“As you please,” said I. And I gave him a cipher telegram to Joe—an order to invest my store of cash, which meant practically my whole fortune, in the gilt-edged securities that were to be had for cash at a small fraction of their value.
This on the Monday after Wild Week, please note. I would have helped the people to deliver themselves from the bondage of the bandits. They would not have it. I would even have sacrificed my all in trying to save them in spite of themselves. But what is one sane man against a stampeded multitude of maniacs? For confirmation of my disinterestedness, I point to all those weeks and months during which I waged costly warfare on “The Seven,” who would gladly have given me more than I now have, could I have been bribed to desist. But, when I was compelled to admit that I had overestimated my fellow men, that the people wear the yoke because they have not yet become intelligent and competent enough to be free, then and not until then did I abandon the hopeless struggle.
And I did not go over to the bandits; I simply resumed my own neglected personal affairs and made Wild Week at least a personal triumph.
There is nothing of the spectacular in my make-up. I have no belief in the value of martyrs and martyrdom. Causes are not won—and in my humble opinion never have been won—in the graveyards. Alive and afoot and armed, and true to my cause, I am the dreaded menace to systematic and respectable robbery. What possible good could have come of mobs killing me and the bandits dividing my estate?
But why should I seek to justify myself? I care not a rap for the opinion of my fellow men. They sought my life when they should have been hailing me as a deliverer; now, they look up to me because they falsely believe me guilty of an infamy.
My guards expected to be recalled on Tuesday. But Melville heard what Crawford had done about me, and straightway used his influence to have me detained until the new grip of the old gang was secure. Saturday afternoon we put in at Newport for the daily communication with the shore. When the launch returned, Mulholland brought the papers to me, lounging aft in a mass of cushions under the awning. “We are going ashore,” said he. “The order has come.”
I had a sudden sense of loneliness. “I'll take you down to New York,” said I. “I prefer to land my guests where I shipped them.”
As we steamed slowly westward I read the papers. The country was rapidly readjusting itself, was returning to the conditions before the upheaval. The “financiers”—the same old gang, except for a few of the weaker brethren ruined and a few strong outsiders, who had slipped in during the confusion—were employing all the old, familiar devices for deceiving and robbing the people. The upset milking-stool was righted, and the milker was seated again and busy, the good old cow standing without so much as shake of horn or switch of tail. “Mulholland,” said I, “what do you think of this business of living?”
“I'll tell you, Mr. Blacklock,” said he. “I used to fuss and fret a good deal about it. But I don't any more. I've got a house up in the Bronx, and a bit of land round it. And there's Mrs. Mulholland and four little Mulhollands and me—that's my country and my party and my religion. The rest is off my beat, and I don't give a damn for it. I don't care which fakir gets to be president, or which swindler gets to be rich. Everything works out somehow, and the best any man can do is to mind his own business.”
“Mulholland—Mrs. Mulholland—four little Mulhollands,” said I reflectively. “That's about as much as one man could attend to properly. And—you are 'on the level,' aren't you?”