THE GAMBLERS
In a sense, politics must always represent the game that is most
attractive to the careful gambler. For one may play at it without having
anything to lose. It is one of the few games within the reach of the
adventurous, where no stake need be cast upon the table. The gambler who
takes up a political career plays to win or not to win. He may jump up
from the gutter and shout that he is the man of the moment, without
offering any proof of his assertion beyond the loudness of a strident
voice. And if no one listens to him he loses nothing but his breath.
And in France the man who shouts loudest is almost certain to have the
largest following. In England the same does not yet hold good, but the
day seems to be approaching when it will.
In France, ever since the great Revolution, men have leapt up from the
gutter to grasp the reins of power. Some, indeed, have sprung from the
gutter of a palace, which is no more wholesome, it would appear, than the
drain of any street, or a ditch that carries off the refuse of a cheap
Press.
There are certain rooms in the north wing of the Louvre, in Paris, rooms
having windows facing across the Rue de Rivoli toward the Palais Royal,
where men must have sat in the comfortable leather-covered chair of the
High Official and laughed at the astounding simplicity of the French
people. But he laughs best who laughs last, and the People will
assuredly be amused in a few months, or a few years, at the very sudden
and very humiliating discomfiture of a gentleman falling face-foremost
into the street or hanging forlornly from a lamp-post at the corner of
it. For some have quitted these comfortable chairs, in these quiet
double-windowed rooms overlooking the Rue de Rivoli, for no better fate.
It was in the August of 1850 that a stout gentleman, seated in one of
these comfortable chairs, succumbed so far to the warmth of the palace
corridors as to fall asleep. He was not in the room of a high official,
but in the waiting-room attached to it.
He knew, moreover, that the High Official himself was scarcely likely to
dismiss a previous visitor or a present occupation any the earlier for
being importuned; for he was aware of the official's antecedents, and
knew that a Jack-in-office, who has shouted himself into office, is
nearly always careful to be deaf to other voices than his own.
Moreover, Mr. John Turner was never pressed for time.
"Yes," he had been known to say, "I was in Paris in '48. Never missed a
meal."
Whereas others, with much less at stake than this great banker, had
omitted not only meals, but their night's rest--night after night--in
those stirring times.
John Turner was still asleep when the door leading to the Minister's room
was cautiously opened, showing an inner darkness such as prevails in an
alcove between double doors. The door opened a little wider. No doubt the
peeping eye had made sure that the occupant of the waiting-room was
asleep. On the threshold stood a man of middle height, who carried
himself with a certain grace and quiet dignity. He was pale almost to
sallowness, a broad face with a kind mouth and melancholy eyes, without
any light in them. The melancholy must have been expressed rather by the
lines of the brows than by the eye itself, for this was without life or
expression--the eye of a man who is either very short-sighted or is
engaged in looking through that which he actually sees, to something he
fancies he perceives beyond it.
His lips smiled, but the smile died beneath a neatly waxed moustache and
reached no higher on the mask-like face. Then he disappeared in the outer
darkness between the two doors, and the handle made no noise in turning.
In a few minutes an attendant, in a gay uniform, came in by the same
door, without seeking to suppress the clatter of his boots on the oak
floor.
"Holà! monsieur," he said, in a loud voice. And Mr. John Turner crossed
his legs and leant farther back in the chair, preparatory to opening his
eyes, which he did directly on the new-comer's face, without any of that
vague flitting hither and thither of glance which usually denotes the
sleeper surprised.
The eyes were of a clear blue, and Mr. Turner looked five years younger
with them open than with them shut. But he was immensely stout.
"Well, my friend," he said, soothingly; for the Minister's attendant had
a truculent ministerial manner. "Why so much noise?"
"The Minister will see you."
John Turner yawned and reached for his hat.
"The Minister is pressed for time."
"So was I," replied the Englishman, who spoke perfect French, "when I
first sat down here, half an hour ago. But even haste will pass in time."
He rose, and followed the servant into the inner room, where he returned
the bow of a little white-bearded gentleman seated at a huge desk.
"Well, sir," said this gentleman, with the abrupt manner which has come
to be considered Napoleonic on the stage or in the political world
to-day. "Your business?"
The servant had withdrawn, closing the door behind him with an emphasis
of the self-accusatory sort.
"I am a banker," replied John Turner, looking with an obese deliberation
toward one of the deep windows, where, half-concealed by the heavy
curtain, a third person stood gazing down into the street.
The Minister smiled involuntarily, forgetting his dignity of a two-years'
growth.
"Oh, you may speak before Monsieur," he said.
"But I am behind him," was the immediate reply.
The gentleman leaning against the window-breast did not accept this
somewhat obvious invitation to show his face. He must have heard it,
however, despite an absorption which was probably chronic; for he made a
movement to follow with his glance the passage of some object of interest
in the street below. And the movement seemed to supply John Turner with
the information he desired.
"Yes, I am a banker," he said, more genially.
The Minister gave a short laugh.
"Monsieur," he said, "every one in Europe knows that. Proceed."
"And I only meddle in politics when I see the possibility of making an
honest penny."
"Already made--that honest penny--if one may believe the gossip--of
Europe," said the Minister. "So many pence that it is whispered that you
do not know what to do with them."
"It is unfortunate," admitted Turner, "that one can only dine once a
day."
The little gentleman in office had more than once invited his visitor to
be seated, indicating by a gesture the chair placed ready for him. After
a slow inspection of its legs, Mr. John Turner now seated himself. It
would seem that he, at the same time, tacitly accepted the invitation to
ignore the presence of a third person.
"Since you seem to know all about me," he said, "I will not waste any
more of your time, or mine, by trying to make you believe that I am
eminently respectable. The business that brought me here, however, is of
a political nature. A plain man, like myself, only touches politics when
he sees his gain clearly. There are others who enter that field from
purer motives, I am told. I have not met them."
The Minister smiled on one side of his face, and all of it went white. He
glanced uncomfortably at that third person, whom he had suggested
ignoring.
"And yet," went on John Turner, very dense or greatly daring, "I have
lived many years in France, Monsieur le Ministre."
The Minister frowned at him, and made a quick gesture of one hand toward
the window.
"So long," pursued the Englishman, placidly, "as the trains start
punctually, and there is not actually grape-shot in the streets, and one
may count upon one's dinner at the hour, one form of government in this
country seems to me to be as good as another, Monsieur le Ministre. A
Bourbon Monarchy or an Orleans Monarchy, or a Republic, or--well, an
Empire, Monsieur le Ministre."
"_Mon Dieu!_ have you come here to tell me this?" cried the Minister,
impatiently, glancing over his shoulder toward the window, and with one
hand already stretched out toward the little bell standing on his desk.
"Yes," answered Turner, leaning forward to draw the bell out of reach. He
nodded his head with a friendly smile, and his fat cheeks shook. "Yes,
and other things as well. Some of those other matters are perhaps even
more worthy of your earnest attention. It is worth your while to listen.
More especially, as you are paid for it--by the hour."
He laughed inside himself, with a hollow sound, and placidly crossed his
legs.
"Yes; I came to tell you, firstly, that the present form of government,
and, er--any other form which may evolve from it--"
"Oh!--proceed, monsieur!" exclaimed the Minister, hastily, while the man
in the recess of the window turned and looked over his shoulder at John
Turner's profile with a smile, not unkind, on his sphinx-like face.
"--has the inestimable advantage of my passive approval. That is why I am
here, in fact. I should be sorry to see it upset."
He broke off, and turned laboriously in his chair to look toward the
window, as if the gaze of the expressionless eyes there had tickled the
back of his neck like a fly. But by the time the heavy banker had got
round, the curtain had fallen again in its original folds.
"--by a serious Royalist plot," concluded Turner, in his thick,
deliberate way.
"So, assuredly, would any patriot or any true friend of France," said the
Minister, in his best declamatory manner.
"Um--m. That is out of my depth," returned the Englishman, bluntly. "I
paddle about in the shallow water at the edge and pick up what I can, you
understand. I am too fat for a _voyant_ bathing-costume, and the deep
waters beyond, Monsieur le Ministre."
The Minister drummed impatiently on his desk with his five fingers, and
looked at Turner sideways beneath his brows.
"Royalist plots are common enough," he said, tentatively, after a pause.
"Not a Royalist plot with money in it," was the retort. "I dare say an
honest politician, like yourself, is aware that in France it is always
safe to ignore the conspirator who has no money, and always dangerous to
treat with contempt him who jingles a purse. There is only a certain
amount of money in the world, Monsieur le Ministre, and we bankers
usually know where it is. I do not mean the money that the world pours
into its own stomach. That is always afloat--changing hands daily. I mean
the Great Reserves. We watch those, you understand. And if one of the
Great Reserves, or even one of the smaller reserves, moves, we wonder why
it is being moved and we nearly always find out."
"One supposes," said the Minister, hazarding an opinion for the first
time, and he gave it with a sidelong glance toward the window, "that it
is passing from the hands of a financier possessing money into those of
one who has none."
"Precisely. And if a financier possessing money is persuaded to part with
it in such a quarter as you suggest, one may conclude that he has good
reason to anticipate a substantial return for the loan. You, who are a
brilliant collaborateur in the present government, should know that, if
any one does, Monsieur le Ministre."
The Minister glanced toward the window, and then gave a good-natured and
encouraging laugh, quite unexpectedly, just as if he had been told to do
so by the silent man looking down into the street, who may, indeed, have
had time to make a gesture.
"And," pursued the banker, "if a financier possessing money parts with
it--or, to state the case more particularly, if a financier possessing no
money, to my certain knowledge, suddenly raises it from nowhere definite,
for the purposes of a Royalist conspiracy, the natural conclusion is that
the Royalists have got hold of something good."
John Turner leant back in his chair and suppressed a yawn.
"This room is very warm," he said, producing a pocket-handkerchief. Which
was tantamount to a refusal to say more.
The Minister twisted the end of his moustache in reflection. It was at
this time the fashion in France to wear the moustache waxed. Indeed, men
displayed thus their political bias to all whom it might concern.
"There remains nothing," said the official at length, with a gracious
smile, "but to ask your terms."
For he who was afterward Napoleon the Third had introduced into French
political and social life a plain-spoken cynicism which characterises
both to this day.
"Easy," replied Turner. "You will find them easy. Firstly, I would ask
that your stupid secret police keeps its fingers out; secondly, that
leniency be assured to one person, a client of mine--the woman who
supplies the money--who is under the influence--well, that influence
which makes women do nobler and more foolish things, monsieur, than men
are capable of."
He rose as he spoke, collected his hat and stick, and walked slowly to
the door. With his hand on the handle, he paused.
"You can think about it," he said, "and let me know at your leisure. By
the way, there is one more point, Monsieur le Ministre. I would ask you
to let this matter remain a secret, known only to our two selves and--the
Prince President."
And John Turner went out, without so much as a glance toward the window.