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His employer, therefore, insisted on paying what the other had called "an adequate amount, if the value of such a work of art can be expressed in monetary figures at all." There was nothing more to be said. The Count gave way, with graceful reluctance. And Mr. van Koppen, as he drove along, was thinking of that cheque; he was converting the dollars into francs. They made rather an awkward sum.
His writings however prove that the Buddhism of this period was not a corrupt superstition, but could inspire and nourish some of the most beautiful thoughts which the creed has produced. Köppen, Rel. des Buddha, I. 151. Nanjio, 1237. Hsüan Chuang calls him Ch'en-na. See Watters, II. 209. The latter is probably a corruption of Kshatriya.
Had he not acted with the best intentions, under the written advice of an expert? Far from feeling uneasy, Mr. van Koppen smiled at the thought of how his millions, backed by the opinion of a connoisseur of international reputation, had enabled him to play yet one more trick upon that great Republic whose fathomless gullibility no one had ever exploited to a better purpose than himself. . . . Mr.
Admiral Jacob Jacobzoon behaved with so little spirit on the occasion that he acquired with the Antwerp populace the name of "Run- away Jacob," "Koppen gaet loppen;" and Sainte Aldegonde declared, that, but for his cowardice, the fleet of Parma would have fallen into their hands.
He respected a man who, like himself, could work in the grand style. To play upon the credulity of a continent it was Napoleonic, it was like stealing a kingdom; it was not stealing at all. This, he shrewdly suspected, was what his good friend the Count was engaged upon. That delightful old man was working in the grand style. Bronzes, ancient or modern, were Greek to Mr. van Koppen.
Not everybody is like young Koppen he attached a van to his name on reaching his seventy-fifth million who, possessed at that time of barely three dollars in the world and not even the shadow of a moustache, had both the wit to realize the hygienic importance of a certain type of goods and the pertinacity to insist on cheapening their price, in the interest of public health, to such an extent that to quote from subsequent advertisements they should be "within reach of the humblest home."
Fancy waiting for an insect," said his friend van Koppen. "I believe, Keith, you've got a sentimental streak somewhere." "I have been fighting against it all my life. A man ought to dominate his reflexes. But if the insect keeps good time why not?" He was in an elegiac mood, though he meant to drive away his cares later in the evening by the "Falernian system." He felt the exodus in the air.
Van Koppen observed: "What a man postulates is truer than what exists. I have grown grey in trying to make my fellow-creatures understand that realities are less convincing than make-believe." "Given the proper atmosphere," said the bishop, laughing, "everything becomes inevitable. If you were wrong, Mr. van Koppen, where would our poets and novelists be?" "Where are they?" queried the American.
The equivalent of fifteen pounds sterling was urgently necessary at that very moment. Fifteen pounds. Who would lend him fifteen pounds? Keith? Not likely. Keith was a miser a Scotchman, ten to one. Koppen? He had once already tried to touch him for a loan, with discouraging results. A most unsympathetic millionaire. Almost offensive, the older bounder had been.
Hohenlo then sent down a messenger, who swam, under the bridge, ascertained the exact state of affairs, and returned, when it was too late, with the first intelligence of the triumph which had been won and lost. The disappointment and mortification were almost intolerable. And thus had. Run-a-way Jacob, 'Koppen Loppen, blasted the hopes of so many wiser and braver spirits than his own.
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