Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 129 pages of information about Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 4.

Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 129 pages of information about Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 4.
introduced them.  When Lindau went out, March explained to Dryfoos that he had lost his hand in the war; and he told him something of Lindau’s career as he had known it.  Dryfoos appeared greatly pleased that ‘Every Other Week’ was giving Lindau work.  He said that he had helped to enlist a good many fellows for the war, and had paid money to fill up the Moffitt County quota under the later calls for troops.  He had never been an Abolitionist, but he had joined the Anti-Nebraska party in ’55, and he had voted for Fremont and for every Republican President since then.

At his own house March saw more of Lindau than of any other contributor, but the old man seemed to think that he must transact all his business with March at his place of business.  The transaction had some peculiarities which perhaps made this necessary.  Lindau always expected to receive his money when he brought his copy, as an acknowledgment of the immediate right of the laborer to his hire; and he would not take it in a check because he did not approve of banks, and regarded the whole system of banking as the capitalistic manipulation of the people’s money.  He would receive his pay only from March’s hand, because he wished to be understood as working for him, and honestly earning money honestly earned; and sometimes March inwardly winced a little at letting the old man share the increase of capital won by such speculation as Dryfoos’s, but he shook off the feeling.  As the summer advanced, and the artists and classes that employed Lindau as a model left town one after another, he gave largely of his increasing leisure to the people in the office of ‘Every Other Week.’  It was pleasant for March to see the respect with which Conrad Dryfoos always used him, for the sake of his hurt and his gray beard.  There was something delicate and fine in it, and there was nothing unkindly on Fulkerson’s part in the hostilities which usually passed between himself and Lindau.  Fulkerson bore himself reverently at times, too, but it was not in him to keep that up, especially when Lindau appeared with more beer aboard than, as Fulkerson said, he could manage shipshape.  On these occasions Fulkerson always tried to start him on the theme of the unduly rich; he made himself the champion of monopolies, and enjoyed the invectives which Lindau heaped upon him as a slave of capital; he said that it did him good.

One day, with the usual show of writhing under Lindau’s scorn, he said, “Well, I understand that although you despise me now, Lindau—­”

“I ton’t desbise you,” the old man broke in, his nostrils swelling and his eyes flaming with excitement, “I bity you.”

“Well, it seems to come to the same thing in the end,” said Fulkerson.  “What I understand is that you pity me now as the slave of capital, but you would pity me a great deal more if I was the master of it.”

“How you mean?”

“If I was rich.”

“That would tebendt,” said Lindau, trying to control himself.  “If you hat inheritedt your money, you might pe innocent; but if you hat mate it, efery man that resbectedt himself would haf to ask how you mate it, and if you hat mate moch, he would know—­”

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Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.