Carmen Ariza Part 123

CHAPTER 13

The _Cossack_, with its great turbines purring like a sleeping kitten, and its twin screws turning lazily, almost imperceptibly in the dark waters, moved through the frosty night like a cloud brooding over the deep. Yet it was a cloud of tremendous potentiality, enwrapping a spirit of energy incarnate. From far aloft its burning eye pierced a channel of light through the murky darkness ahead. In its wake it drew a swell of sparkling phosph.o.r.escence, which it carelessly tossed off on either side as a Calif might throw handfuls of glittering coins to his fawning beggars. From somewhere in the structure above, the crackling, hissing wireless mechanism was thrusting its invisible hands out into the night and catching the fleeting messages that were borne on the intangible pulsations of the mysterious ether. From time to time these messages were given form and body, and despatched to the luxurious suite below, where, in the dazzling sheen of silver and cut gla.s.s, spread out over richest napery, and glowing beneath a torrent of white light, sat the gigantic being whose will directed the movements of this floating palace.

"You see, Lafelle, I look upon religion with the eye of the cold-blooded business man, without the slightest trace of sentimentalism.

From the business standpoint, the Protestant Church is a dead failure.

It doesn't get results that are in any way commensurate with its investment. But your Church is a success--from the point of dollars and cents. In fact, in the matter of forming and maintaining a monopoly, I take off my hat to the Vatican. You fellows have got us all beaten.

Every day I learn something of value by studying your methods of operating upon the public. And so you see why I take such pleasure in talking with really astute churchmen like yourself."

Monsignor Lafelle studied the man without replying, uncertain just what interpretation to put upon the remark. The j.a.panese servant was clearing away the remnants of the meal, having first lighted the cigars of the master and guest.

"Now," continued Ames, leaning back in his luxurious chair and musing over his cigar, "the purgatory idea is one of the cleverest schemes ever foisted upon the unthinking ma.s.ses, and it has proved a veritable Klondike. Gad! if I could think up and put over a thing like that I'd consider myself really possessed of brains."

Lafelle's eyes twinkled. "I fear, Mr. Ames," he replied adroitly, "you do not know your Bible."

"No, that's true. I don't suppose I ever in my life read a whole chapter in the book. I can't swallow such stuff, Lafelle--utterly unreasonable, wholly inconsistent with facts and natural laws, as we know and are able to observe them. Even as a child I never had any use for fairy-tales, or wonder-stories. I always wanted facts, tangible, concrete, irrefutable facts, not hypotheses. The Protestant churches hand out a mess of incoherent guesswork, based on as many interpretations of the Bible as there are human minds sufficiently interested to interpret it, and then wax hot and angry when hard-headed business men like myself refuse to subscribe to it.

It's preposterous, Lafelle! If they had anything tangible to offer, it would be different. But I go to church for the looks of the thing, and for business reasons; and then stick pins into myself to keep awake while I listen to pedagogical Borwell tell what he doesn't know about G.o.d and man. Then at the close of the service I drop a five-dollar bill into the plate for the entertainment, and go away with the feeling that I didn't get my money's worth. From a business point of view, a Protestant church service is worth about twenty-five cents for the music, and five cents for the privilege of sleeping on a soft cushion. So you see I lose four dollars and seventy cents every time I attend. You Catholic fellows, with your ceremonial and legerdemain, give a much better entertainment.

Besides, I like to hear your priests soak it to their cowering flocks."

Lafelle sighed. "I shall have to cla.s.s you with the incorrigibles," he said with a rueful air. "I am sorry you take such a harsh att.i.tude toward us. We are really more spiritual--"

Ames interrupted with a roar of laughter. "Don't! don't!" he pleaded, holding up a hand. "Why, Lafelle, you old fraud, I look upon your Church as a huge business inst.i.tution, a gigantic trust, as mercenary and merciless as Steel, Oil, or Tobacco! Why, you and I are in the same business, that of making money! And I'd like to borrow some of your methods. You catch 'em through religion. I have to use other methods. But the end is the same. Only, you've got it over me, for you hurl the weight of centuries of authority upon the poor, trembling public; and I have to beat them down with clubs of my own making.

Moreover, the law protects you in all your pious methods; while I have to hire expensive legal talent to get around it."

"You seem to be fairly successful, even at that," retorted Lafelle.

Then, too politic to draw his host into an acrimonious argument that might end in straining their now cordial and mutually helpful friendship, he observed, looking at his cigar: "May I ask what you pay for these?--for only an inexhaustible bank reserve can warrant their like."

He had struck the right chord, and Ames softened at once. "These," he said, tenderly regarding the thick, black weed in his fingers, "are grown exclusively for me on my own plantation in Colombia. They cost me about one dollar and sixty-eight cents each, laid down at my door in New York. I searched the world over before I found the only spot where such tobacco could be grown."

"And this wine?" continued Lafelle, lifting his gla.s.s of sparkling champagne.

"On a little hillside, scarcely an acre in extent, in Granada, Spain,"

replied Ames. "I have my own wine press and bottling plant there."

Lafelle could not conceal his admiration for this man of luxury. "And does your exclusiveness extend also to your tea and coffee?" he ventured, smiling.

"It does," said Ames. "I grow tea for my table in both China and Ceylon. And I have exclusive coffee plantations in Java and Brazil.

But I'm now negotiating for one in Colombia, for I think that, without doubt, the finest coffee in the world is grown there, although it never gets beyond the coast line."

"_Fortuna non deo_," murmured the churchman; "you man of chance and destiny!"

Ames laughed genially. "My friend," said he, "I have always insisted that I possessed but a modic.u.m of brains; but I am a gambler. My G.o.d is chance. With ordinary judgment and horse-sense, I take risks that no so-called sane man would consider. The curse of the world is fear--the chief instrument that you employ to hold the ma.s.ses to your churchly system. I was born without it. I know that as long as a business opponent has fear to contend with, I am his master. Fear is at the root of every ailment of mind, body, or environment. I repeat, I know not the meaning of the word. Hence my position in the business world. Hence, also, my freedom from the limitations of superst.i.tion, religious or otherwise. Do you get me?"

"Yes," replied Lafelle, drawing a long sigh, "in a sense I do. But you greatly err, my friend, in deprecating your own powerful intellect. I know of no brain but yours that could have put South Ohio Oil from one hundred and fifty dollars up to over two thousand a share. I had a few shares of that stock myself. But I held until it broke."

Ames smiled knowingly. "Sorry I didn't know about it," he said. "I could have saved you. I didn't own a dollar's worth of South Ohio. Oh, yes," he added, as he saw Lafelle's eyes widening in surprise, "I pushed the market up until a certain lady, whom you and I both know, thought it unwise to go further, and then I sprung the sudden discovery of Colombian oil fields on them; and the market crashed like a burst balloon. The lady cleared some two millions on the rig.

No, I didn't have a drop of Colombian oil to grease the chute. It was American nerve, that's all."

"Well!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lafelle. "If you had lived in the Middle Ages you'd have been burnt for possessing a devil!"

"On the contrary," quickly amended Ames, his eyes twinkling, "I'd have been made a Cardinal."

Both men laughed over the retort; and then Ames summoned the valet to set in motion the great electrical pipe-organ, and to bring the whiskey and soda.

For the next hour the two men gave themselves up to the supreme luxury of their magnificent environment, the stimulation of their beverage and cigars, and the soothing effect of the soft music, combined with the gentle movement of the boat. Then Ames took his guest into the smoking room proper, and drew up chairs before a small table, on which were various papers and writing materials.

"Now," he began, "referring to your telephone message of this morning, what is it that you want me to do for you? Is it the old question of establishing a nunciature at Washington?"

Lafelle had been impatiently awaiting this moment. He therefore plunged eagerly into his subject. "Mr. Ames," said he, "I know you to have great influence at the Capital. In the interests of humanity, I ask you to use that influence to prevent the pa.s.sage of the immigration bill which provides for a literacy test."

Ames smiled inwardly. There was no need of this request; for, in the interests, not of humanity, but of his own steamship companies, he intended that there should be no restriction imposed upon immigration.

But the Church was again playing into his hands, coming to him for favors. And the Church always paid heavily for his support. "Well!

well!" he exclaimed with an a.s.sumption of interest, "so you ask me to impugn my own patriotism!"

Lafelle looked perplexed. "I don't quite understand," he said.

"Why," Ames explained, "how long do you figure it will take, with unrestricted immigration, for the Catholics to so outnumber the Protestants in the United States as to establish their religion by law and force it into the schools?"

Lafelle flushed. "But your Const.i.tution provides toleration for all religions!"

"And the Const.i.tution is quite flexible, and wholly subject to amendment, is it not?"

Lafelle flared out in unrestrained anger. "What a bugaboo you Protestants make of Roman Catholicism!" he cried. "Great heavens! Why, one would think that we Catholics were all anarchists! Are we such a menace, such a curse to your Republican inst.i.tutions? Do you ever stop to realize what the Church has done for civilization, and for your own country? And where, think you, would art and learning be now but for her? Have you any adequate idea what the Church is doing to-day for the poor, for the oppressed? Good G.o.d! You Protestants, a thousand times more intolerant than we, treat us as if we were Hindoo pariahs! This whole country is suffering from the delirium of Roman Catholic-phobia! Will you drive us to armed defense?"

"There, my friend, calm yourself," soothed Ames, laying a hand on the irate churchman's arm. "And please do not cla.s.s me with the Protestants, for I am not one of them. You Catholic fellows have made admirable gains in the past few years, and your steady encroachments have netted you about ninety per cent of all the political offices in and about Washington, so you have no complaint, even if the Church isn't in politics. H'm! So you want my help, eh?"

He stopped and drummed on the table. Meantime, his brain was working rapidly. "By the way, Lafelle," he said, abruptly resuming the conversation, "you know all about church laws and customs, running way back to mediaeval times. Can't you dig up some old provision whereby I can block a fellow who claims to own a gold mine down in Colombia? If you can, I'll see that the President vetoes every obnoxious immigration bill that's introduced this term."

Lafelle roused from his sulk and gulped down his wrath. Ames went on to express his desire for vengeance upon one obscure Philip O. Ketchim, broker, promoter, church elder, and Sunday school superintendent.

Lafelle became interested. The conversation grew more and more animated.

Hours pa.s.sed.

Then at length Ames rose and rang for his valet. "My G.o.d, Lafelle, the idea's a corker!" he cried, his eyes ablaze. "Where'd you get it?"

Lafelle laughed softly. "From a book ent.i.tled 'Confessions of a Roman Catholic Priest,' written anonymously, but, they say, by a young attache of the Vatican who was insane at the time. I never learned his name. However, he was apparently well informed on matters Colombian."

"And what do you call the law?"

"The law of _'en manos muertas'_," replied Lafelle.

"Well," exclaimed Ames, "again I take off my hat to your churchly system! And now," he continued eagerly, "cable the Pope at once. I'll have the operator send your code ash.o.r.e by wireless, and the message will go to Rome to-night. Tell the old man you've got influence at work in Washington that is--well, more than strong, and that the prospects for defeating the immigration bill are excellent."

Lafelle arose and stood for a moment looking about the room. "Before I retire, my friend," he said, "I would like to express again the admiration which the tasteful luxury of this smoking room has aroused in me, and to ask, if I may, whether those stained-gla.s.s windows up there are merely fanciful portraits?"

Ames quickly glanced up at the faces of the beautiful women portrayed in the rectangular gla.s.s windows which lined the room just below the ceiling. They were exquisitely painted, in vivid colors, and so set as to be illuminated during the day by sunlight, and at night by strong electric lamps behind them. "Why do you ask?" he inquired in wonder.

"Because," returned Lafelle, "if I mistake not, I have seen a portrait similar to that one," pointing up at one of the windows, where a sad, wistful face of rare loveliness looked down upon them.

Ames started slightly. "Where, may I ask?" he said in a controlled voice.