"Ah! Has he suffered much from this lately?" said my man, with a preliminary cough.
"I really can't say," I replied.
"Then I suppose you have only lately taken charge here?"
"I came this evening. I am not exactly in charge of anything."
"I see. Merely to observe the course of events in case—" He nodded.
"Exactly." Observation, after all, is my trade.
He coughed again slightly, and came to business.
"Now,—I am asking solely for information's sake,—do you find the delusions persistent?"
"Which delusions?"
"They are variable, then? That is distinctly curious, because—but do I understand that the type of the delusion varies? For example, Mr. Sargent believes that he can buy the Great Buchonian."
"Did he write you that?"
"He made the offer to the Company—on a half–sheet of note–paper. Now, has he by chance gone to the other extreme, and believed that he is in danger of becoming a pauper? The curious economy in the use of a half–sheet of paper shows that some idea of that kind might have flashed through his mind, and the two delusions can coexist, but it is not common. As you must know, the delusion of vast wealth—the folly of grandeurs, I believe our friends the French call it—is, as a rule, persistent, to the exclusion of all others."
Then I heard Wilton's best English voice at the end of the study:
"My dear sir, I have explained twenty times already, I wanted to get that scarab in time for dinner. Suppose you had left an important legal document in the same way?"
"That touch of cunning is very significant," my fellow–practitioner—since he insisted on it—muttered.
"I am very happy, of course, to meet you; but if you had only sent your president down to dinner here, I could have settled the thing in half a minute. Why, I could have bought the Buchonian from him while your clerks were sending me this." Wilton dropped his hand heavily on the blue–and–white correspondence, and the lawyer started.
"But, speaking frankly," the lawyer replied, "it is, if I may say so, perfectly inconceivable, even in the case of the most important legal documents, that any one should stop the three–forty express—the Induna—Our Induna, my dear sir."
"Absolutely!" my companion echoed; then to me in a lower tone: "You notice, again, the persistent delusion of wealth. I was called in when he wrote us that. You can see it is utterly impossible for the Company to continue to run their trains through the property of a man who may at any moment fancy himself divinely commissioned to stop all traffic. If he had only referred us to his lawyer—but, naturally, that he would not do, under the circumstances. A pity—a great pity. He is so young. By the way, it is curious, is it not, to note the absolute conviction in the voice of those who are similarly afflicted,—heart–rending, I might say, and the inability to follow a chain of connected thought."
"I can't see what you want," Wilton was saying to the lawyer.
"It need not be more than fourteen feet high—a really desirable structure, and it would be possible to grow pear trees on the sunny side." The lawyer was speaking in an unprofessional voice. "There are few things pleasanter than to watch, so to say, one's own vine and fig tree in full bearing. Consider the profit and amusement you would derive from it. If you could see your way to doing this, we could arrange all the details with your lawyer, and it is possible that the Company might bear some of the cost. I have put the matter, I trust, in a nutshell. If you, my dear sir, will interest yourself in building that wall, and will kindly give us the name of your lawyers, I dare assure you that you will hear no more from the Great Buchonian."
"But why am I to disfigure my lawn with a new brick wall?"
"Grey flint is extremely picturesque."
"Grey flint, then, if you put it that way. Why the dickens must I go building towers of Babylon just because I have held up one of your trains–once?"
"The expression he used in his third letter was that he wished to 'board her,'" said my companion in my ear. "That was very curious—a marine delusion impinging, as it were, upon a land one. What a marvellous world he must move in—and will before the curtain falls. So young, too—so very young!"
"Well, if you want the plain English of it, I'm damned if I go wall–building to your orders. You can fight it all along the line, into the House of Lords and out again, and get your rulings by the running foot if you like," said Wilton, hotly. "Great heavens, man, I only did it once!"
"We have at present no guarantee that you may not do it again; and, with our traffic, we must, in justice to our passengers, demand some form of guarantee. It must not serve as a precedent. All this might have been saved if you had only referred us to your legal representative." The lawyer looked appealingly around the room. The dead–lock was complete.
"Wilton," I asked, "may I try my hand now?"
"Anything you like," said Wilton. "It seems I can't talk English. I won't build any wall, though." He threw himself back in his chair.
"Gentlemen," I said deliberately, for I perceived that the doctor's mind would turn slowly, "Mr. Sargent has very large interests in the chief railway systems of his own country."
"His own country?" said the lawyer.
"At that age?" said the doctor.
"Certainly. He inherited them from his father, Mr. Sargent, who was an American."
"And proud of it," said Wilton, as though he had been a Western Senator let loose on the Continent for the first time.
"My dear sir," said the lawyer, half rising, "why did you not acquaint the Company with this fact—this vital fact—early in our correspondence? We should have understood. We should have made allowances."
"Allowances be damned. Am I a Red Indian or a lunatic?"
The two men looked guilty.
"If Mr. Sargent's friend had told us as much in the beginning," said the doctor, very severely, "much might have been saved." Alas! I had made a life's enemy of that doctor.
"I hadn't a chance," I replied. "Now, of course, you can see that a man who owns several thousand miles of line, as Mr. Sargent does, would be apt to treat railways a shade more casually than other people."
"Of course; of course. He is an American; that accounts. Still, it was the Induna; but I can quite understand that the customs of our cousins across the water differ in these particulars from ours. And do you always stop trains in this way in the States, Mr. Sargent?"
"I should if occasion ever arose; but I've never had to yet. Are you going to make an international complication of the business?"
"You need give yourself no further concern whatever in the matter. We see that there is no likelihood of this action of yours establishing a precedent, which was the only thing we were afraid of. Now that you understand that we cannot reconcile our system to any sudden stoppages, we feel quite sure that—"
"I sha'n't be staying long enough to flag another train," Wilton said pensively.
"You are returning, then, to our fellow–kinsmen across the–ah–big pond, you call it?"
"No, sir. The ocean—the North Atlantic Ocean. It's three thousand miles broad, and three miles deep in places. I wish it were ten thousand."
"I am not so fond of sea–travel myself; but I think it is every Englishman's duty once in his life to study the great branch of our Anglo–Saxon race across the ocean," said the lawyer.
"If ever you come over, and care to flag any train on my system, I'll—I'll see you through," said Wilton.
"Thank you—ah, thank you. You're very kind. I'm sure I should enjoy myself immensely."
"We have overlooked the fact," the doctor whispered to me, "that your friend proposed to buy the Great Buchonian."
"He is worth anything from twenty to thirty million dollars—four to five million pounds," I answered, knowing that it would be hopeless to explain.