In this way Sternhold got rid of every shilling of his income. Even then he might have prospered; but, as bad luck would have it, the railway, after two millions of money had been sunk on it, actually began to pay dividends of three and a half percent, then four, then six; for a clever fellow had got at the helm, and was forcing up the market so as to make hay while the sun shone.
Sternhold was in raptures with railways. Some sharp young men of forty-five and fifty immediately laid their heads together, and projected a second railway at almost right angles—not such a bad idea, but one likely to cause enormous outlay. They represented to Sternhold that this new line would treble the value of the property he had recently bought, extending for some miles beyond the city. He jumped at it. The Bill was got through Parliament. One half of these sharp young men were lawyers, the other half engineers and contractors.
Sternhold deposited the money, and they shared it between them. When the money was exhausted the railway languished. This exasperated old Baskette. For the first time in his life he borrowed money, and did it on a royal scale;—I am almost afraid to say how much, and certainly it seems odd how people could advance so much knowing his circumstances.
However, he got it. He bought up all the shares, and became practically owner of the new line. He completed it, and rode on the first locomotive in triumph, surrounded by his parasites. For alas! he had yielded to parasites at last, who flattered and fooled him to perfection. This was the state of affairs when the second mortal wound was given.
It happened in this way. The “Life of Sternhold Baskette, Esq.,” had, as was stated, got abroad, and penetrated even to the Rocky Mountains. It was quoted, and long extracts made from it in the cheap press—they had a cheap press in the United States thirty years before we had, which accounts for the larger proportion of educated or partly educated people, and the wider spread of intelligence. After a while, somehow or other, the marvellous story reached the ears of one or two persons who happened to sign their names Baskette, and they began to say to themselves, “What the deuce is this? We rather guess we come from Stirmingham or somewhere thereabouts. Now, why shouldn’t we share in this mine of wealth?”
The sharp Yankee intellect began to have “idees.” Most of the cotters whom Sternhold had transhipped to America thirty years or more previous, were dead and buried—that is to say, the old people were.
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 passage 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 transhipped 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 passed 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. Passage 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
