第89章 XIX(1)
IT was not many minutes after ten when Tetlow hurried into Norman's office. "Galloway's coming at eleven!" said he, with an air of triumph.
"So you mulled over what I said and decided that I was not altogether drunk?"
"I wasn't sure of that," replied Tetlow. "But I was afraid you'd be offended if I didn't try to get him.
He gave me no trouble at all. As soon as I told him you'd be glad to see him at your office, he astounded me by saying he'd come."
"He and I have had dealings," said Norman.
"He understood at once. I always know my way when I'm dealing with a big man. It's only the little people that are muddled and complex. I hope you'll not forget this lesson, Billy."
"I shan't," promised Tetlow.
"We are to be partners," pursued Norman. "We shall be intimately associated for years. You'll save me a vast amount of time and energy and yourself a vast amount of fuming and fretting, if you'll simply accept what I say, without discussion. When I want discussion I'll ask your advice."
"I'm afraid you don't think it's worth much," said Tetlow humbly, "and I guess it isn't."
"On the contrary, invaluable," declared Norman with flattering emphasis. "Where you lack and I excel is in decision and action. I'll often get you to tell me what ought to be done, and then I'll make you do it--which you'd never dare, by yourself."
At eleven sharp Galloway came, looking as nearly like a dangerous old eagle as a human being well could.
Rapacious, merciless, tyrannical; a famous philanthropist.
Stingy to pettiness; a giver away of millions.
Rigidly honest, yet absolutely unscrupulous; faithful to the last letter of his given word, yet so treacherous where his sly mind could nose out a way to evade the spirit of his agreements that his name was a synonym for unfaithfulness.
An assiduous and groveling snob, yet so militantly democratic that, unless his interest compelled, he would not employ any member of the "best families" in any important capacity. He seemed a bundle of contradictions. In fact he was profoundly consistent.
That is to say, he steadily pursued in every thought and act the gratification of his two passions--wealth and power. He lost no seen opportunity, however shameful, to add to his fortune or to amuse himself with the human race, which he regarded with the unpitying contempt characteristic of every cold nature born or risen to success.
His theory of life--and it is the theory that explains most great financial successes, however they may pretend or believe--his theory of life was that he did not need friends because the friends of a strong man weaken and rob him, but that he did need enemies because he could grow rich and powerful destroying and despoiling them. To him friends suggested the birds living in a tree. They might make the tree more romantic to the unthinking observer; but they in fact ate its budding leaves and its fruit and rotted its bough joints with their filthy nests.
We Americans are probably nearest to children of any race in civilization. The peculiar conditions of life--their almost Arcadian simplicity--up to a generation or so ago, gave us a false training in the study of human nature. We believe what the good preacher, the novelist and the poet, all as ignorant of life as nursery books, tell us about the human heart. We fancy that in a social system modeled upon the cruel and immoral system of Nature, success is to the good and kind. Life is like the pious story in the Sunday-school library; evil is the exception and to practice the simple virtues is to tread with sure step the highway to riches and fame. This sort of ignorance is taught, is proclaimed, is apparently accepted throughout the world. Literature and the drama, representing life as it is dreamed by humanity, life as it perhaps may be some day, create an impression which defies the plain daily and hourly mockings of experience. Because weak and petty of-fenders are often punished, the universe is pictured as sternly enforcing the criminal codes enacted by priests or lawyers. But, while all the world half inclines to this agreeable mendacity about life, only in America of all civilization is the mendacity accepted as gospel, and suspicion about it frowned upon as the heresy of cynicism. So the Galloways prosper and are in high moral repute. Some day we shall learn that a social system which is merely a slavish copy of Nature's barbarous and wasteful sway of the survival of the toughest could be and ought to be improved upon by the intelligence of the human race. Some day we shall put Nature in its proper place as kindergarten teacher, and drop it from godship and erect enlightened human understanding instead. But that is a long way off. Meanwhile the Galloways will reign, and will assure us that they won their success by the Decalogue and the Golden Rule--and will be believed by all who seek to assure for themselves in advance almost certain failure at material success in the arena of action.
But they will not be believed by men of ambition, pushing resolutely for power and wealth. So Frederick Norman knew precisely what he was facing when Galloway's tall gaunt figure and face of the bird of prey appeared before him. Galloway had triumphed and was triumphing not through obedience to the Sunday sermons and the silly novels, poems, plays, and the nonsense chattered by the obscure multitudes whom the mighty few exploit, but through obedience to the conditions imposed by our social system. If he raised wages a little, it was in order that he might have excuse for raising prices a great deal. If he gave away millions, it was for his fame, and usually to quiet the scandal over some particularly wicked wholesale robbery.