et about the Congo to anyone. He could not help himself now;
the horrors rushed to his mouth and escaped--the cry of the great mournful
country--the cry that he had brought to Europe with him in his heart,
found vent.

Schaunard sat amazed, not at the infamies pouring from Adams's mouth, for
he was well acquainted with them, but at the man's vehemence and energy.

"I have come to Europe to expose him," finished Adams.

"Expose who?"

"Leopold, King of the Belgians."

"But, my dear Monsieur Adams, you have come to waste your time; he is
already exposed. Expose Leopold, King of the Belgians! Say at once that
you are going to expose the sun. He doesn't care. He exposes himself. His
public and his private life are common property."

"You mean to say that everyone knows what I know?"

"Precisely, and perhaps even more, but everyone has not seen what you have
seen, and that's all the difference."

"How so?"

"In this way, monsieur; let us suppose that you have just seen a child run
over in the Rue de la Paix. You come in here and tell me of it; the horror
of it is in your mind, but you cannot convey that horror to me, simply
because I have not seen what you have seen. Still, you can convey a part
of it, for I know the Rue de la Paix, it is close to me, outside my door,
and I know French children.

"You come to me and tell me of hideous sights you have seen in Africa.
That does not move me a tenth so much, for Africa is very far away--it is,
in fact, for me a geographical expression; the people are niggers I have
never seen, dwelling in a province I have never heard of. You come to seek
sympathy for this people amongst the French public? Well, I tell you
frankly you are like a man searching in a dark room for a black hat that
is not there."

"Nevertheless I shall search."

"As monsieur wills, only don't knock yourself against the chairs and
tables. Ah, monsieur, monsieur, you are young and a medical man. Remain
so, and don't lose your years and your prospects fighting the impossible.
Now listen to me, for it is old Schaunard of the Rue de la Paix who is
speaking to you. The man you would expose, as you term it, is a king to
begin with; to go on with, he is far and away the cleverest king in
Christendom. That man has brains enough to run what you in America call a
department store. Every little detail of his estate out there, even to the
cap guns and rifles of the troops, he looks after himself; that's why it
pay