“It’s a grand country,” Macheson said. “I’m glad it’s part of the Empire, Finlayson, or I should grudge you those boys. We can’t spare too many. Hinton, your work speaks for itself.”
Hinton, the only one in clerical dress, smiled a little wearily.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I wish it would speak a little louder. East End work is all the same. One feels ashamed of preaching religion to a starving people.”
Macheson nodded his sympathy.
“I know what you mean,” he said. “It drove me from the East to the West. We should preach at the one and feed the other!... Of course, I personally have always been handicapped. I haven’t been able to subscribe to any of the established churches. But I do believe in the laws of retribution, whether you call them human or Divine. One’s moral delinquencies pay one out just as bodily excesses do. Always one’s debts are to be paid, and it’s a terrible burden the drones must carry. After all, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s heaps of sound moral teaching to be drummed into our fellow-creatures without the necessity of being orthodox!”
“You speak lightly of your own work, Macheson,” Franklin said, “but there is one thing we must none of us forget. Our schools, our farms, our colonies, all our attempts, indeed, owe their very being to your open purse——”
Macheson held out his hand.
“Franklin,” he said, “I want to tell you something which I think none of you know. I want to tell you where most of my money came from, and you’ll understand then why I’ve been so anxious to get rid of it—or a part of it—in this way. Did you ever hear of Ferguson Davis, the money-lender? Yes, I can see by your faces you did. Well, he was my mother’s brother, and he died without a will when I was a child, and the whole lot came to me!”
“A million and a quarter,” some one murmured.