AN INTERLOPER.
On the eleventh day after this interview between the two men who,
between them, practically held the whole world in their grasp, Herzog
telephoned up from Oakwood Heights and took the liberty of informing
Flint that his experiments had reached a point of such success that he
prayed Flint would condescend to visit the laboratories in person.
Flint, after some reflection, decided he would so condescend; and
forthwith ordered his limousine from his private garage on William
Street. Thereafter he called Waldron on the 'phone, at his Fifth Avenue
address.
"Mr. Waldron is not up, yet, sir," a carefully-modulated voice answered
over the wire. "Any message I can give him, sir?"
"Oh, hello! That you, Edwards?" Flint demanded, recognizing the suave
tones of his partner's valet.
"Yes, sir."
"All right. Tell Waldron I'll call for him in half an hour with the
limousine. And mind, now, I want him to be up and dressed! We're going
down to Staten Island. Got that?"
"Yes, sir. Any other message, sir?"
"No. But be sure you get him up, for me! Good-bye!"
Thirty minutes later, Flint's chauffeur opened the door of the big
limousine, in front of the huge Renaissance pile that Waldron's
millions had raised on land which had cost him more than as though he
had covered it with double eagles; and Flint himself ascended the steps
of Pentelican marble. The limousine, its varnish and silver-plate
flashing in the bright spring sun, stood by the curb, purring softly to
itself with all six cylinders, a thing of matchless beauty and rare
cost. The chauffeur, on the driver's seat, did not even bother to shut
off the gas, but let the engine run, regardless. To have stopped it
would have meant some trifling exertion, in starting again; and since
Flint never considered such details as a few gallons of gasoline, why
should _he_ care? Lighting a Turkish cigarette, this aristocrat of labor
lolled on the padded leather and indifferently--with more of contempt
than of interest--regarded a swarm of iron-workers, masons and laborers
at work on a new building across the avenue.
Flint, meanwhile, had entered the great mansion, its bronze
doors--ravished from the Palazzo Guelfo at Venice--having swung inward
to admit him, with noiseless majesty. Ignoring the doorman, he addressed
himself to Edwards, who stood in the spacious, mahogany-panelled hall,
washing both hands with imaginary soap.
"Waldron up, yet, Edwards?"
"No, sir. He--er--I have been unable--"
"The devil! Where is he?"
"In his apartments, sir."
"Take me up!"
"He said, sir," ventured Edwards, in his smoothest voice. "He said--"
"I don't give a damn what he said! Take me up, at once!"
"Yes, sir. Immediately, sir!" And he gestured suavely toward the
elevator.
Flint strode down the hall, indifferent to the Kirmanshah rugs, the rare
mosaic floor and stained-glass windows, the Parian fountain and the
Azeglio tapestries that hung suspended up along the stairway--all old
stories to him and as commonplace as rickety odds and ends of furniture
might be to any toiler "cribbed, cabin'd and confined" in fetid East
Side tenement or squalid room on Hester Street.
The elevator boy bowed before his presence. Edwards hesitated to enter
the private elevator, with this world-master; but Flint beckoned him to
come along. And so, borne aloft by the smooth force of the electric
motor, they presently reached the upper floor where "Tiger" Waldron
laired in stately splendor, like the nabob that he was.
Without ceremony, Flint pushed forward into the bed-chamber of the
mighty one--a chamber richly finished in panels of the rare sea-grape
tree, brought from Pacific isles at great cost of money and some
expenditure of human lives; but this latter item was, of course, beneath
consideration.
By the softened light which entered through rich curtains, one saw the
famous frieze of De Lussac, that banded the apartment, over the
panelling--the frieze of Bacchantes, naked and unashamed, revelling with
Satyrs in an abandon that bespoke the age when the world was young.
Their voluptuous forms entwined with clustering grapes and leaves, they
poured tipsy libations of red wine from golden chalices; while old
Silenus, god of drink, astride a donkey, applauded with maudlin joy.
Flint, however, had no eyes for this scene which would have gladdened a
voluptuary's heart--and which, for that reason was dear to Waldron--but
walked toward the huge, four-posted bed where Wally himself, now rather
paler than usual, with bloodshot eyes, was lying. This bed, despite the
fact that it had been transported all the way from Tours, France, and
that it once had belonged to an archbishop, had only too often witnessed
its owner's insomnia.
"Hm! You're a devil of a man to keep an appointment, aren't you?" Flint
sneered at the master of the house. "Eleven o'clock, and not up, yet!"
"Pardon me for remarking, my dear Flint," replied Waldron, stretching
himself between the silken sheets and reaching for a cigarette, "that
the appointment was not of my making. Also that I was up, last
night--this morning, rather--till three-thirty. And in the next place,
that scoundrel Hazeltine, trimmed me out of eighty-six thousand in four
hours--"
"Roulette again, you idiot?" demanded Flint.
"And in conclusion," said Wally, "that the bigness of my head and the
brown taste in my mouth are such as no 'soda and sermons, the morning
after' can possibly alleviate. So you understand my dalliance.
"Damn those workmen!" he exclaimed, with sudden irritation, as a louder
chattering of pneumatic riveters from the new building all at once
clattered in at the window. "A free country, eh? And men are permitted
to make _that_ kind of a racket when a fellow wants to sleep! By God, if
I--"
"Drop that, Wally, and get up!" commanded Flint. "There's no time for
this kind of thing today. Herzog has just informed me his experiments
have brought results. We're going down to Oakwood Heights to sea a few
things for ourselves. And the quicker you get dressed and in your right
mind, the better. Come along, I tell you!"
"Still chasing sunbeams from cucumbers, eh?" drawled the magnate,
inhaling cigarette smoke and blowing a thin cloud toward the wanton
Bacchantes. He affected indifference, but his dull eyes brightened a
trifle in his wan face, deep-lined by the savage dissipations of the
previous night. "And you insist on dragging me out on the same fatuous
errand?"
"Don't be an ass!" snapped the Billionaire. "Get up and come along. The
sooner we have this thing under way, the better."
"All right, anything to oblige," conceded Waldron, inwardly stirred by
an interest he took good care not to divulge in word or look. "Give me
just time for a cold plunge, a few minutes with my masseur and my
barber, a bite to eat and--"
Flint laid hold on his partner and shook him roughly.
"Move, you sluggard!" he commanded. And Tiger Waldron obeyed.
Forty-five minutes later, the two financiers were speeding down the
asphalt of the avenue at a good round clip. Flint's gleaming car formed
one unit of the never-ending procession of motors which, day and night,
year in and year out, spin unceasingly along the great, hard, splendid,
cruel thoroughfare.
"I tell you," Flint was asserting as they swung into Broadway, at
Twenty-third Street, and headed for South Ferry, "I tell you, Wally,
the thing is growing vaster and more potent every moment. The longer I
look at it, the huger its possibilities loom up! With air under our
control, as a source of manufacturing alone, we can pull down perfectly
inconceivable fortunes. We shan't have to send anywhere for our raw
material. It will come to us; it's everywhere. No cost for
transportation, to begin with.
"With oxygen, nitrogen and liquid air as products, think of the
possibilities, will you? Not an ice-plant in the country could compete
with us, in the refrigerating line. With liquid air, we could sweep that
market clean. By installing it on our fruit cars and boats, and our beef
cars, the saving effected in many ways would run to millions. The sale
of nitrogen, for fertilizer, would net us billions. And, above all, the
control of the world's air supply, for breathing, would make us the
absolute, undisputed masters of mankind!
"We'd have the world by the windpipe. Its very life-breath would be at
our disposal. Ha! What about revolution, then? What about popular
discontent, and stiff-necked legislators, and cranky editors? What about
commercial and financial rivals? What about these damned Socialists,
with their brass-lunged bazoo, howling about monopoly and capitalism and
all the rest of it? Eh, what? Just one squeeze," here Flint closed his
corded, veinous fingers, "just one tightening of the fist, and--all
over! We win, hands down!"
"Like shutting the wind off from a runaway horse, eh?" suggested
Waldron, squinting at his cigar as though to hide the involuntary gleam
of light that sparkled in his narrow-set eyes.
"Precisely!" assented Flint, smiling his gold-toothed smile. "The
wildest bolter has got to stop, or fall dead, once you close his
nostrils. That's what we'll do to the world, Wally. We'll get it by the
throat--and there you are!"
"Yes, there we are," repeated Waldron, "but--"
"But what, now?"
Waldron did not answer, for a moment, but squinted up at the tall
buildings, temples of Mammon and of Greed, filled from pave to cornice
with toiling, sweated hordes of men and women, all laboring for
Capitalism; many of them, directly or indirectly, for him. Then, as the
limousine slowed at Spring Street, to let a cross-town car pass--a car
whose earnings he and Flint both shared, just as they shared those of
every surface and subway and "L" car in the vast metropolis--he said:
"Have you weighed the consequences carefully, Flint? Quite carefully?
This thing of cornering all the oxygen is a pretty big proposition. Do
you think you really ought to undertake it?"
"Why not?"
"Have you considered the frightful suffering and loss of life it might
entail? Almost certainly would entail? Are you quite sure you _want_ to
take the world by the throat and--and choke it? For money?"
"No, not for money, Waldron. We're both staggering under money, as it
is. But power! Ah, that's different!"
"I know," admitted Waldron. "But ought we--you--to attempt this, even
for the sake of universal power? Your plan contemplates a monopoly such
that everybody who refused or was unable to buy your product would, at
best, have to get along with vitiated air, and at worst would have to
stifle. Do you really think we ought to undertake this?"
Keenly he eyed Flint, as he thus sounded the elder man's inhuman
determination. Flint, fathoming nothing of his purpose, retorted with
some heat:
"Ha! Getting punctilious, all at once, are you? Talk ethics, eh? Where
were your scruples, a year ago, when people were paying 25 cents a loaf
for bread, because of that big wheat pool you put through? How about the
oil you've just lately helped me boost by a 20 per cent. increase? And
when the papers--though mostly those infernal Socialist or Anarchist
papers, or whatever they were--shouted that old men and women were
freezing in attics, last winter, what then? Did you vote to arbitrate
the D.K. coal strike? Not by a jugful! You stood shoulder to shoulder
with me, then, Wally, while _now_--!"
"It's a bit different, now," interposed "Tiger," with an evil smile,
still leading his partner along. "Since then I've had the--ah--the
extreme happiness to become engaged to your daughter, Catherine. New
thoughts have entered my mind. I've experienced a--a--"
"You quitter!" burst out Flint. "No, by God! you aren't going to put
this thing over on me. I'll have no quitter for _my_ son-in-law! Wally,
I'm astonished at you. Astonished and disappointed. You're not yourself,
this morning. That eighty-six thousand you dropped last night, has
shaken your heart. Come, come, pull together! Where's your nerve, man?
Where's your nerve?"
Waldron answered nothing. In silence the partners watched the press of
traffic, each busy with his own thoughts, Waldron waiting for Flint to
reopen fire on him, and the Billionaire decided to say no more till his
associate should make some move. Thus the limousine reached the Staten
Island ferry, that glorious monument of municipal ownership wrecked by
Tammany grafting. In silence they smoked while the car rolled down the
incline and out onto the huge ferry boat. Then, as the crowded craft got
under way, a minute later, both men left the car and strolled to the
rail to watch the glittering sparkle of the sunlight on the harbor; the
teeming commerce of the port; the creeping liners and busy tugs; the
towering figure of Liberty, her flameless torch held far aloft in
mockery.
Suddenly Waldron spoke.
"You can't do it, I tell you!" said he, waving an eloquent hand toward
the sky. "It's too big, the air is, as I said before. Too damned big!
Own coal and copper, if you will, and steel and ships, here; own those
buildings back there," with a gesture at the frowning line of
skyscrapers buttressing Manhattan, "but don't buck the impossible! And
incidentally, Flint, don't misunderstand me, either. When I asked you if
we _ought_ to try it, I merely meant, would it be _safe_? The world,
Flint, is a dangerous toy to play with, too hard. The people are
perilous baubles, if you step on their corns a bit too often or too
heavily. Every Caesar has a Brutus waiting for him somewhere, with a
club.
"Once let the unwashed get an idea into their low brows, and you can't
tell where it may lead them. Even a rat fights, in its last corner.
These human rats of ours have been getting a bit nasty of late. True,
they swallowed the Limited Franchise Bill, three years ago, with only a
little futile protest, so that now we've got them politically hamstrung.
True, there's the Dick Military Bill, recently enlarged and perfected,
so they can't move a hand without falling into treason and
court-martial. True again, they've stood for the Censorship and the
National Mounted Police--the Grays--all in the last year. But how much
more will they stand, eh? You close your hand on their windpipes, and by
God! something may happen even yet, after all!"
Flint snapped his fingers with contempt.
"Machine guns!" was all he said.
"Yes, of course," answered Waldron. "But there may be life in the old
beast yet. They may yet kick the apple cart over--and us with it. You
never can tell. And those infernal Socialists, always at it, night and
day, never letting up, flinging firebrands into the powder magazine!
_Sometime_ there's going to be one hell of a bang, Flint! And when it
comes, _suave qui peut_! So go slow, old man--go damned slow, that's all
I've got to say!"
"On the contrary," said Flint, blinking in the golden spring sunshine as
he peered out over the swashing brine at a raucous knot of gulls, "on
the contrary, Wally, I'm going to push it as fast as the Lord will let
me. You can come in, or not, as you see fit--but remember this, no
quitter ever gets a daughter of mine! And another thing; we're in the
year 1921, now, not 1910 or 1915. Developments, political and otherwise,
have moved swiftly, these few years past. Then, there might have been
trouble. To-day, there can't be. We've got things cinched too tight for
that!
"Ten years ago, they might have had our blood, the people might, or
given us a hemp-tea party in Wall Street. today, all's safe. Come, be
a man and grip your courage! We can put the initial stages through in
absolute secrecy--and then, once we get our clutch on the world's
breath, what have we to fear?"
"Go slow, Flint!"
"Nonsense! Oxygen is life itself. There's no substitute. Vitiate the air
by removing even 10 per cent. of it, and the world will lick our boots
for a chance to breathe! Everybody's got to have oxygen, all the way
from kings and emperors down to the toiling cattle, the Henry Dubbs, as
I believe they're commonly called in vulgar speech. Shut off the air,
and 'the captains and the kings' will run to heel like the rabble
itself. Run to heel, and pay for the privilege of doing it! We've got
the universities, press, churches, laws, judges, army and navy and
everything already in our hands. We'll be secure enough, no fear!"
"Shhhhh!" And Waldron nudged the Billionaire with his elbow.
In his excitement, Flint had permitted his voice to rise, a little. Not
far from him, leaning on the rail, a stockily built young fellow in
overalls, a cap pulled down firmly over his well-shaped head, was
apparently watching the gulls and the passing boats, with eyes no less
blue than the bay itself; eyes no less glinting than the sunlight on the
waves. He seemed to be paying no heed to anything but what lay before
him. But "Tiger" Waldron, possessed of something of the instinct of the
beast whose name he bore, subconsciously sensed a peril in his nearness.
The man's ear--if unusually quick--might, just _might_ possibly have
caught a word or two meant for no interloper. And at that thought,
Waldron once more nudged his partner.
"Shhh!" he repeated, "Enough. We can finish this, in the limousine."
Flint looked at him a moment, in silence, then nodded.
"Right you are," said he. And both men climbed back into the closed car.
"You never can tell what ears are primed for news," said Waldron.
"Better take no chances."
"Before long, we can throw away all subterfuge," the Billionaire replied
as he shut the door. "But for now, well, you're correct. Once our grasp
tightens on the windpipe of the world, we're safe. From our office in
Wall Street you and I can play the keys of the world-machine as an
organist would finger his instrument. But there must be no leak; no
publicity; no suspicion aroused. We'll play our music _pianissimo_,
Wally, with rare accompaniments to the tune of 'great public utility,
benefit to the public health,' and all that--the same old game, only on
a vastly larger scale.
"Every modern composer in the field of Big Business knows that score and
has played it many times. _We_ will play it on a monstrous pipe organ,
with the world's lungs for bellows and the world's breath to vibrate our
reeds--and all paying tribute, night and day, year after year, all over
the world, Wally, all over the world!
"God! What power shall be ours! What infinite power, such as, since time
began, never yet lay in mortal hands! We shall be as gods, Waldron, you
and I--and between us, we shall bring the human race wallowing to our
feet in helpless bondage, in supreme abandon!"
The ferry boat, nearing the Staten Island landing, slowed its ponderous
screws. The chauffeur flung away his cigarette, drew on his gauntlets
and accelerated his engine. Forward the human drove began to press,
under the long slave-driven habit of haste, of eagerness to do the
masters' bidding.
The young mechanic by the rail--he of the overalls and keen blue
eyes--turned toward the bows, picked up a canvas bag of tools and stood
there waiting with the rest.
For a moment his glance rested on the limousine and the two half-seen
figures within. As it did so, a wanton breeze from off the Island
flapped back the lapel of his jumper. In that brief instant one might
have seen a button pinned upon his blue flannel shirt--clasped hands,
surrounded by the legend: "Workers of the World, Unite!"
But neither of the plutocrats observed this; nor, had they seen, would
they have understood.
And whether the sturdy toiler had overheard aught of their infernal
conspiring--or, having heard it, grasped its dire and criminal
significance--who, who in all this weary and toil-burdened world, could
say?