“One robbery does not justify another.”
So said Richard Stoughton to John Fenton as they sat at dinner in the
restaurant of the Astor House, while the wind and the snow played tag
up and down Broadway, and men compared the blizzard of ’88 with the
storm that was then raging, and incidentally wondered how the star-eyed
goddess of Reform enjoyed cleaning the streets.
It was Friday evening, and Richard was hurrying his dinner that he
might reach his rooms in time to dress for the opera. He and Fenton
had just come from a visit to a tenement house not far from the famous
hotel in which they were seated, and their conversation had naturally
turned upon the great problem suggested by the sights they had
witnessed.
“Come with me,” Fenton had said to the younger man an hour before. “I
want to show you a picture that will make a striking contrast to the
scene you will witness at the Metropolitan to-night.”
Somewhat against his will, Richard had consented to accompany Fenton,
and they had found a family in a garret, starving and freezing,
almost within a stone’s throw of the City Hall. It had been a painful
experience, no less to Fenton, whose long years in active newspaper
life had accustomed him to the phenomena that vice and poverty exhibit
in a great city, than to the younger man, whose life had been spent
in the sunny haunts of prosperity, and who knew little of the outward
aspects of human misery beyond what his imagination could picture.
“Explain yourself,” said Fenton rather sternly, refilling his sherry
glass.
“What I mean is simple enough,” answered Richard. “I have read the
books you gave me, and I acknowledge they have presented a startling
picture of the horrors that result, seemingly, from the unequal
distribution of wealth. I think I am even willing to admit that,
theoretically, nobody can show any very satisfactory claim to even a
square foot of the earth’s surface. But it is one thing arguing in the
abstract, and another looking at life in the concrete. Granting, for
instance, that my ancestors stole land from the Indians, who may have
taken it by force from some prehistoric race, is that any reason why
those who believe in a new method of taxation should wrest my property
from me?”
A smile, both sad and sarcastic, lingered about Fenton’s firm,
unsymmetrical mouth.
“I have played my game with you and lost, Richard,” he said at length,
lighting a cigar, while his companion sipped a _demi-tasse_ of coffee,
“and, on the whole, I am not surprised. Neither am I especially sorry.
The economic theories toward which I was trying to direct your steps
are not such as lead to peace of mind. Had you become an enthusiast in
the great crusade for the introduction of the millennium, you would
have grown old before your time, the pressure of things that are
would crush you in your effort to hold to the things that should be,
and I would have been responsible for making you a discontented and
restless being like myself. I told you at the outset that I was not in
the habit of trying to make converts to the views of my master. Why I
experimented with you I can hardly say. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
The gentle, affectionate smile on Fenton’s face was an unwonted visitor
to that stern countenance. Richard impulsively put out his hand to his
friend.
“There is nothing to forgive, old man. I realize the unselfishness that
prompts you to long for a change in the conditions that beget so much
human suffering. Don’t think that I am so heartless that the scenes we
have just witnessed do not affect me. They do; and I fully understand
that the future has the greatest problem of all the ages yet to
solve. But you cannot wonder, John Fenton, that at my age and with my
prospects it is hard for me to take the whole human race to my heart,
and try to remedy wrongs for which I am in no way responsible.”
Fenton puffed his cigar in silence for a while. Finally he said, more
as if he spoke to himself than to his companion,--
“Yes, youth is _so_ strong; but the pleasures of life weave their
web, and the hour of strength goes by! To-night youth and wealth
and beauty will gather to hear an allegory,--an allegory centuries
old,--the ancient, impressive story of Samson and Delilah. In that
vast throng will there be one who reads in that old biblical legend
the story of the hour? Will they see in Samson the figure of American
youth, glorious in its strength, falling a victim to the wiles of the
temptress? They will see this same man of power, who has desecrated the
precious heritage intrusted to him, blind, maddened by the suffering
he has brought upon himself, pulling down in his frenzy the gorgeous
structure above his devoted head; and they will go away to their clubs
and ball-rooms and supper-parties, and discuss Mantelli’s voice, and
Tamagno’s conception of his _rôle_.
“‘Oh, let the strücken deer go weep, the hart ungallëd play,
For some must watch, while some must weep--so runs the world away.’
The older I grow, Richard, the more I am amazed at Shakespeare’s
thorough grasp of human nature as we find it at the end of the
nineteenth century.”
Richard arose and donned his overcoat.
“Well, John,” he remarked smilingly, “I’ll compromise with you, then;
I’ll read Shakespeare instead of the contemporary writer to whom you
have introduced me; and thus your hope for my redemption may still be
kept alive.”
Fenton made no answer, and a moment later they stood at the door,
looking through the frost-covered glass upon the wind-swept street. For
an instant they hesitated to plunge into the wintry blast. Suddenly
Fenton turned to his companion.
“How did Mrs. Percy-Bartlett impress you, Richard?”
The unexpectedness of the question caused the young man to start
nervously.
“I find her,” he answered hesitatingly, “a very charming woman.”
“Yes, I believe you do,” returned Fenton gruffly.
Then he pushed open the doors, and made his way hurriedly across
Broadway, leaving Richard Stoughton standing on the hotel steps, gazing
wonderingly at the retreating figure of his eccentric friend.