They control the quicksilver industries of the world, and to swell their abnormal hoard, portentous in its vastness, other poor wretches, condemned under form of law, are doomed to days of wearing toil, and, their bones rotting from quicksilver absorption, to nights of racking pains. So, too, far Siberia contributes its quota of human misery that the golden stream of interest on century-old loans may have no interruption, but pour on unceasingly into the vaults of the Rothschilds.
Alighting from the carriage and mounting the steps with difficulty, I entered the English Department, and, seating myself, awaited the manager's presence. He came, and expressing great concern when he learned I was a victim of the Marquise disaster, asked what he could do for me. I replied I wanted to see the Baron. He disappeared into a range of offices, and no doubt told Baron Alphonse I was some important personage, doubly important because injured on his road.
Soon a slight, sallow man of about 43 appeared, wearing an old-fashioned stovepipe hat and a shabby suit of snuff-colored garments. The look of the attendants testified that the deity was before me. Taking off his antiquated chapeau he began a profuse apology for the accident, explaining that accidents were most unusual events in France; that he would order his own physician to attend me, that I should have every attention without the slightest charge or expense to myself, etc., etc., and ended by saying I was to command him if he could serve me. In return I told him since he was so distressed over the accident and my plight, I should say no more about either, but as I was too badly shaken to complete the business on which I had come to Paris I should request him to instruct his subordinates to aid me in transmitting the funds I had brought from London back again. He called the manager and told him to accommodate me in anything, then, shaking hands and with many expressions of regret, he withdrew.
I told the manager I wanted a three months' bill on London for £6,000. He informed me that the house of Rothschild was not issuing time bills, but since the Baron's order suspended the rule in my case, he would procure me six bills for £1,000 each. These really were just as good for our purpose as one bill for £6,000, but I had come to Paris on George's demand that I should procure one bill for this unusual amount, so perforce I had to say "No," that I wanted one bill only.
The manager began to remonstrate, saying it was unusual, and wanted to explain the nature of a bill of exchange, but I cut him short, bidding him recall the Baron at once. The thought of recalling that Jupiter to repeat an order was enough to send a thrill through the entire staff, and he instantly said: "Oh, sir, if you wish the £6,000 in one bill, you shall have it, but it will involve some delay." So paying him 150,000 francs on account, I ordered the bill sent to me at 2 o'clock precisely at the Grand Hotel, and drove off to the Louvre, where I spent two hours in the picture galleries. At 2 o'clock I was at the hotel, and an attendant came with the bill, and, pointing to a signature on it, informed me it was that of a Cabinet Minister, equivalent to our Secretary of the Treasury, certifying that the tax due the government on the bill was paid. He explained the revenue stamp required upon a bill of exchange was one-eighth of 1 per cent. of the face of the bill, making the tax on my single bill 187 francs, or about $37. All bills are stamped in a registering machine, which presses the stamp into the paper; but there were no registering machines for a stamp of so high a denomination as 187 francs either in the branch revenue office in the Rothschild bank or at the Treasury, so the Baron had taken the bill to the Treasury himself and got the Cabinet Minister to put his autograph on it—probably the first and only time in history that such a thing had been done. I wanted very much indeed to keep that bill as a curiosity, but then the necessity of the time was on me, and I was not then a collector of curios.
I had been only eighteen hours in Paris, and by a happy fluke the business was done over which I had counted upon spending a good part of the month.
When I left London I was all at sea as to how I should carry out the objects of my visit to Paris. One plan was to procure an interview by strategy with the Baron Alphonse and try to cajole him, but without reference, and devoid of all business relations or acquaintance in Paris, it was at best a questionable expedient, and I probably would have had a take-down. But the accident at Marquise came and smoothed the apparently insuperable difficulties in my way. But I have found that something unusual does come to help a man on his way to the devil when he is anxious to get there, which he is pretty sure to do, if he is only diligent and careful to improve his opportunities.
What diligence and strict attention to business do men exhibit when they start out to wreck their own lives and break the hearts of those near to them! In a play by a modern writer, one scene presents Satan flying at midnight over one of our cities, while the drunken songs and joyous shouts of some gilded revelers rise in the night. The merry songs and laughter are music to the ears of Lucifer. He pauses in his flight to listen, and as the songs and shouts increase in volume he looks down on the revelers and with a bitter sneer soliloquizes thus of them:
"Ye are my bondsmen and my thralls,
Your lives I fill with bitter pain."
And that sums it up pretty well; but we must look straight away from the entrance of the Primrose Way to the exit.