The Consul
R >>
Richard Harding Davis >> The Consul
Etext scanned by Aaron Cannon of Paradise, California.
The Consul
by Richard Harding Davis
THE CONSUL
For over forty years, in one part of the world or another, old man
Marshall had, served his country as a United States consul. He had
been appointed by Lincoln. For a quarter of a century that fact was
his distinction. It was now his epitaph. But in former years, as
each new administration succeeded the old, it had again and again
saved his official head. When victorious and voracious
place-hunters, searching the map of the world for spoils, dug out
his hiding-place and demanded his consular sign as a reward for a
younger and more aggressive party worker, the ghost of the dead
President protected him. In the State Department, Marshall had
become a tradition. "You can't touch Him!" the State Department
would say; "why, HE was appointed by Lincoln!" Secretly, for this
weapon against the hungry headhunters, the department was
infinitely grateful. Old man Marshall was a consul after its own
heart. Like a soldier, he was obedient, disciplined; wherever he
was sent, there, without question, he would go. Never against
exile, against ill-health, against climate did he make complaint.
Nor when he was moved on and down to make way for some
ne'er-do-well with influence, with a brother-in- law in the Senate,
with a cousin owning a newspaper, with rich relatives who desired
him to drink himself to death at the expense of the government
rather than at their own, did old man Marshall point to his record
as a claim for more just treatment.
And it had been an excellent record. His official reports, in a
quaint, stately hand, were models of English; full of information,
intelligent, valuable, well observed. And those few of his
countrymen, who stumbled upon him in the out-of- the-world places
to which of late he had been banished, wrote of him to the
department in terms of admiration and awe. Never had he or his
friends petitioned for promotion, until it was at last apparent
that, save for his record and the memory of his dead patron, he had
no friends. But, still in the department the tradition held and,
though he was not advanced, he was not dismissed.
"If that old man's been feeding from the public trough ever since
the Civil War," protested a "practical" politician, "it seems to
me, Mr. Secretary, that he's about had his share. Ain't it time he
give some one else a bite? Some of us that has, done the work, that
has borne the brunt----"
"This place he now holds," interrupted the Secretary of State
suavely, "is one hardly commensurate with services like yours. I
can't pronounce the name of it, and I'm not sure just where it is,
but I see that, of the last six consuls we sent there, three
resigned within a month and the other three died of yellow-fever.
Still, if you. insist----"
The practical politician reconsidered hastily. "I'm not the sort,"
he protested, "to turn out a man appointed by our martyred
President. Besides, he's so old now, if the fever don't catch him,
he'll die of old age, anyway."
The Secretary coughed uncomfortably. "And they say," he murmured,
"republics are ungrateful."
"I don't quite get that," said the practical politician.
Of Porto Banos, of the Republic of Colombia, where as consul Mr.
Marshall was upholding the dignity of the United States, little
could be said except that it possessed a sure harbor. When driven
from the Caribbean Sea by stress of weather, the largest of ocean
tramps, and even battle-ships, could find in its protecting arms of
coral a safe shelter. But, as young Mr. Aiken, the wireless
operator, pointed out, unless driven by a hurricane and the fear of
death, no one ever visited it. Back of the ancient wharfs, that
dated from the days when Porto Banos was a receiver of stolen goods
for buccaneers and pirates, were rows of thatched huts, streets,
according to the season, of dust or mud, a few iron-barred,
jail-like barracks, customhouses, municipal buildings, and the
whitewashed adobe houses of the consuls. The backyard of the town
was a swamp. Through this at five each morning a rusty engine
pulled a train of flat cars to the base of the mountains, and, if
meanwhile the rails had not disappeared into the swamp, at five in
the evening brought back the flat cars laden with odorous
coffeesacks.
In the daily life of Porto Banos, waiting for the return of the
train, and betting if it would return, was the chief interest. Each
night the consuls, the foreign residents, the wireless operator,
the manager of the rusty railroad met for dinner. There at the head
of the long table, by virtue of his years, of his courtesy and
distinguished manner, of his office, Mr. Marshall presided. Of the
little band of exiles he was the chosen ruler. His rule was gentle.
By force of example he had made existence in Porto Banos more
possible. For women and children Porto Banos was a death-trap, and
before "old man Marshall" came there had been no influence to
remind the enforced bachelors of other days.
They had lost interest, had grown lax, irritable, morose. Their
white duck was seldom white. Their cheeks were unshaven. When the
sun sank into the swamp and the heat still turned Porto Banos into
a Turkish bath, they threw dice on the greasy tables of the Cafe
Bolivar for drinks. The petty gambling led to petty quarrels; the
drinks to fever. The coming of Mr. Marshall changed that. His
standard of life, his tact, his worldly wisdom, his cheerful
courtesy, his fastidious personal neatness shamed the younger men;
the desire to please him, to, stand well in his good opinion,
brought back pride and self-esteem.
The lieutenant of her Majesty's gun-boat PLOVER noted the change.
"Used to be," he exclaimed, "you couldn't get out of the Cafe
Bolivar without some one sticking a knife in you; now it's a
debating club. They all sit round a table and listen to an old
gentleman talk world politics."
If Henry Marshall brought content to the exiles of Porto Banos,
there was little in return that Porto Banos could give to him.
Magazines and correspondents in six languages kept him in touch
with those foreign lands in which he had represented his country,
but of the country he had represented, newspapers and periodicals
showed him only too clearly that in forty years it had grown away
from him, had changed beyond recognition.
When last he had called at the State Department, he had been made
to feel he was a man without a country, and when he visited his
home town in Vermont, he was looked upon as a Rip Van Winkle. Those
of his boyhood friends who were not dead had long thought of him as
dead. And the sleepy, pretty village had become a bustling
commercial centre. In the lanes where, as a young man, he had
walked among wheatfields, trolley-cars whirled between rows of
mills and factories. The children had grown to manhood, with
children of their own.
Like a ghost, he searched for house after house, where once he had
been made welcome, only to find in its place a towering office
building. "All had gone, the old familiar faces." In vain he
scanned even the shop fronts for a friendly, homelike name. Whether
the fault was his, whether he would better have served his own
interests than those of his government, it now was too late to
determine. In his own home, he was a stranger among strangers. In
the service he had so faithfully followed, rank by rank, he had
been dropped, until now he, who twice had been a consul-general,
was an exile, banished to a fever swamp. The great Ship of State
had dropped him overside, had "marooned" him, and sailed away.
Twice a day he walked along the shell road to the Cafe Bolivar, and
back again to the consulate. There, as he entered the outer office,
Jose" the Colombian clerk, would rise and bow profoundly.
"Any papers for me to sign, Jose? " the consul would ask.
"Not to-day, Excellency, "the clerk would reply. Then Jose would
return to writing a letter to his lady-love; not that there was
any-thing to tell her, but because writing on the official paper of
the consulate gave him importance in his eyes, and in hers. And in
the inner office the consul would continue to gaze at the empty
harbor, the empty coral reefs, the empty, burning sky.
The little band of exiles were at second break fast when the
wireless man came in late to announce that a Red D. boat and the
island of Curacao had both reported a hurricane coming north. Also,
that much concern was felt for the safety of the yacht SERAPIS.
Three days before, in advance of her coming, she had sent a
wireless to Wilhelmstad, asking the captain of the port to reserve
a berth for her. She expected to arrive the following morning. But
for forty-eight hours nothing had been heard from her, and it was
believed she had been overhauled by the hurricane. Owing to the
presence on board of Senator Hanley, the closest friend of the new
President, the man who had made him president, much concern was
felt at Washington. To try to pick her up by wireless, the gun-boat
NEWARK had been ordered from Culebra, the cruiser RALEIGH, with
Admiral Hardy on board, from Colon. It was possible she would seek
shelter at Porto Banos. The consul was ordered to report.
As Marshall wrote out his answer, the French consul exclaimed with
interest:
"He is of importance, then, this senator?" he asked. "Is it that in
your country ships of war are at the service of a senator?"
Aiken, the wireless operator, grinned derisively.
"At the service of THIS senator, they are!" he answered. "They call
him the 'king-maker,' the man behind the throne."
"But in your country," protested the Frenchman, "there is no
throne. I thought your president was elected by the people?"
"That's what the people think," answered Aiken. "In God's country,"
he explained, "the trusts want a rich man in the Senate, with the
same interests as their own, to represent them. They chose Hanley.
He picked out of the candidates for the presidency the man he
thought would help the interests. He nominated him, and the people
voted for him. Hanley is what we call a 'boss.' "
The Frenchman looked inquiringly at Marshall.
"The position of the boss is the more dangerous," said Marshall
gravely, "because it is unofficial, because there are no laws to
curtail his powers. Men like Senator Hanley are a menace to good
government. They see in public office only a reward for party
workers."
"That's right," assented Aiken. "Your forty years' service, Mr.
Consul, wouldn't count with Hanley. If he wanted your job, he'd
throw you out as quick as he would a drunken cook."
Mr. Marshall flushed painfully, and the French consul hastened to
interrupt.
"Then, let us pray," he exclaimed, with fervor, "that the hurricane
has sunk the SERAPIS, and all on board."
Two hours later, the SERAPIS, showing she had met the hurricane and
had come out second best, steamed into the harbor.
Her owner was young Herbert Livingstone, of Washington. He once had
been in the diplomatic service, and, as minister to The Hague,
wished to return to it. In order to bring this about he had
subscribed liberally to the party campaign fund.
With him, among other distinguished persons, was the all- powerful
Hanley. The kidnapping of Hanley for the cruise, in itself,
demonstrated the ability of Livingstone as a diplomat. It was the
opinion of many that it would surely lead to his appointment as a
minister plenipotentiary. Livingstone was of the same opinion. He
had not lived long in the nation's capital without observing the
value of propinquity. How many men he knew were now paymasters, and
secretaries of legation, solely because those high in the
government met them daily at the Metropolitan Club, and preferred
them in almost any other place. And if, after three weeks as his
guest on board what the newspapers called his floating palace, the
senator could refuse him even the prize, legation of Europe, there
was no value in modest merit. As yet, Livingstone had not hinted at
his ambition. There was no need. To a statesman of Hanley's
astuteness, the largeness of Livingstone's contribution to the
campaign fund was self- explanatory.
After her wrestling-match with the hurricane, all those on board
the SERAPIS seemed to find in land, even in the swamp land of Porto
Banos, a compelling attraction. Before the anchors hit the water,
they were in the launch. On reaching shore, they made at once for
the consulate. There were many cables they wished to start on their
way by wireless; cables to friends, to newspapers, to the
government.
Jose, the Colombian clerk, appalled by the unprecedented invasion
of visitors, of visitors so distinguished, and Marshall, grateful
for a chance to serve his fellow- countrymen, and especially his
countrywomen, were ubiquitous, eager, indispensable. At Jose's desk
the great senator, rolling his cigar between his teeth, was using,
to Jose's ecstasy, Jose's own pen to write a reassuring message to
the White House. At the consul's desk a beautiful creature, all in
lace and pearls, was struggling to compress the very low opinion
she held of a hurricane into ten words. On his knee, Henry Cairns,
the banker, was inditing instructions to his Wall Street office,
and upon himself Livingstone had taken the responsibility of
replying to the inquiries heaped upon Marshall's desk, from many
newspapers.
It was just before sunset, and Marshall produced his tea things,
and the young person in pearls and lace, who was Miss Cairns, made
tea for the women, and the men mixed gin and limes with tepid
water. The consul apologized for proposing a toast in which they
could not join. He begged to drink to those who had escaped the
perils of the sea. Had they been his oldest and nearest friends,
his little speech could not have been more heart-felt and sincere.
To his distress, it moved one of the ladies to tears, and in
embarrassment he turned to the men.
"I regret there is no ice," he said, "but you know the rule of the
tropics; as soon as a ship enters port, the ice- machine bursts."
"I'll tell the steward to send you some, sir," said Livingstone,
"and as long as we're here."
The senator showed his concern.
"As long as we're here?" he gasped.
"Not over two days," answered the owner nervously. "The chief says
it will take all of that to get her in shape. As you ought to know,
Senator, she was pretty badly mauled."
The senator gazed blankly out of the window. Beyond it lay the
naked coral reefs, the empty sky, and the ragged palms of Porto
Banos.
Livingstone felt that his legation was slipping from him.
"That wireless operator," he continued hastily, "tells me there is
a most amusing place a few miles down the coast, Las Bocas, a sort
of Coney Island, where the government people go for the summer.
There's surf bathing and roulette and cafes chantants. He says
there's some Spanish dancers----"
The guests of the SERAPIS exclaimed with interest; the senator
smiled. To Marshall the general enthusiasm over the thought of a
ride on a merry-go-round suggested that the friends of Mr.
Livingstone had found their own society far from satisfying.
Greatly encouraged, Livingstone continued, with enthusiasm:
"And that wireless man said," he added, "that with the launch we
can get there in half an hour. We might run down after dinner." He
turned to Marshall.
"Will you join us, Mr. Consul?" he asked, "and dine with us,
first?"
Marshall accepted with genuine pleasure. It had been many months
since he had sat at table with his own people. But he shook his
head doubtfully.
"I was wondering about Las Bocas," he explained, "if your going
there might not get you in trouble at the next port. With a yacht,
I think it is different, but Las Bocas is under quarantine"
There was a chorus of exclamations.
"It's not serious," Marshall explained. "There was bubonic plague
there, or something like it. You would be in no danger from that.
It is only that you might be held up by the regulations. Passenger
steamers can't land any one who has been there at any other port of
the
West Indies. The English are especially strict. The Royal Mail
won't even receive any one on board here without a certificate from
the English consul saying he has not visited Las Bocas. For an
American they would require the same guarantee from me. But I don't
think the regulations extend to yachts. I will inquire. I don't
wish to deprive you of any of the many pleasures of Porto Banos,"
he added, smiling, "but if you were refused a landing at your next
port I would blame myself."
"It's all right," declared Livingstone decidedly. "It's just as you
say; yachts and warships are exempt. Besides, I carry my own
doctor, and if he won't give us a clean bill of health, I'll make
him walk the plank. At eight, then, at dinner. I'll send the cutter
for you. I can't give you a salute, Mr. Consul, but you shall have
all the side boys I can muster."
Those from the yacht parted from their consul in the most friendly
spirit.
"I think he's charming!" exclaimed Miss Cairns. "And did you notice
his novels? They were in every language. It must be terribly lonely
down here, for a man like that."
"He's the first of our consuls we've met on this trip," growled her
father, "that we've caught sober."
"Sober!" exclaimed his wife indignantly.
"He's one of the Marshalls of Vermont. I asked him."
"I wonder," mused Hanley, "how much the place is worth? Hamilton,
one of the new senators, has been deviling the life out of me to
send his son somewhere. Says if he stays in Washington he'll
disgrace the family. I should think this place would drive any man
to drink himself to death in three months, and young Hamilton, from
what I've seen of him, ought to be able to do it in a week. That
would leave the place open for the next man."
"There's a postmaster in my State thinks he carried it." The
senator smiled grimly. "He has consumption, and wants us to give
him a consulship in the tropics. I'll tell him I've seen Porto
Banos, and that it's just the place for him."
The senator's pleasantry was not well received. But Miss Cairns
alone had the temerity to speak of what the others were thinking.
"What would become of Mr. Marshall?" she asked. The senator smiled
tolerantly.
"I don't know that I was thinking of Mr. Marshall," he said. "I
can't recall anything he has done for this administration. You see,
Miss Cairns," he explained, in the tone of one addressing a small
child, "Marshall has been abroad now for forty years, at the
expense of the taxpayers. Some of us think men who have lived that
long on their fellow-countrymen had better come home and get to
work."
Livingstone nodded solemnly in assent. He did not wish a post
abroad at the expense of the taxpayers. He was willing to pay for
it. And then, with "ex-Minister" on his visiting cards, and a sense
of duty well performed, for the rest of his life he could join the
other expatriates in Paris.
Just before dinner, the cruiser RALEIGH having discovered the
whereabouts of the SERAPIS by wireless, entered the harbor, and
Admiral Hardy came to the yacht to call upon the senator, in whose
behalf he had been scouring the Caribbean Seas. Having paid his
respects to that personage, the admiral fell boisterously upon
Marshall.
The two old gentlemen were friends of many years. They had met,
officially and unofficially, in many strange parts of the world. To
each the chance reunion was a piece of tremendous good fortune. And
throughout dinner the guests of Livingstone, already bored with
each other, found in them and their talk of former days new and
delightful entertainment. So much so that when, Marshall having
assured them that the local quarantine regulations did not extend
to a yacht, the men departed for Las Bocas, the women insisted that
he and admiral remain behind.
It was for Marshall a wondrous evening. To foregather with his old
friend whom he had known since Hardy was a mad midshipman, to sit
at the feet of his own charming countrywomen, to listen to their
soft, modulated laughter, to note how quickly they saw that to him
the evening was a great event, and with what tact each contributed
to make it the more memorable; all served to wipe out the months of
bitter loneliness, the stigma of failure, the sense of undeserved
neglect. In the moonlight, on the cool quarter- deck, they sat, in
a half-circle, each of the two friends telling tales out of school,
tales of which the other was the hero or the victim, "inside"
stories of great occasions, ceremonies, bombardments, unrecorded
"shirt-sleeve" diplomacy.
Hardy had helped to open the Suez Canal. Marshall had assisted the
Queen of Madagascar to escape from the French invaders. On the
Barbary Coast Hardy had chased pirates. In Edinburgh Marshall had
played chess with Carlyle. He had seen Paris in mourning in the
days of the siege, Paris in terror in the days of the Commune; he
had known Garibaldi, Gambetta, the younger Dumas, the creator of
Pickwick.
"Do you remember that time in Tangier," the admiral urged, when I
was a midshipman, and got into the bashaw's harem?"
"Do you remember how I got you out? Marshall replied grimly.
"And," demanded Hardy, "do you remember when Adelina Patti paid a
visit to the KEARSARGE at Marseilles in '65--George Dewey was our
second officer--and you were bowing and backing away from her, and
you backed into an open hatch, and she said 'my French isn't up to
it' what was it she said?"
"I didn't hear it," said Marshall; "I was too far down the hatch."
"Do you mean the old KEARSARGE?" asked Mrs. Cairns. "Were you in
the service then, Mr. Marshall? "
With loyal pride in his friend, the admiral answered for him:
"He was our consul-general at Marseilles!"
There was an uncomfortable moment. Even those denied imagination
could not escape the contrast, could see in their mind's eye the
great harbor of Marseilles, crowded with the shipping of the world,
surrounding it the beautiful city, the rival of Paris to the north,
and on the battleship the young consul-general making his bow to
the young Empress of Song. And now, before their actual eyes, they
saw the village of Porto Banos, a black streak in the night, a row
of mud shacks, at the end of the wharf a single lantern yellow in
the clear moonlight.
Later in the evening Miss Cairns led the admiral to one side.
"Admiral," she began eagerly, "tell me about your friend. Why is he
here? Why don't they give him a place worthy of him? I've seen many
of our representatives abroad, and I know we cannot afford to waste
men like that." The girl exclaimed indignantly: " He's one of the
most interesting men I've ever met! He's lived everywhere, known
every one. He's a distinguished man, a cultivated man; even I can
see he knows his work, that he's a diplomat, born, trained, that
he's----" The admiral interrupted with a growl.
"You don't have to tell ME about Henry," he protested. "I've known
Henry twenty-five years. If Henry got his deserts," he exclaimed
hotly, "he wouldn't be a consul on this coral reef; he'd be a
minister in Europe. Look at me! We're the same age. We started
together. When Lincoln sent him to Morocco as consul, he signed my
commission as a midshipman. Now I'm an admiral. Henry has twice my
brains and he's been a consul- general, and he's HERE, back at the
foot of the ladder!"
"Why?" demanded the girl.
"Because the navy is a service and the consular service isn't a
service. Men like Senator Hanley use it to pay their debts. While
Henry's been serving his country abroad, he's lost his friends,
lost his 'pull.' Those politicians up at Washington have no use for
him. They don't consider that a consul like Henry can make a
million dollars for his countrymen. He can keep them from shipping
goods where there's no market, show them where there is a market."
The admiral snorted contemptuously. "You don't have to tell ME the
value of a good consul. But those politicians don't consider that.
They only see that he has a job worth a few hundred dollars, and
they want it, and if he hasn't other politicians to protect him,
they'll take it." The girl raised her head.
"Why don't you speak to the senator?" she asked. "Tell him you've
known him for years, that----"
"Glad to do it!" exclaimed the admiral heartily. " It won't be the
first time. But Henry mustn't know. He's too confoundedly touchy.
He hates the IDEA of influence, hates men like Hanley, who abuse
it. If he thought anything was given to him except on his merits,
he wouldn't take it."
"Then we won't tell him, " said the girl. For a moment she
hesitated.
"If I spoke to Mr. Hanley," she asked, "told him what I learned
to-night of Mr. Marshall, "would it have any effect?"
"Don't know how it will affect Hanley, said the sailor, "but if you
asked me to make anybody a consul-general, I'd make him an
ambassador."
Later in the evening Hanley and Livingstone were seated alone on
deck. The visit to Las Bocas had not proved amusing, but, much to
Livingstone's relief, his honored guest was now in good-humor. He
took his cigar from his lips, only to sip at a long cool drink. He
was in a mood flatteringly confidential and communicative.