How, indeed, could any who did not accuse Mr. Trimblerigg of demoniacal possession—which was the cry of the ‘Scarlet Parrot’—do otherwise? For here, undeniably, was a light that shone, which only spiritual agencies could explain; and, good or bad, the world must make its choice, and camp accordingly. For the most part it camped where the extraordinary phenomenon could best be seen—that is to say among Mr. Trimblerigg’s audiences, which now—aided by loud-speakers—had become vast, occupying almost daily a deserted stadium, where an ephemeral exhibition, having burned out its six-months’ popularity, still stood with only its shell of lath, plaster, and paint, awaiting the dissolution of time. Into that vast auditorium, in all weathers, wet or dry, special trains, running to the exhibition terminus, poured their thousands day after day. And day by day the world’s conviction that it was coming to a speedy and a prosperous end, increased and became a fever raging through the body politic, unstabilizing the currency, doing certain vested interests much harm, but others much more good.
When it was announced that Second Adventism had become a co-operative company for the conversion of Commerce to the reception of the New Jerusalem, presently to appear upon earth in concrete form, and when Mr. Trimblerigg promulgated a great building scheme—mainly of the said concrete—by which the vision was to materialize on the ground where the derelict Exhibition with its plaster palaces stood awaiting decay, then began ugly rushes on the Stock Exchange, a sharp shifting of investments; and between Big Finance, Episcopacy, and the Liquor Trade a desperate alliance was formed—quite as in the old days of Mr. Trimblerigg’s early career—sign that at last the real issue was to be joined, and that there were interests in the world—and powerful ones—which Second Adventism did not suit.
Mr. Trimblerigg, though it often annoyed him, was not the kind of man to fear opposition when it came. He did not avoid the challenge, he went out to meet it. But he saw that the tussle was coming, and in order to gain access of strength as expeditiously as possible for the ordeal that lay ahead he decided that the psychological moment had come for him to visit America.
Offers of a sensational character had, of course, already reached him. One Lecture Agency had assured him that if his halo would stand the change of climate, a scientific investigation, and the nervous strain incidental to a daily appearance before mammoth audiences, it could guarantee that thousands should be turned away in every city, and no seats sold to the public under five dollars a head.
Mr. Trimblerigg, when the time came, decided otherwise. He announced that admission was to be free. When America heard that, it first fell down and worshipped him, then in panic began to mobilize its army, double its police force, set up steel barricades and enlarge its cemeteries in order to cope with the record crowds and the ensuing mortality which would result. The problem of how to deal with countless multitudes all ruthlessly set at whatever expense to life and limb, on seeing a real halo alive on a man’s head, and hearing the man’s head speak from the midst of it, occupied the headlines of the newspapers for weeks, even before Mr. Trimblerigg started on his voyage. And when he had started, then all the reporters of the American press chartered a ship and went out to meet him.
It was then that Mr. Trimblerigg was asked the historic question what it felt like to be the greatest man in the world. And Mr. Trimblerigg answered that it made him feel shy; and the next moment could have bitten his tongue out for having fallen so easily into the first trap which an expert in publicity had set for him.
It did not in the least really matter. It made good copy; and though it also made the judicious smile, the judicious—always an insignificant minority—in an affair conducted on so vast a scale did not count.
‘Trimblerigg charges that he is the greatest man alive,’ was an unfair way of putting it; but it could not be described as untrue. And so he just had to live it down.
He did so without any difficulty. He was in a country where only the statue of Liberty shared the distinction that he carried about with him; and while her halo only shot out in separate rays from perforations concealed under her crown, his was a perfect round, it went out everywhere; it was also alight continuously day and night. The torchlight procession organized up Fifth Avenue to greet its arrival was thrown into the shade by its ever-increasing vitality. The torches were a foolish excrescence, they interested nobody; and though five miles of them impeded the distant view, the one central fact outshone them all.
The reporters, dealing with that central fact, after a brief attempt to be facetious had become hushed and awes-truck. Their public would not allow them to be otherwise; America, having gotten a live halo to its shores, was not in a mood to have its genuineness questioned, the mystery of its origin derided, or any other slight put upon its dignity. It became a thing inviolate, sacred as ‘Old Glory’ herself; and when an unfortunate youth, unimpressed by the beauty of its holiness, shouted a derisive remark at its passing, the crowd lynched him for it. After that minority opinion became as terrorized from expressing itself as it had been while the ‘Liberty Loan’ was voluntarily subscribing for America’s entry into the war. There was no half-way safety point left: those who doubted the divine origin of Mr. Trimblerigg’s luminosity were regarded as Satanists; and when here, as in the old world, Episcopacy persisted in holding out, the genuineness of its Orders began for the first time to be generally doubted, and the numbers of its adherents seriously diminished. No wonder that even the ‘Movies’ became afraid of him, and offered him fabulous sums to turn film-artist, on the single condition that during his term of contract he would keep himself hid from the public eye.