“I'm so glad. Please pardon me for troubling you again.”
I pardoned her, and she went away, and so another American girl had
begun to toughen her skin and adjust her spirit to the feudal plan.
The day we sailed a curious thing came to pass in a letter to Norris
from Muggs in the handwriting of Mrs. Mullet. It said:
_I hope you will be glad to learn that good luck has come to me. I thank
God that I am able to return the last sum of money you gave me,
with interest to date. My check for it is inclosed herewith. An old
investment of mine, long supposed to be worthless, has turned out well.
I have sold a part of my stock in it, and with the rest I hope to square
accounts with you before long. My health is better, and within a week or
so I expect to be married to the noblest woman in the world._
The man's dream had come to pass. His check was in the letter, and there
was good money behind it.
“I congratulate you,” I said to Norris when he showed me the letter.
“You've really found an honest man inside a thief.”
“Without your help it would have been impossible,” said he. “It's worth
ten years of any man's life to have done it. I suppose there's an honest
man inside every thief if we could only get at him.”
“And no man is as bad as he seems, and, therefore, if you ever feel like
shooting me--don't,” was my answer.
“What luck that she didn't get hold of a count!” Betsey exclaimed. “She
was one of the most willing marryers that ever crossed the sea.”
“But she didn't know how to advertise,” I said. “Nobody knew that she
had money. One personal in the London _Mail_ or the Paris _Herald_ would
have crowded the Excelsior Hotel with impoverished noblemen.”
“And yet I would have supposed that the worst of them would have been
better than Muggs.”
“Not I,” was my answer. “Both Muggs and the counts have been mere
adventurers--trying to get something for nothing. Muggs knew that he was
doing wrong. His offense was so bad that he couldn't doubt its badness.
But the consciences of the counts never get any exercise. They don't
know that idleness is a crime, that a bought husband is baser than a
poodle-dog. They are absolutely convinced of their own respectability.
For that reason the average thief has a far better chance of being faced
about.”
We sailed. Mrs. Sampf, with a chestful of knockers, and the lumber king,
with his bust and portrait, were among our shipmates. The latter had had
a stroke of hard luck. Two gamblers at his hotel had won his confidence
and taken a hank of his fleece at bridge whist. He had made up his mind
that American playmates were more to his liking, that Grant was greater
than Alexander, and that universal peace was a dream. This he confided
to me one evening as we were lying off Gibraltar in the glare of the
searchlights.
Brooms of light were sweeping the waters for fear some sneaking nation
would steal in upon them like a thief in the night.
“These Europeans know better than to trust one another,” said I.
“Billions for ships an' forts an' armies, an' every dollar of it
testifies to the fact that not one of these powers can trust another.
'Yes, you're a good talker,' they seem to say, 'but I know you of old.
I'll eat with ye, and drink with ye, and buy with ye, and sell with ye,
but dinged if I'll trust ye!”'
“They're a lot of scamps over here,” was the conclusion of Mr. Pike.
“And especially unreliable in bridge whist,” I said.
“But I've made money on the trip,” said the lumber king. “I bought some
shares in a copper-mine for fifteen thousand dollars, and they're worth
at least ten times that. I happened to know the mine, and he needed the
money.”
“If I were you I'd have the details of that transaction engraved on my
bust and set it up in my bedroom,” I said, with a laugh.
“Why so?”
“It would give you a chance to get acquainted with yourself.”
“Oh, I was honest with him!” said he. “I told him I'd give him thirty
days to redeem the stock.”
“Was it Wilton?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“I know him, and if the stock is as good as you say it will be
redeemed.”
And it was, and I began to understand why Pike had been hand in glove
with Wilton. He had been trying to get hold of his property.
We wept for joy at the sight of our native land--who doesn't?--and
Norris, who looked as strong as ever, said that he longed to get back to
his task.
Richard met us at the dock, and the young people fell into each other's
arms.
“Gwendolyn!” Mrs. Norris exclaimed. “Look here,” said I. “This pair of
marryers is not to be interfered with any more.” Muggs and his new wife
sailed on the _Titanic_, and he met his death on the stricken ship like
a gentleman; but the bride was saved, and came to see us in Pointview
and told us the story of that night.
The ship was a part of the machinery of the great thought trust, which
has the world in its grip. The power behind her engines was thinking in
terms of dollars and cents--to be gained through the advertisement of a
swift voyage--and down she went in a thousand fathoms of icy water.
I said to Norris when we were speaking of this tragedy as we sat by his
fireside:
“The greatest of all commandments is this: 'Thou shalt have no other
Gods before me.'”
“Neither money nor titles, nor pride nor fear, nor power, nor church nor
state,” he added.
“Amen!” was my answer.
Then there fell a long silence, and well down in the depths of it is the
end of my story.