The Mintage | Page 9

lawyer set down his cup of coffee. He looked at the white-robed
servant. He felt the man was in earnest.
"So you are going to leave me--I do not pay you enough, eh? That
Doctor Sanders who was here--he knows what a treasure you are. Don't
be a fool, Sam; I'll make it a hundred and fifty a month--say no more."
"Next week I leave you--I go to China," said the servant impassively.
"Oh, I see! You are going back for a wife? All right, bring her
here--you will return in two months? I do not object; bring your wife
here--there is work for two to keep this place in order. The place is
lonely, anyway. I'll see the Collector of the Port, myself, and arrange
your passage-papers."
"I go to China next week: I need no papers--I never come back," said
the man with exasperating calmness and persistence.
"By God, you shall not go!" said the lawyer.
"By God, I will!" answered the heathen.
It was the first time in their experience together that the servant had
used such language, or such a tone, toward his master.
The lawyer pushed his chair back, and after an instant said, quietly,
"Sam, you must forgive me; I spoke quickly. I do not own you--but tell
me, what have I done--why do you leave me this way, you know I need
you!"
"I will not tell you why I go--you laugh."
"No, I shall not laugh."

"You will."
"I say, I will not."
"Very well, I go to China to die!"
"Nonsense! You can die here. Haven't I agreed to send your body back
if you die before I do?"
"I die in four weeks, two days!"
"What!"
"My brother, he in prison. He twenty-six, I fifty. He have wife and
baby. In China they accept any man same family to die. I go to China,
give my money to my brother--he live, I die!"
The next day a new Chinaman appeared as servant in the lawyer's
household. In a week this servant knew everything, and nothing, just
like Sam.
And Sam disappeared, without saying good-by.
He went to China and was beheaded, four weeks and two days from the
day he broke the news of his intent to go.
His brother was set free.
And the lawyer's household goes along about as usual, save when the
master calls for "Sam," when he should say, "Charlie."
At such times there comes a kind of clutch at his heart, but he says
nothing.

-------------------------------------
When power and beauty meet, the world would do well to take to its
cyclone-cellar.

CLEOPATRA AND CÆSAR
The sole surviving daughter of the great King Ptolemy of Egypt,
Cleopatra was seventeen years old when her father died.
By his will the King made her joint heir to the throne with her brother
Ptolemy, several years her junior. And according to the custom not
unusual among royalty at that time, it was provided that Ptolemy
should become the husband of Cleopatra.
She was a woman--her brother a child.
She had intellect, ambition, talent. She knew the history of her own
country, and that of Assyria, Greece and Rome; and all the written
languages of the world were to her familiar. She had been educated by
the philosophers, who had brought from Greece the science of
Pythagoras and Plato. Her companions had been men--not women, or
nurses, or pious, pedantic priests.
Through the veins of her young body pulsed and leaped life, plus.
She abhorred the thought of an alliance with her weak-chinned brother;
and the ministers of State, who suggested another husband as a
compromise, were dismissed with a look.
They said she was intractable, contemptuous, unreasonable, and was
scheming for the sole possession of the throne.
She was not to be diverted even by ardent courtiers who were sent to
her, and who lay in wait ready with amorous sighs--she scorned them
all.
Yet she was a woman still, and in her dreams she saw the coming
prince.
She was banished from Alexandria.
A few friends followed her, and an army was formed to force from the
enemy her rights.

But other things were happening--a Roman army came leisurely
drifting in with the tide and disembarked at Alexandria. The Great
Cæsar himself was in command--a mere holiday, he said. He had
intended to join the land forces of Mark Antony and help crush the
rebellious Pompey, but Antony had done the trick alone; and only a
few days before, word had come that Pompey was dead.
Cæsar knew that civil war was on in Alexandria, and being near he
sailed slowly in, sending messengers on ahead warning both sides to
lay down their arms.
With him was the far-famed invincible Tenth Legion that had ravished
Gaul. Cæsar wanted to rest