"And that is why I went to the Klondike!"
There are times when a man's voice and attitude show that he is speaking in italics. This was one of the times. Having said all there was to be said, he turned to the tea with a gesture of such determination that Parkhurst leaned over, half expecting to see a dozen starving grizzly-bears jump out of the cup. Then the thought came to the watchful reporter that the grim-shut lips merely expressed that some memory was bitter. He asked, very sympathetically, "Did they send you away?"
"They did not send me away. They did nothing! They were! That's all. It was enough."
"Yes, of course!" The reporter agreed with Jerningham absolutely. "But I don't quite see the exact reason, as you might say."
"They were!" explained Jerningham as one might talk to a child. "They were Souletts, rich by inheritance, in the best society. They had everything I did not have. So I went to the Klondike."
"No!" said the reporter, grateful for the chance to use the plain negative.
"They were in the Four Hundred. They were gentlemen. They were good-looking, pleasant-mannered, kindly-hearted fellow-Christians. But if they had not been the sons of David Soulett, and if David had not been the son of Walter, and Walter the son of the first David, they wouldn't have been in the Four Hundred, or in the Four Thousand even. Policemen at the corners used to touch their hats to them as they drove by and seemed really glad to get a pleasant smile in return. You felt the cops would never have dreamt of taking a Soulett to the station-house--always to the Soulett mansion. New-Yorkers used to point to it--the Soulett mansion--with an air of pride, as though they owned it! Clerks in shops would send for the proprietor if one of the Souletts walked in, and later they would brag how they said to David Soulett, they said; and he said, said he--and so on. And why? Why, I ask you?"
"Why?" repeated the reporter, hypnotically.
"Because an ignorant old cuss couldn't read or write and had to go to digging graves in Trinity churchyard for a living. It was old David's proud boast that he put away one thousand six hundred and thirty-two people, including the very best there were in literature, art, science, theology, commerce, and finance, besides nineteen murderers, thirty-eight pet slaves, and one dog of his own. A very snob among grave-diggers, laying the foundation for the nonsnobbishness of his great-grandchildren! Digging graves, you see, turned his mind to soil. The only thing that didn't burn up or evaporate or shrink was soil. Genius for real estate they call his madness to-day. But it was an obsession. He bought a farm in what is now the swell shopping district; and another where the Hotel Regina is; and another beginning where the Vandeventer houses are. The old lunatic's mad purchases are now worth one hundred and fifty million dollars; and he himself is an ancestor, with fake portraits showing an intellectual-looking country squire. Grave-digger--that's what! But the money really began with him and the near-gentleman with Walter, who knew the best families because his father buried them one after another. By the time the real-estate market got to going in earnest David was born--of course a gentleman! What did it? Unearned money!"