poverty-stricken Greece, honored
the drafts his son drew upon him? Not so. Alexander did as citizen
Morgan is doing; only, instead of stopping the coaches on the highroads,
he pillaged cities, held kings for ransom, levied contributions from
the conquered countries. Let us turn to Hannibal. You know how he left
Carthage, don't you? He did not have even the eighteen or twenty talents
of his predecessor; and as he needed money, he seized and sacked the
city of Saguntum in the midst of peace, in defiance of the fealty of
treaties. After that he was rich and could begin his campaign. Forgive
me if this time I no longer quote Plutarch, but Cornelius Nepos. I will
spare you the details of his descent from the Pyrenees, how he crossed
the Alps and the three battles which he won, seizing each time the
treasures of the vanquished, and turn to the five or six years he spent
in Campania. Do you believe that he and his army paid the Capuans for
their subsistence, and that the bankers of Carthage, with whom he had
quarrelled, supplied him with funds? No; war fed war--the Morgan system,
citizen. Let us pass on to Caesar. Ah, Caesar! That's another story. He
left for Spain with some thirty millions of debt, and returned with
practically the same. He started for Gaul, where he spent ten years with
our ancestors. During these ten years he sent over one hundred millions
to Rome, repassed the Alps, crossed the Rubicon, marched straight to the
Capitol, forced the gates of the Temple of Saturn, where the treasury
was, seized sufficient for his private needs--and not for those of the
Republic--three thousand pounds of gold in ingots; and died (he whom
creditors twenty years earlier refused to allow to leave his little
house in the Suburra) leaving two or three thousand sesterces per head
to the citizens, ten or twelve millions to Calpurnia, and thirty or
forty millions to Octavius; always the Morgan system, save that Morgan,
I am sure, would die sooner than subvert to his personal needs either
the silver of the Gauls or the gold of the capital. Now let us spring
over eighteen centuries and come to the General Buonaparte." And the
young aristocrat, after the fashion of the enemies of the Conqueror of
Italy, affected to emphasize the _u_, which Bonaparte had eliminated
from his name, and the _e_, from which he had removed the accent.

This affectation seemed to irritate Roland intensely. He made a movement
as if to spring forward, but his compa