Lang Andrew
The Disentanglers
‘Yes, if you don’t exceed your plan, or run into chaff.’
‘I won’t,’ said Miss Martin. ‘It is all chaff, but they won’t see it.’
‘I think I would drop that about Popery,’ said Merton – ‘it may lead to letters in the newspapers; and do be awfully careful about impropriety in novels.’
‘I’ll put in “Vice to be Condemned, not Described,”’ said Miss Martin, pencilling a note on the margin of her paper.
‘That seems safe,’ said Merton. ‘But it cuts out some of our most powerful teachers.’
‘Serve them right!’ said Miss Martin. ‘Teachers! the arrant humbugs.’
‘You will report at once on your return?’ said Merton. ‘I shall be on tenter-hooks till I see you again. If I knew what you are really about, I’d take counsel’s opinion. Medical opinion does not satisfy me: I want legal.’
‘How nervous you are!’ said Miss Martin. ‘Counsel would be rather stuck up, I think; it is a new kind of case,’ and the lady laughed in an irritating way. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ she said. ‘I’ll telegraph to you on the Monday morning after the lecture. If everything goes well, I’ll telegraph, “Happy ending.” If anything goes wrong – but it can’t – I’ll telegraph, “Unhappy ending.”’
‘If you do, I shall be off to Callao.
‘On no condition
Is Extradition
Allowed in Callao!’
said Merton.
‘But if there is any uncertainty – and there may be,’ said Miss Martin, ‘I’ll telegraph, “Will report.”’
* * * * *
Merton passed a miserable week of suspense and perplexity of mind. Never had he been so imprudent; he felt sure of that, and it was the only thing of which he did feel sure. The newspapers contained bulletins of an epidemic of smallpox at Bulcester. How would that work into the plot? Then the high animal spirits and daring fancy of Miss Martin might carry her into undreamed-of adventures.
‘But they won’t let her have even a glass of champagne,’ reflected Merton. ‘One glass makes her reckless.’
It was with a trembling hand that Merton, about ten on the Monday morning, took the telegraphic envelope of Fate.
‘I can’t face it,’ he said to Logan. ‘Read the message to me.’ Merton was unmanned!
Logan carelessly opened the envelope and read:
‘Happy ending, but awfully disappointed. Will call at one o’clock.’
‘Oh, thanks to all gracious Powers,’ said Merton falling limply on to a sofa. ‘Ring, Logan, and order a small whisky-and-soda.’
‘I won’t,’ said Logan. ‘Horrid bad habit. Would you like me to send out for smelling-salts? Be a man, Merton! Pull yourself together!’
‘You don’t know that awful girl,’ said Merton, slowly recovering self-control. ‘However, as she is disappointed though the ending is happy, her infernal plan must have been miscarried, whatever it was. It must be all right, though I sha’n’t be quite happy till I see her. I am no coward, Logan’ (and Merton was later to prove that he possessed coolness and audacity in no common measure), ‘but it is the awful sense of responsibility. She is quite capable of getting us into the newspapers.’
‘You funk being laughed at,’ said Logan.
Merton lay on the sofa, smoking too many cigarettes, till, punctually at one o’clock, a peal at the bell announced the arrival of Miss Martin. She entered, radiant, smiling, and in her costume of innocence she looked like a sylph.
‘It is all right – they are engaged, with Mr. Warren’s full approval,’ she exclaimed.
‘Were we on the stage, I should embrace you!’ exclaimed Merton rapturously.
‘We are not on the stage,’ replied Miss Martin demurely. ‘And I have no occasion to congratulate myself. My plot did not come off; never had a look in. Do you want to be vaccinated? If so, shake hands,’ and Miss Martin extended her own hands ungloved.
‘I do not want to be vaccinated,’ said Merton.
‘Then don’t shake hands,’ said Miss Martin.
‘What on earth do you mean?’ asked Merton.
‘Look there!’ said the lady, lifting her hand to his eyes. Merton kissed it.
‘Oh, take care!’ shrieked Miss Martin. ‘It would be awkward – on the lips. Do you see my ring?’
Merton and Logan examined her ring. It was a beautiful cinque cento jewel in white and blue enamel, with a high gold top containing a pointed ruby.
‘It’s very pretty,’ said Merton – ‘quite of the best period. But what is the mystery?’
‘It is a poison ring of the Borgias,’ said Miss Martin. ‘I borrowed it from Sir Josiah Wilkinson. If it scratched you’ (here she exhibited the mechanism of the jewel), ‘why, there you are!’
‘Where? Poisoned?’
‘No! Vaccinated!’ said Miss Martin. ‘It is full of the stuff they vaccinate you with, but it is quite safe as far as the old poison goes. Sir Josiah sterilised it, in case of accidents, before he put in the glycerinated lymph. My own idea! He was delighted. Shall I shake hands with the office-boy? – it might do him good – or would Kutuzoff give a paw?’
Kutuzoff was the Russian cat.
‘By no means – not for worlds,’ said Merton. ‘Kutuzoff is a Conscientious Objector. But were you going to shake hands with Miss Truman with that horrible ring? Sacred emblems enamelled on it,’ said Merton, gingerly examining the jewel.
‘No; I was not going to do that,’ replied Miss Martin. ‘My idea was to acquire the confidence of the lover – the younger Mr. Warren – explain to him how the thing works, lend it to him, and then let him press his Jane’s wrist with it in some shady arbour. Then his Jane would have been all that the heart of Mr. Warren père could desire. But it did not come off.’
‘Thank goodness!’ ejaculated Merton. ‘There might have been an awful row. I don’t know what the offence would have been in the eye of the law. Vaccinating a Conscientious Objector, without consent, yet without violence, – what would the law say to that?’
‘We might make it hamesucken under trust in Scotland,’ said Logan, ‘if it was done on the premises of the young lady’s domicile.’
‘We have not that elegant phrase in England,’ said Merton. ‘Perhaps it would have been a common assault; but, anyhow, it would have got into the newspapers. Never again be officer of mine, Miss Martin.’
‘But how did all end happily?’ asked Logan.
‘Why, you may call it happily and so may the lovers, but I call it very disappointing,’ said Miss Martin.
‘Tell us all about it!’ cried Logan.
‘Well, I went down, simple as you see me.’
‘Simplex munditiis!’ said Merton.
‘And was met at the station by young Mr. Warren. His father, with the wisdom of a Nonconformist serpent, had sent him alone to make my acquaintance and be fascinated. My things were put on a four-wheeler. I was all young enthusiasm in the manner of The Young Girl. He was a good-looking boy enough, though in a bowler hat, with turn-down collar. But he was gloomy. I was curious about the public buildings, ecstatic about the town hall, and a kind of Moeso-Gothic tabernacle (if it was not Moeso-Gothic in style I don’t know what it was) where the Rev. Mr. Truman holds forth. But I could not waken him up, he seemed miserable. I soon found out the reason. The placards of the local newspapers shrieked in big type with
Spread Of Smallpox.
135 Cases.
When I saw that I took young Mr. Warren’s hand.’
‘Were you wearing the ring?’ asked Merton.
‘No; it was in my dressing-bag. I said, “Mr. Warren, I know what care clouds your brow. You are brooding over the fate of the young, the fair, the beloved – the unvaccinated. I know the story of your heart.”
‘“How the D- I mean, how do you know, Miss Martin, about my private affairs?”
‘“A little bird has told me,” I said (style of The Young Girl, you know). “I have friends in Bulcester who esteem you. No, I must not mention names, but I come, not too late, I hope, to bring you security. She shall be preserved from this awful scourge, and you shall be her preserver.” He wanted to know how it was to be done, of course, and after taking his word of honour for secrecy, I told him that the remedy would lie in his own hands, showed him the ring, and taught him how to work it. Mr. Squeers,’ went on Miss Martin, ‘had never wopped a boy in a cab before, and I had never beheld a scene of passionate emotion before – in a four-wheeler. He called me his preserver, he said that I was an angel, he knelt at my feet, and, if we had been on the stage – as Mr. Merton said – ’
‘And were you on the stage?’ asked Merton.
‘That is neither here nor there. It was an instructive experience, and you little know the treasures of passion that may lie concealed in the heart of a young oilcloth manufacturer.’
‘Happy young oilcloth manufacturer!’ murmured Merton.
‘They are both happy, but I did not manage my fortunate conclusion in my own way. When young Mr. Warren had moderated the transports of his gratitude we were in the suburbs of Bulcester, where the mill-owners live in houses of the most promiscuous architecture: Tudor, Jacobean, Queen Anne, Bedford Park Queen Anne, chalets, Chineseries, “all standing naked in the open air,” for the trees have not grown up round them yet. Then we came to a gate without a lodge, the cabman got down and opened it, and we were in the visible presence of Mr. Warren’s villa. The style is the Scottish Baronial; all pepper-pots, gables and crowsteps.
‘“What a lovely old place!” I said to my companion. “Have you secret passages and sliding panels and dark turnpike stairs? What a house for conspiracies! There is a real turret window; can’t you fancy it suddenly shot up and the king’s face popped out, very red, and bellowing, ‘Treason!’”
‘At that moment, when my imagination was in full career, the turret window was shot up, and a face, very red, with red whiskers, was popped out.
‘“That is my father,” said young Mr. Warren; and we alighted, and a very small maidservant opened the portals of the baronial hall, while the cabman carried up my trunk, and Mr. Warren, senior, greeted me in the hall.
‘“Welcome to Bulcester!” he said, with a florid air, and “hoped James and I had made friends on the way,” and then he actually winked! He is a widower, and I was dying for tea, but there we sat, and when the little maid came in, it was to say that a gentleman wanted to see Mr. Warren in the study. So he went out, and then, James being the victim of gratitude, I took my courage in both hands and asked if I might have tea. James said that they usually had it after the lecture was over, which would not be till nine, and that some people had been asked to meet me. Then I knew that I was got among a strange, outlandish race who eat strange meats and keep High Teas, and my spirit fainted within me.
‘“Oh, Mr. James!” I said, “if you love me have a cup of tea and some bread-and-butter sent up to my room, and tell the maid to show me the way to it.”
‘So he sent for her, and she showed me to the best spare room, with oleographs of Highland scenery on the walls, and coloured Landseer prints, and tartan curtains, and everything made of ormolu that can be made of ormolu. In about twenty minutes the girl returned with tea and poached eggs and toast, and jam and marmalade. So I dressed for the lecture, which was to begin at eight – just when people ought to be dining – and came down into the drawing-room. The elder Mr. Warren was sitting alone, reading the Daily News, and he rose with an air of happy solemnity and shook hands again.
‘“You can let James alone now, Miss Martin,” he said, and he winked again, rubbed his hands, and grinned all over his expansive face.
‘“Let James alone!” I said.
‘“Yes; don’t go upsetting the lad – he’s not used to young ladies like you. You leave James to himself. James will do very well. I have a little surprise for James.”
‘He certainly had a considerable surprise for me, but I merely asked if it was James’s birthday, which it was not.
‘Luckily James entered. All his gloom was gone, thanks to me, and he was remarkably smiling and particularly attentive to myself. Mr. Warren seemed perplexed.
‘“James, have you heard any good news?” he asked. “You seem very gay all of a sudden.”
‘James caught my eye.
‘“No, father,” he said. “What news do you mean? Anything in business? A large order from Sarawak?”
‘Mr. Warren was silent, but presently took me into a corner on the pretence of showing me some horrible objet d’art– a treacly bronze.
‘“I say,” he said, “you must have made great play in the cab coming from the station. James looks a new man. I never would have guessed him to be so fickle. But, mind you, no more of it! Let James be – he will do very well.”
‘How was James to do very well? Why were my fascinations not to be exercised, as per contract? I began to suspect the worst, and I was thinking of nothing else while we drove to the premises of the Bulcester Literary Society. Could Jane have drowned herself out of the way, or taken smallpox, which might ruin her charms? Well, I had not a large audience, on account of fear of infection, I suppose, and all the people present wore the red badge, like Mr. Warren, only he wore one on each arm. This somewhat amazed me, but as I had never spoken in public before I was rather in a flutter. However, I conquered my girlish shyness, and if the audience was not large it was enthusiastic. When I came to the peroration about wishing them all happy endings and real beginnings of true life, don’t you know, the audience actually rose at me, and cheered like anything. Then someone proposed, “Three cheers for young Warren,” and they gave them like mad; I did not know why, nor did he: he looked quite pale. Then his father, with tears in his voice, proposed a vote of thanks to me, and said that he and the brave hearts of old Bulcester, his old friends and brothers in arms, were once more united; and the people stormed the platform and shook his hand and slapped him on the back. At last we got out by a back way, where our cab was waiting. Young Mr. Warren was as puzzled as myself, and his father was greatly overcome and sobbing in a corner. We got into the house, where people kept arriving, and at last a fine old clerical-looking bird entered with a red badge on one arm and a very pretty girl in white on the other. She had a red badge too.
‘Young Mr. Warren, who was near me when they came in, gave a queer sort of cry, and then I understood! The girl was his Jane, and she had been vaccinated, also her father, that afternoon, owing to the awful panic the old man got into after reading the evening papers about the smallpox. The gentleman whom Mr. Warren went to see in the study, just after my arrival, had brought him this gratifying intelligence, and he had sent the gentleman back to ask the Trumans to a High Tea of reconciliation. The people at the lecture had heard of this, and that was why they cheered so for young Warren, because his affair was as commonly known to all Bulcester as that of Romeo and Juliet at Verona. They are hearty people at Bulcester, and not without elements of old English romance.
‘Old Mr. Warren publicly embraced Jane Truman, and then brought her and presented her to me as James’s bride. We both cried a little, I think, and then we all sat down to High Tea, and I am scarcely yet the woman I used to be. It was a height! And a weight! And a length! After tea Mr. Warren made a speech, and said that Bulcester had come back to him, and I was afraid that he would brag dreadfully, but he did not; he was too happy, I think. And then Mr. Truman made a speech and said that though they felt obliged to own that they had come to the conclusion that though Anti-vaccination was a holy thing, still (in the circumstances) vaccination was good enough. But they yet clung to principles for which Hampden died on the field, and Russell on the scaffold, and many of their own citizens in bed! There must be no Coercion. Everyone who liked must be allowed to have smallpox as much as he pleased. All other issues were unimportant except that of freedom!
‘Here I rose – I was rather excited – and said that I hoped the reverend speaker was not deserting the sacred principle of compulsory temperance? Would the speaker allow people freedom to drink? All other issues were unimportant compared with that of freedom, except the interest of depriving a poor man of his beer. To catch smallpox was a Briton’s birthright, but not to take a modest quencher. No freedom to drink! “Down with the drink!” I cried, and drained my tea-cup, and waved it, amidst ringing cheers. Mr. Truman admitted that there were exceptions – one exception, at least. Disease must be free to all, not alcohol nor Ritualism. He thanked his young friend the gifted lecturer for recalling him to his principles.
‘The principles of the good old cause, the Puritan cause, were as pure as glycerinated lymph, and he proposed to found a Liberal Vaccinationist League. They are great people for leagues at Bulcester, and they like the initials L. V. L. There was no drinking of toasts, for there was nothing to drink them in, and – do you know, Mr. Merton? – I think it must be nearly luncheon time.’
‘Champagne appears to me to be indicated,’ said Merton, who rang the bell and then summoned Miss Blossom from her typewriting.
‘We have done nothing,’ Merton said, ‘but heaven only knows what we have escaped in the adventure of the Lady Novelist and the Vaccinationist.’
On taking counsel’s opinion, Merton learned, with a shudder, that if young Warren had used the Borgia ring, and if Jane had resented it, he might have been indicted for a common assault, under 24 and 25 Victoria, cap. 100, sec. 24, for ‘unlawfully and maliciously administering a noxious thing with intent to annoy.’
‘I don’t think she could have proved the intent to annoy,’ said the learned counsel.
‘You don’t know a Bulcester jury as it was before the epidemic,’ said Merton. ‘And I might have been an accessory before the fact, and, anyhow, we should all have got into the newspapers.’
Miss Martin was the most admired of the bridesmaids at the Warren-Truman marriage.
X. ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR AMERICAN
I. The Prize of a Lady’s Hand
‘Yes, I guess that Pappa was reckoned considerable of a crank. A great educational reformer, and a progressive Democratic stalwart, that is the kind of hair-pin Pappa was! But it is awkward for me, some.’
These remarks, though of an obsolete and exaggerated transatlantic idiom, were murmured in the softest of tones, in the most English of silken accents, by the most beautiful of young ladies. She occupied the client’s chair in Merton’s office, and, as she sat there and smiled, Merton acknowledged to himself that he had never met a client so charming and so perplexing.
Miss McCabe had been educated, as Merton knew, at an aristocratic Irish convent in Paris, a sanctuary of old names and old creeds. This was the plan of her late father (spoken of by her as Pappa), an educational reformer of eccentric ideas, who, though of ancient (indeed royal) Irish descent, was of American birth. The young lady had thus acquired abroad, much against her will, that kind of English accent which some of her countrywomen reckon ‘affected.’ But her intense patriotism had induced her to study, in the works of American humourists, and to reproduce in her discourse, the flowers of speech of which a specimen has been presented. The national accent was beyond her, but at least she could be true to what she (erroneously) believed to be the national idiom.
‘Your case is peculiar,’ said Merton thoughtfully, ‘and scarcely within our province. As a rule our clients are the parents, guardians, or children of persons entangled in undesirable engagements. But you, I understand, are dissatisfied with the matrimonial conditions imposed by the will of the late Mr. McCabe?’
‘I want to take my own pick out of the crowd – ’ said Miss McCabe.
‘I can readily understand,’ said Merton, bowing, ‘that the throng of wooers is enormous,’ and he vaguely thought of Penelope.
‘The scheme will be popular. It will hit our people right where they live,’ said Miss McCabe, not appropriating the compliment. ‘You see Pappa struck ile early, and struck it often. He was what our Howells calls a “multimillionaire,” and I’m his only daughter. Pappa loved me, but he loved the people better. Guess Pappa was not mean, not worth a cent. He was a white man!’
Miss McCabe, with a glow of lovely enthusiasm, contemplated the unprecedented whiteness of the paternal character.
‘“What the people want,” Pappa used to say, “is education. They want it short, and they want it striking.” That was why he laid out five millions on his celebrated Museum of Freaks, with a staff of competent professors and lecturers. “The McCabe Museum of Natural Varieties, lectures and all, is open gratuitously to the citizens of our Republic, and to intelligent foreigners.” That was how Pappa put it. I say that he dead-headed creation!’
‘Truly Republican munificence,’ said Merton, ‘worthy of your great country.’
‘Well, I should smile,’ said Miss McCabe.
‘But – excuse my insular ignorance – I do not exactly understand how a museum of freaks, admirably organised as no doubt it is, contributes to the cause of popular education.’
‘You have museums even in London?’ asked Miss McCabe.
Merton assented.
‘Are they not educational?’
‘The British Museum is mainly used by the children of the poor, as a place where they play a kind of subdued hide-and-seek,’ said Merton.
‘That’s because they are not interested in tinned Egyptian corpses and broken Greek statuary ware,’ answered the fair Republican. ‘Now, Mr. Merton, did you ever see or hear of a popular museum, a museum that the People would give its cents to see?’
‘I have heard of Mr. Barnum’s museum,’ said Merton.
‘That’s the idea: it is right there,’ said Miss McCabe. ‘But old man Barnum was not scientific. He saw what our people wanted, but he did not see, Pappa said, how to educate them through their natural instincts. Barnum’s mermaid was not genuine business. It confused the popular mind, and fostered superstition – and got found out. The result was scepticism, both religious and scientific. Now, Pappa used to argue, the lives of our citizens are monotonous. They see yellow dogs, say, but each yellow dog has only one tail. They see men and women, but almost all of them have only one head: and even a hand with six fingers is not common. This is why the popular mind runs into grooves. This causes what they call “the dead level of democracy.” Even our men of genius, Pappa allowed (for he was a very fair-minded man), do not go ahead of the European ticket, but rather the reverse. Your Tennyson has the inner tracks of our Longfellow: your Thackeray gives our Bertha Runkle his dust. The papers called Pappa unpatriotic, and a bad American. But he was not: he was a white man. When he saw his country’s faults he put his finger on them, right there, and tried to cure them.’
‘A noble policy,’ murmured Merton.
Miss McCabe was really so pretty and unusual, that he did not care how long she was in coming to the point.
‘Well, Pappa argued that there was more genius, or had been since the Declaration of Independence, even in England, than in the States. “And why?” he asked. “Why, because they have more variety in England. Things are not all on one level there – ”’
‘Our dogs have only one tail apiece,’ said Merton, ‘in spite of the proverb “as proud as a dog with two tails,” and a plurality of heads is unusual even among British subjects.’
‘Yes,’ answered Miss McCabe, ‘but you have varieties among yourselves. You have a King and a Queen; and your peerage is rich in differentiated species. A Baronet is not a Marquis, nor is a Duke an Earl.’
‘He may be both,’ said Merton, but Miss McCabe continued to expose the parental philosophy.
‘Now Pappa would not hear of aristocratic distinctions in our country. He was a Hail Columbia man, on the Democratic ticket. But something is wanted, he said, to get us out of grooves, and break the monotony. That something, said Pappa, Nature has mercifully provided in Freaks. The citizens feel this, unconsciously: that’s why they spend their money at Barnum’s. But Barnum was not scientific, and Barnum was not straight about his mermaid. So Pappa founded his Museum of Natural Varieties, all of them honest Injun. Here the lecturers show off the freaks, and explain how Nature works them, and how she can always see them and go one better. We have the biggest gold nugget and the weeniest cunning least gold nugget; the biggest diamond and the smallest diamond; the tallest man and the smallest man; the whitest negro and the yellowest red man in the world. We have the most eccentric beasts, and the queerest fishes, and everything is explained by lecturers of world-wide reputation, on the principles of evolution, as copyrighted by our Asa Gray and our Agassiz. That is what Pappa called popular education, and it hits our citizens right where they live.’
Miss McCabe paused, in a flush of filial and patriotic enthusiasm. Merton inwardly thought that among the queerest fishes the late Mr. McCabe must have been pre-eminent. But what he said was, ‘The scheme is most original. Our educationists (to employ a term which they do not disdain), such as Mr. Herbert Spencer, Sir Joshua Fitch, and others, have I thought out nothing like this. Our capitalists never endow education on this more than imperial scale.’
‘Guess they are scaly varmints!’ interposed Miss McCabe.
Merton bowed his acquiescence in the sentiment.
‘But,’ he went on, ‘I still do not quite understand how your own prospects in life are affected by Mr. McCabe’s most original and, I hope, promising experiment?’
‘Pappa loved me, but he loved his country better, and taught me to adore her, and be ready for any sacrifice.’ Miss McCabe looked straight at Merton, like an Iphigenia blended with a Joan of Arc.
‘I do sincerely trust that no sacrifice is necessary,’ said Merton. ‘The circumstances do not call for so – unexampled a victim.’
‘I am to be Lady Principal of the museum when I come to the age of twenty-five: that is, in six years,’ said Miss McCabe proudly. ‘You don’t call that a sacrifice?’
Merton wanted to say that the most magnificent of natural varieties would only be in its proper place. But the man of business and the manager of a great and beneficent association overcame the mere amateur of beauty, and he only said that the position of Lady Principal was worthy of the ambition of a patriot, and a friend of the species.
‘Well, I reckon! But a clause in Pappa’s will is awkward for me, some. It is about my marriage,’ said Miss McCabe bravely.
Merton assumed an air of grave interest.
‘Pappa left it in his will that I was to marry the man (under the age of five-and-thirty, and of unimpeachable character and education) who should discover, and add to the museum, the most original and unheard-of natural variety, whether found in the Old or the New World.’
Merton could scarcely credit the report of his ears.
‘Would you oblige me by repeating that statement?’ he said, and Miss McCabe repeated it in identical terms, obviously quoting textually from the will.
‘Now I understand your unhappy position,’ said Merton, thoroughly agreeing with the transatlantic critics who had pronounced the late Mr. McCabe ‘considerable of a crank.’ ‘But this is far too serious a matter for me – for our Association. I am no legist, but I am convinced that, at least British, and I doubt not American, law would promptly annul a testatory clause so utterly unreasonable and unprecedented.’
‘Unreasonable!’ exclaimed Miss McCabe, rising to her feet with eyes of flame, ‘I am my father’s daughter, and his wish is my law, whatever the laws that men make may say.’
Her affectation of slang had fallen off; she was absolutely natural now, and entirely in earnest.
Merton rose also.
‘One moment,’ he said. ‘It would be impertinence in me to express my admiration of you – of what you say. As the question is not a legal one (in such I am no fit adviser) I shall think myself honoured if you will permit me to be of any service in the circumstances. They are less unprecedented than I hastily supposed. History records many examples of fathers, even of royal rank, who have attached similar conditions to the disposal of their daughters’ hands.’
Merton was thinking of the kings in the treatises of Monsieur Charles Perrault, Madame d’Aulnoy, and other historians of Fairyland; of monarchs who give their daughters to the bold adventurers that bring the smallest dog, or the singing rose, or the horse magical.
‘What you really want, I think,’ he went on, as Miss McCabe resumed her seat, ‘is to have your choice, as you said, among the competitors?’
‘Yes,’ replied the fair American, ‘that is only natural.’
‘But then,’ said Merton, ‘much depends on who decides as to the merits of the competitors. With whom does the decision rest?’
‘With the people.’
‘With the people?’
‘Yes, with the popular vote, as expressed through the newspaper that my father founded —The Yellow Flag. The public is to see the exhibits, the new varieties of nature, and the majority of votes is to carry the day. “Trust the people!” that was Pappa’s word.’
‘Then anyone who chooses, of the age, character, and education stipulated under the clause in the will, may go and bring in whatever variety of nature he pleases and take his chance?’
‘That is it all the time,’ said the client. ‘There is a trust, and the trustees, friends of Pappa’s, decide on the qualifications of the young men who enter for the competition. If the trustees are satisfied they allot money for expenses out of the exploration fund, so that nobody may be stopped because he is poor.’
‘There will be an enormous throng of competitors in these conditions – and with such a prize,’ Merton could not help adding.
‘I reckon the trustees are middling particular. They’ll weed them out.’
‘Is there any restriction on the nationality of the competitors?’ asked Merton, on whom an idea was dawning.
‘Only members of the English speaking races need apply,’ said Miss McCabe. ‘Pappa took no stock in Spaniards or Turks.’
‘The voters will be prejudiced in favour of their own fellow citizens?’ asked Merton. ‘That is only natural.’
‘Trust the people,’ said Miss McCabe. ‘The whole thing is to be kept as dark as a blind coloured person hunting in a dark cellar for a black cat that is not there.’
