others swore in some alarm, and the bar-keeper drank the glass of
whiskey he had brought for Guido at a gulp, and then readjusted his
apron to show that nothing had disturbed his equanimity. Guido sat up,
with his head against the chief engineer's knees, and opened his eyes,
and his ears were greeted with words in his own tongue. They gave him
hot coffee and hot soup and more brandy, and he told his story in a
burst of words that flowed like a torrent of tears--how he had been
stolen from his home at Genoa, where he used to watch the boats from the
stone pier in front of the custom-house, at which the sailors nodded,
and how the padrone, who was not his uncle, finding he could not black
boots nor sell papers, had given him these plaster casts to sell, and
how he had whipped him when people would not buy them, and how at last
he had tripped, and broken them all except this one hidden in his
breast, and how he had gone to sleep, and he asked now why had they
wakened him, for he had no place to go.
Guido remembered telling them this, and following them by their
gestures as they retold it to the others in a strange language, and then
the lights began to spin, and the faces grew distant, and he reached out
his hand for the fat chief engineer, and felt his arms tightening around
him.
A cold wind woke Guido, and the sound of something throbbing and beating
like a great clock. He was very warm and tired and lazy, and when he
raised his head he touched the ceiling close above him, and when he
opened his eyes he found himself in a little room with a square table
covered with oil-cloth in the centre, and rows of beds like shelves
around the walls. The room rose and fell as the streets did when he had
had nothing to eat, and he scrambled out of the warm blankets and
crawled fearfully up a flight of narrow stairs. There was water on
either side of him, beyond and behind him--water blue and white and
dancing in the sun, with great blocks of dirty ice tossing on its
surface.
And behind him lay the odious city of New York, with its great bridge
and high buildings, and before him the open sea. The chief engineer
crawled up from the engine-room and came towards him, rubbing the
perspiration from his face with a dirty towel.
"Good-morning," he called out. "You are feeling pretty well?"
"Yes."
"It is Christmas day. Do you know where you are going? You are going to
Italy, to Genoa. It is over there," he said, pointing with his finger.
"Go back to your bed and keep warm."
He picked Guido up in his arms, and ran with him down the companion-way,
and tossed him back into his berth. Then he pointed to the shelf at one
end of the little room, above the sheet-iron stove. The plaster figure
that Guido had wrapped in his breast had been put there and lashed to
its place.
"That will bring us good luck and a quick voyage," said the chief
engineer.
Guido lay quite still until the fat engineer had climbed up the
companion-way again and permitted the sunlight to once more enter the
cabin. Then he crawled out of his berth and dropped on his knees, and
raised up his hands to the plaster figure which no one would buy.
THE REPORTER WHO MADE HIMSELF KING
The Old Time Journalist will tell you that the best reporter is the one
who works his way up. He holds that the only way to start is as a
printer's devil or as an office boy, to learn in time to set type, to
graduate from a compositor into a stenographer, and as a stenographer
take down speeches at public meetings, and so finally grow into a real
reporter, with a fire badge on your left suspender, and a speaking
acquaintance with all the greatest men in the city, not even excepting
Police Captains.
That is the old time journalist's idea of it. That is the way he was
trained, and that is why at the age of sixty he is still a reporter. If
you train up a youth in this way, he will go into reporting with too
full a knowledge of the newspaper business, with no illusions concerning
it, and with no ignorant enthusiasms, but with a keen and justifiable
impression that he is not paid enough for what he does. And he will
only do what he is paid to do.
Now, you cannot pay a good reporter for what he does, because he does
not work for pay. He works for his paper. He gives his time, his health,
his brains, his sleeping hours, and his eating hours, and sometimes his
life to get news for it. He thinks the sun rises only that men may have
light by which to read it. But if he has been in a newspaper office from
his youth up, he finds out before he becomes a reporter that this is not
so, and loses his real value. He should come right out of the University
where he has been doing "campus notes" for the college weekly, and be
pitchforked out into city work without knowing whether the Battery is at
Harlem or Hunter's Point, and with the idea that he is a Moulder of
Public Opinion and that the Power of the Press is greater than the Power
of Money, and that the few lines he writes are of more value in the
Editor's eyes than is the column of advertising on the last page, which
they are not. After three years--it is sometimes longer, sometimes not
so long--he finds out that he has given his nerves and his youth and his
enthusiasm in exchange for a general fund of miscellaneous knowledge,
the opportunity of personal encounter with all the greatest and most
remarkable men and events that have risen in those three years, and a
great fund of resource and patience. He will find that he has crowded
the experiences of the lifetime of the ordinary young business man,
doctor, or lawyer, or man about town, into three short years; that he
has learned to think and to act quickly, to be patient and unmoved when
every one else has lost his head, actually or figuratively speaking; to
write as fast as another man can talk, and to be able to talk with
authority on matters of which other men do not venture even to think
until they have read what he has written with a copy-boy at his elbow on
the night previous.
It is necessary for you to know this, that you may understand what
manner of man young Albert Gordon was.
Young Gordon had been a reporter just three years. He had left Yale when
his last living relative died, and had taken the morning train for New
York, where they had promised him reportorial work on one of the
innumerable Greatest New York Dailies. He arrived at the office at
noon, and was sent back over the same road on which he had just come, to
Spuyten Duyvil, where a train had been wrecked and everybody of
consequence to suburban New York killed. One of the old reporters
hurried him to the office again with his "copy," and after he had
delivered that, he was sent to the Tombs to talk French to a man in
Murderer's Row, who could not talk anything else, but who had shown some
international skill in the use of a jimmy. And at eight, he covered a
flower-show in Madison Square Garden; and at eleven was sent over the
Brooklyn Bridge in a cab to watch a fire and make guesses at the losses
to the insurance companies.
He went to bed at one, and dreamed of shattered locomotives, human
beings lying still with blankets over them, rows of cells, and banks of
beautiful flowers nodding their heads to the tunes of the brass band in
the gallery. He decided when he awoke the next morning that he had
entered upon a picturesque and exciting career, and as one day followed
another, he became more and more convinced of it, and more and more
devoted to it. He was twenty then, and he was now twenty-three, and in
that time had become a great reporter, and had been to Presidential
conventions in Chicago, revolutions in Hayti, Indian outbreaks on the
Plains, and midnight meetings of moonlighters in Tennessee, and had seen
what work earthquakes, floods, fire, and fever could do in great cities,
and had contradicted the President, and borrowed matches from burglars.
And now he thought he would like to rest and breathe a bit, and not to
work again unless as a war correspondent. The only obstacle to his
becoming a great war correspondent lay in the fact that there was no
war, and a war correspondent without a war is about as absurd an
individual as a general without an army. He read the papers every
morning on the elevated trains for war clouds; but though there were
many war clouds, they always drifted apart, and peace smiled again. This
was very disappointing to young Gordon, and he became more and more
keenly discouraged.
And then as war work was out of the question, he decided to write his
novel. It was to be a novel of New York life, and he wanted a quiet
place in which to work on it. He was already making inquiries among the
suburban residents of his acquaintance for just such a quiet spot, when
he received an offer to go to the Island of Opeki in the North Pacific
Ocean, as secretary to the American consul to that place. The gentleman
who had been appointed by the President to act as consul at Opeki, was
Captain Leonard T. Travis, a veteran of the Civil War, who had
contracted a severe attack of rheumatism while camping out at night in
the dew, and who on account of this souvenir of his efforts to save the
Union had allowed the Union he had saved to support him in one office or
another ever since. He had met young Gordon at a dinner, and had had the
presumption to ask him to serve as his secretary, and Gordon, much to
his surprise, had accepted his offer. The idea of a quiet life in the
tropics with new and beautiful surroundings, and with nothing to do and
plenty of time in which to do it, and to write his novel besides, seemed
to Albert to be just what he wanted; and though he did not know nor care
much for his superior officer, he agreed to go with him promptly, and
proceeded to say good-by to his friends and to make his preparations.
Captain Travis was so delighted with getting such a clever young
gentleman for his secretary, that he referred to him to his friends as
"my attaché of legation;" nor did he lessen that gentleman's dignity by
telling any one that the attaché's salary was to be five hundred dollars
a year. His own salary was only fifteen hundred dollars; and though his
brother-in-law, Senator Rainsford, tried his best to get the amount
raised, he was unsuccessful. The consulship to Opeki was instituted
early in the '50's, to get rid of and reward a third or fourth cousin of
the President's, whose services during the campaign were important, but
whose after-presence was embarrassing. He had been created consul to
Opeki as being more distant and unaccessible than any other known spot,
and had lived and died there; and so little was known of the island, and
so difficult was communication with it, that no one knew he was dead,
until Captain Travis, in his hungry haste for office, had uprooted the
sad fact. Captain Travis, as well as Albert, had a secondary reason for
wishing to visit Opeki. His physician had told him to go to some warm
climate for his rheumatism, and in accepting the consulship his object
was rather to follow out his doctor's orders at his country's expense,
than to serve his country at the expense of his rheumatism.
Albert could learn but very little of Opeki; nothing, indeed, but that
it was situated about one hundred miles from the Island of Octavia,
which island, in turn, was simply described as a coaling-station three
hundred miles distant from the coast of California. Steamers from San
Francisco to Yokohama stopped every third week at Octavia, and that was
all that either Captain Travis or his secretary could learn of their new
home. This was so very little, that Albert stipulated to stay only as
long as he liked it, and to return to the States within a few months if
he found such a change of plan desirable.
As he was going to what was an almost undiscovered country, he thought
it would be advisable to furnish himself with a supply of articles with
which he might trade with the native Opekians, and for this purpose he
purchased a large quantity of brass rods, because he had read that
Stanley did so, and added to these, brass curtain chains and about two
hundred leaden medals similar to those sold by street pedlers during
the Constitutional Centennial celebration in New York City.
He also collected even more beautiful but less expensive decorations for
Christmas trees, at a wholesale house on Park Row. These he hoped to
exchange for furs or feathers or weapons, or for whatever other curious
and valuable trophies the Island of Opeki boasted. He already pictured
his rooms on his return hung fantastically with crossed spears and
boomerangs, feather head-dresses, and ugly idols.
His friends told him that he was doing a very foolish thing, and argued
that once out of the newspaper world, it would be hard to regain his
place in it. But he thought the novel that he would write while lost to
the world at Opeki would serve to make up for his temporary absence from
it, and he expressly and impressively stipulated that the editor should
wire him if there was a war.
Captain Travis and his secretary crossed the continent without
adventure, and took passage from San Francisco on the first steamer that
touched at Octavia. They reached that island in three days, and learned
with some concern that there was no regular communication with Opeki,
and that it would be necessary to charter a sailboat for the trip. Two
fishermen agreed to take them and their trunks, and to get them to their
destination within sixteen hours if the wind held good. It was a most
unpleasant sail. The rain fell with calm, relentless persistence from
what was apparently a clear sky; the wind tossed the waves as high as
the mast and made Captain Travis ill; and as there was no deck to the
big boat, they were forced to huddle up under pieces of canvas, and
talked but little. Captain Travis complained of frequent twinges of
rheumatism, and gazed forlornly over the gunwale at the empty waste of
water.
"If I've got to serve a term of imprisonment on a rock in the middle of
the ocean for four years," he said, "I might just as well have done
something first to deserve it. This is a pretty way to treat a man who
bled for his country. This is gratitude, this is." Albert pulled heavily
on his pipe, and wiped the rain and spray from his face and smiled.
"Oh, it won't be so bad when we get there," he said; "they say these
Southern people are always hospitable, and the whites will be glad to
see any one from the States."
"There will be a round of diplomatic dinners," said the consul, with an
attempt at cheerfulness. "I have brought two uniforms to wear at them."
It was seven o'clock in the evening when the rain ceased, and one of the
black, half-naked fishermen nodded and pointed at a little low line on
the horizon.
"Opeki," he said. The line grew in length until it proved to be an
island with great mountains rising to the clouds, and as they drew
nearer and nearer, showed a level coast running back to the foot of the
mountains and covered with a forest of palms. They next made out a
village of thatched huts around a grassy square, and at some distance
from the village a wooden structure with a tin roof.
"I wonder where the town is," asked the consul, with a nervous glance at
the fishermen. One of them told him that what he saw was the town.
"That?" gasped the consul. "Is that where all the people on the island
live?"
The fisherman nodded; but the other added that there were other natives
further back in the mountains, but that they were bad men who fought and
ate each other. The consul and his attaché of legation gazed at the
mountains with unspoken misgivings. They were quite near now, and could
see an immense crowd of men and women, all of them black, and clad but
in the simplest garments, waiting to receive them. They seemed greatly
excited and ran in and out of the huts, and up and down the beach, as
wildly as so many black ants. But in the front of the group they
distinguished three men who they could see were white, though they were
clothed, like the others, simply in a shirt and a short pair of
trousers. Two of these three suddenly sprang away on a run and
disappeared among the palm-trees; but the third one, when he recognized
the American flag in the halyards, threw his straw hat in the water and
began turning handsprings over the sand.
"That young gentleman, at least," said Albert, gravely, "seems pleased
to see us."
A dozen of the natives sprang into the water and came wading and
swimming towards them, grinning and shouting and swinging their arms.
"I don't think it's quite safe, do you?" said the consul, looking out
wildly to the open sea. "You see, they don't know who I am."
A great black giant threw one arm over the gunwale and shouted something
that sounded as if it were spelt Owah, Owah, as the boat carried him
through the surf.
"How do you do?" said Gordon, doubtfully. The boat shook the giant off
under the wave and beached itself so suddenly that the American consul
was thrown forward to his knees. Gordon did not wait to pick him up, but
jumped out and shook hands with the young man who had turned
handsprings, while the natives gathered about them in a circle and
chatted and laughed in delighted excitement.
"I'm awful glad to see you," said the young man, eagerly. "My name's
Stedman. I'm from New Haven, Connecticut. Where are you from?"
"New York," said Albert. "This," he added, pointing solemnly to Captain
Travis, who was still on his knees in the boat, "is the American consul
to Opeki." The American consul to Opeki gave a wild look at Mr. Stedman
of New Haven and at the natives.
"See here, young man," he gasped, "is this all there is of Opeki?"
"The American consul?" said young Stedman, with a gasp of amazement, and
looking from Albert to Captain Travis. "Why, I never supposed they would
send another here; the last one died about fifteen years ago, and there
hasn't been one since. I've been living in the consul's office with the
Bradleys, but I'll move out, of course. I'm sure I'm awfully glad to see
you. It'll make it so much more pleasant for me."
"Yes," said Captain Travis, bitterly, as he lifted his rheumatic leg
over the boat; "that's why we came."
Mr. Stedman did not notice this. He was too much pleased to be anything
but hospitable. "You are soaking wet, aren't you?" he said; "and hungry,
I guess. You come right over to the consul's office and get on some
other things."
He turned to the natives and gave some rapid orders in their language,
and some of them jumped into the boat at this, and began to lift out
the trunks, and others ran off towards a large, stout old native, who
was sitting gravely on a log, smoking, with the rain beating unnoticed
on his gray hair.
"They've gone to tell the King," said Stedman; "but you'd better get
something to eat first, and then I'll be happy to present you properly."
"The King," said Captain Travis, with some awe; "is there a king?"
"I never saw a king," Gordon remarked, "and I'm sure I never expected to
see one sitting on a log in the rain."
"He's a very good king," said Stedman, confidentially; "and though you
mightn't think it to look at him, he's a terrible stickler for etiquette
and form. After supper he'll give you an audience; and if you have any
tobacco, you had better give him some as a present, and you'd better say
it's from the President: he doesn't like to take presents from common
people, he's so proud. The only reason he borrows mine is because he
thinks I'm the President's son."
"What makes him think that?" demanded the consul, with some shortness.
Young Mr. Stedman looked nervously at the consul and at Albert, and
said that he guessed some one must have told him.
The consul's office was divided into four rooms with an open court in
the middle, filled with palms, and watered somewhat unnecessarily by a
fountain.
"I made that," said Stedman, in a modest off-hand way. "I made it out of
hollow bamboo reeds connected with a spring. And now I'm making one for
the King. He saw this and had a lot of bamboo sticks put up all over the
town, without any underground connections, and couldn't make out why the
water wouldn't spurt out of them. And because mine spurts, he thinks I'm
a magician."
"I suppose," grumbled the consul, "some one told him that too."
"I suppose so," said Mr. Stedman, uneasily.
There was a veranda around the consul's office, and inside the walls
were hung with skins, and pictures from illustrated papers, and there
was a good deal of bamboo furniture, and four broad, cool-looking beds.
The place was as clean as a kitchen. "I made the furniture," said
Stedman, "and the Bradleys keep the place in order."
"Who are the Bradleys?" asked Albert.
"The Bradleys are those two men you saw with me," said Stedman; "they
deserted from a British man-of-war that stopped here for coal, and they
act as my servants. One is Bradley, Sr., and the other, Bradley, Jr."
"Then vessels do stop here occasionally?" the consul said, with a
pleased smile.
"Well, not often," said Stedman. "Not so very often; about once a year.
The _Nelson_ thought this was Octavia, and put off again as soon as she
found out her mistake, but the Bradleys took to the bush, and the boat's
crew couldn't find them. When they saw your flag, they thought you might
mean to send them back, so they ran off to hide again: they'll be back,
though, when they get hungry."
The supper young Stedman spread for his guests, as he still treated
them, was very refreshing and very good. There was cold fish and pigeon
pie, and a hot omelet filled with mushrooms and olives and tomatoes and
onions all sliced up together, and strong black coffee. After supper,
Stedman went off to see the King, and came back in a little while to say
that his Majesty would give them an audience the next day after
breakfast. "It is too dark now," Stedman explained; "and it's raining so
that they can't make the street lamps burn. Did you happen to notice our
lamps? I invented them; but they don't work very well yet. I've got the
right idea, though, and I'll soon have the town illuminated all over,
whether it rains or not."
The consul had been very silent and indifferent, during supper, to all
around him. Now he looked up with some show of interest.
"How much longer is it going to rain, do you think?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know," said Stedman, critically. "Not more than two months,
I should say." The consul rubbed his rheumatic leg and sighed, but said
nothing.
The Bradleys returned about ten o'clock, and came in very sheepishly.
The consul had gone off to pay the boatmen who had brought them, and
Albert in his absence assured the sailor's that there was not the least
danger of their being sent away. Then he turned into one of the beds,
and Stedman took one in another room, leaving the room he had occupied
heretofore for the consul. As he was saying good-night, Albert suggested
that he had not yet told them how he came to be on a deserted island;
but Stedman only laughed and said that that was a long story, and that
he would tell him all about it in the morning. So Albert went off to bed
without waiting for the consul to return, and fell asleep, wondering at
the strangeness of his new life, and assuring himself that if the rain
only kept up, he would have his novel finished in a month.
The sun was shining brightly when he awoke, and the palm-trees outside
were nodding gracefully in a warm breeze. From the court came the odor
of strange flowers, and from the window he could see the ocean
brilliantly blue, and with the sun coloring the spray that beat against
the coral reefs on the shore.
"Well, the consul can't complain of this," he said, with a laugh of
satisfaction; and pulling on a bath-robe, he stepped into the next room
to awaken Captain Travis. But the room was quite empty, and the bed
undisturbed. The consul's trunk remained just where it had been placed
near the door, and on it lay a large sheet of foolscap, with writing on
it, and addressed at the top to Albert Gordon. The handwriting was the
consul's. Albert picked it up and read it with much anxiety. It began
abruptly:--
* * * * *