Part 29 (1/2)

Bellingham's rooms was good; much of it was unique, and the whole was harmonious. Rare editions were bound by famous binders, and if the twopenny-halfpenny productions of some little would-be modern poet, resplendent with vellum and aesthetic greenliness of paper, occasionally found their way to the table, they never travelled as far as the shelves. Mr. Bellingham had fools enough about him to absorb his spare trash.

On this particular occasion the old gentleman was seated in an arm-chair at his table, and Claudius, as aforesaid, had established himself upon the sofa. He looked very grave and smoked thoughtfully.

”I wish I knew what to do,” he said. ”Mr. Bellingham, do you think I could be of any use?”

”If I had not thought so, I would not have told you--I could have let you find it out for yourself from the papers. You can be of a great deal of use.”

”Do you advise me to go to St. Petersburg and see about it then?”

”Of course I do. Start at once. You can get the necessary steps taken in no time, if you go now.”

”I am ready. But how in the world can I get the thing done?”

”Letters. Your English friend over there will give you letters to the English Amba.s.sador; he is Lord Fitzd.o.g.g.i.n--cousin of the Duke's. And I will give you some papers that will be of use. I know lots of people in Petersburg. Why, it's as plain as a pikestaff. Besides, you know the proverb, _mitte sapientem et nihil dicas._ That means then when you send a wise man you must not dictate to him.”

”You flatter me. But I would rather have your advice, if that is what you call 'dictating.' I am not exactly a fool, but then, I am not very wise either.”

”No one is very wise, and we are all fools compared to some people,”

said Mr. Bellingham. ”If anybody wanted a figurehead for a new s.h.i.+p of Fools, I sometimes think a portrait of myself would be singularly appropriate. There are times when I should fix upon a friend for the purpose. Mermaid--half fish--figurehead, half man, half fool. That's a very good idea.”

”Very good--for the friend. Meanwhile, you know, it is I who am going on the errand. If you do not make it clear to me it will be a fool's errand.”

”It is perfectly clear, my dear sir,” insisted Mr. Bellingham. ”You go to St. Petersburg; you get an audience--you can do that by means of the letters; you lay the matter before the Czar, and request justice. Either you get it or you do not. That is the beauty of an autocratic country.”

”How about a free country?” asked Claudius.

”You don't get it,” replied his host grimly. Claudius laughed a cloud of smoke into the air.

”Why is that?” he asked idly, hoping to launch Mr. Bellingham into further aphorisms and paradoxes.

”Men are everywhere born free, but they--”

”Oh,” said Claudius, ”I want to know your own opinion about it.”

”I have no opinion; I only have experience,” answered the other. ”At any rate in an autocratic country there is a visible, tangible repository of power to whom you can apply. If the repository is in the humour you will get whatever you want done, in the way of justice or injustice. Now in a free country justice is absorbed into the great cosmic forces, and it is apt to be an expensive incantation that wakes the lost elementary spirit. In Russia justice s.h.i.+nes by contrast with the surrounding corruption, but there is no mistake about it when you get it. In America it is taken for granted everywhere, and the consequence is that, like most things that are taken for granted, it is a myth. Rousseau thought that in a republic like ours there would be no more of the 'chains' he was so fond of talking about. He did not antic.i.p.ate a stagnation of the national moral sense. An Englishman who has made a study of these things said lately that the Americans had retained the forms of freedom, but that the substance had suffered considerably.”

”Who said that?” asked Claudius.

”Mr. Herbert Spencer. He said it to a newspaper reporter in New York, and so it was put into the papers. It is the truest thing he ever said, but no one took any more notice of it than if he had told the reporter it was a very fine day. They don't care. Tell the first man you meet down town that he is a liar; he will tell you he knows it. He will probably tell you you are another. We are all alike here. I'm a liar myself in a small way--there's a club of us, two Americans and one Englishman.”

”You are the frankest person I ever met, Mr. Bellingham,” said Claudius, laughing.

”Some day I will write a book,” said Mr. Bellingham, rising and beginning to tramp round the room. ”I will call it--by the way, we were talking about Petersburg. You had better be off.”

”I am going, but tell me the name of the book before I go.”

”No, I won't; you would go and write it yourself, and steal my thunder.”

Uncle Horace's eyes twinkled, and a corruscation of laugh-wrinkles shot like sheet-lightning over his face. He disappeared into a neighbouring room, leaving a trail of white smoke in his wake, like a locomotive.

Presently he returned with a _Bullinger Guide_ in his hand.

”You can sail on Wednesday at two o'clock by the Cunarder,” he said.

”You can go to Newport to-day, and come back by the boat on Tuesday night, and be ready to start in the morning.” Mr. Bellingham prided himself greatly on his faculty for making combinations of times and places.