Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  “Are you sure?” Ogle asked skeptically. “You don’t think him a barbarian or, at the best, Carthaginian?”

  “No, no! Roman! That feeling about his own city, it is nothing but Roman. The Carthaginian had something of it, but not the pride or the passion. You will find it in the old Florentine, but nowhere at its height except in the Augustan Roman and in such men as this one who was here. We are too likely to think that Rome was all Virgil and Horace and Pliny and Cicero. It is only the memory of dead things that is kept by literature and by art; the things themselves, when they are alive, are made to live by such men as those who built Timgad and this other one who understood it because he deals in living realities himself. He is a Roman, and an important one.”

  “Is he?” Ogle asked curiously. “Important?”

  Medjila nodded gravely. “It happened I knew a little about him. When I lived in Rock Island I heard of some undertakings of his that were spoken of in the papers sometimes. He reorganized a street-railway and then a number of factories that made paper. The other day before he went away I told him I remembered, and he was as pleased as a child. I told him, too, that he was a Roman; but he didn’t know what to make of that.”

  “I suppose not,” Ogle said; then he looked at his watch, and rose. “I am afraid I must be off. I have to be in Constantine before evening.”

  Medjila got up also, and shook his burnous loose from a cranny between two stones where it had caught. “We’ll walk back to the inn with you if we may,” he said, and he nodded to his silent pupil, who jumped up like a well-trained child and accompanied them in that same manner, looking amiable and saying nothing. “Yes, that compatriot of yours is a great Roman,” he insisted when they had reached the ancient street below. “What is more, the world treats him as one. How the Greeks and Orientals laughed behind their hands at ‘Roman civilization’ and at ‘Roman art’ and at ‘Roman manners’! But laughing behind your hand is bad manners; and the poor Greeks had to see most of their own art carried off to Rome. When a great Roman travelled he was received as this man is received. Everybody hoped for something,” Medjila chuckled. “When this new Roman goes over to Europe from Tunis, he will be presented to royalties and dictators and who not, if he wishes. There will be hopes of his making investments, benevolences, largesses. Even I” He broke off, chuckled again; then added:

  “But I think you know him, Mr. Ogle.”

  “I suppose so,” the young man assented gloomily. “I do, if you mean Tinker.”

  “I thought so. Do you know how long he will stay in Tunis?”

  “No.”

  “If he is to be there for some little time,” Doctor Medjila said reflectively, “I would shorten our stay here a day or two because I must go to Tunis anyhow, on my way across to Girgenti where there is some new digging just now. I would like to have another talk with him. At a first meeting one doesn’t like to broach such matters; but I thought possibly I could interest him in a little expedition I have in mind to some buried temples in the south — not at all expensive. Well, we shall see.” He sighed. “It is an old dream of mine.”

  “What made you think I knew him?” Ogle asked.

  “That?” Medjila’s twinkling quick eyes became mirthful; he shook his head, laughed gayly, and spoke in his outlandish language to the pupil. She replied, laughed too, and glanced brightly at Ogle. “I will tell you, sir,” the archaeologist said, after this cheerful interlude. “It is amusing. We were walking back to the inn just as we are now — Mr. Tinker and his daughter and the courier and my pupil and I. Mrs. Tinker didn’t go into the ruins; she was waiting in one of the automobiles yonder by the Museum, and I think she must have been impatient to go on with their journey. People who wait a long time become fretful; that is natural. Mr. Tinker and my pupil were walking a little way in advance of us, and unfortunately she speaks neither English nor any of the Romance languages; but Mr. Tinker kept talking to her in English just the same, laughing and pointing out houses among the ruins and telling her what fine young men lived in each one, asking her if such-and-such a one wouldn’t be coming to call on her that evening. He was teasing her, and she understood that, although she didn’t know a word he was saying. Well, she has a strong sense of the absurdities, so she must begin laughing too; and just as we came to the gateway of the Museum she laughed so heartily that she gave him a little slap upon the shoulder. Mrs. Tinker jumped out of her automobile like a young girl, and I think she must be very severe with her husband sometimes. She made him get in at once, and they drove away so quickly that they forgot their daughter, though the second automobile was still waiting, filled with their luggage; and the courier waited too. You see the young lady had something she wished to say to me. She said it before they came back for her, so this was how I knew you were acquainted with Mr. Tinker.”

  “What was it she said?”

  “She was very pleased with my telling him he was a Roman and why I thought so, and she wished to ask a favour of me. She said that possibly a young man not very tall and — well, that is to say, she described you, and she mentioned your name. She said that possibly you might come to Timgad within a few days, and, if you did, she asked me to be sure to talk to you and tell you what I had said about her father’s being a Roman.”

  “That was all?” They had come to a halt before the inn where Etienne and the automobile stood waiting, ready to take the road.

  “That was all,” Dr. Medjila informed him. “She was very serious. In fact,” he added, and his rosy face became rosier with mirth, “they were all three serious — oh, very serious! — after her father and mother came back for her. So I have told my pupil she must never slap another American gentleman’s shoulder again under any circumstances whatever!”

  XXX

  THEN AS THE landaulet began to move away, the departing traveller, speaking his farewell from the window, looked forth upon two faces suffused with a jocose enjoyment so cordial that his own ready colour heightened embarrassingly. Dr. E. D. G. N. Medjila called godspeeds in four languages, and his pupil, with laughter brilliant in her eyes, shouted something all consonants, which made them both the merrier. The automobile began to gather speed; but the two odd, friendly figures remained where they were, calling after it and waving their hands. They were still there and still waving, dwindled by the distance, but strongly coloured against the gray ruins behind them, when the young man in the car looked back for the last time and waved once more in return before the curving road carried him from their sight.

  “Incredible people!” he said; but withdrew the adjective since nothing was incredible upon this continent. Strangely, he liked them; unaccountably, he felt a little actual affection for them and knew he should often wonder about them and never forget them, although he had but this glimpse of them and was never to see them again. They were two merry yet wistful queer figures such as Wonderland Alice, wandering in Africa, might have encountered, he thought; and Miss Olivia Tinker was almost as odd as they were to have, wished him to hear from Medjila that her father was really a Roman!

  That idea belonged indeed to an archaeologist who had no place except in a book of airiest whimsy; but as Laurence thought again he was not so sure; for he remembered how he had seen from the minaret in Biskra the return of the caravan from Sidi Okba in the Desert. He remembered how the figure of Tinker in his scarlet robe, riding in barbaric pomp upon the great white camel at the head of the caravan, had at first seemed ridiculous; but as he came nearer with his wild escort in tumult about him and princely rulers upon his right and left, and himself careless of both tumult and princes, there had appeared to be something formidable — something of the great Carthaginian — about such a man. But Medjila would not have him Carthaginian: he had insisted upon “Roman,” and “Roman” meant gigantic.

  Then suddenly the young man in the landaulet winced; — he made in his throat one of those sounds of protest that dentists sometimes hear from their patients. For Mme. Momoro’s final sharpness again operated upon
an exposed nerve of his. Was it true? Had he seen that barbarian of hers grow larger and larger until he became Medjila’s “Roman,” while he himself grew smaller and smaller until he became only a little petty-souled bankrupt — a bankrupt in vanity as in everything else? Could it possibly be true that Tinker was large, was formidable, was gigantic, was indeed the new Roman?

  His thought of the man became concentrated. He thought of that outbreak of semi-riotous, middle-aged men on the “Duumvir” with Tinker as their ringleader; he thought of “Honey, how’s Baby?” and of “Mariar,” and of the poker table in the smoking-room and the sly cunning that had won all the chips; he thought of the infantile helplessness that sought to appease a wife’s anger with barber’s unguents and with deceptions and evasions a child might have employed; he thought of the man’s surreptitious and barbaric gallantries — but at least they had not been rebuffed! And he thought, too, of the weakling husband meekly submitting to be bundled into an automobile and indignantly hurried away because a frolicsome girl had slapped his shoulder. Was this inept creature, this childishly loose, childishly tricky creature, this over-lavish, careless, bragging, noisy, money-getting and money-worshipping creature a “new Roman?”

  Laurence drew a deep breath, his shoulders relaxed, and he leaned back against the cushions more comfortably: he saw Tinker in little again. Then, after a time, his frown returned and his shoulders renewed their tensity; for he thought of Mme. Momoro in Tunis, already in possession of “something” and in all probability waiting in the hope of “something more.” Even poor E. D. G. N. Medjila hoped to “get something” — and why was he himself on the road to Tunis? He could have arranged with Cayzac by wire for Etienne to drive him back to Algiers without additional cost: the distance was actually shorter. Wasn’t he on the road to Tunis because his affairs were desperate and because there he hoped to find the only man he knew whose heart was careless enough of money and big enough with humanity to rescue him without mortifying him? For, in spite of his denial on the stairway in Biskra, Laurence knew all the time that he, too, expected to “get something” out of Tinker. Was it then from a small man, a money worshipper, that he sought a rescue?

  Olivia wished him to think of her father as the “new Roman”; she was pleased with that and wanted him to hear it. One thing was clear: she had adored her father even when she hated him; she had always adored him, and now she wanted this critic of him to admire him. Medjila’s talk was really a message from her, and, seeing it in that light, Laurence was touched; there was something both whimsical and fond in what she had done. The fondness was for her father — and perhaps there was a little for the critic too; though he was well enough cured of fatuousness not to be sure. It wasn’t fatuous, however, to be sure that she cared a little about what he thought, and since she wished him to think of her father as the “new Roman” — But here Laurence again remembered “Mariar.” He would have done anything within his power that Olivia wished him to do; but when he decided to be obedient and to think of the man who had sung “Mariar” as a Roman, he found he couldn’t.

  He couldn’t make up his mind about Tinker at all: Tinker was entirely too much for him.

  Tinker was too much for many others, and if Ogle had known it, he had good company in thus being overwhelmed. For years, excellent people in their mutual native land had found Tinker too much for them; so had people not so excellent; and in Africa some of both kinds of people were in a like condition. Among the excellent ones was the courier, Jean Edouard Le Seyeux, who easily recognized his present undertaking as the most remarkable of his career, and one moment held the opinion that his employer was mentally defective and the next that he was a great man. Sometimes he suspected him of humour.

  But a part of the time Le Seyeux was merely stupefied by his strange experience, and his thoughts became too confused for him to give them definition even to himself. Coincidentally, such a time was upon him that afternoon. While the disturbed young American on the road to Constantine found Tinker too much for him, Le Seyeux, at the tomb of St. Augustine upon a Mediterranean hillside, found Tinker too much for anybody. This was a hillside up over the town of Bone, and several hundred kilometers beyond the stretch of road coursed by the other person just now most poignantly of Le Seyeux’s mind in respect to Tinker. Olivia and her mother, who was tearful (not because of St. Augustine), sat waiting in an automobile before the church at the top of the hill, while the two men descended to the stone-covered grave of the great Bishop.

  “Who’d you say he was?” Tinker asked, for the third time.

  “It is Saint Augustine.”

  “What’d he do, John?”

  “He was the great ecclesiastical authority of the Fourth Century. He was Bishop. He was the great religious power of his time.”

  “Preacher, I expect,” Tinker said thoughtfully. “What denomination was he?”

  Le Seyeux’s eyes showed a little wildness; but he answered simply, “He was of the Church.”

  “Which one?” Then, seeing that the courier seemed to have a difficulty in comprehending him, his employer kindly explained the question. “You know in our country, John, we got Methodists and Presbyterians and Unitarians and Episcopalians and Catholics and Christian Scientists and Baptists and Quakers and Seventh-Day Adventists, and Campbellites and Dunkards and Shakers and Lutherans and I don’t know what all, just the way you got all these Mohammedans and Catholics and probably a good many others over here. Well, you say this man here — Wha’d you say his name was?”

  “Saint Augustine.”

  “‘Saint,’” Tinker repeated reflectively. “Catholic, I expect. He isn’t in the Bible, is he?”

  “Bible? No! Fourth Century! He was Bishop. He wrote the great ‘Confessions.’ He has establish’ the doctrine of original sin. He has establish’ that if a child is not baptize’ it is to go to hell.”

  “Oh, that’s it, is it?” Tinker appeared to be greatly enlightened. “I see. Well, sir, that’s just like my own father. He was an old-time Presbyterian.”

  “No, no! Saint Augustine is not Presbyterian.

  He is old Christian — of the old Church. He—”

  “Never mind,” Tinker said. “I meant my father was a Presbyterian, not this old fellow here; but it looks like they believed a good deal the same way.” He looked reflectively at the round stone platform, nicked the end of a cigar with a small gold instrument upon his thin watch chain, shook his head, and remarked pleasantly, “Out o’ date.”

  “Sir? Saint Augustine is buried fifteen hundred years ago.”

  “That’s what I meant,” Tinker said. “Plum out o’ date. I mean the whole business.”

  “Sir?”

  “It’s like this,” Tinker explained as he lighted his cigar: “What was the name of that other old fellow we saw his tomb over at the mud town that had the big smells?”

  “Sidi Okba, the great Mohammedan conqueror.”

  “Yes. You said he’d been moulderin’ there thirteen hundred years, and this one you say fifteen hundred. That old Sidi Okba was a Mohammedan and wanted to kill everybody didn’t think the way he did, and here’s this old fellow wanted to send everybody to hell didn’t think the way he did. Listen, John. It’s all out o’ date.”

  “Sir?”

  “Listen,” Tinker said indulgently. “What’s it all about? I mean everything — all these mountains and the ocean and the Desert, and all these Arabs and French people, and us? I’m talkin’ about the whole possetucky — the whole blame kit-an’-boodle — everything and everybody. What’s the big idea? What’s the object? Well, one man’s guess is as good as the next man’s. This old fellow didn’t know any more about it than that other one did down there in the mud town with the smell and the sore-eyed children. Fact is, both of ’em guessed wrong.”

  “Sir?”

  “Listen,” Tinker said; and he became profoundly serious. “There’s only just about one single thing been really cleared up in a religious line, you might say, in all the
time these two old fellows been lyin’ in this soil, and what is it? Listen, John — it’s simply this: the human race has got to make progress. Well, you might ask: ‘What for? Where’s it got to progress to? It don’t seem much use to be goin’ unless you’re goin’ somewhere, so where are you goin’?’ Well, that’s a sensible question, and both these old dead fellows would probably ‘a’ given you the same answer. ‘Goin’ to try to keep out o’ hell and get to heaven,’ they’d ‘a’ said. So listen — that’s out o’ date. The only hell we worry about nowadays is slippin’ back in our progress; we got to show a bigger and better business this year than we did last year.”

  “Sir?”

  “It’s like this, John,” Tinker said benevolently. “The Almighty doesn’t care a nickel about anything except our makin’ that progress. He’ll wipe us out in a minute if we don’t make it. He’ll wipe us out and go on about His business and never give us another thought, because what He’s looking for is a good live crowd that’s got the brains and the push and the go-get-it to keep goin’ ahead. That’s every last thing He cares about! Look how He’s wiped ’em out, one race after the other, the way we’ve seen since we left Algiers! The kind He patronizes are the boys that got the plans all ready for a bigger and better city the morning after the earthquake, the kind that like an earthquake because it gives ’em the opportunity they been waitin’ for! The other kind, He just passes an eraser over ’em; and we’ve seen where some awful work’s been done with that eraser in Africa. Well, to-day we’re here and we’ve got our chance; and the one single and only thing in the universe that’s plain, John Edwards, it’s this.” Here he became solemnly emphatic, and put his heavy hand upon the courier’s shoulder. “The somewhere we’re goin’ to, and got to go to if we don’t want to get wiped out, it’s somewhere everlastingly and eternally ahead! It’s like to-morrow; when we get there we aren’t there; we got to keep goin’, and we got to everlastingly and eternally keep goin’ — and goin’ fast! If we don’t, the Almighty hasn’t got a bit o’ use for us; He turns us right into dust and scattered old bones, and nothin’s left of our whole country and our finest cities except some street paving and a few cellars with weeds in ’em. You get me, John?” The courier wiped his brow. “Yes, sir. I think the ladies may think we keep them waiting too long.”