The Dictator. McCarthy Justin Huntly

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      There was something so curiously pathetic and yet comic about the white gentleman's case, about his odd blend of bookish knowledge and personal inexperience, that the Dictator could scarcely forbear smiling. But he did forbear, and he spoke with all gravity.

      'I am not sure that you haven't the better part after all,' he said. 'I find that the chief pleasure of travel lies in recollection. You seem to get the recollection without the trouble.'

      'Perhaps so,' said Mr. Sarrasin; 'perhaps so. But I think I would rather have had the trouble as well. Believe me, my dear sir, believe a dreamer, that action is better than dreams. Ah! how much better it is for you, sir, to sit here, a disappointed man for the moment it may be, but a man with a glowing past behind him, than, like me, to have nothing to look back upon! My adventures are but compounded out of the essences of many books. I have never really lived a day; you have lived every day of your life. Believe me, you are much to be envied.'

      There was genuine conviction in the white gentleman's voice as he spoke these words, and the note of genuine conviction troubled the Dictator in his uncertainty whether to laugh or cry. He chose a medium course and smiled slightly.

      'I should think, Mr. Sarrasin, that you are the only one in London to-day who looks upon me as a man much to be envied. London, if it thinks of me at all, thinks of me only as a disastrous failure, as an unsuccessful exile—a man of no account, in a word.'

      Mr. Sarrasin shook his head vehemently. 'It is not so,' he protested, 'not so at all. Nobody really thinks like that, but if everybody else did, my brother Oisin Stewart Sarrasin certainly does not think like that, and his opinion is better worth having than that of most other men. You have no warmer admirer in the world than my brother, Mr. Ericson.'

      The Dictator expressed much satisfaction at having earned the good opinion of Mr. Sarrasin's brother.

      'You would like him, I am sure,' said Mr. Sarrasin. 'You would find him a kindred spirit.'

      The Dictator graciously expressed his confidence that he should find a kindred spirit in Mr. Sarrasin's brother. Then Mr. Sarrasin, apparently much delighted with his interview, rose to his feet and declared that it was time for him to depart. He shook hands very warmly with Miss Ericson, but he held the Dictator's hands with a grasp that was devoted in its enthusiasm. Then, expressing repeatedly the hope that he might soon meet the Dictator again, and once more assuring him of the kinship between the Dictator and Captain Oisin Stewart Sarrasin, the white gentleman took himself off, a pale bulky figure looming heavily across the grassy lawn and through the French window into the darkness of the sitting-room.

      When he was quite out of sight the Dictator, who had followed his retreating figure with his eyes, turned to Miss Ericson with a look of inquiry. Miss Ericson smiled.

      'Who is Mr. Sarrasin?' the Dictator asked. 'He has come up since my time.'

      'Oh, yes; he first came to live here about six years ago. He is one of the best souls in the world; simple, good-hearted, an eternal child.'

      'What is he?' The Dictator asked.

      'Well, he is nothing in particular now. He was in the City, his father was the head of a very wealthy firm of tea merchants, Sarrasin, Jermyn, & Co. When the father died a few years ago he left all his property to Mr. Gilbert, and then Mr. Gilbert went out of business and came here.'

      'He does not look as if he would make a very good business man,' said the Dictator.

      'No; but he was very patient and devoted to it for his father's sake. Now, since he has been free to do as he likes, he has devoted himself to folk-lore.'

      'To folk-lore?'

      'Yes, to the study of fairy tales, of comparative mythology. I am quite learned in it now since I have had Mr. Sarrasin for a neighbour, and know more about "Puss in Boots" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" than I ever did when I was a girl.'

      'Really,' said the Dictator, with a kind of sigh. 'Does he devote himself to fairy tales?' It crossed his mind that a few moments before he had been thinking of himself as a small child in that garden, with a taste for fairy tales, and regretting that he had not stayed in that garden. Now, with the dust of battle and the ashes of defeat upon him, he came back to find a man much older than himself, who seemed still to remain a child, and to be entranced with fairy tales. 'I wish I were like that,' the Dictator said to himself, and then the veil seemed to lift, and he saw again the Plaza Nacional of Gloria, and the Government Palace, where he had laboured at laws for a free people. 'No,' he thought, 'no; action, action.'

      'What are you thinking of?' asked Miss Ericson softly. 'You seem to be quite lost in thought.'

      'I was thinking of Mr. Sarrasin,' answered the Dictator. 'Forgive me for letting my thoughts drift. And the brother, what sort of man is this wonderful brother?'

      'I have only seen the brother a very few times,' said Miss Ericson dubiously. 'I can hardly form an opinion. I do not think he is as nice as his brother, or, indeed, as nice as his brother believes him to be.'

      'What is his record?'

      'He didn't get on with his father. He was sent against his will to China to work in the firm's offices in Shanghai. But he hated the business, and broke away and entered the Chinese army, I believe, and his father was furious and cut him off. Since then he has been all over the world, and served all sorts of causes. I believe he is a kind of soldier of fortune.'

      The Dictator smiled, remembering Captain Sarrasin's own words.

      'And has he made his fortune?'

      'Oh, no; I believe not. But Gilbert behaved so well. When he came into the property he wanted to share it all with his disinherited brother, for whom he has the greatest affection.'

      'A good fellow, your Gilbert Sarrasin.'

      'The best. But the brother wouldn't take it, and it was with difficulty that Gilbert induced him to accept so much as would allow him a small certainty of income.'

      'So. A good fellow, too, your Oisin Stewart Sarrasin, it would seem; at least in that particular.'

      'Yes; of course. The brothers don't meet very often, for Captain Sarrasin——'

      'Where does he take his title from?'

      'He was captain in some Turkish irregular cavalry.'

      'Turkish irregular cavalry? That must be a delightful corps,' the Dictator said with a smile.

      'At least he was captain in several services,' Miss Ericson went on; 'but I believe that is the one he prefers and still holds. As I was going to say, Captain Sarrasin is almost always abroad.'

      'Well, I feel curious to meet him. They are a strange pair of brothers.'

      'They are, but we ought to talk of nothing but you to-day. Ah, my dear, it is so good to have you with me again.'

      'Dear old aunt!'

      'Let me see much of you now that you have come back. Would it be any use asking you to stop here?'

      'Later, every use. Just at this moment I mustn't. Till I see how things are going to turn out I must live down there in London. But my heart is here with you СКАЧАТЬ