The Day's Work Part 38

"What else could I say?"

"My dear Wilton, what is the use of Mrs. Sherborne, and the Clays, and all that lot working over you for four years to make an Englishman out of you, if the very first time you're rattled you go back to the vernacular?"

"I'm through with Mrs. Sherborne and the rest of the crowd. America's good enough for me. What ought I to have said? 'Please,' or 'thanks awf'ly or how?"

There was no chance now of mistaking the man's nationality. Speech, gesture, and step, so carefully drilled into him, had gone away with the borrowed mask of indifference. It was a lawful son of the Youngest People, whose predecessors were the Red Indian. His voice had risen to the high, throaty crow of his breed when they labour under excitement.

His close-set eyes showed by turns unnecessary fear, annoyance beyond reason, rapid and purposeless flights of thought, the child's l.u.s.t for immediate revenge, and the child's pathetic bewilderment, who knocks his head against the bad, wicked table. And on the other side, I knew, stood the Company, as unable as Wilton to understand.

"And I could buy their old road three times over," he muttered, playing with a paper-knife, and moving restlessly to and fro.

"You didn't tell 'em that, I hope!"

There was no answer; but as I went through the letters, I felt that Wilton must have told them many surprising things. The Great Buchonian had first asked for an explanation of the stoppage of their Induna, and had found a certain levity in the explanation tendered. It then advised "Mr. W. Sargent" to refer his solicitor to their solicitor, or whatever the legal phrase is.

"And you didn't?" I said, looking up.

"No. They were treating me exactly as if I had been a kid playing on the cable-tracks. There was not the least necessity for any solicitor. Five minutes' quiet talk would have settled everything."

I returned to the correspondence. The Great Buchonian regretted that, owing to pressure of business, none of their directors could accept Mr. W. Sargent's invitation to run down and discuss the difficulty. The Great Buchonian was careful to point out that no animus underlay their action, nor was money their object. Their duty was to protect the interests of their line, and these interests could not be protected if a precedent were established whereby any of the Queen's subjects could stop a train in mid-career. Again (this was another branch of the correspondence, not more than five heads of departments being concerned), the Company admitted that there was some reasonable doubt as to the duties of express-trains in all crises, and the matter was open to settlement by process of law till an authoritative ruling was obtained--from the House of Lords, if necessary.

"That broke me all up," said Wilton, who was reading over my shoulder.

"I knew I'd struck the British Const.i.tution at last. The House of Lords--my Lord! And, anyway, I'm not one of the Queen's subjects."

"Why, I had a notion that you'd got yourself naturalised."

Wilton blushed hotly as he explained that very many things must happen to the British Const.i.tution ere he took out his papers.

"How does it all strike you?" he said. "Isn't the Great Buchonian crazy?"

"I don't know. You've done something that no one ever thought of doing before, and the Company don't know what to make of it. I see they offer to send down their solicitor and another official of the Company to talk things over informally. Then here's another letter suggesting that you put up a fourteen-foot wall, crowned with bottle-gla.s.s, at the bottom of the garden."

"Talk of British insolence! The man who recommends that (he's another bloated functionary) says that I shall 'derive great pleasure from watching the wall going up day by day'! Did you ever dream of such gall?

I've offered 'em money enough to buy a new set of cars and pension the driver for three generations; but that doesn't seem to be what they want. They expect me to go to the House of Lords and get a ruling, and build walls between times. Are they all stark, raving mad? One 'ud think I made a profession of flagging trains. How in Tophet was I to know their old Induna from a waytrain? I took the first that came along, and I've been jailed and fined for that once already."

"That was for slugging the guard."

"He had no right to haul me out when I was half-way through a window."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Their lawyer and the other official (can't they trust their men unless they send 'em in pairs?) are coming hereto-night. I told 'em I was busy, as a rule, till after dinner, but they might send along the entire directorate if it eased 'em any."

Now, after-dinner visiting, for business or pleasure, is the custom of the smaller American town, and not that of England, where the end of the day is sacred to the owner, not the public. Verily, Wilton Sargent had hoisted the striped flag of rebellion!

"Isn't it time that the humour of the situation began to strike you, Wilton?" I asked.

"Where's the humour of baiting an American citizen just because he happens to be a millionaire--poor devil." He was silent for a little time, and then went on: "Of course. Now I see!" He spun round and faced me excitedly. "It's as plain as mud. These ducks are laying their pipes to skin me."

"They say explicitly they don't want money!"

"That's all a blind. So's their addressing me as W. Sargent. They know well enough who I am. They know I'm the old man's son. Why didn't I think of that before?"

"One minute, Wilton. If you climbed to the top of the dome of St. Paul's and offered a reward to any Englishman who could tell you who or what Merton Sargent had been, there wouldn't be twenty men in all London to claim it."

"That's their insular provincialism, then. I don't care a cent. The old man would have wrecked the Great Buchonian before breakfast for a pipe-opener. My G.o.d, I'll do it in dead earnest! I'll show 'em that they can't bulldoze a foreigner for flagging one of their little tinpot trains, and--I've spent fifty thousand a year here, at least, for the last four years."

I was glad I was not his lawyer. I re-read the correspondence, notably the letter which recommended him--almost tenderly, I fancied--to build a fourteen-foot brick wall at the end of his garden, and half-way through it a thought struck me which filled me with pure joy.

The footman ushered in two men, frock-coated, grey-trousered, smooth-shaven, heavy of speech and gait. It was nearly nine o'clock, but they looked as newly come from a bath. I could not understand why the elder and taller of the pair glanced at me as though we had an understanding; nor why he shook hands with an unEnglish warmth.

"This simplifies the situation," he said in an undertone, and, as I stared, he whispered to his companion: "I fear I shall be of very little service at present. Perhaps Mr. Folsom had better talk over the affair with Mr. Sargent."

"That is what I am here for," said Wilton.

The man of law smiled pleasantly, and said that he saw no reason why the difficulty should not be arranged in two minutes' quiet talk. His air, as he sat down opposite Wilton, was soothing to the last degree, and his companion drew me up-stage. The mystery was deepening, but I followed meekly, and heard Wilton say, with an uneasy laugh:

"I've had insomnia over this affair, Mr. Folsom. Let's settle it one way or the other, for heaven's sake!"

"Ah! Has he suffered much from this lately?" said my man, with a preliminary cough.

"I really can't say," I replied.

"Then I suppose you have only lately taken charge here?"

"I came this evening. I am not exactly in charge of anything."

"I see. Merely to observe the course of events in case--" He nodded.

"Exactly." Observation, after all, is my trade.

He coughed again slightly, and came to business.

"Now,--I am asking solely for information's sake,--do you find the delusions persistent?"

"Which delusions?"

"They are variable, then? That is distinctly curious, because--but do I understand that the type of the delusion varies? For example, Mr.

Sargent believes that he can buy the Great Buchonian."

"Did he write you that?"

"He made the offer to the Company--on a half-sheet of note-paper. Now, has he by chance gone to the other extreme, and believed that he is in danger of becoming a pauper? The curious economy in the use of a half-sheet of paper shows that some idea of that kind might have flashed through his mind, and the two delusions can coexist, but it is not common. As you must know, the delusion of vast wealth--the folly of grandeurs, I believe our friends the French call it--is, as a rule, persistent, to the exclusion of all others."

Then I heard Wilton's best English voice at the end of the study:

"My dear sir, I have explained twenty times already, I wanted to get that scarab in time for dinner. Suppose you had left an important legal doc.u.ment in the same way?"

"That touch of cunning is very significant," my fellow-pract.i.tioner--since he insisted on it--muttered.