“I am worth four hundred millions.”
Fessenden gasped. The distant rumble of the streets came to his sensitive ears like the sound of crashing worlds. In a moment he laughed. “Go on,” he said. “I anxiously await the dawn, the arrival of hope. I am utterly incapable of grasping such a sum. Have you got it in gold coin in the bank? If you could show it to me in that concrete form I might realize it—not otherwise.”
“You will realize it when you have spent several months examining my papers; and when this natural bewilderment has passed you will recall all you have recently mastered of banking and finance. You can lay your hands on several millions in gold coin if you desire—and transfer them to your own account, for that matter; no wish of yours will ever again be ungratified by me. But the greater part represents the controlling interests in the leading corporations, industries, and railroads in this country, to say nothing of real estate, government bonds—of which I have the largest share of any man or combination of men—and the bank of which I am the president and principal shareholder. That is the skeleton; the details require weeks of explanation on my part and close application on yours. I have told you enough to demonstrate to you that the day approaches when you may be the most powerful man in the world if you choose. You will have heard that the Rothschilds dictate to Europe—that a nation may be unable to go to war if they refuse to advance the money. What the Rothschilds are as a family I am as an individual—and doubly so, for I can act on the moment; I am obliged to consult no one. When the coffers of the United States Treasury are low I can fill them; if I refused, and lifted my warning finger to others, they would remain empty. I can reduce the President of this great country to a mere figure-head. When the right moment comes I can push the United States into the front of nations, or force it to continue to play a third-rate part. In time I can—and shall—make her the most powerful, the most feared, the most hated of all the countries on the globe—through such a concentration of capital as no one at the present moment has had more than a tantalizing dream of. Fifteen years from now this country will not only be the clearinghouse of the world, but the autocrat of commerce. Do you begin to see light?”
“Yes, the dawn breaks; but by your leave I will go to my own room for a while. My brain must have a brief respite. Where am I to hang out?”
“The corner suite on the third floor. I have had a swimming-tank put in, a Russian bath, and a gymnasium. What you don’t like you will change, of course.”
“Thanks. I shall probably put a cot in the gymnasium.”
“Don’t fear that I am stifling you with luxury. I have my idea of what a man’s rooms should be, and I doubt if you find that it differs from your own.”
As Fessenden opened the door he turned with a sudden flash in his eyes. “Where is my sister?” he asked.
“She is visiting the Archduchess Ranata Theresia, daughter of the Emperor—”
But Fessenden had closed the door with force and was bounding up the stair. “Good God!” he thought, “is the world I am to live in made up of superlatives? I feel like Gulliver fallen upon Brobdingnag.”