Washington shuddered slightly at the suggestion, then his face took on
a dreamy look and he dropped into a trance of thought. After a little,
Sellers asked him what he was grinding in his mental mill.
“Well, this. Have you got some secret project in your head which
requires a Bank of England back of it to make it succeed?”
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The Colonel showed lively astonishment, and said:
“Why, Hawkins, are you a mind-reader?”
“I? I never thought of such a thing.”
“Well, then how did you happen to drop onto that idea in this curious
fashion? It’s just mind-reading, that’s what it is, though you may not
know it. Because I _have_ got a private project that requires a Bank of
England at its back. How could you divine that? What was the process?
This is interesting.”
“There wasn’t any process. A thought like this happened to slip through
my head by accident: How much would make you or me comfortable? A
hundred thousand. Yet you are expecting two or three of—these
inventions of yours to turn out some billions of money—and you are
_wanting_ them to do that. If you wanted ten millions, I could
understand that—it’s inside the human limits. But billions! That’s
clear outside the limits. There must be a definite project back of that
somewhere.”
The earl’s interest and surprise augmented with every word, and when
Hawkins finished, he said with strong admiration:
“It’s wonderfully reasoned out, Washington, it certainly is. It shows
what I think is quite extraordinary penetration. For you’ve hit it;
you’ve driven the centre, you’ve plugged the bulls-eye of my dream. Now
I’ll tell you the whole thing, and you’ll understand it. I don’t need
to ask you to keep it to yourself, because you’ll see that the project
will prosper all the better for being kept in the background till the
right time. Have you noticed how many pamphlets and books I’ve got
lying around relating to Russia?”
“Yes, I think most anybody would notice that—anybody who wasn’t dead.”
“Well, I’ve been posting myself a good while. That’s a great and,
splendid nation, and deserves to be set free.” He paused, then added in
a quite matter-of-fact way, “When I get this money I’m going to set it
free.”
“Great guns!”
“Why, what makes you jump like that?”
“Dear me, when you are going to drop a remark under a man’s chair that
is likely to blow him out through the roof, why don’t you put some
expression, some force, some noise into it that will prepare him? You
shouldn’t flip out such a gigantic thing as this in that colorless kind
of a way. You do jolt a person up, so. Go on, now, I am all right
again. Tell me all about it. I’m all interest—yes, and sympathy, too.”
“Well, I’ve looked the ground over, and concluded that the methods of
the Russian patriots, while good enough considering the way the boys
are hampered, are not the best; at least not the quickest. They are
trying to revolutionize Russia from _within;_ that’s pretty slow, you
know, and liable to interruption all the time, and is full of perils
for the workers. Do you know how Peter the Great started his army? He
didn’t start it on the family premises under the noses of the
Strelitzes; no, he started it away off yonder, privately,—only just one
regiment, you know, and he built to _that_. The first thing the
Strelitzes knew, the regiment was an _army_, their position was turned,
and they had to take a walk. Just that little idea _made_ the biggest
and worst of all the despotisms the world has seen. The same idea can
_un_make it. I’m going to prove it. I’m going to get out to one side
and work my scheme the way Peter did.”
“This is mighty interesting, Rossmore. What is it you are going to do?”
“I am going to buy Siberia and start a republic.”
“There,—bang you go again, without giving any notice! Going to _buy_
it?”
“Yes, as soon as I get the money. I don’t care what the price is, I
shall take it. I can afford it, and I will. Now then, consider this—and
you’ve never thought of it, I’ll warrant. Where is the place where
there is twenty-five times more manhood, pluck, true heroism,
unselfishness, devotion to high and noble ideals, adoration of liberty,
wide education, and _brains_, per thousand of population, than any
other domain in the whole world can show?”
“Siberia!”
“Right.”
“It is true; it certainly is true, but I never thought of it before.”
“Nobody ever thinks of it. But it’s so, just the same. In those mines
and prisons are gathered together the very finest and noblest and
capablest multitude of human beings that God is able to create. Now if
you had that kind of a population to sell, would you offer it to a
despotism? No, the despotism has no use for it; you would lose money. A
despotism has no use for anything but human cattle. But suppose you
want to start a republic?”
“Yes, I see. It’s just the material for it.”
“Well, I should say so! There’s Siberia with just the very finest and
choicest material on the globe for a republic, and more coming—more
coming all the time, don’t you see! It is being daily, weekly, monthly
recruited by the most perfectly devised system that has ever been
invented, perhaps. By this system the whole of the hundred millions of
Russia are being constantly and patiently sifted, sifted, sifted, by
myriads of trained experts, spies appointed by the Emperor personally;
and whenever they catch a man, woman or child that has got any brains
or education or character, they ship that person straight to Siberia.
It is admirable, it is wonderful. It is so searching and so effective
that it keeps the general level of Russian intellect and education down
to that of the Czar.”
“Come, that sounds like exaggeration.”
“Well, it’s what they say anyway. But I think, myself, it’s a lie. And
it doesn’t seem right to slander a whole nation that way, anyhow. Now,
then, you see what the material is, there in Siberia, for a republic.”
He paused, and his breast began to heave and his eye to burn, under the
impulse of strong emotion. Then his words began to stream forth, with
constantly increasing energy and fire, and he rose to his feet as if to
give himself larger freedom. “The minute I organize that republic, the
light of liberty, intelligence, justice, humanity, bursting from it,
flooding from it, flaming from it, will concentrate the gaze of the
whole astonished world as upon the miracle of a new sun; Russia’s
countless multitudes of slaves will rise up and march, march!—eastward,
with that great light transfiguring their faces as they come, and far
back of them you will see-what will you see?—a vacant throne in an
empty land! It can be done, and by God I will do it!”
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He stood a moment bereft of earthly consciousness by his exaltation;
then consciousness returned, bringing him a slight shock, and he said
with grave earnestness:
“I must ask you to pardon me, Major Hawkins. I have never used that
expression before, and I beg you will forgive it this time.”
Hawkins was quite willing.
“You see, Washington, it is an error which I am by nature not liable
to. Only excitable people, impulsive people, are exposed to it. But the
circumstances of the present case—I being a democrat by birth and
preference, and an aristocrat by inheritance and relish—”
The earl stopped suddenly, his frame stiffened, and he began to stare
speechless through the curtainless window. Then he pointed, and gasped
out a single rapturous word:
“Look!”
“What _is_ it, Colonel?”
“_It!_”
“No!”
“Sure as you’re born. Keep perfectly still. I’ll apply the
influence—I’ll turn on all my force. I’ve brought It thus far—I’ll
fetch It right into the house. You’ll see.”
He was making all sorts of passes in the air with his hands.
“There! Look at that. I’ve made It smile! See?”
Quite true. Tracy, out for an afternoon stroll, had come unexpectantly
upon his family arms displayed upon this shabby house-front. The
hatchments made him smile; which was nothing, they had made the
neighborhood cats do that.
“Look, Hawkins, look! I’m drawing It over!”
“You’re drawing it sure, Rossmore. If I ever had any doubts about
materialization, they’re gone, now, and gone for good. Oh, this is a
joyful day!”
Tracy was sauntering over to read the door-plate. Before he was half
way over he was saying to himself, “Why, manifestly these are the
American Claimant’s quarters.”
“It’s coming—coming right along. I’ll slide, down and pull It in. You
follow after me.”
Sellers, pale and a good deal agitated, opened the door and confronted
Tracy. The old man could not at once get his voice: then he pumped out
a scattering and hardly coherent salutation, and followed it with—
“Walk in, walk right in, Mr.—er—”
“Tracy—Howard Tracy.”
“Tracy—thanks—walk right in, you’re expected.”
Tracy entered, considerably puzzled, and said:
“Expected? I think there must be some mistake.”
“Oh, I judge not,” said Sellers, who—noticing that Hawkins had arrived,
gave him a sidewise glance intended to call his close attention to a
dramatic effect which he was proposing to produce by his next remark.
Then he said, slowly and impressively—“I am—_You Know Who_.”
To the astonishment of both conspirators the remark produced no
dramatic effect at all; for the new-comer responded with a quite
innocent and unembarrassed air—
“No, pardon me. I don’t _know_ who you are. I only suppose—but no doubt
correctly—that you are the gentleman whose title is on the doorplate.”
“Right, quite right—sit down, pray sit down.” The earl was rattled,
thrown off his bearings, his head was in a whirl. Then he noticed
Hawkins standing apart and staring idiotically at what to him was the
apparition of a defunct man, and a new idea was born to him. He said to
Tracy briskly:
“But a thousand pardons, dear sir, I am forgetting courtesies due to a
guest and stranger. Let me introduce my friend General Hawkins—General
Hawkins, our new Senator—Senator from the latest and grandest addition
to the radiant galaxy of sovereign States, Cherokee Strip”—(to himself,
“that name will shrivel him up!”—but it didn’t, in the least, and the
Colonel resumed the introduction piteously disheartened and
amazed),—“Senator Hawkins, Mr. Howard Tracy, of—er—”
“England.”
“England!—Why that’s im—”
“England, yes, native of England.”
“Recently from there?”
“Yes, quite recently.”
Said the Colonel to himself, “This phantom lies like an expert.
Purifying this kind by fire don’t work. I’ll sound him a little
further, give him another chance or two to work his gift.” Then
aloud—with deep irony—
“Visiting our great country for recreation and amusement, no doubt. I
suppose you find that traveling in the majestic expanses of our Far
West is—”
“I haven’t been West, and haven’t been devoting myself to amusement
with any sort of exclusiveness, I assure you. In fact, to merely live,
an artist has got to work, not play.”
“Artist!” said Hawkins to himself, thinking of the rifled bank; “that
_is_ a name for it!”
“Are _you_ an artist?” asked the colonel; and added to himself, “_now_
I’m going to catch him.”
“In a humble way, yes.”
“What line?” pursued the sly veteran.
“Oils.”
“I’ve got him!” said Sellers to himself. Then aloud, “This is
fortunate. Could I engage you to restore some of my paintings that need
that attention?”
“I shall be very glad. Pray let me see them.”
No shuffling, no evasion, no embarrassment, even under this crucial
test. The Colonel was nonplussed. He led Tracy to a chromo which had
suffered damage in a former owner’s hands through being used as a lamp
mat, and said, with a flourish of his hand toward the picture—
“This del Sarto—”
“Is _that_ a del Sarto?”
The colonel bent a look of reproach upon Tracy, allowed it to sink
home, then resumed as if there had been no interruption—
“This del Sarto is perhaps the only original of that sublime master in
our country. You see, yourself, that the work is of such exceeding
delicacy that the risk—could—er—would you mind giving me a little
example of what you can do before we—”
“Cheerfully, cheerfully. I will copy one of these marvels.”
Water-color materials—relics of Miss Sally’s college life—were brought.
Tracy said he was better in oils, but would take a chance with these.
So he was left alone. He began his work, but the attractions of the
place were too strong for him, and he got up and went drifting about,
fascinated; also amazed.