I am afraid, I said, that I must have expressed myself clumsily to Miss Hemster. I think I told her, but I make the statement subject to correction, that I had so long since severed my connection with diplomatic service in Tokio that even the slight power I then possessed no longer exists. If I still retained my former position I should scarcely be more helpless than I am now, so far as what you require is concerned.
Thats exactly what I told her, growled the old man. I suppose you havent any suggestion to make that would help me out at all?
The only suggestion I can make is this, and indeed I think the way seems perfectly clear. You no doubt know your own Ambassador, perhaps have letters of introduction to him, and he may very easily arrange for you to have an audience with His Majesty the Mikado.
Oh! our Ambassador! growled Mr. Hemster in tones of great contempt; hes nothing but a one-horse politician.
Nevertheless, said I, his position is such that by merely exercising the prerogatives of his office he could get you what you wanted.
No, he cant, maintained the old gentleman stoutly. Still, I shouldnt say anything against him; hes all right. He did his best for us, and if we could have waited long enough at Yokohama perhaps he might have fixed up an audience with the Mikado. But Id had enough of hanging on around there, and so I sailed away. Now, my son, I said I was going to give you a talking to, and I am. Ill tell you just how the land lies, so you can be of some help to me and not a drawback. I want you to be careful of what you say to Gertie about such people as the Mikado, because it excites her and makes her think certain things are easy when theyre not.
I am very sorry if I have said anything that led to a misapprehension. I certainly did not intend to.
No, no! I understand that. I am not blaming you a bit. I just want you to catch on to the situation, thats all. Gertie likes you first rate; she told me so, and Im ever so much obliged to you for the trouble you took yesterday afternoon in entertaining her. She told me everything you said and did, and it was all right. Now Gertie has always been accustomed to moving in the very highest society. She doesnt care for anything else, and she took to you from the very first. I was glad of that, because I should have consulted her before I hired you. Nevertheless, I knew the moment you spoke that you were the man I wanted, and so I took the risk. I never cared for high society myself; my intercourse has been with business men. I understand them, and I like them; but I dont cut any figure in high society, and I dont care to, either. Now, with Gertie its different. Shes been educated at the finest schools, and Ive taken her all over Europe, where we stayed at the very best hotels and met the very best people in both Europe and America. Why, weve met more Sirs and Lords and Barons and High Mightinesses than you can shake a stick at. Gertie, shes right at home among those kind of people, and, if I do say it myself, shes quite capable of taking her place among the best of them, and she knows it. There never was a time we came in to the best table dhôte in Europe that every eye wasnt turned toward her, and shes been the life of the most noted hotels that exist, no matter where they are, and no matter what their price is.
I ventured to remark that I could well believe this to have been the case.
Yes, and you dont need to take my word for it, continued the old man with quite perceptible pride; you may ask any one that was there. Whether it was a British Lord, or a French Count, or a German Baron, or an Italian Prince, it was just the same. I admit that it seemed to me that some of those nobles didnt amount to much. But thats neither here nor there; as I told you before, Im no judge. I suppose they have their usefulness in creation, even though Im not able to see it. But the result of it all was that Gertie got tired of them, and, as she is an ambitious girl and a real lady, she determined to strike higher, and so, when we bought this yacht and came abroad again, she determined to go in for Kings, so Ive been on a King hunt ever since, and to tell the truth it has cost me a lot of money and I dont like it. Not that I mind the money if it resulted in anything, but it hasnt resulted in anything; that is, it hasnt amounted to much. Gertie doesnt care for the ordinary presentation at Court, for nearly anybody can have that. What she wants is to get a King or an Emperor right here on board this yacht at lunch or tea, or whatever he wants, and enjoy an intimate conversation with him, just like shes had with them no-account Princes. Then she wants a column or two account of that written up for the Paris edition of the New York Herald, and she wants to have it cabled over to America. Now shes the only chick or child Ive got. Her mothers been dead these fifteen years, and Gertie is all I have in the world, so Im willing to do anything she wants done, no matter whether I like it or not. But I dont want to engage in anything that doesnt succeed. Success is the one thing that amounts to anything. The man who is a failure cuts no ice. And so it rather grinds me to confess that Ive been a failure in this King business. Now I dont know much about Kings, but it strikes me theyre just like other things in this world. If you want to get along with them, you must study them. Its like climbing a stair; if you want to get to the top you must begin at the lowest step. If you try to take one stride up to the top landing, why youre apt to come down on your head. I told Gertie it was no use beginning with the German Emperor, for wed have to get accustomed to the low-down Kings and gradually work up. She believes in aiming high. Thats all right ordinarily, but it isnt a practical proposition. Still, I let her have her way and did the best I could, but it was no use. I paid a German Baron a certain sum for getting the Emperor on board my yacht, but he didnt deliver the goods. So I said to Gertie: My girl, wed better go to India, or some place where Kings are cheap, and practise on them first. She hated to give in, but shes a reasonable young woman if you take her the right way. Well, the long and the short of it was that we sent the yacht around to Marseilles, and went down from Paris to meet her there, and sailed to Egypt, and, just as I said, we had no difficulty at all in raking in the Khedive. But that wasnt very satisfactory when alls said and done. Gertie claimed he wasnt a real king, and I say hes not a real gentleman. We had a little unpleasantness there, and he became altogether too friendly, so we sailed off down through the Canal a hunting Kings, till at last we got here to Japan. Now were up against it once more, and I suppose this here Mikado has hobnobbed so much with real Emperors and that sort of thing that he thinks himself a white man like the rest. So I says to Gertie, Theres a genuine Emperor in Corea, good enough to begin on, and well go there, and thats how we came round from Yokohama to Nagasaki, and dropped in here to get a few things we might not be able to obtain in Corea. The moment I saw you and learned that you knew a good deal about the East, it struck me that if I took you on as private secretary you would be able to give me a few points, and perhaps take charge of this business altogether. Do you think youd be able to do that?
Well, I said hesitatingly, Im not sure, but if I can be of any use to you on such a quest it will be in Corea. Ive been there on two or three occasions, and each time had an audience with the King.