Page:Fombombo.pdf/49



“Why,… they invest that and make still more money.”

The editor smiled.

“A very American answer! That is the difference, señor, between the middle-class mind and the aristocratic mind. The bourgeois cannot conceive of anything beyond a mere extension of wealth. But wealth is only an instrument. It must be used to some end. Mere brute riches cannot avail a man or a people.”

The car rattled ahead as Strawbridge considered the editor's implications that wealth was not the end of existence. It was a mere step, and something lay beyond. Well, what was it, outside of a good time 1 He thought of some of the famous fortunes in America. Some of their owners made art collections, some gave to charity, some bought divorces. But even to the drummer's casual thinking, there became apparent the rather trivial uses of these fortunes, compared with the fundamental exertion it required to obtain them. Even to Strawbridge it became clear that the use was a step down from the earning.

“What's Fombombo going to do with his?” he asked out of his reverie.

“His what?”

“Fortune—when he makes it?”

“Pues, he will found a government where men can forget material care and devote their lives to the arts, the sciences, and pure philosophy. Great cities will gem these llanos, in which poverty is banished; and a brotherhood of intellectuals will be formed—a mental aristocracy, based not on force but on kindliness and good-will.”

“I see-e-e,” dragged out the drummer. “That's when everybody gets enough wealth—”

“When all devote themselves to altruistic ends,” finished the editor.

The drummer was trying to imagine such a system, when