Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/93

Rh a utilitarian, swore by Cobden and Guizot, affected, during business hours, the manners of a Yankee, but, having left the atmosphere of commerce, he aped the etiquette and the bearing of a perfect "English gentleman."

His origin and that of his fortune was far from being commensurate with his actual prestige. Credible tales, strange and disquieting as legends, were told of him. With an utter detachment and perfect serenity he had just called Gina's attention to the Fulton dockyard. And nevertheless, the mere sight of that locality should have seared his heart, or at least shamed him into modesty, so bound up was it with some deplorable pages of his career.

Many years before, his father had been the director of that same dockyard when unheard of abuses and monstrous acts which had been committed there were brought to light.

Succumbing to a perverted imagination, rare enough among the common people, the workmen in the dockyard had amused themselves by martyrising their young apprentices, threatening them with even more atrocious tortures or with death itself, should they ever attempt to divulge these abominable practices. The victims, terrorized as the "fags" in English colleges used to be, could only succeed in escaping these tortures by paying over to their tormentors the greater part of their wages. Finally, however, the whole proceedings came to light.

The scandal was tremendous.

The band of torturers were lined up in court, and, as long as the trial lasted, a special detail of policemen and soldiers had difficulty in protecting them from the reprisals of the crowd, especially from the