"Perhaps," observed Captain Weir, "it would be well to reconsider the thing, and put it into the hands of the Carters; they are younger and have moved with the times."
But Charles smiled and shook his head.
"No," said he. "The Siddons yard builds honest craft; they built the first my father designed, and so they'll build these for me. Properly prodded, they'll do well enough; on launching-day you'll find us in possession of a pair of well-found ships that'll out-stow and perhaps outsail anything that carries the United States flag. Dick Siddons has always complained, but he has never failed me."
While other matters of food were being brought in, Charles Stevens talked. He was a fascinating talker; all history seemed at his finger ends, and especially the history of shipping. He drew dazzling pictures; events as recorded in his mind were always striking. He followed, at one period of the talk, the great movements of the armed world in the track of each fresh discovery of iron. The greed behind these movements, their terrifying injustices, the gross world fat they accumulated, the merciless labor they brought upon those who had no share in what their work produced, never seemed to present themselves to Charles. He saw only the surge of the thing, the sharp-pointing, definite track, the panoply and power that came into life, the romance in the thought that, snuggling beneath the surface, in places unthought of, except by a venturesome few, there lay the thing that made men great.
"He looks upon it," thought Anthony, "as the old Spaniards of the gulf must have regarded the idea of the fountain of life. It is a sort of magic."
Charles talked of ships and storms, of fabrics and ports, of men and nations, of ideas, prophecy, and signs in the heavens. Anthony followed his flowing words, enthralled by his enthusiasm and the rich color of his thought. But at the same time there was a spot in the young man's brain which remained alert and which the golden flood could not sweep away. And at this spot was an alert sentry, a direct inheritance from old Rufus; and this sentry watched and listened unemotionally. He saw a man moving with joy among the mountain-tops, drinking the thin, strong air as one would drink a heady wine; he saw the long leaps, spectacular and full of grace, from peak to peak, the flashing symbols of victory upon victory. But he did not once see him set foot upon the level earth where the plodders sweated in obscurity. The man's dream was a soaring one, full of color and gorgeousness; he caught lightly at wonders which those who moved in the lower levels did not even see; but, once seized, he threw the wonders to the plodders, and seldom thought of them again.
"To this man," reported the sentry posted by old Rufus in Anthony's brain, "life is all heights. There are no depths. To him, great deed follows upon the heels of noble effort; magnificent achievement springs full-armored into being, glory is a thing made by a single motion. The romance of commerce, as Dr. King called it, he holds to his heart; the reality he leaves to others." Anthony followed this report soberly, for the sentry was one in whom he had great faith. And before he closed his wicket for the night the sentry added, "And I wonder who these people are, through whose hands the realities pass?"
There was a space, after the plates had been removed and the wine and tobacco were brought in, in which Charles took Dr. King into a room adjoining, to point out an example of the work of a Persian artist for whom he expressed great admiration, and Anthony was left with Captain Weir. There was a silence for a moment, and then Weir said:
"Your uncle is in one of his talkative moods to-night." His level gaze was fixed upon Anthony with inquiry, but from his mask no indication was to be had of what was in his mind. "When a man talks we are often able to get a definite impression of him," said Weir.
Anthony nodded, but said nothing. The other waited; then he proceeded.