Propeller Island Read online

  The Yankee’s physiognomy was in the highest degree expressive—the face of a man who suspected nobody, and could only see good in others. This was a man who could get out of difficulties, certainly, and he was also energetic, as was shown by the tonacity of his muscles, the apparent contraction of his superciliary and his masseter. He laughed noisily, but his laugh was nasal rather than oral, a sort of giggle, the hennitus of the physiologists.

  Such was Calistus Munbar. He raised his big hat at the entrance of the Quartette Party. He shook hands with the four artistes. He led them to a table where the tea-urn was steaming and the traditional toast was smoking. He spoke all the time, giving them no opportunity to ask a single question—perhaps with the object of avoiding having to reply—boasting of the splendours of his town, the extraordinary creation of this city, keeping up the monologue without interruption, and when the breakfast was over, ending his monologue with these words, —

  “Come, gentlemen, and follow me. But one piece of advice.”

  “What?” asked Frascolin.

  “It is expressly forbidden to spit in the streets. “

  “We are not accustomed to,” protested Yvernès.

  “Good! That will save you a fine.”

  “Not spit—in America!” murmured Pinchinat, in a tone in which surprise was mingled with incredulity.

  It would have been difficult to have obtained a guide and cicerone more complete than Calistus Munbar. This town he knew thoroughly. There was not a hotel of which he did not know the owner’s name, not a house that he did not know who lived there, not a man in the street by whom he was not saluted with sympathetic familiarity.

  The city was built on a regular plan. The avenues and roads, provided with verandahs above the footways, crossed each other at right angles, forming a sort of chessboard. There was no want of variety about the houses; in their style and interior arrangements they were according to no other rule than the fancy of their architects. Except along a few commercial streets, these houses had a look of the palace about them, with their courtyards flanked by elegant wings, the architectural arrangement of their front, the luxury of the furniture of their rooms, the gardens, not to say parks, in their rear. It was remarkable that the trees, o£ recent planting, no doubt, were none of them fully grown. So it was with the squares at the intersection of the chief arteries of the city, carpeted with lawns of a freshness quite English, in which the clumps of trees of both temperate and torrid species had not drawn from the soil its full vegetative power. This peculiarity presented a striking contrast with the portion of Western America, where forest giants abound in the vicinity of the great Californian cities.

  The quartette walked in front of him, observing this part of the town, each according to his manner—Yvernès attracted by what did not attract Frascolin; Zorn interested in what did not interest Pinchinat—all of them curious as to the mystery which enveloped this unknown city. From this diversity of views arose a fairly complete assemblage of remarks. But Calistus Munbar was there, and he had an answer for everything. An answer? He did not wait to be asked; he talked and talked, and never left off talking. His windmill of words turned and turned at the slightest wind.

  Twenty minutes after leaving the Excelsior Hotel, Calistus Munbar said, —

  “Here we are in Third Avenue, and there are thirty in the town. This is the most business one, it is our Broadway, our Regent Street, our Boulevard des Italiens. In this stores and bazaars you find the superfluous and the necessary, all that can be asked for by the requirements of modern comfort.”

  “I see the shops,” observed Pinchinat, “but I don’t see the customers.”

  “Perhaps it is too early in the morning?” added Yvernès.

  “It is due,” said Calistus Munbar, “to most of the orders being given telephonically, or rather telautographically.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Frascolin.

  “It means that we commonly use the telautograph, an instrument which sends the written as the telephone sends the spoken word, without forgetting the kinetograph, which registers the movements; being for the eye what the phonograph is for the ear, and the telephote, which reproduces the images. The telautograph gives a better guarantee than the mere message, which the first to come is free to make bad use of. We sign our orders and deeds by electricity.”

  “Even the marriage registers?” asked Pinchinat, ironically.

  “Doubtless, Mr. Alto. Why should you not marry by the telegraphic wire?”

  “And divorce?”

  “And divorce; that is the very thing that keeps the wires busiest.”

  And he laughed a long laugh that made all the jewellery on his waistcoat jingle.

  “You are merry, Mr. Munbar,” said Pinchinat, joining in the American’s hilarity.

  “Yes, as a flock of finches on a sunshiny day.”

  At this point a transverse artery was reached. This was Nineteenth Avenue, from which all trade was banished. Tram lines ran down it as down the others, swift cars passed along without raising a grain of dust, for the roadway, laid with an imputrescible pavement of Australian karry or jarrah, was as clean as if it had been polished. Frascolin, always observant of physical phenomena, noticed that the footway sounded under his feet like a plate of metal.

  “These are splendid workers in iron,” he said, “they make their footways of sheet iron.”

  And he stepped up to Calistus Munbar to hear what he had to say.

  “Gentlemen,” said Munbar, “look at that mansion.”

  And he pointed to a vast construction of monumental aspect, the courtyard of which had along its front a railing of aluminium.

  “This mansion—I might say this palace—is inhabited by the family of one of the principal notables of the town, that is Jem Tankerdon, the owner of inexhaustible mines of petroleum in Illinois, the richest, perhaps, and consequently the most honourable and most honoured of our citizens.”

  “Millions?” asked Zorn.

  “Phew!” said Calistus Munbar. “The million is for us but the current dollar, and here we count them by hundreds! Only the richest men are in this city. That explains why the shopkeepers make fortunes in a few years. I mean retail shopkeepers, for wholesale traders there are none in this unique microcosm of the world.”

  “And manufacturers?” asked Pinchinat.

  “There are no manufacturers.”

  “And shipowners?” asked Frascolin.

  “There are none.”

  “People living on their investments?” asked Zorn.

  “Only those and merchants on the way to be like them.”

  “What about the workmen?” observed Yvernès.

  “When we want workmen we get them from somewhere else, and when their work is over we return them—with a good sum in wages.”

  “Look here, Mr. Munbar,” said Frascolin, “you have a few poor in the town, just to keep the race from becoming extinct?”

  “Poor! Mr. Second Violin! We have not got a single poor man in the town.”

  “Then mendicity is forbidden?”

  “There is no necessity to forbid it, as the town is not accessible to beggars. That is all very well for the cities of the Union, with their depots, their asylums, their workhouses, and the houses of correction.”

  “Do you mean to say you have no prisons?”

  “No more than we have prisoners.”

  “But criminals?”

  “They remain in the old and new Continent, where they can exercise their vocation under more advantageous conditions.”

  “Really, Mr. Munbar,” said Sebastien Zorn; “one would think to listen to you that we were no longer in America.”

  “You were yesterday,” replied this astonishing cicerone.

  “Yesterday!” exclaimed Frascolin? wondering what could be the meaning of this strange expression.

  “Doubtless. To-day you are in an independent city, over which the Union has no claim, which belongs only to itself.”

  “And its
name?” asked Sebastien Zorn, whose natural irritability began to peep out.

  “Its name?” replied Calistus Munbar. “Allow me to be silent a little longer.”

  “And when shall we know?”

  “When you have finished the visit by which it is so much honoured.”

  This reserve was at least peculiar. But it was of no consequence. Before noon the Quartette would have finished their curious walk, and to learn the city’s name as they were leaving it would be quite enough. The only puzzle about it was this: How could so considerable a city occupy one of the points on the Californian coast without belonging to the United States, and how was it that the driver of the carriage had never mentioned it? The main thing after all was that in twenty-four hours the Quartette would be at San Diego, where they would learn the word of this enigma if Calistus Munbar decided not to reveal it to them.

  This strange personage had again given himself over to the indulgence of his descriptive faculty, not without letting it be seen that he did not wish to explain himself more categorically.

  “Gentlemen,” said he, “we are at the beginning of Thirty-Seventh Avenue. Behold the admirable perspective. In this quarter there are no shops, no bazaars, none of that movement in the streets which denotes a business existence. Nothing but hotels and private houses, but the fortunes are inferior to those of Nineteenth Avenue. Incomes of from ten to twelve millions.”

  “Mere beggars!” observed Pinchinat, with a significant grimace.

  “Eh, Mr. Alto!” replied Calistus Munbar, “it is always possible to be a beggar in comparison with someone else! A millionaire is rich in comparison with a man who possesses only a hundred thousand, but not in comparison with him who has a hundred millions.”

  Many times already our artistes had noticed that of all the words used by their cicerone it was “million” which recurred most frequently. And a fascinating word it was, pronounced as he pronounced it with metallic sonorousness.

  The quartette continued their walk through the extraordinary town, the name of which was unknown to them. The people in the streets were all comfortably dressed; nowhere could the rags of a beggar be seen. Everywhere were trams, drays, trucks, moved by electricity. A few of the larger streets were provided with moving pavements, worked by an endless chain, and on which people walked as if on a travelling train sharing in its own motion. Electric carriages rolled along the roads with the smoothness of a ball on a billiard-table. Equipages in the true sense of the word, that is to say, vehicles drawn by horses, were only met with in the wealthy quarters.

  “Ah! there is a church,” said Frascolin, and he pointed to an edifice of heavy design, without architectural style, rising from the green lawns of a square.

  “That is the Protestant temple,” said Calistus Munbar, stopping in front of the building.

  “Are there any Catholic churches in your town?” asked Yvernès.

  “Yes, sir, and I would like you to observe that although there are about a thousand different religions on our globe, we here confine ourselves to Catholicism and Protestantism. It is not here as in the United States disunited by religion, if not by politics, in which there are as many sects as families—Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Wesleyans, &c. Here there are only Protestants faithful to the Calvinistic doctrine or Roman Catholics.”

  “And what language do they speak?”

  “English and French are both used.”

  “We congratulate you,” said Pinchinat.

  “The town,” continued Calistus Munbar, “is divided into two sections, which are almost equal. Here we are in the section—”

  “West, I think?” said Frascolin, looking up at the sun. “West, if you like.”

  “What, if I like?replied the Second Violin, much surprised at the reply. “Do the cardinal points of this city vary as somebody pleases?”

  “Yes and no,” said Calistus Munbar, “I will explain that later on. Let us return to this section, west if you please, which is only inhabited by Protestants; it is here that the practical people live, while the Catholics, who are more intellectual and refined, occupy the east section. That tells you that this temple is the Protestant temple.”

  “It looks like it,” observed Yvernès. “With its heavy architecture, prayer would not be an elevating towards the sky, but a crushing towards the ground.”

  “Well expressed!” said Pinchinat. “Mr. Munbar, in a town so up-to-date in its inventions I suppose you listen to the sermon or the mass by telephone?”

  “Quite so.”

  “And confession?”

  “Just as you can get married by telautograph; you must admit that it is practicable enough—”

  “Not to be believed,” replied Pinchinat, “not to be believed.”

  CHAPTER IV.

  At eleven o’clock, after so long a walk, it was permissible to be hungry. And our artistes took advantage of this permission; and they agreed that at any price they must have some luncheon. This was also the opinion of Calistus Munbar.

  Should they return to the Excelsior Hotel? Yes, for there did not seem to be many restaurants in this town, where the people probably preferred to have their meals at home, and tourists were apparently rather rare.

  In a few minutes a tramcar took the hungry men to their hotel, where they took their places before a well-served table. It afforded a striking contrast with the ordinary American style, in which the multiplicity of the dishes is not at all in proportion to the quantity they contain. Excellent was the beef and mutton; tender and tasty was the poultry; of tempting freshness was the fish. And instead of the iced water of the restaurants of the Union, there were several kinds of beer and wines which the sun of France had distilled ten years before on the hill sides of Medoc and Burgundy.

  Pinchinat and Frascolin did honour to this repast, as did also Zorn and Yvernès. Calistus Munbar had invited them, and it would have been bad taste not to have accepted his hospitality.

  Besides, this Yankee, whose conversational powers were inexhaustible, displayed quite a charming humour. He told them all about the town except the one thing his guests wished to know, namely, what was this independent city, the name of which he hesitated to reveal?”A little patience,” he would say; “wait till the exploration is finished.” Was his idea to make the quartette tipsy, with the object of letting them miss the train to San Diego? No, but they drank well after having eaten well, and the dessert was being finished with tea, coffee and liqueurs, when an explosion shook the glasses in the hotel.

  “What is that?” asked Yvernès, with a start.

  “Do not be uneasy, gentlemen,” replied Calistus Munbar, “that is the gun at the observatory.”

  “If it only means noon,” said Frascolin, looking at his watch, “I beg to state that it is late.”

  “No, Mr. Alto, no! The sun is no later here than elsewhere.”

  A singular smile played on the American’s lips, his eyes sparkled behind his spectacles, and he rubbed his hands. He seemed to be congratulating himself on having perpetrated some excellent joke.

  Frascolin, less excited than the others by the good cheer, looked at him suspiciously without knowing what to make of it.

  “Come, my friends,” added the American, in his most amiable manner, “allow me to remind you that there is the second part of the town for us to visit, and I shall die of despair if a single detail escapes you. We have no time to lose.”

  “At what time does the train start for San Diego?” asked Zorn, always anxious not to fail in his engagements by arriving late.

  “Yes, at what time?” repeated Frascolin.

  “Oh, in the evening,” replied Calistus Munbar, with a wink of his left eye. “Come, my guests, come. You will not repent of having had me as a guide.”

  How could they disobey such an obliging personage? The four artistes left the Excelsior Hotel and strolled along the road. It really seemed as though they had drunk rather freely of the wine, for a kind of thrill seemed to run through their
legs, although they had not taken their places on one of the moving footways.

  “Eh! eh! Support us, Chatillon!” exclaimed “his highness.”

  “I think we have had a little to drink,” said Yvernès, wiping his forehead.

  “All right,” observed the American, “once is not always! We had to water your welcome.”

  “And we have emptied the watering-pot,” replied Pinchinat, who had never felt in a better humour.

  Calistus Munbar took them down one of the roads leading to the second half of the town. In this district there was more animation than in the other. It was as though they had been suddenly transported from the northern to the southern States of the Union; from Chicago to New Orleans, from Illinois to Louisiana. The shops were better filled, the houses of more elegant architecture, the family mansions more comfortable, the hotels as magnificent as those in the Protestant section but of more cheerful aspect. The people were different in bearing and character. The city was apparently double, like certain stars, only the sections did not revolve round one another.

  When they had nearly reached the centre of the district, the group stopped about the middle of Fifteenth Avenue, and Yvernès exclaimed, —

  “Upon my word, that is a palace!”

  “The palace of the Coverley family,” replied Calistus Munbar, “Nat Coverley, the equal of Jem Tankerdon.”

  “Richer than he is?” asked Pinchinat.

  “Quite as rich,” said the American. “An ex-banker of New Orleans, who has more hundreds of millions than he has fingers on both hands.”