Chapter 15. The Heights.
1. Then, with one swift intention, the sun broke through, and there were the heights,
directly in front of him. The rest of the way was enchanted. All its difficulties were
illusions. They vanished as he approached. His Wall Street enemies were scattered in
the night. It was as he had said. They had been unable to destroy him, and they did not
and started early the next day.
Those who had deserted him returned with gestures of humility, begging to be chastised and forgiven.
The vanquished sat patiently in his outer office, bearing tokens of amity and proposals
of alliance.
For he was Galt, the one, unique and indestructible.
He treated the spectacle as it deserved, cynically, with a saving salt of humor.
They make their beds fast, he said.
Among the first to come was one of Bullgard's partners, a peasant-minded, ingratiating person whose use to Bullgard was his ability to face the devil smirk for smirk.
His errand was to say that Bullgard and company would entertain any reasonable offer for the purchase of their minority interest in Orient and Pacific shares,
and, if they could be of service to Mr. Galt at any time, why, etc., he had only to oblige them by letting them know how.
Galt was cool as to the services, etc., but he made an offer for the minority Orient and Pacific shares, which was accepted a few hours later.
That was Bullgard's way of declaring war at an end. It was the grand salute.
Horace Potter was the only man who never came back.
He could not sneak back, and there was no other way. They had mortally wounded each other's pride.
2. Meanwhile, Congress, like the old woman of the storybook, heavy-footed, slow to be amazed, always late, but never, never, heard of Galt, became much alarmed, and solemnly resolved to investigate him.
He was summoned to appear before a committee of the House with all his papers and books.
The committee felt incompetent to conduct the examination.
Finance is a language politicians must not know.
It is not the language of the people.
So it engaged counsel, a notorious lawyer named Samuel Goldfuss.
He was a man who knew all the dim and secret pathways of the law and charged Wall Street
Clients enormous fees for leading them past the spirit to the letter.
He charged them more when he caught them alone in the dark or lost in the hands of a bungling
guide, for then he could threaten to expose them to the light if they declined to accept
his saving services at his own price.
Having got very rich by this profession, he put his money beyond reach of the predacious
and became public-spirited, or pretended to have done so, and proceeded to sell out Satan
to the righteous.
It became his evocation to plead the cause of people against mammon, and where or when
so ever a malefactor of great wealth was hailed to court or brought to appear before a committee
of Congress, Goldfuss thrust himself in to act as prosecuting attorney, with or without
fees, and his name was dread to any such, for he knew their devious ways and all the
wickedness that had ever been practiced in or about the stock exchange.
His motives were never quite understood.
Some said he attended to Satan's business still, never sold him out completely, but put
the hounds on the wrong scent by some subtle turn at the end.
Others said his motive was to terrorize the great malefactors so that when they were in
And this sinister embodiment of public opinion was the man whom Galt was to face, who had
never before faced public opinion in any manner at all.
It was likely to be a stiff ordeal.
Council warned him accordingly.
I've got a straight story to tell, he said.
I don't need any help.
However, they insisted on standing by.
We arrived in Washington one hot August morning, left all our eminent council in their favorite hotel,
and went empty-handed to the capital, where neither of us had been before.
We wandered about for half an hour trying to find the place where the committee sat.
It was a special committee, with no room of its own.
We were directed at last to the Rivers and Harbors Committee Room.
It was full of smoke, electric fans and men in attitudes of waiting.
Six, looking very significant, sat around a long table covered with green cloth.
Others, to the number of 30 or 40, sat on chairs against the walls.
At a smaller table were the reporters, with reams of paper in front of them.
Is this the committee that wants to see Henry M. Galt? he asked, standing on the threshold.
It is, said the man at the head of the table. He was the chairman. He sat with one leg over
the arm of his chair, his back to the door, and did not turn or so much as move a hair.
He spoke in that loud, disembodied voice which makes the people's business seem so impressive
to the multitude, and glared at us through the back of his head.
I am that person, said Galt. You have delayed us a quarter of an hour, said the chairman,
A chair was placed for him at the opposite end of the table.
There was no place for me, so I stood a little aside.
Goldfuss, whom I had never seen and had not yet identified, sat beside the chairman.
They had their heads together, whispering.
The chairman spoke.
The question is raised as to whether witness may be permitted to appear with counsel.
It is decided in the negative.
Council will be excused.
Nothing happened.
Council will be excused, said the chairman again.
Still, nothing happened.
If you are talking at me, said Galt, I have no council.
I didn't bring any.
That is, I left them at the hotel.
Who is the gentleman with you, the chairman asked.
Oh, said Galt, looking at me.
That's all right.
He's my secretary.
He doesn't know any more law than I do.
There was a formal pause.
The official stenographer leaned toward Galt speaking quietly and took his name, age, address
and occupation.
The chairman said, Proceed.
Goldfuss poised himself for theatrical effect.
He was a small, body-conscious man with a coarse, loose skin, very close-shaven, powdered,
So this is the great Galt, he said sardonically, slowly bobbing his head.
And you, said Galt, are the Samuel Goldfuss who once tried to blackmail me for a million
dollars.
Oh, famous beginning!
The crowd was tense with delight.
Goldfuss, looking aggrieved and disgusted, turned to the chairman, saying,
Will the committee admonish the witness?
The chairman took his leg down, carefully relighted a people's cigar, and said,
Strike that off the record.
I will inform the witness that this is a committee of congress, with power to punish contumacious
and disrespectful conduct.
The witness is warned to answer questions without any irrelevant remarks of his own.
I beg your pardon, said Galt. What was the question?
The official stenographer read from his notes. So this is the great Galt.
That ain't a question, said Galt.
The round was his. The audience tittered.
The chairman put his leg back and glared wearily into space.
I withdraw it, said Goldfuss.
Start the record new from here.
Mr. Galt, you were directed to produce before this committee all your books and papers.
Have you brought them?
No.
No?
Why not, please?
They would fill this whole room, said Galt.
Mr. Goldfuss started again.
Your occupation, Mr. Galt?
You said it was what?
Farmer, said Galt.
Yes?
What do you farm?
of the country, said Galt.
Do you consider that a nice expression?
Nicest I know, depending on how you take it, said Galt.
Well now, tell this committee, please, how you farm the country, using your own expression.
I fertilize it, said Galt.
I sow and reap, improve the soil, and keep adding new machinery and buildings.
What do you fertilize it with, Mr. Galt?
Money.
What do you sow, Mr. Galt?
for Money, and what do you reap, profit, a great deal of that, plenty, said Galt, and
what do you do with the profit, Mr. Galt, so it again, a lovely parable, Mr. Galt, is
it not true, however, that you are also a speculator, yes, that's true, said Galt, to
put it plainly, is it not true that you are a gambler, that's part of my trade, said
said Galt, Every farmer is a gambler. He gambles in weather, worms, bugs, acts of congress,
and the price of his produce. You gamble in securities, Mr. Galt? Yes. In the securities
of the railroad properties you control? Heavily, said Galt. If, for example, you are going
to increase the dividend on great Midwestern stock, you first go into the market and buy
Buy it for a rise.
Buy it before either the public or the other stockholders know that you are going to increase
the dividend.
That's the case, said Galt.
As a matter of fact, you did some time ago increase the dividend on Great Midwestern
from 4 to 8 percent, and the stock had a big rise for that reason.
Tell this committee, please, when and how and at what prices you bought the stock in
anticipation of that event.
In anticipation of that 8 percent dividend, said Galt reminiscently, I began to buy great
Midwestern stock, let me see, nine years ago, at $10 a share.
It went down, and I bought it at $5 a share, at $2, at $1.50.
The road went into the hands of a receiver, and I stuck to it.
I bought it all the way up again, at $15 a share, at $50, at $150, and I'm buying still.
Goldfuss was bored. He seemed to be saying to the audience, well, so much for fun, now we get down to the hard stuff.
He took time to think, stirred about in his papers and produced a certain document.
Mr. Galt, I show you a certified list of the investments of the Security Life Insurance Company.
You are a director of that institution, are you not? Yes.
Yes. You used some of your farming profits to buy a large interest in the security life
insurance company? Yes. You are chairman of its finance committee? Yes. In fact, Mr. Galt,
you control the investments of the security life. You recommend what securities the policy
holder's money shall be invested in, and your suggestions are acted upon. Is that true?
Now, Mr. Galt, look at this certified statement, please. The investments amount to more than 400 millions. I call your attention to the fact that nearly one quarter of that enormous total consists of what are known as Galt Securities, that is, the stocks and bonds of the railroad companies controlled by Henry M. Galt. Is that correct? Substantially, said Galt.
Did you, as chairman of the Finance Committee of the Security Life, recommend the purchase of those securities?
Yes.
And at the same time, as head of the Great Midwestern Railway System, you were interested in selling those securities, were you not?
We need a great deal of capital, said Galt. We are selling new securities all the time. We sell all we can and wish we could sell more.
There is always more work to do than we can find the money for.
So, Mr. Galt, it comes to this.
As head of a great railroad system, you create securities which you are anxious to sell.
In that role, you are a seller.
Then, as chairman of the finance committee for the security life insurance company, acting
as trustee for the policyholders, you are a buyer of securities.
In that position of trust, with power to say how the policyholders' money shall be invested,
You recommend the purchase of securities in which you are interested as a seller.
Is that true?
I don't like the way you put it, but let it stand, said Galt.
How can you justify that, Mr. Galt?
Is it right, do you think, that a trustee should buy with one hand what he sells with
the other?
Galt leaned over, beating the table slowly with his fist.
I justify it this way, he said.
I know all about the securities of the Great Midwestern.
I don't know of anything better for the security life to put its money into.
If you can tell me of anything better, I will advise the Finance Committee at its next meeting
to sell all of its Great Midwestern stuff and buy that, whatever it is.
I'll do more.
If you can tell me of anything better, I will sell all of my own Great Midwestern stocks
and bonds and buy that instead.
I have my own money in Great Midwestern. There's another galt you left out. As head
of a great railway system, I am a seller of securities to investors all over the world.
That is how we find the capital to build our things. But as an individual, I am a buyer
of those same securities. I sell to everybody with one hand and buy for myself all that
I can with the other hand. Do you see the point? I buy them because I know what they
Goldfuss had meant to go from the security life to each of the other financial institutions
controlled by Galt, meaning to show how he had been unloading Galt's securities upon
them.
But what was the use?
What could he do with an answer like that?
He passed instead to the Orient and Pacific Matter.
Galt admitted that he had used the power of majority stockholder to make the property
subservient to the Great Midwestern, because that was the efficient thing to do.
And that, you think, is a fair way to treat minority stockholders?
Goldfuss asked.
We were willing at any time to buy them out at the market price, said Galt.
However, that's now an academic matter.
The Great Midwestern has acquired all that minority interest in Orient and Pacific.
This was news.
There was a stir at the reporter's table.
Several rose and went out to telegraph Galt's statement to Wall Street, where nobody yet
knew how Bullgard and company had made peace with him.
So they went from one thing to another.
They came to that notorious land transaction, on account of which he had been sued.
We needed that land for an important piece of railroad development, said Galt.
Some land traders got wind of our plans, formed a syndicate, bought up all the ground around,
and then tried to make us buy it through the nose.
We simply sat tight until they went broke.
Then we took it off their hands.
There was more than the Great Midwestern needed because they were hogs.
The Great Midwestern took what it wanted, and I took the rest.
The directors knew all about it.
And it was very profitable to you personally, this outcome.
Incidentally, it was, said Galt.
Somebody would get it.
It fell into my hands.
What would you have done?
Strike that off the record.
What would you have done? said Goldfuss.
Council is not being examined.
After lunch, he took a new line.
Mr. Galt, he asked, what are you worth?
I don't know, said Galt.
You don't know how rich you are?
No.
Goldfuss lay back in his chair with an exaggerated air of astonishment.
But you will admit you are very rich, he said, having recovered slowly.
Yes, said Galt, I suppose I am.
Well, as briefly as possible, will you tell this committee how you made it?
Now you've asked me something, said Galt, leaning forward again.
I'll tell you, I made it buying things nobody else wanted.
I bought Great Midwestern when it was bankrupt and people thought no railroad was worth its
weight as junk.
When I took charge of the property I bought equipment when it was cheap because nobody
else wanted it and the equipment makers were hungry and rails and ties and materials and
labor to improve the road with until everybody thought I was crazy.
When the business came we had a railroad to handle it.
I've done that same thing with every property I have taken up.
No railroad I've ever touched has depreciated in value.
I'm doing it still.
You may know there has been an upset in Wall Street recently, a panic, in fact.
Everybody is uneasy and business is worried because a financial disturbance has always
been followed by a commercial depression.
There are signs of that already, but we'll stop it.
In the next 12 months, the great Midwestern properties will spend $500 million for double
tracking, grade reductions, new equipment, and larger terminals.
This was news.
Again, there was a stir at the reporter's table, as several rose to go out and flash
Galt's statement to Wall Street.
Mr. Galt, said Goldfuss, do you realize what it means for one man to say he will spend
and 500 millions in a year? That is half the national debt.
I know exactly what it means, said Galt. It means for once a Wall Street panic won't
be followed by unemployment and industrial depression. Our orders for materials and labor
now going out will start everything up again at full speed. Others will act on our example.
You'll see.
You will draw upon the financial institutions you control, the security life and others,
for a good deal of that money, the 500 millions?
You get the idea, said Galt, that's what financial institutions are for, there's no better use
for their money.
You have great power, Mr. Galt.
Some, he said.
If it goes on increasing at this rate, you will soon be the economic dictator of the
country.
No answer.
I say you will be the economic dictator of the whole country.
I heard you say it, said Galt. It ain't a question.
But do you think it desirable that one man should have so much power,
that one man should run the country?
Somebody ought to run it, said Galt. Is it your ambition to run it?
It is my idea, said Galt, that the financial institutions of the country,
I mean the insurance companies and the banks,
and Economics.
Instead of lending themselves out of funds in times of high prosperity, ought then to
build up great reserves of capital to be loaned out in hard times.
That would keep people from going crazy with prosperity at one time and committing suicide
at another time.
But they won't do it by themselves.
Somebody has to see to it.
Somebody who knows not only how not to spend money when everybody is wild to buy, but how
How to spend it courageously when there is a surplus of things that nobody else wants.
Every financial institution that I have anything to do with will be governed by that idea,
and the great Midwestern properties, while I run them, will decrease their capital expenditures
as prices rise and increase them as prices fall.
When we show them the whole trick and how it pays, everybody will do it.
We won't have any more depressions and coxies armies.
We won't have any more unemployment.
In a country like this, unemployment is economic lunacy.
The hearing continued for three days.
The newspapers printed almost nothing else on their first three pages.
Galt's testimony produced everywhere a monumental effect.
Public opinion went over by a somersault.
He denied nothing.
He admitted everything.
Mr. Galt said Goldfuss, rising, That will be all. You are the most remarkable witness
I have ever examined. They shook hands all around.
3.
As we were going down the capital steps, Galt stumbled and clutched my arm. The sustaining
excitement was at an end, and the reaction was sudden. Solitude made him peevish. He
He insisted irritably as we went on walking, though it was above his strength.
When we were halfway back to the hotel, a mile yet to go, he stopped and said,
You're right, Coxie. Ain't it hot? Let's call a cab.
He wouldn't rest. A strange uneasiness was upon him. We took the next train for New York.
I want to go to Moonstuhl, he said. The idea seized him after we were aboard the train.
Fine. Let's take a holiday tomorrow and go all over it, I said. Now. I want to go there now, he said.
Directly there and not go home? That's home, ain't it, he said, becoming irritable. Let's go straight there.
He had a fixation upon it.
From Baltimore, I got off an urgent telegram to Mrs. Galt, telling her Galt was very tired
and insisted on going directly to the country place. Could she meet us at Newark with a motorcar?
that would be the easiest way. Automobiles were just then coming into general use.
Galt, with his ardent interest in all means of mechanical locomotion, was enthusiastic about them.
The family had four, besides Natalie's, which was her own. She drove it herself.
Mrs. Galt met us at Newark. Galt greeted her with no sign of surprise. He could not have been
The night when we arrived at Moonstuhl and stopped in front of the iron gates, they were closed and locked.
And there was Natalie, who had been sent ahead to announce our coming.
She drove out alone, got lost on the way, and had not yet succeeded in raising anybody when we came up.
The place was dark, except for red lanterns here and there on piles of construction material.
The outside watchmen were shirking duty, and those inside, if not doing likewise, were beyond hearing.
Nearby was the railroad station of Galt, a black little pile with not a light anywhere.
It had not yet been opened for use.
We could hear the water spilling over the private Galt dam in the river.
There was enough electricity in the Galt powerhouse to illuminate a town.
On the mountaintop, half a mile distant, the Galt Castle stood in massive silhouette against the starry sky.
And here was Galt, in the dark, an unwelcome nighttime stranger, forbidden at the gate.
He was still asleep. We were careful not to wake him.
A watchman with a bullseye lantern and a billy-stick exuded from the darkness.
What do you want? We wanted to go in. You can't go in, he said. Can't you see it's private?
Nobody lives there. It is very difficult to account for the improbable on the plane of a
night watchman's intelligence. First, he stolidly disbelieved us. Then he took refuge in limited
responsibility. My orders is to let nobody in, he said. Do you know anybody around here?
It seemed quite possible that no human being around here would know us.
By an inspiration, Natalie remembered the superintendent of construction.
He lived not far away.
She knew where.
Once when she was spending a day on the job, he had taken her home with him to lunch.
It was not more than ten minutes' drive, she said.
It was further than she thought.
We were more than three-quarters of an hour returning with the superintendent.
It took twenty minutes more to wake the crew at the powerhouse and get the electricity
turned on.
Then we drove slowly up the main concrete road, now lighted on each side by clusters
of three ground-glass globes in fluted columns fifty feet apart.
Although it was finished, the road was still cluttered with heaps of sand and debris.
Galt, all this time, was fast asleep, his head resting on Mrs. Galt's shoulder.
We could scarcely wake him when we tried.
He seemed drunk with weariness.
As we helped him out, he opened his eyes once and startled us by saying to the superintendent,
Fire that watchman down below, as if he had been conscious of everything that happened.
His eyes closed again, he tottered, and we caught him.
The superintendent supported him on one side, I on the other, and so he entered, dragging
his feet.
Natalie knew more about the house than anyone else.
She led the way to the apartment that was Galt's and then left us to place the servants
and show them their way around.
I helped Mrs. Galt undress him and get him to bed.
I was amazed to see how thin and shrunken his body was.
He was inert, like a child asleep.
Mrs. Galt, very pale, was strong and deft.
We must have a doctor at once, she said. I thought of bringing one and then didn't because he mined so awfully to have a doctor in.
Still, we were not really alarmed.
The telephone system had been installed. Natalie knew that. She knew also where the big switchboard was.
I telephoned the family physician to meet us at the Hoboken Ferry and then Natalie and I set out to fetch him, a drive of nearly 70 miles there and back.
We ought to do it in two hours, she said, as we coasted freely, very freely, down the lighted cement road and plunged through the gates into darkness.
The doctor must be in his right mind when we deliver him. I meant it lightly. Her reckless driving was a household topic, and she was incorrigible. But she answered me thoughtfully. We'll make the time going.
She pulled her gloves tighter, took the time, inspected the instruments, switched off the
dash light, cut out the muffler, settled herself in the seat, and opened the throttle wide.
It was a four-cylinder, high-power engine.
The sound we made was that of an endless rip through a linen sheet.
Roadside trees turned white, uneasy faces to our headlights.
The highway seemed to lay itself down in front of us as we needed it, and there was a feeling
Something that it vanished or fell away into black space behind us.
Giddy things such as fences, buildings and stone walls were tossed right and left in
streaming glimpses.
Good motor-roads were yet unbuilt.
There were short, sharp grades like humps on the roller-coaster at the fair.
Taking them at fifty miles an hour, at night, when you cannot see the top as you start up,
Nor all the way down as you begin the plunge is a wild liberating sensation.
Sense of level is lost.
One center of gravity rises and falls momentously.
The heart sloshes around, and you don't care what happens.
Not even if you should run off the world.
It doesn't matter.
Natalie was in a trance-like rapture.
She never spoke.
Her eyes were fixed ahead.
Her body was static.
her head and arms moved, sometimes her feet to slip the clutch or apply the brake.
All that pertains to the pattern of consciousness, seeing, hearing, attention, will and willing,
were strained outward beyond the windshield, as if externalized, acting outside of her.
What remained on the seat, besides the thrill at the core of her, was her automatic self-controlling
There was no traffic at that hour of night until we fell in with the milk and truck wagons
The
Natalee cut in and out of that rumbling procession with skill and ease.
Her calculations were tight and daring, but never foolhardy.
Very accomplished driving, I said, as she pulled up at the ferry with the engine idling
softly.
Fifty minutes, she said, a little down, on looking at her watch.
I thought we should have done it in forty-five.
Don't you love it at night?
Horror
Dawn was breaking when we returned.
It gave us a start of apprehension to see the lights still burning in Galt's apartment.
We found Mrs. Galt sitting at the side of his bed.
Her face was distorted with horror and anxiety.
Galt lay just as I had seen him last.
He hasn't moved, said Mrs. Galt.
I can't arouse him.
I'm not sure he is breathing.
Neither was the doctor.
The pulse was imperceptible.
A glass held at his nostrils showed no trace of moisture.
All the bodily functions were in a state of suspense.
The only presumption of life lay in the general arbitrary fact that he was not dead.
The doctor had never seen anything like this before.
He was afraid to act without a consultation.
Motors were sent off for four other doctors, two in New Jersey and two in New York.
They would bring nurses with them.
Mrs. Galt could not be moved from the bedside.
Natalie telephoned Vera to come.
I telephoned Mordecai.
Then we walked up and down the eastern terrace and watched the sun come up.
She stopped and leaned over the parapet, looking down.
Her eyes were dry.
Her body shook with convulsive movements.
My heart went forth.
I put my arm around her.
She stood up, gazed at me with a stricken expression, then dropped her head on my shoulder
and wept, whispering,
Coxie, Coxie, oh, what shall we do?
What shall we do?
Gangs of workmen were appearing below.
The day of labor was about to begin.
I left her to get the superintendent on the telephone and tell him to suspend work.
5
The consultation began at 9 o'clock.
Mordecai arrived while it was taking place.
Somehow on the way, he had picked up Vera.
They came together.
We waited in the library room of Galt's apartment.
At the end of an hour, the five doctors came to us, looking very grave.
The Galt's family doctor announced the consensus.
It was a stroke, with some very unusual aspects.
Life persisted.
The threat of it was extremely fine, almost invisible.
Mordecai rose from his chair with a colossal awful gesture. His eyes were staring. His face was like a mask. His head turned slowly right and left, through half a circle with a weird mechanical movement.
Mordecai rose from his chair with a colossal awful gesture. His eyes were staring. His face was like a mask. His head turned slowly right and left through half a circle with a weird mechanical movement as a thing turning on a pivot in a fixed plane.
They have killed him, he whispered.
All of you, I gall upon to witness, they have killed him.
They could not ruin him, that they tried to do, but they have killed him.
They are once more in the dark ages.
The physicians were astonished and ill at ease.
They did not know what he was talking about.
They did not know who he was.
I was the only one who could know what he meant, and for a minute I was bewildered.
And It Broke Upon Me.
The combat reconstructed itself in my mind.
I recalled those days of strain and anguish when all the forces of Wall Street were acting
to destroy him and he fought alone.
He withstood them.
In the might of his own strength, in that moment which it had been torture almost unendurable
to bide the coming of, he smote his enemies with the fist of wickedness and scattered
them away.
Yes, all that, he had won the fight, yet there he lay.
His death would leave them in possession of the field, with a victory unawares.
They meant only to break his power, to unloose his hands, to overthrow him as an upstart
dynast.
But the blood weapon which we think is put away, which they never meant and would not
have dared to use, it had done its work in spite of them.
They could not break him.
6 Well, we had to wait.
Life must wait upon death, because it can.
There was much to think about.
Mordecai spent two hours with me making precise arrangements against any contingency.
It was very important that Wall Street should know nothing about Galt's condition.
The news might cause a panic.
I was to call him up at regular intervals by a direct telephone wire on which no one
could listen in.
If any rumor got out, it should be met with blank silence.
Sevil winded soon out, no matter, he said.
What he needed was a little time to prepare the financial structure for the imminent shock.
He would inform his associates and such others as were entitled to know, and together they
would agree upon protective measures.
Galt's death was bound to produce a terrific convulsion.
There is no line of succession in Wall Street, no hereditary prince to receive the crown.
When the monarch falls, the whale is, the king is dead, there is no king.
About ten o'clock in the morning of the second day, Galt opened his eyes.
He could neither move nor speak, but he was vividly conscious.
Mrs. Galt came to the room where I had established a workstation to tell me this.
He wants something, she said.
He says so with his eyes.
I think it is you he wants.
His eyes expressed pleasure at seeing me.
Not a muscle moved.
He could see and hear and think, and that was all.
He did want something.
I guessed a number of things, and he looked them all away.
It wasn't Mordecai.
It wasn't anything in relation to business.
In this dilemma, I remembered a game we played in childhood.
It was for one of the players to hold in his mind any object on earth and for the other
to identify it by asking questions up to 20 that had to be answered yes or no.
Galt's eyes could say yes and no, and he could hear.
Therefore, anything he was thinking of could be found out.
I explained the game to him.
He instantly understood, and we began.
Was the thing a mineral substance? He did not answer. Was it vegetable? He did not answer.
Was it animal, then? Still no answer, but a bothered look in his eyes.
I stopped to wonder why he hadn't answered yes or no to one of the three. Was it perhaps
something mineral, vegetable and animal combined? His eyes lighted, saying yes.
Was it in this room?
No.
Was it far away?
No.
Was it just outside?
Yes.
I went to the window and looked out.
In every direction below the level of the finished terrace was the site of construction
work in a state of suspense, heaps of materials, tools where they had fallen, power machinery
idle.
A thought occurred to me.
I went back and looked in his eyes.
We've had all the work stopped because of the noise. Do you wish it to go on? Is that what you want?
Yes, he answered, with a flash of his eyes.
Two hours later, the air was vibrant with the clank-clank of many steam drills, the screech of taut hoisting cables,
the throb of donkey engines, the roar of rock blasting, and he was happy.
Incidentally, the resumption of work served Mordecai's purpose in an unexpected way.
Rumor of Galt's illness did get out. The newspapers began to telephone. Unable to get information in that way, they thought it must be serious and sent reporters out in haste.
They returned to their offices saying they couldn't get a word out of us, but Galt couldn't be very ill so long as all that uproar was permitted to go on.
A week passed in this way. One evening on my return from an urgent trip to New York, Natalie came racing down the Great Hall to meet me with a flying slide at the end, as in the old days she was wont to meet Gault, and whether she meant it quite or miscalculated the distance I do not know, but anyhow I had either to let her go by off her balance or catch her, and she landed in my arms.
O Coxie, he's asking for you, she said, getting her feet and dragging me along at a run.
He's better all at once.
He can talk.
The faculty of speech was gradually restored.
When he could talk freely, he told us that he had been conscious all the while, day and
night.
He heard every word that was spoken at the consultation.
Therefore, he had more expert opinion on his condition than we had.
He had kept count of time.
He knew what day it was when he first opened his eyes, and since then in his sleep he had
been continuously conscious.
He felt no pain.