PAGE 6
The Consul
by
It was for Marshall a wondrous evening. To foregather with his old friend whom he had known since Hardy was a mad midshipman, to sit at the feet of his own charming countrywomen, to listen to their soft, modulated laughter, to note how quickly they saw that to him the evening was a great event, and with what tact each contributed to make it the more memorable; all served to wipe out the months of bitter loneliness, the stigma of failure, the sense of undeserved neglect. In the moonlight, on the cool quarter- deck, they sat, in a half-circle, each of the two friends telling tales out of school, tales of which the other was the hero or the victim, “inside” stories of great occasions, ceremonies, bombardments, unrecorded “shirt-sleeve” diplomacy.
Hardy had helped to open the Suez Canal. Marshall had assisted the Queen of Madagascar to escape from the French invaders. On the Barbary Coast Hardy had chased pirates. In Edinburgh Marshall had played chess with Carlyle. He had seen Paris in mourning in the days of the siege, Paris in terror in the days of the Commune; he had known Garibaldi, Gambetta, the younger Dumas, the creator of Pickwick.
“Do you remember that time in Tangier,” the admiral urged, when I was a midshipman, and got into the bashaw’s harem?”
“Do you remember how I got you out? Marshall replied grimly.
“And,” demanded Hardy, “do you remember when Adelina Patti paid a visit to the KEARSARGE at Marseilles in ’65–George Dewey was our second officer–and you were bowing and backing away from her, and you backed into an open hatch, and she said ‘my French isn’t up to it’ what was it she said?”
“I didn’t hear it,” said Marshall; “I was too far down the hatch.”
“Do you mean the old KEARSARGE?” asked Mrs. Cairns. “Were you in the service then, Mr. Marshall? “
With loyal pride in his friend, the admiral answered for him:
“He was our consul-general at Marseilles!”
There was an uncomfortable moment. Even those denied imagination could not escape the contrast, could see in their mind’s eye the great harbor of Marseilles, crowded with the shipping of the world, surrounding it the beautiful city, the rival of Paris to the north, and on the battleship the young consul-general making his bow to the young Empress of Song. And now, before their actual eyes, they saw the village of Porto Banos, a black streak in the night, a row of mud shacks, at the end of the wharf a single lantern yellow in the clear moonlight.
Later in the evening Miss Cairns led the admiral to one side.
“Admiral,” she began eagerly, “tell me about your friend. Why is he here? Why don’t they give him a place worthy of him? I’ve seen many of our representatives abroad, and I know we cannot afford to waste men like that.” The girl exclaimed indignantly: ” He’s one of the most interesting men I’ve ever met! He’s lived everywhere, known every one. He’s a distinguished man, a cultivated man; even I can see he knows his work, that he’s a diplomat, born, trained, that he’s—-” The admiral interrupted with a growl.
“You don’t have to tell ME about Henry,” he protested. “I’ve known Henry twenty-five years. If Henry got his deserts,” he exclaimed hotly, “he wouldn’t be a consul on this coral reef; he’d be a minister in Europe. Look at me! We’re the same age. We started together. When Lincoln sent him to Morocco as consul, he signed my commission as a midshipman. Now I’m an admiral. Henry has twice my brains and he’s been a consul- general, and he’s HERE, back at the foot of the ladder!”
“Why?” demanded the girl.
“Because the navy is a service and the consular service isn’t a service. Men like Senator Hanley use it to pay their debts. While Henry’s been serving his country abroad, he’s lost his friends, lost his ‘pull.’ Those politicians up at Washington have no use for him. They don’t consider that a consul like Henry can make a million dollars for his countrymen. He can keep them from shipping goods where there’s no market, show them where there is a market.” The admiral snorted contemptuously. “You don’t have to tell ME the value of a good consul. But those politicians don’t consider that. They only see that he has a job worth a few hundred dollars, and they want it, and if he hasn’t other politicians to protect him, they’ll take it.” The girl raised her head.