THE
FOUR PHILANTHROPISTS
CHAPTER I
WE FORM A COMPANY
"Ours are wasted lives," said Chelubai earnestly.
Chelubai often says things like that, and always earnestly. As a rule I ignore them with some firmness; but this time I said, "Speak for yourself."
"Of course you're a barrister, and that counts for something. I was thinking rather of Bottiger and myself. Ours are wasted lives," said Chelubai.
"Speak for yourself," said Bottiger sharply.
"Well, they are," said Chelubai stubbornly—"rounds of pleasure."
"If you think that walking up those partridges yesterday in that biting east wind and sleety drizzle was a round of pleasure, you're jolly well mistaken!" said Bottiger with some heat.
"Of what benefit were your exertions to Humanity?" said Chelubai.
"Oh, ask another!" snapped Bottiger, who was in one of his shorter tempers. The wind was still in the east.
I said nothing. When the good New England ancestry gets a grip on Chelubai and fills him up to the brim with the real and earnest, it is best to let him unload in his own way.
He looked from one to the other of us mournfully. I looked steadily and ruefully at the three sovereigns, the four shillings, the sixpence and the seven halfpennies which I had idly piled in a neat column on the table, and which, thanks to a week's had luck at Bridge, had to last me for sixteen days. I gazed at them steadily, for I did not mean to have my eye caught by Chelubai. With equal resolution, Bottiger scowled out of the window at the myriad pigeons which disport themselves in the King's Bench Walk.
Then Chelubai began:
"Look at our lives—just wasted," he said. "Here we are, young, active, brainy, and we waste all our powers in unprofitable amusements. Look at me: I rise in the morning, I eat a large and varied breakfast and read the paper. Then I go down to the garage and look over my cars. If it's not too wet and muddy, I drive out thirty miles and back to get an appetite for a large and varied lunch. Then I play Bridge all the afternoon to get an appetite for a large and varied dinner. After dinner I go to a theatre, or a music-hall, or a dance. Then I go to bed and sleep like a log. Of course my spirit goes out on the astral plane, and I've no doubt it is engaged in important activities, so the night's all right. But what a day—a hog's life. What good am I to Humanity?"
"None at all," said I cheerily, as he paused.
I knew that his eye rested on me severely, but I did not meet it; and he went on, "Look at Bottiger." I looked at Bottiger, and saw him harden his back. "Bottiger rises in the morning and eats a large and varied breakfast"
"I always begin with porridge," said Bottiger in a tone of sturdy defiance. "I make a point of it."
"And go on to fish and meat and eggs and bacon and toast and marmalade," said Chelubai, and his tone grew more accusing with each item. "Then he reads a sporting paper, and sends off his man with a wire to his bookmaker. Then he goes to Richmond and plays golf all the morning to get an appetite for a large and varied lunch. Then he plays Bridge all the afternoon to get an appetite for a large and varied dinner. Or he goes shooting, killing harmless birds and beasts with weapons of precision—a barbarous occupation"
"Barbarous?" cried Bottiger wrathfully. "I should like to see you bring down a pheasant coming along high with the wind!"
"A savage would do it with an arrow, and you have a weapon of precision," said Chelubai.
"Oh, would he would he?" said Bottiger, apparently choking.
"But that isn't the question," said Chelubai firmly. "Look at the life—a hog's life. What good are you to Humanity?"
An inarticulate, gusty rumbling came from Bottiger.
"Look at Roger," Chelubai went on, without heeding it; and I looked at myself with patient expectancy in the slanting Venetian mirror. "He rises in the morning"
"If it will really oblige you, Chelubai, I'll try to go to bed in the morning," I said kindly.
"He eats a large and varied breakfast"
"He does not—one simple dish, it's all it runs to," I said with quiet firmness.
"Then he goes across to the Law Courts, and as often as not perverts the course of Justice by saving a hardened criminal from the just punishment of his crimes"
"Oftener—oftener than not. You have to take the sweet with the bitter at the Bar. If you don't save the guilty, you never get a chance of saving the innocent," said I.
"Then he eats a large and varied lunch"
"Never," I protested warmly, "unless someone else pays for it, at least. It doesn't run to large and varied lunches."
"Then he plays Bridge all the afternoon to get an appetite for a large and varied dinner."
I contented myself with a short, sardonic laugh—a very good sardonic laugh.
"Then he goes to bed and sleeps like a log. What a life—a hog's life. What good are you to Humanity?"
"You forget I'm a socialist," I said brightly.
"Talk—rubbishly talk about Utopias," said Chelubai.
"Not at all. I'm an honest gas-and-water socialist," I said with unbroken calm. "But what are you driving at? What's the conclusion?"
"The conclusion is that we're wastrels—cumbering the ground. Anyone who cleared us off the earth would be doing Humanity a service," said Chelubai solemnly.
"Well, to oblige you, we'll let it go at that. We're useless cells in the social organism. What of it? What do you want us to do? Or have you only been letting off steam to get a better appetite for a large and varied dinner?" said I.
"We must change all this," said Chelubai solemnly; and he sat down.
"Change away," said I. "But do not demand anything Spartan or Tolstoyan from me and Bottiger. We are children of our age, don't you know; and it's the twentieth century."
"Well, you admit that you've a duty to Humanity and you're not discharging it?" said Chelubai cautiously.
"Humanity's a vague bird; but, just to please you, we'll admit that we ought to boost him up into the Empyrean. Eh, Bottiger?"
Bottiger grunted; but whether he was expressing contempt for Humanity or mere indifference to the whole matter, I could not tell.
"Well, I'll give you my idea," said Chelubai. "I've thought it out, and I've come to the conclusion that the whole principle of the anarchist removals is wrong. They are always clearing off figure-heads—kings, queens, presidents and ministers. In some countries that's all very well—in Russia or Germany, for instance. But it's no good in advanced, civilized countries like the States, or England, or France. What's the good of removing a king or a president in such countries? The proper people to remove are the financiers and captains of industry. They're the real criminals, preying upon humanity."
"I see. Instead of removing a king of a country, they should remove a King of Beef, or a King of Pork, or a Grocer Prince," said I.
"Exactly," said Chelubai.
"It is doubtless a very sound principle. But as a Socialist I abhor violence," I said sternly.
"For goodness' sake, don't go dragging in your beastly Socialism!" cried Bottiger, fuming. "It's enough to have to listen to Chelubai's gassing without that!"
"I trust I shall always introduce my Socialism in season and out of season," I said with firm pride.
"But can't you stick to the matter we're discussing?" said Chelubai somewhat plaintively.
"As a good Socialist, I trust that I cannot. But fire away; develop your idea."
"Well, my point is that it's no good establishing a reign of terror among figure-heads. The thing to do is to establish a reign of terror among the real evil-doers, the people who prey upon Humanity under the shield of the law," said Chelubai
"A very sound idea," I said. "But where do we come in?"
"We remove them," said Chelubai enthusiastically.
"Why, it's murder!" cried Bottiger.
"It's nothing of the kind," protested Chelubai warmly. "It's just the non-survival of the morally unfit."
"It's not for you to kick at murder, Bottiger," I said severely. "In your case it would merely be a natural reversion to type. Those old Bottigers, whose memory you cherish so warmly, murdered up and down the north of England and the south of Scotland for generations. It's your ancestral profession."
"Oh, get out!" said Bottiger curtly.
"Well, what do you say? It's the chance of a lifetime I'm offering you," said Chelubai eagerly. "It's a real, dandy, sporting way of benefiting humanity, the very line for brainy, muscular young men like ourselves."
"Hark to Chelubai," I said. "Under the influence of genuine enthusiasm he has put off the new Englishman, and is again the racy son of the land of Freedom. Listen to his adjectives."
"Was I? I didn't mean to," said Chelubai, depressed.
I am bound to say that no one tries harder or with greater success than Chelubai to be a cultivated English gentleman. For years, indeed, we believed his name to be Charles, till accident revealed to us the crime of his godfathers and godmother; and even now we always call him Charles before common acquaintances.
"Well, well, it's an excellent idea," I said quickly, to cheer him. "And, as you say, we're the very men to carry it out. All brain and muscle—you, Chelubai, the active brain, with years of remunerative hustling behind you; Bottiger, our rough diamond." Bottiger snarled, "One of the Buller breed." I dodged a book he threw at me. "Amateur light-weight boxing champion; and myself—the—the legal brain. We certainly could carry the idea out."
"I thought you'd see it," said Chelubai eagerly.
"And we do rather cumber the ground; and sometimes—chiefly in the silent watches of the night, when the excess of lobster is battling valiantly with too much champagne—our consciences are pricked by the thought that we do precious little to justify our existence."
"Oh, oftener than that—a good deal oftener," said Chelubai. "Why, you yourself, though you rot more than any man in London, you're very keen on your socialism, and you do get quite mad about the misery and waste of life of your Eastenders, when you've been down there in the winter to distribute the money you drag from Bottiger and me. Oh, we often feel that we're wasters, don't we, Bottiger?"
"I can't say that I think much about it," said Bottiger uneasily.
"Yes, yes; that's all very well. But do our prickings of conscience hurt us to the point of driving us to risk our necks?" said I.
"But the beauty of it is there's practically no risk," cried Chelubai, again enthusiastic. "Who would connect us with any of the removals? What possible motive could we have for removing a financier? We shouldn't know him to have a down on him. We shouldn't gain in any way by his death. We're not in want of money. Every one knows that I'm a well-to-do citizen of the United States. Bottiger's one of the richest British baronets, and you're a rising young barrister. Who on earth would connect us with any of the removals?"
"Certainly you've worked this out. That's a strong point—a very strong point indeed," said I. "There would, of course, be very little risk."
"Murder will out," said Bottiger, with gloomy satisfaction. Bottiger is also one of the most British of the British baronets.
I turned on him, and said severely, "Chelubai has explained to you once that it isn't murder—it's removal." Then I turned to Chelubai and said, "I'm afraid, you know, that it is not so much the passion for humanity that makes you so enthusiastic about this scheme of yours; but it's your idle life that's beginning to pall. You want to get hustling again."
"Why don't you take to golf, as I'm always telling you to?" said Bottiger.
"No, it isn't that at all," said Chelubai earnestly. "I want you to promote the universal brotherhood."
"Well, but do you think that your scheme will do much good? Of course it's very attractive. I can't think of a more delightful occupation than that of removing the so-called captains of industry. But will a few sporadic removals really establish a reign of terror? You must remember that with all the will in the world we should only he able to murder—I mean remove—a few of them."
"Every little helps," said Chelubai. "It will do some good."
"Well, as I say, I'm an honest gas-and-water Socialist; and when I set about improving things, I want to get a little forrarder; and you can only get forrarder on practical lines. This scheme is too Utopian for me—if it were going to bring in money it would be different. You can do a good deal for humanity with money," I said.
"No, no; let's keep it on the high plane," said Chelubai "Don't let's spoil it with anything mercenary. Besides, it can't be done. Introduce the money element, and you make it risky at once."
"Oh, I shouldn't mind the risk if it meant actually getting a little forrarder," said I; and I leaned back in my chair and tried to find some money-making aspect of the scheme.
"I never knew such beggars for getting bees in your bonnets as you two," said Bottiger.
"Wait a bit—I'm beginning to see it. Look here, have you ever considered the matter of heirs?" said I.
"Airs? Whose airs?" said Bottiger.
"Heirs—inheritors," said I.
Chelubai looked puzzled; Bottiger turned to him, nodded towards me and tapped his head with an expression of commiseration. It was an incautious action, for it enabled me to catch him on the side of the head with a chunky work of Hall Caine's—good, thick value for 4s. 6d. I had it to review.
"You must have noticed that the heirs of the monied are pleasant, decent sort of people, while the monied themselves are generally sweeps," I went on, while Bottiger rubbed the little Hall Caine memorial the great work was raising on his head.
"I've nothing against heirs," said Chelubai peaceably.
"Well, even in the business of furthering the progress of Humanity the laborer is worthy of his hire. Those heirs want that money, and they want it badly. It would be better for the world that they should have it, because they're more decent people than the people who have it now. But it is only fair that they should subscribe to the improvement of the world, since they chiefly and directly benefit by it."
"That's so," said Chelubai.
"Now you're off on another tack. Are you going to waste the whole afternoon gassing? Are we never going to get to the club?" said Bottiger plaintively.
"Now the financiers and Grocer Princes and and other enemies of Humanity whom Chelubai proposes to remove are all monied people. To be a really effective enemy of Humanity you have to have money, and a good deal of it."
"I begin to see," said Chelubai, brightening.
Bottiger yawned with a good deal of needless ostentation.
"They have also heirs," I went on. "Remove the captain of industry, and his heirs get his money. They must pay for the accommodation."
"And they wouldn't kick at paying either," said Chelubai.
"It increases the risk, because the heirs will have to be taken into our confidence somewhat But it increases the reign of terror. We could easily give the inheriting nephew a hint that he'd better employ his money better than his dead uncle, or he would not live long to employ it at all. His hints—and he'd have to hint; he couldn't help it—would spread the reign of terror."
"We could get over the risk pretty easily, because there are three of us," said Chelubai. "The man who would settle with the heir the terms of the removal would not take a hand in the removal himself."
"Yes; that would get over the risk a good deal. But it's not the risk which bothers me, but the difficulty of getting subscriptions from those who benefit by our philanthropic action. Nine men out of ten who have the strength of character to permit the removal of a monied and rascally uncle would also have the strength of character to refuse to subscribe after that removal. On the other hand, the offer to remove the said uncle implies a certain strength of character in us; and none but the very foolish would subscribe before the removal, lest, having received the subscription, we should be content to let the matter rest there."
Chelubai's face flushed with genuine feeling. He held out his hand; in the stress of emotion dropped into his own racy vernacular, and said, "Shake! I see that it's going to be a real pleasure to work with you, Roger. I knew that you were brainy; and now I see that you've the real philanthropic head! You've put your finger on the weak point in the scheme right away." He wrung my hand with genuine emotion, and went on with enthusiasm: "But people with lofty aims like us are not going to be beat by a trifle like this. There are ways of getting subscriptions; and we'll find them. There are I O U's, bills and postobits—oh, there are ways!"
"We should hardly tell those we proposed to benefit, incidentally, that we were philanthropists," said I.
"Not on your life! They'd never subscribe if we did," said Chelubai. "Hard-headed men of business would be our line."
"And we must bear in mind that we have fear on our side," I said.
"Of course we have," said Chelubai.
"How fear on our side? It is we who will have to be afraid since we do the removing. I don't understand," said Bottiger.
"Well, if we display sufficient strength of character to remove a monied uncle, the presumption is that we shall display sufficient strength of character to remove a thankless nephew. At any rate we can make the thankless nephew fear it."
"And it is fear, you bet," said Chelubai.
"Once in Shanghai I knew a man who bucked against a Chinese secret society. "The Good Sons" it called itself. And I tell you that when it began laying for him that man would have paid up seventy-five cents of every dollar he had to square it; and he did not part easily. Oh, he was ready to squeal He was frightened enough. Yes, sir."
"Observe the fruits of enthusiasm," said I. "Chelubai is once more his country's idiomatic son."
Chelubai blushed, but he said bravely: "Well, as long as we're engaged in earnest work, I guess I'd better be. I think easier and quicker."
"What became of the man?" said Bottiger, with all the readiness of one of the leisured classes to let his attention stray from the matter in hand.
"They outed him in the end. He didn't wake up one morning; and when his servants looked into the matter, they found a knife in his ribs," said Chelubai.
"Poor beggar!" said Bottiger.
We were silent a while, giving Chelubai's suggestion careful thought; then I said, "What about methods?"
"Yes, we've figured out the subscription part of the scheme—roughly. We may as well consider methods a while," said Chelubai.
"Taking into consideration the incompetence of the average doctor, there's a good deal to be said for poison. But the worst of it is, the enemies of society can generally afford specialists. And after all poison is really rather a method of domestic removal, and even in the cause of Humanity we should hardly care to be on such intimate terms with a financier or captain of drapery as to have easy access to his house. We shall have to content ourselves with violence," I said
"There's nothing like knifing," said Chelubai simply.
"What about gun accidents?" said Bottiger, breaking from the gloom into which our philanthropic discussion had plunged him, and speaking with all the keen animation of a sportsman.
"Gun accidents are good," I said in an encouraging tone.
"And accidents in railway trains, and motor-car accidents—all accidents are good. And there is a good deal to be said for the sand-bag; and I learnt in Singapore the thug dodge of strangling a man with a handkerchief. It's very cute," said Chelubai, warming to the subject.
"I have a rough idea for a portable lethal chamber," I said.
"Oh, we shall have no trouble about the actual working of the enterprise," said Chelubai cheerfully. "It's only the financial side of it—the subscriptions—that is going to give trouble; but, as I've said, we're brainy, and we shall get over that. The thing is, are we going into it in an earnest, whole-souled way! I'm ready to, for I believe it'll get up on it's heels and prance into success."
"I'm ready to," I said. "I'm all for practical philanthropy; and this is practical."
We looked at Bottiger.
"If you fellows are really keen on it, I suppose I am. We must hang together," said Bottiger gloomily.
"We must do nothing so foolish!" I said with asperity. "On the contrary, let us make it our strenuous endeavor to live to see statues of ourselves in all the large towns of the Anglo-Saxon world."
"Well, that's settled," said Chelubai. "But this new financial element modifies the scheme as I'd originally figured it out. I think we ought to form a company to work it"
"Form a company? Whatever for?" said I.
"Well, the scheme as I originally envisaged it was pure romance. But you've come along with your socialism and made it practical and business-like. Now, if you're going to work it on those lines, there's nothing like a company. Why, if anything went wrong, even in this hide-bound old country, they couldn't hang a company," said Chelubai
"But there's the matter of capital," said I, looking at my little all on the table.
"Oh, that's all right," said Chelubai. "Fifty one-pound shares apiece will be enough. And I'll hold yours for you till you can take them up. You can't object to my doing that, though you never will let me lend you as little as a tenner when you run short."
"Thanks," said I. "I shall be very much obliged."
"And we ought to have a good name for it. The name's so important in a company," said Chelubai.
"And as for the matter of payments for the company's work, they'll have to be fixed, the amount that is, with each job. They'll vary," said Chelubai.
"I prefer to call them subscriptions," said I.
"I don't see how you can in business," said Chelubai.
"Never mind, then," I said with a sigh. "But at any rate they'll be high."
"Sure," said Chelubai. "Expert work like this—and we the only firm doing it They'll be high; we can make our own prices—and we will."
"By Jove, if I only could get hold of three or four thousand! Why, we could take the house next to our Children's Hospital in Jamaica Place, and fit it up with thirty beds! I know a score of little beggars who ought to be in hospital at this minute. By Jove!" said I, warming as the possibilities of the scheme flashed upon me.
"I can let you have a hundred. I've done very well at racing lately," said Bottiger quickly.
"So can I," said Chelubai.
"Thanks—thanks—I could do with it well. But thousands! Just think of it! Thousands! Oh, let's get the company started at once!" said I. "Why, we could have a house in the country, too—for convalescents!"
"Well, the company is practically started. We've only got to find a job," said Chelubai in a soothing tone.
"I tell you what," said Bottiger, "I've got an idea. Why shouldn't we begin with that fellow—what's his name? The swine who got old Chantrey's money out of him in some beastly company, and made the poor old beggar blow out his brains. Old Chantrey was very decent to me when I was a boy. I've been trying to think out a way of getting at the infernal sweep for months. Let's begin with him. What's his name? You know, Roger."
"Pudleigh—Albert Amsted Pudleigh," said I.
"That's the man. Let's out him for a start," said Bottiger; and I had never seen him moved by so eager an animation.
"He would be an excellent subject for our first operation. There's not only old Chantrey; but a few months ago he swindled an orphan out of a Granite Company by means of the Companies' Act and her idiot trustee. I could not even advise her lawyers to take action, the swindle was so legal. I should be delighted to begin with Albert Amsted Pudleigh. But there's a drawback to him."
"What's that?" said Bottiger quickly.
"He's a Whole-Hog Wapshot; and his relations, if he's got any, would be too pious to pay for his removal."
"What on earth's a Whole-Hog Wapshot?" said Bottiger.
"The late Mr. Wapshop founded one of those little Calvinistic sects which flourish in the suburbs of our great city. A Whole-Hog Wapshot is a follower of the late Mr. Wapshop. Pudleigh is one. There will be no subscription for outing him," said I.
"I don't think we ought to hamper ourselves by the fact that we shan't get paid for removing some one it's our duty to remove. We should divide them into paying enemies of Humanity and non-paying enemies of Humanity. The paying enemies of Humanity will of course have the preference; we will remove them first. But we ought not to divert our attention from this Albert A. Pudleigh, because his relations won't pay for his removal," said Chelubai.
"Very well," I said. "We'll begin with Pudleigh. At any rate, it will get our hands in for some paying enemy of Humanity," said I. But I was disappointed; I thought of that Hospital.
"Wait a bit,"said Chelubai. "Why shouldn't we be paid? These business men don't work alone; he's sure to be one of a gang. And there are plenty of business emergencies when some one in a gang would cheerfully subscribe to the removal of another of the gang. We'd better go into the matter of Pudleigh, and at once. I'm all in favor of an early operation. It clears one's mind, and sets things really going. Let's get to ork on Pudleigh; but let's get to work on him as a paying proposition."
"Very good: Pudleigh it is," said I. "To-morrow I will go and see Morton, one of the firm of lawyers who had the business of the granite quarry orphan in hand, and learn all I can about Pudleigh."
We were silent a while, considering. Then Chelubai said: "Well, we seem to have got things pretty well fixed up. I can't see anything else to arrange at present. Let's go along to the Club and get a rubber. And on the way we'll call in at the Savoy and talk to the manager of the Restaurant about giving us the right kind of dinner to inaugurate our change of life."
"I should have thought that since we are becoming definitely 'Champions of Humanity,' we ought to set about leading the simple life," said I.
"Not a bit of it,"said Chelubai firmly. "The strenuous life if you like. But, any way, we'll have a farewell dinner to the old, easy life of wastrels."
He discussed the dinner with the manager with the thoughtful care the matter called for, and we went on to the Club. I did not abate my usual points, for I could fall back on Chelubai or Bottiger if I lost. But I won.
The game gave us an excellent appetite, and we came back to the Savoy. We were putting a fine edge on that appetite with some oysters when I observed that Chelubai seemed thoughtful and absent-minded, and asked him what ailed him.
"It's the trade-mark," he said. "We never fixed on a trade-mark. It's most important, a good trade-mark for a company."
"How would a blood-stained hatchet and the motto 'Advance Humanity' do?" said I.
"Excellent," said Chelubai. "Excellent. You do have good ideas, Roger." And he became at once bright and cheerful.