“Wonderful faculty he has”--the Colossus seemed again to be thinking
aloud--“of swaying audiences. Rather picked audiences, too. And as men
are reckoned nowadays, hardly more than a boy.”
“He’s thirty-eight.”
“Almost an infant prodigy!” The deep laugh was very good to hear. “I
never heard Gladstone. Before my day. But one or two of the fathers who
go back to prehistoric times say that your young man is such another,
but that the People’s John--proud title the People’s John--and only
thirty-eight--has one shot in his game that the G. O. M. never had.
It’s the master-shot, too, believe me. Humor. Cool-drawn humor. With
that in your bag, you’ve always a chance of holing out under bogey.
Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, I hope he has it,” said the cautious Helen. “But whether on the
platform it quite ‘gets over,’ as they say in the theater, one is never
quite sure. Whenever one hears him one is always dominated by his
tremendous moral enthusiasm.”
“There’s your Gladstone. Always _the_ card, of course. That’s why good
judges think he may go a very long way.”
Helen’s heart took fire. These were big words in the mouth of the
Colossus. “You think that?” She looked eagerly across at him. “Really
and truly you think that?”
The immediate answer of the great man was slowly to produce a cigar
case. “No use offering you a cigarette. I know you don’t smoke.
Wise--very wise woman.” As he spoke he chose a cigar, cut off the end,
lit it.
“Do you really think he’ll go far?” she persisted.
“The pundits seem pretty unanimous.”
“But you--yourself--personally?”
The Colossus drew tentatively at his cigar. “Pray, who am I--a mere
newspaper man--to hold an opinion--on such a matter? I can only tell
you that Mr. Ransom thinks so and he, as you know, held office before
the Deluge.”
“But you--yourself?” She was determined to nail him down. “Do you think
John Endor may one day be Prime Minister?”
“Well, since you ask me”--each word was like a drip of ice-cold
water--“in my humble opinion, I don’t.”
Something in the deliberate voice clutched her by the throat. As his
eye caught hers and held it, she drew her breath quickly in.
“Since you ask me.” The tone was sweet apology, “Only my poor opinion.
Really, I don’t pretend to know. Why should one?”
“You think,” said Helen, “that ... he ... might...?”
“My dear, I think nothing.” It was the father speaking again. “One
can’t help feeling he’s a rather high explosive, that’s all. And of
course, the mother----”
“The mother!” Her breath came and went in a little gasp.
Watching her closely he saw her turn very white. “I beg your pardon!”
He was very quick, very adroit. “But you pin me down. And you mean so
much to one, you know. In the Office we have come quite to depend on
you. I can’t help thinking of you almost as a girl of my own.”
The simple words sank deep. They were music. This man had always had
her loyal admiration. And now, as she sat facing him, she began to feel
awed by a sense of all that he had done for her.
Suddenly a picture was flashed before her mind. Far away in America, in
a backwater of a southern state, she saw her old parents hard pressed
by modern conditions, but whose lot for nearly two years now she had
been able to lighten with a liberal slice from her salary. It was going
to be a terrible wrench to give up her life at the Office. And then
John himself, would he, could he...?
The man who sat opposite seemed to read every thought she had.
“Hardly a matter upon which one is entitled to speak.”
The father again. “But, as I say, you mean so much to us in the
Office--so please--please look before and after.”
A sense of being overcome by a great spirit afflicted her now. Here was
an infinite power. She felt her defenses giving. The walls of the large
room were beginning to press upon her. She was alone with the man in
his own house, it was after midnight, she was at his mercy. Such fear
was unworthy, but she was seized by a fierce desire to escape. There
was the unknown to reckon with. At its beck, and under its fires, even
her most sacred instincts were in danger of being subverted.
X
Next morning, as the clock struck eleven, the Chief entered his private
room at the Office.
Punctuality, said his many biographers, was a cardinal fact in an
amazing life. But Saul Hartz knew better.
As the Colossus sat down at his table, the mere look of him would have
been enough to repute any theory so prosaic. The key of personality lay
deeper. It was to be found in the eyes, curiously hooded like those
of a bird of prey. In those undisclosed depths lurked the faculty of
seeing into the future.
It was this rather terrible power that had made Saul Hartz the thing
he was. He could afford to smile at the array of mental and moral
virtues his Lives insisted upon. Well he knew how completely they were
transcended by the fact that his birth had been attended by a Fairy.
A tray set on his blotting pad contained a mail of thirty unopened
but judiciously sorted letters. He turned over each one in turn. In
several cases the back of the envelope told all he needed to know about
them. Others aroused a languid interest, a mild curiosity; life had
few thrills to offer Saul Hartz. Two letters, however, among the pile
were able to fix his attention. One had ultra thick paper embossed with
the monogram of Royalty; the other was a black-sealed, black-edged
envelope, registered and marked “private.”
Somehow, the mere look of the second letter intrigued the Colossus. His
manner of laying it down proved that. But as a minor exercise in the
art of self-mastery--it amused him to play these little pranks upon
himself--he placed it carefully at the bottom of the pile. Then he
opened the royal envelope.
A considerable personage, in his own hand, fair and clerkly, warmly
thanked “My dear Hartz” for his efforts on behalf of the London
hospitals. Previous campaigns in the newspapers had raised great sums,
but the guiding spirit of the Universal Press was urgently asked to
open a special fund to meet the needs of the coming winter.
This letter in hand, Mr. Hartz pondered rather less than a minute, and
then he pressed a bell-button fixed in the side of his desk sharply
three times.
The summons was answered at once by a youngish, bald, dome-headed man
who wore the serious, rather pinched look that accompanies an intense
preoccupation with money.
“Good-morning, Mumby.” The Chief greeted cheerfully the financial
member of his Cabinet. Then he tossed him the letter. Before Mr.
Mumby, in order to do justice to this document, could fix gold-rimmed
eyeglasses to a nose with a narrow ridge, the Colossus gave a soft
chuckle.
“A slight--a very slight irritation of the lobe of the left ear”--while
he plucked at that organ his eye was fixed on Mr. Mumby’s face--“tells
me that an irruption of Popocatapetl is about to occur. I hope you
appreciate its significance.”
Even Mr. Mumby, schooled as he was in the more recondite ways of the
Chief, was at a loss. The Colossus, however, was kind enough at once
to enlighten him. “Tell me,” he said, “what is the price of National
Mexican Thirds?”
“They closed last night,” said Mr. Mumby, who carried all little
matters of that kind in his head, “at forty-six and an eighth, rather
sellers.”
The Chief tapped an excellent set of teeth with a black lead pencil, a
favorite trick when engaged in thinking constructively. “Suppose you go
a bear--a modest bear?” Again he plucked at his left ear, but this time
a smile famous upon five continents accompanied the action.
“When shall I cover, sir?” said Mr. Mumby, impassively.
“Twelve o’clock on Thursday,” said the Colossus. “And you can start the
fund of His Nibs with the proceeds.”
“A thousand pounds, sir?” Mr. Mumby was more impassive than ever.
“Yes. A thousand pounds from the proprietor of the _Planet_ newspaper.
That, I think, should meet the case--to begin with, at any rate.”
For the third time the Colossus plucked a little whimsically at his
left ear. Mr. Mumby bowed discreetly and retired.