"How is the rifle deal coming out?"
"Only so-so. The Government will take about three-quarters of the lot.
The rest we"ll have to unload on the Cubapinos."
"What!" exclaimed Sam, "aren"t they fighting against us now?"
"Oh! we don"t sell them direct of course," added Jonas, "but we can"t alter the laws of trade, can we? And they require that things get into the hands of the people who"ll pay the most for them, hey?"
"Naturally," said the editor. "Captain Jinks has not studied political economy. It"s all a matter of supply and demand."
"I"m ashamed to say I haven"t," said Sam. "It must be very interesting, and I"m much obliged to you for telling me about it."
"I suppose it"s too early to do anything definite about concessions for trolleys and gas and electric-lighting plants," said the editor.
"Not a bit of it. That"s what I went to see Skinner about to-day. I"m sounding some of the chief natives already, and our people there are all right. Skinner"s lawyers are at work at the charters, and I"ll take them out with me. We can put them through as soon as we annex the islands."
"But we promised not to annex them!" cried Sam.
The editor and Jonas looked knowingly at each other.
"The captain is not a diplomatist, you see," said the former. "As for that matter, a soldier oughtn"t to be. You understand, Captain, that all promises are made subject to the proviso that we are able to carry them out."
"Certainly."
"Now it"s perfectly clear that we can never fulfil this promise. It is our destiny to stay there. It would be flying in the face of Providence and doing the greatest injury to the natives to abandon them. They would fly at each other"s throats the moment we left them alone."
"They haven"t flown at each other"s throats where we have left them alone," mused Sam aloud.
"I didn"t say they had, but that they would," explained the editor.
"Oh! I see," said Sam, and he relapsed into silence.
"Talking of electric lights," continued Jonas, "I"ve got a book here full of all sorts of electric things that we"ll have to introduce there. There"s the electrocution chair; look at that design. They garrote people in the most barbarous manner out there now. We"ll civilize them, if we get a chance!"
"Perhaps they won"t have the money to buy all your things," remarked Cleary, who had been a silent and interested spectator of the interview.
"Yes," said Jonas, "we may have trouble with the poorest tribes. We must make them want things, that"s all. The best way to begin is to tax them. I"ve got a plan ready for a hut-tax of five dollars a year.
That"s little enough, I should think, but some of them never see money and they"ll have to work to get it. That will make them work the coal-and iron-mines. Skinner has his eye on these, too. When the natives once begin to earn money, they"ll soon want more and then they"ll spend it on us."
"But the Government there will be too poor to take up great public expenditures for a long time yet," said Cleary.
"Don"t be too sure of that. They haven"t even got a national debt.
That"s one of the first things we"ll provide for. They"re a most primitive people. Just think of their existing up to the present time without a national debt! They"re mere savages."
"Well," said Cleary, rising, "I think we"ve taken enough of your valuable time and we must be off."
"Wait a moment," said the editor. "Have you explained all that I told you to the captain?"
"Not yet," answered Cleary, "but I"ll do it now on the way to his hotel. He is going to leave town to-day, and he may be ordered to sail any day now. I will try to go on the same ship with him."
"Perhaps I can manage it, too," said Jonas, as he shook hands with the two friends, "if I can finish up all these arrangements. I must be on the ground there as soon as I can."
As Sam and Cleary left the room the editor and Jonas settled down to a confidential conversation, and there were smiles upon their lips as they began talking.
CHAPTER V
s...o...b..rgh
[Ill.u.s.tration]
While Sam accepted the explanations of the editor and Jonas as expressions of wisdom from men who had had a far wider experience than his, he had some faint misgivings as to some of the business enterprises in which his new friends were embarked, and he hinted as much to Cleary.
"Some of those things do sound rather strange," answered Cleary, as they walked away, "but you must look at the world in a broad way. Is our civilization better than that of the Cubapinos?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Well, then, we must be conferring a favor upon them by giving it to them. We can"t slice it up and give them only the plums. That would be ridiculous. They must take us for better and worse. In fact, I think we should be guilty of hypocrisy if we pretended to be better than we are.
Suppose we gave them a better civilization than we"ve got, shouldn"t we be open to the charge of misrepresentation?"
"That"s true," said Sam. "I didn"t think of that.
"Yes," Cleary went on; "at first I had some doubts about that saloon business particularly, but the more you think of it, the more you see that it"s our duty to introduce them there. It"s all a part of our civilization."
"So it is," said Sam. "And then people have always done things that way, haven"t they?"
"Yes, of course they have."
"Then it must be all right. What right have we to criticize the doings of people so much wiser than we are? I think you are quite right. As a correspondent you ought to be satisfied that you are doing the right thing. To me as a soldier it"s a matter of no importance anyway, because a soldier only does what he"s told, but you as a civilian have to think, I suppose, and I"m glad you"re satisfied and can make such a conclusive case of it. What was it that the editor wanted you to tell me?"
"Oh! yes. I came near forgetting. You see what a lot they"re going to do for us; now we must help them all we can. They want you to leave behind with them all the material about yourself that you can get together. You must get photographed at s...o...b..rgh in a lot of different positions, and in your cadet uniform and your volunteer rig when you get it. Then you must let them have all your earlier photos if you can.
"Hero Jinks as an infant in arms," "Hero Jinks in his baby-carriage,"
"Hero Jinks as a schoolboy"--what a fine series it would make! You know what I mean. Then you must write your biography and your opinions about things in general, and give the addresses of all your friends and relations so that they can all be interviewed when the time comes.
You"ll do it, won"t you? It"s the up-to-date way of doing things, and it"s the only way to be a military success."
"If it"s the proper way of doing things I"ll do it," said Sam.
"That"s a good fellow! I"ll send you a list of questions to answer and coach you as well as I can. I"m dying to get off and have this thing started. Isn"t Jonas great? He"s got just my ideas, only bigger. You see, he explained to me that in this country trusts have grown up with great difficulty, and it was hard work to establish the benefits which they produce for the public. They were fought at every step. But in the Cubapines we have a clean field, and by getting the Government monopoly whenever we want it, we can found one big trust and do ever so much good. I half wish I were a Cubapino, they"re going to be benefited so, and without doing anything to deserve it either. Some people are born lucky."
"I can"t quite follow all those business plans," said Sam. "My head isn"t trained to it; but I"m glad we"re going to do good there, and if I can do something great to bring it about, it will give me real happiness."
"It will, old man, it will. I"m sure of it," cried Cleary, as he took his leave of Sam in front of the hotel. "Let me know what steamer you"re going by as soon as you get orders, and I"ll try to manage it to get a pa.s.sage on her too. They often carry newspaper men on our transports."
On the following day Sam went to visit his uncle at s...o...b..rgh, a small sea-port of some four thousand inhabitants lying several miles away from the railroad. The journey in the train occupied six hours or more, and Sam spent the time in learning the Castalian language in a handbook he had bought in town. He had already taken lessons in the language at East Point and was beginning to be fairly proficient. He alighted at the nearest station to s...o...b..rgh and entered the rather shabby omnibus which was standing waiting. Sam felt lonely. There was nothing military about the station and no uniform in sight. He no longer wore a uniform himself, and the landscape was painfully civilian. Finally the horses started and the "bus moved slowly up the road. Sam was impatient. His fellow countrymen were risking their lives thousands of miles away, and here he was, creeping along a country road in the disguise of a private citizen, far away from the post of duty and danger. He looked with disgust at the plowmen in the fields busily engaged in preparing the soil for next year"s grain.
"What a mean, poor-spirited lot," he thought. "Here they are, following their wretched plows without a thought of the brave soldiers who are defending their country and themselves so many leagues away. It is the soldier, suffering from hunger and fever and falling on the battlefield in the agony of death, who makes it possible for these fellows to spend their days in pleasant exercise in the fields. The soldier bears civilization on his back, he supports all the rest, he is the pedestal which bears without complaint the civilian as an idle ornament. The soldier, in short, is the real man, the only perfect product of creation."