CHAPTER XX
Rehashed departmental reports become mere braggadocio when the human interest is lacking.
I had written perhaps one of the most vital chapters in American history. So far as the department is concerned it will remain unsung. My reward is in knowing I did it.
Its direct results were the taking over of ships, needed more than money, and the appointment of a custodian of alien enemy property to confiscate hundreds of millions of dollars' worth, expelling the Hun and his kin from our frontiers and our industrial life for all time. Though Howard was well past want, I felt for him. I suspected he was even affluent again—you can't keep such a man from making money, even on the barren Keys. I felt sorry for his wife, Norma Byng. Little Jim had wound herself about me as had her wonderful father who sat silently in the cabin of his boat looking wistfully at me. Maybe it was because he made me her godfather and called her little Jim I felt that the child was partly mine.
Howard, scourged into bitterness, was possessed with an inflexible conviction that his beautiful wife had betrayed him. I had to be extremely careful. I must wait for him to see the light as though from within himself. Assuming a more cheerful attitude again, I asked:
"Howard, have you heard absolutely nothing of what has been going on outside? I mean about your private matters."
"No more than if I was on another planet until now, when this man appeared in my life again," he replied emphatically, "and you came as I knew you would. And—and—well, you can see how I am fixed. How can I tell little Jim my name is not Canby? How can I explain to her that the fishermen named me Canby after the wrecked schooner, and I let it go at that because I was practically insane for several years. You can see how much she is to me now. I have been mother and father to her since she was a year old. We are so near one, it makes me a coward, I tell you."
"Life has certain responsibilities, Howard, we can't escape; perhaps you have arrived at another turning point that calls for the big part of you."
"Maybe so—maybe so—I can see now that you will need me as a witness against these men. Our country is involved. I guess I must come out, at least part way, from my isolation for that reason, even if it kills. It's no time to slack against our Government," he said, more as an audible thought, giving me my cue.