THE BEGGAR'S HOME
The house we entered was furnished with a degree of splendor of which
the external appearance gave no prophecy. We passed up the stairs and
into a handsome room, hung around with pictures, and adorned with
book-cases. The beggar left me.
I sat for some time looking at my surroundings, and wondering over
the strange course of events which had brought me there, and still
more at the actions of my mysterious companion. I felt assured now
that his rags were simply a disguise, for he entered the house with
all the air of a master; his language was well chosen and correctly
spoken, and possessed those subtle tones and intonations which mark
an educated mind. I was thinking over these matters when the door
opened and a handsome young gentleman, arrayed in the height of the
fashion, entered the room. I rose to my feet and began to apologize
for my intrusion and to explain that I had been brought there by a
beggar to whom I had rendered some trifling service in the street.
The young gentleman listened, with a smiling face, and then,
extending his hand, said:
"I am the beggar; and I do now what only the hurry and excitement
prevented me from doing before--I thank you for the life you have
saved. If you had not come to my rescue I should probably have been
trampled to death under the feet of those vicious horses, or sadly
beaten at least by that brutal driver."
The expression of my face doubtless showed my extreme astonishment,
for he proceeded:
"I see you are surprised; but there are many strange things in this
great city. I was disguised for a particular purpose, which I cannot
explain to you. But may I not request the name of the gentleman to
whom I am under so many obligations? Of course, if you have any
reasons for concealing it, consider the question as not asked."
"No," I replied, Smiling, "I have no concealments. My name is Gabriel
Weltstein; I live in the new state of Uganda, in the African
confederation, in the mountains of Africa, near the town of Stanley;
and I am engaged in sheep-raising, in the mountains. I belong to a
colony of Swiss, from the canton of Uri, who, led by my grandfather,
settled there. seventy years ago. I came to this city yesterday to
see if I could not sell my wool directly to the manufacturers, and
thus avoid the extortions of the great Wool Ring, which has not only
our country but the whole world in its grasp; but I find the
manufacturers are tied hand and foot, and afraid of that powerful
combination; they do not dare to deal with me; and thus I shall have
to dispose of my product at the old price. It is a shameful state of
affairs in a country which calls itself free."
"Pardon me for a moment," said the young gentleman, and left the
room. On his return I resumed:
"But now that I have told you who I am, will you be good enough to
tell me something about yourself?"
"Certainly," he replied, "and with pleasure. I am a native of this
city; my name is Maximilian Petion; by profession I am an attorney; I
live in this house with my mother, to whom I shall soon have the
pleasure of introducing you."
"Thank you," I replied, still studying the face of my new
acquaintance. His complexion was dark, the eyes and hair almost
black; the former very bright and penetrating; his brow was high,
broad and square; his nose was prominent, and there was about the
mouth an expression of firmness, not unmixed with kindness.
Altogether it was a face to inspire respect and confidence. But I
made up my mind not to trust too much to appearances. I could not
forget the transformation which I had witnessed, from the rags of the
ancient beggar to this well-dressed young gentleman. I knew that the
criminal class were much given to such disguises. I thought it better
therefore to ask some questions that might throw light upon the
subject.
"May I inquire," I said, "what were your reasons for hurrying me away
so swiftly and mysteriously from the gate of the Park?"
"Because," he replied, "you were in great danger, and you had
rendered me a most important service. I could not leave you there to
be arrested, and punished with a long period of imprisonment,
because, following the impulse of your heart, you had saved my life
and scourged the wretch who would have driven his horses over me."
"But why should I be punished with a long term of imprisonment? In my
own country the act I performed would have received the applause of
every one. Why did you not tell me to throw away that whip on the
instant, so as to avoid the appearance of stealing it, and then
remain to testify in my behalf if I had been arrested?"
"Then you do not know," he replied, "whose driver it was you
horsewhipped?"
"No," I said; "how should I? I arrived here but yesterday."
"That was the carriage of Prince Cabano, the wealthiest and most
vindictive man in the city. If you had been taken you would have been
consigned to imprisonment for probably many years."
"Many years," I replied; "imprisoned for beating an insolent driver!
Impossible. No jury would convict me of such an offense."
"Jury!" he said, with a bitter smile; "it is plain to see you are a
stranger and come from a newly settled part of the world, and know
nothing of our modern civilization. The jury would do whatever Prince
Cabano desired them to do. Our courts, judges and juries are the
merest tools of the rich. The image of justice has slipped the
bandage from one eye, and now uses her scales to weigh the bribes she
receives. An ordinary citizen has no more prospect of fair treatment
in our courts, contending with a millionaire, than a new-born infant
would have of life in the den of a wolf."
"But," I replied, rather hotly, "I should appeal for justice to the
public through the newspapers."
"The newspapers!" he said, and his face darkened as he spoke; "the
newspapers are simply the hired mouthpieces of power; the devil's
advocates of modern civilization; their influence is always at the
service of the highest bidder; it is their duty to suppress or
pervert the truth, and they do it thoroughly. They are paid to
mislead the people under the guise of defending them. A century ago
this thing began, and it has gone on, growing worse and worse, until
now the people laugh at the opinions of the press, and doubt the
truth even of its reports of occurrences."
"Can this be possible?" I said.
"Let me demonstrate it to you," he replied, and, stepping to the
wall, he spoke quietly into a telephone tube, of which there were a
number ranged upon the wall, and said:
"Give me the particulars of the whipping of Prince Cabano's coachman,
this afternoon, at the south gate of Central Park."
Almost immediately a bell rang, and on the opposite wall, in What I
had supposed to be a mirror, appeared these words:
_From the Evening Guardian:_
A HORRIBLE OUTRAGE!
HIGHWAY ROBBERY!--ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD!
This afternoon, about three o'clock, an event transpired at
the south gate of Central Park which shows the turbulent
and vicious
spirit of the lower classes, and reinforces the demand we
have so often made for repressive measures and a stronger
government.
As the carriage of our honored fellow-citizen Prince
Cabano, containing two ladies, members of his family, was
quietly entering the Park, a tall, powerful ruffian,
apparently a stranger, with long yellow hair, reaching to
his shoulders, suddenly grasped a valuable gold-mounted
whip out of the hands of the driver, and, because he
resisted the robbery, beat him across the face, inflicting
very severe wounds. The horses became very much terrified,
and but for the fact that two worthy men, John Henderson of
5222 Delavan Street, and William Brooks of 7322 Bismarck
Street, seized them by the head, a terrible accident would
undoubtedly have occurred. Policeman number B 17822 took
the villain prisoner, but he knocked the guardian of the
law down and escaped, accompanied by a ragged old fellow
who seemed to have been his accomplice. It is believed that
the purpose of the thieves was to rob the occupants of the
carriage, as the taller one approached the ladies, but just
then his companion saw the policeman coming and gave him
warning, and they fled together. Prince Cabano is naturally
very much incensed at this outrage, and has offered a
reward of one thousand dollars for the apprehension of
either of the ruffians. They have been tracked for a
considerable distance by the detectives; but after leaving
the elevated cars all trace of them was suddenly and
mysteriously lost. The whip was subsequently found on Bomba
Street and identified. Neither of the criminals is known to
the police. The taller one was quite young and fairly well
dressed, and not ill-looking, while his companion had the
appearance of a beggar, and seemed to be about seventy
years of age. The Chief of Police will pay liberally for
any information that may lead to the arrest of the robbers.
"There," said my companion, "what do you think of that?"
I need not say that I was paralyzed with this adroit mingling of fact
and falsehood. I realized for the first time the perils of my
situation. I was a stranger in the great city, without a friend or
acquaintance, and hunted like a felon! While all these thoughts
passed through my brain, there came also a pleasing flash of
remembrance of that fair face, and that sweet and gentle smile, and
that beaming look of gratitude and approval of my action in whipping
the brutal driver. But if my new acquaintance was right; if neither
courts nor juries nor newspapers nor public opinion could be appealed
to for justice or protection, then indeed might I be sent to prison
as a malefactor, for a term of years, for performing a most righteous
act. If it was true, and I had heard something of the same sort in my
far-away African home, that money ruled everything in this great
country; and if his offended lordship desired to crush me, he could
certainly do so. While I was buried in these reflections I had not
failed to notice that an electric bell rang upon the side of the
chamber and a small box opened, and the young gentleman advanced and
took from the box a sheet of tissue paper, closely written. I
recognized it as a telegram. He read it carefully, and I noticed him
stealing glances at me, as if comparing the details of my appearance
with something written on the paper. When he finished he advanced
toward me, with a brighter look on his face, and, holding out his
hand, said:
"I have already hailed you as my benefactor, my preserver; permit me
now to call you my friend."
"Why do you say so?" I asked.
"Because," he replied, "I now know that every statement you made to
me about yourself is literally true; and that in your personal
character you deserve the respect and friendship of all men. You look
perplexed. Let me explain. You told me some little time since your
name and place of residence. I belong to a society which has its
ramifications all over the world. When I stepped out of this room I
sent an inquiry to the town near which you reside, and asked if such
a person as you claimed to be lived there; what was his appearance,
standing and character, and present residence. I shall not shock your
modesty by reading the reply I have just received. You will pardon
this distrust, but we here in the great city are suspicious, and
properly so, of strangers, and even more so of each other. I did not
know but that you were in the employment of the enemies of our
society, and sought to get into my confidence by rendering me a
service,--for the tricks to which the detectives resort are infinite.
I now trust you implicitly, and you can command me in everything."
I took his hand warmly and thanked him cordially. It was impossible
to longer doubt that frank and beaming face.
"But," I said, "are we not in great danger? Will not that hackman,
for the sake of the reward, inform the police of our whereabouts?"
"No!" he said; "have no fears upon that score. Did you not observe
that I permitted about a dozen hacks to pass me before I hailed the
one that brought us here? That man wore on his dress a mark that told
me he belonged to our Brotherhood. He knows that if he betrays us he
will die within twenty-four hours, and that there is no power on
earth could save him; if he fled to the uttermost ends of the earth
his doom would overtake him with the certainty of fate. So have no
uneasiness. We are as safe here as if a standing army of a hundred
thousand of our defenders surrounded this house."
"Is that the explanation," I asked, "of the policeman releasing his
grip upon my coat?"
"Yes," he replied, quietly.
"Now," said I, "who is this Prince Cabano, and how does he happen to
be called Prince? I thought your Republic eschewed all titles of
nobility."
"So it does," he replied, "by law. But we have a great many titles
which are used socially, by courtesy. The Prince, for instance, when
he comes to sign his name to a legal document, writes it Jacob
Isaacs. But his father, when he grew exceedingly rich and ambitious,
purchased a princedom in Italy for a large sum, and the government,
being hard up for money, conferred the title of Prince with the
estate. His son, the present Isaacs, succeeded, of course, to his
estates and his title."
"'Isaacs," I said, "is a Jewish name?"
"Yes," he replied, "the aristocracy of the world is now almost
altogether of Hebrew origin."
"Indeed," I asked, "how does that happen?"
"Well," he replied, "it was the old question of the survival of the
fittest. Christianity fell upon the Jews, originally a race of
agriculturists and shepherds, and forced them, for many centuries,
through the most terrible ordeal of persecution the history of
mankind bears any record of. Only the strong of body, the cunning of
brain, the long-headed, the persistent, the men with capacity to live
where a dog would starve, survived the awful trial. Like breeds like;
and now the Christian world is paying, in tears and blood, for the
sufferings inflicted by their bigoted and ignorant ancestors upon a
noble race. When the time came for liberty and fair play the Jew was
master in the contest with the Gentile, who hated and feared him.
"They are the great money-getters of the world. They rose from
dealers in old clothes and peddlers of hats to merchants, to bankers,
to princes. They were as merciless to the Christian as the Christian
had been to them. They said, with Shylock: 'The villainy you teach me
I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the
instruction.' The 'wheel of fortune has come full circle;' and the
descendants of the old peddlers now own and inhabit the palaces where
their ancestors once begged at the back doors for secondhand clothes;
while the posterity of the former lords have been, in many cases,
forced down into the swarming misery of the lower classes. This is a
sad world, and to contemplate it is enough to make a man a
philosopher; but he will scarcely know whether to belong to the
laughing or the weeping school--whether to follow the example of
Democritus or Heraclitus."
"And may I ask," I said, "what is the nature of your society?"
"I cannot tell you more at this time," he replied, "than that it is a
political secret society having a membership of millions, and
extending all over the world. Its purposes are the good of mankind.
Some day, I hope, you may learn more about it. Come," he added, "let
me show you my house, and introduce you to my mother."
Touching a secret spring in the wall, a hidden door flew open, and we
entered a small room. I thought I had gotten into the dressing-room
of a theater. Around the walls hung a multitude of costumes, male and
female, of different sizes, and suited for all conditions of life. On
the table were a collection of bottles, holding what I learned were
hair dyes of different colors; and there was also an assortment of
wigs, beards and mustaches of all hues. I thought I recognized among
the former the coarse white hair of the quondam beggar. I pointed it
out to him.
"Yes," he said, with a laugh, "I will not be able to wear that for
some time to come."
Upon another table there was a formidable array of daggers, pistols
and guns; and some singular-looking iron and copper things, which he
told me were cartridges of dynamite and other deadly explosives.
I realized that my companion was a conspirator. But of what kind? I
could not believe evil of him. There was a manliness and kindliness
in his face which forbade such a thought; although the square chin
and projecting jaws and firm-set mouth indicated a nature that could
be most dangerous; and I noticed sometimes a restless, wild look in
his eyes.
I followed him into another room, where he introduced me to a
sweet-faced old lady, with the same broad brow and determined, but
gentle, mouth which so distinguished her son. It was evident that
there was great love between them, although her face wore a troubled
and anxious look, at times, as she regarded him. It seemed to me that
she knew he was engaged in dangerous enterprises.
She advanced to me with a smile and grasped both my hands with her
own, as she said:
"My son has already told me that you have this day rendered him and
me an inestimable service. I need not say that I thank you with all
my heart."
I made light of the matter and assured her that I was under greater
obligations to her son than he was to me. Soon after we sat down to
dinner, a sumptuous meal, to which it seemed to me all parts of the
world had contributed. We had much pleasant conversation, for both
the host and hostess were persons of ripe information. In the old
days our ancestors wasted years of valuable time in the study of
languages that were no longer spoken on the earth; and civilization
was thus cramped by the shadow of the ancient Roman Empire, whose
dead but sceptered sovereigns still ruled the spirits of mankind from
their urns. Now every hour is considered precious for the
accumulation of actual knowledge of facts and things, and for the
cultivation of the graces of the mind; so that mankind has become
wise in breadth of knowledge, and sweet and gentle in manner. I
expressed something of this thought to Maximilian, and he replied:
"Yes; it is the greatest of pities that so noble and beautiful a
civilization should have become so hollow and rotten at the core."
"Rotten at the core!" I exclaimed, in astonishment; "what do you
mean?"
"What I mean is that our civilization has grown to be a gorgeous
shell; a mere mockery; a sham; outwardly fair and lovely, but
inwardly full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. To think that
mankind is so capable of good, and now so cultured and polished, and
yet all above is cruelty, craft and destruction, and all below is
suffering, wretchedness, sin and shame."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"That civilization is a gross and dreadful failure for seven-tenths
of the human family; that seven-tenths of the backs of the world are
insufficiently clothed; seven-tenths of the stomachs of the world are
insufficiently fed; seven-tenths of the minds of the world are
darkened and despairing, and filled with bitterness against the
Author of the universe. It is pitiful to think what society is, and
then to think what it might have been if our ancestors had not cast
away their magnificent opportunities--had not thrown them into the
pens of the swine of greed and gluttony."
"But," I replied, "the world does not look to me after that fashion.
I have been expressing to my family my delight at viewing the vast
triumphs of man over nature, by which the most secret powers of the
universe have been captured and harnessed for the good of our race.
Why, my friend, this city preaches at every pore, in every street and
alley, in every shop and factory, the greatness of humanity, the
splendor of civilization!"
"True, my friend," replied Maximilian; "but you see only the surface,
the shell, the crust of life in this great metropolis. To-morrow we
will go out together, and I shall show you the fruits of our modern
civilization. I shall take you, not upon the upper deck of society,
where the flags are flying, the breeze blowing, and the music
playing, but down into the dark and stuffy depths of the hold of the
great vessel, where the sweating gnomes, in the glare of the
furnace-heat, furnish the power which drives the mighty ship
resplendent through the seas of time. We will visit the
_Under-World_."
But I must close for tonight, and subscribe myself affectionately
your brother,
Gabriel