The Metropolis

The Metropolis

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Title: The Metropolis
Author: Upton Sinclair
Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook #5421] [Yes, we are more than one
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THE METROPOLIS
BY
UPTON SINCLAIR
FIRST PUBLISHED 1908
PRINTED BY OFFSET IN GREAT BRITAIN

CHAPTER I

"Return at ten-thirty," the General said to his chauffeur, and then they
entered the corridor of the hotel.
Montague gazed about him, and found himself trembling just a little
with anticipation. It was not the magnificence of the place. The quiet
uptown hotel would have seemed magnificent to him, fresh as he was
from the country; but, he did hot see the marblo columns and the gilded
carvings-he was thinking of the men he was to meet. It seemed too
much to crowd into one day-first the vision of the whirling, seething
city, the centre of all his hopes of the future; and then, at night, this
meeting, overwhelming him with the crowded memories of everything
that he held precious in the past.
There were groups of men in faded uniforms standing about in the
corridors. General Prentice bowed here and there as they retired and
took the elevator to the reception-rooms. In the doorway they passed a
stout little man with stubby white moustaches, and the General stopped,
exclaiming, "Hello, Major!" Then he added: "Let me introduce Mr.
Allan Montague. Montague, this is Major Thorne."

A look of sudden interest flashed across the Major's face. "General
Montague's son?" he cried. And then he seized the other's hand in both
of his, exclaiming, "My boy! my boy! I'm glad to see you!"
Now Montague was no boy--he was a man of thirty, and rather sedate
in his appearance and manner; there was enough in his six feet one to
have made two of the round and rubicund little Major. And yet it
seemed to him quite proper that the other should address him so. He
was back in his boyhood to-night--he was a boy whenever anyone
mentioned the name of Major Thorne.
"Perhaps you have heard your father speak of me?" asked the Major,
eagerly; and Montague answered, "A thousand times."
He was tempted to add that the vision that rose before him was of a
stout gentleman hanging in a grape-vine, while a whole battery of
artillery made him their target.
Perhaps it was irreverent, but that was what Montague had always
thought of, ever since he had first laughed over the tale his father told.
It had happened one January afternoon in the Wilderness, during the
terrible battle of Chancellorsville, when Montague's father had been a
rising young staff-officer, and it had fallen to his lot to carry to Major
Thorne what was surely the most terrifying order that ever a cavalry
officer received. It was in the crisis of the conflict, when the Army of
the Potomac was reeling before the onslaught of Stonewall Jackson's
columns. There was no one to stop them-and yet they must be stopped,
for the whole right wing of the army was going. So that cavalry
regiment had charged full tilt through the thickets, and into a solid wall
of infantry and artillery. The crash of their volley was blinding--and
horses wore fairly shot to fragments; and the Major's horse, with its
lower jaw torn off, had plunged madly away and left its rider hanging
in the aforementioned grape-vine. After he had kicked himself loose, it
was to find himself in an arena where pain-maddened horses and
frenzied men raced about amid a rain of minie-balls and canister. And
in this inferno the gallant Major had captured a horse, and rallied the
remains of