The moment Tracy was alone his spirits vanished away, and all the
misery of his situation was manifest to him. To be moneyless and an
object of the chairmaker’s charity—this was bad enough, but his folly
in proclaiming himself an earl’s son to that scoffing and unbelieving
crew, and, on top of that, the humiliating result—the recollection of
these things was a sharper torture still. He made up his mind that he
would never play earl’s son again before a doubtful audience.
His father’s answer was a blow he could not understand. At times he
thought his father imagined he could get work to do in America without
any trouble, and was minded to let him try it and cure himself of his
radicalism by hard, cold, disenchanting experience. That seemed the
most plausible theory, yet he could not content himself with it. A
theory that pleased him better was, that this cablegram would be
followed by another, of a gentler sort, requiring him to come home.
Should he write and strike his flag, and ask for a ticket home? Oh, no,
that he couldn’t _ever_ do. At least, not yet. That cablegram would
come, it certainly would. So he went from one telegraph office to
another every day for nearly a week, and asked if there was a cablegram
for Howard Tracy. No, there wasn’t any. So they answered him at first.
Later, they said it before he had a chance to ask. Later still they
merely shook their heads impatiently as soon as he came in sight. After
that he was ashamed to go any more.
He was down in the lowest depths of despair, now; for the harder Barrow
tried to find work for him the more hopeless the possibilities seemed
to grow. At last he said to Barrow:
“Look here. I want to make a confession. I have got down, now, to where
I am not only willing to acknowledge to myself that I am a shabby
creature and full of false pride, but am willing to acknowledge it to
you. Well, I’ve been allowing you to wear yourself out hunting for work
for me when there’s been a chance open to me all the time. Forgive my
pride—what was left of it. It is all gone, now, and I’ve come to
confess that if those ghastly artists want another confederate, I’m
their man—for at last I am dead to shame.”
“No? Really, can you paint?”
“Not as badly as _they_. No, I don’t claim that, for I am not a genius;
in fact, I am a very indifferent amateur, a slouchy dabster, a mere
artistic sarcasm; but drunk or asleep I can beat _those_ buccaneers.”
“Shake! I want to shout! Oh, I tell you, I am immensely delighted and
relieved. Oh, just to work—that is life! No matter what the work
is—that’s of no consequence. Just work itself is bliss when a man’s
been starving for it. I’ve _been_ there! Come right along; we’ll hunt
the old boys up. Don’t you feel good? I tell you _I_ do.”
The freebooters were not at home. But their “works” were, displayed in
profusion all about the little ratty studio. Cannon to the right of
them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front—it was Balaclava come
again.
“Here’s the uncontented hackman, Tracy. Buckle to—deepen the sea-green
to turf, turn the ship into a hearse. Let the boys have a taste of your
quality.”
The artists arrived just as the last touch was put on. They stood
transfixed with admiration.
“My souls but she’s a stunner, that hearse! The hackman will just go
all to pieces when he sees that won’t he Andy?”
“Oh, it is sphlennid, sphlennid! Herr Tracy, why haf you not said you
vas a so sublime aartist? Lob’ Gott, of you had lif’d in Paris you
would be a Pree de Rome, dot’s votes de matter!”
The arrangements were soon made. Tracy was taken into full and equal
partnership, and he went straight to work, with dash and energy, to
reconstructing gems of art whose accessories had failed to satisfy.
Under his hand, on that and succeeding days, artillery disappeared and
the emblems of peace and commerce took its place—cats, hacks, sausages,
tugs, fire engines, pianos, guitars, rocks, gardens, flower-pots,
landscapes—whatever was wanted, he flung it in; and the more out of
place and absurd the required object was, the more joy he got out of
fabricating it. The pirates were delighted, the customers applauded,
the sex began to flock in, great was the prosperity of the firm. Tracy
was obliged to confess to himself that there was something about
work,—even such grotesque and humble work as this—which most pleasantly
satisfied a something in his nature which had never been satisfied
before, and also gave him a strange new dignity in his own private view
of himself.
The Unqualified Member from Cherokee Strip was in a state of deep
dejection. For a good while, now, he had been leading a sort of life
which was calculated to kill; for it had consisted in regularly
alternating days of brilliant hope and black disappointment. The
brilliant hopes were created by the magician Sellers, and they always
promised that _now_ he had got the trick, sure, and would effectively
influence that materialized cowboy to call at the Towers before night.
The black disappointments consisted in the persistent and monotonous
failure of these prophecies.
At the date which this history has now reached, Sellers was appalled to
find that the usual remedy was inoperative, and that Hawkins’s low
spirits refused absolutely to lift. Something must be done, he
reflected; it was heart-breaking, this woe, this smileless misery, this
dull despair that looked out from his poor friend’s face. Yes, he must
be cheered up. He mused a while, then he saw his way. He said in his
most conspicuously casual vein:
“Er—uh—by the way, Hawkins, we are feeling disappointed about this
thing—the way the materializee is acting, I mean—we are disappointed;
you concede that?”
“Concede it? Why, yes, if you like the term.”
“Very well; so far, so good. Now for the _basis_ of the feeling. It is
not that your heart, your affections are concerned; that is to say, it
is not that you _want_ the materializee _Itself_. You concede that?”
“Yes, I concede that, too—cordially.”
“Very well, again; we are making progress. To sum up: The feeling, it
is conceded, is not engendered by the mere conduct of the materializee;
it is conceded that it does not arise from any pang which the
_personality_ of the materializee could assuage. Now then,” said the
earl, with the light of triumph in his eye, “the inexorable logic of
the situation narrows us down to this: our feeling has its source in
the _money_-loss involved. Come—isn’t that so?”
“Goodness knows I concede that, with all my heart.”
“Very well. When you’ve found out the source of a disease, you’ve also
found out what remedy is required—just as in this case. In this case
money is required. And _only_ money.”
The old, old seduction was in that airy, confident tone and those
significant words—usually called pregnant words in books. The old
answering signs of faith and hope showed up in Hawkins’s countenance,
and he said:
“_Only_ money? Do you mean that you know a way to—”
“Washington, have you the impression that I have no resources but those
I allow the public and my intimate friends to know about?”
“Well, I—er—”
“Is it _likely_, do you think, that a man moved by nature and taught by
experience to keep his affairs to himself and a cautious and reluctant
tongue in his head, wouldn’t be thoughtful enough to keep a few
resources in reserve for a rainy day, when he’s got as many as I have
to select from?”
“Oh, you make me feel so much better already, Colonel!”
“Have you ever been in my laboratory?”
“Why, no.”
“That’s it. You see you didn’t even know that I had one. Come along.
I’ve got a little trick there that I want to show you. I’ve kept it
perfectly quiet, not fifty people know anything about it. But that’s my
way, always been my way. Wait till you’re _ready_, that’s the idea; and
_when_ you’re ready, _zzip!_—let her go!”
“Well, Colonel, I’ve never seen a man that I’ve had such unbounded
confidence in as you. When you say a thing right out, I always feel as
if that ends it; as if that is evidence, and proof, and everything
else.”
The old earl was profoundly pleased and touched.
“I’m glad _you_ believe in me, Washington; not everybody is so just.”
“I always have believed in you; and I always shall as long as I live.”
“Thank you, my boy. You shan’t repent it. And you _can’t_.” Arrived in
the “laboratory,” the earl continued, “Now, cast your eye around this
room—what do you see? _Apparently_ a junk-shop; _apparently_ a hospital
connected with a patent office—in _reality_, the mines of Golconda in
disguise! Look at that thing there. Now what would you take that thing
to be?”
“I don’t believe I could ever imagine.”
“Of course you couldn’t. It’s my grand adaptation of the phonograph to
the marine service. You store up profanity in it for use at sea. You
know that sailors don’t fly around worth a cent unless you swear at
them—so the mate that can do the best job of swearing is the most
valuable man. In great emergencies his talent saves the ship. But a
ship is a large thing, and he can’t be everywhere at once; so there
have been times when one mate has lost a ship which could have been
saved if they had had a hundred. Prodigious storms, you know. Well, a
ship can’t afford a hundred mates; but she can afford a hundred Cursing
Phonographs, and distribute them all over the vessel—and there, you
see, she’s armed at every point. Imagine a big storm, and a hundred of
my machines all cursing away at once—splendid spectacle, splendid!—you
couldn’t hear yourself think. Ship goes through that storm perfectly
serene—she’s just as safe as she’d be on shore.”
“It’s a wonderful idea. How do you prepare the thing?”
“Load it—simply load it.”
“How?”
“Why you just stand over it and swear into it.”
“That loads it, does it?”
“Yes—because every word it collars, it _keeps_—keeps it forever. Never
wears out. Any time you turn the crank, out it’ll come. In times of
great peril, you can reverse it, and it’ll swear backwards. _That_
makes a sailor hump himself!”
“O, I see. Who loads them?—the mate?”
“Yes, if he chooses. Or I’ll furnish them already loaded. I can hire an
expert for $75 a month who will load a hundred and fifty phonographs in
150 hours, and do it _easy_. And an expert can furnish a stronger
article, of course, than the mere average uncultivated mate could. Then
you see, all the ships of the world will buy them ready loaded—for I
shall have them loaded in any language a customer wants. Hawkins, it
will work the grandest moral reform of the 19th century. Five years
from now, _all_ the swearing will be done by machinery—you won’t ever
hear a profane word come from human lips on a ship. Millions of dollars
have been spent by the churches, in the effort to abolish profanity in
the commercial marine. Think of it—my name will live forever in the
affections of good men as the man, who, solitary and alone,
accomplished this noble and elevating reform.”
“O, it _is_ grand and beneficent and beautiful. How _did_ you ever come
to think of it? You have a wonderful mind. How did you say you loaded
the machine?”
“O, it’s no trouble—perfectly simple. If you want to load it up loud
and strong, you stand right over it and shout. But if you leave it open
and all set, it’ll _eavesdrop_, so to speak—that is to say, it will
load itself up with any sounds that are made within six feet of it. Now
I’ll show you how it works. I had an expert come and load this one up
yesterday. Hello, it’s been left open—it’s too bad—still I reckon it
hasn’t had much chance to collect irrelevant stuff. All you do is to
press this button in the floor—so.”
The phonograph began to sing in a plaintive voice:
There is a boarding-house, far far away,
Where they have ham and eggs, 3 times a day.
“Hang it, _that_ ain’t it. Somebody’s been singing around here.”
The plaintive song began again, mingled with a low, gradually rising
wail of cats slowly warming up toward a fight;
O, _how_ the boarders yell,
When they hear that dinner bell
They give that landlord—
(momentary outburst of terrific catfight which drowns out one word.)
Three times a day.
(Renewal of furious catfight for a moment. The plaintive voice on a
high fierce key, “_Scat_, you devils”—and a racket as of flying
missiles.)
“Well, never mind—let it go. I’ve got some sailor-profanity down in
there somewhere, if I could get to it. But it isn’t any matter; you see
how the machine works.”
Hawkins responded with enthusiasm:
“O, it works admirably! I know there’s a hundred fortunes in it.”
“And mind, the Hawkins family get their share, Washington.”
“O, thanks, thanks; you are just as generous as ever. Ah, it’s the
grandest invention of the age!”
“Ah, well; we live in wonderful times. The elements are crowded _full_
of beneficent forces—always _have_ been—and ours is the first
generation to turn them to account and make them work for us. Why
Hawkins, _everything_ is useful—_nothing_ ought ever to be wasted. Now
look at sewer gas, for instance. Sewer gas has always been wasted,
heretofore; nobody tried to save up sewer-gas—you can’t name me a man.
Ain’t that so? _you_ know perfectly well it’s so.”
“Yes it is so—but I never—er—I don’t quite see why a body—”
“Should _want_ to save it up? Well, I’ll tell you. Do you see this
little invention here?—it’s a decomposer—I call it a decomposer. I give
you my word of honor that if you show me a house that produces a given
quantity of sewer-gas in a day, I’ll engage to set up my decomposer
there and make that house produce a hundred times that quantity of
sewer-gas in less than half an hour.”
“Dear me, but why should you want to?”
“_Want_ to? Listen, and you’ll see. My boy, for illuminating purposes
and economy combined, there’s nothing in the world that begins with
sewer-gas. And really, it don’t cost a cent. You put in a good inferior
article of plumbing,—such as you find everywhere—and add my decomposer,
and there you are. Just use the ordinary gas pipes—and there your
expense ends. Think of it. Why, Major, in five years from now you won’t
see a house lighted with anything but sewer-gas. Every physician I talk
to, recommends it; and every plumber.”
“But isn’t it dangerous?”
“O, yes, more or less, but everything is—coal gas, candles, electricity
—there isn’t anything that ain’t.”
“It lights up well, does it?”
“O, magnificently.”
“Have you given it a good trial?”
“Well, no, not a first rate one. Polly’s prejudiced, and she won’t let
me put it in here; but I’m playing my cards to get it adopted in the
President’s house, and _then_ it’ll go—don’t you doubt it. I shall not
need this one for the present, Washington; you may take it down to some
boarding-house and give it a trial if you like.”