The Progressionists, and Angela.

The blooming double millionaire entered.

"Sit down a moment, friend Seraphin, and listen to a short account of my scheme. I have said before that our city is prospering and growing under the benign sceptre of progress. The powers and honors of the sceptre are portioned among three leaders. Everything is directed and conducted by them-of course, in harmony with the spirit of the times. I have summoned the aforesaid magnates to appear. That the business may be despatched with a comfortable degree of expedition, the time when the visit is expected has been designated in each note; and those gentlemen are punctual in all matters connected with money and the bank. You can enter this little apartment, next to us, and by leaving the door open hear the conversation. The mightiest of the corypheuses is Schwefel, the straw-hat manufacturer. This potentate resides at a three-minutes walk from here, and can put in an appearance at any time."

"I am on tiptoe!" said Gerlach. "You promise what is so utterly incredible, that the things you are preparing to reveal appear to me like adventures belonging to another world."

"To another world! – quite right, my dear fellow! I am indeed about to display to your astounded eyes some wonders of the world of progress that hitherto have been entirely unknown to you. Within eighteen days you shall, under my tutorship, receive useful and thorough instruction. This promise I can make you, as we are just in face of the elections, a time when minds put aside their disguises, when they not unfrequently shock one another, and when many secrets come to light!"

"You put me under many obligations!"

"Only doing my duty, my most esteemed! We are both aware that, according to the wishes of parents and the desired inclinations of parties known, our respective millions are to approach each other in closer relationship. To do a relative of mine in spe a favor, gives me unspeakable satisfaction. I shall proceed with my course of instruction. See here! Every one of these twenty packages contains twenty five-hundred florin banknotes. Consequently, both rows contain just two hundred thousand florins-an imposing sum assuredly, and, for the purpose of being imposing, the two hundred thousand have been laid upon this table. Explanation: the mightiest of the spirits of progress is-Money.

"All forces, all sympathies, revolve about money as the heavenly bodies revolve about the sun. For this reason the mere proximity of a considerable sum of money acts upon every man of progress like a current of electricity: it carries him away, it intoxicates his senses. The leaders whom I have invited will at once notice the collection of five-hundred florin notes: in the rapidity of calculating, they will overestimate the amount, and obtain impressions in proportion, somewhat like the Jews that prostrated themselves in the dust in adoration of the golden calf. As for me, my dear fellow, I shall carry on my operations in the auspicious presence of this power of two hundred thousands. Such a display of power will produce in the leaders a frame of mind made up of veneration, worship, and unconditional submissiveness. Every word of mine will proceed authoritatively from the golden mouth of the two hundred thousands, and my proposals it will be impossible for them to reject. But listen! The door of the ante-room is being opened. The mightiest is approaching. Go in quick." He pressed the spring of a concealed door, and Seraphin disappeared.

When the straw-hat manufacturer entered, the banker was sitting before the banknotes apparently absorbed in intricate calculations.

"Ah Mr. Schwefel! pardon the liberty I have taken of sending for you. The pressure of business," motioning significantly towards the banknotes, "has made it impossible for me to call upon you."

"No trouble, Mr. Greifmann, no trouble whatever!" rejoined the manufacturer with profound bows.

"Have the goodness to take a seat!" And he drew an arm-chair quite near to where the money lay displayed. Schwefel perceived they were five-hundreds, estimated the amount of the pile in a few rapid glances, and felt secret shudderings of awe passing through his person.

"The cause of my asking you in is a business matter of some magnitude," began the banker. "There is a house in Vienna with which we stand in friendly relations, and which has very extensive connections in Hungary. The gentlemen of this house have contracts for furnishing large orders of straw hats destined mostly for Hungary, and they wish to know whether they can obtain favorable terms of purchase at the manufactories of this country. It is a business matter involving a great deal of money. Their confidence in the friendly interest of our firm, and in our thorough acquaintance with local circumstances, has encouraged them to apply to us for an accurate report upon this subject. They intimate, moreover, that they desire to enter into negotiations with none but solid establishments, and for this reason are supposed to be guided by our judgment. As you are aware, this country has a goodly number of straw-hat manufactories. I would feel inclined, however, as far as it may be in my power, to give your establishment the advantage of our recommendation, and would therefore like to get from you a written list of fixed prices of all the various sorts."

"I am, indeed, under many obligations to you, Mr. Greifmann, for your kind consideration," said the manufacturer, nodding repeatedly. "Your own experience can testify to the durability of my work, and I shall give the most favorable rates possible."

"No doubt," rejoined the banker with haughty reserve. "You must not forget that the straw-hat business is out of our line. It is incumbent on us, however, to oblige a friendly house. I shall therefore make a similar proposal to two other large manufactories, and, after consulting with men of experience in this branch, shall give the house in Vienna the advice we consider most to its interest, that is, shall recommend the establishment most worthy of recommendation."

Mr. Schwefel's excited countenance became somewhat lengthy.

"You should not fail of an acceptable acknowledgment from me, were you to do me the favor of recommending my goods," explained the manufacturer.

The banker's coldness was not in the slightest degree altered by the implied bribe. He appeared not even to have noticed it. "It is also my desire to be able to recommend you," said he curtly, carelessly taking up a package of the banknotes and playing with ten thousand florins as if they were so many valueless scraps of paper. "Well, we are on the eve of the election," remarked he ingenuously. "Have you fixed upon a magistrate and mayor?"

"All in order, thank you, Mr. Greifmann!"

"And are you quite sure of the order?"

"Yes; for we are well organized, Mr. Greifmann. If it interests you, I will consider it as an honor to be allowed to send you a list of the candidates."

"I hope you have not passed over ex-treasurer Shund?"

This question took Mr. Schwefel by surprise, and a peculiar smile played on his features.

"The world is and ever will be ungrateful," continued the banker, as though he did not notice the astonishment of the manufacturer. "I could hardly think of an abler and more sterling character for the office of mayor of the city than Mr. Shund. Our corporation is considerably in debt. Mr. Shund is known to be an accurate financier, and an economical householder. We just now need for the administration of our city household a mayor that understands reckoning closely, and that will curtail unnecessary expenses, so as to do away with the yearly increasing deficit in the budget. Moreover, Mr. Shund is a noble character; for he is always ready to aid those who are in want of money-on interest, of course. Then, again, he knows law, and we very much want a lawyer at the head of our city government. In short, the interests of this corporation require that Mr. Shund be chosen chief magistrate. It is a subject of wonder to me that progress, usually so clear-sighted, has heretofore passed Mr. Shund by, despite his numerous qualifications. Abilities should be called into requisition for the public weal. To be candid, Mr. Schwefel, nothing disgusts me so much as the slighting of great ability," concluded the banker contemptuously.

"Are you acquainted with Shund's past career?" asked the leader diffidently.

"Why, yes! Mr. Shund once put his hand in the wrong drawer, but that was a long time ago. Whosoever amongst you is innocent, let him cast the first stone at him. Besides, Shund has made good his fault by restoring what he filched. He has even atoned for the momentary weakness by five years of imprisonment."

"'Tis true; but Shund's theft and imprisonment are still very fresh in people's memory," said Schwefel. "Shund is notorious, moreover, as a hard-hearted usurer. He has gotten rich through shrewd money speculations, but he has also brought several families to utter ruin. The indignation of the whole city is excited against the usurer; and, finally, Shund indulges a certain filthy passion with such effrontery and barefacedness that every respectable female cannot but blush at being near him. These characteristics were unknown to you, Mr. Greifmann; for you too will not hesitate an instant to admit that a man of such low practices must never fill a public office."

"I do not understand you, and I am surprised!" said the millionaire. "You call Shund a usurer, and you say that the indignation of the whole town is upon him. Might I request from you the definition of a usurer?"

"They are commonly called usurers who put out money at exorbitant, illegal interest."

"You forget, my dear Mr. Schwefel, that speculation is no longer confined to the five per cent. rate. A correct insight into the circumstances of the times has induced our legislature to leave the rate of interest altogether free. Consequently, a usurer has gotten to be an impossibility. Were Shund to ask fifty per cent, and more, he would be entitled to it."

"That is so; for the moment I had overlooked the existence of the law," said the manufacturer, somewhat humiliated. "Yet I have not told you all concerning the usurer. Beasts of prey and vampires inspire an involuntary disgust or fear. Nobody could find pleasure in meeting a hungry wolf, or in having his blood sucked by a vampire. The usurer is both vampire and wolf. He hankers to suck the very marrow from the bones of those who in financial straits have recourse to him. When an embarrassed person borrows from him, that person is obliged to mortgage twice the amount that he actually receives. The usurer is a heartless strangler, an insatiable glutton. He is perpetually goaded on by covetousness to work the material ruin of others, only so that the ruin of his neighbor may benefit himself. In short, the usurer is a monster so frightful, a brute so devoid of conscience, that the very sight of him excites horror and disgust. Just such a monster is Shund in the eyes of all who know him-and the whole city knows him. Hence the man is the object of general aversion."

"Why, this is still worse, still more astonishing!" rejoined the millionaire with animation. "I thought our city enlightened. I should have expected from the intelligence and judgment of our citizens that they would have deferred neither to the sickly sentimentalism of a bigoted morality nor to the absurdity of obsolete dogmas. If your description of the usurer, which might at least be styled poetico-religious, is an expression of the prevailing spirit of this city, I shall certainly have to lower my estimate of its intelligence and culture."

The leader hastened to correct the misunderstanding.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Greifmann! You may rest assured that we can boast all the various conquests made by modern advancement. Religious enthusiasm and foolish credulity are poisonous plants that superannuated devotees are perhaps still continuing to cultivate here and there in pots, but which the soil will no longer produce in the open air. The sort of education prevailing hereabout is that which has freed itself from hereditary religious prejudices. Our town is blessed with all the benefits of progress, with liberty of thought, and freedom from the thraldom of a dark, designing priesthood."

"How comes it, then, that a man is an object of contempt for acting in accordance with the principles of this much lauded progress?" asked the millionaire, with unexpected sarcasm. "We are indebted to progress for the abolition of a legal rate of interest. Shund takes advantage of this conquest, and for doing so citizens who boast of being progressive look upon him with aversion. A further triumph secured by progress is freedom from the tyranny of dogmas and the tortures of a conscience created by a contracted morality. This beautiful fruit of the tree of enlightened knowledge Shund partakes of and enjoys; and for this he has the distinction of passing for a vampire. And because he displays the spirit of an energetic business man, because his capacity for speculating occasionally overwhelms blockheads and dunces, he is decried as a ravenous wolf. It is sad! If your statements are correct, Mr. Schwefel, our city ought not to boast of being progressive. Its citizens are still groping in the midnight darkness of religious superstition, scarcely even united with modern intellectual advancement. And to me the consciousness is most uncomfortable of breathing an atmosphere poisoned by the decaying remnants of an age long since buried."

"My own personal views accord with yours," protested Schwefel candidly. "The subversion of the antiquated, absurd articles of faith and moral precept necessarily entails the abrogation of the consequences that flow from them for public life. For centuries the cross was a symbol of dignity, and the doctrine of the Crucified resulted in holiness. Paganism, on the contrary, looked upon the gospel as foolishness, as a hallucination, and upon the cross as a sign of shame. I belong to the classic ranks, and so do millions like myself-among them Mr. Shund. Viewed in the light of progress, Shund is neither a vampire nor a wolf; at the worst, he is merely an ill used business man. They who suffer themselves to be humbugged and fleeced by him have their own stupidity to thank for it. This exposition will convince you that I stand on a level with yourself in the matter of advanced enlightenment. Nevertheless, you overlook, Mr. Greifmann, that, so far as the masses of the people are concerned, reverence for the cross and the holiness of its doctrines continue to prevail. The acquisitions of progress are not yet generally diffused. The mines of modern intellectual culture are being provisionally worked by a select number of independent, bold natures. The multitude, on the other hand, still continue folding about them the winding-sheet of Christianity. The views, customs, principles, and judgments of men are as yet widely controlled by Christian elements. Our city does homage to progress, pretty nearly, however, in the manner of a blind man that discourses of colors."

"I do not catch the drift of your simile of the blind man and colors," interrupted Greifmann.

"I wanted to intimate that thousands swear allegiance to progress without comprehending its nature. Very many imagine progress to be a struggle in behalf of Germany against the enfeebling system of innumerable small states, or a battling against religious rigorism and priest-rule in secular concerns. In unpretending guises like these, the spirit of the age circulates among the crowd travestied in the fashionable epithet progressive. Were you, however, to remove the shell from around the kernel of progress, were you to exhibit it to the multitude undisguised as the nullification of religion, as the denial of the God of Christians, as the rejection of immortality, and of an essential difference between man and the beast-were you to venture thus far, you would see the millions flying in consternation before the monster Progress. Now, just because the multitude, although progressive-minded, everywhere judges men by Christian standards, very often, too, unconsciously, therefore Shund has to pass, not for an able speculator, but for a miserable usurer and an unconscionable scoundrel."

"For this very cause, the liberal leaders of this city should stand up for Shund," opposed the banker. "Just appreciation and respect should not be denied a deserving man. To speak candidly, Mr. Schwefel, what first accidentally arrested my attention, now excites my most lively interest. I wish to see justice done Mr. Shund, to see his uncommon abilities recognized. You must set his light upon a candlestick. You must have him elected mayor and member of the legislature; in both capacities he will fill his position with distinction. I repeat, our deeply indebted city stands in want of a mayor that will reckon closely and economize. And in the legislative assembly Shund's fluency will talk down all opposition, his readiness of speech will do wonders. Were it only to spite the stupid mob, you must put Shund in nomination."

"It will not do, Mr. Greifmann! it is impracticable! We have to proceed cautiously and by degrees. Our policy lies in conducting the unsophisticated masses from darkness into light, quite gradually, inch by inch, and with the utmost caution. A sudden unveiling of the inmost significance of the spirit of the age would scare the people, and drive them back heels over head into the clerical camp."

"I do not at all share your apprehensions," contended the millionaire. "Our people are further advanced than you think. Make the trial. Your vast influence will easily manage to have Shund returned mayor and delegate."

"Undoubtedly, but my standing would be jeopardized," rejoined Schwefel.

"That is a mistake, sir! You employ four hundred families."

"Four hundred and seventy now," said the manufacturer, correcting him blandly.

"Four hundred and seventy families, therefore, are getting a living through you, consequently you have four hundred and seventy voters at your command. Add to these a considerable force of mechanics who earn wages in your employ. You have, moreover, a number of warm friends who also command a host of laborers and mechanics. Hence you risk neither standing nor influence, that is," added he with a smile, "unless perhaps you dread the anathemas of Ultramontanes and impostors."

"The pious wrath of believers has no terrors deserving notice," observed the leader with indifference.

"And yet all this time Shund's remarkable abilities have not been able to win the slightest notice on the part of progressive men-it is revolting!" cried the banker. "Mr. Schwefel, I will speak plainly, trusting to your being discreet; I will recommend your factory at Vienna, but only on condition that you have Hans Shund elected mayor and member of the legislature."

"This is asking a great deal-quite flattering for Shund and very tempting to me," said the leader with a bright face and a thrice repeated nod to the banker. "Since, however, what you ask is neither incompatible with the spirit of the times nor dishonorable to the sense of a liberal man, I accept your offer, for it is no small advantage for me from a business point of view."

"Capital, Mr. Schwefel! Capital, because very sensible!" spoke Carl Greifmann approvingly. A short groan, resembling the violent bursting forth of suppressed indignation, resounded from the adjoining apartment. The banker shuffled on the floor and drowned the groan by loudly rasping his throat.

"One condition, however, I must insist upon," continued the manufacturer of straw hats. "My arm might prove unequal to a task that will create no ordinary sensation. But if you succeeded in winning over Erdblatt and Sand to the scheme, it would prosper without fail and without much noise."

"I shall do so with pleasure, Mr. Schwefel! Both those gentlemen will, in all probability, call on me today in relation to matters of business. It will be for me a pleasing consciousness to have aided in obtaining merited recognition for Hans Shund."