There were odours of Russian cigarettes in Mr. Horace Bellingham's room,
and two smokers were industriously adding to the fragrant cloud. One was
the owner of the dwelling himself, and the other was Claudius. He sat
upon the sofa that stood between the two windows of the room, which was
on the ground floor, and looked out on the street. The walls were
covered with pictures wherever they were not covered with books, and
there was not an available nook or corner unfilled with scraps of
bric-à-brac, photographs, odds and ends of reminiscence, and all manner
of things characteristic to the denizen of the apartment. The furniture
was evidently calculated more for comfort than display, and if there was
an air of luxury pervading the bachelor's quiet _rez-de-chaussée_, it
was due to the rare volumes on the shelves and the good pictures on the
walls, rather than to the silk or satin of the high-art upholsterer, or
the gilding and tile work of the modern decorator, who ravages upon
beauty as a fungus upon a fruit tree. Whatever there was in Mr.
Bellingham's rooms was good; much of it was unique, and the whole was
harmonious. Rare editions were bound by famous binders, and if the
twopenny-halfpenny productions of some little would-be modern poet,
resplendent with vellum and æsthetic greenliness of paper, occasionally
found their way to the table, they never travelled as far as the
shelves. Mr. Bellingham had fools enough about him to absorb his spare
trash.
On this particular occasion the old gentleman was seated in an arm-chair
at his table, and Claudius, as aforesaid, had established himself upon
the sofa. He looked very grave and smoked thoughtfully.
"I wish I knew what to do," he said. "Mr. Bellingham, do you think I
could be of any use?"
"If I had not thought so, I would not have told you--I could have let
you find it out for yourself from the papers. You can be of a great deal
of use."
"Do you advise me to go to St. Petersburg and see about it then?"
"Of course I do. Start at once. You can get the necessary steps taken in
no time, if you go now."
"I am ready. But how in the world can I get the thing done?"
"Letters. Your English friend over there will give you letters to the
English Ambassador; he is Lord Fitzdoggin--cousin of the Duke's. And I
will give you some papers that will be of use. I know lots of people in
Petersburg. Why, it's as plain as a pikestaff. Besides, you know the
proverb, _mitte sapientem et nihil dicas._ That means then when you send
a wise man you must not dictate to him."
"You flatter me. But I would rather have your advice, if that is what
you call 'dictating.' I am not exactly a fool, but then, I am not very
wise either."
"No one is very wise, and we are all fools compared to some people,"
said Mr. Bellingham. "If anybody wanted a figurehead for a new Ship of
Fools, I sometimes think a portrait of myself would be singularly
appropriate. There are times when I should fix upon a friend for the
purpose. Mermaid--half fish--figurehead, half man, half fool. That's a
very good idea."
"Very good--for the friend. Meanwhile, you know, it is I who am going on
the errand. If you do not make it clear to me it will be a fool's
errand."
"It is perfectly clear, my dear sir," insisted Mr. Bellingham. "You go
to St. Petersburg; you get an audience--you can do that by means of the
letters; you lay the matter before the Czar, and request justice. Either
you get it or you do not. That is the beauty of an autocratic country."
"How about a free country?" asked Claudius.
"You don't get it," replied his host grimly. Claudius laughed a cloud of
smoke into the air.
"Why is that?" he asked idly, hoping to launch Mr. Bellingham into
further aphorisms and paradoxes.
"Men are everywhere born free, but they--"
"Oh," said Claudius, "I want to know your own opinion about it."
"I have no opinion; I only have experience," answered the other. "At any
rate in an autocratic country there is a visible, tangible repository of
power to whom you can apply. If the repository is in the humour you will
get whatever you want done, in the way of justice or injustice. Now in a
free country justice is absorbed into the great cosmic forces, and it is
apt to be an expensive incantation that wakes the lost elementary
spirit. In Russia justice shines by contrast with the surrounding
corruption, but there is no mistake about it when you get it. In America
it is taken for granted everywhere, and the consequence is that, like
most things that are taken for granted, it is a myth. Rousseau thought
that in a republic like ours there would be no more of the 'chains' he
was so fond of talking about. He did not anticipate a stagnation of the
national moral sense. An Englishman who has made a study of these things
said lately that the Americans had retained the forms of freedom, but
that the substance had suffered considerably."
"Who said that?" asked Claudius.
"Mr. Herbert Spencer. He said it to a newspaper reporter in New York,
and so it was put into the papers. It is the truest thing he ever said,
but no one took any more notice of it than if he had told the reporter
it was a very fine day. They don't care. Tell the first man you meet
down town that he is a liar; he will tell you he knows it. He will
probably tell you you are another. We are all alike here. I'm a liar
myself in a small way--there's a club of us, two Americans and one
Englishman."
"You are the frankest person I ever met, Mr. Bellingham," said Claudius,
laughing.
"Some day I will write a book," said Mr. Bellingham, rising and
beginning to tramp round the room. "I will call it--by the way, we were
talking about Petersburg. You had better be off."
"I am going, but tell me the name of the book before I go."
"No, I won't; you would go and write it yourself, and steal my thunder."
Uncle Horace's eyes twinkled, and a corruscation of laugh-wrinkles shot
like sheet-lightning over his face. He disappeared into a neighbouring
room, leaving a trail of white smoke in his wake, like a locomotive.
Presently he returned with a _Bullinger Guide_ in his hand.
"You can sail on Wednesday at two o'clock by the Cunarder," he said.
"You can go to Newport to-day, and come back by the boat on Tuesday
night, and be ready to start in the morning." Mr. Bellingham prided
himself greatly on his faculty for making combinations of times and
places.
"How about those letters, Mr. Bellingham?" inquired Claudius, who had no
idea of going upon his expedition without proper preparations.
"I will write them," said Uncle Horace, "I will write them at once," and
he dived into an address-book and set to work. His pen was that of the
traditional ready-writer, for he wrote endless letters, and his
correspondence was typical of himself--the scholar, the wanderer, and
the Priest of Buddha by turns, and sometimes all at once. For Mr.
Bellingham was a professed Buddhist and a profound student of Eastern
moralities, and he was a thorough scholar in certain branches of the
classics. The combination of these qualities, with the tact and
versatile fluency of a man of the world, was a rare one, and was a
source of unceasing surprise to his intimates. At the present moment he
was a diplomatist, since he could not be a diplomat, and to his
energetic suggestion and furtherance of the plan he had devised the
results which this tale will set forth are mainly due.
Claudius sat upon the sofa watching the old gentleman, and wondering how
it was that a stranger should so soon have assumed the position of an
adviser, and with an energy and good sense, too, which not only disarmed
resistance, but assubjugated the consent of the advised. Life is full of
such things. Man lives quietly like a fattening carp in some old pond
for years, until some idle disturber comes and pokes up the mud with a
stick, and the poor fish is in the dark. Presently comes another
destroyer of peace, less idle and more enterprising, and drains away
the water, carp and all, and makes a potato-garden of his old haunts. So
the carp makes a new study of life under altered circumstances in other
waters; and to pass the time he wonders about it all. It happens even to
men of masterful character, accustomed to directing events. An illness
takes such a man out of his sphere for a few months. He comes back and
finds his pond turned into a vegetable-garden and his ploughed field
into a swamp; and then for a time he is fain to ask advice and take it,
like any other mortal. So Claudius, who felt himself in an atmosphere
new to him, and had tumbled into a very burning bush of complications,
had fallen in with Mr. Horace Bellingham, a kind of professional
bone-setter, whose province was the reduction of society fractures,
speaking medically. And Mr. Bellingham, scenting a patient, and moreover
being strongly attracted to him on his own merits, had immediately
broached the subject of the Nihilist Nicholas, drawing the conclusion
that the man of the emergency was Claudius, and Claudius only. And the
bold Doctor weighed the old gentleman's words, and by the light of what
he felt he knew that Uncle Horace was right. That if he loved Margaret
his first duty was to her, and that first duty was her welfare. No
messenger could or would be so active in her interests as himself; and
in his anxiety to serve her he had not thought it strange that Mr.
Bellingham should take it for granted he was ready to embark on the
expedition. He thought of that later, and wondered at the boldness of
the stranger's assumption, no less than at the keenness of his wit. Poor
Claudius! anybody might see he was in love.
"There; I think that will draw sparks," said Mr. Bellingham, as he
folded the last of his letters and put them all in a great square
envelope. "Put those in your pocket and keep your powder dry."
"I am really very grateful to you," said Claudius. Uncle Horace began to
tramp round the room again, emitting smoky ejaculations of satisfaction.
Presently he stopped in front of his guest and turned his eyes up to
Claudius's face without raising his head. It gave him a peculiar
expression.
"It is a very strange thing," he said, "but I knew at once that you had
a destiny, the first time I saw you. I am very superstitious; I believe
in destiny."
"So would I if I thought one could know anything about it. I mean in a
general way," answered Claudius, smiling.
"Is generalisation everything?" asked Mr. Bellingham sharply, still
looking at the young man. "Is experience to be dismissed as empiricism,
with a sneer, because the wider rule is lacking?"
"No. But so long as only a few occupy themselves in reducing empiric
knowledge to a scientific shape they will not succeed, at least in this
department. To begin with, they have not enough experience among them to
make rules from."
"But they contribute. One man will come who will find the rule. Was
Tycho Brahé a nonentity because he was not Kepler? Was Van Helmont
nothing because he was not Lavoisier? Yet Tycho Brahé was an empiric--he
was the last of the observers of the concrete, if you will allow me the
phrase. He was scientifically the father of Kepler."
"That is very well put," said Claudius. "But we were talking of destiny.
You are an observer."
"I have very fine senses," replied Mr. Bellingham. "I always know when
anybody I meet is going to do something out of the common run. You are."
"I hope so," said Claudius, laughing. "Indeed I think I am beginning
already."
"Well, good luck to you," said Mr. Bellingham, remembering that he had
missed one engagement, and was on the point of missing another. He
suddenly felt that he must send Claudius away, and he held out his hand.
There was nothing rough in his abruptness. He would have liked to talk
with Claudius for an hour longer had his time permitted. Claudius
understood perfectly. He put the letters in his pocket, and with a
parting shake of the hand he bade Mr. Horace Bellingham good-morning,
and good-bye; he would not trouble him again, he said, before sailing.
But Mr. Bellingham went to the door with him.
"Come and see me before you go--Wednesday morning; I am up at six, you
know. I shall be very glad to see you. I am like the Mexican donkey that
died of _congojas ajenas_--died of other people's troubles. People
always come to me when they are in difficulties." The old gentleman
stood looking after Claudius as he strode away. Then he screwed up his
eyes at the sun, sneezed with evident satisfaction, and disappeared
within, closing the street door behind him.
"Some day I will write my memoirs," he said to himself, as he sat down.
Claudius was in a frame of mind which he would have found it hard to
describe. The long conversation with Mr. Bellingham had been the first
intimation he had received of Margaret's disaster, and the same
interview had decided him to act at once in her behalf--in other words,
to return to Europe immediately, after a week's stay in New York,
leaving behind all that was most dear to him. This resolution had
formed itself instantaneously in his mind, and it never occurred to him,
either then or later, that he could have done anything else in the
world. It certainly did not occur to him that he was doing anything
especially praiseworthy in sacrificing his love to its object, in
leaving Margaret for a couple of months, and enduring all that such a
separation meant, in order to serve her interests more effectually. He
knew well enough what he was undertaking--the sleepless nights, the
endless days, the soul-compelling heaviness of solitude, and the deadly
sinking at the heart, all which he should endure daily for sixty
days--he could not be back before that. He knew it all, for he had
suffered it all, during those four and twenty hours on the yacht that
followed his first wild speech of love. But Claudius's was a knightly
soul, and when he served he served wholly, without reservation. Had the
dark-browed Countess guessed half the nobleness of purpose her tall
lover carried in his breast, who knows but she might have been sooner
moved herself. But how could she know? She suspected, indeed, that he
was above his fellows, and she never attributed bad motives to his
actions, as she would unhesitatingly have done with most men; for she
had learned lessons of caution in her life. Who steals hearts steals
souls, wherefore it behoves woman to look that the lock be strong and
the key hung high. Claudius thought so too, and he showed it in every
action, though unconsciously enough, for it was a knowledge natural and
not acquired, an instinctive determination to honour where honour was
due. Call it Quixotism if need be. There is nothing ridiculous in the
word, for there breathes no truer knight or gentler soul than
Cervantes's hero in all the pages of history or romance. Why cannot all
men see it? Why must an infamous world be ever sneering at the sight,
and smacking its filthy lips over some fresh gorge of martyrs? Society
has non-suited hell to-day, lest peradventure it should not sleep o'
nights.
Thomas Carlyle, late of Chelsea, knew that. How he hit and hammered and
churned in his wrath, with his great cast-iron words. How the world
shrieked when he wound his tenacious fingers in the glory of her golden
hair and twisted and wrenched and twisted till she yelled for mercy,
promising to be good, like a whipped child. There is a story told of him
which might be true.
It was at a dinner-party, and Carlyle sat silent, listening to the talk
of lesser men, the snow on his hair and the fire in his amber eyes. A
young Liberal was talking theory to a beefy old Conservative, who
despised youth and reason in an equal degree.
"The British people, sir," said he of the beef, "can afford to laugh at
theories."
"Sir," said Carlyle, speaking for the first time during dinner, "the
French nobility of a hundred years ago said they could afford to laugh
at theories. Then came a man and wrote a book called the _Social
Contract_. The man was called Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and his book was a
theory, and nothing but a theory. The nobles could laugh at his theory;
_but their skins went to bind the second edition of his book_[1]."
[Footnote 1: There was a tannery of human skins at Meudon during the
Revolution.]
Look to your skin, world, lest it be dressed to morocco and cunningly
tooled with gold. There is much binding yet to be done.
Claudius thought neither of the world nor of Mr. Carlyle as he walked
back to the hotel; for he was thinking of the Countess Margaret, to the
exclusion of every other earthly or unearthly consideration. But his
thoughts were sad, for he knew that he was to leave her, and he knew
also that he must tell her so. It was no easy matter, and his walk
slackened, till, at the corner of the great thoroughfare, he stood
still, looking at a poor woman who ground a tuneless hand-organ. The
instrument of tympanum torture was on wheels, and to the back of it was
attached a cradle. In the cradle was a dirty little baby, licking its
fist and listening with conscientious attention to the perpetual
trangle-tringle-jangle of the maternal music. In truth the little thing
could not well listen to anything else, considering the position in
which it was placed. Claudius stood staring at the little caravan,
halted at the corner of the most aristocratic street in New York, and
his attention was gradually roused to comprehend what he saw. He
reflected that next to being bound on the back of a wild horse, like
Mazeppa, the most horrible fate conceivable must be that of this dirty
baby, put to bed in perpetuity on the back of a crazy grind-organ. He
smiled at the idea, and the woman held out a battered tin dish with one
hand, while the other in its revolution ground out the final palpitating
squeaks of "_Ah, che la morte ognora_." Claudius put his hand into his
pocket and gave the poor creature a coin.
"You are encouraging a public nuisance," said a thin gentlemanly voice
at his elbow. Claudius looked down and saw Mr. Barker.
"Yes," said the Doctor, "I remember a remark you once made to me about
the deserving poor in New York--it was the day before yesterday, I
think. You said they went to the West."
"Talking of the West, I suppose you will be going there yourself one of
these days to take a look at our 'park'--eh?"
"No, I am going East."
"To Boston, I suppose?" inquired the inquisitive Barker. "You will be
very much amused with Boston. It is the largest village in the United
States."
"I am not going to Boston," said Claudius calmly.
"Oh! I thought when you said you were going East you meant--"
"I am going to sail for Europe on Wednesday," said the Doctor, who had
had time to reflect that he might as well inform Barker of his
intention. Mr. Barker smiled grimly under his moustache.
"You don't mean that?" he said, trying to feign astonishment and
disguise his satisfaction. It seemed too good to be true. "Going so
soon? Why, I thought you meant to spend some time."
"Yes, I am going immediately," and Claudius looked Barker straight in
the face. "I find it is necessary that I should procure certain papers
connected with my inheritance."
"Well," said Barker turning his eyes another way, for he did not like
the Doctor's look, "I am very sorry, any way. I suppose you mean to come
back soon?"
"Very soon," answered Claudius. "Good-morning, Barker."
"Good morning. I will call and see you before you sail. You have quite
taken my breath away with this news." Mr. Barker walked quickly away in
the direction of Elevated Road. He was evidently going down town.
"Strange," thought Claudius, "that Barker should take the news so
quietly. I think it ought to have astonished him more." Leaving the
organ-grinder, the dirty baby, and the horse-cars to their fate,
Claudius entered the hotel. He found the Duke over a late breakfast,
eating cantelopes voraciously. Cantelopes are American melons, small and
of sickly appearance, but of good vitality and unearthly freshness
within, a joy to the hot-stomached foreigner. Behold also, his Grace
eateth the cantelope and hath a cheerful countenance. Claudius sat down
at the table, looking rather gloomy.
"I want you to give me an introduction to the English Ambassador in
Petersburg. Lord Fitzdoggin, I believe he is."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed the peer; "what for?"
"I am going there," answered Claudius with his habitual calm, "and I
want to know somebody in power."
"Oh! are _you_ going?" asked the Duke, suddenly grasping the situation.
He afterwards took some credit to himself for having been so quick to
catch Claudius's meaning.
"Yes. I sail on Wednesday."
"Tell me all about it," said the Duke, who recovered his equanimity, and
plunged a knife into a fresh cantelope at the same moment.
"Very well. I saw your friend, Mr. Horace Bellingham, this morning, and
he told me all about the Countess's troubles. In fact, they are in the
newspapers by this time, but I had not read about them. He suggested
that some personal friend of the Countess had better proceed to
headquarters at once, and see about it; so I said I would go; and he
gave me some introductions. They are probably good ones; but he advised
me to come to you and get one for your ambassador."
"Anything Uncle Horace advises is right, you know," said his Grace,
speaking with his mouth full. "He knows no end of people everywhere," he
added pensively, when he had swallowed.
"Very well, I will go; but I am glad you approve."
"But what the deuce are you going to do about that fortune of yours?"
asked the other suddenly. "Don't you think we had better go down and
swear to you at once? I may not be here when you get back, you know."
"No; that would not suit my arrangements," answered Claudius. "I would
rather not let it be known for what purpose I had gone. Do you
understand? I am going ostensibly to Heidelberg to get my papers from
the University, and so, with all thanks, I need not trouble you." The
Duke looked at him for a moment.
"What a queer fellow you are, Claudius," he said at last. "I should
think you would like her to know."
"Why? Suppose that I failed, what a figure I should cut, to be sure."
Claudius preferred to attribute to his vanity an action which was the
natural outcome of his love.
"Well, that is true," said the Duke; "but I think you are pretty safe
for all that. Have some breakfast--I forgot all about it."
"No, thanks. Are you going to Newport to-day? I would like to see
something outside of New York before I go back."
"By all means. Better go at once--all of us in a body. I know the
Countess is ready, and I am sure I am."
"Very good. I will get my things together. One word--please do not tell
them I am going; I will do it myself.
"All right," answered the Duke; and Claudius vanished. "He says 'them,'"
soliloquised the Englishman, "but he means 'her.'"
Claudius found on his table a note from Mr. Screw. This missive was
couched in formal terms, and emitted a kind of phosphorescent wrath. Mr.
Screw's dignity was seriously offended by the summary ejectment he had
suffered at the Doctor's hands on the previous day. He gave the Doctor
formal notice that his drafts would not be honoured until the executors
were satisfied concerning his identity; and he solemnly and legally
"regretted the position Dr. Claudius had assumed towards those whose
sacred duty it was to protect the interests of Dr. Claudius." The
cunning repetition of name conveyed the idea of two personages, the
claimant and the real heir, in a manner that did not escape the Doctor.
Since yesterday he had half regretted having lost his temper; and had he
known that Screw had been completely duped by Mr. Barker, Claudius would
probably have apologised to the lawyer. Indeed, he had a vague
suspicion, as the shadow of a distant event, that Barker was not
altogether clear of the business; and the fact that the latter had shown
so little surprise on hearing of his friend's sudden return to Europe
had aroused the Doctor's imagination, so that he found himself piecing
together everything he could remember to show that Barker had an
interest of some kind in removing him from the scene. Nevertheless, the
burden of responsibility for the annoyance he was now suffering seemed
to rest with Screw, and Screw should be taught a great lesson; and to
that end Claudius would write a letter. It was clear he was still angry.
The Doctor sat down to write; and his strong, white fingers held the pen
with unrelenting determination to be disagreeable. His face was set like
a mask, and ever and anon his blue eyes gleamed scornfully. And this is
what he said--
"SIR--Having enjoyed the advantage of your society, somewhat longer
than I could have wished, during yesterday afternoon, I had
certainly not hoped for so early a mark of your favour and interest
as a letter from you of to-day's date. As for your formal notice to
me that my drafts will not be honoured in future, I regard it as a
deliberate repetition of the insulting insinuation conveyed to me
by your remarks during your visit. You are well aware that I have
not drawn upon the estate in spite of your written authorisation to
do so. I consider your conduct in this matter unworthy of a person
professing the law, and your impertinence is in my opinion only
second to the phenomenal clumsiness you have displayed throughout.
As I fear that your ignorance of your profession may lead you into
some act of folly disastrous to yourself, I will go so far as to
inform you that on my return from Europe, two months hence, your
proceedings as executor for the estate of the late Gustavus
Lindstrand will be subjected to the severest scrutiny. In the
meantime, I desire no further communications from you.
CLAUDIUS."
This remarkable epistle was immediately despatched by messenger to Pine
Street; and if Mr. Screw had felt himself injured before, he was on the
verge of desperation when he read Claudius's polemic. He repeated to
himself the several sentences, which seemed to breathe war and carnage
in their trenchant brevity; and he thought that even if he had been
guilty of any breach of trust, he could hardly have felt worse. He ran
his fingers through his thick yellow-gray hair, and hooked his legs in
and out of each other as he sat, and bullied his clerks within an inch
of their lives. Then, to get consolation, he said to himself that
Claudius was certainly an impostor, or he would not be so angry, or go
to Europe, or refuse any more communications. In the midst of his rage,
Mr. Barker the younger opportunely appeared in the office of Messrs.
Screw and Scratch, prepared to throw any amount of oil upon the flames.
"Well?" said Mr. Barker interrogatively, as he settled the flower in his
gray coat, and let the paper ribband of the "ticker" run through his
other hand, with its tale of the tide of stocks. Yellow Mr. Screw shot a
lurid glance from his brassy little eyes.
"You're right, sir--the man's a humbug."
"Who?" asked Barker, in well-feigned innocence.
"Claudius. It's my belief he's a liar and a thief and a damned impostor,
sir. That's my belief, sir." He waxed warm as he vented his anger.
"Well, I only suggested taking precautions. I never said any of these
things," answered Barker, who had no idea of playing a prominent part in
his own plot. "Don't give me any credit, Mr. Screw."
"Now, see here, Mr. Barker; I'm talking to you. You're as clever a young
man as there is in New York. Now, listen to me; I'm talking to you,"
said Mr. Screw excitedly. "That man turned me out of his house--turned
me out of doors, sir, yesterday afternoon; and now he writes me this
letter; look here, look at it; read it for yourself, can't you? And so
he makes tracks for Europe, and leaves no address behind. An honest man
isn't going to act like that, sir--is he, now?"
"Not much," said Barker, as he took the letter. He read it through
twice, and gave it back. "Not much," he repeated. "Is it true that he
has drawn no money?"
"Well, yes, I suppose it is," answered Screw reluctantly, for this was
the weak point in his argument. "However, it would be just like such a
leg to make everything sure in playing a big game. You see he has left
himself the rear platform, so he can jump off when his car is boarded."
"However," said Barker sententiously, "I must say it is in his favour.
What we want are facts, you know, Mr. Screw. Besides, if he had taken
anything, I should have been responsible, because I accepted him abroad
as the right man."
"Well, as you say, there is nothing gone--not a red. So if he likes to
get away, he can; I'm well rid of him."
"Now that's the way to look at it. Don't be so down in the mouth, sir;
it will all come straight enough." Barker smiled benignly, knowing it
was all crooked enough at present.
"Well, I'm damned anyhow," said Mr. Screw, which was not fair to
himself, for he was an honest man, acting very properly according to his
lights. It was not his fault if Barker deceived him, and if that
hot-livered Swede was angry.
"Never mind," answered Barker, rather irrelevantly; "I will see him
before he sails, and tell you what I think about it. He is dead sure to
give himself away, somehow, before he gets off."
"Well, sail in, young man," said Screw, biting off the end of a cigar.
"_I_ don't want to see him again, you can take your oath."
"All right; that settles it. I came about something else, though. I know
you can tell me all about this suit against the Western Union, can't
you?"
So the two men sat in their arm-chairs and talked steadily, as only
Americans can talk, without showing any more signs of fatigue than if
they were snoring; and it cost them nothing. If the Greeks of the time
of Pericles could be brought to life in America, they would be very like
modern Americans in respect of their love of talking and of their
politics. Terrible chatterers in the market-place, and great wranglers
in the council--the greatest talkers living, but also on occasion the
greatest orators, with a redundant vivacity of public life in their
political veins, that magnifies and inflames the diseases of the parts,
even while it gives an unparalleled harmony to the whole. The Greeks had
more, for their activity, hampered by the narrow limits of their
political sphere, broke out in every variety of intellectual effort,
carried into every branch of science and art. In spite of the whole
modern school of impressionists, æsthetes, and aphrodisiac poets, the
most prominent features of Greek art are its intellectuality, its
well-reasoned science, and its accurate conception of the ideal. The
resemblance between Americans of to-day and Greeks of the age of
Pericles does not extend to matters of art as yet, though America bids
fair to surpass all earlier and contemporary nations in the progressive
departments of science. But as talkers they are pre-eminent, these rapid
business men with their quick tongues and their sharp eyes and their
millions.
When Barker left Screw he had learned a great deal about the suit of
which he inquired, but Screw had learned nothing whatever about
Claudius.
As for the Doctor, as soon as he had despatched his letter he sent to
secure a passage in Wednesday's steamer, and set himself to prepare his
effects for the voyage, as he only intended returning from Newport in
time to go on board. He was provided with money enough, for before
leaving Germany he had realised the whole of his own little fortune, not
wishing to draw upon his larger inheritance until he should feel some
necessity for doing so. He now felt no small satisfaction in the thought
that he was independent of Mr. Screw and of every one else. It would
have been an easy matter, he knew, to clear up the whole difficulty in
twenty-four hours, by simply asking the Duke to vouch for him; and
before hearing of Margaret's trouble he had had every intention of
pursuing that course. But now that he was determined to go to Russia in
her behalf, his own difficulty, if he did not take steps for removing
it, furnished him with an excellent excuse for the journey, without
telling the Countess that he was going for the sole purpose of
recovering her fortune, as he otherwise must have told her. Had he known
the full extent of Barker's intentions he might have acted differently,
but as yet his instinct against that ingenious young gentleman was
undefined and vague.