World's End Part 4

The air of America is too thin and fine, and the life too fast, for middle-aged men who have been accustomed to the foggy atmosphere and the slow pa.s.sage of events in the Old Country. But it is a tremendous place for increase of population.

The United States are only just a century old, and they have a population larger than Great Britain, which has a history of twenty centuries, or nearly so.

So it happened that, although the old people were dead, the tribe had marvellously increased. Half who were trans.h.i.+pped had borne the name of Baskette. This same question was asked in forty or fifty places at once--"My name is Baskette; why should not I share?"

These people had, of course, little or no recollection of the deed signed by their forefathers: and if they had had a perfect knowledge, such a trifling difficulty as that was not one calculated to appal a Yankee's ingenuity. When once the question had been asked it was repeated, and grew and grew, and pa.s.sed from man to man, made its appearance in the newspapers, who even went so far as to say that the finest city in England, the very workshop of the Britishers, belonged to United States citizens.

Some editor keener than the rest, or who had read the book more carefully, pointed out that the capitalist had no heirs living, that he had never been married, and no one knew to whom all this vast wealth would descend.

Twenty millions sterling begging a heir! This was enough to set the American mind aflame. It was just like applying a lighted match to one of their petroleum wells.

The paragraph flew from paper to paper, was quoted, conned, and talked over. Men grew excited. Presently, here and there one who considered that he had some claim began to steal off to England to make inquiries.

The Cunard were running now, though they had not yet invented the "ocean highway," by keeping to a course nothing to the north or south of a certain line. Pa.s.sage was very quick, and not dear. In a little time the fact that one or two had started oozed out, then others followed, and were joined by a lawyer or so, till at last fourteen or fifteen keen fellows reached Stirmingham.

Now mark the acuteness of the American mind! Instead of announcing their arrival, every one of these fellows kept quiet, and said not a word! When they met each other in the streets they only smiled. They were not going to alarm the game.

These gentlemen were not long in Stirmingham before they found out that the _Stirmingham Daily Post_ was a deadly enemy of old Sternhold. To the office of the second able editor they tramped accordingly.

There they learnt a good deal; but in return the editor pumped something out of them, and, being well up in the matter, sniffed out their objects. He chuckled and rubbed his hands together. Here was a chance for an awful smash at the _News_.

One fine morning out came a leading article referring also to several columns of other matter on the same subject, headed "The Heirs of Stirmingham."

Being Blue, you see, the _Post_ affected to abominate United States'

Republicanism and all the American inst.i.tutions. This article recounted the visit of the dozen or so of possible claimants, described them so minutely that no one could help recognising them, and wound up with a tremendous peroration calling upon all good citizens to do their best to prevent the renowned city of Stirmingham falling into the hands of the Yankees!

Such property as Sternhold's, the article argued, was of national importance; and although the individual should not be interfered with, the nation should see that its rights were not tampered with. There was danger of such tampering, for who knew what an _infirm, old_ man like Sternhold might not be led to sign by interested parties? At his age he could not be expected to possess the decision and mental firmness of earlier years. This was a cruel hit at Sternhold's mental weakness, which had begun to grow apparent.

An endeavour should be made to find an English heir, and that there was such an heir they (the staff of the _Post_) firmly believed. Two gentlemen of the staff (meaning thereby the late writers for the _News_), who had devoted some time to the matter, had made a certain important discovery. This was nothing less than the fact that Sternhold had had an uncle! This in big capital letters.

An Uncle. Then followed a little bit of genealogy, in approved fas.h.i.+on, with dashes, lines, etc--the meaning of which was that Sternhold's father, old Romy Baskette, had had a brother, who, when the original Will Baskette was shot, had departed into the unknown with his mother.

What had become of Romy's brother? The probability was that by this time he was dead and buried. But there was also the probability that he had married and had children. Those children, if they existed, were undoubtedly the nearest heirs of Sternhold Baskette, Esq, now residing at Dodd's Hotel, South Street. As an earnest of the anxiety of the _Post_ to preserve the good city of Stirmingham from Yankee contamination, they now offered three rewards:--First, fifty pounds for proof of Romy's brother's death; secondly, one hundred pounds for proof of Romy's brother's marriage, if he had married; thirdly, one hundred and fifty pounds for the identification of his child or children. This was repeated as an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the outer sheet, and was kept in type for months.

It deserves notice as being the first advertis.e.m.e.nt which appeared in the Great Baskette Claim Case--the first of a crop of advertis.e.m.e.nts which in time became a regular source of income to newspaper proprietors.

When this leading article and advertis.e.m.e.nt, supported by several columns of descriptive matter and genealogies was laid on the breakfast tables of half Stirmingham, it caused a sensation. The city suddenly woke up to the fact that as soon as old Sternhold died half the place would have no owner.

The Yankee visitors now had no further reason for concealment. They went about openly making inquiries. They were feted at hotel bars and in billiard rooms. They called upon Sternhold bodily--_en ma.s.se_-- forced themselves into his apartment, though, he shut the door with his own hands in their faces, shook him by the hand, patted him on the shoulder, called him "Colonel," and asked him what he would take to drink!

They walked round him, admired him from every point of view, stuck their fingers in his ribs, and really meant no harm, though their manners were not quite of the drawing-room order.

They cut up the old man's favourite armchair, whittled it up, to carry away as souvenirs. They appropriated his books--his own particular penholder, with which he had written every letter and signed every deed for fifty years, disappeared, and was afterwards advertised as on show at Barnum's in New York City, as the Pen which could sign a cheque for Twenty Millions!

When at last they did leave, one popped back, and asked if the "Colonel"

believed this story about his _Uncle_? He was sure he had never had an uncle, wasn't he? The old man sat silent, which the inquirer took for once as a negative, and wrote a letter to the _News_, denying the existence of Romy's brother.

Poor old Sternhold was found by the landlord, old Dodd, sitting in his chair, which was all cut and slashed, two hours afterwards, staring straight at the wall.

Dodd feared he had an attack of paralysis, and ran for the nearest doctor; but it was nothing but literally speechless indignation. After a while he got up and walked about the room, and took a little dry sherry--his favourite wine. But the mortal wound Number 2 had been given. Henceforth the one great question in Sternhold's mind was his heir.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIX.

His heir! Sternhold seriously believed that he had no living relations.

It is often said that poor people have plenty of children, while the rich, to whom they would be welcome, have few or none. This was certainly a case in point. The poor Baskettes, who had been s.h.i.+pped to America, had a whole tribe of descendants. Here was a man who, nominally at least, was the largest owner of property known, who was childless, and had already reached and exceeded the allotted age of man.

Sternhold was seventy-two. He looked back and ransacked his memory. He had never heard anything of this uncle, his father's brother; his mother's friends were all dead. There was not a soul for whom he cared a snap of his fingers. Firstly, he had no relations; secondly, he had no friends, for Sternhold, wide as was his circle of acquaintances, had never been known to visit any one. His life had been solitary and self-absorbed.

Now, for the first time, he felt his loneliness, and understood that he was a solitary being. Who should be his heir? Who should succeed to that mighty edifice he had slowly built up? The architect had been obliged to be content with gazing upon the outside of his work only; but the successor, if he only lived the usual time, would revel in realised magnificence unsurpa.s.sed. The old man was quite staggered, and went about as in a dream.

The idea once started, there were plenty who improved upon it. The Corporation at their meetings incidentally alluded to the matter, and it was delicately suggested that Sternhold would crown his memory with ineffable glory if he devised his vast estate to the city. Such a bequest in a few years would make the place absolutely free from taxation. The rents would meet poor's-rates, gas-rates, water-rates, sanitary-rates, and all. One gentleman read an elaborate series of statistics, proving that the income from the property, when once the building leases fell in, would not only free the city from local, but almost, if not quite, from imperial taxation. There were many instances in history of kings, as rewards for great services, issuing an order that certain towns should be exempt from the payment of taxes for a series of years. Sternhold had it thus in his power to display really regal munificence.

Other gentlemen of more radical leanings cried "Shame!" on the mere fact of one man being permitted to attain such powers. It was absurd for one man to possess such gigantic wealth, and for several hundred thousand to live from hand to mouth. The people should share it, not as a gift, but as a right; it should be seized for the benefit of the community.

The Corporation people were much too knowing to talk like this. They went to work in a clever way. First, they contrived various great banquets, to which Sternhold was invited, and at which he was put in the seat of honour and lauded to the skies. Next, they formed a committee and erected a statue in a prominent place to the founder of Stirmingham, and unveiled it with immense ceremony. Certain funds had been previously set apart for the building of a public library; this being completed about that time, was named the Sternhold Inst.i.tute. An open s.p.a.ce or "park," which the Corporation had been obliged to provide for the seething mult.i.tudes who were so closely crowded together, was called the Sternhold Public Park. Yet Sternhold never subscribed a farthing to either of these.

Nothing was left undone to turn his head. His portrait, life-size, painted in oil, was hung up in the Council-hall; medals were struck to commemorate his birthday. The Corporation were not alone in their endeavours; other disinterested parties were hard at work. Most energetic of all were the religious people. Chapel projectors, preachers, church extension societies, missionary a.s.sociations, flew at his throat. His letter-box was flooded; his door was for ever resounding with knocking and ringing. The sound of the true clerical nasal tw.a.n.g was never silent in his anteroom. The hospitals came down on him flat in one lump, more particularly those establishments which publicly boast that they never solicit a.s.sistance, and are supported by voluntary contributions caused by prayer.

The dodge is to publish the _fact_ as loudly as possible. To proclaim that the inst.i.tution urgently wants a few thousands is not begging. A list of all the charities that recommended themselves to his notice would fill three chapters: then the patentees--the literary people who were prepared to write memoirs, biographies, etc--would have to be omitted.

Now here is a singular paradox. If a poor wretched mortal, barely clothed in rags, his shoes off his feet, starring with hunger, houseless, homeless, who hath not where to lay his head, asks you for a copper, it means seven days' imprisonment as a rogue. If all the clergymen and ministers, the secretaries, and so forth, come in crowds begging for hundreds and thousands, it is meritorious, and is applauded.

Now this is worthy of study as a phenomenon of society. But these were not all. Sternhold had another cla.s.s of applicants, whom we will not call ladies, or even women, but _females_ (what a hateful word female is), who approached him pretty much as the Shah was approached by every post while in London and Paris.

He was deluged with photographs of females. Not disreputable characters either--not of Drury Lane or Haymarket distinction, but of that cla.s.s who use the columns of the newspapers to advertise their matrimonial propensities. Tall, short, dark, light, stout, thin, they poured in upon him by hundreds; all ready, willing, and waiting.

Most were "thoroughly domesticated and musical;" some were penetrated with the serious responsibilities of the position of a wife; others were filled with hopes of the life to come (having failed in this).

Some men would have enjoyed all this; some would have smiled; others would have flung the lot into the waste-basket. Sternhold was too methodical and too much imbued with business habits to take anything as a good joke. He read every letter, looked at every photograph, numbered and docketed them, and carefully put them away.

Other efforts were made to get at him. He had parasites--men who hung on him--lickspittles. To a certain extent he yielded to the t.i.tillation of incessant laudation; and, if he did not encourage, did not repel them. They never ceased to fan his now predominant vanity. They argued that the Corporation and all the rest were influenced by selfish motives (which was true). They begged him not to forget what was due to himself--not to annihilate and obliterate himself. It was true he was aged; but aged men--especially men who had led temperate lives like himself--frequently had children. In plain words, they one and all persuaded him to marry; and they one and all had a petticoated friend who would just suit him.

Sternhold seemed very impa.s.sive and immoveable; but the fact was that all this had stirred him deeply. He began to seriously contemplate marriage. He brooded over the idea. He was not a sentimental man; he had not even a spark of what is called human nature in the sense of desiring to see merry children playing around him. But he looked upon himself as a mighty monarch; and as a mighty monarch he wished more and more every day to found not only a kingdom, but a dynasty.

This appears to be a weakness from which even the greatest of men are not exempt. Napoleon the Great could not resist the idea. It is the one sole object of almost all such men whose history is recorded.

Occasionally they succeed; more often it destroys them. Some say Cromwell had hopes in that direction.

So far the parasites, the photographs, the stir that was made about it, affected Sternhold. But if he was mad, he was mad in his own way. He was not to be led by the nose; but those who knew him best could see that he was meditating action.

Dodd, the landlord of the hotel, was constantly bothered and worried for his opinion on the subject. At last, said Dodd, "I think the Corporation have wasted their money." And they had.

In this unromantic country the human form divine has not that opportunity to display itself which was graciously afforded to the youth of both s.e.xes in the cla.s.sic days of Greece, when the virgins of Sparta, their lovely limbs anointed with oil, wrestled nude in the arena.

The nearest approach to those "good old times" which our modern prudery admits, is the short skirts and the "tights" of the ballet.

Sternhold, deeply pondering, arrived at the notion, true or false, that the wife for him must possess physical development.

This is a delicate subject to dwell on; but I think he was mistaken when he visited the theatres seeking such a person. He might have found ladies, not _females_ nor women, but ladies in a rank of life nearer or above his own, who exulted in the beauty of their form, and were endowed with Nature's richest gifts of shape. But he was a child in such a search: his ideas were rude and primitive to the last degree. At all events, the fact remains.