The Drums of Jeopardy - Page 44/202

"Gee-whiz! The Irish are all alike," cried the war correspondent,

hopelessly. "Petticoat or pantaloon, always looking for trouble."

"No, Cutty; simply we don't run away from it. And there's just as much

Irish in you as there is in me."

"Sure! And for thirty years I've gone hunting for trouble, and never

failed to find it. I don't like this affair, Kitty; and because I don't

I'm going to risk my Samson locks in your lily-white hands. I am going

to tell you two things: I am a secret foreign agent of the United States

Government. Now don't light up that way. Dark alleys and secret papers

and beautiful adventuresses and bang-bang have nothing at all to do

with my job. There isn't a grain of romance in it. Ostensibly I am a war

correspondent. I have handled all the big events in Serbia and Bulgaria

and Greece and southwestern Russia. Boiled down, I am a census taker of

undesirables. Socialist, anarchist and Bolshevik--I photograph them

in my mental 'fillums' and transmit to Washington. Thus, when Feodor

Slopeski lands at Ellis Island with the idea of blowing up New York, he

is returned with thanks. I didn't ask for the job; it was thrust upon me

because of my knowledge of the foreign tongues. I accepted it because I

am a loyal American citizen."

"And you left me because you' didn't know who might be at the door!"

"Precisely. I am known in lower New York under another name. I'm a rabid

internationalist. Down with everything! I don't go out much these days;

keep under cover as much as I can. Once recognized, my value would be

nil. In a flannel shirt I'm a dangerous codger."

"And Gregor and this poor young man are in some way mixed up with

internationalism!"

"Victims, probably."

"What is the other thing you wish to tell me?"

"Because your eyes are slate blue like your mother's. I loved your

mother, Kitty," said Cutty, blinking into his pipe. "And the singular

fact is, your father knew but your mother never did. I was never able

to tell your mother after your father died. Their bodies were separated,

but not their spirits."

Kitty nodded. So that was it? Poor Cutty!

"I make this confession because I want you to understand my attitude

toward you. I am going to elect myself as your special guardian so

long as I'm in New York. From now on, when I ask you to do something,

understand that I believe it best for you. If my suspicions are correct

we are not dealing with fools but with madmen. The most dangerous human

being, Kitty, is an honest man with a half-baked or crooked idea; and

that's what this world pother, Bolshevism, is--honest men with crooked

ideas, carrying the torch of anarchism and believing it enlightenment.

What makes them tear down things? Every beautiful building is only a

monument to their former wretchedness; and so they annihilate. None of

them actually knows what he wants. A thousand will-o'-the-wisps in front

of them, and all alike. A thousand years to throw off the shackles,

and they expect Utopia in ten minutes! It makes you want to weep.

Socialism--the brotherhood of man--is a beautiful thing theoretically;

but it is like some plays--they read well but do not act. Lopping off

heads, believing them to be ideas!"