by Guy Thorne
ENVOI
I take up my pen this evening, exactly ten years after I wrote the lastparagraph of the above narrative, to read of James Antony Midwinter,dead like a poisoned rat in his chair, with a sort of amazement in mymind.
The whole story has been locked in a safe for ten long years, and thatblessed and happy time has made the wild adventures, the terriblemoments in the City in the Clouds, indeed seem things far off and longago.
This afternoon I paid what will probably be my last visit to the strangekingdom up there.
I stood with my little son, Viscount Kirby, and my small daughter, LadyJuanita, and my wife, the Countess of Stax, at a very solemn ceremony.
In the presence of a Government official, a representative of HisMajesty--Colonel Patrick Moore, of the Irish Guards, A.D.C.--theCardinal Archbishop, and a few private friends, I watched the elmwoodshell, containing Gideon Mendoza Morse, placed in its marble tomb.
It was his wish, to be buried there in his fantastic City, and no onesaid him nay. Well, the body lies in its place, two hundred weepingChinamen are returning to the Flowery Land, wealthy beyond their utmosthopes, and in a few months the City in the Clouds will dissolve anddisappear.
The rich treasures are coming to Stax, my castle in Norfolk--such asare not bequeathed, by Morse's munificence, to the museums of Englandand the galleries at Brazil.
Soon the immense plateau will be England's aerial terminus for the mailships from all parts of the world.
While Gideon Morse lived it was impossible to publish the truth. It isto appear now, at last, and I simply want to tie a few loose ends, andto bring down the curtain, leaving nothing unexplained.
First of all let me say that the general public knew nothing at all ofthe horrors in which I was so intimately concerned.
Juanita and I were married very quietly in Westminster Cathedral soonafter Midwinter went to his account. The enormous fortune that shebrought me, supplementing my own very considerable means, operated inthe natural way. Other journals were added to the _Evening Special_, andwe started a great campaign for the sweetening of ordinary life, and notunsuccessfully, as every one knows.
They made me a baron, and four years afterwards, Earl of Stax. As for myfather-in-law, he refused to budge from the City in the Clouds.
I don't mean that he didn't make appearances in society, but he loved toget back to his fantastic haven, from whence, like a magician, heshowered benefits upon London.
Arthur Winstanley, as everybody knows, is Under-Secretary for India andthe most rising politician of our day.
It is said that William Rolston, editor of the _Evening Special_, isour most brilliant journalist, though the older school condemn him foran excess of imagination. I saw the other day, in the old-fashioned_Thunderer_, a slashing attack upon a series of articles which hadrecently appeared upon China, and which the critic of the _Thunderer_conclusively proved to be written from an abysmal depth of ignorance.
I don't often go to the office now, though I am still proprietor of thepaper, but when I do, and sit in the editorial room, I miss JuliaDewsbury, best of all private secretaries since the beginning of theworld.
Bill, however, assures me that she is all right, entirely taken up withthe children, and not in the least inclined to bully him in spite of hereight years advantage in age.
"To that woman," says Bill reverentially, "I owe everything."
Let me wind up properly.
Crouching behind a high wall on Richmond Hill is a modest hostelry stillknown as the "Golden Swan." It is still my property, and pays me asatisfactory dividend. It is run by a co-partnership, which I should sayis unique.
The Honest Fool and my ex-valet, Mr. Preston, perform this feattogether, but, now that Morse is dead and the Chinese have all departed,I fear they will lose a good deal of custom. This I gathered from Mr.Mogridge, that pillar of the saloon bar, who happened to meet me bychance in Fleet Street not long ago.
"'Allo! Why, it's Mr. Thomas, late landlord of the 'Golden Swan'!" saidMr. Mogridge. "'Aven't seen you for years. What are you doing now?"
"Oh, I'm doing very well, thank you, Mr. Mogridge. And how is the old'Swan'?"
"Same as ever and no dropping off in the quality of the drinks. Still, Ifear it's going down. I'm afraid it will never be quite the same as itwas in the days of Ting-A-ling-A-ling," and here Mr. Mogridge placed hishands upon his hips and roared with laughter at that ancient joke.
THE END
