“I call it a fraud,” said the Major. “It’s getting money out of this fool of an American under false pretences. If this General of his wasn’t born here——”
“Now do you suppose, Major, that the General himself, the original John Regan, cares a pin where his statue is?”
“Of course he doesn’t. The one thing we do know about him is that he’s dead. Why should he care?”
“Quite so. Then there’s no fraud so far as he’s concerned.”
“I wasn’t talking about him. I was talking about the American.”
“I’m just coming to him. Billing wants a statue to the General. He wants it so much that he’s prepared to pay £100 for it. He also believes that the General was born here. I think myself that he’s mistaken about that; but there’s no doubt he believes it. He’ll be quite satisfied if we have the statue here. If we don’t he’ll have to go to a lot of trouble and expense looking up another birthplace for the General. When he finds one the people there may not be as civil and obliging as we are. Or they may have as many statues as they want already. I cannot for the life of me see that we’re committing any kind of fraud when we’re saving Billing a lot of expense, possibly a great disappointment, and allowing him to do exactly what he wants.”
Major Kent sighed hopelessly.
“It’s no use arguing with you,” he said, “but you’ll get us all into trouble before you’ve done. You’re absolutely certain to be found out.”
“Now you’re beginning to talk sense,” said Dr. O’Grady. “There is a certain risk of being found out. I don’t deny that. What we have to do is to minimise it as far as possible. We must take care not to commit ourselves to any statement about the General’s public career until we’ve found out all we can about him. I intend to write to Dublin to-night for every book there is about Bolivia, which is the country he liberated. In the meanwhile we’re fairly safe in working up any kind of local tradition we can think of. If that sort of thing is well done there’s practically no risk of discovery. Even if the stories don’t exactly fit in with what’s known about the General’s later life, it doesn’t matter. The things that are told about the boyhood of great men are all invented afterwards. Nobody expects them to be true; but biographers have to put them in to satisfy the curiosity of the public. There must be a chapter headed ‘Early Days,’ or ‘Home Life,’ or something of that kind in every biography. That’s the stuff Billing expects us to supply in exchange for the statue. At the same time men like Gallagher and Doyle are appallingly stupid, and I can’t say you’re exactly brilliant, Major. Any of you may, in an unguarded moment——”
“I shan’t,” said the Major, “because I’m going straight home and don’t mean to leave the house again till this whole business is over.”