“It won’t be believed,” replied the collector sententiously. “I will go aboard with you at once with the greatest pleasure. Let me finish entering you first. You have no cargo, I suppose?”
“Yes, we have a small cargo.”
“What is it?” picking up a pen.
“About two hundred tons of gold bullion or native gold, consigned to the Bank of England to the order of Munster & Thorp.”
The collector dropped his pen, stared speechlessly for a moment, and then flushed angrily.
“I’d have you know, sir,” he exclaimed in savage tones, “that I am not here to be made game of. What do you mean by coming here with such yarns? Give me your proper ship’s papers, enter your vessel in the regular way, and get you gone,” and outraged official dignity glared at the captain of theMysteryin righteous anger.
Captain Penniman did not seem offended, nor was he repentant. He rather sympathized with the other’s wrath, and yet was amused by it. He judged it would be hardly prudent to allow his amusement to become visible; so he preserved a serious countenance.
“I beg you to observe,” he replied conciliatingly, “that my papers are perfectly regular and complete. You can hardly doubt the corroborative evidence of New York newspapers on the point of the time of my departure from New York. As for my cargo, I admit it is an unusual one, but I have brought none of it ashore with me. If you will come on board I will show you that it is just what I have declared it to be. Besides, there is no duty on gold, is there?”
The revenue officer now sat in helpless bewilderment. He looked again at the newspaper and at the ship’s papers. Her cargo was not specified in the latter, but the date of leaving New York seemed to be clearly established. His credulity was able to digest that fact, marvelous though it was, in the face of such evidence. But two hundred tons of gold! Why should not a wonderful ship have a wonderful cargo? It was a tremendous strain to put upon the mental apparatus of even so important a functionary as Her Majesty’s collector of customs at Southampton. But he struggled hard to meet the emergency. His face was still flushed, and he breathed heavily for a few moments, apparently in fear of an apoplectic stroke. It was a noble effort to keep reason still seated on her throne, and it succeeded.
“How much money do two hundred tons of gold represent?” he asked faintly, after a long silence.
“Oh, a matter of £25,000,000 or thereabouts,” was the reply.
“Enormous, but I thought it was more,” was the comment of the man, still dazed, but trying to recover his mental equilibrium.
“Well, as I said before, I shall be glad to show you the ship if you care to go aboard of her with me,” said Captain Penniman, rising. “I’ll be thankful, though, if you will kindly refrain from mentioningthe nature of our cargo until to-morrow. The crew know nothing about it, and I want to get it up to London without attracting attention. I must arrange for docking and engage a special train to take the bullion to the city early to-morrow morning. I’ll attend to that now, and call for you in half an hour or so, if you wish.”
“I shall thank you for the privilege of inspecting theMystery,” said the customs officer, whose manner now indicated respect bordering upon awe.
When the two men were rowed out to the vessel a little later, there was quite a fleet of small boats hovering about her, their occupants all manifesting the greatest curiosity. Captain Penniman took his guest aboard, and they plunged at once into the mysteries below. Above decks, she was simply one of the best type of great private steam yachts. When the engine-room was reached it was not apparent to a landsman’s eye that the machinery of theMysterydiffered much from that of an ordinary modern steamship of her size and general type. Captain Penniman merely remarked that he did not understand himself the technic of that department.
“I believe,” he said, “that much of her machinery remains just as it was originally constructed for steam. Carbonic acid gas is introduced into strong cylinders just as steam would be. It comes through an automatic valve which regulates the pressure, and puts the power of this new agent under the same control that steam was held in. They tell me that this valve which delivers just the requisite quantity of carbonic acid gas for each stroke of the piston is the invention which furnishes the key to the whole discovery. Attempts have been made for several years to utilize the tremendous expansive power of this liquified gas, but none of them succeeded until this valve was devised. I tell you, my friend, steamships will become more out of date than sailing vessels as soon as the success of this experiment is known.”
“But how do you get such terrific speed?”
“By using larger propellers and turning them faster. Our screws revolve at about one hundred and ten revolutions a minute, while those of the so-called crack liners make only eighty-five to ninety. We have shafts as large as those of a 12,000 ton boat, and they have stood the strain coming over without a sign of weakness. But come into the boiler-room.”
Instead of the great hot fire-hole with dozens of blazing furnaces and coal heaped about, there was a small apartment, or rather two, one each side of the engine-room. The still bewildered collector saw only three long rows one above another of what were apparently copper cylinders such as are supplied to the soda-water fountains in America. He noticed, however, that each cylinder was nearly ten feet long, and from the end of each a pipe led toward the engine-room.
“Each of those cylinders,” explained the captain, “contains liquid carbonic acid under high pressure. They are tapped one after another, and the escaping gas in the engine cylinders furnishes the motive power that drives the screws. I’ve been rather anxious all the way over lest one of them should explode, but they tell me the danger is much less than of an ordinary boiler explosion. The men in the engineers’ department were some of them afraid at first of being poisoned by escape of the gas. You will notice that the air down here is as fresh and pure as it is out of doors. We have the finest ventilating system I ever saw on any ship. A forced draught, supplied by fans driven by a small carbonic acid engine, changes the air in every part of the ship every three minutes. As a matter of fact, the chief engineer tells me there has been no leakage of gas for a moment during the voyage. The carbonic acid, just before it does its work of driving the pistons, is heated by an oil flame on the outside of the pipes through which it passes. This accomplishes two purposes. It increases the expansive power of the gas, and it makes it light enough to rise readily and escape through the smoke-stack. But we have otherwonders. Come up on deck,” and the two men ascended to the main deck and walked to the rail.
“Will you lighten ship, Mr. Walters?” said the captain to an officer who was passing.
“Aye, sir,” replied the man as he disappeared.
“Just notice carefully the distance between us and the water—about five feet I should say,” remarked the captain to his still silent companion.
A moment later there was a queer humming noise somewhere below, and the ship’s frame seemed to tremble slightly. Nothing was said for a few minutes. Then the Englishman exclaimed:
“What does it mean, captain? We are rising, or the water is falling.”
“Just so. We are using the pressure of the carbonic acid to drive the water from our ballast compartments and lightening the ship. We have a double hull, and the space between the two skins is divided into sections. These sections are air or gas-tight. When they are filled with water, and we wish to empty them, we have only to open the plugs at the bottom by turning a rod running up to the deck, admit compressed gas above, and the water is quickly forced out. Then we close the plugs, shut off the gas, and the ship stands four or five feet higher out of the water than she did before. So you see we are able to regulate our draught, and we gain other advantages also. The two hulls are so constructed that they take up and dissipate the vibration which our high speed would otherwise render dangerous. We can make her light forward and heavy aft, orvice versa; in fact, we can adjust the ship to exactly the best conditions for the weather she happens to be in, and for the speed we wish to employ.”
“Marvelous, captain! Wonderful beyond anything I ever expected to see is theMystery. She is well named. We are certainly eight or nine feet above the water now. Look at those fellows,” and the collector pointed suddenly to a dozen boats floating idly a cable’s length away.
Their occupants were staring blankly at the ship before them, their faces expressing so many phases of speechless amazement that Captain Penniman and his companion broke into a roar of laughter.
“Where do you carry the gold, captain?” asked the Englishman presently, the chief marvel of all in his estimation rising up to dwarf the others.
“I will show you,” and the captain led the way to the lower deck and to an iron door in the center of the ship a little aft of mid-ships. He took from his pocket a flat Yale key and inserted it in the small keyhole. The door opened into a dark, iron-bound chamber, which the two men entered. Not until he had closed the door behind them did the captaintouch a button and light a single electric lamp in the center of the ceiling. Nothing was to be seen except a large number of carefully-packed wooden boxes. They were arranged so that they occupied the greater portion of the floor of the chamber, but they did not rise above about four feet in height.
“The gold is in these boxes,” exclaimed the captain. “There are eight hundred of them. They are not large, and you would think they might be easily handled; but if you care to walk off with one I’ll make you a present of it.”
“But there cannot be two hundred tons of gold in those small boxes,” said the collector, laying his hand on one at the end of the top tier, and trying to pull it toward him. The box didn’t move, and he pulled harder. “They are nailed down, are they not?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” replied the captain, smiling; “but each of those boxes contains five hundred pounds of native gold. Now that you are here, you may as well make your visit an official one and inspect the consignment. I presume if I open for you any box you may designate it will suffice for the lot, will it not?”
“Certainly,” still struggling vainly to stir one of the topmost boxes, and giving it up rather breathlessly. “Suppose you open this one,” indicating a box in the middle of the front row.
The captain produced a large screw-driver and began to loosen the screws in the cover of the box selected. The fastenings did not yield easily, but after a few moments the long screws had been removed and the thick cover came off. There was revealed an iron-lined receptacle heaped full of nuggets and dust, which gleamed a pale yellow in the light of the electric lamp. The customs officer drew a long breath, and then leaned closely over the naked treasure.
“May I touch it?” he asked in a kind of awe.
“Certainly; examine it as closely as you like.”
The officer plunged both hands suddenly into the golden mass and tried to lift up heaping handfuls as though it had been pebbles and sand. The extraordinary weight prevented him, and he allowed the yellow dust to sift back between his fingers.
“How heavy it is!” was his only comment. “I have seen enough,” he added presently, as he smoothed down the surface of the gold, so that the captain could replace the cover. When the screws had been tightened again in their places, the two men left the treasure-room and went on deck. The collector had nothing to say until he prepared to go ashore. He was sober and rather distrait as he bade the captain good-day.
“I must beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “for mybit of temper at the office. You must admit that what you told me was calculated to make a man incredulous. You have the most wonderful ship and the most wonderful cargo that ever came to Southampton or any other British port. This is a memorable day for me and for all England, too, I make no doubt.”
The London papers printed with reservations the next morning a long Central News telegram from Southampton describing the new marvel of the seas. Such a feat as that of the unknown American shipMysterywas incredible, declared the sage London editors. Nevertheless they dispatched their naval experts to Southampton by the earliest trains to expose the hoax. Before they arrived, the precious cargo of theMysteryhad been safely landed, sent to London by special train, and was duly lodged in the vaults of the Bank of England before any rumor of its existence had reached the city. The eminent gentlemen who expose so relentlessly in the columns of London’s great dailies the shortcomings of the British admiralty did not seek out at once the ship they had come to investigate, when they reached Southampton. They sought instead the collector of customs who had been quoted as authority for the tall story which had been sent to the papers the night before. When they found him they began asking insinuating questionswhich speedily caused that functionary, still rather nervous after the shocks to his system the day before, to fly into a violent temper.
“Don’t you think we had better send for his physician at once? The man is mad,” sarcastically observed a correspondent to one of his fellows.
One or two reflections upon his sanity finally led the angry officer to take from his desk the New York paper which Captain Penniman had given him. He spread it out before the eyes of the now amazed newspaper men. Then he gave them a plump invitation to leave the office. Not another word would he say to them. The delegation lost no time now in going to the dock where theMysterylay. They were still incredulous, but bewildered. They had a good deal of difficulty in getting aboard; but Captain Penniman had been more than half expecting them, and when word was passed to him he invited them to inspect the ship. They were even more interested than the collector had been by what they saw. They were still skeptical, however, about the speed of the vessel.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, gentlemen,” said the captain suddenly. “The distance from here to the Lizard is 110 miles. It is now 11:30. We’ve nothing special to do this afternoon. We can cast off in five minutes, run to within sight of Lizard Light, andbe back here in time for you to take an early evening train to the city. Then you can see for yourselves what theMysterycan do.”
There was a chorus of approval, and ten minutes later the ship was under way. She ran down the Solent at a speed that amazed not only the visitors on board, but all on shore or afloat who watched the strange ship.
Not until the Needles had been passed and the open sea was before her did the beautiful vessel fully rouse herself. By this time her draught and weight had been perfectly adjusted for the best work. Journalistic cynicism andblaséindifference were not proof against what followed. The excitement of an international yacht race was tame in comparison with the exhilaration of theMystery’smarvelous speed. The group of correspondents gathered upon the bridge, and sheltered themselves behind the breast-high canvas against the gale which the motion of the ship seemed to create. They were almost silent for some time after the captain had turned the indicator to “full speed.” The swift panorama of the shore, the flashing past in dizzy succession of the nearer waves, the lashing of the strange hurricane in the midst of a sea almost smooth, the throbbing, pulsing tremors of the living ship beneath them, created new emotions which silenced comment.
The ship’s prow was pointed to the west, and she leaped forward as if some strange magnetism was drawing her back to the land which had given her birth. The sea welcomed her, embraced her for a moment, and sped her on. The waves opened a path for her without violence, and marked it in silvery white like the tail of a comet, as far back as the eye could reach. Neptune bowed his trident before her and became a willing vassal. The winds alone rebelled and strove to hold her back.
Even Captain Penniman’s eyes kindled with enthusiasm as he walked up to his guests and asked their opinion of theMystery’squalities. It was not until they had sought shelter from the wind a little later in the saloon that they gave expression to their feelings.
“You have introduced a new epoch in navigation, captain,” said the naval expert of theTimesexpressively. “The days of steam are gone by. America has once more revolutionized the naval construction of the world. TheMysterywill be more important in history than theMonitor. A new race for naval supremacy must begin to-morrow. In a word, gentlemen,” he concluded, as the vast significance of the subject grew upon him, “the building of this ship is the most important event of this half century.”
“Yes, we’ve got the biggest story to tell to-morrowmorning that any newspaper has told in our day,” added another in whom the journalist instinct was uppermost.
They inspected the splendid ship throughout, and before they had finished word was passed to the captain that the Lizard was in sight about six miles off.
“Let us see,” said the captain, glancing at his watch and figuring on a bit of paper. “Call it one hundred and four miles, and the time is two hours fifty-four minutes—that is nearly thirty-six miles an hour. I think that will do. Ask Mr. Walters to shape her course for Southampton.”
Before half the distance to Southampton had passed, each of the half-dozen correspondents had ensconced himself before a pile of white paper at a table in the saloon, and was grinding away for dear life upon the narrative which was to astonish the world on the morrow. And the world was astonished, doubly so, for just before parting with his guests Captain Penniman quietly informed them of the nature of the cargo which theMysteryhad carried on her maiden voyage. They received the announcement with amazement, and as soon as they set foot ashore hastened to the telegraph office to advise their respective editors to seek corroboration of the extraordinary news from the bank officers.
The world’s surprise over the strange tale wasextensively mixed with incredulity in many quarters. But three days later this latter emotion was changed to consternation in the cabinet councils of France and Russia, when it was announced that the British admiralty had purchased the wonderful American shipMystery, had engaged her staff of engineers, and would speedily equip her for special naval service. The next day came the news that a special government loan of £20,000,000 for naval construction purposes had been takenen blocby the house of Munster & Thorp for an American client. The papers further announced that the government would as speedily as possible equip certain existing warships with the new motive power employed on theMystery, and would build new ones similar in general design to the American ship, but heavily armored and on a larger scale.
The difficulties which seemed to make a peaceful settlement of the Egyptian question impossible began to disappear. The representations of France and Russia became more conciliatory. The darkest of recent war-clouds vanished before the month had passed.
Robert Brentwas in London for the first time since he started upon his almost hopeless quest of fortune’s favor in the summer of 1893. He had been the only passenger on theMystery, whose epoch-making voyage a few days before was still the marvel of the Old and the New Worlds. This return to the old-fashioned, homely comforts of solid London he had anticipated with peculiar satisfaction. He felt more at home in Piccadilly than in Broadway. For six months he had told himself it was worth a trip across the Atlantic to be able to ride in a rubber-tired cab upon an asphalt pavement.
The New York business man cannot understand why it is that a Londoner flies away to the river, the sea-shore, or the country on the slightest pretext “to rest.” To say nothing of the extreme deliberation—to use an inoffensive term—in all his business methods, the citizen of the British metropolis has little in the common feature of municipal life to distract him. No gong ever clangs in a London street. Not evenon a fire-engine is that abomination tolerated. Broadway has become a municipal boiler-shop, to be fled from with bursting ear-drums. In Piccadilly, the wheels are silent and the horses seem to step lightly on the almost elastic pavement. Toleration of noise in all its forms is, indeed, the great surviving element of barbarism in the American people. Its relentless suppression is the only obvious superiority of European civilization above that of the New World.
But London did not seem the same to Brent after his two years’ absence. He avoided at first his old resorts, and did not seek out the associates from whom he had been completely cut off since he bade them good-by in early September, 1893. The old life did not tempt him as he had expected it would. London was the same, yet different. “It must be because everybody is out of town for the holidays,” he told himself, in trying to account for his intangible impression of change.
After a few days, Brent strolled into one or two of his favorite clubs. They were almost deserted. Only a few fossilized members, whom nothing short of an earthquake could shake out of their favorite smoking-room seats, were to be seen. Some of them recognized Brent, and nodded to him. Nobody ever does anything more in a typical London club. Americans, some of them, have an idea that one of the objects ofa club is to furnish members with the society of their fellows. Not so in London. Sit for an hour and watch the members of an English club stroll into the smoking-room one by one after dinner to enjoy their coffee, cigars, and liquor. A dozen men, perhaps, will be sitting each quite by himself at a tiny table. A newcomer enters. Half the men in the room nod to him, and he returns the salutation with as much cordiality as he thinks necessary. The other half don’t look up from their papers. But does he join one of his friends or acquaintances for a chat over the coffee? No mere good fellowship would justify such a liberty. He seeks the most secluded corner that remains unoccupied, draws a table barricade in front of him, and signals for a waiter. And if two men are inconsiderate enough to come in together with an unfinished conversation carried on above a whisper, all the other men in the room frown at the disturbers. The Englishman seeks his club for solitude, not for society.
Brent was quite used to this feature of London club life, and now he rather rejoiced in it. There was just sufficient companionship in the simple presence of a few silent mortals to relieve a sense of isolation which had been oppressing him for weeks. It would not be true to say that wealth had in a few short months made of Brent a morose and disappointed man. Thegreat problem which confronted him had proved a heavier burden than he anticipated. The anxieties of the past year had been more irksome than the pleasurable though arduous excitement of the previous months of adventure. But Brent was too young, too sanguine, and too resourceful to be cast down by the vast responsibilities which weighed more heavily upon him each day.
The day after he had arranged for taking the British government loan of £20,000,000, he set about figuring up roughly his financial operations since the night he had taken John Wharton partly into his confidence nine months before. Nearly $500,000,000, about fifteen per cent of his golden store, had been used or distributed—“got rid of,” he put it, in summing up the situation to himself.
“No, it isn’t rid of,” he corrected himself, “unless I burn up four hundred millions in securities. That is the worst of it,” he mused, rather gloomily. “I’m not rid of any, to speak of, except what I have actually given away.” And the young man put down a little resentfully the sense of estrangement and isolation which his unique problem and insular situation forced upon him. He persisted in his determination to guard jealously the secret of his wealth. He fancied he was still secure from real danger of discovery. Once or twice he had experienced some ofthe anxieties of a hunted criminal. The ardor with which the newspapers had pursued his secret added to his dread of the notoriety which would come with discovery.
Let it not be imagined that this trait in Brent’s character was a singular and un-American whim. There is not an Astor, a Vanderbilt, or a Rockefeller who would not gladly sacrifice a great fortune from his possessions to escape from the isolation in which wealth has imprisoned him. The privilege of meeting one’s fellow-men upon a basis of sincerity is a boon quite unappreciated until wealth has taken it away. A man of many millions must do one of two things. Either he must build a wall about himself which he will permit no stranger and few of his so-called friends to pass, or he must arm himself with unrelenting suspicion and incredulity, until his waning faith in human nature almost disappears.
If the true story of “How it Feels to be a Millionaire” should ever be written, it will contain chapters that will excite more commiseration than envy. The “poor millionaire” is not likely to become an object of popular pity and sympathy, but he is often not a bad fellow after all. An American cursed with the fame of many millions gained by his ancestors, said recently that from early youth his position had suggested to him that of an antique statue at the mercyof relic-hunters. His experience constantly deepened his impression, that nine out of ten of the people with whom he was brought in contact were armed each with hammer and chisel, ready to chip off a piece if they could get a chance. It was not so much from love of his wealth that he resisted most demands made upon him. It was because a man to whom money is a drug resented being wheedled and hoodwinked and swindled with just the same feelings that a poorer man might spend ten times the sum involved to recover an overcharge from a railroad company.
But if Brent had escaped thus far the commoner penalties of wealth, the exemption was more than overbalanced by his peculiar responsibilities. His misgivings about the effects of an enormous addition to the world’s supply of monetary metal were growing stronger daily. He began weeks before to realize the practical wisdom of the financial maxim that the essential value of gold as a monetary standard is its stability—its steady and almost unfluctuating supply. Before he left America signs were multiplying of a radical disturbance at the foundations of the financial system. High and advancing prices with cheap money was a combination so paradoxical and rare, that all calculations were upset by it. Already the tendency was to accumulate and hoard visible property, rather than the golden or other monetary tokensof it. Who wanted his possessions turned into gold or other form of cash, when the purchasing power of money was declining daily? The prices of food, of manufactures, of land, of everything except labor, were rising at an unprecedented rate. There was a scramble for things of intrinsic value—a property panic, it might be called.
Wheat, for instance, was climbing toward famine prices. Why should an owner of grain sell, unless to invest in some commodity enhancing in value at a still more rapid rate? Stocks and bonds or money itself would yield only the most trifling returns on the capital represented. The prudent investor was forced to cling to those forms of property the demands for which were unceasing and inevitable. And the effect of this sudden limitation of the channels of investment? Obvious enough, and ominous too, to the dullest comprehension. When everybody wants to buy and nobody is willing to sell, prices quoted have small relation to the intrinsic value of the commodity in question. There was almost a corner in the markets of America. It was no artificial squeeze, manipulated by scheming traders. It was the inexorable working of one of the great laws of demand and supply, which no man or set of men could completely control. It presaged something worse.
Already the mutterings of a rapidly gatheringstorm were heard throughout the land. Wage-earners, and all men with fixed incomes, were at the mercy of a far worse demon than “hard times.” Reduce the pay of every laborer and salary-earner in the United States forty per cent within six short months, and what would be the effect? The very foundations of constitutional government would hardly bear the strain. And yet that was just what had happened. The artisan who earned $20 a week in September was able to buy no more with his money than the laborer’s $12 a week had purchased the previous March. To restore to the artisan the same equivalent in purchasing power that he had received in March, would require raising his wages to $33 a week. In other words, $20 would buy in March precisely the same quantities of food and clothing and fuel which it needed $33 to procure in September.
If this scaling down of wages had been done by employers, organized labor would have known how to deal with the situation. But the amount paid in wages was the same—more in some cases—in dollars and cents as it had been at the beginning of the year. It was impossible, therefore, to retaliate at once with strikes and other arbitrary measures. The power to be combated was greater and beyond the employers. Moreover, it was something even less tangible than the soul of a corporation. There was no getting at it.Employers themselves, except the producers of goods in regular demand, suffered from it quite as much as did the workers. The railroad companies could not advance fares and rates, because the purchasing power of money had suddenly diminished nearly one half. The increased prices they were called upon to pay for coal, rails, and rolling stock left them no surplus with which to satisfy the demands of employees for more wages. Miners and mill operatives were pressing their claims with better success. Coal and standard cotton and woolen goods were held at high prices, although the demand from actual consumers did not increase. The latter fact did not for the moment trouble the middlemen or dealers. Nothing was to be gained by turning their goods into money on a rising market. They held on for still larger profits.
The farmers were the ones who regarded the situation with the greatest satisfaction. The crops already beginning to come to market were large, but the prices of all staple products were marvelously high. Wheat, corn, and cotton seemed to be the favorite investments for idle money, while a real estate boom drew attention away from stocks and bonds in still another direction. Agriculture could afford to enjoy a wonderful prosperity at the expense of town vocations. The boot had been on the other leg longenough. Somehow, no matter how, the tiller of the soil had been suddenly restored to his pristine supremacy in the economic world. It was enough for him to rejoice over the fact without trying to explain it.
Explanations there were and plenty of them, spread before all classes in the literature of the day. The most plausible, and the one most readily accepted at farmhouse hearthstones, was a complete vindication of the so-called “greenback craze” of a few years before. For the first time since the resumption of specie payments ten years after the Civil War, there was a superabundance of money in circulation. The effect upon the farmer was an unmixed blessing apparently. Once more agriculture paid a handsome profit. What matter to the farmer if the prices of all kinds of commodities were high? His farm supplied most of his bodily wants. He could burn wood instead of buying coal, and he didn’t mind paying rather more for clothing if the profit on his oats and corn doubled. Besides, he could pay his debts, and cancel his mortgage before long. It was only the fortunate farmer who had no debts or mortgage who was puzzled what to do with his enhanced profits. Savings banks, stocks, bonds would yield him only a pittance on his money. He could not buy more land, because the price had already gone too high. He wished he had not sold his crops for he saw they wouldhave brought still higher figures if he had held on.
Most of the features of the situation were familiar to Brent before he left America, and his apprehensions had been thoroughly aroused. The newspapers and his private advisers at about the beginning of October informed him that affairs at home were assuming a critical and dangerous phase in many places. He received one afternoon by cable a long message in cipher from Wharton, who was still his sole confidant. When he had translated it, this was what confronted him:
“Commercial demoralization becoming so widespread in all centers that grave evils imminent. Foodstuffs have reached famine prices. Bread riots feared Chicago and other places. Situation aggravated by our continued support of stocks at present prices. Tendency to sell securities and reinvest in visible property increasing daily. Think you should make radical change of policy in face threatened evils. Much regret your absence. Cannot you return for at least brief visit? Emergency may compel prompt action any moment to divert disastrous consequences. Please cable full instructions and sail if possible.—Wharton.”
Brent was seriously alarmed and discouraged by this dispatch. Before deciding upon a complete course of action, he cabled Wharton the following reply:
“Endeavor divert course of speculation by allowing stocks decline gradually few points without exciting panic. Offer British naval bonds freely below par if necessary in order attract money from grain market. Try reduce price wheat by short sales or otherwise. Devise means for supplying food at fair prices in all distressed districts. Do this without ostentation, and employ existing agencies for distribution if possible. Use fullest discretion and spare no expense to avert serious disaster and violence. Keep me fully advised. If situation becomes more critical will return immediately.”
When he put himself face to face with the difficulties which he hoped his message to Wharton would mitigate somewhat, Brent speedily found himself in a bad temper. He put on his hat, set his teeth deep in an unlighted cigar, and presently was strolling aimlessly along the Thames Embankment. He found neither counsel nor encouragement in the face of old Father Thames. The grey river, like the grey city on its banks, was calmly indifferent to the petty concerns of any single generation of human weal and woe. The young man was unreasonably irritated by the absence of sympathy and inspiration in the inanimate things around him. The hopelessness of his problem angered him.
“Building theMysteryis the only sensible thing Ihave done since I landed the stuff in New York,” he told himself bitterly, while he leaned over the stone abutment near Cleopatra’s Needle, and watched with heedless eyes the gathering veil of dusk upon the river. “I was right at the outset—I cannot keep such a quantity of gold; I cannot spend it; I cannot give it away. What am I to do? I have turned only an eighth of it into money, and the financial system of America threatens to come tumbling about my ears. If I should invite a committee of bankers to visit my New York strong-room, and allow them to make known what they saw there, I verily believe anarchy would reign throughout Christendom within a month. I never dreamed that the monetary system of the world was so fragile a structure. Why, a golden ball, only about ten yards in diameter, would crush it in ruins. I solemnly believe that if my vault contained so many tons of dynamite instead of gold, and it threatened the destruction of the whole city of New York, it would be a far less dangerous menace to humanity than it actually is.”
The crushing sense of responsibility with which his thoughts suddenly overwhelmed the young man threw into his face a grey look of age, which might have been the reflection of the gathering shadows. His attitude had unconsciously become one of such dejection that a policeman passing by looked at himsharply. A ragged urchin with the inevitable box of matches, which is always the excuse for London mendicancy, accosted Brent at the same moment.
“Wax lights, sir, penny a box?”
No response.
“Have a light, sir. The cigar’s no good to you, sir, without a light,” and the boy lit a match and held it up before the tip of the cigar still in Brent’s mouth. Brent woke up. He turned rather angrily at first, but the half-impudent, half-winning smile on the dirty but bright face looking up at him, while its owner stood on tiptoe with the burning match, checked the sharp rebuff on the end of his tongue. His mood changed. He allowed the boy to light his cigar. Then he took from his pocket at least half a dozen golden sovereigns, put them into the lad’s hand without looking at them, and turned away.
The boy gasped. For an instant he hesitated, then he started to run. He had not gone more than a dozen steps when he stopped suddenly. He stood still for a moment and then came slowly back.
“See here, mister,” he explained, with reluctant honesty, holding out the bright yellow coins toward Brent, “them isn’t ha’pence; them’s gold.”
“I know it, youngster. You’re welcome to them. Here’s another for your honesty,” dropping one more sovereign into the grimy hand.
The variety of emotion that revealed itself through the dirt on the small boy’s face was so rapid that Brent almost burst out laughing. But the climax surprised him. It was genuine pity in the bright brown eyes, when after a long silence the little lad came a bit closer, glanced significantly at the darkening river, and said:
“I say, mister, a toff like you ain’t got no call to be here. You might fall in, you know, or some blokes might come along and chuck you in for your ticker. If you’re going to stay I’m going to stop along, too. I can swim, and the police-boats are right here at the Temple wharf.” And after a moment, he added, “Come up to Charing Cross and I’ll give you back the coin—all except the last one; I ain’t got no use for so much, not in a year.”
Brent listened to this speech in amazement.
“Good God! The boy thinks I am going to drown myself. He can’t account for indifference to gold on any other hypothesis,” he said to himself.
Putting a friendly hand on the ragged shoulder, he replied, with reassuring heartiness:
“Well, my lad, I’ll go with you to Charing Cross, if you like. But don’t be alarmed. I haven’t robbed a bank, or escaped from a lunatic asylum, or been jilted by a sweetheart. My only trouble is that I’ve got more of those things”—pointing to theclutched hand in which the boy still held his coins—“than I know what to do with. By the way, I don’t think I need a swim as much as you do.”
The boy looked at him mystified and unbelieving.
“Nobody’s got that, sir,” he said, answering the point in Brent’s remarks quite beyond his comprehension. “Even the Lord Mayor hasn’t got more coin than he can do with.”
“The boy is quite right,” said Brent to himself. “No other man in all Christendom is cursed as I am. What real aid or sympathy could I get even if I sought it?” This to silence the suggestion which had risen in his mind that he should sacrifice even the privacy of life which he had guarded so jealously, in order to gain the wisest counsel for the solution of his momentous problem.
They walked up to the Strand, these two, and the odd companionship attracted some attention in the crowded thoroughfare. Brent noticed that the lad looked with considerable interest into the window of a cheap restaurant, and it prompted the question,
“Are you often hungry, youngster?”
“Oh, yes, ’most always, but I had a pretty good feed this morning,” was the matter-of-fact reply.
“Let’s see how much you can eat now,” said Brent with some interest, turning back to the restaurant.
“Just what I was a-goin’ to do, sir, as soon as you had no more use for me,” responded the boy with enthusiasm, and quickly added—“but I’ll pay for it, and stand treat for you, too, please, sir.”
Brent laughed, but said nothing, and the boy, assuming an air of supreme importance, led the way to an unoccupied table far down the narrow room.
“Sit here, sir,” said he, pulling out a chair for his guest and holding out his hand for Brent’s silk tile, which he put upon a peg by dint of climbing upon another chair to do it. “Bring a meenoo,” he commanded grandiloquently of a grinning waiter who came up. He handed the greasy slip of paper to Brent and observed confidentially:
“Don’t mind the expense, sir, we’ll have a big feed,” and the small host’s eyes sparkled in anticipation.
Brent tried hard to preserve his gravity, as he explained that he wasn’t very hungry, because he had eaten heartily in the afternoon. The boy seized the bill of fare and examined it critically. The most expensive dishes it boasted cost ninepence, and the variety was extremely limited.
“Haven’t you got any jugged hare, or any roast beef an’ Yorkshire pudding?” inquired the ragged gourmand with some scorn.
“No, we don’t have joints and hot dishes ready inthe evening, but we can cook you a good steak or cutlets,” said the waiter.
“Well, bring us some cutlets and steak and potatoes—and bacon—and sausages—and fried onions—and bread and butter—and—and tea, large cups—and some bath-buns—and cheese,” running his eye rapidly down the list. “That’s all now—oh, I say,” in sudden inspiration, “how much is a bottle of fizz?”
“Fizz?”
“Yes, the bubbly stuff that toffs drink.”
“Oh, champagne, do you mean? We haven’t any, but I can send out for a bottle.”
Brent thought it time to interfere. He didn’t want any fizz, really, he explained in answer to the incredulous look in the boy’s bright eyes.
“Beer, then?”
No, he didn’t want even beer, and the meal that had been ordered was quite fit for a king without any additions. The boy dismissed the waiter, but continued studying the bill of fare for some moments in some anxiety.
“Do you think that will be enough, sir?” he asked presently. “They’ve got some fried liver and some cold boiled ham, that I know would be good.”
Brent assured his anxious entertainer that he would be quite unable to touch liver or ham after such a repast as had been ordered. The waiter returned to ask what he should serve first.
“Bring it all at once,” was the boy’s prompt instruction, “and hurry it up, too.”
It came presently, “all at once,” and it quite filled the table.
“Just help yourself, sir. Ain’t this great? Golly, what a feed!” and the boy sat forward on the edge of his chair, his eyes dancing with excitement, and urged his guest to sample all the dishes at once. Brent took a cutlet and began eating. The boy’s enthusiasm was infectious, and he could not help catching the spirit which had made the ragged urchin a picture of unalloyed delight that would warm the coldest heart. It was a long time since he had seen a hungry boy eat, and Brent watched him with admiration and envy. To the boy, it was the occasion of the supremest happiness the year had brought. So it was to Brent.
“He’s a smart little rascal, and handsome, too, under the dirt and rags,” thought the young man.
The little fellow was too busy to talk during the first few minutes of his feasting. When the edge was off his appetite, Brent drew him out, and he was soon telling volubly about his life in the streets and fortune’s frowns and favors. He was a waif, about eleven he supposed, of shadowy antecedents, andcontented with his lot. He had been to school, could read and write, had no parents, and “didn’t want any.” Chaps that did have, most of them, had a harder time of it than he. Brent asked him what he meant to do with the seven pounds that he had given him.
“I don’t quite know yet, sir,” the lad replied slowly. “I’ll give some of it to the manager at the Boys’ Lodging, so’s I’ll have a warm place to sleep nights when trade’s bad next winter. Then I think I’ll try papers. You see, you can do jolly well with papers when you’ve money, sir. There’s a place in Whitechapel Road where I can get a fine suit, secondhand, you know, sir, for three bob, instead o’ these,” and he looked down at his dilapidated apparel disdainfully.
The meal was soon at an end. Brent had taken only a chop, a bit of bread, and a little tea, but there was nothing left of the wholesale repast which the small but now rather podgy looking youngster opposite him had ordered. Brent said nothing when the boy finally called for the bill, but allowed him to pay it, and smiled when with a grand air the lad handed the waiter a tip of twopence. On reaching the street Brent took a card from his pocket, wrote upon it the address of his lodgings, and giving it to the boy told him to call upon him at two o’ clock the following day. The boy promised.
“Don’t fail, now,” Brent added, “for I think I have something for you that you will like better than selling matches.” The boy touched his hat and was gone.
Brent felt like himself again. His contact with a little genuine human nature had done him a world of good, and his whim had brought him more pleasure than he remembered having for many a day.
“There’s good stuff in that boy,” he reflected, smiling to himself over some of the youngster’s hospitable oddities. “I’ll turn him over to Forbes to-morrow, and have him sent to school, and see what can be made of him.”
He sought the solitude of a smoking-room corner at his club, and sat down in a more sanguine spirit to meditate over the problem which never was long absent from his mind.
He remained in a brown study, oblivious to his surroundings, for nearly half an hour. Then he suddenly jumped up, left the club house, called a cab, and ten minutes later was at the cable office of the Western Union Telegraph Company in the Royal Exchange.
“I want to hire the use of one of your cables for an hour or two this evening,” said he to the man in charge.
“Wh-what?”
“I want to have a conversation with a gentleman in New York over one of your lines, say between ten and twelve o’clock this evening. Will you arrange it? How long will it take for messages to go back and forth, if I sit by the operator’s side at this end, and my friend is in your New York office?”
“I don’t think we can do it, sir. Our superintendent isn’t here, and I never heard of anybody hiring a cable in that way. If everything was clear, short messages would go back and forth very quickly. They would have to be repeated at the cable station in Ireland, again at the other end of the cable in Nova Scotia, and again at Duxbury, if you used that line.”
“Of course you can arrange it, if I pay you for it. Let’s see, though; it is only three o’clock in New York now, perhaps it can be done quicker at that end. Give me a form,” and Brent wrote a message to Wharton, asking him to secure the use of a cable at the Western Union office for two hours, between five and seven o’clock New York time (ten and twelve London time), and to post himself at the other end of the wire. The message, the clerk was confident, would be in New York within half an hour. Brent left, and returned to the office just before ten o’clock.
“It’s all right, sir,” said the clerk obsequiously.
“We received a message from the New York manager half an hour ago, instructing us to give you every facility for exclusive use of our best line. Will you come to the operating room?”
Brent followed, and was seated a moment later by the side of a young operator, who, with his hand on a telegraph key, was listening to the rapid ticks of the sounder.
“Mr. Wharton is there, sir. Will you write what you have to say to him?”
“Ask him what happened to-day,” replied Brent.
A few nervous dots and dashes, and the question had started on its three thousand mile journey. There was silence—one, two, three, four minutes. Then the answer began to come back. The telegrapher wrote it down rather slowly, and with occasional pauses between the words, for the cable does not bring a message as rapidly as a land line can carry it. This was what Brent read over the clerk’s shoulder:
“Followed your suggestion and stocks sagged after irregular market, closing about two per cent off. Sold wheat freely, but market did not break though weak. Bought fifty thousand barrels flour, which shall offer retailers and bakers to-morrow at sharp reduction. Hope to demoralize corner in bread-stuffs, but fear will require tremendous expenditure. Stockmarket will need continued support even at much lower range of prices. Might relieve stagnation money market by borrowing heavily on English bonds, and thus divert funds from bread-stuffs speculation. Could borrow about ninety millions at two to three per cent, probably on hundred million bonds. Believe this would give tone to whole market, and cause immediate decline wheat and other staples. Distress among masses very great and prospects serious, trouble becoming more grave. Fear only most radical measures will avert dangerous outbreaks. Strong movement developing favor immediate summons special session Congress. Hope you can arrange come over within few days.”
“That’s all,” said the operator, as he signaled a brief “o.k.” to the cable station.
As soon as Brent had read the last word he seized a writing-pad, and scribbling only a few words on a sheet, according to the operator’s suggestion, in order that the wire might not be idle, he replied as follows:
“Much surprised and distressed that situation so serious. We must remedy it at any cost. Hope Congress not be summoned. Some folly sure to result, and things bad enough now. Your suggestion about bond loan excellent. Please act on it at once, of course avoiding greater disturbance than necessary in market. Just as well let stocks decline five or sixper cent more, if can be done without exciting panic. Scarcer and dearer money with lower range prices stock market ought make it easy secure break in grain. Do you think a full supply food at reasonable prices in principal cities will avert outbreaks? If so use every effort to provide it promptly. Would suggest supplying flour at old rates to such bakers as will agree sell bread at ordinary prices. I appreciate great difficulties situation, but beg you use best efforts and fullest discretion dealing with it. I authorize you sacrifice freely all resources which I have left in your hands, if necessary, in order cope with any public evils which may arise. I have important plans on Continent for next few weeks, but in view emergency which you describe will postpone them, and sail American Line Saturday.”
The last word had gone within a minute after Brent had finished writing. The interval was seven or eight minutes before this reply began to come back:
“Think I fully understand. Believe no necessity can arise for assuming full power you authorize me to use. I appreciate great responsibility. Would be glad escape it, but will do best in my power. Thankful you are returning. Shall endeavor postpone any extreme measures till you arrive. Yes, think can postpone crisis in cities by breaking prices food supply. Shall give first attention to that featureproblem. Then shall use every effort drain market of surplus money without causing panic stocks. Of course you wish all funds accumulated to remain idle.”
And Brent answered:
“Certainly, and if turn in tide should draw investment attention to stocks at lower prices, do not hesitate to sell freely any of our securities to supply such demand. Would it be good idea consult secretary treasury about relief measures in order show administration no necessity summon special session?”
Wharton’s reply was:
“Yes, if agitation becomes stronger, and perhaps in any event. Necessity for haste so many directions makes it imperative that have assistance several agents whom I must take partially into confidence. May be compelled consult both national and local authorities in execution some plans. Have not decided definite course action, but will do so to-night, and push vigorous execution along all lines. If suggestions occur to you before you sail, please cable them.”
Brent scribbled in answer:
“All right. Do your best, old fellow. I leave everything to you with perfect confidence. Good-night.”
And after a moment, the instrument ticked back an answering “Good-night” from under the ocean.
Therewas a good deal of disappointment among the passengers of the steamshipParisas she steamed up from Sandy Hook toward quarantine, in the dusk of Friday evening of the week following Brent’s conversation by cable with his New York representative. The ship had failed by less than two hours to reach the quarantine station before sunset. The exasperating and absurd regulation under which the health officers of the port refuse to give pratique to any vessel between sunset and sunrise would, therefore, keep the ship’s company of a thousand persons prisoners for twelve long hours almost within sight of their destination.
The delay was particularly annoying to Brent, whose rising apprehensions had made the voyage irksome and long. The splendid ship, only two years before the queen of the seas, had seemed slow. She had made her name and record. Her qualities and powers were known. Ships, like men, become time-servers and lose ambition. Not since she was firstoutstripped by a younger rival had theParismatched even her own best speed. Brent missed the exhilaration which the tingling nerves and throbbing pulses of theMysteryhad communicated to every one on board during her conquering voyage of a month before. The new-born ship, a third the size of this powerful leviathan, had seemed to feel a sympathetic yet absolute mastery of the element in which she moved, from the moment her prow first tossed aside the astonished waters of New York Bay. Neptune favored youth and audacity, and had contempt for age and experience and mere size.
Like every one else, Brent watched the beautiful panorama on either side as the ship ran up the Narrows in the soft October twilight. No sooner had the anchor been dropped in the little quarantine cove than two steamboats came alongside. One was the mail boat, and Brent was cogitating the idea that perhaps a few dollars judiciously bestowed might enable him to smuggle himself over the side with the mail-bags, when a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a cheery voice said:
“How are you, old fellow? Come along with me.”
“Jack? This is good luck. How did you get aboard?”
“Came down on the revenue cutter. Don’t sayanything to the other passengers; but I’ve got a pass to take you right up to the city. You can’t take your baggage. Leave that till to-morrow and come along at once.”
The two men climbed down the ladder over the side, and while the cutter was steaming back to the Battery, Wharton detailed the week’s rapid turn of events.
“You’ve come back none too soon, old man,” he began in a serious voice. “Things are really in a very bad way, and I am not ready to take any further steps without your direct authority. A mob in Milwaukee burned two or three big grain elevators with several million bushels of wheat day before yesterday; there have been bread riots in Buffalo and Pittsburg, and there would have been bloody work in Chicago this week if we had not broken the corner in retail bread prices. The president has called a special session of Congress to meet early next month. The outlook is even more critical than when I cabled you, and no mere palliative measures will relieve the situation. It will require a very radical remedy to prevent serious disaster in several forms.”
“I’m mighty sorry to hear it, Jack. Do you think things are much worse than they would have been if we had not interfered last winter?” asked Brent, with a discouraged air.
“That’s hard to say,” replied Wharton in some doubt. “I presume we should have had a blue panic, plenty of failures, commercial paralysis, suspension of all kinds of manufacturing, low prices, and the pinch of the hardest of hard times—just a repetition of what the country has to go through once in twenty years or so. What is happening now is very different. It is an entirely new experience, and its very novelty adds to the danger, because nobody really understands it or knows how to deal with it. Instead of too little money, we have too much. In ordinary hard times people get frightened and don’t dare invest in the usual ways. So they hoard their money till the scare is over. It’s just the opposite now. The country seems to have lost confidence in money itself. That is something which hasn’t happened before in our day. So the popular passion is to hoard things of intrinsic value instead of gold.”
“How much have you succeeded in borrowing?”
“Only about fifteen millions so far. Such large loans cannot be negotiated as rapidly as I hoped, but within three or four days we shall be able to withdraw fully fifty millions from the money market, and by the time Congress meets, twice that. The effect will be beneficial, no doubt, but its full influence will not be felt for a month at least, and in the meantime there is a very dangerous emergency to meet.”
“Well, John, what can we do? I confess I am unequal to the problem,” and the worry and anxiety upon Brent’s countenance gave him more the appearance of a man helpless in the face of bankruptcy than of a Crœsus struggling under too great a load of wealth.
Wharton looked at his friend closely in the rather dim light of a lamp which lit that corner of the cabin before replying. After a moment or two, he said, with an earnestness of which Brent had not thought him capable:
“Bob, old fellow, I don’t consider that you are obliged to do anything. You are an immensely wealthy man—the richest in the world, I have no doubt. You have been good enough to make me your confidant and agent in all your operations of the past year. I know that in everything you have done, your object has been some general or specific benefit to others. I know that your motives in the use of money have been purer and more unselfish than those of any other man I ever met. Money may be the root of all evil, but it is not your fault that your money has not been an unmixed blessing to every one who has touched it. It may be true that some of the evils which threaten just now are traceable to the free distribution of your great store of gold. But you can face the situation with an absolutely clear conscience. You did the best you could, and everythingfor the best. No man can do more than that. There is no obligation upon you, legal or moral, to sacrifice yourself in the solution of this crisis.”
“You are very good, Jack, to make a philanthropist of me,” interrupted Brent, smiling faintly, “but you know very well that the coat doesn’t fit, and to tell you the truth, I should be sorry if it did. There is no virtue in giving or throwing away what one doesn’t want. Neither is it any credit to a man to use money for a good purpose when he can gain nothing by devoting it to an evil one. I am in the most humiliating of all positions—that of a man unequal to his responsibilities. A fool is more to be despised than a knave,” went on the young man bitterly, “and ‘good intentions’ excuse nothing. I have got the whole country into an infernal mess through my stupid interference with the established order of things. Now I am bound to repair the mischief as far as possible, just as much as if I had deliberately wrought the same ruin.”
“Nonsense, man,” responded Wharton warmly. “Your sentiments do you credit, but you’re morbidly overconscientious. And so far from being a fool or stupid, there isn’t one trained financier in a hundred that wouldn’t have made worse mistakes than yours. Of course you know it will make a big hole even in your fortune to restore the financial world to its normal condition. In fact, I don’t know how it’s to be done, though I’ve no doubt we can much improve the present situation. Let me see, you have added about five hundred million dollars to the world’s monetary supply of gold. I hope you haven’t a few hundred millions more still in reserve.”
Brent had been pacing restlessly back and forth in the little cabin. He stopped suddenly at Wharton’s last words, hesitated a moment, then faced his friend, and with a gesture, half of defiance, half of despair, exclaimed:
“That’s the worst of the whole accursed business, Jack.I haven’t used a sixth part of the stuff yet!”
It was not merely surprise that overspread Wharton’s face as he stared speechlessly at his friend on hearing these words. It was the half-dazed, apprehensive, helpless expression which the shock of bad news first brings to a man’s countenance. It was a strange picture, the deep and genuine distress of these two men over the possession of fabulous wealth. Money may usually be depended upon to intensify the passions of its possessor. Is it contrary to human nature to say that its unstinted supply will overwhelm even selfishness and greed? Or was the desire to escape the burden and responsibility of superfluous millions only another form of selfishness? The two men were silent a long time—the one striving torealize the tremendous, the terrible significance to the world of those ten pregnant words; the other enjoying a certain relief that at last his weary load was shared by another’s shoulders. It was Brent who spoke first.
“Jack, my boy,” he exclaimed suddenly, the genial spirit of college days coming to the surface once more under the influence of his confession, “I’ll turn it all over to you, and there is certainly more than five thousand tons left, and cry good riddance if you’ll take it off my hands.”
Wharton was still silent.
“There’s an offer for you, man,” Brent went on lightly. “Untold wealth, boundless power, immortal fame, all without lifting a finger! Can you refuse?”
There was neither eagerness nor greed in Wharton’s eye. He had appeared careworn and jaded under the pressure of his extraordinary labors of the past week when he met Brent on the steamer. Now he seemed suddenly to have grown ten years older.
“Don’t joke, Bob, it’s too serious. It’s appalling,” he wearily replied to his friend’s last question.
“But I’m not joking,” said Brent more seriously. “I’m in dead earnest. You are much better fitted for this responsibility than I am. I shall be quite contented with a few millions to live upon and develop a few hobbies. Then you can work out the greaterproblem to the best advantage. It is in your line and not in mine. Furthermore, I have perfect confidence in both your heart and your head, for the solving of it—if it can be solved.”
“You have been very generous to me already, Bob,” was the earnest response, “but what you propose would be cruelty rather than generosity. However, I presume not one man in a million would look at it in that light. I shouldn’t myself six months ago. But I am stunned by this news. What you told me last December seemed too good to be true; this is quite the reverse. My first impulse is to beg you to take this gold back where it came from, or rather to bury it, sink it, destroy it somehow, and never let the world know it existed. The mere suspicion of its existence would plunge the markets of the world, the whole financial system, into chaos, and throw us back to the primitive methods of barter and trade under barbarism. Gold would be demonetized instantly and become a mere commodity before any ‘Gold Repeal Acts’ could be passed. You have seen the effect of flooding the market with gold in the last few months. We are on the verge of disaster now, and only prompt corrective measures will save us. What would happen if the whole truth were known? Why, man, it is almost beyond one’s power to conceive the ruin that would be wrought. But Imust have time to think. There are a thousand things to be considered before you can act, Bob, and I fear you must call in the assistance of wiser heads than mine. I never until now quailed before responsibility, Robert, but I do before this. The very fate of civilization may almost be said to hang upon your decision,” and a sense akin to awe deepened the lines in the young man’s face as he rose rather unsteadily to his feet, and put both hands on the shoulders of his friend.
“You do not need to impress upon me the fearful importance of it all, John,” Brent responded sadly, all the lightness vanishing from his tones and manner. “The knowledge of it has been growing upon me for weeks, until it has crushed out half the charm of life. I wish I had told you the truth at the outset, for it would have enabled me to avoid some mistakes, and the accursed secret would have been easier to carry if you had shared it. Never mind now, it is still a problem of to-morrow, while that of to-day is difficult enough. Every remaining ounce of gold shall remain where it is until we have decided upon its final disposition. Well, here we are at the wharf,” and the two men went ashore, took an elevated train up town, and Brent established himself in his former quarters at the Waldorf.
Wharton remained until long after midnight, discussing plans and expedients for easing the situation where the pressure was greatest. His face was haggard and white, when he finally said good-night.
“I almost wish you hadn’t told me about your vault full of reserves,” he observed wearily. “It will worry me all night. I haven’t known what insomnia was until lately—and it’s the very devil.”
“Take care, old fellow,” responded Brent anxiously. “You are working far harder over this business than I am, and Heaven knows it’s never out of my mind many minutes at a time. We can’t either of us afford to break down. Just take the thing philosophically—which means, you know, look at it with the eyes of a fatalist. We can do just so much and no more, and we are doing it. I’m not going to let my hindsight abuse my foresight any longer. I shall sleep better to-night than I have slept for six months, and you can do the same if you will remember that my abominable troubles are beyond your reach until ten o’clock to-morrow. Sit down a minute longer while I tell you a little story,” and Brent, with many quaint touches of dry humor, of which he had a rich fund rarely drawn upon, told of his first meeting with his ragged Londonprotégé. Wharton enjoyed the little incident hugely, and the genuine ring of college days in his laugh was a better assurance than drugs couldgive that his rest would not after all be sleepless.