From the bank, the Board of Trade, the Stock Exchange, and his luncheon with Senator Gossitch, Ames returned to his office for the private interviews which his chief secretary had arranged. Then followed further consultations with Hood over the daily, weekly, and monthly reports which Ames required from all the various commercial, financial, and mining enterprises in which he was interested; further discussions of plans and schemes; further receipt and transmission of cable, telegraphic, and telephone messages; and meetings with his heads of departments, his captains, lieutenants, and minor officers, to listen to their reports and suggestions, and to deliver his quick, decisive commands, admonitions, and advice. From eight in the morning until, as was his wont, Ames closed his desk and entered his private elevator at five-thirty in the evening, his office flashed with the superenergy of the man, with his intense activity, his decisive words, and his stupendous endeavors, materialistic, absorptive, ruthless endeavors. If one should ask what his day really amounted to, we can but point to these incessant endeavors and their results in augmenting his already vast material interests and his colossal fortune, a fortune which Hood believed ran well over a hundred millions, and which Ames himself knew multiplied that figure by five or ten. And the fortune was increasing at a frightful pace, for he gave nothing, but continually drew to himself, always and ever drawing, accumulating, amassing, and absorbing, and for himself alone.
Snapping his desk shut, he held a brief conversation over the wire with the Beaubien, then descended to his waiting car and was driven hastily to his yacht, the Cossack, where Monsignor Lafelle awaited as his guest. It was one of the few pleasures which Ames allowed himself during the warm months, to drop his multifarious interests and spend the night aboard the Cossack, generally alone, rocking gently on the restless billows, so typical of his own heaving spirit, as the beautiful craft steamed noiselessly to and fro along the coast, well beyond the roar of the huge arena where human beings, formed of dust, yet fatuously believing themselves made in the image of infinite Spirit, strive and sweat, curse and slay, in the struggle to prove their doubtful right to live.
CHAPTER 13
The Cossack, with its great turbines purring like a sleeping kitten, and its twin screws turning lazily, almost imperceptibly in the dark waters, moved through the frosty night like a cloud brooding over the deep. Yet it was a cloud of tremendous potentiality, enwrapping a spirit of energy incarnate. From far aloft its burning eye pierced a channel of light through the murky darkness ahead. In its wake it drew a swell of sparkling phosphorescence, which it carelessly tossed off on either side as a Calif might throw handfuls of glittering coins to his fawning beggars. From somewhere in the structure above, the crackling, hissing wireless mechanism was thrusting its invisible hands out into the night and catching the fleeting messages that were borne on the intangible pulsations of the mysterious ether. From time to time these messages were given form and body, and despatched to the luxurious suite below, where, in the dazzling sheen of silver and cut glass, spread out over richest napery, and glowing beneath a torrent of white light, sat the gigantic being whose will directed the movements of this floating palace.
“You see, Lafelle, I look upon religion with the eye of the cold-blooded business man, without the slightest trace of sentimentalism. From the business standpoint, the Protestant Church is a dead failure. It doesn’t get results that are in any way commensurate with its investment. But your Church is a success––from the point of dollars and cents. In fact, in the matter of forming and maintaining a monopoly, I take off my hat to the Vatican. You fellows have got us all beaten. Every day I learn something of value by studying your methods of operating upon the public. And so you see why I take such pleasure in talking with really astute churchmen like yourself.”
Monsignor Lafelle studied the man without replying, uncertain just what interpretation to put upon the remark. The Japanese servant was clearing away the remnants of the meal, having first lighted the cigars of the master and guest.
“Now,” continued Ames, leaning back in his luxurious chair and musing over his cigar, “the purgatory idea is one of the cleverest schemes ever foisted upon the unthinking masses, and it has proved a veritable Klondike. Gad! if I could think up and put over a thing like that I’d consider myself really possessed of brains.”
Lafelle’s eyes twinkled. “I fear, Mr. Ames,” he replied adroitly, “you do not know your Bible.”