The Disentanglers Part 31

'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 superst.i.tion--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 n.o.ble 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 Aga.s.siz.

_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 circ.u.mstances do not call for so--unexampled a victim.'

'I am to be Lady Princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sociation overcame the mere amateur of beauty, and he only said that the position of Lady Princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sumed 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 p.r.o.nounced the late Mr.

McCabe 'considerable of a crank.' 'But this is far too serious a matter for me--for our a.s.sociation. 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 compet.i.tors?'

'Yes,' replied the fair American, 'that is only natural.'

'But then,' said Merton, 'much depends on who decides as to the merits of the compet.i.tors. 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 compet.i.tion. If the trustees are satisfied they allot money for expenses out of the exploration fund, so that n.o.body may be stopped because he is poor.'

'There will be an enormous throng of compet.i.tors 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 compet.i.tors?' 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.'

'A truly Miltonic ill.u.s.tration,' said Merton.

'The advertis.e.m.e.nt for compet.i.tors will be carefully worded, so as to attract only young men of science. The young men are not to be told about _me_: the prize is in dollars, "with other advantages to be later specified." The varieties found are to be conveyed to a port abroad, not yet named, and shipped for New York in a steamer belonging to the McCabe Trust.'