On the following Tuesday Andrew met the president by appointment at the
Marble Arch.
Until he had received his final instructions he was pledged not to
begin, and he had passed these two intervening days staring at his
empty fireplace.
They shook hands silently and passed into the Park. The president was
always thoughtful in a crowd.
"In such a gathering as this," said Andrew, pointing an imaginary
pistol at a lecturer on Socialism, "you could hardly go wrong to let
fly."
"You must not speak like that," the president said gently, "or we shall
soon lose you. Your remark, however, opens the way for what I have to
say. You have never expressed any curiosity as to your possible fate.
I hope this is not because you under-estimate the risks. If the
authorities saw you 'letting fly' as you term it, promiscuously, or
even at a given object, they would treat you as no better than a
malefactor."
"I thought that all out yesterday," said Andrew, "and I am amazed at
the society's success in escaping detection."
"I feared this," said the president. "You are mistaken. We don't
always escape detection. Sometimes we are caught--"
"Caught?"
"Yes, and hanged."
"But if that is so, why does it not get into the papers?"
"The papers are full of it."
Andrew looked incredulous.
"In the present state of the law," said the president, "motive in a
murder goes for nothing. However iniquitous this may be--and I do not
attempt to defend it--we accept it as a fact. Your motives may have
been unexceptionable, but they hang you all the same. Thus our members
when apprehended preserve silence on this point, or say that they are
Fenians. This is to save the society. The man who got fifteen years
the other day for being found near St. Stephen's with six infernal
machines in his pockets was really one of us. He was taking them to be
repaired."
"And the other who got ten years the week before?"
"He was from America, but it was for one of our affairs that he was
sentenced. He was quite innocent. You see the dynamiters, vulgarly so
called, are playing into our hands. Suspicion naturally falls on them.
He was our fifth."
"I had no idea of this," murmured Andrew.
"You see what a bad name does," said the president. "Let this be a
warning to you, Andrew."
"But is this quite fair?"
"As for that, they like it--the leading spirits, I mean. It gives them
a reputation. Besides, they hurt as well as help us. It was after
their appearance that the authorities were taught to be distrustful.
You have little idea of the precautions taken nowadays. There is Sir
William Harcourt, for instance, who is attended by policemen
everywhere. I used to go home from the House behind him nightly, but I
could never get him alone. I have walked in the very shadow of that
man, but always in a company."
"You were never arrested yourself?" asked Andrew.
"I was once, but we substituted a probationer."
"Then did he--was he--"
"Yes, poor fellow."
"Is that often done?"
"Sometimes. You perhaps remember the man who went over the Embankment
the night we met? Well, if I had been charged with that, you would
have had to be hanged."
Andrew took a seat to collect his thoughts.
"Was that why you seemed to take to me so much?" he asked, wistfully.
"It was only one reason," said the president, soothingly. "I liked you
from the first."
"But I don't see," said Andrew, "why I should have suffered for your
action."
For the moment, his veneration for this remarkable man hung in the
balance.
"It would have been for the society's sake," said the president,
simply; "probationers are hardly missed."
His face wore a pained look, but there was no reproach in his voice.
Andrew was touched.
He looked the apology, which, as a Scotchman, he could not go the
length of uttering.
"Before I leave you to-day," said the president, turning to a
pleasanter subject, "I shall give you some money. We do not, you
understand, pay our probationers a fixed salary."
"It is more, is it not," said Andrew, "in nature of a scholarship?"
"Yes, a scholarship--for the endowment of research. You see we do not
tie you down to any particular line of study. Still, I shall be happy
to hear of any programme you may have drawn up."
Andrew hesitated. He did not know that, to the president, he was an
open book.
"I dare say I can read your thoughts," said his companion. "There is
an eminent person whom you would like to make your first?"
Andrew admitted that this was so.
"I do not ask any confidences of you," continued the president, "nor
shall I discourage ambition. But I hope, Andrew, you have only in view
the greatest good of the greatest number. At such a time, it is well
for the probationer to ask himself two questions: Is it not
self-glorification that prompts me to pick this man out from among so
many? and, Am I actuated by any personal animosity? If you cannot
answer both these questions in the negative, it is time to ask a third,
Should I go on with this undertaking?"
"In this case," said Andrew, "I do not think it is self-glory, and I am
sure it is not spite. He is a man I have a very high opinion of."
"A politician? Remember that we are above party considerations."
"He is a politician," said Andrew, reluctantly, "but it is his politics
I admire."
"And you are sure his time has come? Then how do you propose to set
about it?"
"I thought of calling at his house, and putting it to him."
The president's countenance fell.
"Well, well," he said, "that may answer. But there is no harm in
bearing in mind that persuasion is not necessarily a passive force.
Without going the length of removing him yourself, you know, you could
put temptation in his way."
"If I know my man," said Andrew, "that will not be required."
The president had drunk life's disappointments to the dregs, but it was
not in his heart to damp the youth's enthusiasm.
Experience he knew to be a commodity for which we pay a fancy price.
"After that," said Andrew, "I thought of Henry Irving."
"We don't kill actors," his companion said.
It was Andrew's countenance's turn to fall now.
"We don't have time for it," the president explained. "When the
society was instituted, we took a few of them, but merely to get our
hands in. We didn't want to bungle good cases, you see, and it did not
matter so much for them."
"How did you do it?"
"We waited at the stage-door, and went off with the first person who
came out, male or female."
"But I understood you did not take up women?"
"Nor do we. Theatrical people constitute a sex by themselves--like
curates."
"Then can't I even do the man who stands at the theatre doors, all
shirt-front and diamonds?"
The president shivered.
"If you happen to be passing, at any rate," he said.
"And surely some of the playwrights would be better dead. They must
see that themselves."
"They have had their chance," said the president. Despite his
nationality, Andrew had not heard the story, so the president told it
him.
"Many years ago, when the drama was in its infancy, some young men from
Stratford-on-Avon and elsewhere resolved to build a theatre in London.
"The times, however, were moral, and no one would imperil his soul so
far as to give them a site.
"One night, they met in despair, when suddenly the room was illumined
by lightning, and they saw the devil in the midst of them.
"He has always been a large proprietor in London, and he had come to
strike a bargain with them. They could have as many sites as they
chose, on one condition. Every year they must send him a dramatist.
"You see he was willing to take his chance of the players.
"The compact was made, and up to the present time it has been
religiously kept. But this year, as the day drew near, found the
managers very uneasy. They did what they could. They forwarded the
best man they had."
"What happened?" asked Andrew, breathlessly.
"The devil sent him back," said the president.