Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth CenturyDonnelly, Ignatius
Science
Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century
Donnelly, Ignatius
Dystopias -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Science fiction; Social problems -- Fiction; Twentieth century -- Fiction
"The next morning, at daybreak, I hurried to the same detective I had
employed the day before; he was a shrewd, but not unkindly fellow. I
explained to him my plans, and we went out together. We took a
carriage and drove rapidly from place to place; he really seemed
pleased to find himself engaged, for once in his life, in a good
action. What I did will be revealed as I go on with this story.
"At half past eight o'clock that morning the Jansen family had
finished their breakfast and talked over and over again, for the
twentieth time, their wonderful turn of fortune, and all its
incidents, including repeated counting of their marvelous hoard of
money. Then Christina was left in charge of the children, and the
father and mother sallied forth to look for a new residence. The
neighbors crowded around to congratulate them; and they
explained,--for, kindly-hearted souls, they did not wish their old
companions in poverty to think that they had willingly fled from
them, at the first approach of good fortune,--they explained that
they must get a new home nearer to the theater, for Christina's sake;
and that they proposed that she should have teachers in music and
singing and acting; for she was now the bread-winner of the family,
and they hoped that some day she would shine in opera with the great
artists.
"Did the neighbors know of any place, suitable for them, which they
could rent?
"No, they did not; they rarely passed out of their own poor
neighborhood.
"But here a plainly dressed man, who looked like a workman, and who
had been listening to the conversation, spoke up and said that he had
observed, only that morning, a bill of 'To Rent' upon a very neat
little house, only a few blocks from the theater; and, as he was
going that way, he would be glad to show them the place. They thanked
him; and, explaining to him that the business of renting houses was
something new to them, for heretofore they had lived in one or two
rooms--they might have added, very near the roof--they walked off
with the stranger. He led them into a pleasant, quiet, respectable
neighborhood, and at last stopped before a small, neat three-story
house, with a little garden in front and another larger one in the
rear.
"'What a pretty place!' said the mother; 'but I fear the rent will be
too high for us.'
"'Well, there is no harm in inquiring,' said the workman, and he rang
the bell.
"A young man, dressed like a mechanic, answered the summons. He
invited them in; the house was comfortably, but not richly furnished.
They went through it and into the garden; they were delighted with
everything. And then came the question they feared to ask: What was
the rent?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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