59668	----	[Illustration: Book Cover] [Illustration: THE COCK OF THE WALK.] HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE 1882 [Illustration] NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS FRANKLIN SQUARE Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. "All aboard!" 769. Ancestors, In the Halls of his, 489. ANGELS:--The Angels' Watch, 525; Five little Angels, 733. ANIMALS:--Barnum's Show in Winter-Quarters, 265, 281; Riddle about Animals, 541. Apes--The Prisoner at the Bar, 509. Apple, Little Girl with a big--"Too bad," 832. Aquarium, A queer, 272. ARCTIC:--Fishing Fleet in Green Bay--A Girl of Reykjavik, Iceland, 89. Art Decoration, 336. Asleep--The beautiful Land of Nod, 717. Asphalt Pavement--Prying the Boys out, 104. Astronomical Acrostic Puzzle, 476. At Odds, 292. BABIES:--Puzzled, 384; Fourth-of-July Procession, 585; "Where did you come from?" 665; Measuring the Baby, 832. Baboon, Peter, at the "Zoo," 469. Bagdad--"The Bridge of Boats," 828. BAGGAGE:--Boy about to carry Baggage--"Doing Something," 337; The young Baggage-smasher, 596. BALLOONS:--Our Balloon, 252; Billy's first Rise in the World, 696. Barnegat, New Jersey Coast, Off, 676. Barnum's Show in Winter-Quarters, 265, 281. Base-Ball at the Polo Grounds, New York City, 524. Base-Ball Season, The--The "Home Run," 512. Bath-Room, The, 205. Bat, The Owl and the, 92, 93. Battle, A sham, 97. BEARS:--Bear feasting on Remains of Canoeists' Breakfast, 805; Mark Outrigger in the Clutches of the Bear, 840. Bed, Just out of, 528. Bedouins, A Party of wandering, 732. Bell, Tolling the, 393. BEN BUTTLES:--Ben Buttles's great Catch, 1; Ben at Work, 24. "Besieged," 793. Billy's first Rise in the World, 696, 712. BIRDS:--"Why shouldn't we enjoy ourselves?" 208; A Bird escaped--"Flown," 212; Swallows and their Nests, 233; The Titmouse, 345; An April Shower, 408; The Vain Sparrows, 425; Barn-Swallows and their Nests, 456; California Linnet, 456; House-hunting, 480; Wrens and their Nests, 521; "Strategy," 581; African Kingfishers, 633; Humming-Birds, 745. Blockheads, The merry, 432. "Blood will run? I wonder if the," 800. Boar, A wild, 296. BOATS:--"Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," 457; Boy sailing a Boat, 702; Boarding the Gun-Boats, 808. Bonheur's (Rosa) "A Humble Servant," 321. Boot-Black--"His first Shine," 336. Boot of Card-Board, 103. Borneo, The Head-Hunters of, 388. Bouquet, An animated, 352. "Bow-wow!" 481. Boy, A very bad. 137. Boy, Metempsychosis of an idle, 80. Boy's Head, 193. "Bread-and-Butter Days," 777. Brooklyn Sunday-School Union, Fifty-third Anniversary of the, 504, 505. Broom, The queer old, 109. Brown's (J. G.) "Clear the Track," 841. Buckwheat Cakes--A Winter Nightmare, 320. Bull, The obstinate--"Jes you 'have yerself, and come 'long now," 464; "And she went," 464. Bull tossing Boy in the Air, 652. "Burglars, They thought they were both," 725. Butterfly Net, 599; Butterflies, 600. "Cæsar's Arch" at Ctesiphon, 732. Calf and Girl--"Good-Morning!" 716. Camel and small African--"My golly! I's cotched him dis time, for sure," 32. Camel--The Mail-Rider of the Desert, 692. Camisards, The Boy Commander of the--Cavalier personating the Lieutenant of the Count Broglio, 232. Candy Pull, The, 301. CANOE CLUB, THE CRUISE OF THE:--"Don't think for a Moment of getting any other Canoe," 657; "She's half full of Water," 677; A Stampede in Camp, 689; Not so easy as it looks, 709; "He caught hold of the Root of a Tree, and kept his Canoe stationary," 721; Running the Rapid, 741; Getting Breakfast under Difficulties, 760; Hunting for a Wild-Cat in Chambly Castle, 773; Sailing down the Richelieu River, 792; A Bear feasting upon the Remains of their Breakfast, 805; Around the Camp Fire, 821; "How in the World did you get up there?" 844. Canoe, Diagram of, 651. Cans, Old Fruit, 320. Car, Boy driving a--Very nearly a Collision, 756. Carnival, The Children's, 285. Carpentering--How to make a Tool Chest, 844. "Cars, Look out for the," 752. Cast, A most successful, 656. CATS:--The two Pets, 88; "Winter-Quarters," 153; Mr. Thomas Catt and Family at Dinner, 249; Art Decoration, 336; Pussy's Music Lesson, 448; Kitty's Dream, 605; A guilty Conscience, 784; Greedy Jerry, 800; Twilight, 814; "Wait a few Minutes, Pussy," 817. Chair, A Steam, 172. Chair-Sleigh, 269. Chase, A Summer, 544. "Cherries are Ripe," 573. Cherry-Tree Lesson, A, 589. Chicks and the Worm, The, 672. Child and the Watcher, The, 330. Choir Boys, 340. CHRISTMAS:--A Christmas Scene in Scandinavia, 4; Christmas Morning, 100; Christmas Morning: Before Daylight, 112; Preparing for Christmas, 112; A Perfect Christmas, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126; The Angel's Proclamation, 129; A Christmas Mystery, 132; Christmas Pie, 136; "A very bad Boy," 137. Church Steeple, Regilding the--Ben at Work, 24. Circumstances alter Cases, 848. CIRCUS:--Mr. Barnum's great Show in Winter-Quarters, 265, 281; Circus Wagon and runaway Horse--"It was all in a Minute," 748. Clavichord, 69. "Clear the Track" (J. G. Brown), 841. Clock, The magic, 128. Clowns' Duel, The, 368. Coaching, 560. Cock-Horse to Banbury Cross, Ride a, 173, 352. Coney Island, Under Way for, 801. "Cooks, Too many, spoil the Broth," 173. Corals, 724. Corday, Charlotte, Painting the Portrait of, 37. Cork, Balancing a, 16. Corner, In the, 237, 537. Cotton, Parsee Merchants bargaining for, 588. Country, Poor Boys' Trip to the--The Fresh-Air Fund, 681. Cow, A very new, 785. Cupids, The sad Fate of seventeen, 268. Curling-Match at Central Park, New York, 248. "Daisy-spotted Meadow, Thro' the," 189. Daisy Trail, The, 632. Dancing Lesson, The, 160. Dandelions Grow, How the, 448. "Dellusk," 412. DESIGNS:--A Swan Design for Flat Pocket Pincushion, 780. "Dining-Room, Wasn't there a Circus in that," 572. "Dinner in the Nursery, New-Year's," 145. Doctor, Playing, 617. DOGS:--"The Two Families," 8; A Friend in Need is a Friend indeed, 81; The Shepherd's Friends, 217; The new Love, 312, 313; Sympathy, 329; "Railway Jack," 343; Dr. Blank giving Pepper his Medicine, 389; Nero, 420; "Bow-wow!" 481; The Dogs holding the Lynx at Bay, 513; Meeting of Dogs, 592; The Playmates, 608; "Wait for Pussy, Fido!" 648, 649; A first Glimpse into the World, 824. DOLLS:--Washing Dolly, 33; The Dolls' Reception, 73; Dolls in Shop Windows, New York City, 141; The little Dolls' Dressmaker, 188, 204, 220, 236; A sweet Kiss from Dolly, 601; "I do love Dolly so much!" 804. DONKEYS:--Homeless, 269; A humble Servant, 321; Baby in Donkey-Cart, 492. Dot's Letter, 205. Dreamer, A little, 184, 185. Dream, Kitty's, 605. "Dreams, Such happy," 169. "Dress, I see myself hurrying into Mattie's," 437. DUCKS:--"We ain't afraid, 'cause we can swim," 304; Awful thirsty, 736; Wild-Ducks, 846. Dunces' Bench, The, 413. Easter Egg, Bringing home the, 384. Easter--"For lo! He hath arisen," 369. Electricity, Experiments with, 240. ELEPHANTS:--The performing Elephant, 48; A farewell Ride on Jumbo, 373; How Jumbo crossed the Ocean, 409. Evening, Morning and, 713. Fairy Godmother, Bessy's--"She snatched the Key, and said, 'I will be back in a Moment,'" 825. False Colors--"I see myself hurrying into Mattie's Dress," 437; "I stood back, ashamed of my Position among them all," 460. "Families, The two" (Michael Munkacsy), 8. Fan Tales, Japanese, 637. Fashions for the Fall, 782. Feeding his Pets, 645. Fencing, A young Prince practicing the Art of, 440. FIRES:--Rescued from the Flames--The first "Steamer", in New York, 44; "Pailful after Pailful of Water was dashed upon the Fire," 584. FIRE-WORKS:--Burning the "Toro," 564; Wonderful Fire-Works, 576. FISH AND FISHING:--Ben Buttles's great Catch, 1; Fishing Fleet in Green Bay, 89; Sponge Fishing, 149; Fish-Hooks and Fishing Implements, 427, 428, 700; Paddy and the Fish, 540; "Something bright and vigorous sprang clear out of the Water," 612; A most successful Cast, 656; Something like a Bite, 720; "A little too much Fish," 736; "The Three walked away up the Path," 837. FLOWERS AND PLANTS:--Grape Fungus, 101; Potato Fungus--Loaf Mildew--Rye Smut--Mildew on Virginia Creeper--Silk-Worm Fungus, 102; Corn and magnified Root--Geranium Pistil--Geranium Stamen and Pollen Grains--Pistil of Heart's-ease, 244; A Vase of Flowers, 318; What the Spring brought to little lame Elsie, 340; Lady's-Slipper--Young Plant growing on Flower Stem, 355; Honey Pouch and Pollen Pods--Pencil and Needle, with Pollen--Butterfly's Proboscis, with Pollen, 356; Leaf of Geranium Flower--Leaf of Sorrel--Corn Stalk cut across--Plant Mouths--Water-carrying Plants--Cactus, 532; The Flower Girl, 685; The Bean--Movement of Root of Black Bean--Morning-Glories--Virginia Creeper--Pads through the Microscope--Diagram of straight and curved Stems, 788. Flown, 212. FOOT-BALL:--A Game of--Diagram of the Ground, 90; A "Punt"--A "Drop-Kick," 91. Fourth of July in the Woods, Celebrating the, 576. Fourth-of-July Procession, The Babies', 585. Fresh-Air Fund, The, 681. Frost Queen, The little, 273. Gate, Kissing through the, 750. Gauls mounting the Walls of the Capitol, The, 757. Genius, The young, 512. "Girl, Best, in America!" 97. GIRL, THEIR--"No, sir; I'm goin' to buy you a new Dress," 776; The Boys trying to select a Dress for Katy, 796; Under Way for Coney Island, 801. Gladiolus--The sad Fate of seventeen Cupids, 268. Glass, Baby looking into a--"Where did you come from?" 665. Glass, Girl looking in the--Not quite satisfied, 638. GOATS:--The Dancing Goat, 701; "O Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me?" 761; Four Goats--A Puzzle, 816. Golden-Rod, 772. "Good-Morning!" 716. Gossips, The, 302; Little Gossips, 830. Grandma, A too-confiding, 688. Grandmamma's Chair, In, 297. "Grandmother, Little," 520. "G'an'pa, Dit up," 297. "Grandpa, you do look sweet," 53. Greenwood Scene, A, 558. Greuze's (J. P.) Boy's Head, 193. Guest, An unbidden, 528. Hahs's (Philip B.) "What yer laughin' at?" 9. "Hair, Just one Lock of," 488. Hair, Little Girl cutting her, 800. "Halsewell," The loss of the--"They pulled with a will," 441. Happy New-Year, 142. Harpsichord, Handel's favorite, 70. Heroism--A Roll of Honor, 819. Holidays over, The, 161. Homeless, 269. HONDURAS, ON THE KEYS OF:--"You Dog, why don't you answer?" 276; Ashton protecting himself from the Wild-Boar, 296. Hornet, Parrot and--An unwelcome Visitor, 620. HORSES:--A wooden Horse--Dobbin's Perversity, 109; "Lightning walked straight ahead," 549; "Poor old Dobbin!" 668. "Hot, Too," 705. House-hunting, 480. Hubbard, Little Mother, 728, 729. Hunters--"The Hunt is up, the Morn is bright and gray," 68. Hutch, The Rabbit, 697. Hydroids growing on a Shell--Hydroid magnified, showing Spore-Sacs--Jelly-Fish, with Young in various Stages, 308. Ice, Boys on--The Thermometer at 100°, 608. ICE, FUN ON THE:--"Snapping the Whip," 192; "Shinny on your own Side," 224; "Keeping the Pot boiling," 240; Treating the Ladies to a Sleigh-Ride, 256. Iceland, A Girl of Reykjavik, 89. Ice, The last of the--"Every Cake they trod upon danced and wobbled"--The Rescue, 300. Iguana, The, 804. Indian Pearl-Diver, 324. "Indian, With a single Blow he knocked over the," 421. Insects, What five, are represented in this Picture? 656. Italian Boy, The little--Nicolo, 52. Japan, Buried Treasures in--A native Picture, 684. Japanese Fan Tales, 637. Jelly-Fish, 435, 436, 437. JIMMY BROWN'S EXPERIENCES:--"Oh, my!" 40; The Steam Chair, 172; "We've been playing Pigs, Ma," 357; "Sue had opened the Box," 429; "They thought they were both Burglars," 725; The Trapeze Performance, 789. JINGLES (illustrated):--749, 765, 781, 797, 829. JUMBO:--A farewell Ride on Jumbo, 373; How Jumbo crossed the Ocean, 409. Jumping over a Rope--"Skippity-Hop," 448. Kettle and Pan, Rub-a-dub-dub on, 109. Kettle-holder, A, 508. Kingfishers, African, 633. King Hazelnut, 61. Kiss, A loving, 237. Kiss from Dolly, A sweet, 601. KITES:--352, 379, 397. Knitted and Crochet Mitten, 77. Knitting, Grandfather, 557. Lacrosse, A Game of, at the Polo Ground, New York City, 25. Land of Nod, The beautiful, 717. Lanterns, 556. Lapp Driver, Reindeer and Pack, with, 4. "Laughin' at, What yer" (Philip B. Hahs), 9. Lawn Tennis Tournament at the St. George's Club Ground, Hoboken, 41. "Leap-Frog," 416. Leaves, Autumn, 812. Letter, His first, 94. Lights flared up one by one, The, 416. "Little Jack," 292. Little Ones, These my, 553. Lizard--The Iguana, 804. Lullaby, A, 680. Lynx at Bay, The Dogs holding the, 513. Madeira, Tom Fairweather in--Carriage drawn by Oxen--Hammock-Riding--The Mountain Sled, 140. Mail-Rider of the Desert, The, 692. Make Way for his Majesty! 253. Mammoth, The Story of a great, 737. Marjorie's New-Years Eve--"We are going right to Santa Claus's Castle," 152. Masquerade Party, A, 216. May I come in? 404. Meet, A bad Place to, 704. Metempsychosis of an idle Boy, 80. Mexican Fire-Works--The "Toro." 564. Mexico--The Favorite Tree of Montezuma--"The Tree of the Noche Triste," 644. MICE:--The captured Mouse, 21; The daring Mice, 813. Midsummer Song, A, 621. Milk, Child and a Pan of, 144. Mill, The old, 653. Mitten, Knitted and Crochet, 77. Monkey and Porcupine (stealing Peaches), 16. Monogram Puzzle, 237. Morning and Evening, 713. Moth Dance, The, 344. Mother Hubbard, Little, 728, 729. Mother's Baby, 430. "Mountain, For some time the Boys rested on the Side of the," 405. Moving Day, 445. MR. STUBBS'S BROTHER:--The Conference, 353; Ben practicing in his Father's Barn, 372; Training the old blind Horse, 385; Leander is engaged at Home, 387; "'Now be all ready to run,' he said," 401; The Managers of the Circus looking at the Posters of their Rival, 424; Old Ben, 433; Mr. and Mrs. Treat exhibit privately for the Benefit of the Boys, 453; Uncle Daniel receiving his Guests, 465; "'Oh, Ben!' was all Toby could say," 485; "'How did this Boy get hurt?' asked Ben," 501; "Mr. Stubbs's Brother was brought in," 517; Toby and Abner attending the Rehearsal, 529; Unrolling the Schooner's Sails, 545; Mr. Stubbs's Brother misbehaves himself, 565; Searching for the Burglar, 577; The Boys inquiring for Mr. Stubbs's Brother, 597; Mr. Stubbs's Brother after his Encounter with the Porcupine, 616; Bob and the "Grizzlee Bare," 625; Toby rescues the crowing Hen from Mr. Stubbs's Brother, 641; "The great white-winged Messenger of God came," 664; Toby and Mr. Stubbs's Brother, 664. Mumps, Some, 224. Mushrooms of the Sea, 436. MUSIC:--Musical Instruments--Clavichord--Italian Spinet--Piano of about 1777--Handel's favorite Harpsichord, 69, 70; The Music-Room, 284; Pussy's Music Lesson, 449; The first Music Lesson, 548. NAN--"I am your Second Cousin Phyllis," 833. Napoleon presenting the Cross of the Legion of Honor to the Drummer-Boy, 536. Negro Girl in Mischief--Topsy left all alone, 493. New Jersey Coast south of Sandy Hook, 500. New Love, The, 312, 313. Newsboy--Happy as a King--"Papers all sold," 61. "New-Year's Dinner in the Nursery," 145. New York City, Scenes in Shop Windows, 141. Nightingale's Lesson, The, 253. NURSERY RHYMES:--"Willy Boy, Willy Boy"--A Diller, a Dollar--Tell-tale Tit--To Market, to Market--Jack Sprat--Lucy Locket lost her Pocket--Cross Patch--Ride a Cock-Horse--Polly, put the Kettle on, 29; Ring-a-ring-a-Roses--Little Maid, little Maid--Seesaw--As I was going up Pippin Hill--Goosey, Goosey, Gander--Tommy Snooks and Bessie Brooks--Georgie Peorgie--My Mother and your Mother--Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son, 45. (See also "Jingles.") Nutting-Time, The Pleasures of, 57. "One, two, three, down goes she!" 624. "Order Arms!" 561. Organ Adventure, Art's--"He was drinking Coffee or Soup out of a Cup," 225. Oriole feeding his Mate, An, 168. Ostriches, 28. Owl and Child--A severe School-Master, 676. Owl and the Bat, The, 92, 93. Painting the Portrait of Charlotte Corday, 37. Panther, Killing the, 17. Pantomime, Children of the, 105. PARROTS:--"Teasing Tom," 305; Parrot and Hornet--An unwelcome Visitor, 620; "Does Polly want a Cracker?" 720. Patient, The little, 569. Pearl-bearing Shells, Group of, 324. Pearl-Diver, Indian, 324. Pets, The two, 88. Phizo, 464. Photographs, Girls taking each other's, 228. PIANO-FORTE, THE:--Playing the Piano--"Quite in the Style of her Mistress," 48; Clavichord--Italian Spinet--Virginal--Piano of about 1777--Handel's Favorite Harpsichord, 69, 70. Pie-Plant Gatherer, The little, 764. PIGS:--"We've been playing Pigs, Ma," 357; "Oh, that Pig!" 444; "Such a Lot of us, and we're so Clean!" 624: "Besieged," 793. Pincushion, A--Cover of Pincushion, 92. Plants. (See "Flowers," etc.) Plaque, The Fairy, 221. Playmates, The, 480, 608. "Play with, I want Somebody to," 809. "Polly want a Cracker?" 720. Pony-Cart upset--A too-confiding Grandma, 688. Poor Woman from Baby-Land, Here comes a, 672. Porcupine and Monkey (stealing Peaches), 16. Portuguese Man-of-War, 516. Postage Stamps, 135, 404. "Pot, keep boiling"--Bubble, Bubble, Bubble, 77. Predicament, A complicated--"'Here's Job! here's Job!' shouted every one at once," 216. Prince's first Ride, The, 13. Prisoner at the Bar, The, 509. Punchinello's marvellous Adventures, 316, 317, 332, 333, 348, 349. Puppet-Show, The, 416. Pussy's Music Lesson, 449. "Pussy, Wait a few Minutes," 817. Queen of Hearts, The, 156, 157. Rackets, 362. Raft, Launching the, 544. RATS:--Rats and the Meal, 397; Rats and Mice--Rats escaping from Box, 429. Rebuses, 432, 704, 848. Reception, The Dolls', 73. Recess, Fun at--Leap-Frog, 416; The Tug of War, 816. Rehearsal, The, 205. Reindeer and Pack, with Lapp Driver, 4. Restaurant, A School--Disposing of the Candy--Lunch-Hour in an Industrial School, 200; Midday Dinner in the "School Restaurant," 201. Ride, The Prince's first, 13. Rocks telling their Story, The, 20. "Royal George," The Loss of the, 164. Rustic-Work, 636. "Sail a Boat," 444. Satisfied, Not quite, 638. Scandinavia, A Christmas Scene in, 4. School is Out! 477. School's Begun, 766. Scientific Puzzles, 32. Scrap and his Kitten, 497. Sea-Anemones, 613. Servant, a Humble (Rosa Bonheur), 321. SHAMRUCK:--"'Yes,' he said, 'I do want a new Pair," 113; "She gathered those little Beings about her," 116; "In a Moment a strange Figure appeared before him"--"The King jumped out of Bed," 117; "Taking Milk from the Giant's Spoon," 120. Sheep at Grandpa's Farm, The, 593. SHELLS:--"It's telling me all about the Sea," 180; Pearl-bearing Shells, 324. Shepherd's Friends, The, 217. Shine, His first, 336. "Shinny on your own Side"--Fun on the Ice, 224. Shipwrecked Party rescued by the "Ark," The, 628. Shooter, A good, 784. Show, An Amateur--"Doing Something," 337. Shower, An April, 408. "Sick, Me's," 629. Sisters, The little, 673. Skating, Birds--"Why shouldn't we enjoy ourselves?" 208. Skating--Fun on the Ice--"Snapping the Whip," 192. "Skippity-Hop," 448. "Sleep, Baby, Sleep," 365. "Sleepers, The little," 209. Sleeping in the Meadow, 286. Sleigh, Chair, 269. Sleigh drawn by four coal-black Horses, 177. Snow Man with the nodding Head, The, 304. Soldiers, Little--"Order Arms!" 561. Somebody is coming, 468. Sparrows, The vain, 425. Spectre Specs, The, 208. Spinet, Italian, 69. Spitsbergen--Fishing Fleet in Green Bay, 89. SPONGES:--Sponge-Fishing--Sponges growing--Group of Spicules--Circulation of Water through the Sponge--Glass Sponge, 149, 150. SPRING:--"Spring, the sweet Spring, is the King of the Year," 344; The Spring Concert, 361; Spring Sport's, 448. Stairs, Children on--Morning and Evening, 713. "St. Mary's," The Boys of the, listening to the Story of their old Commander's Death, 472. Strategy, 581. "Straw, A Man of," 205. Styles for Boys, Spring and Fall, 366. SUMMER:--Dreaming of the coming Summer, 461; Going to spend the Summer at the Sea-side, 560; "They come, the merry Summer Months of Beauty, Song, and Flowers," 592. Sunday Dinner, Dissatisfied with his, 144. "Sweetheart, My little," 452. Sympathy, 529. Tadema's (Laura Alma) "Winter," 280. "Taffy," 688. TALKING LEAVES, THE:--The Corral, 5; Killing the Panther, 17; The Lipans securing the Game, 36; "Many Bears looked at the Picture," 60; "A Spy-Glass! I didn't know you had one," 76; "All the while Bill was tapping away with his Hammer," 85; "The foremost levelled his Gun straight at Red Wolf," 108; "They'd better have killed her, like they did mine," 133; Marking the Buckhorn Mine, 148; The ragged little Captain, 165; "There was one little patient-looking Mule which had more than his share," 181; "The storm of dark Horsemen was headed by Many Bears in person," 197; "Halt! they've brought out the Boys," 213; The Apache Women waiting for the return of the Braves, 229; "Everything's got to go by Weight," 245; "In an Instant she was floundering in the River," 261; The Miners crossing the Ford, 277; The Escape of To-la-go-to-de and his Chiefs, 293; "'What! do you understand English?'" 309; "Stow away as many of these little Bags as you can," 325; "Rita, Rita, my dear little Daughter!" 341; "She dropped her Stew-pan and stood looking at him," 364; "Dismount behind your Horses, and take aim across the Saddle," 376; "Oh, Ni-ha-be, come with me!" 396. Tchungkee, The Game of, 264. Tea, An Afternoon, 744. Team, A splendid, 845. "Teasing Tom," 305. "Terrors, In a thousand" (L. Knaus), 473. THANKSGIVING:--The Way the little Folks keep Thanksgiving-Day, 49; An unexpected Thanksgiving Dinner, 56; The real Way to celebrate Thanksgiving, 64; The last of the Thanksgiving Feast, 80. Thief, Opportunity makes the, 328. Thirsty, Awful, 736. Times (Father) Dilemma, 289. Titmouse Family, The, 345. Toboggan, The, 228. Tom Primrose protected his Father, How--"'See, they're getting away!' he cried," 65. Tool Chest, How to make a, 844, 845. Tops, 412, 413. "Track, Clear the" (J. G. Brown), 841. Trapeze Performance, The, 789. Trees--The Favorite Tree of Montezuma--"The Tree of the Noche Triste," 644. Truant--"Daddy thinks I've been to School"--"Does he, though?"--"Grand Finale!" 272. "Tug of War," 816. TURKEYS:--Job watching his Turkey, 604; "He would have pitched headlong into the Well," 604. Twilight--A Kitten, 814. Unhappy Thought, 64. VALENTINES:--A Valentine and a Mission--"No one had a larger supply than Theodora and Bessie," 241; A Valentine, 254; A first Valentine, 256; Jesse's Valentine, 257. Virginal, 69. Vladimir besieging the City containing his Archbishop, 84. WAGER ISLAND--"With one Blow Captain Cheap felled the Man to the Ground," 552; Byron carrying the Captain's Seal, 568. "Wait for Pussy, Fido!" 648, 649. Walk, Out for a, 350. Walnut Shell, The Cruise of the, 379, 380, 381. "Washed, Don't want to be," 377. Washing Dolly, 33. Water-Melon, Jube's, 669. Waves, The--Fingers of the Sea, 196. Whale, Captain Edwards's big--Front View of the Mouth--Side View of the Mouth--Rear View, showing the Flukes, 392. Wheel, The old Water, 653. WIGGLES:--96, 176, 288, 400, 496, 640, 768. Willie's Adventure--"I've got you safe enough now," 693. Window, Bab at the, 533. Window Gardening--Window Box complete--Spruce-Wood Panel--Cone Panel--Grape-Vine Panel--Oil-Cloth Panel--Clinker Panel--Mosaic Panel, 12. "Winter" (Laura Alma Tadema), 280. Winter-Quarters, 153. Wolf and Pig--Preparing for Christmas, 112. Wreck of the "Grosvenor," 52, 72. Wrens and their Nests, 521. PORTRAITS. Bach, John Sebastian, 260. Baxter, Edith, 740. Beethoven, Ludwig von, 820. Corday, Charlotte, 37. Edwards, Captain, 392. German Emperor and Princes, 661. Gluck, 660. Handel, George Frederick, 484. Haydn singing before two great Musicians, 753. Jack, Little, 292. Jackson, General, 836. Marie Antoinette, 660. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 580. Nicolo, the little Italian Boy, 52. Prince Frederick William August Victor Ernest, 661. St. Elizabeth of Thuringin, 609. Webster, Daniel, and his Teacher, 180. GENERAL INDEX. ADVICE, BITS OF:--About using odd Minutes, 8; How to introduce People, 8; Talks about Surprise Parties, 54; About Christmas Gifts, 82; At the Matinée, 155; Presence of Mind, 250; Picnics, 477; On the Road, 699; How to manage the little Ones, 790. ADVICE TO BOYS:--Cuts and Bruises, 539; How to restore Persons apparently Drowned, 627. Africa, South, A Buffalo Hunt in, 311. Albatross, Saved by an, 555. All-Hallow-Eve, A Story of, 10. Anagrams--An old-fashioned Amusement, 315. Anecdotes of Country Life, 11. Angelo, Michael--How a Boy was hired out, 650. Anglers, Aids for Young, 700. Animals, 357. Animals, Musical, 784. Animals, Plants and--Their Difference, 707. Ant Country, The, 842. April-Fools' Day, 344. Archbishop, A War for an, 83. Arctic Seas, The Victims of the, 471. Art's Organ Adventure, 225. Asiatic Story, An, 43. Austin, Philip, The Trials of, 694. Austria, The Children's Journey in, 470. Autumn Leaves, 811. Babies' Procession, The, 584. Badminton, 714. Bagdad--"The City of the Caliphs," 827. BALLOONS:--Our Balloon, 252; Gas Balloons, 512; A Balloon Adventure, 512; How Billy went up in the World, 695, 711, 730. Barbers' Poles, 592. Barn, Right through a, 714. Barnum's, Mr., great Show in Winter-Quarters, 266, 282. Barrington Toll-Gate, The, 763. "Bartlett & Arnold," 747. Base-Ball, 523. Bassorah, Tom Fairweather goes to, 602. Battle in the Dark, 835. Battle of Lake Borgne, The, 807. BEARS:--My Bear Hunt, 291; Mark Outrigger meets with an Adventure, 839. Bedouin Postman, The, 691. Beetle, The Sparrow and the, 624. Ben Buttles, The surprising Experience of, 2, 23. Berlin, Max Rander's Adventure in, 82. Bessy's Fairy Godmother, 824. Bicycle, Max Rander on a, 146; Who won the Bicycle? 810. Billy went up in the World, How, 695, 711, 730. BIRDS:--Birds' Nests for Soup, 233; Mr. Thompson and a Bird with a Lantern, 278; Do Birds know their old Homes? 455; "A Bird in Hand is worth two in the Bush," 528; Humming-Birds, 744. Bismarck, Count von, 343. Blast at the Stone Quarry, The big, 482. Boots, Eph's New-Year's, 154. Boy Commander of the Camisards, The, 231. Boy's Head by Greuze, 202. Bran's Conscience, 251. Brave Boy, A, 595. Brave little Sister, A, 275. Bright, John, 135. Brother Jonathan, 576. Buffalo Hunt in South Africa, A, 311. Bullet-proof Man, The, 738. Bull-Frog, Mr. Thompson and the, 199. Butterflies, Catching, 599. Calf, Deacon Dodd's, 778. Caliphs, The City of the, 827. Camel, The, 32; A Camel-Race, 304. Candy Pull, The, 301. Canoeing Story. (See "The Cruise of the Canoe Club.") CANOES:--The Canoe Fight, 421; How to make a Toy Canoe, 651. Cape Horn, Off, 378. Captain Banner's Lynx, 513. Carbo: his Story, 818. Car, Why Dick drove the, 755. Cats, a Dog who liked, 448. Cellar, Down, 725. Chair, A Steam, 171. Chair-Sleigh, A novel, 269. Chambers, William, The Boyhood of, 502. Charley Otis's Ride, 274. Charley Sparks, An Evening with, 160. CHILDREN:--The Children's Carnival, 284; The Children's Journey, 470; The Children's Day, 503. Chocorua, A Night on, 630. CHRISTMAS:--Christmas Preparations, 77; About Christmas Gifts, 82; A perfect Christmas, 119; A Christmas Mystery, 130: What is a Christmas-Box? 144. Church of St. Mary's of the People, The Building of, 780. Cigarette Smoking, On, 196. CIRCUS:--A private Circus, 39; Mr. Barnum's Show in Winter-Quarters, 266; Playing Circus, 789; Story about a Circus (see "Mr. Stubbs's Brother"). Clock, The magic, 126. Cobbler who kept School in a Workshop, The, 374. Cocoa-nuts, The Full Moon of, 560. Complicated Predicament, A, 215. Cooking, The fine Art of, 360. Corals, 723. Corday, Charlotte, 37. Country Life, Anecdotes of, 11. "Coventry, To," 836. Cow, A very new, 785. Creek, Up the, 610, 627. Crotchets and Quavers, About, 210. Crows, Mr. Thompson and the, 666. Cruise, Dare's, 594. Cruise of the Canoe Club, The, 657, 677, 689, 709, 721, 740, 758, 772, 790, 805, 821, 842. Curling, The Game of, 248. Cuts and Bruises, 539. Dangerous Plaything, A, 43. Dare's Cruise, 594. Deacon, How they helped the, 619. Deer Hunt in the Rocky Mountains, A, 212. "Dellusk," 412. Diamond Stories, Some, 467. Dick drove the Car, Why, 755. DOGS:--The Story of a little Dog's Tail, 166; Bran's Conscience, 251; The Dog of Niagara, 330; "Railway Jack," 343; At the Dogs' Hospital, 389; Dogs of my acquaintance, 420; A Dog who liked Cats, 448; Leo, 661; Don, 688; Old Nipper and the Cobbler, 752; Some Hints on Dog Teaching, 823. Doing Something, 337. DOLLS:--The Dolls' Reception, 73; The Little Dolls' Dressmaker, 187, 203, 219. 235. Dolly beat the Hunters, How, 506. Don, 688. Drowned, How to restore Persons apparently, 627. Duke, A little, 548. Easter in Jerusalem, 370. Egyptian History, 673. Electricity, Experiments with, 240. Empress, The Tomb of an, 816. Eph's New-Year's Boots, 154. False Colors, 437, 459. "Families, The Two" (Michael Munkacsy), 8. Father Time's Dilemma, 289. Feat of all, The bravest, 535. Felix, 170. Fencing Experience, Max Rander's, 547. Fire-Works, Wonderful, 576. Fishing, Trout, 427; Paddy Ryan's Fish, 540; Fishing with a Lantern Trap, 720; "To Coventry," 836. Flood, Incidents of the great, 295. FLOWERS:--"Picciola," 243; Flowers in Fancy Dress, 355; The thirsty Flowers, 531. Flying Ship, A, 523. Foot-Ball, A Game of, 90. FOURTH OF JULY:--Preparing for the Fourth of July, 555; A Fourth-of-July Warning, 570; Fourth of July at Beaver Brook, 582. Fox's Dinner Party, The, 608. "France, The first Grenadier of," 630. Fresh-Air Fund, The, 682. Fruit Cans, Old, 320. Fun and Facts for little Folks, 268. Fungi, The Fairy, 101. GAMES, TRICKS, ETC.:--Balancing a Cork--Hunting (City in New York)--Solution of Labyrinth Puzzle, 16; Lacrosse, 26; Scientific Puzzles, 32, 112, 144, 192; A Lawn Tennis Tournament, 42; The performing Elephant, 48; Shadow Pantomimes, 61; Letter Puzzles--Answer to Yorktown Puzzle, 64; What am I? 80; Enigmas, 80, 112, 160, 224, 240, 336, 352, 480, 784, 848; A Game of Foot-Ball, 90; The magic Clock, 126; Imitation of Song of Canary--Imitation of Punch and Judy Troupe, 160; The Spectre Specs, 208; The Fairy Plaque, 221; Mirthful Magic, 224; Monogram Puzzle, 237; Experiments with Electricity, 240; The Game of Curling, 248; What's in a Name? 256; The Game of Tchungkee, 264; Parallels--Answer to Monogram Puzzle, 272; Nine Men's Morris, 283; Bouquetaire, 304; An old-fashioned Amusement, 315; Games with Marbles, 331; Houdin's impromptu Dessert, 336; Parlor Magic, 352, 528, 608, 656; Rackets, 362; Silent Stories, 384; In-door Amusements, 416; King Simple, 432; Dropping melted Lead, 448; Phizo, 464; Astronomical Acrostic Puzzle, 476; Characters; or, Who am I? 480; Magical Music, 512; Base-Ball, 523; The flying Dime, 528; Riddle about Animals, 541; Solution of Astronomical Acrostic Puzzle--Letter Sequences, 544; "Rome and Carthage," 560: "Duck," 576; Nine Holes, or Egg Hat, 672; Original Riddle, 688; Bipeds and Quadrupeds, 704; Badminton, 714; Natural History Jingles--Solution of Moon Puzzle, 720; Alliteration, 736; Race-Ball 746; The great Peach Puzzle, 752; A good Shooter, 784; The magic Sack, 794; The Game of Historic Characters, 800; Who was he, and what did he invent? 816. Gardening, Window, 11. Garrick's (David) Dog--The Story of a little Dog's Tail, 166. Gavotte, The, 259. Geese and the Capitol, The, 757. Germany, Four Kings of, 661. Gilbert, William S., 74. Girl's Life in 1782, A little, 179. Gladstone, William Ewart, 311. Gluck, 659. "Goose, As stupid as a," 253. Grandmother, The little, 519. "Grosvenor," The Wreck of the, 50, 71. Gymnastics for stormy Days, Home, 218. "Halsewell," The Loss of the, 441. Handel and "The Messiah," 483. Handicraft, 807. Hare and Hounds, 346. Harry Miller's Sturgeon, 596. Hat, Millie's Nile-Bird, 632. Haydn, Francis Joseph, 754. Hero, An unknown, 778. Hired out, How a Boy was, and what came of it, 650. Honduras, On the Keys of, 275, 295. Hornets' Nest, That, 514. Horse which made a Sensation, A, 656. Huldah Deane's Heroism, 417. Hunters, How Dolly beat the, 506. Hunting Season, The, 68. Hurricane, A tropical, 538. Icebergs, A Battle of, 314. Ice, The last of the, 299. Iguana, The, 804. India, Catching Quail in, 403. INDIANS:--Indian Story (see "The Talking Leaves"); Amateur Indians, 86; The Game of Tchungkee, 264. Jelly-Fish, Some odd Relations of the, 307; How Jelly-Fish live and move, 435. Jerome, Evvie--A brave Boy, 595. JIMMY BROWN'S EXPERIENCES:--A Private Circus, 39; Our new Walk, 103; A Steam Chair, 171; Our Balloon, 252; Animals, 357; Rats and Mice, 428; The old, old Story, 571; Our Bull-Fight, 652; Down Cellar, 725; Playing Circus, 789. Job's Turkey, 603. Jube's Water Melon, 667. Jumbo, 373; How Jumbo crossed the Ocean, 410. Just for Fun, 177. Kangaroo Hunt, My first, 487. Kettle-holder, A, 508. Kites, and how to fly them, 379; More about Kites, 396. Lacrosse, 26. Lady Rags, 97. Lake, A wonderful, 518. Lake Borgne, The Battle of, 807. Lawn Party, Phrony Jane's, 679. Lawn Tennis Tournament, A, 42; Lawn Tennis Courts, How to lay out, 587. Leaves, Autumn, 811. Lee, William--The Inventor of the Stocking-Loom, 292. Legardeur Party, The, 322. Leo, 661. Lightning, Something about, 666. Longest Day in the Year, The, 209. "Luck," 34. Lynx, Captain Banner's, 513. Madeira, Tom Fairweather's Holiday in, 139. Magic Lantern, How to make a, 347. Mammoth, The Story of a great, 737. Manage the little Ones, How to, 790. Man in the Moon, 408; Moon lends a Hand, The, 770. Marbles, Games with, 331. Marjorie's New-Years Eve, 150, 162. Market Report, Pet Stock, 183. Mark Outrigger meets with an Adventure, 839. Matinée, At the, 155. Max Rander's Adventure in Berlin, 82; Max Rander on a Bicycle, 146; Max Rander's young Nobleman, 263; Max Rander's French Eggs, 458; Max Rander's Fencing Experience, 547; Max Rander's wild Tiger, 634. Mexico, Historical Trees of, 643. Mice as Pets, 56. Milkmaids of Dort, The, 263. Millie's Nile-Bird Hat, 632. Mining under the Ocean, 848. "Minute-Hand of the Clock, The," 614. Miss Holsover's "Treasure," 250, 258. Monkey and the Sugar, 816; Carbo: his Story, 818. Mönkgut, Hänschen von, 292. Mountain Dwarf, The, 468. Mountain, The fall of a, 55. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 579. MR. STUBBS'S BROTHER, 353, 370, 385, 401, 423, 433, 453, 465, 485, 501, 517, 529, 545, 565, 577, 597, 615, 625, 641, 663. Mr. Thompson and the Bull-Frog, 199; Mr. Thompson and a Bird with a Lantern, 278; Mr. Thompson and the Swallows, 438; Mr. Thompson and the Crows, 666; Mr. Thompson and the Owls, 758. Musical Animals, 784. MUSIC:--The Piano-forte, 69; About Crotchets and Quavers, 210; The Gavotte, 259; Something about Sonatas, 297; The Music-Master's Daughter, 329; The Story of the Opera 339; The Orchestra of Yesterday and To-day, 407; How to bind Music, 432; Handel and "The Messiah," 483; Piano-playing in the Time of Mozart and Beethoven, 819. Nan, 833. National Game, The, 523. New Orleans--the Battle in the Dark, 835. Niagara, The Dog of, 330. Night, One, 570. Nine Men's Morris, 283. Nipper and the Cobbler, Old, 752. Nutting, How "the Baby" went, 38. Nyâgândi, Little, 535. Oiling the Waves, 488. Old Light's Joke, 549. Old, old Story, The, 571. Opera, The Story of the, 339. Orchestra of Yesterday and To-day, The, 407. Orioles, My Family of, 166. Ostrich Farm, A Visit to an, 27. Our Bull-Fight, 652. Owls, Mr. Thompson and the, 758. Paddy Ryan's big Fish, 540. Pantomime, Children of the, 106; The magic Clock, 126. Parrot's Memory, The, 336. Parsee Merchants of Bombay, 587. Pearls come from, Where the, 323. PEOPLE WE HEAR ABOUT:--Arthur Sullivan, 56; William S. Gilbert, 74; John Bright, 135: William Ewart Gladstone, 311; Bismarck, 343. PERILS AND PRIVATIONS:--The Wreck of the "Grosvenor," 50, 71; The Loss of the "Royal George," 163; On the Keys of Honduras, 275, 295; The Loss of the "Halsewell," 441; Wager Island, 551, 566; The Trials of Philip Austin, 694. "Peter," 469. Pet Stock Market Report, 183. Philately, Chats about, 135, 404. Photography, Amateur--Fun and Pictures, 228; Photography and Work, 490. Phrony Jane's Lawn Party, 679. Piano-forte, The, 69; Piano-playing in the Time of Mozart and Beethoven, 819. "Picciola," 243. Picnics, 477; The Friday Picnic, 698. Pictures, Fun and, 228. Pigeons, Homing, 683. Pig, The speckled, 443. Pincushion, A, 92; A Swan Design for flat Pocket Pincushion, 780. Plants and Animals--their Difference, 707; Climbing Plants, 787. Plaque, The Fairy, 221. Play, How to, 153. Polly Gardner and the Draw-Bridge, 306. "Popsey," 491. "Portuguese Man-of-War, The," 515. Postage Stamps. (See "Philately.") Postman, The Bedouin, 691. Pounds, John--The Cobbler who kept School in a Workshop, 374. Presence of Mind, 250. Present, A novel, 103. Princely Art, A, 439. Princess Sunnylocks and the runaway Sunbeam, 21. Punchinello, 316, 332, 348. Pyramids of Egypt, The, 419. Quail in India, Catching, 403. Rabbits as Pets, 458. Race-Ball, 746. Race for Life, A, 618. Rackets, 362. "Railway Jack," 343. Rattlesnake, A live, wanted, 405. Reindeer, The Home of the, 3. Reparation, The Queen's, 390. Restaurant, A School, 199. Rhinoceros Stories, 451. River gets into Trouble, The, 675. R. K. R. R., The great, 327. Robin Goodfellow, 507. Rocks, The, 19. Roll of Honor, A, 819. "Royal George," The Loss of the, 163. Rustic Adornments for Lawn and Garden, 635. Ruth's Opportunity, 645. Sack, The magic, 794. Sam Jenkins's Dream, 138. Scarlet Glow, The, 450. SCHOOL:--A School Restaurant, 199; How Johnnie went to School, 586. "Scrap," 497. "Scud," How Jamie sailed in the, 358. Scullion who became a Sculptor, The, 202. Sea-Anemones, 613. Sea-Firs--Some odd Relations of the Jelly-Fish, 307. Shark, Chased by a, 410; "My Shark," 736. Shepherd's Friends, The, 217. Shipwrecks, Stories of. (See "Perils and Privations.") Shop Windows, The, 140. Showman did not tell, What the, 762. Show, Todd and Ketchum's "grate," 194. Sister worth having, A, 742. Skates, On, 186. Smoking, On Cigarette, 196. Snake Story, A, 672. Soldier's Cheese, The, 769. Sonatas, Something about, 297. SONGS:--Thro' the Daisy-Spotted Meadow, 189; Sleeping in the Meadow, 286; A Song of a Doll, 334; "Sleep, Baby, Sleep," 365; An Easter Carol, 382; The Angels' Watch, 525; Hold up the right Hand! 623; The Menagerie, 719. Sound, Testing the Velocity of--An Experiment in Switzerland, 256. Sparrows, The vain, 426; The Sparrow and Beetle, 624. Spider, A musical, 352; Feats by Spiders, 432. Spitsbergen, 90. Squirrels, Those, 832. Steamboat, The--Robert Fulton, 794. Steam-Engine, The, 452. St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, 610. St. Mary's of the People, The Building of, 780. Stocking-Loom, The Invention of the, 292. Strike, The long, 726. Sturgeon, Harry Miller's, 596. Sugar, The Monkey and the, 816. Sullivan, Arthur, 56. Sunday-School Anniversary--The Children's Day, 503. Swallows in furnished Lodgings, 704. Switzerland, An Experiment in, 256. Swords, Small--"A princely Art," 439. Sword-Stroke, A good, 674. TALKING LEAVES, THE (_Concluded_):--5, 17, 35, 58, 74, 85, 106, 133, 147, 164, 181, 197, 213, 229, 245, 261, 277, 293, 309, 325, 341, 363, 375, 394. Tea Party, The Boys', 474. Terrible Experience, A, 706. THEIR GIRL:--774, 795, 802. These my little Ones, 533, 553. "Think and Thank," 279. Tiger, Max Rander's wild, 634. Tiger Tom, 247. Tigress Hunt, A, 642. Tigris, Tom Fairweather's Voyage up the, 731. Titmouse Family, The, 345. Tobogganing, 227. Todd and Ketchum's "Grate Show," 194. Toll-Gate, The Barrington, 763. Tomb of an Empress, The, 816. TOM FAIRWEATHER:--A Yarn from his Log-Book--A Visit to an Ostrich Farm, 27; Tom Fairweather's Holiday in Madeira, 139; Tom Fairweather's Visit to the Sultan of Borneo, 387; Tom Fairweather goes to Bassorah, 602; Tom Fairweather's Voyage up the Tigris, 731. Tom Primrose protected his Father, How, 66. Tony's Birthday, and George Washington's, 266. Tool Chest, How to make a, 844. Tops, and how to spin them, 412. "Toro," Burning the, 563. Trapping Torups, 618. Travelling--On the Road, 699. Treasures, Buried, 684. Trees of Mexico, Historical, 643. Trials of Philip Austin, The, 694. Tricks. (See "Games, Tricks, etc.") Trout-Fishing, 427. Tug of All, The hardest, 650. Tunnel, Through the, 562. Turkey, The Lame, 53. Under-ground Escape, An, 716. Valentine and a Mission, A, 242. Valentine Story--Miss Holsover's "Treasure," 250, 258. Vladimir the Great--A War for an Archbishop, 83. Wager Island, 551, 566. Walk, Our new, 103. Water-Melon, Jube's, 667. Wave and Sand, 499. Waves at Work, The, 195. Webster, Daniel, The Boyhood of, 180. Willie's Adventure, 692. Window Gardening, 11. Wolf hid, What the, 682. Woodchuck, Having Fun with a, 582. Wrens and their Nests, 521. POETRY. "Amen," Artie's, 423. Angels, Five little, 733. Angels' Watch, The (set to Music), 525. Apple Blossoms, 474. April Joke, An, 339. Bath-Room, The, 205. Baxter, Edith, 740. Beautiful Child, My, 187. Bed, Just out of, 528. Bird, The Child and the, 819. "Bo-Peep," 318. Boys, Two, 112. Boy, The Tale of a very bad, 138. Broom, The queer old, 109. Bubble, Bubble, Bubble, 77. Butterfly's Funeral, The, 755. Captain Ortis, 551. Catastrophe, A dire, 144. Cherry-Tree Lesson, A, 589. Child and the Watcher, The, 330. Child's Puzzles, A, 146. Chimney, Dot's, 103. Christmas Pie, 136. Church, Children's, 790. Clowns' Duel, The, 368. "Comet, Just like a," 803. Corner, In the, 237. Country Boy in Winter, A, 194. Cruise of the Walnut Shell, The, 379, 380, 381. Cupids, The sad Fate of seventeen, 238. "Daisy-spotted Meadow, Thro' the" (set to Music), 189. Daisy Trail, The, 632. Dancing Lesson, The, 160. Dandelions grow, How the, 448. Dobbin's Perversity, 109. Doll, The Lament of a left-over, 170. Dot's Letter, 205. Dreamer, A little, 184. Dreaming of the coming Summer, 461. Ducks, Wild, 846. Easter Carol, An (set to Music), 382. Easter Poem--"For lo! He hath arisen," 369, 370. Ebony and Pearl, 416. ENIGMAS:--160, 224, 240, 336, 352, 480, 784, 848. Fairy, A little, 74. Farewell, 34. Flag, The Burial of the old, 706. Flower Girl, The, 685. "For lo! He hath arisen," 369. Frost Queen, The little, 274. Gentleman, A little, 358. Goat, The Dancing, 701. Golden-Rod, 772. "Good-by, Winter," 282. Good Company, 32. Good-morning, little Bird, 494. "Good Tidings of great Joy," 130. Grandfather Knitting, 557. Gran'ma's Stitches, 659. "Grandpa, you do look sweet," 53. Greedy Jerry, 800. Green Beds, The little, 487. Greenwood Scene, A, 558. "His Highness," Amusing, 599. Hold up the right Hand! (Set to Music), 623. Independence Day, 563. Japanese Fan Tales, 637. JINGLES:--749, 765, 781, 797, 829. King Hazelnut, 61. Kiss, A loving, 237. Kissing through the Gate, 750. Kitty's Dream, 605. Land of Nod, The beautiful, 717. Lily and Violet, 723. Little May, 704. Lock of Hair, Just one, 488. Longfellow, H. W.--The Poet's empty Chair, 387. Maid for me, The little, 624. Make Way for his Majesty! 253. "Man of Straw, A," 205. Man, The little, 192. Man who cared for Nobody, The, 7. May I come in? 404. Menagerie, The (set to Music), 719. Mice, The Daring, 813. Midsummer Song, A, 621. Mill, The Old, 653. Moth Dance, The, 344. Mother's Baby, 430. "Mother, The sweetest," 455. NURSERY RHYMES:--29, 45. Owl and the Bat, The, 92, 93. "Pansies think, What do the," 435. Patient, The little, 569. Petit Jean, 262. Pinkety Wink, 269. Poet's empty Chair, The, 387. Prisoner at the Bar, The, 509. Pug, An English, 26. Puzzled, 384. Queen of Hearts, The, 156, 157. Rats and the Meal, The, 397. Rehearsal, The, 205. Ride a Cock-Horse to Banbury Cross, 173. Roses, The June, 514. Rub-a-dub-dub, 109. Sad, but Just, 16. Santa Claus, Mistress, 119. Satisfied, Not quite, 638. Scamp, A little, 592. School-Master, A severe, 676. School's Begun, 766. Sheep at Grandpa's Farm, The, 593. Sick Dolly, 180. "Sleep, Baby, Sleep" (set to Music), 365. Sleeping in the Meadow (set to Music), 286. Slighted Stranger, The, 835. Slumber Song, 171. Snow, The, 227. Song of a Doll, A (set to Music), 334. Spring Concert, The, 361. Sunbeam, The wandering, 582. "Taffy," 688. Telegraph Poles are meant for, What, 534. Thanksgiving, Elsie's, 50. "Too Bad!" 832. "Too many Cooks spoil the Broth," 173. Violet, Lily and, 723. Waiting, 427. Who are they? 307. Wind, The merry, 43. Winter-Quarters, 153. 
35807	----	NON-COMBATANTS AND OTHERS BY ROSE MACAULAY AUTHOR OF 'THE LEE SHORE,' 'THE MAKING OF A BIGOT,' ETC. HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO _Printed in 1916_ TO MY BROTHER AND OTHER COMBATANTS 'Let the foul scene proceed: There's laughter in the wings: 'Tis sawdust that they bleed, But a box Death brings. Gigantic dins uprise! Even the gods must feel A smarting of the eyes As these fumes upsweal. Strange, such a Piece is free, While we Spectators sit Aghast at its agony, Yet absorbed in it. Dark is the outer air, Cold the night draughts blow, Mutely we stare, and stare At the frenzied show. Yet heaven has its quiet shroud Of deep and starry blue-- We cry "An end!" we are bowed By the dread "'Tis true!" While the Shape who hoofs applause Behind our deafened ear Hoots--angel-wise--"the Cause!" And affrights even fear.' WALTER DE LA MARE, _The Marionettes_. 'War is just the killing of things and the smashing of things. And when it is all over, then literature and civilisation will have to begin all over again. They will have to begin lower down and against a heavier load.... The Wild Asses of the Devil are loose, and there is no restraining them. What is the good, Wilkins, of pretending that the Wild Asses are the instruments of Providence, kicking better than we know? It is all evil.' REGINALD BLISS, _Boon_. 'There is work for all who find themselves outside the battle.' ROMAIN ROLLAND, _Above the Battle_. CONTENTS PART I. WOOD END CHAPTER I. JOHN COMES HOME CHAPTER II. JOHN TALKS CHAPTER III. ALIX GOES PART II. VIOLETTE CHAPTER IV. SATURDAY MORNING AT VIOLETTE CHAPTER V. AFTERNOON OUT CHAPTER VI. EVENING AT VIOLETTE CHAPTER VII. HOSPITAL CHAPTER VIII. BASIL AT VIOLETTE CHAPTER IX. SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY CHAPTER X. EVENING IN CHURCH CHAPTER XI. ALIX AND EVIE CHAPTER XII. ALIX AND BASIL CHAPTER XIII. ALIX, NICHOLAS, AND WEST PART III. DAPHNE CHAPTER XIV. DAPHNE AT VIOLETTE CHAPTER XV. ALIX AT A MEETING CHAPTER XVI. ON PEACE CHAPTER XVII. NEW YEAR'S EVE PART I WOOD END CHAPTER I JOHN COMES HOME 1 In a green late April evening, among the dusky pine shadows, Alix drew Percival Briggs. Percival stood with his small cleft chin lifted truculently, small blue eyes deep under fair, frowning brows, one scratched brown leg bare to the knee, dirty hands thrust into torn pockets. He was the worst little boy in the wood, and had been till six months ago the worst little boy in the Sunday-school class of Alix's cousin Dorothy. He had not been converted six months ago, but Dorothy, like so many, had renounced Sunday-school to work in a V.A.D. hospital. Alix, who was drawing Percival, worked neither in a Sunday-school nor in a hospital. She only drew. She drew till the green light became green gloom, lit by a golden star that peered down between the pines. She had a pale, narrow, delicate, irregular sort of face, broad-browed, with a queer, cynical, ironic touch to it, and purple-blue eyes that sometimes opened very wide and sometimes narrowed into slits. When they narrowed she looked as from behind a visor, critical, defensive, or amused; when they opened wide she looked singularly unguarded, as if the bars were up and she, unprotected, might receive the enemy's point straight and clean. Behind her, on the wood path, was a small donkey between the shafts of a small cart. A rough yellow dog scratched and sniffed and explored among the roots of the trees. Alix said to Percival, 'That will do, thank you. Here you are,' and fished out sixpence in coppers from her pocket, and he clutched and gripped them in a small retentive fist. Alix, who was rather lame, put her stool and easel and charcoal into the cart, got in herself, beat the donkey, and ambled on along the path, followed by the yellow dog. The evening was dim and green, and smelt of pines. The donkey trotted past cottage gardens, and they were sweet with wallflowers. More stars came out and peered down through the tree-tops. Alix whistled softly, a queer little Polish tune, indeterminate, sad and gay. 2 Two miles up the path a side-track led off from it, and this the donkey-cart took, till it fetched up in a little yard. Alix climbed out, unharnessed the donkey, put him to bed in a shed, collected her belongings, and limped out of the yard, leaning a little on the ivory-topped stick she carried. She had had a diseased hip-joint as a child, which had left her right leg slightly contracted. She came round into a garden. It smelt of wallflowers and the other things which flower at the end of April; and, underneath all these, of pines. The pine-woods came close up to the garden's edge, crowding and humming like bees. Pine-needles strewed the lawn. The tennis-lawn, it was most summers; but this summer one didn't play tennis, one was too busy. So the lawn was set with croquet hoops, a wretched game, but one which wounded soldiers can play. Dorothy used to bring them over from the hospital to spend the afternoon. An oblong of light lay across the lawn. It came from the drawing-room window, which ought, of course, to have been blinded against hostile aircraft. Alix, standing in the garden, saw inside. She saw Dorothy, just in from the hospital, still in her V.A.D. dress. The light shone on her fair wavy hair and fair pretty face. Not even a stiff linen collar could make Dorothy plain. Margot was there too, in the khaki uniform of the Women's Volunteer Reserve; she had just come in from drilling. She usually worked at the Woolwich canteen in the evenings, but had this evening off, because of John. She was making sand-bags. Their mother, Alix's aunt Eleanor, was pinning tickets on clothes for Belgians. She was tall and handsome, and like Alix's mother, only so different, and she was secretary of the local Belgian Committee (as of many other committees, local and otherwise). She often wore a little worried frown, and was growing rather thin, on account of the habits of this unfortunate and scattered people. One of them had been their guest since November; she was in the drawing-room now, a plump, dark-eyed girl, knitting placidly and with the immense rapidity noticeable on the Continent, and not to be emulated by islanders without exhaustion. Alix's uncle Gerald (a special constable, which was why he need not bother about his blinds much) stood by the small fire (they were wholesome people, and not frowsty) with an evening paper, but he was not reading it, he was talking to John. For among them, the centre of the family, was John; John wounded and just out of hospital and home on a month's sick-leave; John with a red scar from his square jaw to his square forehead, stammering as he talked because the nerves of his tongue had been damaged. Alix, watching from the garden, saw the queer way his throat worked, struggling with some word. They were asking John questions, of course. Sensible questions, too; they were sensible people. They knew that the conduct of this campaign was not in John's hands, and that he did not know so much more about it than they did. The room, with its group of busy, attractive, efficient people, seemed to the watcher in the dark piny garden full of intelligence and war and softly shaded electric light. Alix narrowed her eyes against it and thought it would be paintable. 3 The dark round eyes of the Belgian girl, looking out through the window, met hers. She laughed and waved her knitting. She took Alix always as a huge joke. Alix had from the first taken care that she should, since the moment when Mademoiselle Verstigel had arrived, fluent with tales from Antwerp. It is a safe axiom that those who play the clown do not get confidences. The others looked out at her too when Mademoiselle Verstigel waved. They called out 'Hullo, Alix! How late you are. John's been here two hours. Come along.' Alix limped up the steps and in at the French window, where she stood and blinked, the light on her pale, pointed face and narrowed eyes. John rose to meet her, and she gave him her hand and her crooked smile. 'You're all right now, aren't you?' she said, and John, an accurate person, said, 'Very nearly,' while his mother returned, 'I'm afraid he's a long way from all right yet.' 'Isn't it funny, it makes him stammer,' said Dorothy, who was professionally interested in wounds. 'But he's getting quite nice and fat again.' 'N-not so fat as I was when I got hit,' said John. 'The trenches are the best flesh-producing ground known; high living and plain thinking and no exercise. The only people who are getting thin out there are the stretcher-bearers, who have to carry burdens, the Commander-in-chief, who has to think, the newspaper men, who have to write when there's nothing to say, and the chaplains, who have to chaplain. I met old Lennard of Cats, walking about Armentières in February, and I thought he was the Bishop of Zanzibar, he'd gone so lean. When last I'd seen him he was rolling down King's Parade arm-in-arm with Chesterton, and I couldn't get by. It was an awfully sad change.... By the way, _you_ all look thinner.' 'Well, we're not in the trenches,' said Margot. 'We're leading busy and useful lives, full of war activities. Besides, our food costs us more. But Dorothy and I are fairly hefty still. It's mother who's dwining; and Alix, though she's such a lazy little beggar. Alix is hopeless; she does nothing but draw and paint. She could earn something on the stage as the Special Star Turn, the Girl who isn't doing her bit. She doesn't so much as knit a body-belt or draw the window-curtains against Zepps.' Alix looked round from the window to stick out the tip of her tongue at Margot. 'Mais elle est boiteuse, la pauvre petite,' put in the Belgian girl, with the literalness that makes this people a little _difficile_ in home life. 'What can she do?' Alix giggled in her corner. Margot said, 'All right, Mademoiselle, we were only ragging. There's the post.' She went out to fetch it. Margot was a good girl, but, like so many others, tired of Belgians, though this Belgian was a nice one, as strangers in a foreign land go. Alix hated and feared her whole nation; they had been through altogether too much. Margot came back with the letters. 'Betty and Terry,' she said, with satisfaction. 'Betty's is for me and Terry's for you, mother.' (Terry was in France, Betty driving an ambulance car in Flanders.) 'Two for you, Alix.' Alix took hers, which were both marked 'On Active Service,' and put them in her pocket. Simultaneously her aunt Eleanor began to read Terry's aloud (it was about flies, and bread and jam, and birds, and some music he had made and was sending home to be kept safe) and Margot began to read extracts from Betty's (about nails, and bad roads, and different kinds of shells, and people) and Uncle Gerald read bits out of the paper (about Hill 60, and Hartmannsweilerkopf, and Sedd el Bahr, and the _Leon Gambetta_, and liquor, and Mr. Lloyd George). 4 Alix slipped out at the window and limped round to the side door and into the house and upstairs to the schoolroom, which she was allowed to use as a studio. It was littered with things of hers: easels, chalks, paints, piles of finished and unfinished drawings and paintings. Some hung on the walls: some of hers and some by the writer of the letter she took out to read. He painted better than she did, but drew worse--or had, in the long-ago days when persons of his age and sex were drawing and painting at all. Alix read the letter. It was headed obscurely with an R, some little figures of men, and two weeping eyes, which was where the writer was for the moment stationed. Every now and then a phrase or sentence was erased. The writer, apparently a man of honour, had censored it himself. His honour had not carried him so quixotically far as to erase the hieroglyphics at the head of the paper. It said:-- 'DEAR ALIX,--Since I last wrote we've been moved some miles; I mustn't, of course, indicate where to. It is nice country--less flat than the other place, and jolly distant ridges, transparent blue and lavender coloured. I'll do a sketch when we get into billets at the end of the week. My company is in the trenches now; commodious trenches they are, the best in the line, but rather too near the people opposite for comfort--they're such noisy lunatics. It's eight o'clock now, and they've begun their evening hate; they do a bit every evening. The only creature they've strafed to-night yet is a brown rat, whom we none of us grudge them. It's interesting the different noises the shells make coming; you can nearly always tell what kind they are. If I was musical I'd make a symphony out of them. I should think your cousin Terry Orme could. Some of them scream, thin and peevishly, like a baby fretting; some howl like a hyena, some mew like a kitten. Then there's Lloyd George's Special, which says "Lloyd-Lloyd-Lloyd-Lloyd," and then all the men shout "_George_."' (A page of further discursion on shells, too technical for reproduction here. Then, resumed next morning,) 'I'm fairly sleepy this morning; we had to stand to from two to six A.M., expecting an attack which never came off. I wish it had, it would have been a way to get warm. We've had poor luck to-night; the Tommy who was sent over the top to look at the wire was made into a French landlord, and our sergeant-major stopped one with his head, silly ass, he was simply asking for it. It's my belief he was trying to get back to Blighty, but I hope they won't send him further than the base. You would like to see the dawn coming over this queer country, grey and cold and misty. I watched it through my peri for an hour. The Boches lay perdu in their trenches mostly, but sometimes you'd see one looming over his parapet through the mist. I want some tea now more than most things. You might write soon. You never answered my last, so it's generous of me to be writing again. How's every one at the School, and how's life and work? Your enemies the Ruski seem to be in a tight place, don't they?--Yours, 'BASIL DOYE.' Alix read this letter rather quickly. It bored her. It concerned the things she least preferred to hear about. That was, of course, the worst of letters from the front. Life at Wood End, as at other homes, was full of letters from the front. They seemed to Alix like bullets and bits of shrapnel crashing into her world, with their various tunes. She might, from her nervous frown, have been afraid of 'stopping one.' She twisted up the letter into a hard ball with her thin, double-jointed fingers, as she stared, frowning, at a painting on the wall. The painting was of a grey-green pond, floored with a thin, weedy scum. A hole-riddled, battered old tin rode in the middle of it; reeds stood very quietly round; a broken boot was half sunk in the mud among them. Over it all brooded and slept a heavy June noon. It was well painted; Alix thought it the best thing Basil Doye had ever done. They had spent an afternoon by the pond in June 1914; Alix remembered it vividly--the sleepy, brooding silence, the heavy fragrance of the hawthorn, the scum-green pond, the tin and the boot, the suggestion of haunting that they had talked of at the time and that Basil had got rather successfully into his picture afterwards. Those were curious days, those old days before August 1914; or rather it was the days ever since that were curious and like a nightmare. Before that life was of a reality, a sanity, an enduringness, a beauty. It still was, only it was choked and confused by the unspeakable things that every one thought mattered so much, but which were really evil dreams, to be thrown off impatiently. Underneath them all the time the real things, the enduring things--green ponds, music, moonlight, loveliness--ran like a choked stream.... Alix read her other letter, which was from her young brother Paul, and also written in a trench. The chief thing she thought about this was that Paul's handwriting was even worse than usual. He wrote in pencil on a very small piece of paper, and scrawled up and down wildly. He might have been twelve instead of eighteen and a half. Paul was rather a brilliant boy. When the war broke out he had been a distinguished head of his school, and had just obtained a particularly satisfactory Oxford scholarship. His letters, since he went to the front in March, had been increasingly poor in quality and quantity. It made Alix angry that he should be out there. She thought it no place for children, and, as Paul's elder by nearly seven years, she knew all about his nerves. CHAPTER II JOHN TALKS 1 'Alix, you'll be late for dinner,' Dorothy's voice called across the landing. Alix went to the big bedroom she shared with Dorothy and Margot. Margot was hooking up her frock; Dorothy was washing with vigour and as much completeness as her basin would allow, and complaining that John was occupying the bathroom. 'I hate not having a bath after hospital. But one can't grudge it to the dear lamb. How do _you_ think he looks, Alix? Rather nervy, he is still. That's the worst of a head wound. You know Mahoney, Margot, that Munster Fusiliers man with a bit of shrapnel in his forehead? The other men in ward 5 say he still keeps jumping out of bed in his sleep and standing to. The only way they can get him back is to say 'Jack Johnson overhead,' and then he scuttles into bed and puts his head under the pillow; only sometimes he scuttles under the bed instead, and then the only way they can get him out is to say 'Minnie's coming,' and he nips out quick for fear of being buried alive. I believe he frightened one of the young ladies he walks out with into fits one day by thinking he saw snipers in the trees. Of course one never knows how much of it he's putting on for a joke, he's so silly, but he is badly wrecked too.' Margot said, 'Isn't Mahoney having massage now? Nan Goddard said she thought she was going to have him to do. She has four every morning now. She likes Mahoney; she thinks he looks such an innocent little dear.' Dorothy said, 'Innocent, did she? Mahoney! Oh well, she'll get to know him better if she has him for massage. Did you hear Mahoney and Macpherson's latest exploit?' This need not be here retailed. It is well known that a convalescent hospital containing forty soldiers is not without its episodes, and provides many fruitful topics of conversation. They dressed meanwhile. Dorothy, in white muslin, was fair-skinned and fresh, with shining light brown hair and honest grey eyes. Margot, in yellow tussore, had hair a shade darker and curlier, and her eyes were hazel. They were both very nice to look at, and had pleasant, clear, loud voices, with which they talked about soldiers. Alix put on an old green shantung frock and a string of amber beads; she looked thin, childish, elf-like; her eyes were rather narrowed under brooding brows. 2 They were at dinner. Alix sat opposite John, who wore a dinner jacket again, as if there were no war. He looked brown and square and cheerful. Between the daffodils Alix saw his eyes, nervous and watchful, with the look in them that was in so many young men's eyes in these days. Next him was Mademoiselle Verstigel, stolid, placid, eating largely, saying little. Mr. Orme spoke of the big advance that they all believed was coming directly. 'Not yet,' said John. 'N-not enough shells.' 'Wish I could go and help make some,' said Margot. They all discussed the munitions question. John had strong views on it, differing in some particulars from his father's. John related the inner history of several recent episodes of war, to support his view. He was very interesting. John was not naturally an anecdotal person, but his mind had been of late stored and fed with experiences. Some officers are reduced by trench life to an extreme reticence; the conversational faculty of others is stimulated. Nervous strain works in both of these ways, often in the same person. Anyhow John had to talk about the war to-night, because at Wood End they all did. He answered his father's questions about barbed wire, his mother's about dug-outs, his sisters' about things to eat. They asked him all the things they hadn't liked to ask him while he was in hospital for fear of setting his brain working and retarding his recovery. Dorothy wanted to know if it was true what the men said, that their bully beef often climbed out of its tin and walked down the trench. John said it was not, and that it was one of the erroneous statements he had most frequently to censor in the men's letters. Margot wanted to know what sort of meals he had in the trenches. John said mess in the dug-out usually consisted of six courses (preceded by vermuth), three drinks, and coffee. He proceeded to describe the courses in detail. His mother wanted to know about the nights, whether he got any sleep. John said yes, quite a lot, when it didn't happen to be his watch. What about the noise? his mother asked. Had he got at all used to it yet? John said it wasn't nearly so noisy as the Royal Free Hospital, where he had spent the last month. His father asked what he thought of the German soldiers as clean fighters. John said they seemed much like anybody else, as far as he'd noticed. Mademoiselle Verstigel, understanding this, shook her head in protest. His mother asked, did he think it was true that our Tommies were learning to pray, or was the contrary statement truer, that they were losing such faith as they had? John said he had not himself noticed either of these phenomena in his platoon, but he might, of course, ask them. His father, who was interested, both as a person of intelligence and as a man of business, in the Balkans, got there, and they discussed the exhausting and exhaustive topic of those wild and erratic states, the relations of each to other, to the Central Powers, to the Allies, and to the war, at some length. It was the period when people were saying that Greece would come in for us, that Rumania might, and that it was essential to collar Bulgaria. So they said these things duly. 3 In a pause John said to Alix across the table, 'What's Aunt Daphne doing now?' There was a slight sense of jar. Margot, who was sympathetic, was ashamed for Alix, because of what her mother, Daphne Sandomir, was doing. For this always unusual lady, instead of being engaged in working for the Red Cross, Belgian refugees, or soldiers' and sailors' families, was attending a peace conference in New York. She had gone there from France, which she had been helping the Friends to reconstruct. She was not a Friend herself, not holding with institutional religion, but she admired their ready obedience to the constructive impulse. She was called by some a Pacificist, by more a Pacifist, by others a Pro-German, by most a member of the Union of Democratic Control, which she was not, for reasons which she was ready to explain, but which need not be here detailed. Alix told John, in her clear, indifferent, rather melancholy little voice, about the peace conference. In common with many children of two intensely enthusiastic parents (her father had been a Polish liberationist, who had died in a Russian prison) she had a certain half-cynical detachment from and indifference to ardours and causes. Her mother was always up to some stirring enterprise, always pursuing some vividly seen star. She had been at Newnham in the days when girls went to college ardently, full of aims and ideals and self-realisations and great purposes (instead of as now, because it seems the natural thing to do after school for those with any leanings towards learning) and she had lived her life at the same high pitch ever since. Alix found her admirable, but discomposing. She found Alix engaging, even intriguing, but narrow-hearted, selfish and indolent; she accused her of shrinking from the world's griefs in a way unworthy of her revolutionary father, whom she closely resembled in face and brain. John was rather interested in the peace conference. He had read something about it the other day in one of the periodicals which flourished in the University to which he belonged, and which wholly approved of the enterprise. Not that John, for his part, wholly approved of the periodical; he found it a trifle unbalanced, heady, partisan. John was a very fair-minded and level-headed young man, of conservative traditions. But independent, too. When the temporary second lieutenant with both legs blown off, who had occupied the next bed to his in the Royal Free, had said, perusing the comments on the peace conference in the periodical in question (under the heading 'A Triumph of Pacifism'), 'What sickening piffle, isn't it?' John had said, after a little cogitation, 'Well, I don't know. They _mean_ well.' The legless lieutenant (Trinity Hall) had snorted, 'They mean well to the Boche.... After all our _trouble_ ... all the legs we've lost ... to cave in now.... Besides, what do _they_ think they can do? A lot of people gassing.... I wonder who they _are_?' John had said he believed one of his aunts was keen on it. 'Sort of thing aunts _would_ be keen on,' the other youth had vaguely, and, indeed, quite inaccurately commented. On the whole John didn't much hold by such movements, but he took a more lenient view of them than the rest of his family did. His father said, 'A little premature, discussing peace terms before we know we're going to be in a position to dictate them.' His mother murmured, 'Peace, peace, where there is no peace,' and smiled kindly at Alix to comfort her for her mother. Dorothy said, answering her father, 'Well, _of course_ we know we are. But I don't see any use in discussing things beforehand, anyhow: we shall be able to think when the time comes.' Mademoiselle looked with her round black eyes from one to another, like a robin. She might have been reflecting in her mind that Dorothy was very English, Mr. Orme very depressing, Mrs. Orme very kind, John very impartial, and Alix very indifferent. What she said, turning to John, was (and she would seem to have been preparing the remark for some time: she was very keen on improving her English), 'The war is trulee devileesh, yes? The Boches are not as humans, no? More, is it not, Monsieur, as the devils from below?' John grinned. Dorothy said, 'True for you, Mademoiselle.' Margot said, 'You're really coming on. Only you must say "like," not "as." "As" only comes in books; it's too elegant. And devilish isn't elegant enough.' 'El-ee-gant,' Mademoiselle repeated the word softly. She was perhaps wondering whether it was necessary to be elegant at all in one's references to the Boches. 4 After dinner they got out a map of the western front and spread it on a table and made John say, so far as he knew, in which parts of the line the various battalions at the moment were, and Dorothy wrote their names, very small, all down the line. Alix slipped away while they were doing this, to smell the garden. Soon they began to sing in the drawing-room. Margot sang, 'When we wind up the watch on the Rhine,' a song popular among soldiers just then. She was no doubt practising for canteen concerts. John joined in the chorus, in a baritone voice somewhat marred by trench life. Alix went indoors and up to bed. She was shivering, as if she was cold, or very tired, or frightened.... She undressed hastily, whistling shrilly, and got into bed and pulled the bedclothes up round her neck and read Mr. Give Bell's last book, with much of which she differed violently, so violently that she made marginal and unsympathetic notes on it in pencil as she lay. 'I'll send it to Basil and see what he thinks,' she thought. Then Dorothy and Margot came up, merry and talking. 'You _are_ a lazy little unsociable slacker,' Margot told her. 'John was telling us such ripping stories, too. Make him tell you to-morrow about the sergeant-major and the pheasant and the barbed wire. It was awfully funny.' Dorothy yawned. 'Oh, I'm sleepy. Thank goodness it's Sunday to-morrow, so we can lie in. Margot, you've pinched my slippers.... Oh no, all right.' Alix lay and read. Her cousins undressed and said their prayers and got into bed. 'Ready, Alix?' asked Margot, her finger on the switch. 'Right,' said Alix, putting Mr. Clive Bell under her pillow, where, deeply as she differed from him, he seemed to lie as a protection against something. The switch clicked, and the room was in darkness. Margot and Dorothy murmured on drowsily, dropping remarks about the hospital, the canteen, things John had said.... The remarks trailed away into sleep. 5 Alix lay awake. Her forehead was hot and her feet were cold. She was tense, and on the brink of shivering. Staring into the dark she saw things happening across the seas: dreadful things, ugly, jarring, horrifying things. War--war--war. It pressed round her; there was no escape from it. Every one talked it, breathed it, lived in it. Aunt Eleanor, with her committees, and her terrible refugees; Mademoiselle Verstigel, with her round robin's eyes that had looked horror in the face so near; Uncle Gerald, with his paper and his intelligent city rumours; Dorothy and Margot with their soldiers, who kept coming to tea, cheerful, charming, and maimed; John, damaged and stammering, with his nervous eyes and his quiet, humorous trench talk; Basil, writing from his dug-out of Boche and shells ... little Paul out there in the dark ... they were all up against the monster, being strangled ... it was like that beastly Laocoon.... There was a balcony running along outside the bedrooms at the front of the house. The moonlight lay palely on it; Alix watched it through the long open window. Through the window came a sound of quiet crying; gasping, choked sobbing, as if a child were in despair. Alix sat up in bed and listened. Margot and Dorothy breathed softly, each a peace-drugged column of bedclothes. Alix, pale and frowning, scrambled out of bed, shuddered, and pattered on thin, naked feet to the window and out on to the moon-bathed stone balcony floor. Outside his own window, John, barefooted, in pink pyjamas, stood, gripping with both hands on to the iron balustrade, his face turned up to the moon, crying, sobbing, moaning, like a little child, like a man on the rack. He was saying things from time to time ... muttering them ... Alix heard. Things quite different from the things he had said at dinner. Only his eyes, as Alix had met them between the daffodils, had spoken at all like this; and even that had not been like this. His eyes were now wide and wet, and full of a horror beyond speech. They turned towards Alix and looked through her, beyond her, unseeing. John was fast asleep. Alix, to hear no more, put her hands over her ears and turned and ran into the bedroom. She flung herself upon Dorothy and shook her by the shoulders, shook her till she sat up startled and awake. Alix stammered, 'John--John. He's walking in his sleep ... out there.... He's crying--he's talking ... go and stop him.' Dorothy, efficient and professional in a moment, sprang out of bed into her two waiting slippers, and ran into the balcony. Alix heard her, gentle, quiet, firm, soothing John, leading him back to bed. Alix was most suddenly and violently sick. When Dorothy came back, twenty minutes later, she was huddled under the bedclothes, exhausted, shuddering and cold. 'He's quiet now,' said Dorothy, taking off her slippers. 'Poor old boy. They often do it, you know. It's the nervous shock. I must listen at nights.... I say, don't tell him, Alix; he wouldn't like it. Specially to know he was crying. Poor old Johnny. Just the thing he'd never do, awake, however far gone he was. Nor talking like that; he was saying awful things.... Did you hear?' 'Yes,' said Alix, in a small, faint voice. Dorothy looked at her curiously, and saw her grey pallor and shut eyes. 'Why, you're ill too: I believe Johnny's upset you.' She spoke with a kindly pity and contempt. 'Is that it, kiddie?' 'Don't know,' said Alix. 'No. Should think it was too many walnuts at dinner. Let's go to sleep now.' Dorothy, before she did this, turned her head on the pillow towards Alix's corner and said kindly, 'You'll never be any use if you don't forget _yourself_, Alix. You couldn't possibly nurse if you were always giving in to your own nerves. After all, what they can bear to go through, we ought to be able to bear to hear about. But of course you're not used to it, I know. You should come to the hospital sometimes. Good-night. If you feel rotten in the morning, don't get up.' Dorothy went to sleep. Alix lay and watched the shadows shifting slowly round on the balcony, and listened for sobbing, but heard only the quiet murmur of the pines. 'What they can bear to go through.... But they can't, they can't, they can't ... we can bear to hear about ... but we can't, we can't, we can't....' It was like the intolerable ticking of a clock, and beat itself away at last into a sick dream. On the other side of the wall, John started and sat bolt upright in bed, with wide staring eyes.... John, like many thousand others, would perhaps never sleep quietly through a night again. Yet John had been a composed sleeper once. CHAPTER III ALIX GOES 1 It was Sunday next day. Dorothy and Margot conducted a party of wounded soldiers to matins. Mrs. Orme, who thought it time Mademoiselle Verstigel went to Mass again, sent her over to Wonford, where there was a church of her persuasion. She herself had to go up to town to the Sunday club where soldiers' and sailors' families were kept out of the streets and given coffee, news, friendship, music, and the chance to read good books, a chance of which Mrs. Orme, a sanguine person, hoped undiscouraged that they would one day avail themselves. (Hope, faith, and love were in her family. Her sister, Daphne Sandomir, when in England, held study circles of working women to instruct them in the principles which make for permanent peace, and hoped with the same fervour that they would read the books and pamphlets she gave them.) Mr. Orme and John walked over to the links to play golf. Alix, not having either the church, club, or golf habit, and being unfitted for much walking, sat in the wood, tried to paint, and failed. She felt peevish, tired, cross and selfish, and her head ached, as one's head nearly always does after being sick in the night. The pines were no good: stupid trees, the wrong shape. What sort of pictures would one be painting out there? Mud-coloured levels, mud-coloured men, splashes of green here and there ... and red.... And blue sky, or mud-coloured, with shells winging through it like birds, singing, 'Lloyd-Lloyd-Lloyd-Lloyd.'... The sort of picture Basil would be painting and the way he would be painting it she knew exactly. Only probably he wasn't painting at all to-day. It was Sunday-hate day. Whizz-bangs, pom-poms, trench-mortars spinning along and bouncing off the wire trench roof.... Minnie coming along to blow the whole trench inside out ... legs and arms and bits of men flying in the air ... the rest of them buried deep in choking earth ... perhaps to be dug out alive, perhaps dead.... What was it John had said on the balcony--something about a leg ... the leg of a friend ... pulling it out of the chaos of earth and mud and stones which had been a trench ... thinking it led on to the entire friend, finding it didn't, was a detached bit.... Had John cried at the time? Been sick? Probably not; John was a self-contained young man. He had waited till afterwards, when he was asleep. Alix, seeing her friends in scattered bits, seeing worse than that, seeing what John had seen and mentioned with tears, turned the greenish pallor of pale, ageing cheese, and dropped her head in her hands. Painting was off for that morning. Painting and war don't go together. 2 Mrs. Orme came home in the afternoon, tired but still energetic. Mr. Orme and John came in to tea too, with Sunday papers and having seen telegrams about the German offensive being stopped at Ypres. Callers dropped in to tea. They worried John by their questions. They kindly drew out Mademoiselle Verstigel, in French worse than her English. Directly after tea Margot had to hurry away up to town to the canteen. The callers dropped out again, one by one. John and his father went out to smoke in the garden, and to look at young trees. Dorothy went to make a cake for the hospital. Mrs. Orme sorted, filed, and pigeon-holed case-papers about Belgians. Alix, sitting in the window seat, said, 'Aunt Eleanor, I think I'm too far away from the School. I think I'd better go and stay in London, to be nearer.' Mrs. Orme abstracted part of her attention from the Belgians, paused, paper in hand, and looked at her niece with her fine dark kind eyes, that were like her sister's, only different. 'Very well, child. You may be right. I'm sorry, though....' She jabbed a paper on the file, and gave more of her attention still. 'Go and stay in London.... But with whom, dear? And what does your mother think?' 'Oh, mother,' said Alix, and gave her small, crooked smile. 'Mother won't mind. She never does. I'll write to her about it, any time.... Well, I might be in rooms--alone or with some one else.' 'Not alone,' Mrs. Orme said promptly. 'You're not old enough. Twenty-five, is it? You look less. Oh yes, I know girls do it, but I don't like it. I wouldn't let Dorothy or Margot. Who could you share them with? You've not thought of any one especial? It would have to be some one sensible, who'd look after you, or you'd get ill.... Nicholas lives with another man, doesn't he?... Wait: I've just thought of something....' She began rummaging in her desk. 'I've a letter somewhere; I kept it, I know. She looked for it. Alix thought how like she was, as she searched, to her sister Daphne; both were so often looking for papers which they knew they had kept; and both had the same short-sighted frown and graceful bend of the neck. 'Here,' said Mrs. Orme, and held up an envelope addressed in a flowing hand--the sort of hand once used by most ladies, but now chiefly by elderly and middle-aged persons of an unliterary habit. 'Emily Frampton,' said Mrs. Orme. 'No, you wouldn't know her, but she's a cousin. That is, not a cousin, but married to one. She's the widow of your cousin Laurence, who died fifteen years ago. None of us could think why ... well.' She checked herself. 'She's very nice and kind, Emily Frampton.' But so different, she meant, from their cousin Laurence. This was so. Laurence Frampton had been scholarly, humorous, keen-witted, dry-tongued, and a professor of Greek. Emily Frampton was not; which is sufficient description of her for the moment. 'She and her two girls (her own, you know; she was a widow even before she married Laurence) live at Clapton. Violette, Spring Hill, Upper Clapton, N. They're poor; they want some nice person to board with them. She's very kind; you'd be taken care of.' Mrs. Orme puckered her wide, white forehead and looked at Alix as if she were a Belgian with a case-paper. 'Really, till your mother comes back and takes the responsibility, I can't let you go just anywhere.' 'Well--' Alix drawled a little, uncertainly. 'I don't _like_ being taken care of, Aunt Eleanor. And they sound dull.' 'Well, dear, you must settle. I own I couldn't personally live at--what's the name of the house--Geranium--Pansy--no, Violet--Violette, I mean. Those sort of people are so dreadfully out of the currents; probably know nothing about the war, except that there is one, and....' 'Well,' said Alix, more quickly, 'perhaps I'll go there, Aunt Eleanor. I think I will.' 'You'll be doing them a kindness,' said Mrs. Orme. 'And of course it will be much more convenient for you than going up to town from here every day. If you like I'll write to Mrs. Frampton to-day. We shall miss you, dear.' She screwed up her eyes affectionately at Alix, and added, 'You don't look well, child. I wish your mother would come home. You miss her.' 'It's fun when mother's home,' said Alix. 'But it's quieter when she isn't. Mother's so--so stimulating.' 'Oh, very,' said Mrs. Orme, who thought of Mrs. Sandomir as a spoilt, clever, fascinating but wrong-headed younger sister. She couldn't tell Alix how wrong-headed she found her mother, but she added kindly, 'You know, my dear, that I think she is mistaken in her present enterprise, and would be much better at home.' 'Most enterprises are mistaken. All, very likely,' said Alix, and her aunt was shocked, thinking she should not be cynical so young. 'The child's a funny outcome of Paul Sandomir and Daphne,' she reflected, and returned to her case-papers. 3 John came in. Alix noticed how cheerful and placid he looked, and how his hand, holding his pipe, shook. He sat down and began to talk about the advantages of not digging up one of the lawns for potatoes, which Margot wanted to do. His memories lay behind his watchful eyes, safely guarded. But Alix knew. 'I must write to mother,' she said, and left the room. As she went upstairs she met Mademoiselle Verstigel coming down. Her Sunday dress was bright scarlet, with canary-coloured ribbons. She had saved it out of the wreck at home, when all seemed lost, and fled in it, like so many Belgians. She looked at Alix with her round eyes, and they too held memories. Alix stumbled at a stair. Mademoiselle caught her thin arm in her own plump one and saved her from falling. Alix hated the touch; she said, 'Oh, merci,' and gripped her stick tight and hurried on upstairs with her uneven, limping steps. She got into the schoolroom and shut the door. 'I must get away,' she said, breathing hard. 'I will go to Violette.' PART II VIOLETTE CHAPTER IV SATURDAY MORNING AT VIOLETTE 1 Alix rode from South Kensington to Clapton in the warm mid-June night on the last bus. She had been at a birthday party in Margaretta Terrace, S.W. Bus 2 took her to the Strand end of Chancery Lane. Here she left her companion, who had rooms in Clifford's Inn, and walked up Chancery Lane to Holborn, and got the last Stamford Hill bus and rushed up Gray's Inn Road and then into the ugly, clamorous squalor of Theobald's Road, Clerkenwell and Old Street. The darkness hid the squalor and the dull sordidness of the long straight stretch of Kingsland Road. Through the night came only the flare of the street booths and the screaming of the very poor, who never seem too tired to scream. At Stamford Hill Alix got off, and walked down Upper Clapton Road, which was quiet and dark, with lime-trees. Alix softly whistled a tune that some one had played on a violin to-night at Audrey Hillier's party. The party, and the music, and the students' talk of art-school shop, and the childish, absurd jokes, and the chocolates and cigarettes (she had eaten eighteen and smoked five) were like a stimulating, soothing drug. A policeman at the corner of Spring Hill flashed his light over her and lit her up for a moment, hatless, cloaked, whistling softly, limping on a stick, with her queer, narrow eyes and white face. She turned down Spring Hill, which is an inclined road running along the northern end of Springfield Park down to the river Lea. It is a civilised and polite road, though its dwellings have not the dignified opulence of the houses round the common. Alix stopped at Violette, and let herself softly in with her latchkey. Violette was silent and warm; the gas in the tiny hall was turned low. The door ajar on the right showed a room also dimly lit, with a saucepan of milk ready to heat on the gas-ring, and a plate of Albert biscuits and a sense of recent occupation. It is very clear in an empty room by night what sort of people have sat and talked and occupied themselves in it by day. Their thoughts and words lie about, with their books and sewing. There were also in this room crochet doylies on the chairs and tables, a large photograph of a stout and heavily-moustached gentleman above the piano (Mr. Tucker), a small photograph of a thin and shaven and scholarly gentleman over the writing-table (Professor Frampton), some Marcus Stones, Landseers, and other reproductions round the walls, two bright blue vases on the chimney-piece, containing some yellow flowers of the kind that age cannot wither, dry, rustling, and immortal, 'Thou seest me' illuminated in pink and gold letters, circling the picture of a monstrous eye (an indubitably true remark, for no inhabitant of the room could fail to see it), and the _Evening Thrill_ and _The Lovers' Heritage_ (Mrs. Blankley's latest novel) lying on the table. Alix sat on the table and smoked another cigarette. She always smoked far too many. She was pale, with heavy, sleep-shadowed eyes. She had talked and smoked and been funny all the evening. One o'clock struck. Alix turned out the gas and went up to bed, quietly, lest she should disturb the family. She crept into the bedroom she shared with Evie, and undressed by the light that came in through the half-curtained window from the darkened lamps in the street. The faint light showed Evie, asleep in her lovely grace, the grace as of some lithe young wild animal. Alix never tired of absorbing the various aspects of this lovely grace. She got into bed and curled herself up. Between the half-drawn window curtains she could see the tops of the Park trees, waving and fluttering their boughs in a dark sky, where clouds drove across the waning moon. Footsteps beat in the road outside, came near, passed, and died. The policeman trod and retrod his allotted sphere, guarding Violette while it drifted drowsily into the summer dawn, which broke through light, whispering rain. Alix dreamed.... In Flanders, the rain sloped down on to men standing to in slippery trenches, yawning, shivering, listening.... 2 Evie pulled back the curtain, and the yellow day broke into Alix's dreams and opened her sleepy eyes. She yawned, her thin arms, like a child's arms, stretched above her head. 'Oh, Evie,' said Alix. 'Can't be morning, is it?' 'Not half,' said Evie, collecting her sponges and towels for her bath. 'It's last night still.... Whatever time did you get back, child?' (Evie was a year younger than Alix, but more experienced. In her pink kimono dressing-gown, with her long brown plait down her back, and her face softly flushed from the pillow, she looked like the blossom a hazel-nut might have had, had it been so arranged.) 'Twelve--one--two--don't know,' Alix yawned, and pulled the bedclothes tight under her chin. 'Think I was too tipsy to notice.' Evie, coming back from the bathroom, woke her again. She lay and watched, between sleepy lids, Evie dressing. Drowsily she thought how awfully, awfully pretty Evie was. Evie was lithe and long-limbed, with sudden, swift grace of movement like a kitten's or a young panther's. She had a face pink and brown, fine in contour, and prettily squared at the jaw, eyes wide and dark and set far apart under level brows, and dimples. Of the Violette household, Evie alone had charm. Except on Saturdays and Sundays she trimmed hats at a very superior and artistic establishment in Bond Street. There was a certain adequacy about Evie; she did but little here below, but did that little well. Alix sat up in bed, one dark plait hanging on either side of her small pale face, her sharp chin resting on her knees. 'I must do it sometime, mustn't I?' she said, and did it forthwith, tumbling out of bed and staggering across to the washstand for her sponge and towel. She dropped and drowned her dreams in her cold bath, and came back cool and indifferent. Through the open window the summer morning blew upon her merrily; it was windy, careless, friendly, full of light and laughter. 3 In the dining-room, when Alix came down, were Mrs. Frampton, who was small, trim, fifty-three, and reading a four-page letter; Kate, who was inconspicuous, neat, twenty-nine, and making tea; and Evie, who has already been described and was perusing two apparently amusing letters. Mrs. Frampton looked up from her letter to say, 'Good-morning, dear. You came home with the milk this morning, I can see by those dark saucers. You ought to have stayed in bed and had some breakfast there.' Mrs. Frampton was very kind. She also was very early in going to bed: anything after midnight was to her with the milk. Kate said, having made the tea and turned out the gas-ring, 'We're all late this morning. If we don't commence breakfast quick I shall never get through my day.' They stood round the table; Mrs. Frampton said, 'For what we are about to receive,' and Kate said, 'Some bacon, mother?' 'A small helping only, love.... Such a nice long letter from Aunt Nellie. Fred and Maudie have been staying with her for the week-end, and the baby's tooth begins to get through. Aunt Nellie's rheumatism is no better, though, and she thinks of Harrogate next month. Do you hear that, Kate?' Kate was critically examining a plate. 'Egg left on it _again_. If I've spoken to Florence once I've done so fifty times, about egg on plates. I'd better ring for her and speak at once, hadn't I, mother? She'll never learn otherwise.' 'Do, love.' Kate rang. Florence came and Kate said, 'Florence, there's egg on this plate again. Take it away and bring another, and recollect what I told you about soda.' 'Oh dear me, dear me,' said Mrs. Frampton, who had opened the paper. 'Just listen to this. One of those Zeppelins came again last night and dropped bombs on the East Coast, killing sixteen and injuring forty. Now, isn't that wicked! Babies in the cradle formed a large proportion of the fatalities, as usual. Poor little loves. You'd think those men would be ashamed, with all the civilised world calling them baby-killers last time.' 'They're just inhuman murderers,' said Kate absently. 'I expect they're dead to shame by now.... This bacon is somewhat less streaky than the last. We must speak to Edwards about it again. I shall tell him we shall really have to deal with Perkins if he can't do better for us. Another slice, Evie?' 'Some more toast, love,' Mrs. Frampton suggested to Alix. 'And a little preserve. You don't eat properly, Alix. You'll never grow strong and big and rosy.... Kate, this tea isn't so nice as the last. A touch raspier, it seems. What do you think?' 'I prefer it, mother. It has somewhat more taste. But if you think it's too strong....' 'No, love, I expect you're right. Is it the one-and-ninepenny?' 'One-and-eight.' Evie giggled over her correspondence. 'And who have _you_ heard from, Evie?' asked her mother, looking indulgently at her pretty younger daughter. 'Floss Vinney, for one. She's got some more blouse patterns, and wants me to go round again and help her choose. There's one a perfect treat she was thinking of last week; she thinks it'll make up to suit her, but it won't a bit; it's fussy, and she's too fussy already, with that frizzy hair. It would suit me nicely, or you, Alix, but it'll smother Floss. I told her so, but she wouldn't believe me. She thinks Vin will like her in it, but I bet he doesn't. Though, of course, you never can say _what_ a man will like, they're so funny. Oh dear, they are comic!' Evie gurgled over some private experiences of her own: she did not lack them. 'Floss usually looks very nice in her clothes,' said Kate with deliberate heroism, because, for reasons, she disliked to think so. Alix, hearing her, passed her the jam (preserve, Violette called it) impulsively, without being asked; and as a matter of fact, Kate, eating bacon, did not want it. Mrs. Frampton, moved doubtless by some sequence of thought known to herself, said, 'They say those Belgians in the corner house eat ten pounds of cheese each week. Edwards' boy told Florence. Just fancy that. Not that one grudges them anything, poor things.' Kate said, 'Mr. Alison' (the vicar of the church she attended) 'says those corner Belgians have been very troublesome indeed lately. They've all quarrelled among themselves, and all but the wounded young man and his mother think the wounded young man is well enough to go to the front now, and he will slam the doors so, and two new ones have come, so they're packed as tight as herrings (but they say Belgians always _will_ overcrowd), and the one that lost her baby on the journey has found it again, and the others aren't pleased because it cries at nights, and they all say they don't get enough to eat. The vicar's had no end of bother with them. And now two of them say they won't stay here, they'll go off to Hull, where Belgians aren't allowed. The vicar reasoned with them ever so long, but they will go. They say they have uncles there. I'm sure it's very wrong if they have. It does seem sad, doesn't it?' The lack of discipline among this unhappy people, she meant, rather than the uncles at Hull. Mrs. Frampton said, 'To think of them behaving like that, after all they've been through!' She scanned the paper again, having finished her small breakfast. 'Here's a German in Tottenham Court Road strangled himself with his window cord. Ashamed of his country. Well, who can blame him? We must leave that to his Maker. Now listen to this: Lord Harewood says Harrogate is a nest of spies. Quite full of German wives, it is. Fancy, and Aunt Nellie going to take the baths there next month. Lowestoft too, and Clacton-on-Sea. I'm sure I shall never want to visit any of those East Coast places again; you'd never know whom to trust; not to mention all these airships coming, and being put into gaol if you forget to pull the blinds, and having your dog confiscated if he runs out by night.... Girl robbed her grandmother; she spent it all on dress, too. Fancy, with all the distress there is just now. Home Hints: Don't throw away a favourite hat because you think its day is over. Wash it in a solution of water and gum and lay it flat on the kitchen dresser. Stuff the crown with soft paper and stand four flat-irons on the brim. But clean the irons well first with brick-dust and ammonia. The hat will then be a very nice new shape.... Here's a recipe for apple shortcake, Kate: I shall cut that out for Florence.... Dear me, how late it gets! We must all get to our day's work.... Have you heard news from your mother, Alix dear?' 'Yes.' Alix had two letters before her. 'Mother writes from Athens. She's been interviewing Tino (don't know how she managed it); trying to get him to sit on a council for Continuous Mediation without Armistice. I gather Tino thinks it a jolly sound plan in theory, but isn't having any in practice. That's the position of most of the neutral governments, apparently.' As none of the family knew what Continuous Mediation without Armistice meant, the only comment forthcoming was, from Mrs. Frampton, 'Your mother is a very wonderful person. I only hope she isn't getting over-tired, going about as much as she does.... You've had some news from the front too, haven't you?' 'Yes,' said Alix. 'A friend of mine has just got wounded. He's being sent home.' 'Oh, my dear, how unfortunate! Not seriously, I trust?' 'No, I shouldn't think so. A nice blighty one in the hand, he says. He seems quite cheery about it. He tried to return a bomb to the senders, and it went off just before its proper time. It happens often, he says. It must be difficult to calculate about these time-bombs.' 'A dreadful risk to take, indeed! It's his left, I suppose, as he writes?' 'He dictated it. No, not his left.' 'The right? Dear me, now, how sad that is. It so hampers a man. What used he to work at, love?' 'He paints.' 'Well now, isn't that a pity! He must learn to paint left-handed when the war's over, mustn't he? But I hope his hand will be quite well again long before then. It's given you quite a shock, dearie, I can see. You've gone quite pale. Would you like a little sal-volatile?' 'No thank you, Cousin Emily. It's not given me a shock a bit.... Do you want me to do the lamps, Kate?' 'Well--I don't know why you should. Evie's nothing to do this morning....' Kate looked doubtfully at her sister, who said promptly, 'Oh, hasn't she? That's all you know. I'm for a cutting-out morning. Thanks muchly, Alix; I'll do the dusting if you'll do the lamps.' 4 Kate retired to domestic duties in the back regions. Evie, before doing the dusting, took up the _Daily Message_ and glanced through the feuilleton. It had been the same feuilleton for many weeks. It was always headed by a synopsis and a list of characters: 'John Hargreave, a strong, quiet man of deep feeling, to whom anything underhand is abhorrent. Valerie Lascelles, a beautiful girl of nineteen, who loves John. Sylvia, her sister, exactly like Valerie in face, but not in character, for she is shallow and hard and lives abroad, the widow of a foreign count. Cyril Arbuthnot, a smart man about town, unscrupulous in his methods, who sticks at nothing.' No wonder Evie found it interesting. Then she flicked competently round the drawing-room with a duster, calling to Florence to clear away quick, because she wanted the table for cutting out. Alix did the lamps in the pantry. Mrs. Frampton did accounts and wrote to Aunt Nellie, in the dining-room. Florence cleared away, also in the dining-room. Kate looked in in her hat and coat, with the little red books that come from shops on a Saturday morning. 'I'd better get in a new tongue, I suppose, mother. The one we have will scarcely be sufficient for Sunday.' 'Yes, dear. Get one of the large ones.' Kate went bill-paying. Evie extracted incomprehensively-shaped pieces of brown paper from the pages of _Home Chat_, a weekly periodical which she took in, and began her cutting-out morning. Alix returned from the lamps and said, 'I'm going out for the day with some people. I may go on to Nicholas in the evening, very likely.' (It may or may not have been before mentioned that Alix had a brother of that name.) 'Very well, dear. Bring your brother or some of your friends back with you afterwards, if you like. I'm sure it would be very nice if they stopped to supper. Our supper's simple, but there's always plenty for all. And the Vinneys are coming round afterwards, so we shall be a nice party. I asked them because they've got that cousin, Miss Simon, staying with them, and I thought they'd be glad of an evening's change for her.' 'That fatty in a sailor blouse,' Evie, who observed clothes, commented. 'I should think they'd be glad of a change _from_ her. She's a suffragette, and talks the weirdest stuff; she's as good as a play to listen to.... I shouldn't think your brother'd get on with the Vinneys a bit, Alix.' 'Probably not,' said Alix. 'He doesn't with most people.' Evie looked as if she shouldn't think he did. 'What's the name of that new floor-polish, to tell Aunt Nellie?' said Mrs. Frampton, pausing in her letter. But, as Kate was out, and as it was neither Ronuk nor Cherry Blossom (suggestions of unequal levels of intelligence from Evie and Alix), she had to leave a space for it. CHAPTER V AFTERNOON OUT 1 Alix sat on the bus and rushed through the shining summer morning down Upper Clapton Road, Lower Clapton Road, Mare Street, Hackney Road, Shoreditch, Bishopsgate, and so into the city. The noon war news leaped from placards, in black and red and green. A mile of trenches taken near Festubert--a mile of trenches lost again. Alix did not care and would not look. Anyhow it wasn't Paul's part of the line. London was damp and shining under a windy blue sky. They had cleared away the bodies of those struck down last night by motor buses in the dark. What a sacrifice of life! Was it worth while? The traffic was held up every now and then by companies of recruits swinging along, in khaki and mufti, jolly, absorbed, resolute, self-conscious, or amused. There went down Threadneedle Street the Artists' Rifles. Some looked like studio artists, pale, intelligent, sometimes spectacled, others more like pavement artists, others again suggested sign-painters. But this last was probably an illusion, as sign-painters since last August had been mostly too busy painting out and repainting names on signs to have time for soldiering. Many classes have lost heavily by this war, such as publicans, milliners, writers, Belgians, domestic servants, university lecturers, publishers, artists, actors, and newspapers. But some have gained; among these are sheep-growers, house-agents, sugar-merchants, munition-makers, colliers, coal-owners, and sign-painters. An unequal world. The bus waited, held up opposite a recruiting station. Alix, looking down, met the hypnotic stare of the Great Man pictured on the walls, and turned away, checking a startled giggle. Anyhow she was lame, and not the sex which goes either, worse luck. (On that desperate root of bitterness she never dwelt: that way madness lay.) Her swerving eyes fell next on one of the pictures of domestic life designed and executed (so common report had it) by the same Great Man; the picture in which an innocent and reproachful infant inquires of a desperately embarrassed but apparently not irate parent, 'Daddy, what did _you_ do to help when Britain fought for freedom in 1915?' Alix giggled again, and looked up at the white clouds racing across the summer sky, where was no war nor rumours of war. 2 At Bond Street she left the bus and went to Grafton Street, where there was a small exhibition of pictures by two young artists known to Alix. Here she met by appointment three friends, her fellow-students at the art school. Their names were Nonie Maclure, Oliver Banister, and Thomas Ashe. Miss Maclure and Mr. Banister were there before her. They greeted her with 'What cheer, Joanna?'--Joanna, because in a play composed and produced recently by their combined talent, Alix had taken this part. Alix went to speak to the exhibitors, who were standing about and failing to look detached, and began to look round, murmuring to her friends, 'What's the show like?... Oh, she's got that yellow thing in...' and so forth. Presently Mr. Thomas Ashe joined them. (It may here be mentioned, lest readers should be unfairly prejudiced against Mr. Ashe and Mr. Banister, that one of them had a frozen lung and the other a distended aorta. They were quite good young men really, and would have preferred to go.) They criticised and appreciated the pictures for an hour, with the interested criticism and over-appreciation usually poured forth by young persons on the works of their fellow-students and contemporaries, often at the expense of the older and staler and less in the only movement that really matters. 'That's like some of Doye's things,' said one of the young men, and the other said, 'Doye's wounded, isn't he? I saw it in the paper to-day. I hope it's not much.' Alix said it wasn't. 'He's on his way home. I hope they send him to a hospital in town, so we can all go and see him.' Nonie Maclure shot her a curious glance. She had never known quite how deep the intimacy between these two had gone. She sometimes wondered. She had thought just before the war that it went very deep indeed. But in these present days Alix seemed prepared to play round at large with so many young men, and to flirt, when that was the game, with a light-handed recklessness only exceeded by Nonie herself; and Nonie, of course, was notorious. 3 They went out to lunch. The world is divided into those who have lunch in their own homes, those who have lunch in some one else's, those who have lunch in hotel restaurants, those who have lunch in nice eating-shops, those who have lunch in less nice eating-shops, such as A.B.C.'s, those who have lunch in eating-shops very far from nice, those who have lunch in handkerchiefs, and those who do not have lunch at all. The classes are, of course, not rigid; many people alternate from day to day between one and another of them. Alix and her friends were, most days, either in class four or class five. To-day they were in class four, being out for a happy day, and they had lunch in a little place in Soho, full of orange-trees in green tubs, and sunshine, and maccaroni. They found one another interesting, entertaining, and attractive. Nonie Maclure was dark and good-looking, a fitfully brilliant worker, and a consistently lively companion. Oliver Banister was gentle and fair and delicate, and indifferent to most things, only not to art or to Nonie Maclure. He had tried to get passed for the army, but, as he was rejected, he settled down tranquilly and without the bitterness that eats the souls of so many of the medically and sexually unfit. He recognised the compensations of his lot. Tommy Ashe, on the other hand, was bitter and angry like Alix; like her he would have hated the war anyhow, even if he had been fighting, being a sensitive and intelligent youth, but as it was he loathed it so much that he would never mention it unless he had to, and then only with a sneer. It was partly this that drew him to Alix and her to him. They were in the same case. So they found they could trust one another not to talk of the indecent monster. Also he admired her unusual, delicate, ironic type. Anyhow it was the fashion to have some special friend among the girls at the school, and it helped one to forget. So he and Alix plunged into a flirtation not normally natural to either. The four of them flirted and ragged and joked and were funny all the afternoon, which they spent in Richmond Park. Alix and Tommy Ashe went off together and lost the other two, and lay on the grass, and became rather more intimate than they had ever been before. When soldiers strolled by they looked the other way and pretended not to see, and talked very fast about anything that came into their heads. Sometimes the soldiers were wounded; once a party of them, in hospital blues, sat down quite near them, with two girls in V.A.D. uniform, who called the soldiers by their surnames and chaffed them. They were all being merry and funny and having a good time. One was a boy of eighteen, pink-cheeked and hilarious, with his right leg cut short just below the thigh. 'Look here, it's time we found those two people,' said Alix, sitting up. 'We must really set about it in earnest.' So they went away, but presently they felt more like tea than finding the others, so they had some. When finally the party joined itself together, it went to Earl's Court and had a hilarious hour flip-flapping, wiggle-woggling, and joy-wheeling. It desisted at half-past six, dishevelled, battered and bruised, and separated to fulfil its respective evening engagements. 4 Alix went to see her brother Nicholas. Nicholas was a journalist, on the staff of a weekly paper which cost sixpence and with whose politics he was not in agreement. As there was no paper, weekly, sixpenny or otherwise, with whose politics he was in agreement, this was not strange. It may further be premised of Nicholas that he was twenty-seven years old, of good abilities, thought war too ridiculous a business for him to take part or lot in, was probably medically unfit to do so but would not for the world have had it proved, was completely lacking in any sense of veneration for anything, negligently put aside as absurd all forms of supernatural religion, shared rooms with a curate friend in Clifford's Inn, and had from an infant reacted so violently against the hereditary enthusiasm which nevertheless looked irrepressibly out of his eyes that he had landed himself in an unintelligent degree of cynicism in all matters. Hither Alix went, when the evening sunshine lay mellow on Chancery Lane. Alix had a curious and quite unaccountable feeling for Chancery Lane. It seemed to her romantic beyond all reason. Just now it was as some wild lane on the battle front, or like a trench which has been shelled, for the most recent airship raid had ploughed it up. A week ago it had been the scene of that wild terror and shrieking confusion which is characterised by a euphemistic press as 'no panic.' Alix limped past the chaos quickly. An old man tried to sell her a paper. '_Star_, lady? _Globe_, _Pall Mall_, _Evening News_? British fail to hold conquered trenches....' Alix hurried by; the newsvendor turned his attention to some one else. Evening papers, of course, are interesting, and should not really be missed; they often contain so much news that is ephemeral and fades away before the morning into the light of common day; they are as perishable and never-to-be-repeated as some frail and lovely flower. But Alix, ignoring them, reached Clifford's Inn, and climbed the narrow oak stairway to the rooms inscribed: MR. N. I. SANDOMIR, REV. C. M. V. WEST. Both these gentlemen were in their sitting-room. The Rev. C. M. V. West reposed on a wicker couch, reading alternately two weekly church papers and the _Cambridge Magazine_. One of these papers was High Church, another Broad Church, the third did not hold with churches. The Rev. C. M. V. West was a refined-looking young man, very neatly cassocked, with a nice face and a sense of humour. In justice to him we must say that he worked very hard as a rule, but had been enjoying a deserved rest before evensong. To Alix he stood for a queer force that was at work in the world and which she had been brought up to consider retrograde. Nicholas Sandomir lay in an easy-chair, surrounded by review copies of books. He was too broad-shouldered for his height; he was pale and prominent-jawed, with something of the Slav cast of feature; his mouth, like Alix's, was the mouth of a cynic; his eyes, small, overhung, and deep blue, were the eyes of an idealist. This paradox of his face was only one among many paradoxes in him; he was unreliable; he disbelieved in all churches, and lived, unaccountably, with a High Church curate (this, probably, was because he liked him personally and also liked to have an intelligent person constantly at hand to disagree with; also he came, on his father's side, of a race of devout and mystic Catholics). He despised war, and looked with contempt on peace societies (this was perhaps because, so far as he worshipped anything, he worshipped efficiency, and found both peace societies and war singularly lacking in this quality). He detested Germany as a power, and loathed Russia who was combating her (this, doubtless, was because he was half a Pole). Anyhow, this evening, when Alix came in, he was sulkily, even viciously, turning the pages of a little book he had to review, called (it was one of a series) _The Effects of the War on Literature_. He waved his disengaged hand at Alix, and left it to West, who had much better manners, to get up and put a chair for her and pass and light her a cigarette. 'Did you meet Belgians on the stairs?' inquired West. 'They've put some in the rooms above us--the rooms that used to be Hans Bauer's. Five of them, isn't it, Sandomir?' 'Five to rise,' Nicholas replied. 'A baby due next week, I'm told.' (Unarrived babies were among the things not alluded to at Violette in mixed company: no wonder Violette found Nicholas peculiar.) 'It's awkward,' West added, lowering his voice and glancing at one of the shut bedroom doors, 'because we keep a German, and they can't meet.' 'What do you do that for?' asked Alix unsympathetically. 'Awkward, isn't it?' said West. 'Because they keep coming to see us--the Belgians, I mean (they like us rather), and he'--he nodded at the bedroom--'has to scoot in there till they're gone. It's like dogs and cats; they simply can't be let to meet.' 'Well, I don't know what you want with a German, anyhow.' 'He's a friend of ours,' explained Nicholas. 'He was living in the Golders Green Garden City, and it became so disagreeable for him (they're all so exposed there, you know--nothing hid) that we asked him here instead. If they find him he's afraid they may put him in a concentration camp, and of course if the Belgians sighted him they'd complain. He means no harm, but unfortunately he had a concrete lawn in his garden, about ten feet square, where he used to bounce a ball for exercise. Also he had made a level place on his roof, among Mr. Raymond Unwin's sloping tiles, where he used to sit and admire the distant view through a spyglass. It's all very black against him, but he's a studious and innocent little person really, and he'd hate to be concentrated.' ('It would make one feel so like essence of beef, wouldn't it?' West murmured absently.) 'He's not a true patriot,' went on Nicholas. 'He wants the Hohenzollerns to be guillotined and a disruptive country of small waning states to be re-established. He writes articles on German internal reform for the monthly reviews. He calls them "Kill or Cure," or, "A short way with Imperialism," or some such bloody title. I don't care for his English literary style, but his intentions are excellent.... Well, and how's life?' Nicholas turned his small keen blue eyes on his sister. 'You look as if you'd been out for a joy-day. You want some more hairpins, but we don't keep any here.' 'I've been wiggle-woggling,' Alix admitted, and added frankly, 'I feel jolly sick after it.' 'Our family constitution,' said her brother, 'is quite unfit for the strains we habitually subject it to. Mine is. I feel jolly sick too. But my indisposition is incurred in the path of duty. I've got to review the things, so I have to read them--a little here and there, anyhow. And then, just as one feels one has reached one's limit, one gets a handbook of wisdom like this, to finish one off.' He read a page at random from _The Effects of the War on Literature_. 'The war is putting an end to sordidness and littleness, in literature as in other spheres of human life. The second-rate, the unheroic, the earthy, the petty, the trivial--how does it look now, seen in the light of the guns that blaze over Flanders? The guns, shattering so much, have at least shattered falsity in art. We were degenerate, a little, in our literature and in our lives: we have been made great. We are come, surely, to the heroic, the epic pitch of living; if we cannot express it with a voice worthy of it, then indeed it has failed in its deepest lesson to us. We may expect a renascence of beauty worthy to rank with the Romantic Revival born of the French wars....' 'Who _is_ the liar?' asked Alix. Nicholas named him. 'I am thinking,' he added, 'of starting an Effects of the War series of my own. I shall call it _Some Further Effects_. It will be designed to damp the spirits of the sanguine. I shall do the one on Literature myself. I shall take revenge in it for all the mush I've had to review lately. It's extraordinary, the stream of--of the heroic and the epic, isn't that it--that pours forth daily. The war seems to have given an unhealthy stimulus to hundreds of minds and thousands of pens. One knew it would, of course. No doubt it was the same during the siege of Troy, and all the great wars. Though, thank heaven, we shall never know, as that sort of froth is blown away pretty quick and lost to posterity. It's only the unhappy contemporaries who get it splashed all over them. And this war is beastlier than any other, so the rubbish is less counteracted by the decent writers. The first-rate people, both the combatants and non-combatants, are too much disgusted, too upset, to do first-rate work. The war's going on, and means to go on, too long. Wells or some one said months ago that people don't so much think about it as get mentally scarred. It's quite true. Lots of people have got to the stage when they can only feel, not think. And the best people hate the whole business much too much to get any 'renascence of beauty' out of it. Who was it who said the other day that the writers to whom war is glamorous aren't as a rule the ones who produce anything fit to call literature. War's an insanity; and insane things, purely destructive, wasteful, hideous, brutal, ridiculous things, aren't what makes art. The war's produced a little fine poetry, among a sea of tosh--a thing here and there; but mostly--oh, good Lord! The flood of cheap heroics and commonplace patriotic claptrap--it's swept slobbering all over us; there seems no stemming it. Literary revival be hanged. All we had before--and precious little it was--of decent work, clear and alive and sane and close to reality, is being trampled to bits by this--this imbecile brute. And when the time comes to collect the bits and try to begin again, we shan't be able to; there'll be no more spirit in us; we shall be too battered and beaten....' Nicholas, wound up to excitement, was talking too long at a stretch. He often did, being an egoist, and having in his veins the blood of many eloquent and excited revolutionary Poles, who had stood in market-places and talked and talked, gesticulating, pouring forth blood and fire. Nicholas, reacting against this fervour, repudiating gesticulation, blood and fire, still talked.... But on 'battered and beaten' he paused, in disgusted emphasis, and West came in, half absently, still turning the pages of the _Challenge_, talking in his high, clear voice, monotonous and fast (Nicholas was guttural and harsh). 'You underrate the power of human recovery. You always do. It's immense, as a matter of fact. Give us fifty years--twenty--ten.... Besides, look at the compensations. If the good are battered and beaten, the bad are too. It's a well-known fact that many of the futurist poets, in all the nations, have gone mad, through trying to get too many battle noises into their heads at once. So they, at least, are silenced. I suppose they still write, in their asylums--in fact I've heard they do (my uncle is an asylum doctor)--but it gets no further....' He subsided into the _Cambridge Magazine_. 'Well, I'd rather have the futurists than the slops poured out by the people who unfortunately haven't brain enough even to go mad,' Nicholas grumbled. ('And anyhow, I don't believe in any of your uncles--you've too many.) The futurists at least were trying to keep close to facts, even if they couldn't digest them but brought them up with strident noises. But these imbeciles--the war seems to be a sort of tonic to their syrupy little souls; it's filled them up with vim and banal joy. Not that the rot that has always been rot particularly matters; it merely means that the people who used to express themselves in one inane way now choose another, no worse; but it's the silencing or the unmanning of the good people that matters. Here's Cathcart's new book. I've just read it. It's the work of a shaken, broken man. It's weak, irrational, drifting, with no constructive purpose, no coherence. You can almost hear the guns crashing into it as he tried to write, and the atrocity reports shrieking in his ears, and the poison gas stifling him, and the militarists and pacificists raving round him. His whole world's run off its rails and upset and broken to bits, and he can't put it right side up again; he's lost his faith in it. He can only fumble and stammer at it helplessly, weak and maundering and incoherent. He ought to be helping to build it up again, but he 's lost his constructive power. Hundreds of people have. Constructive force will be the one thing needed when the war is over; any one with a programme, and the brain and will to carry it out; but where's it to come from? Those who aren't killed or cut to bits will be too adrift and demoralised and dazed to do anything intelligent. We're fast losing even such mental coherence and concentration as we had. Look, for instance, at you two, while I'm talking (quite interestingly, too); are you listening? Certainly not. West is reading a Church newspaper, and Alix drawing cats on the margins of my proofs.... I'm not blaming you; you can't help it; you are mentally, and probably morally, shattered. I am too. People are more than ever like segregated imbeciles, each absorbed in his or her own ploy. Effects of the War on Human Intelligence: that shall be one of my series. I've spent an idiotic day. So have both of you, I should guess. Yet we all three have natural glimmerings of intelligence.' 'I've not spent an idiotic day,' said West placidly. Nicholas looked at him sardonically. 'Well, let's hear about it.' 'By all means.' West drew a long breath and began, even faster than usual. 'I'll skip my before-breakfast proceedings, which you wouldn't understand. But they weren't in the least idiotic. After breakfast I spent an hour talking to a friend of mine on leave from France. The conversation was very interesting and instructive; for me, anyhow. We talked about how rotten the grub in the trenches is, how shameless the A.S.C. are, how unreliable time-fuse bombs, and so on. Then, since I am a parson, he kindly talked my shop for a change, and naturally very soon Jonah pushed his head in, and Noah, and a few more of the gentlemen who seem to keep the church doors shut against the British working-man. I kicked them outside the Church on to the dust-heap and left them there, I hope to his satisfaction, and came home and wrote a sermon advocating the disuse of the custom of perusing early Hebrew history or reading it in churches. It's quite a good sermon, as my sermons go. (By the way, that may, I'm hoping, be one of the Effects of the War on the Church. We've all of us become so anxious to bring the working-man into it--and it's very certain he won't come in with the Old Testament legends barring the way. I'll write that one of your series for you, if I may.) Well, then I had lunch with a lady who's interested in factory-girls' trade unions, and we discussed the ways and means of them. That was jolly useful.' 'He's one of the clergymen, you know,' Nicholas explained aside to Alix, 'who have been said by an eminent Dean to be tumbling over one another in their anxiety to become court chaplains to King Demos. He's hopelessly behind the times, of course, because Demos is in fetters now. West's an Edwardian churchman, though he fancies he is Neo-Post-Georgian.' 'Oh, I'm as early as you like,' West said amiably. 'Pre-Edwardian--Victorian--or even Pauline; _I_ don't mind.... Well, then I attended a meeting of my parish branch of the U.D.C. The meeting was broken up by rioters. So I addressed them from a window on freedom of speech. My vicar came along as I was doing so, and came in and lectured me on taking part in political movements. So I stopped, and did some parish visiting instead, and had a good deal of interesting conversation, and incidentally was given very strong tea at three different houses. Then I came home and read the _Church Times_, the _Challenge_, and the _Cambridge Magazine_. All interesting in their way, and quite different. No, I know you don't like any of them. People write to the _Challenge_ every week asking 'Are Christianity and War compatible?' and come to the conclusion that they are not, but that Christians may often have to fight. People write to the _Church Times_ saying that they have found a clergyman who won't wear a chasuble, and what shall they do to him? People write to the _Cambridge Magazine_ saying that every one over forty should be disenfranchised and interned, if not shot. Jolly good papers, all the same. How can they help being written to? None of us can. I get written to myself.... Well, next I'm going to church to read evensong, and for an hour after evensong--but you wouldn't understand about that. Anyhow, eventually I have supper with the vicar.' He ran down with a jerk, and turned to Alix, who had been following him with some interest. 'That's not an idiotic day; not from my point of view,' he informed her. 'Sounds all right,' she said. 'But it's not the sort of day Nicholas and I were brought up to understand, you know. We know nothing about the Church. From not going, I suppose.' 'You should go,' he assured her. 'You'd find it interesting.... Of course it's been largely a failure so far, and dull in lots of ways, because we've not yet fulfilled its original intention; it hasn't so far succeeded in preventing (though it's fought them and largely lessened them) any of the things it's out to prevent--commercialism and cant and cruelty and classes and lies and hate and war. It's got to break the world to bits and put it together again, and before it can do that it's got to break itself to bits and put itself together. It's got to become like dynamite, and blow up the rubbish--its own rubbish first, then the world's....' He consulted his wrist-watch, said, 'I must go,' shook hands with Alix, and went quickly, trim and alert and neat, to blow up the world. 'He talks too much,' said Nicholas, in his hearing. 'Who doesn't, in these days? I do myself. It's better than to talk too little. If we say a great deal, we may say a word of sense sometimes. If we say very little, the odds are that all we do say is rubbish, from lack of practice.' He yawned. 'You'd better stay to dinner. I've got Andreiovitch Romevsky coming, to meet Adolf Kopfer, our German friend, so talk on the European situation will be hampered and constrained.' 'Funny things he stands for,' Alix commented, still thinking of Mr. West. 'The Church.... I suppose it really _is_ out to stop war.' 'Presumably. But, as its representatives say, its endeavours so far have been a frost. It's been as unsuccessful as the peace conferences mother attends. But apparently the members of both are obliged, by their faith, to be incurable optimists. West's always full of life and hope; nothing daunts him.' 'Funny,' Alix mused still. The thought glanced through her, 'Clergymen can't fight either, they're like me. Perhaps religion helps them to forget; takes their minds off. Like painting. Like Richmond Park and Tommy Ashe. Like wiggle-woggling. I wonder.' On that wonder she left the Church, and said, 'Cousin Emily asked me to bring you back to supper with me. You'd meet the Vinneys, from the Nutshell, who are coming in afterwards, so we should be a nice party, she says. But Evie says you and the Vinneys wouldn't get on. I don't think Evie thinks you're fit for respectable society at all. So you'd better not come.' 'Shouldn't dream of it,' Nicholas grunted. 'Even if I hadn't got Russians and Germans coming here. You and your Violettes and your Nutshells! It beats me what you think you're up to there.' Alix gave her faint, enigmatic smile. 'It's nice and peaceful,' she said. 'Like cotton-wool.... Well, good-night, Nicky. No, I won't stay to dinner, thanks. You can tackle your own awkward social situations for yourself. I'm for Violette.' 5 She limped down the wooden stairs, and the court was golden in the evening light, a haven beyond which the wild river of Fleet Street surged. 'Special. War Extra. British driven back....' The cries, the placards, were like lost ships tossed lightly on the top of wild waters. They would soon sink, if one did not listen or look.... CHAPTER VI EVENING AT VIOLETTE 1 After supper Kate got out the good coffee cups, and they waited for the Vinneys. Kate was rather pink, and wore a severe blouse, in which she looked plain; it was a mortification she thought she ought to practise when the Vinneys came. Evie was skilfully altering a hat. Alix made a pen-and-ink sketch of her as she bent over it. Mrs. Frampton knitted a sock. The _Evening Thrill_ came in, and Kate opened it, for Mrs. Frampton liked to hear tit-bits of news while she worked. 'Stories impossible to doubt,' read Kate, in her prim, precise voice, 'reach us continually of atrocities practised by the enemy....' She read several, unsuitable for these pages. Mrs. Frampton clicked horror with her tongue. The papers she took in were rich in such stories. As it was impossible to doubt them, she did not try. Possibly they gave life a certain dreadful savour. 'To think of the march of civilisation, and this still going on,' Mrs. Frampton commented. 'I'm sure any one would think they'd be ashamed.' Kate said, with playful acidity (Kate had reached what with many is a playful age), 'Thank you, Alix. Thank you ever so much, Alix, for getting between me and the lamp.' Alix moved, her attempt foiled. Kate read next the letter of a private soldier at the front. 'The Boches are all cowards. They can't stand against our boys. They fly like rabbits when we charge with the bayonet. You should hear them squeal, like so many pigs. There's not a German private in the army that wants to fight. The officers have to keep flogging them on the whole time.' 'Poor things, I'm sure one can't but be sorry for them,' said Mrs. Frampton. 'Knit two and make one, purl two, slip one, pass the slipped one over, drop four and knit six.' (Or anyhow, something of that sort, for she had got to the heel, as one unfortunately at last must.) 'It's wonderful how long the war goes on, since all the Germans are like that,' said Kate, without conscious irony, as she took up her own knitting. Hers was a body-belt. 'I believe this new wool is different from the last. Somewhat stringier, it seems. Brown will have to take it back, if it is.' 'I say, just fancy,' said Evie, 'those sequin tunics at B. & H.'s have come down to seven and eleven three. I think I could rise to that, even in war time.' The war mainly affected Evie by reducing the demand for hats, and consequently lowering the salary she received at the exclusive and ladylike milliner's where she worked. As she spoke she caught sight of her three-quarter likeness as etched by Alix. 'Goodness gracious,' she commented. 'You've made me look anything on earth! I mayn't be much, but I hope I'm not that sort of freak.' 'It's very good,' said Alix complacently. 'Rather particularly good. I shall take it to the School on Monday and show it to Mr. Bendish.' 'It may be good,' said Evie, 'since you say so. All I say is, it isn't me. It's more like some wild woman out of a caravan. Don't you go telling people it's me, or they'll be coming to shut me up. There's the bell; that's them.' The Vinney party arrived. It consisted of Mr. Vincent Vinney, a bright young solicitor of twenty-eight; his lately acquired wife, a pretty girl who laughed when he was witty, which was often; his young brother Sidney, a stout, merry youth of nineteen, a bank clerk; and their cousin Miss Simon, the fat girl in the sailor blouse, which was, it seemed, her evening toilette also. (In case some should blame the Vinney brothers for not taking an active part in the war, it may be remarked that the elder supported a wife and the younger a mother, that they represented a class which, for several good reasons, produces fewer soldiers than any other, and that they both belonged to the Clerks' Drill Corps, and wore several flags on their bicycles. And young Mrs. Vinney belonged to a Voluntary Aid Detachment, not at present in working.) They came in with the latest news. The British had been driven back out of a thousand yards of trench they had taken. They hadn't enough ammunition. 'Well,' said Mrs. Frampton, knitting, and really more interested in her heel than in the fortunes of war, 'it's all very dreadful to think of. But I suppose we must leave it in the hands of the Almighty, who always moves in a mysterious way.' (Mrs. Frampton had been brought up evangelically, and so mentioned the Almighty more casually than Kate, who was High, thought fit.) 'Well, what I say is,' said young Mrs. Vinney, who was of a cheerful habit, 'it's not a bit of use being depressed by the news, because no one can ever tell if it's true or not. It's all from that Bureau, and we all know what they are. Why, they said there weren't any Russians in England, when every one knew there were crowds, and they always say the Zepp. raids don't do any damage to factories and arsenals, and every one knows they do. They don't seem to mind _what_ they say.' 'Well, for my part,' Evie said, 'I don't see why we shouldn't all be as chirpy as we can. We can't _help_ by being glum, can we?' 'That's just it,' said Mrs. Vinney. 'Now, there's the theatre. Of course, you know, Vin and I wouldn't go to anything really _festive_ just now, like the _Girl on the Garden Wall_, but I'm not ashamed to say we did go to the _Man Who Stayed Behind_.' 'Why wouldn't you go to anything really festive?' Alix asked, curious as to the psychology of this position. Mrs. Vinney looked round for sympathy. 'Why, what a question! It's not the moment, of course. One wouldn't _like_ to. _You_ wouldn't, would you?' 'Oh, me. I'd go to anything I thought would amuse me.' 'Well,' Mrs. Vinney decided, 'I suppose you and I aren't a bit alike. I just couldn't, and there it is. I dare say it's all my silliness. But with the men out there in such danger, and laying down their lives the way they're doing ... well, I _couldn't_ sit and look at the _Girl on the Garden Wall_, not if I had a stall free. The way I see it is, the men are fighting for us women, and where should we be but for them, and the least we can do is not to forget all about them, seeing gay musical plays. The way I'm made, I suppose, and I don't pretend to judge for others.' 'It's all a question of taste and feeling,' Kate pronounced absently, more interested in a new stitch she was introducing into her body-belt. The fat dark girl, Miss Simon, came in on the mention of women. It was her subject. 'Women's work in war time is every bit as important as men's, that's what I say; only they don't get the glory.' Mrs. Vinney giggled and looked at the others. 'Now Rachel's off again. She's a caution when she gets on the woman question. She spent most of her time in Holloway in the old days, didn't you, dear?' 'She thinks she ought to have the vote,' Sid Vinney explained to Alix in a whisper. Alix, who had hitherto moved in circles where every one thought, as a matter of course, that they ought to have the vote, disappointed him by her lack of spontaneous mirth. Miss Simon was inquiring, undeterred by these comments, 'Who keeps the country at home going while the men are at the war? Who brings up the families? Who nurses the soldiers? What do women get out of a war, ever?' 'The salvation of their country, Miss Simon,' said Mrs. Frampton, 'won for them by brave men.' 'After all,' said Sid, 'the women can't _fight_, you know. They can't _fight_ for their country.' Miss Simon regarded him with scorn. 'How much are _you_ fighting for your country, I'd like to know?' 'One for you, Sid,' said Evie cheerily, ignoring Sid's aggrieved, 'Well, you know I can't leave mother.' 'And fighting isn't everything,' Miss Simon went on, 'and war time isn't everything. There's women's work in peace time. What about Octavia Wills that did so much for housing? Wasn't _she_ helping her country? And, for war work, what price Florence Nightingale? What would the country have done without _her_, and what did she get out of all she did?' Mrs. Frampton, who had not read the life of that strong-minded person, but cherished a mid-Victorian vision of a lady with a lamp, sounder in the heart than in the head, said, 'She kept her place as a woman, Miss Simon.' Evie, who was not listening much, finding the subject tedious, put in vaguely, 'After all, when it comes to fighting, we _are_ left in the lurch, aren't we?' Sid said, 'Oh dear no, Miss Evie. What price Christabel and Co.? They ought to have had the iron cross all round, the militants ought. They did more to earn it than the Huns ever did.' 'Cheap sarcasm,' said Miss Simon, 'is no argument. And I don't blame any woman for using what means she's got. There are times when a woman's _got_ to forget herself.' Kate said, 'I don't think a woman's _ever_ got to forget herself,' and there was a murmur of applause. Alix giggled. She wondered if social evenings at Violette were often like this. 'You don't understand,' said the round-faced girl helplessly. '_You_ may be all right, in your station of life, but you've got to look at other women's--the poor. We've got to do something about the poor. The vote would help us.' 'There have always,' said Mrs. Frampton, 'been the poor, and there always will be.' 'That's just why,' suggested Alix, momentarily joining in, 'it might be worth while to do something about them.' Miss Simon looked at her in sudden gratitude; she had a misplaced and soon-quenched hope that this seemingly indifferent and amused girl might prove an ally. Kate said, placidly, 'Well, they say that if you were to take a lot of men and women and give them all the same money, they'd all be quite different again to-morrow....' Mrs. Frampton added that she went by the Bible. 'The poor ye shall have always with you.' 'Mrs. Frampton, it doesn't say that. And even if it did--well, it's as Miss Sandomir says, it's all the more reason for thinking about them. Anyhow, you can't take the Bible that way; it's nothing to _do_ with it.' 'It's the plain word of God, and that's sufficient for me,' said Mrs. Frampton repressively. Vincent Vinney, tired of the poor, who are indeed exhausting, regarded in the mass as a subject for contemplation, brought the discussion back to women. 'What I'd like to know is, where is a woman to get her knowledge from, if she's to help in public affairs? A man can pick up things at his work and his club, but a woman working in the house all day has no time even to read the papers. And if she did, her husband wouldn't like her to start having opinions, perhaps different to his. There are far too many divorces and separations already because husbands and wives go different ways, and it would be worse than ever. Eh, Flossie?' Mrs. Frampton said, 'We heard of a woman only last month who went out to a public meeting--something about foreign politics, I think it was--and her baby fell on to the fire and was burnt to a cinder, poor little love.' 'Well, she might just as likely have been going out shopping.' 'But she wasn't,' said Kate conclusively. 'I don't think,' said Mrs. Frampton, 'that a woman desires any more than her home and her husband and children, if she's a proper woman.' Evie's contribution was, 'Well, I must say I do prefer men to girls, and I don't mind saying so.' Sid's was, 'I heard of a man whose wife took to talking about politics, and he hung his coat to one peg in her wardrobe and his trousers to another, and he said, 'Now, Eliza, which will you wear?' It was apparently the combination of this anecdote and Evie's remark before it that broke Miss Simon down. She suddenly collapsed into indignant tears. Every one was uncomfortable. Mrs. Frampton said kindly, 'Come, come, my dear, it's only talk. It isn't worth crying about, I'm sure, with so many real troubles in the world just now.' 'You won't _see_,' sobbed Miss Simon, who looked particularly plain when crying. 'You none of you _see_. Except her'--she indicated Alix--'and she won't talk; she only smiles to herself at all of us. You tell silly tales, and you say silly things, and you think you've scored--but you haven't. It isn't _argument_, that you like men more than women or women more than men. And that man married to Eliza was an idiot, and not a bit funny or clever, and you all think he scored over her.' 'Well, really,' said Sid, and grinned sheepishly at the others. Kate had fetched a glass of water. 'Drink some,' she said kindly. 'It'll make you feel better.' But Miss Simon pushed it aside and mopped her eyes and blew her nose and pulled herself together. 2 'Fancy crying before every one,' thought Evie. 'And just from being in a passion about getting the worst of it in talk. She _is_ a specimen.' 'The boys shouldn't draw Rachel on to make such a silly of herself,' thought young Mrs. Vinney. 'Poor girl, she must have been working too hard, she's quite hysterical,' thought Mrs. Frampton. 'Having her staying with them must draw Vin and Floss very close together,' thought Kate, who had loved Vin long before Floss met him. 'We shan't have any more fun out of this evening; we'll go home,' thought Vincent, and glanced at his wife. 'What a difference between one girl and another,' thought Sid, and gazed at Evie. 'I wonder if many people are like these,' thought Alix, speculating. Were discussions at Violette, discussions in all the thousands of Violettes, always like this? Not argument, not ideas, not facts. Merely statements, quotations rather, of hackneyed and outworn sentiments, prejudices second-hand, yet indomitable, unassailable, undying, and the relation of stories, without relevance or force, and (but this much more rarely, surely) a burst of bitterness and emotion to wind it all up. Curious. Rachel Simon, like the rest, was stupid and ignorant, her brain a chaos of half-assimilated, inaccurate facts (she said Wills when she meant Hill) and crude sentiments. She seemed to belong, oddly, to an outworn age (the late eighties, was it? Alix wasn't old enough to know). But Alix was sorry for her, remembering the look in her face when they had each in turn dealt her a finishing blow. Alix rather wished Evie hadn't made that idiotic remark about men and girls; wished Mrs. Frampton hadn't talked of proper women; wished Kate hadn't said 'But she wasn't'; even wished she herself had joined in a little. Only it was all too inane.... 3 To change the subject Vincent Vinney said they had collared another German baker spy down in Camberwell. 'These bakers,' said Mrs. Frampton, 'do seem to be dreadful people. We've left off taking our Hovis loaf, since they found that wireless in Camberwell the other day.' 'You can't be too careful, can you?' said Mrs. Vinney. 'For my part I'd like to see every German in England shut up in gaol for a life-sentence. But we must be trotting, Mrs. Frampton, or we shall miss our beauty-sleep. Good-night; we've enjoyed the evening awfully. Oh, Evie, I've got those blouse patterns from Harrod's; can you come round to-morrow afternoon and help me choose? Come early and stay to tea. You too, Kate, won't you? You _are_ a girl; you never come when I ask you.' Kate looked uncomfortable, and helped Miss Simon (now composed, but looking plainer than ever with her red eyes and nose) into her coat. To see the Vinneys together by their own fire-side was rather more than Kate could bear, though she had a good deal of stolid outward endurance. Her hands shook as she handled the ugly green coat. She wanted to avoid shaking hands with the Vinneys, but she could not. The familiar physical thrill ran through her at Vincent's hearty clasp, and left her limp. 'I'm afraid it's commencing to rain,' said Kate. 'Good-night all,' said Mrs. Frampton. 'We've had quite a little discussion, haven't we? I'm sure one ought to talk things out sometimes, it improves the mind. Now I do hope you won't all get wet. You must take our umbrellas.' CHAPTER VII HOSPITAL 1 About a week later, Alix and Nonie Maclure went to see Basil Doye in hospital. 'Hate hospitals, don't you?' Nonie remarked, as they entered its precincts. 'I've a sister V.A.D.ing here--Peggy, you know her, she's having a three-months' course--but I've not been to see her yet. I can't remember her ward; it's a men's surgical, I think. We'll go and find her afterwards. I don't think she'll be able to stick her three months, because of her feet. They swell up so; they make the nurses stand all the time, you know, even when they're doing needlework and things. She says half the nurses in the hospital have foot and leg diseases. Silly, isn't it? The V.A.D.'s _could_ sit down sometimes, but they don't like to when the regulars mayn't. They're unpopular enough as it is. Peggy asked the staff-nurse in her ward why all the nurses didn't combine and ask to have the standing-rule altered, but she only said you can't get hospital rules altered, they _are_ like that. Nurses must be idiots....' They crossed the court that led to the wing with the officers' wards. It was dotted with medical students. 'Rabbits,' Nonie considered them. 'All that are left of them, I suppose. Peggy says they're mostly rather rotters. They have a great time with the nurses. One of them tried to have a great time with Peggy the other day, but she wasn't having any.... The Royal Family wing we want, don't we? Darwin, Lister.... No, that must be men of science. I suppose that's ours, up those stairs.' It was one of those hospitals in which the wards are named after persons socially or intellectually eminent. In the wing Nonie and Alix wanted the wards were entitled Victoria, Albert Edward, Alexandra, Princess Mary, George, and so forth. One, named doubtless in happier international times, was even called Wilhelm. Out of Wilhelm, as they passed its glass door, came four figures, white-clad from head to foot, wheeling a stretcher on which lay a round-faced little girl of sixteen, trying to smile. 'Going down to the theatre,' Nonie whispered. 'Rather shuddery, isn't it?' 2 They entered Albert Edward, which was a small ward of twelve beds, used just now for officers. It smelt of iodoform. Several of the beds had visitors round them. Some of the patients were in wheeled chairs, smoking. One, in bed, was singing, unintelligibly, in a high, shrill voice. At the table by the centre window two nurses stood, a probationer and a V.A.D., making swabs and talking. They looked tired, and were very young. The other two nurses, the staff-nurse and the super, were talking to two of the patients. They had learnt not to look so tired. Also perhaps the pleasant excitement of being in Albert Edward bore them up. The staff-nurse said, 'Mr. Doye? That's his bed over there--nine. He's up in a chair this afternoon. He's in pretty bad pain most of the time. They may have to amputate, but the doctor hopes to manage without.' Alix and Nonie went across the ward to nine, where Mr. Doye, in a brown dressing-gown, sat in a wheeled chair, smoking a cigarette and talking to the super, who was rather nice-looking and had auburn hair. In the next bed lay the singer, with fixed blue eyes and flushed cheeks and a capeline bandage round his head, carolling German songs in a high, monotonous voice. 'Quite delirious, poor thing,' the super explained to the visitors. 'His nerves are all to bits. He was a prisoner, till he got exchanged. And would you believe it, they'd never taken the shrapnel out of his head; he went under operation for it here last week.' She moved away, whispering first to Nonie behind the patient's back, 'He has to be kept pretty quiet, please; the pain gets bad on and off.' 'Hullo,' said Basil Doye, smiling at them. 'This is great.' He had a soft, rather quick way of speaking; to-day he was huskier than usual, perhaps because he was ill. He was long and slim; he had used, in pre-war days, to lounge and slouch, but possibly did that no more. Anyhow to-day he merely lay limply in a chair, so they could not judge. His long pale face and flexible mouth and dark eyebrows were always moving and changing; so were his rather bright eyes, that kept shading and glinting from green to hazel. His forehead and rumpled hair were damp just now, either from the heat or from some other cause. His bandaged right hand was raised in a sling. 'You do look an old wreck,' said Nonie frankly. 'What did you go and do it for? A silly way of getting wounded, I call it, playing ball with bombs.' 'Rotten, wasn't it? But it would have played ball with me if I hadn't. It was bound to go off in a moment, you see, and I naturally tried to house it with the foe first; one often can. My mistake, I know. These little things will happen.... I say, you're the first people I've seen from the shop. How's it going? Who are the good people this year?' They began to tell him. He listened, fidgeting, with restless eyes. 'Have a smoke?' he broke in. 'No, I suppose you mustn't here. Sorry; didn't mean to interrupt....' They were talking about the exhibition in Grafton Street. 'I must get round there,' he said, 'when I'm not so tied by the leg.' 'How long will they keep you here, d'you imagine?' 'Haven't an earthly. They may be depriving me of a finger or two in a few days. Or not. They don't seem to know their own minds about it.' 'Good Lord!' murmured Nonie, taken aback. 'I say, don't let them. You--you'd miss them so.' 'Halli, hallo, halli, hallo! Bei uns geht's immer so!' shrilled number eight. Doye moved impatiently. 'He ought to be taken away, poor beggar.... I loathe hospitals. People who are ill oughtn't to be with other people in the same miserable condition; it's too depressing. One wants the undamaged, as an antidote. That's why visitors are so jolly.' His restless eyes glanced at Nonie's dark, glowing brilliance in her yellow frock, and at Alix, pale and cool and thin in green. 'Above all,' he added, 'one wants sanity and normalness and cheeriness, not people with their nerves in rags, like that poor chap.' Eight broke out again, half singing, half humming some students' chorus-- 'Tra la la, in die Nacht Quartier!' The auburn-haired nurse came and stood by him for a moment, quieting him. 'Come now, come now, you must be quiet, you know.' 'Rather a pleasant person, that nurse,' said Doye when she had gone. 'Jolly hair, hasn't she?... Alix,' he added, 'do you know, you don't look up to much. Is it overwork, or merely the air of London in June?' 'It's the air of hospitals, I expect,' Nonie answered for her. 'She turned white directly we got into the ward.' 'Beastly places,' Basil agreed. Alix began to talk, rather fast. She told stories of the other people at the art school; Nonie joined in, and they made Basil laugh. He talked too, also fast. His unhurt hand drummed on the arm of his chair; his forehead grew damper, his eyes shifted about under his black brows. He talked nonsense, absurdly; they all did. They all laughed, but Basil laughed most; he laughed too much. He said it was a horrible bore out there; funny, of course, in parts, but for the most part irredeemably tedious. And no reason to think it would ever end, except by both sides just getting too tired of it to go on.... Idiotic business, chucking bombs over into trenches full of chaps you had no grudge against and who wished you no ill ... and they chucking bombs at you, much more idiotic still. The whole thing hopelessly silly.... 'Heil'ge Nacht, Heil'ge Nacht,' trilled Eight, with a nightmare of Christmas on him. 'Oh, damn,' muttered Basil, and got scarlet and then white. The staff-nurse came to them. She was not auburn-haired, but efficient and good-looking and dark, with a clear, sharp voice. 'I think your visitors had better go now, Mr. Doye.' She made signs to them that he was in pain, which they knew before. They went; he joked as he said good-bye, and they joked back. As they left the ward, Eight's wild voice rose, in a sad air they knew: 'Mein Bi-er und Wei-ein ist fri-isch und klar; Mein Töchterlein liegt auf der To-otenbahr....' 'Come now, come now,' admonished Staff. 3 On the stairs they met a tall woman with a long pale face and black hair, and eyes full of green light. She stopped and said to Alix, 'How do you do? Basil told me you were going to see him to-day, so I left you a little time. He mustn't have too many at once. He has a lot of pain, for so slight a thing.... I shall be glad when I can get him away for a change.' Her eyes, looking at Alix's pale face, were kind and friendly. She liked Alix, who was Basil's friend and had stayed with them last summer in the country. She thought her clever and attractive, if selfish. She hurried on through the glass door into Albert Edward. 'Mrs. Doye, isn't it?' said Nonie. 'Must have been just like him twenty years ago.... I say, how sickening, isn't it, people getting smashed up like that. Poor old Basil. All on edge, I thought, didn't you? What rot he talked.... I _say_, if he loses those fingers it will be all U. P. with his career.... I don't expect he will.' She shot a glance at Alix, whom she suspected of feeling faint. 'Let's come and find Peggy. I haven't an earthly where her ward is. It's called after some man of science.' But there are so many of these, and all so much alike. 'If it was painters,' said Nonie presently, 'I might have remembered. Who _are_ the men of science?' 'Darwin,' suggested Alix intelligently. 'Galileo. Sir Isaac Newton. Sir Oliver Lodge. Lots more.' 'Well, let's try this passage.' They tried it. It led them on and on. It looked wrong, but might be right, in such a strange world as a hospital, where anything may be right or wrong and you never know till you try. They saw at last ahead of them a closed door--not a glass door but a baize one. From behind it screaming came, wild, shrill, desperate, as if some one was being hurt to death. 'O Lord!' said Nonie, 'it's the theatre. Look, it's written on the door. Come away quick. There must be an operation on.' Beyond the door there was a shuffling and scuffling; it was pushed open, and two figures muffled in white, like the stretcher-women, dragged out a Red Cross girl in a faint. 'Fetch her some water,' said one. 'Idiot, why didn't she come out before she went off? These Red Cross girls--All right, she 's coming round.... I _say_, you know, you mustn't do that again. People are supposed to come out of the theatre _before_ they faint, not after. It's an awful crime.... Is it your first operation? Well, it was silly of them to send you down to such a bad one. I expect the screaming upset you. She didn't _feel_ anything, you know.... Here, drink this. You're all right now, aren't you? I must get back. You'd better go up to your ward and ask your Sister if you can lie down for a bit.' Alix and Nonie had retreated down the passage. 'What a place,' Alix was muttering savagely. 'Oh, _what_ a place.' They came out on a different staircase; fleeing down it they were in a corridor, long and unhappy and full of hurrying housesurgeons and nurses and patients' friends (for it was visiting-hour). 4 'Huxley,' said Nonie suddenly. 'That's the creature's name.... I say,' she accosted a fat little nurse with strings, 'where's Huxley, please?' Huxley was far away. They reached it through many labyrinthine and sad ways. Through the glass door they saw a keen-faced doctor going from bed to bed with an attendant group of satellites--medical students, who laughed at intervals because he was witty, either about the case in hand or about some other amusing cases this one recalled to his memory, or at the foolish answers elicited from some student in response to questions. They were a cheery set, and this doctor was a wit. Every few minutes he washed his hands. The wardsister companioned him round, and by the window stood four nurses at attention--the staff-nurse, the probationer, and two V.A.D.'s with red crosses on their aprons. It was a men's surgical ward. It was long and light, and had twenty-one beds, and Cot. Cot was in the middle of the ward. He was three, and had peritonitis of the stomach, and he sat up on his pillow and wept, and wailed at intervals, 'Want to do 'ome. Want to do 'ome.' 'You're not the only one, sonny,' number three told him bitterly. 'We all want that.' Twenty-one sad faces apathetically testified to his truthfulness. Twenty-one weary sick men, whose rest had been broken at dawn because the night-nurses had to wash them all before they went off duty, and that meant beginning at 3.30 or 4, stared with sad, hollow eyes, and wanted to go 'ome. The doctor washed his hands for the last time and went, his satellites after him. The probationer respectfully opened the door for them. Nonie and Alix stood back out of the way as they passed, then Nonie's Peggy, who had seen them long since, came and fetched them in. 'I _am_ glad to see you,' she said. Nonie said, 'You look dead, my child,' and she returned, 'Oh, it's only the standing. We're all in the same box. She,' she indicated the probationer, 'fainted this morning. And the staff-nurse has the most awful varicose veins. I believe most nurses get them sooner or later. They _ought_ to be let to sit down when they get a chance, for sewing and things, but hospital rules are made of wood and iron. The other Red Crosser and I do sometimes sit, when Sister's out of the ward, but it's rather bad form really, when the regulars mayn't. Funny places, hospitals.... I've been getting into rows this morning for not polishing the brights bright enough. Staff told me they had quite upset Sister. Sister's very easily upset, unfortunately. Staff's a jolly good sort, though.... But look here, you must go. It's time for tea-trays; I shall have to be busy. I'll come round to-night after I'm off, Nonie--if I can get so far. You've got to go now; Staff's looking at us.' They went. Staff called wearily to Peggy, 'Go and help Nurse Baker with trays, will you, dear. And you might take Daddy Thirteen's basin away. He's done being sick for now, I dare say, and he's going to drop it on to the floor in a moment.' Peggy hurried, but was too late. These things will happen sometimes.... 5 'Hate hospitals, don't you?' said Nonie, as she had said when they entered. They were going out at the gates now. 'I suppose they have to be, though.' 'Suppose so,' Alix agreed listlessly. Then with an effort she threw the hospital off. 'That's over, anyhow. I shan't go again. Let's come and do something awfully different now.' They did. 6 When Alix got back to Violette, she was met in the little linoleumed hall by distress and pity, and Mrs. Frampton preparing to break something to her, with a kind, timid arm round her shoulders. 'Dearie, there was a telegram.... You were out, so we opened it.... Now you must be ever so brave.' 'No,' said Alix, rigid and leaning on her stick and whitely staring from narrowed eyes. 'No....' 'Oh, darling child, it's sad news.... I don't know how to tell you.... Dear, you _must_ be brave....' 'Oh, do get on,' muttered Alix, rude and sick. 'Dearie,' Mrs. Frampton was crying into her handkerchief. 'Poor Paul ... your dear little brother ... dreadfully, badly wounded....' 'Dead,' Alix stated flatly, pulling away and leaning against the wall. Violette was hot and smelt of food. Florence stumbled up the kitchen stairs with supper. From a long way off Mrs. Frampton sobbed, 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.... It's the Almighty's will.... The poor dear boy has died doing his duty and serving his country ... a noble end, dearie ... not a wasted life....' 'Not a wasted....' Alix said it after her mechanically, as if it was a foreign language. 'He died a noble death,' said Mrs. Frampton, 'serving his country in her need.' Alix was staring at her with blue eyes suddenly dark and distended. The horror rose and loomed over her, like a great wave towering, just going to break. 'But--but--but--' she stammered, and put out her hands, keeping it off--'But he hadn't lived yet....' Then the wave broke, like a storm crashing on a ship at sea. 'It's a lie,' she screamed. 'Give me the telegram.... It's made up; it's a damnable lie. The War Office always tells them: every one knows it does....' They gave it her, pitifully. She read it three times, and it always said the same thing. She looked up for some way of escape from it, but found none, only Violette, hot and smelling of supper, and Mrs. Frampton crying, and Kate with working face, and Evie sympathetic and moved in the background, and Florence compassionate with the supper tray, and a stuffed squirrel in a glass case on the hall table. Alix shivered and shook as she stood, with passion and sickness and loss. 'But--but--' she began to stammer again, helplessly, like a bewildered child--'But he hadn't lived yet....' Kate said gently, 'He has begun to live now, dear, for ever and ever.' 'World without end, amen,' added Mrs. Frampton, mopping her eyes. Alix looked past them, at the stuffed squirrel. 'It's just some silly lie of course,' she said, indifferent and quiet, but still shaking. 'It will be taken back to-morrow.... I shall go to bed now.' When Kate brought her up some supper on a tray, she found her lying on the floor, having abandoned the lie theory, having abandoned all theories and all words, except only, again and again, 'Paul ... Paul ... Paul....' CHAPTER VIII BASIL AT VIOLETTE 1 June went by, and the war went on, and the Russians were driven back in Galicia, and the Germans took Lemberg, and trenches were lost and won in France, and there was fighting round Ypres, and Basil Doye had the middle finger of his right hand cut off, and there was some glorious weather, and Zeppelin raids in the eastern counties, and it was warm and stuffy in London, and Mrs. Sandomir wrote to Alix from the United States that more than ever now, since their darling Paul was added to the toll of wasted lives, war must not occur again. July went by, and the war went on, and trenches were lost and won, and there was fighting round Ypres, and a German success at Hooge, and the Russians were driven back in Galicia, and Basil Doye left hospital and went with his mother to Devonshire, and there were Zeppelin raids in the eastern counties, and the summer term at the art school ended, and Alix went away from Clapton to Wood End, and her mother wrote that American women were splendid to work with, and that it was supremely important that the States should remain neutral, and that there were many hitches in the way of arbitration, but some hope. August went by, and the war went on, and Warsaw was taken, and the National Register, and trenches were lost and won, and there was fighting round Ypres, and a British success at Hooge and in Gallipoli, and Zeppelin raids on the eastern counties, and Nicholas and Alix went away together for a holiday to a village in Munster where the only newspaper which appeared with regularity was the _Ballydehob Weekly Despatch_, and Violette was shut up, and Mrs. Frampton stayed with Aunt Nellie and Kate and Evie with friends, and Mrs. Sandomir wrote from Sweden that the Swedes were promising but apathetic, and their government shy. September went by, and the war went on, and the Russians rallied and retreated and rallied in Galicia, and a great allied advance in France began and ended, and the hospitals filled up, and there were Zeppelin raids on the eastern counties, and Mrs. Frampton and Kate and Evie came back to Violette, and the art school opened, and Alix came back to Violette, and the Doyes came back to town, and Mrs. Sandomir wrote from Sermaize-le-Bains, where she was staying a little while again with the Friends and helping to reconstruct, that it was striking how amenable to reason neutral and even belligerent governments were, if one talked to them reasonably. Even Ferdinand, though he had his faults.... October began, and the war went on, and Bulgaria massed on the Serbian frontier, and Russia sent her an ultimatum, and the Germans retook the Hohenzollern Redoubt, and the hospitals got fuller, and the curious affair of Salonika began, and Terry Orme came home on leave, and Basil Doye interviewed the Medical board, was told he could not rejoin yet, visited Cox's, and, coming out of it, met Alix going up to the Strand. 2 Alix saw him first; he looked listless and pale and bored and rather cross, as he had done last time she saw him, a week ago. Basil was finding life something of a bore just now, and small things jarred. It was a nuisance, since he was on this ridiculous fighting business, not to be allowed to go and fight. There might be something doing any moment out there, and he not in it. His hand was really nearly all right now. And anyhow, it wasn't much fun in town, as he couldn't paint, and nearly every one was away. His eyes followed a girl who passed with her officer brother. He would have liked a healthy, pretty, jolly sort of girl like that to go about with ... some girl with poise, and tone, and sanity, and no nerves, who never bothered about the war or anything. A placid, indifferent, healthy sort of girl, with all her fingers on and nothing the matter anywhere. He was sick of hurt and damaged bodies and minds; his artistic instinct and his natural vitality craved, in reaction, for the beautiful and the whole and the healthy.... Looking up, he saw Alix standing at the corner of the Strand, leaning on her ivory-topped stick and looking at him. She looked pale and thin and frail and pretty in her blue coat and skirt and white collar. (The Sandomirs never wore mourning.) He went up to her, a smile lifting his brows. 'Good. I was just feeling bored. Let's come and have tea.' Alix wasn't really altogether what he wanted. She was too nervy. Some nerve in him which had been badly jarred by the long ugliness of those months in France winced from contact with nervous people. Besides, he suspected her of feeling the same shrinking from him: she so hated the war and all its products. However, they had always amused each other; she was clever, and nice to look at; he remembered vaguely that he had been a little in love with her once, before the war. If the war hadn't come just then, he might have become a great deal in love with her. Before the war one had wanted a rather different sort of person, of course, from now; more of a companion, to discuss things with; more of a stimulant, perhaps, and less of a rest. He remembered that they had discussed painting a great deal; he didn't want to discuss painting now, since he had lost his finger. He didn't particularly want cleverness either, since trench life, with its battery on the brain of sounds and sights, had made him stupid.... However, he said, 'Let's come and have tea,' and she answered, 'Very well, let's,' and they turned into something in the Strand called the Petrograd Tea Rooms. 'I suppose one mustn't take milk in it here,' said Alix vaguely. She looked him over critically as they sat down, and said, 'You don't _look_ much use yet.' 'So I am told. They say I shall probably have at least a month's more leave.... Well, I don't much care.... There's a rumour my battalion may be sent to Serbia soon. I met a man on leave to-day, and he says that's the latest canard. I rather hope it's true. It will be a change, anyhow, and there'll be something doing out there. Besides, we may as well see the world thoroughly on this show, while we are about it. We shall never have such a chance again, I suppose. It's like a Cook's tour gratis. France, Flanders, Egypt, Gallipoli, Serbia, Greece.... I may see them all yet. This war has its humours, I'll say that for it. A bizarre war indeed, as some titled lunatic woman driving a motor ambulance round Ypres kept remarking to us all. 'Dear me, what a very bizarre war!' It sounded as if she had experienced so many, and as if they were mostly so normal and conventional and flat.' 'Bizarre.' Alix turned the word over. 'Yes, I suppose that is really what it is.... It's the wrong shape; it fits in with nothing; it's mad.... My cousin Emily says it's a righteous war, though of course war is very wicked. Righteous of us and wicked of the Germans, I suppose she means. And Kate says it was sent us, for getting drunk and not going to church enough. I don't know how she knows. Do you meet people who talk like that?' 'I chiefly meet people who ask me why I'm not taking part in it. There was one to-day, in Trafalgar Square. She told me I ought to be in khaki. I said I supposed I ought, properly speaking, but that I was waiting to be fetched. She said it was young fellows like me who disgraced Britain before the eyes of Europe, and that I wouldn't like being fetched, because then I should have to wear C for Coward on my tunic. I said I should rather enjoy that, and we parted pleasantly.' 'The wide ones are two and eleven three, and the narrow ones one and nine. I like B. & H.'s better than Evans', myself.' The voice was Evie's; she was entering the Petrograd Tea Rooms with young Mrs. Vinney. She saw Alix, nodded, and said 'Hullo.' It was Basil who made room for them at the table with him and Alix (the tea shop was crowded). He had met Evie once before. 'Oh, thanks muchly. Don't you mind?' Evie was apologetic, thinking two was company. Mrs. Vinney was introduced to Basil, settled herself in her dainty fluffiness, emphasised by her feather boa, and ordered crumpets for herself and Evie. 'Quite a nice little place, don't you think so, Miss Sandomir? More _recherché_ than an A.B.C. or one of those. I often come here.... _What's_ that boy shouting? The Germans take something or other redoubt.... Fancy! How it does go on, doesn't it?' Alix said it did. 'Quite makes one feel,' said Mrs. Vinney, 'that one _oughtn't_ to be sitting snug and comfortable having crumpets, doesn't it? You know what I mean; it's just a feeling one has, no sense in it. One oughtn't to give in to it, _I_ don't think; Vin says so too. What's the use, he says, of brooding, when it helps nobody, and what we've got to do is to keep cheery at home and keep things going. I must say I quite agree with him.' 'Rather, so do I,' said Basil. 'But of course it all makes one think, doesn't it?' she resumed. 'Makes life seem more _solemn_--do you know what I mean? And all the poor young fellows who never come home again. I'm thankful none of my people or close friends are gone. Mother simply wouldn't let my brother go; she says we've always been a peace-loving family and she's not going to renounce her principles now. Percy doesn't really want to; it was only a passing fancy because some friends of his went. Vin says, leave war to those that want war; he doesn't, and he's not going to mix up in it, and I must say I think he's right.' 'Quite,' agreed Basil. 'All this waste of life and money just because the Germans want a war! Why should we _pander_ to them, that's what he says. _Let_ them want. He's no Prussian Junker, shouting out for blood. There's too many of them in this country, he says, and that's what makes war possible. He's all for disarmament, you know, and I must say I think he's right. If no one had any guns or ships, no one could fight, could they?' Evie agreed that they couldn't, forgetting knives and fists and printed words and naked savages and all the gunless hosts of the ancient world. Violette thought always gaped with these large omissions; it was like a loose piece of knitting, stretched to cover spaces too large for it and yawning into holes. 'Mr. Doye's been fighting, you know,' Evie explained, since Mrs. Vinney was obviously taking him for one who left war to those that wanted war. 'He's wounded.' 'Oh, is that so?' Mrs. Vinney regarded Mr. Doye with new interest. 'Well, I must say one can't help _admiring_ the men that go and fight for their country, though one should allow liberty to all.... I hope you're going on favourably, Mr. Doye.' 'Very, thanks very much.' 'Well, we must be trotting, Evie, if we're going to Oxford Street before we go home.... Check, if you please.... They're always so slow, aren't they, at these places. Good-bye, Miss Sandomir; good-bye, Mr. Doye, and I'm sure I hope you'll get quite all right soon.' Basil stood aside to let them out, and looked after them for a moment as they went. 3 He sat down with a grin. 'Makes life more _solemn_--do you know what I mean?... What a cheery little specimen.... I say, I'd like to draw Miss Tucker; such good face-lines. That clear chin, and the nice wide space between the eyes.' He drew it on the tablecloth with his left hand and the handle of his teaspoon. 'She's ripping to draw,' Alix agreed. 'I often do her. And the colour's gorgeous, too--that pink on brown. I've never got it right yet.' 'I should think she's fun to live with,' suggested Basil. 'She looks as if she enjoyed things so much.' 'Yes, she has a pretty good time as a rule.' 'You know,' said Basil, thinking it out, 'being out there, and seeing people smashed to bits all about the place, and getting smashed oneself, makes one long for people like that, sane and healthy and with nothing the matter with their bodies or minds. It gets to seem about the only thing that matters, after a time.' 'I suppose it would.' 'Now a person like that, who looks like some sort of wood goddess--(I'd awfully like to paint her as a dryad)--and looks as if she'd never had a day's illness or a bad night in her life, is so--so _restful_. So alive and yet so calm. No nerves anywhere, I should think.... Being out there plays the dickens with people's nerves, you know. Not every one's, of course; there are plenty of cheery souls who come through unmoved; but you'd be surprised at the jolly, self-possessed sportsmen who go to pieces more or less--all degrees of it, of course. Some don't know it themselves; you can often only see it by the way their eyes look at you while they're talking, or the way their hand twitches when they light their cigarette....' Alix remembered John Orme's eyes and hands. 'They dream a bit, too,' Basil went on, and his own eyes were fixed and queer as he talked, and his brows twitched a little. 'Talk in their sleep, you know, or walk.... It's funny.... I've censored letters which end "Hope this finds you the same as it leaves me, _i.e._ in the pink," from chaps who have to be watched lest they put a bullet into themselves from sheer nerves. You'll see a man shouting and laughing at a sing-song, then sitting and crying by himself afterwards.... Oh, those are extreme cases, of course, but lots are touched one way or another.... I'm sorry for the next generation; they'll stand a chance of being a precious neurotic lot, the children of the fighting men.... It's up to every one at home to keep as sane and unnervy as they can manage, I fancy, or the whole world may become a lunatic asylum.... I say, what are you going to do now?' 'Buy some chalks. Then go home.' 'Violette? I'll see you home, may I?' 4 They went to the chalk shop, then to the Clapton bus. The evening wind was like cool hands stroking their faces. It was half-past six. The streets were barbarically dark. 'One would think,' said Basil, peering through the darkness at the ugliness, 'that in Kingsland Road Zepps might be allowed to do their worst.' 'On Spring Hill too, perhaps,' Alix said. Slums and the screaming of the disreputable poor: villas and the precise speech and incomparably muddled thinking of the respectable genteel: which could best be spared? But Basil said, 'Oh, Spring Hill. Spring Hill is full of joy and dryads.' 'Kate is afraid a very common type of person is coming to live there. We're getting nervous about it at Violette. We're very particular, you know.' Alix, with the instinct of a cad, was laughing at Violette, wanting him to laugh with her. 'Sure to be,' he returned; and Alix realised blankly that he might laugh at Violette to her heart's content and his attitude towards dryads and Evie Tucker's face-lines would remain unaltered by his mockery. With a revulsion towards breeding, she said, 'They're most awfully kind.... Here's where I get off.' He got off too, and they walked down Upper Clapton Road. 5 Some one came behind them, walking quickly, came up with them, slowed, and looked. 'Here we are again,' said Evie, in her clear gay voice. 'You're coming in to see us, Mr. Doye, I hope?' Basil glanced from Alix to Evie. They were passing under a dim lamp, which for a moment threw Evie's startling prettiness in lit relief against the night. Extreme prettiness is not such a common thing that one can afford to miss chances of beholding it. Basil said, 'Well, may I?' Evie returned, 'Rather. Stop to supper.' 'I can't do that, thanks very much. But I'll come in for a moment, if I may.' As they entered Violette's tiny hall, the clock struck seven. They went into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Frampton and Kate sat knitting. It was stiff and prim and tidy, and rather stuffy, and watched from the wall by the monstrous Eye. 'Here's Mr. Doye, mother,' said Evie. 'He saw Alix home.' Mr. Doye was introduced to Kate. Mrs. Frampton said how kind it was of him to see Alix home. 'Particularly with the streets black like they are now. Have we a _right_ to expect to be preserved if we go against all common-sense like that?' 'I never do,' said Basil, meaning he never expected to be preserved, but Mrs. Frampton took it that he never went against common-sense. 'Well, I'm sure I go out after dark as little as I can; but the girls have to, coming back from work, and it makes me worry for them.... Now you sit in that easy-chair, Mr. Doye, and make yourself comfortable, and rest your hand. It's going on well, I hope? You'll stop and have some supper, of course? We have it at half-past seven, so it won't keep you long.' Basil said he wouldn't, because he was dining somewhere at eight. They talked of the news. Mrs. Frampton said it seemed to get worse each day. She had been reading in the paper that Bulgaria was just coming in. Was that really so? Mrs. Frampton was of those who inquire of their male acquaintances and relatives on these and kindred subjects, and believe the answers, more particularly when the males are soldiers. Basil Doye, used to his mother, who told him things and never believed a word he said, because, as she remarked, he was so much younger, found this gratifying, and said it was really so. Mrs. Frampton said dear me, it seemed as if all the world would have to come in in time, and what about poor Serbia, could she be saved? Basil, wanting to leave the state of Europe and ask Evie if she had seen any plays lately, said casually that Serbia certainly seemed to stand a pretty good chance of being done in. 'And then, I suppose,' said Mrs. Frampton, 'we shall have the poor Serbian refugees fleeing to us for safety, like the Belgians. I'm sure we shall all welcome them, the poor mothers with their little children. But it will be awkward to know where to put them or what to do with them. They've got those two houses at the corner of the Common full of Belgians now. I wonder if the Belgians and the Serbs would get on well together in the same houses. They say the poor Serbs are very wild people indeed, with such strange habits. Do you think we shall all be asked to take them as servants?' 'Sure to be,' said Basil, his eyes on Evie. Evie sat doing nothing at all, healthy, lovely, amused, splendidly alive. The vigorous young bodily life of her called to Basil's own, re-animating it. Alix sat by her, all alive too, but weak-bodied, lame, frail-nerved, with no balance. Kate knitted, and was different. 'It will be quite a problem, won't it?' said Mrs. Frampton. 'My maid tells me girls can't get enough places now, people all take Belgians instead.' 'They say the Belgian girls make very rough servants. We know those who have them,' said Kate, who had the Violette knack of switching off from the general to the personal. To Violette there were no labour problems, only good servants and bad, no Belgian or Balkan problem, only individual Belgians and Serbs (poor things, with their little children and strange habits). They had the personal touch, which makes England what it is. Mrs. Frampton wanted to know next, 'And I suppose we shall be having conscription very soon now, Mr. Doye, shall we?' 'Lord Northcliffe says so, doesn't he?' Basil returned absently. Mrs. Frampton accepted that. 'Well! I suppose it has to be. It seems hard on the poor mothers of only sons, and on the poor wives too. But if it will help us to win the war, we mustn't grudge them, must we? I suppose it _will_ help us to victory, won't it?' 'Lord Northcliffe says that too, I understand.... What do _you_ think, Miss Tucker?' He turned to Evie, to hear her speak. She said, 'Oh, don't ask me. _I_ don't know. Don't suppose it will make much difference. Things don't, do they?' Basil chuckled. 'Precious little, as a rule.... So that settles that.' He caught sight of the clock and got up. 'I say, I'm afraid I've got to go at once. I shall be awfully late and rude. I often am, since I joined the army. I was a punctual person once. The war is very bad for manners and morals, have you discovered, Mrs. Frampton?' 'Oh well,' Mrs. Frampton spoke condoningly, 'I'm sure we must all hope it won't last much longer. How long will it be, Mr. Doye, can you tell us that?' 'Seven years,' said Mr. Doye. 'Till October 1922, you know. Yes, awful, isn't it? I'm frightfully sorry I had to tell you. Good-bye, Mrs. Frampton.' He shook hands with them all; his eyes lingered, bright and smiling, on Evie, as if they found her a pleasant sight. In Alix that look seemed to stab and twist, like a turning sword. Perhaps that was what men felt when a bayonet got them.... The odd thing in the psychology of it was that she had never known before that she was a jealous person; she had always, like so many others, assumed she wasn't. Certainly Evie's beauty had been to her till now pure joy. As she went to the door with Basil, he said, 'I say, I wish you and your cousin would come into the country one Sunday. We might make up a small party. Your cousin looks as if she would rather like walking.' 'She's rather past it, I'm afraid,' said Alix, and added, in answer to his stare, 'Cousin Emily, you mean, don't you? The Tuckers aren't my cousins, you know. And she's only a dead cousin's wife. The Tuckers aren't even that.' 'No, hardly that, I suppose. Well, ask Miss Tucker if she'd care to come, will you? I should think she'd be rather a good country person. We might go next Sunday, if it's fine.' Alix did not remark that Kate was not a particularly good country person. She merely said, 'All right.... Mind the step at the gate.... Good-night,' and shut the door. 6 She stood for a moment listening to the tread of his feet along the asphalt pavement, then sat down on the umbrella stand thoughtfully. For a moment it came to her that among the many things the war had taken from her (Paul, Basil, sleep at nights) were two that mattered just now particularly--good breeding, and self-control. She knew she might feel and behave like a cad, and also that she might cry. It was the second of these that she least wanted to do. She had to be very gay and bright.... For a moment her fingers were pressed against her eyelids. When she took them away she saw balls of fire dancing all over the hall and up the stairs. 'I shall ask Kate,' she said. Florence came up the kitchen stairs with food. Kate came out of the sitting-room to help her set the table. Alix said, 'Let me help, Kate,' and began to bustle about the dining-room. 'You're giving mother Evie's serviette,' said Kate, who probably thought this outburst of helpfulness more surprising than useful. 'By the way, Kate,' said Alix suddenly, giving Mrs. Frampton Kate's serviette instead, 'I suppose you wouldn't care to come for a long walk in the country on Sunday? I'm going with Basil Doye and some other people, and he asked me to ask you.' Kate looked repressive. 'Considering my class, and church, and that I never take train on Sunday, it's so likely, isn't it?... And I rather wonder you like to go these Sunday outings, Alix. Don't you think it's nice to keep one day quiet, not to speak of higher things, with all the rushing about you do during the week?' Kate felt it her duty to say these things sometimes to Alix, who had not been well brought up. 'It might be nice,' returned Alix, absently juggling with napkins. 'But it's difficult, rather.... I say, I believe I've got these wrong still.... I must go and change now.' She found Evie changing already, cool, clear-skinned, cheerful, humming a tune. It was difficult to speak to Evie, but Alix did it. She even hooked her up behind. She saw Evie's reflection in the glass, pretty and brown. She tried not to think that Evie was gayer than usual, and knew she was. She changed her own dress, and talked fast. She saw her face in the glass; it was flushed and feverish. 7 They went down to supper. There was cold brawn, and custard, and stewed apple, and cheese, and what Violette called preserve. An excellent meal, but one in which Alix found no joy. She wanted something warming. 'It was a pity Mr. Doye wasn't able to stay,' said Mrs. Frampton. 'He's quite full of fun, isn't he?' 'Talks a lot of nonsense, _I_ think,' said Evie. 'The brawn would hardly have been sufficient,' said Kate, meaning if Mr. Doye had been able to stay. 'A little custard, love?' Mrs. Frampton said to Alix. 'Why, you don't look well, Alix. You look as if you had quite a temperature. I hope you've not a chill beginning. These east winds are so searching and your necks are so low. You'd better go to bed early, dear, and Florence shall make you some hot currant tea.' 'Florence says,' said Kate, reminded of that, 'that those people at Primmerose have lost their third girl this month. The girls simply won't stay, and Florence says she doesn't blame them. They're dreadfully common people, I'm afraid, those Primmerose people. There are some funny stories going round about them, only of course one can't encourage Florence to talk. I believe the amount of wine and spirits they take in is something dreadful. In wartime, too. It does seem sad, doesn't it? You'd think people might restrain themselves just now, but some seem never to think of that. Mr. Alison says all this luxury and intemperance is quite shameful. He preached on it on Sunday night. His idea is that the war was sent us as a judgment, for all our wicked luxury and vice, and it will never cease till we are converted, Lord Derby or no Lord Derby, conscription or no conscription. He says all that is just a question of detail and method, but the only way to stop the war is a change of life. He was very forcible, I thought.' 'Perhaps,' said Mrs. Frampton, 'that's what Mr. Doye meant when he said, didn't he, how all these measures, conscription and so on, don't make so much difference after all. No, it was Evie said it, wasn't it? and Mr. Doye agreed and seemed quite pleased with her, I thought. Perhaps he meant the same as Mr. Alison, about a change of life. I expect he's very good himself, isn't he, Alix?' Evie, to whom goodness meant dullness, said, 'I bet he isn't. Is he, Al?' '_I_ don't know,' said Alix. 'You'd better ask him.' She added after a moment, 'I'll ask him for you on Sunday, if you like. We're going out somewhere, if it's fine.' 'It was very kind of him to ask me too,' said Kate. 'You must explain to him how it is I can't, with its being Sunday.' Across the table Alix's eyes met Evie's, suddenly widened in guileless, surprised mirth, with a touch of chagrin. Evie said, 'Why, whatever did he ask Kate for? He might have known she wouldn't.... Men are ...' 'You're not coming, you're not coming, you're _not_ coming,' said Alix within herself, breathing fast and clenching her napkin tight in her two hands and staring across the table defensively out of narrowed eyes. So they left it at that. 8 But in the night Evie won. One may begin these things, if sufficiently unhinged and demoralised by private emotions and public events, but one cannot always keep them up. The policeman paced up and down, up and down Spring Hill, the rain dripped, the gutters gurgled, Evie breathed softly, asleep, the dark night peered through waving curtains, Alix turned her pillow over and over and cursed. 'I suppose,' she said at last, at 2 A.M., 'she's got to come....' At 2.30 she said, 'It will be a beastly day,' and sighed crossly and began to go to sleep. 9 At half-past seven, while Evie did her hair, Alix said, on a weary yawn, 'I say, you'd better come out with us on Sunday, as Kate won't.' Evie, with hairpins in her mouth, said, 'Me? Oh, all right, I don't mind. Will it amuse me? What's the game?' 'Oh, nothing especial. Just a day in the country. No, I shouldn't think it would amuse you much, especially as you won't know hardly any of the people. But come if you like.' 'You're awfully encouraging.' Evie considered it, and pinned her hair up. 'Oh, I expect I may as well come. It will be cheerier than stopping at home. And I rather like meeting new people.... All right, I'm on. Gracious, there's the bell. You'll be late, child. If they're half as particular at your shop as they are at mine, you must get into a lot of rows.' So that was settled. CHAPTER IX SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY 1 Sunday morning was quiet and misty, and Clapton was full of bells. At Violette on Sundays each person led a different life. Kate, who attended St. Austin's church, went to early Mass at eight, sung Mass for children at 9.45, Sunday-school at 10.30, matins (said hastily) at 11, High Mass (sung slowly) at 11.30, children's catechising at 3, and evensong at 7. Mrs. Frampton went to a quite different church, to 11 o'clock matins, and once a month (the first Sunday) did what was called in that church 'staying on.' She often went again in the evening. Evie often accompanied her mother, and found, as many have, that after church is a good time and place for the gathering together of friends. Alix did not attend church, not having been brought up to do so. She often went off somewhere on Sunday with friends, as to-day. Mrs. Frampton said at breakfast, 'Take warm coats, dears; it's quite a fog, and your cough sounds nasty, Alix love. And don't leave your umbrellas; it might very well turn to rain.' 'It's quite cold enough for furs, _I_ think,' said Evie, pleased, because her furs became her. Through a pale blurred morning Alix and Evie travelled by bus and metropolitan to Victoria. Evie, lithe and fawn-like in dark brown, with her wide, far-set, haunting eyes and sudden dimples, was a vivid note in the blurred world; any one must be glad of her. Evie needed not to say words of salt or savour; her natural high spirits and young buoyancy were lifted from the commonplace to the charming by her face and smile. Alix by Evie's side was pale and elusive and dim; her only note of colour was the dark, shadowed blue of her black-lashed eyes. She coughed, and her throat was sore. She talked, and made Evie laugh. 2 They entered Victoria Station at 10.29. Waiting in the booking-hall were their friends: Basil Doye, a married young man and young woman of prepossessing exterior, two or three others of both sexes, and Terry Orme with a friend, both on a week's leave. Terry was spending the week-end in town, with another subaltern, and was joining in the expedition at Alix's suggestion. Alix was fond of Terry, who was John's younger brother, and a fair, serene, sweet-tempered, mathematical, very musical person of nineteen. He seemed one of those who, as Basil Doye had put it, come through the war unmoved. His smile was sweet and infectious, and he was restful and full of joy, and could consume more chocolates at a sitting than any one else (of over fifteen) that he knew. His friend was a cheery, sunburnt youth called Ingram, who had got the D.C.M. Terry said, 'Hullo, Alix, how are you?' and had the gift of showing, without demonstration, that he knew things were rotten for her, because of Paul. He was a sympathetic boy, and tender-hearted, and thought Alix looked in poor case; quite different from his own vigorous and cheerful and busy sisters at Wood End. But then of course he and John hadn't been killed, and Paul had. It was frightfully rough luck on Alix. Terry was inclined to think that people out there had much the best of it, on the whole, beastly as it often was, and interrupting to the things that really mattered, such as music, and Cambridge. Evie was introduced to every one, and they all had a friendly and pleased look at so much grace and vividness. In the train they filled a compartment. Alix sat between Terry and the married young man, who was something in a government office. Opposite were Evie and Basil and the married young woman, who had lovely furs and a spoilt, charming face, and was selfish about the foot-warmer. In the train they read a newspaper. Evie got the impression from their manner of reading it that they all knew beforehand what the news was, and a good deal more than was in the paper too; perhaps this impression was produced merely by nobody's saying 'Fancy,' as they did at Violette. From their style of comment Evie was inclined to gather that some of them had helped to write the paper and that others were acquainted with the unwritten facts behind and so different from the printed words; perhaps it was merely that they had studied last night's late editions, or perhaps some were journalists, others makers of history, others gifted with invention. Anyhow they seemed to think they knew as much as, or a good deal more than, the paper did. Even the married young woman stopped for a moment being sleepy and sulky about the cold to contribute something she had heard from a Foreign Office man at dinner. 'He was pulling your leg,' her husband said. 'Linsey always does; he thinks it's funny.' Evie thought him and his high sweet voice conceited. Alix, looking at Evie opposite, speculated amusedly for a moment where Evie came in: Evie, who knew and cared for no news and had heard nothing from people behind the scenes, and hadn't even had her leg pulled by Foreign Office men. Well, Evie, of course, came in on her face. It was jolly to have a face like that, to cover all vacancies within. Evie sat there, understanding little, yet people spoke to her merely to discover what, with that face, she would say. And what she said pleased and amused merely by reason of its grace of setting. Evie shivered, and Basil asked if she would like the window up. 'Well, it _is_ cold,' said Evie, and he leaned across and pulled it up, asking no one else. 'Thanks so much,' said Evie, taking it prettily to herself. Her face and eyes were brilliant above her furs. Basil, with an artist's pleasure, took in her beauty; Alix felt him doing it. Yes, Evie came in all right. They got out at some station. The air was like damp blankets, thick and pale and chill. There was no joy in it; dead wet leaves floated earthwards, unhappy like tears. They started walking somewhere. Alix leaned on her stick. She could walk all right, but she limped. She might soon tire, but she wasn't going to say so. They walked uphill, on a forlorn, muddy road. They walked in groups of two or three, changing and mixing and dividing as they went. They talked.... 3 Basil for a minute was beside Alix. He said, 'I say, will this be too much for you? Do say if you get tired, and we'll stop and rest.' Alix hated him because she was lame and he hated lameness and loved wholeness and strength. She said, 'No thanks, I'm all right,' and had no more to say at the moment. His eyes were on Evie's back, where she walked ahead with Maynard, the married man. He thought she walked like Diana, straight and free, with a swing. Alix turned to speak to Terry, who was just behind with his friend Ingram. He came abreast of her, answering. Basil caught up the two in front. 'You look pretty fit, Terry,' said Alix. 'Oh, I'm in the pink.' His fair, unbrowned face was serene and smiling. His far-set blue eyes were not nervous, only watchful, and seemed to see a long way. He hadn't got Basil's or John's quick, jerky, restless movements of the hands. He looked as if the war had more let him alone, left him detached, unconsumed. Perhaps it was because he was a musician; perhaps because he was naturally of a serene spirit; perhaps because he was so young. 'Have a choc,' said Terry, and produced a box of them from the pocket of his Burberry. Alix had one. 'How are they all at Wood End?' she asked. 'They too appear to be in the pink. They haven't much time to spare for me, though, they're so marvellously busy. Mother always was, of course; but Margot and Dorothy are at it all day too now. I wonder what they'll do with it when the war's over, all this energy. Mother says the war has been good for them; made them more industrious, I suppose. It's a funny thought, that the war can have been _good_ for any one; I can't quite swallow it. I don't think a thing bad in itself can be good for people, do you? It's very bad for me; it's spoiling my ear; the noise, you know; guns and shells and gramophones and so on.... By the way, I wish you'd come and hear Lovinski with me on Monday night, it's a jolly programme.' 'All right,' said Alix, who found Terry restful. She talked to Terry, and saw Evie and Basil walking in front, side by side, laughing, Evie's joyous, young smile answering that other quick, amused, friendly smile that she knew. 4 'You _are_ all funny,' said Evie to Basil. 'No?' 'Oh, you are. You do talk so.... About such mad things.' 'Do we? What do _you_ talk about at home?' Evie tried to consider. 'Don't know, I'm sure. Oh, just things that happen, I suppose; and mother and Kate talk about servants and household things, and we all talk about the people we know, and what they've done and said. But you ... you all talk about....' 'About the people we don't know, and what they've done and said. Is that it?' 'Perhaps. And public things, out of the papers, and what's going to happen, and why, and pictures, and ... nonsense.... Oh, I don't know.... And you find such queer things funny.... Anyhow, you all _talk_, even if it's only nonsense most of the time.... And the girls and the men talk just the same way. That's funny. Alix is the same. She's the queerest kid; makes me scream with laughter often. She's a pet, though.' 'She is,' said Basil. 'But what people say--the way they talk--makes extraordinarily little difference, you know. It's what they are.... The funny thing is, I didn't know that, not so clearly, at least, till I'd been out at the war. A thing like a war seems to settle values, somehow--shows one what matters and what doesn't; shovels away the cant and leaves one with the essentials....' ('Oh dear me,' said Evie.) 'Sorry; I'm talking rot. What I mean is, isn't it a jolly day and jolly country, and don't you love walking and getting warm?... I suppose you chose your hat to match your face, didn't you?--pink on brown. Don't apologise: I like it. Yes, the hat too, of course, but I didn't mean that.' 'Well, really!' said Evie. 5 They stopped at an inn for lunch. They crowded round a fire and got warm. They had hot things to eat and drink. They laughed and talked. Outside the wet leaves blew about. Alix's leg ached. Maynard, who talked too much and about the wrong things, persisted in talking about the psychological and social effects of the war. An uncertain subject, and sad, too; but probably he was writing an article about it somewhere; it was the sort of thing Maynard did, in his spare time. 'It's an interesting intellectual phenomenon,' he was saying. 'So many of the intelligent people in all the nations reduced largely to emotional pulp--sunk in blithering jingoism, like a school treat or a mothers' meeting.' His wife, who had been a bored vicar's daughter before her marriage, and knew, said sleepily, 'Mothers' meetings aren't a bit like that. You don't know anything about them. They mostly don't think anything about jingoism or the war, except that they hope their boys won't go, and that the Keyser must be an 'ard-'earted man. That's not blithering jingoism, it's common sense.' Ingram, the cheerful young subaltern, said boldly, 'I think jingoism is an under-rated virtue. There's a lot to be said for it. It makes recruits, anyhow. As long as people don't _talk_ jingo, I think it's a jolly useful thing.' 'It's turning some of our best professional cynics into primitive sentimentalists, anyhow,' said Maynard, thinking out his article. 'It's making Europe simple, sensuous and passionate. As evidenced by the war-poetry that was poured forth in 1914. (That flood seems a little spent now; I suppose we're all getting too tired of the war even to write verse about it.) ... As evidenced also by the Hymn of Hate and the Deptford riots and other exhibitions of primitive emotion. The question is, is all this emotion going to last, and to be poured out on other things after the war, or shall we be too tired to feel anything at all, or will there be a reaction to dryness and cynicism? People, for instance, have learnt more or less to give their money away: will they go on giving it, or shall we afterwards be closer-fisted than before?' 'O Lord!' said Basil, 'we shall have nothing left to give. Not even munition-makers will, if it's true that the income-tax is going to be quadrupled next year. It's about five bob now, isn't it? Give, indeed!' 'People,' continued Maynard, still on his own train of thought, 'may be divided, as regards the ultimate effects on them of any movement, into two sections--those who respond to the movement and join in all its works and are propelled along in a certain direction by it and continue to be so; and those who, either early or late, react against it, and are propelled in the opposite direction. Every movement has got its reaction tucked away inside it; and the more violent the movement, the more violent the possible reaction. The reactionary forces that come into play during and after war are quite incalculable. Goodness only knows where they'll land us ... whether they'll prevail over the responding forces or not. For instance, shall we be left a socialistic, centralised, autocratically governed, pre-Magna-Carta state, bound hand and foot by the Defence of the Realm Act, with all businesses state-controlled and all persons subject to imprisonment and sudden death without trial by jury, or will there be a tremendous reaction towards liberal individualism and _laissez-faire_? Who knows? None of us.... What do you think about it all, Miss Tucker?' He addressed Evie, to tease her, and make her say something in that fresh, buoyant voice of hers. She did. She said, 'I'm sure I don't know anything about it. I can't see that the war makes such a lot of difference, to ordinary people. One seems to go on much the same from day to day, doesn't one?' 'I'm not at all sure,' said Basil, suddenly interested, 'that Miss Tucker hasn't got hold of the crux of the whole matter. There aren't two sections of people, Maynard--there are three; the respondents, the reactors, and the indifferents--ordinary people, that's to say. What difference _does_ the war make, after all--to ordinary people? I believe the fact that it, so to speak, doesn't, is going to settle the destiny of this country. People like you talk of effects and tendencies; you're caught by influences and reactions and carried about; but then, perish the thought that you're an ordinary person. You're only an ordinary person of a certain order, the fairly civilised, not quite unthinking order, that sees and discusses and talks a lot too much. A thing like a war, when it comes along, upsets the whole outlook of your lot; it dissolves the fabric of your world, and you have to build it up again--and whether you like it or not, it will be something new for you. But does it upset and dissolve, or even disturb very much, the world of all the people (the non-combatants, I mean, of course, not the fighters) who don't think, or only think from hand to mouth? There'll be no reaction for them, or any such foolishness, because there's been no force. Here's to Ordinary People!' He emptied his glass of beer, and if he seemed to do it to Evie Tucker, that might be taken merely as acknowledgment of her discerning remark. 'Oh, mercy,' said Evie, on a laugh and a yawn. 'You do all go on, don't you.' Alix, black-browed and sulky, thought so too. Why talk about rotten things like these? Why not talk about the weather, or the countryside, or birds and leaves, or servants, as at Violette, instead of these futile speculations on the effects of a war that should not be thought about, should not be mentioned, and would probably anyhow never never end? It was Maynard's fault; he was conceited, and a gasbag, and talked about the wrong things. Terry Orme agreed with her. But young Ingram said, practically, 'Surely that's all rot, isn't it? I mean, there can be no indifferents, in your sense of the word. Every one must be affected, even if they haven't people of their own in the show, by the general kick-up. I don't believe in your indifferents; they wouldn't be human beings. They'd be like the calm crowds in the papers, don't you know, who aren't flustered by Zepps. I simply don't believe they exist.' 'The fundamentally untouched,' Maynard explained. 'Superficially, of course, they are, as you put it, flustered. They read the papers, of course, for the incidents; but the fundamental issues beneath don't touch them. They're impervious; they're of an immobility; they're sublimely stable. The war, for them, really isn't. The new world, however it shapes, simply won't be. What's the war doing to them? All the beastliness, and bravery, and ugliness, and brutality, and cold, and blood, and mud, and gaiety, and misery, and idiotic muddle, and splendour, and squalor, and general lunacy ... you'd think it must overturn even the most stable ... do something with them--harden them, or soften them, or send them mad, or teach them geography or foreign politics or knitting or self-denial or thrift or extravagance or international hatred or brotherhood. But has it? Does it? I believe often not. They haven't learnt geography, because they don't like using maps. They've not learnt to fight, because it's non-combatants I'm talking of. They've not even learnt to write to the papers--thank goodness. Nor even to knit, because I believe they mostly knew how already. Nor to preserve their lives in unlit streets, for they are nightly done in in their hundreds. Nor, I was told by a clergyman of my acquaintance the other day, to pray (but that is still hoped for them, I believe). The war, like everything else, will come and go and leave them where it found them--the solid backbone of the world. The rest of the world may go on its head with ideas, or progress, or despair, or war, or joy, or madness, or sanctity, or revolution--but they remain unstirred. I don't suppose a foreign invasion would affect them fundamentally. They couldn't take in invasion, only the invaders. They remain themselves, through every vicissitude. That's why the world after the war will be essentially the same as the world before it; it takes more than a war to move most of us.... We all hope our own pet organisation or tendency is going to step in after the war and because of the war and take possession and transform society. Social workers hope for a new burst of philanthropic brotherhood; Christians hope for Christianity; artists and writers for a new art and literature; pacificists for a general disarmament; militarists for permanent conscription; democrats say there will be a levelling of class barriers; and I heard a subaltern the other day remark that the war would 'put a stopper on all this beastly democracy.' We all seem to think the world will emerge out of the melting-pot into some strange new shape; optimists hope and believe it will be the shape they prefer, pessimists are almost sure it will be the one they can least approve. Optimists say the world will have been brought to a state of mind in which wars can never be again; pessimists say, on the contrary, we are in for a long succession of them, because we have revived a habit, and habit forms character, and character forms conduct. But really I believe the world will be left very much where it was before, because of that great immobile section which weighs it down.' Mrs. Maynard, who had been making a very good lunch, yawned at this point, and said, 'Roger, you're boring every one to death. You don't know anything more about the future than we do. None of us know anything at all. You're not Old Moore.' 'Old Moore,' Evie contributed (she had not been attending to Maynard's discourse, but was caught by this), 'says something important in foreign courts is going to happen in November, connected with a sick-bed. I expect that means the Kaiser's going to be ill. Perhaps he'll die.' 'Sure to,' agreed Basil. 'He's done it so many times already this year, it's becoming a habit.... I say, we ought to be getting on, don't you think?' Mrs. Maynard shivered, and said it was quite an unfit day to be out in, and she wasn't enjoying herself in the least, and was anybody else? Basil said he was, immensely, and found the day picturesque in colour effects. Evie said she thought it was jolly so long as they kept moving. Maynard said it was jollier talking and eating, but he supposed that couldn't last. Terry said it could, if one had chocolates in one's pocket and didn't hurry too much. 6 Basil walked beside Evie. Evie's beauty was whipped to brilliancy by the damp wind. Evie was life. She might not have the thousand vivid awarenesses to life, the thousand responses to its multitudinous calls, that the others had, the keen-witted young persons who had been bred up to live by their heads; but, in some more fundamental way, she was life itself: life which, like love and hate, is primitive, uncivilised, intellectually unprogressive, but basic and inevitable. Basil had once resented the type. In old days he would have called it names, such as Woman, and Violette. Now he liked Woman, found her satisfactory to some deep need in him; the eternal masculine, roused from slumber by war, cried to its counterpart, ignoring the adulterations that filled the gulf between. Possibly he even liked Violette, which produced Woman. Ingram walked by Alix. The yellow leaves drifted suddenly on to the wet road. Alix's hands were as cold as fishes; her lame leg was tired. She talked and laughed. Ingram was talking about dogs--some foolish pug he knew. Alix too talked of pugs, and chows, and goldfish, and guinea-pigs. Ingram said there had been a pug in his platoon; he told tales of its sagacity and intrepidity in the trenches. 'And then--it was a funny thing--he lost his nerve one day absolutely; simply went to pieces and whimpered in my dug-out, and stayed so till we got back into billets again. He wouldn't come in to the trench again next go; he'd had enough. Funny, rather, because it was so sudden, and nothing special to account for it. But it's the way with some men, just the same. I've known chaps as cheery as crickets, wriggling in frozen mud up to the waist, getting frost-bitten, watching shrapnel and whizz-bangs flying round them as calmly as if they were gnats, and seeing their friends slip up all round them ... and never turning a hair. And then one day, for no earthly reason, they'll go to pot--break up altogether. Funny things, nerves....' Alix suddenly perceived that he knew more about them than appeared in his jolly, sunburnt face; he was talking on rapidly, as if he had to, with inward-looking eyes. 'Of course there are some men out there who never ought to be there at all; not strong enough in body or mind. There was a man in my company; he was quite young; he'd got his commission straight from school; and he simply went to pieces when he'd been in and out of trenches for a few weeks. He was a nervous, sensitive sort of chap, and delicate; he ought never to have come out, I should say. Anyhow he went all to bits and lost his pluck; he simply couldn't stand the noise and the horror and the wounds and the men getting smashed up round him: I believe he saw his best friend cut to pieces by a bit of shell before his eyes. He kept being sick after that; couldn't stop. And ... it was awfully sad ... he took to exposing himself, taking absurd risks, in order to get laid out; every one noticed it. But he couldn't get hit; people sometimes can't when they go on like that, you know--it's a funny thing--and one night he let off his revolver into his own shoulder. I imagine he thought he wasn't seen, but he was, by several men, poor chap. No one ever knew whether he meant to do for himself, or only to hurt himself and get invalided back; anyhow things went badly and he died of it.... I can tell you this, because you won't know who he was, of course....' (But really he was telling it because, like the Ancient Mariner, he had to talk and tell.) He went on quickly, looking vacantly ahead, 'I was there when he fired.... Some of us went up to him, and he knew we'd seen.... I shan't forget his face when we spoke to him.... I can see it now ... his eyes....' He looked back into the past at them, then met Alix's, and it was suddenly as if he was looking again at a boy's white, shamed face and great haunted blue eyes and crooked, sensitive mouth and brows.... He stopped abruptly and stood still, and said sharply beneath his breath, 'Oh, good Lord!' Horror started to his face; it mounted and grew as he stared; it leaped from his eyes to the shadowed blue ones he looked into. He guessed what he had done, and, because he guessed, Alix guessed too. Suddenly paler, and very cold and sick, she said, 'Oh ...' on a long shivering note; and that too was what the boy in the trenches had said, and how he had said it. Perspiration bedewed the young man's brow, though the air hung clammy and cold about them. 'I beg your pardon,' said Ingram, 'but I didn't hear your name. Do you mind....' 'Sandomir,' she whispered, with cold lips. 'It's the same, isn't it?' He could not now pretend it wasn't. 'I--I'm sickeningly sorry,' he muttered. 'I'm an ass ... a brute ... telling you the whole story like that.... Oh, I do wish I hadn't. If only you'd stopped me.' Alix pulled her dazed faculties together. She was occupied in trying not to be sick. It was unfortunate: strong emotion often took her like that; in that too she was like Paul. 'I d-didn't know,' she stammered. 'I never knew before how Paul died. They never said ... just said shot....' He could have bitten his tongue out now. 'You mustn't believe it, please.... Sandomir wasn't the name ... it was my mistake.... Sandberg--that was it.' 'They never said,' Alix repeated. She felt remote from him and his remorse, emptied of pity and drained of all emotions, only very sick, and her hands were as cold as fishes. A little way in front Evie and Basil were laughing together. A robin sang on a swaying bough. Alix thought how sad he was. She had a sore throat and a headache. The mist clung round, clammy and cold, like her hands.... 'I don't know what to say,' Ingram was muttering. 'There's nothing _to_ say....' Alix stopped walking. The sky went dark. 'Terry,' she said. Terry was at her side. 'All right.... Aren't you well?' She held on to his arm. 'Terry, I'm going home.' He looked at her face. 'All right. I'll come too.... If you're going to faint, you'd better sit down first.' 'I shan't faint,' said Alix. 'But I think ... I think I may be going to be sick.' 'Well,' said Terry, 'just wait till the others have gone on, or they'll fuss round.... I say, good-bye, all of you; Alix is rather done, and we're going to the nearest station for the next train. No thanks, don't bother to come; we shall be all right.' Alix heard far-away offers of help; heard Evie's 'Shall I come with you, Al?' and Basil's 'What bad luck,' and the others' sympathies and regrets, and Terry keeping them off. 7 Alix and Terry were alone together. Then Alix was, as she had foretold, sick, crouching on damp heather by the roadside. 'Have you done?' inquired Terry presently. 'Yes. I hope so, at least. Let's go on to the station.' 'I wonder, is it something beginning? Do you feel like flu? Or is it biliousness, or a chill? Or have you walked too far? I was afraid you were.' 'I'm all right. Only that man--Mr. Ingram--told me things, and suddenly I felt sick.... He told me things about Paul.... He didn't know who I was, and then suddenly he knew, and I saw him know, and I knew too. Do _you_ know, Terry?' 'No,' said Terry, levelly. 'I know what some men who were out there thought, but it wasn't true.' Terry was a good liar, but now no use at all. Alix twisted her cold hands together and whispered hoarsely, 'You've known all the time, then.... Oh, Paul, Paul--to have minded as much as all that before you died ... to have been hurt like that for weeks and weeks....' She was crying now, and could not stop. 'Don't,' said Terry gently. 'Don't think like that about it; it's not the way. Don't think of Paul, except that he got out of it quicker than most people, and is safe now from any more of it. One's got to keep on thinking of that, whenever any of them slip up.... I hoped you'd none of you ever know.... That bungling ass.... Alix, don't: it was such a short time he had of it....' Alix gasped, her hands pressed to her choked throat, 'It seemed hundreds of years, to him. Hundreds and hundreds of years, of being hurt like that, hurt more than he could bear, till he had to end it.... He was such a _little_ boy, Terry ... he minded things so much....' 'The thing is,' Terry repeated, frowning, and prodding the mud in the road with his stick, 'not to _think_. Not to _imagine_. Not to _remember_.... It's _over_, don't you see, for Paul. He's clean out of it.... It's a score for him really, as he was like that and did mind so much.' 'It would be easier,' said Alix presently, husky and strangled, 'if he hadn't liked things so much too; if he hadn't been so awfully happy; if he hadn't so loved being alive.... It isn't a score for him to lose all the rest of his life, that he might have had afterwards.' 'No,' Terry agreed, sadly. 'It isn't. It's rotten luck, that is. Simply rotten. That's one of the most sickening things about this whole show, the way people are doing that.... But there's one thing about Paul, Alix; if he'd come through it he'd have kept on remembering all the things one tries to forget. More than most people, I mean. He was that sort. Lots of people don't mind so much, and can get things out of their heads when they aren't actually seeing them. I can, pretty well, you know. I think about other things, and don't worry, and eat and sleep like a prize-fighter. A chap like Ingram's all right, too; lots of men are. (Though what I suppose Ingram would call his brain seems to have gone pretty well to pot to-day. My word, I shall let him hear about that this evening.) But Paul--Paul would have minded awfully always; it might have spoilt his life a bit, you know.... And worse things might have happened to him, too; he might have been taken prisoner.... Paul,' he added slowly--'Paul is better off than lots of men.' Alix was staring at him now with wide, frightened eyes. 'I say, Terry,' she said hoarsely, 'what--what on earth are we to _do_ about it all? It--it's going on now--this moment.... I've tried so hard not to let it come near ... and now ... now....' She was cold and shaking with terror. 'Now you'd better go on trying,' Terry suggested, and looked at his watch. 'Thinking's no good, anyhow.... We ought to hit off the 3.15 with any luck. Are you going to be sick any more, by the way?' 'I can never tell, till just beforehand,' said Alix gloomily. 'But I wouldn't be much surprised.' That was a sad thing about the Sandomirs: when they began to be sick it often took them quite a long time to leave off. It was most unfortunate, and they got it from their father, who had sometimes been taken that way on public platforms. 'Well,' said Terry patiently. 8 The others walked, and had tea, and walked again, and took a train back. Londoners like this sort of day. They like to see hedges, and grass, and pick berries, and hear birds. It refreshes them for their next week's work, even though they have been at the time cold, and tired, and perhaps bored. CHAPTER X EVENING IN CHURCH 1 Alix was huddled on her bed in a rug. She had taken two aspirin tablets because her head ached, and really one is enough. She felt cold and low. She was occupied in not thinking about Paul or the war; it was rather a difficult operation, and took her whole energies. Paul was insistent; she pressed her hands against her eyes and saw him on the darkness, her little brother, white-faced, with the nervous smile she knew; Paul in a trench, among the wounded and killed, seeing things, hearing things ... taken suddenly sick ... unable to leave off ... putting his head above the parapet, trying to get hit, called sharply to order by superiors.... Paul desperate, at the end of his tether, in the night full of flashes and smashes and laughter and grumbling and curses.... Paul laughing too, and talking, as she and Paul always did when they were hiding things.... Paul in his dug-out, alone ... unseen, he supposed ... with only one thought, to get out of it somehow.... The shot, the pain, like flame ... the men approaching, who knew.... Paul's face, knowing they knew ... white, frightened, staring, pain swallowed up in shame ... the end ... how soon? Ingram hadn't said that. Anyhow, the end; and Paul, out of it at last, slipping into the dark, alone.... A noble end, Mrs. Frampton had said, not a wasted life.... Anyhow, all over for Paul, as Terry had said. And then what? Ingram hadn't said that either; nor had Terry; no one could say, for no one knew. What, if anything, _did_ come then? Darkness, nothingness, or something new? 'He has begun to live now, dear, for ever and ever,' Kate had said. 'World without end, amen,' Mrs. Frampton had rounded it off. World without end! What a thought! Poor Paul, finding a desperate way out from the world, slipping away into another which had no way out at all. But Mrs. Frampton's and Kate's world without end was a happy, jolly one, presumably, and the more of it the better. It would give Paul space for the life he hadn't lived here. Oh, could that be so? Was it possible, or was it, as so many people thought, only a dream? Who could know? No one, till they came to try. And then perhaps they would know nothing at all either way, not being there any more.... Yet people thought they knew, even here and now. Nicky's friend, Mr. West; he, presumably, thought he knew; anyhow, if not going so far as that, he had taken a hypothesis and was, so to speak, acting, thinking, and talking on it. He was clever, too. Mrs. Frampton and Kate thought they knew, too; but they weren't clever. They believed in God: but Alix could have no use for the Violette God. Mrs. Frampton's God was the Almighty, an omnipotent Being who governed all things in gross and in detail, including the weather (though the connection here was mysteriously vague). A God of crops and sun and rain, who spoke in the thunder; a truly pagan God (though Mrs. Frampton would not have cared for the word), of chastisements and arbitrary mercies, who was capable of wrecking ships and causing wars, in order to punish and improve people. The God of the 'act of God' in the shipping regulations. A God who could, and would, unless for wise purposes he chose otherwise, keep men and women physically safe, protect them from battle, murder, and sudden death. An anthropomorphic God, in the semblance, for some strange reason known only to the human race, of a man. A God who somehow was responsible for the war. A God who ordered men's estates so that there should be a wholesome economic inequality among them. Such was Mrs. Frampton's God, in no material way altered from the conception of the primitive Jews or the modern South Sea Islanders, who make God in their image. He had no attractions for Alix, who could not feel that a God of weather was in any way concerned with the soul of the world. Kate's God, on the other hand, was for Alix enshrined in the little books of devotion that Kate had lent her sometimes, and all of which she found revolting, even on the hypothesis that you believed that sort of thing. They propounded ingenuous personal questions for the reader to ask himself, such as 'Have I eaten or drunk too much? Have I used bad words? Have I read bad books?' (As if, thought Alix, any one would read a bad book on purpose, life being so much too short to get through the good ones; unless one had the misfortune to be a reviewer, like Nicky, or to have bad taste, like many others; and then wasn't it rather a misfortune than a fault?) 'Have I been unkind to animals?' the inquiries went on. 'Have I obeyed those set over me? Have I kept a guard of my eyes?' (a mysterious phrase, unexplained by any footnote, and leaving it an open question whether to have done so or to have omitted to do so would have been the sin. Alix inclined to the former view; it somehow sounded an unpleasant thing to do.) These books adopted a tone too intimate and ejaculatory for Alix's taste; and they were, it must be admitted, about all she knew of Kate's God, and her distaste for Him merely meant that she disliked some of Kate's methods of approach. Alix felt, vaguely, that West's God was different. There was no softness about Him, or about West's approach to Him; no sentimental sweetness, no dull piety, but energy, effort, adventure, revolt, life taken at a rush. Dynamite, West had said, to blow up the world. Poetry, too; harsh and grim poetry, often, but the real thing. Kate's religion might be sung in hymns by Faber; Mrs. Frampton's in hymns by Dr. Watts; West's had very little to do with any hymns sung in churches. And it was West's religion which thought it was going to break up the world in pieces and build it anew. Certainly neither Mrs. Frampton's nor Kate's would be up to the task; they would not even want it. Mrs. Frampton worshipped a God of Things as they Are, who has already done all things well, and Kate one who is little concerned with the ordering of the world at all, but only with individual souls. One would like to know more about West's God. 'You should go to church,' West had told her. 'You'd find it interesting.' She might find it so, of course; anyhow, she could try. Paul was driving her to find things out; his desperation and pain, her own, all the world's, must somehow break a way through, out and beyond, fling open a gate on to new worlds.... Anyhow, it might take one's mind off, help one not to think. It occurred to Alix that she would go to church this evening. It seemed, at the moment, the simplest way of watching these odd mystical forces, if there were any such forces, at work. She would be able thus to see them concentrated, working through a few people gathered together for the purpose. Alix's acquaintance with Sunday evening services, it may be observed, was rudimentary. 2 Meanwhile there was tea. Alix went down to it. There were Mrs. Frampton, Kate, a Mrs. Buller from Anzac next door, and a toasted bun. Mrs. Frampton said to Alix, 'You do look low, dear. I'm sure it's a good thing you came home. Biliousness isn't a thing to play with. Suppose you were to go to bed straight away, and let Kate bring you up a nice hot cup of tea there?' Kate said, playfully, 'This is what Sunday outings lead to.' They were both at a great distance, as if Alix were at the bottom of the sea. So was Mrs. Buller, who talked to Mrs. Frampton about girls. Girls are, of course, an inexhaustible and fruitful topic--there are so many of them coming and going, and nearly all so bad. Mrs. Frampton and Mrs. Buller and Kate all found them interesting, if a nuisance. Alix found them a safe subject. Mrs. Buller was saying, 'On one thing I have made up my mind, Mrs. Frampton; never again will I have a G.F.S. girl in my house. Besides all the meetings and things at all hours, to have the girl's Associate coming into my kitchen and talking about prayer (it was prayer, for I overheard) and ending up with a kiss you could hear upstairs--it was more than I could be expected to stand. And the girl smashed three cups that same afternoon, and answered me back in a downright impertinent way. So I said, 'If _that's_ what your G.F.S. teaches you for manners, the sooner you and I part company the better,' and I gave her her month.' 'I'm sure you were right,' said Mrs. Frampton. 'Though of course one mustn't put it all on the G.F.S.' She said this because of Kate, who was a church worker. But as it happened Kate did not care for the G.F.S., having fallen out with the local secretary, and also having been told by her vicar that it was a society which drew too rigid an ethical line and no denominational line at all. Kate also drew rigid ethical lines, when left to herself and her own natural respectability; the comic spirit must be largely responsible for driving people like Kate into the Christian church, a body which, whatever opprobrium it may have at various times incurred, has never yet been justly accused of respectability. So Kate joined in about Girls and the G.F.S. Mrs. Buller said, 'However, we may be thankful we aren't in the country, for my sister at Stortford has had five soldiers billeted on her, and how is her girl to keep her head among them all? She won't, of course. Girls and a uniform--it goes to their heads like drink.' 'It does seem an upset for your sister,' said Mrs. Frampton. 'And Bertie's started again wanting to enlist,' continued their visitor, who had many troubles. 'If I've told him once I've told him fifty times, "Not while _I_ live you don't, Bertie." So I hope he'll settle down again. But he says he'll only be fetched later if he doesn't; such rubbish. He actually wants to go as a common soldier, not even a commission. Think of the class of _company_ he'd be thrown into, not to speak of the risk. Fancy his thinking his father and I could let him do such a thing.' Mrs. Frampton made sympathetic sounds. They had tea. They went on talking, of Belgians, Zeppelins, bulbs, and Girls. Belgians as a curiosity (in the corner house), Zeppelins as murder ('to call that war, you know'), bulbs as a duty (to be put in quite soon), and Girls as a nuisance (to be changed as speedily as may be). Mrs. Buller stayed till nearly six. 'It's always a treat to see Mrs. Buller,' said Mrs. Frampton. 'But fancy, it's nearly time to get ready for church.' Mrs. Frampton's church was at half-past six. Kate's was at seven. It was to Kate's that Alix wanted to go. She did not think that Kate's church would be much use, but she was sure that Mrs. Frampton's wouldn't. Mrs. Frampton's was florid Gothic outside, with a mellifluous peal of bells. Kate's was of plain brick, with a single tinny bell. Mrs. Frampton's looked comfortable. Kate's did not. The road into another world, if there was another world, surely would not be a comfortable one.... 3 Kate was pleased when Alix said she was coming. She thought the little books had borne fruit. 'It'll be something to do,' said Alix cautiously. 'I hope Mr. Alison will preach,' Kate said. 'He's so helpful always.' Alix wondered if Mr. Alison knew about another world, and if he would tell in his sermon. If he did not, he would not be helpful to her. Probably not even if he did. They went diagonally across the little common, to the unpretentious brick church whose bell tinkled austerely. It was an austere church both within and without, and had a sacrificial beauty of outline and of ritual that did not belong to Mrs. Frampton's church, which was full of cheery comfort and best hats and Hymns A. and M. Kate's church had an oblative air of giving up. It gave up succulent, completed tunes for the restrained rhythms of plain-song, which, never completed, suggest an infinite going on; it gave up comfortable pews for chairs which slid when you knelt against them; its priests and congregation gave up food before Mass and meat on fast-days. The chief luxury it seemed to allow itself was incense, of which Alix disliked the smell. Certainly the air of cheery, everyday respectability which characterises some churches was conspicuously absent: this church seemed to be perpetually approaching a mystery, trying to penetrate it, laying aside impedimenta in the quest.... The quest for what? That seemed to be the question. The candles on the far altar quivered and shone like stars. They sang hymns out of little green books. They began by singing, in procession, a long hymn about gardens and gallant walks and pleasant flowers and spiders' webs and dampish mists, and the flood of life flowing through the streets with silver sound, and many other pleasant things. Alix glanced at Kate, curiously. Kate, prim and proper, so essentially of Violette, seemed in herself to have no point of contact with such strange, delightful songs, such riot of attractive fancy. For this was poetry, and Kate and poetry were incongruous. Poetry: having found the word, Alix felt it pervade and explain the whole service--the tuneless chants, the dim glooms and twinkling lights, the austerity. Kate interpreted this poetry for her own needs through the medium of little books of devotion for which prose was far too honourable a word; jargon, rather; pious, mushy, abominable.... It was odd. Kate seemed to be caught in the toils of some strange, surprising force. Alix hadn't learnt yet that it is a force nowhere more surprising than in the unlikely people it does catch. The further question may then arise, how is it going to use them? Can it use them at all, or does the turning of its wheels turn them out and get rid of them, or does it retain them, unused? It is certainly all very odd. This essentially romantic and adventurous and mystical force seems to have a special hold on many timid, unromantic and unimaginative persons. This essentially corporate and catholic body lays its grasp as often as not on extreme individualists. Perhaps it is the unconscious need in them of the very thing they have not got, that makes the contact. Perhaps it reveals poetry and adventure to those who could find them in no other guise. Perhaps it links together in a body those who must otherwise creep through life unlinked, gives awareness of the community to the otherwise unaware. Perhaps, on the other hand, it doesn't. The powers in human beings of evading influences and escaping obvious inferences is unlimited. The lights were suddenly dimmer. Some one got into the pulpit and preached. He preached on a question, 'Who will lead me into the strong city?' A very pertinent inquiry, Alix thought, and just what she wanted to know. Who would? Who could? Was there a strong city at all, or only chaos and drifting ways of terror and unrest? If so, where was it, and how to get there? The strong city, said the preacher, is the city of refuge for which we all crave, and more especially just now, in this day of tribulation. The kings of the earth are gathered and gone by together; but the hill of Sion is a fair place and the joy of the whole earth; upon the north side lieth the city of the great King; God is well known in her palaces as a sure refuge. Above the noise of battle, above the great water-floods, is the city of God that lieth four-square, unshaken by the tempests. Jolly, thought Alix, and just where one would be: but how to get into it? One had tried, ever since the war began, to shut oneself away, unshaken and undisturbed by the tempests. One had come to Violette because it seemed more unshaken than Wood End; but Violette wasn't really, somehow, a strong city. The tempests rocked one till one felt sick.... Where was this strong city, any strong city? Well, all about; everywhere, anywhere, said the preacher; one could hardly miss it. ''Tis only your estrangèd faces That miss the many-splendoured thing....' and he quoted quite a lot of that poem. Then he went on to a special road of approach, quoting instead, 'I went into the sanctuary of God.' Church, Alix presumed. Well, here she was. No: it transpired that it wasn't evening service he meant; he went on to talk of the Mass. That, apparently, was the strong city. Well, it might be, if one was of that way of thinking. But if one wasn't? Did Kate find it so, and was that why she went out early several mornings in the week? And what sort of strength had that city? Was it merely a refuge, well bulwarked, where one might hide from fear? Or had it strength to conquer the chaos? West would say it had; that its work was to launch forces over the world like shells, to shatter the old materialism, the old comfortable selfishness, the old snobberies, cruelties, rivalries, cant, blind stupidities, lies. The old ways, thought Alix (which were the same ways carried further, West would say), of destruction and unhappiness and strife, that had led to the bitter hell where boys went out in anguish into the dark. The city wasn't yet strong enough, apparently, to do that. Would it be one day? 'I will not cease from mental fight,' cried the preacher, who was fond, it seemed, of quoting poetry, 'nor let my sword sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land.' The next moment he was talking of another road of approach to the city on the hill, besides going to church, besides building Jerusalem in England. A road steep and sharp and black; we take it unawares, forced along it (many boys are taking it this moment, devoted and unafraid. Unafraid, thought Alix); and suddenly we are at the city gates; they open and close behind us, and we are in the strong city, the drifting chaos of our lives behind us, to be redeemed by firm walking on whatever new roads may be shown us. God, who held us through all the drifting, unsteady paths, has led us now right out of them into a sure refuge.... How do you know? thought Alix. Beyond the steep dark road there may be chaos still, endless, worse chaos: or, surely more natural to suppose, there may be nothing. How _did_ people think they knew? Or didn't they? Did they only guess, and say what they thought was attractive? Did Kate know? And Mrs. Frampton? How _could_ they know, people like that? How could it be part of their equipment of knowledge, anything so extraordinary, so wild, so unlike their usual range as that? They knew about recipes, and servants, and dusting, and things like that--but surely not about weird and wonderful things that they couldn't see? Alix could rather better believe that this preacher knew, though he did sometimes use words she didn't like, such as tribulation and grace. (It would seem that preachers sometimes must: it is impossible, and not right, to judge them.) When the sermon ended abruptly, and they sang a hymn of Bunyan's about a pilgrim (402 in the green books), one was left with a queer feeling that the Church had its hand on a door, and at any moment might turn a handle and lead the way through.... Alix caught for a moment the forces at work; perhaps West was right about them, and they were adequate for the job of blowing up the debris of the world. If only the Church could collect them, focus them, use them.... Kate, and church people of Kate's calibre, were surely like untaught children playing, ignorantly and placidly, with dynamite. They would be blown up if they weren't careful. They kept summoning forces to their aid which must surely, if they fully came, shatter and break to bits most of the things they clung to as necessary comforts and conveniences. But perhaps people knew this, and therefore prayed cautiously, with reservations; so the powers came in the same muffled, wrapped way, with reservations. Such were Alix's speculations as the music ended and the congregation filed down the church and shook hands with the tired vicar at the door and went out into the dark evening. The fog came round them and choked the light that streamed from the church, and made Alix cough. They hurried home through the blurred, gas-lit roads. 'Did you enjoy the service?' asked Kate. 'I think so,' said Alix, wondering whether she had. 'It's queer,' she added, meaning the position of the Christian church in this world. But Kate said, 'Queer! Whatever do you mean? It was just like the ordinary; like it always is.... I wish Mr. Alison had preached, though; I never feel Mr. Daintree has the same _touch_. He preaches about things and people in general, and that's never so inspiring; he doesn't seem to get home the same way to each one. Now, Mr. Alison this morning was beautiful. Mr. Daintree, I always think, has almost too many _ideas_, and they run away with him a little. However.' Kate's principle (one of them) was not to criticise the clergy, so she stopped. 'I wonder if Florence is in yet,' she said instead, 'and if she's left the larder open, as usual, and let that kitten get at the chicken? I shouldn't be a bit surprised. She _is_ a girl.' Alix felt another incongruity. If Kate really believed the extraordinary things she professed to believe about the interfusion of two worlds (at least two), how then did it matter so much about chickens and kittens and Florence? Yet why not? Why shouldn't it give all things an intenser, more vivid reality, a deeper significance? Perhaps it did, thought Alix, renouncing the problem of the Catholic church and its so complicated effects. 'You've got your cough worse,' said Kate, fitting the key into Violette's latch. 'You'd better go to bed straight, I think, and have a mustard leaf on after supper. You're the colour of a ghost, child. Evie's back, I can hear.' So could Alix. 'I shall go to bed,' she said. 'I don't want supper.' While she was undressing, Evie came in, to wash her hands for supper. Evie was radiant and merry. 'Hard luck your having to go back, Al,' said Evie, splashing her face and hands. 'I'm stiff all over; I'm for a hot bath afterwards. We had a lovely time; simply screaming, it was. Mr. Doye is rather a sport. They're all a jolly set, though. Even that Mr. Ingram, the one you were talking to, brightened up later on, though when first you turned back he looked as if he was at his father's funeral. You must have made an impression. But he got over it all right and was quite chirpy.' 'Was he?' said Alix. 'I've promised Mr. Doye to go out again with him, next Sat. He's quite determined. I don't know what Sid Vinney'll say, because I'd half promised him. But I don't care. Sid's an old silly, anyhow.' Evie smothered herself in the towel, scrubbing her smooth skin that no scrubbing could hurt. 'Dommage, you being seedy,' said Evie, and pulled off her walking shoes. 'You'd have enjoyed the day no end. Still feeling sick? Oh, poor kid, bad luck.... Well, there's the bell, I must run. I've heaps more to tell you. But you'd better go off straight to sleep after supper; I won't disturb you when I come up.' She ran downstairs. Alix heard her voice in the dining-room below, through supper. Evie had had a good day. Evie was lovely, and jolly, and kind, and a good sort, but Alix did not want to see her, or to hear her talk. 4 It was Kate who came up after supper, with a mustard leaf, which she put on Alix's chest. 'Shall I read to you till I take it off?' Kate said; and what she selected to read was the current issue of the _Sign_, the parish magazine she took in. (Mrs. Frampton took the _Peep of Day_, which was the magazine of the church she attended.) The mustard leaf, an ancient and mild one, which needed keeping on for some time, allowed of reading the _Sign_ almost straight through, apart from the parish news on the outer pages, which, though absorbing, is local and ephemeral, and should not be treated as literature. Kate began with an article on the Organs in our Churches, worked on through a serial called Account Rendered; a poem on the Women of the Empire; a page on Waifs and Strays; A Few Words to Parents and Teachers on the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity; Thoughts to Rest Upon; Keeping Well, some Facts for our Families; The Pitman's Amen (a short story); Wholesome Food for Baby; and so at last to Our Query Corner, wherein the disturbed in mind were answered when they had during the month written to inquire, 'Why does my clergyman worship a cross? Is not this against the second commandment?' 'What amusements, if any, may be allowed on Sunday?' 'If I take the Communion, should I go to dancing-classes?' 'How can I turn from Low Church to High Church?' 'Should not churchwardens be Christians?' and about many other perplexing problems. The answers were intelligent and full, never a bald Yes, or No, or We do not know; they often included a recommendation to the inquirer to try and look at the matter from a wider, or higher, standpoint, and (usually) to read the little book by an eminent Canon that bore more particularly on his case. Alix got it all, from the Organs in our Churches to the Christian Churchwardens, mixed up with the mustard leaf, so that it seemed a painful magazine, but, one hoped, profitable. She looked at Kate's small, prim head in the shadow under the gas, and thought how Kate had been through love and loss and jealousy and still survived. But Kate's love and loss and jealousy could not be so bad; it was like some one else's toothache. 'We do not quite understand your question,' read Kate. (This was on turning from Low to High.) 'You should try to detach yourself from these party names, which are often mischievous.... We think you might be helped by the following books.... Twenty-five minutes: I should think that must be enough, even for that old leaf. Does it smart much?' 'Dreadfully,' said Alix, who was tired of it. 'Well, two minutes more,' said Kate, and went on to the Churchwardens, who, it seemed, _should_ be Christians, if possible. 'Now then,' said Kate, advancing with cotton wool. 'Oo,' said Alix. 'It's been on too long, Kate.' 'You do make a fuss,' said Kate, padding her chest with cotton wool and tucking the clothes round her. 'Now you go off to Sleepy Town quick.' Alix thought how kind Kate was. When one had any physical ailment, Violette came out strong. It was soft-hearted. Women are. 5 When Kate had gone, Alix lay with her eyes tight shut and her head throbbing, and tried to go to sleep, so that she need no longer make her brain ache with keeping things out. But she could not go to sleep. And she could not, in the silence and dark, keep things out; not Paul; nor the war; nor Basil; nor Evie. At last Evie came. Alix, feigning sleep, lay with tight-shut eyes, face to the wall. Every movement of Evie, undressing in her frightful loveliness, was horribly clear. Alix was afraid Evie, in passing her bed, would brush against her, and that she would have to scream. If only Evie would get to bed and to sleep. Evie, after her undressing and washing, knelt in prayer for thirty seconds (what was Evie's God, who should say? One cannot tell with people like Evie, or see into their minds), then took her loveliness to bed and fell sweetly asleep. Alix knew from her breathing that she slept; then she unclenched her hands and relaxed her body and cried. CHAPTER XI ALIX AND EVIE 1 Basil had Evie on the brain. He liked her enormously. He was glad he had a month's more leave. He took to meeting her after she came out from her hat shop and seeing her home. They spent Saturday afternoons together. Alix saw them parting one Saturday evening, as she came home. Spring Hill was dim and quiet, and they stood by the door into the Park, on the opposite side of the road to Violette, chaffing and saying good-bye. Alix saw Basil suddenly kiss Evie. It might be the first time: in that case it would be an event for them both, and thrilling. Or it might be not the first time at all: in that case it would be a habit, and jolly. Anyhow Evie said, 'Oh, go along and don't be a silly.... Are you coming in to-night?' He said 'No' and laughed. Then they saw Alix turning into Violette. 'There now,' said Evie. 'She must have seen you going on. Couldn't have missed it.... Whatever will she think?' 'She won't think anything,' said Basil Doye. 'Alix is a nice person, and minds her own business.' 'I believe it's her you're in love with really,' said Evie, teasing him. He kissed her again, and said, 'Oh, do you?' After a little more of the like conversation, which will easily be imagined, they parted. Evie went into Violette. She ran upstairs and into her dark bedroom and flung off her outdoor things. Turning, she saw Alix sitting on the edge of her bed. 'Goodness, how you startled me,' said Evie. 'Sorry,' said Alix. 'Got a toothache.' She was holding her face between her hands. Evie said, 'Oh, bad luck. Try some aspirin. Or suck a clove.... I say, Al.' 'What?' 'Did you see me and Mr. Doye just now, in the road? You did, didn't you?' 'No,' said Alix. 'Oh,' said Evie, dubious, glancing at Alix's face, that was dimly wan in the faint light from the street lamps, and twisted a little with her toothache. Pity seized Evie, who was kind. 'I say, kiddie, do go to bed. What's the use of coming down with a face-ache? You'd be much better tucked up snug, with a clove poultice.' 'No,' said Alix, uncertainly, and stood up. 'It's better now. I've put on cocaine.... Where are my shoes?... Of course I saw you and Basil in the road.... Did you have a jolly afternoon?' Evie knew that way of Alix's, of going back upon her lies; that was where Alix as a liar differed from herself; you only had to wait. 'Yes, it was a lark,' said Evie carelessly. 'Mr. Doye's priceless, isn't he? Doesn't mind _what_ he says. Nor what he does, either. He makes me shriek, he's so comic. You should have heard him go on at tea. We went to the rink, you know, and had tea there. He's so _silly_.' Evie laughed her attractive, gurgling laugh. They went down to supper. 2 Sometimes Basil and Evie lunched together. By habit they lunched in different shops and had different things to eat. Evie liked pea-soup, or a poached egg, bread and honey, a large cup of coffee with milk, and what she and the tea-shop young ladies called fancies. Basil didn't. When they lunched together they both had the things Basil liked, except in coffee. 'Did you tell him two _noirs_?' Evie would say. 'Rubbish, you know I always have _lait_.' 'A corrupt taste. One _café au lait_, waiter. You like the most ridiculous things, you know; you might be eight. You aren't grown-up enough yet for black coffee, or smoking, or liqueurs. You must meet my mother; you'd learn a lot from her.' 'Oh well, I'm happy in my own way.... As for smoking, I think it's jolly bad for people's nerves, if you ask me. Alix smokes an awful lot, and her nerves are like fiddle-strings. I don't go so far,' Evie said judicially, 'as to say I don't think it's good form for girls. That's what mother thinks, only of course she's old-fashioned, very. So is Kate. But after all, there _is_ a difference between men and girls, in the things they should do; _I_ think there's a difference, don't you?' 'Oh, thank goodness, yes,' said Basil, fervently, not having always thought so. 'And I don't know, but I sometimes think if girls can't fight for their country, they shouldn't smoke.' 'Oh, I see. A reward for valour, you think it should be. That would be rather hard, since the red-tape rules of our army don't allow them to fight. If they might, I've no doubt plenty would.' Evie laughed at him. 'A girl would hate it. She'd be hopeless.' 'Plenty of men hate it and are hopeless, if you come to that.' 'Oh, it's not the same,' asserted Evie. 'A girl couldn't.' She added, after a moment, sympathetically curious, 'Do _you_ hate it much?' 'Oh, much,' Basil deprecated the adverb. 'It's quite interesting in some ways, you know,' he added. 'And at moments even exciting. Though mostly a bit of a bore, of course, and sometimes pretty vile. But, anyhow, seldom without its humours, which is the main thing. Oh, it's frightfully funny in parts.' 'Anyhow,' Evie explained for him, 'of course you're glad to be doing your bit.' He laughed at that. 'You've been reading magazine stories. That's what the gallant young fellows say, isn't it?... Look here, bother the war. I want to talk about better things. Will you meet me after you get off this evening? I want a good long time with you, and leisure. These scraps are idiotic.' Evie looked doubtful. 'You and me by ourselves? Or shall we get any one else?' 'Any one else? What for? Spoil everything.' 'Oh, _I_ don't mind either way. Only mother's rather particular in some ways, you know, and she ... well, if you want to know, she thinks I go out with you alone rather a lot. It's all rubbish, of course; as if one mightn't go out with who one likes ... but, well, you know what mother is. I told you, she's old-fashioned, a bit. And of course Kate's shocked, but I don't care a bit for Kate, she's too prim for anything.' 'We won't care a bit for any one,' suggested Basil. 'I never do. I don't believe you do really, either. If people are so particular, we must just shock them and have done. Anyhow, you don't suppose I'm going to give up seeing you.' The quickening of his tone made her draw back from the subject. Evie liked flirtation, but did not understand passion; it was not in her cool head and heart. It was the thing in Basil that made her at times, lately, shy of him in their intercourse; vaguely she realised that he might become unmanageable. She liked him to love her beauty, but she was occasionally startled by the way he loved it. She thought it was perhaps because he was an artist, or a soldier, or both. 'Well, perhaps I'll come,' she said, to soothe him. 'Where shall we go? Let's go _inside_ something, I say, not walking in the dark like last time. Oh, it was very jolly, of course, but it's not so snug and comfy. We might do a play?... I say, it's nearly two. I must get back. I got into a row yesterday for being late--that was your fault.' They walked together to the side door of the select hat shop. 'Not really a shop,' as Evie explained sometimes. 'More of a studio, it is. It's awfully artistic, our work.' While she went upstairs, she was thinking, 'Dommage, his getting so warm sometimes. It spoils the fun.... He'll be wanting to tie me up if I'm not careful, and I'm not ready for that yet.... There are plenty of others.... I don't know.' 3 As it happened, she met one of the others when she left the shop at five, and he took her out to tea at the most expensive tea place in London, which was always his way with tea and other things. He was on leave from France, and had met Evie for the first time three days ago, when she was out with Doye, whom he knew. His name was Hugh Montgomery Gordon, and he was the son of Sir Victor Gordon of Ellaby Hall in Kent, Prince's Mansions in Park Lane, and Gordon's Jam Factory in Hackney Wick. He was handsome in person, graceful, clear-featured, an old lawn-tennis blue, and a young man with great possessions, who, having been told on good authority that he would find it hard to enter into the kingdom of heaven, had renounced any idea of this enterprise he might otherwise have had, and devoted himself whole-heartedly to appreciating this world. He was in a cavalry regiment, and had come through the war so far cool, unruffled, unscathed, and mentioned in despatches. He had a faculty for serenely expecting and acquiring the best, in most departments of life, though in some (such as art, literature, and social ethics) he failed through ignorance and indifference. Meeting Evie Tucker in Bond Street, and perceiving, as he had perceived before, that her beauty was in a high class of merit, he was stirred by a desire to acquire her as a companion for tea, and did so. Evie liked him; he was really more in her line than Basil Doye (artists were queer, there was no getting round that, even if they had given it up for soldiering and had lost interest in it and fingers), and she liked the place where they had tea, and liked the tea and the cakes and the music, and liked him to drive to Clapton with her in a taxi afterwards. 'You don't seem economical, do you?' she remarked, as they whirred swiftly eastward. 'I hope not,' said Hugh Montgomery Gordon, in his slow, level tones. 'I can't stand economical people.' He left her at Violette and drove back to his club, feeling satisfied with himself and her. She was certainly a find, though it was a pity one had to go so far out into the wilderness to return her where she belonged. Her people were, no doubt, what his sister Myrtle would call quite imposs. 4 As Evie and Captain Gordon had taxied down Holborn, they had passed, and been held up for a minute near Alix, Nicholas, and West, who stood talking at the corner of Chancery Lane. 'Hugh Montgomery Gordon,' Nicholas murmured. 'Bright and beautiful as usual. Know him, Alix? Surely he doesn't visit at Violette? I can't picture it, somehow.' 'Oh, he might, for Evie's sake. Evie picks them up, you know; it's remarkable how she picks them up. They look very beautiful together, don't they? Is he nice?' 'Just as you saw. I scarcely know him more than that. He was a Hall man; my year. I believe he had a good time there. He looks as if he had a good time still. West's opinions about him are more pronounced than mine. Is he nice, West?' 'He's in the family jam,' West told Alix, as sufficient answer. 'Gordon's jam, if that means anything to you.' 'Wooden pips and sweated girls,' Alix assented, having picked up these things from her mother. 'It must be exciting: so many improvements to be made.' 'No doubt,' agreed West. 'But the Gordons won't make them. They make jam and they make money--any amount of it--but they don't make improvements that won't pay. A bad business. It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, at least I hope it will. They've been badgered and bullied about it by social workers for years, but they don't mind.... And at the same time, of course, they've no more ideas about what to do with their money than--than Solomon had. They put it into peacocks and ivory apes. These rich people--well, I should like to have the Gordons in a dungeon and pull out their teeth one by one, as if they were Jews, till they forked out their ill-gotten gains for worthy objects.... If you ever meet Gordon, Miss Sandomir, you might tell him what I think about him. Tell him we have a meeting of the Anti-Sweating League in our parish room every Monday, and should be glad to see him there.' Nicholas wondered, though he didn't ask Alix, whether Evie was still on with Basil Doye, or whether a breach there had made a gap by which Hugh Montgomery Gordon was entering in. One thought of Evie's friendships with men in these terms; whereas Alix might drive with a different man every day without suggesting to the onlooker that one was likely to oust another. The difference was less between Evie and Alix (for Evie was of a fine and wide companionableness) than in what men required of them respectively. 'Evie and he,' Alix commented, considering them. 'They might be good friends, I think. They might fit. The jam wouldn't get between them--nor the money.... _I_ rather like him too, I think. He's so beautiful, and looks as if he'd never been ill. That's so jolly.' She was giving the same reasons which Basil had given for liking Evie. It occurred to her to wonder whether, if she'd been to the war, these two things would take her further in her mild inclination towards Hugh Montgomery Gordon--much further. Perhaps they would.... Alix went to her bus at the corner of Gray's Inn Road. Nicholas went back to his rooms to finish an article. West went to a Sweated Bootmakers' protest meeting in his parish room. West attended too many meetings: that was certain. Meetings, a clumsy contrivance at best, cannot be worth so much attendance. But he went off to this one full of faith and hope, as always. 5 Evie was using the telephone in the hall. She was saying, in her clear, cheery tones, 'Hullo, is that you? Awfully sorry, don't expect me to-morrow evening. I can't come.... Awfully sorry.... Don't quite know.... I'll write.' Alix went up to her room. Presently Evie came in. 'Did you hear me 'phoning?' she inquired superfluously. 'It was to Mr. Doye. Fact is, I think he and I'd both be better for a little rest from each other. It'll give him time to cool down a bit. He's got keener than I like, lately. Fun's all very well, but one doesn't want to be hustled, does one? I don't want him asking me anything for a long time.' Alix, sitting on her bed with one shoe off, pulling at the other, said in a small voice, 'I don't think he will.' Evie turned round and looked at her, questioningly. 'You don't? Why, whatever do you know about it?' Alix was bent over her shoe; her voice was muffled. 'Basil is like that. He doesn't mean things....' 'Oh....' Evie turned to the glass, and drew four pins out of the roll of hair behind her head, and it fell in a heavy nut-brown mass, glinting in the yellow gaslight. She began to comb it out and roll it up again. 'Doesn't mean anything, doesn't he?' she said thoughtfully. 'You seem awfully sure about that.' 'Yes,' agreed Alix. She had pulled off both shoes now, and tucked her stockinged feet under her as she sat curled up on the bed. She drew a deep breath and spoke rather quickly. 'He's always the same, he was the same with me once, he doesn't really mean it....' 'The same with you--' Evie, without turning round, saw in the glass the blurred image of the huddled figure and small pale face in the shadows behind her. She drove in two more hairpins, then turned sharply and looked at Alix. 'You don't mean to say he used to be in love with you.' 'Oh ... in love....' Alix's voice was faint, attenuated, remote. 'Well--anything, then.' Evie was impatient. 'You needn't split hairs.... He went on with you, I suppose.... And you....' She broke off, staring, uncomfortably, at a situation really beyond her powers. Her cogitations ended in, 'Well, I think you might have told me at first. I thought you and he were just good friends. _I_ didn't want him. I wouldn't have let him come near me if I'd known it was like that. I never do that sort of thing. Now do I, Alix? You've never seen me mean to other girls like that, have you? I never have been and I never will be.... _I_ don't want him. You can have him back.' Alix giggled suddenly, irrepressibly. 'What's the matter now?' said Evie. 'Nothing. Only the way you talk of Basil--handing him about as if he was a kitten. He's not, you know.' Evie smiled grudgingly. 'Well, anyhow _I_ don't want him. Particularly if he doesn't mean anything, as you say.... It isn't every one I'd believe if they told me that; they might be jealous or spiteful or something. But I don't believe you'd say it, Al, if you didn't think it was true'--(Alix said, 'Oh,' on a soft, indrawn breath)--'and you know him, so I expect you're right. And I'm not going on playing round with a man who makes love like he does and doesn't mean anything. It isn't respectable.' 'Oh--respectable.' Alix laughed, again, shakily; it was such a funny word in this connection, and so like Violette. 'Well, I don't see it's funny,' said Evie. 'It's awfully important to be respectable, and I always am. I'll be good pals with any number of men, but when they begin to get like Basil Doye I won't have it unless they _mean_ something.' Thus Evie enunciated her code, and washed her hands and face and put on her dress and went downstairs. At the door she paused for a moment and looked back at Alix. 'I say, Al--I'm awfully sorry. I didn't mean to be a sneak, you know; I _wouldn't_ have, if I'd known.' 'Not a bit,' Alix absurdly and politely murmured. 'Well, do get a move on and come down. It's too cold for anything up here.... I say'--Evie paused awkwardly--' I say, kiddie, you didn't really _care_, did you?' Alix shook her head. 'Oh no.' Still her voice was small, polite, and attenuated. 'Well then,' said Evie cheerfully, 'no harm's done to any one. But still, it's not the style I like, a man that plays about first with one girl, then another.... I'm going down.' She went. 6 The cold made Alix shiver. She stiffly uncurled herself and got off the bed. She brushed her hair before the glass. Her face looked back at her, pointed and ghostly, in the gaslight and shadows. 'Cad,' whispered Alix, without emotion, to the pale image. 'Cad--and liar.' 'It's the war,' explained Alix presently, with detached, half-cynical analysis. 'I shouldn't have done that before the war. I suppose I might do anything now. Probably I shall. There seems no way out....' Alix had heard and read plenty of views on the psychological effects of war; some of them were interesting, some were true; many were true for some people and false for others; but she did not remember that even the most penetrating (or pessimistic) had laid enough emphasis on the mental and moral collapse that shook the foundations of life for some people. For her, anyhow, and for Paul; and they surely could not be the only ones. Observers seemed more apt to take the cases of those men and women who were improved; who were strengthened, steadied, made more unselfish and purposeful (that was the favourite word), with a finer sense of the issues and responsibilities of life; or of those young sportsmen at the front who kept their jollity, their sweetness, their equilibrium, through it all. Well, no doubt there were plenty of these. Look at Terry. Look at Dorothy and Margot at Wood End, in their new strenuousness and ardours. They weren't demoralised by horror, or eaten by jealousy like a canker. They could even minister to combatants without envying them.... There were such. There might be many. But Alix looked at them far off, herself a broken, nerve-wracked, frightened child, grabbing at other people's things to comfort herself, ashamed but outrageous. 'There seems no way out,' said Alix, and looked, as she changed her frock, down vistas of degradation. Downstairs Florence rang the supper bell. The smell of Welsh rarebit drifted through Violette. That, anyhow, was something; Alix liked it. CHAPTER XII ALIX AND BASIL 1 Evie had a good time for the rest of the week of Captain Gordon's leave. Mrs. Frampton began to wonder whether this enormously wealthy and overwhelmingly well-dressed young man really meant anything. If you could tell anything by the size of the chocolate boxes he sent, he certainly meant quite a lot. Kate looked repressive when they arrived. 'How Evie does go on,' she said to Mrs. Frampton at breakfast, before Evie came down, referring to the immense box from Buszard's by Evie's plate. That was the morning after Hugh Montgomery Gordon had returned to his duties in France. Apparently whatever else he meant, he meant not to be forgotten. 'She's a naughty girl,' Mrs. Frampton admitted indulgently. 'I shouldn't wonder if that's from this new friend of hers, Captain Gordon. He looks such an extravagant man. But very handsome.... What does your brother think of Captain Gordon, Alix? Didn't you say he knew him?' Mrs. Frampton was of those ladies who believe that men, good judges in most matters, are especially good judges of each other. Alix said she didn't believe Nicholas had thought about Captain Gordon at all. 'But his friend Mr. West has, quite a lot,' she added. 'Well, love, what does Mr. West think?' Mr. West was even better than Nicholas as a source of knowledge, being not only a man but a clergyman. 'Mr. West,' said Alix, 'thinks Captain Gordon too rich. It's a fad of Mr. West's that people shouldn't be too rich. I think they should.' 'Well, we're told, aren't we, that it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.... A little more ham, Alix?' 'It's all a question,' said Kate, 'of the use people make of their wealth. They say that some of the wealthiest families in the land make the best landlords and are the kindest to all. I can't say I hold with socialism. It seems to me most wrong-headed.' 'Well,' Mrs. Frampton agreed, 'it certainly does seem like flying in the face of what Providence has ordained, doesn't it? Let me see now, Alix, your brother doesn't hold with socialism, does he?' Alix's brother, being clever and queer, might hold with anything. Mrs. Frampton appeared to feel a morbid interest in his opinions. 'Nicky? He doesn't hold with anything, Cousin Emily; he's a general disapprover. I believe he hates socialism; he thinks it makes for dullness and stagnation and order and all sorts of things he doesn't like.' Mrs. Frampton said, 'Why, I should have thought what socialists wanted was quite an uprooting and an upset,' and then Evie's entrance interrupted a discussion which might have been fruitful. Evie kissed her mother. She said, 'Whatever in the world are you talking about? Socialism? What a subject for breakfast. Buttered egg for me, please.... Oh, chocs--' She opened them, smiling, and looked at the card inside. 'He _is_ extravagant,' she said. 'This is an awfully special box. He must have ordered it from Buszard's before he went.' 'I don't think you should permit it,' said Kate primly. 'Oh, it's all right. He likes it. He's simply rolling.' Evie was absorbed in the pencilled inscription on the card. Life was pleasant to Evie. Her mother smiled indulgently on her. Evie certainly did seem to have a lot of young men at once, but then how pretty the child was, and how she enjoyed it. And she had sense, too; Evie never lost her head. Evie opened the letter by her plate. She read it and laid it aside carelessly, and looked up. 'Yes, some ham, please.... Mr. Doye writes he's seen the Board again and he's to join in a week. I suppose he's satisfied now.' Mrs. Frampton clicked deprecatingly with her tongue. She regarded it always as a matter for great regret that wounded young men should have to return to the wars. 'Well, I'm sorry for that. Any one would think he'd done enough, having lost a finger for his country. I call it shameful, sending him out again.' 'Perhaps he'll go to Serbia this time,' said Evie. 'He said there was a chance of his battalion getting sent there from France soon.' 'Well, well.' That seemed, if anything, more unreasonable still. 'I'm sure one's dreadfully sorry for poor Serbia--she does seem to be having a bad time; but I'm not sure that our men ought to be sent out to those parts. They're all so wild out there; it seems as if, in a way, they rather _like_ fighting each other; anyhow they've always been at it since I can remember, and I think they'd much better be left to fight it out among themselves, while we defend poor France. But who are we to judge? I suppose Lord Kitchener knows what's right.' 'They say,' put in Kate, 'that Joffre had a great to do before he could persuade Kitchener to send forces out there at all. They say he came to the War Office and broke his riding-whip right across.' 'Fancy that! He must be a very violent man. But the French are always excitable. Lord Kitchener's one of the quiet ones, I've heard. A regular Englishman.... Well, I'm sure I hope they're taking the right course.... Alix, you haven't had half a breakfast; I'm sure you could manage another bit of toast. Evie dear, you'll have to hurry with your breakfast or you'll be late.' Evie hurried. She spent the week, with partial success, in avoiding Basil Doye. Since she had done with him, what was the use of scenes? She certainly wasn't going to let him go away with the impression that he would find her waiting on his next return from the war to beguile his leave-time. Her natural generosity forbade her to take and keep Alix's young man; her natural prudence forbade her to philander too ardently (having a good time is different, of course) with a young man who probably didn't mean business. Rightly Evie condemned these practices as Not Respectable. So she went off at lunch time with other friends, with a little pang, indeed, but less acute than she would have felt a week ago, before her rapid friendship with Hugh Montgomery Gordon. Basil Doye was being relegated quickly to the circle of Evie's numerous have-beens, to be remembered with pleasant indifference. On the Saturday before he left London, Basil obtained an interview with Evie, by means of going, at immense sacrifice of time, to Violette. It was a short interview, and not intimate, for Mrs. Frampton and Kate were present at it. After it Basil called at Clifford's Inn to say good-bye to Nicholas and Alix, who, they told, him, was there. 2 He found Alix alone, waiting for Nicholas to come in. She had been having tea, and was reading _Peacock Pie_. She preferred this poetry to any written since August 1914, which had killed fairies. Looking up from it, she saw Basil standing at the door. He was flushed, and looked cross; she knew of old the sulky set of his brows and mouth, that made him look like a petulant boy. It hurt Alix so much that she couldn't muster any sort of smile, only look away from him and say, 'I'm sorry; Nicky's not in yet.' He said 'No,' abstractedly, and sat down in the chair on the other side of the fire. He sat in the attitude she had seen him in a thousand times (it seemed to her) before; his elbow resting on his knee, his hand supporting his chin, the other hand, with its maimed third finger, hanging at his side. She had seen him sitting thus happy, intimately talking; she had seen him moody and brooding, as now. There had been a time when she could always lighten these moods, tickle his sullenness to laughter; but that time was past. He said presently, 'I'm off to-morrow, you know.' 'Yes,' said Alix, who did know. In her another knowledge grew: the knowledge that if he did not speak of Evie she could get through this interview without disgrace, but that if he did speak of Evie she could not. She did not want him to speak of Evie and break down the wall between them; yet she did want it. He did speak of Evie. He said he had been to Violette to say good-bye. 'I said it to the whole family together. Evie wouldn't see me alone.... I suppose she doesn't really care a hang. In fact, she's made that very obvious for the last fortnight.' 'Yes,' said Alix again, clinging to that one small word as to a raft in a stormy sea, which might yet float her through. Basil pushed the tongs with his foot, so that they made a clattering noise in the grate. 'She doesn't care a hang,' he repeated. 'She's on with that jam fellow now. Well, every one to his taste. Hugh Montgomery Gordon obviously appeals to hers.' Alix's hands were clasped tight over her knee. Her knuckles were white. She kept her eyes on the fire. She would not look at him. 'Yes,' she said. Then silence fell between them, and though she would not look she felt his nearness, knew how he sat, angry and sullen, brooding over his hurt. A coal fell from the fire. Alix, as if some one was physically forcing her, raised her eyes from it and looked at Basil, and knew then that she was not going to get through this interview without disgrace. For she saw him sit as she had seen him sit (it seemed to her) a thousand times before, inert, bent forward a little, with the shadows leaping and flickering on his thin olive face and vivid eyes, with one hand supporting his sharp-cut chin, the other hanging maimed (and that alone was something new, belonging to the cruel present not the kindly past) at his side. It seemed that those lean, quick, brown artist's fingers were dragging her soul from her. The sharp sense of all those other times when she and he had thus sat stabbed her like a turning-knife. A thousand intimacies rose to shatter her, and, so shattered, she spoke. 'She doesn't care a hang.' She repeated his phrase, mechanically, sitting very still. 'But I do.' Then she leant towards him, putting out her hands, and a sob caught in her throat. 'Oh, Basil--I do.' For a moment the silence was only broken by the leaping, stirring fire. Basil looked swiftly at Alix, and Alix saw horror in his eyes before he veiled it. The next moment it was veiled: veiled by his quick friendly smile. He leant forward and took her outstretched hands in his, and spoke lightly, easily. He did it well; few people could have attained at once to such ease, such spontaneous naturalness of affection. 'Why, of course--I know. The way you and I care for each other is one of the best things I've got in my life. It lasts, too, when the other sorts of caring go phut....' 'Yes,' said Alix faintly. The raft of that small word drifted back to her, and she climbed on to it out of the engulfing sea. She took her hands from his and lay back in her chair, impassive and still. Basil rose, and stood by the chimney-piece, playing with the things on it. He talked, naturally, easily, of what he was going to do, the probabilities of his being sent out with a draft to France almost at once, the possibility of his battalion being sent to Serbia. He talked too of their common friends, even of painting, which he seldom mentioned now. Alix heard his voice as from a great distance off, and from time to time said 'Yes.' There was a sharp crack, and Basil held the stem of one of Nicholas's pipes in one hand, the bowl in the other; he had broken it in two. His fluent tongue, his flexible face, were under his control; but it seemed that his hands were not; they had shown thus blatantly the uncontrollable strain he felt. Alix winced away from it. She couldn't bear any more: he must go, quickly, before either of them broke anything else. He went, slipping as it were unnoticeably away, with 'Good-bye' unemphasised, half ashamed, sandwiched between fatuities about the pipe and comments on the future. 'It was an ugly pipe, wasn't it? Tell Sandomir I broke it for his sake, compelled by my artistic conscience; it'll be for his good in the end.... I'm sorry I've not seen him; but you'll say good-bye for me.... And to any of them at the shop.... Good-bye.... If we do get out to the East, we shall have a funny time in some ways, I fancy. I hear Salonika's a great place; glorious riviera climate. But less so inland; too much snow on the hills. Well, it can't be worse than France in winter, anyhow. I believe the Bulgars are very good-natured people to fight against; they aren't really a bit keen on this show.... Want to get back to till their fields....' His voice came from beyond the door. Then it shut, and muffled his steps running down wooden stairs. Alix let go her raft, and was submerged by the cold, engulfing seas. CHAPTER XIII ALIX, NICHOLAS, AND WEST 1 Nicholas, coming in ten minutes later, found Alix lying in his cane chair, limp and white and sick. 'My dear,' he said after a glance, 'you seem very ill. You prescribe, and I'll see if West has any in his medicine cupboard.' 'Sal-volatile, perhaps,' Alix murmured, and he went to find some. When he came back, she was sitting up, with a more pulled-together air. She sipped the sal-volatile, and gave him a dim, crooked smile. 'It's my feelings really, you know, not my body. It's only that I'm ... shocked to death.' Nicholas stood, short and square, with his back to the fire, looking down on her with his small, keen, observant eyes. 'What's shocked you?' 'Me myself,' said Alix, forcing an unconcerned grin. 'Alone I did it.' 'What on earth's the matter, Alix?' asked Nicholas after a pause. 'Or don't you want to talk about it?' It wasn't his experience of his sister, who he had always known of a certain exterior and cynical hardness where the emotions were concerned, that she ever wanted to 'talk about it.' But this evening she seemed queer, unlike herself, unstrung. 'Talking doesn't matter now,' said Alix, still swung between flippancy and tears. 'All the talking that matters is done already.... Basil has gone away, Nicky. He'll perhaps never come back.' 'Oh, he will. Basil does.' Nicholas looked away from her, down at the fire. 'Yes,' said Alix. 'I expect he's sure to.... I told him I cared for him,' she went on, in her clear, thin, indifferent voice, emptied of emotion. 'He doesn't care for me, you know. He pretended he hadn't understood. He pretended so hard that he broke your pipe. I was to tell you he was sorry about it--no, that he was glad, I think....' Her voice changed suddenly; anguish shook it. 'Can you make it any less bad, Nicky?' There was a pause, while Nicholas, resting his arm on the chimney-piece, stared down into the fire. He and Alix, like many brothers and sisters, had always had a shyness about them about intimate things. They were both naturally reserved; both fought shy of emotion as far as they could. They were, in some ways, very like. Despair had broken down Alix's reserve; Nicholas put his aside and considered her case in his detached way, as if it were a mathematical problem. 'Bad?' he repeated, weighing the word. 'Well, the fact is bad, of course--that you care and he doesn't. There's no altering that. It's his fault, of course, for caring himself once and leaving off. Well, anyhow, there it is. He's the poorer by it, not you.... But the other part--your telling him--isn't bad. It was merely the truth; and it's simpler and often more sensible to tell the truth about what one feels. I wouldn't mind that, if I were you. Don't bring absurdities of sex etiquette into it. They're mere conventions, after all; silly, petty, uncivilised conventions. Aren't they?' 'Perhaps,' said Alix dully. 'I don't know.' 'Well, I do. Telling the truth is all right. It oughtn't to make things worse.' 'No,' said Alix. 'It does, you know.' Nicholas, giving the subject the attention of his careful mind, knew it did. He couldn't theorise that away. 'Well,' he said at last, slowly, 'if it does, you might quite truly look at the whole thing as a mental case; a case of nervous breakdown. The war's playing the devil with your nerves--that's what it means. You do things and feel things and say things, I dare say, that you wouldn't have once, but that you can scarcely help now. You're only one of many, you know--one of thousands. The military hospitals are full of them; men who come through plucky and grinning but with their nerves shattered to bits. There are the people, like Terry and plenty more, who come through mentally undamaged, their balance not apparently upset, and the people like John (at least I rather guessed so when I saw him) and thousands more, who--well, who don't.... War's such an insane, devilish thing; its hoofs go stamping over the world, trampling and breaking.... O Lord! I've seen so much of it; it meets one all over the place. It makes one simply sick. This affair of yours is nothing to some things I've come upon lately.... West says the same, you know. Of course, as a parson, he sees much more of people, in that way, than I do. He says lots of the quite nice, decent women he visits have taken to getting drunk at the pubs; partly they're better off than they were, of course, but it's mostly just nerves. You don't drink at pubs, do you?' 'Not come to it yet,' said Alix. 'Well, you're lucky. I consider you're jolly lucky, considering the state you've been in for some time, to have done nothing worse yet than to have told a man you've every right to care for that you care for him.' Alix was crying now, quietly. 'And I have done worse things, too.... I tried to get him back from Evie. I told her he didn't really care for her--that he had been just the same with me. Oh, I know he did care for me a little, of course, but--' she choked on a laugh, 'he didn't behave as he does with Evie, a bit....' 'Probably not,' Nicholas admitted. 'Well, there you are; I behaved like a cad about it. That's worse than drinking at pubs--much worse. It's even worse than telling him I cared.... What can I do about it, Nicky? Is that part of the war disease too?' 'Certainly,' said Nicholas promptly. 'Precisely the same thing, and bears out all I was saying. And, as you remark, much worse than drinking at pubs.... Sorry, but it does prove my case, you know. You don't do that sort of thing in peace time, at least, do you?' he added with impartial curiosity. 'I've forgotten about peace time.... No, I don't think I used to.... Suppose I shall have to tell Evie,' Alix added morosely. 'Though she doesn't care for him, a bit.... What a bore.... All right, Nicky; I'll try to look at myself as a mental case.... And what's left is that Basil has gone.... I love him, you know, extraordinarily. I--Oh, Nicky, I love him, I love him, I love him.' She passionately sobbed for a time. Nicholas stood silent, thinking, till she lay back exhausted and quiet. 'I'm sorry,' she said huskily. 'I won't cry any more. That's all.' Nicholas was looking at her consideringly. 'I wonder,' he murmured, 'what the best remedy for you is. Something that takes your whole thoughts, I fancy, you want. Of course there's the School. But it doesn't seem altogether to work. Some strong counter-interest to the war, you want.' 'To take me outside myself,' Alix amplified for him. 'Perhaps you'd like me to collect bus tickets or lost cats or something, to distract my mind, Nicky dear.' 'I think not. Your mind, I should say, is distracted enough already. You need to collect that, rather than bus tickets or cats.... To me it seems a pity you should live at Violette. I think you should stop that.' Alix said apathetically, 'I don't think it much matters where I live. I can't live at Wood End. It's all war and war-work there, and I should go mad--even madder than now. I might drink at pubs.... I thought Violette would be a rest, because they none of them care about the war really, a bit; but it isn't a rest any more. Ever since Paul ... I've known one can't really put the war away out of one's mind: it can't be done. It's hurting too many people too badly; it's no use trying to pretend it isn't there and go on as usual. I can't. I can't even paint decently; my work's simply gone to pot.' 'Sure to,' Nicholas agreed. 'I believe,' said Alix, 'it's jealousy that's demoralising me most. Jealousy of the people who can be _in_ the beastly thing.... Oh, I do so want to go and fight.... How can you not try to go, Nicky? I can't understand that. Though of course you wouldn't get passed. 'It's quite easy,' returned Nicholas. 'I don't approve of joining in such things.' 'But I want to go and help to end it.... Oh, it's rotten not being able to; simply rotten.... Why _shouldn't_ girls? I can't bear the sight of khaki; and I don't know whether it's most because the war's so beastly or because I want to be in it.... It's both.... Oh bother, why were we born at a time like this, as Kate calls it?' 'We weren't. The late 'eighties and early 'nineties were very different. They probably unfitted us for the Sturm und Drang of the twentieth century. Though, if you come to that, there was plenty of Sturm und Drang in our own country at that period, as usual.... I suppose Poles have no right to look for peace.... O Lord, how good it would be to see Germany and Russia exterminate each other altogether! I believe I'd cheat my way into the army and fight, if I thought I could help in that.' 'I dare say we shall see it, if this war goes on much longer.... I've been wondering lately,' went on Alix, 'if there isn't a third way in war time. Not throwing oneself into it and doing jobs for it, in the way that suits lots of people; I simply can't do that. And not going on as usual and pretending it's not there, because that doesn't work. Something _against_ war, I want to be doing, I think. Something to fight it, and prevent it coming again.... I suppose mother thinks she's doing that.' 'She does,' said Nicholas. 'Undoubtedly. I'm not sure I agree with her, but that's a detail. She _thinks_ she's doing it.... Well, I gather she'll be home very soon now.' 'And I suppose Mr. West thinks he's doing it, doesn't he--fighting war, I mean, with his Church and things.' 'Yes, West thinks so too. Again, I don't particularly agree with his methods, but that's his aim.' 'You don't particularly agree with any methods, do you?' 'No; I think they're mostly pretty rotten. And in this case I believe, personally, we're up against a hopeless proposition. West calls it the devil, and is bound by his profession to believe it will be eventually overcome. I'm not bound to believe that any evil or lunacy will be overcome; it seems to me at least an open question. Some have been, of course; others have scarcely lessened in the course of these several million years. However, as West remarks, the world, no doubt, is still young. One should give it time. Anyhow, one has to; no other course is open to us, however poor a use we may think it puts the gift to.... That's West, I think. Hullo, West; we've been talking about you. We were discussing your incurable optimism.' 2 West looked tired. He shook hands with Alix and sat down by the window. Alix did not feel it mattered that he should see she had been crying, because clergymen, who visit the unfortunate, the ill-bred, the unrestrained, must every day see so many people who have been crying that they would scarcely notice. 'Incurable,' West repeated, and the crisp edge of his voice was flattened and dulled by fatigue. 'Well, I hope it is. There are moments when one sees a possible cure looming in the distance.' 'I was saying,' said Nicholas, 'that you're bound, by your profession, to believe in the final vanquishing of the devil.' 'I believe I am,' West assented, without joy. 'I believe so.' He cogitated over it for a moment, and added, 'But the devil's almost too stupid to be vanquished. He's an animal; a great brainless beast, stalking through chaos. He's got a hide like a rhinoceros, and a mind like an escaped idiot: you don't know where to have him. He drags people into his den and sits on them ... it's too beastly.... He wallows in his native mud, full of appetites and idiot dreams, and his idiot dreams become fact, and people make wars ... and get drunk. There are men and women and babies tight all about the streets this evening. Saturday night, you know.... Sorry to be depressing,' he added, more in his usual alert manner; 'it's a rotten thing to be in these days.... The fog's bad outside.' Alix rose to go, and West stood up too. For a moment the three stood looking at each other in the fog-blurred, firelit room, dubious, questioning, grave, like three travellers who have lost their way in a strange country and are groping after paths in the dark.... Nicholas spoke first. 'That's your bell, isn't it, West? You two could walk together as far as Gray's Inn Road.' Nicholas lit the gas and settled down to write. Alix and West went down the stairs and out into Fleet Street, and the city in the fog was as black as a wood at night. 3 Alix thought, 'Christians must mind. Clergymen must mind awfully. It's their business that's being spoilt. It's their job to make the world better: they must mind a lot, and they can't fight either,' and saw West's face, tired and preoccupied, in the darkness at her side. 'War Extra. 'Fishul. Bulgarian Advance. Fall of Kragujevatz,' cried a newsboy, as best he could. 'It'll be all up with Serbia presently,' said West. 'Going under fast. A wipe out, like Belgium, I suppose.... And we look at it from here and can't do anything to stop it. Pretty rotten, isn't it?' His voice was bitter. 'If we could go out there and try,' said Alix, 'we shouldn't feel so bad, should we?' He shook his head. 'No: not so bad. War's beastly and abominable to the fighters: but not to be fighting is much more embittering and demoralising, I believe. Probably largely because one has more time to think. To have one's friends in danger, and not to be in danger oneself--it fills one with futile rage. Combatants are to be pitied; but non-combatants are of all men and women the most miserable. Older men, crocks, parsons, women--God help them.' 'Yes,' Alix agreed, on the edge of tears again. Then West seemed to pull himself up from his despondency. 'But really, of course, they've a unique opportunity. They can't be fighting war abroad; but they can be fighting it at home. That's what it's up to us all to do now, I'm firmly convinced, by whatever means we each have at our command. We've all of us some. We've got to use them. The fighting men out there can't; they're tied. Some of them never can again.... It's up to us.... Good-bye, Miss Sandomir: my way is along there.' They parted at the corner of Gray's Inn Road. Alix saw him swallowed up in black fog, called by his bell, going to his church to fight war by the means he had at his command. She got into her bus and went towards Violette, where no one fought anything at all, but where supper waited, and Mrs. Frampton was anxious lest she should have got lost in the fog. PART III DAPHNE CHAPTER XIV DAPHNE AT VIOLETTE 1 Daphne Sandomir was in the train between Cambridge and King's Cross. She was always very busy in trains, as, indeed, everywhere else. On this journey she was correcting the proofs of the chapter (Chapter IV., Education of the Children) which she was contributing to a volume by seven authors, shortly to appear, to be entitled alliteratively _Is Permanent Peace Possible_? and to come to the conclusion that it was. Daphne Sandomir's interest in many things had always been so keen that before the war you could not have picked out one as absorbing her more than a score of others. She had been used to write pamphlets and address meetings on most of them: eurhythmics, for instance, and eugenics, and the economic and constitutional position of women, and sweated industries, and baby crèches, and suggestion healing, and health food, and clean milk, and twenty other of the causes good people have at heart. Then had come the war, an immense and horribly surprising shock, to which her healthy and vigorous mind, not shattered like some, had reacted in new forms of energy. There were in England no ladies more active through that desperate time than Daphne Sandomir and her sister Eleanor Orme; but their activities were for the most part different. Mrs. Orme was secretary of a Red Cross hospital, superintended canteens, patrolled camps, relieved and entertained Belgians and dealt them out clothes, was the soul of Women's Work Committees, made body-belts, respirators and sand-bags, locked up her cellar, bought war loan, and wrote sensible letters to the _Times_, which usually got printed. Mrs. Sandomir also relieved Belgians, got up Repatriation and Reconstruction societies for them, spoke at meetings of the Union of Democratic Control (to which society, as has been before mentioned, she did not belong) and of other societies to which she did belong, held study circles of working people to educate them in the principles making for permanent peace, went with a motor ambulance to pick up wounded in France, tried, but failed, like so many others, to attend the Women's International Congress at the Hague, travelled round the world examining its disposition towards peace, helped to form the S.P.P.P. (Society for Promoting Permanent Peace), wrote sensible letters to the _Times_, which sometimes got printed and sometimes not, articles in various periodicals, pamphlets on peace, education and such things, and chapters in joint books. She had just returned now from her journey round the world, where she had been interviewing a surprising number of the members of the governments of the belligerent and neutral countries and making a study of such of the habits and points of view of their subjects as could be readily investigated by visitors. Immediately, she came from Cambridge, where her home was, and where she had been starting a local branch of the S.P.P.P., and addressing a meeting of the Heretics Society on the Attitude of Neutral Governments towards Mediation without Armistice. She was a tall, graceful, vigorous person, absurdly young and beautiful, vivid, dark-eyed, clever, and tremendously in earnest about life. She had lately (it seemed lately to herself and all who knew her) gone down from Newnham, where she had done brilliantly in the Economics Tripos and got engaged to Paul Sandomir, an exiled Pole studying the habits and history of the English constitution at Fitzwilliam Hall. Their married career had been stimulating and storm-tossed. Finally Paul Sandomir had died in a Warsaw prison, worn out with consumption, revolution, and excitement. The extreme energy of the parents had always reacted on the children curiously, discounting enthusiasms, and flavouring their activities with the touch of irony which one often notes in the families of one or more very zealous parents. They greatly esteemed and loved their father and mother. To them Daphne was one of the dearest and most beautiful people in the world, if too stimulating. They felt, on the whole, older than she was, and worldly-wise in comparison. 2 King's Cross. Daphne, taken by surprise, seized her scattered proofs and crammed them into her despatch-box. Gathering her possessions to her, she turned to see Alix at the carriage door. 'Oh--you dear child.... A porter, Alix. Do you see one? Yes, will you take them to a taxi, please.' Relieved of them, she turned with her quick, graceful movement and took the smaller Alix in her arms. Physically, mentally, morally, it was certainly Daphne who had the advantage. They got into the taxi. Daphne said to the porter, 'I think you get eighteen-and-six now, don't you? Are you married?' 'Yes, ma'am.' 'How many children?' 'Nine, ma'am.' 'Oh, I think not. You're too young for that, really you are, you know. Let's say four. Well, here's eightpence. Tell him Spring Hill, Clapton. Thank you so much.' The taxi sprang up the incline to the street. 'Of course,' said Daphne, frowning over it, 'eighteen-and-six is shocking, with these high prices. Goodness only knows when we're going to get it improved. But it's immoral to try and make it up by private subsidies.... Is there anything the matter with our driver, child? You seem to be interested in him.' 'I was only trying to discern how many children he's old enough to have,' Alix explained. 'It seems nicer not to have to ask him; it's so embarrassing not being able to believe his answer. I think five is the outside limit, don't you, darling?' Daphne put on her pince-nez and regarded the driver's back. 'Certainly not. Three, if that. In fact, I doubt if he's married at all. But never mind now. I want to hear about you, child. Nicholas gave me a rather poor account of you when he wrote the other day. He seemed to think this Clapton life had been getting a little on your nerves.' 'Oh, I don't think so. I'm all right.' Daphne regarded her consideringly. 'Nerves. Yes. You oughtn't to have any at your age, of course. No one need, at any age. You should do eurhythmics. You'd find it changed the whole of life--gave it balance, coherence, rhythm. I find it wonderful. You must certainly begin classes at once.' 'I don't think I've time, mother. I'm going to the art school every day.' 'I think you should make time. I hadn't much time while I was on my travels, if you come to that. But I made some to practise my eurhythmics. I knew how important it was to keep fit and balanced and healthy, and that I should never be much use in influencing all those people I interviewed (_so_ reasonable and delightful they mostly were, Alix, and simply _longing_ for peace--I must tell you all about it) unless I kept my own poise. It's the same for you. You'll never be any use at painting or anything else while you're mentally and physically incoherent and adrift. That's one thing settled--eurhythmics. And the other is, you must leave this Pansy, or Violet, or whatever it is, at once, of course, and we'll take a flat. What about these Frampton Tucker people? Of course I know they're hopelessly dull and ordinary--I've met Emily Frampton very seldom, but quite often enough. A kind little mediocrity, the widow of a rather common man of business. Laurence Frampton married her, for some incomprehensible reason of his own; people do sometimes. He took her to Oxford with him, and only survived it a year. They lived at Summertown. Her two girls were quite little then. I believe she was quite happy. I met her once when I was staying at Oriel.... She never took _in_ Oxford, of course; it was too many miles outside her ken, and she very sensibly hardly attempted to belong or mix. But she rather liked Summertown society, I remember. They lived in a house called Thule, and kept six cats. I suppose she hasn't changed at all, probably.' 'Probably not. She's very nice and kind.' 'Oh--all that.' Daphne waved it aside. 'Of course. But too stupid to be tolerable, even as a background to your day's work, no doubt. I'm sorry I've left you there so long, child. I should have thought of it before, but it was all arranged without me, and I was too busy to send you advice. I don't wonder you look a wreck.' 'I don't,' said Alix. 'And Cousin Emily's not bad. She's always giving me hot milk--gallons of it. And ovaltine, to make me fat, she says. She's awfully kind.' 'Encouraging you to think about your constitution. No wonder you're nervy. What about the girls?' 'Oh ... they're quite good sorts.' 'The younger one is good-looking, isn't she?' 'Yes. Evie is beautiful. And jolly, and popular. Kate goes to church and does parish work, and reads the _Daily Thrill_ aloud in the evenings. Evie has young men. Her chief one just now is at the front; he's a Gordon, of Gordon's jams.' 'That sink of iniquity! The girl can have no principle. But jam is going to be nationalised very soon, I trust, like many better things. I hope so. It richly deserves it.... Another thing, Alix--you must start health food. I'm going to help Linda Durell to start a Health and Thrift Food Shop, you know. Linda's terribly unbusinesslike, of course. So many people are, if you come to that. And so many people don't eat the right things at the right moments. That man Nicky lives with, now, who stayed with us--he never seems to have the faintest notion of healthy feeding. Goes out every morning before breakfast without an apple or a glass of milk. One should _always_ begin the day with an apple, Alix--remember that. But parsons are hopeless, of course. Such insane ideas about this world not mattering, as if it wasn't the only one we've got. I've no patience with religious people; can't think why Nicky lives with one of them. Though, mind, I like this Mr. West in himself; he's quite sound on most points of importance, and intelligent, too; I've been on Sweated Industries committees with him, and I believe he's doing good work for women's trade unions. Perhaps he'll change his mind about this church business when he's older.' 'I don't believe he will. It seems to mean rather a lot to him, doesn't it? To him it's the way of jogging the world on. As committees are to you.' 'My dear, I detest committees. Most of their members are too stupid and tiresome for words individually, and their collective incompetence is quite unthinkable. But what other way is there in this extraordinarily stick-in-the-mud world?' Alix shook her head. Indeed, she didn't know. She felt helpless to give the world any sort of jog out of its mud, by any means whatsoever. Daphne caught the blank look of her eyes, and suddenly put her strong arm round the thin, small body. 'My poor baby, you must get strong, you know, and happy. No one needs to be ailing or depressed if they'll just say to themselves, 'I am going to be well and strong and to stand up to the world. I'm not going to give in to it. I am the master of my body and soul.' I said that when our darling died; I kept on saying it, and I came through on it. There was too much to do to give way. There is still. We've got to be strong women, for our own sakes and the world's--especially we who have the brains to be some use if we try. The poor old world needs help so very badly just now, with all the fools there are who hinder and block the way. You and I have both got to help, Alix.... There _is_ so much to get done.' Daphne, holding her close, lightly kissed the thin fingers she held. Alix thought, 'Mother is splendid, of course. But she's bigger than I am, and stronger, and she hardly ever feels ill, and she doesn't know how Paul died, and she's not in love with Basil and didn't tell him so. And I believe she's so keen and busy that she doesn't have time to think about the war, except about how to stop it.... Perhaps that's the way--to be thinking only how to stop it and prevent another.... _Is_ that the way?' Alix became aware, from the clasp of Daphne's hands on hers, their firm, light pressure, full of purpose, that Daphne was willing her to health and happiness, trying, in fact, suggestion. Daphne believed in health suggestion, as well as health food. She belonged to societies for promoting both. She had often in the past made health suggestions to Alix, but Alix had not always taken them. At the present moment Alix, overcome by the contrast between her mother's undying hope and purpose for her and her own inability to justify them, giggled weakly, in the sudden way she had. 'I'm sorry, darling,' she apologised. 'No, I'm not hysterical, only footling. I'm sorry I'm such a rotter and no credit to you and no use to the world. But I'm all right really, you know. I don't need healing a bit.' Daphne held her from her, scrutinised her critically, and said, 'You're suffering from hyperæsthesia. How many cigarettes are you smoking a day?' 'Nine. No, I'm too young for that, like the porter--let's say three. Oh, I don't know--I don't count really. Quite few. Cousin Emily doesn't really like it much. She and Kate don't smoke at all, and Evie's only just learning. We're not a vicious household; our chief excesses are chocolates and hot milk.' 'Well, my outside rule is five, you know, in peace time, and now it's three. I should advise only two for you. Linda Durell is for starting and selling Health Cigarettes, but I won't have it, I think they are too disgusting. One must draw the line somewhere.... Is this Clapton? Who _lives_ in Clapton, by the way? I know the secretary of the Women's Wage Increase Committee does--but who else? Of course people _used_ to, in the nineteenth century. Your great-grandfather did. And Cowper, I think--or was it Dr. Watts? Some one who wrote hymns. Those look like good people's houses there.' 'Yes. Oh, bishops live here, and retired generals, and stockbrokers, and thousands of babies. And the Vinneys. And lots of dreadfully common people, Kate says. They all play tennis in the Park. This is Spring Hill.' 'So I see. And there's Primmerose. Tell him to stop.' 'No, darling, Primmerose is some one else's. It's Violette we want; do remember, mother, because the Primmerose people are common, and we don't like being confused. Here we are.' 3 They got out. Daphne, having decided without discussion the probable size of the chauffeur's family, judicially tipped him and told him to return for her at half-past five. She then entered Violette and met Mrs. Frampton in the hall. Mrs. Frampton, like Alix and so many others, was much smaller than she was; Daphne had to bend graciously to shake hands. Mrs. Frampton was a little shy of the tall, distinguished, clever, beautiful cousin of her clever, distinguished, little-known second husband. Daphne, was, in a manner, a public personage; most people knew her name. She had for long been at once ornamental and useful, a fountain-head of a perpetually vigorous stream of energies, some generally approved, others regarded by many as harmful, that watered England; but Violette, for good or ill, was outside their furthest spraying. Mrs. Frampton looked from far off, as she had looked at Professor Frampton, at the brilliant, not-to-be-understood energies of a worker in worlds by her not realised. This makes one shy, even if one believes oneself to be a denizen of a superior world, and Mrs. Frampton lacked this consolation. She was a humble person, and knew that Daphne and Professor Frampton had the best of it. They sat in the drawing-room, where there would soon be tea. Daphne looked round the room with an inward gasp: she really hadn't expected it to be quite so bad as this. The Summertown drawing-room, which she vaguely remembered, had been a little the drawing-room of her cousin Laurence. She took it all in rapidly, and, as if hypnotised, came back to rest on 'Thou seest me' and the watching Eye. 'My poor child,' she thought. 'I must take her away _at once_. It's a wonder she's not actually had a _crise de nerfs_, with the wretched nervous system she inherits from Paul, and that Eye always watching her....' Mrs. Frampton meanwhile was amiably talking, nervous but pleased. 'It's been so delightful having dear Alix all these months. So nice for the girls, too. We've made quite a little party of young people, haven't we, Alix? And other young people drop in quite frequently--Alix's brother, of course, which is always so very nice--he's wonderfully clever, isn't he--and that pleasant Mr. Doye, who lost his finger; I'm sure we quite miss him now he's gone back to the army again; and friends of my girls, and friends of Alix's. Often we're quite a party. It keeps us all quite cheerful and merry, even in these dreadful days, doesn't it, Alix?' 'Yes,' said Alix. 'Only this child works so hard at her drawing and painting all day, she doesn't get much time for play. I'm sure they work them too hard at these art schools. She looks quite overdone and poorly, don't you think so, Mrs. Sandomir?' 'Oh, she'll be all right directly,' said Daphne, who didn't approve of discussing people's poor health in their presence, thinking it made them worse. 'It's mostly nerves and fancy, I expect,' she added, giving a light pat to Alix's arm. 'Shouldn't be given way to. I expect you've been spoiling her.' 'No, I haven't--no, indeed.' Mrs. Frampton was pleased. 'I _have_ thought she looked thin and below par often, and I've made her take lots of milk, and that nice ovaltine, and even malt and cod-liver oil, but she wouldn't go on with that. There's a very nice stuff that's being advertised everywhere now--Fattine--and I want her to try that.' 'Oh, Alix was always thin. I don't believe in worrying with medicines. We mustn't make her sorry for herself by talking about her like this.... That's Evie, isn't it? _She_ doesn't look as if she needed medicine, anyhow. I should like to have her for an advertisement in the windows of my Health Food shop.' Evie was followed by Kate, Florence, and tea. Daphne thought Kate and the tea-cups both deplorable. Kate had been going round her district with parish magazines. She hadn't succeeded (district visitors never do) in collecting all the pennies for them, and told her mother which persons hadn't paid. 'And of course that Mrs. Fittle, in Paradise Court, lay low and pretended to be out, as usual. I expect she was--' Kate pursed her lips, which meant drunk. Mrs. Frampton nodded intelligently. 'The Clapton people are terribly difficult to deal with,' Kate explained to Daphne. 'Dreadfully ungrateful, too, very often. The clergy and workers may do anything for them, but it's all no more than what's their due, and no thanks, only grumbles. Do you find them like that in Cambridge?' (which was the town in which Daphne, if she had one anywhere, presumably had a district). 'Not a bit,' said Daphne briskly. 'The idea of expecting me to find anything so commonplace,' was her inward comment. 'This girl is the worst of the lot.' 'Kate does a great deal of parish work,' Mrs. Frampton explained. 'She's quite busy always, with church things.' 'Yes?' Daphne was vague, hiding how much she disapproved of church things. 'Now I'm afraid I'm used to a rather different sort of service from those Kate attends,' Mrs. Frampton continued. 'I'm old-fashioned, I know. Kate's church goes a touch too high for me.' Something in her visitor's face, a certain blankness, suggested to her that probably Daphne knew no difference between high and low, but condemned both with impartial unfairness. She remembered that Alix hadn't been brought up to go to any sort of church. Alix, being of a later generation, had indeed a fairly open mind on these matters; but Daphne, the product of a more pronounced and condemning age, rejected with emphasis. The Christian religion, as taught in churches, was to her pernicious, retrograde, the hampering relic of a darker age. Some glimmering of this attitude filtered through to Mrs. Frampton, and flustered her. She added, 'But of course we can't all think the same way about things, can we?... I hope you enjoyed your trip round the world, Mrs. Sandomir.' 'Very much, thank you.' 'You visited the Balkans, didn't you? That must have been very alarming and wild. I'm sure it was wonderfully brave of you to go there, with all this upset, and all the natives so unsettled. I'm afraid I shouldn't have had the courage.' 'The upset,' said Daphne, 'was less advanced than it is now, when I was there. I had a most interesting time....' But not really, in the main, suitable to tell Mrs. Frampton about, so she rapidly selected. 'The Bulgarian babies--you never saw anything so pleasant. You'd love them, Mrs. Frampton. You should go there some time. And their teeth come through when they're about six weeks old, for some reason. It's just as well, because their ideas about milk cleanliness are most behindhand. I talked to a sort of mothers' meeting about it, but I don't think they even began to understand. I expect my Bulgarian wasn't idiomatic enough. Oh dear, the _dirt_ of those infants....' 'Fancy! It does seem a wickedness not to keep little babies clean, doesn't it? There's one at a house in this road--Primmerose--and I'm sure it goes to one's heart to see the way it's kept.' Kate said, fastidiously, 'Those Primmerose people aren't nice in any way, I'm afraid. There are some very regrettable people come settling round here lately--people one can't dream of knowing. It's a great pity.' 'People will settle, won't they,' Daphne said vaguely. 'It's better perhaps than being unsettled, like the Balkan people.' Daphne never punned except in absence of mind, rightly believing the habit to rise from weakness of intellect; but she was thinking now not of Clapton nor of the Balkan people, but of an address she was giving that evening to a meeting of the N.U.W.S.S. on her recent experiences, and which she had only inadequately prepared. She pulled herself together, however, and became charming, attentive, and intelligent for the rest of tea. 'And what did you think of the United States?' Mrs. Frampton inquired. 'Will they come in, do you think, or won't the President let them, whatever occurs? You met the President, didn't you? How did he strike you?' 'Oh, delightful. Like most governments; they're nearly all charming personally, I believe. So much stronger, as a rule, in the heart than in the head. They mean so much good and do much harm, poor dears. A curse seems to dog them. They're the victims of an iniquitous and insane system; and they lack fore-sight and sound judgment so terribly, for all their good intentions.' 'You would scarcely say the Kaiser had good intentions,' Mrs. Frampton suggested dubiously. Daphne said, 'I don't know him, but I'm told he has all sorts, good and bad, like other mischievous people.' 'We all know, anyhow, where good intentions pave the way to,' said Kate, more epigrammatic than usual, so that Mrs. Frampton said, 'Hush, dear,' and added, 'He'll have to face the consequences of his actions some day, when he's called to give account of his life. Perhaps we oughtn't to forestall his condemnation, poor man.' Daphne said, 'Indeed, I'm quite sure we ought. Condemnation will be singularly little use at the moment you refer to,' and then, because that moment would be a fruitless, and indeed most unsuitable, topic of conversation between her and Mrs. Frampton, she left it, and talked about flats in town, a subject which she and Violette regarded from standpoints very nearly as far sundered as those from which they contemplated the last judgment. After tea, Mrs. Frampton said she and Kate and Evie would now go away and leave Daphne and Alix alone together, which they did. The door shut behind them, and Daphne passed her long, capable hand over her forehead and shut her eyes for a moment. 'My dear child--what you have been through! It must end at once. So kind, and so unthinkably trying! No wonder--oh well, never mind, you'll soon be all right now.... Do they know _anything_ about anything that matters? No, quite obviously not.' 'I'd rather they didn't, mother. I don't like the things that matter. I've been quite comfortable.' 'Comfortable! With that Eye! Nonsense, child.... The idea of our _having_ such relations, even by marriage.... Laurence Frampton was really too queer. I've often wondered whether his head wasn't a little going when he did it; he had been peculiar in several ways. Quite suddenly voted conservative--which year was it, now? I think myself life had tired him; people wanted to abolish Greek in Responsions, and so on, and he had some worries in his college, and private money difficulties too, I believe; Oxford people are so extravagant sometimes; so he fell back on a little cushiony wife as one might on to a pillow, and died quietly soon afterwards. Most tragic, really; such a brilliant fellow he was.... Now there's my taxi back again. I'm going first to Nicky's, then to dine at the Club with Francie Claverhouse, before addressing the N.U.W.S.S. By the way, I'm fearfully out of temper with them--have you been following their policy lately? They've been _criminally_ weak on Conscription.... We shall have to have a split, as usual.... Good-bye, darling. Run and fetch your cousin Emily to say good-bye to me. No, only your cousin Emily; I can't speak to Kate, she's the epitome of all the ages of the drab and narrow feminine. And Evie is immoral, and carries on with Gordon's jam. It isn't right that you should be here. None of them have any principles.' While she talked, Daphne was collecting her bags, papers and furs, with her quick, graceful, decisive movements. Alix watched her, feeling, as she sometimes did in her mother's presence, as if she sucked up all the ozone in the air and left none for her. They found Mrs. Frampton in the hall, full of shy and beaming kindness. Daphne took her hand and looked down on her cordially. 'I must be flying. I'll look in to-morrow, if I may.... Good-bye, and thank you so much for being good to the child.' The narrow Kate and the immoral Evie appeared in the background, and Daphne had to shake hands with them after all before escaping into the taxi. 4 Violette watched her drive away up Spring Hill. Evie thought how handsome she was, and how well she wore her clothes. Kate was not quite certain she wasn't a touch fast. Alix thought, 'How jolly it must be to be like mother, so certain and so strong.' Mrs. Frampton thought, 'She seems so nice and clever, but a little alarming, perhaps,' and said to Alix, 'Your mother seems wonderfully well and busy. I expect she's always quite full of plans and occupations and interests, isn't she?' 'Yes,' said Alix. CHAPTER XV ALIX AT A MEETING 1 Daphne took Alix from Violette to stay with her at her club. It was the end of November. Daphne proposed that they should spend a fortnight in town, till the end of the art school term, then go down to their house at Cambridge for the Christmas vacation. She meant to spend this period holding meetings about the county of Cambridgeshire with a view to starting village branches of the Society for Promoting Permanent Peace. Meetings--branches--study circles--this was the machinery behind the ideals. Daphne, at times irrelevant, inconsequent, prejudiced, whimsical, perverse, was an idealist and a business woman. She made Alix come to meetings while they were in town. She saw in Alix the raw material of a member of the S.P.P.P. She said, 'You mustn't be selfish, darling. You are a little selfish, you know, and you're old enough now to leave it off. You try to hide from things, like an ostrich. You try and pretend they don't exist. In point of fact, they do, and you know it. You know it all the time: you can't forget it, so you waste your trouble trying. You must leave that to the Violettes. They can ignore. You can't.... Ignoring: that's always been the curse of this world. We shut our eyes to things--poverty, and injustice, and vice, and cruelty, and sweating, and slums, and the tendencies which make war, and we feed ourselves on batter, and so go on from day to day getting a little fatter--and so the evils too go on from day to day getting fatter, till they get so corpulent and heavy that when we do open our eyes at last, because we have to, they can scarcely be moved at all. It's sheer criminal selfishness and laziness and stupidity. Mr. West was talking about it the other day. I like that young man; he believes in all the right things. And in so many of the wrong ones as well--I can't imagine why. I told him I couldn't imagine why; and he said he found the same difficulty about me. So there we are. However, what was I saying? Oh yes--laziness, selfishness and stupidity. It's those three we've got to fight. We've got to replace them by hard working, hard living, and hard thinking. And the last must come first. We've got to _think_, and make every one think.... One of the worst things about a war is that so many of the best thinkers are in the middle of it, and can't think, and may never be able to think again. I don't in the least agree with those complacent young men and women who believe that no one over forty either can or will think. 'The war has let the old men loose upon the world,' I believe is the phrase. Conceited rubbish, of course. They won't talk it when they and their friends are forty-eight, like me. Personally I know just about as many young fools and obscurantists and militarists as elderly ones. Any number of both. It's not a question of age; it's temperament and training. But still, grant that the young men of fighting age form a very large proportion in each nation of the clearest intellects and the keenest idealists and the best workers for truth, and that they are nearly all now in action, or put out of action. Grant that many of them will never come back, that many others will come back weakened physically and mentally and incapable of the work they might have done before, and some perhaps with their mental vision a little blinded and perverted by what they've had to play a part in for so long. That's the worst tragedy of all, of course, that possible perversion. Better never come back at all.' Daphne's voice shook momentarily, but she went on bravely: 'Paul would have been a fine worker. He was going to be very like his father. Well, Paul's gone under--a sacrifice to the Brute. Thousands of other finely-wrought instruments like Paul have been smashed and lost to the world.... It's an irreparable tragedy, of course.... But we who are left and who are free have got to do their work as well as our own. And we've got to begin at once. There's no time to be lost.' Daphne consulted her watch, and added, 'You'd better come to a meeting of the S.P.P.P. at Queen's Hall with me after dinner, dearest. It would interest and instruct you. Several people are going to speak, including me.' 'It's all right when _you_ speak,' said Alix. 'But some of them are rather the limit, really, mother.' 'Oh, my dear, of course. The very outside edge: over it. What does it matter? It's causes that count, thank goodness, not the people who work for them. When you're my age you'll have learnt to _swallow_ people, without getting indigestion. Now we must have dinner at once, and then you shall come and begin to practise impersonal idealism. It _is_ so important.' 2 Alix supposed it must be. Meetings are so very mixed, speeches so unequal, people so various. Lack of clear thinking--that, as Daphne had said, was probably what was wrong with nearly every one. Perhaps it is the commonest defect, and the most irritating. It makes people talk sentimental rubbish. It makes them lump other people together in masses and groups, setting one group against another, when really people are individual temperaments and brains and souls, and unclassifiable. It makes them say (Alix picked out all these utterances in the Queen's Hall to-night, among many other utterances truer and sounder and more relevant--indeed, indubitably sound, relevant and true) that young men are good and intelligent and pacificist (no, pacifist) and admire Romain Rolland, and elderly men bad, stupid and militarist, and admire Bernhardi. That women are the guardians of life, and therefore mind war more than men do. That democracies are inherently and consistently peaceful enough (stated) and intelligent enough (assumed) to prevent wars from ever occurring if the reins of foreign policy were in their hands. ('Rubbish,' muttered Daphne. 'He's missing the whole point, which is to _make_ democracies so, by a long and difficult education. Every one knows they've not much sense yet.') That the reason why war is objectionable is that the human body is sacred and should be inviolate. What did that mean, precisely, Alix wondered? That women are the chief sufferers from war. A debatable point, anyhow; and what did it matter, and why divide humanity into sexes, further than nature has already done so? That among the newspaper owners and members of the governments of each nation were some so misguided and lacking in financial fore-sight as to encourage wars because they had some shares in armament industries, and hoped, presumably, to recoup themselves therefrom for the heavy financial losses which they, in common with all other members of the community, must suffer in case of war. 'Fools they must be,' Alix commented, and speculated that these covetous individuals, even granting that they had pinned their hopes entirely on the financial issue, must be feeling pretty badly sold. For their other and nicer shares would be declining; their income-tax was enormous (and they probably had to pay super-tax too, which was even worse); the papers they owned were losing the advertisements they lived by; and their food cost them more. A bad look-out for these covetous ones. From this the speaker got on to capitalism in general. Well, Alix was entirely with him there. A new speaker (much better, quite good, in fact) was speaking of secret ententes, as speakers will at these meetings. The Moroccan crisis ... that was rather interesting. The Balance of Power. A rotten theory, but surely, as things were, necessary? Yes, as things were; but not as they were going to be. For there must, in time, be General Disarmament. Disarmament. A fancy some lean to and others hate, no doubt. But most hate it. The question was, would they hate it more after this war, or less? _Si vis bellum, para bellum_; that was the true version of that saying. True, for it had been proved so. Look at the Germans, preparing for war for years; look at all the other nations, also preparing for years. And now they had all got it. That is what armies and fleets lead to. So, instead of armies and fleets, let us have International Councils for Arbitration. A Concert of Europe. A jolly sound notion, thought Alix, but wished the speaker would meet rather more precisely the obvious difficulties in the way of this method of keeping the peace. It certainly _was_ a sound notion: one felt that it could, after much shaping and experimenting and failure, be workable, be made something of. There was no earthly reason why not. And certainly the more it was discussed and publicly aired in all the nations, the better for its chances. But people were apt, on this subject, not to be quite practical enough; they often laid stress on the advantages of the principle, rather than on its detailed methods of working. Of course the advantages, if it could be worked, were incontrovertible; surely no one could be found to question them. And here Alix found a weakness she had vaguely felt before in the standpoint taken by many of these people. Many of them (not nearly all, but many) seemed to imply, 'We, a select few of us called Pacificists, hate war. The rest of you rather like it. We will not allow you to have it. WE will stop it.' As if some of a race stricken with agonising plague had risen up and said to the rest, 'You, most of you, are content to be ill and in anguish and perishing. But WE do not like it. WE insist on stopping it and preventing its recurrence.' An admirable resolution, but ill-worded. What they meant, what they would mean if they thought and spoke accurately, was surely, 'We all loathe this horror--how should any one not loathe it? We all want to stop it occurring again, and WE have thought of a way which we believe may work. This is it....' That was sense; that was what was wanted, that any one who thought they had found a way should use it and expound it to the rest. But oh, it wasn't sense, it was madness, to talk as if people differed in aim and desire, not merely in method. For there was one desire every one had in these days, beneath, through and above their thousand others. People wanted money, wanted victory, wanted liberty, wanted economic individualism, wanted socialism, wanted each other, wanted love, wanted beauty, wanted virtue, wanted a vote, wanted fame, wanted genius, wanted God, wanted things to drink, even to eat, wanted more wages, wanted less taxes, less work, wanted children, wanted adventure, wanted death, wanted democracy, oligarchy, anarchy, any other archy, wanted new clothes, wanted a new heaven or a new earth or both, wanted the old back again, wanted the moon. They wanted any or all of these things and a thousand more; but through them, above them, beneath them, a quenchless fire of longing, burning, searing and consuming more passionately as the crazy weeks of frustration swung by, they wanted peace.... Even some who wanted nothing else in this world or any other just had energy to want peace. There were those so tired and so forlorn and so battered and broken that they could scarcely want at all; they had lost too much. They had almost too utterly lost their health, or their courage, or their limbs, or their hope, or their faith, or their sons, husbands, brothers, lovers and friends, or their minds, to want anything from life except its end; but still, with broken, drifting, numbed desires, they wanted peace.... All the heterogeneous crowd of humanity, so at variance in almost everything else, was just now surely one in the common bond of that great desire. They swayed, that heterogeneous crowd, into Alix's giddy vision; she saw them thus strangely, perhaps unwelcomely, linked, in incongruous fellowship, those who had possibly never before believed themselves to want the same things. The one desire linked, in all the warring nations, socialists and individualistic men of business, capitalists and wage-earners, slum landlords and slum dwellers, judges and criminals, soldiers and conscientious objectors, catholics and quakers, atheists and priests, prize-fighters and poets, representatives of societies differing so widely in some ways as the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the National Service League, the W.S.P.U. and the Anti-Suffrage Society, the Union of Democratic Control and the Anti-German League, the German Social and Democratic Party and the Radicals; the staffs of journals as widely sundered by temperament and habit as the _Times_ and the _Manchester Guardian_, the _Morning Post_ and the _Daily News_, the _Spectator_ and the _English Review_, the _Vorwärts_ and the _Kreuz Zeitung_, the _Church Times_, the _Freethinker_ and the _Record_. Alix saw humanity as a great mass-meeting, men and women, 'clergymen, lawyers, lords and thieves,' hand in hand, lifting together one confused voice, crying for peace, peace, where there was no peace. Where there could not yet be, nor ever had been, peace, because ... because of what? That really seemed the question to be solved. Because, one supposed, of some anti-peace elements in every country, in every class, in every interest, nay, in every human being, that somehow subverted and hindered the great desire. An odd world, certainly, and paradoxical, and curiously tragic. But lit by glimmers of hope.... 3 More and more through that evening Alix came to believe that these so-called Pacificists (idiotic name--as if every one wasn't Pacificist) really _had_ found a way, really had, if not exactly their hands on the ropes, anyhow their feet on a road that might possibly lead somewhere. It was the same rather breathless feeling of possible ways out, or in, that she had about the Church sometimes. Only sometimes; for at other times she happened on people who belonged to the Church who made her feel that there were no roads out, or in, or anywhere, but only dull enclosures, leading nowhere; and she hadn't yet attained to the impersonal idealism Daphne urged on her (so necessary, so difficult a thing) which could swallow people for the sake of the causes they stood for. She attached too much importance to people. She was glad when a young, keen-faced, humorous woman, with a charming voice, began to speak about Continuous Mediation without Armistice. A fascinating subject, competently handled. A continuous conference of the neutral nations, to convey the ever-changing desires of the belligerents to one another, to inquire into the principles of international justice and permanent peace underlying them, to discuss, to air proposals, to suggest, to promote understanding between belligerents. It couldn't, anyhow, do much harm, and might do much good. It would express the views of impartial observers (are any observers impartial, Alix wondered?) on these vexed questions; it would express through intermediaries the views of the peace-seekers in each warring nation to the peace-makers in the others, now that they were hindered from direct speech together. For so many thousands in the enemy countries are longing for peace; there must be no mistake about that. Of course, thought Alix, impatient again. How should there be any mistake about so obvious a thing? The only difficulty was that each country longed for peace on its own terms; peace, as they would say, with honour; and no country liked its enemies' terms. This continuous mediation business would perhaps draw them nearer together, make them see more nearly eye to eye. It certainly seemed sound. 4 'They're talking sense all right,' said one young officer to another, behind Alix. Then Daphne spoke, on the attitude towards war of the common people in the neutral and belligerent nations, on principles of education, and particularly on the training of children in sound international ideals--her special subject. She told of how in Austria the Women's Committee for Permanent Peace had issued an appeal to parents and teachers urging them to counteract the influences exciting children to race hatred, and train them in respect for their enemies and constructive national service. A comprehensive subject, treated with breadth, detail, and clarity. The young officers again approved. Alix thought how fine a person Daphne looked and was: gracious, competent, vivid, dominating, alive. Possessed of some poise, some strength, some inner calm.... What was it, exactly, and why? One saw it in some religious people. Perhaps in them and in Daphne it was the same thing: they both had a definite aim; they both knew where they were trying to go, and why. Perhaps that is what makes for strength and calm, thought Alix. Daphne wasn't running away from things, or from life: she was facing them and fighting them. 'She's good, isn't she?' said one of the officers. 'I like hearing Mrs. Sandomir. She never talks through her hat. So many of these Pacifist and Militarist people do.' Alix was glad Daphne had a sense of humour, and didn't rant or sentimentalise. She could talk of the part to be played by women in the construction of permanent peace without calling them the guardians of the race or the custodians of life. She didn't draw distinctions, beyond the necessary ones, between women and men; she took women as human beings, not as life-producing organisms; she took men as human beings, not as destroying-machines. She spoke about propaganda work to be undertaken by the S.P.P.P. in the country districts; she suggested methods; she became very practical. Alix listened with interest, for that was what Daphne was going to do in Cambridgeshire in the Christmas vacation. It sounded, as foreshadowed, sensible and useful, though of course you never know, with meetings in the country, till you try, and not always then. 5 Enough, more than enough, no doubt, has been said of a meeting so ordinary as to be familiar in outline to most people. That it was not familiar to Alix, who had hitherto avoided both meetings and literature on all subjects connected with the war, is why it is here recorded in some detail. There was some more of it, but it need not be here set down. When it was over, Daphne and Alix returned to the club. They sat in the writing-room and talked and smoked before going to bed. 'Rather sensible, on the whole, I thought,' said Alix, lighting Daphne's cigarette. She had more colour than usual, and her eyes were bright and sleepless. Daphne glanced at her sidelong. 'Glad you approved,' she said. 'The S.P.P.P. _is_ rather sensible, on the whole: just that.... What about joining it, on those grounds? It will only bind you to approve of its general programme, and, when you can, assist in it. And its programme is really purely educational--training people (beginning with ourselves) in the kind of thinking and principles which seem to make for international understanding and peace. You'd better join us. We're fighting war, to the best of our lights, and with the weapons at our command. One can't do more than that in these days, and one can scarcely do less. One mayn't be very successful, and one may be quite off the lines; but one has to keep trying in the best way one personally knows. One can't be indifferent and inert nowadays.... Well?' Alix leant forward and dropped her cigarette end into the fire. 'Well,' she returned, and thought for a moment, and added, 'I wonder. I'm not really good at joining things, you know.' 'You are not,' Daphne agreed, decisively. 'You sit on hedges, criticising the fields on both sides and wondering what good either of them is going to be to you. Such a paltry attitude, my dear! Unpractical, selfish, and sentimental; though I know you think you hate sentimentality. It's quite time you learnt that there's no fighting with whole truths in this life, and all we can do is to seize fragments of truth where we can find them, and use them as best we can. Poor weapons, perhaps, but all we've got. That's how I see it, anyhow.... Well, darling, at least it can't do any _harm_ to try and get children and grown-up people taught to get some understanding of international politics and the ways to keep the peace, or to look upon arbitration as a possible, practical, and natural substitute for war--can it, now? If it only in the end results in improving ever so slightly the mental attitude of a person here and there, adding ever so little to the political information of a village in each county, it will have done _something_, won't it? And--you never know--it may do quite a lot more than that. You must remember we've got branches in all the belligerent countries now. Free discussion of these things gets them into the air, so to speak; trains people's ways of thought; and thought, collective thought, is such a solid driving-power; it gets things done. Thoughts are alive,' said Daphne, waving her cigarette as she talked, 'frightfully, terrifyingly, amazingly alive. They fly about like good and bad germs; they cause health or disease. They can build empires or slums; they can assault and hurt the soul' (unconsciously in moments of enthusiasm, Daphne sometimes used a prayer-book phrase stored in her memory cells from childhood, for her father had been a bishop), 'or they can save it alive. They can make peace and make war. They made _this_ war: they must make the new peace. Thought is _everything_. We've got to make good, sane, intelligent thought, how ever and where ever we can, all of us.... Come and work with me in Cambridgeshire next week and help me to make it, my dear.' 'Well,' said Alix again. 'I might do that. Come and watch you, I mean, and listen. I think I will do that.' 6 It was late. Every one in the club except them had gone to bed. They went too. Alix thought, in bed, 'Fighting war. That's what Mr. West said we must all be doing. Fighting war. I suppose really it's the only thing non-combatants can do with war, to make it hurt them less ... as they can't go....' She wrenched her mind sharply away from that last familiar negation, that old familiar bitterness of frustration. 'I suppose,' she thought, 'it may make even that hurt less....' On that thought, selfish by habit as usual, a thought not suggested by Daphne, who was not selfish, she fell asleep. CHAPTER XVI ON PEACE 1 On the tenth of December, Daphne, Alix, and Nicholas went down to Cambridge. Liverpool Street Alix found restful. Liverpool Street, as the jumping-off place for East Anglia, has a soothing power of its own. Stations often have, probably because they indicate ways of escape, never the closed door. But Cambridge, which they reached all too soon, was not restful. Cambridge city, even out of term time, even during terms such as these, which all the young thinkers are keeping in trenches overseas, is too conscious of the world's complexities and imminent problems and questionable destinies, to be peaceful. Cambridge is the brain of Cambridgeshire, which, having all its more disturbing thinking thus done for it, can itself remain quiet, like a brainless animal. Daphne's sphere of work did not include Cambridge, which already thought about these things, and heard, gladly and otherwise, Mr. Ponsonby on Democratic Control and Lord Bryce on International Relations, and many other people on many other subjects. All she did in Cambridge was to foster and stimulate the life of the already existing branch of the S.P.P.P., and to make it her centre for propaganda in Cambridgeshire. Nicholas and Alix, having been brought up in Cambridge, did not know Cambridgeshire much. Alix discovered Cambridgeshire, through this quiet, pale December. There are moments in some lives when it is the only shire that will do. Many feel the same about Oxfordshire; more about Shropshire, Sussex, Worcestershire, Hampshire, or the north, or the southwest. The present writer once knew some one who felt it about Warwickshire, but these, probably, are few. Most people may like Warwickshire, to live in or walk in or bicycle in, but will give it no peculiar place as healer or restorer. It is, perhaps, essentially a shire for the prosperous, the whole in body and mind; it has little to give, beyond what it receives. But Cambridgeshire, 'of all England the shire for men who understand,' in its quiet, restrained way gives. It is not for the rich, and not for sentimentalists, and not for Americans; but it is for poets and dreamers. To those who leave it and return it has a fresh and sad significance, like the face of a once familiar and understood but half-forgotten friend, whose point of view has become strange. New meanings, old meanings reasserted, rise to challenge them; the code of values inherent in those chalky plains that are the setting of a quiet city seem to emerge in large type. Cambridge is of a quite different spirit. In Cambridge is intelligence, culture, traditionalism, civilisation, some intellectualism, even some imagination, much scholarship, ability, and good sense, above all a high idealism, a limitless fund of generous chivalry, that would be at war with the world's ills, the true crusading spirit, that can never fit in with the commercial. And round it, strangely, lies Cambridgeshire, quiet, chalky, unknown, full of the equable Anglian peoples and limitless romance; the country of waste fens and flat wet fields and dreamy hints of quiet streams, and grey willows, and level horizons melting into blue distance beyond blue distance, and straight white roads linking ancient village to ancient village, and untold dreams; and probably not one Cambridge person in two hundred understands anything at all about it; they are too civilised, too urban, too far above the animal and the peasant. Here and there some Cambridge poet, or painter, or even archæologist, has caught the spirit of Cambridgeshire; but mostly Cambridge people are too busy, and too alive, to try. You need to be of a certain vacancy.... But, though they understand so little of it, in times of need it sometimes raises quiet hands of healing to them. Sometimes, again, it doesn't. 2 Alix, wandering over it with Daphne, who held meetings, found it grey, toneless, faintly-hued, wintry, with larks carolling over the chalky downs and brown ploughed fields. That country south of Cambridge seemed to her the truest Cambridgeshire, rather than the level plains of Ely and the fenlands, and rather than the border regions of the north-west, where Royston, among its huddle of strange hills, broods with its hint of a hostile wildness. Royston is rather terrifying, unless you use it for golf, and Daphne had a poor meeting there. Meetings in Cambridgeshire are often poor, that is the truth (excepting only in election time, when apathy gives place to fierce excitement). Whether they are about National Service, or Votes for Women, or Tariff Reform, or Free Trade, or Welsh Disestablishment, or Recruiting, or Peace--you cannot really rely on them. Cambridgeshire, rightly believing that the day for toil was given, for rest the night, does not lightly thwart this dispensation of Providence. And the few borderland hours of twilight or lamplight which providence has set between these two spaces of time, are, there seems little doubt, given us for the purposes of tea, smoking, conversing, and courting. So meetings do not really come in. But Daphne held them, all the same, and some people came. She usually held them in the village schoolroom. Sometimes she got the vicar's permission to address the children during school hours, sometimes that of the vicar's wife to speak to the Mothers' Meeting while it met. But she preferred evening meetings, because of her lantern slides, which showed the photographs she had taken on her travels of men, women, and children in the other villages of other countries, thinking, so she said, the same thoughts as these men, women, and children in Cambridgeshire, saying, in their queer other tongues, the same things, playing, very often, with the same toys. (This, of course, was by way of Promoting International Sympathy.) The women and children liked these meetings and slides. The women, being open-hearted, kindly, impressionable, pacific, saw what Daphne meant, and said, 'To think of it! I expect those mothers, pore things, miss their boys that are fighting, the same as we do ours. Well, it isn't their fault, is it? it's all that wicked Keyser.' The children said merely, 'Oo-ah! look at that!' Then Daphne would go on from that starting-point to expound that it wasn't all, not quite all, that wicked Keyser. That it was, in fact, in varying degrees, not only all governments but all peoples, who had made war possible and so landed themselves at last in this. This was less popular. The women didn't mind it; they were receptive and open to conviction, and didn't much mind either way, and were prepared to say, 'Well, to be sure, we're none of us very good Christians yet, are we?' For ideas didn't matter to them very much, nor the wrongs and rights of the war, but the fact of the war did. But some man behind, who had made up his mind on this business and knew that black was black and white was white, would sometimes observe, with vigour and decision, 'Pro-Hun.' 'I am not a pro-anyone,' said Daphne, 'nor an anti-anyone. But I am, in a general way, pro-peace and anti-war, as I am sure we all are in this room.' Then those who believed themselves to differ would shout 'Fight to a finish,' and 'Crush all Germans,' and 'Smash the Hun, _then_ you may talk of peace,' and 'Here's some soldiers back here, you hear what _they've_ got to say about it,' and other things to the same purpose; and once or twice they sang patriotic songs so loud that the meeting closed in disorder. But at other times they gave Daphne a chance to explain that she meant by peace, peace in general and in future, not a premature end to this particular war. That end, she remarked, must now be left to be decided by others; it was the future they were all concerned with. When once she got through to this point, the room usually began to listen again, and heard, with varying degrees of attention, interest and tolerance, how they could help to make a permanent peace, and even put up good-humouredly with hearing how they had helped, for some centuries, to make war, by encouraging commercialism, capitalism, selfishness, ignorance, and bad habits of thought. On the whole, and with exceptions, so far as Cambridgeshire listened to Daphne at all, it was receptive and not unkind. The villages, of course, varied, as villages will. In some the squire and the vicar and the other chief people would not allow the meeting at all, rightly thinking it pacificist. In others they allowed it and came, and sat in front, and differed, asking Daphne if she had not heard the recommendation, _Si vis pacem, para bellum_, and remarking that while we are in a war is not the time to talk of peace. 'You might as well say,' said Daphne 'that while we are suffering from a plague is not the time to talk of measures to prevent its recurrence.' Villages, as has been said, differ. Some, for instance, are more intelligent than others. Great Shelford is rather intelligent, and means well; many of its inhabitants are leisured, and will readily, if advised, form study circles and read recommended literature. In fact, they did. Quite a promising little nucleus of the S.P.P.P. was established there. Sawston, two miles and a half away, is otherwise; so is Whittlesford. Of Linton, Pampisford, Landbeach, Waterbeach, the Chesterfords, and Duxford, it were better, in this connection, not to speak. Frankly, they did not understand or approve the S.P.P.P. They thought it Pro-German. 'That silly word,' said Daphne helplessly, to Nicholas, after a rather exhausting evening at Sawston. (Nicholas's own evening had been restful, for he had spent it at home, reading Russian fairy-stories.) 'What does it _mean_? Do they mean _anything_ by it? Do they _know_ what they mean?' 'Oh, they know all right,' returned Nicholas, grinning. 'They mean you have exaggerated sympathies with the Hun.' 'Have I?' Daphne wondered. 'Well, I suppose one tries to have some sympathies with every one--even with nations which prepare for and start wars and brutally destroy small adjacent nations in the process. But as little, almost as little, with these as it is possible to have.... When will people understand that what we're out to do is not to sympathise or to apportion blame, but simply to learn together the science of reconstruction--no, of construction rather, for we've got to make what's never yet been. People do so leave things to chance--mental and spiritual things. When it's a case of reconstructing material things, as we shall have to do in Belgium and France after the war, no one will be allowed to help without proper training; people are training for it already, taking regular courses in the various branches of constructive science. But we seem to think that the nations can build themselves up spiritually without any learning or preparing at all, just because it's not towns and villages and trades and wealth and agriculture that will need building up, but only intelligence and beauty and sanity and mind and morals and manners. The building up has got to be done in the same industrious and practical spirit; you can't leave spiritual things to grow into the right shape for themselves, any more than material ones. You've got to have your constructionists, with their constructive programmes; you can't leave things to luck, sit down and say 'Trust in Time, the great mender,' or 'Wait and see.' Time isn't a mender of anything: time, unused, is like an aged idiot plodding along a road without signposts into nowhere.... We can't each go about our individual businesses grabbing our share of the world without troubling ourselves to get a grasp of the whole and help to shove it along the right track. It's uneducated; it's like the modern Cretan, so different from his early ancestors, who saw life steadily and saw it whole--at least that's what one gathers from his remains.' (Daphne had, just before the war, been in Crete, excavating.) Nicholas said, 'You over-rate the early Cretan. I've noticed it before. You over-rate him. He wasn't all you think; and anyhow, he had a smaller island to think out; any one could have got a grasp of Cretan affairs. He was probably really as selfish as--as Alix, or me.' 'I can't imagine,' said Daphne, considering him with disapproval, 'why you don't join the S.P.P.P., Nicky, or some other good educative society, and help me a little.' 'I? I never join anything. I never agree with anybody. I don't want to educate any one. Why should I? I leave these things to enthusiasts, with faith, like you and West. I've no faith in my own ideas being any better than other people's, so I let them go their ways and I go mine.' 'You won't always do that,' Daphne told him, encouraging him, because she had faith in the spirit of his fathers, which looked despite himself out of his eyes. 'When you're my age....' 'I shall then,' said Nicholas, 'doubtless be suffering from what is, I believe, called by the best people 'the more embittered temper and narrower faith of age.' You need entertain no further hopes for me then.' 3 During the Hauxton meeting, which was in the schoolroom on the afternoon of new year's eve, Alix sat on the low churchyard wall in faint sunshine and looked over brown fields and heard the larks. Hauxton is quiet, and smells of straw, and has a little grey church with a Norman door. Its road runs east and west, and there are geese on the little green. On this last afternoon of the year it lay quietly asleep in the pale winter sunshine. Whenever the little east wind moved, wisps and handfuls of straw drifted lightly down the road. The larks carolled and twittered exuberantly over bare fields. From time to time a flock of chaffinches rose suddenly from the ricks and flew, a chattering flutter of wings, down the wind. Beyond the fields, cold, faintly-hued horizons brooded. Hauxton looked drowsily to the sunset and the dawn, to the past and future, to the old year and the new. 'The future is dubious,' Daphne had been saying in the schoolroom, before Alix came out. Well, of course futures always are, if you come to that. 'In this dim, dubious future, let us see that we build up one positive thing, which shall not fail us....' And by that, of course, she meant Peace. Peace: yes, peace must be, of course, a positive thing. Here, in Hauxton, was peace; a bare, austere, quiet peace, smelling of straw. No one had had to make that peace; it just was. But the world's peace must be made, built up, stone on stone. No, stones were a poor figure. Peace must be alive; a vital, intricate, intense, difficult thing. No negation: not the absence of war. Not the quiet, naturally attained peace of Samuel Miller and Elizabeth his wife, who slept beneath a grey headstone close to the churchyard wall, having drifted into peace after ninety and ninety-five years of living, and having for their engraven comment, 'They shall come to the grave in the fullness of years, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.' Not that natural peace of the old and weary at rest; but a young peace, passionate, ardent, intelligent, romantic, like poetry, like art, like religion. Like Christmas, with its peace on earth, goodwill towards men. Like all the passionate, restless idealism that the so quiet-seeming little Norman church stood for.... Alix believed that it stood for the same things that Daphne stood for. It too would say, build up a living peace. It too would say, let each man, woman, and child cast out first from their own souls the forces that make against peace--stupidity (that first), then commercialism, rivalries, hatreds, grabbing, pride, ill-bred vaunting. It too was international, supernational. It too was out for a dream, a wild dream, of unity. It too bade people go and fight to the death to realise the dream. Only it said, 'In _my_ name they shall cast out devils and speak with new tongues,' and the S.P.P.P. said, 'In the name of humanity.' There was, no doubt, a difference in method. But at the moment Alix had more concern with the likenesses, with the common aim of the fighters rather than with their different flags. The pale sun dipped lower in the pale west, and was drowned in haze. It was cold. The little wind from the east whispered along the bare hedges. The year would soon be running down into silence, like an old clock. 4 Daphne and the meeting came out of the school. Alix went to meet her. Daphne looked satisfied, as if things had gone well. The few women and many children coming out of the meeting looked good-hearted, and still full of Christmas cheer. 'Such dears,' said Daphne, as they got into the car. (Lest a damaging impression of Daphne be given, it may be mentioned that she always drove her own car herself, and only, in war time, used it for meetings for the public good and for taking out wounded soldiers.) 'So attentive and nice. I left pamphlets; and I'm coming again after the Christmas holiday to speak to the children in school. I told them about German and Austrian babies.... The mothers loved it.... It's _fun_ doing this. People are such dears, directly they stop misunderstanding what one is after. Understanding--clear thinking--it nearly all turns on that; everything does. Oh for more _brains_ in this poor old muddle of a world! Educate the children's brains, give them right understanding, and then let evil do its worst against them, they'll have a sure base to fight it from.' Alix thought of and mentioned the Intelligent Bad, who are surely numerous and prominent in history. But Daphne said: 'Cleverness isn't right understanding. I mean something different from that. I mean the trained faculty of looking at life and everything in it the right way up. It's difficult, of course.' Alix thought it was probably impossible, in an odd, upside-down world. The sun set. The face of Cambridgeshire, the face of the new year, the face of the incoherent world, was dim and inscrutable, a dream lacking interpretation. So many people can provide, according to their several lights, both the dream and the interpretation thereof, but with how little accuracy! 5 The Sandomirs, in their house in Grange Road, saw the new year in. They drank its health, as they did every year. Daphne, though she suddenly could think of nothing but Paul, who would not see the new or any other year, nevertheless drank unflinching to the causes she believed in. 'Here's to the new world we shall make in spite of everything,' she said. 'Here's to construction, sanity, and clear thinking. Here's to goodwill and mutual understanding. Here's to the clearing away of the old messes and the making of the new ones. Here's to Freedom. Here's to Peace.' 'Heaven help you, mother,' Nicholas murmured drowsily into his glass. 'You don't know what you're saying. All your toasts are incompatible, and you don't see it. And what in the name of anything do you mean by Freedom? The old messes I know, and the new ones I can guess at--but what is Freedom? Something, anyhow, which we've never had yet.' 'Something we shall have,' said Daphne. 'You think so? But how improbable! After war, despotism and the strong hand. You don't suppose the firm hand is going to let go, having got us so nicely in its grasp. Rather not. War is the tyrant's opportunity. The Government's beginning to learn what it can do. After all this Defending of the Realm, and cancelling of scraps of paper such as Magna Carta and Habeas Corpus, and ordering the press, and controlling industries and finance and food and drink, and saying, 'Let there be darkness' (and there was darkness)--you don't suppose it's going to slip back into _laissez-faire_, or open the door to mob rule? The realm will go on being defended long after it's weathered this storm, depend on it. And quite right too. Lots of people will prefer it; they'll be too tired to want to take things into their own hands: they'll only want peace and safety and an ordered life. They'll be too damaged and sick and have lost too much to be anything but apathetic. Peace, possibly (though improbably): but Freedom, no. Anyhow, it's what neither we nor any one else have ever had, so we shouldn't recognise it if we saw it.... There are too many pips in this stuff,' he grumbled. 'Much too many.' Daphne finished hers and stood up, as midnight struck, with varying voices and views as to the time, from various church clocks in Cambridge city. 'So,' she said, 'that's the end of _that_ year. No doubt it is as well.... And now I'm going to bed. I've a great deal to do to-morrow.' She went to bed. She had a great deal to do on all the days of the coming year. But the first thing she did (in common with many others this year) was to cry on the stairs, because it was a year which Paul would never see, Paul having been tipped out by the last year in its crazy career and left behind by the wayside. 6 Nicholas and Alix lay languidly, in fraternal silence, in their chairs. They never went to bed or did anything else with Daphne's prompt decision. At a quarter past twelve Alix said, 'I'm thinking of joining this funny society of mother's.' Nicholas opened his small blue eyes at her. 'You are? I didn't know you joined things.' 'Nor did I,' said Alix. 'But I'm beginning to believe I do.... I think I shall very probably join the Church, too, before long.' Nicholas opened his eyes much wider, and sat up straight. 'The _Church_? The Church of England, do you mean?' 'I suppose that would be my branch, as I live in England. Just the Christian Church, I mean.... Do you think mother'll mind much?' Nicholas cogitated over this. 'Probably,' he concluded. 'She doesn't like it, you know. She thinks it stands for darkness.' 'That's so funny,' said Alix, 'when really it seems to me to stand for all the things she stands for--and some more, of course.' 'Exactly,' Nicholas agreed. 'It's the "more" she takes exception to.' 'Oh well,' Alix sighed a little. 'Mother's very large-minded, really. She'll get used to it.' Nicholas was looking at her curiously, but not unsympathetically. 'Why these new and sudden energies?' he inquired presently. 'If you don't mind my asking?' 'It's what I told you once before,' Alix explained, and the memory of that anguished evening attenuated her clear, indifferent voice, making it smaller and fainter. 'As I can't be fighting in the war, I've got to be fighting against it. Otherwise it's like a ghastly nightmare, swallowing one up. This society of mother's mayn't be doing much, but it's _trying_ to fight war; it's working against it in the best ways it can think of. So I shall join it.... Christianity, so far as I can understand it, is working against war too; must be, obviously. So I shall join the Church.... That's all.' 'H'm.' Nicholas looked dubious. 'Not quite all, I fancy. There are things to believe, you know. You'll have to believe them--some of them, anyhow.' 'I suppose so. I dare say it's not so very difficult, is it?' 'Very, I believe. I've never tried personally, but so I am told by those who have.' 'Oh well, I don't care. Lots of quite stupid people seem to manage it, so I don't see why I shouldn't. I shall try, anyhow. I think it's worth it,' said Alix with determination. 'Well,' said Nicholas, after a pause, 'I dare say you're right. Right to try things, I mean. I suppose it's more intelligent.' For a moment the paradox in the faces of both brother and sister was resolved, and idealism wholly dominated cynicism. 'Well,' said Nicholas again, 'here's luck!' He finished his punch. It had, as he had said, too many pips, so that he drank with care and rejections rather than hope. CHAPTER XVII NEW YEARS EVE 1 On this (surely) most unusual planet, nothing is more noticeable than the widely differing methods its inhabitants have of spending the same day. One person's new year's eve, for instance, will be quite different from another. Even within the Orme family, they were different. Margot spent the evening at a canteen concert. She took a prominent part in the programme, having a charming, true and well-trained contralto voice. She sang charming songs with it, some of them a little above the taste of the majority of soldiers, but pleasing to the more musical, others not. It was a long and miscellaneous programme, varying from Schubert and Mendelssohn to 'Stammering Sam' and 'Turn the lining inside out till the boys come home,' so every one was pleased. 2 Dorothy Orme was assisting at a dance at the hospital. (You must do something with soldiers on new year's eve; it is particularly urgent that they should be kept indoors, because of the Scotch.) It was a jolly dance, and both the soldiers and nurses enjoyed it extremely. When twelve struck they joined hands and sang 'Auld Lang Syne,' and every one hopefully wished every one else a Happy new year. (Only two Jocks had got out and kept their Hogmanay elsewhere and quite elsehow--a creditably small proportion out of forty men.) Dorothy got home by two, said it had been a topping evening and she was dead tired, and went to bed. 3 At Wood End, Mr. and Mrs. Orme entertained Belgians. Nine Belgian children, and parents and guardians to correspond. They played games, and danced a little, and fished for presents with a rod and line in a fish-pond in a corner of the dining-room, where Mr. Orme lay curled up, secretive and helpful, so that the right things got on to the right hooks. It was a great success, and ended at ten. Mrs. Orme's head ached, and Mr. Orme's back. They had had a great deal to do; they had had Mademoiselle Verstigel to help them, but none of their children, who were all busy elsewhere, and whom, therefore, they did not grudge. They were generous with their children, as well as with their time, energy and money. 4 Betty Orme, who has hitherto been only remotely referred to in these pages, spent the evening driving three nurses and a doctor from Fruges to Lillers. She was a steady, level-headed child, with a fair placid face looking out from a woollen helmet, and wide blue eyes like Terry's. She acted chauffeur to a field hospital, drove perfectly, repaired her car with speed and efficiency, and was extremely useful. Her nerves, health, and temper were of the best brand; horrors left her unjarred and merely helpful. The nurse at her side, a garrulous person, said, 'Why, it's new year's eve, isn't it? How funny. I've only just remembered that!... I wonder what they're all doing at home, don't you?' But Betty was only wondering whether her petrol was going to last out till Lillers. 'I know I'd a lot rather be out here, wouldn't you?' said the talkative nurse. 'Rather,' said Betty abstractedly. Even through their helmets and motorcoats and thick gloves they felt the wind very cold, and a few flakes of snow began to drift down from a black sky. 'More snow,' said Betty. 'It really _is_ the limit.... I wonder if it'll be finer next year.' 5 John Orme was in a trench, not far from Ypres. It was bitterly cold there; snow drifted and lay on his platoon standing to, their feet in freezing mud. They were standing to at that hour of the night (11.30 P.M.) because they had been warned of a possible enemy attack. They had been badly bombarded earlier in the evening, but that was over. There had been four men hit. The stretcher-bearers hadn't come for them yet; they lay, roughly first-aided, in the mud. John, vigilantly strolling up and down, seeing that no one slept (John was a very careful and efficient young officer), passed a moaning boy with his arm blown off and his tunic a red mess, and said gently, 'Hang on a bit longer, Everitt. They won't be long now.' Everitt merely returned, beneath his breath, 'My God, sir! Oh, my _God_!' He could not hang on at all, by any means whatever. And there were no morphia tablets left in the platoon.... John turned away. Some one said, 'New year'll be in directly, Ginger. How's this for a bright and glad new year?' John remembered, for the first time, that it was December the 31st. It didn't mean anything more to him than the 30th. After all, it must be some day, even in this timeless and condemned trench. He didn't believe in this attack, anyhow. It had been a ration party rumour, and ration parties are full of unfulfilled forecastings. But he wished he had a morphia tablet for that poor chap.... 6 Terry Orme was in his dug-out, which was called Funk Snuggery. It was a very noisy night. The enemy seemed to be having a special new year's eve hate. Whizz-bangs, sugar-loaves, beans, all sorts and conditions and shapes of explosive missiles filled the earth and heavens with unlovely clamour. It was disturbing to Terry, who was reading Moussorgsky. (Terry belonged to that small but characteristic class of persons who read themselves to sleep with music. John preferred Mr. Jorrocks.) Terry dug his fingers into his ears, and perused his score. There was another man in Funk Snuggery. The other man looked at his watch, waited three minutes, and said 'Happy new year.' Terry, stopping his ears, did not respond, till he shouted it louder. Terry looked up. 'What's that?' he inquired. 'Oh, is it? Fancy! Thanks; the same to you.... But I _shan't_ be happy this year unless they let me hear myself think. Beastly, isn't it?... They say after a time it spoils one's ear. Wouldn't that be rotten. Have a stick?' The stick was of chocolate, and they each sucked one in drowsy silence. It was next year, and still they would not let Terry hear himself think. He put away Moussorgsky with a sigh, and curled up to go to sleep. 7 Hugh Montgomery Gordon was in billets, in a village in Artois. He and a friend went out for a stroll in the evening; they visited an _estaminet_, where they found poor wine but a charming girl. They told her it was new year's eve; she told them it was _la veille du jour de l'an_. They taught her to say 'Happy new year' and other things. She and they all spent a very enjoyable evening. 'Absolutely it, isn't she?' said Hugh Montgomery Gordon languidly to his friend as they walked back to their billets. 'Don't know when I've seen anything jollier.' He yawned and went indoors, and spent the rest of the year playing auction. 8 Basil Doye, in camp on the Greek mountains, sat and smoked in a tent assaulted and battered by a searching north-east wind from Bulgaria. He and his platoon had been occupied all day in digging trenches, and spreading wire entanglements which caught and trapped unwary Greek travellers on their own hills. Basil Doye was tired and bored and cold, in body and mind. A second lieutenant who shared the tent was telling him a funny story of a bomb the enemy had dropped on Divisional H.Q. last night, and of the General and staff, pyjama-clad, rushing about seeking shelter and finding none.... But Basil was still bored and cold. 'O Lord!' said the other subaltern presently, 'the year'll soon be done in. It's going out without having given us a scrap with the Bulgars; how sickening!... Why in anything's name couldn't they have sent us out here _earlier_, if at all?' 'Our government,' said Basil, abstracted and unoriginal, 'is slow and sure. Slow to move and sure to be too late. That's why. So here we are, sitting on a cold hill in a draught, with nothing doing, nor likely to be.' To himself he was saying, 'She'd fit on these hills; she'd belong here, more than to Spring Hill. She's a Greek really ... that space between the eyes, and the way she steps ... like Diana.... Oh, strafe it all, what's the good of thinking?' Savagely he flung away his cigarette. A great gust of wind from Bulgaria flung itself upon the tent and blew it down. Then the sleet came, and the new year. 9 West was in church. The lights were dim, because of Zeppelins. The vicar was preaching, on the past and the future, from the texts 'They shall wax old, as doth a garment; as a vesture shalt thou lay them aside, and they shall be changed,' and 'Behold, I make all things new.' The year was going to be changed and made new in nineteen minutes and a half. West (and the vicar too, perhaps), though tired and despondent (the week after Christmas is a desperate time for clergymen, because of treats), were holding on to hope with both hands. A desperate time: a desperate end to a desperate year. But clergymen may not, by their rules, become desperate men. They have to hope: they have to believe that as a vesture they shall be changed, and that the new will be better than the old. If they did not succeed in believing this, they would be of all men the most miserable. West sat in his stall, looking, so the choirboys opposite thought, at them, to see if any among them whispered, or any slept. But he did not see them. He was looking through and beyond them, at the vesture, ragged and soaked with blood, which so indubitably wanted changing. Once his lips moved, and the words they formed were: 'How long, O Lord, how long?' Which might, of course, refer to a number of things: the war, or the vicar's sermon, or the present year, or, indeed, almost anything. The sermon ended, and there was silent prayer till twelve o'clock struck. Then, as is the habit on these occasions, they sang hymn 265 (A. and M.). 10 Violette had a new year's eve party. A quiet party; only the Vinneys to chat and play quiet card games and see the new year in. At half-past eleven they had done with cards, and were conversing. Kate had gone to church at eleven. Vincent and Sidney Vinney were now in khaki; they had, in view of the coming compulsion scheme, joined the army (territorials) and got commissions. Vincent, being married, had applied for home service only. Sidney, as he had just pointed out to Evie, might get sent anywhere at any moment. But Evie, receiving letters from Hugh Montgomery Gordon at the battle front, and, indeed, from many others, was not to be touched by Sid Vinney. Evie was talking to young Mrs. Vinney about the fashions. 'Those new taffeta skirts at Robinson's are ten yards wide, I should think. You wouldn't believe it, the amount there is to them. And quite a yard off the ground. We shall have to think so much about our _feet_ this next year. Feet--well, more than that, too!' Mrs. Vinney said, 'Well, do you know, I don't think it's _right_, at a time like this. Not _ten_ yards. I say nothing against six; because we women must try and carry on, and look smart and so on. It would never do for the men to come home and find us skimpy and dowdy and peculiar, like some of those suffragettes.... What I say is, it'll be lucky for the girls with neat ankles this year....' They said a little more like this, till it was time to mix the punch. Then they drank it, and said 'Here's how,' and 'A very happy new year to all and many _of_ them,' and 'Here's to our next festive gathering,' and 'Here's to the ladies,' and 'Luck to our soldiers,' and other things respectively suitable. Then the Vinneys went home to bed, because Mrs. Vinney did not approve of making nights of it at times like these. Soon after twelve Kate came back from church. Kate said, 'It's turned so cold outside, I shouldn't wonder if we get snow.... Those Primmerose people are spending a terribly loud evening; I heard it all across the common. You'd think people would want to be somewhat quieter on new year's eve, and this year in particular' (with all these sorrows and Zeppelins about, she meant). 'A quiet evening with a few friends is one thing; but it doesn't seem quite fitting to have all that shouting and banjos. And I could smell the drink as I passed, for they had a window open, and it was wafted right out at me.' 'Well now,' said Mrs. Frampton, 'just fancy that!' 11 The year of grace 1915 slipped away into darkness, like a broken ship drifting on bitter tides on to a waste shore. The next year began. THE END 
38575	----	scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print archive. THE PICCADILLY NOVELS. _POPULAR STORIES BY THE BEST AUTHORS._ Many of them Illustrated. Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 3s. 6d. each. By MRS. ALEXANDER. Maid, Wife, or Widow? By WALTER BESANT & JAMES RICE. Ready-Money Mortiboy. My Little Girl. Case of Mr. Lucraft. This Son of Vulcan. With Harp & Crown. The Golden Butterfly. By Celia's Arbour. Monks of Thelema. 'Twas In Trafalgar's Bay. The Seamy Side. Ten Tears' Tenant. Chaplain of the Fleet. By WALTER BESANT. All Sorts and Conditions of Men. The Captains' Room. All In a Garden Fair. By ROBERT BUCHANAN. A Child of Nature. God and the Man. Shadow of the Sword. Love Me for Ever. Martyrdom of Madeline. Annan Water. The New Abelard. By MRS. LOVETT CAMERON. Deceivers Ever. Juliet's Guardian. By MORTIMER COLLINS. Sweet Anne Page. Transmigration. From Midnight to Midnight. By MORTIMER & FRANCES COLLINS. Blacksmith and Scholar. The Village Comedy. You Play Me False. By WILKIE COLLINS. Antonina. Basil. Hide and Seek. The Dead Secret. The Queen of Hearts. My Miscellanies. The Woman in White. The Moonstone. Man and Wife. Poor Miss Finch. Miss or Mrs.? The New Magdalen. The Frozen Deep. The Law and the Lady. The Two Destinies. The Haunted Hotel. The Fallen Leaves. Jezebel's Daughter. The Black Robe. Heart and Science. By DUTTON COOK. Paul Foster's Daughter. By WILLIAM CYPLES. Hearts of Gold. By ALPHONSE DAUDET. Port Salvation. By JAMES DE MILLE. A Castle in Spain. By J. LEITH DERWENT. Our Lady of Tears. Circe's Lovers. By M. BETHAM-EDWARDS. Felicia. Kitty. By MRS. ANNIE EDWARDES. Archie Lovell. By R. E. FRANCILLON. Olympia. Queen Cophetua. A Real Queen. One by One. Prefaced by SIR BARTLE FRERE. Pandurang Hari. By EDWARD GARRETT. The Capel Girls. By CHARLES GIBBON. Robin Gray. For Lack of Gold. In Love and War. What will World say? For the King. In Honour Bound. Queen of the Meadow. In Pastures Green. Flower of the Forest. A Heart's Problem. 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MACDONELL. Quaker Cousins. By KATHARINE S. MACQUOID. Lost Rose. The Evil Eye. By FLORENCE MARRYAT. Open! Sesame! Written in Fire. By JEAN MIDDLEMASS. Touch and Go. By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY. A Life's Atonement. Joseph's Coat. Val Strange. Coals of Fire. A Model Father. Hearts. By the Gate of the Sea. The Way of the World. By MRS. OLIPHANT. Whiteladies. By MARGARET A. PAUL. Gentle and Simple. By JAMES PAYN. Lost Sir Massingberd. The Best of Husbands. Fallen Fortunes. Halves. Walter's Word. What He Cost Her. Less Black than we're Painted. By Proxy. High Spirits. Under One Roof. Carlyon's Year. A Confidential Agent. From Exile. A Grape from a Thorn. For Cash Only. Kit: a Memory. The Canon's Ward. By E. C. PRICE. Valentina. The Foreigners. By MRS. J. H. RIDDELL. Her Mother's Darling. The Prince of Wales's Garden Party. By CHARLES READE. It is Never Too Late to Mend. Hard Cash. Peg Woffington. Christie Johnstone. Griffith Gaunt. The Double Marriage Love Me Little, Love Me Long. Foul Play. Cloister and Hearth. The Course of True Love. The Autobiography of a Thief. Put Yourself in His Place. Terrible Temptation. The Wandering Heir. A Simpleton. A Woman-Hater. Readiana. Singleheart and Doubleface. The Jilt. Good Stories of Men and other Animals. By F. W. ROBINSON. Women are Strange. The Hands of Justice. By JOHN SAUNDERS. Bound to the Wheel. One Against the World. Guy Waterman. The Lion in the Path. The Two Dreamers. By KATHARINE SAUNDERS. Joan Merryweather. Margaret and Elizabeth. Gideon's Rock. The High Mills. By T. W. SPEIGHT. The Mysteries of Heron Dyke. By R. A. STERNDALE. The Afghan Knife. By BERTHA THOMAS. Proud Maisie. The Violin-player. Cressida. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. The Way We Live Now. American Senator. Kept in the Dark. Frau Frohmann. Marion Fay. Mr. Scarborough's Family. The Land-Leaguers. By FRANCES E. TROLLOPE. Mabel's Progress. Anne Furness. Like Ships upon the Sea. By T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. Diamond Cut Diamond. By IVAN TURGENIEFF, and Others. Stories from Foreign Novelists. By C. C. FRASER-TYTLER. Mistress Judith. By SARAH TYTLER. What She Came Through. The Bride's Pass. By J. S. WINTER. Cavalry Life. Regimental Legends. _CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY, W._ STRANGE STORIES STRANGE STORIES BY GRANT ALLEN (_J. Arbuthnot Wilson_) [Illustration] _WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY GEORGE DU MAURIER_ London CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1884 PREFACE. It is with some little trepidation that I venture to submit to the critical world this small collection of short stories. I feel that in doing so I owe some apology both to my readers and to the regular story-tellers. Being by trade a psychologist and scientific journeyman, I have been bold enough at times to stray surreptitiously and tentatively from my proper sphere into the flowery fields of pure fiction. Some of these my divarications from the strict path of sterner science, however, having been already publicly performed under the incognito of "J. Arbuthnot Wilson," have been so far condoned by generous and kindly critics that I am emboldened to present them to the judgment of readers under a more permanent form, and even to dispense with the convenient cloak of a pseudonym, under which one can always so easily cover one's hasty retreat from an untenable position. I can only hope that my confession will be accepted in partial extenuation of this culpable departure from the good old rule, "Ne sutor ultra crepidam;" and that older hands at the craft of story-telling will pardon an amateur novice his defective workmanship on the general plea of his humble demeanour. I may perhaps also venture to plead in self-defence that though these stories do not profess to be anything more than mere short sensational tales, I have yet endeavoured to give to most of them some slight tinge of scientific or psychological import and meaning. "The Reverend John Creedy," for example, is a study from within of a singular persistence of hereditary character, well known to all students of modern anthropological papers and reports. Members of barbarous or savage races, trained for a time in civilized habits, are liable at any moment to revert naturally to their primitive condition, especially under the contagious influence of companionship with persons of their own blood, and close subjection to the ancestral circumstances. The tale which I have based upon several such historical instances in real life endeavours briefly to hint at the modes of feeling likely to accompany such a relapse into barbarism in an essentially fine and sensitive savage nature. To most European readers, no doubt, such a sheer fall from the pinnacle of civilization to the nethermost abysses of savagery, would seem to call for the display of no other emotion than pure disgust and aversion; but those who know intimately the whole gamut of the intensely impressionable African mind will be able to treat its temptations and its tendencies far more sympathetically. In "The Curate of Churnside," again, I have tried to present a psychical analysis of a temperament not uncommon among the cultured class of the Italian Renaissance, and less rare than many people will be inclined to imagine among the colder type of our own emancipated and cultivated classes. The union of high intellectual and æsthetic culture with a total want of moral sensibility is a recognized fact in many periods of history, though our own age is singularly loth to admit of its possibility in its own contemporaries. In "Ram Das of Cawnpore," once more, I have attempted to depict a few circumstances of the Indian Mutiny as they must naturally have presented themselves to the mind and feelings of a humble native actor in that great and terrible drama. Accustomed ourselves to looking always at the massacres and reprisals of the Mutiny from a purely English point of view, we are liable to forget that every act of the mutineers and their aiders or abettors must have been fully justified in their own eyes, at the moment at least, as every act of every human being always is to his own inner personality. In his conscience of conscience, no man ever really believes that under given circumstances he could conceivably have acted otherwise than he actually did. If he persuades himself that he does really so believe, then he shows himself at once to be a very poor introspective psychologist. "The Child of the Phalanstery," to take another case, is a more ideal effort to realize the moral conceptions of a community brought up under a social and ethical environment utterly different from that by which we ourselves are now surrounded. In like manner, almost all the stories (except the lightest among them) have their germ or prime motive in some scientific or quasi-scientific idea; and this narrow link which thus connects them at bottom with my more habitual sphere of work must serve as my excuse to the regular story-tellers for an otherwise unwarrantable intrusion upon their private preserves. I trust they will forgive me on this plea for my trespass on their legitimate domains, and allow me to occupy in peace a little adjacent corner of unclaimed territory, which lies so temptingly close beside my own small original freehold. I should add that "The Reverend John Creedy," "The Curate of Churnside," "Dr. Greatrex's Engagement," and "The Backslider," have already appeared in the _Cornhill Magazine_; while "The Foundering of the _Fortuna_" was first published in _Longman's Magazine_. The remainder of the tales comprised in this volume have seen the light originally in the pages of _Belgravia_. I have to thank the courtesy of the publishers and editors of those periodicals for kind permission to reprint them here. G. A. THE NOOK, DORKING, _October_ 12, 1884. CONTENTS. Page THE REVEREND JOHN CREEDY 1 DR. GREATREX'S ENGAGEMENT 21 MR. CHUNG 47 THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE 66 AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE 100 MY NEW YEAR'S EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES 126 THE FOUNDERING OF THE "FORTUNA" 144 THE BACKSLIDER 164 THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY 191 CARVALHO 207 PAUSODYNE 234 THE EMPRESS OF ANDORRA 255 THE SENIOR PROCTOR'S WOOING 278 THE CHILD OF THE PHALANSTERY 301 OUR SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATIONS ON A GHOST 321 RAM DAS OF CAWNPORE 341 _THE REVEREND JOHN CREEDY._ I. "On Sunday next, the 14th inst., the Reverend John Creedy, B.A., of Magdalen College, Oxford, will preach in Walton Magna Church, on behalf of the Gold Coast Mission." Not a very startling announcement that, and yet, simple as it looks, it stirred Ethel Berry's soul to its inmost depths. For Ethel had been brought up by her Aunt Emily to look upon foreign missions as the one thing on earth worth living for and thinking about, and the Reverend John Creedy, B.A., had a missionary history of his own, strange enough even in these strange days of queer juxtapositions between utter savagery and advanced civilization. "Only think," she said to her aunt, as they read the placard on the schoolhouse-board, "he's a real African negro, the vicar says, taken from a slaver on the Gold Coast when he was a child, and brought to England to be educated. He's been to Oxford and got a degree; and now he's going out again to Africa to convert his own people. And he's coming down to the vicar's to stay on Wednesday." "It's my belief," said old Uncle James, Aunt Emily's brother, the superannuated skipper, "that he'd much better stop in England for ever. I've been a good bit on the Coast myself in my time, after palm oil and such, and my opinion is that a nigger's a nigger anywhere, but he's a sight less of a nigger in England than out yonder in Africa. Take him to England, and you make a gentleman of him: send him home again, and the nigger comes out at once in spite of you." "Oh, James," Aunt Emily put in, "how can you talk such unchristianlike talk, setting yourself up against missions, when we know that all the nations of the earth are made of one blood?" "I've always lived a Christian life myself, Emily," answered Uncle James, "though I have cruised a good bit on the Coast, too, which is against it, certainly; but I take it a nigger's a nigger whatever you do with him. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, the Scripture says, nor the leopard his spots, and a nigger he'll be to the end of his days; you mark my words, Emily." On Wednesday, in due course, the Reverend John Creedy arrived at the vicarage, and much curiosity there was throughout the village of Walton Magna that week to see this curious new thing, a coal-black parson. Next day, Thursday, an almost equally unusual event occurred to Ethel Berry, for, to her great surprise, she got a little note in the morning inviting her up to a tennis party at the vicarage the same afternoon. Now, though the vicar called on Aunt Emily often enough, and accepted her help readily for school feasts and other village festivities of the milder sort, the Berrys were hardly up to that level of society which is commonly invited to the parson's lawn tennis parties. And the reason why Ethel was asked on this particular Thursday must be traced to a certain pious conspiracy between the vicar and the secretary of the Gold Coast Evangelistic Society. When those two eminent missionary advocates had met a fortnight before at Exeter Hall, the secretary had represented to the vicar the desirability of young John Creedy's taking to himself an English wife before his departure. "It will steady him, and keep him right on the Coast," he said, "and it will give him importance in the eyes of the natives as well." Whereto the vicar responded that he knew exactly the right girl to suit the place in his own parish, and that by a providential conjunction she already took a deep interest in foreign missions. So these two good men conspired in all innocence of heart to sell poor Ethel into African slavery; and the vicar had asked John Creedy down to Walton Magna on purpose to meet her. That afternoon Ethel put on her pretty sateen and her witching little white hat, with two natural dog-roses pinned on one side, and went pleased and proud up to the vicarage. The Reverend John Creedy was there, not in full clerical costume, but arrayed in tennis flannels, with only a loose white tie beneath his flap collar to mark his newly acquired spiritual dignity. He was a comely looking negro enough, full-blooded, but not too broad-faced nor painfully African in type; and when he was playing tennis his athletic quick limbs and his really handsome build took away greatly from the general impression of an inferior race. His voice was of the ordinary Oxford type, open, pleasant, and refined, with a certain easy-going air of natural gentility, hardly marred by just the faintest tinge of the thick negro blur in the broad vowels. When he talked to Ethel--and the vicar's wife took good care that they should talk together a great deal--his conversation was of a sort that she seldom heard at Walton Magna. It was full of London and Oxford, of boat-races at Iffley and cricket matches at Lord's; of people and books whose very names Ethel had never heard--one of them was a Mr. Mill, she thought, and another a Mr. Aristotle--but which she felt vaguely to be one step higher in the intellectual scale than her own level. Then his friends, to whom he alluded casually, not like one who airs his grand acquaintances, were such very distinguished people. There was a real live lord, apparently, at the same college with him, and he spoke of a young baronet whose estate lay close by, as plain "Harrington of Christchurch," without any "Sir Arthur"--a thing which even the vicar himself would hardly have ventured to do. She knew that he was learned, too; as a matter of fact he had taken a fair second class in Greats at Oxford; and he could talk delightfully of poetry and novels. To say the truth, John Creedy, in spite of his black face, dazzled poor Ethel, for he was more of a scholar and a gentleman than anybody with whom she had ever before had the chance of conversing on equal terms. When Ethel turned the course of talk to Africa, the young parson was equally eloquent and fascinating. He didn't care about leaving England for many reasons, but he would be glad to do something for his poor brethren. He was enthusiastic about missions; that was a common interest; and he was so anxious to raise and improve the condition of his fellow-negroes that Ethel couldn't help feeling what a noble thing it was of him thus to sacrifice himself, cultivated gentleman as he was, in an African jungle, for his heathen countrymen. Altogether, she went home from the tennis-court that afternoon thoroughly overcome by John Creedy's personality. She didn't for a moment think of falling in love with him--a certain indescribable race-instinct set up an impassable barrier against that--but she admired him and was interested in him in a way that she had never yet felt with any other man. As for John Creedy, he was naturally charmed with Ethel. In the first place, he would have been charmed with any English girl who took so much interest in himself and his plans, for, like all negroes, he was frankly egotistical, and delighted to find a white lady who seemed to treat him as a superior being. But in the second place, Ethel was really a charming, simple English village lassie, with sweet little manners and a delicious blush, who might have impressed a far less susceptible man than the young negro parson. So, whatever Ethel felt, John Creedy felt himself truly in love. And after all, John Creedy was in all essentials an educated English gentleman, with the same chivalrous feelings towards a pretty and attractive girl that every English gentleman ought to have. On Sunday morning Aunt Emily and Ethel went to the parish church, and the Reverend John Creedy preached the expected sermon. It was almost his first--sounded like a trial trip, Uncle James muttered--but it was undoubtedly what connoisseurs describe as an admirable discourse. John Creedy was free from any tinge of nervousness--negroes never know what that word means--and he spoke fervently, eloquently, and with much power of manner about the necessity for a Gold Coast Mission. Perhaps there was really nothing very original or striking in what he said, but his way of saying it was impressive and vigorous. The negro, like many other lower races, has the faculty of speech largely developed, and John Creedy had been noted as one of the readiest and most fluent talkers at the Oxford Union debates. When he enlarged upon the need for workers, the need for help, the need for succour and sympathy in the great task of evangelization, Aunt Emily and Ethel forgot his black hands, stretched out open-palmed towards the people, and felt only their hearts stirred within them by the eloquence and enthusiasm of that appealing gesture. The end of it all was, that instead of a week John Creedy stopped for two months at Walton Magna, and during all that time he saw a great deal of Ethel. Before the end of the first fortnight he walked out one afternoon along the river-bank with her, and talked earnestly of his expected mission. "Miss Berry," he said, as they sat to rest awhile on the parapet of the little bridge by the weeping willows, "I don't mind going to Africa, but I can't bear going all alone. I am to have a station entirely by myself up the Ancobra river, where I shall see no other Christian face from year's end to year's end. I wish I could have had some one to accompany me." "You will be very lonely," Ethel answered. "I wish indeed you could have some companionship." "Do you really?" John Creedy went on. "It is not good for man to live alone; he wants a helpmate. Oh, Miss Ethel, may I venture to hope that perhaps, if I can try to deserve you, you will be mine?" Ethel started in dismay. Mr. Creedy had been very attentive, very kind, and she had liked to hear him talk and had encouraged his coming, but she was hardly prepared for this. The nameless something in our blood recoiled at it. The proposal stunned her, and she said nothing but "Oh, Mr. Creedy, how can you say such a thing?" John Creedy saw the shadow on her face, the unintentional dilatation of her delicate nostrils, the faint puckering at the corner of her lips, and knew with a negro's quick instinct of face-reading what it all meant. "Oh, Miss Ethel," he said, with a touch of genuine bitterness in his tone, "don't you, too, despise us. I won't ask you for any answer now; I don't want an answer. But I want you to think it over. Do think it over, and consider whether you can ever love me. I won't press the matter on you. I won't insult you by importunity, but I will tell you just this once, and once for all, what I feel. I love you, and I shall always love you, whatever you answer me now. I know it would cost you a wrench to take me, a greater wrench than to take the least and the unworthiest of your own people. But if you can only get over that first wrench, I can promise earnestly and faithfully to love you as well as ever woman yet was loved. Don't say anything now," he went on, as he saw she was going to open her mouth again: "wait and think it over; pray it over; and if you can't see your way straight before you when I ask you this day fortnight "yes or no," answer me "no," and I give you my word of honour as a gentleman I will never speak to you of the matter again. But I shall carry your picture written on my heart to my grave." And Ethel knew that he was speaking from his very soul. When she went home, she took Aunt Emily up into her little bedroom, over the porch where the dog-roses grew, and told her all about it. Aunt Emily cried and sobbed as if her heart would break, but she saw only one answer from the first. "It is a gate opened to you, my darling," she said: "I shall break my heart over it, Ethel, but it is a gate opened." And though she felt that all the light would be gone out of her life if Ethel went, she worked with her might from that moment forth to induce Ethel to marry John Creedy and go to Africa. Poor soul, she acted faithfully up to her lights. As for Uncle James, he looked at the matter very differently. "Her instinct is against it," he said stoutly, "and our instincts wasn't put in our hearts for nothing. They're meant to be a guide and a light to us in these dark questions. No white girl ought to marry a black man, even if he _is_ a parson. It ain't natural: our instinct is again it. A white man may marry a black woman if he likes: I don't say anything again him, though I don't say I'd do it myself, not for any money. But a white woman to marry a black man, why, it makes our blood rise, you know, 'specially if you've happened to have cruised worth speaking of along the Coast." But the vicar and the vicar's wife were charmed with the prospect of success, and spoke seriously to Ethel about it. It was a call, they thought, and Ethel oughtn't to disregard it. They had argued themselves out of those wholesome race instincts that Uncle James so rightly valued, and they were eager to argue Ethel out of them too. What could the poor girl do? Her aunt and the vicar on the one hand, and John Creedy on the other, were too much between them for her native feelings. At the end of the fortnight John Creedy asked her his simple question "yes or no," and half against her will she answered "yes." John Creedy took her hand delicately in his and fervidly kissed the very tips of her fingers; something within him told him he must not kiss her lips. She started at the kiss, but she said nothing. John Creedy noticed the start, and said within himself, "I shall so love and cherish her that I will make her love me in spite of my black skin." For with all the faults of his negro nature, John Creedy was at heart an earnest and affectionate man, after his kind. And Ethel really did, to some extent, love him already. It was such a strange mixture of feeling. From one point of view he was a gentleman by position, a clergyman, a man of learning and of piety; and from this point of view Ethel was not only satisfied, but even proud of him. For the rest, she took him as some good Catholics take the veil, from a sense of the call. And so, before the two months were out, Ethel Berry had married John Creedy, and both started together at once for Southampton, on their way to Axim. Aunt Emily cried, and hoped they might be blessed in their new work, but Uncle James never lost his misgivings about the effect of Africa upon a born African. "Instincts is a great thing," he said, with a shake of his head, as he saw the West Coast mail steam slowly down Southampton Water, "and when he gets among his own people his instincts will surely get the better of him, as safe as my name is James Berry." II. The little mission bungalow at Butabué, a wooden shed neatly thatched with fan palms, had been built and garnished by the native catechist from Axim and his wife before the arrival of the missionaries, so that Ethel found a habitable dwelling ready for her at the end of her long boat journey up the rapid stream of the Ancobra. There the strangely matched pair settled down quietly enough to their work of teaching and catechizing, for the mission had already been started by the native evangelist, and many of the people were fairly ready to hear and accept the new religion. For the first ten or twelve months Ethel's letters home were full of praise and love for dear John. Now that she had come to know him well, she wondered she had ever feared to marry him. No husband was ever so tender, so gentle, so considerate. He nursed her in all her little ailments like a woman; she leaned on him as a wife leans on the strong arm of her husband. And then he was so clever, so wise, so learned. Her only grief was that she feared she was not and would never be good enough for him. Yet it was well for her that they were living so entirely away from all white society at Butabué, for there she had nobody with whom to contrast John but the half-clad savages around them. Judged by the light of that startling contrast, good John Creedy, with his cultivated ways and gentle manners, seemed like an Englishman indeed. John Creedy, for his part, thought no less well of his Ethel. He was tenderly respectful to her; more distant, perhaps, than is usual between husband and wife, even in the first months of marriage, but that was due to his innate delicacy of feeling, which made him half unconsciously recognize the depth of the gulf that still divided them. He cherished her like some saintly thing, too sacred for the common world. Yet Ethel was his helper in all his work, so cheerful under the necessary privations of their life, so ready to put up with bananas and cassava balls, so apt at kneading plantain paste, so willing to learn from the negro women all the mysteries of mixing agadey, cankey, and koko pudding. No tropical heat seemed to put her out of temper; even the horrible country fever itself she bore with such gentle resignation. John Creedy felt in his heart of hearts that he would willingly give up his life for her, and that it would be but a small sacrifice for so sweet a creature. One day, shortly after their arrival at Butabué, John Creedy began talking in English to the catechist about the best way of setting to work to learn the native language. He had left the country when he was nine years old, he said, and had forgotten all about it. The catechist answered him quickly in a Fantee phrase. John Creedy looked amazed and started. "What does he say?" asked Ethel. "He says that I shall soon learn if only I listen; but the curious thing is, Ethie, that I understand him." "It has come back to you, John, that's all. You are so quick at languages, and now you hear it again you remember it." "Perhaps so," said the missionary, slowly, "but I have never recalled a word of it for all these years. I wonder if it will all come back to me." "Of course it will, dear," said Ethel; "you know, things come to you so easily in that way. You almost learned Portuguese while we were coming out from hearing those Benguela people." And so it did come back, sure enough. Before John Creedy had been six weeks at Butabué, he could talk Fantee as fluently as any of the natives around him. After all, he was nine years old when he was taken to England, and it was no great wonder that he should recollect the language he had heard in his childhood till that age. Still, he himself noticed rather uneasily that every phrase and word, down to the very heathen charms and prayers of his infancy, came back to him now with startling vividness and without an effort. Four months after their arrival John saw one day a tall and ugly negro woman, in the scanty native dress, standing near the rude market-place where the Butabué butchers killed and sold their reeking goat-meat. Ethel saw him start again, and with a terrible foreboding in her heart, she could not help asking him why he started. "I can't tell you, Ethie," he said, piteously; "for heaven's sake don't press me. I want to spare you." But Ethel would hear. "Is it your mother, John?" she asked hoarsely. "No, thank heaven, not my mother, Ethie," he answered her, with something like pallor on his dark cheek, "not my mother; but I remember the woman." "A relative?" "Oh, Ethie, don't press me. Yes, my mother's sister. I remember her years ago. Let us say no more about it." And Ethel, looking at that gaunt and squalid savage woman, shuddered in her heart and said no more. Slowly, as time went on, however, Ethel began to notice a strange shade of change coming over John's ideas and remarks about the negroes. At first he had been shocked and distressed at their heathendom and savagery, but the more he saw of it the more he seemed to find it natural enough in their position, and even in a sort of way to sympathize with it or apologize for it. One morning, a month or two later, he spoke to her voluntarily of his father. He had never done so in England. "I can remember," he said, "he was a chief, a great chief. He had many wives, and my mother was one. He was beaten in War by Kola, and I was taken prisoner. But he had a fine palace at Kwantah, and many fan-bearers." Ethel observed with a faint terror that he seemed to speak with pride and complacency of his father's chieftaincy. She shuddered again and wondered. Was the West African instinct getting the upper hand in him over the Christian gentleman? When the dries were over, and the koko-harvest gathered, the negroes held a grand feast. John had preached in the open air to some of the market people in the morning, and in the evening he was sitting in the hut with Ethel, waiting till the catechist and his wife should come in to prayers, for they carried out their accustomed ceremony decorously, even there, every night and morning. Suddenly they heard the din of savage music out of doors, and the noise of a great crowd laughing and shouting down the street. John listened, and listened with deepening attention. "Don't you hear it, Ethie?" he cried. "It's the tom-toms. I know what it means. It's the harvest battle-feast!" "How hideous!" said Ethel, shrinking back. "Don't be afraid, dearest," John said, smiling at her. "It means no harm. It's only the people amusing themselves." And he began to keep time to the tom-toms rapidly with the palms of his hands. The din drew nearer, and John grew more evidently excited at every step. "Don't you hear, Ethie?" he said again. "It's the Salonga. What inspiriting music! It's like a drum and fife band; it's like the bagpipes; it's like a military march. By Jove, it compels one to dance!" And he got up as he spoke, in English clerical dress (for he wore clerical dress even at Butabué), and began capering in a sort of hornpipe round the tiny room. "Oh, John, don't," cried Ethel. "Suppose the catechist were to come in!" But John's blood was up. "Look here," he said excitedly, "it goes like this. Here you hold your matchlock out; here you fire; here you charge with cutlasses; here you hack them down before you; here you hold up your enemy's head in your hands, and here you kick it off among the women. Oh, it's grand!" There was a terrible light in his black eyes as he spoke, and a terrible trembling in his clenched black hands. "John," cried Ethel, in an agony of horror, "it isn't Christian, it isn't human, it isn't worthy of you. I can never, never love you if you do such a thing again." In a moment John's face changed and his hand fell as if she had stabbed him. "Ethie," he said in a low voice, creeping back to her like a whipped spaniel, "Ethie, my darling, my own soul, my beloved; what have I done! Oh, heavens, I will never listen to the accursed thing again. Oh, Ethie, for heaven's sake, for mercy's sake, forgive me!" Ethel laid her hand, trembling, on his head. John sank upon his knees before her, and bowed himself down with his head between his arms, like one staggered and penitent. Ethel lifted him gently, and at that moment the catechist and his wife came in. John stood up firmly, took down his Bible and Prayer-book, and read through evening prayer at once in his usual impressive tone. In one moment he had changed back again from the Fantee savage to the decorous Oxford clergyman. It was only a week later that Ethel, hunting about in the little storeroom, happened to notice a stout wooden box carefully covered up. She opened the lid with some difficulty, for it was fastened down with a native lock, and to her horror she found inside it a surreptitious keg of raw negro rum. She took the keg out, put it conspicuously in the midst of the storeroom, and said nothing. That night she heard John in the jungle behind the yard, and looking out, she saw dimly that he was hacking the keg to pieces vehemently with an axe. After that he was even kinder and tenderer to her than usual for the next week, but Ethel vaguely remembered that once or twice before, he had seemed a little odd in his manner, and that it was on those days that she had seen gleams of the savage nature peeping through. Perhaps, she thought, with a shiver, his civilization was only a veneer, and a glass of raw rum or so was enough to wash it off. Twelve months after their first arrival, Ethel came home very feverish one evening from her girls' school, and found John gone from the hut. Searching about in the room for the quinine bottle, she came once more upon a rum-keg, and this time it was empty. A nameless terror drove her into the little bedroom. There, on the bed, torn into a hundred shreds, lay John Creedy's black coat and European clothing. The room whirled around her, and though she had never heard of such a thing before, the terrible truth flashed across her bewildered mind like a hideous dream. She went out, alone, at night, as she had never done before since she came to Africa, into the broad lane between the huts which constituted the chief street of Butabué. So far away from home, so utterly solitary among all those black faces, so sick at heart with that burning and devouring horror! She reeled and staggered down the street, not knowing how or where she went, till at the end, beneath the two tall date-palms, she saw lights flashing and heard the noise of shouts and laughter. A group of natives, men and women together, were dancing and howling round a dancing and howling negro. The central figure was dressed in the native fashion, with arms and legs bare, and he was shouting a loud song at the top of his voice in the Fantee language, while he shook a tom-tom. There was a huskiness as of drink in his throat, and his steps were unsteady and doubtful. Great heavens! could that reeling, shrieking black savage be John Creedy? Yes, instinct had gained the day over civilization; the savage in John Creedy had broken out; he had torn up his English clothes and, in West African parlance, "had gone Fantee." Ethel gazed at him, white with horror--stood still and gazed, and never cried nor fainted, nor said a word. The crowd of negroes divided to right and left, and John Creedy saw his wife standing there like a marble figure. With one awful cry he came to himself again, and rushed to her side. She did not repel him, as he expected; she did not speak; she was mute and cold like a corpse, not like a living woman. He took her up in his strong arms, laid her head on his shoulder, and carried her home through the long line of thatched huts, erect and steady as when he first walked up the aisle of Walton Magna church. Then he laid her down gently on the bed, and called the wife of the catechist. "She has the fever," he said in Fantee. "Sit by her." The catechist's wife looked at her, and said, "Yes; the yellow fever." And so she had. Even before she saw John the fever had been upon her, and that awful revelation had brought it out suddenly in full force. She lay unconscious upon the bed, her eyes open, staring ghastlily, but not a trace of colour in her cheek nor a sign of life upon her face. John Creedy wrote a few words on a piece of paper, which he folded in his hand, gave a few directions in Fantee to the woman at the bedside, and then hurried out like one on fire into the darkness outside. III. It was thirty miles through the jungle, by a native trackway, to the nearest mission station at Effuenta. There were two Methodist missionaries stationed there, John Creedy knew, for he had gone round by boat more than once to see them. When he first came to Africa he could no more have found his way across the neck of the river fork by that tangled jungle track than he could have flown bodily over the top of the cocoa palms; but now, half naked, barefooted, and inspired with an overpowering emotion, he threaded his path through the darkness among the creepers and lianas of the forest in true African fashion. Stooping here, creeping on all fours there, running in the open at full speed anon, he never once stopped to draw breath till he had covered the whole thirty miles, and knocked in the early dawn at the door of the mission hut at Effuenta. One of the missionaries opened the barred door cautiously. "What do you want?" he asked in Fantee of the bare-legged savage, who stood crouching by the threshold. "I bring a message from Missionary John Creedy," the bare-legged savage answered, also in Fantee. "He wants European clothes." "Has he sent a letter?" asked the missionary. John Creedy took the folded piece of paper from his palm. The missionary read it. It told him in a few words how the Butabué people had pillaged John's hut at night and stolen his clothing, and how he could not go outside his door till he got some European dress again. "This is strange," said the missionary. "Brother Felton died three days ago of the fever. You can take his clothes to Brother Creedy, if you will." The bare-limbed savage nodded acquiescence. The missionary looked hard at him, and fancied he had seen his face before, but he never even for a moment suspected that he was speaking to John Creedy himself. A bundle was soon made of dead Brother Felton's clothes, and the bare-limbed man took it in his arms and prepared to run back again the whole way to Butabué. "You have had nothing to eat," said the lonely missionary. "Won't you take something to help you on your way?" "Give me some plantain paste," answered John Creedy. "I can eat it as I go." And when they gave it him he forgot himself for the moment, and answered, "Thank you" in English. The missionary stared, but thought it was only a single phrase that he had picked up at Butabué, and that he was anxious, negro-fashion, to air his knowledge. Back through the jungle, with the bundle in his arms, John Creedy wormed his way once more, like a snake or a tiger, never pausing or halting on the road till he found himself again in the open space outside the village of Butabué. There he stayed awhile, and behind a clump of wild ginger, he opened the bundle and arrayed himself once more from head to foot in English clerical dress. That done, too proud to slink, he walked bold and erect down the main alley, and quietly entered his own hut. It was high noon, the baking high noon of Africa, as he did so. Ethel lay unconscious still upon the bed. The negro woman crouched, half asleep after her night's watching, at the foot. John Creedy looked at his watch, which stood hard by on the little wooden table. "Sixty miles in fourteen hours," he said aloud. "Better time by a great deal than when we walked from Oxford to the White Horse, eighteen months since." And then he sat down silently by Ethel's bedside. "Has she moved her eyes?" he asked the negress. "Never, John Creedy," answered the woman. Till last night she had always called him "Master." He watched the lifeless face for an hour or two. There was no change in it till about four o'clock; then Ethel's eyes began to alter their expression. He saw the dilated pupils contract a little, and knew that consciousness was gradually returning. In a moment more she looked round at him and gave a little cry. "John," she exclaimed, with a sort of awakening hopefulness in her voice, "where on earth did you get those clothes?" "These clothes?" he answered softly. "Why, you must be wandering in your mind, Ethie dearest, to ask such a question now. At Standen's, in the High at Oxford, my darling." And he passed his black hand gently across her loose hair. Ethel gave a great cry of joy. "Then it was a dream, a horrid dream, John, or a terrible mistake? Oh, John, say it was a dream!" John drew his hand across his forehead slowly. "Ethie darling," he said, "you are wandering, I'm afraid. You have a bad fever. I don't know what you mean." "Then you didn't tear them up, and wear a Fantee dress, and dance with a tom-tom down the street? Oh, John!" "Oh, Ethel! No. What a terrible delirium you must have had!" "It is all well," she said. "I don't mind if I die now." And she sank back exhausted into a sort of feverish sleep. "John Creedy," said the black catechist's wife solemnly, in Fantee, "you will have to answer for that lie to a dying woman with your soul!" "_My_ soul!" cried John Creedy passionately, smiting both breasts with his clenched fists. "_My_ soul! Do you think, you negro wench, I wouldn't give my poor, miserable, black soul to eternal torments a thousand times over, if only I could give her little white heart one moment's forgetfulness before she dies?" For five days longer Ethel lingered in the burning fever, sometimes conscious for a minute or two, but for the most part delirious or drowsy all the time. She never said another word to John about her terrible dream, and John never said another word to her. But he sat by her side and tended her like a woman, doing everything that was possible for her in the bare little hut, and devouring his full heart with a horrible gnawing remorse too deep for pen or tongue to probe and fathom. For civilization with John Creedy was really at bottom far more than a mere veneer; though the savage instincts might break out with him now and again, such outbursts no more affected his adult and acquired nature than a single bump supper or wine party at college affects the nature of many a gentle-minded English lad. The truest John Creedy of all was the gentle, tender, English clergyman. As he sat by her bedside sleepless and agonized, night and day for five days together, one prayer only rose to his lips time after time: "Heaven grant she may die!" He had depth enough in the civilized side of his soul to feel that that was the only way to save her from a lifelong shame. "If she gets well," he said to himself, trembling, "I will leave this accursed Africa at once. I will work my way back to England as a common sailor, and send her home by the mail with my remaining money. I will never inflict my presence upon her again, for she cannot be persuaded, if once she recovers, that she did not see me, as she did see me, a bare-limbed heathen Fantee brandishing a devilish tom-tom. But I shall get work in England--not a parson's; that I can never be again--but clerk's work, labourer's work, navvy's work, anything! Look at my arms: I rowed five in the Magdalen eight: I could hold a spade as well as any man. I will toil, and slave, and save, and keep her still like a lady, if I starve for it myself, but she shall never see my face again, if once she recovers. Even then it will be a living death for her, poor angel! There is only one hope--Heaven grant she may die!" On the fifth day she opened her eyes once. John saw that his prayer was about to be fulfilled. "John," she said feebly--"John, tell me, on your honour, it was only my delirium." And John, raising his hand to heaven, _splendide mendax_, answered in a firm voice, "I swear it." Ethel smiled and shut her eyes. It was for the last time. Next morning, John Creedy--tearless, but parched and dry in the mouth, like one stunned and unmanned--took a pickaxe and hewed out a rude grave in the loose soil near the river. Then he fashioned a rough coffin from twisted canes with his own hands, and in it he reverently placed the sacred body. He allowed no one to help him or come near him--not even his fellow-Christians, the catechist and his wife: Ethel was too holy a thing for their African hands to touch. Next he put on his white surplice, and for the first and only time in his life he read, without a quaver in his voice, the Church of England burial service over the open grave. And when he had finished he went back to his desolate hut, and cried with a loud voice of utter despair, "The one thing that bound me to civilization is gone. Henceforth I shall never speak another word of English. I go to my own people." So saying, he solemnly tore up his European clothes once more, bound a cotton loin-cloth round his waist, covered his head with dirt, and sat fasting and wailing piteously, like a broken-hearted child, in his cabin. * * * * * Nowadays, the old half-caste Portuguese rum-dealer at Butabué can point out to any English pioneer who comes up the river which one, among a crowd of dilapidated negroes who lie basking in the soft dust outside his hut, was once the Reverend John Creedy, B.A., of Magdalen College, Oxford. _DR. GREATREX'S ENGAGEMENT._ Everybody knows by name at least the celebrated Dr. Greatrex, the discoverer of that abstruse molecular theory of the interrelations of forces and energies. He is a comparatively young man still, as times go, for a person of such scientific distinction, for he is now barely forty; but to look at his tall, spare, earnest figure, and his clear-cut, delicate, intellectual face, you would scarcely imagine that he had once been the hero of a singularly strange and romantic story. Yet there have been few lives more romantic than Arthur Greatrex's, and few histories stranger in their way than this of his engagement. After all, why should not a scientific light have a romance of his own as well as other people? Fifteen years ago Arthur Greatrex, then a young Cambridge fellow, had just come up to begin his medical studies at a London hospital. He was tall in those days, of course, but not nearly so slender or so pale as now; for he had rowed seven in his college boat, and was a fine, athletic young man of the true English university pattern. Handsome, too, then and always, but with a more human-looking and ordinary handsomeness when he was young than in these latter times of his scientific eminence. Indeed, any one who met Arthur Greatrex at that time would merely have noticed him as a fine, intelligent young English gentleman, with a marked taste for manly sports, and a decided opinion of his own about most passing matters of public interest. Already, even in those days, the young medical student was very deeply engaged in recondite speculations on the question of energy. His active mind, always dwelling upon wide points of cosmical significance, had hit upon the germ of that great revolutionary idea which was afterwards to change the whole course of modern physics. But, as often happens with young men of twenty-five, there was another subject which divided his attention with the grand theory of his life: and that subject was the pretty daughter of his friend and instructor, Dr. Abury, the eminent authority on the treatment of the insane. In all London you couldn't have found a sweeter or prettier girl than Hetty Abury. Young Greatrex thought her clever, too; and, though that is perhaps saying rather too much, she was certainly a good deal above the average of ordinary London girls in intellect and accomplishments. "They say, Arthur," she said to him on the day after their formal engagement, "that the course of true love never did run smooth; and yet it seems somehow as if ours was wonderfully smoothed over for us by everybody and everything. I am the happiest and proudest girl in all the world to have won the love of such a man as you for my future husband." Arthur Greatrex stroked the back of her white little hand with his, and answered gently, "I hope nothing will ever arise to make the course of our love run any the rougher; for certainly we do seem to have every happiness laid out most temptingly before us. It almost feels to me as if my paradise had been too easily won, and I ought to have something harder to do before I enter it." "Don't say that, Arthur," Hetty put in hastily. "It sounds too much like an evil omen." "You superstitious little woman!" the young doctor replied with a smile. "Talking to a scientific man about signs and portents!" And he kissed her wee hand tenderly, and went home to his bachelor lodging with that strange exhilaration in heart and step which only the ecstasy of first love can ever bring one. "No," he thought to himself, as he sat down in his own easy-chair, and lighted his cigar; "I don't believe any cloud can ever arise between me and Hetty. We have everything in our favour--means to live upon, love for one another, a mutual respect, kind relations, and hearts that were meant by nature each for the other. Hetty is certainly the very sweetest little girl that ever lived; and she's as good as she's sweet, and as loving as she's beautiful. What a dreadful thing it is for a man in love to have to read up medicine for his next examination!" and he took a medical book down from the shelf with a sigh, and pretended to be deeply interested in the diagnosis of scarlet fever till his cigar was finished. But, if the truth must be told, the words really swam before him, and all the letters on the page apparently conspired together to make up but a single name a thousand times over--Hetty, Hetty, Hetty, Hetty. At last he laid the volume down as hopeless, and turned dreamily into his bedroom, only to lie awake half the night and think perpetually on that one theme of Hetty. Next day was Dr. Abury's weekly lecture on diseases of the brain and nervous system; and Arthur Greatrex, convinced that he really must make an effort, went to hear it. The subject was one that always interested him; and partly by dint of mental attention, partly out of sheer desire to master the matter, he managed to hear it through, and even take in the greater part of its import. As he left the room to go down the hospital stairs, he had his mind fairly distracted between the premonitory symptoms of insanity and Hetty Abury. "Was there ever such an unfortunate profession as medicine for a man in love?" he asked himself, half angrily. "Why didn't I go and be a parson or a barrister, or anything else that would have kept me from mixing up such incongruous associations? And yet, when one comes to think of it, too, there's no particular natural connection after all between 'Chitty on Contract' and dearest Hetty." Musing thus, he turned to walk down the great central staircase of the hospital. As he did so, his attention was attracted for a moment by a singular person who was descending the opposite stair towards the same landing. This person was tall and not ill-looking; but, as he came down the steps, he kept pursing up his mouth and cheeks into the most extraordinary and hideous grimaces; in fact, he was obviously making insulting faces at Arthur Greatrex. Arthur was so much preoccupied at the moment, however, that he hardly had time to notice the eccentric stranger; and, as he took him for one of the harmless lunatic patients in the mental-diseases ward, he would have passed on without further observing the man but for an odd circumstance which occurred as they both reached the great central landing together. Arthur happened to drop the book he was carrying from under his arm, and instinctively stooped to pick it up. At the same moment the grimacing stranger dropped his own book also, not in imitation, but by obvious coincidence, and stooped to pick it up with the self-same gesture. Struck by the oddity of the situation, Arthur turned to look at the curious patient. To his utter horror and surprise, he discovered that the man he had been observing was his own reflection. In one second the real state of the case flashed like lightning across his bewildered brain. There was no opposite staircase, as he knew very well, for he had been down those steps a hundred times before: nothing but a big mirror, which reflected and doubled the one-sided flight from top to bottom. It was only his momentary preoccupation which had made him for a minute fall into the obvious delusion. The man whom he saw descending towards him was really himself, Arthur Greatrex. Even so, he did not at once grasp the full strangeness of the scene he had just witnessed. It was only as he turned to descend again that he caught another glimpse of himself in the big mirror, and saw that he was still making the most horrible and ghastliest grimaces--grimaces such as he had never seen equalled save by the monkeys at the Zoo, and (horridest thought of all!) by the worst patients in the mental-disease ward. He pulled himself up in speechless horror, and looked once more into the big mirror. Yes, there was positively no mistaking the fact: it was he, Arthur Greatrex, fellow of Catherine's, who was making these hideous and meaningless distortions of his own countenance. With a terrible effort of will he pulled his face quite straight again, and assumed his usual grave and quiet demeanour. For a full minute he stood looking at himself in the glass; and then, fearful that some one else would come and surprise him, he hurried down the remaining steps, and rushed out into the streets of London. Which way he turned he did not know or care; all he knew was that he was repressing by sheer force of muscular strain a deadly impulse to pucker up his mouth and draw down the corners of his lips into one-sided grimaces. As he passed down the streets, he watched his own image faintly reflected in the panes of the windows, and saw that he was maintaining outward decorum, but only with a conscious and evident struggle. At one doorstep a little child was playing with a kitten; Arthur Greatrex, who was a naturally kindly man, looked down at her and smiled, in spite of his preoccupation: instead of smiling back, the child uttered a scream of terror, and rushed back into the house to hide her face in her mother's apron. He felt instinctively that, in place of smiling, he had looked at the child with one of his awful faces. It was horrible, unendurable, and he walked on through the streets and across the bridges, pulling himself together all the time, till at last, half-unconsciously, he found himself near Pimlico, where the Aburys were then living. Looking around him, he saw that he had come nearly to the corner where Hetty's little drawing-room faced the road. The accustomed place seemed to draw him off for a moment from thinking of himself, and he remembered that he had promised Hetty to come in for luncheon. But dare he go in such a state of mind and body as he then found himself in? Well, Hetty would be expecting him; Hetty would be disappointed if he didn't come; he certainly mustn't break his engagement with dear little Hetty. After all, he began to say to himself, what was it but a mere twitching of his face, probably a slight nervous affection? Young doctors are always nervous about themselves, they say; they find all their own symptoms accurately described in all the text-books. His face wasn't twitching now, of that he was certain; the nearer he got to Hetty's, the calmer he grew, and the more he was conscious he could relax his attention without finding his muscles were playing tricks upon him. He would turn in and have luncheon, and soon forgot all about it. Hetty saw him coming, and ran lightly to open the door for him, and as he took his seat beside her at the table, he forgot straightway his whole trouble, and found himself at once in Paradise once more. All through lunch they talked about other things--happy plans for the future, and the small prettinesses that lovers find so perennially delightful; and long before Arthur went away the twitching in his face had altogether ceased to trouble him. Once or twice, indeed, in the course of the afternoon he happened to glance casually at the looking-glass above the drawing-room fireplace (those were the pre-Morrisian days when overmantels as yet were not), and he saw to his great comfort that his face was resting in its usual handsome repose and peacefulness. A bright, earnest, strong face it was, with all the promise of greatness already in it; and so Hetty thought as she looked up at it from the low footstool where she sat by his side, and half whispered into his ear the little timid confidences of early betrothal. Five o'clock tea came all too soon, and then Arthur felt he must really be going and must get home to do a little reading. On his way, he fancied once he saw a street boy start in evident surprise as he approached him, but it might be fancy; and when the street boy stuck his tongue into the corner of his cheek and uttered derisive shouts from a safe distance, Arthur concluded he was only doing after the manner of his kind out of pure gratuitous insolence. He went home to his lodgings and sat down to an hour's work; but after he had read up several pages more of "Stuckey on Gout," he laid down the book in disgust, and took out Helmholtz and Joule instead, indulging himself with a little desultory reading in his favourite study of the higher physics. As he read and read the theory of correlation, the great idea as to the real nature of energy, which had escaped all these learned physicists, and which was then slowly forming itself in his own mind, grew gradually clearer and clearer still before his mental vision. Helmholtz was wrong here, because he had not thoroughly appreciated the disjunctive nature of electric energy; Joule was wrong here, because he had failed to understand the real antithesis between potential and kinetic. He laid down the books, paced up and down the room thoughtfully, and beheld the whole concrete theory of interrelation embodying itself visibly before his very eyes. At last he grew fired with the stupendous grandeur of his own conception, seized a quire of foolscap, and sat down eagerly at the table to give written form to the splendid phantom that was floating before him in so distinct a fashion. He would make a great name, for Hetty's sake; and, when he had made it, his dearest reward would be to know that Hetty was proud of him. Hour after hour he sat and wrote, as if inspired, at his little table. The landlady knocked at the door to tell him dinner was ready, but he would have none of it, he said; let her bring him up a good cup of strong tea and a few plain biscuits. So he wrote and wrote in feverish haste, drinking cup after cup of tea, and turning off page after page of foolscap, till long past midnight. The whole theory had come up so distinctly before his mind's eye, under the exceptional exaltation of first love, and the powerful stimulus of the day's excitement, that he wrote it off as though he had it by heart; omitting only the mathematical calculations, which he left blank, not because he had not got them clearly in his head, but because he would not stop his flying pen to copy them all out then and there at full length, for fear of losing the main thread of his argument. When he had finished, about forty sheets of foolscap lay huddled together on the table before him, written in a hasty hand, and scarcely legible; but they contained the first rough draft and central principle of that immortal work, the "Transcendental Dynamics." Arthur Greatrex rose from the table, where his grand discovery was first formulated, well satisfied with himself and his theory, and fully determined to submit it shortly to the critical judgment of the Royal Society. As he took up his bedroom candle, however, he went over to the mantelpiece to kiss Hetty's photograph, as he always did (for even men of science are human) every evening before retiring. He lifted the portrait reverently to his lips, and was just about to kiss it, when suddenly in the mirror before him he saw the same horrible mocking face which had greeted him so unexpectedly that morning on the hospital staircase. It was a face of inhuman devilry; the face of a mediæval demon, a hideous, grinning, distorted ghoul, a very caricature and insult upon the features of humanity. In his dismay he dropped the frame and the photograph, shivering the glass that covered it into a thousand atoms. Summoning up all his resolution, he looked again. Yes, there was no mistaking it: a face was gibing and jeering at him from the mirror with diabolical ingenuity of distorted hideousness; a disgusting face which even the direct evidence of his senses would scarcely permit him to believe was really the reflection of his own features. It was overpowering, it was awful, it was wholly incredible; and, utterly unmanned by the sight, he sank back into his easy-chair and buried his face bitterly between the shelter of his trembling hands. At that moment Arthur Greatrex felt sure he knew the real meaning of the horror that surrounded him. He was going mad. For ten minutes or more he sat there motionless, hot tears boiling up from his eyes and falling silently between his fingers. Then at last he rose nervously from his seat, and reached down a volume from the shelf behind him. It was Prang's "Treatise on the Physiology of the Brain." He turned it over hurriedly for a few pages, till he came to the passage he was looking for. "Ah, I thought so," he said to himself, half aloud: "'Premonitory symptoms: facial distortions; infirmity of the will; inability to distinguish muscular movements.' Let's see what Prang has to say about it. 'A not uncommon concomitant of these early stages'--Great heavens, how calmly the man talks about losing your reason!-'is an unconscious or semi-conscious tendency to produce a series of extraordinary facial distortions. At times, the sufferer is not aware of the movements thus initiated; at other times they are quite voluntary, and are accompanied by bodily gestures of contempt or derision for passing strangers.' Why, that's what must have happened with that boy this morning! 'Symptoms of this character usually result from excessive activity of the brain, and are most frequent among mathematicians or scholars who have overworked their intellectual faculties. They may be regarded as the immediate precursors of acute dementia.' Acute dementia! Oh, Hetty! Oh, heavens! What have I done to deserve such a blow as this?" He laid his face between his hands once more, and sobbed like a broken-hearted child for a few minutes. Then he turned accidentally towards his tumbled manuscript. "No, no," he said to himself, reassuringly; "I can't be going mad. My brain was never clearer in my life. I couldn't have done a piece of good work like that, bristling with equations and figures and formulas, if my head was really giving way. I seemed to grasp the subject as I never grasped it in my life before. I never worked so well at Cambridge; this is a discovery, a genuine discovery. It's impossible that a man who was going mad could ever see anything so visibly and distinctly as I see that universal principle. Let's look again at what Prang has to say upon that subject." He turned over the volume a few pages further, and glanced lightly at the contents at the head of each chapter, till at last a few words in the title struck his eye, and he hurried on to the paragraph they indicated, with feverish eagerness. As he did so, these were the words which met his bewildered gaze. "In certain cases, especially among men of unusual intelligence and high attainments, the exaltation of incipient madness takes rather the guise of a scientific or philosophic enthusiasm. Instead of imagining himself the possessor of untold wealth, or the absolute despot of a servile people, the patient deludes himself with the belief that he has made a great discovery or lighted upon a splendid generalization of the deepest and most universal importance. He sees new truths crowding upon him with the most startling and vivid objectivity. He perceives intimate relations of things which he never before suspected. He destroys at one blow the Newtonian theory of gravitation; he discovers obvious flaws in the nebular hypothesis of Laplace; he gives a scholar's-mate to Kant in the very fundamental points of the 'Critique of Pure Reason.' The more serious the attack, the more utterly convinced is the patient of the exceptional clearness of his own intelligence at that particular moment. He writes pamphlets whose scientific value he ridiculously over-estimates; and he is sure to be very angry with any one who tries rationally to combat his newly found authority. Mathematical reasoners are specially liable to this form of incipient mental disease, which, when combined with the facial distortions already alluded to in a previous section, is peculiarly apt to terminate in acute dementia." "Acute dementia again!" Arthur Greatrex cried with a gesture of horror, flinging the book from him as if it were a poisonous serpent. "Acute dementia, acute dementia, acute dementia; nothing but acute dementia ahead of me, whichever way I happen to turn. Oh, this is too horrible! I shall never be able to marry Hetty! And yet I shall never be able to break it to Hetty! Great heavens, that such a phantom as this should have risen between me and paradise only since this very morning!" In his agony he caught up the papers on which he had written the rough draft of his grand discovery, and crumpled them up fiercely in his fingers. "The cursed things!" he groaned between his teeth, tossing them with a gesture of impatient disgust into the waste-paper basket; "how could I ever have deluded myself into thinking I had hit off-hand upon a grand truth which had escaped such men as Helmholtz, and Mayer, and Joule, and Thomson! The thing's preposterous upon the very face of it; I must be going mad, indeed, ever to have dreamt of it!" He took up his candle once more, kissed the portrait in the broken frame with intense fervour a dozen times over, and then went up gloomily into his own bedroom. There he did not attempt to undress, but merely pulled off his boots, lay down in his clothes upon the bed, and hastily blew out the candle. For a long time he lay tossing and turning in unspeakable terror; but at last, after perhaps two hours or so, he fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed a hideous nightmare, in which somebody or other in shadowy outlines was trying perpetually to tear him away by main force from poor pale and weeping Hetty. It was daylight when Arthur woke again, and he lay for some time upon his bed, thinking over his last night's scare, which seemed much less serious, as such things always do, now that the sun had risen upon it. After a while his mind got round to the energy question; and, as he thought it over once more, the conviction forced itself afresh upon him that he was right upon the matter after all, and that if he was going mad there was at least method in his madness. So firmly was he convinced upon this point now (though he recognized that that very certainty might be merely a symptom of his coming malady) that he got up hurriedly, before the lodging-house servant came to clean up his little sitting-room, so as to rescue his crumpled foolscap from the waste-paper basket. After that, a bath and breakfast almost made him laugh at his evening terrors. All the morning Arthur Greatrex sat down at his table again, working in the algebraical calculations which he had omitted from his paper overnight, and finishing it in full form as if for presentation to a learned society. But he did not mean now to offer it to any society: he had a far deeper and more personal interest in the matter at present than that. He wanted to settle first of all the question whether he was going mad or not. Afterwards, there would be plenty of time to settle such minor theoretical problems as the general physical constitution of the universe. As soon as he had finished his calculations he took the paper in his hands, and went out with it to make two calls on scientific acquaintances. The first man he called upon was that distinguished specialist, Professor Linklight, one of the greatest authorities of his own day on all questions of molecular physics. Poor man! he is almost forgotten now, for he died ten years ago; and his scientific reputation was, after all, of that flashy sort which bases itself chiefly upon giving good dinners to leading fellows of the Royal Society. But fifteen years ago Professor Linklight, with his cut-and-dried dogmatic notions, and his narrow technical accuracy, was universally considered the principal physical philosopher in all England. To him, then, Arthur Greatrex--a far deeper and clearer thinker--took in all humility the first manuscript of his marvellous discovery; not to ask him whether it was true or not, but to find out whether it was physical science at all or pure insanity. The professor received him kindly; and when Arthur, who had of course his own reasons for attempting a little modest concealment, asked him to look over a friend's paper for him, with a view to its presentation to the Royal Society, he cheerfully promised to do his best. "Though you will admit, my dear Mr. Greatrex," he said with his blandest smile, "that your friend's manuscript certainly does not err on the side of excessive brevity." From Linklight's, Arthur walked on tremulously to the house of another great scientific magnate, Dr. Warminster, of being the first living authority on the treatment of the insane in the United Kingdom. Before Dr. Warminster, Arthur made no attempt to conceal his apprehensions. He told out all his symptoms and fears without reserve, even exaggerating them a little, as a man is prone to do through over-anxiety not to put too favourable a face upon his own ailments. Dr. Warminster listened attentively and with a gathering interest to all that Arthur told him, and at the end of his account he shook his head gloomily, and answered in a very grave and sympathetic tone. "My dear Greatrex," he said gently, holding his arm with a kindly pressure, "I should be dealing wrongly with you if I did not candidly tell you that your case gives ground for very serious apprehensions. You are a young man, and with steady attention to curative means and surroundings, it is possible that you may ward off this threatened danger. Society, amusement, relaxation, complete cessation of scientific work, absence, as far as possible, of mental anxiety in any form, may enable you to tide over the turning point. But that there is danger threatened, it would be unkind and untrue not to warn you. It is very unusual for a patient to consult us in person about these matters. More often it is the friends who notice the coming change; but, as you ask me directly for an opinion, I can't help telling you that I regard your case as not without real cause for the strictest care and for a preventive regimen." Arthur thanked him for the numerous directions he gave as to things which should be done or things which should be avoided, and hurried out into the street with his brain swimming and reeling. "Absence of mental anxiety!" he said to himself bitterly. "How calmly they talk about mental anxiety! How can I possibly be free from anxiety when I know I may go mad at any moment, and that the blow would kill Hetty outright? For myself, I should not care a farthing; but for Hetty! It is too terrible." He had not the heart to call at the Aburys' that afternoon, though he had promised to do so; and he tortured himself with the thought that Hetty would think him neglectful. He could not call again while the present suspense lasted; and if his worst fears were confirmed he could never call again, except once, to take leave of Hetty for ever. For, deeply as Arthur Greatrex loved her, he loved her too well ever to dream of marrying her if the possible shadow of madness was to cloud her future life with its perpetual presence. Better she should bear the shock, even if it killed her at once, than that both should live in ceaseless apprehension of that horrible possibility, and should become the parents of children upon whom that hereditary curse might rest for a lifetime, reflecting itself back with the added sting of conscientious remorse on the father who had brought them into the world against his own clear judgment of right and justice. Next morning Arthur went round once more to Professor Linklight's. The professor had promised to read through the paper immediately, and give his opinion of its chances for presentation to the Royal Society. He was sitting at his breakfast-table, in his flowered dressing-gown and slippers, when Arthur called upon him, and, with a cup of coffee in one hand, was actually skimming the last few pages through his critical eyeglass as his visitor entered. "Good-morning, Mr. Greatrex!" he said, with one of his most gracious smiles, indicative of the warm welcome attended by acknowledged wisdom towards rising talent. "You see I have been reading your friend's paper, as I promised. Well, my dear sir, not to put too fine a point upon it, it won't hold water. In fact, it's a mere rigmarole. Excuse my asking you, Greatrex, but have you any idea, my dear fellow, whether your friend is inclined to be a little cracky?" Arthur swallowed a groan with the greatest difficulty, and answered in as unconcerned a tone as possible, "Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. Linklight, some doubts _have_ been cast upon his perfect sanity." "Ah, I should have thought so," the professor went on in his airiest manner; "I should have thought so. The fact is, this paper is fitter for the _Transactions_ of the Colney Hatch Academy than for those of the Royal Society. It has a delusive outer appearance of physical thinking, but there's no real meaning in it of any sort. It's gassy, unsubstantial, purely imaginative." And the professor waved his hand in the air to indicate its utter gaseousness. "If you were to ask my own opinion about it, I should say it's the sort of thing that might be produced by a young man of some mathematical training with a very superficial knowledge of modern physics, just as he was on the point of lapsing into complete insanity. It's the maddest bit of writing that has ever yet fallen under my critical notice." "Your opinion is of course conclusive," Arthur answered with unfeigned humility, his eyes almost bursting with the tears he would not let come to the surface. "It will be a great disappointment to my friend, but I have no doubt he will accept your verdict." "Not a bit of it, my dear sir," the professor put in quickly. "Not a bit of it. These crazy fellows always stick to their own opinions, and think you a perfect fool for disagreeing with them. Mark my words, Mr. Greatrex, your friend will still go on believing, in spite of everything, that his roundabout reasoning upon that preposterous square-root-of-Pi theorem is sound mathematics." And Arthur, looking within, felt with a glow of horror that the theorem in question seemed to him at that moment more obviously true and certain in all its deductions than it had ever done before since the first day that he conceived it. How very mad he must be after all. He thanked Professor Linklight as well as he was able for his kindness in looking over the paper, and groped his way blindly through the passage to the front door and out into the square. Thence he staggered home wearily, convinced that it was all over between him and Hetty, and that he must make up his mind forthwith to his horrible destiny. If he had only known at that moment that forty years earlier Professor Linklight had used almost the same words about Young's theory of undulations, and had since used them about every new discovery from that day to the one on which he then saw him, he might have attached less importance than he actually did to this supposed final proof of his own insanity. As Arthur entered his lodgings he hung his hat up on the stand in the passage. There was a little strip of mirror in the middle of the stand, and glancing at it casually he saw once more that awful face--his own--distorted and almost diabolical, which he had learnt so soon to hate instinctively as if it were a felon's and a murderer's. He rushed away wildly into his little sitting-room, and flung his manuscript on the table, almost without observing that his friend Freeling, the rising physiologist, was quietly seated on the sofa opposite. "What's this, Arthur?" Freeling asked, taking it up carelessly and glancing at the title. "You don't mean to say that you've finally written out that splendid idea of yours about the interrelations of energy?" "Yes, I have, Harry: I have, and I wish to heaven I hadn't, for it's all mad and silly and foolish and meaningless!" "If it is, then I'm mad too, my dear fellow, for I think it's the most convincing thing in physics I ever listened to. Let me have the manuscript to look over, and see how you've worked out those beautiful calculations about the square root of Pi, will you?" "Take the thing, for heaven's sake, and leave me, Harry, for if I'm not left alone I shall break down and cry before you." And as he spoke he buried his head in his arm and sobbed like a woman. Dr. Freeling knew Arthur was in love, and was aware that people sometimes act very unaccountably under such circumstances; so he did the wisest thing to be done then and there: he grasped his friend's arm gently with his hand, spoke never a word, and, taking up his hat and the manuscript, walked quietly out into the passage. Then he told the landlady to make Mr. Greatrex a strong cup of tea, with a dash of brandy in it, and turned away, leaving Arthur to solitude and his own reflections. That evening's post brought Arthur Greatrex two letters, which finally completed his utter prostration. The first he opened was from Dr. Abury. He broke the envelope with a terrible misgiving, and read the letter through with a deepening and sickening feeling of horror. It was not he alone, then, who had distorted the secret of his own incipient insanity. Dr. Abury's practised eye had also detected the rising symptoms. The doctor wrote kindly and with evident grief; but there was no mistaking the firm purport of his intentions. Conferring this morning with his professional friend Warminster, a case had been mentioned to him, without a name, which he at once recognized as Arthur's. He recalled certain symptoms he had himself observed, and his suspicions were thus vividly aroused. Happening accidentally to follow Arthur in the street he was convinced that his surmise was correct, and he thought it his duty both to inform Arthur of the danger that encompassed him, and to assure him that, deeply as it grieved him to withdraw the consent he had so gladly given, he could not allow his only daughter to marry a man bearing on his face the evident marks of an insane tendency. The letter contained much more of regret and condolence; but that was the pith that Arthur Greatrex picked out of it all through the blinding tears, that dimmed his vision. The second letter was from Hetty. Half guessing its contents, he had left it purposely till the last, and he tore it open now with a fearful sinking feeling in his bosom. It was indeed a heart-broken, heart-breaking letter. What could be the secret which papa would not tell her? Why had not Arthur come yesterday? Why could she never marry him? Why was papa so cruel as not to tell her the reason? He couldn't have done anything in the slightest degree dishonourable, far less anything wicked: of that she felt sure; but, if not, what could be this horrible, mysterious, unknown barrier that was so suddenly raised between them? "Do write, dearest Arthur, and relieve me from this terrible, incomprehensible suspense; do let me know what has happened to make papa so determined against you. I could bear to lose you--at least I could bear it as other women have done--but I can't bear this awful uncertainty, this awful doubt as to your love or your constancy. For heaven's sake, darling, send me a note somehow! send me a line to tell me you love me. Your heart-broken "HETTY." Arthur took his hat, and, unable to endure this agony, set out at once for the Aburys'. When he reached the door, the servant who answered his ring at the bell told him he could not see the doctor; he was engaged with two other doctors in a consultation about Miss Hetty. What was the matter with Miss Hetty, then? What, didn't he know that? Oh, Miss Hetty had had a fit, and Dr. Freeling and Dr. MacKinlay had been called in to see her. Arthur did not wait for a moment, but walked upstairs unannounced, and into the consulting room. Was it a very serious matter? Yes, Freeling answered, very serious. It seemed Miss Abury had had a great shock--a great shock to her affections--which, he added in a lower voice, "you yourself can perhaps best explain to me. She will certainly have a long illness. Perhaps she may never recover." "Come out into the conservatory, Harry," said Arthur to his friend. "I can tell you there what it is all about." In a few words Arthur told him the nature of the shock, but without describing the particular symptoms on which the opinion of his supposed approaching insanity was based. Freeling listened with an incredulous smile, and at the end he said to his friend gently, "My dear Arthur, I wish you had told me all this before. If you had done so, we might have saved Miss Abury a shock which may perhaps be fatal. You are no more going mad than I am; on the contrary, you're about the sanest and most clear-headed fellow of my acquaintance. But these mad-doctors are always finding madness everywhere. If you had come to me and told me the symptoms that troubled you, I should soon have set you right again in your own opinion. To have gone to Warminster was most unfortunate, but it can't be helped now. What we have to do at present is to take care of Miss Abury." Arthur shook his head sadly. "Ah," he said, "you don't know the real gravity of the symptoms I am suffering from. I shall tell you all about them some other time. However, as you say, what we have to think about now is Hetty. Can you let me see her? I am sure if I could see her it would reassure her and do her good." Dr. Abury was at first very unwilling to let Arthur visit Hetty, who was now lying unconscious on the sofa in her own boudoir; but Freeling's opinion that it might possibly do her good at last prevailed with him, and he gave his permission grudgingly. Arthur went into the room silently and took his seat beside the low couch where the motherless girl was lying. Her face was very white, and her hands pale and bloodless. He took one hand in his: the pulse was hardly perceptible. He laid it down upon her breast, and leaned back to watch for any sign of returning life in her pallid cheek and closed eyelids. For hours and hours he sat there watching, and no sign came. Dr. Abury sat at the bottom of the couch, watching with him; and as they watched, Arthur felt from time to time that his face was again twitching horribly. However, he had only thoughts for one thing now: would Hetty die or would she recover? The servants brought them a little cake and wine. They sat and drank in silence, looking at one another, but each absorbed in his own thoughts, and speaking never a word for good or evil. At last Hetty's eyes opened. Arthur noticed the change first, and took her hand in his gently. Her staring gaze fell upon him for a moment, and she asked feebly, "Arthur, Arthur, do you still love me?" "Love you, Hetty? With all my heart and soul, as I have always loved you!" She smiled, and said nothing. Dr. Abury gave her a little wine in a teaspoon, and she drank it quietly. Then she shut her eyes again, but this time she was sleeping. All night Arthur watched still by the bedside where they put her a little later, and Dr. Abury and a nurse watched with him. In the morning she woke slightly better, and when she saw Arthur still there, she smiled again, and said that if he was with her, she was happy. When Freeling came to inquire after the patient, he found her so much stronger, and Arthur so worn with fear and sleeplessness, that he insisted upon carrying off his friend in his brougham to his own house, and giving him a slight restorative. He might come back at once, he said; but only after he had had a dose of mixture, a glass of brandy and seltzer, and at least a mouthful of something for breakfast. As Freeling was drawing the cork of the seltzer, Arthur's eye happened to light on a monkey, which was chained to a post in the little area plot outside the consulting-room. Arthur was accustomed to see monkeys there, for Freeling often had invalids from the Zoo to observe side by side with human patients; but this particular monkey fascinated him even in his present shattered state of nerves, because there was a something in its face which seemed strangely and horribly familiar to him. As he looked, he recognized with a feeling of unspeakable aversion what it was of which the monkey reminded him. It was making a series of hideous and apparently mocking grimaces--the very self-same grimaces which he had seen on his own features in the mirror during the last day or two! Horrible idea! He was descending to the level of the very monkeys! The more he watched, the more absolutely identical the two sets of grimaces appeared to him to be. Could it be fancy or was it reality? Or might it be one more delusion, showing that his brain was now giving way entirely? He rubbed his eyes, steadied his attention, and looked again with the deepest interest. No, he could not be mistaken. The monkey was acting in every respect precisely as he himself had acted. "Harry," he said, in a low and frightened tone, "look at this monkey. Is he mad? Tell me." "My dear Arthur," replied his friend, with just a shade of expostulation in his voice, "you have really got madness on the brain at present. No, he isn't mad at all. He's as sane as you are, and that's saying a good deal, I can assure you." "But, Harry, you can't have seen what he's doing. He's grimacing and contorting himself in the most extraordinary fashion." "Well, monkeys often do grimace, don't they?" Harry Freeling answered coolly. "Take this brandy and you'll soon feel better." "But they don't grimace like this one," Arthur persisted. "No, not like this one, certainly. That's why I've got him here. I'm going to operate upon him for it under chloroform, and cure him immediately." Arthur leaped from his seat like one demented. "Operate upon him, cure him!" he cried hastily. "What on earth do you mean, Harry?" "My dear boy, don't be so excited," said Freeling. "This suspense and sleeplessness have been too much for you. This is antivivisection carried _ad absurdum_. You don't mean to say you object to operations upon a monkey for his own benefit, do you? If I don't cut a nerve, tetanus will finally set in, and he'll die of it in great agony. Drink off your brandy, and you'll feel better after it." "But, Harry, what's the matter with the monkey? For heaven's sake, tell me!" Harry Freeling looked at his friend for the first time a little suspiciously. Could Warminster be right after all, and could Arthur really be going mad? It was so ridiculous of him to get into such a state of flurry about the ailments of a tame monkey, and at such a moment, too! "Well," he answered slowly, "the monkey has got facial distortions due to a slight local paralysis of the inhibitory nerves supplied to the buccal and pharyngeal muscles, with a tendency to end in tetanus. If I cut a small ganglion behind the ear, and exhibit santonin, the muscles will be relaxed; and though they won't act so freely as before, they won't jerk and grimace any longer." "Does it ever occur in human beings?" Arthur asked eagerly. "Occur in human beings? Bless my soul, yes! I've seen dozens of cases. Why, goodness gracious, Arthur, it's positively occurring in your own face at this very moment!" "I know it is," Arthur answered in an agony of suspense. "Do you think this twitching of mine is due to a local paralysis of the inhibitories, such as you speak of?" "Excuse my laughing, my dear fellow; you really do look so absurdly comical. No, I don't think anything about it. I know it is." "Then you believe Warminster was wrong in taking it for a symptom of incipient insanity?" It was Freeling's turn now to jump up in surprise. "You don't mean to tell me, Arthur, that that was the sole ground on which that old fool, Warminster, thought you were going crazy?" "He didn't see it himself," answered Arthur, with a sigh of unspeakable relief. "I only described it to him, and he drew his inference from what I told him. But the real question is this, Harry: Do you feel quite sure that there's nothing more than that the matter with me?" "Absolutely certain, my dear fellow. I can cure you in half an hour. I've done it dozens of times before, and know the thing as well as you know an ordinary case of scarlet fever." Arthur sighed again. "And perhaps," he said bitterly, "this terrible mistake may cost dear Hetty her life!" He drank off the brandy, ate a few mouthfuls of food as best he might, and hastened back to the Aburys'. When he got there he learned from the servant that Hetty was at least no worse; and with that negative comfort he had for the moment to content himself. Hetty's illness was long and serious; but before it was over Freeling was able to convince Dr. Abury of his own and his colleague's error, and to prove by a simple piece of surgery that Arthur's hideous grimaces were due to nothing worse than a purely physical impediment. The operation was quite a successful one; but though Greatrex's face has never since been liable to these curious contortions, the consequent relaxation of the muscles has given his features that peculiarly calm and almost impassive expression which everybody must have noticed upon them at the present day, even in moments of the greatest animation. The difficulty was how to break the cause of the temporary mistake to Hetty, and this they were unable to do until she was to a great extent convalescent. When once the needful explanation was over, and Arthur was able once more to kiss her with perfect freedom from any tinge of suspicion on her part, he felt that his paradise was at last attained. A few days before the deferred date fixed for their wedding, Freeling came into the doctor's drawing-room, where Hetty and Arthur were sitting together, and threw a letter with a French official stamp on its face down upon the table. "There," he said, "I find all the members of the Académie des Sciences at Paris are madmen also!" Hetty smiled faintly, and said with a little earnestness in her tone, "Ah, Dr. Freeling, that subject has been far too serious a one for both of us to make it pleasant jesting." "Oh, but look here, Miss Abury," said Freeling; "I have to apologise to Arthur for a great liberty I have ventured to take, and I think it best to begin by explaining to you wherein it consisted. The fact is, before you were ill, Arthur had just written a paper on the interrelations of energy, which he showed to that pompous old nincompoop, Professor Linklight. Well, Linklight being one of those men who can never see an inch beyond his own nose, had the incomprehensible stupidity to tell him there was nothing in it. Thereupon your future husband, who is a modest and self-depreciating sort of fellow, was minded to throw it incontinently into the waste-paper basket. But a friend of his, Harry Freeling, who flatters himself that he can see an inch or two beyond his own nose, read it over, and recognized that it was a brilliant discovery. So what does he go and do--here comes in the apologetic matter--but get this memoir quietly translated into French, affix a motto to it, put it in an envelope, and send it in for the gold medal competition of the Académie. Strange to say, the members of the Académie turned out to be every bit as mad as the author and his friend; for I have just received this letter, addressed to Arthur at my house (which I have taken the further liberty of opening), and it informs me that the Académie decrees its gold medal for physical discovery to M. Arthur Greatrex, of London, which is a subject of congratulation for us three, and a regular slap in the face for pompous old Linklight." Hetty seized Freeling's two hands in hers. "You have been our good genius, Dr. Freeling," she said with brimming eyes. "I owe Arthur to you; and Arthur owes me to you; and now we both owe you this. What can we ever do to thank you sufficiently?" Since those days Hetty and Arthur have long been married, and Dr. Greatrex's famous work (in its enlarged form) has been translated into all the civilized languages of the world, as well as into German; but to this moment, happy as they both are, you can read in their faces the lasting marks of that one terrible anxiety. To many of their friends it seemed afterwards a mere laughing matter; but to those two, who went through it, and especially to Arthur Greatrex, it is a memory too painful to be looked back upon even now without a thrill of terrible recollection. _MR. CHUNG._ The first time I ever met poor Chung was at one of Mrs. Bouverie Barton's Thursday evening receptions in Eaton Place. Of course you know Mrs. Bouverie Barton, the cleverest literary hostess at this moment living in London. Herself a well-known novelist, she collects around her all the people worth knowing, at her delightful At Homes; and whenever you go there you are sure to meet somebody whose acquaintance is a treasure and an acquisition for your whole after life. Well, it so happened on one of those enjoyable Thursday evenings that I was sitting on the circular ottoman in the little back room with Miss Amelia Hogg, the famous woman's-rights advocate. Now, if there is a subject on earth which infinitely bores me, that subject is woman's rights; and if there is a person on earth who can make it absolutely unendurable, that person is Miss Amelia Hogg. So I let her speak on placidly in her own interminable manner about the fortunes of the Bill--she always talks as though her own pet Bill were the only Bill now existing on this sublunary planet--and while I interposed an occasional "Indeed" or "Quite so" for form's sake, I gave myself up in reality to digesting the conversation of two intelligent people who sat back to back with us on the other side of the round ottoman. "Yes," said one of the speakers, in a peculiarly soft silvery voice which contrasted oddly with Miss Hogg's querulous treble, "his loss is a very severe one to contemporary philosophy. His book on the "Physiology of Perception" is one of the most masterly pieces of analytic work I have ever met with in the whole course of my psychological reading. It was to me, I confess, who approached it fresh from the school of Schelling and Hegel, a perfect revelation of _à posteriori_ thinking. I shall never cease to regret that he did not live long enough to complete the second volume." Just at this point Miss Hogg had come to a pause in her explanation of the seventy-first clause of the Bill, and I stole a look round the corner to see who my philosophic neighbour might happen to be. An Oxford don, no doubt, I said to myself, or a young Cambridge professor, freshly crammed to the throat with all the learning of the Moral Science Tripos. Imagine my surprise when, on glancing casually at the silvery-voiced speaker, I discovered him to be a full-blown Chinaman! Yes, a yellow-skinned, almond-eyed, Mongolian-featured Chinaman, with a long pigtail hanging down his back, and attired in the official amber silk robe and purple slippers of a mandarin of the third grade, and the silver button. My curiosity was so fully aroused by this strange discovery that I determined to learn something more about so curious a product of an alien civilization; and therefore, after a few minutes, I managed to give Miss Amelia Hogg the slip by drawing in young Harry Farquhar the artist at the hundred-and-twentieth section, and making my way quietly across the room to Mrs. Bouverie Barton. "The name of that young Chinaman?" our hostess said in answer to my question. "Oh, certainly; he is Mr. Chung, of the Chinese Legation. A most intelligent and well-educated young man, with a great deal of taste for European literature. Introduce you?--of course, this minute." And she led the way back to where my Oriental phenomenon was still sitting, deep as ever in philosophical problems with Professor Woolstock, a spectacled old gentleman of German aspect, who was evidently pumping him thoroughly with a view to the materials for Volume Forty of his forthcoming great work on "Ethnical Psychology." I sat by Mr. Chung for the greater part of what was left of that evening. From the very first he exercised a sort of indescribable fascination over me. His English had hardly a trace of foreign accent, and his voice was one of the sweetest and most exquisitely modulated that I have ever heard. When he looked at you, his deep calm eyes bespoke at once the very essence of transparent sincerity. Before the evening was over, he had told me the whole history of his education and his past life. The son of a well-to-do Pekin mandarin, of distinctly European tastes, he had early passed all his examinations in China, and had been selected by the Celestial Government as one of the first batch of students sent to Europe to acquire the tongues and the sciences of the Western barbarians. Chung's billet was to England; and here, or in France, he had lived with a few intervals ever since he first came to man's estate. He had picked up our language quickly; had taken a degree at London University; and had made himself thoroughly at home in English literature. In fact, he was practically an Englishman in everything but face and clothing. His naturally fine intellect had assimilated European thought and European feeling with extraordinary ease, and it was often almost impossible in talking with him to remember that he was not one of ourselves. If you shut your eyes and listened, you heard a pleasant, cultivated, intelligent young Englishman; when you opened them again, it was always a fresh surprise to find yourself conversing with a genuine yellow-faced pig-tailed Chinaman, in the full costume of the peacock's feather. "You could never go back to live in China?" I said to him inquiringly after a time. "You could never endure life among your own people after so long a residence in civilized Europe?" "My dear sir," he answered with a slight shudder of horror, "you do not reflect what my position actually is. My Government may recall me any day. I am simply at their mercy, and I must do as I am bidden." "But you would not like China," I put in. "Like it!" he exclaimed with a gesture which for a Chinaman I suppose one must call violent. "I should abhor it. It would be a living death. You who have never been in China can have no idea of what an awful misfortune it would be for a man who has acquired civilized habits and modes of thought to live among such a set of more than mediæval barbarians as my countrymen still remain at the present day. Oh no; God grant I may never have to return there permanently, for it would be more than I could endure. Even a short visit to Pekin is bad enough; the place reeks of cruelty, jobbery, and superstition from end to end; and I always breathe more freely when I have once more got back on to the deck of a European steamer that flies the familiar British flag." "Then you are not patriotic," I ventured to say. "Patriotic!" he replied with a slight curl of the lip; "how can a man be patriotic to such a mass of corruption and abomination as our Chinese Government? I can understand a patriotic Russian, a patriotic Egyptian, nay, even a patriotic Turk; but a patriotic Chinaman--why, the very notion is palpably absurd. Listen, my dear sir; you ask me if I could live in China. No, I couldn't; and for the best of all possible reasons--they wouldn't let me. You don't know what the furious prejudice and blind superstition of that awful country really is. Before I had been there three months they would accuse me either of foreign practices or, what comes to much the same thing, of witchcraft; and they would put me to death by one of their most horrible torturing punishments--atrocities which I could not even mention in an English drawing-room. That is the sort of Damocles' sword that is always hanging over the head of every Europeanized Chinaman who returns against his own free will to his native land." I was startled and surprised. It seemed so natural and simple to be talking under Mrs. Bouverie Barton's big chandelier with this interesting young man, and yet so impossible for a moment to connect him in thought with all the terrible things that one had read in books about the prisons and penal laws of China. That a graduate of London University, a philosopher learned in all the political wisdom of Ricardo, Mill, and Herbert Spencer, should really be subject to that barbaric code of abominable tortures, was more than one could positively realize. I hesitated a moment, and then I said, "But of course they will never recall you." "I trust not," he said quietly; "I pray not. Very likely they will let me stop here all my lifetime. I am an assistant interpreter to the Embassy, in which capacity I am useful to Pekin; whereas in any home appointment I would of course be an utter failure, a manifest impossibility. But there is really no accounting for the wild vagaries and caprices of the Vermilion Pencil. For aught I know to the contrary, I might even be recalled to-morrow. If once they suspect a man of European sympathies, their first idea is to cut off his head. They regard it as you would regard the first plague-spot of cholera or small-pox in a great city." "Heaven forbid that they should ever recall you," I said earnestly; for already I had taken a strong fancy to his strange phenomenon of Western education grafted on an immemorial Eastern stock; and I had read enough of China to know that what he said about his probable fate if he returned there permanently was nothing more than the literal truth. The bare idea of such a catastrophe was too horrible to be realized for a moment in Eaton Place. As we drove home in our little one-horse brougham that evening, my wife and Effie were very anxious to learn what manner of man my Chinese acquaintance might really be; and when I told them what a charming person I had found him, they were both inclined rather to laugh at me for my enthusiastic description. Effie, in particular, jeered much at the notion of an intelligent and earnest-minded Chinaman. "You know, Uncle darling," she said in her bewitching way, "all your geese are always swans. Every woman you meet is absolutely beautiful, and every man is perfectly delightful--till Auntie and I have seen them." "Perfectly true, Effie," I answered; "it is an amiable weakness of mine, after all." However, before the week was out Effie and Marian between them would have it that I must call upon Chung and ask him to dine with us at Kensington Park Terrace. Their curiosity was piqued, for one thing; and for another thing, they thought it rather the cheese in these days of expansive cosmopolitanism to be on speaking terms with a Chinese _attaché_. "Japanese are cheap," said Effie, "horribly cheap of late years--a perfect drug in the market; but a Chinaman is still, thank Heaven, at a social premium." Now, though I am an obedient enough husband, as husbands go, I don't always accede to Marian's wishes in these matters; but everybody takes it for granted that Effie's will is law. Effie, I may mention parenthetically, is more than a daughter to us, for she is poor Tom's only child; and of course everybody connected with dear Tom is doubly precious to us now, as you may easily imagine. So when Effie had made up her mind that Chung was to dine with us, the thing was settled; and I called at his rooms and duly invited him, to the general satisfaction of everybody concerned. The dinner was a very pleasant one, and, for a wonder, Effie and Marian both coincided entirely in my hastily formed opinion of Mr. Chung. His mellow silvery voice, his frank truthful manner, his perfect freedom from self-consciousness, all pleased and impressed those stern critics, and by the end of the evening they were both quite as much taken with his delightful personality as I myself had originally been. One link leads on to another; and the end of it all was that when we went down for our summer villeggiatura to Abbot's Norbury, nothing would please Marian but that Mr. Chung must be invited down as one of our party. He came willingly enough, and for five or six weeks we had as pleasant a time together as any four people over spent. Chung was a perfect encyclopædia of information, while his good humour and good spirits never for a moment failed him under any circumstances whatsoever. One day we had made up a little private picnic to Norbury Edge, and were sitting together after luncheon under the shade of the big ash tree, when the conversation happened to turn by accident on the small feet of Chinese ladies. I had often noticed that Chung was very reticent about China; he did not like talking about his native country; and he was most pleased and most at home when we treated him most like a European born. Evidently he hated the provincialism of the Flowery Land, and loved to lose his identity in the wider culture of a Western civilization. "How funny it will be," said Effie, "to see Mrs. Chung's tiny feet when you bring her to London. I suppose one of these days, on one of your flying visits to Pekin, you will take to yourself a wife in your country?" "No," Chung answered, with quiet dignity; "I shall never marry--that I have quite decided in my own mind." "Oh, don't say that," Marian put in quickly; "I hate to hear men say they'll never marry. It is such a terrible mistake. They become so selfish, and frumpish, and old-bachelorish." Dear Marian has a high idea of the services she has rendered to society in saving her own fortunate husband from this miserable and deplorable condition. "Perhaps so," Chung replied quietly. "No doubt what you say is true as a rule. But, for my own part, I could never marry a Chinawoman; I am too thoroughly Europeanized for that; we should have absolutely no tastes or sympathies in common. You don't know what my countrywomen are like, Mrs. Walters." "Ah, no," said my wife contemplatively; "I suppose your people are all heathens. Why, goodness gracious, Mr. Chung, if it comes to that, I suppose really you are a heathen yourself!" Chung parried the question gracefully. "Don't you know," said he, "what Lord Chesterfield answered to the lady who asked him what religion he professed? 'Madam, the religion to which all wise men belong.' 'And what is that?' said she. 'Madam, no wise man ever says.'" "Never mind Lord Chesterfield," said Effie, smiling, "but let us come back to the future Mrs. Chung. I'm quite disappointed you won't marry a Chinawoman; but at any rate I suppose you'll marry somebody?" "Well, not a European, of course," Marian put in. "Oh, of course not," Chung echoed with true Oriental imperturbability. "Why _of course_?" Effie asked half unconsciously; and yet the very unconsciousness with which she asked the question showed in itself that she instinctively felt the gulf as much as any of us. If Chung had been a white man instead of a yellow one, she would hardly have discussed the question at issue with so much simplicity and obvious innocence. "Well, I will tell you why," Chung answered. "Because, even supposing any European lady were to consent to become my wife--which is in the first place eminently improbable--I could never think of putting her in the terribly false position that she would have to occupy under existing circumstances. To begin with, her place in English society would be a peculiar and a trying one. But that is not all. You must remember that I am still a subject of the Chinese Empire, and a member of the Chinese Civil Service. I may any day be recalled to China, and of course--I say 'of course' this time advisedly--it would be absolutely impossible for me to take an English wife to Pekin with me. So I am placed in this awkward dilemma. I would never care to marry anybody except a European lady; and to marry a European lady would be an act of injustice to her which I could never dream of committing. But considering the justifiable contempt which all Europeans rightly feel for us poor John Chinamen, I don't think it probable in any case that the temptation is at all likely to arise. And so, if you please, as the newspapers always put it, 'the subject then dropped.'" We all saw that Chung was in earnest as to his wish that no more should be said about the matter, and we respected his feelings accordingly; but that evening, as we sat smoking in the arbour after the ladies had retired, I said to him quietly, "Tell me, Chung, if you really dislike China so very much, and are so anxious not to return there, why don't you throw off your allegiance altogether, become a British subject, and settle down among us for good and all?" "My dear fellow," he said, smiling, "you don't think of the difficulties, I may say the impossibilities, in the way of any such plan as you propose. It is easy enough for a European to throw off his nationality whenever he chooses; it is a very different thing for an Asiatic to do so. Moreover, I am a member of a Legation. My Government would never willingly let me become a naturalized Englishman; and if I tried to manage it against their will they would demand my extradition, and would carry their point, too, as a matter of international courtesy, for one nation could never interfere with the accredited representative of another, or with any of his suite. Even if I were to abscond and get rid of my personality altogether, what would be the use of it? Nobody in England could find any employment for a Chinaman. I have no property of my own; I depend entirely upon my salary for support; my position is therefore quite hopeless. I must simply let things go their own way, and trust to chance not to be recalled to Pekin." During all the rest of Chung's visit we let him roam pretty much as he liked about the place, and Effie and I generally went with him. Of course we never for a moment fancied it possible that Effie could conceivably take a fancy to a yellow man like him; the very notion was too preposterously absurd. And yet, just towards the end of his stay with us, it began to strike me uneasily that after all even a Chinaman is human. And when a Chinaman happens to have perfect manners, noble ideas, delicate sensibility, and a chivalrous respect for English ladies, it is perhaps just within the bounds of conceivability that at some odd moments an English girl might for a second partially forget his oblique eyelids and his yellow skin. I was sometimes half afraid that it might be so with Effie; and though I don't think she would ever herself have dreamed of marrying such a man--the physical barrier between the races is far too profound for that--I fancy she occasionally pitied poor Chung's loneliness with that womanly pity which so easily glides into a deeper and closer sentiment. Certainly she felt his isolation greatly, and often hoped he would never really be obliged to go back for ever to that hateful China. One lovely summer evening, a few days before Chung's holiday was to end, and his chief at the Embassy expected him back again, Marian and I had gone out for a stroll together, and in coming home happened to walk above the little arbour in the shrubbery by the upper path. A seat let into the hedge bank overhung the summer-house, and here we both sat down silently to rest after our walking. As we did so, we heard Chung's voice in the arbour close below, so near and so clear that every word was quite distinctly audible. "For the last time in England," he was saying, with a softly regretful cadence in his tone, as we came upon him. "The _last_ time, Mr. Chung!" The other voice was Effie's. "What on earth do you mean by that?" "What I say, Miss Walters. I am recalled to China; I got the letters of recall the day before yesterday." "The day before yesterday, and you never told us! Why didn't you let us know before?" "I did not know you would interest yourselves in my private affairs." "Mr. Chung!" There was a deep air of reproach in Effie's tone. "Well, Miss Walters, that is not quite true. I ought not to have said it to friends so kind as you have all shown yourselves to be. No; my real reason was that I did not wish to grieve you unnecessarily, and even now I would not have done so, only----" "Only----?" At this moment I for my part felt we had heard too much. I blushed up to my eyes at the thought that we should have unwittingly played the spy upon these two innocent young people. I was just going to call out and rush down the little path to them; but as I made a slight movement forward, Marian held my wrist with an imploring gesture, and earnestly put her finger on my lips. I was overborne, and I regret to say I stopped and listened. Marian did not utter a word, but speaking rapidly on her fingers, as we all had learnt to do for poor Tom, she said impressively, "For God's sake, not a sound. This is serious. We must and ought to hear it out." Marian is a very clever woman in these matters; and when she thinks anything a point of duty to poor Tom's girl, I always give way to her implicitly. But I confess I didn't like it. "Only----?" Effie had said. "Only I felt compelled to now. I could not leave without telling you how deeply I had appreciated all your kindness." "But, Mr. Chung, tell me one thing," she asked earnestly; "why have they recalled you to Pekin?" "I had rather not tell you." "I insist." "Because they are displeased with my foreign tastes and habits, which have been reported to them by some of my fellow-_attachés_." "But, Mr. Chung, Uncle says there is no knowing what they will do to you. They may kill you on some absurd charge or other of witchcraft or something equally meaningless." "I am afraid," he answered imperturbably, "that may be the case. I don't mind at all on my own account--we Chinese are an apathetic race, you know--but I should be sorry to be a cause of grief to any of the dear friends I have made in England." "Mr. Chung!" This time the tone was one of unspeakable horror. "Don't speak like that," Chung said quickly. "There is no use in taking trouble at interest. I may come to no harm; at any rate, it will not matter much to any one but myself. Now let us go back to the house. I ought not to have stopped here with you so long, and it is nearly dinner time." "No," said Effie firmly; "we will not go back. I must understand more about this. There is plenty of time before dinner: and if not, dinner must wait." "But, Miss Walters, I don't think I ought to have brought you out here, and I am quite sure I ought not to stay any longer. Do return. Your Aunt will be annoyed." "Bother Aunt! She is the best woman in the world, but I must hear all about this. Mr. Chung, why don't you say you won't go, and stay in England in spite of them?" Nobody ever disobeys Effie, and so Chung wavered visibly. "I will tell you why," he answered slowly; "because I cannot. I am a servant of the Chinese Government, and if they choose to recall me, I must go." "But they couldn't enforce their demand." "Yes, they could. Your Government would give me up." "But Mr. Chung, couldn't you run away and hide for a while, and then come out again, and live like an Englishman?" "No," he answered quietly; "it is quite impossible. A Chinaman couldn't get work in England as a clerk or anything of that sort, and I have nothing of my own to live upon." There was a silence of a few minutes. Both were evidently thinking it out. Effie broke the silence first. "Oh, Mr Chung, do you think they will really put you to death?" "I don't think it; I know it." "You know it?" "Yes." Again a silence, and this time Chung broke it first. "Miss Effie," he said, "one Chinaman more or less in the world does not matter much, and I shall never forgive myself for having been led to grieve you for a moment, even though this is the last time I shall be able to speak to you. But I see you are sorry for me, and now--Chinaman as I am, I must speak out--I can't leave you without having told you all I feel. I am going to a terrible end, and I know it--so you will forgive me. We shall never meet again, so what I am going to say need never cause you any embarrassment in future. That I am recalled does not much trouble me; that I am going to die does not much trouble me; but that I can never, could never possibly have called you my wife, troubles me and cuts me to the very quick. It is the deepest drop in my cup of humiliation." "I knew it," said Effie, with wonderful composure. "You knew it?" "Yes, I knew it. I saw it from the second week you were here; and I liked you for it. But of course it was impossible, so there is nothing more to be said about it." "Of course," said Chung. "Ah, that terrible _of course_! I feel it; you feel it; we all feel it; and yet what a horrible thing it is. I am so human in everything else, but there is that one impassable barrier between us, and I myself cannot fail to recognize it. I could not even wish you to feel that you could marry a Chinaman." At that moment--for a moment only--I almost felt as if I could have said to Effie, "Take him!" but the thing was too impossible--a something within us rises against it--and I said nothing. "So now," Chung continued, "I must go. We must both go back to the house. I have said more than I ought to have said, and I am ashamed of myself for having done so. Yet, in spite of the measureless gulf that parts us, I felt I could not return to China without having told you. Will you forgive me?" "I am glad you did," said Effie; "it will relieve you." She stood a minute irresolute, and then she began again: "Mr. Chung, I am too horrified to know what I ought to do. I can't grasp it and take it all in so quickly. If you had money of your own, would you be able to run away and live somehow?" "I might possibly," Chung answered, "but not probably. A Chinaman, even if he wears European clothing, is too marked a person ever to escape. The only chance would be by going to Mauritius or California, where I might get lost in the crowd." "But, Mr. Chung, I have money of my own. What can I do? Help me, tell me. I can't let a fellow-creature die for a mere prejudice of race and colour. If I were your wife it would be yours. Isn't it my duty?" "No," said Chung. "It is more sacrifice than any woman ought to make for any man. You like me, but that is all." "If I shut my eyes and only heard you, I think I could love you." "Miss Effie," said Chung suddenly, "this is wrong, very wrong of me. I have let my weakness overcome me. I won't stop any longer. I have done what I ought not to have done, and I shall go this minute. Just once, before I go, shut your eyes and let me kiss the tips of your fingers. Thank you. No, I will not stop," and without another word he was gone. Marian and I stared at one another in blank horror. What on earth was to be done? All solutions were equally impossible. Even to meet Chung at dinner was terrible. We both knew in our heart of hearts that if Chung had been an Englishman, remaining in heart and soul the very self-same man he was, we would willingly have chosen him for Effie's husband. But a Chinaman! Reason about the prejudice as you like, there it is, a thing not to be got over, and at bottom so real that even the very notion of getting over it is terribly repugnant to our natural instincts. On the other hand, was poor Chung, with his fine delicate feelings, his courteous manners, his cultivated intellect, his English chivalry, to go back among the savage semi-barbarians of Pekin, and to be put to death in Heaven knows what inhuman manner for the atrocious crime of having outstripped his race and nation? The thing was too awful to contemplate either way. We walked home together without a word. Chung had taken the lower path; we took the upper one and followed him at a distance. Effie remained behind for a while in the summer-house. I don't know how we managed to dress for dinner, but we did somehow; and when we went down into the little drawing-room at eight o'clock, we were not surprised to hear that Miss Effie had a headache and did not want any dinner that evening. I was more surprised, however, when, shortly before the gong sounded, one of the servants brought me a little twisted note from Chung, written hurriedly in pencil, and sent, she said, by a porter from the railway station. It ran thus:-- "DEAR MR. WALTERS, "Excuse great haste. Compelled to return to town immediately. Shall write more fully to-morrow. Just in time to catch up express. "Yours ever, "CHUNG." Evidently, instead of returning to the house, he had gone straight to the station. After all, Chung had the true feelings of a gentleman. He could not meet Effie again after what had passed, and he cut the Gordian knot in the only way possible. Effie said nothing to us, and we said nothing to Effie, except to show her Chung's note next morning in a casual, off-hand fashion. Two days later a note came for us from the Embassy in Chung's pretty incisive handwriting. It contained copious excuses for his hasty departure, and a few lines to say that he was ordered back to China by the next mail, which started two days later. Marian and I talked it all over, but we could think of nothing that could be of any use; and after all, we said to one another, poor Chung might be mistaken about the probable fate that was in store for him. "I don't think," Effie said, when we showed her the letter, "I ever met such a nice man as Mr. Chung. I believe he is really a hero." We pretended not to understand what she could mean by it. The days went by, and we went back again to the dull round of London society. We heard nothing more of Chung for many weeks; till at last one morning I found a letter on the table bearing the Hong Kong postmark. I opened it hastily. As I supposed, it was a note from Chung. It was written in a very small hand on a tiny square of rice-paper, and it ran as follows:-- "Thien-Shan Prison, Pekin, Dec. 8. "MY DEAR FRIEND, "Immediately on my return here I was arrested on a charge of witchcraft, and of complicity with the Foreign Devils to introduce the Western barbarism into China. I have now been in a loathsome prison in Pekin for three weeks, in the midst of sights and sounds which I dare not describe to you. Already I have suffered more than I can tell; and I have very little doubt that I shall be brought to trial and executed within a few weeks. I write now begging you not to let Miss Effie hear of this, and if my name happens to be mentioned in the English papers, to keep my fate a secret from her as far as possible. I trust to chance for the opportunity of getting this letter forwarded to Hong Kong, and I have had to write it secretly, for I am not allowed pen, ink, or paper. Thank you much for your very great kindness to me. I am not sorry to die, for it is a mistake for a man to have lived outside the life of his own people, and there was no place left for me on earth. Good-bye. "Ever yours gratefully, "CHUNG." The letter almost drove me wild with ineffectual remorse and regret. Why had I not tried to persuade Chung to remain in England? Why had I not managed to smuggle him out of the way, and to find him some kind of light employment, such as even a Chinaman might easily have performed? But it was no use regretting now. The impassable gulf was fixed between us; and it was hardly possible even then to realize that this amiable young student, versed in all the science and philosophy of the nineteenth century, had been handed over alive to the tender mercies of a worse than mediæval barbarism and superstition. My heart sank within me, and I did not venture to show the letter even to Marian. For some weeks the days passed heavily indeed. I could not get Chung out of my mind, and I saw that Effie could not either. We never mentioned his name; but I noticed that Effie had got from Mudie's all the books about China that she could hear of, and that she was reading up with a sort of awful interest all the chapters that related to Chinese law and Chinese criminal punishments. Poor child, the subject evidently enthralled her with a terrible fascination; and I feared that the excitement she was in might bring on a brain fever. One morning, early in April, we were all seated in the little breakfast-room about ten o'clock, and Effie had taken up the outside sheet of the _Times_, while I was engaged in looking over the telegrams on the central pages. Suddenly she gave a cry of horror, flung down the paper with a gesture of awful repugnance, and fell from her chair as stiff and white as a corpse. I knew instinctively what had happened, and I took her up in my arms and carried her to her room. After the doctor had come, and Effie had recovered a little from the first shock, I took up the paper from the ground where it lay and read the curt little paragraph which contained the news that seemed to us so terrible:-- "The numerous persons who made the acquaintance of Chung Fo Tsiou, late assistant interpreter to the Chinese Embassy in London, will learn with regret that this unfortunate member of the Civil Service has been accused of witchcraft and executed at Pekin by the frightful Chinese method known as the Heavy Death. Chung Fo Tsiou was well known in London and Paris, where he spent many years of his official life, and attracted some attention by his natural inclination to European society and manners." Poor Chung! His end was too horrible for an English reader even to hear of it. But Effie knew it all, and I did not wonder that the news should have affected her so deeply. Effie was some weeks ill, and at first we almost feared her mind would give way under the pressure. Not that she had more than merely liked poor Chung, but the sense of horror was too great for her easily to cast it off. Even I myself did not sleep lightly for many and many a day after I heard the terrible truth. But while Effie was still ill, a second letter reached us, written this time in blood with a piece of stick, apparently on a scrap of coarse English paper, such as that which is used for wrapping up tobacco. It was no more than this:-- "Execution to-day. Keep it from Miss Effie. Cannot forgive myself for having spoken to her. Will you forgive me? It was the weakness of a moment: but even Chinamen have hearts. I could not die without telling her.--CHUNG." I showed Effie the scrap afterwards--it had come without a line of explanation from Shanghao--and she has kept it ever since locked up in her little desk as a sacred memento. I don't doubt that some of these days Effie will marry; but as long as she lives she will bear the impress of what she has suffered about poor Chung. An English girl could not conceivably marry a Chinaman; but now that Chung is dead, Effie cannot help admiring the steadfastness, the bravery, and the noble qualities of her Chinese lover. It is an awful state of things which sometimes brings the nineteenth century and primitive barbarism into such close and horrible juxtaposition. _THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE._ Walter Dene, deacon, in his faultless Oxford clerical coat and broad felt hat, strolled along slowly, sunning himself as he went, after his wont, down the pretty central lane of West Churnside. It was just the idyllic village best suited to the taste of such an idyllic young curate as Walter Dene. There were cottages with low-thatched roofs, thickly overgrown with yellow stonecrop and pink house-leek; there were trellis-work porches up which the scented dog-rose and the fainter honeysuckle clambered together in sisterly rivalry; there were pargeted gable-ends of Elizabethan farmhouses, quaintly varied with black oak joists and moulded plaster panels. At the end of all, between an avenue of ancient elm trees, the heavy square tower of the old church closed in the little vista--a church with a round Norman doorway and dog-tooth arches, melting into Early English lancets in the aisle, and finishing up with a great Decorated east window by the broken cross and yew tree. Not a trace of Perpendicularity about it anywhere, thank goodness: "for if it were Perpendicular," said Walter Dene to himself often, "I really think, in spite of my uncle, I should have to look out for another curacy." Yes, it was a charming village, and a charming country; but, above all, it was rendered habitable and pleasurable for a man of taste by the informing presence of Christina Eliot. "I don't think I shall propose to Christina this week after all," thought Walter Dene as he strolled along lazily. "The most delightful part of love-making is certainly its first beginning. The little tremor of hope and expectation; the half-needless doubt you feel as to whether she really loves you; the pains you take to pierce the thin veil of maidenly reserve; the triumph of detecting her at a blush or a flutter when she sees you coming--all these are delicate little morsels to be rolled daintily on the critical palate, and not to be swallowed down coarsely at one vulgar gulp. Poor child, she is on tenter-hooks of hesitation and expectancy all the time, I know; for I'm sure she loves me now, I'm sure she loves me; but I must wait a week yet: she will be grateful to me for it hereafter. We mustn't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs; we mustn't eat up all our capital at one extravagant feast, and then lament the want of our interest ever afterward. Let us live another week in our first fool's paradise before we enter on the safer but less tremulous pleasures of sure possession. We can enjoy first love but once in a lifetime; let us enjoy it now while we can, and not fling away the chance prematurely by mere childish haste and girlish precipitancy." Thinking which thing, Walter Dene halted a moment by the churchyard wall, picked a long spray of scented wild thyme from a mossy cranny, and gazed into the blue sky above at the graceful swifts who nested in the old tower, as they curved and circled through the yielding air on their evenly poised and powerful pinions. Just at that moment old Mary Long came out of her cottage to speak with the young parson. "If ye plaze, Maister Dene," she said in her native west-country dialect, "our Nully would like to zee 'ee. She's main ill to-day, zur, and she be like to die a'most, I'm thinking." "Poor child, poor child," said Walter Dene tenderly. "She's a dear little thing, Mrs. Long, is your Nellie, and I hope she may yet be spared to you. I'll come and see her at once, and try if I can do anything to ease her." He crossed the road compassionately with the tottering old grandmother, giving her his helping hand over the kerbstone, and following her with bated breath into the close little sick-room. Then he flung open the tiny casement with its diamond-leaded panes, so as to let in the fresh summer air, and picked a few sprigs of sweet-briar from the porch, which he joined with the geranium from his own button-hole to make a tiny nosegay for the bare bedside. After that, he sat and talked awhile gently in an undertone to pale, pretty little Nellie herself, and went away at last promising to send her some jelly and some soup immediately from the vicarage kitchen. "She's a sweet little child," he said to himself musingly, "though I'm afraid she's not long for this world now; and the poor like these small attentions dearly. They get them seldom, and value them for the sake of the thoughtfulness they imply, rather than for the sake of the mere things themselves. I can order a bottle of calf's-foot at the grocer's, and Carter can set it in a mould without any trouble; while as for the soup, some tinned mock-turtle and a little fresh stock makes a really capital mixture for this sort of thing. It costs so little to give these poor souls pleasure, and it is a great luxury to oneself undeniably. But, after all, what a funny trade it is to set an educated man to do! They send us up to Oxford or Cambridge, give us a distinct taste for Æschylus and Catullus, Dante and Milton, Mendelssohn and Chopin, good claret and _olives farcies_, and then bring us down to a country village, to look after the bodily and spiritual ailments of rheumatic old washerwomen! If it were not for poetry, flowers, and Christina, I really think I should succumb entirely under the infliction." "He's a dear, good man, that he is, is young passon," murmured old Miry Long as Walter disappeared between the elm trees; "and he do love the poor and the zick, the same as if he was their own brother. God bless his zoul, the dear, good vulla, vor all his kindness to our Nully." Halfway down the main lane Walter came across Christina Eliot. As she saw him she smiled and coloured a little, and held out her small gloved hand prettily. Walter took it with a certain courtly and graceful chivalry. "An exquisite day, Miss Eliot," he said; "such a depth of sapphire in the sky, such a faint undertone of green on the clouds by the horizon, such a lovely humming of bees over the flickering hot meadows! On days like this, one feels that Schopenhauer is wrong after all, and that life is sometimes really worth living." "It seems to me often worth living," Christina answered; "if not for oneself, at least for others. But you pretend to be more of a pessimist than you really are, I fancy, Mr. Dene. Any one who finds so much beauty in the world as you do can hardly think life poor or meagre. You seem to catch the loveliest points in everything you look at, and to throw a little literary or artistic reflection over them which makes them even lovelier than they are in themselves." "Well, no doubt one can increase one's possibilities of enjoyment by carefully cultivating one's own faculties of admiration and appreciation," said the curate thoughtfully; "but, after all, life has only a few chapters that are thoroughly interesting and enthralling in all its history. We oughtn't to hurry over them too lightly, Miss Eliot; we ought to linger on them lovingly, and make the most of their potentialities; we ought to dwell upon them like "linked sweetness long drawn out." It is the mistake of the world at large to hurry too rapidly over the pleasantest episodes, just as children pick all the plums at once out of the pudding. I often think that, from the purely selfish and temporal point of view, the real value of a life to its subject may be measured by the space of time over which he has managed to spread the enjoyment of its greatest pleasures. Look, for example, at poetry, now." A faint shade of disappointment passed across Christina's face as he turned from what seemed another groove into that indifferent subject; but she answered at once, "Yes, of course one feels that with the higher pleasures at least; but there are others in which the interest of plot is greater, and then one looks naturally rather to the end. When you begin a good novel, you can't help hurrying through it in order to find out what becomes of everybody at last." "Ah, but the highest artistic interest goes beyond mere plot interest. I like rather to read for the pleasure of reading, and to loiter over the passages that please me, quite irrespective of what goes before or what comes after; just as you, for your part, like to sketch a beautiful scene for its own worth to you, irrespective of what may happen to the leaves in autumn, or to the cottage roof in twenty years from this. By the way, have you finished that little water-colour of the mill yet? It's the prettiest thing of yours I've ever seen, and I want to look how you've managed the light on your foreground." "Come in and see it," said Christina. "It's finished now, and, to tell you the truth, I'm very well pleased with it myself." "Then I know it must be good," the curate answered; "for you are always your own harshest critic." And he turned in at the little gate with her, and entered the village doctor's tiny drawing-room. Christina placed the sketch on an easel near the window--a low window opening to the ground, with long lithe festoons of faint-scented jasmine encroaching on it from outside--and let the light fall on it aslant in the right direction. It was a pretty and a clever sketch certainly, with more than a mere amateur's sense of form and colour; and Walter Dene, who had a true eye for pictures, could conscientiously praise it for its artistic depth and fulness. Indeed, on that head at least, Walter Dene's veracity was unimpeachable, however lax in other matters; nothing on earth would have induced him to praise as good a picture or a sculpture in which he saw no real merit. He sat a little while criticizing and discussing it, suggesting an improvement here or an alteration there, and then he rose hurriedly, remembering all at once his forgotten promise to little Nellie. "Dear me," he said, "your daughter's picture has almost made me overlook my proper duties, Mrs. Eliot. I promised to send some jelly and things at once to poor little Nellie Long at her grandmother's. How very wrong of me to let my natural inclinations keep me loitering here, when I ought to have been thinking of the poor of my parish!" And he went out with just a gentle pressure on Christina's hand, and a look from his eyes that her heart knew how to read aright at the first glance of it. "Do you know, Christie," said her father, "I sometimes fancy when I hear that new parson fellow talk about his artistic feelings, and so on, that he's just a trifle selfish, or at least self-centred. He always dwells so much on his own enjoyment of things, you know." "Oh no, papa," cried Christina warmly. "He's anything but selfish, I'm sure. Look how kind he is to all the poor in the village, and how much he thinks about their comfort and welfare. And whenever he's talking with one, he seems so anxious to make you feel happy and contented with yourself. He has a sort of little subtle flattery of manner about him that's all pure kindliness; and he's always thinking what he can say or do to please you, and to help you onward. What you say about his dwelling on enjoyment so much is really only his artistic sensibility. He feels things so keenly, and enjoys beauty so deeply, that he can't help talking enthusiastically about it even a little out of season. He has more feelings to display than most men, and I'm sure that's the reason why he displays them so much. A ploughboy could only talk enthusiastically about roast beef and dumplings; Mr. Dene can talk about everything that's beautiful and sublime on earth or in heaven." Meanwhile, Walter Dene was walking quickly with his measured tread--the even, regular tread of a cultivated gentleman--down the lane toward the village grocer's, saying to himself as he went, "There was never such a girl in all the world as my Christina. She may be only a country surgeon's daughter--a rosebud on a hedgerow bush--but she has the soul and the eye of a queen among women for all that. Every lover has deceived himself with the same sweet dream, to be sure--how over-analytic we have become nowadays, when I must needs half argue myself out of the sweets of first love!--but then they hadn't so much to go upon as I have. She has a wonderful touch in music, she has an exquisite eye in painting, she has an Italian charm in manner and conversation. I'm something of a connoisseur, after all, and no more likely to be deceived in a woman than I am in a wine or a picture. And next week I shall really propose formally to Christina, though I know by this time it will be nothing more than the merest formality. Her eyes are too eloquent not to have told me that long ago. It will be a delightful pleasure to live for her, and in order to make her happy. I frankly recognize that I am naturally a little selfish--not coarsely and vulgarly selfish; from that disgusting and piggish vice I may conscientiously congratulate myself that I'm fairly free; but still selfish in a refined and cultivated manner. Now, living with Christina and for Christina will correct this defect in my nature, will tend to bring me nearer to a true standard of perfection. When I am by her side, and then only, I feel that I am thinking entirely of her, and not at all of myself. To her I show my best side; with her, that best side would be always uppermost. The companionship of such a woman makes life something purer, and higher, and better worth having. The one thing that stands in our way is this horrid practical question of what to live upon. I don't suppose Uncle Arthur will be inclined to allow me anything, and I can't marry on my own paltry income and my curacy only. Yet I can't bear to keep Christina waiting indefinitely till some thick-headed squire or other chooses to take it into his opaque brain to give me a decent living." From the grocer's the curate walked on, carrying the two tins in his hand, as far as the vicarage. He went into the library, sat down by his own desk, and rang the bell. "Will you be kind enough to give those things to Carter, John?" he said in his bland voice; "and tell her to put the jelly in a mould, and let it set. The soup must be warmed with a little fresh stock, and seasoned. Then take them both, with my compliments, to old Mary Long the washerwoman, for her grandchild. Is my uncle in?" "No, Master Walter," answered the man--he was always "Master Walter" to the old servants at his uncle's--"the vicar have gone over by train to Churminster. He told me to tell you he wouldn't be back till evening, after dinner." "Did you see him off, John?" "Yes, Master Walter. I took his portmantew to the station." "This will be a good chance, then," thought Walter Dene to himself. "Very well, John," he went on aloud: "I shall write my sermon now. Don't let anybody come to disturb me." John nodded and withdrew. Walter Dene locked the door after him carefully, as he often did when writing sermons, and then lit a cigar, which was also a not infrequent concomitant of his exegetical labours. After that he walked once or twice up and down the room, paused a moment to look at his parchment-covered Rabelais and Villon on the bookshelf, peered out of the dulled glass windows with the crest in their centre, and finally drew a curious bent iron instrument out of his waistcoat pocket. With it in his hands, he went up quietly to his uncle's desk, and began fumbling at the lock in an experienced manner. As a matter of fact, it was not his first trial of skill in lock-picking; for Walter Dene was a painstaking and methodical man, and having made up his mind that he would get at and read his uncle's will, he took good care to begin by fastening all the drawers in his own bedroom, and trying his prentice hand at unfastening them again in the solitude of his chamber. After half a minute's twisting and turning, the wards gave way gently to his dexterous pressure, and the lid of the desk lay open before him. Walter Dene took out the different papers one by one--there was no need for hurry, and he was not a nervous person--till he came to a roll of parchment, which he recognized at once as the expected will. He unrolled it carefully and quietly, without any womanish trembling or excitement--"thank Heaven," he said to himself, "I'm above such nonsense as that"--and sat down leisurely to read it in the big, low, velvet-covered study chair. As he did so, he did not forget to lay a notched foot-rest for his feet, and to put the little Japanese dish on the tiny table by his side to hold his cigar ash. "And now," he said, "for the important question whether Uncle Arthur has left his money to me, or to Arthur, or to both of us equally. He ought, of course, to leave at least half to me, seeing I have become a curate on purpose to please him, instead of following my natural vocation to the Bar; but I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he had left it all to Arthur. He's a pig-headed and illogical old man, the vicar; and he can never forgive me, I believe, because, being the eldest son, I wasn't called after him by my father and mother. As if that was my fault! Some people's ideas of personal responsibility are so ridiculously muddled." He composed himself quietly in the arm-chair, and glanced rapidly at the will through the meaningless preliminaries till he came to the significant clauses. These he read more carefully. "All my estate in the county of Dorset, and the messuage or tenement known as Redlands, in the parish of Lode, in the county of Devon, to my dear nephew, Arthur Dene," he said to himself slowly: "Oh, this will never do." "And I give and bequeath to my said nephew, Arthur Dene, the sum of ten thousand pounds, three per cent. consolidated annuities, now standing in my name."--"Oh this is atrocious, quite atrocious! What's this?" "And I give and bequeath to my dear nephew, Walter Dene, the residue of my personal estate"--"and so forth. Oh no. That's quite sufficient. This must be rectified. The residuary legatee would only come in for a few hundreds or so. It's quite preposterous. The vicar was always an ill-tempered, cantankerous, unaccountable person, but I wonder he has the face to sit opposite me at dinner after that." He hummed an air from Schubert, and sat a moment looking thoughtfully at the will. Then he said to himself quietly, "The simplest thing to do would be merely to scrape out or take out with chemicals the name Arthur, substituting the name Walter, and _vice versâ_. That's a very small matter; a man who draws as well as I do ought to be able easily to imitate a copying clerk's engrossing hand. But it would be madness to attempt it now and here; I want a little practice first. At the same time, I mustn't keep the will out a moment longer than is necessary; my uncle may return by some accident before I expect him; and the true philosophy of life consists in invariably minimizing the adverse chances. This will was evidently drawn up by Watson and Blenkiron, of Chancery Lane. I'll write to-morrow and get them to draw up a will for me, leaving all I possess to Arthur. The same clerk is pretty sure to engross it, and that'll give me a model for the two names on which I can do a little preliminary practice. Besides, I can try the stuff Wharton told me about, for making ink fade on the same parchment. That will be killing two birds with one stone, certainly. And now if I don't make haste I shan't have time to write my sermon." He replaced the will calmly in the desk, fastened the lock again with a delicate twirl of the pick, and sat down in his arm-chair to compose his discourse for to-morrow's evensong. "It's not a bad bit of rhetoric," he said to himself as he read it over for correction, "but I'm not sure that I haven't plagiarized a little too freely from Montaigne and dear old Burton. What a pity it must be thrown away upon a Churnside congregation! Not a soul in the whole place will appreciate a word of it, except Christina. Well, well, that alone is enough reward for any man." And he knocked off his ash pensively into the Japanese ash-pan. During the course of the next week Walter practised diligently the art of imitating handwriting. He got his will drawn up and engrossed at Watson and Blenkiron's (without signing it, _bien entendu_); and he spent many solitary hours in writing the two names "Walter" and "Arthur" on the spare end of parchment, after the manner of the engrossing clerk. He also tested the stuff for making the ink fade to his own perfect satisfaction. And on the next occasion when his uncle was safely off the premises for three hours, he took the will once more deliberately from the desk, removed the obnoxious letters with scrupulous care, and wrote in his own name in place of Arthur's, so that even the engrossing clerk himself would hardly have known the difference. "There," he said to himself approvingly, as he took down quiet old George Herbert from the shelf and sat down to enjoy an hour's smoke after the business was over, "that's one good deed well done, anyhow. I have the calm satisfaction of a clear conscience. The vicar's proposed arrangement was really most unfair; I have substituted for it what Aristotle would have rightly called true distributive justice. For though I've left all the property to myself, by the unfortunate necessity of the case, of course I won't take it all. I'll be juster than the vicar. Arthur shall have his fair share, which is more, I believe, than he'd have done for me; but I hate squalid money-grubbing. If brothers can't be generous and brotherly to one another, what a wretched, sordid little life this of ours would really be!" Next Sunday morning the vicar preached, and Walter sat looking up at him reflectively from his place in the chancel. A beautiful clear-cut face, the curate's, and seen to great advantage from the doctor's pew, set off by the white surplice, and upturned in quiet meditation towards the elder priest in the pulpit. Walter was revolving many things in his mind, and most of all one adverse chance which he could not just then see his way to minimize. Any day his uncle might take it into his head to read over the will and discover the--ah, well, the rectification. Walter was a man of too much delicacy of feeling even to think of it to himself as a fraud or a forgery. Then, again, the vicar was not a very old man after all; he might live for an indefinite period, and Christina and himself might lose all the best years of their life waiting for a useless person's natural removal. What a pity that threescore was not the utmost limit of human life! For his own part, like the Psalmist, Walter had no desire to outlive his own highest tastes and powers of enjoyment. Ah, well, well, man's prerogative is to better and improve upon nature. If people do not die when they ought, then it becomes clearly necessary for philosophically minded juniors to help them on their way artificially. It was an ugly necessity, certainly; Walter frankly recognized that fact from the very beginning, and he shrank even from contemplating it; but there was no other way out of the difficulty. The old man had always been a selfish bachelor, with no love for anybody or anything on earth except his books, his coins, his garden, and his dinner; he was growing tired of all except the last; would it not be better for the world at large, on strict utilitarian principles, that he should go at once? True, such steps are usually to be deprecated; but the wise man is a law unto himself, and instead of laying down the wooden, hard-and-fast lines that make conventional morality so much a rule of thumb, he judges every individual case on its own particular merits. Here was Christina's happiness and his own on the one hand, with many collateral advantages to other people, set in the scale against the feeble remnant of a selfish old man's days on the other. Walter Dene had a constitutional horror of taking life in any form, and especially of shedding blood; but he flattered himself that if anything of the sort became clearly necessary, he was not the man to shrink from taking the needful measures to ensure it, at any sacrifice of personal comfort. All through the next week Walter turned over the subject in his own mind; and the more he thought about it, the more the plan gained in definiteness and consistency as detail after detail suggested itself to him. First he thought of poison. That was the cleanest and neatest way of managing the thing, he considered; and it involved the least unpleasant consequences. To stick a knife or shoot a bullet into any sentient creature was a horrid and revolting act; to put a little tasteless powder into a cup of coffee and let a man sleep off his life quietly was really nothing more than helping him involuntarily to a delightful euthanasia. "I wish any one would do as much for me at his age, without telling me about it," Walter said to himself seriously. But then the chances of detection would be much increased by using poison, and Walter felt it an imperative duty to do nothing which would expose Christina to the shock of a discovery. She would not see the matter in the same practical light as he did; women never do; their morality is purely conventional and a wise man will do nothing on earth to shake it. You cannot buy poison without the risk of exciting question. There remained, then, only shooting or stabbing. But shooting makes an awkward noise, and attracts attention at the moment; so the one thing possible was a knife, unpleasant as that conclusion seemed to all his more delicate feelings. Having thus decided, Walter Dene proceeded to lay his plans with deliberate caution. He had no intention whatsoever of being detected, though his method of action was simplicity itself. It was only bunglers and clumsy fools who got caught; he knew that a man of his intelligence and ability would not make such an idiot of himself as--well, as common ruffians always do. He took his old American bowie-knife, bought years ago as a curiosity, out of the drawer where it had lain so long. It was very rusty, but it would be safer to sharpen it privately on his own hone and strop than to go asking for a new knife at a shop for the express purpose of enabling the shopman afterwards to identify him. He sharpened it for safety's sake during sermon-hour in the library, with the door locked as usual. It took a long time to get off all the rust, and his arm got quickly tired. One morning as he was polishing away at it, he was stopped for a moment by a butterfly which flapped and fluttered against the dulled window-panes. "Poor thing," he said to himself, "it will beat its feathery wings to pieces in its struggles;" and he put a vase of Venetian glass on top of it, lifted the sash carefully, and let the creature fly away outside in the broad sunshine. At the same moment the vicar, who was strolling with his King Charlie on the lawn, came up and looked in at the window. He could not have seen in before, because of the dulled and painted diamonds. "That's a murderous-looking weapon, Wally," he said, with a smile, as his glance fell upon the bowie and hone. "What do you use it for?" "Oh, it's an American bowie," Walter answered carelessly. "I bought it long ago for a curiosity, and now I'm sharpening it up to help me in carving that block of walnut wood." And he ran his finger lightly along the edge of the blade to test its keenness. What a lucky thing that it was the vicar himself, and not the gardener! If he had been caught by anybody else the fact would have been fatal evidence after all was over. "Méfiez-vous des papillons," he hummed to himself, after Béranger, as he shut down the window. "One more butterfly, and I must give up the game as useless." Meanwhile, as Walter meant to make a clean job of it--hacking and hewing clumsily was repulsive to all his finer feelings--he began also to study carefully the anatomy of the human back. He took down all the books on the subject in the library, and by their aid discovered exactly under which ribs the heart lay. A little observation of the vicar, compared with the plates in Quain's "Anatomy," showed him precisely at what point in his clerical coat the most vulnerable interstice was situated. "It's a horrid thing to have to do," he thought over and over again as he planned it, "but it's the only way to secure Christina's happiness." And so, by a certain bright Friday evening in August, Walter Dene had fully completed all his preparations. That afternoon, as on all bright afternoons in summer, the vicar went for a walk in the grounds, attended only by little King Charlie. He was squire and parson at once in Churnside, and he loved to make the round of his own estate. At a certain gate by Selbury Copse the vicar always halted to rest awhile, leaning on the bar and looking at the view across the valley. It was a safe and lonely spot. Walter remained at home (he was to take the regular Friday evensong) and went into the study by himself. After a while he took his hat, not without trembling, strolled across the garden, and then made the short cut through the copse, so as to meet the vicar by the gate. On his way he heard the noise of the Dennings in the farm opposite, out rabbit-shooting with their guns and ferrets in the warren. His very soul shrank within him at the sound of that brutal sport. "Great heavens!" he said to himself, with a shudder; "to think how I loathe and shrink from the necessity of almost painlessly killing this one selfish old man for an obviously good reason, and those creatures there will go out massacring innocent animals with the aid of a hideous beast of prey, not only without remorse, but actually by way of amusement! I thank Heaven I am not even as they are." Near the gate he came upon his uncle quietly and naturally, though it would be absurd to deny that at that supreme moment even Walter Dene's equable heart throbbed hard, and his breath went and came tremulously. "Alone," he thought to himself, "and nobody near; this is quite providential," using even then, in thought, the familiar phraseology of his profession. "A lovely afternoon, Uncle Arthur," he said as composedly as he could, accurately measuring the spot on the vicar's coat with his eye meanwhile. "The valley looks beautiful in this light." "Yes, a lovely afternoon, Wally, my boy, and an exquisite glimpse down yonder into the churchyard." As he spoke, Walter half leaned upon the gate beside him, and adjusted the knife behind the vicar's back scientifically. Then, without a word more, in spite of a natural shrinking, he drove it home up to the haft, with a terrible effort of will, at the exact spot on the back that the books had pointed out to him. It was a painful thing to do, but he did it carefully and well. The effect of Walter Dene's scientific prevision was even more instantaneous than he had anticipated. Without a single cry, without a sob or a contortion, the vicar's lifeless body fell over heavily by the side of the gate. It rolled down like a log into the dry ditch beneath. Walter knelt trembling on the ground close by, felt the pulse for a moment to assure himself that his uncle was really dead, and having fully satisfied himself on this all-important point, proceeded to draw the knife neatly out of the wound. He had let it fall in the body, in order to extricate it more easily afterward, and not risk pulling it out carelessly so as to get himself covered needlessly by tell-tale drops of blood, like ordinary clumsy assassins. But he had forgotten to reckon with little King Charlie. The dog jumped piteously upon the body of his master, licked the wound with his tongue, and refused to allow Walter to withdraw the knife. It would be unsafe to leave it there, for it might be recognized. "Minimize the adverse chances," he muttered still; but there was no inducing King Charlie to move. A struggle might result in getting drops of blood upon his coat, and then, great heavens, what a terrible awakening for Christina! "Oh, Christina, Christina, Christina," he said to himself piteously, "it is for you only that I could ever have ventured to do this hideous thing." The blood was still oozing out of the narrow slit, and saturating the black coat, and Walter Dene with his delicate nerves could hardly bear to look upon it. At last he summoned up resolution to draw out the knife from the ugly wound, in spite of King Charlie, and as he did so, oh, horror! the little dog jumped at it, and cut his left fore-leg against the sharp edge deep to the bone. Here was a pretty accident indeed! If Walter Dene had been a common heartless murderer he would have snatched up the knife immediately, left the poor lame dog to watch and bleed beside his dead master, and skulked off hurriedly from the mute witness to his accomplished crime. But Walter was made of very different mould from that; he could not find it in his heart to leave a poor dumb animal wounded and bleeding for hours together, alone and untended. Just at first, indeed, he tried sophistically to persuade himself his duty to Christina demanded that he should go away at once, and never mind the sufferings of a mere spaniel; but his better nature told him the next moment that such sophisms were indefensible, and his humane instincts overcame even the profound instinct of self-preservation. He sat down quietly beside the warm corpse. "Thank goodness," he said, with a slight shiver of disgust, "I'm not one of those weak-minded people who are troubled by remorse. They would be so overcome by terror at what they had done that they would want to run away from the body immediately, at any price. But I don't think I _could_ feel remorse. It is an incident of lower natures--natures that are capable of doing actions under one set of impulses, which they regret when another set comes uppermost in turn. That implies a want of balance, an imperfect co-ordination of parts and passions. The perfect character is consistent with itself; shame and repentance are confessions of weakness. For my part, I never do anything without having first deliberately decided that it is the best or the only thing to do; and having so done it, I do not draw back like a girl from the necessary consequences of my own act. No fluttering or running away for me. Still, I must admit that all that blood does look very ghastly. Poor old gentleman! I believe he really died almost without knowing it, and that is certainly a great comfort to one under the circumstances." He took King Charlie tenderly in his hands, without touching the wounded leg, and drew his pocket handkerchief softly from his pocket. "Poor beastie," he said aloud, holding out the cut limb before him, "you are badly hurt, I'm afraid; but it wasn't my fault. We must see what we can do for you." Then he wrapped the handkerchief deftly around it, without letting any blood show through, pressed the dog close against his breast, and picked up the knife gingerly by the reeking handle. "A fool of a fellow would throw it into the river," he thought, with a curl of his graceful lip. "They always dredge the river after these incidents. I shall just stick it down a hole in the hedge a hundred yards off. The police have no invention, dull donkeys; they never dredge the hedges." And he thrust it well down a disused rabbit burrow, filling in the top neatly with loose mould. Walter Dene meant to have gone home quietly and said evensong, leaving the discovery of the body to be made at haphazard by others, but this unfortunate accident to King Charlie compelled him against his will to give the first alarm. It was absolutely necessary to take the dog to the veterinary at once, or the poor little fellow might bleed to death incontinently. "One's best efforts," he thought, "are always liable to these unfortunate _contretemps_. I meant merely to remove a superfluous person from an uncongenial environment; yet I can't manage it without at the same time seriously injuring a harmless little creature that I really love." And with one last glance at the lifeless thing behind him, he took his way regretfully along the ordinary path back towards the peaceful village of Churnside. Halfway down the lane, at the entrance to the village, he met one of his parishioners. "Tom," he said boldly, "have you seen anything of the vicar? I'm afraid he's got hurt somehow. Here's poor little King Charlie come limping back with his leg cut." "He went down the road, zur, 'arf an hour zince, and I arn't zeen him afterwards." "Tell the servants at the vicarage to look around the grounds, then; I'm afraid he has fallen and hurt himself. I must take the dog at once to Perkins's, or else I shall be late for evensong." The man went off straight toward the vicarage, and Walter Dene turned immediately with the dog in his arms into the village veterinary's. II. The servants from the vicarage were not the first persons to hit upon the dead body of the vicar. Joe Harley, the poacher, was out reconnoitring that afternoon in the vicar's preserves; and five minutes after Walter Dene had passed down the far side of the hedge, Joe Harley skulked noiselessly from the orchard up to the cover of the gate by Selbury Copse. He crept through the open end by the post (for it was against Joe's principles under any circumstances to climb over an obstacle of any sort, and so needlessly expose himself), and he was just going to slink off along the other hedge, having wires and traps in his pocket, when his boot struck violently against a soft object in the ditch underfoot. It struck so violently that it crushed in the object with the force of the impact; and when Joe came to look at what the object might be, he found to his horror that it was the bruised and livid face of the old parson. Joe had had a brush with keepers more than once, and had spent several months of seclusion in Dorchester Gaol; but, in spite of his familiarity with minor forms of lawlessness, he was moved enough in all conscience by this awful and unexpected discovery. He turned the body over clumsily with his hands, and saw that it had been stabbed in the back once only. In doing so he trod in a little blood, and got a drop or two on his sleeve and trousers; for the pool was bigger now, and Joe was not so handy or dainty with his fingers as the idyllic curate. It was an awful dilemma, indeed, for a confirmed and convicted poacher. Should he give the alarm then and there, boldly, trusting to his innocence for vindication, and helping the police to discover the murderer? Why, that would be sheer suicide, no doubt; "for who but would believe," he thought, "'twas me as done it?" Or should he slink away quietly and say nothing, leaving others to find the body as best they might? That was dangerous enough in its way if anybody saw him, but not so dangerous as the other course. In an evil hour for his own chances Joe Harley chose that worse counsel, and slank off in his familiar crouching fashion towards the opposite corner of the copse. On the way he heard John's voice holloaing for his master, and kept close to the hedge till he had quite turned the corner. But John had caught a glimpse of him too, and John did not forget it when, a few minutes later, he came upon the horrid sight beside the gate of Selbury Copse. Meanwhile Walter had taken King Charlie to the veterinary's, and had his leg bound and bandaged securely. He had also gone down to the church, got out his surplice, and begun to put it on in the vestry for evensong, when a messenger came at hot haste from the vicarage, with news that Master Walter must come up at once, for the vicar was murdered. "Murdered!" Walter Dene said to himself slowly half aloud; "murdered! how horrible! Murdered!" It was an ugly word, and he turned it over with a genuine thrill of horror. That was what they would say of him if ever the thing came to be discovered! What an inappropriate classification! He threw aside the surplice, and rushed up hurriedly to the vicarage. Already the servants had brought in the body, and laid it out in the clothes it wore, on the vicar's own bed. Walter Dene went in, shuddering, to look at it. To his utter amazement, the face was battered in horribly and almost unrecognizably by a blow or kick! What could that hideous mutilation mean? He could not imagine. It was an awful mystery. Great heavens! just fancy if any one were to take it into his head that he, Walter Dene, had done _that_--had kicked a defenceless old gentleman brutally about the face like a common London ruffian! The idea was too horrible to be borne for a moment. It unmanned him utterly, and he hid his face between his two hands and sobbed aloud like one broken-hearted. "This day's work has been too much for my nerves," he thought to himself between the sobs; "but perhaps it is just as well I should give way now completely." That night was mainly taken up with the formalities of all such cases; and when at last Walter Dene went off, tired and nerve-worn, to bed, about midnight, he could not sleep much for thinking of the mystery. The murder itself didn't trouble him greatly; that was over and past now, and he felt sure his precautions had been amply sufficient to protect him even from the barest suspicion; but he couldn't fathom the mystery of that battered and mutilated face! Somebody must have seen the corpse between the time of the murder and the discovery! Who could that somebody have been? and what possible motive could he have had for such a horrible piece of purposeless brutality? As for the servants, in solemn conclave in the hall, they had unanimously but one theory to account for all the facts: some poacher or other, for choice Joe Harley, had come across the vicar in the copse, with gun and traps in hand. The wretch had seen he was discovered, had felled the poor old vicar by a blow in the face with the butt-end of his rifle, and after he fell, fainting, had stabbed him for greater security in the back. That was such an obvious solution of the difficulty, that nobody in the servants' hall had a moment's hesitation in accepting it. When Walter heard next morning early that Joe Harley had been arrested overnight, on John's information, his horror and surprise at the news were wholly unaffected. Here was another new difficulty, indeed. "When I did the thing," he said to himself, "I never thought of that possibility. I took it for granted it would be a mystery, a problem for the local police (who, of course, could no more solve it than they could solve the _pons-asinorum_), but it never struck me they would arrest an innocent person on the charge instead of me. This is horrible. It's so easy to make out a case against a poacher, and hang him for it, on suspicion. One's whole sense of justice revolts against the thing. After all, there's a great deal to be said in favour of the ordinary commonplace morality: it prevents complications. A man of delicate sensibilities oughtn't to kill anybody; he lets himself in for all kinds of unexpected contingencies, without knowing it." At the coroner's inquest things looked very black indeed for Joe Harley. Walter gave his evidence first, showing how he had found King Charlie wounded in the lane; and then the others gave theirs, as to the search for and finding of the body. John in particular swore to having seen a man's back and head slinking away by the hedge while they were looking for the vicar; and that back and head he felt sure were Joe Harley's. To Walter's infinite horror and disgust, the coroner's jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against the poor poacher. What other verdict could they possibly have given in accordance with such evidence? The trial of Joe Harley for the wilful murder of the Reverend Arthur Dene was fixed for the next Dorchester Assizes. In the interval, Walter Dene, for the first time in his placid life, knew what it was to undergo a mental struggle. Whatever happened, he could not let Joe Harley be hanged for this murder. His whole soul rose up within him in loathing for such an act of hideous injustice. For though Walter Dene's code of morality was certainly not the conventional one, as he so often boasted to himself, he was not by any means without any code of morals of any sort. He could commit a murder where he thought it necessary, but he could not let an innocent man suffer in his stead. His ethical judgment on that point was just as clear and categorical as the judgment which told him he was in duty bound to murder his uncle. For Walter did not argue with himself on moral questions: he perceived the right and necessary thing intuitively; he was a law to himself, and he obeyed his own law implicitly, for good or for evil. Such men are capable of horrible and diabolically deliberate crimes; but they are capable of great and genuine self-sacrifices also. Walter made no secret in the village of his disinclination to believe in Joe Harley's guilt. Joe was a rough fellow, he said, certainly, and he had no objection to taking a pheasant or two, and even to having a free fight with the keepers; but, after all, our game laws were an outrageous piece of class legislation, and he could easily understand how the poor, whose sense of justice they outraged, should be so set against them. He could not think Joe Harley was capable of a detestable crime. Besides, he had seen him himself within a few minutes before and after the murder. Everybody thought it such a proof of the young parson's generous and kindly disposition; he had certainly the charity which thinketh no evil. Even though his own uncle had been brutally murdered on his own estate, he checked his natural feelings of resentment, and refused to believe that one of his own parishioners could have been guilty of the crime. Nay, more, so anxious was he that substantial justice should be done the accused, and so confident was he of his innocence, that he promised to provide counsel for him at his own expense; and he provided two of the ablest barristers on the Western circuit. Before the trial, Walter Dene had come, after a terrible internal struggle, to an awful resolution. He would do everything he could for Joe Harley; but if the verdict went against him, he was resolved, then and there, in open court, to confess, before judge and jury, the whole truth. It would be a horrible thing for Christina; he knew that; but he could not love Christina so much, "loved he not honour more;" and honour, after his own fashion, he certainly loved dearly. Though he might be false to all that all the world thought right, it was ingrained in the very fibre of his soul to be true to his own inner nature at least. Night after night he lay awake, tossing on his bed, and picturing to his mind's eye every detail of that terrible disclosure. The jury would bring in a verdict of guilty: then, before the judge put on his black cap, he, Walter, would stand up, and tell them that he could not let another man hang for his crime; he would have the whole truth out before them; and then he would die, for he would have taken a little bottle of poison at the first sound of the verdict. As for Christina--oh, Christina!--Walter Dene could not dare to let himself think upon that. It was horrible; it was unendurable; it was torture a thousand times worse than dying: but still, he must and would face it. For in certain phases, Walter Dene, forger and murderer as he was, could be positively heroic. The day of the trial came, and Walter Dene, pale and haggard with much vigil, walked in a dream and faintly from his hotel to the court-house. Everybody present noticed what a deep effect the shock of his uncle's death had had upon him. He was thinner and more bloodless than usual, and his dulled eyes looked black and sunken in their sockets. Indeed, he seemed to have suffered far more intensely than the prisoner himself, who walked in firmer and more erect, and took his seat doggedly in the familiar dock. He had been there more than once before, to say the truth, though never before on such an errand. Yet mere habit, when he got there, made him at once assume the hang-dog look of the consciously guilty. Walter sat and watched and listened, still in a dream, but without once betraying in his face the real depth of his innermost feelings. In the body of the court he saw Joe's wife, weeping profusely and ostentatiously, after the fashion considered to be correct by her class; and though he pitied her from the bottom of his heart, he could only think by contrast of Christina. What were that good woman's fears and sorrows by the side of the grief and shame and unspeakable horror he might have to bring upon his Christina? Pray Heaven the shock, if it came, might kill her outright; that would at least be better than that she should live long years to remember. More than judge, or jury, or prisoner, Walter Dene saw everywhere, behind the visible shadows that thronged the court, that one persistent prospective picture of heart-broken Christina. The evidence for the prosecution told with damning force against the prisoner. He was a notorious poacher; the vicar was a game-preserver. He had poached more than once on the ground of the vicarage. He was shown by numerous witnesses to have had an animus against the vicar. He had been seen, not in the face, to be sure, but still seen and recognized, slinking away, immediately after the fact, from the scene of the murder. And the prosecution had found stains of blood, believed by scientific experts to be human, on the clothing he had worn when he was arrested. Walter Dene listened now with terrible, unabated earnestness, for he knew that in reality it was he himself who was upon his trial. He himself, and Christina's happiness; for if the poacher were found guilty, he was firmly resolved, beyond hope of respite, to tell all, and face the unspeakable. The defence seemed indeed a weak and feeble theory. Somebody unknown had committed the murder, and this somebody, seen from behind, had been mistaken by John for Joe Harley. The blood-stains need not be human, as the cross-examination went to show, but were only known by counter-experts to be mammalian--perhaps a rabbit's. Every poacher--and it was admitted that Joe was a poacher--was liable to get his clothes blood-stained. Grant they were human, Joe, it appeared, had himself once shot off his little finger. All these points came out from the examination of the earlier witnesses. At last, counsel put the curate himself into the box, and proceeded to examine him briefly as a witness for the defence. Walter Dene stepped, pale and haggard still, into the witness-box. He had made up his mind to make one final effort "for Christina's happiness." He fumbled nervously all the time at a small glass phial in his pocket, but he answered all questions without a moment's hesitation, and he kept down his emotions with a wonderful composure which excited the admiration of everybody present. There was a general hush to hear him. Did he see the prisoner, Joseph Harley, on the day of the murder? Yes, three times. When was the first occasion? From the library window, just before the vicar left the house. What was Joseph Harley then doing? Walking in the opposite direction from the copse. Did Joseph Harley recognize him? Yes, he touched his hat to him. When was the second occasion? About ten minutes later, when he, Walter, was leaving the vicarage for a stroll. Did Joseph Harley then recognize him? Yes, he touched his hat again, and the curate said, "Good morning, Joe; a fine day for walking." When was the third time? Ten minutes later again, when he was returning from the lane, carrying wounded little King Charlie. Would it have been physically possible for the prisoner to go from the vicarage to the spot where the murder was committed, and back again, in the interval between the first two occasions? It would not. Would it have been physically possible for the prisoner to do so in the interval between the second and third occasions? It would not. "Then in your opinion, Mr. Dene, it is physically impossible that Joseph Harley can have committed this murder?" "In my opinion, it is physically impossible." While Walter Dene solemnly swore amid dead silence to this treble lie, he did not dare to look Joe Harley once in the face; and while Joe Harley listened in amazement to this unexpected assistance to his case--for counsel, suspecting a mistaken identity, had not questioned him too closely on the subject--he had presence of mind enough not to let his astonishment show upon his stolid features. But when Walter had finished his evidence in chief, he stole a glance at Joe; and for a moment their eyes met. Then Walter's fell in utter self-humiliation; and he said to himself fiercely, "I would not so have debased and degraded myself before any man to save my own life--what is my life worth me, after all?--but to save Christina, to save Christina, to save Christina! I have brought all this upon myself for Christina's sake." Meanwhile, Joe Harley was asking himself curiously what could be the meaning of this new move on parson's part. It was deliberate perjury, Joe felt sure, for parson could not have mistaken another person for him three times over; but what good end for himself could parson hope to gain by it? If it was he who had murdered the vicar (as Joe strongly suspected), why did he not try to press the charge home against the first person who happened to be accused, instead of committing a distinct perjury on purpose to compass his acquittal? Joe Harley, with his simple everyday criminal mind, could not be expected to unravel the intricacies of so complex a personality as Walter Dene's. But even there, on trial for his life, he could not help wondering what on earth young parson could be driving at in this business. The judge summed up with the usual luminously obvious alternate platitudes. If the jury thought that John had really seen Joe Harley, and that the curate was mistaken in the person whom he thrice saw, or was mistaken once only out of the thrice, or had miscalculated the time between each occurrence, or the time necessary to cover the ground to the gate, then they would find the prisoner guilty of wilful murder. If, on the other hand, they believed John had judged hastily, and that the curate had really seen the prisoner three separate times, and that he had rightly calculated all the intervals, then they would find the prisoner not guilty. The prisoner's case rested entirely upon the _alibi_. Supposing they thought there was a doubt in the matter, they should give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt. Walter noticed that the judge said in every other case, "If you believe the witness So-and-so," but that in his case he made no such discourteous reservation. As a matter of fact, the one person whose conduct nobody for a moment dreamt of calling in question was the real murderer. The jury retired for more than an hour. During all that time two men stood there in mortal suspense, intent and haggard, both upon their trial, but not both equally. The prisoner in the dock fixed his arms in a dogged and sullen attitude, the colour half gone from his brown cheek, and his eyes straining with excitement, but showing no outward sign of any emotion except the craven fear of death. Walter Dene stood almost fainting in the body of the court, his bloodless fingers still fumbling nervously at the little phial, and his face deadly pale with the awful pallor of a devouring horror. His heart scarcely beat at all, but at each long slow pulsation he could feel it throb distinctly within his bosom. He saw or heard nothing before him, but kept his aching eyes fixed steadily on the door by which the jury were to enter. Junior counsel nudged one another to notice his agitation, and whispered that that poor young curate had evidently never seen a man tried for his life before. At last the jury entered. Joe and Walter waited, each in his own manner, breathless for the verdict. "Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of wilful murder?" Walter took the little phial from his pocket, and held it carefully between his finger and thumb. The awful moment had come; the next word would decide the fate of himself and Christina. The foreman of the jury looked up solemnly, and answered with slow distinctness, "Not guilty." The prisoner leaned back vacantly, and wiped his forehead; but there was an awful cry of relief from one mouth in the body of the court, and Walter Dene sank back into the arms of the bystanders, exhausted with suspense and overcome by the reaction. The crowd remarked among themselves that young Parson Dene was too tender-hearted a man to come into court at a criminal trial. He would break his heart to see even a dog hanged, let alone his fellow-Christians. As for Joe Harley, it was universally admitted that he had had a narrow squeak of it, and that he had got off better than he deserved. The jury gave him the benefit of the doubt. As soon as all the persons concerned had returned to Churnside, Walter sent at once for Joe Harley. The poacher came to see him in the vicarage library. He was elated and coarsely exultant with his victory, as a relief from the strain he had suffered, after the manner of all vulgar natures. "Joe," said the clergyman slowly, motioning him into a chair at the other side of the desk, "I know that after this trial Churnside will not be a pleasant place to hold you. All your neighbours believe, in spite of the verdict, that you killed the vicar. I feel sure, however, that you did not commit this murder. Therefore, as some compensation for the suffering of mind to which you have been put, I think it well to send you and your wife and family to Australia or Canada, whichever you like best. I propose also to make you a present of a hundred pounds, to set you up in your new home." "Make it five hundred, passon," Joe said, looking at him significantly. Walter smiled quietly, and did not flinch in any way. "I said a hundred," he continued calmly, "and I will make it only a hundred. I should have had no objection to making it five, except for the manner in which you ask it. But you evidently mistake the motive of my gift. I give it out of pure compassion for you, and not out of any other feeling whatsoever." "Very well, passon," said Joe sullenly, "I accept it." "You mistake again," Walter went on blandly, for he was himself again now. "You are not to accept it as terms; you are to thank me for it as a pure present. I see we two partially understand each other; but it is important you should understand me exactly as I mean it. Joe Harley, listen to me seriously. I have saved your life. If I had been a man of a coarse and vulgar nature, if I had been like you in a similar predicament, I would have pressed the case against you for obvious personal reasons, and you would have been hanged for it. But I did not press it, because I felt convinced of your innocence, and my sense of justice rose irresistibly against it. I did the best I could to save you; I risked my own reputation to save you; and I have no hesitation now in telling you that to the best of my belief, if the verdict had gone against you, the person who really killed the vicar, accidentally or intentionally, meant to have given himself up to the police, rather than let an innocent man suffer." "Passon," said Joe Harley, looking at him intently, "I believe as you're tellin' me the truth. I zeen as much in that person's face afore the verdict." There was a solemn pause for a moment; and then Walter Dene said slowly, "Now that you have withdrawn your claim as a claim, I will stretch a point and make it five hundred. It is little enough for what you have suffered. But I, too, have suffered terribly, terribly." "Thank you, passon," Joe answered. "I zeen as you were turble anxious." There was again a moment's pause. Then Walter Dene asked quietly, "How did the vicar's face come to be so bruised and battered?" "I stumbled up agin 'im accidental like, and didn't know I'd kicked 'un till I'd done it. Must 'a been just a few minutes after you'd 'a left 'un." "Joe," said the curate in his calmest tone, "you had better go; the money will be sent to you shortly. But if you ever see my face again, or speak or write a word of this to me, you shall not have a penny of it, but shall be prosecuted for intimidation. A hundred before you leave, four hundred in Australia. Now go." "Very well, passon," Joe answered; and he went. "Pah!" said the curate with a face of disgust, shutting the door after him, and lighting a perfumed pastille in his little Chinese porcelain incense-burner, as if to fumigate the room from the poacher's offensive presence. "Pah! to think that these affairs should compel one to humiliate and abase one's self before a vulgar clod like that! To think that all his life long that fellow will virtually know--and misinterpret--my secret. He is incapable of understanding that I did it as a duty to Christina. Well, he will never dare to tell it, that's certain, for nobody would believe him if he did; and he may congratulate himself heartily that he's got well out of this difficulty. It will be the luckiest thing in the end that ever happened to him. And now I hope this little episode is finally over." When the Churnside public learned that Walter Dene meant to carry his belief in Joe Harley's innocence so far as to send him and his family at his own expense out to Australia, they held that the young parson's charity and guilelessness was really, as the doctor said, almost Quixotic. And when, in his anxiety to detect and punish the real murderer, he offered a reward of five hundred pounds from his own pocket for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the criminal, the Churnside people laughed quietly at his extraordinary childlike simplicity of heart. The real murderer had been caught and tried at Dorchester Assizes, they said, and had only got off by the skin of his teeth because Walter himself had come forward and sworn to a quite improbable and inconclusive alibi. There was plenty of time for Joe to have got to the gate by the short cut, and that he did so everybody at Churnside felt morally certain. Indeed, a few years later a blood-stained bowie-knife was found in the hedge not far from the scene of the murder, and the gamekeeper "could almost 'a took his Bible oath he'd zeen just such a knife along o' Joe Harley." That was not the end of Walter Dene's Quixotisms, however. When the will was read, it turned out that almost everything was left to the young parson; and who could deserve it better, or spend it more charitably? But Walter, though he would not for the world seem to cast any slight or disrespect upon his dear uncle's memory, did not approve of customs of primogeniture, and felt bound to share the estate equally with his brother Arthur. "Strange," said the head of the firm of Watson and Blenkiron to himself, when he read the little paragraph about this generous conduct in the paper; "I thought the instructions were to leave it to his nephew Arthur, not to his nephew Walter; but there, one forgets and confuses names of people that one does not know so easily." "Gracious goodness!" thought the engrossing clerk; "surely it was the other way on. I wonder if I can have gone and copied the wrong names in the wrong places?" But in a big London business, nobody notes these things as they would have been noted in Churnside; the vicar was always a changeable, pernickety, huffy old fellow, and very likely he had had a reverse will drawn up afterwards by his country lawyer. All the world only thought that Walter Dene's generosity was really almost ridiculous, even in a parson. When he was married to Christina, six months afterwards, everybody said so charming a girl was well mated with so excellent and admirable a husband. And he really did make a very tender and loving husband and father. Christina believed in him always, for he did his best to foster and keep alive her faith. He would have given up active clerical duty if he could, never having liked it (for he was above hypocrisy), but Christina was against the project, and his bishop would not hear of it. The Church could ill afford to lose such a man as Mr. Dene, the bishop said, in these troubled times; and he begged him as a personal favour to accept the living of Churnside, which was in his gift. But Walter did not like the place, and asked for another living instead, which, being of less value--"so like Mr. Dene to think nothing of the temporalities,"--the bishop even more graciously granted. He has since published a small volume of dainty little poems on uncut paper, considered by some critics as rather pagan in tone for a clergyman, but universally allowed to be extremely graceful, the perfection of poetical form with much delicate mastery of poetical matter. And everybody knows that the author is almost certain to be offered the first vacant canonry in his own cathedral. As for the little episode, he himself has almost forgotten all about it; for those who think a murderer must feel remorse his whole life long, are trying to read their own emotional nature into the wholly dispassionate character of Walter Dene. _AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE._ Sir Henry Vardon, K.C.B., electrician to the Admiralty, whose title, as everybody knows, was gazetted some six weeks since, is at this moment the youngest living member of the British knighthood. He is now only just thirty, and he has obtained his present high distinction by those remarkable inventions of his in the matter of electrical signalling and lighthouse arrangements which have been so much talked about in _Nature_ this year, and which gained him the gold medal of the Royal Society in 1881. Lady Vardon is one of the youngest and prettiest hostesses in London, and if you would care to hear the history of their courtship here it is. When Harry Vardon left Oxford, only seven years ago, none of his friends could imagine what he meant by throwing up all his chances of University success. The son of a poor country parson in Devonshire, who had strained his little income to the uttermost to send him to college, Vardon of Magdalen had done credit to his father and himself in all the schools. He gained the best demyship of his year; got a first in classical mods.; and then unaccountably took to reading science, in which he carried everything before him. At the end of his four years, he walked into a scientific fellowship at Balliol as a matter of course; and then, after twelve months' residence, he suddenly surprised the world of Oxford by accepting a tutorship to the young Earl of Surrey, at that time, as you doubtless remember, a minor, aged about sixteen. But Harry Vardon had good reasons of his own for taking this tutorship. Six months after he became a fellow of Balliol, the old vicar had died unexpectedly, leaving his only other child, Edith, alone and unprovided for, as was indeed natural; for the expenses of Harry's college life had quite eaten up the meagre savings of twenty years at Little Hinton. In order to provide a home for Edith, it was necessary that Harry should find something or other to do which would bring in an immediate income. School-mastering, that refuge of the destitute graduate, was not much to his mind; and so when the senior tutor of Boniface wrote a little note to ask whether he would care to accept the charge of a cub nobleman, as he disrespectfully phrased it, Harry jumped at the offer, and took the proposed salary of 400_l_. a year with the greatest alacrity. That would far more than suffice for all Edith's simple needs, and he himself could live upon the proceeds of his fellowship, besides finding time to continue his electrical researches. For I will not disguise the fact that Harry only accepted the cub nobleman as a stop-gap, and that he meant even then to make his fortune in the end by those splendid electrical discoveries which will undoubtedly immortalize his name in future ages. It was summer term when the appointment was made; and the Surrey people (who were poor for their station) had just gone down to Colyford Abbey, the family seat, in the valley of the Axe near Seaton. You have visited the house, I dare say--open to visitors every Tuesday, when the family is absent--a fine somewhat modernized mansion, with some good perpendicular work about it still, in spite of the havoc wrought in it by Inigo Jones, who converted the chapel and refectory of the old Cistercians into a banqueting-hall and ballroom for the first Lord Surrey of the present creation. It was lovely weather when Harry Vardon went down there; and the Abbey, and the terrace, and the park, and the beautiful valley beyond were looking their very best. Harry fell in love with the view at once, and almost fell in love with the inmates too at the first glance. Lady Surrey, the mother, was sitting on a garden seat in front of the house as the carriage which met him at Colyford station drove up to the door. She was much younger and more beautiful than Harry had at all expected. He had pictured the dowager to himself as a stately old lady of sixty, with white hair and a grand manner; instead of which he found himself face to face with a well-preserved beauty of something less than forty, not above medium height, and still strikingly pretty in a round-faced, mature, but very delicate fashion. She had wavy chestnut hair, regular features, an exquisite set of pearly teeth, full cheeks whose natural roses were perhaps just a trifle increased by not wholly ungraceful art, and above all a lovely complexion quite unspoilt as yet by years. She was dressed as such a person should be dressed, with no affectation of girlishness, but in the style that best shows off ripe beauty and a womanly figure. Harry was always a very impressionable fellow; and I really believe that if Lady Surrey had been alone he would have fallen over head and ears in love with her at first sight. But there was something which kept him from falling in love at once with Lady Surrey, and that was the girl who sat half reclining on a tiger-skin at her feet, with a little sketching tablet on her lap. He could hardly take full stock of the mother because he was so busy looking at the daughter as well. I shall not attempt to describe Lady Gladys Durant; all pretty girls fall under one of some half-dozen heads, and description at best can really do no more than classify them. Lady Gladys belonged to the tall and graceful aristocratic class, and she was a good specimen of the type at seventeen. Not that Harry Vardon fell in love with her at once; he was really in the pleasing condition of Captain Macheath, too much engaged in looking at two pretty women to be capable even mentally of making a choice between them. Mother and daughter were both almost equally beautiful, each in her own distinct style. The countess half rose to greet him--it is condescension on the part of a countess to notice the tutor at all, I believe; but though I am no lover of lords myself, I will do the Durants the justice to say that their treatment of Harry was always the very kindliest that could possibly be expected from people of their ideas and traditions. "Mr. Vardon?" she said interrogatively, as she held out her hand to the new tutor. Harry bowed assent. "I'm glad you have such a lovely day to make your first acquaintance with Colyford. It's a pretty place, isn't it? Gladys, this is Mr. Vardon, who is kindly going to take charge of Surrey for us." "I'm afraid you don't know what you're going to undertake," said Gladys, smiling and holding out her hand. "He's a dreadful pickle. Do you know this part of the world before, Mr. Vardon?" "Not just hereabouts," Harry answered; "my father's parish was in North Devon, but I know the greater part of the county very well." "That's a good thing," said Gladys quickly; "we're all Devonshire people here, and we believe in the county with all our hearts. I wish Surrey took his title from it. It's so absurd to take your title from a place you don't care about only because you've got land there. I love Devonshire people best of any." "Mr. Vardon would probably like to see his rooms," said the countess. "Parker, will you show him up?" The rooms were everything that Harry could wish. There was a prettily furnished sitting-room for himself on the front, looking across the terrace, with a view of the valley and the sea in the distance; there was a study next door, for tutor and pupil to work in; there was a cheerful little bedroom behind; and downstairs at the back there was the large bare room for which Harry had specially stipulated, wherein to put his electrical apparatus, for he meant to experiment and work busily at his own subject in his spare time. There was a special servant, too, told off to wait upon him; and altogether Harry felt that if only the social position could be made endurable, he could live very comfortably for a year or two at Colyford Abbey. There are some men who could never stand such a life at all. There are others who can stand it because they can stand anything. But Harry Vardon belonged to neither class. He was one of those who feel at home in most places, and who can get on in all society alike. In the first place, he was one of the handsomest fellows you ever saw, with large dark eyes, and that particular black moustache that no woman can ever resist. Then again he was tall and had a good presence, which impressed even those most dangerous of critics for a private tutor, the footmen. Moreover, he was clever, chatty, and agreeable; and it never entered into his head that he was not conferring some distinction upon the Surrey family by consenting to be teacher to their young lordling--which, indeed, was after all the sober fact. The train was in a little before seven, and there was a bit of a drive from the station, so that Harry had only just had time to dress for dinner when the gong sounded. In the drawing-room he met his future pupil, a good-looking, high-spirited, but evidently lazy boy of sixteen. The family was alone, so the earl took down his mother, while Harry gave his arm to Lady Gladys. Before dinner was over, the new tutor had taken the measure of the trio pretty accurately. The countess was clever, that was certain; she took an interest in books and in art, and she could talk lightly but well upon most current topics in the easy sparkling style of a woman of the world. Gladys was clever too, though not booky; she was full of sketching and music, and was delighted to hear that Harry could paint a little in water-colours, besides being the owner of a good violin. As to the boy, his fancy clearly ran for the most part to dogs, guns, and cricket; and indeed, though he was no doubt a very important person as a future member of the British legislature, I think for the purposes of the present story, which is mainly concerned with Harry Vardon's fortunes, we may safely leave him out of consideration. Harry taught him as much as he could be induced to learn for an hour or two every morning, and looked after him as far as possible when he was anywhere within hearing throughout the rest of the day; but as the lad was almost always out around the place somewhere with a gamekeeper or a stable-boy, he hardly entered practically into the current of Harry's life at all, outside the regular hours of study. As a matter of fact, he never learnt much from anybody or did anything worth speaking of; but he has since married a Birmingham heiress with a million or so of her own, and is now one of the most rising young members of the House of Lords. After dinner, the countess showed Harry her excellent collection of Bartolozzis, and Harry, who knew something about them, showed the countess that she was wrong as to the authenticity of one or two among them. Then Gladys played passably well, and he sang a duet with her, in a way that made her feel a little ashamed of her own singing. And lastly Harry brought down his violin, at which the countess smiled a little, for she thought it audacious on the first evening; but when he played one of his best pieces she smiled again, for she had a good ear and a great deal of taste. After which they all retired to bed, and Gladys remarked to her maid, in the privacy of her own room, that the new tutor was a very pleasant man, and quite a relief after such a stick as Mr. Wilkinson. At breakfast next morning the party remained unchanged, but at lunch the two younger girls appeared upon the scene, with their governess, Miss Martindale. Though very different in type from Gladys, Ethel Martindale was in her way an equally pretty girl. She was small and _mignonne_, with delicate little hands, and a light pretty figure, not too slight, but very gracefully proportioned. Her cheeks and chin were charmingly dimpled, and her complexion was just of that faintly-dark tinge that one sees so often combined with light-brown hair and eyes in the moorland parts of Lancashire. Altogether, she was a perfect foil to Gladys, and it would have been difficult for almost any man as he sat at that table to say which of the three, mother, daughter, or governess, was really the prettiest. For my own part, I give my vote unreservedly for the countess, but then I am getting somewhat grizzled now and have long been bald; so my liking turns naturally towards ripe beauty. I hate your self-conscious chits of seventeen, who can only chat and giggle; I like a woman who has something to say for herself. But Harry was just turned twenty-three, and perhaps his choice might, not unnaturally, have gone otherwise. The governess talked little at lunch, and seemed altogether a rather subdued and timid girl. Harry noticed with pain that she appeared half afraid of speaking to anybody, and also that the footmen made a marked distinction between their manner to him and their manner to her. He would have liked once or twice to kick the fellows for their insolence. After lunch, Gladys and the little ones went for a stroll down towards the river, and Harry followed after with Miss Martindale. "Do you come from this part of England?" he asked. "No," answered Ethel, "I come from Lancashire. My father was rector of a small parish on the moors." Harry's heart smote him. It might have been Edith. What a little turn of chance had made all the difference! "My father was a parson too," he said, and then checked himself for the half-disrespectful word, "but he lived down here in Devonshire. Do you like Colyford?" "Oh yes,--the place, very much. There are delightful rambles, and Lady Gladys and I go out sketching a great deal. And it's a delightful country for flowers." The place, but not the life, thought Harry. Poor child, it must be very hard for her. "Mr. Vardon, come on here, I want you," called out Gladys from the little stone bridge. "You know everything. Can you tell me what this flower is?" and she held out a long spray of waving green-stuff. "Caper spurge," said Harry, looking at it carelessly. "Oh no," Miss Martindale put in quickly, "Portland spurge, surely." "So it is," Harry answered, looking closer. "Then you are a bit of a botanist, Miss Martindale?" "Not a botanist, but very fond of the flowers." "Miss Martindale's always picking lots of ugly things and bringing them home," said Gladys laughingly; "aren't you, dear?" Ethel smiled and nodded. So they went on past the bridge and out upon the opposite side, and back again by the little white railings into the park. For the next three months Harry enjoyed himself in a busy way immensely. Every morning he had his three hours' teaching, and every afternoon he went a walk, or fished in the river, or worked at his electrical machines. To the household at the Abbey such a man was a perfect godsend. For he was a versatile fellow, able to turn his hand to anything, and the Durants lived in a very quiet way, and were glad of somebody to keep the house lively. The money was all tied up till the boy came of age, and even then there wouldn't be much of it. Surrey had been sent to Eton for a month or two and then removed, by request, to prevent more violent measures; after which he was sent to two or three other schools, always with the same result. So he was brought home again and handed over to the domestic persuasion of a private tutor. The only thing that kept him moderately quiet was the possibility of running around the place with the keepers; and the only person who ever taught him anything was Harry Vardon, though even he, I must admit, did not succeed in impressing any very valuable lessons upon the lad's volatile brain. The countess saw few visitors, and so a man like Harry was a real acquisition to the little circle. He was perpetually being wanted by everybody, everywhere, and at the end of three months he was simply indispensable. Lady Surrey was always consulting him as to the proper place to plant the new wellingtonias, the right aspect for deodars, the best plan for mounting water-colours, and the correct date of all the neighbouring churches. It was so delightful to drive about with somebody who really understood the history and geology and antiquities of the county, she said; and she began to develop an extraordinary interest in prehistoric archæology, and to listen patiently to Harry's disquisitions on the difference between long barrows and round barrows, or on the true nature of the earthworks that cap the top of Membury Hill. Harry for his part was quite ready to discourse volubly on all these subjects, for it was his hobby to impart information, whereof he had plenty; and he liked knocking about the country, examining castles or churches, and laying down the law about matters architectural with much authority to two pretty women. The countess even took an interest in his great electrical investigation, and came into his workshop to hear all about the uses of his mysterious batteries. As for Lady Gladys, she was for ever wanting Mr. Vardon's opinion about the exact colour for that shadow by the cottage, Mr. Vardon's aid in practising that difficult bit of Chopin, Mr. Vardon's counsel about the decorative treatment of the passion-flower on that lovely piece of crewel-work. Indeed, contrary to Miss Martindale's express admonition, and all the dictates of propriety, she was always running off to Harry's little sitting-room to ask his advice about five hundred different things, five hundred times in every twenty-four hours. There was only one person in the household who seemed at all shy of Harry, and that was Miss Martindale. Do what he could, he could never get her to feel at home with him. She seemed always anxious to keep out of his way, and never ready to join in any of his plans. This was annoying, because Harry really liked the poor girl and felt sorry for her lonely position. But as she would have nothing to say to him, why, there was nothing else to be done; so he contented himself with being as polite to her as possible, while respecting her evident wish to be let alone. One afternoon, when the four had been out for a drive together to visit the old ruins near Cowhayne, and Harry had been sketching with Gladys and lecturing to the countess to his heart's content, he was sitting on the bench by the red cedars, when to his surprise he saw the governess strolling carelessly across the terrace towards him. "Mr. Vardon," she said, standing beside the bench, "I want to say something to you. You mustn't mind my saying it, but I feel it is part of my duty. Do you think you ought to pay so much attention to Gladys? You and I come into a family of this sort on peculiar terms, you know. They don't think we are quite the same sort of human beings as themselves. Now, I'm half afraid--I don't like to say so, but I think it better I should say it than my lady--I'm half afraid that Gladys is getting her head too much filled with you. Whatever she does, you are always helping her. She is for ever running off to see you about something or other. She is very young; she meets very few other men; and you have been extremely attentive to her. But when people like these admit you into their family, they do so on the tacit understanding that you will not do what they would call abusing the position. To-day, I half fancied that my lady looked at you once or twice when you were talking to Gladys, and I thought I would try to be brave enough to speak to you about it. If _I_ don't, I think _she_ will." "Really, Miss Martindale," said Harry, rising and walking by her side towards the laburnum alley, "I'm very glad you have unburdened your mind about this matter. For myself, you know, I don't acknowledge the obligation. I should marry any girl I liked, if she would have _me_, whatever her artificial position might be; and I should never let any barriers of that sort stand in my way. But I don't know that I have the slightest intention of ever trying to marry Lady Gladys or anybody else of the sort; so while I remain undecided on that point, I shall do as you wish me. By the way, it strikes me now that you have been trying to keep her away from me as much as possible." "As part of my duty, I think I ought to do so. Yes." "Well, you may rely upon it, I will give you no more cause for anxiety," said Harry; "so the less we say about it the better. What a lovely sunset, and what a glorious colour on the cliffs at Axmouth!" And he walked down the alley with her two or three times, talking about various indifferent subjects. Somehow he had never managed to get on so well with her before. She was a very nice girl, he thought, really a very nice girl; what a pity she would never take any notice of him in any way! However, he enjoyed that quiet half-hour immensely, and was quite sorry when Lady Surrey came out a little later and joined them, exactly as if she wanted to interrupt their conversation. But what a beautiful woman Lady Surrey was too, as she came across the lawn just then in her garden hat and the pale blue Umritzur shawl thrown loosely across her shapely shoulders! By Jove, she was as handsome a woman, after all, as he had ever seen. After dinner that evening Lady Surrey sent Gladys off to Miss Martindale's room on some small pretext, and then put Harry down on the sofa beside her to help in arranging those interminable ferns of hers. Evening dress suited the countess best, and she knew it. She was looking even more beautiful than before, with her hair prettily dressed, and the little simple turquoise necklet setting off her white neck; and she talked a great deal to Harry, and was really very charming. No more fascinating widow, he thought, to be found anywhere within a hundred miles. At last she stopped, leaning over the ferns, and sat back a little on the sofa, half fronting him. "Mr. Vardon," she said suddenly, "there is something I wish to speak to you about, privately." "Certainly," said Harry, half expecting the topic. "Do you know, I think you ought not to pay such marked attention to Lady Gladys. Two or three times I have fancied I noticed it, and have meant to mention it to you, but I thought it might be unnecessary. On many accounts, however, I think it is best not to let it pass any longer. The difference of station----" "Excuse me," said Harry, "I'm sorry to differ from you, but I don't acknowledge differences of station." "Well," said the countess, in a conciliatory tone, "under certain circumstances that may be perfectly correct. A young man in your position and with your talents has of course the whole world before him. He can make himself whatever he pleases. I don't think, Mr. Vardon, I have ever under-estimated the worth of brains. I do feel that knowledge and culture are much greater things after all than mere position. Now, in justice to me, don't you think I do?" Harry looked at her--she was really a very beautiful woman--and then said, "Yes, I think you have certainly better and more rational tastes than most other people circumstanced as you are." "I'm so glad you do," the countess answered, heartily. "I don't care for a life of perfect frivolity and fashion, such as one gets in London. If it were not for Gladys's sake I sometimes think I would give it up entirely. Do you know, I often wish my life had been cast very differently--cast among another set of people from the people I have always mixed among. Whenever I meet clever people--literary people and scholars--I always feel so sorry I haven't moved all my life in their world. From one point of view, I quite recognize what you said just now, that these artificial distinctions should not exist between people who are really equals in intellect and culture." "Naturally not," said Harry, to whom this proposition sounded like a familiar truism. "But in Lady Gladys's case, I feel I ought to guard her against seeing too much of anybody in particular just at present. She is only seventeen, and she is of course impressionable. Now, you know a great many mothers would not have spoken to you as I do; but I like you, Mr. Vardon, and I feel at home with you. You will promise me not to pay so much attention to Gladys in future, won't you?" As she looked at him full in the face with her beautiful eyes, Harry felt he could just then have promised her anything. "Yes," he said, "I will promise." "Thank you," said the countess, looking at him again; "I am very much obliged to you." And then for a moment there was an awkward pause, and they both looked full into one another's eyes without saying a word. In a minute the countess began again, and said a good many things about what a dreadful waste of life people generally made; and what a privilege it was to know clever people; and what a reality and purpose there was in their lives. A great deal of this sort she said, and in a low pleasant voice. And then there was another awkward pause, and they looked at one another once more. Harry certainly thought the countess very beautiful, and he liked her very much. She was really kind-hearted and friendly; she was interested in the subjects that pleased him; and she was after all a pretty woman, still young as men count youth, and very agreeable--nay, anxious to please. And then she had said what she said about the artificiality of class distinctions so markedly and pointedly, with such a commentary from her eyes, that Harry half fancied--well, I don't quite know what he fancied. As he sat there beside her on the sofa, with the ferns before him, looking straight into her eyes, and she into his, it must be clear to all my readers that if he had any special proposition to make to her on any abstract subject of human speculation, the time had obviously arrived to make it. But something or other inscrutable kept him back. "Lady Surrey----" he said, and the words stuck in his throat. "Yes," she answered softly. "Shall ... shall we go on with the ferns?" Lady Surrey gave a little short breath, brought back her eyes from dreamland, and turned with a sudden smile back to the portfolio. For the rest of the evening, the candid historian must admit that they both felt like a pair of fools. Conversation lagged, and I don't think either of them was sorry when the time came for retiring. It is useless for the clumsy male psychologist to pretend that he can see into the heart of a woman, especially when the normal action of said heart is complicated by such queer conventionalities as that of a countess who feels a distinct liking for her son's tutor: but if I may venture to attempt that impossible feat of clairvoyance without rebuke, I should be inclined to diagnose Lady Surrey's condition as she lay sleepless for an hour or so on her pillow that night somewhat as follows. She thought that Harry Vardon was really a very clever and a very pleasant fellow. She thought that men in society were generally dreadfully empty-headed and horribly vain. She thought that the importance of disparity in age had, as a rule, been immensely overrated. She thought that rank was after all much less valuable than she used to think it when first she married poor dear Surrey, who was really the kindest of men, and a thorough gentleman, but certainly not at all brilliant. She thought that a young man of Harry's talent might, if well connected, get into Parliament and rise, like Beaconsfield, to any position. She thought he was very frank, and open, and gentlemanly; and very handsome too. She thought he had half hesitated whether he should propose to her or not, and had then drawn back because he was not certain of the consequences. She thought that if he had proposed to her--well, perhaps--why, yes, she might even possibly have accepted him. She thought he would probably propose in earnest, before long, as soon as he saw that she was not wholly averse to his attentions. She thought in that case she might perhaps provisionally accept him, and get him to try what he could do in the way of obtaining some sort of position--she didn't exactly know what--where he could more easily marry her with the least possible shock to the feelings of society. And she thought that she really didn't know before for twenty years at least how great a goose she positively was. Next morning, after breakfast, Lady Surrey sent for Gladys to come to her in her boudoir. Then she put her daughter in a chair by the window, drew her own close to it, laid her hand kindly on her shoulder--she was a nice little woman at heart, was the countess--and said to her gently, "My dear Gladys, there's a little matter I want to talk to you about. You are still very young, you know, dear; and I think you ought to be very careful about not letting your feelings be played upon in any way, however unconsciously. Now, you walk and talk a great deal too much, dear, with Mr. Vardon. In many ways, it would be well that you should. Mr. Vardon is very clever, and very well informed, and a very instructive companion. I like you to talk to intelligent people, and to hear intelligent people talk; it gives you something that mere books can never give. But you know, Gladys, you should always remember the disparity in your stations. I don't deny that there's a great deal in all that sort of thing that's very conventional and absurd, my dear; but still, girls are girls, and if they're thrown too much with any one young man"--Lady Surrey was going to add, "especially when he's handsome and agreeable," but she checked herself in time--"they're very apt to form an affection for him. Of course I'm not suggesting that you're likely to do anything of the sort with Mr. Vardon--I don't for a moment suppose you would--but a girl can never be too careful. I hope you know your position too well;" here Lady Surrey was conscious of certain internal qualms; "and indeed whether it was Mr. Vardon or anybody else, you are much too young to fill your head with such notions at your age. Of course, if some really good offer had been made to you even in your first season--say Lord St. Ives or Sir Montague--I don't say it might not have been prudent to accept it; but under ordinary circumstances, a girl does best to think as little as possible about such things until she is twenty at least. However, I hope in future you'll remember that I don't wish you to be quite so familiar in your intercourse with Mr. Vardon." "Very well, mamma," said Gladys quietly, drawing herself up; "I have heard what you want to say, and I shall try to do as you wish. But I should like to say something in return, if you'll be so kind as to listen to me." "Certainly, darling," Lady Surrey answered, with a vague foreboding of something wrong. "I don't say I care any more for Mr. Vardon than for anybody else; I haven't seen enough of him to know whether I care for him or not. But if ever I _do_ care for anybody, it will be for somebody like him, and not for somebody like Lord St. Ives or Monty Fitzroy. I don't like the men I meet in town; they all talk to us as if we were dolls or babies. I don't want to marry a man who says to himself, as Surrey says already, 'Ah, I shall look out for some rich girl or other and make her a countess, if she's a good girl, and if she suits me.' I'd rather have a man like Mr. Vardon than any of the men we ever meet in London." "But, my darling," said Lady Surrey, quite alarmed at Gladys' too serious tone, "surely there are gentlemen quite as clever and quite as intellectual as Mr. Vardon." "Mamma!" cried Gladys, rising, "do you mean to say Mr. Vardon is not a gentleman?" "Gladys, Gladys! sit down, dear. Don't get so excited. Of course he is. I trust I have as great a respect as anybody for talent and culture. But what I meant to say was this--can't you find as much talent and culture among people of our own station as--as among people of Mr. Vardon's?" "No," said Gladys shortly. "Really, my dear, you are too hard upon the peerage." "Well, mamma, can you mention any one that we know who is?" asked the peremptory girl. "Not exactly in our own set," said Lady Surrey hesitatingly; "but surely there must be _some_." "I don't know them," Gladys replied quietly, "and till I _do_ know them, I shall remain of my own opinion still. If you wish me not to see so much of Mr. Vardon, I shall try to do as you say; but if I happen to like any particular person, whether he's a peer or a ploughboy, I can't help liking him, so there's an end of it." And Gladys kissed her mother demurely on the forehead, and walked with a stately sweep out of the room. "It's perfectly clear," said Lady Surrey to herself, "that that girl's in love with Mr. Vardon, and what on earth I'm to do about it is to me a mystery." And indeed Lady Surrey's position was by no means an easy one. On the one hand, she felt that whatever she herself, who was a person of mature years, might happen to do, it would be positively wicked in her to allow a young girl like Gladys to throw herself away on a man in Harry Vardon's position. Without any shadow of an _arrière pensée_, that was her genuine feeling as a mother and a member of society. But then, on the other hand, how could she oppose it, if she really ever thought herself, even conditionally, of marrying Harry Vardon? Could she endure that her daughter should think she had acted as her rival? Could she press the point about Harry's conventional disadvantages, when she herself had some vague idea that if Harry offered himself as Gladys' step-father, she would not be wholly disinclined to consider his proposal? Could she set it down as a crime in her daughter to form the very self-same affection which she herself had well-nigh formed? Moreover, she couldn't help feeling in her heart that Gladys was right, after all; and that the daughter's defiance of conventionality was implicitly inherited from the mother. If she had met Harry Vardon twenty years ago, she would have thought and spoken much like Gladys; in fact, though she didn't speak, she thought so, very nearly, even now. I am sorry that I am obliged to write out these faint outlines of ideas in all the brutal plainness of the English language as spoken by men; I cannot give all those fine shades of unspoken reservations and womanly self-deceptive subterfuges by which the poor little countess half disguised her own meaning even from herself; but at least you will not be surprised to hear that in the end she lay down on the little couch in the corner, covered her face with chagrin and disappointment, and had a good cry. Then she got up an hour later, washed her eyes carefully to take off the redness, put on her pretty dove-coloured morning gown with the lace trimming--she looked charming in lace--and went down smiling to lunch, as pleasant and cheery a little widow of thirty-seven as ever you would wish to see. Upon my soul, Harry Vardon, I really almost think you will be a fool if you don't finally marry the countess! "Gladys," said little Lord Surrey to his sister that evening, when she came into his room on her way upstairs to bed--"Gladys, it's my opinion you're getting too sweet on this fellow Vardon." "I shall be obliged, Surrey, if you'll mind your own business, and allow me to mind mine." "Oh, it's no use coming the high and mighty over me, I can tell you, so don't you try it on. Besides, I have something I want to speak to you about particularly. It's my opinion also that my lady's doing the very same thing." "What nonsense, Surrey!" cried Gladys, colouring up to her eyebrows in a second: "how dare you say such a thing about mamma?" But a light broke in upon her suddenly all the same, and a number of little unnoticed circumstances flashed back at once upon her memory with a fresh flood of meaning. "Nonsense or not, it's true, I know; and what I want to say to you is this--If old Vardon's to marry either of you, it ought to be you, because that would save mamma at any rate from making a fool of herself. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather neither of you did; for I don't see why either of you should want to marry a beggarly fellow of a tutor"--Gladys' eyes flashed fire--"though Vardon's a decent enough chap in his way, if that was all; but at any rate, as one or other of you's cock-sure to do it, I don't want him for a step-father. So you see, as far as that goes, I back the filly. Now, say no more about it, but go to bed like a good girl, and mind, whatever you do, you don't forget to say your prayers. Good night, old girl." "I wouldn't marry a fellow like Surrey," said Gladys to herself, as she went upstairs, "no, not if he was the premier duke of England!" For the next three weeks there was such a comedy of errors and cross-purposes at Colyford Abbey as was never seen before anywhere outside of one of Mr. Gilbert's clever extravaganzas. Lady Surrey tried to keep Gladys in every possible way out of Harry's sight; while her brother tried in every possible way to throw them together. Gladys on her part half avoided him, and yet grew somewhat more confidential than ever whenever she happened to talk with him. Harry did not feel quite so much at home as before with Lady Surrey; he had an uncomfortable sense that he had failed to acquit himself as he ought to have done; while Lady Surrey had a half suspicion that she had let him see her unfledged secret a little too early and too openly. The natural consequence of all this was that Harry was cast far more than before upon the society of Ethel Martindale, with whom he often strolled about the shrubbery till very close upon the dressing gong. Ethel did not come down to dinner--she dined with the little ones at the family luncheon; and that horrid galling distinction cut Harry to the quick every night when he left her to go in. Every day, too, it began to dawn upon him more clearly that the vague reason which had kept him back from proposing to Lady Surrey on that eventful night was just this--that Ethel Martindale had made herself a certain vacant niche in his unfurnished heart. She was a dear, quiet, unassuming little girl, but so very graceful, so very tender, so very womanly, that she crept into his affections unawares without possibility of resistance. The countess was a beautiful and accomplished woman of the world, with a real heart left in her still, but not quite the sort of tender, shrinking, girlish heart that Harry wanted. Gladys was a lovely girl with stately manners and a wonderfully formed character, but too great and too redolent of society for Harry. He admired them both, each in her own way, but he couldn't possibly have lived a lifetime with either. But Ethel, dear, meek, pretty, gentle little Ethel--well, there, I'm not going to repeat for you all the raptures that Harry went into over that perennial and ever rejuvenescent theme. For, to tell you the truth, about three weeks after the night when Harry did _not_ propose to the countess, he actually _did_ propose to Ethel Martindale. And Ethel, after many timid protests, after much demure self-depreciation and declaration of utter unworthiness for such a man--which made Harry wild with indignation--did finally let him put her little hand to his lips, and whispered a sort of broken and blushing "Yes." What a fool he had been, he thought that evening, to suppose for half a second that Lady Surrey had ever meant to regard him in any other light than as her son's tutor. He hated himself for his own nonsensical vanity. Who was he that he should fancy all the women in England were in love with him? Next morning's _Times_ contained that curious announcement about its being the intention of the Government to appoint an electrician to the Admiralty, and inviting applications from distinguished men of science. Now Harry, young as he was, had just perfected his great system of the double-revolving commutator and back-action rheostat (Patent Office, No. 18,237,504), and had sent in a paper on the subject which had been read with great success at the Royal Society. The famous Professor Brusegay himself had described it as a remarkable invention, likely to prove of immense practical importance to telegraphy and electrical science generally. So when Harry saw the announcement that morning, he made up his mind to apply for the appointment at once; and he thought that if he got it, as the salary was a good one, he might before long marry Ethel, and yet manage to keep Edith in the same comfort as before. Lady Surrey saw the paragraph too, and had her own ideas about what it might be made to do. It was the very opening that Harry wanted, and if he got it, why then no doubt he might make the proposal which he evidently felt afraid to make, poor fellow, in his present position. So she went into her boudoir immediately after breakfast, and wrote two careful and cautiously worded little notes. One was to Dr. Brusegay, whom she knew well, mentioning to him that her son's tutor was the author of that remarkable paper on commutators, and that she thought he would probably be admirably fitted for the post, but that on that point the Professor himself was the best judge; the other was to her cousin, Lord Ardenleigh, who was a great man in the government of the day, suggesting casually that he should look into the claims of her friend, Mr. Vardon, for this new place at the Admiralty. Two nicer little notes, written with better tact and judgment, it would be difficult to find. At that very moment Harry was also sitting down in his own room, after five minutes' consultation with Ethel, to make formal application for the new post. And after lunch the same day he spoke to Lady Surrey upon the subject. "There is one special reason," he said, "why I should like to get this post, and I think I ought to let you know it now." Poor little Lady Surrey's heart fluttered like a girl's. "The fact is, I am anxious to obtain a position which would enable me to marry." ("How very bluntly he puts it," said the countess to herself.) "I ought to tell you, I think, that I have proposed to Miss Martindale, and she has accepted me." Miss Martindale! Great heavens, how the room reeled round the poor little woman, as she stood with her hand on the table, trying to balance herself, trying to conceal her shame and mortification, trying to look as if the announcement did not concern her in any way. Poor, dear, good little countess; from my heart I pity you. Miss Martindale! why, she had never even thought of _her_. A mere governess, a nobody; and Harry Vardon, with his magnificent intellect and splendid prospects, was going to throw himself away on that girl! She could hardly control herself to answer him, but with a great effort she gulped down her feelings, and remarked that Ethel Martindale was a very good girl, and would doubtless make an admirable wife. And then she walked quietly out of the room, stepped up the stairs somewhat faster, rushed into her boudoir, double-locked the door, and burst into a perfect flood of hot scalding tears. At that moment she began to realize the fact that she had in truth liked Harry Vardon much more than a little. By-and-by she got up, went over to her desk, took out the two unposted notes, tore them into fragments, and then carefully burnt them up piece by piece, in a perfect holocaust of white paper. What a wicked vindictive little countess! Was she going to spoil these two young people's lives, to throw every possible obstacle in the way of their marriage? Not a bit of it. As soon as her eyes allowed her, she sat down and wrote two more notes, a great deal stronger and better than before; for this time she need not fear the possibility of after reflections from an unkind world. She said a great deal in a casual half-hinting fashion about Harry's merits, and remarked upon the loss that she should sustain in the removal of such a tutor from Lord Surrey; but she felt that sooner or later his talents must get him a higher recognition, and she hoped Dr. Brusegay and her cousin would use their influence to obtain him the appointment. Then she went downstairs feeling like a Christian martyr, kissed and congratulated Ethel, talked gaily about Bartolozzi to Harry, and tried to make believe that she took the engagement as a matter of course. Nothing in fact, as she remarked to Gladys, could possibly be more suitable. Gladys bit her tongue, and answered shortly that she didn't herself perceive any special natural congruity about the match, but perhaps her mother was better informed on the subject. Now, we all know that in the matter of public appointment anything like backstairs influence or indirect canvassing is positively fatal to the success of a candidate. Accordingly, it may surprise you to learn that when Professor Brusegay (who held the appointment virtually in his hands) opened his letters next morning he said to his wife, "Why, Maria, that young fellow Vardon who wrote that astonishingly clever paper on commutators, you know, is tutor at Lady Surrey's, and she wants him to get this place at the Admiralty. We must really see what we can do about it. Lady Surrey is such a very useful person to know, and besides it's so important to keep on good terms with her, for the Paulsons would be absolutely intolerable if we hadn't its acquaintance in the peerage to play off against their Lord Poodlebury." And when the Professor shortly afterwards mentioned Harry's name to Lord Ardenleigh, his lordship remarked immediately, "Why, bless my soul, that's the very man Amelia wrote to me about. He shall have the place, by all means." And they both wrote back nice little notes to Lady Surrey, to say that she might consider the matter settled, but that she mustn't mention it to Harry until the appointment was regularly announced. Anything so remarkable in this age of purity I for my part have seldom heard of. Lady Surrey never did mention the matter to Harry from that day to this; and Sir Henry Vardon, K.C.B., does not for a moment imagine even now that he owes his advancement to anything but his own native merits. He married Ethel shortly after, and a prettier or more blushing bride you never saw. Lady Surrey has been their best friend in society, and still sighs occasionally when she sees Harry a great magnate in his way, and thinks of the narrow escape he had that night at Colyford. As to Gladys, she consistently refused several promising heirs, at least twenty younger sons, and a score or so of wealthy young men whose papas were something in the City, her first five seasons; and then, to Lord Surrey's horror, she married a young Scotchman from Glasgow, who was merely a writer for some London paper, and had nothing on earth but a head on his shoulders to bless himself with. His lordship himself "bagged an heiress" as he expressively puts it, with several thousands a year of her own, and is now one of the most respected members of his party, who may be counted upon always to vote straight, and never to have any opinions of his own upon any subject except the improvement of the British racehorse. He often wishes Gladys had taken his advice and married Vardon, who is at least in respectable society, instead of that shock-headed Scotch fellow--but there, the girl was always full of fancies, and never would behave like other people. For myself, I am a horrid radical, and republican, and all that sort of thing, and have a perfectly rabid hatred of titles and so forth, don't you know?--but still, on the first day when Ethel went to call on the countess dowager after Harry was knighted, I happened to be present (purely on business), and heard her duly announced as "Lady Vardon:" and I give you my word of honour I could not find it in my heart to grudge the dear little woman the flush of pride that rose upon her cheek as she entered the room for the first time in her new position. It was a pleasure to me (who know the whole story) to see Lady Surrey kiss the little ex-governess warmly on her cheek and say to her, "My dear Lady Vardon, I am so glad, so very very glad." And I really believe she meant it. After all, in spite of her little weakness, there is a great deal of human nature left in the countess. _MY NEW YEARS EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES._ I have been a wanderer and a vagabond on the face of the earth for a good many years now, and I have certainly had some odd adventures in my time; but I can assure you, I never spent twenty-four queerer hours than those which I passed some twelve months since in the great unopened Pyramid of Abu Yilla. The way I got there was itself a very strange one. I had come to Egypt for a winter tour with the Fitz-Simkinses, to whose daughter Editha I was at that precise moment engaged. You will probably remember that old Fitz-Simkins belonged originally to the wealthy firm of Simkinson and Stokoe, worshipful vintners; but when the senior partner retired from the business and got his knighthood, the College of Heralds opportunely discovered that his ancestors had changed their fine old Norman name for its English equivalent some time about the reign of King Richard I.; and they immediately authorized the old gentleman to resume the patronymic and the armorial bearings of his distinguished forefathers. It's really quite astonishing how often these curious coincidences crop up at the College of Heralds. Of course it was a great catch for a landless and briefless barrister like myself--dependent on a small fortune in South American securities, and my precarious earnings as a writer of burlesque--to secure such a valuable prospective property as Editha Fitz-Simkins. To be sure, the girl was undeniably plain; but I have known plainer girls than she was, whom forty thousand pounds converted into My Ladies: and if Editha hadn't really fallen over head and ears in love with me, I suppose old Fitz-Simkins would never have consented to such a match. As it was, however, we had flirted so openly and so desperately during the Scarborough season, that it would have been difficult for Sir Peter to break it off: and so I had come to Egypt on a tour of insurance to secure my prize, following in the wake of my future mother-in-law, whose lungs were supposed to require a genial climate--though in my private opinion they were really as creditable a pair of pulmonary appendages as ever drew breath. Nevertheless, the course of our true love did not run so smoothly as might have been expected. Editha found me less ardent than a devoted squire should be; and on the very last night of the old year she got up a regulation lovers' quarrel, because I had sneaked away from the boat that afternoon, under the guidance of our dragoman, to witness the seductive performances of some fair Ghawázi, the dancing girls of a neighbouring town. How she found it out heaven only knows, for I gave that rascal Dimitri five piastres to hold his tongue: but she did find it out somehow, and chose to regard it as an offence of the first magnitude: a mortal sin only to be expiated by three days of penance and humiliation. I went to bed that night, in my hammock on deck, with feelings far from satisfactory. We were moored against the bank at Abu Yilla, the most pestiferous hole between the cataracts and the Delta. The mosquitoes were worse than the ordinary mosquitoes of Egypt, and that is saying a great deal. The heat was oppressive even at night, and the malaria from the lotus beds rose like a palpable mist before my eyes. Above all, I was getting doubtful whether Editha Fitz-Simkins might not after all slip between my fingers. I felt wretched and feverish: and yet I had delightful interlusive recollections, in between, of that lovely little Gháziyah, who danced that exquisite, marvellous, entrancing, delicious, and awfully oriental dance that I saw in the afternoon. By Jove, she _was_ a beautiful creature. Eyes like two full moons; hair like Milton's Penseroso; movements like a poem of Swinburne's set to action. If Editha was only a faint picture of that girl now! Upon my word, I was falling in love with a Gháziyah! Then the mosquitoes came again. Buzz--buzz--buzz. I make a lunge at the loudest and biggest, a sort of prima donna in their infernal opera. I kill the prima donna, but ten more shrill performers come in its place. The frogs croak dismally in the reedy shallows. The night grows hotter and hotter still. At last, I can stand it no longer. I rise up, dress myself lightly, and jump ashore to find some way of passing the time. Yonder, across the flat, lies the great unopened Pyramid of Abu Yilla. We are going to-morrow to climb to the top; but I will take a turn to reconnoitre in that direction now. I walk across the moonlit fields, my soul still divided between Editha and the Gháziyah, and approach the solemn mass of huge, antiquated granite-blocks standing out so grimly against the pale horizon. I feel half awake, half asleep, and altogether feverish: but I poke about the base in an aimless sort of way, with a vague idea that I may perhaps discover by chance the secret of its sealed entrance, which has ere now baffled so many pertinacious explorers and learned Egyptologists. As I walk along the base, I remember old Herodotus's story, like a page from the "Arabian Nights," of how King Rhampsinitus built himself a treasury, wherein one stone turned on a pivot like a door; and how the builder availed himself of this his cunning device to steal gold from the king's storehouse. Suppose the entrance to the unopened Pyramid should be by such a door. It would be curious if I should chance to light upon the very spot. I stood in the broad moonlight, near the north-east angle of the great pile, at the twelfth stone from the corner. A random fancy struck me, that I might turn this stone by pushing it inward on the left side. I leant against it with all my weight, and tried to move it on the imaginary pivot. Did it give way a fraction of an inch? No, it must have been mere fancy. Let me try again. Surely it is yielding! Gracious Osiris, it has moved an inch or more! My heart beats fast, either with fever or excitement, and I try a third time. The rust of centuries on the pivot wears slowly off, and the stone turns ponderously round, giving access to a low dark passage. It must have been madness which led me to enter the forgotten corridor, alone, without torch or match, at that hour of the evening; but at any rate I entered. The passage was tall enough for a man to walk erect, and I could feel, as I groped slowly along, that the wall was composed of smooth polished granite, while the floor sloped away downward with a slight but regular descent. I walked with trembling heart and faltering feet for some forty or fifty yards down the mysterious vestibule: and then I felt myself brought suddenly to a standstill by a block of stone placed right across the pathway. I had had nearly enough for one evening, and I was preparing to return to the boat, agog with my new discovery, when my attention was suddenly arrested by an incredible, a perfectly miraculous fact. The block of stone which barred the passage was faintly visible as a square, by means of a struggling belt of light streaming through the seams. There must be a lamp or other flame burning within. What if this were a door like the outer one, leading into a chamber perhaps inhabited by some dangerous band of outcasts? The light was a sure evidence of human occupation: and yet the outer door swung rustily on its pivot as though it had never been opened for ages. I paused a moment in fear before I ventured to try the stone: and then, urged on once more by some insane impulse, I turned the massive block with all my might to the left. It gave way slowly like its neighbour, and finally opened into the central hall. Never as long as I live shall I forget the ecstasy of terror, astonishment, and blank dismay which seized upon me when I stepped into that seemingly enchanted chamber. A blaze of light first burst upon my eyes, from jets of gas arranged in regular rows tier above tier, upon the columns and walls of the vast apartment. Huge pillars, richly painted with red, yellow, blue, and green decorations, stretched in endless succession down the dazzling aisles. A floor of polished syenite reflected the splendour of the lamps, and afforded a base for red granite sphinxes and dark purple images in porphyry of the cat-faced goddess Pasht, whose form I knew so well at the Louvre and the British Museum. But I had no eyes for any of these lesser marvels, being wholly absorbed in the greatest marvel of all: for there, in royal state and with mitred head, a living Egyptian king, surrounded by his coiffured court, was banqueting in the flesh upon a real throne, before a table laden with Memphian delicacies! I stood transfixed with awe and amazement, my tongue and my feet alike forgetting their office, and my brain whirling round and round, as I remember it used to whirl when my health broke down utterly at Cambridge after the Classical Tripos. I gazed fixedly at the strange picture before me, taking in all its details in a confused way, yet quite incapable of understanding or realizing any part of its true import. I saw the king in the centre of the hall, raised on a throne of granite inlaid with gold and ivory; his head crowned with the peaked cap of Rameses, and his curled hair flowing down his shoulders in a set and formal frizz. I saw priests and warriors on either side, dressed in the costumes which I had often carefully noted in our great collections; while bronze-skinned maids, with light garments round their waists, and limbs displayed in graceful picturesqueness, waited upon them, half nude, as in the wall paintings which we had lately examined at Karnak and Syene. I saw the ladies, clothed from head to foot in dyed linen garments, sitting apart in the background, banqueting by themselves at a separate table; while dancing girls, like older representatives of my yesternoon friends, the Ghawázi, tumbled before them in strange attitudes, to the music of four-stringed harps and long straight pipes. In short, I beheld as in a dream the whole drama of everyday Egyptian royal life, playing itself out anew under my eyes, in its real original properties and personages. Gradually, as I looked, I became aware that my hosts were no less surprised at the appearance of their anachronistic guest than was the guest himself at the strange living panorama which met his eyes. In a moment music and dancing ceased; the banquet paused in its course, and the king and his nobles stood up in undisguised astonishment to survey the strange intruder. Some minutes passed before any one moved forward on either side. At last a young girl of royal appearance, yet strangely resembling the Gháziyah of Abu Yilla, and recalling in part the laughing maiden in the foreground of Mr. Long's great canvas at the previous Academy, stepped out before the throng. "May I ask you," she said in Ancient Egyptian, "who you are, and why you come hither to disturb us?" I was never aware before that I spoke or understood the language of the hieroglyphics: yet I found I had not the slightest difficulty in comprehending or answering her question. To say the truth, Ancient Egyptian, though an extremely tough tongue to decipher in its written form, becomes as easy as love-making when spoken by a pair of lips like that Pharaonic princess's. It is really very much the same as English, pronounced in a rapid and somewhat indefinite whisper, and with all the vowels left out. "I beg ten thousand pardons for my intrusion," I answered apologetically; "but I did not know that this Pyramid was inhabited, or I should not have entered your residence so rudely. As for the points you wish to know, I am an English tourist, and you will find my name upon this card;" saying which I handed her one from the case which I had fortunately put into my pocket, with conciliatory politeness. The princess examined it closely, but evidently did not understand its import. "In return," I continued, "may I ask you in what august presence I now find myself by accident?" A court official stood forth from the throng, and answered in a set heraldic tone: "In the presence of the illustrious monarch, Brother of the Sun, Thothmes the Twenty-seventh, king of the Eighteenth Dynasty." "Salute the Lord of the World," put in another official in the same regulation drone. I bowed low to his Majesty, and stepped out into the hall. Apparently my obeisance did not come up to Egyptian standards of courtesy, for a suppressed titter broke audibly from the ranks of bronze-skinned waiting-women. But the king graciously smiled at my attempt, and turning to the nearest nobleman, observed in a voice of great sweetness and self-contained majesty: "This stranger, Ombos, is certainly a very curious person. His appearance does not at all resemble that of an Ethiopian or other savage, nor does he look like the pale-faced sailors who come to us from the Achaian land beyond the sea. His features, to be sure, are not very different from theirs; but his extraordinary and singularly inartistic dress shows him to belong to some other barbaric race." I glanced down at my waistcoat, and saw that I was wearing my tourist's check suit, of grey and mud colour, with which a Bond Street tailor had supplied me just before leaving town, as the latest thing out in fancy tweeds. Evidently these Egyptians must have a very curious standard of taste not to admire our pretty and graceful style of male attire. "If the dust beneath your Majesty's feet may venture upon a suggestion," put in the officer whom the king had addressed, "I would hint that this young man is probably a stray visitor from the utterly uncivilized lands of the North. The head-gear which he carries in his hand obviously betrays an Arctic habitat." I had instinctively taken off my round felt hat in the first moment of surprise, when I found myself in the midst of this strange throng, and I was standing now in a somewhat embarrassed posture, holding it awkwardly before me like a shield to protect my chest. "Let the stranger cover himself," said the king. "Barbarian intruder, cover yourself," cried the herald. I noticed throughout that the king never directly addressed anybody save the higher officials around him. I put on my hat as desired. "A most uncomfortable and silly form of tiara indeed," said the great Thothmes. "Very unlike your noble and awe-spiring mitre, Lion of Egypt," answered Ombos. "Ask the stranger his name," the king continued. It was useless to offer another card, so I mentioned it in a clear voice. "An uncouth and almost unpronounceable designation truly," commented his Majesty to the Grand Chamberlain beside him. "These savages speak strange languages, widely different from the flowing tongue of Memnon and Sesostris." The chamberlain bowed his assent with three low genuflexions. I began to feel a little abashed at these personal remarks, and I _almost_ think (though I shouldn't like it to be mentioned in the Temple) that a blush rose to my cheek. The beautiful princess, who had been standing near me meanwhile in an attitude of statuesque repose, now appeared anxious to change the current of the conversation. "Dear father," she said with a respectful inclination, "surely the stranger, barbarian though he be, cannot relish such pointed allusions to his person and costume. We must let him feel the grace and delicacy of Egyptian refinement. Then he may perhaps carry back with him some faint echo of its cultured beauty to his northern wilds." "Nonsense, Hatasou," replied Thothmes XXVII. testily. "Savages have no feelings, and they are as incapable of appreciating Egyptian sensibility as the chattering crow is incapable of attaining the dignified reserve of the sacred crocodile." "Your Majesty is mistaken," I said, recovering my self-possession gradually and realizing my position as a free-born Englishman before the court of a foreign despot--though I must allow that I felt rather less confident than usual, owing to the fact that we were not represented in the Pyramid by a British Consul--"I am an English tourist, a visitor from a modern land whose civilization far surpasses the rude culture of early Egypt; and I am accustomed to respectful treatment from all other nationalities, as becomes a citizen of the First Naval Power in the World." My answer created a profound impression. "He has spoken to the Brother of the Sun," cried Ombos in evident perturbation. "He must be of the Blood Royal in his own tribe, or he would never have dared to do so!" "Otherwise," added a person whose dress I recognized as that of a priest, "he must be offered up in expiation to Amon-Ra immediately." As a rule I am a decently truthful person, but under these alarming circumstances I ventured to tell a slight fib with an air of nonchalant boldness. "I am a younger brother of our reigning king," I said without a moment's hesitation; for there was nobody present to gainsay me, and I tried to salve my conscience by reflecting that at any rate I was only claiming consanguinity with an imaginary personage. "In that case," said King Thothmes, with more geniality in his tone, "there can be no impropriety in my addressing you personally. Will you take a place at our table next to myself, and we can converse together without interrupting a banquet which must be brief enough in any circumstances? Hatasou, my dear, you may seat yourself next to the barbarian prince." I felt a visible swelling to the proper dimensions of a Royal Highness as I sat down by the king's right hand. The nobles resumed their places, the bronze-skinned waitresses left off standing like soldiers in a row and staring straight at my humble self, the goblets went round once more, and a comely maid soon brought me meat, bread, fruits, and date wine. All this time I was naturally burning with curiosity to inquire who my strange hosts might be, and how they had preserved their existence for so many centuries in this undiscovered hall; but I was obliged to wait until I had satisfied his Majesty of my own nationality, the means by which I had entered the Pyramid, the general state of affairs throughout the world at the present moment, and fifty thousand other matters of a similar sort. Thothmes utterly refused to believe my reiterated assertion that our existing civilization was far superior to the Egyptian; "because," said he, "I see from your dress that your nation is utterly devoid of taste or invention;" but he listened with great interest to my account of modern society, the steam-engine, the Permissive Prohibitory Bill, the telegraph, the House of Commons, Home Rule, and the other blessings of our advanced era, as well as to a brief _résumé_ of European history from the rise of the Greek culture to the Russo-Turkish war. At last his questions were nearly exhausted, and I got a chance of making a few counter inquiries on my own account. "And now," I said, turning to the charming Hatasou, whom I thought a more pleasing informant than her august papa, "I should like to know who _you_ are." "What, don't you know?" she cried with unaffected surprise. "Why, we're mummies." She made this astounding statement with just the same quiet unconsciousness as if she had said, "we're French," or "we're Americans." I glanced round the walls, and observed behind the columns, what I had not noticed till then--a large number of empty mummy-cases, with their lids placed carelessly by their sides. "But what are you doing here?" I asked in a bewildered way. "Is it possible," said Hatasou, "that you don't really know the object of embalming? Though your manners show you to be an agreeable and well-bred young man, you must excuse my saying that you are shockingly ignorant. We are made into mummies in order to preserve our immortality. Once in every thousand years we wake up for twenty-four hours, recover our flesh and blood, and banquet once more upon the mummied dishes and other good things laid by for us in the Pyramid. To-day is the first day of a millennium, and so we have waked up for the sixth time since we were first embalmed." "The _sixth_ time?" I inquired incredulously. "Then you must have been dead six thousand years." "Exactly so." "But the world has not yet existed so long," I cried, in a fervour of orthodox horror. "Excuse me, barbarian prince. This is the first day of the three hundred and twenty-seven thousandth millennium." My orthodoxy received a severe shock. However, I had been accustomed to geological calculations, and was somewhat inclined to accept the antiquity of man; so I swallowed the statement without more ado. Besides, if such a charming girl as Hatasou had asked me at that moment to turn Mohammedan, or to worship Osiris, I believe I should incontinently have done so. "You wake up only for a single day and night, then?" I said. "Only for a single day and night. After that, we go to sleep for another millennium." "Unless you are meanwhile burned as fuel on the Cairo Railway," I added mentally. "But how," I continued aloud, "do you get these lights?" "The Pyramid is built above a spring of inflammable gas. We have a reservoir in one of the side chambers in which it collects during the thousand years. As soon as we awake, we turn it on at once from the tap, and light it with a lucifer match." "Upon my word," I interposed, "I had no notion you Ancient Egyptians were acquainted with the use of matches." "Very likely not. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Cephrenes, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,' as the bard of Philæ puts it." Further inquiries brought out all the secrets of that strange tomb-house, and kept me fully interested till the close of the banquet. Then the chief priest solemnly rose, offered a small fragment of meat to a deified crocodile, who sat in a meditative manner by the side of his deserted mummy-case, and declared the feast concluded for the night. All rose from their places, wandered away into the long corridors or side-aisles, and formed little groups of talkers under the brilliant gas-lamps. For my part, I scrolled off with Hatasou down the least illuminated of the colonnades, and took my seat beside a marble fountain, where several fish (gods of great sanctity, Hatasou assured me) were disporting themselves in a porphyry basin. How long we sat there I cannot tell, but I know that we talked a good deal about fish, and gods, and Egyptian habits, and Egyptian philosophy, and, above all, Egyptian love-making. The last-named subject we found very interesting, and when once we got fully started upon it, no diversion afterwards occurred to break the even tenour of the conversation. Hatasou was a lovely figure, tall, queenly, with smooth dark arms and neck of polished bronze: her big black eyes full of tenderness, and her long hair bound up into a bright Egyptian headdress, that harmonized to a tone with her complexion and her robe. The more we talked, the more desperately did I fall in love, and the more utterly oblivious did I become of my duty to Editha Fitz-Simkins. The mere ugly daughter of a rich and vulgar brand-new knight, forsooth, to show off her airs before me, when here was a Princess of the Blood Royal of Egypt, obviously sensible to the attentions which I was paying her, and not unwilling to receive them with a coy and modest grace. Well, I went on saying pretty things to Hatasou, and Hatasou went on deprecating them in a pretty little way, as who should say, "I don't mean what I pretend to mean one bit;" until at last I may confess that we were both evidently as far gone in the disease of the heart called love as it is possible for two young people on first acquaintance to become. Therefore, when Hatasou pulled forth her watch--another piece of mechanism with which antiquaries used never to credit the Egyptian people--and declared that she had only three more hours to live, at least for the next thousand years, I fairly broke down, took out my handkerchief, and began to sob like a child of five years old. Hatasou was deeply moved. Decorum forbade that she should console me with too much _empressement_; but she ventured to remove the handkerchief gently from my face, and suggested that there was yet one course open by which we might enjoy a little more of one another's society. "Suppose," she said quietly, "you were to become a mummy. You would then wake up, as we do, every thousand years; and after you have tried it once, you will find it just as natural to sleep for a millennium as for eight hours. Of course," she added with a slight blush, "during the next three or four solar cycles there would be plenty of time to conclude any other arrangements you might possibly contemplate, before the occurrence of another glacial epoch." This mode of regarding time was certainly novel and somewhat bewildering to people who ordinarily reckon its lapse by weeks and months; and I had a vague consciousness that my relations with Editha imposed upon me a moral necessity of returning to the outer world, instead of becoming a millennial mummy. Besides, there was the awkward chance of being converted into fuel and dissipated into space before the arrival of the next waking day. But I took one look at Hatasou, whose eyes were filling in turn with sympathetic tears, and that look decided me. I flung Editha, life, and duty to the dogs, and resolved at once to become a mummy. There was no time to be lost. Only three hours remained to us, and the process of embalming, even in the most hasty manner, would take up fully two. We rushed off to the chief priest, who had charge of the particular department in question. He at once acceded to my wishes, and briefly explained the mode in which they usually treated the corpse. That word suddenly aroused me. "The corpse!" I cried; "but I am alive. You can't embalm me living." "We can," replied the priest, "under chloroform." "Chloroform!" I echoed, growing more and more astonished: "I had no idea you Egyptians knew anything about it." "Ignorant barbarian!" he answered with a curl of the lip; "you imagine yourself much wiser than the teachers of the world. If you were versed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, you would know that chloroform is one of our simplest and commonest anæsthetics." I put myself at once under the hands of the priest. He brought out the chloroform, and placed it beneath my nostrils, as I lay on a soft couch under the central court. Hatasou held my hand in hers, and watched my breathing with an anxious eye. I saw the priest leaning over me, with a clouded phial in his hand, and I experienced a vague sensation of smelling myrrh and spikenard. Next, I lost myself for a few moments, and when I again recovered my senses in a temporary break, the priest was holding a small greenstone knife, dabbled with blood, and I felt that a gash had been made across my breast. Then they applied the chloroform once more; I felt Hatasou give my hand a gentle squeeze; the whole panorama faded finally from my view; and I went to sleep for a seemingly endless time. When I awoke again, my first impression led me to believe that the thousand years were over, and that I had come to life once more to feast with Hatasou and Thothmes in the Pyramid of Abu Yilla. But second thoughts, combined with closer observation of the surroundings, convinced me that I was really lying in a bedroom of Shepheard's Hotel at Cairo. An hospital nurse leant over me, instead of a chief priest; and I noticed no tokens of Editha Fitz-Simkins's presence. But when I endeavoured to make inquiries upon the subject of my whereabouts, I was peremptorily informed that I mustn't speak, as I was only just recovering from a severe fever, and might endanger my life by talking. Some weeks later I learned the sequel of my night's adventure. The Fitz-Simkinses, missing me from the boat in the morning, at first imagined that I might have gone ashore for an early stroll. But after breakfast time, lunch time, and dinner time had gone past, they began to grow alarmed, and sent to look for me in all directions. One of their scouts, happening to pass the Pyramid, noticed that one of the stones near the north-east angle had been displaced, so as to give access to a dark passage, hitherto unknown. Calling several of his friends, for he was afraid to venture in alone, he passed down the corridor, and through a second gateway into the central hall. There the Fellahin found me, lying on the ground, bleeding profusely from a wound on the breast, and in an advanced stage of malarious fever. They brought me back to the boat, and the Fitz-Simkinses conveyed me at once to Cairo, for medical attendance and proper nursing. Editha was at first convinced that I had attempted to commit suicide because I could not endure having caused her pain, and she accordingly resolved to tend me with the utmost care through my illness. But she found that my delirious remarks, besides bearing frequent reference to a princess, with whom I appeared to have been on unexpectedly intimate terms, also related very largely to our _casus belli_ itself, the dancing girls of Abu Yilla. Even this trial she might have borne, setting down the moral degeneracy which led me to patronize so degrading an exhibition as a first symptom of my approaching malady: but certain unfortunate observations, containing pointed and by no means flattering allusions to her personal appearance--which I contrasted, much to her disadvantage, with that of the unknown princess--these, I say, were things which she could not forgive; and she left Cairo abruptly with her parents for the Riviera, leaving behind a stinging note, in which she denounced my perfidy and empty-heartedness with all the flowers of feminine eloquence. From that day to this I have never seen her. When I returned to London and proposed to lay this account before the Society of Antiquaries, all my friends dissuaded me on the ground of its apparent incredibility. They declare that I must have gone to the Pyramid already in a state of delirium, discovered the entrance by accident, and sunk exhausted when I reached the inner chamber. In answer, I would point out three facts. In the first place, I undoubtedly found my way into the unknown passage--for which achievement I afterwards received the gold medal of the Sociétée Khédiviale, and of which I retain a clear recollection, differing in no way from my recollection of the subsequent events. In the second place, I had in my pocket, when found, a ring of Hatasou's, which I drew from her finger just before I took the chloroform, and put into my pocket as a keepsake. And in the third place, I had on my breast the wound which I saw the priest inflict with a knife of greenstone, and the scar may be seen on the spot to the present day. The absurd hypothesis of my medical friends, that I was wounded by falling against a sharp edge of rock, I must at once reject as unworthy a moment's consideration. My own theory is either that the priest had not time to complete the operation, or else that the arrival of the Fitz-Simkins' scouts frightened back the mummies to their cases an hour or so too soon. At any rate, there they all were, ranged around the walls undisturbed, the moment the Fellahin entered. Unfortunately, the truth of my account cannot be tested for another thousand years. But as a copy of this book will be preserved for the benefit of posterity in the British Museum, I hereby solemnly call upon Collective Humanity to try the veracity of this history by sending a deputation of archæologists to the Pyramid of Abu Yilla, on the last day of December, Two thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven. If they do not then find Thothmes and Hatasou feasting in the central hall exactly as I have described, I shall willingly admit that the story of my New Year's Eve among the Mummies is a vain hallucination, unworthy of credence at the hands of the scientific world. _THE FOUNDERING OF THE "FORTUNA."_ I. I am going to spin you the yarn of the foundering of the _Fortuna_ exactly as an old lake captain on a Huron steamer once span it for me by Great Manitoulin Island. It is a strange and a weird story; and if I can't give you the dialect in which he told it, you must forgive an English tongue its native accent for the sake of the curious Yankee tale that underlies it. Captain Montague Beresford Pierpoint was hardly the sort of man you would have expected to find behind the counter of a small shanty bank at Aylmer's Pike, Colorado. There was an engaging English frankness, an obvious honesty and refinement of manner about him, which suited very oddly with the rough habits and rougher western speech of the mining population in whose midst he lived. And yet, Captain Pierpoint had succeeded in gaining the confidence and respect of those strange outcasts of civilization by some indescribable charm of address and some invisible talisman of quiet good-fellowship, which caused him to be more universally believed in than any other man whatsoever at Aylmer's Pike. Indeed, to say so much is rather to underrate the uniqueness of his position; for it might, perhaps, be truer to say that Captain Pierpoint was the only man in the place in whom any one believed at all in any way. He was an honest-spoken, quiet, unobtrusive sort of man, who walked about fearlessly without a revolver, and never gambled either in mining shares or at poker; so that, to the simple-minded, unsophisticated rogues and vagabonds of Aylmer's Pike, he seemed the very incarnation of incorruptible commercial honour. They would have trusted all their earnings and winnings without hesitation to Captain Pierpoint's bare word; and when they did so, they knew that Captain Pierpoint had always had the money forthcoming, on demand, without a moment's delay or a single prevarication. Captain Pierpoint walked very straight and erect, as becomes a man of conspicuous uprightness; and there was a certain tinge of military bearing in his manner which seemed at first sight sufficiently to justify his popular title. But he himself made no false pretences upon that head; he freely acknowledged that he had acquired the position of captain, not in her Britannic Majesty's Guards, as the gossip of Aylmer's Pike sometimes asserted, but in the course of his earlier professional engagements as skipper of a Lake Superior grain-vessel. Though he hinted at times that he was by no means distantly connected with the three distinguished families whose names he bore, he did not attempt to exalt his rank or birth unduly, admitting that he was only a Canadian sailor by trade, thrown by a series of singular circumstances into the position of a Colorado banker. The one thing he really understood, he would tell his mining friends, was the grain-trade on the upper lakes; for finance he had but a single recommendation, and that was that if people trusted him he could never deceive them. If any man had set up a bank in Aylmer's Point with an iron strong-room, a lot of electric bells, and an obtrusive display of fire-arms and weapons, it is tolerably certain that that bank would have been promptly robbed and gutted within its first week of existence by open violence. Five or six of the boys would have banded themselves together into a body of housebreakers, and would have shot down the banker and burst into his strong-room, without thought of the electric bells or other feeble resources of civilization to that end appointed. But when a quiet, unobtrusive, brave man, like Captain Montague Pierpoint, settled himself in a shanty in their midst, and won their confidence by his straightforward honesty, scarcely a miner in the lot would ever have dreamt of attempting to rob him. Captain Pierpoint had not come to Aylmer's Pike at first with any settled idea of making himself the financier of the rough little community; he intended to dig on his own account, and the _rôle_ of banker was only slowly thrust upon him by the unanimous voice of the whole diggings. He had begun by lending men money out of his own pocket--men who were unlucky in their claims, men who had lost everything at monte, men who had come penniless to the Pike, and expected to find silver growing freely and openly on the surface. He had lent to them in a friendly way, without interest, and had been forced to accept a small present, in addition to the sum advanced, when the tide began to turn, and luck at last led the penniless ones to a remunerative placer or pocket. Gradually the diggers got into the habit of regarding this as Captain Pierpoint's natural function, and Captain Pierpoint, being himself but an indifferent digger, acquiesced so readily that at last, yielding to the persuasion of his clients, he put up a wooden counter, and painted over his rough door the magnificent notice, "Aylmer's Pike Bank: Montague Pierpoint, Manager." He got a large iron safe from Carson City, and in that safe, which stood by his own bedside, all the silver and other securities of the whole village were duly deposited. "Any one of the boys could easily shoot me and open that safe any night," Captain Pierpoint used to say pleasantly; "but if he did, by George! he'd have to reckon afterwards with every man on the Pike; and I should be sorry to stand in his shoes--that I would, any time." Indeed, the entire Pike looked upon Captain Pierpoint's safe as "Our Bank;" and, united in a single front by that simple social contract, they agreed to respect the safe as a sacred object, protected by the collective guarantee of three hundred mutually suspicious revolver-bearing outcasts. However, even at Aylmer's Pike, there were degrees and stages of comparative unscrupulousness. Two men, new-comers to the Pike, by name Hiram Coffin and Pete Morris, at last wickedly and feloniously conspired together to rob Captain Pierpoint's bank. Their plan was simplicity itself. They would go at midnight, very quietly, to the Captain's house, cut his throat as he slept, rob the precious safe, and ride off straight for the east, thus getting a clear night's start of any possible pursuer. It was an easy enough thing to do; and they were really surprised in their own minds that nobody else had ever been cute enough to seize upon such an obvious and excellent path to wealth and security. The day before the night the two burglars had fixed upon for their enterprise, Captain Pierpoint himself appeared to be in unusual spirits. Pete Morris called in at the bank during the course of the morning, to reconnoitre the premises, under pretence of paying in a few dollars' worth of silver, and he found the Captain very lively indeed. When Pete handed him the silver across the counter, the Captain weighed it with a smile, gave a receipt for the amount--he always gave receipts as a matter of form--and actually invited Pete into the little back room, which was at once kitchen, bedroom, and parlour, to have a drink. Then, before Pete's very eyes, he opened the safe, bursting with papers, and placed the silver in a bag on a shelf by itself, sticking the key into his waistcoat pocket. "He is delivering himself up into our hands," thought Pete to himself, as the Captain poured out two glasses of old Bourbon, and handed one to the miner opposite. "Here's success to all our enterprises!" cried the Captain gaily. "Here's success, pard!" Pete answered, with a sinister look, which even the Captain could not help noting in a sidelong fashion. That night, about two o'clock, when all Aylmer's Pike was quietly dreaming its own sordid, drunken dreams, two sober men rose up from their cabin and stole out softly to the wooden bank house. Two horses were ready saddled with Mexican saddle-bags, and tied to a tree outside the digging, and in half an hour Pete and Hiram hoped to find themselves in full possession of all Captain Pierpoint's securities, and well on their road towards the nearest station of the Pacific Railway. They groped along to the door of the bank shanty, and began fumbling with their wire picks at the rough lock. After a moment's exploration of the wards, Pete Morris drew back in surprise. "Pard," he murmured in a low whisper, "here's suthin' rather extraordinary; this 'ere lock's not fastened." They turned the handle gently, and found that the door opened without an effort. Both men looked at one another in the dim light incredulously. Was there ever such a simple, trustful fool as that fellow Pierpoint! He actually slept in the bank shanty with his outer door unfastened! The two robbers passed through the outer room and into the little back bedroom-parlour. Hiram held the dark lantern, and turned it full on to the bed. To their immense astonishment they found it empty. Their first impulse was to suppose that the Captain had somehow anticipated their coming, and had gone out to rouse the boys. For a moment they almost contemplated running away, without the money. But a second glance reassured them; the bed had not been slept in. The Captain was a man of very regular habits. He made his bed in civilized fashion every morning after breakfast, and he retired every evening at a little after eleven. Where he could be stopping so late they couldn't imagine. But they hadn't come there to make a study of the Captain's personal habits, and, as he was away, the best thing they could do was to open the safe immediately, before he came back. They weren't particular about murder, Pete and Hiram; still, if you _could_ do your robbery without bloodshed, it was certainly all the better to do it so. Hiram held the lantern, carefully shaded by his hand, towards the door of the safe. Pete looked cautiously at the lock, and began pushing it about with his wire pick; he had hoped to get the key out of Captain Pierpoint's pocket, but as that easy scheme was so unexpectedly foiled, he trusted to his skill in picking to force the lock open. Once more a fresh surprise awaited him. The door opened almost of its own accord! Pete looked at Hiram, and Hiram looked at Pete. There was no mistaking the strange fact that met their gaze--the safe was empty! "What on airth do you suppose is the meaning of this, Pete?" Hiram whispered hoarsely. But Pete did not whisper; the whole truth flashed upon him in a moment, and he answered aloud, with a string of oaths, "The Cap'n has gone and made tracks hisself for Madison Depôt. And he's taken every red cent in the safe along with him, too! the mean, low, dirty scoundrel! He's taken even my silver that he give me a receipt for this very morning!" Hiram stared at Pete in blank amazement. That such base treachery could exist on earth almost surpassed his powers of comprehension; he could understand that a man should rob and murder, simply and naturally, as he was prepared to do, out of pure, guileless depravity of heart, but that a man should plan and plot for a couple of years to impose upon the simplicity of a dishonest community by a consistent show of respectability, with the ultimate object of stealing its whole wealth at one fell swoop, was scarcely within the limits of his narrow intelligence. He stared blankly at the empty safe, and whispered once more to Pete in a timid undertone, "Perhaps he's got wind of this, and took off the plate to somebody else's hut. If the boys was to come and catch us here, it 'ud be derned awkward for you an' me, Pete." But Pete answered gruffly and loudly, "Never you mind about the plate, pard. The Cap'n's gone, and the plate's gone with him; and what we've got to do now is to rouse the boys and ride after him like greased lightnin'. The mean swindler, to go and swindle me out of the silver that I've been and dug out of that there claim yonder with my own pick!" For the sense of personal injustice to one's self rises perennially in the human breast, however depraved, and the man who would murder another without a scruple is always genuinely aghast with just indignation when he finds the counsel for the prosecution pressing a point against him with what seems to him unfair persistency. Pete flung his lock-pick out among the agave scrub that faced the bank shanty and ran out wildly into the midst of the dusty white road that led down the row of huts which the people of Aylmer's Pike euphemistically described as the Main Street. There he raised such an unearthly whoop as roused the sleepers in the nearest huts to turn over in their beds and listen in wonder, with a vague idea that "the Injuns" were coming down on a scalping-trail upon the diggings. Next, he hurried down the street, beating heavily with his fist on every frame door, and kicking hard at the log walls of the successive shanties. In a few minutes the whole Pike was out and alive. Unwholesome-looking men, in unwashed flannel shirts and loose trousers, mostly barefooted in their haste, came forth to inquire, with an unnecessary wealth of expletives, what the something was stirring. Pete, breathless and wrathful in the midst, livid with rage and disappointment, could only shriek aloud, "Cap'n Pierpoint has cleared out of camp, and taken all the plate with him!" There was at first an incredulous shouting and crying; then a general stampede towards the bank shanty; and, finally, as the truth became apparent to everybody, a deep and angry howl for vengeance on the traitor. In one moment Captain Pierpoint's smooth-faced villany dawned as clear as day to all Aylmer's Pike; and the whole chorus of gamblers, rascals, and blacklegs stood awe-struck with horror and indignation at the more plausible rogue who had succeeded in swindling even them. The clean-washed, white-shirted, fair-spoken villain! they would have his blood for this, if the United States Marshal had every mother's son of them strung up in a row for it after the pesky business was once fairly over. Nobody inquired how Pete and Hiram came by the news. Nobody asked how they had happened to notice that the shanty was empty and the safe rifled. All they thought of was how to catch and punish the public robber. He must have made for the nearest depôt, Madison Clearing, on the Union Pacific Line, and he would take the first cars east for St. Louis--that was certain. Every horse in the Pike was promptly requisitioned by the fastest riders, and a rough cavalcade, revolvers in hand, made down the gulch and across the plain, full tilt to Madison. But when, in the garish blaze of early morning, they reached the white wooden depôt in the valley and asked the ticket-clerk whether a man answering to their description had gone on by the east mail at 4.30, the ticket-clerk swore, in reply, that not a soul had left the depôt by any train either way that blessed night. Pete Morris proposed to hold a revolver to his head and force him to confess. But even that strong measure failed to induce a satisfactory retractation. By way of general precaution, two of the boys went on by the day train to St. Louis, but neither of them could hear anything of Captain Pierpoint. Indeed, as a matter of fact, the late manager and present appropriator of the Aylmer's Pike Bank had simply turned his horse's head in the opposite direction, towards the further station at Cheyenne Gap, and had gone westward to San Francisco, intending to make his way back to New York _viâ_ Panama and the Isthmus Railway. When the boys really understood that they had been completely duped, they swore vengeance in solemn fashion, and they picked out two of themselves to carry out the oath in a regular assembly. Each contributed of his substance what he was able; and Pete and Hiram, being more stirred with righteous wrath than all the rest put together, were unanimously deputed to follow the Captain's tracks to San Francisco, and to have his life wherever and whenever they might chance to find him. Pete and Hiram accepted the task thrust upon them, _con amore_, and went forth zealously to hunt up the doomed life of Captain Montague Beresford Pierpoint. II. Society in Sarnia admitted that Captain Pierpoint was really quite an acquisition. An English gentleman by birth, well educated, and of pleasant manners, he had made a little money out west by mining, it was understood, and had now retired to the City of Sarnia, in the Province of Ontario and Dominion of Canada, to increase it by a quiet bit of speculative grain trading. He had been in the grain trade already, and people on the lake remembered him well; for Captain Pierpoint, in his honest, straightforward fashion, disdained the vulgar trickiness of an alias, and bore throughout the string of names which he had originally received from his godfathers and godmothers at his baptism. A thorough good fellow Captain Pierpoint had been at Aylmer's Pike; a perfect gentleman he was at Sarnia. As a matter of fact, indeed, the Captain was decently well-born, the son of an English country clergyman, educated at a respectable grammar school, and capable of being all things to all men in whatever station of life it might please Providence to place him. Society at Sarnia had no prejudice against the grain trade; if it had, the prejudice would have been distinctly self-regarding, for everybody in the little town did something in grain; and if Captain Pierpoint chose sometimes to navigate his own vessels, that was a fad which struck nobody as out of the way in an easy-going, money-getting, Canadian city. Somehow or other, everything seemed to go wrong with Captain Pierpoint's cargoes. He was always losing a scow laden with best fall wheat from Chicago for Buffalo; or running a lumber vessel ashore on the shoals of Lake Erie; or getting a four-master jammed in the ice packs on the St. Clair river: and though the insurance companies continually declared that Captain Pierpoint had got the better of them, the Captain himself was wont to complain that no insurance could ever possibly cover the losses he sustained by the carelessness of his subordinates or the constant perversity of wind and waters. He was obliged to take his own ships down, he would have it, because nobody else could take them safely for him; and though he met with quite as many accidents himself as many of his deputies did, he continued to convey his grain in person, hoping, as he said, that luck would turn some day, and that a good speculation would finally enable him honourably to retrieve his shattered fortunes. However this might be, it happened curiously enough that, in spite of all his losses, Captain Pierpoint seemed to grow richer and richer, visibly to the naked eye, with each reverse of his trading efforts. He took a handsome house, set up a carriage and pair, and made love to the prettiest and sweetest girl in all Sarnia. The prettiest and sweetest girl was not proof against Captain Pierpoint's suave tongue and handsome house; and she married him in very good faith, honestly believing in him as a good woman will in a scoundrel, and clinging to him fervently with all her heart and soul. No happier and more loving pair in all Sarnia than Captain and Mrs. Pierpoint. Some months after the marriage, Captain Pierpoint arranged to take down a scow or flat-bottomed boat, laden with grain, from Milwaukee for the Erie Canal. He took up the scow himself, and before he started for the voyage, it was a curious fact that he went in person down into the hold, bored eight large holes right through the bottom, and filled each up, as he drew out the auger, with a caulked plug made exactly to fit it, and hammered firmly into place with a wooden mallet. There was a ring in each plug, by which it could be pulled out again without much difficulty; and the whole eight were all placed along the gangway of the hold, where no cargo would lie on top of them. The scow's name was the _Fortuna_: "sit faustum omen et felix," murmured Captain Pierpoint to himself; for among his other accomplishments he had not wholly neglected nor entirely forgotten the classical languages. It took only two men and the skipper to navigate the scow; for lake craft towed by steam propellers are always very lightly manned: and when Captain Pierpoint reached Milwaukee, where he was to take in cargo, he dismissed the two sailors who had come with him from Sarnia, and engaged two fresh hands at the harbour. Rough, miner-looking men they were, with very little of the sailor about them; but Captain Pierpoint's sharp eye soon told him they were the right sort of men for his purpose, and he engaged them on the spot, without a moment's hesitation. Pete and Hiram had had some difficulty in tracking him, for they never thought he would return to the lakes, but they had tracked him at last, and were ready now to take their revenge. They had disguised themselves as well as they were able, and in their clumsy knavery they thought they had completely deceived the Captain. But almost from the moment the Captain saw them, he knew who they were, and he took his measures accordingly. "Stupid louts," he said to himself, with the fine contempt of an educated scoundrel for the unsophisticated natural ruffian: "here's a fine chance of killing two birds with one stone!" And when the Captain said the word "killing," he said it in his own mind with a delicate sinister emphasis which meant business. The scow was duly loaded, and with a heavy cargo of grain aboard, she proceeded to make her way slowly, by the aid of a tug, out of Milwaukee Harbour. As soon as she was once clear of the wharf, and while the busy shipping of the great port still surrounded them on every side, Captain Pierpoint calmly drew his revolver, and took his stand beside the hatches. "Pete and Hiram," he said quietly to his two assistants, "I want to have a little serious talk with you two before we go any further." If he had fired upon them outright instead of merely calling them by their own names, the two common conspirators could not have started more unfeignedly, or looked more unspeakably cowed, than they did at that moment. Their first impulse was to draw their own revolvers in return; but they saw in a second that the Captain was beforehand with them, and that they had better not try to shoot him before the very eyes of all Milwaukee. "Now, boys," the Captain went on steadily, with his finger on the trigger and his eye fixed straight on the men's faces, "we three quite understand one another. I took your savings for reasons of my own; and you have shipped here to-day to murder me on the voyage. But I recognized you before I engaged you: and I have left word at Milwaukee that if anything happens to me on this journey, you two have a grudge against me, and must be hanged for it. I've taken care that if this scow comes into any port along the lakes without me aboard, you two are to be promptly arrested." (This was false, of course; but to Captain Pierpoint a small matter like that was a mere trifle.) "And I've shipped myself along with you, just to show you I'm not afraid of you. But if either of you disobeys my orders in anything for one minute, I shoot at once, and no jury in Canada or the States will touch a hair of my head for doing it. I'm a respectable shipowner and grain merchant, you're a pair of disreputable skulking miners, pretending to be sailors, and you've shipped aboard here on purpose to murder and rob me. If _you_ shoot _me_, it's murder: if _I_ shoot _you_, it's justifiable homicide. Now, boys, do you understand that?" Pete looked at Hiram and was beginning to speak, when the captain interrupted him in the calm tone of one having authority. "Look here, Pete," he said, drawing a chalk line amidships across the deck; "you stand this side of that line, and you stand there, Hiram. Now, mind, if either of you chooses to step across that line or to confer with the other, I shoot you, whether it's here before all the eyes of Milwaukee, or alone in the middle of Huron. You must each take your own counsel, and do as you like for yourselves. But I've got a little plan of my own on, and if you choose willingly to help me in it, your fortune's made. Look at the thing, squarely, boys; what's the use of your killing me? Sooner or later you'll get hung for it, and it's a very unpleasant thing, I can assure you, hanging." As the Captain spoke, he placed his unoccupied hand loosely on his throat, and pressed it gently backward. Pete and Hiram shuddered a little as he did so. "Well, what's the good of ending your lives that way, eh? But I'm doing a little speculative business on these lakes, where I want just such a couple of men as you two--men that'll do as they're told in a matter of business and ask no squeamish questions. If you care to help me in this business, stop and make your fortunes; if you don't, you can go back to Milwaukee with the tug." "You speak fair enough," said Pete, dubitatively; "but you know, Cap'n, you ain't a man to be trusted. I owe you one already for stealing my silver." "Very little silver," the Captain answered, with a wave of the hand and a graceful smile. "Bonds, United States bonds and greenbacks most of it, converted beforehand for easier conveyance by horseback. These, however, are business details which needn't stand in the way between you and me, partner. I always was straightforward in all my dealings, and I'll come to the point at once, so that you can know whether you'll help me or not. This scow's plugged at bottom. My intention is, first, to part the rope that ties us to the tug; next, to transfer the cargo by night to a small shanty I've got on Manitoulin Island; and then to pull the plugs and sink the scow on Manitoulin rocks. That way I get insurance for the cargo and scow, and carry on the grain in the slack season. If you consent to help me unload, and sink the ship, you shall have half profits between you; if you don't, you can go back to Milwaukee like a couple of fools, and I'll put into port again to get a couple of pluckier fellows. Answer each for yourselves. Hiram, will you go with me?" "How shall I know you'll keep your promise?" asked Hiram. "For the best of all possible reasons," replied the Captain, jauntily; "because, if I don't, you can inform upon me to the insurance people." In Hiram Coffin's sordid soul there was a moment's turning over of the chances; and then greed prevailed over revenge, and he said, grudgingly-- "Well, Cap'n, I'll go with you." The Captain smiled the smile of calm self-approbation, and turned half round to Pete. "And you?" he asked. "If Hiram goes, I go too," Pete answered, half hoping that some chance might occur for conferring with his neighbour on the road, and following out their original conspiracy. But Captain Pierpoint had been too much for him: he had followed the excellent rule "_divide et impera_" and he remained clearly master of the situation. As soon as they were well outside Milwaukee Harbour, the tug dragged them into the open lake, all unconscious of the strange scene that had passed on the deck so close to it; and the oddly mated crew made its way, practically alone, down the busy waters of Lake Michigan. Captain Pierpoint certainly didn't spend a comfortable time during his voyage down the lake, or through the Straits of Mackinaw. To say the truth, he could hardly sleep at all, and he was very fagged and weary when they arrived at Manitoulin Island. But Pete and Hiram, though they had many chances of talking together, could not see their way to kill him in safety; and Hiram at least, in his own mind, had come to the conclusion that it was better to make a little money than to risk one's neck for a foolish revenge. So in the dead of night, on the second day out, when a rough wind had risen from the north, and a fog had come over them, the Captain quietly began to cut away at the rope that tied them to the tug. He cut the rope all round, leaving a sound core in the centre; and when the next gust of wind came, the rope strained and parted quite naturally, so that the people on the tug never suspected the genuineness of the transaction. They looked about in the fog and storm for the scow, but of course they couldn't find her, for Captain Pierpoint, who knew his ground well, had driven her straight ashore before the wind and beached her on a small shelving cove on Manitoulin Island. There they found five men waiting for them, who helped unload the cargo with startling rapidity, for it was all arranged in sacks, not in bulk, and a high slide fixed on the gangway enabled them to slip it quickly down into an underground granary excavated below the level of the beach. After unloading, they made their way down before the breeze towards the jagged rocks of Manitoulin. It was eleven o'clock on a stormy moonlight night when the _Fortuna_ arrived off the jutting point of the great island. A "black squall," as they call it on the lakes, was blowing down from the Sault Ste. Marie. The scow drove about aimlessly, under very little canvas, and the boat was ready to be lowered, "in case," the Captain said humorously, "of any accident." Close to the end of the point the Captain ordered Pete and Hiram down into the hold. He had shown them beforehand the way to draw the plugs, and had explained that the water would rise very slowly, and they would have plenty of time to get up the companion-ladder long before there was a foot deep of water in the hold. At the last moment Pete hung back a little. The Captain took him quietly by the shoulders, and, without an oath (an omission which told eloquently on Pete), thrust him down the ladder, and told him in his calmest manner to do his duty. Hiram held the light in his hand, and both went down together into the black abyss. There was no time to be lost; they were well off the point, and in another moment the wreck would have lost all show of reasonable probability. As the two miners went down into the hold, Captain Pierpoint drew quietly from his pocket a large hammer and a packet of five-inch nails. They were good stout nails, and would resist a considerable pressure. He looked carefully down into the hold, and saw the two men draw the first plug. One after another he watched them till the fourth was drawn, and then he turned away, and took one of the nails firmly between his thumb and forefinger. Next week everybody at Sarnia was grieved to hear that another of Captain Pierpoint's vessels had gone down off Manitoulin Point in that dreadful black squall on Thursday evening. Both the sailors on board had been drowned, but the Captain himself had managed to make good his escape in the jolly boat. He would be a heavy loser, it was understood, on the value of the cargo, for insurance never covers the loss of grain. Still, it was a fortunate thing that such a delightful man as the Captain had not perished in the foundering of the _Fortuna_. III. Somehow, after that wreck, Captain Pierpoint never cared for the water again. His nerves were shattered, he said, and he couldn't stand danger as he used to do when he was younger and stronger. So he went on the lake no more, and confined his attention more strictly to the "futures" business. He was a thriving and prosperous person, in spite of his losses; and the underwriters had begun to look a little askance at his insurances even before this late foundering case. Some whispered ominously in underwriting circles that they had their doubts about the _Fortuna_. One summer, a few years later, the water on Lake Huron sank lower than it had ever been known to sink before. It was a very dry season in the back country, and the rivers brought down very diminished streams into the great basins. Foot by foot, the level of the lake fell slowly, till many of the wharves were left high and dry, and the vessels could only come alongside in very few deep places. Captain Pierpoint had suffered much from sleeplessness, combined with Canadian ague, for some years past, but this particular summer his mind was very evidently much troubled. For some unaccountable reason, he watched the falling of the river with the intensest anxiety, and after it had passed a certain point, his interest in the question became painfully keen. Though the fever and the ague gained upon him from day to day, and his doctor counselled perfect quiet, he was perpetually consulting charts, and making measurements of the configuration which the coast had now reached, especially at the upper end of Lake Huron. At last, his mind seemed almost to give way, and weak and feverish as he was, he insisted, the first time for many seasons, that he must take a trip upon the water. Remonstrance was quite useless; he would go on the lake again, he said, if it killed him. So he hired one of the little steam pleasure yachts which are always to let in numbers at Detroit, and started with his wife and her brother, a young surgeon, for a month's cruise into Lake Superior. As the yacht neared Manitoulin Island, Captain Pierpoint insisted upon being brought up on deck in a chair--he was too ill to stand--and swept all the coast with his binocular. Close to the point, a flat-topped object lay mouldering in the sun, half out of water, on the shoals by the bank. "What is it, Ernest?" asked the Captain, trembling, of his brother-in-law. "A wreck, I should say," the brother-in-law answered, carelessly. "By Jove, now I look at it with the glass, I can read the name, '_Fortuna_, Sarnia.'" Captain Pierpoint seized the glass with a shaking hand, and read the name on the stern, himself, in a dazed fashion. "Take me downstairs," he said feebly, "and let me die quietly; and for Heaven's sake, Ernest, never let _her_ know about it all." They took him downstairs into the little cabin, and gave him quinine; but he called for brandy. They let him have it, and he drank a glassful. Then he lay down, and the shivering seized him; and with his wife's hand in his, he died that night in raving delirium, about eleven. A black squall was blowing down from the Sault Ste. Marie; and they lay at anchor out in the lake, tossing and pitching, opposite the green mouldering hull of the _Fortuna_. They took him back and buried him at Sarnia; and all the world went to attend his funeral, as of a man who died justly respected for his wealth and other socially admired qualities. But the brother-in-law knew there was a mystery somewhere in the wreck of the _Fortuna_; and as soon as the funeral was over, he went back with the yacht, and took its skipper with him to examine the stranded vessel. When they came to look at the bottom, they found eight holes in it. Six of them were wide open; one was still plugged, and the remaining one had the plug pulled half out, inward, as if the persons who were pulling it had abandoned the attempt for the fear of the rising water. That was bad enough, and they did not wonder that Captain Pierpoint had shrunk in horror from the revealing of the secret of the _Fortuna_. But when they scrambled on the deck, they discovered another fact which gave a more terrible meaning to the dead man's tragedy. The covering of the hatchway by the companion-ladder was battened down, and nailed from the side with five-inch nails. The skipper loosened the rusty iron with his knife, and after a while they lifted the lid off, and descended carefully into the empty hold below. As they suspected, there was no damaged grain in it; but at the foot of the companion-ladder, left behind by the retreating water, two half-cleaned skeletons in sailor clothes lay huddled together loosely on the floor. That was all that remained of Pete and Hiram. Evidently the Captain had nailed the hatch down on top of them, and left them there terror-stricken to drown as the water rushed in and rose around them. For a while the skipper and the brother-in-law kept the dead man's secret; but they did not try to destroy or conceal the proofs of his guilt, and in time others visited the wreck, till, bit by bit, the horrible story leaked out in its entirety. Nowadays, as you pass the Great Manitoulin Island, every sailor on the lake route is ready to tell you this strange and ghastly yarn of the foundering of the _Fortuna_. _THE BACKSLIDER._ There was much stir and commotion on the night of Thursday, January the 14th, 1874, in the Gideonite Apostolic Church, number 47, Walworth Lane, Peckham, S.E. Anybody could see at a glance that some important business was under consideration; for the Apostle was there himself, in his chair of presidency, and the twelve Episcops were there, and the forty-eight Presbyters, and a large and earnest gathering of the Gideonite laity. It was only a small bare school-room, fitted with wooden benches, was that headquarters station of the young Church; but you could not look around it once without seeing that its occupants were of the sort by whom great religious revolutions may be made or marred. For the Gideonites were one of those strange enthusiastic hole-and-corner sects that spring up naturally in the outlying suburbs of great thinking centres. They gather around the marked personality of some one ardent, vigorous, half-educated visionary; and they consist for the most part of intelligent, half-reasoning people, who are bold enough to cast overboard the dogmatic beliefs of their fathers, but not so bold as to exercise their logical faculty upon the fundamental basis on which the dogmas originally rested. The Gideonites had thus collected around the fixed centre of their Apostle, a retired attorney, Murgess by name, whose teaching commended itself to their groping reason as the pure outcome of faithful Biblical research; and they had chosen their name because, though they were but three hundred in number, they had full confidence that when the time came they would blow their trumpets, and all the host of Midian would be scattered before them. In fact, they divided the world generally into Gideonite and Midianite, for they knew that he that was not with them was against them. And no wonder, for the people of Peckham did not love the struggling Church. Its chief doctrine was one of absolute celibacy, like the Shakers of America; and to this doctrine the Church had testified in the Old Kent Road and elsewhere after a vigorous practical fashion that roused the spirit of South-eastern London into the fiercest opposition. The young men and maidens, said the Apostle, must no longer marry or be given in marriage; the wives and husbands must dwell asunder; and the earth must be made as an image of heaven. These were heterodox opinions, indeed, which South-eastern London could only receive with a strenuous counterblast of orthodox brickbats and sound Anglican road metal. The fleece of wool was duly laid upon the floor; the trumpet and the lamp were placed upon the bare wooden reading desk; and the Apostle, rising slowly from his seat, began to address the assembled Gideonites. "Friends," he said, in a low, clear, impressive voice, with a musical ring tempering its slow distinctness, "we have met together to-night to take counsel with one another upon a high matter. It is plain to all of us that the work of the Church in the world does not prosper as it might prosper were the charge of it in worthier hands. We have to contend against great difficulties. We are not among the rich or the mighty of the earth; and the poor whom we have always with us do not listen to us. It is expedient, therefore, that we should set some one among us aside to be instructed thoroughly in those things that are most commonly taught among the Midianites at Oxford or Cambridge. To some of you it may seem, as it seemed at first to me, that such a course would involve going back upon the very principles of our constitution. We are not to overcome Midian by our own hand, nor by the strength of two and thirty thousand, but by the trumpet, and the pitcher, and the cake of barley bread. Yet, when I searched and inquired after this matter, it seemed to me that we might also err by overmuch confidence on the other side. For Moses, who led the people out of Egypt, was made ready for the task by being learned in all the learning of the Egyptians. Daniel, who testified in the captivity, was cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and instructed in the wisdom and tongue of the Chaldeans. Paul, who was the apostle of the Gentiles, had not only sat at the feet of Gamaliel, but was also able from their own poets and philosophers to confute the sophisms and subtleties of the Grecians themselves. These things show us that we should not too lightly despise even worldly learning and worldly science. Perhaps we have gone wrong in thinking too little of such dross, and being puffed up with spiritual pride. The world might listen to us more readily if we had one who could speak the word for us in the tongues understanded of the world." As he paused, a hum of acquiescence went round the room. "It has seemed to me, then," the Apostle went on, "that we ought to choose some one among our younger brethren, upon whose shoulders the cares and duties of the Apostolate might hereafter fall. We are a poor people, but by subscription among ourselves we might raise a sufficient sum to send the chosen person first to a good school here in London, and afterwards to the University of Oxford. It may seem a doubtful and a hazardous thing thus to stake our future upon any one young man; but then we must remember that the choice will not be wholly or even mainly ours; we will be guided and directed as we ever are in the laying on of hands. To me, considering this matter thus, it has seemed that there is one youth in our body who is specially pointed out for this work. Only one child has ever been born into the Church: he, as you know, is the son of brother John Owen and sister Margaret Owen, who were received into the fold just six days before his birth. Paul Owen's very name seems to many of us, who take nothing for chance but all things for divinely ordered, to mark him out at once as a foreordained Apostle. Is it your wish, then, Presbyter John Owen, to dedicate your only son to this ministry?" Presbyter John Owen rose from the row of seats assigned to the forty-eight, and moved hesitatingly towards the platform. He was an intelligent-looking, honest-faced, sunburnt working man, a mason by trade, who had come into the Church from the Baptist society; and he was awkwardly dressed in his Sunday clothes, with the scrupulous clumsy neatness of a respectable artisan who expects to take part in an important ceremony. He spoke nervously and with hesitation, but with all the transparent earnestness of a simple, enthusiastic nature. "Apostle and friends," he said, "it ain't very easy for me to disentangle my feelin's on this subjec' from one another. I hope I ain't moved by any worldly feelin', an' yet I hardly know how to keep such considerations out, for there's no denyin' that it would be a great pleasure to me and to his mother to see our Paul becomin' a teacher in Israel, and receivin' an education such as you, Apostle, has pinted out. But we hope, too, we ain't insensible to the good of the Church and the advantage that it might derive from our Paul's support and preachin'. We can't help seein' ourselves that the lad has got abilities; and we've tried to train him up from his youth upward, like Timothy, for the furtherance of the right doctrine. If the Church thinks he's fit for the work laid upon him, his mother and me'll be glad to dedicate him to the service." He sat down awkwardly, and the Church again hummed its approbation in a suppressed murmur. The Apostle rose once more, and briefly called on Paul Owen to stand forward. In answer to the call, a tall, handsome, earnest-eyed boy advanced timidly to the platform. It was no wonder that those enthusiastic Gideonite visionaries should have seen in his face the visible stamp of the Apostleship. Paul Owen had a rich crop of dark-brown glossy and curly hair, cut something after the Florentine Cinque-cento fashion--not because his parents wished him to look artistic, but because that was the way in which they had seen the hair dressed in all the sacred pictures that they knew; and Margaret Owen, the daughter of some Wesleyan Spitalfields weaver folk, with the imaginative Huguenot blood still strong in her veins, had made up her mind ever since she became Convinced of the Truth (as their phrase ran) that her Paul was called from his cradle to a great work. His features were delicately chiselled, and showed rather natural culture, like his mother's, than rough honesty, like John Owen's, or strong individuality, like the masterful Apostle's. His eyes were peculiarly deep and luminous, with a far-away look which might have reminded an artist of the central boyish figure in Holman Hunt's picture of the Doctors in the Temple. And yet Paul Owen had a healthy colour in his cheek and a general sturdiness of limb and muscle which showed that he was none of your nervous, bloodless, sickly idealists, but a wholesome English peasant boy of native refinement and delicate sensibilities. He moved forward with some natural hesitation before the eyes of so many people--ay, and what was more terrible, of the entire Church upon earth; but he was not awkward and constrained in his action like his father. One could see that he was sustained in the prominent part he took that morning by the consciousness of a duty he had to perform and a mission laid upon him which he must not reject. "Are you willing, my son Paul," asked the Apostle, gravely, "to take upon yourself the task that the Church proposes?" "I am willing," answered the boy in a low voice, "grace preventing me." "Does all the Church unanimously approve the election of our brother Paul to this office?" the Apostle asked formally; for it was a rule with the Gideonites that nothing should be done except by the unanimous and spontaneous action of the whole body, acting under direct and immediate inspiration; and all important matters were accordingly arranged beforehand by the Apostle in private interviews with every member of the Church individually, so that everything that took place in public assembly had the appearance of being wholly unquestioned. They took counsel first with one another, and consulted the Scripture together; and when all private doubts were satisfied, they met as a Church to ratify in solemn conclave their separate conclusions. It was not often that the Apostle did not have his own way. Not only had he the most marked personality and the strongest will, but he alone also had Greek and Hebrew enough to appeal always to the original word; and that mysterious amount of learning, slight as it really was, sufficed almost invariably to settle the scruples of his wholly ignorant and pliant disciples. Reverence for the literal Scripture in its primitive language was the corner-stone of the Gideonite Church; and for all practical purposes, its one depositary and exponent for them was the Apostle himself. Even the Rev. Albert Barnes's Commentary was held to possess an inferior authority. "The Church approves," was the unanimous answer. "Then, Episcops, Presbyters, and brethren," said the Apostle, taking up a roll of names, "I have to ask that you will each mark down on this paper opposite your own names how much a year you can spare of your substance for six years to come as a guarantee fund for this great work. You must remember that the ministry of this Church has cost you nothing; freely I have received and freely given; do you now bear your part in equipping a new aspirant for the succession to the Apostolate." The two senior Episcops took two rolls from his hand, and went round the benches with a stylographic pen (so strangely do the ages mingle--Apostles and stylographs) silently asking each to put down his voluntary subscription. Meanwhile the Apostle read slowly and reverently a few appropriate sentences of Scripture. Some of the richer members--well-to-do small tradesmen of Peckham--put down a pound or even two pounds apiece; the poorer brethren wrote themselves down for ten shillings or even five. In the end the guarantee list amounted to 195_l_. a year. The Apostle reckoned it up rapidly to himself, and then announced the result to the assembly, with a gentle smile relaxing his austere countenance. He was well pleased, for the sum was quite sufficient to keep Paul Owen two years at school in London and then send him comfortably if not splendidly to Oxford. The boy had already had a fair education in Latin and some Greek, at the Birkbeck Schools; and with two years' further study he might even gain a scholarship (for he was a bright lad), which would materially lessen the expense to the young Church. Unlike many prophets and enthusiasts, the Apostle was a good man of business; and he had taken pains to learn all about these favourable chances before embarking his people on so very doubtful a speculation. The Assembly was just about to close, when one of the Presbyters rose unexpectedly to put a question which, contrary to the usual practice, had not already been submitted for approbation to the Apostle. He was a hard-headed, thickset, vulgar-looking man, a greengrocer at Denmark Hill, and the Apostle always looked upon him as a thorn in his side, promoted by inscrutable wisdom to the Presbytery for the special purpose of keeping down the Apostle's spiritual pride. "One more pint, Apostle," he said abruptly, "afore we close. It seems to me that even in the Church's work we'd ought to be business-like. Now, it ain't business-like to let this young man, Brother Paul, get his eddication out of us, if I may so speak afore the Church, on spec. It's all very well our sayin' he's to be eddicated and take on the Apostleship, but how do we know but what when he's had his eddication he may fall away and become a backslider, like Demas and like others among ourselves that we could mention? He may go to Oxford among a lot of Midianites, and them of the great an' mighty of the earth too, and how do we know but what he may round upon the Church, and go back upon us after we've paid for his eddication? So what I want to ask is just this, can't we bind him down in a bond that if he don't take the Apostleship with the consent of the Church when it falls vacant he'll pay us back our money, so as we can eddicate up another as'll be more worthy?" The Apostle moved uneasily in his chair; but before he could speak, Paul Owen's indignation found voice, and he said out his say boldly before the whole assembly, blushing crimson with mingled shame and excitement as he did so. "If Brother Grimshaw and all the brethren think so ill of me that they cannot trust my honesty and honour," he said, "they need not be at the pains of educating me. I will sign no bond and enter into no compact. But if you suppose that I will be a backslider, you do not know me, and I will confer no more with you upon the subject." "My son Paul is right," the Apostle said, flushing up in turn at the boy's audacity; "we will not make the affairs of the Spirit a matter for bonds and earthly arrangements. If the Church thinks as I do, you will all rise up." All rose except Presbyter Grimshaw. For a moment there was some hesitation, for the rule of the Church in favour of unanimity was absolute; but the Apostle fixed his piercing eyes on Job Grimshaw, and after a minute or so Job Grimshaw too rose slowly, like one compelled by an unseen power, and cast in his vote grudgingly with the rest. There was nothing more said about signing an agreement. II. Meenie Bolton had counted a great deal upon her visit to Oxford, and she found it quite as delightful as she had anticipated. Her brother knew such a nice set of men, especially Mr. Owen, of Christchurch. Meenie had never been so near falling in love with anybody in her life as she was with Paul Owen. He was so handsome and so clever, and then there was something so romantic about this strange Church they said he belonged to. Meenie's father was a country parson, and the way in which Paul shrank from talking about the rector, as if his office were something wicked or uncanny, piqued and amused her. There was an heretical tinge about him which made him doubly interesting to the Rector's daughter. The afternoon water party that eventful Thursday, down to Nuneham, she looked forward to with the deepest interest. For her aunt, the Professor's wife, who was to take charge of them, was certainly the most delightful and most sensible of chaperons. "Is it really true, Mr. Owen," she said, as they sat together for ten minutes alone after their picnic luncheon, by the side of the weir under the shadow of the Nuneham beeches--"is it really true that this Church of yours doesn't allow people to marry?" Paul coloured up to his eyes as he answered, "Well, Miss Bolton, I don't know that you should identify me too absolutely with my Church. I was very young when they selected me to go to Oxford, and my opinions have decidedly wavered a good deal lately. But the Church certainly does forbid marriage. I have always been brought up to look upon it as sinful." Meenie laughed aloud; and Paul, to whom the question was no laughing matter, but a serious point of conscientious scruple, could hardly help laughing with her, so infectious was that pleasant ripple. He checked himself with an effort, and tried to look serious. "Do you know," he said, "when I first came to Christchurch, I doubted even whether I ought to make your brother's acquaintance because he was a clergyman's son. I was taught to describe clergymen always as priests of Midian." He never talked about his Church to anybody at Oxford, and it was a sort of relief to him to speak on the subject to Meenie, in spite of her laughing eyes and undisguised amusement. The other men would have laughed at him too, but their laughter would have been less sympathetic. "And do you think them priests of Midian still?" asked Meenie. "Miss Bolton," said Paul suddenly, as one who relieves his overburdened mind by a great effort, "I am almost moved to make a confidante of you." "There is nothing I love better than confidences," Meenie answered; and she might truthfully have added, "particularly from you." "Well, I have been passing lately through a great many doubts and difficulties. I was brought up by my Church to become its next Apostle, and I have been educated at their expense both in London and here. You know," Paul added with his innate love of telling out the whole truth, "I am not a gentleman; I am the son of poor working people in London." "Tom told me who your parents were," Meenie answered simply; "but he told me, too, you were none the less a true gentleman born for that; and I see myself he told me right." Paul flushed again--he had a most unmanly trick of flushing up--and bowed a little timid bow. "Thank you," he said quietly. "Well, while I was in London I lived entirely among my own people, and never heard anything talked about except our own doctrines. I thought our Apostle the most learned, the wisest, and the greatest of men. I had not a doubt about the absolute infallibility of our own opinions. But ever since I came to Oxford I have slowly begun to hesitate and to falter. When I came up first, the men laughed at me a good deal in a good-humoured way, because I wouldn't do as they did. Then I thought myself persecuted for the truth's sake, and was glad. But the men were really very kind and forbearing to me; they never argued with me or bullied me; they respected my scruples, and said nothing more about it as soon as they found out what they really were. That was my first stumbling-block. If they had fought me and debated with me, I might have stuck to my own opinions by force of opposition. But they turned me in upon myself completely by their silence, and mastered me by their kindly forbearance. Point by point I began to give in, till now I hardly know where I am standing." "You wouldn't join the cricket club at first, Tom says." "No, I wouldn't. I thought it wrong to walk in the ways of Midian. But gradually I began to argue myself out of my scruples, and now I positively pull six in the boat, and wear a Christchurch ribbon on my hat. I have given up protesting against having my letters addressed to me as Esquire (though I have really no right to the title), and I nearly went the other day to have some cards engraved with my name as 'Mr. Paul Owen.' I am afraid I'm backsliding terribly." Meenie laughed again. "If that is all you have to burden your conscience with," she said, "I don't think you need spend many sleepless nights." "Quite so," Paul answered, smiling; "I think so myself. But that is not all. I have begun to have serious doubts about the Apostle himself and the whole Church altogether. I have been three years at Oxford now; and while I was reading for Mods, I don't think I was so unsettled in my mind. But since I have begun reading philosophy for my Greats, I have had to go into all sorts of deep books--Mill, and Spencer, and Bain, and all kinds of fellows who really think about things, you know, down to the very bottom--and an awful truth begins to dawn upon me, that our Apostle is after all only a very third-rate type of a thinker. Now that, you know, is really terrible." "I don't see why," Meenie answered demurely. She was beginning to get genuinely interested. "That is because you have never had to call in question a cherished and almost ingrown faith. You have never realized any similar circumstances. Here am I, brought up by these good, honest, earnest people, with their own hard-earned money, as a pillar of their belief. I have been taught to look upon myself as the chosen advocate of their creed, and on the Apostle as an almost divinely inspired man. My whole life has been bound up in it; I have worked and read night and day in order to pass high and do honour to the Church; and now what do I begin to find the Church really is? A petty group of poor, devoted, enthusiastic, ignorant people, led blindly by a decently instructed but narrow-minded teacher, who has mixed up his own headstrong self-conceit and self-importance with his own peculiar ideas of abstract religion." Paul paused, half surprised at himself, for, though he had doubted before, he had never ventured till that day to formulate his doubts, even to himself, in such plain and straightforward language. "I see," said Meenie, gravely; "you have come into a wider world; you have mixed with wider ideas; and the wider world has converted you, instead of your converting the world. Well, that is only natural. Others beside you have had to change their opinions." "Yes, yes; but for me it is harder--oh! so much harder." "Because you have looked forward to being an Apostle?" "Miss Bolton, you do me injustice--not in what you say, but in the tone you say it in. No, it is not the giving up of the Apostleship that troubles me, though I did hope that I might help in my way to make the world a new earth; but it is the shock and downfall of their hopes to all those good earnest people, and especially--oh! especially, Miss Bolton, to my own dear father and mother." His eyes filled with tears as he spoke. "I can understand," said Meenie, sympathetically, her eyes dimming a little in response. "They have set their hearts all their lives long on your accomplishing this work, and it will be to them the disappointment of a cherished romance." They looked at one another a few minutes in silence. "How long have you begun to have your doubts?" Meenie asked after the pause. "A long time, but most of all since I saw you. It has made me--it has made me hesitate more about the fundamental article of our faith. Even now, I am not sure whether it is not wrong of me to be talking so with you about such matters." "I see," said Meenie, a little more archly; "it comes perilously near----" and she broke off, for she felt she had gone a step too far. "Perilously near falling in love," Paul continued boldly, turning his big eyes full upon her. "Yes, perilously near." Their eyes met; Meenie's fell; and they said no more. But they both felt they understood one another. Just at that moment the Professor's wife came up to interrupt the _tête-à-tête_; "for that young Owen," she said to herself, "is really getting quite too confidential with dear Meenie." That same evening Paul paced up and down his rooms in Peckwater with all his soul strangely upheaved within him and tossed and racked by a dozen conflicting doubts and passions. Had he gone too far? Had he yielded like Adam to the woman who beguiled him? Had he given way like Samson to the snares of Delilah? For the old Scripture phraseology and imagery, so long burned into his very nature, clung to him still in spite of all his faltering changes of opinion. Had he said more than he thought and felt about the Apostle? Even if he was going to revise his views, was it right, was it candid, was it loyal to the truth, that he should revise them under the biassing influence of Meenie's eyes? If only he could have separated the two questions--the Apostle's mission, and the something which he felt growing up within him! But he could not--and, as he suspected, for a most excellent reason, because the two were intimately bound up in the very warp and woof of his existence. Nature was asserting herself against the religious asceticism of the Apostle; it could not be so wrong for him to feel those feelings that had thrilled every heart in all his ancestors for innumerable generations. He was in love with Meenie: he knew that clearly now. And this love was after all not such a wicked and terrible feeling; on the contrary, he felt all the better and the purer for it already. But then that might merely be the horrible seductiveness of the thing. Was it not always typified by the cup of Circe, by the song of the Sirens, by all that was alluring and beautiful and hollow? He paced up and down for half an hour, and then (he had sported his oak long ago) he lit his little reading lamp and sat down in the big chair by the bay window. Running his eyes over his bookshelf, he took out, half by chance, Spencer's "Sociology." Then, from sheer weariness, he read on for a while, hardly heeding what he read. At last he got interested, and finished a chapter. When he had finished it, he put the book down, and felt that the struggle was over. Strange that side by side in the same world, in the same London, there should exist two such utterly different types of man as Herbert Spencer and the Gideonite Apostle. The last seemed to belong to the sixteenth century, the first to some new and hitherto uncreated social world. In an age which produced thinkers like that, how could he ever have mistaken the poor, bigoted, narrow, half-instructed Apostle for a divinely inspired teacher! So far as Paul Owen was concerned, the Gideonite Church and all that belonged to it had melted utterly into thin air. Three days later, after the Eights in the early evening, Paul found an opportunity of speaking again alone with Meenie. He had taken their party on to the Christchurch barge to see the race, and he was strolling with them afterwards round the meadow walk by the bank of the Cherwell. Paul managed to get a little in front with Meenie, and entered at once upon the subject of his late embarrassments. "I have thought it all over since, Miss Bolton," he said--he half hesitated whether he should say "Meenie" or not, and she was half disappointed that he didn't, for they were both very young, and very young people fall in love so unaffectedly--"I have thought it all over, and I have come to the conclusion that there is no help for it: I must break openly with the Church." "Of course," said Meenie, simply. "That I understood." He smiled at her ingenuousness. Such a very forward young person! And yet he liked it. "Well, the next thing is, what to do about it. You see, I have really been obtaining my education, so to speak, under false pretences. I can't continue taking these good people's money after I have ceased to believe in their doctrines. I ought to have faced the question sooner. It was wrong of me to wait until--until it was forced upon me by other considerations." This time it was Meenie who blushed. "But you don't mean to leave Oxford without taking your degree?" she asked quickly. "No, I think it will be better not. To stop here and try for a fellowship is my best chance of repaying these poor people the money which I have taken from them for no purpose." "I never thought of that," said Meenie. "You are bound in honour to pay them back, of course." Paul liked the instantaneous honesty of that "of course." It marked the naturally honourable character; for "of course," too, they must wait to marry (young people jump so) till all that money was paid off. "Fortunately," he said, "I have lived economically, and have not spent nearly as much as they guaranteed. I got scholarships up to a hundred a year of my own, and I only took a hundred a year of theirs. They offered me two hundred. But there's five years at a hundred, that makes five hundred pounds--a big debt to begin life with." "Never mind," said Meenie. "You will get a fellowship, and in a few years you can pay it off." "Yes," said Paul, "I can pay it off. But I can never pay off the hopes and aspirations I have blighted. I must become a schoolmaster, or a barrister, or something of that sort, and never repay them for their self-sacrifice and devotion in making me whatever I shall become. They may get back their money, but they will have lost their cherished Apostle for ever." "Mr. Owen," Meenie answered solemnly, "the seal of the Apostolate lies far deeper than that. It was born in you, and no act of yours can shake it off." "Meenie," he said, looking at her gently, with a changed expression--"Meenie, we shall have to wait many years." "Never mind, Paul," she replied, as naturally as if he had been Paul to her all her life long, "I can wait if you can. But what will you do for the immediate present?" "I have my scholarship," he said; "I can get on partly upon that; and then I can take pupils; and I have only one year more of it." So before they parted that night it was all well understood between them that Paul was to declare his defection from the Church at the earliest opportunity; that he was to live as best he might till he could take his degree; that he was then to pay off all the back debt; and that after all these things he and Meenie might get comfortably married whenever they were able. As to the Rector and his wife, or any other parental authorities, they both left them out in the cold as wholly as young people always do leave their elders out on all similar occasions. "Maria's a born fool!" said the Rector to his wife a week after Meenie's return; "I always knew she was a fool, but I never knew she was quite such a fool as to permit a thing like this. So far as I can get it out of Edie, and so far as Edie can get it out of Meenie, I understand that she has allowed Meenie to go and get herself engaged to some Dissenter fellow, a Shaker, or a Mormon, or a Communist, or something of the sort, who is the son of a common labourer, and has been sent up to Oxford, Tom tells me, by his own sect, to be made into a gentleman, so as to give some sort or colour of respectability to their absurd doctrines. I shall send the girl to town at once to Emily's, and she shall stop there all next season, to see if she can't manage to get engaged to some young man in decent society at any rate." III. When Paul Owen returned to Peckham for the long vacation, it was with a heavy heart that he ventured back slowly to his father's cottage. Margaret Owen had put everything straight and neat in the little living room, as she always did, to welcome home her son who had grown into a gentleman; and honest John stood at the threshold beaming with pleasure to wring Paul's hand in his firm grip, just back unwashed from his day's labour. After the first kissings and greetings were over, John Owen said rather solemnly, "I have bad news for you, Paul. The Apostle is sick, even unto death." When Paul heard that, he was sorely tempted to put off the disclosure for the present; but he felt he must not. So that same night, as they sat together in the dusk near the window where the geraniums stood, he began to unburden his whole mind, gently and tentatively, so as to spare their feelings as much as possible, to his father and mother. He told them how, since he went to Oxford, he had learned to think somewhat differently about many things; how his ideas had gradually deepened and broadened; how he had begun to inquire into fundamentals for himself; how he had feared that the Gideonites took too much for granted, and reposed too implicitly on the supposed critical learning of their Apostle. As he spoke his mother listened in tearful silence; but his father murmured from time to time, "I was afeard of this already, Paul; I seen it coming, now and again, long ago." There was pity and regret in his tone, but not a shade of reproachfulness. At last, however, Paul came to speak, timidly and reservedly, of Meenie. Then his father's eye began to flash a little, and his breath came deeper and harder. When Paul told him briefly that he was engaged to her, the strong man could stand it no longer. He rose up in righteous wrath, and thrust his son at arm's length from him. "What!" he cried fiercely, "you don't mean to tell me you have fallen into sin and looked upon the daughters of Midian! It was no Scriptural doubts that druv you on, then, but the desire of the flesh and the lust of the eyes that has lost you! You dare to stand up there, Paul Owen, and tell me that you throw over the Church and the Apostle for the sake of a girl, like a poor miserable Samson! You are no son of mine, and I have nothin' more to say to you." But Margaret Owen put her hand on his shoulder and said softly, "John, let us hear him out." And John, recalled by that gentle touch, listened once more. Then Paul pleaded his case powerfully again. He quoted Scripture to them; he argued with them, after their own fashion, and down to their own comprehension, text by text; he pitted his own critical and exegetical faculty against the Apostle's. Last of all, he turned to his mother, who, tearful still and heart-broken with disappointment, yet looked admiringly upon her learned, eloquent boy, and said to her tenderly, "Remember, mother, you yourself were once in love. You yourself once stood, night after night, leaning on the gate, waiting with your heart beating for a footstep that you knew so well. You yourself once counted the days and the hours and the minutes till the next meeting came." And Margaret Owen, touched to the heart by that simple appeal, kissed him fervently a dozen times over, the hot tears dropping on his cheek meanwhile; and then, contrary to all the rules of their austere Church, she flung her arms round her husband too, and kissed him passionately the first time for twenty years, with all the fervour of a floodgate loosed. Paul Owen's apostolate had surely borne its first fruit. The father stood for a moment in doubt and terror, like one stunned or dazed, and then, in a moment of sudden remembrance, stepped forward and returned the kiss. The spell was broken, and the Apostle's power was no more. What else passed in the cottage that night, when John Owen fell upon his knees and wrestled in spirit, was too wholly internal to the man's own soul for telling here. Next day John and Margaret Owen felt the dream of their lives was gone; but the mother in her heart rejoiced to think her boy might know the depths of love, and might bring home a real lady for his wife. On Sunday it was rumoured that the Apostle's ailment was very serious; but young Brother Paul Owen would address the Church. He did so, though not exactly in the way the Church expected. He told them simply and plainly how he had changed his views about certain matters; how he thanked them from his heart for the loan of their money (he was careful to emphasize the word _loan_), which had helped him to carry on his education at Oxford; and how he would repay them the principal and interest, though he could never repay them the kindness, at the earliest possible opportunity. He was so grave, so earnest, so transparently true, that, in spite of the downfall of their dearest hopes, he carried the whole meeting with him, all save one man. That man was Job Grimshaw. Job rose from his place with a look of undisguised triumph as soon as Paul had finished, and, mounting the platform quietly, said his say. "I knew, Episcops, Presbyters, and Brethren," he began, "how this 'ere young man would finish. I saw it the day he was appinted. He's flushing up now the same as he flushed up then when I spoke to him; and it ain't sperritual, it's worldly pride and headstrongness, that's what it is. He's had our money, and he's had his eddication, and now he's going to round on us, just as I said he would. It's all very well talking about paying us back: how's a young man like him to get five hundred pounds, I should like to know. And if he did even, what sort o' repayment would that be to many of the brethren, who've saved and scraped for five year to let him live like a gentleman among the great and the mighty o' Midian? He's got his eddication out of us, and he can keep that whatever happens, and make a living out of it, too; and now he's going back on us, same as I said he would, and, having got all he can out of the Church, he's going to chuck it away like a sucked orange. I detest such backsliding and such ungratefulness." Paul's cup of humiliation was full, but he bit his lip till the blood almost came, and made no answer. "He boasted in his own strength," Job went on mercilessly, "that he wasn't going to be a backslider, and he wasn't going to sign no bond, and he wasn't going to confer with us, but we must trust his honour and honesty, and such like. I've got his very words written down in my notebook 'ere; for I made a note of 'em, foreseeing this. If we'd 'a' bound him down, as I proposed, he wouldn't 'a' dared to go backsliding and rounding on us, and making up to the daughters of Midian, as I don't doubt but what he's been doing." Paul's tell-tale face showed him at once that he had struck by accident on the right chord. "But if he ever goes bringing a daughter of Midian here to Peckham," Job continued, "we'll show her these very notes, and ask her what she thinks of such dishonourable conduct. The Apostle's dying, that's clear; and before he dies I warrant he shall know this treachery." Paul could not stand that last threat. Though he had lost faith in the Apostle as an Apostle, he could never forget the allegiance he had once borne him as a father, or the spell which his powerful individuality had once thrown around him as a teacher. To have embittered that man's dying bed with the shadow of a terrible disappointment would be to Paul a lifelong subject of deep remorse. "I did not intend to open my mouth in answer to you, Mr. Grimshaw," he said (for the first time breaking through the customary address of Brother), "but I pray you, I entreat you, I beseech you, not to harass the Apostle in his last moments with such a subject." "Oh yes, I suppose so," Job Grimshaw answered maliciously, all the ingrained coarseness of the man breaking out in the wrinkles of his face. "No wonder you don't want him enlightened about your goings on with the daughters of Midian, when you must know as well as I do that his life ain't worth a day's purchase, and that he's a man of independent means, and has left you every penny he's got in his will, because he believes you're a fit successor to the Apostolate. I know it, for I signed as a witness, and I read it through, being a short one, while the other witness was signing. And you must know it as well as I do. I suppose you don't think he'll make another will now; but there's time enough to burn that one anyhow." Paul Owen stood aghast at the vulgar baseness of which this lewd fellow supposed him capable. He had never thought of it before; and yet it flashed across his mind in a moment how obvious it was now. Of course the Apostle would leave him his money. He was being educated for the Apostolate, and the Apostolate could not be carried on without the sinews of war. But that Job Grimshaw should think him guilty of angling for the Apostle's money, and then throwing the Church overboard--the bare notion of it was so horrible to him that he could not even hold up his head to answer the taunt. He sat down and buried his crimson face in his hands; and Job Grimshaw, taking up his hat sturdily, with the air of a man who has to perform an unpleasant duty, left the meeting-room abruptly without another word. There was a gloomy Sunday dinner that morning in the mason's cottage, and nobody seemed much inclined to speak in any way. But as they were in the midst of their solemn meal, a neighbour who was also a Gideonite came in hurriedly. "It's all over," he said, breathless--"all over with us and with the Church. The Apostle is dead. He died this morning." Margaret Owen found voice to ask, "Before Job Grimshaw saw him?" The neighbour nodded, "Yes." "Thank heaven for that!" cried Paul. "Then he did not die misunderstanding me!" "And you'll get his money," added the neighbour, "for I was the other witness." Paul drew a long breath. "I wish Meenie was here," he said. "I must see her about this." IV. A few days later the Apostle was buried, and his will was read over before the assembled Church. By earnest persuasion of his father, Paul consented to be present, though he feared another humiliation from Job Grimshaw. But two days before he had taken the law into his own hands, by writing to Meenie, at her aunt's in Eaton Place; and that very indiscreet young lady, in response, had actually consented to meet him in Kensington Gardens alone the next afternoon. There he sat with her on one of the benches by the Serpentine, and talked the whole matter over with her to his heart's content. "If the money is really left to me," he said, "I must in honour refuse it. It was left to me to carry on the Apostolate, and I can't take it on any other ground. But what ought I to do with it? I can't give it over to the Church, for in three days there will be no Church left to give it to. What shall I do with it?" "Why," said Meenie, thoughtfully, "if I were you I should do this. First, pay back everybody who contributed towards your support in full, principal and interest; then borrow from the remainder as much as you require to complete your Oxford course; and finally, pay back all that and the other money to the fund when you are able, and hand it over for the purpose of doing some good work in Peckham itself, where your Church was originally founded. If the ideal can't be fulfilled, let the money do something good for the actual." "You are quite right, Meenie," said Paul, "except in one particular. I will not borrow from the fund for my own support. I will not touch a penny of it, temporarily or permanently, for myself in any way. If it comes to me, I shall make it over to trustees at once for some good object, as you suggest, and shall borrow from them five hundred pounds to repay my own poor people, giving the trustees my bond to repay the fund hereafter. I shall fight my own battle henceforth unaided." "You will do as you ought to do, Paul, and I am proud of it." So next morning, when the meeting took place, Paul felt somewhat happier in his own mind as to the course he should pursue with reference to Job Grimshaw. The Senior Episcop opened and read the last will and testament of Arthur Murgess, attorney-at-law. It provided in a few words that all his estate, real and personal, should pass unreservedly to his friend, Paul Owen, of Christchurch, Oxford. It was whispered about that, besides the house and grounds, the personalty might be sworn at £8000, a vast sum to those simple people. When the reading was finished, Paul rose and addressed the assembly. He told them briefly the plan he had formed, and insisted on his determination that not a penny of the money should be put to his own uses. He would face the world for himself, and thanks to their kindness he could face it easily enough. He would still earn and pay back all that he owed them. He would use the fund, first for the good of those who had been members of the Church, and afterwards for the good of the people of Peckham generally. And he thanked them from the bottom of his heart for the kindness they had shown him. Even Job Grimshaw could only mutter to himself that this was not sperritual grace, but mere worldly pride and stubbornness, lest the lad should betray his evil designs, which had thus availed him nothing. "He has lost his own soul and wrecked the Church for the sake of the money," Job said, "and now he dassn't touch a farden of it." Next John Owen rose and said slowly, "Friends, it seems to me we may as well all confess that this Church has gone to pieces. I can't stop in it myself any longer, for I see it's clear agin nature, and what's agin nature can't be true." And though the assembly said nothing, it was plain that there were many waverers in the little body whom the affairs of the last week had shaken sadly in their simple faith. Indeed, as a matter of fact, before the end of the month the Gideonite Church had melted away, member by member, till nobody at all was left of the whole assembly but Job Grimshaw. "My dear," said the Rector to his wife a few weeks later, laying down his _Illustrated_, "this is really a very curious thing. That young fellow Owen, of Christchurch, that Meenie fancied herself engaged to, has just come into a little landed property and eight or nine thousand pounds on his own account. He must be better connected than Tom imagines. Perhaps we might make inquiries about him after all." The Rector did make inquiries in the course of the week, and with such results that he returned to the rectory in blank amazement. "That fellow's mad, Amelia," he said, "stark mad, if ever anybody was. The leader of his Little Bethel, or Ebenezer, or whatever it may be, has left him all his property absolutely, without conditions; and the idiot of a boy declares he won't touch a penny of it, because he's ceased to believe in their particular shibboleth, and he thinks the leader wanted him to succeed him. Very right and proper of him, of course, to leave the sect if he can't reconcile it with his conscience, but perfectly Quixotic of him to give up the money and beggar himself outright. Even if his connection was otherwise desirable (which it is far from being), it would be absurd to think of letting Meenie marry such a ridiculous hair-brained fellow." Paul and Meenie, however, went their own way, as young people often will, in spite of the Rector. Paul returned next term to Oxford, penniless, but full of resolution, and by dint of taking pupils managed to eke out his scholarship for the next year. At the end of that time he took his first in Greats, and shortly after gained a fellowship. From the very first day he began saving money to pay off that dead weight of five hundred pounds. The kindly ex-Gideonites had mostly protested against his repaying them at all, but in vain: Paul would not make his entry into life, he said, under false pretences. It was a hard pull, but he did it. He took pupils, he lectured, he wrote well and vigorously for the press, he worked late and early with volcanic energy; and by the end of three years he had not only saved the whole of the sum advanced by the Gideonites, but had also begun to put away a little nest-egg against his marriage with Meenie. And when the editor of a great morning paper in London offered him a permanent place upon the staff, at a large salary, he actually went down to Worcestershire, saw the formidable Rector himself in his own parish, and demanded Meenie outright in marriage. And the Rector observed to his wife that this young Owen seemed a well-behaved and amiable young man; that after all one needn't know anything about his relations if one didn't like; and that as Meenie had quite made up her mind, and was as headstrong as a mule, there was no use trying to oppose her any longer. Down in Peckham, where Paul Owen lives, and is loved by half the poor of the district, no one has forgotten who was the real founder of the Murgess Institute, which does so much good in encouraging thrift, and is so admirably managed by the founder and his wife. He would take a house nowhere but at Peckham, he said. To the Peckham people he owed his education, and for the Peckham people he would watch the working of his little Institute. There is no better work being done anywhere in that great squalid desert, the east and south-east of London; there is no influence more magnetic than the founder's. John and Margaret Owen have recovered their hopes for their boy, only they run now in another and more feasible direction; and those who witness the good that is being done by the Institute among the poor of Peckham, or who have read that remarkable and brilliant economical work lately published on "The Future of Co-operation in the East End, by P. O.," venture to believe that Meenie was right after all, and that even the great social world itself has not yet heard the last of young Paul Owen's lay apostolate. _THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY._ I. I really never felt so profoundly ashamed of myself in my whole life as when my father-in-law, Professor W. Bryce Murray, of Oriel College, Oxford, sent me the last number of the Proceedings of the Society for the Investigation of Supernatural Phenomena. As I opened the pamphlet, a horrible foreboding seized me that I should find in it, detailed at full length, with my name and address in plain printing (not even asterisks), that extraordinary story of his about the mysterious occurrence in Piccadilly. I turned anxiously to page 14, which I saw was neatly folded over at the corner; and there, sure enough, I came upon the Professor's remarkable narrative, which I shall simply extract here, by way of introduction, in his own admirable and perspicuous language. "I wish to communicate to the Society," says my respected relation, "a curious case of wraiths or doubles, which came under my own personal observation, and for which I can vouch on my own authority, and that of my son-in-law, Dr. Owen Mansfield, keeper of Accadian Antiquities at the British Museum. It is seldom, indeed, that so strange an example of a supernatural phenomenon can be independently attested by two trustworthy scientific observers, both still living. "On the 12th of May, 1873--I made a note of the circumstance at the time, and am therefore able to feel perfect confidence as to the strict accuracy of my facts--I was walking down Piccadilly about four o'clock in the afternoon, when I saw a simulacrum or image approaching me from the opposite direction, exactly resembling in outer appearance an undergraduate of Oriel College, of the name of Owen Mansfield. It must be carefully borne in mind that at this time I was not related or connected with Mr. Mansfield in any way, his marriage with my daughter having taken place some eleven months later: I only knew him then as a promising junior member of my own College. I was just about to approach and address Mr. Mansfield, when a most singular and mysterious event took place. The simulacrum appeared spontaneously to glide up towards me with a peculiarly rapid and noiseless motion, waved a wand or staff which it bore in its hands thrice round my head, and then vanished hastily in the direction of an hotel which stands at the corner of Albemarle Street. I followed it quickly to the door, but on inquiry of the porter, I learned that he himself had observed nobody enter. The simulacrum seems to have dissipated itself or become invisible suddenly in the very act of passing through the folding glass portals which give access to the hotel from Piccadilly. "That same evening, by the last post, I received a hastily-written note from Mr. Mansfield, bearing the Oxford postmark, dated Oriel College, 5 p.m., and relating the facts of an exactly similar apparition which had manifested itself to him, with absolute simultaneity of occurrence. On the very day and hour when I had seen Mr. Mansfield's wraith in Piccadilly, Mr. Mansfield himself was walking down the Corn Market in Oxford, in the direction of the Taylor Institute. As he approached the corner, he saw what he took to be a vision or image of myself, his tutor, moving towards him in my usual leisurely manner. Suddenly, as he was on the point of addressing me with regard to my Aristotle lecture the next morning, the image glided up to him in a rapid and evasive manner, shook a green silk umbrella with a rhinoceros-horn handle three times around his head, and then disappeared incomprehensibly through the door of the Randolph Hotel. Returning to college in a state of breathless alarm and surprise, at what he took to be an act of incipient insanity or extreme inebriation on my part, Mr. Mansfield learnt from the porter, to his intense astonishment, that I was at that moment actually in London. Unable to conceal his amazement at this strange event, he wrote me a full account of the facts while they were still fresh in his memory: and as I preserve his note to this day, I append a copy of it to my present communication, for publication in the Society's Transactions. "There is one small point in the above narrative to which I would wish to call special attention, and that is the accurate description given by Mr. Mansfield of the umbrella carried by the apparition he observed in Oxford. This umbrella exactly coincided in every particular with the one I was then actually carrying in Piccadilly. But what is truly remarkable, and what stamps the occurrence as a genuine case of supernatural intervention, is the fact that _Mr. Mansfield could not possibly ever have seen that umbrella in my hands, because I had only just that afternoon purchased it at a shop in Bond Street_. This, to my mind, conclusively proves that no mere effort of fancy or visual delusion based upon previous memories, vague or conscious, could have had anything whatsoever to do with Mr. Mansfield's observation at least. It was, in short, distinctly an objective apparition, as distinguished from a mere subjective reminiscence or hallucination." As I laid down the Proceedings on the breakfast table with a sigh, I said to my wife (who had been looking over my shoulder while I read): "Now, Nora, we're really in for it. What on earth do you suppose I'd better do?" Nora looked at me with her laughing eyes laughing harder and brighter than ever. "My dear Owen," she said, putting the Proceedings promptly into the waste paper basket, "there's really nothing on earth possible now, except to make a clean breast of it." I groaned. "I suppose you're right," I answered, "but it's a precious awkward thing to have to do. However, here goes." So I sat down at once with pen, ink, and paper at my desk, to draw up this present narrative as to the real facts about the "Mysterious Occurrence in Piccadilly." II. In 1873 I was a fourth-year man, going in for my Greats at the June examination. But as if Aristotle and Mill and the affair of Corcyra were not enough to occupy one young fellow's head at the age of twenty-three, I had foolishly gone and fallen in love, undergraduate fashion, with the only really pretty girl (I insist upon putting it, though Nora has struck it out with her pen) in all Oxford. She was the daughter of my tutor, Professor Bryce Murray, and her name (as the astute reader will already have inferred) was Nora. The Professor had lost his wife some years before, and he was left to bring up Nora by his own devices, with the aid of his sister, Miss Lydia Amelia Murray, the well-known advocate of female education, woman's rights, anti-vaccination, vegetarianism, the Tichborne claimant, and psychic force. Nora, however, had no fancy for any of these multifarious interests of her aunt's: I have reason to believe she takes rather after her mother's family: and Miss Lydia Amelia Murray early decided that she was a girl of no intellectual tastes of any sort, who had better be kept at school at South Kensington as much as possible. Especially did Aunt Lydia hold it to be undesirable that Nora should ever come in contact with that very objectionable and wholly antagonistic animal, the Oriel undergraduate. Undergraduates were well known to laugh openly at woman's rights, to devour underdone beefsteaks with savage persistence, and to utter most irreverent and ribald jests about psychic force. Still, it is quite impossible to keep the orbit of a Professor's daughter from occasionally crossing that of a stray meteoric undergraduate. Nora only came home to Oxford in vacation time: but during the preceding Long I had stopped up for the sake of pursuing my Accadian studies in a quiet spot, and it was then that I first quite accidentally met Nora. I was canoeing on the Cherwell one afternoon, when I came across the Professor and his daughter in a punt, and saw the prettiest girl in all Oxford actually holding the pole in her own pretty little hands, while that lazy old man lolled back at his ease with a book, on the luxurious cushions in the stern. As I passed the punt, I capped the Professor, of course, and looking back a minute later I observed that the pretty daughter had got her pole stuck fast in the mud, and couldn't, with all her force, pull it out again. In another minute she had lost her hold of it, and the punt began to drift of itself down the river towards Iffley. Common politeness naturally made me put back my canoe, extricate the pole, and hand it as gracefully as I could to the Professor's daughter. As I did so, I attempted to raise my straw hat cautiously with one hand, while I gave back the pole with the other: an attempt which of course compelled me to lay down my paddle on the front, of the canoe, as I happen to be only provided with two hands, instead of four like our earlier ancestors. I don't know whether it was my instantaneous admiration for Nora's pretty blush, which distracted my attention from the purely practical question of equilibrium, or whether it was her own awkwardness and modesty in taking the pole, or finally whether it was my tutor's freezing look that utterly disconcerted me, but at any rate, just at that moment, something unluckily (or rather luckily) caused me to lose my balance altogether. Now, everybody knows that a canoe is very easily upset: and in a moment, before I knew exactly where I was, I found the canoe floating bottom upward about three yards away from me, and myself standing, safe and dry, in my tutor's punt, beside his pretty blushing daughter. I had felt the canoe turning over as I handed back the pole, and had instinctively jumped into the safer refuge of the punt, which saved me at least the ignominy of appearing before Miss Nora Murray in the ungraceful attitude of clambering back, wet and dripping, into an upset canoe. The inexorable logic of facts had thus convinced the Professor of the impossibility of keeping all undergraduates permanently at a safe distance: and there was nothing open for him now except resignedly to acquiesce in the situation so created for him. However much he might object to my presence, he could hardly, as a Christian and a gentleman, request me to jump in and swim after my canoe, or even, when we had at last successfully brought it alongside with the aid of the pole, to seat myself once more on the soaking cushions. After all, my mishap had come about in the endeavour to render him a service: so he was fain with what grace he could to let me relieve his daughter of the pole, and punt him back as far as the barges, with my own moist and uncomfortable bark trailing casually from the stern. As for Nora, being thus thrown unexpectedly into the dangerous society of that gruesome animal, the Oriel undergraduate, I think I may venture to say (from my subsequent experience) that she was not wholly disposed to regard the creature as either so objectionable or so ferocious as she had been previously led to imagine. We got on together so well that I could see the Professor growing visibly wrathful about the corners of the mouth: and by the time we reached the barges, he could barely be civil enough to say Good morning to me when we parted. An introduction, however, no matter how obtained, is really in these matters absolutely everything. As long as you don't know a pretty girl, you don't know her, and you can't take a step in advance without an introduction. But when once you _do_ know her, heaven and earth and aunts and fathers may try their hardest to prevent you, and yet whatever they try they can't keep you out. I was so far struck with Nora, that I boldly ventured whenever I met her out walking with her father or her aunt, to join myself to the party: and though they never hesitated to show me that my presence was not rapturously welcomed, they couldn't well say to me point-blank, "Have the goodness, Mr. Mansfield, to go away and not to speak to me again in future." So the end of it was, that before the beginning of October term, Nora and I understood one another perfectly, and had even managed, in a few minutes' _tête-à-tête_ in the parks, to whisper to one another the ingenuous vows of sweet seventeen and two-and-twenty. When the Professor discovered that I had actually written a letter to his daughter, marked "Private and Confidential," his wrath knew no bounds. He sent for me to his rooms, and spoke to me severely. "I've half a mind, Mansfield," he said, "to bring the matter before a college meeting. At any rate, this conduct must not be repeated. If it is, Sir,"--he didn't finish the sentence, preferring to terrify me by the effective figure of speech which commentators describe as an aposiopesis: and I left him with a vague sense that if it _was_ repeated I should probably incur the penalties of _præmunire_ (whatever they may be), or be hanged, drawn, and quartered, with my head finally stuck as an adornment on the acute wings of the Griffin, _vice_ Temple Bar removed. Next day, Nora met me casually at a confectioner's in the High, where I will frankly confess that I was engaged in experimenting upon the relative merits of raspberry cream and lemon water ices. She gave me her hand timidly, and whispered to me half under her breath, "Papa's so dreadfully angry, Owen, and I'm afraid I shall never be able to meet you any more, for he's going to send me back this very afternoon to South Kensington, and keep me away from Oxford altogether in future." I saw her eyes were red with crying, and that she really thought our little romance was entirely at an end. "My darling Nora," I replied in an undertone, "even South Kensington is not so unutterably remote that I shall never be able to see you there. Write to me whenever you are able, and let me know where I can write to you. My dear little Nora, if there were a hundred papas and a thousand Aunt Lydias interposed in a square between us, don't you know we should manage all the same to love one another and to overcome all difficulties?" Nora smiled and half cried at once, and then discreetly turned to order half a pound of glacé cherries. And that was the last that I saw of her for the time at Oxford. During the next term or two, I'm afraid I must admit that the relations between my tutor and myself were distinctly strained, so much so as continually to threaten the breaking out of open hostilities. It wasn't merely that Nora was in question, but the Professor also suspected me of jeering in private at his psychical investigations. And if the truth must be told, I will admit that his suspicions were not wholly without justification. It began to be whispered among the undergraduates just then that the Professor and his sister had taken to turning _planchettes_, interrogating easy-chairs, and obtaining interesting details about the present abode of Shakespeare or Milton from intelligent and well-informed five-o'clock tea-tables. It had long been well known that the Professor took a deep interest in haunted houses, considered that the portents recorded by Livy must have something in them, and declared himself unable to be sceptical as to facts which had convinced such great men as Plato, Seneca, and Samuel Johnson. But the table-turning was a new fad, and we noisy undergraduates occasionally amused ourselves by getting up an amateur _séance_, in imitation of the Professor, and eliciting psychical truths, often couched in a surprisingly slangy or even indecorous dialect, from a very lively though painfully irreverent spirit, who discoursed to us through the material intervention of a rickety what-not. However, as the only mediums we employed were the very unprofessional ones of two plain decanters, respectively containing port and sherry, the Professor (who was a teetotaler, and who paid five guineas a _séance_ for the services of that distinguished psychical specialist, Dr. Grade) considered the interesting results we obtained as wholly beneath the dignity of scientific inquiry. He even most unworthily endeavoured to stifle research by gating us all one evening when a materialized spirit, assuming the outer form of the junior exhibitioner, sang a comic song of the period in a loud voice with the windows open, and accompanied itself noisily with a psychical tattoo on the rickety what-not. The Professor went so far as to observe sarcastically that our results appeared to him to be rather spirituous than spiritual. On May 11, 1873 (I will endeavour to rival the Professor in accuracy and preciseness), I got a short note from dear Nora, dated from South Kensington, which I, too (though not from psychical motives), have carefully preserved. I will not publish it, however, either here or in the Society's Proceedings, for reasons which will probably be obvious to any of my readers who happen ever to have been placed in similar circumstances themselves. Disengaging the kernel of fact from the irrelevant matter in which it was imbedded, I may state that Nora wrote me somewhat to this effect. She was going next day to the Academy with the parents of some schoolfellow; could I manage to run up to town for the day, go to the Academy myself, and meet her "quite accidentally, you know, dear," in the Water-colour room about half-past eleven? This was rather awkward; for next day, as it happened, was precisely the Professor's morning for the Herodotus lecture; but circumstances like mine at that moment know no law. So I succeeded in excusing myself from attendance somehow or other (I hope truthfully) and took the nine a.m. express up to town. Shortly after eleven I was at the Academy, and waiting anxiously for Nora's arrival. That dear little hypocrite, the moment she saw me approach, assumed such an inimitable air of infantile surprise and innocent pleasure at my unexpected appearance that I positively blushed for her wicked powers of deception. "_You_ here, Mr. Mansfield!" she cried in a tone of the most apparently unaffected astonishment, "why, I thought it was full term time; surely you ought to be up at Oriel." "So I am," I answered, "officially; but in my private capacity I've come up for the day to look at the pictures." "Oh, how nice!" said that shocking little Nora, with a smile that was childlike and bland. "Mr. Mansfield is such a great critic, Mrs. Worplesdon; he knows all about art, and artists, and so on. He'll be able to tell us which pictures we ought to admire, you know, and which aren't worth looking at. Mr. Worplesdon, let me introduce you; Mrs. Worplesdon--Miss Worplesdon. How very lucky we should have happened to come across you, Mr. Mansfield!" The Worplesdons fell immediately, like lambs, into the trap so ingenuously spread for them. Indeed, I have always noticed that ninety-nine per cent. of the British public, when turned into an art-gallery, are only too glad to accept the opinion of anybody whatsoever, who is bold enough to have one, and to express it openly. Having thus been thrust by Nora into the arduous position of critic by appointment to the Worplesdon party, I delivered myself _ex cathedrâ_ forthwith upon the merits and demerits of the entire exhibition; and I was so successful in my critical views that I not only produced an immense impression upon Mr. Worplesdon himself, but also observed many ladies in the neighbourhood nudge one another as they gazed intently backward and forward between wall and catalogue, and heard them whisper audibly among themselves, "A gentleman here says the flesh tones on that shoulder are simply marvellous;" or, "That artist in the tweed suit behind us thinks the careless painting of the ferns in the foreground quite unworthy of such a colourist as Daubiton." So highly was my criticism appreciated, in fact, that Mr. Worplesdon even invited me to lunch with Nora and his party at a neighbouring restaurant, where I spent the most delightful hour I had passed for the last half-year, in the company of that naughty mendacious little schemer. About four o'clock, however, the Worplesdons departed, taking Nora with them to South Kensington; and I prepared to walk back in the direction of Paddington, meaning to catch an evening train, and return to Oxford. I was strolling in a leisurely fashion along Piccadilly towards the Park, and looking into all the photographers' windows, when suddenly an awful apparition loomed upon me--the Professor himself, coming round the corner from Bond Street, folding up a new rhinoceros-handled umbrella as he walked along. In a moment I felt that all was lost. I was up in town without leave; the Professor would certainly see me and recognize me; he would ask me how and why I had left the University, contrary to rules; and I must then either tell him the whole truth, which would get Nora into a fearful scrape, or else run the risk of being sent down in disgrace, which might prevent me from taking a degree, and would at least cause my father and mother an immense deal of unmerited trouble. Like a flash of lightning, a wild idea shot instantaneously across my brain. Might I pretend to be my own double? The Professor was profoundly superstitious on the subject of wraiths, apparitions, ghosts, brain-waves, and supernatural appearances generally; if I could only manage to impose upon him for a moment by doing something outrageously uncommon or eccentric, I might succeed in stifling further inquiry by setting him from the beginning on a false track which he was naturally prone to follow. Before I had time to reflect upon the consequences of my act, the wild idea had taken possession of me, body and soul, and had worked itself out in action with all the rapidity of a mad impulse. I rushed frantically up to the Professor, with my eyes fixed in a vacant stare on a point in space somewhere above the tops of the chimney-pots: I waved my stick three times mysteriously around his head; and then, without giving him time to recover from his surprise or to address a single word to me, I bolted off in a Red Indian dance to the nearest corner. There was an hotel there, which I had often noticed before, though I had never entered it; and I rushed wildly in, meaning to get out as best I could when the Professor (who is very short-sighted) had passed on along Piccadilly in search of me. But fortune, as usual, favoured the bold. Luckily, it was a corner house, and, to my surprise, I found when I got inside it, that the hall opened both ways, with a door on to the side street. The porter was looking away as I entered; so I merely ran in of one door and out of the other, never stopping till I met a hansom, into which I jumped and ordered the man to drive to Paddington. I just caught the 4.35 to Oxford, and by a little over six o'clock I was in my own rooms at Oriel. It was very wrong of me, indeed; I acknowledge it now; but the whole thing had flashed across my undergraduate mind so rapidly that I carried it out in a moment, before I could at all realize what a very foolish act I was really committing. To take a rise out of the Professor, and to save Nora an angry interview, were the only ideas that occurred to me at the second: when I began to reflect upon it afterwards, I was conscious that I had really practised a very gross and wicked deception. However, there was no help for it now; and as I rolled along in the train to Oxford, I felt that to save myself and Nora from utter disgrace, I must carry the plot out to the end without flinching. It then occurred to me that a double apparition would be more in accordance with all recognized principles of psychical manifestation than a single one. At Reading, therefore, I regret to say, I bought a pencil, and a sheet of paper, and an envelope; and before I reached Oxford station, I had written to the Professor what I now blush to acknowledge as a tissue of shocking fables, in which I paralleled every particular of my own behaviour to him by a similar imaginary piece of behaviour on his part to me, only changing the scene to Oxford. It was awfully wrong, I admit. At the time, however, being yet but little more than a schoolboy, after all, I regarded it simply in the light of a capital practical joke. I informed the Professor gravely how I had seen him at four o'clock in the Corn Market, and how astonished I was when I found him waving his green silk umbrella three times wildly, around my head. The moment I arrived at Oxford, I dashed up to college in a hansom, and got the Professor's address in London from the porter. He had gone up to town for the night, it seemed, probably to visit Nora, and would not be back in college till the next morning. Then I rushed down to the post-office, where I was just in time (with an extra stamp) to catch the last post for that night's delivery. The moment the letter was in the box, I repented, and began to fear I had gone too far: and when I got back to my own rooms at last, and went down late for dinner in hall, I confess I trembled not a little, as to the possible effect of my quite too bold and palpable imposition. Next morning by the second post I got a long letter from the Professor, which completely relieved me from all immediate anxiety as to his interpretation of my conduct. He rose to the fly with a charming simplicity which showed how delighted he was at this personal confirmation of all his own most cherished superstitions. "My dear Mansfield," his letter began, "now hear what, at the very self-same hour and minute, happened to me in Piccadilly." In fact, he had swallowed the whole thing entire, without a single moment's scepticism or hesitation. From what I heard afterwards, it was indeed a lucky thing for me that I had played him this shocking trick, for Nora believes he was then actually on his way to South Kensington on purpose to forbid her most stringently from holding any further communication with me in any way. But as soon as this mysterious event took place, he began to change his mind about me altogether. So remarkable an apparition could not have happened except for some good and weighty reason, he argued: and he suspected that the reason might have something to do with my intentions towards Nora. Why, when he was on his way to warn her against me, should a vision, bearing my outer and bodily shape, come straight across his path, and by vehement signs of displeasure, endeavour to turn him from his purpose, unless it were clearly well for Nora that my attentions should not be discouraged? From that day forth the Professor began to ask me to his rooms and address me far more cordially than he used to do before: he even, on the strength of my singular adventure, invited me to assist at one or two of his psychical _séances_. Here, I must confess, I was not entirely successful: the distinguished medium complained that I exerted a repellent effect upon the spirits, who seemed to be hurt by my want of generous confidence in their good intentions, and by my suspicious habit of keeping my eyes too sharply fixed upon the legs of the tables. He declared that when I was present, an adverse influence seemed to pervade the room, due, apparently, to my painful lack of spiritual sympathies. But the Professor condoned my failure in the regular psychical line, in consideration of my brilliant success as a beholder of wraiths and visions. After I took my degree that summer, he used all his influence to procure me the post of keeper of the Accadian Antiquities at the Museum, for which my previous studies had excellently fitted me: and by his friendly aid I was enabled to obtain the post, though I regret to say that, in spite of his credulity in supernatural matters, he still refuses to believe in the correctness of my conjectural interpretation of the celebrated Amalekite cylinders imported by Mr. Ananias, which I have deciphered in so very simple and satisfactory a manner. As everybody knows, my translation may be regarded as perfectly certain, if only one makes the very modest assumption that the cylinders were originally engraved upside down by an Aztec captive, who had learned broken Accadian, with a bad accent, from a Chinese exile, and who occasionally employed Egyptian hieroglyphics in incorrect senses, to piece out his own very imperfect idiom and doubtful spelling of the early Babylonian language. The solitary real doubt in the matter is whether certain extraordinary marks in the upper left-hand corner of the cylinder are to be interpreted as accidental scratches, or as a picture representing the triumph of a king over seven bound prisoners, or, finally, as an Accadian sentence in cuneiforms which may be translated either as "To the memory of Om the Great," or else as "Pithor the High Priest dedicates a fat goose to the family dinner on the 25th of the month of mid winter." Every candid and unprejudiced mind must admit that these small discrepancies or alternatives in the opinions of experts can cast no doubt at all upon the general soundness of the method employed. But persons like the Professor, while ready to accept any evidence at all where their own prepossessions are concerned, can never be induced to believe such plain and unvarnished statements of simple scientific knowledge. However, the end of it all was that before I had been a month at the Museum, I had obtained the Professor's consent to my marriage with Nora: and as I had had Nora's own consent long before, we were duly joined together in holy matrimony early in October at Oxford, and came at once to live in Hampstead. So, as it turned out, I finally owed the sweetest and best little wife in all Christendom to the mysterious occurrence in Piccadilly. _CARVALHO._ I. The first time I ever met Ernest Carvalho was just before the regimental dance at Newcastle. I had ridden up the Port Royal mountains that same morning from our decaying sugar estate in the Liguanca plain, and I was to stop in cantonments with the Major's wife, fat little Mrs. Venn, who had promised my mother that she would undertake to _chaperon_ me to this my earliest military party. I won't deny that I looked forward to it immensely, for I was then a girl of only eighteen, fresh out from school in England, where I had been living away from our family ever since I was twelve years old. Dear mamma was a Jamaican lady of the old school, completely overpowered by the ingrained West Indian indolence; and if I had waited to go to a dance till I could get her to accompany me, I might have waited till Doomsday, or probably later. So I was glad enough to accept fat little Mrs. Venn's proffered protection, and to go up the hills on my sure-footed mountain pony; while Isaac, the black stable-boy, ran up behind me carrying on his thick head the small portmanteau that contained my plain white ball-dress. As I went up the steep mountain-path alone--for ladies ride only with such an unmounted domestic escort in Jamaica--I happened to overtake a tall gentleman with a handsome rather Jewish face and a pair of extremely lustrous black eyes, who was mounted on a beautiful chestnut mare just in front of me. The horse-paths in the Port Royal mountains are very narrow, being mere zigzag ledges cut half-way up the precipitous green slopes of fern and club-moss, so that there is seldom room for two horses to pass abreast, and it is necessary to wait at some convenient corner whenever you see another rider coming in the opposite direction. At the first opportunity the tall Jewish-looking gentleman drew aside in such a corner, and waited for me to pass. "Pray don't wait," I said, as soon as I saw what he meant; "your horse will get up faster than my pony, and if I go in front I shall keep you back unnecessarily." "Not at all," he answered, raising his hat gracefully; "you are a stranger in the hills, I see. It is the rule of these mountain-paths always to give a lady the lead. If I go first and my mare breaks into a canter on a bit of level, your pony will try to catch her up on the steep slopes, and that is always dangerous." Seeing he did not intend to move till I did, I waived the point at last and took the lead. From that moment I don't know what on earth came over my lazy old pony. He refused to go at more than a walk, or at best a jog-trot, the whole way to Newcastle. Now the rise from the plain to the cantonments is about four thousand feet, I think (I am a dreadfully bad hand at remembering figures), and the distance can't be much less, I suppose, than seven miles. During all that time you never see a soul, except a few negro pickaninnies playing in the dustheaps, not a human habitation, except a few huts embowered in mangoes, hibiscus-bushes, and tree-ferns. At first we kept a decorous silence, not having been introduced to one another; but the stranger's mare followed close at my pony's heels, pull her in as he would, and it seemed really too ridiculous to be solemnly pacing after one another, single file, in this way for a couple of hours, without speaking a word, out of pure punctiliousness. So at last we broke the ice, and long before we got to Newcastle we had struck up quite an acquaintance with one another. It is wonderful how well two people can get mutually known in the course of two hours' _tête-à-tête_, especially under such peculiar circumstances. You are just near enough to one another for friendly chat, and yet not too near for casual strangers. And then Isaac with the portmanteau behind was quite sufficient escort to satisfy the _convenances_. In England, one's groom would have to be mounted, which always seems to me, in my simplicity, a distinction without a difference. Mr. Carvalho was on his way up to Newcastle on the same errand as myself, to go to the dance. He might have been twenty, I suppose; and, to a girl of eighteen, boys of twenty seem quite men already. He was a clerk in a Government Office in Kingston, and was going to stop with a sub at Newcastle for a week or two, on leave. I did not know much about men in those days, but I needed little knowledge of the subject to tell me that Ernest Carvalho was decidedly clever. As soon as the first chill wore off our conversation, he kept me amused the whole way by his bright sketchy talk about the petty dignitaries of a colonial capital. There was his Excellency for the time being, and there was the Right Reverend of that day, and there was the Honourable Colonial Secretary, and there was the Honourable Director of Roads, and there were a number of other assorted Honourables, whose queer little peculiarities he hit off dexterously in the quaintest manner. Not that there was any unkindly satire in his brilliant conversation; on the contrary, he evidently liked most of the men he talked about, and seemed only to read and realize their characters so thoroughly that they spoke for themselves in his dramatic anecdotes. He appeared to me a more genial copy of Thackeray in a colonial society, with all the sting gone, and only the skilful delineation of men and women left. I had never met anybody before, and I have never met anybody since, who struck me so instantaneously with the idea of innate genius as Ernest Carvalho. "You have been in England, of course," I said, as we were nearing Newcastle. "No, never," he answered; "I am a Jamaican born and bred, I have never been out of the island." I was surprised, for he seemed so different from any of the young planters I had met at our house, most of whom had never opened a book, apparently, in the course of their lives, while Mr. Carvalho's talk was full of indefinite literary flavour. "Where were you educated, then?" I asked. "I never was educated anywhere," he answered, laughing. "I went to a small school at Port Antonio during my father's life, but for the most part I have picked up whatever I know (and that's not much) wholly by myself. Of course French, like reading and writing, comes by nature, and I got enough Spanish to dip into Cervantes from the Cuban refugees. Latin one has to grind up out of books, naturally; and as for Greek, I'm sorry to say I know very little, though, of course, I can spell out Homer a bit, and even Æschylus. But my hobby is natural science, and there a fellow has to make his own way here, for hardly anything has been done at the beasts and the flowers in the West Indies yet. But if I live, I mean to work them up in time, and I've made a fair beginning already." This reasonable list of accomplishments, given modestly, not boastfully, by a young man of twenty, wholly self-taught, fairly took my breath away. I was inspired at once with a secret admiration for Mr. Carvalho. He was so handsome and so clever that I think I was half-inclined to fall in love with him at first sight. To say the truth, I believe almost all love _is_ love at first sight; and for my own part, I wouldn't give you a thank-you for any other kind. "Here we must part," he said, as we reached a fork in the narrow path just outside the steep hog's back on which Newcastle stands, "unless you will allow me to see you safely as far as Mrs. Venn's. The path to the right leads to the Major's quarters; this on the left takes me to my friend Cameron's hut. May I see you to the Major's door?" "No, thank you," I answered decidedly; "Isaac is escort enough. We shall meet again this evening." "Perhaps then," he suggested, "I may have the pleasure of a dance with you. Of course it's quite irregular of me to ask you now, but we shall be formally introduced no doubt to-night, and I'm afraid if you lunch at the Venns' your card will be filled up by the 99th men before I can edge myself in anywhere for a dance. Will you allow me?" "Certainly," I said; "what shall it be? The first waltz?" "You are very kind," he answered, taking out a pencil. "You know my name--Carvalho; what may I put down for yours? I haven't heard it yet." "Miss Hazleden," I replied, "of Palmettos." Mr. Carvalho gave a little start of surprise. "Miss Hazleden of Palmettos," he said half to himself, with a rather pained expression. "Miss Hazleden! Then, perhaps, I'd better--well, why not? why not, indeed? Palmettos--Yes, I will." Turning to me, he said, louder, "Thank you; till this evening, then;" and, raising his hat, he hurried sharply round the corner of the hill. What was there in my name, I wondered, which made him so evidently hesitate and falter? Fat little Mrs. Venn was very kind, and not a very strict _chaperon_, but I judged it best not to mention to her this romantic episode of the handsome stranger. However, during the course of lunch, I ventured casually to ask her husband whether he knew of any family in Jamaica of the name of Carvalho. "Carvalho," answered the Major, "bless my soul, yes. Old settled family in the island; Jews; live down Savannah-la-Mar way; been here ever since the Spanish time; doocid clever fellows, too, and rich, most of them." "Jews," I thought; "ah, yes, Mr. Carvalho had a very handsome Jewish type of face and dark eyes; but, why, yes, surely I heard him speak several times of having been to church, and once of the Cathedral at Spanish Town. This was curious." "Are any of them Christians?" I asked again. "Not a man," answered the Major; "not a man, my dear. Good old Jewish family; Jews in Jamaica never turn Christians; nothing to gain by it." The dance took place in the big mess-room, looking out on the fan-palms and tree-ferns of the regimental garden. It was a lovely tropical night, moonlight of course, for all Jamaican entertainments are given at full moon, so as to let the people who ride from a distance get to and fro safely over the breakneck mountain horse-paths. The windows, which open down to the ground, were flung wide for the sake of ventilation; and thus the terrace and garden were made into a sort of vestibule where partners might promenade and cool themselves among the tropical flowers after the heat of dancing. And yet, I don't know how it is, though the climate is so hot in Jamaica, I never danced anywhere so much or felt the heat so little oppressive. Before the first waltz, Mr. Carvalho came up, accompanied by my old friend Dr. Wade, and was properly introduced to me. By that time my card was pretty full, for of course I was a belle in those days, and being just fresh out from England was rather run after. But I will confess that I had taken the liberty of filling in three later waltzes (unasked) with Mr. Carvalho's name, for I knew by his very look that he could waltz divinely, and I do love a good partner. He did waltz divinely, but at the end of the dance I was really afraid he didn't mean to ask me again. When he did, a little hesitatingly, I said I had still three vacancies, and found he had not yet asked anybody else. I enjoyed those four dances more than any others that evening, the more so, perhaps, as I saw my cousin, Harry Verner of Agualta, was dying with jealousy because I danced so much with Mr. Carvalho. I must just say a word or two about Harry Verner. He was a planter _pur sang_, and Agualta was one of the few really flourishing sugar estates then left on the island. Harry was, therefore, naturally regarded as rather a catch; but, for my part, I could never care for any man who has only three subjects of conversation--himself, vacuum-pan sugar, and the wickedness of the French bounty system, which keeps the poor planter out of his own. So I danced away with Mr. Carvalho, partly because I liked him just a little, you know, but partly, also, I will frankly admit, because I saw it annoyed Harry Verner. At the end of our fourth dance, I was strolling with Mr. Carvalho among the great bushy poinsettias and plumbagos on the terrace, under the beautiful soft green light of that tropical moon, when Harry Verner came from one of the windows directly upon us. "I suppose you've forgotten, Edith," he said, "that you're engaged to me for the next lancers. Mr. Carvalho, I know you are to dance with Miss Wade; hadn't you better go and look for your partner?" He spoke pointedly, almost rudely, and Mr. Carvalho took the hint at once. As soon as he was gone, Harry turned round to me fiercely and said in a low angry voice, "You shall not dance this lancers, you shall sit it out with me here in the garden; come over to the seat in the far corner." He led me resistlessly to the seat, away from the noise of the regimental band and the dancers, and then sat himself down at the far end from me, like a great surly bear that he was. "A pretty fool you've been making of yourself to-night, Edith," he said in a tone of suppressed anger, "with that fellow Carvalho. Do you know who he is, miss? Do you know who he is?" "No," I answered faintly, fearing he was going to assure me that my clever new acquaintance was a notorious swindler or a runaway ticket-of-leave man. "Well, then, I'll tell you," he cried angrily. "I'll tell you. He's a coloured man, miss! that's what he is." "A coloured man?" I exclaimed in surprise; "why, he's as white as you and I are, every bit as white, Harry." "So he may be, to look at," answered my cousin; "but a brown man's a brown man, all the same, however much white blood he may have in him; you can never breed the nigger out. Confound his impudence, asking you to dance four times with him in a single evening! You, too, of all girls in the island! Confound his impudence! Why, his mother was a slave girl once on Palmettos estate!" "Oh, Harry, you don't mean to say so," I cried, for I was West Indian enough in my feelings to have a certain innate horror of coloured blood, and I was really shocked to think I had been so imprudent as to dance four times with a brown man. "Yes, I do mean it, miss," he answered; "an octaroon slave girl, and Carvalho's her son by old Jacob Carvalho, a Jew merchant at the back of the island, who was fool enough to go and actually marry her. So now you see what a pretty mess you've gone and been and made of it. We shall have it all over Kingston to-morrow, I suppose, that Miss Hazleden, a Hazleden and a Verner, has been flirting violently with a bit of coloured scum off her own grandfather's estate at Palmettos. A nice thing for the family, indeed!" "But, Harry," I said, pleading, "he's such a perfect gentleman in his manners and conversation, so very much superior to a great many Jamaican young men." "Hang it all, miss," said Harry--he used a stronger expression, for he was not particular about swearing before ladies, but I won't transcribe all his oaths--"hang it all, that's the way of you girls who have been to England. If I had fifty daughters I'd never send one of 'em home, not I. You go over there, and you get enlightened, as you call it, and you learn a lot of radical fal-lal about equality and a-man-and-a-brother, and all that humbug: and then you come back and despise your own people, who are gentlemen and the sons of gentlemen for fifty generations, from the good old slavery days onward. I wish we had them here again, I do, and I'd tie up that fellow Carvalho to a horse-post and flog him with a cow-hide within an inch of his life." I was too much accustomed to Harry's manners to make any protest against this vigorous suggestion of reprisals. I took his arm quietly. "Let us go back into the ballroom, Harry," I said as persuasively as I was able, for I loathed the man in my heart, "and for heaven's sake don't make a scene about it. If there is anything on earth I detest, it's scenes." Next morning I felt rather feverish, and dear fat little Mrs. Venn was quite frightened about me. "If you go down again to Liguanca with this fever on you, my dear," she said, "you'll get yellow Jack as soon as you are home again. Better write and ask your mamma to let you stop a fortnight with us here." I consented, readily enough, for, of course, no girl of eighteen ever in her heart objects to military society, and the 99th were really very pleasant well-intentioned young fellows. But I made up my mind that if I stayed I would take particular care to see no more of Mr. Carvalho. He was very clever, very fascinating, very nice, but then--he was a brown man! That was a bar that no West Indian girl could ever be expected to get over. As ill-luck would have it, however--I write as I then felt--about three days after, Mrs. Venn said to me, "I've invited Mr. Cameron, one of our sub-lieutenants, to dine this evening, and I've had to invite his guest, young Carvalho, as well. By the way, Edie, if I were you, I wouldn't talk quite so much as you did the other evening to Mr. Carvalho. You know, dear, though he doesn't look it, he's a brown man." "I didn't know it," I answered, "till the end of the evening, and then Harry Verner told me. I wouldn't have danced with him more than once if I'd known it." "Wonderful how that young fellow has managed to edge himself into society," said the major, looking up from his book; "devilish odd. Son of old Jacob Carvalho: Jacob left him all his coin, not very much; picked up his ABC somewhere or other; got into Government service; asked to Governor's dances; goes everywhere now. Can't understand it." "Well, my dear," says Mrs. Venn, "why do we ask him ourselves?" "Because we can't help it," says the major, testily. "Cameron goes and picks him up; ought to be in the Engineers, Cameron; too doocid clever for the line and for this regiment. Always picks up some astronomer fellow, or some botanist fellow, or some fellow who understands fortification or something. Competitive examination's ruin of the service. Get all sorts of people into the regiment now. Believe Cameron himself lives upon his pay almost, hanged if I don't." That evening, Mr. Carvalho came, and I liked him better than ever. Mr. Cameron, who was a brother botanist and a nice ingenuous young Highlander, made him bring his portfolio of Jamaica ferns and flowers, the loveliest things I ever saw--dried specimens and water-colour sketches to accompany them of the plants themselves as they grew naturally. He told us all about them so enthusiastically, and of how he used to employ almost all his holidays in the mountains hunting for specimens. "I'm afraid the fellows at the office think me a dreadful muff for it," he said, "but I can't help it, it's born in me. My mother is a descendant of Sir Hans Sloane's, who lived here for several years--the founder of the British Museum, you know--and all her family have always had a taste for bush, as the negroes call it. You know, a good many mulatto people have the blood of able English families in their veins, and that accounts, I believe, for their usual high average of general intelligence." I was surprised to hear him speak so unaffectedly of his ancestry on the wrong side of the house, for most light coloured people studiously avoid any reference to their social disabilities. I liked him all the better, however, for the perfect frankness with which he said it. If only he hadn't been a brown man, now! But there, you can't get over those fundamental race prejudices. Next morning, as the Major and I were out riding, we came again across Mr. Cameron and Mr. Carvalho. Fate really seemed determined to throw us together. We were going to the Fern Walk to gather gold and silver ferns, and Mr. Carvalho was bound in the same direction, to look for some rare hill-top flowers. At the Walk we dismounted, and, while the two officers went hunting about among the bush, Mr. Carvalho and I sat for a while upon a big rock in the shade of a mountain palm. The conversation happened to come round to somewhat the same turn as it had taken the last evening. "Yes," said Mr Carvalho, in answer to a question of mine, "I do think that mulattos and quadroons are generally cleverer than the average run of white people. You see, mixture of race evidently tends to increase the total amount of brain power. There are peculiar gains of brain on the one side, and other peculiar gains, however small, on the other; and the mixture, I fancy, tends to preserve or increase both. That is why the descendants of Huguenots in England, and the descendants of Italians in France, show generally such great ability." "Then you yourself ought to be an example," I said, "for your name seems to be Spanish or Portuguese." "Spanish and Jewish," he answered, laughing, "though I didn't mean to give a side-puff to myself. Yes, I am of very mixed race indeed. On my father's side I am Jewish, though of course the Jews acknowledge nobody who isn't a pure-blooded descendant of Abraham in both lines; and for that reason I have been brought up a Christian. On my mother's side I am partly negro, partly English, partly Haitian French, and, through the Sloanes, partly Dutch as well. So you see I am a very fair mixture." "And that accounts," I said, "for your being so clever." He blushed and bowed a little demure bow, but said nothing. It's no use fighting against fate, and during all that fortnight I did nothing but run up against Mr. Carvalho. Wherever I went, he was sure to be; wherever I was invited, he was invited to meet me. The fact is, I had somehow acquired the reputation of being a clever girl, and, as Mr. Cameron was by common consent the clever man of his regiment, it was considered proper that he (and by inference his guest) should be always asked to entertain me. The more I saw of Mr. Carvalho the better I liked him. He was so clever, and yet so simple and unassuming, that one couldn't help admiring and sympathizing with him. Indeed, if he hadn't been a brown man, I almost think I should have fallen in love with him outright. At the end of a fortnight I went back to Palmettos. A few days after, who should come to call but old General Farquhar, and with him, of all men in the world, Mr. Carvalho! Mamma was furious. She managed to be frigidly polite as long as they stopped, but when they were gone she went off at once into one of her worst nervous crisises (that's not the regular plural, I'm sure, but no matter). "I know his mother when she was a slave of your grandfather's," she said; "an upstanding proud octaroon girl, who thought herself too good for her place because she was nearly a white woman. She left the estate immediately after that horrid emancipation, to keep a school of brown girls in Kingston. And then she had the insolence to go and get actually married at church to old Jacob Carvalho! Just like those brown people. Their grandmothers never married." For poor mamma always made it a subject of reproach against the respectable coloured folk that they tried to live more decently and properly than their ancestors used to do in slavery times. Mr. Carvalho never came to Palmettos again, but whenever I went to Kingston to dances I met him, and in spite of mamma I talked to him too. One day I went over to a ball at Government House, and there I saw both him and Harry Verner. For the first time in my life I had two proposals made me, and on the same night. Harry Verner's came first. "Edie," he said to me, between the dances, as we were strolling out in the gardens, West Indian fashion, "I often think Agualta is rather lonely. It wants a lady to look after the house, while I'm down looking after the cane pieces. We made the best return in sugar of any estate on the island, last year, you know; but a man can't subsist entirely on sugar. He wants sympathy and intellectual companionship." (This was quite an effort for Harry.) "Now, I've not been in a hurry to get married. I've waited till I could find some one whom I could thoroughly respect and admire as well as love. I've looked at all the girls in Jamaica, before making my choice, and I've determined not to be guided by monetary considerations or any other considerations except those of the affections and of real underlying goodness and intellect. I feel that you are the one girl I have met who is far and away my superior in everything worth living for, Edie; and I'm going to ask you whether you will make me proud and happy for ever by becoming the mistress of Agualta." I felt that Harry was really conceding so very much to me, and honouring me so greatly by offering me a life partnership in that flourishing sugar-estate, that it really went to my heart to have to refuse him. But I told him plainly I could not marry him because I did not love him. Harry seemed quite surprised at my refusal, but answered politely that perhaps I might learn to love him hereafter, that he would not be so foolish as to press me further now, and that he would do his best to deserve my love in future. And with that little speech he led me back to the ballroom, and handed me over to my next partner. Later on in the evening, Mr. Carvalho too, with an earnest look in his handsome dark eyes, asked leave to take me for a few turns in the garden. We sat down on a bench under the great mango tree, and he began to talk to me in a graver fashion than usual. "Your mother was annoyed, I fear, Miss Hazleden," he said, "that I should call at Palmettos." "To tell you the truth," I answered, "I think she was." "I was afraid she would be--I knew she would be, in fact; and for that very reason I hesitated to do it, as I hesitated to dance with you the first time I met you, as soon as I knew who you really were. But I felt I ought to face it out. You know by this time, no doubt, Miss Hazleden, that my mother was once a slave on your grandfather's estate. Now, it is a theory of mine--a little Quixotic, perhaps, but still a theory of mine--that the guilt and the shame of slavery lay with the slave-owners (forgive me if I must needs speak against your own class), and not with the slaves or their descendants. We have nothing on earth to be ashamed of. Thinking thus, I felt it incumbent upon me to call at Palmettos, partly in defence of my general principles, and partly also because I wished to see whether you shared your mother's ideas on that subject." "You were quite right in what you did, Mr. Carvalho," I answered; "and I respect you for the boldness with which you cling to what you think your duty." "Thank you, Miss Hazleden," he answered, "you are very kind. Now, I wish to speak to you about another and more serious question. Forgive my talking about myself for a moment; I feel sure you have kindly interested yourself in me a little. I too am proud of my birth, in my way, for I am the son of an honest able man and of a tender true woman. I come on one side from the oldest and greatest among civilized races, the Jews; and on the other side from many energetic English, French, and Dutch families whose blood I am vain enough to prize as a precious inheritance even though it came to me through the veins of an octaroon girl. I have lately arrived at the conclusion that it is not well for me to remain in Jamaica. I cannot bear to live in a society which will not receive my dear mother on the same terms as it receives me, and will not receive either of us on the same terms as it receives other people. We are not rich, but we are well enough off to go to live in England; and to England I mean soon to go." "I am glad and sorry to hear it," I said. "Glad, because I am sure it is the best thing for your own happiness, and the best opening for your great talents; sorry, because there are not many people in Jamaica whose society I shall miss so much." "What you say encourages me to venture a little further. When I get to England, I intend to go to Cambridge, and take a degree there, so as to put myself on an equality with other educated people. Now, Miss Hazleden, I am going to ask you something which is so great a thing to ask that it makes my heart tremble to ask it. I know no man on earth, least of all myself, dare think himself fit for you, or dare plead his own cause before you without feeling his own unworthiness and pettiness of soul beside you. Yet just because I know how infinitely better and nobler and higher you are than I am, I cannot resist trying, just once, whether I may not hope that perhaps you will consider my appeal, and count my earnestness to me for righteousness. I have watched you and listened to you and admired you till in spite of myself I have not been able to refrain from loving you. I know it is madness; I know it is yearning after the unattainable; but I cannot help it. Oh, don't answer me too soon and crush me, but consider whether perhaps in the future you might not somehow at some time think it possible." He leaned forward towards me in a supplicating attitude. At that moment I loved him with all the force of my nature. Yet I dared not say so. The spectre of the race-prejudice rose instinctively like a dividing wall between my heart and my lips. "Mr. Carvalho," I said, "take me back to my seat. You must not talk so, please." "One minute, Miss Hazleden," he went on passionately; "one minute, and then I will be silent for ever. Remember, we might live in England, far away from all these unmeaning barriers. I do not ask you to take me now, and as I am; I will do all I can to make myself more worthy of you. Only let me hope; don't answer me no without considering it. I know how little I deserve such happiness; but if you will take me, I will live all my life for no other purpose than to make you see that I am striving to show myself grateful for your love. Oh, Miss Hazleden, do listen to me." I felt that in another moment I should yield; I could have seized his outstretched hands then, and told him that I loved him, but I dared not. "Mr. Carvalho," I said, "let us go back now. I will write to you to-morrow." He gave me his arm with a deep breath, and we went back slowly to the music. "Edith," said my mother sharply, when I got home that night, "Harry has been here, and I know two things. He has proposed to you and you have refused him, I'm certain of that; and the other thing is, that young Carvalho has been insolent enough to make you an offer." I said nothing. "What did you answer him?" "That I would reply by letter." "Sit down, then, and write as I tell you." I sat down mechanically. Mamma began dictating. I cried as I wrote, but I wrote it. I know now how very shameful and wrong it was of me; but I was only eighteen, and I was accustomed to do as mamma told me in everything. She had a terrible will, you know, and a terrible temper. "'Dear Mr. Carvalho' (you'd better begin so, or he'll know I dictated it),--'I was too much surprised at your strange conduct last night to give you an answer immediately. On thinking it over, I can only say I am astonished you should have supposed such a thing as you suggested lay within the bounds of possibility. In future, it will be well that we should avoid one another. Our spheres are different. Pray do not repeat your mistake of last evening.--Yours truly, E. Hazleden.' Have you put all that down?" "Mamma," I cried, "it is abominable. It isn't true. I can't sign it." "Sign it," said my mother, briefly. I took the pen and did so. "You will break my heart, mamma," I said. "You will break my heart and kill me." "It shall go first thing to-morrow," said my mother, taking no notice of my words. "And now, Edith, you shall marry Harry Verner." II. Seven years are a large slice out of one's life, and the seven years spent in fighting poor dear mamma over that fixed project were not happy ones. But on that point nothing on earth would bend me. I would not marry Harry Verner. At last, after poor mamma's sudden death, I thought it best to sell the remnant of the estate for what it would fetch, and go back to England. I was twenty-five then, and had slowly learnt to have a will of my own meanwhile. But during all that time I hardly ever heard again of Ernest Carvalho. Once or twice, indeed, I was told he had taken a distinguished place at Cambridge, and had gone to the bar in the Temple; but that was all. A month or two after my return to London my aunt Emily (who was not one of the West Indian side of the house) managed to get me an invitation to Mrs. Bouverie Barton's. Of course you know Mrs. Bouverie Barton, the famous novelist, whose books everybody talks about. Well, Mrs. Barton lives in Eaton Place, and gives charming Thursday evening receptions, which are the recognized rendezvous of all literary and artistic London. If there is a celebrity in town, from Paris or Vienna, Timbuctoo or the South Sea Islands, you are sure to meet him in the little back drawing-room at Eaton Place. The music there is always of the best, and the conversation of the cleverest. But what pleased me most on that occasion was the fact that Mr. Gerard Llewellyn, the author of that singular book "Peter Martindale," was to be the lion of the party on this particular Thursday. I had just been reading "Peter Martindale"--who had not, that season? for it was the rage of the day--and I had never read any novel before which so impressed me by its weird power, its philosophical insight, and its transparent depth of moral earnestness. So I was naturally very much pleased at the prospect of seeing and meeting so famous a man as Mr. Gerard Llewellyn. When we entered Mrs. Bouverie Barton's handsome rooms, we saw a great crowd of people whom even the most unobservant stranger would instantly have recognized as out of the common run. There was the hostess herself, with her kindly smile and her friendly good-humoured manner, hardly, if at all, concealing the profound intellectual strength that lay latent in her calm grey eyes. There were artistic artists and rugged artists; satirical novelists and gay novelists; heavy professors and deep professors--every possible representative of "literature, science, and art." At first, I was put off with introductions to young poetasters, and gentlemen with an interest in cuneiform inscriptions; but I had quite made up my mind to get a talk with Mr. Gerard Llewellyn; and to Mr. Gerard Llewellyn our hostess at last promised to introduce me. She crossed the room in search of him near the big fireplace. A tall, handsome young man, with long moustache and beard, and piercing black eyes, stood somewhat listlessly leaning against the mantelshelf, and talking with an even, brilliant flow to a short, stout, Indian-looking gentleman at his side. I knew in a moment that the short stout gentleman must be Mr. Llewellyn, for in the tall young man, in spite of seven years and the long moustaches, I recognized at once Ernest Carvalho. But to my surprise Mrs. Bouverie Barton brought the tall young man, and not his neighbour, across the room with her. She must have made a mistake, I thought. "Mr. Carvalho," she said, "I want you to come and be introduced to the lady on the ottoman. Miss Hazleden, Mr. Carvalho!" "I have met Mr. Carvalho long ago in Jamaica," I said warmly, "but I am very glad indeed to meet him here again. However, I hardly expected to see him here this evening." "Indeed," said Mrs. Barton, with some surprise in her tone; "I thought you asked to be introduced to the author of 'Peter Martindale.'" "So I did," I answered; "but I understood his name was Llewellyn." "Oh!" said Ernest Carvalho, quickly, "that is only my _nom de plume_. But the authorship is an open secret now, and I suppose Mrs. Barton thought you knew it." "It is a happy chance, at any rate, Mr. Carvalho," I said, "which has thrown us two again together." He bowed gravely and with dignity. "You are very kind to say so," he said. "It is always a pleasure to meet old acquaintances from Jamaica." My heart beat violently. There was a studied coldness in his tone, I thought, and no wonder; but if I had been in love with Ernest Carvalho before, I felt a thousand more times in love with him now as he stood there in his evening dress, a perfect English gentleman. He looked so kinglike with his handsome, slightly Jewish features, his piercing black eyes, his long moustaches, and his beautiful delicate thin-lipped mouth. There was such an air of power in his forehead, such a speaking evidence of high culture in his general expression. And then, he had written "Peter Martindale!" Why, who else could possibly have written it? I wondered at my own stupidity in not having guessed the authorship at once. But, most terrible of all, I had probably lost his love for ever. I might once have called Ernest Carvalho my husband, and I had utterly alienated him by a single culpable act of foolish weakness. "You are living in London, now?" I asked. "Yes," he answered, "we have a little home of our own in Kensington. I am working on the staff of the _Morning Detonator_." "Mrs. Carvalho is here this evening," said Mrs. Bouverie Barton. "Do you know her? I suppose you do, of course." Mrs. Carvalho! As I heard the name, I was conscious of a deep but rapid thud, thud, thud in my ear, and after a moment it struck me that the thud came from the quick beating of my own heart. Then Ernest Carvalho was married! "No," he said in reply, seeing that I did not answer immediately. "Miss Hazleden has never met her, I believe; but I shall be happy to introduce her;" and he turned to a sofa where two or three ladies were chatting together, a little in the corner. A very queenly old lady, with snow-white hair, prettily covered in part by a dainty and becoming lace cap, held out her small white hand to me with a gracious smile. "My mother," Ernest Carvalho said quietly; and I took the proffered hand with a warmth that must have really surprised the slave-born octaroon. The one thought that was uppermost in my mind was just this, that after all Ernest Carvalho was not married. Once more I heard the thud in my ear, and nothing else. As soon as I could notice anybody or anything except myself, I began to observe that Mrs. Carvalho was very handsome. She was rather dark, to be sure, but less so than many Spanish or Italian ladies I had seen; and her look and manner were those of a Louis Quinze marquise, with a distinct reminiscence of the stately old Haitian French politeness. She could never have had any education except what she had picked up for herself; but no one would suspect the deficiency now, for she was as clever as all half-castes, and had made the best of her advantages meanwhile, such as they were. When she talked about the literary London in which her son lived and moved, I felt like the colonial-bred ignoramus I really was; and when she told me they had just been to visit Mr. Fradelli's new picture at the studio, I was positively too ashamed to let her see that I had never in my life heard of that famous painter before. To think that that queenly old lady was still a slave girl at Palmettos when my poor dear mother was a little child! And to think, too, that my own family would have kept her a slave all her life long, if only they had had the power! I remembered at once with a blush what Ernest Carvalho had said to me the last time I saw him, about the people with whom the guilt and shame of slavery really rested. I sat, half in a maze, talking with Mrs. Carvalho all the rest of that evening. Ernest lingered near for a while, as if to see what impression his mother produced upon me, but soon went off, proudly I thought, to another part of the room, where he got into conversation with the German gentleman who wore the big blue wire-guarded spectacles. Yet I fancied he kept looking half anxiously in our direction throughout the evening, and I was sure I saw him catch his mother's eye furtively now and again. As for Mrs. Carvalho, she made a conquest of me at once, and she was evidently well pleased with her conquest. When I rose to leave, she took both my hands in hers, and said to me warmly, "Miss Hazleden, we shall be so pleased to see you whenever you like to come, at Merton Gardens." Had Ernest ever told her of his proposal? I wondered. Mrs. Bouverie Barton was very kind to me. She kept on asking me to her Thursday evenings, and there time after time I met Ernest Carvalho. At first, he seldom spoke to me much, but at last, partly because I always talked so much to his mother perhaps, he began to thaw a little, and often came up to me in quite a friendly way. "We have left Jamaica and all that behind, Miss Hazleden," he said once, "and here in free England we may at least be friends." Oh, how I longed to explain the whole truth to him, and how impossible an explanation was. Besides, he had seen so many other girls since, and very likely his boyish fancy for me had long since passed away altogether. You can't count much on the love-making of eighteen and twenty. Mrs. Carvalho asked me often to their pretty little house in Merton Gardens, and I went; but still Ernest never in any way alluded to what had passed. Months went by, and I began to feel that I must crush that little dream entirely out of my heart--if I could. One afternoon I went in to Mrs. Carvalho's for a cup of five-o'clock tea, and had an uninterrupted _tête-à-tête_ with her for half an hour. We had been exchanging small confidences with one another for a while, and after a pause the old lady laid her gentle hand upon my head and stroked back my hair in such a motherly fashion. "My dear child," she said, half-sighing, "I do wish my Ernest would only take a fancy to a sweet young girl like you." "Mr. Carvalho does not seem quite a marrying man," I answered, forcing a laugh; "I notice he seldom talks to ladies, but always to men, and those of the solemnest." "Ah, my dear, he has had a great disappointment, a terrible disappointment," said the mother, unburdening herself. "I can tell you all about it, for you are a Jamaican born, and though you are one of the 'proud Palmettos' people you are not full of prejudices like the rest of them, and so you will understand it. Before we left Jamaica he was in love with a young lady there; he never told me her name, and that is the one secret he has ever kept from me. Well, he talked to her often, and he thought she was above the wicked prejudices of race and colour; she seemed to encourage him and to be fond of his society. At last he proposed to her. Then she wrote him a cruel, cruel letter, a letter that he never showed me, but he told me what was in it; and it drove him away from the island immediately. It was a letter full of wicked reproaches about our octaroon blood, and it broke his heart with the shock of its heartlessness. He has never cared for any woman since." "Then does he love her still?" I asked, breathless. "How can he? No! but he says he loves the memory of what he once thought her. He has seen her since, somewhere in London, and spoken to her; but he can never love her again. Yet, do you know, I feel sure he cannot help loving her in spite of himself; and he often goes out at night, I am sure, to watch her door, to see her come in and out, for the sake of the love he once bore her. My Ernest is not the sort of man who can love twice in a lifetime." "Perhaps," I said, colouring, "if he were to ask her again she might accept him. Things are so different here in England, and he is a famous man now." Mrs. Carvalho shook her head slowly. "Oh no!" she answered; "he would never importune or trouble her. Though she has rejected him, he is too loyal to the love he once bore her, too careful of wounding her feelings or even her very prejudices, ever to obtrude his love again upon her notice. If she cannot love him of herself and for himself, spontaneously, he would not weary her out with oft asking. He will never marry now; of that I am certain." My eyes filled with tears. As they did so, I tried to brush them away unseen behind my fan, but Mrs. Carvalho caught my glance, and looked sharply through me with a sudden gleam of discovery. "Why," she said, very slowly and distinctly, with a pause and a stress upon each word, "I believe it must have been you yourself, Miss Hazleden." And as she spoke she held her open hand, palm outward, stretched against me with a gesture of horror, as one might shrink in alarm from a coiled rattlesnake. "Dear Mrs. Carvalho," I cried, clasping my hands before her, "do hear me, I entreat you; do let me explain to you how it all happened." "There is no explanation possible," she answered sternly. "Go. You have wrecked a life that might otherwise have been happy and famous, and then you come to a mother with an explanation!" "That letter was not mine," I said boldly; for I saw that to put the truth shortly in that truest and briefest form was the only way of getting her to listen to me now. She sank back in a chair and folded her hands faintly one above the other. "Tell me it all," she said in a weak voice. "I will hear you." So I told her all. I did not try to extenuate my own weakness in writing from my mother's dictation; but I let her see what I had suffered then and what I had suffered since. When I had finished, she drew me towards her gently, and printed one kiss upon my forehead. "It is hard to forget," she said softly, "but you were very young and helpless, and your mother was a terrible woman. The iron has entered into your own soul too. Go home, dear, and I will see about this matter." We fell upon one another's necks, the Palmettos slave-girl and I, and cried together glad tears for ten minutes. Then I wiped my red eyes dry, covered them with a double fold of my veil, and ran home hurriedly in the dusk to auntie's. It was such a terrible relief to have got it all over. That evening, about eleven o'clock, auntie had gone to bed, and I was sitting up by myself, musing late over the red cinders in the little back drawing-room grate. I felt as though I couldn't sleep, and so I was waiting up till I got sleepy. Suddenly there came a loud knock and a ring at the bell, after which Amelia ran in to say that a gentleman wanted to see me in the dining-room on urgent business, and would I please come down to speak with him immediately. I knew at once it was Ernest. The moment I entered the room, he never said a word, but he took my two hands eagerly in his, and then he kissed me fervently on the lips half a dozen times over. "And now, Edith," he said, "we need say no more about the past, for my mother has explained it all to me; we will only think about the future." I have no distinct recollection what o'clock it was before Ernest left that evening; but I know auntie sent down word twice to say it was high time I went to bed, and poor Amelia looked awfully tired and very sleepy. However, it was settled then and there that Ernest and I should be married early in October. A few days later, after the engagement had been announced to all our friends, dear Mrs. Bouverie Barton paid me a congratulatory call. "You are a very lucky girl, my dear," she said to me kindly. "We are half envious of you; I wish we could find another such husband as Mr. Carvalho for my Christina. But you have carried off the prize of the season, and you are well worthy of him. It is a very great honour for any girl to win and deserve the love of such a man as Ernest Carvalho." Will you believe it, so strangely do one's first impressions and early ideas about people cling to one, that though I had often felt before how completely the tables had been turned since we two came to England, it had not struck me till that moment that in the eyes of the world at large it was Ernest who was doing an honour to me and not I who was doing an honour to Ernest. I felt ashamed to think that Mrs. Bouverie Barton should see instinctively the true state of the case, while I, who loved and admired him so greatly, should have let the shadow of that old prejudice stand even now between me and the lover I was so proud to own. But when I took dear old Mrs. Carvalho's hand in mine the day of our wedding, and kissed her, and called her mother for the first time, I felt that I had left the guilt and shame of slavery for ever behind me, and that I should strive ever after to live worthily of Ernest Carvalho's love. _PAUSODYNE:_ A GREAT CHEMICAL DISCOVERY. Walking along the Strand one evening last year towards Pall Mall, I was accosted near Charing Cross Station by a strange-looking, middle-aged man in a poor suit of clothes, who surprised and startled me by asking if I could tell him from what inn the coach usually started for York. "Dear me!" I said, a little puzzled. "I didn't know there was a coach to York. Indeed, I'm almost certain there isn't one." The man looked puzzled and surprised in turn. "No coach to York?" he muttered to himself, half inarticulately. "No coach to York? How things have changed! I wonder whether nobody ever goes to York nowadays!" "Pardon me," I said, anxious to discover what could be his meaning; "many people go to York every day, but of course they go by rail." "Ah, yes," he answered softly, "I see. Yes, of course, they go by rail. They go by rail, no doubt. How very stupid of me!" And he turned on his heel as if to get away from me as quickly as possible. I can't exactly say why, but I felt instinctively that this curious stranger was trying to conceal from me his ignorance of what a railway really was. I was quite certain from the way in which he spoke that he had not the slightest conception what I meant, and that he was doing his best to hide his confusion by pretending to understand me. Here was indeed a strange mystery. In the latter end of this nineteenth century, in the metropolis of industrial England, within a stone's-throw of Charing Cross terminus, I had met an adult Englishman who apparently did not know of the existence of railways. My curiosity was too much piqued to let the matter rest there. I must find out what he meant by it. I walked after him hastily, as he tried to disappear among the crowd, and laid my hand upon his shoulder, to his evident chagrin. "Excuse me," I said, drawing him aside down the corner of Craven Street; "you did not understand what I meant when I said people went to York by rail?" He looked in my face steadily, and then, instead of replying to my remark, he said slowly, "Your name is Spottiswood, I believe?" Again I gave a start of surprise. "It is," I answered; "but I never remember to have seen you before." "No," he replied dreamily; "no, we have never met till now, no doubt; but I knew your father, I'm sure; or perhaps it may have been your grandfather." "Not my grandfather, certainly," said I, "for he was killed at Waterloo." "At Waterloo! Indeed! How long since, pray?" I could not refrain from laughing outright. "Why, of course," I answered, "in 1815. There has been nothing particular to kill off any large number of Englishmen at Waterloo since the year of the battle, I suppose." "True," he muttered, "quite true; so I should have fancied." But I saw again from the cloud of doubt and bewilderment which came over his intelligent face that the name of Waterloo conveyed no idea whatsoever to his mind. Never in my life had I felt so utterly confused and astonished. In spite of his poor dress, I could easily see from the clear-cut face and the refined accent of my strange acquaintance that he was an educated gentleman--a man accustomed to mix in cultivated society. Yet he clearly knew nothing whatsoever about railways, and was ignorant of the most salient facts in English history. Had I suddenly come across some Caspar Hauser, immured for years in a private prison, and just let loose upon the world by his gaolers? or was my mysterious stranger one of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, turned out unexpectedly in modern costume on the streets of London? I don't suppose there exists on earth a man more utterly free than I am from any tinge of superstition, any lingering touch of a love for the miraculous; but I confess for a moment I felt half inclined to suppose that the man before me must have drunk the elixir of life, or must have dropped suddenly upon earth from some distant planet. The impulse to fathom this mystery was irresistible. I drew my arm through his. "If you knew my father," I said, "you will not object to come into my chambers and take a glass of wine with me." "Thank you," he answered half suspiciously; "thank you very much. I think you look like a man who can be trusted, and I will go with you." We walked along the Embankment to Adelphi Terrace, where I took him up to my rooms, and seated him in my easy-chair near the window. As he sat down, one of the trains on the Metropolitan line whirred past the Terrace, snorting steam and whistling shrilly, after the fashion of Metropolitan engines generally. My mysterious stranger jumped back in alarm, and seemed to be afraid of some immediate catastrophe. There was absolutely no possibility of doubting it. The man had obviously never seen a locomotive before. "Evidently," I said, "you do not know London. I suppose you are a colonist from some remote district, perhaps an Australian from the interior somewhere, just landed at the Tower?" "No, not an Austrian"--I noted his misapprehension--"but a Londoner born and bred." "How is it, then, that you seem never to have seen an engine before?" "Can I trust you?" he asked in a piteously plaintive, half-terrified tone. "If I tell you all about it, will you at least not aid in persecuting and imprisoning me?" I was touched by his evident grief and terror. "No," I answered, "you may trust me implicitly. I feel sure there is something in your history which entitles you to sympathy and protection." "Well," he replied, grasping my hand warmly, "I will tell you all my story; but you must be prepared for something almost too startling to be credible." "My name is Jonathan Spottiswood," he began calmly. Again I experienced a marvellous start: Jonathan Spottiswood was the name of my great-great-uncle, whose unaccountable disappearance from London just a century since had involved our family in so much protracted litigation as to the succession to his property. In fact, it was Jonathan Spottiswood's money which at that moment formed the bulk of my little fortune. But I would not interrupt him, so great was my anxiety to hear the story of his life. "I was born in London," he went on, "in 1750. If you can hear me say that and yet believe that possibly I am not a madman, I will tell you the rest of my tale; if not, I shall go at once and for ever." "I suspend judgment for the present," I answered. "What you say is extraordinary, but not more extraordinary perhaps than the clear anachronism of your ignorance about locomotives in the midst of the present century." "So be it, then. Well, I will tell you the facts briefly in as few words as I can. I was always much given to experimental philosophy, and I spent most of my time in the little laboratory which I had built for myself behind my father's house in the Strand. I had a small independent fortune of my own, left me by an uncle who had made successful ventures in the China trade; and as I was indisposed to follow my father's profession of solicitor, I gave myself up almost entirely to the pursuit of natural philosophy, following the researches of the great Mr. Cavendish, our chief English thinker in this kind, as well as of Monsieur Lavoisier, the ingenious French chemist, and of my friend Dr. Priestley, the Birmingham philosopher, whose new theory of phlogiston I have been much concerned to consider and to promulgate. But the especial subject to which I devoted myself was the elucidation of the nature of fixed air. I do not know how far you yourself may happen to have heard respecting these late discoveries in chemical science, but I dare venture to say that you are at least acquainted with the nature of the body to which I refer." "Perfectly," I answered with a smile, "though your terminology is now a little out of date. Fixed air was, I believe, the old-fashioned name for carbonic acid gas." "Ah," he cried vehemently, "that accursed word again! Carbonic acid has undone me, clearly. Yes, if you will have it so, that seems to be what they call it in this extraordinary century; but fixed air was the name we used to give it in our time, and fixed air is what I must call it, of course, in telling you my story. Well, I was deeply interested in this curious question, and also in some of the results which I obtained from working with fixed air in combination with a substance I had produced from the essential oil of a weed known to us in England as lady's mantle, but which the learned Mr. Carl Linnæus describes in his system as _Alchemilla vulgaris_. From that weed I obtained an oil which I combined with a certain decoction of fixed air into a remarkable compound; and to this compound, from its singular properties, I proposed to give the name of Pausodyne. For some years I was almost wholly engaged in investigating the conduct of this remarkable agent; and lest I should weary you by entering into too much detail, I may as well say at once that it possessed the singular power of entirely suspending animation in men or animals for several hours together. It is a highly volatile oil, like ammonia in smell, but much thicker in gravity; and when held to the nose of an animal, it causes immediate stoppage of the heart's action, making the body seem quite dead for long periods at a time. But the moment a mixture of the pausodyne with oil of vitriol and gum resin is presented to the nostrils, the animal instantaneously revives exactly as before, showing no evil effects whatsoever from its temporary simulation of death. To the reviving mixture I have given the appropriate name of Anegeiric. "Of course you will instantly see the valuable medical applications which may be made of such an agent. I used it at first for experimenting upon the amputation of limbs and other surgical operations. It succeeded admirably. I found that a dog under the influence of pausodyne suffered his leg, which had been broken in a street accident, to be set and spliced without the slightest symptom of feeling or discomfort. A cat, shot with a pistol by a cruel boy, had the bullet extracted without moving a muscle. My assistant, having allowed his little finger to mortify from neglect of a burn, permitted me to try the effect of my discovery upon himself; and I removed the injured joints while he remained in a state of complete insensibility, so that he could hardly believe afterwards in the actual truth of their removal. I felt certain that I had invented a medical process of the very highest and greatest utility. "All this took place in or before the year 1781. How long ago that may be according to your modern reckoning I cannot say; but to me it seems hardly more than a few months since. Perhaps you would not mind telling me the date of the current year. I have never been able to ascertain it." "This is 1881," I said, growing every moment more interested in his tale. "Thank you. I gathered that we must now be somewhere near the close of the nineteenth century, though I could not learn the exact date with certainty. Well, I should tell you, my dear sir, that I had contracted an engagement about the year 1779 with a young lady of most remarkable beauty and attractive mental gifts, a Miss Amelia Spragg, daughter of the well-known General Sir Thomas Spragg, with whose achievements you are doubtless familiar. Pardon me, my friend of another age, pardon me, I beg of you, if I cannot allude to this subject without emotion after a lapse of time which to you doubtless seems like a century, but is to me a matter of some few months only at the utmost. I feel towards her as towards one whom I have but recently lost, though I now find that she has been dead for more than eighty years." As he spoke, the tears came into his eyes profusely; and I could see that under the external calmness and quaintness of his eighteenth century language and demeanour his whole nature was profoundly stirred at the thought of his lost love. "Look here," he continued, taking from his breast a large, old-fashioned gold locket containing a miniature; "that is her portrait, by Mr. Walker, and a very truthful likeness indeed. They left me that when they took away my clothes at the Asylum, for I would not consent to part with it, and the physician in attendance observed that to deprive me of it might only increase the frequency and violence of my paroxysms. For I will not conceal from you the fact that I have just escaped from a pauper lunatic establishment." I took the miniature which he handed me, and looked at it closely. It was the picture of a young and beautiful girl, with the features and costume of a Sir Joshua. I recognized the face at once as that of a lady whose portrait by Gainsborough hangs on the walls of my uncle's dining-room at Whittingham Abbey. It was strange indeed to hear a living man speak of himself as the former lover of this, to me, historic personage. "Sir Thomas, however," he went on, "was much opposed to our union, on the ground of some real or fancied social disparity in our positions; but I at last obtained his conditional consent, if only I could succeed in obtaining the Fellowship of the Royal Society, which might, he thought, be accepted as a passport into that fashionable circle of which he was a member. Spurred on by this ambition, and by the encouragement of my Amelia, I worked day and night at the perfectioning of my great discovery, which I was assured would bring not only honour and dignity to myself, but also the alleviation and assuagement of pain to countless thousands of my fellow-creatures. I concealed the nature of my experiments, however, lest any rival investigator should enter the field with me prematurely, and share the credit to which I alone was really entitled. For some months I was successful in my efforts at concealment; but in March of this year--I mistake; of the year 1781, I should say--an unfortunate circumstance caused me to take special and exceptional precautions against intrusion. "I was then conducting my experiments upon living animals, and especially upon the extirpation of certain painful internal diseases to which they are subject. I had a number of suffering cats in my laboratory, which I had treated with pausodyne, and stretched out on boards for the purpose of removing the tumours with which they were afflicted. I had no doubt that in this manner, while directly benefiting the animal creation, I should indirectly obtain the necessary skill to operate successfully upon human beings in similar circumstances. Already I had completely cured several cats without any pain whatsoever, and I was anxious to proceed to the human subject. Walking one morning in the Strand, I found a beggar woman outside a gin-shop, quite drunk, with a small, ill-clad child by her side, suffering the most excruciating torments from a perfectly remediable cause. I induced the mother to accompany me to my laboratory, and there I treated the poor little creature with pausodyne, and began to operate upon her with perfect confidence of success. "Unhappily, my laboratory had excited the suspicion of many ill-disposed persons among the low mob of the neighbourhood. It was whispered abroad that I was what they called a vivisectionist; and these people, who would willingly have attended a bull-baiting or a prize fight, found themselves of a sudden wondrous humane when scientific procedure was under consideration. Besides, I had made myself unpopular by receiving visits from my friend Dr. Priestley, whose religious opinions were not satisfactory to the strict orthodoxy of St. Giles's. I was rumoured to be a philosopher, a torturer of live animals, and an atheist. Whether the former accusation were true or not, let others decide; the two latter, heaven be my witness, were wholly unfounded. However, when the neighbouring rabble saw a drunken woman with a little girl entering my door, a report got abroad at once that I was going to vivisect a Christian child. The mob soon collected in force, and broke into the laboratory. At that moment I was engaged, with my assistant, in operating upon the girl, while several cats, all completely anæstheticised, were bound down on the boards around, awaiting the healing of their wounds after the removal of tumours. At the sight of such apparent tortures the people grew wild with rage, and happening in their transports to fling down a large bottle of the anegeiric, or reviving mixture, the child and the animals all at once recovered consciousness, and began of course to writhe and scream with acute pain. I need not describe to you the scene that ensued. My laboratory was wrecked, my assistant severely injured, and I myself barely escaped with my life. "After this _contretemps_ I determined to be more cautious. I took the lease of a new house at Hampstead, and in the garden I determined to build myself a subterranean laboratory where I might be absolutely free from intrusion. I hired some labourers from Bath for this purpose, and I explained to them the nature of my wishes, and the absolute necessity of secrecy. A high wall surrounded the garden, and here the workmen worked securely and unseen. I concealed my design even from my dear brother--whose grandson or great-grandson I suppose you must be--and when the building was finished, I sent my men back to Bath, with strict injunctions never to mention the matter to any one. A trap-door in the cellar, artfully concealed, gave access to the passage; a large oak portal, bound with iron, shut me securely in; and my air supply was obtained by means of pipes communicating through blank spaces in the brick wall of the garden with the outer atmosphere. Every arrangement for concealment was perfect; and I resolved in future, till my results were perfectly established, that I would dispense with the aid of an assistant. "I was in high spirits when I went to visit my Amelia that evening, and I told her confidently that before the end of the year I expected to gain the gold medal of the Royal Society. The dear girl was pleased at my glowing prospects, and gave me every assurance of the delight with which she hailed the probability of our approaching union. "Next day I began my experiments afresh in my new quarters. I bolted myself into the laboratory, and set to work with renewed vigour. I was experimenting upon an injured dog, and I placed a large bottle of pausodyne beside me as I administered the drug to his nostrils. The rising fumes seemed to affect my head more than usual in that confined space, and I tottered a little as I worked. My arm grew weaker, and at last fell powerless to my side. As it fell it knocked down the large bottle of pausodyne, and I saw the liquid spreading over the floor. That was almost the last thing that I knew. I staggered toward the door, but did not reach it; and then I remember nothing more for a considerable period." He wiped his forehead with his sleeve--he had no handkerchief--and then proceeded. "When I woke up again the effects of the pausodyne had worn themselves out, and I felt that I must have remained unconscious for at least a week or a fortnight. My candle had gone out, and I could not find my tinder-box. I rose up slowly and with difficulty, for the air of the room was close and filled with fumes, and made my way in the dark towards the door. To my surprise, the bolt was so stiff with rust that it would hardly move. I opened it after a struggle, and found myself in the passage. Groping my way towards the trap-door of the cellar, I felt it was obstructed by some heavy body. With an immense effort, for my strength seemed but feeble, I pushed it up, and discovered that a heap of sea-coals lay on top of it. I extricated myself into the cellar, and there a fresh surprise awaited me. A new entrance had been made into the front, so that I walked out at once upon the open road, instead of up the stairs into the kitchen. Looking up at the exterior of my house, my brain reeled with bewilderment when I saw that it had disappeared almost entirely, and that a different porch and wholly unfamiliar windows occupied its façade. I must have slept far longer than I at first imagined--perhaps a whole year or more. A vague terror prevented me from walking up the steps of my own home. Possibly my brother, thinking me dead, might have sold the lease; possibly some stranger might resent my intrusion into the house that was now his own. At any rate, I thought it safer to walk into the road. I would go towards London, to my brother's house in St. Mary le Bone. I turned into the Hampstead Road, and directed my steps thitherward. "Again, another surprise began to affect me with a horrible and ill-defined sense of awe. Not a single object that I saw was really familiar to me. I recognized that I was in the Hampstead Road, but it was not the Hampstead Road which I used to know before my fatal experiments. The houses were far more numerous, the trees were bigger and older. A year, nay, even a few years would not have sufficed for such a change. I began to fear that I had slept away a whole decade. "It was early morning, and few people were yet abroad. But the costume of those whom I met seemed strange and fantastic to me. Moreover, I noticed that they all turned and looked after me with evident surprise, as though my dress caused them quite as much astonishment as theirs caused me. I was quietly attired in my snuff-coloured suit of small-clothes, with silk stockings and simple buckle shoes, and I had of course no hat; but I gathered that my appearance caused universal amazement and concern, far more than could be justified by the mere accidental absence of head-gear. A dread began to oppress me that I might actually have slept out my whole age and generation. Was my Amelia alive? and if so, would she be still the same Amelia I had known a week or two before? Should I find her an aged woman, still cherishing a reminiscence of her former love; or might she herself perhaps be dead and forgotten, while I remained, alone and solitary, in a world which knew me not? "I walked along unmolested, but with reeling brain, through streets more and more unfamiliar, till I came near the St. Mary le Bone Road. There, as I hesitated a little and staggered at the crossing, a man in a curious suit of dark blue clothes, with a grotesque felt helmet on his head, whom I afterwards found to be a constable, came up and touched me on the shoulder. "'Look here,' he said to me in a rough voice, 'what are you a-doin' in this 'ere fancy-dress at this hour in the mornin'? You've lost your way home, I take it.' "'I was going,' I answered, 'to the St. Mary le Bone Road.' "'Why, you image,' says he rudely, 'if you mean Marribon, why don't you say Marribon? What house are you a-lookin' for, eh?' "'My brother lives,' I replied, 'at the Lamb, near St. Mary's Church, and I was going to his residence.' "'The Lamb!' says he, with a rude laugh; 'there ain't no public of that name in the road. It's my belief,' he goes on after a moment, 'that you're drunk, or mad, or else you've stole them clothes. Any way, you've got to go along with me to the station, so walk it, will you?' "'Pardon me,' I said, 'I suppose you are an officer of the law, and I would not attempt to resist your authority'--'You'd better not,' says he, half to himself--'but I should like to go to my brother's house, where I could show you that I am a respectable person.' "'Well,' says my fellow insolently, 'I'll go along of you if you like, and if it's all right, I suppose you won't mind standing a bob?' "'A what?' said I. "'A bob,' says he, laughing; 'a shillin', you know.' "To get rid of his insolence for a while, I pulled out my purse and handed him a shilling. It was a George II. with milled edges, not like the things I see you use now. He held it up and looked at it, and then he said again, 'Look here, you know, this isn't good. You'd better come along with me straight to the station, and not make a fuss about it. There's three charges against you, that's all. One is, that you're drunk. The second is, that you're mad. And the third is, that you've been trying to utter false coin. Any one of 'em's quite enough to justify me in takin' you into custody.' "I saw it was no use to resist, and I went along with him. "I won't trouble you with the whole of the details, but the upshot of it all was, they took me before a magistrate. By this time I had begun to realize the full terror of the situation, and I saw clearly that the real danger lay in the inevitable suspicion of madness under which I must labour. When I got into the court I told the magistrate my story very shortly and simply, as I have told it to you now. He listened to me without a word, and at the end he turned round to his clerk and said, 'This is clearly a case for Dr. Fitz-Jenkins, I think.' "'Sir,' I said, 'before you send me to a madhouse, which I suppose is what you mean by these words, I trust you will at least examine the evidences of my story. Look at my clothing, look at these coins, look at everything about me.' And I handed him my purse to see for himself. "He looked at it for a minute, and then he turned towards me very sternly. 'Mr. Spottiswood,' he said, 'or whatever else your real name may be, if this is a joke, it is a very foolish and unbecoming one. Your dress is no doubt very well designed; your small collection of coins is interesting and well-selected; and you have got up your character remarkably well. If you are really sane, which I suspect to be the case, then your studied attempt to waste the time of this court and to make a laughing-stock of its magistrate will meet with the punishment it deserves. I shall remit your case for consideration to our medical officer. If you consent to give him your real name and address, you will be liberated after his examination. Otherwise, it will be necessary to satisfy ourselves as to your identity. Not a word more, sir,' he continued, as I tried to speak on behalf of my story. 'Inspector, remove the prisoner.' "They took me away, and the surgeon examined me. To cut things short, I was pronounced mad, and three days later the commissioners passed me for a pauper asylum. When I came to be examined, they said I showed no recollection of most subjects of ordinary education. "'I am a chemist,' said I; 'try me with some chemical questions. You will see that I can answer sanely enough.' "'How do you mix a grey powder?' said the commissioner. "'Excuse me,' I said, 'I mean a chemical philosopher, not an apothecary.' "'Oh, very well, then; what is carbonic acid?' "'I never heard of it,' I answered in despair. 'It must be something which has come into use since--since I left off learning chemistry.' For I had discovered that my only chance now was to avoid all reference to my past life and the extraordinary calamity which had thus unexpectedly overtaken me. 'Please try me with something else.' "'Oh, certainly. What is the atomic weight of chlorine?' "I could only answer that I did not know. "'This is a very clear case,' said the commissioner. 'Evidently he is a gentleman by birth and education, but he can give no very satisfactory account of his friends, and till they come forward to claim him we can only send him for a time to North Street.' "'For Heaven's sake, gentlemen,' I cried, 'before you consign me to an asylum, give me one more chance. I am perfectly sane; I remember all I ever knew; but you are asking me questions about subjects on which I never had any information. Ask me anything historical, and see whether I have forgotten or confused any of my facts." "I will do the commissioner the justice to say that he seemed anxious not to decide upon the case without full consideration. 'Tell me what you can recollect,' he said, 'as to the reign of George IV.' "'I know nothing at all about it,' I answered, terror-stricken, 'but oh, do pray ask me anything up to the time of George III.' "'Then please say what you think of the French Revolution.' "I was thunderstruck. I could make no reply, and the commissioners shortly signed the papers to send me to North Street pauper asylum. They hurried me into the street, and I walked beside my captors towards the prison to which they had consigned me. Yet I did not give up all hope even so of ultimately regaining my freedom. I thought the rationality of my demeanour and the obvious soundness of all my reasoning powers would suffice in time to satisfy the medical attendant as to my perfect sanity. I felt sure that people could never long mistake a man so clear-headed and collected as myself for a madman. "On our way, however, we happened to pass a churchyard where some workmen were engaged in removing a number of old tombstones from the crowded area. Even in my existing agitated condition, I could not help catching the name and date on one mouldering slab which a labourer had just placed upon the edge of the pavement. It ran something like this: 'Sacred to the memory of Amelia, second daughter of the late Sir Thomas Spragg, knight, and beloved wife of Henry McAlister, Esq., by whom this stone is erected. Died May 20, 1799, aged 44 years.' Though I had gathered already that my dear girl must probably have long been dead, yet the reality of the fact had not yet had time to fix itself upon my mind. You must remember, my dear sir, that I had but awaked a few days earlier from my long slumber, and that during those days I had been harassed and agitated by such a flood of incomprehensible complications, that I could not really grasp in all its fulness the complete isolation of my present position. When I saw the tombstone of one whom, as it seemed to me, I had loved passionately but a week or two before, I could not refrain from rushing to embrace it, and covering the insensible stone with my boiling tears. 'Oh, my Amelia, my Amelia,' I cried, 'I shall never again behold thee, then! I shall never again press thee to my heart, or hear thy dear lips pronounce my name!' "But the unfeeling wretches who had charge of me were far from being moved to sympathy by my bitter grief. 'Died in 1799,' said one of them with a sneer. 'Why, this madman's blubbering over the grave of an old lady who has been buried for about a hundred years!' And the workmen joined in their laughter as my gaolers tore me away to the prison where I was to spend the remainder of my days. "When we arrived at the asylum, the surgeon in attendance was informed of this circumstance, and the opinion that I was hopelessly mad thus became ingrained in his whole conceptions of my case. I remained five months or more in the asylum, but I never saw any chance of creating a more favourable impression on the minds of the authorities. Mixing as I did only with other patients, I could gain no clear ideas of what had happened since I had taken my fatal sleep; and whenever I endeavoured to question the keepers, they amused themselves by giving me evidently false and inconsistent answers, in order to enjoy my chagrin and confusion. I could not even learn the actual date of the present year, for one keeper would laugh and say it was 2001, while another would confidentially advise me to date my petition to the Commissioners, "Jan. 1, A.D. one million." The surgeon, who never played me any such pranks, yet refused to aid me in any way, lest, as he said, he should strengthen me in my sad delusion. He was convinced that I must be an historical student, whose reason had broken down through too close study of the eighteenth century; and he felt certain that sooner or later my friends would come to claim me. He is a gentle and humane man, against whom I have no personal complaint to make; but his initial misconception prevented him and everybody else from ever paying the least attention to my story. I could not even induce them to make inquiries at my house at Hampstead, where the discovery of the subterranean laboratory would have partially proved the truth of my account. "Many visitors came to the asylum from time to time, and they were always told that I possessed a minute and remarkable acquaintance with the history of the eighteenth century. They questioned me about facts which are as vivid in my memory as those of the present month, and were much surprised at the accuracy of my replies. But they only thought it strange that so clever a man should be so very mad, and that my information should be so full as to past events, while my notions about the modern world were so utterly chaotic. The surgeon, however, always believed that my reticence about all events posterior to 1781 was a part of my insanity. I had studied the early part of the eighteenth century so fully, he said, that I fancied I had lived in it; and I had persuaded myself that I knew nothing at all about the subsequent state of the world." The poor fellow stopped a while, and again drew his sleeve across his forehead. It was impossible to look at him and believe for a moment that he was a madman. "And how did you make your escape from the asylum?" I asked. "Now, this very evening," he answered; "I simply broke away from the door and ran down toward the Strand, till I came to a place that looked a little like St. Martin's Fields, with a great column and some fountains, and near there I met you. It seemed to me that the best thing to do was to catch the York coach and get away from the town as soon as possible. You met me, and your look and name inspired me with confidence. I believe you must be a descendant of my dear brother." "I have not the slightest doubt," I answered solemnly, "that every word of your story is true, and that you are really my great-great-uncle. My own knowledge of our family history exactly tallies with what you tell me. I shall spare no endeavour to clear up this extraordinary matter, and to put you once more in your true position." "And you will protect me?" he cried fervently, clasping my hand in both his own with intense eagerness. "You will not give me up once more to the asylum people?" "I will do everything on earth that is possible for you," I replied. He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it several times, while I felt hot tears falling upon it as he bent over me. It was a strange position, look at it how you will. Grant that I was but the dupe of a madman, yet even to believe for a moment that I, a man of well-nigh fifty, stood there in face of my own great-grandfather's brother, to all appearance some twenty years my junior, was in itself an extraordinary and marvellous thing. Both of us were too overcome to speak. It was a few minutes before we said anything, and then a loud knock at the door made my hunted stranger rise up hastily in terror from his chair. "Gracious Heavens!" he cried, "they have tracked me hither. They are coming to fetch me. Oh, hide me, hide me, anywhere from these wretches!" As he spoke, the door opened, and two keepers with a policeman entered my room. "Ah, here he is!" said one of them, advancing towards the fugitive, who shrank away towards the window as he approached. "Do not touch him," I exclaimed, throwing myself in the way. "Every word of what he says is true, and he is no more insane than I am." The keeper laughed a low laugh of vulgar incredulity. "Why, there's a pair of you, I do believe," he said. "You're just as mad yourself as t'other one." And he pushed me aside roughly to get at his charge. But the poor fellow, seeing him come towards him, seemed suddenly to grow instinct with a terrible vigour, and hurled off the keeper with one hand, as a strong man might do with a little terrier. Then, before we could see what he was meditating, he jumped upon the ledge of the open window, shouted out loudly, "Farewell, farewell!" and leapt with a spring on to the embankment beneath. All four of us rushed hastily down the three flights of steps to the bottom, and came below upon a crushed and mangled mass on the spattered pavement. He was quite dead. Even the policeman was shocked and horrified at the dreadful way in which the body had been crushed and mutilated in its fall, and at the suddenness and unexpectedness of the tragedy. We took him up and laid him out in my room; and from that room he was interred after the inquest, with all the respect which I should have paid to an undoubted relative. On his grave in Kensal Green Cemetery I have placed a stone bearing the simple inscription, "Jonathan Spottiswood. Died 1881." The hint I had received from the keeper prevented me from saying anything as to my belief in his story, but I asked for leave to undertake the duty of his interment on the ground that he bore my own surname, and that no other person was forthcoming to assume the task. The parochial authorities were glad enough to rid the ratepayers of the expense. At the inquest I gave my evidence simply and briefly, dwelling mainly upon the accidental nature of our meeting, and the facts as to his fatal leap. I said nothing about the known disappearance of Jonathan Spottiswood in 1781, nor the other points which gave credibility to his strange tale. But from this day forward I give myself up to proving the truth of his story, and realizing the splendid chemical discovery which promises so much benefit to mankind. For the first purpose, I have offered a large reward for the discovery of a trap-door in a coal-cellar at Hampstead, leading into a subterranean passage and laboratory; since, unfortunately, my unhappy visitor did not happen to mention the position of his house. For the second purpose, I have begun a series of experiments upon the properties of the essential oil of alchemilla, and the possibility of successfully treating it with carbonic anhydride; since, unfortunately, he was equally vague as to the nature of his process and the proportions of either constituent. Many people will conclude at once, no doubt, that I myself have become infected with the monomania of my miserable namesake, but I am determined at any rate not to allow so extraordinary an anæsthetic to go unacknowledged, if there be even a remote chance of actually proving its useful nature. Meanwhile, I say nothing even to my dearest friends with regard to the researches upon which I am engaged. _THE EMPRESS OF ANDORRA._ All the troubles in Andorra arose from the fact that the town clerk had views of his own respecting the Holy Roman Empire. Of course everybody knows that for many centuries the Republic of Andorra, situated in an isolated valley among the Pyrenees, has enjoyed the noble and inestimable boon of autonomy. Not that the Andorrans have been accustomed to call it by that name, because, you see, the name was not yet invented; but the thing itself they have long possessed in all its full and glorious significance. The ancient constitution of the Republic may be briefly described as democracy tempered by stiletto. The free and independent citizens did that which seemed right in their own eyes; unless, indeed, it suited their convenience better to do that which seemed wrong; and, in the latter case, they did it unhesitatingly. So every man in Andorra stabbed or shot his neighbour as he willed, especially if he suspected his neighbour of a prior intention to stab or shoot him. The Republic contained no gallows, capital punishment having been entirely abolished, and, for the matter of that, all other punishment into the bargain. In short, the town of Andorra was really a very eligible place of residence for families or gentlemen, provided only they were decently expert in the use of the pistol. However, in this model little Republic, as elsewhere, society found itself ranged under two camps, the Liberal and the Conservative. And lest any man should herein suspect the present veracious historian of covert satirical intent, or sly allusion to the politics of neighbouring States, it may be well to add that there was not much to choose between the Liberals and the Conservatives of Andorra. Now, the town clerk was the acknowledged and ostensible head of the Great Liberal Party. His name in full consisted of some twenty high-sounding Spanish prenomens, followed by about the same number of equally high-sounding surnames; but I need only trouble you here with the first and last on the list, which were simply Señor Don Pedro Henriquez. It happened that Don Pedro, being a learned man, took in all the English periodicals; and so I need hardly tell you that he was thoroughly well up in the Holy Roman Empire question. He could have passed a competitive examination on that subject before Mr. Freeman, or held a public discussion with Professor Bryce himself. The town clerk was perfectly aware that the Holy Roman Empire had come to an end, _pro tem._ at least, in the year eighteen hundred and something, when Francis the First, Second, or Third, renounced for himself and his heirs for ever the imperial Roman title. But the town clerk also knew that the Holy Roman Empire had often lain in abeyance for years or even centuries, and had afterwards been resuscitated by some Karl (whom the wicked call Charlemagne), some Otto, or some Henry the Fowler. And the town clerk, a bold and ambitious young man, reflecting on these things, had formed a deep scheme in his inmost heart. The deep scheme was after this wise. Why not revive the Holy Roman Empire _in Andorra_? Nothing could be more simple, more natural, or more in accordance with the facts of history. Even Mr. Freeman could have no plausible argument to urge against it. For observe how well the scheme hangs together. Andorra formed an undoubted and integral portion of the Roman Empire, having been included in Region VII., Diocese 13 (Hispania Citerior VIII.), under the division of Diocletian. But the Empire having gone to pieces at the present day, any fragment of that Empire may re-constitute itself the whole; "just as the tentacle of a hydra polype," said Don Pedro (who, you know, was a very learned man), "may re-constitute itself into a perfect animal, by developing a body, head, mouth, and foot-stalk." (This, as you are well aware, is called the Analogical Method of Political Reasoning.) Therefore, there was no just cause or impediment why Andorra should not set up to be the original and only genuine representative of the Holy Roman Empire, all others being spurious imitations.--Q. E. D. The town clerk had further determined in his own mind that he himself was the Karl (not Charlemagne) who was destined to raise up this revived and splendid Roman Empire. He had already struck coins in imagination, bearing on the obverse his image and superscription, and the proud title "Imp. Petrus P. F. Aug. Pater Patriæ, Cos. XVIII.;" with a reverse of Victory crowned, and the legend "Renovatio Romanorum." But this part of his scheme he kept as yet deeply buried in the recesses of his own soul. As regards the details of this Cæsarian plan, much diversity of opinion existed in the minds of the Liberal leaders. Don Pedro himself, as champion of education, proposed that the new Emperor should be elected by competitive examination; in which case he felt sure that his own knowledge of the Holy Roman Empire would easily place him at the head of the list. But his colleague, Don Luis Dacosta, who was the Joseph Hume of Andorran politics, rather favoured the notion of sending in sealed tenders for executing the office of Sovereign, the State not binding itself to accept the lowest or any other tender; and he had himself determined to make an offer for wearing the crown at the modest remuneration of three hundred pounds per annum, payable quarterly. Again, Don Iago Montes, a poetical young man, who believed firmly in _prestige_, advocated the idea of inviting the younger son of some German Grand-Duke to accept the Imperial Crown, and the faithful hearts of a loyal Andorran people. But these minor points could easily be settled in the future: and the important object for the immediate present, said Don Pedro, was the acceptance _in principle_ of the resuscitated Holy Roman Empire. Don Pedro's designs, however, met with considerable opposition from the Conservative party in the Folk Mote. (They called it Folk Mote, and not Cortes or Fueros, on purpose to annoy historical critics; and for the same reason they always styled their chief magistrate, not the Alcalde, but the Burgomaster.) The Conservative leader, Don Juan Pereira (first and last names only; intermediate thirty-eight omitted for want of space!) wisely observed that the good old constitution had suited our fathers admirably; that we did not wish to go beyond the wisdom of our ancestors; that young men were apt to prove thoughtless or precipitate; and finally that "Nolumus leges Andorræ mutare." Hereupon, Don Pedro objected that the growing anarchy of the citizens, whose stabbings were increasing by geometrical progression, called for the establishment of a strong government, which should curb the lawless habits of the _jeunesse dorée_. But Don Juan retorted that stabbing was a very useful practice in its way; that no citizen ever got stabbed unless he had made himself obnoxious to a fellow-citizen, which was a gross and indefensible piece of incivism; and that stilettos had always been considered extremely respectable instruments by a large number of deceased Andorran worthies, whose names he proceeded to recount in a long and somewhat tedious catalogue. (This, you know, is called the Argument from Authority.) The Folk Mote, which consisted of men over forty alone, unanimously adopted Don Juan's views, and at once rejected the town clerk's Bill for the Resuscitation of the Holy Roman Empire. Thus driven to extremities, the town clerk determined upon a _coup d'état_. The appeal to the people alone could save Andorran Society. But being as cautious as he was ambitious, he decided not to display his hand too openly at first. Accordingly he resolved to elect an Empress to begin with; and then, by marrying the Empress, to become Emperor-Consort, after which he could easily secure the Imperial crown on his own account. To ensure the success of this excellent notion, Don Pedro trusted to the emotions of the populace. The way he did it was simply this. At that particular juncture, a beautiful young _prima donna_ had lately been engaged for the National Italian Opera, Andorra. She was to appear as the _Grande Duchesse_ on the very evening after that on which the Resuscitation Bill had been thrown out on a third reading. This amiable lady bore the name of Signorita Nora Obrienelli. She was of Italian parentage, but born in America, where her father, Signor Patricio Obrienelli, a banished Neapolitan nobleman and patriot, had been better known as Paddy O'Brien; having adopted that disguise to protect himself from the ubiquitous emissaries of King Bomba. However, on her first appearance upon any stage, the Signorita once more resumed her discarded patronymic of Obrienelli; and it is this circumstance alone which has led certain scandalous journalists maliciously to assert that her father was really an Irish chimney-sweep. But not to dwell on these genealogical details, it will suffice to say that Signorita Nora was a beautiful young lady with a magnificent soprano voice. The enthusiastic and gallant Andorrans were already wild at the mere sight of her beauty, and expected great things from her operatic powers. Don Pedro marked his opportunity. Calling on the _prima donna_ in the afternoon, faultlessly attired in frock-coat, chimney-pot, and lavender kid gloves, the ambitious politician offered her a bouquet worth at least three-and-sixpence, accompanied by a profound bow; and inquired whether the title and position of Empress would suit her views. "Down to the ground, my dear Don Pedro," replied the impulsive actress. "The resuscitation of the Holy Roman Empire has long been the dream of my existence." Half an hour sufficed to settle the details. The protocols were signed, the engagements delivered, and the fate of Andorra, with that of the Holy Roman Empire attached, trembled for a moment in the balance. Don Pedro hastily left to organize the _coup d'état_, and to hire a special body of _claqueurs_ for the occasion. Evening drew on apace, big with the fate of Pedro and of Rome. The Opera House was crowded. Stalls and boxes glittered with the partisans of the Liberal leader, the expectant hero of a revived Cæsarism. The _claque_ occupied the pit and gallery. Enthusiasm, real and simulated, knew no bounds. Signorita Obrienelli was almost smothered with bouquets; and the music of catcalls resounded throughout the house. At length, in the second act, when the _prima donna_ entered, crown on head and robes of state trained behind, in the official costume of the Grand-Duchess of Gerolstein, Don Pedro raised himself from his seat and cried in a loud voice, "Long live Nora, Empress of Andorra and of the Holy Roman Empire!" The whole audience rose as one man. "Long live the Empress," re-echoed from every side of the building. Handkerchiefs waved ecstatically; women sobbed with emotion; old men wept tears of joy that they had lived to behold the Renovation of the Romans. In five minutes the revolution was a _fait accompli_. Don Juan Pereira obtained early news of the _coup d'état_, and fled precipitately across the border, to escape the popular vengeance--not a difficult feat, as the boundaries of the quondam Republic extended only five miles in any direction. Thence the broken-hearted old patriot betook himself into France, where he intended at first to commit suicide, in imitation of Cato; but on second thoughts, he decided to proceed to Guernsey, where he entered into negotiations for purchasing Victor Hugo's house, and tried to pose as a kind of pendent to that banished poet and politician. Although this mode of election was afterwards commented upon as informal by the European Press, Don Pedro successfully defended it in a learned letter to the _Times_, under the signature of "Historicus Secundus," in which he pointed out that a similar mode has long been practised by the Sacred College, who call it "Electio per Inspirationem." The very next day, the Bishop of Urgel drove over to Andorra, and crowned the happy _prima donna_ as Empress. Great rejoicings immediately followed, and the illuminations were conducted on so grand a scale that the single tallow-chandler in the town sold out his entire stock-in-trade, and many houses went without candles for a whole week. Of course the first act of the grateful sovereign was to extend her favour to Don Pedro, who had been so largely instrumental in placing her upon the throne. She immediately created him Chancellor of Andorra and Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. The office of town clerk was abolished in perpetuity; while an hereditary estate of five acres was conferred upon H.E. the Chancellor and his posterity for ever. Don Pedro had now the long-wished-for opportunity of improving the social and political position of that Andorran people whom he had so greatly loved. He determined to endow them with Primary Education, a National Debt, Free Libraries and Museums, the Income Tax, Female Suffrage, Trial by Jury, Permissive Prohibitory Bills, a Plebiscitum, an Extradition Treaty, a Magna Charta Association, and all the other blessings of modern civilization. By these means he hoped to ingratiate himself in the public favour, and thus at length to place himself unopposed upon the Imperial and Holy Roman throne. His first step was the settlement of the Constitution. And as he was quite determined in his own mind that the poor little Empress should only be a puppet in the hands of her Chancellor, who was to act as Mayor of the Palace (observe how well his historical learning stood him in good stead on all occasions!), he decided that the revived Empire should take the form of a strictly limited monarchy. He had some idea, indeed, of proclaiming it as the "Holy Roman Empire (Limited);" but on second thoughts it occurred to him that the phrase might be misinterpreted as referring to the somewhat exiguous extent of the Andorran territory: and as he wished it to be understood that the new State was an aggressive Power, which contemplated the final absorption of all the other Latin races, he wisely refrained from the equivocal title. However, he settled the Constitution on a broad and liberal basis, after the following fashion. I quote from his rough draft-sketch, the completed document being too long for insertion in full. "The supreme authority resides in the Sovereign and the Folk Mote. The Sovereign reigns, but does not govern (at present). The Folk Mote has full legislative and deliberative powers. It consists of fourteen members, chosen from the fourteen wards of East and West Andorra. (Members for Spain, France, Portugal, and Italy may hereafter be added, raising the total complement to eighteen.) The right of voting is granted to all persons, male or female, above eighteen years of age. The executive power rests with the Chancellor of the Empire, who acts in the name of the Sovereign. He possesses a right of veto on all acts of the Folk Mote. His office is perpetual. _Vivat Imperatrix!_" This Constitution was proposed to a Public Assembly or Comitia of the Andorran people, and was immediately carried _nem. con._ Enthusiasm was the order of the day: Don Pedro was a handsome young man, of personal popularity: the ladies of Andorra were delighted with any scheme of government which offered them a vote: and the men had all a high opinion of Don Pedro's learning. So nobody opposed a single clause of the Constitution on any ground. The next step to be taken consisted in gaining the affections of the Empress. But here Don Pedro found to his consternation that he had reckoned without his hostess. It is an easy thing to make a revolution in the body politic, but it is much more serious to attempt a revolution in a woman's heart. Her Majesty's had long been bestowed elsewhere. It is true she had encouraged Don Pedro's attentions on his first momentous visit, but that might be largely accounted for on political grounds. It is true also that she was still quite ready to carry on an innocent flirtation with her handsome young Chancellor when he came to deliberate upon matters of state, but _that_ she had often done before with the lout of an actor who took the part of Fritz. "Prince," she would say, with one of her sunny smiles, "do just what you like about the Permissive Prohibitory Bill, and let us have a glass of sparkling Sillery together in the Council Chamber. You and I are too young, and, shall I say, too good-looking, to trouble our poor little heads about politics and such rubbish. Youth, after all, is nothing without champagne and love!" And yet her heart--her heart was over the sea. During one of her starring engagements among the Central American States, Signorita Obrienelli had made the acquaintance of Don Carlos Montillado, eldest son of the President of Guatemala. A mutual attachment had sprung up between the young couple, and had taken the practical form of bouquets, bracelets, and champagne suppers; but, alas! the difference in their ranks had long hindered the fulfilment of Don Carlos's anxious vows. His Excellency the President constantly declared that nothing could induce him to consent to a marriage between his son and a strolling actress--in such insolent terms did the wretch allude to the future occupant of an Imperial throne! Now, however, all was changed. Fate had smiled upon the happy lovers, and Don Carlos was already on his way to Andorra as Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the Guatemalan Republic to the renovated Empire. The poor Chancellor discovered too late that he had baited a hook for his own destruction. However, he did not yet despair. To be sure the Empress, young, beautiful, and with a magnificent soprano voice, had seated herself firmly in the hearts of her susceptible subjects. Besides, her engaging manners, marked by all the charming _abandon_ of the stage, allowed her to make conquests freely among her lieges, each of whom she encouraged in turn, while smiling slily at the discarded rivals. Still, Don Pedro took heart once more. "Revolution enthroned her," he muttered between his teeth, "and counter-revolution shall disenthrone her yet. These silly people will smirk and bow while she pretends to be in love with every one of them from day to day; but when once the young Guatemalan has carried off the prize they will regret their folly, and turn to the Chancellor, whose heart has always been fixed upon the welfare of Andorra." With this object in view, the astute politician worked harder than ever for the regeneration of the State. His policy falls under two heads, the External and the Internal. Each head deserves a passing mention from the laborious historian. Don Pedro's External Policy consisted in the annexation of France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, and the amalgamation of the Latin races. Accordingly, he despatched Ambassadors to the courts of those four Powers, informing them that the Holy Roman Empire had been resuscitated in Andorra, and inviting them to send in their adhesion to the new State. In that case he assured them that each country should possess a representative in the Imperial Folk Mote on the same terms as the several wards of Andorra itself, and that the settlement of local affairs should be left unreservedly to the minor legislatures, while the Chancellor of the Empire in person would manage the military and naval forces and the general executive department of the whole Confederation. As the four Powers refused to take any notice of Don Pedro's manifesto, the Chancellor declared to the Folk Mote his determination of treating them as recalcitrant rebels, and reducing them by force of arms. However, the Andorran army not being thoroughly mobilized, and indeed having fallen into a state of considerable demoralization, the ambitious prince decided to postpone the declaration of war _sine die_; and his Foreign Policy accordingly stood over for the time being. Don Pedro's Internal Policy embraced various measures of Finance, Electoral Law, Public Morals, and Police Regulation. The financial position of Andorra was now truly deplorable. In addition to the expenses of the Imperial Election, and the hire of post-horses for the Bishop of Urgel to attend the coronation, it cannot be denied that the Empress had fallen into most extravagant habits. She insisted upon drinking Veuve Clicquot every day for dinner, and upon ordering large quantities of _olives farcies_ and _pâté de foie gras_, to which delicacies she was inordinately attached. She also sent to a Parisian milliner for two new bonnets, and had her measure taken for a _poult de Lyon_ dress. These expensive tastes, contracted upon the stage, soon drained the Andorran Exchequer, and the Folk Mote was at its wits' end to devise a Budget. One radical member had even the bad taste to call for a return of Her Majesty's millinery bill; but this motion the House firmly and politely declined to sanction. At last Don Pedro stepped in to solve the difficulty, and proposed an Act for the Inflation of the Currency. Inflation is a very simple financial process indeed. It consists in writing on a small piece of white paper, "This is a Dollar," or, "This is a Pound," as the case may be, and then compelling your creditors to accept the paper as payment in full for the amount written upon its face. The scheme met with perfect success, and Don Pedro was much bepraised by the press as the glorious regenerator of Andorran Finance. Among the Chancellor's plans for electoral reform the most important was the Bill for the Promotion of Infant Suffrage. Don Pedro shrewdly argued that if you wished to be popular in the future, you must enlist the sympathies of the rising generation by conferring upon them some signal benefit. Hence his advocacy of Infant Suffrage. In his great speech to the Folk Mote upon this important measure, he pointed out that the brutal doctrine of an appeal to force in the last resort ill befitted the nineteenth century. Many infants owned property; therefore they ought to be represented. Their property was taxed; no taxation without representation; therefore they ought to be represented. Great cruelties were often practised upon them by their parents, which showed how futile was the argument that their parents vicariously represented them; therefore they ought to be directly represented. An honourable member on the Opposition side had suggested that dogs were also taxed, and that great cruelties were occasionally practised upon dogs. Those facts were perfectly true, and he could only say that they proved to him the thorough desirability of insuring representation for dogs at some future day. But we must not move too fast. He was no hasty radical, no violent reconstructionist; he preferred, stone by stone, to build up the sure and perfect fabric of their liberties. So he would waive for the time being the question concerning the rights of dogs, and only move at present the third reading of the Bill for the Promotion of Infant Suffrage. A division was hardly necessary. The House passed the Act by a majority of twelve out of a total of fourteen members. The Bills for the Gratuitous Distribution of Lollipops, for the Wednesday and Saturday Whole Holidays, and for the Total Abolition of Latin Grammar, followed as a matter of course. The minds of the infant electors were thus thoroughly enlisted on the Chancellor's side. As to Moral Regeneration, that was mainly ensured by the Act for the Absolute Suppression of the Tea Trade. No man, said the Chancellor, had a right to endanger the health and happiness of his posterity by the pernicious habit of tea-drinking. Alcohol they had suppressed, and tobacco they had suppressed; but tea still remained a plague-spot in their midst. It had been proved that tea and coffee contained poisonous alkaloid principles, known as theine and caffeine (here the Chancellor displayed the full extent of his chemical learning), which were all but absolutely identical with the poisonous principles of opium, prussic acid, and atheistical literature generally. It might be said that this Bill endangered the liberty of the subject. No man had a greater respect for the liberty of the subject than he had; he adored, he idolized, he honoured with absolute apotheosis the liberty of the subject; but in what did it consist? Not, assuredly, in the right to imbibe a venomous drug, which polluted the stream of life for future generations, and was more productive of manifold diseases than even vaccination itself. "Tea," cried the orator passionately, raising his voice till the fresh whitewash on the ceiling of the Council Chamber trembled with sympathetic emotion; "Tea, forsooth! Call it rather strychnine! Call it arsenic! Call it the deadly Upas-tree of Java (_Antiaris toxicaria_, Linnæus)"--what prodigious learning!--"which poisons with its fatal breath whoever ventures to pass beneath its baleful shadow! I see it driving out of the field the harmless chocolate of our forefathers; I see it forcing its way into the earliest meal of morning, and the latest meal of eve. I see it now once more swarming over the Pyrenees from France, with Paris fashions and bad romances, to desecrate the sacred hour of five o'clock with its newfangled presence. The infant in arms finds it rendered palatable to his tender years by the insidious addition of copious milk and sugar; the hallowed reverence of age forgets itself in disgraceful excesses at the refreshment-room of railway stations. This is the ubiquitous pest which distils its venom into every sex and every age! This is the enchanted chalice of the Cathaian Circe which I ask you to repel to-day from the lips of the young, the pure, and the virtuous!" It was an able and eloquent effort; but even the Chancellor's powers were all but overtasked in so hard a struggle against ignorance and prejudice. Unhappily, several of the members were themselves secretly addicted to that cup of five o'clock tea to which Don Pedro so feelingly alluded. In the end, however, by taking advantage of the temporary absence of three senators, who had gone to indulge their favourite vice at home, the Bill triumphantly passed its third reading by an overwhelming majority of chocolate drinkers, and became forthwith the law of the Holy Roman Empire. Meanwhile Don Carlos Montillado had crossed the stormy seas in safety, and arrived by special mule at the city of Andorra. He took up his quarters at the Guatemalan Embassy, and immediately sent his card to the Empress and the Chancellor, requesting the honour of an early interview. The Empress at once despatched a note requesting Don Carlos to present himself without delay in the private drawing-room of the Palace. The happy lover and ambassador flew to her side, and for half an hour the pair enjoyed the delicious Paradise of a mutual attachment. At the end of that period Don Pedro presented himself at the door. "Your Majesty," he exclaimed in a tone of surprise, "this is a most irregular proceeding. His Excellency the Guatemalan Ambassador should have called in the first instance upon the Imperial Chancellor." "Prince," replied the Empress firmly, "I refuse to give you audience at present. I am engaged on private business--on _strictly_ private business--with his Excellency." "Excuse me," said the Chancellor blandly, "but I must assure your Majesty----" "Leave the room, Prince," said the Empress, with an impatient gesture. "Leave the room at once!" "Leave the room, fellow, when a lady speaks to you," cried the impetuous young Guatemalan, drawing his sword, and pushing Don Pedro bodily out of the door. The die was cast. The Rubicon was crossed. Don Pedro determined on a counter-revolution, and waited for his revenge. Nor had he long to wait. Half an hour later, as Don Carlos was passing out of the Palace on his way home to dress for dinner, six stout constables seized him by the arms, handcuffed him on the spot, and dragged him off to the Imperial prison. "At the suit of his Excellency the Chancellor," they said in explanation, and hurried him away without another word. The Empress was furious. "How dare you?" she shrieked to Don Pedro. "What right have you to imprison him--the accredited representative of a Foreign Power?" "Excuse me," answered Don Pedro, in his smoothest tone. "Article 39 of the Penal Code enacts that the person of the Chancellor is sacred, and that any individual who violently assaults him, with arms in hand, may be immediately committed to prison without trial, by her Majesty's command. Article 40 further provides that Foreign Ambassadors and other privileged persons are not exempt from the penalties of the previous Article." "But, sir," cried the angry little Empress (she was too excited now to remember that Don Pedro was a Prince), "I never gave any command to have Don Carlos imprisoned. Release him at once, I tell you." "Your Majesty forgets," replied the Chancellor quietly, "that by Article I of the Constitution the Sovereign reigns but does not govern. The prerogative is solely exercised through the Chancellor. _L'état, c'est moi!_" And he struck an attitude. "So you refuse to let him out!" said the Empress. "Mayn't I marry who I like? Mayn't I even settle who shall be my own visitors?" "Certainly not, your Majesty, if the interests of the State demand that it should be otherwise." "Then I'll resign," shrieked out the poor little Empress, with a burst of tears. "I'll withdraw. I'll retire. I'll abdicate." "By all means," said the Chancellor coolly. "We can easily find another Sovereign quite as good." The shrewd little ex-actress looked hard into Don Pedro's face. She was an adept in the art of reading emotions, and she saw at once what Don Pedro really wished. In a moment she had changed front, and stood up once more every inch an Empress. "No, I won't!" she cried; "I see you would be glad to get rid of me, and I shall stop here to baffle and thwart you; and I shall marry Carlos; and we shall fight it out to the bitter end." So saying, she darted out of the room, red-eyed but majestic, and banged the door after her with a slam as she went. Henceforward it was open war between them. Don Pedro did not dare to depose the Empress, who had still a considerable body of partisans amongst the Andorran people; but he resolutely refused to release the Guatemalan legate, and decided to accept hostilities with the Central American Republic, in order to divert the minds of the populace from internal politics. If he returned home from the campaign as a successful commander, he did not doubt that he would find himself sufficiently powerful to throw off the mask, and to assume the Imperial purple in name as well as in reality. Accordingly, before the Guatemalan President could receive the news of his son's imprisonment, Don Pedro resolved to prepare for war. His first care was to strengthen the naval resources of his country. The Opposition--that is to say, the Empress's party--objected that Andorra had no seaboard. But Don Pedro at once overruled that objection, by dint of several parallel instances. The Province of Upper Canada (now Ontario, added the careful historical student) had no seaboard, yet the Canadians placed numerous gunboats on the great lakes during the war of 1812. (What research!) Again, the Nile, the Indus, the Ganges, and many other great rivers had been the scene of important naval engagements as early as B.C. 1082, which he could show from the evidence of papyri now preserved in the British Museum. (What universal knowledge!) The objection was frivolous. But, answered the Opposition, Andorra has neither lakes nor navigable rivers. This, Don Pedro considered, was mere hair-splitting. Perhaps they would tell him next it had no gutters or water-butts. Besides, we must accommodate ourselves to the environment. (This, you see, conclusively proves that the Chancellor had read Mr. Herbert Spencer, and was thoroughly well up in the minutiæ of the Evolutionist Philosophy.) Had they never looked into their Thucydides? Did they not remember the famous _holkos_, or trench, whereby the Athenian triremes were lifted across the Isthmus of Corinth? Well, he proposed in like manner to order a large number of ironclads from an eminent Glasgow firm, to pull them overland up the Pyrenees, and to plant them on the mountain tops around Andorra as permanent batteries. That was what he meant by adaptation to the environment. So the order was given to the eminent Glasgow firm, who forthwith supplied the Empire with ten magnificent Clyde-built ironclads, having 14-inch plates, and patent double-security rivets: mounting twelve eighty-ton guns apiece, and fitted up with all the latest Woolwich improvements. These vessels were then hauled up the mountains, as Don Pedro proposed; and there they stood, on the tallest neighbouring summits, in very little danger of going to the bottom, as the ironclads of other Powers are so apt to do. In return, Don Pedro tendered payment by means of five million pounds Inflated Currency, which he assured the eminent ship-builders were quite as good as gold, if not a great deal better. The firm was at first inclined to demur to this mode of payment; but Don Pedro immediately retorted that they did not seem to understand the Currency Question: and as this is an imputation which no gentleman could endure for a moment, the eminent ship-builders pocketed the inflated paper at once, and pretended to think no more about it. However, there was one man among them who rather mistrusted inflation, because, you see, his education had been sadly neglected, especially as regards the works of American Political Economists, in which Don Pedro was so deeply versed. Now, this ignorant and misguided man went straight off to the Stock Exchange with his share of the five millions, and endeavoured to negotiate a few hundred thousands for pocket-money. But it turned out that all the other Stock Exchange magnates were just as ill-informed as himself with respect to inflation and the Currency Question at large: and they persisted in declaring that a piece of paper is really none the better for having the words "This is a Pound" written across its face. So the eminent ship-builder returned home disconsolate, and next day instituted proceedings in Chancery against the Holy Roman Empire at Andorra for the recovery of five million pounds sterling. What came at last of this important suit you shall hear in the sequel. Meanwhile, poor Don Carlos remained incarcerated in the Imperial prison, and preparations for war went on with vigour and activity, both in Andorra and Guatemala. Naturally, the greatest excitement prevailed throughout Europe, and especially in the sympathetic Republic of San Marino. Very different views of the situation were expressed by the various periodicals of that effusive State. The _Matutinal Agitator_ declared that Andorra under the Obrienelli dynasty had become a dangerously aggressive Power, and that no peace could be expected in Europe until the Andorrans had been taught to recognize their true position in the scale of nations. The _Vespertinal Sentimentalist_, on the other hand, looked upon the Guatemalans as wanton disturbers of the public quietude, and considered Andorra in the favourable light of an oppressed nationality. The _Hebdomadal Tranquillizer_, which treated both sides with contempt--avowing that it held the Andorrans to be little better than lawless brigands, in the last stage of bankruptcy; and the Guatemalans to be mere drunken half-castes, incapable of attack or defence for want of men and money--this lukewarm and mean-spirited journal, I say, was treated with universal contumely as a wretched time-server, devoid of human sympathies and of proper cosmopolitan expansiveness. At length, however, through the good offices of the San Marino Government, both Powers were induced to lay aside the thought of needless bloodshed, and to discuss the terms of a mutual understanding at a Pan-Hispanic Congress to be held in the neutral metropolis of Monaco. Invitations to attend the Congress were issued to all the Spanish-speaking nations on both sides of the Atlantic. There were a few trifling refusals, it is true, as Spain, Mexico, and the South American States declined to send representatives to the proposed meeting: but still a goodly array of plenipotentiaries met to discuss the terms of peace. Envoys from Andorra, from Guatemala, and from the other Central American Republics--one of whom was of course a Chevalier of the Exalted Order of the Holy Rose of Honduras, while another represented the latest President of Nicaragua--sat down by the side of a coloured marquis from San Domingo, and a mulatto general who presented credentials from the Republic of Cuba--since unhappily extinct. Thus it will be seen at a glance that the Congress wanted nothing which could add to its imposing character, either as an International Parliament or as an expression of military Pan-Hispanic force. Europe felt instinctively that its deliberations were backed up by all the vast terrestrial and naval armaments of its constituent Powers. But while Don Pedro was pulling the wires of the Monaco convention (by telegraph) from his headquarters at Andorra--he could not himself have attended its meeting, lest his august Sovereign should embrace the opportunity of releasing the captive Guatemalan and so stopping his hopes of future success--he had to contend at home, not only with the covert opposition of the brave little Empress, but also with the open rebellion of a disaffected minority. The five wards which constitute East Andorra had long been at secret variance with the nine wards of West Andorra; and they seized upon this moment of foreign complications to organize a Home Rule party, and set on foot a movement of secession. After a few months of mere parliamentary opposition, they broke at last into overt acts of treason, seized on three of Don Pedro's ironclads, and proclaimed themselves a separate government under the title of the Confederate Wards of Andorra. This last blow almost broke Don Pedro's heart. He had serious thoughts of giving up all for lost, and retiring into a monastery for the term of his natural life. As it happened, however, the Chancellor was spared the necessity for that final humiliation, and the Pan-Hispanic Congress was relieved of its arduous duties by the sudden intervention of a hitherto passive Power. Great Britain woke at last to a sense of her own prestige and the necessities of the situation. The Court of Chancery decided that the Inflated Currency was not legal tender, and adjudicated the bankrupt state of Andorra to the prosecuting creditors, the firm of eminent ship-builders at Glasgow. A sheriff's officer, backed by a company of British Grenadiers, was despatched to take possession of the territory in the name of the assignees, and to repel any attempt at armed resistance. Political considerations had no little weight in the decision which led to this imposing military demonstration. It was felt that if we permitted Guatemala to keep up a squadron of ironclads in the Caribbean, a perpetual menace would overshadow our tenure of Jamaica and Barbadoes: while if we suffered Andorra to overrun the Peninsula, our position at Gibraltar would not be worth a fortnight's purchase. For these reasons the above-mentioned expeditionary force was detailed for the purpose of attaching the insolent Empire, liberating the imprisoned Guatemalan, and entirely removing the _casus belli_. It was hoped that such prompt and vigorous action would deter the Central American States from their extensive military preparations, which had already reached to several pounds of powder and over one hundred stand of Martini-Henry rifles. Our demonstration was quite as successful as the "little wars" of Great Britain have always been. Don Pedro made some show of resistance with his eighty-ton guns; but finding that the contractors had only supplied them with wooden bores, he deemed it prudent at length to beat a precipitate retreat. As to the poor little Empress, she had long learned to regard herself as a cypher in the realm over which she reigned but did not govern; and she was therefore perfectly ready to abdicate the throne, and resign the crown jewels to the sheriff's officer. She did so with the less regret, because the crown was only aluminium, and the jewels only paste--being, in fact, the identical articles which she had worn in her theatrical character as the Grand-Duchess of Gerolstein. The quondam republic was far from rich, and it had been glad to purchase these convenient regalia from the property-man at the theatre on the eventful morning of the Imperial Coronation. Don Carlos was immediately liberated by the victorious troops, and rushed at once into the arms of his inamorata. The Bishop of Urgel married them as private persons on the very same afternoon. The ex-Empress returned to the stage, and made her first reappearance in London, where the history of her misfortunes, and the sympathy which the British nation always extends to the conquered, rapidly secured her an unbounded popularity. Don Carlos practised with success on the violin, and joined the orchestra at the same house where his happy little wife appeared as _prima donna_. Señor Montillado the elder at first announced his intention of cutting off his son with a shilling; but being shortly after expelled from the Presidency of the Guatemalan Republic by one of the triennial revolutions which periodically diversify life in that volcanic state, he changed his mind, took the mail steamer to Southampton, and obtained through his son's influence a remunerative post as pantaloon at a neighbouring theatre. The eminent ship-builders took possession of East and West Andorra, quelled the insurrectionary movement of the Confederate Wards, and brought back the ten ironclads, together with the crown jewels and other public effects. On the whole, they rather gained than lost by the national bankruptcy, as they let out the conquered territory to the Andorran people at a neat little ground-rent of some £20,000 per annum. Don Pedro fled across the border to Toulouse, where he obtained congenial employment as clerk to an avoué. He was also promptly elected secretary to the local Academy of Science and Art, a post for which his varied attainments fit him in the highest degree. He has given up all hopes of the resuscitation of the Holy Roman Empire, and is now engaged to a business-like young woman at the Café de l'Univers, who will effectually cure him of all lingering love for transcendental politics. Finally, if any hypercritical person ventures to assert that this history is based upon a total misconception of the Holy Roman Empire question--that I am completely mistaken about Francis II., utterly wrong about Otto the Great, and hopelessly fogged about Henry the Fowler--I can only answer, that I take these statements as I find them in the note-books of Don Pedro, and the printed debates of the Andorran Folk Mote. Like a veracious historian, I cannot go beyond my authorities. But I think you will agree with me, my courteous reader, that the dogmatic omniscience of these historical critics is really beginning to surpass human endurance. _THE SENIOR PROCTOR'S WOOING:_ A TALE OF TWO CONTINENTS. I. I was positively blinded. I could hardly read the note, a neatly written little square sheet of paper; and the words seemed to swim before my eyes. It was in the very thick of summer term, and I, Cyril Payne, M.A., Senior Proctor of the University of Oxford, was calmly asked to undertake the sole charge for a week of a wild American girl, travelling alone, and probably expecting me to run about with her just as foolishly as I had done at Nice. There it lay before me, that awful note, in its overwhelming conciseness, without hope of respite or interference. It was simply crushing. "MY DEAR MR. PAYNE, "I am coming to Oxford, as you advised me. I shall arrive to-morrow by the 10.15 a.m. train, and mean to stop at the Randolph. I hope you will kindly show me all the lions. "Yours very sincerely, "IDA VAN RENSSELAER." It was dated Tuesday, and this was Wednesday morning. I hadn't opened my letters before seeing last night's charges at nine o'clock; and it was now just ten. In a moment the full terror of the situation flashed upon me. She had started; she was already almost here; there was no possibility of telegraphing to stop her; before I could do anything, she would have arrived, have taken rooms at the Randolph, and have come round in her queer American manner to call upon me. There was not a moment to be lost. I must rush down to the station and meet her--in full academicals, velvet sleeves and all, for a Proctor must never be seen in the morning in mufti. If there had been half an hour more, I could have driven round by the Parks and called for my sister Annie, who was married to the Rev. Theophilus Sheepshanks, Professor of Comparative Osteology, and who might have helped me out of the scrape. But as things stood, I was compelled to burst down the High just as I was, hail a hansom opposite Queen's, and drive furiously to the station in bare time to meet the 10.15 train. At all hazards, Ida Van Rensselaer must not go to the Randolph, and must be carried off to Annie's, whether she would or not. On the way down I had time to arrange my plan of action; and before I reached the station, I thought I saw my way dimly out of the awful scrape which this mad Yankee girl had so inconsiderately got me into. I had met Ida Van Rensselaer the winter before at Nice. We stopped together at a pension on the Promenade des Anglais; and as I was away from Oxford--for even a Proctor must unbend sometimes--and as she was a pleasant, lively young person with remarkably fine eyes, travelling by herself, I had taken the trouble to instruct her in European scenery and European art. She had a fancy for being original, so I took her to see Eza, and Roccabrunna, and St. Pons, and all the other queer picturesque little places in the Nice district which no American had ever dreamt of going to see before: and when Ida went on to Florence, I happened--quite accidentally, of course--to turn up at the very same pension three days later, where I gave her further lessons in the art of admiring the early mediæval masters and the other treasures of Giotto's city. I was a bit of a collector myself, and in my rooms at Magdalen I flatter myself that I have got the only one genuine Botticelli in a private collection in England. In spite of her untamed American savagery, Ida had a certain taste for these things, and evidently my lessons gave her the first glimpse she had ever had of that real interior Europe whose culture she had not previously suspected. It is pleasant to teach a pretty pupil, and in the impulse of a weak moment--it was in a gondola at Venice--I even told her that she should not leave for America without having seen Oxford. Of course I fancied that she would bring a chaperon. Now she had taken me at my word, but she had come alone. I had brought it all upon myself, undoubtedly; though how the dickens I was ever to get out of it I could not imagine. As I reached the station, the 10.15 was just coming in. I cast a wild glance right and left, and saw at least a dozen undergraduates, without cap or gown, loitering on the platform in obvious disregard of university law. But I felt far too guilty to proctorize them, and I was terribly conscious that all their eyes were fixed upon me, as I moved up and down the carriages looking for my American friend. She caught my eye in a moment, peering out of a second-class window--she had told me that she was not well off--and I thought I should have sunk in the ground when she jumped lightly out, seized my hand warmly, and cried out quite audibly, in her pretty faintly American voice, "My dear Mr. Payne, I am so glad you've come to meet me. Will you see after my baggage--no, luggage you call it in England, don't you?--and get it sent up to the Randolph, please, at once?" Was ever Proctor so tried on this earth? But I made an effort to smile it off. "My sister is so sorry she could not come to meet you, Miss Van Rensselaer," I said in my loudest voice, for I saw all those twelve sinister undergraduates watching afar off with eager curiosity; "but she has sent me down to carry you off in her stead, and she begs you won't think of going to the Randolph, but will come and make her house your home as long as you stay in Oxford." I flattered myself that the twelve odious young men, who were now forming a sort of irregular circle around us, would be completely crushed by that masterly stroke: though what on earth Annie would say at being saddled with this Yankee girl for a week I hardly dared to fancy. For Annie was a Professor's wife: and the dignity of a Professor's wife is almost as serious a matter as that of a Senior Proctor himself. Imagine my horror, then, when Ida answered, with her frank smile and sunny voice, "Your sister! I didn't know you had a sister. And anyhow, I haven't come to see your sister, but yourself. And I'd better go to the Randolph straight, I'm sure, because I shall feel more at home there. You can come round and see me whenever you like, there; and I mean you to show me all Oxford, now I've come here, that's certain." I glanced furtively at the open-eared undergraduates, and felt that the game was really up. I could never face them again. I must resign everything, take orders, and fly to a country rectory. At least, I thought so on the spur of the moment. But something must clearly be done. I couldn't stand and argue out the case with Ida before those twelve young fiends, now reinforced by a group of porters; and I determined to act strategically--that is to say, tell a white lie. "You can go to the Randolph, of course, if you wish, Miss Van Rensselaer," I said; "will you come and show me which is your luggage? Here, you, sir," to one of the porters,--a little angrily, I fear,--"come and get this lady's boxes, will you?" In a minute I had secured the boxes, and went out for a cab. There was nothing left but a single hansom. Demoralized as I was, I took it, and put Ida inside. "Drive to Lechlade Villa, the Parks," I whispered to the cabby--that was Annie's address--and I jumped in beside my torturer. As we drove up by the Corn-market, I could see the porters and scouts of Balliol and John's all looking eagerly out at the unwonted sight of a Senior Proctor in full academicals, driving through the streets of Oxford in a hansom cab, with a lady by his side. As for Ida, she remained happily unconscious, though I blamed her none the less for it. In her native wilds I knew that such vagaries were permitted by the rules of society; but she ought surely to have known that in Europe they were not admissible. "Now, Miss Van Rensselaer," I said as we turned the corner of Carfax, "I am taking you to my sister's. Excuse my frankness if I tell you that, according to English, and especially to Oxford etiquette, it would never do for you to go to an hotel. People's sense of decorum would be scandalized if they learnt that a lady had come alone to visit the Senior Proctor, and was stopping at the Randolph. Don't you see yourself how very odd it looks?" "Well, no," said Ida promptly; "I think you are a dreadfully suspicious people: you seem always to credit everybody with the worst motives. In America, we think people mean no harm, and don't look after them so sharply as you do. But I really can't go to your sister's. I don't know her, and I haven't been invited. Does she know I'm coming?" "Well, I can't say she does," I answered hesitatingly. "You see, your letter only reached me half an hour ago, and I had no time to see her before I went to meet you." "Then I certainly won't go, Mr. Payne, that's certain." "But my dear Miss Van Rensselaer----" "Not the slightest use, I assure you. I _can't_ go to a house where they don't even know I'm coming. Driver, will you go to the Randolph Hotel, please?" I sank back paralyzed and unmanned. This girl was one too many for me. "Miss Van Rensselaer," I cried, in a last despairing fit, "do you know that as Senior Proctor of the University I have the power to order you away from Oxford; and that if I told them at the Randolph not to take you in, they wouldn't dare to do it?" "Well really, Mr. Payne, I dare say you have some extraordinary mediæval customs here, but you can hardly mean to send me away again by main force. I shall go to the Randolph." And she went. I had to draw up solemnly at the door, to accompany her to the office, and to see her safely provided with a couple of rooms before I could get away hastily to the Ancient House of Convocation, where public business was being delayed by my absence. As I hurried through the Schools Quadrangle, I felt like a convicted malefactor going to face his judges, and self-condemned by his very face. That afternoon, as soon as I had gulped down a choking lunch, I bolted down to the Parks and saw Annie. At first I thought it was a hopeless task to convince her that Ida Van Rensselaer's conduct was, from an American point of view, nothing extraordinary. She persisted in declaring that such goings-on were not respectable, and that I was bound, as an officer of the University, to remove the young woman at once from the eight-mile radius over which my jurisdiction extended. I pleaded in vain that ladies in America always travelled alone, and that nobody thought anything of it. Annie pertinently remarked that that would be excellent logic in New York, but that it was quite un-Aristotelian in Oxford. "When your American friends come to Rome," she said coldly--as though I were in the habit of importing Yankee girls wholesale--"they must do as Rome does." But when I at last pointed out that Ida, as an American citizen, could appeal to her minister if I attempted to turn her out, and that we might find ourselves the centre of an international quarrel--possibly even a _casus belli_--she finally yielded with a struggle. "For the sake of respectability," she said solemnly, "I'll go and call on this girl with you; but remember, Cyril, I shall never undertake to help you out of such a disgraceful scrape a second time." I sneaked out into the garden to wait for her, and felt that the burden of a Proctorship was really more than I could endure. We called duly upon Ida, that very hour, and Ida certainly behaved herself remarkably well. She was so charmingly frank and pretty, she apologized so simply to Annie for her ignorance of English etiquette, and she was so obviously guileless and innocent-hearted in all her talk, that even Annie herself--who is, I must confess, a typical don's wife--was gradually mollified. To my great surprise, Annie even asked her to dinner _en famille_ the same evening, and suggested that I should make an arrangement with the Junior Proctor to take my work, and join the party. I consented, not without serious misgivings; but I felt that if Ida was really going to stop a week, it would be well to put the best face upon it, and to show her up in company with Annie as often as possible. That might just conceivably take the edge off the keen blade of University scandal. To cut a long story short, Ida did stop her week, and I got through it very creditably after all. Annie behaved like a brick, as soon as the first chill was over; for though she is married to a professor of dry bones (Comparative Osteology sounds very well, but means no more than that, when you come to think of it), she is a woman at heart in spite of it all. Ida had the most winning, charming, confiding manner; and she was so pleased with Oxford, with the colleges, the libraries, the gardens, the river, the boats, the mediæval air, the whole place, that she quite gained Annie over to her side. Nay, my sister even discovered incidentally that Ida had a little fortune of her own, amounting to some £300 a year, which, though it doesn't count for much in America, would be a neat little sum to a man like myself, in England; and she shrewdly observed, in her sensible business-like manner, that it would quite make up for the possible loss of my Magdalen fellowship. I am not exactly what you call a marrying man--at least, I know I had never got married before; but as the week wore on, and I continued boating, flirting, and acting showman to Ida, Annie of course always assisting for propriety's sake, I began to feel that the Proctor was being conquered by the man. I fell most seriously and undoubtedly in love. Ida admired my rooms, was charmed with the pretty view from my windows over Magdalen Bridge and the beautiful gardens, and criticized my Botticelli with real sympathy. I was interested in her; she was so fresh, so real, and so genuinely delighted with the new world which opened before her. It was almost her first glimpse of the true interior Europe, and she was fascinated with it, as all better American minds invariably are when they feel the charm of its contrast with their own hurrying, bustling, mushroom world. The week passed easily and pleasantly enough; and when it was drawing to an end, I had half made up my mind to propose to Ida Van Rensselaer. The day before she was to leave she told us she would not go out in the afternoon; so I determined to stroll down the river to Iffley by myself in a "tub dingey"--a small boat with room in it for two, if occasion demands. When I reached the Iffley Lock, imagine my horror at seeing Ida in the middle of the stream, quietly engaged in paddling herself down the river in a canoe. I ran my dingey close beside her, drove her remorselessly against the bank, and handed her out on to the meadow, before she could imagine what I was driving at. "Now, Miss Van Rensselaer," I said sternly, "this will never do. By herculean efforts Annie and I have got over this week without serious scandal; and at the last moment you endeavour to wreck our plans by canoeing down the open river by yourself before the eyes of the whole University. Everybody will talk about the Senior Proctor's visitor having been seen indecorously paddling about in broad daylight in a boat of her own." "I didn't know there was any harm in it," said Ida penitently; for she was beginning to understand the real seriousness of University etiquette. "Well," I answered, "it can't be helped now. You must get into my boat at once--I'll send one of Salter's men down to fetch your canoe--and we must row straight back to Oxford immediately." She obeyed me mechanically, and I began to pull away for very life. "There's nothing for it now," I said pensively, "except to propose to you. I half meant to do it before, and now I've quite made up my mind. Will you have me?" Ida looked at me without surprise, but with a little pleasure in her face. "What nonsense!" she said quietly. "I knew you were going to propose to me this afternoon, and so I came out alone to keep out of your way. You haven't had time to make up your mind properly yet." As I looked at her beautiful calm face and lovely eyes I forgot everything. In a moment, I was over head and ears in love again, and conscious of nothing else. "Ida," I cried, looking at her steadily, "Ida!" "Now, please stop," said Ida, before I could get any further. "I know exactly what you're going to say. You're going to say, 'Ida, I love you.' Don't desecrate the verb _to love_ by draggling it more than it has already been draggled through all the grammars of every European language. I've conjugated _to love_, myself, in English, French, German, and Italian; and you've conjugated it in Latin and Greek, and for aught I know in Anglo-Saxon and Coptic and Assyrian as well; so now let's have done with it for ever, and conjugate some other verb more worthy the attention of two rational and original human beings. Can't you strike out a line for yourself?" "You're quite mistaken," I answered curtly, for I wasn't going to be browbeaten in that way; "I meant to say nothing of the sort. What I did mean to say--and I'll trouble you to listen to it attentively--was just this. You seem to me about as well suited to my abstract requirements as any other young woman I have ever met: and if you're inclined to take me, we might possibly arrange an engagement." "What a funny man you are!" she went on innocently. "You don't propose at all _en règle_. I've had twelve men propose to me separately in a boat in America, and you make up the baker's dozen: but all the others leaned forward lackadaisically, dropped the oars when they were beginning to get serious, and looked at me sentimentally; while you go on rowing all the time as if there was nothing unusual in it." "Probably," I suggested, "your twelve American admirers attached more importance to the ceremony than I do. But you haven't answered my question yet." "Let me ask you one instead," she said, more seriously. "Do you think I'm at all the kind of person for a Senior Proctor's wife? You say I suit your abstract requirements, but one can't get married in the abstract, you know. Viewed concretely, don't you fancy I'm about the most unsuitable helpmate you could possibly light upon?" "The profound consciousness of that indubitable fact," I replied carelessly, "has made me struggle in a hopeless sort of way against the irresistible impulse to propose to you ever since I saw you first. But I suppose Senior Proctors are much the same as other men. They fly like moths about the candle, and can't overcome the temptation of singeing their wings." "If I had any notion of accepting you," said Ida reflectively, "I should at least have the consolation of knowing that you didn't make anything by your bargain; for my fifteen hundred dollars would just amount to the three hundred a year which you would have to give up with your fellowship." "Quite so," I answered; "I see you come of a business-like nation; and I, as former bursar of my college, am a man of business myself. So I have no reason for concealing from you the fact that I have a private income of about four hundred a year, besides University appointments worth five hundred more, which would not go with the fellowship." "Do you really think me sordid enough to care for such considerations?" "If I did, I wouldn't have taken the trouble to tell you them. I merely mentioned the facts for their general interest, and not as bearing on the question in hand." "Well, then, Mr. Payne, you shall have my answer.--No." "Is it final?" "Is anything human final, except one's twenty-ninth birthday? I choose it to be final for the present, and 'the subject then dropped,' as the papers say about debates in Congress. Let us have done now with this troublesome verb altogether, and conjugate our return to Oxford instead. See what bunches of fritillaries again! I never saw anything prettier, except the orange-lilies in New Hampshire. If you like, you may come to America next season. You would enjoy our woodlands." "Where shall I find you?" "At Saratoga." "When?" "Any day from July the first." "Good," I said, after a moment's reflection. "If I stick to my fancy for flying into the candle, you will see me there. If I change my mind, it won't matter much to either of us." So we paddled back to Oxford, talking all the way of indifferent subjects, of England and our English villages, and enjoying the peaceful greenness of the trees and banks. It was half-past six when we got to Salter's barge, and I walked with Ida as far as the Randolph. Then I returned to college, feeling very much like an undetected sheep-stealer, and had a furtive sort of dinner served up in my own room. Next morning, I confess it was with a sigh of relief that Annie and I saw Ida Van Rensselaer start from the station _en route_ for Liverpool. It was quite a fortnight before I could face my own bulldogs unabashed, and I bowed with a wan and guilty smile upon my face whenever any one of those twelve undergraduates capped me in the High till the end of term. I believe they never missed an opportunity of meeting me if they saw a chance open. I was glad indeed when long vacation came to ease me of my office and my troubles. II. Congress Hall in Saratoga is really one of the most comfortable hotels at which I ever stopped. Of course it holds a thousand guests, and covers an unknown extent of area: it measures its passages by the mile and its carpets by the acre. All that goes unsaid, for it is a big American hotel; but it is also a very pleasant and luxurious one, even for America. I was not sorry, on the second of July, to find myself comfortably quartered (by elevator) in room No. 547 on the fifth floor, with a gay look-out on Broadway and the Columbia Spring. After ten days of dismal rolling on the mid-Atlantic, and a week of hurry and bustle in New York, I found it extremely delightful to sit down at my ease in summer quarters, on a broad balcony overlooking the leafy promenade, to sip my iced cobbler like a prince, and to watch that strange, new, and wonderfully holiday life which was unfolding itself before my eyes. Such a phantasmagoria of brightly-dressed women in light but costly silks, of lounging young men in tweed suits and panama hats, of sulkies, carriages, trotting horses, string bands, ice-creams, effervescing drinks, cool fruits, green trees, waving bunting, lilac blossoms, roses, and golden sunshine I had never seen till then, and shall never see again, I doubt me, until I can pay a second visit to Saratoga. It was a midsummer saturnalia of strawberries and acacia flowers, gone mad with excessive mint julep. "After all," said I to myself, "even if I don't happen to run up against Ida Van Rensselaer, I shall have taken as pleasant a holiday as I could easily have found in old Europe. Everybody is tired of Switzerland and Italy, so, happy thought, try Saratoga. On the other hand, if Ida keeps her tryst, I shall have one more shot at her in the shape of a proposal; and then if she really means no, I shall be none the worse off than if I had stayed in England." In which happy-go-lucky and philosophic frame of mind I sat watching the crowd in the Broadway after dinner, in _utrumque paratus_, ready either to marry Ida if she would have me, or to go home again in the autumn, a joyous bachelor, if she did not turn up according to her promise. A very cold-blooded attitude that to assume towards the tender passion, no doubt; but after all, why should a sensible man of thirty-five think it necessary to go wild for a year or two like a hobbledehoy, and convert himself into a perambulating statue of melancholy, simply because one particular young woman out of the nine hundred million estimated to inhabit this insignificant planet has refused to print his individual name upon her visiting cards? Ida would make as good a Mrs. Cyril Payne as any other girl of my acquaintance--no doubt; indeed, I am inclined to say, a vast deal a better one; but there are more women than five in the world, and if you strike an average I dare say most of them are pretty much alike. As I sat and looked, I could not help noticing the extraordinary magnificence of all the _toilettes_ in the promenade. Nowhere in Europe can you behold such a republican dead level of reckless extravagance. Every woman was dressed like a princess, nothing more and nothing less. I began to wonder how poor little Ida, with her simple and tasteful travelling gowns, would feel when she found herself cast in the midst of these gorgeous silks and these costly satin grenadines. Look, for example, at that pair now strolling along from Spring Avenue: a New York exquisite in the very coolest of American summer suits, and a New York _élégante_ (their own word, I assure you) in a splendid but graceful grey silk dress, gold bracelet, diamond ear-rings, and every other item in her costume of the finest and costliest. What would Ida do in a crowd of such women as that?... Why ... gracious heavens! ... can it be?... No, it can't.... Yes, it must.... Well, to be sure, it positively is--Ida herself! My first impulse was to lean over the balcony and call out to her, as I would have called out to a friend whom I chanced to see passing in Magdalen quad. Not an unnatural impulse either, seeing that (in spite of my own prevarications to myself) I had after all really come across the Atlantic on purpose to see her. But on second thoughts it struck me that even Ida might perhaps find such a proceeding a trifle unconventional, especially now that she was habited in such passing splendour. Besides, what did it all mean? The only rational answer I could give myself, when I fairly squared the question, was that Ida must have got suddenly married to a wealthy fellow-countryman, and that the exquisite in the cool suit was in fact none other than her newly-acquired husband. I had thought my philosophy proof against any such small defeats to my calculation: but when it actually came to the point, I began to perceive that I was after all very unphilosophically in love with Ida Van Rensselaer. The merest undergraduate could not have felt a sillier flutter than that which agitated both auricles and ventricles of my central vascular organ--as a Senior Proctor I must really draw the line at speaking outright of my heart. I seized my hat, rushed down the broad staircase, and walked rapidly along Broadway in the direction the pair had taken. But I could see nothing of them, and I returned to Congress Hall in despair. That night I thought about many things, and slept very little. It came home to me somewhat vividly that if Ida was really married I should probably feel more grieved and disappointed than a good pessimist philosopher ought ever to feel at the ordinary vexatiousness of the universe. Next morning, however, I rose early, and breakfasted, not without a most unpoetical appetite, on white fish, buckwheat pancakes, and excellent watermelon. After breakfast, refreshed by the meal, I sallied forth, like a true knight-errant, under the shade of a white cotton sun-umbrella instead of a shield, to search for the lady of my choice. Naturally, I turned my steps first towards the Springs; and at the very second of them all, I luckily came upon Ida and the man in the tweed suit, lounging as before, and drinking the waters lazily. Ida stepped up as if she had fully expected to meet me, extended her daintily-gloved hand with the gold bracelet, and said as unconcernedly as possible, "You have come two days late, Mr. Payne." "So it seems," I answered. "_C'est monsieur votre mari?_" And I waved my hand interrogatively towards the stranger, for I hardly knew how to word the question in English. "_À Dieu ne plaise!_" she cried heartily, in an undertone, and I felt my vascular system once more the theatre of a most unacademical though more pleasing palpitation. "Allow me to introduce you. Mr. Payne of Oxford; my cousin, Mr. Jefferson Hitchcock." I charitably inferred that Mr. Hitchcock's early education in modern languages had been unfortunately neglected, or else his companion's energetic mode of denying her supposed conjugal relation with him could hardly have appeared flattering to his vanity. "My cousin has spoken of you to me, sir," said Mr. Hitchcock solemnly. "I understand that you are one of the most distinguished luminaries of Oxford College, and I am proud to welcome you as such to our country." I bowed and laughed--I never feel capable of making any other reply than a bow and a laugh to the style of oratory peculiar to American gentlemen--and then I turned to Ida. She was looking as pretty, as piquante, and as fresh as ever; but what her dress could mean was a complete puzzle to me. As she stood, diamonds and all, a jeweller's assistant couldn't have valued her at a penny less than six hundred pounds. In England such a display in morning dress would have been out of taste; but in Saratoga it seemed to be the height of the fashion. We walked along towards the Grand Union Hotel, where Ida and her cousin were staying, and my astonishment grew upon me at every step. However, we had so much to say to one another about everything in general, and Ida was so unaffectedly pleased at my keeping my engagement, made half in joke, that I found no time to unravel the mystery. When we reached the great doorway, Ida took leave of me for the time, but made me promise to call for her again early the next morning. "Unhappily," she said, "I have to go this afternoon to a most tedious party--a set of Boston people; you know the style; the best European culture, bottled and corked as imported, and let out again by driblets with about as much spontaneousness as champagne the second day. But I must fulfil my social duties here; no canoeing on the Isis at Saratoga. However, we must see a great deal of you now that you've come; so I expect you to call, and drive me down to the lake at ten o'clock to-morrow." "Is that proceeding within the expansive limits of American proprieties?" I asked dubiously. "Sir," said Mr. Hitchcock, answering for her, "this is a land of freedom, and every lady can go where she chooses, unmolested by those frivolous bonds of conventionality which bind the feet of your European women as closely as the cramped shoes of the Chinese bind the feet of the celestial females." Ida smiled at me with a peculiar smile, waved her hand graciously, and ran lightly up the stairs. I was left on the piazza with Mr. Jefferson Hitchcock. His conversation scarcely struck me as in itself enticing, but I was anxious to find out the meaning of Ida's sudden accession to wealth, and so I determined to make the best of his companionship for half an hour. As a sure high road to the American bosom and safe recommendation to the American confidence, I ordered a couple of delectable summer beverages (Mr. Hitchcock advised an "eye-opener," which proved worthy of the commendation he bestowed upon it); and we sat down on the piazza in two convenient rocking-chairs, under the shade of the elms, smoking our havanas and sipping our iced drink. After a little preliminary talk, I struck out upon the subject of Ida. "When I met Miss Van Rensselaer at Nice," I said, "she was stopping at a very quiet little _pension_. It is quite a different thing living in a palace like this." "We are a republican nation, sir," answered Mr. Hitchcock, "and we expect to be all treated on the equal level of a sovereign people. The splendour that you in Europe restrict to princes, we in our country lavish upon the humblest American citizen. Miss Van Rensselaer's wealth, however, entitles her to mix in the highest circles of even your most polished society." "Indeed?" I said; "I had no idea that she was wealthy." "No, sir, probably not. Miss Van Rensselaer is a woman of that striking originality only to be met with in our emancipated country. She has shaken off the trammels of female servitude, and prefers to travel in all the simplicity of a humble income. She went to Europe, if I may so speak, _incognita_, and desired to hide her opulence from the prying gaze of your aristocracy. She did not wish your penniless peers to buzz about her fortune. But she is in reality one of our richest heiresses. The man who secures that woman as a property, sir, will find himself in possession of an income worth as much as one hundred thousand dollars." Twenty thousand sterling a year! The idea took my breath away, and reduced me once more to a state of helpless incapacity. I couldn't talk much more small-talk to Mr. Hitchcock, so I managed to make some small excuse and returned listlessly to Congress Hall. There, over a luncheon of Saddle-Rock oysters (you see I never allow my feelings to interfere with my appetite), I decided that I must give up all idea of Ida Van Rensselaer. I have no abstract objection to an income of £20,000 a year; but I could not consent to take it from any woman, or to endure the chance of her supposing that I had been fortune-hunting. It may be and doubtless is a plebeian feeling, which, as Mr. Hitchcock justly hinted, is never shared by the younger sons of our old nobility; but I hate the notion of living off somebody else's money, especially if that somebody were my own wife. So I came to the reluctant conclusion that I must give up the idea for ever; and as it would not be fair to stop any longer at Saratoga under the circumstances, I made up my mind to start for Niagara on the next day but one, after fulfilling my driving engagement with Ida the following morning. Punctually at ten o'clock the next day I found myself in a handsome carriage waiting at the doors of the Grand Union. Ida came down to meet me splendidly dressed, and looked like a queen as she sat by my side. "We will drive to the lake," she said, as she took her seat, "and you will take me for a row as you did on the Isis at Oxford." So we whirled along comfortably enough over the six miles of splendid avenue leading to the lake; and then we took our places in one of the canopied boats which wait for hire at the little quay. I rowed out into the middle of the lake, admiring the pretty wooded banks and sandstone cliffs, talking of Saratoga and American society, but keeping to my determination in steering clear of all allusions to my Oxford proposal. Ida was as charming as ever--more provokingly charming, indeed, than even of old, now that I had decided she could not be mine. But I stood by my resolution like a man. Clearly Ida was surprised at my reticence; and when I told her that my time in America being limited, I must start almost at once for Niagara, she was obviously astonished. "It is possible to be even _too_ original," she observed shortly. I turned the boat and rowed back toward the shore. As I had nearly reached the bank, Ida jumped up from her seat, and asked me suddenly to let her pull for a dozen strokes. I changed places and gave her the oars. To my surprise, she headed the boat around, and pulled once more for the middle of the lake. When we had reached a point at some distance from the shore, she dropped the oars on the thole-pins (they use no rowlocks on American lake or river craft), and looked for a moment full in my face. Then she said abruptly:-- "If you are really going to leave for Niagara to-morrow, Mr. Payne, hadn't we better finish this bit of business out of hand?" "I was not aware," I answered, "that we had any business transactions to settle." "Why," she said, "I mean this matter of proposing." I gazed back at her as straight as I dared. "Ida," I said, with an attempt at firmness, "I don't mean to propose to you again at all. At least, I didn't mean to when I started this morning. I think I thought I had decided not." "Then why did you come to Saratoga?" she asked quickly. "You oughtn't to have come if you meant nothing by it." "When I left England I did mean something," I answered, "but I learned a fact yesterday which has altered my intentions." And then I told her about Mr. Hitchcock's revelations, and the reflections to which they had given rise. Ida listened patiently to all my faint arguments, for I felt my courage quailing under her pretty sympathetic glance, and then she said decisively, "You are quite right and yet quite wrong." "Explain yourself, O Sphinx," I answered, much relieved by her words. "Why," she said, "you are quite right to hesitate, quite wrong to decide. I know you don't want my money; I know you don't like it, even: but I ask you to take me in spite of it. Of course that is dreadfully unwomanly and unconventional, and so forth, but it is what I ought to do.... Listen to me, Cyril (may I call you Cyril?). I will tell you why I want you to marry me. Before I went to Europe, I was dissatisfied with all these rich American young men. I hated their wealth, and their selfishness, and their cheap cynicism, and their trotting horses, and their narrow views, and their monotonous tall-talk, all cast in a stereotyped American mould, so that whenever I said A, I knew every one of them would answer B. "I went to Europe and I met your English young men, with their drawls, and their pigeon-shooting, and their shaggy ulsters, and their conventional wit, and their commonplace chaff, and their utter contempt for women, as though we were all a herd of marketable animals from whom they could pick and choose whichever pleased them best, according to their lordly fancy. I would no more give myself up to one of them than I would marry my cousin, Jefferson Hitchcock. But when I met you first at Nice, I saw you were a different sort of person. You could think and act for yourself, and you could appreciate a real living woman who could think and act too. You taught me what Europe was like. I only knew the outside, you showed me how to get within the husk. You made me admire Eza, and Roccabrunna, and Iffley Church. You roused something within me that I never felt before--a wish to be a different being, a longing for something more worth living for than diamonds and Saratoga. I know I am not good enough for you: I don't know enough or read enough or feel enough; but I don't want to fall back and sink to the level of New York society. So I have a _right_ to ask you to marry me if you will. I don't want to be a blue; but I want not to feel myself a social doll. You know yourself--I see you know it--that I oughtn't to throw away my chance of making the best of what nature I may have in me. I am only a beginner. I scarcely half understand your world yet. I can't properly admire your Botticellis and your Pinturiccios, I know; but I want to admire, I should like to, and I will try. I want you to take me, because I know you understand me and would help me forward instead of letting me sink down to the petty interests of this American desert. You liked me at Nice, you did more than like me at Oxford; but I wouldn't take you then, though I longed to say _yes_, because I wasn't quite sure whether you really meant it. I knew you liked me for myself, not my money, but I left you to come to Saratoga for two things. I wanted to make sure you were in earnest, not to take you at a moment of weakness. I said, 'If he really cares for me, if he thinks I might become worthy of him, he will come and look for me; if not, I must let the dream go.' And then I wanted to know what effect my fortune would have upon you. Now you know my whole reasons. Why should my money stand in our way? Why should we both make ourselves unhappy on account of it? You would have married me if I was poor: what good reason have you for rejecting me only because I am rich? Whatever my money may do for you (and you have enough of your own), it will be nothing to what you can do for me. Will you tell me to go and make myself an animated peg for hanging jewellery upon, with such a conscious automaton as Jefferson Hitchcock to keep me company through life?" As she finished, flushed, proud, ashamed, but every inch a woman, I caught her hand in mine. The utter meanness and selfishness of my life burst upon me like a thunderbolt. "Oh, Ida," I cried, "how terribly you make me feel my own pettiness and egotism. You are cutting me to the heart like a knife. I cannot marry you; I dare not marry you; I must not marry you. I am not worthy of such a wife as you. How had I ever the audacity to ask you? My life has been too narrow and egoistic and self-indulgent to deserve such confidence as yours. I am not good enough for you. I really dare not accept it." "No," she said, a little more calmly, "I hope we are just good enough for one another, and that is why we ought to marry. And as for the hundred thousand dollars, perhaps we might manage to be happy in spite of them." We had drifted into a little bay, under shelter of a high rocky point. I felt a sudden access of insane boldness, and taking both Ida's hands in mine, I ventured to kiss her open forehead. She took the kiss quietly, but with a certain queenly sense of homage due. "And now," she said, shaking off my hands and smiling archly, "let us row back toward Saratoga, for you know you have to pack up for Niagara." "No," I answered, "I may as well put off my visit to the Falls till you can accompany me." "Very well," said Ida quietly, "and then we shall go back to England and live near Oxford. I don't want you to give up the dear old University. I want you to teach me the way you look at things, and show me how to look at them myself. I'm not going to learn any Latin or Greek or stupid nonsense of that sort; and I'm not going to join the Women's Suffrage Association; but I like your English culture, and I should love to live in its midst." "So you shall, Ida," I answered; "and you shall teach me, too, how to be a little less narrow and self-centred than we Oxford bachelors are apt to become in our foolish isolation." So we expect to spend our honeymoon at Niagara. _THE CHILD OF THE PHALANSTERY._ _"Poor little thing," said my strong-minded friend compassionately. "Just look at her! Clubfooted. What a misery to herself and others! In a well-organized state of society, you know, such poor wee cripples as that would be quietly put out of their misery while they were still babies."_ _"Let me think," said I, "how that would work out in actual practice. I'm not so sure, after all, that we should be altogether the better or the happier for it."_ I. They sat together in a corner of the beautiful phalanstery garden, Olive and Clarence, on the marble seat that overhung the mossy dell where the streamlet danced and bickered among its pebbly stickles; they sat there, hand in hand, in lovers' guise, and felt their two bosoms beating and thrilling in some strange, sweet fashion, just like two foolish unregenerate young people of the old antisocial prephalansteric days. Perhaps it was the leaven of their unenlightened ancestors still leavening by heredity the whole lump; perhaps it was the inspiration of the calm soft August evening and the delicate afterglow of the setting sun; perhaps it was the deep heart of man and woman vibrating still as of yore in human sympathy, and stirred to its innermost recesses by the unutterable breath of human emotion. But at any rate there they sat, the beautiful strong man in his shapely chiton, and the dainty fair girl in her long white robe with the dark green embroidered border, looking far into the fathomless depths of one another's eyes, in silence sweeter and more eloquent than many words. It was Olive's tenth-day holiday from her share in the maidens' household duty of the community; and Clarence, by arrangement with his friend Germain, had made exchange from his own decade (which fell on Plato) to this quiet Milton evening, that he might wander through the park and gardens with his chosen love, and speak his full mind to her now without reserve. "If only the phalanstery will give its consent, Clarence," Olive said at last with a little sigh, releasing her hand from his, and gathering up the folds of her stole from the marble flooring of the seat; "if only the phalanstery will give its consent! but I have my doubts about it. Is it quite right? Have we chosen quite wisely? Will the hierarch and the elder brothers think I am strong enough and fit enough for the duties of the task? It is no light matter, we know, to enter into bonds with one another for the responsibilities of fatherhood and motherhood. I sometimes feel--forgive me, Clarence--but I sometimes feel as if I were allowing my own heart and my own wishes to guide me too exclusively in this solemn question: thinking too much about you and me, about ourselves (which is only an enlarged form of selfishness, after all), and too little about the future good of the community and--and--" blushing a little, for women will be women even in a phalanstery--"and of the precious lives we may be the means of adding to it. You remember, Clarence, what the hierarch said, that we ought to think least and last of our own feelings, first and foremost of the progressive evolution of universal humanity." "I remember, darling," Clarence answered, leaning over towards her tenderly; "I remember well, and in my own way, so far as a man can (for we men haven't the moral earnestness of you women, I'm afraid, Olive), I try to act up to it. But, dearest, I think your fears are greater than they need be: you must recollect that humanity requires for its higher development tenderness, and truth, and love, and all the softer qualities, as well as strength and manliness; and if you are a trifle less strong than most of our sisters here, you seem to me at least (and I really believe to the hierarch and to the elder brothers too) to make up for it, and more than make up for it, in your sweet and lovable inner nature. The men of the future mustn't all be cast in one unvarying stereotyped mould; we must have a little of all good types combined, in order to make a perfect phalanstery." Olive sighed again. "I don't know," she said pensively. "I don't feel sure. I hope I am doing right. In my aspirations every evening I have desired light on this matter, and have earnestly hoped that I was not being misled by my own feelings; for, oh, Clarence, I do love you so dearly, so truly, so absorbingly, that I half fear my love may be taking me unwittingly astray. I try to curb it; I try to think of it all as the hierarch tells us we ought to; but in my own heart I sometimes almost fear that I may be lapsing into the idolatrous love of the old days, when people married and were given in marriage, and thought only of the gratification of their own personal emotions and affections, and nothing of the ultimate good of humanity. Oh, Clarence, don't hate me and despise me for it; don't turn upon me and scold me: but I love you, I love you, I love you; oh, I'm afraid I love you almost idolatrously!" Clarence lifted her small white hand slowly to his lips, with that natural air of chivalrous respect which came so easily to the young men of the phalanstery, and kissed it twice over fervidly with quiet reverence. "Let us go into the music-room, Olive dearest," he said as he rose; "you are too sad to-night. You shall play me that sweet piece of Marian's that you love so much; and that will quiet you, darling, from thinking too earnestly about this serious matter." II. Next day, when Clarence had finished his daily spell of work in the fruit-garden (he was third under-gardener to the community), he went up to his own study, and wrote out a little notice in due form to be posted at dinner-time on the refectory door: "Clarence and Olive ask leave of the phalanstery to enter with one another into free contract of holy matrimony." His pen trembled a little in his hand as he framed that familiar set form of words (strange that he had read it so often with so little emotion, and wrote it now with so much: we men are so selfish!); but he fixed it boldly with four small brass nails on the regulation notice-board, and waited, not without a certain quiet confidence, for the final result of the communal council. "Aha!" said the hierarch to himself with a kindly smile, as he passed into the refectory at dinner-time that day, "has it come to that, then? Well, well, I thought as much; I felt sure it would. A good girl, Olive: a true, earnest, lovable girl: and she has chosen wisely, too; for Clarence is the very man to balance her own character as man's and wife's should do. Whether Clarence has done well in selecting her is another matter. For my own part, I had rather hoped she would have joined the celibate sisters, and have taken nurse duty for the sick and the children. It's her natural function in life, the work she's best fitted for; and I should have liked to see her take to it. But after all, the business of the phalanstery is not to decide vicariously for its individual members--not to thwart their natural harmless inclinations and wishes; on the contrary, we ought to allow every man and girl the fullest liberty to follow their own personal taste and judgment in every possible matter. Our power of interference as a community, I've always felt and said, should only extend to the prevention of obviously wrong and immoral acts, such as marriage with a person in ill-health, or of inferior mental power, or with a distinctly bad or insubordinate temper. Things of that sort, of course, are as clearly wicked as idling in work hours or marriage with a first cousin. Olive's health, however, isn't really bad, nothing more than a very slight feebleness of constitution, as constitutions go with us; and Eustace, who has attended her medically from her babyhood (what a dear crowing little thing she used to be in the nursery, to be sure), tells me she's perfectly fitted for the duties of her proposed situation. Ah well, ah well; I've no doubt they'll be perfectly happy; and the wishes of the whole phalanstery will go with them, in any case, that's certain." Everybody knew that whatever the hierarch said or thought was pretty sure to be approved by the unanimous voice of the entire community. Not that he was at all a dictatorial or dogmatic old man; quite the contrary; but his gentle kindly way had its full weight with the brothers; and his intimate acquaintance, through the exercise of his spiritual functions, with the inmost thoughts and ideas of every individual member, man or woman, made him a safe guide in all difficult or delicate questions, as to what the decision of the council ought to be. So when, on the first Cosmos, the elder brothers assembled to transact phalansteric business, and the hierarch put in Clarence's request with the simple phrase, "In my opinion, there is no reasonable objection," the community at once gave in its adhesion, and formal notice was posted an hour later on, the refectory door, "The phalanstery approves the proposition of Clarence and Olive, and wishes all happiness to them and to humanity from the sacred union they now contemplate." "You see, dearest," Clarence said, kissing her lips for the first time (as unwritten law demanded), now that the seal of the community had been placed upon their choice, "you see, there can't be any harm in our contract, for the elder brothers all approve it." Olive smiled and sighed from the very bottom of her full heart, and clung to her lover as the ivy clings to a strong supporting oak-tree. "Darling," she murmured in his ear, "if I have you to comfort me, I shall not be afraid, and we will try our best to work together for the advancement and the good of divine humanity." Four decades later, on a bright Cosmos morning in September, those two stood up beside one another before the altar of humanity, and heard with a thrill the voice of the hierarch uttering that solemn declaration, "In the name of the Past, and of the Present, and of the Future, I hereby admit you, Clarence and Olive, into the holy society of Fathers and Mothers, of the United Avondale Phalanstery, in trust for humanity, whose stewards you are. May you so use and enhance the good gifts you have received from your ancestors that you may hand them on, untarnished and increased, to the bodies and minds of your furthest descendants." And Clarence and Olive answered humbly and reverently, "If grace be given us, we will." III. Brother Eustace, physiologist to the phalanstery, looked very grave and sad indeed as he passed from the Mothers' Room into the Conversazione in search of the hierarch. "A child is born into the phalanstery," he said gloomily; but his face conveyed at once a far deeper and more pregnant meaning than his mere words could carry to the ear. The hierarch rose hastily and glanced into his dark keen eyes with an inquiring look. "Not something amiss?" he said eagerly, with an infinite tenderness in his fatherly voice. "Don't tell me that, Eustace. Not ... oh, not a child that the phalanstery must not for its own sake permit to live! Oh, Eustace, not, I hope, idiotic! And I gave my consent too; I gave my consent for pretty gentle little Olive's sake! Heaven grant I was not too much moved by her prettiness and her delicacy, for I love her, Eustace, I love her like a daughter." "So we all love all the children of the phalanstery Cyriac, we who are elder brothers," said the physiologist gravely, half smiling to himself nevertheless at this quaint expression of old-world feeling on the part even of the very hierarch, whose bounden duty it was to advise and persuade a higher rule of conduct and thought than such antique phraseology implied. "No, not idiotic; not quite so bad as that, Cyriac; not absolutely a hopeless case, but still, very serious and distressing for all that. The dear little baby has its feet turned inward. She'll be a cripple for life, I fear, and no help for it." Tears rose unchecked into the hierarch's soft grey eyes. "Its feet turned inward," he muttered sadly, half to himself. "Feet turned inward! Oh, how terrible! This will be a frightful blow to Clarence and to Olive. Poor young things: their first-born, too. Oh, Eustace, what an awful thought that, with all the care and precaution we take to keep all causes of misery away from the precincts of the phalanstery, such trials as this must needs come upon us by the blind workings of the unconscious Cosmos! It is terrible, too terrible." "And yet it isn't all loss," the physiologist answered earnestly. "It isn't all loss, Cyriac, heart-rending as the necessity seems to us. I sometimes think that if we hadn't these occasional distressful objects on which to expend our sympathy and our sorrow, we in our happy little communities might grow too smug, and comfortable, and material, and earthy. But things like this bring tears into our eyes, and we are the better for them in the end, depend upon it, we are the better for them. They try our fortitude, our devotion to principle, our obedience to the highest and the hardest law. Every time some poor little waif like this is born into our midst, we feel the strain of old prephalansteric emotions and fallacies of feeling dragging us steadily and cruelly down. Our first impulse is to pity the poor mother, to pity the poor child, and in our mistaken kindness to let an unhappy life go on indefinitely to its own misery and the preventible distress of all around it. We have to make an effort, a struggle, before the higher and more abstract pity conquers the lower and more concrete one. But in the end we are all the better for it: and each such struggle and each such victory, Cyriac, paves the way for that final and truest morality when we shall do right instinctively and naturally, without any impulse on any side to do wrong in any way at all." "You speak wisely, Eustace," the hierarch answered with a sad shake of his head, "and I wish I could feel like you. I ought to, but I can't. Your functions make you able to look more dispassionately upon these things than I can. I'm afraid there's a great deal of the old Adam lingering wrongfully in me yet. And I'm still more afraid there's a great deal of the old Eve lingering even more strongly in all our mothers. It'll be a long time, I doubt me, before they'll ever consent without a struggle to the painless extinction of necessarily unhappy and imperfect lives. A long time: a very long time. Does Clarence know of this yet?" "Yes, I have told him. His grief is terrible. You had better go and console him as best you can." "I will, I will. And poor Olive! Poor Olive! It wrings my heart to think of her. Of course she won't be told of it, if you can help, for the probationary four decades?" "No, not if we can help it: but I don't know how it can ever be kept from her. She _will_ see Clarence, and Clarence will certainly tell her." The hierarch whistled gently to himself. "It's a sad case," he said ruefully, "a very sad case; and yet I don't see how we can possibly prevent it." He walked slowly and deliberately into the ante-room where Clarence was seated on a sofa, his head between his hands, rocking himself to and fro in his mute misery, or stopping to groan now and then in a faint feeble inarticulate fashion. Rhoda, one of the elder sisters, held the unconscious baby sleeping in her arms, and the hierarch took it from her like a man accustomed to infants, and looked ruthfully at the poor distorted little feet. Yes, Eustace was evidently quite right. There could be no hope of ever putting those wee twisted ankles back straight and firm into their proper place again like other people's. He sat down beside Clarence on the sofa, and with a commiserating gesture removed the young man's hands from his pale white face. "My dear, dear friend," he said softly, "what comfort or consolation can we try to give you that is not a cruel mockery? None, none, none. We can only sympathize with you and Olive: and perhaps, after all, the truest sympathy is silence." Clarence answered nothing for a moment, but buried his face once more in his hands and burst into tears. The men of the phalanstery were less careful to conceal their emotions than we old-time folks in these early centuries. "Oh, dear hierarch," he said, after a long sob, "it is too hard a sacrifice, too hard, too terrible. I don't feel it for the baby's sake: for her 'tis better so: she will be freed from a life of misery and dependence; but for my own sake, and oh, above all, for dear Olive's. It will kill her, hierarch; I feel sure it will kill her!" The elder brother passed his hand with a troubled gesture across his forehead. "But what else can we do, dear Clarence?" he asked pathetically. "What else can we do? Would you have us bring up the dear child to lead a lingering life of misfortune, to distress the eyes of all around her, to feel herself a useless incumbrance in the midst of so many mutually helpful and serviceable and happy people? How keenly she would realize her own isolation in the joyous busy labouring community of our phalansteries! How terribly she would brood over her own misfortune when surrounded by such a world of hearty, healthy, sound-limbed, useful persons! Would it not be a wicked and a cruel act to bring her up to an old age of unhappiness and imperfection? You have been in Australia, my boy, when we sent you on that plant-hunting expedition, and you have seen cripples with your own eyes, no doubt, which I have never done--thank Heaven!--I who have never gone beyond the limits of the most highly civilized Euramerican countries. You have seen cripples, in those semi-civilized old colonial societies, which have lagged after us so slowly in the path of progress; and would you like your own daughter to grow up to such a life as that, Clarence? would you like her, I ask you, to grow up to such a life as that?" Clarence clenched his right hand tightly over his left arm, and answered with a groan: "No, hierarch; not even for Olive's sake could I wish for such an act of irrational injustice. You have trained us up to know the good from the evil, and for no personal gratification of our deepest emotions, I hope and trust, shall we ever betray your teaching or depart from your principles. I know what it is: I saw just such a cripple once, at a great town in the heart of Central Australia--a child of eight years old, limping along lamely on her heels by her mother's side: a sickening sight: to think of it even now turns the blood in one's arteries: and I could never wish Olive's baby to live and grow up to be a thing like that. But, oh, I wish to heaven it might have been otherwise: I wish to heaven this trial might have been spared us both. Oh, hierarch, dear hierarch, the sacrifice is one that no good man or woman would wish selfishly to forego; yet for all that, our hearts, our hearts are human still; and though we may reason and may act up to our reasoning, the human feeling in us--relic of the idolatrous days or whatever you like to call it--it will not choose to be so put down and stifled: it will out, hierarch, it will out for all that, in real hot, human tears. Oh, dear, dear kind father and brother, it will kill Olive: I know it will kill her!" "Olive is a good girl," the hierarch answered slowly. "A good girl, well brought up, and with sound principles. She will not flinch from doing her duty, I know, Clarence: but her emotional nature is a very delicate one, and we have reason indeed to fear the shock to her nervous system. That she will do right bravely, I don't doubt: the only danger is lest the effort to do right should cost her too dear. Whatever can be done to spare her shall be done, Clarence. It is a sad misfortune for the whole phalanstery, such a child being born to us as this: and we all sympathize with you: we sympathize with you more deeply than words can say." The young man only rocked up and down drearily as before, and murmured to himself, "It will kill her, it will kill her! My Olive, my Olive, I know it will kill her." IV. They didn't keep the secret of the baby's crippled condition from Olive till the four decades were over, nor anything like it. The moment she saw Clarence, she guessed at once with a woman's instinct that something serious had happened: and she didn't rest till she had found out from him all about it. Rhoda brought her the poor wee mite, carefully wrapped after the phalansteric fashion in a long strip of fine flannel, and Olive unrolled the piece until she came at last upon the small crippled feet, that looked so soft and tender and dainty and waxen in their very deformity. The young mother leant over the child a moment in speechless misery. "Spirit of Humanity," she whispered at length feebly, "oh give me strength to bear this terrible unutterable trial! It will break my heart. But I will try to bear it." There was something so touching in her attempted resignation that Rhoda, for the first time in her life, felt almost tempted to wish she had been born in the old wicked prephalansteric days, when they would have let the poor baby grow up to womanhood as a matter of course, and bear its own burden through life as best it might. Presently, Olive raised her head again from the crimson silken pillow. "Clarence," she said, in a trembling voice, pressing the sleeping baby hard against her breast, "when will it be? How long? Is there no hope, no chance of respite?" "Not for a long time yet, dearest Olive," Clarence answered through his tears. "The phalanstery will be very gentle and patient with us, we know: and brother Eustace will do everything that lies in his power, though he's afraid he can give us very little hope indeed. In any case, Olive darling, the community waits for four decades before deciding anything: it waits to see whether there is any chance for physiological or surgical relief: it decides nothing hastily or thoughtlessly: it waits for every possible improvement, hoping against hope till hope itself is hopeless. And then, if at the end of the quartet, as I fear will be the case--for we must face the worst, darling, we must face the worst--if at the end of the quartet it seems clear to brother Eustace, and the three assessor physiologists from the neighbouring phalansteries, that the dear child would be a cripple for life, we're still allowed four decades more to prepare ourselves in: four whole decades more, Olive, to take our leave of the darling baby. You'll have your baby with you for eighty days. And we must wean ourselves from her in that time, darling. We must try to wean ourselves. But oh Olive, oh Rhoda, it's very hard: very, very, very hard." Olive answered not a word, but lay silently weeping and pressing the baby against her breast, with her large brown eyes fixed vacantly upon the fretted woodwork of the panelled ceiling. "You mustn't do like that, Olive dear," sister Rhoda said in a half-frightened voice. "You must cry right out, and sob, and not restrain yourself, darling, or else you'll break your heart with silence and repression. Do cry aloud, there's a dear girl: do cry aloud and relieve yourself. A good cry would be the best thing on earth for you. And think, dear, how much happier it will really be for the sweet baby to sink asleep so peacefully than to live a long life of conscious inferiority and felt imperfection! What a blessing it is to think you were born in a phalansteric land, where the dear child will be happily and painlessly rid of its poor little unconscious existence, before it has reached the age when it might begin to know its own incurable and inevitable misfortune. Oh, Olive, what a blessing that is, and how thankful we ought all to be that we live in a world where the sweet pet will be saved so much humiliation, and mortification, and misery!" At that moment, Olive, looking within into her own wicked rebellious heart, was conscious, with a mingled glow, half shame, half indignation, that so far from appreciating the priceless blessings of her own situation, she would gladly have changed places then and there with any barbaric woman of the old semi-civilized prephalansteric days. We can so little appreciate our own mercies. It was very wrong and anti-cosmic, she knew; very wrong, indeed, and the hierarch would have told her so at once; but in her own woman's soul she felt she would rather be a miserable naked savage in a wattled hut, like those one saw in old books about Africa before the illumination, if only she could keep that one little angel of a crippled baby, than dwell among all the enlightenment, and knowledge, and art, and perfected social arrangements of phalansteric England without her child--her dear, helpless, beautiful baby. How truly the Founder himself had said, "Think you there will be no more tragedies and dramas in the world when we have reformed it, nothing but one dreary dead level of monotonous content? Ay, indeed, there will; for that, fear not; while the heart of man remains, there will be tragedy enough on earth and to spare for a hundred poets to take for their saddest epics." Olive looked up at Rhoda wistfully. "Sister Rhoda," she said in a timid tone, "it may be very wicked--I feel sure it is--but do you know, I've read somewhere in old stories of the unenlightened days that a mother always loved the most afflicted of her children the best. And I can understand it now, sister Rhoda; I can feel it here," and she put her hand upon her poor still heart. "If only I could keep this one dear crippled baby, I could give up all the world beside--except you, Clarence." "Oh, hush, darling!" Rhoda cried in an awed voice, stooping down half alarmed to kiss her pale forehead. "You mustn't talk like that, Olive dearest. It's wicked; it's undutiful. I know how hard it is not to repine and to rebel; but you mustn't, Olive, you mustn't. We must each strive to bear our own burdens (with the help of the community), and not to put any of them off upon a poor, helpless, crippled little baby." "But our natures," Clarence said, wiping his eyes dreamily; "our natures are only half attuned as yet to the necessities of the higher social existence. Of course it's very wrong and very sad, but we can't help feeling it, sister Rhoda, though we try our hardest. Remember, it's not so many generations since our fathers would have reared the child without a thought that they were doing anything wicked--nay, rather, would even have held (so powerful is custom) that it was positively wrong to save it by preventive means from a certain life of predestined misery. Our conscience in this matter isn't yet fully formed. We feel that it's right, of course; oh yes, we know the phalanstery has ordered everything for the best; but we can't help grieving over it; the human heart within us is too unregenerate still to acquiesce without a struggle in the dictates of right and reason." Olive again said nothing, but fixed her eyes silently upon the grave, earnest portrait of the Founder over the carved oak mantelpiece, and let the hot tears stream their own way over her cold, white, pallid, bloodless cheek without reproof for many minutes. Her heart was too full for either speech or comfort. V. Eight decades passed away slowly in the Avondale Phalanstery; and day after day seemed more and more terrible to poor, weak, disconsolate Olive. The quiet refinement and delicate surroundings of their placid life seemed to make her poignant misery and long anxious term of waiting only the more intense in its sorrow and its awesomeness. Every day, the younger sisters turned as of old to their allotted round of pleasant housework; every day the elder sisters, who had earned their leisure, brought in their dainty embroidery, or their drawing materials, or their other occupations, and tried to console her, or rather to condole with her, in her great sorrow. She couldn't complain of any unkindness; on the contrary, all the brothers and sisters were sympathy itself; while Clarence, though he tried hard not to be _too_ idolatrous to her (which is wrong and antisocial, of course), was still overflowing with tenderness and consideration for her in their common grief. But all that seemed merely to make things worse. If only somebody would have been cruel to her; if only the hierarch would have scolded her, or the elder sisters have shown any distant coldness, or the other girls have been wanting in sisterly sympathy, she might have got angry or brooded over her wrongs; whereas, now, she could do nothing save cry passively with a vain attempt at resignation. It was nobody's fault; there was nobody to be angry with, there was nothing to blame except the great impersonal laws and circumstances of the Cosmos, which it would be rank impiety and wickedness to question or to gainsay. So she endured in silence, loving only to sit with Clarence's hand in hers, and the dear doomed baby lying peacefully upon the stole in her lap. It was inevitable and there was no use repining; for so profoundly had the phalanstery schooled the minds and natures of those two unhappy young parents (and all their compeers), that, grieve as they might, they never for one moment dreamt of attempting to relax or set aside the fundamental principles of phalansteric society in these matters. By the kindly rule of the phalanstery, every mother had complete freedom from household duties for two years after the birth of her child; and Clarence, though he would not willingly have given up his own particular work in the grounds and garden, spent all the time he could spare from his short daily task (every one worked five hours every lawful day, and few worked longer, save on special emergencies) by Olive's side. At last, the eight decades passed slowly away, and the fatal day for the removal of little Rosebud arrived. Olive called her Rosebud because, she said, she was a sweet bud that could never be opened into a full-blown rose. All the community felt the solemnity of the painful occasion; and by common consent the day (Darwin, December 20) was held as an intra-phalansteric fast by the whole body of brothers and sisters. On that terrible morning Olive rose early, and dressed herself carefully in a long white stole with a broad black border of Greek key pattern. But she had not the heart to put any black upon dear little Rosebud; and so she put on her fine flannel wrapper, and decorated it instead with the pretty coloured things that Veronica and Philomela had worked for her, to make her baby as beautiful as possible on this its last day in a world of happiness. The other girls helped her and tried to sustain her, crying all together at the sad event. "She's a sweet little thing," they said to one another as they held her up to see how she looked. "If only it could have been her reception to-day instead of her removal!" But Olive moved through them all with stoical resignation--dry-eyed and parched in the throat, yet saying not a word save for necessary instructions and directions to the nursing sisters. The iron of her creed had entered into her very soul. After breakfast, brother Eustace and the hierarch came sadly in their official robes into the lesser infirmary. Olive was there already, pale and trembling, with little Rosebud sleeping peacefully in the hollow of her lap. What a picture she looked, the wee dear thing, with the hothouse flowers from the conservatory that Clarence had brought to adorn her, fastened neatly on to her fine flannel robe! The physiologist took out a little phial from his pocket, and began to open a sort of inhaler of white muslin. At the same moment, the grave, kind old hierarch stretched out his hands to take the sleeping baby from its mother's arms. Olive shrank back in terror, and clasped the child softly to her heart. "No, no, let me hold her myself, dear hierarch," she said, without flinching. "Grant me this one last favour. Let me hold her myself." It was contrary to all fixed rules; but neither the hierarch nor any one else there present had the heart to refuse that beseeching voice on so supreme and spirit-rending an occasion. Brother Eustace poured the chloroform solemnly and quietly on to the muslin inhaler. "By resolution of the phalanstery," he said, in a voice husky with emotion, "I release you, Rosebud, from a life for which you are naturally unfitted. In pity for your hard fate, we save you from the misfortune you have never known, and will never now experience." As he spoke, he held the inhaler to the baby's face, and watched its breathing grow fainter and fainter, till at last, after a few minutes, it faded gradually and entirely away. The little one had slept from life into death, painlessly and happily, even as they looked. Clarence, tearful but silent, felt the baby's pulse for a moment, and then, with a burst of tears, shook his head bitterly. "It is all over," he cried with a loud cry. "It is all over; and we hope and trust it is better so." But Olive still said nothing. The physiologist turned to her with an anxious gaze. Her eyes were open, but they looked blank and staring into vacant space. He took her hand, and it felt limp and powerless. "Great heaven," he cried, in evident alarm, "what is this? Olive, Olive, our dear Olive, why don't you speak?" Clarence sprang up from the ground, where he had knelt to try the dead baby's pulse, and took her unresisting wrist anxiously in his. "Oh, brother Eustace," he cried passionately, "help us, save us; what's the matter with Olive? she's fainting, she's fainting! I can't feel her heart beat, no, not ever so little." Brother Eustace let the pale white hand drop listlessly from his grasp upon the pale white stole beneath, and answered slowly and distinctly: "She isn't fainting, Clarence; not fainting, my dear brother. The shock and the fumes of chloroform together have been too much for the action of the heart. She's dead too, Clarence; our dear, dear sister; she's dead too." Clarence flung his arms wildly round Olive's neck, and listened eagerly with his ear against her bosom to hear her heart beat. But no sound came from the folds of the simple black-bordered stole; no sound from anywhere save the suppressed sobs of the frightened women who huddled closely together in the corner, and gazed horror-stricken upon the two warm fresh corpses. "She was a brave girl," brother Eustace said at last, wiping his eyes and composing her hands reverently. "Olive was a brave girl, and she died doing her duty, without one murmur against the sad necessity that fate had unhappily placed upon her. No sister on earth could wish to die more nobly than by thus sacrificing her own life and her own weak human affections on the altar of humanity for the sake of her child and of the world at large." "And yet, I sometimes almost fancy," the hierarch murmured with a violent effort to control his emotions, "when I see a scene like this, that even the unenlightened practices of the old era may not have been quite so bad as we usually think them, for all that. Surely an end such as Olive's is a sad and a terrible end to have forced upon us as the final outcome and natural close of all our modern phalansteric civilization." "The ways of the Cosmos are wonderful," said brother Eustace solemnly; "and we, who are no more than atoms and mites upon the surface of its meanest satellite, cannot hope so to order all things after our own fashion that all its minutest turns and chances may approve themselves to us as light in our own eyes." The sisters all made instinctively the reverential genuflexion. "The Cosmos is infinite," they said together, in the fixed formula of their cherished religion. "The Cosmos is infinite, and man is but a parasite upon the face of the least among its satellite members. May we so act as to further all that is best within us, and to fulfil our own small place in the system of the Cosmos with all becoming reverence and humility! In the name of universal Humanity. So be it." _OUR SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATIONS ON A GHOST._ "Then nothing would convince you of the existence of ghosts, Harry," I said, "except seeing one." "Not even seeing one, my dear Jim," said Harry. "Nothing on earth would make me believe in them, unless I were turned into a ghost myself." So saying, Harry drained his glass of whisky toddy, shook out the last ashes from his pipe, and went off upstairs to bed. I sat for a while over the remnants of my cigar, and ruminated upon the subject of our conversation. For my own part, I was as little inclined to believe in ghosts as anybody; but Harry seemed to go one degree beyond me in scepticism. His argument amounted in brief to this,--that a ghost was by definition the spirit of a dead man in a visible form here on earth; but however strange might be the apparition which a ghost-seer thought he had observed, there was no evidence possible or actual to connect such apparition with any dead person whatsoever. It might resemble the deceased in face and figure, but so, said Harry, does a portrait. It might resemble him in voice and manner, but so does an actor or a mimic. It might resemble him in every possible particular, but even then we should only be justified in saying that it formed a close counterpart of the person in question, not that it was his ghost or spirit. In short, Harry maintained, with considerable show of reason, that nobody could ever have any scientific ground for identifying any external object, whether shadowy or material, with a past human existence of any sort. According to him, a man might conceivably see a phantom, but could not possibly know that he saw a ghost. Harry and I were two Oxford bachelors, studying at the time for our degree in Medicine, and with an ardent love for the scientific side of our future profession. Indeed, we took a greater interest in comparative physiology and anatomy than in physic proper; and at this particular moment we were stopping in a very comfortable farm-house on the coast of Flintshire for our long vacation, with the special object of observing histologically a peculiar sea-side organism, the Thingumbobbum Whatumaycallianum, which is found so plentifully on the shores of North Wales, and which has been identified by Professor Haeckel with the larva of that famous marine ascidian from whom the Professor himself and the remainder of humanity generally are supposed to be undoubtedly descended. We had brought with us a full complement of lancets and scalpels, chemicals and test-tubes, galvanic batteries and thermo-electric piles; and we were splendidly equipped for a thorough-going scientific campaign of the first water. The farm-house in which we lodged had formerly belonged to the county family of the Egertons; and though an Elizabethan manor replaced the ancient defensive building which had been wisely dismantled by Henry VIII., the modern farm-house into which it had finally degenerated still bore the name of Egerton Castle. The whole house had a reputation in the neighbourhood for being haunted by the ghost of one Algernon Egerton, who was beheaded under James II. for his participation, or rather his intention to participate, in Monmouth's rebellion. A wretched portrait of the hapless Protestant hero hung upon the wall of our joint sitting-room, having been left behind when the family moved to their new seat in Cheshire, as being unworthy of a place in the present baronet's splendid apartments. It was a few remarks upon the subject of Algernon's ghost which had introduced the question of ghosts in general; and after Harry had left the room, I sat for a while slowly finishing my cigar, and contemplating the battered features of the deceased gentleman. As I did so, I was somewhat startled to hear a voice at my side observe in a bland and graceful tone, not unmixed with aristocratic hauteur, "You have been speaking of me, I believe,--in fact, I have unavoidably overheard your conversation,--and I have decided to assume the visible form and make a few remarks upon what seems to me a very hasty decision on your friend's part." I turned round at once, and saw, in the easy-chair which Harry had just vacated, a shadowy shape, which grew clearer and clearer the longer I looked at it. It was that of a man of forty, fashionably dressed in the costume of the year 1685 or thereabouts, and bearing a close resemblance to the faded portrait on the wall just opposite. But the striking point about the object was this, that it evidently did not consist of any ordinary material substance, as its outline seemed vague and wavy, like that of a photograph where the sitter has moved; while all the objects behind it, such as the back of the chair and the clock in the corner, showed through the filmy head and body, in the very manner which painters have always adopted in representing a ghost. I saw at once that whatever else the object before might be, it certainly formed a fine specimen of the orthodox and old-fashioned apparition. In dress, appearance, and every other particular, it distinctly answered to what the unscientific mind would unhesitatingly have called the ghost of Algernon Egerton. Here was a piece of extraordinary luck! In a house with two trained observers, supplied with every instrument of modern experimental research, we had lighted upon an undoubted specimen of the common spectre, which had so long eluded the scientific grasp. I was beside myself with delight. "Really, sir," I said, cheerfully, "it is most kind of you to pay us this visit, and I'm sure my friend will be only too happy to hear your remarks. Of course you will permit me to call him?" The apparition appeared somewhat surprised at the philosophic manner in which I received his advances; for ghosts are accustomed to find people faint away or scream with terror at their first appearance; but for my own part I regarded him merely in the light of a very interesting phenomenon, which required immediate observation by two independent witnesses. However, he smothered his chagrin--for I believe he was really disappointed at my cool deportment--and answered that he would be very glad to see my friend if I wished it, though he had specially intended this visit for myself alone. I ran upstairs hastily and found Harry in his dressing-gown, on the point of removing his nether garments. "Harry," I cried breathlessly, "you must come downstairs at once. Algernon Egerton's ghost wants to speak to you." Harry held up the candle and looked in my face with great deliberation. "Jim, my boy," he said quietly, "you've been having too much whisky." "Not a bit of it," I answered, angrily. "Come downstairs and see. I swear to you positively that a Thing, the very counterpart of Algernon Egerton's picture, is sitting in your easy-chair downstairs, anxious to convert you to a belief in ghosts." It took about three minutes to induce Harry to leave his room; but at last, merely to satisfy himself that I was demented, he gave way and accompanied me into the sitting-room. I was half afraid that the spectre would have taken umbrage at my long delay, and gone off in a huff and a blue flame; but when we reached the room, there he was, _in propriâ personâ_, gazing at his own portrait--or should I rather say his counterpart?--on the wall, with the utmost composure. "Well, Harry," I said, "what do you call that?" Harry put up his eyeglass, peered suspiciously at the phantom, and answered in a mollified tone, "It certainly is a most interesting phenomenon. It looks like a case of fluorescence; but you say the object can talk?" "Decidedly," I answered, "it can talk as well as you or me. Allow me to introduce you to one another, gentlemen:--Mr. Henry Stevens, Mr. Algernon Egerton; for though you didn't mention your name, Mr. Egerton, I presume from what you said that I am right in my conjecture." "Quite right," replied the phantom, rising as it spoke, and making a low bow to Harry from the waist upward. "I suppose your friend is one of the Lincolnshire Stevenses, sir?" "Upon my soul," said Harry, "I haven't the faintest conception where my family came from. My grandfather, who made what little money we have got, was a cotton-spinner at Rochdale, but he might have come from heaven knows where. I only know he was a very honest old gentleman, and he remembered me handsomely in his will." "Indeed, sir," said the apparition coldly. "_My_ family were the Egertons of Egerton Castle, in the county of Flint, Armigeri; whose ancestor, Radulphus de Egerton, is mentioned in Domesday as one of the esquires of Hugh Lupus, Earl Palatine of Chester. Radulphus de Egerton had a son----" "Whose history," said Harry, anxious to cut short these genealogical details, "I have read in the Annals of Flintshire, which lies in the next room, with the name you give as yours on the fly-leaf. But it seems, sir, you are anxious to converse with me on the subject of ghosts. As that question interests us all at present, much more than family descent, will you kindly begin by telling us whether you yourself lay claim to be a ghost?" "Undoubtedly I do," replied the phantom. "The ghost of Algernon Egerton, formerly of Egerton Castle?" I interposed. "Formerly and now," said the phantom, in correction. "I have long inhabited, and I still habitually inhabit, by night at least, the room in which we are at present seated." "The deuce you do," said Harry warmly. "This is a most illegal and unconstitutional proceeding. The house belongs to our landlord, Mr. Hay: and my friend here and myself have hired it for the summer, sharing the expenses, and claiming the sole title to the use of the rooms." (Harry omitted to mention that he took the best bedroom himself and put me off with a shabby little closet, while we divided the rent on equal terms.) "True," said the spectre good-humouredly; "but you can't eject a ghost, you know. You may get a writ of _habeas corpus_, but the English law doesn't supply you with a writ of _habeas animam_. The infamous Jeffreys left me that at least. I am sure the enlightened nineteenth century wouldn't seek to deprive me of it." "Well," said Harry, relenting, "provided you don't interfere with the experiments, or make away with the tea and sugar, I'm sure I have no objection. But if you are anxious to prove to us the existence of ghosts, perhaps you will kindly allow us to make a few simple observations?" "With all the pleasure in death," answered the apparition courteously. "Such, in fact, is the very object for which I've assumed visibility." "In that case, Harry," I said, "the correct thing will be to get out some paper, and draw up a running report which we may both attest afterwards. A few simple notes on the chemical and physical properties of a spectre will be an interesting novelty for the Royal Society, and they ought all to be jotted down in black and white at once." This course having been unanimously determined upon as strictly regular, I laid a large folio of foolscap on the writing-table, and the apparition proceeded to put itself in an attitude for careful inspection. "The first point to decide," said I, "is obviously the physical properties of our visitor. Mr. Egerton, will you kindly allow us to feel your hand?" "You may _try_ to feel it if you like," said the phantom quietly, "but I doubt if you will succeed to any brilliant extent." As he spoke, he held out his arm. Harry and I endeavoured successively to grasp it: our fingers slipped through the faintly luminous object as though it were air or shadow. The phantom bowed forward his head; we attempted to touch it, but our hands once more passed unopposed across the whole face and shoulders, without finding any trace whatsoever of mechanical resistance. "Experience the first," said Harry; "the apparition has no tangible material substratum." I seized the pen and jotted down the words as he spoke them. This was really turning out a very full-blown specimen of the ordinary ghost! "The next question to settle," I said, "is that of gravity.--Harry, give me a hand out here with the weighing-machine.--Mr. Egerton, will you be good enough to step upon this board?" _Mirabile dictu!_ The board remained steady as ever. Not a tremor of the steelyard betrayed the weight of its shadowy occupant. "Experience the second," cried Harry, in his cool, scientific way: "the apparition has the specific gravity of atmospheric air." I jotted down this note also, and quietly prepared for the next observation. "Wouldn't it be well," I inquired of Harry, "to try the weight in vacuo? It is possible that, while the specific gravity in air is equal to that of the atmosphere, the specific gravity in vacuo may be zero. The apparition--pray excuse me, Mr. Egerton, if the terms in which I allude to you seem disrespectful, but to call you a ghost would be to prejudge the point at issue--the apparition may have no proper weight of its own at all." "It would be very inconvenient, though," said Harry, "to put the whole apparition under a bell-glass: in fact, we have none big enough. Besides, suppose we were to find that by exhausting the air we got rid of the object altogether, as is very possible, that would awkwardly interfere with the future prosecution of our researches into its nature and properties." "Permit me to make a suggestion," interposed the phantom, "if a person whom you choose to relegate to the neuter gender may be allowed to have a voice in so scientific a question. My friend, the ingenious Mr. Boyle, has lately explained to me the construction of his air-pump, which we saw at one of the Friday evenings at the Royal Institution. It seems to me that your object would be attained if I were to put one hand only on the scale under the bell-glass, and permit the air to be exhausted." "Capital," said Harry: and we got the air-pump in readiness accordingly. The spectre then put his right hand into the scale, and we plumped the bell-glass on top of it. The connecting portion of the arm shone through the severing glass, exactly as though the spectre consisted merely of an immaterial light. In a few minutes the air was exhausted, and the scales remained evenly balanced as before. "This experiment," said Harry judicially, "slightly modifies the opinion which we formed from the preceding one. The specific gravity evidently amounts in itself to nothing, being as air in air, and as vacuum in vacuo. Jot down the result, Jim, will you?" I did so faithfully, and then turning to the spectre I observed, "You mentioned a Mr. Boyle, sir, just now. You allude, I suppose, to the father of chemistry?" "And uncle of the Earl of Cork," replied the apparition, promptly filling up the well-known quotation. "Exactly so. I knew Mr. Boyle slightly during our lifetime, and I have known him intimately ever since he joined the majority." "May I ask, while my friend makes the necessary preparations for the spectrum analysis and the chemical investigation, whether you are in the habit of associating much with--er--well, with other ghosts?" "Oh yes, I see a good deal of society." "Contemporaries of your own, or persons of earlier and later dates?" "Dates really matter very little to us. We may have Socrates and Bacon chatting in the same group. For my own part, I prefer modern society--I may say, the society of the latest arrivals." "That's exactly why I asked," said I. "The excessively modern tone of your language and idioms struck me, so to speak, as a sort of anachronism with your Restoration costume--an anachronism which I fancy I have noticed in many printed accounts of gentlemen from your portion of the universe." "Your observation is quite true," replied the apparition. "We continue always to wear the clothes which were in fashion at the time of our decease; but we pick up from new-comers the latest additions to the English language, and even, I may say, to the slang dictionary. I know many ghosts who talk familiarly of 'awfully jolly hops,' and allude to their progenitors as 'the governor.' Indeed, it is considered quite behind the times to describe a lady as 'vastly pretty,' and poor Mr. Pepys, who still preserves the antiquated idiom of his diary, is looked upon among us as a dreadfully slow old fogey." "But why, then," said I, "do you wear your old costumes for ever? Why not imitate the latest fashions from Poole's and Worth's, as well as the latest cant phrase from the popular novels?" "Why, my dear sir," answered the phantom, "we must have _something_ to mark our original period. Besides, most people to whom we appear know something about costume, while very few know anything about changes in idiom,"--that I must say seemed to me, in passing, a powerful argument indeed--"and so we all preserve the dress which we habitually wore during our lifetime." "Then," said Harry irreverently, looking up from his chemicals, "the society in your part of the country must closely resemble a fancy-dress ball." "Without the tinsel and vulgarity, we flatter ourselves," answered the phantom. By this time the preparations were complete, and Harry inquired whether the apparition would object to our putting out the lights in order to obtain definite results with the spectroscope. Our visitor politely replied that he was better accustomed to darkness than to the painful glare of our paraffin candles. "In fact," he added, "only the strong desire which I felt to convince you of our existence as ghosts could have induced me to present myself in so bright a room. Light is very trying to the eyes of spirits, and we generally take our constitutionals between eleven at night and four in the morning, stopping at home entirely during the moonlit half of the month." "Ah, yes," said Harry, extinguishing the candles; "I've read, of course, that your authorities exactly reverse our own Oxford rules. You are all gated, I believe, from dawn to sunset, instead of from sunset to dawn, and have to run away helter-skelter at the first streaks of daylight, for fear of being too late for admission without a fine of twopence. But you will allow that your usual habit of showing yourselves only in the very darkest places and seasons naturally militates somewhat against the credibility of your existence. If all apparitions would only follow your sensible example by coming out before two scientific people in a well-lighted room, they would stand a much better chance of getting believed: though even in the present case I must allow that I should have felt far more confidence in your positive reality if you'd presented yourself in broad daylight, when Jim and I hadn't punished the whisky quite as fully as we've done this evening." When the candles were out, our apparition still retained its fluorescent, luminous appearance, and seemed to burn with a faint bluish light of its own. We projected a pencil through the spectroscope, and obtained, for the first time in the history of science, the spectrum of a spectre. The result was a startling one indeed. We had expected to find lines indicating the presence of sulphur or phosphorus: instead of that, we obtained a continuous band of pale luminosity, clearly pointing to the fact that the apparition had no known terrestial element in its composition. Though we felt rather surprised at this discovery, we simply noted it down on our paper, and proceeded to verify it by chemical analysis. The phantom obligingly allowed us to fill a small phial with the luminous matter, which Harry immediately proceeded to test with all the resources at our disposal. For purposes of comparison I filled a corresponding phial with air from another part of the room, which I subjected to precisely similar tests. At the end of half an hour we had completed our examination--the spectre meanwhile watching us with mingled curiosity and amusement; and we laid our written quantitative results side by side. They agreed to a decimal. The table, being interesting, deserves a place in this memoir. It ran as follows:-- _Chemical Analysis of an Apparition._ Atmospheric air 96.45 per cent. Aqueous vapour 2.31 " Carbonic acid 1.08 " Tobacco smoke 0.16 " Volatile alcohol A trace --------- 100.00 " The alcohol Harry plausibly attributed to the presence of glasses which had contained whisky toddy. The other constituents would have been normally present in the atmosphere of a room where two fellows had been smoking uninterruptedly ever since dinner. This important experiment clearly showed that the apparition had no proper chemical constitution of its own, but consisted entirely of the same materials as the surrounding air. "Only one thing remains to be done now, Jim," said Harry, glancing significantly at a plain deal table in the corner, with whose uses we were both familiar; "but then the question arises, does this gentleman come within the meaning of the Act? I don't feel certain about it in my own mind, and with the present unsettled state of public opinion on this subject, our first duty is to obey the law." "Within the meaning of the Act?" I answered; "decidedly not. The words of the forty-second section say distinctly 'any _living_ animal.' Now, Mr. Egerton, according to his own account, is a ghost, and has been dead for some two hundred years or thereabouts: so that we needn't have the slightest scruple on _that_ account." "Quite so," said Harry, in a tone of relief. "Well then, sir," turning to the apparition, "may I ask you whether you would object to our vivisecting you?" "Mortuisecting, you mean, Harry," I interposed parenthetically. "Let us keep ourselves strictly within the utmost letter of the law." "Vivisecting? Mortuisecting?" exclaimed the spectre, with some amusement. "Really, the proposal is so very novel that I hardly know how to answer it. I don't think you will find it a very practicable undertaking: but still, if you like, yes, you may try your hands upon me." We were both much gratified at this generous readiness to further the cause of science, for which, to say the truth, we had hardly felt prepared. No doubt, we were constantly in the habit of maintaining that vivisection didn't really hurt, and that rabbits or dogs rather enjoyed the process than otherwise; still, we did not quite expect an apparition in human form to accede in this gentlemanly manner to a personal request which after all is rather a startling one. I seized our new friend's hand with warmth and effusion (though my emotion was somewhat checked by finding it slip through my fingers immaterially), and observed in a voice trembling with admiration, "Sir, you display a spirit of self-sacrifice which does honour to your head and heart. Your total freedom from prejudice is perfectly refreshing to the anatomical mind. If all 'subjects' were equally ready to be vivisected--no, I mean mortuisected--oh,--well,--there," I added (for I began to perceive that my argument didn't hang together, as "subjects" usually accepted mortuisection with the utmost resignation), "perhaps it wouldn't make much difference after all." Meanwhile Harry had pulled the table into the centre of the room, and arranged the necessary instruments at one end. The bright steel had a most charming and scientific appearance, which added greatly to the general effect. I saw myself already in imagination drawing up an elaborate report for the Royal Society, and delivering a Croonian Oration, with diagrams and sections complete, in illustration of the "Vascular System of a Ghost." But alas, it was not to be. A preliminary difficulty, slight in itself, yet enormous in its preventive effects, unhappily defeated our well-made plans. "Before you lay yourself on the table," said Harry, gracefully indicating that article of furniture to the spectre with his lancet, "may I ask you to oblige me by removing your clothes? It is usual in all these operations to--ahem--in short, to proceed _in puris naturalibus_. As you have been so very kind in allowing us to operate upon you, of course you won't object to this minor but indispensable accompaniment." "Well, really, sir," answered the ghost, "I should have no personal objection whatsoever; but I'm rather afraid it can't be done. To tell you the truth, my clothes are an integral part of myself. Indeed, I consist chiefly of clothes, with only a head and hands protruding at the principal extremities. You must have noticed that all persons of my sort about whom you have read or heard were fully clothed in the fashion of their own day. I fear it would be quite impossible to remove these clothes. For example, how very absurd it would be to see the shadowy outline of a ghostly coat hanging up on a peg behind a door. The bare notion would be sufficient to cast ridicule upon the whole community. No, gentlemen, much as I should like to gratify you, I fear the thing's impossible. And, to let the whole secret out, I'm inclined to think, for my part, that I haven't got any independent body whatsoever." "But, surely," I interposed, "you must have _some_ internal economy, or else how can you walk and talk? For example, have you a heart?" "Most certainly, my dear sir, and I humbly trust it is in the right place." "You misunderstand me," I repeated: "I am speaking literally, not figuratively. Have you a central vascular organ on your left-hand side, with two auricles and ventricles, a mitral and a tricuspid valve, and the usual accompaniment of aorta, pulmonary vein, pulmonary artery, systole and diastole, and so forth?" "Upon my soul, sir," replied the spectre with an air of bewilderment, "I have never even heard the names of these various objects to which you refer, and so I am quite unable to answer your question. But if you mean to ask whether I have something beating just under my fob (excuse the antiquated word, but as I wear the thing in question I must necessarily use the name), why then, most undoubtedly I have." "Will you oblige me, sir," said Harry, "by showing me your wrist? It is true I can't _feel_ your pulse, owing to what you must acknowledge as a very unpleasant tenuity in your component tissues: but perhaps I may succeed in _seeing_ it." The apparition held out its arm. Harry instinctively endeavoured to balance the wrist in his hand, but of course failed in catching it. We were both amused throughout to observe how difficult it remained, after several experiences, to realize the fact that this visible object had no material and tangible background underlying it. Harry put up his eyeglass and gazed steadily at the phantom arm; not a trace of veins or arteries could anywhere be seen. "Upon my word," he muttered, "I believe it's true, and the subject has no internal economy at all. This is really very interesting." "As it is quite impossible to undress you," I observed, turning to our visitor, "may I venture to make a section through your chest, in order, if practicable, to satisfy myself as to your organs generally?" "Certainly," replied the good-humoured spectre; "I am quite at your service." I took my longest lancet from its case and made a very neat cut, right across the sternum, so as to pass directly through all the principal viscera. The effect, I regret to say, was absolutely nugatory. The two halves of the body reunited instantaneously behind the instrument, just as a mass of mercury reunites behind a knife. Evidently there was no chance of getting at the anatomical details, if any existed, underneath that brocaded waistcoat of phantasmagoric satin. We gave up the attempt in despair. "And now," said the shadowy form, with a smile of conscious triumph, flinging itself easily but noiselessly into a comfortable arm-chair, "I hope you are convinced that ghosts really do exist. I think I have pretty fully demonstrated to you my own purely spiritual and immaterial nature." "Excuse me," said Harry, seating himself in his turn on the ottoman: "I regret to say that I remain as sceptical as at the beginning. You have merely convinced me that a certain visible shape exists apparently unaccompanied by any tangible properties. With this phenomenon I am already familiar in the case of phosphorescent gaseous effluvia. You also seem to utter audible words without the aid of a proper larynx or other muscular apparatus; but the telephone has taught me that sounds exactly resembling those of the human voice may be produced by a very simple membrane. You have afforded us probably the best opportunity ever given for examining a so-called ghost, and my private conviction at the end of it is that you are very likely an egregious humbug." I confess I was rather surprised at this energetic conclusion, for my own faith had been rapidly expanding under the strange experiences of that memorable evening. But the visitor himself seemed much hurt and distressed. "Surely," he said, "you won't doubt my word when I tell you plainly that I am the authentic ghost of Algernon Egerton. The word of an Egerton of Egerton Castle was always better than another man's oath, and it is so still, I hope. Besides, my frank and courteous conduct to you both to-night, and the readiness with which I have met all your proposals for scientific examination, certainly entitle me to better treatment at your hands." "I must beg ten thousand pardons," Harry replied, "for the plain language which I am compelled to use. But let us look at the case in a different point of view. During your occasional visits to the world of living men, you may sometimes have travelled in a railway carriage in your invisible form." "I have taken a trip now and then (by a night train, of course), just to see what the invention was like." "Exactly so. Well, now, you must have noticed that a guard insisted from time to time upon waking up the sleepy passengers for no other purpose than to look at their tickets. Such a precaution might be resented, say by an Egerton of Egerton Castle, as an insult to his veracity and his honesty. But, you see, the guard doesn't know an Egerton from a Muggins: and the mere word of a passenger to the effect that he belongs to that distinguished family is in itself of no more value than his personal assertion that his ticket is perfectly _en règle_." "I see your analogy, and I must allow its remarkable force." "Not only so," continued Harry firmly, "but you must remember that in the case I have put, the guard is dealing with known beings of the ordinary human type. Now, when a living person introduces himself to me as Egerton of Egerton Castle, or Sir Roger Tichborne of Alresford, I accept his statement with a certain amount of doubt, proportionate to the natural improbability of the circumstances. But when a gentleman of shadowy appearance and immaterial substance, like yourself, makes a similar assertion, to the effect that he is Algernon Egerton who died two hundred years ago, then I am reluctantly compelled to acknowledge, even at the risk of hurting that gentleman's susceptible feelings, that I can form no proper opinion whatsoever of his probable veracity. Even men, whose habits and constitution I familiarly understand, cannot always be trusted to tell me the truth: and how then can I expect implicitly to believe a being whose very existence contradicts all my previous experiences, and whose properties give the lie to all my scientific conceptions--a being who moves without muscles and speaks without lungs? Look at the possible alternatives, and then you will see that I am guilty of no personal rudeness when I respectfully decline to accept your uncorroborated assertions. You may be Mr. Algernon Egerton, it is true, and your general style of dress and appearance certainly bears out that supposition; but then you may equally well be his Satanic Majesty in person--in which case you can hardly expect me to credit your character for implicit truthfulness. Or again, you may be a mere hallucination of my fancy: I may be suddenly gone mad, or I may be totally drunk,--and now that I look at the bottle, Jim, we must certainly allow that we have fully appreciated the excellent qualities of your capital Glenlivet. In short, a number of alternatives exist, any one of which is quite as probable as the supposition of your being a genuine ghost; which supposition I must therefore lay aside as a mere matter for the exercise of a suspended judgment." I thought Harry had him on the hip, there: and the spectre evidently thought so too; for he rose at once and said rather stiffly, "I fear, sir, you are a confirmed sceptic upon this point, and further argument might only result in one or the other of us losing his temper. Perhaps it would be better for me to withdraw. I have the honour to wish you both a very good evening." He spoke once more with the _hauteur_ and grand mannerism of the old school, besides bowing very low at each of us separately as he wished us good-night. "Stop a moment," said Harry rather hastily. "I wouldn't for the world be guilty of any inhospitality, and least of all to a gentleman, however indefinite in his outline, who has been so anxious to afford us every chance of settling an interesting question as you have. Won't you take a glass of whisky and water before you go, just to show there's no animosity?" "I thank you," answered the apparition, in the same chilly tone; "I cannot accept your kind offer. My visit has already extended to a very unusual length, and I have no doubt I shall be blamed as it is by more reticent ghosts for the excessive openness with which I have conversed upon subjects generally kept back from the living world. Once more," with another ceremonious bow, "I have the honour to wish you a pleasant evening." As he said these words, the fluorescent light brightened for a second, and then faded entirely away. A slightly unpleasant odour also accompanied the departure of our guest. In a moment, spectre and scent alike disappeared; but careful examination with a delicate test exhibited a faint reaction which proved the presence of sulphur in small quantities. The ghost had evidently vanished quite according to established precedent. We filled our glasses once more, drained them off meditatively, and turned into our bedrooms as the clock was striking four. Next morning, Harry and I drew up a formal account of the whole circumstance, which we sent to the Royal Society, with a request that they would publish it in their Transactions. To our great surprise, that learned body refused the paper, I may say with contumely. We next applied to the Anthropological Institute, where, strange to tell, we met with a like inexplicable rebuff. Nothing daunted by our double failure, we despatched a copy of our analysis to the Chemical Society; but the only acknowledgment accorded to us was a letter from the secretary, who stated that "such a sorry joke was at once impertinent and undignified." In short, the scientific world utterly refuses to credit our simple and straightforward narrative; so that we are compelled to throw ourselves for justice upon the general reading public at large. As the latter invariably peruse the pages of "BELGRAVIA," I have ventured to appeal to them in the present article, confident that they will redress our wrongs, and accept this valuable contribution to a great scientific question at its proper worth. It may be many years before another chance occurs for watching an undoubted and interesting Apparition under such favourable circumstances for careful observation; and all the above information may be regarded as absolutely correct, down to five places of decimals. Still, it must be borne in mind that unless an apparition had been scientifically observed as we two independent witnesses observed this one, the grounds for believing in its existence would have been next to none. And even after the clear evidence which we obtained of its immaterial nature, we yet remain entirely in the dark as to its objective reality, and we have not the faintest reason for believing it to have been a genuine unadulterated ghost. At the best we can only say that we saw and heard Something, and that this Something differed very widely from almost any other object we had ever seen and heard before. To leap at the conclusion that the Something was therefore a ghost, would be, I venture humbly to submit, without offence to the Psychical Research Society, a most unscientific and illogical specimen of that peculiar fallacy known as Begging the Question. _RAM DAS OF CAWNPORE._ We Germans do not spare trouble where literary or scientific work is on hand: and so when I was appointed by the University of Breslau to the travelling scholarship in the Neo-Sanskritic languages, I made up my mind at once to spend the next five years of my life in India. I knew already a good deal more Hindi and Urdu than most English officials who have spent twenty years in the country; but I was anxious to perfect my knowledge by practice on the spot, and to acquire thorough proficiency in conversation by intercourse with the people themselves. I therefore went out to India at once, and avoiding the great towns, such as Calcutta or Allahabad, which have been largely anglicised by residents and soldiers, I took up my abode in the little village of Bithoor on the Ganges, a few miles from Cawnpore, celebrated as having been the residence of the Nana Sahib, whom you English always describe as "the most ferocious rebel in the Mutiny." Here I spent four years in daily intercourse with the native gentry, whose natural repugnance to foreigners I soon conquered by invariable respect for their feelings and prejudices. At the end of eighteen months I had so won my way to their hearts that the Muhammedans regarded me as scarcely outside the pale of Islam, while the Hindoos usually addressed me by the religious title of Bhai or brother. Of course, however, the English officials did not look with any favouring eye upon my proceedings, especially as I sometimes felt called upon to remonstrate with them upon their hasty and often ignorant method of dispensing justice. This coolness towards the authorities increased the friendship felt towards me by the native population; and "the European Sahib who is not a Feringhee" became a general adviser of many among the poorer people in their legal difficulties. I merely mention these facts to account for the confidence reposed in me, of which the story I am about to relate is a striking example. I had a syce or groom who passed by the name of Lal Biro. This man was a tall, reserved, white-haired old Hindoo, a Jat by caste, but with a figure which might have been taken for that of a Brahman. His manner to me was always cold and sometimes sullen; and I found it difficult to place myself on the same terms with him as with my other servants. One dark evening, however, during the cold season, I had driven back from Cawnpore with him late at night in a small open trap, and found him far more chatty and communicative than usual. When we reached the bungalow, we discovered that the lights were out, and the house almost shut up, as the servants had fancied that I meant to sleep at the club. Lal Biro accordingly came in with me, and helped me to get my supper ready. Then at my request he sat down cross-legged near the door and continued to give me some reminiscences of the Mutiny which had been interrupted by our arrival. "Yes, Sahib," he said quietly, composing himself on a little mat with a respectful inclination of the body; "I am Ram Das of Cawnpore." I was startled by the confession, for I knew the name of Ram Das as one of the most dangerous petty rebels, on whose head Government had fixed a large price; but I was gratified by the confidence he reposed in me, and I begged him to go on with his story. I write it down now in very nearly the literal English equivalent of his exact words. "Yes, Sahib, it is a long story truly. I will tell you how it all came about. I was a cultivator on the uplands there by Cawnpore, and I had a nice plot of land in Zameendari near the village there, good land with wheat and millet and a little tobacco. My millet was joar, and I got a rupee for eighteen seers, good money. I was well-to-do in those days. No man in the village but spoke well of Ram Das. I had a wife and three children, and a good mud cottage, and I paid my dues regularly to Mahadeo, oil and grain, most properly. The Brahmans said I was a most pious man, and everybody thought well of me. "One day Shaikh Ali, a Muhammedan, a landowner from over the river in Oude, whom I knew in the bazaar at Cawnpore, he met me near the bridge resting. He said to me, 'Well, Ram Das, these are strange things coming to pass. They say the sepoys have mutinied at Meerut, and the Feringhees are to be driven into the sea.' "I said, 'That would not do us Hindoos much good. We should fall under you Musalmans again, and you would have an emperor at Delhi, and he would tax us and trouble us as our fathers tell us the Moguls did before the Feringhees came.' "Shaikh Ali said to me, 'Are you a good man and true?' "I answered, 'I pay my dues regularly and do poojah, but I don't know what you, a Musalman, mean by a good man.' "'Can you keep counsel against the accursed Feringhees?' said he. "'That is an easy thing to do,' I answered. 'They tax us, and number us, and make our salt dear, and mean to take our daughters away from us, for which purpose they have made a census, to see how many young women there are of twelve years and upwards. Besides, they slaughter cows the same as you do.' "'Listen to me, Ram Das,' he said, 'and keep your counsel. Do you know that they have tried to make all the sepoys lose caste and become like dogs and Pariahs, by putting cow's grease on the cartridges?' "'I know it,' I replied, 'because my brother is a sepoy at Allahabad, and he sent me word of it by a son of our neighbour.' "'Did we Musalmans ever do so?' he asked again. "'I never heard it,' said I: 'but indeed I am ignorant of all these things, for I am not an old man, and I have only heard imperfectly from my elders. Still, I don't know that you ever tried to make us lose caste.' "'Well, Ram Das,' said the Shaikh, 'listen to what we propose. The sepoys from Meerut have gone to Delhi and have proclaimed the King as Emperor. But now the Nana of Bithoor has something to say about it. If the Nana were made king, would you fight for him?' "'Certainly,' said I, 'for he is a Mahratta and a good Hindoo. He should by rights be Peshwa of the Mahrattas, and hold power even over your emperor at Delhi.' "'That is quite true,' the Shaikh answered. 'The Peshwa was always the right hand and director of the Emperor. If we put the Mogul on the throne once more, the Nana would be his real sovereign, and Hindoos and Musalmans alike would rejoice in the change.' "'But suppose we fall out among ourselves!' "'What does that matter in the end?' he answered. 'Let us first drive out the accursed Feringhees, and then, if Allah prosper us, we may divide the land as we like between the two creeds. We are all sons of the soil, Hindoo and Musalman alike, and we can live together in peace. But these hateful Feringhees, they come across the sea, they overrun all India, they tax us all alike, they treat your Sindiah and Holkar as they treat our Nizam and our king of Oude, they take away our slaves, they tax our food, they pollute your sacred rivers, they destroy your castes, and as for us, they take their women to picnic in our mosques, as I have seen myself at Agra. Shall we not first drive them into the sea?' "'You say well,' I answered, 'and I shall ask more of this matter at Bithoor.' "That was the first that I heard of it all. Next day, the village was all in commotion. It was said that the Nana had called on all good Hindoos to help him to clear out the Feringhees. I left my hut and my children, and I came to Bithoor here. Then they gave me a rifle, and told me I should march with them to Cawnpore to kill the Feringhees. There were not many of the dogs, and the gods were on our side; and when we had killed them all we should have the whole of India for the Hindoos, with no land-tax or salt-tax, and there should be no more cattle slaughtered nor no more interference with the pilgrims at Hurdwar. It was a grand day that, and the Nana, dressed out in all the Peshwa's jewels, looked like a very king. "Well, we went to Cawnpore and began to besiege the entrenchments which Wheeler Sahib had thrown up round the cantonment. We had great guns and many men, both sepoys and volunteers. Inside, the Feringhees had only a few, and not much artillery. We all thought that the gods had given us the Feringhees to slay, and that there would be no more of them left at all. "For twenty days we continued besieging, and the Feringhees got weaker and weaker. They had no food, and scarcely any water. At last Wheeler Sahib sent to tell the Nana that he would give himself up, if the Nana would spare their lives. The Nana was a merciful man, and he said, 'I might go on and take the entrenchment, and kill you all if I wished; but to save time, because I want to get away and join the others, I will let you off.' So he took all the money in the treasury, and the guns, and promised to provide boats to take them all down to Allahabad. "I was standing about near one of our guns that day, when Chunder Lal, a Brahman in the Nana's troops, came up to me and said, 'Well, Ram Das, what do you think of this?' "'I think,' said I, 'that it is a sin and a shame, after we have broken down the hospital, and starved out the Feringhees, to let them go down the river to Allahabad, to strengthen the garrison that pollutes that holy city. For I hear that they do all kinds of wrong there, and insult the Brahmans, and the bathers, and the sacred fig-tree. And if these men go and join them, the garrison will be stronger, and they will be able to hold out longer against the people, which may the gods avert!' "'So I think too, Ram Das,' said he; 'and for my part, I would try to prevent their going.' "A little later, we went down to the river, by the Nana's orders. There some men had got boats together, and were putting the Feringhees into them. It was getting dark, and we all went down to guard them. A few of them had got into the boats; the rest were on the bank. I can see it all now: the white men with their proud looks abashed, going meekly into the boats, and the women stepping, all afraid and shrinking from the black faces--shrinking from us as if we were unclean and they would lose caste by touching us. Though they were so frightened, they were proud still. Then three guns went off somewhere in the camp. Chunder Lal was near me, and he said to me, 'That is the signal for us to fire. The Nana ordered me to fire when I heard those guns.' I don't know if it was true: perhaps the Nana ordered it, perhaps Chunder Lal told a lie: but I never could find out the truth about it, for they blew Chunder Lal from the guns at Cawnpore afterwards, and I have never seen the Nana since to ask him. At any rate, I levelled my musket and fired. I hit an officer Sahib, and wounded him, not mortally. In a moment there was a great report, and I looked round, and saw all our men firing. I don't know if they had the word of command, but I think not. I think they all saw me fire, and fired because I did, and because they thought it a shame to let the Feringhees escape; as though the head man of a village should entrap a tiger, a man-eater that had killed many cultivators in their dal-fields, and then should let it go. If a headman ordered the villagers to loose it from the trap, do you think they would obey him? No, and if he loosed it himself, they would take muskets and sticks and weapons of all kinds, and kill the man-eater at once. That is what we did with the Feringhees. "It was a terrible sight, and I did not like to see it. Some of them leapt into the water and were drowned. Others swam away madly, like wild fowl, and we shot at them as they swam; and then they dived, and when they came up again, we fired at them again, and the water was red with their blood. I hit one man on the shoulder, and broke his arm, but still he swam on with his other arm, till somebody put a bullet through his head, and he sank. I ran into the water, as did many others, and we followed them down until all the swimmers were picked off. Some of the boats crossed the river: but there was a regiment waiting on the Oude shore--some said by accident, others that the Nana had posted it there--and the sepoys hacked them all to pieces as they tried to escape. It was a dreadful sight, and I am an older man now, and do not like to think of it: but I was younger then, and our blood was hot with fighting, and we thought we were going to drive the Feringhees out of the country, and that the gods would be well pleased with our day's work. "Some boats got away a little way, but they were afterwards sent back. The women and children, some of them badly wounded, we took back into Cawnpore. We put them in the Bibi's house, near the Assembly Rooms. Then in a few days, the others who were sent back from Futteypore arrived, and the Nana said, 'What shall I do with them?' Everybody said, 'Shoot them:' so we took out all the men the same day and shot them at once. The women and children the Nana spared, because he was a humane man; and he sent them to the others in the Bibi's house. There they were well treated; and though they had not punkahs, and tattis, and cow's flesh, as formerly, yet they got better rations than any of the Nana's own soldiers: for the Feringhees, like all you Europeans, Sahib, are very luxurious, and will not live off rice or dal and a little ghee like other people. You have conquered every place in the world, from Ceylon to Cashmere, and so you have got luxurious, and live off wheaten bread, and cow's flesh, and wine, and many such ungodly things. But the rest of the world think it a great thing if they have ghee to their rice. "After a fortnight the Nana's troops were defeated at Futteypore, and it was said that the Feringhee ladies were sending letters to the army. Then the Nana was very angry. He said, 'I have spared these women's lives, and yet they are sending news to my enemies. I will tell you what I will do: I will put them all to death.' So he gave word to have them shot. I was one of the guards at the Bibi's house, and I got orders to shoot them. Then we all tried to bring them out in front of the house; but they would not come; so we had to go in and put an end to them there with swords and bayonets. Poor things! they shrieked piteously; and I was sorry for them, because they were some of them young and pretty, and it is not the women's fault if the Feringhees come here, for the Feringhee ladies hate India, and will all go away again across the water if they can get a chance. And then there were the children! One poor lady clung to my knees and begged hard for her daughter: but I had to obey orders, so I cut her down. It was very sad. But then, the Feringhee ladies are even prouder than the men, and they hate us Hindoos. They would not care if they killed a thousand of us if their little fingers ached. Look how they make us salaam, and punish us for small faults, and compel us to work punkahs, and to run on foot after their carriages, and insult our gods. Ah, they are a cruel, proud race. They are lower than the lowest Sudra, and yet they will treat a twice-born Brahman like a dog. "We threw all the bodies into the well at Cawnpore where now they have put up an image of one of their gods--a cold, white god, with two wings--to avenge their death. Then there was great joy in Cawnpore. We had killed the last of the Feringhees, and India should be our own. Soon, we might make the Nana into a real Peshwa, and turn against the Musalmans, and put down all slaughtering of cattle altogether, as the Rani did at Jhansi. We should have no more land-tax to pay, for the Musalmans should pay all the taxes, as is just: but the Hindoos should have their land for nothing, and live upon chupatties and ghee and honey every day. Ah, that was the grandest day that was ever seen in Cawnpore! "But that was not the end of it. In the mysterious providence of the all-wise gods it was otherwise ordained. A few days before all this, I was standing about in the bazaar, when I met a jemadar. He said to me, 'So the Feringhees are marching from Allahabad!' "'The Feringhees!' I said: 'why, no, we have killed them all off out of India, thanks be to the gods. At Delhi they are all killed, and at Meerut, and at Cawnpore here, and I believe everywhere but at Allahabad and at Calcutta.' "'Ram Das,' he answered, 'you are a child; you know nothing. Do you think the Feringhees are so few? They are swarming across the water like locusts across the Ganges. In a few months, they will all come from where they have been helping the Sultan of Roum against the other Christians, and they will make the whole Doab into a desert, as they made Rohilcund in the days of Hostein Sahib.[1] Shall I tell you the news from Delhi?' "'Yes,' I said, 'tell me by all means, for I don't believe the Feringhees will ever again hold rule in India, the land of the all-wise gods.' In those days, Sahib, I was very foolish. I did not know that the Feringhees were in number like the green parrots, and that they could send countless shiploads across the water as easily as we could send a cargo of dal down the river to Benares. "'Well, then,' he said, 'Delhi has been besieged, and before long it will be taken. And the Feringhees have sent up men from Calcutta who have reached Allahabad, and are now on the march for Cawnpore. When they come, they will take us all, and kill the Nana, and there will be an end of the Hindoos for ever. They are going to make us all into Christians by force, baptising us with unclean water, and making Brahmans and Pariahs eat together of cow's flesh, and destroying all caste, and modesty, and religion altogether.' "'They will do all these things, doubtless,' I replied, 'if they can succeed in catching us: but it is impossible. The Feringhees are but a handful: they could never have ruled us if it were not for the sepoys. They had all the muskets and the ammunition, and they kept them from us. But now that the sepoys have mutinied, the Feringhees are but a few officers and half-a-dozen regiments. And I cannot believe that the gods would allow men like them, who are worse than Musalmans, and have no caste, to conquer us who are the best blood in India, Brahmans, and Jats, and Mahrattas.' "But the jemadar laughed at me. 'I tell you,' he said, 'this rebellion is all child's play. For I have myself been across the water once, as an officer's servant, and have been to England, and to their great town, London. It is so great that a man can hardly walk across it from end to end in a day; and if you were to put Allahabad or Cawnpore down in its midst, the people would not know that any new thing had come about. They have ships in their rivers as thick as the canes in a sugar-field; and iron roads with cars drawn by steam horses. They have so many men that they could overrun all India as easily as the people of Cawnpore could overrun Bihtoor. And so when I hear their guns outside the town, I will run away to them, and I advise you to do so too.' "I didn't believe him at the time; but a few days afterwards, I found out that the Feringhees were really marching from Allahabad. And when we killed the ladies, they were almost at the door. They fought like demons, and we know that the demons must all be on their side. Many times we went out to meet them, but in four separate battles they cut our men to pieces like sheep. At last, just after we had got rid of the ladies, they got to Cawnpore. "Then there was no end of the confusion. The Nana got frightened, and fled away. We blew up the magazine, so that they might not have powder; and the Feringhees came at once into the town. There never were people so savage or angry. The sight of the well and the Bibi's house seemed to drive them wild. They were more like tigers than human beings. Every sepoy whom they caught they shot at once for vengeance, because that is their religion: and many who were not sepoys, and who had not borne arms against them, they shot on false evidence. Every man who had a grudge against another told the Feringhees that their enemy had helped to cut down the ladies; and the Feringhees were so greedy for blood that they believed it all, and shot them down at once. So much blood was never shed in Cawnpore: for one life they took ten. Then we knew it was all true what the jemadar had said, and that they would take the whole Doab back, and put back the land-tax, and the salt-tax; and we thought too that they would make us all into Christians; but _that_ they have not done, for so long as they get their taxes, and have high pay and good bungalows, and cow's flesh and beer, they don't care about, or reverence any religion, not even their own. For we Hindoos respect our fakeers, and even the Musalmans respect their pirs; but the Feringhees think as little of the missionaries as we do ourselves, and care more for dances than for their churches. That is why they have not compelled us to become Christians. "All the time the Feringhees were in Cawnpore, I lay hid in the jemadar's house. He was a good man, though he had gone over to the Feringhees as soon as they came in sight: and nobody suspected his house, because he was now on their side, and had given them news of all that took place in the town when we killed the officers and the ladies. So I was quite safe there, and got dal and water every day, and was in no danger at all. "Presently, the Feringhees moved off again, abandoning Cawnpore, because Havelock Sahib, who was the most terrible of their generals, wanted to go on to Lucknow. There the Musalmans of Oude had risen and were besieging the Presidency, with all the soldiers and officers. I would not go to Oude, because I did not care to fight for Musalmans, preferring rather to wait the chance of the Nana coming back; for only a Mahratta could now recover the kingdom for the Hindoos; and the Musalmans are almost as bad as the Feringhees themselves. In a short time, however, the Gwalior men came. They were good men, the Gwalior men: for though Sindiah, their rajah, had commanded them not to fight, they would not desert the other Hindoos, when there were Feringhees to be killed: and they disobeyed Sindiah, and rebelled, and so I joined them gladly. They pitched only fifteen miles from Cawnpore, and there I went out and enlisted with them. "By-and-by most of the Gwalior men got frightened, and went back again. Then things became very bad. A few of us marched southward, and hid in the jungles that slope down towards the Jumna. We were very frightened, because there are tigers in that jungle: and two Gwalior men were eaten by the tigers. But soon some Feringhees from Etawa heard of our being there, and they came out to stalk us. It was just like shooting _nil-ghae_. They came on horseback, and closed all round the jungle where we were. Then they crept on into the jungle, and we crept away from them. Every now and then they drove a man into an open space; and then they all shouted like fiends, and shot at him. When they hit him and rolled him over, they laughed, and shouted louder still. I was hidden under some low bushes; and two Feringhees passed close to me, one on each side of the bushes; but they did not see me. Soon after, they started a man who had been a sepoy, and he ran back towards my bushes. I never said a word. Then they all fired at him, and killed him: but one bullet hit me on the arm, and went through the flesh of my arm, and partly splintered the bone. But still I said nothing. All day long I lay moaning to myself very low, and the Feringhees scoured all the jungle, and killed everybody but me, and went away saying to themselves that they had had a good day's sport. For they hunted us just as if we were antelopes. "I lay for a fortnight, wounded, in the jungle, and had nothing to eat but Mahua berries. I was feverish and wandered in my mind: but at the end of a fortnight I could crawl out, and managed to drag along my wounded arm. Then I went to the nearest village, and gave out that I was a cultivator who had been wounded by the Gwalior men in trying to defend a _tuhseelie_[2] for the Feringhees. For that, they took great care of me, and sent me on to Cawnpore. "I was not afraid to go back to the town, for my own people would not know me again. In that fortnight I had grown from a young man into the man you see me; only I was older-looking then than I am now, for I have got younger in the Sahib's service. My hair had turned white, and so had my beard, which was longer and more matted than before. My forehead was wrinkled, and my cheeks had fallen away. As soon as I had got to Cawnpore, I went straight to the jemadar's house, to see if he would recognize me; but he did not: for even my voice was hoarser and harsher than of old, through fever and exposure. So I went and told my story to the Feringhee doctor, how I had been wounded in keeping the tuhseelie for his people; and he tended my arm, and made it well again. For though the Feringhees are savage like tigers to their enemies, if you befriend them, they will treat you well. In that they are better than the Musalmans. "Soon after, I went out to the parade ground, because I heard there was to be a dreadful sight. They were going to blow the rebels they had taken, from the guns. I went out and looked on. Then they took all the men, Brahmans and Chumars alike, and broke caste, and tied them each to a gun. I could not have done it, though I cut down the Feringhee ladies; but they did it, and made a light matter of it. Then they fired the guns, and in a whiff their bodies were all blown away utterly, so that there was nothing left of them. This they did so as utterly to destroy the rebels, leaving neither body nor soul, but annihilating them altogether, which is worse than death. They would have done it to me, if they had caught me. Do you wonder that I hate the Feringhees, Sahib? Why, they did it even to the twice-born Brahmans, let alone a Jat. The gods will avenge it on them. "Then I went out to look at my plot of land. The Feringhees knew of me from many traitors, some of whom had given up my name to save themselves from being blown away--and no wonder. They had seized my plot, and sold it to another man, a zameendar, a Kayath in Cawnpore, who had made money by supplying them with food--the curse of all the gods upon him! And as for my wife and children, they had gone wandering out, and I have never seen them since. My wife was with child, and she went into Cawnpore, and thence elsewhere, I know not where, and starved to death, I suppose, or died in some other shameful way. But one of my daughters a missionary got, and sent her to Meerut to a school; and there they are teaching her to be a Christian, and to hate her own gods and her own people, and to love the Feringhees who suck the blood of India, and grind down the poor with taxes, and dispossess the Thakurs, who ought, of course, by right to own the land. This much I learned by inquiring at Cawnpore; but how my wife died, or whether they killed her, or what, that I have never been able to learn. "So that was the end of it all. The Nana was hidden away somewhere up Nepaul way; and the Feringhees had got back Lucknow; and all over the Doab and the Punjab they were established again, and the hopes of the people were all broken. And I had lost my land, and my wife, and my children, and had nothing to live upon or to live for. And we had not driven out the accursed strangers, after all, but on the contrary they made themselves stronger than ever, and sent more soldiers, as the jemadar had prophesied, and put down the Company, who used to be their rajah, and sent up a Maharani instead, who is now Empress of India. And they made new taxes and a new census and all sorts of imposts. But since that time they have been more afraid of us, and are not so insolent to the temples, or the pilgrims, or to the sacred monkeys. And I came to Bithoor, and became a syce, and I have been a syce ever since. That is all I know about the Mutiny, Sahib." The old man stopped suddenly, having told all his story in a dull, monotonous voice, with little feeling and no dramatic display. I have tried to reproduce it just as he said it. There was no passion, no fierceness, no cruelty in his manner; but simply a deep, settled, uniform tone of hatred to the English. It was the only time I had ever heard the story of the Mutiny from a native point of view, and I give it as I heard it, without mitigating aught either of its horror or its truth. "And you are not afraid of telling me all this?" I asked. He shook his head. "The Sahib has a white face," he answered, "but his heart is black." "And the Nana?" I inquired. "Do you know if he is living still?" His eyes flashed fire for the first time since he had begun. "Ay," he cried; "he _is_ living. That I know from many trusty friends. And he will come again whenever there is trouble between the Feringhees and the other Christians: and then we shall have no quarrelling among ourselves; but Sindiah, and Holkar, and the Nizam, and the Oude people, and even the Bengalis will rise up together; and we will cut every Feringhee's throat in all India, and the gods will give us the land for ever after.... Good night, Sahib: my salaam to you." And he glided like a serpent from the room. FOOTNOTES: [1] Warren Hastings. [2] Village Treasury. 
4231	----	Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. THE MALADY OF THE CENTURY BY MAX NORDAU Author of "THE COMEDY OF SENTIMENT," "HOW WOMEN LOVE," Etc., Etc. CONTENTS. I. Mountain and Forest II. Vanity of Vanities III. Heroes IV. It was not to be V. A Lay Sermon VI. An Idyll VII. Symposium VIII. Dark Days IX. Results X. A Seaside Romance XI. In the Horselberg XII. Tannhauser's Plight XIII. Consummation XIV. Uden Horizo THE MALADY OF THE CENTURY CHAPTER I. MOUNTAIN AND FOREST. "Come, you fellows, that's enough joking. This defection of yours, melancholy Eynhardt, combines obstinacy with wisdom, like Balaam's ass! Well! may you rest in peace. And now let us be off." The glasses, filled with clear Affenthaler, rang merrily together, the smiling landlord took up his money, and the company rose noisily from the wooden bench, overturning it with a bang. The round table was only proof against a similar accident on account of its structure, which some one with wise forethought had so designed that only the most tremendous shaking could upset its equilibrium. The boisterous group consisted of five or six young men, easily recognized as students by their caps with colored bands, the scars on their faces, and their rather swaggering manner. They slung their knapsacks on, stepped through the open door of the little arbor where they had been sitting, on to the highroad, and gathered round the previous speaker. He was a tall, good-looking young man, with fair hair, laughing blue eyes, and a budding mustache. "Then you are determined, Eynhardt, that you won't go any further?" asked he, with an accent which betrayed him as a Rhinelander. "Yes, I am determined," Eynhardt answered. "A groan for the worthless fellow; but more in sorrow than in anger," said the tall one to the others. They groaned three times loudly, all together, while the Rhinelander gravely beat time. An unpracticed ear would very likely have failed to note the shade of feeling implied in the noise; but he appeared satisfied. "Well, just as you like. No compulsion. Freedom is the best thing in life--including the freedom to do stupid things." "Perhaps he knows of some cave where he is going to turn hermit," said one of the group. "Or he has a little business appointment, and we should be in the way," said another. They laughed, and the Rhinelander went on: "Well! moon away here, and we will travel on. But before all things be true to yourself. Don't forget that the whole world is as much a phantom as the brown Black Forest maiden. And now farewell; and think a great deal about us phantom people, who will always keep up the ghost of a friendship for you." The young man whom he addressed shook him and the others by the hand, and they all lifted their caps with a loud "hurrah," and struck out vigorously on the road. The sentiment of the farewell, and the tender speeches, had been disposed of in the inn, so they now parted gayly, in youth's happy fullness of life and hope for the future, and without any of that secret melancholy which Time the immeasurable distils into every parting. Hardly had they turned their backs on the friend they left behind them when they began to sing, "Im Schwarzen Walfisch zu Askalon," exaggerating the melancholy of the first half of the tune, and the gayety of the second, passing riotously away behind a turn of the road, their song becoming fainter and fainter in the distance. This little scene, which took place on an August afternoon in the year 1869, had for its theater the highroad leading from Hausach to Triberg, just at the place where a footpath descends into the valley to the little town of Hornberg. The persons represented were young men who had lately graduated at Heidelberg, and who were taking a holiday together in the Black Forest, recovering from the recent terrors of examination in the fragrant air of the pine woods. As far off as Offenburg they had traveled by the railway in the prosaic fashion of commercial travelers, from there they had tramped like Canadian backwoodsmen, and reached Hasslach--twelve miles as the crow flies. After resting for a day they set out at the first cockcrow, and before the noontide heat reached the lovely Kinzigthal, which lies all along the way from Hausach to Hornberg. Over the door of a wayside inn a signboard, festooned with freshly-cut carpenter's shavings, beckoned invitingly to them, and here the young men halted. The view from this place was particularly beautiful. The road made a kind of terrace halfway up the mountain, on one side rising sheer up for a hundred feet to its summit, thickly wooded all the way, on the other side sloping to the wide valley, where the Gutach flowed, at times tumbling over rough stones, or again spreading itself softly like oil, through flat meadow land. Below lay the little town of Hornberg, with its crooked streets and alleys, its stately square, framing an old church, several inns, and prosperous-looking houses and shops. Beyond the valley rose a high, steep hill, with a white path climbing in zigzags through its wooded sides. On the summit a white house with many windows was perched, seeming to hang perpendicularly a thousand feet above the valley. Its whitewashed walls stood out sharply against the background of green pine trees, clearly visible for many miles round. A conspicuous inscription in large black letters showed that this audacious and picturesque house was the Schloss hotel, and a glance at the gray ruined tower which rose behind it gave at once a meaning to the name. Behind the hill, with its outline softened by trees and encircled by the blue sky, were ridges of other hills in parallel lines meeting the horizon, alternately sharp-edged and rounded, stretching from north to south. They seemed like some great sea, with majestic wave-hills and wave-valleys; behind the first appeared a second, then a third, then a fourth, as far as one's eye could see; each one of a distinct tone of color, and of all the shades from the deepest green through blue and violet to vaporous pale gray. The sight of this picture had decided Wilhelm Eynhardt not to go any further. The others had resolved to push on to Triberg the same day, and above all, not to turn back till they had bathed in the Boden-see. As every persuasion was powerless to alter Eynhardt's decision, they separated, and the travelers started on their walk to Triberg. Eynhardt, however, stayed at Hornberg, meaning to climb to the Schloss hotel again from the other side. Wilhelm Eynhardt was a young man of twenty-four, tall and slim of figure, with a strikingly handsome face. His eyes were almond-shaped, not large but very dark, with much charm of expression. The finely-marked eyebrows served by their raven blackness to emphasize the whiteness of the forehead, which was crowned by an abundant mass of curling black hair. His fresh complexion had still the bloom of early youth, and would hardly have betrayed his age, if it had not been shaded by a dark brown silky beard, which had never known a razor. It was an entirely uncommon type, recalling in profile, Antinous, and the full face reminding one of the St. Sebastian of Guido Roni in the museum of the Capitol; a face of the noblest manhood, without a single coarse feature. His manner, although quiet, gave the impression of keen enthusiasm, or, more rightly speaking, of unworldly inspiration. All who saw him were powerfully attracted, but half-unconsciously felt a slight doubt whether even so fine a specimen of manhood was quite fitly organized and equipped for the strife of existence. At the university he had been given the nickname of Wilhelmina, on account of a certain gentleness and delicacy of manner, and because he neither drank nor smoked. Such jokes, not ill-natured, were directed against his outward appearance, but had a shade of meaning as regards his character. As Wilhelm walked into the courtyard of the Schloss hotel he stopped a moment to regain his breath. Before him was the stately new house, whose white-painted walls and many windows had looked down on the high-road; to the left stood the round tower inclosed within a ruined wall, shading an airy lattice-work building, in which on a raised wooden floor stood a table and some benches. Several people, evidently guests at the hotel, sat there drinking wine and beer, and eying the newcomer curiously. The burly landlord, in village dress, emerged from the open door of the cellar in the tower, and wished him "good-day." He had a thick beard and a sunburned face, with good-natured blue eyes. With a searching glance at the young man's cap and knapsack, he waited for Wilhelm to speak. "Can I have a room looking on to the valley?" asked the latter. "Not at this moment," the landlord answered, clearing his throat loudly; "there is hardly a room free here, and that only in the top story. But to-morrow, or the day after, many people are leaving, and then I can give you what you want." Wilhelm's face clouded with disappointment, but only for a moment, then he said: "Very well, I will stay." "Luggage?" said the landlord, in his short, unceremonious way. "My luggage is at Haslach. It can come up to-morrow." "Bertha," called the landlord, in such a strident tone that the mountains echoed the sound. The visitors drinking in the kiosk smiled; they were well accustomed to the man. A neat red-cheeked girl appeared in the doorway. "Number 47," shouted the landlord, and went off to his other duties. Bertha led the new guest up three flights of uncarpeted wooden staircase, down a long passage to a light, clean, but sparely-furnished room. The girl told him the hours of meals, brought some water, and left him alone. He hung his knapsack on a hook on the wall, opened the little window, and gazed long at the view. Underneath was the open space where he had been standing, to the left the tower, and behind, over the ruined walls, he could see the old, neglected castle yard full of weeds and heaps of rubbish--a picture of decay and desolation. "I have chosen well," thought Wilhelm, for he loved solitude, and promised himself enjoyable hours of wandering in the ruins in company with luxuriant flowers and singing birds. He barely gave himself time to freshen his face with cold water, and to change his thick walking shoes for lighter ones; immediately hurrying out to make acquaintance with the castle. Before he could get there he had first to find in the tumbledown wall a hole large enough to enable him to get through. He shortly found himself in a fairly large square space, the uneven ground being formed of a mass of rubbish, mounds of earth, and deep holes. Woods protected the greater part of it, most of the trees stunted and choked by undergrowth and shrubs, with occasionally a high, solitary pine tree, and near to the west and south walls half-withered oaks and mighty beeches stood thickly. Here and there from the bushes peeped up bare pieces of crumbling stone and broken pieces of mortar, in whose crevices hung long grasses, and where yellow, white, and red flowers nestled. Climbing, stumbling, and slipping, he worked his way through this wilderness, the length and breath of which he wished to inspect so as to discover a place where he could rest quietly, when he suddenly came to a precipitous fall of the ground, concealed from him by a thick curtain of leaves. Startled and taken by surprise, the ground seemed to him to sink under his feet. He instinctively caught hold of some branches to keep himself from falling, pricking his hands with the thorns, and breaking a slender bough, finally rolling in company with dust and earth, torn-out bushes and stone, down a steep declivity of several feet to a little grass plot at the bottom. He heard a slight scream near him, and a girlish form sprang up and cried in an anxious voice: "Have you hurt yourself?" Wilhelm picked himself up as quickly as he could, brushed the earth from his clothes, and taking off his cap said, "Thanks, not much. Only a piece of awkwardness. But I am afraid I have frightened you?" he added. "A little bit; but that is all right." They looked at each other for the first time, and the lady laughed, while Wilhelm blushed deeply. She stopped again directly, blushed also, and dropped her eyes. She was a girl in the first bloom of youth, of particularly fine and well-made figure, with a beautiful face; two dimples in her cheeks giving her a roguish expression, and a pair of lively brown eyes. A healthy color was in her cheeks, and in the well-cut, seductive little mouth. Her luxuriant, golden-brown hair, in the fashion of the day, was brushed back in long curls. She had as her only ornament a pale gold band in her hair, and wore a simple dress of light-flowered material, the high waistband fitting close to the girlish figure. Conventionality began to assert its rights over nature, and the girl too felt confused at finding herself in the middle of a conversation with a strange man, suddenly shot down at her very feet. Wilhelm understood and shared her embarrassment, and bowing, he said: "As no doubt we are at the same house, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Wilhelm Eynhardt. I come from Berlin, and took up my abode an hour ago at the Schloss hotel." "From Berlin," said the girl quickly; "then we are neighbors. That is very nice. And where do you live in Berlin, if I may ask?" "In Dorotheenstrasse." "Of course you do," and a clear laugh deepened the shadow of her dimples. "Why 'of course?'" asked Wilhelm, rather surprised. "Why, because that is our Latin quarter, and as a student--you are a student, I suppose?" "Yes, and no. In the German sense I am no longer a student, for I took my degree a year ago; but the word in English is better and truer, as there 'student' is used where we should say scholar (gelehrter). Scholars we are, not only learners. In the English sense then I am a student, and hope to remain so all my life." "Ah, you speak English," she said, quickly catching at the word; "that is charming. I am tremendously fond of English, and am quite accustomed to it, as I spent a great part of my time in England when I was very young. I have been told that I have a slight English accent in speaking German. Do you think so?" "My ear is not expert enough for that," said Wilhelm apologetically. "My friends," she chattered on, "nearly all speak French; but I think English is much more uncommon. Fluent English in a German is always proof of good education. Don't you think so?" "Not always," said Wilhem frankly; "it might happen that one had worked as a journeyman in America." The girl turned up her nose a little at this rather unkind observation, but Wilhelm went on: "With your leave I would rather keep to our mother-tongue. To speak in a foreign language with a fellow-country-woman without any necessity would be like acting a charade, and a very uncomfortable thing." "I think a charade is very amusing," she answered; "but just as you like. Opportunities of speaking English are not far to seek. Most of the visitors at the hotel are English. I dare say you have noticed it already. But they are not the best sort. They are common city people, who even drop their h's, but who play at being lords on the Continent. Of course I have learned already to tell a 'gentleman' from a 'snob.'" Wilhelm smiled at the self-conscious importance with which she spoke. His eyes wandered over her beautiful hair, to the tender curve of her slender neck and beautiful shoulders, while she, feeling perfectly secure again, settled herself comfortably. Her seat was a projecting piece of stone, which had been converted by a soft covering of moss into a delightful resting-place. An overhanging bush shaded it pleasantly. In front lay a corner of the castle; across a smooth piece of turf and through a wide gap in the wall they caught a view of the mountains, as if painted by some artist's brush--a perfect composition which would have put the crowning touch to his fame. The girl had been trying to make a sketch of the view in a well-worn sketchbook which lay near. "You have given a sufficient excuse for your sketches by your feeling for natural beauty," remarked Wilhelm. "May I look at the page?" "Oh," she said, somewhat confused, "my will is of the best, but I can do so little," and she hesitatingly gave him her album. He took it and also the pencil, looked alternately at the mountains and on the page of the book, and without asking leave began to improve upon it, strengthening a line here, lightening a shadow and giving greater breadth, and then growing deeply interested in his work, he sat down without ceremony on the mossy bank, took a piece of india-rubber, and erasing here, adding lines there, sometimes laying in a shadow, giving strength to the foreground and lightness to the background, he ended by making a really pretty and artistic sketch. The girl had watched him wonderingly, and said as he returned the album, "But you are a great artist," and without letting him speak she went on, "and by your appearance I had taken you for a student! But you are not in the least like a student, nor in fact like a German either. I have often met Indian princes in society in London, and I think you are very much like them." Wilhelm smiled. "There is a grain of truth in what you say, although you overrate it a little. A great artist I certainly am not, nor even a little one, but I have always observed much and painted a good deal myself, and originally I thought of devoting myself to an artist's career; and if I have nothing in common with Indian princes, and am merely a plebeian German, I very likely have a drop of Indian blood in my veins." "Really," she said, with curiosity. "Yes, my mother was a Russian German living in Moscow, and whose father, a Thuringian, had married a Russian girl of gypsy descent. Through this grandmother, whom I never knew, I am related by remote genealogical descent to Indians. But you do not look like a German either, with your beautiful dark hair and eyebrows." She took this personal compliment in good part as she answered quickly: "There is some reason for that too. Just as you have Indian, I have French blood in my veins. My father's mother was a Colonial, her maiden name was Du Binache." So they gossiped on like old acquaintances. Young and beautiful as they were, they found the deepest pleasure in one another, and the cold feeling of strangeness melted as by a charm. They were awakened to the consciousness that half an hour earlier neither of them had an idea of the other's existence, by the appearance of a girl in the gap in the wall, who seemed very much surprised at the sight of their evident intimacy. The young lady stood up rather hastily and went a few steps toward the newcomer, a servant-maid, who had brought a cloak for her mistress, and took charge of her album, sunshade, and large straw hat. "Is it so late already?" she said, with a naive surprise, which left no room for doubt even to Wilhelm's modesty. "Certainly, fraulein," said the maid, pointing with her hand to the distant mountain, whose peaks were already clothed with the orange hue of twilight; then she looked alternately at her young mistress and the strange gentleman, whose handsome face she inwardly noted. "Do you think of making any stay here?" asked the young lady of Wilhelm, who followed slowly. "Yes, certainly," he answered at once. "Then we may become good friends. My parents will be glad to make your acquaintance. I did not tell you before that my father is Herr Ellrich." As Wilhelm merely bowed, without seeming to recognize the name, she said rather sharply, and slightly raising her voice: "I thought as you came from Berlin you would be sure to know my father's name--Councilor Ellrich, Vice-President of the 'Seehandlung.'" The name and title made very little impression on Wilhelm, but his politeness brought forth an "Ah!" which satisfied Fraulein Ellrich. They left the ruins by an easy path which Wilhelm had not noticed before, and walked together to the entrance of the hotel, where she took leave of him by an inclination of her head. He betook himself to his room in a dream, and while he recalled to his mind the picture of her beautiful face, and the clear ring of her voice, he thought how grateful he was to this chance, that not only had he become acquainted with the girl, but that he had avoided in such a glorious fashion the discomfort of a formal introduction. Also Wilhelm knew himself well, and felt sure that, badly endowed as he was for forming new acquaintances, he could never have become friends with Fraulein Ellrich apart from the accident of his fall in the castle yard. Dinner was served at separate tables where single guests might take it as they pleased, and Wilhelm was absentminded and dreamy when he sat down. He scarcely glanced at the large, cool dining-room, ornamented with engravings of portraits of the Grand Dukes of Baden and their wives. Six large windows looked into the valley of the Gutach with its little town of Hornberg, and the mountains lying beyond. He hardly noticed the rather silent people at the other tables, in which the English element predominated. He had come in purposely late in the hope of finding Fraulein Ellrich already there. She was not present; but he was not kept long in suspense before a waiter opened the door, and the lovely girl appeared accompanied by a stately gentleman and a stout lady. They seemed to be known to the servants, for as soon as they appeared the headwaiter and his subordinates rushed toward them, and with many bows and scrapes took their wraps from them and ushered them to their places. Wilhelm, who possessed very little knowledge of society, was somewhat at a loss. Ought he to recognize the young lady? If he followed his inclination, he certainly would do so. But her parents! They seemed to be cold and reserved-looking. Happily all fell out for the best. The Ellrichs walked straight to the table where he was sitting, and in a moment Wilhelm was greeting his lovely acquaintance with a low bow. Her quick eyes had already recognized him from the doorway. She returned his greeting smiling and blushing, and as her father nodded kindly, the ice was broken. Wilhelm introduced himself, and the councilor gave him the tips of his fingers and said: "If you have no objection we will sit at your table." His wife, who gazed at Wilhelm through a gold "pince-nez" with hardly concealed surprise, took her place next to him; on the other side sat her husband, and opposite the daughter's face smiled at him. The councilor was a well-preserved man of about fifty, of good height, dressed in a well-made gray traveling suit, with a light gray silk tie adorned with a pin of black pearl. His closely-cut hair was very thin, and had almost disappeared from the top of his head. His chin was clean-shaven, but his well-brushed whiskers and closely-cut mustache showed signs of gray. His light blue eyes were cold and rather tired-looking, at the corners of the mouth were evident signs of indolence, and his whole appearance gave an impression of self-consciousness mixed with indifference toward the rest of mankind; his wife, stout, blooming, and tranquil, appeared to be a kindly soul. The conversation opened trivially on the circumstances of Wilhelm meeting with Fraulein Ellrich, and on the beauty of the neighborhood, which Herr Ellrich glorified as not being overrun. "I would much rather recommend it for quiet than Switzerland with its crowds," he said. Wilhelm agreed with him, and related how he was induced by the romantic aspect of the place to give up his original plans, and to anchor himself here. When they questioned him, he gave them some information about Heidelberg and his journey to Hornberg. Frau Ellrich complimented him on his sketch, and while he modestly disclaimed the praise, she asked him why he had not devoted himself to art. "That is a peculiar result of my development," answered Wilhelm thoughtfully. "While I was still at the gymnasium I sketched and painted hard, and after the final examination I went to the Art Academy for two years; but the further I went into the study of art, and the more attentively I followed in the beaten track of art-studies, the clearer it was to me that he who would secure an abiding success in art must be a blind copyist of nature. Certainly the personal peculiarities of an artist often please his contemporaries. It is the fashion to do him honor if he flatters the prevailing direction of taste. But those of the race who follow after, scorn what those before them have admired, and exactly what those of one time have prized as progressive innovations, they who come after reject as mere aberration. What the artist has himself accomplished, I mean his so-called personal comprehension or his capricious interpretation of nature, passes away; but what he simply and honorably reproduces, as he has truly seen it, lives forever, and the remotest age will gladly recognize in such art-work its old acquaintance, unchanging nature." Fraulein Ellrich hung on his words in astonishment, while her parents calmly went on eating their fish. "So," went on Wilhelm, speaking chiefly to his opposite neighbor, "so, I tried when I drew or painted to reproduce nature with the greatest truth; but at a certain point I became conscious of a perception that a hidden meaning in an unintelligible language lay written there. The form of things, and also every so-called accident of form, appeared to me to be the necessary expression of something within, which was hidden from me. The wish arose in me to penetrate behind the visible face of nature, to know why she appears in such a way, and not in another. I wanted to learn the language, the words of which, with no understanding of their sense, I had been slavishly copying; and so I turned to the study of physical science." "So your two years at the Art School were not wasted," remarked Herr Ellrich. "Certainly not, for to an observer of natural objects it is most valuable to have a trained eye for form and color." "Yes, and beside, drawing and painting are such charming accomplishments, and so useful to a young man in society." "Playing the piano and singing are still more so," put in Frau Ellrich. "But dancing most of all," cried Fraulein Ellrich. "Do you dance?" "No," answered Wilhelm shortly. The words jarred upon him, and a silence ensued. The councilor broke this with the question: "Then you are a doctor of physical science?" "Yes, sir." "What is your particular department? Zoology, botany?" "I have principally studied chemistry and physics, and I think of devoting myself to the latter." "Physics, oh yes. A wide and beautiful sphere. So much is included in it. Electricity, galvanism, magnetism--those are all new faculties very little known; and as regards submarine telegraph the knowledge cannot be too useful." "These sides of the question have not hitherto interested me. I ask of physics the unlocking of the nature of things. It has not yet given me the key, but it is something to know on what insecure, weak, and limited experiments our vaunted knowledge of the existence of the world of energy, of matter and their properties, depend." Frau Ellrich looked at him approvingly. "You speak beautifully, Herr Eynhardt, and it must be a great enjoyment to hear you lecture." "You will soon have a professorship, I suppose?" remarked Herr Ellrich, turning around to the blushing Wilhelm. "Oh, no!" said he quickly, "I do not aspire to that; I believe in Faust's verse: 'Ich ziehe... meine Schuler an der Nase herum--Und sehe dass wir nichts wissen konnen;' and I also bilde mir nicht ein, Ich konnte was lehren.' I wonder at and envy the men who teach such things with so much influence and conviction, and I am very grateful to them for initiating me into their methods and power of working properly. But there has never been a likelihood of my venturing to approach young men and saying to them, 'You must work with me for three years earnestly and diligently, and I will lead you to knowledge, so that at last, through the contents of a book, you may get a flying glimpse of the phantom which has so often eluded you.'" "Your opinions are very interesting," said Herr Ellrich; "but a professorship is still the one practical goal for a man who studies physics. Forgive me if I express my meaning bluntly; there is money to be made in physics through a professorship." "Happily I am in a position which makes it unnecessary for me to work for my bread." "That is quite another thing," said the councilor in a friendly way, while his wife cast a quick glance over Wilhelm's clothes, unfashionable and rather worn, but scrupulously clean. "One can see that this idealist neglects his outward appearance," her good-natured glance, half-apologetic, half-compassionate, seemed to say. Herr Ellrich changed the conversation to the management of the hotel; discussing for a time the Margrave's wines, the south German cookery, the Black Forest tourists, and a variety of other minor topics. He then asked his daughter: "Now, Loulou, have you made a programme for tomorrow yet? She is our maitre de plaisir," he explained to Wilhelm. "A frightfully difficult post," exclaimed Loulou. "Papa and mamma love quiet; I like moving about, and I endeavor to harmonize the two." Wilhelm thought that the opposing tasks would very soon be harmonized if Loulou subordinated her inclinations to her parents' comfort; but he kept his thoughts to himself. "I vote that to-morrow morning we go for a little drive. As to the afternoon, we can arrange that later. Perhaps Dr.---" She stopped short, and her mother came to her help and completed the invitation. "It would be very kind of you to join us." "I am only afraid that I might be in the way." "Oh, no; certainly not," said the mother and daughter together, and Herr Ellrich nodded encouragingly. Wilhelm felt that the invitation was meant cordially, and his fear of obtruding himself overcome, he accepted. Circumstances at the castle very greatly favored Wilhelm's intercourse with the Ellrich's, or rather with Loulou. In this house on the summit of the hill they met constantly in close companionship. Frau Ellrich enjoyed nothing better than walking on the arm of this handsome young man up and down the wooded slopes, as till now she had been obliged to go without such escort. Herr Ellrich liked to take his holiday in a different way from the ladies. If he felt obliged to take exercise he would borrow the landlord's gun and dogs and shoot. At other times he would lie down anywhere on a plaid on the grass, smoke a cigar, and read foreign papers like the Times from beginning to end. The afternoon was taken up by a nap, and in the evening he would be ready to hear an account of how his family had spent the day--perhaps in a long carriage excursion through the neighboring valleys. Frau Ellrich was in the habit of appearing at the first table d'hote, and then doing homage to the peaceful custom of afternoon sleep. In the first cool hours of the morning she walked a little in the perfumed air of the pine woods, and the rest of the time she devoted to a voluminous correspondence, which seemed to be her one passion. Thus Loulou was alone nearly always in the morning, and frequently in the afternoon as well, and quite contented to ramble with Wilhelm through the woods, or to sit with him in the ruins, where they learned to know each other, and chattered without ceasing. The subject of conversation mattered not. They had the story of their short lives to relate to one another. Loulou's was soon told. Her narrative was like the merry warbling of birds, and was from beginning to end the story of a serene dream of spring. She was the only child of her parents, who in spite of outward indifference and apparent coldness adored her, and had never denied her anything. The first fifteen years of her life were spent in her charming nest, in the beautiful house in the Lennestrasse, where she was born. "When we return to Berlin you shall see how pleasant my home is. I will show you my little blue sitting-room, my winter garden, my aviary, my parrots and blackbirds." A heavy trial had befallen her--the only trial that she had yet experienced. She had been sent to England for the completion of her education, and had to suddenly part from all her home surroundings. She stayed there for three years with an aunt who had married an English banker. The visit proved delightful, and she grew to love England enthusiastically. She drove and rode, and even followed the hounds. In winter there was the pantomime at Drury Lane, the flights to St. Leonards, Hastings, Leamington, the mad rides across country through frosted trees behind the hounds in full cry; in summer during the season there were parties, balls, the opera, the park; then in the holidays splendid travels with papa and mamma, once to Belgium, France, and the Rhine, another time to Switzerland and Italy, then to Heligoland and Norway. No, she could never have such good times again. In the following year she went back to Berlin, and had spent a very agreeable winter, a subscription ball, several other balls, innumerable soirees, a box at the opera, lovely acquaintances, with naturally many successes--the envy of false friends, but she did not allow herself to be much disturbed by them. Wilhelm listened to this chatter with mixed feelings. If she seemed superficial, he reconciled himself by a glance at her beautiful silken hair, at her laughing brown eyes, at her roguish dimples, and instantly he pleaded with his cooler reason for pardon for the lovely girl--he for nineteen years had had other things beside pleasure to think of! These charms seemed enough to work the taming magic of Orpheus over the wild animals of the woods. "And you were never," he asked timidly as she paused, "a little bit in love?" "I can look after myself," she answered, with a silvery laugh, and Wilhelm felt as if an iron band had been lifted from his heart, like the trusty Henry's in the story. "That points to marvelous wisdom in a child of society--seeing so many people--so attractive! You are indifferent then to admiration?" "I did not say that. My fancy has been often enough touched, but--" "But your heart has not?" "No." "Really not?" continued he, in a tone of voice in which, he himself detected the anxiety. She shook her head, and looked down thoughtfully. But after a short pause she raised her rosy face and said, "No--better die than speak untruths--I was rather in love with our pastor who confirmed me. He was thin and pale with long hair, much longer than yours. And he spoke very beautifully and powerfully--I felt sentimental when I thought of him. But I soon got to know his wife, who was as pointed and hard as a knitting needle, and his children, whose number I never could count exactly, and my youthful feelings received a severe chill." She laughed, and Wilhelm joined her heartily. It was now his turn to relate his story. He was as to his birthplace hardly a German, but a Russian, as he first saw the light in Moscow, in the year 1845. "So you are now twenty-four?" "Last May. Are you frightened at such an age, fraulein?" "That is not so old, twenty-four--particularly for a man," she protested with great earnestness. His father, he went on, was from Konigsberg, had studied philology, and when he left the university had become a tutor in a distinguished Russian family. He was the child of poor parents, and had to take the first opportunity which presented itself of earning his living. So he went to Russia, where he lived for twenty years as a tutor in private families, and then as a teacher in a Moscow gymnasium. He married late in life, an only child of German descent, who helped her middle-aged husband by a calm observance of duty and a mother's love for his children. "My mother was a remarkable woman. She had dark eyes and hair, and an enthusiastic and devoted expression in her face, which made me feel sad, as a child, if I looked at her for long. She spoke little, and then in a curious mixture of German and Russian. Strangely enough, she always called herself a German, and spoke Russian like a foreigner; but later, when we went to Berlin, she discovered that she was really a Russia, and always wished she were back in Moscow, never feeling at home amid her new surroundings. She was a Protestant like her father, but had inherited from her Russian mother a lingering affection for the orthodox faith, and she often used to go to the Golden Church of the Kremlin, whose brown, holy images had a mystical effect on her. She loved to sing gypsy songs in a low voice. She would not teach them to us. She was always very quiet, and preferred being alone with us to any society or entertainment." When Wilhelm was four years old there came a little sister, a bright, light-haired, blue-eyed creature after her father's heart. She was named Luise, but she was always called Blondchen. She was his only playfellow, as the irritable father in Moscow cared for no acquaintances. His father's one wish was to return to his home, but for a long time the mother would not have it so. At last, in the year 1858, he accomplished his wish. He was then sixty-three years old, and he represented to his wife that after his life of unremitting work, now in its undoubted decline, he had a right to spend the last few years in peace in his native land. He possessed enough for his family to live on; the children would grow and get a better education than in Russia, and above all he wished to keep his Prussian nationality. The mother yielded, and so they came to Berlin, where the father bought a modest house near the Friedrich-Wilhelm gymnasium. This house was now Wilhelm's property. "We children liked Berlin very much. I soon became independent and self-reliant, after school hours wandering in the streets as much as I pleased, and used to make eager explorations in all directions, coming home enraptured when I had found a beautiful neighborhood, a stately house, a statue of some general in bronze or marble. I used to take Blondchen by the hand, and show her my discovery. The Friedrichstadt with its straight streets interested us very much; I had a fancy that the houses were marshaled in battalions, as if by an officer on parade, and that when he gave the word 'March,' they would suddenly walk away in step, like the soldiers on the parade ground. I explained this to my sister, and often when we were in our own street she would call out 'March!' to see if the long row of houses would not begin to move. However, we liked the old part of Berlin better, where the streets, with their capricious and serpent-like windings, reminded us of the crooked alleys of Moscow. The streamlets of the Spree exercised a powerful attraction over us. Blondchen thought they played hide-and-seek with children, who would run through the streets to search for them. They came suddenly into sight where one would least expect to see them, in the yard of a house in the Werderschen Market, behind an apparently innocent archway on the Hausvogtei Platz, at the backs of houses whose fronts betrayed no existence of any water near. My sister so often longed to catch sight of the oily satiny sheen of the river's light in unsuspected places that she would drag me off to note her discoveries. She wanted all the varying sights of the Spree, which showed itself at the ends of alleys, or in courtyards or behind houses, suddenly to appear to her, so that she might have the right to first name her discovery." He was silent awhile, deep in memories of the past. Then he said: "If I have lingered over these childish reminiscences it is because I have not my Blondchen any longer. On one of our wandering excursions we were caught in a heavy shower of rain, and became wet through. My sister was taken ill with rheumatism, and eight days afterward we buried her in the churchyard." The mother soon followed Blondchen. Sorrow over the child, and homesickness, combined with weak health, proved too great a strain. Wilhelm remained alone with the dispirited and sorrowful old father, whom he never left except for his three years' military service in the field. Then the father, to shorten the time of separation, accompanied the army (in spite of his seventy years) as an ambulance assistant. The following year he died, and Wilhelm was left alone in the world. Loulou was not wanting in heart, and she had as much feeling as it is proper for an educated German girl to show. By an involuntary movement, she held out her hand, which Wilhelm caught and kissed. They both grew very red, and she looked wistfully at him with her eyes wet. Had he understood the look, and been of a bold nature, he would have clasped the girl to his breast and kissed her. Her red lips would have made scarcely any resistance. But the confusion of mind passed quickly, the light afternoon sunshine and the sight of the people passing through the breach in the castle wall brought him to full consciousness, and the dangerous step was not taken. Loulou recovered her sprightliness, and going back to his story asked him, "So you have been in a campaign?" "Certainly." "Did you become an officer?" "No, fraulein, only a 'vize-Feldwebel.'" "Have you fought in a battle?" "Oh, yes, at Burkersdork, Skalitz, Koniginhof, and Koniggratz." "That must have been frightfully interesting. And have you ever killed one of the enemy?" "Happily not. It does not fall to the lot of every soldier to kill a man. He does his duty if he stands up in his place ready to be killed." "Have you any photographs of yourself in uniform?" He looked at her surprised and said: "No, why?" A roguish smile, which at the last question had curled at the corners of her mouth, broke into a merry laugh. "I wanted to know whether you marched into battle with your curls, or whether you sacrificed them to the fatherland?" Wilhelm was not offended, but said simply: "Dear young lady, appearances give you the right to make fun--" "Ah, don't be angry, I am ill-mannered." "No, no, you are quite right; but, believe me, I only wear my hair long so as to save myself the trouble of going to the hairdresser's. If I dared imagine that I should be less insupportable with a tonsure--" "For heaven's sake, don't think of it, the curls suit you very well." She said this with a frivolity of manner which she immediately perceived to be unsuitable, and to get over her embarrassment, she jumped at another subject of conversation. "So you live quite alone? That strikes me as being very dreary. Still you must have many friends?" "Yes, so-called friends--comrades from the gymnasium, from the academy, and the university. But I do not count much on these superficial acquaintances--I have really only one friend." "Who is she" "He is called Paul Haber, and is Assistant of Chemistry at the Agricultural College." "A nice man?" "Oh, yes." "How old is he?" "About a year older than I am." "What is he like?" Wilhelm smiled. "I believe he is very good-looking, strong, not very tall, with a fair mustache, otherwise closely shaved, and with short hair, not like me! He thinks a good deal of appearance, and always knows what sort of ties are worn. He dances well, and is very pleased if people take him for an officer in civilian's clothes. But he is a true soul, and has a heart of gold. He is clever too, practical, and would do for me as much as I would do for him with all my heart." "Hardly one unpleasant word for an absent friend. That is scarcely as my friends speak of me," and she quietly added: "Nor as I speak of my friends. You make me curious about Herr--" "Haber." "You must introduce him to us." "He would be most happy." Loulou now knew more about Wilhelm than she had hitherto known of any man in the world. Only on one point was she unenlightened, and this she hastened to clear up on the following day, when they were looking for berries in the wood. "You asked me if my heart had been touched yet. Would it be right if I were to ask you the same question?" "The question seems very natural to me--I can truthfully assure you I have never been in love, not even with a pastor with long hair." "And has no one been in love with you?" Wilhelm looked at the distance, and said dreamily: "No; yet once--" She felt a little stab at her heart, and said: "Quick, tell me about it." "It is a wonderful story--it happened in Moscow." "But you were only a child then?" "Yes, and she who loved me was a child too. She was four years old." "Ah," said Loulou, with an involuntary sigh of relief. "When I was about ten years old I was sitting one sunny autumn afternoon in the yard of our house on a little stool, and was deep in a story of pirates. Suddenly a shadow fell on my book. I looked up, and saw a wonderfully beautiful child before me, a long-haired, rosy-cheeked little girl, who looked at me with deep shining eyes, half-timidly, and shyly held her hand before her mouth. I smiled in a friendly way, and called to her to come nearer. She sprang close to me, at once threw her arms joyfully round my neck, kissed me, sat down on my knee, and said, 'Now tell me what your name is. I am a little girl, and my name is Sonia. I am not going away from you. Let me go to sleep for a little.' An old servant who had followed her came up and said in astonishment, 'Well, young sir, you may be proud of yourself, the child is generally so wild and rough, and with you she is as tame as a kitten.' I learned from her that little Sonia lived in the neighborhood, and that her aunt had come to look for her in our house. She would not go away from me, and the old servant had to call her mother, who only persuaded her to return home with great difficulty. She wanted to take me with her, and she was miserable when they told her that my mamma would not allow me. The next morning early she was there again, and called to me from the threshold, 'I am going to stay with you all day, Wilhelm, the whole day.' I had to go to school, however, and I told her so. She wanted to go with me, and cried and sobbed when they prevented her. Then her relations took her home, and I did not see her again. Later I heard that the same afternoon she was taken ill with diphtheria, and in her illness she cried so much for me that her mother came to mine to beg her to send me to her. My mother said nothing to me about it, fearing I might catch the disease. Sonia died the second day, and my name was the last word on her lips. I cried very much when they told me, and since then I have never forgotten my little Sonia." "A strange story," said Loulou softly; "such a little girl to fall in love so suddenly. Yes," she went on, "if she had grown up--" She could not say more, as Wilhelm, who had come near her, looked at her with wide-open, far-seeing eyes, and suddenly threw his arms round her. She cried out softly, and sank on his breast. "Loulou," "Wilhelm," was all they said. It had happened so quickly, so unconsciously, that they both felt as if they were awaking from a dream, as Loulou a minute later freed herself from his burning lips and encircling arms, and Wilhelm, confused and hardly master of his senses, stood before her. They turned silently homeward. She trembled all over and did not dare to take his arm. He inwardly reproached himself, yet he felt very happy in spite of it. Then, before they had reached the summit of the castle hill, he gathered all his courage together and said anxiously: "Can you forgive me, Loulou? I love you so much." "I love you too, Wilhelm," she answered, and stretched out her hand to him. "Dare I speak to your mother, my own Loulou?" whispered he into her ear. "Not here, Wilhelm," she said quickly, "not here. You do not know my parents well enough yet. Wait till we are in Berlin." "I will do as you like," sighed he, and took leave of her with an eloquent glance, as they reached the hotel. On this evening a quantity of curious things happened, which Wilhelm so far had not observed in spite of his studies in natural science. He could not touch his dinner, and Herr and Frau Ellrich's voices, against all the laws of acoustics, seemed to come from the far distance, and several minutes elapsed before the sounds reached his ears, although he sat close to the speakers. The waiters and hotel guests looked odd, and seemed to swim in a kind of rosy twilight. In the sky there seemed to be three times as many stars as usual. When the Ellrichs had withdrawn he went toward midnight alone into the fir woods, and heard unknown birds sing, caught strange and magic harmonies in the rustling of the branches, and felt as if he walked on air. He went to bed in the gray of early dawn, after writing from his overflowing heart the following letter to his friend Haber in Berlin: "MY DEAREST PAUL: I am happy as I never thought of being happy. I love an unspeakably beautiful sweet brown maiden, and I really think she loves me too. Do not ask me to describe her. No words or brush could do it. You will see her and worship her. Oh, Paul, I could shout and jump or cry like a child. It is too foolish, and yet so unspeakably splendid, I can hardly understand how the dull, stupid people in this house can sleep so indifferently while she is under the same roof. If only you were here! I can hardly bear my happiness alone. I write this in great haste. Always your "WlLHELM." Four days later the post brought this answer from his friend: "Well, you are done for, that is certain, my dear Wilhelm. Confound it, you have gone in for it with a vengeance! I always thought that when you did catch fire, you would give no end of a blaze. So all your philosophy of abnegation, all your contempt for appearance go for nothing. What is your sweet brown maiden but a charming appearance! Nevertheless you have fallen completely in love with her, for which I wish you happiness with all my heart. I do not doubt that she loves you, because I should have been in love with you long ago if I had been a sweet brown maiden, you shockingly beautiful man. One thing is very like you, you say no word on what would most interest a Philistine like myself, viz., the worldly circumstances of the adored one. I must know her name, her relations, her descent. For all this you have naturally no curiosity. A name is smoke and empty sound. Now don't let your love go too far--sleep, and take care of your appetite, and keep a corner in your perilously full heart for your true "PAUL" Wilhelm smiled as he read these lines in the strong symmetrical handwriting of his friend, and hastened to send him the news he desired. In the meanwhile his happiness was continual and increasing, and nothing troubled it but the thought of the coming separation. These two innocent children could hide their love as little as the sun his light. They were always together, their eyes always fixed on one another, their hands as often as possible clasped in each other's. All the people in the hotel noticed it, and were pleased about it, so natural did it seem that this handsome couple should be united by love. The chambermaid, rosy Bertha, saw what was going on with her sly peasant's eye, and by way of making herself agreeable used to whisper to him where he could find the young lady when she happened to meet him on the staircase. Wilhelm good-naturedly forgave the girl her obtrusiveness. Only Herr Ellrich saw nothing. In his foreign newspapers, in the blue smoke from his cigars, in the clouds of powder from his gun, he found nothing which could enlighten him as to the two young people's beautiful secret. Frau Ellrich certainly had more knowledge than that. In spite of her correspondence and her long afternoon naps, she retained enough observation to see the condition of things pretty clearly. She waited for a confession from Loulou, and as this did not come soon enough for the impatience of her mother's heart, she tried a loving question. After a warm embrace from the girl, a few tears, a great many kisses, the mother and daughter understood each other. Wilhelm had pleased Frau Ellrich very much, and she had no objection to raise, but she could make no answer on her own responsibility, as she knew the views of her husband on the marriage of his only child, and after a few days she made him a cautious communication. Herr Ellrich did not take it badly, but as a practical man of the world he wished to give the feelings of the young people opportunity to bear the trials of separation, and for the present thought a decision useless. The projected visit to Ostend was hastened by some ten days. At dinner he made his decision known, adding, "You have pleased yourselves for three weeks, and now I want you to wait so long to please me." Wilhelm felt bitterly grieved that no one invited him to go to the fashionable watering-place, and Loulou even did not seem particularly miserable. The fact was, that at the bottom of her not very sentimental nature, she did not take the leaving of the Schloss hotel as a matter of great importance, and Ostend with its balls and concerts, its casino and lively society, was not in the least alarming to her. She found the opportunity that evening of consoling Wilhelm, and promised him always to think about him, and to write to him very often, and said she could not be very miserable about their separation, as she felt so happy at the thought of meeting him again in Berlin. The following morning they made a pilgrimage to the castle, the woods, the neighboring valley, to all the places where they had been so happy during the last fortnight. The sky was blue, the pine woods quiet, the air balmy, and the beautiful outline of the mountains unfolded itself far away in the depth of the horizon. Wilhelm drank in the quiet, lovely picture, and felt that a piece of his life was woven into this harmony of nature, and that these surroundings had become part of his innermost "ego," and would be mingled with his dearest feelings now and ever. His love, and these mountains and valleys, and Loulou, the mist and perfume of the pine trees, were forever one, and the pantheistic devotion which he felt in these changing flights of his mind with the soul of nature grew to an almost unspeakable emotion, as he said in a trembling voice to Loulou: "It is all so wonderful, the mountains and the woods, and the summer-time and our love. And in a moment it will be gone. Shall we ever be so happy again? If we could only stay here always, the same people in the midst of the same nature!" She said nothing, but let him take her answer from her fresh lips. They left by the Offenberg railway station in the afternoon. Loulou's eyes were wet. Frau Ellrich smiled in a motherly way at Wilhelm, and Herr Ellrich took his hand in a friendly manner and said: "We shall see you in Berlin at the end of September." As the train disappeared down the Gutach valley, it seemed to Wilhelm as if all the light of heaven had gone out, and the world had become empty. He stayed a few days longer at the Schloss hotel, and cherished the remembrance of his time there with Loulou, dreaming for hours in the dearly-loved spots. In this tender frame of mind he received another letter from Paul Haber, who wrote thus: "DEAREST WILHELM: Your letter of the 13th astonished me so much that it took me several days to recover. Fraulein Loulou Ellrich, and you write so lightly! Don't you know--that Fraulein Ellrich is one of the first 'parties' in Berlin? That the little god of love will make you a present of two million thalers? You have shot your bird, and I am most happy that for once fortune should bring it to the hand of a fellow like yourself. In the hope that as a millionaire you will still be the same to me, I am your heartily congratulatory "PAUL." Wilhelm was painfully surprised. What a mercy that the letter had not come sooner. It might have influenced his manner so much as to spoil his relations with Loulou. Now that the Ellrichs were gone, it could for the moment do no harm. CHAPTER II. VANITIES OF VANITIES. A brilliant company filled the Ellrichs' drawing-rooms. These lofty rooms, thrown open to the guests, were more like the reception-rooms in a great castle than those of a bourgeois townhouse in Berlin. The councilor's drawing-rooms occupied the first floor of the largest house in the Lannestrasse. The carpeted staircase was decorated with plants and candelabra, and the guests were shown into a well-lighted anteroom, and on through folding doors into the large square drawing-room. The walls were covered with gold-framed mirrors reflecting the great marble stove, with its Chinese bronze ornaments; the Venetian glass chandelier, the painting on the ceiling representing Apollo in his sun chariot, while the rows of pretty gilt chairs in red silk, the palm trees in the corner, and the wax candles in the brass sconces on the walls were repeated in endless perspective. On the right was a little room not intended for dancing, thickly carpeted, with old Gobelin tapestry on all the walls and doors; inlaid tables, ebony tables, and silk, satin, and tapestry in every conceivable form. A glass door, half-covered by a portiere, gave a glimpse into a well-lighted winter garden, full of fantastic plants in beds, bushes and pots. On the left of the large drawing-room was the dining-room, with white varnished walls divided into squares by gold beading, and decorated by a number of bright pictures of symbolic female figures representing various kinds of wine. A gigantic porcelain stove filled one end of the room, and a sideboard the other. Through the dining-room was a smoking-room furnished with Smyrna carpets, low divans, chairs in mother-of-pearl, and from the ceiling hung a number of colored glass lanterns. This was intended for old gentlemen who wished to enjoy the latest scandal, and a card table was arranged for them with an open box of cigars. The decoration of these rooms was handsome without being overloaded, and tasteful without being odd or obtrusive, qualities which one does not often find in Germany, even in princes' palaces. A fine perception would perhaps have felt the want of similarity in style in the numerous rooms, giving them the character of a museum or curiosity shop, rather than that of the harmonious dwelling of educated people of a particular period, and in a certain country. Herr Ellrich was, however, quite innocent of this imperfection. He had not chosen anything himself. Everything had come from Paris, and was the selection of a Parisian decorator, and one of the proudest moments in the councilor's life was on the occasion of the ball he gave on his daughter's return from England, when Count Benedetti, the French ambassador, said to him: "One would imagine oneself in an historical house in the Faubourg St. Germain, c'est tout a fait Parisien, Monsieur, tout a fait Parisien." The Ellrichs' party was to celebrate the New Tear. Even the richest of the members of the German bourgeoisie is obliged to be educated gradually to the cultured usages of society, and are still far from accomplished in the art of easy familiarity. It finds in its homely culture no hard-and-fast traditions by which it can regulate its conduct, and by a deficiency of observation, or by the want of development of the finer feelings, is only imperfectly helped by foreign or aristocratic manners. Herr Ellrich, who loved splendor and expense, felt that the New Year must be celebrated by rejoicings, and he had therefore invited his whole circle of acquaintances to this New Year's party to rejoice with him. In the third room the councilor's wife sat near the fireplace in a claret-colored silk dress, ostrich feathers in her hair, and resplendent with diamonds. Nevertheless there was nothing stiff in her demeanor, and she was friendly and good-natured as ever. Grouped around her in armchairs were several ladies, who in their own judgment had passed the age of dancing. Among them were the wives of civil officers, in whose dresses a practiced and capable eye might detect a simplicity and old-fashioned taste, while the wives of certain financiers were gorgeous in then fashionable costumes and the brilliancy of their ornaments. The former felt compensated by the consciousness of their rank and worth for any deficiency in mere outward signs of grandeur, the latter tried by the glitter of their pearls, diamonds, silks, and laces to appear easy and fearlessly familiar. Among the men, the soldiers had everything in their favor. The orders which the civilians wore fastened on the lapels of their dress coats were hopelessly thrown in the shade by the epaulettes of the officers, and the medals decorating their colored uniforms. Herr Ellrich made a good host, passing quickly but quietly from one group to another. His blight blue eves were cold and tired-looking as ever, and took no part in the rather banal smile which played over his lips, as if the accustomed expression of indifference could never be obliterated. The indolent lines about his mouth were not those of temperament, because if he spoke to a Finance Minister or other notability, although there was no arrogance in his manner, it might be noticed that the instinctive consciousness of his own millions never left him. He had a naturally honorable disposition, which showed itself in every line, and made any cringing an impossibility. The guests praised everything, especially the costly refreshments handed by the servants in faultless liveries. The dancing-room was a cheerful sight. Girls and young married women flew round over the polished floor on the arms of well-dressed men, mostly officers, spinning and whirling round to Offenbach's dance music, led with bacchanalian fire by a small but distinguished conductor from a red covered platform. It was exciting to watch the rows of couples as they waltzed wildly round, and to the dazzled sight it seemed like a glimpse in a dream into Mohammed's Paradise; as if in his wonderful mirror he had reflected the slim figures of the dancers, with their flashing blue or black eyes, their burning cheeks, their parted lips, their bosoms rising and falling, the scene moving in ever-changing perspective; a sight gay and wonderful as the freakish games of a crowd of elves. The untiring energy of the dancers was wonderful. During the pauses a girl could hardly sit for a moment to rest, but a strong arm would whirl her away again in the vortex of the dance. A few old gentlemen stood in the recesses of the windows and in the doorways, with the quiet enjoyment of those who look on, and among them was Wilhelm Eynhardt. He stood with his back against a window-frame, almost enveloped in the flowing red silk curtain, so that scarcely any one noticed him. His curls had been shorn, and his thick dark hair only just waved, otherwise nothing was changed in his appearance since the Hornberg days. His black eyes wandered thoughtfully over the changing picture before him. The expression on his face, now slightly melancholy, bore more resemblance to that of a young Christian devotee than to that of the beautiful Antinous, and the intoxication of the gayety around him appealed so little to him, that not once did he beat his foot, nod his head, or move a muscle in time to the satanic music of the Parisian enchanter. For the first time in his life Wilhelm found himself in fashionable society, and for the first time he wore evening dress. Certainly to look at him no one would have guessed it, for there was no awkwardness in his manner, not a trace of the anxiety and inability to do the right thing, which in most men placed amid new surroundings and in unaccustomed dress would have been so apparent. He wore his evening dress with the same natural self-possession as one of the gray-haired diplomats. The secret of this demeanor was the sense of equality he felt toward the others. It never occurred to him to think, "How do I look? Am I like everyone else?" and so he was as free from constraint in his dress coat as in his student's jacket. He had even the gracefulness which every man has in the flower of his age, if he allows the unconscious impulses of his limbs to assert themselves, and does not spoil the freedom of their play by confusing efforts to improve them. The company did not disconcert him either, in spite of their epaulettes and orders, and titles thick as falling snowflakes. An impression received in his boyhood came back to him, in which he, among strange people in a foreign land, had been accustomed by his father to consider himself as an onlooker. In Moscow he had often met aristocratic people, with as thick epaulettes, and more orders than these, but at the sight of them he had always thought, "They are only barbarous Russians, and I am a German, although I have no gold lace on my coat." From that time he had always in his mind connected the use of uniforms, as outward signs of bravery, with the conception of an ostentatious and showy barbarism which a civilized European might afford to laugh at. He had gone further; he regarded rank and titles as only a kind of clothing of circumstances, which the State lends to certain persons for useful purposes, just as the wardrobe-keeper at a theater gives out costumes to the supers. He was so convinced on this point that he felt sure it was only the stupid yokel at the back of the gallery who could look with any admiration on a human being merely because he struts about the stage in purple and gold tinsel. Wilhelm did not give the impression of a man who was enjoying himself. His discontented gaze persistently followed one dark head adorned with a yellow rose. Loulou, for of course it was she, wore a cream-colored silk crepon dress. Her little feet in pale yellow satin shoes played at hide-and-seek under her skirt. She looked charming, and seemed very happy. She danced with a magic lightness and gracefulness, and she showed an endurance which had elicited applause and acknowledgments from her partners. People were delighted with her, and she hardly allowed herself time to breathe, for as the privileged daughter of the house, she wandered from one partner to another, trying hard to offend as few of her admirers as possible by a refusal. But Wilhelm had no cause for jealousy, as her sparkling eyes continually sought his, and as often as she danced near him she gave him an electrifying glance and a sweet smile, telling him that he might now hold his head high like a conqueror, or humble himself with languishing sentiment, that for her there was only one man in the room, one man in all the mirrors, the handsome youth in the window recess between the red silk curtains. In the short pauses she came over to him and spoke a word or two, always the same sort of thing: "Ah! how So-and-so worries me. What a pity that you don't dance, it would be so lovely. Oh! if only you knew how Fraulein S----admires you, and how angry all the ladies are that you won't be introduced to them." And Wilhelm thanked her with the same quiet smile, took her fingers when he could and pressed them, and stayed in his window corner. Presently Loulou went toward someone in the room, who looked back at the same time toward Wilhelm. It was his friend Paul Haber, for whom he had obtained an invitation. Paul looked at him proudly and gayly. His short hair was beautifully cut and brushed, his thick blonde mustache curled in the most approved fashion. In his buttonhole he wore the decoration of the 1866 war medal, and when he saw himself in the glass he could say with perfect self-satisfaction, that he looked just as much like an officer as the men in uniform, not even excepting those of the Guard. Since the campaign of 1866, in which Paul had served in the same company as Wilhelm, they had been firm friends, and on this evening he wished to offer his respects before the manifest possessor of her heart, to one of the greatest heiresses in Berlin, also his gratitude for his introduction to this splendid house, and his tender feelings for his comrade. In spite of being occupied with his partners he had time to observe Wilhelm, and the sight of him standing alone in the window recess immediately cooled the nervous excitement wrought by the crowd of strangers. These society gatherings were what he delighted in, and he thought it his duty to try to model his friend in the same way. It was not without a struggle with himself that he let a dance go by and went over to where Wilhelm stood. "What a great pity it is that you don't dance." "Fraulein Ellrich has just said the same thing," answered Wilhelm, smiling a little. "And she is quite right. You are like a thirsty man beside a delicious spring, and are not able to drink. It is pure Tantalus." "Your analogy does not hold good. What I am looking at does not give me the sensation of a delicious spring, and does not make me thirsty." Paul looked at him surprised. "Still you are a man of flesh and blood, and the sight of all these charming girls must give you pleasure." "You know I am engaged to only one girl here, and her I have seen under more favorable circumstances." "Well! She probably does not always wear such beautiful dresses, and if she were not excited by the music and dancing her eyes might possibly not sparkle so much; that is what I mean about its being a pity that you don't dance." "That is not it. I have seen this beautiful girl on other occasions engaged in the highest intellectual occupation, and I am sorry to see her sink to this sort of thing." "Now the difference is defined. I was silly enough till now to think that even in a drawing-room one saw something of the highest form of humanity, and that aristocratic society is the flower of civilization." "Those are opinions which are spread by clever men of the world to excuse their shallow behavior in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. What these people come here for is to satisfy their lower inclinations--you must see this for yourself; if you do not allow yourself to be influenced by these pretentious, ceremonious forms, at least try to discover the reality that lies beneath them. What you call the height of civilization seems to me the lowest. Do you understand? I feel that cultured people in their drawing-room society are in the condition of savages, and even allied to animals." "Bravo, Wilhelm! go on; this is most edifying." "You may jeer, but in spite of you I believe that this is so. Try to discover what is going on in the brains of all these people at this moment. Their highest power of activity of mind, which makes men of them, slumbers. They do not think, they only feel. The old gentlemen enjoy themselves with cigars, ices, the prospect of supper; the young men seek pleasant sensations in dancing with beautiful girls. The ladies seek in their partners and admirers to kindle feelings and desires--vanity, self-seeking, pleasure of the senses, gratification of the palate, in short, all the grosser tastes. All that is not only like savages, but like animals. They are merry and contented at the prospect of a savory meal, and they are fond of playing tricks on each other--both sexes chaff and tease constantly. I believe that the development of our larger brain is the intellectual work of man during hundreds and thousands of years, and it would gratify me to see it raised to a still greater state of activity." "I am listening to you so quietly that I don't interrupt you--even when you talk absurd nonsense. How can one look doleful and disagreeable if honest, highly constituted men indulge in conversation with each other for a few hours after hard work? I delight in this harmless enjoyment, in which people forget all the cares of the day. Here people shake off the burdens of their vocation and the accidents of their lot. Here am I, a poor devil enjoying the society of the minister's friends, and admiring the same beautiful eyes as he does." "The harmless enjoyments of which you speak are exactly the signs by which one may recognize the vegetative lives of the savage and the animal. A serene enjoyment is what naturally appertains to the lower forms of life when they are satiated, and in no danger of being tracked for their lives. The oldest drawings on the subject always represent men with a foolish serene smile. So the privilege of development is to rejoice in a satisfied stomach and untroubled security, and all through his life to know no other care or want but comfort of body." "At last I understand you. The artist's ideal is the 'Penseroso,' and in order to recognize the highly developed man he must be furnished with a proof of his identity, so that the meaning of the creature may not be lost to sight for a moment." "You may put it in the joking way, but I really mean it. I don't forget how much of the animal is still in us. Of course one wants relaxation. But I don't want to look on while animals feed. Recovery after hard intellectual work means, in your sense, the return for some hours to animal life. Now I prefer the painful ascent of mankind to the comfortable, backward slide into animal nature. If I wished to pose as a statue for you it would have to be 'Penseroso' while eating or drinking, or with a foolish, smiling mask indicating animal contentment." "Very well. Let us also abolish the public announcement of eating, drinking, dancing and other performances, as the remnants of barbarism or of original animal nature, and let us introduce the universal duty of philosophy. A soiree of Berlin bankers--sub specie oeiernitatis--that would do very well, and you must take out a patent for it." "Students' jokes, my friend, are not arguments. I am quite in earnest in what I say, and I feel melancholy when I see Loulou and the others playing about like thoughtless animals." "I am going to speak seriously about the joke now, and show you another side to the question. Is it not in the highest degree foolish of a young man without position, to set against him men who carry the sign of recognition from their king, and the esteem of their fellow-citizens? Cannot the example of the consideration they enjoy spur us to endeavors to attain the same? Cannot your acquaintance with them be made useful?" Wilhelm shook his head. "No, I prefer all these distinguished men when they are doing their own work. They do not interest me here, because they have laid aside all the characteristics which make distinguished people of them. I think they lower their dignity when I see these statesmen, heroes of campaign, representatives of the people, laughing, joking, and playing together like any little shopkeeper after closing hours." Paul could not give an immediate answer, and he had not time to think of one; as the music stopped the dance ended, and many people moved toward them, making further conversation impossible. The gentlemen came out of the drawing-room and smoking-rooms and mingled with the dancers. Paul made his way neatly through the crowd toward a fresh, pretty, but otherwise insignificant-looking girl, to whom he had paid a great deal of attention, and with whom he wished to dance again. Wilhelm looked for Loulou, whom he found near her mother. Frau Ellrich spoke to him in a friendly way. "Are you enjoying yourself?" she asked, with a kind, almost tender expression on her melancholy face. Wilhelm would not have grieved her for worlds, so for all answer he took her soft hand and kissed it. To keep himself from speaking the truth he was silent. From the four doors of the room servants now appeared bearing large silver trays covered with glasses of champagne. Loulou stood by the chimney-piece and gave several forced and absent-minded answers to the young man. She followed with her eyes the minute-hand on the clock, and at a slight sign from her little hand a servant came up to her. She took the glass in which the wine sparkled, and at the same moment, the hands of the clock pointing to twelve, she cried loudly like a child, "Health to the New Year! Health to the New Year!" Every guest took a glass, crying joyfully, "Health to the New Year!" and clinked his glass against his neighbor's. Loulou went in search of her father to drink with him; after he had given her a friendly kiss on her rosy cheek, he regarded her with fatherly pride. She went to her mother, taking her in her arms and kissing her on both cheeks. The third person whom she sought was Wilhelm. They could not exchange words, but her eyes sought his and they both flashed a mutual and joyous recognition. Her brown eyes had said to his black ones, "May this be a year of happiness for us," and the black eyes had understood the brown ones in their flight and thanked them. The gay tumult lasted for several minutes, the buzz of talking, the clatter of glasses, and the coming and going of servants. Then suddenly an invisible hand seemed to lay hold of the general disorder, ruling and directing it, dissolving groups who had chanced together, here driving them forward, there arranging them backward. According to some fixed law, without delaying or waiting, an orderly procession was formed into the dining-room. The invisible spirit hand which possessed all this power was thrice-holy etiquette; the law which brought order out of confusion, and gave to everyone his place, was that of precedence. Paul and Wilhelm, these strangers to drawing-room customs, were new to the performance. A smile flitted over Wilhelm's face, over Paul's came a reverent expression. What he saw made a distinct impression of wonderment on him. The constraint ceased immediately the guests had taken their places at the table. The scent of the flowers vied with the perfumes worn by the women and could not overcome them. The crystal glasses sparkled in the light of the wax candles, the jewels, and the bright eyes round the table. The servants poured out the noble Rhine wine, the celebrated Burgundy, the elegant Bordeaux, and the mischievous Champagne, whose colored embodiment was reflected on the white hands of the guests, and carried their imaginations away in its flight from gray reality to the immortal land of rosy dreams. The meal lasted a long time, then a few of the guests rose; the older ones, who had principally chatted, played, and smoked before midnight, now withdrew, if they had no daughters to chaperon; the young people, however, went back to the dancing-room, the musicians fiddled anew as if they were possessed, and an hour's cotillion was begun, the pretty quick-moving figures being led by a lieutenant of the Guards, who seemed as proud of the honor as if he were commanding on a battlefield. Loulou, who had gone back to the dance, had begged Wilhelm in vain to take part at least in the cotillion, where he need not dance much. She had assured him that he would be more decorated than any other man in the room, and would have more orders, ribbons, and wreaths given him than all the lieutenants put together; but even the prospect of such a triumph could not make him ambitious, and for the first time this evening the beautiful excited girl left him looking out of humor, and glanced at him in a way which was not merely sorrowful but reproachful. Paul, on the other hand, was happy. He kept more than ever near the pretty insignificant girl with whom he had danced so much, and the good-hearted fellow did not feel in the least jealous when, in the long pause of the cotillion, his partner went to speak to his friend who had stood lonely for so long, and had hardly enjoyed himself at all. Paul was sufficiently decorated; he got a sufficient number of glances from girls' bright eyes to be quite contented, he paid a sufficient number of compliments, great and small, for which he was thanked by sweet smiles, and perhaps with tiny sighs, and he had the feeling that he had lived in every fiber of his being, and that his time had been marvelously well employed. He could have stayed for several hours longer, and was quite astonished when toward four o'clock the tireless young people's parents put an end to the evening by their departure. As Wilhelm came up to Loulou she had ceased to look cross. Near her stood the hero of the cotillion, the lieutenant of the Guards, covered with the little favors the ladies had given him. But that did not prevent her saying in quite a tender voice, "I shall see you soon again, shall I not?" and Wilhelm pressed her little hand warmly. In the hall Wilhelm and Paul had to distribute gratuities to the waiting servants, a custom (unknown in France and England) which dishonors German hospitality, and a minute later they found themselves outside in the starlit night. It blew icy cold over the Thiergarten; across the darkness the snow-laden trees and the closely-cropped grass looked feebly white. Wilhelm, shivering, wrapped himself in his fur coat. Paul, on the other hand, did not seem to mind the cold; he was still too hot with the excitement of the evening. The waltz rang so clearly in his ears that he could have danced over the snow-covered pavement, and the lights and mirrors of the ballroom shone so clearly before his eyes, and enveloped the dancers with such reality that the desert of the silent, faintly-lit Koniggratzer Strasse was alive as if by ghosts. He recalled to his mind the whole evening, and in the fullness of his heart exclaimed, "Wilhelm, I hope never to forget this New Year's Eve." Wilhelm looked at him astonished. "I do not share in your feelings. How can a glance at such vanity in thinking men give one any feeling except that of pity?" "I am not hurt at the hardness of your judgment, because you don't understand what I am saying. You know very well I am not frivolous, and that I have learned long ago the seriousness of life. But at the same time I value the entree into the best society of Berlin for what it is worth. Now the opportunity has come, and I shall make it useful." "Paul, you grieve me. A tuft-hunter talks like that." "What do you call a tuft-hunter?--if you mean a man who does not want to hide his light under a bushel, I say yes, I am one, and I think that is entirely honorable. I don't want to get on by means of any false pretenses, but by honest work. What is the use of capability if no one notices it? If I can inspire the right people with this conviction, I am in luck. There is no injustice in that." "I thought you had more pride." "Dear Wilhelm, don't speak to me of pride. That is all right for you. If my father had left me a house in the Kochstrasse, I would snap my fingers at everyone, and go my own way, as it pleased me best. Or put it the other way round, if you were the middle son in a Brandenburg family of nine, I tell you that you would attribute a certain importance to seeking the favor of influential people. You would become as frivolous as I," added he after a little pause, in which he gave a gentle clap on Wilhelm's shoulder. "You ought not to throw my father's house in my teeth; you know how I live." Paul tried to interrupt him. "Let me finish. A man of your capability can nowadays allow himself the luxury of independence and manly self-reliance, even if he is one of the nine children of a poor farmer; if one has few wants, one is rich whatever one's fortune." "That is all very well. I know your philosophy of abnegation, and it is a matter of temperament. I am not in favor of starving myself when there is a steaming dish before me. The world is full of good things, and I have a taste for them; why should I not reach out my hand?" "And so you would dance in the present for what it would win you in the future." "Why not? It is a very usual way to gain a usual end." "And the modern society household is the result." "What would become of a poor fellow without these merciful arrangements for introductions to nice girls? Is one to advertise?" "So you thought of this in the midst of your poetical soiree?" "Certainly. You are provided for. Don't think ill of me if I follow your example." Wilhelm felt the blood flow to his cheeks. He perceived his friend's evident meaning. "Paul! A fortune-hunter!" "You may talk. Luck flew to you without your lifting a finger to attract it. Other people must help themselves. Fortune-hunter! That name was invented by hysterical girls whose heads are turned by silly novels. These absurd creatures wish in their childish vanity to be married merely for their beautiful eyes. I should like to ask such a girl whether she would marry a man merely for his beautiful eyes! I have no patience with such nonsense. Suppose a poor man, who is capable and clever, acknowledges in a straightforward way that he is trying to win the hand of a rich woman. He need not upbraid himself about anything, for he gives as much as he receives. What do people want from the world? Happiness. That is the aim of my life, just as it is the aim of the rich woman's. She has money, and for happiness she lacks love; I have love, and for happiness I lack money. We make an equal exchange of what we own. It is the most beautiful supplement to a dual incompleteness." "It is in this way then that you would offer what you call love to a rich girl! A love cleverly conducted, carefully mapped out--a love which one could control, and on no account offer to a poor girl." "Rubbish! The love of every man who is in his right mind is carefully planned. Would you be in love with a king's daughter? It is to be hoped not. You could keep out of the way of the king's daughter. Why can I not keep out of the way of the poor girl?" "That means that the princess' rank is as much a hindrance to love as the poverty of the work-girl." "I swear to you, Wilhelm, that if I were as rich, or as independent as you, I would not think of a dowry. But I am a poor devil. If I were so unfortunate as to fall in love with a poor girl, I would try to get the better of the feeling. I would say to myself, better endure a short time of unhappiness and disappointment than that she and I should be condemned through life to the keenest want, which, with prosaic certainty, would smother love." While Paul argued with such ardor and earnestness, he was thinking all the time of Fraulein Malvine Marker, the pretty girl with whom he had danced so often, and he fondled tenderly with his right hand the ribbon and cotillion order hidden under his waistcoat. He did not notice that Wilhelm's expression of face was painfully distorted, nor that his words wounded him deeply. They had come to the Brandenburger Thor, and were walking over the Pariser Platz. Under the lindens they were surrounded at once by noise and bustle. The streets were full of rowdy bands of men who sang and shouted all together, now pushing one another in violent rudeness, now shouting "Health to the New Year," here knocking off an angry Philistine's hat, there surrounding and embracing some honest man who was wearily making his way homeward; insulting the police by imitating their military ways, laying hold of their sticks, talking pompously to the night-watchman, and otherwise playing the fool. After the silence of the Koniggratzer Strasse, the drunken turmoil of this noisy mob was doubly unpleasant, and the two friends hastened to escape into the Schadowstrasse. At Wilhelm's doorstep they took leave of each other; Paul went off humming a snatch of Offenbach up the Friedrichstrasse to his home near the Weidendamme. Wilhelm was tired, but much too excited to sleep. He lived over again in thought the last few months, and, as often happened lately, he lapsed into painful meditation on his relations to Loulou. After her departure from Hornberg she had not written to him for eight days. Then came a letter from Ostend, in which she called Wilhelm "Sie." She said she was very sorry for this, that it would be painful if she called him "Du" and he did not return it, but it would be safer not to do so, as his answer would certainly be read by her mother, and perhaps by her father also, and they would not wish them to say "Du" to each other. Already this change of tone between them cut Wilhelm to the heart, but almost more still the contents of Loulou's letter. She spoke a little of the sea, whose breakers continually sounded in her soul, and her thoughts, which accompanied them like an orchestra; she seldom mentioned the delightful time in the mountains of the Black Forest, which remembrance he carried always with him; but a great deal about the Promenade, the concerts, the Casino balls, her own charming bathing and society toilettes, and those of extravagant Parisians, who tried by incredible mixtures of colors and style to outstrip each other. She wrote particularly about her acquaintances with celebrated people, and her personal following, and for the rest she hardly missed expressing in any of her letters her regret that he was not with her, and enjoying her varied life. Often in the letter there was a flower, or a piece of wild thyme, which betrayed an undercurrent of feeling beneath the shallowness of the words, and once she sent him her photograph with the words "Loulou to her dearest Wilhelm." So he gathered from her frivolous letters much that was unspoken, and through signs and indications believed that her feeling for him was there and gained strength. His answers were short and rather compressed. The knowledge that they would be seen by her prosaic parents, and that Loulou herself would hardly trouble to read anything in the midst of her whirl of gayety, deprived him of words, stopped the flow of his feelings, and turned his expressions into mere Philistinisms. But, on the other Land, Loulou's mother was delighted to have another correspondent, and so she wrote to him often. These perfumed letters from Ostend refreshed him by the remembrance of the lovable face with the dimples, bringing back again the whole charm of the Hornberg days. At the end of September came the announcement that the Ellrichs had left Ostend, and were going to pay a visit for a fortnight to friends in England, and toward the middle of October a letter, bearing the Berlin postmark, arrived in Loulou's handwriting. It said: "DEAREST WILHEM: We came home to-day. I cannot sleep until I have written to you. Come to see me quite soon. Will you not? How glad I am! Are you glad too? A thousand greetings. LOULOU." He would like to have gone directly to the Lennestrasse, but etiquette stood between him and his fiancee, and showed him in its cold fashion that they were now in the city and not in the forest, that nature had nothing to do with them here, and had handed them over to the laws of society. However, as soon as he dared venture, he went and rang at the door-bell. This first visit was a combination of painful feelings for Wilhelm, for while his heart beat, that now he was near the dearest one on earth, he was conscious that here he was a stranger. A servant dressed in black who opened the door did not seem to expect him, and asked him whom he wanted. When Wilhelm asked for Frau Ellrich, he said shortly that she was not at home. In spite of this Wilhelm took out his card, and holding it out said, "Will you kindly announce me, as I am expected." The man left him in an anteroom, and after a short pause took him into the drawing-room. He soon returned, with a manner entirely changed, and submissively asked Wilhelm to follow him to a little blue boudoir, where Loulou received him with a joyful exclamation, but the first greetings, owing to the servant's presence, were exchanged without an embrace, and when they were alone Wilhelm only found sufficient courage to kiss her hand. It was quite different now from the old times at the Scloss hotel, and in the woodland paths at Hornberg. Wilhelm had to keep to visiting hours, and was seldom alone with Loulou. He took courage then to say "Du," but it was forbidden before other people. To kiss her in those drawing rooms with their betraying mirrors, and their portieres, and carpets was hardly possible. He was frequently asked to lunch or dinner, and he often went with Frau Ellrich and Loulou to the opera or theater, but all these opportunities were not favorable for young lovers. Loulou wore beautiful frocks, which made her much admired; the people were formal, and tolerated nothing that was not ultra polite and polished, in short, it was impossible to be true and natural as things had been in the forest, where the birds and the happy little squirrels served for playfellows. Loulou was the first to have pity on Wilhelm's discomfort, and to find means to give their intercourse in Berlin at least a little of the beautiful unconstraint of the old times. Under the pretext that she wished to improve herself in drawing, she obtained many precious hours spent in the blue-room or in the winter garden, where their hands often found opportunities to clasp, and their lips to seek each other's. On the strength of Loulou's English education, which had made her independent and self-reliant, and had freed her from any affectation of shyness, she often walked with Wilhelm to parts of the town which she did not know, or which she had only seen from the windows of a carriage. On one of these voyages of discovery, as she called them, she saw Paul for the first time. He met them in the Konigstrasse, as they stood on the Konigsmauer, Loulou looking half-fearfully down the narrow street. Paul looked very much astonished, and seemed as if he were not going to notice the pair of lovers, but Wilhelm nodded and asked him to join them. So he went home with them, and as soon as he was alone with his friend he fell into rapturous admiration of the lovely girl, as Wilhelm had predicted in his letter from Hornberg. One thing Paul could not understand, and he said so: why had not Wilhelm formally asked for Loulou's hand, why he was not properly engaged to her, and how could an impulsive man bear such a constrained position, which would cease the instant that he was Fraulein Ellrich's declared fiance? Wilhelm had at first no explanation to give his friend, but he knew very well that he delayed, and that he put off from day to day going to Loulou's parents. His was a sensitive, dreamy nature, and much too thoughtful to allow himself to act from passion. He was accustomed to make his impulses subordinate to his reason, and to ask himself severe questions as to the where, how, and why of things. He was not clear himself as to the condition of things between him and Loulou. Did she love him? There were many answers to that. She seemed pleased when she saw him, and displeased if he appeared to forget her for a day. But what he could not understand was that her head seemed as full as ever of her usual acquaintances, and that she was capable of spending some time in theaters, concerts, and society without looking for him. Full too of talk of her frocks and neighbors, without wishing to interrupt the empty gossip with a look or a kiss to let him know that she was conscious of his presence, and in the middle of her idle talk to say nevertheless that her heart was with him. On the other hand, she showed the tenderest sympathy for him. She longed for a picture of his rooms in the Dorotheenstrasse, where he lived and thought of her. She had been to see his house in the Kochstrasse from the outside. She was apparently proud of him, and repeated to him all the flattering remarks which people made on his appearance and cleverness, with as much satisfaction, as if she spoke of one of her own people. Still all this was only on the surface, and he often had the impression that her feeling for him was weakened at its foundation both by her cold intelligence, and by her pleasure in worldly things. And he? Did he love her as he should, before he had the right to bind her to him for life? His earnestness and exalted morality looked upon marriage as a rash adventure full of alarming secrets. Was it possible that their two lives should be so blended together that they should withstand every accident of fate? He meant to give himself entirely, to keep nothing back, and to be true in body and soul. Was he sure that he could keep the vow, and that no sinful wishes should come to break it? Already he was thinking that he might not be always happy with her. Certainly her beauty, her wit, the attraction of her fresh, healthy youth charmed him, and when she spoke to him with her sweet voice, he had to shut his eyes and hold himself together, not to fall at her feet and bury his head in her dress. But he feared for himself, for his honor, that a sensual attraction should hardly outlast possession. His innermost being was painfully troubled. Never an elevated word from her! Never a deep and serious thought! Often he reflected that the faults of her upbringing were the inevitable results of her life in the midst of idle people, and that it would be possible to deepen and widen her mind and sensations. If he could only go with her to a desert island, alone with the loneliness of nature, and could live between the heavens and the sea! How soon then could he inspire her thoughts and bring her to his own standpoint. Then the fear would take hold of him that she could not do without theaters, frocks, soirees, and balls, and under the recent impression of the New-Year's party he became despondent, and said to himself, "No. The life of show and appearance has too great a hold on her, and I shall never be able to give her what she wants, and what seems necessary to her happiness." Paul's opinion, which he gave on the way home, struck him sorrowfully. One of the richest "parties" in Berlin! Would not people say he was marrying her for her money? What people said was really nothing to him, and he considered himself free to act as his innermost judgment counseled. But might not Loulou herself believe that her father's money added something to her attractions? He recognized that this feeling indicated a weakness, a want of self-reliance, but the idea that she might be capable of such a thought made him angry. Her money did not attract him! On the contrary, it was an obstacle between them. Why was she not a Moscow gypsy girl? Just as young, and pretty, and charming, but uncultivated, and therefore ready for cultivation and capable of it; poor as a beggar, and therefore free from pretensions, but without knowledge of the world, and therefore without desire for it. How happy they might both be then! Such thoughts ran riot in his brain, and he fell asleep only when the late winter sun shone through the curtains on his tired white face. The winter went quickly by under amusements of all kinds. Loulou had never known it so pleasant. The theater season was brilliant, the weather for skating lasted longer than usual, and balls succeeded each other in her father's and friends' houses in rapid succession. Wilhelm only went once or twice, and then he firmly declined any more, to the great astonishment of Frau Ellrich, and the vexation of Loulou, whose pretty face always lit up with pleasure when she saw his dark eyes watching her from the doorways or window recesses while she danced. He said that the sight of social frivolity bored him, and she thought in her naive way, "It is always like that. Men must have some fad." Paul was just the other way. He accepted every invitation, and he had a great many. He had always some new acquaintances to tell Wilhelm of, and often spoke of Fraulein Malvine Marker, who appeared to be Loulou's dearest friend, and no feeling of jealousy prevented him from repeating to Wilhelm that the pretty girl had often inquired about him, always regretting his absence from the Ellrichs' dances. The beautiful time of the year drew near. Outside the gates of the city, where open places were free to her, the spring triumphed in the budding trees of the Thiergarten. Arrangement of plans for the summer was the chief occupation with most people. The Ellrichs talked of Switzerland, and Wilhelm thought timidly of the charms of the Black Forest. He longed to be back at Hornberg, and he spoke often of being there together in the near future. He did not mention marriage, however, and his formal offer had not yet been made. Loulou thought this very odd, and one day she spoke to her mother about it. Frau Ellrich, however, caressed her pretty child, and kissing her on the forehead said: "It is nothing but modesty. I think it is very nice of him to leave you in freedom for the whole season." "I am not free, however." "I mean before the world, dear child. You are both so young that it would not matter if you did not take the cares of marriage upon you for another year." And to Loulou that was evident. CHAPTER III. HEROES. All over Germany the corn stood high in the fields, ripe for the sickle. Then suddenly the threatening shadow of war rose in the west like a black thundercloud in the blue summer sky, filling the harvest gatherers with anxious forebodings. For fourteen days the people waited in painful suspense, not knowing whether to take up the sword or the scythe. Then the cry of destiny came crashing through the country, terrifying and relieving at the same time: "The French have declared War!" That was on July 15, 1870, on a Friday. Late in the afternoon the dismal news was spread in Berlin that the French ambassador at Ems had insulted the king, who had retired to the capital, and that a combat with the arrogant neighbors on the Rhine was inevitable. Before night the street Unter den Linden, from the Brandenburger Thor to the Schlossbrucke, was packed with men overflowing with intense excitement. Without any preconceived arrangement, all the inhabitants decorated their windows with banners and lights, and the streets assumed the festal appearance of rejoicings over a victory. The crowd looked upon this spectacle not as an undecided beginning, but a glorious conclusion. There was no fear in any face, no question as to the future in any eye, but the certainty of triumph in all; as if they had seen the last page turned in the book of fate, with victory and its glorious results written thereon. Toward nine o'clock a thunderbolt broke over the Brandenburger Thor, and rolled like the breaking of a wave to the other end of the street. The king had left the Potsdam railway station a quarter of an hour ago, and the crowd greeted him with a tremendous shout as his carriage appeared. The people wished by this acclamation, springing from the depths of their hearts, to show their ruler that they were prepared to follow him even to death. But the king was so much absorbed in thought that he scarcely seemed to hear or notice the enthusiasm of the crowd. He saluted and bowed to right and left as a prince is accustomed to do from his childhood, but it was a mechanical action of the body, and his mind had little part in it. His eyes were not looking at the sea of uncovered heads, but seemed fixed, under knitted brows, on the distance, as if they endeavored to decipher there some indistinct, shadowy form. Did the king perceive in this moment the responsibility of one human being to carry such a load? Did he wish in his innermost heart that he might share the weight of the decision with others--the representatives of the people--and not alone be forced to throw the dice deciding the life or death of hundreds and thousands? Who can say? At all events the powerful features of the king's face betrayed no such uneasy doubt--only a deep earnestness and an immovable steadiness of expression. Belief in the divine right of his kingship gave him power over the minds of men, and he took his duties on him in this hour without weakness or failing, grasping with his human hand the obscure spiritual web of man's destiny, and with his limited intelligence trying to unravel the dark threads here and there, on which hung the healing and destruction of millions. In such moments a whole people will become united into one being, swayed by the mastery of a single mind, and await the commands of a single will. It comes, no one knows from whom--all blindly follow. In spite of the superficial differences which men find in one another under similar conditions, the powerful effect of unconscious imitation is surprisingly apparent, and under its operation personal peculiarities disappear. Wilhelm and Paul that same evening sat at one of the windows of Spargnapani's, looking on the Lindens. The small rooms were filled to overflowing, and the guests were crammed together in the open doorways, or on the stone staircase, where their loud talking mingled with the noise of the people in the street. The king's carriage had hardly passed, when several young men sprang shouting into the room, threw a quantity of printed leaflets, still damp from the press, on the nearest table, and rushed out again. These were the proofs of an address on the war to the king. No one knew who had written it, who had had it printed, who the people were who had distributed it, but everyone crowded excitedly round it, and begged for pens from the counter to add their signatures to it. A few specially enthusiastic souls even put a table with inkstands and pens out on the pavement, and called to the passers-by to sign the paper. Paul was among the first to fulfill this duty of citizenship, and then handed the pen to his friend. But Wilhelm laid it down on the table, took Paul's arm, and drew him out of the crowd into the quiet of the Friedrichstrasse. "Are you a Prussian?" cried Paul angrily. "I am as good a Prussian as you are," said Wilhelm quietly, "and ready to do my duty again, as I have done it before, but these silly effusions don't affect me at all." "Such a manifesto gives the government the moral force for the sternest fulfillment of duty." "I hope you are not in earnest when you say that, my dear Paul. The government does what it has to do without troubling itself about our manifestoes. It is repugnant to me to have my approval of the war dragged from me without being asked for it. I may not appear to say 'yes' willingly, but at the same time may not have the right to say 'no.'" Paul followed silently, and Wilhelm went on: "You deceive yourself as to your duty like all these people, who imagine that they are still separate individuals, and that they can sanction or forbid as they will the declaration of war. I, however, know and feel that I have no longer a voice in the matter. I have only to obey. I am no longer an individual. I am only an evanescent subordinate unit in the organism of the State. A power over which I have no control has taken possession of me, and has made my will of no avail. Is there still a part of your destiny which you have the power to guide as you will? Is there such for me? We shall be forced to join simply in the united destiny of one people. And who decides this? The king, no doubt, thinks that he does; the Emperor Napoleon thinks he does. I say that these two have no more influence over the capabilities of their people than we two have over the capabilities around us. The State commands us, the whole evolution of mankind from its beginning commands them. All of the race which has gone before holds them fast, and compels them as the wheels of the State compel us. The dead sternly point out the way to them, as the living do to us. We all of us know nothing, kings and ministers as little as we, of the real forces at work. What these forces will do, and what they strive to attain to, is hidden from us, and we only see what is nearest to us, without any connection with its causes and final operation. That is why it seems to me better to do what one sees as one's duty at the moment, rather than to give ourselves the absurd appearance of being free in our movements, and certain as to our goal." Paul pressed his hand at parting, and murmured: "Theoretically you are right, but practically I do not see why the tyrant at the Tuileries need begin with us. He could at least leave us in peace." The order for mobilization was issued. Wilhelm was surprised to receive his appointment again as second lieutenant, and was nominated to the 61st Pomeranian Regiment. His duties during the next few days took up the whole of his time, and left him hardly a moment to himself. He was free only for a few hours before the march to the frontier, and then he made all the haste he could to say good-by at the Lennestrasse. His heart beat quickly as he hurried along, and now that the time of separation was near, he reproached himself for the irresolution of the last few weeks. He was going to the front without leaving a clear understanding behind him. He tried to convince himself that perhaps it was better so--if he fell she would be free before the world. But at the bottom of his heart this reasoning did not satisfy him, and he lingered over the idea of taking his weeping betrothed to his heart before all the world, and kissing the tears off her cheeks, instead of bidding farewell to her at the station, and holding her to him from a distance by an acknowledged tie. Was not their love alone enough? No, he knew that it was not, and he felt with painful surprise that his contempt for outward appearances, his impulse after reality, were vigorous in him as long as he followed his inmost life alone; but when he came out of himself, and wished to unite another human destiny with his own, these things had become a painful weakness. Through this other life, the world's customs and frivolities began to influence him, and his proud independence must be humbled to the dust, or he must painfully tolerate his own weakness. These reflections brought another with them--it was quite possible that an opportunity might occur at the last moment. He painted the scene in his own imagination; he found Loulou alone, embraced her fervently, asked her if she would be his for life; she said "Yes;" then her mother came in, Loulou threw herself on her neck; he took her hand and asked her in due form if she would accept him as a son-in-law, as he had already gained Loulou's consent. If the councilor was at home, his consent was also given, if not they must wait until he came, and the time could not seem long, even if it lasted an hour. He did not doubt that they would all consent. Things might very likely have happened just as he dreamed of, if he had only come to his determination at the right time, and had not hazarded success on the decision of the last moment, when there was hardly time for a weighty decision. As he approached the red sandstone house, with its sculptured balconies, and its pretty front garden, he had a disagreeable surprise. At the iron gate two cabs were standing, evidently waiting for visitors at the house. He was shown, not into the little blue-room, but into the large drawing-room near the winter garden, and found several people there in lively conversation. Beside Loulou and Frau Ellrich there were Fraulein Malvine Marker, with her mother, and also Herr von Pechlar, the lieutenant of hussars of cotillion fame. "Have you come too to say good-by?" cried Loulou, going to meet Wilhelm. Her face looked troubled, and her voice trembled, and yet Wilhelm felt as if a shower of cold water had drenched his head. The insincerity of their relations, her distant manner before the others, but above all the unfortunate word "too," including him with the lieutenant, put him so much out of tune that all his previous intentions vanished, and he sank at once to the position of an ordinary visitor. Herr von Pechlar led the conversation, and took no notice of the new guest's presence. He oppressed Wilhelm, and made him feel small by the smartness of his uniform, his rank as first lieutenant, and his eyeglasses. Wilhelm tried hard to fight against the feeling. After all, he was the better man of the two, and if human nature alone had been put in the scale--that is to say, the value both of body and mind--Herr von Pechlar would have flown up light as a feather. But just now they did not stand together as man to man, but as the bourgeois second lieutenant in his plain infantry uniform, against the aristocratic first lieutenant--the smart hussar, and the first place was not to be contested. In Fraulein Malvine's kind heart there lurked a vague feeling that she must come to Wilhelm's help, and overcoming her natural shyness, she said to him: "It must be very hard for you to tear yourself away under the circumstances." She was thinking of his attachment to Loulou, which in her innocence she quite envied. Oppressed and distracted as his mind was, he found nothing to say but the banal response: "When duty calls, fraulein." But while he spoke he was conscious of the kindness of her manner, and to show her that he was grateful he went on, "My friend Haber wishes to say good-by to you before he leaves Berlin. He thinks a great deal of you, and is very happy in having made your acquaintance." Malvine threw him a quick glance from her blue eyes and looked down again. "What a good thing that I was here when you came," he said softly; "I might certainly not have seen you but for this chance." "The fact is, gnadiges Fraulein," he stammered, "our duties demand so much of our time." "Is Herr Haber in your regiment?" she asked. "No; he has remained with our old Fusilier Guards." "Ah, what a pity! It would have been so nice for you to be side by side again, as in 1866." "How much she knows about us," thought Wilhelm, wondering. "I often think of Uhland's comrades. It must be a great comfort in war to have a friend by one." "Happily one makes friends quickly there." "On that point we are better off than the poor reserve forces," remarked Herr von Pechlar, not addressing himself to the speaker, but to Frau and Fraulein Ellrich. "We regular officers pull together like old friends in danger and in death, while the others come among us unknown. I imagine that must be very uncomfortable." Wilhelm felt that he had no answer to make, and a silence ensued. Loulou broke it by moving her chair near Wilhelm, and began to chatter in a cheerful way over the occurrences of the last few days. How dreadfully sudden all this was! Just in the midst of their preparations to go away. That was put aside now. They must stay behind and do their duty. Mamma had presided at a committee for providing the troops with refreshment at the railway station; she herself and Malvine were also members. There were meetings every day, and then there was running about here, there, and everywhere, to collect money, enlist sympathy, make purchases, and finally to see to the arrangements at the departure of the troops. "It is hard work," sighed Frau Ellrich; "I have dozens of letters to write every day, and can hardly keep up with the correspondence." Herr von Pechlar said he regretted that he was obliged to take to the sword; he would much rather have helped the ladies with the pen. Wilhelm felt that the moral atmosphere was intolerable. He had nothing to say, and yet it was painful to him to be silent. Nobody made any sign of leaving, so at last he rose. Herr von Pechlar did not follow his example, merely giving him a distant bow. Malvine put out her hand quickly, which Wilhelm grasped, feeling it tremble a little in his. Frau Ellrich went with him to the door. She seemed touched, and said with motherly tenderness, while he kissed her hand: "We shall anxiously expect letters from you, and I promise you that we will write as often as possible." Loulou went outside the door with Wilhelm, in spite of a glance from her mother. She thought they could bid each other good-by with a kiss, but two servants stood outside, and they had to content themselves with a prolonged clasp of the hand, and a look from Wilhelm's troubled eyes into hers, which were wet. She was the first to speak: "Farewell, and come back safely, my Wilhelm. I must go back to the drawing-room." Yes, if she must! and without looking back, he descended the marble staircase, feeling chilled to the bone, in spite of the hot sunlight in the street. He had the feeling that he was leaving nothing belonging to him in Berlin, except his own people's graves. In the evening he left by one of the numberless roads which at short distances traverse Germany toward the west like the straight lines of a railway. The quiet of the landscape was disturbed by the fifes, rattle of wheels, and clanking of chains, and to all the villages along the road they brought back the consciousness, forgotten till now, that Germany's best blood was to be shed in a stream flowing westward. A time was beginning for Wilhelm of powerful but very painful impressions, not, it is true, to be compared with those which the battlefields of 1866 had made on him when an unformed youth. The war unveiled to him the foundations of human nature ordinarily buried under a covering of culture, and his reason, marveled over the reconciliation of such antitheses. On the one hand one saw the wildest struggle for gain, and love of destruction; on the other hand were the daily examples of the kindest human nature, self-sacrifice for fellow-creatures, and an almost unearthly devotion to heroic conceptions of duty. Now it appeared as if the primitive animal nature in man were let loose, and bellowing for joy that the chains in which he had lain were burst, and now again as if the noblest virtues were proudly blossoming, only wanting favorable circumstances in which to develop themselves. Life was worth nothing, the laws of property very little; whatever the eyes saw which the body desired, the hand was at once stretched out to obtain, and the point of the bayonet decided if anything came between desire and satisfaction. But these same men, who were as indifferent to their own lives, and as keen to destroy the lives of others as savages, performed heroic deeds, helping their comrades in want or danger, sharing their last mouthful with wounded or imprisoned enemies, who returned them no thanks; and after the battle, in the peasant's hut, cradling in their arms the little child, whose roof they had perhaps destroyed, and possibly whose father they might have slain. These impulses, as far apart as the poles, occurred hour after hour before Wilhelm's eyes. He was not a born soldier, and his nature was not given to fighting. But when it was necessary to endure the wearisome fulfillment of duty, to bear privation silently, and to look at menacing danger indifferently, then few were his equals, and none before him. This quiet, passive heroism was noticed by his comrades. The officers of his company found out that he did not smoke, and never drank anything stronger than spring water. They noticed also that dirt was painful to him, even the ordinary dust of the country roads, and that he was dissatisfied if his boots and trousers bore the marks of muddy fields. They thought him a spoiled mother's darling, a "molly-coddle," and their instructive knowledge of human nature found a name for him, the same name his schoolfellows had already given him. They called him the "Fraulein." But in the day of battle, when Wilhelm with his company stood for the first time in the line of fire, the "Fraulein" was perhaps the firmest of them all. The hissing balls made apparently no more impression on him than a crowd of swarming gnats, and the only moment his courage left him was when he thought he might be thrown into a ditch, which the rains had turned into a complete puddle. He remained standing when all the others lay down, and the captain at last called out to him, "In the devil's name, do you want to be a target for the French?" making him seek shelter behind a little mound, which left him nearly as uncovered as he was before. And after hours of solid exertion, straining nerves and muscles to the utmost, when peace came with night, Wilhelm began a tiring piece of work with sticks and brushwood, out of pity for a weary comrade. On the strength of these first days before the enemy his position as a soldier was established. A few harmless jokes were made on the march and in the camp on Wilhelm's anxiety as to the removal of mud on his clothes, and on the example he set in going out at night to save the dead and wounded enemy from plunder, but the whole company loved and admired the "Fraulein." The officers, however, did not entirely share this feeling. This lieutenant was not smart enough. They did full justice to his courage, but thought that he was wanting in alertness and initiative. He lacked the proper campaigning spirit, and they found it chilling that he should be so distant in his manners after so long a time together. Another said that Lieutenant Eynhardt went into action like a sleep-walker, and his calmness had something uncanny about it. The captain was not pleased with him, because he had no knowledge of business; as far as example went he was the worst forager in the whole regiment. If a peasant's wife complained to him, he would leave empty-handed a house whose cellars were stocked with wine, and larders with hams one could smell a hundred yards off. It was all the more provoking as he could speak French perfectly, an accomplishment which no one else in the regiment could, to the same extent, boast of. It came even to a scene between him and the captain, who said angrily to him after a fruitless search in a new and well-to-do village in Champagne: "A good heart is a fine thing to have, but you are an officer now, and not a Sister of Mercy. Our men have a right to eat, and if you want to be compassionate, our poor fellows want food just as much as those French peasants. Deny yourself if you like, but take care that the soldiers have what they need. If ever you get back to Berlin, then in God's name you can please yourself by distributing alms, and buy a place for yourself in heaven." Wilhelm was obliged to admit that the captain was right, but he could not change his nature. Capturing, destroying, giving pain, were not to his taste. From that time he left other people's property alone, and let the French run if they fell into his hands. He was excellent on outpost and patrol duties, for then his brains and not his hands were at work--then he could think and endure. He could go for twenty-four hours on a bit of bread and a draught of water better than any one, and without a minute's sleep, stand for hours at a stretch holding a position; he was always the first to explore dangerous roads, signing to his companions if he could answer for their safety, and all this with a natural, quiet self-possession as if he were taking a walk in town, or reading a newspaper at Spargnapani's. Weeks and months went by like a dream, in constant excitement, and the exhausting strain of strength. Christmas passed at the outposts without gifts and with few good wishes, and the thunder of the guns took the place of church bells. January came in with a hard frost, trying the field troops bitterly, and bringing with it hard work for Wilhelm's regiment. The 61st belonged to General Kettler's brigade, which strategically kept the Garibaldi and Pelissier divisions in check. By the middle of January the brigade was in full touch with the enemy. On the 21st the troops broke out from the St. Seine, dashed into the Val Suzon, and after an hour's conflict with the Garibaldians, drove them out and established themselves on the heights of Daix toward two o'clock. Before them were the rugged summits of Talant and Fontaine, the last spurs of the Jura Mountains seen in the blue distances both of them crowned, by old villages, whose outer walls looked down a thousand feet below. The gray walls, the rhomboid towers of the mediaeval churches, brought to one's mind the vision of robber knights rather than the modest homes of peasants. Between these two mountains was a narrow valley, through which one caught a glimpse of Dijon, with its red roofs and numbers of towers, and its high Gothic church above all, St. Benigne, well known later to the German soldiers. There lay before them the great wealthy town, looking as if one could throw a pebble through one of its windows, so near did it seem in the clear winter air. The smoke went straight up out of its thousand chimneys, exciting appetizing thoughts of warm rooms and boiling pots on kitchen fires. There were the sheltered streets full of shops, friendly cafes, houses with beds and lamps and well-covered tables--but the soldiers stood outside on the cold hillside, chilled to the bone by the north wind, so tired that they could hardly stand, and often sinking down in the snow, where they lay benumbed, without energy to rouse themselves. They had gone for twenty-four hours without food, and had only some black bread remaining for the evening, worth a kingdom in price. Between their misery and the abundance before their eyes lay the enemy's army, and this army they must conquer, if they would sit at those tables and lie in the soft beds. The general wanted to take Dijon in order to remove a danger menacing to South Germany, and to secure the advance of the German army toward Paris and Belfort--the soldiers had the same desire, but their longing for Dijon was for comfort, satisfaction of hunger, and rest. The German battalion kept on pressing forward. This mistake was hardly the fault of the officers, who on this occasion strove to keep the men back rather than encourage them to advance. The Garibaldian troops had the advantages of superior forces, a greater range of artillery, and sheltered position in the hills, and they pressed with increased courage to the attack. The Germans did not await them quietly but threw themselves on them, so that in many cases it came to a hand-to-hand fight, and serious work was done with bayonets and the butt-ends of rifles. At length the French began to retreat, and the Germans with loud "Hurrahs!" flung themselves after them. But the pursuit was soon abandoned, as they had to withdraw under the fire from the Talant and Fontaine positions, and then, after a short rest, the French again advanced. So the fight lasted for three hours, the snowflakes dispersed by the balls, the men stamping their half-frozen feet on the ground, stained in so many places with blood, but the distance between the German battalion and beckoning, mocking Dijon never diminished. The right wing of the brigade made a strenuous attempt, pressed hard toward Plombieres, forced the Garibaldians back at the point of the bayonet, and took possession of the village, which already had been stormed from house to house. The sight of the slopes before Plombieres covered with the enemy running, sliding, or rolling, acted like strong drink; the whole German line threw itself on the yielding enemy before it had time to regain breath, and amid the thunder of artillery, with the balls from the French reserves on the heights rattling like hailstones, it gained at last a footing on the hill. Some of the troops sank down exhausted in the shelter of the little huts which were strewed over the vineyard, while others followed the division of the enemy which had forced itself between the mountain and the narrow valley behind the French line of defense. It was now night, and very dark, and to follow up the hard-won victory was not to be thought of, so the German troops halted to rest if possible for an hour. It was a terrible night, and the cold was intense. Campfires were almost useless. The men's clothes were insufficient and nearly worn out. During the last few days, on the march and in the camp, every one had huddled together whatever seemed warmest, and in the pale moon or starlight, figures in strange disguises might be seen. One wore the thick wadded cloak of a peasant woman over woefully torn trousers, another whose toes till now had always been seen out of noisy boots, stalked in enormous wooden shoes, the extra room being filled up with hay and straw. Overcoats from the French and German dead had been taken, and were useful for replenishing outfits--particularly when a German soldier wore red trousers, and the braided fur coat of the fantastic Garbaldian uniform. Many others had bed-clothing and horse-coverings, carpets and curtains, one even went so far as to wear an altar-cloth from some poor village church over his shoulders, and those who still had pocket-handkerchiefs in their possession wore them tied over their ears. Many, however, had nothing but their own torn uniforms, and these tried hard to get warm by rolling themselves close against one another like dogs. The dark masses lay there all among the trodden and half-frozen snow stained with blood, sand, and clay, huddled together one on the top of the other, and if their labored breathing had not been heard, one could hardly have told whether one stood by living men or dead--the dead indeed lay near, many hundreds of them, singly and in groups, scarcely more cramped and huddled together than the sleepers, nor more quiet than they. When the cold, even to the most warmly dressed, became intolerable, they would spring up and stagger about, stumbling over heaps of dead and living men, the latter cursing them loudly. The dreadful night passed, and at most a third only of the German troops had rested. The gray dawn began to appear in the sky, bugles sounded, and cries of command were heard, but it was hard for the poor soldiers to rouse themselves, to stir their benumbed limbs, which at last were beginning to get a little warm. One after another the ridges of the Jura Mountains became suffused with pink as the sun rose, but the fissures in the hills and the valleys were still dark and filled with thick mist, behind which the enemy's position and the town of Dijon were still invisible. The soldiers soon forced their stiffened limbs into position, the last remaining rations were quickly distributed, and a picked number of the freshest of the men, i.e. those who had had no night duty, went out doggedly against the enemy, with trailing steps and gray, tired-out faces. The crackle of their lively firing aroused the French from sleep, and perhaps from dreams of conquest and fame, put them to confusion, and drove them back toward Dijon. The Germans followed, this time without shouting, and as the fog gradually dispersed, they saw the first skirmishers of the batteries on Talant and Fontaine, apparently far distant against the Porte Guillaume (the old town gate of Dijon, built to imitate a Roman arch of victory), were really quite near them. One more tug and strain and the goal was near. A fresh swing was put into the attack, but the French had found time with the advancing day to gather themselves together, and to be aware of the inferior numbers of the attacking party, and they threw themselves in column formation down the hill, which the German division threatened to attack in the rear. Fresh troops came marching out of Dijon, and the Germans, to avoid being between two fires, drew back again through the valley behind the mountain. The French pressed after them, but were received by the German reserves with such a firm front, that they paused and slowly retreated. General von Kettler knew that in spite of his momentary success, he could expect no further advance from his half-starved, cold, and weary brigade, and therefore he ordered them half a mile to the rear. The Garibaldian troops, who thought victory could be gained by one strenuous effort, tried to arrest the departing troops, endeavoring to bring them back to another advance. When they were at last distributed in the villages, the exhausted Germans found rest and refreshment for the first time for forty-eight hours. They had lost a tenth part of their powers of endurance in those dreadful two days spent on the hills in sight of Dijon. The brigade had retreated, as one who jumps goes a step or two backward to obtain more impetus. The next morning, January 23, they ware again on the march to Dijon. This time, however, they chose another way to avoid the batteries of Talant and Fontaine, and approached the town from the north instead of from the west. Following the road and the railway embankment from Langres to Dijon, the German troops pressed forward without halting. The French outposts and breastworks soon fell before the advancing Germans, and made no stand till they got to the Faubourg St. Nicholas, the northeast suburb of Dijon. The greater number of the Germans stationed themselves on the embankment, but the walls of the vineyard, plentifully loopholed, pressed them hard with shot. Toward evening the second battalion of the 61st, to which Wilhelm belonged, received the order to advance. Over pleasure-gardens and vineyards they went, through poor people's deserted houses the four companies of skirmishers worked their way to the entrance of the Rue St. Catherine, a long, narrow street. Just at the end stood a large three-storied factory, whose front, filled with large high windows, looked like a framework of stone and iron. At every window there was a crowd of soldiers; the whole front bristled with death-dealing weapons. Sixteen windows were on each floor, and at every window at least three rows of four soldiers stood. It was therefore easy to reckon the total number at six hundred at the very least. As the points of the German bayonets came round the corner in sight of this fortress a terrible change took place: in the twinkling of an eye all the openings blazed out at once, and the building seemed to shake from its foundations; forty-eight red tongues of flame blazed out suddenly to right and left, as if so many throats of Vulcan or abysses into hell had been opened, and soon the whole building was wrapped in a thick white smoke, through which the men were invisible. Then a fresh roar and fresh bursts of flame, and fresh puffing out of white smoke, and so it went on, flash after flash, roar after roar came from that awful wall, whose windows were every now and then visible between the volleys of smoke. Hardly one of the soldiers within the line of fire was left standing, numbers were crushed, many more lying dead or wounded-and the furious firing took on a fresh impetus. If the whole battalion was not to be destroyed, it must speedily get under cover. So, running some hundred and fifty yards to the right, they threw themselves into an apparently deep sandpit, and there they lay directly opposite to the factory. During these few minutes the facade, still vomiting fire, bellowed and poured out bullets like hailstones against the sixty men in the sandpit, doing murderous work. Hardly giving themselves time to take breath, the brave men began to fire steadily at the factory, which up till now appeared, in spite of its nearness, to be very little damaged. The enemy were there completely enveloped from sight, and a lurid red flame through the cloud of smoke was the only guide for the German shot. So the fighting lasted for some time, till an adjutant sprang from over the field behind, which he had reached by a circuitous way, bringing from the commander-in-chief the questions as to what was going on, and why were they there. The major pointed with his sword at the factory, and said "We must have artillery against this." "There is none here to have," answered the adjutant. The major shrugged his shoulders, and gave the command for the Fifth company to storm the factory. While they prepared themselves to leave the sandpit the German firing stopped, and almost at the same time, the French. The enemy could now see what was going on outside, for at this moment the cloud of smoke became less dense. The company broke out of the sandpit, and with the flag of the battalion gallantly waving over them rushed madly toward the door of the factory, while the men who were left behind tried by a furious fire to support their comrades and to confuse the enemy. The strange silence had lasted forty or fifty seconds, probably till the Germans had given some idea of their intentions. This bit of time allowed the storming party to gain, without loss, the middle of the space which separated them from their object, the intoxication of victory began to possess them, and they gave a cheer which rang with the exultant sound of triumph. Again the crashing din began, as terribly as before, it was an uninterrupted sound like the howling of a hurricane, in which no single report or salvo could be distinguished; the whole building seemed to flame at once from the top to the bottom in one red glow, and the bullets flew and whistled in such a confusing mass, that it seemed as if the heavens were opened and it rained balls, a dozen for every four square foot of earth, and the men felt that they must be prepared for repeated attacks of the same description, one after the other without stopping. In but a few seconds half of the company lay on the ground, and the colors had disappeared among the fallen. Those who remained standing seemed for a short time as if stunned. A few, acting on the instinct of self-preservation, fled almost unconsciously. Among the greater part, however, the fighting Prussian instinct prevailed, impelling the soldiers forward and never back, and so with renewed shouts they pressed on. But only for a few minutes. The colors flew upward again, raised by hands wearied to death, only to fall again at once. Three times--four times the flag emerged, sinking again and again, and each flutter meant a new sacrifice, and each fall the death of a hero. Soon there was no one left standing, no man and no standard, nothing but a gray heap of bodies, whose limbs palpitated and moved like some fabulous sea creature, making groaning, ghostly sounds. Ten or twelve poor fellows wounded by stray shots sheltered themselves in the sandpit without weapons, with staring eyes and distorted features. That was all there was left of the Fifth company. There was deathly silence in the sandpit; the firing had ceased for some minutes. The soldiers looked at one another, and at the mountain of human bodies before them in the evening twilight, and threw doubtful glances at the handful of men just returned, lying exhausted on the ground. Suddenly the major called out: "The colors!" "The colors!" murmured several men, while others remained silent. "We must search for them under the wounded," said the major sadly. His glance strayed right and left, and seemed to invite volunteers among the twenty or thirty who were nearest to him. The little band cautiously left their shelter, and set diligently to work on the hill of dead bodies. But in spite of the growing darkness they were observed by the French, who began their fire anew, and a few minutes later no living soul was left on the field. The captain and Wilhelm were now the only remaining officers of the battalion. The former cried: "Who--will volunteer?" and was surrounded by a dozen brave fellows. Wilhelm was not among them. He stood leaning on his sword against the half-frozen side of the pit, observing with sorrowful expression what was going on around him. The captain threw him a strange look, in which contempt and reproach were mingled, then he drew out his watch, as if to note the last moment of his life, and with the cry "Forward!" disappeared in the evening light. He did not reach the spot where the corpses lay thickest. The factory went on spitting fire, and crashing everything down over the heap. The shots, however, came more slowly, and pauses came between them. A shriek was heard, not far distant. Evidently it was one of the wounded who lay on the ground. At the same time a form could be distinguished raising itself up and then sinking again. Heedless of the balls which whistled round his ears, Wilhelm raised his head out of the sandpit and looked over the field. Then he worked himself out on his hands and knees, and to the astonishment of the soldiers in the pit moved away toward the wounded, alone and without hurry or excitement. Over there on the other side they saw him, and although the artillery did not fire on him, he received a brisk volley of single shots without, however, being hit, and he reached the first group of wounded. A hasty glance showed him only stiffened limbs and stony faces. He went on searching, and then he heard close by him a feeble voice saying: "Here!" and a hand was stretched out to him. With one bound he was near the wounded man, and recognized the captain. "Are you seriously hurt?" he asked, while as quickly as possible he raised the wounded man on his shoulder, who answered almost inaudibly: "A ball through the chest, and one in my foot. I am in awful pain." As Wilhelm went slowly back with his burden, he looked so fantastic in the growing darkness, that the French did not know what to make of the strange apparition, and began to fire afresh. "Wilhelm, however, reached the sandpit safely, where friendly arms were stretched out to help him, and relieve him of the captain. He stayed to breathe a moment, and then said: "If any one will come with me, we might bring in one or two more poor devils who have still life in them." He was soon surrounded by five or six figures, and he was going with them to search for wounded in the rain of balls which was falling, when with a sudden cry of pain he sank backward. A ball had struck his right leg. His volunteers put him back into the sandpit, and no one thought any more either of the colors or the wounded who lay out there under the fire from the factory. At this moment too an adjutant brought the command to retreat, which the remains of the wearied battalion slowly began, to obey under the command of a sub-officer. The captain, who could not be moved, was left in a peasant's hut in the village of Messigny, but as Wilhelm's injury was only a flesh wound, and he was merely exhausted from loss of blood, he was sent with the others to Tonnerre, where he arrived the next day, after a journey of great suffering. The schoolhouse was turned into an infirmary, many of the rooms holding nearly a hundred and twenty beds. Wilhelm was put into a little room, which he shared with one French and two German officers. A Sister of Mercy and a male volunteer nurse attended to the patients in this as well as in the four neighboring rooms. Wilhelm exercised the same influence here as he did everywhere, by the power of his pale thin face, which had not lost all its beauty; by the sympathetic tones of his voice, and above all by the nobility of his quiet, patient nature. His fellow-sufferers were attracted to him as if he were a magnet. Some occupants of the room gave up their cigars when they noticed that he did not smoke. The Frenchman declared immediately that he was le Prussien le plus charmant he had ever seen. The Sister took him to her motherly heart, and the doctor was constantly at his bedside. He was able to give him a great deal of attention without neglecting his duty, as there were few very severe cases under his care, and no new ones came in--Paris had surrendered and a truce was declared. At first Wilhelm's wound was very bad. It had been carelessly bound up at first, and in the long journey to the infirmary had been neglected, but owing to antiseptic treatment the fever soon abated and then left him entirely. He took such a particular fancy to the doctor that after a few days they were like old friends, and knew everything about each other. Dr. Schrotter was an unusual type, both in appearance and character. Of middle height, extraordinarily broad-shouldered, and with large strong hands and feet, he gave the impression of having been intended for a giant, whose growth had stopped before reaching its fulfillment. The powerful, nobly-formed he ad was rather bent, as if it bore some heavy burden. His light hair, not very thick, and slightly gray on the temples, grew together in a tuft over the high forehead. The closely-cropped beard left his chin free, and the fine mustache showed a mouth with a rather satirical curve and closely compressed lips A strong aquiline nose and narrow bright blue eyes completed a physiognomy indicating great reserve and a remarkable degree of melancholy. It is no advantage to a man to possess a Sphinx-like head. The pretty faces apparently full of secrets offer easy deceptions, and one expects that the mouth when open will reveal all that the eyes seem to mean. One is half-angry and half-inclined to laugh when one discovers that the face of the Sphinx has quite an everyday meaning, and utters only commonplaces. But with Dr. Schrotter one had no such deception. He spoke quite simply, and when he closed his lips he left in the minds of his listeners a hundred thoughts which his words had conveyed, He was born in Breslau, had studied in Berlin, and had started a practice there when his student day's were over. The Revolution of '48 came, and he at once threw himself head over ears into it. He fought at the barricades, took part in the storming of the Arsenal, became a celebrated platform orator, and relieved a great deal of distress during the reactionary policy which followed, leaving soon afterward, however, to travel abroad. He went to London almost penniless, and at first, through his ignorance of the language, he was barely able to maintain himself, but he soon had the good fortune to obtain an appointment in the East India Company. In the spring of 1850 he went to Calcutta, where he helped to manage the School of Medicine, and some years later was sent to Lahore, where he also established a medical school. After twenty years' service he was discharged with a considerable pension. His return to Europe falling in with the outbreak of the war, he hastened to offer his voluntary services to the army as surgeon. Owing to temperate habits and a strong physique, he had kept in good health, and no one would have dreamed that this strong, fifty-year-old man had passed so many years in an enervating tropical climate. The only signs it had left on his face were the dark, yellowish color of his skin, and the habit of keeping the eyes half-closed. The long years in India had also made a deep impression on his character, and many things about him would have appeared strange and odd in a European. They amounted to sheer contradictions, but their explanation was to be looked for in the environment of his life. Physically he was still young, but his mind seemed very old, and had that appearance of dwelling quietly apart which is the privilege of wise minds who have done with life, and who look on at the close of the comedy free from illusions. His eyes often flashed with enthusiasm, but his speech was always gentle and quiet. In his relations with other men he had the decided manner of one who was accustomed to command, and at the same time the kindness of a patriarch for his children. He was a moderate sceptic, nevertheless he combined with it a mysticism which a superficial judge might have denounced as superstition. He believed, for instance, that many persons had power over wild animals; that they could raise themselves into the air; that they could interrupt the duration of their lives for months, or even for years, and then resume it again; that they could read the thoughts of others, and communicate without help the speech of others over unlimited distances. All these things he averred he had himself seen, and if people asked him how they were possible, he answered simply, "I can no more explain these phenomena than I can explain the law of gravitation, or the transformation of a caterpillar into a moth. The first principles of everything are inexplicable. The difference in our surroundings is only that some things are frequently observed, and others only seldom." His philosophy, which he had learned from the Brahmins, attracted Wilhelm greatly; it made many things clear to him which he himself had vaguely felt possible ever since he had learned to think. "The phenomenon of things on this earth," said Dr. Schrotter, "is a riddle which we try to read in vain. We are borne away by a flood, whose source and whose mouth are equally hidden from us. It is of no avail when we anxiously cry, 'Whence have we come, and whither are we going?' The wisest course for us is to lie quietly by the banks and let ourselves drift--the blue sky above us, and the breaking of the waves beneath us. From time to time we come to some fragrant lotus-flower, which we may gather." And when Wilhelm complained that the philosophy of the world is so egoistic, Dr. Schrotter answered, "Egoism is a word. It depends on what meaning is attached to it. Every living being strives after something he calls happiness, and all happiness is only a spur goading us on to the search. It belongs to the peculiar organism of a healthy being that he should be moved by sympathy. He cannot be happy if he sees others suffering. The more highly developed a human being is the deeper is this feeling, and the mere idea of the suffering of others precludes happiness. The egoism of mankind is seen in this; he searches for the suffering of others, and tries to alleviate it, and in the combat with pain he insures his own happiness. A Catholic would say of St. Vincent de Paul or St. Charles Borromeo, 'He was a great saint.' I would say, 'He was a great egoist.' Let us render love to those who are swimming with us down the stream of life, and without pricking of conscience take joy in being egoists." Wilhelm was never tired of talking about the wonderland of the rising sun, of its gentle people and their wisdom, and Dr. Schrotter willingly told him about his manner of life and experience there. So the peaceful days went by in the quiet schoolhouse at Tonnerre, the monotony being pleasantly relieved by visits from comrades, and letters from Paul Haber and the Ellrichs. Paul was going on very well. He was at Versailles, making acquaintances with celebrated people, and had nothing to complain of except that, in spite of the truce, he had no leave of absence to come and see his friend. Frau Ellrich complained of the irregularity of their correspondence during the war. Loulou wrote lively letters full of spirit and feeling. She had been frightened to hear of his wound, but his convalescence had made her happy again. She hoped that it would not leave him with a stiff leg, but even if it did it would not matter so much, as he neither danced nor skated. What a dreary winter they were having in Berlin! No balls, no parties, nothing but lint-picking, and their only dissipation the arrival of the wounded and the prisoners at the railway station. And that was quite spoiled by the abominable newspaper articles on the subject--presuming to criticize ladies because they were rather friendly to the French officers! The French, whom one had known so well in Switzerland, must be of some worth, and it was the woman's part to be kind to the wounded enemy, and to intercede for human beings even in war, while the men defended them by their courage and strength. Some of these Frenchmen were charming, so witty, polite, and chivalrous, that one could almost forgive them had they conquered us. One's friends were suffering so much--one heard such dreadful things. Herr von Pechlar had escaped without a hair being injured, and he already had an Iron Cross of the first class! She hoped that Wilhelm would soon get one too. Up till now Wilhelm had not been able to answer this question decidedly. One morning, toward the end of February, as he was limping about the room on a stick, the adjutant came in and said: "I have brought you good news. You have won the Iron Cross." As Wilhelm did not immediately answer he went on: "Your captain has the first class. He is now out of danger. He has naturally surpassed you. I may tell you between ourselves that it did not seem quite the thing, your being so cool about the colors; but the way in which you fetched the captain out was ripping. Don't be offended if I ask you why you exposed yourself for the captain when you refused for the flag?" "I don't mind telling you at all. The captain is a living man, and the flag only a symbol. A symbol does not seem to me to be worth as much as a man." The adjutant stared at him, and he repeated confusedly: "A symbol!" Wilhelm said nothing in explanation, but went on: "I regret very much that I was not asked before I was proposed for the Iron Cross. I cannot accept it." "Not take it? You can't really mean that!" "Yes, I do. In trying to fulfill my duties as a man and a citizen, I cannot hang a sign of my bravery on me for all passers-by to see." "You speak like a tragedy, my dear Herr Eynhardt," said the adjutant. "But just as you like. You can have the satisfaction of having done something unique. It is hardly a usual thing to refuse the Iron Cross." As he went out with a distant bow, Dr. Schrotter came in, and said, smiling: "What the adjutant said about the tragedy is very true. Decoration appears very theatrical to me, but you might take it quietly and put it in your pocket. I have got quite a collection of such things which I never wear." "But do you blame the men who despise these outward forms in order to give an example to others?" "My friend, when one is young one hopes to guide others, as one grows older one grows more modest." This objection struck Wilhelm, and he grew confused. Dr. Schrotter laid his hand quietly on his shoulder, and said: "That does not matter. We really mean the same thing. The difference is only that you are twenty-five and I am fifty." As Wilhelm was silent and thoughtful, Schrotter went on: "There is a great deal to be said about symbols. Theoretically you are right, but life practically does not permit of your views. Everything which you see and do is a symbol, and where are you to draw the line? The flag is one, but without doubt the battle is one too. I believe, in spite of the historian who is wise after the event, that the so-called decisive battles do not decide anything, and that it is the accidental events which have the permanent influence on the destiny of peoples. Neither Marathon nor Cannae kept the Greeks or Carthaginians from destruction; all the Roman conquests did not prevent the Teutonic race from overrunning the world; all the Crusader conquests of Jerusalem did not maintain Christianity, or Napoleon's victories the first French Empire; nor did the defeats sustained by the Russians in the Crimea influence their development. And finally, I am convinced that Europe to-day would not be materially different, even if all the decisive victories of her people could be changed into defeats, and their defeats into victories. So you see that a battle is a symbol of the momentary capabilities of a people, and a very useless symbol, because it tells nothing of the immediate future, and yet you will sacrifice your life for this symbol, and not for another! It is not logical." "You are right," said Wilhelm, "and our actions in cases like this are not guided by logic. But one thing I am sure of, if everything else is a symbol, a man's life is not. It is what it appears to be; it signifies just itself." "Do you think so?" said Schrotter thoughtfully. "Yes, although I understand the doubt implied in your question. A living man is to me a secret, which I respect with timidity and reverence--who can tell his previous history, what things he does, what truths he believes in, what happiness he is giving to others? Therefore when I see him in danger I willingly risk my life to save his. I know myself, and I estimate my value as a trifling thing." Schrotter shook his head. "If that were right, an adult must in all cases give his life to save a child, because he might grow to be a Newton, or a Goethe, and above all, because the child is the future, and that must always taken precedence of the past and the present. But to a mature man that is not practicable. There are no more secrets. Mankind knows that the probable is planted within his own being. Do not seek to find additional reasons for a fact which has already sprung up from unknown forces. It was sympathy which impelled you, the natural feeling for a fellow-creature. And that is right and natural." Wilhelm looked at Schrotter gratefully as he affectionately grasped his hand. CHAPTER IV. IT WAS NOT TO BE. The sun streamed down on Berlin from a cloudless sky, and all the life of the town gathered in a confused, restless throng in Unter den Linden; but the bustle on this hot summer day, June 16, 1871, had quite a different character from that of eleven months before. And if any one could have listened to it all with closed eyes, he might have distinguished a joyful excitement in the air, in the laughing of children and girls, in the lively gossip of the men; and from all these sounds of joy and chatter he might have detected the signs that overstrained nerves were now relaxed after long hours of weary suspense. What hundreds of thousands had wished and hoped for on that Friday in July had now come to its glorious fulfillment, and Berlin, as the proud capital of a newly-established empire, was giving a welcome home to the army. They had at last found the answer to Arndt's ill-natured question about the German Fatherland, and had set the great Charles' imperial crown on the head of their bold Hohenzollern king. On one of the raised platforms near the Brandenburger Thor were Wilhelm and Dr. Schrotter. The former had renounced the privilege which belonged to him, as officer in the Reserves, and moreover, as an example, had not claimed his position among those who were wounded in the war, still however wearing his uniform. Had he consulted his own inclinations, he would not have come to see this triumphant entrance, as he took very little pleasure in the noisy enthusiasm of crowds. A great deal of actual vulgarity is always exhibited on these occasions, mingled with some real nobility of feeling. Counter-jumpers and work-girls secure comfortable positions from which to see the processions, groups of calculating shopkeepers with advertisements of pictures and medals of hateful ugliness speculate on the generosity of the crowd, and others push with all the force of their bodily weight to obtain and keep the front places for themselves. Frau Ellrich had sent Wilhelm two tickets, hoping that he would make use of them. Dr. Schrotter wished to see the spectacle, so Wilhelm asked his new friend to go with him. Near where they sat was the platform for the ladies who were to crown the victors with wreaths. Among them was Loulou. All the emotions and force of character of which she was capable had been brought out by her position. Through the influence of her father, who, in all the difficult and responsible business of the French indemnity had found time to intercede for his little daughter with the burgomasters and magistrates, Loulou's dream was realized; a dream which all the prettiest girls in the best society in Berlin had also shared during the last week. Her enrollment in this troop of beauties was regarded by her less successful friends with envy, but the vexation of disappointed rivals was naturally the sweetest part of her triumph. The young girls were dressed all alike in mediaeval dresses like the well known pictures of Gretchen in "Faust," with long plaits of hair, puffed and slashed sleeves, and senseless and theatrical-looking little hanging pockets. All were nevertheless conscious of the propriety of their appearance, and felt quite heroic. It really was heroic to sit there hour after hour in the burning sun bareheaded, until all were gathered into one great picture, and a documentary proof could be handed down to their grandchildren in the shape of a large-sized photograph, showing that their grandmothers had been chosen as the official beauties of Berlin in the year 1871. The satisfaction of vanity, involving such a sacrifice, almost deserves admiration. It was nearly midday when a sudden stir took place in the crowd. Every one on the platforms sprang up and began to wave hats and handkerchiefs. In the windows, on the roofs, in the spaces between the platforms, wherever men could be packed, suddenly all the heads turned to one side, just as a field of corn bends before a breeze. Then uprose a roar of shouts and cheers, deafening and almost stunning in intensity. It was impossible any longer to distinguish tone, but only a tumult, such as a diver in deep water might hear of the surface waves above him. The senses were bemused by the continual succession, of heads set close together like a mosaic, and covering the whole surface of the great street, and by the roar which went up, cheering everything which made its appearance; whether it were the struggling activity of the crowd moving in the center of the street, the sudden fall of foolhardy boys who had climbed into trees or up lampposts, or the short and sharp fights which went on between spectators for the best places, nothing escaped recognition. Now between the firing of cannons was heard a more distant sound of a warlike fanfare of trumpets, and between the pillars of the central Brandenburg Gateway came the Field-Marshal Wrangel, recognizing all the arrangements with a pleasant smile, and with a radiantly happy expression on his withered face, as the first enthusiasm of the people burst upon him, though he had demanded no part of the triumph for himself. A group of generals followed him in gorgeous uniforms, decorated with shining medals and stars, all bore famous names, attracting the keenest interest and centering the enthusiasm of the crowd. Endless and numberless seemed the ever-changing and richly-colored procession--Moltke, Bismarck, and Roon side by side, all statuesque figures, their eyes with stately indifference glancing at the rejoicing people. They seemed in the midst of this stormy wave of excitement like stern, immovable rocks, standing firm and high above the breaking surf at their feet. Many people had at the sight of them an intuitive feeling that they were not mortal men, but rather mystical embodiments of the power of nature, just as the gods of the sun, the sea, and the storm were the conceptions of the old religions. They passed on, and at a short interval behind them came the Emperor Wilhelm. His supreme importance was emphasized by the space left before and after him. Wreaths covered his purple saddle, flowers drooped over the glossy skin of his high-stepping charger, his helmeted head and his gloved hand saluted and bowed, and on his face shone a mingled expression of gratitude and emotion, which, after the hard, cold bearing of his fellow-workers, was doubly impressive and affecting. Manifestly this conqueror was not like his Roman prototype who had the words, "Think of death," whispered in his ear, while he tolerated the idolization of the people. The monarch had to hear long speeches from the officials and verses from the trembling lips of the young girls who surrounded him before he could ride further. The train of individual heroes ended with him. The principle of massing together was now the order, in which individuality is no longer recognized. Battalion after battalion and squadron after squadron in endless lines passed by, until the tired eyes of the spectators could hardly after a time distinguish whether the lines were still moving, or had come to a standstill. The helmets and weapons of the soldiers were garlanded with flowers and foliage, the horses' legs were twined with wreaths, and their feet trod on a mass of trampled flowers and leaves. The strength of the German army seemed to be decked and curled out of it; the lines of marching soldiers had women's faces: here and there a man had a patriotic admirer on his arm, who let it be seen that she had taken possession of his weapon and carried it for him. The officers, as much bedecked as their men, managed nevertheless to preserve their dignity. The crowd was gradually becoming stupefied by the spectacle, throats were sore with shouting and cheering, and the oppressive heat took the freshness out of the people's enthusiasm. Once more, however, they broke out again, just as when the emperor and his paladins appeared, and this was when the French field-trophies were carried past. Eighty-one standards and flags were there, from the battlefields of Russia, Italy, and Mexico, soaked through with men's blood, gloriously decomposed, torn, blackened with powder, and riddled with bullets. Now the strong arms of German non-commissioned officers carried them in the sultry heat of the midsummer afternoon, these miserable remnants hanging heavy and limp without a flutter, without a spark of trembling life in the silken folds; they looked like imprisoned kings, who with heads bowed down, and despair in their eyes, walked in chains behind the triumphant Roman chariots. "Look," sad Dr. Schrotter to Wilhelm, when a short pause came in the shouting, and in the rain of wreaths and flowers--"Look what makes the deepest impression on the people, next to the great representative figures. There is the symbol which you despised." "What does that prove?" answered Wilhelm. "I never doubted that the crowd was roused by appearances, and not by the reason of things. The ideal results of victory one cannot see with one's eyes or applaud with one's hands, but a dismantled banner one can." "That does not explain everything. Atavism comes into it. The inhabitants of towns in ancient times need to rejoice and cheer in the same way when their victorious troops brought home the tutelary gods of their enemies. It is the same idea, the same superstition, after an interval of three thousand years." "Yes, it is curious. I was thinking the whole time that one had a picture of ancient civilization before one. The wreaths of flowers, these swaggering figures with their trophies of war, this gay crowd, distributing food and drink, these young girls with their crowns, is it not all exactly the manner in which the people of the Stone Age or the savages of to-day would feast their heroes? Cannot one understand in this that at the beginning of civilization war was the highest object in state and society, an opportunity of enrichment by booty, and a festival for youth? Nowadays we ought to have got far enough to see in war only a weary fulfilling of duty, a barbarous waste of labor, of which we are inwardly ashamed; and we should keep away from this noisy festival as from the execution of a criminal, which may be necessary, but is painful to witness. The progress from barbarism to civilization is frightfully slow." "It is true; we are still carrying ancient barbarism round our necks, and without a great deal of rubbing you will easily find the primitive savage under the skin of our dear contemporaries who are able to construe Latin beautifully. And these are not the only gloomy thoughts which this spectacle gives me. Look there! over yonder at the other end of the street they are unveiling a monument to Friedrich Wilhelm III., and the festival of victory is spoiled by homage paid to a despot who during twenty-seven years never redeemed his pledge to give the people a constitution. I am forty-eight years old, and yet I have not forgotten my youthful ideas. My generation looked forward to a united as well as to a free Germany, and hoped that unity would not come out of a war, but rather from the freewill of the German people. It is now with us through other means, but I fear not better ones. The aristocracy and the Church will assert themselves again, and the military system will lay its iron hand over the life of the whole nation. People say already that it is the officer and not the schoolmaster who has made Germany great. These changes put my thoughts in a ferment. One has yet to see whether such a society of officers can produce a people, and if its thinkers and teachers could not lead it to a richer cultivation, and its poets to a higher ideal of duty. I am afraid, my friend, that the higher souls in our new empire will not find this an easy time." "And yet you left your dreaming in India to come home to discomfort," said Wilhelm. "My longing for Germany never left me all the twenty years I was there. And then I confess that I secretly reproached myself for going away. It is comfortable to turn one's back on the Fatherland, and to find more agreeable conditions in a foreign country. But afterward one tells oneself that only egoists leave their own people fighting against darkness and oppression, and that one has no right to play the traitor to home and belongings, while those left behind are striving bitterly to better their condition." The procession of troops was still passing, but the young girls had already left their posts; the stands were beginning to empty, and Wilhelm and Dr. Schrotter tried to break through the crowd and go homeward. After a short silence Schrotter again went on: "Don't misunderstand me," he said; "in spite of thinking this triumphal procession barbaric, and my ideal being different from that of most people, I was deeply moved to-day with sympathy and admiration. This generation has achieved something colossal. My eyes fill with tears when I see these men. For six or seven years they have shed their blood in these wars without a murmur, they have fought in a hundred battles without taking breath, they have neither counted the cost nor spared their labor, and one feels astounded at living amid such heroes, who seem to belong to a fairy tale. This generation has done more than its duty, and if now it is weary and will rest for thirty years in peace, surely no one can reproach it." Schrotter spoke with emotion, and Wilhelm who would not grieve his friend by a contradiction, repressed a retaliation which rose to his lips, and silently took leave of him. The life of the community, as of single individuals, went back gradually into its old channels, and so it did with Dr. Schrotter. He had lived hitherto in an old-fashioned quarter of the town, and now, to be as near as possible to Wilhelm, he rented a house in the Mittelstrasse. He established a private hospital in the old Schonhauserstrasse, in the midst of artisans and very poor people, and there he spent daily many hours, treating for charity all those who came to him for help. He soon had a larger attendance than was comfortable, and had to extend the work, without which he could not have lived. He found endless opportunities of relieving misery and distress in this poor quarter of the town, and as he was a rich man, and independent of his own creature comforts, he could put his philosophy of compassion into practice to his heart's content. Wilhelm took up his work again at the Laboratory, and also resumed his visits to the Ellrichs, but it was with an increasing discomfort. The councilor, who had been distinguished for his services in the financial transactions with the French Government, had heard the story of the refusal of the Iron Cross. He thought it very ridiculous, and his early friendship for Wilhelm became markedly cooler. Even Frau Ellrich's motherly feeling for him received a check, and modesty and shyness no longer seemed a sufficient explanation of the unaccountable delay in his love-making. Only Loulou was apparently the same, whenever he came, always lively and friendly, but when he left she was affectionate without any display of emotion, grateful for tender glances, not withholding quiet kisses, but not offering them--her calm manner almost mysterious, as if love were simply something superficial and of small import. Wilhelm could no longer deny that his first love, which had stirred his being to the depths, was a mistake, but he could not bring himself to definitely end the existing conditions. Hundreds of times he was on the point of saying to Loulou that he did not think the tie between them would secure their happiness, and offering her her freedom, but as soon as he began his courage would fail him. If people were present he was confused; if they were alone, her personal appearance had the same charm for him, or rather it awoke in him the remembrance of the delight and enthusiasm he had felt in the past, and prevented him taking a step toward what would do grievous injury to her girlish vanity, if nothing more. Would this suspense and these fears, which made him so restless and unhappy, always last? He might write a letter to Loulou, as he was unable to say what he wished to in the light of her beautiful brown eyes. Then he threw this idea aside as unworthy of consideration; he could not simply dismiss a girl whom he loved by means of the post. The simple thing to do seemed to wait, until, on the other side, they should grow disgusted with him, and would tell him to go. This agreed with his passive character, which was timidly inclined to draw back before the rushing current of events, and preferred to be carried along by them, just as a willow leaf is borne along on the surface of a stream. Wilhelm could not help noticing that Herr von Pechlar was now a favorite guest at the Ellrichs', that he made himself very fussy about both mother and daughter, and that he had a very impertinent and slightly triumphant air when he met him. He would only have to leave the coast clear for Pechlar and all would be at an end. Paul Haber, who was in Berlin again, and paying a great deal of attention to Fraulein Marker, was grieved and really angry at the turn his friend's romance had taken. He knew through Fraulein Marker how Herr von Pechlar was trying to supplant Wilhelm, and that he took every opportunity of making abominably false representations about him. There ought to be no more foolish loitering about. It was unpardonable to let the golden bird fly away so easily. Once open the hand, and she might be off. If Fraulein Ellrich was beginning to flirt with Pechlar, it was quite excusable, as Wilhelm's coolness might well drive her to it. But if he stuck to his absurd whim, that she was too superficial for him!--as if every girl were not superficial, and as if a man cannot educate her to whatever level he pleases--then in heaven's name let him make an end of it all, or the affair would become ridiculous and contemptible. But other considerations had weight with Wilhelm. Through Paul and the officers of his acquaintance he heard very unfavorable things of Pechlar. He was only moderately well off, and had more debts than hairs on his head; perhaps for a son-in-law of Herr Ellrich's that was a venial offense. He was also a common libertine, whose excesses were more like those of a pork-butcher than of a cultivated man. His companions were not disinclined for little amorous adventures--a joke with a pretty seamstress or restaurant waitress were their capital offenses. But the manner in which Pechlar carried on his amours was such as did not commend itself to either the easygoing or cautious among the officers. Wilhelm clearly saw that Pechlar did not love Loulou--he was probably incapable of loving, and only wanted her dowry. Without a thought of jealousy, and out of compassion for an inexperienced and guileless creature who was dear to him, he thought it his duty to warn her before she sullied herself by becoming bound to such a man. To save Loulou he at last took the step which no respect for his own peace or honor had allowed him to take before. He went to the Ellrichs' house the next day at the usually early hour of eleven o'clock, and asking for the young lady, he was shown into the little blue boudoir, where he hoped to find Loulou alone. But he was painfully surprised. Herr von Pechlar sat there, and appeared to be in the middle of a conversation with Loulou. She smiled at Wilhelm, and beckoned to him to come and sit near her, without embarrassment. Wilhelm stayed a moment at the door irresolute, then he went forward, and bowing to her without looking at the hussar, said earnestly: "I came in the hope of speaking to you alone, gnadiges Fraulein. Perhaps I may be so fortunate another time." At these unexpected words Loulou opened her eyes wide. Herr von Pechlar, however, who since Wilhelm's arrival had been tugging angrily at his red mustache, could contain himself no longer, and said in a harsh voice, which trembled with passion: "That is the coolest thing I have ever heard. May I ask first of all why you cut me on entering the room?" "I only recognize people whom I esteem," said Wilhelm over his shoulder. "You are a fool," flashed back Pechlar's answer. Perfectly master of himself, Wilhelm said to Loulou, "I am extremely sorry that I have been the cause of an outbreak of bad manners in your presence," then he bowed and left the room, while Loulou sat there motionless, and Herr von Pechlar gave him a scornful laugh. With all his retirement from the world, and his indifference to the usages of society, Wilhelm felt nevertheless a sharp stab of pain, as if he had been struck across the face with a whip. As he walked down the Koniggratzer Strasse it seemed to him as if a bright, fiery wound burned on his face, and the passers-by were staring at this sign of insult. His powerful imagination formed pictures unceasingly of violent deeds of revenge. He saw himself standing with a smoking pistol opposite the offender, who fell to the ground with a wound in his forehead; or he fought with him, and after a long struggle he suddenly pierced the hussar through the breast with his sword. By degrees his blood cooled, and with all the strength of his will he fought against the feelings which he knew formed the brute element in man, and which with his philosophy he believed he had tamed, and he said to himself, "No, no fighting. What good would it do? I should either kill him, or be killed myself. His insulting words really do me no more harm than the yelping of this little dog who is running past me. I will not let a remnant of prejudice be stronger than my judgment." Although he had come to this resolution, his nerves were still so unstrung that he could not quiet them alone. He felt he must unburden himself to some one, so he hastened toward Dr. Schrotter's. The doctor, however, had not yet returned from his hospital. Wilhelm soon found the inmates of his friend's household, an old Indian man-servant and a housekeeper, also an Indian of about thirty-five, with a yellow face already wrinkled and withered, large dark eyes, and a gold-piece hanging from her nostrils. The old man maintained a respectful attitude toward her, which pointed to a great difference of caste between them. The woman showed by her small hands and feet, and the nobility of her expression, the modest and yet dignified character of a lady, rather than of a person in a subordinate position. Both wore Indian dress, and attracted great attention when they showed themselves in the street. They hardly ever went out, however, and were always busily employed in service for Dr. Schrotter, to whom they were very devoted. The old man, who spoke a little English, opened the door to him, and told him that Schrotter Sahib would soon be in. The woman also appeared, and beckoned to him to go and wait in the drawing-room, opening the door as she did so. As he went in she crossed her arms on her breast, bowed her head with its golden-colored silk turban, and vanished noiselessly. She only spoke Hindustani, and always greeted Wilhelm in this expressive manner. The drawing-room, in which Wilhelm walked restlessly up and down, was full of Indian things; oriental carpets on the floor, low divans along the walls covered with gold embroidery and heaped with cushions, rocking-chairs in the corners, punkahs hanging from the ceilings--no heavy European furniture anywhere, but here and there a little toy-like table or stool made of sandalwood or ebony, inlaid with silver or mother-o'-pearl. Everything smelled strangely of sandalwood and camphor and unknown spices, everything seemed to spring and shake under a heavy European foot, everything had such an unaccustomed look, that one felt as if one were in a foreign land, where Western prejudices and standpoints were unknown and inadmissible. These surroundings spoke to Wilhelm dumbly yet intelligibly, and he felt their persuasive power almost immediately. He had recovered his equanimity when, a quarter of an hour later, Schrotter came in. "What a pleasant surprise!" he cried from the doorway. "Will you stay to lunch with me?" Wilhelm accepted gratefully, and then related his morning's experiences. Schrotter had made him sit on a divan surrounded by cushions, and listened attentively, while his half-closed eyes, full of fire, rested on his friend's unhappy face. Wilhelm had never mentioned his engagement to Fraulein Ellrich to many of his old friends, but Dr. Schrotter had been told of it in all its circumstances by Paul Haber. Now, however, Wilhelm could not avoid the subject in his mind, and to make his last visit to the Ellrichs, and his behavior with regard to Herr von Pechlar intelligible, he told Dr. Schrotter, in short, concise language, the beginning and subsequent development of his love-affair, and by the confession of his consideration of Loulou's nature, gave a clew to his delay, coolness, and final renunciation. When Wilhelm had finished, and raised his eyes questioningly to Schrotter, the latter said, after a short silence: "I congratulate you on the quiet way in which you have told me all this. For a young fellow of twenty-six with deep feelings it is little short of a wonder. But the question is, what do you intend to do?" "Nothing," answered Wilhelm simply. "You will not call out Herr von Pechlar?" "No." "And if Herr von Pechlar challenges you?" "He challenge me?" "Certainly; for although he is the direct offender, we can't overlook the fact, dear Eynhardt, that you first insulted him, which by a nice point of honor would justify him in taking the first steps. The man is evidently bent on a quarrel, so we have to consider the possibility that he may send his second with a challenge." "In that case I would make it clear that I do not demand satisfaction, but neither will I give it." There was another pause. "You are undertaking what may involve serious consequences," remarked Schrotter. "It appears to me easy enough," said Wilhelm. "You could not think of an academic career in Germany after it." "You know I do not aspire to that." "Beside that, the episode will become an insurmountable barrier in a hundred circumstances of life." Wilhelm was silent. "Don't misunderstand me. I have not a word to say in favor of the regulation of duels. I abhor them. It is as stupid and brutal as the offering of human sacrifices to appease angry gods. I myself have never fought in a duel. But I--I am already on the shadowy side of life. I want nothing more from the world. But those still on the sunny side have other things to consider. I think war is a horrible barbarism, still I would not advise any one to hold back from his duty in time of war. Men are often compelled to take part in the foolishness of majorities. I know your heart is in the right place, and that you don't place any exaggerated value on your life. You are content to stand alone in the world, and have no mortgage of obligation on your life. Why will you not fight?" "Simply because I think as you do about duels. I agree that one must often take part in the folly of the crowd, but I see a difference there. I go and fight in battle because the State compels me. I can struggle against these laws with my feeble forces, and I can exert myself to bring about their alteration; but so long as they exist I must submit to them, or else exile myself or commit suicide. If the duel were a written law, I would fight; but the law as a matter of fact forbids it, and my opinions are in accordance with the law." "But there are laws of society as well as laws of the State. There are customs which prevail over opinion and prejudices." "That is not the same thing. If the folly of the majority form itself into laws of the State, the gendarmes see to their enforcement. No judge or jailer compels obedience to the laws of society." "Something like it, however. It is unspeakably bitter to live without the respect of one's fellow-creatures." "I am coming to that point. But please do not think me overbearing and conceited. The respect of my fellow-men I hold far more lightly than self-respect. If I despised myself it would be no compensation if every one saluted me, and if I respect myself, it does not trouble me if others hold me lightly. When I am not forcibly compelled I cannot let my own actions be guided by the caprices and fads of other people. So long as it is possible my actions shall be guided by my own judgment. You say you want nothing more of the world--I require nothing more either. The only thing I demand is the freedom of the soul." "Yes--yes," murmured Schrotter as if to himself, "I know this direction of thought better than you think. It has been brought before me a hundred times by the word and action of Indian fakirs. It seems to me that false freedom of the soul is a chimera. Our most unfettered resolves are called forth by unknown, often by outward conditions, by our own peculiar qualities, by the state of our bodily health, by unknown nervous sources of energy through what we see, hear, read, learn. You make your judgment the sole guide of your actions, but your judgment itself is the result of forces and influences unsuspected by yourself and depending on them. Well! you want to lead the life of a fakir, to unloose the ties binding you to other men, that is one of several ways to secure peace and happiness, which to me also is an object in life. The principal thing is not to be superficial, but to consider both what one requires and what one gives up before turning into a fakir. I respect you in any case." The drawing-room door opened noiselessly, and the Indian woman appeared, and with a pleasant inclination of her head spoke a word to Dr. Schrotter. He got up and said, "Lunch is ready." They went into the adjoining dining-room, furnished like any ordinary room. On the table was a beautiful silver bowl of Indian work filled with flowers, the sole luxury of this bachelor's table, neither wine nor anything else to drink being visible. Schrotter drank nothing but water, and he knew that Wilhelm's taste was similar. Bhani, as the Indian housekeeper was called, stood close behind her master's chair, never taking her eyes off him. The dishes were brought in by the white-bearded servant, and handed with a deep reverence to Bhani. She placed the dishes before Schrotter, changing them for a fresh course, and poured water into his glass. It was a silent, attentive service, almost giving the impression of adoration. Bhani appeared not to be waiting on a mortal master, but taking part in a sacrifice in a temple, so much devotion was expressed in her noble, warmly-colored face. A dish of curry spread its oriental scent through the room, and Schrotter continued: "Tell me, dear Eynhardt, in what way you mean to accomplish your fakir's contempt of the world?" "Pardon me," interrupted Wilhelm, "the expression does not strike me as quite fair. I don't despise the world, I consider it merely as a phenomenon, valueless to my way of thinking, and in which I fail to find any real actuality." "I understand quite well; we are not debating on a platform, but chatting over our lunch. I am not troubling either to talk in the correct jargon of school philosophy, and therefore I am at liberty to call your longings after the essence of things, contempt of the world. Now this occurs in two places--either among inexperienced young men of strong, noble natures, instinctively conscious of their own vitality, and intoxicated by their own strength, who feel so overcome by the phenomenon that they undervalue it, and believe that they are able singly to fight against it. Or there are the weak natures, who think that they are capable of changing the phenomenon to suit themselves. As they are not in a position to strive against it they retire sullenly defeated. The story of the fox and the grapes would just express their case, and also an excess of the consciousness of their 'ego.' Those are, I think, the resources from which spring contempt of the world: neither of these cases coincide with yours; you are not young and inexperienced enough for the one, and you are too useful for the other. You are healthy and sound, of average powers and energy, uncommonly well made in body and mind; of the poetical age, comfortably off, and I should like to know how you have come to despise the world?" "I hardly know. The first impulse came perhaps in Russia in early childhood, where I got into the habit of regarding people around me as barbarous--neither useful nor valuable." Schrotter shook his head. "I have lived for twenty years among a subdued and so-called inferior race, but I have learned to love them instead of despising them." "Very likely I have inherited the feeling from my mother, who was very timid of other people, and given to mysticism." "Is it not rather your reading? The unhappy Schopenhauer?" Wilhelm smiled a little. "I am above all things an admirer of Schopenhauer, although his explanation of the mysteries of the world through the will is a joke. What he has written about the main teachings of Buddhism has influenced me very much." "I see where you have got to--'Maja Nirvana'" Wilhelm nodded. "That is all a fraud," Schrotter broke out, so that Bhani, who never saw him violent, looked up frightened. "I know Indians who have talked endlessly to learned pandits on these questions, and have explained the real ideas of Maja Nirvana to me. It is incomprehensible that people can misuse words on this subject as they do in Europe. Nirvana is not what European Buddhists appear to believe--an absolute negation--a cessation of consciousness and desire; but, on the contrary, it is the highest consciousness, the expansion of individual being into universal existence. Here is the Indian seer's conception: the most limited individuality cares only for his own 'ego.' But in the same measure that he transcends his limitation, the circle of his interest is widened; more actualities and existing phenomena are admitted, and come into sympathy with himself. All things mingle with and extend his own 'ego;' and that can be so widened as to embrace the interests of the whole world, until man can be in as much sympathy with a grain of sand, or the most distant star, and take as much share in the ant, and in the dwellers on Saturn, as in his own stomach and toes. In this way the whole universe becomes a constituent part of his 'ego;' thus his desires cease individually to exist, and are assimilated with the entire phenomenal world, and he longs for nothing beyond this. The 'ego' ceases because nothing is left outside the individual 'ego;' but this Nirvana, this highest step in the perfection of humanity, is, as you can see, not the negation of everything, but the absorption of everything; not something immovable, but rather the wonderful, ceaseless movement of the world's life. Men will not attain to Nirvana through quiet and indifference, but through strenuous labor, not by withdrawing into their 'ego,' but by going outside it. The true Nirvana of the pandits is the exact opposite of your Schopenhauer's Nirvana." "But how can this conception of the seer's Nirvana coincide with their inactivity and renunciation of the world?" "People misunderstand the fakir's belief. The Indian wise men think that the work of perfection is performed by the spirit alone, and that the activity of the body disturbs it; therefore the body must rest while the soul accomplishes its full measure of work, while it widens the circle of its interest, and absorbs into itself the phenomenal world. The clumsy understanding of the crowd thereupon comes to the conclusion that to become holy and attain to Nirvana, one must not stir a finger, not even to support oneself." Wilhelm thought over this new point of view, but Schrotter went on: "Believe me, true wisdom is neither that of the fakir nor of the man of the world; but as it appears to me, it neither despises the world nor admires it. One must not depend on oneself too much, neither on others. One must always be saying to oneself that one has no lasting importance in the world, but that in this transitory state eternal forces are at work, the same forces which drive the earth round the sun, and which operate on all men and things. Do not let us individualize too much; we are only a piece of the whole, to which we hang by a thousand unknown threads. Let us not either be too arrogant in our bearing toward our fellow-men, in whose company we are the involuntary puppets of unknown laws of development which are leading humanity on to a given epoch." This conversation had taken Wilhelm's mind off his misfortune, and he had almost forgotten his adventure with Pechlar. He was reminded of it, however, on reaching home about three o'clock, by finding Paul, who always came to see him at that hour. "What's the news?" cried he, coming cheerfully to meet him. "I went to-day to see Fraulein Ellrich, to set things right between us." "Bravo." "Yes; I went, but I have not done it." And then he related the incident again. Paul seemed quite stunned while Wilhelm was speaking, and then sprang up in great excitement from the sofa, and cried: "You will fight the scoundrel, of course!" "No," said Wilhelm quietly. "What!" shouted Paul, taking hold of Wilhelm's shoulder and shaking him. "Surely you are not in earnest? You are an officer--you have been a student--you will never let that fool of a fellow place you in a false position!" Wilhelm freed himself, and tried to speak reasonably; but Paul would not listen, and went on, his face red with anger: "Not only for yourself; you owe it to the girl's honor, if not to your own, to punish the fellow. You won't appear like a coward in a woman's eyes." "That is an odd kind of logic." "Do be quiet with your logic and your philosophy, and the lot of them. I am not a logician, but a man, and I feel a mortal offense like a man, and want to settle with the offender." "Do stop a minute and let me speak a word. I will break off my relations with Fraulein Ellrich, and then I shall not be in a position to fight for her." "That is very chivalrous!" "That is silly! Just think of this situation: suppose I wound or kill the offender--come back from the duel, and find the young girl, who is the cause of the quarrel, ready to offer me the prize. I answer: 'Many thanks, fair lady, I do not now wish for it,' and straightway leave her, like the knight in the old ballad." That seemed to satisfy Paul. "Very well; then it must not be on her account. But fight you must," and he stopped suddenly, and then burst out: "If you will not fight him, I will." "Are you mad?" Paul began to explain that he had the right to do it; he worked himself into a fury, he stuck to his ideas, and it took Wilhelm an hour to bring him to a more reasonable frame of mind. He spared no pains in explaining to him his views of the world's opinion, and that the real cowardice would be to fear the foolish prejudices of society; but it was all in vain, and Paul's angry objections were only silenced when Wilhelm said with great earnestness: "If nothing that I say convinces you, I can only act in one way with the painful knowledge that our friendship is not equal to such conditions, but only to ordinary occasions." "Oh! if it comes to giving up our friendship, as far as I am concerned, I must wink at the whole thing; but what I can't stand is your calling the opportunity which allows one to silence a fool, a mere disease." The crisis was not long in coming. The next morning before Wilhelm went out, a lieutenant of one of the Uhlan regiments stationed at Potsdam called, and said he had come with a challenge from Herr von Pechlar; he declined to sit down, giving his message as shortly as possible, with the least suspicion of contempt in his voice. Herr von Pechlar had waited the whole afternoon; but as Herr Eynhardt had sent him no message, he could no longer put off demanding satisfaction. The questions as to who was the offender, and what weapons should be used, might now be decided by the seconds. Wilhelm looked calmly into the officer's eyes, and explained that he had nothing further to do with Herr von Pechlar. "You are an officer in the Reserve?" asked the lieutenant haughtily. "Yes." "I hope you understand that we shall bring the case before the notice of the regiment?" "You are perfectly free to do so." The lieutenant stuck his eyeglass into his right eye, looked hard at Wilhelm for several seconds, then, with an expression of deep disgust, he spat on the floor, noisily turned round, and without a word or sign, retired, his sword and spurs clanking as he went. Oh, how hard it was to overcome the instinct of the wild beast! How furiously it tugged at its chain! How it tried to spring after the lieutenant, and clutch his throat in its claws!--but Wilhelm conquered the new cravings of his instinct and stood still. He experienced a great self-contentment at last, and admitted to himself that he would not have been nearly so glad if he had wounded a dozen of the enemy in single combat. Three days later he received in writing, an order to present himself at eleven o'clock the morning but one following to the Commandant of the 61st Regiment. He took the journey the following evening, and at the appointed hour he was shown into the commandant's private room, where he found also his old captain, raised to the rank of major. He spoke kindly to Wilhelm and held out his hand, while the commandant contented himself with a nod, and a sign to be seated. "I suppose you know that you have been ordered to come here about the affair with Lieutenant von Pechlar?" he said. "Certainly, sir." "Will you relate what occurred?" Wilhelm answered as he was desired. His recital was followed by a short silence, during which the commandant and the major exchanged glances. "And you will not fight?" asked the first. "No, sir." "Why not?" "Because my principles do not allow me." The commandant looked at the major again and then at Wilhelm, and went on "If I take the trouble to discuss the matter with you quite unofficially, you have to thank the major, who has spoken warmly in your favor." Wilhelm thanked the major by a bow. "We know that you are not a coward. You showed great bravery on the battlefield. It is because of that, I feel sorry. You are a faddist, you proved that by your refusal of the Iron Cross, which is the pride of every other German soldier. We are not willing to condemn a mode of procedure, the meaning of which you evidently do not understand, and which all your views of life tend to destroy. I am not speaking now as your superior officer, but as a man--as your father might speak to you. Believe what I say. Fulfill your duty as a man of honor." "I cannot follow your advice," answered Wilhelm gentle, but firmly. He was painfully conscious that his answer sounded more roughly and harshly than he intended, but he knew it was impossible to go into a long philosophical discussion, kind and well-meaning as the commandant was. "We have more than fulfilled our promise, major," said the commandant, and turning to Wilhelm, "Thank you, Herr--" The major looked out of the window, and Wilhelm had to go without being able to thank him by a look. He felt, however, that this time things had been easier for him to bear, and that the only painful feeling he had experienced during the interview was the vexation he was giving the major. The Militar Wochenblatt published a short account of his discharge. It made no personal impression on him, but he felt that he was branded in the eyes of others. It, however, seemed to draw Paul Haber nearer to him. He avoided talking on the subject, but every one noticed the quiet way in which he behaved to Wilhelm, his little attentions, his long and frequent visits, as if he were under the impression that he must console his friend in this great misfortune, and stand by him as firmly as possible. Wilhelm knew him as he did himself--how cautious and practically clever he was, and how dangerous it was for him in his own position as Reserve officer to keep up this confidential intercourse with one who had been turned from a hero to a judicially dismissed officer, how perilous for the connection he had with celebrated and influential people, and for the appearance he must keep up in society. Wilhelm valued and appreciated all Paul's heroism in remaining so true and stanch to him, he did not ask for these things, but they were freely given by one who ran the risk of becoming poor, so he was deeply grateful to him. He considered himself under an obligation to go once more to the Ellrichs', to formally take leave of them; but when he rang at their door he was told that the family had gone away to Heringsdorf. As this had occurred, Paul did not think it necessary to tell his friend what he had heard through Fraulein Marker, namely, that the Ellrichs were very angry about the affair of the duel, and had given orders before they went away that Wilhelm was not to be admitted if he called. Wilhelm now wrote to Loulou (he had avoided doing so earlier), a short, dignified letter, in which he begged her forgiveness for having been so long in finding out the state of his feelings, as the struggle had been hard and painful, but he could now no longer conceal the fact that their characters were not sufficiently in harmony to insure happiness together for a lifetime. He thanked her for the happiest week in his life, and for the deepest and sweetest feelings he had ever experienced, and which would always remain the dearest memory of his life. His photograph was shortly afterward sent back to him, from Ostend; but his letter remained unanswered. He did not learn therefore, that it had made an exceedingly bad impression, and that Frau Ellrich had only been restrained with difficulty by her daughter from writing to tell him how impertinent she thought it of him to appear to take the initiative, when her daughter had first refused to receive him. Herr von Pechlar obtained a long leave, which he spent at Heringsdorf. In September the Kreuzzeitung announced his betrothal to Fraulein Ellrich, which was followed in the winter by their brilliant wedding. The breaking of Wilhelm's relations with Loulou left a great blank in his life. Up till now he had had in pleasant, hopeful hours, an object to which all the paths in his life led him, to which his thoughts were drawn as a ship steers for a distant yet secure harbor; now the object was gone, and when he looked forward to his future it seemed like the gray surface of the sea at dusk, formless, limitless, without meaning or interest. Even the painful doubt he had been in, his hesitation between the resolve to persevere in the engagement, or to renounce it, the fight between his intelligence and his inclinations, had become familiar to him, and had filled his thoughts by day and his dreams by night. These must now all be renounced. If for the last half-year his love had been only a quiet happiness, or a hardly-defined desire, it was at any rate an occupation for his mind, and he missed the employment very greatly. He became quieter than ever; his face lost its youthful, healthy color, and he appeared like the typical lover famed in classic story. But his friends did not laugh at him; they bore with him, treated him gently, as if he had been a disappointed girl. Paul, who was filling the place of an invalided professor of agricultural chemistry, and working hard after the college term began, found time to come every day for a long walk in the Thiergarten, and resigned himself to long philosophical discussions which so far had not been at all to his taste. Dr. Schrotter seldom had any spare time during the day; but Wilhelm always took tea with him in the evenings. Did Bhani know anything of his story? Had her womanly instinct guessed that his careworn, melancholy expression betrayed an unhappy love story--a subject so sympathetic to women? Anyhow she anticipated every means of serving him, and her glance betrayed an almost shamefaced sympathy. One November evening they were sitting at the little drum-shaped table in the Indian drawing-room; the teaurn steaming, and Bhani standing near, ready to obey her master's slightest wish. Schrotter touched on the wound in Wilhelm's heart hitherto so tenderly avoided. "My friend," he said, "it is time that you came to yourself. It is obvious that you are still grieving, instead of fighting against your dreams; you give way to them without a struggle." Wilhelm hung his head. "You are right. It is foolish; for I see that I do not love the girl deeply enough to spoil my life." "Come now. You were more in love than you thought; but it is always so; even in pure and passionless natures human nature is very strong, and the first young and pretty girl who comes near enough to you brings out all the dormant feelings, and reason disappears. People often do the maddest things in this period of unrest, which they repent all their after life. I have always mistrusted a first love. One must be quite satisfied that it is for an individual, and not merely the natural inclination for the other sex asserting itself. Your first love, my poor Eynhardt, certainly belongs to this class. Your youthful asceticism has had its revenge; now that your reason has got hold of the reins again, the rebellion of your instinct will soon be subdued." "I hope so," said Wilhelm. "I am sure of it. There is no doubt about the end of crises like these, and it really is difficult to take the misery they cause seriously, although it is bad enough while it lasts. It is the most overpowering and yet the least dangerous of diseases. The patient gives himself up for lost, and the doctor can hardly help smiling, because he knows that the malady will only run its course, and will stop like a clock at its appointed time. He can, however, hasten the cure, if he can bring the patient to his own conviction." He was silent, and seemed sunk in thought. Then he began again suddenly: "I will read you a story about this; nothing is more instructive than a clinical picture." Bhani sprang to her feet and hastened toward him, but he put her aside with a word, and going into his study he appeared again bearing a folio bound in leather and with the corners fastened with copper. "This is my diary," he said. "I have had the weakness to keep this since I was sixteen. There are three volumes already, and I began the fourth when I returned to Germany. Listen now, and don't put yourself under any constraint. I will laugh with you." He opened the folio, and after a short search began to read. It was the romance of his early life, written in the form of a diary, simply told at some length. Quite an ordinary story of an acquaintanceship made with a pretty girl, the daughter of a bookseller, who sat next to him in a theater. Meetings out of doors, then the introduction to her parents' house, and then the betrothal. The Revolution of 1848 broke out, and the many demands on the young doctor turned his thoughts away for the time from plans of marriage. His fiancee greatly admired the fiery orator and fighter at barricades, and told him so, in enthusiastic speeches and letters. The father, however, had no sympathy with reactionaries, and soon conceived a violent antipathy for his future single-minded son-in-law. As long as the democratic party held the upperhand, he kept his feelings in the background, making nevertheless endless pretexts for delaying the marriage. The party of reactionaries broke up, however, and the bookseller declared war; he forbade the young democrat to enter his house, and even denounced him to the police. The young lovers were, of course, dreadfully unhappy, and vowed to be true to one another. He determined to go away, and tried to persuade her to go with him. She was frightened, but he was audacious and insisted. They would go to London, and be married there; he could earn his living, and they would defy the father's curse. All was arranged; but at the last moment her courage failed, and she confessed all to the tyrant, who set the police on the young man's track, and sent the girl away to relations in Brandenburg. The unfortunate lover's letters were unanswered. He left Germany, and heard after some weeks that his betrothed was married to a well-to-do jeweler, apparently without any great coercion. This story was disentangled from letters, conversations, accounts of opinions in the form of monologues, interviews, visits, and descriptions of sea-voyages; all sufficiently commonplace. But what excitement these daily effusions showed! What boundless happiness about kisses, what cries of anguish when the storm broke! Would it not be better to commit suicide and die together? Was it possible that this quiet man with his apathetic calm could ever have been through these stormy times? It did not seem credible, and Schrotter seemed conscious of the immense difference between the man who had written the book and the man who now read it. His voice had a slightly ironical sound, and he parodied some of the scenes in reading them, by exaggerating the pathos. But this could not last long. The real feeling which sighed and sobbed between the pages made itself felt, and carried him back from the cold present to the storm-heated past; he became interested, then grave, and if he had not suddenly shut the book with a bang when he came to the place where his faithless love was married, who knows-- At all events, Wilhelm had not smiled once; his eyes even showed signs of tears. Schrotter took the book into the other room, and when he came back every trace of emotion in look and manner had vanished. "So you see," he began, "a sensible boy like I am has behaved like an ass in the past. But I did not shoot myself after all, that was so far good, and I am ashamed to tell you how soon I got over it. I often go past her shop in Unter den Linden, and see her through the window beyond all her brilliants and precious stones. She is still very pretty, and seems happy, much happier no doubt than if she had been with me. She would certainly not recognize me now, and I can look at her and my heart beats no whit the faster. Dwell on my example." "I am not sure that you are not slandering yourself." "You can feel easy about that," said Schrotter earnestly. "The disenchantment was quick and complete, and very naturally so. Just get Schopenhauer's 'objectivity' out of your head; I don't believe in Plato's theory of the soul divided into two halves which are forever trying to join again. Every sane man has ten thousand objects which are able to awaken and return his love. All he has to do is not to go out of their way." "Ought not there to be an individual one?" "I venture to say no. The story of the pine trees of Ritter Toggenburg, which love the palm trees, is the creation of a sentimental poet. Lawgivers in India to all appearance believe in faithfulness unto death; and the widow or even the betrothed follows her husband to the grave of her own free will. This free-will offering only comes, however, by aid of the sharpest threatening of punishment. I have known fourteen-year-old widows who offered themselves miserably to be burned. If they had known how soon they would be consoled, and new love sprang up, they would have violently resisted such suicide! Bhani there is a living example of this," As she heard her name she looked up, and Wilhelm intercepted a look between her and Dr. Schrotter, which all at once made clear to him what he had vaguely suspected before. He turned his head sadly toward the window, and looked out into the foggy autumn evening. He felt almost as if he had committed a crime, in having discovered a secret which had not been freely revealed to him. CHAPTER V. A LAY SERMON. "Es ist eine Lust, in deiser Zeit zu leben!" cried Paul Habor, as he walked with Wilhelm and Dr. Schrotter on the first sunny day the following April. They walked under the lindens full of leaf through the Thiergarten, and home over the Charlottenburger Brucke. The spirit in which he uttered Hutten's words was at that time dominant and far-reaching. It seemed as though people were all enjoying the honeymoon of the new empire; that they breathed peace and the joy of life with the air, as if the whole nation inhaled the pleasure of living, the joy of youth and brave deeds, and that they stood at the entrance of an incomprehensibly great era, promising to everyone fabulous heights of happiness. A sort of feverish growth had sprung up in Berlin, an excitement and ferment which filled the villas in the west end, and the poor lodging-houses of the other end of the town: was found too in councilors' drawing-rooms, and in suburban taverns. New streets seemed to spring up during the night. Where the hoe and rake of kitchen-gardens were at work yesterday, to-day was the noise of hammers and saws, and in the middle of the open fields hundreds of houses raised their walls and roofs to the sky. It seemed as if the increasing town expected between to-day and to-morrow a hundred thousand new inhabitants, and were forced to build houses in breathless haste to shelter them. And as a matter of fact the expected throng arrived. Even in the most distant provinces a curious but powerful attraction drew people to the capital; artisans and cottages, village shopkeepers, and merchants from small towns, all rushed there like the inflowing tide. It made one think of a number of moths blindly fluttering round a candle, or of the magnetic rock of Eastern fairy tales, irresistibly attracting ships to wreck themselves. It recalled to one the stories of California at the time of the gold fever. People's excited imaginations saw a veritable gold-mine in Berlin. The French indemnity flew to people's heads like champagne, and in a kind of drunken frenzy every one imagined himself a millionaire. Some had even seen exhibited a reproduction of the hidden treasure. The great heap of glittering pieces was certainly there, a tempting reality, piled up mountains high, millions on millions, craftily arranged to glitter in the flaring gas-light before their covetous eyes. The real treasure must be at least as substantial as its counterfeit. People began to see gold everywhere; red streaks of gold shone through the window-panes, instead of the warm spring sun; they heard murmuring chinking streams of gold flowing behind the walls of their houses, under the pavements of the streets, and every one hastened to fill their hands, and thirsted for their share in the subterranean gold whose stream was concealed from their eyes. While their lips were being moistened by the stream of gold, they were, as a matter of fact, drinking the transformed flesh and blood of the heroes who had sacrificed themselves on the French battlefields, and in this infamous travesty of the Christian mystery of the Lord's Supper the devil himself took part and possession of them. They followed new customs, new views of life, other ideals. The motto of their noisy and obtrusive life seemed to be, "Get rich as quickly and with as little trouble as possible, and make as much as possible of your riches when you have secured them, even by illegitimate means." So the splendid houses rose up in an overloaded gaudy irregular style of architecture, and the smart carriages with india-rubber tires rolled by, yielding soft and soothing riding to their occupants. Berlin, the sober economical town, the home of honorable families, extolled for respectability almost to affectation, now learned the disorderly ways of noisy cafes, the luxury of champagne suppers, in over-decorated restaurants, became intimately acquainted with the theaters--gaining doubtful introductions to expensive mistresses. Mere upstarts set the fashion in dress, in extravagance, and all who would be elegant, followed, leading the way to barbaric vices. The old-established inhabitants were many of them weak or silly enough to try to outdo the newcomers, and degraded the quiet dignity of their patriarchal manner of life by speculations on the Stock Exchange. The intelligent middle classes, whose eyes and ears were filled with this bluster of the gold-orgy, found that their former way of living had now grown uncomfortable, their houses were too small, their bread too dry, their beer too common and their views of life began to climb upward in a measure which, whether they were willing or equal in talent to it, forced from them harder work and more dogged perseverance. Political economists and statisticians were drawn into excitement by their knowledge of figures. They extolled the sudden crisis in the money market, the easy returns, the great development of consumption in goods. They quoted triumphantly the amount of importations, the great increase in silk, artistic furniture, glass, jewelry, valuable wines, spices, liqueurs, was called a splendid development of trade; wonderful evidence of the prosperity of all classes, and an elevation of the manner of life of the German people. And if moralists failed to see in these heated desires and idle display, the presence of progress and blessing, they were called limited Philistines, who were too feeble-minded to recognize the signs of the times. The position of the workingman profited by the new condition of things. Berlin seemed insatiable in her demands for able-bodied workmen. Hundreds and thousands left the fields and the woods, and taking their strong arms to the labor market of the capital, found employment in the factories and the workshops; and the mighty engines still beat, sucking in as it were the stream of people from the country. Berlin itself could not contain this influx. The newcomers were obliged gypsy fashion to put up as best they could in the neighborhood. In holes and caves on the heaths and commons, in huts made of brushwood, they bivouacked for months, and these men who lived like prairie dogs in such apparent misery were merry over their houseless, wild existence. As a matter of fact they experienced no actual want, as there was work for every one who could and would labor. The rewards were splendid, and the proletariat found that its only possession, viz., the strength of its muscles, was worth more than ever before. The workingman talked loudly, and held his head high. Was it the result of having served in one or more campaigns? Had he in the background of his mind a vision of dying men and desolate villages, seen so often on the battlefield? However it was, he became violent and quarrelsome, indifferent alike to wounding and death, and learned to make use of the knife like any cutthroat townsman. With this return to barbarism (an unfailing result with the soldier after every time of war) went a degree of animal spirits, which made one ask whether the workman had learned something of epicurean philosophy. He had the same excited love of tattling as a thoughtless girl, and the animal love of enjoyment of a sailor after a long voyage. His ordinary life seemed to him so uninteresting, so dull, that he tried to give color and charm to it by taking as many holidays as possible, and making his work more agreeable with gambling and drinking, and going for loafing excursions about the neighborhood. Visits to wine and beer-houses and dancing-rooms were endlessly multiplied, and everything had the golden foundation which the proverb of an age of simplicity hardly attributed to honorable handicraft. Profits were squandered in drink; life was a rush and a riot without end. But curiously, in the same degree in which the opportunities of work were increased and wages became higher, life everywhere easier, and the ordinary enjoyments greater; just so did the workman grow discontented. Desires increased with their gratification, and envy measured its own prosperity by the side of the luxury of the nouveaux riches. The hand which never before had held so much money, now learned to clinch itself in hatred against the owner of property, the company promoter; against all in fact who were not of the proletariat. The Social Democrat had sprung up ten years before from the circle of the intelligent political economists and philosophers of the artisan classes. Since the war they numbered thousands and ten of thousands, and now began to grow and widen like a moorland fire, at first hardly perceptible, then betraying through the puff of smoke the fire creeping along the ground; then a thousand tongues of flame leap upward, and suddenly sooner or later the whole heath is in a blaze. Innumerable apostles preaching their turbid doctrines in all the factories and workshops, found hearers who were discontented and easily carried away. The social democracy of the workmen was neither a political nor economical programme which appealed to the intellect, or could be proved or argued about, but rather an instinct in which religious mysticism, good and bad impulses, needs, emotional desires were wonderfully mingled. The men were filled with enmity against those who had a large share of money; the new faith dogmatically explained possession of property as a crime--that it was meritorious to hate the possessor and necessary to destroy him. They were made discontented with their limited destiny by the sight of the world and its treasures; the new faith promised them a future paradise in the shape of an equal division of goods--a paradise in which the hand was permitted to take whatever the eye desired. They were disgusted by the consciousness of their deformity and roughness, which dragged them down to the lowest rank in the midst of school learning if not exactly knowledge; of good manners if not good breeding; the new faith raised them in their own eyes, declaring that they were the salt of the earth, that they alone were useful and important parts of humanity; all others who did not labor with their hands being miserable and contemptible sponges on humanity. The whole proletariat was soon converted to Social Democracy. Berlin was covered with a network of societies, which became the places of worship of the new faith. Handbills, pamphlets, newspapers, partly polemical, partly literary, in which the mob made their statements and professed their faith stoutly; these, although written very badly, yet by their monotony, their angry reproaches, their invocations, reminded one of litanies and psalms. Wilhelm felt a certain sympathy with the movement. It was first brought to his notice by a new acquaintance, who had worked with him in the physical laboratory since the beginning of the year. He was a Russian, who had introduced himself to the pupils in the laboratory as Dr. Barinskoi from Charkow. His appearance and, behavior hardly bore this out. His long thin figure was loosely joined to thin weak legs. Light blue eyes looked keenly out of a warm grayish-yellow face; add to these a sharp reddish nose, pale lips, a spare, badly grown mustache and beard of a dirty color, and slight baldness. His demeanor was suave and very submissive, his voice had the faltering persuasiveness which a natural and reasonable man dislikes, because it warns him that the speaker is lying in wait to take him by surprise. Barinskoi, beside, never stood upright when he was speaking to any one. He bent his back, his head hung forward, his eyes shifted their glance from the points of his own boots to other people's, his face was crumpled up into a smiling mask, and working his hands about nervously he crammed so many polite phrases and compliments into his conversation that he was a terrible bore to all his acquaintances. Barinskoi, who was an accomplished spy, intended by his entrance into the laboratory to learn all he could in a circuitous way of persons and conditions. After a short observation he noticed that Wilhelm seemed isolated in the midst of the others, and was treated coldly by every one except the professor. He learned that this coolness of the atmosphere was on account of the refusal of the duel. After that he tried every possible means to get nearer to him. Wilhelm was working in some important researches, and it was possible that the results would destroy some existing theories. The professor followed the experiments with great attention, and many times spoke of him as his best pupil in difficult work. That was Barinskoi's excuse for asking Wilhelm if he would initiate him into his work, and explain to him his hypotheses and methods. He added, with his submissive smile and nervous rubbing of the hands, that the Heir Doctor might be quite easy about the priority of his discoveries, as he was quite prepared to write an explanation that he stood in the position of pupil to the Heir Doctor, and had only a share in his discoveries in common with others. Wilhelm contented himself by replying that priority was nothing to him, and that he did not work for fame, but because he was ignorant and sought for knowledge. Thereupon Barinskoi said he was very happy to have found some one with the same views as himself, he also thought that fame was nonsense, that knowledge was the only essential thing, that it gave power over things and men, that the ideal was to proceed unknown and unnoticed through life, making the others dance without knowing who played on the instrument. That was not what Wilhelm meant, but he let it go without denying it. Barinskoi also tried to claim him for a fellow-countryman, but Wilhelm stopped him, explaining that he was a German, although born beyond the frontier of his fatherland. This slight did not disconcert Barinskoi; he endeavored to produce an impression on Wilhelm, and if one shut one's eyes to his ugliness and fawning ways he was a well-informed man; harshness was not in Wilhelm's nature, so he held out no longer against Barinskoi's importunity--who very soon accompanied him home from the laboratory, visited him uninvited in his rooms, invited him to supper at his restaurant, which Wilhelm twice declined, the third time, however, he had not the courage to refuse. In spite of this Barinskoi would not see that his invitation was only accepted out of politeness. There were many things reserved and unsociable about Barinskoi; for example, he never invited any one to his rooms. He called for his letters at the post office. The address he gave, and under which he was entered at the University office, described him as a newspaper correspondent, which agreed with his daily readings and writings. He frequently disappeared for two or three days, after which he emerged again, as it were, dirtier than before, with reddened, half-closed eyelids, weak voice, and general bloodless appearance. A conjecture as to where he was during this time was suggested by a smell of spirits, beside the fact that students from the laboratory had often seen him late at night at the corner of the Leipziger and Friedrichstrasse in earnest consultation with some unhappy creature of the streets, and that he was often seen haunting remote streets in the eastern districts in the company of women. Barinskoi declared he was the correspondent of a large St. Petersburg paper, and that he made great efforts to remove the prejudices of Russia against Germany, and to give his readers a respect for their great neighbors. By chance one day Wilhelm read the page of Berlin correspondence, and found that from first to last it was full of poisoned abuse, insult, and calumination of Berlin and its inhabitants. At the next opportunity he put it before Barinskoi's eyes without a word. He started a little, but said directly, quite calmly: Yes, he had read the letter too; naturally it was not by him; the paper had other correspondents, who hated Germans, he could do no more than put a stop to their lies, and find out the reality of their misrepresentations. Early in this short acquaintance it was clear that Barinskoi was in constant money difficulties. By his own representations the paper paid him very irregularly, and the most curious accidents constantly occurred to prevent the arrival of the expected payments. Once the money was sent by mistake to the Constantinople correspondent, and it was six weeks before the oversight was cleared up. Another time a fellow-writer who was traveling to Berlin undertook to bring the money with him. On the way he lost the money out of his pocket-book, and Barinskoi had to wait until he went back to St. Petersburg, to inquire into the case. By such fool's stories was Wilhelm's friendship put to the proof. Barinskoi did not stop at borrowing money occasionally, with sighs and groans, but every few days, often at a few hours' interval, a new and larger loan would frequently follow. All this was a dubious method of consolation, and yet Dr. Schrotter, or rather Paul Haber, decided that though further contact with Barinskoi must be avoided, he was an object of increasing interest to Wilhelm. Barinskoi had many ideas in sympathy with his, which he did not find in others, and their views of society and practical maxims of life were so much in common that Wilhelm was often puzzled by this question: "How is it possible that people can draw such completely different conclusions from the same suppositions by the same logical arguments? Where is the fatal point where one's ideas separate--ideas which have so far traveled together?" Barinskoi thought as Wilhelm did, that the world and its machinery were mere outward phenomena, a deception of the senses, whose influence acted as in a delirium. All existing forms of the common life of humanity, all ordinances of the State or society appeared to him as foolish or criminal, and at any rate objectionable. He considered that the object of the spiritual and moral development of the individual was the deliverance from the restraint, and the complete contempt of all outward authority. So far his opinions agreed with Wilhelm's, and then he disclosed the laws of morality which he had evolved from them. "The whole world is only an outward phenomenon, and the only reality is my own consciousness," said Barinskoi; "therefore I see in the would only myself, live only for myself, and try only to please myself, I am an extreme individualist. My morality allows me to gratify my senses by pleasant impressions, to convey to my consciousness pleasant representations, so as to enjoy as much as possible. Enjoyment is the only object of my existence, and to destroy all those who come in the way of it is my right." Wilhelm wondered whether this frightful code could possibly belong to the same views of life which, in despising the enjoyment of the senses, denied desires, demanded the sacrifice of individuality for the sake of others, and found happiness in the enjoyment of love for one's neighbors, and in the struggle for human reason over animal instinct? Barinskoi understood Wilhelm's character and saw that he could quite safely trust to his forbearance and his single-mindedness, so he made no further secret of the fact that he was a Nihilist and an Anarchist. When Wilhelm asked him if he imagined what the realization of his theories meant, he had the answer ready. "We demand unconditional freedom. Our will shall not be confined by the will of others, or by oppressive laws. The Parliament is our enemy as well as the monarch, the tyranny of the autocrat as well as that of the majority, the coercion of laws of the State, as well as those of society. We will gather together groups according to their free choice and inclination out of the fragments of annihilated society, that is, if we can manage to procure our enjoyment as well in groups as alone. These groups will unite into larger groups if the happiness of all demands a larger undertaking than a single group can secure, such as a great railway, a submarine tunnel, and the like. In some cases it may be necessary that a whole people, or even the whole of humanity, should be in one group, but only up to a certain point, and only until this point is reached. Naturally no individual is bound to a group, nor one group to another; binding and loosing go on perpetually, and with the same facility as molecules in living organisms unite and separate." Barinskoi occupied himself particularly with the labor questions. Not that the distress and want of the very poor, the economical insecurity, the general misery, troubled him at all. He was cynically conscious that he was as indifferent to the laborer as to the capitalist; the laborer's inevitable brutalization, his hunger, his bad health, and short term of life touched him as little as the gout of the rich gourmand, or the nerves of fine ladies. He saw, however, in the proletariat a powerful army against prevailing conditions. He could trace among the discontented masses the possession of the crude vigor which the Nihilists wanted, to crush the old edifices of the State and society, and it was this which interested him in the movement and its literature. He knew the last accurately, and initiated Wilhelm into it, and so the latter learned all about socialism, its opinions of the philosophy of production, its theories and promises. He learned also that sects had already been formed within this new faith, which the revelations of the socialistic prophets explained differently; and that they furiously hated each other, and were as much at enmity as if they were a State Church with a privileged priesthood, benefices, property and power. The complaints of the proletariat appeared to Wilhelm of doubtful value. In every age there were economic fevers, which were not caused by misery, but by discontent and wastefulness, and if he saw a workman staggering through the streets, his legs tottering beneath him, he guessed that his weakness was not caused by hunger, but by beer or spirits. He understood that mankind believed in an unbroken work of development within nature, and in their own self-cultivation. The theory of socialistic teaching, namely, the conditions of production and distribution, could be constantly remodeled just as other human institutions, i.e. the customs of governments and societies, the laws, ideas of beauty and morality, knowledge of nature, and views of society. His sympathies went out to those who were convinced that the present economical organization had lived out its time, and were endeavoring to remove it. Wilhelm's friends interested themselves warmly in this new sphere of thought. Paul was a member of the National Liberal Election Society, and was enthusiastic about Bennigsen and Lasker, who possessed enough statesmanlike wisdom to surrender fearlessly to the opposition, and determine to go with the government. To these present experiences Dr. Schrotter joined the half-forgotten training of '48, and agreed to belong to a society of the district; he had soon an official appointment, and placed his experience and knowledge at the disposal of the sick and poor of the town. He did not interest himself at first in political strife. He was very uneasy about the turn things were taking, and considered that it was not right to rebel against the existing conditions of things, which to the majority of people were agreeable enough. "You have fought and bled for the new empire," he said; "I left it while I was in India to get on as best it could; if the others think themselves well off, I don't see why they should not have the satisfaction of the results of their work, just because of the sulky temper of criticism." Wilhelm had often taken one or other of them to his society, but without their being much interested in the meetings. One day he asked his friend whether he would not go with him to a social democratic meeting. Schrotter was quite prepared, as he saw that Wilhelm was really in earnest, and was trying to come in contact with the realities of life. Paul abominated the social democrats, but he sacrificed himself to spend an hour there with Wilhelm. The meeting they were to attend was at the Tivoli. It was a disagreeable evening in April, with gusts of wind and frequent showers. The sky was full of clouds chasing each other in endless succession, the flames of gas flickered and flared, and the streets were covered with mud which splashed up under the horses' feet. The three friends went in spite of bad weather to the Tivoli on foot. In the Belle Alliance Strasse they came upon groups of workmen going in the same direction as themselves, and as they reached the place in the Lichterfelder Strasse, they were accompanied by a long stream of people. At the entrance to the club they found themselves in the midst of a crowd, and could only advance very slowly unless, like the others, they pushed and elbowed their way. Mounting a few steps they reached an enormous garden, lighted by the fitful beams of the moon as she emerged from the clouds, and a few gaslamps. On the right was a Gothic building, which would have been sufficiently handsome if built in stone, but with barbarous taste had been executed in wood. At the end of the garden some more steps led to a broad, four-cornered courtyard, on the right of which the iron spire of the National Memorial was dimly visible, while to the left was a large building of red and yellow brick with a four-square tower at either end, a pavilion projecting from the center, and a number of large windows. Over the entrance in the center of the building was the inscription in gold letters on a blue ground: "Gemesst im edeln Geistensaft Des Wemes Geist, des Brodes Kraft" In the little anteroom a few sharp-looking, rather conceited young men were standing, either the instigators or organizers of the meeting. They eyed the people who came in with a quick look of assurance, offering a pamphlet, which nearly every one bought. Through this anteroom was the hall, large enough to hold a thousand people comfortably. Several tables for beer stood between red-covered pillars which supported the ceiling, and on the right was a platform for the speakers. Wilhelm, Schrotter, and Paul Haber found places not far from this, although the hall was soon filled up after they came in. Wilhelm's first impression was not favorable. He had bought a pamphlet at the door, and in it he read foolish jokes, clumsy tirades against capitalists, and drearily silly verses. If the party possessed quick and cultivated writers, they had certainly not been employed on this leaflet. His finer senses were as shocked at the meeting as his taste was at the pamphlet. Mingled odors of tobacco-smoke, beer, human breath, and damp clothes filled the air; the people at the tables had an indescribably common stamp, unlovely manners, harsh, loud voices, and unattractive faces. They gossiped and laughed noisily, and coarse expressions were frequent. The earnest moral tone, the almost gloomy melancholy which Wilhelm had found so attractive in socialistic writings, was absent, and it seemed to him as if the new doctrine in its removal from the enthusiast's study to the beer-tables of the crowd had lost all nobility, and had sunk to degradation. Paul took no trouble to conceal the disgust which "this dirty rabble" gave him. He gazed contemptuously about him, and every time that one of his neighbors' elbows came near his coat he brushed the place angrily, and muttered half-aloud: "Well, if I were the government I would jolly soon stop your meetings." Dr. Schrotter, on the other hand, found the sight of the crowd rekindle in him all the feeling of sentiment he had had for the old democrats; he felt his heart overflow with pity and tenderness. With his physician's eyes he pierced through the brutal physiognomies, and observed them with kindness and sympathy, making his friends attentive too. "One of the martyrs of work," he said gently, indicating a haggard man sitting at the next table who had lost one eye. "How do you know that?" "He must be a worker in metal, and has had a splinter in one of his eyes. He had the injured eye removed to save the other." Here was a baker with pale face and inflamed eyelids, coughing badly--consumptive, in consequence of the dust from the flour--his eyes affected by the heat of the oven. Here was a man who had lost a finger of his left hand--the victim of a cloth loom; and here a pallid-looking man, showing when he spoke or laughed slate-colored gums--a case of lead-poisoning, with a painful death as the inevitable result. And it seemed as if over all these cripples and sickly people the Genius of Work hovered as the black angel of Eastern stories, tracing on their foreheads with his brush--on this one mutilation, on this one an early death. Schrotter's observations and explanations placed the whole meeting in a different light to Wilhelm. The coarseness of the men, even the dirt on their hands and faces, touched him like a reproach, and in their jokes and laughter he seemed to hear a bitter cry. A reproach, a complaint against whom? Against the capitalists, or against inexorable fate? Wilhelm asked himself whether the conditions of labor were attributable to men, or were not the result of cruel necessity? Could the capitalist be responsible for the accidents of machines, the dust from flour, the splitting of iron? If these workmen had not been one-eyed or consumptive could they have performed their work for the commonweal? Was it not true that if mankind would not renounce its claims to bread and other necessities, it must pay for the satisfaction of wants with the tribute of health and life? that every comfort, every pleasure added to existence was paid for by human sacrifice? that the masks of tragedy worn at this meeting were merely the corporate expressions of a law which united development and progress with pain and destruction? In this case the whole socialist programme was manifestly wrong, and the sum of the workman's grievances was not the result of the economical arrangements of society, but of the eternal conditions of civilization, that the theory of the methods of labor and their amelioration was not the expectation of an equal division of property, but rather of the contrivances of the inventor. While Wilhelm was absorbed in these reflections the first speaker of the evening appeared on the platform, a little dapper man, restless as quicksilver, with long hair, large mouth, and a shrill voice. He opened the meeting with an extraordinary volubility, in a whirl of pantomimic gesture and excitement, violently denouncing the capitalists; "infamous bloodsuckers" as he called them. He painted hopelessly confused pictures, with constant faults of grammar--of the hard fate of the workingman, and the black treachery of the property-owning classes. They were slaveowners who paid them their daily wages by shearing the wool off their backs, and enjoyed riotous luxury themselves while the poor destitute ones were engulfed in a chasm of misery. The workman must possess the fruit of his labor himself, like the bird in the air, or the fish in the water. He who produced nothing was a parasite, and deserved to be extirpated; he was only a drag, consequently a poison for the rest of mankind. The Commune in Paris was the first signal of warning for the thieves of society. Soon the great flood would burst forth which would carry away all thieves and tyrants, usurers and bloodsuckers, and the workingmen must be united and get their weapons ready. Unity was strength, and to allow themselves to be fleeced by these hyenas of capitalism was an insult to any free, thoughtful man. He went on in this style for about half an hour, during which time the words came out in a constant stream without a moment's pause. Schrotter's expression became sad, while Paul banged the table with his mug and cried "Bravo" at every grammatical mistake, or every false analogy. Angry glances were cast at him from neighboring tables, as in his applause was recognized contempt for the speaker whom they admired so much. No one laughed or joked, all were silent to the end; at every violent expression of the long-haired Saxon, eyes flashed, heads nodded approval, and feet stamped excitedly. So eagerly did the meeting drink in this excited orator's words that they quite forgot to drink their beer, and the waiter, bringing in a fresh supply, had to go out again with an exclamation of surprise. When the speaker had finished and resumed his seat, Schrotter and Paul, to their immense surprise, saw Wilhelm spring to his feet in the midst of all the stamping and applause and go to the platform. What was that for? He went up and began to speak in an undertone to the organizers of the meeting. They put their heads together, looking at the card Wilhelm had given them; then one of them rose, and coming to the front of the platform, shouted so as to be heard above the clamor: "True to our principles of listening to opponents, we are going to allow a guest to speak: it is not part of the programme, but no citizen shall have cause to complain that his mouth has been stopped." Any one could understand what this meant, as Wilhelm stood alone in the middle of the platform and waited with folded arms for silence and attention. His dark eyes looked straight at his audience, and he began in his clear, quiet voice: "What you all feel in this meeting is discontent with your fate, and a wish to improve it. I do not believe, however, that the honored speaker before me has shown you a way which will bring you any nearer to your desires. You wish that the State shall nurse you in sickness, and provide for you in old age. What is the State? It is yourselves. The State has nothing but what you give it. If it provides for you in sickness and old age, it takes the money out of your own pockets. You do not want the State for that. In days of health and strength you could yourselves lay aside spare money for bad times without the services of gendarmes, or assistance of executors. The last speaker spoke of hatred for the owners of property, hatred of profit. Hatred is a painful feeling. It adds to the pain of existence another, and very likely a greater one. A soul in which the poison of hate is at work is heavy and sad, and can never feel happiness. If you would not burden your lives with hatred it might be possible that you would become happy." A murmur arose in the meeting, and a voice in opposition called out loudly. "The fellow is a Jesuit." "Parson's talk," cried another from the corner of the room. Wilhelm took no notice of the interruption, but went on. "Why do you object to the owners of property? On account of their idleness? That is not just. Many of them work much harder than all of you, and bear a weight of responsibility which would kill most of you. But suppose we grant that many rich people waste their lives doing nothing. Instead of envying these unhappy people, I pity them from the bottom of my heart. I would prefer death a thousand times to life without duty and work." The murmur grew stronger and more threatening. "I wish," cried Wilhelm, raising his voice, "I wish I were rich and powerful. Then I would invite those who scorn my words now, to live quite idly for a year or six months. I would take care that no employment was possible for them, that their days and weeks should be quite empty. Then they would see how soon they would raise imploring hands to those who had condemned them to idleness. Neither guards nor walls would keep them to the softly-cushioned golden-caged prison of indolence, they would fly as if for their lives, and go back to the place where their work was, which they had previously thought like hell." "Let us see if we would," cried some with contemptuous laughter. "In what has the rich man the advantage of you? He lives better, you say. He can procure more enjoyments for himself. Are you sure that these so-called enjoyments bring happiness? Your healthy hunger makes your bread and cheese taste better than the rich dishes at noblemen's tables, and the suffering which fills every life is more bitter in the western villa than in the workingman's back room, because there they have more leisure to endure it in, and every fiber of the soul has its own torture." "What do you get for defending the rich man?" called a voice from the hall. "I am telling you the penalty of property. You must be just in everything. Granted that the rich man is a criminal; granted his idleness is an offense to your activity; granted that his roast meat and wine make your potatoes taste insipid; it is in the order of things that you should envy him. But what comes out of this envy? Let us admit that you could carry through anything you undertook. The rich man would be plundered and even killed, and his treasures divided between you. We forget that the rich man is human; we deny him the mercy which the poor man claims from his fellowmen; we take up the position that to reduce a rich man to beggary is not the same injustice as to profit by the work of a poor man; we enjoy the idea of the rich man, hungry and shivering, when at the same time the hungry shivering poor man has become our pretext for robbing the other. Do you believe that you would then have improved your lot in life? Do you think that you would be any happier? Just think it over for a moment. The rich people are exterminated, their goods are divided among you; you are already making a discovery, viz., that the wealthy people are in a very small minority, hardly one in two hundred, and that the division of their whole property amounts to very little for each of you. But suppose, for the sake of argument, that you all become rich. What then? You throw away your working clothes and dress yourselves in silk; you deck yourselves with silver and gold ornaments, and you sit on soft-cushioned sofas. Think how long these luxuries would last--a month perhaps, at the most a year. Then the rich man's wine is all drunk, and his larder empty, the silk clothes are worn out, and the sofas torn; you cannot eat precious stones and gold, and if you do not mean to starve you must begin working again, and after the extermination of the rich man and the division of his property you are exactly in the position you were in before." He paused a moment or two, in which there was silence for the first time, and then went on: "This all means that your bondage is not laid on you by man, but by Nature herself. Life is hard and wearisome, and no laws or orders of State or society can make it otherwise. The simple minds of men understood this a thousand years ago, and they did not rest until they had found out a reason for everything, so they sought through the authors of the Jewish Bible for a reasonable explanation of our mournful destiny on this earth, and comforted themselves with the assertion that mankind was atoning for the sins of its forefathers. You, the sons of the nineteenth century, do not believe in this any longer, but see in the system of profits and the injustice of our social conditions the causes of your misery. Your explanation is, however, fully as much a fabrication as the Biblical one. Pain and death are the conditions of our existence, and for that reason cannot be done away with. If a miracle could happen, and you could all be happy in the way you wish, namely, living your life without work, without suffering, and with a great deal of enjoyment, what would happen then? The race would increase so fast that after one or two generations there would hardly be elbow-room, and bread would be as scarce as it is now. It is the difficulty of providing for children which limits the population, and this difficulty fixes the limit. Understand this too, do what you will, you can only procure momentary relief, and every relief procured means an increase of population. Whatever your methods of labor are, however the fruits of it are distributed, you will never produce up to the satisfaction of your wants; and the sweat of your brow will always be in vain if you set yourself against the hostile forces of nature." Wilhelm paused a moment in the deep stillness which now reigned in the hall, and then went on: "I do not deny that your lives are troublesome and hard, but I believe that you make your pain unnecessarily difficult to bear, and add to it by imagination. You feel your lot to be hard because you see rich people, who in the distance appear to you to be happy. I have already told you that the rich are an exception, and that the world cannot guarantee the existence of a millionaire of to-day for long. At most you can make the few rich men poor, but you cannot make all the poor men rich. But why compare yourselves with such people? Why not with those who have gone before us? Look back, and you will find that your lives are not only easier but very much richer than the generations who have gone before you. The poorest among you live better, quieter, and pleasanter lives than a well-to-do man a thousand years ago, or than a prince of primitive times. You complain that your labor is hard and unhealthy? You live longer, in better health, and freer from anxiety than the huntsman, fisherman, or warrior of the barbarous ages. What you most suffer from is your hatred, not your need, your ambitions, your envy. Men can live healthily and happily on water, but you will have beer and brandy. You earn enough to buy meat and vegetables, but you will have tobacco for yourselves and finery for your wives, and that cannot go on. Your daily bread might taste well enough, but it becomes bitter in your mouths when you think of the millionaire's roast meat. Struggle then against this envy which spoils the smallest enjoyments for you, and which in point of fact rules your lives, and do not try to find happiness in the satisfaction of requirements artificially created. Do not live for the satisfaction of your palates, but rather for the improvement of intellect and feeling. There is enough pain and misery in the world, do not add hatred to it. Have the same mercy for other creatures which you expect for yourself. Trouble and danger are common to all. Things are only bearable if all combine to pull together, if the strong join hands with the weak and the hopeful with the timid. You will not be healed by envy and hatred, or by the goading on of your desires, but by love, by forbearance, by self-sacrifice, and renunciation." This closing sentence was not to his hearers' taste. Disapprobation and ominous sounds greeted him as he came down from the platform. "Amen," said one scornfully; "A Psalm," said another; "Get thee to a nunnery, Ophelia," cried a wit; while loud cries of "Turn him out," were heard. "Pearls before swine," muttered Paul; while Schrotter pressed his hand and said: "You are right." The noise grew louder, and then a new speaker appeared on the platform, this time evidently a cultivated, thoughtful man and an adroit speaker. The organizers of the evening were unwilling to allow the meeting to retain the impression of Wilhelm's speech, and had placed a clever opponent to follow him, who said clearly and concisely that the speaker before him might be a friend of mankind, but he was certainly an enemy of culture, because the progress of civilization was always the result of new requirements and the seeking of their fulfillment, and if men limited their wants or denied them altogether, mankind would be brought back to the condition of savages or wild beasts. The progress of culture depended on the awakening of requirements and their satisfaction, and not in limiting or renouncing them. The love of mankind might be a very beautiful thing, but the speaker ought not to come and preach to the poor, who held together and helped each other without his advice. Let him go and preach to the rich, for whom he seemed to feel so much pity and tenderness. Why should the minority attract to itself the existing means of life, and leave the majority to starve, as the capitalists did now? why should the provisions not be divided between all, so that the whole community should have a part? Paul had wished to leave when Wilhelm had finished, but the latter waited out of politeness to hear his opponent speak, and when the speaker had ended in a storm of applause, the three friends left the meeting. When they were outside, Dr. Schrotter said to Wilhelm: "Do you know that you are a first-rate speaker? You have everything that is necessary for moving a crowd in the highest degree." "Hardly that, I think." "Certainly, I mean it: a noble appearance, a voice which goes to the heart, remarkable calmness and assurance, uncommon command of language, and an idealistic earnestness which would move all the better spirits among your audience. You have shown us to-night the road you ought to take. You must devote your gift to speaking in public, you must endeavor to become a deputy. If you fail in this, you will sin against our people." "Bravo! I had already thought of that," cried Paul. "A deputy--never," said Wilhelm. "If I spoke well to-day it was because I was sorry for the poor, ignorant men who listened to the silly talk of a fool as if it were a revelation from Mount Sinai, but I could never presume to have any influence in Parliament or in the fate of governments." "And so you call what is every citizen's duty 'presumption,'" "Forgive me, doctor, if I say I do not believe that. Only those who are acquainted with the laws and their development should have anything to do with the nation's destiny. But only a few isolated individuals know these laws, and I am not one of them." "Do you think that the government know them?" "Oh, no." "And yet the government does not hesitate to rule the people's destiny according to their intelligence." "It reminds me of the poet's expression, 'Du glaubst zu schieben und du wirst geschoben.'" "What is the movement that you mean?" "An unknown inner organic force which defines all the expressions of life, of single individuals and united societies alike. It develops as a tree grows. No single individual can add anything to it or take away from it, no single individual can hasten or retard the development or give it any direction." "In one word--the philosophy of the Unknown." "That is so." "Very good, and if a government oppresses a people, robs them of their freedom, perpetually finds fault with them and ill-treats them, they must bear it quietly, and comfort themselves by the thought that the government is controlled by the infallible, all-powerful Unknown." "Rob them of their freedom? No government can rob me of my spiritual freedom. Freedom rules continually in my mind, and no tyrant has the power of subduing my thoughts." "You make a great mistake there," said Dr. Schrotter gravely. "From you, Dr. Wilhelm Eyuhardt, no gendarme certainly can take away your freedom, because you are mature, and your opinions of things are settled. But a tyrannical government can hinder your children from succeeding to your freedom of mind. It can teach lies and superstitions in the schools, and compel you to send your children there. It can set an example of public morality which can demoralize a whole people. It can draw up manifest examples of miserable intentions and conduct of life, through whose imitation a people voluntarily mutilates itself or commits suicide. No, no; it does not do to limit oneself to oneself, and to struggle upward for one's individual spiritual freedom. One must go out of oneself. What does it matter if one makes mistakes? It is true, as you say, that no single individual knows the whole of truth; but every individual possesss a fragment of it, and altogether we have the whole. Look at India, there you have existing what we should become if we all followed your philosophy, they live in their own spiritual world, and are indifferent to any other, they endure first the despotism of their own government, then a foreign conqueror, and finally lose not only freedom and independence, but civilization, and become not exactly slaves, but ignorant, superstitious barbarians." "The German people will not get to that," said Wilhelm, smiling. "Thank the men for that," cried Schrotter, "the men who think it their duty to take part in the welfare of their country, and to exert themselves for the spiritual freedom of others. An energetic sympathy with public affairs is a form of love for one's neighbor. Say that constantly to yourself, without letting yourself be deceived by the hypocrite who handles politics as others do the Stock Exchange, merely to make profit out of them." While they talked they had arrived at Schrotter's house door. It was nearly midnight, and had stopped raining, and all the houses except Schrotter's were dark. Light shone from the two windows of his Indian drawing room, and one of the curtains was drawn aside a little, leaving a face clearly visible. It was Bhani, who was waiting patiently for Schrotter's return, and gazing eagerly down the street. As the three friends stopped at the door the head disappeared, and the curtain fell back again into its place. CHAPTER VI. AN IDYLL. The feverish pulse of a city is not felt in the same degree in all parts of it. There are places from which all circulation seems shut out, and where the rapid stream of life hardly shows a ripple. Quiet houses are there, only separated from the noisy street by the thickness of a wall. They seem to be many miles from the heated movement of life, and their inhabitants complacently gaze from their windows with the same unconcern as they would look at a picture on their own walls--a view perhaps of violence or excitement, a storm at sea, or a battle. The Markers' house in the Lutzowstrasse was just such a peaceful island in the tossing sea of the city. It was only a few steps from the Magdeburger Platz--the first story in a stately house with a round arch over the door. Three generations of women--grandmother, mother, and daughter--lived there, without a single man to take care of them, attended only by an old widowed cook and her daughter, who had grown up into the position of a waiting maid. A dreamy, monotonous life they lived here, like that of the sleepers in the palace of the Sleeping Beauty behind their hundred-year-old hedge of thorns. The grandmother was the head of the house--Frau Brohl, a lady of over sixty years, and a widow for the last twenty. She was a small thin woman, her figure very much bent, with snow-white hair, a narrow, pale face, and pretty brown eyes. She moved slowly and with great exertion, spoke softly and with shortness of breath, and seemed weary and sad. She looked as if she had some hidden sickness, and as if her feeble lamp of life might soon flicker out. As a matter of fact she had never had a day's illness; her appearance gave the impression of weakness, and increasing age made her neither better nor worse. Even now she was the first to rise in the morning and the last to go to bed; had the best appetite at table; and, in her occasional walks, was the least tired. Her late husband--Herr F. A. Brohl, of the firm of Brohl, Son & Co.--had been one of the largest ship-brokers in Stettin. They had lived together for a quarter of a century in peace and happiness, and her eyes filled with tears when she remembered that part of her life. It was a beautiful time, much too good for a sinful human being. They had a house to themselves, with large high rooms, and every day she received visits from the richest women of the town, and visited them in return. There was never a betrothal, marriage, or christening in a well-known family to which she was not invited; every child in the street knew her and smiled at her; and the suppers in her hospitable house were renowned as far as Russia and Sweden. The marriage was blessed by one daughter, who grew up to be a rather pretty, well-mannered, and well-grown girl. Her horizon stretched from the storeroom to the linen-press, and from the flatiron to her book of songs. She felt a high esteem for her father--just as everyone does for a rich man--and for her mother, if hardly love, at least a boundless respect. She regarded her as almost more than human, and the care with which she listened to her mother's instructions into the secrets of the kitchen, the market, and the linen-room, was almost unnatural. She was afraid she would never attain to the fluctuations of price in the fish market in different seasons of the year, the starching of muslins, the time it took to cook a pudding, and how much sugar went to a pot of preserved fruit; and her mother destroyed the last remnant of self-confidence when half-pityingly, half-contemptuously she told her that she was not sufficiently developed to understand such things. When Fraulein Brohl was old enough, her parents married her to Herr Marker. It was hardly a love match, but in Brohl, Son & Company's house such folly as love was not considered. Herr Marker was the son of a wholesale coffee-merchant, and was neither handsome nor distinguished-looking; he was small, thin, bandy-legged, with an unwholesome complexion, a peevish expression, and almost bald-headed. Herr F.A. Brohl soon found that he had made a mistake, and been in too great a hurry. The old Marker lost his fortune in an unlucky speculation during the Crimean War, and was only saved by Brohl from the shame of bankruptcy. He died soon afterward of grief, and left his son nothing but debts. The young Marker showed no special genius for the coffee business, but an uncomfortable ambition for speculation in stocks. He opened an exchange office, and entered into transactions with the Exchanges of Berlin, Frankfort, and Amsterdam, and after a short time the last penny of his wife's dowry disappeared. His father-in-law dipped into his pockets and renewed the dowry, but stipulated that Marker in the future should ask his advice before any undertaking. This Marker felt as a deep humiliation, and rather than submit to Brohl's tyranny, preferred to loaf all day with his hands in his pockets at the Exchange, and shortened the evenings by going to the club, and boring people with endless stories of the meanness and thick-headedness of his cad of a father-in-law, who in his old-fashioned, narrow-minded Philistinism had not the least capacity for any great undertakings. Brohl died soon after, and Marker experienced a new and painful sensation. His wife did not inherit a penny by her father's will, his whole property under limited conditions going to the widow. This was specially arranged for by Brohl to prevent Marker from laying his hands on more capital. He shook his fist at the opening of the will, and broke out into unseemly abuse; he went all over Stettin, and cried out that he was robbed, that the old rascal had plundered him. To his wife and mother-in-law he also talked day after day and night after night, saying how shamefully he had been treated, and that it was his mother-in-law's duty to make good the mistake. Frau Marker could not endure this perpetual grumbling and badgering, and Frau Brohl became weak with not only her son-in-law but her daughter constantly at her ear. She consented to give him a large sum to put him into a new business, which he described as having a brilliant and unfailing future, and after a great deal of begging and worrying she at length brought herself to the far greater sacrifice of a removal to Berlin, that Marker might have a greater sphere for his energies. So the stately house in the Frauenstrasse with its lofty rooms was abandoned, and exchanged for the small flat in Berlin. The departure from Stettin was a miserable one. It was desperate work packing the thousand things which had gathered together during the quarter of a century in careless profusion. It was heart-breaking to be obliged to leave behind the stores of wood, coal, and potatoes in the cellar, the cranberry jam in the storeroom, which the Markers, in their grandeur of ideas, did not think worth the trouble of taking with them! And the farewell visits to the rich friends, in whose family festivals she would never more take part; and the last visit to the Jacobkirche, where she would never more go on Sundays and meet her intimate friends, for whose benefit she wore the family ornaments, and the stiff silk dress. There were many tears and sobs, but the cup was drained like the others; and Marker began his new life in the Lutzowstrasse with his wife, his mother-in-law, and the little Malvine, who was the only child of their marriage. At first things went on pretty well. Frau Brohl often had tears in her eyes when looking at the familiar furniture in her room, which had been designed for a house three times as large, and she would rather have sacrificed one of her hands than one of her old sofas or tables. But Marker was gay as he had never been before, and full of wonderful stories of the future importance of his firm, astounding both the women, and even making them respect him, which feeling had never before influenced them. He had an office in the Burgstrasse, near the Exchange, shared by other young men, and came home every day with new reports of the wonderful business he was doing. A day came, however, when he had no news to tell them, when his complexion was as yellow as ever, his eyes avoided the questioning glances of his mother-in-law, and after playing at concealment for a whole week, he was at last forced to tell them that he had again lost all his money. He hastened to add, however, that every thing could be saved if the mother would once more set him on his feet; in every new undertaking one had to pay something for learning; he had hardly understood his position so far, but now he knew what he was about, he must be contented with modest profits. Frau Brohl made a fresh sacrifice, giving Marker his position in business again after six months. He had hardly the courage to come home with new plans, but used to steal in quietly like a shadow on the wall, sit down at table with a heart-breaking sigh, sulked with the women, and often was heard talking to himself in this fashion: "This is no sort of life. If women hold the cards, stupidity is trumps. The woman in the kitchen, the man in business," and so on. Finally the thing happened which Frau Brohl had foreseen with anxiety--Marker came with a new project, for which he wanted fifty thousand thalers. It was an entirely new idea, unheard of before; it couldn't miscarry, it must bring in a hundred thousand; with one stroke all the former losses would be retrieved. Then he stopped talking, and showed yards of figures, read aloud letters of advice, and went on reading and talking and crackling papers for an hour to Frau Brohl, following her from the drawing-room into the kitchen, from the kitchen back to the drawing-room; and when she took refuge in her bedroom, he read to her through the door. However, it was no good, and Frau Brohl stood firm. Then Marker tried a new method. He was argumentative before, now he became tragic; he threatened to throw himself out of the window, to become dangerously ill, to go away and never be heard of again. He left half-finished letters on his writing-table, in which he announced his death to his acquaintances, laying the blame on his wife and mother-in-law; in short, poor Frau Brohl, whose existence had become a veritable hell, with a heavy heart put her hand once more into her pocket, and gave Marker what he wanted. Everything now went on as smoothly and merrily as before. After a few weeks Marker again lost everything, and seemed so upset that he stayed away all day without coming home. At last he appeared again, and hesitatingly, with a timid expression, begged for forgiveness. "Very well," said Frau Brohl, "only I hope you will not begin all over again." Her hopes were not realized. The spirit of speculation had too strong a hold over Marker to be kept back. After he had remained quiet for about a year, he actually had the effrontery to ask his mother-in-law for more capital. But this time she was like a rock. "Not a penny," said Frau Brohl, and kept her word. Marker wept, and she let him weep; he talked of suicide, and she advised him to use a rope, as he did not understand the use of firearms. He had run through half her money, and the other half she meant to defend like a lioness. The specter of poverty rose up before her, she reflected that rich people would cast her out of their society, and look upon her as a weak woman without any self-respect, conquered by Marker's tenacity. There were no more storms after this, and peace reigned in the tightly-crammed flat in the Lutzowstrasse, but it was peace which concealed a great deal of grumbling and sulkiness. Marker very seldom spoke, and his obstinate silence was made easy for him, for the women at last hardly ever spoke to him. Every week he had a certain sum given him for pocket-money; Frau Brohl paid his tailor's and bootmaker's bills, and he was treated in fact as if he had done with this world. His business was to take the little Malvine to school and fetch her home again, and on the way he grumbled incessantly to the child about her mother and grandmother. The former he called "she," and the latter "the old lady." He never mentioned their names. Malvine had noticed that at home they never spoke to her father; in her childish way she imitated this contemptuous silence. The only bright spot in his existence was a visit to some old business friends, where he unburdened his overflowing heart, and complained by the hour together of the tyrants in his house, who trod him under-foot, and ill-treated him now that he was unfortunate. He was the victim of two silly women, but he would show them one day of what he was capable. "She" and "the old lady" were too stupid to understand him, but he hoped he would not die until he had seen them on their knees before him. In this way he ceaselessly kept up the smouldering rage within him; his face became more and more yellow, he grew thinner, he lost his appetite, he looked as if he were suffering from some dreadful malady. He said nothing, however, about his health, but seemed to find a comforting satisfaction in the reflection that "she" and "the old lady" would one day be surprised to see him lying there, and that would be his revenge. And so it came to pass--one morning he was too weak to leave his bed. At luncheon Frau Brohl and Frau Marker noticed his absence, and went to look for him; as they had taken no notice of him for so long, they were not aware how shriveled and emaciated he had grown, and were now shocked and astonished to see how miserable and frail he was. They sent for a doctor; Frau Brohl made some elder tea; Frau Marker sat up all night by the sick-bed, but nothing could be done. A few days later he died, with a look of hatred at his mother-in-law, and a movement of aversion from his wife. Nothing was changed in the household; there was another place at table and a room at liberty, which was soon filled with the things overflowing from the drawing-room. Frau Brohl still had a passion for preserving and pickling, which had descended to her daughter and her granddaughter, and also a passion for needle-work. Year in and year out the three sat at the window of their drawing-room over embroidery, lace-making, and such like, working as if they had to earn their daily bread. They were mistresses of all kinds of fancy work, and invented many more. Frau Brohl was unequaled in her inventions of new kinds of work. Such things as book-markers and slippers, paper-baskets, bed-quilts and tablecloths, card-baskets, and chair-cushions were all too simple--the mere a b c of the art. Wonders like embroidered pictures for the walls, various kinds of fringes for the legs of pianos, fireplace hangings, gold nets for window-curtains, mottoes for the canary's cage, silk covers for books, were the order of the day. When any one came in he was first struck with surprise, which quickly changed to bewilderment. Wherever he looked his eye fell on some piece of work, with no repose or unadorned space. Here a row of family portraits, in plush and gold frames, all looking stiff and uninteresting--on inspecting them at close quarters, they were seen to be not painted but embroidered in colored silks. There hung a melon, the outside of the fruit represented by yellow, green, and brown satin, the stalk by gold thread, the little cracks and roughnesses by gray silk applique, the whole thing fearful and absurd in its exuberance. And wherever one went or stood, sat down or laid one's hand, there wandered a huge wreath of flowers in Berlin wool, or the profile of a warrior in cross-stitch sneered at one, or a piece of hanging tapestry of pompous pattern and learned inscriptions flapped at one, and everything was rich and tedious and terrifying and shocking in taste; and when one's tired eyes looked out of the triply be-curtained windows into the street, one fell convinced that little angels would come down out of the sky clad in what was left over of the rococo furniture draperies, bordered with gold. This unsightly museum of useless things was the occupation of Frau Brohl and Frau Marker's lives, and here Malvine grew up to be the pretty girl to whom we have been introduced at the Ellrichs'. Her mother was a sort of elder sister to her, and the only authority in the house was the grandmother. She ordered the servants, and her daughter paid her the same timid reverence as in the time of her short frocks. Frau Marker seldom opened her lips except to eat, or to answer her mother in a parrot-like sort of echo. Frau Brohl's energetic spirit stirred even in these narrow boundaries. She did not feel at home in Berlin; she met no one she knew in the streets, and in fact knew no one, and this feeling of being among strangers, as if at some out-of-the-way fair, made her so uneasy that she hardly ever went out. Often since Marker's death she had thought of returning to Stettin, but when she reflected how dreadful it would be to pack up and unpack again all the thousand pieces of work, her courage failed her. All the same she lived with her heart and soul in Stettin. A local paper from Stettin was her only reading. She kept up a regular correspondence with all her old acquaintances, who gave her news of all the engagements, marriages, births, and deaths of the rich people she had known. If Stettin people of good standing came to Berlin she called on them and invited them to dinner, when her former celebrated triumphs in cookery were repeated. If she found out that any wealthy inhabitants of Stettin had been in Berlin without informing her of the fact, she took it so much to heart that she had to go to bed for a week. A few Stettin families, who in the course of the year emigrated to the capital, constituted her circle of visiting acquaintances, enlarged later by Malvine's school friends, and introductions at their houses. The connection with the Ellrichs was through the Stettin circle. Frau Brohl gave a large soiree twice in the course of the winter, when the invitations they had received were returned. Since Malvine was grown up there had been dancing, although the small size of the drawing-room, and the displacement of all Frau Brohl's needlework, set everything in great confusion. This kind of life and its surroundings naturally could not develop Malvine's mind and character in any high degree. She missed any stimulus from her mother or from her grandmother; she only learned to respect rich people, to fathom the mysteries of the kitchen, and to cultivate a taste for peculiar and original fancy work; she was, however, a good-tempered, rather slow-witted girl, of well-balanced mind, without a trace of capriciousness or the nervous temperament so common to city life; within her limited view of things she had a good, honest intelligence, and with her plump figure and her round, rosy face, which bore witness to her grandmother's kitchen, she was very comely in men's eyes. Paul Haber had already become acquainted with the flat in the Lutzowstrasse during the winter before the war, and he liked the quiet he found in the corners of the little rooms, and in the muffled voices of these three women. The friendship was continued during the war by means of frequent letters, and on his home-coming Paul renewed his visits with pleasure. By cautious inquiries he had gathered that Malvine had sixty thousand thalers in cash as her dowry, and would inherit double that sum. Her modest, quiet, amiable disposition made him drift into a strong attachment; her appearance was sufficiently womanly and charming, and her steady, practical views on things, utterly unromantic an unenthusiastic, harmonized entirely with his own. It was refreshing for him to hear her chatter about people and things with the calm good sense of a Philistine, especially in a society where the bombastic and exaggerated talk of original, poetically minded young ladies had repelled and bored him. At his first meeting with Malvine Marker he had thought that she was the wife for him, and since he had become friendly with her and her circle, he said to himself, "This one and no other." The three ladies liked him immensely. Frau Brohl took him at once to her heart, and that was the chief consideration. His appearance made a good impression on her. He was strongly built, not too thin, in fact, showing signs of a respectable probable stoutness in later life; his face was full, and his complexion healthy, his mustache carefully trimmed, and his hair closely cropped; he certainly dressed well. The young men of her former rich acquaintances were of the same type, so also was the late F.A. Brohl when she first met him. He was gentlemanly, without a doubt, and he must be well off to employ such a good tailor and friseur. She also noticed, with an immense satisfaction, that he had a due appreciation of fancy work. He did not, like some superficial people, regard these housewifely creations as merely pretty or useful things, but appreciated them as works of art, and wondered at the difficulty of these marvelous fabrications. Complicated lace-work, or embroidered pictures, filled him with amazement, even if applique had no effect on him. When Frau Brohl noticed these marks of distinction in him, she did not hesitate to invite him to dinner on Sunday--at first occasionally, and afterward regularly, and with increasing pleasure she noticed that in other ways he also reached the ideal she had imagined in him. He had a good appetite, and it was not necessary for him to say in words how much he enjoyed the dishes set before him, every look and gesture showed it plainly. He evinced a warm sympathy for family events, even when they did not concern him in any way, and he had the same genuine esteem for rich people, which had been handed down for three generations in the Brohl-Marker families. She thought that he showed no disinclination to be her granddaughter's husband, only at first she pondered over his calling in life. She knew perfectly well that the highest professorship could only earn in a year what an ordinary ship-broker made in a month. At the same time she reflected that even a merchant made a bad job of it sometimes, as her son-in-law's example had shown her only too plainly; that the title "Professor" sounded very well, and if he did not make very much money at most, at least he could not lose it, and she came to the conclusion that in the circumstances a professor could make his wife very happy. Frau Marker had nothing to say about the matter, and was quite prepared to accept a son-in-law from her mother's hand, as she had formerly accepted a husband, so the fact that Paul had not made a very favorable impression on her did not matter very much. There remained only Malvine--but just there lay the difficulty. The girl was always kind and friendly to Paul, she took his homage without any coquetry or apparent disinclination; when they went out walking she took his arm quite unaffectedly; when they were invited to meet in society, by a tacit agreement he took her in to dinner, had the privilege of the greater part of the dances, and was her partner for the cotillion. But whether they were alone or in company, whether they danced or talked, whether he came or went, she showed a perfect unconcern and freedom of manner to which he longed to put an end. She was much too cold and collected even for his unsentimental nature. He would have forgiven some agitation, some confusion, a few blushes now and then, perhaps a sigh, but these signs of the heart's flutterings were nowhere forthcoming. As they were out one day alone together, something happened which filled Paul with doubt and trouble. Malvine had been attracted to Wilhelm when first she saw him, and since then she had incessantly thought and talked of him. He was so handsome, he spoke so charmingly! She thought it astonishing that any one should not love him, just because his admiration was mingled with so much shyness. She herself was much too insignificant a person to think of loving him, and beside, he was not free, and it would have been a sin to think of the man who was engaged to her friend. This enthusiasm for Wilhelm naturally did not escape Paul's notice, but it did not disquiet him, because he took into account Malvine's nature. "It is a harmless fancy," he said to himself, "the sort of fancy girls take sometimes for princes whose photographs they see in shop-windows, or for actors whom they have admired as Don Carlos or Romeo; later on they laugh over their childish folly, and these fancies never prevent the pretty enthusiast from marrying and being happy." Nevertheless, things became suspiciously different after the breach between Wilhelm and Loulou. In Malvine's somewhat narrow but well-regulated mind a brave romance had been mistakenly built up. Now Wilhelm was free: now she need have no feeling of duty on account of that superficial, pleasure-seeking Loulou, who had never been worthy of him. Was it impossible that he might notice her? would be grateful for her sympathy? and perhaps--who knows--later--he might seek consolation from her--who was so ready to give it? The concluding chapter of this girlish romance remained her own secret, but the beginning she boldly declared. She explained to her grandmother, as well as to Paul, that now Dr. Eynhardt was in need of being comforted, it was the duty of his friends to try to overcome his sorrow. She proposed that Paul should bring him as often as possible, and she obtained from Frau Brohl the unwonted permission of inviting him to the Sunday luncheon. Wilhelm had little pleasure in going into ordinary society, especially to strangers, but this invitation was so warm and pressing that he could not bring himself to refuse it. When Wilhelm was there Paul was put completely in the background. Malvine had no words or glances for any one but Wilhelm, and if she spoke to Paul it was only to thank him for having brought Dr. Eynhardt to the Lutzowstrasse. If Paul came alone he was mortified to see a shadow pass over Malvine's face, and he was forced to listen to a string of inquiries after his friend. He had been conscious for a long time that he must try to reconcile himself to this condition of things, and if he felt himself rebelling, he reminded himself he must have patience and wait, trying to console himself with the thought that Malvine's enthusiasm was only on her side--Wilhelm's demeanor seemed to show that he did not guess what was going on in the girl's mind. His manner was courteous and friendly, but there was really no difference between his demeanor toward Frau Brohl and toward the young girl. While Malvine blushed and became confused when he entered the room, Wilhelm, on his side, spoke to the grandmother, mother, and daughter with exactly the same pleasant smile, and his hand rested not a moment longer in Malvine's than in that of her grandmother. On his side there was evidently nothing to dread. He felt he had a defender and support in Frau Brohl. The old lady kept a sharp lookout on her little world with her dim-sighted eyes. She noticed that Malvine was unable to withstand the charm which Wilhelm exercised over her, and she could not bring herself to be angry with the girl. She herself liked the young man extremely, admired his handsome face, his fine voice, his modest, unassuming manners, but she felt instinctively that he belonged to quite a different world from herself, and that in a sense they would always be strangers. When he spoke she could not follow his thoughts, although she felt that they were very profound; when she spoke he listened with the greatest politeness, but nothing more came of it. He tried to be attentive to her stories about engagements and separations, he was entirely uninterested in rich people, he did not praise the best dishes at table, and he even went so far as not to conceal his aversion for the design of the horrible knight in cross-stitch. Beside all this, his clothes were bad, and although he had a house of his own, it was only a little one. No, Wilhelm as a relation was not to be thought of. He was not of their own flesh and blood, like that good, delightful Paul Haber. It was not in Paul's nature to wait patiently in suspense, and he determined to put an end to his uncertainty. Malvine seemed to him as desirable as ever, and he had built up in his mind a future, of which Malvine and her sixty thousand thalers were the foundation. He must know whether she were for him or not; in the one case to transform his castle in the air into reality without loss of time, and in the other case not to waste the best years of his life in aimless disappointment; not to let other opportunities slip by. He was not quite clear, however, on one point, To whom should he make his proposal? To Frau Brohl? That would be the most practicable way, no doubt, as the bent, pale old lady, with the soft, sighing voice, ruled everything in the house, and if she promised the hand of her grand-daughter, she would certainly keep her word. But it went against the grain to put any constraint on the girl, and he felt that he would be ashamed to answer "No," if Frau Brohl were to ask him if he had already spoken to Malvine. Then if he were to go in a straightforward way to Malvine, and say, "I can no longer hide from you that I love you, and that I want you to be my wife, will you consent?" there was a great deal of risk in that, for if she misjudged her own feelings, and said that she loved some one else, and so could not listen to him, the rupture between them would be accomplished, and it would be no use to him if later she found out that she had been mistaken in her feelings. There could be no secure step for him, on that he was quite decided. If he could approach neither Frau Brohl nor Malvine, there was one way clearly open to him, and he took it without further delay. One sunny afternoon in May, a few weeks after the Labor meeting at the Tivoli, Paul came to see Wilhelm, and asked him to go for a walk with him in the Thiergarten. Wilhelm was soon ready, and while they were walking Paul was astonishingly quiet, and seemed sunk in deep thought. He suddenly broke the silence, and when they were under the trees, without any beating about the bush, asked his friend: "Wilhelm, do you love Malvine?" Wilhelm stood still, as if rooted to the ground, and in boundless astonishment he said: "Are you off your head, Paul?" "I implore you, Wilhelm," said he in an anxious way, "just answer 'yes' or 'no,' because the happiness of my life depends on your answer." "But I never thought of it," cried Wilhelm, grasping Paul's hand. "What put such an idea into your head?" "Then you are not in love with Malvine?" asked Paul obstinately. "No, I am not in love with Malvine, if you will have the answer in that precise form." "I thought as much, but I wished to have the answer from your own lips;" and as they walked, he continued, "Do you see, Wilhelm, if you had loved Malvine, I would have got out of your way; I would have submitted to fate without any struggle or opposition." "Have I been injudicious? Perhaps too intimate? Forgive me, Paul, if it is so. It happened quite unintentionally. I only thought of her as my friend's fiancee, and believed her also to be a friend of mine." "I don't mean that, Wilhelm; you have always behaved awfully well--with great tact, and all that. But you have not seen how it has been with Malvine; she is quite mad about you, especially since you have been free." "You imagine these things." "Be quiet, you impatient baby, and hear what I have to say. I believe it is not love Malvine has for you, but it only wants a word or a look from you to turn it into love. If she were convinced that you feel only as a friend for her, she would be contented to admire you from a distance, and begin to care a little more for an inferior specimen of mankind like myself." "I feel quite in despair about it. How could I be so blind, so stupid?" "Never mind; it is not all over yet. I know Malvine. She is a simple-minded girl, without a bit of sentiment in her, mentally and morally healthy. If she knew she had nothing to expect from you, I am perfectly certain that nothing would stand in the way of my happiness." "I will do whatever you wish--and first of all, I must put a stop to my visits there." "I must ask more from you than that, my poor Wilhelm. Merely staying away is too passive. You must act. I want you to talk to Malvine, and somehow explain to her that you don't love her." "How can I possibly do that?" cried Wilhelm, really startled. "I should have no right! If she laughed in my face and called me a fool and a lout, I should feel I deserved it." "You ought to know that she would not do that. I know I am asking a very unusual thing, and a very difficult thing, but I feel I can ask such a sacrifice from your friendship." As Wilhelm did not immediately answer, Paul said, seizing his hand: "Once more, Wilhelm, if you have any thought of Malvine, I will not stand in your way." "But, Paul--" "And perhaps I ought to wish it for you; Malvine is a good, dear girl, and will make the man who marries her happy all his life." "Don't say any more; I have already told you that she is sacred to me as your fiancee, and beside, I should have no claim on her, even if I did not know how you stand with regard to her." "Well, then, you must help me to reclaim her from her mistake. You alone can do it, and I am sure that later--very soon, in fact, she will be grateful to you." Wilhelm was silent, looking at Paul in anxious suspense. At last, with a deep sigh, he said: "Well, if I must---" "You are a brick," cried Paul, and embraced him before the passers-by, who turned round to look at them with astonishment. On the next day, at twelve o'clock, Wilhelm rang at the Markers' flat in the Lutzowstrasse. Through the little peephole he caught a glimpse of some one, then the door flew open, a maid ushered him into the drawing-room, and without waiting for him to speak, said: "Frau Brohl is in the kitchen; I will fetch her." "Thank you," said Wilhelm, rather feebly; "there is no hurry. Is--is--the Fraulein at home?" The girl was already at the door, and turning round, stared at Wilhelm with astonished eyes. "Yes; shall I say that you would like to speak to her?" Wilhelm nodded, and the girl went out. After a short pause Malvine stood before him, offering him her white hand, with its short fingers, while her face flushed to the roots of her hair. "Might I speak to you, Fraulein?" he said, in a low, constrained voice. Malvine went very white, all the blood seemed to leave her heart, and she almost gasped for breath. After a short silence she whispered, "Certainly, Herr Doctor," and took him into the little room next the drawing-room, which contained a modest bookcase, a writing table, and chairs in red damask. She sat down, and Wilhelm took a chair near; they were silent for a minute or two, while she, with eyes downcast, went alternately red and white, and could scarcely breathe. There was no pretense this time about her agitation. It seemed as if suddenly a flash of lightning had illuminated his mind, showing him a picture of this trembling, pretty girl clashed to his heart, and he with his arms round her. It only lasted for a second, but it struck him like an electric shock, and left in his mind a mingled feeling of trouble, shame, remorse and vexation. He had a consciousness of danger, and he felt that he must make a great effort to become master of the situation and of himself. "Gnadiges Fraulein," he began, "what I want to say to you will seem odd, and perhaps audacious, but I beg you in spite of that to hear me to the end." Malvine sat motionless, breathing quickly. "I do not know," he went on, "in what position you and my friend Haber are with regard to each other, but you must have noticed, without any explanation, that he loves you." At the mention of Paul's name, Malvine for the first time raised her eyes, and looked at Wilhelm with such a troubled expression that he felt still further alarmed. He had broken the ice, however, and he made a courageous effort to regain his asssurance. "Dear Fraulein," he said impressively, "I am afraid there has been some misunderstanding between us, which it is my duty toward you, toward my friend, and toward myself, to explain. My behavior has perhaps aroused an impression which it should not have done. There is no doubt that I ought not to have shown you how warm my friendship is for you--for you, a good and beautiful girl, who have inspired my best friend with such a love; but really I considered that so long as the engagement between you and Paul was not clearly arranged, that you would understand my position. If I seemed happy to be near you, it was because I told myself how happy my friend would be when he could call you his own; if you seemed to read warmth and tenderness when I looked at you, it was because I was and am so grateful to you for so happily influencing Paul." While he was speaking Malvine had sunk back in her corner, and had closed her eyes with a deep sigh. A few large tears began to roll down her cheeks. Wilhelm touched her hand, which was cold as ice. She made a feeble effort to draw it away, but he held it fast and went on: "Dearest, best Malvine, do not bear me any grudge for this abominable half-hour, and believe me that it is only out of consideration for your life's happiness. I quite understand how it has all happened. Your kind heart was filled with pity for me, and in your innocence you gave the pity another name. It was quite natural that you should be uncertain of yourself, while you thought you were loved by two men, and that the confusion prevented you seeing clearly with your own heart. Now you know that Paul loves you, and that the day on which he dares call you his will be the first happy one I have had for a year. You will be able to come to a determination more easily, as it concerns your own happiness equally with Paul's. Paul is a good fellow, and worthy of the woman who will bear his name." He bent over her hand and pressed his lips to it. Malvine sobbed aloud, and putting her arms on his shoulders kissed his hair, then sprang away and flew to her room. Wilhelm hurried away in great confusion, thankful that he had been spared meeting either Frau Brohl or Frau Marker. He only breathed freely when he found himself in the street. Paul was informed the same afternoon of the conversation which had taken place, Wilhelm delicately passing over Malvine's outburst of feeling, and he hurried at once to the Lutzowstrasse to take by storm the fortress in which his friend had already made a breach. He was received by Frau Brohl, who nodded in mysterious manner, and took him into her bedroom, at the back of the flat, through the dining-room. In her soft, feeble voice she mildly reproached him for not having more confidence and coming to speak to her sooner. She then related to him what had happened. She had heard with great surprise that Dr. Eynhardt had come and gone away again, without saying good-day to her. As she was going to ask what the visit meant, Malvine came and embraced her grandmother, crying bitterly, to the old lady's great distress. With many tears she had given a confused and broken account of the interview with Wilhelm, begging Frau Brohl to comfort her and foretell that it should end well. Frau Brohl explained that Malvine was now in her room, meaning that Paul must not try to see her just at present. Such a silly, inexperienced creature must have time given her to learn to be reasonable, beside, she (Frau Brohl) would take care of everything, and Herr Haber could call her grandmamma now if he liked. He kissed her hand, deeply moved and grateful, and her eyes filled with tears. She then explained the situation to Frau Marker, who, after looking very much surprised, also embraced her son-in-law. It was a dignified scene, tender, and, as befitted an honorable family, without any over display of feeling; if all the wealthy people of Stettin had been assembled there, they could have expressed nothing but admiration. On the next day Frau Brohl spoke to her grand-daughter. She made her understand that there were no real objections to be made, that she was silly and was acting against her own happiness. Paul was much the better match of the two, was more chic and practical than Wilhelm, had better prospects in life, and was really better-looking than his friend. Above all she liked Paul, and did not like Wilhelm, and that ought to be taken into account. Malvine was not inaccessible to such arguments, as Paul was really sympathetic to her. Soon her tears ceased to flow, and her sighs became fainter and fainter. In two days' time she regained her appetite, signs which Frau Brohl noticed, and quickly imparted to Paul. At their first meeting he showed a little anxiety, and she, a good deal of constraint, but that soon passed off, and as they were constantly together, she found a great deal of pleasure in his manly good looks and honorable qualities. Beside, it was spring! the sun shone, the sky was blue, her room was full of the fragrance of flowers, which Paul brought every day with the regularity of a postman, and fourteen days later they were engaged, and his first kiss was given in the presence of her grandmother, mother, and Paul's parents. Her heart felt very warmly toward him, and she would have felt dreadfully confused had not Wilhelm, with characteristic good feeling, declined the invitation to be present. Frau Brohl arranged for the wedding to take place after Whitsuntide. At the Zwolf-Apostelkirche she wore her heavy silk dress and all the family ornaments, as on the Sundays at church at Stettin. Her bent figure was straighter than usual, and a smile of proud satisfaction lighted up her pale, melancholy face. Several rich friends from Stettin had come over to Berlin for the wedding. She leaned on the arm of the bridegroom's father, Herr Haber, a dignified old gentleman with a long beard. Paul wore his uniform and a Japanese order, which had been conferred on him by a Japanese pupil at his lectures on agricultural chemistry. Several officers in uniform were in the church, and a large number of professors, councilors, etc. Paul's round face beamed with happiness, his blond mustache looked triumphant, his hair was mathematically cut, and a field-marshal might have sworn that he was a regular officer. The bride was rosy, and looked happy. Her veil and wreath were made by the family, and her satin dress covered with their embroidery. Wilhelm was one of Paul's witnesses. When he went to congratulate the happy pair after the ceremony, Malvine looked at him; a gentle glance, with perhaps a mild reproach in it. Paul, however, grasped his hand, and whispered into his ear: "Your friend for life, Wilhelm, for life." CHAPTER VII. SYMPOSIUM. Paul had hardly returned from his wedding trip to Paris when he surprised his friends by a series of quite unexpected business engagements. He gave up his post as lecturer, in spite of the fact that the appointment as professor for the next six months depended on it; he left his young wife for three weeks, during which nothing was heard of him, except an occasional letter bearing the postmarks of Hamburg, Altona, or Harburg, then he appeared again, and told Malvine that they were to remove from Berlin, to spend in future a portion of the year in Hamburg, but to live chiefly on some property near Harburg. He had decided to leave his academic profession and become a practical landowner, and accordingly had taken a large leasehold estate. He gave Wilhelm and Schrotter further particulars of his plans. The place he had bought was hardly to be called an estate, but a wild desert bit of moorland called "Friesenmoor," growing only a kind of marsh grass. This piece of land, from which nothing but peat could be obtained, was worthless, and he had bought it for a few thalers. After many years of study on the subject, and without saying a word to any living soul, Paul had come to the conclusion that this arid moor could be made into rich arable land by proper cultivation, and seeing money was to be made out of this possession, he decided without loss of time to put his theories into practice. There was always the risk that he might lose his money, but he had great confidence in his science, and "nothing venture, nothing have." He considered it quite unnecessary to explain everything about his speculation to Malvine and the old lady. He knew, too, that merely the word "speculation" would frighten them to death. The separation from Malvine dissolved her grandmother and mother into sighs and tears, but during the short time that they had known Paul, his quiet, determined character had made such an impression on the two women that they submitted without a word to whatever he arranged. Frau Brohl packed up several boxes for her granddaughter, filled with the work of her hands, gave her various recipes for preserving fruits and for fish sauces, and let her go. She withstood bravely the temptation to fill up the empty room with the overflow furniture from the drawing-room, and spoke on the contrary of leaving the room free, so that the young couple might make it their headquarters when they came to Berlin. Paul hypocritically invited Frau Brohl and Frau Marker to come and live on his estate--he did not even fear two mothers-in-law. Grandmother and mother, though pleased with his attachment for them, declined with thanks. The cunning dog had reckoned on that refusal. He would have been in a terrible dilemma had they accepted. He would then have had to reveal the whole truth, and tell them that his so-called "property" was a mere swamp, where there was no place for one's feet to tread unless clad in waterproof boots; hardly a fit place for townspeople, accustomed to comfort. Before the changes on the Friesenmoor could be brought about one fell into pools, one's feet got fast in boggy earth, and the only inhabitants at present were waterfowl, frogs and toads. He did not even take Malvine to his property but lived in Hamburg, going to Harburg every morning and returning in the evening. In a short time the neighborhood between the Seeve and the Suderelbe wore a different appearance. Hundreds of laborers were to be seen on the moor, which hitherto had reflected only the sky in its silent pools. Dams were thrown up, trenches dug, a dwelling house was raised on piles, numbers of business offices, and quite a village for workmen, all mounted and secure on piles of wood, stakes, and stone foundations. Flatboats floated on the pools, the houses were roofed in, windmills flapped their sails, and Paul, who had ordered and built everything, came every day to see how the workmen were getting on. In the autumn he took Malvine for the first time to Harburg, and leaving the carriage at the office brought her by boat to the border of the Friesenmoor, to show her the picture all at once. The men stood on each side of the new house with their shovels and pickaxes, and greeted the young wife with such a hearty cheer that her eyes filled with tears. The broad flat surface of the marsh was now arranged in regular lines where the water was being drawn off, all so well superintended and orderly, that Malvine could not help thinking of a chessboard. The windmill moved its long restless arms, as if to welcome her as mistress here; the one-storied dwelling house, raised on stone steps, lay there hospitably built on a raised terrace, with its number of large well-lighted rooms opening a vista of peace and happiness to Malvine, and she thought it all so delightful that she would have liked to send for her furniture from Hamburg and stay there. Paul, however, reflected what danger there might be to her in her condition to stay through the winter in a house not yet dry, and so she gave in to his wishes. At the end of March a telegram from Hamburg announced the birth of a fine boy, to whom Wilhelm was to stand godfather. He was to be named Paul Wilhelm, and to be known by the latter name. When the warm weather came, Paul and his family were to go to the moor, and during the removal Malvine went with her mother and grandmother, who had both nursed her tenderly, to Berlin for a visit. Paul went through a great deal of worry and anxiety this summer. He had everything at stake in waiting for the results of his undertaking. All his money was in the buildings, the earth-works, and waterworks; if the barren swamp did not yield twice the sum intrusted to it he was a ruined man. But as July drew near, and Paul looked at the thick standing ears of barley and wheat, he felt the weight of his anxiety lifted, and in August he proclaimed in letters to his friends that the battle was won, the harvest more abundant than he had dared to hope for, and the remaining half-year would complete the transformation of the worthless moorland into a veritable Australian gold mine. He regarded his property now with a parental tenderness, as if it were some living being whom he had trained and educated. The first harvest had given him experience, and opportunity for new work, and he stayed through the autumn and winter in his house in the midst of his workmen, whom he felt inclined to canonize. The men now formed a little colony with their wives and children, and Paul was as happy as possible within the limited boundary of his horizon, between the Suderelbe and the Seeve. These two years had been outwardly uneventful for Wilhelm. In the mornings he worked in the Physical Institute, in the afternoons he worked at home, in the evenings he gossiped with Schrotter--a journey to Hamburg and a fortnight's visit to the house on the Friesenmoor had given him change. Paul came pretty often to Berlin, and found in the society of his old friends the enjoyment of his early years renewed, and Wilhelm with his girlish face, his enthusiastic eyes, and his unworldly manner did not seem a year older. The professor of physics, who had frequently been invited to go abroad to direct the teaching in other European and foreign schools, asked Wilhelm to go with him to Turkey, Japan, and Chili--as professor. He had the highest opinion of Wilhelm, and deeply regretted that his misadventure with Herr von Pechlar made an appointment in Germany impossible. Wilhelm, however, declined, on the ground that he did not feel an aptitude for teaching, only for learning. He had scarcely any intercourse now with Barinskoi, whose immoral views at last became unbearable; he rarely saw him except when he came to borrow money. Of late a new acquaintance had come into his limited social circle. This was a man of about thirty-five, called Dorfling, an overgrown thin creature, with long, straight gray hair, and deep intellectual eyes in his thin face. He came from the Rhine, and was the son of a rich merchant, into whose business he should have gone. However, when he was twenty-six he boldly told his father that the world outside was of deeper and wider interest to him than account books. The father died, and Dorfling hastened to put the business into liquidation, and devote himself to philosophical studies. For a year he drifted from one school to another, sitting at the feet of the most celebrated teachers and plunging himself into their systems. In the autumn of 1872 he appeared suddenly in Berlin, and renewed his old acquaintance with Wilhelm. Since then he had become a frequent guest at Dr. Schrotter's dinner table, and a companion to Wilhelm, in his afternoon walks. Dorfling was the most wonderful listener that any one could wish to have, though he himself was rather silent. If the talk turned on great questions of knowledge, morality, the object of life, Dorfling's share in the conversation consisted in the following half-audible remark: "Yes, it is a powerful and interesting subject. I have just been working at it, and you will find my opinions in my book." If he were asked to give his opinions now, or at least to indicate them, he shook his head and gently said, "I am not good at extempore speaking. My thoughts only come out clearly when I have a pen in my hand." Not a day passed by without an allusion to "the book," to which he devoted his nights, and of which he always spoke, with emotion in his voice, as the work of his life. It was impossible to get more information out of him, either about its title, scope, or contents. It was a philosophic work, no doubt, as he always said on speaking of such subjects, "I have mentioned that in my book." But that was all that could be got out of him. Schrotter and Wilhelm were too good to tease him much about it, though the former, with a suspicion of a smile, would say that he hoped this and that would have a place in the book, so that one might at least know his opinion on it. Paul, who always saw him when he came to Berlin, used to ask whether the book was not yet ready. Dorfling gave no answer, but his pale face grew paler, and an expression of pain came to his eyes. Barinskoi, who now sponged on Dorfling just as he had previously done on Wilhelm, giving them in fact turn and turn about, had the bad taste to make jokes continually about the book, at one time calling it the Holy Grail, another time comparing it to the diamond country of Sindbad's tale, and in a hundred ways making vulgar and sceptical jokes. On one of his outbreaks of dissipation he had disappeared far longer than usual, and on his return he looked more miserable than ever. Dorfling made some kindly inquiries, and learned that he was recovering from an attack of inflammation of the lungs, and Barinskoi, by way of showing gratitude, remarked, "The doctors gave me up, but I held out, as I do not mean to die until I have read your book." Dorfling, with a contemptuous look, turned his back on him. One day, soon after the Easter of 1874, Dorfling brought his friends a great piece of news. The book was ready, it was even in the press, and would be published in a few days by a large firm, but he wanted to present them with copies before the book appeared at the shops. He therefore invited them to a little festival to celebrate the occasion. He had been thinking over the book for seventeen years, had been eight years in writing it, and as it had taken such an important place in his life, he must be pardoned a little vanity about it now. Paul had a written invitation sent him, and he thought the occasion was sufficiently important to come to Berlin on purpose. On the appointed evening they all met at eight o'clock at Borchardt's in the Franzbsischen Strasse. A dignified waiter, who in appearance and manner looked more like an ambassador, received the guests, and took them into a private room on the left side of the large room above the ground floor. This little room was all lined with red like a jewel case, thick red portieres were over the doors, and the amount of gas with which it was lighted made it rather warmer than was comfortable. A large table with divans on three sides of it nearly filled the room; it was beautifully decorated and covered with flowers. Numerous wineglasses were placed before each guest, and champagne was cooling in an ice-bucket near the door. Dorfling was there, and received his guests as the waiter lifted the heavy portiere. He was in evening dress, and his slightly flushed face beamed with pleasure. His friends regretted keenly that they had come in ordinary morning clothes, and expressed their apologies. He interrupted them, saying they must overlook one of his little whims and not say anything more about it. Then they sat down to table, impressed by his charming manner. Dorfling put Schrotter on his right hand, and Wilhelm and Paul on his left; near Schrotter was Barinskoi and a friend of Dorfling's, named Mayboorn. This man was, like Dorfling, a Rhinelander, he combined a successful career as a writer of comic verses with a confirmed pessimism. When he had written one of his merriest couplets, he would stop his work and sigh with Dorfling over the tragedy of life. The papers treated his farces as rubbish, but the public adored them. The earnest critic would hardly touch his name with a pair of tongs, but the theatre managers fought for possession of his work. He had a beautiful wife who worshiped him, two wonderful children, and the appearance and bearing of Timon of Athens. At Dorfling's summons two waiters came in; one of them put a large dish of oysters on the table, while the other placed a thick octavo volume before each guest. "The last of the season," cried Barinskoi gayly, and helped himself to oysters. "The book! Bravo!" said Paul, and held out his hand to Dorfling. There was a short silence, while they all, even the cynical Barinskoi, contemplated the book before them, On the pearl-gray cover they read; "The Philosophy of Deliverance, by X. Rheinthaler." "What an expressive title," said Wilhelm, breaking the silence first. "Admirably adapted for a comic song," remarked Mayboom, with a melancholy air. Barinskoi laughed loudly, while Dorfling looked blandly at him. The comic poet sighed deeply and began to eat. "But why Rheinthaler?" asked Paul. "I at first wanted the book to appear anonymously; but the public is accustomed now to see a proper name on the title page. If it does not find one, its curiosity is excited, and what I particularly wished to avoid comes to pass, namely, the diversion of attention from the essential to the unessential." "That does not explain why you have not put your own name to it," said Paul. "My own name? What for? What is a name? What is an individuality, which a name symbolizes? The thoughts which I have put down in this book are not from me, the transient accident called Dorfling, but from the absolute everlasting thing which thinks in my brain. I am merely the carrier of the truth, appointed by it. What would you say if a postman put his name on all the letters he delivers?" "I should not be capable of such self-effacement," said Paul. "If I had devoted the best years of my life to any work I should be unable to renounce the recognition I had earned." "Recognition, Herr Haber. What sort of word is that? One does what one does, not because one wills, but because one must; not on account of an operation aimed at, but because of a compelling cause. He who reckons on any kind of reward for his works is on the same footing as a silly woman who claims men's approbation because she is pretty or an unreasoning child, who wants to be praised and petted because he has eaten his dinner. A mature perception arrives at this idea of the duty which one must fulfill, and in no hope of the gratification of individual vanity or self-seeking. Recognition! Does the wind hope for recognition from the ships it helps to sail? Is it blamed if it dashes the ship to pieces? It blows, as it must, and is perfectly indifferent about what men say, and as to its effect on trees, and chimney-pots, and ships. My brain is now thinking just as the wind blows. There is no difference between my organism and what goes on in the atmosphere. Both obey the laws of nature, and I merely fulfill these when I write a book." "I quite agree with you," said Wilhelm. The oysters had been eaten, and some wonderful Markobrunner drunk. The waiter now brought some Printaniere soup. The conversation halted, as everyone had involuntarily opened his copy of the book, some of them perhaps really curious to read, the others out of sympathy for the writer. "Please don't read it now," said Dorfling, "the book will be just the same to-morrow, but the soup will be cold." "That is the remark of a philosopher," said Barinskoi, and poked his pointed red nose in the savory steam from his soup. "It is difficult to tear oneself away," said Schrotter; "it would be very friendly of you to give an idea of the thoughts at the foundation of your thesis." "How could I explain a whole system intelligibly in a few words?" said Dorfling. "You could leave out all the proofs and the development, we can read those presently in your book. You need only just give us the main ideas of your 'Philosophy of Deliverance.'" All the guests joined in Schrotter's request, Paul the most eagerly, for the idea of having to read through that thick, dry book had frightened him, and now he saw the possibility of knowing its contents in an agreeable and comfortable way. Dorfling objected at first, but as his friends insisted he began. "The phenomenal world, in my opinion, is the foundation of a single spiritual principle which you can call what you like--strength, final cause, will, consciousness, God. This eternal principle separates part of itself from its own being--and this is the soul of mankind. Every soul perceives clearly that it is a part of an eternal whole; it feels itself unhappy and uneasy in its fragmentary existence, and yearns to go back again to the whole from whence it came. Individual life means removal from that all-embracing whole; individual death is the complete union of finite parts with the infinite whole. Thus, although life is a necessity, it is a continual pain, and ceaseless yearning; death is the freedom from pain and the fulfillment of that yearning. The only aim of life is death at the end of it, and death is the goal toward which every activity of the living organism eagerly strives." Paul looked at Wilhelm and Schrotter, but as they were silent he said nothing. Schrotter after consideration, said: "Why do you separate a part of the eternal principle from itself?" "To make its unity manifold through divisibility, to arrive at the consciousness of the 'ego,' through the creation of an absolute negation." "Your eternal principle then," said Schrotter, "appears to you like some lord or master, who is lonely because he is by himself in the world, and wishes to have the society of others." "Over this, however, is placed the creation of the negation arriving at the consciousness of its own 'ego,' in addition to the knowledge of the object it has in view; thus consciousness precedes the rest," said Wilhelm. Dorfling shook his head. "These objections are close reasoning. You will find them answered in the book." "You are right," said Schrotter, "it is unfair to criticize before we have read the book. I only want to make one remark, not in the sense of criticism, but rather to confirm a fact. Your "Philosophy of Deliverance" is no other than a form of Christianity which looks upon the earth as a vale of tears, on life as a banishment, and on death as going home to the Father's house. The theology of the Vatican would not find a hitch in your system." "Forgive me, doctor," answered Dorfling. "I see a great difference between my system and Christianity. Both of them hold that life is a misery, and death is the deliverance. But Christianity does not explain why God creates men, and sends them to the misery of earth, instead of leaving them in peace in heaven. I, on the contrary, claim that I explain the creation of living and conscious beings." "Your assertion then means that the eternal principle of phenomena creates organisms, with the object of arriving at the consciousness of itself?" "Exactly." "Now, we have already answered you as to that," said Schrotter, "and I will not keep back my objection any longer. Let me get away for a moment from your system, and say that between metaphysics and theology I do not see the least difference. A metaphysical system and a religious dogma are both attempts to explain the incomprehensible secret to human reason. The negro solves the riddle of the musical-box, believing that a spirit is inside it, which gives forth musical sounds at the white man's command; and that is precisely what priests and philosophers do when they explain the great workings of the universe by a God, or a principle, or whatever they call their fetich. Human nature always wants to know the why and wherefore of things. When we are not sure of our ground, we help ourselves by conjectures, or even by imagination. These conjectures are senseless or reasonable, according to whether our knowledge is insufficient or comprehensive. Men are satisfied in their childhood with stories as explanations of the world's mysteries, in their maturity they advance to plausible hypotheses: the stories yield to theology, hypotheses to philosophy. Religion presents a fictitious solution to the riddle in a concrete form, and metaphysics in an abstract form; the one relates and asserts, the other argues and avoids the improbable. It is only a difference of degree, not of character." "That is just so," cried Wilhelm. "Metaphysics are as incapable as religion of disclosing what lies behind the phenomenal world, and I cannot conceive (forgive me, Dorfling, if I say straight out what I mean), I cannot conceive how a philosopher can really take his own system in earnest. He must know that his explanation is only a conjecture, a possibility at the best, and he actually has the temerity to preach it as a fixed truth. No, my friend, I do not expect anything from metaphysics. It only interests me as a means for studying psychology. The history of philosophical systems is a history of the development of the mind of humanity. The systems are only valuable as testimonials to the endless extent and possibility of human thought. All the systems put together do not contain a spark of objective truth." "That is upon the whole the difference between natural science and metaphysics," said Schrotter. "Science regulates the boundary between what is known and what is not known, and declares when the limit is reached. Our knowledge has attained to a certain point, and beyond that we know and understand nothing, absolutely nothing. Metaphysics will not stop at that limit. It confuses knowledge and dreams together, and manufactures out of the two something quite worthless. It explains things which it does not understand, and which cannot be understood, and offers us detailed descriptions of countries into which it has never traveled, and where mankind probably never will travel." "May I say a word in defence of your metaphysics?" said Dorfling, with a slight smile. "Yes, go on," cried Barinskoi. He had drunk more than all the rest put together, and the serious conversation seemed to afford him great amusement. "Look here, Eynhardt. I cannot possibly uphold your statement that metaphysics do not contain a spark of objective truth. To be certain of that, one must also be certain what objective truth is. But you are not certain, as you very well know, and so logically you must admit the possibility that metaphysics can hold a spark of objective truth. I am of an entirely different opinion on this point. I believe that the science of the actual content of things, the foundation of all appearances, the laws of the universe, in short, everything which you call objective truth, is the property peculiar to the atoms, of which the world formerly existed. Absolute science, I say, is inherent matter, like motion and gravitation. Matter does not learn of them, it possesses them. A cell has not studied chemistry, but with unfailing accuracy it executes its wonderful chemical operations. Water knows nothing of physics and mathematics, but it flows from the spring, just as high as the laws of hydraulic pressure command." "Bravo," interrupted Mayboom, "that explains at last something I never understood; and that is, why a flower pot should fall off a window straight on the heads of people in the street, with unfailing accuracy." "Please, Mayboom, no bad jokes to-day," said Dorfling gently. The comic song writer sighed and again sank into deep thought, and the philosopher went on: "The science of truth, to which every atom adheres, dwells in men. We must not forget that man is a collection of countless millions of atoms; the collected consciousness of mankind can know just as much of what each atom knows, as a whole people can understand of Greek or Sanscrit because one or other of its members can read those languages. Only through intercommunication can the knowledge of the few become the knowledge of the many. The development of the living being I regard in this way, that the atoms at first only hang loosely, gradually becoming more closely knit together, until they make a substantial organism. The single atoms in the course of this process of development step over the boundary toward consciousness. At first it is a trembling, insecure foreboding, like the sensation of light to one nearly blind, then the outlines of truth become clearer, and all at once grow sharp and clearly defined. The different attempts at explanation of the secrets of the world are the expression of these forebodings of truth. So every one of the religious and philosophical systems is to my mind a grain of the truth, and the whole of it will be found in the great unity which we shall reach in a higher development." "As charming as a pretty story," said Schrotter, "but--it is only a story after all. You conjecture that the thing is so situated, but you are not in a condition to prove it; and if I deny it, you have no means of compelling me to believe, as I can compell you to believe that twice two makes four. No, no; nothing can come of these metaphysical speculations. The whole philosophy is not worth psychological treatment. We are no further to-day than the old Greeks, whose knowledge led to the formula, 'Know thyself.' We can hope to know ourselves some day, to know what goes on in our brains. I hardly believe, however, that science will ever arrive at it." "The study of natural science has brought me to the same conclusion," said Wilhelm. "We know nothing to-day of the nature of phenomena--we knew nothing yesterday, and we shall know nothing to-morrow. The great advance in thought has only brought us to the point of no more self-deception, and exactly knowing what we do know, whereas yesterday men deceived themselves, and imagined that the fables of religion and metaphysics were positive knowledge. The history of physical science is in this respect very interesting. It teaches that every step forward does not consist of a new explanation, but rather goes to prove, that the earlier explanations were untrustworthy. The sphere of the exact sciences does not grow wider, but narrower. It would be very instructive to study the history of natural science at the point it has reached." "Why do you not write such a history?" asked Schrotter. "Why? It would be foolish to add another book to the millions of books already written. All that one can say about it is soon said. Anything really new is written once in a thousand years, all the rest is repetition, dilution, compilation. If everyone who writes on a subject were to read first everything which has been written on that subject, he would very soon throw his pen out of the window." "I must again differ from you," said Dorfling. "I think it is best, that we so seldom know all that has been thought and written on a subject. It is best that we write new books without wearying to read the millions of others. I grant that most books are only repetitions of earlier ones. But it is unconscious repetition, and it is exactly that which gives it a wonderfully new meaning. It proves unity of mind, identity of science. Thousands of men daily discover gunpowder. Many of them laugh, because gunpowder was first discovered two hundred years ago. I do not laugh. I see in it the manifestation of the eternal unity of phenomenal principle. So many men could not arrive at the same thought if they were not fragments of a whole; now you know why I have written a book, and also, why I have not put my individual name on the title-page." From the next room they heard a woman laugh in a wild, excited way, glasses chinked together, and a man's voice was just distinguished in conversation. Barinskoi pricked up his ears and winked at Paul; the others paid no attention. "Do not misunderstand me," said Wilhelm, answering Dorfling's last remark. "I do not mean to say that your book is superfluous. You had every right to it, having made it the object of your life." "Not the object of my life," interrupted Dorfling. "The only object I have in life is death, which I call deliverance." "Very good; I will say then, when you conceived it your duty to write it." "'Duty' yes, I will allow that word to pass. Let us rather say impulse, or instinct. If one has a perception one also feels an impulse, which one calls a feeling of duty to share it with others." Wilhelm smiled. "You believe even in perception. That proves above all what you mean by your duty. I know, to my regret, that I have no perceptions to share with others, and the duty of my life is only toward my own moral education and greatest possible perfection." "That is not enough," Paul broke in, "this self-culture in one's own study does no one any good. For that reason I do not mind if I appear unphilosophical. One has duties toward one's fellowmen. One must be useful to the State, as a good citizen. One must make money, to add to the national wealth." "Bravo, Herr Haber," said Mayboom gravely. "You speak like a town-crier," and after a short pause he added, "That is a great compliment from me." "We express the same meaning in different forms," answered Wilhelm. "How can you add to the national wealth? By making yourself a rich man. And I try to be useful to the community by educating myself in the greatest possible morality, and the highest ideal of a citizen. No one can work outside of himself when every individual strives to be good and true, then the whole people will be good and noble." "Now you are disputing as to your life's duty," cried Baninskoi, whose eyes glowed, and whole face was red with the alcohol he had imbibed. "Prove first that it is a duty. I deny without exception every duty to others. Why should I trouble myself about the world? What are my fellow-creatures to me? Dinner is trumps, and long live wine!" and he drank a glassful. "It is an instinct born with us," said Wilhelm, without any vexation, "to care for one's fellow-creatures, and to feel a duty in sympathy for others." "But suppose I have not got this instinct?" answered Barinskoi. "Then you are an unhealthy exception." "Prove it." "The best proof is the continuance of mankind. If the instinct of sympathy with others were to fail among men, humanity would long ago have ceased to exist." Barinskoi laughed. "That is a convenient arrangement. Instinct then is the only foundation for your duty, and the continuance of humanity is the only sanction of your instinct. I will leave you to listen to your instinct, and sympathize as much as you like, but for my part I joyfully renounce this duty; the only punishment I should be afraid of is the destruction of mankind, and that is not likely to happen in my lifetime." "There is another punishment," said Mayboom solemnly, "that I take this bottle of champagne away from you on account of--your bad behavior." While he spoke he took away the bottle, and Barinskoi tried to get it back again; a little struggle ensued. Dorfling put an end to it by an emphatic "Please don't do that." Turning to Wilhelm he went on: "I do not believe in your idea of duty; you place instinct at the foundation. I use another word. I call your instinct the foreboding that each has of its being, and its outflow toward the eternal phenomenon of principle. At all events, that seems to suffice for a foundation. But I conceive duty to be quite a different thing. You limit your view to self-culture, and have love for your fellow-creatures, but no desire to instruct them. Now, I think that culture should begin with oneself, but end with others. That is my idea of love for humanity. One need hardly go out of oneself to do this. One can influence things remote without disturbing oneself. Just think of the magnet; it is an immense source of influence, called example. It sets an astonishing example without moving out of itself--an example which cannot be overlooked, and powerfully affects the imagination." "One illustration for another," said Schrotter, who had shown his interest in the conversation by nodding his head now and then. "You wish man to play the part of a magnet; that is not enough, I want him to play the part of a cogwheel. He must catch hold of his surroundings while he moves, he must also move all those round him. Everyone cannot be a magnet; we are not all made of the same stuff. But one can make a cogged wheel out of whatever one will--and beside, a magnet only influences certain substances. It will draw iron, but cannot attract copper, wood, or stone; but the cogwheel takes hold of anything near it, of whatever material it is made. I will not work the illustration to death. You can see by this what I mean. I think a far-reaching activity is the first business of mankind. Our nerves are not so much those of sensation as of movement; we do not only take in impressions from the outside, we are provided with organs which give out impressions received from within. Every sensation of movement which nature sends through us is a summons to be answered by an action, not only self-culture, not example, not passive good-will toward others, but by the intention an object of activity toward the world and humanity. The Middle Ages summoned up the business of life in the words, 'Ora et Labora.' They are beautiful words, and after this lapse of time we take the meaning out for ourselves, in other words, 'Think and Act.'" The woman's laughter from the next room became louder, and then they heard chairs pushed back, and the noise of departure. The rustling of a silk dress, with the clinking of spurs and sword, passed the door, became fainter, and then ceased. It was near midnight, and Schrotter rose to go. He was thinking of Bhani, who was sitting up for him at home. The dinner must have been paid for beforehand, for the guests were spared the sight of a money transaction to chill the end of their pleasant evening. The cool night air felt refreshing after the heat of the small room. Dorfling declined the offers his friends made to accompany him home. They all wished him "Farewell." "Die well, would be a better wish," replied Dorfling, and with these strange words in their ears they left him. Schrotter and Wilhelm went a part of the way with Paul, who had the furthest to go. For a little while he was silent, then he broke out: "I declare this is beyond my comprehension. The whole time I was there I felt as if I were in a vault with a lot of ghosts. You, Herr Doctor, were the only living being among them; I breathed again when I heard you talking. If I had not head the sounds from next door, and had not had the realities of our dinner before me, I should have thought I was dreaming." "What has put you out so, my dear Paul?" said Wilhelm. "What! Are you men of flesh and blood? Are you really alive? There we sat for four mortal hours, and the talk was wearisome to a degree, never one sensible word." "Now! now!" protested Schrotter. "Herr Doctor, forgive me, but I must repeat it, never one sensible word. Do you call Dorfling's 'Philosophy of Deliverance' sensible? or, Wilhelm, your philosophy of self-culture, which, with all deference to you, I call philosophical onanism? Only six men, two of them under thirty-five, and the whole blessed evening not one word about either pleasure or love." They had come to the place where Friedrichstrasse and Leipzigerstrasse cross each other; and Schrotter signed to them to look toward the left corner. There under a gas lamp they saw Barinskoi in earnest conversation with a woman. "Yes, look at him! That brute is still the most reasonable among all your philosophics. He has his method of sponging, and enjoys himself according to the category of Aristotle. But your metaphysics--" "What do you really want, Paul?" "Well, I want you all to have to do for once with practical life, with two hundred workmen to pay and ten thousand acres of land to see after; and artificial manures and the price of corn to worry you; then perhaps you would take a little less interest as to whether the soul was a phenomenon or an india-rubber ball, or whether men were magnets or cogwheels." Wilhelm only smiled. He had long ago given up trying to bring his practical friend to ideal views. At the corner of the Kochstrasse they separated, and Paul continued his way to the Lutzowstrasse, while Wilhelm and Schrotter turned back. Twenty minutes later, as Wilhelm entered his bedroom, his eyes fell on a letter for him in Dorfling's handwriting. He opened it, greatly surprised, and read as follows: "DEAR FRIEND: When you read this I shall be free from all trouble and all doubt. I have accomplished what I set myself to do, and I am going back to eternity from this limited sphere. May you be as happy as I shall be in a few hours! Keep a friendly thought for me as long as you stay in this world of misery, and believe that he who writes this had the warmest friendship for you." "L. DORFLING." Wilhelm stood as if thunderstruck. Was it by any chance a dreadful joke? No; Dorfling was incapable of that. It must be a grim reality. He ran quickly out of the house to seek Schrotter. The old Indian servant opened the door, and in his broken English informed him that Schrotter Sahib had found a letter when he reached home and had immediately gone out again. Wilhelm could now doubt no longer, and running swiftly, he reached the street where Dorfling lived, waited in agonizing suspense for the door to be opened, flew up the stairs, and through the open door to his friend's bedroom. There he found Schrotter; Mayboom was also there sobbing, and a tearful old servant. In an arm chair near the bed was Dorfling, still in his dress coat and tie, his head sunk on his breast, his face hardly whiter than in life, his arms hanging down, and in the middle of the white shirt-front a great red stain. On the floor lay a revolver. Wilhelm, horrified, took his friend's hand. It was still quite warm. His agonizing look sought Schrotter's, who answered in a hushed voice, "He is dead." Then his tears broke out, and his trembling fingers had hardly strength to close the lids over his friend's eyes, those eyes which looked so strangely quiet and peaceful as if they now knew the answer to the Great Secret. CHAPTER VIII. DARK DAYS. Dorfling's suicide made a profound impression on Wilhelm, and for months he was haunted by the vision of that motionless form with its white face and blood-stained breast. It had a weird fascination for him, causing him to revert constantly to that tragical May night that had begun with a cheerful dinner, and ended in a fatal pistol shot. Paul's comment on the occurrence was short and concise. "The poor chap was mad," he said, and there the matter ended as far as he was concerned. Mayboom revered his friend's memory as he would a saint, and erected a kind of chapel to him in his house, in which Dorfling's portrait, his book, and various objects belonging to him, thrown up in relief against draperies and surrounded by a variety of symbolical accessories, were set forth for the pious delectation of the master of the house and his visitors. Schrotter held aloof from this cult. He appreciated Dorfling's character, his consistency, his strength of will and highmindedness as they deserved, but he was never tired of preaching and demonstrating to Wilhelm that all these admirable qualities had been turned out of their proper course by a disturbing morbid influence. It was monstrous, he contended, that a system of philosophy should arm you for suicide. What if the premises should prove false? Then your voluntary death would be a frightful mistake which nothing could retrieve. One has no right to risk making such a mistake. He believed in development, in the progress of the organic world from a lower to a higher stage. Progress and development, however, were conditional upon life, and he who has recourse to self-destruction sets an example of unseemly revolt against one of the most beautiful and comforting of all the laws of nature. Moreover, suicide was a waste of force on which it was simply heartrending to have to look. There were so many great deeds to be done which called for the laying down of life. In a thousand different ways one might benefit mankind by Winkelried-like actions. If one was determined to die, one should at least render thereby to those left behind one of those sublime services which demand the sacrifice of a life. In their frequent conversations upon this subject, he was so earnest, so eloquent, so markedly intentional, that Wilhelm finally gave him the smiling assurance that he was preaching to a convert. It was true, he had the highest respect for a man who did not hesitate to cast life from him when his whole mind and thought led him to the conviction that death was preferable to life; and unprincipled as suicide might be from an objective point of view, subjectively considered, there surely was an ideal fitness in making one's actions agree to the uttermost point with one's opinions? Nevertheless, he himself did not approve of Dorfling's deed, and would certainly never imitate it, for one could never know what intentions the unknown powers might not have with regard to the individual; by committing suicide he maybe threw up some possible mission, or by his premature departure disturbed the action of the great machine in which he--as some small screw or wheel--doubtless had his modest place and function. As if to prove to Schrotter that he was no disciple of the "Philosophy of Deliverance," he turned his attention, more than he had ever done before, to the realities of life. Dorfling left a remarkable will. He bequeathed his fortune--most advantageously invested in a house in Dusseldorf and in public funds--yielding a yearly income of about thirty-five thousand marks, to his two friends, Dr Schrotter and Dr Eynhardt, with the sole charge that out of it they should provide a sufficient competency for his old servant, dating from his father's time, who had attended him literally from the cradle to the grave. The fortune was to be theirs conjointly and indivisibly, and should one of them die, to devolve to the survivor, who in his turn was to make such arrangements as he thought best to insure its being applied, after his death, in accordance with the testator's views. He expressed the hope that his two heirs would use the income derived from the property in alleviating the misery inseparable from human existence, of which throughout life they must be witnesses. Dorfling's only near relative was herself very wealthy and generous-minded, and did not dispute the will, it was accordingly proved. Wilhelm declared from the first that he understood nothing of the management of a fortune, of business papers, and so forth, and wanted to hand over the administration of the whole to Schrotter. Schrotter, however, would not hear of it, and after vying with one another in generous self-disparagement and mutual confidence, they finally agreed that Schrotter, being a practical man, and conversant with the ways of business and the world, should take the management of the fortune upon himself, but that Wilhelm should receive a monthly sum of fifteen hundred marks out of the income to apply as he thought best to the relief of the needy. The other half of the income was at Schrotter's disposal, who put it, of course, to the same use. In his capacity as member of the deputation for the poor, and also as parish doctor, he came in contact with much poverty and misery, and was able to direct Wilhelm's charity into the right channels. It became Wilhelm's regular afternoon employment to visit the homes of those mentioned to him as in need of relief, that he might the better judge for himself of the true state of the case, make personal inquiries about the people, and step in where help was necessary and deserved. Only now did he learn what life really was, and what he saw neither increased his pleasure in being alive nor made him proud to be a man among men. Needless to say, it was not long before the news reached the circles of the professional beggars that there was a gentleman in the Dorotheenstrasse who had a considerable yearly sum of money to give away. The result was that his modest apartment was so besieged by petitioners that his old landlady, Frau Muller, the widow of a post-office official, with whom he had boarded and lodged for seven years, was goaded to desperation, and declared that if the disgraceful rabble was encouraged she would be obliged to part from Wilhelm, though it would be her death, she being so fond of him and so used to his ways. Wilhelm was wise enough to admit the justice of her complaint, and empowered Frau Muller to turn away ruthlessly all such visitors whose names were unknown to her, or who came without recommendation, which orders she carried out with such virulence and relentlessness, that the worshipful company of professional beggars rapidly came to the conclusion that it was useless trying to gain admittance to Dr. Eynhardt as long as he was guarded by the tall, bony old lady who opened the door but would not leave hold of it. So the unceasing tramp of dirty boots on the echoing stair was hushed, and Wilhelm saw no more of the crape-clad widows of eminent officials who required a sewing machine or a piano to save them from starvation; the gentlemen who would be forced to put a bullet through their brains if they did not procure the money to pay a debt of honor; or the unemployed clerks who had eaten nothing for days, and who all had a sick wife and from six to twelve children (all small) at home crying for bread; or the foreigners who could find no work in Berlin, and would return to their native countries if he would give them a few thalers to pay their fourth-class railway fare; and similar interesting persons, the endless diversity of whose life-histories had kept him in a chronic state of surprise for months. In place of the visitors he now received letters, as many as if he had been a cabinet minister. It was the same old story, only less affecting, because generally deficient in style, and faulty as to spelling, and no longer illustrated by tearful, vigorously mopped eyes, abysmal sighs, and hands wrung till they cracked. For a time Wilhelm went to every address given in these letters, in order to see and hear for himself, but after awhile his powers of discrimination were sharpened, and he learned to distinguish between the impositions of swindlers and professional beggars, and the real distress which has a claim to sympathy. By degrees, it is true, he became convinced, even in the chill dwellings of real poverty, that this was hardly ever entirely unmerited. Where it had not been brought about by laziness, frivolity, or drink, its source was to be found in ignorance or incapacity, in other words, in an inefficient equipment for the battle of life. He judged all these circumstances, however, to be the outward and visible signs of obscure natural laws, and that to interfere with rash and ignorant hands in their workings was as useless as it was unreasonable. He therefore pondered seriously whether, by denying to a portion of mankind the qualities indispensable to success in the struggle for existence, Nature herself did not predestine them to misery and destruction; whether the irredeemable poor--those who after each help upward invariably fell back in the former state--were not the offscourings of humanity, the preservation of whom was a fruitless task, and altogether against the design of Nature? Fortunately, he did not allow his deeds of brotherly love to be darkened by the shadow of these and kindred thoughts. He brought forward reasons which always ended by triumphing over his cold doubts. Misery was possibly the outcome of inexorable natural laws, but then was not compassion the same? The poor were poor under the pressure of some irresistible force, but did not the charitable act under the same pressure? Moreover, was Wilhelm so sure that he himself was better equipped for the race of life than those unfortunates who went under because they chose a trade for which they were neither mentally nor physically competent, or because, from laziness or obstinacy, they insisted on remaining in Berlin, where nobody wanted them, when a few miles off they might have found all the conditions conducive to their prosperity? How could he know whether he would have been capable of earning his living if his father had not left him a plentifully-spread table? In the rooms that contained so little furniture and so many emaciated human beings, into which his charitable zeal led him every day, he pictured himself, pale and thin, without food, without books; and although he had the harmless vanity to believe that privation and penury would affect him less deeply than the poor devils he visited, the idea that he saw his own face before him, as it might have been had he not had the good luck to be his father's heir opened his hand still wider, and added to the money words of sympathy and comfort, which afforded the recipients--unless they were utterly hardened--as much pleasure as the donation itself. Beside his almsgiving, he now had another occupation which took up all his surplus time. Schrotter had not let the suggestion drop which he made at Dorfling's dinner-party, and had persuaded Wilhelm so long that he finally rouse himself to attempt an account of the ways and means by which the human mind has freed itself of its grossest errors. It was to be entitled "A History of Human Ignorance," and promised to be a most original work. He would endeavor to show what idea people had had of the universe at various periods, how they explained the phenomena of nature, their connection, their causes and effects. He would begin with the childish superstitions of the savages, and continuing through the so-called learned systems of the ancients and of the Middle Ages, would bring his history up to the theories of contemporary scientists. He would demonstrate the psychological causes of the fact that man, at a certain stage of intellectual development, must necessarily fall into certain errors, and by the aid of what experiments, experiences, and conclusions he had come gradually to recognize them as such. How the fresh interpretation of a single phenomenon would overturn, at one blow, a number of other phenomena hitherto considered entirely satisfactory, how prevailing scientific theories, instead of assisting the fearless observer or discoverer, invariably hindered him and turned him from the right path, in proof of which assertion he brought forward such striking examples as Aristotle's convulsive endeavors to make each of the senses correspond to one of the four elements in which they believed in his day, and Kepler with his fantastic efforts to prove the supremacy of the Pythagorean seven in the solar system. The object of the book was to show that the history of human knowledge is a history of false inferences and the erroneous interpretations of correctly observed phenomena, that the increase of knowledge always means the destruction of existing opinions, that of all the scientific systems up to the present day, only those retained their position which proved the futility of earlier theories--never those which built up new structures on the foundations of the old house of cards that had been blown down. In a word, that progress means not the acquisition of fresh knowledge, but an ever-extended consciousness of the futility of the knowledge we thought to possess. Wilhem spared himself no pains with this work. He brought all the thoroughness and industry of his honest nature to bear upon it, would accept no statement at second-hand, but went for every information to the fountain head. It would cost an immense amount of time, but after all he had that at his disposal. There was no need for him to hurry, seeing that he did not write from ambition or for any material advantage, but simply for his own gratification. He began by rubbing up his school Greek sufficiently to enable him to read the ancient philosophers with ease, which he achieved in a few months, and then set to work to learn Arabic, that being the chief language of science in the Middle Ages. Schrotter was seriously alarmed at these extensive preparations, and hastened to procure, through his pandit friends, some English extracts from the scientific literature of India, lest Wilhelm might think fit to study Sanscrit, and decades would pass before he came to write the first word of his book. Thus four years went by, years full of work, though they left no visible traces. Meanwhile the aspect of things in the new Empire had become very different. Men breathed the oppressive air with laboring breasts; the bright dawn which promised so glorious a day had, been followed by sullen mists, and the blue sky had disappeared behind heavy, leaden-gray clouds, through which no comforting ray of sunshine pierced. Where was all the glowing enthusiasm, the rapture of hope and joy that, in the first years after the great war, had flushed every German cheek and lit up every eye? Throughout the length and breath of the land the opposing factions confronted one another like armed antagonists preparing for a duel to the death. Town and village rang with execration and satire, with howls of rage or satisfied revenge vented by German against German. The Roman Catholic shook his clinched fist at the Protestant, the liberal at the conservative, the protectionist at the free-trader, the partisan of absolute government at the defender of the people's rights. Everywhere hatred and malice, everywhere a mad desire to gag, to maltreat, to tear limb from limb; this unfettering of the basest human passions giving meanwhile such an impetus to bribery, corruption, and unprincipled advancement for party purposes as to resemble the loathsome luxuriant growth of mildew in the damp corners of some neglected storeroom. The high tide of the foreign millions had ebbed away, showing itself to have been no fructifying Nile but a destructive lava stream, leaving the country charred and desolate after its passage. The gold that only yesterday had poured through greedy fingers, had turned to-day to ashes and withered leaves like the goblin gold of a fairy tales. Diminished inclination for work, an insanely increased demand for the luxuries of life, the accepted ideas of morality shaken to their foundations by scandalous examples of triumphant vice and villainy--these were the blessings that remained after the so-called impetus following on the "Downfall." Work was scarcer, wages lower, but the flood of country people seeking work continued to roll toward the capital, overcoming with irresistible force the backward wave of unfortunates who could find no employment in the building yards, the factories or the workshops, trampling blindly over the bodies of the fallen, like a herd of buffaloes which marches ever straight ahead, which nothing can turn out of its course, and when it arrives at a precipice over which the leaders fall, presses onward till the last one is swallowed up in the depths. The misery and privation became heartrending to witness. Each morning you might see in the working quarters of the town and suburbs hundreds of strong men, their hands--perforce idle--buried in their torn and empty pockets, going from factory to factory asking for work, while the overseers would wave them off from afar to avoid a useless interchange of words. If, in the years of the French milliards, the workingman had turned socialist out of sheer envy and wantonness, he became so now under the sting of adversity, and in all the length and breadth of Berlin there was hardly one of the proletariat who was not a fanatical disciple of the new doctrine, with its slashing denunciations against all that was, and its intoxicating promises of all that was to be. Wilhelm had many opportunities of intercourse with the unemployed. He gave help as far as his fifty marks a day would reach, and kept the wolf from many a door. But the miraculous loaves and fishes of the gospel would have been necessary to successfully alleviate even the distress which he saw with his own eyes, and although much of the preaching of the social democrats still seemed to him mere phrase-making and altogether mistaken, he yet came gradually to the conclusion that somewhere--he did not precisely know where--in the construction of the social machine there must be a flaw, seeing that there were so many people who could and would work, and yet were doomed to despair and ruin for lack of employment. The spring of 1878 came round, and brought with it two attempts on the life of the emperor within three weeks. Scarcely had the people recovered from the horror caused by Hodel's crime when it was shaken to its depths by Nobiling's murderous shot. On that terrible Sunday, June the 2d, Wilhelm had dined with Schrotter, and about three o'clock they started for a walk. In the few steps that separate the Mittelstrasse from the Linden they saw what was going on in the town. In Unter den Linden, however, they were received by the yells of the newspaper men calling out the first special editions, and found themselves in the stream of people pouring toward the Palace or to No. 18, where they pointed out the window on the second floor from which the too-well-aimed shot had fallen. From the special editions, from the confused remarks and exclamations of the crowd in which the two friends found themselves, and the information they obtained from the grim-looking policemen, rougher and less communicative than ever, they learned all that was necessary of the bloody deed which had taken place an hour ago. Wilhelm could scarcely control his horror, and even Schrotter, though calmer, was deeply moved and downcast. All pleasure in their walk was gone, and they decided to return to Schrotter's house. "It is simply hideous," said Wilhelm, as they turned into the Friedrichstrasse, "that we have such brutes living among us! We know, of course, that there is a great deal of distress, but a man who can revenge his own trouble on the person of the emperor must be lower than the beasts of the field. And men who at this time of day have such ideas on State organization are electors!" "Good heavens!" cried Schrotter, with unconscious vehemence, "you are surely not going to make the popular mistake of drawing sweeping conclusions from these outrages? Such occurrences have no outside importance. They are the acts of madmen. Their following so closely upon one another is the very surest proof of that. There are in Germany thousands--perhaps tens of thousands--of unhappy creatures whose minds are more or less unhinged, though their inexperienced surroundings do not know it. Some exceptional event will suddenly put the entire population in a state of ferment, the imagination of the already morbidly inclined will be particularly strongly affected thereby; they picture the occurrence to themselves till it takes hold of them, and drives out every other thought from their minds, becomes a nightmare, a possession, and finally an irresistible impulse to do the same. After every event of the kind, you hear that a whole number of people have gone mad, and that their insanity is somehow connected with it. No such thing. They were mad before, and the insanity which had lain dormant in them only waited for a chance shock to give it definite form and character." They had reached Schrotter's door by this time, and were on the point of entering, when a policeman stepped up to them, and touching Wilhelm's arm, said: "Gentlemen, you will have to come with me." "Why, what do you mean?" they exclaimed, very much taken aback. "Better make no fuss, but come quietly with me," answered the policeman, "This gentleman accuses you of making insulting remarks against his majesty." Only now did they become aware of a man standing behind the policeman and glaring at them in fury. "Are you mad?" Schrotter burst out angrily. "That is for the magistrate to decide," exclaimed the man, in a voice trembling with rage; "and you, policeman, do your duty." Passers-by began to gather round the group, so, to bring a disagreeable scene to a close, Schrotter said to Wilhelm: "We had better go with the policeman; I suppose we shall be enlightened presently." A short walk brought them to the police office in the Neue Wilhelms Strasse, where they were taken before the lieutenant of police. The policeman deposed in a few words that he had been standing at the corner of the Friedrich and Mittelstrasse, the two gentlemen passed him in loud conversation; the third gentleman, who was following them, then came up to him, and told him to arrest them because they had spoken insultingly of his majesty, and here they were. He had neither seen nor heard anything further. The lieutenant of police began by asking their names. When they told him--"Dr. Schrotter, M. D. one of the members for Berlin and Professor Emeritus," and "Dr. Eynhardt, Doctor of Philosophy, householder," he offered them chairs. The informer introduced himself as "non-commissioned officer Patke, retired, member of a military association, and candidate for the private constabulary." "What have you to bring forward against the gentlemen?" "I walked behind the two gentlemen from the Linden to the Mittelstrasse. They were conversing loudly about the attempted assassination, and I naturally listened." "It does not appear to me so very natural," commented the lieutenant dryly. The informer was a trifle disconcerted, but he soon recovered himself, and proceeded in a declamatory manner: "The younger gentleman--the dark one--expressed himself in very unbecoming terms with regard to his majesty the emperor, and said among other things, that the outrage was of no real importance. I am a patriot, I have served his august majesty; if his majesty--" "That will do," the lieutenant broke in, ruthlessly interrupting the retired non-commissioned officer's flow of language, which he accompanied with a dramatic waving of the right arm. "Can you repeat the 'unbecoming terms' of which, according to your account, this gentleman made use?" "I cannot remember the exact words. I was too excited. So much, however, I remember distinctly--he declared the attempt upon his majesty's life to be an occurrence of no importance." Wilhelm now broke in. "Not a word of that is true," he said quietly. "Neither of us said one word which could justify this inconceivable charge." "The remark which this informer seems to have taken hold of," Schrotter observed, "was not made by my friend, Dr. Eynhardt, but by me. I did not say either that the occurrence was unimportant, but that it had no general significance--that it was not a proof of the prevailing feeling at large." "It comes to the same thing whether you say it has no importance or no significance," interrupted the informer. "That gentleman may have made the remark, but I certainly heard it, and as a loyal servant of his majesty--" "That is quite enough," said the lieutenant of police authoritatively. Then turning to the two friends--"I am very sorry, but as things stand at present, I must let the law take its course. Do you persist in your charge?" he asked the informer. "Yes, Herr Lieutenant; my duty to my sovereign--" "Silence. Gentlemen, I shall be obliged to notify the matter to the proper authorities. I expect you will be called upon to clear yourselves before the magistrate, which I have no doubt you will be able to do successfully. I need not detain you any longer." Wilhelm and Schrotter bowed courteously and withdrew, without vouchsafing a glance at the informer. The latter lingered, as if he would have liked to continue the conversation with the lieutenant of police, but an emphatic "You may go!" sent him rapidly over the threshold of the office. Five days afterward, on a Friday, Schrotter and Wilhelm were summoned to appear in the Stadtvogtei [Footnote: A certain prison in Berlin.] before the magistrate, a disagreeable person with a bilious complexion, venomous eyes behind his spectacles, and the unpleasing habit of continually scooping out his ear with the little finger of his left hand. The two friends, the informer, and the policeman were present. The magistrate could not have received them differently if they had been accused of robbing and murdering their parents. To be sure, he behaved no better to the informer. His expression of unmitigated disgust was perhaps a freak of nature, and no indication of the true state of his feelings. He had a bundle of papers before him, in which he searched for some time before opening his mouth. "You are accused of having made use of offensive expressions regarding his majesty," he said to Schrotter. "On a preposterously unfounded charge," he retorted. "And you too," he turned to Wilhelm. "I can only repeat Dr. Schrotter's answer." "Give your evidence," he ordered the policeman. The man did so. "Could you understand what the gentleman said?" "No." "How far was Patke behind them?" "A few steps." "You must be more exact." "I can't say more exactly than that, for I paid no attention to the gentlemen till I was told to arrest them." "Is it your opinion that Herr Patke could have heard distinctly what the gentlemen were saying to one another?" "I dare say he might have understood if they spoke very loud, but I can't say for certain." "Herr Patke, what have you to say?" The former non-commissioned officer, who had donned his 1870 medal for the occasion, hereupon assumed a strictly military bearing, fixed his eye firmly on the magistrate, and began in a sing-song voice: "I happened to be in the street last Sunday when the infamous wretch lifted his murderous hand against the sacred person of our august monarch. My heart bled; I was beside myself; I could have torn everybody and everything to pieces. As I walked along I noticed these two gentlemen, who looked to me suspicious from the first--" "Why?" asked the magistrate. "Well--the one with his black hair, and the other with his hooked nose--I said to myself, 'Those are Jews!'" The magistrate suddenly bent over his papers, and gave a kind of grunt. Even the policeman, in spite of his wooden official air, could not repress a smile. Patke continued: "Then I heard the younger gentleman say, 'It serves his majesty the emperor quite right.'" "Did he actually say, his majesty the emperor?" interrupted the magistrate. "No," answered Patke eagerly, "I say that." "You are only to repeat the gentleman's actual words." "He actually did say that it served the emperor right." "This is beyond a joke," Schrotter burst out. "Why, man, I wonder the lie does not stick in your throat and choke you!" "I must beg you not to address the witness," said the magistrate brusquely. Then to Patke severely--"That is not what you said in your first charge." "I was confused then; I did not recollect distinctly. But later on it came back to me." "That is very improbable. What have you to answer, Dr. Eynhardt?" "Simply, that the man's statement is absolutely untrue. I never uttered or thought words bearing the remotest resemblance to those he quotes." "What my friend does not say is," broke in Schrotter, "that, on the contrary, he expressed the deepest and most painful emotion at the crime." The magistrate shot a venomous glance from under his spectacles at Schrotter, but quailed before those flaming half-closed blue eyes fixed so sternly upon him. "Well, and what have you to bring forward against the other gentleman?" "That gentleman said the outrage was of no great importance." "In your first account you said the outrage had no real significance, and that Dr. Eynhardt made the remark." "Whether he said 'no importance' or 'no significance,' it is all the same thing, and one cannot so easily distinguish the speaker when one is walking behind. I may have been mistaken on that point." "You do not repudiate the remark?" asked the magistrate of Schrotter in his most biting tones. "Your expression is not very happily chosen. By repudiating I understand the declaring of a fact to be false when we know it to be true. I am not in the habit of doing that, nor should I suppose it of you, Herr Staatsanwalt." "I need no instruction from you," the other returned angrily. "It would seem so, however" Schrotter calmly rejoined. The magistrate grunted several times and then asked, after a pause, during which he was particularly busy with his ear: "You admit the statement, then?" "Not altogether. It is true that I said the attempt on the emperor's life had no general significance, but I meant by that and the rest of what I said, that if the political parties should make this isolated crime (committed by an undoubtedly insane person) the excuse for adopting measures inimical to the liberty of the public in general, they would be doing something both unjustifiable and reprehensible." "Can he have said that?" asked the magistrate, turning to Patke. "I don't know. I only know what I said just now." Renewed grunting, renewed digging in the ear and turning over of papers. "Hm--hm," he muttered to himself testily, "that is not enough. It is too indefinite, in spite of strong grounds for suspicion." Then he looked up, and in a tone which was meant to convey as much scorn as possible, he asked Schrotter--"You played a part in the political events of 1848?" "Yes, and the recollection of it is the pride of my life." "I did not ask you about that. And you are at present the chairman of a district society of progressive opinions?" "I have that honor." "There is nothing further against you. And you, Dr. Eynhardt, you refused the Iron Cross in the late campaign?" "Yes." "You were discharged from the army without comment?" "Yes." "For declining a duel," observed Schrotter. "Dr. Eynhardt is of age, and can answer for himself. You have attended Socialist meetings?" "Only once." "And made speeches?" "One speech?" "And that was directed against Socialism," said Schrotter again. The magistrate grew lobster-red in the face. "It is really scandalous," he cried, quivering with rage, "that I am repeatedly obliged to remind a man of your position that he is only to answer when spoken to. Why didn't you say yourself, Dr. Eynhardt, that you had spoken against the Socialists?" "Because you did not ask me," answered Wilhelm, with a gentle smile. After a slight pause the magistrate resumed--"You are on friendly terms with a Russian named Dr. Barinskoi?" "You can hardly call it that. I did know him, though not exactly in a friendly way, but for two years I have quite lost sight of him." "Did you know that Dr. Barinskoi was a Nihilist?" "Yes." "And you did not let that make any difference to you?" "I was not afraid of infection," said Wilhelm, and smiled again. "Perhaps not, but of being compromised," growled the magistrate. "That idea has not troubled me as yet." "You inherited from a friend who committed suicide a large fortune, which you use chiefly for the benefit of Socialist workmen?" "I use it for the benefit of the poor, and those I certainly find more frequently among the Socialist workmen than among factory owners and householders." "I'll thank you to remember that this is not the place for making bad jokes!" roared the magistrate. "You are quite right," Wilhelm answered serenely. "I know nothing more unpleasant than bad jokes." Schrotter looked as if he were going to embrace his friend. He had never seen him from this side. "Did it never occur to you to put yourself in communication with the clergymen of your district, these gentlemen having far greater facilities for finding out deserving objects of charity than a private person?" "I will answer that question when you have had the goodness to explain to me what connection it has with this man's denunciation." The magistrate glared at him in a manner calculated to wither him on the spot, but only met a quiet, smiling face which he was incapable of intimidating. "May I request you now," said Schrotter in his turn, "to ask the witness Patke if for the last few weeks he has not been a candidate for a post as detective on the political police staff?" Schrotter too had made a variety of inquiries since last Sunday, and had learned this fact. "That is so," stammered Patke, turning very red. "In these terrible times, when the Socialists and the enemies of the country--" "Silence, Herr Patke," interrupted the magistrate angrily; "that has nothing to do with the business on hand." He reflected for awhile, and then said with the most deeply grudging manner--"The statement of the one witness--seeing too that it is indefinite in some important points--is not sufficient to warrant me in passing a sentence, in spite of many good grounds for suspicion afforded by your past history and known opinions. I will therefore dismiss the charge, if only to avoid the public scandal of a Member being accused of lese majeste." Schrotter was boiling with rage, and had the greatest difficulty in restraining his naturally passionate temper. "Many thanks for your kindness," he said in a choking voice, "and for this scoundrel you have no reprimand?" "Sir," screamed the magistrate, springing out of his chair with fury, "leave this room instantly; and you, Herr Patke, if you wish to bring an action for libel against the gentleman you may call upon me as a witness." Patke was too modest to avail himself of this friendly offer. Wilhelm dragged Schrotter out of the office as fast as he could, and even outside they still heard the magistrate's grunts of wrath. Dark days followed, in which Schrotter seemed to live over again the worst horns of the "wild year." A moral pestilence--the craze for denunciation--spread itself over the whole of Germany, sparing neither the palace nor the hut. No one was safe, either in the bosom of the family, at the club table, in the lecture room, or in the street, from the low spy who, from fanaticism or stupidity, from personal spite or desire to make himself conspicuous, took hold of some hasty or imprudent word, turned it round, mangled it, and brought it redhot to the magistrates, who seldom had the courage to kick the informer downstairs. Such unspeakable depths of human baseness came to light, so full of corruption and pestilence, that the eye turned in horror from the incredible spectacle. The newspapers brought daily reports of denunciations for "lese majeste," and when Schrotter read them he clasped his hands in horrified dismay and exclaimed, "Are we in Germany? are these my fellow-countrymen?" He became at last so disgusted that he gave up reading the German papers, and derived his knowledge of what was going on in the world from the two London papers which, from the habit of a quarter of a century, he still took in. He wished to hear no more about denunciations by which, with the aid of police and magistrates, every kind of cowardice and vileness, social envy and religious hatred, rivalry, spite, and inborn malevolence, sought a riskless gratification, and usually found it in full measure. But it took away all pleasure in social intercourse. One learned to be cautious and suspicious. One grew accustomed to see an enemy in every stranger, and to be upon one's guard before a neighbor as before some lurking traitor. Hypocrisy became an instinct of self-preservation; every one carefully avoided speaking of those things of which the heart was full, and Berlin afforded an insight into the mental condition of the people of Spain during the most flourishing period of the Inquisition, or of Venice in the days when anonymous denunciations poured into the yawning jaws of the Lions of St. Mark's square. The Reichstag was dissolved, the people of Germany must choose new representatives, and the chief, if not the sole question to be decided by the election was, Are the Socialists to be dealt with under a special act, or to come under the common law? Schrotter now felt it justifiable, nay, that it was his duty, to throw off the reserve he had maintained since his return to the Fatherland, and come forward as a candidate for the Reichstag, though for a suburban district, as the city district to whose poor he had been an untiring benefactor as physician and friend, with help, counsel, and money, was not available. At a meeting of his constituents he laid down his confession of faith. A special act, he explained, was in no way justified, would indeed be ineffectual, and lead away from the object they had in view. The government would be guilty of libel if it made the Socialists answerable for a crime committed by two half or wholly insane persons; it was the duty of the government to prove that these attacks were the work of the Socialists: that proof, however, it had been unable to discover. Moreover, no special act in the world could hinder people of unsound mind from committing insane deeds--the crimes of a Hodel or a Nobiling could not be predicted, but neither could they be prevented by any kind of precautionary measure. The sole result of a special act would be to make the Socialists practically outlaws in their own country. That would constitute not only a terrible severity against a large class of their fellow-citizens, but a frightful danger to the State. In hundreds and thousands of hearts it would destroy the sense of fellowship with the community in which they lived; they would look upon themselves as outcasts, and become the enemies of their pursuers. It would be exactly as if some thousands of Frenchmen were set down in the midst of the German population--in the army, in the cities, the factories, the arsenals and railways, where they would only wait for a favorable opportunity to revenge themselves on their conquerors. That would be the inevitable result if the Socialists were deprived of the security of the common law. He considered the Socialist doctrines false and mischievous, and their aims senseless and--fortunately--unattainable, and for that very reason he did not fear them. But deprive the Socialists of the possibility of expressing themselves freely in word and print, and their grievances, which now found vent in harmless speechifying, would assume the form of practical violence. His speech made an impression, but that of a rival candidate a still greater, for he succeeded in rousing the deepest and most powerful emotions of his hearers, by the plain statement that whoever refused the government the right of adopting such measures as it thought necessary for the safety of the public, simply delivered the life of their aged and beloved sovereign into the hands of assassins. At the election, Schrotter had on his side only a small number of independent-minded voters, who were able to remain unmoved by sentimental arguments. The workingmen would not vote for him, knowing him to be an opponent of Socialism. The rival candidate was returned by a large majority. The Reichstag assembled, the Socialist Act was passed, Berlin declared to be in a state of semi-siege, and a great number of workmen dismissed from the city. It was November, and winter had set in with unusual severity. On a dark and bitterly cold afternoon, old Stubbe, who had been agent in the Eynhardts' house for twenty years, entered Wilhelm's room. "What is the news, Father Stubbe?" cried Wilhelm, as he came in. "No good news, Herr Doctor. Wander the locksmith--you know the man who rents the second floor of the house in our court--has been turned out by the police. It seems he's a very dangerous customer; I must say I have never noticed it. He was always very decent; the children were a bother, certainly--always running about the court and getting between your feet. Well, we all have our faults; and then, too, he didn't pay his rent in October." Wilhelm, who was well acquainted with Father Stubbe's flow of language, and did not greatly admire it, interrupted him at this point. "Well, and what is the matter?" "What's the matter, Herr Doctor? Why, the wife is there now with the five children, and there's no earning anything, and yesterday she took away a cupboard to turn it into money somewhere--not that she can have got much for it, it was all tumbling to pieces. The rest of the furniture will take legs to itself soon, I dare say, for six mouths must be fed, and where is food to come from? There will be no removal expenses anyhow, for there will soon be nothing but the bare walls. There's no question of paying the rent, and never will be, as far as I can see; so I thought I had better ask what was to be done with the poor things." "What can we do?" "We could seize the bits of sticks they still have, though that would not cover the rent that is owing. The best thing, perhaps, would be to tell Frau Wander just to take her things and clear out; then at least we could relet the rooms." "Frau Wander does not work?" "How can she?--five children, and the youngest still at the breast." "I will see to it myself, and let you know what is to be done." "Very good, Herr Doctor," said Stubbe, much relieved. He had a kind heart and it was only his strict sense of duty that led him to mention the case of the Wanders, and particularly the unpermissible selling of the furniture, to the owner of the house. Stubbe had barely reached home before Wilhelm appeared in the Kochstrasse. His house lay between the Charlotten and Markgrafenstrasse, and was an old and unpretentious structure, looking, among the stately houses of a later period which surrounded it on all sides, like a poor relation at a rich and distinguished family gathering. During the "milliard years," building speculators had offered him considerable sums for the ground, but he was not to be prevailed upon to sell the house left him by his father. It was only seven windows wide, and had consisted originally of one story only, but a low second story had been added, recognizable instantly as a piece of patchwork. A great key hanging over the entrance announced the fact that there was a locksmith's workshop inside. The courtyard was very low and narrow, and roughly paved with cobblestones, between which the grass sprouted luxuriantly. At the further end of this court stood the "Hinterhaus," likewise two-storied, on the ground floor of which the locksmith carried on his resounding trade. Accompanied by Stubbe, Wilhelm mounted the worn wooden staircase leading to the second floor. The flat consisted of a kitchen and a room with one window. Even when the sun was most lavish of his rays, it was none too light there; now, in the early-falling dusk of a dull late autumn day, Wilhelm found himself in a dim half-light as he opened the door. There was no fire in the stove, no lamp upon the table. In the cold and darkness he could just distinguish among the sparse furniture a slim, wretched-looking woman sitting on a chair by the table, nursing a baby wrapped in an old blanket; a tall, large-boned man in workman's clothes, with a bushy beard and gloomy eyes, leaning against the wall beside the window, and some fair-haired children, unnaturally silent and motionless for their age, crouching side by side on the bed, only swinging their legs a little from time to time. At Wilhelm's entrance with a friendly "Good-evening," the woman rose from her seat and gazed at the intruder with hostile eyes, the children ceased swinging their legs, and the workman shrank away from the window into the deeper shadow of the corner. "The landlord," Stubbe announced solemnly. Frau Wander threw up her head. "Now then, what do you want now?" she said hurriedly, her bitter tone beginning on the ordinary pitch, but rising rapidly to a shrewish scream. "It's the rent, I suppose; and I suppose we're to have notice to quit? It's all one to me. I've got no money and so I tell you; but what's here you can keep, and you can have the skin off my back too, and I'll throw in the children beside. They can drag a milk-cart as well as dogs. Why don't you cut my throat at once and have done with it?" "But, my good woman," cried Stubbe, horror-stricken, "what are you thinking of? The Herr Doctor only means well by you." Wilhelm had come quite close to the poor thing, who had worked herself up into such a state of excitement that she was trembling from head to foot, and said in that gentle voice of his that always found its way to the heart: "You are worrying yourself unnecessarily, Frau Wander. I have not come about the rent, and nobody is going to turn you out of your home. Herr Stubbe here has been telling me about your troubles, and I came to see if we could not give you a little assistance." She stared at him speechless, with wide-open eyes. The children on the bed began to whisper to one another. Wilhelm took advantage of the pause to say a few words in Father Stubbe's ear, whereupon the old man vanished. "Why don't you offer the gentleman a chair?" said the workman, coming out of his dark corner. The woman slowly drew forward a chair, round the torn seat of which the straw stood up raggedly on all sides. Wilhelm thanked her with a wave of the hand. "Do not be afraid of me, dear Frau Wander," he went on. "Tell me something of your circumstances." "What was there to tell?" answered the woman, still somewhat ruffled. He could see for himself how things stood with her. Her husband had been turned out of Berlin; but much the police cared if she and her five children starved or froze to death. It would have come to that already if some of her husband's fellow-workmen had not given them a little help in their distress, like her present visitor, the iron-worker, Groll. But what could they do? They had not anything themselves, and the police were always after them like the devil after a poor soul. What did they want of them after all? Her husband had held with the Socialists certainly, but he had done nobody any harm by that. Ever since Wander had gone over to the Socialists he had left off drinking--not a drop--only coffee, and sometimes a little beer; and he was always good to his wife and children, and he had no debts as long as he had been able to earn anything. The locksmith downstairs had discharged him after the second attack on the emperor, although he was a clever workman; but the master was afraid of the police, and none of the others would risk taking him on. That was bad enough, but it was not so hard to bear in the summer, and the Socialists held faithfully together, and now and then there was a penny to be earned. But now--now that he had to go away, and winter was at the door-- She could keep up no longer, and burst into tears. Wilhelm seated himself cautiously on the broken chair, and asked, "Where is your husband now? and what does he think of doing?" "He is trying to get through to the Rhine, and get work at Dortmund, or somewhere in that neighborhood," she answered, while the tight sobs caught her breath, and she wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. "If he can't get any work he will go to France, or Belgium, or even America, if he must. But that takes a lot of money, and where is one to get it without stealing? We are to come to him when he has found work, and can send us the money for the journey. Till then--" With the free arm that was not holding the child she made a hopeless gesture. At that moment the door opened and Father Stubbe came in, carrying in one hand a lighted candle, and in the other a great, fresh-smelling loaf of bread. He placed both upon the bare table, and then discreetly withdrew. "Bread! bread!" cried the children, awakened to sudden life, and jumping off the bed they gathered round the table with greedy eyes, clapping their hands. There were four of them--the youngest a mite of two or three, who only babbled with the others; the eldest, a pale little girl of seven or eight years. "Children! Just let me catch you!" scolded the mother; but her voice shook with nervous excitement. "Please, Frau Wander, won't you cut the children some bread first? We can talk afterward." In a twinkling the eldest girl had fetched a knife from the kitchen, the children continuing to clap their hands delightedly, and Frau Wander cut them large slices, and while she was so engaged, "We have never had anything given us, Herr Doctor," she said; "we have always earned our living with honest work. It is hard to have to come to this; but what can you do when the police put a rope round your neck?" "You must not worry any longer, dear Frau Wander," said Wilhelm, "but you must not speak like that of the police. You do yourself no good by it, and perhaps a great deal of harm. We will do what we can for you. Never mind about the rent. You will stay on quietly here, and allow me to assist you with this trifle." He pressed two twenty-mark pieces into the half-reluctant hand so unused to accepting alms. "And Herr Stubbe will give you the same sum every month till you are able to join your husband." He held out his hand, which she grasped in silence, incapable of finding suitable words to thank him, and he hurried to the door. The mechanic hastily snatched up the candle from the table, ran after him and lighted him downstairs, murmuring with real emotion: "Thank you a thousand times, Herr Doctor, and may God bless you!" And all the way downstairs Wilhelm was followed by the children's jubilant song of "Bread! bread!" One morning a few days later--it was December the 2d--as Wilhelm was sitting at his writing-table engaged in making notes from a thick English book of travels on the Australian savage's ideas on nature, he heard a sound of quarreling going on in the hall. He could distinguish Frau Muller's irate tones, and then a man's voice mentioning his name. He gave no further heed to the dispute, thinking it was doubtless some importune person in whom worthy Frau Muller had detected the professional beggar, and was therefore driving away. But it did not leave off, and grew louder and louder, Frau Muller's voice rising at last to an exasperated scream--there even seemed to be something like a hand-to-hand fight going on--till Wilhelm thought it behooved him to see what was happening, and, if need be, come to the rescue of his faithful house-dragon. He opened the door quickly and received Frau Muller in his arms. If he had not caught her, she would have fallen backward into the room, for she had leaned--a living bulwark--against the door, defending the entrance with her body against two men, one of whom was trying to push her away, while the other, standing further back, was restraining his companion from grasping Frau Muller all too roughly. In the daring man who did not shrink from laying sacrilegious hands upon the furious and snorting landlady, Wilhelm instantly recognized the mechanic whom he had seen at Frau Wander's. At sight of him the man raised his hat politely, and before the gasping Frau Muller, who was simply choking with excitement, could find her tongue, he said: "Beg pardon, I am sure, Herr Doctor, for disturbing you; but we really must speak to you. I knew from Herr Stubbe that you are always at home at this hour, so I would not let the lady send us away." "The lady indeed!" Frau Muller managed at last to exclaim. "Now he talks about ladies, and a minute ago he had the impudence--" "You must excuse us, madam," said the workman with the utmost civility; "we meant no harm, and we simply must speak to the Herr Doctor." "Come in," said Wilhelm curtly, and not overwarmly, while he pressed the still angrily glaring Frau Muller's hand gratefully. The second visitor now mentioned his name--it was that of one of the most prominent leaders of the Social Democrats in Germany. Wilhelm signed to the two men to be seated, and asked what he could do for them. "I heard through the mechanic Groll here," answered the stranger, pointing to the other man, "what you did for Frau Wander. That encouraged us to come to you with a request." At a sign from Wilhelm he continued: "You have seen one of our cases for yourself, and that not by any means the worst. We have dozens of such cases, and there will probably be hundreds more. Our union does what it can. Every member gives up part of his week's wages for the unfortunate victims, and thereby we perhaps save the government from the crime of having condemned innocent women and children to death by starvation. But our people are poor, and have to fight against want themselves. We cannot expect any great sacrifice from them. What we want is a considerable lump sum to enable us to send on the families of the exiled workmen to join their respective bread-winners. So we go round knocking at the doors of our wealthy associates, who, though in consideration of the times they do not care to declare themselves openly for us, nevertheless have a feeling heart for the workingman's distress." All the time he was speaking he looked Wilhelm straight in the eyes. Wilhelm bore his gaze quietly, and answered: "If you think I share your opinions you are much mistaken. I consider that you are pursuing a false course, that you make assertions to the workingman which you cannot prove, and promise him things you cannot fulfill, and I frankly confess that I do not envy you the responsibility you have taken upon your own shoulders." The leader stroked his short beard with a nervous movement, and the mechanic twisted his hat awkwardly between his hands. Wilhelm went on after a short pause: "But that does not prevent me from sympathizing with the distress of women and children, and I shall be very glad to do what I can if you will give me a detailed account of the state of affairs." In a few plain words the visitor gave a sketch of the circumstances, all the more heartbreaking for its very unpretentiousness. So many men dismissed, so many wives, so many children, so many parents and near relatives unable to support themselves. Of these so many were sick, so many women lately confined, so many cripples. So many had prospects of better circumstances if they could get away from Berlin. For that purpose such and such a sum was necessary. So much was already in hand. He stated the amount of certain large donations, and added--"I will not mention the names of the subscribers, as it might happen that it would be to your advantage not to know them." Wilhelm had listened in silence. He now opened a drawer of his writing-table, took out a yellow envelope in which Schrotter was in the habit of giving him, on the first of every month, fifteen hundred marks out of the Dorfling bequest, and handed the sum which he had received the day before, and was still unbroken, to the workingmen's leader. The man turned over the three five-hundred-mark notes, and then looked up startled. Wilhelm only nodded his head slightly. The leader rose. "It would be inadvisable to give you a receipt. You have no doubt, I think, that your noble gift will be used for its proper object. Thank you a thousand times, and if you should ever stand in need of faithful and determined men, then think of us." A week later, to the very day, early in the morning a police officer brought Wilhelm an official document summoning him to appear that afternoon before the head police authorities in the Stadtvogtei. He presented himself at the appointed hour in the office, and handed the document to an official, who, after glancing at it, asked: "You are Dr. Wilhelm Eynhardt? "Yes." He took up a paper lying ready at hand, and said dryly: "I have to inform you that, in accordance with the Socialist Act, you are ordered out of Berlin and its purlieus, and must be out of the city by to-morrow at midnight at the latest." "Ordered out of Berlin!" cried Wilhelm, utterly taken, aback. "And may I ask what I have done?" "You must know that better than I," answered the official sternly. "However, I have no further information to give you, and can only advise you to address yourself to the Committee of Police, in case you require a day or two more to regulate your affairs." At the same time he handed him the paper, which proved to be the written order of banishment, and dismissed him with a slight bend of the head. Wilhelm went without a word. Naturally he turned his steps almost unconsciously to Schrotter, to whom he held out the police paper in silence. Schrotter read it, and struck his hands together. "Is it possible?" he murmured. "Is it possible?" He paced the room with long strides, then suddenly stood still before his friend, and laying his hands on Wilhelm's shoulder, he said in tones of profound emotion: "I never thought I should live to see such things in my own country. I am nearly sixty, and it is late in the day for me to begin a new life. But really I find it difficult to breathe this air any longer. Where shall you go?" "I do not know yet myself. I must collect my thoughts a little first." "Whatever you decide upon, I have a very good mind to go with you. There is nothing left for me to do in my old age but emigrate again." "You will not do that!" answered Wilhelm hurriedly. "Men like you are more badly needed here than ever. You must stay. I implore you to do so. Remember how you reproached yourself for twenty years, because you were not there when the people were struggling against the Manteuffel reaction. And then--your patients, your poor, the hundreds who have need of you." Schrotter did not answer, and seated himself on the divan. His massive face was gloomy as midnight, and the fiery blue eyes almost closed. After awhile he growled: "But why--why?" "Oh, I suppose because of the fifteen hundred marks for the families of the dismissed workmen." "Of course!" cried Schrotter, clapping his hand to his forehead. "Dorfling's gold does not come from the Rhine for nothing," Wilhelm smiled sadly. "Like the Nibleungen treasure, it is doomed to bring disaster on all who possess it." As Schrotter did not answer, Wilhelm resumed: "And as we are on the subject, we may as well settle that matter at once. Of course you will use the whole income now for your poor?" "Not at all!" cried Schrotter. "Why should things not remain as they are? Wherever you may take up your abode, the poor you have always with you." Wilhelm shook his head. "I may possibly go abroad, and you see, Herr Doctor, I am prejudiced in favor of my own country. I think we shall carry our Dorfling's intentions best by using his money for the relief of German necessity." Schrotter made no further objection. That Wilhelm would not, under any circumstances, use a penny of the money for himself he knew perfectly well, and in the end it was all the same whether the poor received it from his hand or Wilhelm's. He merely wrote down some addresses which Wilhelm gave him of people to whom he gave regular assistance, and whom he recommended to Schrotter to that end. When toward evening Wilhelm returned home, and, as was inevitable, told Frau Muller the news, she nearly fainted, and had to sit down. She was struck dumb for some time, and then only found strength to utter low groans. Her lodger turned out of Berlin like a vagrant. A householder too! Such a respectable, fine young gentleman, whom she had watched over like the apple of her eye for seven years--dreadful--dreadful. But it was all the fault of the low wretches who had forced their way in last week. She had thought as much at the time. If she had only called in the police at once! The police--oh yes, she had all due respect for the police, she was the widow of a government official, and she loved her good old king certainly--but that they should have banished the Herr Doctor--that was not right--that could not possibly be right! Frau Muller could not reconcile herself to the thought of parting. She would go to her friend and patron the "Geheimer Oberpostrath," and he would use his influence in the matter; and at last, seeing that Wilhem only smiled or spoke a few soothing words to her, she burst into tears and sobbed out: "I am so used to you, Herr Doctor, I don't know how I am going to live without you." She only composed herself a little when Wilhelm told her that, for the present at any rate, he was going to leave his books and other goods and chattels where they were, for he might perhaps be allowed to return after a time, and meanwhile a young man, whom she knew, and who was studying at Wilhelm's at Schrotter's expense, should board and lodge with her, and she would receive the same sum as Wilhelm had always paid. With night came counsel. Wilhelm decided to go first to Hamburg, where Paul lived during the winter, wait there till the spring, and then arrange further plans. He visited the grave of his father and mother, gave Stubbe orders as to the management of the house, took leave of a few friends, visited one or two poor people whom he was in the habit of looking after, and then had nothing further to keep him in Berlin. The rest of the day he passed with Schrotter, who found the parting very hard to bear. Bhani, whom they had acquainted with the matter, had tears in her beautiful dark eyes--the last remnant of youth in the withered face. And as he left the dear familiar house in the Mittelstrasse she begged him--translating the Indian words plainly enough by looks and gestures--to accept an amulet of cold green jade as a remembrance of her. That night at eleven o'clock a slow train bore Wilhelm away from Berlin. At the station he caught sight of the face of his old friend Patke, whom he had come across more than once during that day. The former non-commissioned officer had apparently reached the goal of his ambitions and become a private detective. Schrotter had stood on the step of the carriage till the very last moment, holding his friend's hand. Now Wilhelm leaned back in his corner and closed his eyes, and while the train rattled along over the snow-covered plain, he asked himself for the first time whether after all Dorfling had been quite such a fool as most of them considered him to have been? CHAPTER IX. RESULTS. On alighting next morning at the station in Hamburg, Wilhelm found himself clasped in a pair of strong arms and pressed to a magnificent fur coat. Inside this warm garment there beat a still warmer heart, that of Paul Haber, who had received a letter from Wilhelm the day before, telling him of his dismissal from Berlin, and that he was leaving for Hamburg by the last train before midnight, and whom neither the cold and darkness nor the extreme earliness of the hour could restrain from meeting his friend at the station. Their greeting was short and affectionate. "A hearty welcome to you!" cried Paul. "We will do our best to make a new home for you here." "You see, I thought of you at once when I had to look about me for some resting-place in the wide world." "I should have expected no less of you. Keep your ears stiff, and don't let the horrid business worry you." Wilhelm's bag was handed to an attendant servant, and the two friends walked off arm in arm toward an elegant brougham lined with light blue, with a conspicuously handsome long-limbed chestnut and a stout, bearded coachman, which stood waiting for them. Wilhelm mentioned the name of the hotel where he intended to stay, but Paul cut him short. "Not a bit of it! Home, Hans, and look sharp about it!" And before Wilhelm could offer any remonstrance, he found himself pushed into the carriage, Paul at his side. The door banged, the footman sprang on to the box, and off they went as fast as the long legs of the chestnut would carry them. For the last two years Paul had owned a villa on the Uhlenhorst, in the Carlstrasse, and there the fast trotter drew up. Wilhelm had said but little during the drive, and Paul had confined the expression of his feeling of delight to clapping his friend on the shoulder from time to time, and pressing his hand. Rather less than half an hour's drive brought them to their destination. Paul would not hear of Wilhelm making any alteration in his dress, but drew him as he was into the smoking room on the ground floor, where Malvine came to meet him, and received him in her hearty but quiet and uneffusive manner. She was the picture of health, but had grown perhaps a little too stout for her age. She wore a morning wrap of red velvet and gold lace, and looked, in that costly attire, like a princess or a banker's wife. "You must be very cold and tired," she said; "the coffee is ready, come at once to breakfast--that will put some warmth into you--you can dress afterward." She hurried before them into the next room, where they found an amply spread table over which hovered the fragrant smell of several steaming dishes. It was a lavish breakfast in the English style; beside tea and coffee there were eggs, soles, ham, cold turkey, lobster salad, and several excellent wines. A servant in the livery of a "Jager" waited at table. Wilhelm shook his head at the sight of all this splendor. "But, my dear lady, so much trouble on my behalf!" "You are quite mistaken," Paul answered for Malvine, and not without a smile of satisfied pride; "it is our usual breakfast--we have it so every day." Wilhelm looked at him surprised, and then remarked after a short pause: "I would never have written to you, if I had dreamed that you would get up before daybreak, and upset your whole household in order to fetch me from the station." "Why, what nonsense! We are quite used to getting up early. At Friesenmoor we have to be still earlier." "But that is in the summer." "So it is, but then our broken rest is not made up to us by the sight of a friend." While they devoured the good things, and Paul, who despised tea and coffee, sipped his slightly warmed claret, he remarked, between two mouthfuls, "I was struck all of a heap by your letter. You turned out! the most harmless, law-abiding citizen I ever heard of! What in the world did you do? You need not mind telling me." "I cannot say that I am aware of having committed any crime, Paul." "Come now, something must have happened, for the police does not take a step of that kind without some provocation--it's only your beggarly Progressives who think that, but nobody who knows the fundamental principles of our government and its officials would believe it." "You seem to have become a warm admirer of the government." "Always was! But, upon my word, when I see the way the opposition parties go on I am more so than ever--positively fanatical." "Then I have no doubt that you will consider that I did commit a crime." "Ah! so there was something after all?" "Yes, I contributed fifteen hundred marks to a collection for the distressed families of the Social Democrats who had been dismissed from Berlin." "You did?" cried Paul, dropping his knife and fork, and staring at Wilhelm in amazement. "And that seems so criminal to you?" "Look here, Wilhelm, you know I'm awfully fond of you, but I must say you have only got what you deserve. How could you take part in a revolutionary demonstration of the kind?" "I did not, nor do I now see anything political in it. It was a question of women and children deprived of their bread-winners, and whom one cannot allow to starve or freeze to death." "Oh, go along with your Progressionist phrases! Nobody need starve or freeze in Berlin. The really poor are thoroughly well looked after by the proper authorities. The supposed distress of these women and children is a mere trumped-up story on the part of the Revolutionists--a means of agitation, a weapon against the government. The beggars simply speculate on the tears of sentimental idiots. They get up a sort of penny-dreadful, whereon the one side you have a picture of injured innocence in the shape of pale despairing mothers and clamoring children, and on the other, villainy triumphant in the form of a police constable or a government official. And to think that you should have been taken in by such a swindle!" "I suppose you do not see how heartless it appears to speak so lightly of other people's hunger, sitting oneself at such a table as this?" "Bravo, Wilhelm! Now you are throwing my prosperity in my teeth like any advocate of division of property. I trust you have not turned Socialist yourself? you who used not to have a good word to say for the lot." "Never fear--I am not a Socialist. Their doctrines have not been able to convince me yet. But for years I have seen the distress of the working people with my own eyes, and I know that every human being with a heart in his body is in duty bound to help them." "And who says anything against that? Don't we all do our duty? Poverty has always existed and always will to the end of time. But, on the other hand, that is what charity is there for. We have hospitals for the sick, workhouses and parish relief for the aged and incapable, for lazy vagabonds who won't work, it is true, only the treadmill." "That is all very fine, but what are you going to do with the honest men who want to work but can find none?" "Wilhelm, I have always had the highest respect for you, your wisdom, your intellect, but forgive me if I say that, in this case, you are talking of things you do not understand. Everybody who wants work finds it. I hope you will be at my place next summer. Then you'll see how I positively sweat blood in harvest-time trying to get the necessary number of laborers together, and what I have to put up with from the rascals only to keep them in good humor. Don't try on any of these windy arguments with a landowner--people that want work and can't find it indeed! Let me tell you, my son, neither I nor any one of my country neighbors can scrape together as many people as we need." "But everybody cannot work in the fields." "There, at last, you have hit the bull's eye--that is where the shoe pinches. Agriculture offers a certain means of livelihood to all who can and will work properly. But that does not suit the lazy beggars. The work is too hard, and, more particularly, the discipline on an estate is too strict for their fancy. They would rather be in the town, rather starve in a workshop, or ruin their lungs in a factory, because there they have more freedom--that is, they can go on the spree all night and shirk their work all day, if they like--they can play the gentleman, and think themselves as good as any general or minister. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that they soon come to want, and instead of admitting that it is entirely the fault of their own pigheadedness and perversity, they go and turn unruly against the government. They should be turned out neck and crop, the whole pack of them." "Don't excite yourself so, Paul," warned Malvine gently, as her husband grew crimson in the face and ceased to eat. Wilhelm remained unruffled. "So you think the Socialist Act was quite justified?" "Justified! Why, my only objection to it is that it is much too mild. A State has a right to use every means it can--even the sharpest--to defend itself against its deadly enemies. To deal mildly with the enemies of society is to be unjust to us, the orderly and industrious members of the community, who work hard to get on, and who don't want to be for ever trembling for their well-earned possessions, because thieves and vagabonds--as is the way of all robbers--would like to enjoy the good things of this life without working for them." "My good Paul, that is the language of fanaticism, and, of course, it is useless to try to reason against that. Only let me tell you this. I do not believe that the Socialists want to rob anybody; I do not believe that they are enemies to the State and to society. They too desire a State and a society, but different from the existing ones; they too have an ideal of justice, but it is not the one that has become traditional with us. Under the new order of things, as they have arranged it in their minds, there should be room for every individual, every opinion, all sorts and conditions of men. What the ruling classes say against them to-day has been said against the adherents of all new ideas since the beginning of time. Whoever tried to make the slightest alteration in the existing order of things was always considered, by those who derived advantages therefrom, to be a foe to the State and to society in general-a robber and a revolutionist. The early Christians enjoyed exactly the same reputation as the Socialists to-day. They were looked upon as enemies of the whole human race, and were torn to pieces by wild beasts, though--doubtless to your regret--it has not come to that with, the Socialists. And nevertheless, though lions and tigers are a good deal worse than police officers, the principles of Christianity have triumphed, and there is nothing to prove that the principles of Socialism will not triumph in their turn." "Prophet of evil omen!" cried Paul. "Not necessarily so. Where would be the misfortune? I am firmly persuaded that a Socialist State would not differ in any important point from the accepted forms of government of the day. The administrative power would merely be transferred from the hands of the military and the landed aristocracy to another class. To those who do not want a share in the governing power, it is all the same who wields it. You see, human nature remains the same, and its organization alters only very gradually, almost imperceptibly, though it sometimes changes its name. Christianity promised to be the beginning of the thousand years' reign, but in the main, everything has gone on just as it was before. A Socialist State would not be able to make the sun rise in the west, or do away with death any more than we can. They would have ministers, custom-house officers, policemen, virtue, vice and ambition, self-interest, oppression and brotherly love just as we do, and if the Socialists come into power, they will soon pass special acts and prosecute the followers of other opinions just as they are being prosecuted to-day. That is all upon the surface, and does not touch the root of things. Why excite yourself about a mere shadowplay?" "In practical matters," answered Paul, laughing, "I consider I am the better man, but you certainly beat me at metaphysics. Prophecy decidedly comes under the heading of metaphysics, so I strike my colors before you." "The sooner the better," said Malvine; "especially as it is quite unpardonable of you to start off on a long discussion when our poor friend must be so tired and sleepy." It was eight o'clock by this time, and Wilhelm really felt the want of rest. But before going to his room he asked after his godson, little Willy. Malvine was evidently expecting this, she ran to the door and called into the next room: "Come here, Willy--come quick--Uncle Eynhardt is here and wants to see you." Whereupon the boy came bounding in, and threw himself with a shout of delight upon Wilhelm's neck. Willy was still his mother's only child. He was nearly six years old, not very tall for his age, but a fine, handsome, thoroughly healthy child, with firm legs, a blooming complexion, the dark eyes of his grandmother, and long fair curls. He was charmingly dressed in a sailor suit with a broad turned-back collar over a blue-and-white striped jersey, long black stockings, and pretty little patent leather shoes with silk ties. Wilhelm lifted up this young prince, kissing him, and asked, "Well, Willy, do you remember me?" He had not seen, him for eighteen months. "Of course, I do, uncle, we talk about you every day," cried the child in his clear voice. "Are you going to stay with us now?" "Yes, that he is!" his father answered for the friend. "How jolly! how jolly!" cried Willy, clapping his hands with glee. "And you will teach me to ride, won't you, uncle? Papa has no time." "But I don't know how to ride myself," returned Wilhelm with a smile. Willy looked up disappointed. "What can you do then?" "Be a good boy now," Malvine broke in, "and leave uncle in peace and go back to the nursery. You shall have him again later on." After more kisses and caresses Willy ran off, and Paul led his guest to the room prepared for him, where at last he left him to himself. Wilhelm had visited Paul on his estate during the preceeding summer, but since then had only seen him in Berlin. The house on the Uhlenhorst was new to him, and he marveled at the solid sumptuousness that met the eye at every turn. The visitor's room was not less splendidly furnished than the smoking and breakfast rooms he had already seen, and when he looked about him at the great carved bedstead with its ample draperies, the silk damask-covered chairs, the thick rugs, the marble washstand, and the toilet table with its array of bottles and dishes of china, cut glass, and silver, he could not help feeling almost abashed. His friend Paul had become a very great gentleman apparently! And so in point of fact he had. The Friesenmoor had proved itself a very gold mine, and in the district round about they calculated that it yielded a clear return of a hundred or a hundred and twenty thousand marks a year. Paul had long ago been in a position to make use of his right of purchase on the estate, and had acquired about two thousand acres of adjoining marsh lands beside, though at a considerably higher price, and was now the owner of a well-rounded estate of twelve thousand acres, the admiration and pride of the whole neighborhood. He had converted the cultivation of the marshland, which six years ago had been but a bold theory, into an established scientific fact, and his methods, the excellence of which was amply proved by his almost tropically luxuriant harvests and uninterruptedly increasing wealth, were assiduously imitated on all sides. Paul Haber was acknowledged far and wide to be the first authority on the management of marsh land. The government had long since taken note of his success and kept an eye upon his doings, and was furnished by the Landrath with regular accounts of his agricultural progress. Young men of the best county families contended for the privilege of being under him for a year's practical farming. Foreign governments sent professors, lecturers, and practical agriculturists to him, partly to inspect his arrangements, partly to study his methods under his personal supervision, in order to adopt them in their own countries. Paul was more than a landed proprietor, he was a kind of professor holding his unpretentious lecture in the open air or in the appropriately decorated smoking-room of the Priesenmoor house, always surrounded by a troop of eager and admiring listeners of various nationalities, and mostly of high rank. Of course, under these circumstances there was no lack of outward marks of distinction. Two years before he had been promoted to a first lieutenancy of the Landwehr. A row of foreign decorations adorned his breast, and last year, when he was visited by the Minister for Agriculture, accompanied by the Landrath, the Kronen Order of the fourth class was added to the rest. Paul was on the District Committee and County Council, and if he was not deputy of the Landtag and member of the Reichstag, it was only because he considered all parliamentary work a barren expenditure of time and strength. He stood in high repute in the county, which was proved by his election to be the president of the Society for the Cultivation of Moors and Marshes, a society founded by his followers and admirers, and which counted among its members some of the most important landowners of the whole of Northern Germany. These circumstances could not fail to react on Paul's character. He no longer tried to look as much as possible like a smart officer, but rather like a country gentleman of ancient lineage. The thick fair mustache had abandoned its enterprising upward curl, and now hung down straight and long. The model parting of the hair was in any case out of the question, a distinguished baldness having taken the place of the old luxuriance, and his figure had fulfilled all the promises of his youth. In his dress Paul still cultivated extreme elegance, only that it partook more of the bucolic now in style than of the drawing-room as in former days. He wore high patent leather boots with small silver spurs, well-fitting riding breeches, a gray coat with green facings and large buckhorn buttons, a blue-and-white spotted silk necktie tied in a loose knot with fluttering ends, an artistically crushed soft felt hat, and in his dog-skin gloved hand a small riding-whip with a chased gold head. With all its dandyism it was a model of good taste, and in no single detail smacked of the parvenu, and that for the very good reason that Paul was no parvenu, but a man who was conscious of having attained to a position which was his by nature and by right. He had never suffered from undue diffidence, and his success had naturally increased his sense of his own value, which, however, he did not display in any bumptious or aggressive manner as one who would force reluctant acknowledgment of his merits, but quietly and naturally, seeing that he received full and voluntary recognition from all sides. He believed in himself, and was quite right to do so, for everybody else believed in him too. He spoke with authority, for there was no one about him who did not hang upon his lips with respect, and mostly with admiration. He made assertions and gave his opinion with the assurance of superior knowledge, but he had a right to do so, for it always referred only to matters about which he knew, or was fully persuaded that he knew, more than most people. Even his wealth did not go to his head, but acted on him like a moderate amount of drink upon a man who can stand a great deal. He enjoyed to the full the comforts and amenities of life which his large income enabled him to procure, but he did it for his own pleasure, not for the sake of what others would think; for his own comfort, and not for show. He liked to keep good horses and dogs, an admirably appointed table and cellar, and a large staff of well-drilled servants. On the other hand, he avoided anything approaching to display, was never seen at races, went to no fashionable baths, gave no grand entertainments, nor had a box at either theatre or operahouse, belonged to no club, and never played high. His wife wore perhaps rather more jewelry and followed the newest Paris fashions a trifle more closely than was absolutely necessary at Friesenmoor or even the Uhlenhorst, but as she remained as simple and unaffected as before, nobody could think any the worse of her for this small inherited weakness. Toward his own family Paul had behaved in a most exemplary manner, affording thereby the strongest proof that though he had risen he was no upstart. The numerous members of his family and the men who had married into it nearly all had to thank him for their advancement or actual support. Some were employed on his estate, others he had trained in his particular branch of agriculture, after which, and with his recommendation, they had found no difficulty in obtaining brilliant positions as stewards or lease-holders of estates, and two of his brothers had appointments on royal domains. He had, therefore, every right to self-congratulation, as having fulfilled all the duties of a model man and citizen far beyond what necessity demanded. For Wilhelm, Paul still retained the affection and friendship of his early days, only that, unconsciously to himself, it had taken on a certain fatherly tone; although there was a difference of but one year between them, there was a touch of protecting consideration and pity about it, such as strong men feel toward a weaker and less perfectly developed creature. The first day Paul left his friend to have a thorough rest, but the next morning early he knocked at his door and asked if he might come in. "Certainly," was the answer, and opening the door at the same moment, Wilhelm appeared fully dressed and ready for inspection. "You have kept up your old habit of early rising--that is right," said Paul, and clapped him on the shoulder. "So have you," returned Wilhelm with a smile. "I--oh, that's different. I am a farmer, and you know the proverb--'The master's eye makes the cattle fat.' But your books don't require to be fed and watered at break of day. As you are ready, come down now, and we can have a chat over breakfast." Malvine met him downstairs with a friendly smile and shake of the hand. This morning she wore a long blue morning gown with gay colored embroidery at the throat and wrists and a little lace cap with blue ribbons. The breakfast was as elaborate as on the day before. "I want to take you over to my place to-day, Wilhelm. We have a shooting party, the weather is lovely, and it will be a nice change for you." "Thanks, Paul, but I would much rather you left me here. I am no sportsman, as you know very well." "We'll soon make you into one. Nobody is born a sportsman, or rather we are all born sportsmen, but forget it in our wretched town life, and afterward have to set to work and learn laboriously the art that came so naturally to our forefathers. Not, however, that you need fire a single shot, it is more for the healthy out-of-door exercise, and to show you Friesenmoor in its winter dress, and for the society which will interest you. They are neighbors of mine--nearly every one of them a character--old Baron Huning, who fought in the Crimea as an English officer, Count Chamberlain von Swerte, crammed with curious court stories, Graf Olderode, who, in spite of his gout, will jump for joy when I introduce you as the best friend I have in the world, and add that you have just been banished from Berlin under the Socialist Act. And then there are my pupils--I've got a Russian prince among them, and a very near neighbor, a young nobleman from the Marches, an officer in the Red Hussars. Now don't be a slow coach, come along." "You are very kind, but I should be very sorry to make your gouty Graf jump, even for joy." "Dr. Enyhardt is quite right," Malvine now joined in. "What an idea too to carry him off from me before he has had time to settle comfortably. You stay with me. Herr Doctor; this is my day, and you shall make the acquaintance of some charmingly pretty girls this afternoon. That will interest you more than Paul's old Chamberlains." "All right," laughed Paul; "but you had better look out, Wilhelm, I smell a rat. Malvine has designs upon you, she wants to get you married. If you came with me you would be the hunter, but if you stay here you will find yourself in the position of the game." "And if he is," retorted Malvine, "it is surely the better part to let yourself be caught by a pretty girl than to go and shoot poor hares and wild ducks." Paul did not press his invitation, and drove off a minute or two later, not to return till the following day. Malvine, however, put her threat into practice, and persuaded Wilhelm with gentle insistence to join her afternoon coffee party, and be introduced to all her lady visitors and take part in the conversations. The introduction caused Malvine a little embarrassment. Only now did she fully realize the fact that her guest was nobody in particular. She was painfully conscious of the baldness of his name and his simple title of Dr., and the absence of any sort of distinguishing mark by the addition of which she might recommend him to the special notice of her circle of friends. He was not a landed proprietor, nor a professor, not even a master. Nor could she conscientiously say, "the celebrated Dr. Eynhardt." He had no military title, and to introduce him as "the handsome Dr. Eynhardt" would hardly do. Fortunately she had no need to mention the latter adjective. The ladies observed without further assistance how remarkably handsome this gentleman was with his girlish complexion, silky, raven-black hair and beard, and lustrous dark eyes. Charming lips drew him constantly into the conversation, which, cultivated and many-sided, ranged from the weather to the recently-closed Paris Exhibition, from Sarasate to Vischer's last novel. Wilhelm had not a word to say on these important subjects, and so spoke in monosyllables, or not at all, till the ladies, who were most of them very animated, came to the conclusion that he was as stupid as he was handsome, "as is usually the case, my dear." At supper Malvine was indefatigable in asking Wilhelm how he liked this dark girl, and what he had said to that fair one, and what impression the piquante little one with the boyish curly head had made upon him? When he frankly confessed that he had paid very little attention to any of the young ladies, and could scarcely remember one from another, she was very much discouraged. It was decidedly no easy task to help this clumsy person along. All three girls of whom she had spoken were heiresses, and beautiful and well-educated beside--what more did he want? Alas! he did not want anything at all, but to be left in peace, and that was the aggravating part of it. Malvine had set her heart on marrying him, and marrying him well. Her sentiment for him had long since given place to other and less agitating feelings, as beseemed a model wife, mother, and landed proprietress. She was grateful to him for having recognized and set right the mistaken impression of her girlish heart. She was seized with discomfort at the thought of what might have been. Where would she be now if she had become Frau Dr. Eynhardt? A woman without fortune, of no position or importance, and at the present moment even homeless and a wanderer. As things had turned out she was wealthy and distinguished, the best people in Hamburg and the whole of Luneburg came to her house, and she ruled like a small queen over a large settlement of dependents. And all this she owed to her dear Paul, who, during the seven years of their married life, had never given her one moment's pain, never cost her eyes a single tear. Out of her grateful acknowledgment that Wilhelm had materially assisted in the founding of her agreeable destiny, and the unconscious lingering remains of her former attachment, there had sprung up a very tender friendship for him, the unusual warmth of which would have at once betrayed its hidden origin to the experienced analyst of the heart. She wanted to see him happy, she considered earnestly what was lacking to him to make him so, and was sure that it could only be a rich and pretty wife. This happiness then she determined to procure for him, an easy enough task, as her set contained a large selection of "goldfish." If he would only meet them halfway! The young ladies, obviously very well disposed toward him, could not make the first advances. And yet on the following Thursday he sat there in the midst of the gay chatter just as quiet and wooden as on the first occasion, made no advances to any of the girls, singled out no one from the rest. After that Malvine was obliged to make a pause in her well-intentioned maneuvres, for the third Thursday was Christmas Eve, and her time was taken up in preparations for the Christmas-tree. For this festive occasion Frau Brohl and Frau Marker came over from Berlin, as had been their custom ever since Paul had taken the house on the Uhlenhorst. Frau Marker had grown very stout, and her hair showed the first silvery threads, otherwise she was blooming and as silent as ever. Old Frau Brohl was simply astounding. She had not changed in the smallest degree, time had no power over her, she was just as doubled up and colorless, and her movements just as slow as ever, her brown eyes had the same tired droop, and her low, complaining voice the old tone of suffering. But her appetite had grown, if anything, rather larger, and, apart from one or two colds in the winter, she had not known an hour's illness during the whole time. Needless to say, the grandmother did not come empty-handed. She brought two cases with her, one of which contained a large quantity of excellent bottled fruit, which Malvine still preferred to any her own highly-paid cook could prepare, while the other was filled with a choice collection of fancy work. On these treasures being unpacked, it was discovered that the inventive genius of the old lady of seventy was still undiminished. For the master of the house there was a game-bag made of interwoven strips of blue and red leather, somewhat in the Indian manner, very curious, and of course, impracticable Malvine received a silklace veil, the pattern in large marsh-mallows--a graceful play upon her name. Frau Brohl had worked at this masterpiece for a year and a half. For little Willy, in consideration of the aristocratic propensities one might expect, or at any late encourage, in the heir to a large estate, there was a Flobert rifle, the strap of which was ornamented after an entirely new method by cutting out thin layers of the leather and inserting gilt arabesques and figures. For the house in general there were some ingenious arrangements in fir cones and small shells. The Christmas-tree was set up in the great drawing-room on the ground floor and reached almost to the ceiling. It was a beautiful young fir, so fresh and fragrant of pine that the breath of the woods seemed to cling to it still. A large party had gathered for the lighting-up. Beside the relatives of the aristocratic pupils, who had come over from the estate, there were some neighbors from the Uhlenhorst, with five or six little children, and the Chamberlain von Swerte with his high-born wife. The couple were childless, and not wishing to spend their Christmas alone, had accepted Paul's invitation, and come all the way from their little castle near Ronneburg to the Ulhenhorst. The chamberlain was the lion of the evening. Paul took an opportunity of whispering to Wilhelm, "Herr von Swerte is of the House of Hellebrand--one of the first families in the county--tremendously ancient lot!" Old Frau Brohl had observed the little gold tab on his coat tail--the chamberlain's sign of office, and manuevered skillfully in order that she might frequently obtain a back view, and so gaze upon the proud badge in silent awe and admiration. The children had no eye for such matters, but rushed shrieking with delight round the tree, whose branches shed such gorgeous presents on them. Willy got a hussar uniform, with sword, knot, boots and spurs all complete, and would not rest till he had been taken to his room and dressed in it, and then appeared before the company in this martial attire. His mother's eye grew dim with pride and joy when Herr von Swerte lifted up the little warrior to kiss him, and said heartily: "Well, my dear Herr Haber, he will make a smart cavalry officer some day!" At dinner Wilhelm found himself beside Frau Brohl. The old lady was still fond of him, and never forgot how well he had behaved at a critical moment, and with what modest self-perception he had acknowledged that he was not the husband for her granddaughter. Searching about for something agreeable to say to him, or for a subject that would be sure to interest him, she suddenly remembered one, and said, between the fish and the roast, "Have you heard the story about your old flame, Frau Von Pechlar?" Wilhelm started and changed color. Frau Brohl never noticed, and continued in her soft complaining voice: "Your guardian angel saved you there, Herr Doctor. You would have come off nicely if you had married Fraulein Ellrich. There have been all sorts of rumors for years, but now it has come to an open scandal. She has left Herr von Pechlar and gone off with a count, who has been hanging about her for some time. They say she has gone to Italy with him." Wilhelm made no reply, but he was surprised himself to feel how deeply the information affected him, so that he could not breathe freely all the evening, and although it was late before he got to bed, he could not sleep for hours, thinking of the girl he had once loved, who was now rushing blindly down the path of dishonor. Why should the thought pain him so much? Do heart wounds heal so slowly and imperfectly that a rough touch can make the scar burn and throb after long years? Or was it regret at the besmirching of a picture which till now had shone so purely and been so sweetly framed in his memory? He did not know, but for days it depressed him to the verge of melancholy. In return for the hospitality he had received New Year's Eve was spent at Herr von Swerte's. The whole Haber family, with Frau Brohl and Frau Marker--the white grandmamma and the brown grandmamma, as Willy called them, to distinguish them from one another--drove over in the afternoon to Ronneburg by way of Harburg, but Wilhelm could not be prevailed upon to accompany them. Paul took him severely to task; Malvine represented to him, with an eloquence unusual to her, the horrors of a lonely New-Year's Eve; Frau Brohl pointed out the advantages of celebrating the festive occasion in a company composed entirely of rich people; and even Willy entreated, "Do come, Onkelchen, you can take care of me on the road." All their persuasion proving fruitless, they finally left him to his fate, and he remained behind alone. Night found him at the writing-table in Paul's study, his head in his hand, lost in thought. At last he shook himself out of his deep brooding and wrote the following letter to Schrotter: "My Revered Friend, I will not now break the habit of eight years, but will spend my New Years' Eve with you, the person who stands nearest to me in all the world. I am alone in this grand villa, the servants seem to be enjoying themselves downstairs over their roast goose and punch, Paul has taken his family and gone into the country to the castle of a neighboring estate owner by whom he is evidently very much impressed, and I can chat with you undisturbed. "I wish you could live for a time in close contact with Paul, as I am doing, you would be surprised and pleased. His development has been wonderfully logical, and he now affords the spectacle, so intensely interesting to the observant eye, of a person whose every capacity, under the influence of the most favorable combination of circumstances imaginable, has attained to the utmost limit of growth which is possible to it. Paul has become the ideal type of our North German landed proprietor. He is ultra conservative, and considers the Socialist Act too mild. He loathes parliamentarianism, but would wish that the Landrath had not the power to appoint even a police constable without the consent of the estate owners of the district, and raves about local police prerogative. His only newspaper, beside the little local one, is the Kreuzzentung, he is learned in the Army List, and the writing-table at which I am sitting is strewed with volumes of the Almanac de Gotha. He looks after his subjects--for I think he calls his workmen his subjects--in a truly fatherly or feudal manner, but I do not doubt that he would drive the best of them off the estate with dogs, if, even in the depth of winter, they did not stand hat in hand the whole time they were talking to him. The sole problem of the universe which has any sort of interest for him is the outlook of the weather for the harvest. The course of human or superhuman events arouses his wonder, his doubts, or his anxiety only in proportion as it affects the price of corn. He cannot grasp that one should have any other aim in life than to become a successful agriculturist. He finds full satisfaction in his work, and what between a charming wife and an adored child he would afford an example of what the fables and proverbs tell us does not exist--a perfectly happy man, if one thing were not lacking, the little word 'von' in front of his name. I trust he may not die without obtaining it, and then the world will have contained one mortal who has known absolutely boundless happiness. "But in writing to you in this strain my conscience pricks me. Is it not unkind toward Paul, whose attachment to me is positively touching? Is it not churlish to exercise such cold crticism upon a friend whose faithful affection has never for one moment wavered? He surrounds me with endless proofs of his affection, and is always on the lookout for something which may give me pleasure. He is a passionate sportsman--his only passion as far as I can see--and worries me twice a week to join him on his shooting expeditions. He is a masterly 'skat player, and is most anxious to enrich my existence by the joys which, according to him, this intellectual game affords to its adepts. When I venture timidly to propose that I should leave him and live by myself, he looks so honestly hurt and grieved that I have not the courage to insist further. And Frau Haber, kind soul, who is so set upon getting me married and thereby insuring my happiness! I and marrying! What have I to offer a woman? Love? I am too poor in illusions. Amusements--society--the theater? All that is a horror to me. And moreover, I question if I have a right to bring a being into the world, over whose destiny I have no control, and whose existence would most certainly be richer in pain, and misery than in happiness; and I know unquestionably that I have no right to teach a light-hearted girl to think, and force her to exchange the artless gayety of a playful little animal for my own fruitless speculations and never-to-be-satisfied yearnings. "In face of all this, serious doubts arise in my mind. Is it for me to speak with superciliousness and superiority of Paul, or to look down upon him? I ask you, as I have been asking myself every day these three weeks--is he not the wise man and I the fool? He the useful member of society, and I the mere hanger-on? His life the real, mine the shadow? That he is happy I have already said; that I am not, I know. His system therefore leads to peace and contentment, mine does not. He has set a child into the world, and though, of course, he does not know what its ultimate fate will be, he sees for the present, as do I and everybody else who is not blind, that it fills his home with sunshine and warmth. He provides hundreds with their daily bread. That is, I know, of no moment to the universe; it is of very little importance whether a few more obstruse human creatures walk the face of the earth or not. But meanwhile, the creatures in question enjoy more agreeable sensations, if, thanks to Paul's exertions, they have a comfortably spread table every day. I cannot boast of any such achievements. The only good I ever did my fellow-men did not proceed from me but from our friend Dorfling, who simply used my hand as an instrument for carrying out his charitable designs. My personal compassion, my love for my companions in ignorance and suffering bears no fruit, benefits no one, and it frequently seems to me that, if the truth were known, I am an egoist of the deepest dye. "If I could at least act consistently with the philosophy which directs nay views of life! But I am not even capable of that. Systematically, I concede no importance to outward forms. Maja does not count me among her devotees. What are houses? What are the phantoms who inhabit them? A transient semblance, a delusion of the senses! And yet, I am conscious that I miss just those houses which happen to stand, in Berlin and that I feel an unspeakable longing for the phantom called Dr. Schrotter. Once again it has been proved to me that I am an unconscious plaything in the hands of unknown powers, for again, as more than once in my life, and always at decisive moments, some outside agency has interfered in my fate, and disposed of me contrary to my own intentions, by sending me out of Berlin and away from you. But, nevertheless, my appreciation of this fact does not give me the strength to accept the inevitable in silence and without repining. "Enough--I will not pain you. Only this much I should like to add that life is really harder to bear than I had thought for. "Farewell, dear and honored friend; remember me affectionately to Bhani, who, I trust, does not suffer too severely from this hard winter, and always believe in the faithful friendship and devotion of your "WILHELM EYNHARDT." Three days later Wilhelm received the following answer from Schrotter: "DEAREST FRIEND: Your long and welcome New Year's letter troubled me much on account of the state of mind I see revealed in it. I think, however, that it is explained by the fact of your being rooted up out of your accustomed surroundings that you are oppressed by Haber's hospitality, and that you have as yet made no plans for the future, and I trust that your spirits will improve when these three circumstances are altered. "I have always considered Haber, with all his good qualities of heart and character, a thoroughly commonplace man, and your observations verify my opinion to the full. And yet I quite understand that the sight of his prosperity and self-satisfaction should give you food for thought, and raise the question in your mind whether his philosophy--if I may use the word--or yours, is the right one. That is a great question, and I do not presume to answer it, either in general or for your particular case; and all the more, for the very good reason that your life is only really beginning now. You are not yet thirty-four, you may yet do something great, something pre-eminent, and who knows if those very qualities which have made your life unproductive hitherto, may not enable you later on to do things beside which the achievements of a Paul Haber shrink into insignificance? On the other hand, I am persuaded--quite apart from your respective ways of life--that you have chosen the better and higher part. "Human nature is like a tower with many stories; some people inhabit the lower, others the higher ones. The inhabitants of the cellars and ground floor may, in their way, be good, decent, praiseworthy people, but they can never enjoy the same amount of light, the same pure air and wide view as those who live on the upper stories. Now you, my dear young friend, live several floors higher up than our good Paul Haber, whom, however, I value and am very fond of. But there are people living over our heads too. I have known Indian sages who looked down upon all we strive after and with which we occupy ourselves with the same pitying wonder as you do on Haber's passion for sport and 'skat,' and his longing for a title; who have difficulty in understanding that we should earn money, be ambitious, entertain passions, conform to outward rules of custom, and, under the pretext of education, laboriously study rows of empty phrases. These Brahmins have still higher interests and a yet wider view than the noblest-minded and wisest of us, and the knowledge that such pure and all-embracing spirits do exist ought to teach us to be humble, and not despise those who may still cling to some vain show that we have overcome, and attach importance to matters which no longer possess any in our eyes. "One thing I have in my heart to wish for you, my dear friend--that you could take life with a little of the unreflecting simplicity of those who accept--what the moment offers without troubling themselves as to the why and the wherefore. You bow to those high powers who, for instance, have caused you to be banished from Berlin; then submit yourself to those still higher ones, who let you live and feel and think. Do not fight against the natural instincts which lead you to cling to life and love. Your fears that you have nothing to offer a wife are groundless. There are women who do not seek their happiness in the vanities which you very properly detest. Do all you can to find such a woman. Bestow life as you have received it, and leave your offspring cheerfully to the care of those powers who rule over your own life and destiny. For my part, I should be very sorry to see your race die out. "And why reproach yourself that you provide no one with daily bread? Man does not live by bread alone; and by simply being what you are, you supply many people--myself for instance--with a pleasure in life and a belief in your future career that is worth more than daily bread. "Bhani thanks you for your kind message. She incloses two verses for you, of her own composition. Here you have them in prose translation--'My beloved master and his humble handmaid miss the dear friend with the soft eyes and gentle voice. We live as in a bungalow in the season of rains--clouds and ever clouds, and no sun. When will the sky be blue, and the sunshine come again? and when wilt thou eat rice once more at the table of my lord?' In the original it certainly sounds much prettier. "Let me know soon what you think of doing, and be assured of the hearty affection of your old "SCHROTTER. "POSTSCRIPT: Just read the enclosed extract from my to-day's Times. That man's development was as logical as Haber's." In the letter Wilhelm found, beside Bhani's poem, written in delicate Sanscrit characters on yellow paper, a cutting from an English newspaper, in which he read that a Nihilist of the name of Barinskoi, in St. Petersburg, had for some time excited the suspicions of his confederates by his luxurious and showy style of living. In order to discover the source from which he drew the money for it, they appointed one of their female members to be his mistress. She had shared in his extravagances, and soon obtained proofs that he was in the service of the police, and sold his fellow Nihilists. A secret court condemned him to death, and a few days ago he had been found dead in his rooms, his throat cut, and his body literally hacked to pieces. In January Wilhelm received an unusual visitor. It was a leader of the workingmen of Altona, who told him, without further circumlocution, that the Socialists had kept their eye upon him, had found out where he was living, and now sent him, the Altona man, to see if anything could be made of him. "What do you mean by that?" asked Wilhelm in astonishment. "I mean," returned the visitor, who had introduced himself as Stonemason Hessel, "whether you could not be persuaded to join us openly." As Wilhelm did not answer at once, Hessel resumed--"Our party needs men like you, who are independent and bold, have a university education, and speak well. You are all that, as we know. By banishing you from Berlin they have, in point of fact, made you one of us. So go a step further, Herr Doctor; defend yourself, take up the fight the government has forced upon you. You have a million of determined workmen at your back, who will gladly accept you as their leader." "Excuse my frankness," said Wilhelm at last, "but I really cannot think you are serious in your proposal." "It is a very serious matter to us," cried Hessel. "I speak in the name of the heads of the party, and have means of convincing you of the reality of my proposal if you have any doubts about it." "But how do you come to know about me?" "That is very simple. You are not, perhaps, aware how well organized we are, and how we follow up everything that may be of use to us afterward. We know what you did for our party in Berlin, and that you are suffering for it now. We know your circumstances, and that you have a considerable sum of money at your disposal, and, I repeat, we want educated men. Most of us have not had the means to get much schooling. The struggle for our daily bread uses up all our time, and all the brains we have. Look at me, Herr Doctor, for years I never had more than five hours' sleep, and always used half the night to learn the little I know. There are plenty of people among us who--more's the pity--are distrustful of the better educated--call them upstarts, and won't have anything to do with them. Their idea is that the proletariat should be led by proletariars. But that is nonsense. No oppressed class has ever yet been emancipated by its own members. It was always by high-minded men of wider views out of the upper classes. Catilina was an aristocrat, and put himself at the head of the populace. Mirabeau belonged to the Court, and overthrew the monarchy. Wilberforce, the defender of the negro, was not black himself." Wilhelm now for the first time looked more attentively at this stonemason, who talked so glibly of Catalina, Mirabeau and Wilberforce, and the thought passed through his mind that, at any rate, there was one good thing about Social Democracy--it brought education into circles to which it otherwise would never have penetrated. "And so," Hessel wound up, "we workmen too must be led to victory by educated men." "You overlook one point, however," remarked Wilhelm. "To be your leader, one must before all things share your convictions." "It is quite impossible that an educated and thoughtful man should not see the injustice of the present social system. The government, which oppresses us, sees it as clearly as we do ourselves. It is not fighting for a conviction, but for the supremacy of a certain class." "'It is impossible,' is no argument. In point of fact, I do not hold with your doctrines. I know that the working-classes suffer, but I do not know why, and I do not believe your theorists when they say it is all because the workingman is ground down by the capitalist. Furthermore, you speak of leading--where am I to lead you to?" "To victory against the plundering feudalism of the State." "That is a mere phrase. I know of no plan which will sweep poverty and distress from the face of the earth. Even if you raise a revolution and it succeeds, even if you destroy the feudal State and build up a workingman's State upon the ruins, you will thereby only have improved the condition of a select few, not of the whole--not even of the many. I would not like to be in the shoes of your present leaders, preachers and prophets, when you have conquered, and your followers demand to see the results of your victory. How little they will then be able to fulfill of the promises they have made to-day." "So it is your opinion that there is nothing to be done for us, and that we ought calmly to be left in want, and slavery, and ignorance?" Hessel asked angrily. "I think," returned Wilhelm, "that it is the bounden duty of every man to love his neighbor, and help him where and when he can." "Oh yes," said Hessel with a sneer, "that is the standpoint of the Church--the standpoint of the Middle Ages. You would give us alms. No, thank you, we accept no presents. We demand our rights, not charity." Wilhelm thought to himself that he had not always found the Socialists so proud, but kept the thought to himself, not wishing to hurt Hessel's feelings, who seemed to be an honest fanatic. "Do not let that be your last word," Hessel went on. "You are probably but slightly acquainted with our doctrines and writings. Come nearer to us. Come to our meetings--talk to our workmen. You will find that many of us have very clear heads, and know exactly what we want, although the majority do still cling a good deal to phrases. You will assuredly soon begin to interest yourself in the emancipation of the proletariat. And what a future to look forward to! You might be another Lassalle, famous powerful, adored by thousands, received as a savior wherever you show yourself--make a triumphal progress through all Germany, perhaps through the world. And over and above, the consciousness of having rendered such mighty service to your fellow-men." Wilhelm rose. "I seem to myself to be playing a rather ridiculous part in this scene," he said; "it is a parody of the Gospel story of the Temptation. Unfortunately, I have not the smallest particle of ambition, and have no desire to be either famous or mighty, or to make triumphal progresses. If I could really do anything for you, believe me, I would do it gladly. But I assure you I possess neither the philosopher's stone, nor a prescription for a universal panacea. I do not believe either that the remedies they recommend so highly to you are very effectual, so I am much obliged to you for your confidence in me, and beg you to leave me in my obscurity." Hessel gave him a dark look, stood up, turned slowly away, and left him without one word, or even offering him his hand. Wilhelm had sent to Berlin for a box of books, and tried to go on with his work, but found no real pleasure in it. A deep despondency had come upon him, and the idea that his life was wholly purposeless took more and more hold upon him. Often, after studying earnestly for a day or two, and making extracts for his book, he would ask himself, "Why take all this trouble? Who is going to be made wiser or happier by this rigmarole?" and his pleasure in the work was gone again for days. The consciousness of exile, instead of being blunted by time, weighed ever more heavily upon him. He never realized till now what an absolute necessity it was to his nature to lean upon a kindred spirit, for he had never before been without one. Since the death of his father he had first had Paul, and then Dr. Schrotter, whom he had seen daily, and thus had always had some one to share his mental life. Now he was separated from Schrotter by distance, and from Paul by the great change in their views, and found no sufficient support when left to himself. If at times the sight of Paul's perfect self-content and happiness roused in him the wish to follow his example, it was quickly overruled by the conviction that neither Paul's commonplace, practical occupations, nor his worldly success, would afford him, Wilhelm, the smallest satisfaction. He passed his days and weeks in self-communings and spiritual loneliness, in spite of Paul's and Malvine's endeavors to interest him in men and things. He allowed himself to be drawn into Malvine's afternoon receptions, and the two or three parties they gave during the winter; but refused to accompany them to other people's balls and dinners. He was happiest of all with Willy, who was very fond of Uncle Eynhardt. He took him for walks, told him stories, was never tired of answering his endless questions, amused him with little chemical experiments, and in default of the riding lessons let him ride upon his knee. And as he passed his fingers through the child's long curls, he often thought, in spite of all his philosophic doubts, how wonderfully pleasant it must be after all, to bring forth some such sweet golden-haired mystery that would cling to its parent and break away from him--a continuation and yet a wholly new departure that had its roots in the past, and yet struck out boldly into the future, and whose bright gaze would be trying to penetrate the riddle of the universe when he himself had long since sunk into oblivion. Had Malvine been something more than good-natured and commonplace, had she possessed a little more tact and insight into the human heart, she would have seen that in Wilhelm were now combined all the conditions necessary for predisposing him for marriage--the sense of a spiritual void, the longing for love and companionship, a consciousness of being alone in the midst of a cheerful, peaceful family circle, and the desire to see his own life renewed in that of a child. What he needed was that some one should frankly make the first advances, and overcome his natural shyness and diffidence by a bold and saucy attack. With a little tact and diplomacy, a clever woman would have had no difficulty in putting up a bright girl to attempt so easy a fight and victory. But Malvine never thought of such a thing. Social etiquette withheld the various young ladies on whom the Habers' quiet guest had made no small impression from taking those first steps, which are considered unwomanly and humiliating, although in most cases they invariably bring about the desired results, and so Wilhelm continued to sit in his corner, and the group of pretty heiresses in theirs; the winter passed, and Malvine's darling wish was still unfulfilled. Easter came round, and with it the migration of the family to Friesenmoor House. Wilhelm would have liked to seize this opportunity for withdrawing himself from a hospitality which weighed heavily on him, but Paul put down his timid revolt with a high hand. "None of that now. You are coming with us, and can see what country life is like for a whole summer," he declared, and there the matter rested. The estate and its surroundings possessed no picturesque charms. The land stretched in uniform flatness from the sluggish Suderelbe to the equally sleepy Seeve, and the Fuchsberg at Ronneburg, with its height of two hundred feet, was a giant of the Alps or Cordilleras, compared to the floor-like evenness of the country round about. From the platform of the tower which Paul had built on to his house, giving it quite a baronial appearance, one could see for miles across country, almost to Hamburg, the spires of which were plainly visible on a clear day. But far and near one saw nothing but cornfields and meadows, that had the regularity of a carpet pattern, intersected by clay-colored dikes, straight ditches full of stagnant brown water, here and there a busy windmill, and in the distance the smooth-flowing watercourses which bounded the landscape. The picture was laid on from a meager palette; a few browns and greens, slightly relieved and enlivened by the vigorous tones of the whitewashed walls of the laborers' cottages, some standing apart, some collected together like a little village. And yet, though the view from the tower might not seem very attractive, a walk through the country revealed many a peculiar charm to the observant and divining eye. Here one stood upon ground where man had wrestled with Nature and subdued her. At every step one encountered the marks of that struggle and victory, reminding one of Jacob's mysterious encounter with the angel. The waters of the marsh were now forced within the prescribed limits of a system of drains and canals. Luxuriant crops triumphed over reeds and rushes, which were now only permitted to fringe the edges of the ditches. Sleek, mild-eyed cows grazed and ruminated where formerly the wildfowl built her nest. Chaos was vanquished, and had to own man for her lord and master. Here, upon the scene of his labors, Paul's figure assumed a certain epic dignity. As a stern lord with a handful of armed followers keeps down a subjugated people, so Paul, at the head of a few hundred workmen, held sway over the unruly forces of Nature always more or less ready to revolt. There were always dikes to be repaired, ditches to be deepened, drain-pipes to be laid or improved, or artificial manure to be carted, and Paul was active from break of day till nightfall, either on foot or on horseback, hurrying from one end of the estate to the other, everywhere ordering or giving a helping hand, and always leading his troops himself to fresh onslaughts against the resisting elements. He did it all quietly, without any fuss or attempt to reflect credit on himself, and left it to others--to strangers, poetically inclined pupils or students on their travels--to say that his conquest of the Friesenmoor was a Faust-like achievement. He had built a whole village for his laborers, to right and left of the highroad leading to Friesenmoor House. The cheerful, clean, whitewashed cottages, with their green-painted window-frames, were thatched with rushes and surrounded by gardens in which young fruit trees, not yet sufficiently strong to forego the support of poles, already gave promise of their first harvest of apples and pears. The village hall and the school-house were distinguished by superior size and green-glazed tile roofs; nor was a church, with a pointed belfry and weathercock, missing. For Paul was a model landowner, who took ample thought for the welfare of his dependents, and as soon as his means permitted it, had hastened to build a church and appoint a pastor, providing thereby, at the same time, for one of his numerous relatives. In his ardent loyalty to his king, he had expressed the wish to call his village Kaiser-Wilhelm's Dorf, and had received the desired permission. In Kaiser-Wilhelm's Dorf, it was evident, content and comparative prosperity reigned supreme. Behind every house was a pigsty, behind nearly every one a cowshed. The men looked strong and hearty; the women, carrying dinner to their husbands in the fields, or sitting knitting on the benches in front of their doors, all presented bright and cheerful faces, and the school would hardly contain the crowd of flaxen-haired, blue-eyed children, whose rounded cheeks gave evidence of a never-failing and amply spread dinner-table. In the beginning, all this made a vast impression on Wilhelm. As the struggle with nature is man's real and normal task, he instinctively feels an emotion almost amounting to joy wherever he comes upon evidences of victory. But, as usual with Wilhelm, this first instinctive emotion was followed by the usual fatal speculations, and he said to himself, "Paul has converted swamps into cornfields, has enriched himself thereby, and supports some hundreds of families. Good! but what further? This great achievement has as its primary result, that people are fed who otherwise perhaps would not eat so much or so well, or merely would not feed on this spot at all. But is the filling of one's own and other people's stomachs the first and highest aim of life?" Paul tried hard to interest him in the details of farming. He took him about, showed and explained everything to him, and finally brought out his pet scheme--that he should sell the house in Berlin, and buy instead some marshland near by, which was to be had for a moderate sum; he would give him a helping hand at first, and as property of that kind could very well afford a steward, he could easily get him a first-rate one. They would be neighbors, Wilhelm would have a larger income and fewer wants, and live in peace and comfort. Wilhelm was profoundly touched by the affection which was manifest in Paul's every word and thought, but the prospects he opened up before him offered him no attractions. In July, when the harvest was ripening for the sickle, and man had nothing to do but leave the sun to its work of brooding on the fields, Paul went one day to a committee meeting in the town. When he came home he remarked to Wilhelm at supper: "What do you think? They have discovered that I am harboring a dangerous Social Democrat. The Landrath actually remonstrated with me on the subject in a discreet and well-meaning way. I can't tell you how the man amused me," and he laughed again as he recalled the conversation. But all his amusement vanished when Wilhelm answered: "The Landrath was quite right. A political outlaw is very doubtful company for a man in your position, and I cannot think how I came to overlook the fact myself." In vain did Paul endeavor to turn the matter into a joke; in vain that he showed himself inconsolable at his stupidity in having told the story. Wilhelm declared firmly that he must leave his friend, and bringing his whole force of will to bear upon it, carried his intention through. The next day Paul's carriage took him to Harburg. The parting was trying to all of them. Paul's leave-taking was prolonged, and he made his friend promise he would return next year for some weeks at least to Friesenmoor House. Malvine had tears in her eyes as she said, "No one will care for you so much as we do." Even little Willy was downcast, and gazed with a reproachful look at the friend who could find it in his heart to desert him. As the train moved off he called out to Wilhelm, in his ringing, childish voice, "Come back soon, Onkelchen, and bring me something nice." CHAPTER X. A SEASIDE ROMANCE. Wilhelm's immediate destination was Ostend. He hardly knew himself how he came to fix on that particular place. Since those days, long past, when his thoughts had hovered for weeks round the Belgian watering-place, the name had remained in his mind, and now, with his desire to spend some months in company with the sea, Ostend was the first place that occurred to him. It was the middle of July, and watering places not very full as yet, nor were there many people staying at the Ocean Hotel where he stopped. Two Americans, who had begun a summer tour on the Continent by a short stay at Ostend, made friends with him on the first day after his arrival, when they found he could speak English. They invited him to join them on their walks, and made him give them information about Germany, and especially about Berlin, which they intended visiting; in return they told him all about the north coast of France, with its watering-places, big and little, which they had "done" last year from Cherbourg to Dunkirk. Strolling the next afternoon with his new acquaintances along the Digue, a few steps in front of them he saw a lady, plainly and darkly but most elegantly dressed leaning on the arm of a tall man. They walked slowly, and were evidently lost in contemplation of the softly rolling sea. At first he paid but little attention to the couple, and would not have noticed them at all had not the Digue been very empty of visitors just then. But, strange to say, his gaze kept wandering from the oily surface of the sea, and the steamers and fishing-smacks plowing their way through it, to the slender figure of the lady, who looked small beside her tall companion; and there gradually dawned upon him a dim idea that that slight figure reminded him of somebody--that he had seen those delicate contours, those graceful proportions, that light and gliding gait before. Without hastening his steps he soon overtook them, and recognized at the first glance that it was Loulou. She too turned her head involuntarily to look at the passing trio. As she caught sight of Wilhelm a sudden pallor overspread her face, and with an unconscious movement of terror she dropped her companion's arm. Both stood stockstill, as if suddenly deprived of the power of motion, and gazed at one another wide-eyed. The silent encounter only lasted a few seconds, but the play on both sides was so marked that it could not fail to excite the attention of the lookers-on. Loulou's attendant cavalier looked in surprise from her to him, and evidently thought the proceedings most extraordinary. But before he had time to ask for an explanation, Wilhelm had turned on his heel and was walking rapidly back to the hotel. The two Americans followed him in silence. Nothing in the scene had escaped them, but as true Anglo-Saxons they had too much native reserve to ask for a confidence which was not offered them. Wilhelm was most painfully affected by the encounter, and not for worlds would he risk the possibility of meeting again with the unfortunate woman and the man to whom she now was bound in sinful union. That same day he took leave of his Americans, and left Ostend early the next morning; at once fearful and relieved, as though fleeing successfully from the scene of a dark deed of his own committing. After a long and tiresome journey, not made pleasanter by having to change four or five times, he arrived late in the evening at Eu, where he spent the night. The next morning, an hour's drive in a hotel omnibus brought him to Ault, a small market-town in the department of Somme, which the Americans had recommended to him as the quietest, cheapest, most unpretending, and at the same time picturesquely situated of any of the seaside places on the north coast of France, at least as far as Dieppe. Wilhelm found Ault to be all it had been described. The little place presented a well-to-do, self-respecting appearance. The High Street, at right angles with the shore, and rising gently toward the higher, billowy country beyond, was wide and straight as a dart, and scrupulously clean; the roadway was macadamized, and a flagged pavement ran along the two rows of houses. At its upper end, broad and defiant, was a wonderful mediaeval church in the earliest Gothic style, with high pointed windows, a severely beautiful west door, and a mighty square tower. The church blocked the way, and forced the street to make a bend in order to pass round it. This building, which would have adorned a capital, stood there haughty and arrogant like a gigantic knight in full tilting armor in the midst of the common people, and seemed to wave the simple, unpretentious provincial houses to right and left with a lordly gesture so that nothing might intercept his view of the sea. Beside the High Street there were a few little side alleys, mostly inhabited by locksmiths, who worked with untiring industry from morning till night, keeping up a cheerful but far from unpleasing din which, mingled with the roar of the breakers below, reached the ear as a soft musical ring of metal. The only prominently ugly features in the charming picture were the few villas on the neighboring heights, built by retired Paris grocers and haberdashers; liliputian, pretentious, with blatant, highly-colored facades, ludicrous imitations of baronial fortresses, Venetian palaces, or Renaissance chateaux. The inhabitants of Ault were a peaceable, sober-minded people. No one was ever drunk, nor was the sound of quarreling ever to be heard. There were few public-houses; several places, however, dignified by the name of cafes. The natives were so far accustomed to summer visitors that they did not take much notice of them, but happily not so much as to direct their whole thought and energy to fleecing them. It seemed as if the people of Ault had merely arranged a bathing place for the purpose of deriving a little amusement out of the strangers, not in order to make a living out of them, that being quite unnecessary, as their comfortable figures, good clothes, and well-filled shops could testify. Wilhelm took up his quarters in the Hotel de France, situated just where the High Street swept round the side of the church. As the house was separated from the sea by the whole opposite row of houses, one only caught a glimpse of it as a narrow, glittering streak across the intervening roofs from the second-floor windows. The view from the front windows was the more remarkable. They looked out upon the churchyard which lay behind the Gothic cathedral. Not that there was anything depressing in the sight; it made, on the contrary, a cheerful impression, with its carefully tended flower beds and magnificent old trees, which almost hid the modest headstones they overshadowed, and in whose branches count less singing birds had built their nests, while noisy troops of children played under them at all hours of the day. Wilhelm directed his steps at once to this churchyard, where, beside the modern iron crosses, there were marble headstones showing dates that went back to the seventeenth century. In the oldest as well as the newest inscriptions the same name occurred over and over again, speaking well for the settled habits of the population. And, according to the inscriptions, most of those buried here had lived to be eighty or ninety years of age. Had Ault been a professedly fashionable bathing place, one might have been tempted to think that this churchyard, with its cheering records in stone and iron of the longevity of the natives, had been set down in the very center of the town to encourage the visitors. The Hotel de France recommended itself by extreme cleanliness, but otherwise it was very simple. The rooms contained only such furniture as was absolutely necessary, the dining-room was bare of decoration, and therefore happily free of those gruesome colored prints which the commercial traveller delights to sow broadcast over the unsuspecting country towns. Only the so-called salon boasted the luxury of a cottage piano, a polished table, a few cane chairs, and a looking-glass over the chimneypiece, on which lay a box of dominoes and a backgammon board, eloquently suggestive of mine host's ideas as to the most suitable occupation for his guests. The hotel proprietors were as simple and homely as their house. The man wore a seaman's cap and a blue coat with brass anchor buttons, and was more than delighted if you took him for a seafaring man. He had, in fact, been to sea once, as ship's cook, or steward, or something of the sort. Now he sat most of the time in the cafe of the hotel, supplied the neighbors with little drams of cognac, and told the visitors endless stories of the buying and selling of property in the little town. His wife was the soul of the establishment. She possessed the gift of omnipresence. At one and the same moment you might see her in the kitchen and in the outhouses, in the hotel and in the cafe. The servants, of whom there was a considerable number, answered to a look, a bock of her finger. You could hear her clear voice from morning till night in the courtyard or on the stairs. Everywhere she lent a helping hand, and her busy fingers accomplished as much as all the men and maids put together. With it all she was never out of temper, always had a word or a smile for every passer-by, took a personal interest in each of her guests, took instant notice of a diminished appetite or a pale cheek, and always sent up lime-flower tea to anybody who happened to come rather later than usual to breakfast. The hotel was pretty full when Wilhelm arrived, but he made no attempt to mix with the company he met twice a day at the table d'hote. His French had grown somewhat rusty for want of practice, and he did not trust himself to join in the exceedingly lively and general conversation till he had regained something of his old fluency in long daily talks with the landlord. Beside which, he did not feel greatly drawn toward his fellowguests. Their high-sounding and pompously-expressed platitudes bored him, their absurd views on politics, their parrot-like and yet self-satisfied remarks on literature and art filled him with compassion. One guest in particular, who sat at the head of the table, and generally led the conversation in the loudest tones, succeeded in making him very impatient, in spite of the mildness with which Wilhelm usually judged his fellows. He did business in sewing machines in Paris, but here gave himself out as an "ingenieur constructeur," and belonged to that class of persons who cannot endure not to be the center of observation wherever they happen to be. It has been said of a man of that stamp, that if he were at a wedding he would wish to be the bridegroom, and if at a funeral to be in the place of the corpse. At the dinner table of the Hotel de France he reigned supreme. His strong point lay in the perpetration of the most ghastly puns, which he would discharge first to the right and then to the left, and finally, with a roar of laughter, over the whole table. In his outward appearance, too, he sought to create a sensation. He was not dressed, he was costumed. He wore long stockings, knickerbockers and a tight-fitting jacket, and when he stood up, tried to produce effects with his calves, spread his legs wide apart as if, like the Colossus of Rhodes, ships were to pass beneath, and affected sporting and athletic attitudes generally. He was accompanied by a lady who had at first roused the horrified disgust of the others by her appetite, which surpassed every known human limit, and then proceeded to make herself still more hateful by a frequent change of costume. Wilhelm's immediate neighbor was a lady of somewhat exuberant outline, but extremely plainly dressed, and without a single ornament, of whom at first he took no more notice than of the rest of the company. She returned his silent bow at coming and going, and acknowledged the little attentions of the dinner table--the handing of salt or entrees, of bread or cider (the table beverage)--with a low "Merci, monsieur," accompanied by a pleasant smile and an inclination of the head. The acquaintance began with a look. It was after a more than usually exasperating pun from the man in the knickerbockers, and involuntarily their eyes met, after which they exchanged glances each time he came out with a particularly blatant piece of idiocy. They could not long remain in doubt that their opinion on the prevailing conversation was identical, and the unanimity of their tastes was still further demonstrated by the fact that the lady was as silent during the meals as Wilhelm. The interchange of looks was presently followed by words. It was the lady who broke the ice by alluding to a somewhat peculiar incident. It happened to be market day, and Wilhelm had been watching with interest the cheerful bustle in the High Street, and the new type of country people: the men with their carts bringing in calves, pigs, and grain, fine-looking fellows, with tall sturdy figures, and shrewd, clean-shaven faces above the blue cotton white-embroidered blouses and severely stiff snow-white shirt collars; and the women in round dark-brown cloaks reaching to their feet; the drum-beating, yelling tooth-drawers and patent medicine venders praising their remedies against tapeworm and ague with incredible volubility, and the couple of majestic gendarmes in their imposing uniforms, with yellow leather belts and cocked hats, who found no occasion to exhibit their stern official side to the noisy, laughing, but well-behaved crowd. After strolling for awhile among the carts and people, Wilhelm had caught sight of a large and handsome donkey, had gone up to him and stroked him, and said a variety of friendly things to him. At dinner, noting that his neighbor was looking about in search of something, he asked politely: "Madame is in want of something?" "The water, if you please," said she. He handed her the carafe, which was out of her reach; she thanked him, and, not to let the conversation drop, added with a pleasant smile: "Monsieur seems fond of donkeys?" "Indeed!" He answered, surprised. "I saw you this morning patting and stroking a splendid donkey." He had not thought of it again. "Yes, now I remember," he answered, "it was a charming beast, with wonderfully wise, thoughtful eyes." "Do you think so too?" she cried, delighted. "You must know, I have a special weakness for donkeys, and consider that, next to dogs they are by far the most intelligent of our domestic animals. They have such a look of profound wisdom, such stoical philosophy and resignation, that I feel they are quite a lesson to me." Wilhelm could not repress a smile at her lively tone. "I should like to think," he said, "that our agreeing in a good opinion of the donkey is a sign that the ungrateful world has at last come to a proper appreciation of this ugly fellow-laborer." "Ugly?" she exclaimed. "I don't think so at all! Look at his delicate hoofs, his elegantly-tufted tail, the soft, silvery gray of his coat with the velvety, black markings, and his ears are very becoming to him. It is such an injustice always to compare him with the horse. He is altogether a different type, but quite as handsome in his way." "Then you would whitewash Titania in 'Midsummer Night's Dream?'" She laughed "Well, Titania might have done worse. But how is it that the donkey has come to be the symbol of stupidity?" "Perhaps because of his want of spirit, and his perversity." "No, I believe it is something else. People found a great, strong animal that could, if it liked, be just as difficult to manage, and resist just as well as a horse, and yet was quite content with the worst of food, required neither stable nor grooming, worked till it dropped, and never bit or kicked. So they said, an animal that is strong enough to hurt us, and yet puts up with any kind of treatment, must necessarily be deadly stupid. That is how it was. People cannot believe that one may be good-tempered and uncomplaining and yet have any brains. With them to be wicked and violent and pretentious is to be clever. If the donkey would refuse to eat anything but oats and barley, and turned and rent anybody who annoyed him in the slightest degree, you would see how people would immediately have the highest respect for his intellect." "You seem to have a low opinion of your fellow-creatures, madame?" "It is their own fault then," she replied, gazing through the window into the courtyard. After this conversation Wilhelm looked for the first time more attentively at his neighbor. He had a general impression of her being tall and stout, with a remarkably clear, bright complexion. Now he took in the details. In spite of the fullness of her figure she was slender about the waist, and her small slim hands, with their tapering fingers and pink nails, retained the purity of their outline, and had by no means degenerated into mere cushions of fat. The proudly-poised head was crowned by a wealth of heavy, pale brown hair with dull gold reflections in it, waving in soft, downy locks round her forehead. The cheeks were very full but firm, and the well shaped, boldly modeled nose stood in exactly the right proportion to the rather large face. The light brown eyes with their remarkably small pupils were conspicuously lively, and flashed and sparkled incessantly on all sides. Their expression was extremely intelligent and generally mocking, and if you looked long at them you gained the somewhat uncomfortable impression that that cold clear glance could, on occasion, stab a heart as cruelly as would a dagger. But her most striking feature was her mouth--a sudden dash of violent coral-red in the opalescent white of her face. This brutal effect of color exercised a peculiar fascination and riveted the attention. The eye lingered upon those lips--so voluptuously, so sinfully full, so burning, blood-red that in the chastest mind, even a woman's, they must suggest the image of vampire-like kisses. Take her for all in all, she was a magnificent creature, this woman of thirty, overflowing with health and life, in all her triumphant display of full-blown womanly beauty. Not a man in the hotel but had looked at her in undisguised admiration, and if they had not yet ventured to make advances to her, it was because she intimidated them by her cold hauteur, or by the mocking twinkle of her eye. Only for Wilhelm, now that she had really taken notice of him, did those eyes begin to grow soft and gentle, and when they met his turned meek and harmless, and, in their apparent innocence, seemed to plead to him for notice, confidence, instruction. He did not remain impervious to their influence. It afforded him distinct pleasure to sit at table beside this beautiful woman and show her small attentions. On his long walks he caught himself thinking deeply about her, while the blood coursed with unwonted heat through his veins. He marked her entrance into the dining room or salon by his heart stopping suddenly and then racing on in wild, irregular beats, and if he looked at her the indecorous thought came to him that it would be a joy to stroke those firm, round cheeks, to pass one's fingers gently over those swelling lips, but more especially to bury one's hands in that flood of silken hair. These various discoveries rather took him aback, and resulted in increasing his reserve almost to the point of rudeness. He still only met her at the table d'hote, and never attempted to approach at any other time, although she had asked him repeatedly if he did not take walks or make excursions into the country. One morning, soon after the conversation about the donkey, he went down to the beach, where, it being the bathing hour, the whole visiting population of Ault was assembled. The coast met the sea at this point as a perpendicular wall of rock a hundred and fifty feet high, stretching away to the west in an endless line, but on the east side, sloping gradually down, till about two miles further on, it lost itself in the flat line of the shore. Where the sweep of the bare, gray cliff made a slight backward curve, the sea had washed the shingle together to form a little beach covered with pebbles from the largest to the smallest size. Here two rows of modest wooden cabins were erected, which served as bathing houses, and beside these, a great wooden structure on wheels, not unlike the enormous house-caravans in which the owners of shows and menageries and such-like wandering folk travel about from fair to fair. The French flag fluttering from a pole on the top of the caravan drew attention to it, and on closer inspection one read above the entrance--which was approached by a movable wooden staircase--the proud legend "Casino d'Ault." Yes, Ault actually boasted a casino, with an entrance fee of ten centimes a head, and in the single room, which occupied the whole structure, you found a jeu de course, and other games of hazard, exactly as they had them in the most renowned and elegant dens of thieves of the fashionable watering places. Here, however, nobody went to the dogs. Life on the shore was prim and patriarchal. Whole families sat or lay about on camp stools or on traveling rugs, the wives in morning wraps, the husbands smoking in linen suits; the former occupied with needlework, the latter reading the newspapers or novels. The young people ran about barefoot and in bathing costume, or lay at the edge of the water fishing for shrimps, which they rarely or never caught. There were merry, noisy groups of bathers in the shallow water near the shore, splashing one another, shrieking at the approach of the larger waves, bobbing up and down, and shouting encouragement to the newcomers, who only ventured timidly and by degrees into the chilly waters. As very few of the bathers could swim, this all took place in the close vicinity. At first Wilhelm had been rather shocked to see the two sexes bathing together, and that the girls and married women--coming out of the sea with their legs and arms bare, and their clinging, wet bathing dresses revealing the outline of their forms with embarrassing distinctness--should calmly stroll back to the bathing houses under the open gaze of the men. For that reason he even refrained from going to the shore at the bathing hour, or bathing there himself. By degrees, however, he grew accustomed to it, seeing that nobody thought anything of it, and that the almost nude figures disported themselves among their equally unconcerned parents, relatives, and friends with the naive unconsciousness of South Sea Islanders. As he made his way, not too easily, over the rolling shingle between the chattering, lazy groups, he saw his neighbor of the table d'hote sitting, a little apart, on a camp stool under a large dark sunshade, an open book on her lap, and her eyes fixed on the smooth, bright surface of the ocean. She noticed Wilhelm, and smiled and nodded pleasantly, almost before he could bow to her. There was something of invitation in her nod, which, however, he did not follow, he could not have said exactly why. Confused, and a prey to all sorts of undefined emotions, he continued his walk till he reached the point where the waves, breaking at the very foot of the cliff, prevented his going any further. As he turned, ho remembered that he would have to pass her again, and considered if he could not avoid it by keeping close to the cliff and so get behind her. But why go out of his way to avoid her? That was driving shyness to the verge of churlishness. She was friendly toward him, why repay her kindness by such foolish and uncalled-for reserve? And ashamed, almost indignant at himself, he came to a sudden determination, and directed his steps straight toward the lady. She had watched him all the time, and now smiled to him from afar, as she saw him making for her. When he got up to her he stood still and raised his hat. She saved him the embarrassment of making a beginning by saying at once in the most natural tone in the world: "How nice of you to come and keep me company for a little while! Won't you sit down on this plaid?" He thanked her, and did as he was bid, seating himself on the thick, soft rug. His head was shaded by the great parasol, the sun warmed his knees. "Are you a great admirer of the sea?" asked the lady. "I hardly know myself yet. I must make its nearer acquaintance first," answered Wilhelin. "I confess that it leaves me quite unmoved. No, not that exactly, for I am rather vexed at it for giving so many idiots an excuse for ranting and absurd sentimentality. Now just look at all these people on the beach. In reality they are bored to extinction, and enjoy the Boulevards infinitely more than this expanse of water, which is quite meaningless to them. And yet you have only to mention the word--the sea--and they will instantly turn up their eyes and start off repeating the lesson they have learned by rote about their rapture and enthusiasm, just like a musical box which grinds out a tune when you press a button at the top. The sea was invented by a few romantically inclined poets. But I deny that there is any truth in then rhapsodies; the sea is hopelessly monotonous, and monotony excludes the possibility of beauty or charm. One has at most the same feeling for it as for a mirror in which one sees oneself reflected. The sea is a blank page, which each one fills up with whatever he happens to have in his own mind, or, if you like it better, a frame into which one puts pictures of one's own imagining. I grant that you can dream by the side of the sea, for it does nothing to disturb your dreams or give them any particular bent or coloring. But can it give the impulse to thought and emotion like the eve-changing outlines of mountain and forest? Never! People with unsophisticated minds know that well enough. The population of the coast always builds its houses with their backs to the sea. "As a defence against the storms," Wilhelm interposed. "That may be. But that is not the only reason. It is because the sight of that eternal waste of waters, without a boundary line, without the variety or movement of life upon it, bores them, and they prefer to look out upon the country with all its expressive and varying outlines." "But the expression which you see in a landscape--you put that into it yourself, by an effort of your own imagination. Forests and mountains are in themselves as inanimate as the sea." "Quite so; but the landscape has features which remind us of something else, which play, as it were, upon the keyboard of our associations, and it thus calls up the pictures with which we proceed to enliven it. The sea does nothing of this, and the best proof of that is, that no painter has ever yet used the sea by itself for his model. Did you ever know of an artist who painted nothing but the sea?" "Yes, Aiwasowky." "Who is he?" "A Russian who paints extraordinary sea pieces." "What! Only water--without shore, or people, or ships?" "I remember a picture with absolutely nothing but water, only a spar, or a mast floating on it." "There, you see!" she cried in triumph. "That broken mast is a trick of the artist. There lies the story. You instantly think of a wrecked ship; you see men, catastrophes, weeping widows and sweethearts; the spar becomes the central point of the picture, and you forget all about the sea. Moreover, the ancients, who surely had an eye for all that is grand and beautiful, they did not know either what to do with the sea. They were a magnificent race, healthy-minded realists--and kept strictly to the evidences of their senses without adding anything transcendental. The sea only appealed to their ear. Homer's adjectives for the sea are only expressive of sound--the resounding, the jubilant, the loud-rushing; hardly more than once does he allude to the gloomy or the wine-colored sea." "You have your classics at your fingers' ends, like any philologist." "That need not surprise you. With regard to the really beautiful, I have neither pride nor prejudice. Even the fact that the common herd of the reading public has made a point of praising him for a hundred years does not prevent me from enjoying a true poet." "But if you dislike the sea so much why do you come here?" "Oh," laughed the handsome lady, "that is the fault of my doctors. They sent me to the sea to thin me down, and by their orders I was to choose a very dull, very remote bathing place, where I should be sure not to meet any acquaintances. For directly I have friends about me, I enjoy myself, laugh, talk, and then I get stout again. Now to-day, for instance, I have acted contrary to my medical orders--I have had a very pleasant chat with you." "You are too kind. You have given everything and received nothing in return." "That is exactly what I like--always to give, never to receive." "That is not woman's way usually. But you are very exceptional. Pardon a possibly indiscreet question--do you write?" "Good gracious! Do I look like a blue-stocking?" "I never made a distinct picture of that type." "You need not be afraid, I am not an authoress. The most I have ever done in that way was to give a novelist, or a comedy-writer of my acquaintance, a little help now and then. When they want a lady's letter, they like me to write it. But you--I suppose you are an author?" "No, madame; I study natural science." "A professor then?" "No, only an amateur." "Ah! And you are French?" "I am German." "Impossible!" exclaimed the lady. "Why impossible?" asked Wilhelm, smiling. "You have no accent, and you look--" "You probably think that every German has light blue eyes, flaxen hair, and a long pipe?" "That is certainly pretty much how we picture Germans to ourselves in Spain." It was his turn to be surprised. "You a Spaniard?" "And how had you pictured a Spanish lady? Of course with jet black eyes and hair, and a mantilla?" Wilhelm nodded. "There are fair Spaniards, however, as you see. In fact, it is very common in our best families--an inheritance perhaps from our Gothic ancestors." "I suppose, like all Latins, you despise the Germans?" "I beg, monsieur, that you will not class me with the mass. I wish to be regarded as an individual. Whatever the prejudices of the Latins may be, I have my own opinion. Your nationality in a matter of indifference to me. I only consider the man," and she gave him a look that sent the blood flaming to his cheek. The hotel meals were always announced by a bell which could be heard quite well on the shore. In the heat of their conversation, however, they did not notice the signal. A lady's maid whom Wilhelm had often seen at the hotel--a middle-aged, female dragoon with a mustache and a very stiff and dignified deportment--now came up to the lady and said: "Madame la Comtesse did not hear the dinner bell?" She rose and took Wilhelm's arm without further ado. The maid followed with the rug and the camp stool. The beach was quite deserted, everybody having gone to dinner. The tide was rising, and had nearly covered the strip of beach. The thunder of the waves, mingled with the rattle of the pebbles which they sucked after them as they receded, followed the couple as they slowly made their way back to the hotel. On the road home they passed the post office. The maid, whose gentle name of Anne hardly matched her martial appearance, had hurried on in front to fetch her mistress' letters and newspapers. She handed them to the lady, who smilingly tore off the wrapper from her Figaro and gave it to Wilhelm, saying: "You do not know my name yet?" Wilhelm read, on the slip of paper: "Madame la Comtesse Pilar de Pozaldez--nee de Henares." "My father," she added in explanation, "was Major-General Marquis de Henares." "And here is my very plebeian name," returned Wilhelm, pulling out his card and handing it to her. "There are no such things as plebeian names--only plebeian hearts," said the countess, as she glanced at the card, and then put it away in her own elegant tortoise-shell case, which bore her monogram and crest in gold and colored enamel. The acquaintance was now fully established, and after dinner the countess invited Wilhelm, in the most natural manner possible, to accompany her on a walk into the country. The surroundings of Ault were very pretty. Emerald-green meadows alternately with a few cornfields decked the gentle billowy uplands, which sloped away abruptly toward the sea. Trees stood separately or in groups reaching to the edge of the cliff, over which many of them bent their storm-disheveled heads and gazed into the waves below. Here and there were small inclosed woods, and it was at the edge of one of these, about a quarter of a mile walk from the town, that the countess seated herself on a mossy bank in the shade. Wilhelm sat down beside her on the gnarled root of a tree; Anne was sent home, to return in two hours' time, but Fido was allowed to remain. He was a silvery-white sheepdog with a sharp muzzle, stiff little pointed ears, and a bushy tail curling tightly over his back. He had attached himself to Wilhelm from the first moment, and gave vent to his delight when caressed by having a severe attack of asthmatic coughing, puffing and blowing. "You live in Paris, do you not?" asked the countess after they had exchanged remarks on the scenery. "No," returned Wilhelm, "up till now I have lived in Berlin, but I had to leave for political reasons, and now I am a sort of vagrant without any actual home." "Ah--a political refugee!" cried the countess. "How charming! Of course you will take up your abode in Paris now--that is the sacred tradition with all political exiles. Yes, yes--you must; beside, how horrid it would have been to part after a few weeks and go our separate ways--you to the right, I to the left--and with only the consoling prospect of meeting again some day beyond the stars! So you will come to Paris, and if you have any intention of getting up a revolution in Germany, I beg that you will count me among your confederates. You need not laugh--Paris is swarming with Spanish refugees of all parties, and I have had plenty of opportunity of gaining experience in the planning of conspiracies." "I have no such ambition," answered Wilhelm, smiling, "and am, in any case, no politician, although I enjoy the distinction of being an exile." "Shall you take up any profession in Paris? I have connections--" "You are very good, Madame la Comtesse. You will perhaps think less of me, but I have no actual profession." "Think less of you. On the contrary, to have no profession is to be free--to be one's own master. Any one who is forced to earn his living must, of course, have a profession. But it is never anything but a necessary evil. It is only pedantic people who look upon it as an object of life. At most, it is a means to an end." "And what do you consider to be the real object of life?" "Can you ask? Why, happiness of course!" "Happiness--certainly. But then each one of us has a different conception of happiness. To one it is knowledge, to another the fulfilling of duty, to lower natures wealth and worldly honors. Therefore, it is possible to imagine that some one may find happiness in pursuing a profession." "Oh, no, my dear Herr Eynhardt, those are the mistaken views of gloomy and limited natures who are incapable of recognizing the true object of life. There are no two ideals of happiness--there is but one." "And that is?" "To wish for something very, very much--and get it." "Even if it is something foolish?" "Even then." "And even if one should lose if afterward?" She gazed for a while into the distance in silence and then said firmly--"Yes, even then." And after a pause she added--"You have, at least, had a moment of absolute happiness--when you found your wish fulfilled. And what more do you want? One only lives to experience such moments." "Unfortunately, your theory of happiness does not fit every case. Where is the happiness to come from for one who has no wishes at all, or who wishes for something unattainable--perfect understanding, for instance?" "A human being without a wish--is there such a thing?" "Yes, Madame la Comtesse, there is." "You perhaps?" she asked quickly. "Perhaps," Wilhelm returned. "Then you are not in love?" she said, and let her brilliant eyes rest upon his melancholy face. He shook his head gently without looking at her, as if ashamed of the want of gallantry in such a confession. "But at least you were once?" she persisted eagerly. "Have I ever really been in love? Perhaps--Or no, I do not know myself." "Thankless creature! You hesitate--you are not sure! How shameful of you to deny the gods you have once worshiped! But that is the way with you men. If you cease to love, you will not admit that you ever had loved. Tell me, was there ever a moment in your life when you could have answered my question--'Are you in love?'--with an unqualified Yes?" "Yes, I have known such a moment. But, looking back upon it now--" "No, no, you were quite right then and you are wrong now. That is just your great mistake. You imagine that one can only love once, and that love, to be real, must last forever. My poor friend, nothing lasts forever, and the truest love is sometimes as perishable as the loveliest rose--the most exquisite dream. But it is not to say that because it is over we are to deny that it ever existed. You may not feel anything now, but that is no reason for declaring that you did not feel it then. You thought you were in love, and therefore you were. It is sophistry to try to persuade oneself of the contrary in after days." "You are a brilliant advocate of your views, Madame la Comtesse, but nevertheless may one take a momentary delusion--" "Delusion' And who shall say, my German philosopher, if our whole existence may not be a delusion?" "Ah, there you drive my philosophy very hard," murmured Wilhelm. "Never been in love?" exclaimed the countess, and her lustrous hazel eyes flashed, "why you would be a monster. I suppose you are nearly thirty!" "Nearly thirty-five." "I congratulate you, Herr Eynhardt, I should have taken you for at least five years less But whether thirty or thirty-four, it would be culpable to have reached that age without having been in love. For you surely are not--a disciple of Abelard." At this point-blank question Wilhelm reddened and cast down his eyes like the boy he really was in some respects. She observed his embarrassment, not without secret amusement. "But seriously," she went on, "your little bit of love is the best there is about you men. No, it is the only good thing, the only thing that makes your bluntness, your selfishness, your want of sentiment bearable." "Yes, so the women say. They see nothing in the whole world or in life but love. They judge men solely according to their capacity for, or their zeal in, loving. And yet it takes more strength and manliness to resist love than to give way to it. They only care for men who are slaves to that passion. I admire those chaste and saintly men who have been able to cast off the bonds of the flesh. The highest point of the human mind is only reached by him who has never suffered himself to be dragged down by his senses. Christ taught the denial of the flesh both in precept and example. Newton never knew a woman." "I know nothing about Newton," she retorted, "but Christ had a feeling heart for the Magdalen and the adulteress. Beside, Christ was a God, and I am speaking of ordinary mortals, and it is only through woman, through your love of woman, that you become heroes and demigods." "No," Wilhelm answered bluntly, "it is woman who drags man down to the level of the beasts. We have a German fairy tale in which a bear becomes human as soon as he embraces a woman. In real life it is just the opposite. The knowledge of woman, the lust of the flesh, transforms man into a beast. You know the classics so well and are so fond of them--there is no apter allegory than the story of Semele, who desired once to see her lover, Jupiter, without the weaknesses and infirmities of the flesh--as the Lord of High Heaven--and perished at the sight." "Very well," said she softly, "you may despise me and say I am like Semele. I prefer a warm-hearted, loving beast to an icy-cold and proud philosopher. Anyhow, I am very fond of animals," and, lost in dreamy thought, she stroked Fido, who began to gasp and choke with delight, and eagerly licked the caressing hand. After a pause she resumed slowly--"I should never have thought you were such a desperate woman-hater. You have heaped insult on my sex and consequently on me. I expect you to make reparation for that by--being very nice to me." She looked him deep in the eyes and stretched out her hand, which he seized in confusion and pressed. Suddenly he let it drop. The countess looked up in surprise, and following Wilhelm's gaze, she caught sight of the hotel wit and his lady coming along the deep pathway that ran round the foot of the wooded hill, on the slope of which they were sitting. "Oh,--what do these common people matter?" exclaimed the countess in a tone of vexation. "And what is the harm, if they do see us? They will only boast, when they get back to their shop in Paris, that they saw a great lady in Ault." But for all that, the dangerously sweet spell of the moment was broken, and did not return before Anne arrived, whom Fido ran sneezing and wriggling to meet. For the rest of the day Wilhelm was silent and thoughtful, seeming to awake from a dream each time the countess spoke to him at dinner. She was perfectly aware of what was going on in him, and sought by looks, words, and manner to increase the effects of the afternoon's conversation. When the meal was over she took Wilhelm's arm again and asked--totally unconcerned that the rest of the company exchanged glances--"What are you going to do this evening?" "I thought of taking a little walk on the shore," he stammered shyly. "Oh, selfish creature!--and leave me all alone, though I might be bored to death? No, come up to my room. You have never paid me a visit yet. Anne will get us some tea, and we can talk." The countess had two rooms on the first floor, most plainly furnished, without a carpet or a single decoration on the walls. One of the rooms served as bedroom, the other as salon. At least it contained no bed, but a chaise longue instead, a rocking chair, and a table with a jute cover. The countess was inwardly much amused at Wilhelm's timorous hesitation in crossing her threshold. She relieved him of his hat and gave it to Anne, who hung it on a nail with the utmost gravity, but could not refrain from casting a curious glance at Wilhelm from time to time. When the tea was on the table, and Anne had discreetly retired into the bedroom, closing the door behind her, the countess began: "As we are to become friends--no, we are friends already; tell me, you are my friend, are you not?"--she held out her hand, which he pressed warmly and retained in his--"you ought to know who I am and how I live. I will tell you the whole truth--I never lie, it is so vulgar and cowardly. The worst that can be said of me, you shall hear out of my own mouth. And still I hope that, after you have heard all, you will not feel less kindly disposed toward me than before." She moistened her blood-red lips in the tea without leaving hold of his hand. "I am married. My husband, Count Pozaldez, is Governor of the Philippine Islands. I have lived for years in Paris. The count had the post given to him in order to put a few thousand miles between him and me. We have no divorce in Spain, and that was the only way of insuring to me a little peace and freedom." She took another little sip. "From this you will understand," she went on, "that I am not happily married. You must know that I am an only child. My father, the Marquis de Henares, idolized me. He was a soldier through and through, very stern and reserved toward everybody, even my mother, who never really understood his rare nature. Only to me he showed his heart of gold, his high and noble character, his deep feeling--a prickly pear, outside rough and inside honey-sweet. He brought me up as if I was to be a cabinet minister, and treated me like a beloved comrade from the time I was twelve, so that my mother was often jealous of me. When I grew up, he would sometimes say, 'Whoever wants to marry my Pilar will have to fight with me first.' And he meant it. You probably know that we develop early in Spain. At sixteen I was not very different from what I am now. Count Pozaldez was a young lieutenant of cavalry, and my father's adjutant. Of course we saw a good deal of one another, and he soon began to behave as if he were madly in love with me. I was not averse to him, for he was young, handsome, and aristocratic. And what else does a girl of sixteen look for? I naturally had no difficulty in understanding his glances and his sighs, but it went on for months without his making me a formal proposal. One day he wrote me a letter eight pages long, in which he informed me that, as he possessed nothing in the world but his sword, he dared not venture to lift his eyes to the heiress of the richest landowner in Old Castile; beside that, he was not worthy of me, only a king could be that--the wretch! But I will come back to that later on. On the other hand, however, he could not live without me, and if I did not return his love he was resolved to put a bullet through his brain. Of course I instantly saw him with a bullet-hole in his forehead, and shed tears for the poor young man. I did not want anybody to die for my sake. I pictured to myself how beautiful it would be to make a young man, without fortune or position, with nothing but his love for me, happy, rich, and great by the gift of my hand. I showed the letter to my mother, and asked her what was to be done. She at once took up the young man's cause. My soul would most assuredly fall a prey to the devil if I let poor Pozaldez kill himself. He was of good family, and would soon make his way as the son-in-law of the Marquis de Henares. I must unquestionably do something to raise his spirits. My mother's advice coincided with my own feelings. I allowed the count a secret interview, and he had permission to ask my father for my hand. He did so in fear and trembling. He was dismissed with scorn and contumely. My mother and I then used all our influence to turn my father, and--I was married to Count Pozaldez before I was seventeen." She was silent for a little while, and then went on: "I will make my story short. One year afterward, when I was in bed with my first child, he brought his mistresses to the house. I was determined to leave him on the spot. My mother brought about a reconciliation. Soon after that he began to ill-treat me. I suffered that in silence too, to avoid a public scandal, and more particularly for my father's sake. He would have killed him if he had known. Later--later--I must tell it you, so that you may grasp the whole situation--the villain did all he could to direct King Amadeo's attention to me--he had just come to Madrid. When I noticed his base schemes--as I could not fail to do--that put the finishing touches. I gave him the choice between a scandalous lawsuit, which would have deprived him of my fortune, and voluntary banishment by accepting some government post across the sea with half my income. He finally chose exile and the money, and I was free. I left Madrid and settled in Paris. You can imagine the circumstances--a young woman of twenty-three--alone, whose life could not possibly be filled by the care of two little children." "Two children?" asked Wilhelm. "Yes," she answered, and hung her head. "There is cowardice of which even a courageous woman will be guilty when, out of consideration for public opinion, she continues to live under one roof with the father of her first child. And then--you must take me as I am, with all my imperfections, for which some good qualities may perhaps make up." She looked at him humbly, with the eyes of an imploring child, and continued in a low voice: "The Spanish colony in Paris received me with open arms. There was no end to the entertainments, soirees and theaters. But can that satisfy a young and embittered woman thirsting for happiness? Of course I received a great deal of attention. An attache of our embassy succeeded in attracting me. I swear to you that I struggled long with him and myself, but his passion was stronger than my powers of resistance." Wilhelm would have drawn away his hand, but she held it fast, and went on hurriedly. "I have finished. For four years I shared his life, and then discovered that I had deceived myself a second time, and put an end to a connection which had lost the excuse of sincerity For two years now I have been free--for two years my heart has been at rest. Tell me, can you condemn me now that you know all?" "It is not for me to judge you," said Wilhelm sadly. "All I think is that you have had a great deal of misfortune in your life." "Yes, have I not?" cried the countess eagerly. "Do not misunderstand me. You had the misfortune to make a mistake in thinking you loved Count Pozaldez." "How should a sixteen-year-old child know? The first passably good-looking, well-bred man who flatters her wins her heart." "That is only too true. But if a young girl throws away her heart so lightly, she has no right to complain if she has to repent of it for the rest of her life." "But that is a terrible theory!" exclaimed the countess, and dropped his hand "What? One wakes to a knowledge of the world and of life--one is wretched, one sees that there is such a thing as happiness, and how it may be obtained, and one is not to stretch out a hand to grasp it? You would really be so cruel as to say to a woman--young, and in need of love--in childish ignorance and folly you were guilty of a mistake, all is over for you, abandon all claims to love and hope, sunshine and life, pass your years in mourning, and bury yourself alive, you have no further right to share in the joys of life?" Wilhelm left her string of passionate questions unanswered, and continued the thread of his former discourse: "But most certainly an older and more sensible woman, who should have learned wisdom from a first error, has no right to be guilty of a second one." "Oh, how hard you are!" murmured the countess. "What would you have?" said Wilhelm. Then with a sudden inspiration: "A woman has every right to love; but then you have loved--twice." "No, no, not even once. I thought so perhaps, but--" "But, according to your own assertion this afternoon, one has been in love really if only one seriously believes one is. And it is thankless to deny one's love later on. Do not contradict yourself." "And you, monsieur le philosophe," she returned, raising her head, and her burning gaze encompassed him as with a circle of fire, "do you not contradict yourself too? A little while ago you were demonstrating to me that you were a part of nature, and that unknown natural forces were at work within you, directing all you did, and to-day you extol the mortification of the flesh, which certainly has nothing to do with your unknown natural forces." He was going to reply, but she laid her soft hand upon his mouth. "Oh, please, monsieur le philosophe, do not prove to me that I am wrong. Be indulgent to my inconsistencies, as well as to everything else, I know I am full of contradictions. I am no German philosopher. But nature too is full of contradictions--first day, then night--now summer, now winter. But in spite of it all I can be very consistent and true to myself in a question of real importance." Wilhelm drew away from the hand that caressed his lips and cheek, and said, averting his eyes: "You are a beautiful woman, and have a most exceptional mind, and it must be happiness indeed to be loved by you, but in order that that happiness might be full, one would have to love you in return, and there are men--I do not know whether to call them too proud or too fastidious--who can only love with their whole heart or not at all, and who cannot endure that the woman they love should treasure another image or other memories in her life." "Stop, my friend, stop!" cried the countess. "You do not realize what you are saying. That comes of your pride and vanity. You always want to be the first--to write your names at the head of a blank sheet. Why? Is the conquest of a silly, ignorant girl more flattering than that of a woman of sense, who can compare and judge? Is not your triumph a thousand times greater when a disappointed, deeply-skeptical woman lays her heart at your feet, and says--'You I will trust, you will bring me healing and happiness'--than when a young girl gives you her love because you happen to be the first man who asks for it? Other images!--other memories! Do you know so little of a woman's heart? Do you imagine that the past exists for us when real true love comes upon us? We see nothing in the whole world but the one man, we cannot believe that our heart has not always beat for him, and we are firmly persuaded that we have always known and always loved him and him alone." The eyes that gazed at him glowed with maenad-like desire, and bending suddenly she covered his hand with lingering, burning kisses. Wilhelm passed his hand soothingly over the masses of her silky hair, and it flashed across him how much he had once wished to be able to do so, and now his wish was fulfilled. Was fulfilled desire really happiness, as this beautiful woman asserted? His heart beat loud and fast; he was conscious of emotions long unfelt, and--yes, these emotions were pleasant ones. He moved as if to rise, but she clung to his arm to hold him back. He pointed to the door of the room from which Anne might appear at any moment. "Do have a little more pride of spirit," said the countess; "one does what one likes, without caring what the servants think." "Let me go," he entreated, and stroked her beautiful hair. "Why?" "It is late, and the air in here is close. I should like to take a turn by the sea. Please--" She looked at him, and a mysterious smile played about her full lips; she dropped his arm. He hastened away toward the shore, where the waves were rolling in, rattling the pebbles and striking the cliff with dull, heavy thuds. The August night was mild and full of stars, and there was scarcely a breath of wind. The tide was rising, wave after wave rolled in, fell over, and swept up the beach in a thin white sheet of foam. Further out the sea was calm and deserted, only in the extreme distance the lights of some passing steamer crept over the smooth dark waters like tiny glowworms. Wilhelm's mind was in a tumult. This woman--what a strange, terrifying creature. Why was she throwing herself at his head? And who knows if only at his? And then--what need to tell him her story? Perhaps it was a wild, insane flare of passion; but how could he have roused it? There was nothing in him to account for it. And she did not know him--knew nothing about his life or his character. She was beautiful certainly--beautiful and alluring, and clever and original--a most exceptional woman. She might well be able to disarm a man of his self-control, and paralyze his will. But after that--what then? How would it end? Better not begin--not begin. That would be the wisest ending. He left the shore and returned to the hotel. The view before him was remarkable. At the further end of the street rose the church, its Gothic flourishes outlined sharply against the lighter background of the sky. Just behind it stood the full moon, tracing--as if for its amusement--the silhouette of the roof of the church tower upon the ground. Where the shadow of the church ended, the moon poured its silvery light in a broad flood over the street, and further off painted, with, a bold stroke of the brush, a glittering streak of white light across the sea, away to the semi-transparent mists on the horizon. Passing first through the shimmering light, and then through the black shadow of the church, Wilhelm reached the hotel, where the lights were already extinguished. Without lighting the candle, which he found ready for him at the foot of the stairs, he mounted to his room. He was surprised, on reaching the door, to find Fido lying in front of it, his nose resting on his outstretched paws. "I suppose they have shut you out, and you want a night's lodging with me," said Wilhelm; "very well, I won't refuse you my hospitality--come in." He opened the door and let the dog pass in before him, then followed, pushed the bolt, and put the candlestick down on the table. Suddenly two cool, bare arms were laid about his neck, and his startled cry was smothered by the pressure of two burning lips upon his own. CHAPTER XI. IN THE HORSELBERG The good landlady of the Hotel de France was not a little surprised next morning when Wilhelm came down to the kitchen and informed her that he must leave that forenoon. And when very soon afterward Anne appeared, and announced in her stiffest, most impenetrable manner that Madame la Comtesse desired two places, for herself and her maid, in the hotel omnibus which went to the station at Eu, the landlady remarked, "Indeed!" and there was a liberal interchange of meaning glances in the kitchen. At no price would Wilhelm remain at Ault. The countess, who liked the place well enough, begged, entreated, and pouted in vain. He was not to be persuaded. He protested that he knew himself too well to think that he would be capable of keeping up the appearance of reserve toward her which decency demanded. And he need not, she declared; she considered herself free to do as she pleased, and so was he; their love did not interfere with their duty toward anybody, and so it was immaterial if people found it out and talked about it. Her utter disregard for the trammels of convention, her cool contempt for the opinion of others, filled him with horror. "No, no, I could not look one of them in the face again." "But do you suppose that these people are any better? You surely don't imagine that the man with the calves and his ravening wolf are married?" "How can you say such things!" "Why, you big baby, one can see that at a glance. He is far too nice to her for her to be his legitime." "That may be. At all events he has had so much consideration for outward appearance as to pass the person off as his wife. But we made our acquaintance here, under their very eye." "Wilhelm!"--from her lips the name sounded more like Gwillem--"I should not know you for the same person. Why, where is your boasted philosophy and stoicism to which you were going to convert me? Is that your indifference to the world and its hypocritical ways, its prejudices and its sneers?" She was quite right. He was untrue to his principles, but he could not do otherwise. He had had the courage to decline the duel with Herr von Pechlar, but he had not the boldness to let the foolish gossips of the table d'hote be witnesses of his new love-making. Why? For the very simple reason that, in his heart of hearts, he disapproved of his liaison with Pilar. As he would not give in, the countess resigned herself to what she called his "schoolgirl crotchet," and they traveled together to St. Valery-en-Caux, another little seaside place several hours' journey from Ault. Here they took rooms together at a hotel, and wrote themselves down as man and wife. The countess' letters were forwarded by the postmistress at Ault under cover to Anne. The only thing that disturbed Wilhelm's peace of mind was the presence of Anne. Her manner was just as impassive, her face as solemn as before, and she never showed that she noticed any change in her mistress way of life. But it was just this cold-blooded acceptance of facts which must at the very least excite her remark that upset him so much, and every time Anne came into the room and found him with Pilar, he was as much ashamed as if she had surprised him in some cowardly and wicked deed. Did he happen to be sitting beside her on the sofa, he started as if to jump up; if he had hold of her hand, he dropped it on the spot. Pilar noticed it, of course, and thought it an excellent joke. She was herself perfectly unconcerned before Anne, and put no constraint on herself whatever in her presence. On the contrary, she thought it great fun to throw her arms round Wilhelm when the maid came and he attempted to move away, or she would tutoyer him and kiss him to her face, and was intensely amused at his embarrassed and miserable air as he suffered her caresses, though not without a stolen gesture of objection. His shyness was not unobserved by Anne's quick though furtive eyes, and she owed him a grudge for wishing to exclude her from his secret. But with the exception of the discomfort caused him by this silent witness, his happiness was unalloyed. He lived in a constant rapture of the senses, and Pilar took good care that he should not awake from it. She never left him to himself, except during the two hours in the morning which she devoted to her toilette. It was her peculiar habit to steal away in the early morning while Wilhelm was still asleep, and repair noiselessly to the dressing-room, where Anne was already waiting, and where she gave herself up into the skilled hands of the maid, who kneaded her, washed and rubbed her, and treated her hands, feet, and hair with consummate art, and the aid of an army of curious instruments and an exhaustive collection of cosmetics. She would then appear to wake Wilhelm with a kiss. On opening his eyes it was to see her in the full glory of her beauty, with the flush of health upon her cheeks, with rosy fingers, her skin cool, soft and perfumed, her eyes bright, her lips smiling, and her magnificent hair in order. But from that moment onward she was always about him, nestling close to him when they were alone, her eyes on his when they walked arm in arm through the streets. In the morning she bathed in the sea while Wilhelm sat on the shore and watched her. She swam like a fish; he could not swim at all. She pledged her word to make him equally proficient in a few days, but her superiority made him feel small, and he would not accept her offer. For twenty minutes she practiced her art in the water, lay on her back and on her side, turned somersaults, dived, trod the water and finally came out, like Venus newly risen from the waves, and joined Wilhelm, who was waiting for her with her bath-mantle. He enveloped her in its soft folds, she roguishly shook the drops of water off her rosy finger-tips into his face and hurried to her bathing house without a glance for the spectators who had been watching her graceful play in the water, and devoured her with their eyes when she came on dry land. The rest of the day was filled up by long walks broken by delightful rests under the shade of cornricks on grassy hillslopes beside some purling brook. Then Pilar would sit on the rug or the camp stool, while Wilhelm lay at her feet with his head in her lap caressed by the little hands that played with his hair or wandered softly over his face, resting fondly on his lips for him to kiss. If there were flowers within reach, she would pluck a quantity and strew his head and face with the fresh petals, while he gazed alternately into the blue summer sky and the bright brown eyes above him, or even closed his own for quarters of an hour of delicious dreaming. Then everything outside his immediate surroundings would fade from his mind, and he would be conscious only of what was nearest to him, the faint scent of ylang-ylang that hovered round the beautiful woman, her smooth, caressing fingers, and the low sound of her deep, regular breathing. "You are so handsome," she whispered in his ear on one such occasion, and bending over him to kiss him; "do you know, I shall draw your portrait." "Can you draw?" he asked, raising himself on his elbow. "I hardly know whether I ought to say yes," she returned, with an arch, self-conscious smile that belied the humility of her tone. "But you shall see." "Very well," said he, "and while you are drawing my portrait I shall draw yours." "Bravo!" she cried, and wanted to go home at once, so that they might begin. As was his custom, Wilhelm had all that was needful in his big trunk, and could supply Pilar with materials. The next afternoon they set to work. They established themselves in the middle of a great meadow, committing thereby an extreme act of trespass, and making their way to it over a ditch, a low wall, and through a blackberry hedge. Here no prying eye would annoy them, their sole and most discreet spectator being Fido, and he was generally asleep. Pilar had a drawing-block and used a pencil, Wilhelm sketched his picture on a page of a large album in colored chalks like a pastel. She kept trying to peep at his work, but he would not allow it, and insisted on their making a compact not to look at one another's work of art till it was finished. Two sittings sufficed, however, and the portraits could be exchanged. Pilar gave a cry of surprise when Wilhelm handed her his picture. "How strange that we should have had almost the same idea." She was represented as a Sphinx, after the Greek rather than the Egyptian conception. A voluptuous, soft, round, feline body, graceful, cruel paws, a wonderful bosom as if hewn out of marble, and above it all Pilar's regally poised head with its crown of shimmering gold hair, shrewd eyes, and blood-red vampire lips. Between her forepaws she held a little trembling mouse in which Wilhelm's features were cleverly indicated, and she looked down upon her victim with a smile in which there was something of a foretaste of the joy of tearing a quivering creature to pieces and sucking its warm blood. Pilar's drawing was a very good likeness of Wilhelm as Apollo in Olympian nudity, handsome, slender and vapid, in its resemblance to school copies of the antique. A charming little cat with Pilar's features was rubbing herself against his leg. The pussy blinked up at the young Greek god with an expression of adoration, half-comic, half-touching, while he bent his head and gazed down at her thoughtfully. Pilar took the sheet from Wilhelm's hand and compared it with hers. "They are exactly the same," she said at last, "only that they are entirely the opposite of one another. Do you really feel that I am as you have drawn me?" "Yes," he answered in a low voice. "How unjust you are to yourself and to me--I a Sphinx and you a frightened mouse! To begin with, the Sphinx-cat did not condescend to mice, but occupied herself with men, and humbled herself before the right one when he came." "You are decidedly too learned for me," laughed Wilhelm. "No, no, seriously, it hurts me that you should regard our relations in that light. Am I not at your feet? Am I not your slave, your chattel, your plaything, what you will? Have I not chosen you to be lord and master over me? Am I a riddle to you? My love for you is the solution of any mystery you may find in me. Or do you accuse me of cruelty? That could only be in fun, you bad man." "You take a mere playful idea too tragically, dearest Pilar. The character of your head suggested it to me, that was all. And then--" "And then?" "Well, if you must know it, the fearless, what shall I say, Amazon-like manner in which you seized upon a man and took possession of him, body and soul." "Did I do that?" He nodded. "And you are mine?" He nodded again. "Tell me so, dearest, only love--say it." He did not say it, but he kissed her. "It is quite true," she remarked after a short pause, "I did take possession of you. That was unwomanly, but I could not help it. You are a cold-blooded German, and different from any man I ever knew before. You did not know how to appreciate the good fortune that befell you when chance set you down at my side in that dreary little hole. You abominable creature, for a whole fortnight you took not the slightest notice of me; you sat there beside me like a block, and never so much as looked at me. For a long time I did not know what to make of you. At first I tried to think you as ridiculous as the other idiots round the table, but I could not, try as I would. Your ugly owlish face had made too great an impression on me. And then I was annoyed by your reserve, and when I used to see you stalk in, looking so haughty, and you bowed so coldly to me and remained so distant, I thought to myself--just wait, monsieur the iceberg, some day you will be at my feet begging for love, and then it will be my turn to be proud, and I shall be triumphant." "There you see the Sphinx and the mouse." "Oh, but it all happened quite differently. I spoke first, I made you every sort of advance; and what did you do? You held forth to me on the mortification of the flesh. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. And even when I saw that love was burning in your eyes, you remained stiff-necked and tried to run away from me. If I was set upon happiness, I found I must take it by force. I know you better now. You were capable of never confessing your love to me, of never asking anything of me. Am I right or not, tell me?" "You are right," he murmured. "But that would have been a sin--a deadly sin, a capital crime against the High Majesty of Nature. What! Fate takes the trouble to think out the most improbable combinations, sets the most complicated machinery in motion to bring us together; it drags you out of the depths of Germany, and me from Castile, and brings us to a little hotel in a little village in Picardy, the very name of which was unknown to either of us a short time before; we instantly feel that we are made for one another and are certain to be happy together, and yet all these exertions on the part of Fate are to have been in vain? Never! Our paths crossed each other at a single point, for a moment they were united, it depended on us whether they should always remain so. And I was to let you go, never to meet again on this side of eternity? It was not possible, and as you were so clumsy, or so timid, or so self-torturing--" She finished the sentence with a long kiss, at which he closed his eyes once more, and shut out everything but its flame. Was it calculation, was it her natural instinct?--suffice it to say that Pilar never by any chance alluded in their conversations to her past. She was fond of talking, and talked a great deal, and her conversation was always startling, original and vivacious; her power of imagination as lively as her sparkling eyes, springing from the nearest object to the furthest, from the ordinary to the sublime, but never one word escaped her which might remind Wilhelm that she had gone through confessed and unconfessed experiences of every kind, and reached the turning-point of her existence without him. Her life, it would appear, had only begun with the moment at which he had risen upon her horizon. What went before that was torn out of the book of memory--one scarcely noticed the gaps where the pages were missing. She did all she could to make him forget that she was a stranger to him, and to strengthen in him the delusion that she belonged to him, that she was one with him, that it had always been so. She took possession of his past, she crept into his ideas and sentiments; she wanted to know everything about him, down to the smallest details. He must tell her about every day, every hour of his existence; she made the acquaintance of his entire circle of friends; she loathed Loulou, she adored Schrotter, she went into raptures over gentle, refined Bhani, she smiled at Paul Haber and his well-dressed Malvine, and her inventive grandmamma; she determined to send good Frau Muller (who had looked after Wilhelm for ten years like a mother) a beautiful Christmas present. She could make personal remarks on all his friends and acquaintances, and her only trouble was that she knew no German. What would she not have given to be able to read the letters he wrote or received, to converse with him in his mother-tongue! She loved and admired the French language, which, although she retained the ineradicable accent of her country, she spoke as fluently as Spanish; but now, for the first time, she felt something akin to hatred against it for being the one remaining barrier--certainly a very slight and scarcely perceptible one--between herself and Wilhelm, which forever drew his attention to the fact that she was not naturally a part of his life, and prevented their absolute union, the growing together of their souls. She therefore determined to learn German as soon as she returned to Paris, and, if need be, to stay for some length of time in Germany in order to master the language quickly and thoroughly. She thought and spoke much of the future, and in all her dreams, plans, and resolves Wilhelm was always, and as a matter of course, the central figure and sharer of her life. In him her life found its consummation she had him fast, and would never let him go. Her love was a curious mixture of ardent passion and melting, sentimental tenderness. At one moment the Bacchante, drinking long draughts of love and life from his lips, at another, the innocent girl who sought and found a chaste felicity in the mere rapturous contemplation of the man she adored. The longer she knew him, the deeper she penetrated into his character, the more did the Bacchante recede and yield her place to the Psyche. The allegory of Wilhelm's pastel seemed wrong, her own drawing right. She was no bloodthirsty Sphinx revelling in human victims, but a harmless little cat purring against the side of the young god. She was diffident, eager to learn, slow to contradict. She broke herself of her paradoxes, and concealed her originality. She liked best to listen while he talked. He must explain everything to her, enlarge her experience, correct and improve her judgment. Her favorite words were, give me, show me, tell me! From morning till night he must give, tell, show. The sea washed up a medusa to the shore--give it me! They surprised a crab in the act of shedding his armor--show me! A ride on donkeys to a neighboring village reminded him of a students' picnic at Heidelberg--tell me about it! Such of his peculiarities of temper as she did not understand, she guessed at and felt with her fine womanly instinct. If at Ault she had been extremely simple in her dress, here she was almost exaggeratedly so. She banished the "kohl" with which she had underlined her brilliant eyes, and strewed the violet powder to the four winds, as soon as she discovered that he preferred to stroke her full, firm cheeks when they were guiltless of powder. She dropped her former freedom of speech, gave up the telling of highly-spiced anecdotes, and checked her roving glances and the frolicsome imps--somewhat too deeply versed in Boccaccio--that haunted her lively brain, when she saw that he took umbrage at anything the least risky. Her cigarettes horrified him, so she threw them out of the window, and never smoked again. She even quelled the sensuality of her self-surrender, and veiled it with a show of shame-faced backwardness and the adorable ingenuousness of a schoolgirl on her honeymoon. She strove to obliterate the remembrances of the heathenish abandonment of the first days, with their unrestrained impulses, testifying all too plainly to the fact that she was a woman well versed in all the arts of seduction. At first this was dissimulation, the maneuvers of a shrewd, reader of character, but it soon came to be instinct and second nature; she deceived herself honestly, and returned, in her own mind, to the pristine virginity of her soul and body, finally coming to look upon herself as a simple-minded girl, ignorant of the world and of life, and conscious only of her boundless love for this one glorious man, and to whom the memories of a less harmless past seemed like wicked dreams sent by the Tempter to molest her chastity. This self-deception, or rather retrogression of her instincts, led her into touches of mysticism. The story of little Sonia who had fallen in love with the ten-year-old Wilhelm at first sight, to die shortly afterward with his name upon her lips, made a deep impression on her, and set her dreaming. "When sweet little Sonia died I was born." Now this was not quite accurate, as Pilar must have been at least two or three years old at the time, but mystic raptures take no count of time. "My life is a continuation of hers. Your Spanish love inherited the soul of your little Russian. Thus I have been yours since my birth--and before. I loved you before ever I knew you. I have had a presentiment of you, have felt and expected you from the beginning. Hence my troubled seeking all the time, hence my horror and shuddering when I discovered that I was mistaken, that it was not the one I yearned for whose image I bore secretly in my heart. Now I see why I was so irresistibly drawn to you from the first moment I set eyes on you. The man of my dreams stood in bodily shape before me. Here at last was my heart's dear image in flesh and blood. I had no need to get to know you; I knew you already. My own, my Wilhelm." Real tears rolled down her cheeks as she spoke, and Wilhelm was not sufficiently blase to scoff at the doting nonsense of a love-sick woman. Love has enormous power, and at its heat all firmness, all resistance, melts away. Pilar's affection filled Wilhelm with heartfelt emotion and gratitude. He denied himself the right of judging her, suspecting or doubting her, or of discovering dark spots upon her shining orb. As she was forever at his side, and made it her sole care to occupy him entirely, body and soul, his whole world was soon filled by her and her alone. Wherever he looked his eyes fell upon her; she intercepted his view on all sides. Her shadow fell even upon his past, as far back as his childhood. He failed to notice that whole days passed now without his giving a thought to Schrotter or Paul, and he was quite surprised when he discovered that he had left a letter from the former unanswered for a week. His former life began to fade and grow dim, and, compared to the sun-flooded, glowing present, looked like the dark background of a courtyard beside an open space in the full blaze of a summer day. The whole society of the place was deeply interested in the handsome couple, who took so little trouble to conceal their love. The young people thought it most affecting, the older ones, especially the ladies, turned up their noses, with the remark that even people on their honeymoon might put some restraint upon themselves on the beach, or in the street. Wilhelm and Pilar were quite unconscious of the talk for which they furnished the material. They had no eyes for anybody but each other. They were unconscious of the flight of time. Their lives passed as in a morning dream, or a wondrous fairy-tale, where two lovers wander in a sunny garden among great flowers and singing birds, or rest, surrounded by attendant sprites, who fulfill each wish before it is uttered. They were disagreeably brought back to the realities of life when one day Anne asked, with her most impassive air, when Madame la Comtesse thought of leaving, for if she were going to stay any longer, they must provide themselves with winter clothing. They had reached the end of September; it rained nearly every day, the streets of the village were impassable, sitting on the shore out of the question, the equinoctial gales howled across the country from the tempestuous sea; all the world had gone home, and Wilhelm and Pilar were the last guests in the desolate hotel, spending most of the day in their room, where an inadequate fire spluttered on the hearth. For a fortnight past Anne had boiled with silent rage, which she sometimes let out on poor, snorting, asthmatic Fido. She had been absent from Paris since the middle of July, and had counted on being back by the beginning of September at the latest, and here was October coming upon them in this God-forsaken little hole, and her mistress showed no signs of returning home. Anne's question came like a rough hand to shake Pilar out of sleep. Like a drowsy child who does not want to get up, she kept her eyes closed for awhile. Another week! Four days more! Two days more! But then she had to pack, for Anne exaggerated a slight cold, and at short intervals let off a dry cough with the suddenness and force of a pistol-shot, tied her head up in a white shawl, and begged to be allowed to send to Paris for warm underclothing and her fur cloak. In the hotel, too, from which all the servants had been dismissed, and only the landlord, his wife, and a half-grown daughter remained, the neglect became conspicuous. The rooms were not put in order till late in the evening, and even then the landlady would come and grumble that she could not manage so much work, and that was the reason everything was late. A leg of mutton appeared upon the table three days running, till nothing was left but the bone. In short, it was not to be misunderstood that the hotel family wished to be alone. At last, at the beginning of the second week of October, the return to Paris took place. During the five hours' railway journey Pilar was silent and moody. She felt that an enchanting chapter of her love-story had come to an end, and a fresh one beginning, the unforeseen possibilities of which filled her with alarm. She held fast to Wilhelm, and would not let him go free; but what form was their life together going to take in Paris? Not that she cared for the opinion of the world--far from it; but other difficulties remained which menaced her happiness. At the seaside all the circumstances had combined to aid and befriend them. Surrounded by people to whom she and Wilhelm were alike strangers, they were thrown entirely upon one another, and even his scruples could find nothing to prevent him treating her openly as his wife. In Paris, on the other hand, all the circumstances became disturbing and inimical. Pilar had her circle of friends, and her accustomed way of life, to which Wilhelm would have to adapt himself. Would that occur without opposition on his part? Would not many a tender sentiment be wounded beyond the power of healing in that struggle? But of what avail were all these tormenting questions? She had to look the future in the face, and prepare to engage in a struggle in which he was determined to come off victorious. From time to time she glanced at Wilhelm, and always found him deep in thought. He was reviewing, with a touch of self-mockery, the latest development of his affairs. Here he was on his way to Paris. He had not chosen this destination. Once again another will than his own had determined his path for him. He resigned himself without a struggle; he allowed himself to be taken along like an obedient child. Was it weakness? Perhaps. Possibly, however, it was not. Possibly he did not think it worth the trouble to call his will into play. Why should he, after all? As long as he might not live in Berlin, what did it matter where he lived? and Paris was as good a place as any other. To have resisted Pilar's persuasions would not have been an evidence of strength, but simply the obstinacy of a conceited fool, who wants to prove to himself that he is capable of setting somebody else at defiance. So that after all he was going to Paris because he wished it, or rather, because he saw no reason for not doing so. But as he spun the web of these thoughts in his mind, he heard all the time a still small voice, which contradicted him, and whispered: "It is not true. You are not your own master; you are going you know not whither; you are doing you know not what. Two beautiful eyes are your guiding star, and in following their magic beckoning your feet may slip at any moment, and you may be hurled into unknown depths." Pilar must have divined that Wilhelm's thoughts were enemies to her peace, and must be dispersed. They were alone in the carriage, and she could give free rein to her feelings. She took his hand and kissed it, and laying her arm round his neck, she said fondly: "Don't be so depressed, Wilhelm. Of course it is only natural that one should be afraid of any change after one has been so happy, but you shall have no cause to regret St. Valery. You will see, it will be still nicer in Paris. We remain the same as we were before, and surely my little home is a more fitting frame for our love than the bare room at the hotel!" Wilhelm started back. "You surely do not imagine that I am going to live in your house?" he cried. "But there can be no question about it!" she answered in surprise. "Never!" Wilhelm declared, with a determination that frightened Pilar, it was so new to her. "How could you think of such a thing?" "But, Wilhelm," she returned, "what else could we do? I should not like to think that it was your plan we should part at the station and each go our different ways. If I believed that, I would throw myself under the wheels of the train this very instant. We have not been indulging in a little summer romance, entertaining enough at the seaside, but which must die a natural death as soon as we return to Paris. My love is a serious matter to me, and to you too, I hope. You are mine forever, and as long as there is life in this hand, it will hold you fast," and she cast herself passionately upon his breast, and clung to him as if he were going to be torn from her. "I never said I would leave you," he returned gently, and trying to disengage himself; "but it is quite inconceivable that you should have thought you would simply bring me back with you from the journey and present me to your people." "My people! You are my all, and nobody else exists for me." "One says that in the heat of the moment, but you have relations--you told me so yourself. What will they think of us if I calmly settle down in your house?" "Think?--always what people will think. That is the only fault you have, Wilhelm. How can you do people the honor to take them into consideration when it is a question of my life's happiness? Let them think what they like. They will think you are the master and I am your slave, who only lives in and for you." Wilhelm only shook his head, for he was unwilling to wound her by saying what he thought of such an unworthy connection. She hung trembling on his looks, and asked, as he still did not answer: "Well, darling, is it to be my way? We will drive quietly home and pretend we are at St. Valery?" "No," he answered firmly, "that is impossible. I shall go to an hotel. No, do not try to dissuade me, for it would be useless." "And you can let me go from you?" "Only for a few hours. We shall be in the same town, and can see one another as often as we like." "And you would be satisfied with that?" "It will have to be so, as the circumstances will not permit of anything else." She broke into a storm of tears, and sobbed, "You do not love me." He soothed and comforted her; he kissed her eyes, he pressed her head to his heart, and tried to calm her as he would a child, but it was long before he brought her round. At last she raised her head and asked: "You are determined to go to an hotel?" "I must, dear heart." "Very well; then I shall go too." He had nothing to say against this and so it was settled. It was close upon midnight when the train ran into the St. Lazare station. Anne came hurrying from the next carriage. "You can drive home," said Pilar to her. "Take the large boxes with you. You can leave the small one and the portmanteau with me. I am going with monsieur. I shall come round to-morrow and see if things are in order." Anne opened her eyes in astonishment, but her face did not betray any further emotion, and she answered calmly: "Very good, Madame la Comtesse. Auguste is here with a cab. Does madame desire to use it?" "No, Auguste can get us another. You take his." Auguste, the man-servant, had come up meanwhile and greeted his mistress. He shot a quick glance at the strange gentleman on whose aim she leaned, but it was more expressive of curiosity than surprise; he then hurried away to carry out the remarkable orders Anne had dryly transmitted to him. Soon after he reappeared, and announced that the other fiacre was there. Fido, released from the captivity of the dog-box, sprang upon the countess with short-breathed barks that soon degenerated into a cough, and wagged his tail and frolicked madly about. When Pilar and Wilhelm entered their cab, Anne and Auguste remaining outside, the dog seemed undecided as to which party he was to follow. Chancing to catch Wilhelm's eye, he made up his mind, jumped into the cab, regardless of Anne's angry call, and licked Wilhelm's hand delightedly, accepting his friendly pat as an invitation to stay. By Pilar's direction the cab took them to an hotel in the Rue de Rivoli. As they drove along Pilar leaned silently in her corner, only heaving a deep sigh from time to time; and Wilhelm, too, found nothing to say, oppressed as he was by the consciousness of being in an untenable situation, the eventual end of which he could not foresee. Arrived at the hotel, they retired at once to their rooms and to rest, scarcely touching the supper which Pilar had ordered rather for Wilhelm than herself. She lay awake for hours, and it was daybreak before she got any sleep. It was nearly midday when she opened her eyes. Wilhelm was sitting fully dressed at the window that faced the Tuileries, gazing down upon the dreary autumnal park with its trees half-bare, the paths covered with dead leaves--its marble statues and silent fountains. She stretched out her arms to him, and he hastened over to kiss her fondly. As her eye fell upon her tiny jeweled watch, she gave a cry of dismay. "Twelve o'clock! Oh, go away--quick--and send the chambermaid to me. I will do my best to be ready soon. Wait for me in the salon. You can read the papers or write letters. But whatever you do, you must not leave the hotel--do you hear?" An hour later she appeared in the salon to fetch him to lunch, which was served in their room. Pilar was nervous and put out. The chambermaid's assistance had not been all that she could have wished. The slow waiting at lunch vexed her. Whatever trifle she might require she was obliged to go into the untidy bedroom herself and search in her boxes. Her head was full of schemes and plans, to none of which, however, she gave expression. Never had she had such an uncomfortable meal with Wilhelm. "What are you going to do now?" asked Wilhelm, when the waiter had cleared the table. "I think we had better go and have a look at our house," answered Pilar, trying hard to assume a perfectly unconcerned tone. "Of course," said Wilhelm; "and while you go home, I will take a look at the streets of Paris." "What--you are not coming with me?" "I think it better you should go by yourself the first time. You have no doubt got a good deal to set in order, and I should only be in the way." "Wilhelm," she said very gravely, "you are determined to hurt me. Have I deserved that of you?" "But, dearest Pilar--" "I want proofs that I am your dearest Pilar. I have given myself to you--body, soul and spirit. If you want my life as well, then say so. I should be overjoyed to give it you. And you? Since yesterday your every word and look tells me plainly that you regard me as a stranger, and want to have nothing more to do with me. Oh, yes, you do it all in a very delicate and considerate manner, that is your way, but there is no need to speak more plainly to me." "Do not excite yourself Pilar, I assure you that you are entirely wrong." She shook her head. "I am not a child. Let us talk it over seriously. I told you yesterday I would not let you go. Of course you understand what I mean by that. I will not keep you if you want to be free. But then be honest, and tell me frankly that you are tired of me, and want to be rid of me. I shall at least know what I have to do. Do not be afraid, I shall not make a scene, I shall not cause you any annoyance, not even reproach you. I shall receive my sentence of death in silence, and kiss the hand that inflicts it on me." She buried her face in her hands, and tears trickled down between her fingers. "And all this," said Wilhelm, "because I thought it better not to accompany you to-day. The whole affair is not worth one of your tears." "Then you will come with me?" she cried excitedly, lifting her face to his. "I suppose I shall have to, since you talk about death sentences and terrible things of the kind." She embraced him frantically, rang the bell, threw the things that lay about anyhow into the box, and when the waiter came, ordered a carriage. As they went downstairs she gave a hurried order in the office, and with a beaming and triumphant face, passed through the hall on Wilhelm's arm to the carriage. Their destination was a small house on the Boulevard Pereire, of two stories, three windows wide, and a balcony in front of the first-floor windows. At Wilhelm's ring the door was opened by Anne, who made him a careless courtesy, but greeted her mistress respectfully. Wilhelm was going to let Pilar precede him, but she said: "No, no; you go first. It is a better omen." Assembled in the hall they found Auguste, an old woman with a red nose, and a man not in livery, who expressed their satisfaction at their mistress' return, and complimented her on her improved appearance, but were in reality chiefly engaged in taking stock of Wilhelm while they did so. Pilar gave the man some direction in Spanish, and then drew Wilhelm into the salon, which opened into the hall. "Welcome, a thousand times, to this house," she said, clasping him in her arms; "and may your coming bring happiness to us both. I will take off my things now, and say a word, to my servants, and be with you again directly." With that she hurried away, and Wilhelm found himself alone. He looked about him. The salon was luxuriously, if, according to Wilhelm's taste, somewhat gaudily furnished. The walls were draped in yellow silk, the portieres, window-curtains, and gilt-backed chairs being of the same brilliant hue, though its monotony was fortunately broken by numerous oil paintings, forming, as it were, dark islands in a sea of sulphur. Opposite to the window hung two life-sized portraits of a lady and an officer. The lady wore a Spanish costume with a mantilla, the gentleman a gorgeously embroidered general's uniform, with a quantity of stars and orders, and the ribbon of the Grand Cross. In another life-sized picture this personage figured in the robes of some unknown military order, and appeared a third time as a bronze bust in a corner, on a black marble pedestal. The chimney-piece was adorned by a strange and wonderful clock, a painfully accurate copy in gilt and colored enamel of the Mihrab of the Mosque in Cordova. Between the windows, on a high buhl cabinet, stood a marble bust of Queen Isabella, a gift, according to an inscription on the base, to her valued Adjutant-General Marquis de Henares. A charming pastel under glass showed Pilar as a very young girl. As Wilhelm gazed at the dewy freshness of this sixteen-year-old budding beauty, the dazzling complexion of milk and roses, the sparkle of the merry, childish eyes, an immense tenderness came over him, and he thought to himself that surely nature had not sufficiently protected all these charms against the desire they must necessarily awaken in the beholder. Such a ravishing creature might well be excused if her heart led her astray. How could she choose aright when her beauty roused men's passion before she had had time to gain experience or judgment enough to defend herself? There were a thousand other attractions in this room. A picture, or rather a sketch, by Goya, with all the fantastic want of finish, the gorgeous dabs of color that make so many of that master's works like the visions of delirium; on an inlaid table, a little Moorish casket, through the crystal lid of which one saw a collection of old Spanish coins of astounding dimensions; a small cabinet on the wall, containing stars and orders, with their chains, on a white satin ground; a trophy formed of a sword, gold spurs, epaulettes, and a gold-fringed scarf; here and there great Catalonian knives with open blades, daggers in rich sheaths and with engraved handles, and even an open velvet-lined case with a pair of chased ivory pistols. Some photographs on the chimney-piece and on the gold brocade-covered piano arrested Wilhelm's attention. First of all, Pilar in two different positions, then the pictures of three children, a girl and two boys, and finally the full-length portrait of a gentleman in the embroidered dress coat and sword of the diplomatic service, and the handsome, vacuous, carefully groomed head of a fashion plate. Wilhelm was engaged in studying this face, with its fashionably twirled mustache, when Pilar entered the room. "You have changed your dress?" cried Wilhelm, surprised; for she had donned an emerald-green velvet tea-gown, with a long train, and her hair was hanging down. "Yes," said she, as she kissed him fondly, "for we are not going away again just yet. You will stay and dine with me--I have given the necessary orders. You must be quite sick of the monotonous hotel meals. For my part, I simply yearn to eat at my own table with you." So saying, she took his hat out of his hand, coaxingly relieved him of his greatcoat, then rang and ordered Auguste to take them away. Taking advantage of this distraction of Wilhelm's attention, she rapidly snatched up the photograph he had been examining when she came in, and hid it under the piano-cover. She then opened the piano, seated herself, and gazing passionately over her shoulder at Wilhelm standing behind her, she began playing the Wedding March out of "Midsummer Night's Dream." The melodious sounds rushed from under her fingers like a flight of startled doves, and fluttered about her, joyous and exultant. She went on with immense power and brilliancy till she came to the first repetition of the triumphant opening motif, with its jubilant blare of trumpets, then stopped abruptly, and jumping up and throwing her arms round Wilhelm: "Isn't it that, my one and only Wilhelm?" she said, with a beaming look. "My sweetest Pilar," he answered, and clasped her to his breast. His heart was really full to overflowing at that moment She took his arm and proceeded to lead him about the room, showing and explaining the various objects to him. "This is my mamma as she looked twenty-five years ago, when she went to the Feria at Seville. That is a sort of fair at Easter, and one of the most famous popular festivals of Spain. We must go to it some day together. And that is my late father as major-general. Here he is in the robes of a Knight of San Iago, one of our highest military orders. It has existed since the twelfth century, and, strangely enough, one of my ancestors was among its first members. These are my father's decorations and badges of office. Come and look at this clock, it is quite unique. The province of Cordova had it made, and presented it to my father when he gave up his command there. I suppose you recognized this pastel. It is a very good likeness. Do you think it pretty?" "Pretty! The word is a gross injustice. Say rather exquisitely, ravishingly beautiful." "Thanks, my Wilhelm. And if you had known me then, you would have loved me and wanted to marry me, would you not?" "But you would hardly have wanted to marry me, a poor devil of a plebeian, who was badly dressed and did not even know how to dance." "Do not make fun of me, you sweet, bad creature; if I had had as much sense then as I have now, I should have loved you then as I love you now, and I would have belonged to you, even if it had cost me my father's love." She gazed thoughtfully at the picture in which her innocent past confronted her in so angelic a form, and continued in tones of indescribable tenderness: "Why did I not know you sooner? Is it my fault that you who were made for me should live so far away and wait so long before you came to me? How I should have rejoiced to be able to offer you the pure young creature of this picture! But I can but give you all I have--my first real love, the virginity of my heart--surely that is something?" Her hazel eyes pleaded for a great deal of compassion, and her full scarlet lips for a great deal of love, and only a heart of cast iron could have refused her either. Beyond the salon was a roomy dining-room, hung with magnificent Cordova leather, and from this a glass door led into a pretty little garden with an arbor in the corner, and some old trees. High, ivy-clad walls inclosed the square green spot of nature. Up the stairs, on the walls of which hung many valuable pictures, for which there was no place in the rooms, Pilar and Wilhelm mounted to the second floor. They entered first a red salon with windows opening on to the balcony and in which the all-pervading scent of ylang-ylang betrayed that it was the favorite apartment of the lady of the house. She did not keep Wilhelm long in this dainty bower, but drew him into the large bedroom adjoining. The walls were draped with Japanese silk, patterned with strange landscapes, fabulous flowers, gay-colored birds on the wing, and a network of twining creatures, and drawn together at the ceiling like the roof of a tent. Out of the soft folds of the center rosette hung a lamp with golden dragons on its pink globe. There was a wardrobe with looking-glass doors, a toilette table, an immense bed of carved ebony inlaid with scenes from the antique in ivory, and chairs covered with Persian stuffs. Beside all this there was an old oak Gothic priedieu, a small altar draped in rose color and white lace, a mass of flowers, and numerous crucifixes and Madonnas of various sizes in silver, ivory and alabaster. "Are you so devout? That is news to me," exclaimed Wilhelm, surprised. He little knew that the first thing Pilar had done on entering the house was to hasten to her bedroom, kiss the holy silver Madonna del Pilar with deepest devotion, and kneel for a few moments on her priedieu. "Oh, no, I am not at all devout. I am just the pagan you have always known. But--que voulez-vouz?--one has old habits. I regard the Blessed Virgin chiefly in the light of Our Lady of Sorrows, whose heart is pierced with seven swords, and Christ as the eternal type of sublimest love. You are a heretic, but I know that pictures and symbols are not as offensive to you as to certain vulgar free-thinkers." Going up to the bed, she clung still more fondly to Wilhelm, and murmured in coy and halting tones--"Perhaps you have not noticed that everything in this room, except the altar and the priedieu, is new; I had this fresh little nest arranged for us while we were in St. Valery. I hope our rest may be sweet and our dreams happy ones." He sought nervously for some appropriate answer, but she gave him no time, and opening a door in the wall beside the fireplace, she went on--"And this is your room. Tell me, have I guessed your taste?" Without even glancing into the cozy, one-windowed room, he said, taking Pilar's hand in his: "Why torture me, Pilar?--you know it cannot be." "Wilhelm!" her voice was firm, and she looked him full in the eyes, "do you love me?" "You know it." "Do we belong to each other?" "Yes--and no." "That is not a straightforward answer. We do belong to one another. You know perfectly well that if I were free you would marry me, and then you certainly would have no scruples in coming into this house as its master. Where is the difference?" "You know where the difference lies." "It is enough to drive one crazy! Is a paltry prejudice to triumph over our right to be happy? We are both of age. We are accountable to no one on earth for our actions. An insurmountable obstacle, for the moment, prevents us making our relations respectable in the eyes of the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker by paying a few francs to a registry-office and a priest. Has the mumbling of a priest so much meaning for you? Must you first enjoy the edifying spectacle of a mavre in a fringed scarf before you can feel like my husband? Or do you want any one else's consent? My father is dead, but my mother would adore you and do anything in the world for you, if I told her you made her only child unspeakably happy. What more do you want?" "I could not reconcile myself to such a position, There is nothing to be said against your arguments. But for me to live on you--" "For shame!" she cried, and tapped him lightly on the cheek with her forefinger. "Ah, you see I love you better than you love me. If you were very rich and I had not a penny, I would not hesitate for an instant to accept everything from you. I trust my heart is of more value to you than this paltry little house and its sticks of furniture. You have my heart--what is all the rest compared with that?" He still shook his head unconvinced, but she knelt before him and said imploringly: "Wilhelm, you will not hurt me so. Even if it costs you a great deal, make this sacrifice for my sake. Give it a trial. You will see how soon you will get accustomed to it. And if not, then I am ready to go with you to the ends of the earth--to the Black Forest--wherever you will. Only try it, Wilhelm--have pity on me." He stooped to lift her up, but reading in his eyes that he was yielding, she sprang to her feet and threw herself, gleeful as a child, upon his breast. Her victory filled her with such joy she could have shouted it out of the windows. She coaxed and fondled Wilhelm, called him by every endearing name, drew him over to the long mirror that he might see how handsome he was, dragged him into his room and then back into the bedroom, and required a considerable time to recover her self-control. Meanwhile it had grown dark. She did not notice it till now, and rang for Anne to bring lamps. "Has Don Pablo come back?" she asked of the maid. "Half an hour ago, madame." "Then send up the boxes at once." "You have sent for the luggage already?" was Wilhelm's astonished inquiry when Anne had left the room. "Naturally, my darling. I was certain, you know, that you would not break your Pilar's heart." Auguste and the man whom Pilar called Don Pablo now carried up the one small box and two large ones Wilhelm always took about with him. Pilar asked him for the keys, and proceeded to put away his belongings in the various receptacles of the room. She would not suffer him to help her. Only his books she allowed him to pile up in a corner for the present; their orderly arrangement in the bookcase was put off till the daylight. At dinner Pilar was in the seventh heaven, and more in love than ever before. In her wild spirits she threw all her glasses into the garden, and would only drink out of Wilhelm's. It was a real banquet: costly Spanish wines, red and white, rough and sweet, from her well-stocked cellar, accompanied by choice dishes, and finally champagne, of which Pilar partook--valiantly. After dessert she skipped into the salon, put the champagne glass down on the piano, and between sips and kisses played and sang Spanish love-songs that drove the flames to her cheeks. That evening she was all Bacchante. In the bedroom she tore off her clothes with impatient fingers, and held out her small, high-bred feet for Wilhelm to pull off her silk stockings. He knelt and kissed the little feet, while she gazed down at him with burning misty eyes, and between the blood-red lips slightly parted in a wanton smile gleamed pearly teeth that looked as if they could bite with satisfaction into a quivering heart. It was the Sphinx and the poor trembling mouse in the dust before her to the life. When Wilhelm awoke next morning, he saw Pilar standing all fresh and ready at the bedside to greet him with a happy smile. With her iron nerves and superabundant animal strength, she required but little sleep, and had at once resumed her old habit of stealing away early to perform the rites of her toilette while he still slept. He dressed quickly, she being occupied meanwhile in completing the coquettish adornment of his room with knots of ribbon, bouquets of flowers, Japanese fans, pictures and bronzes which she arranged with unerring taste on the walls beside the mirror, over the doors and window, or strewed about the secretaire, the table, or the chest of drawers, in studied negligence. They had breakfast in the red salon, after which she led him to her boudoir, which he had not yet seen, and that looked like a pink silk-lined jewel box. She drew up an armchair beside the crackling wood fire, begged Wilhelm to sit down put a little inlaid rosewood table before him, and out of a cabinet she fetched a large Russia leather pocketbook with a gold lock and laid it on the table. "Let us settle these details once for all," she said to Wilhelm, who had watched her proceeding with surprise, "so that we need never refer to them again. You are my husband, and must relieve me now of all my business cares. Here--" she opened the pocketbook and spread out some formidable-looking papers, with stamps and seals attached, before him: "This is my check book, here the deposit receipts for my government stock and, bonds." "What do you mean?" cried Wilhelm. "I understand nothing of such things; I have never had anything to do with them, and I am certainly not going to begin now, and with you." He gathered up the papers impatiently, thrust them back into the pocketbook, which he closed with a snap, and seeing Pilar standing there like a disappointed child balked of a surprise, he added: "However, I am grateful for the suggestion, as it helps me out of a dilemma. I was at a loss in what form to put what I must say to you--you have helped me in the nick of time. Pilar," he drew her on to his knee and kissed her, "at the seaside the matter was very simple, we had only to divide the bill between us. That will not do here. I am not well enough off to defray half the expense of such an establishment as yours." "Oh, Wilhelm!" she exclaimed, horror-stricken, and attempted to jump down, but he held her fast and continued: "I know this subject is painful to you, so it is to me; but, as you said yourself, it must be settled once for all. You must allow me to defray my own expenses as I would in a good family pension. I will put the trifling sum in your pocketbook once a month, and you will have a little more for your poor--one cannot have too much for them." "I am simply petrified," murmured Pilar, "that you can take such a thing into consideration?" "It is the one condition on which I stay here," returned Wilhelm firmly. "What a dreadful proud boy you are! You will not accept a thing from me, and I told you yesterday that I would never be too proud to share your possessions with you. And if you had married me, you would no doubt have scorned to touch my dowry, and wanted to pay me for your board too." "Dear heart, I imagine the question is settled between us, and never to be discussed again. I simply cannot live free of expense in the house of my--" "Your wife," she broke in hastily. "Of my--wife." "Very well," she said, resigning herself, "you must have your own way, I suppose. But explain to me, my Teutonic philosopher, how comes it that so high-bred a body and so noble a mind can contain a corner holding such a tradesman's idea? How can one make these commonplace calculations when one is in love? Are you Germans all like that, or is it an inherited weakness in your family?" "In my family," he answered simply, and without a trace of bitterness, "as far back as I know of (though that is certainly not anything like as far as your ancestor, the first knight of San Iago), we have always worked for our living, and owed all to our own industry. I am the first who found the table ready spread for him, and who knows if it has been an advantage to me." "Now you are making fun of my ancestors, you disagreeable man--when did I ever say such a silly thing?" "I never said you did, but you asked an explanation of the German philosopher, and the German philosopher has done his best to give you one." She locked her pocketbook in the cabinet again, and there the matter ended between them. The rest of the household, which seemed to accept the establishing of the new guest without the faintest surprise, consisted, beside Anne, of the man-servant Auguste, a young, knowing-looking southern Frenchman, with a clean-shaven, lackey's face, the old Spanish cook Isabel, a colossal, unwieldly, hippopotamus-like person with a red nose, watery, bloodshot eyes, and a strident voice, and Don Pablo, who seemed to be a mixture of servant, major-domo, and the confidential attendant of the old plays. Pilar esteemed him highly, and always spoke of him in terms of respect. According to her, he came of a good Catalonian family, had served with the Carlists and received titles and orders of distinction from Don Carlos. After the downfall of the cause for which he had fought he had come to Paris like so many of his compatriots and Pilar had rescued him from terrible want. He did not live in the house, but had an attic somewhere in the town. Every morning he appeared at the Boulevard Pereire to receive Pilar's orders, was occupied during the whole day in going on errands and doing shopping of every description, and his work over returned late in the evening to his lodging. He was a tall, thin, middle-aged man with a long leathery face, a long painted nose, long oily hair, and long gray mustache. The entire loose, bony figure looked like a reflection in a concave glass--all distorted into length. Don Pablo had a deeply melancholy air, never smiled and spoke but little. During the few spare hours which the countess' service--in which his legs were chiefly in demand--permitted, he might be seen in a back room on the ground floor, engaged in manufacturing pictures out of gummed hair--an art in which he was a proficient. He had even achieved a portrait of Pilar in blonde, brown, and red hair. It looked like the queen in a pack of cards, but Don Pablo was very proud of the masterpiece, and never forgave Pilar for not hanging it in one of the salons, but in quite another place. It was this accomplishment of his which led Auguste to declare firmly and with conviction that he was nothing more nor less than a common hairdresser. The relations between the two were altogether very strained. Auguste was annoyed by the Spaniard's high-and-mighty airs, and his French instincts of equality revolted against Don Pablo's pretensions to be better than the rest of the servants. They had their meals in common, but Don Pablo occupied the seat of honor and demanded to be waited upon, while Auguste, Anne and Isabel had to be content to wait upon themselves. As ill-luck would have it, Auguste had once got a sight of Don Pablo's uniform and great order; whereupon he instantly cut out a monstrous tin star out of the lid of a sardine box and wore it at meals. Don Pablo was so furious that he spoke seriously of challenging Auguste to a duel to the death, and it required a stern order from the countess to make him give up his bloodthirsty design and Auguste his practical joke. The sharp-tongued Anne and noisy old Isabel were on a similar warlike footing. The maid was jealous of the cook because she had long, secret confabulations with the countess, who let her do exactly as she pleased, and even forgave her her pronounced liking for her excellent Val de Penas, of which she--Isabel--drank at least a barrel a year to her own account. One day Wilhelm, coming unexpectedly into the boudoir, surprised Pilar and the red-nosed cook together, the latter engaged in telling her mistress' fortune by the cards. This was the secret of Isabel's influence. She hurriedly took herself off with her cards, but Wilhelm shook his head: "I should not have believed it of my clever Pilar." "What would you have?" she returned, half-laughing, half-ashamed; "we all of us have some little remnant of superstition in some dark corner of our minds. And after all, it is very odd that ever since our return she is continually turning up the knave of hearts." And as Wilhelm was obviously still unenlightened, she explained, "Barbarian, don't you know that that always means a sweetheart?" Pilar arranged their life as if they were on their honeymoon. Every midday and evening meal was a banquet with flowers, choice dishes, and champagne, till Wilhelm forbade it; every day a drive in an elegant coupe; every evening to some theater in a half-concealed stage box, in which Pilar hid herself in the dim background. Wilhelm did not care for the theater, but Pilar insisted that he should become acquainted with the French stage. She showed him about Paris as if he were a schoolboy allowed to come to town in the holidays as a reward for having passed his examination well. And she was such an interesting, entertaining guide! She was thoroughly acquainted with the history or the anecdotes connected with the various streets and buildings, and on their way from the Column of July to the Opera House, from the Madeleine to the Arc de Triomphe, from the Odeon to the Pantheon, she unrolled a sparkling picture of Paris, past and present, now showing him the seething crowds of the lower classes and their customs and doings in good and bad hours, now describing well-known contemporaries with all that was absurd or commendable in them. Stories, scandals, traits of character, encounters she had had, adventures that had befallen her, all flowed from her lips in a gay, babbling, inexhaustible stream, and initiated her hearer into all the intricacies of Parisian life. She was as familiar with the galleries as with the famous buildings, and in front of the works of art in the one and the facades of the other she fired off a rocket-like shower of original remarks, paradoxes, and brilliant criticism. She knew exactly where to scoff and where to be enthusiastic, jeered with all the ruthless slang of the Paris gamins at the pompously mediocre sights recommended to the tourists' admiration by Baedeker, and gave evidence of deep and true comprehension of all that was really beautiful. At the very beginning she dragged Wilhelm to a photographer's studio and disclosed to him, when it was too late to beat a retreat, that he was to be photographed. What for? A fancy of hers--she wanted to have his likeness. Half-length, full-length, full-face, profile. Only when the pictures were sent home did he discover, that she did not want them for herself, but to send to her mother. It was high time she should see what the man was like who alone made life worth living for her only child. That she should draw her mother into an affair of the kind of which women do not, as a rule, boast to their families, seemed to him peculiarly bad taste. "What," he cried, "you have told your mother the whole story?" "My mother is a Spaniard, she will guess what one leaves unsaid." "And you are not ashamed that she should know?" "That is why I am sending her your likeness; she will then understand that, on the contrary, I have every reason to be proud." What she did not consider it necessary to explain to him was, that she had palmed off a complete romance upon the Marquise de Henares, to the effect that Wilhelm had saved her life at Ault while bathing, that he was a celebrated German revolutionist, and the future President of the German Republic, to whom she was affording a refuge in her house because, for the time being, he was obliged to be in hiding from the German secret police, and so forth, and so forth. The marquise believed every word. In her answer, she certainly reproached her daughter gently for having anything to do with foreign conspirators, but otherwise praised her evidence of gratitude toward her preserver, and frankly expressed her admiration for the handsome person of this interesting German. She even inclosed a note to him, in which she thanked him from her overflowing mother's heart for all he had done for her only child, and adjured him to be very prudent. He could make nothing out of it, and Pilar declared that she was equally in the dark. "I only see this much," she said in an off-hand manner, "that mamma loves you already, and will do still more so when she gets to know you personally. And that is all that matters." It was on the second Sunday after their arrival in Paris that the children came to visit their mother. Pilar looked forward with some uneasiness to Wilhelm's first meeting with them, and he too felt far from comfortable when Pilar brought a half-grown girl and a ten-year old boy to him, and addressing herself to them said, "Embrace Monsieur le Docteur, and look at him well. He is the best friend your mother has on earth. You must love him very much, for he deserves it." The girl was fair like her mother. She was already dressed with conspicuous elegance, and her manner betrayed extreme self-consciousness. She glanced at Wilhelm with sly and wanton eyes, in which it was easily to be read that she had a very good idea of the real state of the case. She offered her forehead for his kiss, bestowed a few cold and perfunctory caresses on her mother, and slipped away to Anne, with whom she spent the whole afternoon in eager whispered conversation, till the governess came to take her back to the fashionable boarding school where she was being trained to be a perfect great lady, and to make some enviable man happy in the future by the bestowal of her hand. The boy, who was accompanied by a priest, and was being educated at a fashionable Jesuit institution, was of a better sort. He gave his hand to Wilhelm shyly but heartily, while his innocent eyes looked frankly and openly into his, and then hung over his mother with a tenderness that had a touch of chivalry in it--half-funny, half-affecting. Wilhelm felt decidedly drawn to the slender, healthy-looking boy. But in the course of the afternoon another--a third child--appeared upon the scene; a lovely, brown, four-year-old boy, with bold black eyes and long raven curls, whom a maid-servant brought to Pilar that he might kiss his mamma. Wilhelm was much surprised. "Three? You never told me that," he whispered. "This is little Manuel, my sweet little Manuelito," she answered in a low voice, and buried her face in the child's black curls that she might not have to look at Wilhelm. She covered little Manuelito with kisses, and then pushed him gently over to Wilhelm, in whom the most conflicting emotions were struggling for the mastery. It was impossible to feel any ill-will toward this captivating mite with the dark Bronzino face, and yet to Wilhelm he seemed to represent a distinct act of treachery. How could she have been so underhand as to hide the fact from him that her connection with the fashion-plate diplomat had not been without results! He made as if to draw away from the boy, who stood staring nervously at him, but the next moment his natural love of children prevailed, and he clasped the sweet little fellow to his breast. "Such a lovely child!" he said, "and so young, and in need of a mother's care. Why does it not live with you?" "He lives with a sister of his father," she answered, hardly above her breath. "And you let it go?" "The father would not let me keep it. And I could not do anything against it because--it is not registered as my child, and does not bear my name." The past, to which Wilhelm and Pilar had closed their eyes till now, presented itself that afternoon in incontestably lively form before them. Dispelled was the artificial fabric of their dream of a love that was as old as life itself--dispelled the poetic figment that they were in the honeymoon of a young pure union of the heart! These three children told a tale of Pilar in which Wilhelm bore no part, and the chapters of that story bore different names, as did the children themselves. Pilar divined easily enough what was passing in Wilhelm's mind at sight of the children. She never let them come to the house again, but henceforth went to see them at their respective homes. He was sure that they liked coming to the Boulevard Pereire, and was sorry that they should miss this pleasure on his account. Pilar begged him, however, not to allude to the subject again--he was dearer to her than her children, and there was nothing she would not do to spare him a moment's unpleasantness. The first visitor whom Wilhelm saw in Pilar's house was a little tubby gentleman with a clean-shaven face and a rosette in his buttonhole, composed of sixteen different colored ribbons at the very lowest computation. He enjoyed the privilege of coming at any hour of the day, and being instantly admitted to the boudoir. He was introduced to Wilhelm as Don Antonio Gorra, and Pilar explained afterward that Don Antonio was a lawyer, an old friend of her family, and that he conducted her business affairs for her. For a time she had long daily consultations, to which Wilhelm was not invited. As soon as he left, she would come to Wilhelm with a significant and mysterious air, evidently expecting that he would ask what all this putting together of heads might mean. As he did not evince the slightest curiosity, she grew impatient at last, and asked with assumed lightness: "Are you not at all jealous, you fish-blooded German?" "Jealous? No, I certainly am not. Besides which, you give me no cause." "Indeed! and what about my tete-a-tetes with Don Antonio?" "Oh, Don Antonio!" laughed Wilhelm. "You are quite right, sweetheart, but it aggravates me that you should not want to know what he and I are brewing. You do not take nearly so much interest in my affairs as you ought." "But you told me that Don Antonio was your man of business." "Well, then--no--this time it is not a matter of business. I wanted to prepare a surprise for you." She seated herself on his knee, and laying her cheek to his, she whispered: "I have been trying to have myself naturalized in Belgium, and then, as a Belgian subject, get a divorce from Count Pozaldez. In that way I might have become your wife before the law as well." He looked at her with a face expressive rather of alarm and astonishment than joy, and she went on with a sigh, "However, Don Antonio has just told me I must give up that pleasant dream--it cannot be realized." He kissed her lips and brow, and stroked her silky hair. She laid her head on his shoulder, and remained long in silent thought. Presently she rose, walked up and down the room once or twice, and finally seated herself on a footstool at Wilhelm's feet. "But something I must do to bind you to me," she said. "I shall not rest till there is some written bond, something legal between us. I shall alter my will, and give you the place in it you occupy in my life." "Pilar," exclaimed Wilhelm, "if you love me, and if you wish that we should remain what we are to one another, never say such a word again. If I ever find out that you have mentioned me in your will, all is at end between us." She drooped her head disconsolately, and he continued in a milder tone--"Dorfling's will has not brought me so much luck that I should ever wish to inherit money again." The idea to which she had given expression did not leave Pilar, however. There should be something in writing--some document with stamps and seals to testify that Wilhelm belonged to her. This wish assumed the proportions of a superstition with her, and she never rested till it was satisfied. One morning the inmates of the house on the Boulevard Pereire saw the arrival of three carriages, which discharged eight persons at the door. A well-dressed gentleman rang the bell, marshaled his seven companions in the hall, and desired to be shown up to the countess. She was expecting him, and received him in the red salon. After a short conversation, she went downstairs with him to the yellow salon, where Wilhelm, at her request, followed them. The visitor was the Spanish consul in Paris. He produced a casket ornamented with mother-o'-pearl, broke a seal with which it was fastened, unlocked it with a small silver key, and took out a document in a closed envelope, and handed it to Pilar. He then opened the door, and permitted his followers to enter. They came in in single file, and ranged themselves silently along the wall. They were tall, lean men in great circular Spanish cloaks of brown or bottle-green, defective in the matter of footgear, and with shapeless greasy hats in their ungloved hands. Their deportment was as dignified as if they had been the chapter of a religious order, and every face was turned with an air of contemplative solemnity toward the countess. With nervous haste she wrote a few lines at the foot of the document, read it over three or four times and altered a word here and there; she then folded the paper, returned it to the envelope, and handed it back to the consul. She sealed it with her seal and wrote something on it, the seven men then advanced one by one to the table, and with extreme gravity and precision put their signatures on the envelope. The casket was then relocked and resealed, and the company withdrew with a ceremonious bow, not, however, without leaving behind them such a piercing smell of garlic that the yellow salon was still full of it next day. When Pilar found herself alone with Wilhelm, she asked: "I suppose you would like to know what all this means?" "Well, yes." "We have in Spain what we call mysterious wills, the contents of which may be kept secret. A will of that kind is valid if an official person and seven witnesses vouch for it by their signatures on the envelope that it has been written or altered in their presence. To-day I have added something to my secret will." He made a movement, but she would not give him time to speak. "Do not be afraid, I have not acted against your wishes nor wounded your pride. On our Vega de Henares in Old Castile, we have a family tomb where my ancestors have been laid to rest since the sixteenth century. It is the Renaissance mausoleum of the picture hanging in your room. The marble tomb stands in the middle of an oak wood, not far from a little brook, and it is cool and still there. I shall lie there some day, wherever I may die, and I have assigned you a place beside me. Promise me, Wilhelm, that you will accept it. Promise me that you, in your turn, will make the necessary arrangements for your remains to be brought at last to our vega. I do not know if I may ever belong to you as your wife in my lifetime, but in death I want to have you forever at my side. Grant me this consolation. Give me your hand upon it." Great tears welled slowly into the hazel eyes, and it was plainly of such sacred and earnest import to her that Wilhelm had not the heart to smile at her strained and sentimental idea. Moved and touched, he clasped her to his heart in silence. CHAPTER XII. TANNHAUSER'S FLIGHT. "To be as much alone with you in great Paris as if we were on a desert island in the Pacific--in the midst of the crowd, yet having no part with it; spectators of its amusing doings, and yet unnoticed by it. You all my world, and I yours--what a sweet and perfect dream!" Thus Pilar as she went out in fine weather, thickly veiled, on Wilhelm's arm into the crowded streets, and she did her utmost to prolong the charming delusion as far as possible. She paid no visits, invited no one to the house, avoided every familiar face in the street. Through the consul and Don Antonio, however, her more immediate circle got wind by degrees of her return to Paris, and visitors began to call at the little house on the Boulevard Pereire who would not submit to being sent away. With the versatility of mind peculiar to her, Pilar soon adapted herself to the new position of affairs, and tried to make the best of it. Of course it would have been infinitely more agreeable, she said to Wilhelm, to have been able to remain longer in their delicious seclusion, but, sooner or later, social life would have to be resumed, and it was best he should make a beginning now. "Do not be afraid," she added, "that I shall ask you to make the acquaintance of all the asses and parrots that have chattered and gesticulated round me for years. You shall only know a really select few, who are fond of me, and who can offer you friendship and appreciation." And so the march past of the elect began, most of them being invited either to lunch or dinner. Wilhelm found them very peculiar and uncongenial, and, on the whole, derived but little satisfaction from their acquaintance. Pilar had a small weakness; according to her account, each one of her more intimate friends was a striking and original character, the possessor of the rarest qualities. It was the only touch of snobbishness of which one could have accused her. She announced the arrival of an old Spanish general, "a hero of quite the antique, classic type, one of the most remarkable figures in the history of modern warfare," and there entered to them a little old man, shuffling in with the flurried, dragging gait of a paralytic, unable to lift his feet from the ground, stammering out a few commonplaces, who could not keep his gold eyeglasses on his nose, and who, when he was informed that Wilhelm had fought in the Franco-Prussian War, frankly admitted that, though he had commanded at many a grand review, he had never been in real action. Another time a Great Thinker was to appear, a profound sage, with whom Wilhelm would be delighted, thoroughly versed in German philosophy, a critic of immense and independent spirit. But what Wilhelm really saw was a slovenly, pock-marked man, with a very arrogant manner, who smoked cigarettes without intermission, and preserved an obstinate silence, behind which one was naturally free to imagine the profoundest thoughts, if one wished it; and who, when Pilar tried to lead him on to air his opinions on German philosophy, answered sententiously: "I do not care for Kant; his was not a republican spirit." A man who was said to be famed for his wit perpetrated such atrocious puns that even Pilar was forced to admit after he left that he had had a surprisingly bad day. An aristocratic member of the Jockey Club, "a truly distinguished being"--when Pilar wished to give any one the highest praise she always alluded to them as "a being"--"and not superficial like the most of his class," talked for two consecutive hours of the coming elections to the Jockey Club, and of the attempt to bring in the wearing of bracelets as a fashion among gentlemen. The only figure in this gallery which made anything like a favorable impression on Wilhelm was a Catalonian, naturalized in France, a professor at a Paris lycee. He had simple, winning manners, spoke and looked like an intelligent person, and met Wilhelm with much friendliness. He was to learn later on that this amiable, frank, unfailingly good-tempered acquaintance had made the most ill-natured, not to say defamatory remarks about him, before Pilar and her whole circle of friends. One afternoon Anne announced that "the consumptive poet was below, and begged to be allowed to pay his respects to Madame la Comtesse." "Another great man, no doubt," thought Wilhelm, sadly resigned to his fate. To his surprise Pilar turned furiously red, and said angrily: "I am not at home!" Anne retired, but came back again immediately. "He sent to ask," she said, in a tone of studied indifference, which ineffectually concealed her inward satisfaction, "what he had done to deserve madame's displeasure, and why he should be treated like a stranger?" "Anne," cried Pilar, her voice quivering with rage, "how dare you bring me such a message! If the man does not go instantly, then order Don Pablo and Auguste to see that he does." The maid withdrew, and Pilar, without waiting for Wilhelm's question, muttered resentfully: "A man I was kind to out of pity, because he was such a poor wretch, an unknown poet, and bound to die soon--and now he is impudent and intrusive. But that is just what one may expect when one is kind-hearted." Wilhelm thought no more of this episode, and had almost forgotten that it had ever occurred, when one day soon afterward a friend of Pilar's, the Countess Cuerbo, came to call. She was the wife of a fabulously rich Spanish banker, whose house, racing-stables, picture gallery, carriages, and dinners were among the marvels of Paris. This lady's most striking characteristic was a vulgar boastfulness, such as is seldom met with even among the worst upstarts of the Bourse. It was said that she had originally been a washerwoman or a cigarette maker in Seville, but this was perhaps an exaggeration. So much, however, was certain, that her husband had begun in a very small way, and had received his title at the accession of King Alfonso, in return for financial services which had materially helped toward the re-establishment of the throne. The Countess Cuerbo could now give points as to pride of station to the bluest-blooded grandee. She associated exclusively with persons of title, and strove, in every possible way, to play the "grande dame." She was always bedizened with the most costly diamonds, and so shamelessly rouged that she must have been mobbed had she gone through the Boulevards on foot. She was not actually plain, but so affected that she did not know what to do with herself, and made such frightful grimaces that one was afraid to look at her. Nor could she be called stupid, for she had the inborn natural wit of the Andalusians, and when she spoke Spanish, could give very droll turns to her remarks. Her French was calculated to induce toothache in her hearers, and in the unfamiliar language the wit evaporated and left only the vulgar behind. She was the terror of her female friends, for she considered absolute freedom of speech to be the privilege and badge of nobility, and thought herself every inch an aristocrat when she alluded, without the faintest regard for decency, not only to her own numerous affairs of gallantry, but to those of her friends to their faces. Her tactlessness had been the cause of many a disaster, but she remained incorrigible, in spite of repeated and severe snubbings and even bitter insults. No sooner had she entered the room than Wilhelm received a sample of her peculiar style. Anne announced the Countess Cuerbo. Wilhelm rose, prepared to leave Pilar alone, but the visitor had followed on the heels of the maid, and rustled into the red salon, exclaiming in her strident voice and horrible Spanish accent as she embraced Pilar: "This is your German friend, I suppose, about whom I have heard so much. Oh, please don't go away, I am so curious to know you." Wilhelm was dumfounded. Such calm insolence he had never yet encountered. Pilar shot a glance of fury at the countess, to which she did not pay the slightest attention, but examined Wilhelm insolently through her gold eyeglasses, and went on with a vulgar laugh: "General Varon told me about you, and described you to me. He thinks you very nice, and I must say I think he is right." Pilar's patience gave out. "Madame," she said very dryly, "if Monsieur le Docteur Eynhardt feels himself honored by your astounding familiarities that is his affair. I do not disguise from you that I think them in very bad taste." "Oh, my dear countess," replied the lady, in no way discomposed by this snub, "don't be so severe upon me. I have no designs upon your friend, and you need not be prudish with me. Surely ladies of our rank have no need to be particular like any little grocer's wife." That was Pilar's own creed, and before any other audience she would smilingly have agreed with the Countess Cuerbo. But she pictured to herself what an effect this tone would have upon Wilhelm's German, middle-class sense of propriety, which she knew so well, and was indignant at her visitor's cool cynicism. "Madame," she returned, still more icily, "you force upon me the opinion that there are circumstances under which it would be well to take an example by the grocer's wives whom you despise so much." This remark, in which the Bourse-countess did not fail to hear the ring of the real aristocrat's disdain, touched her in her tenderest point. She tried to smile, but turned livid under her paint, and determined to return the stab on the spot. "Don't be angry, dearest countess, I was only joking, and you know as well as anybody that we Andalusians do not weigh our words too carefully. By the bye, your French poet--you know--the one before you went to the seaside--is simply beside himself. You have thrown him over, it seems. He comes to me every day, imploring me to say a good word for him to you. He talks of challenging his fortunate successor, and goodness only knows what nonsense beside." Pilar turned very white. She sprang to her feet. "Shall I give a name to what you are doing?" she cried, her voice shaking. "Don't trouble," returned her visitor, perfectly delighted, and rising as she spoke. "I see, dearest countess, that you have one of your nervous days, so I had better come again another time." So saying she swept out of the room, throwing an offensively friendly nod at Wilhelm as she passed. To the grinning Anne, who was waiting in the hall to see her to her carriage, she said: "Well, it looks serious this time--the countess is over head and ears. But it is quite true, he is much better-looking than any of the others." "Looks are not everything," returned Anne sagely, and her contemptuous shrug conveyed plainly enough that she did not share her mistress' taste. Upstairs Pilar had rushed over to Wilhelm as soon as the countess disappeared, and hid her face on his breast. Wilhelm pushed her gently away, and said sadly: "I have no right to reproach you, or, if I did, it would only be for not having been open with me, although you boast of your extreme truthfulness." "Wilhelm," she entreated, clasping his hand in both of hers, "do not judge me hastily. I might excuse myself, I might even deny it, but I am not capable of that. When I told you the story of my life, I believed honestly that I had made you a full confession. You shake your head? Is it true--I swear it is! This man had entirely escaped my memory. Why, I never loved him! It was in some part a childish folly, but principally pity and perhaps little caprice on the part of a bored and lonely woman. My heart had not the smallest part in it. He was given up by the doctors, they thought he might die any day--in such a case one gives oneself is one would offer him a cup of tisane--the action of a Good Samaritan." "Your defense," he said grimly, as he freed himself from her grasp, "is far worse than any reproach I might bring against you. You never loved him? Your heart had no part in this childish folly? That makes it all the uglier--then it becomes unpardonable. Love alone could extenuate such a fault to some degree." He turned to leave the room, but she threw herself upon him and clung to him. "You are right--quite right, darling," her voice half-choked with terror and excitement; "but forgive me--forgive me for the sake of my love to you. That story belongs to the past, and the past is buried--buried forever. I cannot believe myself that it is not all a hideous dream--that it should be really true! It was not I--it was another woman, a stranger whom I do not know--with whom I have nothing in common. I was not alive then--I have only lived since you were mine. Oh, why did you come so late?" And her wild, passionate words sank into heartrending sobs. He could not but be sorry for her. Was it wise, was it fitting to rake up the past? Had he any right to call her to account for faults which were not committed against him? She was good and pure now. She had not broken faith with him--not even in her thoughts--for she had no eyes for anybody in the world but him! He held out his hand to her. "I will forget what I heard to-day," he said, "and do not let us ever speak again of what has been." He was quite sincere in saying this, for he really wished to forget. But our memory is not subject to our will. Do what he would, he could not banish the consumptive poet from his mind, nor the diplomat with the silly, handsome face, and other figures more shadowy than these two, but none the less annoying. He learned to know that most torturing form of jealousy--the jealousy of the past--against which it is hopeless to struggle, which will not be dispelled, and which, in its unalterable steadfastness, mocks at the despair of the heart that is forever searching after new grounds for torment, and yet cries aloud when it finds what it sought. His imagination wandered perpetually from the lovely pastel in the yellow salon to the new ebony bed, with its inlaid ivory scenes in the bedroom, and saw or guessed things between these two points that made him shudder. Thus, New Year's night found him in a very gloomy frame of mind, and the letter he wrote to Schrotter expressed a still deeper dejection than that of the year before. Since recounting the conversation about the donkey in Ault, he had never again mentioned Pilar to his friend, nor betrayed by a single word the circumstances in which he had lived since the middle of August. Such disclosures would have necessitated a moral effort on his part, for which even his friendship for Schrotter could not supply him with sufficient force. He knew that Schrotter's views on morality were neither narrow nor pharisaical, that to him virtue did not consist in the outward observance of social rules, but in self-forgetful, brotherly love and a strict adherence to duty. It would have afforded him unspeakable relief to have been able to pour out his heart to his friend, to give him an insight into his turbid love-story and the conflict in his soul. But a sense of shame--the outcome, no doubt, of his own disgust at the unsavory accessories of his love--had withheld him from making these confidences. He made none now, complained only in a general way of the emptiness of his life, to which neither desire nor hope bound him any more; especially that he had no future, and looked forward to each new day with horror and shrinking. Schrotter's answer was, as usual, full of faithful affection and wise encouragement. He chid him gently for his want of spirit, and then went on to say: "You have no future! I am amazed at such a remark in the mouth of a man of thought. Which one of us can say he has a future? To say we have a future is simply to say that we wish for something, strive after something, set some aim before us. That which we call a man's future does not lie outside of him, but in himself. I would have you observe that events rarely or never happen as we expect, and that the plans which we have worked out most zealously are scarcely ever carried out. And yet we firmly believe, all the time, that we have a future. Nature permits us no outlook into Time. A wall rises before our eyes to hide what is coming. But the cheerless nakedness of that wall being unbearable to us, we paint it over with landscapes of our own devising. And that is what the unthinking mind calls the future. Any one can paint these pictures on the wall, and to complain of its bareness is to acknowledge the poverty of one's own imagination wishing for something,--never mind what. The higher, the more unattainable, the better. Only desire earnestly, and you will feel yourself alive again. Your misfortune, my friend, is that you have not to work for your daily bread. A settled income is only a blessing to those to whom the attainment of the trifling and external pleasures of life seems worth the trouble of an effort. You are wise enough to set no value on what the world can give you. You are neither vain nor ambitious. Therefore you do not exercise your capacities in wrestling for position, recognition, honors, or fame. On the other hand, you have no need to trouble yourself about the bare necessities of life, and are thereby deprived of another occasion for bringing your strength into play. Now, you are provided with organic forces, and it is the circumstance that these forces are lying fallow that affects you like a malady. It is in work alone that you can hope to find a cure, or at least an improvement. Accordingly, if you have not sufficient strength of will to set yourself some task, my will shall come to your aid. I suggest, nay, I insist, that you proceed manfully with your 'History of Human Ignorance,' about which I have heard nothing for months, and that you show me at least the first volume ready for the press by the end of this time next year." Wilhelm caught desperately at this advice, offered to him by his friend in the paradoxical form of a command. He got out his books and papers again, and began devoting his mornings to work. Pilar was delighted. She was far too wise not to know that honeymoons do not last forever, and although she was persuaded that she, for her part, would never desire anything better than to be always at Wilhelm's side, passing the time in interminable conversations about herself and himself, in kissing and fondling, she quite understood that that was not enough to satisfy a man accustomed to a wider range of pursuits. She had looked forward with anxiety to the moment when mere love-making would pall upon him, and he would begin to be bored, and wish for a change. She had kept a sharp lookout for the approach of this ticklish moment that her ingenious mind might have some fresh interest ready for him. This trouble had been spared her. He himself took thought for a suitable occupation to fill up his time. So much the better. He had adapted himself to the circumstances, after all. He no longer looked upon it as a passing liaison, but had settled down permanently and finally to lead his accustomed life with her. It took a weight off her mind, and gave her a sense of peace and security such as she had not known since the return to Paris. She too began to come out of her shell, and to resume her former mode of life. She fulfilled her social duties, and paid and received calls, which Wilhelm was allowed to shirk. At the end of January the first ball of the Spanish embassy took place. Pilar's whole set was invited, and she could not well absent herself without exciting remark. She therefore made the necessary preparations for the festivity. A diadem of brilliants was sent to be reset, a sensational gown composed, after repeated conferences with a great ladies' tailor, a pattern in seed pearls chosen for the embroidery of the long gloves. Don Pablo galloped about like a post-horse from morning till night; gorgeous vans, with liveried attendants, from the fashionable shops stopped constantly at the door to deliver parcels; there was an unceasing stream of messengers, shop people, and needlewomen. But Wilhelm was oblivious of it all; Pilar did not trouble him with such frivolous matters. It was not till the very day of the ball that she handed him the card of invitation she had procured for him at the embassy, and asked, as a precaution: "You have all you require, have you not?" Wilhelm glanced at the pink, glazed card. "But, Pilar, do you know me so little?" "I know that you do not care for these stupid entertainments," she answered coaxingly, "but I thought you would go to please me." "So you are going?" he asked. "I must," she replied. "They know that I am in Paris, and I wish to avoid the remark that would be made if I stayed away." "You are quite right," said Wilhelm, "but you will have to go without me." "Don't be a bear!" she urged. "It will interest you to see this side of Parisian life. I don't say that I would ask you to do it often, but you might--just this once. Beside, you have been more than three months in Paris, and you do not know one real Parisian. Now, here is an opportunity of meeting artists, authors, academicians, senators--and there are some remarkable men among them, well worth talking to." "I am sincerely grateful," he returned, and kissed her hand. "Please do not trouble about it. I am quite sure that there are many people in Paris I should like to meet, but they are scarcely likely to be present at an embassy ball. And even if they were, a mere introduction, an interchange of society platitudes, would not bring me any further. No; go you to your ball, and leave me at home." Pilar sighed, and gave up the struggle, and then received the jeweler, who had brought the newly-set ornament for the hair, a miracle of taste, delicate workmanship, and splendor. In the afternoon Monsieur Martin, the prince of Paris hairdressers, arrived, to compose her a coiffure for the ball. He was a little man, with a clean-shaven upper lip, and the mutton-chop whiskers of a solicitor. He wore a long black coat, of severe cut, buttoned up to the top, and a ribbon in his buttonhole. In his very pale cravat was a breastpin with a magnificent cat's eye. Patent leather boots and kid gloves completed the faultless attire of this gentleman, whom one would sooner have taken for a minister than a hairdresser. A liveried servant followed him, carrying a silver-bound morocco box, which he took from him at the door of the boudoir, and placed with his own hands on the rosewood table. After an extremely ceremonious greeting, he drew off his gloves, seated himself in an armchair by the fire, and made the countess describe what she was going to wear. He listened with almost tragic attention, his forehead in his hand, his eyes closed. After some reflection, he exclaimed: "Where is the diadem?" Pilar placed it on the table in front of him. He contemplated it earnestly, and then murmured: "Good, very good. But now I must see the robe." "Monsieur Martin," Pilar returned reproachfully, "don't you know that my tailor respects himself far too much to send home one of his creations before the last moment?" "It is always the same story," he complained mournfully; "I am to arrange a coiffure for Madame la Comtesse, the coiffure is to harmonize with the whole, and I am not permitted to see the robe." "But I have given you the general idea of it." "General idea! general idea! Does Madame la Comtesse think that that will suffice?" "For an artist like you, Monsieur Martin--" "Oh, of course--for an artist like me! I can answer for myself, but how do I know if the tailor has caught madame's style correctly? I am perfectly competent to compose a coiffure which shall agree entirely with the type of Madame la Comtesse, but what if the tailor has been mistaken--what if the robe turns out a disguise rather than an enhancement? In that case, adieu to the harmony." Pilar reassured the sorely-tried master, and exchanged glances of amusement with Wilhelm. She had described him to Wilhelm beforehand as a Parisian oddity, and invited him to be present during the visit. While Anne enveloped her mistress in the white dressing-mantle, Monsieur Martin laid out the battery of combs, brushes, and tortoise-shell hair-pins provided by the maid, added, out of his own box, two hand-glasses, and a box of gold-powder, and began to loosen the countess' abundant tresses. As the golden waves flowed over the back of the chair to the ground, he murmured, drawing his fingers repeatedly through the silken mass: "What a fleece, Madame la Comtesse! It takes a Spaniard to have such hair." He now began rapidly and skillfully to comb, brush, coil, and fasten, to smooth away here, loosen there, shook the gold dust over it, touched the locks upon the forehead, placed the diadem, and fell back a step to review his work. A groan burst from him. "That is not it! that is not it!" he wailed, and shook his head dolefully from side to side. "I am not permitted to see the costume of Madame la Comtesse, I am not to use pads or curling-irons, and yet all is to be in the grand style--only a diadem--not a flower, not a feather! No, it will not do." He glared at her for a moment, and then cried suddenly, "No, it positively will not do!" And before Pilar could prevent him, he had rapidly pulled out all the hairpins, removed the diadem, and disarranged with nervous fingers the whole artistic edifice. "A coiffure that bears my signature must not be allowed to leave my hands like that," he said. "And yet the ground is burning beneath my feet. It is three o'clock, and I have not yet lunched." "Poor Monsieur Martin!" cried Pilar. "Will you have something to eat at once? They shall serve it to you downstairs." "Madame la Comtesse is very good, but I have no time to sit down comfortably at a table. I have all that is necessary in my carriage, and shall take some slight refreshment there, on my way to my next client." "Have you much to do to-day?" Monsieur Martin drew out a little notebook, with ivory tablets, and a silver monogram, and held it up before Pilar's eyes. "Eleven heads after that of Madame la Comtesse." "All for the embassy ball?" "No, madame; I have another dance to-night in the Faubourg, and a betrothal party in the American colony." While speaking he had not remained idle. The coiffure was being built up on a different plan, and this time Monsieur Martin appeared to be satisfied with his creation. He walked all round the smiling countess, begged her to walk slowly up and down the room once or twice, touched up the front locks a little, and then the back, and finally ejaculated: "Charming! Ravishing! Our head will have a great success!" He departed, after a ceremonious leave-taking. At the door of the boudoir his servant again relieved him of his box, and carried it after him downstairs, and a few minutes later they heard his carriage drive away. "You have not anything like that in Berlin yet," said Pilar, laughing, when the solemn and important artist had left. "I think not," Wilhelm replied; "at least, not in the circles with which I am acquainted. But I do not laugh at him--on the contrary, I envy him. He takes himself so seriously, and combs with his whole soul. Happy man!" It was about half-past ten when Pilar entered the red salon, in full ball dress. Wilhelm was sitting by the fire reading. She came up to him: "How do you like me?" she asked. She had on a salmon-colored broche velvet dress, with ostrich feather trimmings, and a long train. Shoulders and bust rose as out of pink foam from the scarf-like folds of some very airy material; brilliants flashed at her breast and on her arms, the diadem was in her hair, two solitaires in the delicate little ears, a double row of pearls round her neck, and an ostrich feather fan, with enameled gold mounts, in her hand. A superb figure! "How beautiful!" he said, and stroked her chin fondly. He dared not touch her cheeks, for fear of disturbing the pearl powder. "But you look just as regal without the brilliants." "Flatterer! Would you not like to come, after all? Make haste and dress." He only shook his head, smiling. "But are you not a little bit jealous, when you see me go off by myself to a ball? I shall talk to the men, and take their arm and dance with them; the people will look at me and pay me attention--does it not make any difference to you?" "No, dear heart, for I hope it will make none to you either." "Ah, yes--you need have no fear on that score. But still--in your place--you men, you love differently from us. And not so well," she added with a sigh, as Anne appeared with her fur-lined cloak, and announced that the carriage was waiting. Some hours later Wilhelm was startled out of a deep sleep by burning kisses. He opened his dazed eyes, and, blinking in the lamplight, saw Pilar standing by the bed as if in a cloud. She held her great bouquet in one hand, and with the other was plucking the roses and gardenias to pieces, and strewing the petals over his head and face, as she did in the sunny afternoons at St. Valery. She must have been engaged in this pastime for a considerable time, for the pillows and quilt were covered with flowers, and his hair was full of them. As neither Pilar's entry with the lamp nor the shower of blossoms had succeeded in wakening him, she had leaned over him and roused him with a kiss. "Oh, sleepy head!" she cried, and continued to rain flowers on his dazzled, blinking eyes. "At least you have been dreaming of me?" "To tell the truth," he returned, "I have not dreamed at all." "And I have never left off thinking about you all the time, and have longed so for you. Look here!" She took a lamp off the chimney-piece, and held up her ball programme before his eyes. The blank places were filled up with pencil-writing, which looked as if it might be lines of poetry: which in truth it was--Spanish improvisations breathing burning love and passionate longing. He would have understood or guessed their meaning even if Pilar had not translated them with kisses and caresses. "Now, you see, you bad boy," she went on, "those were my thoughts while I was away from you. I had not thought it would be so difficult to enjoy myself without you. It was impossible. It is only three, but I could not stand it any longer. I escaped before the cotillion. If you only knew how hollow and stupid it all seemed to me! How dull I thought the men's conversation, how ludicrous the affectations of the women! What are all these people compared to you! No, I will never go out again without you. Come, Wilhelm, and help me to undress. I will not have Anne about me now--nobody--only you." Had she been drinking champagne at the ball? Had the lights, the music, the dancing, the perfumes, her own verses gone to her head? Whatever was the cause, her nerves were certainly very highly strung, and only calmed down when the morning was well advanced, and she had exhausted herself in a thousand fond extravagances. During the next few days Wilhelm noticed something odd in Pilar's manner which he failed to understand. She seemed strangely absent and thoughtful, by turns unnaturally silent and feverishly talkative, would sit for hours beside him glancing mysteriously at him from time to time, as if she knew something very wonderful, and were debating in her own mind whether to tell it or keep it to herself. She blushed if he looked at her inquiringly, and rushed away and locked herself into her boudoir. He watched these peculiar proceedings patiently for about a week, and then asked one day, not without a secret misgiving: "Pilar, what is the matter with you lately?" Probably she had only waited for this. She cast herself upon his breast, drew his head down, and whispered something in his ear. He straightened himself up with a jerk. "Are you certain?" he asked, with an unsteady voice. "Almost, I think; yes, Wilhelm, it must be so," she stammered, hiding her face on his shoulder. It was well she did not look at him at that moment. Unskilled as he was in the art of dissembling, his face expressed no pleasure at all, but only painful surprise. For weeks, but more especially since his gloomy broodings on New-Year's night, the anxious thought lay heavy on him, "What if our connection should have results?" The situation would then become so complicated that he saw no prospect of ever putting it straight again. The idea had only hitherto been an indefinite cause of anxiety--now it resolved itself into a fact which appalled him. At the same time he could not but see how happy Pilar was at the prospect, and it seemed to him unkind, even brutal, to let her have an inkling of what he felt at her news. He kissed her in silence, and pressed her hand long and warmly. "You have not said yet that you are glad," she said, and raised her eyes to his in fond reproach. "Must one put everything into words?" he returned, with an uneasy smile. "It is true," she answered; "I ought to be accustomed to your German ways by this time. But your reserve is quite uncanny to us Southerners. You are silent where our hearts simply overflow with words quite of themselves. You are content to think where we shout for joy." With these words Pilar depicted her own state. She felt in truth that she could shout for joy, and the happy words flowed of themselves from her lips. Now at last the future stood clearly and definitely outlined before her eyes. Now indeed she was bound to Wilhelm, as was her burning desire, and that far faster than by any documents with solemn signatures and official seals. Her heart was so light, she felt as if her feet no longer touched the ground and that she must float away into the blue ether like the ecstatic saints in the church pictures of her own country. She talked incessantly of the coming being, and thought of nothing else waking or sleeping. She had not the slightest doubt that it would be a boy. Isabel had to lay the cards a dozen times, and the knave of spades came to the top nearly every time, an infallible promise of a boy. And how beautiful he would be, the son of such a handsome father, the fruit of such transcendent love! She consulted with Wilhelm what name he should receive, and wanted a definite statement or a suggestion, or at least some slight conjecture as to the profession his father would choose for him. And should he be educated in Paris? Would it not be too great a strain upon the little brain to have to learn French, Spanish, and German at the same time? What anxieties, what responsibilities, but at the same time what bliss! She did not even let Wilhelm see the whole depth of her feelings, knowing that he would not follow her in these extravagant raptures. She did not let him see her kneel two or three times a day at the altar or on her priedieu, and cover the silver Madonna del Pilar with ecstatic kisses. He knew nothing of her having sent for the priest of the diocese and ordered a number of masses. She did not take him with her when--her impatience leading her far ahead of events--she rushed from shop to shop looking for a cradle, and only put off buying one because she could find none in all Paris that was sumptuous and costly enough. This went on for about a fortnight, till one day she tottered into Wilhelm's room, all dissolved in tears, sank sobbing at his feet, and hid her face on his knee. "Pilar, what has happened?" he cried in alarm. "Oh, Wilhelm, Wilhelm," was all the answer he could get from her; and only after long and loving persuasion did she murmur in such low and broken tones that she had to repeat her words before he could understand her, "My happiness was premature, I was mistaken." She was inconsolable at the destruction of her airy castle, and was ill for days, the first time since Wilhelm had known her. He sympathized deeply with her in her grief, but he did not conceal from himself that he was infinitely relieved at the turn affairs had taken. With such a morbidly analytical and yet profoundly moral nature as his, no rapture of the senses could possibly last for six months and more. The passion in which reason plays no part was past and over long ago, and during the last few weeks he had reflected upon the situation with ever-increasing clearness and deliberation. At first he had not been quite sure of his feelings, but earnest self-examination by degrees made everything plain to him. What he was most distinctly conscious of was a sense of profound disgust at his present manner of life. Things could not remain as they were. Sooner or later it must inevitably come to the knowledge of his friends. What would they think of him for leading such a life at Pilar's side, in her house? She had children who would some day sit in judgment upon her conduct and his. And how did he stand in the eyes of the servants and the visitors whose acquaintance Pilar had forced upon him? If at least she would give up her outside circle of friends! But that she either could not or would not do, and so brought ill-natured witnesses of their relations to the house, and Wilhelm must needs accommodate himself to an intercourse with second-rate people who inevitably form the set of a woman whose domestic circumstances are not clearly, or rather all too clearly defined. And before these people, who appeared to him greatly inferior to himself, both morally and intellectually, he was forced to cast down his eyes. Reflect as he might upon the situation, the result was always the same--it must be put to an end to. But how? There remained always the possibility that her husband might die and she be thus free to marry him. Strange, he always hurried over this solution of the difficulty. In his inner consciousness he was apparently not desirous of making the connection a lifelong one, even if sanctioned by lawful formalities. Leave her. He shuddered at the thought. It would be criminal to cause her so great a grief, for he was assured that she loved him passionately, and he was deeply and fondly grateful to her for doing so. She might some day grow tired of him. He hoped for this, but the hope was so faint, so secret, so hidden, that he hardly dared confess it to himself, knowing well that it was a deadly and altogether undeserved insult to her love. And even this faint hope vanished when she whispered the news of her prospective motherhood in his ear; now there was no possibility of a dissolution of their connection. If a human creature was indebted to him for its life, he must give himself up to it, and to this sacred duty he must sacrifice freedom, happiness, even self-respect. But his heart contracted with a bitter pang at the thought. It was as if a black curtain had been drawn in front of him, or a window walled up which permitted a view over the open country from a dark room. However, he had been spared this crowning addition to the burden of his discomfort, and he breathed more freely. But the episode had served to rend the last remaining veil that hung before his moral eye. That the situation should seem so unbearable, that he was so sensitive to the opinion of others, that his blood had run cold at Pilar's news, that he had felt the disappointment of her hopes as a relief, that the idea that the danger might recur should fill him with terror--this all pointed to one fact, the realization of which forced itself upon him with inexorable persistency; he did not love Pilar, or at any rate he did not love her sufficiently--not enough to take her finally into his life, and, possessing her, to forget himself and all the world beside. In the midst of his torturing efforts to come to some conclusion he noticed that Auguste, who had come to his room with a letter, lingered about in an undecided manner, as if he had something to say but did not know exactly how to say it. "What is it?" asked Wilhelm, coming to his assistance. He liked Auguste, for he was always civil and attentive to him, whereas the hostility of the rest of the servants was easily discerned in spite of their forced show of servility. "Monsieur le Docteur must excuse me," said the man, "but I really can't listen to it any longer and keep quiet. The lady's maid never stops saying the most scandalous things about monsieur. She says it is not true that monsieur is a celebrated doctor and a member of Parliament, and that they are not going to make him President of the German Republic." "Who has been trying to impose upon you with such stories?" "But Madamela Comtess tells everybody so, and all the world knows it. I have long wanted to ask monsieur for something against the rheumatism in my left shoulder, but did not like to because madame says monsieur may not practice here." What object could Pilar have in inventing these fables? As he remained silent Auguste resumed: "Monsieur may trust me, I am discreet, and I always defend him against Anne, who is spiteful as a cat. She says monsieur is a Prussian spy and a fortune-hunter, and is simply preying upon madame. And she calls monsieur something still worse, which I would not like to repeat. It is a shame, for monsieur has never done her any harm, and it would not be quite so bad if she only let out her vile temper before us, but she slanders monsieur to outsiders and gives him a dreadfully bad name." "I am sorry that you should retail such gossip to me," said Wilhelm, making a great effort to appear unmoved. "I considered it my duty, as an honest man. I am not saying more than the truth about the maid, and am perfectly ready to repeat it all to her face. Madame la Comtesse is really wrong in keeping the viper. There are plenty of respectable and handy young women who would think themselves lucky to be taken into madame's service. I have a cousin, for instance, who has been in the best houses--Anne couldn't hold a candle to her; if monsieur would recommend her to Madame la Comtesse--" "I can do nothing in the matter," said Wilhelm brusquely. He turned his back upon the man and absorbed himself pointedly in his books. Auguste stood a moment, but seeing that Wilhelm would take no further notice of him, shrugged his shoulders and left the room. Wilhelm was surprised himself at the impression the man's information had made upon him. Dismay, anger, and shame struggled for the mastery in his breast. What a suffocating air he breathed in this house! How vile and underhand and insincere were the people by whom he was surrounded! But was this true that Auguste told him? Did he not lie and slander like the rest? Was he not doing the servant far too great an honor by letting his mind dwell on the low gossip of the servants' hall? He felt a kind of dim revolt against his own excitement which he felt to be unworthy of him, and, under other circumstances, he really would have been too proud to allow such tale-bearing to exert the slightest influence upon his thoughts or actions. But, in his present state of mind, Auguste's words sounded to him like a brutal translation of his own thoughts, condemning him for his cowardice in submitting to his humiliating position, and he recognized more clearly than ever that he must fight his way out of this degradation. It was not easy to carry out this resolve. When Pilar came to his room and took his arm to lead him down to lunch, she was as bewitching and fond as ever. At table she chattered brightly about an exhibition of pictures in the Cercle des Mirlitons, which she wanted to see with him that afternoon, asked him about the work he had done to-day, and if he had given a thought to her now and then between his crusty old books, and altogether gave evidence of such childlike and implicit confidence in his love and faith, such utter absence of suspicion as to possible rocks ahead, that that which he had it in his mind to do seemed almost like a stab in the dark. His mental suffering was so poignant as to be visibly reflected in his countenance, and Pilar interrupted her lively flow of talk to ask anxiously: "What is the matter with you to-day, darling? Don't you feel well?" He took his courage in both hands, and answered with another question: "Tell me, Pilar, did you really trump up a story about me? That I was a celebrated doctor and member of Parliament, and the future President of the German Republic?" She flashed, but tried to laugh off her embarrassment. "Oh, it was only a harmless little romance to amuse myself. You could be all that if you liked, I am sure, you are ever so much cleverer than these puppets--" She stopped short in the middle of the sentence as she caught sight of the menacing frown upon his face, drew her chair with a rapid movement close to his, and said, in her most humble and insinuating tones, "Dearest, are you vexed with me?" "Yes, for it is a humiliating, and beside which, a totally unnecessary invention, and lays me open to the worst construction." "And who has taken upon themselves to retail it to you? That Cuerbo, I suppose?" "It was not the Countess Cuerbo--not that it matters if the actual fact is true." "Forgive me, Wilhelm," she pleaded, "I thought to act for the best. The whole story was chiefly for my mother's benefit. I wanted her to love you and be grateful to you. I wanted her to take you to her heart like a son. I do not care a bit about the other people. I only told them the story to keep myself in practice. And beside, you know what the world is. A man's personal worth goes for nothing, it only cares for the outward signs of success, and that is why I said you were a celebrated man and had a great future before you. That is no invention, for I believe it firmly. And I told them that you had saved my life, because it is true, for life was a burden to me till I knew you, and you have made it worth living." "But do you not see into what a degrading position you force me?" "I hoped you would never hear about it. My intentions were so good. Our relations to one another must be explained in some way. I wanted to shield your reputation from these people and shut their mouths." "You see, my poor Pilar," said Wilhelm sadly, "your excuse is the bitterest criticism upon our relations. You yourself feel how ugly the naked truth would look, and try to dress it up before the eyes of the world. That kind of life cannot go on. We are doomed to destruction in such an atmosphere of lies. We must return somehow to truth and order." At his last words she let go of him and turned very pale. "Ah, then it is only a pretext," she cried; "you want to get up a quarrel with me as an excuse for breaking with me. That is unmanly of you, that is cowardly. Be frank, tell me straight out what you want. I have a right to demand absolute candor of you." Her words stabbed him like a knife. There was some truth in her accusation. It was neither honest nor manly to make so much of her fibs when he had something very different in his mind. She appealed to his candor--she should not do so in vain. "It was not a pretext," he said, and forced himself to look into her face that seemed turning to stone, "but a prompting cause. You ask for the truth, and you shall have it, for I owe it you. Well then, things cannot remain as they are. I cannot go on living as a hanger-on in this house. I--" He sought painfully for words, but could find none. Pilar breathed hard. "Well--in short--" The words came out as if she were being strangled. "In short, Pilar--I must--we shall have--" "I will not help you. Finish--you shall say the word." "We shall have to part, Pilar." "Wretch!" The cry wrenched itself from her breast. Wilhelm rose and prepared to leave the room. But at the same instant she had rushed to him, and clinging wildly to him, she cried, beside herself with anguish: "Don't go, Wilhelm, don't be angry with me. You don't know what I feel--you are torturing me to death." Her sobs were so violent that she could not keep upon her feet, and sank on the floor in front of him. He lifted her up and set her on a chair, and his own eyes were wet as he said: "I am not suffering less than you, Pilar, but the cup of bitterness must be drunk." "You do not love me," she moaned. "You have never loved me." "Do not say that, Pilar. I have loved you, but it is our ill-luck--" "You have loved me, you say. So you do not love me now? Wilhelm, speak--do you not love me any more?" He tried to evade the question. "You know, from the first, I did not want to come here. My weak compliance is revenging itself upon me now. You yourself only spoke of it as a trial; if I could not accustom myself to it you would not insist on my remaining." "You do not love me any more! So that is your boasted German constancy of which you are so proud! These are your vows which I took for gospel truth!" "I have no recollection of having made any vows," he retorted. He was sorry for it the moment the words had left his mouth. "That is true," she answered bitterly; "you never promised anything. You left me to do all the vowing. It is unpardonable of me to reproach you, I have no claim upon you. I forced myself upon you--why don't you tell me so? Shout it in my ears! Despise me, kick me--I deserve no better. I have been guilty of the deadly sin of loving you madly, and forgetting everything else in the world for that. You are quite right to punish me for it. And see how low I have sunk! see what my love has brought me to! You may curse me, you may ill-treat me; I love you all the same, Wilhelm--do what you will, I love you all the same." She was so distraught that she could not stay in the dining room. With a sudden violent movement she grasped his arm and dragged him away with her upstairs to the bedroom, where she threw herself exhausted on the sofa. Wilhelm stood before her, looking thoroughly crestfallen, and wishing devoutly that he had the dread hour behind him. The silence frightened Pilar. She raised her head, and said in a weak, changed voice: "It is all over, is it not? Tell me that it was only a bad dream--tell me that you will not frighten me like that again." "Pilar," he returned miserably, "I wish you would listen to me quietly. You are generally so reasonable." "No, no," she cried; "I am not reasonable--I will not be reasonable. I love you out of all reason. I shall repeat it a thousand times, till you give up talking to me of reason." "And yet it is impossible for me to stay in this house." She straightened herself up, looked at him for a moment, and then said with unnatural calmness, as she wiped the tears from her eyes: "Very well; but if you go I shall go with you." "What! you would leave your home, your friends, your beloved Paris--give up all you have been accustomed to, and follow me to Germany?" "To Germany--to the Inferno--wherever you like." "You do not mean it seriously." "I do mean it, very seriously. I cannot live without you." "But you have duties, you have your children--" "I have no children, I have only you. And if my children were a barrier between you and me, I would strangle them with my own hands." She spoke with such savage determination that he shuddered. But the battle must be fought out. He must not yield now. "There is nothing for it," he said after a pause, during which he stood with downcast eyes, fumbling nervously with the buttons of his morning coat. "Our position would be equally wretched wherever we were. Fate is stronger than we are. I do not see how we are to escape it. Wherever we went, we should have to hide the truth, and surround ourselves with a tissue of lies, and that I cannot stand. I would rather die." "Die?" she exclaimed, and her eyes flamed up weirdly--"I am quite ready. That is a way out of the difficulty. Die--whenever you like; but live without you? No, I will cling to you; no power on earth shall tear me from you. If you want to shake me off, you will have to kill me first." "And yet you said you would not try to hold me back if I wished to leave you." "And you remembered those foolish words! While my heart was overflowing, you listened coolly and took note of everything, so that you might use it against me afterward. I really did not think you were so noble, so generous minded, as that." "You see that you were mistaken in me. I am narrow-minded, mean-spirited, a thorough Philistine; you have said so repeatedly. What do you see in me to care for? Let me go." "Oh, how you fix on every word and then turn it against me! I am not equal to you; you are stronger than I, because you do not love me and I love you. What do I care if you are narrow-minded--a Philistine? If you were a highway robber I would not let you go." She stretched out her arms to him and drew him to her, and pressed him so tightly to her bosom that he could hardly breathe. Then she burst into tears, and wept so bitterly, so inconsolably, from the bottom of her heart, like a child who has been very deeply hurt. In order to value woman's tears aright, one must have often seen them flow. Wilhelm was a novice in this respect. He imagined that Pilar's tears were the outcome of the same amount of pain as he must have felt to weep like that, and every drop fell like molten lead upon his heart. His resolutions melted like ice before the fire; he had not the courage to wound this clinging, loving, sobbing creature. He rocked her gently in his arms till, exhausted by her frightful excitement, she fell asleep. The storm was averted for this time, but her confidence, her joyous sense of security, was gone forever. The scene left her with a nervous restlessness which gradually increased to morbid fear. She was haunted by the idea, that Wilhelm had some plan for deserting her. She could not get rid of the thought--it assumed the aspect of a possession. She changed color as she did regularly two or three times in the course of the morning--she opened the door of his room unexpectedly and did not see him at the writing table, because, maybe, he had gone out on to the balcony for a moment, to rest from his work and cool his heated brow. Then she would search the house distractedly till she found him, and breathed again. In the night, she would start up, and feel about her hurriedly, to make sure that Wilhelm was there. She would not let him go a step out of the house without her. She even accompanied him to the National Library, and while he read or made notes, she sat beside him apparently occupied with a book, but in reality never taking her eye off him. She made no more visits except to the houses where she could take Wilhelm with her. She had curious jealous fancies, examining, for instance, with great care every letter that came for him, lest the address should be in a feminine hand. Her desire to be forever proving to herself that he was there, that he still belonged to her, took the form of an insatiable craving for love, admitting, so to speak, of no pauses for digestion. She was a beautiful, greedy werewolf, knowing neither consideration nor restraint, her vampire mouth forever draining the warm life-blood. "She is crazy," said Anne to one of Queen Isabella's ladies who had been calling on Pilar, and remarked afterward to the maid that she found the countess strangely altered. Isabel, the cook with the red nose and alcoholic, watery eyes, passed whole mornings with her mistress laying the cards, till she forgot all about lunch. The father confessor, too, became an ever more frequent guest in the house of his fashionable parishioner, and received in exchange for his mild and discreet exhortations, donations for his church, gifts for his poor, and requests for masses and prayers. But in none of these distractions did Pilar find the peace she sought, and in her terror of heart she telegraphed one day to her mother to come at once to Paris and stay with her for a time. Don Pablo had taken the message to the office, and talked about it afterward downstairs. Auguste hurried to retail the news to Wilhelm, who had no difficulty in understanding the motive. In the first moment he thought he was glad of the approaching arrival of the Marquise de Henares. For, distasteful as the idea might be that the mother should become a witness of the daughter's questionable relations, he hoped that her presence would have a quieting effect on Pilar, and help to bring her to reason. But, on second thoughts, he was seized with afresh anxiety. He knew that Pilar's was the stronger spirit of the two, that she had a great influence over her mother, and could induce her to adopt any opinion or feelings she might choose. What if the marquise ranged herself on her daughter's side? Then, instead of one, he would have two women against him, and his struggle for freedom, in which he had already succumbed to one of them, would be utterly hopeless. The Marquise de Henares did not come. She wrote that she was out of health, and was beside detained in Madrid by a thousand social duties; but in the spring or summer she would be very pleased to come and spend a few weeks with her only child and her grandchildren. Wilhelm maintained an outward show of calm. He did not renew his attempt at revolt, made no resistance against the fact that Pilar took entire possession of his existence, and clung to him like his shadow; he only grew paler, and quieter, and more despondent than before. But he pondered day and night upon some way of unraveling the knot, and was in despair at finding none. Should he cut it? He could not. He lived over again the scene in the dining room; he pictured to himself how Pilar would sob, and fling herself on the floor, and clasp his knees, and tear her hair, and saw himself, after a useless repetition of his torture, disarmed anew. For one moment he thought of giving a cry for help, of calling Schrotter to his aid, but he was ashamed of his want of manliness, and put the idea from him. There was nothing for it but to resign himself. He did so with a gloomy, desperate relinquishment of all his principles, his sense of morality, his ideals of life. He was the victim of a malign fate, and there was no use fighting against it. He must accept it as he would sickness or death. He was untrue to himself, was a dissembler before himself and others: it lay in the inexorable logic of things that he must suffer for it. But what a shipwreck! After a pure and dignified life, wholly filled up by duty and a striving after knowledge, entirely devoted to warring against the animal element in man, and to educating himself up to an ideal standard of freedom from ignoble instincts, thus shamefully to choke and drown in the muddy lees of a love-potion! Pilar, who fancied him reconciled to the situation, grew easier in her mind, and by degrees lost much of her distrust. About a month later, toward the middle of March, she had so far regained her equanimity as to allow herself, after a steady resistance, to be persuaded by a friend to attend her house-warming ball--"pendre la cremaillere," as they call it in Paris. The friend was quite as superstitious as Pilar herself, and had vowed a hundred times over that she would have no luck in her new house if Pilar were absent from the opening ball. It was not till ten o'clock in the evening that she finally made up her mind. She waited till Wilhelm had gone to bed, and then sent for Isabel, and shut herself up with her in the boudoir. After Isabel had turned up the knave of hearts eight times running, and she had seen that Wilhelm was in bed, reading the newspaper, she gave Anne and Don Pablo a few orders, dressed hurriedly, and went off, after many kisses and embraces, and with the promise of not staying long. Wilhelm read his paper to the end, blew out the light, and turned himself to the wall. But sleep forsook him, and he stared with wide-open eyes into the darkness. Suddenly an odd suggestion flashed across his mind--was rejected--returned again obstinately, grew stronger, and finally was so imperative that Wilhelm sat up in bed excitedly and relit the candles. Don Pablo had gone home, Anne had accompanied Pilar, Isabel was in the back premises, engaged upon the Val de Penas, two fresh casks of which had lately arrived, and Auguste was probably in his bedroom asleep. He was as good as alone in the house. Now or never! He sprang out of bed, and began to dress with a beating heart. Had it come to this with him? He was on the point of committing an act of cowardice--yes, but no greater, perhaps even less so, than smouldering away in slavery and degradation. It was an ugly breach of trust. Not really so, for he had expressed, himself plainly to Pilar, and she must know how matters stood between them. Moreover, if you fall into the mire, you cannot expect to get out of it again without besmirching yourself. But--what will poor Pilar's feelings be when she comes home and finds him gone? At the picture he faltered, and very near returned to bed. But no--he put it forcibly from him. He rapidly finished dressing, and went into his room to collect such things as were absolutely necessary. The two large trunks had been removed, and would in any case have been out of the question at this juncture. The portmanteau lay behind a wardrobe. Into it he stuffed some linen and clothes, a few books and his manuscript, cast one look round the rooms in which he had encountered such heavy storms of the heart, extinguished the lights, and walked resolutely downstairs. The gas was burning in the hall, the front door stood half open, and on the doorstep was Auguste, talking to a maid-servant from the next house. She flitted away as the man turned round, and, to his astonishment, perceived Wilhelm with a portmanteau in his hand. He stepped quickly indoors. "Ah," he said in a muffled tones, "Monsieur le Docteur! I understand--I understand. I would have done it long ago. It really couldn't go on like that any longer. But monsieur might have said a word to me; for as to me--I am dumb!" Wilhelm was crushed to the earth. So he was not to be spared one humiliation, not even the patronizing familiarity of this lackey! But it could not be helped now. Regardless of his opposition, Auguste took the portmanteau out of his hand, and asked with eager civility where he should carry it. "Only to a fiacre," Wilhelm answered. They went out together into the Boulevard Pereire, and as they walked along beside the deep cutting of the circle railway, Auguste inquired: "Monsieur is leaving Paris, no doubt?" Wilhelm made no reply. "Has Monsieur le Docteur left any address?" he continued urgently. "No," answered Wilhelm. "But it would be better if he did so, in case any letters might come. And it will surely interest monsieur to know how things go on in the house. Monsieur need only confide it to me. I would not tell it to a single soul, not even if le bon Dieu himself came down with all his saints." Wilhelm was weak enough to form a fresh link between himself and Pilar, when he had just severed the old one. He wrote Schrotter's address on a leaf of his pocketbook and gave it to Auguste, saying: "Anything will reach me safely under that address." They reached the cab stand in the Avenue de Villiers; Wilhelm got into one, took the portmanteau inside, and pressed a sovereign into Auguste's hand, who thanked him and asked where the cabman was to drive to. "First of all, just along the avenue," answered Wilhelm. Auguste grinned as he repeated this order to the driver, and was just closing the door, when there was a yelp of pain. "Infamous beast!" cried Auguste, and gave Fido, who had followed them unperceived, a kick. The poor animal had always been accustomed to going with them when Wilhelm and Pilar drove out, and now was preparing to jump into the vehicle, when he just escaped being crushed in the door. Wilhelm stooped to give the puffing, affectionate creature a farewell pat. "Monsieur should take him as a souvenir," said Auguste, with thinly-veiled sarcasm. "Nobody will take any notice of him now, in any case." "You are quite right," said Wilhelm, and let the dog come in. The fiacre moved off, and Auguste looked after it for a long time, as he whistled the latest popular air. CHAPTER XIII. CONSUMMATION. It wanted but little to midday when Wilhelm came out of a hotel on the Neuer Jungfernstieg in Hamburg, and made his way toward the Alster, Fido trotting behind him, whose coat, for want of its accustomed daily washing and brushing, looked sadly neglected. The sky was thickly overcast, the air unusually mild, on account of the prevailing west wind, and the pavement of the Jungfernstieg damp and muddy. A thin veil of yellow fog lay over the Binnen Alster, giving the objects far and near the indefinite, wavering appearance of a mirage. Above the dark masses of houses to the right rose four sharp spires, from the points of which, smoke-wreaths seemed to rise and trail away. Far away in front the Lombardsbrucke was just distinguishable, its three arches apparently hung with gray draperies. Swans glided lazily in groups or singly over the muddy-looking surface of the water, or came under the open windows of the Alster Pavilion, through which late breakfasting guests threw them crumbs. The small, green-painted Uhlenhorst steamer lay alongside of the second landing-place. Wilhelm stepped on board, and remained on deck, staring absently into the fog or at the dim outlines of the houses on the shore. On the night of his escape from the Boulevard Pereire he had driven to the Gare du Nord, and taken a midnight train, which brought him at about six the next evening to Cologne. He was dead with fatigue when he got there, stayed the night, and went on the following afternoon to Hamburg. He had been there two days now, but had not been able till to-day to gather sufficient courage to go and see Paul. Solitude had been an absolute necessity to him; he fancied that he who ran might read upon his brow the story of how he had lived and of what he had been guilty. His thoughts were incessantly in Paris. During the journey, in Cologne, since his arrival in Hamburg, he saw nothing but Pilar's room, her return from the ball, and her passionate exhibition of grief during the hours and days that followed. He only lived in these imaginings. There seemed as yet no immediate connection between his natural surroundings and his mental life. He felt as if a few steps would bring him again to Pilar's side, and more than once the desire came over him to return to her, and lay himself at her feet, there to vegetate luxuriously henceforth, without a will or thought, to the end. He resisted this impulse, but he was powerless against the tyranny of his imagination, which ceased not to call up before him the scenes that were being enacted in the house in Paris. After a minute or two the boat started. The shores receded and spread apart, and the lines of houses came and went like dissolving views upon a white wall. The boat shot under the dark and clammy arch of the bridge, where the echo increased the splashing of the steamer waves and the thump of the machinery to a roar. The noise subsided suddenly, as when a damper is laid over a resounding instrument; the steamer had passed the bridge, and floated out on to the broad waters of the Aussen Alster, which widened apparently into a great bay, the mist having wiped out the boundary lines between its oily surface and the flat shores which barely rose above it. The boat described bold curves from side to side, touching at the different landing-places, and presently--dimly at first and then more distinctly--the square tower and ponderous, castle-like structure of the Fahrhaus Hotel came in sight. The steamer had reached the furthest point of its journey. Wilhelm found himself once more at the familiar spot which had so often been the goal of his short walks with Willy. Scarcely ten months had elapsed since he had looked at it for the last time, but his morbid mental vision prolonged that time to an eternity. He felt like the sultan of the Eastern legend, who fancied he had lived an entire lifetime, while, in reality, he sank for one moment into his bath in sight of his whole court. He overcame a strange attack of shyness, and rang at the door in the Carlstrasse. The liveried servant opened it, gave an exclamation of surprise, and hurried before him to the smoking room. Wilhelm followed closely on his heels, and only left him time to open the door and call loudly into the room: "Herr Dr. Eyuhardt!" "What! Is it you or your ghost? Well, I must say--" cried Paul, overjoyed, receiving him with open arms. The first tempestuous greetings over, he pressed him, down upon the sofa, seated himself beside him, and rained down a torrent of questions upon him--Where had he come from? How had he fared all this time? What were his plans? And, above all things, where was his luggage? "At the hotel," Wilhelm answered, a little nervously. "At the hotel? Are you in your right senses? There is only one hotel for you in Hamburg, and that is the hotel Haber. Were you so uncomfortable there before that you have withdrawn your custom from it?" "Don't try to persuade me, my good Paul. Believe me, it is best so. Your hospitality oppresses me." "Is that the remark of a friend?" grumbled Paul. "It is a fault in me, I know, but I do beg of you to let me have my own way." "Just wait till I send Malvine to you--you will have to lay down your arms before her." "No, Paul, I really cannot live in your house again. I will come and see you--so often that you will get tired of me--" "Never!" "But let me live here as I am accustomed to in Berlin, especially as it will probably be for a long time." "Then you are going to stay in Hamburg? That is splendid!" "For the present at least. I see nothing else to be done." "But in the summer you will surely come and spend some weeks at Friesenmoor?" "That is more likely." The door opened and Malvine hurried in, and ran up to Wilhelm as he rose to meet her. "To think of you falling from the clouds like this!" she cried, and shook both his hands warmly. "Not a letter, not a telegram, nothing! Well, you knew, at any rate, that you would always be welcome." Again he had to make a determined stand against having their hospitality forced upon him, and kind, persistent Malvine would not give up the struggle as easily as Paul. As Wilhelm, however, was equally persistent in his refusal, and would not even divulge the name of his hotel till they had sworn to leave him his independence, they finally gave up the fight. "And now tell us all that has happened to you," said Paul, patting him on the shoulder. "You must have had a very good time, for you either did not write at all or only in a flash--like this: 'Dear friend, am quite well--how are you all? Best love--always yours.' Well, I don't think any the worse of you. In gay Paris one has something better to do than to think of dull old fogies on the Uhlenhorst." "You don't think that seriously," answered Wilhelm, pressing his hand. "I should rather be inclined to think that the doctor had been ill," said Malvine, whose woman's eye had instantly remarked the pallor and weariness of Wilhelm's thin face. "Really--have you been ill?" cried Paul, concerned. "No, no, there is nothing the matter with me," Wilhelm hastened to answer, with a forced smile. The awakened anxiety of his friends would not be dispelled, however, till he had repeated his assurance many times, and reinforced it by additions and enlargements. Paul then returned to his question as to Wilhelm's adventures, the latter doing his best to get out of it by a few vague remarks on the uneventful character of his life during the last few months, and then hurried to descant on Paris, describing the town to them with the volubility of a guide-book. On his inquiring in return about their affairs, Paul and Malvine vied with one another in the redundancy of their account. All was well, so far. At the last distribution of Orders Paul had received the Order of the Red Eagle, and beside that, during the course of the winter, two new foreign decorations. There were all sorts of innovations on the estate, which he described in detail. At present he was hard at work on an entirely new scheme: the founding of a colony on the moor, composed of discharged prisoners, tramps, and such like ne'er-do-wells; where, by supplying them with agricultural labor, they might be brought back to a decent and remunerative way of life. Malvine had much to tell of the autumn and winter festivities, both at her own and other houses, and also, that of the three heiresses whom she had picked out for Wilhelm, one was married, another engaged, and there remained only the third, the one with the curly hair, who still asked after him from time to time. Meanwhile the news of Wilhelm's arrival had penetrated as far as Willy, who now came rushing in. "Onkelchen, Onkelchen! have you come back?" he shouted, long before he reached Wilhelm, and stretched out his little arms to him. He had not grown much, but was plump and rosy as a ripe apple. Wilhelm kissed him, and stroked the soft, fair curls that felt so much like Pilar's silky hair. "Have you been a good boy all this time?" he asked. "Oh, yes, very good--haven't I, father?" the boy cried eagerly. "And I can read now--everything--the newspaper too. I got a beautiful big box of bricks for it at Christmas." Wilhelm had taken him on his knee, but the lively child would not keep quiet for long. He jumped down and hopped about in front of his godfather and chattered away. "I say, Onkelchen, you have just come in time for my birthday, haven't you?" Wilhelm had not thought of it. "When is your birthday, my boy?" he asked, rather crestfallen. "Why, don't you know? It is the day after to-morrow. And what have you brought me?" He did not wait for an answer, having caught sight, at that moment, of Fido, who, shy as all dogs are in a strange place and among strange people, had crept away under a table, and sat there very still with his eyes firmly fixed on Wilhelm. "A dog! A spitz!" Willy shrieked with joy. "Is he for me, Onkelchen?" He rushed at Fido, took hold of him by the paw, and dragged him out. Malvine cried anxiously: "Let him go, Willy!" But Wilhelm reassured her. "He won't hurt him, he is quite gentle." Fido allowed himself to be dragged without much resistance into the middle of the room, only turning his head away nervously and eying the child askance, as if doubtful as to his intentions. But when Willy began to pat and stroke him kindly, and set him on his hind legs in the first position for begging, Fido realized that no harm was going to befall him, and attached himself instantly to the new friend with that easy confidence which was this sociable creature's great fault of character. He fell to wagging his bushy tail in a highly expressive manner, tried to lick Willy's rosy face, and was altogether so overcome by pleasing emotions that he got a severe attack of coughing, sneezing, and snorting, and Willy exclaimed: "My Spitz has caught a cold on the journey. We must give him some black-currant tea, mother!" The boy took a great delight in the dog, playing with him the whole time of Wilhelm's visit, feeding him at dinner, and even wanted to make him drink beer, which Fido steadfastly refused to do, and was much disappointed when, at leaving, Wilhelm prepared to take the dog with him. "Didn't you bring him for me?" he asked with a pout. Wilhelm consoled him by promising that he should see Fido every day, and solemnly transferred to him all legal rights to the animal. On these conditions Willy was content that Fido should go on living with Wilhelm, and that he should come frequently on a starring tour, as it were, to the Carlstrasse. Wilhelm's first visit to his friends on the Uhlenhorst did not tend to lighten his spirit. In their home he breathed a pure and wholesome atmosphere, which, it seemed to him, he must contaminate by the heavy, noxious perfume which still clung to him, and which he could not get rid of. Their life was as transparent as crystal, every moment would bear the scrutiny of the severest eye. He, on the other hand, had much to conceal. His memory recalled many a scene; he saw himself again in various situations, and thought--what would they say if they knew? Paul and Malvine told him cheerfully of all that had occurred to them during the last eight months; he was condemned to lock away his experiences in the depths of his heart. His open and confiding nature was little used to keeping a secret. It rose to his lips as often as he found himself alone with his friend, and his longing to unburden himself was all the more intense that he had himself formed no certain judgment on his course of action, and yearned to hear from the mouth of an unprejudiced person of sound moral tone and worldly experience, that he had done no great harm. He carried in his own breast an accusing voice which called him faithless and mean-spirited, and showed him Pilar as the victim of his treachery; and he had need of an advocate, seeing that he was himself unable to refute these accusations with any sort of confidence. He was to receive the support he longed for. Soon after his arrival in Hamburg he had written to Schrotter, telling him of his change of residence, and expressing, at the same time, his intense desire to see him again after their long separation, also, if it would not be asking too much, to propose that he, Schrotter, should make a short journey, say to Wittenberg, where they might meet and spend a few days together, if it were possible for Schrotter to get away from Berlin for a short time. Schrotter answered by return of post. He was delighted to find that Wilhelm was so near, and promised to take advantage of the first fine days of April to make his little excursion to Hamburg. He would arrange it so that he could at least spend a week with Wilhelm. It was not impossible that he might bring Bhani with him. Only a fortnight had passed since Wilhelm received this letter, when, on his return one afternoon from the Uhlenhorst, the hotel porter informed him that a gentleman had arrived from Berlin, and had asked for him; that he was expecting him in his room, the number of which he mentioned. With joyful foreboding Wilhelm hurried upstairs so fast that Fido could not follow, and knocked at the door. A familiar voice answered. "Come in!" and the next moment he was in Schrotter's arms. The first greetings over, Schrotter gave his young friend a long and penetrating look from under the half-closed lids, and remarked "I suppose you are surprised that I did not wait till April, but dropped down upon you unawares like this?" "I am too delighted to be surprised," answered Wilhelm, and pressed Schrotter's large, strong hand. He had scarcely altered at all in the year and a quarter, and with his herculean shoulders and powerful head, his fair hair, blushed into a great tuft above his forehead, only just beginning to turn gray, he was still the very type and picture of ripe manhood and strength. "But I had a reason for changing my original plan," Schrotter went on. "Unwittingly I have committed a breach of good manners against you, for which I must personally ask you to forgive me." He drew a letter out of his breast-pocket and handed it to Wilhelm. "This letter came yesterday. Seeing the address, I took it for granted that it was for me, and so I read it, and discovered then that it was for you." Wilhelm turned pale as Schrotter handed him the letter. It bore the Paris postmark, and Schrotter's name and address in a large, clumsy hand. Nothing on the outside to betray that it was for Wilhelm. Auguste--Wilhelm divined at once that he was the writer of the letter--had not thought of putting it in a second envelope directed to Wilhelm, or of adding his name to the original address. Wilhelm's hand shook as he unfolded the letter, and a veil fell before his eyes. For one moment he had the idea to put the letter in his pocket, and say he would read it later on, for it was torture to him that Schrotter should be a witness of the emotion he knew he must feel on reading it. But of what use was it to dissemble? Schrotter would have to know. He glanced over Auguste's stiff characters. The man wrote in his ill-bred tone, with spelling to match: "PARIS, March 26, 1880. "MONSIEUR LE DOCTEUR: It is a week now since you left, and time that you should know what has been going on during that time. It was as good as a play! But you shall hear. "When Madame la Comtesse came home, and I opened the door to her, I said nothing, but I thought to myself--what a row there will be presently. And sure enough, she had hardly set foot in her rooms when we heard an awful scream. It didn't scare me, because I knew all about it; but Isabel came tumbling out, and howled in French and Spanish mixed: 'Is it a fire? Are there thieves in the house?' It was enough to make you die of laughing. "I was called upstairs and questioned by Anne--the countess had not the strength. She was kneeling in her ball-dress beside the bed, her face buried in the pillows that still showed the pressure of your head, and crying as if her heart would break. I know that madame cries very easily--she has always been that way as long as I have known her--but I really should not have thought, to look at her, that she could hold such a quantity of tears. Anne cross-examined me like a magistrate, but of course I made an innocent face, and knew nothing at all. I saw plainly that she did not really care a bit, the viper, for while she was cross-questioning me she gave me a look once or twice that told me quite enough. But Madame la Comtesse is very sharp. She saw at once that I knew more than I had a mind to tell. She turned a face to me, as white as a cheese, and looked at me with such eyes, that I might well have been frightened if I had not--I may say it without boasting--been born in Carpentras. At first she tried it with kindness, and then she threatened to turn me out of the house that minute, and then she wanted to bribe me by all sorts of promises--ma foi! it was not a very easy moment, but I stood firm, and madame threw herself back on the bed, and the tap was turned on full again. Would you believe it, that that Anne had the face to say to madame she had better look in the bureau to see if her money and jewels were safe. 'Silence, wretch!' cried Madame la Comtesse, so that the windows rattled, and gave the person a look that made her double up like a penknife. She does not come from Carpentras. To make a long story short, none of us went to bed that night. Madame took it into her head you might have gone for a little walk in the middle of the night, and would come back. Good idea, wasn't it? But when the morning came, she saw that the bird had really flown, and that changed the whole affair. She took to her bed, and stayed there for five days with the room all darkened, ate nothing, drank nothing, was delirious, had four doctors called in each at fifty francs the visit, beside priests and nuns, and Madame la Marquise, her mamma, got three telegrams, one longer than the other, and arrived here the day before yesterday, and now they are trying which can cry the most. But the daughter has the best of it. Since she had her mamma with her, madame seems calmer. She got up yesterday for the first time, and--not to keep back anything from you--I have great hopes that in a fortnight or three weeks' time we shall see her going to balls again. That will do her a world of good. "She had your things taken up to the box-room, so that she might not see them any more, and Madame la Marquise has your room, but Madame la Comtesse never sets foot in it. The artist in hair says that there is talk of renting a new house, or even of going to Spain. I should be very sorry to leave Madame la Comtesse, but to Spain I would not go. "I should be glad to know from Monsieur le Docteur whether, after madame has consoled herself a little, I may give her monsieur's address, that his things may be forwarded. I hope you are well, and that you will write me a line. You need not be anxious about madame, she will soon be all right again. You were not the first, and, let us hope, you will not have been the last. "I salute Monsieur le Docteur, "Your very obedient servant, "AUGUSTE. "POSTSCRIPT.--In spite of her desperation, madame had the presence of mind to try and persuade Anne you very probably had to fly from your political enemies, or had even been carried off and murdered by Prussian agents. Anne said, 'Yes; such things have happened.' The viper! You did well to take yourself out of this." Wilhelm was unaware that he read the letter twice or three times over without a pause between. When he was beginning for the fourth time, he suddenly remembered that he was not alone, and that Schrotter was sitting there watching him. He folded the letter in confusion. He had not the courage to say anything, or even to look at his friend, but dropped his hands and his head, and cast down his miserable eyes. Schrotter was the first to break the silence. "I must beg you once more to forgive me for opening the letter. Of course, I could not have an idea--" "No," said Wilhelm in a low voice, "it is for me to ask your forgiveness for not having been open with you. But I had every intention of making good my fault. It was for that I asked you to meet me at Wittenberg." "Spare yourself the telling of anything that might be painful to you," said Schrotter, with kindly forethought. "I can guess the drift of it, and now understand your last letter. I thought you would probably be in a frame of mind to need a friend near you, and so I came without delay." "I will not leave you to guess anything," Wilhelm returned, and pressed Schrotter's hand. "I will tell you all; it is an absolute necessity to me, and will, at the same time, be a kind of atonement." And he began his confession in a low, dull voice, and with downcast eyes, like a sinner acknowledging a shameful deed, and Schrotter listened to him gravely and in silence, like a priest before whom some poor oppressed soul is casting down its burden of guilt. Wilhelm kept nothing back, neither the mad intoxication of the first weeks, nor the bitter humiliation of the last. He disclosed Pilar's passion and his own weakness, the pagan sensuality and the artifices of the woman's insatiable love, and the unworthy part he had played in her house before the servants and strangers. He spoke of his tormenting doubts as to the justice of his actions, and concluded: "And now, tell me, shall I answer this letter?" "What are you thinking of?" cried Schrotter, when Wilhelm stopped speaking, and looked at him in anxious expectation. "Your only plan now is to keep dark. If, notwithstanding your silence, they write to you again, I would advise you to burn the letters unread. That will demand a certain amount of fortitude, no doubt, but as the letters will come to my address, I will do it for you, if you authorize me." Wilhelm tried hard to make up his mind. "No, do not burn them unread," he said, after a pause; "open the letters, and then judge for yourself, in each case, whether you will let me know the whole or part of the contents." "Always the same want of will power!" returned Schrotter. "First you free yourself, and then have not the courage to burn your ships behind you. Believe me, it is best that you should have no further news from Paris, and after some months you can send for your things through a third person. Have you anybody in Paris who could arrange that for you?" "No." "Then I will do it. And even if you were to let the things go, it would be no great loss. Above all things, no renewing of old fetters. This lackey takes a healthy enough view of the matter, for all his cynicisms. You must not take it too tragically. You have passed through your heart crisis--it comes to most of us--only with you it has happened late, and under unpropitious circumstances. That has tended to make it more severe than is usually the case. But now, let it be past and over, though naturally it will take some little time for your mind to regain its normal balance. What I regret most in the affair is, that it precludes the idea of marriage for you for some time to come, and I had wished that so much for you. As long as the fascinations of this siren are fresh in your memory, no respectable German girl will have any attraction for you, and the love she is able to offer you will seem flat and insipid." "You only speak of me," Wilhelm ventured to remark, "but that is not the worst side of the story; what weighs most heavily on my mind is, that I have broken my faith with her." "Do not let that worry you," Schrotter replied. "You were in such a position as to be forced to act in self-defense. It would have been inexcusable in you to have stayed any longer where you were. For a liaison of that kind is only conceivable when the man loves the woman very deeply. You, my friend, did not love the lady at all. If you have any doubts about it in your own mind, you may take my word for it--had you loved her, you would not have parted from her. You would, if necessary, have carried her off from Paris, and continued to live with her in some world-forgotten spot, as you did at St. Valery. Or you would have gone off to the Philippines, and fought her husband to the death, in order to gain free possession of her or die in the attempt. That is how love acts when it is of that elemental force which alone can justify such relations before the higher natural tribunal of morality. But if your love is not strong enough to prompt you to do these things, then it is immoral, and must be shaken off." Wilhelm was still unconvinced. "I surely owe her gratitude for having loved me? That imposes certain duties upon me; I have no right to break a heart which gave itself wholly to me." "Your idea has a specious air of generosity," answered Schrotter firmly, "but in reality it is morbid and weak. Love accepts no alms. One gives oneself wholly or not at all. Do you imagine that any woman of spirit would be satisfied if you said to her: 'I do not love you, I should like to leave you, but I will stay on with you because I do not wish to give you pain, or from pity--soft-heartedness.' Why, she would thrust you from her, and rather, a thousand times, die than live on your bounty. On the other hand, the woman who would still hold fast to a man after such a declaration, must be of so poor a stuff that I do not consider her capable of feeling any violent pain. Woman, in general, has a far truer and more natural judgment in this question. Where she does not love she has no scruples about want of consideration, and the knowledge that it will hurt the man's feelings has rarely restrained her from rejecting an unwelcome suitor. There is such a thing as necessary cruelty, my friend--the physician knows that better than anybody." Wilhelm shook his head thoughtfully. "Your cruelties are not for your own advantage, but for that of your patient. I have no such excuse to offer." "Yes, you have," cried Schrotter. "You cure the countess of a morbid and hysterical sentiment. This Auguste is right--she will console herself." "And if does not?" "If not--why, what can I say?--we must simply wait and see. But it would surprise me very much. The worst is over. In such cases, if women mean to commit some act of madness, they do it in the first moment. The countess has her mother with her, she has three children, she has, from all I hear, an extremely buoyant nature, her despair will soon calm down. If not, it is always open to you to return in a year's time and do the prodigal son, and have the fatted calf killed for you." As Wilhelm looked at him with suppressed reproach, Schrotter laid his hand on the young man's shoulder. "You no doubt think me a hard-hearted old fogey--you miss the ring of romance in what I say. That is quite natural. The language of reason always sounds flat to the ear of passion--and not to passion only, but to sentimentality and feebleness. Let us finish. You know my advice. Give no sign of life, and so give time a chance to do its work. Try to forgot the past, and help the lady to do likewise, and do not remind her of it again by letters, or any other kind of communication. And now let us talk of something else. What are your plans?" "I have none," answered Wilhelm, with a dispirited gesture. "I have not forgotten what you wrote to me at New Year. If our wishes make up our future, I have no future before me, for I have no wish." "Not even to be near me again?" asked Schrotter. "Ah, yes," answered Wilhelm quickly, and looked him affectionately in the deep-set blue eyes. "You see now. This wandering life is no good for you. You must see about getting back to Berlin." "Yes, but you know--" "Of course I know. But something must be done. You must apply to the authorities to withdraw your sentence of banishment." "And you advise me to do this?" "Unwillingly, as you may well suppose. But I see nothing else for you." "And how should I word such a petition? I could neither acknowledge a transgression in the past, nor promise amendment in the future." "No, it would be of no use going into details. It would have to be a bald petition for pardon." And seeing Wilhelm recoil involuntarily, he added: "It does not do to be too proud in such a case. In the preposterously unequal struggle between the individual and the organized power of the State, it is no disgrace to declare yourself beaten and ask for quarter." "A petition without any gush or protestations of loyalty, in which I would simply say: 'Please allow me to come back to Berlin, because I prefer it to any other place of residence,' would certainly be ineffectual, and I should only have humiliated myself for nothing." "We must get somebody to take up your cause. I shall do all in my power to make the Oberburgermeister put in a good word for you." "Would you yourself do what you are advising me to do?" Schrotter was silent for a moment. "I am not in the same case. If Berlin were as much a necessity to me as it is to you I would do it--most certainly." Wilhelm looked as if he were swallowing a bitter draught. But Schrotter's strong hand lay tenderly on the dark head. "Yes, friend Eynhardt," he said; "you will send in the petition, and it will, I hope, have the desired result. Do it for my sake. Yes, look at me; I have need of you. I miss you. I am getting to be an old man. At sixty years of age one does not make new friendships. All the more carefully does one keep those one has. Berlin has seemed to me a desert--almost unbearable, without you. You do not know how impossible things have become there. They are misusing, without one pang of conscience, the most touching and lovable characteristic of our people--its sense of gratitude, which it exaggerates to the point of weakness. They are doing all they can to bind Germany hand and foot, to gag her and drag her back into absolutism before her sentimentality will allow her to put herself on the defensive. They are pandering to the lowest instincts of the people, and enervating their manhood by every artifice in their power. Thus they have successfully achieved the introduction into Germany of that most degraded form of self-worship--Chauvinism. They poison her morality by wisely organizing that every conscience, every conviction, should have its price. They debase her ideals by decreeing that henceforth the officer is to be the national patron saint to whom the people are to offer up their devotion and worship. The press, literature, art, lecturing-room--all preach the same gospel, that the highest product of humanity is the officer, and that "soldierly discipline and smartness"--in other words, slavish submission, self-conceit, arrogance, and the upholding of mere brute force--are the noblest qualities of a man and a patriot. The army is taught to forget that it is the armed population of the country, and is trained to be a band of body servants. And even when the soldiers return to private life, the idea of servitude is carefully kept up, and he finds again in the military 'Verein' the beloved barrack life, with all its servile submissiveness and abnegation of free will. Whichever way I look, I am filled with horror. Everything is ground down, everything laid waste, the governing spirit has not left one stone standing upon another. Even our youth, with whom lies our hope for the future, is rotten in part. In many student circles I see a want of principle, a low cringing to success, a cowardly worship of animal strength, that is without its parallel in our history. Instinctively, this corrupt youth sides, in every question, with the strong against the weak, with the pursuer against the pursued, and that at the age when my generation exerted itself passionately, without a question as to right or wrong, for everyone oppressed against every oppressor. Of course we were simpletons, we of '48, and the golden youth of to-day scoffs superciliously at our naive ideals. In the present order of things everything has become a curse--even the parliamentary system. For that gives the people no means of making its will known, and has simply become a vehicle for general corruption at the elections. Our officials, on whose independence of spirit we used to pride ourselves so much, have sunk into mere electioneering agents, and unless they pursue, oppress, and grind the opponents of the government, have no chance of promotion. It is a Police State such as we have never known, not even before '48. For at least every man got his rights in those days, scanty as those rights may have been, and the official was not the enemy of the citizen, but his somewhat despotic guardian and protector. Shall I say all? The most consoling class to me in Germany to-day are the Social Democrats. They have independence of spirit, self-denial, character, and idealism. Their ideals are not my ideals--far from it--but what does that matter? It is relief enough to find people who have any ideals at all, and who are ready to suffer and die for them. I fear that not till this generation has passed away will the German people become once more the upright, true-hearted, incorruptible idealists they were, who, at every turning-point of their history, were ready to bleed to death for freedom of opinion, and other purely spiritual advantages. I take a very black view of things perhaps. If only the harm done is not permanent, if only Germany retains sufficient virile strength to throw off the poison instilled into her veins and recover her former health!" In his excitement he had risen, and was pacing the room like an angry lion in a cage. Wilhelm did not like to interrupt the stream of words, which seemed to be forced from him by some powerful inward pressure. Now he said: "I can well understand your point of view. You emigrated in '48, and kept your democratic ideas fresh in your heart. Twenty years of absence, and an intense longing for your home, glorified the Fatherland in your eyes. You come back and find a country whose historical development has taken a totally different turn in the meantime, and the plain reality in nowise corresponds to the poetical picture you had painted for yourself. Naturally you are painfully disappointed. I know that of old from my own father. But may I venture to remark that your criticism is hard, and perhaps not altogether well founded? A system of government passes--the people remain. In its inner depths it is untouched by official corruption, and you yourself acknowledge that the aggressive boasters only formed a small part of our youth. I am not uneasy for the future of my country." "You may be right," returned Schrotter, grown calmer meanwhile, and standing still in front of Wilhelm. "But the present is gloomy, that is very certain. But enough of this. I came to cheer you, and have instead lightened my own heart. It was overflowing, and I have no one in Berlin to whom I can unburden myself. You see, I must have you near me. So write your petition, and if it is not accepted, why then--then we will go together to Switzerland or America, and love our country from afar, and without any admixture of bitterness, just as I did in India." In face of this deep and unselfish concern over the condition of the commonalty which trembled in Schrotter's voice and spoke from his gloomy blue eyes, Wilhelm felt half ashamed of having made so much of his own small troubles. He declared himself willing to send in the petition, and for the first time for weeks he was able to think of something else than Pilar and his dealings with regard to her. Schrotter stayed for a few days, which he passed almost exclusively with Wilhelm and Paul. All three felt themselves younger by ten years in this renewal of their intimacy, and Paul said more than once, "Would it not be splendid, Herr Doctor, if you two would buy some property near me? Then, in the summer months at any rate, we could all live together, so to speak. I am quite convinced that that would be a sure way of keeping ourselves young forever." Schrotter smiled at this proposal. All he wanted was to have Wilhelm near him once more. In the meantime, Bhani, his patients, his poor, recalled him to Berlin, and he left in hope that Wilhelm might be able to follow him ere long. Schrotter lost no time. He did his utmost to persuade influential people to exert themselves on Wilhelm's behalf, but the difficulties were greater than he had imagined. Wilhelm was in very bad odor with the police authorities, who would not believe that he was not a Socialist, and that he did not afford that party valuable support in the shape of money. Some three weeks after Schrotter's visit to Hamburg another letter came from Auguste. He was surprised, he said, that Monsieur le Docteur had not answered, and proceeded to inform him of a new turn in the affair. They had discovered that Madame la Comtesse injected herself secretly with morphine, pricked herself, Auguste said, and two Sisters of Mercy had to watch her day and night to prevent it. Schrotter judged it unnecessary to inform Wilhelm of the contents of this letter. Schrotter's visit had had an extremely salutary effect on Wilhelm. His self-torture grew less poignant, the memory of Paris receded into the background, and in proportion as it paled the red returned to his cheeks and the light to his dull eyes. He still held aloof from the busy turmoil of the world, and was still dominated by a profound consciousness of the aimlessness of his life, and yet, for the first time for years, perhaps since he took his degree, he entertained a desire, a hope, that he might be permitted to return to Berlin. On the last Sunday in April Wilhelm was spending the afternoon at the Uhlenhorst. The family were preparing to remove shortly to Friesenmoor, and Paul had gone over to the estate to make some arrangements. He was expected back in the evening, when they were all to go for a row on the Alster. Spring was unusually early that year; the trees showed gay sprigs of green already, the air was wonderfully mild and balmy, and in the exhilarating blue of the sky feathery white cloudlets were floating, whose course one was fain to follow with sweet dreams and fancies. It was a sin to stay indoors on such a lovely afternoon, Malvine declared, and so proposed that they should go out to the terrace overlooking the water and sit there till Paul came home. The terrace belonged to the villa in the Carlstrasse, laying on the path round the shore which bears with perfect right the name "An der schonen Aussicht"--the beautiful view--and was built out in a square into the Alster. A low stone parapet surrounded it on three sides, the fourth--that toward the pathway--being formed by an iron paling with a locked gate in it. One corner of the terrace, which was otherwise paved with asphalt, was laid out in a round flower bed, in which the primroses and violets were just beginning to come up. Near the balustrade at the waterside, under a large tentlike umbrella, stood a garden table and a few chairs. Here Malvine and Wilhelm seated themselves, while Willy played about with Fido. To the right of the terrace was a narrow little bay where the shallow boat was fastened in which they were to make their pleasure trip later on. The boat was tied to a wooden landing-place, which inclosed the little bay on the side away from the terrace, and from which a few mossy steps led down to the water. The Alster was swollen with melting snow and spring rains, and almost washed the foot of the terrace; only one of the steps of the landing appeared above the surface of the water. Willy, finding it rather dull on the terrace, elected to play on the pier, and began jumping in and out of the boat, into which Fido refused to follow him, as he was afraid of the water. The view was enchanting. The opposite shore gleamed silvery blue in the delicate white light of a northern spring day. In the distance, the masses of houses and the spires of Hamburg hung upon the horizon like a faintly tinted, half-washed out transparency. A light breeze ruffled the broad bosom of the Alster, and the red and green steamboats plowed dark furrows in its brightness, which remained there long after the boats had passed, and faded away finally in many a serpentine curve. Numbers of little rowing and sailing-boats floated upon the slow current, peopled by couples and parties in their Sunday clothes, their talk and merry laughter sounding across the water to the shore. A sailing-boat passed quite close to the terrace on its way to the Fahrhaus. A young boatman handled the sails, a little boy was steering, and in the stern sat a young man and a pretty rosy girl, their arms affectionately intertwined, softly singing, "Life let us cherish." Malvine smiled as she caught sight of the little idyll, and turning to Wilhelm, who was gazing dreamily into the quiet sunny beauty of the surrounding scene: "Can you imagine any more delightful occupation on a spring day like this," she said, "than to go love-making like those two little people over there?" A shadow passed over Wilhelm's face. He saw himself lying in the high grass under a wide-spreading tree in St. Valery, and over him there hovered a white hand that strewed him with fresh blossoms. At that instant they heard a little frightened cry, followed immediately by a second one, and then a gurgle. Both sprang to their feet, and Malvine uttered a piercing shriek of terror. Right in front of them, not more than a step from the terrace, they saw Willy in the midst of a whirl of foam which he had churned up round him with his desperate, struggling little limbs. His arms were tossing wildly above the water, but the head with its floating golden curls dipped under from time to time, and the little distorted mouth opened for an agonized breath and scream, only to be stopped by the in-rushing water. The boat rocking violently close by explained with sufficient clearness how the accident had happened. The boy had clambered on to the edge of the boat to rock himself, had overbalanced and fallen into the water, and in his struggles had already drifted some paces from the shore. Fido stood barking and gasping on the step and dipping his paws into the water only to draw them out again. Malvine stretched out her arms to the child, but her feet refused their office, she stood rooted to the spot, unable to do anything but utter terrible inarticulate screams. Only a few seconds elapsed--just long enough to realize what had happened--when Wilhelm sprang with lightning rapidity on to his chair, and from thence, with one bound, over the parapet into the water. He disappeared below the surface, but rose again at once just beside the child, who clung to him with all his remaining strength. How he managed it he did not know, but, although he could not swim, he managed to push the boy in front of him toward the terrace, crying anxiously, "Catch hold of him! Catch hold of him!" Life returned to Malvine's limbs, she leaned over the parapet and stretched out her arms. Wilhelm made a supreme effort and lifted the boy so far out of the water that she could grasp him, put her arms round him, and drag him up, and with him apparently Wilhelm, for his head and shoulders rose for a moment above the water. With a jerk she dragged the fainting boy over the parapet and held him in her arms, while she continued to scream for help. People came running from the shore the Carlstrasse, the Fahrhaus, and in an instant the terrace was crowded. They relieved the still half-demented mother of the dripping child to carry him across to the house. She was pushing her way through the closely packed groups and tottering after them when a cry reached her. "There is another one in the water!" Only then did she remember Wilhelm. Terrified to death, she turned and flew back to the edge of the terrace. A crowd stood there gesticulating wildly, all talking at once, and obstructing the view. A gap opened when two or three men with more presence of mind than the rest rushed down to the landing, jumped into the boat, untied it, and pushed off from the shore. And now, to her unspeakable horror, she saw that Wilhelm had disappeared, and the thick muddy waters gave no clew to the spot where he had gone down. This was too much, and she altogether lost consciousness. When she came to herself she was lying on the sofa in her husband's smoking room, her dress in disorder, and the maids busy about her. She first looked round her startled, then her memory returned with a flash, and she cried with quivering lips: "How is Willy--and Dr. Eynhardt?" "Master Willy has quite come round, and they are putting him to bed," the servants hastened to answer. "But Dr. Eynhardt?" To that they had no reply. Malvine jumped up and would have rushed out. "Gnadige Frau!" cried the girls, horrified, "you can't go out like that!" They held her back; Malvine struggled to free herself, but at that moment there was a sound of heavy footsteps and a confused murmur of voices in the hall, some one flung open the door, the man-servant put in his head, but started back at sight of his mistress and closed the door abruptly. Then he went on, and the footsteps and murmuring voices followed him. "They are bringing him in!" shrieked Malvine, and they could hold her back no longer. A moment later and she knew that she was right. On the billiard-table, in the room to the right of the hall, lay Wilhelm's motionless form, while the people who had carried him in stood round. Water flowed from his clothes and made little pools on the green cloth and trickled into the leather pockets of the billiard-table. His breast did not move, and death stared from the glazed, half-open eyes. A doctor was soon on the spot, the curious were turned out of the house, and they began the work of resuscitation. They had labored uninterruptedly for nearly an hour when Paul burst in, crying in a choking voice: "Doctor--doctor, is he alive?" The servants had told him all in flying haste outside. The doctor shook his head. "There is nothing more to be done." But Paul would not believe it. He would not suffer them to cease their efforts. The rubbing, the movements, the artificial respiration had to be kept up for another full hour. But death held his prey fast, and would not let them force it out of his clutches. Two days later, on a gray rainy day, they buried him. Schrotter came over from Berlin for the funeral. He looked quite broken down, and grief had aged his leonine features to an appalling extent. Malvine and Willy were lying ill in bed, so that Paul and Schrotter followed their friend alone to his last resting-place. When the coffin was carried out and lifted into the hearse, and Paul came out of his house, he saw through the veil of tears that obscured his vision that several hundred men were standing in orderly array on the opposite side of the Carlstrasse. They were young for the most part, but there was a sprinkling of older men among them; all were poorly, but cleanly and decently dressed, and every man had a red everlasting in his buttonhole. They stood as motionless as a troop under arms, and apparently followed the orders of a gray-bearded man who paced authoritatively up and down the silent line. Paul was surprised, and asked the undertaker, who was waiting for him beside the hearse, who these people were. He had not invited anybody, and did not expect there would be a crowd of any kind, although the Hamburg papers had devoted whole columns to the accident. The undertaker went over and addressed himself to the man who was evidently the leader of the party. He informed Paul on his return: "They are workingmen's societies from Hamburg and Altona. Their leader says the deceased was not one of them, but they wanted to show him this last mark of respect because he had been kind to them during his lifetime." CHAPTER XIV. UDEN HORIZO. On the first of May of the following year, which happened to fall on a Sunday, a long procession of carriages drove along the road from Harburg to Friesenmoor. They stopped at the entrance to the estate. Before them rose a triumphal arch composed of branches of fir garlanded with flowers, and adorned with flags and ribbons, and a gold inscription on a blue ground, which ran as follows: "A gracious Sovereign's due Reward To fruitful Labour, honest Work." A "Verein" with its banner was posted beside the arch. There was a roar of cannon, the banner waved, the Verein gave three "Hochs!" and its chief, or spokesman, stepped up to the first carriage, in which sat a youngish gentleman with spectacles, and an officer in the gorgeous uniform of a Landwehr dragoon, his breast covered with stars and crosses. The spectacled gentleman was the Landrath of the circuit, and the cavalry officer was no other than Paul Haber, now Herr Paul von Haber. For he had been raised to the nobility, and celebrated his auspicious event to-day in the midst of his retainers and a host of invited guests, whom he had fetched in a dozen carriages from the station at Harburg, supported by his distinguished young pupils. The spokesman of the Verein, a man of some fifty years of age, with a grizzled beard, addressed the proprietor in a glowing speech, in which, among other things, he assured him--the man of thirty-seven--that "We all look upon you as our father, and honor and love you as if we were your children." Paul smiled, and returned thanks in a few warm words, then renewed "Hochs!" more waving of banners and firing of cannon, and the procession set itself in motion again. At the entrance to Kaiser Wilhelm's Dorf there ensued a second and more elaborate welcome. Here too there was a triumphal arch and cannons, and instead of one there were three Vereins with flags and banners, also the schoolchildren, headed by the pastor and the schoolmaster, and the whole female portion of the community lining the roadway on either side, or massed round the base of the arch. The pastor made a speech, a fair-haired schoolgirl recited a long piece of poetry composed by the master in the sweat of his brow, the Choral Verein sang, the Young Men's Verein--who were given to instrumental music--piped and blew a chorale, and not till the all-prevading joy and enthusiasm had found sufficient vent in the firing of cannon, in speeches, poetry, and music, did the carriages move on, and finally reach the steps of Friesenmoor House, where the guests were received by Frau von Haber, assisted by Frau Brohl and Frau Marker. At the moment of leaving the carriages three flags were run up the flagstaff on the tower--the black, white, and red flag of the empire, then the white and black Prussian one, and finally a green, white, and red banner with a large coat-of-arms in the center. This third flag, somewhat enigmatical to the guests, was the new family banner of the House of von Haber, with the coat-of-arms of that noble race, now displayed for the first time to the admiring gaze of the beholders. The designing of a coat-of-arms had been no light task to Paul. From the moment--now five months ago--that he knew his promotion to the nobility was a settled affair, he had devoted the best part of his thoughts to this weighty question. He hesitated long between medieval simplicity and modern symbolism. An illustrative crest that should be a play upon his name was out of the question; for of course it was only another of Mayboom, the farce-writer's, jokes--he had taken him into his confidence on one of his visits to Berlin--to suggest a sack of oats, gules on a field, vert. After devising a dozen crests, each of which he thought charming, only to reject it a day or two afterward as inappropriate, he finally fixed on the one which now adorned his proud banner. It displayed on a field, vert, three waving transverse bars argent, and in a free quarter-purpure-dexter a medal of the Franco-Prussian War in natural colors. The waving bars were in allusion to the drainage canals on his marsh estate, and the medal to his career in the war. He did not forget that he owed the realization of his life's scheme to his wife's marriage-portion, and wished to show his appreciation of the fact in a delicate manner by crossing the transverse bars with a marshmallow in natural colors. However, he abandoned this design when they pointed out to him at the Herald's office that the crest would be rather overladen thereby, and at the same time would betray too plainly the "newly-baked" aristocrat. Paul left nothing undone. He provided himself with a motto. The incorrigible Mayboom recommended, "The Moor has done his duty." Paul decided on "Meinem Konige treu"--True to my king. Somebody at the Herald's office suggested putting it "Minem Kunege treu," but he had not the courage. But though his promotion had occupied him almost exclusively during the last few months, necessitating frequent journeys to Berlin, he did not cease to think of poor Wilhelm. For a whole year he, as well as Malvine and Willy, wore deep mourning for the friend who had sacrificed himself for them, and Paul erected a magnificent monument over him in the St. Georg Cemetery in Hamburg, on which neither marble nor gilt nor verses were spared. The monument is one of the sights of the churchyard, and pointed out to visitors with great pride by the sexton. Old Frau Brohl, too, kept green the memory of the departed friend. Her speciality now was the manufacturing of flags and banners since Paul had founded quite a number of Vereins among the settlers on his estate--latterly a Military Verein, and one for Conservative electors. She was hard at work from morning till night on these objects of art, which she constructed out of heavy silk, and covered so thickly with symbolical devices, and embroidered mottoes and inscriptions, that they were as stiff as boards, and would neither flutter nor roll up. But when Wilhelm's funeral monument was to be dedicated, she put aside Paul's banner and coat-of-arms, upon which she was engaged, and wove a wreath of wire and black and white and lilac beads, a yard and a half in diameter, on which, between laurel leaves, were Wilhelm's name and the date of his death, and the words: "Eternal gratitude." Nothing the least like it had ever been seen in Hamburg before, and it was much admired on the occasion of the ceremony. Paul showed himself throughout as a man of feeling and character. When his patent of nobility was signed, and he came to Berlin to be admitted to the emperor, to thank him for the honor accorded to him, he went to Schrotter, and begged him, as a personal favor, to accept his invitation to the festivity which should take place on his estate on the first of May. "I look upon you as Wilhelm's substitute here on earth," he said, "and our friend must not be absent from my side on this joyful occasion. I owe everything to him. He laid the foundation of my prosperity, and preserved my heir to me, for whom alone I am working and striving. If Wilhelm were with us now, he would not refuse my request, and with that thought before you, Herr Doctor, you will not pain me by refusing." The words came from Paul's heart, and showed that he felt keenly the desire to do homage, in his way, to Wilhelm's memory. Schrotter could not but accept. To all outward appearances he had recovered from the terrible shock of his friend's death, in reality, however, he was all the less likely to have got over his loss, owing to the circumstance that he was often busied with the management of Wilhelm's affairs, and thus the wound was inevitably kept open. Wilhelm left no will. After much inquiry, it was discovered that he had a very distant relative living at Lowenhagen, near Konigsberg, married to a poor village smith, and lavishly endowed with children. The house in the Kochstrasse went to her--a very windfall, for which the honest wife and mother was too thankful to be able to simulate grief at the death of the relative she had never known. She generously handed over all Wilhelm's papers to Schrotter, after having assured herself by inquiries in various quarters that they would only fetch the value of their weight. Schrotter gave them to the young man whom he and Wilhelm had supported in his studies out of the Dorfling legacy. The recipient was clever and shrewd, and justified the confidences his patrons had placed in his future. He found that the first volume of the "History of Human Ignorance," testing of the early ideas of mankind and their psychological reasons, was completely ready for the press; and all the notes and literary sources for the two following volumes only needed putting together to bring the work up to the end of the eighteenth century, and the experiments of Lavoisier, from which the indestructibility of matter was deduced. The first volume appeared in the autumn. On the title page he gave his own name as the author, but did not omit, as a man of honor, to mention in the preface that in compiling the work he had availed himself of "the preparatory notes of the late Dr. Wilhelm Eynhardt, an eminent scholar, lost all too early to the scientific word by a tragic death." In the ensuing editions which followed rapidly upon the first, the book meeting with great success, this preface was omitted as unnecessary. The second volume appeared in the following year; the third--very prudently--not till two years later. There were no more. In the two last volumes there was no more mention of Eynhardt. After the publication of the first volume, the young man whose name adorned the title-page received a call to a public school, of which he now forms one of the chief ornaments. To various inquiries with regard to a concluding volume which should treat of the nineteenth century, he replied by pointing out the doubtful wisdom of a history or criticism of hypotheses and opinions which were as yet incomplete and still under discussion, and put them off with vague promises for the future. Schrotter only shrugged his shoulders. He knew Wilhelm's views on the subject of posthumous fame, and the immortality of the individual, and considered it inexpedient to punish the clever young professor for being a man like the rest. About three months after Wilhelm's death Schrotter received one more letter from Auguste. He observed curtly and dryly that Monsieur le Docteur evidently did not wish to have anything more to do with him; he wrote, however, once more, and for the last time, in order to give him his new address in case he might desire to answer. He had been obliged to look for another place, the game was up at the Boulevard Pereire. In spite of all their watchfulness, madame had managed to obtain morphine, and one night in July, when the sister who shared her room was asleep, she had given herself so many "pricks" that they had been unable to bring her round again. Anne declared that it was on the anniversary of the day on which Madame la Comtesse had made the acquaintance of monsieur. At the breaking up of the household, Monsieur le Docteur's things had been handed over to him, Auguste, and he held them at monsieur's disposal. Schrotter wrote in answer that he might keep them, and sent him a small sum of money as a bequest from Wilhelm. Pilar's suicide made somewhat of an impression on him. So there were women, after all, who could die of love, and that not in the first moments of a mad and passionate grief, but after months, when the nerves have had time to cool down. "She was hysterical," Schrotter said to himself, endeavoring thereby to dispel various uncomfortable suggestions. He did not wholly succeed. As Paul begged him so earnestly to come to his festival, he accepted the invitation, and found himself, on the first of May, among the guests whom Malvine received on the steps of Friesenmoor House. In the great oak-paneled dining room, with its windows looking to the west, a banquet was laid for twenty-four guests. Following the country custom, they sat down to table at twelve o'clock. Malvine, handsomely dressed and richly adorned, sat enthroned in the middle of the long side of the table, and had Chamberlain von Swerte (of the House of Hellebrand) and the Landrath, to right and left of her. Paul, who sat opposite, insisted against all the rules of etiquette on having Schrotter beside him as his left-hand neighbor. On his right, Frau Brohl, in rustling silk, sat in rapt silence. The ever-modest Frau Marker was content to take a lower place. The pastor said grace before the dinner began, which seemed to surprise the Landrath, but the Chamberlain was much edified. The Young Men's Verein played dance-music and marches in front of the open windows. Paul proposed the health of the emperor, whereupon the Landrath, in a carefully worded speech, drank to the host and the ladies. They all clinked glasses with an enthusiasm which was in no way feigned, but perfectly accountable after so splendid a dinner and such well-assorted wines. In the midst of the gayety and noise, and while the clarionets and trumpets blared away outside, Paul turned to his neighbor, and tapping the foot of his glass against the edge of Schrotter's, he whispered to him, unheard by the others: "To HIS memory!" He turned his head away abruptly, bent over his glass, and was busily engaged in furtively passing his table-napkin across his face and eyes. Schrotter put his lips to his glass and closed his eyes. One could positively trace upon his broad brow how a thought passed over it like a shadow. The dinner lasted fully two hours, and brought Malvine in many a fiery compliment, especially from the chamberlain, which she could accept with a good conscience, knowing well how much she would have to pay to the great Hamburg pastry-cook who had provided it. At dessert the heir was handed round. Willy, who was really beginning to grow a little, was unquestionably a well-bred child. He went with much dignity and propriety from guest to guest, closely followed by Fido, who had grown far too stout, offered his cheek politely to each one, shook hands prettily, and was permitted to withdraw, accompanied by his short-winded dog, after they had all sufficiently admired him. After dinner the guests amused themselves according to their several tastes. Some went to enjoy Paul's excellent cigars in the smoking room, others went down to the village to look on at the rural festival arranged by the master for his people, and where, between singing, music, dancing, and drinking, the fun ran high; others again took a walk through the fields of the estate where the young crops were just coming up, spreading a green haze over the yellow coating of sand. It was altogether a radiant picture of joy and prosperity; and the happiest of all, whether of the guests flushed with the good dinner or the villagers stamping on the green, seemed to be the master of the house. He was rich, respected, full of health and spirits, his family life unclouded; he had a high position, possessed numberless decorations, was a captain of the Landwehr, had been promoted to the cavalry, and now was even raised to the nobility. What more could he desire? Well then, if he seemed happy appearances were deceptive. A worm gnawed at his heart. He had hoped to be created Freiherr--baron--and here he was a simple "Herr von." How rarely is happiness perfect here below. Pleading important business next morning in Berlin, Schrotter left soon after four o'clock. He would not hear of Paul's deserting his guests to accompany him to the station, as he was most anxious to do, but drove alone to Harburg, and took the train that left at five o'clock, bringing him to Berlin by way of Uelzen. It was nearly two in the morning when he reached home. He stole on tiptoe into his room, but Bhani, whose sleep was light and restless when he was not there, heard him directly. She stretched out her arms to him with a low exclamation of joy, pressed him to her bosom while he kissed her on the brow, and was for jumping up and attending to his wants. He would not suffer it, and declared that he wanted nothing. So she remained where she was, only following him with her eyes while he unpacked his bag and put everything in order. He then went into his study adjoining and locked the door behind him. Bhani heard him walking up and down for awhile, and then caught the sound of a creaking as of a drawer being opened. She knew what that meant and heaved a deep sigh. He was taking out the great leather book with metal-bound corners; his diary, which had become his sole confidant now that Wilhelm was dead. Guided by the delicate tact of the Oriental, the poor simple creature divined easily enough that her sahib had cares which she could not understand and sorrows which she might not share, and yet how happy she would be if he would but deign to enlighten her ignorance, to explain it all to her and disclose his heart to her fully. But, proud and reserved, he scorned to acknowledge his troubles to any but himself, and it was only in his diary that he unburdened himself of all that weighed upon his heart and mind. And now he sat at his study table and wrote in the big book. "My poor Eynhardt! Only a year since he departed, and already it is as if he had never been. What remains of him? A book that bears a stranger's name upon the title-page; a little dog that is perhaps happier now than when it belonged to him; a child like a dozen others, who will presumably grow up to be a man like a dozen other men; and a memory in my heart which will cease with the day, not far hence, when this heart shall cease to beat. Now if Haber were to die to-day, a flourishing tract of land and a hundred people whose existence he has improved would testify aloud that his term on earth had not been in vain. "And for all that, Eynhardt was a rare and noble character, and Haber the personification of all that is commonplace and work-a-day. Eynhardt's gaze was on the stars, Haber's eyes fixed on the ground at his feet. Wilhelm plucked that supremest fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, the consciousness of our ignorance; Paul has the conceit to think himself a discoverer, to have solved enigmas. But the noble, soaring spirit leaves no trace behind, and the dull, mediocre person plows his name in deep and enduring characters in the soil of his native land. What was wanting in Eynhardt to make him not only a harmonious but a useful being? Obviously only the will. But was this want an organic one? I do not think so, for his lofty moral beauty was perfect in proportion and balance, and this noble nature could not possibly have been born incomplete, impossible that in a being so perfectly formed in all other respects such an important organ as the will should be missing. His absence of volition was but the result of his perception of the vanity of all earthly ambitions, and his absence of desire the outcome of his contempt for all that was worthless and transitory, his aversion to the ways of the world a tragic foregoing of the hope of ever getting behind it, and reaching the eternal root and significance of the thing itself. "Why was this German Buddhist not endowed with Haber's cheerful activity? What an ideal and crowning flower of manhood would he not have been if he had not only thought but acted! But am I not desiring the impossible? Does not the one nature preclude the other? I fear so. In order to attack unconcernedly that which lies nearest to us, we must be unable to see beyond, like the bull charging at the red cloak. He would not do it, if behind the red rag, he saw the man with the sword, and behind the man with the sword the thousand spectators who will not leave the arena till the sharp steel has pierced his heart. He who sees or divines behind the nearest objects their distant causes, paralyzed by the vision of the endless chain of cause and effect, loses the courage to act. And inversely, to retain that courage, to strive with pleasure and zeal after earthly things, one must make use of the world and its ordinances, must move the pieces on the chess-board of life with patience, and, according to its puerile rules, attach importance to much that is narrow and paltry, and that is what, in his superior wisdom, the sage will not stoop to do. "I always come back to this thought. If the world consisted entirely of Habers the earth would flourish and blossom, there would be abundance of food and money, but our life would be like that of the beasts of the field that graze and are happy when they chew the cud. If, on the other hand, there were only Eynhardts, our existence would be passed in wandering delightfully, our souls full of perfect peace, through the gardens of the Academos in company with Plato; but the world would starve and die out with this wise and lofty-minded race; unless, indeed, the sun took pity on them, and brought forth grains and fruits without their assistance, and unless a few flighty little women, particularly inaccessible to the higher philosophy, should surprise these transcendental and passionless thinkers in an unguarded moment, and beguile them into committing some slight act of folly. "To combine in one intelligence Haber's circumscribed vision, naive self confidence, and enterprising activity with Enyhardt's sublime idealism and knowledge of good and evil is outside the range of possibility. And which of the two is of the greater benefit to the world? Which of them raises mankind to a higher level of development? Which of them best fulfills his purpose as a human being? Whose point of view of the world and of life is the more correct? Which of the two would I set up as a model before the child whom Eynhardt snatched from death at the price of his own body, and in whom his life as it were finds its continuation? My old friend Pyrrhon, thou who hearkened, two thousand two hundred years before my day, to the profound wisdom of the Brahmins, I can but answer in thy words, 'Uden horizo,'--I do not decide." THE END. 
79	----	"Terminal Compromise" by Winn Schwartau Who thanks you for your consideration. INTER.PACT Press 11511 Pine St. Seminole, FL 34642 All contents are (C) 1991, 1992, 1993 Inter.Pact THE WORLD'S FIRST NOVEL-ON-THE-NET (tm) SHAREWARE!!! By Inter.Pact Press "TERMINAL COMPROMISE" by Winn Schwartau A high tech thriller that comes from today's headlines! "The Tom Clancy of computer security." Assoc. Prof. Dr. Karen Forcht, James Madison University "Terminal Compromise" is a highly praised novel about the inva- sion of the United States by computer terrorists. Since it was first published in conventional print form, (ISBN: 0-962-87000-5) it has sold extremely well world-wide, but then again, it never hit the New York Times Bestseller List either. But that's OK, not many do. Recently, someone we know very well came up with a real bright idea. They suggested that INTER.PACT Press take the unprece- dented, and maybe slightly crazy, step to put "Terminal Compro- mise" on the Global Network thus creating a new category for book publishers. The idea is to offer "Terminal Compromise," and perhaps other titles at NOVEL-ON-THE-NET SHAREWARE(tm) rates to millions of people who just don't spend a lot of time in book- stores. After discussions with dozens of people - maybe even more than a hundred - we decided to do just that. We know that we're taking a chance, but we've been convinced by hackers and phreakers and corporate types and government representatives that putting "Terminal Compromise" on the net would be a fabulous step forward into the Electronic Age, (Cyberspace if you will) and would encourage other publishers to take advantage of electronic distribution. (It's still in the bookstores, though.) To the best of our knowledge, no semi-sorta-kinda-legitimate -publisher has ever put a complete pre-published 562 page book on the network as a form of Shareware. So, I guess we're making news as well as providing a service to the world's electronic community. The recommended NOVEL-ON-THE-NET SHAREWARE fees are outlined later (this is how we stay in business), so please read on. WE KEEP THE COPYRIGHTS! "Terminal Compromise" is NOT being entered into the public domain. It is being distributed electronically so hundreds of thousands more people can enjoy it and understand just where we are heading with our omnipresent interconnectedness and the potential dangers we face. INTER.PACT Press maintains all copy- rights to "Terminal Compromise" and does not, either intentionally or otherwise, explicitly or implicitly, waive any rights to this piece of work or recourses deemed appropriate. (Damned lawyers.) (C) 1991, 1992, 1993, Inter.Pact Press TERMINAL COMPROMISE - THE REVIEWS " . . . a must read . . ." Digital News "Schwartau knows about networks and security and creates an interesting plot that will keep readers turning the pages." Computer World "Terminal Compromise is fast-paced and gripping. Schwartau explains complex technology facilely and without condescension." Government Computer News "An incredibly fascinating tale of international intrigue . . . action . . . characterization . . . deserves attention . . . difficult to imagine a more comprehensive resource." PC Laptop "Schwartau . . . has a definite flair for intrigue and plot twists. (He) makes it clear that the most important assets at risk are America's right to privacy and our democratic ideals." Personal Identification News "I am all too familiar with the appalling realities in Mr. Schwartau's book. (A) potentially catastrophic situation." Chris Goggans, Ex-Legion of Doom Member. " . . . chilling scenarios . . . ", "For light summer reading with weighty implications . . . ", " . . . thought provoking, sometimes chilling . . . " Remember, it's only fiction. Or is it? TERMINAL COMPROMISE: SYNOPSIS "It's all about the information . . . the information." From "Sneakers" Taki Homosoto, silver haired Chairman of Japan's huge OSO Indus- tries, survived Hiroshima; his family didn't. Homosoto promises revenge against the United States before he dies. His passion- ate, almost obsessive hatred of everything American finally comes to a head when he acts upon his desires. With unlimited resources, he comes up with the ultimate way to strike back at the enemy. Miles Foster, a brilliant 33 year old mathematician apparently isn't exactly fond of America either. The National Security Agency wanted his skills, but his back- ground and "family" connections kept him from advancing within the intelligence community. His insatiable - borderline psychotic- sex drive balances the intensity of waging war against his own country to the highest bidder. Scott Mason, made his fortune selling high tech toys to the Pentagon. Now as a New York City Times reporter, Mason under- stands both the good and the evil of technology and discovers pieces of the terrible plot which is designed to destroy the economy of the United States. Tyrone Duncan, a physically huge 50-ish black senior FBI agent who suffered through the Hoover Age indignities, befriends Scott Mason. Tyrone provides the inside government track and confusion from competing agencies to deal with the threats. His altruistic and somewhat pure innate view of the world finally makes him do the right thing. As Homosoto's plan evolves, Arab zealots, German intelligence agents and a host of technical mercenaries find the weaknesses in our techno-economic infrastructure. Victims find themselves under attack by unseen adversaries; Wall Street suffers debili- tating blows; Ford and Chrysler endure massive shut downs. The U.S. economy suffers a series of crushing blows. From the White House to the Pentagon to the CIA to the National Security Agency and FBI, a complex weaving of fascinating politi- cal characters find themselves enmeshed a battle of the New World Order. Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll: Tokyo, Vienna, Paris, Iraq, Iran. It's all here. Enjoy reading "Terminal Compromise." SHAREWARE - NOVEL FEES: We hope that you enjoy "Terminal Compromise" as much as everyone else has, and that you will send us a few shekels according to the following guidelines. The NOVEL-ON-THE-NET SHAREWARE(tm) fees for us as a publishing company are no different than the fees for software application shareware publishers, and the intent is the same. So please, let us continue this form of publishing in the future. 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Please forward all NOVEL-ON-THE-NET SHAREWARE fees to: INTER.PACT PRESS 11511 Pine St. N. Seminole, FL., 34642 Communications: Phn: 813-393-6600 Fax: 813-393-6361 E-Mail: p00506@psi.com wschwartau@mcimail.com We will accept checks, money orders, and cash if you must, and we mean if you must. It's not the smartest thing in the world to send cash through the mail. We are NOT equipped at this point for credit cards. Remember, "Terminal Compromise is copyrighted, and we will vigor- ously pursue violations of that copyright. (Lawyers made us say it again.) If you ABSOLUTELY LOVE "Terminal Compromise," or find that after 50 pages of On-Screen reading, you may want a hard copy for your bookshelf. It is available from bookstores nationwide for $19.95, or from Inter.Pact directly for $19.95 + $3.50 shipping and handling. If you first paid the $ 7 NOVEL-ON-THE-NET SHARE- WARE fee, send in proof and we'll deduct $ 7 from the price of the hard copy edition. ISBN: 0-962-87000-5 Enjoy "Terminal Compromise" and help us make it an easy decision to put more books on the Global Network. Thank you in advance for your attention and your consideration. The Publishers, INTER.PACT Press **************************************************************** Note to the Readers of "Terminal Compromise:" In writing a book like this, it is often difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. That is because the fiction is all too probable, and the facts are unbelievable. Maybe it doesn't matter and they're the same after all. Other than a few well known names and incidents, the events in this book are fictional - to the best of my knowledge. As I wrote this tale, I was endlessly coming upon new methods, new tactics, new ways to wage computer warfare. I found that if this story was to be told, I had to accept the fact that it would always be unfinished. The battle of the computers is one without an end in sight. This story is an attempt to merge the facts as they are with the possibilities. The delineation between fact and fiction is clouded because the fiction of yesterday is the fact, the news, of today. I expect that distinction to become hazier over the next few years. It is that incongruity that spawns a conjectured extrapolation indistinguishable from reality. The construction of the model that gave birth to this tale was the culmination of many years of work, with a fictional narrative being the last thing in my mind. That was an accident necessi- tated by a need to reach the largest possible audience. In fact, a lot of things have surprised me since "Terminal Com- promise" was first published. It seemed that we were able to predict a number of things including Polymorphics, Clipper Chips, non-lethal warfare . . . and you'll recognize a few other prog- nostications we didn't expect to come to pass quite yet. The reader will soon know why. There were many people who have been invaluable in the prepara- tion of this document, but I'll only mention a few. If the reader doesn't want to hear about my friends, please move on to the next chapter. Mary C. Bell. Hi, Mom. Thanks for the flashlight. Lazarus Cuttman. The greatest editor a writer has ever had. He kept me honest. Miles Roban. That's an alias. He's the one who told me about the real NSA. I hope he doesn't get in trouble for what he said. I owe him a pound of M&Ms. 2 lbs. of them. (NOTE: For over two years, according to 'high-up' sources, the NSA has been and still is looking for 'Miles'. They haven't found him yet, despite an intensive internal NSA search. We need more people like 'Miles' who are willing to break down the conventional barriers of secu- rity on issues that affect us all.) Dad. God rest. Winn Schwartau, July, 1993 **************************************************************** "Terminal Compromise" is dedicated to: Sherra There is no adequate way to say thank you. You are the super-glue of the family. Let's continue to break the rules. I Love You Ashley She wrote three books before I finished the first chapter and then became a South-Paw. Adam Welcome, pilgrim. **************************************************************** Prologue Friday, January 12, The Year After The White House, Washington D.C. The President was furious. In all of his professional political life, not even his closest aids or his wife had ever seen him so totally out of character. The placid Southern confidence he normally exuded, part well designed media image, part real, was completely shattered. "Are you telling me that we spent almost $4 trillion dollars, four goddamn trillion dollars on defense, and we're not prepared to defend our computers? You don't have a game plan? What the hell have we been doing for the last 12 years?" The President bellowed as loudly as anyone could remember. No one in the room answered. The President glared right through each of his senior aides. "Damage Assessment Potential?" The President said abruptly as he forced a fork full of scrambled eggs into his mouth. "The Federal Reserve and most Banking transactions come to a virtual standstill. Airlines grounded save for emergency opera- tions. Telephone communications running at 30% or less of capacity. No Federal payments for weeks. Do you want me to continue?" "No, I get the picture." The President wished to God he wouldn't be remembered as the President who allowed the United States of America to slip back- ward 50 years. He waited for the steam in his collar to subside before saying anything he might regret. * * * * * Monday, August 6, 1945. Japan The classroom was coming to order. Shinzo Ito, the 12th graders' instructor was running a few minutes late and the students were in a fervent discussion about the impending end to the war. And of course it was to be a Japanese victory over the American Mongrels. Ito-san was only 19 years old, and most of the senior class was only a year or two younger than he. The war had deeply affected all of them. The children of Japan were well acquainted with suffering and pain as families were wrenched apart - literally at the seams, and expected to hold themselves together by the honor that their sacrifices represented. They hardened, out of neces- sity, in order to survive and make it through the next day, the next week; and so they knew much about the war. Since so many of the men had gone to war, women and children ran the country. 10 and 11 year old students from the schools worked as phone opera- tors. It was an honorable cause, and everyone contributed; it was only fitting. Their fathers and loved ones were fighting self- lessly and winning the war. Many of the children's fathers had gone to war, valiantly, and many had not come home. Many came home in pieces, many others, unrecognizable. And when some fathers had gone off to war, both they and their families knew that would never return. They were making the Supreme Sacrifice for their country, and more impor- tantly, a contribution to their honorable way of life. The sons and daughters of kamikazes were treated with near rever- ence. It was widely believed that their father's honor was handed down to their offspring as soon as word had been received the mission had been successful. Albeit a suicide mission. Taki Homosoto was one 17 year old boy so revered for his father's sacrifice. Taki spoke confidently about such matters, about the war, about American atrocities, and how Japan would soon defeat the round faced enemy. Taki had understood, on his 17th birthday that his father would leave . . .and assuredly die as was the goal of the kamikaze. He pretended to understand that it made sense to him. In the last 6 months since his father had left, Taki assumed, at his father's request, the patriarchal role in the immediate family. The personal anguish had been excruciating. While friends and family and officials praised Taki's father and fami- ly, inside Taki did not accept that a man could willingly leave his family, his children, him . . .Taki, never to return. Didn't his father love him? Or his sister and brother? Or his mother? Taki's mother got a good job at one of the defense plants that permeated Hiroshima, while Taki and his brother and sister con- tinued their schooling. But the praise, the respect didn't make up for not having a father to talk to, to play with and to study with. He loved his mother, but she wasn't a father. So Taki compensated and overcompensated and pretended that his father's sacrifice was just, and good, and for the better of society, and the war effort and his family. Taki spoke as a juvenile expert on the war and the good of Japan and the bad of the United States and the filthy Americans with their unholy practices and perverted ways of life, and how they tortured Japanese prisoners. Taki was an eloquent and convincing orator to his piers and instructors alike. At 8:15 A.M., the Hiroshima radio station, NHK, rang its old school bell. The bell was part of a warning system that an- nounced impending attacks from the air, but it had been so over- used that it was mostly ignored. The tolls from the bell were barely noticed by the students or the teachers in the Honkawa School. Taki though, looked out the window toward the Aioi Bridge. His ears perked and his eyes scanned the clear skies over downtown Hiroshima. He was sure he heard something . . .but no . . . The first sensation of motion in the steel reinforced building came long seconds after the blinding light. Since the rolling earth motions in 1923 devastated much of Tokyo, schoolchildren and households nationwide practiced earthquake preparedness and were reasonably expectant of another major tremor at any time. But the combination of light from 10,000 suns and the deafening roar gave those who survived the blast reason to wish they had- n't. Blindness was instant for those who saw the sky ignite. The classroom was collapsing around them. In the air was the noise of a thousand trains at once...even louder. In seconds the schoolhouse was in rubble. The United States of American had just dropped the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. This infamous event would soon be known as ayamachi - the Great Mistake. * * * * * Tuesday, August 7, 1945 Taki Homosoto opened his eyes. He knew he was laying on his back, but all else was a clutter of confusion. He saw a dark ceiling, to what he didn't know and he hurt He turned his head and saw he was on a cot, maybe a bed, in a long corridor with many others around him. The room reeked of human waste and death. "Ah . . .you are awake. It has been much time." The voice came from behind him. He turned his head rapidly and realized he shouldn't have. The pain speared him from his neck to the base of his spine. Taki grimaced and made a feeble attempt at whim- pering. He said nothing as he examined the figure in the white coat who spoke again. "You are a very lucky young man, not many made it." What was he talking about . . .made it? Who? His brain wanted to speak but his mouth couldn't. A slight gurgling noise ushered from his throat but nothing else. And the pain . . .it was everywhere at once . . .all over . . .he wanted to cry for help . . .but was unable. The pain overtook Taki Homosoto and the vision of the doctor blackened until there was no more. Much later, Taki reawoke. He assumed it was a long time later, he been awake earlier . . .or had that been a dream. The doctor...no he was in school and the earthquake . . .yes, the earthquake . . .why don't I remember? I was knocked out. Of course. As his eyes adjusted to the room, he saw and remembered that it wasn't a dream. He saw the other cots, so many of them, stretching in every direction amidst the cries of pain and sighs of death. Taki tried to cry out to a figure walking nearby but only a low pitched moan ushered forth. Then he noticed something odd . . .and odd smell. One he didn't recognize. It was foul . . .the stench of burned . . .burned what? The odor made him sick and he tried to breathe through his mouth but the awful odor still penetrated his glands. Taki knew that he was very hurt and very sick and so were a lot of others. It took him some time, and a lot of energy just to clear his thoughts. Thinking hurt - it concentrated the aching in his head, but the effort took away some of his other pain, or at least it successfully distracted him focussing on it. There were cries from all around. Many were incomprehensible babblings, obviously in agony. Screams of "Eraiyo!", ("the pain is unbearable!") were constant. Others begged to be put out of their misery. Taki actually felt fortunate; he couldn't have screamed if he had wanted to, but out of guilt he no longer felt the need to. Finally, the same doctor, was it the same doctor? appeared over his bed again. "I hope you'll stay with us for a few minutes?" The doctor smiled. Taki responded as best he could. With a grunt and the raising and lowering his eyelids. "Let me just say that you are in very good condition . . .much better than the others," the doctor gestured across the room. "I don't mean to sound cruel, but, we do need your bed, for those seriously hurt." The doctor sounded truly distraught. What had happened? A terrified look crossed Taki's face that ceded into a facial plead. His look said, "I can't speak so answer my questions . . .you must know what they are. Where am I? What happened? Where is my class?" "I understand your name is Taki Homosoto?" the doctor asked. "Your school identification papers . . ." Taki blinked an affirmative as he tried to cough out a response. "There is no easy way to tell this. We must all be brave. Ameri- ca has used a terrible weapon upon the people of Japan. A spe- cial new bomb so terrible that Hiroshima is no longer even a shadow of itself. A weapon where the sky turns to fire and build- ings and our people melt . . .where the water sickens the living and those who seem well drop in their steps from an invisible enemy. Almost half of the people of Hiroshima are dead or dying. As I said, you are a lucky one." Taki helped over the next days at the Communications Hospital in what was left of downtown Hiroshima. When he wasn't tending to the dying, he moved the dead to the exits so the bodies could be cremated, the one way to insure eternal salvation. The city got much of its light from pyres for weeks after the blasts. He helped distribute the kanpan and cold rice balls to the very few doctors and to survivors who were able to eat. He walked the streets of Hiroshima looking for food, supplies, anything that could help. Walking through the rubble of what once was Hiroshi- ma fueled his hate and his loathing for Americans. They had wrought this suffering by using their pikadon, or flash-boom weapon, on civilians, women and children. He saw death, terrible, ugly death, everywhere; from Hijiyama Hill to the bridges a cross the wide Motoyas River. The Aioi bridge spontaneously became an impromptu symbol for vengeance against the Americans. Taki crossed the remnants of the old stone bridge, which was to be the hypocenter of the blast if the Enola Gay hadn't missed its target by 800 feet. A tall blond man in an American military uniform was tied to a stone post. He was an American POW, one of 23 in Hiroshima. A few dozen people, women in bloodstained kimonos and mompei and near naked children were hurling rocks and insults at the lifeless body. How appropriate thought Taki. He found himself mindlessly joining in. He threw rocks at the head, the body, the legs. He threw rocks and yelled. He threw rocks and yelled at the remains of the dead serviceman until his arms and lungs ached. Another 50,000 Japanese died from the effects of radiation within days while Taki continued to heal physically. On August 17, 9 days after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and 2 days after Emper- or Hirohito's broadcast announcing Japan's surrender, a typhoon swamped Hiroshima and killed thousands more. Taki blamed the Americans for the typhoon, too. Taki was alone for the first time in his life. His family dead, even his little sister. Taki Homosoto was now a hibakusha, a survivor of Hiroshima, an embarrassing and dishonorable fact he would desperately try to conceal for the rest of his life. * * * * * Forty Years Later . . . January, 1985, Gaithersburg, Maryland. A pristine layer of thick soft snow covered the sprawling office and laboratory filled campus where the National Bureau of Stand- ards sets standards for the country. The NBS establishes exactly what the time is, to the nearest millionth of a millionth of a second. They make sure that we weigh things to the accuracy of the weight of an individual atom. The NBS is a veritable techno- logical benchmark to which everyone agrees, if for no other reason than convenience. It was the NBS's turn to host the National Computer Security Conference where the Federal government was ostensibly supposed to interface with academia and the business world. At this exclusive symposium, only two years before, the Department of Defense introduced a set of guidelines which detailed security specifications to be used by the Federal agencies and recommended for the private sector. A very dry group of techno-wizards and techno-managers and tech- no-bureaucrats assemble for several days, twice a year, to dis- cuss the latest developments in biometric identifications tech- niques, neural based cryptographic analysis, exponential factor- ing in public key management, the subtleties of discretionary access control and formalization of verification models. The National Computer Security Center is a Department of Defense working group substantially managed by the super secret National Security Agency. The NCSC's charter in life is to establish standards and procedures for securing the US Government's comput- ers from compromise. 1985's high point was an award banquet with slightly ribald speeches. Otherwise the conference was essentially a maze of highly complex presentations, meaningless to anyone not well versed in computers, security and government-speak. An attend- ee's competence could be well gauged by his use of acronyms. "If the IRS had DAC across its X.25 gateways, it could integrate X9.17 management, DES, MAC and X9.9 could be used throughout. Save the government a bunch!" "Yeah, but the DoD had an RFI for an RFQ that became a RFP, specced by NSA and based upon TD-80-81. It was isolated, environmentally speaking." Boring, thought Miles Foster. Incredibly boring, but it was his job to sit, listen and learn. Miles Foster was a security and communications analyst with the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland. It was part of the regimen to attend such functions to stay on top of the latest developments from elsewhere in the government and from university and private research programs. Out of the 30 or so panels that Miles Foster had to attend, pro forma, only one held any real interest for him. It was a mathe- matical presentation entitled, "Propagation Tendencies in Self Replicating Software". It was the one subject title from the conference guide about which he knew nothing. He tried to figure out what the talk was going to be about, but the answer escaped him until he heard what Dr. Les Brown had to say. Miles Foster wrote an encapsulated report of Dr. Brown's presen- tation with the 23 other synopses he was required to generate for the NSA. Proof of Attendance. SUBJECT: Dr. Les Brown - Professor of Computer Science, Sheffield Univer- sity. Dr. Brown presented an updated version of his PhD thesis. CONTENTS: Dr. Brown spoke about unique characteristics of certain software that can be written to be self-replicating. He examined the properties of software code in terms of set theory and adequately demonstrated that software can be written with the sole purpose of disguising its true intents, and then replicate or clone itself throughout a computer system without the knowledge of the computer's operators. He further described classes of software that, if designed for specific purposes, would have undetectable characteristics. In the self replicating class, some would have crystalline behav- iors, others mutating behaviors, and others random behaviors. The set theory presentations closely paralleled biological trans- mission characteristics and similar problems with disease detec- tion and immunization. It became quite clear from the Dr. Brown's talk, that surrepti- tiously placed software with self-replicating properties could have deleterious effects on the target computing system. CONCLUSIONS It appears prudent to further examine this class of software and the ramifications of its use. Dr. Brown presented convincing evidence that such propagative effects can bypass existing pro- tective mechanisms in sensitive data processing environments. There is indeed reason to believe that software of this nature might have certain offensive military applications. Dr. Brown used the term 'Virus' to describe such classes of software. Signed, Miles Foster Senior Analyst Y-Group/SF6-143G-1 After he completed his observations of the conference as a whole, and the seminars in particular, Miles Foster decided to eliminate Dr. Brown's findings from the final submission to his superiors. He wasn't sure why he left it out, it just seemed like the right thing to do. **************************************************************** Chapter 1 August, 4 Years Ago. National Security Agency Fort George S. Meade, Maryland. Thousands of disk drives spun rapidly, at over 3600 rpm. The massive computer room, Computer Room C-12, gently whirred and droned with a life of its own. The sublime, light blue walls and specially fitted blue tint light bulbs added a calming influence to the constant urgency that drove the computer operators who pushed buttons, changed tapes and stared at the dozens of amber screens on the computers. Racks upon racks of foreboding electronic equipment rung the walls of Room C-12 with arrays of tape drives interspersed. Rats nests of wire and cable crept along the floor and in and out of the control centers for the hundreds of millions of dollars of the most sophisticated computers in the world. Only five years ago, computing power of this magnitude, now fit in a room the size of an average house would have filled the Pentagon. All of this, all of this power, for one man. Miles Foster was locked in a room without windows. It contained a table, 4 chairs, and he was sure a couple of cameras and micro- phones. He had been held for a least six hours, maybe more; they had taken his watch to distort his time perception. Within 2 minutes of the time Miles Foster announced his resigna- tions as a communications expert with the National Security Agency, S Group, his office was sealed and guarded by an armed marine. His computer was disconnected, and he was escorted to a debriefing room where he had sporadically answered questions asked by several different Internal Affairs Security Officers. While Miles Foster was under virtual house arrest, not the pre- ferred term, but an accurate one, the Agency went to work. From C-12, a group of IAS officers began to accumulate information about Miles Foster from a vast array of computer memory banks. They could dial up any major computer system within the United States, and most around the world. The purpose, ostensibly, of having such power was to centralize and make more efficient security checks on government employees, defense contractors and others who might have an impact on the country's national securi- ty. But, it had other purposes, too. Computer Room C-12 is classified above Top Secret, it's very existence denied by the NSA, the National Security Agency, and unknown to all but a very few of the nation's top policy makers. Congress knows nothing of it and the President was only told after it had been completed, black funded by a non-line item accountable budget. Computer Room C-12 is one of only two electronic doors into the National Data Base - a digital reposi- tory containing the sum total knowledge and working profiles of every man, woman and child in the United States. The other secret door that guards America's privacy is deep within the bowels of the Pentagon. From C-12, IAS accessed every bank record in the country in Miles' name, social security number or in that of his immediate family. Savings, checking, CD's. They had printouts, within seconds, of all of their last year's credit card activity. They pulled 3 years tax records from the IRS, medical records from the National Medical Data Base which connects hospitals nationwide, travel records from American carriers, customs checks, video rental history, telephone records, stock purchases. Anything that any computer ever knew about Miles Foster was printed and put into eleven 6" thick files within 2 hours of the request from the DIRNSA, Director, National Security Agency. Internal Affairs was looking for some clue as to why a successful and highly talented analyst like Miles Foster would so abruptly resign a senior analyst position. While Miles was more than willing to tell them his feelings, and the real reasons behind his resignation, they wanted to make sure that there weren't a few little details he wasn't telling them. Like, perhaps gam- bling debts, women on the side, (he was single) or women on the wrong side, overextended financial obligations, anything unusual. Had he suddenly come into money and if he did, where did he get it? Blackmail was considered a very real possibility when unex- pected personnel changes occur. The files vindicated Miles Foster of any obvious financial anoma- lies. Not that he knew he needed vindication. He owned a Potomac condominium in D.C., a 20 minutes against traffic commute to Fort Meade where he had worked for years, almost his entire profes- sional life. He traveled some, Caribbean cruises, nothing osten- tatious but in style, had a reasonable savings account, only used 2 credit cards and he owed no one anything significant. There was nothing unusual about his file at all, unless you think that living within ones means is odd. Miles Foster knew how to make the most out of a dollar. Miles Foster was clean. The walls of his drab 12 foot square prison room were a dirty shade of government gray. There was an old map on the wall and Miles noticed that the gray paint behind the it was 7 shades lighter than the surrounding paint. Two of the four fluorescent bulbs were out, hiding some of the peeling paint on the ceiling. Against one wall was a row of file cabinets with large iron bars behind the drawer handles, insuring that no one, no one, was getting into those file with permission. Also prominent on each file cabinet was a tissue box sized padlock. Miles was alone, again. When the IAS people questioned him, they were hard on him. Very hard. But most of the time he was alone. Miles paced the room during the prolonged waits. He poked here and there, under this, over that; he found the clean paint behind the map and smirked. When the IAS men returned, they found Miles stretching and exer- cising his svelte 5' 9" physique to help relieve the boredom. He was 165 lbs. and in excellent for almost 40. Miles wasn't a fitness nut, but he enjoyed the results of staying in shape - women, lots of women. He had a lightly tanned Mediterranean skin, dark, almost black wavy hair on the longish side but immac- ulately styled. His demeanor dripped elegance, even when he wore torn jeans, and he knew it. It was merely another personal asset that Miles had learned how to use to his best advantage. Miles was regularly proofed. He had a face that would permit him to assume any age from 20 to 40, but given his borderline arrogance, he called it aloofness, most considered him the younger. None- theless, women, of all ages went for it. One peculiar trait made women and girls find Miles irresistible. He had an eerie but conscious muscular control over his dimples. If he were angry, a frown could mean any number of things depend- ing upon how he twitched his dimples. A frown could mean, "I'm real angry, seriously", or "I'm just giving you shit", or "You bore me, go away", or more to Miles' purpose, "You're gorgeous, I wanna fuck your brains out". His dimples could pout with a smile, grin with a sneer, emphasize a question; they could accent and augment his mood at will. But now. he was severely bored. Getting even more disgusted with the entire process. The IAS wasn't going to find anything. He had made sure of that. After all, he was the computer expert. Miles heard the sole door to the room unlock. It was a heavy, 'I doubt an ax could even get through this' door. The fourth IAS man to question Miles entered the room as the door was relocked from the other side. "So, tell us again, why did you quit?" The IAS man abruptly blurted out even before sitting in one of the old, World War II vintage chairs by the wooden table. "I've told you a hundred times and you have it on tape a hundred times." The disgust in his voice was obvious and intended. "I really don't want to go through it again." "Tough shit. I want to hear it. You haven't told me yet." This guy was tougher, Miles thought. "What are you looking for? For God's sake, what do you want me to say? You want a lie that you like better? Tell me what it is and I'll give it back to you, word for word. Is that what you want?" Miles gave away something. He showed, for the first time, real anger. The intellect in Miles saw what the emotion was doing, so his brain quickly secreted a complex string of amino acids to call him down. Miles decided that he should go back to the naive, 'what did I do?' image and stick to the plan. He put his head in his hands and leaned forward for a second. He gently shook and looked up sideways. He was very convincing. The IAS man thought that Miles might be weakening. "I want the fucking truth," the IAS man bellowed. "And I want it now!" Miles sighed. He was tired and wanted a cigarette so bad he could shit, and that pleasure, too, he was being denied. But he had prepared himself for this eventuality; serious interrogation. "O.K., O.K." Miles feigned resignation. He paused for another heavy sigh. "I quit 'cause I got sick of the shit. Pure and simple. I like my work, I don't like the bureaucracy that goes with it. That's it. After over 10 years here, I expected some sort of recognition other than a cost of living increase like every other G12. I want to go private where I'll be appreciated. Maybe even make some money." The IAS man didn't look convinced. "What single event made you quit? Why this morning, and not yesterday or tomorrow, or the next day, or next week. Why today?" The IAS man blew smoke at Miles to annoy him and exaggerate the withdrawal symptoms. Miles was exhausted and edgy. "Like I said, I got back another 'don't call us, we'll call you' response on my Public-Private key scheme. They said, 'Not yet practical' and set it up for another review in 18 months. That was it. Finis! The end, the proverbial straw that you've been looking for. Is that what you want?" Miles tried desperately to minimize any display of arrogance as he looked at the IAS man. "What do you hope to do in the private sector? Most of your work is classified." The IAS man remained cool and unflustered. "Plenty of defense guys who do crypto and need a good comm guy. I think the military call it the revolving door." Miles' dimpled smugness did not sit well with IAS. "Yeah, you'll probably go to work for your wop friends in Sicily." The IAS man sarcastically accused. "Hey - you already know about that!" That royally pissed off Miles. He didn't appreciate any dispersion on his heritage. "They're relatives, that's it. Holidays, food, turkey, ham, and a bunch of booze. And besides," Miles paused and smiled, "there's no such thing as the Mafia." By early evening they let him relieve himself and then finally leave the Fort. He was given 15 minutes to collect his personal items, under guard, and then escorted to the front gate. All identification was removed and his files were transferred into the 'Monitor' section, where they would sit for at least one year. The IAS people had finally satisfied themselves that Miles Foster was a dissatisfied, underpaid government employee who had had enough of the immobility and rigidity of a giant bureaucratic machine that moves at a snails pace. Miles smiled at the end of the interrogation. Just like I said, he thought, just like I said. There was no record in his psychological profiles, those from the Agency shrinks, that suggested Miles meant anything other than what he claimed. Let him go, they said. Let him go. Nowhere in the records did it show how much he hated his stupid, stupid bosses, the bungling bureaucratic behemoths who didn't have the first idea of what he and his type did. Nowhere did Miles' frustration and resultant build up of resentment and anger show up in any file or on any chart or graph. His strong, almost overbearing ego and over developed sense of worth and importance were relegated to a personality quirk common to superbright ambitious engineering types. It fit the profile. Nowhere, either, was it mentioned that in years at NSA, Miles Foster had submitted over 30 unsolicited proposals for changes in cryptographic and communications techniques to improve the secu- rity of the United States. Nowhere did it say, they were all turned down, tabled, ignored. At one point or another, Miles had to snap. The rejection of proposal number thirty-four gave Miles the perfect reason to quit. * * * * * Miles Foster looked 100% Italian despite the fact his father was a pure Irishman. "Stupido, stupido" his grandmother would say while slamming the palm of her hand into forehead. She was not exactly fond of her daughter marrying outside family. But, it was a good marriage, 3 great kids, or as good as kids get and Grand- mama tolerated the relationship. Miles the oldest, was only 7 when his father got killed as a bystander at a supermarket rob- bery. Mario Dante, his homosexual uncle who worked in some undefined, never mentioned capacity for a Vegas casino, assumed the pater- nal role in raising Miles. With 2 sisters, a mother, an aunt and a grandmother all living under the same roof with Miles, any male companionship, role model if you will, was acceptable. Mario kept the Family Honor, keeping his sexual proclivities secret until Miles turned 18. Upon hearing, Miles commented, "Yeah, so? Everyone knows Uncle Mario's a fag. Big deal." Mario was a big important guy, and he did business, grownup business. That was all Miles was supposed to know. When Miles was 13, Mario thought it would be a good idea for him to become a man. Only 60 miles from Las Vegas lived the country's only legal brothels. Very convenient. Miles wasn't going to fool around with any of that street garbage. Convention girls. Miles should go first class the first time. Pahrump, Nevada is home to the only legalized prostitution in the United States. Mario drove fast, Miles figured about 130mph, in his Red Ferrari on Highway 10, heading West from Vegas. Mario was drinking Glen Fetitch, neat, and he steered with only one hand, hardly looking at the road. The inevitable occurred. Gaining on them, was a Nevada State Trooper. The flashing lights and siren reminded Mario to slow down and pull over. He grinned, sipped his drink and Miles worried. Speeding was against the law. So was drinking and driving. The police officer walked over to the driver side of the Ferrari. Uncle Mario lowered the window to let the officer lean into the car. As the trooper bent over to look inside the flashy low slung import, Mario pulled out a handgun from under the seat and stuck it into the cop's face. Mario started yelling. "Listen asshole, I wasn't speeding. Was I? I don't want nothing to go on my insurance. I gotta good driving record, y'know?" Mario was crazy! Miles had several strong urges to severely contract his sphincter muscles. "No sir, I wanted to give you a good citizenship citation, for your contributions to the public good." The cop laughed in Uncle Mario's face. "Good to see you still gotta sensa'humor." Uncle Mario laughed and put the gun back in his shoulder holster. Miles stared, dumbfounded, still squeezing his butt cheeks tight. "Eh, Paysan! Where you going so fired up? You know the limit's 110?" They both guffawed. "Here!" Mario pointed at Miles. "'Bout time the kid took a ride around the world, y'know what I mean?" Miles wasn't sure what he meant, but he was sure it had to do with where he was going to lose his virginity. "Sheeeee-it! Uptown! Hey kid, ask for Michelle and take 2 from Column B, then do it once for me!" Even though they weren't, to a 13 year male Italian virgin, Mario and the cop were making fun of him. "I remember my first time. It was in a pick up truck, out in the desert. Went for fucking ever! Know what I mean? The cop winked at Miles who was humiliated. To Miles' relief, Mario finally gave the cop an envelope, while being teasingly reprimanded. "Hey, Mario, take it a little easy out here, will yah? At least on my watch, huh?" "Yeah, sure. No problem. Ciao." "Ciao." They were off again, doing over 100mph in seconds. The rest of the evening went as planned. Miles thanked his uncle in a way that brought tears to Mario's eyes. Miles said, "You know, Uncle Mario. When I grow up, I want to be just like you." * * * * * "He's just a boy, Mario! How could you!" Miles' mother did not react favorably to the news of her son's manhood. She was trying to protect him from the influence of her relatives. Miles was gauged near genius with a pronounced aptitude for mathematics and she didn't want his life to go to waste. His mother had married outside of the family, the organized crime culture, the life one inherits so easily. She loved her family, knew that they dealt in gambling, some drugs, an occasional rough-up of an opponent, but preferred to ignore it. She mar- ried a man she loved, not one picked for he, but had lost him 6 years before. They _could not_ have her son. Her wishes were respected, in the memory of Miles father, and also because it wasn't worth having a crazed Sicilian woman rant- ing and raving all about. But Miles was delectable bait to the Family. His mathematical wizardry could assist greatly in gaming operations, figure the odds, new angles, keep the dollars in the house's favor despite all advertising claims to the contrary. But, there was respect and honor in their promise to his mother. Hands off was the rule that came all the way from the top. He was protected. Miles was titillated with the attention, but he still listened to his mother. She came before all others. With no father, she became a little of both, and despite anyone's attempts, Miles knew about Mario. Miles was such a subject of adoration by his mother, aunt and grandmother, siblings aside, that Miles came to expect the same treatment from everyone, especially women. They praised him so, he always got top honors, the best grades, that he came to re- quire the attention and approval. Living with 5 women and a gay uncle for 11 years had its effect. Miles was incredibly heterosexual. Not anti-gay at all, not at all. But he had absolutely no interest in men. He adored women, largely because of his mother. He put women on pedestals, and treated them like queens. Even on a beer budget Miles could convince his lady that they were sailing the Caribbean while baking in the desert suburbs of Las Vegas. Women succumbed, willingly, to Miles' slightest advance. He craved the approval, and worked long and hard to perfect his technique. Miles Foster was soon an expert. His mother never openly disapproved which Miles took as approval. By the time Miles went off to college study advanced mathematics and get a degree, he had shattered half of the teen-age hearts within 50 miles of Vegas. Plus, the admiration from his female family had allowed him to convince himself that he was going to change the world. He was the single most important person that could have an effect on civilization. Invincible. Can do no wrong. Miles was the end-all to be-all. If Miles said it, it must be so, and he bought into the program. What his mother or girl friends called self confidence others called conceit and arrogance. Even obnoxious. His third love, after his mother and himself, was mathematics. He believed in mathematics as the answer to every problem. All questions can be reduced to formulas and symbols. Then, once you have them on a piece of paper, or in a computer . . .the answer will appear. His master thesis was on that very subject. It was a brilliant soliloquy on the reducibility of any multi-dimensional condition to a defined set of measured properties. He postulated that all phenomenon was discrete in nature and none were continuous. Given that arguable position, he was able to develop a set of mathematical tools that would permit dissection of a problem into much smaller pieces. Once in manageable sizes, the problem would be worked out piece by piece until the pieces were reassembled as the answer. It was a tool that had very definite uses in the government. He was recruited by the Government in 1976. They wanted him to put his ingenious techniques to good use. The National Security Agency painted an idyllic picture of the ultimate job for a mathematician - the biggest, fastest and best computers in the world at your fingertips. Always the newest and the best. What- ever you need, it'll be there. And that's a promise. Super secret important work - oh how his mother would be proud. Miles accepted, but they never told him the complete truth. Not that they lied, of course. However, they never bothered to tell him, that because of his family background, guilt by association if you wish, his career would be severely limited. Miles made it to senior analyst, and his family was proud, but he never told them that over 40% of the staff in his area were senior analysts. It was a high tech desk job that required his particular skills as a mathematician. The NSA got from Miles what they wanted; his mathematical tools modified to work for govern- ment security projects. For a couple of years, Miles happily complied - then he got itchy to work on other projects. After all, he had come up with the idea in the first place, it was time he came up with another. Time to move on. In typical bureaucratic manner, the only way to get something new done is to write a proposal; enlist support and try to push it through committee. Everyone made proposals. You not only needed a good idea for a good project, good enough to justify the use of 8 billion dollars worth of computers, but you needed the connec- tions and assistance of others. You scratch mine, I'll scratch yours. During his tenure at NSA, Miles attempted to institute various programs, procedures, new mathematical modes that might be use- ful. While technically his concepts were superior, his arro- gance, his better-than-everyone, my shit doesn't stink attitude proved to be an insurmountable political obstacle. He was unable to ever garner much support for his proposals. Thus, not one of them was ever taken seriously. Which compounded the problem and reinforced Miles' increasingly sour attitude towards his employ- er. However, with dimples in command, Miles successfully masked his disdain. To all appearance he acceded to the demands of the job, but off the job, Miles Foster was a completely different person. * * * * * The telephone warbled on the desk of the IAS Department Chief. The digital readout on the phone told him that it was an internal call, not from outside the building, but he didn't recognize the number. "Investigations," The chief answered. "This is Jacobs. We're checking up on Foster." "Yessir?" DIRNSA? Calling here? "Is he gone?" "Yessir." "Anything?" "No sir." "Good. Close the file." "Sir?" "Close it. Forever." * * * * * September, 4 Years Ago Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Miles Foster set up shop in Washington D.C. as a communications security consultant. He and half of those who lived within driving distance of the Capitol were known as Beltway Bandits, a simultaneously endearing and self-deprecating title given to those who make their living selling products or services to the Federal Government. Miles was ex-NSA and that was always impres- sive to potential clients. He let it be known that his services would now be available to the private sector, at the going rates. As part of the revolving door, from Government to industry, Miles' value would decrease with time, so he needed to get a few clients quickly. The day you leave public service all of your knowledge is current, and therefore valuable, especially to companies who want to sell widgets to the government. As the days and months wear on, new policies, new people, new arrange- ments and confederacies are in place. Washington's transient nature is probably no more evident than through the political circle where everyone is aware of whom is talking to whom and about what. This Miles knew, so he stuck out his tentacles to maximize his salability. He restructured his dating habits. Normally Miles would date women whom he knew he could fuck. He kept track of their men- strual cycles to make sure they wouldn't waste his time. If he thought a particular female had extraordinary oral sex skills, he would make sure to seduce when she had her period. Increased the odds of good blow job. Now though, Miles restricted his dating, temporarily, to those who could help start his career in the private sector. "Fuck the secretary to get to the boss!" he bragged unabashedly. Miles dragged himself to many of the social functions that grease the wheels of motion in Washington. The elaborate affairs, often at the expense of government contractors and lobbyists, were a highly visible, yet totally legal way to shmooze and booze with the influentia in the nation's capital. The better parties, the ones for generals, for movers and for shakers, for digni- taries and others of immediate importance, are graced with a generous sprinkling of strikingly beautiful women. They are paid for by the hosts, for the pleasure of the their guests. The Washington culture requires that such services are discreetly handled. Expense reports and billings of that nature therefore cite French Caterers, C.T. Temps, Formal Rentals and countless other harmless, inoffensive and misleading sounding company names. Missile Defense Systems, Inc. held one of the better parties in an elegant old 2 story brick Georgetown home. The building was a former embassy, which had been discarded long ago by its owners in favor of a neo-modern structure on Reservoir Road. The house was appointed with a strikingly southern ante-bellum flair, but tastefully done, not overly decorated. The furniture was modern, comfortable, meant to be and used enjoyed, yet well suited to the classic formality. The hot September night was punctuated with an occasional breeze. The breaths of relief from Washington's muggy, swamp-like summer air were welcomed by those braving the heat in the manicured gardens outside, rather than the refreshing luxury of the air conditioned indoors. It was a straight cocktail party, a stand-up affair, with a hundred or so Pentagon types attending. It began at seven, and unless tradition was broken, it would be over by 10 as the last of the girls finds her way into a waiting black limousine with her partner for the night. Straight politics, Miles thought. 9:30 neared, and Miles felt he had accomplished most of what he had set out to do - meet people, sell himself, play the game, talk the line, do the schtick. He hadn't, though, yet figured out how he was going to get laid tonight. As he sipped his third Glen Fetitch on the rocks, he spotted a woman whom he hadn't seen that evening. Maybe she had just arrived, maybe she was leftovers. Well, it was getting late, and he shouldn't let a woman go to waste, so let's see what she looks like from the front. She looked aimlessly through the French doors at the backyard flora. Miles sauntered over to her and introduced himself. "Hi, I'm Miles Foster." He grinned wide, dimples in force, as she turned toward him. She was gorgeous. Stunning even. About an inch taller than Miles, she wore her shimmering auburn hair shoulder length. Angelic, he thought. Perfectly formed full lips and statuesque cheek bones underscored her sweetly intense brown eyes. Miles went to work, and by 10P.M., he and Stephanie Perkins were on their way to Deja Vu on 22nd. and M Street for drinks and dance. By 10:30 he had nicknamed her Perky because her breasts stood at constant attention. By 11:30 they were on their way to Miles' apartment. At 2:00 AM Miles was quite satisfied with himself. So was Perky. His technique was perfect. Never a complaint. Growing up in a houseful without men taught Miles what women wanted. He learned how to give it to them, just the way they liked it. The weekend together was heaven in bed; playing, making love, giggling, ordering in Chinese and pizza. Playing more, watching I Love Lucy reruns, drinking champagne, and making love. Miles bounced quarters on her taut stomach and cracked eggs on her exquisitely tight derriere. By Sunday morning, Miles found that he actually liked Stephanie. It wasn't that he didn't like his other women, he did. It was just, well this one was different. He 'really' liked her. A very strange feeling for Miles Foster. "Miles?" Stephanie asked during another period of blissful after- glow. She snuggled up against him closer. "Yeah?" He responded by squeezing her buttocks. His eyes were still closed. "In a minute stud, yes." She looked up reassuringly at him. "Miles, would you work for anyone?" She kissed his chest. "What do you mean?" he asked in return. He wasn't in the mood for shop talk. "Like, say, a foreigner, not an American company. Would you work for them?" "Huh?" Miles looked down inquisitively. "Foreigner? I guess so. Why do you ask?" He sounded a tad concerned. "Oh, no reason." She rubbed him between his legs. "Just curious. I thought you were a consultant, and consultants work for anyone who can pay. That's all." "I am, and I will, but so what?" He relaxed as Stephanie's hands got the desired result. "Well," she stroked him rhythmically. "I know some people that could use you. They're not American, that's all. I didn't know if you cared." "No, I don't care," he sighed. "It's all the same to me. Unless they're commies. My former employer would definitely frown on that." "Would you mind if I called them, and maybe you two can get together?" She didn't miss a beat. "No go ahead, call them, anything you want, but can we talk about this later?" Miles begged. * * * * * Miles felt very much uninformed on his way to the Baltimore Washington Airport. He knew that he was being flown to Tokyo Japan, first class, by a mystery man who had prepaid him $10,000 for a 1 hour meeting. Not a bad start, he thought. His reputa- tion obviously preceded him. Stephanie was hired to recruit him, that was obvious. And that bothered Miles. He was being used. Wasn't he? Or had he seduced her and the trip was a bonus? He still liked Stephanie, just not as much as before. It never occurred to Miles, not for a second, that Stephanie might not have liked him. At JFK in New York, Miles connected to the 20 hour flight to Tokyo through Anchorage, Alaska. He had a brief concern that this was the same route that KAL Flight 007 had taken in 1983 before it was shot down by the Soviets, but he was flying an American carrier with a four digit flight number. He allowed that thought to remove any traces of worry. The flight was a couple of hours out of New York when one of the flight attendants came up to him. "Mr. Foster?" "Yes?" He looked up from the New York City Times he was reading. "I believe you dropped this?" She handed Miles a large sealed envelope. His name had been written across the front with a large black marker. "Thank you," said Miles. He took it gratefully. When she left, he opened the strange envelope. It wasn't his. Inside there was a single sheet of paper. Miles read it. MR. FOSTER WELCOME TO JAPAN. YOU WILL BE MET AT THE NARITA AIRPORT BY MY DRIVER AND CAR. THEY ARE AT YOUR DISPOSAL. WE WILL MEET IN MY OFFICE AT 8:00 AM, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23. ALL ARRANGEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE FOR YOUR PLEASURES. RESPECTFULLY TAKI HOMOSOTO The name meant nothing to him so he forgot about it. He had more important things to do. His membership in the Mile High Club was in jeopardy. He had not yet made it with a female flight attend- ant. They landed, 18 hours and 1 day later in Tokyo. Miles was now a member in good standing. * * * * * Thursday, September 3 Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport "DFW, this is American 1137, heading 125 at 3500." "Roger American 1137, got you loud and green. Maintain 125, full circle 40 miles then 215 for 40." "Traffic Dallas?" "Heavy. Weather's been strong. On again off again. Piled up pretty good." "Sheers?" "None so far. Ah, you're a '37, you carry a sheer monitor. You got it made. Have to baby sit some 0's and '27's. May be a while." "Roger Dallas. 125 40, 215 40. Maintaining 12 point 5." "Roger 1137." The control tower at DFW airport was busier than normal. The dozen or so large green radar screens glowed eerily and made the air traffic controllers appear pallid under the haunting light emitted from around the consoles. Severe weather patterns, afternoon Texas thunderstorms had intermittently closed the airport forcing a planes to hold in a 120 mile pattern over Dallas and Fort Worth. Many of the tower crew had been at their stations for 2 hours past their normal quitting time due to street traffic delays and highway pileups that had kept shift replacements from arriving on time. Planes were late coming in, late departing, connections were being missed. Tensions were high on the ground and in the air by both the airline personnel and travelers alike. It was a chaotic day at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. "Chad? Cm'ere," said Paul Gatwick, the newest and youngest, and least burnt out of the day shift flight controllers. Shift supervisor Chad Phillips came right over. "What you got?" He asked looking at the radar screen. "See these three bogies?" Paul pointed at three spots with his finger. "Bogies? What are those symbols?" "They just appeared, out of nowhere. I don't think they're there. And over here," he pointed, "that was Delta 210. It's gone." Paul spoke calmly, in the professional manner he was trained. He looked up at Chad, awaiting instructions. "Mike," Chad said to the controller seated next to Paul. "Switch and copy 14, please. Fast." Chad looked over to Mike's screen and saw the same pattern. "Paul, run a level 2 diagnostic. What was the Delta pattern?" "Same as the others, circle. He's at 45 doing a 90 round." "Tell him to hold, and verify on board transponder." Chad spoke rapidly and his authority wasn't questioned. "Mike, see if we can get any visuals on the bogies. They might be a bounce." Chad took charge and, especially in this weather, was concerned with safety first and schedules last. In less than a minute he had verified that Delta 210 was not on any screen, three other ghost planes meandered through the airspace, and that their equipment was functioning properly. "Dallas," the calm pilot voice said, "American 1137, requesting update. It's getting a little tight up here." "Roger, 1137," Gatwick said nervously. "Give me a second here . . ." "Dallas, what's the problem?" "Just a check . . ." Chad immediately told the operator of the ETMS computer to notify the FAA and Department of Transportation that a potential situa- tion was developing. The Enhanced Traffic Management System was designed to create a complete picture of every airplane flying within domestic air space. All status information, on every known flight in progress and every commercial plane on the ground, is transmitted from the 22 ARTCC's, (Air Route Traffic Control Centers) to an FAA Technical Center in Atlantic City and then sent by land and satellite to a DoT Systems Center. There, an array of DEC VAX super mini com- puters process the constant influx of raw data and send back an updated map across the ETMS every five minutes. Chad zoomed in on the picture of the country into the DFW ap- proach area and confirmed that the airplanes in question were not appearing on the National Airspace System data fields or dis- plays. Something was drastically wrong. "Chad, take a look here!" Another controller urgently called out. His radar monitor had more bogies than Paul's. "I lost a Delta, too, 1258." "What is it?" "37." "Shit," said Chad. "We gotta get these guys wide, they have to know what's happening." He called over to another controller. "Get on the wire, divert all traffic. Call the boss. We're closing it down." The controllers had the power to close the airport, and direct all flight operations from the tower. Air- port management wasn't always fond of their autonomy, but the tower's concern was safety at all costs. "Another one's gone," said Paul. "That's three 37's gone. Have they had a recall lately?" The ETMS operator asked the computer for a status on 737's else- where. "Chad, we're not the only ones," she said. "O'Hare and LAX have problems, too." "OK, everybody, listen up," Chad said. "Stack 'em, pack 'em and rack 'em. Use those outer markers, people. Tell them to believe their eyes. Find the 37's. Let 'em know their transponders are going. Then, bring 'em down one by one." The emergency speaker suddenly rang out. "Shit! Dive!" The captain of American 1137 ordered his plane to accelerate ground- ward for 10 seconds, descending 2500 feet, to avoid hitting an oncoming, and lost, DC-9. "Dallas, Mayday, Mayday. What the fuck's going on down there? This is worse than the freeway . . ." The emergency procedure was one they had practiced over and over, but rarely was it necessary for a full scale test. The FAA was going to be all over DFW and a dozen other airports within hours, and Chad wanted to be prepared. He ordered a formal notification to Boeing that they had identified a potentially serious malfunc- tion. Please make your emergency technical support crews avail- able immediately. Of the 100 plus flights under DFW control all 17 of the Boeing 737's disappeared from the radar screen, replaced by dozens of bogies with meaningless signatures. "Dallas, American 1137 requests emergency landing . . .we have several injured passengers who require immediate medical assist- ance." "Roger, 1137," Gatwick blurted back. "Copy, EP. Radar status?" "Nominal," said the shaken American pilot. "Good. Runway 21B. We'll be waiting." * * * * * By 5:00 PM, Pacific time, Boeing was notified by airports across the country that their 737's were having catastrophic transponder failure. Takeoffs were ordered stopped at major airports and the FAA directed that every 737 be immediately grounded. Chaos reigned in the airline terminals as delays of several hours to a day were announced for most flights. Police were needed to quell angry crowds who were stuck thousands of miles from home and were going to miss critical business liaisons. There is nothing we can do, every airline explained to no avail. Slowly, the planes were brought down, pilots relying on VFR since they couldn't count on any help from the ground. At airports where weather prohibited VFR landings, and the planes had enough fuel, they were redirected to nearby airports. Nearly a dozen emergency landings in a two hours period set new records that the FAA preferred didn't exist. A field day for the media, and a certain decrease in future passenger activity until the shock wore off. The National Transportation Safety Board had representatives monitoring the situation within an hour of the first reports from Dallas, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Tampa. When all 737's were accounted for, the individual airports and the FAA lifted flight restrictions and left it to the airlines to straighten out the scheduling mess. One hundred thousand stranded passengers and almost 30% of the domestic civilian air fleet was grounded. It was a good thing their reservation computers hadn't gone down. Damn good thing. * * * * * DISASTER IN AIR CREATES PANIC ON GROUND by Scott Mason "A national tragedy was avoided today by the quick and brave actions of hundreds of air traffic controllers and pilots working in harmony," a spokesperson for The Department of Transportation said, commenting on yesterday's failure of the computerized transponder systems in Boeing 737 airplanes. "In the interest of safety for all concerned, 737's will not be permitted to fly commercially until a full investigation has taken place." the spokesperson continued. "That process should be complete within 30 days." In all, 114 people were sent to hospitals, 29 in serious condi- tion, as a result of injuries sustained while pilots performed dangerous gut wrenching maneuvers to avoid mid-air collisions. Neither Boeing nor the Transportation Safety Board would comment on how computer errors could suddenly affect so many airplanes at once, but some computer experts have pointed out the possibility of sabotage. According to Harold Greenwood, an aeronautic elec- tronics specialist with Air Systems Design in Alpharetta, Geor- gia, "there is a real and definite possibility that there has been a specific attack on the airline computers. Probably by hackers. Either that or the most devastating computer program- ming error in history." Government officials discounted Greenwood's theories and said there is no place for wild speculation that could create panic in the minds of the public. None the less, flight cancellations busied the phones at most airlines and travel agencies, while the gargantuan task of rescheduling thousands of flights with 30% less planes began. Airline officials who didn't want to be quoted estimated that it would take at least a week to bring the system back together, Airline fares will increase next Monday by at least 10% and as much as 40% on some routes that will not be restored fully. The tone of the press conference held at the DoT was one of both bitterness and shock as was that of sampled public opinion. "I think I'll take the train." "Computers? They always blame the computers. Who's really at fault?" "They're just as bad as the oil companies. Something goes a little wrong and they jack up the prices." The National Transportation Safety Board said it would also institute a series of preventative maintenance steps on other airplanes' computer systems to insure that such a global failure is never repeated. Major domestic airlines announced they would try to lease addi- tional planes from other countries, but could not guarantee prior service performance for 3 to 6 months. Preliminary estimates place the cost of this debacle at between $800 Million and $2 Billion if the entire 737 fleet is grounded for only 2 weeks. The Stock Market reacted poorly to the news, and transportation stocks dove an average of 27% in heavy trading. The White House issued a brief statement congratulating the airline industry for its handling of the situation and wished its best to all inconvenienced and injured travelers. Class action suits will be filed next week against the airlines and Boeing as a result of the computer malfunction. This is Scott Mason, riding the train. * * * * * "Doug," pleaded 39 year old veteran reporter Scott Mason. "Not another computer virus story . . ." Scott childishly shrugged his shoulders in mock defeat. "Stop your whining," Doug ordered in fun. "You are the special- ist," he chided. When the story first came across the wire, Scott was the logical choice. In only seven years as a reporter Scott Mason had de- veloped quite a reputation for himself, and for the New York City Times. Doug had had to eat his words from years earlier more times than he cared to remember, but Scott's head had not swelled to the size of his fan club, which was the bane of so many suc- cessful writers. He knew he was good, just like he had told Doug "There is nothing sexy about viruses anymore," said Scott trying to politely ignore his boss to the point he would just leave. "Christ Almighty," the chubby balding sixtyish editor exploded. Doug's periodic exclamatory outbursts at Scott's nonchalance on critical issues were legendary. "The man who puts Cold Fusion on the front page of every paper in the country doesn't think a virus is sexy enough for the public. Good night!" "That's not what I'm saying." Scott had to defend this one. "I finally got someone to go on the record about the solar payoff scandals between Oil and Congress . . ." "Then the virus story will give you a little break," kidded Doug. "You've been working too hard." "Damn it, Doug," Scott defied. "Viruses are a dime a dozen and worse, there's no one behind it, there's nobody there. There's no story . . ." "Then find one. That's what we pay you for." Doug loudly mut- tered a few choice words that his paper wouldn't be caught dead printing. "Besides, you're the only one left." As he left he patted Scott on the back saying, "thanks. Really." "God, I hate this job." Scott Mason loved his job, after all it was his invention seven years ago when he first pitched it to Doug. Scott's original idea had worked. Scott Mason alone, under the banner of the New York City Times, virtually pioneered Scientific Journalism as a media form in its own right. Scott Mason was still its most vocal proponent, just as he was when he connived his way into a job with the Times, and without any journalistic experience. It was a childhood fantasy. Doug remembered the day clearly. "That's a new one on me," Doug had said with amusement when the mildly arrogant but very likable Mason had gotten cornered him, somehow bypassing personnel. Points for aggressiveness, points for creativity and points for brass balls. "What is Scientific Journalism?" "Scientific Journalism is stripping away all of the long techni- cal terms that science hides behind, and bringing the facts to the people at home." "We have a quite adequate Science Section, a computer column . . .and we pick up the big stories." Doug had tried to be polite. "That's not what I mean," Scott explained. "Everybody and his dead brother can write about the machines and the computers and the software. I'm talking about finding the people, the meaning, the impact behind the technology." "No one would be interested," objected Doug. Doug was wrong. Scott Mason immediately acclimated to the modus operandi of the news business and actually locked onto the collapse of Kaypro Computers and the odd founding family who rode serendipity until competence was required for survival. The antics of the Kay family earned Mason a respectable following in his articles and contributions as well as several libel and slander suits from the Kays. Trouble was, it's not against the law to print the truth or a third party speculations, as long as they're not malicious. Scott instinctively knew how to ride the fine edge between false accusations and impersonal objectivity. Cold Fusion, the brief prayer for immediate, cheap energy inde- pendence made headlines, but Scott Mason dug deep and found that some of the advocates of Cold Fusion had vested interests in palladium and iridium mining concerns. He also discovered how the experiments had been staged well enough to fool most experts. Scott had located one expert who wasn't fooled and could prove it. Scott Mason rode the crest of the Cold Fusion story for months before it became old news and the Hubble Telescope fiasco took its place. The fiasco of the Hubble Telescope was nothing new to Scott Mason's readers. He had published months before its launch that the mirrors were defective, but the government didn't heed the whistle blower's advice. The optical measurement computers which grind the mirrors of the telescope had a software program that was never tested before being used on the Hubble. The GSA had been tricked by the contractor's test results and Scott discov- ered the discrepencies. When Gene-Tech covered up the accidental release of mutated spores into the atmosphere from their genetic engineering labs, Scott Mason was the one reporter who had established enough of a reputation as both a fair reporter, and also one that understood the technology. Thanks to Mason's early diagnosis and the Times' responsible publishing, a potentially cataclysmic genetic disas- ter was averted. The software problems with Star Wars and Brilliant Pebbles, the payoffs that allowed defective X-Ray lasers to be shipped to the testing ground outside of Las Vegas - Scott Mason was there. He traced the Libyan chemical weapons plant back to West Germany which triggered the subsequent destruction of the plant. Scott's outlook was simple. "It's a matter of recognizing the possibilities and then the probabilities. Therefore, if some- thing is possible, someone, somewhere will do it. Guaranteed. Since someone's doing it, then it's only a matter of catching him in the act." "Besides," he would tell anyone who would listen, "computers and technology and electronics represent trillions of dollars annu- ally. To believe that there isn't interesting, human interest and profound news to be found, is pure blindness. The fear of the unknown, the ignorance of what happens on the other side of the buttons we push, is an enemy wrapped in the shrouds of time, well disguised and easily avoided." Scott successfully opened the wounds of ignorance and technical apathy and made he and the Times the de facto standard in Scien- tific Journalism. His reputation as a expert in anything technical endeared him to fellow Times' reporters. Scott often became the technical back- bone of articles that did not carry his name. But that was good. The journalists' barter system. Scott Mason was not considered a competitor to the other reporters because of his areas of inter- est and the skills he brought with him to the paper. And, he didn't flaunt his knowledge. To Scott's way of thinking, techni- cal fluency should be as required as are the ABC's, so it was with the dedication of a teacher and the experience of simplifi- cation that Scott undertook it to openly help anyone who wanted to learn. His efforts were deeply appreciated. **************************************************************** Chapter 2 Friday, September 4 San Francisco, California Mr. Henson?" "Yes, Maggie?" Henson responded over the hands free phone on his highly polished black marble desk. He never looked up from the papers he was perusing. "There's a John Fullmaster for you." "Who?" he asked absent mindedly. "Ah, John Fullmaster." "I don't know a Fullman do I? Who is he?" "That's Fullmaster, sir, and he says its personal." Robert Henson, chairman and CEO of Perris, Miller and Stevenson leaned back in the plush leather chair. A brief perplexed look covered his face and then a sigh of resignation. "Very well, tell him I'll take it in a minute." As the young highly visible leader of one of the most successful Wall Street investment banking firms during the merger mania of the 1980's, he had grown accustomed to cold calls from aggressive young brokers who wanted a chance to pitch him on sure bets. Most often he simply ignored the calls, or referred them to his capable and copious staff. Upon occasion, though, he would amuse himself with such calls by putting the caller through salesmen's hell; he would permit them to give their pitch, actually sound interested, permit the naive to believe that their call to Robert Henson would lead them to a pot of gold, then only to bring them down as harshly as he could. It was the only seeming diversion Robert Henson had from the daily grueling regimen of earning fat fees in the most somber of Wall Street activities. He needed a break anyway. "Robert Henson. May I help you?" He said into the phone. It was as much a command as a question. From the 46th. floor SW corner office, Henson stared out over Lower New York Bay where the Statue of Liberty reigned. "Thank you for taking my call Mr. Henson." The caller's proper Central London accent was engaging and conveyed assurance and propriety. "I am calling in reference to the proposed merger you are arranging between Second Boston Financial and Winston Ellis Services. I don't believe that the SEC will be impressed with the falsified figures you have generated to drive up your fees. Don't you agree." Henson bolted upright in his chair and glared into the phone. "Who the hell is this?" he demanded. "Merely a concerned citizen, sir." The cheeky caller paused. "I asked, sir, don't you agree?" "Listen," Henson shouted into the phone. I don't know who the hell you are, nor what you want, but all filings made with the SEC are public and available to anyone. Even the press whom I assume you represent . . ." "I am not with the press Mr. Henson," the voice calmly interrupt- ed. "All the same, I am sure that they would be quite interest- ed in what I have to say. Or, more precisely, what I have to show them." "What the hell are you talking about?" Henson screamed. "Specifically, you inflated the earnings of Winston Ellis over 40% by burying certain write downs and deferred losses. I be- lieve you are familiar with the numbers. Didn't you have them altered yourself?" Henson paled as the caller spoke to him matter of factly. His eyes darted around his spacious and opulent office as though someone might be listening. He shifted uneasily in his chair, leaned into the phone and spoke quietly. "I don't know what you're taking about." "I think you do, Mr. Henson." "What do you want?" Henson asked cautiously. "Merely your acknowledgment, to me, right now, that the figures were falsified, at your suggestion, and . . ." "I admit nothing. Nothing." Henson hung up the phone. Shaken, he dialed the phone, twice. In his haste he misdialed the first time. "Get me Brocker. Now. This is Henson." "Brocker," the other end of the phone responded nonchalantly. "Bill, Bob here. We got troubles." * * * * * "Senator Rickfield? I think you better take this call." Ken Boyers was earnest in his suggestion. The aged Senator looked up and recognized a certain urgency. The youthful 50 year old Ken Boyers had been with Senator Merrill Rickfield since the mid 1960's as an aide de campe, a permanent fixture in Rickfield's national success. Ken preferred the number two spot, to be the man in the background rather the one in the public light. He felt he could more effectively wield power without the constant surveillance of the press. Only when events and deals were completely orchestrated were they made public, and then Merrill could take the credit. The arrangement suited them both. Rickfield indicated that his secretary and the two junior aids should leave the room. "What is it Ken?" "Just take the call, listen carefully, and then we'll talk." "Who is it, Ken. I don't talk to every. . ." "Merrill . . .pick up the phone." It was an order. They had worked together long enough to afford Ken the luxury of ordering a U.S. Senator around. "This is Senator Rickfield, may I help you?" The solicitous campaign voice, smiling and inviting, disguised the puzzled look he gave his senior aide. Within a few seconds the puzzlement gave way to open mouthed silent shock and then, only moments later to overt fear. He stared with disbelief at Ken Boyers. Aghast, he gently put the phone back in its cradle. "Ken," Rickfield haltingly spoke. "Who the hell was that and how in blazes did he know about the deal with Credite Suisse? Only you, me and General Young knew." He rose slowly rose and looked accusingly at Ken. "C'mon Merrill, I have as much to lose as you." "The hell you do." He was growling. "I'm a respected United States Senator. They can string me up from the highest yardarm just like they did Nixon and I'm not playing to lose. Besides, I'm the one the public knows while you're invisible. It's my ass and you know it. Now, and I mean now, tell me what the hell is going on? There were only three of us . . ." "And the bank," Ken quickly interjected to deflect the verbal onslaught. "Screw the bank. They use numbers. Numbers, Ken. That was the plan. But this son of a bitch knew the numbers. Damn it, he knew the numbers Ken!" "Merrill, calm down." "Calm down? You have some nerve to tell me to calm down. Do you know what would happen if anyone, and I mean anyone finds out about . . ." Rickfield looked around and thought better of finishing the sentence. "Yes I know. As well as you do. Jesus Christ, I helped set the whole thing up. Remember?" He approached Merrill Rickfield and touched the Senator's shoulder. "Maybe it's a hoax? Just some lucky guess by some scum bag who . . ." "Bullshit." The senator turned abruptly. "I want a tee off time as soon as possible. Even sooner. And make damn sure that bastard Young is there. Alone. It's a threesome." * * * * * John Faulkner was lazing at his estate in the eminently exclu- sive, obscenely expensive Bell Canyon, twenty miles north of Los Angeles. Even though it was Monday, he just wasn't up to going into the office. As Executive Vice President of California National Bank, with over twenty billion in assets, he could pick and choose his hours. This Tuesday he chose to read by the pool and enjoy the warm and clear September California morning. The view of the San Gabriel mountains was so distracting that his normal thirty minute scan of the Wall Street Journal took nearly two hours. His estate was the one place where Faulkner was guaranteed priva- cy and anonymity. High profile Los Angeles banking required a social presence and his face, along with his wife's, graced the social pages every time an event of any gossip-magnitude oc- curred. He craved his private time. Faulkner's standing instruction with his secretary was never to call him at home unless "the bank is nuked, or I die" which when translated meant, "Don't call me, I'll call you." His wife was the only other person with the private phone number he changed every month to insure his solitude. The phone rang. It never rang. At least not in recent memory. He used it to dial out; but it was never used to receive calls. The warble surprised him so, that he let it ring three times before suspiciously picking it up. Damn it, he thought. I just got a new number last week. I'll have to have it changed again. "Hello?" he asked suspiciously. "Good morning Mr. Faulkner. I just called to let you know that your secret is safe with me." Faulkner itched to identify the voice behind the well educated British accent, but that fleeting thought dissipated at the import of the words being spoken. "Who is this? What secret?" "Oh, dear me. I am sorry, where are my manners. I am referring to the millions you have embezzled from your own bank to cover your gambling losses last year. Don't worry. I won't tell a soul." The line went dead. Sir George dialed the next number on his list after scanning the profile. The phone was answered by a timid sounding gentleman. Sir George began his fourth pitch of the day. "Mr. Hugh Sidneys? I would like to talk to you about a small banking problem I think you have . . ." Sir George Sterling made another thirty four calls that day. Each one alarmingly similar to the first three. Not that they alarmed him. They merely alarmed, often severely, the recipients of his calls. In most cases he had never heard of the persons he was calling, and the contents of his messages were often cryptic to him. But it didn't take him long to realize that every call was some form of veiled, or not so veiled threat. But his in- structions had been clear. Do not threaten. Just pass on the contents of the messages on his list to their designees. Do not leave any message unless he had confirmed, to the best of his ability that he was actually speaking to the party in question. If he received any trouble in reaching his intended targets, by secretaries or aides, he was only to pass on a preliminary mes- sage. These were especially cryptic, but in all cases, perhaps with a little prod, his call was put through. At the end of the first day of his assignment, Sir George Ster- ling walked onto his balcony overlooking San Francisco Bay and reflected on his good fortune. If he hadn't been stuck in Athens last year, wondering where his next score would come from. How strange the world works, he thought. Damn lucky he became a Sir, and at the tender age of twenty nine at that. His title, actually purchased from The Royal Title Assurance Company, Ltd. in London in 1987 for a mere 5000 pounds had per- mitted George Toft to leave the perennial industrial smog of the eternally drizzly commonness of Manchester, England and assume a new identity. It was one of the few ways out of the dismal existence that generations before him had tolerated with a stiff upper lip. As a petty thief he had done 'awright', but one score had left him with more money than he had ever seen. That is when he became a Sir, albeit one purchased. He spent several months impressing mostly himself as he traveled Europe. With the help of Eliza Doolittle, Sir George perfected his adapted upper crust London accent. His natural speech was that of a Liverpuddlian with a bag of marbles in his mouth - totally unintelligible when drunk. But his royal speech was now that of a Gentleman from the House of Lords. Slow and precise when appropriate or a practiced articulateness when speaking rapidly. It initially took some effort, but he could now correct his slips instantly. No one noticed anymore. Second nature it became for George Sterling, n<130> Toft. Athens was the end of his tour and where he had spent the last of his money. George, Sir George, sat sipping Metaxa in Sintigma Square next to the Royal Gardens and the imposing Hotel Grande Britagne styled in nineteenth century rococo elegance. As he enjoyed the balmy spring Athens evening pondering his next move, as either George Toft of Sir George Sterling, a well dressed gentleman sat down at his tiny wrought iron table. "Sir George?" The visitor offered his hand. George extended his hand, not yet aware that his guest had no reason whatsoever to know who he was. "Sir George? Do I have the Sir George Sterling of Briarshire, Essex?" The accent was trans European. Internationally cosmo- politan. German? Dutch? It didn't matter, Sir George had been recognized. George rose slightly. "Yes, yes. Of course. Excuse me, I was lost in thought, you know. Sir George Sterling. Of course. Please do be seated." The stranger said, "Sir George, would you be offended if I of- fered you another drink, and perhaps took a few minutes of your valuable time?" The man smiled genuinely and sat himself across from George before any reply. He knew what the answer would be. "Please be seated. Metaxa would it be for you, sir?" The man nodded yes. "Garcon?" George waved two fingers at one of the white-jacketed waiters who worked in the outdoor cafe. "Metaxa, parakalo!" Greek waiters are not known for their graciousness, so a brief grunt and nod was an acceptable response. George returned his attention to his nocturnal visitor. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure . . ." he said in his most formal voice. "Sir George, please just call me Alex. Last names, are so, well, so unnecessary among men like us. Don't you agree?" George nodded assent. "Yes, quite. Alex then, it is. How may I assist you?" "Oh no, Sir George, it is I who may be able to assist you. I understand that you would like to continue your, shall we say, extended sabbatical. Would that be a fair appraisal?" The Metaxas arrived and Alex excused the waiter with two 1000 Drachma notes. The overtipping guaranteed privacy. George looked closely at Alex. Very well dressed. A Saville was it? Perhaps. Maybe Lubenstrasse. He didn't care. This stranger had either keen insight into George's current plight or had heard of his escapades across the Southern Mediterranean. Royalty on Sabbatical was an unaccostable lie that regularly passed critical scrutiny. "Fair. Yes sir, quite fair. What exactly can you do for me, or can we do for each other?" "An even more accurate portrayal my friend, yes, do for each other." Alex paused for effect and to sip his Metaxa. "Simply put Sir George, I have the need for a well spoken gentleman to represent me for a period of perhaps, three months, perhaps more if all goes well. Would that fit into your schedule?" "I see no reason that I mightn't be able to, take a sabbatical from my sabbatical if . . .well now, how should I put this . . ." " . . .that you are adequately compensated to take time away from your valuable projects?" "Yes, yes quite so. Not that I am ordinarily for hire, you understand, it's just that . . .". Alex detected a slight stutter as Sir George spoke. Alex held up both hands in a gesture of understanding. "No need to continue my dear Sir George. I do thoroughly recognize the exorbitant costs associated with your studies and would not expect your efforts, on my behalf of course, to go unrewarded." George Toft was negotiating with a man he had never met, for a task as yet unstated. The only reason he didn't feel the discom- fort that one should in such a situation is that he was in desperate need of money. And, this stranger did seem to know who he was, and did need his particular type of expertise, whatever that was. "What exactly do you require of me, Alex. That is, what form of representation have you in mind?" He might as well find out what he was supposed to do before naming a price. Alex laughed. "Merely to be my voice. It is so simple, really. In exchange for that, and some travel, first class and all ex- penses to which you are accustomed, you will be handsomely paid." Alex looked for Sir George's reaction to the proposed fees. He was pleased with what he saw in George's face. Crikey, this is too good to be true. What's the catch<D>. As George ruminated his good fortune and the Metaxa, Alex contin- ued. "The job is quite simple, really, but requires a particular delicacy with which you are well acquainted. Each day you will receive a list of names. There will be instructions with each name. Call them at the numbers provided. Say only what is writ- ten. Keep notes of each call you make and I will provide you with the means to transmit them to me in the strictest of confi- dence. You and I will have no further personal contact, either if you accept or do not accept my proposition. If we are able to reach mutually agreeable terms, monies will be wired to a bank account in your name." Alex opened his jacket and handed George an envelop. "This is an advance if you accept. It is $25,000 American. There is a phone number to call when you arrive in San Francisco. Follow the instructions explicitly. If you do not, there will be no lists for you, no additional monies and I will want this money back. Any questions Sir George?" Alex was smiling warmly but as serious as a heart attack. Alex scanned the contents of the envelope. America. He had always wanted to see the States. "Yes, Alex, I do have one question. Is this legal?" George peered at Alex for a clue. "Do you really care?" "No." "Off you go then. And good luck." * * * * * Sir George Sterling arrived in San Francisco airport the follow- ing evening. He flew first class and impressed returning Ameri- can tourists with his invented pedigree and his construed impor- tance. What fun. After the virtually nonexistent customs check, he called the number inside the envelop. It rang three times before answering. Damn, it was a machine, he thought. "Welcome to the United States, Sir George. I hope you had a good flight." The voice was American, female, and flight attendant friendly. "Please check into the San Francisco Airport Hilton. You will receive a call at 11 AM tomorrow. Good night." A dial tone replaced the lovely voice. He dialed the number again. A mechanical voice responded instead. "The number you have called in no longer in service. Please check the number or call the operator for assistance. The number you have called is no longer in service..." George dialed the number twice more before he gave up in frustra- tion. He had over $20,000 in cash, knew no one in America and for the first time in years, he felt abandoned. What kind of joke was this? Fly half way around the world and be greeted with an out of service number. But the first voice had known his name. The Hilton. Why not? At precisely 11AM, the phone in Sir George Sterling's suite rang. He was still somewhat jet lagged from his 18 hours of flying and the span of 10 time zones. The Eggs Benedict was exquisite, but Americans could learn something about tea. The phone rang again. He casually picked it up. "Good morning, Sir George. Please get a pencil and paper. You have fifteen seconds and then I will continue." It was the same alluring voice from yesterday. The paper and pen were right there at the phone so he waited through 14 seconds of silence. "Very good. Please check out of the hotel and pay cash. Proceed to the San Francisco airport and from a pay phone, call 5-5-5-3-4-5-6 at 1 P.M. Have a note book and two pens with you. Good Bye. " The annoying dial tone returned. What a bloody waste of time. At 1P.M. he called the number as he was instructed. He figured that since he was to have a notebook and pens he might need to write for a while, so he used one of the phone booths that pro- vides a seat and large writing surface. "Good afternoon Sir George. In ten seconds, your instructions will begin." Again, that same voice, but it almost appeared condescending to him now. Isn't that the way when you can't respond. The voice continued. "Catch the next flight to New York City. Stay at the Grand Hyatt Hotel at Grand Central Sta- tion on 42nd. Street and Park Avenue. Not a suite this time, Sir George, just a regular room." Sir George was startled at Alex's attention to detail. "You will stay there for fourteen days. On 56th. street and Madison avenue is a school called CTI, Computer Training Insti- tute. You are to go to CTI and enroll in the following classes: DOS, that's D-O-S for beginners, Intermediate DOS and Advanced DOS. You will also take WordPerfect I and II. Lastly, and most importantly you will take all three classes on Tele-Communica- tions. They call it TC-I, TC-II and TC-III. These eight class- es will take you ten days to complete. Do not forget to pay in cash. I will now pause for ten seconds." Alex was writing furi- ously. Computers? He was scared silly of them. Not that he had ever had the opportunity or the need or the desire to use them, just from lack of exposure and the corresponding ignorance. But if this meant he could keep the $25,000 he would do it. What the hell. "After you enroll, go to 45 West 47th street to a store called Discount Computer Shoppe. Buy the following equipment with cash. One Pro-Start 486-80 computer with 8 Meg RAM. That's 8 M-E-G R- A-M and ask for a high resolution color monitor. Also purchase, and have them install a high speed modem, M-O-D-E-M. Do not, I repeat, do not purchase a printer of any type. No printers Sir George. You are never to use a printer. Ever. Lastly, you will purchase a copy of Word Perfect and Crosstalk. If you wish any games for your amusement, that is up to you. When you have completed your studies you will call 212-555-6091. Do not call that number before you have completed your studies. This is imperative." Sir George was just writing, not comprehending a thing. It was all gibberish to him. Pure gibberish. "Sir George." The female voice got serious, very serious for the first time in their relationship. "You are to speak to no one, I repeat, no one, of the nature of your business, the manner in which you receive instructions, or why computers have a sudden interest for you. Otherwise our deal is off and your advance will be expected to be returned. Am I clear?" George responded quickly, "Yes!" before seeing the lunacy of answering a machine. "Good," the voice was friendly again. "Learn your lessons well for you will need the knowledge to perform your tasks. Until we speak again, I thank you, Sir George Sterling." The line went dead. George Toft took his computer classes very seriously. He had in fact bought a few games to amuse himself and he found himself really enjoying the work. It was new, and exciting. His only social distractions were the sex shops on Times Square. Red Light Amsterdam or the Hamburg they weren't, so midnight antics with the Mario Brothers prevailed most evenings. Besides, there was a massive amount of homework. Bloody hell, back to school. He excelled in his studies which pleased George a great deal. In fact most of the students in Sir George's computer classes ex- celled. The teachers were very pleased to have a group of stu- dents that actually progressed more rapidly than the curriculum called for. Pleasant change from the E Train Bimbos from Queens. The computer teachers didn't know that a vast majority of the class members had good reason to study hard. Most of them had received their own $25,000 scholarships. * * * * * Sunday, September 6 SDSU Campus, San Diego, California. WTFO the computer screen displayed. That was hackerese, borrowed from the military for What The Fuck? Over! It was a friendly greeting that offended no one. Back on. Summer finals are over. Everyone still there? BOOM'S STILL AT UCLA, I JUST TALKED TO CRACKER, MAD MAX, ALPHA, SCROLLER, MR. MAGIC . . .WE MISSED YOU. LOOKING FORWARD TO A GOOD VACATE? Yeah, 4 days before next term starts . . .Has anyone got the key to the NPPS NASA node? THEY CLOSED IT AGAIN. WE'RE STILL LOOKING. WE WERE BACK INTO AMEX, THOUGH. CLEANED UP A FEW DEBTS FOR UNSUSPECTING CARD MEMBERS. HAPPY LABOR DAY TO THEM. GOOD FUN. And CHAOS? Anyone? BEST I'VE EVER HEARD. 4 NEW VIRUSES SET TO GO OFF. HIGHLY POTENT VARIATIONS OF JERUSALEM-B. THEN SOME RUMORS ABOUT COLUMBUS DAY, BUT NOTHING HARD. When you get the code send me a copy, OK? SURE. HEY, REMEMBER SPOOK? STILL ASKING TO JOIN NEMO. SEEMS HE BEEN UP TO A LOT OF SUCCESSFUL NO GOOD. WE'RE ABOUT READY TO LET HIM IN. HE BROUGHT A LOT TO THE PARTY. Careful! Remember 401 YEAH, I KNOW. HE'S CLEAN. GOOD GOVT STUFF . HE BROUGHT US THE NEWEST IRS X.25 SIGN-ONS, 2 MILNET SUPERUSER PASSWORDS AND, DIG THIS, VETERAN'S BENEFIT AND ADMINISTRATION, OFFICE OF POLICY AT THE VA. What you gonna do, boy? In them thar computers? I FIGURE I'D GIVE A FEW EXTRA BENEFITS TO SOME NEEDY GI'S WHO'VE BEEN ON THE SHORT END. Excellent! Hey, Lori's on the line. gotta go. TA <<<<<< CONNECTION TERMINATED >>>>>> The screen of his communications program returned to a list of names and phone numbers. Lori said she'd be over in an hour and Steven Billings was tempted to dial another couple of numbers before his date with Lori. But if he found something interesting it might force him to be late, and Lori could not tolerate play- ing second fiddle to a computer. Steven Billings, known as "KIRK, where no man has gone before", by fellow hackers, had finished his midterms at San Diego State University. The ritual labors were over and he looked forward to some relax time. Serious relax time. The one recreation he craved, but downplayed to Lori, was spend- ing time with his computer. She was jealous in some respects, in that it received as much attention from Steve as she did. Yet, she also understood that computers were his first love, and they were part of his life long before she was. So, they came with the territory. Steve attended, upon occasion, classes at SDSU, La Jolla. For a 21 year old transplant from Darien, Connecticut, he lived in paradise. Steve's single largest expense in life was his phone bill, and instead of working a regular job to earn spending money, Steve tutored other students in their computer courses. Rather than flaunt his skills to his teachers and risk extra assignments, he was more technically qualified than they were, he kept his mouth shut, sailed through classes, rarely studied and became a full time computer hacker. He translated his every wish into a com- mand that the computer obeyed. Steve Billings did not fill the picture of a computer nerd. He was almost dashing with a firm golden tanned 175 pound body, and dark blond hair that caused the girls to turn their heads. He loved the outdoors, the hot warmth of the summer to the cooler warmth of the winter, surfing at the Cardiff Reef and betting on fixed jai-alai games in Tijuana. He played soccer and OTL, a San Diego specific version of gloveless and topless co-ed beach softball. In short, he was a guy. A regular guy. The spotlessly groomed image of Steve Billings in white tennis shorts and a "Save the Whales" tank-top eclectically co-existed with the sterile surroundings of the mammoth super computer center. The Cray Y-MP is about as big and bad a computer as money can buy, and despite Steve's well known skills, the head of the Super Computing Department couldn't help but cringe when Steve leaned his surf board against the helium cooled memory banks of the twelve million dollar computer. He ran his shift at the computer lab so efficiently and effort- lessly that over time he spent more and more of his hours there perusing through other people's computers. Now there was a feel- ing. Hacking through somebody else's computer without their knowledge. The ultimate challenge, an infinity of possibilities, an infinity of answers. The San Diego Union was an awful paper, Steve thought, and the evening paper was even worse. So he got copies of the New York City Times when possible, either at a newsstand, borrowed from yesterday's Times reader or from the library. Nice to get a real perspective on the world. This Sunday he spent the $4.00 to get his own new, uncrumpled and unread copy of his revered paper, all thirty four pounds of it. Alone. Peace. Reading by the condo pool an article caught his eye. Steve remembered a story he had heard about a hacker who had invaded and single handedly stopped INTERNET, a computer network that connected together tens of thousands of computers around the country. * * * * * Government Defense Network Halted by Hacker by Scott Mason, New York City Times Vaughn Chase, a 17 year old high school student Galbraith High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan was indicted today on charges that he infected the nationwide INTERNET network with a computer virus. This latest attack upon INTERNET is reminiscent of a similar incident launched by Robert Morris of Cornell University in November, 1988. According to the Computer Emergency Response Team, a DARPA spon- sored group, if Mr. Chase had not left his name in the source code of his virus, there would have been no way to track down the culprit. A computer virus is a small software program that is secretly put into a computer, generally designed to cause damage. A virus attaches itself to other computer programs secretively. At some time after the parasite virus program is 'glued' into the comput- er, it is reawakened on a specific date or by a particular se- quence of events. Chase, though, actually infected INTERNET with a Worm. A Worm is a program that copies itself, over and over and over, either filling the computer's memory to capacity or slowing down its operation to a snail's pace. In either case, the results are devastating - effectively, the computer stops working. Chase, a math wizard according to his high school officials, released the Worm into Internet in early August with a detonation date of September 1, which brought thousands of computers to a grinding halt. INTERNET ties together tens of thousands of computers from the Government, private industry, universities and defense contrac- tors all over the country. Chase said he learned how to access the unclassified computer network from passwords and keys dis- tributed on computer Bulletin Boards. Computer security experts worked for 3 days hours to first deter- mine the cause of the network slowdown and then to restore the network to normal operation. It has been estimated that almost $100 Million in damage was caused by Mr. Chase's Worm. Mr. Chase said the Worm was experimental, and was accidentally released into INTERNET when a piece of software he had written malfunc- tioned. He apologized for any inconvenience he caused. The Attorney General of the State of Michigan is examining the legal aspects of the case and it is expected that Mr. Chase will be tried within in a year. Mr. Chase was released on his own recognizance. This is Scott Mason wondering why the Pentagon doesn't shoot worms instead of bombs at enemy computers. * * * * * The next day Steve Billings signed on to the SDSU/BBS from his small Mission Beach apartment. It was a local university Bulletin Board Service or BBS. A BBS is like a library. There are li- braries of software which are free, and as a user you are recip- rocally expected to donate software into the Public Domain. Con- ference Halls or Conversation Pits on the BBS are free-for-all discussions where people at their keyboards can all have a 'live' conversation. Anyone, using any computer, anywhere in the world can call up any BBS using regular phone lines. No one cared or knew if you were skinny, fat, pimpled, blind, a double for Christy Brinkley or too chicken shit to talk to girls in person. Here, everyone was equal. Billings 234 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX There was a brief pause. WELCOME TO THE SDSU/BBS. STEVE BILLINGS, YOU ARE USER #109 Steve Chose (12) for SERVICES: The menu changed to a list of further options. Each option would permit the user to gain access to other networks around the country. From one single entry point with a small computer, anyone could 'dial up' as it's called, almost any of over 20,000,000 computers in the country tied into any of ten thousand different networks. SDSU/BBS WINDOW ON THE WORLD NETWORK SERVICES MENU Steve selected CALNET, a network at Cal Tech in Los Angeles. Many of the Universities have permanent connections between their computers. LOGON: Billings014 PASSWORD: XXXXKIRKXXXX Again, there was a pause, this time a little longer. Now, from his room, he was talking to a computer in Los Angeles. There was another menu of options, and a list of other widely dispersed computer networks. He requested the SUNYNET computer, the State University of New York Network. From there, he asked the comput- er for a local phone line so he could dial into a very private, very secret computer called NEMO. It took Steve a grand total of 45 seconds to access NEMO in New York, all at the price of a local phone call. NEMO was a private BBS that was restricted to an elite few. Those who qualifications and reputations allowed them entry into the exclusive domain of hacking. NEMO was born into this world by Steve and a few of his friends while they were in high school in Darien. NEMO was a private club, for a few close friends who enjoyed their new hobby, computers. NEMO's Menu was designed for the professional hacker. 1. PASSWORDS 2. NEW NETS 3. DANGER ZONES 4. CRACKING TOOLS 5. WHO'S NEW? 6. PHREAKING 7. CRYPTO 8. WHO ELSE? 9. U.S. NETWORKS 10. INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS 11. FOR TRADE 12. FORTUNE 500 DOORKEYS He selected (8), WHO ELSE? Steve wanted to see who else was 'on- line' now. He wanted to talk about this Chase guy who was giving hackers a bad name. The computer responded: CONVERSATION PIT: LA CREME, RAMBO. DO YOU WANT TO JOIN IN? That was great! Two of the half dozen of NEMO's founders were there. La Creme de la Creme was KIRK's college roommate, but he had not yet returned to San Diego for the fall term. RAMBO, 'I'll get through any door' was the same age as Kirk and Creme, but chose to study at Columbia in New York's Harlem. Hackers picked alter- ego monikers as CB'ers on the highways did; to project the desired image. Steve and his cohorts picked their aliases when they were only fifteen, and kept them ever since. Steve typed in a 'Y' and the ENTER key. WHO ARE YOU? NEMO was asking for an additional password. Kirk Steve typed. A brief pause, and the computer screen came to life. WELCOME TO THE CONVERSATION PIT, KIRK. HOW HAVE YOU BEEN? That was his invitation to interrupt any conversation in progress. Steve typed in, Dudes! HOW'D EXAMS GO? <<LA CREME>> Greased'em. Ready to come back? FAST AS THE PLANE WILL GO. PICK ME UP? 7:20 ON AMERICAN?<LA CREME> Sure. Hey, what's with the Morris copy cat? Some phreak blowing it for the rest of us. SO YOU HEARD. CHASE IS REALLY GONNA SCREW THINGS UP. <<RAMBO>> What the hell really happened? I read the Times. Said that he claimed it was accident. ACCIDENTAL ON PURPOSE MAYBE <<LA CREME>> HOW MANY WAYS ARE THERE INFECT A NATIONAL DEFENSE NETWORK? ONE THAT I KNOW OF. YOU PUT THE VIRUS IN THERE. THAT'S NO ACCIDENT. <<RAMBO>> Ten-Four. Seems like he don't wanna live by the code. Must be some spoiled little brat getting too big for his britches . . . BEST GUESS IS THAT HE DID IT TO IMPRESS HIS OLD MAN. HE SUPPOS- EDLY CREATED AN ANTIDOTE, TOO. HE WANTED TO SET OFF A BIG VIRUS SCARE AND THEN LOOK LIKE A HERO WITH A FAST FIX. THE VIRUS WORKED ALL TOO WELL. THE ANTIDOTE, IF THERE WAS ONE, SUCKED. SO INTERNET HAD GAS SO BAD, COMPUTING CAME TO A HALT FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS TILL THEY CLEANED OUT THE PROVERBIAL SEWERS. <<LA CREME>> SURE SOUNDS LIKE A PUBLICITY GAG TO ME <<RAMBO>> Jeez. Anyone else been hit yet? NO, BUT WE'VE BEEN EXTRA CAREFUL SINCE. A LOT OF DOORS HAVE BEEN CLOSED SO IT'S BACK TO SQUARE ONE ON A BUNCH, BUT WE DIDN'T LOSE EVERYTHING. THE DOORKEY DOWNLOAD WILL UPDATE YOU. <<RAMBO>> OK, I'll be supersleuth. Any word on CHAOS? Legion of Doom, The Crusaders? IT'S ONE BIG DEAL IN THE E-MAIL: NEW CHAOS VIRUSES, EVERY DICK AND JANE IS WRITING THEIR OWN VIRUSES. COMPUTING WITH AIDS. Funny. Why don't you put a rubber on your big 640K RAM? Or your mouse? GOT SOMETHING AGAINST SAFE COMPUTING? IF HALF OF WHAT THEY SAY IS TRUE, WE'RE ALL IN TROUBLE. TAKE A LOOK AT THE PUBLIC BBS'S. QUITE A CHAT. <<LA CREME>> Will do. Any word on the new Central Census Data Base? Every- thing about every American stored in one computer. All of their personal data, ripe for the picking. Sounds like the kind of library that would do the bad guys a lot of good. CAN'T FIND A DOOR FROM THE INTERNET GATE. THE JUSTICE LINK WAS STILL GOOD YESTERDAY AND THE FBI STILL HASN'T CHANGED A PASSWORD, SO THAT SHOULD BE AN EASY OPEN ONCE WE FIND THE FRONT DOOR. GIMME A COUPLE OF DAYS AND WE SHOULD KNOW DAN QUAYLES' JOCK SIZE. <<RAMBO>> Zero! Ha! Keep me in mind. * * * * * Steve copied several pages of names, phone numbers and passwords from NEMO's data base into his computer 3000 miles across the country. These were the most valuable and revered types of files in the underground world of hackerdom. They include all of the information needed to enter and play havoc inside of hundreds of secret and private computers. National Institute of Health 301-555-6761 USER: Fillstein PASSWORD: Daddy1 USER: Miller9 PASSWORD: Secret VMS 1.01 SUPERUSER: B645_DICKY VTEK NAS, Pensacola, Fla 904-555-2113 USER: Major101 PASSWORD: Secret USER: General22 PASSWORD: Secret1 USER: Forestall PASSWORD: PDQS IBM, Armonk, Advanced Research� 914-555-0965 USER: Port1� PASSWORD: Scientist USER: Port2 PASSWORD: Scientist USER: Port3 PASSWORD: Scientist There were seventeen pages of updated and illegal access codes to computer systems across the country. Another reason NEMO was so secret. Didn't want just anybody climbing the walls of their private playground. Can't trust everyone to live by the Code. Steve finished downloading the files from NEMO's distant data base and proceeded to print them out for a hardcopy reference. He laughed to himself. Big business and government never wizened up. Predictable passwords, like 'secret' were about as kinder- garten as you could get. And everyone wonders why folks like us parade around their computers. He had in his hand a list of over 250 updated and verified private, government and educational institutions who had left the keys to the front doors of their computers wide open. And those were just the ones that NEMO knew about today. There is no accurate way to determine how many groups of hackers like NEMO existed. But, even if only 1/100 of 1% of computer users classified themselves as hackers, that's well over 100,000 people breaking into computers. Enough reason to give Big Busi- ness cause for concern. Yet, no one did anything serious to lock the doors. Steve spent the next several hours walking right into computer systems all over the country. Through the Bank of California in San Francisco, (Steve's first long distance call) he could reach the computers of several corresponding banks. He read through the new loan files, saw that various developers had defaulted on their loans and were in serious trouble. Rates were going to start rising. Good enough for a warm up. Steve still wanted back into the NASA launch computers. On line launch information, results of analysis going back twenty years, and he had had a taste of it, once. Then, one day, someone inside of NASA got smart and properly locked the front door. He and NEMO were ever on the search for a key back into NASA's computers. He figured that Livermore was still a good bet to get into NASA. That only meant a local call, through the SDSU/BBS to Cal Tech then into Livermore. From San Diego, to LA, to San Francisco for a mere 25 cents. Livermore researchers kept the front doors of their computers almost completely open. Most of the workers, the graduate stu- dents, preferred a free exchange of information between all scientists, so their computer security was extraordinarily lax. For a weapons research laboratory, funded by the Department of Energy, it was a most incongruous situation. Much of the information in the Livermore computers was considered sensitive but unclassified, whatever that meant in government- speak, but for an undergraduate engineering major cum hacker, it was great reading. The leading thinkers from the most technical- ly demanding areas in science today put down their thoughts for the everyone to read. The Livermore scientists believed in freedom of information, so nearly everyone who wanted in, got in. To the obvious consternation and dismay of Livermore management. And its funding agency. Steve poked around the Livermore computers for a while and learned that SDI funding was in more serious jeopardy than pub- licly acknowledged. He discovered that the last 3 underground nuclear test explosions outside of Las Vegas were underyield, and no one knew why. Then he found some super-technical proposals that sounded like pure science fiction: Moving small asteroids from between Mars and Jupiter into orbit around the Earth would make lovely weapons to drop on your ene- mies. War mongers. All of this fascinating information, available to anyone with a computer and a little chutzbah. * * * * * Alexander Spiradon had picked Sir George and his other subjects carefully, as he had been trained to do. He had spent the better part of twenty years working for West German Military Intelligence, Reichenbunnestrad Dunnernecht Deutchelande, making less money than he required to live in the style he desired. To supplement his income, he occasionally performed extracurricular activities for special interest groups throughout Europe. A little information to the IRA in Northern Ireland, a warning to the Red Brigade about an impending raid. Even the Hizballah, the Party of God for Lebanese terrorists had occasion to use Alex's Services. Nothing that would compromise his country, he rationalized, just a little help to the various political factions that have become an annoyance to their respec- tive governments. Alex suddenly resigned in 1984 when he had collected enough freelance fees to support his habits, but he was unaware that his own agency had had him under surveillance for years, waiting for him to slip up. He hadn't, and with predictable German Govern- ment efficiency, upon his departure from the RDD, his file was promptly retired and his subsequent activities ignored. Alex began his full time free-lance career as a 'Provider of Information'. With fees of no less than 250,000 DM, Alex didn't need to work much. He could pick and choose his clients as he weighed the risks and benefits of each potential assignment. With his network of intelligence contacts from Scotland Yard, Le Surite, and the Mossad, he had access to the kind of information that terrorists pay for dearly . It was a good living. No guns, no danger, just information. His latest client guaranteed Alex three years of work for a flat fee in the millions of Deutch Marks. It was the intelligence assignment of a lifetime, one that insured a peaceful and pros- perous retirement for Alex. He wasn't the perennial spy, politi- cally or dogmatically motivated. Alex wanted the money. After he had completed his computer classes and purchased the equipment from the list, Sir George dialed the number he had been given. He half expected a live person to congratulate him, but also realized that that was a foolish wish. There was no reason to expect anything other than the same sexy voice dictating orders to him. "Ah, Sir George. How good of you to call. How were your class- es?" George nearly answered the alluring telephone personality again, but he caught himself. "Very good," the voice came back in anticipated response. "Please get a pencil and paper. I have a message for you in 15 seconds." That damned infernal patronization. Of course I have a bleeding pen. Not a pencil. Idiot. "Are you ready?" she asked. George made an obscene gesture at the phone. "Catch a flight to San Francisco tonight. Bring all of the com- puter equipment you have purchased. Take a taxi to 14 Sutherland Place on Knob Hill. Under the mat to Apartment 12G you will find two keys. They will let you into your new living quarters. Make yourself at home. It is yours, and the rent is taken care of as is the phone bill. Your new phone number is 4-1-5-5-5-5-6-3-6-1. When you get settled, dial the following number from your comput- er. You should be well acquainted with how to do that by now. The number is 4-1-5-5-5-5-0-0-1-5. Your password is A-G-O-R-A. Under the mattress in the bedroom is a PRG, Password Response Generator. It looks like a credit card, but has an eight digit display. Whenever you call Alex, he will ask you for a response to your password. Quickly enter whatever the PRG says. If you lose the PRG, you will be terminated." The voice paused for a few seconds to George's relief. "You will receive full instructions at that point. Good Bye." A dial tone replaced the voice he had come to both love and hate. Bloody hell, he thought. I'm down to less than $5000 and now I'm going back to San Francisco? What kind of bleedin' game is this? Apartment 12G was a lavish 2 bedroom condominium with a drop dead view of San Francisco and bodies of water water in 3 directions. Furnished in high tech modern, it offered every possible amenity; bar, jacuzzi, telephone in the bathroom and full channel cable. Some job. But, he kept wondering to himself, when does the free ride end? Maybe he's been strung along so far that he can't let go. One more call, just to see how the next chapter begins. George installed his computer in the second bedroom on a table that fit his equipment like a glove. C:\cd XTALK C:\XTALK\xtalk His hard disk whirred for a few seconds. He chose the Dial option and entered the phone number from the keyboard and then asked the computer to remember it for future use. He omitted the area code. Why had he been given an area code if he was dialing from the same one? George didn't pursue the question; if he had he would have realized he wasn't alone. The modem dialed the number for him. His screen went momentarily blank and then suddenly came to life again. <<<<<<CONNECT 2400 BAUD>>>>>> DO YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO ALEX? (Y/N?) George entered a "Y" PASSWORD: George entered AGORA. The letters did not echo to the screen. He hoped he had typed then correctly. Apparently he did, for the screen then prompted him for his RESPONSE. He copied the 8 characters from the PRG into the computer. There was a pause and then the screen filled. SIR GEORGE, WELCOME TO ALEX. IT IS SO GOOD TO SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN. OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL MONTHS YOU WILL BE GIVEN NAMES AND NUMBERS TO CALL. THERE ARE VERY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS AND STATEMENTS TO BE MADE TO EACH PERSON YOU CALL. THERE IS TO BE NO DEVIATION WHAT- SOEVER. I REPEAT, NO DEVIATION WHATSOEVER. IF THERE IS, YOUR SERVICES WILL BE IMMEDIATELY TERMINATED. WE HOPE THAT WILL NOT BE NECESSARY. EACH MORNING YOU ARE TO DIAL ALEX AND REQUEST THE FILE CALLED SG.DAT. DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ACCESS OR DOWNLOAD ANY OTHER FILES, OR YOU WILL BE TERMINATED AT ONCE. FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS IN EACH FILE, EXACTLY. KEEP AN EXACT LOG OF THE EVENTS AS THEY TRANSPIRE ON EACH CALL. <<PUSH SPACE BAR FOR MORE>> George pushed the space bar. The screen was again filled. ALEX REQUIRES PRECISE INFORMATION. WHATEVER YOU ARE TOLD BY THE PEOPLE YOU CALL MUST BE RELAYED , TO THE LETTER. AT THE END OF EACH DAY, YOU ARE TO UPLOAD YOUR FILE, CALLED SG.TOD. YOUR COMPUTER WILL AUTOMATICALLY PUT A DATE AND TIME STAMP ON IT. THEN, USING NORTON UTILITY, ERASE THE SG.DAT FILE FROM THAT DAY. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO REACH ANYONE ON THE LISTS, JUST INDICATE THAT IN YOUR DAILY REPORTS. DO NOT, REPEAT, DO NOT TRY TO CALL THE SAME PERSON THE NEXT DAY. IS THAT CLEAR? The screen was awaiting a response. George typed in "Y". GOOD. THIS IS QUITE SIMPLE, IS IT NOT? Y DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE THE JOB? Y WHAT KIND OF PRINTER DO YOU HAVE? None ARE YOU SURE? Y WILL YOU BUY ONE? N GOOD. ARE YOU INTERESTED IN MONEY? Finally, thought Sir George, the reason for my existence. Y AN ACCOUNT HAS BEEN OPENED IN YOUR NAME AT THE BANK OF AMERICA, REDMOND BRANCH 3 BLOCKS FROM YOU. THERE IS $25,000 IN IT. EACH MONTH OF SUCCESSFUL WORK FOR ALEX WILL BE REWARDED WITH ANOTHER PAYMENT. U.S. TAXES ARE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. IS THAT A PROBLEM? N WILL YOU DISCUSS YOUR JOB OR ITS NATURE WITH ANYONE? ANYONE AT ALL? N EVEN UNDER FORCE? Force, what the hell does that mean? I guess the answer is No, thought George. N I HOPE SO, FOR YOUR SAKE. GOOD LUCK SIR GEORGE. YOU START MONDAY. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> Sir George was a little confused, maybe a lot confused. He was the proud owner of a remote control job, a cushy one as far as he could tell, but the tone of the conversation he just had with the computer was worrisome. Was he being threatened? What was the difference between 'Services Terminated' and 'Terminated' anyway. Maybe he shouldn't ask. Keep his mouth shut and do a good job. Hey, he thought, dismissing the possible unpleasant consequences of failure. This is San Francisco, and I have a three days off in a new city. Might as well find my way around the town to- night. According to the guide books I should start at Pier 39. **************************************************************** Chapter 3 Tuesday, September 8, New York City But they told me they wouldn't tell! They promised." Hugh Sidneys pleaded into his side of the phone. "How did you find out?" At first, Scott thought the cartoon voice was a joke perpetrated by one of his friends, or more probably, his ex-wife. Even she, though, coudn't possibly think crank a phone call was a twisted form of art. No, it had to be real. "I'm sorry Mr. Sidneys. We can't give out our sources. That's confidential. But are you saying that you confirm the story? That it is true?" "Yes, no. Well ," the pleading slid into near sobbing. "If this gets out, I'm ruined. Ruined. Everything, my family . . .how could you have found out? They promised!" The noise from the busy metro room at the New York City Times made it difficult to hear Sidneys. "Can I quote you, sir? Are you confirming the story?" Scott pressed on for that last requisite piece of every journalistic puzzle confirmation of a story that stood to wreck havoc in portions of the financial community. And Washington. It was a story with meat, but Scott Mason needed the confirmation to complete it. "I don't know. . .if I tell what I know now, then maybe . . .that would mean I was being helpful . . .maybe I should get a lawyer . . ." The call from Scott Mason to First State Savings and Loan on Madison Avenue had been devastating. Hugh Sidneys was just doing what he was told to do. Following orders. "Maybe, Hugh. Maybe." Scott softened toward Sidneys, thinking the first name approach might work. "But, is it true, Hugh? Is the story true?" "It doesn't matter anymore. Do what you want." Hugh Sidneys hung up on Mason. It was as close to a confirmation as he need- ed. He wrote the story. * * * * * At 39, Scott Byron Mason was already into his second career. Despite the objections of his overbearing father, he had avoided the family destiny of becoming a longshoreman. "If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for my kids." Scott was an only child, but his father had wanted more despite his mother's ina- bility to carry another baby to full term. Scott caught the resentment of his father and the doting protec- tion of his mother. Marie Elizabeth Mason wanted her son to have more of a future than to merely live another generation in the lower middle class doldrums of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Not that Scott was aware of his predicament; he was a dreamer. Her son showed aptitude. By the age of six Scott knew two words his father never learned - how and why. His childhood curiosity led to more than a few mishaps and spankings by the hot tempered Louis Horace Mason. Scott took apart everything in the house in an attempt to see what made it tick. Sometimes, not often enough, Scott could reassemble what he broken down to its small- est components. Despite his failings and bruised bottom Scott wasn't satisfied with, "that's just the way it is," as an answer to anything. Behind his father's back, Marie had Scott take tests and be accepted to the elite Bronx High School of Science, an hour and a half train ride from Brooklyn. To Scott it wasn't an escape from Brooklyn, it was a chance to learn why and how machines worked. Horace gave Marie and Scott a three day silent treatment until his mother finally put an end to it. "Horace Stipton Mason," Evelyn Mason said with maternal command. "Our son has a gift, and you will not, I repeat, you will not interfere with his happiness." "Yes dear." "The boy is thirteen and he has plenty of time to decide what he's going to do with himself. Is that clear?" "Yes dear." "Good." She would say as she finished setting the table. "Dinner is ready. Wash your hands boys." And the subject was closed. But throughout his four years at the best damn high school in the country, Horace found ample opportunity to pressure Scott about how it was the right thing to follow in the family tradition, and work at the docks, like the three generations before him. The issue was never settled during Scott's rebellious teenage years. The War, demonstrating on the White House lawn, getting gassed at George Washington, writing for the New York Free Press, Scott was even arrested once or twice or three times for peaceful civil disobedience. Scott Mason was seeing the world in a new way. He was rapidly growing up, as did much of the class of 1970. Scott's grades weren't good enough for scholorships, but adequate to be accepted at several reasonable schools. "I already paid for his education," screamed Horace upon hearing that Scott chose City College to keep costs down. He would live at home. "He broke every damn thing I ever bought, radios, TV's, washers. He can go to work like a man." With his mother's blessing and understanding, Scott moved out of the house and in with three roommates who also attended City College, where all New Yorkers can get a free education. Scott played very hard, studied very little and let his left of center politics guide his social life. His engineering professors remarked that he was underutilizing his God-given talents and that he spent more time protesting and objecting that paying attention. It was an unpredictable piece of luck that Scott Mason would never have to make a living as an engineer. He would be able to remain the itinerate tinkerer; designing and building the most inane creations that regularly had little purpose beyond satisfying technical creativity. "Can we go with it?" Scott asked City Editor Douglas McQuire and John Higgins, the City Times' staff attorney whose job it was to answer just such questions. McQuire and Mason had been asked to join Higgins and publisher Anne Manchester to review the paper's position on running Mason's story. Scott was being lawyered, the relatively impersonal cross examination by a so-called friendly in-house attorney. It was the single biggest pain in the ass of Scott's job, and since he had a knack for finding sensitive sub- jects, he was lawyered fairly frequently. Not that it made him feel any less like being called to the principal's office every time. Scott's boyish enthusiasm for his work, and his youthful appear- ance allowed some to underestimate his ability. He looked much younger than his years, measuring a slender 6 foot tall and shy of 160 pounds. His longish thin sandy hair and a timeless all about Beach Boy face made him a good catch on his better days- he was back in circulation at almost 40. The round wire rimmed glasses he donned for an extreme case of myopia were a visible stylized reminder of his early rebel days, conveying a sophisti- cated air of radicalism. Basically clean cut, he preferred shav- ing every two or three, or occasionally four days. He blamed his poor shaving habits on his transparent and sensitive skin 'just like Dick Nixon's'. The four sat in Higgins' comfortable dark paneled office. With 2 walls full of books and generous seating, the ample office resem- bled an elegant and subdued law library. Higgins chaired the meeting from behind his leather trimmed desk. Scott brought a tall stack of files and put them on the glass topped coffee table. "We need to go over every bit, from the beginning. OK?" Higgins made it sound more like and order than responsible journalistic double checking. Higgins didn't interfere in the news end of the business; he kept his opinions to himself. But it was his respon- sibility to insure that the City Times' was kept out of the re- ceiving end of any litigation. That meant that as long as a story was properly researched, sourced, and confirmed, the con- tents were immaterial to him. That was the Publisher's choice, not his. Mason had come to trust Higgins in his role as aggravating media- tor between news and business. Scott might not like what he had to say, but he respected his opinion and didn't argue too much. Higgins was never purposefully adversarial. He merely wanted to know that both the writers and the newspaper had all their ducks in a row. Just in case. Libel suits can be such a pain, and expensive. "Why don't you tell me, again, about how you found out about the McMillan scams." Higgins turned on a small micro-cassette re- corder. "I hope you don't mind," he said as he tested it. "Keeps better notes than I do," he offhandedly said. Nobody objected. There would have been no point in objecting even if anyone cared. It was an unspoken truism that Higgins and other good attorneys taped many of their unofficial depositions to protect themselves in case anything went terribly wrong. With a newspaper as your sole client, the First Amendment was always at stake. "OK," Scott began. His reporter's notebook sat atop files full of computer printouts. "A few days ago, on September 4, that's a Friday, I got an anonymous call. The guy said, 'You want some dirt on McMillan and First State S&L?' I said sure, what do you have and who is this?" "So then you knew who Francis McMillan was?" Higgins looked up surprised. "Of course," Mason said. "He's the squeaky clean bank President from White Plains. Says he knows how to clean up the S&L mess, gets lots of air time. Probably making a play for Washington. Big time political ambitions. Pretty well connected at Treasury. I guess they listen to him." "In a nutshell." Higgins agreed. "And . . .then?" Mason sped through a couple of pages of scribbled notes from his pad. "My notes start here. 'Who I am don't matter but what I gotta say does. You interested'. Heavy Brooklyn accent, docks, Italian, who knows. I said something like, 'I'm listening' and he says that McMillan is the dirtiest of them all. He's been socking more money away than the rest and he's been doing it real smart. So I go, 'so?' and he says he can prove it and I say 'how' and he says 'read your morning mail'." Mason stopped abruptly. "That's it?" Higgins asked. "He hung up. So I forgot about it till the next morning." "And that's when you got these?" Higgins said pointing at the stack of computer printouts in front of Mason. "How were they delivered?" "By messenger. No receipt, nothing. Just my name and the pa- per's." Mason showed Higgins the envelop in which the files came. "Then you read them?" "Well not all of them, but enough." Scott glanced at his editor. "That's when I let Doug know what I had." "And what did he say?" Higgins was keeping furious notes to back up the tape recording. "'Holy shit', as I remember." Everyone laughed. Ice breakers, good for the soul, thought Mason. People are too uptight. Higgins indicated that Scott should continue. "Then he said 'we gotta go slow on this one,' then he whistled and Holy Shat some more." Once the giggles died down, Mason got serious. "I borrowed a bean counter from the basement, told him I'd put his name in the paper if anything came of it, and I picked his brain. Ran through the numbers on the printouts, and ran through them again. I really worked that poor guy, but that's the price of fame. By the next morning we knew that there were two sets of books on First State." Mason turned a couple pages in his files. "It appears," Scott said remembering that he was selling the importance of the story to legal and the publisher, "that a substantial portion of the bank's assets are located in numbered bank accounts all over the world." Scott said with finality. Higgins interrupted here. "So what's wrong with that?" he chal- lenged. "They've effectively stolen a sandbagged and inflated reserve ac- count with over $750 Million it. Almost 10% of stated assets. It appears from these papers," Scott waved his hand over them, "that the total of the reserve accounts will be taken, as a loss, in their next SEC reporting." Mason stopped and looked at Hig- gins as though Higgins would understand everything. Higgins snorted as he made more notes. "That next morning," Mason politely ignored Higgins, "I got a call again, from what sounded like the same guy." "Why do you say that? How did you know?" Higgins inquired. Mason sighed. "Cause he said, 'it's me remember?' and spoke like Archie Bunker. Good enough for you?" Mason grinned wide. Mason had the accent down to a tee. Higgins gave in to another round of snickers. "He said, 'you like, eh?'" Mason spoke with an exaggerated New York accent and used the appropriate Italian hand gesture for 'eh!'. "I said, 'I like, but so what?' I still wasn't sure what he wanted. He said, 'they never took a loss, yet. Look for Friday. This Friday. They're gonna lose a bunch.' I said, 'how much' and he said, 'youse already know.'" Mason's imitation of a Brooklyn accent was good enough for a laugh. "He then said, 'enjoy the next installment', and that was the last time I spoke to him. At any rate, the next package con- tained a history of financial transactions, primarily overseas; Luxembourg, Lietchenstein, Switzerland, Austria, Hong Kong, Sidney, Macao, Caymans and such. They show a history of bad loans and write downs on First State revenues. "Well, I grabbed the Beanie from the Basement and said, help me with these now, and I got research to come up with the 10K's on First State since 1980 when McMillan took over. And the results were incredible." Mason held out a couple of charts and some graphs. "We compared both sets of books. The bottom lines on both are the same. First State has been doing very well. McMillan has grown the company from $1 Billion to $12 Billion in 8 years. Quite a job, and the envy of hundreds of every other S&L knee deep in their own shit." Higgins cringed. He thought Ms. Man- chester should be shielded from such language. "The problem is that, according to one set of books, First State is losing money on some investments merely by wishing them away. They disappear altogether from one report to the next. Not a lot of money, but a few million here and there." "What have you got then?" Higgins pressed. "Nobody notices cause the losses are all within the limits of the loss projections and reserve accounts. Sweet and neat! Million dollar embezzlement scam with the SEC's approval." "How much follow up did you do?" Higgins asked as his pen fly across the legal pad. "Due to superior reporting ability," Scott puffed up his chest in jest, "I found that a good many account numbers listed in the package I received are non-existent. But, with a little prod- ding, I did get someone to admit that one of them was recently closed and the funds moved elsewhere. "Then, this is the clincher, as the caller promised, today, I looked for the First State SEC reports, and damned if the numbers didn't jive. The books with the overseas accounts are the ones with the real losses and where they occur. The 'real' books don't." "The bottom line, please." "Someone has been embezzling from First State, and when they're through it'll be $3 Billion worth." Scott was proud of himself. In only a few days he had penetrated a huge scam in the works. "You can't prove it!" Higgins declared. "Where's the proof? All you have is some unsolicited papers where someone has been play- ing a very unusual and admittedly questionable game of 'what if'. You have a voice on the end of a phone with no name, no nothing, and a so-called confirmation from some mid-level accountant at the bank who dribbles on about 'having to do it' but never saying what 'it' is. So what does that prove?" "It proves that McMillan is a fraud, a rip-off," Scott retorted confidently. "It does not!" "But I have the papers to prove it," Scott shuffled through the folders. "Let me explain something, Scott." Higgins put down his pen and adapted a friendlier tone. "There's a little legal issue called right to privacy. Let me ask you this. If I came to you and said that Doug here was a crook, what would you do?" "Ask you to prove it," Scott said. "Exactly. It's the same here." "But I have the papers to prove it, it's in black and white." "No Scott, you don't. What you have is some papers with accusa- tions. They're unsubstantiated. They could have easily been phonied. You know what computers can do better than I do. Now here's the key point. Everybody in this country is due privacy. You don't know where these came from, or how they were obtained, do you?" "No," Scott hesitantly admitted. "So, someone's privacy has been compromised, in this case McMil- lan's. If, and I'm saying, if, these reports are accurate, I would take the position that they are stolen, obtained illegally. If we publish with what we have now, the paper could be on the receiving end of a slander and libel suit that could put us out of business. We even could be named as a co-conspirator in a criminal suit. I can't let that happen. It's our obligation to guarantee responsible journalism." "I see." Scott didn't agree. "Scott, you're good, real good, but you have to see it from the paper's perspective." Higgins' tone was now conciliatory. "This is hard stuff, and there's just not enough here, not to go with it yet. Maybe in a few days when you can get a little more to tie it up. Not now. I'm sorry." Case closed. Shit, shit shit, thought Scott. Back to square one. Hugh Sidneys was nondescript, not quite a nebbish, but close. At five foot five with wisps of brown scattered over his balding pate, he only lacked horn rimmed glasses to complete the image. His bargain basement suits almost fit him, and he scurried rather than walked down the hallways at First State Savings and Loan where he had been employed since graduating from SUNY with a degree in accounting twenty four years ago. His large ears accentuated the oddish look, not entirely out of place on the subways at New York rush hour. His loyalty to First State was known throughout the financial departments; he was almost a fixture. His accounting skills were extremely strong, even remarkable if you will, but his personality and appearance, and that preposterous cartoon voice, held him back from advancing up the official corporate ladder. Now, though, Hugh Sidneys was scared. He needed to do something . . .and having never been in this kind of predicament before . . .he thought about the lawyer . . .hiring one like he told that reporter . . .but could he afford that . . .and he wasn't sure what to do . . .was he in trouble? Yes, he was . . .he knew that. That reporter . . .he sounded like he understood . . .maybe he could help . . .he was just asking questions . . .what was his name . . .? "Ah, Mr. Mason?" Scott heard the timid man's Road Runner voice spoke gently over the phone. Scott had just returned to his desk from Higgins' office. It was after 6P.M. and time to catch a train back home to Westchester. "This is Scott Mason." "Do you remember me?" Scott recognized the voice immediately but said nothing. "We spoke earlier about First State, and I just . . .ah . . .wanted to . . .ah . . .apologize . . .for the way I acted." Scott's confirmation. Hugh Sidneys, the Pee Wee Herman sounding beancounter from First State. What did he want? "Yes, of course, Mr. Sidneys. How can I help you?" He opened his notebook. He had just had his story nixed and he was ready to go home. But Sidneys . . .maybe . . . "It's just that, well, I'm nervous about this . . ." "No need to apologize, Hugh." Scott smiled into the phone to convey sincerity. "I understand, it happens all the time. What can I do for you tonight?" "Well, I, ah, thought that we might, maybe you could, well I don't know about help, help, it's so much and I didn't really know, no I shouldn't have called . . .I'm sorry . . ." The pitch of Sidneys' voice rose as rambled on. "Wait! Don't hang up. Mr. Sidneys. Mr. Sidneys?" "Yes," the whisper came over the earpiece. "Is there something wrong . . .are you all right?" The fear, the sound of fear that every good reporter is attuned to came over loud and clear. This man was terrified. "Yes, I'm OK, so far." "Good. Now, tell me, what's wrong. Slowly and calmly." He eased Sidneys off his panic perch. Scott heard Sidneys compose himself and gather up the nerve to speak. "Isn't there some sorta rule," he stuttered, "a law, that says if I talk to you, you're a reporter, and if I say that I don't want you to tell anybody, then you can't?" Sidneys was scared, but wanted to talk to someone. Maybe this was the time for Scott to back off a little. He stretched out and put his feet up on his desk, making him feel and sound more relaxed, less pressured. According to Scott, he generated more Alpha waves in his brain and if wanted to convey calm on the phone, he merely had to assume the position. "That's called off the record, Hugh. And it's not a law." Scott was amused at the naivete that Hugh Sidneys showed. "It's a gentleman's agreement, a code of ethics in journalism. You can be off the record, on the record, or for background, not for attribution, for confirmation, there's a whole bunch of 'em." Scott realized that Hugh knew nothing about the press so he explained the options slowly. "Which one would you like?" Scott wanted it to seem that Sidneys was in control and making the rules. "How about we just talk, and you tell me what I should do . . .what you think . . .and . . .I don't want anything in the paper. You have one for that?" Hugh was feeling easier on the phone with Scott. "Sure do. We'll just call it off the record for now. Everything you tell me, I promise not to use it without your permission. Will that do?" Scott smiled broadly. If you speak loudly with a big smile on your face, people on the other end of the phone think you're honest and that you mean what you say. That's how game show hosts do it. "OK." Scott heard Sidneys inhale deeply. "Those papers you say you have? Remember?" "Sure do. Got them right here." Scott patted them on his clut- tered desk. "Well, you can't have them. Or you shouldn't have them. I mean it's impossible." Hugh was getting nervous again. His voice nearly squeaked. "Hugh, I do have them, and you all but confirmed that for me yesterday. A weak confirmation, but I think you know more than you let on . . ." "Mr. Mason . . ." "Please, call me Scott!" "OK . . .Scott. What I'm trying to say is that what you say you have, you can't have cause it never existed." "What do you mean never existed?" Scott was confused, terribly confused all of sudden. He raised his voice. "Listen, I have reams of paper here that say someone at First State is a big crook. Then you say, 'sure it's real' and now you don't. What's your game, Mister?" Playing good-cop bad-cop alone was diffi- cult, but a little pressure may bring this guy down to reality. "Obviously you have them, that's not the point." Sidneys reacted submissively to Scott's ersatz domineering personality. "The only place that those figures ever existed was in my mind and in my computer. I never made a printout. They were never put on paper." Hugh said resolutely. Scott's mind whirred. Something is wrong with this picture. He has papers that were never printed, or so says a guy whose sta- bility is currently in question. The contents would have far reaching effects on the S&L issue. A highly visible tip of the iceberg. McMillan, involved in that kind of thing? Never, not Mr. Clean. What was Sidneys getting at? "Mr. Sidneys . . .Hugh . . .do you have time to have a cup of coffee somewhere. It might be easier if we sat face to face. Get to know each other." Rosie's Diner was one of the better Greasy Spoons near the Hudson River docks on Manhattan's West Side. The silver interior and exterior was not a cliche when this diner was built. Rosie, all 280 pounds of her, kept the UPS truckers coming back for over thirty years. A lot of the staff at the paper ate here, too. For the best tasting cholesterol in New York, saturated fats, bacon and sausage grease flavored starches, Rosie's was the place. Once a month at Rosie's would guarantee a reading of over 300. Scott recognized Hugh from a distance. No one came in there dressed. Had to be an accountant. Hugh hugged his briefcase while nervously looking around the diner. Scott called the short pale man over to the faded white formica and dull chrome booth. Hugh ordered a glass of water, while Scott tried to make a light dinner of it. "So, Hugh, please continue with what you were telling me on the phone." Scott tried to sound empathetic. "It's like I said, I don't know how you got them or they found out. It's impossible." The voice was uncannily like Pebbles Flintstone in person. "Who found out? Does someone else know . . .?" "OK," Hugh sighed. "I work for First State, right? I work right with McMillan although nobody except a few people know it. They think I do market analysis and research. What I'm really doing is helping shelter money in offshore investment accounts. There are some tax benefits, I'm not a tax accountant so I don't know the reasons, but I manage the offshore investments." "Did you think that was illegal?" "Only a little. Until recently that is." "Sorry, continue." Scott nibbled from the sandwich on his plate. "Well there was only one set of books to track the offshore investments. They wanted them to be kept secret for various reasons. McMillan and the others made the deals, not me. I just moved the money for them." Again Hugh was feeling paranoid. "Hugh, you moved some money around illegally, maybe. So what? What's the big deal?" Scott gulped some hot black coffee to chase the pastrami that almost went down the wrong pipe. Sidneys continued after sipping his water and wetting his lips. "Four days ago I got this call, from some Englishman who I'd never spoken to before. He said he has all the same figures and facts you said you have. He starts reading enough to me and I know he's got what he says he got. Then he says he wants me to cooperate or he'll go public with everything and blow it right out of the water." Hugh was perspiring with tension. His fists were clenched and knuckles white. "And then, I called you and you came unglued. Right?" Scott was trying to emotionally console Hugh, at least enough to get some- thing more. "Do you think you were being blackmailed? Did he, the English guy, demand anything? Money? Bribes? Sex?" Scott grinned. Hugh obviously did not appreciate the attempt at levi- ty. "No, nothing. He just said that I would hear from him shortly. That was it. Then, nothing, until you called. Then I figured I missed his call." Hugh was working himself into another nervous frenzy. "Did he threaten you?" "No. Not directly. Just said that it would be in my best inter- est to cooperate." "What did you say?" "What could I say? I mumbled something about doing nothing wrong but he said that didn't matter and I would be blamed for every- thing and that he could prove it." "Could he prove it?" Hugh was scribbling furiously in his note- book. "If he had the files in my computer I guess I would look pretty guilty, but there's no way anyone could get in there. I'm the only one, other than McMillan who can get at that stuff. It's always been a big secret. We don't even make any printouts of it. It's never on paper, just in the computer." Hugh fell back in the thinly stuffed torn red Naugahyde bench seat and gulped from his water glass. Scott shook his head as he scanned the notes he had been making. This didn't make any sense at all. Here was this little nerdy man, with a convoluted tale of embezzlement and blackmail, off shore money and he was scared. "Hugh," Scott began slowly. "Let me see if I've got this right. You were part of a scheme to shift investments overseas, falsify reports, yet the investments always made a reasonable return in investment." Hugh nodded in agreement silently. "Then, after how many, eight years of this, creating a secret little world that only you and McMillan know about . . ." "A few others knew, I have the names, but only McMillan could get the information from the computer. No one else could. I set it up that way on purpose." Hugh interrupted. "OK, then you receive a call from some Englishman who says he's got the numbers you say are so safe and then I get a copy. And the numbers agree with the results that First State reported. Is that about it?" Scott asked, almost mocking the apparent absurd- ity. "Yeah, that's it. That's what happened." Hugh Sidneys was such a meek man. "That leaves me with a couple of possible conclusions. One, you got yourself in over your head, finally decided to cut your losses and make up this incredible story. Maybe make a deal with the cops or the Feds and try to be hero. Maybe you're the embezzler and want out before it's too late. Born again bean- counter. It's a real possibility." Hugh's face grimaced; no, that's not what happened, it's just as I told you. "Or, two, McMillan is behind the disclosures and is now effec- tively sabotaging his own plans. For what reasons I could hardly venture a guess now. But, if what you are saying is true, it's either you or McMillan." Scott liked the analysis. It was sound and took into account all available information, omitting any speculation. "Then why would someone want to threaten me? "Either you never got the call," the implication was obvious, "or McMillan is trying, quite effectively to spook you." Scott put a few dollars on the table next to the check. "That's it? You won't say anything, will you? You promised!" Hugh leaned into Scott, very close. Scott consoled Hugh with a pat on his wrinkled suit sleeve. "Not without speaking to you first. No, that wouldn't be cricket. Don't worry, I'll call you in a couple of days." His editor, Doug McGuire agreed that Scott should keep on it. There might be a story there, somewhere. Go find it. But don't forget about the viruses. * * * * * The headline of the National Expos�� , a weekly tabloid caught Scott's attention on his way home that evening in Grand Central Station. EXCLUSIVE! S&L RIP OFF EXPOSED! Scott's entire story, the one he wasn't permitted to print was being read by millions of mid-American supermarket shopping housewives. In its typically sensationalistic manner, the arti- cle claimed that the Expose was in exclusive possession of documents that proved McMillan was stealing 10's of millions from First State S&L. It even printed a fuzzy picture of the same papers that Scott had received. How the hell? **************************************************************** Chapter 4 Thursday, September 10 Houston, Texas. Angela Steinem dialed extension 4343, Network Administration for MIS at the Treadline Oil Company in Houston, Texas. It rang three times before Joan Appleby answered. Joan was the daytime network administrator for Building 4. Hundreds of IBM personal computers were connected together so they could share information over a Novell local area network. "Joan, I don't bug you much, right?" Angela said hesitantly. "Angela, how about a good morning girl?" They were good friends outside of work but had very little business contact. "Sorry, mornin'. Joan, I gotta problem." "What's troubling ya hon." Joan Texas spoke with a distinct Texas twang. "A little bird just ate my computer." "Well, then I guess I'd be lookin' out for Big Bird's data dump." Joan laughed in appreciation of the comedy. "No really. A little bird flew all over my computer and ate up all the letters and words on the screen. Seriously." "Y'all are putting me on, right?" Maggie's voice lilted. "No. No, I'm serious. It was like a simple video game, Pac-Man or something, ate up the screen. I couldn't get it to come back so I turned my computer off and now it won't do anything. All it says is COMMAND.COM cannot be found. Now, what the hell does that mean." Joan Appleby now took Angela seriously. "It may mean that we have some mighty sick computers. I'll be right there." By the end of work, the Treadline Oil Company was essentially at a standstill. Over 4,000 of their internal microcomputers, mainly IBM and Compaq's were out of commission. The virus had successfully struck. Angela Steinem and her technicians shut down the more than 50 local area networks and gateways that connected the various business units. They contacted the National Computer Virus Association in San Mateo, California, NIST's National Computer Center Laboratories and a dozen or so other watchdog groups who monitor computer viruses. This was a new virus. No one had seen it before. Sorry, they said. If you can send us you hard disk, we may be able find out what's going on . . .otherwise, your best bet is to dismantle the entire computer system, all 4,000 plus of them, and start from scratch. Angela informed the Vice President of Information Systems that it would be at least a week, maybe ten days before Treadline would be fully operational again. Mary Wallstone, secretary to Larry Gompers, Junior democratic representative from South Carolina was stymied. Every morning between 7:30 and 8:00 AM she opened her boss's office and made coffee. Most mornings she brought in Dunkin' Donuts. It was the only way she knew to insure that her weight would never ebb below 200 pounds. Her pleasant silken skin did not match the plumpness below. At 28 she should have known that meeting Washington's best and brightest required a more slender physique. This morning she jovially sat down at her Apple Macintosh comput- er with 3 creme filled donuts and a mug of black coffee with 4 sugars. She turned on the power switch and waited as the hour- glass icon indicated that the computer was booting. It was going through its self diagnostics as it did every time power was applied. Normally, after a few seconds, the Mac would come alive and the screen would display a wide range of options from which she could select. Mary would watch the procedure carefully each time - she was an efficient secretary. This time, however, the screen displayed a new message, one she had not seen in the nine months she had worked as Congressman Gompers' front line. RAM OPTIMIZER TEST PROCEDURE.... INITIALIZING... THIS PROGRAM IS DESIGNED TO TAKE MAXIMUM ADVANTAGE OF SYSTEM STORAGE CAPABILITIES. THE TEST WILL ONLY TAKE A FEW SECONDS... WAITING.... WARNING: DO NOT TURN OFF COMPUTER DURING SELF TEST! As she was trained, she heeded her computer's instructions. She watched and waited as the computer's hard disk whirred and buzzed. She wasn't familiar with the message, but it sounded quite official, and after all, the computer is always right. And she waited. Some few seconds, she thought, as she dove into her second donut. And she waited through the third donut and another mug of too sweet coffee. She waited nearly a half an hour, trying to oblige the instruc- tions from the technocratic box on her desk. The Mac continued to work, so she thought, but the screen didn't budge from it's warning message. What the hell, this has taken long enough. What harm can it cause if . . . She turned the power switch off and then back on. Nothing. The computer did absolutely nothing. The power light was on, the disk light was on, but the screen was as blank as a dead televi- sion set. Mary called Violet Beecham, a co worker in another office down the hall. "'Morning Vi. Mary." Violet sounded agitated. "Yeah, Mare, what is it?" "I'm being a dumb bunny and need a hand with my computer. Got a sec?" Mary's sweetness oozed over the phone. "You, too? You're having trouble? My computer's as dead as a doornail. Won't do anything. I mean nothing." Violet was frustrated as all get out and the concern communicated to Mary. "Dead? Vi, mine is dead too. What happened to yours?" "Damned if I know. It was doing some self check or something, seemed to take forever and then . . .nothing. What about yours?" "Same thing. Have you called MIS yet?" "Not yet, but I'm getting ready to. I never did trust these things. Give me a typewriter any day." "Sure Vi. I'll call you right back." Mary looked up the number for MIS Services, the technical magi- cians in the basement who keep the 3100 Congressional computers alive. "Dave here, can I help you?" The voice spoke quickly and indif- ferently. "Mary Wallstone, in Gompers office. My computer seems to be having a little problem . . ." Mary tried to treat the problem lightly. "You and half of Congress. Listen . . .is it Mary? This morning is going to be a slow one. My best guess is that over 2500 com- puters died a quick death. And you know what that mean." "No, I don't..." Mary said hesitantly. "It means a Big Mac Attack." "A what?" "Big Mac, it's a computer virus. We thought that Virus-Stop software would stop it, but I guess there's a new strain out there. Congress is going to be ordering a lot of typewriters and legal pads for a while." "You mean you can't fix it? This virus?" "Listen, it's like getting the flu. Once you got it, you got it. You can't pretend you aren't sick. Somebody took a good shot at Congress and well . . .they won. We're gonna be down for a while. Couple of weeks at least. Look, good luck, but I gotta go." Dave hung up. Mary ate the other three donuts intended for her boss as she sat idle at her desk wondering if she would have a job now that there were no more computers on Capitol Hill. * * * * * CONGRESS CATCHES FLU - LOSES FAT IN PROCESS by Scott Mason, New York City Times The Congressional Budget Office announced late yesterday that it was requesting over $1 Million in emergency funding to counter a devastating failure of Congress's computers. Most of the computers used by both Senators and Representatives are Apple Macintosh, but Apple Computer issued a quick statement denying any connection between the massive failures and any production problems in their machines. The CBO said that until the problems were corrected, estimates to take up to four weeks, that certain normal Congressional activi- ties would be halted or severely curtailed. Electronic mail, E- Mail that has saved taxpayers millions, will be unavailable for communications until October at a minimum. Inter-office communi- cations, those that address legislative issues, proposed bills, and amendments have been destroyed and will require ". . .weeks and weeks and weeks of data entry just to get back where we started. This is a disaster." The culprit is, of course, a computer virus. The question on everyone's mind is, was this virus directed at Congress, or were they merely an anonymous and unfortunate victim? I have an IBM PC clone at home. Technically it's an AT with a hard disk, so I'm not sure if that's an XT, and AXT, an XAT, an ATX or . . .well whatever. I use it to write a lot of my stories and then I can send the story to the computer at work for an overdiligent editor to make it fit within my allotted space. It never occurred to me that a computer could get sick. I am, as we all are, used to our 'TV going on the Fritz', or 'Blowing a Fuse'. It seems like a lot of things blow: a gasket blows, a light bulb blows, a tire blows or blows out, the wind blows. I am sure that Thomas W. Crapper, the 19th century inven- tor of the flush toilet would not be pleased that in 1988 man has toasters and other cooking devices that 'crap out'. The Phone Company 'screws up', the stock market 'goes to hell in a handbas- ket' and VCR's 'work for s__t'. It never occurred to me that a computer could get sick. Computers are supposed to 'crash'. That means that either Aunt Tillie can't find the ON switch or her cat knocked it on the floor. Computers have 'fatal errors' which obviously means that they died and deserve a proper burial. It never occurred to me that a computer could get sick. In the last few weeks there have been a lot of stories about computers across the country getting ill. Sick, having the flu, breathing difficulty, getting rashes, itching, scratching them- selves . . .otherwise having a miserable time. Let's look at the medical analogy to the dreaded computer virus that indiscriminately attacks and destroys any computer with which it comes in contact. Somewhere in the depths of the countryside of the People's Republic of China, a naturally mutated submicroscopic microbe has the nerve to be aerodynamically transferred to the smoggy air of Taiwan. Upon landing in Taipei, the microbe attaches itself to an impoverished octogenarian who lives in an overpopulated 1 room apartment over a fish store. The microbe works its way into this guy's blood stream, unbek- nownst to him, and in a few days, he's sicker than a dog. But this microbe is smart, real smart. It has heard of antibiotics, and in the spirit of true Darwinism, it replicates itself before being killed off with a strengthened immunity. So, the microbe copies itself and when Kimmy Chen shakes hands with his custom- ers, some of them are lucky enough to receive an exact duplicate, clone if you will, of his microbe. Then they too, get ill. The microbe thus propagates its species until the entire East Coast of the US has billions and trillions of identical microbes costing our fragile economy untold millions of dollars in sick pay. However, the microbe is only so smart. After a while, the mi- crobe mutates itself into a benign chemical compound that no longer can copy itself and the influenza epidemic is over. Until next year when Asian Flu B shows up and the process begins all over again. (The same group of extremists who believe that the Tri-Lateral commission runs the world and Queen Elizabeth and Henry Kissinger are partners in the heroine trade think the AMA is behind all modern flu epidemics. No comment.) The point of all of this diatribe is that computers can get sick too. With a virus. Don't worry, mom. Your computer can't give you the flu anymore than your fish can get feline leukemia. It all started years ago, before Wozniak and Apple and the PC. Before personal computers there were mainframes; huge room sized computers to crunch on numbers. One day, years ago, Joe, (that's not a real name, it's changed to protect him) decided it would be great fun to play a prank on Bill, another programmer who worked at a big university. Joe wrote a little program that he put into Bill's big computer. Every time Bill typed the word 'ME' on his keyboard, the computer would take over. His video screen would fill up with the word 'YOU', repeating itself hundreds and thou- sands of times. Bill's computer would become useless. That was called a practical joke to computer programmers. Joe and Bill both got a laugh out of it, and no harm was done. Then Bill decided to get back at Joe. He put a small program into Joe's big computer. Every day at precisely 3:00 P.M., a message appeared: 'Do Not Pass GO!'. It was all good fun and became a personal challenge to Joe and Bill to see how they could annoy each other. Word spread about the new game. Other graduate students at the university got involved and soon computer folks at Cal Tech, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford and elsewhere got onto the bandwagon. Thus was born the world's first computer disease, the virus. This is Scott Mason. Using a typewriter. * * * * * November, 3 Years Ago Sunnyvale, California. When Data Graphics Inc. went public in 1987, President and found- er Pierre Troubleaux, a nationalized American born in Paris momentarily forgot that he had sold his soul to achieve his success. The company, to the financial community known as DGI, was on the road to being in as much favor as Lotus or Microsoft. Annual sales of $300 Million with a pre-tax bottom line of over $55 Million were cause celebre on Wall Street. The first public issues raised over $200 Million for less than 20% of the common stock. With a book value in excess of $1 Billion, preparation for a second offering began immediately after the first sold out in 2 hours. The offering made Pierre Troubleaux, at 29, a rich man; a very rich man. He netted almost $20 Million in cash and another $100 Million in options over 5 years. No one objected. He had earned it. DGI was the pearl of the computer industry in a time of shake ups and shake outs. Raging profits, unbridled growth, phenomenal market penetration and superb management. Perhaps the most unique feature of DGI, other than its Presi- dent's deal with the devil, was that it was a one product compa- ny. DGI was somewhat like Microsoft in that they both got rich and famous on one product. While Microsoft branched out from DOS into other product areas, DGI elected to remain a 1 product company and merely make flavors of its products available for other companies which then private labeled them under their own names. Their software product was dubbed dGraph, a marketing abbreviated term for data-Graphics. Simply put, dGraph let users, especially novices, run their computers with pictures and icons instead of complex commands that must be remembered and typed. dGraph theoretically made IBM computers as easy to use as a Macintosh. Or, the computer could be trained to follow instructions in plain English. It was a significant breakthrough for the industry. DGraph was so easy to use, and so powerful in its abilities that it was virtually an instant success. Almost every computer manufacturer offered dGraph as part of its standard fare. Just as a computer needed DOS to function, it was viewed that you needed dGraph before you even loaded the first program. Operat- ing without dGraph was considered archaic. "You don't have dGraph?" "How can you use your computer without dGraph?" "I couldn't live without dGraph." "I'd be lost without dGraph." The ubiquitous non-technical secretaries especially loved dGraph. DGraph was taught at schools such as Katherine Gibbs and Secre- Temps who insisted that all its girls were fluent in its ad- vanced uses. You just can't run a office without it! As much as anything in the computer industry is, dGraph was a standard. Pierre Troubleaux was unfortunately under the misim- pression that the success for DGI was his and his alone and that he too was a standard . . .a fixture. The press and computers experts portrayed to the public that he was the company's singu- lar genius, with remarkable technical aptitude to see "beyond the problem to the solution . . .". The official DGI biography of Pierre Troubleaux, upon close examination, reads like that of an inflated resume by a person applying for a position totally outside his field of expertise. Completely unsuited for the job. But the media hype had rele- gated that minor inconsistency to old news. In reality Troubleaux was a musician. He was an accomplished pianist who also played another twenty instruments, very, very well. By the age of ten he was considered something of a prodigy and his parents decided that they would move from Paris to New York, the United States, for proper schooling. Pierre's scholar- ships at Julliard made the decision even easier. Over the years Pierre excelled in performances and was critically acclaimed as having a magnificent future where he could call the shots. As a performer or composer. But Pierre had other ideas. He was rapt in the study of the theory of music. How notes related to each other. How scales related to each other. What made certain atonalities subjectively pleasing yet others com- pletely offensive. He explored the relationships between Eastern polyphonic scales and the Western twelve note scale. Discord, harmony, melody, emotional responses; these were the true loves of Pierre Troubleaux. Upon graduation from Julliard he announced, that contrary to his family's belief and desire, he would not seek advanced train- ing. Rather, he would continue his study of musical relationships which by now had become an obsession. There was little expertise in this specific area, so he pursued it alone. He wrote and arranged music only to provide him with enough funds to exist in his pallid Soho loft in downtown Manhattan. He believed that there was an inherent underlying Natural Law that guided music and musical appreciation. If he could find that Law, he would have the formula for making perfect music every time. With the Law at the crux of all music, and with control over the Law, he ruminated, one could write a musical piece to suit the specific goals of the writer and create the desired effect on the listener. By formula. In 1980 Pierre struggled to organize the unwieldy amount of data he had accumulated. His collections of interpretive musical analysis filled file cabinets and countless shelves. He relied on his memory to find anything in the reams of paper, and the situation was getting out of control. He needed a solution. Max Jones was a casual acquaintance that Pierre had met at the Lone Star Cafe on the corner of 13th and 5th Avenue. The Lone Star was a New York fixture, capped with a 60 foot iguana on the roof. They both enjoyed the live country acts that played there. Max played the roll of an Urban Cowboy who had temporarily given up Acid Rock in favor of shit kickin' Southern Rock. Pierre found the musical phenomenon of Country Crossover Music intrigu- ing, so he rationalized that drinking and partying at the Lone Star was a worthwhile endeavor which contributed to his work. That may have been partially true. Max was a computer jock who worked for one of the Big Eight accounting firms in midtown Manhattan. A complex mixture of com- puter junkie, rock'n'roll aficionado and recreational drug user, Max maintained the integrity of large and small computer systems to pay the bills. "That means they pretend to pay me and I pretend to work. I don't really do anything productive." Max was an "ex-hippie who put on shoes to make a living" and a social anarchist at heart. At 27, Max had the rugged look that John Travolta popularized in the 70's but on a rock solid trim six foot five 240 pound frame. He dwarfed Pierre's mere five feet ten inches. Pierre's classic European good looks and tailored appearance, even in jeans and a T-shirt were a strong contrast to Max's ruddiness. Pierre's jet black hair was side parted and covered most of his ears as it gracefully tickled his shoulders. Piercing black eyes stared over a prominent Roman nose and thin cheeks which tapered in an almost feminine chin. There was never any confusion, though; no one in their right mind would ever view Pierre as anything but a confirmed and practiced heterosexual. His years of romantic achievements proved it. The remnants of his French rearing created an unidentifiable formal and educated accent; one which held incredible sex appeal to American women. Max and Pierre sipped at their beers while Max rambled on about how wonderful computers were. They were going to change the world. "In a few years every one on the planet will have his own comput- er and it will be connected to everyone else's computer. All information will be free and the planet will be a better place to live and so on . . ." Max's technical sermons bordered on reli- gious preaching. He had bought into the beliefs of Steven Jobs, the young charismatic founder and spiritual guiding force behind Apple Computer. Pierre had heard it before, especially after Max had had a few. His view of a future world with everyone sitting in front of a picture tube playing with numbers and more numbers . . .and then a thought hit him. "Max . . .Max . . ." Pierre was trying to break into another one of Max's Apple pitches. "Yeah . . .oh yeah, sorry Amigo. What's that you say?" Max sipped deeply on a long neck Long Star beer. "These computers you play with . . ." "Not play, work with. Work with!" He pointed emphatically at nothing in particular. "OK, work with. Can these computers play, er, work with music?" Max looked quizzically at Pierre. "Music, sure. You just program it in and out it comes. In fact, the Apple II is the ideal computer to play music. You can add a synthesizer chip and . . ." "What if I don't know anything about computers?" "Well, that makes it a little harder, but why doncha let me show you what I mean." Max smiled wide. This was what he loved, playing with computers and talking to people about them. The subject was still a mystery to the majority of people in 1980. Pierre winced. He realized that if he took up Max on his offer he would be subjected to endless hours of computer war stories and technical esoterica he couldn't care less about. That may be the price though, he thought. I can always stop. Over the following months they became fast friends as Pierre tutored under Max's guiding hand. Pierre found that the Apple had the ability to handle large amounts of data. With the new program called Visi-Calc, he made large charts of his music and their numbers and examined their relationships. As Pierre learned more about applying computers to his studies in musical theory, his questions of Max and demands of the Apple became increasingly complex. One night after several beers and a couple of joints Pierre asked Max what he thought was a simple question. "How can we program the Apple so that it knows what each piece of data means?" he inquired innocently. "You can't do that, man." Max snorted. "Computers, yes even Apples are stupid. They're just a tool. A shovel doesn't know what kind of dirt it's digging, just that it's digging." He laughed out loud at the thought of a smart shovel. Pierre found the analogy worth a prolonged fit of giggles through which he managed to ask, "but what if you told the computer what it meant and it learned from there. On its own. Can't a com- puter learn?" Max was seriously stoned. "Sure I guess so. Sure. In theory it could learn to do your job or mine. I remember a story I read by John Garth. It was called Giles Goat Boy. Yeah, Giles Goat Boy, what a title. Essentially it's about this Goat, musta been a real smart goat cause he talked and thunk and acted like a kid." They both roared at the double entendre of kid. That was worth another joint. "At any rate," Max tried to control his spasmodic chuckles. "At any rate, there were these two computers who competed for control of the world and this kid, I mean," laughing too hard to breath, "I mean this goat named Giles went on search of these computers to tell them they weren't doing a very good job." "So, what has that got to do with an Apple learning," Pierre said wiping the tears from his eyes. "Not a damn thing!" They entered another spasm of laughter. "No really. Most people either think, or like to think that a com- puter can think. But they can't, at least not like you and me. " Max had calmed down. "So?" Pierre thought there might still be a point to this conver- sation. "So, in theory, yeah, but probably not for a while. 10 years or so." "In theory, what?" Pierre asked. He was lost. "In theory a machine could think." "Oh." Pierre was disappointed. "But, you might be able to emulate thinking. H'mmmm." Max re- treated into mental oblivion as Abbey Road played in the back- ground. Anything from Apple records was required listening by Max. "Emulate. Emulate? What's that? Hey, Max. What's emulate? Hey Max, c'mon back to Earth. Emulate what?" Max jolted back to reality. "Oh, copy. You know, act like. Emulate. Don't they teach you emulation during sex education in France?" They both thought that that was the funniest thing ever said, in any language for all of written and pre-history. The substance of the evening's conversation went downhill from there. A few days later Max came by Pierre's loft. "I been thinking." "Scary thought. About what?" Pierre didn't look up from his Apple. "About emulating thought. You know what we were talking about the other night." "I can't remember this morning much less getting shit faced with you the other night." "You were going on and on about machines thinking. Remember?" "Yes," Pierre lied. "Well, I've been thinking about it." Max had a remarkable ability to recover from an evening of illicit recreation. He could actually grasp the germ of a stoned idea and let a straight mind deal with it the following day. "And, I maybe got a way to do what you want." "What do I want?" Pierre tried to remember. "You want to be able to label all of your music so that to all appearances each piece of music knows about every other piece of music. Right?" "Kinda, yeah, but you said that was impossible . . ." Pierre trailed off. "In the true sense, yes. Remember emulation though? Naw, you were too stoned. Here's the basic idea." Max ran over to the fridge, grabbed a beer and leapt into a bean bag chair. "We assign a value to every piece of music. For example, in music we might assign a value to each note. Like, what note it is, the length of the note, the attack and decay are the raw data. That's just a number. But the groupings of the notes are what's important. The groupings. Get it?" Pierre was intrigued. He nodded. Maybe Max did understand after all. Pierre leaned forward with anticipation and listened intent- ly, unlike in one ear out the other treatment he normally gave Max's sermons. "So what we do is program the Apple to recognize patterns of notes; groupings, in any size. We do it in pictures instead of words. Maybe a bar, maybe a scale, maybe even an entire symphony orchestra. All 80 pieces at once!" Max's enthusiasm was conta- gious. "As the data is put in the computer, you decide what you want to call each grouping. You name it anything you want. Then we could have the computer look for similar groupings and label them. They could all be put on a curve, some graphic of some kind, and then show how they differ and by how much. Over time, the computer could learn to recognize rock'n'roll from Opera from radio jingles to Elevator Music. It's all in the patterns. Isn't that what you want?" Max beamed while speaking excitedly. He knew he had something here. Max and Pierre worked together and decided to switch from the Apple II computer to the new IBM PC for technical reasons beyond Pierre's understanding. As they labored, Max realized that if he got his "engine" to run, then it would be useful for hundreds of other people who needed to relate data to each other but who didn't know much about computers. In late 1982 Max's engine came to life on its own. Pierre was programming in pictures and in pure English. He was getting back some incredible results. He was finding that many of the popu- lar rock guitarists were playing lead riffs that had a genealogy which sprang from Indian polyphonic sitar strains. He found curious relationships between American Indian rhythms and Baltic sea farer's music. All the while, as Pierre searched the reaches of the musical unknown, Max convinced himself that everyone else in the world would want his graphical engine, too. Through a series of contacts within his Big Eight company, Max was put in touch with Hambrecht Quist, the famed Venture Capital firm that assisted such high tech startups as Apple, Lotus and other shining stars in the early days of the computer industry. Max was looking for an investor to finance the marketing of his engine that would change the world. His didactic and circumlocu- tous preaching didn't get him far. While everyone was polite at his presentations, afterwards they had little idea of what he was talking about. "The Smart Engine permits anyone to cross-relate individual or matrices of data with an underlying attribute structure that is defined by the user. It's like creating a third dimension. Data is conventionally viewed in a two dimensional viewing field, yet is really a one dimension stream. In either source dimensional view, the addition of a three dimensional attribute structure yields interrelationships that are not inherently obvious. Thus we use graphical representations to simplify the entire process." After several weeks of pounding the high risk financial community of the San Francisco Bay area, Max was despondent. Damn it, he thought. Why don't they understand. I outline the entire theory and they don't get it. Jeez, it's so easy to use. So easy to use. Then the light bulb lit in his mind. Call Pierre. I need Pierre. Call Pierre in New York. "Pierre, it's Max." Max sounded quite excited. "How's the Coast." "Fine, Fine. You'll find out tomorrow. You're booked on American #435 tomorrow." "Max, I can't go to California. I have so much work to do." "Bullshit. You owe me. Or have I forgotten to bill you for the engine?" He was calling in a favor. "Hey, it was my idea. You didn't even understand what I was talking about until . . ." "That's the whole point, Pierre. I can't explain the engine to these Harvard MBA asswipes. It was your idea and you got me to understand. I just need you to get some of these investors to understand and then we can have a company and make some money selling engines." Max's persistence was annoying, but Pierre knew that he had to give in. He owed it to Max. The new presentations Max and Pierre put on went so well that they had three offers for start up financing within a week. And, it was all due to Pierre. His genial personality and ability to convey the subtleties of a complex piece of software using actual demonstrations from his music were the touchy-feely the investors wanted. It wasn't that he was technical; he really wasn't. But Pierre had an innate ability to recognize a problem, theoretical- ly, and reduce it to its most basic components. And the Engine was so easy to use. All you had to do was . . . It worked. The brainy unintelligible technical wizard and char- ismatic front man. And the device, whatever it was, it seemed to work. The investors installed their own marketing person to get sales going and Pierre was asked to be President. At first he said he didn't want to. He didn't know how to run a company. That doesn't matter, the investors said. You are a salable item. A person whom the press and future investors can relate to. We want you to be the image of the company. Elegance, suave, upper class. All that European crap packaged for the media. Steve Jobs all over again. Pierre relented, as long as he could continue his music. Max's engine was renamed dGraph by the marketing folks and the company was popularly known as DGI. Using Byte, Personal Comput- ing, Popular Computing and the myriad computer magazines of the early 1980's, dGraph was made famous and used by all serious computer users. DGraph could interface with the data from other programs, dBase II, 123, Wordstar and then relate it in ways never fathomed. Automatically. Users could assign their own language of, at that time, several hundred words, to describe the third dimension of data. Or, they could do it in pictures. While the data on the screen was being manipulated, the computer, unbeknownst to the operator, was constantly forming and updating relationships between the data. Ready to be called upon at any time. As the ads said, "dGraph for dData." As success reigned, the demand upon Pierre's time increased so that he had little time for his music. By 1986 he lived a virtu- al fantasy. He was on the road, speaking, meeting with writers, having press conferences every time a new use for dGraph was announced. He was adored by the media. He swam in the glory of the attention by the women who found his fame and image an irresistible adjunct to his now almost legendary French accent and captivating eyes. Pierre and Max were the hottest young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley; the darlings of the VC community. And the company spar- kled too. It was being run by professionals and Max headed up the engineering group. As new computers appeared on the market, like the IBM AT, additional power could be effectively put into the Engine and Voila! a new version of dGraph would hit the market to the resounding ring of an Instant Hit on Softsel's Top 40. Max, too, liked his position. He was making a great deal of money, ran his own show with the casualness of his former hippie days, yet could get on the road with Pierre any time he needed a break. Pierre got into the act hook, line and sinker and Max acted the role of genius behind 'The Man'. That gave Max the freedom to avoid the microscope of the press yet take a twirl in the fast lane whenever he felt the urge. The third round of funding for DGI came from an unexpected place. Normally when a company is as successful as DGI, the original investors go along for the ride. That's how the VC's who worked with Lotus, Compaq, Apple and other were getting filthy stinking rich. The first two rounds went as they had planned, the third didn't. "Mr. Troubleaux," Martin Fisk, Chairman of Underwood Investments said to Pierre in DGI's opulent offices. "Pierre, there is only one way to say this. Our organization will no longer be involved with DGI. We have sold our interest to a Japanese firm who has been trying to get into the American computer field." "What will that change? Anything?" Pierre was nonplused by the announcement. "Not as far as you're concerned. Oh, they will bring in a few of their own people, satisfy their egos and protect their invest- ment, that's entirely normal. But, they especially want you to continue on as President of DGI. No, no real changes." "What about Max?" Pierre had true concern for his friend. "He'll remain, in his present capacity. Essentially the finan- cial people will be reporting to new owners that's all." "Are we still going to go public? That's the only way I'm gonna make any real money." Martin was flabbergasted. Pierre wasn't in the least interested as to why the company changed hands. He only wanted to know about the money, how much money he would make and when. Pierre never bothered to ask, nor was it offered, that Underwood would profit over 400 percent on their original investment. The Japa- nese buyer was paying more than the company was worth now. They had come in offering an amount of money way beyond what an open- ing offer should have been. Underwood did a search on the Japa- nese company and its American subsidiary, Data Tech. They were real, like $30 Billion real and did were expanding into the information processing field through acquisitions, primarily in the United States. Underwood sold it's 17% stake in DGI for $350 Million, more than twice its true value. They sold quickly and quietly. Even though Pierre and Max should have had some say in the transfer, Under- wood controlled the board of directors and technically didn't need the founder's consensus. Not that it overtly appeared to mattered to Pierre. Max gave the paper transfer a cursory exami- nation, at least asked the questions that were meaningless to the transformed Pierre, and gave the deal his irrelevant blessings. After the meeting with the emissaries from DGI's new owner, OSO Industries, Pierre and Max were confident that nothing would change for them. They would each continue in their respective roles. The day to day interference was expected to be minimal, but the planned public offering would be accelerated. That suited Pierre just fine; he would make out like a bandit. Several days before the date of issue, Pierre received a call from Tokyo. "Mr. Troubleaux?" The thick Japanese accent mangled his name so badly Pierre cringed. "Yes, this is Pierre Troubleaux," he said exaggerating his French accent. The Japanese spoke French as well as a hair-lipped stutterer could recite "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." "I wish to inform you, sir, that the Chairman of OSO is to visit your city tomorrow and participate in your new successes. Would this be convenient?" Pierre had only one possible response to the command performance he was being 'invited' to. Since OSO had bought into DGI, Pierre was constantly mystified by the ritualism associated with Japanese business. They could say "Yes!" a hundred times in a meeting, yet everyone present understood that the speakers really meant "No Way, Jose!" There of course was the need for a quality gift for any visitor from Japan. Johnny Walker Black was the expected gift over which each recipient would feign total sur- prise. Pierre had received more pearl jewelry from the Japanese than he could use for ten wives. But the ritual was preserved. "Of course it will. I would be most honored. If you could provide me with details of his flight I will see to it that he receives appropriate treatment." "Very good Mr. Troubleaux." Pierre stifled a smirk at the mispro- nunciation. "Your trouble will not go unrewarded." "Mr. Homosoto, it is so good of you to visit at this time. Very auspicious, sir." Pierre was kissing some ass. "Troubleaux-San," Homosoto's English had a touch of Boston snobbery in it, "you have performed admirably, and we all look to continued successes in the future. I expect, as I am sure you do, that the revenues raised from your public stock offering will provide your company with the resources to grow ten fold." It was a statement that demanded an answer. Another Japanese quirk. "Yessir, of course. As you know, Mr. Homosoto, I am not involved in the day to day operations and the forecasting. My function is more to inspire the troops and carry the standard, so to speak. I will have to rely upon the expertise of others to give you the exact answers you seek." "That is not necessary, I have all I need to know about your business and its needs. Your offer is most kind." "Why do you call DGI my business? Aren't we in this together? Partners?" Pierre clarified the idiom for the rotund bespecta- cled Chairman of OSO Industries. "Hai! Of course, my friend, we are partners, and you will be very wealthy in a few days." That statement had the air of an accusation more than good wishes. "There is one little thing, though. It is so small that I don't wish to mention it." Well then don't, thought Pierre. "Nothing is so small it should- n't be mentioned. Please, proceed Homosoto-San. How may I help?" "That's it exactly!" Homosoto beamed. "I do need your help. Not today, but in the future, perhaps a small favor." "Anytime at all, sir. Whatever I can I will." Pierre was re- lieved. Just some more Japanese business practices that escaped him. Homosoto leaned in towards Pierre. His demeanor had shifted to one of a very serious man. "Mr. Troubleaux, how can I be sure that you won't disappoint me? How can I be sure?" The question threw Pierre for a loop. How can he be sure? I don't know. Maybe this was only an Oriental game of mumbley peg or chicken. "Sir, what would I need to do to convince you of my willingness to comply?" When in doubt, ask. Homosoto relaxed again, leaned back in the plush office chair and smiled. "In my country, Mr., Troubleaux, honor is everything. You have nothing, nothing without your honor. Every child, man and woman in Japan knows that. We are raised with the focus of growth being honor. During the war between our countries, so many years ago, many found honor by making the supreme sacrifice. Kamikaze pilots are of whom I am speaking of, Mr. Troubleaux." Pierre's face must have given away the panic that instantly struck him. Suicide? This guy is truly nuts. "Do not worry, Mr. Troubleaux, I can see what you are thinking. No. I only speak of kamikaze pilots to serve as example of honor. The kind that brought honor to Japan in the face of defeat. That is something Americans will never understand. But then again you're not American are you?" "I was born a Frenchman, but I naturalized over twenty years ago, at the same time my parents did." "Ah yes. I remember. Then honor does mean more to you than to most Americans. That will be quite good. Now, for the future favor. I require nothing of you today, other than the guarantee of you honor. Is that agreeable to you, Mr. Troubleaux?" Homoso- to was pushing with the facade of friendliness. Pierre's concern was not alleviated. All the same, he reluctantly nodded his assent. "Very good. Now for the favor." Homosoto stood up and reached inside his size 48, ill fitting suit. Pierre was amazed at how much money the Japanese had, yet were apparently unable to ever wear clothes that fit properly. Homosoto handed a 5 1/4" floppy disk to Pierre. Pierre took it carefully from Homosoto and looked at the label. The diskette was marked only with: FILE1.EXE to FILE93.EXE He looked inquisitively at Homosoto, his eyes asking, Yeah, so? What's this got to do with anything? "I see now you are confused. It is so simple, really. Sometime in the future, you will be instructed to add one of the files on this disk onto the dGraph programs you sell. That's it. So sim- ple. So I have your word Mr. Troubleaux? Honor among men." Pierre's mind was racing. Put a file onto a program? What does that do? What's on it? Does it help dGraph? No that can't be it. What is it? Why so secret. What's with the honor bit? From the Chairman of OSO, not a technician? One floppy disk? Pierre smelled a fox in the chicken coup. "Mr. Homosoto, sir. I mean no disrespect. But, I hardly know what to think. I don't even know what this disk is. You are asking me to promise something I don't understand. What if I don't agree. At least until I know what I'm doing? I need to know what's going on here." he said holding the disk up promi- nently. "I prefer to think, Mr. Troubleaux of what occurs as long as you do agree to maintain the honor between us. It is so much more pleasant." Homosoto edged towards the doors of Troubleaux's office as he spoke. "When you agree to act honorably, perform for me this small, insignificant favor, Mr. Troubleaux, you will get to keep the $20 Million you make this Friday and you will be permitted to contin- ue living. Good Afternoon." Homosoto closed the door behind him. * * * * * Alexander Spiradon was pleased. His students were doing well. The other students from the New York computer school had already checked in; they didn't have as far to travel as Sir George. Everything was in place, not quite a year to the day since he and Taki Homosoto had set their plans in action. Alex hadn't spoken to Homosoto in a couple of months. It was now time to report to Homosoto in Tokyo. It was 17 hours earlier there - Homosoto would probably be at his desk. The modem dialed a local Brookline number. The phone in Brookline subsequently dialed a number in Dallas, Texas, which dialed another phone in Tacoma, Washington. The Tacoma phone had the luxury of dialing the international number for Homosoto's private computer. Call forwarding services offered the ultimate in protection. Any telephone tracing would take weeks, requiring the cooperation of courts from every state where a forwarded phone was located. Then, the State Department would have to coordinate with the Japanese Embassy. An almost impossible task, if anyone had the resources. It took about 45 seconds for the call to be complet- ed. <<<<<<CONNECTION>>>>>> PASSWORD: Alex entered his password, GESUNDHEIT and his forced response from his own PRG card. His computer terminal paused. If he was on satellite to Japan, or to Dallas or anywhere else, his signal could travel a hundred thousand miles or more each time he sent a character from his keyboard. CRYPT KEY: Alex Spiradon chose 43. Each communication he had with Homosoto was also protected with full encryption. If someone was able to isolate their conversations, all they would get would be sheer garbage, a screen full of unintelligible symbols and random characters. By choosing 43, Alex told his computer and Homosoto's computer to use Crypt Key 43, one of over 100 secret keys that both computers held in their memory. This cryptographic scheme, using the U.S.'s Data Encryption Standard, DES, and ANSI standard X9.17 was the same one that the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve used to protect the transmission of over $1 trillion of funds transfers daily. <<<<<<TRANSMISSION ENCODED>>>>>> That was the signal for Alex to send the first words to Homosoto. Good Morning, Homosoto-San. AND TO YOU MY ESTEEMED PARTNER. YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO REPORT. Yes. All is in place. PLEASE CLARIFY . . .MY MEMORY IS NOT WHAT IT WAS. Of course. The last of the Operators are in place. We call him Sir George. That makes 8 altogether. San Francisco, (SF), New York, (NY), Los Angeles, (LA), Boston, (BM), Atlanta, (AG) Chica- go, (CI), Washington, (DC) and Dallas, (DT). AND THEY CAN BE TRUSTED? They are aware of the penalty. If not, we have others that will replace them. Besides, you are rewarding them most handsomely for their efforts. SO I AM. I EXPECT RESULTS. AND THE OTHERS? The Mail Men are waiting as well. Four of them in NY, DC, LA and DT. YOU SAY MAIL MEN. WHAT IS THAT TERM? They will deliver our messages in writing to those who need additional proof of our sincerity. They know nothing other than they get paid, very well, to make sure that the addressees are in receipt of their packages. VERY GOOD. AND THEY TOO ARE RESPONSIBLE? Yes. Elimination is a strong motivation. Besides, they know nothing. WHAT IF THEY READ THE CONTENTS? That can only help. They do not know where the money comes from. Most need the money more than their lives. My contacts make my choices ideal. Death is . . .so permanent. I AGREE. IT MAKES MEN HONORABLE, DOES IT NOT? Most of the time, yes. There are always exceptions, and we are prepared for that, too. THE SEKIGUN-HA ARE AT YOUR DISPOSAL. Thank you. The Ground Hogs, the first are in place. HOW MANY AND WHERE. Over 50 so far. I will keep recruiting. We have 11 in the long distance phone companies and at AT&T, 3 at IBM, 14 in government positions, 12 in major banks, a couple of insurance companies, 3 Hospitals are compromised . . .and a list of others. We will keep the channels full, I promise. HOW WILL THEY FUNCTION? They will gain access to the information we need, and when we call, they will perform. I will add more as we proceed. It amazes me, these Americans. Anything for a buck. DO NOT DISAPPOINT ME. I will not. That is my promise. When will the information be ready? SOON. TOMORROW THE FIRST READER INFORMATION WILL BE SENT TO YOU. CALLS MAY BEGIN IN DAYS. YOU ORGANIZE IT. THE GROUND HOGS ARE NOT TO BE ACTIVATED FOR SEVERAL WEEKS. THEY ARE TO PERFORM THEIR JOBS AS IF NOTHING IS WRONG. DO THEY UNDERSTAND? Ground Hogs receive 2 paychecks. They understand their obliga- tions. We pay 10 times their salary for their allegiance. The Operators and Mail Men will start soon. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ALLEGIANCE. DON'T YOU KNOW THAT YET? Americans pay homage to the almighty dollar, and nothing else. They will be loyal. AS YOU ARE MOTIVATED MY FRIEND, I DO NOT FORGET THAT. BUT OTHERS CAN OFFER MORE DOLLARS AND WE CAN BE FOUND. I CANNOT RISK THAT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE RISK? Completely. I am responsible for my people. AND THEY ARE PREPARED FOR THEIR JOBS? Yes. That is my responsibility, to insure the security of our task. No one must know. I know my job. DO IT WELL. I WILL LEAVE YOU. <<<<< CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> **************************************************************** Chapter 5 Monday, September 14 New York City Doug! Doug!" Scott hollered across the city room. As in most newspaper offices, the constant scurry of people bumping into each other while reading and walking gave the impression of more activity than there really was. Desks were not in any particular pattern, but it wasn't totally chaotic either. Every desk had at least one computer on it. Some two or three. Scott pushed back into place those that he dislodged while running to McGuire's desk. Doug McGuire noticed the early hour, 8:39 A.M. on the one wall clock that gave Daylight Savings Time for the East Coast. The other dozen or so clocks spanned the time zones of the globe. It wasn't like Scott to be his energetic youthful self before noon. "Doug, I need you." Scott shouted from 3 desks away. "It'll just take a minute." Scott nearly dragged the balding, overweight, sometimes harsh 60 year old Doug McGuire across the newsroom. They abruptly halted in front of Scott's desk. Boxes full of files everywhere; on the floor, piled 3 or 4 high, on his desk. "Will you look at this. Just look at this!" He stuck a single sheet of paper too close into Doug's face. Doug pushed it away to read it out loud. McGuire read from the page. "A Message from a Fan. Thanks." Doug looked perplexed. He motioned at the paper hurricane on Scott's desk. "So, what is this mess? Where did it come from?" Scott spoke excitedly. "I got another delivery, about an hour ago. I think it's from the same guy who sent the McMillan stuff." He perused the boxes. "Why do you say that?" Doug asked curiously. "Because of what's in here. I haven't been able to go through much of it, obviously, but I scanned through a few of the boxes. There's dirt on almost every company in the Fortune 1000. Copies of memoranda, false figures, confidential position statements, the truth behind a lot of PR scandals, it goes on and on. There's even a copy of some of the shredded Ollie North papers. Or so they say they are. Who knows. But, God! There are notes about behind the scene plays on mergers, who's screwing who to get deals done . . .it's all here. A hundred years of stories right here . . .". "Let's see what we've got here." Doug was immediately hooked by the treasure trove of potential in from of them coupled with Scott's enthusiasm. The best stories come from the least likely places. No reporter ever forgets the 3rd rate burglary at the Watergate that brought down a President. By late afternoon, Scott and several of the paper's researchers had set up a preliminary filing system. They categorized the hundred of files and documents and computer printouts by company, alphabetically. The contents were amazing. Over 150 of the top American corporations were represented directly, and thousands of other by reference. In every case, there was a revelation of one or more particularly embarrassing or illegal activities. Some were documented accounts and histories of past events and others that were in progress. Many of the papers were prognostications of future events of questionable ethics or legality. It reminded Scott of Jeanne Dixon style predictions. From Wall Street's ivory tower deals where payoffs are called consulting fees, and in banking circles where delaying transfers of funds can yield millions of dollars in interest daily, from industrial secrets stolen or purchased from such and such a source, the laundry list was long. Plans to effect such a busi- ness plan and how to disguise its true purposes from the ITC and SEC. Internal, very upper level policies which never reach the company's Employee Handbook; policies of discrimination, atti- tude, and protective corporate culture which not only transcend the law but in many cases, morality. The false books, the jim- mied numbers . . .they were in the boxes too, but that was almost accepted accounting practice as long as you didn't get caught. But the depth of some of the figures was amazing. Like how one computer company brought in Toshiba parts and sold them to the government despite the ban on Toshiba components because of their sale of precision lathes to the Soviets. "Jesus," said Scott after a lengthy silence of intent reading. "This nails everyone, even the Government." There were well documented dossiers on how the EPA made unique exclusions hundred of times over based upon the financial lobby- ing clout of the particular offender. Or how certain elected officials in Washington had pocketed funds from their PAC monies or how defense contractors were advised in advance of the con- tents of an upcoming billion dollar RFP. The cartons of files were absolute political dynamite. And, if released, could have massive repercussions in the world financial community. There was a fundamental problem, though. Scott Mason was in possession of unsupported, but not unreasonable accusations, they were certainly believable. All he really had was leads, a thou- sand leads in ten thousand different directions, with no apparent coherency or theme, received from an anonymous and dubious donor. And there was no way of immediately gauging the veracity of their contents. He clearly remembered what is was like to be lawyered. That held no appeal at the moment. The next obvious question was, who would have the ability to gather this amount of information, most of which was obviously meant to be kept very, very private. Papers meant not for anyone but only for a select group of insiders. Lastly, and just as important to the reporter; why? What would someone gain from telling all the nasty goings on inside of Corporate America. There have been so many stories over the years about this company or that screwing over the little guy. How the IRS and the government operated substantially outside of legal channels. The kinds of things that the Secretary of the Treasury would prefer were kept under wraps. Sometimes stories of this type made the news, maybe a trial or two, but not exactly noteworthy in the big picture. White collar crime wasn't as good as the Simpsons or Roseanne, so it went largely ignored. Scott Mason needed to figure out what to do with his powder keg. So, as any good investigative reporter would do, he decided to pick a few key pieces and see if the old axiom was true. Where there's smoke, there's fire. * * * * * Fire. That's exactly what Franklin Dobbs didn't want that Monday morning. He and 50 other Corporate CEO's across the country received their own unsolicited packages by courier. Each CEO received a dossier on his own company. A very private dossier containing information that technically didn't, or wasn't offi- cially supposed to exist. Each one read their personalized file cover to cover in absolute privacy. And shock set in. Only a few of the CEO's in the New York area had ever heard of Scott Mason before, and little did they know that he had the complete collection of dossiers in his possession at the New York City Times. Regardless, boardrooms shook to their very core. Wall Street trading was untypically low for a Monday, less than 50,000,000 shares. But CNN and other financial observers at- tributed the anomaly to random factors unconnected to the secret panic that was spreading through Corporate America. By 6 P.M., CEO's and key aides from 7 major corporations head- quartered in the metropolitan New York area had agreed to meet. Throughout the day, CEO's routinely talk to other corporate leaders as friends, acquaintances, for brain picking and G2, market probing in the course of business. Today, though, the scurry of inter-Ivory-Tower calls was beyond routine. Through a complicated ritual dance of non-committal consent, questions never asked and answers never given, with a good dose of Zieglerisms, a few of the CEO's communicated to each other during the day that they were not happy with the morning mail. A few agreed to talk together. Unofficially of course, just for a couple of drinks with friends, and there's nothing wrong, we admit nothing, of course not. These are the rules strictly obeyed for a non-encounter that isn't happening. So they didn't meet in a very private room, upstairs at the Executive Club, where sensitive meetings often never took place. One's presence in that room is as good as being on in a black hole. You just weren't there, no matter what. Perfect. The room that wasn't there was heavily furnished and dark. The mustiness lent to the feeling of intrigue and incredulity the 7 CEO's felt. Massive brown leather couches and matching oversized chairs surrounded by stout mahogany tables were dimly lit by the assortment of low wattage lamp fixtures. There was a huge round dining table large enough for all of Camelot, surrounded by mammoth chairs in a large ante-room. The brocade curtains covered long windows that stretched from the floor to ornate corner moldings of the 16 foot ceilings. One tired old black waiter with short cropped white hair appeared and disappeared skillfully and invisibly. He was so accustomed to working with such distinguished gentlemen, and knew how impor- tant their conversations were, that he took great pride in re- filling a drink without being noticed. With his little game, he made sure that drinks for everyone were always full. They spoke openly around Lambert. Lambert had worked the room since he was 16 during World War II and he saw no reason to trade occupations; he was treated decently, and he doubled as a bookie for some members which added to his income. There was mutual trust. "I don't know about you gentlemen," said Porter Henry, the ener- getic and feisty leader of Morse Technologies, defense subcon- tractor. "I personally call this blackmail." A few nods. "I'm not about to admit to anything, but have you been threat- ened?" demanded Ogden Roberts, Chairman of National First Inter- state. "No, I don't believe any of us have, in so many words. And no, none of us have done anything wrong. We are merely trying to keep sensitive corporate strategies private. That's all. But, I do take the position that we are being intimidated. I think Porter's right. This is tantamount to blackmail. Or the precursor at a minimum." They discussed, in the most circumlocutous manner, possibilities. The why, how, and who's. Who would know so much, about so many, supposedly sacrosanct secrets. Therefore there must have been a lot of whos, mustn't there? They figured about 50 of their kindred CEO's had received similar packages, so that meant a lot of whos were behind the current crisis in privacy. Or maybe just one big who. OK, that's narrowed down real far; either a lot of whos, one big who, or somewhere in between. Why? They all agreed that demands would be coming, so they looked for synergy between their firms, any sort of connections that spanned at first the seven of those present, to predict what kinds of demands. But it is difficult to find hard business connections between an insurance company, a bank, 2 defense contractors, a conglomerate of every drug store product known to man and a fast food company. The thread wasn't there. How? That was the hardest. They certainly hadn't come up with any answers on the other two questions, so this was asking the impossible. CEO's are notorious for not knowing how their compa- nies work on a day to day basis. Thus, after 4 or 5 drinks, spurious and arcane ideas were seriously considered. UFO's were responsible, I once saw one . . .my secretary, I never really trusted her at all . . .the Feds! Must be the IRS . . .(my/his/your) competitor is doing it to all of us . . .the Moonies, maybe the Moonies . . . "Why don't we just go to the Feds?" asked Franklin Dobbs who did not participate in the conjecturing stream of consciousness free for all. Silence cut through the room instantly. Lambert looked up from his corner to make sure they were all still alive. "I'm serious. The FBI is perfect. We all operate interstate, and internationally. Would you prefer the NYPD?" he said dero- gatorally waiting any voices of dissent. "C'mon Frank. What are we going to tell them?" Ogden Roberts the banker asked belligerently. The liquor was having an effect. "Certainly not the truth . . ." he cut himself short, realizing that he came dangerously close to admitting some indefinable wrong he had committed. "You know what I mean," he quickly added. "We don't go into all of the detail. An abbreviated form of the truth, all true, but maybe not everything. I am sure we all agree that we want to keep this, ah, situation, as quiet as possible." Rapid assent came from all around. "All we need to say is that we have been contacted, in a threat- ening manner. That no demands have been made yet, but we are willing to cooperate with the authorities. That would give us all a little time, to re-organize our priorities, if you see what I mean?" Dobbs added. The seven CEO's were thoughtful. "Now this doesn't mean that we all have to agree on this," Franklin Dobbs said. "But as for me, I have gone over this, in limited detail, with my attorney, and he agrees with it on a strategic level. If someone's after you, and you can't see 'em, get the guys with the White Hats on your side. Then do some housekeeping. I am going to the FBI. Anybody care to join me?" It was going to be a lonesome trip. * * * * * September, 4 Years Ago Tokyo, Japan. OSO Industries maintained its world headquarters in the OSO World Bank Building which towered 71 stories over downtown Tokyo. From the executive offices on the 66th floor, on a clear day, the view reached as far as the Pacific. It was from these lofty reaches that Taki Homosoto commanded his $30 Billion empire which spread across 5 continents, 112 countries, and employed almost a quarter million people. OSO Industries had diversified since it humble beginnings as a used tire junkstore. The Korean conflict had been a windfall. Taki Homosoto started a tire retreading business in 1946, during the occupation of Japan. The Americans were so smart, he thought. Bring over all of your men, tanks, jeeps and doctors not telling us the truth about radiation, and you forget spare tires. Good move, Yankee. Taki gouged the Military on pricing so badly, and the Americans didn't seem care, that the Pentagon didn't think twice about paying $700 for toilet seats decades later. Taki did give great service - after all his profits were so staggeringly high he could afford it. Keep the American's happy, feed their ego, and they'll come back for more. No sense of pride. Suckers. When the Americans moved in for Korea, Tokyo was both a command post for the war effort and the first choice of R&R by service- men. OSO Industries was in a perfect position to take advantage of the US Government's tire needs throughout the conflict. OSO was already in place, doing a good job; Taki had bought some friends in the US military, and a few arrangements were made to keep business coming his way. Taki accumulated millions quickly. Now he needed to diversify. Realizing that the war would come to an end some day, Homosoto begin making plans. OSO Radio sets appeared on the market before the end of the Korean Police Action. Then, with the application of the transistor, the portable radio market exploded. OSO Industries made more transistor radios than all other Japanese electronics firms combined. Then came black and white televi- sions. The invention of the single beam color TV tube again brought OSO billions in revenues every year. Now, OSO was the model of a true global corporation. OSO owned banks and investment companies. Their semiconductor and electron- ics products were household words. They controlled a vast network of companies; electronic game manufacturers, microwave and appli- ance manufacturers, and notably, acres and acres of Manhattan Island, California and Hawaii. They owned and operated communi- cations companies, including their own geosynchronous satellite. OSO positioned itself as a holding company with hundreds of subsidiaries, each with their own specialty, operating under thousands of names. Taki Homosoto wove an incredibly complex web of corporate influence and intrigue. OSO was one of the 10 largest corporations in the world. Reaga- nomics had already assisted in making OSO and Homosoto himself politically important to both Japan and the US. Exactly how Homosoto wanted it. American leaders, Senators, Congressmen, appointees, lobbyists, in fact much of Washington coddled up to Homosoto. His empire planned years in advance. The US Govern- ment, unofficially craved his insights, and in characteristic Washington style, wanted to be near someone important. Homosoto relished it. Ate it up. He was a most cordial, unassuming humble guest. He played the game magnificently. Almost the entire 66th floor of the OSO Bank Building was dedi- cated to Homosoto and his immediate staff. Only a handful of the more then 200,000 people that OSO Industries employed had access to the pinnacle of the OSO tower which graced the Tokyo skyline. The building was designed by Pei, and received international ac- claim as an architectural statement. The atrium in the lobby vaulted almost 700 feet skyward precursoring American hotel design in the next decade. Plants, trees over 100 feet tall and waterfalls graced the atria and the overhanging skylobbies. The first floor lobby was designed around a miniature replica of the Ging Sha forest, fashioned with thousands of Bonzai trees. The mini forest was built to be viewed from various heights within the atrium to simulate a flight above the earth at distances from 2 to 150 miles. The lobby of OSO Industries was a veritable museum. The Van Gogh collection was not only the largest private or public assemblage in the world, but also represented over $100 Million spent in Sothby and Christies auctions worldwide since 1975. To get to the elevator to the 66th floor, a security check was performed, including a complete but unobtrusive electronic scan of the entire person and his belongings. To all appearances, the procedure was no more than airport security. However to the initiate or the suspect, it was evident from the accuracy with which the guards targeted specific contraband on a person or in his belongings that they knew more than they were telling. The OSO guards had the girth of Sumo wrestlers, and considering their sheer mass, they received little hassle. Very few deemed it prudent to cross them. The lobby for all of its grandeur, ceilings of nearly 700 feet, was a fairly austere experience. But, the elevator to the 66th floor altered that image at once. It was this glass walled elevator, the size of a small office, with appropriately comfort- able furnishings, that Miles Foster rode. From the comfort of the living room setting in the elevator, he enjoyed a panorama of the atrium as it disappeared beneath him. He looked at the forest and imagined what astronauts saw when they catapulted into orbit. The executive elevator was much slower than the others. Either the residents in the penthouse relished the solitude and view or they had motion sickness. Nonetheless, it was most impressive. "Ah, Mister Foster! Welcome to OSO. Please to step this way." Miles Foster was expected at the terminus of the lift which opened into an obscenely large waiting room that contained a variety of severe and obviously uncomfortable furniture. Aha! Miles, thought. That's exactly what this is. Another art gal- lery, albeit a private one for the eyes of his host and no one else. White walls, white ceilings, polished parquet floors, track lighting, recessed lights, indirect lights. Miles noticed that the room as pure as the driven snow didn't have any windows. He didn't recognize much of the art, but given his host, it must have represented a sizable investment. Miles was ushered across the vast floor to a set of handsomely carved, too tall wooden doors with almost garish gold hardware. His slight Japanese host barely tapped on the door, almost inau- dibly. He paused and stood at attention as he blurted an obedient "Hai!" The aide opened both doors from the middle, and in deference to Mr. Foster, moved to one side to let the visitor be suitably impressed. Homosoto's office was a total contrast to his gal- lery. Miles first reaction was astonishment. It was slightly dizzying. The ceiling slanted to a height of over 25 feet at the outer walls, which were floor to ceiling glass. The immense room provided not only a spectacular view of Tokyo and 50 miles be- yond, but lent one the feeling of being outside. Coming from the U.S. Government, such private opulence was not common. It was to be expected in his family's places of business, the gaming parlors of Las Vegas, but not in normal commerce. He had been to Trump Tower in New York, but that was a public build- ing, a place for tourists. This office, he used the word liber- ally, was palatial. It was decorated in spartan fashion with cherry wood walls. Artwork, statues, figurines, all Japanese in style, sat wherever there was an open surface. A few gilt shelves and marble display tables were randomly scattered around the room. Not chaoticly; just the opposite. The scattering was exquisitely planned. There was a dining alcove, privatized by lavish rice paper panels for eating in <MI>suhutahksi<D>. Eating on the floor was an honored ritual. There was a small pit under the table for curl- ing one's legs on the floor. A conference table with 12 elegant wooden chairs sat at the opposite end of the cavernous office. In the center of the room, at the corner of the building, was Homosoto's desk, or work surface if you prefer. It was large enough for four, yet Homoso- to, as he stood to greet Foster, appeared to dwarf his environ- ment and desk. Not in size, but in confidence. His personage was in total command. The desk and its equipment were on a plat- form some 6" above the rest of the room. The intended effect was not lost on Foster. The sides of the glossy cherrywood desk were slightly elevated to make room for a range of video monitors, communications facili- ties, and computers which accessed Homosoto's empire. A vast telephone console provided tele-conferencing to OSO offices worldwide. Dow Jones, CNN, Nippon TV were constantly displayed, visible only to Homosoto. This was Homosoto's Command Central as he liked to call it. Foster gawked at the magnificent surroundings as he stood in front of his assigned seat. A comfortable, plush, black leather chair. It was one of several arranged in a sunken conversation pit. Homosoto acknowledged Foster's presence with the briefest of nods as he stepped down off of his aerie. Homosoto wore expensive clothes. A dark brown suit, matching solid tie and the omnipres- ent solid white starched shirt. It didn't fit, like most Japa- nese business uniforms. He was short, no more than five foot six, Miles noticed, after Homosoto got down to the same level as the rest of the room. On the heavy side, he walked slowly and deliberately. Eyes forward after the obligatory nod. His large head was sparsely covered with little wisps of hair in nature's futile attempt to clothe the top of his freckled skull. Even at 59 Homosoto's hair was still pitch black. Miles wasn't sure if Grecian Formula was available in Japan. The short crop accentuated the pronounced ears. A rounded face was peppered with spots, dark freckles perhaps, or maybe carcinoma. His deep set black eyes stared through the object of his attention. Homosoto was not the friendly type, thought Miles. Homosoto stood in front of Miles, extended his hand and bowed the most perfunctory of bows. Miles took his hand, expecting a strong grip. Instead he was greeted with a wet fish handshake which wriggled quickly from his grasp. Homosoto didn't give the slightest indication of a smile. The crow's feet around his eyes were caused by pudginess, not happiness. When he sat opposite Foster in a matching chair, he began without any pleasantries. "I hear you are the best." Homosoto stared at Foster. It was a statement that required a response. Foster shifted his weight a little in the chair. What a way to start. This guy must think he's hot shit. Well, maybe he is. First class, all expense paid trip to Tokyo, plus consultation fees. In advance. Just for one conversation, he was told, we just want some advice. Then, last night, and the night before, he was honored with sampling the finest Oriental women. His hot button. All expenses paid, of course. Miles knew he was being buttered up, for what he didn't know, but he took advantage of it all. "That's what's your people tell you." Foster took the challenge and glared, albeit with a smirk dimpled smile, politely, right back at Homosoto. Homosoto continued his stare. He didn't relax his intensity. "Mr. Foster," Homosoto continued, his face still emotionless. "Are you as good as they say?" he demanded. Miles Foster defiantly spat out the one word response. "Better." Homosoto's eyes squinted. "Mr. Foster, if that is true, we can do business. But first, I must be convinced. I can assure you we know quite a bit about you already, otherwise you wouldn't be here." Miles noticed that Homosoto spoke excellent English, clipped in style, but Americanized. He occasionally stretched his vowels, to the brink of a drawl. "Yeah, so what do you know. Pulled up a few data bases? Big Deal." Miles cocked his head at Homosoto's desk. "I would assume that with that equipment, you can probably get whatever you want." Homosoto let a shimmer of a smile appear at the corners off his mouth. "You are most perceptive, Mr. Foster." Homosoto paused and leaned back in the well stuffed chair. "Mr. Foster, tell me about your family." Miles neck reddened. "Listen! You called me, I didn't call you. All I ever knew about OSO was that you made ghetto blasters, TV's and vibrators. So therefore, you wanted me, not my family. If you had wanted them you would have called them." Miles said loudly. "So, keep my family the fuck out of it." "I do not mean to offend," Homosoto said offensively. "I just am most curious why you didn't go to work for your family. They have money, power. You would have been a very important man, and a very rich one." Homosoto said matter of factly. "So, the prudent man must wonder why you went to work for your Government? Aren't your family and your government, how shall I say, on opposite sides?" "My family's got nothing to do with this or you. Clear?" Miles was adamant. "But, out of courtesy for getting me laid last night, I might as well tell you. I went to the feds cause they have the best computers, the biggest equipment and the most interesting work. Not much money, but I have a backup when I need it. If I went to work for my family, as you put it, I would have been a glorified beancounter. And that's not what I do. It would have been no challenge. Boring, boring, boring!" Miles smiled sarcastically at Homosoto. "Happy now?" Homosoto didn't flinch. "Does that mean you do not disapprove of your family's activities? How they make money?" "I don't give a fuck!" Miles yelled. "How does that grab you? I don't give a flying fuck. They were real good to me, paid a lot of my way. I love my mother and she's not a hit man. My uncle does I don't know what or care. They're family, that's it. How much clearer do you want it?" Miles continued shouting. Homosoto grinned and held up his hands. "My apologies Mr. Foster. I mean no disrespect. I just like to know who works for me." "Hey, I don't work for you yet." "Of course, a simple slip of the tongue." "Right." Miles snapped sarcastically. Homosoto ignored this last comment. The insincere smile left his face, replaced with a more serious countenance. "Why did you leave your post with the National Security Agency, Mr. Foster?" Another inquisition, thought Miles. What a crock. Make it good for the gook. "'Cause I was working for a bunch of bungling idiots who insured their longevity by creating an invincible bureaucracy." Miles decided that a calm beginning might be more appropriate. "They had no real idea of what was going on. Their heads were so far up their ass they had a tan line across their chests. Whenever we had a good idea, it was either too novel, too expensive or needed additional study. Or, it was relegated to a committee that might react in 2 years. What a pile of bullshit, a waste of time. We could have achieved a lot more without all the inter- ference." "Mr. Foster, you say, 'we'. Who is 'we'?" Homosoto pointedly asked Miles. "The analysts, the people who did the real work. There were hundreds of us on the front lines. The guys who sweated weekends and nights to make our country safe from the Communists. The managers just never got with the program." "Mr. Foster, how many of the other analysts, in your opinion, are good?" Miles stepped back in his mind to think about this. "Oh, I guess I knew a half dozen guys, and one girl, who were pretty good. She was probably the best, other than me," he bragged. "Some chicken." "Excuse me? Chicken?" "Oh, sorry." Miles looked up in thought. "Ah, chicks, fox, look- er, sweet meat, gash, you know?" "Do you mean she's very pretty?" Miles suppressed an audible chuckle. "Yeah, that's right. Real pretty, but real smart, too. Odd combination, isn't it?" he smiled a wicked smile. Homosoto ignored the crudeness. "What are your politics, Mr. Foster?" "Huh? My politics? What the hell has that got to do with any- thing?" Miles demanded. "Just answer the question, please, Mr. Foster?" Homosoto quietly ordered. Miles was getting incensed. "Republican, Democrat? What do you mean? I vote who the fuck I want to vote for. Other than that, I don't play." "Don't play?" Homosoto briefly pondered the idiom. "Ah, so. Don't play. Don't get involved. Is that so?" "Right. They're all fucked. I vote for the stupidest assholes running for office. Any office. With any luck he'll win and really screw things up." Homosoto hit one of Miles hot buttons. Politics. He listened attentively to Miles as he carried on. "That's about the only way to fix anything. First fuck it up. Real bad. Create a crisis. Since the Government ignores whoever or whatever isn't squeaking that's the only way to get any atten- tion. Make noise. Once you create a crisis, Jeez, just look at Granada and Panama and Iraq to justify Star Wars, you get a lot of people on for the ride. Just look at the national energy debate. Great idea, 30 years and $5 trillion late. Then, 'ooooh!', they say. 'We got a big problem. We better fix it.' Then they all want to be heroes and every podunk politico shoots off his mouth about the latest threat to humanity. " "That's your politics?" "Sure. If you want to get something fixed, first fuck it up so bad that everyone notices and then they'll be crawling up your ass trying to help you fix it." "Very novel, Mr. Foster. Very novel and very cynical." Homosoto looked mildly amused. "Not meant to be. Just true." "It seems to me that you hold no particular allegiance. Would that be a fair observation?" Homosoto pressed the same line of questioning. "To me. That's my allegiance. And not much of anything else." Miles sounded defensive. "Then, Mr. Foster, what does it take to make you a job offer. I am sure money isn't everything to a man like you." Homosoto leaned back. All 10 of his fingers met in mirror image fashion and performed push ups on each other. Foster returned Homosoto's dare with a devastating stare-down that looked beyond Homosoto's face. It looked right into his mind. Foster used the knuckles from both hands for supports as he leaned on the table between them. He began speaking deliber- ately and coherently. "My greatest pleasure? A challenge. A great challenge. Yes, the money is nice, don't get me wrong, but the thrill is the chal- lenge. I spent years with people ignoring my advice, refusing to listen to me. And I was right so many times when they were wrong. Then they would start blaming everyone else and another committee is set up to find out what went wrong. Ecch! I would love to teach them a lesson." "How unfortunate for them that they failed to recognize your abilities and let your skills serve them. Yes, indeed, how unfortunate." Homosoto said somberly. "So," Miles said arrogantly as he retreated back to his seat, "you seem to be asking a lot of questions, and getting a lot of answers. It is your dime, so I owe you something. But, Mr. Homosoto, I would like to know what you're looking for." Homosoto stood up erect. "You, Mr. Foster. You. You are what I have been looking for. And, if you do your job right, I am making the assumption you will accept, you will become wealthier than you ever hoped. Ever dreamed. Mr. Foster, your reputation precedes you." He sincerely extended his hand to Foster. "I do believe we can do business." Homosoto was beaming at Miles Fos- ter. "OK, ok, so if I accept, what do I do?" said Miles as he again shook Homosoto's weak hand. "You, Mr. Foster, are going to lead an invasion of the United States of America." **************************************************************** Chapter 6 3 Years Ago Sunnyvale, California. Pierre Troubleaux was staggered beyond reason. His life was just threatened and he didn't know what to do about it. What the hell was this disk anyway? Military secrets? Industrial espionage? Then why put it on the dGraph disks and programs? Did I just agree? What did I say? I don't remember what I said. Maybe I said maybe. Panic yielded to confusion. What is so wrong? This was just some old Japanese guy who was making some veiled Oriental threat. No, it was another one of those cultural differences. Like calisthenics before work at those Japanese companies that satu- rate the West Coast. Sure it sounded like a threat, but this is OSO Industries we are talking about. That would be like the head of Sony using extortion to sell Walkmen. Impossible. All the same, it was scary and he had no idea what was on the disk. He called Max. "Max! What are you doing?" What he meant, and Max understood, was 'I need you. Get your ass up here now.' "On my way Amigo." The next few minutes waiting for Max proved to be mentally ex- hausting. He thought of hundreds of balancing arguments for both sides of the coin. Be concerned, this guy is nuts and meant it, or I misunderstood something, or it got lost in the translation. He prayed for the latter. "Yo, what gives?" Max walked into Pierre's office without knock- ing. "Tell me what's on this!" Pierre thrust the disk up at Max's large physique. Max held the disk to his forehead and gazed skyward. "A good start. Yes, a good start." Max grinned. Pierre groaned, knowing full well that the Kreskin routine had to be completed before anything serious was discussed. Max brought the disk to his mouth and blew on it so the disk holder bulged in the middle. Max pulled out the disk and pretended to read it. "What do you call 1000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean." Pierre chuckled a half a chuck. He wasn't in the mood, but then he had no love for lawyers. "Max! Please." "Hey, just trying new material...." " . . .that's 5 years old." Pierre interrupted. "All right already. Gimme a break. OK, let's have a look." They went behind Pierre's desk and inserted the disk in his IBM AT. Max asked the computer for a listing of the diskette's contents. The screen scrolled and stopped. C:\a: A:\dir FILE84.EXE 01/01/80 704 FILE85.EXE 01/01/80 2013 FILE86.EXE 01/01/80 1900 FILE87.EXE 01/01/80 567 FILE88.EXE 01/01/80 2981 FILE89.EXE 01/01/80 4324 FILE90.EXE 01/01/80 1280 FILE91.EXE 01/01/80 1395 FILE92.EXE 01/01/80 2374 FILE93.EXE 01/01/80 3912 93 Files 1457 Bytes Remaining A:\ "Just a bunch of small programs. What are they?" Max's lack of concern was understandable, but it annoyed Pierre all the same. "I don't know, that's what I'm asking you. What are they? What kind of programs?" "Jeez, Pierre, I don't know. Games maybe? Small utilities? Have you used them yet?" "No, not yet, someone just gave them to me. That's all." Pier- re's nervousness betrayed him. "Well let's try one, see what it does." Max typed in FILE93. That would run the program. A few seconds later the disk stopped and the computer returned to its natural state, that of the C:\. "That one didn't work. Let's try 92. H'mmmm. That's curious, it doesn't do anything either. Looks like a bunch of crap to me. What are they sup- posed to do?" Max shrugged his shoulders. Max kept trying a few more of the numbered programs. "I don't know, really. Maybe it's just a joke." "Some joke, I don't get it. Where's the punch line? Damn, nothing." Max punched a few more keys. "Let me have this. I wanna take me a look a closer look," Max said as he pulled the diskette from the machine. "Where are you going with that?" "To my lab. I'll disassemble it and see what's what. Probably some garbage shareware. I'll call you later." At 4PM Max came flying through Pierre's office door again. Pierre was doing his magic . . .talking to the press on the phone. "Where did you get this?" bellowed Max as he strutted across the plush carpet holding the diskette in his hand. Pierre waved him silent and onto the couch. He put up one finger to indicate just a minute. Pierre cut the reporter short on an obviously contrived weak excuse. He promised to call back real soon. He meant that part. He would call back. "Pierre, where did you get this?" Max asked again. "Nowhere. What's on it?" he demanded. "Viruses. Lots of 'em." "You mean it's sick? Like contagious?" Pierre was being genuine. "No you Frog idiot. Computer viruses." "What is a computer virus? A machine can't get sick." "How wrong you are ol' buddy. You're in for a lesson now. Sit down." Pierre obliged. This was Max's turf. "Here goes. If I lose you, just holler, ok, Amigo?" Pierre had grown to hate being called Amigo, but he had never asked Max to stop. Besides, now wasn't the appropriate time to enlighten Max as to the ins and outs of nick name niceties. Pierre nodded silent agreement. "Computers basically use two type of information. One type of information is called data. That's numbers, words, names on a list, a letter, accounting records whatever. The second type are called programs, we tweaks call them executables. Executables are almost alive. The instructions contained in the executables operate on the data. Everything else is a variation on a theme." "Yeah, so the computer needs a program to make it work. Everyone knows that. What about these?" "I'm getting there. Hold on. There are several types of executa- bles, some are COM files, SYS and BAT files act like executables and so do some OVR and OVL files. In IBM type computers that's about it. Apples and MACs and others have similar situations, but these programs are for IBM's. Now imagine a program, an executable which is designed to copy itself onto another program." "Yeah, so. That's how dGraph works. We essentially seam our- selves into the application." "Exactly, but dGraph is benign. These," he holds up the disk- ette, "these are contaminated. They are viruses. I only looked at a couple of them, disassembly takes a while. Pierre, if only one of these programs were on your computer, 3 years from now, the entire contents of your hard disk would be destroyed in seconds!" Pierre was stunned. It had never occurred to him that a program could be harmful. "That's 3 years from now? So what? I probably won't have the same programs on my computer then anyway. There's always some- thing new." "It doesn't matter. The viruses I looked at here copy themselves onto other programs and hide themselves. They do nothing, noth- ing at all except copy themselves onto other programs. In a few days every program on your computer, I mean every one would be infected, would be sick. Every one would have the same flu if you wish. And then, 3 years from now, any computer that was infected would destroy itself. And, the virus itself would be destroyed as well. Kind of like Jap kamikazes from World War II. They know exactly when they will die and hope to take a lot of others with them. In this case the virus commits suicide in 3 years. Any data or program within spitting distance, so to speak, goes too." "So why doesn't someone go looking for viruses and come up with antidotes?" "It's not that simple. A well written virus will disguise it- self. The ones you gave me, at least the ones I disassembled not only hide themselves, but they are dormant until activation; in this case on a specific date." Max continued the never ending education of Pierre. "Besides, it's been proven that there is no way to have a universal piece of software to detect viruses. Can't be done." "Whew . . .who comes up with this stuff?" Pierre was trying to grasp the importance of what he was hearing. "Used to be a UNIX type of practical joking; try writing a pro- gram that would annoy fellow programmers. Pretty harmless fool- ing around. No real damage, just embarrassment that called for a similar revenge. It was a game of one upmanship within universi- ty computer science labs. I saw a little of it while I worked at the school computer labs, but again it was harmless shenani- gans. These though. Wow. Deadly. Where the hell did you get them?" Pierre was in a quandary. Tell or don't tell. Do I or don't I? He trusted Max implicitly, but what about the threat. Naw, I can tell Max. Anything. "Homosoto." "What?" asked Max incredulously. "Homosoto. He gave it to me." Pierre was solemn. "Why? What for?" "He said that I was to put it on the dGraph disks that we sell." "He's crazy. That's absolutely nuts. Do you know what would happen?" Max paced the floor as he spoke angrily. "We sell thousands of dGraph's every month. Tens of thousands. And half of the computer companies ship dGraph with their machines. In 3 years time we may have over a couple of million copies of dGraph in the field. And who knows how many millions more programs would be infected, too. Tens of millions of infected programs . . .my God! Do you know how many machines would be destroyed . . . well maybe not all destroyed but it's about the same thing. The effects would be devastating." Max stopped to absorb what he was saying. "How bad could it be? Once they're discovered, can't your vi- ruses be destroyed?" Pierre was curious about the newly discov- ered power. "Well, yes and no. A virus that is dormant for that long years is also called a Time Bomb and a Trojan Horse. There would be no reason to suspect that a legitimate software company would be shipping a product that would damage computers. The thought is absurd . . .it's madness. But brilliant madness. Even if a few of the viruses accidentally go off prematurely, the virus de- stroys itself in the process. Poof! No smoking gun. No evi- dence. Nobody would have clue until V-Day." "V-Day?" "Virus Day." "Max, what's in this for Homosoto? What's the angle?" "Shit, I can't think of one. If it ever got out that our pro- grams were infected it would be the end of DGI. All over. On the other hand, if no one finds out before V-Day, all the PC's in the country, or Jesus, even the world, self destruct at once. It's then only a matter of time before DGI is caught in the act. And then, Amigo, it's really over. For you, me and DGI. What exactly did Homosoto say?" Pierre was teetering between terror and disbelief. How had he gotten into this position? His mind wandered back over the last few years since he and Max had come up with the Engine. Life has been real good. Sure, I don't get much music in anymore, and I have kinda been seduced by the fast lane, but so what? So, I take a little more credit than credit's due, but Max doesn't mind. He really doesn't. The threat. Was it real? Maybe. He tried to convince himself that his mind was playing tricks on itself. But the intellectual exercises he performed at lightening speed, cranial neuro-syn- apses switching for all they were worth, did not permit Pierre the luxury of a respite of calm. "He said he wanted me to put this on dGraph programs. Sometime in the future. That's about it." There was no reason to speak of the threats. No, no reason at all. His vision became sudden- ly clear. He was being boxed into a corner. "Well . . .?" Max's eyes widened as he expected a response from Pierre. "Well what?" "Well, what are you going to tell him? Or, more like where are you going to tell him to go? This is crazy. Fucking crazy, man." "Max, let me handle it. " Some quietude returned to Pierre. A determination and resolve came from the confusion. "Yeah, I'll take care of it." "Mr. Homosoto, we need to speak." Pierre showed none of the international politic that usually was second nature. He called Homosoto at the San Jose Marriott later that afternoon. "Of course, Mr. Troubleaux. I will see you shortly." Homosoto hung up. Was that a Japanese yes for a yes, or a yes for a no? Pierre wasn't sure, but he was sure that he knew how to handle Homoso- to. Homosoto didn't have the common courtesy to say he would not be coming until the following morning. In the plushness of Pierre's executive suite, Homosoto sat with the same shit eating grin he had left with the day before. Pierre hated that worse than being called amigo. "Mr. Troubleaux, you asked to speak to me. I assume this con- cerns a matter of honor between two men." Homosoto spoke in a monotone as he sat stiffly. "You're damned right it does." Pierre picked up the diskette from his desk. "This disk, this disk . . .it's absolutely incredible. You know what's here, you know what kind of damage it can cause and you have the gall, the nerve to come in here and ask me, no, worse yet, tell me to distribute these along with dGraph? You're out of your mind, Mister." Pierre was in a rage. "If you think we're a bunch of pawns, to do your dirty little deeds, you have another thing coming." Unfazed, Homosoto rose slowly and started for the door. "Where do you think you're going? Hey, I asked you where you're going? I'm not finished with you yet. Hey, fuck the deal. I don't want the goddamned money. We'll stay private and wait for someone honest to come along." Pierre was speaking just as loudly with hand, arm and finger gestures. While not all of the gestures were obscene, there was no doubt about their meaning. Homosoto spoke gently amidst Pierre's ranting. "I will give you some time to think about it." With that, he left and shut the door in Pierre's bright red face. Three days later DGI stock would be officially unleashed upon the public. Actually institutional buyers had already committed to vast amounts of it, leaving precious little for the small investor before driving the price up. That morning Pierre was looking for Max. They had a few last minute details to iron out for the upcoming press conferences. They had to prepare two types of statements. One if the stock purchase went as expected, sold out almost instantly at or above the offering price, and another to explain the financial bloodbath if the stock didn't sell. Unlikely, but their media advisors forced them to learn both positions, just in case. His phone rang. "Pierre, Mike Fields here." Fields was DGI's financial media consultant. He worked for the underwriters and had a strong vested interest in the outcome. He didn't sound like a happy camper. "Yes, Mike. All ready for tomorrow? I'm so excited I could burst," Pierre pretended. "Yes, so am I, but we have a problem." Pierre immediately thought of Homosoto. "What kind of problem, Mike?" Pierre asked suspiciously. "Uh, Max, Pierre, it's Max." "What about Max?" "Pierre, Max is dead. He died in a car crash last night. I just found out a few minutes ago. I gather you didn't know?" Of all the possible pieces of bad news that Mike Fields could have brought him, this was the farthest from his mind. Max dead? Not possible. Why, he was with him till after 10 last night. "Max, dead? No way. What happened? I don't believe it. This is some kind of joke, right?" "Pierre, I'm afraid I'm all too serious, unless CHiPs is in on it. They found a car, pretty well burned up, at the bottom of a ravine on I280. Looks like he went through a barrier and down the, well . . .I . . ." "I get the idea, Mike. Who . . ?" Pierre stuttered. "It was an accident, Pierre. One of those dumb stupid accidents. He may have had a blow out, fallen asleep at the wheel, oh . . .it could be a million things. Pierre, I am sorry. So sorry. I know what you guys meant to each other. What you've been through . . ." "Mike, I have to go," Pierre whispered. The tears were welling up in his eyes. "Wait, Pierre," Mike said gingerly. "Of course we're gonna put off the offering until . . ." "No. Don't." Pierre said emphatically. "Pierre, your best friend and partner just died and you want to go through with this . . .at least wait a week . . .Wall Street will be kind on this . . ." "I'll call you later. No changes. None." Pierre hung up. He hung his head on his desk, shattered with conflicting emotions. He was nothing without Max. Sure, he gave great image. Knew how to do the schtick. Suck up to the press, tell a few stories, stretch a few truths, all in the name of marketing, of course. But without Max, Max understood him. Damn you Max Jones. You can't do this to me. His grief vacillated from anger to despair until the phone rang. He ignored the first 7 rings. Maybe they would go away. The caller persisted. "Yes," he breathed into the phone. "Mr. Troubleaux," it was Homosoto. Just what he needed now. "What?" "I am most sorry about your esteemed friend, Max Jones. Our sympathies are with you. Is there anything I can do to help you in this time of personal grief." Classic Japanese manners oozed over the phone wire. "Yeah. Moral bankruptcy is a crime against nature, and you have been demonstrating an extreme talent for vivid androgynous self gratification." Pierre was rarely rude, but when he was, he aped Royal British snobbery at their best. "A physical impossibility, Mr. Troubleaux," Homosoto said dryly. "I understand your feelings, and since it appears that I cannot help you, perhaps we should conclude our business. Don't you agree Mr. Troubleaux?" The condescension dripped from Homosoto's words. The previous empathy was gone as quickly as if a light had been extinguished. "Mr. Homosoto, the offering will still go through, tomorrow as scheduled. I assume that meets with your approval?" The French can be so caustic. It makes them excellent taxi cab drivers. "That is not the business to which I refer. I mean business about honor. I am sure you remember our last conversation." "Yes, I remember, and the answer is still no. No, no, no. I won't do it." "That is such a shame. I hope you will not regret your decision." There it was again, Pierre thought. Another veiled threat. "Why should I?" "Simply, and to the point as you Americans like it, because it would be a terrible waste if the police obtained evidence you murdered your partner for profit." "Murdered? What in hell's name are you talking about?" Crystal clear visions scorched across Pierre's mind; white hot fire spread through his cranium. Was Homosoto right? Was Max mur- dered? Searing heat etched patterns of pain in his brain. "What I mean, Mr. Troubleaux, is that there is ample evidence, enough to convince any jury beyond a reasonable doubt, that you murdered your partner as part of a grander scheme to make your- self even richer than you will become tomorrow. Do I make myself clear?" "You bastard. Bastard," Pierre hissed into the phone. Not only does Homosoto kill Max, but he arranges to have Pierre look like the guilty party. What choice did he have. At least now. There's no proof, is there? The police reports are apparently not ready. No autopsy. Body burned? What could Homosoto do? "Fuck you all the way to Hell!" Pierre screamed at the phone in abject frustration and then slammed the receiver down so hard the impact resistant plastic cracked. At that same instant, Sheila Brandt, his secretary, carefully opened the door his door. "Pierre, I just heard. I am so sorry. What can I do?" She genuinely felt for him. The two had been a great team, even if Pierre had become obsessed with himself. Her drawn face with 40 years of intense sun worshiping was wracked with emotional distress. "Nothing Sheil. Thanks though . . .what about the arrangements . . .?" The helpless look on his face brought out the mother in her even though she was only a few years older. "Being taken care of . . .do you want to . . .?" "No, yes, whatever . . .that's all right, just keep me advised . . ." "Yessir. Oh, I hate to do this, but your 9AM appointment is waiting. Should I get rid of him?" "Who is it? Something I really care about right now?" "I don't know. He's from personnel." "Personnel? Since when do I get involved in that?" "That's all I know. Don't worry I'll have him come back next week . . ." she said thinking she had just relieved her boss of an unnecessary burden that could wait. "Sheil? Send him in. Maybe it'll get my mind off of this." "If you're sure . . ." Scott nodded at her affirmatively. "Sure, Pierre, I'll send him in." An elegantly dressed man, perhaps a dash over six feet, of about 30 entered. He walked with absolute confidence. If this guy was applying for a job he was too well dressed for most of DGI. He looked more like a tanned and rested Wall Street broker than a . . .well whatever he was. The door closed behind him and he grasped Pierre's hand. "Good morning Mr. Troubleaux. My name is Thomas Hastings. Why don't we sit for moment." Their hands released as they sat opposite each other in matching chairs. Pierre sensed that Mr. Hastings was going to run the conversation. So be it. "I am a software engineer with 4 advanced degrees as well 2 PhD's from Caltech and Polytechnique in Paris. There are 34 US patents either in my name alone or jointly along with over 200 copy- rights. I have an MBA from Harvard and speak 6 languages fluently . . ." Pierre interrupted, "I am impressed with your credentials, and your clothes. What may I do for you." "Oh dear, I guess you don't know. I am Max Jones' replacement. Mr. Homosoto sent me. May I have the diskette please?" * * * * * The financial section of the New York City Times included two pieces on the DGI offering. One concerned the dollars and cents, and the was a related human interest story, with financial reper- cussions. Max Jones, the co-founder of DGI, died in a car acci- dent 2 days before the company was to go public. It would have earned him over $20 Million cash, with more to come. The article espoused the "such a shame for the company" tone on the loss of their technical wizard and co-founder. It was a true loss to the industry, as much as if Bill Gates had died. Max, though, was more the Buddy Holly of software, while Gates was the Art Garfunkle. The AP story, though, neglected to mention that the San Jose police had not yet ruled out foul play. * * * * * Wednesday, September 1 New York City Scott arrived in the City Room early to the surprise of Doug. He was a good reporter; he had the smarts, his writing was exemplary and he had developed a solid readership, but early hours were not his strong point. "I don't do mornings," Scott made clear to anyone who thought he should function socially before noon. If they didn't take the hint, he behaved obnoxiously enough to convince anyone that his aversion to mornings should be taken seriously. Doug noticed that Scott had a purpose in arriving so early. It must be those damned files. The pile of documents that alleged America was as crooked as the Mafia. Good leads, admittedly, but proving them was going to be a bitch. Christ, Scott had been going at them with a vengeance. Let him have some rope. Scott got down to business. He first called Robert Henson, CEO of Perris, Miller and Stevenson. Scott's credentials as a re- porter for the New York City Times got him past the secretary easily. Henson took the call; it was part of the job. "Mr. Henson? This is Scott Mason from the Times. I would like to get a comment on the proposed Boston-Ellis merger." Scott sounded officious. "Of course, Mr. Mason. How can I help?" Robert Henson sounded accommodating. "We have the press releases and stock quotes. They are most useful and I am sure that they will be used. But I have other questions." Scott hoped to mislead Henson into thinking he would ask the pat questions he was expected to ask. "Yes, thank you. My staff is very well prepared, and we try to give the press adequate information. What do you need?" Scott could hear the smiling Henson ready to play the press game. "Basically, Mr. Henson, I have some documents that suggest that you inflated the net earnings of Second Boston to such a degree that, if, and I say, if, the deal goes through, your firm will earn almost one million dollars in extra fees. However, the figures I have do not agree at all with those filed with the SEC. Would you care to comment?" Scott tried not to sound accusatory, but it was difficult not to play the adversary. Henson didn't try to conceal the cough he suddenly developed at the revelation. "Where," he choked, "where did you get that information?" "From a reliable source. We are looking for a confirmation and a comment. We know the data is correct." Scott was playing his King, but he still held an Ace if he needed it. "I have no comment. We have filed all required affidavits with the appropriate regulatory agencies. If you need anything else, then I suggest you call them." Henson was nervous and the phone wires conveyed his agitation. "I assume, Mr. Henson, that you won't mind that I ask them why files from your computer dispute figures you gave to the SEC?" Scott posed the question to give Henson an option. "That's not what I said," Henson said abruptly. "What computer figures?" "I have a set of printouts that show that the earnings figures for Second Boston are substantially below those stated in your filings. Simple and dry. Do you have a comment?" Scott stuck with the game plan. "I . . .uh . . .am not familiar . . .with . . .the . . .ah . . ." Henson hesitated and then decided to go on the offensive. "You have nothing. Nothing. It's a trap," Henson affirmed. "Sir, thank you for your time." Scott hung up after Henson repeatedly denied any improprieties. "This is Scott Mason for Senator Rickfield. I am with the New York City Times." Scott almost demanded a conversation with Washington's leading debunker of the Defense Department's over spending. "May I tell the Senator what this is in reference to?" The male secretary matter of factly asked. "Yes of course." Scott was overly polite. "General Young and Credit Suisse." "Excuse me?" the young aide asked innocently. "That will do. I need a comment before I go to print." Scott commanded an assurance that the aide was not used to hearing from the press. "Wait one moment please," the aide said. A few seconds of Muzak on hold bored Scott before Senator Merrill Rickfield picked up the call. He was belligerent. "What the hell is this about?" The senator demanded. "Is that for the record?" Scott calmly asked. "Is what for the record? Who the hell is this? You can't intim- idate me. I am a United States Senator." The self assurance gave away nervousness. "I mean no disrespect, Senator. I am working on an article about political compromise. Very simple. I have information that you and General Young, shall we say, have . . .an understanding. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, you have helped pass legislation that gave you both what you wanted. General Young got his weapons and you have a substantial bank account in Geneva. Comments, Senator?" Rickfield was beside himself but was forced to maintain a formal composure. "Sir. You have made some serious accusations, slan- derous at least, criminal I suspect. I hope you are prepared to back up these preposterous claims." Scott heard desperation in the Senator's voice. "Yessir, I am. I go to print, with or without your comments," Scott lied. A prolonged pause followed. The first person who spoke lost, so Scott busied himself with a crossword puzzle until Rickfield spoke. "If you publish these absurdities, I will sue you and your paper right into bankruptcy. Do you copy?" "I copy , Senator. Is that for attribution?" Scott knew that would piss off Rickfield. The line went dead. Scott made similar calls for a good part of the day, and he continued to be amazed. From call to call, the answers were the same. "How did you get that?" "Where did you find out?" "There's no way you could know that." "I was the only one who had access to that . . ." "That was in my private files . . ." Blue Tower Nuclear Plant denied that Scott held internal memos instructing safety engineers to withhold critical flaws from the Nuclear Regulatory Committee. General Autos denied using known faulty parts in Cruise Control mechanisms despite the fact that Scott held a copy of a SECRET internal memorandum. He especially upset the Department of Defense when he asked them how Senors Mendez and Rodriguez, CIA operatives, had set up Noriega. The Center for Disease Control reacted with abject terror at the thought of seeing the name of thousands of AIDS victims in the newspaper. Never the less, the CDC refused to comfirm that their files had been penetrated or any of the names on the list. Useless. Everyone he called gave him virtually the same story. Above and beyond the official denial to any press; far from the accusatory claims which were universally denied for a wide variety of rea- sons, all of his contacts were, in his opinion, honestly shocked that he even had a hint of their alleged infractions. Scott Mason began to feel he was part of a conspiracy, one in which everyone he called was a victim. One in which he received the same formatted answer; more surprise than denial. Scott knew he was onto a story, but he had no idea what it was. He had in his possession damning data, from an anonymous source, with, thus far, no way to get a confirmation. Damn. He needed that for the next time he got lawyered. When he presented his case to his editor, Scott's worst fears were confirmed. Doug McGuire decided that a bigger story was in the making. Therefore, we don't go. Not yet. That's an order. Keep digging. "And while you're at it," Doug said with the pleasure of a father teasing his son, "follow this up, will you? I need it by dead- line." Scott took the AP printout from Doug and read the item. "No," Scott gasped, "not another virus!" He threw the paper on his desk. "I'm up to my ass in . . ." "Viruses," Doug said firmly, but grinning. "Have a heart, these things are such bullshit." "Then say so. But say something." **************************************************************** Chapter 7 Thursday, September 17 New York City Times Christopher Columbus Brings Disease to America By Scott Mason Here's a story I can't resist, regardless of the absurdity of the headline. In this case the words are borrowed from a story title in last week's National Expose, that most revered of journalistic publications which distributes half truths and tortured conclu- sions from publicity seeking nobodies. The title should more appropriately be something like, "Terror Feared in New Computer Virus Outbreak", or "Experts See Potential Damage to Computer Systems", or "Columbus Day Virus: Imaginary Panic?" According to computer experts, this Columbus Day, October 12, will mark a repeat appearance of the now infamous Columbus Day Virus. As for the last several years, that is the anticipated date for a highly viral computer virus to 'explode'. The history behind the headline reads from an Ian Fleming novel. In late 1988, a group of West German hackers and computer pro- grammers thought it would be great fun to build their own comput- er virus. As my regular readers recall, a computer virus is an unsolicited and unwanted computer program whose sole purpose is to wreak havoc in computers. Either by destroying important files or otherwise damaging the system. We now know that that these Germans are part of an underground group known as CHAOS, an acronym for Computer Hackers Against Open Systems, whatever the heck that means. They work to promote computer systems disruption worldwide. In March of 1989, Amsterdam, Holland, hosted an international conference of computer programmers. Are you ready for the name? Intergalactic Hackers Conference. Some members were aware of the planned virus. As a result of the negative publicity hackers have gotten over the last few years, the Conference issued a statement disavowing the propagation and creation of computer viruses. All very honorable by a group of people whose sole purpose in life is to invade the privacy of others. But, that's what they said. Somewhere, somehow, something went wrong, and the CHAOS virus got released at the Intergalactic Hackers meetings. In other words, files and programs, supposedly legitimate ones, got corrupted by this disreputable band, and the infections began spreading. The first outbreak of the Columbus Day Virus occurred in 1989, and caused millions of dollars of down computer time, reconstruc- tion of data banks and system protection. Again we are warned, that the infection has continued to spread and that some strains of the virus are programmed to detonate over a period of years. The Columbus Day Virus is called by its creators, the "Data Crime Virus", a name befitting its purpose. When it strikes, it announces itself to the computer user, and by that time, it's too late. Your computer is kaput! What makes this particular computer virus any more tantalizing than the hundred or so that have preceded it? The publicity the media has given it, each and every year since 1989. The Data Crime, aka Columbus Day Virus has, for some inescapable reason attracted the attention of CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and hundreds of newspapers including this one. The Associated Press and other reputable media have, perhaps due to slow news weeks, focused a great deal of attention on this anticipated technological Arma- geddon. Of course there are other experts who pooh-pooh the entire Virus issue and see it as an over-exploited media event propelled by Virus Busters. Sam Moscovitz of Computer Nook in Dallas, Texas commented, "I have never seen a virus in 20 years. I've heard about them but really think they are a figment of the media's imagination." Virus Busters are people or firms who specialize in fighting alleged computer viruses by creating and selling so-called anti- dotes. Virus Busting Sean McCullough, President of The Virus Institute in San Jose, California thinks that most viruses are harmless and users and companies overreact. "There have been no more that a few dozen viral outbreaks in the last few years. They spread more by rumor than by infection." When asked how he made his living, he responded, "I sell antidotes to computer viruses." Does he make a good living? "I can't keep up with the demand," he insists. The Federal Government, though, seems concerned, and maybe for good reason. On October 13, another NASA space shuttle launch is planned. Friday the 13th is another date that computer virus makers use as the intended date of destruction. According to an official spokesman, NASA has called in computer security experts to make sure that their systems are " . . .clean and free from infection. It's a purely precautionary move, we are not worried. The launch will continue as planned." Viruses. Are they real? Most people believe they are real, and dangerous, but that chances of infection are low. As one highly respected computer specialist put it, "The Columbus Day Virus is a low risk high consequence possibility. I don't recommend any panic." Does he protect his own computer agaist viruses? "Abso- lutely. I can't risk losing my computers." Can anybody? Until October 12, this is Scott Mason, hoping my computer never needs Tylenol. * * * * * Scarsdale, New York. The Conrail trains were never on time. Scott Mason regularly tried to make it to the station to ride the 7:23 from the wealthy Westchester town of Scarsdale, New York into Grand Central Station. If he made it. It was a 32 minute ride into the City on good days and over 2 hours when the feder- ally subsidized rail service was under Congressional scrutiny. The ritual was simple. He fell into his old Porsche 911, an upscale version of a station car, and drove the 2 miles to the Scarsdale train station. He bought a large styrofoam cup full of decent black coffee and 3 morning papers from the blind newsman before boarding the express train. Non-stop to Harlem, and then on to 42nd St. and Park Avenue and wake up time. Tyrone Duncan followed a similar routine. Except he drove his silver BMW 850i to the station. The FBI provided him with a perfectly good Ford Fairlane with 78,000 miles on it when he needed a car in New York. He was one of the few black commuters from the affluent bedroom community and his size made him more conspicuous than his color. Scott and Tyrone were train buddies. Train buddies are perhaps unique in the commuterdom of the New York suburbs. Every morning you see the same group of drowsy, hung over executives on their way to the Big Apple. The morning commute is a personal solace for many. Your train buddy knows if you got laid and by whom. If you tripped over your kids toys in the driveway, your train buddy knew. If work was a bitch, he knew before the wife. Train buddies are buddies to the death or the bar, whichever comes first. While Scott and Tyrone had been traveling the same the morning route since Scott had joined the paper, they had been friends since their wives introduced them at the Scarsdale Country Club 10 years ago. Maggie Mason and Arlene Duncan were opoosites; Maggie, a giggly, spacey and spontaneous girl of 24 and Arlene, the dedicated wife of a civil servant and mother of three daugh- ters who were going to toe the line, by God. The attachment between the two was not immediately explainable, but it gave both Scott and Ty a buddy with their wives' blessing. The physical contrast between the two was comical at times. Duncan was a 240 pound six foot four college linebacker who had let his considerable bulk accumulate around the middle. Scott, small and wiry was 10 years Ty's junior. On weekends they played on a very amateur local basketball league where minimum age was thirty five, but there, Scott consistently out maneuvered Ty- rone's bulk. During the week, Tyrone dressed in impeccable Saville Row suits he had made in London while Scott's uniform was jeans, sneakers and T-Shirt of choice. His glowing skull, more dark brown than ebony, with fringes of graying short hair emphasized the usually jovial face that was described as a cross between rolly-polly and bulbous. Scott on the other hand, always seemed to need a hair- cut. Coffee in hand, Tyrone plopped down opposite Scott as the train pulled out of the open air station. "You must be in some mood," Tyrone said laughing. Scott laid down his newspaper and vacantly asked why. "That shirt," Ty smirked. "A lesson in how to make friends and influence people." "Oh, this?" Scott looked down at the words on his chest: I'm O.K. You're A Shithead. "It only offends them that oughta be offended." "Shitheads?" "Shitheads." "Gotcha," Ty said sarcastically. "Right." "My mother," groused Scott. "VCR lessons." Ty didn't under- stand. "I gave my mom a VCR last Christmas," Scott continued. "She ooh'd and ah'd and I thought great, I got her a decent present. Well, a couple of weeks later I went over to her place and I asked how she liked the VCR. She didn't answer, so I asked again and she mumbled that she hadn't used it yet. I fell down," Scott laughed out loud. "'Why?' I asked her and she said she wanted to get used to it sitting next to her TV for a couple of months before she used it." Tyrone caught a case of Scott's roaring laughter. "Wheeee!" exclaimed Tyrone. "And you an engineer?" "Hey," Scott settled down, "my mom calls 911 to change a light- bulb." They laughed until Scott could speak. "So last night I went over for her weekly VCR lesson." "If it's anything like Arlene's mother," Tyrone giggled, "trust- ing a machine to do something right, when you're not around to make sure it is right, is an absolutely terrifying thought. They don't believe it works." "It's a lot of fun actually," Scott said fondly. "It tests my ability to reduce things to the basics. The real basics. Trying to teach a seventy year old widower about digital is like trying to get a square ball bearing to roll." Even so, Scott looked forward to those evenings with his mom. He couldn't imagine it, the inability to understand the simplicity of either 'on' or 'off'. But he welcomed the tangent conversa- tions that invariably resulted when he tried to explain how the VCR could record one channel and yes mom, you can watch another channel at the same time. Scott never found out that his mother deprogrammed the VCR, cleared its memory and 'Twelved' the clock an hour before he arrived to show her how to use it. And after he left, she repro- grammed it for her tastes only to erase it again before his next visit. If he had ever discovered her ruse it would have ruined her little game and the ritual starting point for their private talks. "By the way," Scott said to Tyrone. "What are you and Arlene doing Sunday night?" "Sunday? Nothing, why?" Tyrone asked innocently. "My mom is having a little get together and she'd love the two of you . . ." "Is this another one of her seances?" Tyrone asked pointedly. "Well, not in so many words, but it's always possible . . ." "Forget it." Tyrone said stubbornly. "Not after what happened last time. I don't think I could get Arlene within 20 miles of your mother. She scared the living shit out of her . . .and I have my doubts." "Relax," Scott said calmly. "It's just her way of keeping busy. Some people play bingo, others play bridge . . ." "And your mother shakes the rafters trying to raise her husband from the dead," said Scott with exaperation. "I don't care what you say, that's not normal. I like your mother, but, well, Arlene has put her foot down." Tyrone shuddered at the thought of that evening. No one could explain how the wooden shutters blew open or the table wobbled. Tyrone preferred, just as his wife did, to pretend it never happened. "Hey," Tyrone said with his head back behind the newspaper. "I see you're making a name for yourself elsewhere, too." "What do you mean?" Scott asked. "Don't give me that innocent shit. I'm a trained professional," Tyrone joked. He held up the New York City Times turned to Scott's Christopher Columbus article. "Your computer crime pieces have been raising a few eyebrows down at the office. Seems you have better sources than we do. Our Computer Fraud division has been going nuts recently." "Glad you can read." Scott enjoyed the compliment. "Just a job, but I gotta story much more interesting. I can't publish it yet, though." "Why?" "Damn lawyers want us to have our facts straight. Can you be- lieve it?" Scott teased Tyrone. "Besides, blackmail is so, so personal." Tyrone stopped in mid-sip of his hot coffee. "What blackmail?" The frozen visage caught Scott off guard. They rarely spoke of their respective jobs in any detail, preferring to remain at a measured professional distance. The years of dedication invested in their friendship, even after to everyones' surprise, Maggie up and left for California were not to be put in jeoprady unneces- sarily. Thus far their interests had not sufficiently overlapped to be of concern. "It's a story, that, well, doesn't have enough to go into print, but, it's there, I know it. Off the record, ok?" Scott wanted to talk. "Mums the word." "A few days ago I received some revealing documents papers on a certain company. I can't say which one." He looked at Tyrone for approval. "Whatever," Tyrone urged anxiously. Scott told Tyrone about his nameless and faceless donor and what Higgins had said about the McMillan situation and the legality of the apparently purloined information. Tyrone listened in fasci- nation as Scott outline a few inner sanctum secrets to which he was privy. Tyrone got a shiver up his spine. He tried to disguise it. "Can I ask you a question?" Tyrone quietly asked. "Sure. Go for it." "Was one of the companies Amalgamated General?" Scott shot Tyrone a look they belied the answer. "How did you know?" Scott asked suspiciously. "And would another be First Federated or State National Bank?" Tyrone tried to subdue his concern. All he needed was the press on this. Scott could not hide his surprise. "Yeah! And a bunch of others. How'd you know?" Tyrone retreated back into his professional FBI persona. "Lucky guess." "Bullshit. What's up?" Scott's reporter mindset replaced that of the lazy commuter. "Nothing, just a coincidence." Tyrone picked up a newspaper and buried his face behind it. "Hey, Ty. Talk ol' buddy." "I can't and you know it." Tyrone sounded adamant. "As a friend? I'll buy you a lollipop?" Scott joked. Ty snickered. "You know the rules, I can't talk about a case in progress." "So there is a case? What is it?" Scott probed. "I didn't say that there was a case," Ty countered. "Yes you did. Case in progress were your words, not mine. C'mon what's up?" "Shit, you media types." Tyrone gave himself a few seconds to think. "I'll never know why you became a reporter. You used to be a much nicer pain in the ass before you became so nosy." Scott sat silently, enjoying Ty's awkwardness. Tyrone hated to compromise the sanctity of his position, but he realized that he, too, needed some help. Since he hadn't read any of this in the papers, there had to be journalistic responsi- bility from both Scott and the paper. "Off, off, off the record. Clear?" He was serious. "Done." The train rumbled into the tunnel at the Northern tip of Manhat- tan. They had to raise their voices to hear each other, but that meant they couldn't be heard either. "As near as I can tell," Tyrone hesitantly began. "There's a well coordinated nationwide blackmail operation in progress. As of yesterday, we have received almost a hundred cases of alleged blackmail. From Oshkosh, Baton Rouge, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, LA, the works. Small towns to the metros. It's an epidemic and the local and state cops are absolutely buried. They can't handle it, and besides it's way out of their league. So who do they all call? Us. Shit. I need this, right? There's no way we can handle this many cases at once. No way. Washing- ton's going berserk." "Who's behind it?" Scott asked knowing he wouldn't get a real answer. "That's the rub. Don't have a clue. Not a clue. There's no pattern, none at all. We assumed it was organized crime, but our informants say they're baffled. Not the mob, they swear. They knew about it before we did. Figures." Tyrone's voice echoed a professional frustration. "Motives?" "None. We're stuck." "Sounds like we're both on the same hunt." The train slowed to a crawl and then a hesitant stop at Grand Central. Thousands of commuters lunged at the doors to make their escape to the streets of New York above them. Scott won- dered if any of them were part of Duncan's problems. "Scott?" Tyrone queried on the escalator. "Yeah?" "Not a word, ok?" Scott held up his right hand with three fingers. "Scott's honor!" That was good enough for Tyrone. They walked up the stairs and past a newsstand that caught both of their eyes instantly. The National Expose had another sensa- tionalistic headline: FBI POWERLESS IN NATIONAL BLACKMAIL SCHEME They fought for who would pay the 75 cents for the scandal filled tabloid, bought two, and started reading right where they stood. "Jesus," Tyrone said more breathing than actually saying the word. "They're going to make a weekly event of printing every innuendo." "They have the papers, too," muttered Scott. "The whole blasted lot. And they're printing them." Scott put down the paper. "This makes it a brand new ball game . . ." "Just what I need," Tyrone said with disgust. "That's the answer," exclaimed Scott. "The motive. Who's been affected so far?" "That's the mystery. No one seems to have been affected. What's the answer?" Tyrone demanded loud enough to attract attention. "What's the answer?" he whispered up close. "It's you." Scott noted. Tyrone expressed surprise. "What do you mean, me." "I mean, it seems that the FBI has been affected more than anyone else. You said you're overloaded, and that you can't pay atten- tion to other crimes." "You're jumping to conclusions." Tyrone didn't follow Scott's reasoning and cocked his head quizzically. "What if the entire aim of the blackmail was to so overwork the FBI, so overload it with useless cases, and that the perpetrators really have other crimes in mind. Maybe they have already hit their real targets. Isn't it possible that the FBI is an unwill- ing dupe, a decoy in a much larger scheme that isn't obvious yet?" Scott liked the sound of his thinking and he saw that Tyrone wasn't buying his argument. "It's possible, I guess . . .but . . ." Tyrone didn't have the words to finish his foggy thoughts. It was too far left field for his linear thinking. "No this is crazy as the time you though that UFO's were invading Westchester in '85. Then there was the time you said that Columbian drug dealers put cocaine in the water supply . . ." "That wasn't my fault . . ." " . . .and the Trump Noriega connection and the other 500 wild ass conspiracies you come up with." Scott dismissed Tyrone's friendly criticism by ignoring the derisions. "As I see it," Scott continued, "the only victim is the FBI. None of the alleged victims have been harmed, other than ego and their paranoia levels. Maybe the FBI was the target all along. Scott suggested, "it's as good a theory as any other." "With what goal?" Duncan accepted the logic for the moment. "So when the real thing hits, you guys are too fucked up to react." * * * * * The Federal Bureau of Investigation Federal Square, Manhattan. The flat white and glass square building, designed in the '60's, built shoddily by the lowest bidder in 1981, in no way echoed the level of technical sophistication hidden behind the drab exteri- or. The building had no personality, no character, nothing memorable about it, and that was exactly the way the tenants wanted it. The 23 story building extended 6 full floors below the congested streets of Lower Manhattan. Throughout the entire structure well guarded mazes held the clues to the locations of an incredible array of computing power, some of the world's best analytical tools, test equipment, forensic labs, communications facilities and a staff of experts in hundreds of technical specialties required to investigate crimes that landed in their jurisdiction. The most sensitive work was performed underground, protected by the solid bedrock of Manhattan island. Eavesdropping was impos- sible, almost, and operational privacy was guaranteed. Personal privacy was another matter, though. Most of the office staff worked out in an open office floorplan. The walls between the guard stations and banks of elevators consisted solely of bullet- proof floor to ceiling triple pane glass. Unnerving at first, no privacy. There was a self-imposed class structure between the "bugs", those who worked in the subterranean chambers and the "air-heads" who worked where the daylight shone. There was near total sepa- ration between the two groups out of necessity; maintain isola- tion between those with differing need-to-know criteria. The most visible form of self-imposed isolation, and unintended competitiveness was that each camp spent Happy Hour at different bars. A line that was rarely crossed. Unlike the mechanism of the Corporate Ladder, where the higher floors are reserved for upper, top, elite management, the power brokers, at the FBI the farther down into the ground you worked, the more important you were. To the "airheads", "bugs" tried to see how low they could sink in their acquisition of power while rising up on the Government pay scale. On level 5, descending from street level 1, Tyrone sat on the edge of his large Government issue executive desk to answer his ringing phone. It was Washington, Bob Burnsen, his Washington based superior and family friend for years. "No, really. Thanks," Ty smiled. "Bob, we've been through this before. It's all very flattering, but no. I'm afraid not. And you know why. We've been through this all . . ." He was being cut off by his boss, so he shut up and listened. "Bob . . .Bob . . .Bob," Tyrone was laughing as he tried to interrupt the other end of the conversation. "OK, I'll give it some more thought, but don't get your hopes up. It's just not in my cards." He listened again. "Bob, I'll speak to Arlene again, but she feels the same way I do. We're both quite content and frankly, I don't need the headaches." He looked around the room as he cocked the earpiece away from his head. He was hearing the same argument again. "Bob, I said I would. I'll call you next week." He paused. "Right. If you don't hear from me, you'll call me. I understand. Right. OK, Bob. All right, you too. Goodbye." He hung up the phone in disbelief. They just won't leave me alone. Let me be! He clasped his hands in mock prayer at the ceiling. * * * * * Tyrone Duncan joined the FBI in 1968, immediately after graduat- ing cum laude from Harvard Law. Statistically the odds were against him ever being accepted into the elite National Police Force. The virtually autonomous empire that J. Edgar Hoover had created over 60 years and 12 presidents ago was very selective about whom it admitted. Tyrone Duncan was black. His distinguished pre-law training had him prepared to follow into his father's footsteps, as a partner with one of Boston's most prestigious law firms. Tyrone was a member of one of the very few rich and influential black families in the North East. His family was labeled "Liberal" when one wasn't ashamed of the moniker. Then came Selma. At 19, he participated in several of the marches in the South and it was then that he first hand saw prejudice. But it was more than prejudice, though. It was hate, it was ignorance and fear. It was so much more than prejudice. It was one of the last vestiges left over from a society con- quered over a century ago; one that wouldn't let go of its mis- guided myopic traditions. Fear and hate are contagious. Fueled by the oppressive heat and humidity, decades of racial conflict, several 'Jew Boy Nigger Lovers' were killed that summer in Alabama. The murder of the civil rights workers made front page news. The country was out- raged, at the murders most assuredly, but national outrage turned quickly to divisional disgust when local residents dismissed the crime as a prank, or even congratulated the perpetrators for their actions. The FBI was not called in to Alabama to solve murders, per se; murder is not a federal crime. They were to solve the crime because the murderers had violated the victims' civil rights. Tyrone thought that that approach was real slick, a nice legal side step to get what you want. Put the lawyers on the case. When he asked the FBI if they could use a hand, the local over- worked, understaffed agents graciously accepted his offer and Tyrone spent the remainder of the summer filing papers and per- forming other mundane tasks while learning a great deal. On the plane back to Boston, Tyrone Duncan decided that his despite his father's urging, after law school he would join the FBI. Tyrone Duncan, graduate cum laude, GPA 3.87, Harvard Law School, passed the Massachussettes Bar on the first try and sailed through the written and physical tests for FBI admission. He was over 100 pounds lighter than his current weight. His background check was unassailable except for his family's prominent liberal bent. He had every basic qualification needed to become an FBI Agent. He was turned down. Thurman Duncan, his prominent lawyer father was beside himself, blaming it on Hoover personally. But Tyrone decided to 'investi- gate' and determine who or what was pulling the strings. He called FBI personnel and asked why he had been rejected. They mumbled something about 'experience base' and 'fitting the mold'. That was when he realized that he was turned down solely because he was black. Tyrone was not about to let a racial issue stand in his way. He located a couple of the agents with whom he had worked during the last summer. After the pleasantries, Tyrone told them that he was applying for a position as an assistant DA in Boston. Would they mind writing a letter . . . Tyrone Duncan was right on time at the office of the FBI Person- nel Director. Amazing, Tyrone thought, the resemblance to Hoov- er. The four letters of recommendation, which read more like votes for sainthood were a little overdone, but, they were on FBI stationary. Tyrone asked the Personnel Director if they would reconsider his application, and that if necessary, he would whitewash his skin. The following day Tyrone received a call. Oh, it was a big mix- up. We misfiled someone else's charts in your files and, well, you understand, I'm sure. It happens all the time. We're sorry for any inconvenience. Would you be available to come in on Monday? Welcome to the FBI. Tyrone paid his dues early. Got shot at some, chased long haired left wing hippie radicals who blew up gas stations in 17 states for some unfathomable reason, and then of course, he collected dirt on imaginary enemies to feed the Hoover Nixon paranoia. He tried, fairly successfully to stay away from that last kind of work. In Tyrone's not so humble opinion, there were a whole lot more better things for FBI agents to be doing than worry about George McGovern's toilet habits or if some left wing high school kids and their radical newspaper were imaginarily linked to the Kremlin. Ah, but that was politics. Three weeks after J. Edgar Hoover died, Tyrone Duncan was promot- ed to Section Chief in the New York City office. A prestigious position. This was his first promotion in 8 years at the bureau. It was one that leaped over 4 intermediate levels. The Hoover era was gone. After hanging up the phone with Bob Bernsen, Tyrone sat behind his desk going over his morning reports. No planes hijacked, no new counterfeiting rings and nary a kidnapping. What dogged him though was the flurry of blackmail and extortion claims. He re- read the digested version put out by Washington headquarters that was faxed to him in the early hours, ready for his A.M. perusal. The apparent facts confounded his years of experience. Over 100 people, many of them highly placed leaders of American industry had called their respective regional FBI offices for help. A call into the FBI is handled in a procedural manner. The agent who takes the call can identify the source of the call with a readout on his special phone; a service that the FBI had had for years but was only recently becoming available to the public. Thus, if the caller had significant information, but refused to identify himself, the agent had a reliable method to track down the call- er. Very few people who called the FBI realized that a phone inquiry to an FBI office triggered a sequence of automatic events that was complete before the call was over. The phone call was of course monitored and taped. And the phone number of the caller was logged in the computer and displayed to the agent. Then the number was crosschecked against files from the phone company. What was the exact location of the caller? To whom was the phone registered? A calling and billing history was made instantly available if required. If the call originated from a phone registered to an individual, his social security number was retrieved and within seconds of the receipt of the call, the agent knew a plethora of information about the caller. Criminal activities, bad credit records; the type of data that would permit the agent to gauge the validity of the call. For business phones, a cross check determined any and all dubious dealings that might be valuable in such a determina- tion. Thus, the profile that emerged from the vast number of callers who intimated blackmail activities created a ponderous situation. They all, to a call, originated from the office or home of major corporate movers and shakers. Top American businessmen who, while not beyond the reach of the law, were from the FBI's view, upstanding citizens. Not pristine, but certainly not mad men with a record of making outlandish capricious claims. It was not in their interest to bring attention to themselves. What puzzled Tyrone, and Washington, was the sudden influx of such calls. Normally the Bureau handles a handful of diversified cases of blackmail, and a very small percentage of those pan out into legitimate and solvable cases. Generally, veiled vague threats do not materialize into prosecutable cases. Tyrone Duncan sat back thoughtfully. What is the common element here? Why today, and not a year ago or on April Fools Day? Do these guys all play golf together? Is it a joke? Not likely, but a remote possibility. What enemies have they made? Undoubtedly they haven't befriended everyone with whom they have had contact, but what's the connection? Tyrone's mind reeled through a maze of unlikelihoods. Until, the only common element he could think of stared at him right in the face. There was a single dimension of commonality between all of the callers. They had, to a company, to a man, all dealt with the same organization for years. The U.S. Government. The thought alone caused a spasm to his system. His body liter- ally leapt from his chair for a split second as he caught his breath. The government. No way. Is it possible? I must be missing something, surely. This is crazy. Or is it? Doesn't the IRS have records on everyone? Then the ultimate paranoid thought hit him square in the cerebellum. He playfully pounded his forehead for missing the connection. Somewhere, deep in the demented mind of some middle management G- 9 bureaucrat, Duncan thought, an idea germinated that he could sell to another overworked, underpaid civil servant; his boss. The G-9 says, 'I got a way to make sure the tax evaders pay their share, and it won't cost Uncle Sam a dime!'. His boss says, 'I got a congressional hearing today, I'm too busy. Do some re- search and let me see a report.' So this overzealous tax collector prowls around other government computers and determines that the companies on his hit list aren't necessarily functioning on the up and up. What better way to get them to pay their taxes than to let them know that we, the big We, Big Brother know, and they'd better shape up. He calls a few of them, after all he knows where the skeletons and the phone numbers are buried, and says something like, 'Big Brother is listening and he doesn't like what he hears.' And he says, 'we'll call you back soon, real soon, so get your ducks in a row' and that scares the shit out of the corporate muckity- mucks. Tyrone smiled to himself. What an outlandish theory. Absurd, he admitted, but it was the only one he could say fit the facts. Still, is it possible? The government was certainly capable of some pretty bizarre things. He recalled the Phoenix program in Viet Nam where suspected Viet Cong and innocent civilians were tossed out of helicopters at 2000 feet to their deaths in the distorted hope of making another one talk. Wasn't Daniel Ellsburg a government target? And the Democrats were in 1972 targets of CREEP, the Committee to Re-Elect the President. And the Aquarius project used psychics to locate Soviet Boomers and UFO's. Didn't we give LSD to unsuspecting soldiers to see if they could function adequately under the influence? The horror stories swirled through his mind. And they became more and more unbelievable, yet they were all true. Maybe it was possible. The United States government had actually instituted a program of anonymous blackmail in order to increase tax revenues. Christ, I hope I'm wrong. But, I'm probably not. The buzzer on the intercom of his phone jarred Tyrone from his daydream speculations. "Yes?" He answered into space. "Mr. Duncan, a Franklin Dobbs is here for his 10 o'clock appoint- ment. Saunderson is out and so you're elected." Duncan's secre- tary was too damned efficient, he thought. Why not give it to someone else. He pushed his intercom button. "Gimme a second, I gotta primp." That was Tyrone's code that he needed a few minutes to graduate from speculative forensics and return to Earth to deal with real life problems. As usual, Gloria obliged him. In exactly 3 minutes, his door opened. "Mr. Duncan, this is Franklin Dobbs, Chairman and CEO of National Pulp. Mr. Dobbs, Mr. Duncan, regional director." She waited for the two men to acknowledge each other before she shut the door behind her. "Mr. Duncan?" Dobbs held his hand out to the huge FBI agent. Duncan accepted and pointed at a vacant chair. Dobbs sat obedi- ently. "How can I help you, Mr. Dobbs?" "I am being blackmailed, and I need help." Dobbs looked straight into Duncan's coal black eyes. The IRS, thought Duncan. "By whom?" he asked casually. "I don't know." Dobbs was firm. "Then how do you know you are being blackmailed?" Duncan wanted to conceal his interest. Keep it low profile. "Let me tell you what happened." Good start, thought Duncan. If only half of us would start in such a logical place. "Two days ago I received a package by messenger. It contained the most sensitive information my company has. Strategic posi- tions, contingency plans, competitive information and so on. There are only a half dozen people in my company that have access to that kind of information. And they all own enough stock to make sure that they aren't the culprits." "So who is?" interjected Tyrone as he made notes. "I don't know. That's the problem." "What did they ask for?" Duncan looked directly into Dobbs' eyes. To both force an answer and look for signs of deceit. All he saw was honesty and real fear. "Nothing. Nothing at all. All I got was the package and a brief message." "What was the message?" Tyrone asked. "We'll be in touch. That's it." "So where's the threat? The blackmail. This hardly seems like a case for the FBI." Tyrone was baiting the hook. See if the fish is real. "None, not yet. But that's not the point. What they sent me were copies, yet they looked more like the originals, of informa- tion that would negatively affect my company. It's the sort of information that we would not want made public. If you know what I mean." Tyrone thought, you bet I know. You're up to and you want us to protect you. Fat chance. "I know what you mean," he agreed. "I need to stop it. Before it's too late?" "Too late?" asked Duncan. "Too late. Before it gets out." "What gets out, Mr. Dobbs?" Duncan stared right into and beyond Dobbs' eyes. "Secrets. Just secrets." Dobbs paused to recompose himself. "Isn't there a law . . .?" "Yes, there is Mr. Dobbs. And if what you say is true, you are entitled to protection." Duncan decided to bait Dobbs a bit more. "Even if the information is illegal in nature." Wait for the fish to bite. "I grant you I'm no Mother Teresa. I'm a businessman, and I have to make money for my investors. But in the files that I received were exact copies of my personal files that no one, and I mean no one has access to. They were my own notes, ideas in progress. Nothing concrete, just work in progress. But someone, somehow has gotten a hold of it all. And, by my thinking, there's no way to have gotten it without first killing me, and I'm here. So how did they get it? That's what I need to know." Dobbs paused. "And then, I need to stop them." His soliloquy was over. "Who else is affected?" Duncan asked. The question made Dobbs pause too obviously. The answer was clear. Dobbs wasn't alone. "I only speak for myself. No one else." Dobbs rose from the chair. "It's eminently clear. There's not a damned thing you can do. Good day." Dobbs left the room abruptly leaving Tyrone with plenty of time to think. **************************************************************** Chapter 8 Monday, September 21 New York 14 Dead As Hospital Computer Fails by Scott Mason Fourteen patients died as a result of a massive computer failure this weekend at the Golda Meier Medical Center on 5th. Avenue. According to hospital officials, the Meditrix Life Support Moni- tors attached to many of the hospital's patients were accidental- ly disconnected from the nurses stations and the hospital's main computer. Doctors and nurses were unaware of any malfunction because all systems appeared to operating correctly. The LSM's are connected to a hospital wide computer network that connects all hospital functions in a central computer. Medical records, insurance filings and treatments as well as personnel and operations are coordinated through the Information Systems department. Golda Meier Medical Center leads the medical field in the used of technologically advanced techniques, and has been applying an artificial intelligence based Expert System to assist in diagno- sis and treatment. Much of the day to day treatment of patients is done with the LSM continually measuring the condition of patient, and automatically updating his records. The Expert System then determines what type of treatment to recommend. Unless there is a change in the patient's condition that warrants the intervention of a doctor, drugs and medicines are prescribed by the computer. According to computer experts who were called in to investigate, the Expert System began misprescribing medications and treatments early Saturday morning. Doctors estimate that over 50%, about 300, of the hospital's patients received incorrect treatment. Of those 14 died and another 28 are in critical condition. Until this weekend, the systems were considered foolproof. The entire computer system of Golda Meier Medical Center has been disconnected until a more intensive investigation is completed. In response to the news, the Jewish Defense League is calling the incident, "an unconscionable attack against civilized behavior and the Jewish community in particular." They have called for a full investigation into the episode. No group or individuals have yet taken credit for the crime. The AMA has petitioned the Drug and Food Administration to look into the matter. Gerald Steinmetz, chief counsel for the Center, said in inter- views that he had already been contacted by attorney's represent- ing the families of the some of the victims of this tragedy. He anticipates extended legal entanglements until such time that the true cause can be determined and blame can accurately assigned. The hospital denies any wrong doing on its or its staff's part. This is Scott Mason, determined to stay healthy. * * * * * December, 4 Years Ago Tokyo, Japan Miles Foster arrived at Narita Airport as another typhoon shat- tered the coast of Japan. It was the roughest plane ride he had ever taken; and after 2 weeks of pure bliss. Boy, that Homosoto sure knows how to show a guy a good time. After their first meeting at the OSO World Bank Building, Miles had flown to Tahiti and spent 18 delightful days at the outer resort of Moorea, courtesy of OSO Industries, with all of the trimmings. He was provided with a private beach house containing every modern amenity one could want. Including two housekeepers and a cook. Only one of the housekeepers knew how to keep house. The other knew how to keep Miles satisfied. Marasee was a Pacific Islander who was well schooled in advanced sexual techniques. At barely 5 feet tall and 96 pounds, her long silken black hair was as much as sexual tool as her hands and mouth. Her pristine dark complexion and round face caused Miles to think that he was potentially guilty of crimes against a minor, but after their first night together, he relented that Marasee knew her business very well. "Mr. Homosoto-San," she purred in delicately accented English, "wants you to concentrate on your work." She caressed his shoul- ders and upper body as she spoke. "He knows that a man works best when he has no worries. It is my job to make sure that you are relaxed. Completely relaxed. Do you understand?" Her eyes longed for an affirmative answer from Miles. At first he was somewhat baffled. Homosoto had indeed sent him on this trip, vacation, to work, undisturbed. But Miles thought that he would have to fend for himself for his physical pleasures. He was used to finding ways to satisfy his needs. "Homosoto-San says that you must be relaxed to do very serious business. Whenever you need relaxation, I am here." The food was as exquisite as was Marasee. He luxuriated in the eternally perfect weather, the beach, the waves and he even ventured under water on a novice scuba dive. But, as he knew, he was here to concentrate on his assigned task, so he tried to limit his personal activities to sharing pleasure with Marasee. In just a few days, a relaxed Miles felt a peace, a solace that he had never known before. He found that his mind was at a creative high. His mind propelled through the problems of the war plans, and the solutions appeared. His brain seemed to function independent of effort. As he established goals, the roads to meet them appeared magically before him, in absolute clarity. He was free to explore each one in its entirety, from beginning to end, undisturbed. If a problem confounded him, he found that merely forgetting about it during an interlude with Marasee provided him with the answer. The barriers were broken, the so-called 'walls of de- fense' crumbled before as he created new methods of penetration no one had ever thought of before. As his plan coalesced into a singular whole, he began to experi- ence a euphoria, a high that was neither drug nor sexually in- duced. He could envision, all at once, the entire grand strate- gy; how the myriad pieces effortlessly fit together and evolved into a picture perfect puzzle. Miles became able to manipulate the attack scenarios in his mind and make slight changes in one that would have far reaching implications in another portion of the puzzle. He might change only one slight aspect, yet see synergistic ramifications down a side road. This new ability, gained from total freedom to concentrate and his newfound worry free life, gave Miles new sources of pleasure and inspiration. As his plans came together, Miles yearned for something outside of his idyllic environment. His strategies grew into a concrete reality, one which he knew he could execute, if Homosoto wasn't feeding him a line of shit. And, for the $100,000 Homosoto gave him to make plans, he was generally inclined to believe that this super rich, slightly eccentric but obviously dangerous man was deadly serious. As the days wore on, Miles realized that, more than anything in his life, even more than getting laid, he wanted to put his plan to the test. If he was right, of which he was sure, in a few short years he would be recognized as the most brilliant computer scientist in the world. In the whole damn world. His inner peace, the one which fed his creativity, soon was overtaken by the unbridled ego which was Miles Foster's inner self. The prospect of success fostered new energies and Miles worked even harder to complete the first phase of his task. To the occasional disappointment of Marasee, Miles would embroil himself in the computer Homosoto provided for the purpose. Marasee had been with many men, she was an expert, but Miles gave her as much pleasure as she to him. As his work further absorbed him, she rued the day her assignment would be over. Miles left Tahiti for Tokyo without even saying goodbye to Mara- see. The ritualistic scanning and security checks before Miles got onto the living room elevator at the OSO Building in Tokyo evi- denced that Homosoto had not told anyone else how important Miles was. Even though he recognized the need for secrecy in their endeavors, Miles was irked by the patronizing, almost rude treat- ment he received when he was forced to pass the Sumo scrutiny. The elevator again opened into the grand white gallery on the 66th floor. "Ah . . .so good to see you again Mr. Foster. Homosoto-San is anxious to see you." A short Japanese manservant escorted Miles to the doors of Homosoto's office. The briefest of taps invited the bellow of "Hai!" from its inner sanctum. Homosoto was quick to rise from his techo-throne and greeted Miles as if they were long lost friends. "Mr. Foster . . .it is so good to see you. I assume everything was satisfactory? You found the working conditions to your liking?" Homosoto awkwardly searched for the vain compliment. He pointed at the leather seating area in which they had first discussed their plans. They sat in the same chairs they had the last time they met. Miles was taken aback by the warm reception, but since he was so important to Homosoto, it was only fitting to be treated with respect. Miles returned the courtesy with the minimum required bow of the head. It was a profitable game worth playing. "Very much so, Mr. Homosoto. It was most relaxing . . .and I think you will be very pleased with the results." Miles smiled warmly, expecting to be heavily complimented on his promise. Instead, Homosoto ignored the business issue. "I understand that Miss Marasee was most pleased . . .was she not?" The implication was clear. For the first time, Miles saw a glimmer of a dirty old man looking for the sordid details. "I guess so. I was too busy working to pay attention." Miles tried to sluff off the comment. "That is what she says. That you were too busy for her . . .or to say goodbye and thank her for her attentions. Not an auspi- cious beginning Mr. Foster." Miles caught the derision in Homo- soto's voice and didn't appreciate it one little bit. "Listen. My affairs are my affairs. I am grateful for the services, but I do like to keep my personal life just that. Per- sonal." Miles was polite, but firm. Homosoto nodded in under- standing. "Of course, Mr. Foster, I understand completely. It is merely for the sake of the young woman that I mention it. There is no offense intended. It is shall we say . . .a cultural difference?" Miles didn't believe in the cultural difference to which he referred, but he didn't press the point. He merely nodded that the subject was closed. A pregnant pause followed before Homo- soto interrupted the silence. "So, Mr. Foster. I really did not expect to see you for another few weeks. I must assume that you have made some progress in planning our future endeavors." Homosoto wore a smile that belied little of his true thoughts. "You bet your ass, I did." Homosoto winced at the colorful language. It was Miles' way of maintaining some control over the situation. His dimples recessed even further as he enjoyed watching Homosoto's reaction. "It turned out to be simpler than even I had thought." "Would you be so kind as to elaborate?" "Gotcha." Miles opened his briefcase and brought out a sheath of papers with charts and scribbles all over them. "Basically the technology is pretty simple. Here are the fundamental systems to use in the attack, there are only four of them. After all, there are no defenses, so that's not a problem." "Problem?" Homosoto raised his eyes. "Ok, not problem. As you can see here, putting the technical pieces together is not the issue. The real issue is creating an effective deployment of the tools we create." Miles was matter of fact and for the first time Homosoto saw Miles as the itiner- ant professional he was capable of being. The challenge. Just as Miles promised earlier, 'give me a challenge, the new, the undone and I will be the best.' Miles was shining in his own excel- lence, and his ego was gone, totally gone. His expertise took over. "I have labeled various groups that we will need to pull this off." "Pull off? Excuse me . . ." "Oh, sorry. Make it work? Have it happen?" "Ah yes, So sorry." "Not at all." Miles looked at Homosoto carefully. Was there a mutual respect actually developing? "As I said, we will have to have several groups who don't even know about each other's existence. At NSA we call it contain- ment, or need to know." Homosoto cursorily examined the printouts on the table in front of him, but preferred to address Miles' comments. "Could you explain, please? I don't see how one can build a car if you don't know what it's going to look like when you're done. You suggest that each person or group functions without the knowledge of the others? How can this be efficient?" Miles smiled. For the first time he felt a bit of compassion for Homosoto, as one would feel for the naive child asking why 1 plus 1 equals 2. Homosoto was used to the Japanese work ethic: Here's a beautiful picture of a car, and all 50,000 of us are going to build it; you 5,000 build the engines, you 5,000 build the body and so on. After a couple of years we'll have built a fabulous automobile that we have all shared as a common vision. Homosoto had no idea of how to wage a war, although he apparently afford it. Miles realized he could be in control after all, if he only sold Homosoto on his abilities, and he was well on the way. "You see, Mr. Homosoto, what we are trying to do requires that no one, except a few key people like you and I, understand what is going on. As we said in World War II, loose lips sink ships." Homosoto immediately bristled at the mention of the war. Miles hardly noticed as he continued. "The point is, as I have it laid out here, only a handful of people need to know what we are trying to achieve. All of the rest have clearly defined duties that they are expected to perform as we ask. Each effectively works in a vacuum. Efficient, not exactly. Secure, yes. I imagine you would like to keep this operation as secret as possi- ble." Homosoto took immediate notice and bolted his response. "Hai! Of course, secrecy is important, but how can we be sure of compli- ance by our . . .associates?" "Let me continue." Miles referred back to the papers in front of him. "The first group is called the readers, the second will be dedicated to research and development." Homosoto smiled at the R&D reference. He could understand that. "Then there will be a public relations group, a communications group, a software compa- ny will be needed, another group I call the Mosquitoes and a little manufacturing which I assume you can handle." Miles looked for Homosoto's reaction. "Manufacturing, very easy. I don't fully understand the others, but I am most impressed with your outline. You mentioned prob- lem. Can you explain?" Homosoto had become a different person. One who showed adolescent enthusiasm. He moved to the edge of his seat. "As with any well designed plan," Miles boasted, "there are certain situations that need to be addressed. In this case, I see several." Miles was trying to hook Homosoto onto the prover- bial deck. "I asked for problem." Homosoto insisted. "To properly effect this plan we will need two things that may make it impossible." Homosoto met the challenge. "What do you need?" Miles liked the sound of it. You. What do _you_ need. "This operation could cost as much as $50 million. Is that a problem?" Homosoto looked squarely at Miles. "No problem. What is the second thing you need?" "We will need an army. Not an army with guns, but a lot of people who will follow orders. That may be more important than the money." Homosoto took a momentary repose while he thought. "How big an army will you need?" "My guess? Today? I would say that for all groups we will need a minimum of 500 people. Maybe as many as a thousand." Homosoto suddenly laughed out loud. "You call that an army? 1000 men? An army? That is a picnic my friend." Homosoto was enjoying his own personal joke. "When you said army, Mr. Foster I imagined tens of thousands of people running all around the United States shooting their guns. A thousand people? I can give you a thousand dedicated people with a single phone call. Is that all you need?" He continued his laughter. Miles was taken aback and had difficulty hiding his surprise. He had already padded his needs by a factor of three. "With a few minor specialties and exceptions, yes. That's it. If we follow this blue print." He pointed at the papers spread before them. Homosoto sat back and closed his eyes in apparent meditation. Miles watched and waited for several minutes. He looked out the expanse of windows over Tokyo patiently as Homosoto seemed to sleep in the chair across from him. Homosoto spoke quietly with his eyes still closed. "Mr. Foster?" "Yes?" Miles was ready. "Do you love you country?" Homosoto's eyelids were still. Miles had not expected such a question. "Mr. Foster? Did you hear the question?" "Yes, I did." He paused. "I'm thinking." "If you need to think, sir, then the answer is clear. As you have told me, you hold no allegiance. Your country means nothing to you." "I wouldn't quite put it that way . . ." Miles said defensively. He couldn't let this opportunity escape. "You hold your personal comfort as your primary concern, do you not? You want the luxuries that the United States offers, but you don't care where or how you get them? Is that not so? You want your women, your wine, your freedom, but you will take it at any expense. I do not think I exaggerate. Tell me Mr. Foster, if I am wrong." Miles realized he was being asked to state his personal alle- giances in mere seconds. Not since he was in the lower floors of the NSA being interrogated had he been asked to state his convic- tions. He knew the right answer there, but here, he wasn't quite sure. The wrong answer could blow it. But, then again, he was $110,000 ahead of the game for a few weeks work. "I need to ask you a question to answer yours." Miles did not want to be backed into a corner. "Mr. Homosoto. Do you want me to have allegiance to my country or to you?" Homosoto was pleased. "You debate well, young man. It is not so much that I care if you love America. I want, I need to know what you do love. You see, for me, I love Japan and my family. But much of my family was taken from me in one terrible instant, a long time ago. They are gone, but now I have my wife, my chil- dren and their children. I learned, that if there is nothing else, you must have family. That must come first, Mr. Foster. Under all conditions, family is first. All else is last. So my allegiance shifted, away from country, to my family and my be- liefs. I don't always agree with my government, and there are times I will defy their will. I can assure you, that if we embark upon this route, neither I nor you will endear ourselves to our respective governments. Does that matter to you?" Miles snickered. "Matter? After what they did to me? Let me tell you something. I gave my country most of my adult life. I could have gone to work with my family . . .my associates . . ." "I am aware of your background Mr. Foster," Homosoto interrupted. "I'm sure you are. But that's neither here nor there. I could have been on easy street. Plug a few numbers and make some bucks for the clan." The colloquialism escaped Homosoto, but he got the gist of it. "But I said to myself, 'hey, you're good. Fixing roulette wheels is beneath you.' I needed, I still need the diversion, the challenge, so I figured that the Feds would give me the edge I needed to make something of myself." Miles was turning red around his neck. "The NSA had the gear, the toys for me to play with, and they promised me the world. Create, they said, lead America's tech- nology into the 21st. century. What a pile of shit. Working at the NSA is like running for President. You're always trying to sell yourself, your ideas. They don't give a shit about how good your ideas are. All they care is that you're asshole buddies with the powers that be. To get something done there, you need a half dozen committees with their asses greased from here to eternity for them to say maybe. Do you know the difference between ass kissing and having your head up your ass?" "If I understand your crudities, I assume this is an American joke, then, no Mr. Foster, I do not know the difference." "Depth perception." Miles looked for a reaction to his anatomi- cal doublette. There was none other than Homosoto's benign smile indicating no comprehension. "OK, never mind, I'll save it. At any rate, enough was enough. I gotta do something with my life." Miles had said his piece. "In other words, money is your motivation?" "Money doesn't hurt, sure. But, I need to do what I believe. Not that that means hurting my country, but if they don't listen to what makes sense, maybe it's best that they meet their worst enemy to get them off of their keesters." Miles was on a roll. "Keesters?" Homosoto's naivete was amusing. "Oops!" Miles exclaimed comically. "Butts, asses, fannies?" He patted his own which finally communicated the intention. "Ah yes." Homosoto agreed. "So you feel you could best serve your country by attacking it?" Miles only thought for a few seconds. "I guess you could put it that way. Sure." "Mr. Foster, or should I say General Foster?" Miles beamed at the reference. "We shall march to success." "Mr. Homosoto," Miles broke the pagential silence. "I would like to ask you the same question. Why?" "I was wondering when you were going to ask me that Mr. Foster," Homosoto said with his grin intact. "Because, Mr. Foster, I am returning the favor." **************************************************************** Chapter 9 September, 1982 South East Iraq Ahmed Shah lay in a pool of his own blood along with pieces of what was once another human being. The pain was intolerable. His mind exploded as the nerve endings from the remains of his arms and legs shot liquid fire into his cerebral cortex. His mind screamed in sheer agony while he struggled to stay conscious. He wasn't sure why, but he had to stay awake . . .can't pass out . . .sleep, blessed sleep . . .release me from the pain . . .Allah! Oh take me Allah . . .I shall be a martyr fighting for your holy cause . . .in your name . . . for the love of Islam . . .for the Ayatollah . . .take me into your arms and let me live for eter- nity in your shadow . . . The battle for Abadan, a disputed piece of territory that was a hub for Persian Gulf oil distribution had lasted days. Both Iran and Iraq threw waves of human fodder at each other in what was referred to in the world press as " . . .auto-genocide . . ." Neither side reacted to the monumental casualties that they sustained. The lines of reinforcements were steady. The dead bodies were thick on the battlefield; there was no time to col- lect them and provide a proper burial. New troops had as much difficulty wading through the obstacle courses made of human corpses as staying alive. Public estimates were that the war had already cost over 1,000,000 lives for the adversaries. Both governments disputed the figures. The two agreed only 250,000 had died. The extrem- ist leaders of both countries believed that the lower casualty numbers would mollify world opinion. It accomplished the exact opposite. Criticism was rampant, in the world courts and the press. Children were going to battle. Or more appropriately, children were marching in the front lines, often without weapons or shoes, and used as cover for the advancing armed infantrymen behind them. The children were disposable receptacles for enemy bullets. The supreme sacrifice would permit the dead pre-adoles- cents the honor of martyrdom and an eternal place with Allah. Mothers wailed and beat their breasts in the streets of Teheran as word arrived of loved ones and friends who died in Allah's war against the Iraqi infidels. Many were professional mourners who were hired by others to represent families to make them look bigger and more Holy. Expert wailing and flagellation came at a price. The bulk of the civilized world, even Brezhnev's evil Soviet empire denounced the use of unarmed children for cannon fodder. The war between Iran and Iraq was to continue, despite pleas from humanity, for another 6 years. Ahmed Shah was a 19 year old engineering student at the exclu- sive Teheran University when the War started. He was reared as a dedicated Muslim by wealthy parents. Somehow his parents had escaped the Ayatollah's scourge after the fall of the Shah. Ahmed was never told the real reason, but a distribution of holy rials certainly helped. They were permitted to keep their beautiful home in the suburbs of Teheran and Ahmed's father kept his pro- fessorship at Teheran University. Ahmed was taught by his family that the Shah's downfall was the only acceptable response to the loss of faith under his regime. "The Shah is a puppet of the Americans. Ptooh!" His father would spit. "The Yanqis come over here, tell us to change our culture and our beliefs so we can make them money from our oil!" For a professor he was outspoken, but viewed as mainstream by the extremist camps. Ahmed learned well. For the most part of his life all Ahmed knew was the Ayatollah Khomeini as his country's spiritual leader. News and opinion from the West was virtually nonexistent so Ahmed developed as a devout Muslim, dedicated to his country and his religion. When the War began he thought about enlisting immediately, but the University counselors convinced him otherwise. "Ahmed Shah, you are bright and can offer Iran great gifts after you complete your studies. Why not wait, the War will not be forever, and then you can serve Allah with your mind, not your body." Ahmed took the advice for his first year at the a university student, but guilt overwhelmed him when he learned about how many other young people were dying in the cause. From his par- ents he would hear of childhood friends who had been killed. Teheran University students and graduates were honored daily in the Mosque on campus. The names were copied and distributed throughout the schools. True martyrs. Ahmed's guilt compounded as the months passed and so many died. He had been too young to participate in the occupation of the American Embassy. How jeal- ous he was. Why should I wait to serve Allah? He mused. Today I can be of service, where he needs me, but if I stay and study, I will not be able to bid his Will for years. And what if Iraq wins? There would be no more studies anyway. Ahmed anguished for weeks over how he could best serve Iran, his Ayatollah and Allah. After his freshman finals, on which he excelled, he joined the Irani Army. Within 60 days he was sent to the front lines as a communications officer. They had been in the field 3 days, and Ahmed had only gotten to know a few of the 60 men in his company when the mortars came in right on top of them. The open desert offers little camouflage so the soldiers built fox holes behind the larger sand dunes. They innaccurately thought they were hidden from view. More than half the company died instantly. Pieces of bodies were strewn across the sandy tented bivouac. Another 20 were dying within 50 yards of where Ahmed writhed in agony. Ahmed regained consciousness. Was it 5 minutes or 5 hours later. He had no way of knowing. The left lower arm where he wore his wristwatch was gone. A pulpy stump. As were his legs. Mutilated . . .the highest form of insult and degradation. Oh, Allah, I have served you, let me die and come to you now. Let me suffer no more. Suddenly his attention was grabbed by the sound of a jeep cough- ing its way to a stop. He heard voices. "This one's still alive." Then a shot rang out. "So's this one." Another shot. A few muted voices from the dying protested and asked for mercy. "Ha! I give Mercy to a dog before you." A scream and 2 shots. They were Iraqi! Killing off the wounded. Pigs! Infidels! Mother Whores! "You, foreskin of a camel! Your mother lies with dogs!" Ahmed screamed at the soldiers. It brought two results. One, it kept him a little more alert and less aware of his pain, and two, it attracted the attention of the two soldiers from the jeep. "Ola! Who insults the memory of my mother who sits with Allah? Who?" One soldier spun around and tried to imagine which one of the pieces of bodies that surrounded him still had enough life to speak. He scanned the sand nearby. Open eyes were not a sure sign of life nor was the presence of four limbs. There needed to be a head. "Over here camel dung. Hussein fucks animals who give birth to the likes of you." Ahmed's viciousness was the only facial feature that gave away he was alive. The soldiers saw their tormentor. "Prepare to meet with your Allah, now," as one soldier took aim at Ahmed's head. "Go ahead! Shoot, pig shit. I welcome death so I won't have to see your filth . . ." Ahmed defied the soldier and the automatic rifle aimed at him. The other soldier intervened. "No, don't kill him. That's too easy and we would be honoring his last earthly request. No, this one doesn't beg for mercy. At least he's a man. Let's just make him suffer." The second soldier raised his gun and pointed at the junction of Ahmed's two stumps for legs. Two point blank range shots shattered the three components of his genitals. Ahmed let out a scream so primal, so anguished, so penetrating that the soldiers bolted to escape the sounds of death. The scream continued, briefly interrupted by a pair of shots that caught the two soldiers square in the middle of the back as they ran. They dropped onto the hot desert sand with matched thuds. Ahmed didn't hear the shots over the sounds coming from his larynx. He didn't hear anything after that for a very long time. Unfortunately for Ahmed Shah, he survived. He woke up, or more accurately, regained semi-consciousness more than a week after he was picked up at the site of the mortar attack. He was wired up to tubes and machines in an obviously well equipped hospital. He thought, I must be back in Teher- an . . .then fog . . .a blur . . .a needle . . .feel nothing . . .stay awake . . .move lips . . .talk . . . "Doctor, the patient was awake." The nurse spoke to the physician who was writing on Ahmed's medical chart. "He'll wish he wasn't. Let him go. Let him sleep. Hell hasn't begun for him yet." The Doctor moved onto the chart on the next bed in ward. Over the next few days while grasping at consciousness, and with the caring attention of the nurses, Ahmed pieced together the strands of a story . . .what happened to him. The Iraqis were killing the wounded, desperate in their attempts to survive the onslaught of Irani children. All must die, take no prisoners were their marching orders. In the Iraqi Army you either did exactly as you were told, with absolute obedience, or you were shot on sight as a traitor. Some choice. We lost at Abadan, the Iraqi's thought, but there will be more battles to win. Ahmed was the only survivor from his company, and there was no earthly reason that could explain why he lived. He was more dead than alive. His blood coagulated well in the hot desert sun, otherwise the blood loss alone would have killed him. The medics found many of his missing pieces and packed them up for their trip to the hospital, but the doctors were unable to re-attach anything of significance. He was a eunuch. With no legs and only one good arm. Weeks of wishing himself dead proved to be the source of rest that contributed to his recovery. Was he man? Was he woman? Was he, God forbid, neither? Why had he not just died along with the others, why was he spared! Spared, ha! If I had truly been spared I would be living with Allah! This is not being spared. This is living hell and someone will pay. He cried to his par- ents about his torment and his mother wailed and beat her breast. His father listened to the anger, the hate and the growing strength within his son's being. Hate could be the answer that would make his son, his only son, whole again. Whole in spirit at least. The debates within Ahmed's mind developed into long philosophical arguments about right, wrong, revenge, avenge, purpose, cause and reason. He would take both sides of an issue, and see if he could beat himself with his alter rationales. The frustration at knowing one's opponents' thoughts when developing your own coun- ter argument made him angry, too. He finally started arguing with other patients. He would take any position, on any issue and debate all night. Argumentative, contrary, but recovering completely described the patient. Over the months his strength returned and he appeared to come to grips with his infirmaries. As much as anyone can come to terms with such physical mutilations. He covered his facial wounds with a full black beard that melded into his full short cropped kinky hair. Ahmed graduated from Teheran University in 1984 with a cruel hatred for anything Anti-Islam. One major target of his hatred was President Reagan, the cowboy president, the Teflon president, the evil Anti-Muslim Zionist loving American president. Of course there was plenty of room to hate others, but Reagan was so easy to hate, so easy to blame, and rarely was there any disa- greement. He thought of grand strategies to strike back at the America. After all, didn't they support the Iraqis? And the Iraqis did this to him. It wasn't the soldiers' fault. They were just following orders: Do or Die. Any rational person would have done the same thing. He understood that. So he blamed Reagan, not Hussein. And he blamed the American people for their stupidity, their isolationism, their indifference to the rest of the world. They are all so smug and caught up in their own little petty lives, and there are causes, people are dying for causes, and the American fools don't even care. And Reagan personified them all. How does a lousy movie actor from the 1950's get to be President of the United States? Ahmed laughed to himself at the obvious answer. He was the most qualified for the job. His commentaries and orations about the Imperialists, the United States, England, even the Soviet Union and their overwhelming influence in the Arab world made Ahmed Shah a popular man on the campus of Teheran University. His highly visible infirmities assisted with his credibility. In his sixth semester of study, Ahmed's counselor called him for a conference. Beside his counselor was another man, Beni Farja- ni, from the government. Beni was garbed in Arab robes and tur- bans that always look filthy. Still, he was the officious type, formal and somber. His long white hair snuck through the turban, and his face shoed ample wrinkles of wisdom. He and the Counselor sat alone, on one side of a large wooden conference table that could easily have seated 20. Ahmed stopped his motorized wheel chair at the table, Farjani spoke, and curiously, the Counselor rose from his chair and slipped out of the room. Ahmed and the Government official were alone. "My name is Beni Farjani, Associate Director to the Undersecre- tary of Communications and Propaganda. I trust you are well." Ahmed long since gave up commenting on his well being or lack thereof. "It is good to meet you, sir." He waited for more. "Ahmed Shah, you are important to the state and the people of Iran." Farjani said it as though his comment was already common knowledge. "What I am here to ask you, Ahmed Shah, is, are you willing again to serve Allah?" "Yes, of course . . .?" He bowed his head in reverence. "Good, because we think that you might be able to assist on a small project we have been contemplating. My son, you have the gift of oration, speaking, moving crowds to purpose. I only wish I had it!" Beni Farjani smiled solemnly at Ahmed. "I thank Allah for His gift. I am only the humble conduit for his Will." "I understand, but you have now, and will have much to proud of. I believe you graduate in 6 months. Is that correct?" "Yes, and then I go to Graduate School . . ." "I am afraid that won't be possible Ahmed Shah." Farjani shook a kindly wrinkled finger at him. "As soon as you graduate, your Government, at Allah's bidding, would like you to move to the United States." "America?" Ahmed gaped in surprise. "We fear that America may invade Iran, that we may go to war with the United States." The words stunned Ahmed. Could he be serious? Sure, relations were in pretty bad shape, but was Farjani saying that Iran was truly preparing for War? Jihad? Holy War against the United States? "We need to protect ourselves," Farjani spoke calmly, with au- thority. "America has weapons of mass destruction that can reach our land in minutes, while we have nothing to offer in retalia- tion. Nothing, and that is a very frightening reality that the people of Iran must live with every day. A truly helpless feel- ing." Ahmed was listening carefully, and so far what he heard was making a great deal of sense. "Both the Soviets and the Americans can destroy each other and the rest of the world with a button. Their armies will never meet. A few missiles and it's all over. A 30 minute grand finale to civilization. They don't have to, nor would we expect either the Soviets or the Americans to ask the rest of the world if they mind. They just go ahead and pull the trigger and every- one else be damned. "And yes, there have been better times when our nation has had more friends, when all Arabs thought and acted as one; especially against the Americans. They have the most to gain and the most to lose from invading and crossing our borders. They would love nothing more than to steal our land, our oil and even take over OPEC. All in the name of world stability. They'll throw around National Security smoke screens and do what they want." Farjani was speaking quite excitedly. Ahmed was fascinated. A man from the Government who was nearly as vitriolic as he was about America. The only difference was Ahmed wanted to attack, and Farjani wanted to defend. He didn't think it opportune to interrupt. Farjani continued. "The Russians want us as a warm water port. They have enough oil, gas and resources, but they crave a port that isn't con- trolled by the Americans such as in the Black Sea and through the Hellespont. So they too, are a potential enemy. You see don't you, Ahmed, that Allah has so graced our country everyone else wants to take it away from us?" Ahmed nodded automatically. "So we need to create a defense against outside aggressors. We do not have weapons that can reach American shores, that is so. But we have something that the Americans will never have, because they will never understand. Do you know what that is?" Before Ahmed could answer, Farjani continued. "Honor and Faith to protect our heritage, our systems, our way of life." Ahmed agreed. "We want you, Ahmed Shah to build a network of supporters, just like you, all across the United States that will come to our service when we need them. To the death. Your skills will capture the attention of those with kindred sentiments. You will draw them out, from the schools, from the universities. "Ahmed Shah, there are over 100,000 Irani and Arab students in the United States today. Many, many of them are sympathetic to our causes. Many of them are attending American Universities, side by side with their future enemies, learning the American way so we may better fight it. You will become one of them and you will find others that can be trusted, counted on, depended upon when we call. "Your obvious dedication and personal tragedies," Farjani pointed at the obvious affliction, "will be the glue to provide others with strength. You will have no problems in recruiting. That will be the easy part." "If recruiting is so easy, then what will be the hard task?" "Holding them back. You will find it most difficult to restrain your private army from striking. Right under the American's noses, you will have to keep them from bursting at the seams until the day comes when they are needed. If could be weeks, it could be years. We don't know. Maybe the day will never come. But it is your job to build this Army. Grow it, feed it and keep our national spirit alive until such time that it becomes necessary to defend our nation, Allah and loyal Muslims every- where. This time, though, we will fight America from within, inside her borders. "There hasn't been a foreign war on American soil since 1812. Americans don't know what is like to have their country ruined, ravaged, blown up before their eyes. We need a defense against America, and when it is deeded by Allah, our army will strike back at America where is hurts most. In the streets of their cities. In their homes, parks and schools. But first we must have that army. In place, and willing to act. "You will find out all the details in good time, I assure you. You will require some training, though, and that will begin shortly. Everything you need to serve will be given you. Go with Allah. Ahmed trained for several months with the infamous terrorist group Abu Nidal. He learned the basics that every modern terror- ist needs to know to insure success against the Infidels. Shah moved to New York City on December 25, 1986. Christmas was a non issue. He registered at Columbia as a graduate researcher in the engineering department to legitimize his student visa and would commence classes on January 2. Recruitment was easy, just as Farjani had said. Ahmed built a team of 12 recruiters whom he could trust with his life. Seven professional terrorists, unknown to the American authorities, thoroughly sanitized, came with him to the United States under assumed visas and the other 5, already in the country were personally recommended by Farjani. His disciples were located in strategic locations; New York was host to Ahmed and another Arab fanatic trained in Libya. They both used Columbia University as their cover. Washington D.C. was honored with a Syrian terrorist who had organized mass anti- US demonstrations in Damascus as the request of President Assad. Los Angeles and San Francisco were homes to 4 more engineering type desert terrorist school graduates who were allowed to move freely and interact with the shakers and movers in high technolo- gy disciplines. Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, and Dallas were also used as recruitment centers for developing Ahmed's personal army. If the media had been aware of the group's activities they would have made note that Ahmed's inner circle were very highly skilled not only in the use of C4 and Cemex, the Czechoslovakian plastic explosive that was responsible for countless deaths of innocent bystanders, but that were all very well educated. Each spoke English like a native, fluent in colloquialisms and idioms unique to America. Much of his army had skills which enabled them to acquire posi- tions of importance within engineering departments of companies such as IBM, Apple, Hughes Defense Systems, Chase Manhattan, Prudential Life, Martin Marietta, Westinghouse, Compuserve, MCI and hundreds of similar organizations. Every one of their em- ployers would have attested to their skills, honor and loyalty to their adapted country. Ahmed's group was well versed in decep- tion. After all, they answered to a greater cause. What even a seasoned reporter might not find out though, was that all 12 of Ahmed's elite recruiters had to pass a supreme test often required by international political terrorist organiza- tions. To guarantee their loyalty to the cause, whatever that cause might be, and to weed out potential external infiltrators, each member had to have killed at least one member of their immediate family. It requires extraordinary hardening, to say the least, to kill your mother or father. Or to blow up the school bus that carried your pre-teen sister to school. Or engage your brother in a mock fight and then sever his head from his body. The savagery that permitted one access into this elite circle is beyond the compre- hension of most Western minds. Yet such acts were expected to demonstrate one's loyalty to a supreme purpose or belief. The events surrounding Solman Rushdie and the Satanic Verses were a case in point. Each of those who volunteered to assassinate him at the bequest of the Ayatollah Khomeini had in fact already killed not only innocent women and children in order to reach their assigned terrorist targets, but had brought the head of their family victim to the table of their superiors. A deed for which they were honored and revered. These were the men, all of them men, who pledged allegiance to Ahmed Shah and the unknown, undefined assignments they would in the future be asked to complete. To the death if necessary, and without fear. These men were reminiscent of the infamous moles that Stalin's Soviet Empire had placed throughout the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1930's to be awakened at some future date to carry out strikes against the enemy from within. The only difference with Ahmed's men was that they were trained to die, not to survive. And unlike their Mole counter- parts, they were awake the entire time, focused on their mission. Clearly it was only a matter of time before they would be asked to follow orders with blind obedience. Their only reward was a place in the Muslim heaven. Meanwhile, while awaiting sainthood, their task was to find others with similar inclinations, or those who could be corralled into their system of beliefs. It was unrealistic, they knew, to expect to find an entire army of sympathizers who would fight to the death or perform suicide missions in the name of Allah. But they found it was very easy to find many men, never women, who would follow orders and perform the tasks of an underground infantryman. The mass influx of Arabs into the United States was another great mistake of the Reagan '80's as it opened its doors to a future enemy. The immigration policy of the U.S. was the most open in the entire world. So, the Government allowed the entry of some of the world's most dangerous people into the country, and then gave them total freedom, with its associated anonymity. Such things could never happen at home, Ahmed thought. We love our land too much to permit our enemies on our soil. It is so much easier to dispose of them before they can cause damage. So the thinking went, and Ahmed and his cadre platooned them- selves often, in any of the thousands of American resort complex- es, unnoticed, to gauge the progress of their assignments. By early 1988, Ahmed's army consisted of nearly 1000 fanatic Muslims who would swallow a live grenade if the deed guaranteed their place in martyrdom. And another several thousand who could be led into battle under the right conditions. And more came and joined as the ridiculous immigration policies continued un- checked. They were students, businessmen, flight attendants who were now in the United States for prolonged periods of time. All walks of life were included in his Army. Some were technicians or book- keepers, delivery men, engineers, doctors; most disciplines were represented. Since Ahmed had no idea when, if ever, he and his army would be needed, nor for what purpose, recruiting a wide range of talents would provide Allah with the best odds if they were ever needed. They were all men. Not one woman in this man's army, Ahmed thought. The biggest problem, just as Farjani had predicted, was the growing sense of unrest among the troops. The inner 12 had been professionally trained to be patient. Wait for the right moment to strike. Wait for orders. Do nothing. Do not disclose your alliances or your allegiances to anyone. No one can be trusted. Except your recruiter. Lead a normal life. Act like any Ameri- can immigrant who flourishes in his new home. Do not, at all costs, give yourself away. That much was crucial. Periodically, the inner 12 would assign mundane, meaningless tasks to various of their respective recruits. Americans called it busy work. But, it kept interest alive, the belief in the eventual victory of the Arab Nation against the American mon- grels. It kept the life in their organization flowing, not dulled by the prolonged waiting for the ultimate call: Jihad, a holy war against America, waged from inside its own unprotected borders. It was their raison d'<130>tre. The underlying gestalt for their very existence. * * * * * February 6, 1988 New York City "It is time." Ahmed could not believe the words - music to his ears. It was not a long distance call; too clear. It had to be local. The caller spoke in Ahmed's native tongue and conveyed an excitement that immediately consumed him. He sat in his wheel- chair at a computer terminal in an engineering lab at Columbia University's Broadway campus. While he had hoped this day would come, he also knew that politicians, even Iran's, promised a glory that often was buried in diplomacy rather than action. Praise be Allah. "We are ready. Always for Allah." Ahmed was nearly breathless with anticipation. His mind wandered. Were we at war? No, of course not. The spineless United States would never have the strength nor will to wage war against a United Arab State. "That is good. For Allah." The caller agreed with Ahmed. "But it is not the war you expect." Ahmed was taken aback. He had not known what to expect, exactly, but, over the months he had conjured many scenarios of how his troops would be used to perform Allah's Will. His mind reeled. "For whom do you speak?" Ahmed asked pointedly. There was a hint of distrust in the question. "Farjani said you would ask. He said, 'there hasn't been a war on U.S. soil since 1812'. He said you would understand." Ahmed understood. Only someone that was privy to their conversa- tions would have known that. His heart quickened with anticipa- tion. "Yes, I understand. With whom do I speak?" Ahmed asked reverently. "My name is of no consequence. I am only a humble servant of Allah with a message. You are to follow instructions exactly, without reservation." "Of course. I, too, am but a servant of God. What are my in- structions?" Ahmed felt like standing at parade attention if only he had legs. "This will not be our war. It will be another's. But our pur- poses are the same. You will act as his army, and are to follow his every request. As if Allah came to you and so ordered him- self." Ahmed beamed. He glowed with perspiration. Finally. The chance to act. He would and his army would perform admirably. He lis- tened carefully as the anonymous caller gave him his instruc- tions. He noted the details as disbelief sank in. This is Jihad? Yes, this is Jihad. You are expected to comply. I am clear, but are you sure? Yes, I am sure. Then I will follow orders. As ordered. Will we speak again? No, this is your task, your destiny. The Arab Nation calls upon you now. Do you an- swer? Yes, I answer. I will perform. We, our army will perform. "Insha'allah." "Yes, God willing." Ahmed Shah put his teaching schedule on hold by asking for and receiving an immediate sabbatical. He then booked and took a flight to Tokyo three days later. "I need an army, and I am told you can provide such services for me. Is that so?" Homosoto asked Ahmed Shah though he already knew the answer. Ahmed Shah and Taki Homosoto were meeting in a private palace in the outskirts of Tokyo. Ahmed wasn't quite sure to whom it belonged, but he was following orders and in no way felt in danger. The grounds were impeccable, a Japanese Versailles. The weather was cool, but not uncomfortably so. Both men sat under an arbor that would be graced with cherry blossoms in a few months. Each carried an air of confidence, an assurity not meant as arrogance, but rather as an assertion of control, power over their respective empires. "How large is you army?" Homosoto knew the answer, but asked anyway. "One thousand to the death. Three thousand to extreme pain, another ten thousand functionaries." Ahmed Shah said with pride. Homosoto laughed a convivial Japanese laugh, and lightly slapped his knees. "Ah, comrade. To the death, so familiar, that is why you are here, but, I hope that will not be necessary. You see, this war will be one without bullets." Homosoto said waiting for the volatile Arab's reaction. This was exactly what Ahmed feared. A spineless war. How could one afford to wage a war against America and not expect, indeed, plan for, the death of some troops. There was no Arab transla- tion for pussy-wimp, but the thought was there. "How may I be of service?" "The task is simple. I have need of information, much informa- tion that will be of extreme embarrassment to the United States. Their Government operates illegally, their companies control the country with virtual impunity from law. It is time that they are tried for their crimes." Homosoto tailored his words so that his guest would acquire an enthusiasm similar to his. "Yes," Ahmed agreed. "They need to learn a lesson. But, Mr. Homosoto, how can that be done without weapons? I assume you want to attack their planes, their businesses, Washington per- haps?" Ahmed was hopeful for the opportunity to give his loyal troops the action they desired. "In a manner of speaking, yes, my friend. We shall strike where they least expect it, and in a way in which they are totally unprepared." Homosoto softened his speech to further his pitch to gain Ahmed Shah's trust and unity. "I am well aware of the types of training that you and your people have gone through. However, you must be aware, that Japan is the most technically advanced country in the world, and that we can accomplish things is a less violent manner, yet still achieve the same goals. We shall be much more subtle. I assume you have been informed of that by your superiors." Homosoto waited for Ahmed's response. "As you say, we have been trained to expect, even welcome death in the struggle against our adversaries. Yet I recognize that a joint effort may be more fruitful for all of us. It may be a disappointment to some of my people that they will not be permit- ted the honor of martyrdom, but they are expected to follow orders. If they do not comply, they will die without the honor they crave. They will perform as ordered." "Excellent. That is as I hoped." Homosoto beamed at the de- veloping understanding. "Let me explain. My people will provide you with the weapons of this new war, a type of war never before fought. These are technological weapons that do not kill the enemy. Better, they expose him for what he is. It will be up to your army to use these weapons and allow us to launch later attacks against the Americans. "There are to be no independent actions or activities. None without my and your direction and approval. Can you abide by these conditions?" "At the request of my Government and Allah, I will be happy to serve you in your war. Both our goals will be met." Ahmed glowed at the opportunity to finally let his people do something after so much waiting. Homosoto arose and stood over Ahmed. "We will make a valuable alliance. To the destruction of America." He held his water glass to Ahmed. Ahmed responded by raising his glass. "To Allah, and the cause!" They both drank deeply from the Perrier. Homosoto had one more question. "If one or more off your men get caught, will they talk?" "They will not talk." "How can you be so sure?" Homosoto inquired naively. "Because, if they are caught, they will be dead." "An excellent solution." **************************************************************** Chapter 10 Tuesday, October 13 New York COMPUTER ASSAULT CLAIMS VICTIMS by Scott Mason For the last few weeks the general press and computer media have been foretelling the destruction to be caused by this year's version of the dreaded Columbus Day Virus. AKA Data Crime, the virus began exploding yesterday and will continue today, depend- ing upon which version strikes your computer. With all of the folderall by the TV networks and news channels, and the reports of anticipated doom for many computers, I expect- ed to wake up this morning and learn that this paper didn't get printed, my train from the suburbs was rerouted to Calcutta and Manhattan's traffic lights were out of order. No such luck. America is up and running. That doesn't mean that no one got struck by computer influenza, though. There are hundreds of reports of widespread damage to microcomputers everywhere. The Bala Cynwyd, PA medical center lost several weeks of records. Credit Card International was struck in Madrid, Spain and can't figure out which customers bought what from whom. A few schools in England don't know who their students are, and a University in upstate New York won't be holding computer classes for a while. William Murray of the Institute for Public Computing Confidence in Washington, D.C., downplayed the incident. "We have had re- ports of several small outbreaks, but we have not heard of any particularly devastating incidents. It seems that only a few isolated sites were affected." On the other hand, Bethan Fenster from Virus Stoppers in McLean, Virginia, maintains that the virus damage was much more wide- spread. She says the outbreaks are worse than reported in the press. "I personally know of several Fortune 100 companies that will be spending the next several weeks putting their systems back in order. Some financial institutions have been nearly shut down because their computers are inoperable. It's the worst (computer) virus outbreak I've ever seen." Very few companies would confirm that they had been affected by the Columbus Day Virus. "They won't talk to you," Ms. Fenster said. "If a major company announced publicly that their comput- ers were down due to criminal activity, there would be a certain loss of confidence in that company. I understand that they feel a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders to minimize the effects of this." Despite Ms. Fenster's position, Forsythe Insurance, NorthEast Airlines, Brocker Financial and the Internal Revenue Service all admitted that they have had a 'major' disruption in their comput- er services and expect to take two to six weeks to repair the damage. Nonetheless, several of those companies hit, feel lucky. "We only lost about a thousand machines," said Ashley Marie, senior network manager at Edison Power. "Considering that we have no means of protecting our computers at all, we could have been totally put out of business." She said that despite the cost to repair the systems, her management feels no need to add security or protective measures in the future. "They believe that this was a quirk, a one time deal. They're wrong," Ms. Marie said. Many small companies that said they have almost been put out of business because they were struck by the Columbus Day Virus. "Simply not true," commented Christopher Angel of the Anti-Virus Brigade, a vigilante group who professes to have access to pri- vate information on computer viruses. "Of all of the reports of downed computers yesterday, less than 10% are from the Data Crime. Anyone who had any sort of trouble is blaming it on the virus rather than more common causes like hardware malfunction and operator error. It is a lot more glamorous to admit being hit by the virus that has created near hysteria over the last month." Whatever the truth, it seems to be well hidden under the guise of politics. There is mounting evidence and concern that computer viruses and computer hackers are endangering the contents of our computers. While the effects of the Columbus Day Virus may have been mitigated by advance warnings and precautionary measures, and the actual number of infection sites very limited, computer professionals are paying increasing attention to the problem. This is Scott Mason, safe, sound and uninfected. * * * * * Wednesday, October 14 J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI Headquarters Washington, D.C. The sweltering October heat wave of the late Indian summer pene- trated the World War II government buildings that surrounded the Mall and the tourist attractions. Window air conditioners didn't provide the kind of relief that modern workers were used to. So, shirtsleeves were rolled up, the nylons came off, and ties were loose if present at all. The streets were worse. The climatic changes that graced much of North America were exaggerated in Washington. The heat was hot- ter, the humidity wetter. Sweat was no longer a five letter word, it was a way of life. Union Station, the grand old train station near the Capitol Building provided little relief. The immense volume of air to be cooled was too much for the central air conditioners. They were no match for mother nature's revenge on the planet for unforgiv- ing hydrocarbon emissions. As soon as Tyrone Duncan detrained from the elegant Metroliner he had ridden this morning from New York's Penn Station, he was drenched in perspiration. He discov- ered, to his chagrin, that the cab he had hailed for his ride to headquarters had no air conditioning. The stench of the city, and the garbage and the traffic fumes reminded him of home. New York. Tyrone showed his identification at the J. Edgar Hoover Building wishing he had the constitution to wear a seersucker suit. There is no way on God's earth a seersucker could show a few hours wear as desperately as his $1200 Louis Boston did, he thought. Then, there was the accompanying exhaustion from his exposure to the dense Washington air. Duncan had not been pleased with the panic call that forced him to Washington anyway. His reactions to the effects of the temperature humidity index did not portend a good meeting with Bob Burnson. Bob had called Tyrone night before, at home. He said, we have a situation here, and it requires some immediate attention. Would you mind being here in the morning? Instead of a question, it was an unissued order. Rather than fool around with hours of delays at La Guardia and National Airport, Tyrone elected to take the train and arrive in the nation's capitol just after noon. It took, altogether just about the same amount of time, yet he could travel in relative luxury and peace. Burnson was waiting for him. Bob Burnson held the title of National Coordinator for Tactical Response for the FBI. He was a little younger that Duncan, just over 40, and appeared cool in his dark blue suit and tightly collared shirt. Burnson had an unlikely pair of qualities. He was both an extraordinarily well polished politician and a astute investigator. Several years prior, though, he decided that the bureaucratic life would suit him just fine, and at the expense of his investigative skills, he attacked the political ladder with a vengeance. Despite the differences between them, Burnson a willing compatri- ot of the Washington machine and Duncan preferring the rigors of investigation, they had developed a long distance friendship that survived over the years. Tyrone was most pleased that he had a boss who would at least give his arguments a fair listen before being told that for this or that political reason, the Bureau had chosen a different line of reasoning. So be it, thought Duncan. I'm not a policy maker, just a cop. Tyrone sank into one of the government issue chairs in Burnson's modern, yet modest office ringed with large windows that can't open. "How 'bout that Arctic Chill?" Burnson's short lithe 150 pound frame showed no wear from the heat. "Glad you could make it." "Shee . . .it man," Tyrone exhaled as he wiped his shiny wet black face and neck. He was wringing wet. "Like I had a choice. If it weren't for the company, I'd be at the beach getting a tan." He continued to wipe his neck and head with a monogrammed handkerchief. "Lose a few pounds, and it won't hurt so bad. You know, I could make an issue of it," Bob poked fun. "And I'm outta here so fast, Hoover'll cheer from his grave," he sweated. The reference to the FBI founder's legendary bigotry was a common source of jokes in the modern bureau. "No doubt. No doubt." Burnson passed by the innuendo. "Maybe we'd balance the scales, too." He dug the knife deeper in refer- ence to Tyrone's weight. "That's two," said Duncan. "Ok, ok," said Burnson feigning surrender. "How's Arlene and the rest of the sorority?" He referred to the house full of women with whom Tyrone had spent a good deal of his life. "Twenty degrees cooler." He was half serious. "Listen, since you're hear, up for a bite?" Bob tried. "Listen, how 'bout we do business then grab a couple of cold ones. Iced beer. At Camelot? That's my idea of a quality afternoon." Camelot was the famous downtown strip joint on 18th and M street that former Mayor Marion Berry had haunted and been 86'd from for unpublished reasons. It was dark and frequented by government employees for lunch, noticeably the ones from Treas- ury. "Deal. If you accept." Bob's demeanor shifted to the officious. "Accept what?" Tyrone asked suspiciously. "My proposition." "Is this another one of your lame attempts to promote me to an office job in Capitol City?" "Well, yes and no. You're being re-assigned." No easy way to say it. "To what?" exclaimed Tyrone angrily. "To ECCO." "What the hell is ECCO?" "All in good time. To the point," Bob said calmly. "How much do you know about this blackmail thing?" "Plenty. I read the reports, and I have my own local problems. Not to mention that the papers have picked it up. If it weren't for the National Expos printing irresponsibly, the mainstream press would have kept it quiet until there was some con- firmation." "Agreed," said Burnson. "They are being spoken to right now, about that very subject, and as I hear it, they will have more lawsuits on their doorstep than they can afford to defend. They really blew it this time." "What else?" Bob was listening intently. "Not much. Loose, unfounded innuendo, with nothing to follow up. Reminds me of high school antics or mass hysteria. Just like UFO flaps." Tyrone Duncan dismissed the coincidences and the thought of Scott's conspiracy theory. "But it does make for a busy day at the office." "Agreed, however, you only saw the reports that went on the wire. Not the ones that didn't go through channels." "What do you mean by that?" Duncan voiced concern at being out of the loop. "What's on the wire is only the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more." "What else?" "Senators calling the Director personally, asking for favors. Trying to keep their secrets secret. A junior Midwest senator has some quirky sexual habits. A Southern anti-pornography ball- breaker happens to like little boys. It goes on and one. They've all received calls saying that their secrets will be in the news- papers' hands within days." "Unless?" Duncan awaited the resolved threat. "No unless, which scares them all senseless. It's the same story everywhere. Highly influential people who manage many of our countries' strategic assets have called their senators, and asked them to insure that their cases are solved in a quiet and expedi- ent political manner. Sound familiar?" Burnson asked Duncan. "More than vaguely," Tyrone had to admit. "How many?" "As of this morning we have 17 Senators asking the FBI to make discreet investigations into a number of situations. 17! Not to mention a couple hundred executive types with connections. Within days of each other. They each, so far, believe that theirs is an isolated incident and that they are the sole target of such . . .threats is as good a word as any. Getting the picture?" Tyrone whistled to himself. "They're all the same?" "Yes, and there's something else. To a man, each claimed that there was no way the blackmailer could know what he knew. Impos- sible." Burnson scratched his head. "Strange. Same story everywhere. That's what got the Director and his cronies in on this. And then me . . .and that's why you're here," Burnson said with finality. "Why?" Tyrone was getting frustrated with the roundabout dia- tribe. "We're pulling the blackmail thing to the national office and a special task force will take over. A lot of folks upstairs want to pull you in and stick you in charge of the whole operation, but I told them that you weren't interested, that you like it the way it is. So, I struck a deal." Burnson sounded proud. Duncan wasn't convinced. "Deal? What deal? Since when do you talk for me?" Tyrone didn't think to thank Bob for the front line pass interference. Keep the politicos out of his hair. "Have you been following any of the computer madness recently?" Burnson spoke as though he expected Tyrone to know nothing of it. "Can't miss it. From what I hear, a lot of people are getting pretty spooked that they may be next." "It gets more interesting than what the papers say," Bob said while opening a desk drawer. He pulled out a large folder and lay it across his desk. "We have experienced a few more computer incidents than is generally known, and in the last several weeks there has been a sudden increase in the number of attacks against Government computers." "You mean the INTERNET stuff and Congress losing it's mind?" Tyrone laughed at the thought that Congress would now use their downed computers as an excuse for not doing anything. "Those are only the ones that have made it to the press. It's lot worse." Bob scanned a few pages of the folder and para- phrased while reading. "Ah, yes, the NPRP, National Pretrial Reporting Program over at Justice . . .was hit with a series of computer viruses apparently intentionally placed in VMS comput- ers, whatever the hell those are." Bob Burnson was not computer fluent, but he knew what the Bureau's computer could do. "The Army Supply Center at Fort Stewart, Georgia had all of its requisitions for the last year erased from the computer." Bob chuckled as he continued. "Says here that they have had to pool the guys' money to go to Winn Dixie to buy toilet paper and McDonald's has offered a special GI discount until the system gets back up." "Ty," Bob said. " Some people on the hill have raised a stink since their machines went down. Damn crybabies. So ECCO is being activated." "What the hell is ECCO?" Tyrone asked again. "ECCO stands for Emergency Computer Crisis Organization. It's a computer crisis team that responds to . . .well I guess, comput- er crises." Bob opened the folder again. "It was formed during the, and I quote, ' . . .the panic that followed the first INTER- NET Worm in November of 1988.'" Tyrone's mouth hung open. "What panic?" "The one that was kept under absolute wraps," Bob said, slightly lowering his voice. "At first no one knew what the INTERNET event was about. Who was behind it. Why and how it was happen- ing. Imagine 10's of thousands of computers stopping all at once. It scared the shit out of the National Security Council, remember we and the Russians weren't quite friends then, and we thought that military secrets were being funneled straight to the Kremlin. You can't believe some of the contingency plans I heard about." "I had no idea . . ." "You weren't supposed to," Bob added. "Very few did. At any rate, right afterward DARPA established CERT, the Computer Emer- gency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon, and DCA set up a Security Coordination Center at SRI International to investigate problems in the Defense Data Network. Livermore and the DOE got into the act with Computer Incident Advisory Capability. Then someone decided that the bureaucracy was still too light and it deserved at least a fourth redundant, overlapping and rival group to investigate on behalf of Law Enforcement Agencies. So, there we have ECCO." "So what's the deal?" asked Tyrone. "What do I have to do?" "The Director has asked ECCO to investigate the latest round of viruses and the infiltration of a dozen or so sensitive and classified computers." Bob watched for Ty's reaction, but saw none yet. He wondered how he would take the news. "This time, we would like to be involved in the entire operation from start to finish. Make sure the investigation is done right. We'd like to start nailing some of the bastards on the Federal level. Besides you have the legal background and we are treading on some very new and untested waters." "I can imagine. So what's our role?" "Your role," Bob emphasized 'your', "will be to liaison with the other interested agencies." "Who else is playing?" asked Tyrone with trepidation. "Uh, that is the one negative," stammered Bob. "You've got NSA, CIA, NIST, the NSC, the JCS and a bunch of others that don't matter. The only rough spot is the NSA/NIST connection. Every- one else is there just to make sure they don't miss anything." "What's their problem?" "Haven't heard, huh?" laughed Bob. "The press hasn't been kind. They've been in such a pissing match for so long that computer security work came to a virtual halt and I don't want to spoil the surprise, ah, you'll see," he added chuckling. Tyrone sat back in the chair as he was cool enough now not to stick to it, closed his eyes and rotated his head to work out the kinks. Bob never had gotten used to Tyrone's peculiar method of deep thought; he found it most unnerving. Bob's intents were crystal clear, not that Tyrone minded. He had no desire to move to D.C.; indeed he would have quit instead. He wanted to stay with the Bureau and the action but in his comfortable New York existence. Otherwise, no. But, if he could get Bob off his back by this one favor. Sure it might not be real action, watching computer jockies play with themselves . . .but it might be an interesting change in pace. "Yes, under a couple of condition." Tyrone was suddenly a little too agreeable and smug after his earlier hesitancy. "Conditions? What conditions?" Bob's suspicion was clear. "One. I do it my way, with no, and I mean, absolutely no inter- ference." Duncan awaited a reply to his first demand. "What else?" "I get to use who I want to use, inside or outside the Bureau." "Outside? Outside? We can't let this outside. The last thing in the world we want is publicity." "You're gonna get it anyway. Let's do it right this time." "What do you mean by that?" Bob asked somewhat defensively. "What I mean is," Tyrone spoke up, sounding confident, "that the press are already on this computer virus thing and hackers and all. So, let's not advertise it, but when it comes up, let's deal with it honest." "No way," blurted out Bob. "They'll make it worse than it is." "I have that covered. A friend of my works for a paper, and he is a potential asset." "What's the trade?" "Not much. Half day leads, as long as he keeps it fair." "Anything else?" Bob asked, not responding to Ty. "One last thing," Tyrone said sitting up straighter. "After this one, you promise to let me alone and work my golden years, the way I want, where I want until my overdue retirement." "I don't know if I can . . ." "Then forget it," interrupted Tyrone. "I'll just quit." It was the penultimate threat and bluff and caught Bob off balance. "Wait a minute. You can't hold me hostage . . ." "Isn't that what you're doing to me?" Touch<130>! Bob sat back in thought. To an event, Duncan had been right on. He had uncannily been able to solve, or direct the solution of a crime where all others had failed. And, he always put the Bureau in the best possible light. If he didn't go with him now, lose him for sure. "And, I may need some discretionary funds." Duncan was making a mental list of those things he thought he needed. His sources of information were the most valuable. Without them, it would be a bad case of babysitting sissy assed bureaucrats staking out their ground. "Yes to the money. Ouch, but yes to hands off your promotion. Maybe, to the reporter. It's my ass, too, you know." "You called me," Tyrone said calmly. "Remember?" I can't win this one, thought Bob. He's never screwed up yet. Not big time. As they say, with enough rope you either bring in the gang or hang yourself. "I want results." That's all Bob had to say. "Other than that, I don't give a good goddamn what you do," Bob resigned. "One more thing," Tyrone slipped in. "What is it?" Bob was getting exasperated. "It happens out of New York, not here." "But . . ." "No buts. Period." "Ok, New York, but you report here when I need you. Agreed?" "Agreed," said Tyrone agreeably. "Deal?" "Yes, except no with the press, this reporter of yours. Agreed?" "Whatever," Tyrone told Bob. * * * * * From his hotel room, Tyrone Duncan called Scott Mason at his home. It was after 11P.M. EST, and Ty was feeling no pain after several hours of drinking and slipping $10 bills into garter belts at Camelot. "RCA, Russian Division," Scott Mason answered his phone. "Don't do that," Tyrone slurred. "That'll trigger the monitors." "Oh, sorry, I thought you wanted the plans for the Stealth Bom- ber . . ." "C'mon, man," Tyrone pleaded. "It's not worth the paperwork." Scott choked through his laughter. "I'm watching a Honeymooner rerun. This better be good." "We need to talk." * * * * * Thursday, October 15 Washington, D.C. The stunning view of the Potomac was complete with a cold front that brought a wave of crisp and clear air; a much needed change from the brutal Indian Summer. His condo commanded a vista of lights that reflected the power to manipulate the world. Miles reveled in it. He and Perky lounged on his 8th. floor balcony after a wonderfully satisfying romp in his waterbed. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sex in a water- bed meant the expenditure of the least energy for the maximum pleasure. Ah, the beauty of applied mathematics. Over the last four years Perky and Miles had seen each other on a periodically regular basis. She was a little more than one of Miles' sexual release valves. She was a semi-sorta-kinda girl friend, but wouldn't have been if Miles had known that she re- ported their liaisons back to her boss. Alex was not interested in how she got her information. He only wanted to know if there were any digressions in Miles mission. They sipped Grande Fine from oversized brandy glasses. The afterglow was magnificent and they saw no reason to detract from it with meaningless conversation. Her robe barely covered her firm breasts and afforded no umbrage for the triangle between her legs. She wasn't ashamed of her nakedness, job or no job. She enjoyed her time with Miles. He asked for nothing from her but the obvious. Unlike the others who often asked her for solici- tous introductions to others who wielded power that might further their own particular lobby. Miles was honest, at least. He even let her spend the night upon occasion. At 2 A.M., as they gazed over the reflections in the Potomac, Miles' phone warbled. He ignored the first 5 rings to Perky's annoyance. "Aren't you going to answer?" Her unspoken thoughts said,<MI> do whatever you have to do to make that infernal noise top.<D> "Expecting a call?" Miles asked. His eyes were closed, convey- ing his internal peace. The phone rang again. "Miles, at least get a machine." The phone rang a seventh time. "Fuck." He stood and his thick terrycloth robe swept behind him as he walked into the elegantly simple modern living room through the open glass doors. He put down his glass and answered on the 8th ring. "It's late," he answered. His 'I don't give a shit' attitude was evident. "Mr. Foster, I am most displeased." It was Homosoto. Miles curled his lips in disgust as Perky looked in from her balcony vantage. Miles breathed heavily into the phone. "What's wrong now?" Miles was trying to verbally show his distaste for such a late call. "Our plans were explicit. Why have you deviated?" Homosoto was controlled but forthright. "What the hell are you talking about?" Miles sipped loudly from the brandy glass. "I have read about the virus, the computer virus. The whole world in talking about it. Mr. Foster, you are early. I thought we had an understanding." "Hey!" Foster yelled into the phone. "I don't know where you get off calling me at 2 in the morning, but you've got your head up your ass." "Excuse me Mr. Foster, I do not and could not execute such a motion. However, do not forget we did have an agreement." Homosoto was insistent. "What the fuck are you talking about?" Miles was adamant. "Since you insist on these games, Mr. Foster. I have read with great interest about the so called Columbus Day Virus. I believe you have made a great error in judgment." Miles had just had about enough of this. "If you've got something to say, say it." he snorted into the phone. "Mr. Foster. Did we not agree that the first major strike was not to occur until next year?" "Yeah," Miles said offhandedly. He saw Perky open her eyes and look at him quizzically. He made a fist with his right hand and made an obscene motion near his crotch. "Then, what is this premature event?" Homosoto persisted. "Not mine." Miles looked out the balcony. Perky was invitingly licking her lips. Miles turned away to avoid distraction. "Mr. Foster, I find it hard to believe that you are not responsi- ble." "Tough shit." "Excuse me?" Homosoto was taken aback. "Simple. You are not the only person, and neither am I, the only person who has chosen to build viruses or destructive computer programs. We are merely taking a good idea and taking it to its logical conclusion as a pure form of offensive weaponsry. This one's not mine nor yours. It's someone elses." The phone was silent for a few seconds. "You are saying there are others?" The childlike naivete was coming through over 12,000 miles of phone wire. "Of course there are. This will probably help us." "How do you mean?" "There are a hundreds of viruses, but none as effective as the ones which we use. A lot of amateurs use them to build their egos. Jerusalem-B, Lehigh, Pakistani, Brain, Marijuana, they all have names. They have no purpose other than self aggrandizement. So, we will be seeing more and more viruses appear that have nothing to do with our efforts. I do hope you will not call every time you hear of one. You know our dates. " "Is there no chance for error?" "Oh yes! There is, but it will be very isolated if it occurs. Most viruses do not receive as much attention as this one, and probably won't until we are ready. And, as I recall we are not ready." Miles was tired of the timing for the hand holding session. Ms. Perkins was beckoning. "I hope you are right. My plans must not be interfered with." "Our plans," Miles corrected. "my ass is on the line, too. I don't need you freaking every time the press reports a computer going on the fritz. It's gonna happen a lot." "What will happen, Mr. Foster?" Homosoto was able to convey disgust with a Japanese accent like no other. "We've been through this before." "Then go through it again," Homosoto ordered. Miles turned his back to Perky and sat on the couch inside where he was sure he could speak in privacy. "Listen here Homo," Miles scowled. "In the last couple of years viruses have been become techno-yuppie amusements. The game has intensified as the stakes have increased. Are you aware . . .no I'm sure you're not, that the experts here say that, besides our work, almost every local area network in the country is infected with a virus of one type or another. Did you know that?" "No, Mr. Foster, I didn't. How do you know that?" Homosoto sounded unconvinced. "It's my fucking job to know that. And you run an empire?" "Yes, I know , and I hope you do, Mr. Foster, that you work for me." Condenscention was an executive Oriental trait that Miles found unsettling. "For now, I do." "You do, and will until our job is over. Is that clear Mr. Foster? You have much to lose." Miles sank deep into the couch, smirking and puckering his dim- ples. He wanted to convey boredom. "I a job. You an empire." "Do not be concerned about me. Good night, Mr. Foster." Homosoto had quickly cut the line. Just as well, thought Miles. He had enough of that slant-eyed slope-browed rice-propelled mother-fucker for one night. He had bigger and better and harder things to concern him. * * * * * October 31, 1989 Falls Church, Virginia. "What do you mean gone?" "Gone. Gone. It's just gone." Fred Porter sounded panicked. Larry Ferguson, the Senior Vice President of First National Bank did not appreciate the news he was getting from the Transfer Department in New York. "Would you be kind enough to explain?" he said with disdain. "Yessir, of course." Porter took a deep breath. "We were running a balance, the same one we run every day. And every day, they balance. The transfers, the receipts, the charges . . .every- thing. When we ran them last night, they didn't add up. We're missing a quarter billion dollars." "A quarter billion dollars? You better have one good explanation, son." "I wish I did," Porter sighed. "All right, let's go through it top to bottom." Ferguson knew that it was ultimately his ass if $250 Million was really miss- ing. "It's just as I told you." "Then tell me again!" Ferguson bellowed. "Yessir, sorry. We maintain transfer accounts as you know." "Of course I know." "During the day we move our transfer funds into a single account and wait till the end of the day to move the money to where it belongs. We do that because . . ." "I know why we do it. Cause for every hundred million we hold for half a day we make $16,000 in interest we don't have to pay out." "Yessir, but that's not official . . ." "Of course it's not you idiot . . ." "I'm sorry sir." "As you were saying . . ." Ferguson was glad he had moved the psychological stress to his underling. "When we got to the account, about 9:00 A.M., it was empty. That's it. Empty. All the money was gone." "And, pray tell, where did it go?" Templeton said sarcastically. "We don't know. It was supposed to have been transferred to hundreds of accounts. Here and abroad. There's no audit of what happened." "Do you know how long it will take you to pay for this screw up Porter?" Templeton demanded. "Yessir." "How long?" "A hundred lifetimes," Porter said dejectedly. "Longer. A lot longer." Ferguson really knew that Porter would- n't pay any price. As long as the computer records showed he wasn't at fault, he would continue to be a valued employee. Ferguson himself was bound to be the scape goat. "What do you want me to do, sir?" Porter asked. "You've done enough. Just wire me the records. I need them yesterday. I have to talk to Weinhauser." Ferguson hung up in disgust. It was not going to be a good day. **************************************************************** Chapter 11 Wednesday, November 4 The Stock Exchange, New York Wall Street becomes a ghost town by early evening with the night population largely consisting of guards, cleaning and maintenance people. Tightly packed skyscrapers with their lighted windows create random geometric patterns in the moonless cityscape and hover ominously over dimly lit streets. Joe Patchok and Tony Romano worked as private guards on the four to midnight shift at the Stock Exchange on Cortland Street in lower Manhattan. For a couple of young college guys this was the ideal job. They could study in peace and quiet, nothing ever happened, no one bothered them, and the pay was decent. They were responsible for the 17th. and 18th. floors which had a sole entrance and exit; controlled access. This was where the central computers for the Stock Exchange tried to maintain sanity in the market. The abuses of computer trading resulting in the minicrash of 1987 forced a re-examination of the practice and the subsequent installation of computer brakes to dampen severe market fluctuations. Hundreds of millions of shares exchanged every day are recorded in the computers as are the international, futures and commodi- ties trades. The dossiers on thousands upon thousands of compa- nies stored in the memory banks and extensive libraries were used to track investors, ownership, offerings, filings and provide required information to the government. Tony sat at the front guard desk while Joe made the next hourly check through the offices and computer rooms. Joe strolled down the halls, brilliantly lit from recessed ceiling fixtures. The corridor walls were all solid glass, giving the impression of more openness than was really provided by the windowless, climate controlled, 40% sterile environment. There was no privacy working in the computer rooms. The temperature and humidity were optimized; the electricity content of air was neutralized both electrostatically and by nuclear ionization, and the air cycled and purified once an hour. In the event of a catastrophic power failure, which is not un- known in New York, almost 10,000 square feet was dedicated to power redundancy and battery backup. In case of fire, heat sensors trigger the release of halon gas and suck all of the oxygen from the room in seconds. The Stock Exchange computers received the best care. Joe tested the handle on the door of each darkened room through the myriad glass hallways. Without the computers behind the glass walls, it might as well have been a House of Mirrors. He noticed that the computer operators who work through the night were crowded together at the end of a hall next to the only computer rooms with activity. He heard them muttering about the cleaning staff. "Hey guys, problem?" Joe asked. "Nah, we escaped," a young bearded man in a white lab coat said pointing into the room. "His vacuum cleaner made one God awful noise, so we came out here til' he was done." "New cleaning service," Joe said offhandedly. The dark complexioned cleaning man wore a starchy white uniform with Mohammed's Cleaning Service emblazoned across the back in bold red letters. They watched him, rather than clean the room, fiddle with the large barrel sized vacuum cleaner. "What's he doing?" "Fixing that noise, I hope." "What's he doing now?" "He's looking at us and, saying something . . ." "It looks like he's praying . . ." "Why the hell would he . . ." The entire 46 story building instantly went dark and the force of the explosion rocked Tony from his seat fifty yards away. He reached for the flashlight on his belt and pressed a series of alarms on the control panel even though the video monitors were black and the emergency power had not come on. Nothing. He ran towards the sound of the blast and yelled. "Hello? Hey?" he yelled nervously into the darkness. "Over here, hurry," a distant pained voice begged. Tony slid into a wall and stopped. He pointed his flashlight down one hall. Nothing. "Over here." He jumped sideways and pointed the beam onto a twisted maze of bodies, some with blood geysering into the air from their necks and arms and legs. Tony saw that the explosion had shattered the glass walls into thousands of high velocity razor sharp projec- tiles. The corpses had been pierced, stabbed, severed and muti- lated by the deadly shards. Tony felt nauseous; he was going to be sick right then. "Tony." A shrapnelled Joe squeaked from the mass of torn flesh ahead of him. "Holy shit . . ." Tony's legs to turned to jelly as he bent over and gagged. "Help me!" The force of the blast had destroyed the glass partitions as far as his light beam would travel. He pointed the light into the room that exploded. The computer equipment was in shambles, and then he saw what was left of the cleaning man. His severed head had no recognizable features and pieces of his body were strewn about. Tony suddenly vomited onto the river of blood that was flowing his way down the hallway. "I gotta go get help," Tony said choking. He pushed against the wall to give him the momentum to overcome the paralysis his body felt and ran. "No, help me . . ." He ran down the halls with his flashlight waving madly. The ele- vators. They were out, too. Maybe the phone on the console. Dead. He picked up the walkie-talkie and pushed the button. Nothing. He banged the two way radio several times on the coun- ter in the futile hope that violence was an electronic cure-all. Dead. Tony panicked and threw it violently into the blackness. Neither the small TV, nor his portable radio worked. * * * * * "I know it's almost midnight," Ben Shellhorne said into the cellular phone. He cupped his other ear to hear over the commo- tion at the Stock Exchange building. "Quit your bitching. Look at it this way; you might see dawn for the first time in your life." Ben joked. All time was equal to Ben but he knew that Scott said he didn't do mornings. "Sure, I'll wait," Ben said in disgust and waited with agitation until Scott came back to the phone. "Good. But don't forget that beer isn't just for breakfast." He craned his neck to see that the NYPD Bomb Squad had just left and gave the forensics team the go ahead. No danger. "Listen," Ben said hurriedly. "I gotta make it quick, I'm going in for some pictures." He paused and then said, "Yes, of course after the bodies are gone. God, you can be gross." He paused again. "I'll meet you in the lobby. One hour." Ben Shellhorn, a denizen of the streets, reported stories that sometimes didn't fit within the all-the-news-that's-fit-to-print maxim. Many barely bordered on the decent, but they were all well done. For some reason, unknown even to Ben, he attracted news whose repulsiveness made them that much more magnetic to readers. Gruesome lot we are, he thought. That's why one of his police contacts called him to say that a bunch of computer nerds were sliced to death. The Cheers rerun was bringing him no pleasure, so sure, what the hell; it was a nice night for a mutilation. "It's getting mighty interesting, buddy boy," Ben said meeting Scott as he stepped out of his filthy Red 911 in front of the Stock Exchange an hour later. His press credentials performed wonders at times. Like getting behind police lines and not having to park ten blocks away. The police had brought in generators to power huge banks of lights to eerily light up the Stock Exchange building, all 500 feet of it. Emergency vehicles filled the wide street, every- thing from ambulances, fire engines, riot vehicles and New York Power. Then there were the DA's office, lawyers for the Ex- change, insurance representatives and a ton of computer people. "What the hell happened here?" Scott asked looking at the pande- monium on the cordoned off Cortland Street. "Where are all the lights?" He turned and gazed at the darkened streets and tall buildings. "Did you know a bunch of the street lights are out, too?" Scott meandered in seeming awe of the chaos. "This is one strange one," Ben said as they approached the build- ing entrance. "Let me ask you a question, you're the techno- freak." Scott scowled at him for the reference but didn't comment. "What kind of bomb stops electricity?" "Electricity? You mean power?" Scott pointed at the blackened buildings and streets and Ben nodded. "Did they blow the block transformers?" "No, just a small Cemex, plastic, bomb in one computer room. Did some damage, but left an awful lot standing. But the death toll was high. Eleven dead and two probably not going to make it. Plus the perp." Scott gazed around the scene. The dark sky was pierced by the top floors of the World Trade Center, and there were lights in the next blocks. So it's not a blackout. And it wasn't the power grid that was hit. A growing grin preceded Scott shaking his head side to side. "What is it?" Ben asked. "A nuke." "A nuke?" "Yeah, that's it, a nuke," Scott said excitedly. "A nuke knocks out power. Of course." "Right," Ben said mockingly. "I can hear it now: Portion of 17th. Floor of Exchange Devastated by Nuclear Bomb. News at Eleven." "Never mind," Scott brushed it off. "Can we get up there?" He pointed at the ceiling. "See the place?" Ben pulled a few strings and spent a couple of hundred of Scott's dollars but succeeded in getting to the corpse-less site of the explosion. Scott visually poked around the debris and noticed a curved porcelain remnant near his feet. He wasn't supposed to touch, but, what was it? And the ruby colored chunks of glass? In the few seconds they were left alone, they snapped a quick roll of film and made a polite but hasty departure. At $200 a minute Scott hoped he would find what he was looking for. "Ben, I need these photos blown up, to say, 11 X 17? ASAP." The press conference at 4:15 in the morning was necessary. The Stock Exchange was not going to open Thursday. The lobby of the Stock Exchange was aflood with TV camera lights, police and the media hoards. Voices echoed loudly, between the marble walls and floor and made hearing difficult. "We don't want to predict what will happen over the next 24 hours," the exhausted stocky spokesman for the Stock Exchange said loudly, to make himself heard over the din. "We have every reason to expect that we can make a quick transition to another system." "How is that done?" "We have extensive tape vaults where we store everything from the Exchange computers daily. We will either use one of our backup computers, or move the center to a temporary location. We don't anticipate any delays." "What about the power problem?" A female reporter from a local TV news station asked. "Con Ed is on the job," the spokesman said, pleased they were picking on someone else. "I have every confidence they will have things up and flying soon." "What caused the power outage?" "We don't have the answer to that now." Scott edged to the front of the crowd to ask a question. "What if," Scott asked the spokesman. "if the tapes were destroyed?" "Thank God they weren't . . ." he said haltingly. "Isn't it true," Scott ventured accusingly, "that in fact you already know that every computer in this building is dead, all of the emergency power backup systems and batteries failed and that every computer tape or disk has been completely erased?" The other reporters stood open mouthed at the unexpected question. Scott spoke confidently, knowing that he was being filmed by the networks. The spokesman nervously fumbled with some papers in his hand. The press pool waited for the answer that had silenced the spokesman. He stammered, "We have no . . .until power is restored a full determination of the damage cannot be made . . ." Scott pressed the point. "What would happen if the tapes were all erased?" "Uh, I, well . . ." he glanced from side to side. On his left were two men dressed in matching dark blue suits, white shirts and sunglasses. "It is best not to speculate until we have more information." "Computer experts have said that if the tapes are erased it would take at least thirty days to recreate them and get the Exchange open again. Is that correct?" Scott exaggerated. He was the computer expert to whom he referred. Journalistic license. "Under the conditions," the spokesman said trying to maintain a credible visage to front for his lies, "I also have heard some wildly exaggerated estimates. Let me assure you," the politician in him came out here. "that the Exchange will in no way renege on its fiduciary responsibilities to the world financial communi- ty." He glanced at his watch. "I'm afraid that's all the time I have now. We will meet here again at 9:00 A.M. for a further briefing. Thank you." He quickly exited under the protection of New York's finest as the reporters all shouted their last questions. Scott didn't bother. It never works. One of the men in the blue suits leaned over to the other and spoke quietly in his ear. "Who is that guy asking all those ques- tions?" "Isn't that the reporter the Director was talking about?" "Yeah. He said we should keep an eye on him." * * * * * Thursday, November 5 Tokyo, Japan <<<<<<AUTOCRYPT MODE>>>>>> MR. SHAH Ahmed heard his computer announce that Homosoto was calling. He pushed the joystick on the arm of his electric wheelchair and proceeded over to the portable computer that was outfitted with an untraceable cellular modem. Even if the number was traced through four interstate call forwards and the original overseas link, finding him was an entirely different matter. Ahmed entered the time base PRG code from the ID card he kept strapped to his wheelchair. yes. CONGRATULATIONS ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE. yes. we were well served by martyrs. they are to be honored. CAN YOU HAVE MORE READY? 8 more. WHEN? 1 month. GOOD. PUT THEM HERE. SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, IMMIGRA- TION AND NATURALIZATION, AMERICAN EXPRESS, NEW YORK FEDERAL RESERVE, STATE FARM INSURANCE, FANNY MAE, CITIBANK AND FEDERAL EXPRESS. done. DO IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. THEN MAKE MORE. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> * * * * * Friday, November 6 New York City The Stock Exchange didn't open Friday either. Scott Mason had made enough of a stink about the erased tapes that they could no longer hide under the cover of computer mal- functions. It was finally admitted that yes, the tapes were needed to verify all transactions, especially the computer trans- actions, and they had been destroyed along with the entire con- tents of the computer's memory and hard disks. Wiped out. Totally. The Exchange didn't tell the press that the National Security Agency had been quietly called in to assist. The NSA specializes in information gathering, and over the years with tens of bil- lions of dollars in secret appropriations, they have developed extraordinary methods to extract usable information where there is apparently none. The Exchange couriered a carton of computer tapes to NSA's Fort Meade where the most sophisticated listening and analysis tools in the world live in acres upon acres of underground laboratories and data processing centers. What they found did not make the NSA happy. The tapes had in fact been totally erased. A total unidirectional magnetic pattern. Many 'erased' tapes and disks can be recovered. One of the preferred recovery methods is to use NMR Nuclear Magnetic Reso- nance, to detect the faintest of organized magnetic orientations. Even tapes or disks with secret information that have been erased many times can be 'read' after an MNR scan. The electromagnetic signature left remnant on the tapes, the molecular alignment of the ferrous and chromium oxide particles in this case were peculiarly characteristic. There was little doubt. The NSA immediately called the Exchange and asked them, almost ordered them, to leave the remaining tapes where they were. In less than two hours an army of NSA technicians showed up with crates and vehicles full of equipment. The Department of Energy was right behind with equipment suitable for radiation measure- ments and emergency responses. DOE quickly reached no conclusion. Not enough information. Initially they had expected to find that someone had stumbled upon a way to make highly miniaturized nuclear weapons. The men from the NSA knew they were wrong. * * * * * It took almost six weeks for the Stock Exchange to function at its previous levels. Trading was reduced to paper and less than 10,000,000 shares daily for almost two weeks until the temporary system was expanded with staff and runners. Daily trading never was able to exceed 27,000,000 shares until the computers came back on line. The SEC and the Government Accounting Office released preliminary figures indicating the shut down of the Exchange would cost the American economy almost $50 Billion this year. Congress is preparing legislation to provide emergency funding to those firms that were adversely affected by the massive computer failure. The Stock Exchange has said that it will institute additional physical and computer security to insure that there is no repeat of the unfortunate suicide assault. * * * * * Sunday, November 8 Scarsdale, New York "You never cease to amaze me," Tyrone said as he entered Scott's ultra modern house. "You and this freaking palace. Just from looking at you, I'd expect black lights, Woodstock posters and sleeping bags." He couldn't recall if he had ever seen Scott wear anything but jeans, t-shirts or sweat shirts and spotlessly clean Reeboks. Scott's sprawling 8000 square foot free form geometric white on white home sat on 2 acres at the end of a long driveway heavily treed with evergreens so that seclusion was maintained all year long. Featured in Architectural Digest, the designers made generous use of glass brick inside and out. The indoor pool boasted sliding glass walls and a retractable skylight ceiling which gave the impression of outdoor living, even in the midst of a harsh winter. "They're in the music room." Scott proceeded to open a set of heavy oak double doors. "Soundproof, almost," he said cheerily. A 72 inch video screen dominated one wall and next to it sat a large control center with VCR's, switchers and satellite tuner. Scott's audio equipment was as complex as Ty had ever seen and an array of speaker systems flanked the huge television. "Toys, you got the toys, don't you?" joked Tyrone. "The only difference is that they cost more," agreed Scott. "You wanna see a toy and a half? I invented it myself." "Not another one?" groaned Tyrone. "That idiot golf machine of yours was . . ." "Capable of driving 350 yards, straight as an arrow." "And as I remember, carving up the greens pretty good." Scott and his rolling Golf Gopher had been thrown off of several courses already. "A few modifications, that's all," laughed Scott. Scott led Tyrone through the immense family-entertainment room into a deep navy blue, white accented Euro-streamlined automated kitchen. It was like no other kitchen he had ever seen. In fact, other than the sinks and the extensive counters, there was no indication that this room was intended for preparing food. Scott flipped a switch and suddenly the deep blue cabinet doors faded into a transparent tint baring the contents of the shelves. The fronts of the stoves, refrigerator and freezer and other appliances exposed their function and controls. "Holy Jeez . . ." Ty said in amazement. Last month this had been a regular high tech kitchen of the 80's. Now it was the Jetsons. "That's incredible . . .you invented that?" "No," dismissed Scott. "That's just a neat trick of LCD panels built into the cabinets. This was my idea." He pressed an invisible switch and 4 ten inch openings appeared on the counter top near the sink. "Combination trash compacter re-cycler. Glass, plastic, aluminum, metal and paper. Comes out by the garbage, ready to go to the center." "Lazy son of a bitch aren't you?" Tyrone laughed loudly. "Sure, I admit my idea of gardening is watching someone mow the lawn." Scott feigned offense. "But this is in the name of Green. I bet if you had one, you'd use it and Arlene would get off your ass." "No way," Tyrone objected. "My marriage is too good to screw up. It's the only thing left we still fight about, and we both like it just the way it is. Thanks, but no thanks. I'm old fashioned." Scott showed Tyrone how to use the kitchen and he found that no matter what he wanted, there was button for it, a hidden drawer or a disguised appliance. "I still buy dishwashers at Sears. How the hell do you know how to use this stuff," Ty said fumbling with the automatic bottle opener which automatically dropped the removed caps into the hole for the metal compactor. Tyrone had come over to Scott's house for a quiet afternoon of Sunday football. An ideal time because Arlene had gone to Boston for the weekend with his daughters. Freedom! They made it to the Music Room with their beers as the kickoff was midfield. "So how's the promotion going?" Scott asked Tyrone in half jest. Over the last few weeks, Ty had spent most of his time in Washington and what little time was left with his family. "Promotion my ass. It's the only way I can not get a promotion." Tyrone added somberly, "and it may be my last case." "What do you mean?" Scott asked. "It's gotten outta hand, totally out of hand. We have to spend more time protecting the rights of the goddamned criminals than solving crimes. That's not what it should be about. At least not for me." "You're serious about this," Scott said rhetorically. "Hey, sooner or later I gotta call it quits," Ty replied soberly. "But this computer thing's gonna make my decision easier." "That's what I asked. How's the promotion?" "Let's just say, more of the same but different. Except the interagency crap is amazing. No one commits to anything, and everything needs study and nothing gets done." Tyrone sighed. He had been in Washington working with NIST, NSA, DoD and every other agency that thought it had a vested interest in computers and their protection. Their coordination with CERT and ECCO was a joke, even by government standards. At the end of the first quarter, the 49'ers were holding a solid 10 point lead. Scott grabbed a couple more beers and began tell- ing Tyrone about the incident at the Exchange. The New York Police had taken over the case, declaring sovereignty over Wall Street and its enclaves. "They don't know what they have, however," Scott said immodestly. "The talk was a small scale nuke . . ." "The DOE smashed that but fast," Scott interrupted. "What if I told you that it was only the computers that were attacked? That the deaths were merely incidental?" Tyrone groaned as the 49'ers fumbled the ball. "I'd listen," he said noncommittally. "It was a classified magnetic bomb. NSA calls them EMP-T." "Empty? The empty bomb?" Tyrone said skeptically. "Since when does NSA design bombs?" "Listen," said Scott trying to get Ty's attention away from the TV. "Have you ever heard of C-Cubed, or C3?" "No." He stared at the San Francisco defense being crushed. "Command, Control and Communications It's a special government program to deal with nuclear warfare." "Pleasant thought," said Tyrone. "Yeah, well, one result of a nuclear blast is a terrific release of electromagnetic energy. Enough to blow out communications and power lines for miles. That's one reason that silos are hardened - to keep the communications lines open to permit the President or whoever's still alive to shoot back." "Like I said," Tyrone shuddered, "pleasant thought." He stopped suddenly at turned to Scott. "So it was a baby nuke?" "No, it was EMP-T," Scott said in such a way to annoy Ty. "Electro Magnetic Pulse Transformer." The confusion on Tyrone's face was clear. "Ok, it's actually pretty simple. You know what interference sounds like on the radio or looks like on a TV?" "Sure. My cell phone snaps, crackles and pops all of the time." "Exactly. Noise is simply electromagnetic energy that interferes with the signal. Right?" Scott waited for Tyrone to respond that he understood so far. "Good. Imagine a magnetic pulse so strong that it not only interferes with the signal, but overloads the electronics them- selves. Remember that electricity and magnetism are the same force taking different forms." Tyrone shook his head and curled his mouth. "Right. I knew that all the time." Scott ignored him. "The EMP-T bomb is an electromagnetic explosion, very very short, only a few milliseconds, but incredibly intense." Scott gestured to indicate the magnitude of the invisible explosion. "That was the bomb that went off at the Stock Exchange." "How can you possibly know that?" Tyrone asked with a hint of professional derision. "That requires a big leap of faith . . ." Scott leaned over to the side of the couch and picked up the two items he had retrieved from the Exchange. "This," Scott said handing a piece of ceramic material to Ty, "is superconducting material. Real new. It can superconduct at room temperature. And this," he handed Tyrone a piece of red glass, "is a piece of a high energy ruby laser." Tyrone turned the curios over and over in his hands. "So?" he asked. "By driving the output of the laser into a High Energy Static Capacitive Tank, the energy can be discharged into the super coil. The instantaneous release of energy creates a magnetic field of millions of gauss." Scott snapped his fingers. "And that's more than enough to blow out computer and phone circuits as well as erase anything magnetic within a thousand yards." Tyrone was now ignoring the football action. He stared alternate- ly at Scott and the curious glass and ceramic remnants. "You're bullshitting me, right? Sounds like science fiction." "But the fact is that the Stock Exchange still isn't open. Their entire tape library is gone. Poof! Empty, thus the name EMP-T. It empties computers. Whoever did this has a real bad temper. Pure revenge. They wanted to destroy the information, and not the hardware itself. Otherwise the conventional blast would have been stronger. The Cemex was used to destroy the evidence of the EMP-T device." "Where the hell do these bombs come from." "EMP-T technology was originally developed as part of a Top Secret DARPA project for the DoD with NSA guidance a few years back." "Then how do you know about it?" "I did the documentation for the first manuals on EMP-T. Nothing we got from the manufacturer was marked classified and we didn't know or care." "What was the Army going to do with them?" asked Tyrone, now with great interest. "You know, I had forgotten all about this stuff until the other night, and then it all came back to me," Scott said mentally reminiscing. "At the time we thought it was a paranoid joke. Another government folly. The EMP-T was supposed to be shot at the enemy to screw up his battlefield computers and radar and electronics before the ground troops or helo's went it. As I understand it, EMP-T bombs are made for planes, and can also be launched from Howitzers and tanks. According to the manufactur- er, they can't be detected and leave a similar signature to that of a conventional nuclear blast. If there is such a thing as a conventional nuke." "Who else knows about this," Tyrone asked. "The police?" "You think the NYPD would know what to look for?" Scott said snidely. "Their bomb squad went home after the plastic explosive was found." "Right. Forget where I was." "Think about it," Scott mused out loud. "A bomb that destroys all of the computers and memory but leaves the walls standing." "Didn't that asshole Carter want to build a nuke that would only kill people but leave the city intact for the marauding invaders? Neutron bombs, weren't they?" "There's obviously nothing immoral about nuking computers," Scott pontificated. "It was all part of Star Wars. Reagan's Strategic Defense included attacking enemy satellites with EMP-T bombs. Get all of the benefits and none of the fallout from a nuke. There's no accompanying radiation." "How easy is it to put one of the empty-things together?" Tyrone missed another 49'er touchdown. "Today?" Scott whistled. "The ones I saw were big, clumsy affairs from the 70's. With new ceramics, and such, I would assume they're a lot smaller as the Stock Exchange proves. A wild guess? I bet that EMP-T is a garage project for a couple of whiz kids, or if the government orders them, a couple hundred thou each." Scott laughed at the absurdity of competitive bid- ding for government projects. Everyone knew the government paid more for everything. They would do a lot better with a VISA card at K-Mart. "I think I better take a look," Tyrone hinted. "I thought you would, buddy. Thought you would." Scott replied. They returned to the game 12 seconds before half time. The gun went off. Perfect timing. Scott hated football. The only reason in his mind for the existence of the Super Bowl was to drink beer with friends and watch the commercials. "Shit," declared Tyrone. "I missed the whole damned second quar- ter." He grabbed another beer to comfort his disappointment. "Hey," Scott called to Tyrone. "During the next half, I want to ask you something." Tyrone came back into the Music Room snickering. "What the hell is that in your bathroom?" "Isn't that great?" asked the enthused Scott. "It's an automatic toilet seat." "Now just what the devil is an automatic toilet seat? It pulls it out and dries it off for you?" He believed that Scott was kid- ding with some of his half baked inventions. That Scott subject- ed any of his guests to their intermittent functioning was cruel and inhuman punishment according to Tyrone. "You're married with girls. Aren't they always on your case about the toilet seat?" "I've been married 26 years," Tyrone said with pride. "I con- quered toilet seats on our honeymoon. She let me know right then that she was boss and what the price of noncompliance was." "Ouch, that's not fair," Scott said in sympathy. "I sleep-piss." He held his hands out in front. "That's the only side effect from too much acid. Sleep pissing." Tyrone scrunched his face in disgust. Scott spoke rapidly and loudly. "So for those of us who forget to lower the seat after use, for those who forget to raise the seat; for those who forget to raise the lid, Auto-Shit." Ty had tried to ignore him, but Scott's imitation of a hyperactive cable shopping network host demanded that one at least hear him out. Ty's eyes teared. "Make that woman in your life happy today. No more mess, fuss or or morning arguments. No more complaints from the neighbors or the health department. Auto-Shit. The toilet that knows your needs. The seat for the rest of us. Available in 6 designer colors. Only $49.95, Mastercard, VISA, No COD. Operators are standing by." Tyrone fell over on his side laughing. "You are crazy, man. Sleep pissing. And, if you don't know it, no one, I mean no one in his right mind has five trash compactors." Tyrone waved his hand at Scott. "Ask me what you were gonna ask me." "Off the record, Ty," Scott started, "how're the feds viewing this mess?" Tyrone hated the position he was in, but Scott had given him a ltoe recently. It was time to reciprocate. "Off?" "So far off, so far off that if you turned the light "On" it would still be off." "It's a fucking mess," Tyrone said quickly. He was relieved to be able to talk about it. "You can't believe it. I'm down there to watch a crisis management team in action, but what do I find?" He shook his head. "They're still trying to decide on the size of the conference table." The reference caught Scott's ear. "No, it's not that bad, but it might as well be." "How is this ECCO thing put together? Who's responsible?" "Responsible? Ha! No one," Tyrone chuckled as he recounted the constant battles among the represented agencies. "This is the perfect bureaucratic solution. No one is responsible for shit, no one is accountable, but they all want to run the show. And, no one agency clearly has authority. It's a fucking disaster." "No one runs security? In the whole government, no one runs security?" "That's pushing it a little, but not too far off base." "Oh, I gotta hear this," Scott said reclining in the deep plush cloth covered couch. "Once upon a time, a super secret agency, no one ever spoke the initials, but it begins with the National Security Agency, got elected by the Department of Defense to work out communications security during the Cold War. They took their job very seriously. "Then along came NIST and IBM who developed DES. The DOD formed the Computer Security Initiative and then the Computer Security Evaluation Center. The DOD CSEC became the DOD Computer Security and then after NSA realized that everybody knew who they were, it became the NCSC. Following this?" Scott nodded only not to disrupt the flow. "Ok, in 1977, Carter signed a bill that said to NSA, you take over the classified national security stuff, but he gave the dregs, the unclassified stuff to the NTIA, a piece of Commerce. But that bill made a lot of people unhappy. So, along comes Reagan who says, no that's wrong, before we get anything con- structive done, let me issue a Directive, number 145, and give everything back to NSA. "That pissed off even more people and Congress then passed the Computer Security Act of 1987, stripped NSA of what it had and gave NIST the unclassified stuff. As a result, NSA closed the NCSC, NIST is underbudgeted by a factor of 100 and in short, they all want a piece of a very small pie. That took over 4 years. And that's whose fault it is. "Whose?" "Congress of course. Congress passes the damn laws and then won't fund them. Result? I get stuck in the middle of third tier rival agency technocrats fighting over their turf or shirking responsibility, and well , you get the idea. So I've got ECCO to talk to CERT to talk to NIST to talk to . . .and it goes on ad nauseum." "Sorry I asked," joked Scott. "In other words," Ty admitted, "I don't have the first foggy idea what we'll do. They all seem hell bent on power instead of fixing the problem. And the scary part?" "What's that?" "It looks like it can only get worse." * * * * * Tuesday, November 11 White House Press Room "Mr. President," asked the White House correspondent for Time magazine. "A recent article in the City Times said that the military has been hiding a super weapon for years that is capable of disabling enemy computers and electronics from a great dis- tance without any physical destruction. Is that true, sir, and has the use of those weapons contributed to the military's suc- cesses over the last few years?" "Ah, well," the President hesitated briefly. "The Stealth pro- gram was certainly a boon to our air superiority. There is no question about that, and it was kept secret for a decade." He stared to his left, and the press pool saw him take a visual cue from his National Security Director. "Isn't that right Henry?" Henry Kennedy nodded aggressively. "We have the best armed forces in the world, with all the advantages we can bring to bear, and I will not compromise them in any way. But, if there is such a classified program that I was aware of, I couldn't speak of it even if I didn't know it existed." The President picked another newsman. "Next, yes, Jim?" During the next question Henry Kennedy slipped off to the ante- room and called the Director of the National Security Agency. "Marv, how far have you gotten on this EMP-T thing?" He waited for a response. "The President is feeling embarrassed." Another pause. "So the Exchange is cooperating?" Pause. Wait. "How many pieces are missing?" Pause. "That's not what Mason's article said." Longer pause. "Deal with it." Immediately after the press conference, the President, Phil Musgrave, his Chief of Staff, Henry Kennedy and Quinton Chambers his old time ally and Secretary of State had an impromptu meeting in the Oval Office. They sat in the formal Queen Anne furniture as an elegant silver coffee and tea service was brought in for the five men. Minus Treasury Secreatry Martin Royce, this was the President' inner circle, his personal advisory clique who assisted in making grand national policy. Anything goes in one of these sessions, the President had made clear in the first days of his Administration. Anything. We do not take things personally here, he would say. We have to explore all options. All options. Even if they are distasteful. And in these meeting, treat me like one of the guys. "Yes, sir, Mr. President." The only formality of their caucuses was the President's fundamental need to mediate the sometimes heated dialogues between his most trusted aids. They were real free-for-alls. "Henry," the President said. "Before we start, who was that reporter? Where the hell did that question come up about the weapon stuff?" "Forget him. The story started at the City Times. Scott Mason, sir." Musgrave replied quickly. His huge football center sized body overwhelmed the couch on which he sat. "He's been giving extensive coverage to computer crime." "Well, do we have such a bomb?" he asked with real curiosity. "Ah, yessir," Henry Kennedy responded. "It's highly classified. But the object is simple. Lob in a few of the EMP-T bombs as they're called, shut down their communications and control, and move in during the confusion. Very effective, sir." "Well, let's see what we can do about keeping secrets a little better. O.K., boys?" The President's charismatic hold over even his dear friends and long time associates made him one of the most effective leaders in years. If he was given the right information. The President scanned a few notes he had made on a legal pad. "Can I forget about it?" the President closely scrutinized Henry for any body language. "Yessir." The President gave Henry one more glance and made an obvious point of highlighting the item. The subject would come up again. **************************************************************** Chapter 12 Thursday, November 14 NASA Control Center, Johnson Space Center The voice of Mission Control spoke over the loudspeakers and into hundreds of headsets. THE GROUND LAUNCH SEQUENCER HAS BEEN INITIATED. WE'RE AT T-MINUS 120 SECONDS AND COUNTING. The Space Shuttle Columbia was on Launch Pad 3, in its final preparation for another secret mission. As was expected, the Department of Defense issued a terse non-statement on its pur- pose: "The Columbia is carrying a classified payload will be used for a series of experiments. The flight is scheduled to last three days." In reality, and most everyone knew it, the Columbia was going to release another KH-5 spy satellite. The KH-5 series was able, from an altitude of 110 miles, to discern and transmit to Earth photos so crisp, it could resolve the numbers on an automobile license plate. The photographic resolution of KH-5's was the envy of every government on the planet, and was one of the most closely guarded secrets that everyone knew about. T-MINUS 110 SECONDS AND COUNTING. Mission control specialists at the Cape and in Houston monitored every conceivable instrument on the Shuttle itself and on the ground equipment that made space flight possible. A cavernous room full of technicians checked and double checked and triple checked fuel, temperature, guidance, computers sys- tems, backup systems, relays, switches, communications links, telemetry, gyros, the astronauts' physiology, life support systems, power supplies . . .everything had a remote control monitor. "The liquid hydrogen replenish has been terminated, LSU pressuri- zation to flight level now under way. Vehicle is now isolated from ground loading equipment." @COMPUTER T-MINUS 100 SECONDS AND COUNTING "SRB and external tank safety devices have been armed. Inhibit remains in place until T-Minus 10 seconds when the range safety destruct system is activated." The Mission Control Room had an immense map of the world spread across its 140 feet breadth. It showed the actual and projected trajectories of the Shuttle. Along both sides of the map were several large rear projection video screens. They displayed the various camera angles of the launch pad, the interior of the Shuttle's cargo hold, the cockpit itself and an assortment of other shots that the scientists deemed important to the success of each flight. T-MINUS 90 SECONDS AND COUNTING "At the T-Minus one minute mark, the ground launch sequencer will verify that the main shuttle engines are ready to start." T-MINUS 80 SECONDS AND COUNTING "Liquid hydrogen tanks now reported at flight pressure." The data monitors scrolled charts and numbers. The computers spewed out their data, updating it every few seconds as the screens flickered with the changing information. T-MINUS 70 SECONDS AND COUNTING The Voice of Mission Control continued its monotone countdown. Every airline passenger is familiar with the neo-Texas twang that conveys sublime confidence, even in the tensest of situations. The Count-down monitor above the global map decremented its numbers by the hundredths of seconds, impossible for a human to read but terribly inaccurate by computer standards. "Coming up on T-Minus one minute and counting." T-MINUS 60 SECONDS. "Pressure systems now armed, lift off order will be released at T-Minus 16 seconds." The voice traffic became chaotic. Hundreds of voices give their consent that their particular areas of responsibility are ship- shape. The word nominal sounds to laymen watching the world over as a classic understatement. If things are great, then say 'Fuel is Great!' NASA prefers the word Nominal to indicate that sys- tems are performing as the design engineers predicted in their simulation models. T-MINUS 50 SECONDS AND COUNTING. The hoses that connect the Shuttle to the Launch Pad began to fall away. Whirls of steam and smoke appeared around portions of the boosters. The tension was high. 45 seconds to go. "SRB flight instrumentation recorders now going to record." Eyes riveted to computer screens. It takes hundreds of computers to make a successful launch. Only the mission generalists watch over the big picture; the screens across the front of the behe- moth 80 foot high room. T-MINUS 40 SECONDS AND COUNTING "External tank heaters now turned off in preparation for launch." Screens danced while minds focused on their jobs. It wasn't until there were only 34 seconds left on the count down clock that anyone noticed. The main systems display monitor, the one that contained the sum of all other systems information displayed a message never seen before by anyone at NASA. @COMPMEMO "CHRISTA MCAULIFFE AND THE CHALLENGER WELCOME THE CREW OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA." "We have a go for auto sequence start. Columbia's forward comput- ers now taking over primary control of critical vehicle functions through lift-off." T-MINUS 30 SECONDS AND COUNTING "What the hell is that?" Mission Specialist Hawkins said to the technician who was monitoring the auto-correlation noise reduc- tion systems needed to communicate with the astronauts once in space. TWENTY NINE "What?" Sam Broadbent took off his earpiece. TWENTY EIGHT "Look at that." Hawkins pointed at the central monitor. TWENTY SEVEN "What does that mean, it's not in the book?" TWENTY SIX "I dunno. No chances though." Hawkins switched his intercom selector to 'ALL', meaning that everyone on line, including the Mission Control Director would hear. TWENTY FIVE "We have an anomaly here . . ." Hawkins said into his mouthpiece. TWENTY FOUR "Specify anomaly, comm," The dry voice returned. Hawkins wasn't quite sure how to respond. The practice runs had not covered this eventuality. TWENTY THREE "Look up at Video 6. Switching over." Hawkins tried to remain unflustered. TWENTY TWO "Copy comm. Do you contain?" TWENTY ONE "Negative Mission Control. It's an override." Hawkins answered. TWENTY - FIRING SEQUENCE NOMINAL The voice of Mission Control annoyed Hawkins for the first time in his 8 years at NASA. "Confirm and update." NINETEEN Hawkins blew his cool. "Look at the goddamned monitor for Chris- sakes. Just look!" He yelled into the intercom. EIGHTEEN "Holy . . .who's . . .please confirm, local analysis," the sober voice sounded concerned for the first time. SEVENTEEN "Confirmed anomaly." "Confirmed." "Confirmed." "Confirmed." The votes streamed in. SIXTEEN "We have a confirm . . ." T-MINUS 15 SECONDS AND COUNTING. TEN "We have a go for main engine start." SEVEN SIX FIVE "We have a main engine start . . .we have a cut off." "Columbia, we have a monitor anomaly, holding at T-minus 5." "That's a Roger, Houston," the commander of Space Shuttle Colum- bia responded calmly. "We have a manual abort override. Columbia's on board computers confirm the cut-off. Can you verify, Columbia?" "That's a Roger." The huge block letter message continued to blaze across the monitors. Craig Volker spoke rapidly into his master intercom system. "Cut network feed. Cut direct feed. Cut now! Now!" All TV networks suddenly lost their signal that was routed through NASA's huge video switches. NASA's own satellite feed was simul- taneously cut as well. If NASA didn't want it going to the public it didn't get sent. CNN got the first interview with NASA officials. "What caused today's flight to be aborted?" "We detected a slight leak in the fuel tanks. We believe that the sensors were faulty, that there was no leak, but we felt in the interest of safety it would be best to abort the mission. Orbital alignment is not critical and we can attempt a relaunch within 2 weeks. When we know more we will make further informa- tion available." The NASA spokesman left abruptly. The CNN newsman continued. "According to NASA, a malfunctioning fuel monitor was the cause of today's aborted shuttle launch. However, several seconds before the announced abort, our video signal was cut by NASA. Here is a replay of that countdown again." CNN technicians replayed one of their video tapes. The video monitors within Mission Control were not clear on the replay. But the audio was. "Look at the goddamned monitor for Chrissakes. Just look." Then the video went dead. * * * * * Steve Billings received an urgent message on his computer's E- Mail when he got home from classes. All it said was PHONE HOME He dialed NEMO directly this time. <<<<<<CONNECTION>>>>>> He chose CONVERSATION PIT from the menu. La Creme was there, alone and probably waiting. What's the panic? YOU DON'T KNOW? <<CREME>> Just finished exams . . .been locked up in student hell . . . NASA ABORT . . .SHUTTLE WENT TO SHIT. <<CREME>> So? More Beckel fuel problems I s'pose. UH . . .UH. NOT THIS TIME. NASA GOT AN INVITATION. <<CREME>> From aliens? SETI finally came through? NOPE. FROM CHRISTA MCAULIFFE. <<CREME>> Right. SERIOUS. SHE WELCOMED THE CREW OF COLUMBIA. <<CREME>> Get real . . . I AM. CHECK OUT CNN. THEY RECONSTRUCTED THE VIDEO SIGNAL BEFORE NASA SHUT THE FEED DOWN. THE MONITORS HAD A GREETING FROM CHRIS- TA. ABORTED THE DAMN MISSION. <<CREME>> I don't get it. NEITHER DO I. BUT, DON'T YOU PLAY AROUND IN NASA COMPUTERS? <<CREME>> Sure I do. Poke and Play. I'm not alone. AND REPROGRAM THE LAUNCH COMPUTERS? <<CREME>> Never. It's against the Code. I KNOW THAT, BUT DO YOU? <<CREME>> What are getting at? OK GOOD BUDDY . . .STRAIGHT SHOOTING. DID YOU GO IN AND PUT SOME MESSAGES ON MISSION CONTROL COMPUTERS? <<CREME>> Fuck, no. You know better than that. I HOPED YOU'D SAY THAT. <<CREME>> Hey . . .thanks for the vote of confidence. NO OFFENSE DUDE. HADDA ASK. THEN IF YOU DIDN'T WHO DID? <<CREME>> I don't know. That's sick. NO SHIT SHERLOCK. NASA'S ONE PISSED OFF PUPPY. THEY HAVEN'T GONE PUBLIC YET, BUT THE MEDIA'S GOT IT PEGGED THAT HACKERS ARE RESPONSIBLE. WE MAY HAVE TO LOCK IT UP. Damn. Better get clean. YOU LEAVE TRACKS? Nah. They're security is for shit. No nothing. Besides, I get in as SYSOP. I can erase my own tracks. BETTER BE SURE. I'm not going back, not for a while. THERE'S GONNA BE SOME SERIOUS HEAT ON THIS. Can't blame 'em. What d'you suggest? I'm clean, really. BELIEVE YOU GUY. I DO. BUT WILL THEY? I hope so . . . * * * * * Friday, November 15 New York City Times NASA SCRUBS MISSION: HACKERS AT PLAY? by Scott Mason NASA canceled the liftoff of the space shuttle Columbia yester- day, only 15 seconds prior to liftoff. Delays in the troubled shuttle program are nothing new. It seems that just about every- thing that can go wrong has gone wrong in the last few years. We watch fuel tanks leak, backup computers go bad, life support systems malfunction and suffer through a complete range of incom- prehensible defects in the multi-billion dollar space program. We got to the moon in one piece, but the politics of the Shuttle Program is overwhelming. Remember what Senator John Glenn said during his historic 3 orbit mission in the early days of the Mercury Program. "It worries me some. To think that I'm flying around up here in a machine built by the lowest bidder." At the time, when the space program had the support of the coun- try from the guidance of the young Kennedy and from the fear of the Soviet lead, Glenn's comment was meant to alleviate the tension. Successfully, at that. But since the Apollo fire and the Challenger disaster, and an all too wide array of constant technical problems, political will is waning. The entire space program suffers as a result. Yesterday's aborted launch echoes of further bungling. While the management of NASA is undergoing critical review, and executive replacements seem imminent, the new breed will have to live with past mistakes for some time. Unfortunately, most Americans no longer watch space launches, and those that do tune out once the astronauts are out of camera range. The Space Program suffers from external malaise as well as internal confusion. That is, until yesterday. In an unprecedented move, seconds after the countdown was halted, NASA cut its feeds to the networks and all 4 channels were left with the omnipresent long lens view of the space shuttle sitting idle on its launch pad. In a prepared statement, NASA blamed the aborted flight on yet another leak from the massive and explo- sive 355,000 gallon fuel tanks. In what will clearly become another public relations fiasco, NASA lied to us again. It appears that NASA's computers were invaded. CNN cooped the other three networks by applying advanced digital reconstruction to a few frames of video. Before NASA cut the feed, CNN was receiving pictures of the monitor walls from Mis- sion Control in Houston, Texas. Normally those banks of video monitors contain critical flight information, telemetry, orbital paths and other data to insure the safety of the crew and machin- ery. Yesterday, though, the video monitors carried a message to the nation: CHRISTA MCAULIFFE AND THE CHALLENGER WELCOME THE CREW OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA. This was the message that NASA tried to hide from America. Despite the hallucinations of fringe groups who are prophesizing imminent contact with an alien civilization, this message was not from a large black monolith on the Moon or from the Red Spot on Jupiter. A Star Baby will not be born. The threatening words came from a deranged group of computer hackers who thought it would be great sport to endanger the lives of our astronauts, waste millions of taxpayer dollars, retard military space missions and make a mockery of NASA. After con- fronted with the undisputed evidence that CNN presented to NASA officials within hours of the attempted launch, the following statement was issued: "The Space Shuttle Columbia flight performing a military mission, was aborted 5 seconds prior to lift-off. First reports indicated that the reason was a minor leak in a fuel line. Subsequent analysis showed, though, that the Side Band Communications Moni- toring System displayed remote entry anomalies inconsistent with program launch sequence. Automatic system response mechanisms put the count-down on hold until it was determined that intermit- tent malfunctions could not be repaired without a launch delay. The launch date has been put back until November 29." Permit me to translate this piece of NASA-speak with the straight skinny. The anomaly they speak of euphemistically was simple: A computer hacker, or hackers, got into the NASA computers and caused those nauseating words to appear on the screen. The implication was obvious. Their sickening message was a distinct threat to the safety of the mission and its crew. So, rather than an automat- ic systems shut-down, as the CNN tape so aptly demonstrates, a vigilant technician shouted, "Look at the g_______ed monitor for Chrissakes! Just look!" While the NASA computers failed to notice that they had been invaded from an outside source, their able staff prevented what could have been another national tragedy. Congratulations! If computer hackers, those insidious little moles who secretively poke through computer systems uninvited and unchecked, are the real culprits as well placed NASA sources suggest, they need to be identified quickly, and be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. There are laws that have been broken. Not only the laws regarding computer privacy, but legal experts say that cases can be made for Conspiracy, Sedition, Blackmail, Terrorism and Extortion. But, according to computer experts, the likelihood of ever find- ing the interlopers is " . . .somewhere between never and none. Unless they left a trail, which good hackers don't, they'll get away with this Scott free." Hackers have caused constant trouble to computer systems over the years, and incidents have been increasing in both number and severity. This computer assault needs to be addressed immediate- ly. America insists on it. Not only must the hacker responsible for this travesty be caught, but NASA must also explain how their computers can be compromised so easily. If a bunch of kids can enter one NASA communications computer, then what stops them from altering flight computers, life support systems and other comput- er controlled activities that demand perfect operation? NASA, we expect an answer. This is Scott Mason, waiting for NASA to lift-off from its duff and get down to business. * * * * * Friday, November 15 New York City. Scott Mason picked up the phone on the first ring. "Scott Mason," he said without thinking. "Mr. Mason? This is Captain Kirk." The voice was serious, but did not resonate as did the distinctive voice that belonged to William Shatner. Scott laughed into the phone. "Live long and prosper." Mason replied in an emotionless voice. "I need to talk to you," the voice came right back. "So talk." Scott was used to anonymous callers so he kept the rhythm of the conversation going. "You have it all wrong. Hackers aren't the ones." The voice was earnest. "What are you talking about?" Scott asked innocuously. "Your articles keep saying that hackers cause all the trouble on computers. You're wrong." "Says who?" Scott decided to play along. "Says me. You obviously don't know about the Code." "What code?" This was getting nowhere fast. "Listen, I know your phone is tapped, so I only have another few seconds. Do you want to talk?" "Tapped? What is this all about?" The annoyance was clear in Scott's voice. "You keep blaming everything on hackers. You're wrong." "Prove it." Scott gave this phone call another 10 seconds. "I've been inside the NASA computers." That got Scott to wake up from the droll papers on his desk. "Are you telling me you wrote the message . . .?" Scott could not contain his incredulity. "God, no." Captain Kirk was firm. "Do you have a modem? At home?" "Yeah, so what." Scott gave the caller only another 5 seconds. "What's the number?" "Is this love or hate?" Time's up thought Scott. "News." "What?" "News. Do I talk to you or the National Expos<130>? I figured you might be a safer bet." The voice who called himself Captain Kirk gave away nothing but the competitive threat was effective. "No contest. If it's real. What have you got?" Scott paid atten- tion. "What's the number?" the voice demanded. "Your modem." "Ok! 914-555-2190." Scott gave his home modem number. "Be on at midnight." The line went dead. Scott briefly mentioned the matter to his editor, Doug, who in turn gave him a very hard time about it. "I thought you said virus hacker connection was a big ho-hum. As I recall, you said they weren't sexy enough? What happened?" "Eating crow can be considered a delicacy if the main course is phenomonal." "I see," laughed Doug. Creative way out, he thought. "He said he'd been plowing around NASA computers," Scott argued. "Listen, ask your buddy Ben how many crackpots admit to crimes just for the attention. It's crap." Doug was too jaded, thought Scott. "No, no, it's legit," Scott said defensively. "Sounds like a hacker conspiracy to me." "Legit? Legit?" Doug laughed out loud. "Your last column just about called for all computer junkies to be castrated and drawn and quartered before they are hung at the stake. And now you think an anonymous caller who claims to be a hacker, is for real? C'mon, Scott. You can't have it both ways. Sometimes your conspiracies are bit far fetched . . ." "And when we hit, it sells papers." Scott reminded his boss that it was still a business. Nonetheless, Doug made a point that hit home with Scott. Could he both malign computer nerds as sub-human and then expect to derive a decent story from one of them? There was an inconsist- ency there. Even so, some pretty despicable characters have turned state's evidence and made decent witnesses against their former cohorts. Had Captain Kirk really been where no man had been before? "You don't care if I dig a little?" Scott backed off and played the humble reporter. "It's your life." That was Doug's way of saying, "I told you there was a story here. Run!" "No problem, chief." Scott snapped to mock attention and left his editor's desk before Doug changed his mind. * * * * * Midnight Scarsdale, New York Scott went into his study to watch Nightline after grabbing a cold beer and turned on the light over his computer. His study could by all standards be declared a disaster area, which his ex- wife Maggie often did. In addition to the formal desk, 3 folding tables were piled high with newspapers, loose clippings, books, scattered notes, folders, magazines, and crumpled up paper balls on the floor. The maid had refused to clean the room for 6 months since he blamed her for disposing of important notes that he had filed on the floor. They were back on good terms, he had apologized, but his study was a no-man's, or no maid's land. Scott battled to clear a place for his beer as his computer booted up. Since he primarily used his computer for writing, it wasn't terribly powerful by today's standards. A mere 386SX running at 20 megahertz and comparatively low resolution VGA color graphics. It was all he needed. He had a modem in it to connect to the paper's computer. This way he could leave the office early, write his articles or columns at home and still have them in by deadline. He also owned a GRiD 386 laptop com- puter for when he traveled, but it was buried beneath a mound of discarded magazines on one of the built-in floor to ceiling shelves that ringed the room. Scott wondered if Kirk would really call. He had seemed paranoid when he called this afternoon. Phones tapped? Where did he ever get that idea? Preposterous. Why wouldn't his phone at home be tapped if the ones at work were? We'll see. Scott turned the old 9" color television on the corner of the desk to Nightline. Enough to occupy him even if Kirk didn't call. He set the ComPro communications program to Auto-Answer. If Kirk, or anyone else did call him, the program would automatical- ly answer the phone and his computer would alert him that someone else's computer had called his computer. He noticed the clock chime midnight as Nightline went overtime to further discuss the new Soviet Union. Fascinating, he thought. I grow up in the 60's and 70's when we give serious concern to blowing up the world and today our allies of a half century ago, turned Cold War enemy, are talking about joining NATO. At 12:02, Scott Mason's computer beeped at him. The beeping startled him. He looked at the computer screen as a first message appeared. WTFO Scott didn't know what to make of it, so he entered a simple response. Hello. The computer screen paused briefly then came alive again. ARE YOU SCOTT MASON? Scott entered 'Yes'. THIS IS KIRK Scott wondered what the proper answer was to a non-question by a computer. So he retyped in his earlier greeting. Hello. Again. IS THIS YOUR FIRST TIME? What a question! Scott answered quickly. Please be gentle. NO . . .AT CHATTING ON COMPUTER . . . I call the computer at work. First time with a stranger. Is it safe? Scott had a gestalt realization. This was fun. He didn't talk to the paper's computer. He treated it as an electronic mailbox. But this, there was an attractiveness to the anonymity behind the game. Even if this Kirk was a flaming asshole, he might have discovered a new form of entertainment. VERY GOOD. YOU'RE QUICK. Not too quick, sweetheart. IS THIS REALLY SCOTT MASON? Yes. PROVE IT. Kirk, or whoever this was, was comfortable with anonymity, obvi- ously. And paranoid. Sure, play the game. You screwed up the NASA launch. I DID NOT!!!!!!!!!! OK, IT'S YOU. Glad to know it. YOU GOT IT ALL WRONG. What do I have wrong? ABOUT HACKERS. WE'RE NOT BAD. ONLY A FEW BAD APPLES, JUST LIKE COPS AND REPORTERS. I HOPE YOU'RE A GOOD GUY. You called me, remember? STILL, IT'S NOT LIKE YOU THINK. Sure, I think. NO NO NO . . .HACKERS. WE'RE BASICALLY A GOOD LOT WHO ENJOY COMPUTERS FOR COMPUTERS SAKE. That's what I've been saying REALLY. HEY, DO YOU KNOW WHAT A HACKER REALLY IS? A guy who pokes his nose around where it's not wanted. Like in NASA computers. YEAH, THAT'S WHAT THE PRESS SAYS AND SO THAT'S WHAT THE COUNTRY THINKS. BUT IT'S NOT NECESSARILY SO. So, change my mind. LET ME GIVE YOU THE NAMES OF A FEW HACKERS. BILL GATES. HE FOUNDED MICROSOFT. WORTH A COUPLE OF BILLION. MITCH KAPOR. FOUNDED LOTUS. STEVE WOZNIAK FOUNDED APPLE. GET THE POINT? You still haven't told me what you think a hacker is. A HACKER IS SOMEONE WHO HACKS WITH COMPUTERS. SOMEONE WHO ENJOYS USING THEM, PROGRAMMING THEM, FIGURING OUT HOW THEY WORK, WHAT MAKES THEM TICK. PUSHING THEM TO THE LIMIT. EXTRACTING EVERY LAST INCH OF POWER FROM THEM. LET ME ASK YOU A QUESTION. WHAT DO YOU CALL SOMEONE WHO PLAYS WITH AMATEUR RADIOS? A Ham. AND WHAT DO YOU CALL SOMEONE WHO HAS A CALCULATOR IN HIS SHORT POCKET WITH A DOZEN BALLPOINT PENS? In my day it was a sliderule, and we called them propeller heads. THAT TRANSLATES. GOOD. AND WHAT DO YOU CALL SOMEONE WHO FLIES AIRPLANES FOR FUN? A fly boy, space jockey. A CAR TINKERER? A grease monkey AND SOMEONE WHO JUMPS OUT OF PLANES? Fucking crazy!!!! FAIR ENOUGH. BUT HERE'S THE POINT. DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIF- FERENT FOLKS. AND IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO PLAY WITH COMPUTERS ARE CALLED HACKERS. IT'S AN OLD TERM FROM THE 60'S FROM THE COLLEGES, AND AT THAT TIME IT WASN'T DEROGATO- RY. IT DIDN'T HAVE THE SAME NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS THAT IT DOES TODAY THANKS TO YOU. HACKERS ARE JUST A BUNCH OF PEOPLE WHO PLAY WITH COMPUTERS INSTEAD OF CARS, BOATS, AIRPLANES, SPORTS OR WHATEVER. THAT'S IT, PURE AND SIMPLE. Ok, let's accept that for now. What about those stories of hackers running around inside of everybody else's computers and making computer viruses and all. Morris and Chase were hackers who caused a bunch of damage. WHOA! TWO SEPARATE ISSUES. THERE ARE A NUMBER OF HACKERS WHO DO GO PROBING AND LOOKING AROUND OTHER PEOPLE'S COMPUTERS. AND I AM PROUD TO ADMIT THAT I AM ONE OF THEM. Wait a minute. You first say that hackers are the guys in the white hats and then you admit that you are one of those criminal types who invades the privacy of others. THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LOOKING AROUND A COMPUTER READING ITS FILES AND DESTROYING THEM. I REMEMBER READING ABOUT THIS GUY WHO BROKE INTO PEOPLE'S HOUSES WHEN THEY WERE OUT OF TOWN. HE LIVED IN THEIR HOUSE UNTIL THEY CAME BACK AND THEN LEFT. HE USED THEIR FOOD, THEIR TV, THEIR SHOWER AND ALL, BUT NEVER STOLE ANYTHING OR DID ANY DAMAGE. THAT'S KINDA WHAT HACK- ERS DO. Why? For the thrill? OH, I GUESS THAT MAY BE PART OF IT, BUT IT'S REALLY MORE THAN THAT. IT'S A THIRST, AT LEAST FOR ME, FOR KNOWLEDGE. That's a line of crap. REALLY. LET'S COMPARE. LET'S SAY I WAS WORKING IN A GARAGE AND I WAS CAR ENTHUSIAST BUT I DIDN'T OWN AND COULDN'T AFFORD A FERRARI. SO, DURING THE DAY WHEN MY CUSTOMERS ARE AT WORK, I TAKE THEIR CARS OUT FOR A RIDE . . .AND I EVEN REPLACE THE GAS. I DO IT FOR THE THRILL OF THE RIDE, NOT FOR THE THRILL OF THE CRIME. So you admit hacking is a crime? NO NO NO NO. AGREED, ENTERING SOME COMPUTERS IS CONSIDERED A CRIME IN SOME STATES, BUT IN THE STATE OF TEXAS, IF YOU LEAVE YOUR COMPUTER PASSWORD TAPED TO THE BOTTOM OF YOUR DESK DRAWER YOU CAN GO TO JAIL. I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT. You made that up. CHECK IT OUT. I DON'T KNOW THE LEGAL JARGON, BUT IT'S TRUE. THE ISSUE IS, FOR THE GUY WHO DRIVES PEOPLE'S CARS WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION, THAT IS REALLY A CRIME. I GUESS A GRAND FELONY. RIGHT? EVEN IF HE DOES NOTHING BUT DRIVE IT AROUND THE BLOCK. BUT WITH COMPUTERS IT'S DIFFERENT. How is it different? FIRST THERE'S NO THEFT. What about theft of service? ARGUABLE. Breaking and entering. NOT ACCORDING TO MY FRIEND. HIS FATHER IS A LAWYER. But, you have to admit, you are doing it without permission. NO, NOT REALLY. Aw, come on. LISTEN. LET'S SAY THAT YOU LIVE IN A HOUSE. Nice place to make a home. AND LET'S SAY THAT YOU AND YOUR NEIGHBORS DECIDE TO LEAVE THE KEYS TO YOUR HOUSES ON THE CURB OF YOUR STREET EVERY DAY. EVEN WHEN YOU'RE HOME. SO THAT ANYONE WHO COMES ALONG CAN PICK UP THE KEYS AND WALK INTO YOUR HOUSE ANYTIME THEY WANT TO. That's crazy. OF COURSE IT IS. BUT WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU DID THAT AND THEN YOUR HOUSE GOT BROKEN INTO AND YOU WERE ROBBED? I guess the police would figure me for a blithering idiot, a candidate for the funny farm, and my insurance company might have reason not to pay me after they canceled me. So what? THAT'S WHAT I DO. AND THAT'S WHAT MY FRIENDS DO. WE LOOK AROUND FOR PEOPLE WHO LEAVE THE KEYS TO THEIR COMPUTERS LYING AROUND FOR ANYONE TO PICK UP. WHEN WE FIND A SET OF KEYS, WE USE THEM. It can't be that simple. No one would leave keys lying around for hackers. WRONGO MEDIA BREATH. IT'S ABSURDLY SIMPLE. I DON'T KNOW OF VERY MANY COMPUTERS THAT I CAN'T GET INTO. SOME PEOPLE CALL IT BREAK- ING AND ENTERING. I CALL IT A WELCOME MAT. IF YOU DON'T WANT ME IN YOUR COMPUTER, THEN DON'T LEAVE THE FRONT DOOR OPEN. If what you're saying is true . . . IT IS. COMPLETELY. I HAVE THE KEYS TO HUNDREDS OF COMPUTERS AROUND THE COUNTRY AND THE WORLD. AND ONE WAY OR ANOTHER THE KEYS WERE ALL LEFT LYING IN THE STREET. SO I USED THEM TO HAVE A LOOK AROUND. I don't know if I buy this. But, for now, I'll put that aside. So, where do these hacker horrors come from? AGAIN LET'S COMPARE. IF YOU LEFT YOUR KEYS IN FRONT OF YOUR HOUSE AND HALF OF YOUR TOWN KNEW IT AND 100 PEOPLE WENT INTO YOUR HOUSE TO LOOK AROUND, HOW MANY WOULD STAY HONEST AND JUST LOOK? Not many I guess. BUT WITH HACKERS, THERE'S A CODE OF ETHICS THAT MOST OF US LIVE BY. BUT AS IN ANY GROUP OR SOCIETY THERE ARE A FEW BAD APPLES AND THEY GIVE THE REST OF US A BAD NAME. THEY GET A KICK OUT OF HURTING OTHER PEOPLE, OR STEALING, OR WHATEVER. HERE'S ANOTHER SOMETHING FOR YOUR FILE. EVERY COMPUTER SYSTEM IN THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN ENTERED BY HACKERS. EVERY SINGLE ONE. That's impossible. TRY ME. I'VE BEEN INTO OVER A THOUSAND MYSELF AND THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF GUYS LIKE ME. AT LEAST I'M HONEST. Why should I believe that? WE'RE TALKING AREN'T WE. Throw me off the track. I COULD HAVE IGNORED YOU. I'M UNTRACEABLE. By the way, what's your name. CAPTAIN KIRK. No, really. REALLY. ON BBS THAT'S MY ONLY NAME. How can I call you? YOU CAN'T. WHAT'S YOUR HANDLE? Handle? Like CB? Never had one. YOU NEED ONE DUDE. WITHOUT IT YOU'RE A JUST A REPORTER NERD. Been called worse. How about Spook? That's what I'm doing. CAN'T. WE ALREADY GOT A SPOOK. CAN'T HAVE TWO. TRY AGAIN. What do you mean we? WE. MY GROUP. YOU'VE ALREADY HEARD OF 401 AND CHAOS AND THE LEGION OF DOOM. WELL, I AM PART OF ANOTHER GROUP. BUT I CAN'T TELL YOU WHAT IT'S CALLED. YOU'RE NOT PART OF THE INNER CIRCLE. I KNOW WHAT I'LL CALL YOU. REPO MAN. repo man REPORTER MAN. SUSPICIOUS TOO. I suspect that hackers are up to no good. OK, SOME ARE, BUT THEY'RE THE EXCEPTION. HOW MANY MASS GOOD SAMARITANS OTHER THAN MOTHER TERESA DO YOU WRITE ABOUT? NONE. ONLY IF THEY'RE KILLED IN ACTION. BUT, MASS MURDERERS ARE NEWS. SO ALL YOU NEWS FIENDS MAKE HEADLINES ON DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. THE MEDIA SELLS THE HYPE AND YOU CAN'T DENY IT. Got me. You're right, that's what the public buys. But not all news is bad. EXACTLY. SEE THE POINT? At least we don't do the crime, just report it. What about these viruses. I suppose hackers are innocent of that too. BY AND LARGE YES. PEOPLE THAT WRITE VIRUSES AND INFECT COMPUTERS ARE THE COMPUTER EQUIVALENT TO SERIAL KILLERS. OR HOW ABOUT THE GUY WITH AIDS, WHO KNOWS HE'S GOT IT AND SCREWS AS MANY PEOPLE AS HE CAN TO SPREAD IT AROUND. VIRUSES ARE DANGEROUS AND DEMENT- ED. NO HACKER OF THE CODE WOULD DO THAT. You keep mentioning this code. What is the code? IT'S A CODE OF ETHICS THAT MOST OF US LIVE BY. AND IT'S CRUCIAL TO A STABLE UNDERGROUND CULTURE THAT SURVIVES BY ITS WITS. IT GOES LIKE THIS: NEVER INTENTIONALLY DAMAGE ANOTHER COMPUTER. That's it? PRETTY SIMPLE HUH? So, you said earlier that you poke around NASA computers. And NASA just had a pretty good glitch that rings of hackers. Some- one broke the code. EXACTLY. BUT NO ONE'S TAKING CREDIT. Why would they? Isn't that a sure giveaway and a trip up the river? YES AND NO. MORRIS FOR EXAMPLE ADMITTED HIS MISTAKE. HE SAID HE WAS WRITING A VIRUS FOR THE EXERCISE AND IT GOT OUT OF CONTROL. OOPS, HE SAID, AND I'M INCLINED TO BELIEVE HIM BECAUSE HE DIDN'T COVER HIS TRACKS. IF HE WAS SERIOUS ABOUT SHUTTING DOWN INTERNET HE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN FOUND AND HE WOULDN'T HAVE ADMITTED IT IF THEY EVER CAUGHT HIM. PROVING HE DID IT IS NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE. So? SO, HACKERS HAVE STRONG EGOS. THEY LIKE TO GET CREDIT FOR FIND- ING THE KEYS TO COMPUTERS. IT BUILDS THEM A REPUTATION THAT THEY FEED ON. VIRUS BUILDERS ARE THE SAME. IF SOMEONE BUILDS A VIRUS AND THEN FEEDS IT INTO THE SYSTEM, HE WANTS TO GET CREDIT FOR IT. SO HE TAKES CREDIT. And then gets caught, right? WRONGO AGAIN, LET'S SAY I TOLD YOU THAT IT WAS ME THAT DID THAT STUFF AT NASA. So it was you? NO NO. I SAID, IF IT WAS ME, WHAT WOULD YOU DO ABOUT IT? Uh . . . WHAT? I'm thinking. WHO WOULD YOU TELL? The police, NASA, WHAT WOULD YOU TELL THEM? That you did it. WHO AM I? Good point. Who are you? I DIDN'T DO IT AND I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU WHO I AM. YOU SEE, MOST OF US DON'T KNOW EACH OTHER THAN OVER THE COMPUTER. IT JUST DON'T MATTER WHO I AM. I don't know if I buy everything you say, but it is something to think about. So what about the NASA thing. I DON'T KNOW. NOBODY DOES. You mean, I gather, nobody has owned up to it. EXACTLY How can I describe you? If I wanted to use you in an article. STUDENT AT A MAJOR UNIVERSITY. Sounds like a Letter to Penthouse Forum. TRY THE SEX BBS. If you've done nothing wrong, why not come forward? NOT EVERYONE BELIEVES WHAT WE DO IS HARMLESS. NEITHER DO YOU. YET. MIGHT BE BAD FOR MY HEALTH. What time is it? WON'T WORK GUY. TIME ZONES I UNDERSTAND. ONE THING. IF YOU'RE INTERESTED, I CAN ARRANGE A TRIP THOUGH THE FIRST TRUST BANK COMPUTERS, Arrange a trip? Travel agent on the side. IN A WAY WE ARE ALL TRAVEL AGENTS. JUST THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED. Let's say I am. JUST CALL 212-555-9796. USE THE PASSWORD MONEYMAN AND THE ID IS 9796. LOOK AROUND ALL YOU WANT. USE F1 FOR HELP. I'LL CALL YOU IN A COUPLE OF DAYS. LEAVE YOUR COMPUTER ON. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> **************************************************************** Chapter 13 Wednesday, November 25 HACKERS HAMPER HOLIDAY HELLO'S By Scott Mason As most of my readers know by now, I have an inherent suspicion of lame excuses for bureaucratic bungling. If any of you were unable to make a long distance phone call yesterday, you weren't alone. AT&T, the long distance carrier that provides the best telephone service in the world, handles in excess of 100,000,000 calls daily. Yesterday, less than 25% got through. Why? There are two possible answers: AT&T's official response and another, equally plausible and certainly more sinister reason that many experts claim to be the real culprit. According to an AT&T spokesperson from its Basking Ridge, New Jersey office, "In my 20 years with AT&T, I have not seen a crisis so dramatic that it nearly shut down operations nation- wide." According to insiders, AT&T came close to declaring a national emergency and asking for Federal assistance. Airlines and hotel reservation services reported that phone traffic was down between 65-90%! Telemarketing organizations said that sales were off by over 80%. Perhaps an understanding of what goes on behind the scenes of a phone call is in order. When you pick up your phone, you hear a dial tone that is provid- ed by the Local Exchange Company, or as more commonly called, a Baby Bell. The LEC handles all local calls within certain dial- ing ranges. A long distance call is switched by the LEC to the 4ESS, a miracle of modern communications. There are 114 Number 4 and 5 Electronic Switching Systems used in all major AT&T switch- ing offices across the country. (A few rural areas still use relays and mechanical switches over 40 years old. When it rains, the relays get sticky and so does the call.) Now here's the invisible beauty. There are 14 direct connects between each of the 114 4ESS's and every other 4ESS, each capable of handling thousands of call at once. So, rarely do we ever get a long distance busy signal. The systems automatically reroute themselves. The 4ESS then calls its own STP, Signal Transfer Point within an SS7 network. The SS7 network determines from which phone number the call originated and its destination. (More about that later!) It sends out an IAM, Initial Address Message, to the destination 4ESS switch and determines if a line is available to complete the call. The SS7 is so powerful it can actually create up to 7 additional virtual paths for the heaviest traffic. 800 numbers, Dial a Porn 900 numbers and other specially coded phone numbers are translated through the NCP( Network Control Point) and routed separately. Whew! Had enough? So have I. The point is, massive computer switches all across our nations automatically select the routing for each call. A call from Miami to New York could be sent through 4ESS's in Dallas, Los Angeles and Chicago before reaching its ultimate destination. But what happened yesterday? It seems that the switches got real stupid and slowed down. For those readers who recall the Internet Worm in November of 1988 and the phone system slowdown in early 1990 and then again in 1991, computers can be infected with errors, either accidentally or otherwise, and forced to misbehave. AT&T's explanation is not satisfying for those who remember that AT&T had said, "it can never happen again." Today's official explanation is; "A minor hardware problem in one of our New York City 4ESS switches caused a cascading of similar hardware failures throughout the network. From all appearances, a faulty piece of software in the SS7 networks was the culprit. Our engineers are studying the problem and expect a solution shortly. We are sorry for any inconvenience to our valued cus- tomers." I agree with AT&T on one aspect: it was a software problem. According to well placed sources who asked to remain anonymous, the software problems were intentionally introduced into AT&T's long distance computers, by person or persons yet to be identi- fied. They went on to say that internal investigation teams have been assigned to find out who and how the "bug" was introduced. Regardless of the outcome of the investigation, AT&T is expected, they say, to maintain the cover of a hardware failure at the request of the public relations Vice President. AT&T did, to their credit, get long distance services up and running at 11:30 P.M. last night, only 9 hours after the problem first showed up. They re-installed an older SS7 software ver- sion that is widely known to contain some "operational anomalies" according to the company; but they still feel that it is more reliable than what is currently in use. If, in fact the biggest busy signal in history was caused by intruders into the world's largest communications systems, then we need to ask ourselves a few questions. Was yesterday a sym- bolic choice of dates for disaster or mere coincidence? Would the damage have been greater on a busier business day? Could it affect our defense systems and the government's ability to commu- nicate in case of emergency? How did someone, or some group, get into AT&T's computers and effect an entire nation's ability to do business? And then, was there a political motivation sufficient to justify am attack om AT&T and not on Sprint or MCI? Perhaps the most salient question we all are asking ourselves, is, When will it happen again? This is Scott Mason, busy, busy, busy. Tomorrow; is Big Brother listening? * * * * * Friday, November 27 Times Square, New York The pre-winter overnight snow-storm in New York City turned to sleet and ice as the temperature dropped. That didn't stop the traffic though. Hundreds of thousands of cars still crawled into Manhattan to insure downtown gridlock. If the streets were drivable, the city wouldn't stop. Not for a mere ice storm. Steam poured from subway grates and manhole covers as rush hour pedestrians huddled from the cold winds, tromping through the grimy snow on the streets and sidewalks. The traffic on 42nd street was at a near standstill and the intersection at Broadway and 7th Avenues where the Dow Chemical Building stood was unusually bad. Taxis and busses and trucks and cars all fought for space to move. As the southbound light on 7th turned green, a dark blue Ford Econoline van screeched forward and cut off two taxis to make a highly illegal left turn. It curved too quickly and too sharply for the dangerously icy conditions and began to slide sideways. The driver turned the wheel hard to the left, against the slide, compensating in the wrong direction and then he slammed on the brakes. The van continued to slide to the right as it careened toward the sidewalk. The van rotated and headed backwards at the throngs of pedestrians. They didn't notice until it was too late. The van spun around again and crashed through a McDonald's window into the dense breakfast crowds. As it crushed several patrons into the counter, the van stopped, suddenly propelling the driver through the windshield into the side of the yogurt machine. His neck was broken instantly. Getting emergency vehicles to Times Square during the A.M. rush hour is in itself a lesson in futility. Given that 17 were pronounced dead on the scene and another 50 or more were injured, the task this Monday morning was damned near impossible. City-ites come together in a crisis, and until enough paramedics arrived, people from all walks of life tended to the wounded and respectfully covered those beyond help. Executives in 3 piece suits worked with 7th avenue delivery boys in harmony. Secre- taries lay their expensive furs on the slushy street as pallets for the victims. It was over two hours before all the wounded were transferred to local hospitals and the morgue was close to finishing its clean up efforts. Lt. Mel Kavitz, 53rd. Precinct, Midtown South NYPD made it to the scene as the more grisly pieces were put away. He spoke to a couple of officers who had interviewed witnesses and survivors. The media were already there adding to the frigid chaos. Two of the local New York TV stations were broadcasting live, searching out sound-bytes for the evening news and all 3 dailies had reporters looking for quotable quotes. Out of the necessity created by such disasters, the police had developed immunity to the media circus. "That's it lieutenant. Seems the van made a screwball turn and lost control." The young clean-shaven patrolman shrugged his shoulders. Only 27, he had still been on the streets long enough not to let much bother him. "Who's the driver?" Lt. Kavitz scanned the scene. "It's a foreign national, one . . .ah . . .Jesef Mumballa. Second year engineering student at Columbia." The young cop looked down and spoke quietly. "He didn't make it." "I'm not surprised. Look at this mess." The Lieutenant took it in stride. "Just what McDonalds needs. Another massacre. Any- thing on him?" Kavitz asked half suspecting, half hoping. "Clean. As clean as rag head can be." "Ok, that's enough. What about the van?" "The van?" "The van!" Kavitz said pointedly at the patrolman. "The van! What's in it? Has anybody looked?" "Uh . . .no sir. We've been working with the injured . . .I'm sure you . . ." "Of course. I'm sorry." Kavitz waved off the explanation. "Must have been pretty rough." He looked around and shook his head. "Anything else officer?" "No sir, that's about it. We still don't have an exact count though." "It'll come soon enough. Soon enough." Kavitz left the young patrolman and walked into the bloodbath, pausing only briefly before opening the driver's side door. "Let's see what's in this thing." * * * * * "D'y'hear about the mess over at Times Square?" Ben Shellhorne walked up to Scott Mason's desk at the City Times. "Yeah, pretty gruesome. The Exchange . . .McDonald's. You really scrape the bottom, don't you?" Scott grinned devilishly at Ben. "Maybe some guys do, not me." Ben sat down next to Scott's desk. "But that's not the point. There's something else." "What's that?" Scott turned to Ben. "The van." "The van?" Scott asked. "Yeah, the van. The van that busted up the McBreakfast crowd." "What about it?" Ben hurried. "Well, it was some sort of high tech lab on wheels. Computers and radios and stuff. Pretty wild." "Why's that so unusual? Phone company, computer repair place, EPA monitors, could be anything." Scott seemed disinterested. "If that were true, you're right. But this was a private van, and there's no indication of what company it worked for. And the driver's dead. Personal ID only. No company, no numbers, no nothing, except this." He handed a sheaf of computer printouts to Scott. "Look familiar?" Scott took the papers and perused them. They were the same kind that Scott had received from Vito, his unknown donor. These were new documents as far as Scott could tell - he didn't recognize them as part of his library. They only contained some stock tips and insider trading information from a leading Wall Street bro- kerage house. Pretty tame stuff. "These," Scott pointed at the papers, "these were in the van?" "That's what I said," Ben said triumphantly. "How did you get them?" Scott pushed. "I have a few friends on the force and, well, this is my beat you know. Crime, disaster, murder, violence, crisis, death and de- struction on the streets. Good promo stuff for the Big Apple." "Are there any more?" Scott ignored Ben's self pity. "My guy said there were so many that a few wouldn't make any difference." "Holy Christ!" Scott said aloud as he sat back in thought. "What is it? Scott? Does this mean something?" "Can I have these, Ben? Do you need them?" "Nah! There's no blood on 'em? Not my kinda story. I just remembered that secret papers and computers are your thing, so they're yours." Ben stood up. "Just remember, next time you hear about a serial killer, it's mine." "Deal. And, hey, thanks a lot. Drinks on me." Scott caught Ben before he left. "Ben, one more thing." "Yeah?" Ben stopped. "Can you get me into that van. Just to look around? Not to touch, just to look?" Scott would have given himself a vasectomy with a weed eater to have a look. This was his first solid lead on the source of the mysterious and valuable documents that he had stymied him for so long. He had been unable to publish anything significant due to lack of confirming evidence. Any lead was good lead, he thought. "It may cost another favor, but sure what the fuck. I'll set it up. Call you." Ben waved as he walked off leaving Scott to ponder the latest developments. * * * * * The interior of the dark blue Ford Econoline van was not in bad shape since the equipment was bolted into place. The exterior though was thoroughly trashed, with too many blood stains for Scott to stomach. It was a bad wreak, even for the Police Im- pound. While Ben kept his cooperative keeper of the peace occupied, he signaled to Scott that he would only have a minute, so please, make it quick. Scott entered the van with all his senses peaked. He wanted to take mental pictures and get as much detail as he could. Both sides of the van contained steel shelving, with an array of equipment bolted firmly in place. It was an odd assortment of electronics, noticed Scott. There were 2 IBM personal computers with large WYSIWYG monitors. What You See Is What You Get moni- tors were generally used for intensive word processing or desktop publishing. In a van? Odd. A digital oscilloscope and waveform monitor were stacked over one of the computers. Test equipment and no hand tools? No answer. Over the other computer sat a small black and white television and a larger color television monitor. Two cellular phones were mounted behind the drivers seat. Strange combination. Then he noticed what appeared to be a miniature satellite dish, only 8 or so inches across. He recognized it as a parabolic microphone. Aha! That's it. Some sort of spy type surveillance vehicle. Tracking drug dealers and assorted low lifes. But, a privately registered vehicle, no sign of any official affiliations to known enforcement agencies? Scott felt his minute was gone in a only few seconds. "Well, you find what you're looking for?" Ben asked Scott after they had left the police garage grounds overlooking the Hudson River. Scott looked puzzled. "It's more like by not finding anything I eliminated what it's not." Ben scowled. "Hey riddle man, back to earth. Was it a waste or what?" "Far from it." Scott's far away glaze disappeared as his personal Eureka! set in. "I think I may have stumbled, sorry, you, stum- bled onto to something that will begin to put several pieces in place for me. And if I'm right, even a little bit right, holy shit. I mean, hoooolly shit." "Clue me in, man. What's the skinny. You got Pulitzer eyes." Ben tried to keep up with Scott as their pace quickened. "I gotta make one phone call, for a confirmation. And, if it's a yes, then I got, I mean we got one fuckuva story." "No, it's yours man, yours. Just let me keep the blood and guts. Besides, I don't even know what you're talking about, you ain't said shit. Keep it. Just keep your promise on the drinks. Ok?" Scott arrived at Grand Central as the huge clock oppose the giant Kodak photograph struck four o'clock. He proceeded to track twenty two where the four-thirteen to Scarsdale and White Plains was waiting. He walked down to the third car and took a seat that would only hold two. He was saving it for Ty. Tyrone Duncan hopped on the crowded train seconds before it left the station. He dashed down the aisle of the crowded car. There was only one empty seat. Next to Scott Mason. Scott's rushed call gave Ty an excuse to leave work early. It had been one of those days. Ty collapsed in a sweat on the seat next to Scott. "Didn't your mother tell you it's not polite to keep people waiting?" Scott made fun of Tyrone. "Didn't your mama tell you not to irritate crazy overworked black dudes who carry a gun?" Scott took the hint. It was safest to ignore Ty's diatribe completely. "I think I got it figured out. Thought you might be interested." Scott teased Duncan. Tyrone turned his head away from Scott. "If you do, I'll kiss your bare ass on Broadway. We don't have shit." He sounded disgusted with the performance of his bureau. Scott puffed up a bit before answering. The pride did not go unnoticed by Duncan. "I figured out how these guys, these black- mailers, whoever they are, get their information." Scott paused for effect which was not lost on Duncan. "I don't care anymore. I've been pulled from the case," Tyrone said sounding exhausted. "Well," Scott smirked. "I think you just might care, anyway." Tyrone felt himself Scott putting him into a trap. "What have you got?" Scott relished the moment. The answer was so simple. He saw the anticipation in Tyrone's face, but they had become friends and didn't feel right about prolonging the tension. "Van Eck." Duncan was expecting more than a two word answer that was abso- lutely meaningless to him. "What? What is Van Eck? The ex- pressway?" He said referring to the New York Expressway that had been a 14 mile line traffic jam since it opened some 40 years ago. "Not Van Wyck, Van Eck. Van Eck Radiation. That's how they get the information." Duncan was no engineer, and he knew that Scott was proficient in the discipline. He was sure he had an education coming. "For us feeble minded simpletons, would you mind explaining? I know about Van Allen radiation belts, nuclear radiation . . .but ok, I give. What's this Van Eck?" Scott had not meant to humble Tyrone that much. "Sorry. It's a pretty arcane branch of engineering, even for techy types. How much do you know about computers? Electronics?" "Enough to get into trouble. I can wire a stereo and I know how to use the computers at the Bureau, but that's about it. Never bothered to get inside those monsters. Consider me an idiot." "Never, just a novice. It's lecture time. Computers, I mean PC's, the kind on your desk and at home are electronic devices, that's no great revelation. As you may know, radio waves are caused by the motion of electrons, current, down a wire. Ever heard or seen interference on your TV?" "Sure. We've been down this road before, with your EMP-T bombs." Tyrone cringed at the lecture he had received on secret defense projects. "Exactly. Interference is caused by other electrical devices that are running near the radio or TV. Essentially, everything that runs on electricity emanates a field of energy, an electro- magnetic field. Well, in TV and radio, an antenna is stuck up in the air to pick up or 'hear' the radio waves. You simply tune it in to the frequency you want to listen to." "I know, like on my car radio. Those are preset, though." "Doesn't matter. They still pick the frequency you want to listen to. Can you just hold that thought and accept it at face value?" Scott followed his old teaching techniques. He wanted to make sure that each and every step of his explanation was clearly understood before going on to the next. Tyrone acknowl- edged that while he wasn't an electronic engineer, he wasn't stupid either. "Good. Well computers are the same. They radiate an electromag- netic field when they're in use. If the power is off then there's no radiation. Inside the computer there are so many radiated fields that it looks like garbage, pure noise to an antenna. Filtering out the information is a bitch. But, you can easily tune into a monitor." "Monitors. You mean computer screens?" Tyrone wanted to clarify his understanding. "Monitors, CRT's, screens, cathode ray tubes, whatever you want to call them. The inside of most monitors is just like televi- sion sets. There is an electron beam that writes to the surface of the screen, the phosphor coated one. That's what makes the picture." "That's how a TV works? I always wondered." Duncan was only half kidding. "So, the phosphor coating gets hit with a strong electron beam, full of high voltage energy, and the phosphor glows, just for a few milliseconds. Then, the beam comes around again and either turns it on or leaves it off, depending upon what the picture is supposed to show. Make sense?" "That's why you can go frame to frame on a VCR, isn't it? Every second there are actually lots of still pictures that change so quickly that the eye is fooled into thinking it's watching mo- tion. Really, it's a whole set of photographed being flipped through quickly." Duncan picked up the essentials on the first pass. Scott was visibly impressed. "Bingo! So this beam is directed around the surface of the screen about 60 times every second." "What moves the beam?" Duncan was following closely. "You are one perceptive pain in the butt, aren't you? You nailed it right on the head." Scott enjoyed working with bright stu- dents. Duncan's smile made his pudgy face appear larger than it was. "Inside the monitor are what is called deflection coils. Deflection coils are magnets that tell the beam where to strike the screen's surface. One magnet moves the beam horizontally across the screen from left to right, and the other magnet, the vertical one, moves the beam from the top to the bottom. Same way as in a TV." Scott paused for a moment. He had given simi- lar descriptions before, and he found it useful to let is audi- ence have time to create a mental image. "Sure, that makes sense. So what about this radiation?" Duncan impatiently asked. He wanted to understand the full picture. "Well, magnets concentrate lots of electrical energy in a small place, so they create more intense, or stronger magnetic fields. Electromagnetic radiation if you will. In this case, the radia- tion from a computer monitor is called Van Eck radiation, named after the Dutch electrical engineer who described the phenomena." Scott sounded pleased with his Radiation 101 course brief. Tyrone wasn't satisfied though. "So how does that explain the blackmail and the infamous papers you have? And why do I care? I don't get it." The confused look on Tyrone's face told Scott he hadn't successfully tutored his FBI friend. "It's just like a radio station. A computer monitor puts out a distinctive pattern of radio waves from the coils and pixel radiations from the screen itself, at a comparatively high power. So, with a little radio tuner, you can pick up the signals on the computer screen and read them for yourself. It's the equivalent of eavesdropping on a computer." The stunned grimace on Duncan's face was all Scott needed to see to realize that he now had communicated the gist of the technolo- gy to him. "Are you telling me," Tyrone searched for the words and spoke slowly, "that a computer broadcasts what's going on inside it? That anyone can read anyone else's computer?" "In a sense yes." Tyrone looked out the window as they passed through Yonkers, New York. He whistled quietly to himself. "How did you find out? Where did you . . .?" The questions spewed forth. "There was a wreak, midtown, and there was a bunch of equipment in it. Then I checked it out with a couple of . . .engineer friends who are more up on this than I am. They confirmed it." "This stuff was in a van? How far away does this stuff work?" Duncan gave away his concern. "According to my sources, with the proper gear, two or three miles is not unreasonable. In New York, maybe only a half a mile. Interference and steel buildings and all. Manhattan is a magnetic sewer, as they say." "Shit, this could explain a lot." The confident persona of the FBI professional returned. "The marks all claim that there was no way for the information to get out, yet it did. Scott, is it possible that . . .how could one person get all this stuff? From so many companies?" The pointed question was one of devil's advocacy. "That's the scary part, if I'm right. But this is where I need your help." Scott had given his part, now to complete the tale he needed the cooperation of his friend. The story was improv- ing. "Jesus," Duncan said quietly contemplating the implications. "Most people believe that their computers are private. If they knew that their inner most secrets were really being broadcast for anyone to hear, it might change their behavior a little." Scott had had the time to think about the impact if this was made public. "No shit Sherlock. It makes me wonder who's been listening in on our computers all these years. Maybe that's why our jobs seem to get tougher every day." Duncan snapped himself back from the mental digression. "Where do you go from here?" Scott was prepared. He had a final bombshell to lay on Duncan before specifying his request. "There are a couple of things that make me think. First, there is no way that only one guy could put together the amount of information that I have. I've told you how much there is. From all over the country. That suggests a lot more than one person involved. I don't know how many, that's your job. "Two, these blackmail threats. Obviously whoever is reading the computers, Van Ecking them is what I call it, has been sending the information to someone else. Then they, in turn, call up their targets and let them know that their secrets are no longer so secret. Then three, they have been probably sending the information to other people, on paper. Like me and the National Expose. I have no idea if any others are receiving similar packages. What I see here, is a coordinated effort to . . ." Scott held Tyrone's complete attention. "You still haven't told me what you need. Lay it on me, buddy. There can't be much more." "Doesn't it make sense that if we had one van, and the equipment inside, we could trace it down, and maybe see if there really are other Van Eck vans out there? For an operation that's this large, there would have to be a back up, a contingency . . ." The excitement oozed from Scott as his voice got louder. "Shhhh . . ." Tyrone cautioned. "The trains have ears. I don't go for conspiracy theories, I never have. Right now all we have is raw, uncorrelated data. No proof. Just circumstantial events that may have nothing to do with each other . . ." "Bullshit. Look at this." Scott opened up his briefcase and handed a file folder to Tyrone. "What is it? Looks like a news story, that . . .uh . . .you wrote and, it's about some mergers. Big deal." Duncan closed the folder. "What does this have to do with anything?" "This. Yes, I wrote the story. Two days ago. It hasn't been printed yet." Scott took the folder back. "I found this copy in the van that was wrecked two days ago. It was Van Eck'ed from my computer the day I wrote it. They've been watching me and my computer." "Now wait a second. There are a hundred possible answers. You could have lost a copy or someone got it from your wastebasket." Duncan wasn't convincing either to himself or to Scott. Scott smirked as Tyrone tried to justify the unbelievable. "You want to play?" Scott asked. "I think I'd better. If this is for real, no one has any priva- cy anymore." "I know I don't." **************************************************************** Chapter 14 Sunday, November 29 Columbia University, New York The New York City Times had put the story on the 7th page. In contrast, the New York Post, in Murdoch's infinite wisdom, had put pictures of the dead and dying on the front page. With the McDonalds' window prominent. Ahmed Shah reacted with pure intellectual detachment to the deba- cle on Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street. Jesef was a martyr, as much of one as those who had sacrificed their lives in the Great War against Iraq. He had to make a report. From his home, in the Spanish Harlem district of the upper West Side of Manhattan, 3 blocks from his Columbia University office, he wheeled over to his computer that was always on. C:\cd protalk C:\PROTALK\protalk He dialed a local New York number that was stored in the Protalk communications program. He had it set for 7 bits, no parity, no stop bits. <<<<<<DIALING>>>>>> The local phone number he dialed answered automatically and redialed another number, and then that one dialed yet another number before a message was relayed back to Ahmed Shah. He was accustomed to the delay. While waiting he lit up a Marlboro. It was the only American cigarette that came close to the vile taste of Turkish camel shit cigarettes that he had smoked before coming to the United States. A few seconds later, the screen came to life and displayed PASSWORD: Ahmed entered his password and his PRG response. CRYPT KEY: He chose a random crypt key that would be used to guarantee the privacy of his conversations. <<<<<<TRANSMISSION ENCODED>>>>>> That told Ahmed to begin his message, and that someone would be there to answer. Good Morning. I have some news. NEWS? We have a slight problem, but nothing serious. PROBLEM? PLEASE EXPLAIN. One of the readers is gone. HOW? CAPTURED? No, the Americans aren't that smart. He died in a car crash. WILL THIS HURT US? No. In New York we have another 11 readers. But we have lost one vehicle. The police must have it. THAT IS NOT GOOD. WHO WAS IT? A martyr. CAN THE POLICE FIND ANYTHING? He had false identification. They will learn nothing. BE SURE THEY DON'T. DESTROY THE CAR. They can learn nothing. Why? IT IS TOO EARLY FOR THEM TO FIND OUT ABOUT US. HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN? I read about it today. The crash was yesterday. DO ANY OF THE OTHERS KNOW? It would not matter if they did. They are loyal. The papers said nothing of the van. They cared only about the Americans who died eating their breakfasts. GOOD. REMOVE ALL EVIDENCE. REPLACE HIM. It will be done. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>> * * * * * Monday, November 30 New York City The fire at the New York City Police Impound on 22nd Street and the Hudson River was not newsworthy. It caused, however, a deluge of paperwork for the Sergeant whose job it was to guard the confiscated vehicles. Most of those cars damaged in the firestorm had been towed for parking infractions. It would cost the city tens of thousands of dollars, but not at least for three or four months. The city would take as long as possible to proc- ess the claims. Jesef Mumballa's vehicle was completely destroyed as per Homosoto's order. The explosion that had caused the fire was identified as coming from his van, but little importance was placed with that obscure fact. Ben Shellhorne noticed, though. Wasn't that the van that Scott Mason had shown such interest in yesterday? A car bombing, even if on police property was not a particularly interesting story, at least in New York. But Ben wanted the drink that Scott had promised. Maybe he could parlay it into two. "Scott, remember that van?" Ben called Scott on the internal office phones. "Yeah, what about it?" "It's gone." "What do you mean gone?" "Somebody blew it up. Took half the cars in the impound with it. Sounds like Cemex. Just thought you might care. You were pretty hot about seeing it ." Scott enjoyed Ben's nonchalance. He decided to play it cool. "Yeah, thanks for the call. Looks like another lead down the tubes." "Know whatcha mean." Scott called Tyrone at his office. "4543." Duncan answered obliquely. "Just an anonymous call." Scott didn't disguise his voice. The message would be obvious. "So?" "A certain van in a certain police impound was just blown up. Seemed le Plastique was involved. Thought you might want to know." "Thanks." The phone went dead. Within 30 minutes, 6 FBI agents arrived at the police impound station. It looked like a war zone. Vehicles were strewn about, many the victim of fire, many with substantial pieces missing. With the signature of the New York District Chief on appropriate forms, the FBI took possession of one Ford Econoline van, or what was left of it. The New York police were just as glad to be rid of it. It was one less mess they had to worry about. Fine, take it. It's yours. Just make sure that the paperwork covers ours asses. Good, that seems to do it. Now get out. Frigging Feds. * * * * * Tyrone Duncan took an evening Trump Shuttle down to Washington's National Airport. The 7:30 flight was dubbed the Federal Express by the stewardesses because it was primarily congressmen, diplo- mats and other Washington denizens who took this flight. They wanted to get to D.C. before the cocktail parties began and found the 2-drink flight an excellent means to tune up. Duncan was met out in front by a driver who held up a sign that read 'Burnson'. He got into the car in silence and was driven to a residence on "P" Street off Wisconsin in Georgetown. The brick townhouse looked like every other million dollar home in the affluent Washington bedroom community. But this one was special. It not only served as a home away from home for Bob Burnson when he worked late, but it was also a common neutral meeting place far from prying eyes and ears. This night was one such case. An older, matronly lady answered the door. "May I help you?" She went through the formality for the few accidental tourists who rang the bell. "I'm here to see Mr. Merriweather. He's expecting me." Merri- weather was the nom-de-guerre of Bob Burnson, at least at this location. Duncan was ushered into the elegant old sitting room, where the butleress closed the door behind him. He double- checked that she was gone and walked over to the fireplace. The marble facade was worn in places, from overuse he assumed, but nonetheless, traces of its 19th century elegance remained. He looked up at the large full length standing portrait of a somber, formal man dressed in a three piece suit. Undoubtedly this vain portrait was his only remaining legacy, whoever he was. Tyrone pressed a small button built into the side of the picture frame. An adjoining bookcase slipped back into the wall, exposing a dark entry. Duncan squeezed his bulk through the narrow wedge provided by the opened bookcase. The blank wall behind him closed and the lights in the room he entered slowly brightened. Three people were seated at an over- sized table with black modern executive chairs around it. The room was large. Too large to fit behind the 18 foot width of a Georgetown brownstone. The adjacent building must be an ersatz cover for the privacy that this domicile required. The room was simple, but formal. Stark white walls and their nondescript modern paintings were illuminated by recessed lights. The black trim work was the only accent that the frugal decorator permit- ted. His old friend and superior Bob Burnson was seated in the middle. The other two men were civil servants in their mid 40's as near as Duncan could determine. Both wore Government issue blue suits, white shirts and diagonally striped maroon ties. Their hair was regulation above the ears, immaculately kept. Reminded Duncan of the junior clerks on Wall Street. They could only afford suits from the discount racks, but still tried to make a decent impression. The attempt usually failed, but G-Men stuck to the tradition of poor dress. He had never seen either of the men that flanked Burnson, which wasn't unusual. He was a New Yorker who carefully avoided the cacophony of Washington poli- tics. He played the political game once nearly 30 years ago to secure his position, but he had studiously avoided it since. "Thanks for making it on such short notice," Burnson solicitous- ly greeted Duncan. He did it for the benefit of the others present. "Yes sir. Glad to help." Duncan groaned through the lie. He had been ordered to this command performance. "This is," Burnson gestured to his right, "Martin Templer, our CIA liaison, and," pointing to his left, "Charlie Sorenson, assistant DIRNSA, from the Fort." They all shook hands perfunc- torily. "Care for a drink?" Burnson asked. "We're not on Government time." Duncan looked and saw they were all drinking something other than Coke. The bar behind them showed recent use. "Absolut on the rocks. If you have it." It was Duncan's first time to 'P Street' as this well disguised location was called. Burnson rose and poured the vodka over perfectly formed ice cubes. He handed the drink to Duncan and indicated he should take a seat. They exchanged pleasantries, and Duncan spoke of the improvement in the Northeast corridor Shuttle service; the flight was almost on time. Enough of the niceties. "We don't want to hold you up more than necessary, but since you were here in town we thought we could discuss a couple of mat- ters." Burnson was the only one to speak. The others watched Duncan too closely for his taste. What a white wash. He was called down here, pronto. Since I'm here, my ass. "No problem sir." He carried the charade forward. "We need to know more about your report. This morning's report." Sorenson, the NSA man spoke. "It was most intriguing. Can you fill us in?" He sipped his drink while maintaining eye contact with Duncan. "Well, there's not much to say beyond what I put in." Suspicion was evident in Duncan's voice. "I think that it's a real possi- bility that there is a group who may be using highly advanced computer equipment as weapons. Or at least surveillance tools. A massive operation is suspected. I think I explained that in my report." "You did Tyrone," Bob agreed. "It's just that there may be additional considerations that you're not aware of. Things I wasn't even aware of. Charlie, can you elaborate?" Bob looked at the NSA man in deference. "Thanks, Bob, be glad to." Charlie Sorenson was a seasoned spook. His casual manner was definitely practiced. "Basically, we're following up on the matter of the van you reported, and the alleged equipment it held." He scanned the folder in front of him. "It says here," he perused, "that you discovered that indi- viduals have learned how to read computer signals, unbeknownst to the computer users." He looked up at Duncan for a confirmation. Tyrone felt slightly uncomfortable. "Is that right?" "Yes, sir," Duncan replied. "From the information we've received, it appears that a group has the ability to detect computer radia- tion from great distances. This technique allows someone to compromise computer privacy . . ." "We know what it is Mr. Duncan." The NSA man cut him off abrupt- ly. Duncan looked at Burnson who avoided his stare. "What we want to know is, how do you know? How do you know what CMR radiation is?" There was no smile or sense of warmth from the inquisitor. Not that there had been since the unpropitious beginning of this evening. "CMR?" Tyrone wasn't familiar with the term. "Coherent Monitor Radiation. What do you know?" "There was a van that crashed in New York a couple of days ago." Duncan was not sure what direction this conversation was going to take. "I have reason to believe it contained computer equipment that was capable of reading computer screens from a distance." "What cases are you working on that relate to this?" Again the NSA man sounded like he was prosecuting a case in court. "I have been working on a blackmail case," Duncan said. "Now I'm the agency liaison with ECCO and CERT. Looking into the INTERNET problems." The two G-men looked at each other. Templer from the CIA shrugged at Sorenson. Burnson was ignored. "Are you aware that you are working in an area of extreme nation- al security?" Sorenson pointedly asked Duncan. Tyrone Duncan thought for a few seconds before responding. "I would imagine that if computers can be read from a distance then there is a potential national security issue. But I can assure you, it was brought to my attention through other means." Duncan tried to sound confident of his position. "Mr. Duncan," Sorenson began, "I will tell you something, and I will only tell you because you have been pre-cleared." He waited for a reaction, but Duncan did not give him the satisfaction of a sublimation. Cleared my ass. Fucking spooks. Duncan had the common sense to censor himself effectively. "CMR radiation, as it is called, is a major threat facing our computers today. Do you know what that means?" Sorenson was being solicitous. Tyrone had to play along. "From what I gather, it means that our computers are not safe from eavesdropping. Anyone can listen in." Tyrone spoke coldly. Other than Bob, he was not with friends. "Let me put it succinctly," Sorenson said. "CMR radiation has been classified for several years. We don't even admit that it exists. If we did, there could be panic. As far as we are concerned with the public, CMR radiation is a figment of an inventive imagination. Do you follow?" "Yes," Duncan agreed, "but why? It doesn't seem to be much of a secret to too many people?" "That poses two questions. Have you ever heard of the Tempest Program?" "Tempest? No. What is it?" Duncan searched his mind. "Tempest is a classified program managed by the Department of Defense and administered by the National Security Agency. It has been in place for years. The premise is that computers radiate information that our enemies can pick up with sophisticated equipment. Computers broadcast signals that tell what they're doing. And they do it in two ways. First they radiate like a radio station. Anyone can pick it up." This statement confirmed what Scott had been saying. "And, computers broadcast their signals down the power lines. If someone tried, they could listen to our AC lines and essentially know what was the computer was doing. Read classified information. I'm sure you see the problem." Sorenson was trying to be friendly, but he failed the geniality test. Duncan nodded in understanding. "We are concerned because the Tempest program is classified and more importantly, the Agency has been using CMR for years." "What for?" "The NSA is chartered as the ears and eyes of the intelligence community. We listen to other people for a living." "You mean you spy on computers, too? Spying on civilians? Isn't that illegal?" Tyrone remembered back when FBI and CIA abuses had totally gotten out of hand. "The courts have determined that eavesdropping in on cellular phone conversations in not an invasion of privacy. We take the same position on CMR." Sorenson wanted to close the issue quick- ly. Duncan carefully prepared his answer amidst the outrage he was feeling. He sensed an arrogant Big Brother attitude at work. He hated the 'my shit doesn't stink' attitude of the NSA. All in the name of National Security. "Until a couple of days ago I would have thought this was pure science fiction." "It isn't Mr. Duncan. Tempest is a front line of defense to protect American secrets. We need to know what else there is; what you haven't put in your reports." The NSA man pressed. Duncan looked at Bob who had long ago ceased to control the conversation. He got no signs of support. In fact, it was almost the opposite. He felt alone. He had had little contact with the Agency in his 30 years of service. And when there was contact it was relegated to briefings, policy shifts. . .pretty bureaucratic stuff. "As I said, it's all in the report. When there's more, I'll submit it." Duncan maintained his composure. "Mr. Duncan, I don't think that will do." Martin Templer spoke up again. "We have been asked to assist the NSA in the matter." "Whoah! Wait a second." Duncan's legal training had not been for naught. He knew a thing or two about Federal charters and task designations. "The NSA is just a listening post. Your guys do the international spook stuff, and we do the domestic leg work. Since when is the Fort into investigations?" "Ty? They're right." The uneasiness in Bob's voice was promi- nent. "The protection of classified information is their respon- sibility. A group was created to report on computer security problems that might have an effect on national security. On that committee is the Director of the NSA. In essence, they have control. Straight from 1600. It's out of our hands." Tyrone was never the technical type, and definitely not the politician. Besides, there was no way any one human being could keep up with the plethora of regulations and rule changes that poured out of the three branches of government. "Are you telling me that the NSA can swoop down on our turf and take the cases they want, when they want?" Duncan hoped he had heard wrong. "Mr. Duncan, I think you may be under a mistaken impression here." Sorenson sipped his drink and turned in the swivel chair. "We don't want anything to do with your current cases, especially the alleged blackmail operation in place. That is certainly within the domain of the FBI. No. All we want is the van." The NSA man realized he may have come on a little strong and Duncan had misunderstood. This should clear everything up nicely. Tyrone decided to extricate himself from any further involvement with these guys. He would offer what he knew, selectively. "Take the van, it's yours. Or what's left of it." "Who else knows about CMR? How is works?" Sorenson wanted more than the van. Duncan didn't answer. An arrogance, a defiance came over him that Bob Burnson saw immediately. "Tell them where you found out, Ty." He saw Duncan's negative facial reaction. "That's an order." How could he minimize the importance of Scott's contribution to his understanding of CMR radiation? How could he rationalize their relationship? He thought, and then realized it might not matter. Scott had said he already had his story, and no one had done anything wrong. Actually they had only had a casual con- versation on a train, as commuter buddies, what was the harm? It really exposed him more than Scott if anything came of it. "From an engineer friend of mine. He told me about how it worked." The reactions from the CIA and NSA G-Men were poorly concealed astonishment. Both made rapid notes. "Where does he work? For a defense contractor?" "No, he's also a reporter." "A reporter?" Sorenson gasped. "For what paper?" He breathless- ly prayed that it was a local high school journal, but his gut told him otherwise. "The New York City Times," Duncan said, confident that Scott could handle himself and that the First Amendment would help if all else failed. "Thank you very much Mr. Duncan." Sorenson rapidly rose from his chair. "You've been most helpful. Have a good flight back." * * * * * Tuesday., December 1 New York City The morning commute into the City was agonizingly long for Scott Mason. He nearly ran the 5 blocks from Grand Central Station to the paper's offices off Times Square. The elevator wait was interminable. He dashed into the City Room, bypassing his desk, and ran directly toward editor Doug McQuire's desk. Doug saw him coming and was ready. "Don't stop here. We're headed up to Higgins." Doug tried to deflect the verbal onslaught from Scott. "What the hell is going on here, Doug? I work on a great story, you said you loved it, and then I finally get the missing piece and then . . .this?" He pushed the morning paper in Doug's face. "Where the fuck is my story? And don't give me any of this 'we didn't have the room' shit. You yourself thought we were onto something bigger . . ." Doug ignored Scott as best he could, but on the elevator to the 9th floor, Scott was still in his face. "Doug, I am not a pimple faced cub reporter. I never was, that's why you hired me. You've always been straight with me . . ." Scott trailed behind Doug as they walked down the hallway to Higgins' office. He was still calling Doug every name in the book as they entered the room. Higgins sat behind his desk, no tie, totally un-Higgins-like. Scott shot out another nasty remark. "Hey, you look like shit." "Thanks to you," the bedraggled Higgins replied. "What? You too? I need this today." Scott's anger displayed concern as well. "Sit down. We got troubles." Higgins could be forceful when necessary. Apparently he felt this was an appropriate time to use his drill sergeant voice. It startled Scott so he sat - on the edge of his seat. He wasn't through dishing out what he thought about having a story pulled this way. Higgins waited for nearly half a minute. Let some calm, normalcy return before he started. "Scott, I pulled the story, Doug didn't. And, if it makes you feel any better, we've both been here all night. And we've had outside counsel lose sleep, too. Congratulations." Scott was confused. Congratulations? "What are you . . .?" "Hear me out. In my 14 years at this paper, this is the first time I've ever had a call from the Attorney General's office telling me, ordering me, that I, we had better not run a story. I am as confused as you." Higgins' sincerity was real; tired, but real. Scott suddenly felt a twinge of guilt, but not enough to remove the anger he still felt. "What ever happened to the first amend- ment?" Irate confusion was written all over his face. "Here me out before you pull the switch," Higgins sounded very tired. "About 10:30 last night I got a call from the Print Chief. He said that the NYPD was at the plant with a restraining order that we not print a story you had written. What should they do, he asked. Needless to say I had to come down, so I told him, hold the presses, for a half hour. I called Ms. Manchester and she met me here just after eleven. The officer had court orders, from Washington, signed by the Attorney General personal- ly, informing us that if we published certain information, alleg- edly written by you, the paper could be found in violation of some bullshit national security laws they made up on the spot. "I called Doug, who was pleased to hear from me at midnight I can assure you, and he agreed. Pull it. Whatever was going on, the story was so strong, that we can always print it in a few days once we sorted it out. We had no choice. But now, we need to know, what is going on?" Higgins was clearly exhausted. Scott was at a loss for words. "I . . .uh . . . dunno. What did the court order say?" "That the paper will, will is their word, refrain from printing anything with regards to CMR. And CMR was all over your article. Nobody here knew much about it, other than what was in the arti- cle, and we couldn't reach you, so we figured that we might save ourselves a bushel of trouble by waiting. Just a day or two," he quickly added. "How the hell did they find out ?" Scott's mind immediately blamed Tyrone. He had been betrayed. Used. Goddamn it. He knew better than to trust a Fed. Shit. Tyrone must have gone upstairs and told his cronies that I was onto a story and . . .well one thing led to another. But Jeez . . .the Attor- ney General's office. "Scott, what is going on here?" Higgins asked but Doug wanted to know as well. "It looks like you've got a tiger by the tail. And the tiger is in Washington. Seems like you've pissed off some important people. We need to know, the whole bit. What are you onto?" "It's all in the story," Scott said, emotionally drained before 9:00 AM. "Whatever I know is there. It's all been confirmed, Doug saw the notes." Doug nodded, yes, the reporting was as accurate as is expected in such cases. "Well," Higgins continued, "it seems that our friends in Wash- ington don't want any of this printed, for their own reasons. Is any of this classified, Scott?" "If it is, I don't know it," Scott lamely explained. He felt up against an invisible wall. "I got my confirmations from a couple of engineers and a hacker type who is up on computer security stuff. This stuff is chicken feed compared to SDI and the Stealth Bomber." "So why do they care?" "I have an idea, but I can't prove it yet," offered Scott. "Lay it on us, kid," said Doug approvingly. He loved controver- sial reporting, and this had the makings of . . . "What if between this and the Exchange we fell into a secret weapons program," Scott began. "Too simple. Been done before without this kind of backlash," Higgins said dismissing the idea. "Except, these weapons can be built by any high school kid with an electronics lab and a PC," Scott retorted undaunted. "Maybe not as good, or as powerful, but nonetheless, effective. If you were the government, would you want every Tom, Dick and Shithead to build home versions of cruise missiles?" "I think you're exaggerating a little, Scott." Higgins pinched his nose by the corners of his eyes. "Doug? What do you think?" Doug was amazingly collected. "I think," he said slowly, "that Scott is onto a once in a lifetime story. My gut tells me this is real. And still, we only have a small piece of the puzzle." "Scott? Get right back on it," Doug ordered. "I want to know what the big stink is. Higgins will use outside counsel to see if they dig anything up, but I believe you'll have better luck. It seems that you've stumbled on something that the Government wants kept secret. Keep up the good work." Scott was being congratulated on having a story pulled, which aroused mixed emotions within him. His boss thought it wonderful that it was pulled. It all depends what side of the fence you're on, I guess. "I have a couple of calls to make." Scott excused himself from Higgins' domain to get back to his desk. He dialed Duncan's private number. "4543," Duncan answered gruffly. "Fuck you very much." Scott enjoyed slamming down the phone as hard as he could. Scott's second call wouldn't be for hours. He wished it could be sooner, so the day passed excruciatingly slowly. But, it had to wait. Safety was a concern, not getting caught was paramount. He was going to rob a bank. * * * * * Washington, D.C. "I will call you in 5 minutes." Miles Foster heard the click of the phone in his ear. It was Homosoto. At midnight no less. He had no choice. It was better to speak to Homosoto over the computer than in person. He didn't have to hear the condescension. He turned his Compaq 486 back on and initiated the auto-answer mode on the modem through the ProTalk software package. Miles was alone. He had sent Perky home a few minutes before. He heard his modem ring, and saw the computer answer. The com- puter automatically set the communications parameters and matched the crypt key as chosen by the caller, undoubtedly Homosoto. Miles set his PRG code to prove to the computer that it was really him and he waited for the first message. WE NEED TO TALK. That was obvious, why state the obvious, thought Miles. I am listening. ONE OF THE READERS IS DEAD. HIS EQUIPMENT HAS BEEN CAPTURED. By whom? THE NEW YORK POLICE. THERE WAS A CAR ACCIDENT. THEN THE FBI GOT THE READER. THEN THE NSA, STEPPED IN AND TOOK OVER. THEY EVEN HAVE INTERFERED WITH THE PRESS. SCOTT MASON WROTE A STORY ON THE READERS AND THE GOVERNMENT STOPPED HIM. How? We don't do that sort of stuff. OBVIOUSLY YOU DO, MR. FOSTER. I HAVE MY SOURCES AS YOU DO. They don't screw with the press, though. That's frowned upon. MAYBE SO, BUT TRUE. WE NEED TO GET THIS MASON BACK ON THE TRACK. HE IS WHAT WE NEED. Why him? SIMPLE. WE HAVE SENT READER INFORMATION TO SEVERAL NEWSPAPERS. THE ONLY ONE TO PRINT HAS BEEN YOUR NATIONAL EXPOSE. THAT PAPER, I BELIEVE IS SOLD AT SUPERMARKETS AND READ BY WOMEN WHO WATCH SOAP OPERAS. MR. MASON IS AN ENGINEER WHO UNDERSTANDS. WE NEED HIM BACK. HE IS VALUABLE TO OUR PLAN. IN YOUR COUNTRY PEOPLE LISTEN TO THE PRESS. BUT YOUR GOVERNMENT STOPPED HIM. WE CANNOT LET HIM FAIL. How much does he know? AS MUCH AS WE WANT HIM TO. NO MORE. WE WANT TO FEED HIM A LITTLE AT A TIME, AS WE PLANNED. I AM AFRAID HE WILL BE DISCOUR- AGED AND ABANDON THE HUNT. YOU KNOW HOW CRITICAL THE PRESS IS. THEY ARE OUR MOUTHPIECE. Yes, I agree. I wish I knew how you find out these things. MANY PEOPLE OWE ME FAVORS. WE MAY HAVE LOST AFTER PEARL HARBOR, BUT WE WON WITH THE TRANSISTOR RADIO AND VCRS. THE WAR IS NOT OVER. What do you want me to do? MAKE SURE THAN MR. MASON IS KEPT INFORMED. HE IS BRIGHT. HE UNDERSTANDS. HIS VOICE WILL BE HEARD. HE MUST NOT BE STOPPED. I WILL DO WHAT I CAN AS WELL. PUT HIM BACK ON THE TRACK. I know how to do that. That will not be a problem. Do we still have readers? YES, WE LOST ONLY ONE, AND THAT IS NOT HURTING. WE HAVE MANY MORE. How many? MR. FOSTER, YOU WROTE THE PLAN. DID YOU FORGET? No, I know. Curiosity. KILLED THE CAT AS YOU SAY. It is my plan. WHICH I BOUGHT. I WANT THE PUBLICITY, AS PLANNED. SEE THAT WE GET IT. Sure. MR. FOSTER? ONE MORE THING. Yes. I DO NOT HAVE A SLOPED BROW NOR IS RICE MY PRIMARY MEANS OF PROPULSION. Just an expression. KEEP IT TO YOURSELF. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> * * * * * Midnight, Wednesday, December 2 Scarsdale, New York Since he had met Kirk, Scott had developed a mild affection for his long distance modem-pal, and pretended informer. Now, it was time to take advantage of his new asset. Maybe the Government carries weight with their spook shit, but a bank can't push hard enough to pull a story, if it's true. And Kirk, whoever that was, offered Scott the ideal way to prove it. Do it yourself. So he prepared himself for a long night, and he would definitely sleep in tomorrow; no matter what! Scott so cherished his sleep time. He wormed his way through the mess of the downstairs "study in disaster," and made space by redistributing the mess into other corners. He felt a commitment, an excitement that was beyond that of de- veloping a great story. Scott was gripped with an intensity that was a result of the apprehension of invading a computer, and the irony of it all. He was an engineer, turned writer, using com- puters as an active journalistic instrument other than for word processing. To Scott, the computer, being the news itself, was being used as a tool to perform self examination as a sentient being, as a separate entity. Techno-psychoanalysis? Is it narcissistic for man's tools to use themselves as both images of the mirror of reflective analysis? They say man's brain can never fully understand itself. Is the same true with comput- ers? And since they grow in power so quickly compared to man's snail-like millennia by millennia evolution, can they catch up with themselves? Back to reality, Scott. The Great American Techno-Philosophy and Pulitzer could wait. He had a bank to rob. Scott left his computer on all the time since Kirk had first called. If the Intergalactic Traveler called back, the computer would answer, and Kirk could leave a message. Scott checked the Mail Box in the ProCom communications program. No calls. Not that his modem was a popular number. Only he, his office computer and Kirk knew it. And the phone company, but everyone knows about them . . . Just as the clock struck midnight, Kirk jumped in his seat. Not only was the bell chiming an annoying 12 mini-gongs, but his computer was beeping. It took a couple of beeps from the small speaker in his computer for him to realize he was receiving a call. What do I do know? The 14" color screen came alive and it entered terminal mode from the auto-answer screen that Scott had left yesterday. WTFO The screen rang out. Scott knew the answer. naft VERY GOOD! COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF. Welcome pilgrim, what has brought thee to these shores? I GUESS WRITERS HAVE AN ADVANTAGE ON COMM. MAKE YOURSELF VERY COLORFUL. CREATE ANY PICTURE YOU WANT. Seems a bit more sporting that hiding behind techy-talk. YEAH, WELL, I'LL WORK ON IT. So, as Maynard G. Crebbs asked, "You Rang?" AH! DOBIE GILLIS. NICK AT NIGHT! No, the originals. WHEN WAS THAT? You've just dated yourself. Thanks. TO-FUCKING-SHAY! NOT AS OLD AS YOU. READY FOR A TRIP TO THE BANK? You read my mind :-) I FIGURED YOU'D WIMP OUT ON A SOLO TRIP, FIRST TIME AND ALL. THOUGHT I MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP. I MAKE A HELL OF A CHAUFFEUR. What do you mean? I MEAN I'M GOING TO TAKE YOU FOR A RIDE. You're kidding. Just like Superman carries Lois Lane? JUST ABOUT. FIRST I'M GOING TO SEND YOU A COPY OF 'MIRAGE' SOFTWARE. When? RIGHT NOW. THEN, YOU'LL USE MIRAGE. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS EXECUTE FROM THE COMMAND LINE AFTER I DOWN LOAD. English kimosabe. OK, ITS SIMPLE. WHEN I SAY SO, YOU ENTER ALT-F9. THAT SETS YOU UP TO RECEIVE. NAME THE FILE MIRAGE.EXE. THERE'S ONLY ONE. THEN WHEN IT SAYS ITS DONE, PRESS CTRL-ALT-R. YOU WILL HAVE A DOS LINE APPEAR. ENTER MIRAGE.EXE AND RETURN. Stop! I'm writing . . . USE PRTSCR What's that? IS YOUR PRINTER ON LINE? Yes. WHENEVER YOU WANT TO PRINT WHAT'S ON THE SCREEN ENTER 'SHIFT- PrtScr'. LOOK FOR IT. HIT IT NOW. Thanks! Got it. OR SAVE THE WHOLE THING TO A FILE. USE CTRL-ALT-S. THEN PICK A NEW FILE NAME. MEANS MONGO EDITING THOUGH. Done! I like Ctrl-Alt-S. Suits me fine. No memory needed. HIT ALT-F9. MIRAGE IS COMING. Scott did as instructed. The entire procedure made sense intel- lectually, but inside, there was an inherent disbelief that any of these simple procedures would produce anything meaningful. It is inherently difficult to feel progress, a sense of achievement without instantaneous feedback that all was well. Less than a minute later, the screen told Scott it was finished. Did he want to Save the file? Yes. Please name it. Mirage.Exe. Would you like to receive another? No. Do you want to exit to Command line? Yes. He entered Mirage.Exe as Kirk had instruct- ed, hoping that he was still waiting at the other end. The screen displayed various copyrights and Federal warnings about illegal copying of software, the very crime Scott had just com- mitted. The video suddenly split into two windows. The bottom window looked just like the screen he used to talk to Kirk, except much smaller. Only 10 out of a possible 25 lines. The upper half of the screen was new. MIRAGE-Remote View (C)1988. Kirk announced himself. WTFO Yup! I got something. Two screens. GOOD. THAT MEANS EVERYTHING PROBABLY WORKED. LET'S TEST IT. YOU AND I TALK JUST AS USUAL, ON THE SMALL WINDOW, LIKE WE'RE DOING NOW. ON THE TOP WINDOW, YOU WILL SEE WHAT I'M DOING. EXCEPT IN MINIATURE. BECAUSE YOU ONLY HAVE 15 LINES TO SEE, AND A NORMAL SCREEN IS 25 LINES, THE PROGRAM COMPRESSES THE SIGNAL TO DISPLAY IT IN FULL. DO YOU HAVE A DECENT MONITOR? vga 14 inch GOOD. YOU WON'T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS. REMEMBER, WHENEVER YOU WANT A COPY OF THE SCREEN, HIT SHIFT-PRTSCR. Can't I save everything? CTRL-ALT-S, YEAH. Done. Anything else? YOU CAN'T INTERFERE. JUST ALONG FOR THE RIDE. A Sunday drive in the country . . . WITH ME DRIVING. HA! FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS. Scott watched with his fingers sitting on the keyboard with anticipation. A phone number was displayed on top line in the Upper Window: 18005555500. <<DIALING>> In a few seconds the screen announced, WELCOME TO USA-NET, THE COMPLETE DATA BASE. The graphics got fancy but in black and white. ARE YOU A FIRST TIME USER? NO ID? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX PASSWORD? XXXXXXXX The video monitor did not let Scott see the access codes. Welcome to USA-NET, Kirk. Time synchronizing: 0:04:57 December 18, 1990 DO YOU WANT THE MAIN MENU? Y Scott's large window began to scroll and fill with lines after line of options: (A) Instructions (B) Charges (C) Updating (D) OAG (E) Shopping Menus (F) Trading Menus (G) Conversation Pits In all there were 54 choices displayed. The lower window came alive. SEE HOW IT WORKS? Fascinating. THAT WAS JUST A TEST. NOW FOR THE REAL THING. SURE YOU WANNA GO? Scott had gone this far. He would worry about the legalities in the morning. Higgins would have his work cut out for him. Aye, aye, Captain. ENGAGE WARP ENGINES. The upper window changed again. QUIT? Y ARE YOU SURE? Y <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> Another number flashed in the upper window. 12125559796. <<DIALING>> After less than 2 rings the screen announced that they had ar- rived at the front doors to the computer system at First State Bank, in New York. Another clue. Kirk was not from New York. He used an area code. Scott felt like looking back over his shoulders to see who was watching him. His automatic flight-or-fight response made the experience more exhilarating. He tried to force his intellect to convince himself that he was far from view, unobservable, unde- tectable. Only partially successful, he remained tense realizing that he was borderline legal. <<<<<<CONNECTION>>>>>> PORT CONTROL SECURITY, CENTRAL DATA PROCESSING CENTER, FIRST STATE BANK. O/S VMS R31 SECURITY: SE-PROTECT, 4.0 REV. 3.12.1 10, OCT, 1989 TIME: 00:12:43.1 DATE: 04 December PORT: 214 ARE YOU SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR? YES ENTER SYS-ADMIN ID CODE SEQUENCE: 8854 <<WAITING . . .>> PRIMARY SYS-ADMIN AUTHENTICATION ACCEPTED. PLEASE BEGIN SECOND- ARY IDENTIFICATION. PASSWORD: 4Q-BAN/HKR <<WAITING . . .>> SECONDARY SYS-ADMIN AUTHENTICATION ACCEPTED. PLEASE BEGIN FINAL IDENTIFICATION. ID: 374552100/1 <<WAITING . . .>> WELCOME TO CENTRAL DATA PROCESSING, FIRST STATE BANK, NEW YORK CITY. YOU ARE THE SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR. ***************** WARNING!!! PLEASE ONLY INITIATE CHANGES WHICH HAVE BEEN TESTED ON BACKUP PROCESSORS. SEVERE DAMAGE MAY RESULT FROM IMPROPER ADMINISTRA- TION. ***************** Scott watched in fascination. Here he was, riding shotgun on a trip through one of New York's largest bank computers, and there was no resistance. He could not believe that he had more securi- ty in his house than a bank with assets of over $10 Billion. The bottom window showed Kirk's next message. WHAD'YA THINK? Pretty stupid WHAT? That the bank doesn't have better control VIVE LE HACKER!!! * * * * * Wednesday, December 2 New York City "Doug," Scott came into the office breathlessly, "we have to see Higgins. I gotta great . . ." "Hey, I thought you were gonna come in late today? Wire in the copy?" He looked at the New York clock on the wall. It was 9:15. Scott broke the promise he made to himself to come in late. "Yeah, well, I underslept." He brandished a thick file of computer printouts. "Before I write this one, I want Higgins and every other lawyer God put on this green Earth to go over it." "Since when did you get so concerned with pre-scrutiny. As I remember, it was only yesterday that you threatened to nuke Higgins' house and everyone he ever met." Doug pretended to be condescending. Actually, the request was a great leap forward for Scott and every other reporter. Get pre-lawyered, on the approach, learn the guidelines, and maybe new rules before plow- ing ahead totally blind. "Since I broke into a bank last night!" Scott threw the folder down on Doug's desk. "Here. I'm going to Rosie's for a choles- terol fix. Need a picker upper." When Scott came back from a breakfast of deep fried fat and pan grilled grease he grabbed his messages at the front desk. Only one mattered: Higgins. 11:00. Be there. Doug. Still the boss, thought Scott. Higgins' job was to approve controversial material, but it gener- ally didn't surround only one reporter, on so many different stories within such a short time span. "Good to see you, Mason," snorted Higgins. "Right. Me too," he came back just as sarcastically. "Doug." He acknowledged his editor with only slightly more civility. "John, the boy's been up all night," Doug conciliated to Higgins. He called all his reporters boys. "And Scott, lighten up." He was serious. "Sure, Doug," he nodded. Higgins began. "O.K., Scott, what is it this time? Doug said you broke into a bank, and I haven't had time to go over these." He held up the thick file of printouts. "In 25 words or less." The legal succinctness annoyed Scott. "Simple. I tied in with a hacker last night, 'round midnight. He had the passwords to get into the First State computers, and well, he showed me around. Showed me how much damage can actual- ly be done by someone at a keyboard. The tour lasted almost 2 hours." "That's it?" Asked Higgins. "That's it? Are you kidding? Let me tell you a few things in 25 words or more!" Scott was tired and the lack of sleep made him irritable. "I did a little checking before I went on this excursion. You bank at First, don't you, John?" It was a setup question. "Yes," Higgins said carefully. "I thought so. Here let me have that file. Gimme a minute," he said flipping pages. "Here it is, and yes, correct me if I say anything that you don't agree with." His curtness and accusato- ry sound put both Higgins and Doug off. Where was he going? "John W. Higgins, social security number, 134-66-9241. Born Rock- ville, Maryland, June 1, 1947. You currently have $12,435.16 in your checking account, $23,908.03 in savings . . ." Higgins' jaw and pen dropped simultaneously. Doug saw the shock on his face while Scott continued. "Your mortgage at 115 Central Park West is $2,754.21. Your portfolio is split between, let's see, CD's, T-Bills, the bank acts as your broker, and you have three safety deposit boxes, only one to which your wife, Helen Beverly Simons, has access. You make a deposit every two weeks . . ." "Stop! How the hell do you know . . ." "Jeez you make that much? Can I be a lawyer too, huh? Please Mr. Higgins?" Higgins threw his chair back and stormed around his desk to grab the papers from Scott. Scott held them away. "Let me see those!" Higgins demanded. "Say please. Say pretty please." "Scott!" Doug decided enough was enough. Scott had made his point. "Cool it. Let him have them." "Sure, boss!" He grinned widely at Doug who could not, for reasons of professional conduct, openly condone Scott's perform- ance, no matter how effective it was. Higgins looked at the top pages from where Scott was reading. He read them intently, looking from one to the other. Slowly, he walked back to his desk, and sat down, nearly missing the chair because he was so engrossed. Without looking up he spoke softly. "This is unbelievable. Unbelievable. I can't believe that you have this." Suddenly he spoke right to Scott. "You know this is privileged information, you can't go telling anyone about my personal finances. You do know that, right?" The concern was acute. "Hey, I don't really give a damn what you make, but I needed to shake the tree. This is serious shit." "Scott, you've got my total, undivided attention now. The floor's yours. You have up to 100 words." Humor wasn't Higgins' strong point, or his weak point, or any point, but Scott appreci- ated the gesture. Doug could relax, too. A peace treaty, for now. "Thanks, John." Scott was sincere. "As you know I've been run- ning a few stories on hackers, computer crimes, what have you." Higgins rolled his eyes. He remembered. "A few weeks ago I got a call from Captain Kirk. He's a hacker." "What do you know about him?" Higgins was again taking notes. The tape recorder was nowhere to be seen. "Not much, yet, but I have a few ideas. I would hazard to guess that he is younger. Maybe in his late '20's, not from New York, maybe the Coast, and has a sense of responsibility." "How do know this?" "Well, I don't know, I guessed from our conversations." "Why didn't you just ask?" "I did. But, he wants his anonymity. It's the things he says, the way he says them. The only reason I know he's a he is be- cause he called me on the phone first." "When did you speak to him?" Higgins inquired. "Only once. After that it's been over computer." "So it could be anyone really?" "Sure, but that doesn't matter. It's what he did. First, we entered the computer . . ." "What do you mean we?" Higgins shot Scott a disapproving stare. "We. Like him and me. He tied my computer to his so I could watch what he was doing. So, he gets into the computer . . ." "How?" "With the passwords. There were three." "How did he get them?" "From another hacker I assume. That's another story." The con- stant interruptions exasperated Scott. "Let me finish, then grill me. O.K.?" Higgins nodded. Sure. "So, once we were in, he could do anything he wanted. The com- puter thought he was the Systems Administrator, the head honcho for all the bank's computer operations. So we had free reign. The first place we went was to Account Operations. That's where the general account information on the bank's customers is kept. I asked him for information on you. Within seconds I knew a lot about you." Higgins frowned deeply. "From there, he asked for detailed information on your files; credit cards, payment histo- ry, delinquencies, loans on cars, IRA's, the whole shooting match." "I have to interrupt here, Scott," Higgins said edgily. "Could he, or you have made changes, to, ah . . .my account?" "We did!" "You made changes? What changes?" Higgins was aghast. "We took all your savings and invested them in a new startup fast food franchise called Press Rat and Wharthog Sandwiches, Inc." "You have got be kidding." Scott saw the sweat drops at Higgins' hairline. "Yeah, I am. But he did show me how easy it is to make adjust- ments in account files. Like pay off loans and have them disap- pear, invoke foreclosures, increase or decrease balances, whatev- er we wanted to do." "Jesus Christ!" "That's not the half of it. Not even a millionth of it. See, we went through lots of accounts. The bank computer must hold hundreds of thousands of account records, and we had access to them all. If we had wanted to, we could have erased them all, or zeroed them out, or made everyone rich overnight." "Are you telling me," Higgins spoke carefully, "that you and this . . .hacker, illegally entered a bank computer and changed records and . . ." "Whoah!" Scott held up his hands to slow Higgins down. "We left everything the way it was, no changes as far as I could tell." "Are you sure?" "No, I'm not. I wasn't in the driver's seat. I went along for the ride." "What else did you do last night, Scott?" Higgins sounded re- signed to more bad news. The legal implications must have been too much for him to handle. "We poked around transfer accounts, where they wire money from one bank to another and through the Fed Reserve. Transaction accounts, reserves, statements, credit cards. Use your imagina- tion. If a bank does it, we saw it. The point is, John, I need to know two things." John Higgins sat back, apparently exhausted. He knew what was coming, at least half of it. His expression told Scott to ask away. He could take it. "First, did I do anything illegal, prosecutable? You know what I mean. And, can I run with it? That's it." Higgins' head leaned back on the leather head rest as he began to speak deliberately. This was going to be a lawyer's non-answer. Scott was prepared for it. "Did you commit a crime?" Higgins speculated. "My gut reaction says no, but I'm not up on the latest computer legislation. Did you, at any time, do anything to the bank's computers?" "No. He had control. I only had a window." "Good, that helps." The air thickened with anticipation as Doug and Scott both waited for words of wisdom. "I could make a good argument that you were a reporter, with appropriate credentials, interviewing an individual, who was, coincidentally, at the same time, committing a crime. That is, if what he did was a crime. I don't know the answer to that yet. "There have been countless cases where a reporter has witnessed crimes and reported on them with total immunity. Yes, the more I think about it, consider this." Higgins seemed to have renewed energy. The law was his bible and Scott was listening in the congregation. "Reporters have often gone into hostage situations where there is no doubt that a crime is in progress, to report on the condition of the hostages. That's O.K.. They have followed drug dealers into crack houses and filmed their activities." Higgins thought a little more. "Sure, that's it. The arena doesn't change the rules. You said you couldn't affect the computers, right?" He wanted a confirmation. "Right. I just watched. And . . .asked him to do certain things." "No you didn't! Got that? You watched, nothing else!" Higgins cracked sharply at Scott. "If anyone asks, you only watched." "Gotcha." Scott recognized the subtle difference. He did not want to be an aider or abettor of a crime. "So, that makes it easy. If you were in the hackers home, watch- ing him over his shoulder, that would be no different from watch- ing him over a computer screen." He sounded confident. "I guess." He sounded less confident. "There is very little case history on this stuff, so, if it came to it, we'd be in an inter- esting position to say the least. But, to answer your question, no, I don't think that you did anything illegal." "Great. So I can write the story and . . ." Scott made a forgone conclusion without his lawyers advice. There was no way Higgins would let him get away with that. "Hold your horses. You say write a story, and based upon what I know so far, I think you can, but with some rules." "What kind of rules?" Skepticism permeated Scott's slow re- sponses. "Simple ones. Are you planning on printing the passwords to their computers?" "No, not at all. Why?" "Because, that is illegal. No doubt about it. So, good, rule one is easy. Two, I want to read over this entire file and have a review of everything before it goes to bed. Agreed?" Higgins looked at Doug who had not contributed much. He merely nodded, of course that would be fine. "Three, no specifics. No names of people you saw, nothing exact. We do not want to be accused of violation of privacy in any way, shape or form." "That's it?" Scott was pleasantly surprised. What seemed like common sense to him was a legal spider web that Higgins was re- quired to think through. "Almost. Lastly, was this interview on the record?" Damn good question, Scott thought. "I dunno. I never asked, it didn't seem like a regular interview, and since I don't know Kirk's real name, he's not the story. It was what he did that is the story. Does it matter?" "If the shit hits the fan it might, but I think we can get around it. Just be careful what you say, so I don't have to redline 90% of it. Fair enough?" Scott was pleased beyond control. He stood to thank Higgins. "Deal. Thanks." Scott began to turn. "Scott?" Higgins called out. "One more thing." Oh no, he thought, the hammer was dropping. He turned back to Higgins. "Yeah?" "Good work. You're onto something. Keep it up and keep it clean." "No problem." Scott floated on air. "No, problem at all." Back at his desk, Scott called Hugh Sidneys. He still worked at State First, as far as he knew, and it was time to bring him out of the closet, if possible. "Hugh?" Scott said affably. "This is Scott Mason, over at the Times?" "Yeah? Oh, hello," Sidneys said suspiciously. "What do you want?" "Hugh, we need to talk." "About what?" "I think you know. Would you like to talk here on the phone, or privately?" Sometimes leaving the mark only two options, neither particularly attractive, would keep him within those bounds. Sidneys was an ideal person for this tact. The pregnant pause conveyed Sidney's consternation. The first person to speak would lose, thought Scott. Hugh spoke. "Ah, I think it would be . . .ah better . . .if we spoke . . .at . . ." "How about the same place?" Scott offered. "OK," Hugh was hesitant. "I guess so . . .when?" "Whenever you want. No pressure." Scott released the tension. "I get off at 5, how about . . .?" "I'll be there." "Yes ma'am. This is Scott Mason. I'm a reporter for the Times. I will only take a few seconds of his time. Is he in?" Scott used his kiss-the-secretary's-ass voice. Better then being aggressive unless it was warranted. "I'll check, Mr. Mason," she said. The phone went on hold. After a very few seconds, the Muzak was replaced with a gruff male voice. "Mr. Mason? I'm Francis MacMillan. How may I help you?" He conveyed self assuredness, vitality and defensiveness. "I won't take a moment, sir." Scott actually took several sec- onds to make sure his question would be formed accurately. He probably only had one chance. "We have been researching an article on fraudulent investment practices on the part of various banks; some fall out from the S&L mess." He paused for effect. "At any rate, we have received information that accuses First State of defrauding it's investors. In particular, we have records that show a complicated set of financial maneuvers that are designed to drain hundreds of millions of dollars from the assets of First State. Do you have any comment?" Total silence. The quality of fiber phone lines made the silence all the more deafening. "If you would like some specifics, sir, I can provide them to you," Scott said adding salt to the wound. "In many cases, sir, you are named as the person responsible for these activities. We have the documents and witnesses. Again, we would like a comment before we go to print." Again Scott was met with silence. Last try. "Lastly, Mr. MacMillan, we have evidence that your bank's comput- ers have been invaded by hackers who can alter the financial posture of First State. If I may say so, the evidence is quite damning." Scott decided not to ask for a comment directly. The question was no longer rhetorical, it was implicit. If feelings could be transmitted over phone wires, Scott heard MacMillan's nerve endings commence a primal scream. The phone explosively hung up on Scott. * * * * * Thursday, December 3 First State Bank, New York Francis MacMillan, President of First State Savings and Loan, bellowed at the top of his lungs. Three Vice Presidents were in his office before 7:00 A.M. "Who the fuck's in charge of making sure the damned computers are safe?" The V.P. of Data processing replied. "It's Jeanne Fineman, sir." "Fire him." "Jeanne is a woman . . ." "Fire them both. I want them out of here in 10 minutes." McMil- lan's virulent intensity gave his aides no room for dissent. "Sir, why, it's almost Christmas, and it wasn't her fault . . ." "And no bonus. Make sure they never work near banks, or comput- ers ever again! Got that?" Everyone nodded in shock. "Al?" McMillan shouted. "Buy back our stock, quietly. When the market hears this we're in for a dump. No one will believe us when we respond, and it will take us a day to get out an answer." "How much?" Al Shapiro asked. "You figure it out. Just keep it calm." Shapiro noted it agree- ably. "Where the hell are the lawyers? I want that pinko-faggot news- paper stopped by tonight." McMillan's rage presaged a very, very bad day at First State. "And someone, someone, find me that shit hole worm Sidneys. I want him in my office in 30 seconds. Now," he violently thrust his arms in the air, "get the hell out of here until you have some good news." * * * * * Friday, December 4 RUN ON FIRST STATE AS IT STALLS ON OWN BAILOUT by Scott Mason Since yesterday afternoon, First State Savings and Loan has been in asset-salvation mode. Upon reports that computer hackers have had access to First State's computers and records for some time, and can change their contents at will, the stock market reacted negatively by a sell-off. In the first 15 minutes of trading, First State's stock plummeted from 48 1/2 to 26 1/4, a reduction of one half its value. Subsequently, the stock moved up with block buying. At the noon bell, the stock had risen modestly to 31. It is assumed that First State itself is repurchasing their own stock in an attempt to bolster market confidence. However, at 2:00PM, First State contacted banking officials in New York and Washington, as well as the SEC, to announce that a rush of worried depositors had drained the bank of it's available hard currency reserves, and would close until the following morning when cash transfers would permit the bank to continue payments. Last quarter cash holding were reported in excess of $3 Billion, and First State has acknowledged that any and all monies would be available to those who desired it. In a press release issued by First State at 1:00 PM they said, "A minor compromise of our computers has caused no discernible damage to the computers, our customers or the bank. A thorough investigation has determined that the hacker was either a figment of the imagination of a local paper or was based upon unfounded hearsay. The bank's attorneys are reviewing their options." The combination of the two announcements only further depressed First State stock. It stood at 18 7/8 when the SEC blocked further trading. This is Scott Mason, who reported the news as he saw it. Accu- rately. **************************************************************** Chapter 15 Sunday, December 6 Washington, D.C. Miles Foster was busy at one of the several computers in his Washington, D.C. condo. It was necessary, on a daily basis, to stay in contact with a vast group of people who were executing portions of his master plan. He thought it was going quite well, exceedingly so in fact. Spread over 3 continents he remote controlled engineers and programmers who designed methods to compromise computers. With his guidance, though. He broke them into several groups, and none of them knew they were part of a much larger organization, nor did they have any idea of their ultimate objective. Each of his computer criminals was recruited by Alex; that's the only name that Miles knew. Alex. Miles had drawn up a list of minimum qualifications for his 'staff'. He forwarded them to Homosoto, who, Miles guessed, passed them on to the ubiquitous yet invisible Alex. That obviously wasn't his real name, but suitable for conversation. Miles had developed a profile of the various talents he required. One group needed to have excellent programming skills, with a broad range of expertise in operating systems. An operating system is much like English or any other language. It is the O/S that allows the computer to execute its commands. Unless the computer understands the O/S, the computer is deaf dumb and blind. As a child learns to communicate, a computer is imbued with the basic knowledge to permit it to function. It is still essentially stupid, that is, it can't do anything on its own without instructions, but it can understand them when they are given. In order to violate a computer, a thorough understanding of the O/S, or language of the computer is a must. Good programmers learn the most efficient way to get a computer to perform the desired task. There are, as in any field, tricks of the trade. Through experience, a programmer will learn how to fool the computer into doing things it might not be designed to do. By taking advantage of the features of the Operating System, many of them unknown and therefore undocumented by the original designers of the O/S, a computer programmer is able to extract additional performance from the equipment. Similarly, though, such knowledge allows the motivated programmer to bypass critical portions of the Operating System to perform specific jobs and to circumvent any security measures that may be present. For example, in most of the 85,000,000 or so DOS com- puters in the world, it is common knowledge that when you ERASE a file, you really don't erase it. You merely erase the NAME of the file. If a secretary was told to dispose of document from a file cabinet, and she only removed the name of each file, but left the contents remaining in the file drawers, she would cer- tainly have reason to worry for her job. Such is an example of one of the countless security holes that permeate computer land. To take advantage of such glaring omissions, several software companies were formed that allowed users to retrieve 'erased' files. These were among the skills that Miles wanted his people to have. He needed them to be fluent in not only DOS, but Unix, Xenix, VMS, Mac and a host of other Operating Systems. He needed a group that knew the strengths and weaknesses of every major O/S to fulfill his mission. They needed to be able to identify and exploit the trap doors and holes in all operating and security systems. From an engineering standpoint, Miles found it terrifi- cally exciting. Over the three years he had been working for Homosoto, Miles and his crew designed software techniques and hardware tools that he didn't believe were even contemplated by his former employer, the NSA. The qualifications he sent to Homosoto were extensive, detailed and demanding. Miles wasn't convinced that anyone but he could find the proper people. The interview process alone was crucial to determining an applicant's true abilities, and a mediocre programmer could easily fool a non-technical person. While Miles and Homosoto agreed that all programmers should be isolated from each other, Miles felt he should know them more than by a coded name over modem lines. Miles lost that battle with one swift word from Homosoto. No. To Miles' surprise, within a few days of providing Homosoto with is recruitment lists, his 'staff' began calling him on his com- puter. To call Miles, a computer needed his number, and the proper security codes. To a man, or woman, they all did. And, as he spoke to them over the public phone lines, in encrypted form of course, he was amazed at their quality and level of technical sophistication. Whoever Alex was, he knew how to do his job. Over a period of a few months, Miles commanded the resources of over 100 programmers. But, Miles thought, there was something strange about most of those with whom he spoke. They seemed ready to blindly follow instructions without questioning the assigned tasks. When a programmer takes a job or an assignment, he usually knows that he will be designing a data base, or word processor or other application program. However, Miles' staff was to design programs intended to damage computers. He had assembed the single largest virus software team in the world, and none of them questioned the nature or ethics of the work. Miles would have thought that while there is considerable technical talent around the world, finding people who would be willing to work on projects to facilitate the interruption of communications and proper computer operations would have been the most difficult part of recruitment. He realized he was wrong, although he did not know why. Technical mercenaries perhaps? He had never seen an ad with that as a job title, but, what the hell. Money can buy anything. Weapons designers since Oppen- heiner have had to face similar moral dilemmas, and with wide- spread hatred of things American, recruitment couldn't have been all that difficult. As he sat in his apartment, he was receiving the latest virus designs from one of his programmers who lived in the suburbs of Paris, France. While there was somewhat of a language barrier when they spoke, the computer language was a common denominator, and they all spoke that fluently. It broke down communications errors. Either it was in the code, or it wasn't. Miles knew this designer only as Claude. Claude's virus was small, less than 2K, or 2000 characters, but quite deadly. Miles went over it and saw what it was designed to do. Ooh, clever, thought Miles. As many viruses do, this one attached itself to the Command.Com file of the DOS Operating System. Rather than wait for a specific future date, the next time the computer was booted, or turned on, Claude's virus in the O/S would play havoc with the chips that permit a printer to be connected to the computer. In a matter of seconds, with no pre-warning, the user would hear a small fizzle, and smell the recognizable odor of electronic burn. During the time the user poked his nose around the computer, to see if the smell was real or imaginary, the virus would destroy the contents of the hard disk. According to Claude, whose English was better than most French- men, there was a psychological advantage to this type of double- duty virus. The victim would realize that his computer needed repair and take it be fixed at his local computer shop. But, alas! Upon its return, the owner would find his hard disk trashed and attempt to blame the repairman. Deviously clever. Of course this type of virus would be discovered before too long. After a few thousand computers had their printer port blown up, word would get around and the virus would be identified. But, mean- while, oh what fun. As Miles prepared to send Claude's latest and greatest to another of his staff for analysis and debugging, the computer dedicated to speaking to Homosoto beeped at him. He glanced over at Nip- Com. He labeled all his computers with abbreviations. In this case, Nippon Communications seemed appropriate. <<<<<<CONNECTION>>>>>> MR. FOSTER Miles scooted his chair over to NipCom and entered his PRG re- sponse.. Here Boss-san. What's up YOU TELL ME. Huh? I READ THE PAPERS. AGAIN YOU MOVE PRECIPITOUSLY. What are you talking about? FIRST STATE BANK. YOUR INFECTORS ARE WITHOUT DISCIPLINE I still don't know what you mean THE PAPERS HAVE SAID THAT FIRST STATE BANK WAS INVADED BY HACKERS AND THEIR STOCK DROPPED VERY MUCH. IT IS STILL NOT TIME. Oh, that. Good bit of work. NO SO MR FOSTER. I AM NOT PLEASED WITH YOU Me, why? I didn't have anything to do with it EXPLAIN Nothing to explain. My group doesn't do that, and even if they did, so what. WHAT ABOUT THE VIRUSES? I READ EVERY DAY OF NEW COMPUTER VIRUS. THEY MUST BE STOPPED. Why? It's all in good fun. Let 'em release them all they want. THEY WILL HURT OUR PLANS Bull. If anything, they help us. HOW IS THAT? Getting folks good and nervous. They're beginning to wonder who they can trust. It sure as hell won't be the government. BUT IT IS IN THE PAPERS. So? THE BANKS WILL PROTECT THEMSELVES. THEY WILL SEEN WHAT THE HACKERS DO AND MAKE OUR JOB MORE DIFFICULT. Not a chance. Listen, there are hundreds, maybe thousands or more of small time hackers who poke around computers all the time. Sometimes they do some damage, but most of the time they are in it for the thrill. The challenge. They are loosely organized at best. Maybe a few students at a university, or high school who fancy themselves computer criminals. Most of them wouldn't know what to do with the information if they took it. The only reason this one hit the papers is because First is under investigation anyway, some fraud stuff. Literally thousands of computers are attacked every day, yet those don't appear in the paper or TV. It's kind of like rape. Companies don't want to admit they've been violated. And since damage has been limited, at least as far as the scale upon which we function, it's a non- issue. I DO NOT SEE IT THAT WAY. Well, that's the way it is. There are maybe a half dozen well coordinated hacking groups who care to cause damage. The rest of them, ignore them. They're harmless. I WISH I BELIEVED THAT There's not much we can do about it. WHY NOT STOP THEM We can't. Look at our plans. We have hundreds of people who have a single purpose. We operate as a single entity. The hack- ers are only a small thorn. Industry can't do much about them, so they ignore them. It is better that we ignore them, too. FIND THEM Who? THE FIRST BANK ATTACKERS Why? I WANT THEM STOPPED I told you, you can't do that. It's impossible. Call the Arab. LOOK AT US, MR FOSTER. NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE. What do you want me to do with them? TELL ME WHO THEY ARE. I WILL TAKE CARE OF IT. I'll see what I can do. DO IT. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> Fuck, thought Miles. Sometimes Homosoto can be such an asshole. He doesn't really understand this business. I wonder how he got into it in the first place. He remembered that he had to get Claude's virus properly analyzed and tested, so he sent it off to an American programmer who would perform a sanity-check on it. If all went well he would then send it out for distribution into America's computers through his BBS system set up just for that purpose. With Diet Coke and Benson and Hedges Ultra Lights in hand he figured he might as well have someone look into Homosoto's para- noia. With some luck they could get a lead on this anonymous hacker and maybe Homosoto would leave him alone for a few hours. The constant interruptions and micro-management was a perpetual pain in the ass. Miles moved over to his BBS computer and told ProCom to dial 1- 602-555-3490. That was the phone number of the Freedom BBS, established by Miles and several recruits that Alex had so ably located. It was mid morning Arizona time. Revere should be there. <<<<<<CONNECTION>>>>>> Welcome to the Freedom BBS Owned and Operated by the Information Freedom League (Non-profit) Are You a Member of the IFL? Y ID: XXXXXXXXX PASSWORD: XXXXXXXX Pause . . . WELCOME TO THE FREEDOM BBS, MF. HOW ARE YOU TODAY? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * FREEDOM FLASH!!!!!!!!! Another hacker has been convicted of a computer crime and has been sentenced to 1 Year in jail, a fine of $25,000 and 2000 hours of community service! His crime? Larry Johnson, a respected hacker from Milwau- kee, WI, was a founding member of the 401 Group over 10 years ago. Since then he has been hacking systems success- fully and was caught after he added $10,000 to his bank account. GOOD FOR THE SECRET SERVICE! Congratulations Guys! The IFL believes in a free exchange of information for all those who wish to be willing participants. We whole-heart- edly condemn all computer activities that violate the law and code of computer ethics. All members of IFL are expect- ed to heed all current computer legislation and use comput- ers exclusively for the betterment of mankind. Any IFL member found to be using computers in any illegal fashion or for any illegal purpose will be reported to the Computer Crime Division of the Secret Service in Washington, D.C. Remember, hacking is a crime! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * A little thick, thought Miles, but effective. And a stroke of genius. He patted himself ion the back every time he saw how effective Freedom, his computer warfare distribution system was. DO YOU WANT THE MAIN MENU? No DO YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO REVERE? Y LET ME SEE IF HE IS HERE, OR IF YOU NEED TO LEAVE A MESSAGE. ONE MOMENT PLEASE. . . THE SYSOP IS WAITING. PLEASE ENTER YOUR PIN: XXXX-XXXX Pause . . . MF? IS THAT YOU? Betch'ure ass. Revere? How's trix? SAME OL' SAME OL'. YOU? Trying to make a profit. Hey, we gotta talk. OUT LOUD? No whisper. OK. LET ME SET IT. <<CRYPT KEY SELECTION>> Pause . . . <<CRYPT KEY EXCHANGE>> Pause . . . <<TRANSMISSION ENCODED>> MF? Still here. GOOD. SURPRISES THE SHIT OUT OF ME EVERY TIME THIS WORKS. Me too. WHAT CAN I DO? GOT ANOTHER PRESENT? Couple of days, sure. Some doosies. WHAT'YA GOT? A graphics program that kicks the living shit out of VGA Master and Paint Man. Deadly too. HOW? Copies portions of itself into Video RAM and treats it as a TSR. Next program you load gets infected from Video RAM and spreads from there. Undetectable unless you're running debug at the same time and looking for it. Then it stealths itself into all V-RAM applications and spreads outside the O/S. TRIGGERS? I forget the exact trigger mechanism, but it gives constant parity errors. Nothing'll run. OK! LOOKIN' GOOD. Also have a few Lotus utilities, a couple of games. THE GAMES ARE GOING GREAT GUNS. WE SHOULD BE SELLING THEM IN THE STORES. How many? AS OF A WEEK AGO, MORE THAN 240,000 PACK-LADIES HAVE BEEN DOWN LOADED. THAT'S OUR BEST SELLER. Anyone sending money? SURPRISINGLY, YES. WE'RE TURNING A PROFIT. Shit. That's not what we wanted. CAN'T KEEP A GOOD PROGRAM DOWN. Yeah Yeah Yeah. Need some info. THAT'S OUR MIDDLE NAME. WHAT DO YOU NEED? You hear about the First Bank hacker? SURE! I GOT A DOZEN PEOPLE TAKING CREDIT FOR IT. You're kidding NO! IT'S A GOOD ONE. BRING A BANK TO IT'S KNEES. STOP STOCK TRADING. SEC INVESTIGATION. A LOT OF OUR FOLKS WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD. Was it us? NO WAY. Then who, really? DAMNED IF I KNOW OR CARE. Care WHAT? SINCE WHEN DO WE CARE ABOUT THE AMATEURS? Since now. Things are heating up too soon. I need to know who pulled the job. I CAN GET A LOT OF PEOPLE TO ADMIT IT, BUT I CAN'T VERIFY IT. Whoever did it is not likely to advertise it openly. We may need to pull him into the open. GOTCHA Here's my thinking. Assume the hack is just a kid. He's getting no credit and receives a shitty allowance. So, we offer a re- ward. Whoever can prove that they are the one's who broke into First Bank, we'll send them a new 386. Whatever, use your imagi- nation. THINK HE'LL BITE? If it's a pro, no. But this doesn't ring of a pro. The news- papers know too much. AND IF WE FIND HIM? Just get me his number and shipping address. Make sure he gets the computer too. OK BOSS. ANYTHING ELSE? Keep up the good work. Oh, yeah. I need the estimates. NO PROBLEM. THEY LOOK GREAT. IN JUST OVER 2 YEARS, WE HAVE GIVEN AWAY OVER 1,300,000 INFECTED PROGRAMS AND NONE HAVE GONE OFF YET. ACCORDING TO PLAN. Love it. Peace. BYE, YOU MF. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> * * * * * Monday, December 7 New York City The phone on Scott Mason's desk had been unusually, but grateful- ly quiet. Higgins had been able to keep the First State lawyers at bay with the mounds of information the paper had accumulated on MacMillan's doings. The bank's stock was trading again, but at a dilution of over 75%. Most individual customers had cashed out their accounts, including Higgins, and only those long term portfolios remained. Scott's stories on First Bank had won him recognition by his peers. No awards, but an accolade at the New York Journalists Club dinner. Not bad, he thought. Now the hard work continued for him. The full background analy- ses, additional proof, more witnesses now that Sidneys was under Federal indictment and out of work. MacMillan was in trouble, but it was clear to Scott, that if the heat got turned up too much, there was a cache of millions offshore for the person with the right access codes. His phone rang. "Scott Mason." "Hey, Scott this is Kirk. We gotta talk, I'm in trouble." Kirk sounded panicked. "Damn Klingons," Scott cracked. "Seriously, I'm in trouble. You gotta help me out." Scott realized this was no prank. "Sure, sure, calm down. What happened?" "They found me, and they got into my computer and now it's gone . . .shit, I'm in trouble. You gotta help me." "Kirk!" Scott shouted. "Kirk, relax, ground yourself. You're not making sense. Take it from the beginning." Kirk exhaled heavily in Scott's ear, taking several deep breaths. "O.K., I'm O.K., but should we be talking on the phone?" "Hey, you called me . . .," Scott said with irritation. "Yeah, I know, but I'm not thinking so good. You're right, I'll call you tonight." Click. * * * * * Nightline was running its closing credits when Scott's home computer beeped at him. Though Kirk had not told him when to expect a call, all other communications had begun precisely at midnight, so Scott made a reasonable deduction. The dormant video screen came to life as the first message appeared. MASON That was unlike Kirk to start a conversation that way. wtfo ITS ME. KIRK. Now it was Scott's turn to be suspicious. Prove it. AW CMON Prove it. I CALLED YOU TODAY So did half of the crack pots in New York I'M IN TROUBLE So were the others. OK. WE WENT THROUGH THE BANK AND HAD SOME FUN WITH PRESSED RAT AND WHARTHOG, INC. Good enough. You sound as scared here as you did on the phone. I thought computers didn't have emotion. I DO. OK, what's up. THEY FOUND ME Who? THE PEOPLE FROM FIRST STATE BANK. How? What? I RECEIVED A MESSAGE ON MY COMPUTER, E-MAIL. IT SAID, STAY AWAY FROM FIRST STATE BANK. YOUR HACKING CAREER IS OVER. OR ELSE. What did you do? CALLED A FEW FRIENDS WHO THINK THEY'RE FUNNY. And? HONOR AMONG THIEVES. IT WASN'T THEM. SO I FIGURED IT WAS FOR REAL. You sure? AS SURE AS I CAN BE. MY ACTIVITIES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SECRET. NO ONE KNOWS. EXCEPT YOU. And you think I did something. THE THOUGHT CROSSED MY MIND MORE THAN ONCE, I'LL TELL YOU. BUT, I THINK I HAVE ELIMINATED YOU Thanks, Why? NO MOTIVATION. I'M MORE USE TO YOU ALIVE THAN DEAD. Excuse me? AS LONG AS MY IDENTITY AND ACTIVITIES REMAIN SECRET, I'M ALIVE AS A HACKER AND CAN CONTINUE TO DO WHAT I DO. AS SOON AS I'M FOUND OUT, IT'S OVER. BUT THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM. What is? I CAME HOME THIS MORNING AND FOUND THAT SOMEONE BROKE IN AND TRASHED EVERYTHING. COMPUTERS, PRINTERS, MONITORS, THE WHOLE BALL OF WAX. AND THERE WAS A NOTE. What did it say? WE KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE. STAY OUT OF OUR COMPUTERS OR YOU WILL BE SORRY. IT WAS SIGNED FIRST STATE BANK. That doesn't make sense. WHAT DOESN'T Nobody except terrorists leave their calling card, and then only when they're sure they can't be caught. I would bet dollars to donuts that First State had nothing to do with it. ARE YOU SURE? No, I'm not sure, not 100%, but it doesn't add up. You've stepped on somebody's toes, and it may or may not have anything to do with First State. They're just trying to scare you. AND DOING A DAMNED GOOD JOB OF IT Have you called the police. NO. NOT YET. I'M NOT IN THE LINE OF WORK THEY PROBABLY APPROVE OF. So I see. Who else knew about your trips through the bank, other than me. I will assume I'm not the guilty party. A COUPLE OF HACKER FRIENDS, MY GIRLFRIEND, THAT'S ABOUT IT. No one else? NOT THAT I CAN THINK OF. Let me ask you. If you wanted to find out who was hacking where, how would you find out? Let's say you wanted to know what your friends were doing. Is there a way? NOT WITHOUT A LOT OF EXPENSIVE EQUIPMENT. NO. YOU WOULD HAVE TO TELL SOMEONE. And you told no one? No one? WELL, THERE WAS FREEDOM. What's Freedom? FREEDOM IS A NATIONAL BBS SYSTEM. IT'S FAIRLY NEW. What do they do? LIKE MOST BBS'S, IT'S AN OPEN FORUM FOR EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION, PROGRAMS, ETC. IT IS ONE OF THE LARGEST IN THE COUNTRY. THEY HAVE BBS AFFILIATES IN 50 OR 60 CITIES. THEY ALSO RUN A SHARE- WARE SERVICE. Is that significant? MOST SHAREWARE COMPANIES SELL THEIR SOFTWARE ON OTHER PEOPLE'S BBS'S. THE CONCEPT IS SIMPLE. THEY GIVE AWAY THEIR SOFTWARE FOR FREE. IF YOU LIKE IT, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO SEND IN A FEW DOLLARS AS A REGISTRATION, AND THAT'S HOW THEY MAKE MONEY. IT'S PART OF THE CULTURE, DON'T BECOME RICH ON SOFTWARE. FREEDOM WRITES A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF SOFTWARE AND THEY PUT IT ON THEIR OWN AS WELL AS OTHER BBS'S. IT'S REAL SMART. THEY BASICALLY HAVE THEIR OWN METHOD TO DISTRIBUTE THEIR SOFTWARE. Do they make money? WHO KNOWS. IT LOOKS LIKE A BIG OPERATION. VERY FEW SHAREWARE PEOPLE MAKE MONEY, AND FREEDOM SAYS ITS NON-PROFIT. Non-Profit did you say? Are you sure? THAT'S WHAT THEY SAY. What's their number? I ONLY HAVE THE LA NUMBER. So you are from the Coast. SHIT. YEAH. I'M FROM THE COAST. That was an accident. I really don't care. I KNOW. IT MAY NOT MATTER. I MAY GIVE IT UP. I DON'T NEED MY COMPUTERS BEING BLOWN TO SMITHERINES TO TELL ME I'M BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE. Maybe it is the right tree. WHAT? Never mind. So, you said you told them? WELL, KIND OF. YOU SEE, THEY ARE VERY MUCH AGAINST HACKING. THEY ALWAYS TALK ABOUT PROSECUTING HACKERS, HOW BAD WE ARE. AFTER THE FIRST STATE ARTICLES YOU WROTE, A LOT OF PEOPLE ON THE CHAT LINE CLAIMED TO HAVE DONE THE JOB. NOT THAT WE REALLY DID ANYTHING. WE JUST LOOKED AROUND. ALL THESE GUYS ADMITTED TO HAVE DONE IT, SO I ADDED MY TWO CENTS AND SAID I DID IT. I THOUGHT IT MIGHT ADD TO THE CONFUSION. Apparently it did. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Let's say I had something to hide, and let's even say I was First State. SO So, a bunch of people claim to have wrecked havoc on a computer. What easier way to cover all the possible bases than to threaten them all. YOU MEAN EVERYONE WHO ADMITTED IT? OR CLAIMED IT? Right. Get to them all. BUT HOW WOULD FIRST STATE KNOW ABOUT IT? I'm not saying they did. Do you know any of the others who claimed responsibility? NOT PERSONALLY. ONLY ONE GUY NAMED DA VINCI I'VE TALKED TO. Can you call him? SURE, HE'S ON FREEDOM ALL THE TIME. Don't use Freedom. Is there any other way to contact him? On another BBS? IT WOULDN'T BE HARD TO FIND OUT, BUT WHY NOT FREEDOM? Look. This BBS may be the only link between the First State hack you and I were in on, by the way, did you use my name? DIDN'T NEED TO. YOU WROTE THE ARTICLE. YOU'RE GETTING VERY WELL KNOWN. Thanks for the warning. HA! At any rate, you check it out with this Da Vinci character and once you know, just call me at the office, and say something like, the Mona Lisa frowned. That means he got a message similar to yours. If the Mona Lisa smiles, then we can figure out something else. OK? SURE. HEY, QUESTION. Answer. SERIOUSLY. I'm serious. WHAT DO YOU THINK'S GOING ON? YOU BELIEVE IT'S HACKERS, DON'T YOU? bLet me ask you a question. How many surrealistic painters does it take to screw in a lightbulb? I GIVE. HOW MANY A fish. I DON'T UNDERSTAND That's the point. Neither do I. Yet. But you can help. Accord- ing to what you're saying, there may be some weirdness with Freedom. What do you recommend so I can dig a little deeper? Into the whole cult of hacking. And don't worry. I don't hang sources. Besides, I think we may need each other. HOW DO YOU MEAN? I think you should talk to the authorities. NO WAY Wait. I have a friend, ex-friend, who knows about this kind of thing, at least a little, and he might be of some help to you. I just don't think it should go unreported. Would you talk to him? LIVE OR MEMOREX? He probably would want a face to face, but I can't say for sure. FORGET IT. BUT I CAN HELP YOU WITH MORE SOURCES. AT LEAST I CAN TELL YOU WHERE TO GO. So can a lot of people. REALLY. NEXT WEEK, THERE'S A CONVENTION OF SORTS FOR HACKERS. A convention? WELL, IT'S MORE LIKE AN UNDERGROUND MEETING, A LARGE ONE. WHERE HACKERS FROM ALL OVER GET TOGETHER AND COMPARE NOTES. IT'S A GREAT DEAL OF FUN, AND FOR YOU, MIGHT BE A SOURCE OF LEADS. GENERALLY SPEAKING OF COURSE. YOU CAN'T BE A BULL IN A CHINA SHOP. In other words, reporters are taboo. KIND OF. YOU'LL NEED AN INVITATION, I CAN PROBABLY SWING THAT. BEYOND THAT, YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN. IT'S A VERY PRIVATE CLUB. Where is this meeting? IN AMSTERDAM. Holland? YUP. Why there? SIN CITY IS AS GOOD FOR HACKERS AS IT IS FOR DRUGS AND SEX. SO I'M TOLD. HA HA. THE POLICE DON'T GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU DO. What goes on? BESIDES THE USUAL AMSTERDAM ANTICS? A COUPLE OF HUNDRED OF THE BEST HACKERS IN THE WORLD SHOW UP TO OSTENSIBLY SET CODES OF ETHICS FOR THEMSELVES, JUST LIKE FREEDOM DOES. IN REALITY, THOUGH, WE STROKE OUR EGOS AND PARADE AROUND WITH OUR LATEST CLAIMS TO FAME AND INVASIONS OF COMPUTERS. WAR STORIES OF THE PREVIOUS YEAR. NEW CRACKING AND HACKING TECHNIQUES ARE SHARED, PEOPLE LIE TO EACH OTHER ABOUT THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS AND TALK ABOUT WHAT THEY WILL ACCOMPLISH IN THE NEXT YEAR. PROGRAMASTERBATION. Some name. Is that really what they call it? NAH, JUST A TERM WE USE. I WENT LAST YEAR AND HAD A BALL, LITER- ALLY. IN FACT, THAT'S WHERE I LEARNED HOW TO GET INTO FIRST STATE. IT WAS SECOND RATE INFORMATION, FIRST STATE IS NOT EXACT- LY YOUR HIGH PROFILE BANK TO CRACK. Understood. How do I get in, what's it called? IT'S CALLED THE INTERGALACTIC HACKERS CONFERENCE, I-HACK FOR SHORT. ONLY THE BEST GET TO GO. You're kidding. So what do you do to get me in? I CALL YOU AGAIN. LEAVE YOUR BOX ON. I'LL GET YOU AN INVITE. That's great, I really appreciate that. Will you be there? NOT THIS YEAR. CAN'T SPARE THE TIME. DON'T ACT LIKE A REPORTER. PARANOIA RUNS RAMPANT. Will anyone talk to me, as a reporter? THAT'S UP TO YOU. ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS AND SHOW SYMPATHY FOR THEIR ACTIVITIES. IF YOU'RE LUCKY YOU'LL MEET THE RIGHT PERSON WHO CAN GIVE YOU A HANDS ON CRACKING LESSON. FAIR ENOUGH? Again, thanks. I'll expect your call. And, I'll let you know what my Fed-Friend says about your problem. TA. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>><EIO> * * * * * Tuesday, December 8 Vienna, Austria Vienna is not only the geographic center of Europe - for 45 years it has been the geopolitical center as well. A neutral country, as is Switzerland, it contains the highest concentration of KGB and CIA operatives in the world. Perhaps that is why Martin Templer chose to meet Alex Spiradon there a week after his meet- ing with Tyrone Duncan at P Street. Situated by the Danube of Strauss fame, Vienna, Austria is an odd mixture of the old, the very old and nouveau European high tech. Downtown Vienna is small, a semi-circle of cobblestone streets and brash illuminated billboards at every juncture. Templer contacted Alex through intermediaries stationed in Zu- rich. The agreed upon location was the third bench from St. Stephen's Cathedral on the Stephansplatz, where Vienna's main street, Karntnerstrasse-Rotenturmstrasse changes names. No traffic is allowed on the square, on Kartnerstrasse or on Graben- strasse, so it is always packed with shoppers, tourists and street musicians. Ideal for a discreet meeting. "Have you ever seen Vienna from Old Steffel?" A deep voice came from behind where Martin was seated. He looked around and saw it was Alex. "Many years ago. But I prefer the Prater." He spoke of the fairgrounds 2 kilometers from town where the world's oldest Ferris Wheel offered an unparalleled view of the Viennese sur- rounds. Templer smiled at his old ally from the German Bunde- poste. Today though, Alex was an asset to the Agency, as he had been since he had gone freelance some years ago. An expensive asset, but always with quality information. "Did you know that St. Stephen's," Alex gestured at the pollu- tion stained church, "is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Europe? And Vienna's paradox?" Templer had never been a history buff. He shook his head. "Most of Vienna is Baroque, in fine fashion, but there are iso- lated examples of Gothic. Yet, they seem to coexist. In peace." Alex's poetic words rolled off of his well educated tongue. The allegory was not lost on Templer. Western and Eastern intelli- gence services used Vienna as a no-man's land, where information and people were regularly exchanged. "It is a new world," commented Templer. "The threats are differ- ent." Alex took the hint. "Let us walk," he urged. They slowly strolled up the Kartnerstrasse as the Austrian night- life took on its own distinct flavor. "How long has it been, my friend?" Alex casually asked. He disliked rushing into business, the way the Americans favored. "Damned if I know. 4, 5, 6 years? Too long. We've had some good times." "'85, '86 was it? So much travel blurs the senses." Alex wrin- kled his forehead in thought. "Wasn't it the Pelton affair? Yes, that would be summer of '85." He referred to Ron Pelton, the ex-NSA analyst who sold American cryptographic secrets to the Soviets. "Yeah," Templer laughed. "That poor jerk. I'd forgotten all about that. Never would have caught on to the scam if it weren't for Slovnov. The KGB should tell their own to stay out of the Moulin Rouge. Not good for business. Ivan had to trade Slovnov for Pelton. We didn't find out for a year that they wanted Pelton out anyway. He was too fucked up for them." "And now? Who do you spy on since Sam and Ivan are brothers again?" Alex openly enjoyed speaking obliquely. "Spy? Ha!" Templer shook his head. "I got pushed upstairs. Interagency cooperation, political bullshit. I do miss the streets though, and the friends . . .on both sides." "Don't you mean on all sides?" Cocktail semantics made Alex occasionally annoying. "No, I mean both. At least we had class; we knew the rules and how to play. Now every third rate country tries to stick their nose in and they screw it up. One big mess." Templer had been a staunch anti-Communist when there were Communists, but he re- spected their agents' highly professional attitude, and yes, ethics. "Touch�� ! I have missed our talks and our disagreements. I never could talk you into something you did not believe in, could I?" Alex slapped Templer lightly on his back. Templer didn't answer. "Ah, you look so serious. You came for business, not old memo- ries?" "No, Alex, I'd love to chat, and we will, but I do need to get a couple of questions answered, and then, I can relax. Perhaps a trip to Club 24?" Templer pointed at the bright yellow kiosk with the silhouettes of naked women emblazoned on it. For a mere $300, you can buy a bottle of Chevas Regal and share it with one or two or more of the lovely skimpily clad ladies who adorned the bar seats. All else was negotiable in private. "Done. Let us speak, now. What can I do for you?" Alex ap- proved of the plan. "I need some information," Templer said seriously. "That is my business, of course." "We have a problem in the States . . ." "As usual," Alex interrupted. "Yes," Templer grinned, "as usual. But this one is not usual. Someone, someone with connections, is apparently using computers as a blackmail tool. The FBI is investigating domestically, and, well, it's our job, to look outside. So, I figure, call Alex. That's why I'm here." Alex disguised his surprise. How had they found him? He now needed to find out what, if anything, they knew. "Blackmail? Computers? That's not a lot to go on." Alex main- tained absolute composure. "Here's what we know. And it's not much. There appears to be a wholesale blackmail operation in place. With the number of com- plaints we have gotten over the last few months, we could guess that maybe 10, or 20 people, maybe more are involved. They're after the big boys; the banks, some senators, folks with real money and power. And it's one professional job. They seem to get their information from computers, from the radiation they emanate. It's something we really want to keep quiet." Alex listened quietly. If Templer was being straight, they didn't know much, certainly not the scope of the operation nor Alex's own involvement. It was possible, though, that Templer was playing dumb, and trying to elicit clues from Alex. If he was a suspect. "What sort of demands are being made?" Alex was going to play the game to the hilt. "None. Yet." "After 2 months? You say? And no demands? What kind of black- mail is that?" Alex ineffectively stifled a laugh. "This sounds like some Washington paranoia. "You really don't know what to do without an adversary, so you create one," Alex chuck- led. "Alex, c'mon. No shit, we got some muckity mucks with their heads in a tail spin and our asses in a sling. I don't know what's happening, but, whatever it is, it's causing a pile of shit bigger than Congress and smellier." "And you thought I might know something about it?" Alex ven- tured. "Well, no, or yes, or maybe," Templer said coyly. "Who's got a grudge? Against so many people? And then, who's also got the technology to do it. There must be a lot of smart people and money in on it. You have the best ears in Europe." The compli- ment might help. "Thank you for the over-statement, but I have only a small group on whom I can rely. Certainly your own agency can find out before I can." Deniability and humility could raise the ante. "We have our good days, but too many bad days." Templer was being sincere concluded Alex. "Listen, I need the streets. If there's nothing, then there's nothing. It could be domestic, but it smells of outside influence. Can you help?" Alex stopped to light up a non-filtr Gaulloise. He inhaled deeply as his eyes scanned the clear sky. He wanted to have Templer think there might be something. "How much is this information worth?" Alex was the perfect mercenary, absolutely no allegiance to anyone other than himself. "We have about fifty grand for good info. But for that price, it had better be good." Alex had to laugh to himself at the American's naivete. Homosoto was paying him a hundred times that for one job. Being a free- lancer means treating all customers as equals, and there was no way he would jeopardize his planned retirement for a cause or for a friend. This would be easy. "Phew!" Alex whistled. "Hot off the griddle, huh? I'll see who knows what. It may take a while, a week, ten days, but I'll get back to you with anything I find. No promises, though." "I know it's a long shot, but we have to look at all angles. I really appreciate it." Templer sounded relieved. He had just recruited, for no money down, the best source of information in Europe. "Let's go have a bottle of Chevas. On me." The Ameri- can taxpayer was about to pay for the sexual relief of a merce- nary enemy. Alex made it home at 4:00 A.M. after the romp in Club 24. Or was it Club 1? He no longer knew, no cared. Despite his intense intoxication, he had to talk to his employer. Somehow he managed to get his computer alive. He dialed the number in Tokyo, not knowing whether Homosoto would be in the office. ENTER PASSWORD ENTER CRYPT KEY He responded to both, nearly blinded from the Chevas, yet his professionalism demanded that he make immediate contact if possi- ble. <<<<<<CONNECTION>>>>>> Alex missed the message for several seconds before forcing him- self alert. He quickly entered his opening words before the connection would shut down. I have been contacted. Homosoto apparently never went home. He got an immediate re- sponse. BY WHOM The CIA The screen paused for several seconds. Alex was too drunk to notice. HOW? An old frrrriend. He called for a meeeeeeting. WHAT DID HE WANT? He asked about the US operations. HOW MUCH DOES HE KNOW? They kkknnow about the blackmail. But, they're fishing FISH Looking for answers. They know nothing. TELL ME MORE. I AM NOT HAPPY. The FBI is looking for an answer, who is behind the propaganda. They think it is very important, take it seriously. They brought in the CIA and, probably, the NSA. The effect is beginning. We should be pleased. AND THE PRESS? IS IT IN THE PAPERS? No, it was suppressed. The Government still controls the press. AND YOU. WHY CONTACT YOU? The same reason you did. It is pure coincidence. I AM NOT CONVINCED. An old friend, a colleague, called for a meeting. He asked for my help. He tried to hire me to find out if it was foreign. WHAT DID YOU SAY? I told him the streets, the rumors, know nothing. That is true. He never suspected me. I was surprised. He offered me money to give him information. HOW MUCH MONEY? $50,000 US I PAY YOU A THOUSAND TIMES THAT No, only 100 times. DOES IT MATTER? Only if they equal your money. MAKE SURE THEY DO NOT. IT IS NOT WORTH YOUR LIFE. The CIA does not have that kind of money. That is why the Rus- sians learned so much for so little. The US does not think they should pay to keep their secrets. THEY ARE WRONG. WE CALL IT INSURANCE. They call it blackmail. They do not have the funds. WHAT WILL YOU TELL THEM? I will tell them that it is not from here. No, it must be from the US. They will believe me. I will charge them for that information. AND THEY WILL BELIEVE YOU? If I make them pay, yes. If I give it for free, no. That's the American way. They will believe what is easiest to believe. They do not know that this is my last job. They cannot know. If they think that, they will suspect me. And then, you. WHY ME? They will use drugs I cannot resist. So, I must make sure I help them. AND IF THEY OFFER MONEY. AS MUCH AS I DO? Then we negotiate. THEN YOU WILL DIE. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> **************************************************************** Chapter 16 Wednesday, December 9 New York The late afternoon pace of the City Room at the Times tended to be chaotic. As deadlines approached and the paper was laid out for the printers, the flurry of activity was associated with an increase in the loudness of the room. Scott Mason listened with one hand over his right ear and the phone so awkwardly pressed between his left ear and shoulder that his glasses sat askew on his face. Suddenly hanging up the phone, Scott sprung up shout- ing, "I got it." Several people stopped and stared in his direction, but seeing nothing of concern or interest to them, they returned to their own world. Scott ripped a page from a notebook and ran into and around his co-workers. "Doug, I got it. Confirmed by the President." "You're kidding me?" Doug stopped his red pencil mid-stroke. "Give it to me from the top." He turned in his swivel chair to face Scott more directly. "It goes like this. A few weeks ago Sovereign Bank in Atlanta found that someone had entered their central computers without permission." Scott perused his notes. "It didn't take long for them to find the intruder. He left a calling card. It said that the hackers had found a hole to crawl through undetected into their computers. Was the bank interested in knowing how it was done? They left a Compuserve Mail Box. "As you can imagine the bank freaked out and told their computer people to fix whatever it was. They called in the FBI, that's from my contact, and went on an internal rampage. Those good ol' boys don't trust nobody," Scott added sounding like a poor imita- tion of Andy from Mayberry. "Anybody that could spell computer was suspect and they turned the place upside down. Found grass, cocaine, ludes, a couple of weapons and a lot of people got fired. But no state secrets. You talk about a dictatorship," commented Scott on the side. "There's no privacy at all. They scanned everyone's electronic mail boxes looking for clues and instead found them staring at invasion of privacy suits from employees and ex-employees who were fired because of the contents of their private mail. "The computer jocks unplugged the computers, turned them inside out and screwed them back together. Nothing. They found nada. So they tighten the reins and give away less passwords, to less people. That's all they figured they could do." "This is where the fun starts." Scott actively gestured with his hands as he shifted weight to his other foot. "A few days later they discover another message in their computer. Says something like, 'sorry Charlie' or something to that effect. The hackers were back. And this time they wanted to sell their services to the bank. For a nominal fee, say, a million bucks, we'll show you how to sew up the holes." "Well, what does that sound like to you?" Scott asked Doug. "Extortion." "Exactly, and ape-shit doesn't begin to describe what the bank did. Bottom line? They made a deal. We'll pay you a million bucks as consultants for 10 years. You agree to stay out of the machines unless we need you. Immunity unless you break the deal." "What happened?" Doug said with rapt attention. "Sovereign bank now has three fourteen year old consultants at a hundred grand a year," Scott said choking with laughter on his words. "You're kidding," exclaimed Doug slapping his knees. "No shit. And everyone is pretty happy about it. The kids have a way to pay for a good college, they're bright little snots, and they get off. The bank figures it's making an investment in the future and actually may have gotten off cheap. It woke them up to the problems they could face if their computers did go down for a month. Or if they lost all their records. Or if someone really wanted to do damage. Thoughts like that trigger a panic attack in any bank exec. They'd rather deal with the kids. "In fact, they're turning it into a public relations coup. Dig this," Scott knew the story like the back of his hand. "The bank realized that they could fix their security problems for a couple of million bucks. Not much of an investment when you're guarding billions. So they design a new ad campaign: Sovereign. The Safest Your Money Can Be." "Now that's a story," said Doug approvingly. "Important, fun, human, and everyone comes out a winner. A story with a moral. Confirmed?" "Every bit. From the president. They announce it all tomorrow and we print tonight with their blessing. Exclusive." "Why? What did you have to do . . ?" "Nothing. He likes the work we've been doing on the computer capers and crime and all and thought that we would give it fair coverage. I think they're handling it like absolute gentlemen." "How fast do you type?" "Forty mistakes a minute. Why?" "You got 40 minutes to deadline." * * * * * Friday, December 11 Washington, D.C. Throughout his years of Government service at the National Secu- rity Agency, Miles Foster had become a nine to fiver. Rarely did he work in the evening or on weekends. So the oddball hours he had to work during his association with Homosoto were irritating and made him cranky. He could function well enough, and cranki- ness was difficult to convey over a computer terminal, but work- ing nights wasn't much to his liking. It interfered with his social responsibilities to the women. The master plan Miles had designed years ago for Homosoto was now calling for phase two to go into effect. The beauty of it all, thought Miles, was that it was unstoppable. The pieces had been put into play by scores of people who worked�for him; the pro- grammers, the Freedom League BBS's and the infectors. Too much had already gone into play to abort the mission. There was no pulling back. Only a few weeks were left before the first strike force landed. The militaristic thinking kept Miles focussed on the task at hand, far away from any of the personalization that might surface if he got down to thinking about the kinds of damage he was going to be inflicting on millions of innocent targets. Inside, perhaps deep inside, Miles cared, but he seemed to only be aware of the technical results of his efforts in distinction to the human element. The human elements of frustration, depression, help- lessness - a social retreat of maybe fifty years, that was going to be the real devastation above and beyond the machinery. Just the way Homosoto wanted it. To hurt deep down. Miles had come to learn of the intense hatred that Homosoto felt toward the United States. In his more callous moments, especial- ly when he and Homosoto were at odds over any particular subject, Miles would resort to the basest of verbal tactics. "You're just pissed off 'cause we nuked your family." It was meant to sting and Homosoto's reactions were unpredictable. Often violent, he had once thrown priceless heirlooms across his office shattering in a thousand shards. A three hour lecture ensued on one occasion, tutoring Miles about honorable warfare. Miles listened and fell asleep during more than one sermon. But at the bottom of it, Homosoto kept a level head and showed he knew what he was doing. The plans they formulated were coming together though Miles had no direct control over many pieces. The Readers were run by another group altogether; Miles only knew they were fundamentalist fanatics. He didn't really care as long as the job was getting done. And the groundhogs; he designed them, but they were managed by others. Propaganda, yet another, just as the plan called for. Extreme compartmentalization, even at the highest level. Only Homosoto knew all the players and therefore had the unique luxury of viewing the grand game being played. Though Miles designed every nuance, down to the nth degree of how to effect the invasion properly, he was not privileged to push the chessmen around the board. His rationalization was that he was being paid a great deal of money for the job, and he was working for a more important cause, one that would make it all worthwhile. Perhaps in another year or two when the final phases were complete, and the United States was even more exposed and defenseless than it was right now, the job would be done. Miles' ruminating provided a calming influence during the inter- minable months and years that distanced the cause and effect. In the intelligence game, on the level that he had operated while with the NSA, he would receive information, process it, make recommendation and determinations, and that was that. Over. Next. Now though, Miles had designed the big picture, and that meant long range planning. No more instant gratification. He was in control, only partially, as he was meant to be. He was impressed with the operation. That nothing had gone awry so far consoled Miles despite the fact that Homosoto called him almost every day to ask about another computer crime he had heard about. This time is was Sovereign Bank. Homosoto had heard rumors that they were being held hostage by hackers and was concerned that some of Miles' techies had gone out on their own. Homosoto reacted to the Sovereign issue as he had many others that he seemed so concerned about. Once Miles gave him an expla- nation, he let the matter drop. Not without an appropriate warn- ing to Miles, though, that he had better be right. The number of computer crimes was increasing more rapidly than Miles or anyone in the security field had predicted only a few years ago and the legal issues were mounting faster than the state or federal legislatures could deal with them. But, as Miles continually reassured Homosoto, they were small timers with no heinous motivation. They were mostly kids who played chicken with computers instead of chasing cars or smoking crack. A far better alternative, Miles offered. Just kids having a little fun with the country's most important computer systems. No big deal. Right? How anyone can leave the front door to their computer open, or with the keys lying around, was beyond him. Fucking stupid. His stream of consciousness was broken when his NipCom computer announced that Homosoto was calling. Again. Shit. I bet some high school kids changed their school grades and Homosoto thinks the Rosenburgs are behind it. Paranoid gook. <<<<<<TRANSMISSION ENCRYPTED>>>>>> MR FOSTER That's me. What's wrong. NOTHING. ALL IS WELL. That's a change. Nobody fucking with your Ninten- do, huh? YOUR HUMOR ESCAPES ME, AT TIMES S'pozed 2 WHAT? Never Mind. What do you need? WE ARE CLOSE I know. OF COURSE YOU DO. A BRIEF REPORT PLEASE. Sure. Freedom is doing better than expected. Over a million now, maybe a million and a half. The majors are sick, real sick. Alex has kept my staff full, and we're putting out dozens of viruses a week. On schedule. GOOD I'm gonna be out for a few days. I'll call when I get back. SHOULDN'T YOU STAY WHERE YOU CAN BE REACHED? I carry a portable. I will check my computer, as I always do. You have never had trouble reaching me. THAT IS TRUE. WHERE DO YOU GO? Amsterdam. HOLLAND? WHY? A hackers conference. I need a break anyway, so I thought I might as well make it a working vacation. The top hackers get together and stroke themselves, but I could pick something up. Useful to us. DO BE CAREFUL, YOU ARE VALUABLE. NO ONE CAN KNOW WHO YOU ARE. No one does. No one. I use my BBS alias. Spook. * * * * * San Francisco, California Sir George Sterling checked his E-Mail for messages. There were only 2, both from Alex. The one week holiday had been good for Sir George. Well earned, he thought. In less than 3 months, he had called over 1,700 people on the phone and let them in on his little secrets, as he came to call them. Every month Alex had forwarded money, regular like clockwork, and Sir George had diligently followed instructions. To the letter. Not so much in deference to the implicit threats issued him by Alex, over computer and untraceable of course, but by the pros- pect of continued income. He came to enjoy the work. Since he was in America and his calls were to Americans, he had the oppor- tunity to dazzle them with his proper and refined accent before he let the hammer down with whatever tidbit of private informa- tion he was told to share with them. In the beginning Sir George had little idea of what the motiva- tion behind his job was, and still, he wasn't completely sure. He realized each call he made contained the undercurrent of a threat. But he never threatened anyone, his instructions were explicit; never threaten. So therefore, he reasoned, he must actually be making threats, no matter how veiled. He rather enjoyed it all. Not hurting people, that wasn't his nature, but he savored impressing people with his knowledge and noting their reactions for his daily reports back to Alex. In the evenings Sir George searched out small American recreational centers inaccurately referred to as pubs. In fact they were disguised bars with darts and warm beer, but it gave Sir George the chance to mingle and flash his assumed pedigree. When asked what he did for a living, he truthfully said, "I talk to people." About what? "Whatever interests them." He became somewhat of a celebrated fixture at several 'pubs' in Marin County where he found the atmosphere more to his liking; a perfectly civilized provincial suburb of San Francisco where his purchased affectations wore well on the locals who endlessly commuted to their high tech jobs in Silicon Valley 40 miles to the south. Hawaii had been, as he said, "Quite the experience." Alex had informed him one day that he was to take a holiday and return ready for a new assignment, one to which now he was ideally suited. Sir George smiled to himself. A job well done, and additional rewards. That was a first for George Toft of dreary Manchester, England. Since he did not have a printer, there was no way he would jeop- ardize his livelihood for a comfort so small, he read his E-Mail by copying the messages into Word Perfect, and then reading them at his leisure. All E-Mail was encrypted with the Public Private RSA algorithm, so he had to manually decrypt the messages with his private key and save them unencrypted. When he was done, he erased the file completely, to keep anyone else from discovering the nature of his work. Alex's first message was dated two days before he returned from Hawaii. It was actually cordial, as far as Alex could be considered cordial. After their first meeting in Athens, Alex had taken on a succinct if not terse tone in all communications. Sir George: Welcome back. I hope you had a most enjoyable holiday. It was well deserved. We now enter phase two of our operations. We place much faith in your ability and loyalty. Please do not disrupt that confidence. As in the past, you will be given daily lists of people to call. They are some of the people whom you have called before. As before, identify yourself and the nature of your call. I am sure your last call was so disturbing to them, they will take your call this time as well. Then, once you have confirmed their identity, give them the new information provided, and ask them to follow the instructions given, to the letter. Please be your usual polite self. Alex The second message was more Alex-like: Sir George: If you have any problems with your new assignment, please call me to arrange your termination. Alex. * * * * * "Hello? Are you there?" Sir George Sterling spoke with as much elegance he could muster. "This is John Fullmaster calling again for Robert Henson." Sir George remembered the name but not the specifics. "One moment please," Maggie said. "Mr. Henson?" She said after dialing his intercom extension. "It's John Fullmaster for you. Line three" "Who?" "Mr. Fullmaster. He called once several months ago. Don't you remember?" He thought. Fullmaster. Fullmaster. Oh, shit. I thought he was a bad dream. Goddamn blackmailer. Never did figure how he knew about the Winston Ellis scam. Good thing that's been put to bed and over. "All right, I'll take it." He punched up the third line. "Yeah?" He said defiantly. "Mr. Henson? This is John Fullmaster. I believe we spoke a while back about some of your dealings? Do you recall?" "Yes, I recall you bastard, but you're too late. The deal closed last month. So you can forget your threats. Fuck off and die." Henson used his best boardroom belligerence. "Oh, I am sorry that you thought I was threatening you, I can assure you I wasn't." Sir George oozed politeness. "Bullshit. I don't know how the blazes you learned anything about my business, and I don't really care . . ." "I think you might care, sir, if you will allow me to speak for a moment." Sir George interjected. The sudden interruption caught Henson off guard. He stood his ground in silence. "Thank you." Sir George waited for an acknowledgement which never arrived, so he continued. "Winston Ellis is old news, Mr. Henson, very old news. I read today, though, that Miller Pharma- ceuticals is about to have its Anti-AIDS drug turned down by the FDA. Apparently it still has too many side effects and may be too dangerous for humans. I'm sure you've read the reports yourself. Don't you think it would be wise to tell your investors before they sink another $300 Million into a black hole from which there is no escape?" The aristocratic British accent softened the harshness of the words, but not the auger of the meaning. Henson seethed. "I don't know who you are," he hissed, "but I will not listen to this kind of crap. I won't take it from . . ." "Sorry," Sir George again interrupted, "but I'm afraid you will listen. The instructions are as follows. I want $5 Million in small bills in a silver Samsonite case to be placed into locker number 235 at Grand Central Station, first level. You have 48 hours to comply. If you do not have the money there, we will release these findings to the media and the SEC which will no doubt prompt an investigation into this and other of your deal- ings. Don't you think?" Blackmail was anathema to Robert Henson, although he should have felt quite comfortable in its milieu. It was effectively the same stunt he performed on many of his investors. Nobody treats Robert Henson this way, nobody. He needed time to think. The last time Fullmaster called it was a bluff, obviously, but then there were no demands. This time, he wanted something. But, how did he know? The FDA reports were still confidential, and he hoped to have completed raising the funds before the reports became public, another few weeks at most. He counted on ineffi- cient government bureaucracy and indifference to delay any an- nouncement. Meanwhile though, he would pocket several millions in banking fees. "You got me. I'll do it. 235. Right?" "Very good, Mr. Henson. I'm glad you see it my way. It has been a pleasure doing business with you." Sir George sounded like a used car salesman. "Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Please, Mr. Hen- son, no police. In that case, our deal is off." "Of course, no police. No problem. Thanks for the call." Henson hung up. Fuck him. No money, no way. * * * * * "Mr. Faulkner, this is John Fullmaster." Sir George was sicken- ingly sweet. "Do you recall our last conversation?" How couldn't he? This was the only call he had received on his private line since that maniac had last called. Faulkner had had the number changed at least a half a dozen times since, as a matter of course, but still, Fullmaster, if that was his real name, reached him with apparent ease. "Yes, I remember," he said tersely. "What do you want now?" "Just a piece of the action, Mr. Faulkner." "What the hell does that mean?" "Well, according to my records, you have lost quite a sum of money since our last conversation, and it would be such a shame, don't you agree, if California National Bank found out they lost another $2 million to your bad habits?" Sir George instinctively thought Faulkner was a California slime ball, never mind his own actions, and he briefly thought that he might actually be work- ing for the side of good after all. "You have a real doctor's bedside manner. What do you want?" Faulkner conveyed extreme nervousness. "I think, under the circumstances that, shall we say, oh, one million would do it. Yes, that sounds fair." "One million? One million dollars?" Faulkner shrieked from his pool side lounge chair. "Yessir, that sounds just about right." Sir George paused for effect. "Now here is what I want you to do. Go to Las Vegas, and have your credit extended, and acquire small bills. Then, place the money in a silver Samsonite case at Union Station. Locker number 12. Is that simple enough?" British humor at its best. "Simple, yes. Possible, no," Faulkner whispered in terror. "Oh, yes, it is possible, as you well know. You cleared up the $2.4 Million you owed Caesar's only last week. Your credit is excellent." "There's no way you can know that . . ." Then it occurred to him. The mob. He wasn't losing enough at the tables, they wanted more. Losing money was one thing, his way, but a sore winner is the worst possible enemy. He had no choice. There was only one way out. "All right, all right. What locker number?" "Twelve. Within 48 hours. And, I probably needn't mention it, but no police." "Of course," Faulkner smiled to himself. At last the nightmare would be over. "Thank you so very much. Have a nice day." * * * * * "Merrill! It's the blackmailer again. Merrill, do you hear me?" Ken Boyers tried to get Senator Rickfield out from the centerfold of the newest Playboy. "Merrill!" "Oh sorry, Ken. Just reading the articles. Now what is it?" Rickfield put the magazine down, slowly, for one last lustful gaze. "Merrill, that Fullmaster fellow, the one who called about the Credite Suisse arrangements . . ." "Shut up! We don't talk about that in this office, you know that!" Rickfield admonished Ken. "I know, but he doesn't," he said, pointing at the blinking light on the Senator's desk phone. "I thought he went away. Nothing ever came of it, did it?" "No, nothing, after we got General Young onto it," Boyers ex- plained. "I thought he took care of it, in his own way. The problem just disappeared like it was supposed to." "Well," Rickfield said scornfully, "obviously it didn't. Give me the goddamned phone." He picked it up and pressed the lighted button. His senatorial dignity was absent as he spoke. "This is Rickfield. Who is this?" "Ah, thank you for taking my call. Yes, thank you." Sir George spoke slowly, more slowly than necessary. This call was marked critical. That meant, don't screw it up. "My name is John Fullmaster and I believe we spoke about some arrangements you made with General Young and Credite Suisse." "I remember. So what? That has nothing to do with me," Rick- field retorted. He grabbed a pen and wrote down the name, John Fullmaster. Ken looked at the scribbled writing and shrugged his shoulders. "Ah, but I'm afraid it does. I see here that Allied Dynamics recently made a significant contribution to a certain account in Credite Suisse. There are only two signators on the passbook. It also says here that they will be building two new factories in your state. Quite an accomplishment. I am sure your constitu- ents would be proud." The color drained from Rickfield's face. He put his hand over the mouthpiece to speak privately to Ken. "Who else knows? Don't bullshit me, boy. Who else have you told?" "No one!" Boyers said in genuine shock. "I want to enjoy the money, not pay attorney's fees." Rickfield waved Boyers away. He appeared satisfied with the response. "This is speculation. You can't prove a thing." Rickfield took a shot to gauge his opponent. "Believe that if you wish, Senator, but I don't think it is in either of our best interests to play the other for the fool." Sir George saw that Rickfield did not attain his position as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Space, Transportation and Technology by caving in to idle demands or threats. In fact, in 34 years of Senate service, Senator Merrill Rickfield had sur- vived 8 presidents, counseling most of them to varying degrees depending upon the partisan attitude of the White House. At 65, much of the private sector would have forced him into retirement, but elected Government service permitted him the tenure to continue as long as his constituents allowed. Claude Pepper held the record and Merrill Rickfield's ego wanted to establish new definitions of tenure. His involvement with General Chester Oliver Young was recent, in political terms; less than a decade. During the Reagan military buildup, nearly 3 trillion dollars worth, defense contractors expanded with the economy, to unprecedented levels and profits. Congress was convinced that $300 Billion per year was about right to defend against a Cold War enemy that couldn't feed its own people. The overestimates of the CIA, with selective and often speculative information provided by the country's intelligence gatherer, the NSA, helped define a decade of political and tech- nological achievements: Star Wars, Stealth, MX, B1, B2 and other assorted toys that had no practical use save all out war. With that kind of spending occurring freely, and the Senate Over- sight Committee in a perpetual state of the doldrums, there was money to be made for anyone part of Washington's good ol' boy network. General Young was one such an opportunistic militarist. Promoted to one star general in 1978, after two lackluster but politically well connected tours in Vietnam, it was deemed pru- dent by the power brokers of that war to bring Young into the inner rings of the Pentagon with the corresponding perks such a position brought. But Young had bigger and better ideas. He saw countless ways to spend taxpayers money protecting them from the Communist threat of the Evil Empire, but had difficulty getting support from his two and three star superiors. It didn't take him long to realize that he had been token promoted to keep his mouth shut about certain prominent people's roles in the Vietnam era. Events that were better left to a few trusted memories than to the history books. So Young decided to go out on his own and find support from the legislative branch; find an influential proponent for a few specific defense programs by which he could profit. Over the course of a few years, he and Senator Rickfield became fast friends, holding many of the same global views and fears, if not paranoias. When Allied Dynamics began losing Congressional support for an advanced jet helicopter project, Young went to Rickfield for help. After all, Allied was headquartered in Rickfield's home state, and wouldn't it be a great boon to the economy? The recession was coming to an end and that meant jobs. Rickfield was unaware, initially, that Allied had an arrangement with General Young to donate certain moneys to certain charities, in certain Swiss bank accounts if certain spending programs were approved. Only when Rickfield offered some later resistance to the Allied projects did Young feel the need to share the wealth. After 25 years in Congress, and very little money put away to show for it, Rickfield was an easy target. Rickfield's recruitment by Young, on Allied's behalf, had yielded the Senator more than enough to retire comfortably on the island paradise of his choice. Yet, Rickfield found an uncontrolled desire for more; considerations was his word for it, just as he had grown used to wielding power and influence in the nation's capital. Rickfield was hooked, and Credite Suisse was the cer- tain Swiss bank in question. Ken Boyers was involved as well, almost from the start. They both had a lot to lose. "No, I must assume that you are not a fool, and I know for a fact I am not one, so on that one point we do agree." Political pausing often allowed your opponent to hang himself with addi- tional oration. Rickfield found the technique useful, especial- ly on novices. "Please continue." "Thank you." Sir George said with a hint of patronization. "To be brief, Senator, I want you to keep your money, I think that dedicated civil servants like yourself are grossly underpaid and underappreciated. No sir, I do not wish to deny you the chance to make your golden years pleasant after such a distinguished career." "Then what is it. What do you want from me?" The Senator was doodling nervously while Ken paced the room trying to figure out what was being said at the other end of the phone. "I'm glad you asked," said Sir George. "Beginning next month you are chairing a sub-committee that will be investigating the weaknesses and potential threats to government computer systems. As I remember it is called the Senate Select Sub-Committee on Privacy and Technology Containment. Is that right?" "Yes, the dates aren't firm yet, and I haven't decided if I will chair the hearings or assign it to another committee member. So what?" "Well, we want you to drag down the hearings. Nothing more." Sire George stated his intention as a matter of fact rather than a request. Rickfield's face contorted in confusion. "Drag down? Exactly what does that mean, to you, that is?" "We want you to downplay the importance of security for govern- ment computers. That there really is no threat to them, and that government has already met all of its obligations in balance with the new world order, if you will. The threats are mere scare tactics by various special interest groups and government agencies who are striving for long term self preservation." Sir George had practiced his soliloquy before calling Senator Rick- field. "What the hell for?" Rickfield raised his voice. "Security? Big deal! What's it to you?" "I am not at liberty to discuss our reasons. Suffice it to say, that we would be most pleased if you see to it that the hearings have minimal substance and that no direct action items are deliv- ered. I believe that term you Americans so eloquently use is stonewall, or perhaps filibuster?" "They're not the same things." "Fine, but you do understand nonetheless. We want these hearings to epitomize the rest of American politics with procrastination, obfuscation and procedural gerrymandering." Sir George had learned quite a bit about the political system since he had moved to the States. "And to what aim?" Rickfield's political sense was waving red flags. "That's it. Nothing more." "And in return?" The Senator had learned to be direct in mat- ters of additional compensation since he had hooked up with the earthy General. "I will assure you that the details of your arrangements with Allied Dynamics will remain safe with me." "Until the next time, right? This is blackmail?" "No. Yes." Sir George answered. "Yes, it is blackmail, but without the usual messiness. And no, there will be no next time. For, as soon as the hearings are over, it would be most advisable for you to take leave of your position and enjoy the money you have earned outside of your paycheck." "And, if I don't agree to this?" Rickfield was looking at his options which seemed to be somewhere between few and none. Maybe he only had one. "That would be so unfortunate." Sir George smiled as he spoke. "The media will receive a two page letter, it is already pre- pared I can assure you, detailing your illegal involvements with Allied, General Young and Mr. Boyers." "What's in it for you? You don't want any money?" The confusion in Rickfield's mind was terribly obvious, and he was sliding on a logical Mobius loop. "No Senator, no money. Merely a favor." "I will let you know what I decide. May I have your number?" "I do not need to contact you again. Your answer will be evident when the hearings begin. Whatever course you pursue, we will make an appropriate response." * * * * * "Scott!" A woman called across the noisy floor. "Is your phone off the hook?" "Yeah, why?" He looked up and couldn't match the voice with a person. "You gotta call." "Who is it? I'm busy." "Some guy from Brooklyn sounds like. Says he got a package for you?" Holy shit. It's Vito! Scott's anonymous caller. The one who had caused him so much work, so much research without being able to print one damn thing. Not yet. "Yeah, OK. It's back on." The phone rang instantly and Scott rushed to pick it up on the first ring. "Yeah, Scott Mason here." He sounded hurried. "Yo! Scott. It's me, your friend, rememba?" No one could forget the accent that sounded more fake than real. He had been nicknamed Vito for reference purposes by Scott. "Sure do, fella," Scott said cheerily. "That bunch of shit you sent me was worthless. Garbage." "Yeah, well, we may have fucked up a little on that. Didn't count on youse guys having much in the ethics department if youse know what I mean." Vito laughed at what he thought was a pretty good joke. "So, we all screw up, right? Now and again? Never mind that, I got something real good, something youse really gonna like." "Sure you do." "No, really, dig this. I gotta list of names that . . . " "Great another list. Just what I need. Another list." "Whad'ar'ya, a wise guy? Youse wanna talk or listen?" Scott didn't answer. "That's better, cause youse gonna like this. Some guy named Faulkner, big shit banker from La La Land is borrowing money from the mob to pay off a blackmailer. Another guy, right here in New York Shitty, a Wall Street big shot called Henson, him too. Another one named Dobbs, same thing. All being blackballed by the same guys. Youse want more?" "I'm writing, quiet. Faulkner, Henson and Dobbs, right?" "That's whad'I said, yeah." "So how come you know so much?" "That's my job. I deal in information. Pretty good, huh?" "Maybe. I gotta check it out. That last stuff was . . ." "Hey!" Vito interrupted, "I told youse 'bout that. Eh, paysan, what's a slip up among friends, right?" "I'll ignore that. Gimme a couple of days, I'll call you." "Like hell you will. I'll call you. You'll see, this is good stuff. No shit. All right? Two days." Click. * * * * * Monday, December 14 Washington, D.C. The FBI runs a little known counter intelligence operation from the middle of a run down Washington, D.C. neighborhood on Half Street. Getting in and out is an exercise in evasive not to mention defensive driving. The South East quadrant of Washing- ton, D.C. is vying for the drug capital of the nation, and per- haps has the dubious distinction of having the highest murder rate per capita in the United States. Since the CI division of the FBI is a well kept secret, its location was strategically chosen to keep the casual passerby from stopping in for a chat. Besides, there was no identification on the front of the build- ing. Most Americans think that the CIA takes care of foreign spies, but their agents are limited to functioning on foreign land. On the domestic front the FBI Counter Intelligence Group is assigned to locate and monitor alien intelligence activities. For exam- ple, CI-3 is assigned to focus on Soviet and East Bloc activi- ties, and other groups focus on their specific target countries. Thus, there is a certain amount of competition, not all of it healthy, between the two agencies chartered to protect our na- tional interests. The CIA is under the impression that it con- trols all foreign investigations, even if they tread upon United States territory. This line of thinking has been a constant source of irritation and inefficiency since the OSS became the CIA during the Truman administration. Only during the Hoover reign at the FBI days was there any sense of peaceful coexist- ence. Hoover did what he damn well pleased, and if anyone stood in his way, he simply called up the White House and had the roadblock removed. Kennedy era notwithstanding, Hoover held his own for a 50 year reign. Tyrone Duncan received an additional lesson on inter-agency rivalry when he was called down to Half Street. His orders were similar to those he had received from the safe house in George- town months before. Stick to your hackers and viruses, period, he was told. If it smells of foreign influence, let the CI fight it out with Langley. Keep your butt clean. In 25 years of service, Tyrone had never been so severely admon- ished for investigating a case that he perceived as being domes- tic in nature. The thought of foreign influences at work had not occurred to him, until CI brought it up. As far as he was concerned the quick trip from New York to Half Street was a bureaucratic waste of time and money. However, during the fifteen minute discussion he was told by his CI compa- triots that both the blackmail and the ECCO investigations situa- tions had international repercussions and he should keep his nose out of it. CI was doing just fine without Tyrone's help.�The meeting, or warning as Tyrone Duncan took it, served to raise an internal flag. There was a bigger picture, something beyond a classical black- mail operation and some hackers screwing with government comput- ers, and he was being excluded. That only meant one thing. He was pushing someone's button and he didn't know how, where or why. The Trump Shuttle flight back to La Guardia gave Tyrone time to think about it, and that only incensed him further. Aren't we all on the same team? If I stumbled onto something, and you want me to back off, O.K., but at least let me know what I'm missing. Twenty five years and a return to Hoover paranoia. He under- stood, and advocated, the need for secrecy, privacy and the trappings of confidentiality. But, compartmentalization of information this extreme was beyond the normal course to which he was accustomed. The whole thing stunk. He arrived back at New York's Federal Square during lunch hour. Normally there was a minimal staff at that hour, or hour and half or two hours depending upon your rank. When the elevator doors opened on Level 5, seventy feet under lower Manhattan, he walked into a bustle of activity normally present only when visiting heads of state need extraordinary security. He was immediately accosted by eager subordinates. The onslaught of questions overwhelmed him, so he ignored them and walked through the maze directly to his office. His head ringing, he plopped himself down behind his desk. He stared at the two agents who followed him all the way, plus his secretary stood in the open door, watching with amusement. Duncan was not appreciative of panic situations. His silence was contagious. "Who's first?" He asked quietly. The two agents looked at each other and one spoke. "Uh, sir, I think we have a lead in the blackmail operation." Duncan looked at the other, offering him a chance to speak. "Yessir, it seems to have broken all over at once." Duncan opened his eyes wide in anticipation. Well, he, thought, go on. The first agent picked up the ball. "Demands. The blackmailers are making demands. So far we have six individuals who said they were recontacted by the same person who had first called them a year ago." Duncan sat upright. "I want a complete report, here, in 1 hour. We'll talk then. Thank you gentlemen." They took their cue to exit and brushed by, Tyrone's secretary on their way out the door. "Yes, Gloria?" Duncan treated her kindly, not with the adminis- trative brusqueness he often found necessary to motivate some of his agents. "Good morning, or afternoon, sir. Pleasant trip?" She knew he hated sudden trips to D.C. It was her way of teasing her boss. "Wonderful!" Tyrone beamed with artificial enthusiasm. "Book me on the same flights every day for a month. Definite E-ticket ride." "Do you remember a Franklin Dobbs? He was here some time ago, about, I believe the same matter you were just discussing?" Her demureness pampered Duncan. "Dobbs? Yes, why?" "He's been waiting all morning. Had to see you, no on else. Shall I show him in?" "Yes, by all means, thank you." "Mr. Dobbs, how good to see you again. Please," Duncan pointed at a chair in front of his desk. "Sit down. How may I help you?" Dobbs shuffled over to the chair and practically fell into it. He sighed heavily and looked down at his feet. "I guess it's all over. All over." "What do you mean? My secretary, said you were being blackmailed again. I think you should know I'm not working on that case anymore." "This time it's different," Dobbs said, his eyes darting about. "They want money, a lot of money, more than we have. Last time I received a call I was told some very private and specific knowl- edge about our company that we preferred to remain private. That information contained all our pricing, quotation methods, profit figures, overhead . . .everything our competitors could use." "So you think your competition is blackmailing you," Duncan offered. "I don't know. If they wanted the information, why call me and tell me? We haven't been able to figure it out." "What about the others," Duncan thought out loud. "The others with access to the information?" "Everyone is suspecting everyone else. It's not healthy. Now, after this, I'm thinking of packing it in." "Why now? What's different?" "The demands. I can't believe it's my competitors. Sure, it's a cut throat business, but, no, it's hard to believe." "Stranger things have happened, Mr. Dobbs." Duncan tried to be soothing. "The demands, what were they?" "They want three million dollars, cash. If we don't pay they said they'd give away our company secrets to our competitors. We don't have the cash." Duncan felt for the man. Dobbs had been right. There was noth- ing the FBI could have done to help. No demands, no recontacts, and no leads, just a lot of suspicion. But, now, the Bureau was in a position to help. "Mr. Dobbs, rest assured, we will pursue this case aggressively. We will assign you two of our top agents, and, in cases like this, we are quite successful." Duncan's upbeat tone was meant to lift Dobbs' spirits. "Was there anything else demanded?" "No, nothing, they just told me not to go to the police." "You haven't told anyone, have you?" Duncan asked. "No, not even my wife." "Mr. Dobbs, let me ask you a couple more things, then I will introduce you to some fine men who will help you. Do you know anyone else who is in your position? Other people who are being blackmailed in similar ways?" Dobbs shuffled his feet under the chair, and picked at the edge of the chair. Duncan hit a raw nerve. "Mr. Dobbs, I don't want names, no specifics. It's a general question. Do you know others?" "Yes," Dobbs said almost silently. "Do you know how many?" Duncan needed details if his current line of thinking would pan out into a viable theory. "No, not exactly." "Is it five? Ten? More than Ten? Twenty-five? More than twenty- five?" Dobbs nodded suddenly. "Do you mean that you know of 25 other companies that are going through what you're going through? Twenty five?" Tyrone was incredulous at the prospects. The manpower alone to investigate that many cases would totally overwhelm his staff. There was no way. The ramifications staggered him. Twenty five, all at once. "Yeah. At least." "I know you can't tell me who they are . . ." Duncan hoped that Dobbs might offer a few. "No. But, look at their stocks. They're not doing well. Our competitors seem to be getting the best of the deal." Twenty five cases in New York alone, and he knows of at least 6 others, so far. The rekindled blackmail operation, after months of dead ends. Duncan wondered how big the monster behind the head could get. And how could the FBI handle it all. Poor bastard. Poor us. * * * * * Tuesday, December 15 New York It was before 8:00 A.M. and Scott cursed himself for arriving at his office at this ungodly hour. He had found the last piece of the puzzle, didn't sleep very much, and was in high gear before 6:00. Scott couldn't remember the last time he had been awake this early, unless it was coming round the long way. He scurried past security, shaking his ID card as he flew through the closing doors on the express elevator. The office hadn't yet come to life so Doug McGuire was available without a wait or interruption. "I need some expense money," Scott blurted out at Doug. "Yeah, so?" Doug sounded exasperated with Scott's constant requests for money. He didn't even look up from his impossibly disorganized desk. "I'm serious . . .," Scott came back. "So am I." Doug firmly laid down his pen on his desk and looked at Scott. "What the hell kind of expenses do you need now?" Scott spent more money than several reporters combined, and he never felt bad about it. While a great deal of his work was performed at the office or at home, his phone bills were extraor- dinary as were his expenses. Scott had developed a reputation as willing to go to almost any lengths to get a story. Like the time he hired and the paper paid for a call girl to entertain Congressman Daley from Wisconsin. She was supposed to confirm, in any way necessary, that LeMal Chemical was buying votes to help bypass certain approval cycles for their new line of drugs. She accidentally confirmed that he was a homosexual, but not before he slipped and the lady of the evening became the much needed confirmation. As Scott put it, Daley's embarrassed resignation was unavoidable collateral damage in stopping the approval of a drug as poten- tially dangerous as thalidomide. Or then there was the time that Scott received an anonymous tip that the Oil Companies had suppressed critical temperature-emis- sion ratio calculations, and therefore the extent of the green- house effect was being sorely underestimated. As a result of his research and detective work, and the ability to verify and under- stand the physics involved, Scott's articles forced a re-examina- tion of the dangers. He received a New York Writer's Award for that series. When Doug had hired Scott, as a thirty-something cub reporter, they both thought that Scott would fit in, nice and neat, and write cute, introspective technical pieces. Neither expected Scott to quickly evolve into a innovative journalist on the offensive who had the embryo of a cult following. But Scott Mason also performed a lot of the more mundane work that most writer's suffer with until the better stories can justify their full time efforts. New products, whiz bang elec- tronic toys for the kitchen, whiz bangs for the bathroom. New computer this, new software that. Now, though, he was on the track, due in part he admitted, to Doug coercing him into writing the computer virus bits. Yes, he was wrong and Doug was right. The pieces were falling in place. So, no matter what happened, it was Doug's fault. "I'm going to Europe." "No you're not!" thundered Doug. "Yes I am. I gotta go . . ." Scott tried to plead his case. "You aren't going anywhere, and that's final." Doug retorted without a pause. He stared challengingly through Scott. "Doug," Scott visibly calmed himself, "will you at least hear me out, before telling me no? At least listen to me, and if I'm wrong, tell me why. O.K.?" Same routine, different day, thought Scott. The calmer, sincere request elicited empathy from Doug. Maybe he'd been too harsh. "Sorry, it's automatic to say 'no'. You know that they," he pointed down with his thumb, "have us counting paper clips. Sure, explain to me why I'm going to say 'no'," he joked. Doug's overtly stern yet fatherlike geniality returned. "O.K." Scott mentally organized his thoughts. He touched his fingers to his forehead and turned to sit on the edge of Doug's desk. A traditional no-no. "Without my notes . . ." "Screw the notes, what have you got? If you don't know the mate- rial, the notes won't help. They're the details, not the story." Scott had heard this before. "Sure, sorry." He gained confidence and went straight from the hip. "Fact one. The FBI is investigating a massive blackmail campaign that nobody wants us to talk about, and probably for good reason from what I can see. As of now, there is no clue at all to whom is behind the operation. "Fact two. My story got pulled by CIA, NSA or someone that pushed the AG's buttons. And this Tempest thing gets heads turning too fast for my taste." Doug nodded briefly. Scott made sense so far, both things were true. "Three," Scott continued, "First State has been the target of hackers, plus, we have Sidneys . . ." "Sort of. McMillan hasn't caved in on that yet." "Agreed, but it's still good. You and I both know it." Doug grudgingly nodded in agreement. "Then we have all those papers that came from a van, or more than one van I would guess, and not a damned thing we can do with them according to Higgins." Again, Doug nodded, but he wondered where all of this was going. "Then the EMP-T bombs, NASA, the Phone Company, and all of these viruses. What we have is a number of apparently dissimilar events that have one common denominator: computers." Scott waited for a reaction from Doug that didn't come so he continued. "Don't you see, the van with the computer data, the endless files, the Sidneys problems, pulling my stories, the hackers? Even the viruses. They're starting to get a little out of hand. It's all the same thing!" Doug rolled his head from side to side on his shoulder. Rather than boredom, Scott knew that Doug was carefully thinking through the logic of it. "Aren't you acting the engineer instead of the reporter here? Miss the old line of work 'eh?" "Give me a break! You and your viruses are the ones who got me into this mess in the first place." Scott knew it would come up, so he had been ready and grabbed the opportunity Doug had just given him. "That's exactly the point!" Scott leaped off the desk to his feet. "All we have are technical threads, pieces of a puzzle. It's a classic engineering problem." Although Scott had never been a brilliant engineer, he could argue the issues fluently. "Let me give you an example. When I was in defense electronics, whenever someone built something we had to document, without failure, it didn't work. Radar, navigation, communications, it didn't matter. The engineers forever were releasing products that failed on the first pass." Doug stopped rolling his head and looked at Scott with a blank stare. "We had these terrifically advanced products meant to defend our country and they didn't work. So, we had to tell the engineers what was wrong so they could figure it out. Our own engineers and I got involved more times than we liked because the response time from the contractors was for shit. They didn't care any more. Since we hadn't designed it, we only saw the pieces that were on the fritz, we had symptoms and had to figure out what they meant in order to diagnose the failure so we could get the designers to come up with a fix. The point is, we only had shreds of evidence, little bits of technical information from which to try to understand the complete system. That's exactly what's going on here." "So?" Doug said dead panned. "So," Scott avoided getting incensed. "You're damn lucky you have me around. I see a pattern, a trail, that leads I don't know where, but I have to follow the trail. That's my job." "What has Europe got to do with it?" Doug was softening. "Oops, thanks! I almost forgot." Scott felt stupid for a second, but he was without notes, he rationalized. "Kirk is my hacker contact who I've been talking to over my computer. Gives me real good stuff. He says there's a conference of hackers in Amsterdam next week. It's a real private affair, and he got me an invite. I think, no I know, there's something bigger going down; somehow all of these pieces tie together and I need to find out how." "That's it?" Scott looked disappointed at Doug's reaction. "No, that's not it! You know that the Expos�� has been publishing bits and pieces of the same stuff we haven't been publishing?" Scott didn't know which of his arguments made the case, but Doug certainly reacted to the competitive threat. "How much?" "How much what?" Scott wasn't ready for the question. "For Europe? How much play money will you need. You know I have to sell this upstairs and they . . ." "Airfare and a couple of nights plus food. That's it. If you want," Scott readied the trump card he had never used at the Times. "I'll pay for it myself, and submit it all when I come back. Then, you make the call. I'll trust you." "You really think it's that important?" Doug said. "Absolutely. No question. Something's going on that smells rotten, bad, and it includes the Government, but I have no idea how." Scott spoke as if he was on a soapbox. He had shot his wad. That was it. Anything more was a rehash of the same stuff and it would have been worthless to say more. He shut up and waited for Doug who enjoyed making his better reporters anxious with anticipation. "Have a good trip," Doug said nonchalantly. He leaned forward to hunch over his desk, and ignoring Scott, he went back to redlining another writer's story. * * * * * Tuesday, December 15 Scarsdale, New York Kirk delivered on his word. In his E-Mail repository at the Times, Scott found a message from Kirk. It was short, but all Scott needed to hear. Never mind how Kirk broke into the comput- ers. Tues. 12/15 00:02:14.1 << FREEDOM BBS >> Repo Man, When you arrive, call 602-356. It's an Amsterdam number. Jon Gruptmann is your contact. I told him you were a reporter, but a good one. I said you're working to preserve freedom of electronic information and you were sick and tired of the police and media beating up on hackers. He thinks you want to give the other side of the story to the public. Jon is one of the best in Holland and anywhere. He agreed to meet and talk with you himself. He will show you around. Have a good trip. Call me, oops, no can do. Oh, Yes. Mona Lisa frowned. I will call you. Kirk << TRANSMITTED BY THE FREEDOM BBS SERVICE >> When Scott got home from work he checked his E-mail and found the same message from Kirk, telling him to be on the line tonight. The Mona Lisa frowned. That meant to Scott that someone was interested enough in Kirk's activities, or alleged activities at First State to break in and ruin his computers. And Da Vinci's. Who was so scared of hackers, or of what they knew to go to these lengths? How many have had their computers ravaged? As anticipated, midnight brought Kirk calling. WE'RE GOING AFTER THEM After who? FREEDOM. NEMO AND SOME PHREAKS PHRIENDS ARE GOING TO FIND OUT WHAT'S GOING ON. What's wrong? DID YOU EVER TALK TO ANYONE AND FEEL THAT THINGS WEREN'T QUITE RIGHT? Sure. WELL SO DO I. DA VINCI IS A STRAIGHT WHITE HAT HACKER. I HAD HIM CHECKED OUT BY PHRIENDS. THEN I CALLED FREEDOM AND JOINED UP. I GAVE THEM A BUNCH OF SOFTWARE AND I TOOK SOME. I ASKED TO CHAT WITH THE SYSOP AND WE'VE BEEN TALKING DAILY. STRANGE GUY. Strange? Over a computer? YOU CAN TELL. HE SPOKE WITH AN ACCENT. You're putting me on. REALLY. EVER READ A VCR MANUAL TRANSLATED FROM THE JAPANESE? THEY LEAVE OUT THE the's FROM EVERYTHING. IT HAS AN ACCENT. AND THE WORD DUDE ESPECIALLY UPSET HIM. Dude? Good reason to be suspicious. THEN I HACKED HIS SYSTEM WHEN I KNEW HE WASN'T ON LINE. JUST TO LOOK AROUND MIND YOU. How can you do that? BBS'S ONLY COME IN SO MANY FLAVORS. THEY'RE PRETTY EASY TO CRACK, ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE A COPY TO WORK ON. Ah hah! I FOUND HUGE AREAS OF HIS COMPUTER NOT ASSIGNED TO THE BBS. So? A BBS COMPUTER IS DEDICATED TO ONE FUNCTION, BBS'ING. SO I POKED AROUND AND FOUND ANOTHER COMPLETE BBS SYSTEM, NOT PART OF FREE- DOM. TOO MUCH WAS ENCRYPTED, THOUGH, TO LEARN MUCH. BUT WE WILL. Don't get yourself into hot water again . . . NOT TO WORRY. I'LL BECOME ONE OF THEM. PLAY THEIR GAMES. IT'S EASY TO BE ANYONE YOU WANT. I WANT TO SEE WHAT'S GOING ON BEHIND THE SCENES. SHOULDN'T TAKE LONG. * * * * * Friday, December 18 New York U.S. Army on Virus Vigil! by Scott Mason In July of 1990, the United States Army joined the inner sanctum of the Computer Hacker. The Pentagon had finally realized that the computer is as essen- tial to battlefield operations and communications as is the gun and the radio. Therefore, as the logic goes, why shouldn't the computers be directly attacked as are other military targets. In keeping with that line of thinking, the Army said, use computer viruses. Viruses are those little gremlins which roam throughout a comput- er system, hiding themselves in silicon gulches, waiting to ambush mountains of megabytes and erase deserts of data. Perfect for modern warfare. The Army issued an RFP, (Request For Proposal) asking the private sector to study and design computer viruses and other methods to be used offensively against enemy computers. The half million dollar contract was awarded to a Beltway Bandit, a small govern- ment sub-contractor so named for their proximity to Interstate 495, which loops around Washington, D.C. So, the Army is going into the hacking business, but this brings up quite a few questions. Question I. How long has the Government known that computer viruses and other maladies could be used in a strategic militari- ly offensive fashion? RFP's are always preceded by much internal research and consultation with private industry. The Government typically will have issued RFI's, (Requests For Information) and RFQ's (Request For Quotes) and already have a darn good idea of what's available and from whom. Question II. Has the Government already sponsored such research? The existence of the EMP-T Bomb has created quite a furor. Question III. What if the Army created experimental computer viruses and they get loose? Who is responsible for silicon based biological warfare on desktop computers? Question IV. Have any computer viral outbreaks actually been Government projects gone out of control? Question V. If the Government knew that civilian and military computers could be systematically attacked and destroyed, why haven't we done anything to defend ourselves against a similar assault? Last month's attack on the Stock Exchange by secret EMP-T bombs prompted an investigation into such military capabilities, and some surprising answers were uncovered. In an attempt to get specific answers from various Government agencies, I located a secretive group called OCTAG/0N. (Offensive Computer Technology Applications Group/Zero-November). OCTAG/0N is a highly classified interagency project whose sole function is to develop methods to destroy or disable computers from great distances. According to a highly placed source at the Pentagon, OCTAG/0N allegedly developed computer viruses that will destroy the ene- my's hard disks. Successful deployment, to use Pentagon-ese, is the hard part. "If we can get at their computers," an engineer with OCTAG/0N said requesting anonymity, "we can stop them in- stantly. Getting them there has been the problem. But now we know how to get at their computers from great distances." In the battlefield, for example, advanced tactical communications groups explode small Magnetic Bombs (EMP-T) which emit very strong electromagnetic pulses at certain frequencies. The EM pulses destroy nearby computers, (RAM, ROM, EPROM, Magnetic storage). Some computer systems are 'hardened' with extra shielding as in the Tempest program. Other computers, such as those in Air Force One, inside missile silos, or in the Pentagon War Room are additionally protected by the secret C3I programs which 'super-hardens' the computers against the intense magnetic pulses associated with above ground nuclear explosions. Intensely focussed energy beams of low power can totally disrupt an unshielded computer as far away as three miles. Synchronized Interference Techniques provide double duty to both listen in on and jam air borne computer traffic. One of OCTAG/0N's pet tricks is to broadcast a computer virus from a small antenna so that it is caught by a computers communicating on the same frequency. So simple, yet so devious. In conversations with computer experts and the underground hacker community, the existence of such high tech weaponry has been confirmed, although the Department of Defense is still issuing a predictable 'no comment'. So, I have to ask again. Why hasn't our Government been helping us protect ourselves against an apparently formidable computer weapons complement? I hope "The Other Guys" aren't so well armed. This is Scott Mason, adding a chastity belt to my modem. **************************************************************** Chapter 17 Monday, December 28 A/K/A Software by Scott Mason The Christmas Virus is upon is. So is the anticipated New Years Eve and New Year's Day Virus. Seems like wherever I look, someone is making a virus to attack my computer or celebrate a holiday. Rather than another rash of warnings about the impending doom and gloom faced by your computers, my editor asked me to find the lighter side of computer viruses. I strongly objected, stating that I found nothing amusing about them. They were a deadly and cowardly form of terrorism that should be rewarded with behead- ing. However, there is one thing . . . The geniuses who come up with the names for viral infections; about as believable and laughable as a Batman comic. I wonder what most of us would think if our doctor told us we had the Ping Pong virus instead of strep throat. Or in spring time we contracted the April Fool's Virus. It is entirely within the realm of reason that America's comput- ers go unprotected because of the sheer absurdity of the names we attach to each one. Comical names create a comical situation, so no one takes the issue seriously. The Marijuana virus conjures up images of a stoned orgy, and why would a computer care about that. The Fu Manchu virus conjures up the Red Chinese Army crossing the Mississippi, which is clear- ly not the case, so it is ignored. Viruses know no national boundary. The Pakistani virus, the Icelandic, the Israeli, Jerusalem A, Jerusalem B, Jerusalem C, Lehigh, Alameda, Vienna, Czech, Rumanian - I found over 900 current and active viruses that are identified by their reputed place of origin. The Brain virus sounds more sinister than the Stoned Virus, and Friday the 13th viruses are as popular as the movie sequels. The Columbus Day Virus was actually dubbed by its authors as Data Crime, and might have generated more concern if not for the nick- nom-de-plume it inherited. So to fulfill my editor's dream, I will list a few of the more creative virus names. Some were chosen by the programmers, others by the Virus Busters and others yet by the media. See what you think each virus would do to your computer, or when it will strike, merely from the name. The Vatican Virus The Popeye Virus The Garlic Virus The Scrooge Virus Teenage Mutant Ninja Virus The Ides Virus The Quaalude Virus The Amphetamine Virus Super Virus The Tick Tock Virus The String Virus The Black Hole Virus The Stupid Virus Stealth I have a few of my own suggestions for future virus builders. The Jewish Sex Virus (Dials your mother-in-law during a romantic interlude.) The Ronald Reagan Virus (Puts your computer to sleep only in important meetings.) The Pee Wee Herman Virus (Garbage In Garbage Out) The Donald Trump Virus (Makes all of your spread sheets go into the red.) Tomorrow, Viruses from Hell on Geraldo. Namely, this is Scott Mason. * * * * * Tuesday, December 29 Washington, D.C. "Why the hell do I have to find out what's going on in the world from the goddamned papers and CNN instead of from the finest intelligence services in the world?" The President snapped sarcastically while sipping black coffee over his daily collec- tion of U.S. and foreign papers. The early morning ritual of coffee, newspapers and a briefing by Chief of Staff Phil Musgrave provided the day with a smooth start. Usually. "I've been asking for weeks about this computer craziness. All I get is don't worry, Mr. President," he said mimicking the classic excuses he was sick and tired of hearing. "We have it taken care of, Mr. President. No concern of yours, Mr. President, we have everything under control. We temporarily have our thumbs up our asses, Mr. President." Phil stifled a giggle behind his napkin. "I'm sorry, Phil," the President continued, "but it irritates the shit out of me. The damn media knowing more about what's hap- pening than we do. Where the hell is that report I asked for? The one on the bank hostage I've been requesting for a week?" The President's mood portended a rough day for the inner circle. "Sir, as I understand, it wasn't ready for your desk yet." "Do the goddamned missiles have to land on the White House lawn before we verify it's not one of our own?" Phil knew better than to attempt any dissuasion when the Presi- dent got into these moods. He took notes, and with luck it would blow over in a couple of days. Today was not Phil's lucky day. "I want a briefing. Two Hours." "Gentlemen," the President said from behind his desk in the oval office, "I'd like to read you something I had Brian put togeth- er." The efficiency of the White House Press Office under the leadership of Brian Packard was well known. The President had the best rapport with the press that any President had in a generation. He slipped on his aviator style glasses and pulled the lobe of his left ear while reading from his desk. "Let's start here. Phone Company Invaded by Hackers; Stock Exchange Halted by Gov- ernment Bomb; Computer Crime Costs Nation $12 Billion Annually; Viruses Stop Network; Banks Lose Millions to Computer Embez- zlers; Trojan Horse Defeats Government Computers; NASA Spending Millions On Free Calls for Hackers." He looked for a reaction from his four key associates: Phil, Quinton Chambers, Martin Royce and Henry Kennedy. "If you don't know, these are headlines from newspapers and magazines across the country." The President read further from his notes. "Viruses Infect Trans-Insurance Payments; Secret Service Computers Invaded; NSA and NIST in Security Rift; FBI Wasting Millions on Computer Blackmail Scheme; First National Bank Held Hostage; Sperm Bank Computer Records Erased; IRS Returns of the Super Rich." The President removed his glasses wanting answers. "What is going on here, gentlemen?" the President asked directly. "I am baffled that everyone else but me seems to know there's a problem, and that pisses me off. Answers?" He wondered who would be the first to speak up. Surprisingly, it was Henry, who normally waited to speak last. "Sir, we have active programs in place to protect classified computer systems." "Then what are these about?" He waved a couple of sheets of paper in the air. "Of course we haven't fully implemented security everywhere yet, but it is an ongoing concern. According to NSA, the rash of recent computer events are a combination of anomalies and the press blowing it all out of proportion." "Do you believe Henry," the President asked, "that if there's smoke, a reasonable man will assume that there is a fire nearby?" Henry nodded obligingly. "And what would you think if there were a hundred plumes of smoke rising?" Henry felt stumped. "Jacobs assured me that he had everything under control and . . ." "As I recall Henry," the President interrupted, "you told me that a couple of months ago when the papers found out about the EMP-T bombs. Do you recall, Henry?" "Yessir," he answered meekly. "Then what happened?" "We have to rely on available information, and as far as we know, as far as we're being told, these are very minor events that have been sensationalized by the media." "It says here," the President again donned his glasses, "Defense Contractors Live with Hackers; Stealth Program Uncovered in Defense Department Computers; Social Security Computers At Risk. Are those minor events?" He pointed the question at not only Henry. "There was no significant loss of information," Coletree rapidly said. "We sewed up the holes before we were severely compro- mised." "Wonderful," the President said sarcastically. "And what ever happened to that bank in Atlanta? Hiring Those kids?" "If I may, sir?" Phil Musgrave filled the silence. "That was a private concern, and we had no place to interfere - as is true in most of these cases. We can only react if government property is affected." "What is being done about it? Now I mean." "We have activated CERT and ECCO, independent computer crime units to study the problem further." As usual, Phil was impecca- bly informed. "Last years the Secret Service and FBI arrested over 70 people accused of computer crimes. The state of Pennsyl- vania over 500, California 300. Remember, sir, computer crimes are generally the states' problems." "I'm wondering if it shouldn't be our problem, too," the Presi- dent pondered. "There are steps in that direction, as well. Next week the Senate hearings on Privacy and Technology Containment begin, and as I understand it, they will be focusing on exactly this issue." "Who's running the show?" the President asked with interest. "Ah," Phil said ripping through his notes, "Rickfield, sir." "That bigot? Christ. I guess it could be worse. We could have ended up with Homer Simpson." The easing of tension worked to the President's advantage, for a brief moment. "I want the whole picture, the good and the bad, laid out for me." He scanned his private appointment book. "Two weeks. Is that long enough to find out why I'm always the last to know?" * * * * * Wednesday, December 30 New York "Scott Mason," Scott said answering the phone with his mouth full of hot pastrami on rye with pickles and mayonnaise. "Scott? It's Tyrone." Tyrone's voice was quiet, just about a whisper. "Oh, hi." Scott continued to chew. Scott was unsuccessfully trying not to sound angry. Other than following Scott's articles in the paper, they had had no contact since that eventful phone call a month ago. Since then, Scott had made sure that they rode on different cars during their daily commute into the city. It was painful for both of them since they had been close friends, but Scott was morally obligated, so he thought, to cut off their association after Tyrone broke the cardinal rule of all journalists; keep your sources protected. And, Tyrone had broken that maxim. Scott had not yet learned that the Bureau made their own rules, and that the gentleman's agreement of off-the-record didn't carry weight in their venue. "How have you been?" Tyrone said cordially. "Good bit of work you been doing." "Yeah, thanks, thanks," Scott said stiffly. Tyrone had already determined that he needed Scott if his own agency wouldn't help him. At least Scott wasn't bound by idiotic governmental regulations that stifled rather than helped the cause. Maybe there was hope for cooperation yet, if his little faux pas could be forgiven. "We need to talk. I've been meaning to call you." Though Tyrone meant it, Scott thought it was a pile of warmed up FBI shit. "Sure, let's talk." Scott's apparent indifference bothered Tyrone. "Scott, I mean it," he said sincerely. "I have an apology to make, and I want to do it in person. Also, I think that we both need each other . . .you'll understand when I tell you what's been going on." Tyrone's deep baritone voice conveyed honesty and a little bit of urgency. If nothing else, he had never known or had any reason to suspect Tyrone of purposely misleading or lying to him. And their friendship had been a good one. Plus, the tease of a secret further enticed Scott into agreeing. "Yeah, what the hell. It's Christmas." Scott's aloofness came across as phony, but Tyrone understood the awkwardness and let it pass. "How 'bout we meet at The Oyster Bar, Grand Central, and get shit faced. Merry Christmas from the Bureau." The Oyster Bar resides on the second lower level of Grand Cen- tral Station, located eighty feet beneath Park Avenue and 42nd. Street. It had become a fairly chic restaurant bar in the '80's; the seafood was fresh, and occasionally excellent. The patronage of the bar ranged from the commuter who desperately quaffed down two or three martinis to those who enjoyed the seafaring ambi- ence. The weathered hardwood walls were decorated with huge stuffed crabs, swordfish, lifesavers and a pot pourri of fishing accouterments. The ceilings were bathed in worn fishing nets that occasionally dragged too low for anyone taller than 6 feet. Away from the bar patrons could dine or drink in privacy, with dim ten watt lamps on each table to cut through the darkness. Tyrone was sitting at such a table, drink in hand when Scott craned his neck from the door to find his friend through the crowd. He ambled over, and Tyrone stood to greet him. Scott was cool, but willing to give it a try. As usual Tyrone was elegant- ly attired, in a custom tailored dark gray pin stripe suit, a fitted designer shirt and a stylish silk tie of the proper width. Scott was dressed just fine as far as he was concerned. His sneakers were clean, his jeans didn't have holes and the sweater would have gained him admission to the most private ski parties in Vermont. Maybe they were too different and their friendship had been an unexplainable social aberration; an accident. Scott's stomach tightened. His body memory recalled the time the principal had suspended him from high school for spreading liquid banana peel on the hall floors and then ringing the fire drill alarm. The picture of 3000 kids and 200 teachers slipping and sliding and crawling out of the school still made Scott smile. "What'll you have?" Tyrone gestured at a waiter while asking Scott for his preference. "Corona, please." Tyrone took charge. "Waiter, another double and a Corona." He waved the waiter away. "That's better." Tyrone was already slightly inebriated. "I guess you think I'm a real shit hole, huh?" "Sort of," Scott agreed. "I guess you could put it that way." Scott was impressed with Ty's forthright manner. "I can think of a bunch more words that fit the bill." At least Tyrone admitted it. That was a step in the right direction. Ty laughed. "Yeah, I bet you could, and you might be right." Scott's drink came. He took a thirsty gulp from the long neck bottle." "Ease on down the road!" Ty held his half empty drink in the air. It was peace offering. Scott slowly lifted his and their drinks met briefly. They both sipped again, and an awkward silence followed. "Well, I guess it's up to me to explain, isn't it?" Tyrone ven- tured. "You don't have to explain anything. I understand," Scott said caustically. "I don't think you do, my friend. May I at least have my last words before you shoot?" Tyrone's joviality was not as effective when nervous. Scott remembered that he used the same argument with Doug only days before. He eased up. "Sure, ready and aimed, though." "I'm quitting." Tyrone's face showed disappointment, resigna- tion. The beer bottle at Scott's lips was abruptly laid on the table. "Quitting? The FBI?" Tyrone nodded. "Why? What happened?" For one moment Scott completely forgot how angry he was. The din of the Oyster Bar made for excellent cover. They could speak freely with minimal worry of being overheard. "It's a long story, but it began when they pulled your article. God, I'm sorry, man," Tyrone said with empathy. The furrows on his forehead deepened as he searched for a reaction from Scott. Nothing. Ty finished off his drink and started on the refill. "Unlike what you probably believe, or want to believe, when you called me that morning, I had no idea what you were talking about. It was several hours before I realized what had happened. If I had any idea . . ." Scott stared blankly at Tyrone. You haven't convinced me of anything, Scott thought. "As far as I knew, you were writing an article that had no par- ticular consequence . . ." "Thanks a shitload," Scott quipped. "No, I mean, I had no idea of the national security implica- tions, and besides, it was going to be in the paper the next day anyway." Tyrone shrugged with his hands in the air for added emphasis. "Tempest meant nothing to me. All I said was that you and I had been talking. I promise you, that's it. As a friend, that was the extent of it. They took it from there." Tyrone extended his hands in an open gesture of conciliation. "All I knew was that what you'd said about CMR shook some people up in D.C.. ECCO has been quite educational. Now I know why, and that's why I have to leave." The genuineness from Tyrone softened Scott's attitude some. "I thought you spooks stuck together. Spy and die together." Tyrone contorted his face to show disgust with that thought. "That'll be the day. In fact it's the opposite. A third of our budgets are meant to keep other agencies in the dark about what we're doing." "You're kidding!" "I wish I was." Tyrone looked disheartened, betrayed. "At any rate," Tyrone continued, "I got spooked by the stunt with your paper and the Attorney General. I just couldn't call you, you'll see why. The Agency is supposed to enforce the law, not make it and they have absolutely no business screwing with the press. Uh-uh." Tyrone took a healthy sip of his drink. "Reminds me of times that are supposed to be gone. Dead in the past. Did you know that I am a constitutional lawyer?" Scott ordered another beer and shook his head, no. Just a regular lawyer. Will wonders never cease? "Back in the early 60's the South was not a good place for blacks. Or Negroes as we were called back then." Tyrone said the word Negro with disdain. He pulled his tie from the stiff collar and opened a button. "I went on some marches in Alabama, God, that was a hot summer. A couple of civil rights workers were killed." Scott remembered. More from the movie Mississippi Burning than from memory. Civil rights wasn't a black-white issue, Tyrone insisted. It was about man's peaceful co-existence with government. A legal issue. "I thought that was an important distinction and most people were missing the point. I thought I could make a differ- ence working from inside the system. I was wrong, and I've been blinded by it until now . . .you know. "When I was in college the politicians screamed integration while the poor blacks no more wanted to be bussed to the rich white neighborhood that the rich whites wanted the poor blacks in their schools." Tyrone spoke from his heart, his soul, with a touch of resentment that Scott had not seen before. But then, they had never spoken of it before. This was one story that he had suc- cessfully neglected to share. "Forced integration was govern- ment's answer to a problem it has never understood. "It's about dignity. Dignity and respect, not government inter- vention. It's about a man's right to privacy and the right to lead his life the way he sees fit. Civil rights is about how to keep government from interfering with its citizens. Regardless of color." Tyrone was adamant. "And that's why you're gonna quit?" Scott didn't see the con- nection. "No, goddamnit, no," Tyrone shouted. "Don't you get it?" Scott shook his head. "They want to take them away." He spoke with finality and assumed Scott knew what he meant. The liquor fogged his brain to mouth speech connection. "Who's gonna take what away?" Scott asked, frustrated by Ty's ramblings. "I know it's hokey, but the Founding Fathers had a plan, and so far it's survived two hundred years of scrutiny and division. I would like to think it can survive the computer age." Tyrone quieted down some. "My father used to tell me, from the time I was old enough to understand, that law was merely a measure of how much freedom a man was willing to sacrifice to maintain an orderly society." "My father was a radical liberal among liberals," Tyrone remem- bered. "Even today he'll pick a fight at the family barbecue for his own entertainment. And he'll hold his own." Scott enjoyed the image of a crotchety octogenarian stirring up the shit while his children isolated their kids from their grand father's intellectual lunacy. What was this about? Tyrone caught himself and realized that he wasn't getting his point across. He took a deep breath and slouched back in the chair that barely held him. "From the beginning," he said. "I told you about ECCO, and what a disaster it is. No authority, no control, no responsibility. And the chaos is unbelievable. "I don't pretend to understand all of the computer jargon, but I do recognize when the NSA wants to control everything. There's a phenomenal amount of arrogance there. The NSA reps in ECCO believe that they are the only ones who know anything about computers and how to protect them. I feel sorry for the guys from NIST. They're totally underfunded, so they end up with both the grunt work and the brunt of the jokes from the NSA. "NSA won't cooperate on anything. If NIST says it's white, NSA says it's black. If NIST says there's room to compromise, NSA gets more stubborn. And the academic types. At long last I now know what happened to the hippies: they're all government con- sultants through universities. And all they want to do is study, study, study. But they never come up with answers, just more questions to study. "The vendors try to sell their products and don't contribute a damn thing," sighed Tyrone. "A bunch of industry guys from computer companies and the banks, and they're as baffled as I am." "So why quit? Can't you make a difference?" "Listen. The FBI views computer crimes as inter-state in nature and therefore under their domain." Scott nodded in understanding. "We are enforcement, only," Tyrone asserted. "We do not, nor should we make the laws. Separation of power; Civics 101. To accomplish anything, I have to be a private citizen." "What do you want to accomplish?" asked Scott with great inter- est. "I want to stop the NSA." Tyrone spoke bluntly and Scott sat too stunned to speak for long seconds. "From what?" A sudden pit formed in Scott's stomach. "I found out why they dumped on you about the CMR," Tyrone said. "I haven't been able to tell you before, but it doesn't matter any more." Tyrone quickly shook off the veiling sadness. "NSA has a built-in contradiction. On one hand they listen into the world and spy for America. This is supposed to be very secret, especially how they do it. It turns out that CMR is one of their 'secret' methods for spying on friends and foes alike. "So, to keep our friends and foes from spying on us, they create the secret Tempest program. Except, they think it needs to be kept a military secret, and the public sector be damned. They actually believe that opening the issue to the public will hamper their intelligence gathering capabilities because the enemy will protect against it, too." Scott listened in fascination. What he was learning now more than made up for the loss of one article. He felt bad now that he had overreacted and taken it out on Tyrone. "Same goes for the EMP-T bomb," Tyrone added. "Only they didn't know that you were going to publish ahead of time like they did when I opened up my fat trap." Scott's eyes suddenly lit up. "How much did you tell them?" "That I knew you and you were writing an article. That's it." "Then how did they know what I had written? It was pretty damned close. I assumed that you had . . ." "No way, man," Tyrone held his hands up. "Then how did . . .Ty? What if they're using CMR on my computers? Could they . . ." Tyrone's predicament was to decide whether or not to tell Scott that he knew the NSA and others spied on Americans and gathered intelligence through remote control means. "I assume they're capable of anything." "Shit!" Scott exclaimed. "Privacy goes right out the window. Damn." Scott rapidly spun in his chair and vacantly stared off in space. "Is that legal?" "What? CMR? I looked into that briefly, and there's nothing on the books yet, but I did find out that tapping cellular phone conversations is legal." "Phone tapping, legal?" Scott couldn't believe his ears. "Cellular phones, yeah. The FCC treats them like TV sets, radi- os, satellites. Anyone can listen to any station." "That's incredible," Scott said, mouth gaping. "I wonder how they'll handle RF LAN's." "RF LAN's," asked Ty. "What are those?" "A bunch of computers tied together with radios. They replace the wires that connect computers now. Can you imagine?" Scott saw the irony in it. "Broadcasting your private secrets like that? Hah! Or if you have your own RF network, all you have to do is dial up another one and all the information ends up right in your computer! Legal robbery. Is this a great country or what?" "Now you know why I'm leaving. The NSA cannot be permitted to keep the public uninformed about vulnerabilities to their person- al freedom. And hiding under the umbrella of national security gets old. A handful of paranoid un-elected, un-budgeted, non-ac- countable, mid-level bureaucrats are deciding the future of privacy and freedom in this country. They are the ones who are saying, 'no, no problem,' when they know damn well it is a prob- lem. What they say privately is in diametric opposition to their public statements and positions." Scott stifled a nervous laugh. Who wound Tyrone up? A conspira- cy theory. Tyrone was drunk. "Don't you think that maybe you're taking this a little far," he suggested. For the first time in years the shoe was on the other foot. Scott was tempering some- body elses extremes. "Why the hell do you think there's so much confusion at ECCO and CERT and the other computer SWAT teams? NSA interferes at every step," Tyrone responded. "And no, I am not taking this too far. I haven't taken it far enough. I sit with these guys and they talk as though I'm not there. I attend meetings where the poli- cies and goals of ECCO are established. Shit, I trust the dope- smoking hippies from Berkeley more than anyone from the Fort." The bitterness came through clearly, but Scott could see it wasn't focussed on any one person or thing. But Scott began to understand. For over 20 years Tyrone had insulated himself from the politics of the job and had seen only what he wanted to see; a national Police Force enforcing the laws. Tyrone loved the chase of the crime. The bits and pieces, the endless sifting of evidence, searching for clues and then building a case from shreds. The forensics of modern criminology had been so compelling for Tyrone Duncan that he had missed the impact that the mass proliferation of technology would have on his first love - The Constitution. The sudden revelations and realizations of the last several weeks set his mind into high gear. Tyrone introspectively examined his beliefs; he tried to review them from the perspective of an idealistic young man in his twenties. What would he have done then? He realized the answer was easier found now that he was a man of experience: Do Something About It. Far from a rebel looking for a cause, the cause jumped all over Tyrone with a vengeance and the tenacity of a barnacle. All at once Scott knew that Tyrone was serious and that he would be a better friend if he congratulated instead of castigated. "You know, I kind of understand a little. Same thing with my ex- wife." "Hey, that's not fair, man," Tyrone vigorously objected. "Maggie was a dingbat . . ." "I know that and she knew that," Scott agreed, "but that was what made her Maggie." Tyrone nodded, remembering her antics. "And in some ways we still love each other. After ten years of fun, great fun, she wanted to get off of the planet more than I did, so she went to California." The softness in Scott's voice said he still cared about Maggie, that she was a cherished part of his life, that was and would remain in the past. Scott shook off the melancholy and continued. "It's the same for you. You're married to the FBI, and while you still love it, you need to let it go to move on with your life." "Y'know, I don't know why everyone says you're so stupid," Tyrone said with respect. "UFO's aside, you can actually make sense." "Maybe, maybe not. Doesn't really matter. But I'm doing exactly what I want to do. And the day it stops being fun, I'm outta here." "Isn't that the arrogance of wealth speaking?" Tyrone asked. "And you're any different? The 22 room Tudor shack you live in is not exactly my vision of poverty. As I see it, it's one of the benefits," Scott said unembarrassed by his financial securi- ty. "Before I made my money, I swore that when I got rich, I would give something back. You know, to the planet or society or something. Do something useful and not for the money." Scott spoke with honest enthusiasm. "But I don't believe there's a rule that says I have to be miserable. I love what I do, and well, I don't know. The concept of career is different for me. I like the idea of doing a little bit of everything for the experience. You know, I drove a cab for one night. Glad I did, but never again." "So?" asked Tyrone. "So, do what you want to do and enjoy it. Period. As a friend of a friend says, live long and prosper." Scott let Tyrone sit in contemplative silence as the waiter brought them two more. They were doing a good job of sticking to the plan of getting 'shiffaced'. "You know," Tyrone opined, "INTERNET is only the tip of the iceberg. NASA is having ECCO and CERT look into over $12 Million in unaccounted-for telephone calls. The Justice Department sold old computers containing the names and other details of the Witness Protection Program to a junk dealer in Kentucky and they're suing him to get them back. The Secret Service is rede- signing its protection techniques for the President since someone got into their computers and copied the plans. The computers at Mitre have been used by hackers for years to get at classified information. The public hears less than 1% of the computer problems in the government. And still, no one will do anything. There's even talk that the missing Plutonium that the Israelis theoretically stole in 1981 was actually a computer error." "What do you want to do about it?" Scott was asking as a friend, not a reporter. "First," said a newly determined Tyrone, "I'm gonna nail me some of these mothers, and I'll do it with your help. Then, after that?" Tyrone's old smile was suddenly back. "I think I'm gonna kick myself some government ass." Tyrone roared with laughter and Scott joined the contagious behavior. "In the meantime, I want to take a look at some blackmail. I think you may be right." "About what? I don't listen to what I tell you." "Remember you said that the blackmail scheme wasn't really blackmail." Tyrone shifted his weight in the chair and he reached for the words through is fogged mind. "You said it might be a way to make us too busy to see our own shadow. That it was a cover up for another dissociated crime." "Yeah? It might be," Scott said. Tyrone's body heaved while he snickered. "We finally have a lead. Demands have been made." "What kind? Who? What do they want?" Scott's journalist mind clicked into gear. "What about the computer virus crap?" "I'm kind of looking into both, but this morning my interest was renewed. A corporate type I met says not only he, but another 25 or more of his corporate brethren are getting the same treatment. If he's right, someone is demanding over $30 Million in ransoms." "Jesus Christ! Is that confirmed?" Scott probed. "Yes. That's why I said you were right." The implications were tremendous, even to Scott's clouded mind. While the legal system might not be convinced that computer radiation was responsible for an obviously well coordinated criminal venture, he, as an engineer, realized how vulnerable anyone - everyone was. The questions raced through his mind all at once. Over a few dozen oysters and not as many drinks, Scott and Ty proceeded to share their findings. Scott had documents up the ying-yang, documents he couldn't use in a journalistic sense, but might be valuable to the recent developments in Ty's case. He had moved the files to his home; they were simply taking too much space around his desk at the office. They were an added attrac- tion to the disaster he called his study. Scott agreed to show Ty some of them. After the meeting with Franklin Dobbs, and knowing there might be others in similar situations, Ty wanted an informal look at Scott's cache. "I've been holding back, Ty," Scott said during a lull in their conversation. "How do you mean?" "I got a call from a guy I had spoken to a few months ago; I assume he sent me those files, and he said that key executives throughout the country were being blackmailed. Some were borrow- ing money from the mob to pay them off." "Do you have names? Who?" Tyrone's took an immediate interest. "Let me see if I have'm here," he said as he reached for his small notebook in the sports jacket draped over the back of his chair. "Yeah, he only gave me three, not much to go on. A Faulkner, some banker from L.A., a Wall Street tycoon named Henson and another guy Dobbs, Franklin Dobbs." "Dobbs! How the hell do you know about Dobbs?" Tyrone yelled so loud several remaining bar patrons looked over to see what the ruckus was. Scott was taken aback by the outburst. "What're you hollering about?" "Shit, goddamned shit, I don't need this." Tyrone finished one and ordered another drink. He was keeping his promise; well on the way to getting severely intoxicated. "Dobbs. Dobbs is the poor fucker that came into my office." "You saw Dobbs? He admitted it?" Scott's heart raced at the prospect of a connection. Finally. "Scott," Tyrone asked quietly, "I have no right to ask you this, but I will anyway. If you find anything, on Dobbs, can you hold back? Just for a while?" A slight pleading on Tyrone's part. "Why?" Was this part of the unofficial trade with Ty for earlier information? The waiter returned with the credit card. Tyrone signed the slip, giving the waiter entirely too much of a tip. "I'll tell you on the train. Let's go." "Where?" "To your house. You have a computer, don't you?" "Yeah . . ." "Well, let's see if we can find out who the other 25 are." They took a cab from the Scarsdale station to Scott's house. No point in ending up in the clink for a DUI, even with a Federal Agent in tow. Scott's study was in such disarray that he liter- ally scraped off books and papers from the couch onto the floor to find Ty a place to sit and he piled up bigger piles of files to make room for their beers on one of his desks. Scott and Tyrone hadn't by any means sobered up on the train, but their thinking was still eminently clear. During the hour ride, they reviewed what they knew. Several prominent businessmen were being actively blackmailed. In addition, the blackmailer, or a confederate, was feeding information to the media. At a minimum the Times, and probably the Expos�� . Perhaps other media as well were in receipt of simi- lar information, but legitimate news organizations couldn't have much to do with it in its current form. Presumably then, like Scott, other reporters were calling names in the files. Tyrone reasoned that such an exercise might be a well planned maneuver on the part of the perpetrators. "Think about it this way," he said. "Let's say you get a call from someone who says they know something about you that you don't want them to. That'll shake you up pretty good, won't it?" Scott rapidly agreed. "Good. And the nature of the contact is threatening, not directly, perhaps, but the undercurrent leaves no doubt that the caller is not your best friend. Follow?" "And then," Scott picked up, "a guy like me calls with the same information. The last person in the world he wants to know about his activities is a reporter, or to see it show up in the news, so he really freaks." "Exactly!" Tyrone slapped his thigh. "And, if he gets more than one call, cardiac arrest is nearby. Imagine it. Makes for a good case of justifiable paranoia." Tyrone nodded vigorously. "I've been in this game long enough to see the side effects of blackmail and extortion. The psycholog- ical effects can be devastating. An inherent distrust of strang- ers is common. Exaggerated delusions occur in many cases. But think about this. If we're right, you begin to distrust every- one, your closest friends, business associate, even your family. Suddenly, everyone is a suspect. Distrust runs rampant and you begin to feel a sense of isolation, aloneness. It feels like you're fighting the entire world alone. Solitude can be the worst punishment." The analysis was sound. The far ranging implications had never occurred to Scott. To him it had been a simple case of extortion or blackmail using some high tech wizardry. Now, suddenly there was a human element. The personal pain that made the crime even that much more sinister. "Well, we, I mean the FBI, have seven stake outs. It's a fairly simple operation. Money drops in public places, wait and pick up the guy who picks up the money." Tyrone made it sound so easy. Scott wondered. "I bet it isn't that simple," Scott challenged. "No shit, it ain't," Tyrone came back. "So whaddya do?" "Pay and have another beer." Tyrone tempered the seriousness of their conversation. As Scott got up to go the kitchen he called out, "Hey, I been thinking." "Yeah?" Tyrone yelled. He popped a Bud and handed it to Tyrone. "Listen, I know this may be left field, but let's think it through." Scott sat behind his desk and put his feet on top of some books on the desk. He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "We've been talking about the front end of this thing, the front lines where the victims are actually being blackmailed. The kind of stuff that makes headlines." Scott smiled devilishly at Ty who made a significant hand gesture in return. "And now you're talking about how to catch them when they pick up the money. Have you thought of the other side?" "What other side?" Tyrone was still confused by Scott's logic. "Assume for a moment that all this information is really coming from computers. The CMR. Ok?" Ty grudgingly shrugged his shoul- ders. "Ok, you said that there are 7 cases across the country. Dobbs said he knew of more here. Right? Well, who gets the information?" Confusion showed on Tyrone's face. "Gets the information?" "Yeah, who runs around the country listening in on computers?" The question had been obvious to Scott. All of sudden Tyrone's face lit up. "You mean the van?" "Right. How many vans would it take to generate all this?" Scott pointed at several boxes next to the disorganized shelves. "Damned if I know!" "Neither do I, but I'll make a wild guess and say that there are quite a few running around. One blew up, or more specifically, was blown up. You guys have the pieces." "Not any more," Ty said. "They were taken away by CI . Said it was national security . I was told to stay away from it. Told you about us Feds." "Whatever," Scott waved away the sidebar. "The point is that if a whole bunch of these vans were used, that's not cheap. They held a lot of very expensive equipment. Why not look for the vans? They can't be that hard to find. Maybe you'll find your . . . " "Holy Christ, Mother Mary and Joseph, why didn't I think of that." Tyrone stood up and aimlessly meandered amongst Scott's junk heaps. "We've been looking in one direction only. The van ceased to exist in our minds since CI took it. The Government can be a royal pain in the ass. The van, of course." Just as Scott was going to describe how to find villains without wasting hundreds of hours scouring data banks, his computer beeped three times. Scott was shaken from his comfort. "What the . . .?" He looked at the clock. It was just midnight. Kirk! Kirk was calling and he totally had forgotten to mention the computer ransacking to Ty. "Great! It's Kirk. I wanted you to meet him." As Scott leaned over the keyboard to answer the page, Tyrone looked quizzically at him. "Who's Kirk?" "This hacker, some kid on the West Coast. He's taught me a lot. Good guy. Hope to meet him someday." Scott pushed a few keys. The screen came alive. WTFO "Hey," said Tyrone, "that's what we used to say in the Reserves." Gotta Spook here. SPOOK? YOU KNOW SPOOK? Who's Spook? YOU SAID HE'S WITH YOU Not Spook, a spook. FBI guy. FBI? YOU PROMISED. Don't worry. Tell him yourself. Who is Spook, anyway? SPOOK IS A HACKER, ONE OF THE BEST. BEEN ON THE SCENE FOR YEARS. A FEW PEOPLE CLAIM TO HAVE MET HIM, BUT IT'S ALWAYS A FRIEND OF A FRIEND OF A FRIEND. HE KEEPS A LOW PROFILE. THE WORD IS SPOOK IS PLAYING SOME GOOD GAMES RECENTLY. THE FBI? He's a friend. He doesn't know. Tyrone had come over to the crowded desk to watch the exchange. "Who is this guy? What don't I know?" Kirk, can I tell him? No one knows who you are? I GUESS SO. Be back . . . Scott proceeded to tell Tyrone about the warnings that Kirk received and then how his computers were destroyed. That the calling card warned Kirk to stay away from First State Bank. And how another hacker calling himself Da Vinci on a BBS called Freedom might be a link. Then Scott admitted that he had been in on a bank robbery, or at least breaking and entering a bank's computer. Tyrone had enough. "I'm not sure I want to hear anymore. You have been busy. So what can I do?" "Tell Kirk what he can do," Scott said. "He could probably go to jail. Bank computers, my God! Is that where you get your stories? You live them and then report them in the third person? Stories for the inquiring mind." "Are you through! I mean, are you through?" Scott sounded per- turbed. "It's true. What does this guy want?" "Advice. Talk to him. Here." Scott motioned for Tyrone to sit at the keyboard. "What do I do?" "Just type," Scott said with exasperation. "You're as bad as my mother. Type!" Scott ordered. This is Ty Scott pulled Ty's hands from the keyboard. "A handle, use a handle, like on a CB!" "Oh, yeah, I forgot," Tyrone lied. This is the FBI Scott looked on in shock. Tyrone laughed out loud. "He already knows who I am. So what? I've always liked saying that anyway." KIRK HERE, FBI, WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE So I hear. Been to any good banks lately? REPO MAN, WHAT'S UP? Can't take a joke? YEAH. NO PROBLEM. Listen, I don't know you from Adam, and you don't have to talk to me, but I am curious. Did your computers really get bashed? TOTALLY, DUDE. Tyrone pointed his thumb at the computer. "Wise guy, eh?" "Give him a chance. Generation gap." Tyrone didn't take kindly to references to his age. Sensitive area. Why? CAUSE SOMEONE THINKS I KNOW SOMETHING THAT I DON'T That's clear. THANKS Do you want to make a formal complaint? WOULD IT DO ANY GOOD? No. THEN, NO You think it was First State? YES. Don't you go around poking into other computers, too? SURE So why not someone else? THEY DIDN'T GET INTO BIG TROUBLE FROM REPO MAN'S ARTICLE? "He knows who you are?" Tyrone asked. "Sure. He likes calling me Repo Man for some reason that still escapes me. Where else do you go? THAT WOULD BE TELLING Gotcha. Well, I guess that's about it. PHEW! <<<<<<CONNECTION� TERMINATED>>>>>> "I guess you scared him off." Scott was amused. "Sorry," Tyrone said. "He'll call back," Scott waved off the apology. "When the coast is clear." "Fuck off." Their friendship was returning to the level it once had been. "Hey, it's getting beyond late," Scott ignored him. "What say we get together in a few days and sort through some of this." "I know, but one thing. Can you get into your computers, at the paper?" "Yeah, why?" "Dobbs said that the other victims had had their stock go down pretty dramatically. Can you look up stock prices and perform- ances over the last few months?" "Yeah, do it all the time." "Could you? I want to see if there are any names I recognize." "No problem." Scott dialed the Times' computer and identified himself. After going into the bank computer with Kirk, every time he dialed up his office, he felt an increased sense of power, and an increased sense of responsibility. He had access to massive amounts of information that if it got into the wrong hands . . . He shook the thought. The computer offered the 'Stocks and Bonds Menu' and Scott set up a query in a modified SQL that was simple enough for reporters to use: ALL STOCKS LOSING 35% OR MORE OF VALUE IN LAST YEAR. The computer flashed a message. 'Working'. Scott leaned back. "Takes a few seconds. Oh, as I was saying, when I get back, I'll call and we'll see what we can screw together." "Back from where?" Tyrone sounded accusatory but jealous. "Europe. Amsterdam." Scott checked the computer screen. It was still busy. "Rough life." "No, it's only for a couple of days. There's a hackers confer- ence. I've been invited, by Kirk as a matter of fact." "Hackers conference, sounds like tons of fun." Tyrone was not impressed. "The best hackers in the world are going to be there. I hope to get some leads on the First State mess. The Freedom BBS is not all it seems." "Please stay in touch," Tyrone implored. "Sure. Here we go. It's ready. Ah, let's see, there are 267 companies who meet that criterion. I guess that narrows it down for you." "Smart ass. Ah, can you get those in New York only?" "The city? Sure." SORT BY ZIP 100XX "That'll give us . . ." "I know what it means." Tyrone shut Scott up in mock defense. In reality he didn't know much about computers, but some things were obvious even to the technically naive. "That was fast," said Scott. "Only 17. Help any?" "Might. Can I get that on paper?" Scott gave him the printout of the finances on the several unfor- tunate companies who had lost more than a third of their net worth in the last year. Tyrone folded it into his jacket pocket. "Hey, call me a cab. I'm too drunk to walk." * * * * * Wednesday, December 30 Lenox, Georgia A faded blue Ford Econoline van sat in the Lenox Square parking lot. The affluent Atlanta suburb had been targeted from the beginning. Demographically ,it fit the bill to a tee. From the outside, the van looked like a thousand other parked cars; empty, with their owners shopping in the huge mall. On the inside though, two men were intently operating a vast array of electronic equipment. "Here comes another one," said the first. "How many does that make today?" "A hundred and forty seven. Let's do it." The second man watched the enhanced color video image on a small monitor. A well dressed lady walked up to the ATM machine, card in hand. The first man pressed a switch on another monitor and the snow filled picture was transformed into an electronic copy of the ATM's video display. Please Insert Card The screen in the van echoed the ATM screen. "Can you tune it in a bit?" asked the first man. " It's a little fuzzy." "Yeah, we must have settled. Let me adjust the antenna." His hand grabbed a joystick on one of the tightly packed racks of equipment and gingerly moved it from left to right. "Is that better?" A small disguised antenna on the roof of the van aligned itself as the joystick commanded. "Yeah . . .no . . .yeah, back again . . ." "I see it. There." "Thanks." Enter Personal Identification Number: A third monitor over the second man's cramped desk came to life as the number 3435 appeared across his screen. "Got it. You, too?" "On disk and saved." "I'll back it up." "Better not. Here comes another one." "Busy day." * * * * * It was a very busy day. Ahmed Shah saw to it that his followers were kept busy, six days a week. As they had been for months. When his army of a hundred plus Econoline vans were not raiding the contents of unsuspecting computers during the day, they became electronic ears which listened in on the conversations between the ATM's and their bank customers. Ahmed's vans were used most efficiently. On the road, doing his bidding twenty four hours a day, every day but the Sabbath. Ahmed created cells of eight loyal anti-American sympathizers, regardless of nationality, to operate with each van. Each group operated as an independent entity with only one person from each able to communicate privately with Ahmed over cellular modem. No cell knew of any other cell. If one group was apprehended, they couldn't tell what they didn't know. Therefore, the rest of the cells remain intact. Absolute loyalty was an unquestioned assumption for all members of Ahmed's electronic army. It had to be that way, for the bigger cause. All day and night one of Ahmed Shah's computers in his lab at Columbia received constant calls from his cell leaders. During the day it was the most interesting information that they had captured from computer screens. At night, it was the passcodes to automatic bank tellers machines and credit card information. Once the passcodes were in hand, making fake ATM cards was a trivial task. **************************************************************** Chapter 18 Wednesday, January 6 Amsterdam, Holland Scott Mason had a theory. It didn't matter than no one else believed it, or that they thought him daffy. It worked for him. He believed that jet lag was caused by the human body traveling across mystical magnetic force fields called Ley lines. The physics of his theory made common sense to anyone but a scien- tist. It went like this: the body is electric and therefore magnetic fields can influence it. Wherever we live we are sub- ject to the local influence of magnetic, electrical and Ley lines. If we move too quickly, as by plane, through Ley lines, the balance of our system is disturbed. The more Ley lines you traverse, the more upsetting it is to the system. Thus, jet lag. But, Scott had a solution. Or more accurately, his mother had one which she had convinced him of years earlier. Scott carried with him a small box, the size of a pack of cigarettes, that had a switch and a blinking light. It was called an Earth Resonance Generator, or ERG. The literature said the ERG established a negative gravity field through a magnetic Mobius loop. Inside the box was a battery, a loop of wire, a light emitting diode and the back side of the switch. In short, nothing of electronic consequence or obvious function. There was no way in hell that this collection of passive components could do anything other than wear out batteries. All for $79.95 plus $4 shipping. Scott first heard his mother proselytize about the magic of the ERG when he was ten or twelve. His father, the role model for Archie Bunker ignored her completely and said her rantings in- creased with certain lunar phases. Since his father wouldn't listen to her any longer, she endlessly lectured Scott about the virtues of the ERG whenever she returned from a trip. His father refused to travel, and had never even been on a plane. His mother so persisted in her belief that she even tried experi- ments. On one of her trips to Rome, she somehow talked the stewardesses into handing out the 400 questionnaires she'd brought with her onto the plane. It asked the passengers how they felt after the flight, and if they do anything special to avoid jet lag. She claims more than 200 were returned and that they overwhelmingly indicated that no one felt jet lag on that trip. She attributed this immense success to the ERG effects which purportedly spread over one acre. In other words, the ERG takes care of an entire 747 or L-1011 or DC-10. For years Scott successfully used the ERG to avoid jet lag. Some people put brown paper bags in their shoes, others eat yogurt and bean sprouts before a long flight. Maybe his solution was psy- chosomatic, Scott admitted to anyone who asked, but, so what? It still works, doesn't it? Scott was forever impressed that air- port security had never, once, asked him what this little blink- ing black box was. Scary thought. He arrived completely refreshed via KLM at the Amsterdam Interna- tional Airport at 9:15 A.M. While he had been to Europe many times, he had thus far missed the Amsterdam experience. He had heard that pot was legal in Amsterdam. In fact it was more than legal. Every morning the marijuana prices were broadcast on the local radio stations and Scott had every intention of sampling the wares. After 20 years of casual pot use, he preferred it immensely to the effects of drinking, and he was not going to miss out on the opportunity. In New York no one harassed pot smokers, but technically, it still wasn't legal, while Amsterdam represented the ultimate counterculture. This was the first time since Maggie had left for the Coast three years ago that Scott felt an independence, a freedom reminiscent of his rebellious teen years. He gave the taxi driver the address of the Eureka! hotel, on the Amstel. During the half hour fifty guilder ride into downtown, the driver continuously chattered. "Amsterdam has more canals than Venice. Many more. Holland is mostly land reclaimed from the sea. We have the biggest system of dikes in Europe. Don't forget to see our diamond centers." He spoke endlessly with deep pride about his native land. The Eureka! is a small four story townhouse with only 16 rooms that overlooked the Amstel, the largest canal in Amsterdam, similar to the Grand Canal in Venice. The Times had booked it because it was cheap, but Scott felt instantly at home. After settling in, Scott called the local number that Kirk had given him. "Hallo?" A thick Dutch accent answered the phone. "Hello? I'm looking for Jon Gruptmann? This is Scott Mason." "Ya, this is Jon." "A mutual friend, Kirk, said I should call you." "Ah, ya, ya. Repo Man, is it not?" The voice got friendly. "That's what Kirk calls me." "Ya, ya. He said you want to attend our meetings. Ya? Is that so?" Jon sounded enthusiastic. "That's why I swam the Atlantic, all three thousand miles. I would love to!" Jon didn't sound like Scott expected a computer hacker to sound, whatever that was. "Huh?" Jon asked. "Ah, ya, a joke. Goot. Let me tell you where we meet. The place is small, so it may be very crowded. I hope you do not mind." Jon sounded concerned about Scott's comfort. "Oh, no. I'm used to inconvenience. I'm sure it will be fine." "Ya, ya. I expect so. The meetings don't really begin until tomorrow at 9AM. Is that goot for you?" "Yes, just fine, what's the address?" Scott asked as he readied paper and pen. "Ya. Go to the warehouse on the corner of Oude Zidjs Voorburg Wal and Lange Niezel. It's around from the Oude Kerksplein. Number 44." "Hold it, I'm writing." Scott scribbled the address phonetically. A necessary trick reporters use when someone is speaking unintel- ligibly. "And then what?" "Just say you're Repo Man. There's a list. And please remember, we don't use our given names." "No problem. Fine. Thank you." "Ya. What do you plan for tonight?" Jon asked happily. "I hadn't really thought about it," Scott lied. "Ya, ya. Well, I think you should see our city. Enjoy the unique pleasures Amsterdam has to offer." "I might take a walk . . . or something." "Ya, ya, or something. I understand. I will see you tomorrow. Ya?" Jon said laughing. "Wouldn't miss it for the world." "Do one favor?" Jon asked. "Watch your wallet. We have many pickpockets." "Thanks for the warning. See you tomorrow." Click. I grew up in New York, Scott thought. Pickpockets, big deal. * * * * * Scott took a shower to remove the vestiges of the eleven hour trip; an hour ride to Kennedy, an hour and a half at the airport, a half hour on the tarmac, seven hours on the plane, and an hour getting into town. He dressed casually in the American's travel uniform: jeans, jean jacket and warm sweater. He laced his new Reeboks knowing that Amsterdam is a walking city. Driving would be pure insanity unless the goal is sitting in two hour traffic jams. The single lane streets straddle the miles of canals throughout the inner city which is arranged in a large semi-circular pattern. Down- town, or old Amsterdam, is a dense collection of charming clean, almost pristine 4 story buildings built over a period of several hundred years. That's the word for Amsterdam; charming. From late medieval religious structures to townhouses that are tightly packed on almost every street, to the various Pleins where the young crowds congregate in the evenings, Amsterdam has something for everyone. Anne Frank's house to the Rembrandt Museum to a glass roofed boat trip down the canals through the diamond dis- trict and out into the Zeider Zee. Not to mention those attrac- tions for the more prurient. He ran down the two flights to the hotel lobby and found the concierge behind the Heineken bar which doubled as a registration desk. He wanted to know where to buy some pot. "Not to find us selling that here," the Pakistani concierge said in broken English. "I know. But where . . ." It was an odd feeling to ask which store sold drugs. "You want Coffee Shop," he helpfully said. "Coffee Shop?" Scott asked, skeptical of the translation. "Across bridge, make right, make left." The concierge liberally used his hands to describe the route. "Coffee shop. Very good." Scott thanked him profusely and made a quick exit thinking that in parts of the U.S., Texas came to mind, such a conversation could be construed as conspiracy. He headed out into the cool damp late morning weather. The air was crisp, clean, a pleasure to breathe deeply. The Amstel canal, not a ripple present, echoed the tranquility that one feels when walking throughout the city. There are only a half dozen or so 'main' streets or boule- vards in Amsterdam and they provide the familiar intense interna- tional commercialism found in any major European city. It is when one begins to explore the back streets, the countless alleys and small passageways; the darkened corridors that provide a short cut to the bridge to the next islet; it is then that one feels the essence of Amsterdam. Scott crossed over the bridge that spans the wide Amstel con- scious of the small high speed car and scooters that dart about the tiny streets. He turned right as instructed and looked at the street names on the left. While Scott spoke reasonable French, Dutch escaped him. Bakkerstraat. Was that the name? It was just an alley, but there a few feet down on the right was the JPL Coffee Shop. JPL was the only retail establishment on Bakker- straat, and it was unassuming, some might call it derelict, in appearance. From a distance greater than 10 meters, it appeared deserted. Through the large dirty plate glass window Scott saw a handful of patrons lazing on white wrought iron cafe chairs at small round tables. The Coffee Shop was no larger than a small bedroom. Here goes nothing, Scott thought as he opened the door to enter. No one paid scant attention to him as he crossed over and leaned on the edge of the bar which was reminiscent of a soda fountain. A man in his young twenties came over and amiably introduced him- self as Chris, the proprietor of the establishment. How could he be of service? "Ah . . . I heard I can buy marijuana here," Scott said. "Ya, of course. What do you want?" Chris asked. "Well, just enough for a couple of days, I can't take it back with me you know," Scott laughed nervously. "Ya. We also have cocaine, and if you need it, I can get you he- roin." Chris gave the sales pitches verbally - there was no printed menu in this Coffee Shop. "No!" Scott shot back immediately, until he realized that all drugs were legal here, not just pot. He didn't want to offend. "Thanks anyway. Just some grass will do." "How many grams do you want?" Grams? How many grams? Scott mused that the metric Europeans thought in grams and Americans still in ounces and pounds. O.K., 28 grams to an ounce . . . "Two grams," Scott said. "By the way, how late are you open?" Scott pushed his rounded spectacles back up his nose. "Ah, sometimes 8, sometimes 10, sometimes late," Chris said while bringing a tissue box sized lock box to the top of the bar. He opened it and inside were several bags of pot and a block of aluminum foil the size of a candy bar. "You want hashish?" Chris offered. Scott shook his head, 'no,' so Chris opened one of the bags in- stead of the candy bar. "You American?" A voice came from one of the tables. Scott looked around. "Here," the voice said. "Me too." The man got up and approached Scott. "Listen, they got two types of ganja here. Debilitating and Coma. I've made the mistake." "Ya, we have two kinds," Chris agreed laughing. "This will only get you a little high," he said holding up a bag. "This one," he held up another, "will get you stoned." "Bullshit," the American said. "Their idea of a little high is catatonic for us. Take my word for it. The Mexican shit we smoke? They'd give it to the dogs." "You sold me," Scott said holding his hands up in surrender. "Just a little high is fine by me. Two grams, please," he said to Chris pointing at the less potent bag. "Thanks for the warn- ing," he said to the American. "Where you from?" Scott asked. "Oh, around. I guess you could call Washington my home." "D.C.?" "Yeah," the American nodded. "And you?" He leaned over the back of his chair to face Scott. "Big Apple. The 'burbs." "What brings you here?" "To Europe?" Scott asked. "Amsterdam. Sin City. Diamonds?" "No, I wish," Scott laughed. "News. A story brought me here for a couple of days." Chris finished weighing Scott's purchase on a sensitive digital scale that measured the goods down to the nearest hundredth of a gram. Scott handed Chris $10 in Guilders and pocketed the pot. "Um, where can I get some papers?" Scott asked. Chris pointed to a glass on the bar with a complete selection of assorted paraphernalia. "Hey, why don't you join me," the American asked. "I've been to Amsterdam before." "Is it all right to smoke in here?" Scott asked looking around. "Sure, that's what coffee shops are. The only other thing you can buy in here is sodas. No booze." The American spoke confi- dently as he lit up a joint and passed it to Scott. "Thanks," Scott coughed as he handed it back. "Oh, I don't think I caught your name. "Oh, just call me Spook." THE Spook? thought Scott. What incredible synchronicity. Scott's body instantly tensed up and he felt the adrenaline rush with an associated rise in pulse rate. Was this really the leg- endary Spook? Is it possible that he fell into a chance meeting with the hacker that Kirk and his friends refer to as the king of hackers? Spook? Gotta stay cool. Could he be that lucky? Was there more than one spook? Scott momentarily daydreamed, remembering how fifteen years before, in Athens, Greece he had opened a taxi door right into the face a lady who turned out to be an ex-high-school girl friend. It is a small world, Scott thought tritely. "Spook? Are you a spy?" Scott comically asked, careful to dis- guise his real interest. "If I answer that I'll have to kill you," the Spook laughed out loud in the quiet establishment. "Spy? Hardly. It's just a handle." Spook said guardedly. "What's yours?" "Mine? Oh, my handle. They call me Repo Man, but it's really Scott Mason. Glad to meet you. Spook," he added handing back the intoxicating cigarette. BINGO! Scott Mason in hand without even a search. Landing right in his lap. Keep your cool. Dead pan poker face. What unbe- lievable luck. Don't blow it, let's play this for all that it's worth. Your life just got very simple. Give both Homosoto and Mason exactly what they want with no output of energy. "You said you're a reporter," Spook said inhaling deeply again. "What's the story?" At least he gets high, Spook thought. Mason could have been a real dip-shit nerd. Thank God for small fa- vors. "There's a hacker conference that I was invited to," Scott said unabashedly. "I'm trying to show the hacker's side of the story. Why they do what they do. How they legitimize it to themselves." Scott's mouth was rapidly drying out so he ordered a Pepsi. "I assume you're a hacker, too," Scott broached the issue carefully. Spook smiled widely. "Yup. And proud of it." "You don't care who knows?" Scott asked looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to their conversation. Instead the other patrons were engrossed in chess or huddled conversation. Only Chris, the proprietor listened from behind the bar. "The Spook is all anyone knows. I like to keep it that way," Spook said as he laid the roach end of the joint in the ashtray. "Not bad, huh?" He asked Scott. "Christ, no. Kinda hits you between the eyes." Scott rubbed them to clear off the invading fog. "After a couple of days it won't get you so bad," Spook said. "You said you wanted to do a fair story on hackers, right?" "Fair? A fair story? I can only try. If hackers act and talk like assholes then they'll come across like assholes, no matter what I do. However, if they make a decent case, hold a rational, albeit arguable position, then maybe someone may listen." "You sound like you don't approve of our activities." The Spook grinned devilishly. "Honestly, and I shouldn't say this cause this is your grass," Scott said lighting the joint again. "No, I don't approve, but I figure there's at least 10 sides to a story, and I'm here to find that story and present all sides. Hopefully I can even line up a debate or two. Convincing me is not the point; my readers make up their own minds." The word 'readers' momentarily jolted the Spook until he realized Scott meant newspaper readers, not his team of Van-Ecking eaves- droppers. Spook took the joint from Scott. "You sound like you don't want to approve." "Having a hard time with all the crap going down with computers these days," Scott agreed. "I guess my attitude comes through in my articles." "I've never read your stuff," Spook lied. "Mainly in New York." "That explains it. Ever been to Amsterdam?" "No, I was going to get a map and truck around . . ." "How about I show you around, and try to convince you about the honor of our profession?" Spook asked. "Great!" Scott agreed. "But what about . . ." He made a motion to his lips as if he was holding a cigarette. "Legal on the streets." "You sure?" "C'mon," Spook said rising from his chair. "Chris, see you later," he promised. Chris reciprocated and invited his two new friends to return any time. Scott followed Spook up the alley named Bakkerstraat and into the Rembrandt Plein, a huge open square with cafes and street people and hotels. "At night," Spook said, "Rembrandt and another 4 or 5 pleins are the social hub of activity for the younger genera- tion. Wished I had had this when I was a kid. How are your legs?" The Spook amorously ogled the throngs of young women twenty years his junior. "Fine, why?" "I'm going to show you Amsterdam." Scott and the Spook began walking. The Spook knew his way around and described much of the history and heritage of the city, the country and its culture. This kind of educated hacker was not what Scott had expected. He had thought that today's hackers were nerds, the propeller heads of his day, but he was discover- ing through the Spook, that he may have been wrong. Scott remem- bered Clifford Stoll's Hanover Hacker was a well positioned and seemingly upstanding individual who was selling stolen computer information to the KGB. How many nerds would have the gumption to play in that league? They walked to the outer edge of Old Amsterdam, on the Singel- gracht at the Leidseplein. Without a map or the Spook, Scott would have been totally lost. The streets and canals were all so similar that, as the old phrase goes, you can't tell the players without a scorecard. Scott followed the Spook onto an electric street car. It headed down the Leidsestraat, one of the few heavily commercial streets and across the Amstel again. The street car proceeded up the Nieuwezuds Voorburgwal, a wide boulevard with masses of activities on both sides. This was tourist madness, thought Scott. "This is freedom," said the Spook. "Freedom?" The word instantly conjured his memory of the Freedom League, the BBS he suspected was up to no-good. The Spook and Freedom? "At the end of this street is the Train Station. Thousands of people come through this plaza every day to experience Amsterdam. Get whatever it is out of their system. The drugs, the women, the anarchy of a country that relies upon the integrity of its population to work. Can't you feel it?" The Spook positively glowed as he basked in the aura of the city. Scott had indeed felt it during their several hours together. An intense sense of independence that came from a generation of democratic socialism. Government regulated drugs, a welfare system that permitted the idle to live nearly as well as the working. Class structures blurred by taxes so extraordinarily high that most everyone lived in similarly comfortable condi- tions. Poverty is almost non-existent. Yet, as the Spook explained to Scott, "This is not the world for an entrepreneur. That distinction still belongs to the ol' Red, White and Blue. It's almost impossible to make any real money here." The sun was setting behind the western part of the city, over the church steeples and endless rows of townhouses. "Hungry yet?" Spook grinned at Scott. "Hungry? I got a case of the munchies that won't quit. Let's eat." Scott's taste buds were entering panic mode. "Good," the Spook said as he lit up another joint on the street car. "Let's eat." He hastily leapt off the slow moving vehicle. Scott followed him across the boulevard and dodged cars, busses and bicycles. They stopped in front of a small Indonesian res- taurant, Sarang Mas, ably disguised with a red and white striped awning and darkened windows. "Ever had Indonesian food?" "No, well maybe, in New York I guess . . ." Miles dragged Scott into the unassuming restaurant and the calm- ing strains of Eastern music replaced the city noises on the street outside. The red and white plastic checkered tablecloths severely clashed with the gilt of the pagoda shaped decorations throughout. But only by American tastes. Sarang Mas was a much touted and reputable restaurant with very fine native Indonesian chefs doing the preparations. "Let me tell you something," the Spook said. "This food is the absolute finest food available, anywhere in the world, bar no idyllic island location, better than a trip to Hershey, Pennsyl- vania to cure a case of the munchies. It's delicate, it's sweet, it's taste bud heaven, it's a thousand points of flavor you've never tried before." The Spook sounded like a hawker on the Home Shopping Network. "Shut up," Scott joked. "You're just making it worse." "Think of the oral orgasm that's coming. Anticipation." The waiter had appeared and waited patiently. It was still early and the first seating crowd was two hours away. "Do you mind if I order?" "No, be my guest. Just make it fast food. Super fast food," Scott begged. "Ah, let's have a couple of Sate Kambings to start, ah, and we'll share some Daguig Goreng, and some Kodok Goreng and ah, the Guila Kambing. And," Spook looked at Scott, "a couple of Heinekens?" Scott nodded. "And, if there's any way you could put that order into warp drive, my friend here," he pointed at Scott, "would appreciate it muchly." "Very good," the dark skinned Indonesian waiter replied as he scurried back to the kitchen. It still took half an hour for the appetizers to arrive. Scott chewed up three straws and tore two napkins into shreds while waiting. "What is this," asked Scott as he voraciously dove into the food. "Does it matter?" "No," Scott bit into it. "Mmmmmmm . . .Holy shit, that's good, what is it?" "Goat parts," the Spook said with a straight face. Scott stopped chewing. "Which goat parts?" he mumbled staring over the top of his round glasses. "The good parts," said the Spook taking two big bites. "Only the good parts." "It's nothing like, eyeballs, or lips or . . ." Scott was gross- ing himself out. "No, no, paysan, eat up. It's safe." The Spook made the Italian gesture for eating. "Most of the time." The Spook chuckled as he ravaged the unidentifiable goat parts on his plate. Scott looked suspiciously at the Spook, who seemed to be surviv- ing. How bad could it be? It tasted great, phenomenal, but what is it? Fuck it. Scott wolfed down his goat parts in total ecsta- sy. The Spook was right. This was the best tasting food he had had, ever. The rest of the meal was as sensorally exquisite as the appetiz- er. Scott felt relieved once the waiter had promised that the goat parts were from a goat roast, just like a rib roast or a pork roast. Nothing disgusting like ear lobes. Ecch! "So you want to know why we do it," said the Spook in between nibbles of Indonesian frog legs. Scott had to think hard to realize that the Spook had shifted the conversation to hacking. "It had occurred to me," responded Scott. "Why do you do it?" "I've always liked biology, so hacking became the obvious choice," Spook said laughing. Scott looked perplexed but that didn't interrupt his voracious attack on the indescribably deli- cious foods on his plate. "How old are you?" Asked the Spook. "The Big four-oh is in range." "Good, me too. Remember Marshall McCluhan?" "The medium is the message guru." Scott had admired him and made considerable effort to attend a few of his highly motivating lectures. "Exactly. He predicted it 20 years early. The Networked Socie- ty." The Spook paused to toss more food into his mouth. "How much do you know about computers?" "I'm learning," Scott said modestly. Whenever asked that ques- tion he assumed that he was truly ignorant on the subject despite his engineering degree. It was just that computers had never held the fascination for him that they did for others. "O.K., let me give you the low down." The Spook sucked down the last of the Heineken and motioned to the waiter for two more. He wiped his lips and placed his napkin beside the well cleaned plate. "At what point does something become alive?" "Alive?" Scott mused. "When some carbon based molecules get the right combination of gases in the proper proportions of tempera- ture and pressure . . ." "C'mon, guy. Use your imagination," the Spook scoffed with his eyes twinkling. "Biologically, you're right, but philosophically that's pretty fucking lame. Bart Simpson could come up with better than that." The Spook could be most insulting without even trying. "Let me ask you, is the traffic light system in New York alive?" "No way!" Retorted Scott. "It's dead as a doornail, programmed for grid lock." They both laughed at the ironic choice for analogy. "Seriously, in many ways it can be considered alive," the Spook said. "It uses electricity as its source of power or food. Therefore it eats, has a digestive system and has waste product; heat. Agreed?" Scott nodded. That was a familiar personification for engineer- ing students. "And, if you turn off the power, it stops functioning. A tempo- rary starvation if you will. It interacts with its environment; in this case with sensors and switches that react to the condi- tions at any particular moment. And lastly, and most important- ly, it has purpose." Scott raised his eyebrows skeptically. "The program, the rules, those are its purpose. It is coinciden- tally the same purpose that its designers had, but nonetheless it has purpose." "That doesn't make it alive. It can't think, as we do, and there is no ego or personality," Scott said smugly. "So what? Since when does plankton or slime mold join Mensa? That's sentience." Spook walked right over Scott's comment. "O.K.," Scott acquiesced. "I'm here to play Devil's Advocate, not make a continent of enemies." "Listen, you better learn something early on," Spook leaned in over the table. His seriousness caught Scott's attention. "You can disagree with us all you want, that's not a problem, most everyone does. But, we do expect fairness, personal and profes- sional." "Meaning?" "Meaning," the dimples in Spook's smiling cheeks radiated cama- raderie. "Don't give up on an argument so early if you believe in it. That's a chicken shit way out of taking a position. Real kindergarten." The Spook finished off his Heineken in two gulps. Scott's tension eased realizing the Spook wanted the debate, the confrontation. This week could be a lot more fun than he had thought. "At any rate, can you buy into that, that the traffic systems are alive?" The Spook asked again. "I'll hold my final judgment in abeyance, but for sake of discus- sion, let's continue," acquiesced Scott. "Fair enough. In 1947, I think that was the year, some guy said that he doubted there would be world wide market for more than three computers." Scott choked on his beer. "Three? Ha! What mental moron came up with that?" "Watson. Thomas Watson, founder of IBM," the Spook said dead pan. "You're kidding." "And what about Phil Estridge?" "Who's that?" "Another IBM'er," said the Spook. "He was kind of a renegade, worked outside of the mainstream corporate IBM mold. His bosses told him, 'hey, we need a small cheap computer to tie to our bigger computers. This little company Apple is selling too many for us not to get involved. By the way, Corporate Headquarters thinks this project is a total waste of money; they've been against it from the outset. So, you have 8 months.' They gave him 8 months to build a computer that would set standards for generations of machines. And, he pulled it off. Damned shame he died. "So, here we have IBM miss-call two of the greatest events in their history yet they still found ways to earn tens of billions of dollars. Today we have, oh, around a hundred million comput- ers in the world. That's a shitload of computers. And we're cranking out twelve million more each year. "Then we tied over fifty million of these computers together. We used local area networks, wide area networks, dedicated phone lines, gate ways, transmission backbones all in an effort to allow more and more computers to talk to each other. With the phone company as the fabric of the interconnection of our comput- ers we have truly become a networked society. Satellites further tighten the weave on the fabric of the Network. With a modem and telephone you have the world at your fingertips." The Spook raised his voice during his passionate monologue. "Now we can use computers in our cars or boats and use cellular phone links to create absolute networkability. In essence we have a new life form to deal with, the world wide information Network." "Here's where we definitely diverge," objected Scott, hands in the air. "Arriving at the conclusion that a computer network is a life form, requires a giant leap of faith that I have trouble with." "Not faith, just understanding," the Spook said with sustained vigor. "We can compare networks to the veins and blood vessels in our bodies. The heart pumps the blood, the lungs replenish it, the other organs feed off of it. The veins serve as the thoroughfares for blood just as networks serve as highways for information. However, the Network is not static, where a fixed road map describes its operation. The Network is in a constant state of flux, in all likelihood never to repeat the same pattern of connections again. "So you admit," accused Scott, "that a network is just a conduit, one made of copper and silicon just as the vein in a conduit?" "Yes, a smart conduit," the Spook insisted. "Some conduits are much smarter than others. The Network itself is a set of rules by which information is transmitted over a conductive material. You can't touch a network. Sure, you can touch the computer, the network wire, you can touch the bits and pieces that make up the Network, but you cannot touch the Network. The Network exists as a synergistic byproduct of many dissimilar and physically isolat- ed devices." "I must admit Spook . . ." "That's Mister Spook to you earth man," joked the Spook. "Sorry, continue." "I could probably nickel and dime you into death by boredom on several points, but I will concede that they are arguable and better relegated for a long evening of total disagreement. For the sake of world peace I will not press the issue now." "How very kind," mocked the Spook. "Let's get out of here, take a walk, and I'll continue your education." If anyone else spoke to Scott so derogatorily, there would be instant conflict. The Spook, though, didn't raise the defense mechanism in Scott. Spook was actually a likable fellow, if somewhat arrogant. They walked back down Nieuwezuds Voorburgwal and Beursplein very slowly. The Spook lit up another joint. "What's this," said Scott appreciatively, "an endless supply?" "When in Rome!" replied Spook. The brightly lit grand boulevard was a sample of the energy that permeates the Amsterdam night life. The train station was still a hub of activity in the winter darkness of early evening. "So look at the Network. You can cut off its tentacles, that's better than legs and feet in this case, and they will reappear, reconnect somewhere else. Alternate routing bypasses trouble spots, self diagnostics help the Network doctors, priority and preferences are handled according to a clear set of rules." Spook waved his hands to reinforce his case. "That's, ah, quite, ah, a theory. What do the experts say about this?" Scott was teetering on the edge of partial acceptance. "Experts? We're the experts. That's why we hack, don't you see?" The answer was so obvious it didn't deserve a question. "Now, I can only speak for myself, but I find that the Network organism itself is what's interesting. The network, the sponta- neously grown information organism that covers most of the planet Earth. I believe that is why all hackers start hacking. Innate curiosity about the way things work. Then, before our eyes, and behind the back of the world, the planet gets connected, totally connected to each other, and we haven't examined the ramifica- tions of that closeness, computer-wise that is. That's what we do." The Spook sounded satisfied with his explanation. Scott thought about it as they crossed Kerksplein and over canals to the Oude Zijds Voorbugwal. Was the Spook spouting off a lot of rationalized bullshit or were he and the likes of him actually performing valuable services, acting as technological sociolo- gists to five billion clients? If a network was alive, thought Scott, it was alive in the sense that a town or village is alive, as the sum of its parts. As a society is alive. If the computer terminal and its operator are members of a global village, as are thousands of other computer users, might that not be considered a society? Communications are indeed different, but Scott remem- bered that Flatland was considered a valid society with a unique perspective on the universe. Is it any different than the tele- phone, which connects everyone on the planet? Shit, Spook made some sense. They paused on a bridge by the Voorsbugwal, and a few blocks down the canal Scott saw a concentration of bright lights. "What's that?" He asked. "Poontang," the Spook said lasciviously. "Say wha?" Scott asked "This is Horny Heaven, Ode to Orgasm, Pick a Perversion." The Spook proudly held his arms out. "Aha, the Red Light District," Scott added dryly. "Don't take the romance out of it, this is sleaze at it's best. Believe me I know." Somehow Scott had no doubts. With the way Spook was passionately describing the specific acts and services available within the 10 square block hotbed of sex, Scott knew that the Spook was no novice. They grabbed a couple of Heinekens from a bar and slowly strolled down one side of the carnal canal. "I was going to go to the Yab Yub tonight, but since you've never been here before, I figured I owed you a tour." "Yab Yub? Am I supposed to know . . ." "The biggest bestest baddest whorehouse in Amsterdam," said Spook exuberantly. "O.K., fine, and this is . . ." "The slums." "Thanks a lot," Scott said sarcastically. "No, this is for middle class tourist sex. Yab Yub is first class but this'll do me just fine. How about you? Ready for some serious debauching?" The Spook queried. "Huh?" Scott laughed anxiously. "Oh, I don't know, I've never been terribly fond of hookers." "First time when I was 13. My uncle took me to a whorehouse for my birthday. Shit," the Spook fondly grinned at the memory. "I'll never forget the look on my mom's face when he told her. She lectured him for a week. Christ," he paused. "It's so funny, you know. My uncle's gay." Scott was enjoying the conversation and the company of the Spook. Americans meeting up with kindred Americans in a foreign land is a breath of fresh air and the Spook provided that. Scott window shopped as they walked, sidestepping the very few venturesome cars which attempted to penetrate the horny humanity on the crowded cobblestone streets. The variety of sexual mate- rials was beyond comprehension. Spook seemed to be avidly fluent in their description and application. In one window, a spiked dildo of emmense girth and length dominated the display. Scott grimaced at the weapon while the Spook commented on it's possible uses at an adult sit'n'spin party. "Here's the live sex show," the Spook said invitingly. "Pretty wild. Look at the pictures." Scott leaned over to view a set of graphic photographs that would have caused the Meese Commission on Pornography to double dose on its Geritol. "Damn, they show this stuff on the street, huh?" Asked the sur- prised Scott. He wasn't naive, it was just quite a shock to see such graphic sexuality in such a concentration and in such an open manner. On Sundays when the Red Light District is closed until 6 P.M., many Dutch families use the window dressings as the textbook for their children's' sex education. "No, let's keep going," Scott said unconvinced he would partake of the pleasures. "Isn't this great?" The Spook blurted out as Scott was looking in the window of one of the hundred plus sex shops. "I just love it. Remember I was telling you about freedom in Amsterdam? It's kind of like the hacker's ethic." Spook was going to equate sex and hacking? "Is that 'cause all hacker's are hard up?" Scott laughed. "No, dig it." The Spook suddenly stopped to face Scott. "Free- dom, total freedom implies and requires responsibility. Without that, the system would collapse into chaotic anarchy. Hacking is a manifestation of freedom. Once we have cracked a system, and are in it, we have the freedom to do anything we want. But that freedom brings responsibility too, and, just like with sex so freely available, legally, it must be handled with care." Spook was sermonizing again, but was making more sense. His parallels were concise and poignant. They walked further into the heart of the District and the Spook was constantly distracted by the quantity of red lights over the basement and first floor windows. He wanted to closely examine the contents of every one. In each window was a girl, sometimes two, clad in either a dental floss bathing suit or a see through penoire. Scott enjoyed the views, but thought that the Spook was acting somewhat obsessively. The calm, professional, knowledge- able hacker had reverted into a base creature, driven by hormonal compulsion. Or then again, maybe they were just stoned. "I gotta pick the right one, just the right one," the Spook said. "Let's see what else is available. Got to find you a good one, too." Scott shook his head. "I don't know . . ." "What, you don't wanna get laid? What's the matter with you?" The Spook couldn't believe his ears. The sheer intensity of the omnipresent sexual stimulation gave Scott the urge to pause and ask himself why. The desire was physically manifest, but the psychology of hookers; it wasn't his style. In the three years since he and Maggie had split, Scott occassioned to spend time with many ladies. He had kept himself in reasonable shape without doing becoming fanatic about it, and his high metabolism helped keep the body from degenerating ahead of schedule. So he had had his share of companionship and oppor- tunity, but right now he was enjoying the freedom of his work and the pleasures that that offered. If a woman was in the cards, so be it, but it was not essential at the moment. "Nothing, it's just that, well, I prefer to know the lady, if you know what I mean." "Oh, no problem!" The Spook had an answer. "That's an all night- er and will cost you 1000 guilders." "No, no," Scott said quickly. "That's not it. I just don't get a charge from hookers. Now, if some friends set it up to like a real pick-up, at the beach, a bar, whatever, as long as I didn't know. That could prove interesting. Hmmmm." He smiled to himself. "But honestly? I been a couple of times, just for giggles. And boy was it giggles." Scott laughed out loud at the memory. "The first time it was a friend's birthday and a bunch of us put up enough to get him laid at the Chicken Ranch." That was the evening Scott had lost almost two hours of his life on the drive back to Vegas. He speculated to himself, in private, that he may been abducted by alien creatures from a UFO. Right. "I know the place," added the Spook. "I was designated drunk driver so I drove him over to the high desert in the company van, about an hour's drive. Before we went in I insisted on a couple of beers. He was getting laid and I was nervous. Go figure. At any rate, the security cameras let us in and two very attractive ladies in slinky gowns lead us over to the couch. They immediately assumed that we were both there for, well, the services. I was too embarrassed to say no, that I wasn't interested, but then out came a line of 20 of the most gorgeous girls you could imagine. The madam, I forget her name, stepped in and begged our indulgence for the interruption. It seems, she said, that the BBC was filming a documentary on broth- els, and they had a camera crew in the next room, and would we mind too terribly much if they filmed us?" Scott feigned extreme shock. "Filmed you? For TV? Even I won't go that far," the Spook said impressed with Scott's story. "My movies are all first run private. Alphabetical from Adelle to Zelda." "Not film that, pervert!" He had pegged the Spook. "They only filmed the selection process, the initial meetings and then the walk down the hallways to the bedrooms." "So what'd you do?" The Spook asked with interest. "We did the camera bit, Jim got laid and I take the fifth." "You chicken shit asshole," hollered the laughing Spook. Scott took that as a compliment from the male slut to whom he was speaking. "Listen, that was a long time ago, before I was mar- ried, and I don't want it to screw up our divorce. Three years of bliss." The Spook kept laughing. "You really are a home boy, huh?" He gasped for air. They continued down a side street and back up the Oude Zijds Achterburgwal, the other main canal in the Dis- trict, so Spook could check out more windows. Those with the curtain drawn indicated that either services were being rendered or that it was lunch hour. Hard to tell. As they passed the Guys and Gals Sex Shop, the Spook abruptly stopped and stepped back toward the canal. He whistled to him- self in appreciation of the sex goddesses that had captured his attention. In the basement window was a stunning buxom brunette, wearing an invisible g-string and bra. She oozed sexuality with her beckoning lips and fingers when she spotted the Spook's interest. In the first floor window above the brunette were two perfectly voluptuous poster blondes, in matching transparent peignoirs. They too, saw the Spook, and attempted to seduce him to their doorway. Scott was impressed that the ladies were so attractive. "Some sweet meat, huh?" Said the Spook ogling his choices. "Well are you or aren't you?" He asked with finality. "I'm all systems go. You get first choice: 2 from window A or 1 from window B. What'll it be?" Scott responded immediately. "I got a safer way. There are five billion people on the planet, and at any given time at least a million have to be having sex. So all I have to do is tune into the Planetary Consciousness, the ultimate archetype, and have an orgasm anytime I want." "You're a sick mother," laughed the Spook. "Transcendental group sex. At least I can tell the difference between pussy and pray- ing." He asked Scott again to pick a girl. "I have to pass. It's just not my thing." Spook glared at him askance. "No really, go ahead. I'm a bit tired, I just arrived this morning." He had forgotten to take his 3 hour afternoon nap and it was close to 6 in the morning body time. "I'll see you at the conference tomorrow. All right?" "Fuckin' A!" The Spook beamed. "I get 'em all." He motioned to the girls that he would like to hire all three of them, at once. They indicated that that would be a fine idea. "Listen, I don't mean to be rude, but . . ." the Spook said to Scott as he pro- ceeded up the stairs to meet the female triumvirate. He turned briefly in the open doorway with two of the girls tugging at his clothes. "Scott! What happens if the medium or the message gets sick? Think about it." The door closed behind the Spook as the girls shed their clothes. "Medium? Jeez you are really fucked," laughed Scott. "Pervert!" He called out as the window curtains closed. Scott got directions to the Eureka! from a live sex show sales- man. For all the walking he and the Spook had done, miles and miles, it was odd that they had ended up only a few blocks away from the hotel. Ah, but that would figure, thought Scott. The Sex Starved Spook was staying at the Europa around the corner from Sin Street. Scott rolled a joint of his own to enjoy for the pleasant evening promenade home along the canals. Spook, what a character. In one breath, perfectly rational, but then the Jekyll and Hyde hormone hurricane. Wow. What Scott Mason could never have imagined, indeed quite the opposite, was that the Spook was unable to respond to the three very attentive ladies he had hired for that very purpose. Noth- ing. No matter what stimuli they effected, the Spook's brain could not command his body to respond. His confusion alternated with embarrassment which made the problem only worse. Never before had the Spook had such a problem. Never. One of the ladies spoke to him kindly. "Hey, it happens to everyone once in a while." At hearing that he jumped up, removed the loose condom and zipped his pants while screaming, "Not to me. It doesn't happen to me!" Scott did not know that the Spook bolted into the street and started running, in panic, away from the scene of his most pri- vate of failures. He ran all the way, in fact beating Scott to his hotel. He was driven by the terror of the first sexual failure in his life. The Spook felt emasculated as he sought a rationalization that would allow him to retain a shred of digni- ty. He was used to commanding women, not being humiliated by them. What was wrong? Women fell all over him, but why this? This of all things? The Spook fell asleep on the top of his bed with his clothes on. Scott did not know that he would not be seeing the Spook tomor- row. * * * * * Wednesday, January 6 Washington, D.C. "Eight more!" exclaimed Charlie Sorenson into Martin Templer's face. "What the hell is going on?" The private office on twenti- eth and "L" Street was well guarded by an efficient receptionist who believed she worked for an international import export firm. Consulting offices were often easier for senior intelligence officials to use for clandestine, unrecorded meetings than one's own office. In the interest of privacy, naturally. The two NSA and CIA agents from "P" Street held their clandestine meeting in a plain, windowless office meagerly furnished with a desk, a couple of chairs and a file cabinet. Charlie turned his back on Templer and sighed. "I'm sorry, Marty. It's not you." He paced to the other side of the small confining room. "I'm getting pressure from all sides. That damned FBI guy is making a nuisance of himself. Asking too many questions. The media smells a conspiracy and the Director is telling me to ignore it." Sorenson stood in front of Templer. "And, now, no, it's not bad enough, but 8 more of the mothers go off. Shit!" He slammed his fist onto the desk. "We can explain one to the Pentagon, but nine?" Martin asked skeptically. "See what I mean?" Sorenson pointed. Sorenson and Templer attended the ECCO and CERT roundups twice a week since they began after the first EMP-T explosion. "These are the Sats?" Templer leaned over to the desk. Corners of several high resolution satellite photographs sneaked out from a partially open folder. Sorenson opened the folder and spread the photos across the surface. They weren't optical photographs, but the familiar map shapes of the central United States were visible behind swirls and patterns of a spectrum of colors. The cameras and computer had been instructed to look at selected bandwidths, just as infrared vision lets one see at night. In this case, though, the filters excluded everything but frequen- cies of the electromagentic spectrum of interest. "Yeah," Sorenson said, pointing at one of the photos. "This is where we found the first one." On one of the photos, where an outline of the United States was visible, a dot of fuzzy light was visible in the Memphis, Tennessee area. "That's an EMP-T bomb?" asked Templer. "The electromagnetic signature, in certain bandwidths is the same as from a nuclear detonation." Sorenson pulled another photo out. It was a computer enhanced blowup of the first satellite photo. The bridges across the Mississippi were clearly visible. The small fuzzy dot from the other photograph became a larger fuzzy cloud of white light. "I didn't know we had geosyncs over us, too," Templer said light- ly. "Officially we don't," Sorenson said seriously. Then he showed his teeth and said, "unofficially we have them everywhere." "So who was hit?" "Here?" He pointed at Memphis. "Federal Express. A few hours ago. They're down. Can't say when they'll be back in business. Thank God no one was killed. They weren't so lucky in Texas." Sorenson pulled a couple more photographs and a fuzzy dot and it's fuzzy cloud mate were clearly visible in the Houston area. "EDS Computers," said Sorenson. "Six dead, 15 injured. They do central processing for hundreds of companies. Every one, gone. And then here." He scattered more photos with the now recogniz- able fuzzy white dots. "Mid-State Farm Insurance, Immigration and Naturalization, Na- tional Bank, General Inter-Dynamics, CitiBank, and the Sears mail order computers." Sorenson spoke excitedly as he listed the latest victims of the magnetic cardiac arrest that their computer systems, and indeed, their entire organization suffered. "Press?" "Like stink on shit." "What do they know?" "Too much." "What can we do?" "Get to the bottom of this before Mason does." **************************************************************** Chapter 19 Thursday, January 7 Amsterdam, Holland The following morning Scott awoke without telephone intervention by the front desk. He felt a little on the slow side, an observa- tion he attributed to either the time difference, not the jet lag, or the minor after effect of copius cannabis consumption. The concierge called a cab and Scott told the driver where he thought he was going. Ya, no problem, it's a short ride. To Scott's surprise he found himself passing by the same sex emporium where he had left the Spook last evening. Scott reminded himself to ask Spook how it went. The taxi stopped in front of an old building that had no signs of use. It was number 44, but just in case, Scott asked the driver to wait a moment. He walked up the door and finding no bell, rapped on the heavy wooden door. "Ya?" A muffled voice asked through the door. "Is Jon there? This is Scott Mason." Scott knowingly looked at the cab driver. "Who?" Scott looked at the number again and then remembered what Jon had told him. "Sorry. This is Repo Man. Kirk said you'd expect me." "Ah, ya! Repo Man." The door opened and Scott happily waved off the cab. "Welcome, please, come in." Scott entered a dark chamber as the door closed behind him. "I am Clay, that's French for key." Wonderful, thought Scott. "Thanks for the invite. Is Jon here?" "Everyone is here." "I thought it didn't begin until eleven," Scott said looking at his watch. "Ah, ya, well," the Dutch accented Clay said. "It is difficult to stop sometimes. We have been here all night." Scott followed Clay up a darkened flight of steps. At mid land- ing Clay opened a door and suddenly the dungeon-like atmosphere vanished. Inside the cavernous room were perhaps 200 people, mostly men, excitedly conversing and huddling over computers of every imaginable model. The high ceiling was liberally dressed with fluorescent tubing which accentuated the green hues from many of the computer monitors. The walls were raw brick and the sparse decorations were all computer related. Windows at the two ends of the building added enough daylight to take some of the edge off of the pallid green aura. "What should I do?" Asked Scott looking around the large room which was probably overcrowded by modern safety counts. "The Flying Dutchman said he will see you a little later," Clay said. "Many of our members know Repo Man is a reporter, and you are free to look and ask anything. Please enjoy yourself." Clay quickly disappeared into the congregation. Scott suddenly felt abandoned and wished he could disappear. Like those dreams where you find yourself stark naked in a public place. He felt that his computer naivete was written all over his face and he would be judged thus, so instead he tried to ignore it by perusing the walls. He became amused at the selec- tion of art, poster art, Scotch taped to the brick. The first poster had Daffy Duck, or reasonable facsimile thereof, prepared to bring a high speed sledgehammer in contact with a keyboard. "Hit any key to continue," was the simple poster's message. Another portrayed a cobweb covered skeleton sitting behind a computer terminal with a repairman standing over him asking a pertinent question. "System been down long?" One of the ruder posters consisted of Ronald Reagan with a super- imposed hand making a most obscene manual gesture. The poster was entitled, "Compute This!" Scott viewed the walls as if in an art gallery, not a hackers convention. He openly laughed when he saw a poster from the National Computer Security Center, a working division of the National Security Agency. A red, white and blue Uncle Sam, finger pointing, beckoned, "We want YOU! to secure your computer." In an open white space on the poster someone wrote in, "Please list name and date if you have already cracked into an NSA computer." Beneath were a long list of Hacker Handles with the dates they had entered the super secret agency's comput- ers. Were things really that bad, Scott asked himself. "Repo Man?" Scott turned quickly to see a large, barrel chested, red haired man with an untamed beard in his early forties approach him rapidly. The man was determined in his gait. Scott answered, "Yes . . .? "Ya, I'm the Flying Dutchman," he said hurriedly in a large boom- ing voice. "Welcome." He vigorously shook Scott's hand with a wide smile hidden behind the bushy red face. "You enjoyed Am- sterdam last night, ya?" He expected a positive answer. Sex was no crime here. "Well," Scott blushed. "I must say it was a unique experience," he said carefully so as not to offend Holland's proud hosts. "But I think the Spook had more fun than I did." The Flying Dutchman's hand went limp. "Spook? Did you say Spook?" His astonishment was clear. "Yeah, why?" Scott asked. "The Spook? Here? No one has seen him in years." "Yeah, well he's alive and well and screwing his brains out with three of Amsterdam's finest," Scott said with amusement. "What's the big deal?" "The Spook, ya this is goot," the Flying Dutchman said clapping his hands together with approval. "He was the greatest phreak of his day. He retired years ago, and has only been seen once or two times maybe. He is a legend." "A phreak?" "Oh, ya, ya. A phreak," he said speaking rapidly. "Before home computers, in the 1960's and 1970's, hacking meant fighting the phone company. In America you call it Ma Bell, I believe. Cap- tain Crunch was the epitome of phone phreaks." These names were a bit much, thought Scott, but might add a sense of levity to his columns. "Captain Crunch?" Scott asked with skepticism. "Ya, Captain Crunch. He blew the plastic whistle from a Captain Crunch cereal box into the phone," the Flying Dutchman held an invisible whistle to his lips. "And it opened up an inside line to make long distance calls. Then he built and sold Blue Boxes which recreated the tones to make free calls." "Phreaking and computer hacking, they're the same?" "Ya, ya, especially for the older hackers." The Flying Dutchman patted himself on the stomach. "You see hacking, some call it cracking, is taking a system to its limit. Exploring it, master- ing the machine. The phones, computers, viruses, it's all hack- ing. You understand?" "Spook called hacking a technique for investigating new spontane- ously generated lifeforms. He said a network was a living being. We got into quite an argument about it." Scott sounded mildly derisive of the theory. The Dutchman crossed his arms, grinned wide and rocked back and forth on his heels. "Ya, ya. That sounds like the Spook. Cutting to the heart of the issue. Ya, you see, we all have our reasons why we hack, but ya, Spook is right. We forget sometimes that the world is one giant computer, with thousands and millions of arms, just like the brain. The neurons," he pointed at his head, "are connected to each other with synapses. Just like a computer network." The Flying Dutchman's explanation was a little less ethereal than the Spook's and Scott found himself anticipating further enlight- enment. "The neuron is a computer. It can function independently, but because it's capacity is tiny, a neuron is really quite limited in what it can achieve alone. The synapse is like the network wire, or phone company wiring. It connects the neurons or com- puters together." The Dutchman spoke almost religiously as he animatedly drew wires and computers in the air to reinforce the concept. "Have you heard of neural networks?" "Absolutely," Scott said. "The smart chips that can learn." "Ya, exactly. A neural network is modeled after the brain, too. It is a very large number of cells, just like the brain's cells, that are only connected to each other in the most rudimentary way." "Like a baby's brain?" Scott offered. "Ya, ya, just like a baby. Very good. So like the baby, the neural net grows connections as it learns. The more connections it makes, the smarter it gets." "Both the baby and the network?" "Ya," Dutchman laughed. "So as the millions of neural connec- tions are made, some people learn skills that others don't and some computers are better suited to certain tasks than others. And now there's a global neural network growing. Millions more computers are added and we connect them together, until any computer can talk to any other computer. Ya, the Spook is very much right. The Network is alive, and it is still learning." Scott was entering a world where the machines, the computers, were personified, indeed imbued with a life of their own by their creators and their programmers. A highly complex world where inter-relatedness is infinitely more important than the specific function. Connections are issue. Didn't Spook remind him that the medium is the message? But where, questioned Scott, is the line between man and machine? If computers are stupid, and man must program them to give them the appearance of intelligence, then the same must be true of the Network, the global information network. Therefore, when a piece of the Network is programmed to learn how to plan for future Network expansion and that piece of the Network calls another computer on the Network to inquire as to how it is answering the same problem for different conditions, don't man and machine merge? Isn't the Network acting as an extension of man? But then, a hammer is a tool as well, and no one calls a hammer a living being. Unto itself it is not alive, Scott reasoned. The Network merely emulates the growth patterns and behavior of the cranial highway system. He was ready to concede that a network was more alive than a hammer, but he could not bring himself to carry the analo- gy any further yet. "That gives me a lot to think about," Scott assured the Dutchman. "Ya, ya, it does. Do you understand quantum physics?" What the hell would make him ask that question, thought Scott. "I barely passed Quantum 101, the math was too far out for me, but, yes," he laughed kindly, "I do remember the basics. Very basic." "Goot. In the global Network there is no way to predict where the next information packet will be sent. Will it start here," the Dutchman motioned to his far left, "or here? There's no way to know. All we can say, just as in physics, is that there is a probability of data being transferred between any two points. Chance. And we can also view the Network in operation as both a wave and a particle." "Wait," stopped Scott. "You've just gone over my head, but I get the point, I think. You and your associates really believe that this global Network is an entity unto itself and that it is growing and evolving on its own as we speak?" "Ya, exactly. You see, no one person is responsible for the Network, its growth or its care. Like the brain, many different regions control their own piece of the Network. And, the Network can still function normally even if pieces of it are disconnect- ed. The split brain studies." "And you're the caretakers for the Network?" doubted Scott. "No. As I said we all have our reasons. The common denominator is that we treat the Network as an incredibly powerful organism about which we know very, very little. That is our function - to learn." "What is it that you do? For a living?" "Ah, ya. I am Professor of Technological Sociology at the Uni- versity of Amsterdam. The original proposal for my research came from personal beliefs and concerns; about the way the human race has to learn to cope in the face of great technology leaps. NATO is funding the research." "NATO," exclaimed Scott. "They fund hacking?" "No," laughed the Dutchman. "They know that hacking is necessary to gather the raw data my research requires, so they pretend not to notice or care. What we are trying to do is predict what the Baby, the global Network will look and act like when it grows up." "Isn't crystal ball gazing easier?" "Ya, it may be," the Dutchman agreed. "But now, why don't you look around? I am sure you will find it most educational." The Dutchman asked again about the Spook. "Is he really here in Amsterdam?" Yup! "And he said he'd be here today?" Yup! "The Spook, at the conference? He hasn't made an appearance in years." Well, that's what he told me, he'd be here. Scott profusely thanked his host and assured him that yes, he would ask for anything he needed. Thank you. Kirk had been vindicated, thought Scott who had expected a group of pimply faced adolescents with nerd shirts to be bouncing around like Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale. Scott slowly explored the tables loaded with various types of computer gear. IBM clones were the most common, but an assort- ment of older machines, a CP/M or two, even a Commodore PET proved that expensive new equipment was not needed to become a respected hacker. Scott reminded himself that this group was the elite of hackerdom. These were the Hacker's Hackers. In his discussions with Kirk, Scott figured he would see some of the tools of the trade. But he had no idea of the level of sophistication that was openly, and perhaps, illegally, being demonstrated. Then again, maybe that's why they hold their Hacker Ho Downs in Amsterdam. Scott learned something very critical early on. "Once you let one of us inside your computer, it's all over. The system is ours." The universal claim by hackers. Scott no longer had any trouble accepting that. "So the securi- ty guy's job," one short balding middle aged American hacker said, "is to keep us out. I'm a cracker." What's that? "The cracker is kind of like a safecracker, or lock picker. It's my job to figure out how to get into the computers." Scott had to stifle a giggle when he found out that this slight man's handle was appropriately Waldo. Waldo went on to explain that he was a henpecked CPA who needed a hobby that would bore his wife to tears. So he locked himself in the basement, far away from her, and got hooked on computers. He found that rummaging through other computers was an amusing alternative to watching Honeymooner reruns while his wife kvetched. After a while, he said he discovered that he had a talent for cracking through the front doors of computers. On the professional hacker circuit that made Waldo a valuable commodity. The way it works, he explained, was that he would trade access codes for outlines of the contents of the computers. If he wanted to look further, he maintained a complete indexing system on the contents of thousands of computers world wide. He admit- ted it was the only exciting part of his life. "The most fun a CPA has," he said calmly, "is cutting up client's credit cards. But me," he added proudly, "I've been in and out of the IRS computers more times than Debbie did it in Dallas." "The IRS computers? You've been in there?" "Where else does a CPA go, but to the scene of the crime." Waldo laughed at his joke. "At first it was a game, but once I got into the IRS backplane, which connects the various IRS districts together, the things I found scared me. No one is in control over there. No one. They abuse taxpayers, basically honest taxpayers who are genuinely in trouble and need some understand- ing by their government. Instead they are on the receiving end of a vicious attack by a low level government paper slave who gets his thrills by seizing property. The IRS is immune from due process." Scott immediately thought of Tyrone and his constitu- tional ravings the other night. "The IRS's motto is, 'guilty until we cash the check'. And IRS management ignores it. Auditors are on a quota basis, and if they don't recover their allotted amounts of back taxes, they can kiss their jobs goodbye." The innocent looking Waldo, too, had found a cause, a raison d'�� tre, for hacking away at government computers. "You know that for a fact?" Asked Scott. This alone was a major story. Such a policy was against everything the Constitution stood for. Waldo nodded and claimed to have seen the internal policy memoranda. Who was in charge? Essentially, said Waldo, no one. It was anarchy. "They have the worst security of any agency that should by all rights have the best. It's a crime against American citizens. Our rights and our privacy have shriveled to nothing." Waldo, the small CPA, extolled the virtues of fighting the system from within. From within he could battle the computers that had become the system. "Have you ever, shall I say, fixed files in the IRS computers?" "Many times," Waldo said proudly. "For my clients who were being screwed, sometimes I am asked to help. It's all part of the job," he said of his beloved avocation. "How many systems have you cracked?" Asked Scott, visibly im- pressed. "I am," Waldo said modestly, "the best. I have cracked 1187 systems in 3 years. 1040 was my personal goal for a while, then 1099, but it's kind of open ended now." "That's almost one a day?" "You could look at it like that, but sometimes you can get into 10 or twenty in one day. You gotta remember," Waldo said with pride, "a lot of homework goes into this. You just don't decide one day to crack a system. You have to plan it." "So how do you do it?" "O.K., it's really pretty simple. D'you speak software?" "Listen, you make it real simple, and I won't interrupt. OK?" "Interrupt. Hah! That's a good one. Here, let me show you on the computer," Waldo said as he leaned over to peck at the keyboard. "The first step to getting into computers is to find where they are located, electronically speaking, O.K.?" Scott agreed that you needed the address of the bank before you could rob it. "So what we do is search for computers by running a program, like an exchange autodialer. Here, look here," Waldo said pointing at the computer screen. "We select the area code here, let's say 203, that's Connecticut. Then we pick the prefix, the first three numbers, that's the local exchange. So let's choose 968," he entered the numbers carefully. "That's Stamford. By the way, I wrote this software myself." Waldo spoke of his software as a proud father would of his first born son. Scott patted him on the back, urging him to continue. "So we ask the computer to call every number in the 203-968 area sequentially. When the number is answered, my computer records whether a voice, a live person answered, or a computer answered or if it was a fax machine." Scott never had imagined that hacking was so systematic. "Then, the computer records its findings and we have a complete list of every computer in that area," Waldo concluded. "That's 10,000 phone calls," Scott realized. "It must cost a fortune and take forever?" "Nah, not a dime. The phone company has a hole. It takes my program less than a second to record the response and we're off to the next call. It's all free, courtesy of TPC," Waldo bragged. "TPC?" Questioned Scott. "The Phone Company," Waldo chuckled. "I don't see how you can do the entire country that way, 10,000 calls at a shot. In New York there must be ten million phones." "Yes," agreed Waldo, "it is a never ending job. Phone numbers change, computers come and go, security gets better. But you have to remember, there are a lot of other people out there doing the same thing, and we all pool our information. You could ask for the number to almost any computer in the world, and someone in our group, somewhere, will have the number and likely the passwords." "Jesus . . ." "I run my program at night, every night, when I sleep. On a good night, if the calls are connected quickly enough, I can go through about a thousand phone numbers. I figure roughly a month per prefix." "I am amazed, simply amazed. Truly impressed," said Scott. "You know, you always kind of imagine these things are possible, but until it stares you in the face it's black magic." "You wanna know the best part?" Waldo said teasingly. "I get paid for it, too." Waldo crouched over and spoke to Scott secre- tively. "Not everyone here approves, but, I sell lists to junk fax mail-order houses. They want the fax lists. On a good night I can clear a couple hundred while my modem does the dialing." The underground culture of Scott's day, demonstrating against the war, getting gassed while marching by George Washington Universi- ty, getting thrown out of a Nixon rally at Madison Square Garden seemed so innocent in comparison. He continued to be in awe of the possible applications for a technology not as benign as its creators had intended. Scott met other hackers; they were proud of the term even with the current negative connotations it carried. He saw how system- ic attacks against the front door to computers were the single biggest challenge to hackers; the proverbial chase before the catch, the romance to many. At another tabletop laden with computers Scott learned that there are programs designed to try passwords according to certain rules. Some try every possible combination of letters and num- bers, although that is considered an antique method of brute force. More sophisticated hackers use advanced algorithms which try to open the computer with 'likely' passwords. <MI>�It was all very scientific, the approach to the problem<D>, thought Scott. He met communications gurus who knew more about the switching networks inside the phone company than AT&T engineers. They had complete diagrams and function calls and source code for even the latest software revisions on the 4ESS and the new 5ESS switches. "Once you're into the phone computers," one phone phreak ex- tolled, "you have an immense amount of power at your fingertips. Incredible. Let me give you an example." The speaker was another American, one that Scott would have classified as an ex-Berkeley-hippie still living in the past. His dirty shoulder length hair capped a skinny frame which held his jeans up so poorly that there was no question where the sun didn't shine. "You know that the phone company is part of the Tri-Lateral Commission, working with Kissinger and the Queen of England to control the world. Right?" His frazzled speech was matched by an annoying habit of sweeping his stringy hair off his face every few words. "It's up to us to stop them." Scott listened politely as Janis, (who adopted the moniker from his favorite singer) rewrote history with tortured explanations of how the phone company is the hidden seat of the American government, and how they have been lying to the public for dec- ades. And the Rockefellers are involved too, he assured Scott. "They could declare martial law, today, and take over the coun- try. Those who control the communications control the power," he oracled. "Did you know," he took Scott into his confidence, "that phones are always on and they have computers recording everything you say and do in your own home. That's illegal!" Janis bellowed. Not to mention crazy, thought Scott. One of Janis' associates came over to rescue Scott. "Sorry, he's a little enthusiastic and has some trouble communicating on the Earthly plane." Alva, as he called himself, explained coherent- ly that with some of the newer security systems in place, it is necessary to manipulate the phone company switches to learn system passwords. "For example, when we broke into a Bell computer that used CI- CIMS, it was tough to crack. But now they've added new security that, in itself, is flawless, albeit crackable," Alva explained. "Once you get past the passwords, which is trivial, the system asks you three unique questions about yourself for final identi- fication. Pretty smart, huh?" Scott agreed with Alva, a voice of apparent moderation. "However, we were already in the phone switch computer, so we programmed in forwarding instructions for all calls that dialed that particular computer. We then inter- cepted the call and connected it to our computer, where we emu- late the security system, and watched the questions and answers go back and forth. After a few hours, you have a hundred differ- ent passwords to use. There are a dozen other ways to do it, of course." "Of course," Scott said sarcastically. Is nothing sacred? Not in this world it's not. All's fair in love, war and hacking. The time flew as Scott learned what a tightly knitted clique the hackers were. The ethos 'honor among thieves' held true here as it did in many adolescent societies, most recently the American Old West. As a group, perhaps even a subculture, they were arduously taming new territory, each with their own vision of a private digital homestead. Each one taking on the system in their own way, they still needed each other, thus they looked aside if another's techno-social behavior was personally dis- tasteful. The Network was big enough for everyone. A working anarchy that heralded the standard of John Paul Jones as their sole commandment: Don't Tread On Me. He saw tapping devices that allowed the interception of computer data which traveled over phone lines. Line Monitors and Sniffers were commercially available, and legal; equipment that was nomi- nally designed to troubleshoot networks. In the hands of a hack- er, though, it graduated from being a tool of repair to an offensive weapon. Small hand held radios were capable of listening in to the in- creasingly popular remote RF networks which do not require wires. Cellular phone eavesdropping devices permitted the owner to scan and focus on the conversation of his choice. Scott examined the electronic gear to find a manufacturer's identification. "Don't bother, my friend," said a long haired German youth of about twenty. "Excuse me?" "I see you are looking for marks, yes?" "Well, yes. I wanted to see who made these . . ." "I make them, he makes them, we all make them," he said almost giddily. "This is not available from Radio Shack," he giggled. "Who needs them from the establishment when they are so easy to build." Scott knew that electronics was indeed a garage operation and that many high tech initiatives had begun in entrepreneur's basements. The thought of home hobbyists building equipment which the military defends against was anathema to Scott. He merely shook his head and moved on, thanking the makers of the eavesdropping machines for their demonstrations. Over in a dimly lit corner, dimmer than elsewhere, Scott saw a number of people fiddling with an array of computers and equip- ment that looked surprisingly familiar. As he approached he experienced an immediate rush of d�� ja vu. This was the same type of equipment that he had seen on the van before it was blown up a couple of months ago. Tempest busting, he thought. The group was speaking in German, but they were more than glad to switch to English for Scott's benefit. They sensed his interest as he poked around the assorted monitors and antennas and test equipment. "Ah, you are interested in Van Eck?" asked one of the German hackers. They maintained a clean cut appearance, and through discussion Scott learned that they were funded as part of a university research project in Frankfurt. Scott watched and listened as they set up a compelling demonstra- tion. First, one computer screen displayed a complex graphic picture. Several yards away another computer displayed a foggy image that cleared as one of the students adjusted the antenna attached to the computer. "Aha! Lock!" one of them said, announcing that the second comput- er would now display everything that the first computer did. The group played with color and black and white graphics, word proc- essing screens and spreadsheets. Each time, in a matter of seconds, they 'locked' into the other computer successfully. Scott was duly impressed and asked them why they were putting effort into such research. "Very simple," the apparent leader of the Frankfurt group said. "This work is classified in both your country and mine, so we do not have access to the answers we need. So, we build our own and now it's no more classified. You see?" "Why do you need it?" "To protect against it," they said in near unison. "The next step is to build efficient methods to fight the Van Eck." "Doesn't Tempest do that?" "Tempest?" the senior student said. "Ha! It makes the computer weigh a thousand pounds and the monitor hard to read. There are better ways to defend. To defend we must first know how to attack. That's basic." "Let me ask you something," Scott said to the group after their lengthy demonstration. "Do you know anything about electromag- netic pulses? Strong ones?" "Ya. You mean like from a nuclear bomb?" "Yes, but smaller and designed to only hurt computers." "Oh, ya. We have wanted to build one, but it is beyond our means." "Well," Scott said smugly, "someone is building them and setting them off." "Your stock exchange. We thought that the American government did it to prove they could." An hour of ensuing discussion taught Scott that the technology that the DoD and the NSA so desperately spent billions to keep secret and proprietary was in common use. To most engineers, and Scott could easily relate, every problem has an answer. The challenge is to accomplish the so-called impossible. The engi- neer's pride. Jon, the Flying Dutchman finally rescued Scott's stomach from implosion. "How about lunch? A few of the guys want to meet you. Give you a heavy dose of propaganda," he threatened. "Thank God! I'm famished and haven't touched the stuff all day. Love to, it's on me," Scott offered. He could see Doug having a cow. How could he explain a thousand dollar dinner for a hundred hungry hackers? "Say that too loud," cautioned the bearded Dutchman, "and you'll have to buy the restaurant. Hacking isn't very high on the pay scale." "Be easy on me, I gotta justify lunch for an army to my boss, or worse yet, the beancounters." Dutchman didn't catch the idiom. "Never mind, let's keep it to a small regiment, all right?" He never figured out how it landed on his shoulders, but Scott ended up with the responsibility of picking a restaurant and successfully guiding the group there. And Dutchman had skipped out without notifying anyone. Damned awkward, thought Scott. He assumed control, limited though it was, and led them to the only restaurant he knew, the Sarang Mas. The group blindly and happi- ly followed. They even let him order the food, so he did his very best to impress them by ordering without looking at the menu. He succeeded, with his savant phonetic memory, to order exactly what he had the night prior, but this time he asked for vastly greater portions. As they were sating their pallets, and commenting on what a wonderful choice this restaurant was, Scott popped the same question to which he had previously been unable to receive a concise answer. Now that he had met this bunch, he would ask again, and if lucky, someone might respond and actually be com- prehensible. "I've been asking the same question since I got into this whole hacking business," Scott said savoring goat parts and sounding quite nonchalant. "And I've never gotten a straight answer. Why do you hack?" He asked. "Other than the philosophical credo of Network is Life, why do you hack?" Scott looked into their eyes. "Or are you just plain nosy?" "I bloody well am!" said the one called Pinball who spoke with a thick Liverpudlian accent. His jeans were in tatters, in no better shape than his sneakers. The short pudgy man was mid- twenty-ish and his tall crewcut was in immediate need of reshap- ing. "Nosy? That's why you hack?" Asked Scott in disbelief. "Yeah, that's it, mate. It's great fun. A game the size of life." Pinball looked at Scott as if to say, that's it. No hidden meaning, it's just fun. He swallowed more of the exqui- site food. "Sounds like whoever dies with the most hacks wins," Scott said facetiously. "Right. You got it, mate." Pinball never looked up from his food while talking. Scott scanned his luncheon companions for reaction. A couple of grunts, no objection. What an odd assortment, Scott thought. At least the Flying Dutchman had been kind enough to assemble an English speaking group for Scott's benefit. "We each have our reasons to hack," said the one who called himself Che2. By all appearance Che2 seemed more suited to a BMW than a revolutionary cabal. He was a well bred American, dressed casually but expensively. "We may not agree with each other, or anyone, but we have an underlying understanding that permits us to cooperate." "I can tell you why I hack," said the sole German representative at the table who spoke impeccable English with a thick accent "I am a professional ethicist. It is people like me who help gov- ernments formulate rules that decide who lives and who dies in emergency situations. The right or wrong of weapons of mass destruction. Ethics is a social moving target that must con- stantly be re-examined as we as a civilized people grow and strive to maintain our innate humanity." "So you equate hacking and ethics, in the same breath?" Scott asked. "I certainly do," said the middle aged German hacker known as Solon. "I am part of a group that promotes the Hacker Ethic. It is really quite simple, if you would be interested." Scott urged him to continue. "We have before us, as a world, a marvelous opportunity, to create a set of rules, behavior and attitudes towards this magnificent technology that blossoms before our eyes. That law is the Ethic, some call it the Code." Kirk had called it the Code, too. "The Code is quite a crock," interrupted a tall slender man with disheveled white hair who spoke with an upper crust, ever so proper British accent. "Unless everybody follows it, from A to Zed, it simply won't work. There can be no exceptions. Other- wise my friends, we will find ourselves in a technological Lord of the Flies." "Ah, but that is already happening," said a gentleman in his mid- fifties, who also sported a full beard, bushy mustache and long well kept salt and pepper hair to his shoulders. "We are already well on the road to a date with Silicon Armageddon. We didn't do it with the Bomb, but it looks like we're sure as hell gonna do it with technology for the masses. In this case computers." Going only by 'Dave', he was a Philosophy Professor at Stanford. In many ways he spoke like the early Timothy Leary, using tech- nology instead of drugs as a mental catalyst. Scott though of Dave as the futurist in the group. "He's right. It is happening, right now. Long Live the Revolu- tion," shouted Che2. "Hacking keeps our personal freedoms alive. I know I'd much prefer everyone knowing my most intimate secrets than have the government and TRW and the FBI and the CIA control it and use only pieces of it for their greed-sucking reasons. No way. I want everyone to have the tools to get into the Govern- ment's Big Brother computer system and make the changes they see fit." Scott listened as his one comment spawned a heated and animated discussion. He wouldn't break in unless they went too far afield, wherever that was, or he simply wanted to join in on the conversation. "How can you support freedom without responsibility? You contra- dict yourself by ignoring the Code." Solon made his comment with Teutonic matter of factness in between mouthfuls. "It is the most responsible thing we can do," retorted Che2. "It is our moral duty, our responsibility to the world to protect our privacy, our rights, before they are stripped away as they have been since the Republicans bounced in, but not out, over a decade ago." He turned in his chair and glared at Scott. Maybe thirty years old, Che2 was mostly bald with great bushes of curly dark brown hair encircling his head. The lack of hair emphasized his large forehead which stood over his deeply inset eyes. Che2 called the Boston area his home but his cosmopolitan accent belied his background. The proper British man known as Doctor Doctor, DRDR on the BBS's, was over six foot five with an unruly frock of thick white hair which framed his ruddy pale face. "I do beg your pardon, but this so violates the tenets of civilized behavior. What this gentleman proposes is the philosophical antithesis of common sense and rationality. I suggest we consider the position that each of us in actual fact is working for the establishment, if I may use such a politically pass�� descriptor." DRDR's comment hushed the table. He continued. "Is it not true that security is being installed as a result of many of our activities?" Several nods of agreement preceded a small voice coming from the far end of the table. "If you want to call it security." A small pre-adolescent spoke in a high pitched whine. "What do you mean . . .I'm sorry, I don't know what to call you," asked Scott. "GWhiz. The security is a toy." GWhiz spoke unpretentiously about how incredibly simple it is to crack any security system. He maintained that there are theoret- ical methods to crack into any, and he emphasized any, computer. "It's impossible to protect a computer 100%. Can't be done. So that means that every computer is crackable." He offered to explain the math to Scott who politely feigned ignorance of decimal points. "In short, I, or anyone, can get into any computer they want. There is always a way." "Isn't that a scary thought?" Scott asked to no one in particu- lar. Scott learned from the others that GWhiz was a 16 year old high school junior from Phoenix, Arizona. He measured on the high-end of the genius scale, joined Mensa at 4 and already had in hand scholarships from Westinghouse, Mellon, CalTech, MIT, Stanford to name a few. At the tender age of 7 he started programming and was now fluent in eleven computer languages. GWhiz was regarded with an intellectual awe from hackers for his theoretical analy- ses that he had turned into hacking tools. He was a walking encyclopedia of methods and techniques to both protect and attack computers. To GWhiz, straddling the political fence by arming both sides with the same weapons was a logical choice. Scott viewed it as a high tech MAD - Mutual Assured Destruction, com- puter wise. "Don't you see," said the British DRDR, continuing as if there had been no interruption. "The media portrays us as security breaking phreaks, and that's exactly what we are. And that works for the establishment as well. We keep the designers and securi- ty people honest by testing their systems for free. What a great deal, don't you think? We, the hackers of the world, are the Good Housekeeping Seal of security systems by virtue of the fact that either we can or we cannot penetrate them. If that's not working for the system, I don't know what is." "DRDR's heading down the right path," Dave the futurist spoke up. "Even though he does work for GCHQ." "GCHQ?" Scott asked quickly. "The English version of your NSA," said Pinball, still engrossed in his food. "I do not!" protested DRDR. "Besides, what difference would it make if I did?" He asked more defensively. "None, none at all," agreed Dave. "The effect is the same. However, if you are an MI-5 or MI-6 or whatever, that would show a great deal of unanticipated foresight on the part of your government. I wish ours would think farther ahead than today's headlines. I have found that people everywhere in the world see the problem as one of hackers, rather than the fundamental issues that are at stake. We hackers are manifestations of the problems that technology has bequeathed us. If any of our governments were actually responsive enough to listen, they would have a great deal of concern for the emerging infrastructure that doesn't have a leader. Now, I'm not taking a side on this one, but I am saying that if I were the government, I would sure as all hell want to know what was going on in the trenches. The U.S. especially." Everyone seemed to agree with that. "But they're too caught up in their own meaningless self-sustain- ing parasitic lives to realize that a new world is shaping around them." When Che2 spoke, he spoke his mind, leaving no doubt as to how he felt. "They don't have the smarts to get involved and see it first hand. Which is fine by me, because, as you said," he said pointing at DRDR, "it doesn't matter. They wouldn't listen to him anyway. It gives us more time to build in de- fenses." "Defenses against what?" asked Scott. "Against them, of course," responded Che2. "The fascist military industrial establishment keeps us under a microscope. They're scared of us. They have spent tens of billions of dollars to construct huge computers, built into the insides of mountains, protected from nuclear attack. In them are data bases about you, and me, and him and hundreds of millions of others. There are a lot of these systems, IRS, the Census Department has one, the FBI, the DIA, the CIA, the NSA, the OBM, I can go on." Che2's voice crescendo'd and he got more demonstrative as the importance he attributed to each subject increased. "These computers con- tain the most private information about us all. I for one, want to prevent them from ever using that information against me or letting others get at it either. Unlike those who feel that the Bill of Rights should be re-interpreted and re-shaped and re- packaged to feed their power frenzy, I say it's worked for 200 years and I don't want to fix something if it ain't broke." "One needs to weigh the consequences of breaking and entering a computer, assay the purpose, evaluate the goal against the possi- ble negatives before wildly embarking through a foreign computer. That is what we mean by the Code." Solon spoke English with Teutonic precision and a mild lilt that gave his accented words additional credibility. He sounded like an expert. "I believe, quite strongly, that it is not so complicated to have a major portion of the hacker community live by the Code. Unless you are intent on damage, no one should have any trouble with the simple Credo, 'leave things as you found them'. You see, there is nothing wrong with breaking security as long as you're accom- plishing something useful." "Hold on," interrupted Scott. "Am I hearing this right? You're saying that it's all right to break into a computer as long as you don't do any damage, and put everything right before you leave?" "That's about it. It is so simple, yet so blanketing in its ramifications. The beauty of the Code, if everyone lived by it, would be a maximization of computer resources. Now, that is good for everyone." "Wait, I can't stand this, wait," said Scott holding his hands over his head in surrender. He elicited a laugh from everyone but Che2. "That's like saying, it's O.K. for you to come into my house when I'm not there, use the house, wash the dishes, do the laundry, sweep up and split. I have a real problem with that. That's an invasion of my privacy and I would personally resent the shit out of it." Scott tried this line of reasoning again as he had with Kirk. "Just the point," said DRDR. "When someone breaks into a house it's a civil case. But this new bloody Computer Misuse Act makes it a felony to enter a computer. Parliament isn't 100% perfect," he added comically. DRDR referred to the recent British attempts at legislative guidelines to criminalize certain computer activi- ties. "As you should resent it." Dave jumped in speaking to Scott. "But there's a higher purpose here. You resent your house being used by an uninvited guest in your absence. Right?" Scott a- greed. "Well, let's say that you are going to Hawaii for a couple of weeks, and someone discovers that your house is going to be robbed while you're gone. So instead of bothering you, he house sits. Your house doesn't get robbed, you return, find nothing amiss, totally unaware of your visitor. Would you rather get robbed instead?" "Well, I certainly don't want to get robbed, but . . . I know what it is. I'm out of control and my privacy is still being violated. I don't know if I have a quick answer." Scott looked and sounded perplexed. "Goot! You should not have a quick answer, for that answer is the core, the essence of the ultimate problem that we all inves- tigate every day." Solon gestured to their table of seven. "That question is security versus freedom. Within the world of acade- mia there is a strong tendency to share everything. Your ideas, your thoughts, your successes and failures, the germs of an idea thrown away and the migration of a brainstorm into the tangible. They therefore desire complete freedom of information exchange, they do not wish any restrictions on their freedom to interact. However, the Governments of the world want to isolate and re- strict access to information; right or wrong, we acknowledge their concern. That is the other side, security with minimal freedom. The banks also prefer security to freedom, although they do it very poorly and give it a lot, how do you say, a lot of lip service?" Everyone agreed that describing a bank's security as lip service was entirely too complimentary, but for the sake of brevity they let it go uncontested. "Then again, business hasn't made up its mind as to whether they should bother protecting information assets or not. So, there are now four groups with different needs and desires which vary the ratio of freedom to security. In reality, of course, there will be hundreds of opinions," Solon added for accuracy's sake. "Mathematically, if there is no security, dividing by 0 results in infinite freedom. Any security at all and some freedom is curtailed. So, therein the problem to be solved. At what cost freedom? It is an age old question that every generation must ask, weigh and decide for itself. This generation will do the same for information and freedom. They are inseparable." Scott soaked in the words and wanted to think about them later, at his leisure. The erudite positions taken by hackers was astonishing compared to what he had expected. Yes, some of the goals and convictions were radical to say the least, but the arguments were persuasive. "Let me ask you," Scott said to the group. "What happens when computers are secure? What will you do then?" "They won't get secure," GWhiz said. "As soon as they come up with a defense, we will find a way around it." "Won't that cycle ever end?" "Technology is in the hands of the people," commented Che2. "This is the first time in history when the power is not concen- trated with a select few. The ancients kept the secrets of writing with their religious leaders; traveling by ship in the open sea was a hard learned and noble skill. Today, weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a few mad men who are no better than you or I. But now, computers, access to information, that power will never be taken away. Never!" "It doesn't matter." Dave was viewing the future in his own mind. "I doubt that computers will ever be secure, but instead, the barrier, the wall, the time and energy it takes to crack into them will become prohibitive for all but the most determined. Anyway, there'll be new technology to explore." "Like what?" Asked Scott. "Satellites are pretty interesting. They are a natural extension of the computer network, and cracking them will be lots easier in a couple of years." DRDR saw understanding any new technology as a�personal challenge. "How do you crack a satellite? What's there to crack?" "How about beaming your own broadcasts to millions of people using someone else's satellite?" DRDR speculated. "It's been done before, and as the equipment gets cheaper, I can assure you that we'll be seeing many more political statements illegally being made over the public airwaves. The BBC and NBC will have their hands full. In the near future, I see virtual realities as an ideal milieu for next generation hackers." "I agree," said Solon. "And with virtual realities, the ethical issues are even more profound than with the Global Network." Scott held up his hands. "I know what _I_ think it is, but before you go on, I need to know how you define a virtual reali- ty." The hackers looked at each until Dave took the ball. "A virtual reality is fooling the mind and body into believing something is real that isn't real." Scott's face was blank. "Ever been to Disneyland?" Dave asked. Scott nodded. "And you've ridden Star Tours?" Scott nodded again. "Well, that's a simple virtual reality. Star Tours fools your body into thinking that you are in a space ship careening through an asteroid belt, but in reality, you are suspended on a few guy wires. The projected image reinforces the sensory hallucination." "Now imagine a visual field, currently it's done with goggles, that creates real life pictures, in real time and interacts with your movements." Scott's light bulb went off. "That's like the Holo-Deck on Star Trek!" "That is the ultimate in virtual reality, yes. But before we can achieve that, imagine sitting in a virtual cockpit of a virtual car, and seeing exactly what you would see from a race car at the Indy 500. The crowds, the noises, and just as importantly, the feel of the car you are driving. As you drive, you shift and the car reacts, you feel the car react. You actually follow the track in the path that you steer. The combination of sight, sound and hearing, even smell, creates a total illusion. In short, there is no way to distinguish between reality and delu- sion." "Flight simulators for the people," chimed in Che2. "I see the day when every Mall in America will have Virtual Reality Parlors where you can live out your fantasies. No more than 5 years," Dave confidently prognosticated. Scott imagined the Spook's interpretation of virtual realities. He immediately conjured up the memory of Woody Allen's Orgasma- tron in the movie Sleeper. The hackers claimed that computer generated sex was less than ten years away. "And that will be an ideal terrain for hackers. That kind of power over the mind can be used for terrible things, and it will be up to us to make sure it's not abused." Che2 maintained his position of guardian of world freedom. As they finished their lunch and Scott paid the check, they thanked him vigorously for the treat. They might be nuts, but they were polite, and genuine. "I'm confused about one thing," Scott said as they left the restaurant and walked the wide boulevard. "You all advocate an independence, an anarchy where the individual is paramount, and the Government is worse than a necessary evil. Yet I detect disorganization, no plan; more like a leaf in a lake, not knowing where it will go next." There were no disagreements with his summary assessment. "Don't any of you work together? As a group, a kind of a gang? It seems to me that if there was an agenda, a program, that you might achieve your aims more quickly." Scott was trying to avoid being critical by his inquisitiveness. "Then we would be a government, too, and that's not what we want. This is about individual power, responsibility. At any rate, I don't think you could find two of us in enough agreement on anything to build a platform." As usual, Solon maintained a pragmatic approach. "Well," Scott mused out loud. "What would happen if a group, like you, got together and followed a game plan. Built a hacker's guide book and stuck to it, all for a common cause, which I realize is impossible. But for argument's sake, what would happen?" "That would be immense power," said Che2. "If there were enough, they could do pretty much what they wanted. Very political." "I would see it as dangerous, potentially very dangerous," com- mented DRDR. He pondered the question. "The effects of synergy in any endeavor are unpredictable. If they worked as group, a unit, it is possible that they would be a force to be reckoned with." "There would be only one word for it," Dave said with finality. "They could easily become a strong and deadly opponent if their aims are not benevolent. Personally, I would have to call such a group, terrorists." "Sounds like the Freedom League," Pinball said off handedly. Scott's head jerked toward Pinball. "What about the Freedom League?" he asked pointedly. "All I said is that this political hacking sounds like the Free- dom League," Pinball said innocently. "They bloody well go on for a fortnight and a day about how software should be free to anyone that needs it, and that only those that can afford it should pay. Like big corporations." "I've heard of Freedom before," piped Scott. "The Freedom League is a huge BBS, mate. They have hundreds of local BBS's around the States, and even a few across the pond in God's country. Quite an operation, if I say." Pinball had Scott's full attention. "They run the BBS's, and have an incredible shareware library. Thousands of programs, and they give them all away." "It's very impressive," Dave said giving credit where credit was due. "They prove that software can be socially responsible. We've been saying that for years." "What does anybody know about this Freedom League?" Scott asked suspiciously. "What's to know? They've been around for years, have a great service, fabulous BBS's, and reliable software." "It just sounds too good to be true," Scott mused as they made it back to the warehouse for more hours of education. * * * * * Until late that night, Scott continued to elicit viewpoints and opinions and political positions from the radical underground elements of the 1990's he had traveled 3000 miles to meet. Each encounter, each discussion, each conversation yielded yet another perspective on the social rational for hacking and the invasion of privacy. Most everyone at the InterGalactic Hackers Confer- ence had heard about Scott, the Repo Man, and knew why he was there. He was accepted as a fair and impartial observer, thus many of them made a concerted effort to preach their particular case to him. By midnight, overload had consumed Scott and he made a polite exit, promising to return the following day. Still, no one had heard from or seen the Spook. Scott walked back to his hotel through the Red Light District and stopped to purchase a souvenir or two. The sexually explicit T- Shirts would have both made Larry Flynt blush and be banned on Florida beaches, but the counterfeit $1 bills, with George Wash- ington and the pyramid replaced by closeups of impossible oral sexual acts was a compelling gift. They were so well made, that without a close inspection, the pornographic money could easily find itself in the till at a church bake sale. There was a message waiting for Scott when he arrived at the Eureka! It was from Tyrone and marked urgent. New York was 6 hours behind, so hopefully Ty was at home. Scott dialed USA Connect, the service that allows travelers to get to an AT&T operator rather than fight the local phone system. "Make it good." Tyrone answered his home phone. "Hey, guy. You rang?" Scott said cheerily. "Shit, it's about time. Where the hell have you been?" Tyrone whispered as loud as he could. It was obvious he didn't want anyone on his end hearing. "You can thank your secretary for telling me where you were staying." Tyrone spoke quickly. "I'll give her a raise," lied Scott. He didn't have a secretary. The paper used a pool for all the reporters. "What's the panic?" "Then you don't know." Tyrone caught himself. "Of course you didn't hear, how could you?" "How could I hear what?" "The shit has done hit the fan," Tyrone said drawling his words. "Two more EMP-T bombs. The Atlanta regional IRS office and a payroll service in New Jersey. A quarter million folks aren't getting paid tomorrow. And I'll tell you, these folks is mighty pissed off." "Christ," Scott said, mentally chastising himself for not having been where the action was. What lousy timing. "So dig this. Did you know that the Senate was having open subcommittee hearings on Privacy and Technology Protection?" "No." "Neither do a lot of people. It's been a completely underplayed and underpromoted effort. Until yesterday that is. Now the eyes of millions are watching. Starting tomorrow." "Tomorrow?" Scott yelled across the Atlantic. "That's the eighth. Congress doesn't usually convene until late January . . ." "Used to," Ty said. "The Constitution says that Congress shall meet on January third, after the holidays. Since the Gulf War Congress has returned in the first week. 'Bout time they did something for their paychecks." "Damn," Scott thought out loud. "I knew that would excite you," Tyrone said sarcastically. "And there's more. Congressman Rickfield, you know who he is?" asked Tyrone. "Yeah, sure. Long timer on the Hill. Got as many enemies as he does friends. Wields an immense amount of power," Scott re- called. �"Right, exactly. And that little weasel is the chair." "I guess you're not on his Christmas list," Scott observed. "I really doubt it," Tyrone said. "But that's off the record. He's been a Southern racist from day one, a real Hoover man. During the riots, in the early '60's, he was not exactly a propo- nent of civil rights. In fact that slime ball made Wallace look like Martin Luther King." Tyrone sounded bitter and derisive in his description of Rickfield. "He has no concept what civil rights are. He makes it a black white issue instead of one of constitutional law. Stupid bigots are the worst kind." The derision in Ty's voice was unmistakable. "Sounds like you're a big fan." "I'll be a fan when he hangs high. Besides my personal and racial beliefs about Rickfield, he really is a low life. He, and a few of his cronies are one on the biggest threats to personal freedom the country faces. He thinks that the Bill of Rights should be edited from time to time and now's the time. He scares me. Especially since there's more like him." It was eminently clear that Tyrone Duncan had no place in this life for Merrill Rickfield. "I know enough about him to dislike him, but on a crowded subway he'd just be another ugly face. Excuse my ignorance . . ." Then it hit him. Rickfield. His name had been in those papers he had received so long ago. What had he done, or what was he accused of doing? Damn, damn, what is it? There were so many. Yes, it was Rickfield, but what was the tie-in? "I think you should be there, at the hearings," Tyrone suggested. "Tomorrow? Are you out of your mind? No way," Scott loudly protested. "I'm 3000 miles and 8 hours away and it's the middle of the night here," Scott bitched and moaned. "Besides, I only have to work one more day and then I get the weekend to myself . . . aw, shit." Tyrone ignored Scott's infantile objections. He attributed them to jet lag and an understandable urge to stay in Sin City for a couple more days. "Hollister and Adams will be there, and a whole bunch of white shirts in black hats, and Troubleaux . . ." "Troubleaux did you say?" "Yeah, that's what it says here . . ." "If he's there, then it becomes my concern, too." "Good, glad you thought of it," joked Tyrone. "If you catch an early flight, you could be in D.C. by noon." He was right, thought Scott. The time difference works in your favor in that direction. "You know," said Scott, "with what I've found out here, today alone, maybe. "Jeeeeeesus," Scott said cringing in indecision. "Hey! Get your ass back here, boy. Pronto." Tyrone's friendly authority was persuasive. "You know you don't have any choice." The guilt trip. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Scott called his office and asked for Doug. He got the voice mail instead, and debated about calling him at home. Nah, He thought, I'll just leave a message. This way I'll just get yelled at once. "Hi, Doug? Scott here. Change in plans. Heard about EMP-T. I'm headed to Washington tomorrow. The story here is better than I thought and dovetails right into why I'm coming back early. I expect to be in D.C. until next Tuesday, maybe Wednesday. I'll call when I have a place. Oh, yeah, I learned a limerick here you might like. The Spook says the kids around here say it all the time. 'Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. It followed her to school one day and a big black dog fucked it.' That's Amsterdam. Bye." **************************************************************** Chapter 20 Friday, January 8 Washington, D.C. The New Senate Office Building is a moderately impressive struc- ture on the edge of one of the worst sections of Washington. Visitors find it a perpetual paradox that the power seat of the Western World is located within a virtual shooting gallery of drugs and weapons. Scott arrived at the NSOB near the capitol, just before lunchtime. His press identification got him instant access to the hearing room and into the privileged locations where the media congregated. The hearings were in progress and as solemn as he remembered other hearings broadcast on late night C-SPAN. He caught the last words of wisdom from a government employee who worked for NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technol- ogy. The agency was formerly known as NBS, National Bureau of Standards, and no one could adequately explain the change. The NIST employee droned on about how seriously the government, and more specifically, his agency cared about privacy and infor- mation security, and that ". . .the government was doing all it could to provide the requisite amount of security commensurate with the perceived risk of disclosure and sensitivity of the information in question." Scott ran into a couple of fellow reporters who told him he was lucky to show up late. All morn- ing, the government paraded witnesses to read prepared statements about how they were protecting the interests of the Government. It was an intensive lobbying effort, they told Scott, to shore up whatever attacks might be made on the government's inefficient bungling in distinction to its efficient bungling. To a man, the witnesses assured the Senate committee that they were committed to guaranteeing privacy of information and unconvincingly assur- ing them that only appropriate authorized people have access to sensitive and classified data. Seven sequential propagandized statements went unchallenged by the three senior committee members throughout the morning, and Senator Rickfield went out of his way to thank the speakers for their time, adding that he was personally convinced the Govern- ment was indeed doing more than necessary to obviate such con- cerns. The underadvertised Senate Select Sub Committee on Privacy and Technology Protection convened in Hearing Room 3 on the second floor of the NSOB. About 400 could be accommodated in the huge light wood paneled room on both the main floor and in the balcony that wrapped around half of the room. The starkness of the room was emphasized by the glare of arc and fluorescent lighting. Scott found an empty seat on a wooden bench directly behind the tables from which the witnesses would speak to the raised wooden dais. He noticed that the attendance was extraordinarily low; by both the public and the press. Probably due to the total lack of exposure. As the session broke for lunch, Scott asked why the TV cameras? He thought this hearing was a deep dark secret. A couple of fellow journalists agreed, and the only reason they had found out about the Rickfield hearings was because the CNN producer called them asking if they knew anything about them. Apparently, Scott was told, CNN received an anonymous call, urging them to be part of a blockbuster announcement. When CNN called Rickfield's office, his staffers told CNN that there was no big deal, and that they shouldn't waste their time. In the news business, that kind of statement from a Congressional power broker is a sure sign that it is worth being there. Just in case. So CNN assigned a novice producer and a small crew to the first day of the hear- ings. As promised, the morning session was an exercise in termi- nal boredom. The afternoon session was to begin at 1:30, but Senator Rickfield was nowhere to be found, so the Assistant Chairperson of the committee, Junior Senator Nancy Deere assumed control. She was a 44 year old grandmother of two from New England who had never considered entering politics. Nancy Deere was the consummate wife, supporter and stalwart of her husband Morgan Deere, an up and coming national politician who had the unique mixture of honesty, appeal and potential. She had spent full time on the campaign trail with Morgan as he attempted to make the transition from state politics to Washington. Morgan Deere was heavily favored to win after the three term incumbent was named a co- conspirator in the rigging of a Defense contract. Despite the pending indictments, the race continued with constant pleadings by the incumbent that the trumped up charges would shortly be dismissed. In the first week after the Grand Jury was convened, the voter polls indicated that Deere led with a 70% support factor. Then came the accident. On his way home from a fund raising dinner, Morgan Deere's limousine was run off an icy winter road by a drunk driver. Deere's resulting injuries made it impossible for him to continue the campaign or even be sure that he would ever be able to regain enough strength to withstand the brutality of Washington politics. Within days of the accident, Deere's campaign manager announced that Nancy Deere would replace her husband. Due to Morgan's local popularity, and the fact that the state was so small that everyone knew everyone else's business, and that the incumbent was going to jail, and that the elections were less than two weeks away, there was barely a spike in the projections. No one seemed to care that Nancy Deere had no experience in politics; they just liked her. What remained of the campaign was run on her part with impeccable style. Unlike her opponent who spent vast sums to besmirch her on television, Nancy's campaign was largely waged on news and national talk shows. Her husband was popular, as was she, and the general interest in her as a woman outweighed the interest in her politics. The state's constituency overwhelmingly endorsed her with their votes and Senator Nancy Deere, one of the few woman ever to reach that level as an elected official, was on her way to Washington. Nancy Deere found that many of the professional politicians preferred to ignore her; they were convinced she was bound to be a one termer once the GOP got someone to run against her. Others found her to be a genuine pain in the butt. Not due to her naivete, far from that, she adeptly acclimated to the culture and the system. Rather, she was a woman and she broke the rules. She said what she felt; she echoed the sentiments of her constituency which were largely unpopular politically. Nancy Deere didn't care what official Washington thought; her state was behind her with an almost unanimous approval and it was her sworn duty to represent them honestly and without compromise. She had nothing to lose by being herself. After more than a year in Washington, she learned how the massive Washington machinery functioned and why it crawled with a hurry up and wait engine. In Rickfield's absence, at 1:40 P.M., Senator Nancy Deere called the session to order. Her administrative demeanor gave no one pause to question her authority. Even the other sole Congres- sional representative on the sub-committee fell into step. While Senator Stanley Paglusi technically had seniority, he sat on the committee at Rickfield's request and held no specific interest in the subject matter they were investigating. He accepted the seat to mollify Rickfield and to add to his own political resume. "Come to order, please," she announced over the ample sound system. The voluminous hearing room reacted promptly to the authoritative command that issued forth from the petite auburn haired Nancy Deere who would have been just as comfortable auc- tioning donated goods at her church. She noticed that unlike the morning session, the afternoon session was packed. The press pool was nearly full and several people were forced to stand. What had changed, she asked herself. After the procedural formalities were completed, she again thanked those who had spoken to the committee in the morning, and then promised an equally informative afternoon. Nancy, as she liked to be called on all but the most formal of occasions intro- duced the committee's first afternoon witness. "Our next speaker is Ted Hammacher, a recognized expert on the subject of computer and information security. During 17 years with the Government, Mr. Hammacher worked with the Defense Inves- tigatory Agency and the National Security Agency as a DoD liai- son. He is currently a security consultant to industry and the government and is the author of hundreds of articles on the subject." As was required, Nancy Deere outlined Hammacher's qualifications as an expert, and then invited him to give his opening statement. The television in Rickfield's office was tuned to C-SPAN which was broadcasting the hearings as he spoke into the phone. "Only a couple more and then I'm off to spend my days in the company of luscious maidens on the island of my choice," he bragged into the phone. The Senator listened intently to the response. "Yes, I am aware of that, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm calling it quits. I cannot, I will not, continue this charade." He listened quietly for several minutes before interjecting. "Listen, General, we've both made enough money to keep us in style for the rest of our lives, and I will not jeopardize that for anything. Got it?" Again he listened. "I don't know about you, but I do not relish the idea of doing ten to twenty regard- less of how much of a country club the prison is. It is still a prison." He listened further. "That's it, I've had it! Don't make me use that file to impli- cate you, the guys over at State and our Import . . .hey!" Rick- field turned to Ken Boyers. "Who started the afternoon session?" He pointed at the TV. "It looks like Senator Deere," Ken said. "Deere? Where does that goddamned bitch get off . . ?" He remem- bered the phone. "General? I have to go, I've got a suffragette usurping a little power, and I have to put her back in her place. You understand. But, on that other matter, I'm out. Done. Fini- to. Do what you want, but keep me the fuck out of it." Rick- field hung up abruptly and stared at the broadcast. "Some house- broken homemaker is not going to make me look bad. Goddamn it, Ken," Rickfield said as he stood up quickly. "Let's get back out there." "Thank you, Senator Deere, and committee members. I am honored to have a chance to speak to you here today. As a preface to my remarks, I think that a brief history of security and privacy from a government perspective may be in order. One of the reasons we are here today is due to a succession of events that since the introduction of the computer have shaped an ad hoc anarchism, a laissez-faire attitude toward privacy and security. Rather than a comprehensive national policy, despite the valiant efforts of a few able Congressmen, the United States of America has allowed itself to be lulled into technical complacency and indifference. Therefore, I will, if the committee agrees, provide a brief chronological record." "I for one would be most interested," said Senator Deere. "It appeared that this morning our speakers assumed we were more knowledgeable that we are. Any clarifications will be most welcome." The crowd agreed silently. Much of the history was cloaked in secrecy. The distinguished Ted Hammacher was an accomplished orator, utilizing the best that Washington diplomatic-speak could muster. At 50 years old, his short cropped white hair capped a proper military bearing even though he had maintained a civilian status throughout his Pentagon associations. "Thank you madam chairman." He glanced down at the well organized folder and turned a page. "Concerns of privacy can be traced back thousands of years with perhaps the Egyptian pyramids as the first classic example of a brute force approach towards privacy. The first recorded at- tempts at disguising the contents of a written message were in Roman times when Julius Caesar encoded messages to his generals in the field. The Romans used a simple substitution cipher where one letter in the alphabet is used in place of another. The cryptograms found in the Sunday paper use the same techniques. Any method by which a the contents of a message is scrambled is known as encryption." The CNN producer maintained the sole camera shot and his atten- tion on Ted Hammacher. He missed Senator Rickfield and his aid reappear on the dais. Rickfield's eyes penetrated Nancy Deere who imperceptibly acknowledged his return. "You should not over- step your bounds," Rickfield leaned over and said to her. "You have five years to go. Stunts like this will not make your time any easier." "Senator," she said to Rickfield as Hammacher spoke. "You are obviously not familiar with the procedures of Senate panel proto- col. I was merely trying to assist the progress of the hearings in your absence, I assure you." Her coolness infuriated Rick- field. "Well, then, thank you," he sneered. "But, now, I am back. I will appreciate no further procedural interference." He sat up brusquely indicating that his was the last word on the subject. Unaware of the political sidebar in progress, Hammacher contin- ued. "Ciphers were evolved over the centuries until they reached a temporary plateau during World War II. The Germans used the most sophisticated message encoding or encryption device ever devised. Suitably called the Enigma, their encryption scheme was nearly uncrackable until the Allies captured one of the devices, and then under the leadership of Alan Turing, a method was found to regularly decipher intercepted German High Command orders. Many historians consider this effort as being instrumental in bringing about an end to the war. "In the years immediately following World War II, the only per- ceived need for secrecy was by the military and the emerging intelligence services, namely the OSS as it became the modern CIA, the British MI-5 and MI-6 and of course our opponents on the other side. In an effort to maintain a technological leadership position, the National Security Agency funded various projects to develop encryption schemes that would adequately protect govern- ment information and communications for the foreseeable future. "The first such requests were issued in 1972 but it wasn't until 1974 that the National Bureau of Standards accepted an IBM pro- posal for an encryption process known as Lucifer. With the assistance of the NSA who is responsible for cryptography, the Data Encryption Standard was approved in November of 1976. There was an accompanying furor over the DES, some saying that the NSA intentionally weakened it to insure that they could still decrypt any messages using the approved algorithm. "In 1982 a financial group, FIMAS endorsed a DES based method to authenticate Electronic Funds Transfer, or EFT. Banks move upwards of a trillion dollars daily, and in an effort to insure that all monies are moved accurately and to their intended desti- nations, the technique of Message Authentication Coding was introduced. For still unknown reasons it was decided that en- crypting the contents of the messages, or transfers, was unneces- sary. Thus, financial transactions are still carried out with no protection from eavesdropping." "Excuse me, Mr. Hammacher, I want to understand this," interrupt- ed Senator Deere. "Are you saying that, since 1976, we have had the ability to camouflage the nation's financial networks, yet as of today, they are still unprotected?" Rickfield looked over at Nancy in disgust but the single camera missed it. "Yes, ma'am, that's exactly the case," replied Hammacher. "What does that mean to us? The Government? Or the average citi- zen?" "In my opinion it borders on insanity. It means that for the price of a bit of electronic equipment, anyone can tap into the details of the financial dealings of banks, the government and every citizen in this country." Senator Deere visibly gulped. "Thank you, please continue." "In 1984, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 145. NSDD-145 established that defense contractors and other organizations that handle sensitive or classified informa- tion must adhere to certain security and privacy guidelines. A number of advisory groups were established, and to a minimal extent, the recommendations have been implemented, but I must emphasize, to a minimal extent." "Can you be a little more specific, Mr. Hammacher?" Asked Senator Deere. "No ma'am, I can't. A great deal of these efforts are classified and by divulging who is not currently in compliance would be a security violation in itself. It would be fair to say, though, that the majority of those organizations targeted for additional security measures fall far short of the government's intentions and desires. I am sorry I cannot be more specific." "I understand completely. Once again," Nancy said to Hammacher, "I am sorry to interrupt." "Not at all, Senator." Hammacher sipped from his water glass. "As you can see, the interest in security was primarily from the government, and more specifically the defense community. In 1981, the Department of Defense chartered the DoD Computer Secu- rity Center which has since become the National Computer Security Center operating under the auspices of the National Security Agency. In 1983 they published a series of guidelines to be used in the creation or evaluation of computer security. Officially titled the Trusted Computer Security Evaluation Criteria, it is popularly known as the Orange Book. It has had some minor updates since then, but by and large it is an outdated document designed for older computer architectures. "The point to be made here is that while the government had an ostensible interest and concern about the security of computers, especially those under their control, there was virtually no overt significance placed upon the security of private industry's computers. Worse yet, it was not until 1987 that any proposed criteria were developed for networked computers. So, as the world tied itself together with millions of computers and net- works, the Government was not concerned enough to address the issue. Even today, there are no secure network criteria that are universally accepted." "Mr. Hammacher." Senator Rickfield spoke up for the first time. "You appear to have a most demeaning tone with respect to the United States Government's ability to manage itself. I for one remain unconvinced that we are as derelict as you suggest. Therefore, I would ask that you stick to the subject at hand, the facts, and leave your personal opinions at home." Nancy Deere as well as much of the audience listened in awe as Rickfield slashed out at Hammacher who was in the process of building an argument. Common courtesy demanded that he be per- mitted to finish his statement, even if his conclusions were unpopular or erroneous. Hammacher did not seem fazed. "Sir, I am recounting the facts, and only the facts. My personal opinions would only be further damning, so I agree, that I will refrain." He turned a page in his notebook and continued. "Several laws were passed, most notably Public Law 100-235, the Computer Security Act of 1987. This weak law called for enhanced cooperation between the NSA and NIST in the administration of security for the sensitive but unclassified world of the Govern- ment and the private sector. Interestingly enough, in mid 1990 it was announced, that after a protracted battle between the two security agencies, the NCSC would shut down and merge its efforts with its giant super secret parent, the NSA. President Bush signed the Directive effectively replacing Reagan's NSDD-145. Because the budgeting and appropriations for both NSA and the former NCSC are classified, there is no way to accurately gauge the effectiveness of this move. It may still be some time before we understand the ramifications of the new Executive Order. "To date every state has some kind of statute designed to punish computer crime, but prosecutions that involve the crossing of state lines in the commission of a crime are far and few between. Only 1% of all computer criminals are prosecuted and less than 5% of those result in convictions. In short, the United States has done little or nothing to forge an appropriate defense against computer crime, despite the political gerrymandering and agency shuffling over the last decade. That concludes my opening re- marks." Hammacher sat back in his chair and finished the water. He turned to his lawyer and whispered something Scott couldn't hear. "Ah, Mr. Hammacher, before you continue, I would like ask a few questions. Do you mind?" Senator Nancy Deere was being her usual gracious self. "Not at all, Senator." "You said earlier that the NSA endorsed a cryptographic system that they themselves could crack. Could you elaborate?" Senator Nancy Deere's ability to grasp an issue at the roots was uncanny. "I'd be pleased to. First of all, it is only one opinion that the NSA can crack DES; it has never been proven or disproven. When DES was first introduced some theoreticians felt that NSA had compromised the original integrity of IBM's Lucifer encryp- tion project. I am not qualified to comment either way, but the reduction of the key length, and the functional feedback mecha- nisms were less stringent than the original. If this is true, then we have to ask ourselves, why? Why would the NSA want a weaker system?" A number of heads in the hearing room nodded in agreement with the question; others merely acknowledged that it was NSA bashing time again. Hammacher continued. "There is one theory that suggests that the NSA, as the largest eavesdropping operation in the world wanted to make sure that they could still listen in on messages once they have been encrypted. The NSA has neither confirmed or denied these reports. If that is true, then we must ask our- selves, if DES is so weak, why does the NSA have the ultimate say on export control. The export of DES is restricted by the Muni- tions Control, Department of State, and they rely upon DoD and the NSA for approval. "The export controls suggest that maybe NSA cannot decrypt DES, and there is some evidence to support that. For example, in 1985, the Department of Treasury wanted to extend the validation of DES for use throughout the Treasury, the Federal Reserve System and member banks. The NSA put a lot of political muscle behind an effort to have DES deaffirmed and replaced with newer encryption algorithms. Treasury argued that they had already adapted DES, their constituents had spent millions on DES equip- ment for EFT and it would be entirely too cumbersome and expen- sive to make a change now. Besides, they asked, what's wrong with DES? They never got an answer to that question, and thus they won the battle and DES is still the approved encryption methodology for banks. It was never established whether DES was too strong or too weak for NSA's taste. "Later, in 1987, the NSA received an application for export of a DES based device that employed a technique called infinite en- cryption. In response to the frenzy over the strength or weakness of DES, one company took DES and folded it over and over on itself using multiple keys. The NSA had an internal hemorrhage. They forbade this product from being exported from the United States in any form whatsoever. Period. It was an extraordinary move on their part, and one that had built-in contradictions. If DES is weak, then why not export it? If it's too strong, why argue with Treasury? In any case, the multiple DES issue died down until recently, when NSA, beaten at their own game by too much secrecy, developed a secret internal program to create a Multiple-DES encryption standard with a minimum of three sequen- tial iterations. "Further embarrassment was caused when an Israeli mathematician found the 'trap door' built into DES by the NSA and how to decode messages in seconds. This quite clearly suggests that the gov- ernment has been listening in on supposedly secret and private communications. "Then we have to look at another event that strongly suggests that NSA has something to hide." "Mr. Hammacher!" Shouted Senator Rickfield. "I warned you about that." "I see nothing wrong with his comments, Senator," Deere said, careful to make sure that she was heard over the sound system. "I am the chairman of this committee, Ms. Deere, and I find Mr. Hammacher's characterization of the NSA as unfitting this forum. I wish he would find other words or eliminate the thought alto- gether. Mr. Hammacher, do you think you are capable of that?" Hammacher seethed. "Senator, I mean no disrespect to you or this committee. However, I was asked to testify, and at my own ex- pense I am providing as accurate information as possible. If you happen to find anything I say not to your liking, I do apologize, but my only alternative is not to testify at all." "We accept your withdrawal, Mr. Hammacher, thank you for your time." A hushed silence covered the hearing room. This was not the time to get into it with Rickfield, Nancy thought. He has sufficiently embarrassed himself and the media will take care of the rest. Why the hell is he acting this way? He is known as a hard ass, a real case, but his public image was unblemished. Had the job passed him by? A stunned and incensed Hammacher gathered his belongings as his lawyer placated him. Scott overheard bits and pieces as they both agreed that Rickfield was a flaming asshole. A couple of reporters hurriedly followed them out of the hearing room for a one on one interview. "Is Dr. Sternman ready?" Rickfield asked. A bustle of activity and a man spoke to the dais without the assistance of a microphone. "Yessir, I am." Sternman was definitely the academic type, Scott noted. A crum- pled ill fitting brown suit covering a small hunched body that was no more than 45 years old. He held an old scratched brief- case and an armful of folders and envelopes. Scott was reminded of the studious high school student that jocks enjoy tripping with their feet. Dr. Sternman busied himself to straighten the papers that fell onto the desk and his performance received a brief titter from the crowd. "Ah, yes, Mr. Chairman," Sternman said. "I'm ready now." Rick- field looked as bored as ever. "Thank you, Dr. Sternman. You are, I understand, a computer virus expert? Is that correct?" "Yessir. My doctoral thesis was on the subject and I have spent several years researching computer viruses, their proliferation and propagation." Rickfield groaned to himself. Unintelligible mumbo jumbo. "I also understand that your comments will be brief as we have someone else yet to hear from today." It was as much a command as a question. "Yessir, it will be brief." "Then, please, enlighten us, what is a virus expert and what do you do?" Rickfield grinned menacingly at Dr. Les Sternman, Pro- fessor of Applied Theoretical Mathematics, Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology. "I believe the committee has received an advance copy of some notes I made on the nature of computer viruses and the danger they represent?" Rickfield hadn't read anything, so he looked at Boyers who also shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, Dr. Sternman," Nancy Deere said, "and we thank you for your consideration." Rickfield glared at her as she politely upstaged him yet again. "May I ask, though, that you provide a brief description of a computer virus for the benefit of those who have not read your presentation?" She stuck it to Rickfield again. "I'd be happy to, madam Chairwoman," he said nonchalantly. Rick- field's neck turned red at the inadvertent sudden rise in Senator Deere's stature. For the next several minutes Sternman solemnly described what a virus was, how it worked and a history of their attacks. He told the committee about Worms, Trojan Horses, Time Bombs, Logic Bombs, Stealth Viruses, Crystal Viruses and an assorted family of similar surreptitious computer programs. Despite Sternman's sermonly manner, his audience found the sub- ject matter fascinating. "The reason you are here, Dr. Sternman, is to bring us up to speed on computer viruses, which you have done with alacrity, and we appreciate that." Rickfield held seniority, but Nancy Deere took charge due to her preparation. "Now that we have an under- standing of the virus, can you give us an idea of the type of problems that they cause?" "Ah, yes, but I need to say something here," Sternman said. "Please, proceed," Rickfield said politely. "When I first heard about replicating software, viruses, and this was over 15 years ago, I, as many of my graduate students did, thought of them as a curious anomaly. A benign subset of comput- er software that had no anticipated applications. We spent months working with viruses, self cloning software and built mathematical models of their behavior which fit quite neatly in the domain of conventional set theory. Then an amazing discovery befell us. We proved mathematically that there is absolutely no effective way to protect against computer viruses in software." Enough of the spectators had heard about viruses over the past few years to comprehend the purport of that one compelling state- ment. Even Senator Rickfield joined Nancy and the others in their awe. No way to combat viruses? Dr. Sternman had dropped a bombshell on them. "Dr. Sternman," said Senator Deere, "could you repeat that? "Yes, yes," Sternman replied, knowing the impact of his state- ment. "That is correct. A virus is a piece of software and software is designed to do specific tasks in a hardware environ- ment. All software uses basically the same techniques to do its job. Without all of the technicalities, if one piece of software can do something, another piece of software can un-do it. It's kind of a computer arms race. "I build a virus, and you build a program to protect against that one virus. It works. But then I make a small change in the virus to attack or bypass your software, and Poof! I blow you away. Then you build a new piece of software to defend against both my first virus and my mutated virus and that works until I build yet another. This process can go on forever, and frankly, it's just not worth the effort." "What is not worth the effort, Doctor?" Asked Nancy Deere. "You paint a most bleak picture." "I don't mean to at all, Senator." Dr. Sternman smiled soothing- ly up at the committee and took off his round horn rim glasses. "I wasn't attempting to be melodramatic, however these are not opinions or guesses. They are facts. It is not worth the effort to fight computer viruses with software. The virus builders will win because the Virus Busters are the ones playing catch-up." "Virus Busters?" Senator Rickfield mockingly said conspicuously raising his eyebrows. His reaction elicited a wave of laughter from the hall. "Yessir," said Dr. Sternman to Rickfield. "Virus Busters. That's a term to describe programmers who fight viruses. They mistakenly believe they can fight viruses with defensive software and some of them sell some incredibly poor programs. In many cases you're better off not using anything at all. "You see, there is no way to write a program that can predict the potential behavior of other software in such a way that it will not interfere with normal computer operations. So, the only way to find a virus is to already know what it looks like, and go out looking for it. There are several major problems with this approach. First of all, the virus has already struck and done some damage. Two it has already infected other software and will continue to spread. Three, a program must be written to defeat the specific virus usually using a unique signature for each virus, and the vaccine for the virus must be distributed to the computer users. "This process can take from three to twelve months, and by the time the virus vaccine has been deployed, the very same virus has been changed, mutated, and the vaccine is useless against it. So you see, the Virus Busters are really wasting their time, and worst of all they are deceiving the public." Dr. Sternman com- pleted what he had to say with surprising force. "Doctor Sternman," Senator Rickfield said with disdain, "all of your theories are well and good, and perhaps they work in the laboratory. But isn't it true, sir, that computer viruses are an overblown issue that the media has sensationalized and that they are nothing more than a minor inconvenience?" "Not really, Senator. The statistics don't support that conclu- sion," Dr. Sternman said with conviction. "That is one of the worst myths." Nancy Deere smiled to herself as the dorky college professor handed it right to a United States Senator. "The incidence of computer viruses has been on a logarithmic increase for the past several years. If a human disease infected at the same rate, we would declare a medical state of emergency." "Doctor," implored Rickfield. "Aren't you exaggerating . . .?" "No Senator, here are the facts. There are currently over 5000 known computer viruses and strains that have been positively identified. Almost five thousand, Senator." The good Doctor was a skilled debater, and Rickfield was being sucked in by his attack on the witness. The figure three thousand impressed everyone. A few low whistles echoed through the large chamber. Stupid move Merrill, though Nancy. "It is estimated, sir, that at the current rate, there will be over 100,000 active viruses in five years," Dr. Sternman dryly spoke to Rickfield, "that every single network in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom is infected with at least one computer virus. That is the equivalent of having one member of every family in the country being sick at all times. That is an epidemic, and one that will not go away. No sir, it will not." Sternman's voice rose. "It will not go away. It will only get worse." "That is a most apoplectic prophesy, Doctor. I think that many of us would have trouble believing the doom and gloom you por- tend." Rickfield was sloughing off the Doctor, but Sternman was here to tell a story, and he would finish. "There is more, Senator. Recent reports show that over 75% of the computers in the People's Republic of China are infected with deadly and destructive software. Why? The look on your face asks the question. Because, almost every piece of software in that country is bootleg, illegal copies of popular programs. That invites viruses. Since vast quantities of computers come from the Pacific Rim, many with prepackaged software, new comput- er equipment is a source of computer viruses that was once con- sidered safe. Modem manufacturers have accidentally had viruses on their communications software; several major domestic software manufacturers have had their shrink-wrapped software infected. "If you recall in 1989, NASA brought Virus Busters to Cape Kenne- dy and Houston to thwart a particular virus that threatened a space launch. A year later as everyone remembers, NASA computers were invaded forcing officials to abort a flight. The attacks go on, and they inflict greater damage than is generally thought. "Again, these are our best estimates, that over 90% of all viral infections go unreported." "Doctor, 90%? Isn't that awfully high?" Nancy asked. "Definitely, yes, but imagine the price of speaking out. I have talked to hundreds of companies, major corporations, that are absolutely terrified of anyone knowing that their computers have been infected. Or they have been the target of any computer crime for that matter. They feel that the public, their custom- ers, maybe even their stockholders, might lose faith in the company's ability to protect itself. So? Most viral attacks go unreported. "It's akin to computer rape." Dr. Sternman had a way with words to keep his audience attentive. Years of lecturing to sleeping freshman had taught him a few tricks. "A computer virus is uninvited, it invades the system, and then has its way with it. If that's not rape, I don't know what is." "Your parallels are most vivid," said a grimacing Nancy Deere. "Let's leave that thought for now, and maybe you can explain the type of damage that a virus can do. It sounds to me like there are thousands of new diseases out there, and every one needs to be isolated, diagnosed and then cured. That appears to me to a formidable challenge." "I could not have put it better, Senator. You grasp things quickly." Sternman was genuinely complimenting Nancy. "The similarities to the medical field cannot go unnoticed if we are to deal with the problem rationally and effectively. And like a disease, we need to predict the effects of the infection. What we have found in that area is as frightening. "The first generation of viruses were simple in their approach. The designers correctly assumed that no one was looking for them, and they could enter systems without any deterrence. They erase files, scramble data, re-format hard drives . . .make the comput- er data useless. "Then the second generation of viruses came along with the nom-de-guerre stealth. These viruses hid themselves more elabo- rately to avoid detection and had a built in self-preservation instinct. If the virus thinks it's being probed, it self de- structs or hides itself even further. "In addition, second generation viruses learned how to become targeted. Some viruses have been designed to only attack a competitor's product and nothing else." "Is that possible?" Asked Nancy Deere. "It's been done many times. Some software bugs in popular soft- ware are the result of viral infections, others may be genuine bugs. Imagine a virus who sole purpose is to attack Lotus 123 spreadsheets. The virus is designed to create computational errors in the program's spreadsheets. The user then thinks that Lotus is to blame and so he buys another product. Yes, ma'am, it is possible, and occurs every day of the week. Keeping up with it is the trick. "Other viruses attack on Friday the 13th. only, some attack only at a specified time . . .the damage to be done is only limited by imagination of the programmers. Third generation viruses were even more sophisticated. They were designed to do damage not only to the data, but to the computer hardware itself. Some were designed to overload communications ports with tight logical loops. Others were designed to destroy the hard disk by directly overdriving the disk or would cause amonitor to self-destruct. There is no limit to the possibilities. "You sound as though you hold their skills in high regard, Doc- tor." Rickfield continued to make snide remarks whenever possi- ble. �"Yessir, I do. Many of them have extraordinary skills, that are unfortunately misguided. They are a new breed of bored criminal." "You mentioned earlier Doctor, that there were over 5000 known viruses. How fast is the epidemic, as you put it, spreading?" Senator Nancy Deere asked while making prolific notes throughout. "For all intents and purposes Senator, they spread unchecked. There is a certain amount of awareness of the problem, but it is only superficial. The current viral defenses include signature identification, cyclic redundancy checks and intercept verifica- tion, but the new viruses can combat those as a matter of rule. If the current rate of viral infection continues, it will be a safe bet that nearly every computer in the country will be in- fected ten times over within three years." Dr. Arnold Sternman spent the next half hour answering insightful questions from Nancy Deere, and even Puglasi became concerned enough to ask a few. Rickfield continued with his visceral comments to the constant amazement of the gallery and spectators. Scott could only imagine the raking Rickfield would receive in the press, but being Friday, the effects will be lessened. Besides, it seemed as if Rickfield just didn't give a damn. Rickfield dismissed and perfunctorily thanked Dr. Sternman. He prepared for the next speaker, but Senator Deere leaned over and asked him for a five minute conclave. He was openly reluctant, but as she raised her voice, he conceded. In a private office off to the side, Nancy Deere came unglued. "What kind of stunt are you pulling out there, Senator?" She demanded as she paced the room. "I thought this was a hearing, not a lynching." Rickfield slouched in a plush leather chair and appeared uncon- cerned. "I am indeed sorry," he said with the pronounced drawl of a Southern country gentleman, "that the young Senatoress finds cross examination unpleasant. Perhaps if we treated this like a neighborhood gossip session, it might be easier." "Now one damned minute," she yelled while pointing a finger right at Rickfield. "That was not cross-examination; it was harassment and I for one am embarrassed for you. And two, do not, I repeat, do not, ever patronize me. I am not one of your cheap call girls." She could not have knocked Rickfield over any harder with a sledgehammer. "You bitch!" Rickfield rose to confront her standing nine inches taller. "You stupid bitch. You have no idea what's at stake. None. It's bigger than you. At this rate I can assure you, you will never have an ear in Washington. Never. You will be deaf, dumb and blind in this town. I have been on this Hill for thirty years and paid my dues and I will not have a middle aged June Cleaver undermine a lifetime of work just because she smells her first cause." Undaunted, Nancy stood her ground. "I don't know what you're up to Senator, but I do know that you're sand bagging these hear- ings. I've raised four kids and half a neighborhood, plus my husband talked in his sleep. I learned a lot about politicians, and I know sand bagging when I see it. Now, if you got stuck with these hearings and think they're a crock, that's fine. I hear it happens to everyone. But, I see them as important and I don't want you to interfere." "You are in no position to ask for anything." "I'm not asking. I'm telling." Where did she get the gumption, she asked herself. Then it occurred to her;<MI> I'm not a politician, I want to see things get fixed.<D> "I will take issue with you, take you on publicly, if necessary. I was Presi- dent of the PTA for 8 years. I am fluent in dealing with bitches of every size and shape. You're just a bastard." **************************************************************** Chapter 21 Friday, January 8 Washington, D.C. As the hour is late, I am tempted to call a recess until tomorrow morning," Senator Merrill Rickfield said congenially from the center seat of the hearing room dais. His blow up with Nancy left him in a rage, but he ably disguised the anger by replacing it with overcompensated manners. "However," he continued, "I understand that we scheduled someone to speak to us who has to catch a plane back to California?" Rickfield quickly glanced about the formal dais to espy someone who could help him fill in the details. Ken Boyers was engrossed in conversation and had to be prodded to respond. "Ken," Rick- field whispered while covering the microphone with his hand. He leaned over and behind his seat. "Is that right, this True Blue guy flew in for the day and he's out tonight?" Ken nodded. "Yes, it was the only way we could get him." "What makes him so bloody important?" Rickfield acted edgy. "He's one of the software industry's leading spokesman. He owns dGraph," Ken said, making it sound like he was in on a private joke. "So fucking what? What's he doing here?" Rickfield demanded. Keeping it to a whisper was hard. "Industry perspective. We need to hear from all possible view- points in order to . . ." Ken explained. "Oh, all right. Whatever. If this goes past five, have someone call my wife and tell her I'll see her tomorrow." Rickfield sat back and smiled a politician-hiding-something smile. "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, a little scheduling confusion. I guess there's a first time for anything." Rickfield's chuckle told those-in-the-know that it was time to laugh now. If Rick- field saw someone not laughing at one of his arthritic jokes, he would remember. Might cost a future favor, so it was simpler to laugh. The mild titter throughout the hall that followed gave Rickfield the few seconds he needed to organize himself. "Yes, yes. Page 239. Everyone there?" Rickfield scanned the other committee members and aides flipping pages frantically to find the proper place. "We now have the pleasure of hearing from Pierre, now correct me if I say this wrong, Trewww-Blow?" Rickfield looked up over his glasses to see Pierre seated at the hearing table. "Is that right?" Scott had been able to keep his privileged location for the busier afternoon session by occupying several seats with his bags and coat. He figured correctly that he would be able to keep at least one as the room filled with more people than had been there for the morning session. "Troubleaux, yes Senator. Very good." Pierre had turned on 110% charm. Cameras from the now busy press pool in front of the hearing tables strobe-lit the room until every photographer had his first quota of shots. Troubleaux was still the computer industry's Golden Boy; he could do no wrong. Watching the reac- tion to Pierre's mere presence, Senator Rickfield instantly realized that True Blue here was a public relations pro, and could be hard to control. What was he gonna say anyway? Indus- try perspective my ass. This hearing was as good as over before it started until the television people showed up, Rickfield thought to himself with disgust. "Mr. Trew-Blow flew in extra special for this today," Rickfield orated. "And I'm sure we are all anxious to hear what he has to say." His Southern twang rang of boredom. Scott, who was sit- ting not 6 feet from where Pierre and the others testified, overheard Troubleaux's attorney whisper, "sarcastic bastard." Rickfield continued. "He is here to give us an overview of the problems that software manufacturers face. So, unless anyone has any comments before Mr. Trew-Blow, I will ask him to read his opening statement." "I do, Mr. Chairman," Senator Nancy Deere said. She said it with enough oomph to come across more dynamic on the sound system than did Rickfield. Political upstaging. Rickfield looked annoyed. He had had enough of her today. One thing after anoth- er, and all he wanted was to get through the hearings as fast as possible, make a "Take No Action" recommendation to the Committee and retire after election day. Mrs. Deere was making that goal increasingly difficult to reach. "I recognize the Junior Senator." He said the word 'Junior' as if it was scrawled on a men's room wall. His point was lost on nobody, and privately, most would agree that it was a tasteless tactic. "Thank you, Mr. Chairman," Senator Nancy Deere said poising herself. "I, too, feel indeed grateful, and honored, to have Mr. Troubleaux here today. His accomplishments over the last few years, legendary in some circles I understand, have been in no way inconsequential to the way that America does business. By no means do I wish to embarrass Mr. Troubleaux, and I do hope he will forgive me." Pierre gave Nancy a forgiving smile when she glanced at him. "However, I do feel it incumbent upon this committee to enter into the record the significant contributions he has made to the computer industry. If there are no objec- tions, I have prepared a short biography." No one objected. "Mr. Troubleaux, a native Frenchman, came to the United States at age 12 to attend Julliard School of Music on scholarship. Since founding dGraph, Inc. with the late Max Jones, dGraph and Mr. Troubleaux have received constant accolades from the business community, the software industry and Wall Street." It sounded more to Scott that she was reading past achievements before she handed out a Grammy. "Entrepreneur of the Year, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, Cupertino Chamber of Commerce. Entrepreneur Year of the Year, California State Trade Association, 1987. Technical Achievement of the Year, IEEE, 1988 . . ." Senator Deere read on about Pierre the Magnificent and the house that dGraph built. If this was an election for sainthood, Pierre would be a shoo-in. But considering the beating that Rickfield had inflicted on a couple of earlier speakers, it looked like Nancy was trying to bolster Pierre for the upcoming onslaught. ". . .and he has just been appointed to the President's Council on Competitive Excellence." She closed her folder. "With that number of awards and credentials, I dare say I expect to be inundated with insights. Thank you Mr. Chairman." "And, we thank you," Rickfield barbed, "for that introduction. Now, if there are no further interruptions," he glared at Nancy, "Mr. Trew-Blow, would you care to read your prepared statement. "No, Senator," Pierre came back. A hush descended over the entire room. He paused long enough to increase the tension in the room to the breaking point. "I never use prepared notes. I prefer to speak casually and honestly. Do you mind?" Pierre exaggerated his French accent for effect. After years of public appearances, he knew how to work and win a crowd. The cameras again flashed as Pierre had just won the first round of verbal gymnastics. "It is a bit unusual, not to have an advanced copy of your state- ments, and then . . ." Rickfield stopped himself in mid sentence. "Never mind, I'm sorry. Please, Mr. Trew-Blow, proceed." "Thank you, Mr. Chairman." Pierre scanned the room to see how much of it he commanded. How many people were actually listening to what he was going to say, or were they there for the experi- ence and another line item on a resume? This was his milieu. A live audience, and a TV audience as an extra added bonus. But he had planned it that way. He never told anyone that he was the one who called the TV sta- tions to tell them that there would be a significant news devel- opment at the Rickfield hearings. If he concentrated, Pierre could speak like a native American with a Midwest twang. He gave CNN, NBC, CBS and ABC down home pitches on some of the dirt that might come out. Only CNN showed up. They sent a junior producer. So what, everyone has to start somewhere. And this might be his big break. "Mr. Chairman, committee members," his eyes scanned the dais as he spoke. "Honored guests," he looked around the hall to insure as many people present felt as important as possible, "and inter- ested observers, I thank you for the opportunity to address you here today." In seconds he owned the room. Pierre was a capti- vating orator. "I must plead guilty to the overly kind remarks by Senator Deere, thank you very much. But, I am not feigning humility when I must lavish similar praises upon the many dedi- cated friends at dGraph, whom have made our successes possible." Mutual admiration society, thought Scott. What a pile of D.C. horseshit, but this Pierre was playing the game better than the congressional denizens. As Pierre spoke, the corners of his mouth twitched, ever so slightly, but just enough for the observ- er to note that he took little of these formalities seriously. The lone TV camera rolled. "My statement will be brief, Mr. Chairman, and I am sure, that after it is complete you will have many questions," Pierre said. His tone was kind, the words ominous. "I am not a technical person, instead, I am a dreamer. I leave the bits and bytes to the wizards who can translate dreams into a reality. Software designers are the alchemists who can in fact turn silicon into gold. They skillfully navigate the development of thoughts from the amorphous to the tangible. Veritable art- ists, who like the painter, work from tabula rasa, a clean slate, and have a picture in mind. It is the efforts of tens of thou- sands of dedicated software pioneers who have pushed the fron- tiers of technology to such a degree that an entire generation has grown up in a society where software and digital interaction are assimilated from birth. "We have come to think, perhaps incorrectly, in a discreet quan- tized, digital if you will, framework. To a certain extent we have lost the ability to make a good guess." Pierre paused. "Think about a watch, with a second hand. The analog type. When asked for the time, a response might be 'about three-thirty', or 'it's a quarter after ', or 'it's almost ten.' We approximate the time. "With a digital watch, one's response will be more accurate; 'one- twenty-three," or '4 minutes before twelve,' or 'it's nine thirty-three.' We don't have to guess anymore. And that's a shame. When we lose the ability to make an educated guess, take a stab at, shoot from the hip, we cease using a valuable creative tool. Imagination! "By depending upon them so completely, we fall hostage to the machines of our creation; we maintain a constant reliance upon their accuracy and infallibility. I am aware of the admitted parallel to many science fiction stories where the scientists' machines take over the world. Those tales are, thankfully, the products of vivid imaginations. The technology does not yet exist to worry about a renegade computer. HAL-9000 series com- puters are still far in the future. As long as we, as humans, tell the computer to open the pod bay doors, the pod bay doors will open." Pierre elicited a respectful giggle from the stand- ing room only crowd, many of whom came solely to hear him speak. Rickfield doodled. "Yet, there is another viewpoint. It is few people, indeed, who can honestly claim to doubt the answer displayed on their calcu- lator. They have been with us for over 20 years and we instinc- tively trust in their reliability. We assume the computing machine to be flawless. In many ways, theoretically it is per- fect. But when man gets involved he fouls it up. Our fingers are too big for the digital key pad on our wristwatch-calculator- timer-TV. Since we can't approximate the answer, we have lost that skill, we can't guess, it becomes nearly impossible to know if we're getting the right answer. "We trust our computers. We believe it when our spreadsheet tells us that we will experience 50% annual growth for five years. We believe the automatic bank teller that tells us we are overdrawn. We don't question it. We trust the computer at the supermarket. As far as I know, only my mother adds up her gro- ceries by hand while still at the check-out counter." While the image sank in for his audience, Pierre picked up the glass of ice water in front of him and sipped enough to wet his whistle. The crowd ate him up. He was weaving a web, drawing a picture, and only the artist knew what the climax would be. "Excuse me." Pierre cleared his throat. "We as a people believe a computer printout is the closest thing to God on earth. Di- vinely accurate, piously error-free. Computerized bank state- ments, credit card reports, phone bills, our life is stored away in computer memories, and we trust that the information residing there is accurate. We want, we need to believe, that the ma- chines that switch the street lights, the ones that run the elevator, the one that tells us we have to go to traffic court, we want to believe that they are right. "Then on yet another hand, we all experience the frustration of the omnipresent complaint, 'I'm sorry the computer is down. Can you call back?'" Again the audience emotionally related to what Pierre was saying. They nodded at each other and in Pierre's direction to indicate concurrence. "I, as many of us have I am sure, arrived at a hotel, or an airport, or a car rental agency and been told that we don't have a reservation. For me there is an initial embarrassment of having my hand slapped by the computer terminal via the clerk. Then, I react strongly. I will raise my voice and say that I made a reservation, two days ago. I did it myself. Then the clerk will say something like, 'It's not in the computer'. How do you react to that statement? "Suddenly your integrity is being questioned by an agglomeration of wire and silicon. Your veracity comes into immediate doubt. The clerk might think that you never even made a reservation. You become a liar because the computer disagrees with you. And to argue about it is an exercise in futility. The computer cannot reason. The computer has no ability to make a judgment about you, or me. It is a case of being totally black or white. And for the human of the species, that value system is unfathoma- ble, paradoxical. Nothing is black and white. Yes, the computer is black and white. Herein again, the mind prefers the analog, the continuous, rather than the digitally discreet. "In these cases, the role is reversed, we blame the computer for making errors. We tend to be verbally graphic in the comments we make about computers when they don't appear to work the way we expect them to. We distrust them." Pierre gestured with his arms to emphasize his point. The crescendo had begun. "The sociological implications are incredible. As a people we have an inherent distrust of computers; they become an easy scapegoat for modern irritations. However, the balancing side of the scale is an implicit trust in their abilities. The inherent trust we maintain in computers is a deeply emotional one, much as a helpless infant trusts the warmth of contact with his parents. Such is the trust that we have in our computers, because, like the baby, without that trust, we could not survive." He let the words sink in. A low rumbling began throughout the gallery and hall. Pierre couldn't hear any of the comments, but he was sure he was starting a stink. "It is our faith in computers that lets us continue. The reli- gious parallels are obvious. The evangelical computer is also the subject of fiction, but trust and faith are inextricably meshed into flavors and degrees. A brief sampling of common everyday items and events that are dependent on computers might prove enlightening. "Without computers, many of lifes' simple pleasures and conven- iences would disappear. Cable television. Movies like Star Wars. Special effects by computer. Magic Money Cards. Imagine life without them." A nervous giggle met Pierre's social slam. "Call holding. Remember dial phones? No computers needed. CD's? The staple diet of teenage America is the bread and butter of the music industry. Mail. Let's not forget the Post Office and other shippers. Without computers Federal Express would be no better than the Honest-We'll-Be-Here-Tomorrow Cargo Company." "Oh, and yes," Pierre said dramatically. "Let's get rid of the microwave ovens, the VCR's and video cameras. I think I've made my point." "I wish you would, Mr. Trew-Blow," Senator Rickfield caustically interjected. "What is the point?" Rickfield was making no points taking on Pierre Troubleaux. He was too popular. "Thank you, Senator, I am glad you asked. I was just getting there." Pierre's sugary treatment was an appropriate slap in Rickfield's face. "Please continue." The Senator had difficulty saying the word 'please'. "Yes sir. So, the prognostications made over a decade ago by the likes of Steve Jobs, that computers would alter the way we play, work and think have been completely fulfilled. Now, if we look at those years, we see a multi-billion dollar industry that has made extraordinary promises to the world of business. Computer- ize they say! Modernize! Get with the times! Make your opera- tion efficient! Stay ahead of the competition! And we listened and we bought. "With a projected life cycle of between only three and five years, technology progresses that fast, once computerized, forev- er computerized. To keep up with the competitive Jones', main- taining technical advantages requires upgrading to subsequent generations of computers. The computer salespeople told us to run our businesses on computers, send out Social Security checks by computer, replace typewriters with word processors and bank at home. Yet, somewhere in the heady days of phenomenal growth during the early 1980's, someone forgot. Someone, or more than likely most of Silicon Valley forgot, that people were putting their trust in these machines and we gave them no reason to. I include myself and my firm among the guilty. "Very simply, we have built a culture, an economic base, the largest GNP in the world on a system of inter-connected comput- ers. We have placed the wealths of our nations, the backbone of the fabric of our way of life, we have placed our trust in com- puters that do not warrant that trust. It is incredible to me that major financial institutions do not protect their computer assets as well as they protect their cash on hand. "I find it unbelievable that the computers responsible in part for the defense of this country appear to have more open doors than a thousand churches on Sunday. It is incomprehensible to me that privacy, one of the founding principles of this nation, has been ignored during the information revolution. The massive data bases that contain vast amounts of personal data on us all have been amply shown to be not worthy of trust. All it takes is a home computer and elbow grease and you, or I, or he," Pierre pointed at various people seated around the room, "can have a field day and change anybody's life history. What happens if the computer disagrees with you then? "It staggers the imagination that we have not attempted any coherent strategy to protect the lifeblood of our society. That, ladies and gentlemen is a crime. We spend $3 trillion on weapons in one decade, yet we do not have the foresight to protect our computers? It is a crime of indifference by business leaders. A crime against common sense by Congress who passes laws and then refuses to fund their enactment. Staggeringly idiotic. Pardon me." Pierre drained the water from his glass as the tension in the hearing room thickened. "We live the paradox of simultaneously distrusting computers and being required to trust them and live with them. We are all criminals in this disgrace. Maybe dGraph more than most. Permit me to explain my involvement." The electricity in the room crackled and the novice CNN producer instructed the cameraman to get it right. "Troubleaux!" A man's gruff accented voice elongated the sylla- bles as he shouted from the balcony in the rear. A thousands eyes jerked to the source of the sound up above. Troubleaux himself turned in his seat to see a middle aged dark man, wearing a turban, pointing a handgun in his direction. Scott saw the weapon and wondered which politician was the target. Who was too pro-Israel this week? He immediately thought of Rickfield. No, he didn't have a commitment either way. He only rode the wave of popular sentiment. Pierre too, wondered who was the target of a madman's suicide attack. It had to be suicide, there was no escape. Scott's mind raced through a thousand thoughts during that first tenth of a second, not the endless minutes he later remembered. In the next split second, Scott realized, more accurately he knew, that Pierre was the target. The would-be victim. As the first report from the handgun echoed through the cavernous chamber Scott was mid-leap at Pierre. Hell of a way to grab an exclusive, he thought. He fell into Pierre as the second shot exploded. Scott painfully caught the edge of the chair with his shoulder while pushing Pierre over sideways. They crumpled into a heap on the floor when the third shot fired. Scott glanced up at the turbanned man vehemently mouthing words to an invisible entity skyward. The din from the panic in the room made it impossible to hear. Still brandishing the pistol, the assailant began to take aim again, at Scott and Pierre. Scott attempted to wiggle free from the tangle of Pierre's limbs and the chairs around them. He struggled to extricate himself but found it impossible. A fourth shot discharged. Scott cringed, awaiting the worst but instead heard the bullet ricochet off a metal object above him. Scott's adrenal relief was punctuated by a loud and heavy sigh. He noticed that the assailant's shooting arm had been knocked upwards by a quick moving Capital policeman who violently threw himself at the turbanned man so hard that they both careened forward to the edge of the balcony. The policeman grabbed onto a bench which kept him from plummeting twenty feet below. His target was hurtled over the edge and landed prone on two wooden chairs which collapsed under the force. The shooting stopped. Scott groaned from discomfort and pain as he slowly began to pull away from Pierre. Then he noticed the blood. A lot of blood. He looked down at himself to see that his white pullover shirt, the one with Mickey Mouse instead of an alligator over the breast pocket, was wet with red. As was his jacket. His left hand had been on the floor, in a pool of blood that was oozing out of the back of Pierre's head. Scott tried to consciously control his physical revulsion to the body beneath him and the overwhelming urge to regurgitate. Then Pierre's body moved. His chest heaved heavily and Scott pulled himself away completely. Pierre had been hit with at least two bullets, one exiting from the front of his chest and one stripping away a piece of skull exposing the brain. Grue- some. "He's alive! Get a doctor!" Scott shouted. He lifted himself up to see over the tables. The mad shuffle to the exits continued. No one seemed to pay attention. "Hey! Is there a doctor in the house?" Scott looked down at Pierre and touched the veins in his neck. They were pulsing, but not with all of life's vigor. "Hey," Scott said quietly, "you're gonna be all right. We got a doctor coming. Don't worry. Just hang in there." Scott lied, but 40 years of movies and television had preprogrammed the sentiments. "Drtppheeough . . ." Scott heard Pierre gurgle. "What? What did you say?" Scott leaned his ear down closer to Pierre's mouth. "DGOEROUGH." "Take it easy," Scott said to comfort the badly injured Pierre Troubleaux. "Nooo . . ." Pierre's limp body made a futile attempt at move- ment. Scott held him back. "Hey, Pierre . . .you don't mind if I call you Pierre?" Scott adapted a mock French accent. "Noo, DNGRAAAAPHJG . . ." "Good. Why don't you just lay back and wait. The doctor'll be here in a second . . ." "Sick . . ." Pierre managed to get out one word. "Sick? Sick? Yeah, yeah, you're sick," Scott agreed sympathet- ically. "DGRAF, sick." The effort caused Pierre to pant quickly. "Dgraf, sick? What does that mean?" Scott asked. "Sick. DGraph sick." Pierre's voice began to fade. "Sick. Don't use it. Don't use . . ." "What do you mean don't use it? DGraph? Hey!" Scott lightly shook Pierre. "You still with us? C'mon, what'd you say? Tell me again? Sick?" Pierre's body was still. * * * * * The bullshit put out by the Government was beyond belief, thought Miles. How could they sit there and claim that all was well? It was common knowledge that computer security was dismal at best throughout both the civilian and military agencies. With the years he spent at NSA he knew that security was a political compromise and not a fiscal or technical reality. And these guys lied through their teeth. Oh, well, he thought, that would all change soon. The report issued by the National Research Council in November of 1990 concurred with Miles' assessment. Security in the govern- ment was a disaster, a laughable travesty if it weren't for the danger to national security. The report castigated the results of decades of political in-fighting between agencies competing for survival and power. He and Perky spent the day watching the hearings at Miles' high rise apartment. They had become an item in certain circles that Miles traveled and now they spent a great deal of time together. After several on-again off-again attempts at a relationship consisting of more than just sex, they decided not to see each other for over a year. That was fine by Miles; he had missed the freedom of no commitments. At an embassy Christmas party months later, they ran into each other and the old animal attraction between them was re-released. They spent the weekend in bed letting their hormones loose to run rampant on each other. The two had been inseparable since. She was the first girl, woman, who was able to tolerate Miles' in- flated ego�and his constant need for emotional gratification. Perky had little idea, by design, of the work that Miles was doing for Homosoto. She knew he was a computer and communica- tions wizard, but that was all. Prying was not her concern. During his angry outbursts venting frustration with Homosoto's pettiness, Perky supported him fully, unaware of his ultimate goal. Perky found the testimony by Dr. Sternman to be educational; she actually began to understand some of the complicated issues surrounding security and privacy. In many ways it was scary, she told Miles. He agreed, saying if were up to him, things would get a lot worse before they get any better. She responded to his ominous comment with silence until Pierre Troubleaux began his testimony. �As well known as Bill Gates, as charismatic as Steve Jobs, Pierre Troubleaux was regarded as a sexy, rich and eligible bachelor ready for the taking. Stephanie Perkins was more stirred by his appearance and bearing than his words, so she joined Miles in rapt attention to watch his orations on live television. When the first shot rang out their stunned confusion echoed the camera's erratic framing. As the second shot came across the TV, Perky sprang up and shouted, "No!" Tears dripped from the cor- ners of her eyes. "Miles! What's happening? They're shooting him . . ." "I don't know ." A third shot and then the image of Scott and Pierre crumbling. "Holy shit, it's an assassination!" "Miles, what's going on here?" Stephanie cried. "This is fucking nuts . . .he's killing him . . ." Miles stared at the screen and spoke in a dull monotone. "I can't believe this is happening, it's not part of the plan . . ." "Miles, Miles!" She screamed, desperately trying to get his attention. "Who? Miles! Who's killing him? What plan?" "Fucking Homosoto, that yellow skinned prick . . ." "Homosoto?" She stopped upon hearing the name. Miles leapt up from the couch and raced over to the corner of the room with his computers. He pounced on the keyboard of the NipCom computer and told it to dial Homosoto's number in Japan. That son of a bitch better be there. Answer, damn it. <<<<<<AUTOCRYPT CONVERSATION>>>>>> Homosoto!!!!! The delay seemed interminable as Miles waited for him to get on line. Perky followed him over to the computer and watched as he made contact. She knew that Miles and Homosoto spoke often over the computer, too often for Miles' taste. Homosoto whined to Miles almost every day, about one thing or another, and Miles complained to her about how irritating his childish interference was. But throughout it all, Perky had never been privy to their conversations. She had stayed her distance, until this time. Miles had been in rages before; she had become unwillingly accus- tomed to his furious outbursts. Generally they were unfocused eruptions; a sophomoric way of releasing pent up energy and frus- tration. But this time, Miles' face clearly showed fear. Steph- anie saw the dread. "Miles! What does Homosoto have to do with this? Miles, please!" She pleaded with him to include her. The screen finally responded. MR. FOSTER. AN UNEXPECTED PLEASURE. You imperial mother fucker. EXPLAINATION, PLEASE. You're a fucking murderer. I TAKE EXCEPTION TO THAT. Take exception to this, Jack! What the hell did you kill him for? I ASSUME YOU HAVE BEEN WATCHING TELEVISION. Aren't we the Einstein of Sushi land. YOUR MANNERS. You killed him! Why? Stephanie read the monitor and wept quietly as the conversation scrolled before her. She placed her hands on Miles' shoulders in an effort to feel less alone. IT WAS A NECESSARY EVIL. HE COULD NOT BE PERMITTED TO SPEAK. NOT YET. So you killed him? ONE OF MY PEOPLE GOT A LITTLE OVER ZEALOUS. IT IS REGRETTABLE, BUT NECESSARY. It is not necessary to kill anyone. Nowhere in the plan does it call for murder! That was part of our deal. THE WINDS BLOW. CONDITIONS CHANGE. The wind blows up your ass! THAT DOES NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT HE WAS GOING TO TELL WHAT HE KNEW. What the hell does he know? DGRAPH. THAT'S THE PROGRAM WE INFECTED. DGraph? That's impossible. That's the most popular program in the world. How did you infect it? I BOUGHT IT. You own dGraph? I thought that Data Tech owned them. OSO OWNS DATA TECH. YOU DID NOT LISTEN TO YOUR OWN ADVICE. I BOUGHT IT AFTER YOU VISITED ME FOR THE SECOND TIME. IT SEEMED PRUDENT. WE ALSO BOUGHT A HALF DOZEN OTHER SMALL, PROMISING SOFTWARE COMPANIES, JUST AS YOU SUGGESTED. VERY GOOD PLAN. And Troubleaux knows? OF COURSE. HE HAD INCENTIVE. So you try to kill him? HE LOST HIS INCENTIVE. IT WAS NECESSARY. HE WAS GOING TO TELL AND, AS YOU SAID, SECRECY IS PARAMOUNT. YOUR WORDS. Yes, secrecy, but not murder. I can't be part of that. BUT YOU ARE MR. FOSTER. I HOPE THAT THIS IS AN ISOLATED INCIDENT THAT WILL NOT BE REPEATED. It had damn well better be. DO NOT FORGET MR. FOSTER THAT YOU HAVE A SIZABLE PAYMENT COMING. I WOULD HATE TO SEE YOU LOSE THAT WHEN THINGS ARE SO CLOSE. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> "Son of a bitch," Miles said out loud. "Son of a bitch." "What's going on? Miles?" Perky followed him back to the couch in front of the TV and sat close with her arm around him. She was still crying softly. "It's gonna start. That's amazing." He blankly stared forward. "What's gonna start? Miles, did you kill someone?" "Oh, no!" He turned to her in sincerity. "That bastard Homosoto did. Jesus, I can't believe it." "What are you involved in? I thought you were a consultant." "I was. Tomorrow I will be a very rich retired consultant." He pulled her hands into his and spoke warmly. "Listen, it's better that your don't know what's going on, much better. But I promise you, I promise you, that Homosoto is behind it, not me. I couldn't ever kill anyone. You need to believe that." "Miles, I do, but you seem to know more than . . ." "I do, and I can't say anything. Trust me," he said as he brought her close to him. "This will all work out for the best. I promise you. Look at me," he said and pulled up her chin so she gazed directly into his eyes. "I have a lot invested in you, and this project. More than you could ever know, and now that it is nearly over, I can put more time into you. After all, you bear some of the responsibility." Miles' loving attitude was a contradiction from his usual self centered pre-occupation. "Me?" She asked. "Who got me involved with Homosoto in the first place?" he said glaring at her. "I guess I did, but . . ." "I know, I'm kidding," he said squeezing her closer. "I'm not blaming you for anything. I didn't know he could resort to murder, and if I did, I never would have gotten involved in the first place." "Miles, I love you." That was the first time in their years of on-again off-again contact that she told him how she felt. Now she had to decide if she would tell him that he was just another assignment, and that in all likelihood she had just lost her job, too. "I really do love you." * * * * * "The last goddamned time this happened was in the 1950's when Puerto Rican revolutionaries started a shoot-em-up in the old gallery," the President shouted. Phil Musgrave and Quinton Chambers listened to the angry Presi- dent. His tirade began minutes after he summoned them both to his office. They were as frustrated and upset as he was, but it was their job to listen until the President had blown off enough steam. "I am well aware a democracy, a true democracy is subject to extremist activists, but," the President sighed, "this is getting entirely out of hand. What is it about this computer stuff that stirs up so much emotion?" He waited for an answer. "I'm not sure that computers are to blame, sir," said Phil. "First of all, the assailant used a ceramic pistol. No way for our security to detect it without a physical search and that wouldn't go over well with anyone." The brilliant Musgrave was making a case for calm rationality in the light of the live assassination attempt. "Second, at this point there is no con- nection between Troubleaux and his attacker. We're not even 100% sure that Troubleaux was the target." "That's a crock Phil," asserted the President. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there is an obvious connection be- tween this computer crap and the Rickfield incident. I want to know what it is, and I want to know fast." "Sir," Chambers said quietly. "We have the FBI and the CIA investigating, but until the perpetrator regains consciousness, which may be doubtful because his spine was snapped in the fall, we won't know too much." The President frowned. "Does it seem odd to you that Mason, the Times reporter was there with Troubleaux at the exact time he got shot?" "No sir, just a coincidence. It seems that computer crime has been his hot button for a while," Musgrave said. "I don't think he's involved at all." "I'm not suggesting that," the President interrupted. "But he does seem to be where the action is. I think it would be prudent if we knew a bit more of his activities. Do I need to say more?" "No sir. Consider it done." **************************************************************** Chapter 22 Friday, January 8 Washington, D.C. It seemed that everyone in the world wanted to speak to Scott at once. The FBI spent an hour asking him inane questions. "Why did you help him?" "Do you know Troubleaux?" "Why were you at the hearings?" "Why didn't you sit with the rest of the press?" "Where's your camera?" "Can we read your notes?" Scott was cooperative, but he had his limits. "You're the one who's been writing those computer stories, aren't you?" "What's in this for you?" Scott excused himself, not so politely. If you want me for any- thing else, please contact the paper, he told the FBI agents who had learned nothing from anyone else either. He escaped from other reporters who wanted his reporter's in- sight, thus learning what it was like to be hounded relentlessly by the press. Damned pain in the ass, he thought, and damn stupid questions. "How did you feel . . .?" "Were you scared . . .?" "Why did you . . .?" The exhausted Scott found the only available solace in a third floor men's room stall where he wrote a piece for the paper on his GRiD laptop computer. Nearly falling asleep on the toilet seat, he temporarily refreshed himself with ice cold water from the tap and changed from his bloodsoaked clothes into fresh jeans and a pullover from his hanging bag that still burdoned him. One reporter from the Washington Post thought himself lucky to have found Scott in the men's room, but when Scott finished bombasting him with his own verbal assault, the shell shocked reporter left well enough alone. After the Capital police were through questioning Scott, he wanted to make a swift exit to the airport and get home. They didn't detain him very long, realizing Scott would always be available. Especially since this was news. His pocket shuttle schedule showed there was a 6:30 flight to Westchester Airport; he could then grab a limo home and be in bed by ten, that is if the exhaustion didn't take over somewhere along the way. Three days in Europe on next to no sleep. Rush back to public Senate hearings that no one has ever heard about. Television cameras appear, no one admits to calling the press, and then, Pierre. He needed time to think, alone. Away from the conflict- ing influences that were tearing at him. On one hand his paper expected him to report and investigate the news. On another, Tyrone wanted help on his investigation be- cause official Washington had turned their backs on him. And Spook. Spook. Why is that so familiar? Then he had to be honest with his own feelings. What about this story had so captivated him that he had let many of his other assignments go by the wayside? Doug was pleased with Scott's progress, and after today, well, what editor wouldn't be pleased to have a potential star writer on the National news. But Scott was drowning in the story. There were too many pieces, from every conceivable direction, with none too many of them fitting neatly together. He thought of the ever determined Hurcule Poirot, Agatha Christie's detec- tive, recalling that the answers to a puzzle came infinitely easier to the fictional sleuth than to him. Scott called into Doug. "Are you all right?" Doug asked with concern but didn't wait for an answer. "I got your message. Next time call me at home. I thought you were going to be in Europe till Wednesday." "Hold your horses," Scott said with agitation. Doug shut up and listened to the distraught Scott. "I have the story all written for you. Both of them are going into surgery and the Arab is in pretty bad shape. The committee made itself scarce real fast and there's no one else to talk to. I've had to make a career out of avoiding reporters. Seems like I'm the only one left with noth- ing to say." Doug heard the exhaustion in Scott's voice. "Listen," Doug said with a supportive tone. "You've been doing a bang up job, but I'm sending Ben down there to cover the assassi- nation attempt. I want you to go to bed for 24 hours and that's an order. I don't want to hear from you till Monday." Scott gratefully acknowledged Doug's edict, and might have sug- gested it himself if it weren't for his dedication to the story he had spent months on already. "O.K.," Scott agreed. "I guess not much will happen . . ." "That's right. I want you fresh anyway," Doug said with vigor. "If anything major comes up, I'll see that we call you. Fair enough?" Scott checked his watch as his cab got caught up in the slow late afternoon rush hour traffic on the George Washington Parkway. If he missed this flight, he thought, there was another one in an hour. The pandemonium of Friday afternoon National Airport had become legendary. Despite extensive new construction, express services and modernized terminals, the airport designers in their infinite wisdom had neglected in any way to improve the flow of automobile traffic in and out of the airport. As they approached, Scott could see the American terminal several hundred yards away from his cab. They were stuck behind an interminable line of other taxis, limousines, cars and mini- busses that had been stacking for ten minutes. Scott decided to hike the last few yards and he paid the driver who tried to talk him into remaining till the ride was over. Scott weaved through the standstill traffic jam until he saw the problem. So typical. A stretch Mercedes 560, was blocking the only two lanes that were passable. Worse yet, there was no one in the car. No driver, no passengers. Several airport police were discussing their options when a tall, slender black man, dressed in an impeccably tailored brown suit came rushing from the terminal doors. "Diplomatic immunity!" He called out with a thick, overbearing Cambridge accent. The startled policemen saw the man push several people to the side, almost knocking one elderly woman to the ground. Scott reached the Mercedes and stayed to watch the upcoming encounter "I said, Diplomatic immunity," he said authoritatively. "Put your tickets away." "Sir, are you aware that your car has been blocking other cars from . . ." "Take it up with the Embassy," the man said as he roughly opened the driver's door. "This car belongs to the Ambassador and he is immune from your laws." He shut the door, revved the engine and pulled out squealing his tires. Several pedestrians had to be fleet of foot to miss being sideswiped. "Fucking camel jockeys," said one younger policeman. "He's from equatorial Africa, Einstein," said another. "It's all the same to me. Foreigners telling us how to live our lives," the third policeman said angrily. "You know, I can get 10 days for spitting on the ground, but these assholes can commit murder and be sent home a hero. It's a fucking crime," the younger one agreed. "O.K., guys, leave the politics to the thieves on Capital Hill. Let's get this traffic moving," the senior policeman said as they started the process of untangling airport gridlock. Another day in the nation's capital, Scott thought. A melting pot that echoed the days of Ellis Island. Scott carried his briefcase, laptop computer and garment bag through the crowded terminal and made a left to the men's room next to the new blue neon bar. Drinks were poured especially fast in the National Airport Bar. Fliers were traveling on such tight schedules that they had to run to the bar, grab two quick ones and dash to the gate. The new security regulations placed additional premiums on drinking time. The bar accommodated their hurried needs well. Scott put down his baggage next to the luggage pile and stole a bar seat from a patron rushing off to catch his flight. One helluva chaotic day. He ordered a beer, and sucked down half of it at once. The thirst quenching was a superior experience. Brain dulling would take a little longer. The clamorous rumble of the crowd and the television blaring from behind the bar further anesthetized Scott's racing mind. He finally found himself engrossed in the television, blissfully ignorant of all going on around him. Scott became so absorbed in the local news that he didn't notice the striking blonde sit next to him. She ordered a white wine and made herself comfortable on the oversized stool. Scott turned to the bartender and asked for another beer during the commercial. It was then he noticed the gorgeous woman next to him and her golden shoulder length hair. Lightly tanned skin with delicate crow's feet at the edges of her penetrating blue eyes gave no indication of her age. An old twenty to a remarka- ble forty five. Stunning, he thought. Absolutely stunning. He shook the thought off and returned his attention to the televi- sion. He heard the announcer from Channel 4, the local NBC affiliate. "Topping tonight's stories, Shooting at Senate Hearing." The picture changed from the anchorman to a live feed from outside the New Senate Office Building, where Scott had just been. "Bringing it to us live is Shauna Miller. Shauna?" "Thank you Bill," she said looking straight into the camera holding the microphone close to her chin. Behind her was a bevy of police and emergency vehicles and their personnel in a flurry of activity. "As we first reported an hour ago, Pierre Troubleaux, President of dGraph, one of the nation's leading software companies, was critically injured while giving testimony to the Privacy and Technology Containment subcommittee. At 3:15 Eastern Time, an unidentified assailant, using a 9mm Barretta, shot Mr. Troubleaux four times, from the visitor's balcony which overlooks the hear- ing room. Mr. Troubleaux was answering questions about . . . " Scott's mind wandered back to the events of a few hours ago. He still had no idea why he did it. The television replayed the portion of the video tape where Pierre was testifying. While he spoke, the shots rang out and the camera image suddenly blurred in search of the source of the sound. Briefly the gunman is seen and then the picture swings back to Pierre being pushed out of his chair by a man in a blue sports jacket and white shirt. As two more gun shots ring out the figure covers Pierre. Two more shots and the camera finally settles on Pierre Troubleaux bleed- ing profusely from the head, his eyes open and glazed. Scott shuddered at the broadcast. It captured the essence of the moment, and the terror that he and the hundreds of others at the hearing had experienced. Shauna Miller reappeared. "And we have here the man who dove to Mr. Troubleaux's rescue when the shooting began." The camera angle pulled back and showed Scott standing next to the newswoman. "This is Scott Mason, a reporter from the New York City Times who is attending the hearings on behalf of his paper. Scott," she turned away from the camera to speak directly to Scott. "How does it feel being the news instead of reporting it?" She stuck the microphone into his face. "Uh," Scott stammered. What an assinine question, he thought. "It does give me a different perspective," he said, his voice hollow. "Yes, I would think so," Shauna added. "Can you tell us what happened?" More brilliance in broadcast journalism. "Sure, be happy to." Scott smiled at the camera. "One of the country's finest soft- ware executives just had part of his head blown off so his brains could leak on my coat and the scumbag that shot him took a sayo- nara swan dive that broke every bone in his body. How's that?" He said devilishly. "Uh," Shauna hesitated. "Very graphic." This isn't Geraldo she thought, just the local news. "Do you have anything to add?" "Yeah? I got to get some sleep." The camera zoomed into a closeup of Shauna Miller. "Thank you, Mr. Mason." She brightened up. "Mr. Troubleaux and the alleged gunman have been taken to Walter Reed Medical Center where they are undergoing surgery. Both are listed in critical condition and Mr. Troubleaux is still in a coma." Shauna droned on for another 30 seconds with filler nonsense. How did she ever get on the air, Scott thought. And, why does she remain? "That was you." Scott started at the female voice. He turned to the left and only saw salesmen and male lobbyists drinking heartily. He pivoted in the other direction and came face to face with Sonja Lindstrom. "Sorry?" "That was you," she said widening her smile to expose a perfect Crest ad. An electric tingle ran up Scott's legs and through his torso. The pit of his stomach felt suddenly empty. He gulped silently and his face reddened. "What was me?" She pointed at the television. "That was you at the hearing today, where Troubleaux got shot." "Yeah, 'fraid so," he said. "The camera treats you well. I was at the hearing, too, but I just figured out who you were." Her earnest compliment came as a surprise to Scott. He raised his eyebrows in bewilderment. "Who I am?" He questioned. "Oh, sorry," she extended her hand to Scott. "I'm Sonja Lind- strom. I gather you're Scott Mason." He gently took her hand and a rush of electricity rippled up his arm till the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. "Guilty as charged," he responded. He pointed his thumb at the television. "Great interview, huh?" "She epitomizes the stereotype of the dumb blond." Sonja turned her head slightly. "I hope you're not prejudiced?" "Prejudiced? She picked up her wine glass and sipped gingerly. "Against blondes." "No, no. I was married to one," he admitted. "But, I won't hold that against you." Scott wasn't aggressive with women and his remark surprised even him. Sonja laughed appreciatively. "It must have been rough," Sonja said empathetically. "I mean the blood and all." "Not exactly my cup of tea. I don't do the morgue shift." Scott shuddered. "I'll stick to computers, not nearly so adventurous." "And hacker bashing." she said firmly. She took another sip of wine. "How would you know that?" Scott asked. She turned and smiled at Scott. "You're famous. You're known as the Hacker Smacker by quite a few in the computer field. Not everyone appreciates what you have to say." Sonja, ever so politely, challenged Scott. "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn," he smirked. "That's the spirit," she encouraged. "Not that I agree with everything you have to say." "I assume you have read my drivel upon occasion." "Upon occasion, yes," she said with a coy sweetness. "So, since you know so much about me, I stand at a clear disad- vantage. I only know you as Sonja." "You're right. That's not fair at all." She straightened her- self on the bar stool. "Sonja Lindstrom, dual citizenship U.S. and Denmark. Born May 11, 1964, Copenhagen. Moved here when I was two. Studied political science at George Washington, minored in sociology. Currently a public relations consultant to comput- er jocks. I live in D.C. but I'm rarely here." "Lucky for me," Scott ventured. Sonja didn't answer him as she slowly drained the bottom of her wine glass. She glanced slyly at him, or was that his imagina- tion? "Can a girl buy a guy a drink?" The clock said there was fifteen minutes before Scott's flight took off. No contest. "I'd be honored," Scott said as he nodded his head in gratitude. Sonja Lindstrom bought the next two rounds and they talked. No serious talk, just carefree, sometimes meaningless banter that made them laugh and relish the moment. Scott didn't know he had missed his second flight until it was time for the 8:15 plane to LaGuardia. It had been entirely too long. Longer than he cared to remember since he had relaxed, disarmed himself near a woman. There was an inherent distrust, fear of betrayal, that Scott had not released, until now. "So, about your wife," she asked after a lull in their conversa- tion. "My wife?" Scott shrank back. "Humor me," she said. "Nothing against her, it just didn't work out." "What happened?" Sonja pursued. "She was an artist, a sculptor. And if I say so myself, an awful one. A three year old could do as well with stale Play-Dough." "You're a critic, too?" Sonja bemused. "Only of her art. She got into the social scene in New York, gallery openings, the she-she sect. You know what I mean?" Sonja nodded. "So, when I decided to make a career shift, well, she wasn't in complete agreement with me. Even though in 8 years she had never sold one single piece of art, she was convinced, by her socialite pals, that her work was extraordinarily original and would become, without any doubt, the next Pet Rock of the elite." "So?" "So, she gets the bug to go to the Coast and make her mark. I think some of her Park Avenue pals went to Beverly Hills and wanted her to come out to be their entertainment. She expected me to follow her hallucinations, but I just couldn't play that part. She's a little left of the Milky Way for me." "How long has it been?" Sonja asked with warmth. "Three years now." "So, what have these years been like?" "Oh, fine," he said. Sonja gave him a disbelieving dirty look. "O.K., kinda lonely. I'm not complaining, mind you, but when she was there, no matter how inane our conversations were, not matter how far out in the stratosphere her mind was, at least she was someone to talk to, someone to come home to. She's a sweet girl, I loved her, but she had needs that . . .well. It wasn't all bad, we had a great few years. I just couldn't let her madness, harmless though it was, run my life. We're still friends, we talk fairly often. I hope she becomes the next Dali." "That's very gracious of you," Sonja said sincerely. "Not really. I really feel that way. It's her life, and, she never wanted or tried to hurt me. She was just following her star." "Has she sold any of her art?" Sonja asked. "It's on perpetual display, she says," Scott said. "Why don't you buy one? To make her feel good?" "Ha! She feels fine. Beverly Hills is not the worst place in the world to be accepted." He lost himself in thought for a moment. "I think it has worked out for both of us." "Except, you're lonely," she came back. "I got into my work. A career shift at my age, you know, I had a lot to learn. So, I've really put myself into the job, and I've been getting a lot out of it." He stared at the gorgeous woman to whom he had been telling his personal feelings. "But, yes, I do miss the companionship," he hinted. The clock over the bar announced it was quarter to ten. "Hey." Scott turned to face Sonja squarely. "I gotta go, you don't know how much I don't want to, but I gotta." He spoke with a pained sincerity. "No you don't," she said exuberantly. "Huh?" Sonja's entire face glowed . "Have you ever done anything crazy?" "Sure, of course," Scott nonchalantly said. "No, I mean really crazy. Totally off the wall. Spontaneous." She grabbed Scott's shoulders. "Haven't you ever wanted to go off the deep end and not care what anybody thinks?" Scott felt himself getting captured by her exuberance. This absolutely stunning blonde bombshell exuded enough sexual enthusiasm for the entire NFL, and yet, he was playing it cool. He wondered why. "I was a real hell raiser as a kid . . ." "Listen, Scott." Her demeanor turned serious. "Are you willing to do something outrageous right now? And go through with it?" Here was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen asking him to make a borderline insane promise. Her painted lips broke into a lush smile. Ten minutes to the last flight. "I'm game. What is it?" Scott played along. He could always say no. Right? "Wait here a minute." Sonja grabbed her purse and dashed out of the bar. Scott's eyes followed her in stunned amazement. Scott finished his beer and the clock indicated that the last flight to New York had left. He wondered what was keeping Sonja so long, and then she suddenly whisked back into the bar. "C'mon, we have to hurry." Sonja shuffled papers in and out of her purse. She threw enough money on the bar to cover their drinks. Scott scooted off of his bar stool laughing. "Hurry? Where're we going?" "Shhhh, get your bags," Sonja said urgently. "You do have a passport don't you?" She asked with concern. "I just came from Europe, yeah." His bewilderment was clear while he retrieved his luggage. "Good. Follow me." Sonja dashed through the terminal to the security check with Scott struggling to keep up. The view of her exquisite figure was noticed by more than just Scott, but she left him little time to relish the view. She tossed her purse on the conveyor belt as a dazed Scott struggled with his own two bags. She darted from the security station leaving Mason to reorganize himself. His ability to run was encumbered by his luggage so he watched care- fully to see into which gate she was headed. Gate, gate? Where am I going? And why? He would have laughed if he wasn't out of breath from wind sprinting through the airport. He followed Sonja into Gate 3. She handed a couple of tickets to the attendant. "We're the last ones, hurry up, Mason," Sonja giggled. "Where are we going . . .where did the tickets . . .how are you?" Scott stumbled through his thoughts. "Just get on the plane. We'll talk." She held out her hand, beckoning him seductively. The attractive flight attendant stared at Scott. His hesitancy was holding up the flight. He looked at Sonja. "This is insane," he said quietly. "So it is." "Where? I mean where is this plane headed?" "Jamaica," she beamed. "Oh, Sonja, come on, this isn't real." Why the hell was he trying to talk himself out of a fantasy in the making. "I'm getting on. I need a weekend to cool out, and I know you do. After what happened." Sonja took the separated boarding pass and looked back once before she left. Scott stood still. He stared as Sonja disappeared down the tunnel to the plane. The flight attendant appeared quite annoyed. "Well, are you or aren't you?" Scott reasoned that if he reasoned out the pros and the cons the plane would be gone regardless of his decision. "Fuck it," he said and he walked briskly down the ramp. He entered the Airbus behind the cockpit and turned right to find Sonja. It didn't take long. She was the only person sitting in first class. "Fancy running into you here," she said waving from the plush leather seat. "Quite," he said in his well practiced West London accent. "Dare I guess how long it's been?" He placed his bags in the empty first class storage compartment. "Too long. Much too long. You had me worried," Sonja said melo- dramatically. "I still have me worried." "I thought you might chicken out," she said. "I still might." The three hour flight was replete with champagne, brie and simi- lar delicacies. They munched and sipped to their heart's con- tent. One flight attendant, two passengers. Light talk, innocu- ous flirtations, not so innocuous flirtations, more chatting - time passed, hours disguised as seconds. Half Moon Bay is a one hour cab ride from the airport and, true to Jamaican hospitality, the hotel staff expected them. They were led to two adjoining rooms after being served the obligatory white rum punch with a yellow umbrella. It was nearly 3 AM. Scott was working on 60 hours with little or no sleep. "Scott?" Sonja asked as they prepared to go into their respective rooms. "Yes," he said. "Thank you." "For what?" "For tomorrow night." After four hours sleep, Sonja knocked on Scott's door. "Rise and shine! Beach time!" Scott swore to himself, looked at the clock on the night stand, and then swore again. Ugh! Scott forced himself out of bed and opened the door. The vision of Sonja Lindstrom in a bathing suit that used no more than 4 square inches of material was instantly arousing. Despite 39 plus years of morning aversions, Scott readied himself at breakneck speed, thinking that reality and fantasy were often inseparable. The question was, what was this? Was he really in the Caribbean? No!, he thought. This is real! Holy shit, this is real. I wasn't as drunk as I thought. Intoxi- cation takes many forms, and this appears to be a delicious wine. During breakfast she managed to talk him into going to the nude beach, about a half mile down Half Moon Bay. "God, you're uptight," she said as she shed her g-string on the isolated pristine coastline. She was a natural blond with a dancer's body where the legs and buttocks merge into one. "I am not!" He defended. "I bet you can't take them off. For personal reasons," she laughed out loud pointing at the baggy swim suit he borrowed from the resort. She lay down on her back, perfectly formed breasts pointing at the sky. Scott noticed only the faintest of tan lines several inches below her belly button. She patted the huge towel, inviting Scott to join her. There was room enough for three, "Well," he agreed. "It might prove embarrassing. I thought my intentions were honorable." "Bull. Neither are mine." She arched her back and patted the towel again. "Fuck it," he said laughingly as he dropped his bathing suit and dropped quickly, facedown next to Sonja. "Ouch!" He yelled louder than the hurt was worth. "I hate it when that happens," he said checking to make sure that the pieces were still intact. They spent the next two days exploring Half Moon Bay, the lush green hills behind the resort and each other. Scott forgot about work, forgot about the hackers, forgot about Tyrone. He never thought about Kirk, Spook, or any of the blackmail schemes he was so caught up in investigating. And, he forgot, at least tempo- rarily about the incident with Pierre. The world consisted of only two people, mutually radiating a glow flush with passion; retreating into each other so totally that no imaginable distrac- tion could disturb their urgings. They slept no more than an hour all Saturday night, "I told you I wanted to thank you for tomorrow night!" she said. They made it to the water's edge early Sunday morning. Scott's body was redder in some places than it had ever been, and Sonja's tan line all but disappeared. They both knew that the fantasy was going to be over in the morning, a 7:00 AM flight back to reality, but neither spoke of it. The Here and Now was the only reality that they wanted to face. "I'm impressed," Sonja said turning to face Scott on the beach towel. No matter in which direction she turned, her body stood tall and firm. "Impressed, with what?" Scott giggled. "I had two days to loosen you up before you went back to that big bad city. I'm ahead of schedule." "What schedule?" "Scott, we need to talk." Sonja reached over and touched Scott's shoulder. He couldn't take his eyes off of her magnificent nude figure. "Did you ever work on something, for a very long time; really get yourself involved, dedicated, and then find out in was all for the wrong reasons? That's how I feel now." * * * * * Saturday, January 10 It is not uncommon for the day employees at the CIA in Langley to arrive at their desks before 6:00 AM. Even on a Saturday. Today, Martin Templer arrived early to prepare for an update meeting with the director. Nothing special, just the weekly report. He found that he could get more done early in the morning. He enjoyed the time alone in his quiet office so he could complete the report without constant interruption. Not fifteen minutes into his report, his phone rang. Damn, he thought, it's starting already. "Yeah?" Templer said gruffly into the mouthpiece. "Martin?" "Yeah, who's this?" "Alex." Templer had almost forgotten about their meeting. "Will small wonders never cease. Where have you been?" "Still in Europe. I've been looking for some answers as we dis- cussed." "Great! What have you got?" Templer grabbed a legal pad. "Nothing," Alex said with finality. "Nothing. Nobody knows of any such operation, not even a hint." Alex had mastered the art of lying twenty years ago. "But I'll tell you," he added, "I think that you may be on to something." "If there's nothing, how can there be something?" asked Martin Templer. This was Alex's opportunity to throw the CIA further off the track. Since he and Martin were friends, as much as is possible in this line of work, Alex counted on being believed, at least for a while. "Everybody denies any activity and that in itself is unusual. Even if nothing is happening, enough of the snitches on the street will claim to be involved to bolster their own credibility. However, my friend, I doubt a handful even know about your radiation, but it has gotten a lot of people thinking. I get the feeling that if they didn't know about your problems, they will soon enough. I wish I could be of further help, but it was all dead ends." "I understand. It happens; besides it was a long shot," Martin sighed. "Do me a favor, and keep your eyes and ears open." "I will, and this one is on the house," said Alex. After he hung up something struck Martin as terribly wrong. In twenty years Alex had never, ever, done anything for free. Being a true mercenary, it wasn't in his character to offer assistance to anyone without sufficient motivation, and that meant money. Martin noted the event, and reminded himself to include that in his report to the Director. * * * * * The television coverage of the Senate hearings left Taki Homosoto with radically different emotions. He had to deal with them both immediately. DIALING . . . <<<<<<AUTOCRYPT CONVERSATION>>>>>> I AM NOT PLEASED. Ahmed Shah heard his communications computer beep at him. He pushed the joystick control on his wheelchair and steered over to read Homosoto's message. Greetings THAT WAS A MOST SLOPPY JOB. Some things cannot be helped. WHY IS HE NOT DEAD? It was a difficult hit. IS THAT WHAT YOU TELL ARAFAT WHEN YOU MISS? I do not work for Arafat. YOUR MAN IS ALIVE TOO. Yes, fortunately. NO, THAT IS UNFORTUNATE. ELIMINATE HIM. AND MAKE SURE THAT TROUBLEAUX IS TAKEN CARE OF. HE MUST NOT SPEAK TO ANYONE. He is in a coma. PEOPLE WAKE UP. I DO NOT WANT HIM TO WAKE UP. It will be done. I promise you. I DO NOT WANT PROMISES. I WANT THEM BOTH DEAD. TROUBLEAUX MUST NOT BE PERMITTED TO SPEAK TO ANYONE. IS THAT CLEAR? Yes, it will be done. FOR YOUR SAKE I HOPE SO. I DO NOT TOLERATE SLOPPINESS. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> Homosoto dialed his computer again, to a number inside Germany. The encryption and privacy keys were automatically set before Alex Spiradon's computer answered. To Homosoto's surprise, Alex was there. MR ALEX. Yes. CONGRATULATIONS. RICKFIELD IS BEING MOST COOPERATIVE. He has many reasons to. MILLIONS OF REASONS. We merely gave him the incentive to cooperate. I do not expect that he will maintain his position for very long. YOUR HANDLING OF HIM HAS BEEN EXCELLENT. I HAVE NOT SEEN A U.S. NEWSPAPER. HOW DO THEY REACT TO HIS COMMITTEE? He took a small beating from a couple of papers, but nothing damaging. It's the way Washington works. WHO IS SENATOR DEERE? SHE COULD PRESENT A PROBLEM. I don't think so. Between her and Rickfield, the sum total will be a big zero. There will be confusion and dissension. I think it works in our favor. I WILL FOLLOW THE PROGRESS WITH INTEREST. WHEN ARE THE HEARINGS TO CONTINUE? Next week. One other thing. You asked that I get to Scott. Consider it done. You found a most attractive weakness and he succumbed instantly. But, I should say, I don't think it was necessary. He is doing fine on his own. I THINK IT IS NECESSARY. IT IS DONE? We have a conduit. KEEP THE PIPELINE FULL. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> * * * * * Sunday, January 10 New York City Times What's wrong with Ford? by Scott Mason Ford is facing the worst public relations disaster for an automo- bile manufacturer since the Audi acceleration problem made inter- national news. Last month in Los Angeles alone, over 1200 Ford Taurus and Mer- cury Sable cars experienced a total breakdown of the electrical system. Radios as well as anti-skid braking controls and all other computer controlled functions in the automobiles ceased working. To date, no deaths have been attributed to the car's epidemic failures. Due to the notoriety and questions regarding the safety of the cars, sales of Taurus's have plummeted by almost 80%. Unlike the similar Audi situation where the alleged problem was found in only a few isolated cases, the Taurus failures have been wide- spread and catastrophically sudden. According to Ford, "There has never been a problem with the Taurus electronics' system. We are examining all possibilities in determining the real cause of the apparant failures." What else can Ford say? * * * * * Chrysler Struck by Ford Failures by Scott Mason Chrysler cars and mini-vans have been experiencing sudden elec- trical malfunctions . . . * * * * * Mercedes Electrical Systems Follow Ford by Scott Mason Mercedes owners have already organized a legal entity to force the manufacturer to find answers as to why so many Mercedes are having sudden electrical failures. Following in the footsteps of Ford and Chrysler, this is the first time that Mercedes has not issued an immediate 'Fix' to its dealer. Three deaths were reported when . . . * * * * * Sunday January 10 National Security Agency "What do you make of this Mason piece?" "I'd like to know where the hell he gets his information," said the aide. "That's what I make of it." "Someone's obviously leaking it to him," Marvin Jacobs, Director of the National Security Agency, said to his senior aid. "Some- one with access to a great deal of sensitive data." The disdain in his voice was unmistakable. Even though it was Sunday, it was not unusual for him to be at his office. His more private endeavors could be more discreetly pursued. A three decade career at the Agency had culminated in his appointment to the Directorship, a position he had eyed for years. "We have specialists who use HERF technology," the aide said. "It's more or less a highly focused computer-gun. An RF field on the order of 200 volts per meter is sufficient to destroy most electrical circuits. Literally blow them up from the inside out." "Spare me the details." "Sir, we can stop a car from a thousand yards by pointing elec- tricity at it." "I don't really care about the details." "You should, sir. There's a point to this . . ." "Well, get on with it." Jacobs was clearly annoyed. "Unlike the EMP-T technology which is very expensive and on the absolute edge of our capabilities . . ." "And someone elses . . ." "Granted," the aide said, sounding irritated with the constant interruptions. "But HERF can be generated cheaply by anyone with an elementary knowledge of electronics. The government even sells surplus radio equipment that will do the job quite nicely." Jacobs smiled briefly. "You look pleased," the aide said with surprise. Jacobs hid his pleasure behind a more serious countenance. "Oh, no, it's just the irony of it all. We've been warning them for years and now it's happening." "Who, sir?" "Never mind," Jacobs said, dismissing the thought momentarily. "Go on." Jacobs arrogantly leaned back in his executive chair, closed his eyes and folded his hands over his barrel chest. This was his way of telling subordinates to talk, spill their guts. "The real worry about cheap HERF is what it can do in the wrong hands." The aide obliged the ritual. "One transmitter and antenna in a small truck can wipe out every computer on main street during a leisurely drive. Cash registers, electric type- writers, alarms, phones, traffic lights . . .anything electronic a HERF is pointed at, Poof! Good as dead. What if someone used a HERF gun at an airport, pointing up? Or at the tower? From up to a distance of over a kilometer, too. Ten kilometers with better equipment." "So it works," muttered Jacobs so softly under his breath his aide didn't hear. "It's reminiscent of drive-by shootings by organized crime. In this case, though, the target is slightly different." "I see." Jacobs kept his eyes closed as the aide patiently waited for his boss to say something or allow him to return to his family. "I gather we use similar tools ourselves?" "Yessir. Very popular technique. Better kept quiet." "Not any more. Not any more." **************************************************************** Chapter 23 Monday, January 11 Washington, D.C. I don't think you're gonna be pleased," Phil Musgrave said at their early morning conclave, before the President's busy day began. "What else is new?" asked the President acerbically. "Why should I have an easy today any more than any other day?" His dry wit often escaped much of the White House staff, but Musgrave had been exposed to it for over 20 years and took it in stride. Pre- coffee grumps. The President poured himself more hot decaf from the silver service. "What is it?" "Computers." The President groaned. "Don't you ever long for the old days when a calculator consisted of two pieces of sliding wood or a hundred beads on rods?" Musgrave ignored his boss's frustration. "Over the weekend, sir, we experienced a number of incidents that could be considered non-random in nature," Musgrave said cautiously. "In English, Phil," insisted the President. "MILNET has been compromised. The Optimus Data Base at Pentagon has been erased as has been Anniston, Air Force Systems Command and a dozen other computers tied through ARPANET." The President sighed. "Damage report?" "About a month. We didn't lose anything too sensitive, but that's not the embarrassing part." "If that's not, then what is?" "The IRS computers tied to Treasury over the Consolidated Data Network?" The President indicated to continue. "The Central Collection Services computer for the Dallas District has had over 100,000 records erased. Gone." "And?" The President said wearily. "The IRS has had poor backup procedures. The OMB and GAO reports of 1989 and 1990 detailed their operational shortcomings." The President waited for Phil to say something he could relate to. "It appears that we'll lose between $500 million and $2 Billion in revenues." "Christ! That's it!" The President shouted. "Enough is enough. The two weeks is up as of this moment." He shook his head with his eyes closed in disbelief. "How the hell can this happen . . .?" he asked rhetorically. "Sir, I think that our priority is to keep this out of the press. We need plausible deniability . . ." "Stop with the Pentagon-speak bullshit and just clamp down. No leaks. I want this contained. The last damn thing we need is for the public to think that we can't protect our own computers and the privacy of our citizens. If there is one single leak, I will personally behead the offender," the President said with intensity enough to let Phil know that his old friend and comrade meant what he said. "Issue an internal directive, lay down the rules. Who knows about this?" "Too many people, sir. I am not convinced that we can keep this completely out of the public eye." "Isolate them." "Sir?" "You heard me. Isolate them. National Security. Tell them it'll only be few days. Christ. Make up any damn story you want, but have it taken care of. Without my knowledge." "Yessir." "Then, find somebody who knows what the hell is going on." * * * * * Monday, January 11 Approaching New York City Scott called Tyrone from the plane to discover that the hearings were being delayed a few days, so he flew back to New York after dropping Sonja off in Washington. They tore themselves apart from each other, she tearfully, at National Airport where they had met. He would be back in a few days, once the hearings were rescheduled. In the meantime, Scott wanted to go home and crash. While being in Jamaica with Sonja was as exhilarating as a man could want, relaxing and stimulating at once, he still was going on next to no rest. While the plane was still on the tarmac in Washington, Scott had fallen fast asleep. On the descent into New York, he half awak- ened, to a hypnagogic state. Scott had learned over the years how to take advantage of such semi-conscious conditions. The mind seemingly floated in a place between reality and conjecture - where all possibilities are tangible, unencumbered by earthly concerns. The drone of the jet engines, even their occasional revving, enhanced the mental pleasure Scott experienced. Thoughts weightlessly drifted into and out of his head, some of them common and benign and others surprisingly original, if not out and out weird. In such a state, the conscious mind becomes the observer of the activities of the unconscious mind. The ego of Scott Mason restrained itself from interfering with the sublime mental proc- esses that bordered on the realm of pure creativity. The germ of a thought, the inchoate idea, had the luxury of exploring itself in an infinity of possibilities and the conscious mind stood on the sidelines. The blissful experience was in constant jeopardy of being relegated to a weak memory, for any sudden disturbance could instantly cause the subconscious to retreat back into a merger with the conscious mind. Thus, he highly valued these spontaneous meditations. Bits and pieces of the last few days wove themselves into complex patterns that reflected the confusion he felt. He continued to gaze on and observe as the series of mental events that had no obvious relationships assumed coherency and meaning. When one does not hold fixed preconceived notions, when one has the abili- ty to change perspective, then, in these moments, the possibili- ties multiply. Scott watched himself with the hackers in Amster- dam, with Kirk and Tyrone at home; he watched himself both live and die with Pierre in Washington. Then the weekend, did it just end? The unbelievable weekend with Sonja. It was when he re- lived the sexual intensity on the Half Moon Bay beach, in what was becoming an increasingly erotic state, that his mind en- tered an extraordinary bliss. The rear tires of the plane hitting the runway was enough to snap Scott back to a sober reality. But he had the thought and he remembered it. Scott hired a stretch limousine at LaGuardia and slept all the way to Scarsdale, but lacking the good sense God gave him, he checked the messages on his phone machine. Doug called to find out if Scott still worked for the paper and Ty called requesting, almost pleading, that Scott call as soon as he got back. He had to see him, post haste. The call to Doug was simple. Yes, I'm back. The hackers are real. They are a threat. Pierre is still alive, I have more material than we can use. I did take notes, and my butt is sun- burned. If there's nothing else, I'm dead on my feet and I will see you in the morning. Click. Now he wanted to talk to Tyrone as much as it sounded like Ty wanted to speak to him. Where was he? Probably at the office. He dialed quickly. Tyrone answered with equal speed. "Are you back?" Ty asked excitedly. "Yeah, just got in. I need to talk to you . . ." "Not as much as we do, buddy. Where are you now?" "Home. Why?" "I'll see you in an hour. Wait there." The FBI man was in control. Where the hell else am I going to go, Scott thought. Scott piddled around, making piles for his maid, unpacking and puttering around the kitchen. Everything in the fridge needed cooking, and there was not enough energy for that, so he decided to take a shower. That might give him a few more hours before he collapsed. Exactly one hour later, as promised, Tyrone Duncan rang Scott's doorbell. They exchanged a few pleasantries and then plunged into intense information exchange. They grabbed a couple of beers and sat opposite each other in overstuffed chairs by Scott's wide fireplace. "Boy have I learned a lot . . ." said Scott. "I think you may be right," said Tyrone. "Of course I am. I did learn a lot," Scott said with a confused look on his face. "No I mean about what you said." "I haven't said anything yet. I think there's a conspiracy." Scott winced to himself as he said the one word that was the bane of many a reporter. "I said I think you were right. And are right." "What the devil are you talking about?" Scott was more confused then ever. "Remember a few months back, on the train we were talking." "Of course we were talking." Scott recognized the humor in the conversation. "No! I mean we were . . .shit. Shut up and listen or I'll arrest you!" "On what charge?" "CRS." "CRS?" "Yeah, Can't Remember Shit. Shut up!" Scott leaned back in his chair sipping away. He had gotten to Ty. Hooked him, reeled him in and watched him flop on the deck. It pissed Ty off to no end to allow himself to be suckered into Scott's occasional inanity. "When this whole blackmail thing started up there was no apparent motivation," Tyrone began. "One day you said that the motivation might be a disruption of normal police and FBI operations. I think you might be right. It's looking more and more that the blackmail stuff was a diversion." "What makes you think so now?" Scott asked. "We had a ton of cases in the last few weeks, same victims as before, who were being called again, but this time with demands. They were being asked to cough up a lot of cash in a short time, and stash it in a very public place. We had dozens of stakeouts, watching the drop points for a pick up. It read like the little bastards were finally getting greedy. You know what I mean?" Scott nodded in agreement, thinking, where is this going? "So we had a couple hundred agents tied up waiting for the bad guys to show up. And you know what? No one showed. No one, damn it. There must have been fifty million in cash sitting in bus terminals, train stations, health clubs, you name it, and no one comes to get any of it? There's something wrong with that picture." "And you think it's a cover? Right?" Scott grinned wide. "For what?" Ty shrank back in mild sublimation. "Well," he began, "that is one small piece of the puzzle I haven't filled in yet. But, I thought you might be able to help with that." Tyrone Duncan's eyes met Scott's and said, I am asking as a friend as well as an agent. Come on, we both win on this one. "Stop begging, Ty. It doesn't befit a member of the President's police force," Scott teased. "Of course I was going to tell you. You're gonna read about it soon enough, and I know," he said half-seriously, "you won't screw me again." Ouch, thought Tyrone. Why not pour in the salt while you're at it. "I wouldn't worry. No one thinks there's a problem. I keep shouting and being ignored. It's infinitely more prudent in the government to fuck-up by non-action than by taking a position and acting upon it. I'm on a solo." "Good enough," Scott assured Ty. "'Nother beer?" It felt good. They were back - friends again. "Yeah, It's six o'clock somewhere," Tyrone sighed. "So what's your news?" "You know I went over to this Hacker's Conference . . ." "In Amsterdam." added Tyrone. "Right, and I saw some toys that you can't believe," Scott said intently. "The term Hacker should be replaced with Dr. Hacker. These guys are incredible. To them there is no such thing as a locked door. They can get into and screw around with any comput- er they want." "Nothing new there," said Ty. "Bullshit. They're organized. These characters make up an entire underground society, that admittedly has few rules, but it's the most coherent bunch of anarchists I ever saw." "What of it?" "Remember that van, the one that blew up and." "How can I forget." "And then my Tempest article." "Yeah. I know, I'm sorry," Tyrone said sincerely. "Fuck it. It's over. Wasn't your fault. Anyway, I saw the equipment in actual use. I saw them read computers with anten- nas. It was absolutely incredible. It's not bullshit. It really works." Scott spoke excitedly. "You say it's Tempest?" "No, anti-Tempest. These guys have got it down. Regardless, the stuff works." "So what? It works." "So, let's say, if the hackers use these computer monitors to find out all sorts of dirt on companies," Scott slowly explained as he organized his thoughts. "Then they issue demands and cause all sorts of havoc and paranoia. They ask for money. Then they don't come to collect it. So what have they achieved?" Scott asked rhetorically. "They tied up one shit load of a lot of police time, I'll tell you that." "Exactly. Why?" "Diversion. That's where we started," Ty said. "But who is the diversion for?" The light bulb went off in Tyrone's head. "The hackers!" "Right," agreed Scott. "They're the ones who are going to do whatever it is that the diversion is covering. Did that make sense?" "No," laughed Ty, "but I got it. Why would the hackers have to be covering for themselves. Couldn't they be working for someone else?" "I doubt it. This is one independent bunch of characters," Scott affirmed. "Besides, there's more. What happened in D.C. . . ." "Troubleaux," interrupted Ty. "Bingo. And there's something else, too." "What?" "I've been hearing about a computer system called the Freedom League. Nothing specific, just that everything about it sounds too good to be true." "It usually is." "And one other thing. If there is some sort of hacker plot, I think I know someone who's involved." "Did he admit anything?" "No, nothing. But, well, we'll see." Scott hesitated and stut- tered. "Troubleaux, he said something to me." "Excuse me?" Ty said with disbelief. "I thought his brains were leaking out." "Thanks for reminding me; I had to buy a new wardrobe." "And a tan? Where've you been?" "With, well," Scott blushed, "that's another story." "O.K., Romeo, how did he talk? What did he say?" Ty asked doubtfully. "He told me that dGraph was sick." "Who's dGraph?" "dGraph," laughed Scott, "is how your secretary keeps your life organized. It's the most popular piece of software in the world. Troubleaux founded the company. And I think I know what he meant." "He's a nerdy whiz kid, huh?" joked Tyrone "Just the opposite. Mongo sex appeal to the ladies. No, his partner was the . " Scott stopped mid sentence. "Hey, I just remembered something. Troubleaux had a partner, he founded the company with him. A couple of days before they went public, his partner died. Shook up the industry. Shortly thereafter Data Tech bought them." "And you think there's a connection?" "Maybe, ah...I can't remember exactly," Scott said. "Hey, you can find out." "How?" "Your computers." "They're at the office." Scott pointed to his computer and Tyrone shook his head violent- ly. "I don't know how to. " "Ty," Scott said calmly. "Call your secretary. Ask her for the number and your passwords." Scott persuaded Ty to be humble and dial his office. He was actually able to guide Ty through the process of accessing one of the largest collections of informa- tion in the world. "How did you know we could do that?" Ty asked after they logged into the FBI computer from Scott's study. "Good guess. I figured you guys couldn't function without remote access. Lucky." Tyrone scowled kiddingly at Scott. "You going over to the other side boy? You seem to know an awful lot." "That's how easy this stuff is. Anyone can do it. In fact I heard a story about octogenarian hackers who work from their nursing homes. I guess it replaces sex." "Bullshit," Tyrone said pointing at his chest. "This is one dude who's knows the real thing. No placebos for me!" They both laughed. "You know how to take it from here?" asked Scott once a main menu appeared. "Yeah, let me at it. What the hell did you want to know anyway?" "I imagine you have a file on dGraph, somewhere inside the over 400,000,000 active files maintained at the FBI." "I'm beginning to worry about you. That's classified . . ." "It's all in the company you keep," Scott chided. "Just ask it for dGraph." Tyrone selected an Inquiry Data Base and asked the computer for what it knew about dGraph. In a few seconds, a sub- menu appeared entitled "dGraph, Inc.". Under the heading ap- peared several options: 1. Company History 2. Financial Records 3. Products and Services 4. Management 5. Stock Holders 6. Activities 7. Legal 8. Comments "Not bad!" chided Scott. "Got that on everyone?" Tyrone glared at Scott. "You shouldn't even know this exists. Hey, do me a favor, will ya? When I have to lie later, at least I want to be able to say you weren't staring over my shoulders. Dig?" "No problem," Scott said as he pounced on the couch in front of the desk. He knocked a few days of mail onto the floor to make room. "O.K., who founded the company?" "Founded 1984, Pierre Troubleaux and Max Jones . . ." "That's it!" exclaimed Scott. "Max Jones. Where?" "Cupertino, California." "What date did they go public?" Scott asked quickly. "Ah, August 6, 1987. Anything else massah?" Tyrone gibed. "Can you tie into the California Highway Patrol computers?" "What if I could?" "Well, if you could, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the police reports. Because, as I remember, there was something funny about Max Jones," Scott said, and then added mockingly, "but that's only if you have access to the same infor- mation that anyone can get for $2. It's all public information anyway." "You know I'm not supposed to be doing this," Tyrone said as he pecked at the keyboard. "Bullshit. You do it all the time." "Not as a public service." The screen darkened and then an- nounced that Tyrone had been given access to the CHiP computers. "So suppose I could do that, I suppose you'd want a copy of it." "Only if the switch on the right side of the printer is turned ON and if the paper is straight. Otherwise, I just wouldn't bother." Scott stared at the ceiling while the dot matrix print- er sang a high pitched song as the head traveled back and forth. Tyrone scanned the print out coming from the computers in Cali- fornia. "You have one fuckuva memory. Sheee-it." Scott sat up quickly. "What, what does it say?" Scott pressured. "It appears that your friend Max Jones was killed in an automo- bile accident on Highway 275 at 12:30 AM." Ty stopped for a moment to read more. "He was found, dead, at the bottom of a ravine where his car landed after crashing through the barriers. Pretty high speed. And, the brake lines were cut." "Holy shit," Scott said rising from his chair. "Does two a pat- tern make?" "You mean Troubleaux and Max?" asked Tyrone. "Yeah, they'll do." "In my mind it would warrant further investigation." He made a mental note. "Anything else there?" Scott asked. "This is the kicker," Ty added. "The investigation lasted two days. Upstairs told the department to make it a quick and clean, open and shut case of accident." "I assume no one from dGraph had any reason to doubt what the police told them. It sounds perfectly rational." "Why should they if nobody kicked up a stink?" Ty said to him- self. "Hey," he said to Scott. "You think he was murdered, don't you?" "You bet your ass I do," Scott affirmed. "Think about it. The two founders of a company the size of dGraph, they're huge, one dead from a suspicious accident, and the other the target of an assassination and in deep shit in the hospital." "And it was the hackers, right?" laughed Tyrone. "Maybe," Scott said seriously. "Why not? It's all tying togeth- er." "There's no proof," Tyrone said. "No, and I don't need it yet. But I sense the connection. That's why I said there's a conspiracy." He used that word again. "And who is behind it and why? Pray tell?" Tyrone needled Scott. "Nothing's even happened, and you're already spouting conspiracy." "I need to do something. Two things." Scott spoke firmly but vacantly. "I need to talk to Kirk. I think there's something wrong with dGraph, and he can help." "And two?" "I'd like to know who I saw in Amsterdam." "Why?" Ty asked. "Because . . .because, he's got something to do with . . .what- ever it is. He as much as admitted it." "I think I can help with that one," offered Ty. "Huh?" Scott looked surprised. "How about we go into my office and see who this guy is?" Tyrone enjoyed the moment. One upping Scott. "Tomorrow." Scott decided that the fastest way to reach Kirk, he really needed Kirk, was to write a clue in an article. Scott dialed the paper's computer from his house and opened a file. He hadn't planned on writing today - God, how long have I been awake? This was the easiest way to contact Kirk now, but that was going to change. Tyrone left early enough for Scott to write a quick piece that would be sure to make an inside page, page 12 or 14. * * * * * Tuesday, January 12 The Computer As Weapon? by Scott Mason Since the dawn of civilization, Man has had the perverse ability to turn Good into Bad, White into Black, Hot into Cold, Life into Death. History bears out that technology is falling into the same trap. The bow and arrow, the gun; they were created to help man survive the elements and feed himself. Today millions of guns are bought with no purpose other than to hurt another human being. The space program was going to send man to the stars; instead we have Star Wars. The great advantages that technology has brought modern man have been continuously subverted for malevolent uses. What if the same is true for computers? Only yesterday, in order to spy on my neighbor, or my opponent, I would hire a private eye to perform the surveillance. And there was a constant danger of his being caught. Today? I'd hire me the best computer hacker I could get my hands on and sic him on the targets of my interest. Through their computers. For argument's sake, let's say I want advance information on companies so I can play the stock market. I have my hacker get inside the SEC computers, (he can get in from literally thousands of locations nationwide) and read up on the latest figures before they're reported to the public. Think of betting the whole wad on a race with only one horse. I would imagine, and I am no lawyer, that if I broke into the SEC offices and read through their file cabinets, I would be in a mighty poke of trouble. But catching me in their computer is an extraordinary exercise in resource frustration, and usually futile. For unlike the burglar, the computer criminal is never at the scene of the crime. He is ten or a hundred or a thousand miles away. Besides, the better computer criminals know the systems they attack so well, that they can cover their tracks completely; no one will ever know they were an uninvited guest. Isn't then the computer a tool, a weapon, of the computer crimi- nal? I can use my computer as a tool to pry open your computer, and then once inside I use it to perhaps destroy pieces of your computer or your information. I wonder then about other computer crimes, and I will include viruses in that category. Is the computer or the virus the weapon? Is the virus a special kind of computer bullet? The intent and the result is the same. I recall hearing an articulate man recently make the case that computers should be licensed, and that not everyone should be able to own one. He maintained that the use of a computer car- ried with it an inherent social responsibility. What if the technology that gives us the world's highest standard of living, convenience and luxury was used instead as a means of disruption; a technological civil disobedience if you will? What if politi- cal strength came from the corruption of an opponent's computer systems? Are we not dealing with a weapon as much as a gun is a weapon? my friend pleaded. Clearly the computer is Friend. And the computer, by itself is not bad, but recent events have clearly demonstrated that it can be used for sinister and illegal purposes. It is the use to which one puts the tool that determines its effectiveness for either good or bad. Any licensing of computers, information sys- tems, would be morally abhorrent - a veritable decimation of the Bill of Rights. But I must recognize that the history of indus- trialized society does not support my case. Automobiles were once not licensed. Do we want it any other way? I am sure many of you wish that drivers licenses were harder to come by. Radio transmitters have been licensed for most of this century and many a civil libertarian will make the case that because they are licensed, it is a restriction on my freedom of speech to require approval by the Government before broadcast. On the practical side, does it make sense for ten radio stations all trying to use the same frequency? Cellular phones are officially licensed as are CB's. Guns re- quire licenses in an increasing number of states. So it might appear logical to say that computers be licensed, to prevent whatever overcrowding calamity may unsuspectingly befall us. The company phone effectively licenses lines to you, with the added distinction of being able to record everything you do. Computers represent an obvious boon and a potential bane. When computers are turned against themselves, under the control of humans of course, or against the contents of the computer under attack, the results can ripple far and wide. I believe we are indeed fortunate that computers have not yet been turned against their creators by faction groups vying for power and attention. Thus far isolated events, caused by ego or accident have been the rule and large scale coordinated, well executed computer assaults non-existent. That, though, is certainly no guarantee that we will not have to face the Computer Terrorists tomorrow. This is Scott Mason searching the Galaxy at Warp 9. * * * * * Tuesday, January 12 Federal Square, New York Tyrone was required to come to the lobby of the FBI headquarters, sign Scott in and escort him through the building. Scott didn't arrive until almost eleven; he let himself sleep in, in the hopes of making up for lost sleep. He knew it didn't work that way, but twelve hours of dead rest had to do something. Tyrone explained as they took an elevator two levels beneath the street that they were going to work with a reconstructionist. A man with a very powerful computer will build up the face that Scott saw, piece by piece. They opened a door that was identi- fied by only a number and entered an almost sterile work place. A pair of Sun workstations with large high resolution monitors sat on large white tables by one wall, with a row of racks of floor to ceiling disk drives and tape units opposite. "Remember," Tyrone cautioned, "no names." "Right," said Scott. "No names." Tyrone introduced Scott to Vinnie who would be running the com- puter. Vinnie's first job was to familiarize Scott with the procedure. Tyrone told Vinnie to call him in his office when they had something;�he had other matters to attend to in the meantime. Of obvious Italian descent, with a thick Brooklyn accent, Vinnie Misselli epitomized the local boy making good. His lantern jaw and classic Roman good looks were out of place among the blue suits and white shirts that typified the FBI. "All I need," Vinnie said, "is a brief description to get things started. Then, we'll fix it piece by piece." Scott loosely described the Spook. Dark hair, good looking, no noticeable marks and of course, the dimples. The face that Vinnie built was generic. No unique features, just a nose and the other parts that anatomically make up a face. Scott shook his head, no that's not even close. Vinnie seemed undaunted. "O.K., now, I am going to stretch the head, the overall shape and you tell me where to stop. All right?" Vinnie asked, beginning his manipulation before Scott answered. "Sure," said Scott. Vinnie rolled a large track ball built into the keyboard and the head on the screen slowly stretched in height and width. The changes didn't help Scott much he but asked Vinnie to stop at one point anyway. "Don't worry, we can change it later again. How about the eyes?" "Two," said Scott seriously. Vinnie gave Scott an ersatz dirty look. "Everyone does it," said Vinnie. "Once." He grinned at Scott. "The eye brows, they were bushier," said Scott. "Good. Tell me when." The eyebrows on the face twisted and turned as Vinnie moved the trackball with his right hand and clicked at the keyboard with his left. "That's close," Scott said. "Yeah, hold it." Vinnie froze the image where Scott indicated and they went on to the hair. "Longer, wavier, less of a part . . ." They worked for an hour, Vinnie at the computer controls and Scott changing every imaginable feature on the face as it evolved into one with character. Vinnie sat back in his chair and stretched. "How's that," he asked Scott. Scott hesitated. He felt that he was making too many changes. Maybe this was as close as it got. "It's good," he said without conviction. There was a slight resemblance. "That's what they all say," Vinnie said. "It's not even close yet." He laughed as Scott looked shocked. "All we've done so far is get the general outline. Now, we work on the details." For another two hours Scott commented on the subtle changes Vinnie made to the face. Nuances that one never thinks of; the curve of the cheek, the half dozen angles of the chin, the hun- dreds of ear lobes, eyes of a thousand shapes - they went through them all and the face took form. Scott saw the face take on the appearance of the Spook; more and more it became the familiar face he had spent hours with a few days ago. As he got caught up in the building and discovery process, Scott issued commands to Vinnie; thicken the upper lip, just a little. Higher forehead. He blurted out change after change and Vinnie executed every one. Actually, Vinnie preferred it this way, being given the orders. After all, he hadn't seen the face. "There! That's the Spook!" exclaimed Scott suddenly. "You sure?" asked Vinnie sitting back in the plush computer chair. "Yup," Scott said with assurance. "That's him." "O.K., let's see what we can do . . ." Vinnie rapidly typed at the keyboard and the picture of the face disappeared. The screen went blank for a few seconds until it was replaced with a 3 dimensional color model of a head. The back of the head turned and the visage of the Spook stared at them both. It was an eerie feeling and Scott shuddered as the disembodied head stopped spinning. "Take a look at this," Vinnie said as he continued typing. Scott watched the head, Spook's head, come alive. The lips were mov- ing, as though it, he, was trying to speak. "I can give it a voice if you'd like." "Will that help?" Scott asked. "Nah, not in this case," Vinnie said,"but it is fun. Let's make sure that we got the right guy here. We'll take a look at him from every angle." The head moved to the side for a left pro- file. "I'll make a couple of gross adjustments, and you tell me if it gets any better." They went through another hour of fine tuning the 3-D head, modifying skin tones, texture, hair style and a score of other subtleties. When they were done Scott remarked that the image looked more like the Spook than the Spook himself. Incredible. Scott was truly impressed. This is where taxpayer's money went. Vinnie called Tyrone and by the time he arrived, the color photo- graphs and digital maps of the images were ready. Scott followed Tyrone down one corridor, then another, through a common area, and down a couple more hallways. They entered Room 322B. The innocuous appearance of the door did not prepare Scott for what he saw; a huge computer room, at least a football field in length. Blue and tan and beige and a few black metal cabi- nets that housed hundreds of disparate yet co-existing computers. Consoles with great arrays of switches, row upon row of video and graphic displays as far as the eye could see. Thousands of white two by two foot square panel floors hid miles of wires and cables that interconnected the maze of computers in the under- ground control center. There appeared to be a number of discreet areas, where large computer consoles were centered amidst racks of tape or disk drives which served as the only separation be- tween workers. "This is Big Floyd," Tyrone said proudly. "Or at least one part of him." "Who or what is Big Floyd?" "Big Floyd is a huge national computer system, tied together over the Secure Automated Message Network. This is the most powerful computer facility outside of the NSA." Quiet conversations punctuated the hum of the disk drives and the clicks of solenoids switching and the printers pushing reams of paper. The muted voices could not be understood but they rang with purpose. The room had an almost reverent character to it; where speaking too loud would surely be considered blasphemous. Scott and Tyrone walked through banks and banks of equipment, more computer equipment than Scott had ever seen in one location. In fact the Federal Square computer center is on the pioneering edge of forensic technology. The NSA computers might have more oomph!, but the FBI computers have more purpose. Tyrone stopped at one control console and asked if they could do a match, stat. Of course, anything for Mr. Duncan. "RHIP," Tyrone said. Scott recognized the acronym, Rank Has Its Privi- lege. Tyrone gave the computer operator the pictures and asked him to explain the process to Scott. "I take these pictures and put them in the computer with a scan- ner. The digitized images are stored here," he said pointing at a a rack of equipment. "Then, we enter the subject's general description. Height, physique and so on." He copied the infor- mation into the computer. "Now we ask the computer to find possible matches." "You mean the computer has photos of everyone in there?" Scott asked incredulously. "No, Scott. Just the bad guys, and people with security clear- ances, and public officials? Your Aunt Tillie is safe from Big Brother's prying eyes." The reason for Ty's sarcasm was clear to Scott. Tyrone was not exactly acting in an official capacity on this part of the investigation. "How many do you have? Pictures that is?" Scott asked more diplo- matically. "That's classified," Tyrone said quickly. "The hackers say you have files on over a hundred million people. Is that true?" Scott asked. Tyrone glared at him, as if to say, shut the fuck up. Scott took the non-verbal hint and they watched in silence as the computer whirred searching for similar photo files in its massive memory. Within a couple of minutes the computer said that there were 4 possible matches. At the end of the 10 minute search, it was up to 16 candidates. "We'll do a visual instead of a second search," said the man behind the keyboard. "We'll start with the 90% matches. There are two of them." A large monitor flashed with a picture of a man, that while not unlike the Spook in features, was definitely not him. The picture was a high quality color photograph. "No, not him," Scott said without pause. The computer operator hit a couple of keys, a second picture flashed on the monitor and Scott's face lit up. "That's him! That's the Spook!" Tyrone had wondered if they would find any matches. While the FBI data base was probably the largest in the world, it was unlikely that there was a comprehensive library of teen age hackers. "Are you sure?" Tyrone emphasized the word, 'sure'. "Positive, yes. That's him." "Let's have a quick look at the others before we do a full re- trieve," said the computer operator. Tyrone agreed and fourteen other pictures of men with similar facial characteristics to the Spook appeared on the screen, all receiving a quick 'no' from Scott. Spook's picture as brought up again and again Scott said, "that's him." "All right, Mike," Tyrone said to the man running the computer, "do a retrieve on OBR-III." Mike nodded and stretched over to a large printer on the side of the console. He pushed a key and in a few seconds, the printer spewed out page after page of informa- tion. OBR-III is a super-secret computer system designed to fight terrorism in the United States. OBR-III and Big Floyd regularly spoke to similar, but smaller, systems in England, France and Germany. With only small bits of data it can extrapo- late potential terrorist targets, and who is the likely person behind the attacks. OBR-III is an expert system that learns continuously, as the human mind does. Within seconds it can provide information on anyone within its memory. Tyrone pulled the first page from the printer before it was finished and read to himself. He scanned it quickly until one item grabbed his attention. His eyes widened. "Boy, when you pick 'em, you pick 'em." Tyrone whistled. "What, what?" Scott strained to see the printout, but Tyrone held it away. "It's no wonder he calls himself Spook," Tyrone said to no one in particular. "He's ex-NSA." He ripped off the final page of the printout and called Scott to follow him, cursorily thanking the computer operators for their assistance. Scott followed Tyrone to an elevator and they descended to the fifth and bottom level, where Tyrone headed straight to his office with Scott in tow. He shut the door behind him and showed Scott a chair. "There's no way I should be telling you this, but I owe you, I guess, and, anyway, maybe you can help." Tyrone rationalized showing the information to Scott - both a civilian and a report- er. He may have questioned the wisdom, but not the intent. Besides, as had been true for several weeks, everything Scott learned from Tyrone Duncan was off the record. Way off. For now. The Spook's real name was Miles Foster. Scott scanned the file. A lot of it was government speak and security clearance inter- views for his job at NSA. An entire life was condensed into a a few files, covering the time from when he was born to the time he resigned from the NSA. Scott found much of his life boring and he really didn't care that Miles' third grade teacher remembered him as being a "good boy". Or that his high school counselor though he could go a long way. "This doesn't sound like the Spook I know," Scott said after glancing at the clean regimented life and times of Miles Foster. "Did you expect it to?" asked Ty. "I guess I never thought about it. I just figured it would be a regular guy, not a real spook for the government." "Shit happens." "So I see. Where do we go from here?" Scott asked in awe of the technical capabilities of the FBI. "How 'bout a sanity check?" Tyrone asked. "When were you in Amsterdam?" "Last week, why?" Tyrone sat behind his computer and Scott noticed that his fingers seemed almost too fat to be of much good. "If I can get this thing to work, let's see where's the Control Key?" Scott gazed on as Tyrone talked to himself while working the keyboard and reading the screen. "Foster, Airline, Foreign, ah, the dates," he looked up at a large wall calendar. "All right . . .shit . . .Delete . . . OK, that's it." "What are you doing?" asked Scott. "Just want to see if your boy really was in Europe with you." "You don't believe me!" shouted Scott. "No, I believe you. But I need some proof, dig?" Tyrone said. "If he's up to something we need to find out what, step by step. You should know that." "Yeah, I do," Scott resigned. "It's just that I'm not normally the one being questioned. Know what I mean?" "Our training is more . . .well, it's a moot point now. Your Mr. Foster flew to Amsterdam and then back to Washington the next day. I believe I have some legwork ahead of me. I would like to learn a little more about Mr. Miles Foster." Scott talked Tyrone into giving him a copy of one of the images of Miles aka Spook. He was hoping that Kirk would call him tonight. In any case, Scott needed to buy an image scanner if Kirk was going to be of help. When he got home, he made room on his personal nightmare, his desk, for the flatbed scanner, then played with it for several hours, learning how to scan an image at the right sensitivity, the correct brightness and reflectivity for the proper resolution. He learnd to bring a picture into the computer and edit or redraw the picture. Scott scanned the picture of the Spook into the computer and enjoyed adding mous- taches, subtracting teeth and stretching the ears. At midnight, on the button, Scott's computer beeped. It was Kirk. WTFO You got my message. SUBTLETY IS NOT YOUR STRONG POINT I didn't want to miss. GOTCHA. YOU RANG. First of all, I want a better way to contact you, since I assume you won't tell me who you are. RIGHT! AND I'VE TAKEN CARE OF THAT. CALL 212-555-3908. WHEN YOU HEAR THE BEEP, ENTER YOUR NUMBER. I'LL CALL YOU AS SOON AS I CAN. So you're in New York? MAYBE. MAYBE NOT. Ah, call forwarding. I could get the address of the phone and trace you down. I DON'T THINK YOU WOULD DO THAT. And why not may I ask? CAUSE WE HAVE A DEAL. Right. You're absolutely right. NOW THAT I'M RIGHT, WHAT'S UP? I met with the Spook. YOU DID???????? The conference was great, but I need to know more. I've just been sniffing around the edges and I can't smell what's in the oven. WHAT ABOUT THE SPOOK? TELL ME ABOUT IT. I have picture of him for you. I scanned it. VERY GOOD, CLAP, CLAP. I'll send you SPOOK.PIX. Let me know what you think. OK. SEND AWAY. Scott chose the file and issued the command to send it to Kirk. While it was being sent they couldn't speak, and Scott learned how long it really takes to transmit a digital picture at 2400 baud. He got absorbed in a magazine and almost missed the mes- sage on the computer. THAT'S NOT THE SPOOK!!!! Yes it is. I met him. NO, IT'S NOT THE REAL SPOOK. I'VE MET HIM. HE'S PARTIALLY BALD AND HAS A LONG NOSE AND GLASSES. THIS GUY'S A GQ MODEL C'mon, you've got to be putting me on. I travel 3000 miles for an impostor? I GUESS SO. THIS IS NOT THE SPOOK I KNOW. Then who is it? HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW? Just thought I'd ask . . . WHAT'S GOING ON REPO? Deep shit, and I need your help. GOT THE MAN LOOKING OVER YOUR DONKEY? No, he's not here, honest. I have an idea, and you're gonna think it's nuts, I know. But I have to ask you for a couple of favors. WHAT MAY THEY BE? The Freedom League. I need to know as much about it as I can, without anyone knowing that I want the information. Is that possible? OF COURSE. THEY'RE BBS'ERS. I CAN GET IN EASY. WHY? Well that brings up the second favor. dGraph. Do you own it? SURE, EVERYONE DOES. LEGAL OR NOT. Can't you guys take apart a program to see what makes it tick? REVERSE ENGINEERING, YEAH Then I would like to ask if you would look at the dGraph program and see if it has a virus in it? **************************************************************** Chapter 24 Wednesday, January 13 New York City No Privacy for Mere Citizens by Scott Mason. I learned the other day, that I can find out just about anything I want to know about you, or her, or him, or anyone, for a few dollars, a few phone calls and some free time. Starting with just an automobile license plate number, the De- partment of Motor Vehicles will be happy to supply me with a name and address that go with the plate. Or I can start with a name, or an address or just a phone number and use a backwards phone book. It's all in the computer. I can find more about you by getting a copy of the your auto registration and title from the public records. Marriage licenses and divorces are public as well. You can find out the damnedest things about people from their first or second or third marriage records. Including the financial settlements. Good way to determine how much money or lack thereof is floating around a healthy divorce. Of course I can easily find all traffic offenses, their disposi- tion, and any follow up litigation or settlements. It's all in the computer. As there are public records of all arrests, court cases, sentences and paroles. If you've ever been to trial, the transcripts are public. Your finances can be scrupulously determined by looking up the real estate records for purchase price, terms, cash, notes and taxes on your properties. Or, if you've ever had a bankruptcy, the sordid details are clearly spelled out for anyone's inspec- tion. It's all in the computer. I can rapidly build an excellent profile of you, or whomever. And, it's legal. All legal, using the public records available to anyone who asks and has the $2. That tells me, loud and clear, that I no longer have any privacy! None! Forget the hackers; it's bad enough they can get into our bank accounts and our IRS records and the Census forms that have our names tied to the data. What about Dick and Jane Doe, Everyman USA, who can run from agency to agency and office to office put together enough information about me or you to be dangerous. I do not think I like that. It's bad enough the Government can create us or destroy us as individuals by altering the contents of our computer files deep inside the National Data Bases. At least they have a modicum of accountability. However, their inattentive disregard for the privacy of the citizens of this country is criminal. As a reporter I am constantly amazed at how easy it is to find out just about anything about anybody, and in many ways that openness has made my job simpler. However, at the same time, I believe that the Government has an inherent responsibility to protect us from invasion of privacy, and they are derelict in fulfilling that promise. If the DMV needs to know my address, I understand. The IRS needs to know my income. Each computer unto itself is a necessary repository to facilitate business transactions. However, when someone begins to investigate me, crossing the boundaries of multiple data bases, without question, they are invading my privacy. Each piece of information found about me may be insig- nificant in itself, but when combined, it becomes highly danger- ous in the wrong hands. We all have secrets we want to remain secrets. Under the present system, we have sacrificed our priva- cy for the expediency of the machines. I have a lawyer friend who believes that the fourth amendment is at stake. Is it, Mr. President? This is Scott Mason, feeling Peered Upon. * * * * * Wednesday, January 13 Atlanta, Georgia First Federal Bank in Atlanta, Georgia enjoyed a reputation of treating its customers like royalty. Southern Hospitality was the bank's middle name and the staff was trained to provide extraordinary service. This morning though, First Federal's customers were not happy campers. The calls started coming in before 8:00 A.M. "My account is off $10," "It doesn't add up," "My checkbook won't balance." A few calls of this type are normal on any given day, but the phones were jammed with customer complaints. Hun- dreds of calls streamed in constantly and hundreds more never got through the busy signals. Dozens of customers came into the local branches to complain about the errors on their statement. An emergency meeting was held in the Peachtree Street headquar- ters of First Federal. The president of the bank chaired the meeting. The basic question was, What Was Going On? It was a free for all. Any ideas, shoot 'em out. How many calls? About 4500 and still coming in. What are the dates of the statements? So far within a couple of days, but who knows what we'll find. What are you asking people to do? Double check against their actual checks instead of the register. Do you really think that 5000 people wake up one morning and all make the same mistakes? Do you have any other ideas? Then what? If they don't reconcile, bring 'em in and we'll pull the fiche. What do the computer people say? They think there may be an error. That's bright. If the numbers are adding up wrong, how do we balance? Have no idea. Do they add up in our favor? Not always. Maybe 50/50 so far. Can we fix it? Yes. When? I don't know yet. Get some answers. Fast. Yessir. The bank's concerns mounted when their larger customers found discrepancies in the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars. As the number of complaints numbered well over 10,000 by noon, First Federal was facing a crisis. The bank's figures in no way jived with their customer's records and the finger pointing began. The officers contacted the Federal Reserve Board and notified them. The Board suggested, strongly, that the bank close for the remainder of the day and sort it out before it got worse. First Federal did close, under the guise of installing a new computer system, a lie that might also cover whatever screwed up the statements. Keep that option open. They kept answering the phones, piling up the complaints and discovering that thus far there was no pattern to the errors. By mid-afternoon, they at least knew what to look for. On every statement a few checks were listed with the incorrect amounts and therefore the balance was wrong. For all intent and purpose, the bank had absolutely no idea whose money was whose. Working into the night the bank found that all ledgers balanced, but still the amounts in the accounts were wrong. What are the odds of a computer making thousands of errors and having them all balance out to a net zero difference? Statistically it was impossible, and that meant someone altered the amounts on pur- pose. By midnight they found that the source of the error was probably in the control code of the bank's central computing center. First Federal Bank did not open for business Thursday. Or Fri- day. First Federal Bank was not the only bank to experience profound difficulties with it's customers. Similar complaints closed down Farmer's Bank in Des Moines, Iowa, Lake City Bank in Chicago, First Trade in New York City, Sopporo Bank in San Francisco, Pilgrim's Trust in Boston and, as the Federal Reserve Bank would discover, another hundred or so banks in almost every state. The Department of the Treasury reacted quickly, spurred into action by the chairman of Riggs National Bank in Washington, D.C. Being one of the oldest banks in the country, and the only one that could claim having a personal relationship with Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, it still carried political weight. The evening network and local news stations covered the situation critically. Questions proliferated but answers were hard to come by. The largest of the banks and the government announced that a major computer glitch had affected the Electronic Funds Trans- fers which had inadvertently caused the minor inconsistencies in some customer records. The press was extremely hard on the banks and the Fed Reserve and the Treasury. They smelled a coverup, a lie; that they and the public were not being told the truth, or at least all of it. Only Scott Mason and a couple of other reporters speculated that a computer virus or time bomb was responsible. Without any evidence though, the government and the banks vigorously denied any such possibilities. Rather, they developed a convoluted story of how one money transaction affects another and then another. The domino theory of banking was explained to the public in graphs and charts, but an open skepticism prevailed. Small businesses and individual banking customers were totally shut off from access to their funds. Tens of thousands of auto- matic tellers were turned off by their banks in the futile hope of minimizing the damage. Estimates were that by evening, almost 5 million people had been estranged from their money. Rumors of bank collapse and a catastrophic failure of the banking system persisted. The Stock Market, operating at near full capacity after November's disaster, reacted to the news with a precipitous drop of almost 125 points before trading was suspend- ed, cutting off thousands more from their money. The International Monetary Fund convened an emergency meeting as the London and Tokyo stock markets reacted negatively to the news. Wire transfers and funds disbursements were ceased across all state and national borders. Panic ensued, and despite the best public relations efforts, the Treasury imposed financial sanctions on all savings and checking accounts. If the banks opened on Friday, severe limits would be placed on access to available funds. Checks would be returned or held until the emergency was past. Nightline addressed the banking crisis in depth. The experts debated the efficiency of the system and that possibly an unfore- seen overload had occurred, triggering the events of the day. No one suggested that the bank's computers had been compromised. * * * * * New York City Times "Yes, it is urgent." "What is this about? "That is for the Senator's ears only." "Can you hold for . . ." "Yes, yes. I've been holding for an hour. Go on." Muzak inter- pretations of Led Zeppelin greeted Scott Mason as he was put on hold. Again. Good God! They have more pass interference in the front office and on the phones than the entire NFL. He waited. At long last, someone picked up the other end of the phone. "I am sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Mason, it has been rather hectic as you can imagine. How are you faring?" Senator Nancy Deere true to form, always projected genuine sincerity. "Fine, fine, thank you, Senator. The reason for my call is rather, ah . . .sensitive." "Yes?" she asked politely. "Well, the fact is, Senator, we cannot discuss it, that is, I don't feel that we can talk about this on the phone." "That makes it rather difficult, doesn't it," she laughed weakly. "Simply put, Senator . . . " "Please call me Nancy. Both my friends and enemies do." "All right, Nancy," Scott said awkwardly. "I need 15 minutes of your time about a matter of national security and it directly concerns your work on the Rickfield Committee." She winced at the nick name that the hearing had been given. "I can assure you, Senator, ah, Nancy, that I would not be bothering you unless I was convinced of what I'm going to tell you. And show you. If you think I'm nuts, then fine, you can throw me out." "Mr. Mason, that's enough," Nancy said kindly. "Based upon your performance at the hearing the other day, that alone is enough to make me want to shake your hand. As for what you have to say? I pride myself on being a good listener. When would be convenient for you?" "The sooner the better," Scott said with obvious relief that he hadn't had to sell her. "How's . . .ah, four tomorrow? My office?" "That's fine, perfect. We'll see you tomorrow then." "We?" Nancy picked up the plural reference. "Yes, I am working with someone else. It helps if I'm not crazy alone." * * * * * FBI, New York "I'll be in Washington tomorrow, we can talk about it then," Tyrone Duncan said emphatically into his desk telephone. "Ty, I've been on your side and defended you since I came on board, you know that." Bob Burnson was pleading with Ty. "But on this one, I have no control. You've been poking into areas that don't concern you, and I'm catching heat." "I'm working on one damn case, Bob. One. Computer crime. But it keeps on touching this fucking blackmail fiasco and it's getting on everyone's nerves. There's a lot more to this than ransoms and hackers and I've been having some luck. I'll show you what I have tomorrow. Sixish. Ebbets." "I'll be there. Ty," Burnson said kindly. "I don't know the specifics, but you've been shaking the tree. I hope it's worth it." "It is, Bob. I'd bet my ass on in." "You are." * * * * * Thursday, January 14 Walter Reed Medical Center "How is he doing?" Scott asked. "He's not out of the woods yet," said Dr. Sean Kelly, one of Walter Reed's hundreds of Marcus Welby look-alike staff physi- cians. "In cases like this, we operate in the dark. The chest wound is nasty, but that's not the danger; it's the head wound. The brain is a real funny area." Tyrone's FBI identification was required to get him and Scott in to see Dr. Kelly. As far as anybody knew, Pierre Troubleaux had been killed over the weekend in an explosion in his hospital room. The explosion was faked at the suggestion of the manage- ment of dGraph, Inc. after Pierre's most recent assailant was murdered, despite the police assigned to guard his room. Two of Ahmed's elite army had disguised themselves as orderlies so well that they weren't suspected when one went in the room and the other occupied the guard. The media was having a field day. All would have gone as planned but for the fact that one of the D.C. policeman on guard was of Lebanese decent. One ersatz orderly emerged from the room and spoke to his confederate in Arabic. "It's done. Let's get out of here." The guard understood enough Farsi and instantly drew his gun on the pair. One of Ahmed's men tried to pull his gun but was shot and wounded before he could draw. The other orderly started to run down the hallway pushing nurses and patients out of his way. He slid as he turned left down another corridor that ended with a huge picture window overlooking the lush hospital grounds. He never slowed, shouting "Allah, I am yours!" as he dove through the plate glass window plummeting five floors to the concrete walk below. The wounded and armed orderly refused to speak. At all. Noth- ing. He made his one call and remained silent thereafter. The dGraph management was acutely concerned that there might be another attempt on Pierre's life, so the secrecy surrounding his faked death would be maintained until he was strong enough to deal with the situation on his own. The investigation into both the shooting and the meant-to-convince bombing was handled by the District Police, and officially the FBI had nothing to do with it. Dr. Kelly continued, trying to speak in non-Medical terms. "Basically, we don't know enough to accurately predict the ef- fects of trauma to the brain. We can generally say that motor skills, or memory might be affected, but to what extent is un- known. Then there are head injuries that we can't fully explain, and Pierre's is one of them." Scott and Ty looked curiously at Dr. Kelly. "Pierre had a severe trauma to the cranium, and some of the outer layers of brain tissue were damaged when the skull was perforated." Scott shud- dered at the distinct memory of the gore. "Since he was in a coma, we elected to do minimal repair work until he gained con- sciousness and he could give us first hand reports on his memory and other possible effects. That's how we do it in the brain business." "So, how is he?" Scott wanted a bottom line. "He came out of a coma yesterday, and thus far, we can't find any problems that stem from the head injury." "That's amazing," said Scott. "I saw the . . ." "It is amazing," agreed Dr. Kelly, "but not all that rare. There are many references in the literature where severe brain damage was sustained without corresponding symptoms. I once saw a half inch re-bar go through this poor guy's forehead. He was still awake! We operated, removed the bar, and when he woke up he was hungry. He had a slight a headache. It was like nothing ever happened. So, who knows? Maybe we'll be lucky." "Can we see him?" Scott asked the Irish doctor assigned to repair Pierre Troubleaux. "He's awake, but we have been keeping him sedated, more to let the chest wound heal than his head," Dr. Kelly replied. Pierre was recuperating in a virtual prison, a private room deep within the bowels of the Medical Center. There were 2 guards outside the room and another that sat near the hospital bed. Absolute identification was required every time someone entered the room and it took two phone calls to verify the identities of Scott and Tyrone despite the verbal affidavit from Kelly. The groggy Pierre was awake when the three approached the bed. Dr. Kelly introduced them and Pierre immediately tried to move to thank Scott for saving his life. Dr. Kelly laid down the rules; even though Pierre was in remarka- bly good shape, still, no bouncing on the bed and don't drink the IV fluid. Pierre spoke quietly, but found at least a half dozen ways to thank Scott for his ad hoc heroics. He also retained much of his famed humor. "I want to thank you," Pierre said in jest, "for putting the value of my life in proper perspective." Scott's cheeks pushed up his glasses from the deep smile that Pierre's words caused. He hadn't realized that Pierre had been conscious. Tyrone looked confused. "I begged him not to die," laughed Scott, "because it wouldn't look good on my resume." "And I have had the common courtesy to honor your request." After suffering enough embarrassment by compliments, Scott asked Pierre for a favor, to which he readily agreed. No long term karmic debt here, thought Scott. "I need to understand something," said Scott. Pierre nodded, what? "You told me, in the midst of battle, that dGraph was sick. I took that to mean that it contained a virus of some kind, but, well, I guess that's the question. What did you mean?" "You're right. Yes," Pierre said softly but firmly. "That's what I was going to say at the hearings. I was going to confess." "Confess?" Tyrone asked. "To what?" "To the viruses. About why I did it, or, really, why I let it happen." "So you did infect your own software. Why?" Scott demanded. Pierre shook his head back and forth. "No, I didn't do it. I had no control." "Then who did?" "Homosoto and his people." "Homosoto? Chairman of OSO?" Scott shrieked. "You're out of your mind, no offense." "I wish I were. Homosoto took over my company and killed Max." * * * * * The New Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. "The Senator will see you now," said one of Senator Deere's aides. Scott and Tyrone entered her office which was decorated more in line with a woman's taste than the heavy furniture men prefer. She stood to greet them. "Gentlemen," Nancy Deere said shaking their hands. "I know that you're with the New York City Times, Mr. Mason. I took the liberty of reading some of your work. Interesting, controver- sial. I like it." She offered them chairs at an informal seat- ing area on one end of the large office. "And you are?" she said to Ty. He told her. "I take it this is official?" "At this point ma'am, we just need to talk, and get your reac- tions," Ty said. "He's having labor management troubles." Scott thought that was the perfect diplomatic description. "I see," Nancy said. "So right now this meeting isn't happening." "Kind of like that," Ty said. "And him?" She said cocking her head at Scott. "It's his story, I'm just his faithful sidekick with a few of the pieces." "Well then," Nancy said amused with the situation. "Please, I am all ears." She and Tyrone looked at Scott, waiting. How the hell was he going to tell a U.S. Senator that an organ- ized group of anarchistic hackers and fanatic Moslem Arabs were working with a respected Japanese industrialist and building computer viruses. He couldn't figure out any eloquent way to say it, so he just said it, straight, realizing that the summa- tion sounded one step beyond absurd. All things considered, Scott thought, she took it very well. "I assume you have more than a headline?" Senator Deere said after a brief, polite pause. Scott proceeded to describe everything that he had learned, the hackers, Kirk, Spook, the CMR equipment, his articles being pulled, the First State and Sidneys situation. He told her about the anonymous documents he had thus far been unable to use. Except for one which he would use today. Scott also said that computer viruses would fully explain the banking crisis. Tyrone outlined the blackmail cases he suspected were diversion- ary tactics for another as yet unknown crime, and that despite more than $40 millions in payoffs had been arranged, no one had showed to collect. "Ma'am," Tyrone said to Senator Deere. "I fought to get into the Bureau, and I made it through the good and the bad. And, I always knew where I stood. Akin, I guess to the political winds that change every four years." She nodded. "But now, there's something wrong." Nancy tilted her head waiting for Ty to con- tinue. He spoke carefully and slowly. "I have never been the paranoid type; I'm not conspiracy minded. But I do find it strange that I get so much invisible pressure to lay off a case that appears to be both global in its reach and dangerous in its effects. It's almost like I'm not supposed to find out what's happening. I get no cooperation from my upstairs, CI, the CIA. NSA has been predictably obnoxious when I started asking questions." "So why come to me?" Nancy asked. "You're the police." "Are you aware that Pierre Troubleaux is alive?" Scott asked Nancy, accidentally cutting off Tyrone. "Alive? How's that possible?" She too, had heard the news. They told her they had spoken to Pierre and that his death had been a ruse to protect him. The reports on Pierre's prognosis brightened Nancy attitude. "But, it's not all good news. It appears, that every single copy of dGraph, that's a . . ." "I know dGraph," she said quickly. "It's part of the job. Couldn't live without it." "Well, ma'am, it's infected with computer viruses. Hundreds of them. According to Pierre, the head of OSO Industries, Taki Homosoto, had Max Jones, co-founder of dGraph killed and has effectively held Pierre hostage since." The impact of such an overwhelming accusation defied response. Nancy Deere's jaw fell limp. "That is the most unbelievable, incredible . . .I don't know what to say." "I have no reason not to believe what Pierre is saying. Not yet," said Tyrone. "There are a few friends of mine working to see if dGraph really is infected." Scott whistled to indicate the seriousness of the implications. "What, Mr. Mason, what if it is?" She thirsted for more hard information. "I'm no computer engineer, Senator, er, Nancy, but I'm not stupid either. Pierre said that at least 500 different viruses have been installed in dGraph since Homosoto took over. A rough guess is that there are over four million copies of dGraph. Legal ones that is. Maybe double that for pirated copies." Nancy main- tained rapt attention as Scott continued . "Therefore, I would venture that at least eight to ten million computers are infect- ed." Scott paused as Nancy's eyes widened. "Knowing that viruses propagate from one program to another according to specific rules, it would not be unreasonable to assume that almost every micro-computer in the United States is getting ready to self destruct." Scott sounded certain and final. "I can't comprehend this, this is too incredible." Senator Deere shook her head in disbelief. "What will happen?" "Pierre doesn't know what the viruses do, he's not a programmer. He's just a figurehead," Scott explained. "Now, if I had to guess, I would, well, I would do everything possible to keep those viruses from exploding." "One man's word is an indictment, not a conviction," Nancy said soberly. "There's more," Tyrone said, taking some of the onus off Scott. "We've learned quite a bit in the last few days, Senator, and it begins to pull some of the pieces together, but not enough to make sense of it all." He slid forward in his chair. "We know that Scott's hacker's name is Miles Foster and he's tied up with the Amsterdam group, but we don't how yet. We also know that he is ex-NSA and was a communications and security expert out at the Fort." Nancy understood the implication. "When I asked for information on Foster from NSA I was stone- walled. I assume that I somehow pushed a button and that now they're retaliating. But, for the life of me, I don't know why." Tyrone shook his head in frustration. "It doesn't make any sense." "At any rate," Tyrone said waving off the lack of cooperation, "I checked into his background since he left the Agency in '87. He went freelance, became a consultant, a Beltway Bandit." Nancy Deere nodded that she understood but she listened with a poker face. "We have him traveling to Japan shortly after his resigna- tion, and then several times over the next few months. He has been to Japan a total of 17 times. Since his credit cards show no major purchases in Japan, I assume that he was somebody's guest. The tickets purchased in his name were bought from a Tokyo travel agency, but we can't determine who paid for them." "Seventeen times?" asked the Senator. "Yes ma'am. Curious." "How do you know what he used his credit cards for, Mr. Duncan?" she asked dubiously. "We have our means. I can't get into that now." Tyrone held the party line which meant not confirming or denying that the FBI could access any consumer and credit data base in the world. In fact though, the National Crime Information Center is linked to hundreds of computers world wide over the Computer Applications Communications Network. They can generate a complete profile on any citizen within minutes of the request. Including all travel, credit card and checking activities. Scott found this power, entrusted to a few non-elected and non-accountable civil servants unconscionable. "I have no doubt," she said caustically. "There's more." Tyrone spoke without the benefit of notes which impressed Nancy. "The case concerning Max Jones' death is being reopened. It seems that the former Sheriff in San Mateo county was voted out and the new one is more than willing to assist in making his predecessor look bad." Tyrone spoke without the emotion that drove Scott. "So what does this prove?" she asked. "It turns out that Homosoto was in Sunnyvale the day that Jones died." Nancy Deere sat in silence and stared out of the window which only provided a view of another office building across the street. Despondence veiled her normally affable countenance as she grappled internally with the implications of the revelations. "Senator," Scott said as he handed her a file labeled General Young: GOVT-108. "I was wondering if this might have any bearing on the tone of the hearings? It's pretty obvious that you and Rickfield don't see eye to eye." Nancy took the file cautiously, meeting Scott's eyes, looking for ulterior motives. She found none and scanned the first page that described the illicit relationship between General Young and Senator Merrill Rickfield. Her brow furrowed the more she read. "Is this confirmed?" she asked quietly. "No ma'am," Scott said. "I read it this weekend and added up two and two and, well, it does raise some questions." "I should say it does. Ones that I'm sure he will not be anxious to answer." * * * * * 6 P.M., Washington, D.C. "Who the hell are you pissing off and why?" Bob Burnson met Tyrone and Scott at the Old Ebbett's Grill across the street from Treasury at 6:00 PM. Burnson insisted that their conversation be off the record, and reluctantly accepted that for Scott's assistance in Tyrone's investigation he would get an exclusive. For a full half hour, Tyrone and Scott explained what they knew, just as they had to Senator Deere. Tyrone had other problems. "I've been running into all sorts of bullshit here, CI, and don't forget our midnight rendezvous." Burnson was a reasonable man, and had every reason, more than two decades of reasons to believe the tale that Tyrone was telling him. Yet, at the same time, the story carried a wisp of the implausible. Hackers and Arabs? But, then, why was he getting heat that Ty was peeking under the wrong logs? "What are you planning?" Bob asked them both. "Scott's going after Homosoto," said Tyrone. "See if he can get a few answers." "And," Scott added, "the Max Jones angle. I'll be on that, too." "Right. As for me?" Tyrone asked. "I sure would like to have a chat with Mr. Foster. I can't imagine that he's squeaky clean. There's no core, no substance, but a lot of activity, and I think it's about time to turn a few screws." "Ty," Bob consoled, "whoever's button you're pushing has pushed the Director's, whose aides have been all over my ass like stink on shit. And that's exactly what this smells of. From a politi- cal angle, it reeks, and by all rights I should make you back off." Burnson gestured at Scott. "Then we'd have him doing the work while our asses stay clean." He referred to Scott. "A perfect case of CYA." "But?" Tyrone suggested. "But," Bob said, "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone's not out to get you. It smells like pure 100% Grade A Government approved horse shit here, but I'll be fucked if know why CI is such a problem. They normally love the espionage stuff." "They think it's a crock. Said we should stick to tabloid crimes," Tyrone said defiantly. "Unless," Scott thought out loud. Ty and Bob stopped to listen. "Unless, the NSA has something to hide about Miles Foster. Could they exert that kind of pressure?" He asked Bob. "The NSA can do almost anything it wants, and it has tremendous political strength. It's possible," Bob resigned. "Listen, I'll cover you as long as I can, but, after that, it may get too thick for my blood. I hope you understand." "Yeah, I know. I'll call you anyway. And, Bob? Thanks." * * * * * Friday, January 15 New York City Skyway-I helicopter flew down the East River at 5:30 A.M. making the first of dozens of traffic reports that would continue until 10:00 A.M. Jim Lucas flew during the A.M. and P.M. rush hours for 8 local stations and was regarded as the commuters's Dear Abby for driver's psychosis. His first live-report did not bode well; the FDR Drive was tied up very early; might be a rough commute. He crossed 42nd. St. heading west to the Hudson River and noticed that there were already two accidents; one at 5th. Avenue and one at Broadway. He listened in on the police band for details to pass on to his audience. At 5:50 A.M., Skyway-I reported traffic piling up at the 72nd. Street and Riverside Drive exit of the decrepit and ancient West Side Highway. And another accident on West End Avenue and 68th. Street. Jim flew east across Manhattan to 125th. Street where the Triborough Bridge dumps tens of thousands of cars every morning onto southbound 2nd. Avenue. Two more accidents. He listened to the police calls and heard them say the accidents were caused because all of the traffic lights were green. Every traffic light in Manhattan was green according to the police. Jim reported the apparent problem on the air and as many accidents as he could; there were too many accidents to name. He passed on the recommendations of the police: Best Stay Home. By 6:30 two additional helicopters were ordered to monitor the impending crisis as the city approached real gridlock. Police helicopters darted about while the media listened in on the conversations from their police band radios. At 7:00 the Traffic Commissioner was called at home, and told that he shouldn't bother trying to come to work. The streets were at a standstill. Thousands of extra police units were dispersed throughout the city in a dubious attempt to begin the process of managing the snarl that engulfed the city. Scott Mason exited from the 43rd. Street and Vanderbilt side of Grand Central Station and was met with a common sight - a massive traffic jam. He walked the one block to Fifth Avenue and it gradually dawned on him that traffic wasn't moving at all. At 8:15 A.M. it shouldn't be that bad. The intersection at Fifth was crowded with cars aiming in every direction and pedestrians nervously slipped in and around the chaos. Scott walked the three blocks to the Times digesting the effects of the city's worst nightmare; the paralysis of the traffic system. At that thought his stomach felt like he had been thrown from an airplane. The traffic computers. * * * * * Washington, D.C. Sonja Lindstrom watched the New York based Today show from the kitchen counter in her upscale Reston, Virginia townhouse. What a mess, she thought. She knew how bad traffic could be in New York even when the lights worked. A news flash pre-empted an interview with Joan Embry from the San Diego Zoo. Sonja watched intently. New York was entering panic mode, and the repercus- sions would be world wide. Especially with the banks closed. The New York radio stations linked up with the Emergency Broad- cast System so they could communicate with the half million drivers who had nowhere to go. Bridges and tunnels into Manhat- tan were closed and cars and busses on major arteries were being forced to exit onto side streets. Schools, shops and non-essen- tial government services were shut down for the day. The Governor of New York declared a state of emergency and the National Guard was called to assist the local police. Sonja compared New Yorkers' reactions to this crisis to the way they deal with a heavy snowfall when the city stops. Pretty much like any other day. No big deal, go to a bar, good excuse for a party. She giggled to herself as the phone rang. "Hello?" "Good morning, Sonja?" "Oh, hi, Stephanie. Yeah. Kind of early for you, isn't it?" Sonja sipped her coffee. "It is, I know, but I had to call you," Stephanie said quickly. "Something wrong?" Sonja asked. "I think so, maybe. Wrong enough that I had to tell you." Stephanie sighed audibly. "You don't have to play up to Scott Mason any more. I'm getting out." "Out of what?" Sonja said with confusion. "I've learned a few things that I don't like, and I've kinda got hung up on Miles, and, well, I feel funny about taking the money anymore. Especially since Miles doesn't know about the arrange- ments. You know what I mean?" "Yes. With Scott it bothered me a little. So I made believe I was on the Dating Game. All expense paid date." Sonja knew exactly what Stephanie meant. Deep inside she had known that at one point or another she would have to meet the conflict between her profession and her feelings straight on and deal with it. She had not suspected that it would be for passion, nor because of one of her 'dates'. "Besides," Sonja added, "I didn't need to push him into anything. He's so hung on this story that it's almost an obsession with him." "That's good to know, I guess," Stephanie said vacantly until her thoughts took form. "Hey, I have an idea. Why don't the four of us get together sometime. I'm sure the boys have a lot in common." "Scott should be down tonight." "That should be fine. We were going to dinner anyway. Maybe we can put this behind us." * * * * * New York City The traffic engineers frantically searched for the reason that the signals had all turned green. They reinitialized the switch- es and momentarily thousands of green lights flashed red and yellow, but there was no relief from the gridlock. Computer technicians rapidly determined that the processor control code was 'glitching', as they so eloquently described the current disaster. A global error, they admitted, but correctable, in time. The engineers isolated the switching zones and began manually loading the software that controlled each region's switches in the hope of piecing together the grid. At noon the engineers and technicians had tied together the dozens of local switches into the network and watched as they synchronized with each other. The computers compare the date, the time, anticipated traffic flow, weather conditions and adjust the light patterns and sequences accordingly. Twenty minutes later, just as system wide synchronization was achieved, every light turned green again. It was then that the engineers knew that it was only the primary sync-control program which was corrupted. The Mayor publicly commended the Traffic Commissioner for getting the entire traffic light system back in operation by 2:00 P.M.. The official explanation was a massive computer failure, which was partially true. Privately, though, Gracie Mansion instructed the police to find out who was responsible for the dangerous software and they in turn called the Secret Service. The media congratulated the NYPD, and the population of the City in coping with the crisis. To everyone's relief there were no deaths from the endless stream of traffic accidents, but almost a hundred were injured seriously enough to be taken to the hospital. Whoever was responsible would be charged with attempted murder among other assorted crimes. All they had to do was find him. * * * * * New York City Telephoning to another day is about as close to time travel as we will see for a century, but that's how Scott felt when he called OSO Industries in Tokyo. Was he calling 17 hours into the next day, or was he 7 hours and one day behind? All he knew was that he needed an international clock to figure out when to call Japan during their business hours. Once he was connected to the OSO switchboard, he had to pass scrutiny by three different opera- tors, one of them male, and suffer their terrible indignities to the English language. He told Homosoto's secretary, whose Eng- lish was acceptable, that he was doing a story on dGraph and needed a few quotes. It must have been slow in Tokyo as he was patched through almost immediately. "Yes?" "Mr. Homosoto?" "Yes." "This is Scott Mason, from the New York City Times. I am calling from New York. How are you today?" "Fine, Mr. Mason. How may I help you?" Homosoto was obviously the gratuitous sort when it came to the press. "We are preparing to run a story in which Pierre Troubleaux accuses you of murdering his partner Max Jones. He also says that dGraph software is infected with destructive programs. Would you like to comment, sir?" Scott asked as innocently as possible under the circumstances. No answer. "Sir? Mr. Homosoto?" "Yes?" "We are also interested in your relationship with Miles Foster. Mr. Homosoto?" "I have nothing to say." "Are you financing hackers and Arabs to distribute computer viruses?" No answer. "Sir, do you know anything about a blackmail operation in the United States?" "I should have killed him." "What?" Scott strained his ear. "Mr. Troubleaux is alive?" "I can't answer that. Do you have any comment, sir? On anything?" "I have nothing to say. Good day." The phone went dead. Guilty as sin. A non-denial denial. **************************************************************** Chapter 25 Saturday, January 16 Tokyo, Japan Dressed as business-like on the weekend as during the week, Taki Homosoto sat at his regal techno-throne overlooking the Tokyo skyline from his 66th floor vista. It was time. Years of prepa- ration and millions of dollars later, it was time. Perhaps a little earlier than he would have liked, but the result would be the same anyway. The first call Homosoto made was to Ahmed Shah in his Columbia University office. Ahmed responded with his PRG code as the computer requested. <<<<<<CONNECTION>>>>>> GOOD YOU ARE THERE. I can't get too far without my man-servant. I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR INVALUABLE ASSISTANCE. HE IS DEAD? Yes. It took two martyrs, one is being tortured by the FBI, but he has Allah to guide him. GOOD. CAN YOU DO MORE? I am at your disposal. This is not the war I expected, but I serve Allah's will, and he is using you as his instrument of revenge. THE BANK CARDS. THEY ARE FOR YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE TO FUND YOUR EFFORTS. You speak strangely. Is something wrong? NO, EVERYTHING IS ACCORDING TO PLAN. I EXPECT YOU WILL FULFILL MY WISHES. Of course, that is the arrangement. But what has changed? NOTHING. I AM FULFILLING MY DESTINY. As am I. THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND. * * * * * Alexander Spiradon relaxed in his Alpine aerie home overlooking the hilly suburbs of Zurich while watching a satellite feed of the Simpson's on his TV. He found that he learned American colloquialisms best from American television. They brutalized the language under the guise of entertainment. During a commer- cial for 'The Quicker Picker Upper', his computer announced a call. He put the VCR on Quick-Record and sat at his Compaq Deskpro com- puter watching the screen display the incoming identification. <<<<<<AUTOCRYPT CONVERSATION>>>>>> <<PRG RESPONSE?>> Alex entered the code displayed on his personal identification card. G4-YU7-%T64-666.009 <<ACCEPTED>> Alex figured it was Homosoto since this was a very private com- puter. His other computer, an AST 386SX with 330 MB of storage was the one his recruits called with reports. The 25 Sir George's of his army called twice a day. Once to get their assignments and once to send him the results of their efforts. They didn't have to call long distance, though, and never knew that Alex ran his part of Homosoto's operation from Europe. Sir George and his hidden compatriots used their untraceable cellular phones and merely called a local phone number within their area code. Alex's communications group had set up a widely diverse network of call forwarding telephones to make tracing the calls impossible. They exploited all of the common services that helped make his and Homosoto's armies invisible. MR ALEX. Yes, sir. THE TIME HAS COME. So soon? YES. MONDAY IS GROUNDHOG DAY. Monday? Are you sure? With no warning? HAVE I EVER BEEN WRONG? No THEN DO AS I SAY. PLEASE. Alex started at the word 'please'. He had never seen Homosoto ever use it before. Of course. As you wish. WHAT ARE THE FIRST TARGETS OF THE GROUNDHOGS? It is complex. TELL ME! The reservations systems of American, Delta, Pan Am and TWA. It will shut down air travel for weeks. GOOD. AND? The NBC, CBS and ABC communications computers. We have people working in each network. Plus, we have land based transmitters to garble and override network satellite transmis- sions. Quite a neat trick actually. I'm impressed with the technology. I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR TECHNOLOGY. I WANT TO KNOW THAT THEY WILL WORK. WHO ELSE? The list is long. Groundhogs are at the Home Shopping Network, American Express and other credit card companies. The Center for Disease Control, Hospitals, the IRS, Insurance Companies. Within a week, their computers will be empty and useless. THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO HEAR. THIS ENDEAVOR HAS BEEN MOST PROFITA- BLE FOR YOU, HAS IT NOT? Very much so. It is appreciated. THEN YOU WILL NOT MIND IF I INCREASE YOUR PAYMENT. No. Why? YOU MUST MAINTAIN THE SANCTITY OF OUR ARRANGEMENTS. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? Yes. I assume I ask no questions? YOU KNOW MORE THAN YOU SHOULD, BUT YOU ARE A MAN OF HONOR AS LONG AS I PAY THE MOST. THAT IS TRUE. At least you know where I stand. WILL YOU CONTINUE? Consider it done. How much more? ENOUGH. MORE THAN ENOUGH. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> * * * * * He couldn't believe it. Scott had just watched Nightline, and who was the guest? Madonna. How ridiculous. She badly needed English lessons not to mention a brain. He was relieved when the call came. WTFO? I'm here, Kirk. You're two minutes late. PICKY PICKY. I had to sit through a half hour of Madonna explaining why she masterbates on MTV. LIFE'S A CESSPOOL. THEN YOU DIE. You sound happy tonight. I'M NOT EXACTLY PLEASED, IF THAT'S WHAT YOU MEAN. What have you got? WE'VE LEARNED A LOT. FIRST OF ALL, DGRAPH IS INFECTED. No shit. PROFANITY. BIG BROTHER AND FREEDOM ARE LISTENING. REALLY. WE FOUND DOZENS OF DIFFERENT VIRUSES IN LOTS OF DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF DGRAPH. SOMEONE PUT A LOT OF WORK INTO THIS. I HAVE NEMO AND EVERY PHREAK I KNOW WORKING ON IT TO SEE WHAT OTHER VERSIONS THERE ARE. AND I'M SURE THAT HALF THE HACKERS IN THE COUNTRY ARE DOING THE SAME THING NOW. WORD GETS AROUND. BUT THAT'S NOT THE HALF OF IT. Continue, oh messenger of doom. THERE'S MORE ABOUT THE FREEDOM BOARDS. I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN WHAT WE FOUND. I'm hanging on your every byte. GOOD. FIRST OF ALL, I HAD NO IDEA HOW BIG THE FREEDOM LEAGUE WAS. OVER 1600 MEMBER BBS'S HERE AND IN CANADA. Is that large? THAT MAKES THEM A FULL FLEDGED NATIONAL NETWORK. ALMOST A MIL- LION PEOPLE BELONG. BUT THE BEST PART? THE FREEDOM LEAGUE SOFTWARE IS FILLED WITH VIRUSES TOO. You've got to be kidding. A million people in on it? NO, NOT AT ALL. COULD BE JUST A FEW. A few? How many are a few? QUIET! THE FREEDOM LEAGUE RUNS A SORT OF FRANCHISE SERVICE FOR BBS'S. THEY GIVE YOU ALL OF THE TOOLS AND TOYS AND SOFTWARE TO HAVE YOUR OWN FREEDOM LEAGUE BBS. SO ANYONE WHO WANTS TO, CAN SET THEMSELVES UP FOR FREE. FREEDOM GIVES THEM EVERYTHING BUT A COMPUTER AND A MODEM. And in exchange, they have to sell Freedom Software. NOT EXACTLY SELL, SHAREWARE IS FREE TO DISTRIBUTE, IN THEORY ONLY A FEW PEOPLE MAY EVEN KNOW ABOUT THE INFECTIONS. WHOEVER IS DESIGNING THE PROGRAMS HAS TO BE IN ON IT. And the franchisers, of course! They set up their own distribu- tion of viruses. I WOULD GUESS THAT ABOUT 100 OF THE FREEDOM BBS'S KNOW ABOUT THE INFECTIONS. Why, how do you know that? GOOD GUESS. WHEN FREEDOM STARTED UP BACK IN '88, IT HAD 100 LOCATIONS. So it was staged, set up? MUSTA BEEN. NOT CHEAP. A GOOD BBS TAKES ABOUT $10,000 TO GET GOING. A million bucks. Chump change. FOR WHO? Just a friend. What else? THEY'VE DISTRIBUTED MILLIONS OF PROGRAMS. MILLIONS. Is every one infected? I GUESS SO. EVERY ONE WE'VE LOOKED AT IS. Who else knows. NEMO, PHREAK PHRIENDS. IN A COUPLE OF DAYS YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO GIVE FREEDOM AWAY. IF IT'S INFECTED, WHICH IT IS, IT'S ALL OVER FOR THEM. THEIR REP IS SHOT. Aren't you worried about a repeat performance on your computers? NO. I MOVED WHAT WAS LEFT OF MY EQUIPMENT AND WE SWITCHED TO CELLULAR CALL FORWARDING. CAN'T BE TRACED FOR MONTHS. BUT I APPRECIATE THE CONCERN. I'll call you. My main man is going to want to talk to you. * * * * * Monday, January 18 New York City Times dGRAPH INFECTED WITH VIRUS: DGI OFFERS FREE UPGRADES. by Scott Mason In an unprecedented computer software announcement, DGI President and industry magnate Pierre Troubleaux admitted that every copy of dGraph sold since late 1987 contains and is infected with highly dangerous and contagious computer viruses. He blamed Taki Homosoto, chairman of OSO Industries, and the parent company of DGI for the viruses that Troubleaux said were implanted on purpose. Mr. Homosoto had no comment on the allegations. Since there are so many different viruses present in the dozens of dGraph versions, (Mr. Troubleaux estimates there may be as many as 500) it is impossible to determine the exact detonation dates or anticipated damage. Therefore DGI is offering free uninfected copies of dGraph to every registered user. Industry reaction was strong, but surprisingly non-critical of DGI's dilemma. In general the reaction was one of shock and disbelief. "If this is true," said one source, "the amount of damage done will be incalculable." He went on to say that since the virus problem has been largely ignored, very few businesses have any sort of defensive measures in place. Estimates are that large companies have the most to lose when the dGraph Virus explodes. The major software manufacturers came to DGI's support saying, ". . .it was bound to happen sooner or later. We're just glad it didn't happen to us." Leading software firms including Micro- soft, Lotus, Computer Associates and Borland have offered their disk duplication and shipping facilities to assist DGI in dis- tributing over four million copies of the program. Even with such support policies by DGI and the assistance of the software industry, there is a great fear that the infected dGraph programs have communicated viruses to other programs and comput- ers. According to Ralph Potter of the International Virus Asso- ciation, "This is a disaster of unfathomable proportions. It could not be much worse than if DOS had been carrying a virus for years. The designers knew what they were doing, waiting so long before the viruses were triggered to go off. The ultimate Trojan Horse." The National Computer Systems Laboratory at the National Insti- tute of Standards and Technology issued a terse statement saying that they would soon publish recommended procedures to minimize the effects of the current virus crisis. They predicted at least 2 millions personal computers would be stricken with the dGraph Viruses. One dGraph User Group in Milwaukee, Wisconsin has begun a class action suit against DGI and OSO on behalf of all users who have damage done to their computers and or data. They claim at least 10,000 co-plaintiffs on the initial filing with District Court in Milwaukee and are asking for $10 Billion in damages. End. Scott's story went on to describe that the FBI and Secret Service were taking the threat as a national security risk and would make a public statement in a day or so. Leading software industry prophets were quoted, all taking credit for warning the computer industry that such massive assaults were predictable and prevent- able. They blamed the government and computer manufacturers for laxidazical handling of a serious problem that could have been prevented. Scott had to make a large chart to keep track of the competitive finger pointing from the experts. DGI's stock fell 75% after the announcement until the SEC sus- pended its trading. * * * * * The Associated Press wire announcement was followed in seconds by the one from UPI. Doug tore it off the printer and raced it over to Scott. "I believe this will be of interest to you . . ." Doug chuckled as Scott read the wire. Tokyo, Japan: Taki Homosoto, the billionaire founder and chairman of OSO Industries, was found dead this afternoon in his opulent Tokyo office. According to police and company spokespersons, Mr. Homosoto died by his own hands in tradi- tional Japanese warrior fashion; hari-kari. His body was found curled up in a pool of blood with the ritualistic sword penetrating his abdomen protruding from his lower back. Police say they discovered a note on his person that ex- plained the apparent suicide. The letter is believed to have been hand written by Mr. Homosoto. The contents of that letter, as released by the Tokyo police follow: Honorable Friends, I now resign as Chairman of OSO Industries. My time is over. For almost 50 years I have waited to see the United States and its people suffer as my people did during those terrible days in August. The United States gave our people no warn- ing, and tens of thousands of innocent women and children died without purpose. This criminal sin is one which the United States and its people will have to live with for all eternity. Yet, out of compassion for the millions of innocent bystand- ers who are helplessly trapped by their government's indif- ference to human life, I will give the American people a warning: Without your computers your future is dim, and your present becomes the past. When I was told about the attack plans on the United States, I admit that I was a willing but skeptical buyer. I found it hard to believe, indeed incredible, that the greatest military power on Earth was so foolish. I learned that there were no defenses for the computers that run your country. How unfortunate for you. It was shown me how to execute the plans which invade the very bastions of Western Imperialism; and I have succeeded admirably. You will not recover for years, as we did not after your hideous attack upon our land. By the time you read this, I will be dead and happy. My creations will have taken hold, and unshakeable from their roots, will spread chaos and distrust. This is the world's first computer war and I have waged it and I will win it. Retaliate! Retaliate, if you wish, if you can; but you will not, you cannot. Who do you attack? My country? They had nothing to do with it. My company? I will be dead and there is no double jeopardy in death. You have nothing to say, and nothing to do in response. As we did not after your fire-bombs landed. We could say nothing. Helplessness is a terrible feeling. It is one of loneli- ness, solitude in a personal hell which your people shall suffer as they learn to live without the luxuries of tech- nology. You will pay for your ancestor's mistakes. To the memory and honor of my family. Taki Homosoto * * * * * Scott Mason called Tyrone Duncan immediately. "I know," said Tyrone, sounding out of breath. "We're on it. Pierre's getting additional protection. It turns out that Mr. Homosoto isn't as pure as the driven snow like he pretends to be." "How do you mean?" Scott asked. "Off the record." "Background." The negotiation on press terms was complete. "All right, but be careful. It seems that since the 1940's Mr. Homosoto has been performing some very lucrative services for our friends at the Pentagon. He has some influential friends in Congress and uses an assortment of lobbying firms to promote his interests." "What's so unusual about that?" Asked Scott. "Nothing, until you see that certain Congressmen got very wealthy when OSO Industries built plants in their districts. Heavy PAC contributions, blind distribution of small contributing funds. It also appears that he regularly entertained high Pentagon offi- cials in the finest fashion. Paris, Tokyo, Rio, Macao. Influ- ence pedaling and bribery. We have traced a path from Tokyo to the Pentagon that has resulted in OSO subsidiaries receiving large non-classified government contracts. Take dGraph for example. That's a de facto standard for all agencies." "I never thought about that. Everyone in the government uses it." "Just like the private sector. I'm on my way to have a little talk with your Mr. Foster. I don't believe in coincidences." "Good, where?" Asked Scott excitedly. "Whoah! Wait a minute. This is official now, and I can't have a civilian . . ." "Bullshit!" Scott yelled into the phone. "Don't you get GI on me. I gave him to you. Remember? Besides, I know him. And I might have something else." "What's that?" "What if I told you that the Freedom League is part of it? And that it's being run by foreign nationals." "So what?" asked Tyrone. "How far did you check into the van driver's background? Wasn't he Arab?" Scott offered tidbits that he thought relevant. "Yeah . . ." "When are you meeting Foster?" Tyrone thought carefully about Scott's words. "Listen, I have to get a warrant anyway. It'll probably take till tomorrow." Tyrone paused for the subtle offer to sink in to Scott. "He's listed. Gotta go." One hell of a guy, thought Scott. If it ever got out that Tyrone worked with the media like this, he would be immediately retired, if not possibly prosecuted. But nobody else was doing anything, and Scott had given them Foster on a silver platter. He would save the Freedom League story for the moment. * * * * * The Motorola STU-III secure phone rang on the credenza behind Marvin Jacobs desk. He had been Director of the National Securi- ty Agency, DIRNSA, since 1984, installed in that position because he gave the distinct impression that he didn't care about any- thing except satisfying his mentor; in this case Vice President Bush. The STU-III phone added funny electronic effects to the voices that spoke over it; all in the interest of national security. "Hello?" Jacobs asked. "Homosoto is dead." "I heard," Jacobs said. "It sounded clean." "Very pro. Won't be a problem." * * * * * Scott saw the galley for the afternoon paper. The headline, in 3 inch letters shocked him: RICKFIELD RESIGNS He immediately called Senator Nancy Deere. "I was going to call you," she said. "I guess you've heard." "Yes, what happened?" He shouted excitedly over the rumble of the high speed train. "I guess I should take the blame," Nancy said. "When I confront- ed the Senator this morning, he just stared at me. Never said a word. I begged him for an explanation, but he sat there, expres- sionless. He finally got up and left." "That's it? What happens now?" "I see the President," she said. "May I ask why?" "Off the record," she insisted. "Sure." Scott agreed. What's one more source I can't name. "I heard about the resignation from the White House. Phil Mus- grave. He said the President was very concerned and wanted a briefing from my perspective. He's beginning to feel some heat on the computer crimes and doesn't have a clue. I figure they need to get up to speed real fast." "It's about time," Scott said out loud. "They've been ignoring this forever." "And," Senator Deere added, "they want you there, too. Tomorrow, 9A.M." The hair on Scott's neck stood on end. A command performance from the White House? "Why, why me? "You seem to know more than they do. They think you're wired into the hackers and Homosoto." "I'll be there," Scott managed to get out. "What do I do . . .?" "Call Musgrave's office at the White House." "I bet the paper's going nuts. I didn't tell them I had left or where I was going," Scott laughed. Scott called Doug who had half of the paper looking high and low for him. "You made the big time, huh kid?" Doug said feigning snobbery. "What world shattering events precipitated this mag- nanimous call?" In fact he was proud. Very proud of Scott. Scott explained to Doug that he would call after the White House meeting, and he wasn't quite sure why he was going, and that Nancy was taking over the hearings and he would stay in DC for a few days. And no, he wouldn't tell more than was in print, not without calling Doug or Higgins - at any hour. Doug sounded relieved when Scott volunteered that there would be no hotel bills. Phew. Forever the cheap skate. The story of the year and he's counting pennies. God, Doug was a good editor. Scott's stories on computer crime and specifically the dGraph situation aroused national attention. Time, Newsweek and dozens of periodicals began following the story, but Scott, at Doug's suggestion, had wisely held back enough information that would guarantee the privacy and quality of his sources. He was right in the middle of it, perhaps making news as much as reporting it, but with Doug's and the Times' guidance, Scott and the paper were receiving accolades on their fair yet direct treatment of the issues. Doug thought that Scott was perhaps working on the story of the year, or maybe the decade, but he never told him so. However, Scott was warned that as the story became major national news, the exclusivity that he and the Times had enjoyed would be in jeopardy. Get it while the getting is hot. No problem. It just so happened Scott knew Miles Foster personally. * * * * * "Sonja? I'm coming down. Tonight. Can you recommend a good hotel?" He jibed at her while packing away his laptop computer for the trip to Washington. He called her and was going to leave a message, but instead he was rewarded with her answering the phone. "Chez Lindstrom is nice, but the rates are kind of high." "King or twin beds? Room with a view? Room service?" "E, all of the above," she laughed. "Want me to pick you up at National?" "Naw, I'll take the train from work. I may need to buy a few things when I get there, like a suitcase and a wardrobe. It's kind of last minute." "I gather I wasn't the prime reason for your sudden trip," Sonja said in fun. "No, it was, I wanted to come, but I had to do some . . .and then I found out about . . .well I have to be there tomorrow, but I am leaving a day early." He pleaded for understanding, not realiz- ing she was kidding him. He couldn't tell her why he was being so circumspect. Nothing about the meeting. "Well," she said dejectedly, "I guess it's O.K. If." "If what?" Scott brightened. "If we can have a couple of friends over for dinner. There's someone I'd like you to meet." * * * * * "Holy shit," Scott said as Sonja opened her apartment door and admitted Miles and the stunning Stephanie. Miles stopped in his tracks and stared at Scott. Then at Stepha- nie. "What's the deal?" he said accusingly. "This is Sonja Lindstrom and her friend Scott Mason," Stephanie said. "What's wrong, hon?" She still had her arm wrapped around Miles' arm. "It's just that, well, we've met, and I was just kind of sur- prised, that's all." He extended a hand at Scott. "Good to see you again." Scott warmly reciprocated. This was going to be an interesting evening. "Yeah, ditto," Scott said, confused. "What happened to you? I thought you were coming back?" He was speaking of Amsterdam. "Well, I was a little occupied, if you recall," Miles said refer- ring to the triplets in Amsterdam. "And business forced me to depart earlier than I had anticipated." "Where? To Japan?" Scott awaited a reaction by Miles, but was disappointed when there was none. Stephanie and Sonja wondered how the two had already met; it was their job to report such things to Alex, but it really didn't matter any more. They were quitting. The first round of drinks was downed quickly and the tension in the room abated slightly. The four spoke casually, albeit some- what guardedly. The harmless small talk was only a prelude to Scott's question when the girls stepped into the kitchen. Per- haps they left the room on purpose. "Listen," Scott whispered urgently to Miles. "I know who you are, and that you're tied up with Homosoto and the computer nutsiness that's going on everywhere. You have a lot of people looking for you and we only have a few seconds," Scott said glancing up at the kitchen door. "I see the situation as fol- lows. You get to tell your side of the story to the authorities in private, or you can tell me first and I put it in tomorrow's paper. This may be your only chance to get your side of the story out. All of sudden, you're big news. What'll it be?" Scott spoke confidently and waited for Miles' answer. Miles intently scanned every inch of Scott's face in minute detail. "That fucking gook. You're damn right I'll talk. First of all, it's a lie," Miles hissed. "If they're coming after me, I have to protect myself. Can't trust a fucking slant eye, can you?" The girls returned with fresh drinks and sat down on the white leather couch. Miles and Scott continued their discussion. "What happened?" Scott asked. Miles looked over at the stunning Sonja, stripping her naked with his stare and then at Stephanie who had caught his stare. "It's very simple," Miles said after a while. His dimples deep- ened while he forced a smile. "Homosoto's fucked us all." He nodded his head as he looked at his three companions. "Me. Royally. How the hell can I defend myself against accusations from the grave." He shrugged his shoulders. "And you," he point- ed at Scott. "You've kept the fear going. Haven't you. You picked up the scent and you've been writing about it for months. Setting his stage for him. Like a puppet. And then? After you sensitize the public, he commits suicide. He used you." "And then, you two," Miles said to Stephanie and Sonja. "You could be out in the cold in days. Bet you didn't know you were in on it. Am I right?" "In on what?" Scott asked Miles and Sonja. "Tell him," Miles said to Sonja. "I've never met you, but I can guess what you do for a living." "She's a PR person," interjected Scott. "Go on, tell him, or I will," Miles said again. Sonja's eyes pleaded with Miles to stop it. Please, stop. I'll do it in my own way, in time. Please, stop. Scott glowered at Miles' words and awaited a response from Sonja. How could he distrust her? But what did Miles mean? The front door bell rang and broke the intense silence. It rang again as Sonja went to answer. "Yes, he's here," she whispered. The door opened and Tyrone Duncan came into the room while anoth- er man stood at the door. Tyrone walked up to Miles. Scott was in absolute awe. How the hell? Ty had said tomorrow. "Mr. Foster? Miles Foster?" Tyrone asked without pleasantries. "Yeah," Miles said haughtily. "FBI," Ty said flashing his badge. "You're under arrest for trafficking in stolen computer access cards and theft of serv- ice." Tyrone took a breath and waved a piece of paper in the air. "We searched your apartment and found telephone company access codes that . . . " "I want to call my lawyer," Miles interrupted calmly. "Now," he commanded. " . . . have been used to bypass billing procedures." "I said I want to call my lawyer," Miles again said emphatical- ly. "I'll be out in an hour," he said aside to Stephanie and kissed her on the cheek. His arrogance was unnerving; this wasn't the same Miles that Scott had known in Amsterdam. There, he was just another misguided but well-intentioned techno-anarchist who was more danger to himself than anyone else. But now, as Tyrone read a list of charges against him, mostly arcane FBI domain inter- state offenses, Miles took on a new character. A worldly crimi- nal whom the FBI was arresting for potential terrorist activi- ties. "And those are for starters, Mister," Tyrone said after reading off a list of penal violations by code number. As if following a script, Tyrone added, "you have the right to remain silent . . ." He wanted to make sure that this was a clean arrest, and with this many witnesses, he was going to follow procedure to the letter. Mirandizing was one of the steps. Scott Mason's adrenaline flowed with intensity. Did he ever have a story to tell now! An absolute scoop. He was present, coinci- dentally, during the arrest of Miles Foster. Front page. "I want to call my lawyer," Miles repeated. "Make it quick," said Tyrone. Miles rapidly dialed a number from memory. Miles turned his back on Tyrone and the others and spoke calmly into the phone. "It's me." Pause. "It's me. I need assistance." Arrogance. Pause. "A laundry list of charges." Disinterest. Pause. "Had to happen, sooner or later, yeah," Miles said happily. Pause. "I gotta dinner party. I don't want to miss it." He smiled at Stephanie and blew a kiss. "Great. Make it quick." Miles hung up. Miles turned to Tyrone and held his wrists out together in front of him. "Let's go," Miles said still smiling cooly. Tyrone gently snapped the cuffs on Miles and ushered him toward the door. "Back in an hour or so," Miles defiantly said to Scott, Sonja and Stephanie over his shoulder as the front door closed behind Miles and his escorts. Scott watched in disbelief. Miles, the Spook, ever so calm, cool and collected. Not a fluster. Not a blush. Who had he called? That was the question that bothered Scott throughout the rest of the evening. * * * * * The White House, Washington, D.C. The President looked grim. The normally affable Republican had won his second term by a landslide and had maintained unprece- dented popularity. The Democrats had again been unable to con- jure up a viable candidate after another string of scandals rocked the primaries and the very foundation of the party itself Their entire platform focused on increasing the Peace Dividend beyond the aggressively reduced $180 Billion Defense budget. It was not much of an attack on a President whose popularity never fell below an astounding 65% approval, and the only ebb was due to a minor White House incident involving a junior aide, the junior aide's boyfriend and the Lincoln Bedroom. The recession that was started by the Iraqi situation in Kuwait during the summer of 1990 was not as bad as it could have been. The world wide militaristic fever, proper Fed Reserve response and the Japanese all took credit for easing the problem through their specific efforts. In fact, the recession was eased due in part to all of their efforts as well the new Europe. The Presi- dent was rewarded, ultimately, with the credit for renewing the economy almost glitch-free. But the President was still grim. America was again at war, and only a handful of people in the upper echelons of the Government even knew about it. It would be in the paper in the morning. **************************************************************** Chapter 26 Midnight, Tuesday, January 19 Scarsdale, New York Scott Mason awaited Kirk's midnight call. Now that they had a deal, a win-win situation, Kirk and his phriends had become gung-ho. Kirk agreed to help Scott in the dGraph and Freedom situations if Scott would make sure that his articles clearly spelled out the difference between the white-hat and black-hat hackers. Journalistic responsibility demanded fair treatment of all sides and their respective opinions, and Scott attempted to bring objectivity to his analyses. He did this well, quite well, and still was able to include his own views and biases, as long as they were properly qualified and disclaimed. Additionally, Kirk wanted assurances of total anonymity and that Scott would not attempt to identify his location or name. Scott also had to agree to keep his Federal friends at a distance and announce if they were privy to the conversations. In exchange for fair portrayals in the press, privacy and no government intervention, Kirk promised Scott that the resources of Nemo would be focussed on finding defenses to the virus at- tacks in dGraph and Freedom software. If Kirk and Homosoto were right, millions of computers would experience the electronic equivalent of sudden cardiac arrest in less than two weeks. The Times, Higgins and Doug agreed to the relationship but added their own working caveats. In order to treat Kirk as a protected source, they pretended he was a personal contact. Instead of reporter's notes, Scott maintained an open file which recorded the entirety of their computer conversations. There were no precedents for real-time electronic note taking, but Higgins felt confident that the records would protect the paper in any event. Besides, Supreme Court rulings now permit the recording of con- versations by hidden devices, as long as the person taping is actually present. Again, Higgins felt he had solid position, but he did ask Scott to ask Kirk's permission to save the conversa- tions on disk. Kirk always agreed. At midnight, Scott's computer beeped the anticipated beep. WTFO I heard a good one. JOKE? Yeah, do they work over computer? TRY ME. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were in Europe and got to meet the Pope. Dopey really wanted to asked the Pope a few questions. "Mr. Pope, Mr. Pope. Do you have pretty nuns?" "Of course we do, Dopey." "Mr. Pope, do you have fat ugly nuns?" "Why, yes, Dopey, we do." "And I bet, Mr. Pope, that you have some tall skinny nuns, too." "Yes, Dopey we do." "Mr. Pope? Do you have nuns in Chicago?" "Yes, Dopey, we have nuns in Chicago?" "And in San Francisco and New York?" "Yes, Dopey." "And do you have nuns in Africa and Australia and in France?" "Yes, Dopey. We have nuns everywhere." Dopey took a second to think and finally asked, "Mr. Pope? Do you have nuns in Antarc- tica?" "No, Dopey, I'm sorry, we don't have any nuns in Antarc- tica." The other six dwarfs immediately broke out into a laugh- ing song: "Dopey fucked a penguin. Dopey fucked a penguin." HA HA HA HA HA!!! LOVE IT. REAL ICE BREAKER. HA HA. Facetious? NO, THAT'S GREAT. IS YOUR RECORDER ON? You bet. No plagiarism. What have you got? MORE THAN I WISH I DID. DGRAPH FIRST. WE HAVE IDENTIFIED 54 SEPARATE DGRAPH VIRUSES. I HAVE A FILE FOR YOU. IT LISTS THE VIRUS BY DETONATION DATE AND TYPE, SYMPTOMS AND THE SIGNATURES NEEDED FOR REMOVAL. ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO PRINT IT ALL? Daily. Our science section has been expanded to every day from just Tuesday. I have all the room I need. YOU MIGHT MAKE ME RECONSIDER MY OPINION OF THE MEDIA. Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts. HA HA. WE'VE JUST TOUCHED THE SURFACE ON FREEDOM, BUT THE WORD'S OUT. FREEDOM WILL BE AS GOOD AS DEAD IN DAYS. THE NUMBER OF VIRUSES MUST NUMBER IN THE HUNDREDS. IT'S INCREDIBLE. I'VE SEEN A LOT OF VIRUSES, BUT NONE LIKE THIS. IT'S ALMOST AS THOUGH THEY WERE BUILT ON AN ASSEMBLY LINE. SOME ARE REAL CLOSE TO EACH OTHER, EVEN DO THE SAME THINGS, BUT THEIR SIGNATURES ARE DIFFER- ENT MAKING IT EXTRA HARD TO DETECT THEM. EACH ONE WILL HAVE TO BE DONE INDIVIDUALLY. I suggest we start with the dGraph viruses. You said 54, right? SO FAR. Send me the file and I still may have time to get it into tomor- row's paper. They usually leave a little room. I'LL SEND DGVIRUS.RPT. IT'S IN ASCII FORMAT, EASY TO READ INTO ANY FILE YOU'RE WORKING WITH. I think I can handle it. * * * * * DGRAPH VIRUS LIST by Scott Mason The dGraph Virus Crisis has set the computer industry into a virtual tailspin with far reaching effects including stock prices, delayed purchasing, contract cancellation and a bevy of reported lawsuits in the making. All the same, the effects of the Crisis must be mitigated, and the New York City Times will be providing daily information to assist our readers in fighting the viruses. DGraph is now known to contain at least 54 different viruses, each designed to exe- cute different forms of damage to your computer. According to computer security experts there are two ways to deal with the present virus crisis. The best way to make sure that an active security system is in place in your computer. Recommenda- tions vary, but it is generally agreed by most experts that security, especially in the highly susceptible desktop and laptop personal computers, should be hardware based. Security in soft- ware is viewed to be ineffective against well designed viruses or other offensive software mechanisms. The second way to combat the effects of the dGraph Virus, but certainly not as effective, is to build a library of virus signa- tures and search all of your computers for matches that would indicate a viral infection. This technique is minimally effec- tive for many reasons: Mutating viruses cause the signature to change every time it infects another program, rendering the virus unidentifiable. There is no way to be sure that all strains have been identified. Plus, there is no defense against subsequent viral attacks, requiring defensive measures to be reinstituted every time. Preliminary predictions by computer software experts are that between 1 and 5 million IBM compatible computers will be severely effected by the dGraph Viruses. Computers tied to local area and wide area networks are likely to be hit hardest. Beginning today, we will publish the known dGraph Virus charac- teristics daily to help disseminate the defensive information as rapidly as possible. dGraph Version 3.0 Virus #1 Detonation Date: 2/2/XX Symptoms: Monitor blinks on an off, dims and gets bright. Size: 2413 Signature: 0F 34 E4 DD 81 A1 C3 34 34 34 Virus #2, #3, #4, #5 Same as above but different dates. 2/3/XX, 2/4/XX, 2/5/XX, 2/6/XX Virus #6 Detonation Date: 2/2/XX Symptoms: Erases hard disk. Size: 1908 Signature: E4 EE 56 01 01 C1 C1 00 01 02 Virus #7 Detonation Date: 1/22/XX Symptoms: Reformats hard drive. Size: 2324 Signature: 00 F1 8E E3 AA 01 F5 6B 0B 0D Virus #8 Detonation Date: 1/23/XX Symptoms: Over exercises hard disk heads causing failure. Requires hard disk to be replaced. Size: 2876 Signature: FF 45 7A 20 96 E6 22 1F 07 0F 2E Scott's article detailed all 54 dGraph Viruses. Every wire service and news service in the country picked up the story and reprinted it in their papers and magazines. Within 24 hours, everyone who owned or used a computer had some weapons with which available to him. If they chose to believe in the danger. * * * * * Wednesday, January 20 The White House "So what about this Mason character?" Secretary of State Quinton Chambers asked challengingly. The President's inner circle was again meeting to discuss the government's reaction to the impend- ing chaos that Mr. Homosoto posthumously promised. The pre-dawn hours were viewed as an ideal time to have upper level meetings without the front door scrutiny of the press. Phil Musgrave pulled a folder from the stack in his lap and opened it. "Born 1953, he had an Archie Bunker for a father but he came out a brain - IQ of 170. Against Nam, who wasn't; he protested some, but not a leader. No real trouble with the law; couple of demonstration arrests. City College, fared all right, and then set up his own company, worked in the defense industry writing manuals until he hit it big and sold out. Divorced, no kids. Wife is kinda wacky. The news business is new to him, but he's getting noticed fast." "Is he a risk?" "The FBI hasn't completed their investigation," said Phil. "If he is a risk, it's buried deep. Surface wise, he's clean. Only one problem." "What's that?" "He's an independent thinker." "How's he done so far?" "So far so good." "So we let him continue?" "Yesterday he said he was willing to help, but I have a sneaky suspicion he'll do better on his own without our interference. Besides, he prints every damn thing he does." "What about their identity?" "No way. He will maintain source protection, and I don't think it matters right now. Maybe later." "What about the FBI friend?" "The FBI is aware of it, and views it favorably. Duncan's rela- tionship has been exclusively personal until recently. It seems to serve both sides well." "So you're saying he's working for us and not knowing it?" "He probably knows it, and probably, like most of the media, doesn't care. His job is to report the news. It just so happens that we read the same newspapers. Let's leave him alone." The President held up his hand to signal an end to the debate between State policy and the White House Chief of Staff. "Unless anyone can give me a good goddammed reason to fix something that seems to be working," he said, "let Mason do his job and let us do ours." He looked around the Oval Office for comments or dissent. It was a minor point and nobody thought it significant enough to pursue. Yet. "Next?" The President commanded. Refills of coffee were distributed and the pile of Danishes was shrinking as the men casually dined during their 6:00 A.M. meet- ing. "OSO Industries appears, by all first impressions, to have noth- ing to do with the threats." Henry Kennedy was expected to know more than anyone else at this point. "Investigations are contin- uing, but we have no reason to suspect a smoking gun." "One man did all of this?" asked the President skeptically. "We have no doubt that he accomplished at least the dGraph vi- ruses with accomplices and a great deal of money." Henry knew his material. With the combined help of the NSA, CIA, FBI and international contacts, the National Security Advisor was privy to an incredible range of information. He was never told direct- ly that U.S. agents regularly penetrated target computers as part of any investigation, or that they listened in on computers and communications to gather information. But Henry Kennedy preferred it this way; not to officially know where he got his data. Professional deniability. "We also have every reason to believe that he used technical talent outside of OSO," Kennedy continued. "Perhaps as many as thirty or forty people involved." The inner circle whistled. "Thirty or forty? That's a conspira- cy," commented Quinton. "I agree with Quinton. What I think we need to do here," said Phil Musgrave to the others in the room and the President, "is expand our previous definition of terrorism. Doesn't a threat to international stability and the economic well being of this country constitute terrorism?" He gazed into each of the listen- er's eyes then said, "In my mind it clearly does." He referred to the work at the Department of State which, since the Iraqi War, had clearly expanded the operational definition of terror- ism. "There's more," Henry said soberly. "Four months ago the FBI was inundated with reports of blackmail. None materialized but still take up a great deal of manpower and resources. Classified defense technology is used to shut down the Stock Exchange and other major businesses. Two months ago an Irani foreign national was killed in New York. He was driving a vehicle which contained sophisticated computer monitoring equipment." "Has anything developed on that front?" the President asked. "I remember reading about that. It was a tragedy." "It was," agreed Phil Musgrave. "We had the FBI, the CI division take apart what was left of the van and we began a cross trace," Henry pulled out yet another file from his stack. "It seems that during a two month period in 1988, a disproportionate number of identical Ford Econoline vans were paid for in cash. As far as the dealer is concerned, the customer disappeared. Unless they're using stolen plates, they- 're part of the DMV system. The New York van was registered to a non-existent address. Roadblocked." "And don't forget the First State incident, INTERNET, the FAA radar systems," Quinton Chambers said to the President. He listed a long series of computer malfunctions over the prior 60 days. "It appears at this point that we have been experiencing a prelude, the foreplay if you will, of something worse. The Homosoto letter makes him as good a candidate as anyone right now." Even Andrew Coletree felt in concert with the others on this point. "If what has happened to computers, the traffic systems, airplanes, to the IRS, the Stock Exchange, Fed Ex, and God knows what else is all from one man, Homosoto, then yes, it's a army, an attack." "What if we declare war?" Secretary of State Quinton Chambers said, fully expecting immediate agreement with his idea. "On who? The Computers?" jibed Defense Secretary Coletree. "The damned Computer Liberation Organization will be the next endan- gered minority." "Declaring war is a joke, excuse me Mr. President," said Phil Musgrave. "It's a joke and the American people won't buy it. They're getting hit where it hurts them the most. In their pock- ets. We have major business shut downs, and they want an answer. A fix, not a bunch of hype. We've had the war on crime, the war on drugs, the war on poverty and they've all been disasters. Things are worse now than before. They've had it with bullshit and they're scared right now." The President bowed and rotated his head to work out a kink. "The position of think," Musgrave would say. Then the refreshing snap in the President's neck would bring a smile of relief to the corners of Chief Executive's mouth. "What if we did it and meant it?" asked the President with a devilish grin. No one responded. "What if we declared war, with the approval of Congress, and actually did something about it." "A unique concept," quipped Musgrave. "Government accomplishing something." Penetrating glares from Coletree and Kennedy only furthered the President's amusement. He enjoyed the banter. "No, let me run this by you, and see what you think," the Presi- dent thought out loud. "We are facing a crisis of epic propor- tions, we all agree on that. Potential economic chaos. Why don't we deal with it that way. Why don't we really go out and fix it?" Still no reactions. "What is wrong with you guys? Don't you get it? Mediocrity is pass�� . It can't be sold to the this country again. For the first time in almost two centuries, the American people may have to defend themselves, in their homes and businesses on their home land. If that's the case, then I think that leadership should come from the White House." The President rose and leaned on the back of his chair. There was quiet muttering among his top aides. "Aren't you stretching the point a little, sir?" asked the Chambers, the silver haired statesman. "After all, it was just one man . . ." "That's the point!" shouted the President. "That's the whole damned point." He strode around to the old white fireplace with a photo of George Washington above it. If permitted, this spot would be labeled 'Photo Opportunity' by the White House tours. "Look what one man can do. I never claimed to know anything about computers, but what if this was a warning?" "Don't get maudlin on us . . ." "I am not getting anything except angry," the President said raising his voice. "I remember what they said about Bush. They said if he was Moses, he would have brought down the ten sugges- tions. That will not happen to me." The inner circle stole questioning glances from each other. "This country has not had a common cause since Kennedy pointed us at the moon. We had the chance in the '70's to build a national energy policy, and we screwed it up royally when oil prices were stable. So what do we do?" His rhetorical question was best left unanswered. "We now import more than 50% of our oil. That's so stupid . . .don't let me get started." There was an obvious sigh of relief from Chambers and Musgrave and the others. When the President got like this, real pissed off, he needed a sounding board, and it was generally one or more of them. Such was the price of admission to the inner circle. The President abruptly shifted his manner from the political altruist still inside him to the management realist that had made him a popular leader. He spoke with determination. "Gentlemen, exactly what is the current policy and game plan?" The President's gaze was not returned. "Henry? Andrew?" Mus- grave and Chambers and Secretary of the Treasury Martin Royce wished they could disappear into the wallpaper. They had seen it before, and they were seeing it again. Senior aides eaten alive by the President. "Henry? What's the procedure?" The President's voice showed increasing irritation. "Sir, CERT, the Computer Emergency Response Team was activated a few months ago to investigate Network Penetrations," Henry Kennedy said. "ECCO, another computer team is working with the FBI on related events. Until yesterday we didn't even know what we were up against, and we still barely understand it." "That doesn't change the question, Henry. What are the channel contingencies? Do I have to spell it out?" The President mel- lowed some. "I was hoping to spare myself the embarrassment of bringing attention to the fact that the President of the United States is unaware of the protocol for going to war with a comput- er." The lilt in his voice cut the edge in the room, momentari- ly. "Now that that is out in the open, please enlighten us all." The jaws were preparing to close tightly. Henry Kennedy glanced nervously over at Andrew Coletree who replied by rubbing the back of his neck. "Sir," Henry said, "basically there is no defined, coordinated, that is established procedures for something like this." The President's neck red- dened around the collar as Henry stuttered. "If you will permit me to explain . . ." The President was furious. In over thirty years of professional politics, not even his closest aides had ever seen him so totally out of character. The placid Texan confidence he normally exud- ed, part well designed media image, part real, was completely shattered. "Are you telling me that we spent almost $4 trillion dollars, four goddamn trillion dollars on defense, and we're not prepared to defend our computers? You don't have a game plan? What the hell have we been doing for the last 12 years?" The President bellowed as loudly as anyone could remember. No one in the room answered. The President glared right through each of his senior aides. "Damage Assessment Potential?" The President said abruptly as he forced a fork full of scrambled eggs into his mouth. "The Federal Reserve and most banking transactions come to a virtual standstill. Airlines grounded save for emergency opera- tions. Telephone communications running at 30% or less of capacity. No Federal payments for weeks. Do you want me to continue?" "No, I get the picture." The President wished to God he wouldn't be remembered as the President who allowed the United States of America to slip back- ward 50 years. He waited for the steam in his collar to subside before saying anything he might regret. "Marv?" For the first time the President acknowledged the presence of Marvin Jacobs, Director of the National Security Agency. Jacobs had thus far been a silent observer. He respond- ed to the President. "Yessir?" "I will be signing a National Security Decision Directorate and a Presidential Order later today, authorizing the National Security Agency to lead the investigation of computer crimes, and related events that may have an effect on the national security." The President's words stunned Jacobs and Coletree and the others except for Musgrave. "Sir?" "Do you or do you not have the largest computers in the world?" Jacobs nodded in agreement. "And do you not listen in to every- thing going on in the world in the name of National Security?" Jacobs winced and noticed that besides the President, others were interested in his answer. He meekly acknowledged the assumption by a slight tilt of his head. "I recall, Marv," the President said, "that in 1990 you yourself asked for the National Computer Security Center to be disbanded and be folded into the main operations of the Agency. Bush issued a Presidential Order rescinding Reagan's NSDD-145. Do you recall?" "Yes, of course I do," said Marvin defensively. "It made sense then, and given it's charter, it still makes sense. But you must understand that the Agency is only responsible for military security. NIST handles civilian." "Do you think that the civilian agencies and the commercial computers face any less danger than the military computers?" The President quickly qualified his statement. "Based upon what we know now?" "No, not at all." Jacobs felt himself being boxed into a corner. "But we're not tooled up for . . ." "You will receive all the help you need," the President said with assurance. "I guarantee it." His words dared anyone to defy his command. "Yessir," Jacobs said humbly. "What about NIST?" "Do you need them?" "No question." "Consider it done. I expect you all here at the same time tomor- row with preliminary game plans." He knew that would get their attention. Heads snapped up in disbelief. "One day?" complained Andrew Coletree. "There's no way that we can begin to mobilize and organize the research . . ." "That's the kind of talk I do not want to hear, gentlemen," the President said. Coletree turned red. "Mr. President," said Chambers. "If we were going to war . . ." "Sir," the President said standing straight, "we are already at war. You're just not acting like it. According to you, the vital interests of this country have been attacked. It is our job to defend the country. I call that war. If we are going to sell a Computer War to America, we better start acting like we take it seriously. Tomorrow, gentlemen. Pull out the stops." * * * * * 1:15 P.M., New York City Upon returning from lunch, Scott checked his E-Mail at the Times. Most of the messages he received were from co-workers or news associates in other cities. He also heard from Kirk on the paper's supposedly secure network. Neither he nor the technical network gurus ever figured out how he got in the system. The network administrators installed extra safeguards after Scott tipped them that he had been receiving messages from outside the paper. They added what they called 'audit trails'. Audit trails are supposed to record and remember every activity on the net- work. The hope was that they could observe Kirk remotely enter- ing the computer and then identify the security breach. Despite their attempts, Kirk continued to enter the Times' computers at will, but without any apparent disruption of the system. It took Scott some time to convince the network managers that Kirk posed no threat, but they felt that any breach was poten- tially a serious threat to journalistic privilege. Reporters kept their notes on the computer. Sources, addresses, phone numbers, high level anonymous contacts and identities, all stored within a computer that is presumably protected and secure. In reality, the New York City Times computer, like most comput- ers. is as open as a sieve. Scott could live with it. He merely didn't keep any notes on the computer. He stuck with the old tried and true method of hand written notes. His E-Mail this time contained a surprise. IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT HOW I DID IT, CALL ME TONIGHT. 9PM. 416-555-3165. THE SPOOK. A pit suddenly developed in Scott's stomach. The last time he remembered having that feeling was when he watched Bernard Shaw broadcast the bombing of Baghdad. The sense of sudden helpless- ness, the foreboding of the unknown. Or perhaps the shock of metamorphosis when one's thoughts enter the realm of the unreal. Then came the doubt. "Ty," Scott asked after calling him at his office. "What hap- pened to Foster?" He spoke seriously. "True to his word," Tyrone laughed with frustration, "he was out in an hour. He said he was coming back to your party . . ." "Never showed up." Scott paused to think. "How did he get out so fast?" "He called the right guy. Charges have been reduced to a couple of misdemeanors; local stuff." "So, isn't he your guy?" "We're off, right?" Tyrone though to double check. "Completely. I just need to know for myself." "Bullshit," Tyrone retorted. "But for argument's sake, I know he had something to do with it, and so do a lot of other people." "So what's the problem?" "A technicality called proof," sighed Tyrone. "We have enough on him for a circumstantial case. We know his every move since he left the NSA. How much he spent and on whom. We know he was with Homosoto, but that's all we know. And yes, he is a comput- er genius." "And he goes free?" "For now. We'll get him." "Who pulled the strings?" "The Prosecutor's office put up a brick wall. Told us we had to get better evidence. I though we were all on the same side." Tyrone's discouragement was evident, even across the phone wires. "Still planning on making a move?" "I'll talk to you later." The phone went dead on Scott's ears. He had clearly said a no-no on the phone. * * * * * Cambridge, Massachusetts Lotus Development Corporation headquarters has been the stage for demonstrations by free-software advocates. Lotus' lawsuits against Mosaic Software, Paperback Software and Borland created a sub-culture backlash against the giant software company. Lotus sued its competitors on the basis of a look-and-feel copyright of the hit program 1-2-3. That is, Lotus sued to keep similar products from emulating their screens and key sequences. Like Hewlett Packard, Apple and Microsoft who were also in the midst of legal battles regarding intellectual-property copy- rights, Lotus received a great deal of media attention. By and large their position was highly unpopular, and the dense univer- sity culture which represented free exchange of programs and information provided ample opportunity to demonstrate against the policies of Lotus. Eileen Isselbacher had worked at Lotus as a Spreadsheet Customer Service Manager for almost two years. She was well respected and ran a tight ship. Her first concern, one that her management didn't necessarily always share, was to the customer. If someone shelled out $500 for a program, they were entitled to impeccable service and assistance. Despite her best efforts, though, Lotus had come to earn a reputation of arrogance and indifference to customer complaints. It was a constant public relations battle; for the salespeople, for customer service, and for the financial people who attempted to insure a good Wall Street image. The service lines are shut down at 6 P.M. EST and then Eileen enters the Service Data Base. The SDB is a record of all service calls. The service reps logged the call, the serial #, the type of problem and the resolution. Eileen's last task of the day was to compile the data accumulated during the day and issue a daily summation report. She commanded the data base to "Merge All Records". Her computer terminal, on the Service Department's Novell Pentium-server net- work began crunching. 12,346 Calls between 7:31 AM and 5:26 PM. That was a normal number of calls. Serial Numbers Verified. The Data Base had to double check that the serial number was a real one, issued to a legitimate owner. 712 Bad Disks Her department sent out replacement disks to verified owners who had a damaged disk. A little higher than the average of 509, but not significant enough unless the trend continues. FLAG!! 4,576 Computational Errors Eileen's attention immediately focussed in on the FLAG!! message. The Computational Error figures were normally '0' or '1' a week. Now, 5,000 in one day? She had the computer sort the 4,576 CE's into the serial number distribution. The Service Department was able to act as a quali- ty control monitor for engineering and production. If something was wrong - once a few hundred thousand copies hit the field - the error would show up by the number of calls. But CE's were normally operator error. Not the computer's. There was no correlation to serial numbers. Old Version 1.0's through Version 3.0 and 3.1 were affected as were the current versions. By all reports, Lotus 1-2-3 could no longer add, subtract, divide, multiply or compute accurately. Mass computa- tional errors. The bell curve across serial numbers was flat enough to obviate the need for a statistical analysis. This was clearly not an engineering design error. Nor was it a production error, or a run of bad disks. Something had changed. * * * * * Scarsdale, New York On the 6:12 to Scarsdale, Tyrone and Scott joined for a beer. The conversation was not to be repeated. "ECCO, CERT, the whole shooting match," Tyrone whispered loud enough to be heard over the rumble of the train, "are moving to NSA control. NIST is out. They all work for the Fort now. Department of Defense." "Are you shitting me?" Scott tried to maintain control. "It'll be official tomorrow," Tyrone said. "Write your story tonight. The NSA has won again." "What do you mean, again?" "Ah," Tyrone said trying to dismiss his frustrated insight into agency rivalry. "It seems that whatever they want, they get. Their budget is secret, their purpose is secret, and now they have every computer security concern at their beck and call. Orders of the President." "Aren't they the best suited for the job, though . . ." "Technically, maybe. Politically, no way!" Tyrone said adamant- ly. "I think the Bureau could match their power, but they have another unfair advantage." Scott looked curiously at Tyrone. "They wrote the rules." * * * * * Scarsdale, New York Speedo's Pizza was late, so Scott got the two $9 medium pepperoni pizzas for free, tipping the embarrassed delivery boy $10 for his efforts. Not his fault that his company makes absurd promises and contributes to the accident rate. As 9:00 P.M. approached, Scott's stomach knotted up. He wasn't quite sure what he would find when he dialed the Canadian number. It was a cellular phone exchange meaning that while he dialed the Toronto 416 area code, the call was probably rerouted by call forwarding to another location, also connected by cellular phone. Untraceable. Damn sneaky. And legal. Technology For The Peo- ple. <<<<<<DIALING 4165553165 . . . . . .>>>>>> Scott listened to the small speaker on his internal modem card as it dialed the tones in rapid sequence. A click, a buzz and then in the background, Scott heard the faintest of tones. Was that crosstalk from another line or was another secret number being dialed? <<<<<< CONNECTION 4800 BAUD>>>>>> The screen hesitated for few seconds then prompted . . . IDENTIFY YOURSELF: Scott wondered what to enter. His real name? Or the handle Kirk's hackers gave him. Scott Mason aka Repo Man Again the computer display paused, seemingly pondering Scott's response. I SUPPOSE ASKING FOR FURTHER IDENTIFICATION WOULD OFFEND YOU. I'm getting used to it. Paranoia runs rampant in your line of work. LET'S SAVE THE EDITORIALIZING FOR NOW. GIVE ME THE WARM AND FUZZIES. PROVE YOU'RE SCOTT MASON. You can't keep your eyes off of Sonja's chest as I recall. GOOD START. NICE TITS. So you're Miles Foster. THERE ARE GROUNDRULES. FIRST. MY NAME IS THE SPOOK. MR. SPOOK. DR. SPOOK. PROFESSOR SPOOK. KING SPOOK. I DON'T CARE WHAT, BUT I AM THE SPOOK AND ONLY THE SPOOK. MY IDENTITY, IF I HAVE ONE, IS TO REMAIN MY LITTLE SECRET. UNLESS YOU ACCEPT THAT, WE WILL GET NOWHERE FAST. Like I said, you're Miles Foster. NO. AND IF I WAS, IT WOULDN'T MATTER. I AM THE SPOOK. I AM YOUR PERSONAL DEEP THROAT. YOUR BEST FRIEND. Let me see if I understand this right. You will tell all, the whole story on the record, as long as you stay the Spook? Use your name, Spook, in everything? THAT'S IT. The paper has given me procedures. I have to record everything. Save it to disk, and give a copy to the lawyers. ARE YOU SAVING THIS YET? No. Not until we agree. Then we outline the terms and go. I'M IMPRESSED. YOU ARE THE FIRST REPORTER I'VE HEARD OF TO USE COMPUTERS AS A SOURCE. WHO DEVELOPED THE RULES? The lawyers, who else? FIGURES. So. Do we have a deal? LET ME SEE THE CONTRACT. Scott and the Spook exchanged notes over their modems and comput- ers until they arrived at terms they both could live with. After Kirk, the rules Higgins had established were clear, easy to follow and fair. Scott set his computer to Save the conversa- tion. This is Scott Mason, speaking to a person who identifies himself only as the Spook. I do not know the sex of this person, nor his appearance as all conversations are occurring over computer modem and telephone lines. The Spook contacted me today, through my office computer. This is his amazing story. Spook. Why did you call me? I DESIGNED THE COMPUTER INVASION OF THE UNITED STATES FOR TAKI HOMOSOTO. WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW HOW I DID IT? * * * * * Wednesday, January 20 National Security Agency Marvin Jacobs had a busy day and evening. And night, preparing for his meeting with the President. He would have a chance to make his point, and win it, with an audience in attendance. The high level bureaucrat craved to aspire within the echelons of the government hierarchy, but his inate competence prevented his goals from being realized. During Korea Lt. Marvin Jacobs served his country as 90 day wonder straight out of ROTC. A business major with a minor in civic administration did not prepare him for the tasks the Army had in store for him. Army Intelligence was in desperate need of quality analysts, people with minds more than marshmallows for brain. The Army Intelligence Division G-2 personnel staff poured through new recruit files in hopes of recruiting them into the voluntary program. But the catch phrase, 'Military- Intelligence,' a contradiction in terms' made their job doubly difficult. So they resorted to other tactics to recruit quali- fied people for an unpopular and often despised branch of the military: they made deals, and they made Lt. Marvin Jacobs a deal he couldn't refuse. Young Captain Jacobs returned to the United States at the end of the conflict as a highly skilled and experienced communications manager for the evolving communications technology; as antiquated as it appears today. His abilities were widely needed by emerg- ing factions of the government as McCarthyism and the fear of the Red Menace were substituted for Hot War. The super secret NSA, whose existence was unknown to a vast majority of Congress at that time, made him the best offer from all the Federal Agencies. The payscales were the same, but the working conditions promised were far superior at the Agency. Marvin Jacobs had studied to serve as a civil servant, but he imagined himself in Tecumseh, Michigan politics, not confronting the Communist Threat. He was rewarded for his efforts, handsomely. In the sports world, they call it a signing bonus. In the deep dark untrace- able world of the National Security Agency they call it All Paid Reconnaissance. APR, for short. Travel when and where you like, ostensibly on behalf of your government. If worse comes to worst, attend a half day seminar and make yourself seen. By the time he was thirty-five, Marvin Jacobs, now a well re- spected management fixture at the NSA, had seen the world twice over. Occasionally he traveled on business. For the first ten years with the Agency he traveled with his wife, college sweet- heart Sarah Bell, and then less so as their three children ma- tured. Still, although he now travels alone more often than not, he was on a plane going somewhere at least twice a month, if only for a weekend. The Directorship of the NSA landed in his lap unexpectedly in 1985, when the schism between the Pentagon and the Fort became an unsurvivable political nightmare for his predecessor. Marvin Jacobs, on the other hand, found the job the deserved cherry on a career dedicated to his country. It was largely a political job, and managing the competing factions of his huge secret empire occupied most of his time. The prestige, the power, the control and the responsibility alone wasn't enough for Marvin Jacobs. He wanted more. He wanted to make a difference. A very dangerous combination. * * * * * "It is so good to hear your voice, Ahmed Shah," Beni Rafjani said in Farsi over an open clear overseas line. "And you. I am but Allah's servant," replied Ahmed, bowing his head slightly as he spoke. "As we all are. But today I call to say you can come home." "Home? Iran?" The excitement in Ahmed's voice was more due to the call than the news. "Why?" "I thought you would be pleased, now that the Red Sun has set." The cryptic reference to the death of Homosoto wouldn't fool anybody listening, but inuendo was non-admissible. "Yes, my work is going well, and I have learned much, as have hundreds of students that attend my classes. However, with all due respect, I think we may accomplish more by continuing the work that our esteemed leader began. Why should we stop now? It goes very well - in our favor." "I understand," Rafjani said with respect. "You are honored for your sacrifice, living among the infidels." "It must be done. I mean no disrespect." "You do not speak disrepectfully, Ahmed Shah. Your work is important to your people. If that is your wish, continue, for you do it well." "Thank you, thank you. Even though one grain of sand has blown away, the rest of the desert retains great power." "Ahmed Shah, may Allah be with you." **************************************************************** Chapter 27 Thursday, January 21 The White House, Washington, D.C. He wanted to make them wait. The President decided to walk into the breakfast room for their early morning meeting a few minutes late. Even with intimates, the awe of the Presidency was still intact. His tardiness added to the tension that they all felt as a result of the recent revelations. Perhaps the tension would further hone their atten- tion and dialogue. He had not slept well the night before; he was prepared for anything he understood, but computers were not on his roster of acquired fluencies. A President has to make decisions, tough decisions, life and death decisions, but decisions of the type that have a history to study and a lesson to learn. And like most of those before him, he was well equipped to make tough decisions, right or wrong. Presidents have to have the self confidence and internal resolve to commit themselves, and their nation, to a course of action. This President's political life trained him well; lawyer, local politics, state politics and then Washington. But not computers. He was not trained in computers. He had learned to type, a little, and found that sending E-Mail messages was great fun. To him it was a game. Since the first days when microcomputers had invaded the offices of governmental Washing- ton, he had been able to insulate himself from their day to day use. All the same, every desk he had occupied was adjoined by a powerful microcomputer fitted with the finest graphics, the best printer and an elite assortment of software. He used the memory resident calculator and sent and received electronic mail. That was it. The President, as most men of his generation, accepted the fact that computers now ran the show. The whole shooting match. Especially the military. The communications and computer sophis- tication used by the Allies enthralled the world during the Iraqi War: bombs smart enough to pick which window they would enter before detonating, missiles smart enough to fly at 2000 mph and destroy an incoming missile moving at 3000 mph. It turned out that hitting a bullet with a bullet was possible after all. Intuitively, the President knew that the crisis developing before his eyes meant massive computer damage, and the repercussions would be felt through the economy and the country. However, the President did not have enough computer basics to begin to understand the problem, much less the answers. This was the first time during his administration that major tactical and policy decisions would be made primarily by others. His was a duty of rubber stamping. That worry frustrated his attempts at sleeping and nagged at him before the meeting. And then, of course, there was the press. "Gentlemen," the President said sauntering towards his chair at the head of the large formal breakfast table. He opened the door with enough vigor to startle his guests. He maintained his usual heads-up smile and spry gait as he noticed that there were new faces present. In addition to the inner circle, Marvin Jacobs asked two key NSA security analysts to be observers at the meeting. Only if the President asked a question was it then all right to speak. Accompanying Phil Musgrave, under admitted duress to repay a previous favor, was Paul Trump, Director of NIST, the eternal rival of the NSA in matters of computers. The President was introduced to the guests and smiled to himself. He recognized that the political maneuvering was beginning already. Maybe the competition would help, he thought. "Marv," the President said leaning away from the waiter pouring his coffee. This was the same waiter who had spilled near boil- ing liquid in his lap last month. "I guess it's your show, so I'll just sit back and keep my mouth shut." He leaned even further away as the waiter's clumsiness did not inspire confi- dence. Group chuckle notwithstanding, everyone in the inner circle knew what the President really meant. The President was hungry and Marv Jacobs would not be eating breakfast. He would be answering questions. "Thank you, sir," Marv said as he courteously acknowledged the presence of the others. He handed out a file folder to everyone in the room. Each was held together with a red strap labeled TOP SECRET that sealed the package. Not until the President began to open his package did the others follow suit. "We've only had a day to prepare . . ." Marvin Jacobs began. "I know," the President said wiping the corner of his mouth with a white linen napkin. "That should have been plenty of time." Marvin, wisely avoided responding to the President's barb. He took the caustic hit as the other breakfast guests quietly thanked the powers on high that it was someone elses turn to be in the hot seat. All in all, though, the President was a much calmer person this morning than during his verbal tirade the day before. But, if needed, the acerbity of his biting words would silence the boldest of his advisors or enemies. The President was still royally pissed off. "We have developed a number of scenarios that will be refined over the next weeks as we learn more about the nature of the assault by Homosoto." He turned into his report and indicated that everyone should turn to page 4. "This is sketchy, but based upon what we have seen already, we can estimate the nature of what we're up against." Page 4 contained three Phrases. 1. Malevolent Self Propagating Software Programs (Viruses) 2. Unauthorized Electromagnetic Pulses and Explosions 3. Anti-TEMPEST Coherent Monitor and Pixel Radiation. Marvin Jacobs described the observed behavior of each category, but nonetheless the President was unhappy. A rehash from the newspapers. "That's it?" the President asked in disbelief. "You call that an estimate? I can find out more than that from CNN." "At this point, that's about it." "I still can't believe this," the President said, shaking his head. "What the hell am I going to say when I have to face the press? 'Sorry folks, our computers and the country are going down the toilet, and we really don't know what to do about it. Seems as if no one took the problem seriously'" The President gazed at Marvin and Henry Kennedy, half expecting them to break into tears. "Bullshit!" "Sir, may I be blunt?" Marvin asked. "Of course, please. That's what we're here for," the President said, wondering how blunt was blunt. "Sir, this is certainly no time to place blame on anyone, but I do think that at a minimum some understanding is in order." All eyes turned to Jacobs as he spoke. "Sir, the NSA has been in the business of safeguarding military computer systems for years." "That's arguable," said the President critically. Marvin continued unaffected. "Cryptography and listening and deciphering are our obvious strong points. But neither Defense nor Treasury," he said alluding to each representative from their respective agencies, "can spend money without Congress's approv- al. Frankly sir, that is one of the major stumbling blocks we have encountered in establishing a coherent security policy." "That's a pile of bull, Marv," said NIST's feisty Paul Trump. Paul and Marv had known each other for years, became friends and then as the NIST-NSA rift escalated in '89 and '90, they saw less of each other on a social basis. "Sir," Paul spoke to the Presi- dent, "I'm sorry for interrupting . . ." "Say what you have to say." "Yessir." Trump had no trouble being direct either. Nearing mandatory retirement age had made Trump more daring. Willing to take more risks in the best interest of NIST and therefore the nation. Spry and agile, Paul Trump looked twenty years younger with no signs of slowing down. "Sir, the reason that we don't have any security in the govern- ment is due to Congress. We, Marv and I, agree on that one point. Martin, do you concur?" Treasury Secretary Martin Royce vigorously nodded in agreement. "We've been mandated to have security for years, but no one says where the money's coming from. The hill made the laws but didn't finish the job." The President enjoyed the banter among his elite troops. He thrived on open dissent and debate, making it easier for him to weigh information and opinions. That freedom reminded him of how difficult it must have been for the Soviets to openly disagree and consider unpopular positions. It seems that after Khrushchev took over, in one Politburo meet- ing, he received a handwritten note which said: 'If you're so liberal, how come you never stood up to Stalin.' Khrushchev scoured the room for a clue as to who made the insulting comment. After a tense few seconds he said, 'would the comrade who wrote this stand up so I may answer him face to face?' No one stood. 'Now, you know the answer.' The President's point was, around here anything goes, but I'm the boss. The difference is the democratic process, he would say, the voters elect me by a majority to institute a benevolent oligarchy. And I, he pointed at himself, am the oligarch. Paul Trump continued. "In reality sir, NIST has tried to cooper- ate with NSA in a number of programs to raise the security of many sectors of the government, but, in all fairness, NSA has put up constant roadblocks in the name of national security. The CMR problem for the commercial sector has been completely ignored under the cloak of classified specifications." "TEMPEST is a classified program . . ." Marvin objected strenu- ously. "Because you want it to be," Trump retorted instantly. "It doesn't have to be, and you know it. Sir," he turned to the President. "TEMPEST is . . ." The President nodded that he knew. "The specification for TEMPEST may have been considered a legitimate secret when the program started in the '70's. But now, the private sector is publishing their own results of stud- ies duplicating what we did 20 years ago. The Germans, the Dutch, the French, just about everybody but the English and us has admitted that CMR is a problem for everyone, not just the military. Jesus, you can buy anti-Tempest plans in Popular Science. Because of NSA's protectiveness of a secret that is no longer a secret, the entire private sector is vulnerable to CMR and anti-TEMPEST assaults. As a country, we have no electronic privacy." Marvin nodded in agreement. "You're damn right we keep it a secret. Why the hell should we tell the world how to protect against it? By doing that, we not only define the exact degree of our own exposure, but teach our enemies how to protect them- selves. It should be classified." "And everyone else be damned?" Trump challenged Jacobs. "I wouldn't put it that way, but NSA is a DoD oriented agency after all. Ask Congress," Marvin said resolutely. "That's the most alienating, arrogant isolationist attitude I've ever heard," Paul Trump said. "Regardless of what you may think, the NSA is not the end-all be-all, and as you so conveniently dismiss, the NSA is not trusted by many outside the U.S.. We do not have a technology monopoly on TEMPEST any more than we do on the air we breathe." Trump threw up his hands in disgust. "Patently absurd paranoia . . ." "Paul, you don't have all the facts . . ." objected Marv to no avail. Trump was a master at debate. "Sir," Trump again turned from the argumentative Jacobs to the President. "I don't think this is proper forum for rehashing history, but it should be noted that NIST is responsible for non- defense computer security, and we have a staff and budget less than 1% of theirs. The job just isn't getting done. Personally, I consider the state of security within the government to be in total chaos. The private sector is in even worse shape, and it's our own fault." "Phil?" the President said. "Emergency funding. Congress." Phil nodded as the debate continued. "None of this is saying a damn thing about what we should do. How do we best defend?" He bit off the end of crispy slice of bacon waiting for the answer he knew would be unsatisfactory. "We improvise." "Improvise! That's the best you can do?" The President threw down his napkin and it slipped off the table to the floor as he shoved his chair back. "This country is run by goddamned computers," the President muttered loudly as he paced the breakfast room. Those who had been eating ceased long ago. "Goddamned computers and morons." * * * * * Thursday, January 21 SPREADSHEETS STOP CRUNCHING LOTUS AND MICROSOFT STRUCK by Scott Mason Last weekend's threats made by the late OSO Industries Chairman, Taki Homosoto appear to be a trustworthy mirror of the future. Lotus Development Corporation and Microsoft, two of the software industry's shining stars are the latest victims of Homosoto's vengeful attack upon the computer systems of the United States. With cases of 20-20 hindsight proliferating, security experts claim that we should have seen it coming. The last several months has been filled with a long series of colossal computer failures, massive virus attacks and the magnet- ic bombing of major computer installations. These apparently unrelated computer crimes, occurring with unprecedented frequency have the distinct flavor of a prelude to the promises Homosoto made in the self penned note that accompanied his seeming sui- cide. The latest virus debacle comes immediately on the heels of the announcement of the dGraph infections. Yesterday, Lotus and Microsoft and their dealers were inundated with technical support calls. According to reports, the industry standard 1-2-3 and the popular Excel spreadsheets have been experiencing cataclysmic failures in the field. Typical com- plaints claim the powerful spreadsheet programs are performing basic mathematical functions incorrectly; a veritable disaster for anyone who relies upon the accuracy of their numbers. The leading theory held by both companies as well as software and security experts, is that a highly targeted computer virus was designed to only affect Lotus and Microsoft spreadsheet files. While some viruses are designed to erase files, or entire hard disks, the Lotus Virus as it has been informally named, is a highly sophisticated virus designed only to make subtle changes in the results of mathematical calculations. Viruses of this type are known as Slight Viruses. They only infect small portions of the computer or program, and then only in ways that will hopefully not be detected for some time - thus compounding the damage. Fortune 100 companies that use either 1-2-3 or Excel nearly unanimously announced that they will put a moratorium on the use of both programs until further notice. Gibraltar Insurance issued a terse statement: "Due to the potential damage caused by the offending software, we will immediately begin installation of compatible spreadsheet programs and verify the accuracy of all data. Our attorneys are studying the matter at this time." Lotus and Microsoft stock plummeted 36% and 27% respectively. * * * * * GOOD ARTICLE. DO YOU WANT TO GET IT RIGHT NOW? I see humility reigns right up there with responsibility. THE FIRST LOTUS VIRUSES WERE WRITTEN IN LATE 1988. CUTE, HUH? THE LONGEST VIRUS INCUBATION PERIOD EVER! Not many people share your sense of achievement. I DON'T EXPECT SO. We should get something straight right off. ARE YOU SAVING? I am now. I do not approve, in fact I despise what you say you've done. I AM NOT LOOKING FOR APPROVAL. MAYBE UNDERSTANDING. Not from me. YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT. IF WE DO THIS, YOU NEED TO PRESENT BOTH SIDES. IT'S TO YOUR BENEFIT. YOU'RE GOING FOR A PULITZER. Don't tell me how to do my job. LET'S GET TO IT. Fine. Where did I go wrong in the article? NOT WRONG, INCOMPLETE. THERE ARE REALLY 6 VERSIONS OF THE LOTUS VIRUS. ONLY THE FIRST ONE HAS BEEN DETECTED. THE OTHERS AREN'T SET TO GO OFF UNTIL LOTUS HAS TIME TO CLEAN UP THE FIRST MESS. You mean you built several viruses all aimed at Lotus programs? AND MICROSOFT, ASHTON TATE, BORLAND, CA, NOVELL, LAN MANAGER, WORDPERFECT, AND A WHOLE BUNCH MORE. THE LIST WAS OVER 100 TO BEGIN WITH. 100? How many viruses? When? SLIGHT VIRUSES! I LOVE IT. WHAT A NAME. LIKE I SAID, YOU'RE GOOD. I GUESS 500. MAYBE MORE. THEY'RE SET TO GO OFF FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS. TIME RELEASED. TIME RELEASE SLIGHT VIRUSES. WHEW! Why? Why tell me now? SLOW DOWN. NOT ALL AT ONCE. FIRST OF ALL, WE HAVE TO BUILD YOU A LITTLE CREDIBILITY. CONVINCE YOUR PUBLIC THAT I AM WHO I SAY I AM AND THAT I CANNOT BE TOUCHED. SO HERE'S THE FIRST LOTUS VIRUS SIGNATURE - THE CURRENT ONE: 05 55 EF E0 F4 D8 6C 41 44 40 4D. IN COMPUTERS THAT ARE INFECTED, BUT HAVEN'T YET STRUCK YET, THE VIRUS IS TWO HIDDEN FILES: ONE SHORT ONE NAMED 7610012.EXE. IT'S ONLY 312 BYTES LONG AND HIDES ITSELF IN THE ROOT DIRECTORY BY LOOKING LIKE A BAD CLUSTER TO THE SYSTEM. IT'S NEVER EVEN NOTICED. WHEN THE TIME COMES, IT AWAKENS THE SECOND PART OF THE VIRUS, 7610013.EXE WHICH IS SAVED IN A HIDDEN DIRECTORY AND LOOKS LIKE BAD SECTORS. ONLY A FEW K. THAT'S THE FILE THAT SCREWS AROUND WITH 123 MATH FUNCTIONS. AFTER 123 IS INFECTED, THE FILE LENGTH STILL SAYS IT HASN'T BEEN CHANGED AND THE VIRUS ERASES ITSELF AND RETURNS THE SECTORS TO THE DISK. IN THE MEANTIME, LOTUS IS SHOT AND IT IS INFECTING OTHER PROGRAMS. BRILLIANT IF I SAY SO MYSELF. And you want me to print this? Why? IT WILL GIVE YOU AND ME CREDIBILITY. YOU'LL BE BELIEVED AND THAT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. WE HAVE TO STOP IT FROM HAPPENING. What from happening? THE FULL ATTACK. IT CAN'T BE TOTALLY STOPPED, BUT I CAN HELP. How much of an attack? YOU HAVE NO IDEA. NO IDEA AT ALL. THERE WERE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE INVOLVED AND NOW IT'S ON AUTOPILOT. THERE'S NO WAY TO TURN IT OFF. That's incredible . . .more than incredible. Why? For what purpose? MAYBE LATER. THAT DOESN'T MATTER NOW. I WILL SAY, THOUGH, THAT I NEVER THOUGHT HOMOSOTO COULD PULL IT OFF. So you worked for him? I WAS HIRED BY OSO INDUSTRIES TO WORK ON A SECRET CONTRACT TO DESIGN METHODS TO COMBAT COMPUTER VIRUSES AND STUDY MILITARY APPLICATIONS. AS THE PROJECT CONTINUED, IT TOOK ON A NEW SCOPE AND WE WERE ASKED TO INCLUDE ADDITIONAL ELEMENTS AND CONSIDERA- TIONS IN OUR EQUATIONS. Equations? COMPUTER DESIGN IS MATHEMATICAL MODELING, SO THERE'S A LOT OF PENCIL AND PAPER BEFORE ANYTHING IS EVER BUILT. WE FIGURED THE EFFECTS OF MULTIPLE SEQUENCED VIRUSES ON LIMITED TARGET DEFINI- TIONS, COMPUTER SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION DYNAMICS, DATA PROPAGATION PROBABILITIES. OUR CALCULATIONS INCLUDED MULTI-DIMENSIONAL INTERACTIONS OF INFECTION SIMULTANEITY. EVERY POSSIBILITY AND HOW TO CAUSE THE MOST DAMAGE. It's a good thing I kind of understand the technical gobbledy- gook. OH, IN ENGLISH? WE STUDIED WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU ENDLESSLY THROW THOUSANDS OF COMPUTER VIRUSES AT THE UNITED STATES. I got that. So what does happen? YOU'RE FUCKED FOR LIFE. ONE VIRUS IS A PAIN IN THE ASS. 1000 IS FATAL. You have a way with words. GOD GIVEN GIFT. I GUESS YOU COULD CALL US A THINK TANK FOR COMPUTER WARFARE. So what happens next Mr. Spook? PATRONIZING, NOW, NOW, NOW. LET'S SEE HERE (FLIP, FLIP) SATUR- DAY, JANUARY 23, NO, THAT WAS THE STOCK EXCHANGE, NO DECEMBER 11, THE PHONE COMPANY AND FEDERAL EXPRESS . . . Cocky son of a bitch aren't you? AH YES! HERE IT IS. MONDAY, JANUARY 25. SCOTT, YOU'RE MY FRIEND, SO LET ME GIVE YOU A TIP. DON'T TRY TAKING AN AIRPLANE FOR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS. Why not? THE NATIONAL RESERVATION SERVICE COMPUTERS ARE GOING TO BE VERY, VERY SICK. * * * * * "Yeah," the deep sleepy voice growled in Scott's ear. "Ty, wake up." "Wha?" "Tyrone, get up!" Scott's excited voice caught Tryone's notice. "Scott," he yawned. "What's the matter?" "Are you awake?" "Don't worry, I had to get up to answer the phone." Then in a more muffled voice Scott heard Tyrone say, "no, it's all right dear. Go back to sleep, I'll take it in the den." Tyrone got back on the phone and barked, "hold on." Scott paced across his junked up home office, sidestepping some items, stepping on others, until Tyrone came back on the line. "Shit, man," were Tyrone's first words. "You have any idea what time it is?" "Hey, I'm sorry," Scott said mocking Tyrone's complaint. "I'll write you a letter tomorrow and lick a stamp and let the Post Office take it from there . . ." "You made your point. What is it?" "The airlines are going to be hit next. Homosoto's next target." "How the hell would you know that?" "I've been talking to Foster. He told me." "Foster told you what?" "It's a huge attack, an incredibly large computer attack. He worked for Homosoto. But the point is, the airlines. They're next. Worse than the radar computer problems." "Can I get right back to you?" Waiting for Ty's call, Scott wrote an article for the following morning's paper and submitted it from home to the office comput- er. * * * * * COMPUTER TERRORISM An Exclusive Interview With The Man Who Invaded America By Scott Mason The man who claims to be the technical genius behind the recent wave of Computer Crimes has agreed to tell his story exclusively to the New York City Times. Only known as the Spook, a hacker's handle which represents both an alter-ego and anonymity, he says that he was hired by Taki Homosoto, late chairman of OSO Industries to design and prepare a massive assault against the computer systems of the United States. The incredible claims made by the Spook appear to be grounded in fact and his first statements alone were astounding. Please note, these are exact quotes from a computer conversation with the Spook. "There will be thousands of viruses. Thousands of them. I have to imagine by now that every program in America is infected with ten different viruses. There is only one way to stop them all. Never turn on your computers. "You see, most virus programmers are searching for immediate gratification. They write one and want it to spread real quick and then see it blow up. So most amateur virus builders are disappointed in the results because they don't have patience. But we, I had patience. "To maximize the effects of viruses, you have to give them time. Time to spread, to infect. Many of the viruses that you will experience are years old. The older viruses are much cruder than those made recently. We learned over time to build better vi- ruses. Our old ones have been dormant for so long, their conta- gion is complete and they will be just as effective. "We have built and installed the greatest viruses of all time. Every PC will probably be dead in months if not weeks, unless you take my advice. There are also VAX viruses, VMS viruses, SUN viruses, we even built some for Cray supercomputers, but we don't expect much damage from them." The Spook's next comments were just as startling. "The blackmail operation was a sham, but a terrific success. It wasn't for the money. No one ever collected any money, did they? It was pure psychological warfare. Making people distrust their computers, distrust one another because the computer makes them look like liars. That was the goal. The money was a diversion- ary tactic. "Part of any attack is the need to soften the enemy and terrorism is the best way to get quick results. By the time the first viruses came along, whoa! I bet half the MIS directors in the country don't know whether they're coming or going." According to the Spook, he designed the attack with several armies to be used for different purposes. One for Propaganda, one for Infiltration and Infection, one for Engineering, one for Communications, and another for Distribution and another for Manufacturing. At the pinnacle was Homosoto acting as Command and Control. "I didn't actually infect any computers myself. We had teams of Groundhogs all too happy to do that for us." According to security experts, Homosoto apparently employed a complex set of military stratagem in the execution of his attack. It has yet to be determined if the Spook will be of any help in minimizing the effects of the First Computer War. Scott finally went to bed. Tyrone never called him back. * * * * * Thursday, January 21 New York City The cavernous streets of New York on a cloud covered moonless night harbor an eerie aura, reminiscent of the fog laden alleys near the London docks on the Thames in the days of Jack the Ripper. A constant misty rain gave the city an even more de- pressing pallor than winter normally brought to the Big Apple. In other words, the weather was perfect. On the corner of 52nd. and 3rd., in the shadow of the Citibank tower, Dennis Melbourne stuck a magnetic strip ID card into a Cirrus 24 Hour Bank Teller Machine. As the machine sucked in the card, the small screen asked for the personal identification number, the PIN, associated with that particular card. Dennis entered the requested four digit PIN, 1501. The teller whirred and asked Dennis which transaction he would like. He selected: Checking Balance. A few seconds later $4,356.20 appeared. Good, Dennis thought. He then selected: Withdrawal - Checking Dennis entered, $2,000.00 and the machine display told him that his request exceeded the daily withdrawal limit. Normal, he thought, as he entered an 8 digit sequence: 00330101. The super- visor control override. The teller hummed and thought for a moment, and then $20 bills began tumbling out of the "Take Cash" drawer. One hundred of them. The teller asked, "Another Transaction?" and Dennis chose 'No'. He retrieved the magnetic card from the machine and the receipt of this transaction before grabbing a cab to a subway entrance on 59th. and Lexington Ave. The ID card he used was only designed to be used once, so Dennis saw to it that the card was cut and disposed of in a subterranean men's room toilet. Dennis Melbourne traveled throughout New York all night long, emptying Cirrus cash machines of their available funds. And the next night, and the next. He netted $246,300 in three days. All told, Cirrus customers in thirty-six states were robbed by Dennis Melbourne and his scores of accomplices of nearly $10 Million before the banks discovered how it was being done. The Cirrus network and it's thousands of Automatic Tellers were immediately closed. For the first time in years, America had no access to instant cash. Bank lines grew to obscene lengths and the waiting for simple transactions was interminable. Almost one half of personal banking had been done by ATM computer, and now human tellers had to deal with throngs of customers who had little idea of how to bank with a live person. Retail sales figures for the week after the ATM machines were closed showed a significant decline of 3.2%. The Commerce De- partment was demanding action by Treasury who pressured the FBI and everybody looked to the White House for leadership. The economic impact of immediate cash restriction had been virtually instantaneous; after all the U.S. is a culture of spontaneity demanding instant gratification. Cash machines addressed that cultural personality perfectly. Now it was gone. Dennis Melbourne knew that it was time to begin on the MOST network. Then the American Express network. And he would get rich in the process. Ahmed Shah paid him very well. 25% of the take. * * * * * Friday, January 22 New York City "We had to take out the part about the airlines," Higgins said in response to Scott's question about the heavy editing. To Hig- gins' and Doug's surprise, Scott understood; he didn't put up a stink. "I wondered about that," Scott said reflecting back on the last evening. "Telling too much can be worse than not telling enough. Whatever you say, John." "We decided to let the airlines and the FAA and the NTSB make the call." Higgins and Scott had come to know and respect each other quite well in the last few weeks. They didn't agree on every- thing, but as the incredible story evolved, Higgins felt more comfortable with less conservative rulings and Scott relinquished his non-negotiable pristine attitude. At least they disagreed less often and less loudly. Although neither one would admit it, each made an excellent sounding board for the other - a valuable asset on a story this important. Higgins continued. "The airlines are treating it as a bomb scare. Seriously, but quietly. They have people going through the systems, looking for whatever it is you people look for." Higgins' knowledge of computers was still dismal. "Scott, let me ask you something." Doug broke into the conversa- tion that like all the others, took place in Higgins' lawyer-like office. They occurred so often that Scott had half seriously convinced Higgins' secretary that he wouldn't attend unless there were fresh donuts and juice on the coffee table. When Higgins found out, he was mildly annoyed, but nonetheless, in the spirit of camaraderie, he let the tradition continue. "Children will be children," he said. "How much damage could be done if the Spook's telling the truth?" Doug asked. "Oh, he's telling the truth," Scott said somberly. "Don't for- get, I know this guy. He said that the effects would take weeks and maybe months to straighten out. And the airline assault would start Monday." "Why is he being so helpful?" Higgins asked. "He wants to establish credibility. He says he wants to help now, but first he wants to be taken seriously." "Seriously? Seriously? He's a terrorist!" shouted Higgins. "No damn different than someone who throws a bomb into a crowded subway. You don't negotiate with terrorists!" He calmed him- self, not liking to show that degree of emotion. "But we want the story . . ." he sighed in resignation. Doug and Scott agreed in unison. "Personally, it sounds like a macho ego thing," commented Doug. "So what?" asked Higgins. "Motivation is independent of premedi- tation." "Legally speaking . . ." Doug added. He wanted to make sure than John was aware that there were other than purely legal issues on the table. "As I was saying," Scott continued. "The reservation computers are the single most important item in running the nation's air- lines. They all interact and talk to each other, and create billing, and schedule planes; they interface on line to the OAG . . .they're the brains. They all use Fault Tolerant equip- ment, that's spares of everything, off site backup of all records - I've checked into it. Whatever he's planned, it'll be a doo- sey." "Well, it doesn't matter now," Higgins added with indifference. "Legally it's unsubstantiated hearsay. But with the computer transcripts of all your conversations, if anything happens, I'd say you'd have quite a scoop." "That's what he wants! And we can't warn anybody?" "That's up to the airlines, the FAA, not us." The phone on Hig- gins disk emitted two short warbles. He spoke into the phone. "Yeah? Who? Whooo?" He held the phone out to Scott and curled his lips. "It's for you. The White House." Scott glanced over at Doug who raised his bushy white eyebrows. Scott picked up the phone on the end table by the leather couch; the one that Scott seemed to have made a second home. "Hello?" he asked hesitantly. "Yes? Well, I could be in Washington . . ." Scott looked over to Doug for advice. "The President?" Doug shook his head, yes. Whatever it is, go. "I'd be happy to," he said reading his watch. "A few hours?" He waited a few seconds. "Yes, I know the number. Off the record? Fine. Thank you." "Well?" asked Higgins. "The President himself wants to have a little chat with me." * * * * * Friday, January 22 The White House Only the President, Musgrave and Henry Kennedy were there to meet Scott. They did not want to overwhelm him, merely garner his cooperation. Scott rushed by cab to the White House from Nation- al Airport, and used the Press Gate even though he had an ap- pointment with The Man. He could have used the Visitor's En- trance. Scott was whisked by White House aides through a "Private" door in the press room to the surprise of the regular pool reporters who wondered who dared to so underdress. Defi- nitely not from Washington. Scott was running on short notice, so he was only wearing his work clothes: torn blue jeans, a sweatshirt from the nude beach he and Sonja had visited and Reeboks that needed a wash. January was unusually warm, so he got away with wearing his denim jacket filled with a decade of patches reflecting Scott's evolving political and social attitudes. He was going to have to bring a change of clothes to the office from now on. Before he had a chance to apologize for his appearance, at least he was able to shave the three day old stubble on the train, the President apologized for the suddenness and hoped it wasn't too much of an inconvenience. Kennedy and Musgrave kept their smirks to themselves, knowing full well from the very complete dossier on Scott Mason, that he was having a significant intimate rela- tionship with one Sonja Lindstrom, here in Washington. Very convenient was more like it, they thought. The President sat Scott down on the Queen Anne and complimented him on his series of articles on computer crime. He said that Scott was doing a fine job awakening the public to the problem, and that more people should care, and how brave he was to jump in front of flying bullets, and on and on and on. Due to Henry and Phil's political savvy and professional discipline, neither of their faces showed that they both wanted to throw up on the spot. This was worse than kissing babies to get elected. But the President of the United States wanted a secret favor from a journalist, so some softening, some schmoozing was in order. "Well, let me get right to the point," the President said a half hour later after two cups of coffee and endless small talk with Scott. He, too, had wondered what the President wanted so much that the extended foreplay was necessary. "I understand Scott, that you have developed quite a rapport with this Spook fellow." He held up a copy of the New York paper headlines blaring: Computer Terrorism - Exclusive. Aha! So that's what they want! They want me to turn him in. "I consider myself to be very lucky, right place, right time and all. Yessir." Scott downplayed his position with convincing humility. "It seems as if he has selected me as his mouthpiece." "All we want, in fact, all we can ask," Musgrave said, "is for you to give us information before it's printed." Scott's eyes shot up in defense, protest at the ready. "No, no," Mugrave added quickly. "Nothing confidential. We know that Miles Foster is the Spook, but we can't prove it without giving away away too many of our secrets." Scott knew they were referring to their own electronic eavesdropping habits that would be imprudent in a court. "Single handedly he is capable of bringing down half of the government's computers. We need to know as much as we can as fast as we can. So, whatever you print, we'd like an early copy of it. That's all." Scott's mind immediately traveled back to the first and only time an article of his was pulled. At the AG's request. Of course it finally got printed, but why the niceties now? They can take what they want, but instead they ask? Maybe they don't want to get caught fiddling around with the Press too much. Such activi- ties snagged Nixon, not saying that the President was Nixon- esque, but politics is politics. What do I get in return? He could hear it now, the '<MI>you'll be helping your country,<D>' speech. Bargaining with the President would be gauche at the least. So he proposed to Musgrave instead. "I want an exclusive inter- view with the President when this thing is over." "Done!" said Musgrave too quickly. Scott immediately castigated himself for not asking for more. He could shoot himself. A true Washington denizen would have asked for a seat in the Cabinet. But that was between Scott and his conscience. Doug would hear a dramatized account. "And no other media finds out that you know anything until . . ." Scott added another minor demand. "Until the morning papers appear at the back door with the milk," joked Musgrave. "Scott, this is for internal use only. Every hour will help." Scott was given a secret White House phone number where someone would either receive FAX or E-Mail message. Not the standard old PRESIDENT@WHITEHOUSE.GOV that any schmo with a PC could E-mail into. His was special. Any hour, any day. He was also given a White House souvenir pen. "It went fine," Kennedy said to Marvin Jacobs from his secure office in the White House basement. He spoke to Marvin Jacobs up at Fort Meade on the STU-III phones. "Didn't matter," Marvin said munching on what sounded to Kennedy like an apple. A juicy one. "What do you mean, it didn't matter?" "We're listening to his computers, his phones and his fax lines anyway," Marvin said with neutrality. "I don't know if I want to know about this . . ." "It was just a back up plan," Jacobs said with a little laugh. He wanted to defuse Kennedy's panic button. For a National Security Advisor, Kennedy didn't know very much about how intel- ligence is gathered. "Just in case." "Well, we don't need it anymore," Kennedy said. "Mason is coop- erating fully." "I like to have alternatives. I expect you'll be telling the President about this." "Not a chance. Not a chance." Kennedy sounded spooked. Jacobs loudly munched the last bite through the apple skin. "I'll have something else for you on Mason tomorrow. Let's keep him honest." * * * * * Friday, January 22 Reston, Virginia "No, mom, I'm not going to become a spy," Scott calmly said into the phone while smiling widely at Sonja. "No, I can't tell you what he wanted, but he did give me a present for you." Scott mouthed the words, 'she's in heaven' to Sonja who enjoyed seeing the pleasure the woman received from her son's travels. "Yes, I'll be home in a couple of days," he paused as his mother interrupted again. "Yes, I'll be happy to reprogram your VCR. I'm sorry it doesn't work . . ." He sat back to listen for a few seconds and watch Sonja undress in front of a full length mirror. Their guests were expected in less than 15 minutes and she rushed to make herself beautiful despite Scott's claims that she was always beautiful. "Yes, mom, I'm paying attention. No ma'am, I won't. Yes, ma'am, I'll try. O.K., goodnight, I love you." He struggled to pull the phone from his ear, but his mother kept talking. "Don't worry, mom. You'll meet her soon." Finally he was able hang up and start worrying about one of their dinner guests. Miles Foster. Scott had told Sonja nothing about Miles. Or the Spook. As far as the world was concerned, they were two different people with different goals, different motivations and different lives. The unresolved irreconcilliation between the two faces of Miles Foster put Scott on edge, though. Does he treat Miles like Miles or like the Spook? Or is the Spook coming to dinner instead of Miles. Does he then treat the Spook like the Spook or like Miles? In kind, Sonja had not told Scott that she had been hired to meet him, nor that she had quit after meeting him. The night Miles was arrested, she had successfully evaded his queries about her professional PR functions. Scott accepted at face value that Sonja was between jobs. She had made a lot of money from Alex and his references, but that was the past. She had no desire to be dishonest with Scott, on the contrary. It was not an easy topic to broach, however, and if things between them got beyond the frenzied sexual savage- ry stage, she would have to test the relationship. But not yet. The doorbell of Sonja's lakefront Whisper Way townhouse in Reston rang before either she or Scott were ready, so Scott volunteered for first shift host and bartender duty. He took a deep breath, ready for another unpredictable evening, and opened the door. "Scott," Stephanie Perkins said putting her arms around his neck. "Welcome back. It's good to see you." The three of them, Stephanie, Sonja and Scott had gotten along very well. "Maybe Miles can see his way clear to spend the entire evening with us tonight," she said teasing Miles. Miles ignored Perky's shot at him and brushed it aside without comment. Apparently he had provided Stephanie with an acceptable excuse for getting arrested by the FBI. So be it far from Scott to bring up a subject that might ruffle the romantic feathers which in turn were likely to ruffle the feathers of his source. Miles dressed in summer khaki pants, a yachtsman's windbreaker and topsiders without socks; the most casual Scott had seen either the Spook or Miles. Scott prepared the drinks and Stepha- nie went upstairs with her glass of wine to see Sonja and let the boys finish their shop talk. Miles opened the sliding glass doors to the deck overlooking the fairly large man-made lake. "I won't ask," Scott said as soon as Stephanie's feet disappeared from view on the elegant spiral staircase to the second floor. "Thanks. And, by the way, Perky probably doesn't need to hear too much about Amsterdam," Miles said with a mildly sinister touch. "We used to call it the rules of the road," Scott remembered. "I call it survival. Christ, sometimes I get so fucking horny, I swear the crack of dawn is in trouble." Scott's mind played with the varied imagery of Miles' creative phraseology. The name was different, he thought, but the charac- ter was the same. "You know," Scott said as the two stood on the deck, drinks in hand, soaking up the brisk lake air. "I really don't understand you." "What's to understand?" Miles' gaze remained constant over the moonlit water. "I see that you weren't overly detained the other evening." "No reason to be. It was a terrible mistake. They must have me confused with someone else." Miles played dead pan. "You know what I'm talking about," urged Scott. "The Spook and all that . . ." "Fuck you!" Miles turned and yelled with hostility. He placed the glass of Glenfiddich on the railing and pointed his forefin- ger in Scott's face. "You're getting what you want, so back the fuck off. Got it?" Scott's blood pressure joined his fight or flight response in panic. Was this the Mr. Hyde of Miles Foster? Or the real Spook? Had he blown it? Just then, the sliding glass door from the living room opened and Sonja and Stephanie shivered at the first cool gust of wind. Miles instantly swept Stephanie in his arms and gave her an obscene sounding kiss. His face emerged from the lip melee with no trace of anger, no trace of displeasure. The sinister Miles was magically transformed into Miles the lover. He had had no chance to respond to Miles' outburst, so Scott was caught with his jaw hung open. "You boys finish shop yet?" Stephanie said nuzzling at Miles' ear. "We were just discussing the biographical inconsistencies in the annotated history of Alfred E. Neumann's early years," Miles said convincingly. He glanced over at Scott with a wise cracking dimple filled smile. "We disagree on the exact date of his second bris." Incredible, thought Scott. The ultimate chameleon. Gullibility was one of Stephanie's long suits, so Sonja helped out. "That's right up there with the bathing habits of the Jamaican bobsled team." "C'mon," Stephanie said tugging at Miles. "It's chilly out here." Dumbfounded, Scott shrugged at Miles when the girls weren't looking. Whatever you want. It's your game. Miles mouthed back at Scott, 'you're fucking right it is.' The remainder of the evening comprised a little of everything. Except computers. And computer crime. And any political talk that might lead to either of the first two no-nos. They dined elegantly, drank expensive French wine and overindulged in Mar- tel. It was the perfect social evening between four friends. **************************************************************** Chapter 28 Sunday, January 24 New York City Times HARDWARE VIRUSES: A NEW TWIST By Scott Mason In conversations with the Spook, the man who claims to be the technical genius behind the Homosoto Invasion, I have learned that there are even more menacing types of computer viruses than those commonly associated with infected software programs. They are hardware viruses; viruses built right into the electronics. The underground computer culture calls the elite designers of hardware viruses Chippers. It should come as no surprise then that Chipping was a practice exploited by Homosoto and his band under the wizardry of the Spook. Chippers are a very specialized group of what I would have once called hackers, but whom now many refer to as terrorists. They design and build integrated circuits, chips, the brains of toys and computers, to purposefully malfunction. The chips are de- signed to either simply stop working, cause intentional random or persistent errors and even cause physical damage to other elec- tronic circuits. You ask, is all of this really possible? Yes, it is possible, it is occurring right now, and there is good reason to suspect that huge numbers of electronic VCR's, cameras, microwaves, clock radios and military systems are a disaster waiting to happen. It takes a great many resources to build a chip - millions of dollars in sophisticated test equipment, lasers, clean rooms, electron beam microscopes and dozens of PhD's in dozens of disci- plines to run it all. According to the Spook, OSO Industries built millions upon millions of integrated circuits that are programmed to fail. He said, "I personally headed up that portion of the engineering design team. The techniques for building and disguising a Trojan Chip were all mine. I originally suggested the idea in jest, saying that if someone really wanted to cause damage, that's what they would do. Homosoto didn't even blink at the cost. Twelve million dollars." When asked if he knew when the chips would start failing he responded, "I don't know the exact dates because anyone could easily add or change a date or event trigger. But I would guess that based upon timing of the other parts of the plan, seemingly isolated electronic systems will begin to fail in the next few months. But, that's only a guess." The most damaging types of Trojan Chips are those that already have a lot of room for memory. The Spook described how mostly static RAM, (Random Access Memory) chips and various ROM chips, (Read Only Memory) such as UV-EPROM and EEPROM were used to house the destructive instructions for later release in computer sys- tems. "It's really simple. There are always thousands of unused gates in every IC. Banks and banks of memory for the taking. Homosoto was no slouch, and he recognized that hardware viruses are the ultimate in underground computer warfare. Even better than the original Trojan Horse. No messy software to worry about, and extensive collateral damage to nearby electronic components. Makes repairs terrifically expensive." Which chips are to be considered suspect? The Spook was clear. "Any RAM or ROM chips with the OSO logo and a date code after 1/89 are potentially dangerous. They should be swapped out immediately for new, uninfected components. Also, OSO sold their chips, in die form, to other manufacturers to put their own names on them. I wish I knew to whom, but Homosoto's firm handled all of that." The Spook also said to beware of any electronic device using OSO labeled or OSO made LS logic chips. Hundreds of millions of the LS logic chips, the so called Glue of electronics, are sold every year. In the electronics world they are considered 'dime-store' parts, selling for a few pennies each. However, in most elec- tronic systems, an inexpensive component failure is just as bad as an expensive component failure. In either case, it stops working. The Spook continues: "The idea was to build a small timebomb into VCR's, televisions and radios. Not only computers, but alarm systems, cash registers, video games, blowing up all at once. At times it got very funny. Imagine dishwashers spitting up gallons of suds in kitchens everywhere. The ovens will be cook- ing pork tartar and toast a la burnt. What happens when Betty- Jean doesn't trust her appliances any more? The return line at Sears will be a week long." I asked the Spook how this was possible? How could he inflict such damage without anyone noticing? His answer is as indicting as is his guilt. "No one checks. If the chip passes a few simple tests, it's put into a calculator or a clock or a tele- phone or an airplane. No one expects the chip to be hiding something destructive, so no one looks for it. Not even the military check. They just expect their chips to work in the frozen depths of space and survive a nuclear blast. They don't expect a virus to be lurking." No matter what one thinks of the nameless, faceless person who hides behind the anonymity of these computerized confessions, one has to agree that the man known as the Spook has awakened this world to many of the dangers that unbridled technical proficiency brings. Have we taken too much liberty without the concomitant responsibility? I know that I find I wish I could run parts of my life in fast forward. Sitting in a movie theater, I feel myself tense as I realize I cannot speed up the slow parts. Has the infinite flexibility we have given ourselves outpaced social conscience? Ironically, conversations with the Spook tended to be impersonal; not machine-like, but devoid of concern for people. I asked him if he cared. "That was not the idea, as far as I know. In a way this was electronic warfare, in the true sense of the word. Collateral damage is unavoidable." Hardware viruses in addition to software viruses. Is nothing sacred? * * * * * Sunday, January 24 Washington, D.C. "Does he know what he's saying?" Henry Kennedy said doubtfully. "I think so, and I also think it's a brilliant way to put a huge dent in the Japanese monopoly on integrated circuits." Marvin Jacobs had an office installed not two doors from Kennedy's in the subterranean mazes beneath the White House lawn. "He can't blame the Japanese for everything." "Don't you see? He's not? All he's saying is that OSO did it, and he's letting the Japanese national guilt by association take its course." Jacobs seemed pleased. "Mason's chippers will cast a shadow of doubt on everything electronic made in Japan. If it has OSO's name on it, it'll be taboo. Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Matsushita . . .all the big Nippon names will be tarnished for years." "And you actually want this to happen?" asked Henry. "I didn't say that," Marvin said slithering away from a policy opinion. "Hey, what are you complaining about? Mason gave us the article like you wanted, didn't he?" "I told you there were other ways," Kennedy shot back. "Well, for your information, there's a little more that he didn't tell us about," said Jacobs haughtily. "And how did you find out? Pray tell?" Marvin grinned devilishly before answering. "CMR. Van Eck. Whatever. We have Mason covered." "You're using the same . . ." "Which is exactly how we're going to fight these bastards." "At the expense of privacy?" "There is no clear cut legal status of electromagnetic emanations from computers," Marv said defensively. "Are they private? Are they free to anyone with a receiver, like a radio or TV? No one has tested the theory yet. And that's not to say we've tried to publicize it. The FCC ruled in 1990 that eavesdropping on cellu- lar telephone calls was legal. By anyone, even the government." Marvin was giving a most questionable technical practice an aura of respectability hidden behind the legal guise of freedom. Kennedy was uncomfortable with the situation, but in this case, Marv had the President's ear. "And screw privacy, right? All in the name of national security." Henry did not approve of Marvin's tactics. "It's been done before and it'll be done again," Marvin said fairly unconcerned with Kennedy's opinions and whining. "Citing National Security is a great antidote to political inconvenience." "I don't agree with you, not one iota!" blasted Kennedy. "This is a democracy, and with that comes the good and the bad, and one premise of a democracy is the right to privacy. That's what shredded Nixon. Phone taps, all the time, phone taps." "Henry, Henry," begged Marv to his old time, but more liberal minded friend. "This is legal." Marvin's almost wicked smile was not contagious. "It's not illegal either." Kennedy frown deeply. "I think you take the NSA's charter as national listening post to an extreme," he said somberly. "Henry, Are you going to fight me on this?" Marv asked finally. "No," sighed Henry Kennedy. "The President gave you the task, I heard him, and I'm here to support his efforts. I don't have to agree . . .but it would help." * * * * * "Don't worry. The speech will make him sound like an expert, like he actually knows what he talking about. Not a man who thinks Nintendo is Japanese slang for nincompoop." Phil Musgrave called Henry Kennedy's office in the basement. Phil joked with Henry about the President's legendary technical ineptness. One time while giving a speech to the VFW, the sound went out. Trying to be helpful, the President succeeded in plugging an 'in' into an 'out' which resulted in a minor amount of smoke, an embarrassing false security alert, and the subse- quent loss of any sound reinforcement at all. "You know how I feel about him, Phil," said Henry with concern. "I support him 110%. But this is a new area for all of us. We don't have the contingency plans. Defense hasn't spent years studying the problem and working out the options or the various scenarios. Phil, until recently viruses and hackers were consid- ered a non-problem in the big picture." "I know, Henry, I know, but the politicians had to rely on the experts, and they argued and argued and procrastinated . . ." "And Congress, as usual, didn't do shit." Kennedy completed the statement. "That doesn't change the fact that he's winging it. Christ, we don't even know the questions much less the answers and, well, we know he calls 911 to change a lightbulb." His affection for the President was clear through the barb. "And you know what really pisses me off?" "What's that?" "Jacobs. He seems pleased with the turn of events." "He should," agreed Phil nonchalantly. "He just won a major battle. He's got security back under his thumb. A nice politi- cal coup." "No, not that," Henry said cautiously. "It's just that I think he's acting too much the part of the renegade. Do you know what I mean?" "No, not at all," laughed Phil. "He's just playing it his way, not anyone elses. C'mon, now, you know that." "I guess . . ." "Besides, Henry," he said glancing at his watch. "It's getting to be that time." They agreed to watch the speech from the sidelines, so they could see how the President's comments were greeted by the press. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States." An assistant White House press agent made the announcement to the attendant Washington press pool. The video was picked up by the CNN cameras as it was their turn to provide a feed to the other networks. Sunday evening was an odd time to call a press confer- ence, but everyone had a pretty good idea that the subject was going to be computers. Thus far, government comments on the crisis had come from everywhere but the White House. The President rapidly ambled up to the podium and placed his notes before him. He put on his glasses and stared at the camera somberly. It was speeches that began this way, without a prean- nounced subject matter, that caused most Americans who grew up during the Cold War to experience a sinking feeling in their stomachs. They still thought about the unthinkable. As usual the press corps was rapt with attention. "Good evening," the President of the United States began slowly. "I am speaking to you tonight on a matter of great concern to us all. A subject of the utmost urgency to which we must address ourselves immediately. "That subject is, information. The value of information. "As I am sure most of you are aware, one man, Taki Homosoto, threatened the United States this last week. It is about that very subject that I wish to speak to the country, and the world." The President paused. He had just told the country what he was going to say. Now he had to say it. "For all practical purposes, the United States is undergoing an electronic Pearl Harbor, and the target is one of the most cru- cial segments of our way of life: Information. "Information. What is information? Information is news. Infor- mation is a book, or a movie or a television show. Information is a picture, it's a word and it's a gesture. Information is also a thought. A pure idea. "Information is the single commodity, a common denominator upon which all industrial societies must rely. Data, facts, opinions, pictures, histories, records, charts, numbers. Whether that data is raw in nature, such as names, addresses and phone numbers, or it consists of secret governmental strategies and policies or proprietary business details, information is the key building block upon which modern society functions. "Information is the lifeblood of the United States and the world. "As first steam, and then coal and then gas and oil, now informa- tion has become an integral driving force of the economy. Without information, our systems begin to collapse. How can modern society function without information and the computers that make America what it is? Effectively there are no longer any nationalistic boundaries that governments create. Information has become a global commodity. What would our respective cul- tures look like if information was no longer available? "We would not be able to predict the weather. Credit cards would be worthless pieces of plastic. We would save less lives without enough information and the means to analyze it. We need massive amounts of information to make informed decisions in government policies and actions. "What if banks could no longer transfer money because the comput- ers were empty? How could the airlines fly if there were no pas- senger records? What good is an insurance company if its clients names are nowhere on file? If there was no phone book, who could you call? If hospitals had no files on your medical history, what treatment is required? With a little effort, one can imag- ine how difficult it would be to run this planet without informa- tion. "Information, in short, is both a global and a national strate- gic asset that is currently under attack. "Information and the information processing industry has come to represent a highly significant piece of our gross national product; indeed, the way we live as Americans, enjoying the highest standard of living in the world, is due in large part to the extraordinary ability of having information at our fingertips in a second's notice. Anything we want in the form of informa- tion can literally be brought into our homes; cable television, direct satellite connections from the back yard. The Library of Congress, and a thousand and one other sources of information are at our fingertips from our living room chair. "Without information, without the machinery that allows the information to remain available, a veritable national electronic library, the United States steps back thirty years. "Information is as much a strategic weapon in today's world as is the gun or other conventional armaments. Corporate successes are often based upon well organized data banks and analytic tech- niques. Government functions, and assuredly the Cold War was fought, on the premise that one side has more accurate informa- tion than its adversary. Certainly academia requires the avail- ability of information across all disciplines. Too, the public in general relies upon widespread dissemination of information for even the simplest day to day activities. "It is almost inconceivable that society could function as we know it without the data processing systems upon which we rely. "It is with these thoughts that those more expert than I can speak at length, but we must realize and accept the responsibili- ty for protecting that information. Unfortunately, we as trust- ing Americans, have allowed a complacency to overshadow prudent pragmatism. "Over the last weeks we have begun to see the results of our complacency. The veins of the nation, the free flow of informa- tion, is being poisoned. "Both the government and the private sector are to blame for our state of disarray and lack of preparedness in dealing with the current crisis. We must be willing, individually and collective- ly, to admit that we are all at fault, then we must fix the problem, make the sacrifice and then put it behind us. "It is impossible for the Government to deny that we have failed miserably in our information security and privacy implementation. Likewise, the value of the accumulation of information by the private sector was overlooked by everybody. Fifteen years ago, who could have possibly imagined that the number of businesses relying on computers would have jumped more than a hundred thou- sand fold. "Today, the backbone of America, the small businessman, 20,000,000 strong, the one man shop, provides more jobs than the Fortune 1000. And, the small businessman has come to rely on his computer as Big Business has for decades. His survival, his success is as critical to the stability of the United States' economy as is a General Motors or an IBM. We must defend the small business as surely as we must defend our international competitiveness of industrial leaders. "The wealth of this country was once in steel mills, in auto plants, in manufacturing. The products built by the United States were second to none. Made in the U.S.A. was a proud label, one that carried a premium worldwide. Our technological leadership has never been in question and has been the envy of the world for over 200 years. Franklin, Fulton and Edison. The Wright Brothers, Westinghouse, Ford. As a nation the Manhattan Project reaffirmed our leadership. Then Yaeger and the speed of sound. The transistor. DNA decoded. The microchip. The Moon. The computer. "Yet there was a subtle shift occurring that escaped all but the most vigilant. We were making less things, our concentration on manufacturing was slowly shifting to an emphasis on technology. Communications, computers. Information processing. No longer are cities built around smokestacks spewing forth the byproducts of the manufacturing process. Instead, industrial parks sprout in garden-like settings that encourage mental creativity. Fifteen percent of the American workforce no longer drive to the office. They commute via their computers at home. "The excitement of the breakneck pace of technology masked the danger in which we were placing ourselves. Without realizing it, a bulk of this nation's tangible wealth was being moved to the contents of a computer's memory. We took those first steps toward computerization hesitantly; we didn't trust the computer. It was unfamiliar, foreign, alien. But when we embraced the computer, we unquestioningly entrusted it with out most precious secrets. "Unlike the factory though, with the fence, the gates, the dogs, the alarms and the night guards, we left our computers unprotect- ed. Growing bigger and faster computers took precedence over protecting their contents. "We were warned, many times. But, as I said earlier, neither your government nor its constituency heeded the warnings with enough diligence. Protection of government information became a back-burner issue, a political hot cake, that in budget crunches, was easy to overlook. Overclassification of information became the case of the 'The Spy Who Cried Wolf.' The classification system has been abused and clearly does not serve us well. At my direction it will receive a thorough overhaul. "Personal privacy has been ignored. Your government is in pos- session of huge amounts of data and yet there is no effort at protecting the non-classified privacy of individuals in our computers. "The private sector faces another dilemma. The unresponsiveness of the Federal Government to the protection of its own informa- tion did not set a good example for industry, and their comput- ers, too, remained vulnerable. The President paused from reading his speech to pour a glass of ice water. "Nothing can stop the fact that the United States is under at- tack. Nothing can change the fact that the attack cannot be turned away. And nothing can change the fact that America will suffer significant disruptions and inconvenience for some time. But we can minimize the damage. We can prepare for the inevita- ble obstacles we will face. "The poison that Mr. Homosoto put into the American information society is the equivalent of electronic biological warfare. He has senselessly and vengefully struck out against the United States in a manner that I describe as an act of war. "In order to deal with this real threat to the security of the United States of America, I have taken several steps that are designed to assist in weathering the storm. "First, I am assigning the Director of the National Security Agency to coordinate all efforts at defending against and mini- mizing the effects of the current crisis. The NSA has the expe- rience and resources, and the support of this President to manage an operation of this complexity and importance. In addition, representatives from GCHQ in the United Kingdom and other ITSEC members from Germany, France and Holland will coordinate European defensive strategies. "Second, I am activating the following four groups to assist the NSA in their efforts. ECCO, the Emergency Computer Crisis Organ- ization, has acted as an advisor to law enforcement agencies across the country and has been instrumental in providing the technical support to the FBI and the Secret Service in their computer crime investigations. "CERT, the Computer Emergency Response Team was created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as an outgrowth of the 1988 INTERNET Worm incident. Carnegie Mellon University where CERT is headquartered has donated the facilities and staff of their Software Engineering Institute to deal with the invasion of our computers. "The Defense Data Network Security Coordination Center was based at the Stanford Research Institute by the Defense Communications Agency to coordinate attacks against non-classified computer systems. "Lastly, CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability manages computer crises for the Department of Energy at Lawrence Liver- more Laboratories. "These are the organizations and the people who will guide us through the coming adversities. It is they who are responsible to insure that America never again finds itself so vulnerable. So open to attack. So helpless in our technological Achilles Heel. "The organizations I mentioned, and the government itself have not yet been tested in a crisis of significant magnitude. This is their maiden voyage, so to speak, and it is incumbent on us, the American people, to make their job as easy as we can by offering our complete cooperation. "And, tonight, that is what I am asking of you. Your assistance. Your government cannot do it alone. Nor can small localized individual efforts expect to be successful against an army of invaders so large. We must team together, act as one, for the good of the entire country. From the big business with 100,000 computers to the millions of men, women and children with a home computer; from the small businessman to the schools, we need to come together against the common enemy: the invasion of our privacy and way of life. "Americans come together in a crisis, and my fellow Americans, we face a crisis. Let me tell you what my advisors tell me. They tell me without taking immediate drastic steps to prevent further destruction of America's information infrastructure, we face a depression as great as the one of the 1930's. "They tell me that every computer in the country, most in Canada, a significant number in England and other countries, can expect to be attacked in some manner within two years. That represents over 70 million casualties! "The international financial and monetary system will come to a halt and collapse. Financial trading as we know it will cease and wild speculative fluctuations will dominate the world curren- cy markets. America is already feeling the change since the ATM networks were removed from service. "As we have seen, the transportation facilities of this country, and indeed the world, are totally dependent on computers and therefore vulnerable. That is why today we take so seriously the threats against the airlines. There is no choice but success. Together, the American people must stand up to this threat and not succumb to its effects. "While your government has the resources to develop solutions to the problems, it has not been within our power to mandate their use in the private sector. "We will need unity as never before, for the battleground is in our homes, our schools, our streets and our businesses. The children of this great country will have as much opportunity to contribute as their parents will, and as the leaders of business will. As we all will and all must. "In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, the very structure of our country is in imminent danger of collapse, and it is up to us, indeed it is within our power, to survive. The sacrifices we will be called upon to make may be great, but the alternative is unacceptable. "Indeed, this is a time where the American spirit is called upon to shine, and shine brightly. Thank you, and God Bless the United States of America." * * * * * Sunday, January 24 Scarsdale, New York "One fuckuva speech," Tyrone Duncan said to Scott Mason who was downing the last of a Coors Light. "You should be proud of yourself." They had watched the President's speech on Scott's large screen TV. "Ahhhh," grunted Scott. "It's almost anti-climatic." "How the hell can you say that?" Tyrone objected. "Isn't this what you've been trying to do? Get people to focus on the prob- lem? Christ, you can't do much more than a Presidential speech." "Oh, yeah," agreed Scott cynically. "Everyone knows, but not a damn thing's gonna be done about it. Nothing. I don't care what the President says, nothing's going to change." "You have become one cynical bastard. Even Congress is behind the President on this one. His post-speech popularity is over 70% according to CNN's Rapid Sample Poll." "CNN. Bah, Humbug. Sensationalist news. And you think the proposed computer crime bills will pass?" Scott asked doubtfully. Tyrone hesitated. "Sure, I think so. And you don't?" "No, I don't. At least not in any meaningful way. C'mon, you're the constitutionalist not me. Sure, the original authors of the bill will write something with punch, maybe even effective. But by the time it gets committee'd to death, it'll be another piece of meaningless watered down piece of shit legislation. And that's before the states decide that computer crime is a state problem and not an inter-state issue. They'll say Uncle Sam is treading on their turf and put up one helluva stink." Scott shook his head discouragingly. "I see nothing but headaches." "I think you just feel left out, like your job's done and you have nothing to do anymore. Post partum depression." Ty rose from the comfortable leather reading chair to get a couple more beers. "I kind of know how you feel." Scott looked up at Tyrone in bewilderment. "You do? How?" "I'm definitely leaving. We've made up my mind." Tyrone craned his neck from the kitchen. "Arlene and I, that is." Tyrone came back and threw a silver bullet at Scott. "This part of my life is over and it's time I move on to something else." "Computers and the Law I suppose?" Scott said drearily. "Don't make it sound like the plague," Tyrone laughed. "I'm doing it because I want to, and it's needed. In fact I would expect a good amount of the work to be pioneering. Pro bono. There's no case history; it'll be precedent setting law. I figure someone's got to be there to keep it honest. And who better than . . ." Tyrone spread his arms around the back of the chair. "You, I know. The great byte hope." Scott laughed at his own joke which triggered a similar response from Tyrone. "Hey, man. I wish you all the best, if that's what you really want." A sudden beeping began. "What's that?" asked Tyrone. "A computer begging for attention. Let me see who it is." Tyrone followed Scott into his office, still astonished that anyone could work in such a pig pen. And the rest of the house was so neat. <<<<<<CONNECTION>>>>>> The computer screen held the image of the single word while whoever was calling caused Scott's computer to beep incessantly. "What the hell?" Scott said out loud as he pecked at the keyboard standing rather than sitting at his desk. wtfo YOU'RE THERE. GOOD. kirk? YUP. WANNA GO TO A DEBATE? Excuse me? YOU WATCH THE PRESIDENT? Of course. I have a mild interest in the subject. SO DID I AND EVERY OTHER PHREAK IN THE COUNTRY, AND THEY'RE NOT HAPPY. Why? SEE FOR YOURSELF. THE CONVERSATION PIT AT NEMO IS BRIMMING. I GOT YOU AN INVITE. I have a guest. FRIEND OR FOE friend. definitely. REMEMBER HOW TO USE MIRAGE? I can fake it. To Tyrone's amazement, Scott seemed to know what he was doing at the computer. Scott sat down, put his electronic conversation with Kirk on hold, and called up another program as the colorful screen split into two. I got you on the bottom window. YOU'LL SEE THE PIT ON THE TOP. JOIN IN WHEN YOU WANT. Maybe I'll just listen. WHATEVER. I'M LOGGING ON. The top window on Scott's computer screen blinked off momentarily and then was filled with a the words from the dissident phreaks. CONVERSATION PIT: KIRK, RAMBO, PHASER, FON MAN, POLTERGEIST, AND WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? <<FON MAN>> B THE FASCIST GOVERNMENT IS JUST TRYING TO TAKE OVER. THE BILL OF RIGHTS IS GOING RIGHT DOWN THE SHITTER <<POLTERGEIST>> I AGREE. THEY LOOK FOR ANY EXCUSE TO TAKE AWAY ANY FREEDOM WE MAY HAVE LEFT AND THEY TOOK THIS HOMOSOTO THING AND BLEW IT RIGHT OUT OF PROPORTION. JUST LIKE VIETNAM. <<PHASER>> YOU DON'T BELIEVE THAT, DO YOU? <<RAMBO>> YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS I DO. SINCE WHEN HAS THE GOVERNMENT GIVEN A SHIT ABOUT US? ONLY SINCE THEY REALIZED WE HAVE POWER WITHOUT THEM. THEY'RE NO LONGER IN CONTROL AND THEY'LL DO ANYTHING THEY HAVE TO TO GET IT BACK. <<POLTERGEIST>> I DON'T THINK THAT IT'LL BE THAT BAD <<KIRK>> YOU BEEN HANGING OUT WITH THAT MASON GUY TOO MUCH <<PHASER>> CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY. HE'S LISTENING <<KIRK>> ALL THE BETTER. HE'S AS BAD AS THE FEDS. <<PHASER>> May I say something? WHY DID YOU WAIT SO LONG? I must beg to differ with Phaser with a question. IT'S YOUR DIME. <<PHASER>> Believe me, I understand that you guys have a point, about hack- ing and the free flow of information. But who's in control now? From my viewpoint, it's not you and it's not the government. It's Homosoto. SO? <<PHASER>> So, if freedom is the issue as you say, I assume that you want to keep your electronic freedom at all costs. RIGHT! <<PHASER>> THAT'S THE POINT <<POLTERGEIST>> Therefore, regardless of your opinions, you must realize that the government will do everything it thinks it needs to do to protect the country. MAKE YOUR POINT. <<PHASER>> It seems to me that the best way for you to keep the electronic freedom you crave, might be to help fight Homosoto and the vi- ruses and all. Minimize the damage, help defend the Global Network. HE MAKES A POINT. I'VE HELPED. <<KIRK>> THEN WE FALL INTO THEIR TRAP. SAVE IT ALL AND THEN THEY CLOSE DOWN THE NETWORK. I CAN'T PLAY INTO THEIR DECEIT AND TREACHERY. <<POLTERGEIST>> DO YOU THINK THE FREEDOM LEAGUE IS DOING GOOD? <<KIRK>> OF COURSE NOT. <<PHASER>> That's Homosoto. Thousands of viruses. NEMO already helped. ONLY THOSE THAT AGREE. WE ARE NOT A DEMOCRACY. <<POLTERGEIST>> SO YOU DON'T WANT TO FIGHT THE VIRUSES? <<RAMBO>> NOT YOU, TOO? <<PHASER>> IT'S A MATTER OF RIGHT AND WRONG. ELECTRONIC FREEDOM, ANARCHY IS ONE THING. BUT WE DO NOT ABUSE. WE LIVE BY THE CODE AND WANT TO KEEP THE NETWORK OPEN. HOMOSOTO WANTS TO CLOSE THE NETWORK DOWN. BY SCARE TACTICS. <<RAMBO>> THAT DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT THE FASCIST GOVERNMENT WILL TAKE EVERYTHING AWAY. <<PHASER>> Only if they have to. Wouldn't you rather help and keep that from happening? IF I TRUSTED THE GOVERNMENT. <<PHASER>> Can I introduce you to someone? His handle is FBI. KIRK, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, GIVING US AWAY? <<POLTERGEIST>> THEY'RE TIED IN ON MIRAGE. THEY CAN PLAY BUT THERE'S NO REDIAL. <<KIRK>> Gentlemen, this is the FBI. Let me tell you something. I don't agree with hacking, theft of service and the like. But I also am pragmatic. I recognize the difference between the lesser of two evils. And as of today, based upon what I know, you guys are a pain the ass, but not a threat to national security. That is why Washington has taken little interest in your activities. But at the same time, you are part of an underground that has access to the electronic jungle in which we find ourselves. We would like your help. OFFICIALLY? <<PHASER>> No, unofficially. I am law enforcement, associated with ECCO, if you've ever heard of them. ECCO. YOU GUYS FIGHT THE REAL COMPUTER JERKS, DON'T YOU? LIKE ROBERT MORRIS AND PUNJAB. DID YOU EVER CATCH THE GUY WHO STOPPED THE SHUTTLE FLIGHT? <<POLTERGEIST>> Sadly, no. I am talking to you as a friend of Scott's. And I will tell you, that anything I learn I will use to fight Homoso- to's attack. But frankly, you are little fish. I don't know who you are, nor do I really care. In all honesty, neither does Washington, the NSA or anyone else. You're merely an underground protest group. If anything, you help keep us honest. But even protestors should have their limits. MINE HAS BEEN REACHED. <<KIRK>> AND MINE. <<RAMBO>> There is a big difference between freedom of speech and insurrec- tion and invasion. WHAT ABOUT PRIVACY? <<PHASER>> THERE IS NONE, AND YOU KNOW IT. <<KIRK>> THAT'S THE POINT. WE HAVE TO STOP THE MILITARISTIC WAR MONGERS FROM PRYING INTO OUR LIVES. THEY KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT US, AND MORE. I WANT TO SEE THAT STOPPED. NOW. <<PHASER>> This is Mason. At the expense of true freedom? Freedom of choice? By your logic, you may end up with no Compuserve. No electronic mail boxes. No networks. Or, they'll be so restricted that you'll never get on them. IT'LL HAPPEN ANYWAY. <<PHASER>> And you'll just speed up the process. What do you have to lose by helping out? I WANT TO CONTINUE HELPING. MY FREEDOM TO HACK RESPONSIBLY IS IN DANGER BY ONE MAN, AND I AIM ON KEEPING MY FREEDOM. <<KIRK>> It may be the only way to keep the digital highways open, I'm sorry to say. IS THAT A THREAT? <<PHASER>> Merely an observation. I NEED TO THINK. <<PHASER>> WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW? <<RAMBO>> A lot. We need a complete list of phone numbers for every Free- dom BBS. They provide wide distribution of infected software. WE KNOW. BFD. <<PHASER>> This is FBI. We want to shut them down. HOW? <<KIRK>> We have our means. SEE WHAT I MEAN! THEY'RE ALL PIGS. THEY TAKE, TAKE, TAKE. BUT IF YOU ASK SOMETHING THEY CLAM UP. <<PHASER>> All right. If it works you'll find out anyway. There are a number of underused laws, and we want to keep this on a Federal level. USC 1029, 1030, 2134 - they're a bunch of them including racketeering. Then there are a number of Federal laws against doing anything injurious to the United States. WHICH GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO PROSECUTE ANYONE YOU DAMN WELL PLEASE WHENEVER YOU DAMN WELL WANT. <<POLTERGEIST>> As a lawyer, I could make that case. I AM A LAWYER, TOO. I PHREAK FOR PHREEDOM. <<POLTERGEIST>> Then you also know, that you have to really be on someone's shit list to get the FBI after you. Right now, Homosoto and his gang are on our shit list big time. THEN WHEN YOU'RE THROUGH WITH THEM, IT'S US NEXT. THEN WHO'S LEFT? <<PHASER>> RIGHT. <<POLTERGEIST>> We can argue forever. All I'm saying is we could use whatever help you can give us. And I honestly don't care who you are. Unless of course you're on my shit list. FBI HUMOR. <<KIRK>> WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED? <<RAMBO>> As many signatures as possible. We figure that there are thou- sands of you out there, and you can probably do a better job than any government security group punching in at nine and out at five. You have more people, no bureaucracy and a bigger sample of the software population. SIGNATURES? NO QUESTIONS ASKED? <<PHASER>> None. Also, rumors. WHAT KIND OF RUMORS? <<KIRK>> Like who might want to disrupt the Air Reservations System. YOU'RE KIDDING? <<POLTERGEIST>> I wish I was. You see, we are up against the wall. THAT COULD REALLY FUCK THINGS UP. <<POLTERGEIST>> REALLY! <<KIRK>> IS IT REALLY THAT BAD? <<POLTERGEIST>> Worse. MAYBE I'LL THINK ABOUT IT. <<POLTERGEIST>> ME TOO. <<PHASER>> MASON. I'M GOING TO CUT YOU OFF. <<KIRK>> It won't be the first time. <<<<<<CONNECTION TERMINATED>>>>>> Tyrone stretched his limbs searching for a bare place to sit down. Leaning over Scott's shoulders for the slow paced computer conversation stiffened his muscles. Scott motioned to slide whatever was in the way, out of the way, to which Tyrone com- plied. "Dedicated mother fuckers. Misguided, but dedicated." Ty sat back in thought. "What do you think they'll do?" "I don't think, I know," said Scott confidently. "Most of them will help, but they won't admit it. They openly distrust you, Washington and me. But they value their freedom, and instinc- tively they will protect that. Kirk will be the conduit. I'm not worried." "And what will they do?" "Once they get around to it, they'll commandeer every hacker in the country and at least stop the viruses. Or some of them. I think that we need to elicit their trust, and I can do that by giving them more than they give me." "Can you do that?" "Just watch. If they play their cards right, they can be heroes." **************************************************************** Chapter 29 Monday, January 25 The White House We had a pretty good handle on parts of it," said Marvin Jacobs glibly. Phil Musgrave, Martin Royce, Henry Kennedy and Quinton Chambers joined Marvin in one of the private White House conference rooms at 5 A.M. Jacobs had called all members of the inner circle, personally, early that morning. He had received word that last evening's computer conversations between Scott Mason and the Spook had been intercepted and the preliminary analysis was ready. Scott Mason's computer screens had been read by the NSA's remote electromagnetic receivers while he prepared his article for the following day. The actual article had also been transmitted to the White House, prior to publication, as agreed. "And Mason seems to be living up to his part of the bargain," Jacobs continued. "He only edits out the bullshit, pardon my French. Gives the public their money's worth." "You said we were close. How close?" Musgrave tended to run these meetings; it was one of the perks of being the President's Number One. "His organization was a lot more comprehensive than we thought," Henry Kennedy said. "We underestimated his capabilities, but we caught the essence of his weapons by good guessing." "If we could get our hands on this Spook character," sighed Martin Royce. He was thinking of the perennial problems associ- ated with identifying the exact location of someone who doesn't want to be found. "That's not the problem," said Chief of Staff Phil Musgrave. "We know who the Spook is, but we can't prove it. It's only hearsay, even with Mason's testimony, and it's a pretty damn safe bet he won't be inclined to testify. But Marv has given us a ton on him. After all, he is Marv's fault." "You guys sort that out on your own time," yawned Phil. "For now, though we need to know what we're up against." "If the President hadn't gone on television last night, we might have been able to keep this quiet and give the press some answers in a few days." Marv said. "Dream on," Phil said emphatically. "Mason broke the story and we were caught with our pants down. The President did not, and I repeat, did not, want to be associated with any cover up . . ." "I didn't say cover up . . ." "He wants to take his lumps and fix it. He will not lie to the American people." "If we shut Mason up." Marv suggested. "We need him right where he is," Henry Kennedy said about Scott to stem the escalating argument. "The subject is closed." Phil's comment silenced the room. After all was said and done, Musgrave was the closet thing to the President in the room. As with the President, the discussion was over, the policy set, now let's get on with it. "So, Marv? What are we up against." The seasoned professional in Marvin Jacobs took over, conflicting opinions in the past, and he handed out a series of TOP SECRET briefing folders. "You've got to be kidding," laughed Martin Royce holding up his file. "This stuff will be in today's morning paper and you classify it?" "There are guidelines for classification," Marvin insisted. "We follow them to the letter." "And every letter gets classified." muttered Royce under his breath. The pragmatist in him saw the lunacy of the classifica- tion process, but the civil servant in him recognized the impos- sibility of changing it. Marv ignored the comment and opened his folder. "Thanks, Phil," began Marv. "Well, I'll give it to him, Foster that is. If what he says is accurate, we have our work cut out for us, and in many cases all we can do is board up our windows before the hurricane hits." "For purposes of this discussion, assume, as we will, that the Spook, Foster, is telling the truth. Do we have any reason to disbelieve him?" "Other than attacking his own country? No, no reason at all." Marvin showed total disdain for Foster. His vehemence quieted the room, so he picked up where he left off. "The first thing he did was establish a communications network, courtesy of AT&T. If Foster is right, then his boys have more doors and windows in and out of the phone company computers than AT&T knows exist. For all intents and purposes, they can do anything with the phone system that they want. "They assign their own numbers, tap into digital transmissions, reprogram the main switches, create drop-dead billings, keep unlimited access lines and Operator Control. If we do locate a conversation, they're using a very sophisticated encryption scheme to disguise their communications. They're using the same bag of tricks we tried to classify over 20 years ago, and if anyone had listened . . ." "We get the point, Marv," Phil said just before Henry was about to say the same thing. "We can triangulate the cell phone location, but it takes time. Perhaps the smartest thing Foster did was recognize the need for an efficient distribution system. In order for his plan to work, he had to insure that every computer in the country was infected." "Thus the dGraph situation?" Quinton Chambers finally began to look awake. "And the Lotus Viruses, and the Freedom software," Henry said. "What about FTS-2000?" He was asking about the new multi-billion dollar voice and data communications network. FTS stands for Federal Telecommunications System. "I have no doubt that it's in the same boat," suggested Marv. "But we have no sure data yet. We should ask Scott to ask Fos- ter." "What could happen?" "Worst case? The government shuts down for lack of interest and no dial tone." "And these viruses?" "According to Foster, they designed over 8,000 viruses and he assumes that all or most of them have been released over the last several years," Marv said to a room full of raised eyebrows. "How bad is that?" asked Chambers. "Let's put it this way," said Marv. "In the last 14 years, of the viruses that have been confirmed, the longest gestation period, from release to detonation . . .was eight months. And that one was discovered a couple of weeks after they were re- leased. What Foster counted on was the fact that if software behaved normally, it wouldn't be suspect. And if it became popular, it was automatically above suspicion. He was right." "I've heard that every computer is infected?" "At the minimum, yes." Jacobs turned the pages of his dossier. "To continue, one of Foster's most important tools was the con- struction of road maps." "Road maps?" questioned Phil. "Connections, how it all ties together. How MILNET ties to INTERNET to DARPANET to DockMaster, then to the Universities." Marv wove a complex picture of how millions of computers are all interconnected. "Foster knew what he was doing. He called this group Mappers. The maps included the private nets, CompuServe, The Source, Gemini, Prodigy . . .BBS's to Tymenet . . .the lists go on forever. The road maps, according to Foster, were very detailed. The kind of computer, the operating system, what kind of security if any. They apparently raked through the hacker bulletin boards and complied massive lists of passwords for computers . . ." "Including ours?" asked Quinton Chambers. "Quite definitely. They kept files on the back doors, the trap doors and the system holes so they could enter computers unde- tected, or infect the files or erase them . . .take a look at Social Security and the IRS. Martin?" Treasury Secretary Royce nodded in strong agreement. "We got hit but good. We still have no idea how many hundreds of thousands of tax records are gone forever, if they were ever there. So far it's been kept under wraps, but I don't know how long that can continue. The CDN has been nothing but trouble. We're actually worse off with it than without it." "How can one person do all of that?" Chambers had little knowl- edge of computers, but he was getting a pretty good feel for the potential political fallout. "One person! Ha!" exclaimed Jacobs. "Look at Page 16." He pointed at his copy of the Secret documents. "According to Foster he told Homosoto he needed hundreds of full time mappers to draw an accurate and worthwhile picture of the communications and networks in the U.S.." "That's a lot of money right there," added Royce. "It's obvious that money wasn't a consideration." Phil spouted the current political party line as well as it was understood. "Retaliation against the United States was the motivation, and to hell with the cost." "Homosoto obviously took Foster's advice when it came to Propa- ganda," Marv continued. "The FBI, I believe, saw the results of a concentrated effort at creating distrust in computers. We've got a team working on just finding the blackmailers. Their version of a disinformation campaign was to spread the truth, the secret undeniable truths of those who most want to keep their secrets a secret." "That's also where the banks got hit so hard," offered Henry Kennedy. "Tens of thousands of credit card numbers were spirited away from bank computers everywhere. You can imagine the shock when tens of millions of dollars of purchases were contested by the legitimate credit card holders." "It's bad," agreed Royce. "And we haven't even seen the beginning yet, if we believe Fos- ter. There were other groups. Some specialized in Tempest-Bust- ing . . ." "Excuse me?" asked Quinton Chambers. "Reading the signals broadcast by computers," Marv said with some derision. The Secretary of State should know better, he thought. "It's a classified Defense program." He paused while Chambers made a note. "Others used stolen EMP-T bomb technology to blow up the Stock Exchange and they even had antennas to focus HERF . . ." "HERF?" laughed Phil. "HERF," said Marv defensively. "High Energy Radiated Fields. Pick a frequency, add an antenna, point and shoot. Poof! Your computer's history." "You're kidding me . . ." "No joke. We and the Soviets did it for years; Cold War Games," said Kennedy. "Pretty hush-hush stuff. We have hand held electric guns that will stop a car cold at a thousand yards." "Phasers?" asked Chambers. "Sort of, Quinton," chimed in Phil. "Foster's plan also called for moles to be placed within strate- gic organizations, civilian and government." Marv continued. "They were to design and release malicious software from inside the company. Powerful technique if you can find enough bodies for the dirty work." "Again, according to Foster, Homosoto said that there was never a manpower problem," Marv said. "He's confident that an Arab group is involved somewhere. The MacDonald's accident was caused by Arabs who . . ." "And we still can't get shit out of the one who we're holding. The only one that's left. Troubleaux was shot by an Arab . . .the FBI is working hard on that angle. They've given themselves extraordinary covers." Phil was always on top of those things that might have a political cause and/or effect. "How extensive an operation was this?" Marvin Jacobs ruffled through some notes in his files. "It's hard to be sure. If Homosoto followed all of Foster's plan, I would guess 3 - 5,000 people, with a cost of between $100 - $300 Mil- lion. But mind you, that's an uneducated guesstimate." Quinton Chambers dropped his pen on the table. "Are you telling us that one man is bringing the United States virtually to its knees for a couple of hundred million?" Marv reluctantly nodded. "Gentlemen, this is incredible, more than incredible . . .does the President know?" Even Phil Musgrave was antsy with the answer to that question. "Not in any detail, but he is very concerned. As for the cost, terrorism has never been considered expensive." "Well thank you Ron Ziegler, for that piece of information," scowled Chambers. "So if we know all of this, why don't we pick 'em all up and get this over with and everything working again?" "Foster claims he doesn't know who anyone other than Homosoto is. He was kept in the dark. That is certainly not inconsistent with the way Homosoto is known to do business - very compartmental- ized. He didn't do the recruitment, he said, and all communica- tions were done over the computer . . .no faces, no names. If it wasn't for Mason, we wouldn't even know that Foster is the Spook. I consider us very lucky on that point alone." "What are we going to do? What can we do?" Royce and Chambers both sounded and looked more concerned than the others. Their agencies were on the front line and the most visible to the public. "For the government we can take some mandatory precautions. For the private sector, probably nothing . . ." "Unless." Phil said quietly. "Unless what?" All heads turned to Phil Musgrave. "Unless the President invokes martial law to protect the country and takes control of the computers until we can respond." Phil often thought out loud, even with his extremist possibilities. "Good idea!" said Jacobs quickly. "You think that public will buy that?" asked Chambers. "No, but they may have no choice." * * * * * Tuesday, January 26 PRESIDENT DECLARES WAR ON COMPUTERS By Scott Mason Support for the President's Sunday night call to arms has been virtually unanimous by industry leaders. According to James Worthington, Director of Computing Services at First National Life, "We take the threat to our computers very seriously. Without the reliable operation of our MIS systems, our customers cannot be serviced and the company will suffer tremendous losses. Rates will undoubtedly rise unless we protect ourselves." Similar sentiments were echoed by most industry leaders. IBM announced it would be closing all of its computer centers for between two and four weeks to effect a complete cleansing of all systems and products. A spokesperson for IBM said, "If our computers are threatened, we will take all necessary steps to protect our investment and the confidence of our customers. IBM prefers a short term disruption in normal services to a long term failure." Well placed persons within the government concur that the NSA, who is responsible for guiding the country through the current computer crisis, is ideally suited for managing the situation. Even agencies who have in the past been critical of the super- secret NSA are praising their preliminary efforts and recommenda- tions to deal with the emergency. In a several page document issued by the NSA, a series of safe- guards is outlined to protect computers against many of the threats they now face. In addition, the NSA has asked all long distance carriers to, effective immediately, deny service to any digital communications until further notice. Despite high marks for the NSA in other areas, many of their defensive recommenda- tions have not been so well received. "We are actually receiving more help from the public BBS's and local hacker groups in finding and eradicating the viruses than from the NSA or ECCO," said the Arnold Fullerman, Vice President of Computer Services at Prudential. AT&T is also critical of the government's efforts. "The Presi- dential Order gives the NSA virtual control over the use of our long distance services. Without the ability to transmit digital data packets, we can expect a severely negative impact on our first quarter earnings . . ." While neither AT&T nor the other long distance carriers indicated they would defy the executive decree, they did say that their attorneys were investigating the legality of the mandate. The NSA, though, was quick to respond to criticism. "All the NSA and its policies are trying to achieve is a massive reduction in the rate of propagation of the Homosoto Viruses, eliminate fur- ther infection, so we can isolate and immunize as many computers as possible. This will be a short term situation only." De- tractors vocally dispute that argument. AT&T, Northern TelCom and most telephone manufacturers are taking additional steps in protecting one of Homosoto's key targets: Public and Private Branch Exchanges, PBX's, or phone switches. They have all developed additional security recommendations for customers to keep Phone Phreaks from utilizing the circuits without authorization. Telephone fraud alone reached an estimat- ed $14 Billion last year, with the courts upholding that custom- ers whose phones were misused are still liable for all bills. Large companies have responded by not paying the bills and with lawsuits. The NSA is further recommending federal legislation to mitigate the effects of future computer attacks. They propose that com- puter security be required by law. "We feel that it would be prudent to ask the private sector to comply with minimum security levels. The C2 level is easy to reach, and will deter all but the most dedicated assaults. It is our belief that as all cars are manufactured with safety items such as seat belts, all computer should be manufactured with security and information integrity mechanisms in place. C2 level will meet 99% of the public's needs." A spokesman for ECCO, one of the emergency computer organizations working with the NSA explained that such security levels available outside of the highest government levels range from D Level, the weakest, to A Level, the strongest. It is estimated that compliance with such recommendations will add no more than $50 to the cost of each computer. The types of organizations that the NSA recommend secure its computers by law is extensive, and is meeting with some vocal opposition: Companies with more than 6 computers connected in a network or that use remote communications. Companies which store information about other people or organiza- tions. All Credit Card merchants. Companies that do business with local, state or federal agencies. The entire Federal Government, regardless of data classification. All publicly funded organizations including schools, universi- ties, museums, libraries, research, trade bureaus etc. Public Access Data Bases and Bulletin Boards. "It is crazy to believe that 45 million computers could comply with a law like that in under 2 years," said Harry Everett, a Washington D.C. based security consultant. "In 1987 Congress passed a law saying that the government had to protect 'sensitive but unclassified data' to a minimum C2 level by 1992. Look where we are now! Not even close, and now they expect to secure 100 times that many in one tenth the time? No way." Another critic said, "C2? What a joke. Europe is going by ITSEC and they laugh at the Orange Book. If you're going to make security a law, at least do it right." NSA also had words for those computers which do not fall under the umbrella of the proposed legislation. Everyone is strongly urged to practice safe computing. * * * * * Tuesday, January 26 St. Louis, Missouri "I'm sorry sir, we can't find you in the computer," the harried young woman said from behind the counter. "Here's my boarding pass," he said shoving the small cardboard pass into her face. "And here's a paid for ticket. I want to get on my flight." "Sir, there seems to be a complication," she nervously said as she saw at least another hundred angry people behind the irate customer. "What kind of complication?" he demanded. "It seems that you're not the only one with a ticket for Seat 11- D on this flight." "What's that supposed to mean?" "Sir, it seems that the flight has been accidentally overbooked, by about 300 people." "Well, I have a ticket and a boarding pass . . ." "So do they, sir." Delta and American and Northwest and USAir were all experiencing problems at every gate their airlines serviced. So was every other airline that used the National Reservation Service or Saber. Some flights though, were not so busy. "What kind of load we have tonight, Sally?" asked Captain David Clark. The American red-eye from LAX to Kennedy was often a party flight, with music and entertainment people swapping cities and visiting ex-wives and children on the opposite coast. "Light," she replied over the galley intercom from the middle of the 400 seat DC-10. "How light?" "Crew of eleven. Two passengers." By midnight, the entire air traffic system was in total chaos. Empty airplanes sat idly in major hubs awaiting passengers that never came. Pilots and flight crews waiting for instructions as take-offs from airports all but ceased. Overbooking was so rampant that police were called into dozens of airports to re- store order. Fist fights broke out and despite pleas for calm from the police and the airlines, over 200 were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, assault and resisting arrest. Tens of thousands of passengers had confirming tickets for flights that didn't exist or had left hours before. Arriving passengers at the international airports, LAX, Kennedy, San Francisco, Miami were stranded with no flights, no hotels and luggage often destined for parts unknown. Welcome to the United States. The FAA had no choice but to shut down the entire air transporta- tion system at 2:22 A.M. * * * * * Wednesday, January 27 National Security Agency Fort Meade, Maryland "Did you get the President to sign it?" "No problem. Public opinion swung our way after yesterday." "And now?" "Essentially, every long and short distance phone company works for the Federal Government.." "Tell me how it works." "We have lines installed from the 114 Signal Transfer Points in every phone district to a pair of Cray-YMP's at the Fort. Every single AT&T long distance phone call goes through these switches and is labeled by an IAM with where the call came from and where it's going. What we're looking for is the high usage digital lines. Including fax lines. So the phone company is kind enough to send us a list of every call. We get about seven million an hour." "We can handle that?" "We have enough to handle ten times that." "I forget about the international monitors. That's millions more calls a day we listen to." "Yessir. The computers go through every call and make a list of digital calls. Then we get a list of all billing records and start crunching. We compare the high usage digital lines with the phone numbers from the bills and look for patterns. We look to see if it's a private or business line, part of a private PBX, hours and days of usage, then who owns the line. Obviously we eliminate a great many from legitimate businesses. After inten- sive analysis and profile comparison, we got a a few thousand candidates. What we decided to look for was two things. "First, we listen to the lines to make sure it's a computer. If it is, we get a look at the transmissions. If they are encrypt- ed, they get a red flag and onto the Hit List." "The President bought this?" "We told him we'd only need the records for a short time, and then we would dispose of them. He agreed." "What a sucker. Good work." * * * * * Friday, February 12 New York City Times Computer License Law Possible? by Scott Mason Senator Mark Bowman's proposed legislation is causing one of the most stirring debates on Capital Hill since the divisive decision to free Kuwait militarily. The so-called "Computer License Law" is expected to create as much division in the streets and homes of America as it is polit- ically. The bill calls for every computer in the country to be registered with the Data Registration Agency, a working component of the Commerce Dept. The proposed 'nominal fees' are intended to insure that the technology to protect computer systems keeps up with other computer technology. Critics, though, are extremely vocal in their opposition to a bill that they say sends a strong message to the American people: We don't trust you. The FYI, Freeflow of Your Information says that passage of the Computer License Law will give the federal government the unrestricted ability and right to invade our privacy. Dr. Sean Kirschner, the chief ACLU counsel, is consid- ering a lawsuit against the United States if the bill passes. Kirschner maintains that " . . .if the License Law goes into effect, the streets will be full of Computers Cops handing out tickets if your computer doesn't have a license. The enforcement clauses of the bill essentially give the police the right to listen to your computer. That is a simple invasion of privacy, and we will not permit a precedent to be set. We lost too much freedom under Reagan." Proponents of the bill insist that the low fee, perhaps only $10 per year per computer, is intended to finance efforts at keeping security technology apace with computer technology. "We have learned our lesson the hard way, and we now need to address the problem head on before it bites us again." They cite the example of England, where televisions have been licensed for years, with the fees dedicated to supporting the arts and maintaining broad- casting facilities. "Does not apply," says Dr. Kirschner. "With a television, there isn't an issue of privacy. A computer is like an electronic diary, and that privacy must be respected at all costs." "And," he adds, "that's England, not the U.S.. They don't have freedom of the press, either." Kirschner vowed a highly visible fight if Congress " . . .dares to pass that vulgar law . . ." * * * * * Monday, February 15 Scarsdale, New York "ECCO reports are coming in." "At this hour?" Scott said sleepily. "You want or no?" Tyrone Duncan answered with irritation. "Yeah, yeah, I want," Scott grumbled. "What time is it?" "Four A.M. Why?" "I won't make the morning . . ." "I'm giving you six hours lead. Quit bitching." "O.K., O.K., what is it?" "Don't sound so grateful." "Where the hell are you?" Scott asked sounding slightly more awake. "At the office." "At four?" "You're pushing your luck . . ." "I'm ready." "It looks like your NEMO friends were right. There are bunches of viruses. You can use this. ECCO received reports of a quar- ter million computers going haywire yesterday. There's gotta be ten times that number that haven't been reported." "Whose?" "Everybody for Christ's sake. American Gen, Compton Industries, First Life, Banks, and, this is almost funny, the entire town of Fallsworth, Idaho." "Excuse me?" * * * * * Thursday, February 25 TOWN DISAPPEARS By Scott Mason The town of Fallsworth, Idaho is facing a unique problem. It is out of business. Fallsworth, Idaho, population 433, has a computer population of 611. But no one in the entire incorporation of Fallsworth has ever bought or paid for a single piece of software or hardware. Three years ago, the town counsel approved a plan to make this small potato farming community the most computerized township in the United States, and it seems that they succeeded. Apparently the city hall of Fallsworth was contacted by representatives of Apple Computer. Would they like to be part of an experiment? Apple Computer provided every home and business in the Fallsworth area with a computer and the necessary equipment to tie all of the computers together into one town-wide network. The city was a pilot program for the Electronic City of the future. The residents of Fallsworth were trained to use the computers and Apple and associated companies provided the township beta copies of software to try out, play with and comment on. Fallsworth, Idaho was truly the networked city. Lily Williams and members of the other 172 households in Falls- worth typed out their grocery lists on their computer, matching them to known inventories and pricing from Malcolm Druckers' General Store. When the orders arrived at the Drucker computer, the goods just had to be loaded in the pick up truck. Druckers' business increased 124% after the network was installed. Doctors Stephenson, Viola and Freemont, the three town doctors modem'ed prescriptions to Baker Pharmacy so the pills were ready by the time their patients arrived. Mack's Messengers had cellular modems and portable computers installed in their delivery trucks. They were so efficient, they expanded their business into nearby Darbywell, Idaho, population, 5,010. Today, Fallsworth, Idaho doesn't use its computers. They lie dormant. A town without life. They forgot how to live and work and play and function without their computers. Who are the slaves? The viruses of Lotus, of dGraph. The viruses of Freedom struck, and no one in the entire town had registration cards. The soft- ware crisis has left Fallsworth and a hundred other small test sites for big software firms out in the digital void. Apple Computer promised to look into the matter but said that customers who have paid for their products come first . . . * * * * * Friday, March 5 FBI Building, Federal Square Tyrone Duncan was as busy as he had ever been, attempting to coordinate the FBI's efforts in tracking down any of the increas- ing number of computer criminals. And there were a lot of them at the moment. The first Copy-Cat computer assaults were coming to light, making it all that much more difficult to isolate the Foster Plan activities from those other non-coordinated inci- dents. Tyrone, as did his counterparts in regional FBI offices nation- wide, created teams of agents who concentrated on specific areas of Homosoto's assault as described by the Spook. Some special- ized in tracing missing electronic funds, some in working with the phone company through the NSA. More than any other goal, the FBI wanted desperately to locate as many of the invisible agents that the Spook, Miles Foster, had told Homosoto to use. Tyrone doubted they would catch anywhere near the 3000 or more he was told that were out there, but at this point any success was welcome. FBI agents toiled and interviewed and researched sixteen and eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. There hadn't been such a blanket approval of overtime since the Kennedy assassination. The FBI followed up the leads generated by the computers at the NSA. Who and where were the likely associates of Homosoto and Foster? His phone rang - the private line that bypasses his secretary- startling Tyrone from the deep thought in which he was immersed. On a Saturday. As the voice on the other end of the phone ut- tered its first sound, Tyrone knew that it was Bob Burnson. Apparently he was in his office today as well. "Afternoon, Bob," Tyrone said vacantly. "Gotcha at a bad time?" Burnson asked. "No, no. Just going over something that may prove interesting." "Go ahead, make my day," joked Burnson. "I know you don't want to know . . ." "Then don't tell me . . ." "But Mason's hackers are coming through for us." "Jeez, Ty," whined Bob. "Do you have to . . ." "Do you know anybody else that is capable of moving freely in those circles? It's not exactly our specialty," reprimanded Tyrone. "In theory it's great," Bob reluctantly agreed, "but there are so damn many exposures. They can mislead us, they're not profes- sionals, and worst of all, we don't even know who they are, to perform a background check." "Bob, you go over to the other side . . . playing desk man on me?" "Ty, I told you a while ago, I could only hang so far out before the branches started shaking." "Then you don't know anything." Tyrone said in negotiation. Keep Bob officially uninformed and unofficially informed. "You don't know that NEMO has helped to identify four of the black- mailers and a handful of the Freedom Freaks. You don't know that we have gotten more reliable information from Mason's kids than from ECCO, CERT, NIST and NSA combined. They're up in the clouds with theory and conjecture and what-iffing themselves silly. NEMO is in the streets. A remote control informer if you like." "What else don't I know?" "You don't know that NEMO has been giving us security holes in some of our systems. You don't know that Mason's and other hackers have been working on the Freedom viruses." "Some systems? Why not all?" "They still want to keep a few trapdoors for themselves." "See what I mean!" exclaimed Burnson. "They can't be trusted." "They are not on our payroll. Besides, it's them or no one," Tyrone calmly said. "They really would like to keep the real-bad guys off of the playing field, as they put it." "And keep the spoils for their own use." "It's a trade-off I thought was worthwhile." "I don't happen to agree, and neither does the Director's office." "I thought you didn't know . . ." "Word gets around. We have to cap this one, Ty. It's too hot. This is so far from policy I think we could be shot." "You know nothing. Nothing." But Burnson and the FBI and the White House all knew they wanted Foster. Tyrone instinctively knew as did Scott, that Miles Foster was the Spook. Other than meager unsubstantiated circum- stantial evidence, though, there was still no convincing legal connection between Miles Foster and the Spook. Not enough of one, anyway. Miles Foster had done an extraordinary job of insulating himself and his identity from his army. There had to be another way. * * * * * Monday, March 8 New York City Times Lawsuit Cites Virus by Scott Mason Will stockholders of corporations soon require that all Corporate assets be appropriately protected? Including those contained in the computers? Many people see a strong possibility of a swell of Wall Street investor demands to secure the computers of pub- licly held companies. The SEC is planning on issuing a set of preliminary regulations for firms under its aegis. Last week, a group of 10,000 Alytech, Inc. stockholders filed the first class action suit along this vein. They are suing the current board of directors for " . . .willful dereliction of fiduciary responsibility in the adequate security and protection of corporate information, data, communications and data process- ing and communications equipment." The suit continues to say that the company, under the Directors' leadership and guidance knew and understood the threat to their computers, yet did noth- ing to correct the situation. Attorneys for the plaintiffs have said that they are in posses- sion of a number of internal Alytech documents and memos which spelled out security recommendations to their board of directors upon which no action was taken. Alytech was one of the many companies hit particularly hard by the Computer War. The dGraph virus, the Lotus viruses and the Novell viruses were among those that infected over 34,000 of the company's computers around the world; bringing the company to a virtual halt for over two weeks. Immediately after getting their computers back up and running, they were struck by several Free- dom viruses which were designed to destroy the hard disks on the computers. As of this date, Alytech still has over 10,000 computers sitting idly waiting for the much delayed shipments of hard disks re- quired to repair the machines. A spokesman for Alytech, Inc. says that the lawsuit is frivolous and without merit. A date of June 14 has been set for the courts to hear the first of many rounds of motions. * * * * * Sunday, March 21 Paris, France Spring in Paris is more glorious than any reviewer can adequately portray. The clear air bristles with fresh anticipation like lovers on a cool afternoon. Bicycles, free from a winter of hiding in ga- rages, fill the streets and parks. All of Paris enjoys the first stroll of the year. Coats and jackets are prematurely shed in favor of t-shirts and skimpy tank-tops and the cafes teem with alfresco activity. The lucky low-season American tourist experiences firsthand the French foreplay to summer. Looking down to the streets from the 'deuziemme �� tage' of the Eiffel Tower, only a hundred feet up, the sheer number of stroll- ers, of pedestrian cruisers, of tourists and of the idly lazy occupies the whole of one's vista. Martin Templer leaned heavily on the wrought iron railing of the restaurant level, soaking up the tranquility of the perfect Sunday afternoon. He gazed across the budding tree-lined Seine toward the Champs Elys�� e and the Arc de Triumph; from Notre Dame to the skyscrapered Ile de la Cit�� . He mentally noted the incon- gruity between the aura of peace that Paris radiated with its often violent history. He hoped nothing today would break that spell. A sudden slap on the back aroused Templer from his sun warmed daydream. He turned his head in seeming boredom. "You'd make a lousy pickpocket." "That's why I avoided a life of crime." Alexander Spiradon was immaculately dressed, down to the properly folded silk handker- chief in his suit jacket. "How are you today my friend? Did I interrupt your reverie?" Templer swung his London Fog over his shoulder. His casual slacks and stylish light weight sweater contrasted severely with Alex's comfortable air of formality. "I don't get here often. Paris is a very special place," Templer mused, turning from his view of the city to face his old comrade. "It is indeed," agreed Alex. "Then why do you look so melan- choly? Does Paris bring you memories of sadness?" "I hope not," Templer said, eyes down. "You didn't give me much notice," Alex said good naturedly. "I left the most beautiful woman in the world in a jacuzzi at St. Moritz." "No, I'm sorry. I know I didn't, but it was urgent. Couldn't wait." A slight breeze caused Templer to shiver. He slowly put on his tan rain coat and looked right into Alex's eyes. "I'm going to ask you straight." Alex confidently grinned. "Ask what?" "Was Taki Homosoto a client of yours?" The biting words seemed to have little impact on Alex. "My clients trust me to keep their identities confidential." The expression on Alex's face didn't change. "The guy's dead. What the hell can it hurt?" Templer laughed. "What's he gonna do? Sue you for breach of contract?" Alex didn't say a word. He saw Templer laugh the confident laugh of a chess player one move from checkmate and he realized how un- comfortable a position this was for him. How do you behave when you're on the losing end of the stick? Alex was thinking like he cared what Templer knew or thought. In reality, though, he didn't care any more about what anyone thought of him. He had enough money, more than enough money, to lead a lavish lifestyle without worry. So what did it matter. As friends nothing would change between him and Martin. But professionally, that was a different matter. "I'd love to tell you, but, it's a matter of ethics," Alex said happily. "You understand." "It really doesn't matter," laughed Templer. "Let's walk. The wind's picking up." They unconsciously joined in the spontane- ous promenade of walkers who shuffle around the mid level of the Tower to share in the ambience that only Paris offers. "You know, I'm officially retired," Alex said breathing in deep- ly. "I'm not surprised. Must have been a very profitable endeavor." "I saved a little and made prudent investments," Alex lied and Templer knew it. No need to push the point. "How well did Sir George do? He wouldn't tell us." Alex stopped in his tracks and glared at Martin with a blank emotionless expression for several seconds until his deep set brown eyes began to twinkle. A knowing smile and nod of recog- nition of accomplishment followed, telling Martin he had hit a home run. "You're good. Very good." They both began walking again, as if on cue. "For future edification, how did you find him?" "Them. Sir George was the most helpful, though." "I remember him. Real character, kind of helpless but with the gift of gab." Alex seemed unconcerned that any of his network had been discovered. "He talked?" "Second rate criminal. Definitely deportable." "And you made him an offer he couldn't refuse." "Something like that," Templer said coyly. "Let's just say he prefers the vineyards of California to the prisons in England." Alex nodded in understanding. "How'd you find him?" "Telephone records." "That's impossible," Alex said, shrugging off Martin's answer. "Never underestimate the power of silicon," Martin said crypti- cally. "Computers? No way," Alex said defiantly. "Every year there are almost 40 billion calls made within the United States alone. There's no way to trace that many calls." "Who needs to trace?" Templer enjoyed the joust. Thus far. "The phone company is kind enough to keep records of every call made. Both local and long distance. They're all rather com- plete. From what number, to what number, if it's forwarded, to what number and at what time and for how long. They also tell us if the calls were voice, fax, or other types of communications. It even identifies telephone connections that use encryption. Believe me, those are flagged right off." "You monitor every conversation? I thought it was just the overseas calls. That's incredible. Incredibly illegal." "But necessary. The threat of terrorism inside the United States has reached unacceptable levels, and we had the capability. It was just a matter of flipping the switch." "Since when can you do that?" Alex asked, stunned that he had overlooked, or underestimated a piece of the equation. "Since the phone company computers were connected to the Fort. And, I guarantee you, it's not something they want advertised," Martin said in a low voice. "Did you fuck up?" They had circled the Tower twice and stopped back where they started, overlooking the Seine. Alex's professional composure returned as they leaned over the Tower's railing. "I guess I wasn't as right as I usually am," he snickered. Templer followed suit. "How many did you get?" "How many are there?" "That would be telling," Alex said coyly. "I assume, then, that you would be averse to helping us out of our current dilemma." Being friends with potential adversaries made this part of the job all the more difficult. "Well," Alex said turning his head toward Martin. "I guess I could be talked into one more job, just one, if the price was right." Templer shook his head. "That's not the right answer." Alex was taken off guard by the sullenness in Martin's voice. "Right answer? There are no right and wrongs in our business. Only shades of gray. You know that. We ride a fence, and the winds blow back and forth. It's not personal." Martin straightened up and put both hands deep into the pockets of his London Fog. "Among the professionals, yes. But Sir George and his cronies, and you by default, broke the rules. Civilians are off limits. We were hoping that you would want to help." Alex ignored the second request. "I won't do it again. I prom- ise," he said haughtily. "Is there anything I can say that will make you reconsider? Anything at all?" Martin implored. "No," Alex said. "Unless we can discuss an equitable arrange- ment." Martin took his hands out of his pockets and said, "I don't think that will work. I'm sorry." "Sorry?" Martin quickly moved his right hand up to Alex's neck and touched it briefly. Alex reached up and slapped his neck as terror overtook his face. He grabbed Martin's arm and twisted it with his free hand to expose a small needle tipped dart projecting from a ring on one finger. Templer wrested his arm free from Alex's weakening clutch and tore off the ring, tossing it away from the Tower. Alex weakened further as he leaned both hands on the railing to steady himself. His mouth gaped wide, intense fear and utter disbelief competing for control of his facial muscles. Martin ignored his collapsing adversary and walked deliberately to the open elevator which provided escape down to street level. Before the doors had closed, Templer saw a crowd converge over the crumpled body of Alexander Spiradon. Martin Templer crossed the Seine and performed evasive maneuvers to make sure he was not being followed. The cleansing process took about three hours. He flagged down a taxi and the most uncooperative driver refused to acknowledge he understood that the destination was the American Embassy on Gabriel. Only when Templer flashed a 100 Franc note did the driver's English im- prove. Templer showed his CIA credentials to the Marine Sergeant at the security desk, and told him he needed access to a secure communi- cations channel to Washington. After his identity was verified, Templer was permitted to send his message. It was electronically addressed to his superiors at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. PLATO COULDN'T COME OUT AND PLAY. UNFORTUNATE STROKE INTERRUPTED THE INTERVIEW. **************************************************************** Chapter 30 Monday, March 22 National Security Agency He had two separate offices, each with a unique character. One ultra modern and sleek, the other befitting a country gentleman. The two were connected by a large anteroom that also provided immediate access and departure by a private elevator and escape stairs. He could hold two meetings at once as was occasionally required in his position as DIRNSA, Director, National Security Agency. Each office had its own secretary and private entrance, selected for use depending upon whom was expected. The meeting in the nouveau office was winding down to a close and the conversation had been reduced to friendly banter. Marvin Jacobs had brought in three of his senior advisors who were coordinating the massive analytical computing power of the NSA with the extraordinary volume of raw data that all of the 5ESS switches downloaded daily. Since they had been assigned to assist the FBI, the NSA had been hunting down the locations of the potential conspirators with the assistance of the seven Baby Bells and Bell Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey. The gargantuan task was delicately bal- ancing a fine line between chaos and stagnancy; legality and amorality. As they spoke, Jacobs heard a tone emit from his computer and he noticed that Office-2 had a Priority Visitor. "Gentlemen," Marvin Jacobs said as he stood. "It seems that my presence is required for a small matter. Would you mind enter- taining yourselves for a few minutes?" His solicitous nature and political clout demanded that his visitors agree without hesita- tion. He walked over to a door by the floor to ceiling bookshelf and let himself in, through the gracious ante-room by the commode and into his heavy wood and leather office. He immediately saw the reason for the urgency. "Miles, Miles Foster, my boy! How are you?" Marvin Jacobs walked straight to Miles, vigorously shook his hand and gave him a big friendly bear hug. Miles smiled from ear to ear. "It's been cold out there. Glad to be home." He looked around the room and nodded appreciative- ly. "You've been decorating again." "Twice. You haven't been in this office for, what is it, five years?" Jacobs held Miles by the shoulders. "My God it's good to see you. You don't look any the worse for wear." "I had a great boss, treated me real nice," Miles said. "Come here, sit down," Marvin said ushering Miles over to a thickly padded couch. "If you don't already know it, this coun- try owes you a debt of thanks." "I know," Miles said, even though he had been paid over three million dollars by Homosoto. "A drink, son?" At fifty-five, the red faced paunch bellied Jacobs looked old enough to be Miles' father, even though they were only fifteen years apart. "Glenfiddich on the rocks." Miles felt comfortable. Totally comfortable and in control of the situation. "Done." DIRNSA Jacobs pressed a button which caused a hidden bar to be exposed from a mirror paneled wall. The James Bondish tricks amused Miles. "Excuse me," he said to Miles. "Let me get rid of my other appointments." Jacobs handed Miles the drink and leaned over his desk speaking into telephone. "Uh, Miss Gree- ley, cancel my dates for the rest of the day, would you please?" "Of course, sir." The thin female voice came across the speaker phone clearly. "And my regrets to the gentlemen in One." "Yessir." The intercom audibly clicked off. "So," Marvin asked, "how does it feel to be both the goat and the hero?" "Hey, I fixed it, just like we planned, didn't I?" Miles said arrogantly, but his deep dimples said he was joking. "I remember everything you taught me," he bragged. "Lesson One: If you really want to fix something, first you gotta fuck it up so bad everyone takes notice. Well, how'd I do?" Miles still grinned, his dimples radiating a star pattern across his cheeks. Jacobs approved whole heartedly. "You were a natural. From day one." "Homosoto thought that fuck-it to fix-it was entirely too weird at first, so I quit calling it that." Miles fondly remembered those early conversations. "As you said, it takes a disaster to motivate Americans, and we gave them one." "I'm glad you see it that way," Marvin said obligingly. "It occurred to me that you might have gotten soft on me." "Not a chance." Miles countered. "How many men get to lead armies, first of all. And I may be the first, ever, to lead an invasion of my own country with my government's approval. This was a sanctioned global video game. I should thank you for the opportunity." "That's a hell of a way to look at it, my boy. You show a lot of courage." Marvin drank to Miles' health. "It takes men of courage to run a country, and that's what we do; run the country." Miles had heard many of Marvin's considerable and conservative speeches before, but this one was new. After over five years, that was to be expected. "It doesn't make a damn bit of difference who the President is. The Government stays the same regardless of who's elected every 4 years." Marvin continued as Miles listened reverently. "The American public thinks that politicians run the country; they think that they vote for the people who make the policies, who set the tone of the government, but they are so wrong. So wrong." Marvin shook his head side to side. "And it's probably just as well that they never find out for sure." He held Miles' attention. Marv walked around the room drink in hand, gesturing with his hands and arms. "The hundreds of thousands of Government employees, the ones that are here year after year after year, we are the ones who make policy. It's the mid-grade manager, the staff writer, the polit- ical analysts who create the images, the pictures that the White House and Capital Hill see. "This town, the United States is run by lifers; people who have dedicated their lives to the American way of life. The military controls more than any American wants to know. State Department, Justice, HUD; each is its own monolithic bureaucracy that does not change direction overnight because of some election in Bum- fuck, Iowa. It takes four years to find your way through the corridors, and by then, odds are you'll be packing back to Maine, or Georgia or California or wherever you came from." Marvin Jacob's vitriolic oration was grinding on Miles, but he had to listen to his boss. "So when this country gets into trouble, someone has to do some- thing about it. God knows the politicians won't. This country was in real trouble and someone had to fix it. In this case it was me. It's been a decade since the first warnings about how vulnerable our computers, our economy, shit, our National Securi- ty were. The reports came out, and Congress decided to ignore them. Sure, they built up the greatest armaments in the history of civilization, sold the future for a few trillion, but they ne- glected to protect their investment." Jacobs angrily poured himself another drink. "I couldn't let that happen, so I decided that I needed to expose the weaknesses in our systems before somebody else did." Marvin spoke proudly. "And what better way than to fuck it up beyond all recognition. FUBAR. At least this way we were in charge, and we were able to pick the damage. Thanks to you. Lessons tend to be painful, and I guess we're paying for some of our past sins." He drank thirstily. "Did those sins mean that I would have to be arrested by the FBI? I couldn't say a thing; not the truth. They'd never have be- lieved me." Miles shuddered at the thought. "For a moment, I thought you might leave me to rot in jail." "Hey," Marvin said happily. "Didn't our people get you out, just like I promised? Less than an hour." He sounded proud of his efforts. "Besides, most of them were bullshit charges. Not worth the effort to prosecute." "I never underestimate the power of the acronym," Miles said about the NSA, CIA and assorted lettered agencies. "There was a lot of not so quiet whispering when it was released that the charges were dropped by the Federal Prosecutor. Think that was smart, so soon? Maybe we should have waited a couple of months." Jacobs looked up sharply at Miles' criticism of his actions but spoke with understanding. "We needed to get the cameras off of you and onto the real problem; it was the right thing to do. Your part is over. You started the war. Now it's up to me to stop it. It could not have gone any smoother. Yes," he re- flected. "It's time for us to take over. You have performed magnificently. We couldn't ask for any more." Miles sipped at his drink accepting the reasoning and asked, "I've wondered about a few things, since the beginning." "Now's as good a time as any," Marv said edging himself behind his desk. "I'd imagine you have a lot of holes to fill in." "How did you get Homosoto to cooperate? He seemed to fall right into place." "It was almost too easy," Jacobs commented casually. "We had a number of candidates. You'd be surprised how many people with money and power hold grudges against Uncle Sam," he snickered. "It's hard to believe, but true." "Meaning, if it wasn't him, it would have been someone else?" "Exactly. There's no shortage of help in the revenge business. There are still many hibakusha, survivors of Hiroshima and Naga- saki, who still want revenge on us for ending the war and saving so may lives. Ironic, isn't it? That someone like Homosoto is twisted enough to help us, just to fuel his own hatred," Marvin Jacobs asked rhetorically. "But he didn't know he was helping, did he?" Miles asked. "Of course not. Then he would have been running the show, and this was my production. No, it worked out just fine." Jacobs paused for more liquor and continued. "Then we have a few European industrialists, ex-Nazis who are available . . .the KGB, GRU, Colombian cartel members. The list of assets is long. Where's there's money, there's help, and most of them prefer the Yankee dollar to any other form of payment. They forget that by hurting us they also hurt the world's largest economy, as well as everybody else's and then the fiscal dominoes start falling uncontrollably." "You mean you bought him?" Miles asked. "Oh, no! You can't buy a billionaire, but you can influence his actions, if he thinks that it's his idea. It just so happens that he was the first one to bite. Health problems and all." "What problems?" "In all likelihood it's from the radiation, the Bomb; his doctors gave him a couple of years to live. Inoperable form of leukemia." "I didn't know . . ." "No one did. He insisted on complete secrecy. He had not picked a successor to run OSO, and in some ways he denied the reality." "Excuse my tired old brain, but you're talking Spook-Speak. How did you know . . .?" "Old habits . . ." Marvin agreed. "As you well know, from your employ here, we have assets in every major company in the world. Especially those companies that buy and sell elected officials in Washington. OSO and Homosoto are quite guilty of bribing their way into billions of dollars of contracts. Our assets, you see, can work in two directions. They let us know what's going on from the inside and give us a leg up on the G2. Then, we can plant real or false information when needed. The Cold Economic War." "So you told Homosoto what to do?" Miles followed closely. "Not in so many words." Marvin wasn't telling all, and Miles knew it. "We knew that through our assets we gave Homosoto and several others the idea that U.S. computers were extremely frag- ile. Back in 1983 the DoD and CIA prepared classified reports saying that computer terrorism was going to be the international crime of choice in the last decade of the century. Then the NRC, NSC and DIA issued follow-up reports that agreed with the origi- nal findings. We saw to it that enough detail reached Tokyo to show just how weak we were." Jacobs continued to tell Miles how the NSA effected the unwitting recruitment of Homosoto. "That, a well timed resignation on your part, and advertising your dissatisfaction with the government made you the ideal person to launch the attack." Marvin smiled widely holding his drink in the air, toasting Miles. Miles responded by raising his glass. "And then a suicide, how perfect." Jacobs did not return the salute, and Miles felt sudden iciness. "Right? Homosoto's suicide." Jacobs still said nothing. "Marv? It was a suicide, wasn't it?" "Miss Perkins was of great help, too," Marvin said ignoring Miles questions. "Perky? What's she got to do with this?" Miles demanded. "Oh? You really don't know?" Marvin was genuinely shocked. "I guess she was better than we thought. I thought you knew." He looked down to avoid Miles's eyes. "Didn't you think it odd . . .?" "That she introduced me to Homosoto?" Miles asked acrimoniously. "She didn't." "Of course she did," Miles contradicted. "We have a tape of the conversation," Marv disagreed. "All she did was ask you if you would work for a foreigner and under what circumstances. Perkins' job was to prep you for Homosoto or whoever else we expected to contact you. An admirable job, huh Miles?" Marvin Jacobs seemed proud of her accomplishments, and given the stunned gaping expression on Miles' face, he beamed even more. Miles didn't say a word, but his glazed eyes said loud and clear that he felt defiled. "I'm sorry Miles," Marvin said compassionately. "I really as- sumed you knew that she was a toy. You certainly treated her that way." No reaction. "If it helps any, she was on Homosoto's payroll. She was a double." Miles jerked his head back and then let out a long laugh. "Well, fuck me dead. Goddamn, she was good! Had me going. Not a fuck- ing clue." Miles stood from his chair and laughed and smiled at Marvin. "What a deal. I get blow jobs courtesy of the American taxpayer and you get paid to watch." "Miles, we know how you felt for her . . ." "Bullshit," Miles said quickly. "That's fucking bullshit." He pounded on the desk. "She's already on another assignment," Marvin said calmly. Miles couldn't completely hide the dejection, the feeling of loss, no matter how loudly he denied it. "Fuck her!" Miles exclaimed. He walked over to the high tech bar and made himself another strong drink. Perfect drink to get dumped by. "Another?" he asked Marvin who handed Miles his glass for a refill. "As I was saying," Marvin said, "this country owes you a thanks, beyond any medals or awards, and unfortunately, there is no way we can publicly express our appreciation." Marvin sat down with his drink and addressed Miles. "Hey," Miles said holding his hands in front of him. "I knew that going into the deal. I did my job, for my country, and maybe I lose some face, but I didn't do this for fame. Retiring in style, maybe the Alps is a nice consolation prize." The pain, so evident seconds ago about Stephanie, was gone. Miles gloated in his achievement. A low warble came from the phone on Marvin's desk. He read a message that appeared on the small message screen attached to the phone and struck a few keys in response. At that moment, the double doors from the Office-2 reception opened and in came Tyrone Duncan and two other FBI agents. Miles turned to see who was interrupting their meeting. It was the same man who had arrested him a few weeks before. Miles gulped deeply and felt his heart skip a beat. 'What the hell is going on', he thought. He quickly glanced at Jacobs. His pulse and respiration increased to the point of skin sweat and near hyper-ventilation. Tyrone spoke to the Director. "Mr. Jacobs, we are here to see Mr. Foster." Jacobs gestured to Miles in the deep chair across from the marble desk. Miles' mind raced. What was Marv doing? And Duncan again? "Mr. Foster," Tyrone Duncan said. Miles looked up. "You are under arrest for violation of the espionage and sedition laws of the United States of America. In addition, you are charged with violating the Official Secrets Act and . . ." Tyrone read off 94 federal crimes including racketeering and 61 assorted counts of conspiracy. As Tyrone read the extended list of charges, Miles shook to his core, turned to Marvin in abject terror. His face cried out, 'please, help me.' Jacobs watched with indifference as Tyrone continued with the new charges. "You have the right to remain silent . . ." Tyrone read Miles his Miranda rights as he lifted him from the chair to put on the cuffs. "Marv!" Miles shouted in panic. "This is a joke, and it's not funny . . .Marv . . .Jesus Fucking Christ!" Miles struggled like an animal. He thought he was free. "I'm the fucking fish food. Aren't I? Marv," he shouted even louder. "Aren't I?" "It seems to me that you've dug your own grave, son. I can't tell you how disappointed I am in your actions." Jacobs played the role perfectly. "You fucking liar! The President doesn't even know about what I did for you? Does he?" Miles was screaming as Tyrone and another agent restrained him by the arms. "Why not? You told me that this project had approval from the highest level." "Are you mad?" Marvin sounded like a caring parent admonishing a misbehaving lad who knew no better. "Do you think that he would have approved of such a plan? Ruin his own country? Is that why you went to Homosoto? Because we said you were crazy?" "You told me he approved it!" Miles screamed at Marvin. "You lied! About that, about Stephanie, what else have you lied to me about?" Jacobs sat silently as Tyrone turned the handcuffed Miles toward the door. "Why don't you just admit it? I'm the fucking fall guy for your scheme, aren't I?" Miles shouted. "Admit it goddamnit, admit it!" Jacobs looked down at his desk and shook his head from side to side as if he were terribly disappointed. "I'll get you, I will get you for this," Miles shrieked. "I trusted you, like a father and then you fuck me. Fucked me like every other dumb shit that works here." His vicousness intensi- fied. "Suck my dick!" he shouted with finality. Tyrone tugged at Miles to keep him from the Director's desk. "Is there anything else Director Jacobs?" "Yes, Agent Duncan, here." Jacobs opened a drawer and pulled out a large envelope, marked with Miles' name. Miles stared at it, eyes bulging with fear. Tyrone looked questioningly at Marvin. "I believe you will find enough in there to put Mr. Foster in Tokyo with Mr. Homosoto at the time he died." Tyrone took the package. "I think the Tokyo Police would be most interested in making a possible case for murder." Miles screamed, "scum bucket! You're fucking nuts." His vicious verbal assaults were aimed directly at Marvin who ignored them. "You know I had nothing to do . . .goddamn you! I spend five years of my life helping my country and you . . ." "I think very few would agree that what you've done can be con- sidered helpful." "I will get even! Even, do you hear!" Miles' voice was getting hoarse from the outrageous tirade. DIRNSA Marvin Jacobs raised his right hand to Tyrone indicating that Miles was dismissed. Miles continued bellowing at Marvin and Tyrone and the two other agents tried to keep him in tow. When they had left, and the door closed behind them, Jacobs pushed a button on his phone and spoke casually. "Miss Greeley? Could you please get me a 2:00 P.M. tee off time?" **************************************************************** Epilogue The Year After The newspaper headlines during the first year of the attack revealed as much about the effects of the attacks on American society, its politics and economy as could any biased editorial. They ironically and to the dismay of many of those in the govern- ment, echoed the pulse of the country, regardless of the politi- cal leaning of the Op-Ed pages. Foster Indicted By Federal Grand Jury Faces 1800 Years If Convicted Washington Post Economy Loses $300 Billion in First 6 Months $1 Trillion Loss Possible Tampa Tribune Senator Urges Sanctions Against Japanese Washington Post NSA Admits Its Own Computers Sick New York City Times NASA Launch Stopped By Faulty Computers Orlando Sentinal McMillan Indicted - Skips Country Employee's Testimony Crucial New York Post Credit Card Usage Down 84% Retailers In Slump Chicago Sun-Times OSO Denied Access to Government Contracts Investigation Expected to Take Years Los Angeles Times Most Companies Go Unprotected Do Nothing In Spite of Warnings USA Today Commercial Tempest Program Kicks Off Safe Computers Begin Shipping Houston Mirror Secret Service Stops Freedom BBS Software Company Built Viruses Tampa Tribune New York Welfare Recipients Suffer No Payments For 3 Months: 3rd Night of Riots Village Voice Allied Corporation Loses 10,000 Computers Viruses Smell of Homosoto Dallas Herald ACLU Sues Washington Class Action Privacy Suit First of a Kind Time Magazine 3rd. Quarter Leading Indicators Dismal Deep Recession Predicted If 4th. Qtr. Is Worse Wall Street Journal Supreme Court Rules on Privacy 4th Amendment Protects E-Mail San Diego Union Waves of VCR Failures Plague Manufacturers OSO Integrated Circuits Blamed San Jose Register Mail Order Ouch! Thousands of Dead Computers Kill Sales Kansas City Address Chicago Traffic SNAFU New York Tie Up Remembered Chicago Sun Times Homosoto Worked For Extraterrestrials Full Scale Alien Invasion Imminent National Enquirer * * * * * Power to the People by Scott Mason The last few months have taught me, and this country, a great deal about the technology that has been allowed to control our lives. Computers, mainframes, mini computers, or millions of personal computers - they do in fact control and monitor our every activity, for better or for worse. A marriage of conven- ience? Now, though, it appears to be for worse. I am reminded of the readings of Edgar Cayce and the stories that surround the myth of Atlantis. According to Cayce and legend, Atlantis was an ancient ante-deluvian civilization that developed a fabulous technology which achieved air flight, levitation, advanced medical techniques and harnessed the sun's energy. However, the power to control the technology which had exclusive- ly been controlled by the high priests of Atlantis was lost and access to the technology was handed to the many peoples of that ancient culture. Through a series of unintentional yet reckless events, the Atlanteans lost control of the technology, and de- spite the efforts of the Priests, their cities and cultures were destroyed, eventually causing Atlantis to sink to the bottom of the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. Believing in the myth of Atlantis is not necessary to understand that the distribution of incredible computing power to 'everyman' augers a similar fate to our computerized society. We witnessed our traffic systems come a halt, bringing grid lock to small rural communities. Our banks had to reconstruct millions upon millions of transactions in the best possible attempt at recon- ciliation. The defensive readiness of our military was in ques- tion for some time before the Pentagon was satisfied that they had cleansed their computers. The questions that arise are clearly ones to which there are no satisfying responses. Should 'everyman' have unrestrained access to tools that can obviously be used for offensive and threatening purposes? Is there a level of responsibility associated with computer usage? If so, how is it gauged? Should the businessman be subject to additional regulations to insure security and privacy? Are additional laws needed to protect the privacy of the average citizen? What guarantees do people have that infor- mation about them is only used for its authorized purpose? Should 'everyman' have the ability to pry into anyone's personal life, stored on hundreds of computers? One prominent group calling themselves FYI, Freeflow of Your Information, represented by the ACLU, represents one distinct viewpoint that we are likely to hear much of in the coming months. They maintain that no matter what, if any, restrictive mandates are placed on computer users, both are an invasion of privacy and violation of free speech have occurred. "You can't regulate a pencil," has become their informal motto emblazoned across t-shirts on campuses everywhere. While neither group has taken any overt legal action, FYI is formidably equipped to launch a prolonged court battle. Accord- ing to spokesmen for FYI, "the courts are going to have to decide whether electronic free speech is covered by the First Amendment of the Constitution. If they find that it is not, there will be a popular uprising that will shake the foundation of this coun- try. A constitutional crisis of the first order." With threats of that sort, it is no wonder that most advocates of protective and security measures for computers are careful to avoid a direct confrontation with the FYI. * * * * * Foster Treason Trials Begin Jury Selection to Take 3 Months Associated Press Unemployment Soars to 9.2% Worst Increase Since 1930 Wall Street Journal SONY's Threat Soon Own New York New York Post Homosoto Hackers Prove Elusive FBI says, "I doubt we'll catch many of them." ISPN Hard Disk Manufacturers Claim 1 Year Backlog Extraordinary Demand To Replace Dead Disks San Jose Citizen Register Security Companies Reap Rewards Fixing Problems Can Be Profitable Entrepreneur Auto Sales Down 34% Automotive Week 92% Distrust Computers Neilson Ratings Service Compaq Introduces 'Tamper Free' Computers Info World IBM Announces 'Trusted' Computers PC Week Dow Jones Slides 1120 Points Wall Street Journal Senator Nancy Investigates Gov't Security Apathy Washington Times Hollywood Freeway Halts Computer Causes 14 Hour Traffic Jam Los Angeles Times * * * * * A Day In The Life: Without Computers by Scott Mason. As bad as a reformed smoker, but without the well earned battle scars, I have been, upon occasion, known to lightly ridicule those who profess the necessity of computers to enjoy modern life. I have been known as well to spout statistics; statistics that show the average homemaker today spends more time homemaking than her ancestor 100 or 200 years ago. I have questioned the logic of laziness that causes us to pull out a calculator rather than figure 10% of any given number. I have been proven wrong. Last Saturday I really noticed the effects of the Foster Plan more than any time since it began. I must confess that even though I have written about hackers and computer crime, it is axiomatically true that you don't notice it till it's gone. Allow me to make my point. Have you recently tried to send a fax? The digital phone lines have been scrupulously pruned, and therefore busy most of the time. The check out lines at the supermarket have cob webs growing over the bar code price scanner. The system that I used when I was a kid, as a delivery boy for Murray and Mary Meyers Meat Market, seems to be back in vogue; enter the cost of the item in the cash register and check for mistakes when the receipt is produced. I haven't found one store in my neighborhood that still takes credit cards. Have you noticed the near disdain you receive when you try to pay with a credit card? Its real and perceived value has been flushed right down the toilet. Not that they don't trust my well known face and name, but my credit cards are as suspect as are everybody's. Even check cashing is scarce. Seems like the best currency is that old time stand-by, cash. If you can make it to the bank. The ATM at my corner has been rented out to a flower peddler. All of this is happening in reasonably affluent Westchester County. And in impoverished East Los Angeles and in Detroit and Miami and Boston and Atlanta and Dallas as well as a thousand Oshkosh's. America is painfully learning what life is like without automation. * * * * * OSO Puts Up Foster Defense Costs Effort At Saving Face Miami Herald Hackers Hacked Off Accuse Government of Complicity Atlanta Constitution Microwaves Go Haywire Timers Tick Too Long Newsday 1 Million School Computers Sit Idle Software Companies Slow to Respond Newsweek Federal Computer Tax Bill Up For Vote John and Jane Doe Scream 'No'! San Diego Union Cable Shopping Network Off Air 6 Months Clearwater Sun Bankruptcies Soar 600% Money Magazine Banking At Home Programs On Hold Unreliable Communications Blamed Computers In Banking Slow Vacation Travel Closes Resorts But Disneyland Still Happiest Place on Earth San Diego Tribune * * * * * Hacker Heroes By Scott Mason I have occasionally wreaked verbal havoc upon the hacker communi- ty as a whole, lumping together the good and the bad. The per- formance of hackers in recent months has contributed as much to the defense of the computers of this country as has the govern- ment itself. An estimated one million computer users categorize themselves or are categorized as hackers. After the Homosoto bomb was dropped on America, a spontaneous underground ad hoc hacker effort began to help protect the very systems that many of them has been violating only the day before. The thousands of bulletin boards that normally display new methods of attacking computers, invad- ing government networks, stealing telephone service, phreaking computers and causing electronic disruptions, are now competing for recognition. Newspapers interested in providing the most up to date informa- tion on fighting Homosoto's estimated 8000 viruses, and methods of making existing computers more secure have been using hacker BBS's as sources. * * * * * Foster Defense Coming to An End Foster won't take stand New York City Times AIDS Patients Sue CDC For Releasing Names Actors, Politicians and Leaders on Lists Time Magazine FBI Arrests 15 Fosterites Largest Single Net Yet Miami Herald Congress Passes Strongest Computer Bill Yet Washington Post American Express Declares Bankruptcy United Press International No New Passports For Travelers 3 Month Department Hiatus Till System Repaired Boston Globe 138 Foreign Nationals Deported Homosoto Complicity Cited San Francisco Chronicle National Identification Cards Debated George Washington Law Review * * * * * Ex Foster Girl Friend Key Prosecution Witness by Scott Mason A long time girl friend of Homosoto associate Miles Foster testi- fied against her former lover in the Federal Prosecutor's treason case against him today. Stephanie Perkins, an admitted high class call girl, testified that she had been hired to provide services to Mr. Foster on an 'as-needed' basis. Over a period of four years, Ms. Perkins says she was paid over $1 Million by a '. . .man named Alex . . .' and that she was paid in cash at a drop in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She stated that her arranged ralationship with Mr. Foster 'was not entirely unpleasant,' but she would have picked someone 'less egotistical and less consumed with himself.' "I was supposed to report his activities to Alex, and I saw a lot of the conversations on the computer." "Did Foster work for Homosoto?" "Yes." "What did he do?" "Built viruses, tried to hurt computers." "Did you get paid to have sex with Mr. Foster?" "Yes." "How many times?" "A few hundred, I guess." "So you liked him?" "He was all right, I guess. He thought I liked him." "Why is that?" "It was my job to make him think so." "Why?" "So I could watch him." "What do you do for a living now?" "I'm retired." * * * * * Prosecution Witnesses Nail Foster Defense Listens to Plea Bargain Offer Newsday 50% Of Americans Blame Japan - Want Revenge Rocky Mountain News La Rouche Calls For War On Japan Extremist Views Speak Loud Los Angeles Time 12% GNP Reduction Estimated Rich and Poor Both Suffer USA Today Soviets Ask For Help Want To Avoid Similar Fate London Telegraph International Monetary Fund Ponders Next Move Christian Science Monitor * * * * * Security: The New Marketing Tool by Scott Mason American business always seems to turn a problem into a profit, and the current computer confidence crisis is no different. In spontaneous cases of simultaneous marketing genius, banks are attempting to garner new customers as well as retain their exist- ing customers. As many banks continue to have unending difficul- ties in protecting their computers, the Madison Avenue set has found a theme that may set the tone of banking for years to come. Bank With Us: Your Money Is Safer. Third Federal Savings and Loan Your Money Is Protected - Completely, Mid South Alliance Bank Banks have taken to advertising the sanctity of their vaults and the protective measures many organizations have hastily installed since the Foster Plan was made public. In an attempt to win customers, banks have installed extra security measures to insure that the electronic repositories that store billions of dollars are adequately protected; something that banks and the ABA openly admit has been overlooked until recently. The new marketing techniques of promoting security are not the exclusive domain of the financial community. Insurance compa- nies, private lending institutions, police departments, hospitals and most major corporations are announcing their intentions to secure their computers against future assaults. * * * * * Foster GUILTY! Plea Deal Falls Apart Sentencing Hearing Date Set New York Post University Protests "Closed Computing" Insist Freedom on Information Critical For Progress US News and World Report Fifty New Viruses Appear Daily Complacency Still Biggest Threats Tampa Tribune NSA/ITSEC Agreement Near International Security Standards Readied Federal Computer Week Justice Department Leads Fight Against Organized Computer Crime Baltimore Sun Novell Networks Now Secure Government Computer News OSO Offers Reparations: Directors Resign Wall Street Journal American and Delta Propose Merger Nashville Tennessean Citizen Groups Promote Safe Computing St. Paul Register April 15 IRS Deadline Extended 90 Days Washington Post 49 States Propose Interstate Computer Laws Harvard Law Review Courts Work Overtime on Computer Cases Christian Science Monitor AT&T Plans New Encryption For Voice Communications Microsoft Announces Secure DOS Admits Earlier Versions "Wide Open" PC Week 3500 Foster Viruses Identified: 5000 To Go Info World National Computer Security Plan Cost: $500 Billion Wall Street Journal An End Is In Sight Says NSA Public Skeptical New York City Times Foster Receives Harsh Penalty: 145 Years Appeal Process Begins, Foster Remains in Custody Washington Post * * * * * The press is often criticized for 'grand standing' and 'sensa- tionalizing' otherwise insignificant events into front page news, but in this case the government said little about the media's handling of the situation. In fact, privately, the White House was pleased that the media, albeit loudly and crassly, was a key element in getting the message to the American public: Secure Your Computers Or Else. Everyone agreed with that. * * * * * December 17 Overlooking Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands "You must feel pretty good. Pulitzer Prize. Half of the writing awards for last year, nomination for Man of the Year." "The steaks are burning." The hype had been too much. Scott alone had to carry forward the standard. He had become expected to lead a movement of protest and dissent. Despite his pleas, his neutrality as a reporter was in constant danger of compro- mise. "It's kind of strange talking to a living legend." Scott's deeply tanned body and lighter hair was quite a contrast to the sickly paleness of New Yorkers in winter. "Get the sprit- zer, water the coals and then fuck yourself." "Isn't this what you wanted?" Tyrone scanned the exquisite view from the estate sized homestead overlooking Charlotte Amalie Harbor on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. The safe enclosed harbor housed three cruise ships, but the hundreds of sailboats in the clear Caribbean dominated the seascape. After the last year, Scott had decided to finally take time off for a proper honeymoon. He and Sonja elected to spend an extend- ed holiday on St. Thomas, in a rented house with a cook and a maid and a diving pool and a satellite dish and all of the lux- uries of stateside living without the residual headaches. Their head over heels romance surprised no one but themselves and they both preferred to let the past stay a part of the past. Scott decided quickly to take Sonja at her word. Her past was her past, and he had to not let it bother him or they would have no future. Even if he was one of her jobs for a short while. Scott's name was in constant demand as a result of his expos�� of Homosoto and the hackers. Fame was something Scott had not wanted specifically. He had imagined himself the great transla- tor, making the cacophony of incomprehensible technical polysyl- labics intelligible to 'everyman'. He had not planned for fame; merely another demand on his time, his freedom and his creativi- ty. "What I wanted was a break." Scott poked at the steaks. In the pool Arlene Duncan and Sonja kicked their feet and chattered aimlessly. The perfect respite. The Times made Scott the most generous tenure offers in a generation of writers, and Scott recognized the fairness of the offers. It was not now, nor had it ever been a question of money, though. "What's next?" "The book, I suppose. The Trial of Miles Foster." "And then back to the Times?" "Maybe, maybe. I haven't given it much thought," Scott said watering down the coals to reduce the intensity of the barbecue inferno he had created. "I promised to help out once in a while. Officially they call it a sabbatical." "How long do you think you can hold out on this rock before going nuts?" "We've managed pretty well, so far." Scott said admiring his bride whose phenomenal physical beauty was tightly wrapped in the high French cut one piece bathing suit that Scott insisted she wear in honor of their more conservative guests. Tyrone, he was sure, would not have minded Sonja's nudity, but Arlene would have been on the next flight to Boston and her parents. "Three months so far, and nine months to go. I think I can take it," he said staring at Sonja and motioning to the view. Tyrone silently conveyed understanding for Scott's choice of an island retreat to get away from it all. But Tyrone's choices demanded his presence within driving distance of civilization. "So the bureau wasn't too upset about your leaving?" Scott changed the subject. "I guess not," Tyrone said laughing. "I was approaching mandato- ry anyway and I'd become too big a pain in their asses. Using your hackers didn't endear me to too many of the Director's staff." "What about your friend?" "You mean Bob Burnson?" "Yeah, the guy we met at Ebbett's . . ." "He got his promotion right after I left. I guess I was holding him back," Tyrone said with tongue in cheek. "On the other hand, I could have stayed and really made his life miserable. We're both at peace. Best of all? Still friends." "I have to say, though, I never thought you'd go through with it," said Scott turning the steaks. "You and the Bureau, a thirty year affair." "Not quite thirty . . ." "Whatever. You've certainly built up a practice and a half in six months." "Yeah," chuckled Tyrone. "Like you, I never planned on becoming a big player . . .Christ. Who ever thought that Computer Law would be the next Cabbage Patch Doll of the courts?" Tyrone saw the smirk in Scott's face. "O.K., you did. Yes, you predicted a mess in the courts. Yes, you did Mr. Wisenheimer. I just saw it as a neat little extension of constitutional law and then whammo! All of sudden, computer litigation is the hip place to be. Every type of lawsuit you predicted is somewhere in the legal system - SEC suits, copyright suits, privacy suits, theft of data, theft of service." "Sounds like everyone who was scared to admit they had a problem in the past is going balls to the wall." "The Japanese lawyers are living their worst nightmare: OSO Industries is up to top of its colon with lawsuits, including one asking for OSO to be denied any access to the American market for 100 years." Scott whistled long and loud, then laughed. "And that's fun?" "You're goddamned right, it's fun," Ty asserted, popping another beer from the poolside cooler. "It's a shit load more interest- ing that rotting here," he spread his arms to embrace the lush beauty from their 1500 foot high aerie. "How much sun and peace and quiet and sex and water and beach can one man take?" He spoke loudly, like a Southern Spiritual Minister. "Too much scuba diving and swimming and sailing and sunsets and black starry nights can be bad for your health. This is a goddamned Hedonist's Heaven." He brought his hands to his side and gave a resigned sigh. "I guess if you can stomach this kind of life." "Jealous?" Scott asked gently. He knew about Arlene's reticence to try anything new, out of the ordinary. She was very pleased with her life in Westchester. She felt that knowing someone who lived in Paradise whom she could visit once a year was new-ness enough. "No, man," Tyrone said genuinely, speaking as himself again. "I got exactly what I wanted." He cocked his head at the pool, where Arlene seemed more relaxed than she had in years. "Can't you see? She's miserable, but she's mine. Scott, you've lived your fantasy, made a difference. Now, it's my turn." Scott looked over at Arlene. "Hey, shit for brains," he said to Tyrone. "She's no slouch. It's what the hell she's doing with you I never understood." Scott lunged at Tyrone's attention- getting sized abdomen with the steak fork. "Nice and juicy," retorted Tyrone, patting his prominent stomach. "You're not my type. I like mine lean. I cut off the fat," Scott barbed. Before Tyrone could get in his jibe Scott called out, "Steaks' on. Outside black, inside mooing." The girls smacked their lips in anticipation and sat in the elegant all weather PVC furniture. A red sailor's delight sun was mere inches above the horizon, setting to the west over Hassel and Water Islands which provide umbrage to Blue Beard's harbor of choice. The men were providing all services this evening and the ladies were luxuriating in this rare opportunity. Little did they know, or little did they let on, that they knew the men enjoyed the opportunity to demonstrate their culinary skills without female interference. Beside, thought Scott, it was the maid's day off. "Seriously, though," Tyrone said quietly as Scott piled the plates with steaks and potatoes. "I know you better than that. I don't see how you can do nothing. You don't know how to sit your ass still for ten minutes. It's not your personality. Don't you agree Arlene?" "Yes dear," she said, still talking to Sonja. "And that room you call your office, Jesus. You have more equip- ment in there than . . ." "It looks like more than it is . . ." Scott downplayed the point. "Mainly communications. The local phone company is a joke, so I installed an uplink. No big deal." "C'mon, man, I just can't see you sitting on the sidelines." Tyrone stressed the word 'you'. "Not with what's happening now? There must be a thousand stories out there . . ." "And a thousand and one reporters. Too much noise, too busy for my liking. After the Homosoto story, if there's one luxury I've learned to live with, it's that I can pick and choose what I do." Scott spoke much too reserved for the Scott Mason Tyrone knew. "Aha! So you are up to something. I knew it. I gave you one, maybe two months, but I never figured you'd last three." They carried the four plates laden with steaks and potatoes over to the table where their spouses waited. Fresh beers awaited their much appreciated efforts. "I do get a little itchy and I read a lot." Tyrone glared at Scott with disbelief. "No really, just a little research," laughed Scott in mock defense. "O.K., I received a call, and it sounded kind of interesting, so I've been looking into it." "Poking around, here and there and everywhere?" "Kinda, just following up a few leads." "Just a few?" "Well, maybe more than a few," Scott admitted. "When did this little project begin?" Tyrone asked accusingly. He suspected Scott was hiding a detail or two. "It's not really a project . . ." "Don't skirt the issue. When?" Scott lowered his head. "Two weeks after we got here." Tyrone stifled what might otherwise have become a volcanic roar of laughter. "Two weeks? Ha!" Tyrone needled. "You only lasted two weeks? How did Sonja feel about that?" He looked over Scott's at better half listen in. "Ah, well, she sort of insisted . . ." "You drove her nuts? In two weeks?" Sonja shook her head vigor- ously in agreement but kept speaking to Arlene Duncan. "Kind of; semi-sorta-kinda-maybe." Scott grinned impishly. "But, yeah, I have been working on something." He couldn't keep it to himself. "Dare I ask?" "Off the record?" Scott sounded insistent. "This is a twist. How about attorney-client privilege?" Tyrone asked. Scott didn't disagree. "Good," said Tyrone. "Give me a dollar. That's my yearly fee." Scott complied, finding a soaking wet dollar bill in his swim- ming trunks. He laid it next to Tyrone's plate. "Well?" Tyrone asked with great interest. "Well, I discovered we never developed the A-Bomb to end World War II." "Excuse me?" 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