Roden's Corner

by Henry Seton Merriman

Then he seated himself in a carriage alone, with a sigh of relief at the thought that in a few days he would be back in London. His responsibility ended at The Hague, where he was to hand over the malgamite workers to the care of Roden and Von Holzen. They were rather a depressing set of men, and Holland, as seen from the carriage window—a snow-clad plain intersected by frozen ditches and canals—was no more enlivening. The temperature was deadly cold; the dull houses were rime-covered and forbidding. The malgamite makers had been gathered together from all parts of the world in a home specially organized for them in London. A second detachment was awaiting their orders at Hamburg. But the principal workers were these now placed under Cornish's care.

During the days of their arrival, when they had to be met and housed and cared for, the visionary part of this great scheme had slowly faded before a somewhat grim reality. Joan Ferriby had found the malgamite workers less picturesque than she had anticipated.

“If they only washed,” she had confided to Major White, “I am sure they would be easier to deal with.” And after talking French very vivaciously and boldly with a man from Lyons, she hurried back to the West End, and to the numerous engagements which naturally take up much of one's time when Lent is approaching, and dilatory hospitality is stirred up by the startling collapse of the Epiphany Sundays.

Here, however, were the malgamite workers and they had to be dealt with. It was not quite what many had anticipated, perhaps, and Cornish was looking forward with undisguised pleasure to the moment when he could rid himself of these persons whom Joan had gaily designated as “rather gruesome,” and whom he frankly recognized as sordid and uninteresting. He did not even look, as Joan had looked, to the wives and children who were to follow as likely to prove more picturesque and engaging.

The train made its way cautiously over the fog-ridden plain, and Cornish shivered as he looked out of the window. “Schiedam,” the porters called. This, Schiedam? A mere village, and yet the name was so familiar. The world seemed suddenly to have grown small and sordid. A few other stations with historic names, and then The Hague.

Cornish quitted his carriage, and found himself shaking hands with Roden, who was awaiting him on the platform, clad in a heavy fur coat. Roden looked clever and capable—cleverer and more capable than Cornish had even suspected—and the organization seemed perfect. The reserved carriages had been in readiness at the Hook. The officials were prepared.

“I have omnibuses and carts for them and their luggage,” were the first words that Roden spoke.

Cornish instinctively placed himself under Roden's orders. The man had risen immensely in his estimation since the arrival in London of the first malgamite maker. The grim reality of the one had enhanced the importance of the other. Cornish had been engaged in so many charities pour rire that the seriousness of this undertaking was apt to exaggerate itself in his mind—if, indeed, the seriousness of anything dwelt there at all.

“I counted them all over at the Hook,” he said. “One hundred and twenty—pretty average scoundrels.”

“Yes; they are not much to look at,” answered Roden.