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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Celebrity, Complete, by Winston Churchill
+[Author is the American Winston Churchill not the British]
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Celebrity, Complete
+
+Author: Winston Churchill
+
+Last Updated: March 6, 2009
+Release Date: October 6, 2006 [EBook #5387]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CELEBRITY, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CELEBRITY
+
+By Winston Churchill
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME 1.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he
+wore kilts. But I see I shall have to amend that, because he was not a
+celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after
+I had left New York for the West. In the old days, to my commonplace and
+unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never
+read me any of his manuscripts, which I can safely say he would have
+done had he written any at that time, and therefore my lack of detection
+of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of
+the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius,
+and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact
+with the Celebrity. Hence I am constrained to the belief that his
+eccentricity must have arrived with his genius, and both after the age
+of twenty-five. Far be it from me to question the talents of one upon
+whose head has been set the laurel of fame!
+
+When I knew him he was a young man without frills or foibles, with an
+excellent head for business. He was starting in to practise law in
+a downtown office with the intention of becoming a great corporation
+lawyer. He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and
+was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover
+laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised
+to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me. I look
+upon notoriety with the same indifference as on the buttons on a man's
+shirt-front, or the crest on his note-paper.
+
+When I went West, he fell out of my life. I probably should not have
+given him another thought had I not caught sight of his name, in old
+capitals, on a daintily covered volume in a book-stand. I had little
+time or inclination for reading fiction; my days were busy ones, and
+my nights were spent with law books. But I bought the volume out of
+curiosity, wondering the while whether he could have written it. I was
+soon set at rest, for the dedication was to a young woman of whom I had
+often heard him speak. The volume was a collection of short stories.
+On these I did not feel myself competent to sit in judgment, for my
+personal taste in fiction, if I could be said to have had any, took
+another turn. The stories dealt mainly with the affairs of aristocratic
+young men and aristocratic young women, and were differentiated to fit
+situations only met with in that society which does not have to send
+descriptions of its functions to the newspapers. The stories did not
+seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing
+moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom
+they were aimed. They left with me the impression of a well-delivered
+stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows
+on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.
+Their charm to me lay in the manner of the telling, the style, which I
+am forced to admit was delightful.
+
+But the book I had bought was a success, a great success, if the
+newspapers and the reports of the sales were to be trusted. I read the
+criticisms out of curiosity more than any other prompting, and no two of
+them were alike: they veered from extreme negative to extreme positive.
+I have to confess that it gratified me not a little to find the
+negatives for the most part of my poor way of thinking. The positives,
+on the other hand, declared the gifted young author to have found a
+manner of treatment of social life entirely new. Other critics still
+insisted it was social ridicule: but if this were so, the satire was too
+delicate for ordinary detection.
+
+However, with the dainty volume my quondam friend sprang into fame. At
+the same time he cast off the chrysalis of a commonplace existence. He
+at once became the hero of the young women of the country from Portland,
+Maine, to Portland, Oregon, many of whom wrote him letters and asked
+him for his photograph. He was asked to tell what he really meant by
+the vague endings of this or that story. And then I began to hear rumors
+that his head was turning. These I discredited, of course. If true, I
+thought it but another proof of the undermining influence of feminine
+flattery, which few men, and fewer young men, can stand. But I watched
+his career with interest.
+
+He published other books, of a high moral tone and unapproachable
+principle, which I read carefully for some ray of human weakness,
+for some stroke of nature untrammelled by the calling code of polite
+society. But in vain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+It was by a mere accident that I went West, some years ago, and settled
+in an active and thriving town near one of the Great Lakes. The air and
+bustle and smack of life about the place attracted me, and I rented an
+office and continued to read law, from force of habit, I suppose. My
+experience in the service of one of the most prominent of New York
+lawyers stood me in good stead, and gradually, in addition to a
+heterogeneous business of mines and lumber, I began to pick up a few
+clients. But in all probability I should be still pegging away at mines
+and lumber, and drawing up occasional leases and contracts, had it not
+been for Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, of Philadelphia. Although it has
+been specifically written that promotion to a young man comes neither
+from the East nor the West, nor yet from the South, Mr. Cooke arrived
+from the East, and in the nick of time for me.
+
+I was indebted to Farrar for Mr. Cooke's acquaintance, and this
+obligation I have since in vain endeavored to repay. Farrar's profession
+was forestry: a graduate of an eastern college, he had gone abroad to
+study, and had roughed it with the skilled woodsmen of the Black Forest.
+Mr. Cooke, whom he represented, had large tracts of land in these parts,
+and Farrar likewise received an income from the state, whose legislature
+had at last opened its eyes to the timber depredations and had begun to
+buy up reserves. We had rooms in the same Elizabethan building at the
+corner of Main and Superior streets, but it was more than a year
+before I got farther than a nod with him. Farrar's nod in itself was
+a repulsion, and once you had seen it you mentally scored him from
+the list of your possible friends. Besides this freezing exterior he
+possessed a cutting and cynical tongue, and had but little confidence in
+the human race. These qualities did not tend to render him popular in a
+Western town, if indeed they would have recommended him anywhere, and
+I confess to have thought him a surly enough fellow, being guided by
+general opinion and superficial observation. Afterwards the town got to
+know him, and if it did not precisely like him, it respected him, which
+perhaps is better. And he gained at least a few warm-friends, among whom
+I deem it an honor to be mentioned.
+
+Farrar's contempt for consequences finally brought him an unsought-for
+reputation. Admiration for him was born the day he pushed O'Meara out
+of his office and down a flight of stairs because he had undertaken to
+suggest that which should be done with the timber in Jackson County. By
+this summary proceeding Farrar lost the support of a faction, O'Meara
+being a power in the state and chairman of the forestry board besides.
+But he got rid of interference from that day forth.
+
+Oddly enough my friendship with Farrar was an indirect result of the
+incident I have just related. A few mornings after, I was seated in my
+office trying to concentrate my mind on page twenty of volume ten of
+the Records when I was surprised by O'Meara himself, accompanied by
+two gentlemen whom I remembered to have seen on various witness stands.
+O'Meara was handsomely dressed, and his necktie made but a faint
+pretence of concealing the gorgeous diamond in his shirt-front. But his
+face wore an aggrieved air, and his left hand was neatly bound in black
+and tucked into his coat. He sank comfortably into my wicker chair,
+which creaked a protest, and produced two yellow-spotted cigars, chewing
+the end of one with much apparent relish and pushing the other at me.
+His two friends remained respectfully standing. I guessed at what was
+coming, and braced myself by refusing the cigar,--not a great piece of
+self-denial, by the way. But a case meant much to me then, and I did
+seriously regret that O'Meara was not a possible client. At any rate, my
+sympathy with Farrar in the late episode put him out of the question.
+
+O'Meara cleared his throat and began gingerly to undo the handkerchief
+on his hand. Then he brought his fist down on the table so that the ink
+started from the stand and his cheeks shook with the effort.
+
+"I'll make him pay for this!" he shouted, with an oath.
+
+The other gentlemen nodded their approval, while I put the inkstand in a
+place of safety.
+
+"You're a pretty bright young man, Mr. Crocker," he went on, a look of
+cunning coming into his little eyes, "but I guess you ain't had too many
+cases to object to a big one."
+
+"Did you come here to tell me that?" I asked.
+
+He looked me over queerly, and evidently decided that I meant no
+effrontery.
+
+"I came here to get your opinion," he said, holding up a swollen hand,
+"but I want to tell you first that I ought to get ten thousand, not a
+cent less. That scoundrelly young upstart--"
+
+"If you want my opinion," I replied, trying to speak slowly, "it is that
+Mr. Farrar ought to get ten thousand dollars. And I think that would be
+only a moderate reward."
+
+I did not feel equal to pushing him into the street, as Farrar had done,
+and I have now but a vague notion of what he said and how he got there.
+But I remember that half an hour afterwards a man congratulated me
+openly in the bank.
+
+That night I found a new friend, although at the time I thought Farrar's
+visit to me the accomplishment of a perfunctory courtesy to a man who
+had refused to take a case against him. It was very characteristic of
+Farrar not to mention this until he rose to go. About half-past eight
+he sauntered in upon me, placing his hat precisely on the rack, and we
+talked until ten, which is to say that I talked and he commented. His
+observations were apt, if a trifle caustic, and it is needless to add
+that I found them entertaining. As he was leaving he held out his hand.
+
+"I hear that O'Meara called on you to-day," he said diffidently.
+
+"Yes," I answered, smiling, "I was sorry not to have been able to take
+his case."
+
+I sat up for an hour or more, trying to arrive at some conclusion
+about Farrar, but at length I gave it up. His visit had in it something
+impulsive which I could not reconcile with his manner. He surely owed
+me nothing for refusing a case against him, and must have known that my
+motives for so doing were not personal. But if I did not understand
+him, I liked him decidedly from that night forward, and I hoped that his
+advances had sprung from some other motive than politeness. And indeed
+we gradually drifted into a quasi-friendship. It became his habit, as
+he went out in the morning, to drop into my room for a match, and I
+returned the compliment by borrowing his coal oil when mine was out.
+At such times we would sit, or more frequently stand, discussing the
+affairs of the town and of the nation, for politics was an easy and
+attractive subject to us both. It was only in a general way that we
+touched upon each other's concerns, this being dangerous ground
+with Farrar, who was ever ready to close up at anything resembling a
+confidence. As for me, I hope I am not curious, but I own to having had
+a curiosity about Farrar's Philadelphia patron, to whom Farrar made
+but slight allusions. His very name--Farquhar Fenelon Cooke--had an odd
+sound which somehow betokened an odd man, and there was more than
+one bit of gossip afloat in the town of which he was the subject,
+notwithstanding the fact that he had never honored it with a visit. The
+gossip was the natural result of Mr. Cooke's large properties in the
+vicinity. It has never been my habit, however, to press a friend on such
+matters, and I could easily understand and respect Farrar's reluctance
+to talk of one from whom he received an income.
+
+I had occasion, in the May of that year, to make a somewhat long
+business trip to Chicago, and on my return, much to my surprise, I
+found Farrar awaiting me in the railroad station. He smiled his wonted
+fraction by way of greeting, stopped to buy a newspaper, and finally
+leading me to his buggy, turned and drove out of town. I was completely
+mystified at such an unusual proceeding.
+
+"What's this for?" I asked.
+
+"I shan't bother you long," he said; "I simply wanted the chance to talk
+to you before you got to your office. I have a Philadelphia client, a
+Mr. Cooke, of whom you may have heard me speak. Since you have been away
+the railroad has brought suit against him. The row is about the lands
+west of the Washita, on Copper Rise. It's the devil if he loses, for the
+ground is worth the dollar bills to cover it. I telegraphed, and he got
+here yesterday. He wants a lawyer, and I mentioned you."
+
+There came over me then in a flash a comprehension of Farrar which I had
+failed to grasp before. But I was quite overcome at his suggestion.
+
+"Isn't it rather a big deal to risk me on?" I said. "Better go to
+Chicago and get Parks. He's an expert in that sort of thing." I am
+afraid my expostulation was weak.
+
+"I merely spoke of you," replied Farrar, coolly,--"and he has gone
+around to your office. He knows about Parks, and if he wants him he'll
+probably take him. It all depends upon how you strike Cooke whether you
+get the case or not. I have never told you about him," he added with
+some hesitation; "he's a trifle queer, but a good fellow at the bottom.
+I should hate to see him lose his land."
+
+"How is the railroad mixed up in it?" I asked.
+
+"I don't know much about law, but it would seem as if they had a pretty
+strong case," he answered. He went on to tell me what he knew of the
+matter in his clean, pithy sentences, often brutally cynical, as though
+he had not a spark of interest in any of it. Mr. Cooke's claim to the
+land came from a maternal great-uncle, long since deceased, who had been
+a settler in these regions. The railroad answered that they had bought
+the land with other properties from the man, also deceased, to whom
+the old gentleman was alleged to have sold it. Incidentally I learned
+something of Mr. Cooke's maternal ancestry.
+
+We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect
+of so large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the
+first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad
+gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might
+have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines. A silver snaffle on a
+heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy
+waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie,
+sufficiently proclaimed his tastes. But I found myself continually
+returning to the countenance, and I still think I could have modelled a
+better face out of putty. The mouth was rather small, thick-tipped, and
+put in at an odd angle; the brown eyes were large, and from their habit
+of looking up at one lent to the round face an incongruous solemnity.
+But withal there was a perceptible acumen about the man which was
+puzzling in the extreme.
+
+"How are you, old man?" said he, hardly waiting for Farrar to introduce
+me. "Well, I hope." It was pure cordiality, nothing more. He seemed to
+bubble over with it.
+
+I said I was well, and invited him inside.
+
+"No," he said; "I like the look of the town. We can talk business here."
+
+And talk business he did, straight and to the point, so fast and
+indistinctly that at times I could scarcely follow him. I answered his
+rapid questions briefly, and as best I knew how. He wanted to know
+what chance he had to win the suit, and I told him there might be other
+factors involved beside those of which he had spoken. Plainly, also,
+that the character of his great-uncle was in question, an intimation
+which he did not appear to resent. But that there was no denying the
+fact that the railroad had a strong thing of it, and a good lawyer into
+the bargain.
+
+"And don't you consider yourself a good lawyer?" he cut in.
+
+I pointed out that the railroad lawyer was a man of twice my age,
+experience, and reputation.
+
+Without more ado, and before either Farrar or myself had time to resist,
+he had hooked an arm into each of us, and we were all three marching
+down the street in the direction of his hotel. If this was agony for
+me, I could see that it was keener agony for Farrar. And although Mr.
+Farquhar Fenelon Cooke had been in town but a scant twenty-four hours,
+it seemed as if he knew more of its inhabitants than both of us
+put together. Certain it is that he was less particular with his
+acquaintances. He hailed the most astonishing people with an easy air
+of freedom, now releasing my arm, now Farrar's, to salute. He always
+saluted. He stopped to converse with a dozen men we had never seen, many
+of whom smelled strongly of the stable, and he invariably introduced
+Farrar as the forester of his estate, and me as his lawyer in the great
+quarrel with the railroad, until I began to wish I had never heard of
+Blackstone. And finally he steered us into the spacious bar of the Lake
+House.
+
+The next morning the three of us were off early for a look at the
+contested property. It was a twenty-mile drive, and the last eight miles
+wound down the boiling Washita, still high with the melting snows of
+the pine lands. And even here the snows yet slept in the deeper hollows.
+unconscious of the budding green of the slopes. How heartily I wished
+Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke back in Philadelphia! By his eternal accounts
+of his Germantown stables and of the blue ribbons of his hackneys he
+killed all sense of pleasure of the scene, and set up an irritation that
+was well-nigh unbearable. At length we crossed the river, climbed the
+foot-hills, and paused on the ridge. Below us lay the quaint inn
+and scattered cottages of Asquith, and beyond them the limitless and
+foam-flecked expanse of lake: and on our right, lifting from the shore
+by easy slopes for a mile at stretch, Farrar pointed out the timbered
+lands of Copper Rise, spread before us like a map. But the appreciation
+of beauty formed no part of Mr. Cooke's composition,--that is, beauty as
+Farrar and I knew it.
+
+"If you win that case, old man," he cried, striking me a great whack
+between the shoulder-blades, "charge any fee you like; I'll pay it! And
+I'll make such a country-place out of this as was never seen west of New
+York state, and call it Mohair, after my old trotter. I'll put a palace
+on that clearing, with the stables just over the knoll. They'll beat the
+Germantown stables a whole lap. And that strip of level," he continued,
+pointing to a thinly timbered bit, "will hold a mile track nicely."
+
+Farrar and I gasped: it was as if we had tumbled into the Washita.
+
+"It will take money, Mr. Cooke," said Farrar, "and you haven't won the
+suit yet."
+
+"Damn the money!" said Mr. Cooke, and we knew he meant it.
+
+Over the episodes of that interminable morning it will, be better to
+pass lightly. It was spent by Farrar and me in misery. It was spent by
+Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke in an ecstasy of enjoyment, driving over and
+laying out Mohair, and I must admit he evinced a surprising genius
+in his planning, although, according to Farrar, he broke every sacred
+precept of landscape gardening again and again. He displayed the
+enthusiasm of a pioneer, and the energy of a Napoleon. And if he were
+too ignorant to accord to nature a word of praise, he had the grace
+and intelligence to compliment Farrar on the superb condition of the
+forests, and on the judgment shown in laying out the roads, which were
+so well chosen that even in this season they were well drained and dry.
+That day, too, my views were materially broadened, and I received an
+insight into the methods and possibilities of my friend's profession
+sufficient to instil a deeper respect both for it and for him. The
+crowded spots had been skilfully thinned of the older trees to give the
+younger ones a chance, and the harmony of the whole had been carefully
+worked out. Now we drove under dark pines and hemlocks, and then into
+a lighter relief of birches and wild cherries, or a copse of young
+beeches. And I learned that the estate had not only been paying the
+taxes and its portion of Farrar's salary, but also a considerable amount
+into Mr. Cooke's pocket the while it was being improved.
+
+Mr. Cooke made his permanent quarters at the Lake House, and soon became
+one of the best-known characters about town. He seemed to enjoy his
+popularity, and I am convinced that he would have been popular in
+spite of his now-famous quarrel with the railroad. His easy command
+of profanity, his generous use of money, his predilection for sporting
+characters, of whom he was king; his ready geniality and good-fellowship
+alike with the clerk of the Lake House or the Mayor, not to mention his
+own undeniable personality, all combined to make him a favorite. He had
+his own especial table in the dining-room, called all the waiters by
+their first names, and they fought for the privilege of attending him.
+He likewise called the barkeepers by their first names, and had his own
+particular corner of the bar, where none dared intrude, and where he
+could almost invariably be found when not in my office. From this corner
+he dealt out cigars to the deserving, held stake moneys, decided all
+bets, and refereed all differences. His name appeared in the personal
+column of one of the local papers on the average of twice a week, or
+in lieu thereof one of his choicest stories in the "Notes about Town"
+column.
+
+The case was to come up early in July, and I spent most of my time,
+to the detriment of other affairs, in preparing for it. I was greatly
+hampered in my work by my client, who filled my office with his
+tobacco-smoke and that of his friends, and he took it very much for
+granted that he was going to win the suit. Fortune had always played
+into his hands, he said, and I had no little difficulty in convincing
+him that matters had passed from his hands into mine. In this I believe
+I was never entirely successful. I soon found, too, that he had no ideas
+whatever on the value of discretion, and it was only by repeated threats
+of absolute failure that I prevented our secret tactics from becoming
+the property of his sporting fraternity and of the town.
+
+The more I worked on the case, the clearer it became to me that Mr.
+Farquhar Fenelon Cooke's great-uncle had been either a consummate
+scoundrel or a lunatic, and that our only hope of winning must be based
+on proving him one or the other; it did not matter much which, for my
+expectations at best were small. When I had at length settled to this
+conclusion I confided it as delicately as possible to my client, who was
+sitting at the time with his feet cocked up on the office table, reading
+a pink newspaper.
+
+"Which'll be the easier to prove?" he asked, without looking up.
+
+"It would be more charitable to prove he had been out of his mind," I
+replied, "and perhaps easier."
+
+"Charity be damned," said this remarkable man. "I'm after the property."
+
+So I decided on insanity. I hunted up and subpoenaed white-haired
+witnesses for miles around. Many of them shook their heads when they
+spoke of Mr. Cooke's great-uncle, and some knew more of his private
+transactions than I could have wished, and I trembled lest my own
+witnesses should be turned against me. I learned more of Mr. Cooke's
+great-uncle than I knew of Mr. Cooke himself, and to the credit of my
+client be it said that none of his relative's traits were apparent in
+him, with the possible exception of insanity; and that defect, if it
+existed in the grand-nephew, took in him a milder and less criminal
+turn. The old rascal, indeed, had so cleverly worded his deed of sale
+as to obtain payment without transfer. It was a trifle easier to avoid
+being specific in that country in his day than it is now, and the
+document was, in my opinion, sufficiently vague to admit of a double
+meaning. The original sale had been made to a man, now dead, whom the
+railroad had bought out. The Copper Rise property was mentioned among
+the other lands in the will in favor of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, and
+the latter had gone ahead improving them and increasing their output in
+spite of the repeated threats of the railroad to bring suit. And it was
+not until its present attorney had come in and investigated the title
+that the railroad had resorted to the law. I mention here, by the way,
+that my client was the sole heir.
+
+But as the time of the sessions drew near, the outlook for me was
+anything but bright. It is true that my witnesses were quite willing
+to depose that his actions were queer and out of the common, but these
+witnesses were for the most part venerable farmers and backwoodsmen:
+expert testimony was deplorably lacking. In this extremity it was Mr.
+Farquhar Fenelon Cooke himself who came unwittingly to my rescue. He had
+bought a horse,--he could never be in a place long without one,--which
+was chiefly remarkable, he said, for picking up his hind feet as well
+as his front ones. However he may have differed from the ordinary run
+of horses, he was shortly attacked by one of the thousand ills to which
+every horse is subject. I will not pretend to say what it was. I found
+Mr. Cooke one morning at his usual place in the Lake House bar holding
+forth with more than common vehemence and profanity on the subject of
+veterinary surgeons. He declared there was not a veterinary surgeon in
+the whole town fit to hold a certificate, and his listeners nodded an
+extreme approval to this sentiment. A grizzled old fellow who kept a
+stock farm back in the country chanced to be there, and managed to get a
+word in on the subject during one of my client's rare pauses.
+
+"Yes," he said, "that's so. There ain't one of 'em now fit to travel
+with young Doctor Vane, who was here some fifteen years gone by. He
+weren't no horse-doctor, but he could fix up a foundered horse in a
+night as good as new. If your uncle was livin', he'd back me on that,
+Mr. Cooke."
+
+Here was my chance. I took the old man aside, and two or three glasses
+of Old Crow launched him into reminiscence.
+
+"Where is Doctor Vane now?" I asked finally.
+
+"Over to Minneapolis, sir, with more rich patients nor he can take care
+of. Wasn't my darter over there last month, and seen him? And demned if
+he didn't pull up his carriage and talk to her. Here's luck to him."
+
+I might have heard much more of the stockraiser had I stayed, but I fear
+I left him somewhat abruptly in my haste to find Farrar. Only three days
+remained before the case was to come up. Farrar readily agreed to go to
+Minneapolis, and was off on the first train that afternoon. I would have
+asked Mr. Cooke to go had I dared trust him, such was my anxiety to have
+him out of the way, if only for a time. I did not tell him about the
+doctor. He sat up very late with me that night on the Lake House
+porch to give me a rubbing down, as he expressed it, as he might have
+admonished some favorite jockey before a sweepstake. "Take it easy, old
+man," he would say repeatedly, "and don't give things the bit before
+you're sure of their wind!"
+
+Days passed, and not a word from Farrar. The case opened with Mr.
+Cooke's friends on the front benches. The excitement it caused has
+rarely been equalled in that section, but I believe this was due less to
+its sensational features than to Mr. Cooke, who had an abnormal though
+unconscious talent for self-advertisement. It became manifest early that
+we were losing. Our testimony, as I had feared, was not strong enough,
+although they said we were making a good fight of it. I was racked
+with anxiety about Farrar; at last, when I had all but given up hope,
+I received a telegram from him dated at Detroit, saying he would arrive
+with the doctor that evening. This was Friday, the fourth day of the
+trial.
+
+The doctor turned out to be a large man, well groomed and well fed, with
+a twinkle in his eye. He had gone to Narragansett Pier for the summer,
+whither Farrar had followed him. On being introduced, Mr. Cooke at once
+invited him out to have a drink.
+
+"Did you know my uncle?" asked my client.
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, "I should say I did."
+
+"Poor old duffer," said Mr. Cooke, with due solemnity; "I understand he
+was a maniac."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, while we listened with a breathless interest,
+"he wasn't exactly a maniac, but I think I can safely say he was a
+lunatic."
+
+"Then here's to insanity!" said the irrepressible, his glass swung in
+mid-air, when a thought struck him, and he put it down again and looked
+hard at the doctor.
+
+"Will you swear to it?" he demanded.
+
+"I would swear to it before Saint Peter," said the doctor, fervently.
+
+He swore to it before a jury, which was more to the point, and we won
+our case. It did not even go to the court of appeals; I suppose the
+railroad thought it cheaper to drop it, since no right of way was
+involved. And the decision was scarcely announced before Mr. Farquhar
+Fenelon Cooke had begun work on his new country place, Mohair.
+
+I have oftentimes been led to consider the relevancy of this chapter,
+and have finally decided to insert it. I concluded that the actual
+narrative of how Mr. Cooke came to establish his country-place near
+Asquith would be interesting, and likewise throw some light on that
+gentleman's character. And I ask the reader's forbearance for the
+necessary personal history involved. Had it not been for Mr. Cooke's
+friendship for me I should not have written these pages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Events, are consequential or inconsequential irrespective of their size.
+The wars of Troy were fought for a woman, and Charles VIII, of France,
+bumped his head against a stone doorway and died because he did not
+stoop low enough. And to descend from history down to my own poor
+chronicle, Mr. Cooke's railroad case, my first experience at the bar of
+any gravity or magnitude, had tied to it a string of consequences then
+far beyond my guessing. The suit was my stepping-stone not only to
+a larger and more remunerative practice, but also, I believe, to the
+position of district attorney, which I attained shortly afterwards.
+
+Mr. Cooke had laid out Mohair as ruthlessly as Napoleon planned the
+new Paris; though not, I regret to say, with a like genius. Fortunately
+Farrar interposed and saved the grounds, but there was no guardian angel
+to do a like turn for the house. Mr. Langdon Willis, of Philadelphia,
+was the architect who had nominal charge of the building. He had
+regularly submitted some dozen plans for Mr. Cooke's approval, which
+were as regularly rejected. My client believed, in common with a great
+many other people, that architects should be driven and not followed,
+and was plainly resolved to make this house the logical development of
+many cherished ideas. It is not strange, therefore, that the edifice
+was completed by a Chicago contractor who had less self-respect than Mr.
+Willis, the latter having abruptly refused to have his name tacked on to
+the work.
+
+Mohair was finished and ready for occupation in July, two years after
+the suit. I drove out one day before Mr. Cooke's arrival to look it
+over. The grounds, where Farrar had had matters pretty much his own way,
+to my mind rivalled the best private parks in the East. The stables were
+filled with a score or so of Mr. Cooke's best horses, brought hither
+in his private cars, and the trotters were exercising on the track.
+The middle of June found Farrar and myself at the Asquith Inn. It was
+Farrar's custom to go to Asquith in the summer, being near the forest
+properties in his charge; and since Asquith was but five miles from the
+county-seat it was convenient for me, and gave me the advantages of
+the lake breezes and a comparative rest, which I should not have had
+in town. At that time Asquith was a small community of summer residents
+from Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, and other western cities, most of
+whom owned cottages and the grounds around them. They were a quiet lot
+that long association had made clannish; and they had a happy faculty,
+so rare in summer resorts, of discrimination between an amusement and a
+nuisance. Hence a great many diversions which are accounted pleasurable
+elsewhere are at Asquith set down at their true value. It was,
+therefore, rather with resentment than otherwise that the approaching
+arrival of Mr. Cooke and the guests he was likely to have at Mohair were
+looked upon.
+
+I had not been long at Asquith before I discovered that Farrar was
+acting in a peculiar manner, though I was longer in finding out what the
+matter was. I saw much less of him than in town. Once in a while in the
+evenings, after ten, he would run across me on the porch of the inn,
+or drift into my rooms. Even after three years of more or less
+intimacy between us, Farrar still wore his exterior of pessimism and
+indifference, the shell with which he chose to hide a naturally warm and
+affectionate disposition. In the dining-room we sat together at the end
+of a large table set aside for bachelors and small families of two
+or three, and it seemed as though we had all the humorists and
+story-tellers in that place. And Farrar as a source of amusement proved
+equal to the best of them. He would wait until a story was well under
+way, and then annihilate the point of it with a cutting cynicism and set
+the table in a roar of laughter. Among others who were seated here was
+a Mr. Trevor, of Cincinnati, one of the pioneers of Asquith. Mr. Trevor
+was a trifle bombastic, with a tendency towards gesticulation, an art
+which he had learned in no less a school than the Ohio State Senate. He
+was a self-made man,--a fact which he took good care should not escape
+one,--and had amassed his money, I believe, in the dry-goods business.
+He always wore a long, shiny coat, a low, turned-down collar, and a
+black tie, all of which united to give him the general appearance of a
+professional pallbearer.
+
+But Mr. Trevor possessed a daughter who amply made up for his
+shortcomings. She was the only one who could meet Farrar on his own
+ground, and rarely a meal passed that they did not have a tilt. They
+filled up the holes of the conversation with running commentaries,
+giving a dig at the luckless narrator and a side-slap at each other,
+until one would have given his oath they were sworn enemies. At least
+I, in the innocence of my heart, thought so until I was forcibly
+enlightened. I had taken rather a prejudice to Miss Trevor. I could find
+no better reason than her antagonism to Farrar. I was revolving this
+very thing in my mind one day as I was paddling back to the inn after a
+look at my client's new pier and boat-houses, when I descried Farrar's
+catboat some distance out. The lake was glass, and the sail hung
+lifeless. It was near lunch-time, and charity prompted me to head for
+the boat and give it a tow homeward. As I drew near, Farrar himself
+emerged from behind the sail and asked me, with a great show of
+nonchalance, what I wanted.
+
+"To tow you back for lunch, of course," I answered, used to his ways.
+
+He threw me a line, which I made fast to the stern, and then he
+disappeared again. I thought this somewhat strange, but as the boat
+was a light one, I towed it in and hitched it to the wharf, when, to my
+great astonishment, there disembarked not Farrar, but Miss Trevor. She
+leaped lightly ashore and was gone before I could catch my breath, while
+Farrar let down the sail and offered me a cigarette. I had learned a
+lesson in appearances.
+
+It could not have been very long after this that I was looking over my
+batch of New York papers, which arrived weekly, when my eye was arrested
+by a name. I read the paragraph, which announced the fact that my friend
+the Celebrity was about to sail for Europe in search of "color" for his
+next novel; this was already contracted for at a large price, and was
+to be of a more serious nature than any of his former work. An interview
+was published in which the Celebrity had declared that a new novel was
+to appear in a short time. I do not know what impelled me, but I began
+at once to search through the other papers, and found almost identically
+the same notice in all of them.
+
+By one of those odd coincidents which sometimes start one to thinking,
+the Celebrity was the subject of a lively discussion when I reached
+the table that evening. I had my quota of information concerning his
+European trip, but I did not commit myself when appealed to for an
+opinion. I had once known the man (which, however, I did not think it
+worth while to mention) and I did not feel justified in criticising him
+in public. Besides, what I knew of him was excellent, and entirely apart
+from the literary merit or demerit of his work. The others, however,
+were within their right when they censured or praised him, and they
+did both. Farrar, in particular, surprised me by the violence of his
+attacks, while Miss Trevor took up the Celebrity's defence with equal
+ardor. Her motives were beyond me now. The Celebrity's works spoke
+for themselves, she said, and she could not and would not believe such
+injurious reports of one who wrote as he did.
+
+The next day I went over to the county-seat, and got back to Asquith
+after dark. I dined alone, and afterwards I was strolling up and down
+one end of the long veranda when I caught sight of a lonely figure in a
+corner, with chair tilted back and feet on the rail. A gleam of a cigar
+lighted up the face, and I saw that it was Farrar. I sat down beside
+him, and we talked commonplaces for a while, Farrar's being almost
+monosyllabic, while now and again feminine voices and feminine laughter
+reached our ears from the far end of the porch. They seemed to go
+through Farrar like a knife, and he smoked furiously, his lips tightly
+compressed the while. I had a dozen conjectures, none of which I dared
+voice. So I waited in patience.
+
+"Crocker," said he, at length, "there's a man here from Boston, Charles
+Wrexell Allen; came this morning. You know Boston. Have you ever heard
+of him?"
+
+"Allen," I repeated, reflecting; "no Charles Wrexell."
+
+"It is Charles Wrexell, I think," said Farrar, as though the matter were
+trivial. "However, we can go into the register and make sure."
+
+"What about him?" I asked, not feeling inclined to stir.
+
+The Celebrity
+
+"Oh, nothing. An arrival is rather an occurrence, though. You can hear
+him down there now," he added, tossing his head towards the other end of
+the porch, "with the women around him."
+
+In fact, I did catch the deeper sound of a man's voice among the lighter
+tones, and the voice had a ring to it which was not wholly unfamiliar,
+although I could not place it.
+
+I threw Farrar a bait.
+
+"He must make friends easily," I said.
+
+"With the women?--yes," he replied, so scathingly that I was forced to
+laugh in spite of myself.
+
+"Let us go in and look at the register," I suggested. "You may have his
+name wrong."
+
+We went in accordingly. Sure enough, in bold, heavy characters, was the
+name Charles Wrexell Allen written out in full. That handwriting was one
+in a thousand. I made sure I had seen it before, and yet I did not know
+it; and the more I puzzled over it the more confused I became. I turned
+to Farrar.
+
+"I have had a poor cigar passed off on me and deceive me for a while.
+That is precisely the case here. I think I should recognize your man if
+I were to see him."
+
+"Well," said Farrar, "here's your chance."
+
+The company outside were moving in. Two or three of the older ladies
+came first, carrying their wraps; then a troop of girls, among whom
+was Miss Trevor; and lastly, a man. Farrar and I had walked to the door
+while the women turned into the drawing-room, so that we were brought
+face to face with him, suddenly. At sight of me he halted abruptly, as
+though he had struck the edge of a door, changed color, and held out
+his hand, tentatively. Then he withdrew it again, for I made no sign of
+recognition.
+
+It was the Celebrity!
+
+I felt a shock of disgust as I passed out. Masquerading, it must be
+admitted, is not pleasant to the taste; and the whole farce, as it
+flashed through my mind,--his advertised trip, his turning up here under
+an assumed name, had an ill savor. Perhaps some of the things they said
+of him might be true, after all.
+
+"Who the devil is he?" said Farrar, dropping for once his indifference;
+"he looked as if he knew you."
+
+I evaded.
+
+"He may have taken me for some one else," I answered with all the
+coolness I could muster. "I have never met any one of his name. His
+voice and handwriting, however, are very much like those of a man I used
+to know."
+
+Farrar was very poor company that evening, and left me early. I went
+to my rooms and had taken down a volume of Carlyle, who can generally
+command my attention, when there came a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in," I replied, with an instinctive sense of prophecy.
+
+This was fulfilled at once by the appearance of the Celebrity. He
+was attired--for the details of his dress forced themselves upon me
+vividly--in a rough-spun suit of knickerbockers, a colored-shirt having
+a large and prominent gold stud, red and brown stockings of a diamond
+pattern, and heavy walking-boots. And he entered with an air of
+assurance that was maddening.
+
+"My dear Crocker," he exclaimed, "you have no idea how delighted I am to
+see you here!"
+
+I rose, first placing a book-mark in Carlyle, and assured him that I was
+surprised to see him here.
+
+"Surprised to see me!" he returned, far from being damped by my manner.
+"In fact, I am a little surprised to see myself here."
+
+He sank back on the window-seat and clasped his hands behind his head.
+
+"But first let me thank you for respecting my incognito," he said.
+
+I tried hard to keep my temper, marvelling at the ready way he had
+chosen to turn my action.
+
+"And now," he continued, "I suppose you want to know why I came out
+here." He easily supplied the lack of cordial solicitation on my part.
+
+"Yes, I should like to know," I said.
+
+Thus having aroused my curiosity, he took his time about appeasing it,
+after the custom of his kind. He produced a gold cigarette case, offered
+me a cigarette, which I refused, took one himself and blew the smoke in
+rings toward the ceiling. Then, raising himself on his elbow, he drew
+his features together in such a way as to lead me to believe he was
+about to impart some valuable information.
+
+"Crocker," said he, "it's the very deuce to be famous, isn't it?"
+
+"I suppose it is," I replied curtly, wondering what he was driving at;
+"I have never tried it."
+
+"An ordinary man, such as you, can't conceive of the torture a fellow in
+my position is obliged to go through the year round, but especially in
+the summer, when one wishes to go off on a rest. You know what I mean,
+of course."
+
+"I am afraid I do not," I answered, in a vain endeavor to embarrass him.
+
+"You're thicker than when I used to know you, then," he returned with
+candor. "To tell the truth, Crocker, I often wish I were back at the
+law, and had never written a line. I am paying the penalty of fame.
+Wherever I go I am hounded to death by the people who have read my
+books, and they want to dine and wine me for the sake of showing me off
+at their houses. I am heartily sick and tired of it all; you would be if
+you had to go through it. I could stand a winter, but the worst comes
+in the summer, when one meets the women who fire all sorts of
+socio-psychological questions at one for solution, and who have
+suggestions for stories." He shuddered.
+
+"And what has all this to do with your coming here?" I cut in,
+strangling a smile.
+
+He twisted his cigarette at an acute angle with his face, and looked at
+me out of the corner of his eye.
+
+"I'll try to be a little plainer," he went on, sighing as one unused to
+deal with people who require crosses on their t's. "I've been worried
+almost out of my mind with attention--nothing but attention the whole
+time. I can't go on the street but what I'm stared at and pointed out,
+so I thought of a scheme to relieve it for a time. It was becoming
+unbearable. I determined to assume a name and go to some quiet little
+place for the summer, West, if possible, where I was not likely to be
+recognized, and have three months of rest."
+
+He paused, but I offered no comment.
+
+"Well, the more I thought of it, the better I liked the idea. I met a
+western man at the club and asked him about western resorts, quiet ones.
+'Have you heard of Asquith?' says he. 'No,' said I; 'describe it.' He
+did, and it was just the place; quaint, restful, and retired. Of course
+I put him off the track, but I did not count on striking you. My man
+boxed up, and we were off in twenty-four hours, and here I am."
+
+Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the
+Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that
+adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought
+the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.
+
+"You won't tell anyone who I am, will you?" he asked anxiously.
+
+He even misinterpreted my silences.
+
+"Certainly not," I replied. "It is no concern of mine. You might come
+here as Emil Zola or Ralph Waldo Emerson and it would make no difference
+to me."
+
+He looked at me dubiously, even suspiciously.
+
+"That's a good chap," said he, and was gone, leaving me to reflect on
+the ways of genius.
+
+And the longer I reflected, the more positive I became that there
+existed a more potent reason for the Celebrity's disguise than ennui.
+As actions speak louder than words, so does a man's character often give
+the lie to his tongue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A Lion in an ass's skin is still a lion in spite of his disguise.
+Conversely, the same might be said of an ass in a lion's skin. The
+Celebrity ran after women with the same readiness and helplessness that
+a dog will chase chickens, or that a stream will run down hill. Women
+differ from chickens, however, in the fact that they find pleasure in
+being chased by a certain kind of a man. The Celebrity was this kind
+of a man. From the moment his valet deposited his luggage in his rooms,
+Charles Wrexell Allen became the social hero of Asquith. It is by
+straws we are enabled to tell which way the wind is blowing, and I first
+noticed his partiality for Miss Trevor from the absence of the lively
+conflicts she was wont to have with Farrar. These ceased entirely
+after the Celebrity's arrival. It was the latter who now commanded the
+conversation at our table.
+
+I was truly sorry for Farrar, for I knew the man, the depth of his
+nature, and the scope of the shock. He carried it off altogether too
+well, and both the studied lightness of his actions and the increased
+carelessness of his manner made me fear that what before was feigned,
+might turn to a real bitterness.
+
+For Farrar's sake, if the Celebrity had been content with women in
+general, all would have been well; but he was unable to generalize, in
+one sense, and to particularize, in another. And it was plain that he
+wished to monopolize Miss Trevor, while still retaining a hold upon the
+others. For my sake, had he been content with women alone, I should have
+had no cause to complain. But it seemed that I had an attraction for
+him, second only to women, which I could not account for. And I began
+to be cursed with a great deal of his company. Since he was absolutely
+impervious to hints, and would not take no for an answer, I was
+helpless. When he had no engagement he would thrust himself on me. He
+seemed to know by intuition--for I am very sure I never told him--what
+my amusement was to be the mornings I did not go to the county-seat, and
+he would invariably turn up, properly equipped, as I was making my way
+with judge Short to the tennis court, or carrying my oars to the water.
+It was in vain that I resorted to subterfuge: that I went to bed early
+intending to be away before the Celebrity's rising hour. I found he had
+no particular rising hour. No matter how early I came down, I would find
+him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or otherwise his man would be
+there with a message to say that his master would shortly join me if I
+would kindly wait. And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul
+that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get,
+when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.
+
+Much of this persecution I might have put up with, indeed, had I not
+heard, in one way or another, that he was doing me the honor of calling
+me his intimate. This I could not stand, and I soberly resolved to
+leave Asquith and go back to town, which I should indeed have done if
+deliverance had not arrived from an unexpected quarter.
+
+One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the
+steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join
+him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from
+interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with
+a fox terrier. Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a
+three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone
+with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and
+I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the
+direction of Mohair.
+
+"That must be your friend Cooke," remarked the Celebrity, looking up.
+
+There could be no doubt of it. With little difficulty I recognized on
+the box the familiar figure of my first important client, and beside him
+was a lady whom I supposed to be Mrs. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, although
+I had had no previous knowledge that such a person existed. The horses
+were on a brisk trot, and Mr. Cooke seemed to be getting the best out
+of them for the benefit of the sprinkling of people on the inn porch.
+Indeed, I could not but admire the dexterous turn of the wrist which
+served Mr. Cooke to swing his leaders into the circle and up the hill,
+while the liveried guard leaned far out in anticipation of a stumble.
+Mr. Cooke hailed me with a beaming smile and a flourish of the whip as
+he drew up and descended from the box.
+
+"Maria," he exclaimed, giving me a hearty grip, "this is the man that
+won Mohair. My wife, Crocker."
+
+I was somewhat annoyed at this effusiveness before the Celebrity, but I
+looked up and caught Mrs. Cooke's eye. It was the calm eye of a general.
+
+"I am glad of the opportunity to thank you, Mr. Crocker," she said
+simply. And I liked her from that moment.
+
+Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for
+permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads.
+So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with
+such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on
+the veranda. The Celebrity stood by the block, in an amazement which
+gave me a wicked pleasure, and it was some minutes before I had the
+chance to introduce him.
+
+Mr. Cooke's idea of an introduction, however, was no mere word-formula:
+it was fraught with a deeper and a bibulous meaning. He presented the
+Celebrity to his wife, and then invited both of us to go inside with him
+by one of those neat and cordial paraphrases in which he was skilled. I
+preferred to remain with Mrs. Cooke, and it was with a gleam of hope at
+a possible deliverance from my late persecution that I watched the two
+disappear together through the hall and into the smoking-room.
+
+"How do you like Mohair?" I asked Mrs. Cooke.
+
+"Do you mean the house or the park?" she laughed; and then, seeing my
+embarrassment, she went on: "Oh, the house is just like everything else
+Fenelon meddles with. Outside it's a mixture of all the styles, and
+inside a hash of all the nationalities from Siamese to Spanish. Fenelon
+hangs the Oriental tinsels he has collected on pieces of black baronial
+oak, and the coat-of-arms he had designed by our Philadelphia jewellers
+is stamped on the dining-room chairs, and even worked into the fire
+screens."
+
+There was nothing paltry in her criticism of her husband, nothing she
+would not have said to his face. She was a woman who made you feel this,
+for sincerity was written all over her. I could not help wondering why
+she gave Mr. Cooke line in the matter of household decoration, unless
+it was that he considered Mohair his own, private hobby, and that she
+humored him. Mrs. Cooke was not without tact, and I have no doubt she
+perceived my reluctance to talk about her husband and respected it.
+
+"We drove down to bring you back to luncheon," she said.
+
+I thanked her and accepted. She was curious to hear about Asquith and
+its people, and I told her all I knew.
+
+"I should like to meet some of them," she explained, "for we intend
+having a cotillon at Mohair,--a kind of house-warming, you know. A party
+of Mr. Cooke's friends is coming out for it in his car, and he thought
+something of inviting the people of Asquith up for a dance."
+
+I had my doubts concerning the wisdom of an entertainment, the success
+of which depended on the fusion of a party of Mr. Cooke's friends and
+a company from Asquith. But I held my peace. She shot a question at me
+suddenly:
+
+"Who is this Mr. Allen?"
+
+"He registers from Boston, and only came a fortnight ago," I replied
+vaguely.
+
+"He doesn't look quite right; as though he had been set down on the
+wrong planet, you know," said Mrs. Cooke, her finger on her temple.
+"What is he like?"
+
+"Well," I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration,
+"he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having
+one."
+
+"So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?"
+
+I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.
+
+"No, I do not," said I.
+
+"I thought not," she said, laughing. It must have been my expression
+which prompted her next remark.
+
+"I was not making fun of you," she said, more soberly; "I do not like
+Mr. Allen any better than you do, and I have only seen him once."
+
+"But I have not said I did not like him," I objected.
+
+"Of course not," said Mrs. Cooke, quizzically.
+
+At that moment, to my relief, I discerned the Celebrity and Mr. Cooke in
+the hallway.
+
+"Here they come, now," she went on. "I do wish Fenelon would keep
+his hands off the people he meets. I can feel he is going to make an
+intimate of that man. Mark my words, Mr. Crocker."
+
+I not only marked them, I prayed for their fulfilment.
+
+There was that in Mr. Cooke which, for want of a better name, I will
+call instinct. As he came down the steps, his arm linked in that of
+the Celebrity, his attitude towards his wife was both apologetic and
+defiant. He had at once the air of a child caught with a forbidden
+toy, and that of a stripling of twenty-one who flaunts a cigar in his
+father's face.
+
+"Maria," he said, "Mr. Allen has consented to come back with us for
+lunch."
+
+We drove back to Mohair, Mr. Cooke and the Celebrity on the box, Mrs.
+Cooke and I behind. Except to visit the boathouses I had not been to
+Mohair since the day of its completion, and now the full beauty of the
+approach struck me for the first time. We swung by the lodge, the keeper
+holding open the iron gate as we passed, and into the wide driveway,
+hewn, as it were, out of the virgin forest. The sandy soil had been
+strengthened by a deep road-bed of clay imported from the interior,
+which was spread in turn with a fine gravel, which crunched under the
+heavy wheels. From the lodge to the house, a full mile, branches had
+been pruned to let the sunshine sift through in splotches, but the wild
+nature of the place had been skilfully retained. We curved hither and
+thither under the giant trees until suddenly, as a whip straightens in
+the snapping, one of the ancient tribes of the forest might have sent an
+arrow down the leafy gallery into the open, and at the far end we caught
+sight of the palace framed in the vista. It was a triumph for Farrar,
+and I wished that the palace had been more worthy.
+
+The Celebrity did not stint his praises of Mohair, coming up the drive,
+but so lavish were his comments on the house that they won for him a
+lasting place in Mr. Cooke's affections, and encouraged my client to
+pull up his horses in a favorable spot, and expand on the beauties of
+the mansion.
+
+"Taking it altogether," said he, complacently, "it is rather a neat box,
+and I let myself loose on it. I had all these ideas I gathered knocking
+about the world, and I gave them to Willis, of Philadelphia, to put
+together for me. But he's honest enough not to claim the house. Take,
+for instance, that minaret business on the west; I picked that up from
+a mosque in Algiers. The oriel just this side is whole cloth from Haddon
+Hall, and the galleried porch next it from a Florentine villa. The
+conical capped tower I got from a French chateau, and some of the
+features on the south from a Buddhist temple in Japan. Only a little
+blending and grouping was necessary, and Willis calls himself an
+architect, and wasn't equal to it. Now," he added, "get the effect. Did
+you ever see another house like it?"
+
+"Magnificent!" exclaimed the Celebrity.
+
+"And then," my client continued, warming under this generous
+appreciation, "there's something very smart about those colors. They're
+my racing colors. Of course the granite's a little off, but it isn't
+prominent. Willis kicked hard when it came to painting the oriel yellow,
+but an architect always takes it for granted he knows it all, and a--"
+
+"Fenelon," said Mrs. Cooke, "luncheon is waiting."
+
+Mrs. Cooke dominated at luncheon and retired, and it is certain that
+both Mr. Cooke and the Celebrity breathed more freely when she had gone.
+If her criticisms on the exterior of the house were just, those on the
+interior were more so. Not only did I find the coat-of-arms set forth on
+the chairs, fire-screens, and other prominent articles, but it was even
+cut into the swinging door of the butler's pantry. The motto I am afraid
+my client never took the trouble to have translated, and I am inclined
+to think his jewellers put up a little joke on him when they chose it.
+"Be Sober and Boast not."
+
+I observed that Mrs. Cooke, when she chose, could exert the subduing
+effect on her husband of a soft pedal on a piano; and during luncheon
+she kept, the soft pedal on. And the Celebrity, being in some degree a
+kindred spirit, was also held in check. But his wife had no sooner left
+the room when Mr. Cooke began on the subject uppermost in his mind. I
+had suspected that his trip to Asquith that morning was for a purpose at
+which Mrs. Cooke had hinted. But she, with a woman's tact, had aimed to
+accomplish by degrees that which her husband would carry by storm.
+
+"You've been at Asquith sometime, Crocker," Mr. Cooke began, "long
+enough to know the people."
+
+"I know some of them," I said guardedly. But the rush was not to be
+stemmed.
+
+"How many do you think you can muster for that entertainment of mine?
+Fifty? I ought to have fifty, at least. Suppose you pick out fifty, and
+send me up the names. I want good lively ones, you understand, that will
+stir things up."
+
+"I am afraid there are not fifty of that kind there," I replied.
+
+His face fell, but brightened again instantly. He appealed to the
+Celebrity.
+
+"How about it, old man?" said he.
+
+The Celebrity answered, with becoming modesty, that the Asquithians were
+benighted. They had never had any one to show them how to enjoy life.
+But there was hope for them.
+
+"That's it," exclaimed my client, slapping his thigh, and turning
+triumphantly to me, he continued, "You're all right, Crocker, and know
+enough to win a damned big suit, but you're not the man to steer a
+delicate thing of this kind."
+
+This is how, to my infinite relief, the Celebrity came to engineer the
+matter of the housewarming; and to him it was much more congenial. He
+accepted the task cheerfully, and went about it in such a manner as to
+leave no doubt in my mind as to its ultimate success. He was a master
+hand at just such problems, and this one had a double attraction. It
+pleased him to be thought the arbiter of such a worthy cause, while he
+acquired a prominence at Asquith which satisfied in some part a craving
+which he found inseparable from incognito.
+
+His tactics were worthy of a skilled diplomatist. Before we left Mohair
+that day he had exacted as a condition that Mr. Cooke should not appear
+at the inn or in its vicinity until after the entertainment. To this my
+client readily pledged himself with that absolute freedom from suspicion
+which formed one of the most admirable traits of his character. The
+Celebrity, being intuitively quick where women were concerned, had
+surmised that Mrs. Cooke did not like him; but as her interests in
+the affair of the cotillon coincided with those of Mr. Cooke, she was
+available as a means to an end. The Celebrity deemed her, from a social
+standpoint, decidedly the better part of the Mohair establishment, and
+he contrived, by a system of manoeuvres I failed to grasp, to throw her
+forward while he kept Mr. Cooke in the background.
+
+He had much to contend with; above all, an antecedent prejudice against
+the Cookes, in reality a prejudice against the world, the flesh, and
+the devil, natural to any quiet community, and of which Mohair and its
+appurtenances were taken as the outward and visible signs. Older people
+came to Asquith for simplicity and rest, and the younger ones were
+brought there for these things. Nearly all had sufficient wealth to
+seek, if they chose, gayety and ostentation at the eastern resorts. But
+Asquithians held gayety and ostentation at a discount, and maintained
+there was gayety enough at home.
+
+If any one were fitted to overcome this prejudice, it was Mrs. Cooke.
+Her tastes and manners were as simple as her gowns. The Celebrity, by
+arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at
+Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the
+track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they
+were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.
+Their example was followed by others at a time when the master of Mohair
+was superintending in person the docking of some two-year-olds, and
+equally invisible. These ladies likewise came back to sing Mrs. Cooke's
+praises. Mrs. Cooke returned the calls. She took tea on the inn veranda,
+and drove Mrs. Short around Mohair in her victoria. Mr. Cooke being seen
+only on rare and fleeting occasions, there gradually got abroad a most
+curious misconception of that gentleman's character, while over his
+personality floated a mist of legend which the Celebrity took good
+care not to dispel. Farrar, who despised nonsense, was ironical and
+non-committal when appealed to, and certainly I betrayed none of
+my client's attributes. Hence it came that Asquith, before the
+house-warming, knew as little about Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, the man, as
+the nineteenth century knows about William Shakespeare, and was every
+whit as curious. Like Shakespeare, Mr. Cooke was judged by his works,
+and from these he was generally conceded to be an illiterate and
+indifferent person of barbarous tastes and a mania for horses. He was
+further described as ungentlemanly by a brace of spinsters who had been
+within earshot on the veranda the morning he had abused the Asquith
+roads, but their evidence was not looked upon as damning. That Mr. Cooke
+would appear at the cotillon never entered any one's head.
+
+Thus it was, for a fortnight, Mr. Cooke maintained a most rigid
+seclusion. Would that he had discovered in the shroud of mystery the
+cloak of fame!
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME 2.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+It was small wonder, said the knowing at Asquith, that Mr. Charles
+Wrexell Allen should be attracted by Irene Trevor. With the lake breezes
+of the north the red and the tan came into her cheeks, those boon
+companions of the open who are best won by the water-winds. Perhaps they
+brought, too, the spring to the step and the light under the long lashes
+when she flashed a look across the table. Little by little it became
+plain that Miss Trevor was gaining ground with the Celebrity to the
+neglect of the other young women at Asquith, and when it was announced
+that he was to lead the cotillon with her, the fact was regarded as
+significant. Even at Asquith such things were talked about. Mr. Allen
+became a topic and a matter of conjecture. He was, I believe, generally
+regarded as a good match; his unimpeachable man-servant argued worldly
+possessions, of which other indications were not lacking, while his
+crest was cited as a material sign of family. Yet when Miss Brewster,
+one of the brace of spinsters, who hailed from Brookline and purported
+to be an up-to-date edition of the Boston Blue Book, questioned the
+Celebrity on this vital point after the searching manner warranted
+by the gravity of the subject, he was unable to acquit himself
+satisfactorily. When this conversation was repeated in detail within the
+hearing of the father of the young woman in question, and undoubtedly
+for his benefit, Mr. Trevor threw shame to the winds and scandalized the
+Misses Brewster then and there by proclaiming his father to have been
+a country storekeeper. In the eyes of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke the
+apotheosis of the Celebrity was complete. The people of Asquith were not
+only willing to attend the house-warming, but had been worked up to the
+pitch of eagerness. The Celebrity as a matter of course was master of
+ceremonies. He originated the figures and arranged the couples, of which
+there were twelve from Asquith and ten additional young women. These
+ten were assigned to the ten young men whom Mr. Cooke expected in
+his private car, and whose appearances, heights, and temperaments the
+Celebrity obtained from Mr. Cooke, carefully noted, and compared with
+those of the young women. Be it said in passing that Mrs. Cooke
+had nothing to do with any of it, but exhibited an almost criminal
+indifference. Mr. Cooke had even chosen the favors; charity forbids that
+I should say what they were.
+
+Owing to the frequent consultations which these preparations made
+necessary the Celebrity was much in the company of my client, which
+he came greatly to prefer to mine, and I therefore abandoned my
+determination to leave Asquith. I was settling down delightedly to
+my old, easy, and unmolested existence when Farrar and I received
+an invitation, which amounted to a summons, to go to Mohair and make
+ourselves generally useful. So we packed up and went. We made an odd
+party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity
+dropped in for lunch or dinner. He could not be induced to remain
+permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he
+appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip
+sometimes twice in a day. The fact that Mrs. Cooke treated him with
+unqualified disapproval did not dampen his spirits or lessen the
+frequency of his visits, nor, indeed, did it seem to create any breach
+between husband and wife. Mr. Cooke took it for granted that his friends
+should not please his wife, and Mrs. Cooke remarked to Farrar and
+me that her husband was old enough to know better, and too old to be
+taught. She loved him devotedly and showed it in a hundred ways, but she
+was absolutely incapable of dissimulation.
+
+Thanks to Mrs. Cooke, our visit to Mohair was a pleasant one. We were
+able in many ways to help in the arrangements, especially Farrar, who
+had charge of decorating the grounds. We saw but little of Mr. Cooke and
+the Celebrity.
+
+The arrival of the Ten was an event of importance, and occurred the
+day of the dance. I shall treat the Ten as a whole because they did not
+materially differ from one another in dress or habits or ambition or
+general usefulness on this earth. It is true that Mr. Cooke had been
+able to make delicate distinctions between them for the aid of the
+Celebrity, but such distinctions were beyond me, and the power to make
+them lay only in a long and careful study of the species which I could
+not afford to give. Likewise the life of any one of the Ten was the life
+of all, and might be truthfully represented by a single year, since
+each year was exactly like the preceding. The ordinary year, as is
+well-known, begins on the first of January. But theirs was not the
+ordinary year, nor the Church year, nor the fiscal year. Theirs began in
+the Fall with the New York Horse Show. And I am of the opinion, though
+open to correction, that they dated from the first Horse Show instead
+of from the birth of Christ. It is certain that they were much better
+versed in the history of the Association than in that of the Union, in
+the biography of Excelsior rather than that of Lincoln. The Dog Show was
+another event to which they looked forward, when they migrated to New
+York and put up at the country places of their friends. But why go
+farther?
+
+The Ten made themselves very much at home at Mohair. One of them told
+the Celebrity he reminded him very much of a man he had met in New York
+and who had written a book, or something of that sort, which made the
+Celebrity wince. The afternoon was spent in one of the stable lofts,
+where Mr. Cooke had set up a mysterious L-shaped box, in one arm
+of which a badger was placed by a groom, while my client's Sarah, a
+terrier, was sent into the other arm to invite the badger out. His
+objections exceeded the highest hopes; he dug his claws into the wood
+and devoted himself to Sarah's countenance with unremitting industry.
+This occupation was found so absorbing that it was with difficulty the
+Ten were induced to abandon it and dress for an early dinner, and only
+did so after the second peremptory message from Mrs. Cooke.
+
+"It's always this way," said Mr. Cooke, regretfully, as he watched
+Sarah licking the accessible furrows in her face; "I never started in on
+anything worth doing yet that Maria did not stop it."
+
+Farrar and I were not available for the dance, and after dinner we
+looked about for a quiet spot in which to weather it, and where we
+could be within reach if needed. Such a place as this was the Florentine
+galleried porch, which ran along outside the upper windows of the
+ball-room; these were flung open, for the night was warm. At one end
+of the room the musicians, imported from Minneapolis by Mr. Cooke, were
+striking the first discordant notes of the tuning, while at the other
+the Celebrity and my client, in scarlet hunting-coats, were gravely
+instructing the Ten, likewise in scarlet hunting-coats, as to their
+conduct and functions. We were reviewing these interesting proceedings
+when Mrs. Cooke came hurrying towards us. She held a letter in her hand.
+
+"You know," said she, "that Mr. Cooke is forgetful, particularly when
+his mind is occupied with important matters, as it has been for some
+time. Here is a letter from my niece, Miss Thorn, which he has carried
+in his pocket since Monday. We expected her two weeks ago, and had given
+her up. But it seems she was to leave Philadelphia on Wednesday, and
+will be at that forlorn little station of Asquith at half-past nine
+to-night. I want you two to go over and meet her."
+
+We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station
+wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine.
+We passed on the way the van of the guests from Asquith. As we reached
+the lodge we heard the whistle, and we backed up against one side of the
+platform as the train pulled up at the other.
+
+Farrar and I are not imaginative; we did not picture to ourselves any
+particular type for the girl we were going to meet, we were simply doing
+our best to get to the station before the train. We jumped from the
+wagon and were watching the people file out of the car, and I noticed
+that more than one paused to look back over their shoulders as they
+reached the door. Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after
+her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above
+the grimy steps, with something of the stately pose which Richter has
+given his Queen Louise on the stairway, and the light of the reflector
+fell full upon her. She looked around expectantly, and recognizing Mrs.
+Cooke's maid, who had stepped forward to relieve hers of the shawls,
+Miss Thorn greeted her with a smile which greatly prepossessed us in her
+favor.
+
+"How do you do, Jennie?" she said. "Did any one else come?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Marian," replied Jennie, abashed but pleased,--"these
+gentlemen."
+
+Farrar and I introduced ourselves, awkwardly enough, and we both tried
+to explain at once how it was that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Cooke was there
+to meet her. Of course we made an absolute failure of it. She scanned
+our faces with a puzzled expression for a while and then broke into a
+laugh.
+
+"I think I understand," she said; "they are having the house-warming."
+
+"She's first-rate at guessing," said Farrar to me as we fled
+precipitately to see that the trunks were hoisted into the basket.
+Neither of us had much presence of mind as we climbed into the wagon,
+and, what was even stranger, could not account for the lack of it. Miss
+Thorn was seated in the corner; in spite of the darkness I could see
+that she was laughing at us still.
+
+"I feel very badly that I should have taken you away from the dance," we
+heard her say.
+
+"We don't dance," I answered clumsily, "and we were glad to come."
+
+"Yes, we were glad to come," Farrar chimed in.
+
+Then we relapsed into a discomfited silence, and wished we were anywhere
+else. But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, and with
+such a hearty enjoyment that instead of getting angry and more mortified
+we began to laugh ourselves, and instantly felt better. After that we
+got along famously. She had at once the air of good fellowship and
+the dignity of a woman, and she seemed to understand Farrar and me
+perfectly. Not once did she take us over our heads, though she might
+have done so with ease, and we knew this and were thankful. We began to
+tell her about Mohair and the cotillon, and of our point of observation
+from the Florentine galleried porch, and she insisted she would join us
+there. By the time we reached the house we were thanking our stars she
+had come. Mrs. Cooke came out under the port-cochere to welcome her.
+
+"Unfortunately there is no one to dance with you, Marian," she said;
+"but if I had not by chance gone through your uncle's pockets, there
+would have been no one to meet you."
+
+I think I had never felt my deficiency in dancing until that moment. But
+Miss Thorn took her aunt's hand affectionately in hers.
+
+"My dear Aunt Maria," said she, "I would not dance to-night if there
+were twenty to choose from. I should like nothing better than to look on
+with these two. We are the best of friends already," she added, turning
+towards us, "are we not?"
+
+"We are indeed," we hastened to assure her.
+
+Mrs. Cooke smiled.
+
+"You should have been a man, Marian," she said as they went upstairs
+together.
+
+We made our way to the galleried porch and sat down, there being a lull
+in the figures just then. We each took out a cigar and lighted a match;
+and then looked across at the other. We solemnly blew our matches out.
+
+"Perhaps she doesn't like smoke," said Farrar, voicing the sentiment.
+
+"Perhaps not," said I.
+
+Silence.
+
+"I wonder how she will get along with the Ten?" I queried.
+
+"Better than with us," he answered in his usual strain. "They're
+trained."
+
+"Or with Allen?" I added irresistibly.
+
+"Women are all alike," said Farrar.
+
+At this juncture Miss Thorn herself appeared at the end of the gallery,
+her shoulders wrapped in a gray cape trimmed with fur. She stood
+regarding us with some amusement as we rose to receive her.
+
+"Light your cigars and be sensible," said she, "or I shall go in."
+
+We obeyed. The three of us turned to the window to watch the figure, the
+music of which was just beginning. Mr. Cooke, with the air of an English
+squire at his own hunt ball, was strutting contentedly up and down one
+end of the room, now pausing to exchange a few hearty words with some
+Presbyterian matron from Asquith, now to congratulate Mr. Trevor on the
+appearance of his daughter. Lined against the opposite wall were the
+Celebrity and his ten red-coated followers, just rising for the figure.
+It was very plain that Miss Trevor was radiantly happy; she was easily
+the handsomest girl in the room, and I could not help philosophizing
+when I saw her looking up into the Celebrity's eyes upon the seeming
+inconsistency of nature, who has armed and warned woman against all but
+her most dangerous enemy.
+
+And then a curious thing happened. The Celebrity, as if moved by a
+sudden uncontrollable impulse, raised his eyes until they rested on the
+window in which we were. Although his dancing was perfect, he lost the
+step without apparent cause, his expression changed, and for the moment
+he seemed to be utterly confused. But only for the moment; in a trice
+he had caught the time again and swept Miss Trevor rapidly down the room
+and out of sight. I looked instinctively at the girl beside me. She had
+thrown her head forward, and in the streaming light I saw that her lips
+were parted in a smile.
+
+I resolved upon a stroke.
+
+"Mr. Allen," I remarked, "leads admirably."
+
+"Mr. Allen!" she exclaimed, turning on me.
+
+"Yes, it is Mr. Allen who is leading," I repeated.
+
+An expression of perplexity spread over her face, but she said nothing.
+My curiosity was aroused to a high pitch, and questions were rising to
+my lips which I repressed with difficulty. For Miss Thorn had displayed,
+purposely or not, a reticence which my short acquaintance with her
+compelled me to respect; and, besides, I was bound by a promise not to
+betray the Celebrity's secret. I was, however, convinced from what had
+occurred that she had met the Celebrity in the East, and perhaps known
+him.
+
+Had she fallen in love with him, as was the common fate of all young
+women he met? I changed my opinion on this subject a dozen times. Now
+I was sure, as I looked at her, that she was far too sensible; again, a
+doubt would cross my mind as the Celebrity himself would cross my view,
+the girl on his arm reduced to adoration. I followed him narrowly when
+in sight. Miss Thorn was watching him, too, her eyes half closed, as
+though in thought. But beyond the fact that he threw himself into the
+dance with a somewhat increased fervor, perhaps, his manner betokened
+no uneasiness, and not even by a glance did he betray any disturbing
+influence from above.
+
+Thus we stood silently until the figure was finished, when Miss Thorn
+seated herself in one of the wicker chairs behind us.
+
+"Doesn't it make you wish to dance?" said Farrar to her. "It is hard
+luck you should be doomed to spend the evening with two such useless
+fellows as we are."
+
+She did not catch his remark at first, as was natural in a person
+preoccupied. Then she bit her lips to repress a smile.
+
+"I assure you, Mr. Farrar," she said with force, "I have never in my
+life wished to dance as little as I do now."
+
+But a voice interrupted her, and the scarlet coat of the Celebrity was
+thrust into the light between us. Farrar excused himself abruptly and
+disappeared.
+
+"Never wished to dance less!" cried the Celebrity. "Upon my word,
+Miss Thorn, that's too bad. I came up to ask you to reconsider your
+determination, as one of the girls from Asquith is leaving, and there is
+an extra man."
+
+"You are very kind," said Miss Thorn, quietly, "but I prefer to remain
+here."
+
+My surmise, then, was correct. She had evidently met the Celebrity,
+and there was that in his manner of addressing her, without any formal
+greeting, which seemed to point to a close acquaintance.
+
+"You know Mr. Allen, then, Miss Thorn?" said I.
+
+"What can you mean?" she exclaimed, wheeling on me; "this is not Mr.
+Allen."
+
+"Hang you, Crocker," the Celebrity put in impatiently; "Miss Thorn knows
+who I am as well as you do."
+
+"I confess it is a little puzzling," said she; "perhaps it is because I
+am tired from travelling, and my brain refuses to work. But why in the
+name of all that is strange do you call him Mr. Allen?"
+
+The Celebrity threw himself into the chair beside her and asked
+permission to light a cigarette.
+
+"I am going to ask you the favor of respecting my incognito, Miss Thorn,
+as Crocker has done," he said. "Crocker knew me in the East, too. I had
+not counted upon finding him at Asquith."
+
+Miss Thorn straightened herself and made a gesture of impatience.
+
+"An incognito!" she cried. "But you have taken another man's name. And
+you already had his face and figure!"
+
+I jumped.
+
+"That is so," he calmly returned; "the name was ready to hand, and so I
+took it. I don't imagine it will make any difference to him. It's only a
+whim of mine, and with me there's no accounting for a whim. I make it
+a point to gratify every one that strikes me. I confess to being
+eccentric, you know."
+
+"You must get an enormous amount of gratification out of this," she said
+dryly. "What if the other man should happen along?"
+
+"Scarcely at Asquith."
+
+"I have known stranger things to occur," said she.
+
+The Celebrity smiled and smoked.
+
+"I'll wager, now," he went on, "that you little thought to find me
+here incognito. But it is delicious, I assure you, to lead once more a
+commonplace and unmolested existence."
+
+"Delightful," said Miss Thorn.
+
+"People never consider an author apart from his work, you know, and
+I confess I had a desire to find out how I would get along. And there
+comes a time when a man wishes he had never written a book, and a
+longing to be sought after for his own sake and to be judged on his own
+merits. And then it is a great relief to feel that one is not at the
+beck and call of any one and every one wherever one goes, and to know
+that one is free to choose one's own companions and do as one wishes."
+
+"The sentiment is good," Miss Thorn agreed, "very good. But doesn't it
+seem a little odd, Mr. Crocker," she continued, appealing to me, "that
+a man should take the pains to advertise a trip to Europe in order to
+gratify a whim of this sort?"
+
+"It is indeed incomprehensible to me," I replied, with a kind of grim
+pleasure, "but you must remember that I have always led a commonplace
+existence."
+
+Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now
+beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness
+dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it
+merited. It was with a palpable relief that he heard the first warning
+notes of the figure.
+
+"Am I to understand that you wish me to do my part in concealing your
+identity?" asked Miss Thorn, cutting him short as he was expressing
+pleasure at her arrival.
+
+"If you will be so kind," he answered, and departed with a bow. There
+was a mischievous mirth in her eye as she took her place in the window.
+Below in the ball-room sat Miss Trevor surrounded by men, and I saw her
+face lighting at the Celebrity's approach.
+
+"Who is that beautiful girl he is dancing with?" said Miss Thorn.
+
+I told her.
+
+"Have you read his books?" she asked, after a pause.
+
+"Some of them."
+
+"So have I."
+
+The Celebrity was not mentioned again that evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+As an endeavor to unite Mohair and Asquith the cotillon had proved a
+dismal failure. They were as the clay and the brass. The next morning
+Asquith was split into factions and rent by civil strife, and the porch
+of the inn was covered by little knots of women, all trying to talk at
+once; their faces told an ominous tale. Not a man was to be seen. The
+Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Chicago papers, all of which had previously
+contained elaborate illustrated accounts of Mr. Cooke's palatial park
+and residence, came out that morning bristling with headlines about
+the ball, incidentally holding up the residents of a quiet and retiring
+little community in a light that scandalized them beyond measure. And
+Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen, treasurer of the widely known Miles Standish
+Bicycle Company, was said to have led the cotillon in a manner that left
+nothing to be desired.
+
+So it was this gentleman whom the Celebrity was personating! A queer
+whim indeed.
+
+After that, I doubt if the court of Charles the Second was regarded
+by the Puritans with a greater abhorrence than was Mohair by the
+good ladies of Asquith. Mr. Cooke and his ten friends were branded as
+profligates whose very scarlet coats bore witness that they were of the
+devil. Mr. Cooke himself, who particularly savored of brimstone, would
+much better have remained behind the arras, for he was denounced with
+such energy and bitterness that those who might have attempted his
+defence were silent, and their very silence told against them. Mr. Cooke
+had indeed outdone himself in hospitality. He had posted punch-bowls in
+every available corner, and so industriously did he devote himself to
+the duties of host, as he conceived them, that as many as four of the
+patriarchs of Asquith and pillars of the church had returned home more
+or less insensible, while others were quite incoherent. The odds being
+overwhelming, the master of Mohair had at length fallen a victim to his
+own good cheer. He took post with Judge Short at the foot of the
+stair, where, in spite of the protests of the Celebrity and of other
+well-disposed persons, the two favored the parting guests with an
+occasional impromptu song and waved genial good-byes to the ladies. And,
+when Mrs. Short attempted to walk by with her head in the air, as though
+the judge were in an adjoining county, he so far forgot his judicial
+dignity as to chuck her under the chin, an act which was applauded with
+much boyish delight by Mr. Cooke, and a remark which it is just as well
+not to repeat. The judge desired to spend the night at Mohair, but was
+afterwards taken home by main force, and the next day his meals were
+brought up to him. It is small wonder that Mrs. Short was looked upon as
+the head of the outraged party. The Ten were only spoken of in whispers.
+Three of them had been unable to come to time when the last figure was
+called, whereupon their partners were whisked off the scene without
+so much as being allowed to pay their respects to the hostess. Besides
+these offences, there were other minor barbarisms too numerous to
+mention.
+
+Although Mrs. Short's party was all-powerful at Asquith, there were some
+who, for various reasons, refused to agree in the condemnation of Mr.
+Cooke. Judge Short and the other gentlemen in his position were, of
+course, restricted, but Mr. Trevor came out boldly in the face of severe
+criticism and declared that his daughter should accept any invitation
+from Mrs. Cooke that she chose, and paid but little attention to the
+coolness resulting therefrom. He was fast getting a reputation for
+oddity. And the Celebrity tried to conciliate both parties, and
+succeeded, though none but he could have done it. At first he was eyed
+with suspicion and disgust as he drove off to Mohair in his Hempstead
+cart, and was called many hard names. But he had a way about him which
+won them in the end.
+
+A few days later I ran over to Mohair and found my client with the
+colored Sunday supplement of a Chicago newspaper spread out before him,
+eyeing the page with something akin to childish delight. I discovered
+that it was a picture of his own hunt ball, and as a bit of color it was
+marvellous, the scarlet coats being very much in evidence.
+
+"There, old man!" he exclaimed. "What do you think of that? Something of
+a sendoff, eh?" And he pointed to a rather stout and important gentleman
+in the foreground. "That's me!" he said proudly, "and they wouldn't do
+that for Farquhar Fenelon Cooke in Philadelphia."
+
+"A prophet is without honor in his own country," I remarked.
+
+"I don't set up for a prophet," said Mr. Cooke, "but I did predict that
+I would start a ripple here, didn't I?"
+
+I did not deny this.
+
+"How do I stand over there?" he inquired, designating Asquith by a twist
+of the head. "I hear they're acting all over the road; that they think
+I'm the very devil."
+
+"Well, your stock has dropped some, I admit," I answered. "They didn't
+take kindly to your getting the judge drunk, you know."
+
+"They oughtn't to complain about that," said my client; "and besides, he
+wasn't drunk enough to amount to anything."
+
+"However that may be," said I, "you have the credit for leading him
+astray. But there is a split in your favor."
+
+"I'm glad to know that," he said, brightening; "then I won't have to
+import any more."
+
+"Any more what?" I asked.
+
+"People from the East to keep things moving, of course. What I have
+here and those left me at the inn ought to be enough to run through the
+summer with. Don't you think so?"
+
+I thought so, and was moving off when he called me back.
+
+"Is the judge locked up, old man?" he demanded.
+
+"He's under rather close surveillance," I replied, smiling.
+
+"Crocker;" he said confidentially, "see if you can't smuggle him over
+here some day soon. The judge always holds good cards, and plays a
+number one hand."
+
+I promised, and escaped. On the veranda I came upon Miss Thorn
+surrounded by some of her uncle's guests. I imagine that she was bored,
+for she looked it.
+
+"Mr. Crocker," she called out, "you're just the man I have been wishing
+to see."
+
+The others naturally took this for a dismissal, and she was not long in
+coming to her point when we were alone.
+
+"What is it you know about this queer but gifted genius who is here so
+mysteriously?" she asked.
+
+"Nothing whatever," I confessed. "I knew him before he thought of
+becoming a genius."
+
+"Retrogression is always painful," she said; "but tell me something
+about him then."
+
+I told her all I knew, being that narrated in these pages. "Now," said
+I, "if you will pardon a curiosity on my part, from what you said the
+other evening I inferred that he closely resembles the man whose name it
+pleased him to assume. And that man, I learn from the newspapers, is Mr.
+Charles Wrexell Allen of the 'Miles Standish Bicycle Company.'"
+
+Miss Thorn made a comic gesture of despair.
+
+"Why he chose Mr. Allen's name," she said, "is absolutely beyond my
+guessing. Unless there is some purpose behind the choice, which I do not
+for an instant believe, it was a foolish thing to do, and one very apt
+to lead to difficulties. I can understand the rest. He has a reputation
+for eccentricity which he feels he must keep up, and this notion of
+assuming a name evidently appealed to him as an inspiration."
+
+"But why did he come out here?" I asked. "Can you tell me that?"
+
+Miss Thorn flushed slightly, and ignored the question.
+
+"I met the 'Celebrity,' as you call him," she said, "for the first time
+last winter, and I saw him frequently during the season. Of course I had
+heard not a little about him and his peculiarities. His name seems to
+have gone the length and breadth of the land. And, like most girls, I
+had read his books and confess I enjoyed them. It is not too much to
+say," she added archly, "that I made a sort of archangel out of the
+author."
+
+"I can understand that," said I.
+
+"But that did not last," she continued hastily. "I see I have got beside
+my story. I saw a great deal of him in New York. He came to call, and I
+believe I danced with him once or twice. And then my aunt, Mrs. Rivers,
+bought a place near Epsom, in Massachusetts, and had a house party there
+in May. And the Celebrity was invited."
+
+I smiled.
+
+"Oh, I assure you it was a mere chance," said Miss Thorn. "I mention
+this that I may tell you the astonishing part of it all. Epsom is one of
+those smoky manufacturing towns one sees in New England, and the 'Miles
+Standish' bicycle is made there. The day after we all arrived at my
+aunt's a man came up the drive on a wheel whom I greeted in a friendly
+way and got a decidedly uncertain bow in return.
+
+"I thought it rather a strange shift from a marked cordiality, and spoke
+of the circumstance to my aunt, who was highly amused. 'Why, my dear,'
+said she, 'that was Mr. Allen, of the bicycle company. I was nearly
+deceived myself.'"
+
+"And is the resemblance so close as that?" I exclaimed.
+
+"So close! Believe me, they are as like as two ices from a mould. Of
+course, when they are together one can distinguish the Celebrity from
+the bicycle man. The Celebrity's chin is a little more square, and his
+nose straighter, and there are other little differences. I believe
+Mr. Allen has a slight scar on his forehead. But the likeness was
+remarkable, nevertheless, and it grew to be a standing joke with
+us. They actually dressed ludicrously alike. The Celebrity became so
+sensitive about it that he went back to New York before the party broke
+up. We grew to be quite fond of the bicycle man."
+
+She paused and shifted her chair, which had rocked close to mine.
+
+"And can you account for his coming to Asquith?" I asked innocently.
+
+She was plainly embarrassed.
+
+"I suppose I might account for it, Mr. Crocker," she replied. Then she
+added, with something of an impulse, "After all, it is foolish of me not
+to tell you. You probably know the Celebrity well enough to have learned
+that he takes idiotic fancies to young women."
+
+"Not always idiotic," I protested.
+
+"You mean that the young women are not always idiotic, I suppose. No,
+not always, but nearly always. I imagine he got the idea of coming to
+Asquith," she went on with a change of manner, "because I chanced to
+mention that I was coming out here on a visit."
+
+"Oh," I remarked, and there words failed me.
+
+Her mouth was twitching with merriment.
+
+"I am afraid you will have to solve the rest of it for yourself, Mr.
+Crocker," said she; "that is all of my contribution. My uncle tells me
+you are the best lawyer in the country, and I am surprised that you are
+so slow in getting at motives."
+
+And I did attempt to solve it on my way back to Asquith. The conclusion
+I settled to, everything weighed, was this: that the Celebrity had
+become infatuated with Miss Thorn (I was far from blaming him for that)
+and had followed her first to Epsom and now to Asquith. And he had
+chosen to come West incognito partly through the conceit which he
+admitted and gloried in, and partly because he believed his prominence
+sufficient to obtain for him an unpleasant notoriety if he continued
+long enough to track the same young lady about the country. Hence he had
+taken the trouble to advertise a trip abroad to account for his absence.
+Undoubtedly his previous conquests had been made more easily, for my
+second talk with Miss Thorn had put my mind at rest as to her having
+fallen a victim to his fascinations. Her arrival at Mohair being
+delayed, the Celebrity had come nearly a month too soon, and in the
+interval that tendency of which he was the dupe still led him by the
+nose; he must needs make violent love to the most attractive girl on the
+ground,--Miss Trevor. Now that one still more attractive had arrived
+I was curious to see how he would steer between the two, for I made no
+doubt that matters had progressed rather far with Miss Trevor. And in
+this I was not mistaken.
+
+But his choice of the name of Charles Wrexell Allen bothered me
+considerably. I finally decided that he had taken it because convenient,
+and because he believed Asquith to be more remote from the East than the
+Sandwich Islands.
+
+Reaching the inn grounds, I climbed the hillside to a favorite haunt of
+mine, a huge boulder having a sloping back covered with soft turf. Hence
+I could watch indifferently both lake and sky. Presently, however, I was
+aroused by voices at the foot of the rock, and peering over the edge I
+discovered a kind of sewing-circle gathered there. The foliage hid me
+completely. I perceived the Celebrity perched upon the low branch of
+an apple-tree, and Miss Trevor below him, with two other girls, doing
+fancy-work. I shall not attempt to defend the morality of my action,
+but I could not get away without discovery, and the knowledge that I had
+heard a part of their conversation might prove disquieting to them.
+
+The Celebrity had just published a book, under the title of 'The
+Sybarites', which was being everywhere discussed; and Asquith, where
+summer reading was general, came in for its share of the debate. Why
+it was called The Sybarites I have never discovered. I did not read the
+book because I was sick and tired of the author and his nonsense, but I
+imbibed, in spite of myself, something of the story and its moral from
+hearing it talked about. The Celebrity himself had listened to arguments
+on the subject with great serenity, and was nothing loth to give his
+opinion when appealed to. I realized at once that 'The Sybarites' was
+the present topic.
+
+"Yes, it is rather an uncommon book," he was saying languidly, "but
+there is no use writing a story unless it is uncommon."
+
+"Dear, how I should like to meet the author!" exclaimed a voice. "He
+must be a charming man, and so young, too! I believe you said you knew
+him, Mr. Allen."
+
+"An old acquaintance," he answered, "and I am always reminding him that
+his work is overestimated."
+
+"How can you say he is overestimated!" said a voice.
+
+"You men are all jealous of him," said another.
+
+"Is he handsome? I have heard he is."
+
+"He would scarcely be called so," said the Celebrity, doubtfully.
+
+"He is, girls," Miss Trevor interposed; "I have seen his photograph."
+
+"What does he look like, Irene?" they chorused. "Men are no judges."
+
+"He is tall, and dark, and broad-shouldered," Miss Trevor enumerated,
+as though counting her stitches, "and he has a very firm chin, and a
+straight nose, and--"
+
+"Perfect!" they cried. "I had an idea he was just like that. I should go
+wild about him. Does he talk as well as he writes, Mr. Allen?"
+
+"That is admitting that he writes well."
+
+"Admitting?" they shouted scornfully, "and don't you admit it?"
+
+"Some people like his writing, I have to confess," said the Celebrity,
+with becoming calmness; "certainly his personality could not sell an
+edition of thirty thousand in a month. I think 'The Sybarites' the best
+of his works."
+
+"Upon my word, Mr. Allen, I am disgusted with you," said the second
+voice; "I have not found a man yet who would speak a good word for him.
+But I did not think it of you."
+
+A woman's tongue, like a firearm, is a dangerous weapon, and often
+strikes where it is least expected. I saw with a wicked delight that the
+shot had told, for the Celebrity blushed to the roots of his hair, while
+Miss Trevor dropped three or four stitches.
+
+"I do not see how you can expect men to like 'The Sybarites'," she said,
+with some heat; "very few men realize or care to realize what a small
+chance the average woman has. I know marriage isn't a necessary goal,
+but most women, as well as most men, look forward to it at some time of
+life, and, as a rule, a woman is forced to take her choice of the two or
+three men that offer themselves, no matter what they are. I admire a man
+who takes up the cudgels for women, as he has done."
+
+"Of course we admire him," they cried, as soon as Miss Trevor had
+stopped for breath.
+
+"And can you expect a man to like a book which admits that women are the
+more constant?" she went on.
+
+"Why, Irene, you are quite rabid on the subject," said the second voice;
+"I did not say I expected it. I only said I had hoped to find Mr. Allen,
+at least, broad enough to agree with the book."
+
+"Doesn't Mr. Allen remind you a little of Desmond?" asked the first
+voice, evidently anxious to avoid trouble.
+
+"Do you know whom he took for Desmond, Mr. Allen? I have an idea it was
+himself."
+
+Mr. Allen, had now recovered some of his composure.
+
+"If so, it was done unconsciously," he said. "I suppose an author must
+put his best thoughts in the mouth of his hero."
+
+"But it is like him?" she insisted.
+
+"Yes, he holds the same views."
+
+"Which you do not agree with."
+
+"I have not said I did not agree with them," he replied, taking up his
+own defence; "the point is not that men are more inconstant than
+women, but that women have more excuse for inconstancy. If I remember
+correctly, Desmond, in a letter to Rosamond, says: 'Inconstancy in a
+woman, because of the present social conditions, is often pardonable. In
+a man, nothing is more despicable.' I think that is so. I believe that
+a man should stick by the woman to whom he has given his word as closely
+as he sticks by his friends."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the aggressive second voice, "that is all very well. But
+how about the woman to whom he has not given his word? Unfortunately,
+the present social conditions allow a man to go pretty far without a
+definite statement."
+
+At this I could not refrain from looking at Miss Trevor. She was bending
+over her knitting and had broken her thread.
+
+"It is presumption for a man to speak without some foundation," said the
+Celebrity, "and wrong unless he is sure of himself."
+
+
+"But you must admit," the second voice continued, "that a man has
+no right to amuse himself with a woman, and give her every reason to
+believe he is going to marry her save the only manly and substantial
+one. And yet that is something which happens every day. What do you
+think of a man who deserts a woman under those conditions?"
+
+"He is a detestable dog, of course," declared the Celebrity.
+
+And the cock in the inn yard was silent.
+
+"I should love to be able to quote from a book at will," said the
+quieting voice, for the sake of putting an end to an argument which bid
+fair to become disagreeable. "How do you manage to do it?"
+
+"It was simply a passage that stuck in my mind," he answered modestly;
+"when I read a book I pick them up just as a roller picks up a sod here
+and there as it moves over the lawn."
+
+"I should think you might write, Mr. Allen, you have such an original
+way of putting things!"
+
+"I have thought of it," returned the Celebrity, "and I may, some fine
+day."
+
+Wherewith he thrust his hands into his pockets and sauntered off with
+equanimity undisturbed, apparently unaware of the impression he had left
+behind him. And the Fifth Reader story popped into my head of good King
+William (or King Frederick, I forgot which), who had a royal fancy for
+laying aside the gayeties of the court and straying incognito among his
+plainer subjects, but whose princely origin was invariably detected in
+spite of any disguise his Majesty could invent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+I experienced a great surprise a few mornings afterwards. I had risen
+quite early, and found the Celebrity's man superintending the hoisting
+of luggage on top of a van.
+
+"Is your master leaving?" I asked.
+
+"He's off to Mohair now, sir," said the valet, with a salute.
+
+At that instant the Celebrity himself appeared.
+
+"Yes, old chap, I'm off to Mohair," he explained. "There's more sport in
+a day up there than you get here in a season. Beastly slow place, this,
+unless one is a deacon or a doctor of divinity. Why don't you come up,
+Crocker? Cooke would like nothing better; he has told me so a dozen
+times."
+
+"He is very good," I replied. I could not resist the temptation to add,
+"I had an idea Asquith rather suited your purposes just now."
+
+"I don't quite understand," he said, jumping at the other half of my
+meaning.
+
+"Oh, nothing. But you told me when you came here, if I am not mistaken,
+that you chose Asquith because of those very qualities for which you now
+condemn it."
+
+"Magna est vis consuetudinis," he laughed; "I thought I could stand the
+life, but I can't. I am tired of their sects and synods and sermons. By
+the way," said he pulling at my sleeve, "what a deuced pretty girl that
+Miss Thorn is! Isn't she? Rollins, where's the cart? Well, good-bye,
+Crocker; see you soon."
+
+He drove rapidly off as the clock struck six, and an uneasy glance he
+gave the upper windows did not escape me. When Farrar appeared, I told
+him what had happened.
+
+"Good riddance," he replied sententiously.
+
+We sat in silence until the bell rang, looking at the morning sun on the
+lake. I was a little anxious to learn the state of Farrar's feelings in
+regard to Miss Trevor, and how this new twist in affairs had affected
+them. But I might as well have expected one of King Louis's carp
+to whisper secrets of the old regime. The young lady came to the
+breakfast-table looking so fresh and in such high spirits that I made
+sure she had not heard of the Celebrity's ignoble escape. As the meal
+proceeded it was easy to mark that her eye now and again fell across his
+empty chair, and glanced inquiringly towards the door. I made up my mind
+that I would not be the bearer of evil news, and so did Farrar, so we
+kept up a vapid small-talk with Mr. Trevor on the condition of trade
+in the West. Miss Trevor, however, in some way came to suspect that
+we could account for that vacant seat. At last she fixed her eye
+inquiringly on me, and I trembled.
+
+"Mr. Crocker," she began, and paused. Then she added with a fair
+unconcern, "do you happen to know where Mr. Allen is this morning?"
+
+"He has gone over to Mohair, I believe," I replied weakly.
+
+"To Mohair!" she exclaimed, putting down her cup; "why, he promised to
+go canoeing at ten.
+
+"Probably he will be back by then," I ventured, not finding it in my
+heart to tell her the cruel truth. But I kept my eyes on my plate. They
+say a lie has short legs. Mine had, for my black friend, Simpson, was at
+that instant taking off the fruit, and overheard my remark.
+
+"Mr. Allen done gone for good," he put in, "done give me five dollars
+last night. Why, sah," he added, scratching his head, "you was on de
+poch dis mornin' when his trunks was took away!"
+
+It was certainly no time to quibble then.
+
+"His trunks!" Miss Trevor exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, he has left us and gone to Mohair," I said, "bag and baggage. That
+is the flat truth of it."
+
+I suppose there is some general rule for calculating beforehand how a
+young woman is going to act when news of this sort is broken. I had no
+notion of what Miss Trevor would do. I believe Farrar thought she would
+faint, for he laid his napkin on the table. She did nothing of the kind,
+but said simply:
+
+"How unreliable men are!"
+
+I fell to guessing what her feelings were; for the life of me I could
+not tell from her face. I was sorry for Miss Trevor in spite of the fact
+that she had neglected to ask my advice before falling in love with the
+Celebrity. I asked her to go canoeing with me. She refused kindly but
+very firmly.
+
+It is needless to say that the Celebrity did not come back to the inn,
+and as far as I could see the desertion was designed, cold-blooded,
+and complete. Miss Trevor remained out of sight during the day of his
+departure, and at dinner we noticed traces of a storm about her,--a
+storm which had come and gone. There was an involuntary hush as she
+entered the dining-room, for Asquith had been buzzing that afternoon
+over the episode. And I admired the manner in which she bore her
+inspection. Already rumors of the cause of Mr. Allen's departure were in
+active circulation, and I was astonished to learn that he had been seen
+that day seated upon Indian rock with Miss Thorn herself. This piece of
+news gave me a feeling of insecurity about people, and about women
+in particular, that I had never before experienced. After holding the
+Celebrity up to such unmeasured ridicule as she had done, ridicule not
+without a seasoning of contempt, it was difficult to believe Miss Thorn
+so inconsistent as to go alone with him to Indian rock; and she was
+not ignorant of Miss Trevor's experience. But the fact was attested by
+trustworthy persons.
+
+I have often wondered what prompted me to ask Miss Trevor again to go
+canoeing. To do myself justice, it was no wish of mine to meddle with or
+pry into her affairs. Neither did I flatter myself that my poor company
+would be any consolation for that she had lost. I shall not try to
+analyze my motive. Suffice it to record that she accepted this second
+invitation, and I did my best to amuse her by relating a few of my
+experiences at the bar, and I told that memorable story of Farrar
+throwing O'Meara into the street. We were getting along famously, when
+we descried another canoe passing us at some distance, and we both
+recognized the Celebrity at the paddle by the flannel jacket of his
+college boat club. And Miss Thorn sat in the bow!
+
+"Do you know anything about that man, Miss Trevor?" I asked abruptly.
+
+She grew scarlet, but replied:
+
+"I know that he is a fraud."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"I can't say that I do; that is, nothing but what he has told me."
+
+"If you will forgive my curiosity," I said, "what has he told you?"
+
+"He says he is the author of The Sybarites," she answered, her lip
+curling, "but of course I do not believe that, now."
+
+"But that happens to be true," I said, smiling.
+
+She clapped her hands.
+
+"I promised him I wouldn't tell," she cried, "but the minute I get back
+to the inn I shall publish it."
+
+"No, don't do that just yet," said I.
+
+"Why not? Of course I shall."
+
+I had no definite reason, only a vague hope that we should get some
+better sort of enjoyment out of the disclosure before the summer was
+over.
+
+"You see," I said, "he is always getting into scrapes; he is that kind
+of a man. And it is my humble opinion that he has put his head into a
+noose this time, for sure. Mr. Allen, of the 'Miles Standish Bicycle
+Company,' whose name he has borrowed for the occasion, is enough like
+him in appearance to be his twin brother."
+
+"He has borrowed another man's name!" she exclaimed; "why, that's
+stealing!"
+
+"No, merely kleptomania," I replied; "he wouldn't be the other man if he
+could. But it has struck me that the real Mr. Allen might turn up here,
+or some friend of his, and stir things a bit. My advice to you is to
+keep quiet, and we may have a comedy worth seeing."
+
+"Well," she remarked, after she had got over a little of her
+astonishment, "it would be great fun to tell, but I won't if you say
+so."
+
+I came to have a real liking for Miss Trevor. Farrar used to smile when
+I spoke of this, and I never could induce him to go out with us in the
+canoe, which we did frequently,--in fact, every day I was at Asquith,
+except of course Sundays. And we grew to understand each other
+very well. She looked upon me in the same light as did my other
+friends,--that of a counsellor-at-law,--and I fell unconsciously into
+the role of her adviser, in which capacity I was the recipient of many
+confidences I would have got in no other way. That is, in no other way
+save one, and in that I had no desire to go, even had it been possible.
+Miss Trevor was only nineteen, and in her eyes I was at least sixty.
+
+"See here, Miss Trevor," I said to her one day after we had become more
+or less intimate, "of course it's none of my business, but you didn't
+feel very badly after the Celebrity went away, did you?"
+
+Her reply was frank and rather staggering.
+
+"Yes, I did. I was engaged to him, you know."
+
+"Engaged to him! I had no idea he ever got that far," I exclaimed.
+
+Miss Trevor laughed merrily.
+
+"It was my fault," she said; "I pinned him down, and he had to propose.
+There was no way out of it. I don't mind telling you."
+
+I did not know whether to be flattered or aggrieved by this avowal.
+
+"You know," she went on, her tone half apologetic, "the day after he
+came he told me who he was, and I wanted to stop the people we passed
+and inform them of the lion I was walking with. And I was quite carried
+away by the honor of his attentions: any girl would have been, you
+know."
+
+"I suppose so," I assented.
+
+"And I had heard and read so much of him, and I doted on his stories,
+and all that. His heroes are divine, you must admit. And, Mr. Crocker,"
+she concluded with a charming naivety, "I just made up my mind I would
+have him."
+
+"Woman proposes, and man disposes," I laughed. "He escaped in spite of
+you."
+
+She looked at me queerly.
+
+"Only a jest," I said hurriedly; "your escape is the one to be thankful
+for. You might have married him, like the young woman in The Sybarites.
+You remember, do you not, that the hero of that book sacrifices himself
+for the lady who adores him, but whom he has ceased to adore?"
+
+"Yes, I remember," she laughed; "I believe I know that book by heart."
+
+"Think of the countless girls he must have relieved of their affections
+before their eyes were opened," I continued with mock gravity. "Think of
+the charred trail he has left behind him. A man of that sort ought to be
+put under heavy bonds not to break any more hearts. But a kleptomaniac
+isn't responsible, you understand. And it isn't worth while to bear any
+malice."
+
+"Oh, I don't bear any malice now," she said. "I did at first, naturally.
+But it all seems very ridiculous now I have had time to think it over. I
+believe, Mr. Crocker, that I never really cared for him."
+
+"Simply an idol shattered this time," I suggested, "and not a heart
+broken."
+
+"Yes, that's it," said she.
+
+"I am glad to hear it," said I, much pleased that she had taken such a
+sensible view. "But you are engaged to him."
+
+"I was."
+
+"You have broken the engagement, then?"
+
+"No, I--haven't," she said.
+
+"Then he has broken it?"
+
+She did not appear to resent this catechism.
+
+"That's the strange part of it," said Miss Trevor, "he hasn't even
+thought it necessary."
+
+"It is clear, then, that you are still engaged to him," said I, smiling
+at her blank face.
+
+"I suppose I am," she cried. "Isn't it awful? What shall I do, Mr.
+Crocker? You are so sensible, and have had so much experience."
+
+"I beg your pardon," I remarked grimly.
+
+"Oh, you know what I mean: not that kind of experience, of course. But
+breach of promise cases and that sort of thing. I have a photograph of
+him with something written over it."
+
+"Something compromising?" I inquired.
+
+"Yes, you would probably call it so," she answered, reddening. "But
+there is no need of my repeating it. And then I have a lot of other
+things. If I write to break off the engagement I shall lose dignity, and
+it will appear as though I had regrets. I don't wish him to think that,
+of all things. What shall I do?"
+
+"Do nothing," I said.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Just that. Do not break the engagement, and keep the photograph and
+other articles for evidence. If he makes any overtures, don't consider
+them for an instant. And I think, Miss Trevor, you will succeed sooner
+or later in making him very uncomfortable. Were he any one else I
+shouldn't advise such a course, but you won't lose any dignity and
+self-respect by it, as no one will be likely to hear of it. He can't
+be taken seriously, and plainly he has never taken any one else so. He
+hasn't even gone to the trouble to notify you that he does not intend
+marrying you."
+
+I saw from her expression that my suggestion was favorably entertained.
+
+"What a joke it would be!" she cried delightedly.
+
+"And a decided act of charity," I added, "to the next young woman on his
+list."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than
+I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self
+again; for, even after she had conquered her love for the Celebrity, the
+mortification of having been jilted by him remained. Now she had come to
+look upon the matter in its true proportions, and her anticipation of a
+possible chance of teaching him a lesson was a pleasure to behold. Our
+table in the dining-room became again the abode of scintillating wit and
+caustic repartee, Farrar bracing up to his old standard, and the demand
+for seats in the vicinity rose to an animated competition. Mr. Charles
+Wrexell Allen's chair was finally awarded to a nephew of Judge Short,
+who could turn a story to perfection.
+
+So life at the inn settled down again to what it had been before the
+Celebrity came to disturb it.
+
+I had my own reasons for staying away from Mohair. More than once as I
+drove over to the county-seat in my buggy I had met the Celebrity on a
+tall tandem cart, with one of Mr. Cooke's high-steppers in the lead, and
+Miss Thorn in the low seat. I had forgotten to mention that my friend
+was something of a whip. At such times I would bow very civilly and pass
+on; not without a twinge, I confess. And as the result of one of these
+meetings I had to retrace several miles of my road for a brief I had
+forgotten. After that I took another road, several miles longer, for the
+sight of Miss Thorn with him seriously disturbed my peace of mind. But
+at length the day came, as I had feared, when circumstances forced me
+to go to my client's place. One morning Miss Trevor and I were about
+stepping into the canoe for our customary excursion when one of Mr.
+Cooke's footmen arrived with a note for each of us. They were from Mrs.
+Cooke, and requested the pleasure of our company that day for luncheon.
+"If you were I, would you go?" Miss Trevor asked doubtfully.
+
+"Of course," I replied.
+
+"But the consequences may be unpleasant."
+
+"Don't let them," I said. "Of what use is tact to a woman if not for
+just such occasions?"
+
+My invitation had this characteristic note tacked on the end of it
+
+"DEAR CROCKER: Where are you? Where is the judge? F. F. C."
+
+I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very
+mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom
+relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the
+judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less
+disturbing. My client welcomed the judge with that warmth of manner
+which grappled so many of his friends to his heart, and they disappeared
+together into the Ethiopian card-room, which was filled with the
+assegais and exclamation point shields Mr. Cooke had had made at the
+Sawmill at Beaverton.
+
+I learned from one of the lords-in-waiting loafing about the hall that
+Mrs. Cooke was out on the golf links, chaperoning some of the Asquith
+young women whose mothers had not seen fit to ostracize Mohair. Mr.
+Cooke's ten friends were with them. But this discreet and dignified
+servant could not reveal the whereabouts of Miss Thorn and of Mr. Allen,
+both of whom I was decidedly anxious to avoid. I was much disgusted,
+therefore, to come upon the Celebrity in the smoking-room, writing
+rapidly, with, sheets of manuscript piled beside him. And he was quite
+good-natured over my intrusion.
+
+"No," said he, "don't go. It's only a short story I promised for a
+Christmas number. They offered me fifteen cents a word and promised to
+put my name on the cover in red, so I couldn't very well refuse. It's no
+inspiration, though, I tell you that." He rose and pressed a bell behind
+him and ordered whiskeys and ginger ales, as if he were in a hotel. "Sit
+down, Crocker," he said, waving me to a morocco chair. "Why don't you
+come over to see us oftener?"
+
+"I've been quite busy," I said.
+
+This remark seemed to please him immensely.
+
+"What a sly old chap you are," said he; "really, I shall have to go back
+to the inn and watch you."
+
+"What the deuce do you mean?" I demanded.
+
+He looked me over in well-bred astonishment and replied:
+
+"Hang me, Crocker, if I can make you out. You seem to know the world
+pretty well, and yet when a fellow twits you on a little flirtation you
+act as though you were going to black his eyes."
+
+"A little flirtation!" I repeated, aghast.
+
+"Oh, well," he said, smiling, "we won't quarrel over a definition. Call
+it anything you like."
+
+"Don't you think this a little uncalled for?" I asked, beginning to lose
+my temper.
+
+"Bless you, no. Not among friends: not among such friends as we are."
+
+"I didn't know we were such devilish good friends," I retorted warmly.
+
+"Oh, yes, we are, devilish good friends," he answered with assurance;
+"known each other from boyhood, and all that. And I say, old chap," he
+added, "you needn't be jealous of me, you know. I got out of that long
+ago. And I'm after something else now."
+
+For a space I was speechless. Then the ludicrous side of the matter
+struck me, and I laughed in spite of myself. Better, after all, to deal
+with a fool according to his folly. The Celebrity glanced at the door
+and drew his chair closer to mine.
+
+"Crocker," he said confidentially, "I'm glad you came here to-day. There
+is a thing or two I wished to consult you about."
+
+"Professional?" I asked, trying to head him off.
+
+"No," he replied, "amateur,--beastly amateur. A bungle, if I ever made
+one. The truth is, I executed rather a faux pas over there at Asquith.
+Tell me," said he, diving desperately at the root of it, "how does Miss
+Trevor feel about my getting out? I meant to let her down easier; 'pon
+my word, I did."
+
+This is a way rascals have of judging other men by themselves.
+
+"Well;" said I, "it was rather a blow, of course."
+
+"Of course," he assented.
+
+"And all the more unexpected," I went on, "from a man who has written
+reams on constancy."
+
+I flatter myself that this nearly struck home, for he was plainly
+annoyed.
+
+"Oh, bother that!" said he. "How many gowns believe in their own
+sermons? How many lawyers believe in their own arguments?"
+
+"Unhappily, not as many as might."
+
+"I don't object to telling you, old chap," he continued, "that I went
+in a little deeper than I intended. A good deal deeper, in fact. Miss
+Trevor is a deuced fine girl, and all that; but absolutely impossible. I
+forgot myself, and I confess I was pretty close to caught."
+
+"I congratulate you," I said gravely.
+
+"That's the point of it. I don't know that I'm out of the woods yet. I
+wanted to see you and find out how she was acting."
+
+My first impulse was to keep him in hot water. Fortunately I thought
+twice.
+
+"I don't know anything about Miss Trevor's feelings--" I began.
+
+"Naturally not--" he interrupted, with a smile.
+
+"But I have a notion that, if she ever fancied you, she doesn't care a
+straw for you to-day."
+
+"Doesn't she now," he replied somewhat regretfully. Here was one of the
+knots in his character I never could untie.
+
+"Understand, that is simply my guess," I said. "You must have discovered
+that it is never possible to be sure of a woman's feelings."
+
+"Found that out long ago," he replied with conviction, and added: "Then
+you think I need not anticipate any trouble from her?"
+
+"I have told you what I think," I answered; "you know better than I what
+the situation is."
+
+He still lingered.
+
+"Does she appear to be in,--ah,--in good spirits?"
+
+I had work to keep my face straight.
+
+"Capital," I said; "I never saw her happier."
+
+This seemed to satisfy him.
+
+"Downcast at first, happy now," he remarked thoughtfully. "Yes, she got
+over it. I'm much obliged to you, Crocker."
+
+I left him to finish his short story and walked out across the circle of
+smooth lawn towards the golf links. And there I met Mrs. Cooke and her
+niece coming in together. The warm red of her costume became Miss Thorn
+wonderfully, and set off the glossy black of her hair. And her skin was
+glowing from the exercise. An involuntary feeling of admiration for this
+tall, athletic young woman swept over me, and I halted in my steps for
+no other reason, I believe, than that I might look upon her the longer.
+
+What man, I thought resentfully, would not travel a thousand miles to be
+near her?
+
+"It is Mr. Crocker," said Mrs. Cooke; "I had given up all hope of ever
+seeing you again. Why have you been such a stranger?"
+
+"As if you didn't know, Aunt Maria," Miss Thorn put in gayly.
+
+"Oh yes, I know," returned her aunt, "and I have not been foolish enough
+to invite the bar without the magnet. And yet, Mr. Crocker," she went
+on playfully, "I had imagined that you were the one man in a hundred who
+did not need an inducement."
+
+Miss Thorn began digging up the turf with her lofter: it was a painful
+moment for me.
+
+"You might at least have tried me, Mrs. Cooke," I said.
+
+Miss Thorn looked up quickly from the ground, her eyes searchingly upon
+my face. And Mrs. Cooke seemed surprised.
+
+"We are glad you came, at any rate," she answered.
+
+And at luncheon my seat was next to Miss Thorn's, while the Celebrity
+was placed at the right of Miss Trevor. I observed that his face went
+blank from time to time at some quip of hers: even a dull woman may be
+sharp under such circumstances, and Miss Trevor had wits to spare. And
+I marked that she never allowed her talk with him to drift into deep
+water; when there was danger of this she would draw the entire table
+into their conversation by some adroit remark, or create a laugh at his
+expense. As for me, I held a discreet if uncomfortable silence, save for
+the few words which passed between Miss Thorn and me. Once or twice I
+caught her covert glance on me. But I felt, and strongly, that there
+could be no friendship between us now, and I did not care to dissimulate
+merely for the sake of appearances. Besides, I was not a little put out
+over the senseless piece of gossip which had gone abroad concerning me.
+
+It had been arranged as part of the day's programme that Mr. Cooke was
+to drive those who wished to go over the Rise in his new brake. But the
+table was not graced by our host's presence, Mrs. Cooke apologizing for
+him, explaining that he had disappeared quite mysteriously. It turned
+out that he and the judge had been served with luncheon in the Ethiopian
+card-room, and neither threats nor fair words could draw him away.
+The judge had not held such cards for years, and it was in vain that
+I talked to him of consequences. The Ten decided to remain and watch a
+game which was pronounced little short of phenomenal, and my client gave
+orders for the smaller brake and requested the Celebrity to drive.
+And this he was nothing loth to do. For the edification as well as the
+assurance of the party Mr. Allen explained, while we were waiting under
+the porte cochere, how he had driven the Windsor coach down Piccadilly
+at the height of the season, with a certain member of Parliament and
+noted whip on the box seat.
+
+And, to do him justice, he could drive. He won the instant respect of
+Mr. Cooke's coachman by his manner of taking up the lines, and clinched
+it when he dropped a careless remark concerning the off wheeler. And
+after the critical inspection of the horses which is proper he climbed
+up on the box. There was much hesitation among the ladies as to who
+should take the seat of honor: Mrs. Cooke declining, it was pressed upon
+Miss Thorn. But she, somewhat to my surprise, declined also, and it was
+finally filled by a young woman from Asquith.
+
+As we drove off I found myself alone with Mrs. Cooke's niece on the seat
+behind.
+
+The day was cool and snappy for August, and the Rise all green with a
+lavish nature. Now we, plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing
+each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold
+trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet:
+or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and
+its curving shore far below us. I had always loved that piece of country
+since the first look I had of it from the Asquith road, and the sight
+of it rarely failed to set my blood a-tingle with pleasure. But to-day
+I scarcely saw it. I wondered what whim had impelled Miss Thorn to get
+into this seat. She paid but little attention to me during the first
+part of the drive, though a mere look in my direction seemed to afford
+her amusement. And at last, half way up the Rise, where the road takes
+to an embankment, I got a decided jar.
+
+"Mr. Allen," she cried to the Celebrity, "you must stop here. Do you
+remember how long we tarried over this bit on Friday?"
+
+He tightened the lines and threw a meaning glance backward.
+
+I was tempted to say:
+
+"You and Mr. Allen should know these roads rather well, Miss Thorn."
+
+"Every inch of them," she replied.
+
+We must have gone a mile farther when she turned upon me.
+
+"It is your duty to be entertaining, Mr. Crocker. What in the world are
+you thinking of, with your brow all puckered up, forbidding as an owl?"
+
+"I was thinking how some people change," I answered, with a readiness
+which surprised me.
+
+"Strange," she said, "I had the same thing in mind. I hear decidedly
+queer tales of you; canoeing every day that business does not prevent,
+and whole evenings spent at the dark end of a veranda."
+
+"What rubbish!" I exclaimed, not knowing whether to be angered or
+amused.
+
+"Come, sir," she said, with mock sternness, "answer the charge. Guilty
+or not guilty?"
+
+"First let me make a counter-charge," said I; "you have given me the
+right. Not long ago a certain young lady came to Mohair and found there
+a young author of note with whom she had had some previous acquaintance.
+She did not hesitate to intimate her views on the character of this
+Celebrity, and her views were not favorable."
+
+I paused. There was some satisfaction in seeing Miss Thorn biting her
+lip.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Not at all favorable, mind you," I went on. "And the young lady's
+general appearance was such as to lead one to suppose her the sincerest
+of persons. Now I am at a loss to account for a discrepancy between her
+words and her actions."
+
+While I talked Miss Thorn's face had been gradually turning from mine
+until now I saw only the dainty knot at the back of her head. Her
+shoulders were quivering with laughter. But presently her face came back
+all gravity, save a suspicious gleam of mirth in the eyes.
+
+"It does seem inconsistent, Mr. Crocker; I grant you that. No doubt it
+is so. But let me ask you something: did you ever yet know a woman who
+was not inconsistent?"
+
+I did not realize I had been side-tracked until I came to think over
+this conversation afterwards.
+
+"I am not sure," I replied. "Perhaps I merely hoped that one such
+existed."
+
+She dropped her eyes.
+
+"Then don't be surprised at my failing," said she. "No doubt I
+criticised the Celebrity severely. I cannot recall what I said. But it
+is upon the better side of a character that we must learn to look.
+Did it ever strike you that the Celebrity had some exceedingly fine
+qualities?"
+
+"No, it did not," I answered positively.
+
+"Nevertheless, he has," she went on, in all apparent seriousness. "He
+drives almost as well as Uncle Farquhar, dances well, and is a capital
+paddle."
+
+"You were speaking of qualities, not accomplishments," I said. A
+horrible suspicion that she was having a little fun at my expense
+crossed my mind.
+
+"Very good, then. You must admit that he is generous to a fault, amiable;
+and persevering, else he would never have attained the position he
+enjoys. And his affection for you, Mr. Crocker, is really touching,
+considering how little he gets in return."
+
+"Come, Miss Thorn," I said severely, "this is ridiculous. I don't
+like him, and never shall. I liked him once, before he took to writing
+drivel. But he must have been made over since then. And what is more,
+with all respect to your opinion, I don't believe he likes me."
+
+Miss Thorn straightened up with dignity and said:
+
+"You do him an injustice. But perhaps you will learn to appreciate him
+before he leaves Mohair."
+
+"That is not likely," I replied--not at all pleasantly, I fear. And
+again I thought I observed in her the same desire to laugh she had
+before exhibited.
+
+And all the way back her talk was of nothing except the Celebrity. I
+tried every method short of absolute rudeness to change the subject,
+and went from silence to taciturnity and back again to silence.
+She discussed his books and his mannerisms, even the growth of his
+popularity. She repeated anecdotes of him from Naples to St. Petersburg,
+from Tokio to Cape Town. And when we finally stopped under the porte
+cochere I had scarcely the civility left to say good-bye.
+
+I held out my hand to help her to the ground, but she paused on the
+second step.
+
+"Mr. Crocker," she observed archly, "I believe you once told me you had
+not known many girls in your life."
+
+"True," I said; "why do you ask?"
+
+"I wished to be sure of it," she replied.
+
+And jumping down without my assistance, she laughed and disappeared into
+the house.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME 3.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+That evening I lighted a cigar and went down to sit on the outermost
+pile of the Asquith dock to commune with myself. To say that I was
+disappointed in Miss Thorn would be to set a mild value on my feelings.
+I was angry, even aggressive, over her defence of the Celebrity. I had
+gone over to Mohair that day with a hope that some good reason was at
+the bottom of her tolerance for him, and had come back without any hope.
+She not only tolerated him, but, wonderful to be said, plainly liked
+him. Had she not praised him, and defended him, and become indignant
+when I spoke my mind about him? And I would have taken my oath, two
+weeks before, that nothing short of hypnotic influence could have
+changed her. By her own confession she had come to Asquith with her eyes
+opened, and, what was more, seen another girl wrecked on the same reef.
+
+Farrar followed me out presently, and I had an impulse to submit the
+problem as it stood to him. But it was a long story, and I did not
+believe that if he were in my boots he would have consulted me. Again,
+I sometimes thought Farrar yearned for confidences, though it was
+impossible for him to confide. And he wore an inviting air to-night.
+Then, as everybody knows, there is that about twilight and an
+after-dinner cigar which leads to communication. They are excellent
+solvents. My friend seated himself on the pile next to mine, and said,
+
+"It strikes me you have been behaving rather queer lately, Crocker."
+
+This was clearly an invitation from Farrar, and I melted.
+
+"I admit," said I, "that I am a good deal perplexed over the
+contradictions of the human mind."
+
+"Oh, is that all?" he replied dryly. "I supposed it was worse.
+Narrower, I mean. Didn't know you ever bothered yourself with abstract
+philosophy."
+
+"See here, Farrar," said I, "what is your opinion of Miss Thorn?"
+
+He stopped kicking his feet against the pile and looked up.
+
+"Miss Thorn?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Thorn," I repeated with emphasis. I knew he had in mind that
+abominable twaddle about the canoe excursions.
+
+"Why, to tell the truth," said he, "I never had any opinion of Miss
+Thorn."
+
+"You mean you never formed any, I suppose," I returned with some
+tartness.
+
+"Yes, that is it. How darned precise you are getting, Crocker! One would
+think you were going to write a rhetoric. What put Miss Thorn into your
+head?"
+
+"I have been coaching beside her this afternoon."
+
+"Oh!" said Farrar.
+
+"Do you remember the night she came," I asked, "and we sat with her on
+the Florentine porch, and Charles Wrexell recognized her and came up?"
+
+"Yes," he replied with awakened interest, "and I meant to ask you about
+that."
+
+"Miss Thorn had met him in the East. And I gathered from what she told
+me that he has followed her out here."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," said Farrar. "Don't much blame him, do you? Is that
+what troubles you?" he asked, in surprise.
+
+"Not precisely," I answered vaguely; "but from what she has said then
+and since, she made it pretty clear that she hadn't any use for him; saw
+through him, you know."
+
+"Pity her if she didn't. But what did she say?"
+
+I repeated the conversations I had had with Miss Thorn, without
+revealing Mr. Allen's identity with the celebrated author.
+
+"That is rather severe," he assented.
+
+"He decamped for Mohair, as you know, and since that time she has gone
+back on every word of it. She is with him morning and evening, and, to
+crown all, stood up for him through thick and thin to-day, and praised
+him. What do you think of that?"
+
+"What I should have expected in a woman," said he, nonchalantly.
+
+"They aren't all alike," I retorted.
+
+He shook out his pipe, and getting down from his high seat laid his hand
+on my knee.
+
+"I thought so once, old fellow," he whispered, and went off down the
+dock.
+
+This was the nearest Farrar ever came to a confidence.
+
+I have now to chronicle a curious friendship which had its beginning
+at this time. The friendships of the other sex are quickly made, and
+sometimes as quickly dissolved. This one interested me more than I care
+to own. The next morning Judge Short, looking somewhat dejected after
+the overnight conference he had had with his wife, was innocently and
+somewhat ostentatiously engaged in tossing quoits with me in front of
+the inn, when Miss Thorn drove up in a basket cart. She gave me a bow
+which proved that she bore no ill-will for that which I had said about
+her hero. Then Miss Trevor appeared, and away they went together. This
+was the commencement. Soon the acquaintance became an intimacy, and
+their lives a series of visits to each other. Although this new state
+of affairs did not seem to decrease the number of Miss Thorn's
+'tete-a-tetes' with the Celebrity, it put a stop to the canoe
+expeditions I had been in the habit of taking with Miss Trevor, which I
+thought just as well under the circumstances. More than once Miss Thorn
+partook of the inn fare at our table, and when this happened I would
+make my escape before the coffee. For such was the nature of my feelings
+regarding the Celebrity that I could not bring myself into cordial
+relations with one who professed to admire him. I realize how ridiculous
+such a sentiment must appear, but it existed nevertheless, and most
+strongly.
+
+I tried hard to throw Miss Thorn out of my thoughts, and very
+nearly succeeded. I took to spending more and more of my time at the
+county-seat, where I remained for days at a stretch, inventing business
+when there was none. And in the meanwhile I lost all respect for myself
+as a sensible man, and cursed the day the Celebrity came into the state.
+It seemed strange that this acquaintance of my early days should have
+come back into my life, transformed, to make it more or less miserable.
+The county-seat being several miles inland, and lying in the midst of
+hills, could get intolerably hot in September. At last I was driven out
+in spite of myself, and I arrived at Asquith cross and dusty. As Simpson
+was brushing me off, Miss Trevor came up the path looking cool and
+pretty in a summer gown, and her face expressed sympathy. I have never
+denied that sympathy was a good thing.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Crocker," she cried, "I am so glad you are back again! We have
+missed you dreadfully. And you look tired, poor man, quite worn out. It
+is a shame you have to go over to that hot place to work."
+
+I agreed with her.
+
+"And I never have any one to take me canoeing any more."
+
+"Let's go now," I suggested, "before dinner."
+
+So we went. It was a keen pleasure to be on the lake again after the
+sultry court-rooms and offices, and the wind and exercise quickly
+brought back my appetite and spirits. I paddled hither and thither,
+stopping now and then to lie under the pines at the mouth of some
+stream, while Miss Trevor talked. She was almost a child in her
+eagerness to amuse me with the happenings since my departure. This was
+always her manner with me, in curious contrast to her habit of fencing
+and playing with words when in company. Presently she burst out:
+
+"Mr. Crocker, why is it that you avoid Miss Thorn? I was talking of you
+to her only to-day, and she says you go miles out of your way to get out
+of speaking to her; that you seemed to like her quite well at first. She
+couldn't understand the change."
+
+"Did she say that?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Indeed, she did; and I have noticed it, too. I saw you leave before
+coffee more than once when she was here. I don't believe you know what a
+fine girl she is."
+
+"Why, then, does she accept and return the attentions of the Celebrity?"
+I inquired, with a touch of acidity. "She knows what he is as well, if
+not better, than you or I. I own I can't understand it," I said, the
+subject getting ahead of me. "I believe she is in love with him."
+
+Miss Trevor began to laugh; quietly at first, and, as her merriment
+increased, heartily.
+
+"Shouldn't we be getting back?" I asked, looking at my watch. "It lacks
+but half an hour of dinner."
+
+"Please don't be angry, Mr. Crocker," she pleaded. "I really couldn't
+help laughing."
+
+"I was unaware I had said anything funny, Miss Trevor," I replied.
+
+"Of course you didn't," she said more soberly; "that is, you didn't
+intend to. But the very notion of Miss Thorn in love with the Celebrity
+is funny."
+
+"Evidence is stronger than argument," said I. "And now she has even
+convicted herself."
+
+I started to paddle homeward, rather furiously, and my companion said
+nothing until we came in sight of the inn. As the canoe glided into the
+smooth surface behind the breakwater, she broke the silence.
+
+"I heard you went fishing the other day," said she.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the judge told me about a big bass you hooked, and how you played
+him longer than was necessary for the mere fun of the thing."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Perhaps you will find in the feeling that prompted you to do that a
+clue to the character of our sex."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Mr. Cooke had had a sloop yacht built at Far Harbor, the completion
+of which had been delayed, and which was but just delivered. She was,
+painted white, with brass fittings, and under her stern, in big,
+black letters, was the word Maria, intended as a surprise and delicate
+conjugal compliment to Mrs. Cooke. The Maria had a cabin, which was
+finished in hard wood and yellow plush, and accommodations for keeping
+things cold. This last Mr. Cooke had insisted upon.
+
+The skipper Mr. Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with
+a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been
+prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht for the month after the offer
+of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy.
+His son and helper was to receive a sum proportionally exorbitant.
+This worthy man sighted Mohair on a Sunday morning, and at nine
+o'clock dropped his anchor with a salute which caused Mr. Cooke to
+say unpleasant things in his sleep. After making things ship-shape and
+hoisting the jack, both father and son rowed ashore to the little church
+at Asquith.
+
+Now the butler at Mohair was a servant who had learned, from long
+experience, to anticipate every wish and whim of his master, and from
+the moment he descried the white sails of the yacht out of the windows
+of the butler's pantry his duty was clear as daylight. Such was the
+comprehension and despatch with which he gave his commands that the
+captain returned from divine worship to find the Maria in profane hands,
+her immaculate deck littered with straw and sawdust, and covered to the
+coamings with bottles and cases. This decided the captain, he packed
+his kit in high dudgeon, and took the first train back to Far Harbor,
+leaving the yacht to her fate.
+
+This sudden and inconsiderate departure was a severe blow to Mr. Cooke'
+who was so constituted that he cared but little about anything until
+there was danger of not getting it. My client had planned a trip to Bear
+Island for the following Tuesday, which was to last a week, the party to
+bring tents with them and rough it, with the Maria as headquarters. It
+was out of the question to send to Far Harbor for another skipper, if,
+indeed, one could be found at that late period. And as luck would have
+it, six of Mr. Cooke's ten guests had left but a day or so since, and
+among them had been the only yacht-owner. None of the four that remained
+could do more than haul aft and belay a sheet. But the Celebrity, who
+chanced along as Mr. Cooke was ruefully gazing at the graceful lines of
+the Maria from the wharf and cursing the fate that kept him ashore with
+a stiff wind blowing, proposed a way out of the difficulty. He, the
+Celebrity, would gladly sail the Maria over to Bear Island provided
+another man could be found to relieve him occasionally at the wheel, and
+the like. He had noticed that Farrar was a capable hand in a boat, and
+suggested that he be sent for.
+
+This suggestion Mr. Cooke thought so well of that he hurried over to
+Asquith to consult Farrar at once, and incidentally to consult me.
+We can hardly be blamed for receiving his overtures with a moderate
+enthusiasm. In fact, we were of one mind not to go when the subject was
+first broached. But my client had a persuasive way about him that was
+irresistible, and the mere mention of the favors he had conferred
+upon both of us at different periods of our lives was sufficient. We
+consented.
+
+Thus it came to pass that Tuesday morning found the party assembled on
+the wharf at Mohair, the Four and the Celebrity, as well as Mr. Cooke,
+having produced yachting suits from their inexhaustible wardrobes.
+Mr. Trevor and his daughter, Mrs. Cooke and Miss Thorn, and Farrar
+and myself completed the party. We were to adhere strictly to primeval
+principles: the ladies were not permitted a maid, while the Celebrity
+was forced to leave his manservant, and Mr. Cooke his chef. I had,
+however, thrust into my pocket the Minneapolis papers, which had been
+handed me by the clerk on their arrival at the inn, which happened just
+as I was leaving. 'Quod bene notandum!'
+
+Thereby hangs a tale!
+
+For the northern lakes the day was rather dead: a little wind lay in the
+southeast, scarcely enough to break the water, with the sky an intense
+blue. But the Maria was hardly cast and under way before it became
+painfully apparent that the Celebrity was much better fitted to lead
+a cotillon than to sail a boat. He gave his orders, nevertheless, in
+a firm, seamanlike fashion, though with no great pertinence, and thus
+managed to establish the confidence of Mr. Cooke. Farrar, after setting
+things to rights, joined Mrs. Cooke and me over the cabin.
+
+"How about hoisting the spinnaker, mate?" the Celebrity shouted after
+him.
+
+Farrar did not deign to answer: his eye was on the wind. And the boom,
+which had been acting uneasily, finally decided to gybe, and swept
+majestically over, carrying two of the Four in front of it, and all but
+dropped them into the water.
+
+"A common occurrence in a light breeze," we heard the Celebrity reassure
+Mr. Cooke and Miss Thorn.
+
+"The Maria has vindicated her sex," remarked Farrar.
+
+We laughed.
+
+"Why don't you sail, Mr. Farrar?" asked Mrs. Cooke.
+
+"He can't do any harm in this breeze," Farrar replied; "it isn't strong
+enough to get anywhere with."
+
+He was right. The boom gybed twenty times that morning, and the
+Celebrity offered an equal number of apologies. Mr. Cooke and the Four
+vanished, and from the uproarious laughter which arose from the cabin
+transoms I judged they were telling stories. While Miss Thorn spent the
+time profitably in learning how to conn a yacht. At one, when we had
+luncheon, Mohair was still in the distance. At two it began to cloud
+over, the wind fell flat, and an ominous black bank came up from the
+south. Without more ado, Farrar, calling on me to give him a hand, eased
+down the halliards and began to close reef the mainsail.
+
+"Hold on," said the Celebrity, "who told you to do that?"
+
+"I am very sure you didn't," Farrar returned, as he hauled out a reef
+earing.
+
+Here a few drops of rain on the deck warned the ladies to retire to the
+cabin.
+
+"Take the helm until I get my mackintosh, will you, Farrar?" said the
+Celebrity, "and be careful what you do."
+
+Farrar took the helm and hauled in the sheet, while the Celebrity, Mr.
+Cooke, and the guests donned their rain-clothes. The water ahead was
+now like blue velvet, and the rain pelting. The Maria was heeling to the
+squall by the time the Celebrity appeared at the cabin door, enveloped
+in an ample waterproof, a rubber cover on his yachting cap. A fool
+despises a danger he has never experienced, and our author, with a
+remark about a spanking breeze, made a motion to take the wheel. But
+Farrar, the flannel of his shirt clinging to the muscular outline of
+his shoulders, gave him a push which sent him sprawling against the lee
+refrigerator. Well Miss Thorn was not there to see.
+
+"You will have to answer for this," he cried, as he scrambled to his
+feet and clutched the weather wash-board with one hand, while he shook
+the other in Farrar's face.
+
+"Crocker," said Farrar to me, coolly, "keep that idiot out of the way
+for a while, or we'll all be drowned. Tie him up, if necessary."
+
+I was relieved from this somewhat unpleasant task. Mr. Cooke, with his
+back to the rain, sat an amused witness to the mutiny, as blissfully
+ignorant as the Celebrity of the character of a lake squall.
+
+"I appeal to you, as the owner of this yacht, Mr. Cooke," the Celebrity
+shouted, "whether, as the person delegated by you to take charge of it,
+I am to suffer indignity and insult. I have sailed larger yachts than
+this time and again on the coast, at--" here he swallowed a portion of a
+wave and was mercifully prevented from being specific.
+
+But Mr. Cooke was looking a trifle bewildered. It was hardly possible
+for him to cling to the refrigerator, much less quell a mutiny. One who
+has sailed the lakes well knows how rapidly they can be lashed to fury
+by a storm, and the wind was now spinning the tops of the waves into a
+blinding spray. Although the Maria proved a stiff boat and a seaworthy,
+she was not altogether without motion; and the set expression on
+Farrar's face would have told me, had I not known it, that our situation
+at that moment was no joke. Repeatedly, as she was held up to it, a
+precocious roller would sweep from bow to stern, until we without coats
+were wet and shivering.
+
+The close and crowded cabin of a small yacht is not an attractive
+place in rough weather; and one by one the Four emerged and distributed
+themselves about the deck, wherever they could obtain a hold. Some
+of them began to act peculiarly. Upon Mr. Cooke's unwillingness or
+inability to interfere in his behalf, the Celebrity had assumed an
+aggrieved demeanor, but soon the motion of the Maria became more and
+more pronounced, and the difficulty of maintaining his decorum likewise
+increased. The ruddy color left his face, which grew pale with effort.
+I will do him the justice to say that the effort was heroic: he whistled
+popular airs, and snatches of the grand opera; he relieved Mr. Cooke of
+his glasses (of which Mr. Cooke had neglected to relieve himself), and
+scanned the sea line busily. But the inevitable deferred is frequently
+more violent than the inevitable taken gracefully, and the confusion
+which at length overtook the Celebrity was utter as his humiliation was
+complete. We laid him beside Mr. Cooke in the cockpit.
+
+The rain presently ceased, and the wind hauled, as is often the case,
+to the northwest, which began to clear, while Bear Island rose from the
+northern horizon. Both Farrar and I were surprised to see Miss Trevor
+come out; she hooked back the cabin doors and surveyed the prostrate
+forms with amusement.
+
+We asked her about those inside.
+
+"Mrs. Cooke has really been very ill," she said, "and Miss Thorn is
+doing all she can for her. My father and I were more fortunate. But you
+will both catch your deaths," she exclaimed, noticing our condition.
+"Tell me where I can find your coats."
+
+I suppose it is natural for a man to enjoy being looked after in this
+way; it was certainly a new sensation to Farrar and myself. We assured
+her we were drying out and did not need the coats, but nevertheless she
+went back into the cabin and found them.
+
+"Miss Thorn says you should both be whipped," she remarked.
+
+When we had put on our coats Miss Trevor sat down and began to talk.
+
+"I once heard of a man," she began complacently, "a man that was
+buried alive, and who contrived to dig himself up and then read his own
+epitaph. It did not please him, but he was wise and amended his life. I
+have often thought how much it might help some people if they could read
+their own epitaphs."
+
+Farrar was very quick at this sort of thing; and now that the steering
+had become easier was only too glad to join her in worrying the
+Celebrity. But he, if he were conscious, gave no sign of it.
+
+"They ought to be buried so that they could not dig themselves up," he
+said. "The epitaphs would only strengthen their belief that they had
+lived in an unappreciative age."
+
+"One I happen to have in mind, however, lives in an appreciative age.
+Most appreciative."
+
+"And women are often epitaph-makers."
+
+"You are hard on the sex, Mr. Farrar," she answered, "but perhaps
+justly so. And yet there are some women I know of who would not write an
+epitaph to his taste."
+
+Farrar looked at her curiously.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said.
+
+"Do not imagine I am touchy on the subject," she replied quickly; "some
+of us are fortunate enough to have had our eyes opened."
+
+I thought the Celebrity stirred uneasily.
+
+"Have you read The Sybarites?" she asked.
+
+Farrar was puzzled.
+
+"No," said he sententiously, "and I don't want to."
+
+"I know the average man thinks it a disgrace to have read it. And you
+may not believe me when I say that it is a strong story of its kind,
+with a strong moral. There are men who might read that book and be a
+great deal better for it. And, if they took the moral to heart, it would
+prove every bit as effectual as their own epitaphs."
+
+He was not quite sure of her drift, but he perceived that she was still
+making fun of Mr. Allen.
+
+"And the moral?" he inquired.
+
+"Well," she said, "the best I can do is to give you a synopsis of the
+story, and then you can judge of its fitness. The hero is called Victor
+Desmond. He is a young man of a sterling though undeveloped character,
+who has been hampered by an indulgent parent with a large fortune.
+Desmond is a butterfly, and sips life after the approved manner of his
+kind,--now from Bohemian glass, now from vessels of gold and silver. He
+chats with stage lights in their dressing-rooms, and attends a ball in
+the Bowery or a supper at Sherry's with a ready versatility. The book,
+apart from its intention, really gives the middle classes an excellent
+idea of what is called 'high-life.'
+
+"It is some time before Desmond discovers that he possesses the gift of
+Paris,--a deliberation proving his lack of conceit,--that wherever he
+goes he unwittingly breaks a heart, and sometimes two or three. This
+discovery is naturally so painful that he comes home to his chambers and
+throws himself on a lounge before his fire in a fit of self-deprecation,
+and reflects on a misspent and foolish life. This, mind you, is where
+his character starts to develop. And he makes a heroic resolve, not to
+cut off his nose or to grow a beard, nor get married, but henceforth
+to live a life of usefulness and seclusion, which was certainly
+considerate. And furthermore, if by any accident he ever again involved
+the affections of another girl he would marry her, be she as ugly as sin
+or as poor as poverty. Then the heroine comes in. Her name is Rosamond,
+which sounds well and may be euphoniously coupled with Desmond; and,
+with the single exception of a boarding-school girl, she is the only
+young woman he ever thought of twice. In order to save her and himself
+he goes away, but the temptation to write to her overpowers him, and
+of course she answers his letter. This brings on a correspondence.
+His letters take the form of confessions, and are the fruits of much
+philosophical reflection. 'Inconstancy in woman,' he says, because of
+the present social conditions, is often pardonable. In a man, nothing
+is more despicable.' This is his cardinal principle, and he sticks to
+it nobly. For, though he tires of Rosamond, who is quite attractive,
+however, he marries her and lives a life of self-denial. There are men
+who might take that story to heart."
+
+I was amused that she should give the passage quoted by the Celebrity
+himself. Her double meaning was, naturally, lost on Farrar, but he
+enjoyed the thing hugely, nevertheless, as more or less applicable to
+Mr. Allen. I made sure that gentleman was sensible of what was being
+said, though he scarcely moved a muscle. And Miss Trevor, with a
+mirthful glance at me that was not without a tinge of triumph, jumped
+lightly to the deck and went in to see the invalids.
+
+We were now working up into the lee of the island, whose tall pines
+stood clean and black against the red glow of the evening sky. Mr. Cooke
+began to give evidences of life, and finally got up and overhauled one
+of the ice-chests for a restorative. Farrar put into the little cove,
+where we dropped anchor, and soon had the chief sufferers ashore; and
+a delicate supper, in the preparation of which Miss Thorn showed her
+ability as a cook, soon restored them. For my part, I much preferred
+Miss Thorn's dishes to those of the Mohair chef, and so did Farrar. And
+the Four, surprising as it may seem, made themselves generally useful
+about the camp in pitching the tents under Farrar's supervision. But the
+Celebrity remained apart and silent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Our first, night in the Bear Island camp passed without incident, and we
+all slept profoundly, tired out by the labors of the day before. After
+breakfast, the Four set out to explore, with trout-rods and shot-guns.
+Bear Island is, with the exception of the cove into which we had put, as
+nearly round as an island can be, and perhaps three miles in diameter.
+It has two clear brooks which, owing to the comparative inaccessibility
+of the place, still contain trout and grayling, though there are few
+spots where a fly can be cast on account of the dense underbrush. The
+woods contain partridge, or ruffed grouse, and other game in smaller
+quantities. I believe my client entertained some notion of establishing
+a preserve here.
+
+The insults which had been heaped upon the Celebrity on the yacht seemed
+to have raised rather than lowered him in Miss Thorn's esteem, for these
+two ensconced themselves among the pines above the camp with an edition
+de luxe of one of his works which she had brought along. They were soon
+absorbed in one of those famous short stories of his with the ending
+left open to discussion. Mr. Cooke was indisposed. He had not yet
+recovered from the shaking up his system had sustained, and he took to
+a canvas easy chair he had brought with him and placed a decanter of
+Scotch and a tumbler of ice at his side. The efficacy of this remedy
+was assured. And he demanded the bunch of newspapers he spied protruding
+from my pocket.
+
+The rest of us were engaged in various occupations: Mr. Trevor relating
+experiences of steamboat days on the Ohio to Mrs. Cooke; Miss Trevor
+buried in a serial in the Century; and Farrar and I taking an
+inventory of fishing-tackle, when we were startled by a loud and profane
+ejaculation. Mr. Cooke had hastily put down his glass and was staring at
+the newspaper before him with eyes as large as after-dinner coffee-cups.
+
+"Come here," he shouted over at us. "Come here, Crocker," he repeated,
+seeing we were slow to move. "For God's sake, come here!"
+
+In obedience to this emphatic summons I crossed the stream and drew near
+to Mr. Cooke, who was busily pouring out another glass of whiskey to
+tide him over this strange excitement. But, as Mr. Cooke was easily
+excited and on such occasions always drank whiskey to quiet his nerves,
+I thought nothing of it. He was sitting bolt upright and held out the
+paper to me with a shaking hand, while he pointed to some headlines on
+the first page. And this is what I read:
+
+            TREASURER TAKES A TRIP.
+
+       CHARLES WREXELL ALLEN, OF THE MILES STANDISH
+      BICYCLE COMPANY, GETS OFF WITH 100,000 DOLLARS.
+
+             DETECTIVES BAFFLED.
+
+        THE ABSCONDER A BACK BAY SOCIAL LEADER.
+
+Half way down the column was a picture of Mr. Allen, a cut made from a
+photograph, and, allowing for the crudities of newspaper reproduction,
+it was a striking likeness of the Celebrity. Underneath was a short
+description. Mr. Allen was five feet eleven (the Celebrity's height),
+had a straight nose, square chin, dark hair and eyes, broad shoulders,
+was dressed elaborately; in brief, tallied in every particular with the
+Celebrity with the exception of the slight scar which Allen was thought
+to have on his forehead.
+
+The situation and all its ludicrous possibilities came over me with a
+jump. It was too good to be true. Had Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen arrived
+at Asquith and created a sensation with the man who stole his name I
+should have been amply satisfied. But that Mr. Allen had been obliging
+enough to abscond with a large sum of money was beyond dreaming!
+
+I glanced at the rest of it: a history of the well-established company
+followed, with all that Mr. Allen had done for it. The picture, by the
+way, had been obtained from the St. Paul agent of the bicycle. After
+doing due credit to the treasurer's abilities as a hustler there
+followed a summary of his character, hitherto without reproach; but his
+tastes were expensive ones. Mr. Allen's tendency to extravagance had
+been noticed by the members of the Miles Standish Company, and some of
+the older directors had on occasions remonstrated with him. But he had
+been too valuable a man to let go, and it seems as treasurer he was
+trusted implicitly. He was said to have more clothes than any man in
+Boston.
+
+I am used to thinking quickly, and by the time I had read this I had an
+idea.
+
+"What in hell do you make of that, Crocker?" cried my client, eyeing me
+closely and repeating the question again and again, as was his wont when
+agitated.
+
+"It is certainly plain enough," I replied, "but I should like to talk to
+you before you decide to hand him over to the authorities."
+
+I thought I knew Mr. Cooke, and I was not mistaken.
+
+"Authorities!" he roared. "Damn the authorities! There's my yacht, and
+there's the Canadian border." And he pointed to the north.
+
+The others were pressing around us by this time, and had caught the
+significant words which Mr. Cooke had uttered. I imagine that if my
+client had stopped to think twice, which of course is a preposterous
+condition, he would have confided his discovery only to Farrar and
+to me. It was now out of the question to keep it from the rest of the
+party, and Mr. Trevor got the headlines over my shoulder. I handed him
+the sheet.
+
+"Read it, Mr. Trevor," said Mrs. Cooke.
+
+Mr. Trevor, in a somewhat unsteady voice, read the headlines and
+began the column, and they followed breathless with astonishment and
+agitation. Once or twice the senator paused to frown upon the Celebrity
+with a terrible sternness, thus directing all other eyes to him. His
+demeanor was a study in itself. It may be surmised, from what I have
+said of him, that there was a strain of the actor in his composition;
+and I am prepared to make an affidavit that, secure in the knowledge
+that he had witnesses present to attest his identity, he hugely enjoyed
+the sensation he was creating. That he looked forward with a profound
+pleasure to the stir which the disclosure that he was the author of The
+Sybarites would make. His face wore a beatific smile.
+
+As Mr. Trevor continued, his voice became firmer and his manner more
+majestic. It was a task distinctly to his taste, and one might have
+thought he was reading the sentence of a Hastings. I was standing next
+to his daughter. The look of astonishment, perhaps of horror, which I
+had seen on her face when her father first began to read had now faded
+into something akin to wickedness. Did she wink? I can't say, never
+before having had a young woman wink at me. But the next moment her
+vinaigrette was rolling down the bank towards the brook, and I was after
+it. I heard her close behind me. She must have read my intentions by a
+kind of mental telepathy.
+
+"Are you going to do it?" she whispered.
+
+"Of course," I answered. "To miss such a chance would be a downright
+sin."
+
+There was a little awe in her laugh.
+
+"Miss Thorn is the only obstacle," I added, "and Mr. Cooke is our hope.
+I think he will go by me."
+
+"Don't let Miss Thorn worry you," she said as we climbed back.
+
+"What do you mean?" I demanded. But she only shook her head. We were
+at the top again, and Mr. Trevor was reading an appended despatch from
+Buffalo, stating that Mr. Allen had been recognized there, in the latter
+part of June, walking up and down the platform of the station, in a
+smoking-jacket, and that he had climbed on the Chicago limited as
+it pulled out. This may have caused the Celebrity to feel a trifle
+uncomfortable.
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed Mr. Trevor, as he put down the paper. "Mr. Cooke, do you
+happen to have any handcuffs on the Maria?"
+
+But my client was pouring out a stiff helping from the decanter, which
+he still held in his hand. Then he approached the Celebrity.
+
+"Don't let it worry you, old man," said he, with intense earnestness.
+"Don't let it worry you. You're my guest, and I'll see you safe out of
+it, or bust."
+
+"Fenelon," said Mrs. Cooke, gravely, "do you realize what you are
+saying?"
+
+"You're a clever one, Allen," my client continued, and he backed away
+the better to look him over; "you had nerve to stay as long as you did."
+
+The Celebrity laughed confidently.
+
+"Cooke," he replied, "I appreciate your generosity,--I really do. I know
+no offence is meant. The mistake is, in fact, most pardonable."
+
+In Mr. Cooke amazement and admiration were clamoring for utterance.
+
+"Damn me," he sputtered, "if you're not the coolest embezzler I ever
+saw."
+
+The Celebrity laughed again. Then he surveyed the circle.
+
+"My friends," he said, "this is certainly a most amazing coincidence;
+one which, I assure you, surprises me no less than it does you. You have
+no doubt remarked that I have my peculiarities. We all have.
+
+"I flatter thyself I am not entirely unknown. And the annoyances imposed
+upon me by a certain fame I have achieved had become such that some
+months ago I began to crave the pleasures of the life of a private
+man. I determined to go to some sequestered resort where my face was
+unfamiliar. The possibility of being recognized at Asquith did not occur
+to me. Fortunately I was. And a singular chance led me to take the name
+of the man who has committed this crime, and who has the misfortune to
+resemble me. I suppose that now," he added impressively, "I shall have
+to tell you who I am."
+
+He paused until these words should have gained their full effect. Then
+he held up the edition de luxe from which he and Miss Thorn had been
+reading.
+
+"You may have heard, Mrs. Cooke," said he, addressing himself to our
+hostess, "you may perhaps have heard of the author of this book."
+
+Mrs. Cooke was a calm woman, and she read the name on the cover.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I have. And you claim to be he?"
+
+"Ask my friend Crocker here," he answered carelessly, no doubt exulting
+that the scene was going off so dramatically. "I should indeed be in a
+tight box," he went on, "if there were not friends of mine here to help
+me out."
+
+They turned to me.
+
+"I am afraid I cannot," I said with what soberness I could.
+
+"What!" says he with a start. "What! you deny me?"
+
+Miss Trevor had her tongue in her cheek. I bowed.
+
+"I am powerless to speak, Mr. Allen," I replied.
+
+During this colloquy my client stood between us, looking from one to the
+other. I well knew that his way of thinking would be with my testimony,
+and that the gilt name on the edition de luxe had done little towards
+convincing him of Mr. Allen's innocence. To his mind there was nothing
+horrible or incongruous in the idea that a well-known author should be
+a defaulter. It was perfectly possible. He shoved the glass of Scotch
+towards the Celebrity, with a smile.
+
+"Take this, old man," he kindly insisted, "and you'll feel better.
+What's the use of bucking when you're saddled with a thing like that?"
+And he pointed to the paper. "Besides, they haven't caught you yet, by a
+damned sight."
+
+The Celebrity waved aside the proffered tumbler.
+
+"This is an infamous charge, and you know it, Crocker," he cried. "If
+you don't, you ought to, as a lawyer. This isn't any time to have fun
+with a fellow."
+
+"My dear sir," I said, "I have charged you with nothing whatever."
+
+He turned his back on me in complete disgust. And he came face to face
+with Miss Trevor.
+
+"Miss Trevor, too, knows something of me," he said.
+
+"You forget, Mr. Allen," she answered sweetly, "you forget that I have
+given you my promise not to reveal what I know."
+
+The Celebrity chafed, for this was as damaging a statement as could well
+be uttered against him. But Miss Thorn was his trump card, and she now
+came forward.
+
+"This is ridiculous, Mr. Crocker, simply ridiculous," said she.
+
+"I agree with you most heartily, Miss Thorn," I replied.
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Thorn, and she drew her lips together, "pure
+nonsense!"
+
+"Nonsense or not, Marian," Mr. Cooke interposed, "we are wasting
+valuable time. The police are already on the scent, I'll bet my hat."
+
+"Fenelon!" Mrs. Cooke remonstrated.
+
+"And do you mean to say in soberness, Uncle Fenelon, that you believe
+the author of The Sybarites to be a defaulter?" said Miss Thorn.
+
+"It is indeed hard to believe Mr. Allen a criminal," Mr. Trevor broke in
+for the first time. "I think it only right that he should be allowed
+to clear himself before he is put to further inconvenience, and perhaps
+injustice, by any action we may take in the matter."
+
+Mr. Cooke sniffed suspiciously at the word "action."
+
+"What action do you mean?" he demanded.
+
+"Well," replied Mr. Trevor, with some hesitation, "before we take any
+steps, that is, notify the police."
+
+"Notify the police!" cried my client, his face red with a generous
+anger. "I have never yet turned a guest over to the police," he said
+proudly, "and won't, not if I know it. I'm not that kind."
+
+Who shall criticise Mr. Cooke's code of morality?
+
+"Fenelon," said his wife, "you must remember you have never yet
+entertained a guest of a larcenous character. No embezzlers up to the
+present. Marian," she continued, turning to Miss Thorn, "you spoke as
+if you might, be able to throw some light upon this matter. Do you know
+whether this gentleman is Charles Wrexell Allen, or whether he is the
+author? In short, do you know who he is?"
+
+The Celebrity lighted a cigarette. Miss Thorn said indignantly, "Upon my
+word, Aunt Maria, I thought that you, at least, would know better than
+to credit this silly accusation. He has been a guest at your house, and
+I am astonished that you should doubt his word."
+
+Mrs. Cooke looked at her niece perplexedly.
+
+"You must remember, Marian," she said gently, "that I know nothing about
+him, where he came from, or who he is. Nor does any one at Asquith,
+except perhaps Miss Trevor, by her own confession. And you do not seem
+inclined to tell what you know, if indeed you know anything."
+
+Upon this Miss Thorn became more indignant still, and Mrs. Cooke went on
+"Gentlemen, as a rule, do not assume names, especially other people's.
+They are usually proud of their own. Mr. Allen appears among us, from
+the clouds, as it were, and in due time we learn from a newspaper that
+he has committed a defalcation. And, furthermore, the paper contains a
+portrait and an accurate description which put the thing beyond doubt. I
+ask you, is it reasonable for him to state coolly after all this that he
+is another man? That he is a well-known author? It's an absurdity. I was
+not born yesterday, my dear."
+
+"It is most reasonable under the circumstances," replied Miss Thorn,
+warmly. "Extraordinary? Of course it's extraordinary. And too long to
+explain to a prejudiced audience, who can't be expected to comprehend
+the character of a genius, to understand the yearning of a famous man
+for a little quiet."
+
+Mrs. Cooke looked grave.
+
+"Marian, you forget yourself," she said.
+
+"Oh, I am tired of it, Aunt Maria," cried Miss Thorn; "if he takes my
+advice, he will refuse to discuss it farther."
+
+She did not seem to be aware that she had put forth no argument
+whatever, save a woman's argument. And I was intensely surprised that
+her indignation should have got the better of her in this way, having
+always supposed her clear-headed in the extreme. A few words from her,
+such as I supposed she would have spoken, had set the Celebrity right
+with all except Mr. Cooke. To me it was a clear proof that the Celebrity
+had turned her head, and her mind with it.
+
+The silence was broken by an uncontrollable burst of laughter from Miss
+Trevor. She was quickly frowned down by her father, who reminded her
+that this was not a comedy.
+
+"And, Mr. Allen," he said, "if you have anything to say, or any evidence
+to bring forward, now is the time to do it."
+
+He appeared to forget that I was the district attorney.
+
+The Celebrity had seated himself on the trunk of a tree, and was blowing
+out the smoke in clouds. He was inclined to take Miss Thorn's advice,
+for he made a gesture of weariness with his cigarette, in the use of
+which he was singularly eloquent.
+
+"Tell me, Mr. Trevor," said he, "why I should sit before you as a
+tribunal? Why I should take the trouble to clear myself of a senseless
+charge? My respect for you inclines me to the belief that you are
+laboring under a momentary excitement; for when you reflect that I am a
+prominent, not to say famous, author, you will realize how absurd it is
+that I should be an embezzler, and why I decline to lower myself by an
+explanation."
+
+Mr. Trevor picked up the paper and struck it.
+
+"Do you refuse to say anything in the face of such evidence as that?" he
+cried.
+
+"It is not a matter for refusal, Mr. Trevor. It is simply that I cannot
+admit the possibility of having committed the crime."
+
+"Well, sir," said the senator, his black necktie working out of place
+as his anger got the better of him, "I am to believe, then, because you
+claim to be the author of a few society novels, that you are infallible?
+Let me tell you that the President of the United States himself is
+liable to impeachment, and bound to disprove any charge he may be
+accused of. What in Halifax do I care for your divine-right-of-authors
+theory? I'll continue to think you guilty until you are shown to be
+innocent."
+
+Suddenly the full significance of the Celebrity's tactics struck Mr.
+Cooke, and he reached out and caught hold of Mr. Trevor's coattails.
+"Hold on, old man," said he; "Allen isn't going to be ass enough to own
+up to it. Don't you see we'd all be jugged and fined for assisting a
+criminal over the border? It's out of consideration for us."
+
+Mr. Trevor looked sternly over his shoulder at Mr. Cooke.
+
+"Do you mean to say, sir, seriously," he asked, "that, for the sake of
+a misplaced friendship for this man, and a misplaced sense of honor,
+you are bound to shield a guest, though a criminal? That you intend to
+assist him to escape from justice? I insist, for my own protection and
+that of my daughter, as well as for that of the others present that,
+since he refuses to speak, we must presume him guilty and turn him
+over."
+
+Mr. Trevor turned to Mrs. Cooke, as if relying on her support.
+
+"Fenelon," said she, "I have never sought to influence your actions when
+your friends were concerned, and I shall not begin now. All I ask of you
+is to consider the consequences of your intention."
+
+These words from Mrs. Cooke had much more weight with my client than Mr.
+Trevor's blustering demands.
+
+"Maria, my dear," he said, with a deferential urbanity, "Mr. Allen is my
+guest, and a gentleman. When a gentleman gives his word that he is not a
+criminal, it is sufficient."
+
+The force of this, for some reason, did not overwhelm his wife; and her
+lip curled a little, half in contempt, half in risibility.
+
+"Pshaw, Fenelon," said she, "what a fraud you are. Why is it you wish to
+get Mr. Allen over the border, then?" A question which might well have
+staggered a worthier intellect.
+
+"Why, my dear," answered my client, "I wish to save Mr. Allen the
+inconvenience, not to say the humiliation, of being brought East in
+custody and strapped with a pair of handcuffs. Let him take a shooting
+trip to the great Northwest until the real criminal is caught."
+
+"Well, Fenelon," replied Mrs. Cooke, unable to repress a smile, "one
+might as well try to argue with a turn-stile or a weather-vane. I wash
+my hands of it."
+
+But Mr. Trevor, who was both a self-made man and a Western politician,
+was far from being satisfied. He turned to me with a sweep of the arm he
+had doubtless learned in the Ohio State Senate.
+
+"Mr. Crocker," he cried, "are you, as attorney of this district, going
+to aid and abet in the escape of a fugitive from justice?"
+
+"Mr. Trevor," said I, "I will take the course in this matter which seems
+fit to me, and without advice from any one."
+
+He wheeled on Farrar, repeated the question, and got a like answer.
+
+Brought to bay for a time, he glared savagely around him while groping
+for further arguments.
+
+But at this point the Four appeared on the scene, much the worse for
+thickets, and clamoring for luncheon. They had five small fish between
+them which they wanted Miss Thorn to cook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Four received Mr. Cooke's plan for the Celebrity's escape to Canada
+with enthusiastic acclamation, and as the one thing lacking to make the
+Bear Island trip a complete success. The Celebrity was hailed with the
+reverence due to the man who puts up the ring-money in a prize-fight. He
+was accorded, too, a certain amount of respect as a defaulter, which the
+Four would have denied him as an author, for I am inclined to the belief
+that the discovery of his literary profession would have lowered him
+rather than otherwise in their eyes. My client was naturally anxious to
+get under way at once for the Canadian border, but was overruled in
+this by his henchmen, who demanded something to eat. We sat down to an
+impromptu meal, which was an odd affair indeed. Mrs. Cooke maintained
+her usual serenity, but said little, while Miss Trevor and I had many a
+mirthful encounter at the thought of the turn matters had taken.
+
+At the other end of the cloth were Mr. Cooke and the Four, in wonderful
+spirits and unimpaired appetite, and in their midst sat the Celebrity,
+likewise in wonderful spirits. His behavior now and again elicited a
+loud grunt of disapproval from Mr. Trevor, who was plying his knife and
+fork in a manner emblematic of his state of mind. Mr. Allen was laughing
+and joking airily with Mr. Cooke and the guests, denying, but not
+resenting, their accusations with all the sang froid of a hardened
+criminal. He did not care particularly to go to Canada, he said. Why
+should he, when he was innocent? But, if Mr. Cooke insisted, he would
+enjoy seeing that part of the lake and the Canadian side.
+
+Afterwards I perceived Miss Thorn down by the brookside, washing dishes.
+Her sleeves were drawn back to the elbow, and a dainty white apron
+covered her blue skirt, while the wind from the lake had disentangled
+errant wisps of her hair. I stood on the brink above, secure, as I
+thought, from observation, when she chanced to look up and spied me.
+
+"Mr. Crocker," she called, "would you like to make yourself useful?"
+
+I was decidedly embarrassed. Her manner was as frank and unconstrained
+as though I had not been shunning her for weeks past.
+
+"If such a thing is possible," I replied.
+
+"Do you know a dish-cloth when you see one?"
+
+I was doubtful. But I procured the cloth from Miss Trevor and returned.
+There was an air about Miss Thorn that was new to me.
+
+"What an uncompromising man you are, Mr. Crocker," she said to me. "Once
+a person is unfortunate enough to come under the ban of your disapproval
+you have nothing whatever to do with them. Now it seems that I have
+given you offence in some way. Is it not so?"
+
+"You magnify my importance," I said.
+
+"No temporizing, Mr. Crocker," she went on, as though she meant to be
+obeyed; "sit down there, and let's have it out. I like you too well to
+quarrel with you."
+
+There was no resisting such a command, and I threw myself on the pebbles
+at her feet.
+
+"I thought we were going to be great friends," she said. "You and Mr.
+Farrar were so kind to me on the night of my arrival, and we had such
+fun watching the dance together."
+
+"I confess I thought so, too. But you expressed opinions then that
+I shared. You have since changed your mind, for some unaccountable
+reason."
+
+She paused in her polishing, a shining dish in her hand, and looked down
+at me with something between a laugh and a frown.
+
+"I suppose you have never regretted speaking hastily," she said.
+
+"Many a time," I returned, warming; "but if I ever thought a judgment
+measured and distilled, it was your judgment of the Celebrity."
+
+"Does the study of law eliminate humanity?" she asked, with a mock
+curtsey. "The deliberate sentences are sometimes the unjust ones, and
+men who are hung by weighed wisdom are often the innocent."
+
+"That is all very well in cases of doubt. But here you have the
+evidences of wrong-doing directly before you."
+
+Three dishes were taken up, dried, and put down before she answered me.
+I threw pebbles into the brook, and wished I had held my tongue.
+
+"What evidence?" inquired she. "Well," said I, "I must finish, I
+suppose. I had a notion you knew of what I inferred. First, let me
+say that I have no desire to prejudice you against a person whom you
+admire."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+Something in her tone made me look up.
+
+"Very good, then," I answered. "I, for one, can have no use for a man
+who devotes himself to a girl long enough to win her affections, and
+then deserts her with as little compunction as a dog does a rat it has
+shaken. And that is how your Celebrity treated Miss Trevor."
+
+"But Miss Trevor has recovered, I believe," said Miss Thorn.
+
+I began to feel a deep, but helpless, insecurity.
+
+"Happily, yes," I assented.
+
+"Thanks to an excellent physician."
+
+A smile twitched the corners of her mouth, as though she enjoyed my
+discomfiture. I remarked for the fiftieth time how strong her face was,
+with its generous lines and clearly moulded features. And a suspicion
+entered my soul.
+
+"At any rate," I said, with a laugh, "the Celebrity has got himself into
+no end of a predicament now. He may go back to New York in custody."
+
+"I thought you incapable of resentment, Mr. Crocker. How mean of you to
+deny him!"
+
+"It can do no harm," I answered; "a little lesson in the dangers of
+incognito may be salutary. I wish it were a little lesson in the dangers
+of something else."
+
+The color mounted to her face as she resumed her occupation.
+
+"I am afraid you are a very wicked man," she said.
+
+Before I could reply there came a scuffling sound from the bank above
+us, and the snapping of branches and twigs. It was Mr. Cooke. His
+descent, the personal conduction of which he lost half-way down, was
+irregular and spasmodic, and a rude concussion at the bottom knocked off
+a choice bit of profanity which was balanced on the tip of his tongue.
+
+"Tobogganing is a little out of season," said his niece, laughing
+heartily.
+
+Mr. Cooke brushed himself off, picked up the glasses which he had
+dropped in his flight and pushed them into my hands. Then he pointed
+lakeward with bulging eyes.
+
+"Crocker, old man," he said in a loud whisper, "they tell me that is an
+Asquith cat-boat."
+
+I followed his finger and saw for the first time a sail-boat headed for
+the island, then about two miles off shore. I raised the glasses.
+
+"Yes," I said, "the Scimitar."
+
+"That's what Farrar said," cried he.
+
+"And what about it?" I asked.
+
+"What about it?" he ejaculated. "Why, it's a detective come for Allen.
+I knew sure as hell if they got as far as Asquith they wouldn't stop
+there. And that's the fastest sail-boat he could hire there, isn't it?"
+
+I replied that it was. He seized me by the shoulder and began dragging
+me up the bank.
+
+"What are you going to do?" I cried, shaking myself loose.
+
+"We've got to get on the Maria and run for it," he panted. "There is no
+time to be lost."
+
+He had reached the top of the bank and was running towards the group
+at the tents. And he actually infused me with some of his red-hot
+enthusiasm, for I hastened after him.
+
+"But you can't begin to get the Maria out before they will be in here,"
+I shouted.
+
+He stopped short, gazed at the approaching boat, and then at me.
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"Yes, of course," said I, "they will be here in ten minutes."
+
+The Celebrity stood in the midst of the excited Four. His hair was
+parted precisely, and he had induced a monocle to remain in his eye long
+enough to examine the Scimitar, his nose at the critical elevation. This
+unruffled exterior made a deep impression on the Four. Was the Celebrity
+not undergoing the crucial test of a true sport? He was an example alike
+to criminals and philosophers.
+
+Mr. Cooke hurried into the group, which divided respectfully for him,
+and grasped the Celebrity by the hand.
+
+"Something else has got to be done, old man," he said, in a voice which
+shook with emotion; "they'll be on us before we can get the Maria out."
+
+Farrar, who was nailing a rustic bench near by, straightened up at this,
+his lip curling with a desire to laugh.
+
+The Celebrity laid his hand on my client's shoulder.
+
+"Cooke," said he, "I'm deeply grateful for all the trouble you wish to
+take, and for the solicitude you have shown. But let things be. I'll
+come out of it all right."
+
+"Never," cried Cooke, looking proudly around the Four as some Highland
+chief might have surveyed a faithful clan. "I'd a damned sight rather go
+to jail myself."
+
+"A damned sight," echoed the Four in unison.
+
+"I insist, Cooke," said the Celebrity, taking out his eyeglass and
+tapping Mr. Cooke's purple necktie, "I insist that you drop this
+business. I repeat my thanks to you and these gentlemen for the
+friendship they have shown, but say again that I am as innocent of this
+crime as a baby."
+
+Mr. Cooke paid no attention to this speech. His face became radiant.
+
+"Didn't any of you fellows strike a cave, or a hollow tree, or something
+of that sort, knocking around this morning?"
+
+One man slapped his knee.
+
+"The very place," he cried. "I fell into it," and he showed a rent in
+his trousers corroboratively. "It's big enough to hold twenty of Allen,
+and the detective doesn't live that could find it."
+
+"Hustle him off, quick," said Mr. Cooke.
+
+The mandate was obeyed as literally as though Robin Hood himself had
+given it. The Celebrity disappeared into the forest, carried rather than
+urged towards his destined place of confinement.
+
+The commotion had brought Mr. Trevor to the spot. He caught sight of
+the Celebrity's back between the trees, then he looked at the cat-boat
+entering the cove, a man in the stern preparing to pull in the tender.
+
+He intercepted Mr. Cooke on his way to the beach.
+
+"What have you done with Mr. Allen?" he asked, in a menacing voice.
+
+"Good God," said Mr. Cooke, whose contempt for Mr. Trevor was now
+infinite, "you talk as if I were the governor of the state. What the
+devil could I do with him?"
+
+"I will have no evasion," replied Mr. Trevor, taking an imposing posture
+in front of him. "You are trying to defeat the ends of justice by
+assisting a dangerous criminal to escape. I have warned you, sir, and
+warn you again of the consequences of your meditated crime, and I give
+you my word I will do all in my power to frustrate it."
+
+Mr. Cooke dug his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. Here was a
+complication he had not looked for. The Scimitar lay at anchor with her
+sail down, and two men were coming ashore in the tender. Mr. Cooke's
+attitude being that of a man who reconsiders a rash resolve, Mr. Trevor
+was emboldened to say in a moderated tone:
+
+"You were carried away by your generosity, Mr. Cooke. I was sure when
+you took time to think you would see it in another light."
+
+Mr. Cooke started off for the place where the boat had grounded. I did
+not catch his reply, and probably should not have written it here if I
+had. The senator looked as if he had been sand-bagged.
+
+The two men jumped out of the boat and hauled it up. Mr. Cooke waved an
+easy salute to one, whom I recognized as the big boatman from Asquith,
+familiarly known as Captain Jay. He owned the Scimitar and several
+smaller boats. The captain went through the pantomime of an introduction
+between Mr. Cooke and the other, whom my client shook warmly by the
+hand, and presently all three came towards us.
+
+Mr. Cooke led them to a bar he had improvised by the brook. A pool
+served the office of refrigerator, and Mr. Cooke had devised an
+ingenious but complicated arrangement of strings and labels which
+enabled him to extract any bottle or set of bottles without having to
+bare his arm and pull out the lot. Farrar and I responded to the call he
+had given, and went down to assist in the entertainment. My client, with
+his back to us, was busy manipulating the strings.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "let me make you acquainted with Mr. Drew. You all
+know the captain."
+
+Had I not suspected Mr. Drew's profession, I think I should not have
+remarked that he gave each of us a keen look as he raised his head. He
+had reddish-brown hair, and a pair of bushy red whiskers, each of which
+tapered to a long point. He was broad in the shoulders, and the clothes
+he wore rather enhanced this breadth. His suit was gray and almost new,
+the trousers perceptibly bagging at the knee, and he had a felt hat,
+a necktie of the white and flowery pattern, and square-toed "Congress"
+boots. In short, he was a decidedly ordinary looking person; you would
+meet a hundred like him in the streets of Far Harbor and Beaverton. He
+might have been a prosperous business man in either of those towns,--a
+comfortable lumber merchant or mine owner. And he had chosen just the
+get-up I should have picked for detective work in that region. He had
+a pleasant eye and a very fetching and hearty manner. But his long
+whiskers troubled me especially. I kept wondering if they were real.
+
+"The captain is sailing Mr. Drew over to Far Harbor," explained Mr.
+Cooke, "and they have put in here for the night."
+
+Mr. Drew was plainly not an amateur, for he volunteered nothing further
+than this. The necessary bottles having been produced, Mr. Cooke held up
+his glass and turned to the stranger.
+
+"Welcome to our party, old man," said he.
+
+Mr. Drew drained his glass and complimented Mr. Cooke on the brand,--a
+sure key to my client's heart. Whereupon he seated himself between Mr.
+Drew and the captain and began a discourse on the subject of his own
+cellar, on which he talked for nearly an hour. His only pauses were for
+the worthy purpose of filling the detective's or the captain's glass,
+and these he watched with a hospitable solicitude. The captain had
+the advantage, three to one, and I made no doubt his employer bitterly
+regretted not having a boatman whose principles were more strict. At the
+end of the hour Captain Jay, who by nature was inclined to be taciturn
+and crabbed, waxed loquacious and even jovial. He sang us the songs he
+had learned in the winter lumber-camps, which Mr. Cooke never failed
+to encore to the echo. My client vowed he had not spent a pleasanter
+afternoon for years. He plied the captain with cigars, and explained to
+him the mystery of the strings and labels; and the captain experimented
+until he had broken some of the bottles.
+
+Mr. Cooke was not a person who made any great distinction between the
+three degrees, acquaintance, friendship, and intimacy. When a stranger
+pleased him, he went from one to the other with such comparative ease
+that a hardhearted man, and no other, could have resented his advances.
+Mr. Drew was anything but a hard-hearted man, and he did not object to
+my client's familiarity. Mr. Cooke made no secret of his admiration
+for Mr. Drew, and there were just two things about him that Mr. Cooke
+admired and wondered at, above all else,--the bushy red whiskers. But it
+appeared that these were the only things that Mr. Drew was really touchy
+about. I noticed that the detective, without being impolite, did his
+best to discourage these remarks; but my client knew no such word as
+discouragement. He was continually saying: "I think I'll grow some like
+that, old man," or "Have those cut," and the like,--a kind of humor
+in which the captain took an incredible delight. And finally, when a
+certain pitch of good feeling had been arrived at, Mr. Cooke reached out
+and playfully grabbed hold of the one near him. The detective drew back.
+"Mr. Cooke," said he, with dignity, "I'll have to ask you to let my
+whiskers alone."
+
+"Certainly, old man," replied my client, anything but abashed. "You'll
+pardon me, but they seemed too good to be true. I congratulate you on
+them."
+
+I was amused as well as alarmed at this piece of boldness, but the
+incident passed off without any disagreeable results, except, perhaps,
+a slight nervousness noticeable in the detective; and this soon
+disappeared. As the sun grew low, the Celebrity's conductors straggled
+in with fishing-rods and told of an afternoon's sport, and we left the
+captain peacefully but sonorously slumbering on the bank.
+
+"Crocker," said my client to me, afterwards, "they didn't feel like the
+real, home-grown article. But aren't they damned handsome?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+After supper, Captain Jay was rowed out and put to bed in his own bunk
+on the Scimitar. Then we heaped together a huge pile of the driftwood
+on the beach and raised a blazing beacon, the red light of which I doubt
+not could be seen from the mainland. The men made prongs from the soft
+wood, while Miss Thorn produced from the stores some large tins of
+marshmallows.
+
+The memory of that evening lingers with me yet. The fire colored
+everything. The waves dashed in ruby foam at our feet, and even the
+tall, frowning pines at our backs were softened; the sting was gone out
+of the keen night wind from the north. I found a place beside the gray
+cape I had seen for the first time the night of the cotillon. I
+no longer felt any great dislike for Miss Thorn, let it be known.
+Resentment was easier when the distance between Mohair and Asquith
+separated us,--impossible on a yachting excursion. But why should I be
+justifying myself?
+
+Mr. Cooke and the Four, in addition to other accomplishments, possessed
+excellent voices, and Mr. Drew sang a bass which added much to the
+melody. One of the Four played a banjo. It is only justice to Mr. Drew
+to say that he seemed less like a detective than any man I have ever
+met. He told a good story and was quick at repartee, and after a while
+the music, by tacit consent, was abandoned for the sake of hearing him
+talk. He related how he had worked up the lake, point by point, from
+Beaverton to Asquith, and lightened his narrative with snappy accounts
+of the different boatmen he had run across and of the different
+predicaments into which he had fallen. His sketches were so vivid that
+Mr. Cooke forgot to wink at me after a while and sat spellbound, while I
+marvelled at the imaginative faculty he displayed. He had us in roars of
+laughter. His stories were far from incredible, and he looked less like
+a liar than a detective. He showed, too, an accurate and astonishing
+knowledge of the lake which could hardly have been acquired in any other
+way than the long-shore trip he had described. Not once did he hint of a
+special purpose which had brought him to the island, and it was growing
+late. The fire died down upon the stones, and the thought of the
+Celebrity, alone in a dark cave in the middle of the island, began to
+prey upon me. I was not designed for a practical joker, and I take it
+that pity is a part of every self-respecting man's composition. In the
+cool of the night season the ludicrous side of the matter did not appeal
+to me quite as strongly as in the glare of day. A joke should never be
+pushed to cruelty. It was in vain that I argued I had no direct hand in
+the concealing of him; I felt my responsibility quite as heavy upon me.
+Perhaps bears still remained in these woods. And if a bear should devour
+the author of The Sybarites, would the world ever forgive me? Could I
+ever repay the debt to the young women of these United States? To speak
+truth, I expected every moment to see him appear. Why, in the name of
+all his works, did he stay there? Nothing worse could befall him than
+to go to Far Harbor with Drew, where our words concerning his identity
+would be taken. And what an advertisement this would be for the great
+author. The Sybarites, now selling by thousands, would increase its
+sales to ten thousands. Ah, there was the rub. The clue to his remaining
+in the cave was this very kink in the Celebrity's character. There
+was nothing Bohemian in that character; it yearned after the eminently
+respectable. Its very eccentricities were within the limits of good
+form. The Celebrity shunned the biscuits and beer of the literary clubs,
+and his books were bound for the boudoir. To have it proclaimed in the
+sensational journals that the hands of this choice being had been locked
+for grand larceny was a thought too horrible to entertain. His very
+manservant would have cried aloud against it. Better a hundred nights in
+a cave than one such experience!
+
+Miss Trevor's behavior that evening was so unrestful as to lead me to
+believe that she, too, was going through qualms of sympathy for the
+victim. As we were breaking up for the evening she pulled my sleeve.
+
+"Don't you think we have carried our joke a little too far, Mr.
+Crocker?" she whispered uneasily. "I can't bear to think of him in that
+terrible place."
+
+"It will do him a world of good," I replied, assuming a gayety I did not
+feel. It is not pleasant to reflect that some day one's own folly might
+place one in alike situation. And the night was dismally cool and windy,
+now that the fire had gone out. Miss Trevor began to philosophize.
+
+"Such practical pleasantries as this," she said, "are like infernal
+machines: they often blow up the people that start them. And they are
+next to impossible to steer."
+
+"Perhaps it is just as well not to assume we are the instruments of
+Providence," I said.
+
+Here we ran into Miss Thorn, who was carrying a lantern.
+
+"I have been searching everywhere for you two mischief-makers," said
+she. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Heaven only knows how this
+little experiment will end. Here is Aunt Maria, usually serene, on the
+verge of hysterics: she says he shouldn't stay in that damp cave another
+minute. Here is your father, Irene, organizing relief parties and
+walking the floor of his tent like a madman. And here is Uncle Fenelon
+insane over the idea of getting the poor, innocent man into Canada. And
+here is a detective saddled upon us, perhaps for days, and Uncle Fenelon
+has gotten his boatman drunk. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,"
+she repeated.
+
+Miss Trevor laughed, in spite of the gravity of these things, and so did
+I.
+
+"Oh, come, Marian," said she, "it isn't as bad as all that. And you talk
+as if you hadn't anything to be reproached for. Your own defence of the
+Celebrity wasn't as strong as it might have been."
+
+By the light of the lantern I saw Miss Thorn cast one meaning look at
+Miss Trevor.
+
+"What are you going to do about it?" asked Miss Thorn, addressing me.
+"Think of that unhappy man, without a bed, without blankets, without
+even a tooth-brush."
+
+"He hasn't been wholly off my mind," I answered truthfully. "But there
+isn't anything we can do to-night, with that beastly detective to notice
+it."
+
+"Then you must go very early to-morrow morning, before the detective
+gets up."
+
+I couldn't help smiling at the notion of getting up before a detective.
+
+"I am only too willing," I said.
+
+"It must be by four o'clock," Miss Thorn went on energetically, "and we
+must have a guide we can trust. Arrange it with one of Uncle Fenelon's
+friends."
+
+"We?" I repeated.
+
+"You certainly don't imagine that I am going to be left behind?" said
+Miss Thorn.
+
+I made haste to invite for the expedition one of the Four, who was quite
+willing to go; and we got together all the bodily comforts we could
+think of and put them in a hamper, the Fraction not forgetting to add a
+few bottles from Mr. Cooke's immersed bar.
+
+Long after the camp had gone to bed, I lay on the pine-needles above the
+brook, shielded from the wind by a break in the slope, and thought of
+the strange happenings of that day. Presently the waning moon climbed
+reluctantly from the waters, and the stream became mottled, black
+and white, the trees tall blurs. The lake rose and fell with a mighty
+rhythm, and the little brook hurried madly over the stones to join it.
+One thought chased another from my brain.
+
+At such times, when one's consciousness of outer things is dormant, an
+earthquake might continue for some minutes without one realizing it. I
+did not observe, though I might have seen from where I lay, the flap of
+one of the tents drawn back and two figures emerge. They came and stood
+on the bank above, under the tree which sheltered me. And I experienced
+a curious phenomenon. I heard, and understood, and remembered the first
+part of the conversation which passed between them, and did not know it.
+
+"I am sorry to disturb you," said one.
+
+"Not at all," said the other, whose tone, I thought afterwards,
+betokened surprise, and no great cheerfulness.
+
+"But I have had no other opportunity to speak with you."
+
+"No," said the other, rather uneasily.
+
+Suddenly my senses were alert, and I knew that Mr. Trevor had pulled
+the detective out of bed. The senator had no doubt anticipated an easier
+time, and he now began feeling for an opening. More than once he cleared
+his throat to commence, while Mr. Drew pulled his scant clothing closer
+about him, his whiskers playing in the breeze.
+
+"In Cincinnati, Mr. Drew," said Mr. Trevor, at length, "I am a known, if
+not an influential, citizen; and I have served my state for three terms
+in its Senate."
+
+"I have visited your city, Mr. Trevor," answered Mr. Drew, his teeth
+chattering audibly, "and I know you by reputation."
+
+"Then, sir," Mr. Trevor continued, with a flourish which appeared
+absolutely grotesque in his attenuated costume, "it must be clear to you
+that I cannot give my consent to a flagrant attempt by an unscrupulous
+person to violate the laws of this country."
+
+"Your feelings are to be respected, sir."
+
+Mr. Trevor cleared his throat again. "Discretion is always to be
+observed, Mr. Drew. And I, who have been in the public service, know the
+full value of it."
+
+Mr. Trevor leaned forward, at the same time glancing anxiously up at the
+tree, for fear, perhaps, that Mr. Cooke might be concealed therein. He
+said in a stage whisper:
+
+"A criminal is concealed on this island."
+
+Drew started perceptibly.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Trevor, with a glance of triumph at having produced an
+impression on a detective, "I thought it my duty to inform you. He has
+been hidden by the followers of the unscrupulous person I referred to,
+in a cave, I believe. I repeat, sir, as a man of unimpeachable standing,
+I considered it my duty to tell you."
+
+"You have my sincere thanks, Mr. Trevor," said Drew, holding out his
+hand, "and I shall act on the suggestion."
+
+Mr. Trevor clasped the hand of the detective, and they returned quietly
+to their respective tents. And in course of time I followed them,
+wondering how this incident might affect our morning's expedition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+My first thought on rising was to look for the detective. The touch
+of the coming day was on the lake, and I made out the two boats dimly,
+riding on the dead swell and tugging idly at their chains. The detective
+had been assigned to a tent which was occupied by Mr. Cooke and the
+Four, and they were sleeping soundly at my entrance. But Drew's blankets
+were empty. I hurried to the beach, but the Scimitar's boat was still
+drawn up there near the Maria's tender, proving that he was still on the
+island.
+
+Outside of the ladies' tent I came upon Miss Thorn, stowing a large
+basket. I told her that we had taken that precaution the night before.
+
+"What did you put in?" she demanded.
+
+I enumerated the articles as best I could. And when I had finished, she
+said,
+
+"And I am filling this with the things you have forgotten."
+
+I lost no time in telling her what I had overheard the night before, and
+that the detective was gone from his tent. She stopped her packing and
+looked at me in concern.
+
+"He is probably watching us," she said. "Do you think we had better go?"
+
+I thought it could do no harm. "If we are followed," said I, "all we
+have to do is to turn back."
+
+Miss Trevor came out as I spoke, and our conductor appeared, bending
+under the hamper. I shouldered some blankets and the basket, and we
+started. We followed a rough path, evidently cut by a camping party in
+some past season, but now overgrown. The Fraction marched ahead, and I
+formed the rear guard. Several times it seemed to me as though someone
+were pushing after us, and more than once we halted. I put down the
+basket and went back to reconnoitre. Once I believed I saw a figure
+flitting in the gray light, but I set it down to my imagination.
+
+Finally we reached a brook, sneaking along beneath the underbrush as
+though fearing to show itself, and we followed its course. Branches
+lashed our faces and brambles tore our clothes. And then, as the
+sunlight was filtering through and turning the brook from blue to
+crystal, we came upon the Celebrity. He was seated in a little open
+space on the bank, apparently careless of capture. He did not even rise
+at our approach. His face showed the effect of a sleepless night, and
+wore an expression inimical to all mankind. The conductor threw his
+bundle on the bank and laid his hand on the Celebrity's shoulder.
+
+"Halloa, old man!" said he, cheerily. "You must have had a hard night of
+it. But we couldn't make you any sooner, because that hawk of an officer
+had his eye on us."
+
+The Celebrity shook himself free. And in place of the gratitude for
+which the Fraction had looked, and which he had every reason to expect,
+he got something different.
+
+"This outrage has gone far enough," said the Celebrity, with a terrible
+calmness. The Fraction was a man of the world.
+
+"Come, come, old chap!" he said soothingly, "don't cut up. We'll make
+things a little more homelike here." And he pulled a bottle from the
+depths of the hamper. "This will brace you up."
+
+He picked up the hamper and disappeared into the place of retention,
+while the Celebrity threw the bottle into the brush. And just then (may
+I be forgiven if I am imaginative!) I heard a human laugh come from that
+direction. In the casting of that bottle the Celebrity had given vent to
+some of the feelings he had been collecting overnight, and it must have
+carried about thirty yards. I dived after it like a retriever puppy
+for a stone; but the bottle was gone! Perhaps I could say more, but it
+doesn't do to believe in yourself too thoroughly when you get up early.
+I had nothing to say when I returned.
+
+"You here, Crocker?" said the author, fixing his eye on me. "Deuced kind
+of you to get up so early and carry a basket so far for me."
+
+"It has been a real pleasure, I assure you," I protested. And it had.
+There was a silent space while the two young ladies regarded him,
+softened by his haggard and dishevelled aspect, and perplexed by his
+attitude. Nothing, I believe, appeals to a woman so much as this very
+lack of bodily care. And the rogue knew it!
+
+"How long is this little game of yours to continue,--this bull-baiting?"
+he inquired. "How long am I to be made a butt of for the amusement of a
+lot of imbeciles?"
+
+Miss Thorn crossed over and seated herself on the ground beside him.
+"You must be sensible," she said, in a tone that she might have used to
+a spoiled child. "I know it is difficult after the night you have had.
+But you have always been willing to listen to reason."
+
+A pang of something went through me when I saw them together. "Reason,"
+said the Celebrity, raising his head. "Reason, yes. But where is the
+reason in all this? Because a man who happens to be my double commits a
+crime, is it right that I, whose reputation is without a mark, should be
+made to suffer? And why have I been made a fool of by two people whom I
+had every cause to suppose my friends?"
+
+"You will have to ask them," replied Miss Thorn, with a glance at us.
+"They are mischief-makers, I'll admit; but they are not malicious. See
+what they have done this morning! And how could they have foreseen that
+a detective was on his way to the island?"
+
+"Crocker might have known it," said he, melting. "He's so cursed smart!"
+
+"And think," Miss Thorn continued, quick to follow up an advantage,
+"think what would have happened if they hadn't denied you. This horrid
+man would have gone off with you to Asquith or somewhere else, with
+handcuffs on your wrists; for it isn't a detective's place to take
+evidence, Mr. Crocker says. Perhaps we should all have had to go to
+Epsom! And I couldn't bear to see you in handcuffs, you know."
+
+"Don't you think we had better leave them alone?" I said to Miss Trevor.
+
+She smiled and shook her head.
+
+"You are blind as a bat, Mr. Crocker," she said.
+
+The Celebrity had weighed Miss Thorn's words and was listening passively
+now while she talked. There may be talents which she did not possess; I
+will not pretend to say. But I know there are many professions she might
+have chosen had she not been a woman. She would have made a name for
+herself at the bar; as a public speaker she would have excelled. And had
+I not been so long accustomed to picking holes in arguments I am sure I
+should not have perceived the fallacies of this she was making for the
+benefit of the Celebrity. He surely did not. It is strange how a man
+can turn under such influence from one feeling to another. The Celebrity
+lost his resentment; apprehension took its place. He became more and
+more nervous; questioned me from time to time on the law; wished to know
+whether he would be called upon for testimony at Allen's trial; whether
+there was any penalty attached to the taking of another man's name;
+precisely what Drew would do with him if captured; and the tail of his
+eye was on the thicket as he made this inquiry. It may be surmised
+that I took an exquisite delight in quenching this new-born thirst for
+knowledge. And finally we all went into the cave.
+
+Miss Thorn unpacked the things we had brought, while I surveyed the
+cavern. It was in the solid rock, some ten feet high and irregular in
+shape, and perfectly dry. It was a marvel to me how cosy she made it.
+One of the Maria's lanterns was placed in a niche, and the Celebrity's
+silver toilet-set laid out on a ledge of the rock, which answered
+perfectly for a dressing-table. Miss Thorn had not forgotten a small
+mirror. And as a last office, set a dainty breakfast on a linen napkin
+on the rock, heating the coffee in a chafing-dish.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed, surveying her labors, "I hope you will be more
+comfortable."
+
+He had already taken the precaution to brush his hair and pull himself
+together. His thanks, such as they were, he gave to Miss Thorn. It is
+true that she had done more than any one else.
+
+"Good-bye, old boy!" said the Fraction. "We'll come back when we get the
+chance, and don't let that hundred thousand keep you awake."
+
+The Fraction and I covered up the mouth of the cave with brush. He
+became confidential.
+
+"Lucky dog, Allen!" he said. "They'll never get him away from Cooke. And
+he can have any girl he wants for the asking. By George! I believe Miss
+Thorn will elope with him if he ever reaches Canada."
+
+I only mention this as a sample of the Fraction's point of view. I
+confess the remark annoyed me at the time.
+
+Miss Thorn lingered in the cave for a minute after Miss Trevor came out.
+Then we retraced our way down the brook, which was dancing now in the
+sunlight. Miss Trevor stopped now and then to rest, in reality to laugh.
+I do not know what the Fraction thought of such heartless conduct. He
+and I were constantly on the alert for Mr. Drew, but we sighted the camp
+without having encountered him. It was half-past six, and we had trusted
+to slip in unnoticed by any one. But, as we emerged from the trees, the
+bustling scene which greeted our eyes filled us with astonishment. Two
+of the tents were down, and the third in a collapsed condition, while
+confusion reigned supreme. And in the midst of it all stood Mr. Cooke,
+an animated central figure pedestalled on a stump, giving emphatic
+directions in a voice of authority. He spied us from his elevated
+position before we had crossed the brook.
+
+"Here they come, Maria," he shouted.
+
+We climbed to the top of the slope, and were there confronted by Mrs.
+Cooke and Mr. Trevor, with Mr. Cooke close behind them.
+
+"Where the devil is Allen?" my client demanded excitedly of the
+Fraction.
+
+"Allen?" repeated that gentleman, "why, we made him comfortable and left
+him, of course. We had sense enough not to bring him here to be pulled."
+
+"But, you damfool," cried Mr. Cooke, slightly forgetting himself, "Drew
+has escaped."
+
+"Escaped?"
+
+"Yes, escaped," said Mr. Cooke, as though our conductor were personally
+responsible; "he got away this morning. Before we know it, we'll have
+the whole police force of Far Harbor out here to jug the lot of us."
+
+The Fraction, being deficient for the moment in language proper to
+express his appreciation of this new development, simply volunteered to
+return for the Celebrity, and left in a great hurry.
+
+"Irene," said Mr. Trevor, "can it be possible that you have stolen away
+for the express purpose of visiting this criminal?"
+
+"If he is a criminal, father, it is no reason that he should starve."
+
+"It is no reason," cried her father, hotly, "why a young girl who has
+been brought up as you have, should throw every lady-like instinct to
+the winds. There are men enough in this camp to keep him from starving.
+I will not have my daughter's name connected with that of a defaulter.
+Irene, you have set the seal of disgrace upon a name which I have
+labored for a lifetime to make one of the proudest in the land. And it
+was my fond hope that I possessed a daughter who--"
+
+During this speech my anger had been steadily rising. But it was Mrs.
+Cooke who interrupted him.
+
+"Mr. Trevor," said she, "perhaps you are not aware that while you are
+insulting your daughter, you are also insulting my niece. It may be well
+for you to know that Miss Trevor still has my respect as a woman and
+my admiration as a lady. And, since she has been so misjudged by her
+father, she has my deepest sympathy. But I wish to beg of you, if you
+have anything of this nature to say to her, you will take her feelings
+into consideration as well as ours."
+
+Miss Trevor gave her one expressive look of gratitude. The senator was
+effectually silenced. He had come, by some inexplicable inference, to
+believe that Mrs. Cooke, while subservient to the despotic will of her
+husband, had been miraculously saved from depravity, and had set her
+face against this last monumental act of outlawry.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME 4.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+I am convinced that Mr. Cooke possessed at least some of the qualities
+of a great general. In certain campaigns of past centuries, and even of
+this, it has been hero-worship that impelled the rank and file rather
+than any high sympathy with the cause they were striving for. And so
+it was with us that morning. Our commander was everywhere at once,
+encouraging us to work, and holding over us in impressive language the
+awful alternative of capture. For he had the art, in a high degree,
+of inoculating his followers with the spirit which animated him; and
+shortly, to my great surprise, I found myself working as though my life
+depended on it. I certainly did not care very much whether the Celebrity
+was captured or not, and yet, with the prospect of getting him over the
+border, I had not thought of breakfast. Farrar had a natural inclination
+for work of this sort, but even he was infused somewhat with the
+contagious haste and enthusiasm which filled the air; and together we
+folded the tents with astonishing despatch and rowed them out to the
+Maria, Mr. Cooke having gone to his knees in the water to shove the boat
+off.
+
+"What are we doing this for?" said Farrar to me, as we hoisted the sail.
+
+We both laughed.
+
+"I have just been asking myself that question," I replied.
+
+"You are a nice district attorney, Crocker," he said. "You have made
+a most proper and equitable decision in giving your consent to Allen's
+escape. Doesn't your conscience smart?"
+
+"Not unbearably. I'll tell you what, Farrar," said I, "the truth is,
+that this fellow never embezzled so much as a ten-cent piece. He isn't
+guilty: he isn't the man."
+
+"Isn't the man?" repeated Farrar.
+
+"No," I answered; "it's a long tale, and no time to tell it now. But he
+is really, as he claims to be, the author of all those detestable books
+we have been hearing so much of."
+
+"The deuce he is!" exclaimed Farrar, dropping the stopper he was tying.
+"Did he write The Sybarites?"
+
+"Yes, sir; he wrote The Sybarites, and all the rest of that trash."
+
+"He's the fellow that maintains a man ought to marry a girl after he has
+become engaged to her."
+
+"Exactly," I said, smiling at his way of putting it.
+
+"Preaches constancy to all men, but doesn't object to stealing."
+
+I laughed.
+
+"You're badly mixed," I explained. "I told you he never stole anything.
+He was only ass enough to take the man's name who is the living image of
+him. And the other man took the bonds."
+
+"Oh, come now," said he, "tell me something improbable while you are
+about it."
+
+"It's true," I replied, repressing my mirth; "true as the tale of
+Timothy. I knew him when he was a mere boy. But I don't give you that as
+a proof, for he might have become all things to all men since. Ask Miss
+Trevor; or Miss Thorn; she knows the other man, the bicycle man, and has
+seen them both together."
+
+"Where, in India? Was one standing on the ground looking at his double
+go to heaven? Or was it at one of those drawing-room shows where a
+medium holds conversation with your soul, while your body sleeps on the
+lounge? By George, Crocker, I thought you were a sensible man."
+
+No wonder I got angry. But I might have come at some proper estimation
+of Farrar's incredulity by that time.
+
+"I suppose you wouldn't take a lady's word," I growled.
+
+"Not for that," he said, busy again with the sail stops; "nor St.
+Chrysostom's, were he to come here and vouch for it. It is too damned
+improbable."
+
+"Stranger things than that have happened," I retorted, fuming.
+
+"Not to any of us," he said. Presently he added, chuckling: "He'd better
+not get into the clutches of that man Drew."
+
+"What do you mean?" I demanded. Farrar was exasperating at times.
+
+"Drew will wind those handcuffs on him like tourniquets," he laughed.
+
+There seemed to be something behind this remark, but before I could
+inquire into it we were interrupted by Mr. Cooke, who was standing on
+the beach, swearing and gesticulating for the boat.
+
+"I trust," said Farrar, as we rowed ashore, "that this blind excitement
+will continue, and that we shall have the extreme pleasure of setting
+down our friend in Her Majesty's dominions with a yachting-suit and a
+ham sandwich."
+
+We sat down to a hasty breakfast, in the middle of which the Celebrity
+arrived. His appearance was unexceptionable, but his heavy jaw was set
+in a manner which should have warned Mr. Cooke not to trifle with him.
+
+"Sit down, old man, and take a bite before we start for Canada," said my
+client.
+
+The Celebrity walked up to him.
+
+"Mr. Cooke," he began in a menacing tone, "it is high time this nonsense
+was ended. I am tired of being made a buffoon of for your party. For
+your gratification I have spent a sleepless night in those cold, damp
+woods; and I warn you that practical joking can be carried too far. I
+will not go to Canada, and I insist that you sail me back to Asquith."
+
+Mr. Cooke winked significantly in our direction and tapped his head.
+
+"I don't wonder you're a little upset, old man," he said, humoringly
+patting him; "but sit down for a bite of something, and you'll see
+things differently."
+
+"I've had my breakfast," he said, taking out a cigarette.
+
+Then Mr. Trevor got up.
+
+"He demands, sir, to be delivered over to the authorities," said he,
+"and you have no right to refuse him. I protest strongly."
+
+"And you can protest all you damn please," retorted my client; "this
+isn't the Ohio State Senate. Do you know where I would put you, Mr.
+Trevor? Do you know where you ought to be? In a hencoop, sir, if I
+had one here. In a hen-coop. What would you do if a man who had gone a
+little out of his mind asked you for a gun to shoot himself with? Give
+it him, I suppose. But I put Mr. Allen ashore in Canada, with the funds
+to get off with, and then my duty's done."
+
+This speech, as Mr. Cooke had no doubt confidently hoped, threw the
+senator into a frenzy of wrath.
+
+"The day will come, sir," he shouted, shaking his fist at my client,
+"the day will come when you will rue this bitterly."
+
+"Don't get off any of your oratorical frills on me," replied Mr. Cooke,
+contemptuously; "you ought to be tied and muzzled."
+
+Mr. Trevor was white with anger.
+
+"I, for one, will not go to Canada," he cried.
+
+"You'll stay here and starve, then," said Mr. Cooke; "damned little I
+care."
+
+Mr. Trevor turned to Farrar, who was biting his lip.
+
+"Mr. Farrar, I know you to be a rising young man of sound principles,
+and Mr. Crocker likewise. You are the only ones who can sail. Have you
+reflected that you are about to ruin your careers?"
+
+"We are prepared to take the chances, I think," said Farrar.
+
+Mr. Cooke looked us over, proudly and gratefully, as much as to say that
+while he lived we should not lack the necessities of life.
+
+At nine we embarked, the Celebrity and Mr. Trevor for the same reason
+that the animals took to the ark,--because they had to. There was a
+spanking breeze in the west-northwest, and a clear sky, a day of days
+for a sail. Mr. Cooke produced a map, which Farrar and I consulted, and
+without much trouble we hit upon a quiet place to land on the Canadian
+side. Our course was north-northwest, and therefore the wind enabled us
+to hold it without much trouble. Bear Island is situated some eighteen
+miles from shore, and about equidistant between Asquith and Far Harbor,
+which latter we had to pass on our way northward.
+
+Although a brisk sea was on, the wind had been steady from that quarter
+all night, and the motion was uniform. The Maria was an excellent
+sea-boat. There was no indication, therefore, of the return of that
+malady which had been so prevalent on the passage to Bear Island. Mr.
+Cooke had never felt better, and looked every inch a sea-captain in his
+natty yachting-suit. He had acquired a tan on the island; and, as is
+eminently proper on a boat, he affected nautical manners and nautical
+ways. But his vernacular savored so hopelessly of the track and stall
+that he had been able to acquire no mastery over the art of marine
+invective. And he possessed not so much as one maritime oath. As soon as
+we had swung clear of the cove he made for the weather stays, where
+he assumed a posture not unlike that in the famous picture of Farragut
+ascending Mobile Bay. His leather case was swung over his shoulder, and
+with his glasses he swept the lake in search of the Scimitar and other
+vessels of a like unamiable character.
+
+Although my client could have told you, offhand, Jackstraw's last mile
+in a bicycle sulky, his notion of the Scimitar's speed was as vague
+as his knowledge of seamanship. And when I informed him that in all
+probability she had already passed the light on Far Harbor reef, some
+nine miles this side of the Far Harbor police station, he went into
+an inordinate state of excitement. Mr. Cooke was, indeed, that day the
+embodiment of an unselfish if misdirected zeal. He was following the
+dictates of both heart and conscience in his endeavor to rescue his
+guest from the law; and true zeal is invariably contagious. What but
+such could have commanded the unremitting labors of that morning? Farrar
+himself had done three men's work before breakfast, and it was, in great
+part, owing to him that we were now leaving the island behind us. He was
+sailing the Maria that day as she will never be sailed again: her lee
+gunwale awash, and a wake like a surveyor's line behind her. More than
+once I called to mind his facetious observation about Mr. Drew, and
+wondered if he knew more than he had said about the detective.
+
+Once in the open, the Maria showed but small consideration for her
+passengers, for she went through the seas rather than over them. And Mr.
+Cooke, manfully keeping his station on the weather bow, likewise went
+through the seas. No argument could induce him to leave the post he had
+thus heroically chosen, which was one of honor rather than utility, for
+the lake was as vacant of sails as the day that Father Marquette (or
+some one else) first beheld it. Under such circumstances ease must be
+considered as only a relative term; and the accommodations of the Maria
+afforded but two comfortable spots,--the cabin, and the lea aft of the
+cabin bulkhead. This being the case, the somewhat peculiar internal
+relations of the party decided its grouping.
+
+I know of no worse place than a small yacht, or than a large one for
+that matter, for uncongenial people. The Four betook themselves to the
+cabin, which was fortunately large, and made life bearable with a game
+of cards; while Mrs. Cooke, whose adaptability and sense I had come
+greatly to, admire, contented herself with a corner and a book. The
+ungrateful cause of the expedition himself occupied another corner. I
+caught sight of him through the cabin skylight, and the silver pencil he
+was holding over his note-book showed unmistakable marks of teeth.
+
+Outside, Mr. Trevor, his face wearing an immutable expression of
+defiance for the wickedness surrounding him, had placed his daughter for
+safe-keeping between himself and the only other reliable character on
+board,--the refrigerator. But Miss Thorn appeared in a blue mackintosh
+and a pair of heavy yachting-boots, courting rather than avoiding a
+drenching. Even a mackintosh is becoming to some women. All morning she
+sat behind Mr. Cooke, on the rise of the cabin, her back against the
+mast and her hair flying in the wind, and I, for one, was not sorry the
+Celebrity had given us this excuse for a sail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+About half-past eleven Mr. Cooke's vigilance was rewarded by a glimpse
+of the lighthouse on Far Harbor reef, and almost simultaneously he
+picked up, to the westward, the ragged outline of the house-tops and
+spires of the town itself. But as we neared the reef the harbor appeared
+as quiet as a Sunday morning: a few Mackinaws were sailing hither
+and thither, and the Far Harbor and Beaverton boat was coming out. My
+client, in view of the peaceful aspect affairs had assumed, presently
+consented to relinquish his post, and handed the glasses over to me with
+an injunction to be watchful.
+
+I promised. And Mr. Cooke, feeling his way aft with more discretion than
+grace, finally descended into the cabin, where he was noisily received.
+And I was left with Miss Thorn. While my client had been there in front
+of us, his lively conversation and naive if profane remarks kept us in
+continual laughter. When with him it was utterly impossible to see
+any other than the ludicrous side of this madcap adventure, albeit he
+himself was so keenly in earnest as to its performance. It was with
+misgiving that I saw him disappear into the hatchway, and my impulse
+was to follow him. Our spirits, like those in a thermometer, are never
+stationary: mine were continually being sent up or down. The night
+before, when I had sat with Miss Thorn beside the fire, they went up;
+this morning her anxious solicitude for the Celebrity had sent them
+down again. She both puzzled and vexed me. I could not desert my post as
+lookout, and I remained in somewhat awkward suspense as to what she was
+going to say, gazing at distant objects through the glasses. Her remark,
+when it came, took me by surprise.
+
+"I am afraid," she said seriously, "that Uncle Fenelon's principles are
+not all that they should be. His morality is something like his tobacco,
+which doesn't injure him particularly, but is dangerous to others."
+
+I was more than willing to meet her on the neutral ground of Uncle
+Fenelon.
+
+"Do you think his principles contagious?" I asked.
+
+"They have not met with the opposition they deserve," she replied.
+"Uncle Fenelon's ideas of life are not those of other men,--yours, for
+instance. And his affairs, mental and material, are, happily for
+him, such that he can generally carry out his notions with small
+inconvenience. He is no doubt convinced that he is acting generously in
+attempting to rescue the Celebrity from a term in prison; what he does
+not realize is that he is acting ungenerously to other guests who have
+infinitely more at stake."
+
+"But our friend from Ohio has done his best to impress this upon him,"
+I replied, failing to perceive her drift; "and if his words are wasted,
+surely the thing is hopeless."
+
+"I am not joking," said she. "I was not thinking of Mr. Trevor, but of
+you. I like you, Mr. Crocker. You may not believe it, but I do." For the
+life of me I could think of no fitting reply to this declaration. Why
+was that abominable word "like" ever put into the English language?
+"Yes, I like you," she continued meditatively, "in the face of the fact
+that you persist in disliking me."
+
+"Nothing of the kind."
+
+"Oh, I know. You mustn't think me so stupid as all that. It is a
+mortifying truth that I like you, and that you have no use for me."
+
+I have never known how to take a jest from a woman. I suppose I should
+have laughed this off. Instead, I made a fool of myself.
+
+"I shall be as frank with you," I said, "and declare that I like you,
+though I should be much happier if I didn't."
+
+She blushed at this, if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was unlooked for.
+
+"At any rate," she went on, "I should deem it my duty to warn you of the
+consequences of this joke of yours. They may not be all that you have
+anticipated. The consequences for you, I mean, which you do not seem to
+have taken into account."
+
+"Consequences for me!" I exclaimed.
+
+"I fear that you will think what I am going to say uncalled for, and
+that I am meddling with something that does not concern me. But it seems
+to me that you are undervaluing the thing you have worked so hard
+to attain. They say that you have ability, that you have acquired a
+practice and a position which at your age give the highest promise for
+the future. That you are to be counsel for the railroad. In short, that
+you are the coming man in this section of the state. I have found this
+out," said she, cutting short my objections, "in spite of the short time
+I have been here."
+
+"Nonsense!" I said, reddening in my turn.
+
+"Suppose that the Celebrity is captured," she continued, thrusting
+her hands into the pockets of her mackintosh. "It appears that he is
+shadowed, and it is not unreasonable to expect that we shall be chased
+before the day is over. Then we shall be caught red-handed in an attempt
+to get a criminal over the border. Please wait until I have finished,"
+she said, holding up her hand at an interruption I was about to make.
+"You and I know he is not a criminal; but he might as well be as far as
+you are concerned. As district attorney you are doubtless known to the
+local authorities. If the Celebrity is arrested after a long pursuit,
+it will avail you nothing to affirm that you knew all along he was the
+noted writer. You will pardon me if I say that they will not believe you
+then. He will be taken East for identification. And if I know anything
+about politics, and especially the state of affairs in local politics
+with which you are concerned, the incident and the interval following
+it will be fatal to your chances with the railroad,--to your chances in
+general. You perceive, Mr. Crocker, how impossible it is to play with
+fire without being burned."
+
+I did perceive. At the time the amazing thoroughness with which she had
+gone into the subject of my own unimportant affairs, the astuteness and
+knowledge of the world she had shown, and the clearness with which she
+had put the situation, did not strike me. Nothing struck me but the
+alarming sense of my own stupidity, which was as keen as I have
+ever felt it. What man in a public position, however humble, has not
+political enemies? The image of O'Meara was wafted suddenly before me,
+disagreeably near, and his face wore the smile of victory. All of Mr.
+Cooke's money could not save me. My spirits sank as the immediate future
+unfolded itself, and I even read the article in O'Meara's organ, the
+Northern Lights, which was to be instrumental in divesting me of my
+public trust and fair fame generally. Yes, if the Celebrity was caught
+on the other side of Far Harbor, all would be up with John Crocker! But
+it would never do to let Miss Thorn discover my discomfiture.
+
+"There is something in what you say," I replied, with what bravado I
+could muster.
+
+"A little, I think," she returned, smiling; "now, what I wish you to do
+is to make Uncle Fenelon put into Far Harbor. If he refuses, you can go
+in in spite of him, since you and Mr. Farrar are the only ones who can
+sail. You have the situation in your own hands."
+
+There was certainly wisdom in this, also. But the die was cast now, and
+pride alone was sufficient to hold me to the course I had rashly begun
+upon. Pride! What an awkward thing it is, and more difficult for most of
+us to swallow than a sponge.
+
+"I thank you for this interest in my welfare, Miss Thorn," I began.
+
+"No fine speeches, please, sir," she cut in, "but do as I advise."
+
+"I fear I cannot."
+
+"Why do you say that? The thing is simplicity itself."
+
+"I should lose my self-respect as a practical joker. And besides," I
+said maliciously, "I started out to have some fun with the Celebrity,
+and I want to have it."
+
+"Well," she replied, rather coolly, "of course you can do as you
+choose."
+
+We were passing within a hundred yards of the lighthouse, set
+cheerlessly on the bald and sandy tip of the point. An icy silence
+sat between us, and such a silence is invariably insinuating. This one
+suggested a horrible thought. What if Miss Thorn had warned me in
+order to save the Celebrity from humiliation? I thrust it aside, but it
+returned again and grinned. Had she not practised insincerity before?
+And any one with half an eye could see that she was in love with the
+Celebrity; even the Fraction had remarked it. What more natural than,
+with her cleverness, she had hit upon this means of terminating the
+author's troubles by working upon my fears?
+
+Human weakness often proves too much for those of us who have the very
+best intentions. Up to now the refrigerator and Mr. Trevor had kept
+the strictest and most jealous of vigils over Irene. But at length the
+senator succumbed to the drowsiness which never failed to attack him
+at this hour, and he forgot the disrepute of his surroundings in a
+respectable sleep. Whereupon his daughter joined us on the forecastle.
+
+"I knew that would happen to papa if I only waited long enough," she
+said. "Oh, he thinks you're dreadful, Mr. Crocker. He says that nowadays
+young men haven't any principle. I mustn't be seen talking to you."
+
+"I have been trying to convince Mr. Crocker that his stand in the matter
+is not only immoral, but suicidal," said Miss Thorn. "Perhaps," she
+added meaningly, "he will listen to you."
+
+"I don't understand," answered Miss Trevor.
+
+"Miss Thorn has been good enough to point out," I explained, "that the
+political machine in this section, which has the honor to detest me,
+will seize upon the pretext of the Celebrity's capture to ruin me. They
+will take the will for the deed."
+
+"Of course they will do just that," cried Miss Trevor. "How bright of
+you to think of it, Marian!"
+
+Miss Thorn stood up.
+
+"I leave you to persuade him," said she; "I have no doubt you will be
+able to do it."
+
+With that she left us, quite suddenly. Abruptly, I thought. And her
+manner seemed to impress Miss Trevor.
+
+"I wonder what is the matter with Marian," said she, and leaned over the
+skylight. "Why, she has gone down to talk with the Celebrity."
+
+"Isn't that rather natural?" I asked with asperity.
+
+She turned to me with an amused expression.
+
+"Her conduct seems to worry you vastly, Mr. Crocker. I noticed that you
+were quite upset this morning in the cave. Why was it?"
+
+"You must have imagined it," I said stiffly.
+
+"I should like to know," she said, with the air of one trying to solve
+a knotty problem, "I should like to know how many men are as blind as
+you."
+
+"You are quite beyond me, Miss Trevor," I answered; "may I request you
+to put that remark in other words?"
+
+"I protest that you are a most unsatisfactory person," she went on, not
+heeding my annoyance. "Most abnormally modest people are. If I were to
+stick you with this hat-pin, for instance, you would accept the matter
+as a positive insult."
+
+"I certainly should," I said, laughing; "and, besides, it would be
+painful."
+
+"There you are," said she, exultingly; "I knew it. But I flatter myself
+there are men who would go into an ecstasy of delight if I ran a hat-pin
+into them. I am merely taking this as an illustration of my point."
+
+"It is a very fine point," said I. "But some people take pleasure in
+odd things. I can easily conceive of a man gallant enough to suffer the
+agony for the sake of pleasing a pretty girl."
+
+"I told you so," she pouted; "you have missed it entirely. You are
+hopelessly blind on that side, and numb. Perhaps you didn't know that
+you have had a hat-pin sticking in you for some time."
+
+I began feeling myself, nervously.
+
+"For more than a month," she cried, "and to think that you have never
+felt it." My action was too much for her gravity, and she fell back
+against the skylight in a fit of merriment, which threatened to wake her
+father. And I hoped it would.
+
+"It pleases you to speak in parables this morning," I said.
+
+"Mr. Crocker," she began again, when she had regained her speech, "shall
+I tell you of a great misfortune which might happen to a girl?"
+
+"I should be pleased to hear it," I replied courteously.
+
+"That misfortune, then, would be to fall in love with you."
+
+"Happily that is not within the limits of probability," I answered,
+beginning to be a little amused. "But why?"
+
+"Lightning often strikes where it is least expected," she replied
+archly. "Listen. If a young woman were unlucky enough to lose her heart
+to you, she might do everything but tell you, and you would never know
+it. I scarcely believe you would know it if she did tell you."
+
+I must have jumped unconsciously.
+
+"Oh, you needn't think I am in love with you."
+
+"Not for a minute," I made haste to say.
+
+She pointed towards the timber-covered hills beyond the shore.
+
+"Do you see that stream which comes foaming down the notch into the lake
+in front of us?" she asked. "Let us suppose that you lived in a cabin
+beside that brook; and that once in a while, when you went out to draw
+your water, you saw a nugget of--gold washing along with the pebbles
+on the bed. How many days do you think you would be in coming to the
+conclusion that there was a pocket of gold somewhere above you, and in
+starting in search of it?"
+
+"Not long, surely."
+
+"Ah, you are not lacking in perception there. But if I were to tell you
+that I knew of the existence of such a mine, from various proofs I have
+had, and that the mine was in the possession of a certain person who was
+quite willing to share it with you on application, you would not believe
+me."
+
+"Probably not."
+
+"Well," said Miss Trevor, with a nod of finality, "I was actually about
+to make such a disclosure. But I see it would be useless."
+
+I confess she aroused my curiosity. No coaxing, however, would induce
+her to interpret.
+
+"No," she insisted strangely, "if you cannot put two and two together, I
+fear I cannot help you. And no one I ever heard of has come to any good
+by meddling."
+
+Miss Trevor folded her hands across her lap. She wore that air which
+I am led to believe is common to all women who have something of
+importance to disclose; or at least what they consider is of importance.
+There was an element of pity, too, in her expression. For she had given
+me my chance, and my wits had been found wanting.
+
+Do not let it be surmised that I attach any great value to such banter
+as she had been indulging in. At the same time, however, I had an
+uneasy feeling that I had missed something which might have been to
+my advantage. It was in vain that I whipped my dull senses; but one
+conclusion was indicated by all this inference, and I don't care even to
+mention that: it was preposterous.
+
+Then Miss Trevor shifted to a very serious mood. She honestly did her
+best to persuade me to relinquish our enterprise, to go to Mr. Cooke and
+confess the whole thing.
+
+"I wish we had washed our hands of this Celebrity from the first," she
+said, with a sigh. "How dreadful if you lose your position on account of
+this foolishness!"
+
+"But I shan't," I answered reassuringly; "we are getting near the border
+now, and no sign of trouble. And besides," I added, "I think Miss Thorn
+tried to frighten me. And she very nearly succeeded. It was prettily
+done."
+
+"Of course she tried to frighten you. I wish she had succeeded."
+
+"But her object was transparent."
+
+"Her object!" she exclaimed. "Her object was to save you."
+
+"I think not," I replied; "it was to save the Celebrity."
+
+Miss Trevor rose and grasped one of the sail rings to keep her balance.
+She looked at me pityingly.
+
+"Do you really believe that?"
+
+"Firmly."
+
+"Then you are hopeless, Mr. Crocker, totally hopeless. I give you up."
+And she went back to her seat beside the refrigerator.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"Crocker, old man, Crocker, what the devil does that mean?"
+
+I turned with a start to perceive a bare head thrust above the cabin
+roof, the scant hair flying, and two large, brown eyes staring into mine
+full of alarm and reproach. A plump finger was pointing to where the
+sandy reef lay far astern of us.
+
+The Mackinaws were flecked far and wide over the lake, and a dirty
+smudge on the blue showed where the Far Harbor and Beaverton boat had
+gone over the horizon. But there, over the point and dangerously close
+to the land, hung another smudge, gradually pushing its way like a
+writhing, black serpent, lakewards. Thus I was rudely jerked back to
+face the problem with which we had left the island that morning.
+
+I snatched the neglected glasses from the deck and hurried aft to join
+my client on the overhang, but a pipe was all they revealed above the
+bleak hillocks of sand. My client turned to me with a face that was
+white under the tan.
+
+"Crocker," he cried, in a tragic voice, "it's a blessed police boat, or
+I never picked a winner."
+
+"Nonsense," I said; "other boats smoke beside police boats. The lake is
+full of tugs."
+
+I was a little nettled at having been scared for a molehill.
+
+"But I know it, sure as hell," he insisted.
+
+"You know nothing about it, and won't for an hour. What's a pipe and a
+trail of smoke?"
+
+He laid a hand on my shoulder, and I felt it tremble.
+
+"Why do you suppose I came out?" he demanded solemnly.
+
+"You were probably losing," I said.
+
+"I was winning."
+
+"Then you got tired of winning."
+
+But he held up a thumb within a few inches of my face, and with it a
+ring I had often noticed, a huge opal which he customarily wore on the
+inside of his hand.
+
+"She's dead," said Mr. Cooke, sadly.
+
+"Dead?" I repeated, perplexed.
+
+"Yes, she's dead as the day I lost the two thousand at Sheepshead. She's
+never gone back on me yet. And unless I can make some little arrangement
+with those fellows," he added, tossing his head at the smoke, "you and I
+will put up to-night in some barn of a jail. I've never been in jail but
+once," said Mr. Cooke, "and it isn't so damned pleasant, I assure
+you." I saw that he believed every word of it; in fact, that it was
+his religion. I might as well have tried to argue the Sultan out of
+Mohammedanism.
+
+The pipe belonged to a tug, that was certain. Farrar said so after a
+look over his shoulder, disdaining glasses, and he knew the lake better
+than many who made their living by it. It was then that I made note of a
+curious anomaly in the betting character; for thus far Mr. Cooke, like a
+great many of his friends, was a skeptic. He never ceased to hope until
+the stake had found its way into the other man's pocket. And it was for
+hope that he now applied to Farrar. But even Farrar did not attempt to
+account for the tug's appearance that near the land.
+
+"She's in some detestable hurry to get up this way, that's flat," he
+said; "where she is, the channel out of the harbor is not forty feet
+wide."
+
+By this time the rest of the party were gathered behind us on the high
+side of the boat, in different stages of excitement, scrutinizing the
+smoke. Mr. Cooke had the glasses glued to his eyes again, his feet
+braced apart, and every line of his body bespeaking the tension of
+his mind. I imagined him standing thus, the stump of his cigar tightly
+clutched between his teeth, following the fortunes of some favorite on
+the far side of the Belmont track.
+
+We waited without comment while the smoke crept by degrees towards the
+little white spindle on the tip of the point, now and again catching
+a gleam of the sun's rays from off the glass of the lantern. And
+presently, against the white lather of the lake, I thought I caught
+sight of a black nose pushed out beyond the land. Another moment, and
+the tug itself was bobbing in the open. Barely had she reached the deep
+water beyond the sands when her length began to shorten, and the dense
+cloud of smoke that rose made it plain that she was firing. At the sight
+I reflected that I had been a fool indeed. A scant few miles of water
+lay between us and her, and if they really meant business back there,
+and they gave every sign of it, we had about an hour and a half to get
+rid of the Celebrity. The Maria was a good boat, but she had not been
+built to try conclusions with a Far Harbor tug.
+
+My client, in spite of the ominous condition of his opal, was not slow
+to make his intentions exceedingly clear. For Mr. Cooke was first and
+last, and always, a gentleman. After that you might call him anything
+you pleased. Meditatively he screwed up his glasses and buckled
+them into the case, and then he descended to the cockpit. It was the
+Celebrity he singled out of the party.
+
+"Allen," said he, when he stood before him, "I want to impress on you
+that my word's gold. I've stuck to you thus far, and I'll be damned now
+if I throw you over, like they did Jonah."
+
+Mr. Cooke spoke with a fine dignity that in itself was impressive, and
+when he had finished he looked about him until his eye rested on Mr.
+Trevor, as though opposition were to come from that quarter. And the
+senator gave every sign of another eruption. But the Celebrity, either
+from lack of appreciation of my client's loyalty, or because of the
+nervousness which was beginning to show itself in his demeanor, despite
+an effort to hide it, returned no answer. He turned on his heel and
+resumed his seat in the cabin. Mr. Cooke was visibly affected.
+
+"I'd sooner lose my whip hand than go back on him now," he declared.
+
+Then Vesuvius began to rumble.
+
+"Mr. Cooke," said the senator, "may I suggest something which seems
+pertinent to me, though it does not appear to have occurred to you?"
+
+His tone was the calm one that the heroes used in the Celebrity's novels
+when they were about to drop on and annihilate wicked men.
+
+"Certainly, sir," my client replied briskly, bringing himself up on his
+way back to the overhang.
+
+"You have announced your intention of 'standing by' Mr. Allen, as you
+express it. Have you reflected that there are some others who deserve to
+be consulted and considered beside Mr. Allen and yourself?"
+
+Mr. Cooke was puzzled at this change of front, and unused, moreover, to
+that veiled irony of parliamentary expression.
+
+"Talk English, my friend," said he.
+
+"In plain words, sir, Mr. Allen is a criminal who ought to be locked
+up; he is a menace to society. You, who have a reputation, I am given to
+understand, for driving four horses, have nothing to lose by a scandal,
+while I have worked all my life for the little I have achieved, and
+have a daughter to think about. I will neither stand by Mr. Allen nor by
+you."
+
+Mr. Cooke was ready with a retort when the true significance of this
+struck him. Things were a trifle different now. The tables had turned
+since leaving the island, and the senator held it in his power to ruin
+our one remaining chance of escape. Strangely enough, he missed the
+cause of Mr. Cooke's hesitation.
+
+"Look here, old man," said my client, biting off another cigar, "I'm a
+first-rate fellow when you get to know me, and I'd do the same for you
+as I'm doing for Allen."
+
+"I daresay, sir, I daresay," said the other, a trifle mollified; "I
+don't claim that you're not acting as you think right."
+
+"I see it," said Mr. Cooke, with admirable humility; "I see it. I was
+wrong to haul you into this, Trevor. And the only thing to consider now
+is, how to get you out of it."
+
+Here he appeared for a moment to be wrapped in deep thought, and checked
+with his cigar an attempt to interrupt him.
+
+"However you put it, old man," he said at last, "we're all in a pretty
+bad hole."
+
+"All!" cried Mr. Trevor, indignantly.
+
+"Yes, all," asserted Mr. Cooke, with composure. "There are the police,
+and here is Allen as good as run down. If they find him when they get
+abroad, you don't suppose they'll swallow anything you have to say about
+trying to deliver him over. No, sir, you'll be bagged and fined along
+with the rest of us. And I'd be damned sorry to see it, if I do say it;
+and I blame myself freely for it, old man. Now you take my advice and
+keep your mouth shut, and I'll take care of you. I've got a place for
+Allen."
+
+During this somewhat remarkable speech Mr. Trevor, as it were, blew hot
+and cold by turns. Although its delivery was inconsiderate, its logic
+was undeniable, and the senator sat down again on the locker, and was
+silent. But I marked that off and on his fingers would open and shut
+convulsively.
+
+Time alone would disclose what was to happen to us; in the interval
+there was nothing to do but wait. We had reached the stage where anxiety
+begins to take the place of excitement, and we shifted restlessly from
+spot to spot and looked at the tug. She was ploughing along after us,
+and to such good purpose that presently I began to catch the white of
+the seas along her bows, and the bright red with which her pipe was
+tipped. Farrar alone seemed to take but slight interest in her. More
+than once I glanced at him as he stood under me, but his eye was on the
+shuddering leach of the sail. Then I leaned over.
+
+"What do you think of it?" I asked.
+
+"I told you this morning Drew would have handcuffs on him before night,"
+he replied, without raising his head.
+
+"Hang your joking, Farrar; I know more than you about it."
+
+"Then what's the use of asking me?"
+
+"Don't you see that I'm ruined if we're caught?" I demanded, a little
+warmly.
+
+"No, I don't see it," he replied. "You don't suppose I think you fool
+enough to risk this comedy if the man were guilty, do you? I don't
+believe all that rubbish about his being the criminal's double, either.
+That's something the girls got up for your benefit."
+
+I ignored this piece of brutality.
+
+"But I'm ruined anyway."
+
+"How?"
+
+I explained shortly what I thought our friend, O'Meara, would do under
+the circumstances. An inference sufficed Farrar.
+
+"Why didn't you say something about this before?" he asked gravely. "I
+would have put into Far Harbor."
+
+"Because I didn't think of it," I confessed.
+
+Farrar pulled down the corners of his mouth with trying not to smile.
+
+"Miss Thorn is a woman of brains," he remarked gently; "I respect her."
+
+I wondered by what mysterious train of reasoning he had arrived at this
+conclusion. He said nothing for a while, but toyed with the spokes of
+the wheel, keeping the wind in the sail with undue nicety.
+
+"I can't make them out," he said, all at once.
+
+"Then you believe they're after us?"
+
+"I changed the course a point or two, just to try them."
+
+"And--"
+
+"And they changed theirs."
+
+"Who could have informed?"
+
+"Drew, of course," I said; "who else?"
+
+He laughed.
+
+"Drew doesn't know anything about Allen," said he; "and, besides, he's
+no more of a detective than I am."
+
+"But Drew was told there was a criminal on the island."
+
+"Who told him?"
+
+I repeated the conversation between Drew and Mr. Trevor which I had
+overheard. Farrar whistled.
+
+"But you did not speak of that this morning," said he.
+
+"No," I replied, feeling anything but comfortable. At times when he was
+facetious as he had been this morning I was wont to lose sight of the
+fact that with Farrar the manner was not the man, and to forget the
+warmth of his friendship. I was again to be reminded of this.
+
+"Well, Crocker," he said briefly, "I would willingly give up this year's
+state contract to have known it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+It was, accurately as I can remember, half after noon when Mr. Cooke
+first caught the smoke over the point, for the sun was very high: at two
+our fate had been decided. I have already tried to describe a part of
+what took place in that hour and a half, although even now I cannot get
+it all straight in my mind. Races, when a great deal is at stake,
+are more or less chaotic: a close four miles in a college eight is
+a succession of blurs with lucid but irrelevant intervals. The weary
+months of hard work are forgotten, and you are quite as apt to think
+of your first velocipede, or of the pie that is awaiting you in the
+boathouse, as of victory and defeat. And a yacht race, with a pair of
+rivals on your beam, is very much the same.
+
+As I sat with my feet dangling over the washboard, I reflected, once or
+twice, that we were engaged in a race. All I had to do was to twist my
+head in order to make sure of it. I also reflected, I believe, that I
+was in the position of a man who has bet all he owns, with large odds
+on losing either way. But on the whole I was occupied with more trivial
+matters a letter I had forgotten to write about a month's rent, a client
+whose summer address I had mislaid. The sun was burning my neck behind
+when a whistle aroused me to the realization that the tug was no longer
+a toy boat dancing in the distance, but a stern fact but two miles away.
+There could be no mistake now, for I saw the white steam of the signal
+against the smoke.
+
+I slid down and went into the cabin. The Celebrity was in the corner by
+the companionway, with his head on the cushions and a book in his hand.
+And forward, under the low deck beams beyond the skylight, I beheld the
+crouching figure of my client. He had stripped off his coat and was busy
+at some task on the floor.
+
+"They're whistling for us to stop," I said to him.
+
+"How near are they, old man?" he asked, without looking up. The
+perspiration was streaming down his face, and he held a brace and bit in
+his hand. Under him was the trap-door which gave access to the ballast
+below, and through this he had bored a neat hole. The yellow chips were
+still on his clothes.
+
+"They're not two miles away," I answered. "But what in mystery are you
+doing there?"
+
+But he only laid a finger beside his nose and bestowed a wink in my
+direction. Then he took some ashes from his cigar, wetted his finger,
+and thus ingeniously removed all appearance of newness from the hole
+he had made, carefully cleaning up the chips and putting them in his
+pocket. Finally he concealed the brace and bit and opened the trap,
+disclosing the rough stones of the ballast. I watched him in amazement
+as he tore a mattress from an adjoining bunk and forced it through the
+opening, spreading it fore and aft over the stones.
+
+"Now," he said, regaining his feet and surveying the whole with
+undisguised satisfaction, "he'll be as safe there as in my new family
+vault."
+
+"But," I began, a light dawning upon me.
+
+"Allen, old man," said Mr. Cooke, "come here."
+
+The Celebrity laid down his book and looked up: my client was putting on
+his coat.
+
+"Come here, old man," he repeated.
+
+And he actually came. But he stopped when he caught sight of the open
+trap and of the mattress beneath it.
+
+"How will that suit you?" asked Mr. Cooke, smiling broadly as he wiped
+his face with an embroidered handkerchief.
+
+The Celebrity looked at the mattress, then at me, and lastly at Mr.
+Cooke. His face was a study:
+
+"And--And you think I am going to get in there?" he said, his voice
+shaking.
+
+My client fell back a step.
+
+"Why not?" he demanded. "It's about your size, comfortable, and all the
+air you want" (here Mr. Cooke stuck his finger through the bit hole).
+"Damn me, if I were in your fix, I wouldn't stop at a kennel."
+
+"Then you're cursed badly mistaken," said the Celebrity, going back to
+his corner; "I'm tired of being made an ass of for you and your party."
+
+"An ass!" exclaimed my client, in proper indignation.
+
+"Yes, an ass," said the Celebrity. And he resumed his book.
+
+It would seem that a student of human nature, such as every successful
+writer should be, might by this time have arrived at some conception of
+my client's character, simple as it was, and have learned to overlook
+the slight peculiarity in his mode of expressing himself. But here the
+Celebrity fell short, if my client's emotions were not pitched in the
+same key as those of other people, who shall say that his heart was not
+as large or his sympathies as wide as many another philanthropist?
+
+But Mr. Cooke was an optimist, and as such disposed to look at the best
+side of his friends and ignore the worst; if, indeed, he perceived their
+faults at all. It was plain to me, even now, that he did not comprehend
+the Celebrity's attitude. That his guest should reject the one hope of
+escape left him was, according to Mr. Cooke, only to be accounted for by
+a loss of mental balance. Nevertheless, his disappointment was keen. He
+let down the door and slowly led the way out of the cabin. The whistle
+sounded shrilly in our ears.
+
+Mr. Cooke sat down and drew a wallet from his pocket. He began to count
+the bills, and, as if by common consent, the Four followed suit. It
+was a task which occupied some minutes, and when completed my client
+produced a morocco note-book and a pencil. He glanced interrogatively at
+the man nearest him.
+
+"Three hundred and fifty."
+
+Mr. Cooke put it down. It was entirely a matter of course. What else
+was there to be done? And when he had gone the round of his followers he
+turned to Farrar and me.
+
+"How much are you fellows equal to?" he asked.
+
+I believe he did it because he felt we should resent being left out: and
+so we should have. Mr. Cooke's instincts were delicate.
+
+We told him. Then he paused, his pencil in the air, and his eyes
+doubtfully fixed on the senator. For all this time Mr. Trevor had
+been fidgeting in his seat; but now he opened his long coat, button by
+button, and thrust his hand inside the flap. Oh, Falstaff!
+
+"Father, father!" exclaimed Miss Trevor. But her tongue was in her
+cheek.
+
+I have heard it stated that if a thoroughly righteous man were cast
+away with ninety and nine ruffians, each of the ruffians would gain
+one-one-hundredth in virtue, whilst the righteous man would sink to
+their new level. I am not able to say how much better Mr. Cooke's party
+was for Mr. Trevor's company, but the senator seemed to realize that
+something serious had happened to him, for his voice was not altogether
+steady as he pronounced the amount of his contribution.
+
+"Trevor," cried Mr. Cooke, with great fervor, "I take it all back.
+You're a true, public-spirited old sport."
+
+But the senator had not yet reached that extreme of degradation where it
+is pleasurable to be congratulated on wickedness.
+
+My client added up the figures and rubbed his hands. I regret to
+say that the aggregate would have bought up three small police
+organizations, body and soul.
+
+"Pull up, Farrar, old man," he shouted.
+
+Farrar released the wheel and threw the Maria into the wind. With the
+sail cracking and the big boom dodging over our heads, we watched the
+tug as she drew nearer and nearer, until we could hear the loud beating
+of her engines. On one side some men were making ready to lower a boat,
+and then a conspicuous figure in blue stood out by the davits. Then came
+the faint tinkle of a bell, and the H Sinclair, of Far Harbor, glided up
+and thrashed the water scarce a biscuit-throw away.
+
+"Hello, there!" the man in uniform called out. It was Captain McCann,
+chief of the Far Harbor police.
+
+Mr. Cooke waved his cigar politely.
+
+"Is that Mr. Cooke's yacht, the Maria?
+
+"The same," said Mr. Cooke.
+
+"I'm fearing I'll have to come aboard you, Mr. Cooke."
+
+"All right, old man, glad to have you," said my client.
+
+This brought a smile to McCann's face as he got into his boat. We were
+all standing in the cockpit, save the Celebrity, who was just inside of
+the cabin door. I had time to note that he was pale, and no more: I must
+have been pale myself. A few strokes brought the chief to the Maria's
+stern.
+
+"It's not me that likes to interfere with a gent's pleasure party, but
+business is business," said he, as he climbed aboard.
+
+My client's hospitality was oriental.
+
+"Make yourself at home, old man," he said, a box of his largest and
+blackest cigars in his hand. And these he advanced towards McCann before
+the knot was tied in the painter.
+
+Then a wave of self-reproach swept over me. Was it possible that I, like
+Mr. Trevor, had been deprived of all the morals I had ever possessed?
+Could it be that the district attorney was looking calmly on while Mr.
+Cooke wilfully corrupted the Far Harbor chief-of-police? As agonizing a
+minute as I ever had in my life was that which it took McCann to survey
+those cigars. His broad features became broader still, as a huge, red
+hand was reached out. I saw it close lingeringly over the box, and then
+Mr. Cooke had struck a match. The chief stepped over the washboard onto
+the handsome turkey-red cushions on the seats, and thus he came face to
+face with me.
+
+"Holy fathers!" he exclaimed. "Is it you who are here, Mr. Crocker?" And
+he pulled off his cap.
+
+"No other, McCann," said I, with what I believe was a most pitiful
+attempt at braggadocio.
+
+McCann began to puff at his cigar. Clouds of smoke came out of his face
+and floated down the wind. He was so visibly embarrassed that I gained a
+little courage.
+
+"And what brings you here?" I demanded.
+
+He scrutinized me in perplexity.
+
+"I think you're guessing, sir."
+
+"Never a guess, McCann. You'll have to explain yourself."
+
+McCann had once had a wholesome respect for me. But it looked now as if
+the bottom was dropping out of it.
+
+"Sure, Mr. Crocker," he said, "what would you be doing in such company
+as I'm hunting for? Can it be that ye're helping to lift a criminal over
+the border?"
+
+"McCann," I asked sternly, "what have you had on the tug?"
+
+Force of habit proved too much for the man. He went back to the
+apologetic.
+
+"Never a drop, Mr. Crocker. Upon me soul!"
+
+This reminded Mr. Cooke of something (be it recorded) that he had for
+once forgotten. He lifted up the top of the refrigerator. The chief's
+eye followed him. But I was not going to permit this.
+
+"Now, McCann," I commenced again, "if you will state your business here,
+if you have any, I shall be obliged. You are delaying Mr. Cooke."
+
+The chief was seized with a nervous tremor. I think we were a pair in
+that, only I managed to keep mine, under. When it came to the point,
+and any bribing was to be done, I had hit upon a course. Self-respect
+demanded a dignity on my part. With a painful indecision McCann pulled
+a paper from his pocket which I saw was a warrant. And he dropped his
+cigar. Mr. Cooke was quick to give him another.
+
+"Ye come from Bear Island, Mr. Crocker?" he inquired.
+
+I replied in the affirmative.
+
+"I hope it's news I'm telling you," he said soberly; "I'm hoping it's
+news when I say that I'm here for Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen,--that's the
+gentleman's name. He's after taking a hundred thousand dollars away from
+Boston." Then he turned to Mr. Cooke. "The gentleman was aboard your
+boat, sir, when you left that country place of yours,--what d'ye call
+it?--Mohair? Thank you, sir." And he wiped the water from his brow. "And
+they're telling me he was on Bear Island with ye? Sure, sir, and I can't
+see why a gentleman of your standing would be wanting to get him over
+the border. But I must do my duty. Begging your pardon, Mr. Crocker," he
+added, with a bow to me.
+
+"Certainly, McCann," I said.
+
+For a space there was only the bumping and straining of the yacht and
+the swish of the water against her sides. Then the chief spoke again.
+
+"It will be saving you both trouble and inconvenience, Mr. Crocker, if
+you give him up, sir."
+
+What did the man mean? Why in the name of the law didn't he make a
+move? I was conscious that my client was fumbling in his clothes for the
+wallet; that he had muttered an invitation for the chief to go inside.
+McCann smoked uneasily.
+
+"I don't want to search the boat, sir."
+
+At these words we all turned with one accord towards the cabin. I felt
+Farrar gripping my arm tightly from behind.
+
+The Celebrity had disappeared!
+
+It was Mr. Cooke who spoke.
+
+"Search the boat!" he said, something between a laugh and a cry.
+
+"Yes, sir," the chief repeated firmly. "It's sorry I am to do it, with
+Mr. Crocker here, too."
+
+I have always maintained that nature had endowed my client with rare
+gifts; and the ease with which he now assumed a part thus unexpectedly
+thrust upon him, as well as the assurance with which he carried it out,
+goes far to prove it.
+
+"If there's anything in your line aboard, chief," he said blandly, "help
+yourself!"
+
+Some of us laughed. I thought things a little too close to be funny.
+Since the Celebrity had lost his nerve and betaken himself to the place
+of concealment Mr. Cooke had prepared for him, the whole composition of
+the affair was changed. Before, if McCann had arrested the ostensible
+Mr. Allen, my word, added to fifty dollars from my client, would
+probably have been sufficient. Should he be found now, no district
+attorney on the face of the earth could induce the chief to believe that
+he was any other than the real criminal; nor would any bribe be large
+enough to compensate McCann for the consequences of losing so important
+a prisoner. There was nothing now but to carry it off with a high hand.
+McCann got up.
+
+"Be your lave, Mr. Crocker," he said.
+
+"Never you mind me, McCann," I replied, "but you do what is right."
+
+With that he began his search. It might have been ludicrous if I had
+had any desire to laugh, for the chief wore the gingerly air of a man
+looking for a rattlesnake which has to be got somehow. And my client
+assisted at the inspection with all the graces of a dancing-master.
+McCann poked into the forward lockers where we kept the
+stores,--dropping the iron lid within an inch of his toe,--and the
+clothing-lockers and the sail-lockers. He reached under the bunks, and
+drew out his hand again quickly, as though he expected to be bitten.
+And at last he stood by the trap with the hole in it, under which the
+Celebrity lay prostrate. I could hear my own breathing. But Mr. Cooke
+had his wits about him still, and at this critical juncture he gave
+McCann a thump on the back which nearly carried him off his feet.
+
+"They say the mast is hollow, old man," he suggested.
+
+"Be jabers, Mr. Cooke," said McCann, "and I'm beginning to think it is!
+
+"He took off his cap and scratched his head.
+
+"Well, McCann, I hope you're contented," I said.
+
+"Mr. Crocker," said he, "and it's that thankful I am for you that the
+gent ain't here. But with him cutting high finks up at Mr. Cooke's
+house with a valet, and him coming on the yacht with yese, and the whole
+country in that state about him, begorra," said McCann, "and it's domned
+strange! Maybe it's swimmin' in the water he is!"
+
+The whole party had followed the search, and at this speech of the
+chief's our nervous tension became suddenly relaxed. Most of us sat down
+to laugh.
+
+"I'm asking no questions, Mr. Crocker, ye'll take notice," he remarked,
+his voice full of reproachful meaning.
+
+"McCann," said I, "you come outside. I want to speak to you."
+
+He followed me out.
+
+"Now," I went on, "you know me pretty well" (he nodded doubtfully), "and
+if I give you my word that Charles Wrexell Allen is not on this yacht,
+and never has been, is that sufficient?"
+
+"Is it the truth you're saying, sir?"
+
+I assured him that it was.
+
+"Then where is he, Mr. Crocker?"
+
+"God only knows!" I replied, with fervor. "I don't, McCann."
+
+The chief was satisfied. He went back into the cabin, and Mr. Cooke, in
+the exuberance of his joy, produced champagne. McCann had heard of my
+client and of his luxurious country place, and moreover it was the first
+time he had ever been on a yellow-plush yacht. He tarried. He drank Mr.
+Cooke's health and looked around him in wonder and awe, and his remarks
+were worthy of record. These sayings and the thought of the author of
+The Sybarites stifling below with his mouth to an auger-hole kept us in
+a continual state of merriment. And at last our visitor rose to go.
+
+As he was stepping over the side, Mr. Cooke laid hold of a brass button
+and pressed a handful of the black cigars upon him.
+
+"My regards to the detective, old man," said he.
+
+McCann stared.
+
+"My regards to Drew," my client insisted.
+
+"Oh!" said McCann, his face lighting up, "him with the whiskers, what
+came from Bear Island in a cat-boat. Sure, he wasn't no detective, sir."
+
+"What was he? A police commissioner?"
+
+"Mr. Cooke," said McCann, disdainfully, as he got into his boat, "he
+wasn't nothing but a prospector doing the lake for one of them summer
+hotel companies."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+When the biography of the Celebrity is written, and I have no doubt
+it will be some day, may his biographer kindly draw a veil over that
+instant in his life when he was tenderly and obsequiously raised by Mr.
+Cooke from the trap in the floor of the Maria's cabin.
+
+It is sometimes the case that a good fright will heal a feud. And
+whereas, before the arrival of the H. Sinclair, there had been much
+dissension and many quarrels concerning the disposal of the quasi
+Charles Wrexell Allen, when the tug steamed away to the southwards but
+one opinion remained,--that, like Jonah, he must be got rid of. And
+no one concurred more heartily in this than the Celebrity himself. He
+strolled about and smoked apathetically, with the manner of one who was
+bored beyond description, whilst the discussion was going on between
+Farrar, Mr. Cooke, and myself as to the best place to land him. When
+considerately asked by my client whether he had any choice in the
+matter, he replied, somewhat facetiously, that he could not think of
+making a suggestion to one who had shown such superlative skill in its
+previous management.
+
+Mr. Trevor, too, experienced a change of sentiment in Mr. Cooke's favor.
+It is not too much to say that the senator's scare had been of such
+thoroughness that he was willing to agree to almost anything. He had
+come so near to being relieved of that most precious possession, his
+respectability, that the reason in Mr. Cooke's course now appealed to
+him very strongly. Thus he became a tacit assenter in wrong-doing,
+for circumstances thrust this, once in a while, upon the best of our
+citizens.
+
+The afternoon wore cool; nay, cold is a better word. The wind brought
+with it a suggestion of the pine-clad wastes of the northwestern
+wilderness whence it came, and that sure harbinger of autumn, the
+blue haze, settled around the hills, and benumbed the rays of the sun
+lingering over the crests. Farrar and I, as navigators, were glad to get
+into our overcoats, while the others assembled in the little cabin and
+lighted the gasoline stove which stood in the corner. Outside we had our
+pipes for consolation, and the sunset beauty of the lake.
+
+By six we were well over the line, and consulting our chart, we selected
+a cove behind a headland on our left, which seemed the best we could do
+for an anchorage, although it was shallow and full of rocks. As we were
+changing our course to run in, Mr. Cooke appeared, bundled up in his
+reefer. He was in the best of spirits, and was good enough to concur
+with our plans.
+
+"Now, sir," asked Farrar, "what do you propose to do with Allen?"
+
+But our client only chuckled.
+
+"Wait and see, old man," he said; "I've got that all fixed."
+
+"Well," Farrar remarked, when he had gone in again, "he has steered it
+deuced well so far. I think we can trust him."
+
+It was dark when we dropped anchor, a very tired party indeed; and as
+the Maria could not accommodate us all with sleeping quarters, Mr. Cooke
+decided that the ladies should have the cabin, since the night was cold.
+And so it might have been, had not Miss Thorn flatly refused to sleep
+there. The cabin was stuffy, she said, and so she carried her point.
+Leaving Farrar and one of Mr. Cooke's friends to take care of the yacht,
+the rest of us went ashore, built a roaring fire and raised a tent, and
+proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would
+allow. The sense of relief over the danger passed produced a kind of
+lightheartedness amongst us, and the topics broached at supper would
+not have been inappropriate at a friendly dinner party. As we were
+separating for the night Miss Thorn said to me:
+
+"I am so happy for your sake, Mr. Crocker, that he was not discovered."
+
+For my sake! Could she really have meant it, after all? I went to sleep
+thinking of that sentence, beside my client beneath the trees. And it
+was first in my thoughts when I awoke.
+
+As we dipped our faces in the brook the next morning my client laughed
+softly to himself between the gasps, and I knew that he had in mind the
+last consummate touch to his successful enterprise. And the revelation
+came when the party were assembled at breakfast. Mr. Cooke stood up, and
+drawing from his pocket a small and mysterious paper parcel he forthwith
+delivered himself in the tone and manner which had so endeared him to
+the familiars of the Lake House bar.
+
+"I'm not much for words, as you all know," said he, with becoming
+modesty, "and I don't set up to be an orator. I am just what you see
+here,--a damned plain man. And there's only one virtue that I lay any
+claim to,--no one can say that I ever went back on a friend. I want to
+thank all of you (looking at the senator) for what you have done for
+me and Allen. It's not for us to talk about that hundred thousand
+dollars.--My private opinion is (he seemed to have no scruples about
+making it public) that Allen is insane. No, old man, don't interrupt me;
+but you haven't acted just right, and that's a fact. And I won't feel
+square with myself until I put him where I found him, in safety. I am
+sorry to say, my friends," he added, with emotion, "that Mr. Allen is
+about to leave us."
+
+He paused for breath, palpably satisfied with so much of it, and with
+the effect on his audience.
+
+"Now," continued he, "we start this morning for a place which is only
+four miles or so from the town of Saville, and I shall then request my
+esteemed legal adviser, Mr. Crocker, to proceed to the town and buy a
+ready-made suit of clothes for Mr. Allen, a slouch hat, a cheap necktie,
+and a stout pair of farmer's boots. And I have here," he said, holding
+up the package, "I have here the rest of it. My friends, you heard the
+chief tell me that Drew was doing the lake for a summer hotel syndicate.
+But if Drew wasn't a detective you can throw me into the lake! He wasn't
+exactly Pinkerton, and I flatter myself that we were too many for
+him," said Mr. Cooke, with deserved pride; "and he went away in such
+a devilish hurry that he forgot his hand-bag with some of his extra
+things."
+
+Then my client opened the package, and held up on a string before our
+astonished eyes a wig, a pair of moustaches, and two bushy red whiskers.
+
+And this was Mr. Cooke's scheme! Did it electrify his hearers? Perhaps.
+Even the senator was so choked with laughter that he was forced to cast
+loose one of the buttons which held on his turn-down collar, and Farrar
+retired into the woods. But the gravity of Mr. Cooke's countenance
+remained serene.
+
+"Old man," he said to the Celebrity, "you'll have to learn the price of
+potatoes now. Here are Mr. Drew's duplicates; try 'em on."
+
+This the Celebrity politely but firmly refused to do.
+
+"Cooke," said he, "it has never been my lot to visit so kind and
+considerate a host, or to know a man who pursued his duty with so little
+thought and care of his own peril. I wish to thank you, and to apologize
+for any hasty expressions I may have dropped by mistake, and I would
+it were possible to convince you that I am neither a maniac nor an
+embezzler. But, if it's just the same to you, I believe I can get along
+without the disguise you mentioned, and so save Mr. Crocker his pains.
+In short, if you will set me down at Saville, I am willing to take my
+chances of reaching the Canadian Pacific from that point without fear of
+detection."
+
+The Celebrity's speech produced a good impression on all save Mr. Cooke,
+who appeared a trifle water-logged. He had dealt successfully with Mr.
+Allen when that gentleman had been in defiant moods, or in moods of
+ugly sarcasm. But this good-natured, turn-you-down-easy note puzzled my
+client not a little. Was this cherished scheme a whim or a joke to
+be lightly cast aside? Mr. Cooke thought not. The determination which
+distinguished him still sat in his eye as he bustled about giving orders
+for the breaking of camp. This refractory criminal must be saved from
+himself, cost what it might, and responsibility again rested heavy on my
+client's mind as I rowed him out to the Maria.
+
+"Crocker," he said, "if Allen is scooped in spite of us, you have got to
+go East and make him out an idiot."
+
+He seemed to think that I had a talent for this particular defence. I
+replied that I would do my best.
+
+"It won't be difficult," he went on; "not near as tough as that case you
+won for me. You can bring in all the bosh about his claiming to be an
+author, you know. And I'll stand expenses."
+
+This was downright generous of Mr. Cooke. We have all, no doubt, drawn
+our line between what is right and what is wrong, but I have often
+wondered how many of us with the world's indorsement across our backs
+trespass as little on the other side of the line as he.
+
+After Farrar and the Four got aboard it fell to my lot to row the rest
+of the party to the yacht. And this was no slight task that morning. The
+tender was small, holding but two beside the man at the oars, and owing
+to the rocks and shallow water of which I have spoken, the Maria lay
+considerably over a quarter of a mile out. Hence each trip occupied some
+time. Mr. Cooke I had transferred with a load of canvas and the tent
+poles, and next I returned for Mrs. Cooke and Mr. Trevor, whom I
+deposited safely. Then I landed again, helped in Miss Trevor and Miss
+Thorn, leaving the Celebrity for the last, and was pulling for the yacht
+when a cry from the tender's stern arrested me.
+
+"Mr. Crocker, they are sailing away without us!"
+
+I turned in my seat. The Maria's mainsail was up, and the jib was being
+hoisted, and her head was rapidly falling off to the wind. Farrar was
+casting. In the stern, waving a handkerchief, I recognized Mrs. Cooke,
+and beside her a figure in black, gesticulating frantically, a vision of
+coat-tails flapping in the breeze. Then the yacht heeled on her course
+and forged lakewards.
+
+"Row, Mr. Crocker, row! they are leaving us!" cried Miss Trevor, in
+alarm.
+
+I hastened to reassure her.
+
+"Farrar is probably trying something," I said. "They will be turning
+presently."
+
+This is just what they did not do. Once out of the inlet, they went
+about and headed northward, up the coast, and we remained watching them
+until Mr. Trevor became a mere oscillating black speck against the sail.
+
+"What can it mean?" asked Miss Thorn.
+
+I had not so much as an idea.
+
+"They certainly won't desert us, at any rate," I said. "We had better go
+ashore again and wait."
+
+The Celebrity was seated on the beach, and he was whittling. Now
+whittling is an occupation which speaks of a contented frame of mind,
+and the Maria's departure did not seem to have annoyed or disturbed him.
+
+"Castaways," says he, gayly, "castaways on a foreign shore. Two
+delightful young ladies, a bright young lawyer, a fugitive from justice,
+no chaperon, and nothing to eat. And what a situation for a short story,
+if only an author were permitted to make use of his own experiences!"
+
+"Only you don't know how it will end," Miss Thorn put in.
+
+The Celebrity glanced up at her.
+
+"I have a guess," said he, with a smile.
+
+"Is it true," Miss Trevor asked, "that a story must contain the element
+of love in order to find favor with the public?"
+
+"That generally recommends it, especially to your sex, Miss Trevor," he
+replied jocosely.
+
+Miss Trevor appeared interested.
+
+"And tell me," she went on, "isn't it sometimes the case that you
+start out intent on one ending, and that your artistic sense of what is
+fitting demands another?"
+
+"Don't be silly, Irene," said Miss Thorn. She was skipping flat pebbles
+over the water, and doing it capitally, too.
+
+I thought the Celebrity rather resented the question.
+
+"That sometimes happens, of course," said he, carelessly. He produced
+his inevitable gold cigarette case and held it out to me. "Be sociable
+for once, and have one," he said.
+
+I accepted.
+
+"Do you know," he continued, lighting me a match, "it beats me why you
+and Miss Trevor put this thing up on me. You have enjoyed it, naturally,
+and if you wanted to make me out a donkey you succeeded rather well. I
+used to think that Crocker was a pretty good friend of mine when I went
+to his dinners in New York. And I once had every reason to believe," he
+added, "that Miss Trevor and I were on excellent terms."
+
+Was this audacity or stupidity? Undoubtedly both.
+
+"So we were," answered Miss Trevor, "and I should be very sorry to
+think, Mr. Allen," she said meaningly, "that our relations had in any
+way changed."
+
+It was the Celebrity's turn to flush.
+
+"At any rate," he remarked in his most offhand manner, "I am much
+obliged to you both. On sober reflection I have come to believe that you
+did the very best thing for my reputation."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+He had scarcely uttered these words before the reason for the Maria's
+abrupt departure became apparent. The anchorage of the yacht had been at
+a spot whence nearly the whole south of the lake towards Far Harbor was
+open, whilst a high tongue of land hid that part from us on the shore.
+As he spoke, there shot before our eyes a steaming tug-boat, and a
+second look was not needed to assure me that she was the "H. Sinclair,
+of Far Harbor." They had perceived her from the yacht an hour since, and
+it was clear that my client, prompt to act as to think, had decided at
+once to put out and lead her a blind chase, so giving the Celebrity a
+chance to make good his escape.
+
+The surprise and apprehension created amongst us by her sudden
+appearance was such that none of us, for a space, spoke or moved. She
+was about a mile off shore, but it was even whether the chief would
+decide that his quarry had been left behind in the inlet and turn in,
+or whether he would push ahead after the yacht. He gave us an abominable
+five minutes of uncertainty. For when he came opposite the cove he
+slowed up, apparently weighing his chances. It was fortunate that we
+were hidden from his glasses by a copse of pines. The Sinclair increased
+her speed and pushed northward after the Maria. I turned to the
+Celebrity.
+
+"If you wish to escape, now is your chance," I said.
+
+For contrariness he was more than I have ever had to deal with. Now he
+crossed his knees and laughed.
+
+"It strikes me you had better escape, Crocker," said he. "You have more
+to run for."
+
+I looked across at Miss Thorn. She had told him, then, of my
+predicament. And she did not meet my eye. He began to whittle again, and
+remarked:
+
+"It is only seventeen miles or so across these hills to Far Harbor, old
+chap, and you can get a train there for Asquith."
+
+"Just as you choose," said I, shortly.
+
+With that I started off to gain the top of the promontory in order to
+watch the chase. I knew that this could not last as long as that of the
+day before. In less than three hours we might expect the Maria and the
+tug in the cove. And, to be frank, the indisposition of the Celebrity to
+run troubled me. Had he come to the conclusion that it was just as
+well to submit to what seemed the inevitable and so enjoy the spice of
+revenge over me? My thoughts gave zest to my actions, and I was climbing
+the steep, pine-clad slope with rapidity when I heard Miss Trevor below
+me calling out to wait for her. At the point of our ascent the ridge
+of the tongue must have been four hundred feet above the level of the
+water, and from this place of vantage we could easily make out the Maria
+in the distance, and note from time to time the gain of the Sinclair.
+
+"It wasn't fair of me, I know, to leave Marian," said Miss Trevor,
+apologetically, "but I simply couldn't resist the temptation to come up
+here."
+
+"I hardly think she will bear you much ill will," I answered dryly; "you
+did the kindest thing possible. Who knows but what they are considering
+the advisability of an elopement!"
+
+We passed a most enjoyable morning up there, all things taken into
+account, for the day was too perfect for worries. We even laughed at our
+hunger, which became keen about noon, as is always the case when one
+has nothing to eat; so we set out to explore the ridge for blackberries.
+These were so plentiful that I gathered a hatful for our friends below,
+and then I lingered for a last look at the boats. I could make out but
+one. Was it the yacht? No; for there was a trace of smoke over it. And
+yet I was sure of a mast. I put my hand over my eyes.
+
+"What is it?" asked Miss Trevor, anxiously.
+
+"The tug has the Maria in tow," I said, "and they are coming this way."
+
+We scrambled down, sobered by this discovery and thinking of little
+else. And breaking through the bushes we came upon Miss Thorn and the
+Celebrity. To me, preoccupied with the knowledge that the tug would soon
+be upon us, there seemed nothing strange in the attitude of these two,
+but Miss Trevor remarked something out of the common at once. How keenly
+a woman scents a situation.
+
+The Celebrity was standing with his back to Miss Thorn, at the edge of
+the water. His chin was in the air, and to a casual observer he looked
+to be minutely interested in a flock of gulls passing over us. And Miss
+Thorn? She was enthroned upon a heap of drift-wood, and when I caught
+sight of her face I forgot the very existence of the police captain. Her
+lips were parted in a smile.
+
+"You are just in time, Irene," she said calmly; "Mr. Allen has asked me
+to be his wife."
+
+I stood, with the hatful of berries in my hand, like a stiff wax figure
+in a museum. The expected had come at last; and how little do we expect
+the expected when it comes! I was aware that both the young women were
+looking at me, and that both were quietly laughing. And I must have cut
+a ridiculous figure indeed, though I have since been informed on good
+authority that this was not so. Much I cared then what happened. Then
+came Miss Trevor's reply, and it seemed to shake the very foundations of
+my wits.
+
+"But, Marian," said she, "you can't have him. He is engaged to me. And
+if it's quite the same to you, I want him myself. It isn't often, you
+know, that one has the opportunity to marry a Celebrity."
+
+The Celebrity turned around: an expression of extraordinary intelligence
+shot across his face, and I knew then that the hole in the well-nigh
+invulnerable armor of his conceit had been found at last. And Miss
+Thorn, of all people, had discovered it.
+
+"Engaged to you?" she cried, "I can't believe it. He would be untrue to
+everything he has written."
+
+"My word should be sufficient," said Miss Trevor, stiffly. (May I
+be hung if they hadn't acted it all out before.) "If you should wish
+proofs, however, I have several notes from him which are at your
+service, and an inscribed photograph. No, Marian," she added, shaking
+her head, "I really cannot give him up."
+
+Miss Thorn rose and confronted him, and her dignity was inspiring. "Is
+this so?" she demanded; "is it true that you are engaged to marry Miss
+Trevor?"
+
+The Bone of Contention was badly troubled. He had undoubtedly known what
+it was to have two women quarrelling over his hand at the same time, but
+I am willing to bet that the sensation of having them come together in
+his presence was new to him.
+
+"I did not think--" he began. "I was not aware that Miss Trevor looked
+upon the matter in that light, and you know--"
+
+"What disgusting equivocation," Miss Trevor interrupted. "He asked
+me point blank to marry him, and of course I consented. He has never
+mentioned to me that he wished to break the engagement, and I wouldn't
+have broken it."
+
+I felt like a newsboy in a gallery,--I wanted to cheer. And the
+Celebrity kicked the stones and things.
+
+"Who would have thought," she persisted, "that the author of The
+Sybarites, the man who chose Desmond for a hero, could play thus idly
+with the heart of woman? The man who wrote these beautiful lines:
+'Inconstancy in a woman, because of the present social conditions, is
+sometimes pardonable. In a man, nothing is more despicable.' And how
+poetic a justice it is that he has to marry me, and is thus forced to
+lead the life of self-denial he has conceived for his hero. Mr. Crocker,
+will you be my attorney if he should offer any objections?"
+
+The humor of this proved too much for the three of us, and Miss Trevor
+herself went into peals of laughter. Would that the Celebrity could have
+seen his own face. I doubt if even he could have described it. But I
+wished for his sake that the earth might have kindly opened and taken
+him in.
+
+"Marian," said Miss Trevor, "I am going to be very generous. I
+relinquish the prize to you, and to you only. And I flatter myself there
+are not many girls in this world who would do it."
+
+"Thank you, Irene," Miss Thorn replied gravely, "much as I want him, I
+could not think of depriving you."
+
+Well, there is a limit to all endurance, and the Celebrity had reached
+his.
+
+"Crocker," he said, "how far is it to the Canadian Pacific?"
+
+I told him.
+
+"I think I had best be starting," said he.
+
+And a moment later he had disappeared into the woods.
+
+We stood gazing in the direction he had taken, until the sound of his
+progress had died away. The shock of it all had considerably muddled
+my brain, and when at last I had adjusted my thoughts to the new
+conditions, a sensation of relief, of happiness, of joy (call it what
+you will), came upon me, and I could scarce restrain an impulse to toss
+my hat in the air. He was gone at last! But that was not the reason. I
+was safe from O'Meara and calumny. Nor was this all. And I did not dare
+to look at Miss Thorn. The knowledge that she had planned and carried
+out with dignity and success such a campaign filled me with awe. That I
+had misjudged her made me despise myself. Then I became aware that she
+was speaking to me, and I turned.
+
+"Mr. Crocker, do you think there is any danger that he will lose his
+way?"
+
+"No, Miss Thorn," I replied; "he has only to get to the top of that
+ridge and strike the road for Saville, as I told him."
+
+We were silent again until Miss Trevor remarked:
+
+"Well, he deserved every bit of it."
+
+"And more, Irene," said Miss Thorn, laughing; "he deserved to marry
+you."
+
+"I think he won't come West again for a very long time," said I.
+
+Miss Trevor regarded me wickedly, and I knew what was coming.
+
+"I hope you are convinced, now, Mr. Crocker, that our sex is not as
+black as you painted it: that Miss Thorn knew what she was about, and
+that she is not the inconsistent and variable creature you took her to
+be."
+
+I felt the blood rush to my face, and Miss Thorn, too, became scarlet.
+She went up to the mischievous Irene and grasping her arms from behind,
+bent them until she cried for mercy.
+
+"How strong you are, Marian! It is an outrage to hurt me so. I haven't
+said anything." But she was incorrigible, and when she had twisted free
+she began again:
+
+"I took it upon myself to speak a few parables to Mr. Crocker the other
+day. You know, Marian, that he is one of these level-headed old fogies
+who think women ought to be kept in a menagerie, behind bars, to be
+inspected on Saturday afternoons. Now, I appeal to you if it wouldn't be
+disastrous to fall in love with a man of such ideas. And just to let
+you know what a literal old law-brief he is, when I said he had had a
+hat-pin sticking in him for several weeks, he nearly jumped overboard,
+and began to feel himself all over. Did you know that he actually
+believed you were doing your best to get married to the Celebrity?"
+(Here she dodged Miss Thorn again.) "Oh, yes, he confided in me. He used
+to worry himself ill over that. I'll tell you what he said to me only--"
+
+But fortunately at this juncture Miss Trevor was captured again, and
+Miss Thorn put her hand over her mouth. Heaven only knows what she would
+have said!
+
+The two boats did not arrive until nearly four o'clock, owing to some
+trouble to the tug's propeller. Not knowing what excuse my client might
+have given for leaving some of his party ashore, I thought it best to
+go out to meet them. Seated on the cabin roof of the Maria I beheld Mr.
+Cooke and McCann in conversation, each with a black cigar too big for
+him.
+
+"Hello, Crocker, old man," shouted my client, "did you think I was never
+coming back? I've had lots of sport out of this hayseed captain" (and
+he poked that official playfully), "but I didn't get any grub. So we'll
+have to go to Far Harbor."
+
+I caught the hint. Mr. Cooke had given out that he had started for
+Saville to restock the larder.
+
+"No," he continued, "Brass Buttons didn't let me get to Saville. You
+see, when he got back to town last night they told him he had been
+buncoed out of the biggest thing for years, and they got it into his
+head that I was child enough to run a ferry for criminals. They told him
+he wasn't the sleuth he thought he was, so he came back. They'll have
+the laugh on him now, for sure."
+
+McCann listened with admirable good-nature, gravely pulling at his
+cigar, and eyeing Mr. Cooke with a friendly air of admiration.
+
+"Mr. Crocker," he said, with melancholy humor, "it's leery I am with the
+whole shooting-match. Mr. Cooke here is a gentleman, every inch of him,
+and so be you, Mr. Crocker. But I'm just after taking a look at the
+hole in the bottom of the boat. 'Ye have yer bunks in queer places, Mr.
+Cooke,' says I. It's not for me to be doubting a gentleman's word, sir,
+but I'm thinking me man is over the hills and far away, and that's true
+for ye."
+
+Mr. Cooke winked expressively.
+
+"McCann, you've been jerked," said he. "Have another bottle!"
+
+The Sinclair towed us to Far Harbor for a consideration, the wind being
+strong again from the south, and McCann was induced by the affable owner
+to remain on the yellow-plush yacht. I cornered him before we had gone a
+great distance.
+
+"McCann," said I, "what made you come back to-day?"
+
+"Faith, Mr. Crocker, I don't care if I am telling you. I always had a
+liking for you, sir, and bechune you and me it was that divil O'Meara
+what made all the trouble. I wasn't taking his money, not me; the saints
+forbid! But glory be to God, if he didn't raise a rumpus whin I
+come back without Allen! It was sure he was that the gent left that
+place,--what are ye calling it?--Mohair, in the Maria, and we telegraphs
+over to Asquith. He swore I'd lose me job if I didn't fetch him to-day.
+Mr. Crocker, sir, it's the lumber business I'll be startin' next week,"
+said McCann.
+
+"Don't let that worry you, McCann," I answered. "I will see that you
+don't lose your place, and I give you my word again that Charles Wrexell
+Allen has never been aboard this yacht, or at Mohair to my knowledge.
+What is more, I will prove it to-morrow to your satisfaction."
+
+McCann's faith was touching.
+
+"Ye're not to say another word, sir," he said, and he stuck out his big
+hand, which I grasped warmly.
+
+My affection for McCann still remains a strong one.
+
+After my talk with McCann I was sitting on the forecastle propped
+against the bitts of the Maria's anchor-chain, and looking at the
+swirling foam cast up by the tug's propeller. There were many things I
+wished to turn over in my mind just then, but I had not long been in a
+state of reverie when I became conscious that Miss Thorn was standing
+beside me. I got to my feet.
+
+"I have been wondering how long you would remain in that trance, Mr.
+Crocker," she said. "Is it too much to ask what you were thinking of?"
+
+Now it so chanced that I was thinking of her at that moment. It would
+never have done to say this, so I stammered. And Miss Thorn was a young
+woman of tact.
+
+"I should not have put that to so literal a man as you," she declared.
+"I fear that you are incapable of crossing swords. And then," she added,
+with a slight hesitation that puzzled me, "I did not come up here to ask
+you that,--I came to get your opinion."
+
+"My opinion?" I repeated.
+
+"Not your legal opinion," she replied, smiling, "but your opinion as
+a citizen, as an individual, if you have one. To be frank, I want your
+opinion of me. Do you happen to have such a thing?"
+
+I had. But I was in no condition to give it.
+
+"Do you think me a very wicked girl?" she asked, coloring. "You once
+thought me inconsistent, I believe, but I am not that. Have I done wrong
+in leading the Celebrity to the point where you saw him this morning?"
+
+"Heaven forbid!" I cried fervently; "but you might have spared me a
+great deal had you let me into the secret."
+
+"Spared you a great deal," said Miss Thorn. "I--I don't quite
+understand."
+
+"Well--" I began, and there I stayed. All the words in the dictionary
+seemed to slip out of my grasp, and I foundered. I realized I had said
+something which even in my wildest moments I had not dared to think of.
+My secret was out before I knew I possessed it. Bad enough had I told it
+to Farrar in an unguarded second. But to her! I was blindly seeking some
+way of escape when she said softly:
+
+"Did you really care?"
+
+I am man enough, I hope, when there is need to be. And it matters not
+what I felt then, but the words came back to me.
+
+"Marian," I said, "I cared more than you will ever learn."
+
+But it seems that she had known all the time, almost since that night I
+had met her at the train. And how? I shall not pretend to answer, that
+being quite beyond me. I am very sure of one thing, however, which is
+that I never told a soul, man or woman, or even hinted at it. How was it
+possible when I didn't know myself?
+
+The light in the west was gone as we were pulled into Far Harbor, and
+the lamps of the little town twinkled brighter than I had ever seen them
+before. I think they must have been reflected in our faces, since Miss
+Trevor, when she came forward to look for us, saw something there and
+openly congratulated us. And this most embarrassing young woman demanded
+presently:
+
+"How did it happen, Marian? Did you propose to him?"
+
+I was about to protest indignantly, but Marian laid her hand on my arm.
+
+"Tell it not in Asquith," said she. "Irene, I won't have him teased any
+more."
+
+We were drawing up to the dock, and for the first time I saw that a
+crowd was gathered there. The report of this chase had gone abroad. Some
+began calling out to McCann when we came within distance, among others
+the editor of the Northern Lights, and beside him I perceived with
+amusement the generous lines: of the person of Mr. O'Meara himself. I
+hurried back to give Farrar a hand with the ropes, and it was O'Meara
+who caught the one I flung ashore and wound it around a pile. The people
+pressed around, peering at our party on the Maria, and I heard McCann
+exhorting them to make way. And just then, as he was about to cross
+the plank, they parted for some one from behind. A breathless messenger
+halted at the edge of the wharf. He held out a telegram.
+
+McCann seized it and dived into the cabin, followed closely by my client
+and those of us who could push after. He tore open the envelope, his eye
+ran over the lines, and then he began to slap his thigh and turn around
+in a circle, like a man dazed.
+
+"Whiskey!" shouted Mr. Cooke. "Get him a glass of Scotch!"
+
+But McCann held up his hand.
+
+"Holy Saint Patrick!" he said, in a husky voice, "it's upset I am,
+bottom upwards. Will ye listen to this?"
+
+   "'Drew is your man. Reddish hair and long side whiskers, gray
+   clothes. Pretends to represent summer hotel syndicate. Allen at
+   Asquith unknown and harmless.
+
+   "' (Signed.)  Everhardt."'
+
+"Sew me up," said Mr. Cooke; "if that don't beat hell!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+In this world of lies the good and the bad are so closely intermingled
+that frequently one is the means of obtaining the other. Therefore,
+I wish very freely to express my obligations to the Celebrity for any
+share he may have had in contributing to the greatest happiness of my
+life.
+
+Marian and I were married the very next month, October, at my client's
+palatial residence of Mohair. This was at Mr. Cooke's earnest wish: and
+since Marian was Mrs. Cooke's own niece, and an orphan, there seemed no
+good reason why my client should not be humored in the matter. As for
+Marian and me, we did not much care whether we were married at Mohair
+or the City of Mexico. Mrs. Cooke, I think, had a secret preference for
+Germantown.
+
+Mr. Cooke quite over-reached himself in that wedding. "The knot was
+tied," as the papers expressed it, "under a huge bell of yellow roses."
+The paper also named the figure which the flowers and the collation and
+other things cost Mr. Cooke. A natural reticence forbids me to repeat
+it. But, lest my client should think that I undervalue his kindness, I
+will say that we had the grandest wedding ever seen in that part of the
+world. McCann was there, and Mr. Cooke saw to it that he had a punchbowl
+all to himself in which to drink our healths: Judge Short was there,
+still followed by the conjugal eye: and Senator Trevor, who remained
+over, in a new long black coat to kiss the bride. Mr. Cooke chartered
+two cars to carry guests from the East, besides those who came as
+ordinary citizens. Miss Trevor was of the party, and Farrar, of course,
+was best man. Would that I had the flow of words possessed by the
+reporter of the Chicago Sunday newspaper!
+
+But there is one thing I must mention before Mrs. Crocker and I leave
+for New York, in a shower of rice, on Mr. Cooke's own private car, and
+that is my client's gift. In addition to the check he gave Marian,
+he presented us with a huge, 'repousse' silver urn he had had made to
+order, and he expressed a desire that the design upon it should remind
+us of him forever and ever. I think it will. Mercury is duly set forth
+in a gorgeous equipage, driving four horses around the world at a
+furious pace; and the artist, by special instructions, had docked their
+tails.
+
+From New York, Mrs. Crocker and I went abroad. And it so chanced, in
+December, that we were staying a few days at a country-place in Sussex,
+and the subject of The Sybarites was broached at a dinner-party. The
+book was then having its sale in England.
+
+"Crocker," said our host, "do you happen to have met the author of that
+book? He's an American."
+
+I looked across the table at my wife, and we both laughed.
+
+"I happen to know him intimately," I replied.
+
+"Do you, now?" said the Englishman; "what a very entertaining chap he
+is, is he not? I had him down in October, and, by Jove, we were laughing
+the blessed time. He was telling us how he wrote his novels, and he
+said, 'pon my soul he did, that he had a secretary or something of that
+sort to whom he told the plot, and the secretary elaborated, you know,
+and wrote the draft. And he said, 'pon my honor, that sometimes the
+clark wrote the plot and all,--the whole blessed thing,--and that he
+never saw the book except to sign his name to it."
+
+"You say he was here in October?" asked Marian, when the laugh had
+subsided.
+
+"I have the date," answered our host, "for he left me an autograph copy
+of The Sybarites when he went away." And after dinner he showed us the
+book, with evident pride. Inscribed on the fly-leaf was the name of the
+author, October 10th. But a glance sufficed to convince both of us that
+the Celebrity had never written it.
+
+"John," said Marian to me, a suspicion of the truth crossing her mind,
+"John, can it be the bicycle man?"
+
+"Yes, it can be," I said; "it is."
+
+"Well," said Marian, "he's been doing a little more for our friend than
+we did."
+
+Nor was this the last we heard of that meteoric trip through England,
+which the alleged author of The Sybarites had indulged in. He did not
+go up to London; not he. It was given out that he was travelling for his
+health, that he did not wish to be lionized; and there were friends of
+the author in the metropolis who had never heard of his secretary, and
+who were at a loss to understand his conduct. They felt slighted. One of
+these told me that the Celebrity had been to a Lincolnshire estate where
+he had created a decided sensation by his riding to hounds, something
+the Celebrity had never been known to do. And before we crossed the
+Channel, Marian saw another autograph copy of the famous novel.
+
+One day, some months afterwards, we were sitting in our little salon in
+a Paris hotel when a card was sent up, which Marian took.
+
+"John," she cried, "it's the Celebrity."
+
+It was the Celebrity, in the flesh, faultlessly groomed and clothed,
+with frock coat, gloves, and stick. He looked the picture of ruddy,
+manly health and strength, and we saw at once that he bore no ill-will
+for the past. He congratulated us warmly, and it was my turn to offer
+him a cigarette. He was nothing loath to reminisce on the subject of his
+experiences in the wilds of the northern lakes, or even to laugh over
+them. He asked affectionately after his friend Cooke. Time had softened
+his feelings, and we learned that he had another girl, who was in Paris
+just then, and invited us on the spot to dine with her at "Joseph's."
+Let me say, in passing, that as usual she did credit to the Celebrity's
+exceptional taste.
+
+"Now," said he, "I have something to tell you two."
+
+He asked for another cigarette, and I laid the box beside him.
+
+"I suppose you reached Saville all right," I said, anticipating.
+
+"Seven at night," said he, "and so hungry that I ate what they call
+marble cake for supper, and a great many other things out of little side
+dishes, and nearly died of indigestion afterward. Then I took a train
+up to the main line. An express came along. 'Why not go West?' I asked
+myself, and I jumped aboard. It was another whim--you know I am subject
+to them. When I got to Victoria I wired for money and sailed to Japan;
+and then I went on to India and through the Suez, taking things easy.
+I fell in with some people I knew who were going where the spirit moved
+them, and I went along.
+
+"Algiers, for one place, and whom do you think I saw there, in the lobby
+of a hotel?"
+
+"Charles Wrexell Allen," cried Marian and I together.
+
+The Celebrity looked surprised. "How did you know?" he demanded.
+
+"Go on with your story," said Marian; "what did he do?"
+
+"What did he do?" said the Celebrity; "why, the blackguard stepped up
+and shook me by the hand, and asked after my health, and wanted to know
+whether I were married yet. He was so beastly familiar that I took out
+my glass, and I got him into a cafe for fear some one would see me with
+him. 'My dear fellow,' said he, 'you did me the turn of my life.--How
+can I ever repay you?' 'Hang your impudence,' said I, but I wanted to
+hear what he had to say. 'Don't lose your temper, old chap,' he laughed;
+'you took a few liberties with my name, and there was no good reason
+why I shouldn't take some with yours. Was there? When I think of it,
+the thing was most decidedly convenient; it was the hand of Providence.'
+'You took liberties with my name,' I cried. With that he coolly called
+to the waiter to fill our glasses. 'Now,' said he, 'I've got a story for
+you. Do you remember the cotillon, or whatever it was, that Cooke gave?
+Well, that was all in the Chicago papers, and the "Miles Standish" agent
+there saw it, and he knew pretty well that I wasn't West. So he sent me
+the papers, just for fun. You may imagine my surprise when I read that I
+had been leading a dance out at Mohair, or some such barbarous place in
+the northwest. I looked it up on the map (Asquith, I mean), and then I
+began to think. I wondered who in the devil it might be who had taken
+my name and occupation, and all that. You see, I had just relieved the
+company of a little money, and it hit me like a clap of thunder one day
+that the idiot was you. But I couldn't be sure. And as long as I had to
+get out very soon anyway, I concluded to go to Mohair and make certain,
+and then pile things off on you if you happened to be the man.'"
+
+At this point Marian and I were seized with laughter, in which the
+Celebrity himself joined. Presently he continued:
+
+"'So I went,' said Allen. 'I provided myself with two disguises, as
+a careful man should, but by the time I reached that outlandish hole,
+Asquith, the little thing I was mixed up in burst prematurely, and
+the papers were full of it that morning. The whole place was out
+with sticks, so to speak, hunting for you. They told me the published
+description hit you to a dot, all except the scar, and they quarrelled
+about that. I posed as the promoter of resort syndicates, and I hired
+the Scimitar and sailed over to Bear Island; and I didn't have a bad
+time that afternoon, only Cooke insisted on making remarks about my
+whiskers, and I was in mortal fear lest he might accidentally pull one
+off. He came cursed near it. By the way, he's the very deuce of a man,
+isn't he? I knew he took me for a detective, so I played the part. And
+in the night that ass of a state senator nearly gave me pneumonia by
+getting me out in the air to tell me they had hid you in a cave. So I
+sat up all night, and followed the relief party in the morning, and you
+nearly disfigured me for life when you threw that bottle into the woods.
+Then I went back to camp, and left so fast that I forgot my extra pair
+of red whiskers. I had two of each disguise, you know, so I didn't miss
+them.
+
+"'I guess,' Mr. Allen went on, gleefully, 'that I got off about as
+cleanly as any criminal ever did, thanks to you. If we'd fixed the thing
+up between us it couldn't have been any neater, could it? Because I went
+straight to Far Harbor and got you into a peck of trouble, right
+away, and then slipped quietly into Canada, and put on the outfit of a
+travelling salesman. And right here another bright idea struck me. Why
+not carry the thing farther? I knew that you had advertised a trip to
+Europe (why, the Lord only knows), so I went East and sailed for England
+on the Canadian Line. And let me thank you for a little sport I had in
+a quiet way as the author of The Sybarites. I think I astonished some of
+your friends, old boy.'"
+
+The Celebrity lighted another cigarette.
+
+"So if it hadn't been for me," he said, "the 'Miles Standish Bicycle
+Company' wouldn't have gone to the wall. Can they sentence me for
+assisting Allen to get away, Crocker? If they can, I believe I shall
+stay over here."
+
+"I think you are safe," said I. "But didn't Allen tell you any more?"
+
+"No. A man he used to know came into the cafe, and Allen got out of the
+back door. And I never saw him again."
+
+"I believe I can tell you a little more," said Marian.
+
+       ......................
+
+The Celebrity is still writing books of a high moral tone and
+unapproachable principle, and his popularity is undiminished. I have not
+heard, however, that he has given way to any more whims.
+
+
+
+
+
+     PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     A man's character often give the lie to his tongue
+     A lie has short legs
+     Appearance of a professional pallbearer
+     Architects should be driven and not followed
+     Consequential or inconsequential irrespective of their size
+     Deal with a fool according to his folly
+     Impervious to hints, and would not take no for an answer
+     Old enough to know better, and too old to be taught
+     That abominable word "like"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Celebrity, Complete, by Winston Churchill
+
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