One day, with the usual show of writhing under Lindau’s scorn, he said, “Well, I understand that although you despise me now, Lindau—”
“I ton’t desbise you,” the old man broke in, his nostrils swelling and his eyes flaming with excitement, “I bity you.”
“Well, it seems to come to the same thing in the end,” said Fulkerson. “What I understand is that you pity me now as the slave of capital, but you would pity me a great deal more if I was the master of it.”
“How you mean?”
“If I was rich.”
“That would tebendt,” said Lindau, trying to control himself. “If you hat inheritedt your money, you might pe innocent; but if you hat mate it, efery man that resbectedt himself would haf to ask how you mate it, and if you hat mate moch, he would know—”
“Hold on; hold on, now, Lindau! Ain’t that rather un-American doctrine? We’re all brought up, ain’t we, to honor the man that made his money, and look down—or try to look down; sometimes it’s difficult—on the fellow that his father left it to?”
The old man rose and struck his breast. “On Amerigan!” he roared, and, as he went on, his accent grew more and more uncertain. “What iss Amerigan? Dere iss no Ameriga anymore! You start here free and brafe, and you glaim for efery man de right to life, liperty, and de bursuit of habbiness. And vhere haf you entedt? No man that vorks vith his handts among you has the liperty to bursue his habbiness. He iss the slafe of some richer man, some gompany, some gorporation, dat crindt him down to the least he can lif on, and that rops him of the marchin of his earnings that he might pe habby on. Oh, you Amerigans, you haf cot it down goldt, as you say! You ton’t puy foters; you puy lechislatures and goncressmen; you puy gourts; you puy gombetitors; you pay infentors not to infent; you atfertise, and the gounting-room sees dat de etitorial-room toesn’t tink.”
“Yes, we’ve got a little arrangement of that sort with March here,” said Fulkerson.
“Oh, I am sawry,” said the old man, contritely, “I meant noting bersonal. I ton’t tink we are all cuilty or gorrubt, and efen among the rich there are goodt men. But gabidal”—his passion rose again—“vhere you find gabidal, millions of money that a man hass cot togeder in fife, ten, tventy years, you findt the smell of tears and ploodt! Dat iss what I say. And you cot to loog oudt for yourself when you meet a rich man whether you meet an honest man.”
“Well,” said Fulkerson, “I wish I was a subject of suspicion with you, Lindau. By the way,” he added, “I understand that you think capital was at the bottom of the veto of that pension of yours.”
“What bension? What feto?”—The old man flamed up again. “No bension of mine was efer fetoedt. I renounce my bension, begause I would sgorn to dake money from a gofernment that I ton’t peliefe in anymore. Where you hear that story?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Fulkerson, rather embarrassed. “It’s common talk.”
“It’s a gommon lie, then! When the time gome dat dis iss a free gountry again, then I dake a bension again for my woundts; but I would sdarfe before I dake a bension now from a rebublic dat iss bought oap by monobolies, and ron by drusts and gompines, and railroadts adnt oil gompanies.”
“Look out, Lindau,” said Fulkerson. “You bite yourself mit dat dog some day.” But when the old man, with a ferocious gesture of renunciation, whirled out of the place, he added: “I guess I went a little too far that time. I touched him on a sore place; I didn’t mean to; I heard some talk about his pension being vetoed from Miss Leighton.” He addressed these exculpations to March’s grave face, and to the pitying deprecation in the eyes of Conrad Dryfoos, whom Lindau’s roaring wrath had summoned to the door. “But I’ll make it all right with him the next time he comes. I didn’t know he was loaded, or I wouldn’t have monkeyed with him.”
“Lindau does himself injustice when he gets to talking in that way,” said March. “I hate to hear him. He’s as good an American as any of us; and it’s only because he has too high an ideal of us—”
“Oh, go on! Rub it in—rub it in!” cried Fulkerson, clutching his hair in suffering, which was not altogether burlesque. “How did I know he had renounced his ‘bension’? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know it myself. I only knew that he had none, and I didn’t ask, for I had a notion that it might be a painful subject.”
Fulkerson tried to turn it off lightly. “Well, he’s a noble old fellow; pity he drinks.” March would not smile, and Fulkerson broke out: “Dog on it! I’ll make it up to the old fool the next time he comes. I don’t like that dynamite talk of his; but any man that’s given his hand to the country has got mine in his grip for good. Why, March! You don’t suppose I wanted to hurt his feelings, do you?”
“Why, of course not, Fulkerson.”
But they could not get away from a certain ruefulness for that time, and in the evening Fulkerson came round to March’s to say that he had got Lindau’s address from Conrad, and had looked him up at his lodgings.
“Well, there isn’t so much bric-a-brac there, quite, as Mrs. Green left you; but I’ve made it all right with Lindau, as far as I’m concerned. I told him I didn’t know when I spoke that way, and I honored
