+it, it will be a fine work, gentlemen, well worth whatever
+it costs us."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Thus after an hour or two of such discussion the Clean
+Government League found itself organized and equipped
+with a treasury and a programme and a platform. The latter
+was very simple. As Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Boulder said there
+was no need to drag in specific questions or try to define
+the action to be taken towards this or that particular
+detail, such as the hundred-and-fifty-year franchise,
+beforehand. The platform was simply expressed as Honesty,
+Purity, Integrity. This, as Mr. Fyshe said, made a
+straight, flat, clean issue between the league and all
+who opposed it.
+
+This first meeting was, of course, confidential. But all
+that it did was presently done over again, with wonderful
+freshness and spontaneity at a large public meeting open
+to all citizens. There was a splendid impromptu air about
+everything. For instance when somebody away back in the
+hall said, "I move that Mr. Lucullus Fyshe be president
+of the league," Mr. Fyshe lifted his hand in unavailing
+protest as if this were the newest idea he had ever heard
+in his life.
+
+After all of which the Clean Government League set itself
+to fight the cohorts of darkness. It was not just known
+where these were. But it was understood that they were
+there all right, somewhere. In the platform speeches of
+the epoch they figured as working underground, working
+in the dark, working behind the scenes, and so forth.
+But the strange thing was that nobody could state with
+any exactitude just who or what it was that the league
+was fighting. It stood for "honesty, purity, and integrity."
+That was all you could say about it.
+
+Take, for example, the case of the press. At the inception
+of the league it has been supposed that such was the
+venality and corruption of the city newspapers that it
+would be necessary to buy one of them. But the word "clean
+government" had been no sooner uttered than it turned out
+that every one of the papers in the city was in favour
+of it: in fact had been working for it for years.
+
+They vied with one another now in giving publicity to
+the idea. The _Plutorian Times_ printed a dotted coupon on
+the corner of its front sheet with the words, "Are you
+in favour of Clean Government? If so, send us ten cents
+with this coupon and your name and address." The _Plutorian
+Citizen and Home Advocate_, went even further. It printed
+a coupon which said, "Are you out for a clean city? If
+so send us twenty-five cents to this office. We pledge
+ourselves to use it."
+
+The newspapers did more than this. They printed from day
+to day such pictures as the portrait of Mr. Fyshe with
+the legend below, "Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, who says that
+government ought to be by the people, from the people,
+for the people and to the people"; and the next day
+another labelled. "Mr. P. Spillikins, who says that all
+men are born free and equal"; and the next day a picture
+with the words, "Tract of ground offered for cemetery by
+Mr. Furlong, showing rear of tanneries, with head of Mr.
+Furlong inserted."
+
+It was, of course, plain enough that certain of the
+aldermen of the old council were to be reckoned as part
+of the cohort of darkness. That at least was clear. "We
+want no more men in control of the stamp of Alderman
+Gorfinkel and Alderman Schwefeldampf," so said practically
+every paper in the city. "The public sense revolts at
+these men. They are vultures who have feasted too long
+on the prostrate corpses of our citizens." And so on.
+The only trouble was to discover who or what had ever
+supported Alderman Gorfinkel and Alderman Schwefeldampf.
+The very organizations that might have seemed to be behind
+them were evidently more eager for clean government than
+the league itself.
+
+"The Thomas Jefferson Club Out for Clean Government," so
+ran the newspaper headings of one day; and of the next,
+"Will help to clean up City Government. Eureka Club
+(Coloured) endorses the League; Is done with Darkness";
+and the day after that, "Sons of Hungary Share in Good
+Work: Kossuth Club will vote with the League."
+
+So strong, indeed, was the feeling against the iniquitous
+aldermen that the public demand arose to be done with a
+council of aldermen altogether and to substitute government
+by a Board. The newspapers contained editorials on the
+topic each day and it was understood that one of the
+first efforts of the league would be directed towards
+getting the necessary sanction of the legislature in this
+direction. To help to enlighten the public on what such
+government meant Professor Proaser of the university (he
+was one of the three already referred to) gave a public
+lecture on the growth of Council Government. He traced
+it from the Amphictionic Council of Greece as far down
+as the Oligarchical Council of Venice; it was thought
+that had the evening been longer he would have traced it
+clean down to modern times.
+
+But most amazing of all was the announcement that was
+presently made, and endorsed by Mr. Lucullus Fyshe in an
+interview, that Mayor McGrath himself would favour clean
+government, and would become the official nominee of the
+league itself. This certainly was strange. But it would
+perhaps have been less mystifying to the public at large,
+had they been able to listen to certain of the intimate
+conversations of Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Boulder.
+
+"You say then," said Mr. Boulder, "to let McGrath's name
+stand."
+
+"We can't do without him," said Mr. Fyshe, "he has seven
+of the wards in the hollow of his hand. If we take his
+offer he absolutely pledges us every one of them."
+
+"Can you rely on his word?" said Mr. Boulder.
+
+"I think he means to play fair with us," answered Mr.
+Fyshe. "I put it to him as a matter of honour, between
+man and man, a week ago. Since then, I have had him
+carefully dictaphoned and I'm convinced he's playing
+straight."
+
+"How far will he go with us?" said Mr. Boulder.
+
+"He is willing to throw overboard Gorfinkel, Schwefeldampf
+and Undercutt. He says he must find a place for O'Hooligan.
+The Irish, he says, don't care for clean government; they
+want Irish Government."
+
+"I see," said Mr. Boulder very thoughtfully, "and in
+regard to the renewal of the franchise and the
+expropriation, tell me just exactly what his conditions
+are."
+
+But Mr. Fyshe's answer to this was said so discreetly
+and in such a low voice, that not even the birds listening
+in the elm trees outside the Mausoleum Club could hear
+it.
+
+No wonder, then, that if even the birds failed to know
+everything about the Clean Government League, there were
+many things which such good people as Mr. Newberry and
+Mr. Peter Spillikins never heard at all and never guessed.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Each week and every day brought fresh triumphs to the
+onward march of the movement.
+
+"Yes, gentlemen," said Mr. Fyshe to the assembled committee
+of the Clean Government League a few days later, "I am
+glad to be able to report our first victory. Mr. Boulder
+and I have visited the state capital and we are able to
+tell you definitely that the legislature will consent to
+change our form of government so as to replace our council
+by a Board."
+
+"Hear, hear!" cried all the committee men together.
+
+"We saw the governor," said Mr. Fyshe. "Indeed he was
+good enough to lunch with us at the Pocahontas Club. He
+tells us that what we are doing is being done in every
+city and town of the state. He says that the days of the
+old-fashioned city council are numbered. They are setting
+up boards everywhere."
+
+"Excellent!" said Mr. Newberry.
+
+"The governor assures us that what we want will be done.
+The chairman of the Democratic State Committee (he was
+good enough to dine with us at the Buchanan Club) has
+given us the same assurance. So also does the chairman
+of the Republican State Committee, who was kind enough
+to be our guest in a box at the Lincoln Theatre. It is
+most gratifying," concluded Mr. Fyshe, "to feel that the
+legislature will give us such a hearty, such a thoroughly
+American support."
+
+"You are sure of this, are you?" questioned Mr. Newberry.
+"You have actually seen the members of the legislature?"
+
+"It was not necessary," said Mr. Fyshe. "The governor
+and the different chairmen have them so well fixed--that
+is to say, they have such confidence in the governor and
+their political organizers that they will all be prepared
+to give us what I have described as thoroughly American
+support."
+
+"You are quite sure," persisted Mr. Newberry, "about the
+governor and the others you mentioned?"
+
+Mr. Fyshe paused a moment and then he said very quietly,
+"We are quite sure," and he exchanged a look with Mr.
+Boulder that meant volumes to those who would read it.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+"I hope you didn't mind my questioning you in that
+fashion," said Mr. Newberry, as he and Mr. Fyshe strolled
+home from the club. "The truth is I didn't feel sure in
+my own mind just what was meant by a 'Board,' and 'getting
+them to give us government by a Board.' I know I'm speaking
+like an ignoramus. I've really not paid as much attention
+in the past to civic politics as I ought to have. But
+what is the difference between a council and a board?"
+
+"The difference between a council and a board?" repeated
+Mr. Fyshe.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Newberry, "the difference between a
+council and a board."
+
+"Or call it," said Mr. Fyshe reflectively, "the difference
+between a board and a council."
+
+"Precisely," said Mr Newberry.
+
+"It's not altogether easy to explain," said Mr. Fyshe.
+"One chief difference is that in the case of a board,
+sometimes called a Commission, the salary is higher. You
+see the salary of an alderman or councillor in most cities
+is generally not more than fifteen hundred or two thousand
+dollars. The salary of a member of a board or commission
+is at least ten thousand. That gives you at once a very
+different class of men. As long as you only pay fifteen
+hundred you get your council filled up with men who will
+do any kind of crooked work for fifteen hundred dollars;
+as soon as you pay ten thousand you get men with larger
+ideas."
+
+"I see," said Mr. Newberry.
+
+"If you have a fifteen hundred dollar man," Mr. Fyshe
+went on, "you can bribe him at any time with a fifty-dollar
+bill. On the other hand your ten-thousand-dollar man has
+a wider outlook. If you offer him fifty dollars for his
+vote on the board, he'd probably laugh at you."
+
+"Ah, yes," said Mr. Newberry, "I see the idea. A
+fifteen-hundred-dollar salary is so low that it will
+tempt a lot of men into office merely for what they can
+get out of it."
+
+"That's it exactly," answered Mr. Fyshe.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+From all sides support came to the new league. The women
+of the city--there were fifty thousand of them on the
+municipal voters list--were not behind the men. Though
+not officials of the league they rallied to its cause.
+
+"Mr. Fyshe," said Mrs. Buncomhearst, who called at the
+office of the president of the league with offers of
+support, "tell me what we can do. I represent fifty
+thousand women voters of this city--"
+
+(This was a favourite phrase of Mrs. Buncomhearst's,
+though it had never been made quite clear how or why she
+represented them.)
+
+"We want to help, we women. You know we've any amount of
+initiative, if you'll only tell us what to do. You know,
+Mr. Fyshe, we've just as good executive ability as you
+men, if you'll just tell us what to do. Couldn't we hold
+a meeting of our own, all our own, to help the league
+along?"
+
+"An excellent idea," said Mr. Fyshe.
+
+"And could you not get three or four men to come and
+address it so as to stir us up?" asked Mrs. Buncomhearst
+anxiously.
+
+"Oh, certainly," said Mr. Fyshe.
+
+So it was known after this that the women were working
+side by side with the men. The tea rooms of the Grand
+Palaver and the other hotels were filled with them every
+day, busy for the cause. One of them even invented a
+perfectly charming election scarf to be worn as a sort
+of badge to show one's allegiance; and its great merit
+was that it was so fashioned that it would go with
+anything.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Fyshe to his committee, "one of the finest
+signs of our movement is that the women of the city are
+with us. Whatever we may think, gentlemen, of the question
+of woman's rights in general--and I think we know what
+we _do_ think--there is no doubt that the influence of
+women makes for purity in civic politics. I am glad to
+inform the committee that Mrs. Buncomhearst and her
+friends have organized all the working women of the city
+who have votes. They tell me that they have been able to
+do this at a cost as low as five dollars per woman. Some
+of the women--foreigners of the lower classes whose sense
+of political morality is as yet imperfectly developed--have
+been organized at a cost as low as one dollar per vote.
+But of course with our native American women, with a
+higher standard of education and morality, we can hardly
+expect to do it as low as that."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+Nor were the women the only element of support added to
+the league.
+
+"Gentlemen," reported Dr. Boomer, the president of the
+university, at the next committee meeting, "I am glad to
+say that the spirit which animates us has spread to the
+students of the university. They have organized, entirely
+by themselves and on their own account, a Students' Fair
+Play League which has commenced its activities. I understand
+that they have already ducked Alderman Gorfinkel in a
+pond near the university. I believe they are looking for
+Alderman Schwefeldampf tonight. I understand they propose
+to throw him into the reservoir. The leaders of them--a
+splendid set of young fellows--have given me a pledge
+that they will do nothing to bring discredit on the
+university."
+
+"I think I heard them on the street last night," said
+Mr. Newberry.
+
+"I believe they had a procession," said the president.
+
+"Yes, I heard them; they were shouting 'Rah! rah! rah!
+Clean Government! Clean Government! Rah! rah!' It was
+really inspiring to hear them."
+
+"Yes," said the president, "they are banded together to
+put down all the hoodlumism and disturbance on the street
+that has hitherto disgraced our municipal elections. Last
+night, as a demonstration, they upset two streetcars and
+a milk wagon."
+
+"I heard that two of them were arrested," said Mr. Dick
+Overend.
+
+"Only by an error," said the president. "There was a
+mistake. It was not known that they were students. The
+two who were arrested were smashing the windows of the
+car, after it was upset, with their hockey sticks. A
+squad of police mistook them for rioters. As soon as they
+were taken to the police station, the mistake was cleared
+up at once. The chief-of-police telephoned an apology to
+the university. I believe the league is out again tonight
+looking for Alderman Schwefeldampf. But the leaders assure
+me there will be no breach of the peace whatever. As I
+say, I think their idea is to throw him into the reservoir."
+
+In the face of such efforts as these, opposition itself
+melted rapidly away. The _Plutorian Times_ was soon able
+to announce that various undesirable candidates were
+abandoning the field. "Alderman Gorfinkel," it said,
+"who, it will be recalled, was thrown into a pond last
+week by the students of the college, was still confined
+to his bed when interviewed by our representative. Mr.
+Gorfinkel stated that he should not offer himself as a
+candidate in the approaching election. He was, he said,
+weary of civic honours. He had had enough. He felt it
+incumbent on him to step out and make way for others who
+deserved their turn as well as himself: in future he
+proposed to confine his whole attention to his Misfit
+Semi-Ready Establishment which he was happy to state was
+offering as nobby a line of early fall suiting as was
+ever seen at the price."
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+There is no need to recount here in detail the glorious
+triumph of the election day itself. It will always be
+remembered as the purest, cleanest election ever held in
+the precincts of the city. The citizens' organization
+turned out in overwhelming force to guarantee that it
+should be so. Bands of Dr. Boomer's students, armed with
+baseball bats, surrounded the polls to guarantee fair
+play. Any man wishing to cast an unclean vote was driven
+from the booth: all those attempting to introduce any
+element of brute force or rowdyism into the election were
+cracked over the head. In the lower part of the town
+scores of willing workers, recruited often from the
+humblest classes, kept order with pickaxes. In every part
+of the city motor cars, supplied by all the leading
+businessmen, lawyers, and doctors of the city, acted as
+patrols to see that no unfair use should be made of other
+vehicles in carrying voters to the polls.
+
+It was a foregone victory from the first--overwhelming
+and complete. The cohorts of darkness were so completely
+routed that it was practically impossible to find them.
+As it fell dusk the streets were filled with roaring and
+surging crowds celebrating the great victory for clean
+government, while in front of every newspaper office huge
+lantern pictures of _Mayor McGrath the Champion of Pure
+Government_, and _O. Skinyer, the People's Solicitor_, and
+the other nominees of the league, called forth cheer
+after cheer of frenzied enthusiasm.
+
+        *    *    *    *    *    *    *
+
+They held that night in celebration a great reception at
+the Mausoleum Club on Plutoria Avenue, given at its own
+suggestion by the city. The city, indeed, insisted on it.
+
+Nor was there ever witnessed even in that home of art
+and refinement a scene of greater charm. In the spacious
+corridor of the club a Hungarian band wafted Viennese
+music from Tyrolese flutes through the rubber trees.
+There was champagne bubbling at a score of sideboards
+where noiseless waiters poured it into goblets as broad
+and flat as floating water-lily leaves. And through it
+all moved the shepherds and shepherdesses of that beautiful
+Arcadia--the shepherds in their Tuxedo jackets, with vast
+white shirt-fronts broad as the map of Africa, with
+spotless white waistcoats girdling their equators, wearing
+heavy gold watch-chains and little patent shoes blacker
+than sin itself--and the shepherdesses in foaming billows
+of silks of every colour of the kaleidoscope, their hair
+bound with glittering headbands or coiled with white
+feathers, the very symbol of municipal purity. One would
+search in vain the pages of pastoral literature to find
+the equal of it.
+
+And as they talked, the good news spread from group to
+group that it was already known that the new franchise
+of the Citizens' Light was to be made for two centuries
+so as to give the company a fair chance to see what it
+could do. At the word of it, the grave faces of manly
+bondholders flushed with pride, and the soft eyes of
+listening shareholders laughed back in joy. For they had
+no doubt or fear, now that clean government had come.
+They knew what the company could do.
+
+Thus all night long, outside of the club, the soft note
+of the motor horns arriving and departing wakened the
+sleeping leaves of the elm trees with their message of
+good tidings. And all night long, within its lighted
+corridors, the bubbling champagne whispered to the
+listening rubber trees of the new salvation of the city.
+So the night waxed and waned till the slow day broke,
+dimming with its cheap prosaic glare the shaded beauty
+of the artificial light, and the people of the city--the
+best of them--drove home to their well-earned sleep; and
+the others--in the lower parts of the city--rose to their
+daily toil.
+
+END
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich, by Leacock
+
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