George Goring

“ By this time no English ships are left on the sea. It is an under-water boat of the Emperor, and she comes to seek the petrol stored in the cave.”
“Liable to disappointment then,” said Gorman. “That petrol’s gone.”
“I know it,” said the King, “therefore I say ‘Behold destiny.’ But I, Gorman, I laugh at destiny. I mock. I snap the finger and thumb of my hand. So.” He snapped the fingers of both hands with airy defiance. “I am a king. I play a game until the end. I die game-playing. And Corinne will not grieve too much. On Salissa I think Corinne loves less than in Paris. Hurrah, Gorman. ”

“ It was much more puzzling to find a German naval officer engaged in storing large quantities of rubber tubing in a cave. Gorman confesses that he was utterly unable to make any sort of guess at the meaning of the affair. He was all the more anxious to begin his investigation.
The Queen and Phillips cheered up a little when the party started for the cave. Kalliope rowed, as usual. Gorman—all successful politicians are men of tact—settled himself in the bow of the boat. The Queen and Phillips were together in the stern and held each other’s hands. Gorman pretended to look at the scenery. ”

“ Of Gorman I saw nothing more before I left New York. I think he went off to Detroit almost immediately after our interview with Ascher and Stutz. Gorman is not exactly the man to put his public duties before his private interests, but I am sure the public duties always come in a close second. Having settled, or thought he had settled, the affair of the cash register, he immediately turned his attention to that wealthy motor man in Detroit from whom he meant to get a subscription. The future of the Irish Party possibly, its comforts probably, depended on the success of Gorman’s mission. ”

“ If laws had any effect on life, as Gorman pretends to believe, he would make one which would do away with Ascher. But he knows in his heart that he might just as well make a law forbidding the wind to blow from the east. ”

“ He would not write at all if he could find any easier and pleasanter way of making money. There was no use saying that to Mrs. Ascher. All I could do when she asked me to appeal to Gorman’s artistic soul was to shake my head. I shook it as decisively as I could.
“And my husband will listen to you,” she said.
“My dear lady! wouldn’t he be much more likely to listen to you?”
“But we never talk about such things,” she said. “Never, never. Our life together is sacred, hallowed, a thing apart,
“‘Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call earth.’” ”

“ Oh, Sir Gorman, M.P., you would do it at once if you understood. Poor Konrad! He is having so much delight with me in Paris. This time only in our lives it has come to us to have enough money and to be in Paris. It is cruel—so cruel that the Emperor should say: ‘No. Give back the money. Go from Paris. Be starved. Have no pearls, no joy.’ But you will save us. Say you will save us.”
Gorman’s position was an exceedingly difficult one. Madame Ypsilante had firm hold on his hand. ”

“ Ascher’s glance of appeal and tried to explain things to Gorman.
“Ascher,” I said, “is pulled two ways. His country is pulling him. That’s the call of patriotism. You ought to understand that, Gorman. You’re a tremendous patriot yourself. But if he goes back to his country now he absolutely ruins his business. That means a lot more than merely losing his money. It means more even than losing other people’s money, the money of the men who trusted him. It means that he must be false to his commercial honour. You see that, don’t you, Gorman? And there doesn’t seem any way out of the dilemma. ”

“ That was all I could do for Tim Gorman. I do not think that he deserved more than cold comfort and disagreeable advice. I might have given him, or lent him, a little money, if he had been at work on a really useful invention, something which would benefit humanity. There are lots of such things waiting to be invented. There ought to be some way of stabbing a man who insists on ringing you up on the telephone at unreasonable hours and saying tiresome things. ”

“ No inspired artist, toiling frenziedly with a masterpiece in a garret, ever lived a more Spartan life than Tim Gorman did in that barn. Whatever money he had was certainly not spent on his personal comfort. ”

“ In short, the war is at an end in the West; each one looks for a ship, and nothing more.
"Lord Digby and Mr. Goring are not friends; Prince Rupert yet goes with Mr. Goring, but how long that will hold, I dare not undertake, knowing both their constitutions."
It will be observed that the writer of the letter, though a cavalier, here calls him Mr. Goring, when as his father was created Earl of Norwich in the previous year, he was Lord Goring in cavalier acceptation. ”

“ I said, “is to hire a small hall, and to invite a number of well-off people to see Tim’s show. You’ll want money in the end, you know.”
“Not much,” said Gorman. “A few thousands will be enough. It isn’t as if we had to manufacture anything.”
“If you get what you want,” I said, “in small sums from a number of people, you’ll be able to keep control of the thing yourself, and you needn’t be afraid of Ascher. Not that I believe Ascher would swindle, you. I think Ascher’s an honest man.”
“Ascher’s a financier,” said Gorman. “That’s enough for me.” ”

“ Gorman knows that he has never rendered any service to literature at all, that he wrote novels because he wanted money in the days before a grateful country paid him £400 a year for walking round the lobbies of the House of Commons, that he tumbled into his play by accident and made money out of it because a very charming lady was more charming than usual in the part he wrote for her. ”

“ I was only going to say that even plays in which nothing happens and grimy women say indecent things—that’s art you know—seem to me better than the sort of things your soul fattens on.”
“I don’t see any good talking about souls,” said Gorman. “This is a matter of business. The other people will crush us if they can. If they can’t, and they won’t be able to if Ascher backs us, they’ll have to pay us. There’s nothing wrong about that, is there? Look at it this way. We’ve got something to sell——”
“Cash registers,” I said. ”

“ Sir Bartholomew, on reflection, was inclined to agree with Gorman. Mere recognition, though agreeable to any king, is unsubstantial, and the support suggested was evidently doubtful.
“What else?” He spoke in a very confidential tone. “What other inducement would you suggest our offering? We are prepared to go a long way—to do a good deal——”
“Unfortunately for you,” said Gorman, “the king is pretty well off at present. He got £6,000 three weeks ago out of Bilkins—the man who ran the egg swindle—and until that’s spent he won’t feel the need of money. ”

“ The fact is I don’t like fighting.”
“I believe it,” said von Moll.
He spoke with a sneer, a heavily accentuated sneer. It was more like the sneer of the villain of old-fashioned melodrama than anything Gorman had ever seen.
“If you want a scrap,” said Gorman, “really want it, you know, you ought to knock up Phillips on your way back to your boat. He’s the first officer of the Ida. He’ll take you on. He’s six foot one and weighs about fourteen stone. He’ll simply wipe the floor with you; so unless you’re really keen on fighting some one you’d perhaps better leave him alone.” ”

“ Ascher admired Gorman’s art as an orator enough to make her forgive the vile purpose for which it was used.
When I began to listen to the speech again Gorman had reached his peroration.
The arts of war, he said, were the natural fruits of the human intellect in a society organised on an aristocratic basis. The development of the arts of peace and pleasure followed the birth of democracy. Tyrants and robber barons in old days loved to fight and lived to kill. The common, kindly men and women of our time, the now at length sovereign people, lived to love and desire peace above all things. ”

“ He was in high triumph. He had captured the Aschers, reserved the nicest table in the upper saloon and secured the exclusive service of the best table steward in the ship. I think he had interviewed the head cook. I began to appreciate Gorman’s qualities as a travelling companion. His handling of the servants of the Cunard Company during the voyage was masterly. I never was so well looked after before, though I always make it a practice to tip generously.
Gorman proposed that we should have another whisky and soda before going down to luncheon. He is a genial soul. ”

“ Gorman propounds a somewhat similar philosophy of life, and occasionally talks about faith in the same rapt way. I do not suppose that he actually holds the faith he preaches, certainly not as Mrs. Ascher and the bishop hold theirs. No Irishman is, or ever can be, a Liberal after the English fashion; but Gorman does talk about the spirit of democracy and says he looks forward to its guiding Humanity to a great end, universal peace. ”

“ I used to have a sort of instinct called honour which served men of my class instead of a soul. But Gorman and Gorman’s father before him and their political associates have succeeded in abolishing gentlemen in Ireland. ”

“ She won’t like it.”
“I see that,” said Gorman. “And of course Konrad Karl will be dragged in and made to look like a fool.”
“Kings of all people,” said Dane-Latimer, “can’t afford to be laughed at. It doesn’t do a king any real harm if he’s hated, but if once he becomes comic he’s done.”
Gorman thought the matter over for a minute or two.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said at last. “You hold the dentist in play for a day or two and I’ll see what I can do. There’ll be no money. I warn you fairly of that. You won’t even get the amount of your own bill unless Scarsby pays it ”

“ She’s tremendously keen just now on Home Rule and Ireland generally.”
“That is amazing,” I said.
“It isn’t in itself,” said Gorman, “but the way she gets at it is. I mean that theory of hers about——”
“Yes. I know. She will insist on thinking that you and everybody else on your side are artists.”
“And yet,” said Gorman, “I can’t persuade her to look at Tim’s new invention.”
Mrs. Ascher’s prejudice against cinematographs, improved or unimproved, was certainly strong. I found it hard to understand exactly how she felt. She found no difficulty in regarding Gorman, a devoted politician, as a hero. ”

“ Goldsturmer was not in the least discouraged by Gorman’s reticence.
“I cannot,” he said, “expect you to answer more frankly unless I am equally frank with you. I am at this time engaged in a business transaction of some importance with Madame Ypsilante. The sum of money involved is very large. It is”—Goldsturmer’s tone became reverent—“£10,000.”
“Can she pay?” said Gorman, “not that it’s any affair of mine whether she can or not.”
“The lady herself cannot pay; but the King—she tells me that his Majesty has recently sold an estate situated in Megalia to a wealthy American. ”

“ Ascher’s work. Tim Gorman’s fine eyes were the only things about him which struck me as noticeable. No artist can model eyes in clay. But Mrs. Ascher had got all that I saw in his eyes into the head before me—all and a great deal more. She had somehow succeeded in making the lips, the nostrils, the forehead, the cheek-bones, express the fact that Tim Gorman is an idealist, a dreamer of fine dreams and at the same time innocent as a child which looks out at the world with wonder. ”

“ CHAPTER XX KING KONRAD KARL took Gorman’s hand and wrung it heartily.
“My friend Gorman,” he said. “How are you? But I need not ask. I see. You are top-tipping.”
“Thanks,” said Gorman. “Salissa agrees with me. And Paris does not seem to have done you any harm.”
“Paris! Ah, in Paris one lives, and I am in the pink. But, alas and damn, I leave Paris. I take trains. I travel fast. I embark.” He waved his hand towards the steamer. “Finally, I arrive.”
“How did you come to embark in that curious-looking ship? I never saw a steamer like her before.”
“That,” said the King, “is the navy of Megalia. ”

“ To serve God and to do his duty were the great objects of his life, and he died as he had lived, carrying out the work that lay before him to the best of his ability. The last words of his last letter to his sister, written when he knew that death was very near, sum up his character: “I am quite happy, thank God, and, like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty. [1]
Authorities.—The Journals of Major-General Gordon at Khartoum (1885) ; Lord Cromer, Modern Egypt (2 vols., 1908) ; F. R. Wingate, Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan (1891) ; the British Parliamentary Paper on Egypt (1884–1885) ”

“ Some day I shall give it up and devote the rest of my time to——”
“Don’t say art,” said Gorman.
Ascher opened his eyes and looked at Gorman with a mild kind of wonder.
“Of course,” he said, “I can never be an artist. I haven’t got the temperament, the soul, the capacity for abandon. But I might find enjoyment, the highest pleasure, in understanding, in appreciating, perhaps even in encouraging——”
“Sort of Mecenas,” said Gorman. “I wonder if Mecenas was a banker. He seems to have been a rich man.” ”

“ As a matter of fact he seems to have worried everybody until he got the order he wanted. The Ida carried very little cargo to the island on her second voyage and was unloaded in a few hours. Captain Wilson received from the Queen the lists she had prepared of tools, engines and material for carrying out her schemes of improvement. He was given a few letters by Donovan and by Smith. Then there was no reason why he should not start.
Nor was there any reason why Gorman should not have gone with him. It was, indeed, plainly Gorman’s duty to get back to England as quickly as possible. ”