The Port of Missing Men | Page 5

silent for a moment, in which each was busy with his own
thoughts; then the count remarked, in as amiable a tone as he ever used:
"Your French is first rate. Do you speak English as well?"
"As readily as German, I think. You may recall that I had an English
tutor, and maybe I did not tell you in that interview at Paris that I had
spent a year at Harvard University."
"What the devil did you do that for?" growled Von Stroebel.
"From curiosity, or ambition, as you like. I was in Cambridge at the law
school for a year before the Archduke died. That was three years ago. I
am twenty-eight, as you may remember. I am detaining you; I have no
wish to rake over the past; but I am sorry--I am very sorry we can't
meet on some common ground."
"I ask you to abandon this democratic nonsense and come back and
make a man of yourself. You might go far--very far; but this democracy
has hold of you like a disease."
"What you ask is impossible. It is just as impossible now as it was
when we discussed it in Paris last year. To sit down in Vienna and learn
how to keep that leaning tower of an Empire from tumbling down like
a stack of bricks--it does not appeal to me. You have spent a laborious
life in defending a silly medieval tradition of government. You are
using all the apparatus of the modern world to perpetuate an ideal that
is as old and dead as the Rameses dynasty. Every time you use the
telegraph to send orders in an emperor's name you commit an

anachronism."
The count frowned and growled.
"Don't talk to me like that. It is not amusing."
"No; it is not funny. To see men like you fetching and carrying for dull
kings, who would drop through the gallows or go to planting turnips
without your brains--it does not appeal to my sense of humor or to my
imagination."
"You put it coarsely," remarked the old man grimly. "I shall perhaps
have a statue when I am gone."
"Quite likely; and mobs will rendezvous in its shadow to march upon
the royal palaces. If I were coming back to Europe I should go in for
something more interesting than furnishing brains for sickly kings."
"I dare say! Very likely you would persuade them to proclaim
democracy and brotherhood everywhere."
"On the other hand, I should become king myself."
"Don't be a fool, Mr. John Armitage. Much as you have grieved me, I
should hate to see you in a madhouse."
"My faculties, poor as they are, were never clearer. I repeat that if I
were going to furnish the brains for an empire I should ride in the state
carriage myself, and not be merely the driver on the box, who keeps the
middle of the road and looks out for sharp corners. Here is a plan ready
to my hand. Let me find that lost document, appear in Vienna and
announce myself Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl! I
knew both men intimately. You may remember that Frederick and I
were born in the same month. I, too, am Frederick Augustus! We
passed commonly in America as brothers. Many of the personal effects
of Karl and Augustus are in my keeping--by the Archduke's own wish.
You have spent your life studying human nature, and you know as well
as I do that half the world would believe my story if I said I was the

Emperor's nephew. In the uneasy and unstable condition of your absurd
empire I should be hailed as a diversion, and then--events, events!"
Count von Stroebel listened with narrowing eyes, and his lips moved in
an effort to find words with which to break in upon this impious
declaration. When Armitage ceased speaking the old man sank back
and glared at him.
"Karl did his work well. You are quite mad. You will do well to go
back to America before the police discover you."
Armitage rose and his manner changed abruptly.
"I do not mean to trouble or annoy you. Please pardon me! Let us be
friends, if we can be nothing more."
"It is too late. The chasm is too deep."
The old minister sighed deeply. His fingers touched the despatch box as
though by habit. It represented power, majesty and the iron game of
government. The young man watched him eagerly.
The heavy, tremulous hands of Count von Stroebel passed back and
forth over the box caressingly. Suddenly he bent forward and spoke
with a new and gentler tone and manner.
"I have given my life, my whole life, as you have said, to one
service--to uphold one idea. You have