“Scarlett,” he said, in English, “let us come to the 115 point. I am a mercenary American; you are an American mercenary, paid by the French government. You care nothing for that government or for the country; you would drop both to-day if your pay ceased. You and I are outsiders; we are in the world to watch our chances. And our chance is here.”
He unfolded the creased bit of paper and spread it out on his knees, smoothing it thoughtfully.
“What do I care for the Internationale?” he asked, blandly. “I am high in its councils; Karl Marx knows less about the Internationale than do I. As for Prussia and France—bah!—it’s a dog-fight to me, and I lack even the interest to bet on the German bull-dog.
“You will know me better some day, and when you do you will know that I am a man who has determined to get rich if I have to set half of France against the other half and sack every bank in the Empire.
“And now the time is coming when the richest city in Europe will be put to the sack. You don’t believe it? Yet you shall live to see Paris besieged, and you shall live to see Paris surrender, and you shall live to see the Internationale rise up from nowhere, seize the government by the throat, and choke it to death under the red flag of universal—ahem!... license”—the faintest sneer came into his pallid face—“and every city of France shall be a commune, and we shall pass from city to city, leisurely, under the law—our laws, which we will make—and I pity the man among us who cannot place his millions in the banks of England and America!”
He began to worry the creased bit of paper again, stealthy eyes on the floor.
“The revolt is as certain as death itself,” he said. “The Society of the Internationale honeycombs Europe—your police archives show you that—and I tell you that, of the two hundred thousand soldiers of the 116 national guard in Paris to-day, ninety per cent. are ours—ours, soul and body. You don’t believe it? Wait!
“Yet, for a moment, suppose I am right? Where are the government forces? Who can stop us from working our will? Not the fragments of beaten and exhausted armies! Not the thousands of prisoners which you will see sent into captivity across the Rhine! What has the government to lean on—a government discredited, impotent, beaten! What in the world can prevent a change, an uprising, a revolution? Why, even if there were no such thing as the Internationale and its secret Central Committee—to which I have the honor to belong”—and here his sneer was frightful—“I tell you that before a conquering German army had recrossed the Rhine this land of chattering apes would be tearing one another for very want of a universal scape-goat.
“But that is exactly where we come into the affair. We find the popular scape-goat and point him out—the government, my friend. And all we have to do is to let the mob loose, stand back, and count profits.”
He leaned forward in his chair, idly twisting his crumpled bit of paper in one hand.