"Oh—isn't he?" And Helmsley feigned to be affected with a troublesome cough which necessitated his looking away for a minute. "Has he turned up?"
"Yes—he's turned up. That is to say, that he's expected back in town for the 'season,' as the Cooing Column of the paper says."
"Why, what's the Cooing Column?" asked Mary, laughing.
"The fashionable intelligence corner," answered Angus, joining in her laughter. "I call it the Cooing Column, because it's the place where all the doves of society, soiled and clean, get their little grain of personal advertisement. They pay for it, of course. There it is that the disreputable Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup gets it announced that she wore a collar of diamonds at the Opera, and there the battered, dissipated Lord 'Jimmy' Jenkins has it proudly stated that his yacht is undergoing 'extensive alterations.' Who in the real work-a-day, sane world cares a button whether his lordship Jenkins sails in his yacht or sinks in it! And Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup's diamonds are only so much fresh fuel piled on the burning anguish of starving and suffering men,—anguish which results in anarchy. Any number of anarchists are bred from the Cooing Column!"
"What would you have rich men do?" asked Helmsley suddenly. "If all their business turns out much more successfully than they have ever expected, and they make millions almost despite their own desire, what would you have them do with their wealth?"
Angus thought a moment.
"It would be difficult to advise," he said at last. "For one thing I would not have them pauperise two of the finest things in this world and the best worth fighting for—Education and Literature. The man who has no struggle at all to get himself educated is only half a man. And literature which is handed to the people free of cost is shamed by being put at a lower level than beer and potatoes, for which every man has to pay. Andrew Carnegie I look upon as one of the world's big meddlers. A 'cute' meddler too, for he takes care to do nothing that hasn't got his name tacked on to it. However, I'm in great hopes that his pauperising of Scottish University education may in time wear itself out, and that Scotsmen will be sufficiently true to the spirit of Robert Burns to stick to the business of working and paying for what they get. I hate all things that are given gratis. There's always a smack of the advertising agent about them. God Himself gives nothing 'free'—you've got to pay with your very life for each gulp of air you breathe,—and rightly too! And if you try to get something out of His creation without paying for it, the bill is presented in due course with compound interest!"
"I agree with you," said Helmsley. "But what, then, of the poor rich men? You don't approve of Carnegie's methods of disbursing wealth. What would you suggest?"
"The doing of private good," replied Angus promptly. "Good that is never heard of, never talked of, never mentioned in the Cooing Column. A rich man could perform acts of the most heavenly and helpful kindness if he would only go about personally and privately among the very poor, make friends with them, and himself assist them. But he will hardly ever do this. Now the millionaire who is going to marry my first love, Lucy Sorrel——"
"Oh, is he going to marry her?" And Helmsley looked up with sudden interest.