over the field--not telling my conclusions yet--but only some of my
thoughts by the way. In fact it's years since I gave up the notion of
opening the secret to any nation, or to all nations. For one thing I
couldn't get into any nation's possession if I wanted to. Suppose, for
instance, I offered it to the Washington Administration. Naturally the
President orders experts to report on it--say six army engineers. I
show them how. What happens? Why, those six men are bosses of the
Administration, the nation and all the world. They can't but see that
right away if they've got any gumption. Will they abstain from using
the power? Scarcely. Will they stick together _and_ boss? They won't,
because they can't. It is not in human nature. Common sense, common
logic, would compel each one to try to get his private Odistor going
first, for fear each of the others might be for blowing him and the
other four away in order to boss alone. Fact is, the moment I showed
the process to any other man--and this is why I can't take you in as
partner--I'd have to blow him straight away out beyond Cape Cod, for
fear he would send me flying soon as he saw universal Bossdom in his
hands."
"That seems inevitable," I admitted.
"Certainly. I can't risk the human race under any Boss except
myself--or somebody that I am sure means as well as I do."
"Our political principles are in many respects the same," I suggested,
hopefully.
"Will you--will any man except me--would even Laurier stay Liberal if he
had absolute power? What would _you_ do with the Odistor anyway?"
"Get a fortune out of it."
"How?"
"Well, we might try this scheme--detain ocean liners in port until the
Companies agreed to pay what the traffic will bear."
"Gosh--you think I've got the conscience of a Railway Corporation? No,
sir! But what use in prolonging this part of our talk? I have thought
of a thousand ways of using the thing on a large scale, but they are all
out of the question, for one good and sufficient reason--folks would
lock me up or kill me if I once convinced 'em of the power I possess. I
couldn't blame them, they _must_ do it to feel safe themselves. The only
sure way for me to get big money out of it safely would be by retiring
to a lonely sea island and advertising what I intended to do on a
specified day--blow away some forest on the mainland, say, or send a
blast straight overland to the Rockies and clear them of snow in a path
fifty miles wide. Of course, folks would laugh at the advertisement--to
say nothing of the expense of inserting it--and to convince them I'd
have to _do_ it. After that I might call on the civilised governments
to send me all the gold, diamonds, and fine things I could think of.
But what good would fine things do me? I should be afraid to let any
ship land its cargo, or any other human being come on the island. I
couldn't even have a cook, for fear she might be bribed to poison me or
bust the Odistor--and I've got no fancy to do my own cooking. What good
to Boss the World at that price? The Kaiser himself wouldn't pay it.
Universally feared as he is already hated--but not bound to live alone.
For a while I was thinking to seclude myself that way in self-sacrifice
to the general good. I thought of issuing an order to all governments
to stop fighting, stop governing and just let real freedom be
established--the brotherhood of man, share and share alike, equal wages
all round, same kind of houses and grub and clothes, perfect democracy!
But suppose the Governments didn't obey? Politicians are smart--they'd
soon see I dursn't leave my island to go travelling and inspecting what
was going on all over. I couldn't receive deputations coming to me for
redress of grievances, for fear they might be coming to rid the world of
its benevolent despot. Shrewd folks ashore would soon catch on to my
fix--me there all alone, busy keeping ten or a dozen Odistors blowing
gales off shore for fifty miles or so to keep people out of any kind of
striking distance, and everlastingly sending hurricanes upward to clear
the sky of Zeppelins and aeroplanes that might be sent to drop
nitro-glycerine on me. Next thing some speculator would be pretending
to be my sole agent, and ordering the world to fetch _him_ the wealth.
How could I know, any more than God seems to, what things were done in
my name?"
"Employ Marconi," I suggested; "have him send you aerial news of what's
going on everywhere. Then you could threaten wrong-doers everywhere with
the Odistor.
"Marconi is a good man, mebby, but think of the temptation to him. How
could I be sure he was giving me facts. He could stuff me with good
reports, and all the time be bossing the world himself, forcing the
nations to give up to him by the threat that I'd back him and blow the
disobedient to Kingdom Come. Besides, I don't know how to operate
Marconi's instruments, and, if I did, all my time would be taken up
receiving his reports. No, _sir_. There is no honest, safe,
comfortable way for me to get rich out of the Odistor. I have known
that for a considerable time."
"Then, why did you wish to consult me?"
"Well, first place, I wanted some friend to know what kind of a
self-denying ordinance I'm living under. To be comprehended by at least
one person is a human need. Besides that, I want your opinion on a
point of conscience. Is the Odistor mine?"
"Yours? Isn't it your exclusive discovery?"
"But isn't it Miss Minnely's property? I experimented in her time."
"During office hours?"
"Mostly. And did all the construction in her workshop with her
materials. She supposed I was tinkering up a new attraction for the
Annual Announcement. Isn't it hers by rights? She's been paying me
forty-five dollars a week right along. When she hired me she told me
she expected exclusive devotion to the interests of the Family Blessing.
And I agreed. Seems I'm bound in honour to give it up to her."
"For nothing?"
"Well, she's dead set against raising wages. But I was thinking she
might boost me up to fifty a week."
"That seems little for making her Boss of the World."
"Oh, Miss Minnely wouldn't go in for _that_. A man would. A woman is
too conservative. Miss Minnely's one notion is the _Blessing_. It's not
money she is after, but doing good. She's sure the way to improve the
world is to get the Blessing regularly into every family. I don't know
but she's right too. It's harmless, anyway."
I could not but regard Adam's conscience as too tender. Yet it was
pathetic to see this old man, potentially master of mankind (if he were
not mistaking the Odistor's powers), feeling morally so bound by the
ethics of the trusty employee. I had perused thousands of editorials
designed to imbue the proletariat with precisely Adam's idea of duty to
Capital. How to advise him was a serious problem.
"What would Miss Minnely do with it?" I inquired, to gain time.
"She would put it on the list of attractions in the Prize Package
Department."
"Good heavens! And place absolute power in the hands of subscribers to
the Blessing! Anarchy would ensue! They would all set about bossing the
world."
"Not they," said Adam. "She would send out Odistors gauged to only
certain specified strengths. For five subscription certificates the
subscriber would get a breeze to dry clothes or ventilate cellars.
Prize Odistor number two might clear away snow; number three might run
the family windmill. Clubs of fifty new subscribers could win a machine
that would clear fog away from the bay or the river, mornings.
Different strengths for different premiums. See? It would prove a
first-class attraction for the Announcement."
"Adam," I remonstrated, for the financial prospect was too alluring,
"you are not required to give this thing to Miss Minnely. Resign. Remit
a million as conscience money to her. Let us go into the manufacture
together. You gauge the Odistors. I will run the business end of the
concern."
"No! Miss Minnely has the first right. If anybody gets it she must.
What bothers me most is this--will she bounce me if I tell her?"
"Bounce you? Why?"
"Think me crazy. I tell you she is _conservative_. And she is ready to
throw me out--thinks I'm a back number. I can hardly blame her. Fact
is, I have given so much time and thought to the Odistor of late years
that I haven't found or invented half enough attractions for the
Announcement. Last week she gave me an assistant--a Pusher. That means
she is intending him to supersede me about two years from now. Yet I
could invent a man with twice his brains in half the time. Sometimes I
am tempted to put the Odistor on the small job of blowing him out into
Massachusetts Bay. But he is not to blame for being as God made him.
Then, again, I think how I could down him by simply showing the thing to
Miss Minnely. But the cold fit comes again--what if she thinks me
crazy? I'd lose my forty-five dollars a week and might be driven to
Bossing the World. It's hard for old men to get new jobs in Boston.
They draw the dead-line at fifty. Just when a man's got some experience
they put a boy of twenty-six on top of him. On the other hand, suppose
she _does_ consider it, and _does_ see the whole meaning of it. First
thing she might do with _her_ Odistor would be to put a cyclone whirling
me." He sighed heavily. "Fact is I've got myself into a kind of hole.
What do you advise?"
"Bury the Odistor. Forget it, Adam. Then, with your mind free, you can
invent new things for the Announcement. I see no other escape from your
predicament."
"I expected you to advise that in the end," said Adam, and began
repacking his singular mechanism. "Bury it I will. But how can I
forget it? May be it has exhausted my inventive powers. What then?
I'm bounced. It's tough to have to begin all over again at sixty-three,
and me Boss of the World if I could only bring myself _to_ boss. If I
do get bounced and do get vexed, maybe I'll unbury it and show Miss
Minnely what it _can_ do. Well, good evening, and thank you for your
interest and advice."
He departed with the old, solemn unsettled look on his honest Nova
Scotian countenance.
Since that day I have frequently seen Adam, but he gives me no
recognition. He goes about with eyes on the ground, probably studying
the complicated and frightful situation of a World Power animated by
liberalism and dominated by conscience. Some in the Blessing office
tell me that Miss Minnely's disapproving eye is often on her old
employee. They say she will soon lift the Pusher over Adam's white
head.
What will he do then? I remember with some trepidation the vague threat
with which he left me. At night, when a high gale happens to be
blowing, I listen in wild surmise that Adam was bounced yesterday, and
that the slates, bricks and beams of the Family Blessing Building are
hurtling about the suburbs as if in signal that he has liberated a large
specimen of the mysterious globule and embarked, of necessity, on the
woeful business of bossing the world.
*MISS MINNELY'S MANAGEMENT*
*I*
George Renwick substituted "limb" for "leg," "intoxicated" for "drunk,"
and "undergarment" for "shirt," in "The Converted Ringmaster," a
short-story-of-commerce, which he was editing for "The Family Blessing."
When he should have eliminated all indecorum it would go to Miss
Minnely, who would "elevate the emotional interest." She was sole owner
of "The Blessing," active director of each of its multifarious
departments. Few starry names rivalled hers in the galaxy of American
character-builders.
Unaware of limitations to her versatility, Miss Minnely might have
dictated all the literary contents of the magazine, but for her acute
perception that other gifted pens should be enlisted. Hence many minor
celebrities worshipped her liberal cheques, whilst her more extravagant
ones induced British titled personages to assuage the yearning of the
American Plain People for some contact with rank.
Renwick wrought his changes sardonically, applying to each line a set of
touchstones--"Will it please Mothers?" "Lady school-teachers?"
"Ministers of the Gospel?" "Miss Minnely's Taste?" He had not entirely
converted The Ringmaster when his door was gently opened by the Chief
Guide to the Family Blessing Building.
Mr. Durley had grown grey under solemn sense of responsibility for
impressions which visitors might receive. With him now appeared an
unusually numerous party of the usual mothers, spinsters, aged good men,
and anxious children who keep watch and ward over "The Blessing's"
pages, in devotion to Miss Minnely's standing editorial request that
"subscribers will faithfully assist the Editors with advice,
encouragement, or reproof." The Mature, with true American gentleness,
let the Young assemble nearest the open door. All necks craned toward
Renwick. Because Mr. Durley's discourse to so extensive a party was
unusually loud, Renwick heard, for the first time, what the Chief Guide
was accustomed to murmur at his threshold: "De-ar friends, the gentleman
we now have the satisfaction of beholding engaged in a sitting posture
at his editorial duties, is Mr. George Hamilton Renwick, an American in
every----."
"He _looks_ like he might be English," observed a matron.
Mr. Durley took a steady look at Renwick: "He _is_ some red complected,
Lady, but I guess it's only he is used to out of doors." He resumed his
customary drone:--"Mr. Renwick, besides he is American in every fibre of
his being, is a first rate general purpose editor, and also a noted
authority on yachting, boating, canoeing, rowing, swimming, and every
kind of water amusements of a kind calculated to build up character in
subscribers. Mr. George Hamilton Renwick's engagement by 'The Family
Blessing' exclusively is a recent instance of many evidences that Miss
Minnely, the Sole Proprietress, spares no expense in securing talented
men of genius who are likewise authorities on every kind of specialty
interesting, instructive, and improving to first-class respectable
American families. Ladies and gentlemen, and de-ar children, girls, and
youths, we will now pass on to Room Number Sixteen, and behold Mr.
Caliphas C. Cummins, the celebrated author and authority on Oriental and
Scriptural countries. Mr. Cummins is specially noted as the author of
'Bijah's Bicycle in Babylonia,' 'A Girl Genius at Galilee,' and many
first-class serials published exclusively in 'The Family Blessing.' He
may----"
Mr. Durley softly closed Renwick's door.
The Improving Editor, now secluded, stared wrathfully for some moments.
Then he laughed, seized paper, and wrote in capitals:--
"When the editor in this compartment is to be exhibited, please notify
him by knocking on this door before opening it. He will then rise from
his sitting posture, come forward for inspection, and turn slowly round
three times, if a mother, a school teacher, or a minister of the Gospel
be among the visiting subscribers."
Renwick strode to his door. While pinning the placard on its outside he
overheard the concluding remarks of Mr. Durley on Mr. Cummins, whose
room was next in the long corridor: "Likewise talented editor of the
Etiquette Department and the Puzzle Department. Mr. Cummins, Sir, seven
lady teachers from the State of Maine are now honouring us in this
party."
Renwick stood charmed to listen. He heard the noted author clack
forward to shake hands all round meantime explaining in thin, high,
affable volubility: "My de-ar friends, you have the good fortune to
behold me in the very act of composing my new serial of ten Chapters,
for 'The Blessing' exclusively, entitled 'Jehu and Jerusha in
Jerusalem,' being the experiences of a strenuous New England brother and
sister in the Holy Land, where our Lord innogerated the Christian
religion, now, sad to say, under Mohammetan subjection. In this tale I
am incorporating largely truthful incidents of my own and blessed wife's
last visit to the Holy Places where----"
Renwick slammed his door. He flung his pen in a transport of derision.
Rebounding from his desk, it flew through an open window, perhaps to
fall on some visitor to "The Blessing's" lawn. He hastened to look
down. Nobody was on gravel path or bench within possible reach of the
missile. Renwick, relieved, mused anew on the singularities of the
scene.
The vast "Blessing" Building stands amid a city block devoted largely to
shaven turf, flower beds, grassed mounds, and gravel paths. It is
approached from the street by a broad walk which bifurcates at thirty
yards from the "Richardson" entrance, to surround a turfed truncated
cone, from which rises a gigantic, severely draped, female figure. It
is that bronze of Beneficence which, in the words of the famous New
England sculptress, Miss Angela C. Amory Pue, "closely features Miss
Martha Minnely in her grand early womanhood." In the extensive arms of
the Beneficence a bronze volume so slants that spectators may read on
its back, in gilt letters, "THE FAMILY BLESSING." Prettily pranked out
in dwarf marginal plants on the turfy cone these words are pyramided:
"LOVE. HEAVEN. BENEFICENCE. THE LATEST FASHIONS. MY COUNTRY, 'TIS OF
THEE."
Not far from the statue slopes a great grassed mound which displays
still more conspicuously in "everlastings," "THE FAMILY BLESSING.
CIRCULATION 1915, 1,976,709. MONTHLY. COME UNTO ME ALL YE WEARY AND
HEAVILY LADEN. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR."
The scheme ever puzzled Renwick. Had some demure humour thus addressed
advertisements as if to the eternal stars? Or did they proceed from a
pure simplicity of commercial taste? From this perennial problem he was
diverted by sharp rapping at his door. Durley again? But the visitor
was Mr. Joram B. Buntstir, veteran among the numerous editors of "The
Blessing," yet capable of jocularities. He appeared perturbed.
"Renwick, you are rather fresh here, and I feel so friendly to you that
I'd hate to see you get into trouble unwarned. Surely you can't wish
Miss Minnely to see _that_."
"What? Oh, the placard! That's for Durley. He must stop exhibiting
me."
"Mr. Durley won't understand. Anyway, he couldn't stop without
instructions from Miss Minnely. He will take the placard to her for
orders. You do not wish to hurt Miss Minnely's feelings, I am sure."
Mr. Buntstir closed the door behind him.
"Bah--Miss Minnely's feelings can't be so tender as all that!"
"No, eh? Do you know her so thoroughly?"
"I don't know her at all. I've been here three months without once
seeing Miss Minnely. Is she real? Half the time I doubt her existence."
"You get instructions from her regularly."
"I get typewritten notes, usually voluminous, signed 'M. Minnely,' twice
a week. But the Business Manager, or Miss Heartly, may dictate them,
for all I know."
"Pshaw! Miss Minnely presides in seclusion. Her private office has a
street entrance. She seldom visits the Departments in office hours. Few
of her staff know her by sight. She saves time by avoiding personal
interviews. But she keeps posted on everybody's work. I hope you may
not have to regret learning how very real Miss Minnely can be. She took
me in hand, once, eight years ago. I have been careful to incur no more
discipline since--kind as she was. If she sees your placard----"
"Well, what?"
"Well, she can be very impressive. I fear your offer to turn round
before visitors may bring you trouble."
"I am looking for trouble. I'm sick and tired of this life of
intellectual shame."
"Then quit!" snapped Buntstir, pierced. "Be consistent. Get out. Sell
your sneers at a great established publication to some pamphlet
periodical started by college boys for the regeneration of Literature.
Don't jeer what you live by. That is where intellectual shame should
come in."
"You are right. A man should not gibe his job. I must quit. The
'Blessing' is all right for convinced devotees of the mawkish. But if a
man thinks sardonically of his daily work, that damns the soul."
"It may be an effect of the soul trying to save itself," said Buntstir,
mollified. "Anyway, Renwick, remember your trouble with 'The Reflex.'
Avoid the name of a confirmed quitter. Stay here till you can change to
your profit. Squealing won't do us any good. A little grain of literary
conscience ought not to make you _talk_ sour. It's cynical to satirize
our bread and butter--imprudent, too."
"That's right. I'll swear off, or clear out. Lord, how I wish I could.
My brain must rot if I don't. 'The Blessing's' 'emotional'! Oh,
Buntstir, the stream of drivel! And to live by concocting it for
trustful subscribers. Talk of the sin of paregoricking babies!"
"Babies take paregoric because they like it. Pshaw, Renwick, you're
absurdly sensitive. Writing-men must live, somehow--usually by
wishy-washiness. Unpleasant work is the common lot of mankind. Where's
_your_ title to exemption? Really, you're lucky. Miss Minnely
perceives zest in your improvements of copy. She says you are naturally
gifted with 'The Blessing's' taste."
"For Heaven's sake, Buntstir!"
"She did--Miss Heartly told me so. And yet--if she sees that
placard--no one can ever guess what she may do in discipline. You can't
wish to be bounced, dear boy, with your family to provide for. Come,
you've blown off steam. Take the placard off your door."
"All right. I will. But Miss Minnely can't bounce me without a year's
notice. That's how I engaged."
"A year's notice to quit a life of intellectual shame!"
"Well, it is one thing to jump out of the window, and another to be
bounced. I wouldn't stand that."
Buntstir laughed. "I fancy I see you, you sensitive Cuss, holding on,
or jumping off or doing anything contra to Miss Minnely's intention."
He went to the door. "Hello, where's the placard?" he cried, opening
it.
"Gone!" Renwick sprang up.
"Gone, sure. No matter how. It is already in Miss Minnely's hands.
Well, I told you to take it down twenty minutes ago."
"Wait, Buntstir. What is best to be done?"
"Hang on for developments--and get to work."
Buntstir vanished as one hastens to avoid infection.
*II*
Renwick resumed his editing of "The Converted Ringmaster" with resolve
to think on nothing else. But, between his eyes and the manuscript,
came the woeful aspect of two widows, his mother and his sister, as they
had looked six months earlier, when he threw up his political editorship
of "The Daily Reflex" in disgust at its General Manager's sudden
reversal of policy. His sister's baby toddled into the vision. He had
scarcely endured to watch the child's uncertain steps during the weeks
while he wondered how to buy its next month's modified milk. To "The
Reflex" he could not return, because he had publicly burned his boats,
with the desperate valour of virtue conscious that it may weaken if
strained by need for family food.
Out of that dangerous hole he had been lifted by the Sole Proprietress
of "The Family Blessing." She praised his "public stand for principle"
in a note marked "strictly confidential," which tendered him a
"position." He had secretly laughed at the cautious, amiable offer,
even while her laudation gratified his self-importance. Could work on
"The Blessing" seem otherwise than ridiculous for one accustomed to
chide presidents, monarchs, bosses, bankers, railway magnates? But it
was well paid, and seemed only too easy. The young man did not foresee
for himself that benumbing of faculty which ever punishes the writer who
sells his facility to tasks below his ambition. At worst "The Blessing"
seemed harmless. Nor could his better nature deny a certain esteem to
that periodical which affectionate multitudes proclaimed to be justly
named.
Renwick, viewing himself once more as a recreant breadwinner, cursed his
impetuous humour. But again he took heart from remembrance of his
engagement by the year, little suspecting his impotency to hold on where
snubs must be the portion of the unwanted. Twelve months to turn round
in! But after? What if an editor, already reputed impractical by "The
Reflex" party, should be refused employment everywhere, after forsaking
"The Blessing" office, in which "positions" were notoriously sought or
coveted by hundreds of "literary" aspirants to "soft snaps"? So his
veering imagination whirled round that inferno into which wage earners
descend after hazarding their livelihood.
From this disquiet he sprang when his door was emphatically knocked. It
opened. Mr. Durley reappeared with a throng closely resembling the last,
except for one notable wide lady in street costume of Quakerish gray.
Her countenance seemed to Renwick vaguely familiar. The fabric and cut
of her plain garb betokened nothing of wealth to the masculine eye, but
were regarded with a degree of awe by the other ladies present. She
appeared utterly American, yet unworldly, in the sense of seeming
neither citified, suburbanish, nor rural. The experienced placidity of
her countenance reminded Renwick of a familiar composite photograph of
many matrons chosen from among "The Blessing's" subscribers.
"Her peculiarity is that of the perfect type," he pondered while
listening to Durley's repetition of his previous remarks.