The general laugh at this dry comment evoked a demand by the Mexican for a Spanish version of the joke. Then he made it clear that he had resolved to abjure wine, and was only salving his conscience by a proverb.
This cheerful badinage, which might pass among any gathering of men when one of them happened to be greeted by a pretty woman, did not leave Power unscathed. He had dwelt too long apart from his fellows not to wince at allusions which would glance harmlessly off less sensitive skins. The iron which had entered into his soul was fused to a white heat by sight of the woman he had loved and lost. He resented what he imagined as being the knowledge these boon companions boasted of his parlous state. Unable to join in their banter, not daring to trust his voice in the most obvious of retorts, for the man from Plainville had not been designed by nature to pose as a squire of dames, he gulped down a glass of champagne at a draft, and pretended to make up for wasted time in an interrupted course.
Dacre seemed to think that he would be interested in the latest gossip in financial circles with reference to a supposed scheme organized by Marten and Van Ralten to fight the Oil Trust. Power listened in silence until he felt sure of himself; then he launched out vigorously.
“It strikes me that America has lost the art of producing great men,” he said. “We whites are degenerating into mere money-grubbers; so, by the law of compensation, our next demigod should be a nigger.”
“Huh!” snorted Alabama, eager for battle.
“That’s my serious opinion,” continued Power dogmatically. “And, what’s more, I think I know the nigger. Have any of you dined in the Auditorium Hotel, Chicago?”
Yes, several; dining-room on top floor; lightning elevator; all right going up empty, but coming down full was rather a trial.
“Well, you will remember that, as you go in, a young colored gentleman takes your hat and overcoat, and cane or umbrella. He supplies no numbered voucher, and cannot possibly tell at which tables some six or seven hundred diners will be seated. At this time of year every man is wearing a straw hat of similar design; yet, as each guest comes forth, he is handed his own hat and other belongings. Now, I hold that that nigger has a brain of supreme mathematical excellence. There is not a financier in Wall Street who could begin to emulate that feat of memory. Given a chance, and such men make their own opportunities. The Auditorium cloakroom attendant will rise to a dizzy height.”
“Tosh!” exclaimed Alabama, primed with facts to prove that hundreds of negroes could perform similar tricks, but were no good for anything else.
He was no match for Power in an argument where figures held a place, and Dacre was the only other man present who realized that the talk had been boldly and skilfully wrenched to an impersonal topic. He, at any rate, made no further allusion to Marten or his projects; though he continued to watch Power narrowly but unobtrusively. Himself something of a derelict, though his aimless path lay in summer seas, he had conceived a warm regard for the quiet-mannered stranger from Colorado. Neither he nor any of the others knew aught of Power’s history, who might really be the rancher he professed to be, though his student’s features and reserved manner did not bear out the assumption. Later, when Dacre was better informed, he realized the cause of his first skepticism, for the engineer belonged to one of those rarer types of mankind who, like the lawyer, the soldier, the physician, and the clergyman, had the seal of his life’s work stamped plainly upon him.