Captain Jinks, Hero by Ernest Howard Crosby (story read aloud txt) 📕

“Well, Jonas, how are things going?” asked the editor.

“A 1. Couldn’t be better. I’ve just been down at Skinner’s⁠—”

“Skinner & Company, one of the biggest financial houses in the street,” the editor explained to Sam.

“And they’ve agreed to go the whole job. First of all, it’ll be chiefly trade. I showed them the contracts for boots and hats for the army, and they were tickled to death. They’ll let us have as much as we want on them. I didn’t have the embalmed-beef contract with me⁠—it smells too bad to carry round in my pocket, hee-hee!⁠—but I explained it to them, and it’s even better. They’re quite satisfied.”

“And how is the beer business going?”

“Oh! that’s a success already. Look at this item,” and he pulled a newspaper from his pocket and showed it to the editor.

“One hundred more saloons in Havilla than there were at this time last year! Can that be possible?” ejaculated the latter.

“Yes, and I’m behind fifty-eight of them. That agent I sent out ahead is a jewel.”

“Have you been up at the Bible Society?”

“Yes, and I’ve got special terms on a hundred thousand Testaments in Castalian and the native languages. That will awaken interest, you see, and then we’ll follow it up with five hundred thousand in English, and it will do no end of good in pushing the language. It will be made the official language soon, anyway. What a blessing it will be to those poor creatures who speak languages that nobody can understand!”

“How is the rifle deal coming out?”

“Only so-so. The Government will take about three-quarters of the lot. The rest we’ll have to unload on the Cubapinos.”

“What!” exclaimed Sam, “aren’t they fighting against us now?”

“Oh! we don’t sell them direct of course,” added Jonas, “but we can’t alter the laws of trade, can we? And they require that things get into the hands of the people who’ll pay the most for them, hey?”

“Naturally,” said the editor. “Captain Jinks has not studied political economy. It’s all a matter of supply and demand.”

“I’m ashamed to say I haven’t,” said Sam. “It must be very interesting, and I’m much obliged to you for telling me about it.”

“I suppose it’s too early to do anything definite about concessions for trolleys and gas and electric-lighting plants,” said the editor.

“Not a bit of it. That’s what I went to see Skinner about today. I’m sounding some of the chief natives already, and our people there are all right. Skinner’s lawyers are at work at the charters, and I’ll take them out with me. We can put them through as soon as we annex the islands.”

“But we promised not to annex them!” cried Sam.

The editor and Jonas looked knowingly at each other.

“The captain is not a diplomatist, you see,” said the former. “As for that matter, a soldier oughtn’t to be. You understand, Captain, that all promises are made subject to the proviso that we are able to carry them out.”

“Certainly.”

“Now it’s perfectly clear that we can never fulfil this promise. It is our destiny to stay there. It would be flying in the face of Providence and doing the greatest injury to the natives to abandon them. They would fly at each other’s throats the moment we left them alone.”

“They haven’t flown at each other’s throats where we have left them alone,” mused Sam aloud.

“I didn’t say they had, but that they would,” explained the editor.

“Oh! I see,” said Sam, and he relapsed into silence.

“Talking of electric lights,” continued Jonas, “I’ve got a book here full of all sorts of electric things that we’ll have to introduce there. There’s the electrocution chair; look at that design. They garrote people in the most barbarous manner out there now. We’ll civilize them, if we get a chance!”

“Perhaps they won’t have the money to buy all your things,” remarked Cleary, who had been a silent and interested spectator of the interview.

“Yes,” said Jonas, “we may have trouble with the poorest tribes. We must make them want things, that’s all. The best way to begin is to tax them. I’ve got a plan ready for a hut-tax of five dollars a year. That’s little enough, I should think, but some of them never see money and they’ll have to work to get it. That will make them work the coal- and iron-mines. Skinner has his eye on these, too. When the natives once begin to earn money, they’ll soon want more and then they’ll spend it on us.”

“But the Government there will be too poor to take up great public expenditures for a long time yet,” said Cleary.

“Don’t be too sure of that. They haven’t even got a national debt. That’s one of the first things we’ll provide for. They’re a most primitive people. Just think of their existing up to the present time without a national debt! They’re mere savages.”

“Well,” said Cleary, rising, “I think we’ve taken enough of your valuable time and we must be off.”

“Wait a moment,” said the editor. “Have you explained all that I told you to the captain?”

“Not yet,” answered Cleary, “but I’ll do it now on the way to his hotel. He is going to leave town today, and he may be ordered to sail any day now. I will try to go on the same ship with him.”

“Perhaps I can manage it, too,” said Jonas, as he shook hands with the two friends, “if I can finish up all these arrangements. I must be on the ground there as soon as I can.”

As Sam and Cleary left the room the editor and Jonas settled down to a confidential conversation, and there were smiles upon their lips as they began talking.

While Sam accepted the explanations of the editor and Jonas as expressions of wisdom from men who had had a far wider experience than his, he had some faint misgivings as to some of the business enterprises in which his new