by Jack London
CHAPTER XXIV
Harris Collins was fifty-two years of age. He was slender and dapper,and in appearance and comportment was so sweet- and gentle-spirited thatthe impression he radiated was almost of sissyness. He might have taughta Sunday-school, presided over a girls' seminary, or been a president ofa humane society.
His complexion was pink and white, his hands were as soft as the hands ofhis daughters, and he weighed a hundred and twelve pounds. Moreover, hewas afraid of his wife, afraid of a policeman, afraid of physicalviolence, and lived in constant dread of burglars. But the one thing hewas not afraid of was wild animals of the most ferocious sorts, such aslions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars. He knew the game, and couldconquer the most refractory lion with a broom-handle--not outside thecage, but inside and locked in.
It was because he knew the game and had learned it from his father beforehim, a man even smaller than himself and more fearful of all thingsexcept animals. This father, Noel Collins, had been a successful animaltrainer in England, before emigrating to America, and in America he hadcontinued the success and laid the foundation of the big animal trainingschool at Cedarwild, which his son had developed and built up after him.So well had Harris Collins built on his father's foundation that theplace was considered a model of sanitation and kindness. It entertainedmany visitors, who invariably went away with their souls filled withecstasy over the atmosphere of sweetness and light that pervaded theplace. Never, however, were they permitted to see the actual training.On occasion, performances were given them by the finished products whichverified all their other delightful and charming conclusions about theschool. But had they seen the training of raw novices, it would havebeen a different story. It might even have been a riot. As it was, theplace was a zoo, and free at that; for, in addition to the animals heowned and trained and bought and sold, a large portion of the businesswas devoted to boarding trained animals and troupes of animals for ownerswho were out of engagements, or for estates of such owners which were inprocess of settlement. From mice and rats to camels and elephants, andeven, on occasion, to a rhinoceros or a pair of hippopotamuses, he couldsupply any animal on demand.
When the Circling Brothers' big three-ring show on a hard winter wentinto the hands of the receivers, he boarded the menagerie and the horsesand in three months turned a profit of fifteen thousand dollars. More--hemortgaged all he possessed against the day of the auction, bought in thetrained horses and ponies, the giraffe herd and the performing elephants,and, in six months more was quit of an of them, save the pony Repeaterwho turned air-springs, at another profit of fifteen thousand dollars. Asfor Repeater, he sold the pony several months later for a sheer profit oftwo thousand. While this bankruptcy of the Circling Brothers had beenthe greatest financial achievement of Harris Collin's life, neverthelesshe enjoyed no mean permanent income from his plant, and, in addition,split fees with the owners of his board animals when he sent them to thewinter Hippodrome shows, and, more often than not, failed to split anyfee at all when he rented the animals to moving-picture companies.
Animal men, the country over, acknowledged him to be, not only therichest in the business, but the king of trainers and the grittiest manwho ever went into a cage. And those who from the inside had seen himwork were agreed that he had no soul. Yet his wife and children, andthose in his small social circle, thought otherwise. They, never seeinghim at work, were convinced that no softer-hearted, more sentimental manhad ever been born. His voice was low and gentle, his gestures weredelicate, his views on life, the world, religion and politics, themildest. A kind word melted him. A plea won him. He gave to all localcharities, and was gravely depressed for a week when the Titanic wentdown. And yet--the men in the trained-animal game acknowledged him thenerviest and most nerveless of the profession. And yet--his greatestfear in the world was that his large, stout wife, at table, should crownhim with a plate of hot soup. Twice, in a tantrum, she had done thisduring their earlier married life. In addition to his fear that shemight do it again, he loved her sincerely and devotedly, as he loved hischildren, seven of them, for whom nothing was too good or too expensive.
So well did he love them, that the four boys from the beginning heforbade from seeing him _work_, and planned gentler careers for them.John, the oldest, in Yale, had elected to become a man of letters, and,in the meantime, ran his own automobile with the corresponding standardof living such ownership connoted in the college town of New Haven.Harold and Frederick were down at a millionaires' sons' academy inPennsylvania; and Clarence, the youngest, at a prep. school inMassachusetts, was divided in his choice of career between becoming adoctor or an aviator. The three girls, two of them twins, were pledgedto be cultured into ladies. Elsie was on the verge of graduating fromVassar. Mary and Madeline, the twins, in the most select and mostexpensive of seminaries, were preparing for Vassar. All of whichrequired money which Harris Collins did not grudge, but which strainedthe earning capacity of his animal-training school. It compelled him towork the harder, although his wife and the four sons and three daughtersdid not dream that he actually worked at all. Their idea was that byvirtue of superior wisdom he merely superintended, and they would havebeen terribly shocked could they have seen him, club in hand, thrashingforty mongrel dogs, in the process of training, which had become excitedand out of hand.
A great deal of the work was done by his assistants, but it was HarrisCollins who taught them continually what to do and how to do it, and whohimself, on more important animals, did the work and showed them how. Hisassistants were almost invariably youths from the reform schools, and hepicked them with skilful eye and intuition. Control of them, under theirparoles, with intelligence and coldness on their part, were theconditions and qualities he sought, and such combination, as a matter ofcourse, carried with it cruelty. Hot blood, generous impulses,sentimentality, were qualities he did not want for his business; and theCedarwild Animal School was business from the first tick of the clock tothe last bite of the lash. In short, Harris Collins, in the totality ofresults, was guilty of causing more misery and pain to animals than alllaboratories of vivisection in Christendom.
And into this animal hell Michael descended--although his arrival washorizontal, across three thousand five hundred miles, in the same cratein which he had been placed at the New Washington Hotel in Seattle. Neveronce had he been out of the crate during the entire journey, andfilthiness, as well as wretchedness, characterized his condition. Thanksto his general good health, the wound of the amputated toe was in theprocess of uneventful healing. But dirt clung to him, and he wasinfested with fleas.
Cedarwild, to look at, was anything save a hell. Velvet lawns, gravelledwalks and drives, and flowers formally growing, led up to the group oflong low buildings, some of frame and some of concrete. But Michael wasnot received by Harris Collins, who, at the moment, sat in his privateoffice, Harry Del Mar's last telegram on his desk, writing a memorandumto his secretary to query the railroad and the express companies for thewhereabouts of a dog, crated and shipped by one, Harry Del Mar, fromSeattle and consigned to Cedarwild. It was a pallid-eyed youth ofeighteen in overalls who received Michael, receipted for him to theexpressman, and carried his crate into a slope-floored concrete room thatsmelled offensively and chemically clean.
Michael was impressed by his surroundings but not attracted by the youth,who rolled up his sleeves and encased himself in large oilskin apronbefore he opened the crate. Michael sprang out and staggered about onlegs which had not walked for days. This particular two-legged god wasuninteresting. He was as cold as the concrete floor, as methodical as amachine; and in such fashion he went about the washing, scrubbing, anddisinfecting of Michael. For Harris Collins was scientific andantiseptic to the last word in his handling of animals, and Michael wasscientifically made clean, without deliberate harshness, but without anyslightest hint of gentleness or consideration.
Naturally, he did not understand. On top of all he had alreadyexperienced, not even knowin
g executioners and execution chambers, forall he knew this bare room of cement and chemical smell might well be theplace of the ultimate life-disaster and this youth the god who was tosend him into the dark which had engulfed all he had known and loved.What Michael did know beyond the shadow of any doubt was that it was allcoldly ominous and terribly strange. He endured the hand of the youth-god on the scruff of his neck, after the collar had been unbuckled; butwhen the hose was turned on him, he resented and resisted. The youth,merely working by formula, tightened the safe grip on the scruff ofMichael's neck and lifted him clear of the floor, at the same time, withthe other hand, directing the stream of water into his mouth andincreasing it to full force by the nozzle control. Michael fought, andwas well drowned for his pains, until he gasped and strangled helplessly.
After that he resisted no more, and was washed out and scrubbed out andcleansed out with the hose, a big bristly brush, and much carbolic soap,the lather of which got into and stung his eyes and nose, causing him toweep copiously and sneeze violently. Apprehensive of what might at anymoment happen to him, but by this time aware that the youth was neitherpositive nor negative for kindness or harm, Michael continued to endurewithout further battling, until, clean and comfortable, he was put awayinto a pen, sweet and wholesome, where he slept and for the time beingforgot. The place was the hospital, or segregation ward, and a week ofimprisonment was spent therein, in which nothing happened in the way ofdevelopment of germ diseases, and nothing happened to him except regulargood food, pure drinking-water, and absolute isolation from contact withall life save the youth-god who, like an automaton, attended on him.
Michael had yet to meet Harris Collins, although, from a distance, oftenhe heard his voice, not loud, but very imperative. That the owner ofthis voice was a high god, Michael knew from the first sound of it. Onlya high god, a master over ordinary gods, could be so imperative. Willwas in that voice, and accustomedness to command. Any dog would have sodecided as quickly as Michael did. And any dog would have decided thatthere was no love nor lovableness in the god behind the voice, nothing towarm one's heart nor to adore.