by Jules Vernes
I burst out laughing and the conversation turned to other matters.
Our voyage ended with no further incident, except that Hopkins tried to move one of his huge packing cases, against the captain’s advice, and nearly dumped it overboard. The ensuing discussion gave him another chance to hold forth on the importance of his business dealings and the value of his cargo. He lunched and dined like a man whose aim is not to take on nourishment, but to spend as much money as possible. By the time we reached our destination, every passenger on board was singing the praises of this extraordinary character.
The Kentucky docked at Albany before the fatal hour of midnight. I gave Mrs Melvil my arm, thinking myself fortunate to have disembarked safe and sound, while Mr Augustus Hopkins, with considerable ado, got his two marvellous packing cases unloaded and made his triumphal entry into the Washington Hotel, followed by a large crowd.
Mr Francis Wilson, Mrs Melvil’s father, greeted me with a grace and openness that made his hospitality all the more welcome. Nothing would do but that I must accept an attractive blue room in that honourable businessman’s home. I cannot call it a hotel, for although it was an immense house, its spacious apartments were overshadowed by the enormous stores, crammed with merchandise from all over the world. The business establishments of Le Havre and Bordeaux are only a faint imitation of this city, with its swarms of office workers, tradesmen, clerks, and labourers. Although the master of the house had many demands on his time, I was treated like a king. I had no need to ask, or even to wish for anything. And as if this were not enough, I was waited on by black servants, and for anyone who has enjoyed that experience, nothing else will do.
The name Albany had always struck me as a charming one, and the next day I went for a walk in that beautiful city. I found that it had all the activity of New York, the same bustle of business, the same wide variety of interests. The businessmen’s thirst for profit, the zeal with which they work, their need to extract money by every means that industry or speculation can discover, does not have the same repulsive aspect in the traders of the New World as it sometimes produces in their overseas counterparts. They act with a certain grandeur that is quite compelling. It is easy to understand why these people need to earn money in such large amounts, because they spend it on the same scale.
The conversations over our luxuriously served meals, and during the evenings, began in a very general way, but soon turned to more specific topics. We chatted about the city, its points of interest, its theatre. It seemed to me that Mr Wilson was very well informed about these worldly amusements, but when we got around to discussing the eccentricities of particular cities, a topic that has aroused considerable interest in Europe, he proved to be American to the core.
‘Are you referring,’ he asked me, ‘to our attitude to the famous Lola Montès?’
‘Of course,’ I replied, ‘only the Americans could have taken the Countess of Lansfeld seriously.’
‘We took her seriously because she acted like a serious person. It’s the same in business. When serious matters are treated lightly, we don’t attach the slightest importance to them.’
‘You must have been shocked,’ said Mrs Melvil facetiously, ‘to learn that Lola Montès spent some of her time here visiting girls’ boarding schools.’
‘To tell the honest truth,’ I replied, ‘that did strike me as bizarre. She is a very charming dancer, but not exactly a role model for our young ladies to emulate.’
‘Our young ladies,’ retorted Mr Wilson, ‘are brought up along more independent lines than yours are. When Lola Montès visited their boarding schools, it was neither the Parisian dancer nor the Bavarian Countess of Lansfeld who made her appearance there, but simply a famous and very attractive woman. The curious children who saw her were not harmed in the least by her visit. It was a holiday, a bit of fun and amusement. Now what’s wrong with that?’
‘What’s wrong is that great artists are spoiled by these extraordinary ovations. When they come home after a tour in the United States, they’re completely impossible.’
‘What have they got to complain about, then?’ asked Mr Wilson abruptly.
‘Nothing at all,’ I replied. ‘But how could Jenny Lind feel honoured by European hospitality when here she sees the pillars of society clinging to her carriage during public festivities? How can hospital openings, which her impresario arranges for her, compete with that?’
‘Now you’re beginning to sound jealous,’ quipped Mrs Melvil. ‘You resent the fact that such an eminent artist has always refused to perform in Paris.’
‘Absolutely not, madam. And in any case I wouldn’t advise her to come to Paris, because she would find a very different reception from the one you gave her here.’
‘That’s your loss,’ said Mr Wilson.
‘Not as much our loss as hers, if you ask me.’
Mrs Melvil laughed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you do lose some hospitals, at least.’
After a few more minutes of banter, Mr Wilson said to me: ‘If you’re interested in exhibitions and sales, you’ve come at just the right time. The first tickets for Madame Sontag’s concert are going to be auctioned off tomorrow.’
‘Auctioned? Just as if they were auctioning off a railroad?’
‘Exactly. And the buyer who seems ready to make the highest bid so far is an ordinary hatter from right here in Albany.’
‘He must be a great music lover, is he?’ I asked.
‘Him? John Turner? He absolutely detests music. He thinks it’s the most unpleasant sound in the world.’
‘What’s he up to, then?’
‘He wants to improve his public image. It’s an advertising stunt. People will talk about him, not only here, but in every state in the Union, and not just in America, but in Europe as well. People will buy hats from him. He’ll ship his junk out to the whole world.’
‘I can’t believe it!’
‘You’ll see tomorrow, and if you need a hat ...’
‘I won’t buy one of his. They must be appalling.’
‘Oho!’ said Mrs Melvil, getting to her feet. ‘Listen to the fanatical Parisian!’
I took leave of my hosts and went off to ponder over these American wonders.
The next day I went to the auction of the famous first ticket to Madame Sontag’s concert, with a serious look on my face that would have done justice to the most phlegmatic American in the whole country. All eyes were on John Turner the hatter, the hero of this new craze. His friends came up to him and complimented him as if he were the saviour of his country’s independence. Others were egging him on and laying bets on his chances of winning the honour, as against the chances of his competitors.
The bidding started. Soon the price of the first ticket had risen from four dollars to 200 and then 300 dollars. John Turner was sure his would be the winning bid. He never tried to outbid his competitors by more than a small amount, for an increase of a single dollar would have been enough to make him the lucky purchaser, and he was prepared to spend 1,000, if he had to, to acquire the precious ticket. The bidding rose rapidly to 300, 400, 500, and 600 dollars. The crowd’s excitement rose to a fever pitch, and roars of approval greeted every reckless bidder. The first ticket took on an astronomical price in everyone’s mind, and scarcely any thought was given to the others. It was, in short, a question of honour.
Suddenly, a longer cheer than usual rang out, as the hatter shouted in a stentorian voice:
‘One thousand dollars!’
‘A thousand dollars,’ repeated the auctioneer. ‘Any advance on 1,000? A thousand dollars for the first ticket to the concert. Do I hear another bid?’
In the silences between outbursts, a low rustling sound spread through the hall. In spite of myself, I was impressed. Turner, sure that victory was in his grasp, looked smugly at his admirers. He held in his hand a sheaf of bank notes from one of the 600 banks that do business in the United States, and waved them about, shouting again: ‘One thousand dollars!’
Then a new voice rang out. ‘Three thousand dollars!’ I turned my head to see who had spoken.
‘Hurrah!’ shouted the excited crowd.
‘Three thousand dollars,’ repeated the auctioneer.
In the face of such competition the hatter turned and fled with his head down, completely unnoticed in the excitement.
‘Sold for 3,000 dollars!’ cried the auctioneer.
Up strode Augustus Hopkins in person, the free citizen of the United States of America. Obviously he was well on the way to becoming a famous man. All he needed now was to have anthems composed in his honour.
I escaped from the hall with difficulty and just barely managed to push my way through the 10,000 people standing at the door to greet the triumphant purchaser. As soon as he came in sight he was greeted with shouts of praise. For the second time since the previous evening, he was taken back to the Washington Hotel by the exuberant populace. He greeted them with a mixture of modesty and arrogance, and that evening, in response to popular demand, he made an appearance on the hotel balcony, to the applause of the delirious crowd.
‘Well, what do you make of it?’ Mr Wilson asked me later, when I told him about the day’s events.
‘As a Frenchman and a Parisian, I think Madame Sontag will be kind enough to let me have a ticket without paying 15,000 francs for it.’
‘I think so too,’ said Mr Wilson, ‘but if this Mr Hopkins is clever enough, the 3,000 dollars he spent may bring him 100,000. A man as eccentric as that can make millions just by stooping down and picking them up.’
‘What kind of man can this Hopkins be?’ wondered Mrs Melvil. At that very moment, the entire city of Albany was asking the same question.
That question was answered by the events of the next few days. The steamboat from New York unloaded more packing cases, even more extraordinary in shape and size than the first. One of them, which looked like a house, carelessly (or carefully, depending on one’s point of view) got stuck in a narrow street on the outskirts of Albany. It could go no farther, and there it had to stay, motionless as a block of stone. During the next twenty-four hours the entire population of the town arrived on the scene. Hopkins took advantage of the crowds to make fiery speeches, lashing out at the ignorant architects and even suggesting that he would have the plan of the streets changed to make way for his freight.
The feasible solutions were soon reduced to two. The packing case, whose contents were the object of widespread curiosity, could be broken open, or the tumbledown house impeding its progress could be demolished. The curious citizens of Albany would no doubt have preferred the first option, but Hopkins vetoed it. Still, something had to be done. Traffic in the neighbourhood was blocked and the police were threatening to get a court order to have the packing case broken up. Hopkins solved the problem by buying the offending house and having it torn down.
This last little touch, as might have been expected, brought him to the pinnacle of his renown. His name and story made the rounds of every living room in town. He was the topic of conversation at the Independent Club and the Union Club. In the Albany cafés, wagers were laid as to what this mysterious man was planning to do. The newspapers indulged in the wildest speculation, temporarily diverting public attention from the problems that had recently arisen between Cuba and the United States. I believe it even led to a duel between a merchant and one of the town’s officials, and that Hopkins’s backer emerged victorious on that occasion.
When Madame Sontag gave her concert, which I attended with much less fanfare than our hero did, his presence all but changed the entire purpose of the gathering.
Eventually the mystery was explained, and soon Augustus Hopkins stopped trying to conceal it. He was simply a businessman who had come to set up a kind of World’s Fair just outside Albany. He was planning to operate independently one of those colossal undertakings which up until then had been the monopoly of governments.
He had bought for this purpose a vast tract of uncultivated land about ten miles from Albany, with nothing standing on it but the ruins of Fort William, which at one time protected English trading posts along the Canadian frontier. He was already in the process of hiring workmen to make a start on his gigantic projects. His immense packing cases no doubt contained tools and construction equipment.
As soon as this news reached the Albany stock market, it aroused an unusually keen interest among the traders. They all wanted an option to buy shares from the great entrepreneur. Although Hopkins gave vague replies to all their questions, an artificial market soon sprang up for these imaginary shares, and from then on the affair began to snowball.
‘This man is a very clever speculator,’ Mr Wilson remarked to me one day. ‘I don’t know whether he’s a millionaire or a beggar, because you’d have to be either Job or Rothschild to undertake such a venture, but he’ll certainly make a huge fortune.’
‘I don’t know what to believe any more, my dear Mr Wilson. And I don’t know which to admire more, a man with nerve enough to embark on such an enterprise, or a country that supports and promotes it, and asks nothing in return.’
‘That’s the road to success, my dear sir.’
‘Or to ruin,’ I replied.
‘Well,’ retorted Mr Wilson, ‘let me tell you that in America, a bankruptcy makes everyone rich and ruins no one.’
My only arguments against Mr Wilson were the facts themselves, and so I waited impatiently for the outcome of all the manoeuvring and publicity, which I found extremely interesting. I collected every titbit of news about Augustus Hopkins’s venture, and every day I read reports of it in the newspapers. The first group of workmen had left for the site and the ruins of Fort William were beginning to disappear. The only topic of conversation was these construction projects, and what their ultimate purpose might be. Suggestions poured in from all sides, from New York and Albany, Boston and Baltimore. ‘Musical instruments’.
‘daguerreotype pictures’, ‘abdominal supports’, ‘centrifugal pumps’, ‘square pianos’ were some of the guesses vying for attention, and the American imagination was going full speed ahead. It was stated as a fact that a whole new town would spring up around the Exposition. It was rumoured that Augustus Hopkins planned to found a city that would rival New Orleans, and to name it after himself. Next came the theory that this city (which would of course be fortified because of its proximity to the Canadian border) would shortly become the capital of the United States! And so on, and so on.
While these and many other exaggerated ideas were circulating through every brain, the hero of the moment had almost nothing to say. He paid regular visits to the Albany Stock Exchange, made inquiries about business matters, took note of recently arrived shipments, but remained tight-lipped about his own extensive plans. It was surprising that such a powerful man had put out no actual publicity. Perhaps he considered himself above using everyday methods of starting up an enterprise and intended to do it purely on his own merits.
Developments had reached this point when, one fine morning, the New York Herald carried the following item:
As everyone knows, work on the Albany World’s Fair is progressing rapidly. By now the ruins of old Fort William have disappeared and foundations are being dug for splendid new buildings. There is widespread enthusiasm for the project. The other day a workman’s pick turned up the remains of an enormous skeleton that had evidently lain buried there for thousands of years. We hasten to add that this discovery will in no way delay work on what will be the eighth wonder of the world, right here in the United States.
I paid no more attention to these few lines than to any of the countless brief news items that clutter up American newspapers. Little did I suspect the use that would be made of them later. As Augustus Hopkins told it, the new discovery took on an extraordinary importance. He was now as free with his speeches, stories, theories, and deductions about the unearthing of this prodigious skeleton as he had been reluctant before to explain the plans that lay behind his great undertaki
ng. It seemed as if all his speculations and money-making schemes were wrapped up in that one newly discovered item. The discovery had come about, apparently, in a miraculous fashion. For three days, excavations had been under way, on Hopkins’s orders, aimed at reaching the other end of the gigantic fossil, but still without results. No one could tell how big it might eventually prove to be. It was Hopkins himself, while he was supervising the excavation of a deep hole about 200 feet from the first one, who finally made out the end of the cyclopean carcass. The news immediately spread with lightning speed, and the discovery, unique in the annals of geology, became an event of world-wide significance.
The impressionable Americans, with their tendency to revise and exaggerate, soon spread the news around, adding to its importance to suit their own tastes. People wondered about the origin of these huge remains and about the significance of their presence in the hitherto undisturbed earth. The Albany Institute undertook a study on the topic.
I must admit that this question held more interest for me than the future splendours of the Palace of Industry or the eccentric speculations of the New World. I began watching for every little incident related to it. That was not hard to do, for the press served it up in every possible way. I was even fortunate enough to learn about it in detail from citizen Hopkins himself.
Since his arrived in Albany, this extraordinary man had been sought out by the high society of the city. In the United States, where the merchant class are the nobility, it was only natural that such a venturesome speculator should be received with the honours due to his rank. And so he was welcomed in clubs and at family teas with characteristic eagerness. I met him one evening in Mr Wilson’s living room. Naturally, there was no talk of anything but the topic of the day, and in any case. Mr Hopkins did not wait to be asked about it.
He gave us an interesting, thorough, scholarly, but witty description of the discovery, how it had come about, and what its unforeseeable consequences might be. At the same time, he hinted that he was considering how he might make a profit from it.