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TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE

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May, 1905

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How to Overthrow Plutocracy

Several million people in the United States are in substantial accord with the demands of the People’s Party. A majority of all voters would welcome Government Ownership of Railroads and other public utilities. The recent great victory in Chicago for Municipal Ownership demonstrates this fact. What Chicago has done locally can be accomplished in the nation—and WILL be done as soon as the people overcome

Political Inertia

With many the voting habit becomes fixed after one or two elections. The ordinary man keeps on “voting ’er straight” long after he has discovered that his party’s actions are out of joint with his own views. Party “regularity” commands the average man’s support long after he KNOWS his party is headed wrong. Some really great men, even, have placed party “regularity” before principle.

A Great Light

on the correct principle of organization is to be found in that admirable work by George Gordon Hastings,

The First American King

A dashing romance, in which a scientist and a detective of today wake up seventy-five years later to find His Majesty, Imperial and Royal, William I, Emperor of the United States and King of the Empire State of New York, ruling the land, with the real power in the hands of half a dozen huge trusts. Automobiles have been replaced by phaërmobiles; air-ships sail above the surface of the earth; there has been a successful war against Russia; a social revolution is brewing. The book is both an enthralling romance and a serious sociological study, which scourges unmercifully the society and politics of the present time, many of whose brightest stars reappear in the future under thinly disguised names. There are wit and humor and sarcasm galore—a stirring tale of adventure and a charming love story.

Hon. Thomas E. Watson says:

“I read ‘The First American King,’ and found it one of the most interesting books I ever opened. Mr. Hastings has not only presented a profound study of our social and economic conditions, but he has made the story one of fascination. It reminds me at times of Bellamy’s ‘Looking Backward,’ but the story is told with so much more human interest, the situations themselves are so much more dramatic, that it impresses me very much more favorably than any book of that kind I have ever known.”

Interesting as the story is as a romance and as a critical sociological study, one of its vitally important points is

How to Organize

Mr. Hastings says:

“It has been suggested,” continued General Mainwarren, “that a wise course for patriotic leaders of your day would have been to have abandoned the hope of converting and securing the grown voters as a body. It would have been best for them, at a given time, to have said: ‘Beginning from today, we will pay no attention to any male who is more than fifteen years of age and who is now, or within the next six years will be, entitled to a vote. But we will direct all efforts to an entirely new body of suffragists.’ They should then have turned their attention to the women of the land, to the mothers of future generations of voters. It has been said that ‘Every woman is at heart a royalist.’ It could with equal truth be said: ‘Every woman is by nature a politician.’ ... Look at the influence exerted politically by various women of whom history speaks.”

This Is the Key-Note of Success

For fifteen years the People’s Party, in season and out of season, has preached “Equal Rights to All, Special Privileges to None.” It has persistently demanded that government shall attend to public matters, and that private business shall be conducted by individuals with the least possible interference—and absolutely no favoritism—by government. It has continually demanded public ownership and government operation of railroads and other public utilities. It has urged the initiative, referendum and the recall; a scientific money system; the abolition of monopoly in every form. Millions of voters—as the Chicago election clearly indicates—are in accord with the People’s Party; but heretofore the voting habit, the “vote ’er straight” political insanity, has kept them in political slavery.

Educate the Boys

Let us train up a new generation of voters—without diminishing our efforts to break up old party habits—who will have the courage of conviction and correct ideas regarding politics and economics. Let us interest the mothers, so we can have the boys taught to cast their first votes on the side of Justice. Habit will then keep them voting right.

Let Us Begin Now

Mr. Hastings’s book is a thought-provoker. It combines romance with sociology and teaches while entertaining. With “The First American King” and TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE in another 100,000 homes, our first great step will be taken toward overcoming plutocracy. With this end in view, we have made arrangements whereby we can offer a dollar book, 350 pages, and a dollar magazine one year, 128 pages monthly, both for only $1.50.

Tom Watson’s Magazine and The First American King $1.50

In order to treat all alike, the book will be sent postpaid to any present subscriber of TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE on receipt of 60 cents. No person not a subscriber can buy “The First American King” of us for a cent less than $1.00. If you have not already subscribed for the magazine, send us $1.50 today for this attractive combination, and expedite the work of building up the People’s Party of the future.

Address all orders to

TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE, 121 West 42d Street, New York

[Pg 257]

Tom Watson’s Magazine

Vol. I MAY, 1905 No. 3

BY THOMAS E. WATSON

Public Ownership in Chicago

SEVERAL weeks ago, in an interview published in the New York World, I expressed the opinion that the principle of public ownership of public utilities was stronger than any political party.

The recent victory won by it in Chicago makes the truth of that statement apparent.

Here was a city which a few months ago gave the Republican ticket the enormous majority of 60,000. So far as parties are concerned, the Republican Party stands precisely where it stood when Roosevelt won that triumph. So far as the Democratic Party is concerned, it has not budged an inch from the ground which it occupied when it met its Waterloo in the November elections. What is it, then, which gave to the candidate of the minority party a decisive success, so soon after an overwhelming defeat? Evidently, it was the principle which he represented.

The National Democratic Party has never declared itself in favor of public ownership. The National Republican Party has never done so. The People’s Party is the only National organization which has proclaimed and battled for the principle which was involved in the Chicago election.

So far back as 1890 the People’s Party of the state of Georgia, and of other states, grew tired of the deceptive compromise called Public Control; threw it aside as a failure; boldly advanced to the more radical ground of Public Ownership, and formed its line of battle. In spite of abuse, ridicule and defeat, our party has never faltered in its steady advocacy of the principle which at that time met the aggressive opposition of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. In the campaigns made by Mr. Bryan he stood for no such principle as this. In the campaign led by Belmont and Parker and Gorman in 1904 the Democratic Party stood for no such principle as this; nor has the Republican Party ever dared to proclaim itself in favor of such robust radicalism. Therefore, it is folly to say that the victory won in the Chicago election is a Democratic victory. It is misleading to say that this election illustrates the fact that “the Democratic Party always wins when it is Democratic.” The principle of public ownership has never been a part of the political stock in trade of the Democratic Party. Therefore the principle of public ownership of public utilities cannot be classed as Democratic, if we use the term in the partisan sense which attaches to it. The principle of public ownership is Populistic, and it is merely rendering to the pioneers of that movement simple justice when we say that the Chicago election, which wiped out party lines and gave to the people and to the principle a magnificent victory, should redound to the credit of those much-abused and misrepresented men who thirteen years ago unfurled that particular flag and began to fight beneath it.

The people of Chicago evidently grew tired of being plundered; grew[Pg 258] ashamed of their own political imbecility; grew ashamed of their own municipal cowardice. Roused to action by a few magnetic leaders who were not afraid and who were not to be sidetracked by hypocritical compromises, they marshaled their strength and demonstrated how easy it is for the masses to throw off the yoke of those who plunder them under forms of law. Nobody ever doubted for a moment that the people of Chicago, in the main, were honest, courageous, public-spirited, but they had submitted so long to the initiative and the domination of a few organized rascals who intrenched themselves in places of power, safeguarded by legislation, that it seemed wellnigh hopeless to expect them ever to revolt. The fact that they have revolted, and have reversed the results achieved at the November election, gives another illustration of what I said in the first issue of this magazine, namely, that the election of 1904, properly construed, was so encouraging to the reformers as to become an inspiration. It was pointed out that the victory of Douglas in Massachusetts, of Folk in Missouri, of La Follette in Wisconsin, each of whom was known as a reformer, could be construed in no other way than that the people were tired of party names, of party traditions, of party machines and party hypocrisy, and were determined to go to the support of any man and any principle which promised them the relief which they so much needed. The triumph of Judge Dunne, the Democrat, following so speedily upon the heels of an adverse vote against Judge Parker, the Democrat, absolutely clinches the truth of what I said, namely, that the only party, the only principle, the only sentiment which grew stronger by the campaign of 1904 was that of radicalism.

Why shouldn’t the lesson of the Chicago election be taken to heart by every great city and every small town in this Republic? If the people of Chicago can turn the rascals out, the people of New York can turn the rascals out, the people of Philadelphia can turn the rascals out. Talk about vested rights and charters which grant monopolies! Nobody wants to confiscate property or violate contracts, no matter how ill-judged those contracts may have been. But we say this: Just as private property was assessed and taken under the principle of Eminent Domain, in order that corporations should construct their railways, their telegraph lines, their telephone lines, so the same principle of Eminent Domain can be applied to return to the people what was taken away from the people. Assess these properties at a fair valuation, pay honestly and fully what they are worth, then take them over for the public to be operated for the benefit of the public. The law of Eminent Domain can be applied to all sorts of property, real and personal, the tangible thing called an acre of ground and the intangible thing called a charter.

Consider this Chicago election in the broad National point of view. How can it give any encouragement to Mr. Roosevelt, who is still tinkering and pottering at the worn-out fabric of Governmental control? How can it give any encouragement to the Democratic Party, which has nothing in its platform which can be twisted into a declaration in favor of that thing which Chicago has just done? So far from being a vindication of the Democratic attitude, as expressed in all of its National platforms, it is a rebuke to the timid, weak-kneed, short-sighted leaders of National Democracy. The vindication is to those men, who, in the years gone by, proclaimed the principles, preached the gospel, scattered the literature, endured the odium, fought the battle, bore the heat and burden of the day, and are now in this late hour looking up, elated, joyful, exultant, happy, that at last the smile of success has rested upon the earnest, untiring efforts which have gone so long without recognition and reward.

The victor in the Chicago election was the great Populist Principle, Public Ownership!

[Pg 259]

A Bitter Attack Upon the South

Ever since the close of the Civil War there has been a growing sentiment on both sides of Mason and Dixon’s line in favor of mutual forbearance, the purpose being to speed the day when the North and South shall become reconciled.

In the South no speaker will now add to his popularity or influence by reckless abuse of the North.

We had supposed that the North was equally tired of the speaker or writer who puts the torch to sectional prejudice or who wantonly inflicts upon the South a blow which he must realize will arouse angry resentment.

When the last gun was fired at Appomattox, the biggest, bravest, best hearted men on each side united in the effort to stem the tide of sectional hatred and to knit together the bonds of brotherly love.

General Grant, by his magnanimity at the surrender, set a sublime standard.

General Lee, by his noble advice and example, gave the South a lesson whose influence for good cannot be overestimated.

Horace Greeley, when he volunteered to sign the bond of Jefferson Davis, and Senator L. Q. C. Lamar, of Mississippi, when he pronounced a magnificent memorial address upon Charles Sumner in the Senate, were but following the illustrious precedents of Grant and Lee.

Later, there came the mission of Henry Grady and of John B. Gordon, upon the one side, and the conciliatory words and deeds of William McKinley on the other.

Nor should we forget the fine tribute paid to Southern character and courage in the writings of Theodore Roosevelt, who as President has honored the sons of Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart and General Beauregard, and who, in one of his latest appointments, has given preference to General Rosser, the youngest of the Confederate brigadiers.

The battle-scarred veterans of the North have been meeting in memorable reunions the survivors of those who followed Johnston and Forrest and Jackson and Lee; and the most touching and inspiring scenes have been witnessed at these encampments where the South and the North recognized each other’s honesty, valor and generosity, and each section vied with the other in the glorious work of harmonizing the nation.

At the grave of General Grant it was the presence of our Southern soldier, John B. Gordon, which testified to the North the sympathy of the South.

And only a few days ago President Roosevelt inquired diligently into the circumstances of the widowed Mrs. Gordon to know whether or not an appointment as Postmaster for the city of Atlanta would be acceptable to her.

During the Spanish war the South sprang into the ranks under the old flag, at the tap of the drum, and the blood of a Southern boy was the first that was shed in the conflict.

It was the ranking cavalry leader of the expiring Confederacy who steadied the lines before Santiago, prevented a retreat, and brought from Mr. Roosevelt the manly acknowledgment that to General Joseph Wheeler, more than to any other man, was due the fact that we won the victory.

It was a Southern boy who took his life in his hands in the effort to block the Spanish harbor, and worthily earned the title of “The Hero of the Merrimac.”

It is sad to think that all this patriotism may not have made a deep impression upon the country.

It is sad to realize that the work of such men as Alexander H. Stephens, Benjamin H. Hill, Senator Lamar, Thomas Nelson Page and Henry W. Grady has left so much still to be done before that man, North or South, who endeavors to inflame the passions of the sections shall be made to feel that he has excited for himself the contempt and disgust which he deserves.

In a recent issue of the New York Independent comes Albert Bushnell[Pg 260] Hart, Professor of History at Harvard University, distilling as much bitterness and gall as ever fell from the lips of John J. Ingalls or Thaddeus Stevens.

He writes an article called “Conditions of the Southern Problem,” and a more thoroughly exaggerated and libelous contribution to public discussion has not been made during the last twenty years.

The average reader will get some idea of the value of Mr. Hart’s conclusions when he comes upon the sober statement that “white mountaineers (of the South) have been known to take their children out of school because the teacher would insist that the world is round.”

Who stuffed Dr. Hart with that old joke?

What credit does he do to himself when he shows to the world that he accepts such worn-out jests as facts?

Does he not know that there are plenty of wags all over the world—even in Pullman cars—who take a delight in playing upon the credulous?

He will meet men who will tell him that in certain backwoods communities “the people don’t know that the war is over,” or he will be told that in some mountain counties “they are still voting for Andrew Jackson.”

But would Professor Hart take such statements for anything but jokes?

Doesn’t he know that the jest about the rural belief that the world is flat instead of round belongs to the same gray-haired family?

Even a professor of history should learn that there is just as great a difference between jokes and facts as there is between facts and jokes.

Professor Hart says that “in a few communities, notably South Carolina, the poor whites have unaccountably discovered that if they will always vote together they always have a majority, and they keep a man of their own type in the United States Senate. In most other states, however, politics is directed by intelligent and honorable men.”

Isn’t this a rippingly reckless arraignment of the entire state of South Carolina? Does the Professor of History at Harvard mean to say that the politics of South Carolina is directed by men less intelligent and honorable than those of “most other states”?

If so, upon what ground does he base the accusation?

As a matter of fact, the poor whites do not control South Carolina. It is the middle class whites who control South Carolina, and who elected Ben Tillman to the United States Senate.

Of course, Professor Hart intended to give Senator Tillman a side-wipe of special vigor, and he did it, striking the whole state at the same time he struck Tillman. But to what extent was the blow deserved? Ben Tillman may, or may not, be an ideal Senator. He may, or may not, be an ideal leader. Opinions differ about that, even in South Carolina.

But why should a Northern writer select a Southern senator and a Southern state to be held up in this insulting manner to public odium? In what respect does Tillman’s record in the Senate, for honesty and ability, compare unfavorably with that of Quay of Pennsylvania, Platt of New York, Aldrich of Rhode Island, or Gorman of Maryland? Each one of those senators has been basely subservient to thievish corporations, and has helped them to fatten on national legislation at the expense of the great body of the people.

Can Dr. Hart say that of Ben Tillman? I defy him to do it.

Dr. Hart asks, “Why should the negro expect protection when the white man is powerless against any personal white enemy who chooses to shoot him down in the street, when not one white murderer in a hundred is punished for his crime?”

Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart is evidently thinking about the case of James Tillman, of South Carolina, who shot down in the street Editor Gonzales, and who was acquitted, on his trial.

By all sane persons it is admitted to[Pg 261] be utterly unfair to judge the entire South, or North, by any one case, or by any one crime.

It is useless to argue the guilt or innocence of James Tillman; but we all know that human nature is prejudiced by political feeling; and none will deny that the feud between Tillman and Gonzales was a political feud. The killing was a political killing. In a case like that the action of court and jury will be influenced by political feeling, whether the result be right or wrong.

Has Albert Bushnell Hart never heard of a political feud in any other part of the world than the South, and has he never known political feeling to protect one who was prosecuted for a crime? Has he never known of instances in Northern cities where prisoners at the Bar apparently owed their salvation to secret societies of any sort—or to political pull of any sort?

It has not been so very long since Edward S. Stokes met James Fisk on the staircase, in the Grand Central Hotel, in New York City, and shot him down.

One might think this amounted to about the same thing as the shooting down of a personal enemy on the street.

Fisk died, as Gonzales died. Stokes was tried, as Tillman was tried. Stokes was not hanged in New York any more than Tillman was hanged in South Carolina.

Will Dr. Hart please furnish an explanation which will not fit the South Carolina case as snugly as it fits the New York case?

Professor Hart asks, “Why should the Northern people believe that the South means well by the negro when such a man as Governor Vardaman, of Mississippi, brutally threatens him and his white friends in the North?”

When and where has Governor James K. Vardaman “brutally threatened the negro and his Northern friends”?

Governor Vardaman, not many days ago, risked his political life, to say nothing of personal danger, to protect a negro from a white mob. Perhaps every white man in the mob had voted for Vardaman, and was his personal and political friend; yet, although it was generally believed that the negro was guilty of a heinous offense, this Governor, who has been singled out for abuse, did not hesitate one moment to jeopardize his whole political future by throwing around the hunted negro the official protection of the law.

No matter how much Governor Vardaman may be mistaken in some of his views, and some of his utterances, no man ought now to deny that he possesses personal and political courage, or that his respect for law is of that high character which proclaims, “The color of a man’s skin shall not be the measure of his legal rights.”

Furthermore, Dr. Hart says, “in one respect the poor whites are terrible teachers to the negroes; they are an ungovernable people and do not allow themselves to be punished for such peccadillos as murder.”

O Mr. Professor of History at Harvard! has your blind passion against the South lost you to all sense of proportion in the making of public statements?

If the poor whites of the South “do not allow themselves to be punished for such little things as murder,” why do they go to the penitentiary at all?

You will find a sufficient number of poor whites in the penitentiaries of the South—are they there just for the fun of it?

Speaking of the negro, Dr. Hart again says, “he may not murder or assault, or even speak saucily to a white person, on most dreadful penalties. Partly for self-protection, still more from a feeling of race supremacy, it is made a kind of lèse-majesté for a negro to lay hands on a white man; even to defend his family or his own life, the serpent must not bite the heel of the chosen people.”

What utter disregard of facts!

Let me cite a few cases which come within my personal knowledge.

[Pg 262]

In McIntosh County, Georgia, one of the most prominent white planters was deputized by the sheriff to arrest a negro who had been engaged in a riot. The white man authorized to arrest the negro went to his house and called for him at night. The negro refused to come out. The deputy forced his way in, and the negro shot him dead. There were three negroes in the house, all participating in resisting the officer.

The white man’s court acquitted two of the negroes, and sent one up for ten years.

In the penitentiary of Georgia, at this time, are some white men serving out their terms at hard labor for an outrage committed on a negro man in one of the country counties near Atlanta.

A white man, by the name of Alec Harvill, belonging to the class of poor whites, was tried for murder in one of the Piedmont counties for which Mr. Hart has such a contempt, and was convicted.

He is now serving a term in the penitentiary, as he has been doing for the last five or six years.

How was he convicted? Upon the testimony of a single negro witness. Nobody saw the alleged crime, or pretended to have seen it, except this negro boy.

And yet the white judge and the white jury believed the negro in preference to the father or mother of the accused.

In another of the Piedmont counties of Georgia a white man outraged a negro woman.

Within the last ninety days that criminal has been tried by a white judge and jury—the prosecution being pushed by the state of Georgia through her Attorney-General.

The lower court convicted the criminal, the Supreme Court has affirmed the finding, and the white man will have to meet the penalty of the law for his violation of a negro woman.

Several years ago a white man named Robinson, living in Waynesboro, Ga., killed a negro.

The white man had cursed a negro woman, who had “put in her mouth” while he was holding a conversation with a negro man.

When Robinson cursed the woman the deceased threw off his coat and rushed at Robinson, exclaiming, “I won’t stand that!”

Robinson backed, saying, “Don’t come on me! Stand back!”

The negro continued to advance; Robinson drew his pistol and shot his assailant.

Robinson was tried, convicted and sent to the penitentiary.

In Wilkes County, Ga., a convict boss whipped a negro convict who sulked and wouldn’t work. The negro had a bad character, and was serving sentence for a grave offense.

The whipping may possibly have caused the negro’s death, though there was much testimony to the effect that he died from natural causes.

At any rate, a white judge and jury convicted the boss who inflicted the whipping, and he had to serve his time in the penitentiary. Robert Cannon was his name.

In another instance I myself furnished the evidence of maltreatment of a negro convict in the Georgia penitentiary, and, the facts being made known to the Governor of Georgia, a fine of $2,500 was imposed on the Convict Lessee Company.

The Governor was General John B. Gordon.

The name of the negro convict was Bill Sturgis.

Examples like these could be multiplied indefinitely from Georgia and every Southern state.

Another astonishing fact is related by Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart.

“The most intelligent white people admit the fact that they are trying to keep the negro down because otherwise the lowest white men will marry negro women.”

Now, where on earth did Dr. Hart get that?

Does not Dr. Hart know that the antipathy between the negro and the[Pg 263] poor white is, and always has been, greater than the antipathy between the negro and the property-owning white?

Does not Dr. Hart himself, in another part of his article, express the belief that a dangerous antagonism exists between the poor whites and the negro?

Does Professor Hart believe that the true reason why the Southern people wish to maintain white supremacy is to keep poor whites from marrying negro women? Does he not realize that he makes himself a laughing-stock when he gives his name to a statement of that kind? No white man, rich or poor, wants a negro woman for a wife!

Dr. Hart may put that down as a proposition which is absolutely true.

There are many white men, unfortunately, who establish relations of concubinage with negro women, and this crime is frequently punished in the Southern courts; but where is the evidence that white men wish to take negro wives?

If that inclination is so strong, so ungovernable as to become the motive of the South in maintaining white supremacy, it should be capable of proof. Now, where is the proof? Produce it, Dr. Hart!

The simple truth of the matter is that Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart has allowed himself to be stuffed with a whole lot of nonsense upon a subject which he does not understand.

Now for a parting quotation from this precious article of Harvard’s professional historian:

“Good people (in the South) rarely make much distinction between the man who is guilty and the man who looks like a criminal; between shooting him down in the street or burning him at the stake; between burning the guilty man or his innocent wife; between the quiet family inferno with only two or three hundred spectators and a first-class, advertised auto-da-fé with special trains, and the children of the public schools in the foreground.”

There you have it, in all its true amplitude and animus!

“The good people” of the South do not strive, according to Dr. Hart, to draw the line of distinction between the man who is guilty and the man who simply looks guilty. They establish no real distinction between the guilty man and his innocent wife. It makes no difference to these “good people” whether they have a quiet family inferno, with two or three hundred spectators, or the first-class, advertised burning, when special trains are run and the public-school teachers give the children a recess in order that they may attend the exhibition!

If that is not mere partisanship, frothing at the mouth, what is it?

It certainly cannot be seriously taken as a truthful summing up of a general situation.

An irresponsible stump-speaker, in the reckless rush of a hot political campaign, would have better sense than to deal in hyperbole in that furious fashion.

But when a man of Dr. Hart’s standing publishes stuff like this it does harm. It misleads the North and arouses passionate indignation in the South.

When Dr. Hart does work of that wild sort he is no longer a historian; he is simply an incendiary. He is a child playing with fire.

If I were to apply to the North the same measure which Professor Hart has applied to the South, could I not convict the “good people” of his section, as he has convicted “the good people” of mine?

Are “the good people” of the entire North to be held up as utterly lawless, making a jest of “such peccadillos as murder,” because of the late doings at Wilmington, Del., or at Springfield, O.?

Has Indiana had no lynchings; has Colorado had no carnival of crime?

James Tillman, of South Carolina, “shot down in the street” a mortal political foe who had, beyond all question, given him great provocation.

I do not say that James Tillman was justified in his act—I merely say that he had provocation, great provocation.

[Pg 264]

He was acquitted, but he was not sent to Congress.

He left the court-room a broken, chastened man; and is now leading a life of sobriety, industry and rectitude.

Not many years ago, on a Sunday morning, a saloon-keeper and his son, in the city of Boston, Mass., beat down a drunken man who had broken a window-pane of said saloon—beat him down on the streets, and kicked him to death after he was down.

Apparently the man’s sole offense was that he had broken a pane of glass and refused to pay for it.

The saloon was open in violation of law.

The glass was broken by a man too drunk to know what he was doing.

And the two men of Boston fell upon the helpless, drunken wretch, and kicked him to death in the streets.

Was Massachusetts and all the North condemned for that?

What became of the homicides?

One received a nominal punishment, which was not a real punishment; and the other boasts that he was never punished at all.

Where was the boast made?

In the House of Representatives of the United States—for Boston, Mass., actually sent to Congress the man who had helped to kick another man to death in the streets!

His name? John A. Sullivan. I beg pardon—it is,

The Honorable John A. Sullivan.

South Carolina is far behind Massachusetts—she has not yet sent James Tillman to Congress.

In the name of the Good God who made us all—are we never to hear the last of these bitter revilings of the South?

Are we never to reach the Era of Good Feeling for which so many strong men have toiled, so many pure women have prayed?

Will the blind Apostles of Hate never “Let us have Peace”?

Shall the marplot and the bigot and the partisan and the Pharisee forever be able to thwart the nobler efforts of nobler men?

Shall Ransy Sniffle always succeed in embroiling those who want to be friends?

When I think of Abraham Lincoln—magnanimous, broad, far-seeing, praising the Confederates who had stormed the heights at Gettysburg, calling upon the band to play “Dixie” on the night following Lee’s surrender—and then contemplate this narrow, spiteful, out-of-date Professor of History at Harvard, I realize more than ever how much the South lost when a madman assassinated the statesman who had her blood in his veins, sympathy for her in his heart, and a knowledge of her in his mind.

In vain will Congress return the battle-flags of the Lost Cause, in vain will the McKinleys and the Roosevelts labor for the Era of Good Feeling, if the violent partisans of the North, playing into the hands of the almost obsolete fire-eaters of the South, give to sectional hatreds a new lease of life.

Remember the Rascals

The law provides that a Congressman shall be paid a salary of $5,000 per year; and in order that the compensation shall be equal, among members, the Government pays their traveling expenses. Otherwise the Representative who comes from the Pacific coast to the Capital, paying his way, would realize very much less on his salary than a Representative from Maryland or Virginia.

The cost of travel was greater in the olden days than now, and the free pass had not then become one of the devil’s favorite inventions. Consequently, the lawmakers declared that the taxpayers should furnish twenty cents per mile to meet the expenses of the Representative in going from his home to the post of duty.

Inasmuch as every member of Congress—occasional cranks excepted—now rides on the free passes, the mileage has become a considerable addition to the salary.

[Pg 265]

A member who lives west of the Mississippi will find his pay increased a sixth, or a fifth, according to the distance from the Atlantic seaboard; while the delegate who comes from Hawaii will pocket considerably more than $2,000 for the alleged cost of getting to Washington.

So far, good. Everybody knows that Congressmen do not pay their way, and everybody knows that mileage no longer has any honest foundation; but we’ve got used to the grab, and we let it go, as inevitable, with a weary sigh of hopeless disgust.

But the Congress which recently adjourned broke all previous records and gave the country a new chapter in the record of brazen dishonor.

Previous to the meeting of the regular session there had been an extra session. This held on till the regular session began. There was no interval between the two. So far as time was concerned, the one ran into the other. Hence, no member went home from the extra session and came back to the regular session.

There was absolutely no “recess” at all—not a minute between the one session and the other.

Now, behold the evil influence of a bad example.

The President got the idea that while there was no actual recess between the two sessions of Congress, there was a “constructive” recess.

The Mephistopheles who whispered this baleful advice in the ear of Mr. Roosevelt was a better friend to the appointees who were to benefit by it—General Wood and Dr. Crum, for example—than they were to the President. The members of Congress were not slow to reason the case to this effect:

If there has been such a recess as to give General Wood a promotion in the army, and to Dr. Crum a fat office in the revenue service, then it has been a recess for all purposes.

“If the President can fill offices upon a supposed recess, we can fill our pocket with mileage upon the same supposition.

“The whole thing being imaginary, that theory which puts Wood higher up on the pay-roll, and which puts a negro in the Custom House at Charleston, will also imagine that we went home during the supposed recess, and that we have just returned from Georgia, Alabama, Wisconsin, California and the state of Washington. It’s a poor rule that won’t work both ways.”

The law clothes the President with the power to make recess appointments—which rids him of the necessity of consulting the Senate. In this instance, he created a recess in his mind, when none existed in fact, and the result was good for Wood and Crum.

The imaginary recess having been created by the President, the members of the Lower House took an imaginary trip home during the imaginary recess, and then proposed that they be paid their imaginary expenses, not in imaginary money, but in hard cash.

Therefore, sixty-odd Republicans and forty-odd Democrats, and two Union Labor men, voted to give themselves $190,000 of the people’s money to pay for imaginary journeys made during an imaginary recess.

It is doubtful if a more shameless attempt to steal from the public treasury has ever been attempted.

The Senate killed the measure, not because the Senate itself is so pure and honest—for it isn’t—but because it could safely rebuke the House—which it despises—and pose as Watch-dog of the Treasury, without loss to itself.

The people are entitled to know the names of the rascals who tried to steal $190,000 of their money.

Tennessee will not be shocked to know that “Slippery Jim” Richardson voted for the grab.

She may be shocked to know that Brownlow did the same thing—Brownlow, the son of the famous Parson.

South Carolina may be astonished to learn that on the roll of dishonor are the names of Aiken and Legare.

Virginia will see that she has been misrepresented by the vote of Maynard.

[Pg 266]

Louisiana will find three of her votes on the shameful list—Pujo and Broussard and Davey.

The Democracy of Missouri may feel indignant at the vote of Hunt, and Mississippi at that of Hill.

As the list of names is printed elsewhere, it is not necessary to particularize further; but I note one thing with special interest.

The Massachusetts Congressman who was selected by the enemies of W. R. Hearst to attack him on the floor of the House gave the country a chance to learn who was the cleaner, better man.

Hearst did not vote for the steal; Sullivan, of Massachusetts, did!

The people of Georgia may wish to know where Congressman Bartlett was when the vote was being taken. His name is not recorded against the steal. Nor is that of Brantley or that of Adamson.

Where were they?

These three gentlemen are paid $15,000 per year to stay in their places and safeguard the rights of the people who elected them.

Where were these three Georgians when this piece of rascality was being put through the House? If they were necessarily absent why did they not arrange “pairs,” and thus give their votes to defeat the robbers? Did they DODGE?

If so, Why?

Alabama will want to know where Bankhead and Wiley were; Texas will ask explanations of Stephens; Tennessee of Sims; Kentucky of Hopkins and Stanley.

Every man who voted for the mileage grab, or who dodged the vote, should be marked for political punishment by the constituency which he betrayed.

Introductory to a Letter from a Boy

As a rule, I do not help schoolboys in writing their speeches or in preparing for debates. In fact, I make it a rule not to do so.

It is best for the boy to dig his own bait. The sooner he learns to rely upon himself, the better. In that way only will he become strong.

But sometimes I break my own rules—for the sake of variety, perhaps—and I did it not long ago when a certain college in Georgia took as a subject for debate the proposition:

“Resolved, That the South should have supported Watson in the last Presidential election.”

Of course, there were but two names to be considered in the discussion—Watson and Parker.

Teddy wasn’t in it at all. And that is a queer thing, too, for about one-third of the white people of Georgia believe just as Teddy does about the money question, the Tariff system, the Panama business, the Philippine policy, the big navy project, the Railroad rate reduction, and so forth and so on.

But they wouldn’t vote for Teddy to save his life.

And why?

They have a distinct presentiment that if they should vote for a man like Roosevelt they would never dare to go to sleep again lest they wake up next morning and find niggers sitting at the breakfast-table on the level of social equality.

Consequently, Roosevelt didn’t cut any ice in the schoolhouse debate.

Parker and I—we had it all to ourselves. Good-natured people will not begrudge this honor to Parker and me, I am sure, for we are clearly entitled to something, and Teddy has just about carried off everything else. He can afford to be generous, and to let two of his late competitors wear the laurels in a college debate away down in Georgia.

Whether Parker coached the boys on his side I am not informed.

If he didn’t, they must have had a tough job getting up “points.” It is a task at which the average boy would need prompt and patient assistance.

Perhaps, W. J. B. was appealed to. At all events, he should have been. The Nebraska Talk-Factory turns out quite a variety of finished product, and[Pg 267] the kind of garment it wove for the adornment of Parker, late in the last campaign, was a marvel in its way—especially when one considers how suddenly the machinery had to be readjusted to fill that particular order.

As to myself, I frankly confess that I “suspended the rules” and gave my champion some “points.” This was wrong, but human.

Had I known that the judges presiding over the debate were two Democrats and a Republican, I would have furnished points to the Parker side, also. Then my champions would have come out ahead.

My private opinion is that I could have coached the Parker champions in such a way that even a pied-piper tribunal, composed of two Georgia Democrats and a New York Republican, would have had to call in a fourth man to know how to decide.

Provided, always, that W. J. B. had stayed out of it.

Of course, when he butts in, nobody can say what may happen.

Well, the boys debated, the judges decided, and Parker won out.

The remainder of the story is related by the ingenuous youth who fought for me in that contest, and I am going to give you his letter just as he wrote it.

A missive like the foregoing is decidedly interesting to me, and the spirit moves me to say certain things to my correspondent, which I do, in manner and form following, to wit:

[Pg 268]

An Educational Department

There are thousands of boys and girls, some in schools and colleges, some not, who are anxious to learn, to develop themselves and to RISE.

Many, many things they yearn to know which the class-room teachers do not teach.

Many a subject they are eager to study, if somebody will but show the way.

Often there are speeches to be made, essays to be written, debates to be prepared, and the boys and girls simply do not know how to start about it.

For instance, they are suddenly required to speak or write on the question:

“Should the Government own and operate the railroads?”

They have never read anything about it, perhaps. Therefore they inquire:

“Where can we get some literature on the subject?”

These young people do not want someone else to write their speeches or essays; they want nothing more than to be told where to get the materials to work with—the data upon which to construct their own argument.

When I was a boy I felt the need of that kind of help very keenly.

How was I to know what books contained the information sought?

Who could tell me?

I soon found that teachers did not love to be bored by inquiries of that character, and therefore I had to browse around in the library at random for what was wanted.

If the book needed was there, I generally found it, after wasting much time in the search.

If it was not there, as frequently happened, I was at my row’s end. I had to debate without the full preparation which should have been made.

To help out many a student who may be troubled as I used to be, I am going to improvise and conduct in this magazine a modest little Educational Department.

Primarily it is meant for the young people. But the rule will be made as flexible as I feel like making it.

Age limits are not fair—no matter whether Osler was joking or not.

It is not my plan or purpose to write anybody’s speech or essay; but, where there is a subject of real importance to be discussed by word or pen, I am willing to direct the preparation of the student by telling him or her where the necessary information can be had.

It would perhaps not be improper for me to suggest some general ideas on the subject to be discussed—these ideas to be worked out and put in form by the student.

Often I might render good service to the boys and girls by telling them where the books they need can be bought at the lowest price.

It took me many years to learn how to buy books, and it is a thing worth knowing—unless you have more money than I ever had.

The letters written to me in this department will be published as written; but the names of the writers will be withheld.

[Pg 270]

Therefore, no correspondent need be embarrassed in making inquiries.

My replies will be given in the magazine.

Hereafter all letters asking for information—historical, literary, political, economic—will be answered through the EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

P. S.—Students are requested not to ask help on this subject, viz.:

“Resolved, That there is more happiness in the pursuit than in the possession.”

Those whose duty it is to maintain “the pursuit” will please consult Mr. Bryan; those who sustain “the possession” are referred to Mr. Roosevelt.

Editorial Comment

Those orthodox partisan editors who sneered at my comment on W. R. Hearst as a man who did things while others were talk—talk—talking, will please study the election returns from Chicago and hand me out revised opinions.

That was a Hearst fight, and Hearst himself was personally in the thick of it. He said little and accomplished much.

Would still like to swap a score or two of mere talkers like—well, no matter—for another such myth as Hearst.

A wise man—and his name is Dennis—has an article in the April number of Everybody’s to prove that free trade has created in England that poverty-stricken mass of humanity which he includes under the general name of “Hooligan.”

According to Mr. Robert Hunter, the Hooligans of the United States aggregate 10,000,000—and we haven’t had any free trade, either.

Evidently the wise Mr. Dennis has not located the true cause of poverty in England.

It was famine, and the high price of bread, which forced Sir Robert Peel to abandon protection and to carry free trade into effect.

Bread was cheapened and the cost of living reduced.

Did that inflict such great misery upon the poor?

If the wise Mr. Dennis will study the subject more thoroughly he will probably reach the conclusion that poverty in England is the product of land monopoly, a vicious financial system and a governmental establishment in which a lot of hereditary bloodsuckers prey upon the body politic.

Free trade is the law of nature; it never did, and never can produce national misery, poverty or decadence.

If the wise Mr. Dennis will study the subject thoroughly he will discover that the Corn Laws of 1815 were passed for the purpose of giving special benefits to the landlords of Great Britain. By the poor the act was regarded as such a direct attack upon themselves—such a barefaced design to make them pay higher prices for the necessaries of life—that resistance to the law grew riotous and had to be put down by force.

Says Justin McCarthy, the historian:

“The poor everywhere saw the bread of their family threatened, saw the food of their children almost taken out of their mouths, and they broke into wild extremes of anger.”

But the soldiers were called out, the riots put down, and a sufficient number of the poor hanged to quell the remainder.

Thus the land monopolists of Great Britain—many of whose titles to their enormous holdings are tainted with all manner of fraud and wrong enforced and odious law which robbed the poor to benefit the rich.

In 1817 the troops were used again to crush the laborers who were crying out against oppression.

In 1819 soldiers were used once more.

Then the submission of despair brought quiet times until 1830, when the people again attempted to throw off the hateful yoke of barbarous laws. In the House of Commons Sir Francis Burdett denounced the Duke of Wellington as

“Shamefully insensible to the suffering and distress which were painfully apparent throughout the land.”

[Pg 271]

“O’Connell declared that many thousands of persons had to subsist in Ireland on three half-pence per day.”

A tolerably successful workingman sometimes got sixty-five cents a week, and the price of the four-pound loaf was twenty-five cents.

From 1830 to 1836 matters went from bad to worse. Business was depressed, trade stagnant, poverty severe in many parts of the country.

In 1838 a crisis came. Three-fifths of the manufacturing establishments of Lancashire shut down. Thousands of workmen were thrown adrift, moneyless, foodless, desperate.

It was then that three great men, Cobden, Bright and Villiers, seized the leadership of Discontent and began the famous crusade against Protection, as typified in the Corn Laws of Great Britain. “Vested interests,” of course, raised the usual howl.

The land monopolists stubbornly closed up in lines of sullen opposition to reform. They beat off every attack, pocketing year after year the famine prices which the people were compelled to pay for bread.

Suddenly, in the summer of 1845, a cold, wet, sunless season fell upon the British Isles and the whole potato crop of Ireland—the sole dependence of the vast majority of the Irish people—rotted.

The food of Ireland was gone; in her poverty she could not pay the English landlord’s price for bread, and the Corn Laws forbade her buying the cheap bread of America and Continental Europe.

It was then that Lord John Russell attacked the whole system of Protection as “the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter divisions among classes, the cause of penury, fever and crime among the people.”

It was then that the great Tory Minister, Sir Robert Peel, followed the promptings of his heart and determined that the people should have cheaper food.

He abolished the Corn Laws, and conferred inestimable blessings upon the common people of his country.

The noble act cost him his political life—for that was the penalty which outraged land monopoly, led by Disraeli, inflicted upon its former chief.

The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846.

Mr. Dennis comes along and tells us that Free Trade is responsible for “Hooligan”—for poverty in England.

Mr. Rider Haggard—now in this country in the interest of Hooligan—ought to know as much about the poor of Great Britain as Dennis knows.

What does Rider Haggard say?

That the present deplorable condition of the English poor began with 1874.

How, then, can that condition be connected with the Corn Law repeal?

May it not be logically connected with legislation of more recent date?

Or may it not be connected with economic developments elsewhere?

Tremendous changes in the conditions of people in Europe and America have been brought about by financial legislation much more nearly contemporaneous with 1874 than the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.

Then, again, the vast addition to the wheat and corn areas in the United States alone have had a mighty influence on prices in Great Britain.

It may be that rents are so high in England that the tenant farmer finds it impossible to pay his tribute to the land monopolist, compete with American grain fields, and have anything left for himself.

Indeed, Mr. Haggard states that one of the reasons why the agricultural laborer is so disheartened in England is that there is no chance for him to become the owner of land.

An exchange says:

“The headmaster of an English school says he read Roosevelt’s inaugural to his boys and asked them where it was found. Unanimously they answered, ‘Jowett’s translation of Thucydides.’ Whereupon the headmaster gives us parallel columns to show that Pericles said it all before, on[Pg 272] an occasion somewhat similar. But Teddy is too honest to crib; he was deceived by his clerk on oratory. Let it go at that.”

If it is true that Mr. Roosevelt did use one of the speeches of Pericles as an inaugural address, Mr. Bryan may wish he had not been so quick with the announcement that it was a poor speech. Pericles is generally considered to have been an orator who would have compared not unfavorably with W. J. B. himself.

The India-rubber qualities of the Monroe Doctrine are being made manifest with a vengeance.

Once we understood it to mean, in a general way, that Europe must “Hands off”—no more conquest, colonization, or extension of the European system to the American Continent.

By Mr. Cleveland, England was told, with firmness, that she couldn’t steal Venezuela’s land, even though the theft consisted of the simple device of moving the boundary line.

With Mr. Roosevelt’s advent to power comes a decidedly new chapter in the evolution of the Monroe Doctrine.

We are to assume a sort of Trusteeship for adjacent governments.

We must see to it that they conduct themselves decently and in order. They must pay their debts to citizens of other countries and behave themselves generally in a way that meets our approval.

Mr. Roosevelt, in advancing the Monroe Doctrine to this extent, has undertaken a big contract for this country.

If we are to be the Policeman for South America, Santo Domingo, Cuba, Mexico and Central America, we must, first of all, have a powerful navy.

This is clear to everybody.

What is not so clear is that a powerful standing army will inevitably follow—as sure as fate, it will follow.

For it is certain that a natural result of our hectoring, bulldozing, overlord attitude toward countries like those mentioned will make them our bitter enemies. South America already hates us, and has cause to hate us.

The manner in which we sanctioned the collection of claims against Venezuela, by the warships of Europe will not be forgotten.

This feeling will be intensified by Mr. Roosevelt’s recent utterances, and will spread through all the peoples affected by it.

If we are to compel these governments to knuckle down to every Asphalt Trust, or other speculative syndicate, which enters the country for the purpose of exploitation, the time will certainly come when our attempts to make them conform to our standard of what is decent and orderly in dealing with plundering corporations will be resisted.

What then?

Our navy can bombard the cities of the coast, but will our marines leave the ships and defeat the land forces of the interior?

Evidently not.

What, therefore, must we do?

Send army against army, as we shall have sent navy against navy.

Consequently the same policy which logically requires a powerful navy will likewise require a powerful standing army.

And our masters know it!

Mr. Roosevelt:

Do you, also, laugh at young Garfield?

Please don’t give us any more of that silly boy.

More than one-half the voters of Colorado cast their ballots for Alva Adams, candidate for Governor.

But Adams did not get the place.

Less than half the voters supported James Peabody, and Peabody acted as Governor for one day.

Not a soul voted for Jesse McDonald for Governor, yet Jesse gets the whole term of office, excepting the one day given to Peabody.

The voters of Colorado evidently enjoy self-government about as much as it can be enjoyed.

[Pg 273]

BY CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
Author of “The Two Captains,” “The Corner in Coffee,” “A Little Traitor to the South,” “The Southerners,” etc.

I
THE SLIPPER IS SOUGHT

WHAT happened to me the night before? I was not certain as to details, but I recalled the main facts with singular distinctness. I had lost every coin that I possessed. A hasty search of my pockets in the morning disclosed the absence even of that one louis which, on account of its markings, I had resolved never to part with, save in the gravest emergency. I was stripped bare, “down to a gant-line,” as old Bucknall would have said. That much was obvious. I had possessed no jewels save the ring I had filched when I took the Frenchman’s purse. That, too, was gone. I suppose I played it away with the rest.

I still had my sword. It was a serviceable blade, which I had purchased with the Frenchman’s money so soon as I arrived in Paris. A gentleman and his sword, backed by a stout heart—well, one might be in worse plight. But as I thought about the night before I seemed to remember—and here was where I was not quite clear—that I had affixed my name to certain pieces of paper, I. O. U.’s! To what amount I was obligated by these transactions I did not know. But whether it was for one franc or a thousand, I was unable to discharge the debt. My creditors must give me time or—They were a jolly lot, those Frenchmen, and I had held up my end as long as the gold pieces lasted. America had taken no disgrace from my ability to stand in a game and win or lose like a gentleman. True, it was generally the latter that fell to my play.

Now I was sick of it all! I hated wine and women and play. I wished, as never before, that I were on the deck of a stout ship again, with the new flag, the Stars and Stripes, fluttering from the gaff-end and the breath of the salt wind in my face. This and a tidy Englishman of equal force under our lee. Gods! That was a man’s work and a man’s place. This drifting around from one gambling resort to another in Paris, with a crowd of roysterers—and worse—this night after night at the tables—bah, I had had enough of it!

It was a life I had never fancied, and if Dr. Franklin had been at home I had never entered upon it. After I escaped from the British prison-ship, and after I took that Englishman’s purse on the highway—only he turned out to be a Frenchman, but it was then too late for me to alter my intention to provide myself with the sinews of war—and after I managed to get to Paris and found our Ambassador gone to Holland or Spain or some other outlandish country, what was I to do? With plenty of money, no occupation, no ship, nor any present chance of getting one, no friends, and a reckless, adventurous disposition, I fell in with a fast set, and this was the outcome.

I could not find her either, although I swear I searched high and low and spent not a little of the proceeds of my highway robbery in trying to run her[Pg 274] down. There was no use in going over all this. I got up from the couch on which I had thrown myself dressed as I was, staggered over to the table, splashed my face with water and caught a glimpse of myself in the little mirror that hung on the wall. Worn, haggard, bloodshot—my own father would scarce have known me. I was ashamed, bitterly so. I had never been a gambler or a drinker, and I vowed that I would never be again. I had played the fool once and I did not propose to do it a second time. Yet these interesting resolutions were forced into the background by the demands of my present situation.

What was I to do? Breakfast! I loathed the idea. Still, I must eat to live. I hadn’t a cent with which to bless myself. What was the date? It was the tenth—no, the eleventh—of the month. Dr. Franklin would be back on the thirteenth. Once I could get speech with him all would be well, but how was I to exist until then?

I sat down by the window and tried to think of some device. God knows my situation was critical, but I declare that I could only think of her! Perhaps my inability to find her—for she had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed her—had made me reckless, careless, a willing prey to the knaves who had brought me to this pass. I will admit, even then, that I loved her. I closed my eyes and I could see her as I saw her that evening outside of Paris. I could hear her scream in the hands of those ruffians. I went over the whole thing as I had done a thousand times. My rush at the villains! I was a pretty hand at cudgel-playing as well as a good swordsman, for I had no weapon but a stout stick.

The first fellow I caught fairly on the head, and he dropped like a felled bullock. I put my hand up and could feel a little partially healed scar along my cheek where the bullet of the one-eyed scoundrel cut a lock of hair and grazed me. He got a crack on his pistol arm which put him out of action. I could still see his face, convulsed with pain and rage, his one eye shooting fire at me as he retreated before me. The other rascal was a coward, for he fled immediately. I shall never forget the look on Mademoiselle’s face when she thanked me! They had torn her mask off when they had dragged her from her horse. I found it again and also managed to catch her horse.

Although I was dressed like a French peasant I think she realized that I was of gentle blood. She was surprised at the ease with which I mounted her on her horse, and when she gave me that louis—my hand went to my breast. Yes, it still hung there! I hadn’t gambled that away, thank God!—and, as I promptly returned her another, she seemed to understand. I wonder what she did with hers? She told me that I had not only saved her from assault but that I had done more, I had saved the honor of France, and that she would some day prove her gratitude. Then she galloped away from me and left me standing staring in the road like a fool, madly in love with her!

Aye, this evidenced my folly, I will admit, but as they say here, “What would you?” She was the first lady I had seen in three years of cruising, and such a woman! If you had seen her you would have understood. How I had searched for her! Blue eyes, dark hair; tall, exquisitely molded, graceful figure; dainty hands and feet—this vague description might have fitted any woman or a million, and she was one of that million. It was no use. I should never see her again, and if I saw her now, disgraced as I was, I must avoid her. So absorbed was I in these miserable musings that I hadn’t heeded a tap at the door.

“Ma foi!” cried a rather shrill, metallic voice as a man opened the door and stepped within. “My dear friend, I have rapped several times, and so I took the liberty....”

“Oh, come in by all means, Monsieur du Trémigon,” I replied, rising[Pg 275] and welcoming the newcomer, although with no great cordiality.

He was the hatefulest of all the crowd with whom I had cast my lot since I had been in Paris, and I more than suspected it was to him that I had passed those little pieces of paper which began more and more definitely to impress themselves upon my recollection.

“I suppose,” I said, “that you have come to settle our accounts of last night, Monsieur?”

“There is no haste about that,” he returned politely enough, “but since you insist, as well now as any other time.”

“I shall be honest with you, Marquis,” I returned bluntly; “I’m afraid I shall have to ask your indulgence for a short time.”

He drew from his pocket a package of papers and laid them on the table. I took them up as I spoke, and although I am no great hand at figures, I saw that the total was appalling. My heart sank, but I flatter myself that I displayed as equable a demeanor as the man opposite me. It has always been my practice to put a bold face on everything.

“Pray give yourself no uneasiness whatever about these little matters,” said the Marquis in his most genial manner—and the more gentle and kindly he was, strange to say, the more I hated him! “Or rather,” he continued, interrupting me as I began to speak, “I can show you a way to discharge them with little difficulty to yourself, and that immediately.”

“Show me that way!” I cried. “I will avail myself of it at once. To tell you the truth, I am sick of the life I have led in this city.”

“I thought,” said du Trémigon, smiling meaningly, “that you were scarcely suited for——”

“What do you mean?” I cried, glad for the chance to vent my indignation upon someone. “Didn’t I bear myself like a gentleman?”

“Oh, quite so, entirely so. You misapprehend me, my dear Burnham,” he protested.

“Well, I dare say you are right,” I replied carelessly, too troubled to quarrel, “I am a sailor. The sea is my world. I am at home there or on my father’s plantation in the Carolinas. But this is nothing to you. The point is, I am in your debt.”

“This ring, Monsieur,” said the Marquis, lifting his hand. “Do you know whose it is?”

“Yours, I suppose, since you won it,” I replied. “It was mine.”

“Pardon me, it was originally mine.”

“What!”

“Mine.”

“Then you are——?”

“The gentleman whose purse you kindly relieved him of a few weeks ago in England.”

“Impossible!” I cried.

“Impossible, but true, Monsieur. I recognized you when I met you last week at Varesi’s”—the name of a popular gambling resort—“I wasn’t quite sure, however. At least, I had no proof until last night. This ring? You remember taking it?”

“Oh, perfectly,” I said.

“And this louis?” He pulled out the curiously marked coin. “A pocket piece I have had for a long time. I should know it among a thousand.”

“You have established your case,” I answered defiantly. “You understand that I am no common thief or highwayman? I am an American naval officer. Serving under Cunningham on a privateer, I was captured, thrown into prison, escaped. Being penniless in the enemy’s country I determined to take the purse of the first traveler who came along. I took you for an Englishman. When I knew you were French, it was too late. I can only say that I will give you another I. O. U. for all that I have despoiled you of, and so soon as I can communicate with America you shall have the money.”

The Marquis showed his white teeth in a grin—how I loathed him!—waving his hands as he did so.

“As to that, we will discuss it presently. Meanwhile, what did you do[Pg 276] with the papers you robbed me of in England?”

“Tore them to pieces and scattered them in the first river I crossed.”

“Damnation!” cried the man. “I could stand the loss of the money, but the loss of those papers wellnigh ruined me!”

“How so?”

“I was carrying some secret despatches to the British Government, in spite of the war, and your blundering made me fail in my mission.”

“Blundering!” I cried.

“Pray be calm, Monsieur,” he exclaimed; “the word may have been ill-advised, but you will recognize that some consideration is due me.”

He looked meaningly at the little pile of notes. I followed his glance, snatched up another piece of paper, scribbled a line on it and added it to the heap.

“That covers your loss, including the ring.”

“Monsieur Burnham,” said the Marquis, “are you aware of the exceedingly difficult position into which you have got yourself?”

“I should say I am! Being absolutely without funds, I am forced to ask total strangers to accept my bare word that I will discharge my obligations so soon as I hear from America. This, with the seas swarming with British ships, may be a matter of months.”

“There is your Ambassador. He knows you, doubtless?”

“Dr. Franklin doesn’t know me from Adam. He’s a Philadelphia Quaker, and I am from North Carolina. He has never seen me, nor I him. He knows my father and family, though. If there were any of our officers in the city, if Commodore Jones or Dick Dale had only returned from Texel, I should be all right, but as it is, I am completely at your mercy.”

I hated to say that word, but there was no help for it. The Marquis bowed gracefully.

“Your remark is singularly accurate, Monsieur. At my mercy!”

He opened his mouth and tapped his white teeth with two of his white fingers. I wanted to choke him. Why, I could not say, for he had been considerate, and I owed him a lot of money. I had robbed him in England, and, besides, I had put him to serious inconvenience.

“At my mercy,” he repeated, nodding.

“I have admitted that fact,” I said sharply. “I do not see that it is necessary to remind me of it again.”

“Oh, pardon me. You Americans are so impetuous. Cultivate calmness, my friend—English phlegm, if you will. It is a most valuable asset in any game.”

“That’s as may be, Marquis, but I play no more games with you.”

“Pardon me again,” he returned coolly; “we play yet one more hand, Monsieur, and I have the deal.”

“What are you driving at?”

“I told you there was a way by which you could discharge your obligations.”

“Declare it then, and let us close this transaction!”

“You are doubtless unaware, and I speak to you in confidence, that my large estates are greatly encumbered. I have a passion for play. I do not always enjoy the fortune I have had with you, and—” He laughed as he spoke. “In short, I find myself in very straitened circumstances.”

“I suppose you want your money and want it quick?” I burst out. “I can understand and I promise you——”

“There you go again, Monsieur. I want money, it is true. I was born wanting money, I have lived wanting money, and, I suppose, I shall die wanting money.”

You won’t have any use for it after that, I thought, but all I said was: “Proceed, Monsieur.”

“You are doubtless unaware, also, that Mademoiselle Gabrielle de Rivau, Comtesse de Villars in her own right, granddaughter of the Duc de Rivau-Huet, is my cousin?”

“I have never heard of the young[Pg 277] lady, but I recognize the honor of the relationship,” I said coldly.

The Marquis was not devoid of wit. His eye flashed, but he proceeded deliberately:

“Quite so. Her grandfather is my grandfather also. She is one of the richest women in France. Our respective parents arranged a marriage between us when we were children. The carrying out of that contract depends entirely on three people, the young lady, the Duc de Rivau-Huet and myself. It was stipulated that no constraint was to be used, and that, when she reached her twentieth year, she was to give her consent without pressure, freely and willingly. If she did so, and her grandfather interposed no objection, and I desired it, we were to be married. If not”—he shrugged his shoulders—“I lose.”

“Lose what?”

“The lady and, incidentally, her fortune.”

I confessed to a very languid interest in the love affairs of the Marquis and the lady, but for politeness’ sake I asked him another question.

“Permit me, since you have broached the subject, does the lady consent or refuse?”

“She consents, but the Duke refuses.”

“Ah!”

“But I hope that his refusal is not irrevocable.”

“For your sake I trust so,” I replied. “Yet I fail to see how this concerns me.”

“You shall learn directly. Mademoiselle de Villars is one of the Queen’s maids of honor. She usually resides at the Court at Versailles. For this week, however, she is on leave of absence, I have learned, and is in residence at the Hôtel de Rivau-Huet in Paris.”

“Yes?” I said interrogatively. I was beginning to have some curiosity as to whither all this tended.

“As I said, the Duke seems insensible to the advantage of an alliance with me.”

No wonder, I thought, but I took good care not to voice my feelings.

“I have decided to compel him to consent.”

“And Mademoiselle de Villars?” I questioned suspiciously.

“She also wishes it. I may say”—he simpered disgustedly—“she is more anxious than I.”

“Monsieur du Trémigon,” I said sternly, repressing with difficulty an inclination to kick him, “do you assure me of the truth of what you have said?”

“Certainly.”

“On your word of honor as a gentleman?”

“As a gentleman and as a noble of France, Monsieur.”

I ought to have known, but I did not, and there seemed to be nothing for me to do but accept his statement.

“How do you propose to get the Duke’s consent?” I asked.

“There is a way to apply pressure to him, Monsieur, which will ... let us say ... induce his consent.”

“You wish to compromise her in her grandfather’s eyes?” I said, fathoming his meaning at last.

“Exactly.”

“But with her consent....”

“Your intuition does you credit.”

“That’s more than your intention does you,” I burst out scornfully.

“I can afford to indulge you in these little pleasantries, my friend,” he returned, with an evil look, “because....”

“Why?” I cried.

“Because I intend that you shall be my agent in the little process.”

“You are reckoning without your host, Monsieur,” I said quickly. I was boiling with rage.

“But not without my servant, Monsieur.”

“Servant?” I raged.

“Yes. Do you realize that I have but to place these things in the hands of the authorities to have you clapped into prison?”

“I have been in prison before and got out. I can stand it again—for the sake of a woman.”

“You will doubtless get out of the prison into which I shall put you,[Pg 278] but it will be to go to the hangman, or to the headsman if you can prove your gentle blood.”

“What!”

“You forget that little transaction in England. You are a highway robber! I have evidence enough to convict you beyond doubt.”

“The French Government would never....”

“The French Government is angry enough over the loss of those papers, and the punishment for highway robbery is death,” he sneered.

“My God!” I cried.

“’Tis useless to appeal to Him,” mocked du Trémigon. “Rather do you fall back on your mother-wit—if you have any—to help you.”

“What do you wish me to do?” I asked desperately.

“’Tis very simple. We are about the same height and build. We do not look unlike——”

“You flatter me!”

“’Tis the fact that does that,” he replied, bowing deeply. “In the dusk you can easily pass for me, especially if you wear a familiar suit of my clothes. I will get you into the grounds of the Hôtel de Rivau-Huet below Mademoiselle’s apartments. The building is vine-covered. Being a sailor you can easily scale the wall and enter her chamber. You are to bring me thence some article of personal wearing apparel—say a slipper, or a ring, or——”

“Is that all?”

“That’s all.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“It is hardly necessary to enter upon that, Monsieur.”

“If I am to do the thing,” I replied hotly, “I must know everything.”

“Well, then, the Duc de Rivau-Huet has threatened me with imprisonment if he catches me in his hôtel again.”

“And you wish me to take that risk?”

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

“I am to do this at the peril of my life?”

“It seems to me,” said the Marquis equably, “that your life is forfeit if you don’t do it, and——”

“Enough!” I answered. “I am in your power. When I made the serious mistake of taking you for a gentleman I began my ruin. I’m sorry I didn’t kill you in England. I suppose there’s no help for it. I must do the work. When do you wish this adventure undertaken?”

“Tonight. If you will come to my rooms, I will fit you out, give you the plan of the hôtel and make all other arrangements.”

“And those papers?”

“They shall be returned to you when you place what you secure from the room in my hands.”

“What assurance have I as to that?”

“The word of a gentleman.”

“In your case I prefer something else.”

The Marquis flushed angrily. Why he controlled himself I do not know, unless it was because he was so desperately anxious to carry out his plan and I was his only instrument.

“What do you propose?” he asked.

“To go before a notary and draw up an agreement, leaving the papers in his hands, including the ring and the coin, and a signed statement, acquitting me of complication in the robbery. These papers he is to give to me in the morning, if I succeed. Furthermore, I won’t go into the matter without the assistance of an old sailor with whom I cruised.”

“Take as many assistants as you please, Monsieur,” said the Marquis; “and now we will go to my apartments. Will you honor me?”

He rose and offered me his arm.

“I have to do your dirty work,” I replied, “and that obliges me to walk by your side, I suppose, but it doesn’t compel me to take your arm.”

My soul revolted against carrying out my part of the plot, even though by so doing I was obliging a lady. True, she might be—and if his words were true, she was—in love with du Trémigon, but I was sure she could not know him as I knew him. Besides, what were the love affairs of the[Pg 279] Marquis and his cousin to me? I had no personal interest in either of them.

All I had to do was to fetch a slipper or some personal belonging from her chamber, as she herself desired. The long and short of it was that I was resolved to do it. I had to!

II
THE SLIPPER IS FOUND

From some servant in the Duc de Rivau-Huet’s hôtel, du Trémigon had learned that the Comtesse de Villars was to be from home that night. He arranged to have me passed through the gate. After that I was to look out for myself. The Duke’s hôtel, which was surrounded by ample grounds, was just outside the city walls. The Marquis told me that, dressed in his clothes and with a cloak he was accustomed to wear, I should very well pass for him, and that in all probability no one would molest me unless I fell in with Éspiau, the Duke’s body-servant, or some of the upper officers of the household. The domestics were well affected toward him, and as all the world loves a lover, they would be disposed rather to encourage than to hinder.

Du Trémigon, with singular parsimony, I thought, had designed a rather shabby suit for my use. I insisted upon seeing his wardrobe and selected the handsomest garments he possessed. He protested, but vainly, for I said that I must be dressed like a gentleman. He pointed out that I would probably tear and certainly soil his court suit in climbing. I returned that if I carried out his enterprise and won him a rich wife he could well afford to lose a suit, whereas if I were caught and shot it would be some consolation to me to know that I was well dressed for dying.

I took a sword from the rare collection of weapons which he had in his apartments. I may not be much of a card player, but I pride myself that I know a weapon, and I chose a blade that I could depend upon. I got two pistols for myself and two for worthy Master Bucknall. Bucknall was an old shipmate of mine. I knew I could depend upon him. We had fought side by side on several cruises, and although he had not been with me when I was captured, he had appeared in Paris after a shipwreck in which he had been picked up by a French frigate. I found him penniless, and, of course, took care of him, intending to take him with me when I saw Dr. Franklin and arranged to go back to America. The Marquis had him fetched from his lodging, and I explained the whole situation to the worthy seaman.

Bucknall was to remain concealed in the grounds beneath Mademoiselle’s room while I was within. I didn’t care to be taken in the rear, and I knew if an alarm were given, that Bucknall would keep a way of escape open for me as long as he could. To him I gave my sword and pistols.

I had studied a plan of the chateau and I knew the lay of the land and the position of the chambers perfectly. A bath, a rest and a meal completed my preparations. No, I forget one thing. I knew that many a door that will not open to iron and steel is facile to a golden key, and I made du Trémigon provide me with a rouleau of louis. He did it with an ill grace. In the first place he had none too many, and, in the second, I suppose, he thought he had laid out enough in the adventure. I insisted, however, giving him in lieu thereof another signed paper to add to his collection. This and the visit to the notary, where I saw things made secure from my point of view, filled the day.

At eight o’clock we sallied forth. Du Trémigon had furnished us with a couple of horses. We had no difficulty passing the gates—he had provided us with the password—and finding the Duke’s mansion. The Marquis did not accompany us. He intended to give out that he had paid a visit to the Countess in her chamber, and in proof of it was to exhibit her slipper. The[Pg 280] Countess, being at a masked ball where no one could recognize her for hours, could not disprove his statement. Of course, if anybody saw him elsewhere his plan would fail, so he was to lie close and await our return.

When we came near the place I left the horses in care of an innkeeper to whom du Trémigon had recommended me. I gave instructions to have them ready for instant service at any time. I expected that we would be back before midnight. Then Bucknall and I walked boldly down the road toward the gate of the mansion. Du Trémigon had told us that his servant was one-eyed, so Bucknall was disguised by a patch over one eye, which gave him great inconvenience, by the way, and at which, sailor-like, the old sea-dog growled mightily. I drew the Marquis’s cloak up around my neck, pulled my hat down, and assumed as well as I could his mincing gait and manner. In the dark we might well pass for du Trémigon and his servant. The porter at the gate was expecting us. He made no difficulty about passing us through. Then we were left to shift for ourselves.

The night was dark and chill. There were no dogs in the yard. The Duke kept his hounds in the country. No one disturbed us as we made our way cautiously along the wall under the trees to the window of the Countess’s apartment. A few lights showed here and there through the different openings on this side of the house. Among them a faint illumination came from the window beneath which we stood. I looked at it with interest. It seemed that no one could be in the room. The light was probably a single candle, left burning in case of need. This agreed with our information.

Making sure that no one saw us, we crossed the grass and stopped under the window. The house was an old one. There were buttresses against the wall, and the one nearest the Countess’s window was in a dilapidated condition. A vine ran all over this side of the building. I was always active and I had not dissipated in Paris long enough to have lost my nerve. I glanced upward. It would not be difficult. If the vine held—and its stem was as thick as my wrist—the ascent would be easy. Wrapping my cloak around me so as to protect du Trémigon’s clothes, and with a word of caution to Bucknall, whom I saw secreted comfortably in the black recess between the buttress and the wall, I quickly made my way up. So long as I had the assistance of the buttress it was nearly as easy as walking up a stair, or as simple as climbing the battens on the side of a ship. The last yard was more difficult, but I managed it with a few scratches and with a minimum of noise.

I had no opportunity to peer into the room or see what was before me. I reached the sill, threw my leg over it and stepped quietly within. I stood by the window listening. Neither from outside nor inside was there any sound. I had been unobserved.

Satisfying myself on this point, I stepped back from the window to avoid the line of light and looked about me. The room appeared to be a woman’s sitting-room. There was an air of refinement, of grace and culture about it that made me sure. There were books on the table, pictures on the walls, a piece of some sort of needlework thrown carelessly on a chair. Several doors opened from the room. According to the plan, that on the right should be the Countess’s boudoir, and beyond that her bedchamber. I stepped softly across to this door. I listened. There was no one in the other room apparently. I turned the handle carefully and entered.

Just beyond me was the door of the bedroom. Repeating my performance, I walked over to it and listened. No one was there. I opened the door and looked in. Like the others this room was lighted by a single candle. Like the others, it was unoccupied.

It was quite evident that du Trémigon’s informant was correct. The Countess was out. Her maid, who should have been on guard, had taken advantage of her mistress’s absence to[Pg 281] go off on a little jaunt of her own, I supposed. I closed the door of the bedroom softly and began a hasty examination of the boudoir. A dress lay across a chair. A magnificent costume, it seemed to me.

A pair of shoes—a ravishing pair of tiny shoes—stood on the floor at the bottom of the gown. These might do. But no, they had not been worn; they were entirely new. Du Trémigon had insisted upon something personal and familiar. I walked over to the dressing-table, which was covered with a mass of silver and porcelain. They bore the de Villars crest, but so did a number of things in du Trémigon’s own home. None of them would answer.

I remembered the room contained a closet. Nerving myself further, I opened the nearest door. On the floor, confronting me, lay a pair of small, worn, blue satin slippers with red heels. They were slightly shaped to the feet of the wearer from long usage. There were no other feet in the world that could wear those slippers, in all probability. I stooped and picked one up. It would serve admirably.

III
THE SLIPPER IS RENOUNCED

With the slipper still in my hand, I turned to find myself confronting a woman!

She was standing at the door leading to the antechamber. How long she had been there I knew not. Indeed, after the first start of surprise, I had room for but one thought. The woman was she whom I had rescued on the way to Paris, with whom I had fallen madly in love! For whom I had sought high and low—whom I had prayed that I might see again.

She was looking at me composedly from under level brows. I observed that her hand was on the bell-cord.

“Monsieur,” she said—and oh, how well I remembered her voice—“if you move, or make a sound, I pull the bell. My servants are within a moment’s call. You will be overpowered immediately.”

“Mademoiselle,” I returned, disguising my natural voice as well as I could and thanking the Lord that my French was perfect, and that in the dim light, she did not recognize me apparently, “I am at your service.”

“I wish,” she continued, “to talk with you. The situation amuses me.”

She spoke as she might in the presence of some new spectacle. Her manner assured me that her interest in me was entirely impersonal. She was tired and bored. This was a new experience apparently which she wished to make the most of. I could think of nothing adequate to say, so I bowed profoundly.

“What is your name and what are you doing here?”

“My name, Mademoiselle, matters nothing.” In my agitation I forgot, and spoke in my natural voice. She started as she lifted the candle and looked keenly at me.

“Why!” she exclaimed, “’tis the man of the highway!”

I do not know whether I was glad or sorry to hear her say those words. At first I thought to deny it, but somehow it was impossible.

“You have discovered me, Mademoiselle,” I said.

“Then you were masquerading as a sailor. Now——”

She looked me over from head to heel, and I have been told since that I made a brave appearance. Du Trémigon had displayed excellent taste in clothing, and this was his handsomest suit. I stood proudly erect, putting a bold face on the situation, with one hand upon my sword, my hat in the other, which also held the slipper, as if I were about to be presented to the King.

“Now,” she said, “you are masquerading as a gentleman.”

“Pardon, Mademoiselle,” I returned, “I am a gentleman”—she put up her hand, but I would not be denied—“masquerading as a ... thief.”

I blessed her in my heart for her hesitation over that word.

[Pg 282]

“Is it because you have stolen the Marquis du Trémigon’s clothes?—for I believe, if I am not mistaken, they are his.”

“Your observation does you infinite credit, Mademoiselle.”

“I thought so. Is it for that reason you are masquerading as a thief?”

“Because I have come here without regard to clothes to—” I protested.

“To take my jewels?” she interrupted.

“Mademoiselle!” I cried, starting back, the blood flaming in my face again. “You think——”

“I think nothing, Monsieur. I discover a strange man in my apartments at night. He says that he is masquerading as a thief. What else am I to infer?”

I was dumb before her merciless logic.

“Mademoiselle,” I began desperately, “I deeply regret——”

“So, too, do I. I knew—at least I thought I knew, on that day, the day you did me such brave service—that you were a gentleman, in spite of what you wore, yet—well, I see I was deceived.”

“Don’t say that!” I protested again.

“Why not, Monsieur?”

“Mademoiselle, I am here in defiance of every rule of propriety, I will admit. You may well think me a thief,” I began, with passionate haste, “but I am only following your example.”

“How, sir?” she exclaimed.

“You, too, are not guiltless of robbery.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, indignantly drawing herself up.

Oh, how magnificent she looked! I wanted to throw myself at her feet and confess everything, but I did not—then.

“You have stolen my heart, Mademoiselle.”

“And you came to look for it in my jewel-case?” She laughed somewhat contemptuously.

“I have come for yours in exchange,” said I; although I had a neat opening in her question, I judged it best to let it pass.

“Monsieur!”

“I am a poor sailor, Mademoiselle, but I have sought you throughout the land. I babbled everywhere as I ran of blue eyes, dark hair, a witching face. I found you—nowhere!”

There was a ring of truth in these words—although of course it did not explain my presence there—that I believe influenced her.

“’Tis impossible, Monsieur—” she began at last.

“Look into the glass, Mademoiselle, and see how believable it is,” I broke in.

“That you should have come here on such an errand and——”

“I would go to the end of the world if I might find you there, Mademoiselle,” I boldly said, taking a step nearer to her.

“Monsieur!” she cried, clutching the bell-rope once more. “Pray keep your distance.”

“I am content merely to look at you,” I said, stopping short instantly.

“Monsieur, on your word of honor as a—” She paused.

“As a thief?” I questioned.

“As a gentleman,” she said softly, and I could have kissed her feet for that. “Did you come here for me?”

“Mademoiselle,” I said, “it is a long story. You have honored me by your conversation. You found something gentle in me on the road and in spite of appearances—that are so grievously against me now—you have reposed a certain degree of confidence in me. Will you allow me to tell you briefly who and what I am?”

“I am anxious to learn it.”

“Will you not be seated? You may release the bell-rope, on my word, without danger. I would rather die than harm you. Indeed, my greatest ambition is to devote my life to your service.”

“Fine words, Monsieur, and such as I have often heard from other cavaliers.”

“I doubt it not, Mademoiselle. Such beauty of person and grace of mind as yours cannot remain unchallenged.[Pg 283] This shall be my excuse.”

“No more of this, if you please, but of yourself.” It was ineffable condescension, and you may imagine how I appreciated the honor.

“My name is Francis Burnham. My family on the distaff side is French—Huguenot. The blood, I believe, is noble. My great-grandfather was an English gentleman. My father met my mother in North Carolina. The acreage my father owns is equal to a French county.”

“You are an American, then?”

“I have that honor. I am also an officer in the American Navy. My country is ill provided with warships. Many naval officers have been forced to accept positions in privateers. I was a lieutenant in Captain Gustavus Cunningham’s privateer ship, the Revenge. We were captured by a British frigate and taken to a British prison-ship. I escaped thence and was on my way to Paris, to see Dr. Franklin, when I had the good fortune to be of some slight service to you. That gold piece you gave me, I have it here.” I saw her hand involuntarily move to her breast and my heart leaped as it assured me that she also had retained and cherished the coin I had forced upon her. “I have loved you ever since I saw you that day, Mademoiselle. I have sought you in vain only to find you tonight.”

“That, Monsieur,” she said quietly, “does not yet explain your presence here.”

I was dumb again.

“How did you discover my abode?”

I could make no reply.

“How did you learn my name?”

Unthinking, I answered:

“I do not know your name at this moment.”

“I am Gabrielle de Rivau, Comtesse de Villars.”

“Great heavens!” I exclaimed.

Would you believe it? It had not occurred to me for a moment that this was she! I had jumped to the conclusion that she was perhaps some friend of the Countess’s. I had never dreamed that fate could deal me so sorry a trick as to involve me in such a part against the woman I adored. “Are you the Comtesse de Villars?”

“I am.”

“I did not know.”

“Monsieur Burnham, you are full of mystery.”

“I have told you nothing but the truth, Mademoiselle.”

“Yes, but not all of it. Is it not so?”

I was silent.

“Monsieur, do you not realize that I have committed a great imprudence in allowing you to converse with me here alone, under such circumstances? That my duty should be to pull the bell and hand you over to the Duke’s retainers for punishment? That you owe much to my forbearance?”

“I realize all that you say, Mademoiselle, and I am filled with shame.”

“Why, then, are you here? What are you doing in the Marquis du Trémigon’s clothing? What is that you hold?” I thoughtlessly lifted my hand. “My slipper!” she exclaimed, flushing in her turn. “You have been in my closet yonder. What does it all mean?”

“I will speak!” I replied desperately, resolved to make a clean breast of the whole affair. “I am in the power of the Marquis du Trémigon. I owe him money.”

“Heaven help you!”

“I am surprised to hear you say that!” I exclaimed in amazement.

“Monsieur,” she said quickly, disregarding my remark, “my purse is on the table. Let me discharge my obligation. Take what you will.”

“Mademoiselle, for God’s sake, think not so unkindly of me! He threatened me with imprisonment for debt. That is nothing, a mere bagatelle. I could have borne that without hesitation. I have broken prison before.”

“Well?”

“There is more. When I escaped from the British prison-ship I was penniless; alone in England. I halted the first traveler I met, thinking to despoil the enemy for my needs as an act of war. That traveler happened to be[Pg 284] the Marquis du Trémigon. I met him afterward at—at places where they play in Paris,” I went on. “He won all my money, a ring I had taken from him and a coin which bore certain markings. These things were proofs positive. He threatened to charge me with highway robbery. The punishment is death. I pleaded with him, promising to repay him if he would give me time. Our minister is absent, Commodore Paul Jones not in Paris. I was desperate. I loved life, Mademoiselle, for it held you as a possibility.”

“But that you should come here, Monsieur? How does that——?”

“Hear me, Mademoiselle. The Marquis du Trémigon has informed me of the nature of the agreement regarding your proposed marriage.”

“And what did Monsieur du Trémigon say as to that?”

“That by the terms of the contract three people must consent willingly before the marriage can take place.”

“Three, Monsieur?”

“He said so.”

“And those are?”

“Yourself, your grandfather and himself.”

Her lip curled.

“Proceed, Monsieur. This is most interesting.”

“He said further that you were—forgive me—anxious to marry him.”

I could see Mademoiselle clench her hand. I could mark the flash of her eye.

“That he was anxious to marry you, but that your grandfather refused his consent. And that, with your approval, he had arranged to”—it was a deeply humiliating thing to say with her standing before me like an outraged goddess, but I had to go on—“to compromise you with him so that your grandfather would no longer withhold his consent.”

“And you were to be the means whereby this plan was to be carried out?”

“To my shame I admit it. I agreed to come here and take some article belonging to you of a personal character.”

“My slipper?”

“That or whatever else I could secure. I wore his clothes because he wished the servants to recognize them, and thus be prepared to swear that he was with you.”

“’Tis a pretty plot for a gentleman!”

“Mademoiselle, to my sorrow and regret, I acknowledge it. Yet I beg to assure you that not even the fear of imprisonment or death would have made me consent, had I not believed that I was doing a lady a service.”

“Do you think you do any lady a service by forcing her into the arms of Marquis du Trémigon?”

“But if she loves him?”

“Monsieur,” she said hotly, “she hates him!”

“Is it possible?”

“You have been grossly deceived. The only consent necessary to the marriage is my own. My grandfather has not withheld his consent. He has left it entirely to me.”

“You, Mademoiselle?” I exclaimed, my heart leaping at the thought that she did not love that villain.

“I have refused and shall refuse. The whole plan is an attempt to compromise me, to force my consent.”

Into what a scheme had I been betrayed! The sweat rose to my forehead.

“Mademoiselle,” I cried, “for God’s sake acquit me of any such dishonor!”

“I do, Monsieur, freely.”

“I shall go back to du Trémigon and explain my appearance to him immediately. I shall compel him to give me satisfaction for this insult—an insult to you as well as to me. Your quarrel with him shall be mine. He will trouble you no more,” I added significantly.

“Your plan is vain, Monsieur. I know the Marquis du Trémigon. You will find him surrounded by such a force as will paralyze your efforts. He will refuse to fight with you.”

“At least I shall have the satisfaction of telling him what I think, and I shall go to prison if necessary.”

“I would not have you suffer on my account, Monsieur.”

[Pg 285]

“Mademoiselle, you are kindness itself. I deserve nothing whatever at your hands. If you could only believe in me, in my love for you, a little before I go——”

“Monsieur, the circumstances are very unusual. That day you so bravely rescued me from those scoundrels and treated me with such chivalry, I knew you were not of the common people. Your dress indicated that, but my heart—my mind, that is—told me otherwise.”

Her voice faltered, but she looked at me clearly with those glorious eyes of hers.

“But when I found you here and thought you meant to degrade me, to force me into the arms of that villain——”

“Mademoiselle!” I protested, “you cannot accuse me as I do myself. At least I can make amends now.”

“But is there nothing I can do for you?” she asked.

“Nothing. The papers, the obligations, the evidence against me, are in the hands of a notary. If he does not hear from the Marquis and myself tomorrow, he has orders to hand the packet to the Chief of Police.”

“What do you propose to do, sir?”

“To warn you. Beware of du Trémigon. Although he has failed in this instance, he will surely strive again to compromise your honor. There will be one ray of comfort in my soul, that I have again been able to render some slight assistance to you. And I cherish the hope, if you think of me at all, that you will bear in mind that I love you.”

“But, Monsieur——”

“Mademoiselle, if I had met you under happier circumstances, I should have made it my prayer to live for you. Now at least I can die for you, and I trust that my death will redeem this disgrace upon my name.”

I laid the little slipper softly on the table. I kissed it tenderly, reverently, before I put it down. I stepped nearer to her. She stood, as if paralyzed, gazing upon me. There was a flush in her cheeks; her bosom heaved. I sank at her feet and took her hand. It was icy cold. Mine was burning. I kissed it fervently and rose.

“Farewell,” I said, and then heard sounds, footsteps in the hall, a knock at the door of the anteroom through which I had to pass in order to make my escape.

IV
THE SLIPPER IS BESTOWED

I made a swift movement toward the door, intending to rush to the window, no matter who barred the way. I reached for my sword as I did so. Quick as I was, Mademoiselle was quicker. Although her face had gone white at the noise, she had instantly begun to sing—strange action, for which I could then see no excuse. Still lilting lightly a charming little air, she stood between me and the door.

“Not that way!” she whispered in the breaks of the song. “It would be death. In there.”

She pointed toward her bedroom. The knocking was resumed, this time more loudly. A voice cried:

“Countess Gabrielle!”

Her check of me had spoiled my chance. There was nothing but obedience. I slipped into the bedroom and closed the door. The song broke off suddenly. I could hear distinctly all that was said. Mademoiselle raised her voice, crying:

“Who is there?”

“Your grandfather,” was the answer.

“Enter, Monsieur.”

“The door is locked.”

How I blessed that lock! So, I doubt not, did Mademoiselle. She went slowly to the antechamber, fumbled at the lock a few moments, and opened the door. I heard two people enter.

“Wait, Messieurs!” cried Mademoiselle as she caught sight of the second visitor. “I was preparing to retire.” With marvelous quickness she had taken off her bodice after I had entered[Pg 286] the bedroom, and was bare-necked and armed before her grandfather. She hastily slipped on a dressing-robe and once more turned to him.

“’Tis only Éspiau,” said the Duke quickly.

“I am very glad indeed,” said Mademoiselle, with a gay little laugh, “for you caught me quite unaware.”

“Was I mistaken or was there a tremble in her voice? Her situation was grave. Had the Duke discovered me, he would have killed me out of hand, unless I inflicted a like penalty upon him, which, under the circumstances, never entered my mind.

“I thought,” continued the old Duke as he entered the boudoir, “that I heard voices.” He looked around suspiciously.

“You did, Monsieur,” answered the Countess.

“Great heavens!” thought I, “are you about to betray me?”

“Whose?” went on the old man again.

“Mine; I was singing.”

She began that little song, the music of which I shall never forget, although I am no great hand at carrying a tune.

“Humph!” said the old man. “You did not go to the masked ball?”

“No, Monsieur, I was tired. I have been reading in the library and have but recently come here.”

“There was no one in the anteroom when you entered?”

“No one, sir.”

“Have you been in the room beyond since you came up?”

“Not yet.”

“Éspiau!”

“Monsieur le Duc!”

“Examine yonder chamber. It may be some thief has concealed himself there.”

The Duke turned his head away to survey the room and Mademoiselle shot one glance, pregnant with agony and entreaty, at the old servant. He had been as a father to her from childhood—indeed, he had been her father’s foster-brother.

“Very well, Monsieur le Duc,” answered the servant.

I heard him crossing the room. What should I do? There was no place of concealment. The window happened to be barred, else I should have thrown myself from it. Should I fall upon him and run my sword through him? I drew the weapon, without making a sound, and waited. The door opened slowly and only partially, Éspiau saw me at once. He put his finger to his lips and closed his eyes.

“I see no one, Monsieur le Duc,” he said, turning his head.

“Examine thoroughly,” returned the old man.

Éspiau stepped into the room, looked under the bed, shook the curtains, making a deal of noise as he moved about, managing to say to me:

“Silence, as you value your life!”

Presently he returned to the others. I breathed a long sigh of relief. I remember wiping the sweat from my brow.

“Monsieur le Duc was doubtless mistaken,” said the old man quietly.

“Yes,” said the Duke; “I’m glad of it. Times are in such disorder. There are many masterless men about, and your apartment is easy of access from the garden. I must change it, Countess.”

“At your pleasure, grandfather,” said Mademoiselle, and then she actually began to sing that little love song again. The courage of that girl was superb! It made me love her more madly than before.

“I am glad to find you home,” said the Duke, “for I have brought you some papers which require your signature. I intended to leave them until morning, but unless you feel inclined to retire——”

“No, Monsieur, I never felt so wide awake in my life,” answered Mademoiselle.

“Good! I will leave them here then. Éspiau will explain them to you, and we can finish the discussion in the morning. I am tired and feel the need of rest. Good night.”

“Good night, grandfather,” said Mademoiselle; “may you rest well.”

“Good night, my child,” said the[Pg 287] old man, relaxing for the moment the formality of his address as he took her hand, drew her toward him, pressed a kiss upon her forehead, bowed to her as to a queen and walked away.

The two left within the boudoir moved not until the echo of the Duke’s footsteps died away in the distance of the corridor.

“Mademoiselle,” at last began Éspiau in a voice in which sorrow and affection strove for the mastery.

“Judge me not,” said Mademoiselle quickly.

“Who is that man?”

I thought now it was time for me to make my entrance. I opened the door, therefore, and presented myself.

“My name is Francis Burnham, my good fellow. I am an officer in the American Navy.”

“How came you here and what would you do?”

“That scoundrel du Trémigon sent him here to compromise me,” the Countess interposed.

“The dastard!” exclaimed the servant.

“But Monsieur did not think it was I,” continued Mademoiselle. “You remember when I went on that errand for Her Majesty the Queen?” I started at this. Éspiau nodded. “This gentleman had the good fortune to save me from capture then. I should have been robbed of those papers. I found him here this evening. He had abjured his errand and was upon the point of departure when——”

“My friend,” I interrupted, “what Mademoiselle says is absolutely true, and I believed, furthermore, that I was doing her a service.”

“I need not your assurance for that, Monsieur,” said the old man proudly; “the house of de Rivau does not lie.”

“I wish the same might be said of the house of du Trémigon; but be that as it may, I am not anxious to forfeit any man’s good-will.”

“Not even that of a servant?” he interrupted.

“Not even that. It was a case of life or death for me. I am in du Trémigon’s power. Not knowing that it was Mademoiselle—for I did not learn until this evening that she was Comtesse de Villars—I came. I am sorry. I am going back to give myself up to the Marquis. You may guess what that will mean.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Before I go, allow me to express my gratitude for your forbearance. You have saved my life. The Duke would have killed me, for I should have made no resistance.”

“It was death for me to see you there, to suspect—but Mademoiselle will forgive me——”

“There is no need, my good Éspiau,” said the Countess, extending her hand.

The old man kissed it like a gentleman. Indeed, I dare say, compared to du Trémigon, and others that I had met in Paris, he was as fine a gentleman as any of them.

“I should like to shake you by the hand,” I said.

“Monsieur honors me,” said Éspiau.

I didn’t know whether there was sarcasm in his voice or not, but we shook hands vigorously.

“Mademoiselle,” I continued, turning to her, “there is but one thing for me to do.”

“What is that?”

“To wish you farewell and to go as I came.”

“Wait,” said Mademoiselle, her hand on her breast. “I have something to say to you.”

“At your service, Mademoiselle.”

“Éspiau, can you trust me further?”

“In everything, Mademoiselle,” said the old man.

He was a well-trained fellow, with as much tact as discretion. He bowed to me, and I swear I couldn’t help it, I returned his bow as if he had been an equal, and he marched out of the room as stately as a grenadier.

“Is there no way,” began the Countess hastily, “for you to escape du Trémigon?”

“None.”

“I have money.”

[Pg 288]

“Mademoiselle,” I cried, “I shall take nothing from this room but the recollection of your kindness, the consciousness of your worth, the sense of your beauty.”

“But you will be imprisoned!”

“I have had this hour of freedom. The rest is nothing.”

“They will put you to death.”

“Without you, I do not care to live.”

“Mon Dieu, what shall I do?”

“If you could say—if you could let me believe—it will be but for a short time—that, were the circumstances other than they are, you might perhaps have cared for me, it will lighten the hours and give me something sweet to dwell upon. It will make me indifferent to any fate.”

“Monsieur—I—I—” she faltered, her face aflame. She buried it in her hands.

I sank on my knee and seized the hem of her gown. Then I felt her hands upon my head. I rose to my feet. I don’t know how or why, but I swept her to my breast in an embrace. Her lips met mine.

“No more,” she said, pushing me away. “I have gone too far already. You must not go to him now.”

“I am in heaven already, Mademoiselle, and death cannot alter the fact that you return my love.”

“But you will not go to him?”

“I must.”

“No!”

She stooped, and before I knew what she was about, she took off one of her dainty slippers—warm from her little foot—and placed it in my hand.

“Give that to him,” she said; “you will be free and I shall know how to protect myself.”

“Mademoiselle!”

“In pity leave me! Go!”

I could not resist that. Besides, after a warning cough Éspiau thrust his head through the door and said quickly:

“Someone comes! You must hasten!”

I kissed her hand, and with one backward glance tore myself away.

V
THE SLIPPER IS RETURNED

To scramble down the ivy was the work of a few seconds. The faithful Bucknall was waiting. Without a word we bounded across the park and the bribed turnkey let us out. As for me I was treading on air. I had never been so happy since I was a boy. Never would she have given me that little slipper, against which my heart throbbed madly, if I had been indifferent to her. Did I intend to give it to du Trémigon? Never! I should let him do his worst. Something would happen. I should get out of it in some way.

When we reached the inn we found our horses ready. After we were safely mounted old Bucknall broke the silence.

“Did ye git it, yer honor?” asked the old sailor.

“Get it, Bucknall? Do you remember me telling you of the lady whom I saved from highwaymen on the road to Paris?”

I had to tell someone. It would have killed me not to have been able to confide in a soul, and Bucknall was faithful and devoted beyond the ordinary.

“I remembers it well, sir.”

“She was the lady in the house yonder.”

“You don’t say so, sir!”

“I love her, Bucknall!”

“Then ye didn’t git it?” said the old salt coolly.

“Get it? Of course, I got it. It’s in my waistcoat, over my heart.”

“You’ll give it to the Markis?”

“Never! I’ll keep it until the day of my death.”

“That’s likely to be pretty soon, yer honor, if wot ye say is true.”

“I can’t help that. I wouldn’t give it to that lying hound to purchase my life. When I die I wish it buried with me.”

And then I told him squarely what a scoundrel the Marquis was and how he had befooled me about Mademoiselle’s desires.

[Pg 289]

“Wot are ye goin’ to do, ef I might ax yer honor?”

“I’m going to du Trémigon and tell him I refuse to do his bidding and let him do his worst.”

“Wot’ll he do?”

“Clap me into prison, I suppose.”

“Hadn’t we better cut an’ run fer it right now?”

“I can’t. He has my word of honor that I would report the success or failure of my mission.”

“I guess he ain’t troublin’ hisself about honor, is he?”

“I suppose not.”

“W’y should you, sir?”

“That’s the disadvantage a gentleman labors under in dealing with a scoundrel.”

“I see. Hev ye thought that ye’ll be sarched by the police an’——?”

“By Jove!” I interrupted. “That’s so.”

“An’ wot ye’ve got’ll be tuk from ye?”

This was a new complication. I had no doubt in that case that the slipper would eventually fall into the hands of du Trémigon and my sacrifice would avail nothing. What was to be done? I could think of nothing. I had no friends in Paris whom I could trust except this humble sailor. Unless I gave the slipper to him I should have to throw it away. In truth I should never have taken it. It was a mad impulse that possessed the Countess to give it me.

“Bucknall,” I said at last, “you are right. I cannot keep this slipper.”

“I think not, sir.”

“There is no one that I know in Paris to whom I can intrust it but you.”

“I reckon not, sir.”

“Here it is,” I said. I am not ashamed to say that I kissed it before I gave it to the sailor. It was dark and he could not see, but if it had been broad daylight I should not have cared.

“Wot am I to do with it, sir?”

“I want you to do it up carefully in a package. Put the best wrappings about it and tie it up shipshape. Leave it at the American minister’s for Dr. Franklin when he comes back, which should be tomorrow or next day. You can get someone there to address it to my father’s plantation.”

I gave him the address and made him repeat it many times until he had it letter-perfect.

“Now,” I said, “you must leave me and shift for yourself. Here”—I reached my hand in my pocket and took out the money that du Trémigon had given me. I might as well be hanged for an old sheep as a lamb, I reasoned, and I passed it all over to the faithful sailor. “You speak passable French,” I continued—he had picked up enough of the language in his Mediterranean cruises to make himself understood—“keep yourself close until you see the American minister. Tell him of my plight and perhaps he may be able to do something. At any rate see that he forwards the package. You need not say what’s in it.”

“What about my hoss, sir?”

“Give me the rein.”

“An’ I thanks God to get off’n him,” returned Bucknall, sliding to the ground with great alacrity. “And, harkee, Master Burnham, ye ain’t seen the last of me, yet, sir. I’ve got a few idees in my ol’ head, sir, an’ don’t you git ready for death too suddint like.”

He turned and was gone.

A short time brought me to du Trémigon’s house. He was waiting for me, wellnigh consumed with anxiety and curiosity. I do not care to go into the details of our interview that night. Suffice it to say, I felt entirely free to express my opinion of him and that I did so without let or hindrance. Of course, he carried out his part of the program, and at daybreak I found myself in prison facing charges of highway robbery and debts amounting to many thousand francs.

But I was happy. I had hope of the love of the Countess and I didn’t care a rap for anything else. I felt that somehow, in some way, I should manage to get out. I was the most[Pg 290] cheerful prisoner under such a heavy charge that ever occupied a cell.

Confinement, I will admit, was a little wearing upon me. The first day passed, and then a second, without a sign from anybody. My examination was set for the morrow. The turnkey who brought me my supper slipped me a note. I was hungry enough—for the prison fare was scanty—but the note claimed my attention. It was in a woman’s hand, of course, and could come only from her, although it bore no crest and was not signed.

The turnkey and the under-governor of the jail are bribed. Tonight, after supper, you will be removed to another cell. This overlooks the street. The bars of the window have been arranged so that they will come out at a touch. When the clock in the nearby church strikes twelve, a messenger and a horse will await you in the alley.

The note stopped there, and then a few words had been added apparently as an afterthought:

These presents from one who cares much what happens to you.

If you have been in a like situation you can guess what happened then. When I was calmer I put the note carefully in my pocket and fell to my supper. I knew that I should need all my strength, and I was of a practical turn of mind even in the midst of my most romantic dreams. I had scarcely finished the poor provender when the turnkey re-entered. He was followed by a couple of other officials. The turnkey in a harsh manner, as if to impress the others, although he winked knowingly at me, said:

“By the order of the commandant you are to be transferred to another cell.”

“I do not wish to be transferred,” I returned hotly, to keep up the deception; “this cell suits me very well, and I am satisfied to remain here.”

“Your wishes are not consulted in this matter,” he returned roughly.

“You villain!” I cried, menacing him.

“Have a care,” he answered; “if you don’t go peaceably we’ll have to take you by force. Here, men!”

His two assistants stepped forward. I concluded that I had done enough, so, grumbling mightily, and giving evidence of my displeasure, I suffered them to lead me to the other cell, where I was soon locked in for the night. With what impatience I waited for the appointed hour!

At the first stroke of the bell I was at the window. The bars came out in my hand. Someone had chiseled out the mortar and replaced it with putty. I gained the sill and dropped. It was a long fall, but I was delighted when I alighted upon a truss of hay, which had evidently been thrown at the foot of the wall on purpose to receive me. I scrambled up and looked about. A man approached me. He had a weapon. I was without arms, and although I stood ready to spring, I had no doubt he was a messenger.

“Monsieur Burnham?” he asked.

“The same.”

“Come with me.”

I followed him down the narrow street on tiptoe. So far as I could see it was entirely deserted. The street opened upon a little park or square. Under the trees I made out horses. There were three of them. A figure sat upon one. My heart leaped into my mouth as I discerned it to be a woman. One of the horses was turned over to me. My conductor took the third, first handing me a hat and cloak. Then he turned and, indicating that we should follow, made his way into the street. On account of the lateness of the hour, and the fact that the jail was in a remote and unfrequented portion of the town, the street was dark and empty. We passed a lantern presently and its rays fell upon the woman who had persistently avoided conversation with me. Under this light, although she wore a mask and was shrouded in a cloak, I knew that it was the Countess. Nothing could stop me then. I swung my horse in toward hers and laid my hand on her arm.

“Mademoiselle,” I said, “it is to you that I owe my freedom.”

“Not yet,” she replied, but she did not shake off my hand, and we rode[Pg 291] side by side, the horses going at a good pace.

“First, you gave me something to live for—” I said.

“That was?”

“Yourself. Now you give me life to enjoy you.”

“Monsieur,” she said, dodging the issue, “we have but little time to converse. I learned of your plight——”

“How, Mademoiselle?”

“From your servant, an ancient sailor. He followed you, learned where you were imprisoned, and immediately sought me.”

“How did he get access to you?”

“He had a—talisman, Monsieur, that insured him an immediate hearing.”

I was completely puzzled, but Mademoiselle gave me no time for thought. She went on hurriedly:

“I bribed the commandant and turnkey. I provided these horses. The man ahead of us is——”

“Éspiau!” I exclaimed.

“Yes. He will conduct you out of France.”

“And you came, Mademoiselle——??”

“To say farewell.”

“Never!” I cried. “I will leave France, Mademoiselle, but not alone.”

“You mean?”

“I take you with me.”

“Impossible!”

“But do you not love me?” She was silent. “Would you have done all this for me if you had not?” I persisted.

“Gratitude, Monsieur, for services rendered, and——”

“Nonsense!” I said, laughing, “you know that you care. Why, I have lived in the prison upon the memory of that——”

“You are cruel, Monsieur.”

“Is it cruel for a man who loves a woman to take the woman, if she loves him, away with him?”

I was young and reckless. I didn’t care what happened. I swung my horse in closer to hers and slipped my arm around her. She struggled, but in despite of her struggles I kissed her. Her head sank on my shoulder.

“Don’t!” she whispered. “You are so strong. I cannot let you go——”

That was a wise pair of horses, for they stopped while I poured out my soul to her there and then. What her answer might have been I know not. Yet I was prepared to take her away by force when we were suddenly alarmed by Éspiau. He had ridden ahead a few paces; now he came back on the run.

“Soldiers!” he said hastily. “The King’s guard! We must flee!”

“Monsieur,” said the Countess, quickly releasing herself and thrusting a little parcel into my hand, “here is the talisman. Go! unless you wish to disgrace me. Éspiau and I will remain here.”

She had right on her side. We must not be found together. To assist in the escape of a prisoner, charged with a capital offense, was a serious matter. I swerved my horse and started away. But I had not gone ten paces before a heavy hand seized my horse’s bridle and a stern voice bade me stand in the King’s name. Lights appeared on the instant and I saw that I was surrounded. I cast one glance backward at the Countess and Éspiau. They, too, had been arrested. It was a trap! The whole party had been caught. Back of the men who had stopped us I noticed a single horseman.

“Have you got him?” he said as he drew near.

“Yes, Monsieur le Duc.”

I recognized his voice. It was Mademoiselle’s grandfather!

“Take him to my house,” said the old man shortly.

The next moment du Trémigon spurred through the throng. It was he who with the remainder of the King’s guard had apprehended Mademoiselle and Éspiau. He shot one venomous glance at me, in which triumph was mingled with hate, and approached the Duke, whispering a few words. I saw the old man start violently; a look of anger and dismay crossed his face—the Marquis spoke earnestly for a moment or two. The Duke nodded—unwillingly, I thought. The next[Pg 292] moment he left us and rode forward with du Trémigon to the side of his granddaughter. I stared after them in despair.

“Where am I to be taken?” I asked one of the officers commanding the escort that had seized me.

“Back to prison.”

“And not to the Duke’s house?”

“An oubliette will doubtless be safer and more comfortable quarters for Monsieur,” said the captain politely, giving the order to march.

Fortune had been both kind and unkind to me once more. On the whole I judged, as I lay in the darkness of the damp, wretched dungeon from which no escape seemed possible, that the balance was on the side of kindness. I had had a breath of fresh air. I had further evidence that the woman I loved loved me. I had come near to freedom with her. And I had the talisman which Bucknall had shrewdly used to gain access to her. I could feel it in the darkness, for I had unwrapped it. It was the slipper—my lady’s slipper that had caused all the trouble! As I pressed it passionately to my lips I felt the crackle of paper inside. A letter! What would I have given for a light by which to read it!

Ah, yes, things looked black to me, but I blessed fortune nevertheless—on my own account, that is. I was filled with anxiety as to what would happen to the Countess between her grandfather and du Trémigon. There was one other matter, which gave me grave concern. When du Trémigon rode up to the Duke he had been followed by a servant on horseback, a particularly vicious-looking man with one eye. The light was not clear and I was not able to see distinctly. Yet I recognized him. Where I had met him, under what circumstances, I could not at first decide, but in the darkness of that dungeon all came back to me. He was the man whose wrist I had broken with my cudgel, when Mademoiselle had been attacked. He was evidently the leader of that assault upon her. She had spoken of the Queen’s despatch. Could it be that du Trémigon had instigated the attack? It must have been the case. I decided that the fact itself was of great importance, and that possibly I might use it in case of necessity.

VI
THE SLIPPER GOES TO COURT

I got through the night somehow. The next morning—I knew it was morning, because some faint light had filtered through a slit near the roof, the most eventful day in my life, which had not been without its surprising incidents—was ushered in by a visit from the commandant of the prison. Why he honored me with his personal attention was not obvious, though I learned later that it was on account of an order of the Queen. Curtly enough he bade me follow him, which I did, nothing loth. Anything was better than the cursed oubliette.

I fancy that I must have presented rather a sorry figure, for he was good enough to show me into a small room where there were some toilet conveniences, and I made myself as presentable as possible. Fortunately, my clothes—I had resumed my own, when I returned to du Trémigon—were of good material and a perfect fit, and I was rather proud of my figure, too. While there I read the note in the slipper. It was small, like the container, but very sweet to me:

Monsieur, [it said], to see you again I come with Éspiau tonight. I bid you an eternal farewell and write what I dare not speak—I love you!

An eternal farewell, eh? I would have something to say about that, I was resolved.

My hat and cloak—that Mademoiselle had provided me with the night before—were fetched, and after a good breakfast, which seemed to have been brought from his own table, he conducted me to a closed carriage and I was driven a long distance through the country, arriving at last at a place[Pg 293] that I afterward found to be Versailles.

I tried several times to converse with my guards, but neither would talk to me. I resigned myself to whatever was coming, therefore, and busied myself with thoughts of Mademoiselle. I had been to Versailles seeking Dr. Franklin, but had never seen the royal palace. Consequently I did not recognize it when the carriage stopped and I was led forth. I supposed that it might be one of the residences of the great Duc de Rivau-Huet.

Before I had time to speculate, however, I was blindfolded and led through numberless corridors, up and down flights of stairs, in rooms and out in bewildering succession. I made no resistance. It would have been useless, and the officers who brought me thither informed me that no harm was intended. Finally we stopped, hands fumbled at the bandage, and I opened my eyes to find myself in a magnificent apartment—an antechamber of some sort, evidently. It was void of people, save ourselves and a sentry in the uniform of the Swiss Guards at the door at the farther end.

Running my hand through my hair with the natural instinct of a young man, and shaking myself as if to free my person by the motion, at a gesture from my guide I stepped boldly to the door. The Swiss presented arms, the official tapped on the door and stepped back, a voice I recognized bade me enter, and in another moment I was in the presence of Mademoiselle. She was standing near the door. I took one step toward her and fell on my knees, when a scandalized voice exclaimed in my ear:

“Monsieur, do you not see the Queen?”

“I do,” I answered, without taking my eyes off Mademoiselle, “and I kneel to her with all the homage of my heart.”

Mademoiselle blushed vividly and stepped aside.

“She means the Queen of France, Monsieur,” she said softly.

As I knelt there, my eyes fell upon a young woman—she was only twenty-four—seated farther off at the opposite side of the room, a beautiful woman with a fresh, sweet, innocent face, with nothing especially regal about her, that I could see. I knew in a moment that this was Marie Antoinette. Such was my astonishment, however, that I remained kneeling, my mouth open, in great surprise. Her Majesty was pleased to laugh. She laughed as merrily as a girl.

“Make your homage to the Queen of France, Monsieur,” exclaimed the elderly woman who had spoken to me first, evidently one of the great ladies of the Court.

“Your Majesty,” I replied, finding my wits at last, “I knelt as every gentleman should, to the queen of his heart, and when she stepped aside and revealed to me the queen of all hearts, I was unable to rise.”

“Perhaps, Monsieur, you have sufficiently recovered now to approach more nearly the throne,” she said, pleased at my compliment.

She extended her hand to me. I got to my feet, knelt again before her and kissed it. Queens are always beautiful, but I swear I would rather have kissed Mademoiselle’s hand at any hour. However, I reflected that the honor of America was in a measure committed to me, and I think I bore myself worthily.

“Rise, Monsieur,” said the Queen graciously; “the Comtesse de Villars”—I suppose it is bad manners to look at one woman when another woman is speaking to you, especially if that woman be of royal blood, but I could not help turning my head at her words.

There stood Mademoiselle more beautiful than ever. Indeed, I have observed that she always looks better the more beautiful her background, and Marie Antoinette might be Queen of France, but she was only a background to Mademoiselle that morning.

“Mademoiselle de Villars tells me that you have rendered me a great service.”

“If to love Mademoiselle de Villars,”[Pg 294] I began, “with all my heart and soul, be to render Your Majesty a service——”

“Nay, nay, not that way. I fear you would fain rob me of my fairest maid of honor.”

“It ill becomes a gentleman to contradict a lady,” I replied quickly.

Again the Queen laughed. I was lucky evidently.

“What I meant, Monsieur, was that Mademoiselle de Villars tells me that you saved her from assault, capture, I know not what, on the highroad some ten days ago.”

“Your Majesty, I had that good fortune.”

“Mademoiselle de Villars was on my errand. There were papers I did not care to intrust to any save the most intimate hand, which she was bringing back to me.”

“I perfectly understand, Your Majesty.”

“I will not disguise the fact that had these papers fallen into the possession of an enemy——”

“The Marquis du Trémigon?” I interrupted.

“Du Trémigon?” cried Mademoiselle.

“Why he, Monsieur?” asked the Queen.

“It was he who instigated the assault upon Mademoiselle, I am convinced.”

“How know you this?”

“One of the ruffians who menaced the lady was one-eyed. He wore a patch over his face. I was lucky enough to break his wrist with my cudgel.”

“A strange weapon for a gentleman,” said Her Majesty.

“It is honored above my sword, in that it hath served Mademoiselle,” I answered.

“You have a French twist to your tongue,” said the Queen. “Proceed.”

“I recognized the man in the Marquis du Trémigon’s following last night, Your Majesty.”

“I know whom he means, Madame; I saw him, too,” said Mademoiselle. “I heard Monsieur du Trémigon call him Babin. Strange to say, I did not recognize him before.”

“That agrees perfectly with my recollection, Madame. I remember that the man who ran away that day on the road called him by that name.”

“And you think the Marquis du Trémigon wanted these papers?” continued the Queen.

“I am sure of it, Madame.”

“But why?”

“Your Majesty knows that he is a suitor for the hand of Mademoiselle de Villars. He hoped doubtless that if he could get the papers he might—” I hesitated. It was an ugly word to say, yet the Marquis du Trémigon had shown himself to me in his true colors, and I knew there was no knavery he would stop at. “He hoped to influence you, and, through you, Mademoiselle. By the terms of her father’s will she must consent willingly to the marriage, else the contract is void.”

“You seem to know a great deal about the affairs of Mademoiselle, Monsieur.”

“I intend, with your permission, Madame, to know everything about them in the future.”

The Queen smiled.

“He is droll, this cavalier. He speaks like a Frenchman, and wooes like an American.”

“Have I your permission, Madame?” asked Mademoiselle.

“Certainly, my dear.”

“It was the Marquis du Trémigon who betrayed us last night,” she said, turning to me.

“Another score to be settled between us,” I said under my breath.

“He has a creature in his pay in my grandfather’s house, and through him he learned my plan. He laid a very clever trap. Although he could have stopped me at any time, he allowed us to go on, that we might be caught in the act. Now he hopes to win my grandfather’s consent to this marriage, and perhaps by that means force it upon me.”

“You shall never marry him,” I said, utterly oblivious of everything,[Pg 295] everybody, except Mademoiselle and that fact.

“And why not, pray, Monsieur?” asked the Queen.

“Because, Your Majesty, I shall marry her myself.”

“Indeed!”

“The word of a gentleman, Madame,” I said.

“But are you a gentleman?” asked Marie Antoinette. There was an accent of raillery in her voice that robbed the question of its sting. “One day you masquerade as a sailor. The next day you enter Mademoiselle’s apartments”—she knew all, then!—“as a thief. Today you stand before me as a criminal.”

“I plead guilty to every charge, Madame. I am a sailor, I am a thief. Last night I would have stolen——”

“What, Monsieur?”

“Mademoiselle.”

“From her grandfather?”

“From the throne itself, Your Majesty,” I replied fervently.

Again the Queen smiled.

“Enough, Monsieur,” she said, rising; “I have exerted myself in your favor. I had an order from the King to bring you here. I have requested the Duc de Rivau-Huet to consign Mademoiselle to my care. I wished to thank you for the service you have done me—to ask you to wear this in memory of my gratitude.”

She drew a rarely beautiful diamond ring from her finger and extended it to me. I kissed the hand and slipped the ring upon my little finger.

“Your Majesty overwhelms me,” I said.

“The reward scarcely equals your merit, Monsieur, and it does not even approach your assurance.”

“Mademoiselle would make a craven bold, Madame.”

“Doubtless,” said the Queen. “And now we have the honor to wish you a safe return to America.”

I looked at Mademoiselle. She had turned deathly pale. Her eyes were filled with tears. Before my glance she lowered her head. My resolution was taken at once.

“But, Your Majesty, I am not going back to America.”

“How, Monsieur! You contradict the Queen?”

“At least, I am not going back alone,” I added respectfully.

“Monsieur, believe me,” the Queen rejoined earnestly, “it is impossible. The Duc de Rivau-Huet would never consent. He is one of the great nobles of France. You——”

“I am a criminal, Madame, and respect no conventions save those dictated by my own heart.”

I could swear that Mademoiselle gave me one grateful glance.

“Is that the custom of America?” asked the Queen.

“Of the world, Madame. When one loves as I, there is but one custom.”

“That is?”

“To give oneself to one’s mistress and to take her for his own.”

The situation was becoming impossible. It was fortunately saved for me by the entrance of an equerry.

“Your Majesty”—he stopped and bowed low—“Monsieur le Marquis du Trémigon would like the honor of an audience.”

“Monsieur,” said the Queen, turning to me, “you still persist in this mad resolution?”

“Madame, I am determined in it. There is but one voice that can send me to America—alone.”

“And that voice.”

“Is Mademoiselle’s.”

“Speak to him, Gabrielle,” said the Queen.

Mademoiselle turned and looked at me. Her lips formed a word; she drew her breath sharply in, but no sound came.

“With reverence to Your Majesty, that word Mademoiselle cannot say.”

“Why not, Monsieur?”

“Because she loves me,” I answered confidently.

The Queen looked from one to the other of us. I only looked at Mademoiselle. She could not sustain the concentrated force of two such stares as ours. She hid her face in her hands.

[Pg 296]

“Ma foi,” said Marie Antoinette, with one of those quick changes of mood which made her so fascinating, “it is even so. Before two such lovers, I may be pardoned if I forget that I am a queen and remember only that I am a woman.”

“May God bless Your Majesty for that!” I cried enthusiastically. “Does it mean——?”

“That I am on your side, Monsieur? Satisfy me of what has been told me of yourself this morning and we shall see.”

The look that she gave me spoke volumes. I was speechless with happiness. To satisfy her, everyone, of my position would be easy. If only I could get word to Dr. Franklin. He had been a friend of my father in the colonies. He knew many people I knew, and if that mad little Scotsman were here he would be on my side. The Queen gave me no time for reply, for she turned to the equerry and said:

“I will see Monsieur du Trémigon. But wait one moment. Before he is admitted, I wish you to go into that room, Monsieur Burnham. Leave the door open and stand behind the arras. You”—she turned to the elderly lady, who had discreetly withdrawn to the embrasure, and had been carefully studying the landscape during the interview between the Queen, Mademoiselle and myself—“Madame, will you ask the Duc de Rivau-Huet to come into the small room where Monsieur Burnham goes and wait there until I call him forth? Tell him I beg him on no account to give note of his presence until he is summoned. Now”—she turned to the equerry—“bring hither the Marquis du Trémigon.”

I bowed low to Her Majesty and lower to Mademoiselle, and entered the apartment the Queen had indicated. The Duc de Rivau-Huet had evidently been waiting, for a moment later he entered under the guidance of the messenger and stood by my side. He did not know me, of course, but we bowed to each other profoundly and then waited quietly.

A moment later we heard the Queen speaking.

“Monsigneur du Trémigon,” she began, “you wish to see me?”

“Madame, it is the constant wish of every gentleman in France.”

“Prettily said, Monsieur, and, as it happens, I also wish to see you.”

“Your Majesty honors me.”

“You come at an opportune time, therefore.”

“Any time that I can be of service to Your Majesty is opportune,” he answered—the clever villain had a glib tongue, as he had a fine taste in clothes, I could but admit. “I wish that Your Majesty,” he continued, “could give me back my remark.”

“And what was that, Monsieur?”

“That every woman in France might wish to see me.”

“That would be an embarrassment of riches.”

“I should be satisfied if the one nearest Your Majesty cherished that desire.”

He shot one glance at the Countess. I could see them by moving the hangings slightly, and I didn’t scruple to look. The old Duke stood like a stone, wondering why he had been brought here, and as yet unable to comprehend the situation.

“You said that you wished to see me, Monsieur?” asked the Queen, disregarding his last remark.

“My desire gives place to Your Majesty’s.”

“And my will claims precedence of yours, Monsieur. Proffer your petition.”

“Your Majesty, I love devotedly the Comtesse de Villars. We were betrothed in childhood. The time for the carrying out of the contract our fathers made has arrived. I crave Your Majesty’s influence to persuade Mademoiselle de Villars to honor me.”

There was a certain amount of truth in the rascal’s words. I wondered if he really loved her a little bit, or whether it was only to get her money.

“But Mademoiselle de Villars doesn’t love you, Monsieur.”

“With Your Majesty’s aid I trust[Pg 297] I shall be able to teach her to do so.”

“I fear that task is beyond you or me, Monsieur du Trémigon.”

“Permit me in Your Majesty’s own interest to dispute that assertion.”

“How now, Gabrielle?” said the Queen, turning to Mademoiselle.

“I hate him!” she cried. I could see du Trémigon wince.

“You hear, Monsieur?”

“I hear, Madame, but”—he tore off the disguise now and spoke with savage firmness—“Mademoiselle must marry me.”

“Must, sir! These are strange words to use to your queen.”

“I speak to a woman now,” answered the Marquis.

“Explain yourself.”

“Mademoiselle is seriously compromised.”

I could see the Countess start and clench her hands. The Queen motioned her to remain silent.

“How is that, Monsieur?” she asked quietly.

“She received me alone in her apartments the night before last.”

“You coward!” cried Mademoiselle.

“Patience, Gabrielle,” said Marie Antoinette quickly. “You have proofs of that assertion, sir?”

From where I stood with a backward glance I could see the old Duke. He had his hand on his sword, his face was as white as death. He was perfectly rigid. He had been told to remain where he was, however, until he was summoned, and he would not move.

“You have witnesses?” continued the Queen.

“I have. I was seen to go through the gate at eleven o’clock. I climbed to Mademoiselle’s window by the ivy. I remained in her apartment one hour. It was this suit that I now wear in which I presented myself to Mademoiselle.” He turned swiftly to the Countess. “Does not Mademoiselle recognize it?” he said, with a triumphant leer.

She shuddered away from him. And indeed it was the one I had worn!

“You do recognize it, Gabrielle?” asked the Queen. Mademoiselle said nothing, but it was quite evident that she did.

“Your story,” said the Queen composedly, turning to the Marquis, “is most interesting, Monsieur, if it could be believed.”

“Out of consideration to one of your maids of honor”—I could have killed him at the hateful emphasis he laid on that last word—“I hope I may be spared the pain of public testimony.”

“You give me your word of honor that three nights ago you were in Mademoiselle’s apartments?”

“I do.”

“Your word of honor as a gentleman?”

“Your Majesty has said it.”

“Oh, this is infamous—infamous!” cried Mademoiselle.

“And you, Countess, what do you say?” continued the Queen.

“It is a falsehood, a dastardly falsehood!”

A look of relief swept over the old Duke’s face then. His apprehension gave place to a growing anger. I could realize how hard it was for him to remain quiet beyond that curtain. As for me I would have given everything on earth to go out and kill du Trémigon.

“You do not wish to marry this man—pardon, this gentleman—Gabrielle?” asked Marie Antoinette.

“I would rather kill myself!”

“Monsieur du Trémigon,” said the Queen, “have mercy!”

“Madame, love has no mercy. I am passionately devoted to Mademoiselle.”

“And is that why,” asked Marie Antoinette, with a swift change of manner, “that you set your man, Babin, and two other ruffians to attack Mademoiselle on the road to Paris ten days ago?”

She drove her queries home with the directness of sword-thrusts. The Marquis gasped, fell back, utterly dismayed. He moistened his lips and strove to speak.

“I—I—I do not know what Your[Pg 298] Majesty means—” he faltered. “I had a servant called Babin in my employ, but I have discharged him.”

“You did not know,” said the Queen pitilessly, “that Mademoiselle was carrying papers of infinite concern to me? Relying on your sense of honor”—she smiled mockingly—“I tell you the truth. They were letters that I had written years ago—silly, foolish letters, which yet might have given me trouble. Mademoiselle volunteered to get them and bring them to me. And you, Monsieur du Trémigon, having learned this in some way—oh, I have fathomed the whole procedure,” she went on, rising and confronting him. “You thought to get me in your power and force a consent from Mademoiselle through her love for me!”

“Madame, I am innocent. I know no more about this than you have told me. Babin has not been in my service for months. I know nothing about the letters.”

“Do you swear it?”

“I swear it!”

The Queen struck a bell on the table at my side. The equerry presented himself.

“Is Monsieur Éspiau there?” she asked.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Admit him.”

In another moment the old servant of the Duke entered and fell on his knees before the Queen.

“Rise, my friend,” she said, with that gentle grace, that benignity, that ought to have endeared her to the whole of France, high and low, rich and poor; “were you at the Hôtel de Rivau-Huet on last Wednesday night?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Were you in the apartments of the Comtesse de Villars?”

“I was, Your Majesty.”

“Between the hours of eleven and twelve?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Was the Marquis du Trémigon there?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“And you would believe a servant’s word before mine?” said du Trémigon furiously.

“We shall see. Call Monsieur Burnham,” she said to the attendant.

I did not wait to be called. I was through the door in an instant. Du Trémigon started with additional surprise when he saw me.

“What do you know of this charge of the Marquis du Trémigon?” asked the Queen after I had saluted her.

“Your Majesty, I know that the Marquis du Trémigon was in his hôtel between the hours of eight in the evening and one in the morning. By no possibility could he have been in the apartment of Mademoiselle de Villars. Furthermore, the man Babin was in his employ yesterday.”

“You hound!” cried du Trémigon, and then I stepped close to him. He shrank back. I stepped nearer. The Queen might have interfered, but I rather think she enjoyed it.

“You know,” I said, frowning at him, “that you were not in the apartments of the Comtesse de Villars on that evening or any other evening.” He opened his mouth as if to speak. “Not a word or I’ll kill you where you stand!”

“Your Majesty,” he cried, dexterously avoiding me, “will you condemn me on the words of a lackey and a criminal?”

I started toward him again, but the Queen raised her hand. She looked at the equerry again, an old and trusted attendant, upon whom she could rely.

“The Duc de Rivau-Huet”—she pointed to the door—“bring him here.”

The Duke was almost as quick as I. The curtain was torn aside and he came in erect, with his hand on his sword.

“Your Majesty.” He bowed low before her, a graceful and gallant old gentleman.

“Monsieur le Duc,” said the Queen, extending her hand to be kissed, “you are ever welcome. As the head of the house to which the Marquis du Trémigon belongs. I wish you to hear[Pg 299] his charges and his denials, that you may judge him accordingly.”

“I have heard, Your Majesty,” said the Duke, “and give me leave to say I need neither the evidence of Éspiau nor of this gentleman—whoever he may be—to convince me that the Marquis du Trémigon has lied.”

“And I tell you,” burst out the Marquis, “that this man is a common thief, a highway robber and—” He pointed to me.

“Have a care, Monsieur,” said Marie Antoinette quickly; “highway robbery is a grave accusation. Was it on the road to Paris that he committed this highway robbery? This is a most serious indictment. Look again. Think! Do you press the charge? Do you really mean it?”

VII
THE SLIPPER FINDS ITS WEARER

“His Majesty the King!” cried an usher at the great door, throwing it open. “His Excellency, the Minister of the United States, Dr. Franklin, Commodore John Paul Jones, Monsieur Bucknall, sailor,” he added.

Into the room came the King of France, a stout, heavy-set, rather stupid-looking young man. Following him I saw the familiar figure—I had seen many portraits of him in public print—of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. By his side—and it was a good sight for any eyes—walked the handsome little daredevil of a Scotsman in his naval uniform, looking as cocky as if he had been strutting on his own quarter-deck. And then—did my eyes deceive me?—came the rolling form of worthy Master Bucknall. I blessed that man in my heart. He had brought Mademoiselle to my assistance in the prison and now he had completed his work by looking up Dr. Franklin and the rest. Where he had found the Commodore I did not know.

I had heard he had recently arrived at L’Orient, but not that he had come to Paris.

“Madame,” said the King, approaching the Queen who courtesied deeply before him, “I wish you good morning. Ah, Duke, I am always glad to see you. Mademoiselle de Villars, you are fit to stand before Her Majesty, and I could pay you no higher compliment.”

I was amazed to hear this fat, commonplace, prosy-looking man speak so pleasantly, but in sooth Mademoiselle, with her cheeks flushed, a little sparkle of tears in her eyes, her head thrown back—well, any man of taste would have recognized which was Queen of Love and Beauty in that room. The King bowed shortly and coldly to du Trémigon and looked with some interest at me.

“Monsieur,” said the Queen to her husband, “will you allow me to present to you Monsieur Burnham, an American naval officer?”

I bowed low before the King. France was our ally and we hoped much from her, and although we in America had cut kings and queens out of our books, I felt it necessary for me to be politic.

“Dr. Franklin, you are always welcome,” continued the Queen, “even though you do come garbed in sober gray to our gay Court.”

“Your Majesty,” returned the old Quaker gallantly, “I wear gray that it may contrast the better with the high color of my admiration for the Queen of France.”

“And this is our old friend, the Commodore. We are glad to have you back at Versailles after your splendid fighting, Monsieur,” said the Queen, dimpling with pleasure at Dr. Franklin’s compliment and giving her hand to Paul Jones, who had waited with ill-concealed impatience for this recognition of his rank and station.

“To see you again, Your Majesty,” began the doughty little Captain, with a shade too much fervor, I thought, “is better fortune than to capture a ship like the Serapis.”

“You must tell me about that action, Monsieur.”

“I shall be pleased to attend upon Your Majesty at any time for that or any other purpose,” he replied. “And[Pg 300] if it were necessary to secure entrance to your levee, I would cheerfully engage to capture another British frigate.”

The Queen laughed kindly at the little Captain, and then she stared toward Bucknall, who stood shifting from one foot to another, twisting his hat in his hand. She was a good-hearted woman and would fain neglect no one—not even the humblest.

“And who is this?” she asked.

“Madame, give me leave,” I interposed. “He is a sailor to whom I owe life, liberty and—love!”

“Looks he not like a cupid’s messenger?” queried Her Majesty, smiling, and then the King broke in.

“Have you sent for the prisoner, Madame?”

“Your Majesty, he is here?”

“What, this gentleman?”

The Queen bowed.

“What have you to say for yourself, sir?” the King asked me.

“Much, Your Majesty. I am an American naval officer, as Commodore Paul Jones can bear witness.”

“’Tis true, Your Majesty. He sailed with me on the Alfred, and a better officer I did not have, and I say it who have a right to testify.”

“Good,” said the King. “Proceed, Monsieur.”

“I was captured with Captain Cunningham in the Revenge.”

“Give me a fleet, Your Majesty,” interrupted Commodore Jones, “and we’ll stop all that.”

The King smiled and nodded to me.

“I escaped from a British prison-ship, robbed a gentleman in England, got money from him, came to France hoping to find Dr. Franklin or Commodore Jones. Neither was in Paris. I lost my money, fell into the hands of an enemy, and was lodged in jail, whence I have been this morning brought here by Her Majesty’s gracious interference.”

“How did you lose your money?” asked the King, quite as a father might have spoken to his son. There was something pleasant about the plain, homely man. I hesitated not a moment.

“I am sorry to say, Sire, that I gambled it away.”

The King shook his head.

“I can make good your loss,” he said; “but play is the curse of the young nobles of my Court, and of all strangers who come to Paris, as well.”

“Your Majesty is most kind. When I can hear from America I shall be able to discharge all my obligations, and I wish to say to Your Majesty and before you all”—all meant Mademoiselle—“that I shall eschew play in the future.”

“There were charges against you of highway robbery, I believe?”

“On information laid by me, Your Majesty,” broke in du Trémigon.

“But Monsieur du Trémigon withdraws the charges now. Highway robbery! It hath an ugly sound,” said the Queen. “How is that, Monsieur du Trémigon?”

I never saw such a look of baffled rage and hatred as that on du Trémigon’s face. He was completely powerless. The evidence against him was too strong. He tried to speak, but there was no help for it. He bowed at last.

“I am too much of a gentleman”—I have always been suspicious of a man who protests his quality overmuch, by the way—“to contradict the Queen of France.”

“Good,” said the King. “But there were some papers?”

“Monsieur du Trémigon lost them, unfortunately,” again interposed the Queen.

“Very careless, I’m sure,” commented the King severely.

“I,” volunteered Dr. Franklin, “will be surety for Monsieur Burnham’s debts to the Marquis du Trémigon.”

“The word of a gentleman so vouched for is sufficient,” said the Marquis, raging in his heart, but helpless.

“I’d rather pay him the money, doctor, and owe it to you,” I said softly to Dr. Franklin.

“Is it a great sum, lad?” whispered[Pg 301] the Quaker aside. “Our exchequer is running low. And, hark ye, that highway robbery in England. ’Tis hardly a crime of which you could be convicted in France.”

Now, why had neither I nor anyone else thought of that!

“We will attend to the debt,” said the King, after a momentary consultation with the Queen. “Now, gentlemen, no more of this.”

Of course when he put on his royal look and said that, there was nothing more for me to do.

“Pardon, Your Majesty,” said the Duc de Rivau-Huet, who had noted all that had occurred with ill-concealed impatience. “Monsieur du Trémigon has another announcement to make.”

“What is that, Duke?” asked the King.

“Your Majesty is doubtless aware that my son and the father of the Marquis du Trémigon entered into a contract that their children should be married at a suitable age, provided they were both willing to carry out the agreement?”

“I have heard so,” answered the King.

“The Marquis du Trémigon wishes, in the presence of these witnesses, to renounce all pretension to the hand of Mademoiselle de Villars.”

“Your Majesty,” protested the Marquis in one last desperate attempt to gain his end, “Monsieur le Duc mis——”

“I believe I am not mistaken, Monsieur,” said the Duke, very stately and magnificent, with his hand on his sword—my heart went out to him—looking hard at the Marquis.

“I am sure,” added the Queen in her silvery voice—and you would have thought she were conferring the greatest favor in her power upon the wretched du Trémigon—“that the Duke is right. Monsieur du Trémigon,” she went on, with a woman’s spitefulness—but indeed I could not blame her, “is no more desirous of marrying Mademoiselle de Villars than he is of pressing the charge of highway robbery against Monsieur Burnham.”

Du Trémigon could not trust himself to speak again. He clenched his hands and bowed low before the Queen.

“Furthermore,” continued the Duke imperturbably, “Monsieur du Trémigon wishes Your Majesty’s permission to withdraw from Paris and retire to his estates.”

“As the Marquis pleases,” said the King indifferently.

Had I been King I should have been consumed with curiosity to know what this was all about, but His Majesty cared little about it, apparently, for after turning his back on du Trémigon, who backed out of the room, he said to Dr. Franklin:

“Now that we have settled this affair, doctor, I want you to look at a lock in my cabinet that interests me greatly. Gamain brought it today. Its mechanism is curious and complex. It will interest a scientific man like yourself, I am sure.”

“I shall be glad to attend Your Majesty.”

“Give me leave, Sire,” again said the Duc de Rivau-Huet. “Your Majesty,” continued the old man, standing very erect, “the Marquis du Trémigon averred that he was in my granddaughter’s apartments until a late hour the other night.”

“It is false,” said the Queen.

“Madame, I know that. What I wish to know is, who was there?”

“Monsieur! Before them all!” exclaimed Mademoiselle, startled beyond measure by this surprising development. This unlucky speech in itself was a confession.

“The King is the fountain of nobility in the land,” continued the Duke, striving to regain his composure. “You are a maid of honor to the Queen, Mademoiselle. That gentleman”—he pointed to me—“heard the accusation and denied it. These are his friends. Here is some mystery. I wish an explanation.”

“But, Duke—” began the King, with a puzzled look.

“I crave Your Majesty’s pardon.[Pg 302] Even royalty may give place to the feelings of a grandsire. Will you allow me to conduct this affair in my own way?”

“Go on,” said the King.

“I am satisfied that the Marquis du Trémigon, whom I shall see later, with the King’s permission——”

“I will give you a lettre de cachet to the Bastile for him, if you like.”

“Thank you, Sire. Monsieur du Trémigon was not there, but I insist someone was, and I demand to know who.”

No one spoke for a moment.

“Éspiau, you know?”

“I have nothing to say, Monsieur le Duc,” replied the old servant, turning pale.

“Will no one tell me?” cried the old man, grief in his heart, appeal in his tones, shame in his bearing.

“I will,” I said boldly; “I was there.”

“You, sir!”

“Even I, Monsieur.”

“How dared you? What do you mean?” He put his hand to his heart. I was nearest him. I stretched out my arm to help him, but he thrust me away. “Answer!” he cried, imperiously forgetful of the King, the Queen, everybody.

“It is very simple,” I replied quietly. “On my approach to Paris I had the good fortune to be of assistance to Mademoiselle.”

“In what capacity?”

“She was set upon by three ruffians. I drove them off.”

“Whereabouts?”

I was ignorant of the road, but Mademoiselle came to my rescue.

“Near Paris, on the Versailles road, Monsieur.”

“Where was your escort?” queried the Duke.

“I was alone.”

“Alone on the Versailles road?”

“In my service, Duke,” said the Queen softly.

“Pardon, Your Majesty. That is sufficient. Proceed, Monsieur.”

“I fell in love with your granddaughter.”

“How dared you, sir; a beggarly——?”

“Monsieur Burnham’s patrimony includes rich land enough to make a county in France,” deftly put in Dr. Franklin at this juncture.

“But in America—” said the Duke scornfully.

“The finest land the sun ever set on, Monsieur,” broke in Commodore Jones hotly.

The King waved his hand for silence, and the Duke turned to me again.

“I sought your granddaughter far and wide, and at last found her at the Hôtel de Rivau-Huet.”

I had a hard task to keep to the truth and yet make a satisfactory story.

“And was it at her invitation you entered her apartment?”

“Monsieur le Duc!” exclaimed the King hastily, in warning.

“Grandfather!” cried the girl, recoiling from the outrageous accusation.

“Sir!” I replied, with spirit, “the question is an insult to your blood! I came unexpectedly, unknown, unwelcome—like a thief in the night.”

“You dared——?”

“It was a prank, a foolish trick; I have no excuse but my passion.”

“And you were alone with my granddaughter?”

“I was there, Monsieur le Duc,” said Éspiau.

“Then tell me the truth now, unless you forget your ancient fidelity,” exclaimed the Duke, turning to the unhappy servant. “You saw this gentleman there?”

I shook my head at him, but he was looking at Mademoiselle. Disregarding my warning glance, she nodded. The seal upon the servant’s lips was broken.

“Yes, Monsieur le Duc,” he said.

“And where was he?”

“In Mademoiselle’s—” he hesitated.

“Speak!” thundered the old man.

“Bedchamber, Monsieur.”

“Mon Dieu!” cried the Duke, his composure giving way at last. He[Pg 303] put his face in his hands with a movement singularly like that of Mademoiselle a short time before.

Is it that Master Shakespeare in great crises voices the universal cry of the human heart? For like the father of Hero in “Much Ado About Nothing”—and indeed the whole affair was somewhat similar in my mind—the Duke finally broke forth:

“‘Hath no man here a sword for me?’”

I have not the sentence exactly, but I give the sense of it, and I pitied him from the bottom of my heart. But the love of the young is often cruel to the old.

“My grandfather! my grandfather!” cried Mademoiselle, sinking to his feet, “think not bitterly of me! This gentleman has told the truth. I had but spoken a few words to him when you came. He did me a great service. I concealed him.”

“Why?” groaned the Duke.

“I was afraid that you would kill him.”

“Afraid? What is he to you?”

It was a dreadful situation for a young girl. She had never told me in so many words, although I was sure of it in my own mind, and to have to declare it before all these men was indeed hard. Yet with a heroism for which I can never be sufficiently grateful she said it.

“I love him!”

“You love him!” exclaimed her grandfather in amazement.

“Monsieur le Duc de Rivau-Huet,” I cried in my turn, springing to her side, lifting her up, and slipping my arm about her waist, “I have the honor to ask you to give me the hand of your granddaughter in marriage.”

“She is a countess of France,” replied the Duke. “The best blood in the land flows in her veins, Monsieur.”

“I have some indifferent good in my own veins, Monsieur le Duc,” I asserted, naming some of my mother’s people.

“Is this true, Monsieur?”

“I vouch for it,” said Paul Jones.

“Your Majesty,” said the Duke, turning to the King, but he got no help there.

“If you will give your consent, Duke,” said Louis, “I shall not withhold mine. Indeed, under the circumstances—”He paused significantly.

The Duke groaned and the gracious Queen came to our rescue again.

“Monsieur le Duc,” she said, stepping near him and laying her hand on his arm, “think! Monsieur Burnham is a gallant gentleman. As good blood as any in France flows in his veins. In America they have no kings, but they are all princes. His Majesty in his kindness consents. This will cement the union between the two countries against England, which is so dear to think of. Will you sacrifice your pride if I ask you, and bless the pair who love each other?”

“Madame, it is as you will,” he faltered. “I had cherished other dreams. Still, there can be no higher degree than that of gentleman, after all. No, though he sit upon a throne.”

“The royalty of virtue, the royalty of honor, the royalty of courage,” said Dr. Franklin kindly, “make this marriage not an unequal one.”

“I am an old man,” continued the Duke; “this has been hard on me. Let the young love have its way.”

“And you will forgive me?” pleaded Mademoiselle, approaching him nearer.

“Your Majesty will permit me?” asked the Duke. He took her in his arms and pressed a kiss upon her forehead and blessed her.

“Sir,” he said, turning to me and bowing, “I hope to know more of you before I commit this child to your keeping.”

“Now that all is settled for the second time,” said the King, greatly relieved. “Dr. Franklin, Commodore, and you, Duke, will you come with me?”

“We attend Your Majesty.”

The four gentlemen bowed low before the Queen. The King bowed to me, Dr. Franklin and Commodore Jones shook my hand. Our kindly[Pg 304] minister made an appointment to meet me later in the palace.

“You were lucky,” he said.

Indeed I realized that, for I replied: “Thanks to you and the Commodore.”

“Nay,” said the Quaker, smiling, “thanks to Mademoiselle herself, and to your own ready wit.”

Then they left us alone with the Queen and Bucknall.

“It strikes me,” said Her Majesty, looking at the old sailor, “that nobody has said anything about the part you have played in this affair.”

“Aye, aye, mum,” began the sailor in great confusion, “w’ich I means yer honor——”

“‘Mum’ is delightful,” laughed Marie Antoinette.

“I was at me wit’s end wot course to lay this mornin’, an’ w’en as luck would hev it I run into Commodore Jones in the street, jist in from L’Orient—he never forgits a shipmate, ma’am, no matter how humble—an’ I ups an’ told him about Mr. Burnham. He fetched me to Dr. Franklin, an’ you knows the rest, Yer Ladyship.”

“I shall not forget you,” said the Queen, lifting a well-filled purse from the table and putting it in Bucknall’s hand. The old sailor was not without a streak of gallantry.

“It’s the hand wot gives it, lady,” he said, “wot makes me wally it more’n the gold pieces.”

“You will await Monsieur Burnham without the door,” she said, dismissing him graciously.

“Monsieur Burnham,” she began as we three were alone, “you are a thief after all. You have stolen the fairest jewel of my Court. I ought to be angry with you, but—I am not.”

“I thank Your Majesty.”

“You will be very good to this daughter of France in your own land?”

“Madame, I will cherish her as the King his crown. Nay,” I added quickly, “as I would cherish Your Majesty were I the King.”

“You pay me in pretty speeches.”

“They come, Madame, from my heart of hearts. After my country and my wife, my sword is yours.”

She was gone. Of course I took Mademoiselle in my arms, and this time there was no hesitation on her part in returning my ardent caresses. I do not know what we said or what happened. After a space—how long or how short I cannot tell, for I took no notice of time or place—I said that while we each had the gold pieces I regretted that I had no ring to slip on her finger, nothing of my own to give her to bind the engagement. Of course I could not give her the Queen’s diamond—yet! She was very close to me and doubtless could feel what was in my breast-pocket.

“You have one thing,” she replied demurely, “that you could slip on.”

“What is that?”

“Have you forgotten the talisman?”

“The talisman?” I cried.

I am stupid sometimes, not often, and I was thinking so hard of her that I did not catch her meaning at first.

“That which Master Bucknall brought you—that I gave back to you.”

“Oh!” said I; “the slipper saved my life; it gave me hope.”

“And hope gave you assurance?”

“And assurance won me you.”

She drew herself away and sat down in the Queen’s chair, and no royal person ever became it so well as she. Then she fumbled at her shoe a moment, and thrust out one dainty stockinged little foot at me.

“You might put it on,” she whispered, blushing vividly.

I am not ashamed to say that I kissed that foot before I covered it with my lady’s slipper.

[Pg 305]

BY CHARLES Q. DE FRANCE
Secretary People’s Party National Committee

POPULISM is a term at which many eminently respectable but sadly misinformed persons shy, like the staid old farm horse when he first encounters an automobile on the road to town. They regard it as synonymous with Socialism, anarchy, bomb-throwing, nihilism and half a dozen other real or fancied evils. That it is simply a short expression for progressive, radical or Jeffersonian Democracy has never occurred to them.

Populism is a term which well illustrates the growth of language, the evolution by which circumlocution is avoided and clearness of expression attained. Yet, at the same time, it is an apt illustration of the power of a subsidized press to create an erroneous public opinion.

Back in the early ’90s, when the People’s Party was being organized in a number of Western States, there was considerable discussion as to whether it should be regarded as a political organization on the usual lines, or whether it should be a sort of league of independent voters, free to choose and vote for such candidates, on any ticket, as might seem best fitted to represent the interests of the different organizations of farmers and wage-workers out of which the People’s Party finally evolved.

The Omaha National Convention in 1892 settled the question in favor of regular party organization. It is true that there were intended to be points of difference between the People’s Party machinery and that of either old party; but these points were minor rather than fundamental. The delegate convention was retained—which, to my mind, was the one mistake made at Omaha. Until some system of direct nominations is adopted, whereby every elector may have a vote direct—and not by delegate, who may misrepresent him—I fear that as our party grows in strength we shall more and more be called upon to combat the same influences which dominate both the old parties. However, this is digression.

With the advent of the People’s Party a difficulty was found in describing a member of that party. A member of the Republican Party is, of course, a Republican; and a member of the Democratic Party is called a Democrat—but how designate one affiliated with the People’s Party?

The omnipresent and omniscient newspaper reporter, as usual, solved the difficulty. His agnosticism applies to nothing except the word “fail.” And with him circumlocution and criminality are almost synonymous. It would never do to be ringing the changes on “an adherent to the People’s Party,” or “one affiliated with the People’s Party”; hence, it was not long before we began to see the word “Populist” used in verbal descriptions of what the cartoonist invariably depicted as a “one-gallus” man, armed with fork or rake, and blessed with a hirsute adornment truly Samsonian.

Applied as a term of reproach, yet responding to the inexorable law which compels men to follow along the lines of least resistance, the word[Pg 306] “Populist” came to stay. It stuck, just as the term “Methodist” did—or “Christian,” for that matter. From “Populist,” descriptive of the man, to “Populism,” designating his political belief, was an easy step—and now, after fifteen years of abuse, ridicule, vituperation and gross misrepresentation, the great middle class is just beginning to get a clearer view and to discover that Populism is the only logical answer to the question, “What shall we do to be saved from economic ruin?”

Populism is neither Socialism nor anarchism. It is neither idealistic nor materialistic. It is neither collectivistic nor individualistic. It is essentially eclectic. It recognizes the good in all the schools of political and economic thought and attempts to eliminate the weak or bad—but refuses to be bound by any.

Populism recognizes the fact that we must work with the world as it is now—and not as some Utopian dreamer conceives it ought to be. It recognizes the fact that private ownership of productive property is not only the rule all over the world—but also that the people like it. It recognizes the Socialists’ “economic determinism”—that man’s economic needs usually dominate when they clash with his ideals—yet is not unmindful of the fact that all progress is the result of ideals forcing a change in the environment. Were it not so, man would still be an arboreal ape, chattering aloft in some palm tree.

Populism recognizes that man is a social animal, yet combats Socialism for subordinating the individual to the collectivity, and combats anarchy for subordinating the collectivity to the individual. It is the golden mean between these extremes.

Although Populism lays no claim to being either a “science” or a “philosophy,” yet it has the only definite program of any party today before the American people. It has a yard-stick by which all things may be measured, whether they be burlap, fustian, woolen, silk or some new weave of spider-web. This yard-stick is—

EQUAL RIGHTS TO ALL, SPECIAL PRIVILEGES TO NONE.

Every fair-minded man is willing to have his economic cloth measured by that yard-stick. Only avaricious rogues object.

The Republican Party is committed to the practice of giving special privileges to a favored few. It is essentially a party of paternalism. The protective tariff is paternalistic. The railroad franchise is paternalistic, and land grants, and bonds, and subsidies. The national banking laws are paternalistic—and so, too, deposits of public revenues, and rentals on public buildings sold but never paid for. The net effect of all Republican legislation is to arm the possessors of great wealth with some sort of taxing power, whereby they may absorb still more wealth without rendering an equivalent. Incidentally, it is true, some measure of prosperity may come to the more humble possessors of property—but the general trend is beyond question plutocratic.

The so-called Democratic Party need not be considered here. It has no fixed policy for more than eight years at a time—except to be “agin’ the government.” It is the party of negation.

The Socialist Party presents the anomaly of a party with an elaborate “scientific” system of societary evolution, an excellent interpretation of history, and forecast of the supposedly final form which society will assume—yet without a program or hint of the specific manner in which industry will be carried on under “the collective ownership of all the means of production and distribution, with democratic management by the workers engaged in each industry.” It is admitted that we have no right to ask for prophecies—but we have a right to see a rough draft at least of the new building which is to be erected after the social revolution has torn down the old edifice. It is true that a few so-called Socialist papers pretend to tell us what will be “under Socialism”—vague, Utopian—pardon the term—“pipe[Pg 307] dreams”; but none of them will give even an outline sketch of how collective industry might be carried on, preferring to hide behind the excuse that “we’ll cross that bridge when we reach it.” Alas! The bridge might happen to be washed out by the floods of social revolution.

Being an extreme on the side of materialism as opposed to idealism, or collectivism as opposed to individualism, Socialism is quite impossible as a scheme of government. Besides, the “materialistic conception of history,” upon which Socialism bases its prediction of the co-operative commonwealth, is not wholly scientific, because it fails to consider what changes may be wrought by invention. In a general way, it may be said that the invention of gunpowder destroyed feudalism, and that the discovery of steam power and its application to manufacturing broke up the guild system of masters, journeymen and apprentices, and ushered in the present wage system. Who has the hardihood to prophesy what an Edison may not do in the years to come, or to foretell what the effect may be?

The program of Populism is at once radical and conservative. It is radical, because it goes to the root of the difficulty and will effect a profound change. It is conservative, because it will enable the great mass of wealth producers to conserve what they now have and what they produce in future, by exempting them from the legalized robberies committed by railroads, banks, trusts and other forms of predatory wealth.

Populism, recognizing the institution of private property, and the people’s veneration and love for it, looks back over history’s pages and sees two things which, up to the recent past, have always been regarded as prerogatives of the state. One is the coinage, issue and control of money; the other, the ownership and control of highways.

Under the term “money” we may properly include all those modern makeshifts which are armed with partial legal-tender power, or even those without such power, if they generally perform the offices of money. Without discussing it in detail—because thousands of volumes have been written upon the subject without exhausting it—it seems quite certain that if Congress is to really exercise its right—and undoubted duty—“to coin money and regulate the value thereof,” there can be no “free” coinage of either gold or silver; and the Government must go into the banking business.

Under the term “highways” we may properly include railroads, canals, telegraphs, telephones, expresses—in short, all means of transportation and communication.

Most of the trust oppressions grow directly out of private ownership of the means of transportation and transmission of intelligence—the highways—and the private issue of money. Populism asks that these great evils be corrected—and that the individual be allowed to conduct his own private business with the least possible interference by government. There will always be work for the reformer; but wisdom dictates that the greatest evils be first eliminated, so that many of a minor character may be allowed to correct themselves.

[Pg 308]

BY ALEXANDER DEL MAR

[Mr. Del Mar’s career as a financial writer covers a period of more than half a century. He was the financial editor of the Washington National Intelligencer, the New York Daily American Times, Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine, The Social Science Review, The Leader, The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, and other journals of national importance. After filling the offices of Director of the Bureau of Statistics, Commerce and Navigation, Commissioner to Italy, Holland and Russia, member of the United States Monetary Commission, etc., he devoted his leisure to a “History of Money in the Principal States of the World,” “The Science of Money,” and other works relating to this great subject, all of which have secured the approval of the critical press of Europe and America and passed through repeated editions, both in English and other languages.—Editor.]

IN the recent Presidential election the People’s Party inserted in its platform a principle of such transcendent importance that, were it generally understood, had its operation been brought home to the great mass of the people, could its far-reaching consequences have been portrayed so that everybody might observe them, it would have dwarfed every other issue on that occasion presented to the country. As it was, nobody, except the few gallant leaders of the People’s Party, paid the least attention to it, and the election was decided upon other grounds.

That principle concerned the Regalia of Money, which the People’s platform demanded should be restored to its rightful owners, the Government, the people of the United States. It can be demonstrated that, had this been done, many of the vexed questions before the country, such as the Monopolization of Industries, the Financial Trusts, the Municipal Ownership of Public Utilities, etc., would have been placed in a fair way of settlement.

In a series of magazine articles, which contain much that has the appearance of being exaggerated, untrue and vindictive, but which also contain much that is true and susceptible of verification, Mr. Thomas Lawson has been arousing the public to a sense of the dangers of the Financiers’ System, the System by which the banks, the insurance companies, the trusts and the Stock Exchange are employed by so-called Captains of Industry to despoil the people. After explaining how the game is conducted, he shows that even those who refrain from gambling on the Stock Exchange, and who may have no financial transactions beyond keeping a bank account or insuring their lives, are drawn into it, against their knowledge and will, and robbed of all the fruits of their labor and abstinence.

Lawson began his articles by accusing certain persons and putting up bluffs; a mode of argument which he soon found was not convincing. He now perceives that the fault lies in the System, and that at the bottom of the System lies the subject of Money. The whole series of transactions which, he alleges, have in the course of a few years taken several thousand millions out of the pockets of the masses and transferred them into those of a few cunning and unscrupulous operators, hung upon this single question: Shall the Government of the United States exercise its Regalia of Money or not? Mr. Lawson keeps up the interest of his readers by promising them a remedy for the disorders he describes. Should the remedy not include the regulation[Pg 309] of Money, I hazard nothing in predicting that it will prove an entire failure and delusion.

What is the Regalia of Money? Is it some new-fangled notion about the coinage, some argument which turns upon the obscure meaning of Value, some phase of the tiresome Silver Question? Nothing of the kind. The Regalia of Money is a prerogative of government, familiar to every jurisconsult; a well-known, clearly defined and necessary attribute of Sovereign Power. It is laid down in all the great law books, in Budelius, Grotius, Puffendorf, Vattel, Molinæus, Grimaudet, Wheaton, Martens, and a host of other authorities. It is described as “a power which the state reserves to itself, for its own safety and welfare”; the power to create money, give it denomination and control its issues. Like the power to make war, peace and treaties, and to establish uniform weights and measures, it is called regalia, because it belongs to and must be exercised alone by sovereign states, as a prerogative which is necessary to their welfare, and essential to their autonomy, dignity and authority.

When the American Republic was established the Regalia of Money was exercised by all of the Colonies which united to form the Federation, whereupon, and as a matter of necessity, they all surrendered it to the general Government, which, under the Constitution, alone has the power to issue money and regulate its value or denominations. It was a misfortune that when the Union was formed it was so poor that it was obliged to tolerate the issuance of money by a private corporation, the Bank of Pennsylvania. Out of that bank grew all of the so-called state banks of a subsequent period, and out of those state banks, during the Civil War, grew all of the so-called National banks. Every one of these banks, both “state” and “National,” were all, and are yet, private banks, their titles in every case being misnomers. It is not intended to say a word against banks as guardians and lenders of money; on the contrary, they are recognized as highly useful and even indispensable institutions. As a rule, they are conducted by respectable and honorable men, and it cannot be disputed that they have done much to promote the progress of industry and the prosperity of trade. Whether they would have done more or less in these directions had they not been permitted to usurp the Regalia of Money, which act forms no necessary part of a banking business, it is not proposed to discuss. Said Mr. Jefferson: “I have ever been the enemy of banks; not of those discounting for cash, but of those foisting their own money into circulation, and thus banishing our cash.” What influence, whether for good or evil, which this usurpation of the Regalia exercised in his day it is now too late to examine.

But the time has come when the relinquishment of the Regalia to the banks can no longer be tolerated. The bankers have had a century of profitable innings; the people now demand theirs. The state laws of incorporation are so contradictory, loose and pliable that there have grown up under them companies and institutions so constituted that, in combination with banks usurping the Regalia, it is in their power—and this is what Mr. Lawson has shown very effectively—to strip the nation over and over again of its earnings, and eventually to absorb its entire wealth. It is scarcely too much to say that unless the United States Government resumes this Regalia, and absolutely prohibits the circulation of any money, whether of metal or paper, not of its own immediate issuance, we will find ourselves in the course of very few years hopelessly in debt to a band of absentee millionaires, who, having shown us their heels, will next show us their teeth.

It is not alone the people who are in danger of being impoverished by the System, it is not alone that the Government will be jeopardized; it is also that the banks, the insurance companies and numerous other classes of trade corporations will themselves be drawn into the nets that are being spread for[Pg 310] them, nets strewn with their own bird-lime, and delivered over to the scheming millionaires who are preparing to plunder them. Mr. Lawson wholly neglects this phase of the subject. His ardor is all for the dear people, to arouse whose righteous indignation, he informs us, he is expending a fortune. Such reckless munificence, on the part of a man who ostentatiously advertises himself as the manager or director of several corporations, goes far toward indicating the correctness of our position. It is not doubted that Mr. Lawson sympathizes with the people and is anxious to point out the dangers that threaten them. On the other hand, it cannot be supposed that he is indifferent to the fate of the banks and other companies with which he is connected. The fact is that, having thoroughly skinned the people, the Captains of Industry are now prepared to skin the corporations, and that it is going to skin them with weapons plucked from its victims. These weapons are the notes which the banks have issued in defiance of the Regalia of Money.

The banks will perhaps more fully appreciate the sort of people they are dealing with if we interpolate at this point a few words touching their humanity. The principal, almost the sole lever with which the Captains of Industry are “working” this nation, is the issue of “National” bank-notes, and the elastic feature conferred upon it by law. This system was established by Salmon P. Chase, ex-Governor of Ohio, ex-Senator of the United States, then Secretary of the Treasury, and afterward Chief Justice of the United States; a man of the highest integrity, and perhaps for that reason wholly incapable of coping with Mr. John Thompson and the other Chevaliers of Industry of the last generation. It will naturally be supposed that had this class of men the slightest taint of humanity they would at least have taken care to honor the memory of their principal benefactor. Well, we will show you how they did it. Judge Chase, after serving his country in many capacities during a long lifetime, expired in poverty and in debt; his daughter died of grief and starvation; his grandchildren are at present living in very humble circumstances; his personal effects, his books, even the petty keepsakes and trinkets of his children, were exposed to the gaze of the vulgar and sold at a public auction in New York to satisfy his creditors, the rapacious Captains of Industry; while the body of this great but guileless man lies today in an obscure churchyard, without a tombstone over it. Such is the humanity of the Captains of Industry.

It is an essential part of the merry game which these Captains are permitted to play that they shall always have in their hands the means alternately to inflate and contract the currency, at any given point, say, for example, New York. With the mints restricted to the coinage of metal for private persons, and the hands of the Government tied to a fixed issue of greenbacks, while their own hands are free, the mischievous elasticity which they employ for the success of their operations is easily acquired by getting command of the principal banks of issue. The moment they press their fingers on this button the market immediately responds by throwing its stocks overboard; and the moment they release the button, up rise the stocks again. It is by means of this simple mechanism that the public has been plundered, and that it is now planned to plunder the companies. That there is no longer any art in the trained motorman’s vocation is proved by the small wages he commands. The art is in providing the power and controlling the mechanism which drives the cars. In the Captains-of-Industry game the power is derived from the elastic bank issues: the mechanism consists of certain banks and insurance companies and the Stock Exchange. Given the power and mechanism which these establishments furnish, any bandit could work the game and have plenty of leisure to spare. The System is automatic.

[Pg 311]

In contemplating this scene of legalized robbery, euphemistically termed “finance,” it will not do to lose our heads. There are banks and banks, there are insurance companies and insurance companies, there are trade corporations and trade corporations. They are not all alike. Some are in the game, as vassals and creatures of the Captains; some are in it, hoping, alas! but vainly, to outlive the Captains and profit by their fall; while others are out of it altogether; good, sound companies, safely managed and cautious to avoid contamination. The banks and other companies last named will not suffer from collapse, they will always continue to be solvent; but they will suffer from a forced conservatism and from an unduly small share of business, until our deluded people wake up and smash some furniture, or until the banks themselves recognize the dangerous part which their own issues play in this pandemonium of rascality. They will then be glad voluntarily to surrender them into the hands of the Government.

If now it be asked in what manner will the opportunities of the Captains for robbing the community be restrained or curtailed by substituting Government money for bank-notes, the reply is that the beneficial effects of such restraint will not arise so much from a difference in the money as from a difference in the power to issue or retire it. And in a future article will be shown, by practical examples, the difference between the working of an elastic currency when such elasticity is controlled by the Government, and when it is controlled, as it now is, by the Chevaliers of Industry.

“MY agency in procuring the passage of the National Bank Act was the greatest financial mistake of my life. It has built up a monopoly that affects every interest in the country. It should be repealed. But before this can be accomplished the people will be arrayed on one side and the banks on the other in a contest such as we have never seen in this country.”

Hon. Salmon P. Chase.

“IF it is possible to inaugurate a greater system of robbery of the people’s money [than the state banks], that system has been inaugurated in the present system of national banks. The money lost by the people under the old system of state banks is a mere bagatelle when compared to that which has been and will be taken from them under the present system of national banks.”

Hon. James G. Blaine (1880).

“ATTEMPTS to monopolize wheat, copper, sugar and other commodities have been dealt with by writers and politicians as conspiracies against society.

“But the monopolization of money, the medium of exchange, is strangely regarded as essential to the welfare of society.

“And yet money monopoly is a monopoly of not merely one, but of all commodities.”

Arthur Kitson.

[Pg 312]

THE NECESSITY FOR AMENDMENTS AND OUR FAILURE TO REVISE THAT DOCUMENT BY THE METHOD SUGGESTED BY ITS FOUNDERS

BY FREDERICK UPHAM ADAMS
Author of “The Kidnapped Millionaires,” “John Burt,” “Colonel Monroe’s Doctrine” and “The Shades of the Fathers”

THE men who builded the Constitution were consumed by no senseless adulation of their own handicraft. They were not possessed of the delusion that they were inspired, neither did they dream that future generations would search the record of their quarrels and selfish compromises for the key which would enable them to solve problems as they arose. They planned a document for the regulation of a people whom they believed unfitted for more than a small share in the affairs of government. They were not blind to its imperfections, but they assumed that those who came after them would have the sense to remedy defects as they developed under the operation of the system then timidly launched.

There is this justification for the worship of the founders of the Constitution, viz., they had the common sense to revise and modify their governmental charter so as to conform to new conditions—a trait or an instinct of which hardly a trace remains in their descendants.

In the popular parlance of those days the proposed Constitution was called “The New Roof,” and its founders urged the people to get under it and keep out of the rain. It is difficult to address an appeal to a people which prefers to venerate that roof on account of its antiquity, rather than to repair the innumerable leaks and fissures due to decay and to the gales and storms of more than a hundred years.

The man who venerates any work of human origin is an ass. His asininity is exactly in degree with the smallness of the objects selected for his veneration. The man who humbly lowers his eyes in contemplation of a political constitution proclaims a lack of mental breadth fitted to comprehend humanity or to understand the plain lessons of history, and he has insulted the one entity worthy of veneration—the Maker of the Universe.

In a preceding article I proved that the framers of the Constitution distrusted the people almost to the point of hatred, and that they deliberately planned to design a document which would give them the semblance of popular rule but none of its substance. This is an unquestioned historical fact. Its declaration may seem startling to those who are confronted with the unvarnished truth for the first time, but they will find it refreshing to study the real history of those days, rather than ignorantly to worship demigods who never existed.

Immutable laws cannot be coexistent with progress. We should study the past, not for the purpose of supinely imitating it, but with a view of profiting by its mistakes. That government is best which avoids the pitfalls of the past, exists for those who live today, and erects no barriers for the generations that will follow.

[Pg 313]

For the benefit of those who still cling to the belief that constitutional wisdom had its birth with Washington and his compatriots, I take the liberty of quoting a few extracts from letters written by the Father of his Country before and after the constitutional convention had finished its labors. These utterances of Washington are trite and easily understood, and since their authenticity is unquestioned, they possess as much of inspiration as any wisdom coming from him or his colleagues.

These extracts are contained in letters written by Washington to leading men of that period, urging them to give their support to the adoption of the new Constitution, and he pinned his faith to one argument, as you shall see. I commend to all idolaters of that document a careful reading of Washington’s opinion of it, and his advice to them.

Shortly before the convention met he wrote a letter to John Jay, bearing the date of March 10, 1787. The convention assembled May 14 of that year. In that letter Washington said:

“Notwithstanding the boasted virtue of America, it is more than probable we shall exhibit the last melancholy proof that mankind are not competent to their own government without the means of coercion in a sovereign.”

There is no occult meaning hidden in these words. Washington had no faith in the capacity of the people to govern themselves, and did not hesitate to say so. In this, as I proved in a preceding article, he was in accord with the overwhelming majority of the delegates who composed that convention. The question I desire to ask is this: Was Washington inspired when he wrote those lines to John Jay, and if not, when did his inspiration begin?

Let us see what he wrote after the convention had finished its work. On January 12, 1788, he wrote to Mr. Charles Carter as follows:

“I am not a blind admirer (for I saw its imperfections) of the Constitution to which I have assisted to give birth; but I am fully persuaded it is the best that can be obtained at this day, and that it is it or disunion before us. When the defects of it are experienced, a constitutional door is open for amendments.”

There is nothing evasive about this, but those who now repeat such sentiments are suspected of treason by fools, and of a lack of patriotism by unthinking conservatives. On February 7, 1788, Washington wrote to Lafayette and said:

“Should the Constitution which is now offered to the people of America be found on experiment less perfect than it can be made, a constitutional door is left open for its amelioration.”

We have made that experiment. Have we found the Constitution perfect? Where is that “constitutional door,” and why do we not open it?

Writing from Mount Vernon in October, 1787, to Henry Knox, Washington said:

“Is there not a constitutional door open for alterations and amendments? Is it not likely that real defects will be as readily discovered after as before trial? Will not our successors be as ready to apply the remedy as ourselves, if occasion should demand it? To think otherwise will, in my opinion, be ascribing more love of country, more wisdom and more virtue to ourselves than I think we deserve.”

Dear Shade of Washington! You may have been inspired, but you were not able to foresee the bigotry, the ignorance and the cowardice of your descendants. In the language of Cicero, “we are so tied to certain beliefs that we are bound to defend even those we do not approve.” We are like the fools Montaigne describes, “who do not ask whether such and such a thing be true, but whether it has been so and so understood.” We know that the Constitution is full of errors, but all that we ask is that we may be given the wisdom so to interpret it as to suffer as few discomforts from its perpetual operation as possible. In the language of Seneca, we believe in “not[Pg 314] only a necessity of erring, but we have a love of error.”

One more of the innumerable quotations of like purport from George Washington will be sufficient. On November 10, 1787, he wrote from Mount Vernon to Bushrod Washington and said:

“The people (for it is with them to judge) can, as they will have the advantage of experience on their side, decide with as much propriety on the alterations and amendments which are necessary as ourselves. I do not think we are more inspired, have more wisdom or possess more virtue than those who will come after us. The power under the Constitution will always be with the people.”

I have been a fairly zealous student of American history, yet I have never seen these quotations from the writings of George Washington in print outside of the huge compilation of his documents and letters to be found in well-ordered reference libraries. Certain it is that our school children are not taught that such characters as Washington doubted the absolute perfection of the Constitution. Certain it is that not one man in ten thousand in the United States ever has had an opportunity to consider our Constitution in the light of the facts presented in this paper and in the one which preceded it.

The truth is that the people of the United States are unfamiliar not only with the history of the formation of the Constitution, but the vast majority of them do not know what it contains. Many of them confound the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution. What is the “Open Door” in the Constitution to which Washington repeatedly refers?

Before considering that, let us list a few of the abuses which the more thoughtful admit exist under our Constitution. Ignoring all of lesser importance I will name four, any one of which constitutes a menace to the perpetuation of free government. These are as follows:

First, the election of a President and Vice-President under the absurd and antiquated method provided by the Constitution, in which citizens vote for electors, and the decision is made by the unit vote of states, irrespective of the majorities cast. Under this grotesque system it has repeatedly happened that candidates obtaining an actual majority of the votes cast have been defeated by the minority. There is not one valid argument in favor of the continuance of this unrepublican and undemocratic elective monstrosity.

Second, the election of senators by the state legislatures, a system which is the fountain-head of the corruption of American politics, and which has given us a Senate, a large percentage of whose members owe their selection to selfish private interests. The error of this system has been so conclusively shown that there is no honest defense for it. The founders of the Constitution designed it for the purpose of making the Senate the citadel of patriotic wealth; it has degenerated into a chamber in which the admitted representatives of vested interests defend their masters against fair legislative enactments, and force unfair compromises on the popular branch which constitutes the House of Representatives.

Third, the equal representation of unequal states in the Senate. This vicious compromise was made in the constitutional convention as the price of the perpetuation of slavery. There was no justification for it even at a time when this nation was no more than a federation of states. Washington, Madison, Randolph, Morris, Franklin and every broad-minded man in that convention protested against it, and their fame is tarnished because they finally submitted to so cowardly and unfair a compromise. Now that the logic of events has made this a nation, despite the restrictive clauses of the Constitution, the dual participation of an unrepresentative Senate is so grotesque that its continuance is fraught with a danger which at any time is likely to precipitate civil war, in the event that at some crucial moment this body shall exercise its constitutional powers combined with those it has arrogated.

[Pg 315]

Unless the Constitution be entirely repealed, there is no way by amendment to deprive any state of its equal representation in the Senate. It is too much to expect that all of the corrupt boroughs which now hold the undeserved dignity of statehood will relinquish the selfish advantage bequeathed them by the unwisdom of the forefathers, but it is possible to make amendments to the Constitution which will reduce the Senate of the United States to a state of harmless inefficiency. It is possible to preserve its form and extract its substance, and the people should set about the task with no qualms of conscience. Great Britain showed the way when she boldly reduced her House of Lords to a condition of docile vassalage to the popular branch of her Parliament, and she was aroused to this righteous act of retaliation by abuses which were of small consequence compared to those from which we have tamely suffered. It is possible, under the Constitution, to strip the Senate of its legislative power, permitting it to retain its feature of unequal representation, and reserving for it a chamber in which those who wish for the honor can keep up the pretense of governmental power and prestige.

Fourth, the specific enumeration and limitation of the powers and functions of the Federal Judiciary, including the Supreme Court of the United States and all other courts authorized by Congress. This is the paramount subject for constitutional amendment or revision. The founders of our Government did not contemplate any such grant of power as now is wielded by the courts. There is nothing in the document itself which warrants the prerogatives which have been assumed by the courts, and the records of the speeches and the proceedings in the constitutional convention when the judiciary was under consideration contain no hint that they were to be granted the power to annul a law passed by Congress and signed by the President of the United States. Years passed before the Supreme Court dared attempt such a step, and when it did Jefferson scornfully ignored its mandate. Presidents as late as Lincoln have declined to acquiesce in the interference of the Federal Courts, but slowly and insidiously this branch of the Government has reached out and grasped power, until today it is supreme in fact as well as in name.

The Supreme Court is the creature of the Presidents and is subject to the direction of Congress, yet it has arrogated to itself the power of overriding the will of the entire people as recorded by its Congress and affirmed by its chief executive. If they are doing this without warrant of the Constitution, the day will come when, in the inevitable conflict between the court and the Congress or the President, or both combined, there will be precipitated a question which will rend the country with civil war. If they do this under the implied authority of the Constitution, that document should be amended so as to preclude their future interference with laws passed by Congress and signed by the President.

As we exist today we are not a republic or a democracy, neither have we a representative form of government. We are a “judiciary”—if one may coin such a word. Ours is the only country on earth where an elective or appointed judge presumes to wield the most autocratic power of the absolute monarch, viz., the veto of a law passed and demanded by the people. We have become so accustomed to this that we do not properly realize what it means. We teach ourselves to acknowledge the “sacredness of the judiciary” and to bow in humble contrition to any mandate thundered from the Bench. We assent to the insane doctrine that there is not enough of wisdom in a House of Representatives elected by 17,000,000 voters, combined with the check of an ultra-conservative Senate chosen by forty-five state legislatures, and indorsed by the judgment and responsibility of a President, to incorporate for our government a law until such law has been affirmed by the majority of a Supreme Court.

[Pg 316]

If there be sense in this dogma, I am unable to see why it is not equally just that a minority of the Supreme Court should not be empowered to annul laws. Why does the Supreme Court cling to the inconsistent theory that its majority possesses as much wisdom as its minority?

In a series of articles which I am now preparing, I am attempting to discuss certain of these questions with as much frankness as I possess; but the purpose of this paper, and the one which preceded it, is to call attention to “the unopened door in the Constitution”—the one which Washington repeatedly referred to in the passages from which I have quoted. It is a difficult matter to arouse public attention to any single amendment, no matter how important the subject may be. There is a reason for this.

The people instinctively know that no one amendment can redress the ills which now exist. They do not know how to go about a crusade for constitutional reform, and most of them probably imagine that there is no way in which it can be done. There is a way, a simple, practical and legal way, and the political party which takes advantage of it and conducts an intelligent campaign in its behalf will sweep all before it.

Here is “The Open Door of the Constitution of the United States,” as contained in Article V of that document:

The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year 1808 shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses of the Ninth Section of the First Article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

There is a door as wide as that of a church. It is the most liberal and democratic feature of a document filled with restrictions, and Washington and others were justified in assuming that we would have the sense to walk through it, rather than to attempt to get in by scaling the walls and crawling through a steeple window.

Our alleged progressive political platforms are of no value without a demand for the revision of the Constitution of the United States along some such lines as I have attempted to outline. It is idle to expect the people to rally to the support of any reform, however badly needed, so long as they have valid reasons to believe there is likelihood that a bill in its behalf will meet the fate of the lamented income tax law. Why ask them to shoot in the air when so broad a target is before them?

The wise thing to do is to attack boldly the unfair provisions of the Constitution, and attack it with a fair weapon fashioned by the Constitution. Such a campaign possesses all the elements of strength and strategy. You are safe from the attacks of those who ever hide behind the alleged sanctity of that document. You can turn their own weapons against them. You are standing on the Constitution. You are following to the letter the advice and wishes of Washington and others of his day.

The bulls and excommunications of the courts need not dismay you. Are not they the creatures of the Constitution? Does anyone deny that there is a possibility that the courts have gone beyond their constitutional powers? Is it not within the province of the free people to amend a constitution by constitutional means?

Again, a movement for any one of the reforms which are now pressing to the fore would appeal with irresistible force to its advocates if they knew that success at the polls would incorporate its provisions in the organic law of the land. Those who believe that the best interests of the nation will be conserved by more just systems of taxation, by direct legislation, by the control or ownership of the means of transportation[Pg 317] and other measures in line with the logic of events, would know that they were not fighting in vain if a victory with the ballot meant a legislative victory.

I hold that the “Open Door” offers not only the one way to popular triumph, but that success by it is certain and not difficult of attainment. Our national structure totters because of an antique and crumbling foundation. Rebuild it!

[Pg 318]

BY WILL N. HARBEN
Author of “The Georgians,” “Abner Daniel,” etc.

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS

In a small Georgia town a friendship has grown up between Pole Baker, reformed moonshiner and an unusual and likable character, and young Nelson Floyd, who was left as a baby in a mountain cabin by an unknown woman just before her death. Floyd, in the face of many trials and temptations, has worked his way up in the world and made a man of himself. Jeff Wade appears at the store, in which Floyd has become a partner, to avenge on him a rumored injustice to Wade’s sister. Pole Baker’s tact prevents a duel by making Floyd see that the unselfish course is for him to avoid a meeting. Cynthia Porter comes to the store, alarmed for Floyd’s safety. On his way home to his family Pole falls a victim to his besetting sin of drink.

CHAPTER IV

IT was Sunday morning a week later. Springtown’s principal church stood in the edge of the village, on the red clay road leading up the mountainside, now in the delicate green of spring, touched here and there by fragrant splotches of pink honeysuckle and white, dark-eyed dogwood blossoms. The building was a diminutive affair, with five shuttered windows on either side, a pulpit at one end and a door at the other. A single aisle cut the rough benches into two halves, one side being occupied by the men and the other by the women. The only exception to this rule was a bench set aside, as if by common consent, for Captain Duncan, who always sat with his family, as did any male guests who attended service with them.

The Rev. Jason Hillhouse was the regular pastor. He was under thirty years of age, very tall, slight of build and nervous in temperament. He wore the conventional black frock coat, high-cut waistcoat, black necktie and gray trousers. He was popular. He had applied himself closely to the duties of his calling and was considered a man of character and worth. While not a college graduate, he was yet sufficiently well-read in the Bible and religious literature to suit even the more progressive of mountain churchgoers. He differed radically from many of the young preachers who were living imitations of that noted evangelist, the Rev. Tom P. Smith, “the whirlwind preacher,” in that he was conservative in the selection of topics for discourse and in his mild delivery.

Today he was at his best. Few in the congregation suspected it, but if he distributed his glances evenly over the upturned faces, his thoughts were focussed on only one personality—that of modest Cynthia Porter, who, in a becoming gray gown, sat with her mother on the third bench from the front. Mrs. Porter, a woman fifty-five years of age, was very plainly attired in a homespun dress, to which she had added no ornament of any kind. She wore a gingham poke-bonnet, the hood of which hid her face even from the view of the minister. Her husband, old Nathan Porter, sat directly across the aisle from her. He was one of the roughest-looking men in the house. He had come without his coat, and wore no collar or necktie, and for comfort, as the day was warm, he had even thrown off the burden of his suspenders, which lay in careless loops about his hips. He had a broad expanse of baldness, to the edge of which hung a narrow fringe of white hair, a healthful, pink complexion and blue eyes.

When the sermon was over and the doxology sung, the preacher stepped down into the congregation to take the numerous hands cordially extended to[Pg 319] him. While he was thus engaged old Mayhew came from the amen corner on the right, and nodded and smiled patronizingly.

“You did pretty well today, young man,” he said. “I like doctrinal talks. There’s no getting around good, sound doctrine, Hillhouse. We’d have less lawlessness if we could keep our people filled plumb full of sound doctrine. But you don’t look like you’ve been eating enough, my boy. Come home with me and I’ll give you a good dinner. I heard a fat hen squeal early this morning, as my cook jerked her head off. It looks a pity to take life on a Sunday, but if that hen had been allowed to live, she might have broken a commandment by hunting for worms on this day of rest. Come on with me.”

“I can’t, Brother Mayhew; not today, thank you.” The young man flushed as his glance struggled on to the Porters, who were waiting near the door. “The fact is, I’ve already accepted an invitation.”

“From somebody with a girl in the family, I’ll bet.” Mayhew laughed as he playfully thrust the crooked end of his walking-stick against the preacher’s side. “I wish I knew why so many women are dead set on getting a preacher in the family. It may be because they know they will be provided for after some fashion or other by the church at large, in case of death or accident.”

The preacher laughed as he moved on, shaking hands and dispensing cheery words of welcome right and left. Presently the way was clear and he found himself near Cynthia and her mother.

“Sorry to keep you standing here,” he said, his color rising as he took the girl’s hand.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter at all, Brother Hillhouse,” the old woman assured him. “I’ll go on an’ overtake Mr. Porter; you and Cynthia can stroll home by the shadiest way. You needn’t walk fast; you’ll get hot if you do. Cynthia, I won’t need you before dinner. I’ve got everything ready, with nothing to do but lay back the cloth and push the plates into their places. I want Brother Hillhouse just to taste that pound cake you made. I’m a good hand at desserts myself, Brother Hillhouse, but she can beat me any day in the week.”

“Oh, I know Miss Cynthia can cook,” said the minister. “At the picnic at Cohutta Springs last week she took the prize for her fried chicken.”

“I told you all that mother fried that chicken,” said the girl indifferently. She had seen Nelson Floyd mounting his fine Kentucky horse among the trees across the street, and had deliberately turned her back toward him.

“Well, I believe I did fix the chicken,” Mrs. Porter admitted, “but she made the custards and the cake and icing. Besides, the poor girl was having a lot of trouble with her dress. She washed and did up that muslin twice—the iron spoiled it the first time. I declare I’d have been out of heart, but she was cheerful all through it. Here comes Nathan now. He never will go home by himself; he is afraid I’ll lag behind and he’ll get a late dinner.”

“How are you today, Brother Porter?” Hillhouse asked as they came upon the old man under the trees, a little way from the church.

“Oh, I’m about as common,” was the drawling answer. “You may notice that I limp a little in my left leg. Ever since I had white swellin’ I’ve had trouble with that selfsame leg. I wish you folks would jest stop an’ take a peep at it. It looks to me like the blood’s quit circulatin’ in the veins. It went to sleep while you was a-talkin’ this mornin’—now, I’ll swear I didn’t mean that as a reflection.”

He paused at a fallen tree, put his foot upon it and started to roll up the leg of his trousers, but his wife drew him on impatiently.

“I wonder what you’ll do next,” she said reprovingly. “This is no time and place for that. What would the Duncans think if they was to drive by while you was doing the like of that[Pg 320] on a public road? Come on with me, and let’s leave the young folks to themselves.”

Grumblingly Porter obeyed. His wife walked briskly and made him keep pace with her, and they were soon several yards ahead of the young couple. Hillhouse was silent for several minutes, and his smooth-shaven face was quite serious in expression.

“I’m afraid I’m going to bore you on that same old line, Miss Cynthia,” he said presently. “Really, I can’t well help it. This morning I fancied you listened attentively to what I was saying in my sermon.”

“Oh, yes, I always do that,” the girl returned, with an almost perceptible shudder of her shoulders.

“It helped me wonderfully, Miss Cynthia, and once a hope actually flashed through me so strong that I lost my place. You may have seen me turning the pages of the Bible. I was trying to think where I’d left off. The hope was this: that some day, if I keep on begging you, and showing my deep respect and regard you will not turn me away. Just for one minute this morning it seemed to me that you had actually consented, and—and the thought was too much for me.”

“Oh, don’t speak any more about it, Mr. Hillhouse,” Cynthia pleaded, giving him a full look from her wonderful brown eyes. “I have already said all I can to you.”

“But I’ve known many of the happiest marriages to finally result from nothing but the sheer persistence of the man concerned, and when I think of that—and when I think of the chance of losing you, it nearly drives me crazy. I can’t help feeling that way. You are simply all I care for on earth. Do you remember when I first met you? It was at Hattie Mayfield’s party, just after I got this appointment; we sat on the porch alone and talked. I reckon it was merely your respect for my calling that made you so attentive, but I went home that night out of my head with admiration. Then I saw that Frank Miller was going with you everywhere, and that people thought you were engaged, and, as I did not admire his moral character, I was very miserable in secret. Then I saw that he stopped, and I got it from a reliable source that you had refused him because you did not want to marry such a man, and my hopes and admiration climbed still higher. You had proved that you were the kind of a woman for a preacher’s wife—the kind of woman I’ve always dreamed of having as my companion in life.”

“I didn’t love him, that was all,” Cynthia said calmly. “It would not have been fair to him or myself to have received his constant attentions.”

“But now I am down in the dregs again, Miss Cynthia.” Hillhouse gave a sigh. It was almost a groan.

She glanced at him once and then lowered her eyes half fearfully. And, getting his breath rapidly, the preacher bent more closely over her shoulder, as if to catch some reply from her lips. She made none.

“Yes, I’m in the dregs again—miserable, afraid, jealous! You know why, Miss Cynthia. You know that any lover would be concerned to see the girl upon whom he had based his every hope going often with Nelson Floyd. Of all men, he——”

“Stop!” The girl paused, turned upon him suddenly and gazed at him steadily. “If you have anything to say about him don’t say it to me. He’s my friend, and I will not listen to anything against those I like.”

“I’m not going to criticize him.” Hillhouse bit his white, unsteady lip. “A man’s a fool who tries to win by running down his rival. The way to run a man up in a woman’s eyes is to openly run him down. Men are strong enough to bear such things, but women shelter them like they do their babies. No, I wasn’t going to run him down, but I am afraid of him. When you go out driving with him, I——”

Again Cynthia turned upon him and looked at him steadily, her eyes flashing. “Don’t go too far; you might regret it,” she said. “It is an insult to be spoken to as you are speaking to me.”

[Pg 321]

“Oh, don’t, don’t! You misunderstand me,” protested the bewildered lover. “I—I am not afraid, you understand, of course, I’m not afraid you will not be able to—to take care of yourself, but he has so many qualities that win and attract women that—Oh, I’m jealous, Miss Cynthia, that’s the whole thing in a nutshell! He has the reputation of being a great favorite with all women, and now that he seems to admire you more than any of the rest——”

The girl raised her eyes from the ground; a touch of color rose to her cheeks. “He doesn’t admire me more than the others,” she said tentatively. “You are mistaken, Mr. Hillhouse.”

He failed to note her rising color, the subtle eagerness oozing from her compact self-control.

“No, I’m not blind,” he went on, blindly building up his rival’s cause. “He admires you extravagantly—he couldn’t help it. You are beautiful, you have vivacity, womanly strength and a thousand other qualities that are rare in this section. Right here I want to tell you something. I know you will laugh, for you don’t seem to care for such things, but you know Colonel Price is quite an expert on genealogical matters. He’s made a great study of it, and his chief hobby is that many of these sturdy mountain people are the descendants of fine old English families, from younger sons, you know, who settled first in Virginia and North Carolina, and then drifted into this part of Georgia. He didn’t know of my admiration for you, but one day at the meeting of the Confederate Veterans at Springtown he saw you on the platform with the other ladies and he said: ‘I’ll tell you, Hillhouse, right there is a living proof of what I have always argued. That daughter of Nathan Porter’s has a face that is as patrician as any woman of English royal birth. I understand,’ the Colonel went on, ‘that her mother was a Radcliff, which is one of the best and most historic of the Virginia families, and Porter, as rough as he is, comes from good old English stock.’ Do you wonder, Cynthia, that I agree with him? There really is good blood in you. Your grandmother is one of the most refined and elegant old ladies I have ever met anywhere, and I have been about a good deal.”

“I am not sure that Colonel Price is right,” the girl said. “I’ve heard something of that kind before. I think Colonel Price had an article in one of the Atlanta papers about it, with a list of old family names. My father knows little or nothing about his ancestry, but my grandmother has always said her forefathers were wealthy people. She remembers her grandmother as being a fine old lady, who, poor as she was, tried to make her and the other children wear their bonnets and gloves in the sun to keep their complexions white. But I don’t like to discuss that sort of thing, Mr. Hillhouse. It won’t do in America. I think we are what we make ourselves, not what others made of themselves. One is individuality, the other imitation.”

The young man laughed. “That’s all very fine,” he said, “when it was your forefathers who made it possible for you to have the mental capacity for the very opinion you have expressed. At any rate, there is a little comfort in your view, for if you were to pride yourself on Price’s theories, as many a woman would, you would look higher than a poor preacher with such an untraceable name as mine. And you know, ordinary as it is, you have simply got to wear it sooner or later.”

“You must not mention that again,” Cynthia said firmly. “I tell you, I am not good enough for a minister’s wife. There is a streak of worldliness in me that I shall never overcome.”

“That cuts me like a knife,” said Hillhouse. “It cuts because it reminds me of something I once heard Pole Baker say in a group at the post-office. He said that women simply do not like what is known as a ‘goody-goody’ man. Sometimes as coarse a man as Pole hits the nail of truth on the head, while a better educated man would miss and mash his thumb. But[Pg 322] if I am in the pulpit, I’m only human. It seemed to me the other day when I saw you and Nelson Floyd driving along up the mountain that the very fires of hell itself raged inside of me. I always hold family prayer at home for the benefit of my mother and sister, but that night I cut it out and lay on the bed rolling and tossing like a crazy man. He’s handsome, Miss Cynthia, and he has a soft voice and a way of making all women sympathize with him—why they do it I don’t know. It’s true he’s had a most miserable childhood, but he is making money hand over hand now and has everything in his favor.”

“He’s not a happy man, Mr. Hillhouse, in spite of his success. Anyone who knows him can see that.”

“Oh, I suppose he broods over the mystery that hangs over his childhood,” said the preacher. “That’s only natural for an ambitious man. I once knew a fellow like that, and he told me he never intended to get married on that account. He was morbidly sensitive about it, but it is different with Floyd. He does know his name, and he will, no doubt, discover his relatives some day. But it hurts me to see you with him so much.”

“Why, he goes with other girls,” Cynthia said, her lips set together tightly, her face averted.

“And perhaps you know, Miss Cynthia, that people talk about some of the girls he has been with.”

“I know,” said the girl, looking at him with an absent glance. “There is no use going over that. I hear nothing all day long at home except that—that—that! Oh, sometimes I wish I were dead!”

“Ah, that hurts worse than anything you have ever said!” declared the minister in a tone of pain as he stroked his thin face with an unsteady hand. “Why should a beautiful, pure, human flower like you be made unhappy because of contact with a human weed——?”

“Stop, I tell you! Stop!” The girl stared at him with flashing eyes. “I am not going to have you talk to me as if I were a child. I know him as well as you do. You preach all day long that a person ought to be forgiven of his sins, and yet you want to load some of them down with theirs—that is, when it suits you. He has as good a right to—to—to reform as anyone, and I, myself, have heard you say that the vilest sin often purifies and lifts one up. Don’t get warped all to one side. I shall not respect your views any more if you do.”

Hillhouse was white in the face and trembling helplessly.

“You are tying me hand and foot,” he said, with a groan. “If I ever had a chance to gain my desires, I am killing them, but God knows I can’t help it. I am fighting for my life.”

“And behind another’s back,” added the girl firmly. “You’ve got to be fair to him! As for myself, I don’t believe half the things that the busybodies have said about him. Let me tell you something.”

They had come to a little brook which they had to cross on brown, almost submerged stepping-stones, and she paused, laying her small hand on his arm, and said portentously: “Nelson Floyd has been alone with me several times and has never yet told me that he loved me.”

“I’m not going to say what is in my mind,” Hillhouse said, with a cold, significant sneer on his white lip, as he took her hand and helped her across the stream.

“You say you won’t?” Cynthia gave him her eyes wonderingly, almost pleadingly.

“That is, not unless you will let me be plain with you,” Hillhouse answered; “as plain as I’d be to my sister.”

They walked on side by side in silence, now very near her father’s house.

“You may as well finish what you were going to say,” the girl gave in, with a sigh of resignation tinged with a curiosity that devoured her precaution.

“Well, I was going to say that, if what I have gathered here and there is true, it is Nelson Floyd’s favorite[Pg 323] method to look, do you understand?—to look love to the girls he goes with. He has never, it seems, committed himself by a scratch of a pen or by word of mouth, and yet every silly woman he has paid attention to, before he began to go with you, has secretly sworn to herself that she was the world and all to him.”

Cynthia’s face became grave. Her glance went down and for a moment she seemed incapable of speech. Finally, however, her color rose and she laughed defiantly.

“Well, here is a girl, Mr. Hillhouse, who will not be fooled that way, and you may rely on that. So, don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of myself.”

“I’ve no doubt you will,” said the preacher gloomily.

“Yes, you’ll see that I can,” Cynthia declared with animation. “There’s mother on the porch. Good gracious, do change the subject. If she sets in on it, I’ll not come to the table. She likes you and hates the ground Nelson Floyd walks on.”

“Perhaps that, too, will be my damnation,” Hillhouse retorted. “I know something about human nature. I may see the day that I’d be glad of a doubtful reputation.”

He caught her reproachful glance at this remark as he opened the gate for her and followed her in. Porter sat on the porch in the shade reading a newspaper, and his wife stood in the doorway.

“Run in and take off your things, Cynthia,” Mrs. Porter said, with a welcoming smile. “Brother Hillhouse can sit with your pa till we call dinner. I want you to help me a little bit. Your grandmother is lying down, and doesn’t feel well enough to come to the table.”

When the women had gone in, and the preacher had seated himself in a rough, hide-bottomed chair near his host, Porter with a chuckle reached down to the floor and picked up a smooth stick about twenty inches long, to the end of which was attached a piece of leather about three inches wide and four inches long.

“That’s an invention o’ mine,” Porter explained proudly as he tapped his knee with the leather. “Brother Hillhouse, ef you was to offer me a new five-dollar note fer this thing, an’ I couldn’t git me another, I’d refuse p’int-blank.”

“You don’t say,” said Hillhouse, concentrating his attention on the article by strong effort; “what is it for?”

“I don’t know any other name fer it than a ‘fly-flap,’” said Porter. “I set here one day tryin’ to read, an’ the flies made sech a dead set at my bald head that it mighty nigh driv’ me crazy. I kept fightin’ ’em with my paper an’ knockin’ my specs off an’ losin’ my place at sech a rate that I got to studyin’ how to git out of the difficulty, fer thar was a long fly spell ahead of us. Well, I invented this thing, an’ I give you my word it’s as good fun as goin’ a-fishin’. I kin take it in my hand—this way—an’ hold the paper too, an’ the minute one o’ the devilish things lights on my scalp I kin give a twist o’ the wrist an’ that fly’s done fer. You see, the leather is too flat an’ soft to hurt me, an’ I never seen a fly yit that was nimble enough to git out from under it. But my fun is mighty nigh over,” Porter went on. “Flies has got sense; they profit by experience the same as folks does. At any rate, they seem to know thar’s a dead-fall set on my bald spot, an’ they’ve quit tryin’ to lay their eggs in the root-holes o’ my hair. Only now and then a newcomer is foolhardy an’ inclined to experiment. The old customers are as scared o’ my head as they are of a spider-web.”

“That certainly is a rare device,” said Hillhouse. “I don’t know that I ever heard of one before.”

“I reckon not,” the farmer returned placidly. “Somebody always has to lead out in matters of improvement. My wife an’ daughter was dead set agin me usin’ it at fust. They never looked into the workin’ of it close, an’ thought I mashed my prey on my head, but thar never was a bigger mistake. The flap don’t even puncture the skin, as tender as their hides are. I know,[Pg 324] beca’se they always fall flat o’ their backs an’ kick awhile before givin’ up.”

At this moment Mrs. Porter came to the door and announced that dinner was ready.

CHAPTER V

Pole Baker decided to give the young people of the neighborhood a corn-shucking. He had about fifty bushels of the grain, which he said had been mellowing and sweetening in the husk all the winter, and, as the market had advanced from sixty to seventy-five cents, he decided to sell.

Pole’s corn-shuckings were most enjoyable festivities. Mrs. Baker usually had some good refreshments and the young people came from miles around. The only drawback was that Pole seldom had much corn to husk, and the fun was over too soon. The evening chosen for the present gathering was favored with clear moonlight and balmy weather. When Nelson Floyd walked over, after working an hour on his books at the store, he found a merry group in Pole’s front yard.

“Yo’re jest in time,” Pole called out to him as he threw the frail gate open for the guest to pass through. “I was afeard thar was a few more petticoats than pants to string around my pile o’ corn, but you’ll help even up. Come on, all of you, let’s mosey on down to the barn. Sally,” he called out to his wife, a sweet-faced woman on the porch, “put them childern to sleep an’ come on.”

With merry laughter the young men and girls made a rush in the direction of the barn. Nelson Floyd, with a sudden throbbing of the heart, had noticed Cynthia Porter with the other girls, and as he and Baker fell in behind, he asked:

“Who came with Cynthia Porter, Pole?”

“Nobody,” said Baker. “She come over jest ’fore dark by the short cut through the meadow. I’ll bet a hoss you are thinkin’ o’ gallivantin’ ’er back home.”

“That’s what I came for,” said Floyd, with a smile.

“Well, I’m sorry, for this once,” said Pole, “but I cayn’t alter my plans fer friend or foe. I don’t have but one shuckin’ a year, an’ on that occasion I’m a-goin’ to be plumb fair to all that accept my invite. You may git what you want, but you’ll have to stand yo’r chance with the balance. I’ll announce my rules in a minute, an’ then you’ll understand what I mean.”

They had now reached the great cone of corn, heaped up at the door of the barn, and the merrymakers were dancing around it in the moonlight, clapping their hands and singing.

“Halt one minute!” Pole called out peremptorily, and there was silence. “Now,” he continued, “all of you set down on the straw an’ listen to my new rules. I’ve been studyin’ these out ever since my last shuckin’, an’ these will beat all. Now, listen! Time is a great improver, an’ we-all don’t have to shuck corn jest like our granddaddies did. I want to make this thing interest you, fer that pile o’ corn has to be shucked an’ throwed into the barn ’fore you leave yo’r places.”

“Well, I wouldn’t preach a sermon fust,” laughed Mrs. Baker as she appeared suddenly. “Boys an’ gals that git together fer a good time don’t want to listen to an old married man talk.”

“But one married man likes to listen to that woman talk, folks,” Pole broke in, “fer her voice makes sweet music to his ear. That’s a fact, gentlemen an’ ladies; here’s one individual that could set an’ listen to that sweet woman’s patient voice from dark to sunup, an’ then pray fer more dark an’ more talk. I hain’t the right sort of a man to yoke to, but she is the right sort of a woman. They hain’t all that way, though, boys, an’ I’d advise you that are worthy of a good helpmeet to think an’ look before you plunge into matrimony. Matrimony is like ice, which, until you bust it, may cover pure, runnin’ water or a stagnant mud-hole. Before marriage a woman will say yes an’ no as meek as that entire bunch of females. Sugar wouldn’t melt in her[Pg 325] mouth, but when she hooks her fish she’ll do her best to make a sucker out’n it ef it’s a brook trout at the start. I mean a certain kind of a woman now, but, thank the Lord, He made the other sort, too, an’ the other sort, boys, is what you ort to look fer. I heard a desperate old bach say once that he believed he’d stand a better chance o’ gettin’ a good female nature under a homely exterior than under a pretty one, an’ he was on the rampage fer a snaggle tooth; but I don’t know. A nature that’s made jest by a face won’t endure one way or another long. Thar’s my little neighbor over thar; ef she don’t combine both a purty face an’ a sweet, patient nature I’m no judge.”

“Hush, Pole; Cynthia don’t want you to single her out in public that a-way,” protested Mrs. Baker.

“He’s simply bent on flattering more work out of me,” responded Cynthia, quite adroitly, Floyd thought, as he noted her blushes in the moonlight. “We are waiting for your rules, Mr. Baker.”

“Yes,” spoke up Floyd, “give us the rules, and let us go to work, and then you can talk all you want to.”

“All right, here goes. Now, you are all settin’ about the same distance from the pile, an’ you’ve got an equal chance. Now, the fust man or woman who finds a red ear of corn must choose a partner to work with, an’, furthermore, it shall be the duty o’ the man to escort the gal home, an’, in addition to that, the winnin’ man shall be entitled to kiss any gal in the crowd, an’ she hereby pledges herself to submit graceful. It’s a bang-up good rule, fer them that want to be kissed kin take a peep at the ear ’fore it’s shucked, an’ throw it to any man they select, an’ them that don’t kin hope fer escape from sech an awful fate by blind luck.”

“I think myself that it would be an awful fate to be kissed by a man you didn’t care for,” laughed Mrs. Baker. “Pole has made his rules to suit the men better than the women.”

“The second rule is this,” added Pole, with a smile, “an’ that is, that whoever finds a red ear, man or woman, I git to kiss my wife.”

“Good, that’s all right!” exclaimed Floyd, and everybody laughed as they set to work. Pole sat down near Floyd, and filled and lighted his pipe. “I used to think everything was fair in a game whar gals was concerned,” he said in an undertone. “I went to a shuckin’ once whar they had these rules, an’ I got on to exactly what I see you are on to.”

“Me? What do you mean?” asked Floyd.

“Why, you sly old dog, you are not shuckin’ more than one ear in every three you pick up. You are lookin’ to see ef the silk is dark. You have found out that a red ear always has dark silk.”

Floyd laughed. “Don’t give me away, Pole. I learned that when old man Scott used to send me out on frosty mornings to feed the cattle.”

“Well, I won’t say nothin’,” Pole promised. “Ef money was at stake, it ’ud be different, but they say all’s fair whar war an’ women is concerned. Besides, the sharper a man is the better he’ll provide fer the wife he gits, an’ a man ought to be allowed to profit by his own experience. You go ahead; ef you root a red ear out o’ that pile, old hog, I’ll count you in.”

Pole rose and went round the other side of the stack. There was a soft rustling sound as the husks were torn away and swept in rising billows behind the workers, and the steady thumping of the ears as they fell inside the barn.

There was a lull in the merriment and general rustle, and Floyd heard Hattie Mayhew’s clear voice say: “I know why Cynthia is so quiet. It’s because there wasn’t somebody here to open with prayer.”

Floyd was watching Cynthia’s face, and he saw it cloud over for a moment. She made some forced reply which he could not hear. It was Kitty Welborn’s voice that came to him on her merry laugh.

“Oh, yes; Cynthia has us all beaten badly!” said that little blonde. “We wore our fingers to the bones fixing[Pg 326] up his room. Cynthia didn’t lay her hand to it, and yet he never looks at anyone else while he is preaching, and as soon as the sermon is over he rushes for her. They say Mr. Porter thinks Mr. Hillhouse is watching him, and has quit going to sleep.”

“That’s a fact,” said Fred Denslow as he aimed a naked ear of corn at the barn door and threw it. “The boys say Hillhouse will even let ’em cuss in his presence, just so they will listen to what he says about Miss Cynthia.”

“That isn’t fair to Miss Cynthia,” Nelson Floyd observed suddenly. “I’m afraid you are making it too hot for her over on that side, so I’m going to invite her over here. You see, I have found the first red ear of corn, and it’s big enough to count double.”

There was a general shout and clapping of hands as he held it up to view in the moonlight. He put it into the pocket of his coat as he rose and moved round toward Cynthia. Bending down to her, he said: “Come on; you’ve got to obey the rules of the game, you know.”

She allowed him to draw her to her feet.

“Now fer the fust act!” Pole Baker cried out. “I hain’t a-goin’ to have no bashful corn-shuckers. Ef you balk or kick over a trace, I’ll leave you out next time, shore.”

“You didn’t make a thoroughly fair rule, Pole,” said Floyd. “The days of woman slavery are past. I shall not take advantage of the situation.”

Everybody laughed as Floyd led her round to his place and raked up a pile of shucks for her to sit on.

“Well, there ought to have been another rule,” laughed Fred Denslow, “an’ that to the effect that if the winning man, through sickness, lack of backbone or sudden death, is prevented from takin’ the prize, somebody else ought to have a chance. Here I’ve been workin’ like a cornfield nigger to win, and now see the feller heaven has smiled on throwin’ that sort of a flower away. Good gracious, what’s the world comin’ to?”

“Well, I’ll have mine,” Pole Baker was heard to say, and he took his little wife in his arms and kissed her tenderly.

CHAPTER VI

Refreshments had been served, the last ear of corn was husked and thrown into the barn, and they had all risen to depart, when Hillhouse came down the path from the cottage. He was panting audibly, and had evidently been walking fast. He shook hands hurriedly with Pole and his wife, and then turned to Cynthia.

“I’m just from your house,” he said, “and I promised your mother to come over after you. I was afraid I’d be late. The distance never seemed so long before.”

“I’m afraid you are too late,” said Floyd, with a cold smile. “I was lucky enough to find the first red ear of corn, and the reward was that I might take home anyone I asked. I assure you I’ll see that Miss Cynthia is well taken care of.”

“Oh! I—I see.” The preacher seemed stunned by the disappointment. “I didn’t know; I thought——”

“Yes, Floyd has won fast enough,” said Pole, “an’ he’s acted the part of the gentleman all through.” Pole explained what Floyd had done in excusing Cynthia from the principal forfeit he had won.

Hillhouse seemed unable to reply. The young people were moving toward the house, and he fell behind Floyd and his partner, walking along with the others and saying nothing.

It was a lonely, shaded road which Floyd and Cynthia traversed to reach her house.

“My luck turned just in the nick of time,” Floyd said exultantly. “I went there, little girl, especially to talk with you, and I was mad enough to fight when I saw how Pole had arranged everything. Then by good fortune and cheating I found that red ear; and—well, here we are. I never wanted to see anyone so badly in my life. Really, I——”

[Pg 327]

“Stop, don’t begin that!” Cynthia suddenly commanded, and she turned her eyes upon him steadily.

“Stop? Why do you say that?”

“Because,” retorted she, “you talk that way to all the girls, and I don’t want to hear it.”

Floyd laughed. “You know I mean what I say,” he replied. “You know it; you are just talking to hear your sweet, musical voice. Keep on; I could listen all night.”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t like you when you speak that way,” the girl said seriously. “It sounds insincere—it makes me doubt you more than anything else.”

“Then some things about me don’t make you doubt me,” he said, with tentative eagerness.

She was silent for a moment, then she nodded her head. “I’ll admit that some things I hear of you make me admire you—that is, in a way.”

“Please tell me what they are,” he said, with a laugh.

“I’ve heard, for one thing, of your being very good and kind to poor people—people that Mr. Mayhew would have turned out of their homes for debt if you hadn’t interfered.”

“Oh, that was only business, little girl,” Floyd laughed. “I can simply see farther than the old man can. He thought they never would be able to pay, but I knew they would some day, and, also, that they would come up with the back interest.”

“I don’t believe it!” the girl said firmly. “Those things make me rather like you, while the others make me—they make me—afraid.”

“Afraid? Oh, how absurd—how very absurd!” They had reached a spring which flowed from a great bed of rocks in the side of a rugged hill. He pointed to a flat stone quite near it. “Do you remember the first time I ever had a talk with you? It was while we were seated on this rock.”

She recalled it, but only nodded her head.

“It was a year ago,” he went on. “You had on a pink dress and wore your hair like a little girl, in a plait down your back. Cynthia, you were the prettiest creature I had ever seen. I could hardly talk to you for wondering over your dazzling beauty. You are even more beautiful now; you have ripened physically and mentally—grown to be a wonderful woman.”

He sat down on the stone, still holding to her hand, and drawing her toward him.

She hesitated, looking back toward Baker’s cottage.

“Sit down, little girl,” he entreated her. “I’m tired. I’ve worked hard all day at the store, and that corn-shucking wasn’t the best thing to taper off on.”

She hesitated an instant longer, and then allowed him to draw her down beside him.

“There, now,” he said, “that’s more like it.” He still held her hand; it lay warm, pulsating and helpless in his strong grasp.

“Do you know why I did not kiss you back there?” he asked suddenly.

“I don’t know why you didn’t, but it was good of you,” she answered.

“No, it wasn’t,” he laughed. “I don’t want credit for what I don’t deserve. I simply put it off, little girl—I put it off. I knew we would be alone on our way home, and that you would not refuse me.”

“But I shall!” she said. “I’m not going to let you kiss me here in—in—this way.”

“Then you’ll not be keeping your part of the contract,” he said, tightening his grasp on her hand. “I’ve always considered you so fair in everything; and, Cynthia, you don’t know how much I want to kiss you. No, you won’t refuse me—you can’t!” His left arm was behind her, and it encircled her waist. She made an effort to draw herself erect, but he drew her closer to him. Her head sank upon his shoulder and lay there while he pressed his lips to hers.

Then she sat up, and firmly pushed his arm down from her waist.

“I’m sorry I let you do it,” she said, under her breath.

“But why, darling?”

[Pg 328]

“Because I’ve said a thousand times that I would not; but I have—I have, and I shall hate myself always.”

“When you have made me the happiest fellow in the state?” Floyd said. “Don’t go!” he urged.

She had risen and turned toward her home. He walked beside her, suiting his step to hers.

“Do you remember the night we sat and talked in the grape-arbor at your house?” he asked. “Well, you never knew it, but I’ve been there three nights within the last month, hoping that I’d get to see you by some chance or other. I always work late on my accounts, and when I am through and the weather is fine, I walk to your house, climb over the fence, slip through the orchard, and sit in that arbor, trying to imagine you are there with me. I often see a light in your room, and the last time I became so desperate that I actually whistled for you. This way.” He put his thumb and little finger between his lips and made an imitation of a whippoorwill’s call. “You see, no one could tell that from the real thing. If you ever hear that sound from the grape-arbor, you’ll know I need you, little girl, and you must not disappoint me.”

“I’d never respond to it,” Cynthia said firmly. “The idea of such a thing!”

“But you know I can’t go to your house often, with your mother opposing my visits as she does, and when I’m there she never leaves us alone. No, I must have you to myself once in awhile, little woman, and you must help me. Remember, if I call you, I’ll want you badly.”

He whistled again, and the echo came back on the still air from a nearby hillside. They were passing a log cabin which stood a few yards from the roadside.

“Budd Crow moved there today,” Cynthia said, as if desirous of changing the subject. “He rented twenty acres from my father. The White Caps whipped him a week ago, for being lazy and not working for his family. His wife came over and told me all about it. She said it really had brought him to his senses, but that it had broken her heart. She cried while she was talking to me. Why does God afflict some women with men of that kind, and make others the wives of governors and Presidents?”

“Ah, there you are beyond my philosophic depth, Cynthia! You mustn’t bother your pretty head about those things. I sometimes rail against my fate for giving me the ambition of a king, while I do not even know who—But I think you know what I mean!”

“Yes, I think I do,” said the girl sympathetically, “and some day I believe all that will be cleared up. Some coarse natures wouldn’t care a straw about it, but you do care, and it is the things we want and can’t get that count.”

“It is strange,” he said thoughtfully, “but of late I always think of my mother as being young and beautiful. I think of her, too, as being well-bred and educated. I think all those things without any proof even as to what her maiden name was or where she came from—Are you still unhappy at home, Cynthia?”

“Nearly all the time,” the girl sighed. “As she grows older my mother seems more faultfinding and suspicious than ever. Then she has set her mind on my marrying Mr. Hillhouse. They seem to be working together to that end, and it is very tiresome to me.”

“I’m glad you don’t love him,” Floyd said. “I don’t think he could make anyone of your nature happy.”

The girl stared into his eyes. They had reached the gate of the farmhouse, and he opened it for her.

“Now, good night,” he said, pressing her hand. “Remember, if you ever hear a lonely whippoorwill calling, that he is longing for companionship.”

She leaned over the gate, drawing it toward her till the latch clicked in its catch. She was thinking of the hot kiss he had pressed upon her lips, and what he might later think about it.

“I’ll never meet you there at night,” she said firmly. “My mother does not treat me right, but I shall not do that[Pg 329] when she is asleep. You may come to see me here once in awhile if you wish.”

“Well, I shall sit alone in the arbor,” he returned, with a low laugh, “and I hope your hard heart will keep you awake.”

She opened the front door, which was never locked, and went into her room on the right of the little hall. The night was very still, and down the road she heard Floyd’s whippoorwill call growing fainter and fainter as he strode away. She found a match and lighted the lamp on her bureau, and looked at her reflection in the little oval-shaped mirror. Instinctively she shuddered and brushed her lips with her hand as she remembered his embrace.

“He’ll despise me,” she muttered. “He’ll think I am weak like all the rest, but I am not. I am not! I’ll show him that he can’t—and yet”—her head sank to her hands, which were folded on the top of the bureau—“I couldn’t help it. My God, I couldn’t help it! I must have wanted—no, I didn’t. I didn’t!”

There was a soft step in the hall. The door of her room creaked like the low scream of a cat. A figure in white stood on the threshold. It was Mrs. Porter in her nightdress, her feet bare, her iron-gray half-twisted hair hanging upon her shoulders.

“I couldn’t go to sleep, Cynthia,” she said, “till I knew you were safe at home.”

“Well, I’m here all right, mother; so go back to bed, and don’t catch your death of cold.”

The old woman moved across the room to Cynthia’s bed and sat down on it. “I heard you coming down the road and went to the front window. I had sent Brother Hillhouse for you, but it was Nelson Floyd who brought you home. Didn’t Brother Hillhouse get there before you left?”

“Yes, but I had already promised Mr. Floyd.”

The old woman met her daughter’s glance steadily. “I suppose all I’ll do or say won’t amount to anything. Cynthia, you know what I’m afraid of.”

Cynthia stood straight, her face set and white, her great dreamy eyes flashing.

“Yes, and that’s the insult of it, mother. I tell you, you will drive me too far. A girl at a certain time of her life wants a mother’s love and sympathy; she doesn’t want threats, fears and disgraceful suspicions.”

Mrs. Porter covered her face with her bony hands and groaned aloud.

“You are confessing,” she said, “that you are tied an’ bound to him by the heart, and that there isn’t anything left for you but the crumbs he lets fall from his profligate table.”

“Stop!” Cynthia sprang to her mother and laid her small hand heavily on the thin shoulder. “Stop! You know you are telling a deliberate—” She paused, turned and went slowly back to the bureau. “God forgive me! God help me remember my duty to you as my mother. You’re old; you’re out of your head!”

“There, you said something.” The old woman had drawn herself erect and sat staring at her daughter, her hands on her sharp knees. “You know my sister Martha got to worryin’ when she was along about my age over her lawsuit matters, and kept it up till her brain gave way. Folks always said she and I were alike. Dr. Strong has told me time after time to guard against worry, or I’d go out and kill myself as she did. I haven’t mentioned this before, but I will now. I can’t keep down my fears and suspicions while the very air is full of that man’s doings. He’s a devil. Your pretty face has caught his fancy, and your holding him off, so far, has made him determined to crush you like a plucked flower. Why don’t he go to the Duncans, and the Prices, and lay his plans? Because the men of those families shoot at the drop of the hat. He knows your pa is not of that stamp, and that you haven’t any men kin to defend our honor. He hasn’t any of his own; nobody knows who or what he is.”

[Pg 330]

“Mother!” Cynthia’s tone had softened. Her face was filling with sudden pity for the quivering creature on the bed. “Mother, will you not have confidence in me? If I promise you faithfully to take care of myself with him, and make him understand what and who I am, won’t that satisfy you? Even men with bad reputations have a good side to their natures, and they often reach a point at which they reform. I well know there are strong women and weak women. Mother, I’m not a weak woman. As God is my judge, I’m able to take care of myself. It pains me to say this, for you ought to know it; you ought to feel it, see it in my eye and hear it in my voice. Now, go to bed and sleep. I’m really afraid you may lose your mind, since you told me about Aunt Martha.”

The face of the old woman changed; it lighted up with hope.

“Somehow, I believe what you say,” she said, with a faint smile. “Anyway, I’ll try not to worry any more.” She rose and went to the door. “Yes, I’ll try not to worry any more,” she repeated. “It may all come out right.”

When she found herself alone Cynthia turned and looked at her reflection in the glass.

“He didn’t once tell me in so many words that he loved me,” she said. “He has never used that word. He has never said that he wanted to mar—” She broke off, staring into the depths of her own great, troubled eyes. “And yet I let him kiss me—me!” A hot flush filled her neck and face and spread to the roots of her hair. Then suddenly she blew out the light and crept to her bed.

(To be continued.)

BY JOHN H. GIRDNER, M.D.

EVER since we have had a record of the human race it has been divided into two parties, the conservative and the radical. These two parties have ever battled with each other for possession of the world. Strictly speaking, all history—sacred and profane—is nothing else than a record of this world-old struggle.

“That which is, was made by God,” cries the conservative.

“God is leaving that and is entering this other,” replies the radical.

These have been the battle-cries of mankind all down the ages. The conservative has always been the stand-patter. He has been always on the defensive, explaining, apologizing, opposing and pleading that change would result in deterioration. The conservative must bear the vice, the sins and crimes of the society of his time, and, bending under the load, piteously pleads for delay, for compromise. He preaches the pusillanimous doctrine of “let us bear the evils we already have rather than fly to those we know not of.” Conservatism never made an invention, wrote a poem, painted a picture nor breathed a prayer that rose above the roof.

Pharaoh, King of Egypt, was a conservative. He stood pat on keeping the Hebrew nation in slavery, against the radicalism of Moses. The Roman empire was conservative. It stood pat on its pagan worship, against the radicalism of the new religion. The scientific world stood pat on the then accepted doctrine that the “sun do move,” against the radicalism of Galileo that it is the earth that does the[Pg 331] moving. King George was a conservative. He stood pat on America’s remaining a British colony, against the radicalism of Washington and the Continental Congress. The French King, Louis XVI, was a conservative, and stood pat against the radicalism of the people of France when they demanded liberty and bread. The Czar of Russia and his titled aristocracy are conservatives. They are standing pat against progress, enlightenment and justice among the masses of the people of that unhappy country. But it is about the conservatives of our own country that I want to write. I want to say a word about our own stand-patters.

Webster’s Dictionary says that a conservative is, “One who desires to maintain existing institutions and customs.” A conservative in the United States today, then, is a man who wants the Beef Trust to continue to force the farmer to accept its price for his cattle, and the consumer to pay its price for dressed beef. A conservative is a man who wants the railroads to continue giving rebates to favored shippers, and to hold them from unfavored shippers. A conservative is a man who wants the United States Senate to continue to be composed of men who do not represent the masses of the people of their respective states, but who represent the corporations. For instance, a conservative in New York State is a man who wants Chauncey M. Depew and Thomas C. Platt to continue in the United States Senate.

Depew represents the Vanderbilt system of railroads, while Platt represents the United States Express Company. The two will oppose any legislation which interferes with the income of their corporations, never mind what the people of the state or nation want. The people have for years wanted a parcels post in this country. England and other countries have it, but we cannot. Why? Because Platt is in the Senate, and also in the parcel-carrying business. You, Mr. Conservative, put him in the Senate and you keep him there.

We have what is called a protective tariff in this country. It is a law which, in the name of protecting the workingman, robs him and every other consumer. If you are a conservative, you are in favor of maintaining this law.

The tariff schedule was drawn up by a committee of Congress behind closed doors. That is, the doors were closed on those who have to pay the tariff, but open to those who were to be benefited by it. The committee sent for the manufacturers of the various necessary articles which people use, and asked them how much of a tax they wanted on similar articles made abroad. And the manufacturers wrote these schedules for the committee, and they were adopted. Notice, the consumers, the people who have to pay the tariff, were not invited to appear before this committee. Only the manufacturers, who are the beneficiaries, were taken into counsel.

If you are a conservative—that is, if you are a stand-patter, you are in favor of continuing and “maintaining” this “mother of trusts.”

Sometimes laboring-men become dissatisfied with their wages, or the number of hours they are made to work, and they exercise their God-given right to cease work, or go on strike. Then the corporations rush to the courts and secure injunctions, restraining the strikers from doing all sorts of things. In some instances these injunctions are obtained and served on the strikers before any of the acts from which the injunctions restrain them have been committed or attempted. Special deputy sheriffs and Pinkerton men are hurried to the scene of the strike. The state militia is ordered out, and in one instance Federal troops were sent to Chicago. At Homestead the hired deputy-sheriff-Cossacks shot down peaceable workmen, just as real Cossacks shot down the peaceable workmen who marched with Father Gapon in the streets of St. Petersburg recently—and for no better reason. Martial law has been declared, court-martial has been substituted for trial[Pg 332] by jury. The right of habeas corpus has been suspended. Members of labor unions have been thrown into prison without trial; others have been torn from their homes and deported to other states without process of law, and bull pens established for guarding prisoners. These things have been happening in the United States for years. In each instance it was claimed that such arbitrary measures were necessary to preserve order, keep the peace, protect the property of the corporations, and to enforce the injunctions issued by the courts—when these injunctions were directed against the laboring or producing class. Now see how differently things work when a corporation is at the dangerous end of an injunction gun.

The United States Federal Court, through Judge Grosscup, of Chicago, issued on February 18, 1903, an injunction restraining the Beef Trust from continuing to do certain things. The Beef Trust paid no attention to this injunction. It went right on doing these same things, just as if Judge Grosscup had not issued his injunction. It went right on despoiling the bank accounts of the consumers of beef and the raisers of cattle. No special deputy sheriffs were sworn in, no state militia was ordered out, no Federal troops were sent to Chicago or anywhere else to enforce obedience to this injunction. Armour, Swift and Morris, the men said to be at the head of the Beef Trust, were not arrested. No bull pen was established. Nobody was deported.

This is the existing custom of enforcing and not enforcing Federal Court injunctions. Now if you are a conservative, you are, according to Webster, one who desires to “maintain” this custom.

At the present time the lighting corporation, the railroad corporation, the telephone corporation and the city or municipal corporation are all exploiting the people of New York City as they have never been exploited before.

Never in the history of New York have its public servants been so absolutely and completely owned by so-called public service corporations as at present. These corporations have literally taken over the people’s municipal corporation, merged it with their own and impressed their management upon it. For instance, Dr. Darlington, President of the Health Department, goes to Washington to urge Congress to pass a law to destroy dirty money, because it is a means of conveying disease germs. But he does not destroy or clean the filthy disease-bearing car straps in New York. Why? Because August Belmont and H. H. Vreeland won’t let him. Darlington is in the position of the Irishman who would free Ireland but for the police. The people want the signs, slot machines, etc., put out of their Subway stations, but they can’t get it done. Why? Because the Interborough Corporation is stronger than the municipal corporation. The people’s public servants in New York City have become the servants of the public service corporations.

It does seem that even men who call themselves conservatives in New York would rise up next fall and stamp the life out of this condition.

[Pg 333]

BY ELIZABETH BAILEY TRAYLOR

THESE names are live wires in the lands of the Scotch heather and the English rose, and equally so here by the red hearts of the watermelons and the snow showers of the cotton-fields of the Southern States. One often hears it said of those devoted brotherhoods—the Burns Clubs and the Scotch Societies—“Their Bible is Robbie Burns.” Frank Stanton has a large hearing when he sings:

To a large coterie of kindred spirits the name of Byron evokes a pageant of ideas pulsating with life’s strongest emotions. It is told of a pleasure club that they recently abandoned the books of the day and read the poet exhaustively and with great enthusiasm—no slight tribute to his genius in a time of unremitting demand for that which is palpitant with the breath of today’s life. A learned minister from his pulpit says: “‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ is a marvel of diction and technique, and no divine has approached the narrative in its exact correspondence to Holy Writ.”

A bare sketch of these two philosophers may suggest to book-lovers in general the particular period of the culture-epochs dominating each career, and discover some of the forces of heredity and environment which produced these characters, vibrant with full, fresh, free life, or reveal to readers equipped by psychical research for judgment how it was that these natures furnished the battleground for so fierce a conflict of good and evil forces.

According to Carlyle, the father of Burns was a “man of thoughtful, intense character, possessing some knowledge and open-minded for more, of keen insight and devout heart, friendly and fearless; a fully unfolded man seldom found in any rank of society.” Of his ancestry we know nothing. The father of Byron was an Englishman, from a line of illustrious ancestors reaching back to the days of William the Conqueror.

The mother of Burns, devout of heart and calm of mind, brightened the lives of her children with the ballads of her beloved Scotland. The mother of Byron would smother him with kisses one moment, and the next call him a lame brat.

Both poets spent their early youth in Scotland, where the record of their school days is still preserved in their respective parishes. Burns read with equal avidity Taylor’s devotional works, Locke, Pope, Milton, Thomson and Young. He never minded work, if knowledge was the reward. Byron was devoted to the reading of history and poetry, and was at the head of many college rows. When, in conformity to the custom of the school, the order was so inverted as to make the boy of highest rank change places with the lowest, the teacher would call out to Byron: “Now, George, let us see how quick you will be foot again.”

Each had a favorite family servant. Byron wrote often to his old nurse of his triumphs in London. Burns says many of his songs were inspired by an old servant, Jenny Wilson, as she repeated her endless collection of songs[Pg 334] and stories of devils, ghosts, fairies, witches, warlocks, kelpies, elf-candles and enchanted dragons.

Lady Blessington wrote of Byron’s appearance: “He is not tall, as I had fancied him. His appearance is, however, highly prepossessing; his head is finely shaped and the forehead open, high and noble, his eyes are gray and full of expression, his mouth is the most remarkable feature, the upper lip of Grecian shortness and the corners descending, the lips full and finely cut. In speaking, he shows his teeth very much, and they are white and even, but I observed that even in his smile—he smiles frequently—there is something of a scornful expression that is evidently natural. His countenance is full of expression and changes with the subject of conversation; it gains on the beholder the more it is seen, and leaves an agreeable impression. His voice and accent are peculiarly agreeable, clear, harmonious and so distinct that, though his general tone in speaking is rather low than high, not a word is lost.”

Burns, tall, well formed and graceful, was always a charming presence. The beautiful and all-accomplished Duchess of Gordon said that Burns was the most fascinating guest she ever saw entertained.

Speaking of the portrait by Alexander Nasmyth, Sir Walter Scott says: “This is the best likeness of Burns, but his features, as I remember them, were still more massive and imposing than they are represented in this picture. There was a strong expression of shrewdness in his lineaments, the eyes alone indicating the poetic character and temperament. They were large and dark and literally glowed when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such eyes in any other head.”

Attired always in the tip of the fashion, Byron was a drawing-room dude in the smart set of London. The dress of Burns was coarse and homely, made from his own sheep, carded by his own fire. His plaid was red and white, woven with great pride by his mother and sister. His home and the homes of his friends, were low-thatched cottages, consisting of kitchen and bedrooms, with floors of kneaded clay.

If the former set a fashion for collars which lasts to this good day, the latter has left us the Tam-o’-Shanter hat.

Burns was essentially musical, having begun his career by setting music to the verses of another.

Byron, in a luxurious salon, wooed and won a woman of fashion. Burns gives this account of his courtship with Highland Mary,

“We plighted our troth on the Sabbath to make it more sacred, seated by a running brook, that Nature might be a witness, over an open Bible, to show we remembered God in the compact.”

After a second edition of “Poems by an Ayrshire Plowman,” Burns spent the winter in Edinburgh, where he was the lion of the elegant coteries of the city.

Lords, ladies, men of letters, all with manners highly polished by attrition, found in him a barbarian who was not barbarous. As the poet met in at least one lord feelings as natural as those of a plowman, so they met in a plowman manners worthy of a lord.

Dugald Stewart writes: “His manner was easy and unperplexed; his address was perfectly well-bred and elegant in its simplicity; he felt neither eclipsed by the titled nor embarrassed before the learned and eloquent, but took his station with the ease of one born to it.”

Each poet had a brief political career. As exciseman for several years it was necessary for Burns to ride over two hundred miles per week, thus coming constantly in contact with the people. In this public service he made a record for being thorough, correct and at the same time humane.

Byron made as serious an effort in politics as was possible to his impetuous and headlong nature. After many hindrances he was granted a seat in the House of Lords. He traveled awhile, and, returning, made two or three[Pg 335] speeches before the House. Between times he would correct the proof-sheets of “Childe Harold.” The publication of this poem put an end to his parliamentary ambitions. “When ‘Childe Harold’ was published,” he says, “no one ever afterward thought of my prose, nor indeed did I.” However, he also says, “I would not for the world be like my hero.”

Each spent much time alone with Nature, drinking from the exhaustless fountain of her varied life. Each loved her most in her wildest, fiercest moods. Power—they loved it, worshiped it; they felt it in them and all around them. It was the necessary food for their strenuous, tempest-tossed souls. Burns loved to walk on the sheltered side of a forest and listen to a storm rave among the trees. Better still, he loved to ascend some eminence and stride along its summit amid the flashes of the lightning and howls of the tempest: “Rapt in enthusiasm, I seemed to ascend to Him who walks on the wings of the wind.” Byron

spoke to him best through Nature’s most stupendous form, the turbulent, merciless ocean.

Byron reveled in the glories of more climes; Burns saw the marvels of more kingdoms, for he understood the language of the daisy and the mouse. The self-negating love, the exultant pride the Peasant Poet felt for his own bonnie Scotland, the English Peer lavished upon a foreign land. Burns said if he ever reached heaven, he would ask nothing better than just a Highland welcome.

Burns, in his innate appreciation of the dignity of humanity, is something of a Siegfried, with the fearless spirit of the forest vocal with the song of birds, the aroma of blossoming shrubs, the play of the waterfall and the restful stretch of meadows with their daisies and heather.

Byron, in the desolation of his youth, in his extremes of laughter and tears, in his yearning for sympathy, in his broodings over the mysteries of life, played the character of Hamlet with the world for a stage, leaving a kindred problem for the wonder of mankind.

Many of Byron’s shorter poems are from Bible stories and characters, and it is wonderful how his brilliant genius caught and reproduced both spirit and story. Burns gives us his thought of a religious life in that sweetest pastoral poem in all literature, “The Cotter’s Saturday Night.”

In the last few months of his life he did much to reproduce it in his own life, holding family prayer with such earnestness as to bring his hearers to tears over the penitence for sins and hope in the mercy of God.

In these poets the perceptive faculties roamed at will over a wide field of human activities, and voiced their impressions with a witchery of language which has hardly a parallel. The work of both men was revolutionizing in its effects. Burns found his countrymen in bondage to the fear of wraiths, hobgoblins and kindred spirits, and he was a mighty power in their deliverance. Taine estimates that he was as great a force in Scotland as the Revolution in France.

Byron is believed largely to have influenced the revolutionary movement in Germany. He gave a direct stimulus to the liberators of Italy, and ended his life in a heroic struggle for the liberties of Greece.

If Byron’s literary work is more resplendent and daring, Burns’s seems fresher from the varied living forces about us. If Byron’s is a circlet of sapphires, Burns’s is that same circlet transmuted by the alchemy of human sympathy to a wreath of never-fading violets.

When we remember that these colossal figures passed off the stage of life after thirty-seven short years, when we get a suggestion of the difficult circumstances and terrible temptations that encompassed their stormy young lives, we may well leave their failings to God, who alone is their moral Judge. It may be His compassion for them is commensurate with the powers with which He endowed them.

[Pg 336]

BY CAPTAIN W. E. P. FRENCH, U.S.A.

MY wife brought me the case and the client, and, strict candor compels me to say, I was not particularly grateful for either. The case was a curiously involved combination of an over-indulgent, invalid mother; a shrewd, selfish and unscrupulous son; a trained nurse, rather worse than she should have been; a cleverly drawn but very unjust will; an exceedingly large estate mostly in investment securities; a husband-deserted daughter with two small children and “an annual income of nothing to keep ’em on”; a witness who would undoubtedly be “agin the government,” and one other person whose testimony might, or might not, be favorable to the prosecution, but who had apparently vanished bodily from the face of the earth. The client was a pretty, gentle little creature, crushed under a load of trouble much too big for her, quite pathetic in her helplessness, and shrinking and rather indifferent about her own claims, but with an almost fierce mother-instinct over the rights of her babies.

How the partner of my joys and sorrows discovered these wronged mites of humanity is immaterial—she has a keen scent for injustice or oppression of any kind—but she rounded them up, brought them to my office, and said I was to take the case. I never appeal from the decision of my supreme court, so I said, “Certainly.”

First she took me aside and gave me an ex parte and rather highly colored statement of the facts in the affair, explaining that her protégée was diffident and reticent, unless stirred up about the children, and perorating with the remark, “You will find, John, that my meek-looking lamb is quite a ferocious animal when roused.” Then she went over to the other woman, kissed her, gave the boy a pile of my cherished law-books to use as building-blocks, took the tiny girl on her lap, hitched her chair a bit closer to the mother and said, “Now, my dear, you tell John everything, just as you told it to me, and he will fix it all up for you.”

A tolerable portion of my fairly large practice has consisted, and, I fancy, will continue to consist, of charity cases brought to me by my wife. They have, of course, seldom or never been profitable; they have cost time, work, worry and money, have occasionally been paid in the base coin of ingratitude, and without them we should have had a much larger bank account. But the warmest-hearted and most generous woman I have ever known likes me to help those she thinks are wronged, and it is little enough for me to do for her dear sake.

My small, scared client attracted me from the first, and my dusty legal heart ached over her sad story. Her mother had never cared much for her and had lavished love and money on her brother. She had married unfortunately, while scarcely more than a child. The estrangement with her mother had increased, and her brother had craftily widened the breach. This last fact I had much trouble to elicit, and wormed it out of her piecemeal.

After three years of neglect and ill-treatment, her husband had deserted her and run away with another woman—incidentally, her best friend—leaving her almost destitute. When she recovered from an attack of brain[Pg 337] fever she found a letter from her brother awaiting her, in which he announced the death of their mother, his marriage to the trained nurse who had taken care of the mother in her last illness, and their exodus to Europe. He inclosed a copy of the will, which left everything unreservedly to him, and said that his attorney would communicate with her. The man-of-the-law came in person, and stated that he was empowered to pay her a hundred dollars a month, so long as she did not attempt litigation.

The will was witnessed by the doctor and the trained nurse, and the doctor was, to all intents, beyond discovery.

It was, on its face, a probable case of undue influence and, perhaps, mental aberration. But how prove either, without the doubly expert testimony of the missing physician, who, it appeared, was the only person, except the son and the nurse, that had seen the invalid during the last year of her life?

It was a significant fact that the daughter’s name was not mentioned in the instrument; and I suspected collusion on the part of the medical gentleman with the beneficiary and the woman who would share the profits of the criminal enterprise. My poor little client had seen the doctor once only when she was vainly endeavoring to gain access to her mother, and described him as a very fine-looking man on the sunny slope of forty, with wavy blond hair and pointed beard, a suave and kindly manner, a charming voice and singularly handsome hands.

The bill of items would have fitted tolerably a dozen men of my acquaintance, and I said as much, asking her, as an afterthought, how she came to notice his hands. Someone has said that the gist of a woman’s letter is in the postscript, and the large majority of women that have employed me as counsel have invariably reserved the leading and important facts of their cases until the last. This client was no exception to the rule; but when the dramatic little body had finished personating the missing man, I would have known him as far as I could see him among ten thousand, unless he were asleep or quite still; for she had cleverly imitated a man whose restless hands were ever in motion as he talked, and who glanced at them with covert satisfaction every few seconds. This singular trick, the descriptive factors in his personal equation, and the name he had signed—which, she assured me, was undoubtedly his own—as witness to the signature of the testatrix were about all the additional information I could extract from her, except that she had refused her brother’s proposition and was ready to fight to the bitter end for her children’s rights, though she had to beg or steal the money to pay court and counsel.

I waived retainer and took the case on contingent fee, which, after the little grass widow had left, I told my wife, in gentle irony, I would divide with her; but that she must not squander it on yachts and four-in-hands, because these big paying cases are pretty rare—fortunately.

That good woman received my ironic suggestion with her usual placidity, and said: “Very well, my dear; I shall certainly hold you to your promise of division, and I have a premonition that we shall win the suit. Mark my words! I don’t want a yacht, but I shall buy that lovely Goldsborough place and spend my declining years looking at the river-view from that glorious, wide piazza.”

I had not the slightest hope of success, for even if the witness could be found, I had no doubt that he was a scamp and in the brother’s pay.

A letter to a friend and fellow-attorney in the city where the mother had died brought this reply: The man I wanted to find had been a general practitioner there for some years; he had had a very large practice and the liking and respect of the community; but both had fallen away from him from two very odd causes; one, that he had suddenly become exceedingly untrustworthy and unreliable, in fact, a phenomenal and[Pg 338] outrageous liar; and the other, that he had unaccountably taken to the habitual wearing on every possible or impossible occasion, professional or social, of white kid gloves or long white gauntlets, bringing these ghostly hands to the bedside of patients, or hovering with them over the operating-table. It began to be noised abroad that Dr. Bently, which was his name, was unsound in his mind, was suffering from some dreadful, contagious disease which had broken out in his hands, and that the truth was not in him. My informant added that shortly after the death of Mrs. Johnstone, my small client’s mother, the doctor had taken himself, his gauntlets and his marvelous mendacity to New York, but that his present whereabouts were unknown to the writer.

The detective agency in New York, of which I next inquired, sent me word that there was no such name as Bernard Brice Bently in the directory or in any way on record as a physician or surgeon in that city. All this took time, and, meanwhile, I had advertised vainly in prominent papers all over the country and had had an agent interview many of the doctor’s old acquaintances. The man had disappeared, and within a very narrow limit of time the will would be admitted to probate.

Just at this time another legal matter required my presence in New York, and, when I reached there, the engrossing nature of my business drove most other matters out of my head. After several days of close and confining work, I finished taking the depositions I needed, and purposed to return home that evening. It occurred to me that a pleasant way of spending my remaining hours in town would be to take a stroll through Central Park, which I had not seen in years—not, in fact, since I had been a student in Columbia Law School.

I walked from the Fifty-ninth Street entrance as far as the Museum, which is about opposite Eighty-second Street, and had sat down to rest near the obelisk. It was a magnificent late spring day, and I was lazily enjoying the beauty of the place and watching the passing show, when a man on the next bench attracted my attention by springing to his feet and gazing eagerly and fiercely beyond me and up the drive. If ever ferocious desire and intent to kill were written on a human face it was on his.

Instinctively I glanced in the direction he was looking and saw a steam runabout, with one man in it, approaching smoothly and not very rapidly. I turned back instantly and sprang at the would-be assassin, whose pistol was out and pointed, but I was too late. There was a flash and a report, and I could see the hammer of the self-cocker rising for a second shot, when I struck him a left-hander. I do not often have occasion to hit a man, but when I do he usually falls. As he went down the weapon spoke again, but I knew that that bullet went wide. The fellow was game, though, and determined, for his back had scarcely touched the ground before he rolled on his side and fired twice at the man in the locomobile. The fifth chamber of the revolver he let me have, as I flung myself down on him, and the subsequent proceedings were blank, the ball having grazed my temple and stunned me.

When I came to I was lying on a leather couch in a very handsomely appointed doctor’s office. My head was bound up, and I was a bit sick and dizzy. I suppose I had half swooned again, when I was roused by a soft touch on my wrist, and looking down I saw the most beautiful and the whitest man’s hand I have ever seen. But, white as it was, the fine, filbert-shaped nails were whiter still. They were absolutely milky, and the half-moons had the ghostly whiteness and lustre of pearls. I was both startled and fascinated. Surely no living flesh was ever that color, and no human being with blood in him ever had such nails. Was it the hand of a corpse? No, it was warm, and, as I looked, the fingers bent and sought my pulse. A deep, musical voice broke the silence:

[Pg 339]

“Ah, we are all right now, thank God! How do you feel, friend? Drink this.” The speaker, holding a tumbler, came in front of me, and I saw a handsome man with clean-shaven face, black, wavy hair and beautiful but rather wild-looking eyes.

“Thank you,” I said as I took the glass and obediently drained it; “I feel somewhat as though I had been trifling with a steam-hammer. But I shall be all right presently.”

“Of course you will,” he assured me heartily. “You were struck a glancing blow on the head by the bullet of that poor, half-crazed Pole, who, the police say, thought I was a Russian duke. The only ill consequence of your noble act will be an honorable scar, to remind you how gallantly you risked your life to save a total stranger’s. My dear friend—if you will allow a friendless man to call you so”—here the charming voice grew as sweet and vibrant as an organ note—“it was the bravest and most generous act I ever knew. I cannot thank you adequately, but I hope it may be given me to serve you some time, and should you ever need a friend’s purse, his hand or his life, mine are yours.”

I endeavored to deprecate the value of my interference and to moderate his expressions of gratitude; but he would have none of it, and, leaping to his feet, began to pace to and fro, expatiating upon what he extravagantly termed my bravery and unselfishness, and insisting upon his tremendous obligation to me. He was manifestly in earnest; but all at once habit asserted itself, the ruling passion came to the fore, and a trifle “light as air” made “confirmation strong as proof of Holy Writ.” When he first began to move a memory flashed over me, but, as those beautiful, restless white hands added their evidence, assurance became doubly sure. I could see my demure, pretty little client impersonating this man, and I knew, despite the dyed hair and the shaven beard, that I had found the missing witness. But I had found something else. I had found a man suffering from a chronic dementia. Whether his derangement was general or merely monomania, I was at a loss to determine. If the former, he was not competent as a witness for either side. If the latter, the special form and degree of alienation might or might not militate against his testimony.

I was impelled to take him unawares, and so I said suddenly: “Dr. Bently, do you remember Mrs. Abbott, the daughter of your former patient, Mrs. Johnstone, of Laneville?”

If he started or showed surprise or annoyance, it was imperceptible; but he glanced with smiling complaisance at his nails as he came over to me, and, touching my forehead, remarked, with most irritating suavity: “My dear fellow, I fear you are feverish. My name is Charles Chester Chickering. I never was in Laneville, I never had a patient named Johnstone, and I have no recollection whatever of anyone by the name of Abbott.”

He looked straight at me as he uttered these falsehoods, and his tone was like velvet. There was the flicker of an amused smile on his mouth, but his eyes were hard and cold as blued steel, the contracted pupils shining like black pinheads. I stared back at him, and presently he shifted his gaze from my face to his own right hand, which he was holding out in front of him, and again that abominable, self-satisfied smirk appeared. I was filled with boundless contempt for this man I had almost begun to pity, and as I rose from the couch and began to speak I could fairly taste the bitterness of the words I flung at him:

“Dr. or Mr. Bernard Brice Bently, Charles Chester Chickering—or whatever your infernal, alliterative alias may be—I deeply regret that I should have saved you from the death I have no doubt you richly deserved, and I earnestly hope that you may be punished for your crime of helping to ruin a poor little woman and two innocent children. And, by the living God! I will do all in my power to bring you to——”

He interrupted me eagerly, wonderingly, protestingly. “What is that[Pg 340] you say? Mrs. Abbott and her children living? Why, that scoundrel Johnstone and that she-devil of a nurse swore to Mrs. Johnstone and me that all three of them were dead and buried!”

Hope came to life again in my heart. It was a mistake, after all, and this man could and would rectify it. He had been deceived and had witnessed the document in good faith. I had commenced an apology when he uttered a violent exclamation, and, holding the backs of his hands in front of his face, scrutinized his nails with rapt intensity.

His very lips grew livid, the eyes he turned on me were those of a madman, and, snarling like a wolf, he screamed: “See what you have done! Look at my nails!” and thrust his pallid fingers forward for my inspection.

On the polished, snowy surface of every nail was a bright pink fleck or spot of about the bigness and shape of a ladybug; but I was barely conscious of these rosy marks on the intense whiteness of the uncanny things, for I suppose the smart rap of that pistol bullet and this man’s extraordinary sayings and doings had upset my fairly choleric temper, and I was literally beside myself with uncontrollable rage and indignation.

“Damn you and your dead nails!” I shouted back at him. “You cowardly liar and thief, you are Johnstone’s accomplice, and I will tear the truth out of you if I have to kill you to do it.”

We were glaring at each other like wild beasts, and, before the words were fairly out of my mouth, we sprang forward, our hands clutching hungrily at each other’s throats in the fierce desire to strangle which comes to men and the other brutes that slay when anger and hate have reached the last and deadly stage. An undercut would have driven him back, but I wanted his windpipe and he wanted mine, and each of us was sick to have the other at close quarters, so a blow would not have been fair play. We were well matched. I was sure of that as we grappled. We swayed and strained, and I could feel the blood running down my face when my wound reopened; but the end came quickly, and, as we crashed to the floor, he was underneath, and my hands flew up eagerly and clenched under his chin. Ah! the savage joy of it!

But why did he not struggle? What trick was this? Good God, had the fall killed him? How white he was! And he had been crimson a second ago. The revulsion of feeling turned me sick. Was I a murderer? I let go my hold, leaped to my feet and threw a pitcher of ice water on his head and face. He gasped, opened his eyes and regarded me calmly and quietly. Was it only a moment ago that those calm, sad eyes had been narrow rims of blue around intensely black, distended pupils that had in them the dull red glare of blood-lust? Now they were soft and human, and the light of sanity was in them.

“My friend,” he said gently—what a superb voice he had, and how the deep, rich, mellow tones brushed away anger, hatred and fear—“my friend, I owe you my life twice. First, you saved it; now, you spare it. And I owe you more than life. I owe you my restoration to reason, to perfect sanity. For I have been bitten by a mania so wild, so strange, so improbable that no man save you who have seen it would believe in its existence. ‘Like cures like.’ It came through a fall and a shock. It has been cured through a fall and a shock. You were right. I was a liar. The greatest on earth, I believe, and I gloried in it, and hated to tell a truth lest it should bring a pink spot on my nails. No, don’t lift me up.”

I had attempted to raise him and had blurted out a word or two of shame, sympathy and pity.

“I prefer to lie here while I tell you the story,” he went on. “You have no cause to be ashamed; it was simple self-defense on your part, for I should probably have killed you in my paroxysm. Besides, you do not realize what you have done for me. But I thank you for your kindly sympathy; it is not wasted, believe me. Now, if you will do me a favor, watch my nails, and,[Pg 341] if they become normal, tell me. But, first, put one of those wet compresses on your wound and slip the bandage over it. You will forgive me by and bye for fighting with a guest to whom I owed so much. I was not responsible.”

I hastened to reassure him, and he resumed:

“Before I begin my own weird tale, let me relieve your mind about that poor, wronged, sensitive child, Mrs. Abbott. I will go back with you to Laneville, and we will break that will wide open. There will be no trouble about it. Johnstone is a whelp, his wife is a criminal, and I can put them both behind the bars. That little woman shall be righted, if it takes my entire fortune to do it. Now, listen. A trifle over a year ago, getting out of my phaeton, I fell, struck my head and was out of my mind for some weeks. When I regained health and strength I found that my injury had left me with the most unthinkable hallucination that ever crept into a human brain. Subconsciously, I knew it was a vicious delusion, but I took the same delight in it that a patient partly in the control of delirium sometimes takes in the absurdities he utters.

“You know the little white marks on the nails which, as children, we used to say came from telling lies? Well, my mania was that if I told nothing but lies, lied constantly and consistently, I could turn mine entirely white. I tried and I succeeded. The will, obeying a diseased mind, plays queer pranks. I was partly proud of the result of my experiment, partly ashamed of it. So I took to wearing gloves and gauntlets most of the time. I began to get a reputation as a phenomenal liar. Once I overheard a man say, ‘Dr. Bently says it is so? Then that settles it; it’s a lie that would turn Beelzebub green with envy. Why, I wouldn’t believe the doctor if he swore to anything on seventeen cubic miles of Bibles in the original Hebrew.’

“I could have hugged him with grateful delight. But friends and practice dropped away. People began to look at me askance, and before Mrs. Johnstone died she was about the only patient of our class I had left. The street urchins used to yell at me, ‘Hallo, Ananias! where’s Sapphira?’ and ‘Berny Bently; or, The Hidden Hand.’ So I came here and hid myself in this great city, where no one cares for anything but money and would make much of a rich man if he had claws, hoofs, horns and a tail all white as snow or black as ink.”

While he spoke I had watched his nails closely and curiously, and the pink spots had spread and spread, slowly but surely, until the normal, healthy color had come back to them. I told him, but he never looked at them. Instead, he got up, came over to me, took my two hands in his and said slowly and reverently: “Thank God and you, dear friend, I am cured!” His splendid eyes were filled with tears, and his exquisite voice was solemn and broken with emotion. My own eyes were rather misty, but then they were never much good; and, for a lawyer, I was quite moved. I gave him my friendship then and there, and I have never regretted it.

Two weeks later, starting from my own home, where Mrs. Abbott and Bently had been our most welcome guests, we all went to Laneville, where we met Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone, whom we had summoned back by cable. They made us but little trouble, being cowards as well as scoundrels. Mrs. Abbott, however—good, kindly, generous little soul—was so unfeignedly sorry for her unworthy brother that she wished to let him have the lion’s share of the big property; but we overruled the soft-hearted child-woman and made her take her full share. I had the pleasure, subsequently, of expressing to Mr. Johnstone exactly what I thought of him, and I had considerable difficulty in restraining the doctor from giving him a beating.

Not long after I began divorce proceedings for Mrs. Abbott, but her rascally husband saved her and me the annoyance of going into court by opportunely and thoughtfully dying.

[Pg 342]

My fee was the largest I have ever received from an individual client, and, in some extenuation for accepting such a small fortune, I would like to say that it was fairly forced on me by the grateful little creature I love as though she were my own child.

My wife promptly demanded, and got, her little commission of one-half, and said she was the best drummer of practice and big-paying clients that any lawyer ever had. She is, God bless her! And, by the way, we live in the Goldsborough house, and my dear lady spends a good part of her time on the piazza she bought with her half of my fee.

Oh, yes! I forgot to mention that Mrs. Abbott’s name is now Bently. They call her husband “the good physician” in our town, and his word is as good as any man’s bond. The doctor has lost interest in his hands, but his sweet and devoted little wife admires them extravagantly. They are still very handsome, but brown as berries, and his nails are as pink as yours or mine.

BY WHARTON BARKER

THE cardinal tenets of the People’s Party were declared by the founders of the Republic, established by the War of the Revolution and guaranteed to our people by the Constitution of the United States. So, by proclaiming for rule of justice, liberty and equality of opportunity, not of greed, man was made the master and money the servant. Those who believe in government of, by and for the people, who believe that the people are fitted to govern themselves, capable of discerning that which is good for them and that which is not, must approve the contention the People’s Party makes; must oppose the aggression of concentrated capital; must see the need of immediate independent political action outside and apart from both Republican and Democratic Parties, both dominated by the money cliques.

The money oligarchy, now in control of all lines of finance, transportation, distribution and of most lines of production, works for the profit of the few to the great detriment of the many. These plutocrats control a slavish metropolitan press, in order that the masses of our people may be governed for the benefit of the few.

If this control is to stand, if millions of people are to slave for a few thousand, it is necessary that the many have no direct hand in their own government, that the many delegate to representatives their power, and that such representatives should be influenced so as to become the representatives of the few. The people must have only the semblance of power, the representatives the real power, in order that governing may be carried on for the advantage of the rulers, not of the ruled.

So we have nominating conventions run by political bosses, legislative bodies taking orders from agents of the money cliques, who purchase franchises for railway lines and for other public utilities; election laws that make independent voting almost impossible.

Until we have direct nominations the people will be the willing or unwilling tools of the men who dictate nominations, and they must make choice between the candidates set up for them. For years the Republican[Pg 343] and Democratic politicians who run conventions have been the agents of the money oligarchy that deals in and fattens upon all kinds of public franchises. So the plutocrats make of our Government an instrument for the oppression of the many and the enrichment of the few. In order to promote the governing of our people by the few and for the few, promote legislation that will impoverish and weaken the many but aggrandize the few in riches and power, it is necessary that law-making should be intrusted to representatives; that these representatives should be put more and more out of touch with the people and more in touch with the few; that these representatives should be removed further and further from responsibility to the people; that their doings should be hidden and not subject to review.

So we have demands for extended terms of office; we have opposition to the election of President and senators by popular vote; we have opposition to the selection of Federal judges other than by appointment of the President and Senate; we have, above all, opposition to direct popular voting upon questions of public policy, upon granting public franchises.

The referendum is opposed because it would make all laws passed by legislative bodies subject to review and reversal by a high court, the court of the whole people entering verdict through the ballot-box. There is little outward opposition to the principle of direct legislation. There is much covert opposition from the money oligarchy and much plainer opposition born of ignorance from the body of the people.

Those who oppose direct legislation hold that the people are not fitted to govern themselves, that the few are fitted by divine law to rule, that the many are condemned to be ruled for the benefit of the few by a law equally divine. This is the law of kings; it is not the law of democracy. He who holds it is false to our theory of government, is no better than a monarchist.

Give us direct legislation, such as the initiative and referendum would establish, and there will be an end to sale of franchises by representatives and no laws will be enacted to rob the people of their rights and property. The place to begin with direct voting is in nomination of all candidates for public office—a People’s Party must abolish all delegate conventions for making nominations and platforms; must adopt direct voting for candidates and for declarations of principles; must have voting precinct clubs for party management. The district and subdivision plan of organization adopted by the Cincinnati convention of 1900 is the best plan of organization heretofore proposed, and it should be put into immediate operation unless a better plan can be proposed without delay, for it will insure rule of the people in party management and destroy the power of the political boss who goes into politics for profit.

If the People’s Party will at once declare for a rank-and-file plan of organization and management we will see a rush to arms in all states, for in all the rule of the boss, serving the money oligarchy, is most offensive. The time has come for such a People’s Party; there is no place for a People’s Party run on the lines of the Republican and Democratic Parties.

The day of the hero-led party has passed. The great majority Mr. Roosevelt received is no evidence to the contrary, for more than three million citizens out of seventeen million abstained from voting at the last election. Organization and education of the body of the people must come through voting precinct organizers and educators—of course the printed matter must for economy be prepared and sent out from central offices, from national headquarters, but no proper, no effective distribution of it can be made except by the precinct organizers.

If the people are to win a national victory there must be from three to five honest, able, aggressive, patriotic men in each of the one hundred[Pg 344] thousand voting districts of the country working by day and by night. These men must awaken their immediate neighbors to a lively appreciation of the wrongs they suffer and point out the way to re-establishment of their rights, the way to restoration of justice, liberty and equality of opportunity. When such an army is in the field the people will defeat the money oligarchy, but not before.

At the election of 1904, I repeat, three million citizens refused to vote because they would not stultify themselves by voting for either Roosevelt or Parker, both candidates of the plutocrats. At least two million citizens voted for Roosevelt because they wished to destroy the Democratic Party, a party for years without fixed principles. These five million citizens, together with the eight hundred thousand citizens who voted for Debs, Watson and Swallow, represented the reform and dissatisfied vote of the country—five months since. The action of the Beef Trust, of the Railroad Combination and of allied interests, all in control of twenty men, and the now openly declared purpose of President Roosevelt and Secretary Hay to establish in foreign affairs an American-British alliance, alarm many millions of our citizens as they have not been alarmed before.

A new epoch in our country opens now, for people and plutocrats are in a death struggle. The principle the People’s Party stands for is that man is the master, money the servant. The question—is the People’s Party equal to the duty of the time?—must be answered at once. If it goes into the campaign immediately with a voting precinct organization such as was declared for by the Cincinnati convention of 1900, the answer will be affirmative.

The cardinal tenets of the party of the people are:

1. Brotherhood of man, love, justice, liberty and equality of opportunity.

2. Government by the people—the recognition of the right of the people to rule themselves by establishment of direct legislation, the initiative and the referendum.

3. Honest money—national money, not bank money—that will serve creditor and debtor alike; that will insure stability of prices, thus be an honest measure of value, and thereby encourage honest industry and discourage speculation.

4. Nationalization of railroads and other monopolies that must be public rather than private monopolies.

5. Prevention of overcapitalization of all corporations, of overcharge for services rendered the public by such corporations.

6. Abolition of industrial trusts, those that exist because of tariff protection and those that exist because of freight discriminations whether by rebates, special rates or otherwise.

7. Taxation that will tax every man according to his accumulated wealth—tax property, not man; collect state and municipal taxes by direct tax on the accumulated wealth of society assessed at actual cash value; collect national taxes by a direct tax on the earnings of accumulated wealth, whether large or small. Have only direct taxes, for indirect taxes cover injustice and extravagance.

8. Foreign policy that will keep our country out of all entangling alliances with European and Asiatic countries, and strengthen our economic relations with all American countries that have different soil, climate and products from those of the United States.

These are the demands of the People’s Party, the cardinal principles for which that party contends. They are all simple, easily understood, and must have approval of a great majority of the American people when brought to them for consideration by a party of the rank and file, controlled by the people themselves, not dictated to by the money oligarchy; by a party that stands for the interests of the many, not of the few. I close, as I began, by saying we need organization and education.

[Pg 345]

BY W. S. MORGAN

Hon. Thomas E. Watson,
Thomson, Ga.

MY DEAR SIR—I have your letter containing communications from James R. Branch, Secretary of the American Bankers’ Association, New York City, and Jno. D. Reynolds, President of First National Bank, of Rome, Ga., in which they deny the authenticity of the Panic Bulletin published in my contribution to the March issue of your magazine.

I remember when the Bulletin was first made public I asked a friend, a president of the Citizens’ National Bank, of Fort Scott, Kan., a man with whom I was intimately connected in business for ten or twelve years, if such a circular had been issued. He replied that he had received a number of circulars covering the propositions therein contained, and that likely he had received that one. This incident, and the fact that the Bulletin had been published from time to time for years and I had not seen its authenticity questioned, and furthermore that its suggestions were in line with the events of that date, led me to believe that it was genuine.

However, the authenticity of the circular was not the subject matter of the article which provoked these denials. My indictment of the National Bankers was not merely for issuing the Bulletin, but for doing the things it suggested. Messrs. Branch and Reynolds have ignored the indictment and attacked the witness. But there are other witnesses that can’t be demolished.

After Mr. Cleveland had sent Henry Villard and Don M. Dickinson to Washington, in the winter of 1893, and failed to secure from the Fifty-second Congress the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman law, the National Bankers began to show their hand.

It was seen that no ordinary pressure on Congress would secure the demonetization of silver. It was claimed that the Panic Bulletin was issued March 8, just four days after Cleveland’s second inauguration.

What was the program laid down in the Panic Bulletin?

This was the program laid down by the Bulletin. Did it agree with the action of the National Bankers? We shall see.

On the 11th of April, 1893, Grover Cleveland appointed Conrad C. Jordan to be Assistant Treasurer of the United States.

In this capacity Jordan had control of the Sub-Treasury at New York. The Sub-Treasury is the great business establishment of the Federal Government.[Pg 346] It is one of the associated banks of New York City.

Jordan was a banker, the President of the Western National, of New York City, and was recommended for the position by the New York National Bank Presidents. He was the go-between—the link which connected the National Bankers with Cleveland and the Federal Government.

His nomination was confirmed on the 15th day of April, and on the 20th he was in Washington with his bond and conferring with Cleveland.

From that hour things moved with wonderful rapidity.

Jordan left Washington on the 21st, arrived in New York at 5.30 in the afternoon, went directly to the Chase National Bank, No. 15 Nassau Street, where he met Henry W. Cannon, President of the Chase National Bank, and J. Edward Simmons, President of the Fourth National, two of the most active and influential of those who controlled the associated banks and who constitute the “New York National Bank Ring.”

It must have been an important meeting, for that night Cannon left New York for Washington on a midnight train, arriving in Washington Saturday morning, April 22, and while there had interviews with Grover Cleveland. On the morning of April 22 Jordan was sworn into office, and his first act, official or semi-official, was to arrange for a meeting with certain National Bank Presidents in the afternoon.

I can give you the names of most of the National Bank Presidents who met Jordan that afternoon. The meeting was said to be informal, and its proceedings were carefully guarded. But it was of such importance that Jordan went to Washington on a late evening train to make a report of its proceedings.

It was generally believed at the time, and there is little doubt of its truth, that Jordan was simply given the office to mask his character as confidential agent between Grover Cleveland and the New York National Bank Presidents.

After a conference with Cleveland on Sunday morning, April 23, Jordan and Cannon returned to New York, arriving there late in the evening. Before leaving Washington Jordan wired certain National Bank Presidents to meet him at a private house uptown.

What happened at that meeting we can only surmise. I mention it to show the connection between the National Bank Presidents and Grover Cleveland.

The next morning, April 24, Jordan was at his desk. One of the first things he did was to notify the National Bank Presidents and officers of trusts and other companies to meet him that day at the Sub-Treasury. This also was a dark-lantern meeting, and no one would give out the proceedings. But what followed shortly afterward, and the action taken by those who attended that meeting, justifies the belief that that convention was called for the purpose of arranging a concerted attack upon the national industries, agriculture, commerce, property and social order of the American people—the assault to be directed by the New York National Bank Presidents—as the swiftest and surest means of forcing Congress to repeal the silver law—to give the country Cleveland’s “Object-Lesson.”

Nine National Bank Presidents met John G. Carlisle at the Williams House on April 27, presumably to complete the arrangements for the attack. No doubt Cleveland had approved the conclusions reached on the 24th, and sent Carlisle to sanction them.

Carlisle’s meeting with the Bank Presidents that day was, as you know, a subject of much newspaper comment. The meeting was said to have been one of “effusive cordiality,” and, in view of the events which quickly followed, there is little doubt but what it partook of the nature of “two hearts that beat as one.”

It was there that the National Bankers proposed an issue of bonds. But Carlisle, like a young girl, although keen to marry, intimated that it was “too sudden.”

[Pg 347]

This was the last of the series of meetings between the Government officials and the National Bank Presidents preceding the panic.

Everything was now ready to give the country the “Object-Lesson.”

Within the next forty-eight hours the worst financial calamity that ever befell the people was to break upon them.

At this time there was nothing in the industrial situation to precipitate a panic. Prices had been low for several years, and there was none of the spirit of speculation which usually precedes a panic.

Cleveland himself volunteered to say: “Our unfortunate financial plight is not the result of untoward events, nor of conditions relating to our natural resources, nor is it traceable to any of the afflictions which frequently check national growth and prosperity. With plenteous crops, with abundant promise of remunerative production and manufacture, with unusual invitation to safe investment and with satisfactory assurance to business enterprise, suddenly financial distrust and fear have sprung up on every side.”

Thus the people and all those engaged in industrial and productive enterprises are exonerated.

Who are the guilty persons?

The men who did just what that Panic Bulletin describes.

The bankers who demanded the practical demonetization of silver; who demanded a special session of Congress to secure it; who called in their loans and reduced their circulation; who demanded and secured the issue of bonds, and who now demand the retirement of the greenbacks.

Messrs. Branch and Reynolds and other National Bank advocates may be able to repudiate the Panic Bulletin, but they cannot successfully deny that every feature of the program it contained was carried out in detail by the men who practically control the National Bank system.

Four days after the Williams House meeting at which Secretary Carlisle was present, the New York banks began to call in their loans with brutal vindictiveness.

We are not left to conjecture the effect of such a policy on the New York Exchange. By the 5th of May the strain had become intense. The New York Tribune of May 6, referring to the condition of the market, said: “The enormous losses of the last week, the utter demoralization of the buying power in the market and the practical paralysis of credit, promised a liquidation that, unless stayed, would have swept them all off their feet.”

On May 7 the same paper said: “The effort of the Administration to bring the South and West to a full realization of the inevitable consequences of compulsory purchases of silver bullion has brought distress and perhaps ruin to many innocent persons—but there is no reason to suppose that it will be relaxed.”

Within ten days from the time of the Williams House meeting between Cleveland’s Secretary of the Treasury and the National Bank Presidents the panic had spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and for forty days it continued with unabated fury. On the 9th of May several Western banks were forced to close their doors.

“There is no lack of pressure,” said the New York Tribune on the 22d of May.

On the 6th of June—six weeks after the Williams House meeting—the New York Sun, in its money article, said: “The Presidents of the New York National Banks think that the so-called “Object-Lesson” has been carried far enough. They see nothing to be gained by a further shrinkage of values and unsettling of credits.”

It is useless for me to detail the results of the panic.

From May 9 to 30, inclusive, sixty banks were forced to suspend, and fifty-eight of them were in the doomed section—the South, West and Northwest.

From the time of the Williams House meeting, April 27, to December 30, 1893, a period of eight months, more than fifteen thousand bankruptcies and[Pg 348] suspensions had occurred. Over six hundred banks had been driven to the wall, and the loss to the country in round numbers was seven hundred and fifty millions of dollars.

But the National Bank Presidents had won their fight. They had carried out the program laid down in the Panic Bulletin, an extra session of Congress had been called and the purchasing clause repealed.

That the “Object-Lesson” was intended for the West and South is evidenced by the records. Out of 169 banks failing from March 5 to August 4, five only were in Eastern States, forty-eight in Southern and 151 in Western states—Dunn’s Report.

Dunn’s Report for July 21, 1893, says: “A large proportion of the suspended Colorado banks and mercantile institutions will pay in full and resume business, inability to borrow money on or sell ample collateral alone being the cause of the Denver banks closing their doors.”

No doubt the panic reached proportions not at first intended by the National Bank Presidents and threatened their own financial standing, as Mr. Branch suggests is the case in time of panics. But they had a remedy, no doubt decided upon beforehand. While they refused credit to the Southern and Western banks, they issued Clearing House certificates to the extent of $63,152,000 to themselves, an act which was in violation of the law.

There is so much evidence obtainable to the effect that the National Bankers are guilty of every count in the indictment contained in the Panic Bulletin that a book could be filled with it.

In a speech in the United States Senate August 25, 1893, Senator David B. Hill, referring to the bankers, said: “They inaugurated the policy of refusing loans to the people even upon the best security, and attempted in every way to spread disaster broadcast throughout the land. These disturbers—the promoters of public peril—represented largely the creditor class, the men who desire to appreciate the gold dollar in order to subserve their own selfish interests, men who revel in hard times, men who drive harsh bargains with their fellow-men regardless of financial distress. It is not strange that the present panic has been induced, intensified and protracted by reason of these malign influences. Having contributed much to bring about the present exigency, these men are now unable to control it. They have sown the wind, and we are now all reaping the whirlwind together” (Congressional Record, Vol. XXV, Part I, p. 865).

August 8, 1893, Senator Teller said, in a speech in the United States Senate:

“It is the height of folly that this is a panic caused by distrust of the currency.” On the 29th of the same month the Senator from Colorado, referring to the Williams House meeting of Secretary Carlisle with the New York National Bank Presidents, said: “It is a most remarkable interview; it will go far to support the charges which I am not going to make on my own authority, but which I am going to make upon the authority of others, that this panic is a bankers’ panic, brought by the action of the New York banks, and brought about for distinct purposes, which purposes were practically avowed on the 27th of April. The same things have been reiterated by the financial papers, and the policy is still continued up to the present hour. It had two objects in view. One was to secure from the United States a large issue of bonds, and the other to secure the repeal of the much-abused Sherman law.”

The records show that the bankers accomplished both of these objects. They secured the repeal of the purchasing clause, and afterward the issue of $262,000,000 in bonds.

In the same speech Senator Teller said: “There are many banks in the West, and some that I know of, which shut their doors because they could not draw the money that they had on deposit in New York” (Congressional Record, Vol. XXV, Part I, p. 1022).

[Pg 349]

In its issue of August 20, 1893, the Chicago Inter-Ocean said:

“When the future historian tells the world of the great financial panic of 1893, he will say: ‘In the winter and spring months of that year the New York bankers and financiers sowed the wind, and in the summer months reaped the whirlwind.’

“We know of no arrangement of words that can more graphically describe the action of the New York financiers and the results of that action. Colonel Ingersoll, early in the season of disturbance, properly called this a ‘bankers’ panic.’ Nor are the New York bankers alone to blame. Those of Boston and Philadelphia come in for their share.”

But it is useless for me to continue to pile up testimony to further sustain my contention. Whether the Panic Bulletin is a “canard” or not, its suggestions were carried into effect. The bankers opposed silver, and, for the purpose of having the law providing for its issue repealed, they precipitated the panic and used the methods described in the Bulletin to accomplish their ends. They are opposed to greenbacks, and if necessary will, I have no doubt, precipitate another panic in order to have them retired. And it all goes to show that the control of the currency should be taken out of their hands.

W. S. Morgan.

Hardy, Ark.

BY THEODORE DREISER
Author of “Sister Carrie”

THERE is a cradle within the door of one of the great institutions of New York before which a constantly recurring tragedy is being enacted. It is a plain cradle, quite simply draped in white, but with such a look of cozy comfort about it that one would scarcely suspect it to be a cradle of sorrow.

A little white bed with a neatly turned-back coverlet is made up within it. A long strip of white muslin, tied in a tasteful bow at the top, drapes its rounded sides. About it, but within the precincts of warmth and comfort, of which it is a fort, spreads a chamber of silence—a quiet, solemn, plainly furnished room, the appearance of which emphasizes the peculiarity of the cradle itself.

If the mind were not familiar with the details with which it is so startlingly associated, the question would naturally arise as to what it was doing there—why it should be standing there alone. No one seems to be watching it. It has not the slightest appearance of usefulness, and yet there it stands, day after day, and year after year—a ready prepared cradle and no infant to live in it.

And yet this cradle is the most useful and, in a way, the most inhabited cradle in the world. Day after day, and year after year, it is the recipient of more small wayfaring souls than any other cradle in the world. In it the real children of sorrow are placed, and over it more tears are shed than if it were an open grave.

It is the place where annually 1,200 foundlings are placed, many of them by mothers who are too helpless or too unfortunately environed to be further able to care for their child, and the misery which compels it makes of the little open crib a cradle of tears.

[Pg 350]

The interest of this particular cradle is, that it has been the silent witness of more truly heartbreaking scenes than any other cradle since the world began. For nearly thirty-five years it has stood where it does today, ready-draped, open, while as many thousand mothers have stolen shamefacedly in and, after looking hopelessly about, have laid their helpless offspring within its depths.

For thirty-five years, winter and summer, in the bitterest cold and the most stifling heat, it has seen them come—the poor, the rich; the humble, the proud; the beautiful, the homely—and one by one they have laid their children down and brooded over them, wondering whether it were possible for human love to make so great a sacrifice and yet not die.

And then when the child has been actually sacrificed, when by the simple act of releasing their hold upon it and turning away they have actually allowed it to pass out from their love and tenderness into the world unknown, this silent cradle has seen them smite their hands in anguish and yield to such voiceless tempests of grief as only those know who have loved much and lost all.

The circumstances under which this peculiar charity comes to be a part of the life of the great metropolis need not be rehearsed here. The heartlessness of men, the frailty of women, the brutality of all those who sit in judgment in spite of the fact that they do not wish to be judged themselves, is so old and so commonplace that its repetition is almost a weariness.

Still the tragedy repeats itself, and year after year, and day after day the unlocked door is opened and dethroned virtue enters—the victim of ignorance and passion and affection, and a child is robbed of an honorable home.

BY THOMAS B. FIELDERS

THE only Trust that has the sincere and earnest and unfaltering support of the daily press is the most audacious, the most grasping, the most immoral of all trusts. This is the Racing Trust. There are hundreds of trusts in this country. All corporations that have eliminated or lessened competition to a marked degree are called trusts. It is asserted, commonly, that such combinations are against the laws of the states that form the Union and are in opposition to the Federal Constitution. If the Beef Trust or the Sugar Trust or the Standard Oil Trust have advocates among the daily newspapers of the country, these advocates are not earning their salt, to say nothing of their salaries. The only support they have the courage to give is silence. Yet it has to be proven that these trusts have infringed the law.

In the case of the Racing Trust there is no doubt. There is none to deny that it is an absolute monopoly. It conducts business in open defiance of the law and the Constitution. It has the avarice of a miser, and the impudent shamelessness of a courtezan. All who will help to fill its maw are received with open arms. Lacking morals, it expects none of its patrons. Within its portals the scum of humanity is made as welcome as the cream. It has its rules, but these are without and beyond the law, though, curiously, they are enforced by so-called guardians of the law. The Beef Trust, by its rapacious methods, may make vegetarians; the Racing Trust makes outcasts, who, sometimes, rise to the dignity[Pg 351] of convicts. The Beef Trust shuns advertisement; the Racing Trust welcomes it. Any reputable undertaking must pay heavily for the support of the press; the Racing Trust gets such support in columns per day for a ridiculously small subvention. The press poses as a teacher of morality. In the case of the Racing Trust it plays the part of a panderer without getting the price insisted upon by that unutterable in any other walk of life.

Americans believe that they possess a quality of humor that is far superior to that which bears the hall-mark of any other nationality. ’Tis a comfortable belief, for it enables them to live cheerfully under conditions which would not be tolerated elsewhere. There are several kinds of humorists among us, and of these the men who make inadequate laws, or laws which they know will be broken, and the men who break them and go unpunished are worthy of more and of a different sort of attention than they receive. People growl at the Beef Trust on account of the high prices of beef, though Mr. Garfield, who was instructed by the President to investigate that Trust, has said that its profits are only moderate.

What of the profits of the Racing Trust? Monte Carlo is described invariably as the most delectable gold mine in the world. In ordinary gold mines the vein may be “pinched out”; in Monte Carlo it runs on forever. Games made by gamblers for gamblers are called games of chance. There is little humor in your gambler, else he would recognize the absence of chance. Many thousands have tried to “break the bank” at Monte Carlo. Nobody has succeeded, for while play is conducted there honestly, the games are of the “sure thing” variety, as the percentage is always in favor of the bank. But the shareholders of the Casino at Monte Carlo are satisfied with twenty per cent. per annum on their investment and, sometimes, get less. And let it be remembered that in conducting their business they do not break the law.

The Racing Trust would scorn to accept anything so paltry as twenty per cent. on its investment, yet it is a law-breaker for seven months of the year, on six days of the week, and in the course of time, doubtless, will break it on the seventh day of the week also.

Laws against gambling have existed from time beyond count, just as they have existed against murder and other crimes against public welfare. The Constitution of the state of New York prohibited all kinds of gambling until 1887. In that year the Legislature passed the “Ives Pool bill.” Ives was a member of the Legislature from this city. Except that he piloted this particular bill through a legislature which was paid to adopt it, his name would have been forgotten. The bill called by his name suspended the provisions of the Penal Code relating to gambling at race-tracks. It limited racing between May 15 and October 15. It limited racing upon any track to thirty days. It permitted bookmaking upon the tracks. In return for enormous privileges the racing associations were to pay to the state five per cent. of their gross receipts. The law confined gambling to the tracks, and in order to take full advantage of it, and also, of course, to improve the breed of racing stock, philanthropists of the convict stripe opened tracks where racing was conducted at night as well as by day, in winter as well as in summer. The manner in which racing was conducted became a public scandal. The horse was the principal factor, and, generally, was used as a means to an end. There were, of course, owners and trainers and jockeys who were honest, even under the Ives Pool law, but these were very much in a minority. The “sport” reeked with dishonesty. Horses were “pulled,” trainers and jockeys were “stiffened.” Some of the racing officials not only winked at “crookedness,” but took part in it. Unless the starter of those days had a piece of every “good thing,” it did not “come off” if he could prevent it.[Pg 352] None talked of the improvement “of the breed” except with tongue in cheek. “Jobs” were discussed, after the event, as if they had been meritorious performances. When these were the work of trainers and jockeys the bookmakers were derided; when they were planned and realized by bookmakers the latter were cursed. There was much cursing in those days, as there was much reason for it, but the profanity was not due to the failure of honest, but dishonest effort. Women as well as men were allowed to bet, and the race-tracks were hotbeds of debauchery. The great body of those who were interested in racing was beyond the pale. The refuse of the country camped in New York while the orgy lasted, and so obnoxious did these bandits make themselves that an organized effort was made to induce the constitutional convention which met in 1895 to cleanse the state of the filth which was bred by the Ives Pool law.

This convention appointed a committee, whose duty it was to prepare an address to the people of the state. The address dealt with the work of the convention. The committee called attention to the anti-gambling amendment adopted by the convention in the following language: “The passion for gambling to which the system of lotteries formerly ministered has found fresh opportunity under the so-called Ives Pool bill, and, under color and pretext of betting upon horse races, is working widespread demoralization and ruin among the young and weak throughout the community. We have extended the prohibition against lotteries so as to include pool-selling, bookmaking and other forms of gambling. It is claimed that this provision will array in opposition to the proposed Constitution a great and unscrupulous money power; but we appeal to the virtue and sound judgment of the people to sustain the position which we have taken.”

This address was signed by Messrs. Joseph H. Choate (Ambassador to England), Elihu Root, H. T. Cookinham, Elon R. Brown, Chester B. McLaughlin, Milo M. Acker, Daniel H. McMillan and M. H. Hirschberg.

The anti-gambling amendment, which was adopted by the convention with only four dissenting votes, was as follows:

“The delegates of the People of the state of New York, in convention assembled, do propose as follows:

“Section 10 of Article I of the Constitution is hereby amended so as to read: ‘No law shall be passed abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government or any department thereof; nor shall any divorce be granted otherwise than by judicial proceedings; nor shall any lottery or the sale of lottery tickets, pool-selling, bookmaking or any kind of gambling hereafter be authorized or allowed within this state, and the Legislature shall pass appropriate laws to prevent offenses against any of the provisions of this section.’”

The “great and unscrupulous money power” to which Mr. Choate and his associates alluded was that of the racing associations. Their power was felt in the convention, and some of those who discussed the amendment prior to its adoption claimed that it was offered at the suggestion of one set of gamblers (poolroom keepers) against another set of gamblers (the racing associations). This was true enough. The racing associations were as grasping then as they are now. Their members claimed that the poolroom was a nefarious and demoralizing influence. Why? Because it prevented the racing associations from having a monopoly of the petty as well as the big gamblers’ money—of the cash of those who had not time to go to the races as well as of those who were unable to go. The engines of the law were stoked up and run full tilt against the poolrooms at the behest of the racing associations; therefore, in self-defense, the poolroom keepers were anxious that all gamblers should be placed on the same level; hence the anti-gambling amendment to the Constitution. Mr. Telusky, who offered the amendment as a resolution, said that if any member of the convention[Pg 353] “can name one man in the state of New York that is in the bookmaking business that is not a thief, a blackguard or an ex-convict, I will withdraw my resolution. I say, Mr. President, every bookmaker in the state of New York, no matter where he comes from, is nothing but an ex-convict, a cracksman, a pickpocket, a thief of the lowest character, and these men come here and desire to shut this (amendment) out because the Legislature of a few years ago legalized a certain kind of gambling, and they are trying to protect them.”

Mr. Edward Lauterbach paid his compliments to the racing associations in plain language. “Their nefarious establishments,” he said, “have been erected from Montauk Point to Niagara Falls, and the state treasury has received and distributed to the county fairs a few miserable shekels, which it has reserved as its share of the plunder. Why, for every dollar that the state has received, it has expended ten dollars to support those who have become inmates of its prisons by reason of the weak policy so pursued. You are all familiar with the terrible temptation of this alluring vice. The passion of gambling is pandered to in this fashion in the most insidious manner. Exaggerated accounts of great winnings are presented to the readers of every journal. Tens of thousands of young men and women have been hurled to their ruin through the instrumentality of the state that should have protected them. Gambling has already been made unlawful. If anyone desires to legalize any one branch of gambling by the suggestion of proposed amendment (to the anti-gambling amendment), let us say to him, Never. Let us pass this amendment, so that, once enacted into a law, it may carry out its beneficent purpose and not prove a sham and a deceit. Just as it was as reported let us have this amendment—no subterfuge, no change, no alterations; make no halfway work. Sweep the whole brood together—gamblers, pool-sellers, bookmakers, all the racing fraternity—into oblivion forever. Pass this amendment now, as it is, unaltered and unchanged. True horse fanciers—the Bonners, the Lorillards, the Belmonts, the Keenes and the rest—will thank you for the protection you thus afford to their legitimate pursuit. Only the gambler, who should be a pariah and an outcast, and not the state’s associate, will have cause for regret.”

It was said at the time that the racing associations and the bookmakers had collected a fund of $700,000, and intended to use it in buying enough votes in the convention to defeat the anti-gambling amendment. Who said it? The newspapers. True? Not at all likely. The racing associations were able to raise such a fund, but would have got little assistance from the bookmakers. The latter were an asset of the racing associations and knew it; they must be taken care of. ’Twas said, when Mr. Jerome was at Albany championing the Dowling bill, that the gamblers of New York had contributed $100,000 for the purchase of the Black Horse Cavalry in the Legislature. The press gave Troy as the headquarters of the gamblers’ committee. There was no such committee. The gamblers of New York, including Canfield, who had more at stake than any other gambler, did not contribute a dollar for the purpose of killing the Dowling bill. The latter was passed with surprising ease in Assembly and Senate, and had become a law before the “clever division” had begun to think of the possibility of such a result. This law, in the hands of Mr. Jerome, has proved rather embarrassing to the gambling fraternity, and may give him an opportunity of distinguishing himself in a manner after his own heart before many weeks have passed.

The anti-gambling amendment to the Constitution was ratified by a popular majority of nearly 90,000 votes. Some of the voters believed, doubtless, that it would eliminate betting on race-tracks. These forgot that the amendment was of little worth unless the Legislature made such gambling[Pg 354] an offense and also made a punishment to fit the offense. The Legislature which followed the adoption of the Constitution was “open to reason.” How much money was required to salve its conscience I do not know, but the manner in which it replied to the demand of the popular vote shows that it was dishonest. By the anti-gambling clause of the Constitution it was ordered to “pass appropriate laws to prevent offenses against any of the provisions of this section.” Instead of obeying such mandate it adopted the Percy-Gray law, which makes gambling in poolrooms a felony and gambling on race-tracks a misdemeanor. In other words, if the keeper of a poolroom takes a bet on a horse race he commits a felony and can be sent to jail, for according to the law he has committed a penal offense, whereas if a bookmaker accepts your money on the same race he does not commit a felony and you are at liberty to publish yourself as a poor sort of creature by attempting to recover your money by civil action. Class legislation? It looks like it. But class legislation is unconstitutional. That is the general opinion, but in this particular case many thousands of dollars have been spent in an effort to discover whether or not the present racing law is unconstitutional, and the dollars have been thrown away.

The situation would be amusing did it not demonstrate the power of money. To the average mind it would seem as if the constitutional convention had barred all kinds of gambling, particularly gambling on race-tracks. Yet, under the fostering care of the Racing Trust, the volume of gambling at race-tracks is at least thrice as great today as it was in 1895. Before the convention met the Racing Trust was permitted to do business for five months in the year; now it does business for seven months. Under the Ives Pool law, which was wiped out as vicious, the tracks were limited to thirty days of racing; now the Jockey Club does as it pleases in the matter of dates. Under a law which is, upon its face, unconstitutional because it discriminates, the Racing Commission, a state institution, has the power to issue or refuse licenses. The Racing Commission is under the control of the Jockey Club, and the latter is the ruler of the racing associations. The Jockey Club, of which Mr. August Belmont is the head, is lord of all it surveys in the metropolitan circuit, to say nothing of the Bennings race-track, in which a majority of the stock is owned by Mr. Belmont. Racing began at Bennings on March 23, and its dates are not included in the seven months of racing in the metropolitan circuit.

In this circuit there are seven tracks, not counting the Buffalo track, which is controlled by the Racing Trust. The track at Morris Park, the most picturesque race-course in the United States, has been relegated to obscurity, as it was not owned by the Racing Trust, but was leased at an annual rental of $45,000. Belmont Park, which is owned by Mr. August Belmont, the head of the Racing Trust, has taken its place. The associations which are controlled by the Racing Trust are capitalized as follows:

These figures were obtained from the Secretary of State, the Hon. John F. O’Brien. In any calculations that may be made the capitalization of Belmont Park should be eliminated and the rental of Morris Park, $45,000, substituted for $1,500,000, in order to show how thriving a concern the Racing Trust is. It will be understood, of course, that the capitalization of these concerns may be a trifle, just a trifle, higher than the actual value of the said tracks and appurtenances, except in the case of the Saratoga track, which was built solely “for the improvement of the breed of horses.”

[Pg 355]

For the right to do business on these tracks the Racing Trust pays, or is supposed to pay, to the state five per cent. upon the gross earnings of said tracks. Among the duties of the Racing Commission is the supervision of these receipts. The commission consists of Messrs. August Belmont, John Sanford and E. D. Morgan. Mr. Belmont is the president of the Westchester Racing Association (Belmont Park), and the largest owner of stock in the Racing Trust. Mr. Sanford is the power at Saratoga, and does not race until the season opens at the Spa. Attached to the Racing Commission is a State Inspector of Races. Until he was appointed to a position in the Internal Revenue Department the place was filled by Charles W. Anderson, a colored man. Reports of gross receipts are made to the State Comptroller by the racing associations and by the State Inspector of Races. It is not impossible that the latter official takes such figures as are offered to him, and it is difficult to imagine that he ever objected to them on the score of inaccuracy or any other score.

The reports of gross receipts made by the members of the Racing Trust to the State Comptroller for the years 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903 and 1904 are as follows (the figures were obtained from the State Comptroller, the Hon. Otto Kelsey):

The reader will notice the exactness with which the racing associations make up their gross receipts—the “twenty cents” of the Coney Island Jockey Club, the “nine cents” of the Saratoga “Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses,” and so on. The reader will notice, also, that the gross receipts for last year were $209,215.37 less than those of 1903, though the press was unanimous in declaring that last year’s racing was the greatest, which means the most profitable of all years. The five per cent. paid to the state last year by the Racing Trust amounted to $190,256.27. This five per cent. is “the penny in the dollar” alluded to by Mr. Edward Lauterbach in his address to the constitutional convention. But ridiculously small as it is, why does the Racing Trust give it to the state? Simply as a sop to the rural legislator and his constituents. The dweller in cities may lack some or many of the virtues, but when it is necessary to find the highest plane of parsimonious hypocrisy one must needs pay a visit to the rural districts. This five per cent., which smacks so much of Iscariot’s thirty pieces of silver, is divided among such agricultural societies as give annual fairs, and to farmers’ institutes. Ostensibly it is intended for the improvement of agriculture; in reality much of it is given as purses for trotting races at the said county fairs. Without the support of the rural element the Racing Trust would not have succeeded in getting the adoption of the Percy-Gray racing law.

The profits of the Racing Trust are enormous. Take the Coney Island Jockey Club, for instance. Mr. Leonard Jerome, who was a sportsman who never made money out of sport, built the Sheepshead Bay track at a cost of $125,000. The grounds of the Coney Island Jockey Club belong to the people and were filched from them by an act of the Legislature. Improvements were made since the track was built, but the actual legal belongings of the Coney Island Jockey Club are worth far less than the amount of the capital stock, which is $525,000. The gross receipts of the club for last year, as reported to the State Comptroller, were[Pg 356] $854,421.20. Of what did these consist? It was said that the attendance on “big days” last year numbered from 40,000 to 50,000. Put it at 35,000, and the money taken in for admission, boxes and clubhouse seats and boxes and for “field” admissions would amount to about $80,000. Then there are the bookmakers. On more than one day last year there were 120 members of the Metropolitan Turf Association in the ring. They paid $57 each for the privilege of “laying the odds.” Back of them were a hundred layers who paid $37 each. There were fifty others who paid $27, and as many more who paid $17 each. Programs to the number of 40,000 at ten cents each make $400. Then there are the bar and restaurant privileges, the commissioners and many other means of income, so that the income of one such day could not be less than $100,000.

There were thirty days of racing at Sheepshead Bay last year. The attendance, according to the daily press, was “enormous,” “record-breaking,” “large” or “highly satisfactory.” The “highly satisfactory” days were the smallest of the season, which shows the difference between English as it is understood by “sporting” writers in the daily press and those who are able to distinguish the difference between fact and fancy. If the average daily attendance were not more than 12,500, it and the other sources of revenue would mean about $35,000 per day.

The sum of $10,000 per day will cover all the expenses, including added money, at Sheepshead Bay. According to such calculation and taking the club’s figures of gross receipts as correct, the result would be like this:

These figures show that the profits of the Coney Island Jockey Club for thirty days of racing are more than the full amount of its capital stock. Some years ago, when racing was conducted on a smaller scale, this stock paid 56 per cent. per annum. Unless a lot of money is packed away in a reserve fund, the stock should pay dollar for dollar now, and the state still gets the “penny in the dollar.”

Much of the income was contributed by the chief factors at a race-course—the men who own and race horses; and one of the most interesting features of a race meeting, to members of the Racing Trust, is the fact that the men who own the horses are racing for money contributed, in great part, by themselves. The money added by the racing associations is often less than the amounts furnished by owners of horses that have been entered for a race. Much stress is laid upon the fact that $2,601,160 was won in purses last year on the tracks of the metropolitan circuit and Bennings. This amount, large as it may seem, was so distributed that very few owners paid much more than expenses, while a far larger number lost much money. Four hundred and thirty-eight stables or owners were among the winners, and a glance at the following table will show that the losers were in a large majority.

OWNERS AND WINNINGS

In addition to the foregoing, 155 stables won between $1,000 and $7,000 each. Some of these stables had as many as a dozen starters who “figured in the money.” Stables or owners to the number of 217 won between $100 and $1,000 each. Of this number fifty-four were in the $100 class. The average winnings for the 438 stables were $5,938, which sum tells a doleful tale for a majority of them, as the expenses of one thoroughbred and its owner for a year cannot well be squeezed into $5,938, unless the horse’s diet is restricted to hay and the owner lives at a Mills hotel. Mr. Keene’s winnings were $164,940. That amount about paid his racing expenses for the year.

All of which, I think, goes to prove that the Racing Trust is more anxious to make and increase enormous profits than to improve the breed of horses. And everybody is aware that such enormous profits are made only by violation of the Constitution of the state, and that, while gambling in poolrooms and elsewhere has been made difficult and dangerous, no effort has been made by the authorities to interfere with it on the tracks of the Racing Trust.

[Pg 358]

BY W. S. MORGAN

PATERNALISM is preferable to infernalism.

When the gentleman with the cloven hoof collects what is coming to him there won’t be many bag barons left.

The Beef Trust does business on a sliding scale; the price they pay slides down, and the price they sell at slides up.

A pauper lives off the public, and so do those who make their money through special privileges granted them by law.

As Bryan is losing prestige with the people he is becoming more popular with the plutocrats.

The United States Senate should be rechristened and called the Corporations’ Cuckoo’s nest.

The way to make the cuss-toady-ans of public interests more amenable to our will is to have ready an Imperative Mandate lariat.

Yes, the trusts are in the people’s pasture, and they got in over Republican and Democratic fences.

It is better that a whole lot of business shall be “hurted” than that the trusts should continue to rob the people and be a standing menace to free government.

The Governor of Kansas is right; building a state refinery is not Socialism; it is competition, just what the Populists stand for.

The trusts also have “big sticks.”

The Standard Oil Company has outlawed itself and ought to be “swatted” off the face of the earth.

The bandit bag barons are going to have some hard sledding from now on.

If the concentration of wealth means the destruction of the republic, then the people have a right to stop the concentration of wealth.

The fact that the trusts are now in control of the railroads is another reason why the Government should own them.

An economic principle that does not rest upon a moral basis should receive no support from honest men.

Every applicant for a special legalized privilege is an enemy to good government.

It is the men who are always hammering at the doors of legislation for special privileges that want “something for nothing.”

The greatest power in the world is that which controls the volume of money, and the Republicans are talking about turning that power over to a few private buccaneers.

When the very rich men are called by their right names there will not be such a scramble to get rich.

It is to be hoped that in this fight with the trusts and railroad corporations that “big stick” of Teddy’s will not prove to be a stuffed club.

If Uncle Sam wants to mix his credit with anybody’s let him mix it with that of the farmers. Their security is better than bonds.

More that half of the men in the United States Senate wear corporation collars.

If all the big thieves were sentenced to jail we should have to turn the little thieves out in order to make room for them.

I challenge anyone to point out a single instance in this country where the national bankers have made a recommendation in the interests of the people. It is always a jug-handled proposition in their favor.

[Pg 359]

One of the biggest pieces of foolishness in this old world of ours is for Uncle Sam to make free money for the bankers to loan, and then borrow that same money for his own use.

Unless there is some change made in the manner of selecting United States senators, that body of corporation attorneys would better be abolished.

So insignificant was the last Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party that a great many voters have already forgotten his name.

The country is now ready for the election of United States senators by the people instead of the corporations, but that body of august lawmakers will block every effort in that direction.

If there is no other way to prevent corporations from violating the law they should be denied its protection, just like other outlaws. A dose of that kind of medicine would soon bring them to their milk.

The decision of the North Sea Commission seems to be based upon the principle (if it has a principle) that a naval commander has a right to fire at anything that frightens him.

If the packers didn’t steal their immense fortunes from the people, whom did they steal them from?

A “reasonable rate,” as interpreted by the railroad companies, is all the honey except barely enough to keep the bees from starving to death.

There has already been a good deal of water squeezed out of Standard Oil stock; now, if some process can be brought forward that will squeeze the water out of the oil the company sells, it will be better yet.

The great trusts have shown that they have no regard for “vested rights.” They have “frozen out” the smaller concerns without mercy. Why, then, should they object to a little of the “freezing” process, if the Government or states decide to go into the oil business on their own account?

If the Socialists insist on turning the world over at one flip, like turning a pancake, before they can start the show, they are following a mighty cold trail. If they are willing to go by the usual road of evolution there is no reason why they and the Populists should not work together, for awhile at least.

The man who is wholly controlled by sentiment is not fit to vote. Voting is a business proposition and demands both intelligence and good judgment.

It seems to be the policy of lawmakers in this country to grant special privileges to the rich and powerful, and to permit them to impose upon the weak, and this condition will remain just so long as men will submit to being robbed.

The men who prate most about “vested rights” and “law and order” are the ones who violate them most.

When the Government thought the express companies were charging the people too much for the transmission of money it went into the money-order business itself. What was the result? Why, the express companies had to come to the rate established by the Government or get none of the business. It was purely a matter of business, and that’s the way to do it.

It was the “battle-scared” bag barons that discredited government paper money during the Civil War between the states. Yet it is from these men that we hear most about “national honor” and “public credit.” They are the same class of men of whom honest old Abe Lincoln said: “They ought to be hanged”; and the country would have fared better ever since if they had been.

Nearly every civilized nation in the world owns all or a part of its system of railroad and telegraph lines, and they have no disposition to turn them over to private corporations. The United States alone permits a few wealthy buccaneers to levy taxes on the people which no government would dare do. An increase of three cents per bushel on corn alone means a tax of fifty millions of dollars to the men who produce that cereal.

Until recently the national bankers paid the Government one per cent. on the money the Government loaned them. Then they claimed that it was too much to pay for the use of the[Pg 360] money and the credit of the Government, and Congress reduced the rate to one-half of one per cent. But the banker has no conscientious scruples about loaning this money to the people at eight and ten per cent.

The railroad companies admit that they violate the law by granting rebates, but set up the claim that if they did not do it they would lose their share of the traffic. It is a very singular plea. It is not half as just as the one that a man steals because he is hungry, or because his wife and children are suffering for the necessaries of life. “We violate the law because somebody else does,” say the railroad companies. Suppose that every criminal would set up the same excuse for the commission of crime. And ordinary criminals have a better right to make that plea in palliation for their crime than the trusts and corporations have. If, as they admit, the railroad managers are so dishonest that one must violate the law because another does, if there is no way to restrain them except to turn the whole matter over to them, and permit them to pool their earnings so that one thief can watch the other thieves, it is about time to abolish the whole system of private ownership and for the Government to take charge of the lines of transportation. The railroad companies make out the worst kind of a case against themselves. They admit that there are enough law-breakers among them to demoralize the whole system.

The public has heard a good deal about legislation that would discourage capital from being invested in the state enacting the legislation. It has been said that the passage of laws calculated to regulate the business of large corporations would have the effect of driving them away. Kansas just now is giving us an object-lesson along this line. The laws recently passed by the Legislature in that state are perhaps the most drastic in their nature ever passed by any state for the control and regulation of corporations, yet the prospect is that more capital will go to that state than ever before. Although the state is now engaged in building an oil refinery, there are several other independent refineries projected, with a good prospect for more to come. It is evident that capital has not as much to fear from the people, when it is legitimately invested and operated, as it has from the arrogant aggressions of such enormous concerns as the Standard Oil Company that will brook no competition. If capital will be satisfied with a fair profit it has nothing to fear from the people, while, on the other hand, independent concerns that operate legitimately in any line of business have much to fear from the great trusts that have been built up through favors granted them by railroads and municipalities.

[Pg 361]

BY VINCENT HARPER
Author of “A Mortgage on the Brain”

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS

Maxwell Fair, an Englishman who has amassed a colossal fortune on ’Change, inherits from his ancestors a remarkable tendency to devote his life to some object, generally a worthy, if peculiar one, which is extravagantly chivalrous. The story opens with Fair and Mrs. Fair standing over the body of a man who has just been shot in their house—a foreigner, who had claimed to be an old friend of Mrs. Fair. Fair sends her to her room, saying: “Leave everything to me.” He hides the body in a chest, and decides to close the house “for a trip on the Continent.” Fair tells the governess, Kate Mettleby, that he loves her; that there is no dishonor in his love, in spite of Mrs. Fair’s existence, and that, until an hour ago, he thought he could marry her—could “break the self-imposed conditions of his weird life-purpose.” They are interrupted before Kate, who really loves him, is made to understand. While the Fairs are entertaining a few old friends at dinner, Kate, not knowing that it contains Mrs. Fair’s blood-stained dress, is about to hide a parcel in the chest when she is startled by the entrance of Samuel Ferret, a detective from Scotland Yard. He tells her that he, with other detectives, is shadowing the foreign gentleman who came to the Fair house that day and has not yet left it. He persuades Kate to promise that she will follow the suspect when he leaves the house and then report at Scotland Yard. As soon as Ferret is gone she lifts the lid off the chest, drops the package into it, and, with a shriek, falls fainting to the floor. Mr. and Mrs. Fair run to her aid. On being revived Kate goes to Scotland Yard, where, in her anxiety to shield Maxwell Fair from suspicion, she inadvertently leads the detectives to think that a crime has been committed at the Fair house. The two detectives are piecing together the real facts from the clues she has given, when Ferret is summoned to the telephone by his associate Wilson, whom he had left on guard in the home of the Fairs.

“HELLO, Wilson!” He began speaking to his distant lieutenant. “Yes—yes. No? By George! Yes, yes. Good, good! With you in ten minutes.”

He hung up the receiver and to Sharpe’s impatient gesture replied: “Wilson says the quarry is up. Mendes the Cuban has just left the house, with Thorpe following to see where he goes. And now there’s the very devil to pay. Wilson is hot on the trail. So I’m off.”

“If anything goes wrong, call me up,” said Sharpe, keenly enjoying the play of the big fish that he would have safely landed by a day or two.

“Right you are! Ta, ta!”

Ferret lost no time in reaching the Fair mansion. The guests were still at dinner and he could see no trace of excitement from without. Wilson reported in detail the sudden appearance of the Cuban, his hurried flight up the street with Thorpe at his heels—and all quiet inside.

“Who the devil fired that shot, and at whom was it fired, and what did pretty Kate mean by her stammering protests that no crime had been done? Was the saucy little minx deeper after all than they thought?” asked Ferret of himself. He must have a good look at that library—that was the key to the thickening mystery. So he stole up the stairs, but before he could investigate the fatal library he heard the family coming up from dinner and fled to the attic, passing Kate’s door, which stood ajar, and through which he saw her on her knees with her face buried on the bed.

CHAPTER VIII

As those whose memories run back thirty years know, Sir Nelson Poynter owes his baronetcy to his financial ability and the fact that he made his huge fortune honestly and always stood ready to sacrifice himself at times of threatened panic on ’Change. Essentially a “City man,” when he became a country gentleman he established himself in Surrey, where he could keep an eye on Capel Court and reach the office in a little time.

To Drayton Hall, his princely mansion, it might be objected that it[Pg 362] was a trifle too pretentious, with its battlements and towers, but no fault could be found either with its hospitality or with the kindly old gentleman and dear old lady who dispensed it. A week-end at Drayton was always charming.

On the terrace at Drayton on the day following that on which so much had transpired at Fair’s town house, Travers was smoking and reading the paper, when Allyne sauntered out of a window and approached him.

“What! Not gone to church with the rest, Travers?” he said reprovingly.

“Dry up, idiot!” replied Travers, not looking up from his paper. “Church? Why, hang it, did you ever hear the curate here read? He’s the worst I ever heard—except the vicar himself. And their sermons—lord! I wonder where Poynter ever unearthed these two mummies.”

“Oh, come, I say; no heresy now,” protested Allyne, sitting on the balustrade of the terrace. “But, I say, old chap,” he added, knocking the newspaper out of Travers’s hand, “what a funk poor Fair has got into! What the deuce is in the wind, anyway?”

“Give it up,” answered Travers, growing serious at once; “but I know one thing. You and I have some decidedly nasty experience of some sort in store for us tonight, see if we haven’t. You are going up to town with him this afternoon, he tells me. So am I.”

“Yes,” answered Allyne, also grown serious; “he wants us to spend the night with him in Carlton House Terrace—going over his papers, that sort of thing. The poor devil is regularly bowled over for some reason. Queer turn for him to take—the coolest man I ever met, you know. I’m half inclined to believe that the speculative strain of the last year has been too much for him—in fact, that his mind is threatened; I do indeed.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Travers impatiently. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t let him suspect that you feel in any such way about it! Why, man, he cares no more about the ups and downs on ’Change than you care about my books. I was with him the day he dropped eighty thousand pounds in Kaffirs a few years ago, and I could not get him to care about it as much as he should have done, for it was no laughing matter with him at that time. No, Allyne, my boy, Fair’s troubles are not financial—and as for women——”

“Yes, that’s the difficulty,” broke in Allyne. “If it were almost any other man, one might say, ‘Find the lady in the puzzle’; but Fair is an iced edition of Sir Galahad. But whatever it is, he has a horror of some kind eating out that big, warm, pure heart of his. And, Travers, old man, we must get at the truth tonight and save him.”

“Right you are,” answered Travers heartily; “but I have my doubts as to our ability to get inside of him. He’s so beastly—But hush—here they come from church.”

As he spoke Fair and Lady Poynter strolled quietly up the gravel path toward the terrace, followed shortly by Sir Nelson, who was pointing out his splendid flowers to Mrs. March.

“Good morning,” said Travers and Allyne in concert, rising to meet them.

“You naughty boys,” scolded little old Lady Poynter, shaking a finger at the unregenerate pair. “Not at church—and such a lovely sermon, too!”

“All about loving one another,” commented Mrs. March, coming up. “Lovely? I should say so.”

“And delivered in a voice of tepid silk,” remarked Fair, with so much spirit that Travers and Allyne looked at each other relieved.

“By Jove, you know, the vicar’s voice is a bit trying after the first five minutes, is it not?” said Sir Nelson, who invariably slumbered after the period he mentioned, during the sermon.

“Well, trying or not, we all eat, do we not?” remarked Lady Poynter. “So I’m off to hurry luncheon, for I want you all to drive over to the Derwents’ this afternoon, and I can’t[Pg 363] persuade Mr. Fair to stop tonight. In half an hour—and till then be good.”

The good old soul went away into the house to stir up the servants, and Sir Nelson, taking Fair’s arm, said: “Fair, what was it you wanted to say?”

“Ah, yes,” answered Fair, smiling; “if Mrs. March will forgive me for leaving her to be bored by these two schoolboys, I’ll have a little chat with you, Sir Nelson, in the library.”

“Pray don’t mind me,” jauntily returned Mrs. March. “I am going to send Mr. Allyne off to the church to fetch my prayer-book, which I left there, and Mr. Travers and I always get on famously. Trot away, all of you.”

“Come on, Fair,” growled Sir Nelson, pulling at Fair’s sleeve. “Allyne, you seem to be in luck—it’s only two miles to the church! Come, Fair.”

They walked along the terrace, and Allyne, glaring at Mrs. March, vaulted over the balustrade and began the hot walk to the parish church through the park.

When he was out of sight Travers ventured to turn to Mrs. March, who had remained annoyingly silent, although, he felt, she must know, after receiving his letter by the hands of her maid that morning, that his reason for desiring to see her was as great as his diffidence in stating it.

He looked long at her and wondered how she could be so cruel—and so beautiful. At last she looked up at him as if only now realizing that he was there.

“Now, my dear Dick, we can have our little say without any such ridiculous rendezvous as you suggested in your overwrought note. What seems to weigh upon us? Tell me—that is, if you think you must.”

“Mrs. March—” he began, but she stopped him with a protesting hand.

“Mrs. March?” she complained, with a delightful little contraction of her brows. “I thought we had agreed that I was to be the Dorothy of our childhood?”

“If you like,” he answered, saying to himself that if she knew what was in his mind and intended to deny him, then the cruelty of her present tormenting winsomeness was beyond belief. No. She could not be so base—she must know what he was about to say to her. But failure had grown into the very marrow of his bones, so it was with unspeakably hopeless hope that he went on. “If you like. Well, Dorothy, it will be no news to you—this that I am now to tell you—I love you. I am sure you must have known this for a long time. You have also known, I trust, why I have remained silent. I had the best possible of all reasons for not speaking—I was a beggar without a penny, without a lucrative calling and without prospects.”

“Oh, Dick, Dick,” Mrs. March broke in, taking his hand in both of hers; “are you going to spoil our dear old partnership in this way? I’m so sorry! Be a dear, good boy, tell me of your new play. Have you finished it yet? I’m sure it will prove a tremendous success.”

“No,” he returned rather sharply, “no; you must hear me, Dorothy. No man can associate with you long without growing to think of you as a woman altogether different from others. You are the cleverest woman in London. You fascinate because you puzzle and mystify men. Even women cannot resist you. They are attracted to you much as the men are—because they do not comprehend you, because they find you different. But, Dorothy, my love for you draws its inspiration from a source wholly unguessed by your other friends. I love you because you are the one woman in my world who sees the pathos and the meaning of life—my life and any life that fails and drowns and dies in the rush and the madness of existence. I have discovered the real you—the you behind the clever, fashionable, worldly Mrs. March—and I claim you by right of discovery.”

“Why, Dick, what nonsense!” she cried, with a not very successful effort to smile down the tears that his searching[Pg 364] look and his throbbing words had brought to those great hazel eyes of hers. “What nonsense! I am only an ambitious woman of the world, happy in the possession of social influence. I am hard and cold and calculating—and anyhow, really, dear, dear boy, you must not think of this any more. I mean it.”

“To some you may seem worldly,” he went on, ignoring her protest; “but I know you. And I was forgetting to justify myself by telling you that I now have the right to speak. I am no longer penniless, Dorothy. I am now in a position to ask you to share my life on the plane to which you are accustomed. Will you listen?”

“I must not—I cannot—don’t be cruel, Dick,” she answered. “And aren’t you a bit hard on me when you imply that I would listen to you now, but that I would not have done so when you were poor? Am I so mercenary?”

“No,” he said warmly; “but I should have despised myself had I spoken when I had not the means to support you. Dorothy, my love for you began the night you had that poor Bohemian boy play the violin at your little party. The idiots who crowded your rooms gambled all the time the marvelous lad was playing; but I saw you whisper to him when he finished one sublime number, and noted how his thin, white face lighted up with gratitude and hope at whatever it was you said to him. Well, you know he died of consumption in my chambers a few months afterward. Among his papers I found the letter you wrote him inclosing ten pounds. That letter revealed you to me. It was glorious! It was you! From that time I have loved you with a love passing the love of women. Poverty, which until that time had seemed rather a welcome refuge and protection to me, now became a hell, for it alone barred me from the hope of speaking to you. But today I am a comparatively rich man. Dorothy, be my wife.”

“Oh, Dick, Dick, this is awful—don’t!” she cried, shrinking from him. “Pray, pray, stop—really you must not go on!”

But Travers had waited too long and too yearningly for this hour to be lightly deterred from stating his whole case. So he proceeded eagerly: “You heard last night of Fair’s phenomenal success? Well, he told me after you had gone that it had also made me rich. Some time ago he bought my poor father’s library from me—more to assist me than from any need of those particular books—and I left the money with him for investment. He now tells me that he bought Empire Mines shares with it and that my profits amount to fifty thousand pounds sterling. Of course I thought that this was merely a bit of his wonderful generosity and altogether an afterthought—the result of that erratic and impulsive unselfishness which puzzles all who know him—but he assures me that he can prove from his broker’s books that he bought stock for my account at the time that he purchased his own, before it was at all certain that it would turn out such a staggering success. At all events, there the money is to my credit at Burton’s bank.”

“Oh, I am so glad, dear fellow!” cried Mrs. March. “What a king he is!”

“Isn’t he? A knight, a brother—one in a million!”

“Well, Dick,” went on Mrs. March after her first flush of pleasure and surprise, “I can’t tell you how I rejoice with you in this great good fortune; but truly, dearest friend, our love can never be more than that of two tried old friends who have known each other always. So be good.”

“Only one thing can ever make me believe that love like mine will be denied,” replied Travers with great intensity; “I shall press my sacred claim, Dorothy, until you tell me that there is another whom you love.”

Mrs. March waited in evident distress for a few moments, and then, speaking very low and painfully:

“Poor old Dick, it hurts me terribly to wound you—but, Dick, there is another. I am not free.”

[Pg 365]

“Good God!” leaped from the man’s lips as he started forward with the iron entering his soul. “Mrs. March—with all my heart I beg you to forget me and my mad words of this day. I—I—I— Good-bye!”

“God bless you!” she murmured, crushed by his suffering. “And, Dick, of course I have told you this in confidence.”

“Certainly,” he answered, raising his hat and moving toward the house. At the window of the library he stopped, and then came slowly back to where she stood thinking. “Tell me one thing more. Dorothy, it is not this clown Allyne, is it?”

Mrs. March thanked him with her eyes for this bit of humor, which she knew must have cost him much, and exclaimed, with an effort to meet his own pleasantry: “Heavens! No!”

“Thank goodness for that,” replied Travers, with a sickly smile. “I could not have borne that,” and he rushed off into the house to face final failure on the one only day when success seemed to have dawned dimly with more of promise than had ever shone in the east of his hope.

CHAPTER IX

Freddy Allyne, as he was called by his friends, whose name was legion, prided himself upon having established a reputation for levity, when his real character was that of a philosopher strongly inclined to pessimism. On no one did he enjoy palming a false idea of himself more than on himself. Life has many of these jesters whose motley serves but poorly to hide from others, and not at all from themselves, the fact that this fool is as wise as some whom he could mention and whom it is the delight of his soul to play with as he chooses. Between him and the clever woman who was now standing on the terrace at Drayton Hall there had always been kept up a particularly active warfare, for Mrs. March was the one woman in London who did not fear him, and, while this nettled him and sometimes seriously annoyed him, it fascinated and led him on. A score of times the wise had foretold a speedy match between these two, who were never so widely parted at a dinner-table but they pursued each other without quarter to the very finish of an argument.

Until quite recently Mrs. March herself had vaguely but persistently assumed that Allyne would declare himself sooner or later, and at that time had somewhat doubted her ability to deny the man whose brilliant intellect, generous impulses and fundamentally noble nature had come to mean more to her than she dared or wished to allow herself to realize. But some little time before this Allyne observed that a change had come to pass and that she held herself distinctly aloof from him whenever they were alone, and had even gone so far as to refuse to be at home to him unless she was certain that others would be by. He interpreted this departure as evidence of her feeling that the time had arrived when their friendship must go further—or safeguard itself by greater restraint.

From a safe distance in the park he had watched her as she and Travers talked—with not the remotest notion of the subject they were discussing. When at last he saw Travers raise his hat formally and retire into the house, and Mrs. March remain leaning against the parapet on the terrace, he thought the hour had come.

“What? Back so soon?” cried Mrs. March, seeing him coming across the stretch of lawn toward her. “You do walk fast, don’t you?”

“The church was shut,” replied Allyne, with his customary bantering tone and approaching close to her. “Yes, the church was shut, and I fed the swans in the pond instead.”

“But you surely have not walked four miles and fed swans all in ten minutes?” asked Mrs. March, clearing for action, and keenly appreciating the relief that this diversion afforded to the strain of the past few minutes.

[Pg 366]

“Oh, dear me, no,” drawled Allyne innocently. “You see, I remembered that they always shut churches after service, so I knew that this one would be shut. Awfully pretty swans of Poynter’s, too. Ever seen them? They float about the pond like a lot of duchesses in a drawing-room—and fight over the crumbs like them, also.”

“And you didn’t fetch my prayer-book, after all?” she inquired reprovingly. “You are a devoted squire of dames, I must say!”

“It was of my devotion to the fair in general and to you in particular that I came back to speak,” he began, unable, in spite of his firm resolution, to approach the subject except with his usual air of audacious impertinence and frivolity. “You must have observed that I bestow my society upon you in a way that causes half the beauties of the gay world of which I am so conspicuous an ornament fairly to die of jealousy. Well, my dear Mrs. March, I do so because you are the only woman who does not bore me too much. Point by point as our acquaintance grew I came to feel that you are as free from disqualifying features as any woman can be—in short, you know, I’ve almost made up my mind to think fairly well of you.”

Then followed an interview the like of which it is safe to say has never been heard before or since. In substance and seriousness it was the same as Travers’s, for Allyne, too, had been suddenly made independent by Fair’s investment of a small sum intrusted to him, but it was, on the surface, only a remarkable example of his characteristic nonsensical raillery and light chaffing. That the result was the same as it had been in Travers’s case may be inferred from the fact that when he left her with a painful effort at nonchalance he turned and came back to her to say:

“Tell me just one thing. It’s not that grave-digger, Dick Travers, is it?”

Mrs. March jumped at the immense relief of being able to laugh at this fling, and fairly shouted: “No—horrors!”

“Thank heaven for that!” returned Allyne. “Now I sha’n’t have to commit suicide.”

With one of his inimitable grimaces, he hurried into the house and she did not see the solitary tear that trickled down his cheek when he shut himself into his room and threw a pillow at his image in the mirror, crying: “You old fool!”

Mrs. March stood where he had left her, and her sense of humor mercifully prevented her dwelling on the unhappy side of the situation. And it was not until years afterward, when all three could bear to speak of it, that she related to both of them what had occurred.

“Truly Englishmen bear off the palm,” she mused after the first shock had passed. “All other men lay their hearts at a woman’s feet—but an Englishman condescends to let her know that he doesn’t mind allowing her to use his name if she has a mind to do so! Well, Baggs, was he there?”

Her last words were addressed to her maid, who had been watching for an opportunity to approach her mistress for some minutes.

“Yes, ma’am,” she answered. “But I had to wait a little while before the gentleman came. Here is a letter, ma’am.”

“And what was the gentleman like?” asked Mrs. March, taking the letter.

“He were a dark, foreign gentleman, ma’am, with a black mustache. He spoke Eyetalian lovely, ma’am—just lovely!”

Mrs. March laughed at Baggs’s discriminating appreciation of well-spoken Italian, and then remarked carelessly: “It must have been Mr.—But there, I haven’t told you his name, have I? Did the gentleman send any message by you—verbally, I mean?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” replied Baggs with embarrassment. “He said as how he embraced your feet, ma’am, and kissed your footsteps, ma’am, and—beg pardon, ma’am—the gentleman kissed me, too, ma’am, he did.”

“You mustn’t mind that, you know,[Pg 367] Baggs,” answered Mrs. March, smiling. “You know, foreign ways are different from ours.”

“They are, ain’t they just, ma’am?” assented Baggs, remembering some other things which she did not think it necessary to report—as well as a more palpable evidence which she did not mind mentioning. “They is different, as you say, ma’am, for the gentleman gave me a sovereign.”

“That was good of him,” remarked Mrs. March. “You shall have another sovereign to put on top of that one. You will find my purse on my dressing-table—help yourself.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, ma’am,” blurted out Baggs, wondering if her lady were just right in the head.

“But see here, Baggs,” said Mrs. March as the maid was about to obey her last command and go and find the purse; “Baggs, you have been doing a great many confidential things for me lately. Don’t lose your head and make yourself ridiculous now. I have done nothing about which I might not have the whole world hear. If I were engaged in anything wrong or unseemly, do you think for a moment that I would be such a fool as to make my servants my confidants? No. So remember that if you speak of my affairs to anyone, you will simply lose your place and your good character, and not inconvenience me in the least possible degree. Now do you understand me?”

“I understand you, ma’am, perfect,” replied Baggs, mentally calculating whether her mistress took her for an absolute donkey or was merely joking.

“I’m glad you do understand—that will do,” said Mrs. March, and Baggs with a courtesy disappeared into the house.

The instant that she found herself alone Mrs. March tore open the letter feverishly. She started violently at once, and when she steadied herself enough to finish reading it she fell back upon the garden seat, where she sat in manifest consternation and doubt. For some moments she seemed to be in the clutches of a horrible anxiety which baffled all effort to decide upon action of any sort. Then she heard voices approaching, jumped up, tearing the letter nervously into two or three pieces which fell upon the seat beside her, and ran into the house.

CHAPTER X

The voices that had frightened Mrs. March off were those of Sir Nelson and Maxwell Fair, who now came round the corner of the tower, with heads bowed in very earnest talk. The elder man had been the most intimate friend of the younger man’s father, and on the death of the latter Sir Nelson had assumed an informal guardianship of the erratic and wilful son. But while others were disappointed and baffled during the earlier years of Maxwell Fair’s manhood, Sir Nelson Poynter swore by him and predicted that all would be well in time. Fully had Maxwell Fair’s more recent career justified the confidence of his father’s old friend.

It was with the shock of surprise, as well as the natural sorrow of a friend, that Sir Nelson had just been hearing Fair speak in indefinite terms of some impending catastrophe that was to terminate in blight his brilliant and successful life.

“By Jove, my boy,” Sir Nelson was saying as they reached the terrace and began pacing up and down, “it distresses me unspeakably to hear your father’s son talking in this way. Of course, I shall do all I can—whatever you may ask of me—but don’t you think that you should make a clean breast of everything? It is nothing new to see a Fair acting from some high, compelling motive, which strikes us ordinary men as quixotic, but your fathers always did whatever they did in the open. They may have been enthusiasts and unpractical crusaders, but nobody could complain that they fought under a mask. Their object may sometimes have seemed chimerical, but in the struggle to reach it they[Pg 368] wore their coat-of-arms where men could see it, and proclaimed their principles with trumpet blasts. Out with it, man! What in God’s name is it all?”

“I thank you, Sir Nelson,” quietly replied Fair, taking up his argument and appeal at the point where Sir Nelson had interrupted him. “You have relieved my mind by consenting to act as my executor. You will, I think, find my affairs in tolerably good order. Everything goes to Miss Mettleby—everything, so there will be little to do in the way of settlement.”

“To Miss Mettleby?” exclaimed Sir Nelson, confronting Fair with perfect consternation and disapproval. “To Miss Mettleby, you say? She is your children’s governess, is she not? My God, boy, there has been no—your wife and children, you know! What will be thought of this?”

“I have settled five hundred thousand pounds on Mrs. Fair and the children—long ago, as I think you know, so I can leave the rest to Miss Mettleby with justice and propriety,” answered Fair calmly.

“What if you have?” cried out Sir Nelson, growing vexed at the fellow’s amazing stubbornness and lack of decency, as he thought. “What if you have settled a considerable sum on your family? Do you suppose you can leave the bulk of your estate to a dependent girl, a young woman in your employ, without causing no end of evil surmises and comment reflecting on your memory—yes, and the young person’s honor? What can you mean by such a mad determination? Come, be reasonable, I beg of you. Make a suitable provision for this girl, if you think it due her for her faithful service in your family, but, for heaven’s sake, don’t leave the poor child a legacy of defamation, as you most certainly will, if you persist in carrying out such a preposterous course.”

“By the time that you come to settle my estate, sir, I shall have become an object too contemptible for even malice to stoop to notice,” replied Fair, poking his stick into the gravel and giving his words the tone that meant that he had thought out all the objections which his old friend had raised.

They walked back and forth once or twice before Sir Nelson responded with a laugh, which he tried to make genuine: “My word, what arrant nonsense we have been talking anyhow! Settling your estate, eh? Why, bless us all, I shall have been under the chancel stones twenty years before you retire from business to begin to enjoy middle age in the country. Come, come, dear fellow, pull yourself together, do!”

“Ah, my best of friends,” answered Fair, with a voice full of sincerest love and respect, but also of firmness and stem determination. “You ought to know my father’s son better than to suppose that anything can swerve me from a purpose once it has become a fixed idea—but,” he added, suddenly turning to the old man with great tenderness, “by all that is rational, I do suppose that it is unfair to keep you in the dark in this way. I think that I should tell you plainly what is in my heart.”

“Depend upon it, Maxwell, it will be best for both of us if you will tell me fully and honestly—everything,” eagerly returned Sir Nelson, slapping Fair on the back in that hearty, old-fashioned way of his. “Come, now, what the devil ails you?”

“Well, then, sir,” said Fair, taking Sir Nelson’s arm and pushing him back toward the seat, “sit down while I tell you—I am too nervous to do so.”

The old man sat as he was requested, and watched his young friend as he walked up and down before him, formulating his ideas in order to present them clearly and consecutively. It was some time before Fair had so far shaped his thoughts as to be willing to speak. But when he had done so he stopped on his next turn in front of Sir Nelson and said very quietly:

“Now I am ready. In carrying out the one compelling and absorbing purpose of my life I have been made the most wretched and most misunderstood[Pg 369] of men. I have sternly brushed aside love, hope, joy—everything which means life to a passionate and intense nature like my own. But this is an old story. I had come to think that the dwarfing and cramping restraints of my self-imposed life-work were second nature—more, that the life I was leading was the only life possible to me. I would have died fighting for the triumph of my idea—they would have found my body in the last trench after the battle was done, and nobody had been the wiser, no one would ever have known what a falsely-true life had been mine, had not this last horrible sacrifice been required by the insatiable purpose which has sucked away my life.

“I had asked for nothing from fate, but the right to live and die with my secret unbetrayed. I had begged of God nothing more than that I be suffered to seal with my death the loyalty to poor Janet that I had striven to make of my whole life. But no. Even this beggarly scrap of comfort has been denied to me—and by the most unspeakable irony of fate, I find myself confronted with the damnable necessity of throwing away all these dumb years of denial and self-effacement in order to do Janet and the children the only service which still remains possible for me to do. Is it not horrible, Sir Nelson? I had thought to make my life of some little good by offering it to protect a woman and her children—and now, lest they be buried by my own ruin, I must undo everything that I have done during all these years.”

He paused and looked at his old friend, who showed a growing concern that indicated he began really to believe Fair had lost his reason.

“Sir Nelson, I see that you do not comprehend me—perhaps I am beginning at the wrong end. Yes, I am, of course. Let me give you some concrete facts before asking you to follow me. Well, then, I tell you that I, your old friend’s son, the man whom you have helped and watched over, as if I were your son—I, Sir Nelson, have committed a crime against society, against nature, against life!”

“Crime?” exclaimed the old Baronet, springing to his feet and grasping Fair’s hand, thoroughly convinced that he was acting under some mental and nervous excitement that had proved too much for his reason. “Crime? Good God, boy, you are mad! I can’t believe this—I do not believe it!”

“Wait, wait,” pleaded Fair, again forcing Sir Nelson to the seat, and trying to speak with the utmost composure. “Do not misunderstand me, sir. If I had told you that I had wilfully and deliberately violated my conscience or done some blackguardly thing, I should hope that nothing would induce you to believe me. I have done this awful thing, of which I now confess that I am guilty, with a clean heart—if you can understand me. Society must and assuredly will wreak its sudden and fatal vengeance upon me for my crime, but I want you, sir, to believe that when men are reviling me for my act I shall be flinging that very deed at the feet of my eternal Judge and asking Him to accept it in atonement for my blackest faults—and if God fails to accept this thing that I have done, then am I damned indeed forever. But you do not understand me?”

“On my word, I do not!” answered Sir Nelson, filled with very serious misgivings. “You are ill—dangerously ill.”

“On the contrary,” replied Fair spiritedly, “I was never better in my life. My mind was never so clear as it is at this moment. Listen, Sir Nelson. When this crime is made public—which will be tomorrow in all likelihood—I want you to shield Mrs. Fair and the children by announcing that Janet is not my wife, that I never married her—and that the poor children are not my children at all. Do this—it is the truth—and save innocent beings from the disgrace of being thought to be my flesh and blood.”

In spite of his efforts during this speech, Fair had yielded to the intoxication of his sublime grief, and when[Pg 370] he ceased speaking he was holding the old man’s hand and the tears were streaming down his face.

“I sha’n’t put up with this,” declared Sir Nelson with much sternness, rising like a very determined man. “I shall have Sir Porter Hope down by special train at once. You are bad, on my honor, very bad indeed.”

“Spare Sir Porter Hope an unnecessary journey,” answered Fair, having regained control of himself. He went on laughingly: “I tell you, I am perfectly well. Have you a cigar? Thanks.”

He lighted the cigar, which poor old Sir Nelson was only too eager to give him as an evidence that the fellow was not totally mad, and with great deliberation puffed it slowly and carelessly, making rings of the smoke and praising the quality of the tobacco. Not until he had got him back to calmness and some measure of reassurance did he permit Sir Nelson to resume the discussion of the question which both of them felt was the last one they would ever discuss—the final question of Fair’s complex and much agonized life.

“But in heaven’s name,” began Sir Nelson, pulling Fair down on the seat beside himself, “what is the meaning of all this? Think what rubbish you have been asking me to believe. Janet not your wife? The children not your children? You don’t want me to believe this! You don’t ask me to believe that Janet is your——”

“No!” roared Fair, jumping up and with so much warmth that Sir Nelson was frightened; “no!—and don’t say the word either! On my honor as a gentleman, I tell you, sir, that no daughter in her father’s house, no sister under her brother’s roof, was ever safer, purer, more sacredly held than Janet has been under mine. Her children have had more than a father’s care and love from me, and it is only to save them all from the disgrace and odium which will attach henceforth to my name that I now ask you to proclaim the truth—to publish the fact that my polluting blood does not run in their veins.”

“But,” protested the Baronet, with manifest disgust and irritation, “what can be the explanation of this amazing state of affairs? If she is not your wife—and not——”

“Don’t say it!” again commanded Fair. “I tell you, sir, I am not in a mood to be exasperated just now—and the very word would madden me when I think of what that woman has been to me and I to her.”

Sir Nelson always afterward remembered how noble and elated by an almost supernatural uplift Fair had appeared as he stood there, warning him not to profane the tabernacled secret of his life. The old man’s heart went out to the tortured and defiant fellow.

“Never fear, dear boy,” he began with a feeble voice; “I shall not speak or think it of her. But you ought to help me to speak the truth of all this madness by telling me just what it is.”

Fair was deeply moved by his old friend’s sorrow and unwonted display of feeling, so he sat down by him and warmly shook his hand. After a few moments of quiet, he said in low, firm, deliberate tones:

“Sir Nelson, pardon my weakness in showing you my heart just now, but the fact is, sir, that I have been under a strain—and on that one point I have always been naturally sensitive. I owe you an apology also for delaying to advise you fully and without emotion of the exact situation in which I now find myself inextricably placed. Let me tell you the whole story. It will seem incredible to you—until you recollect that I am the son of my father and that my heritage was what you alone know that it was.”

Sir Nelson blew his nose, and finding nothing particular to say, blew it again; and Fair saw something over the terrace wall that took his attention until the dear old chap said with considerable heartiness in his voice again: “All ready, dear boy—forgive an old fellow—who loves you.

“I first met Janet in Rio Janeiro, at which port her father was British Consul, and I was happily able to take the unfortunate gentleman for a long cruise on my yacht when his health broke[Pg 371] down. He died on the yacht and we buried him at sea. Janet returned to England, and, although I loved her madly, I did not speak, because that wretched Buda-Pesth escapade of mine was still unsettled. So I completely lost sight of Janet and the years passed.

“Six years ago I was in a small South American seaport acting as consul for Jack Trowbridge, who was down with yellow fever. One day when I was lazily killing time—and big flies—in the dusty, stuffy little consulate, Janet, whom I, of course, thought in England, and whom I had not seen for so long, came in.

“She was a wreck. She had a boy of two or three years clinging to her skirts and a child in her arms. You may imagine, sir, my awful shock on seeing her thus. Her story was short. She had married a Cuban planter of very large fortune in Jamaica, and after two years of suspicion and dread and suffering she had learned that the scoundrel had deceived her, that he had a wife living in Cuba, and that, in consequence, she had no legal or other claim upon him. She was penniless. Hearing that I was cruising in those parts, she learned through the British consuls at different places just where I then was, and she turned to me. I made investigation and found the damnable story told her by her supposed husband only too true. His wife in Cuba was his only lawful wife—and Janet was a nameless and helpless victim of his lust and perfidy. I cabled for my yacht, which was being renovated at New York, and soon had Janet and her two children on their way to England.

“I scarcely saw them during the long and bitterly sad voyage, but at night, as I stood at my trick at the wheel, and in the warm, dull days as I sat smoking in silence on deck, a thought grew and grew upon me. The little boat tossing about on the limitless waste of waters seemed to become the symbol of my aimless, drifting, worthless life. And then, one glorious tropical night, with the great stars burning sublimity and eternity into my heart, the blood of all my fathers seemed to rush hot and quick and insistent through all my being. I had it! I had at last found the Purpose, the Object, the Aim for which my life yearned, the Thing in waiting, for which all the common interests and passions of young men had failed to hold me, the One Thing, which, by absorbing my life, by becoming my way of defying and despising the world, would prove me my father’s son.

“The next day I told Janet. We were standing alone looking out over the sea—and to both of us it seemed that the sea and life and eternity were alike trackless and tending nowhither. I told her, Sir Nelson, that she should not land in England the outcast, nameless victim of a blackguard’s infamy, but as my proclaimed wife. Her children would never know that they were fatherless. I had been away from home so long that I could get myself believed when I returned with a wife and family—and the world would never know that I was a wretched man cut off by a vow like a monk’s vow from the joys and the heart of life. That is all, Sir Nelson; that is all.”

“All! All!” exclaimed Sir Nelson, grasping Fair’s hand and wringing it hotly. “My God, man, I never heard of anything quite so great! My word, sir, if you were not Tom Fair’s son, I could not believe such a sacrifice of one’s life possible!”

“It is never difficult to do what one’s nature demands,” replied Fair quietly, adding with less calmness: “But it is hard to see that all these years of work are to come to naught. My life has been wasted.”

“Not at all,” retorted the old man eagerly. “Crime? Crime, you say. By gad, boy, I’ll make you prove yourself guilty in a court of law—and if you do, then we will all know that you are off your head!”

“The proofs of my guilt will not be far to seek,” answered Fair, with a disheartening coolness and an air of ghoulish certainty.

(To be continued.)

[Pg 372]

BY E. L. SMITH

MONEY is a creation of law.

Money is a measure of valuable things or services.

Money is a measure of constant and ever-varying capacity.

Money is not value in itself.

The divisor measures the dividend by division.

Money measures property by division.

If the divisor increases as fast proportionately as the dividend, the quotient will remain the same.

When the amount of money increases as fast proportionately as the property to be measured or divided, the average of prices will remain on a level; and, although there will be constant fluctuations in price among the different articles to be measured or divided, the average purchasing or measuring power of the measure or the unit of value will remain the same.

When the divisor increases faster proportionately than the dividend, the quotient will become smaller.

When the quantity of money increases faster than the property or things to be measured or divided, the average of prices will rise.

When the average of prices rises, the measuring or purchasing power of the unit of value becomes less.

When the average of prices rises, there is inflation of the money or currency.

When the quantity of property increases faster proportionately than the amount of money, the average of prices will fall.

When the average of prices falls, the money or currency is contracted.

All business interests are either produce interests or moneyed interests.

A produce interest is an interest in which the owner receives his pay for his labor and the use of his capital in produce.

A moneyed interest is an interest in which the owners of the business receive their pay for their labor and the use of their capital in money.

A farm is a produce interest.

A railroad is a moneyed interest.

If the owners of a produce interest wish any money, they sell their produce and buy money.

If the owners of a moneyed interest wish any produce, they sell their money and buy produce.

When prices rise produce interests gain.

When produce interests gain, moneyed interests lose.

When prices fall, moneyed interests gain.

When moneyed interests gain, produce interests lose.

Moneyed interests and produce interests cannot both gain or both lose at the same time.

When prices are falling, money can be hoarded without loss.

When prices are rising, money cannot be hoarded without loss.

A hoarded dollar has never yet paid for a single day’s work.

If produce interests had not first existed, moneyed interests never could have existed.

An honest dollar is a dollar that is willing to help produce something.

[Pg 373]

UNTIL the people who want reform get together in an organization all of whose members are substantially agreed, and with this organization elect a President and Congress, they will never get from under the heel of monopoly. Nothing can be done in a party which contains the monopolists.—The Missouri World.

The United States produces 319,000,000 metric tons of coal a year, worth at the mines $485,000,000, and costing consumers nearly a billion dollars.—Exchange.

That little item of 515 millions, absorbed mostly by the big corporations that own the railroads, is the people’s tribute to Our “Chevaliers d’Industrie.” When you come to think of it, aren’t we a nation of bloomin’ chumps?—The American Standard.

Teacher—Johnny, how many legs has an octopus?

Johnny—Seven.

Teacher—Why, Johnny, you ought to know better than that. The meaning of the word shows that it has eight.

Johnny—I know it used to have, but that was before dad was elected to the legislature. I heard him say he pulled a leg off the octopus.—Wetmore’s Weekly.

Under government ownership alone will it be possible to make railroad rates which shall be just to all the people, and this is now being generally recognized.—The Augusta Tribune.

What means this general onslaught, all along the line of the plutocratic press, upon one William Randolph Hearst, Democratic Congressman and late candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency? Republican and Democratic advocates of plutocracy vie with each other in the work of sticking pins into Mr. Hearst. Have these great newspapers been informed that Mr. Hearst is sincere, is honest, in his fight against the trusts? If so, their spontaneous and unanimous attempt to disarm him can be accounted for. The man who attempts to tear down the screen which is held up, mainly by these great newspapers, between the people and their despoilers, is sure to get the vials of their wrath poured out upon his head.—The Dalton Herald.

One of these days there will be two Republican Parties: one for government ownership of the Kansas oil refinery and one against it. Which are you going to stay with?—Smith Center (Kan.) Messenger.

People of similar interests should flock and work together, regardless of party name or of past differences, either fancied or real. The railroad people work together for their own interests; and their party affiliations have been and will be according to railroad interests, regardless of party name. So with corporationists in general, capitalists, etc. Then why do not the people unite according to their interests? The people of New Zealand did, and routed the capitalists.—The Medical World.

During the big coal strike, when Saint Baer was obdurate, Mr. Roosevelt threatened him with government ownership if he did not give in to the strikers.

The threat was a regular pivot blow to Baer, as good as any Professor Donovan will teach Mr. Roosevelt. Baer cried foul, but he went down and out all the same.

The lesson from America of how to knock out an obstinate coal-mine capitalist was not lost on the German Kaiser. Germany, too, has its coal-mine Baers, and a big coal strike is now on.

The Emperor has not only threatened the owners with government ownership of mines, but has gone to the extent of asking his bankers if Germany would have any trouble in floating the $250,000,000 in bonds to make the purchase.—Wilshire’s Magazine.

Emancipate the farmer from the thraldom of manipulated markets and the advice of his dear friends who know so much better than he does what he ought to do.—The Southern Mercury.

Bishop Berkeley’s poem being translated into Japanese, they pondered for awhile on the words: “Westward the course of empire takes its way,” then the little cherry blossom worshipers shouldered their knapsacks and started after the setting sun. At last accounts they had got as far as Tie Pass. None of them showed any intention of stopping there. How much further their empire will take its way nobody knows.—The Nebraska Independent.

That labor and culture should go together, that sweat and science should walk hand in hand, that art and harvest work should know each other for brothers, or that the sense of beauty and the capacity to dig a[Pg 374] ditch should unite in the same personality, seems impossible to all those whose capacities are of the hothouse variety, and who feel “lifted up above common things by reason of their refinement.” But the changing order, which is making or shaping a world of reality to take the place of the world of seeming, is bringing just this thing to pass; and the time is not far distant when the gardener’s shears and apron will be in the possession of the man who writes art criticism, while the man who paints masterpieces will often be seen building fences. The “superior person” will then be chiefly interesting as an exotic, to be studied and duly ticketed as “rare” by those who have blood in their veins. Work is the very soul of life; and the idler, cultivated or other, has not lived in the past, does not live in the present, nor will he live in the future. When art and work are one and indivisible we shall not even ask for philosophers to compensate us for the illusions of life. Then the common, transfigured, will satisfy our every need.—Tomorrow.

No real battle between public rights and special privileges ever comes on in simple or unmistakable form. The crucial question is always so complicated with other issues as to bewilder men of the best intentions and of good judgment who happen to be interested on the right side of those other issues. It is upon bewilderments like these that conscious advocates of privilege depend for dividing the forces of their enemy when such a division becomes vital to them.—The Chicago Public.

It was an ill-advised move when Oklahoma joined the crusade against Standard Oil. Mr. Rockefeller may decide not to give her statehood.—The South McAlester (I. T.) Capital.

Recent reports of big industrial concerns show that they are having a good business year, thirty-seven companies paying dividends in March aggregating $24,000,000, compared with $21,800,000 last year and $19,800,000 the year before.—From weekly circular letter of Henry Clews, Banker, No. 35 Wall Street, New York, dated March 4, 1905.

Yes, the trusts are doing well. It is easy for anybody to make money if he controls the buying and selling price of an article the people must have. It may be a little surprising, though, to some, to learn that the trusts are faring even better now than heretofore.—The Missouri World.

We wish well of every public man who resolutely tries to do his duty. It matters not what political party he may affiliate with, if he is a friend of the people, we give him our word of encouragement and Godspeed. Among Democrats we find some notable examples of progressive statesmanship and some advocates of reform. The Republican Party is not without some public men whose works and words give evidence of a desire to stand for the best type of popular government. Yet every reformer in the Republican or Democratic Party has to spend too much time, energy and ammunition in fighting the enemies within the ranks of his own party. Mr. Bryan will wear his life out in trying to overcome his enemies in the so-called Democratic Party just as John P. Altgeld wore his life away. Governor La Follette always has war on his hands with the corporation element in his own party. And now that Mr. Roosevelt has outlined a radical course, he is beset by powerful opposition from high-up Republican politicians who represent special interests. He will not succeed in accomplishing much so long as all his energy is taken up in fighting the enemy at home. The very logic of events will force the radical reformers all into one party, and then the people will have something to hope for.—The Kansas Commoner.

Politeness is the external part of gentility, but it is often the principal weapon of rascality. A rude rascal is never as dangerous as a polite one.—The Seattle Patriarch.

Kansas will find it a big job fighting the Standard Oil trust, so long as the trust is in the national banking business and controls the means of transportation. Still, the people of Kansas, co-operating through their state government, can make it hot for the trust. The state can put $20,000,000 into the fight, and with this sum can build railroads, lay pipe lines and establish dozens of oil refineries. Twenty million dollars is a big sum, but is no more than the people of Kansas pay in national taxes every two years.—The Missouri World.

The magazines and big dailies are doing the country a great service. They have writers of ability; apparently these have long chafed under the galling chains of party manacles and are now glad to be free—glad to try their strength and exercise their taste and talents. Populists should secure every advantage possible, strengthen their organizations, keep these patriots closely in touch, and at every possible point be ready should a reaction come.

Again and again we have seen great waves of reform sweep over the land, and again and again we have seen the monopolists catch a second breath, spit on their hands and tie these good men down with party thongs and convention rules and resolutions.

Once we felt sure of McKinley and Garfield. Tom Ewing, Carlisle, McLean, Voorhees, David Davis, hundreds and hundreds of the brightest men in the land came to the front for a time and then dropped back when a reaction came.

[Pg 375]

Some of this reaction is due to the lack of true patriotism, to a lack of courage, fortitude; but whatever the cause may be, Populists should be prepared for the back-set and save as much advantage as possible. At the present every man is our friend. Almost without an exception the great statesmen and editors are with us. For the time being party lines are wiped out, Democrat or Republican, North or South.

Populist, put your best foot forward! You have pointed the way, the crowd has taken the road, now be kind, be true, speak carefully—do your level best.—The Joliet News.

The President does not want to injure the “System”; he only wants it to “tote fair.”

But the “System” does not want to “tote fair.” Its authors did not create it for any such commonplace purpose, and they will resist to the bitter end the endeavor of the President to halt the exploitation of the people by the trusts and combines.

What may grow out of this resistance by the “System”?

A split of the Republican Party into two factions—into the “square deal” Republicans and the “System” Republicans.—Berlin (Pa.) Record.

As long as boys read every week that John Doe or Richard Roe has made a fortune in one day cornering wheat or corn, or some other commodity, the gambling instinct in the young will hardly subside. Take away Mr. Doe’s profession by law.—The Smith Center (Kan.) Messenger.

THE MILEAGE ROLL OF DISHONOR

VOTED AYE

—Collier’s Weekly.

The industrial barons pay the same sum for a large as a small cotton crop. Just enough to keep the planters’ help alive.—The Appeal to Reason.

[Pg 376]

Alarmists who are forever crying about “the dangers of Socialism” remind one of that Scripture that tells of the fellow who “fleeth when no man pursueth.” There are comparatively few Socialists in the country. And if certain reforms are consummated there will be a less number. And there are mighty few Socialists who are “dangerous.”

In this connection may be noted an incident that occurred during the Cooper Union lecture course at New York City. It was claimed that the audiences, judged by their applause, were Socialistic. So a vote was taken. In one audience of 1,200 people there were less than twenty Socialists. Then this question was put to the audience: “Those who believe the time has come for the community to assert a larger control over the public enterprises, such as the trusts, railroads and public utilities, please rise.” The entire audience arose.

There are no “dangerous classes” in such an audience—a typical, intelligent public gathering. “The people will wobble right.” The people are discovering the wrongs in government and they are finding that they themselves are largely to blame for these wrongs. They find that they have neglected their rights. They have conferred special privileges. They have permitted aggressions. It is largely their own fault. They are beginning to see that. They want to correct their mistakes. They will correct them.

And those who cry “wolf” when the people are trying to get back their own are more dangerous than any others.—The Buffalo Times.

“Populist” is from the Latin word populus, meaning the people. “Populite,” which is used to a considerable extent in the South instead of Populist, is also from the Latin word populus. The original meaning of the words “populist,” “democrat” and “republican” is substantially the same.—The Missouri World.

Without vision a people perishes. The need for “seers” is greatest in a democracy where autocracy fails and the people must fall back upon broad instincts, intuitive reasoning and average intelligence. The poet-seer is the highest type of the visionary. His message comes in the form of rhythmic speech which has the widest carrying capacity. Poets, however, do not come into the world by accident. The poet comes only after preparation is made and reception is assured. For support he can depend no longer upon an indulgent king or upon patrons. Today the people stand in place of these. But as yet the collective mind has not worked out the problem of protection in spiritual properties. This is one of the main problems America has to meet: to create and sustain a race of poet-seers which will stand in right relation to the people and move in these broad lands as broad as they.—Tomorrow.

Monett, the Ohio lawyer, began the prosecution of the Standard Oil trust when the Government was fostering the trusts and the courts knocked him out. Now the Government begins to make signs that it is against the trusts and another case has been begun in Ohio. The courts will change their sides. Monett was downed by Rockefeller, beaten by the courts, and kicked out of the Republican Party. A nod from the President changed the whole situation.—The Nebraska Independent.

Despite the fact that the Czar refused to permit a delegation of workmen to present a petition to him, he, realizing the havoc that had been wreaked upon the people, finally consented to have a delegation call upon him and present their grievances. It may be true that the delegation was not those chosen by the men engaged in the original movement, but it is also true that even for appearance’ sake he had to go through the formality of receiving a delegation of workmen, and, at least to that degree, the new departure has been recognized.

It is also of interest to know that, though the Russian workmen have had no organization, yet their strike has been declared at an end by agreement, and that they are now engaged in the selection of their representatives in a mixed commission to determine the following questions: A shorter workday, an increase in wages, the right to organize, and assemblage and freedom of speech.

Jointly, the people insist that the government shall be based upon justice and the participation of the people therein, regardless of their station in life, equality before the law, inviolability of domicile, the freedom of association, of speech and of the press, and compulsory education.

Thus, after all, out of the strikes of the Russian workmen, though many of their dear ones have been killed and mutilated, their blood has sanctified their cause and will make for the good, the progress and the uplifting of all the people of Russia.—American Federationist.

A revolution is on, and the attacking party has inscribed the Populist principles upon its banners. The attacking party is not insurgents or rebels. It is in power, the Government, the whole thing. Never before has the prospect seemed at all discouraging for Standard Oil raids, Beef Trust schemes and kindred despoliation of the land and the fulness and the people thereof. Everything worth considering is now consolidated against the robbers. Have good cheer, Populists. The day is breaking. Up and don your armor. Whet your battle-axe.—The Joliet News.

He alone is great who can suggest a thought in such a way that the other man believes he originated it—The Philistine.

[Pg 377]

A Wall Street victim, after squandering his own money and his wife’s, committed suicide, and yet some of the New York clergymen who are so active in denouncing the small gambling houses have not a word to say against the New York Stock Exchange which slays its tens of thousands where the small gambling houses slay their thousands.—The Commoner.

The spirit of Populism has reasserted itself and taken the Sunflower State by storm.

The shots fired by the Kansas Legislature, forced from it by a determined demand of the people, at the trusts and monopolies have been heard around the world. They sounded the death-knell of plutocracy in America.

Aimed at the Standard Oil octopus, these shots hit every political and commercial scoundrel in the United States. The special privileged class have been dealt a blow which staggers their fabric from centre to circumference.

This is the beginning of the end of corrupt government. The people who do the labor and produce the wealth of the world will be deceived and plundered no longer. The revolution is on and it can’t be checked.—The Dalton (Ga.) Herald.

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