Gossamer Part 12

"The way to grow rich," I said, "is to make other people rich. Is that it? It sounds rather like one of the--what do you call them?--counsels of perfection in the Gospel."

"Perhaps it is a religious truth too," said Ascher. "I don't know. I have never studied religion. Some day I think I shall. There must be a great deal that is very interesting in the New Testament."

"Confound you, Ascher! Is there anything in heaven or earth that you don't look at from the outside, as if you were some kind of superior epicurean G.o.d?"

"I beg your pardon. I ought not to have spoken in that way. You are, no doubt, a Christian."

"Of course I am--in--in a general way."

"I have often thought," said Ascher slowly, "that I should like to be.

But from the little I know of that religion----"

"I expect you know as much as I do," I said.

"It must be," said Ascher, "very hard to be a Christian."

I was not going to discuss that point with Ascher. It was bad enough to have an artistic soul awakened in me by Mrs. Ascher. I could not possibly allow her husband to lead me to the discovery that I had the other kind of soul. Nor was it any business of mine to work out harmonies between Christian ethics and the principles of modern banking.

I detest puzzles of all kinds. It is far better, at all events far more comfortable, to take life as one finds it, a straightforward, commonplace affair. I have the greatest respect for Christianity of a moderate, sensible kind and I subscribe to the funds of the Church of Ireland. But when it comes to practical matters I find myself in agreement with Wordsworth's "Rob Roy,"

The good old rule Sufficeth me, the simple plan, That they should take who have the power And they should keep who can.

So long, of course, as one does not do anything shady. I do not like lying or theft.

Ascher sat looking at me as if he expected me to tell him exactly how hard it is to be a Christian. I made a determined effort to get back again to cash registers.

"Tim Gorman's invention will get its chance then?"

"Yes. If we can manage it the thing will get its chance. It will be made and, I think, people will use it."

"Mrs. Ascher will be very pleased to hear that."

"Ah," said Ascher. "Is she interested? But I remember now. Young Gorman has been sitting to her. She would naturally be interested in him."

"Her idea," I said, "is that Tim Gorman is producing a baby, with all the usual accompaniments of that difficult business, labour, you know, and pain. She regards you as the doctor in attendance, and she thinks it would be exceedingly wrong of you to choke the little thing."

Ascher looked at me quite gravely. For a moment I was afraid that he was going to say something about the paradoxical brilliance of the Irish mind. I made haste to stop him.

"That's Mrs. Ascher's metaphor," I said, "not mine. I should never have thought of it. I don't know enough about the artistic soul to appreciate the feelings of people who give birth to cash registers. But the idea is plain enough. Tim Gorman will be bitterly disappointed if he does not see girls in cheap restaurants putting actual s.h.i.+llings into those machines of his."

"From my wife's point of view," said Ascher, "and from mine, too, that ought to be an important consideration. It's the artist's feeling; but business and art--unfortunately business and art----"

"I don't see why they shouldn't kiss and be friends," I said. "They're not nearly such irreconcilable enemies as business and religion. Now that those two have lain down together like a lion and a lamb--I don't quite see how they do it, but in that new philosophy of yours it seemed quite a simple matter--there's no real reason why art shouldn't come in too."

But Ascher shook his head. He did not seem hopeful of a marriage between art and business. He knows a good deal about both of them, far more, by his own confession, than he knows about religion.

CHAPTER VIII.

Ascher was very generous to me in the matter of letters of introduction.

A large bundle of them arrived at my hotel two days after I paid my visit to his office. There must have been fifty or sixty of them altogether. I sent for an atlas and found that I had a friend ready made for me in every port of any importance in the West Indies and on the east coast of South America as far down as Buenos Aires, and in a good many places inland. I was fascinated by the idea of such a tour; but it was plainly not an excursion to be undertaken without care and consideration. I lingered in New York for a fortnight, buying some additional clothes, getting together a few books on the South American republics, and working out steamboat routes.

I saw young Tim Gorman. He called on me, sent by Mrs. Ascher, to thank me for my good offices. I deserved no thanks; but on the general principle of taking what I could get I allowed the boy to pour grat.i.tude all over me.

"I think," I said, "you ought to do fairly well out of the thing, financially, I mean."

"I don't care about that," said Tim, "at least not exactly. I--I----" he hesitated for a moment and then blurted out, "I don't particularly want to be rich."

"That," I said, "is precisely how you ought to feel at your age, but when you get to be forty--I'm forty, so I know--you'll probably be glad enough to have some money."

"I want some money now," said Tim. "Do you think I could get----? How much do you think I'll get out of my cash register?"

"Well," I said, "it's hard to name an exact figure, but it will be something pretty substantial."

"One thousand dollars?" said Tim anxiously.

"A great deal more than that. If Mr. Ascher makes the arrangements he contemplates you'll get a great deal more."

I had only the vaguest idea what Ascher meant to do, and could make no kind of guess at how much Tim would ultimately get, but I felt pretty safe in promising two hundred pounds.

"Do you think I could get it at once?" said Tim. "Or even five hundred dollars? I think I could manage with five hundred dollars. The fact is----"

"You want to get out of that circus," I said. "I don't wonder. It must be a very tiresome job."

"Oh, no. I don't mind the circus. It's rather a nuisance of course moving about, and we always are moving. But I have plenty of time to myself. It isn't to get away from the circus that I want the money. The fact is that I'm making some experiments."

"Another invention?" I said. "What a prolific creature you are! No sooner have you perfected a cash register than you start----"

"Oh, I've been at this for some time, for years. I believe I've hit on a dodge---- I say, do you know anything about Movies?"

The word, though common on our side of the Atlantic now, was at that time peculiar to the American language.

"Cinematographs?" I said. "I've seen them of course. You have them in your circus, haven't you, as part of the show?"

"Yes. That's what set me thinking about them. I've always felt that the next step in perfecting the cinematograph would be doing away with the screen, putting the figures on the stage, that is to say reflections of them, so that they would actually move about backwards and forwards instead of on a flat surface. You understand?"

When I was a boy there was a popular entertainment known as "Pepper's Ghost." What appeared to be a real figure moved about before the eyes of the audience, was pierced by swords and otherwise ill-treated without suffering any inconvenience. The thing was worked by some arrangement of mirrors. Tim evidently had a plan for combining this illusion with the cinematograph.

"Don't you think," he said, "that it would be a great thing?"

"It would be a perfectly beastly thing," I said. "The cinematograph is bad enough already. If you add a grosser realism to it----"

Tim looked at me. I am nearly sure that there were tears in his eyes.

"That's just what Mrs. Ascher thinks," he said.

"I daresay she does. She probably regards the cinematograph as a sin against art. What you propose would be an actual blasphemy."