The Face and the Mask Part 34

"Comrades," said the chairman, rapping on the desk, "we will now proceed to business. The secret committee has met and made a resolution. After the lots are drawn it will be my task to inform the man chosen what the job is. It is desirable that as few as possible, even among ourselves, should know who the man is, who has drawn the marked paper. Perhaps it may be my own good fortune to be the chosen man. One of the papers is marked with a cross. Whoever draws that paper is to communicate with me at my room within two days. He is to come alone. It is commanded by the committee that no man is to look at his paper until he leaves this room and then to examine it in secret. He is bound by his oath to tell no one at any time whether or not he is the chosen man."

The papers were put into a hat and each man in the room drew one. The chairman put his in his pocket, as did the others. The doors were unlocked and each man went to his home, if he had one.

Next evening Bradley called at the room of the chairman and said: "There is the marked paper I drew last night."

The exhibition building was gay with bunting and was sonorous with the sounds of a band of music. The machinery that would not stop for six months was still motionless, for it was to be started in an hour's time by His Highness. His Highness and suite had not yet arrived but the building was crowded by a well-dressed throng of invited guests--the best in the land as far as fame, t.i.tle or money was concerned.

Underneath the grand stand where His Highness and the distinguished guests were to make speeches and where the finger of n.o.bility was to press the electric b.u.t.ton, Bradley walked anxiously about, with the same haggard look on his face that was there the night he thought of slipping into the Thames. The place underneath was a wilderness of beams and braces. Bradley's wooden tool chest stood on the ground against one of the timbers. The foremen came through and struck a beam or a brace here and there.

"Everything is all right," he said to Bradley. "There will be no trouble, even if it was put up in a hurry, and in spite of the strain that will be on it to-day."

Bradley was not so sure of that, but he said nothing. When the foreman left him alone, he cautiously opened the lid of his tool chest and removed the carpenter's ap.r.o.n which covered something in the bottom.

This something was a small box with a clockwork arrangement and a miniature uplifted hammer that hung like the sword of Damocles over a little copper cap. He threw the ap.r.o.n over it again, closed the lid of the chest, leaned against one of the timbers, folded his arms and waited.

Presently there was a tremendous cheer and the band struck up. "He is coming," said Bradley to himself, closing his lips tighter.

"Carpenter," cried the policeman putting in his head through the little wooden door at the foot of the stage, "come here, quick. You can get a splendid sight of His Highness as he comes up the pa.s.sage." Bradley walked to the opening and gazed at the distinguished procession coming toward him. Suddenly he grasped the arm of the policeman like a vice.

"Who is that man in the robes--at the head of the procession?"

"Don't you know? That is His Highness."

Bradley gasped for breath. He recognized His Highness as the man he had met on the embankment.

"Thank you," he said to the policeman, who looked at him curiously.

Then he went under the grand stand among the beams and braces and leaned against one of the timbers with knitted brows.

After a few moments he stepped to his chest, pulled off the ap.r.o.n and carefully lifted out the machine. With a quick jerk he wrenched off the little hammer and flung it from him. The machinery inside whirred for a moment with a soft purr like a clock running down. He opened the box and shook out into his ap.r.o.n a substance like damp sawdust. He seemed puzzled for a moment what to do with it. Finally he took it out and scattered it along the gra.s.s-grown slope of a railway cutting. Then he returned to his tool chest, took out a chisel and grimly felt its edge with his thumb.

It was admitted on all hands that His Highness never made a better speech in his life than on the occasion of the opening of that exhibition. He touched lightly on the country's unexampled prosperity, of which the marvelous collection within those walls was an indication.

He alluded to the general contentment that reigned among the cla.s.ses to whose handiwork was due the splendid examples of human skill there exhibited. His Highness was thankful that peace and contentment reigned over the happy land and he hoped they would long continue so to reign.

Then there were a good many light touches of humor in the discourse-- touches that are so pleasing when they come from people in high places.

In fact, the chairman said at the club afterwards (confidentially, of course) that the man who wrote His Highness's speeches had in that case quite outdone himself.

The papers had very full accounts of the opening of the exhibition next morning, and perhaps because these graphic articles occupied so much s.p.a.ce, there was so little room for the announcement about the man who committed suicide. The papers did not say where the body was found, except that it was near the exhibition buildings, and His Highness never knew that he made that excellent speech directly over the body of a dead man.

RINGAMY'S CONVERT.

Mr. Johnson Ringamy, the author, sat in his library gazing idly out of the window. The view was very pleasant, and the early morning sun brought out in strong relief the fresh greenness of the trees that now had on their early spring suits of foliage. Mr. Ringamy had been a busy man, but now, if he cared to take life easy, he might do so, for few books had had the tremendous success of his latest work. Mr. Ringamy was thinking about this, when the door opened, and a tall, intellectual-looking young man entered from the study that communicated with the library. He placed on the table the bunch of letters he had in his hand, and, drawing up a chair, opened a blank notebook that had, between the leaves, a lead pencil sharpened at both ends.

"Good morning, Mr. Scriver," said the author, also hitching up his chair towards the table. He sighed as he did so, for the fair spring prospect from the library window was much more attractive than the task of answering an extensive correspondence.

"Is there a large mail this morning, Scriver?"

"A good-sized one, sir. Many of them, however, are notes asking for your autograph."

"Enclose stamps, do they?"

"Most of them, sir; those that did not, I threw in the waste basket."

"Quite right. And as to the autographs you might write them this afternoon, if you have time."

"I have already done so, sir. I flatter myself that even your most intimate friend could not tell my version of your autograph from your own."

As he said this, the young man shoved towards the author a letter which he had written, and Mr. Ringamy looked at it critically.

"Very good, Scriver, very good indeed. In fact, if I were put in the witness-box I am not sure that I would be able to swear that this was not my signature. What's this you have said in the body of the letter about sentiment? Not making me write anything sentimental, I hope. Be careful, my boy, I don't want the newspapers to get hold of anything that they could turn into ridicule. They are too apt to do that sort of thing if they get half a chance."

"Oh, I think you will find that all right," said the young man; "still I thought it best to submit it to you before sending it off. You see the lady who writes has been getting up a 'Ringamy Club' in Kalamazoo, and she asks you to give her an autographic sentiment which they will cherish as the motto of the club. So I wrote the sentence, 'All cla.s.ses of labor should have equal compensation.' If that won't do, I can easily change it.'

"Oh, that will do first rate--first rate."

"Of course it is awful rot, but I thought it would please the feminine mind."

"Awful _what_ did you say, Mr. Scriver?"

"Well, slush--if that expresses it better. Of course, you don't believe any such nonsense."

Mr. Johnson Ringamy frowned as he looked at his secretary.

"I don't think I understand you," he said, at last.

"Well, look here, Mr. Ringamy, speaking now, not as a paid servant to his master, but----"

"Now, Scriver, I won't have any talk like that. There is no master or servant idea between us. There oughtn't to be between anybody. All men are free and equal."

"They are in theory, and in my eye, as I might say if I wanted to make it more expressive."

"Scriver, I cannot congratulate you on your expressive language, if I may call it so. But we are wandering from the argument. You were going to say that speaking as----Well, go on."

"I was going to say that, speaking as one reasonably sensible man to another, without any gammon about it; don't you think it is rank nonsense to hold that one cla.s.s of labor should be as well compensated as another. Honestly now?"

The author sat back in his chair and gazed across the table at his secretary. Finally, he said:

"My dear Scriver, you can't really mean what you say. You know that I hold that all cla.s.ses of labor should have exactly the same compensation. The miner, the blacksmith, the preacher, the postal clerk, the author, the publisher, the printer--yes, the man who sweeps out the office, or who polishes boots, should each share alike, if this world were what it should be--yes, and what it _will_ be. Why, Scriver, you surely couldn't have read my book----"

"Read it? why, hang it, I _wrote_ it."

"You wrote it? The deuce you did! I always thought I was the author of ----"