It was not often that Neckart looked back at that early time. He was neither morbid nor addicted to self-torture. He had carefully walled up this miserable background of youth from his busy, cheerful, wide-awake life. Why should he go back to it? Something, however, in the air to-day, in the moan of the sea through the sunlight, brought it all before him, more real than the stretch of water and sand.
The captain smoked out his cigar and began to talk. Gaps of silence were so much wasted time in the world; and besides, he owed a duty to Bruce. Here was a man going headlong to the devil by the road of ambition, a sweet, high nature becoming soured and tainted, all for the lack of honest direction from somebody of age and experience.
When Neckart roused himself enough to understand, the captain was in the full swing of his dictatorial oration. "I don't want to intrude with my opinion. But no man should live for himself," he said. "Now, if my scissors had turned out as I expected, I should have been worth a million to-day. I'd have spent a good share of it--let me see--on churches, I think. Small churches--at corners in place of grogshops. Pure Gothic, say--"
"Stained glass and gargoyles instead of whiskey? You must bid higher for souls in back alleys than that, captain."
"Well, schools, then--colleges, asylums, soup-houses. I tell you, Bruce, if I had your opportunities, if I could work political machinery, I'd lift this festering mass below us up--at least to civilization and Christianity."
"I thought you meant me," laughing. "Go on."
"Of course I can't give you detailed advice. Take me on pistons and screws, and I'm at home; but I know only the broad outlines of political economy. My view," ponderously, "is purely philosophic. Our politics need reform, sir. An honest man who would come to the front just now would save the country. The masses would follow him to honesty. The Americans are a just people by instinct. I tell you, sir, if I had your chances--Talk to Pliny Van Ness, Bruce. There's a keen man of the world, who is as pure and lofty in his notions as an enthusiastic woman. He has a scheme just now for bettering the condition of the children of the dangerous classes of Pennsylvania. I wish you knew Van Ness."