Nordenholt’s Million

compassion for those whom he had maimed in the course of his gigantic operations. The Wheat Trust, the Cotton Combine, Consolidated Industries, the Steel Magnates, and the Associated Railways, all had gone down before him; and he had ground their leaders into the very dust. And in every case, he had opened his campaign as soon as they had shown signs of using their power to oppress the common people. It may have been merely a move in his psychological strategy; he may have waited until the man in the street had begun to be uneasy for the future, so that this great intangible mass of opinion was enlisted on his side. But I prefer to think otherwise: and I was associated with Nordenholt in the end as closely as any man. No one ever knew him, no one ever fathomed that personality⁠—of that I am certain. He was always a riddle. But I believe that his cool intelligence, his merciless tactics, all had behind them a depth of understanding and a sympathy with the helpless minority. I know this is almost incredible in face of his record; but I am convinced of its truth.

“At the end of it all,” he went on, “I can look back and say that my theories were justified. I knew nothing of finance; but I chose my advisers well. I knew what my opponents relied upon and what they regarded as points which could be given up without affecting their general position. The rest was simply a matter of psychology. How could I bring the breaking-strain to bear?

“Well, when I left it, the financial world had handed over to me a fortune which, I suppose, has seldom been equalled. There was nothing in it, you know, Flint, nothing whatever. It merely happened that I was trained in a way different from everyone else. They were plotting and scheming with shares and stocks and debentures, skying this one, depressing that one and keeping their attention fixed on the Exchanges. I came to the thing from a different angle. The movements of the markets meant little to me in comparison with the workings of the brains behind those markets. I could foresee the line of their advance; and I knew how to take them in the flank at the right moment. I fought them on ground they could not understand. They knew the mind of the small investor thoroughly, for they had fleeced him again and again. I began by clearing the small speculator off the board; and thus they were deprived of their trump card. They had to fight me instead of ruining him; and they had no idea what I was. It was incredibly simple, when you think of it. That is why you never found anything about my personality in the newspapers. I paid them to leave me alone. No one knew me; and I was able to fight in the dark.

“But when I grew tired of it at last, I had an enormous fortune. What was I to do with it? Money in itself one can do nothing with. If I were put to it, I doubt if I could spend £5,000 a year and honestly say that I had got value for it⁠—I mean direct personal enjoyment. I cast about for some use to which I could turn this enormous mass of wealth. You may smile, Flint, but it is one of the most difficult problems I ever took up. I hate waste; and I wanted to see some direct, practical value for all these accumulated millions. What was I to do?

“I looked back on the work of some of my predecessors. Carnegie used to spend his money on libraries; but do libraries yield one any intimate satisfaction? Can one really say that they would give one a feeling that one’s money had been spent to a good purpose? Apparently they did to him; but that sort of thing wouldn’t appeal to me. Then there is art. Pierpont Morgan amassed a huge collection; but there again I don’t feel on safe ground. Is one’s money merely to go in accumulating painted canvas for the elect to pore over? The man in the street cannot appreciate these things even if he could see them. I gave up that idea.

“Then I came across a life of Cecil Rhodes and he seemed to be more akin to me in some ways. Empire building is a big thing and, if you believe in Empires, it’s a good thing. There is something satisfactory in knowing that you are preparing the way for future generations, laying the foundations in the desert and awaiting the tramp of those far-off generations which will throng the streets of the unbuilt cities. A great dream, Flint. One needs a prospicience and a fund of hope to deal in things like that. But I want to see results in my own day; I want to be sure that I’m on the right lines and not merely rearing a dream-fabric which will fade out and pass away long before it has its chance of materialisation. I want something which I can see in action now and yet something which will go down from generation to generation.

“I thought long over it, Flint. Time and again I seemed to glimpse what I wanted; and yet it eluded me. Then, suddenly, I realised that I had the very thing at my gates. Youth.

“All over the world there are youngsters growing up who will be stifled in their development by mere financial troubles. They have the brains and the character to make good in time; but at what a cost! All their best energy goes in fulfilling the requirements of our social system, getting a roof over their heads, climbing the ladder step by step, waiting for dead men’s shoes. Then, when they come to their own, more often than not their heart’s desire has withered. I don’t mean that they are failures; but they have used