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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ruggles of Red Gap, by Harry Leon Wilson
+
+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: Ruggles of Red Gap
+
+Author: Harry Leon Wilson
+
+
+Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9151]
+This file was first posted on September 8, 2003
+Last Updated: May 30, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUGGLES OF RED GAP ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RUGGLES of RED GAP
+
+By Harry Leon Wilson
+
+1915
+
+
+
+{Illustration: "I TAKE IT YOU FAILED TO WIN THE HUNDRED POUNDS, SIR?"}
+
+
+
+{Dedication}
+TO HELEN COOKE WILSON
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+
+At 6:30 in our Paris apartment I had finished the Honourable George,
+performing those final touches that make the difference between a man
+well turned out and a man merely dressed. In the main I was not
+dissatisfied. His dress waistcoats, it is true, no longer permit the
+inhalation of anything like a full breath, and his collars clasp too
+closely. (I have always held that a collar may provide quite ample
+room for the throat without sacrifice of smartness if the depth be at
+least two and one quarter inches.) And it is no secret to either the
+Honourable George or our intimates that I have never approved his
+fashion of beard, a reddish, enveloping, brushlike affair never nicely
+enough trimmed. I prefer, indeed, no beard at all, but he stubbornly
+refuses to shave, possessing a difficult chin. Still, I repeat, he was
+not nearly impossible as he now left my hands.
+
+"Dining with the Americans," he remarked, as I conveyed the hat,
+gloves, and stick to him in their proper order.
+
+"Yes, sir," I replied. "And might I suggest, sir, that your choice be
+a grilled undercut or something simple, bearing in mind the undoubted
+effects of shell-fish upon one's complexion?" The hard truth is that
+after even a very little lobster the Honourable George has a way of
+coming out in spots. A single oyster patty, too, will often spot him
+quite all over.
+
+"What cheek! Decide that for myself," he retorted with a lame effort
+at dignity which he was unable to sustain. His eyes fell from mine.
+"Besides, I'm almost quite certain that the last time it was the
+melon. Wretched things, melons!"
+
+Then, as if to divert me, he rather fussily refused the correct
+evening stick I had chosen for him and seized a knobby bit of
+thornwood suitable only for moor and upland work, and brazenly quite
+discarded the gloves.
+
+"Feel a silly fool wearing gloves when there's no reason!" he
+exclaimed pettishly.
+
+"Quite so, sir," I replied, freezing instantly.
+
+"Now, don't play the juggins," he retorted. "Let me be comfortable.
+And I don't mind telling you I stand to win a hundred quid this very
+evening."
+
+"I dare say," I replied. The sum was more than needed, but I had cause
+to be thus cynical.
+
+"From the American Johnny with the eyebrows," he went on with a quite
+pathetic enthusiasm. "We're to play their American game of
+poker--drawing poker as they call it. I've watched them play for near
+a fortnight. It's beastly simple. One has only to know when to bluff."
+
+"A hundred pounds, yes, sir. And if one loses----"
+
+He flashed me a look so deucedly queer that it fair chilled me.
+
+"I fancy you'll be even more interested than I if I lose," he remarked
+in tones of a curious evenness that were somehow rather deadly. The
+words seemed pregnant with meaning, but before I could weigh them I
+heard him noisily descending the stairs. It was only then I recalled
+having noticed that he had not changed to his varnished boots, having
+still on his feet the doggish and battered pair he most favoured. It
+was a trick of his to evade me with them. I did for them each day all
+that human boot-cream could do, but they were things no sensitive
+gentleman would endure with evening dress. I was glad to reflect that
+doubtless only Americans would observe them.
+
+So began the final hours of a 14th of July in Paris that must ever be
+memorable. My own birthday, it is also chosen by the French as one on
+which to celebrate with carnival some one of those regrettable events
+in their own distressing past.
+
+To begin with, the day was marked first of all by the breezing in of
+his lordship the Earl of Brinstead, brother of the Honourable George,
+on his way to England from the Engadine. More peppery than usual had
+his lordship been, his grayish side-whiskers in angry upheaval and his
+inflamed words exploding quite all over the place, so that the
+Honourable George and I had both perceived it to be no time for
+admitting our recent financial reverse at the gaming tables of Ostend.
+On the contrary, we had gamely affirmed the last quarter's allowance
+to be practically untouched--a desperate stand, indeed! But there was
+that in his lordship's manner to urge us to it, though even so he
+appeared to be not more than half deceived.
+
+"No good greening me!" he exploded to both of us. "Tell in a
+flash--gambling, or a woman--typing-girl, milliner, dancing person,
+what, what! Guilty faces, both of you. Know you too well. My word,
+what, what!"
+
+Again we stoutly protested while his lordship on the hearthrug rocked
+in his boots and glared. The Honourable George gamely rattled some
+loose coin of the baser sort in his pockets and tried in return for a
+glare of innocence foully aspersed. I dare say he fell short of it.
+His histrionic gifts are but meagre.
+
+"Fools, quite fools, both of you!" exploded his lordship anew. "And,
+make it worse, no longer young fools. Young and a fool, people make
+excuses. Say, 'Fool? Yes, but so young!' But old and a fool--not a
+word to say, what, what! Silly rot at forty." He clutched his
+side-whiskers with frenzied hands. He seemed to comb them to a more
+bristling rage.
+
+"Dare say you'll both come croppers. Not surprise me. Silly old
+George, course, course! Hoped better of Ruggles, though. Ruggles
+different from old George. Got a brain. But can't use it. Have old
+George wed to a charwoman presently. Hope she'll be a worker. Need to
+be--support you both, what, what!"
+
+I mean to say, he was coming it pretty thick, since he could not have
+forgotten that each time I had warned him so he could hasten to save
+his brother from distressing mesalliances. I refer to the affair with
+the typing-girl and to the later entanglement with a Brixton milliner
+encountered informally under the portico of a theatre in Charing Cross
+Road. But he was in no mood to concede that I had thus far shown a
+scrupulous care in these emergencies. Peppery he was, indeed. He
+gathered hat and stick, glaring indignantly at each of them and then
+at us.
+
+"Greened me fair, haven't you, about money? Quite so, quite so! Not
+hear from you then till next quarter. No telegraphing--no begging
+letters. Shouldn't a bit know what to make of them. Plenty you got to
+last. Say so yourselves." He laughed villainously here. "Morning,"
+said he, and was out.
+
+"Old Nevil been annoyed by something," said the Honourable George
+after a long silence. "Know the old boy too well. Always tell when
+he's been annoyed. Rather wish he hadn't been."
+
+So we had come to the night of this memorable day, and to the
+Honourable George's departure on his mysterious words about the
+hundred pounds.
+
+Left alone, I began to meditate profoundly. It was the closing of a
+day I had seen dawn with the keenest misgiving, having had reason to
+believe it might be fraught with significance if not disaster to
+myself. The year before a gypsy at Epsom had solemnly warned me that a
+great change would come into my life on or before my fortieth
+birthday. To this I might have paid less heed but for its disquieting
+confirmation on a later day at a psychic parlour in Edgware Road.
+Proceeding there in company with my eldest brother-in-law, a
+plate-layer and surfaceman on the Northern (he being uncertain about
+the Derby winner for that year), I was told by the person for a trifle
+of two shillings that I was soon to cross water and to meet many
+strange adventures. True, later events proved her to have been
+psychically unsound as to the Derby winner (so that my brother-in-law,
+who was out two pounds ten, thereby threatened to have an action
+against her); yet her reference to myself had confirmed the words of
+the gypsy; so it will be plain why I had been anxious the whole of
+this birthday.
+
+For one thing, I had gone on the streets as little as possible, though
+I should naturally have done that, for the behaviour of the French on
+this bank holiday of theirs is repugnant in the extreme to the sane
+English point of view--I mean their frivolous public dancing and
+marked conversational levity. Indeed, in their soberest moments, they
+have too little of British weight. Their best-dressed men are
+apparently turned out not by menservants but by modistes. I will not
+say their women are without a gift for wearing gowns, and their chefs
+have unquestionably got at the inner meaning of food, but as a people
+at large they would never do with us. Even their language is not based
+on reason. I have had occasion, for example, to acquire their word for
+bread, which is "pain." As if that were not wild enough, they
+mispronounce it atrociously. Yet for years these people have been
+separated from us only by a narrow strip of water!
+
+By keeping close to our rooms, then, I had thought to evade what of
+evil might have been in store for me on this day. Another evening I
+might have ventured abroad to a cinema palace, but this was no time
+for daring, and I took a further precaution of locking our doors.
+Then, indeed, I had no misgiving save that inspired by the last words
+of the Honourable George. In the event of his losing the game of poker
+I was to be even more concerned than he. Yet how could evil come to
+me, even should the American do him in the eye rather frightfully? In
+truth, I had not the faintest belief that the Honourable George would
+win the game. He fancies himself a card-player, though why he should,
+God knows. At bridge with him every hand is a no-trumper. I need not
+say more. Also it occurred to me that the American would be a person
+not accustomed to losing. There was that about him.
+
+More than once I had deplored this rather Bohemian taste of the
+Honourable George which led him to associate with Americans as readily
+as with persons of his own class; and especially had I regretted his
+intimacy with the family in question. Several times I had observed
+them, on the occasion of bearing messages from the Honourable
+George--usually his acceptance of an invitation to dine. Too obviously
+they were rather a handful. I mean to say, they were people who could
+perhaps matter in their own wilds, but they would never do with us.
+
+Their leader, with whom the Honourable George had consented to game
+this evening, was a tall, careless-spoken person, with a narrow, dark
+face marked with heavy black brows that were rather tremendous in
+their effect when he did not smile. Almost at my first meeting him I
+divined something of the public man in his bearing, a suggestion,
+perhaps, of the confirmed orator, a notion in which I was somehow
+further set by the gesture with which he swept back his carelessly
+falling forelock. I was not surprised, then, to hear him referred to
+as the "Senator." In some unexplained manner, the Honourable George,
+who is never as reserved in public as I could wish him to be, had
+chummed up with this person at one of the race-tracks, and had
+thereafter been almost quite too pally with him and with the very
+curious other members of his family--the name being Floud.
+
+The wife might still be called youngish, a bit florid in type,
+plumpish, with yellow hair, though to this a stain had been applied,
+leaving it in deficient consonance with her eyebrows; these shading
+grayish eyes that crackled with determination. Rather on the large
+side she was, forcible of speech and manner, yet curiously eager, I
+had at once detected, for the exactly correct thing in dress and
+deportment.
+
+The remaining member of the family was a male cousin of the so-called
+Senator, his senior evidently by half a score of years, since I took
+him to have reached the late fifties. "Cousin Egbert" he was called,
+and it was at once apparent to me that he had been most direly
+subjugated by the woman whom he addressed with great respect as "Mrs.
+Effie." Rather a seamed and drooping chap he was, with mild,
+whitish-blue eyes like a porcelain doll's, a mournfully drooped gray
+moustache, and a grayish jumble of hair. I early remarked his hunted
+look in the presence of the woman. Timid and soft-stepping he was
+beyond measure.
+
+Such were the impressions I had been able to glean of these altogether
+queer people during the fortnight since the Honourable George had so
+lawlessly taken them up. Lodged they were in an hotel among the most
+expensive situated near what would have been our Trafalgar Square, and
+I later recalled that I had been most interestedly studied by the
+so-called "Mrs. Effie" on each of the few occasions I appeared there.
+I mean to say, she would not be above putting to me intimate questions
+concerning my term of service with the Honourable George Augustus
+Vane-Basingwell, the precise nature of the duties I performed for him,
+and even the exact sum of my honourarium. On the last occasion she had
+remarked--and too well I recall a strange glitter in her competent
+eyes--"You are just the man needed by poor Cousin Egbert there--you
+could make something of him. Look at the way he's tied that cravat
+after all I've said to him."
+
+The person referred to here shivered noticeably, stroked his chin in a
+manner enabling him to conceal the cravat, and affected nervously to
+be taken with a sight in the street below. In some embarrassment I
+withdrew, conscious of a cold, speculative scrutiny bent upon me by
+the woman.
+
+If I have seemed tedious in my recital of the known facts concerning
+these extraordinary North American natives, it will, I am sure, be
+forgiven me in the light of those tragic developments about to ensue.
+
+Meantime, let me be pictured as reposing in fancied security from all
+evil predictions while I awaited the return of the Honourable George.
+I was only too certain he would come suffering from an acute acid
+dyspepsia, for I had seen lobster in his shifty eyes as he left me;
+but beyond this I apprehended nothing poignant, and I gave myself up
+to meditating profoundly upon our situation.
+
+Frankly, it was not good. I had done my best to cheer the Honourable
+George, but since our brief sojourn at Ostend, and despite the almost
+continuous hospitality of the Americans, he had been having, to put it
+bluntly, an awful hump. At Ostend, despite my remonstrance, he had
+staked and lost the major portion of his quarter's allowance in
+testing a system at the wheel which had been warranted by the person
+who sold it to him in London to break any bank in a day's play. He had
+meant to pause but briefly at Ostend, for little more than a test of
+the system, then proceed to Monte Carlo, where his proposed terrific
+winnings would occasion less alarm to the managers. Yet at Ostend the
+system developed such grave faults in the first hour of play that we
+were forced to lay up in Paris to economize.
+
+For myself I had entertained doubts of the system from the moment of
+its purchase, for it seemed awfully certain to me that the vendor
+would have used it himself instead of parting with it for a couple of
+quid, he being in plain need of fresh linen and smarter boots, to say
+nothing of the quite impossible lounge-suit he wore the night we met
+him in a cab shelter near Covent Garden. But the Honourable George had
+not listened to me. He insisted the chap had made it all enormously
+clear; that those mathematical Johnnies never valued money for its own
+sake, and that we should presently be as right as two sparrows in a
+crate.
+
+Fearfully annoyed I was at the denouement. For now we were in Paris,
+rather meanly lodged in a dingy hotel on a narrow street leading from
+what with us might have been Piccadilly Circus. Our rooms were rather
+a good height with a carved cornice and plaster enrichments, but the
+furnishings were musty and the general air depressing, notwithstanding
+the effect of a few good mantel ornaments which I have long made it a
+rule to carry with me.
+
+Then had come the meeting with the Americans. Glad I was to reflect
+that this had occurred in Paris instead of London. That sort of thing
+gets about so. Even from Paris I was not a little fearful that news of
+his mixing with this raffish set might get to the ears of his
+lordship either at the town house or at Chaynes-Wotten. True, his
+lordship is not over-liberal with his brother, but that is small
+reason for affronting the pride of a family that attained its earldom
+in the fourteenth century. Indeed the family had become important
+quite long before this time, the first Vane-Basingwell having been
+beheaded by no less a personage than William the Conqueror, as I
+learned in one of the many hours I have been privileged to browse in
+the Chaynes-Wotten library.
+
+It need hardly be said that in my long term of service with the
+Honourable George, beginning almost from the time my mother nursed
+him, I have endeavoured to keep him up to his class, combating a
+certain laxness that has hampered him. And most stubborn he is, and
+wilful. At games he is almost quite a duffer. I once got him to play
+outside left on a hockey eleven and he excited much comment, some of
+which was of a favourable nature, but he cares little for hunting or
+shooting and, though it is scarce a matter to be gossiped of, he
+loathes cricket. Perhaps I have disclosed enough concerning him.
+Although the Vane-Basingwells have quite almost always married the
+right people, the Honourable George was beyond question born queer.
+
+Again, in the matter of marriage, he was difficult. His lordship,
+having married early into a family of poor lifes, was now long a
+widower, and meaning to remain so he had been especially concerned
+that the Honourable George should contract a proper alliance. Hence
+our constant worry lest he prove too susceptible out of his class.
+More than once had he shamefully funked his fences. There was the
+distressing instance of the Honourable Agatha Cradleigh. Quite all
+that could be desired of family and dower she was, thirty-two years
+old, a bit faded though still eager, with the rather immensely high
+forehead and long, thin, slightly curved Cradleigh nose.
+
+The Honourable George at his lordship's peppery urging had at last
+consented to a betrothal, and our troubles for a time promised to be
+over, but it came to precisely nothing. I gathered it might have been
+because she wore beads on her gown and was interested in uplift work,
+or that she bred canaries, these birds being loathed by the Honourable
+George with remarkable intensity, though it might equally have been
+that she still mourned a deceased fiance of her early girlhood, a
+curate, I believe, whose faded letters she had preserved and would
+read to the Honourable George at intimate moments, weeping bitterly
+the while. Whatever may have been his fancied objection--that is the
+time we disappeared and were not heard of for near a twelvemonth.
+
+Wondering now I was how we should last until the next quarter's
+allowance. We always had lasted, but each time it was a different way.
+The Honourable George at a crisis of this sort invariably spoke of
+entering trade, and had actually talked of selling motor-cars,
+pointing out to me that even certain rulers of Europe had frankly
+entered this trade as agents. It might have proved remunerative had he
+known anything of motor-cars, but I was more than glad he did not, for
+I have always considered machinery to be unrefined. Much I preferred
+that he be a company promoter or something of that sort in the city,
+knowing about bonds and debentures, as many of the best of our
+families are not above doing. It seemed all he could do with
+propriety, having failed in examinations for the army and the church,
+and being incurably hostile to politics, which he declared silly rot.
+
+Sharply at midnight I aroused myself from these gloomy thoughts and
+breathed a long sigh of relief. Both gipsy and psychic expert had
+failed in their prophecies. With a lightened heart I set about the
+preparations I knew would be needed against the Honourable George's
+return. Strong in my conviction that he would not have been able to
+resist lobster, I made ready his hot foot-bath with its solution of
+brine-crystals and put the absorbent fruit-lozenges close by, together
+with his sleeping-suit, his bed-cap, and his knitted night-socks.
+Scarcely was all ready when I heard his step.
+
+He greeted me curtly on entering, swiftly averting his face as I took
+his stick, hat, and top-coat. But I had seen the worst at one glance.
+The Honourable George was more than spotted--he was splotchy. It was
+as bad as that.
+
+"Lobster _and_ oysters," I made bold to remark, but he affected
+not to have heard, and proceeded rapidly to disrobe. He accepted the
+foot-bath without demur, pulling a blanket well about his shoulders,
+complaining of the water's temperature, and demanding three of the
+fruit-lozenges.
+
+"Not what you think at all," he then said. "It was that cursed
+bar-le-duc jelly. Always puts me this way, and you quite well know
+it."
+
+"Yes, sir, to be sure," I answered gravely, and had the satisfaction
+of noting that he looked quite a little foolish. Too well he knew I
+could not be deceived, and even now I could surmise that the lobster
+had been supported by sherry. How many times have I not explained to
+him that sherry has double the tonic vinosity of any other wine and
+may not be tampered with by the sensitive. But he chose at present to
+make light of it, almost as if he were chaffing above his knowledge of
+some calamity.
+
+"Some book Johnny says a chap is either a fool or a physician at
+forty," he remarked, drawing the blanket more closely about him.
+
+"I should hardly rank you as a Harley Street consultant, sir," I
+swiftly retorted, which was slanging him enormously because he had
+turned forty. I mean to say, there was but one thing he could take me
+as meaning him to be, since at forty I considered him no physician.
+But at least I had not been too blunt, the touch about the Harley
+Street consultant being rather neat, I thought, yet not too subtle for
+him.
+
+He now demanded a pipe of tobacco, and for a time smoked in silence. I
+could see that his mind worked painfully.
+
+"Stiffish lot, those Americans," he said at last.
+
+"They do so many things one doesn't do," I answered.
+
+"And their brogue is not what one could call top-hole, is it now? How
+often they say 'I guess!' I fancy they must say it a score of times in
+a half-hour."
+
+"I fancy they do, sir," I agreed.
+
+"I fancy that Johnny with the eyebrows will say it even oftener."
+
+"I fancy so, sir. I fancy I've counted it well up to that."
+
+"I fancy you're quite right. And the chap 'guesses' when he awfully
+well knows, too. That's the essential rabbit. To-night he said 'I
+guess I've got you beaten to a pulp,' when I fancy he wasn't guessing
+at all. I mean to say, I swear he knew it perfectly."
+
+"You lost the game of drawing poker?" I asked coldly, though I knew he
+had carried little to lose.
+
+"I lost----" he began. I observed he was strangely embarrassed. He
+strangled over his pipe and began anew: "I said that to play the game
+soundly you've only to know when to bluff. Studied it out myself, and
+jolly well right I was, too, as far as I went. But there's further to
+go in the silly game. I hadn't observed that to play it greatly one
+must also know when one's opponent is bluffing."
+
+"Really, sir?"
+
+"Oh, really; quite important, I assure you. More important than one
+would have believed, watching their silly ways. You fancy a chap's
+bluffing when he's doing nothing of the sort. I'd enormously have
+liked to know it before we played. Things would have been so awfully
+different for us"--he broke off curiously, paused, then added--"for
+you."
+
+"Different for me, sir?" His words seemed gruesome. They seemed open
+to some vaguely sinister interpretation. But I kept myself steady.
+
+"We live and learn, sir," I said, lightly enough.
+
+"Some of us learn too late," he replied, increasingly ominous.
+
+"I take it you failed to win the hundred pounds, sir?"
+
+{Illustration: "I TAKE IT YOU FAILED TO WIN THE HUNDRED POUNDS, SIR?"}
+
+"I have the hundred pounds; I won it--by losing."
+
+Again he evaded my eye.
+
+"Played, indeed, sir," said I.
+
+"You jolly well won't believe that for long."
+
+Now as he had the hundred pounds, I couldn't fancy what the deuce and
+all he meant by such prattle. I was half afraid he might be having me
+on, as I have known him do now and again when he fancied he could get
+me. I fearfully wanted to ask questions. Again I saw the dark,
+absorbed face of the gipsy as he studied my future.
+
+"Rotten shift, life is," now murmured the Honourable George quite as
+if he had forgotten me. "If I'd have but put through that Monte Carlo
+affair I dare say I'd have chucked the whole business--gone to South
+Africa, perhaps, and set up a mine or a plantation. Shouldn't have
+come back. Just cut off, and good-bye to this mess. But no capital.
+Can't do things without capital. Where these American Johnnies have
+the pull of us. Do anything. Nearly do what they jolly well like to.
+No sense to money. Stuff that runs blind. Look at the silly beggars
+that have it----" On he went quite alarmingly with his tirade. Almost
+as violent he was as an ugly-headed chap I once heard ranting when I
+went with my brother-in-law to a meeting of the North Brixton Radical
+Club. Quite like an anarchist he was. Presently he quieted. After a
+long pull at his pipe he regarded me with an entire change of manner.
+Well I knew something was coming; coming swift as a rocketing
+woodcock. Word for word I put down our incredible speeches:
+
+"You are going out to America, Ruggles."
+
+"Yes, sir; North or South, sir?"
+
+"North, I fancy; somewhere on the West coast--Ohio, Omaha, one of those
+Indian places."
+
+"Perhaps Indiana or the Yellowstone Valley, sir."
+
+"The chap's a sort of millionaire."
+
+"The chap, sir?"
+
+"Eyebrow chap. Money no end--mines, lumber, domestic animals, that
+sort of thing."
+
+"Beg pardon, sir! I'm to go----"
+
+"Chap's wife taken a great fancy to you. Would have you to do for the
+funny, sad beggar. So he's won you. Won you in a game of drawing
+poker. Another man would have done as well, but the creature was keen
+for you. Great strength of character. Determined sort. Hope you won't
+think I didn't play soundly, but it's not a forthright game. Think
+they're bluffing when they aren't. When they are you mayn't think it.
+So far as hiding one's intentions, it's a most rottenly immoral game.
+Low, animal cunning--that sort of thing."
+
+"Do I understand I was the stake, sir?" I controlled myself to say.
+The heavens seemed bursting about my head.
+
+"Ultimately lost you were by the very trifling margin of superiority
+that a hand known as a club flush bears over another hand consisting
+of three of the eights--not quite all of them, you understand, only
+three, and two other quite meaningless cards."
+
+I could but stammer piteously, I fear. I heard myself make a wretched
+failure of words that crowded to my lips.
+
+"But it's quite simple, I tell you. I dare say I could show it you in
+a moment if you've cards in your box."
+
+"Thank you, sir, I'll not trouble you. I'm certain it was simple. But
+would you mind telling me what exactly the game was played for?"
+
+"Knew you'd not understand at once. My word, it was not too bally
+simple. If I won I'd a hundred pounds. If I lost I'd to give you up to
+them but still to receive a hundred pounds. I suspect the Johnny's
+conscience pricked him. Thought you were worth a hundred pounds, and
+guessed all the time he could do me awfully in the eye with his poker.
+Quite set they were on having you. Eyebrow chap seemed to think it a
+jolly good wheeze. She didn't, though. Quite off her head at having
+you for that glum one who does himself so badly."
+
+Dazed I was, to be sure, scarce comprehending the calamity that had
+befallen us.
+
+"Am I to understand, sir, that I am now in the service of the
+Americans?"
+
+"Stupid! Of course, of course! Explained clearly, haven't I, about the
+club flush and the three eights. Only three of them, mind you. If the
+other one had been in my hand, I'd have done him. As narrow a squeak
+as that. But I lost. And you may be certain I lost gamely, as a
+gentleman should. No laughing matter, but I laughed with them--except
+the funny, sad one. He was worried and made no secret of it. They were
+good enough to say I took my loss like a dead sport."
+
+More of it followed, but always the same. Ever he came back to the
+sickening, concise point that I was to go out to the American
+wilderness with these grotesque folk who had but the most elementary
+notions of what one does and what one does not do. Always he concluded
+with his boast that he had taken his loss like a dead sport. He became
+vexed at last by my painful efforts to understand how, precisely, the
+dreadful thing had come about. But neither could I endure more. I fled
+to my room. He had tried again to impress upon me that three eights
+are but slightly inferior to the flush of clubs.
+
+I faced my glass. My ordinary smooth, full face seemed to have
+shrivelled. The marks of my anguish were upon me. Vainly had I locked
+myself in. The gipsy's warning had borne its evil fruit. Sold, I'd
+been; even as once the poor blackamoors were sold into American
+bondage. I recalled one of their pathetic folk-songs in which the
+wretches were wont to make light of their lamentable estate; a thing I
+had often heard sung by a black with a banjo on the pier at Brighton;
+not a genuine black, only dyed for the moment he was, but I had never
+lost the plaintive quality of the verses:
+
+    "Away down South in Michigan,
+    Where I was so happy and so gay,
+    'Twas there I mowed the cotton and the cane----"
+
+How poignantly the simple words came back to me! A slave, day after
+day mowing his owner's cotton and cane, plucking the maize from the
+savannahs, yet happy and gay! Should I be equal to this spirit? The
+Honourable George had lost; so I, his pawn, must also submit like a
+dead sport.
+
+How little I then dreamed what adventures, what adversities, what
+ignominies--yes, and what triumphs were to be mine in those back
+blocks of North America! I saw but a bleak wilderness, a distressing
+contact with people who never for a moment would do with us. I
+shuddered. I despaired.
+
+And outside the windows gay Paris laughed and sang in the dance, ever
+unheeding my plight!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+
+In that first sleep how often do we dream that our calamity has been
+only a dream. It was so in my first moments of awakening. Vestiges of
+some grotesquely hideous nightmare remained with me. Wearing the
+shackles of the slave, I had been mowing the corn under the fierce sun
+that beats down upon the American savannahs. Sickeningly, then, a wind
+of memory blew upon me and I was alive to my situation.
+
+Nor was I forgetful of the plight in which the Honourable George would
+now find himself. He is as good as lost when not properly looked
+after. In the ordinary affairs of life he is a simple, trusting,
+incompetent duffer, if ever there was one. Even in so rudimentary a
+matter as collar-studs he is like a storm-tossed mariner--I mean to
+say, like a chap in a boat on the ocean who doesn't know what sails to
+pull up nor how to steer the silly rudder.
+
+One rather feels exactly that about him.
+
+And now he was bound to go seedy beyond description--like the time at
+Mentone when he dreamed a system for playing the little horses, after
+which for a fortnight I was obliged to nurse a well-connected invalid
+in order that we might last over till next remittance day. The havoc
+he managed to wreak among his belongings in that time would scarce be
+believed should I set it down--not even a single boot properly
+treed--and his appearance when I was enabled to recover him (my client
+having behaved most handsomely on the eve of his departure for Spain)
+being such that I passed him in the hotel lounge without even a
+nod--climbing-boots, with trousers from his one suit of boating
+flannels, a blazered golfing waistcoat, his best morning-coat with the
+wide braid, a hunting-stock and a motoring-cap, with his beard more
+than discursive, as one might say, than I had ever seen it. If I
+disclose this thing it is only that my fears for him may be
+comprehended when I pictured him being permanently out of hand.
+
+Meditating thus bitterly, I had but finished dressing when I was
+startled by a knock on my door and by the entrance, to my summons, of
+the elder and more subdued Floud, he of the drooping mustaches and the
+mournful eyes of pale blue. One glance at his attire brought freshly
+to my mind the atrocious difficulties of my new situation. I may be
+credited or not, but combined with tan boots and wretchedly fitting
+trousers of a purple hue he wore a black frock-coat, revealing far,
+far too much of a blue satin "made" cravat on which was painted a
+cluster of tiny white flowers--lilies of the valley, I should say.
+Unbelievably above this monstrous melange was a rather low-crowned
+bowler hat.
+
+Hardly repressing a shudder, I bowed, whereupon he advanced solemnly
+to me and put out his hand. To cover the embarrassing situation
+tactfully I extended my own, and we actually shook hands, although the
+clasp was limply quite formal.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Ruggles?" he began.
+
+I bowed again, but speech failed me.
+
+"She sent me over to get you," he went on. He uttered the word "She"
+with such profound awe that I knew he could mean none other than Mrs.
+Effie. It was most extraordinary, but I dare say only what was to have
+been expected from persons of this sort. In any good-class club or
+among gentlemen at large it is customary to allow one at least
+twenty-four hours for the payment of one's gambling debts. Yet there I
+was being collected by the winner at so early an hour as half-after
+seven. If I had been a five-pound note instead of myself, I fancy it
+would have been quite the same. These Americans would most indecently
+have sent for their winnings before the Honourable George had
+awakened. One would have thought they had expected him to refuse
+payment of me after losing me the night before. How little they seemed
+to realize that we were both intending to be dead sportsmen.
+
+"Very good, sir," I said, "but I trust I may be allowed to brew the
+Honourable George his tea before leaving? I'd hardly like to trust to
+him alone with it, sir."
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, so respectfully that it gave me an odd feeling.
+"Take your time, Mr. Ruggles. I don't know as I am in any hurry on my
+own account. It's only account of Her."
+
+I trust it will be remembered that in reporting this person's speeches
+I am making an earnest effort to set them down word for word in all
+their terrific peculiarities. I mean to say, I would not be held
+accountable for his phrasing, and if I corrected his speech, as of
+course the tendency is, our identities might become confused. I hope
+this will be understood when I report him as saying things in ways one
+doesn't word them. I mean to say that it should not be thought that I
+would say them in this way if it chanced that I were saying the same
+things in my proper person. I fancy this should now be plain.
+
+"Very well, sir," I said.
+
+"If it was me," he went on, "I wouldn't want you a little bit. But
+it's Her. She's got her mind made up to do the right thing and have us
+all be somebody, and when she makes her mind up----" He hesitated and
+studied the ceiling for some seconds. "Believe me," he continued,
+"Mrs. Effie is some wildcat!"
+
+"Yes, sir--some wildcat," I repeated.
+
+"Believe _me_, Bill," he said again, quaintly addressing me by a
+name not my own--"believe me, she'd fight a rattlesnake and give it
+the first two bites."
+
+Again let it be recalled that I put down this extraordinary speech
+exactly as I heard it. I thought to detect in it that grotesque
+exaggeration with which the Americans so distressingly embellish their
+humour. I mean to say, it could hardly have been meant in all
+seriousness. So far as my researches have extended, the rattlesnake is
+an invariably poisonous reptile. Fancy giving one so downright an
+advantage as the first two bites, or even one bite, although I believe
+the thing does not in fact bite at all, but does one down with its
+forked tongue, of which there is an excellent drawing in my little
+volume, "Inquire Within; 1,000 Useful Facts."
+
+"Yes, sir," I replied, somewhat at a loss; "quite so, sir!"
+
+"I just thought I'd wise you up beforehand."
+
+"Thank you, sir," I said, for his intention beneath the weird jargon
+was somehow benevolent. "And if you'll be good enough to wait until I
+have taken tea to the Honourable George----"
+
+"How is the Judge this morning?" he broke in.
+
+"The Judge, sir?" I was at a loss, until he gestured toward the room
+of the Honourable George.
+
+"The Judge, yes. Ain't he a justice of the peace or something?"
+
+"But no, sir; not at all, sir."
+
+"Then what do you call him 'Honourable' for, if he ain't a judge or
+something?"
+
+"Well, sir, it's done, sir," I explained, but I fear he was unable to
+catch my meaning, for a moment later (the Honourable George, hearing
+our voices, had thrown a boot smartly against the door) he was
+addressing him as "Judge" and thereafter continued to do so, nor did
+the Honourable George seem to make any moment of being thus miscalled.
+
+I served the Ceylon tea, together with biscuits and marmalade, the
+while our caller chatted nervously. He had, it appeared, procured his
+own breakfast while on his way to us.
+
+"I got to have my ham and eggs of a morning," he confided. "But she
+won't let me have anything at that hotel but a continental breakfast,
+which is nothing but coffee and toast and some of that there sauce
+you're eating. She says when I'm on the continent I got to eat a
+continental breakfast, because that's the smart thing to do, and not
+stuff myself like I was on the ranch; but I got that game beat both
+ways from the jack. I duck out every morning before she's up. I found
+a place where you can get regular ham and eggs."
+
+"Regular ham and eggs?" murmured the Honourable George.
+
+"French ham and eggs is a joke. They put a slice of boiled ham in a
+little dish, slosh a couple of eggs on it, and tuck the dish into the
+oven a few minutes. Say, they won't ever believe that back in Red Gap
+when I tell it. But I found this here little place where they do it
+right, account of Americans having made trouble so much over the other
+way. But, mind you, don't let on to her," he warned me suddenly.
+
+"Certainly not, sir," I said. "Trust me to be discreet, sir."
+
+"All right, then. Maybe we'll get on better than what I thought we
+would. I was looking for trouble with you, the way she's been talking
+about what you'd do for me."
+
+"I trust matters will be pleasant, sir," I replied.
+
+"I can be pushed just so far," he curiously warned me, "and no
+farther--not by any man that wears hair."
+
+"Yes, sir," I said again, wondering what the wearing of hair might
+mean to this process of pushing him, and feeling rather absurdly glad
+that my own face is smoothly shaven.
+
+"You'll find Ruggles fairish enough after you've got used to his
+ways," put in the Honourable George.
+
+"All right, Judge; and remember it wasn't my doings," said my new
+employer, rising and pulling down to his ears his fearful bowler hat.
+"And now we better report to her before she does a hot-foot over here.
+You can pack your grip later in the day," he added to me.
+
+"Pack my grip--yes, sir," I said numbly, for I was on the tick of
+leaving the Honourable George helpless in bed. In a voice that I fear
+was broken I spoke of clothes for the day's wear which I had laid out
+for him the night before. He waved a hand bravely at us and sank back
+into his pillow as my new employer led me forth. There had been barely
+a glance between us to betoken the dreadfulness of the moment.
+
+At our door I was pleased to note that a taximetre cab awaited us. I
+had acutely dreaded a walk through the streets, even of Paris, with my
+new employer garbed as he was. The blue satin cravat of itself would
+have been bound to insure us more attention than one would care for.
+
+I fear we were both somewhat moody during the short ride. Each of us
+seemed to have matters of weight to reflect upon. Only upon reaching
+our destination did my companion brighten a bit. For a fare of five
+francs forty centimes he gave the driver a ten-franc piece and waited
+for no change.
+
+"I always get around them that way," he said with an expression of the
+brightest cunning. "She used to have the laugh on me because I got so
+much counterfeit money handed to me. Now I don't take any change at
+all."
+
+"Yes, sir," I said. "Quite right, sir."
+
+"There's more than one way to skin a cat," he added as we ascended to
+the Floud's drawing-room, though why his mind should have flown to
+this brutal sport, if it be a sport, was quite beyond me. At the door
+he paused and hissed at me: "Remember, no matter what she says, if you
+treat me white I'll treat you white." And before I could frame any
+suitable response to this puzzling announcement he had opened the door
+and pushed me in, almost before I could remove my cap.
+
+Seated at the table over coffee and rolls was Mrs. Effie. Her face
+brightened as she saw me, then froze to disapproval as her glance
+rested upon him I was to know as Cousin Egbert. I saw her capable
+mouth set in a straight line of determination.
+
+"You did your very worst, didn't you?" she began. "But sit down and
+eat your breakfast. He'll soon change _that_." She turned to me.
+"Now, Ruggles, I hope you understand the situation, and I'm sure I can
+trust you to take no nonsense from him. You see plainly what you've
+got to do. I let him dress to suit himself this morning, so that you
+could know the worst at once. Take a good look at him--shoes, coat,
+hat--that dreadful cravat!"
+
+"I call this a right pretty necktie," mumbled her victim over a crust
+of toast. She had poured coffee for him.
+
+"You hear that?" she asked me. I bowed sympathetically.
+
+"What does he look like?" she insisted. "Just tell him for his own
+good, please."
+
+But this I could not do. True enough, during our short ride he had
+been reminding me of one of a pair of cross-talk comedians I had once
+seen in a music-hall. This, of course, was not a thing one could say.
+
+"I dare say, Madam, he could be smartened up a bit. If I might take
+him to some good-class shop----"
+
+"And burn the things he's got on----" she broke in.
+
+"Not this here necktie," interrupted Cousin Egbert rather stubbornly.
+"It was give to me by Jeff Tuttle's littlest girl last Christmas; and
+this here Prince Albert coat--what's the matter of it, I'd like to
+know? It come right from the One Price Clothing Store at Red Gap, and
+it's plenty good to go to funerals in----"
+
+"And then to a barber-shop with him," went on Mrs. Effie, who had paid
+no heed to his outburst. "Get him done right for once."
+
+Her relative continued to nibble nervously at a bit of toast.
+
+"I've done something with him myself," she said, watching him
+narrowly. "At first he insisted on having the whole bill-of-fare for
+breakfast, but I put my foot down, and now he's satisfied with the
+continental breakfast. That goes to show he has something in him, if
+we can only bring it out."
+
+"Something in him, indeed, yes, Madam!" I assented, and Cousin Egbert,
+turning to me, winked heavily.
+
+"I want him to look like some one," she resumed, "and I think you're
+the man can make him if you're firm with him; but you'll have to be
+firm, because he's full of tricks. And if he starts any rough stuff,
+just come to me."
+
+"Quite so, Madam," I said, but I felt I was blushing with shame at
+hearing one of my own sex so slanged by a woman. That sort of thing
+would never do with us. And yet there was something about this
+woman--something weirdly authoritative. She showed rather well in the
+morning light, her gray eyes crackling as she talked. She was wearing
+a most elaborate peignoir, and of course she should not have worn the
+diamonds; it seemed almost too much like the morning hour of a stage
+favourite; but still one felt that when she talked one would do well
+to listen.
+
+Hereupon Cousin Egbert startled me once more.
+
+"Won't you set up and have something with us, Mr. Ruggles?" he asked me.
+
+I looked away, affecting not to have heard, and could feel Mrs. Effie
+scowling at him. He coughed into his cup and sprayed coffee well over
+himself. His intention had been obvious in the main, though exactly
+what he had meant by "setting up" I couldn't fancy--as if I had been a
+performing poodle!
+
+The moment's embarrassment was well covered by Mrs. Effie, who again
+renewed her instructions, and from an escritoire brought me a sheaf of
+the pretentiously printed sheets which the French use in place of our
+banknotes.
+
+"You will spare no expense," she directed, "and don't let me see him
+again until he looks like some one. Try to have him back here by five.
+Some very smart friends of ours are coming for tea."
+
+"I won't drink tea at that outlandish hour for any one," said Cousin
+Egbert rather snappishly.
+
+"You will at least refuse it like a man of the world, I hope," she
+replied icily, and he drooped submissive once more. "You see?" she
+added to me.
+
+"Quite so, Madam," I said, and resolved to be firm and thorough with
+Cousin Egbert. In a way I was put upon my mettle. I swore to make him
+look like some one. Moreover, I now saw that his half-veiled threats
+of rebellion to me had been pure swank. I had in turn but to threaten
+to report him to this woman and he would be as clay in my hands.
+
+I presently had him tucked into a closed taxicab, half-heartedly
+muttering expostulations and protests to which I paid not the least
+heed. During my strolls I had observed in what would have been Regent
+Street at home a rather good-class shop with an English name, and to
+this I now proceeded with my charge. I am afraid I rather hustled him
+across the pavement and into the shop, not knowing what tricks he
+might be up to, and not until he was well to the back did I attempt to
+explain myself to the shop-walker who had followed us. To him I then
+gave details of my charge's escape from a burning hotel the previous
+night, which accounted for his extraordinary garb of the moment, he
+having been obliged to accept the loan of garments that neither fitted
+him nor harmonized with one another. I mean to say, I did not care to
+have the chap suspect we would don tan boots, a frock-coat, and bowler
+hat except under the most tremendous compulsion.
+
+Cousin Egbert stared at me open mouthed during this recital, but the
+shop-walker was only too readily convinced, as indeed who would not
+have been, and called an intelligent assistant to relieve our
+distress. With his help I swiftly selected an outfit that was not half
+bad for ready-to-wear garments. There was a black morning-coat, snug
+at the waist, moderately broad at the shoulders, closing with two
+buttons, its skirt sharply cut away from the lower button and reaching
+to the bend of the knee. The lapels were, of course, soft-rolled and
+joined the collar with a triangular notch. It is a coat of immense
+character when properly worn, and I was delighted to observe in the
+trying on that Cousin Egbert filled it rather smartly. Moreover, he
+submitted more meekly than I had hoped. The trousers I selected were
+of gray cloth, faintly striped, the waistcoat being of the same
+material as the coat, relieved at the neck-opening by an edging of
+white.
+
+With the boots I had rather more trouble, as he refused to wear the
+patent leathers that I selected, together with the pearl gray spats,
+until I grimly requested the telephone assistant to put me through to
+the hotel, desiring to speak to Mrs. Senator Floud. This brought him
+around, although muttering, and I had less trouble with shirts,
+collars, and cravats. I chose a shirt of white pique, a wing collar
+with small, square-cornered tabs, and a pearl ascot.
+
+Then in a cabinet I superintended Cousin Egbert's change of raiment.
+We clashed again in the matter of sock-suspenders, which I was
+astounded to observe he did not possess. He insisted that he had never
+worn them--garters he called them--and never would if he were shot for
+it, so I decided to be content with what I had already gained.
+
+By dint of urging and threatening I at length achieved my ground-work
+and was more than a little pleased with my effect, as was the
+shop-assistant, after I had tied the pearl ascot and adjusted a quiet
+tie-pin of my own choosing.
+
+"Now I hope you're satisfied!" growled my charge, seizing his bowler
+hat and edging off.
+
+"By no means," I said coldly. "The hat, if you please, sir."
+
+He gave it up rebelliously, and I had again to threaten him with the
+telephone before he would submit to a top-hat with a moderate bell and
+broad brim. Surveying this in the glass, however, he became
+perceptibly reconciled. It was plain that he rather fancied it, though
+as yet he wore it consciously and would turn his head slowly and
+painfully, as if his neck were stiffened.
+
+Having chosen the proper gloves, I was, I repeat, more than pleased
+with this severely simple scheme of black, white, and gray. I felt I
+had been wise to resist any tendency to colour, even to the most
+delicate of pastel tints. My last selection was a smartish Malacca
+stick, the ideal stick for town wear, which I thrust into the
+defenceless hands of my client.
+
+"And now, sir," I said firmly, "it is but a step to a barber's stop
+where English is spoken." And ruefully he accompanied me. I dare say
+that by that time he had discovered that I was not to be trifled with,
+for during his hour in the barber's chair he did not once rebel
+openly. Only at times would he roll his eyes to mine in dumb appeal.
+There was in them something of the utter confiding helplessness I had
+noted in the eyes of an old setter at Chaynes-Wotten when I had been
+called upon to assist the undergardener in chloroforming him. I mean
+to say, the dog had jolly well known something terrible was being done
+to him, yet his eyes seemed to say he knew it must be all for the best
+and that he trusted us. It was this look I caught as I gave directions
+about the trimming of the hair, and especially when I directed that
+something radical should be done to the long, grayish moustache that
+fell to either side of his chin in the form of a horseshoe. I myself
+was puzzled by this difficulty, but the barber solved it rather
+neatly, I thought, after a whispered consultation with me. He snipped
+a bit off each end and then stoutly waxed the whole affair until the
+ends stood stiffly out with distinct military implications. I shall
+never forget, and indeed I was not a little touched by the look of
+quivering anguish in the eyes of my client when he first beheld this
+novel effect. And yet when we were once more in the street I could not
+but admit that the change was worth all that it had cost him in
+suffering. Strangely, he now looked like some one, especially after I
+had persuaded him to a carnation for his buttonhole. I cannot say that
+his carriage was all that it should have been, and he was still
+conscious of his smart attire, but I nevertheless felt a distinct
+thrill of pride in my own work, and was eager to reveal him to Mrs.
+Effie in his new guise.
+
+But first he would have luncheon--dinner he called it--and I was not
+averse to this, for I had put in a long and trying morning. I went
+with him to the little restaurant where Americans had made so much
+trouble about ham and eggs, and there he insisted that I should join
+him in chops and potatoes and ale. I thought it only proper then to
+point out to him that there was certain differences in our walks of
+life which should be more or less denoted by his manner of addressing
+me. Among other things he should not address me as Mr. Ruggles, nor
+was it customary for a valet to eat at the same table with his master.
+He seemed much interested in these distinctions and thereupon
+addressed me as "Colonel," which was of course quite absurd, but this
+I could not make him see. Thereafter, I may say, that he called me
+impartially either "Colonel" or "Bill." It was a situation that I had
+never before been obliged to meet, and I found it trying in the
+extreme. He was a chap who seemed ready to pal up with any one, and I
+could not but recall the strange assertion I had so often heard that
+in America one never knows who is one's superior. Fancy that! It would
+never do with us. I could only determine to be on my guard.
+
+Our luncheon done, he consented to accompany me to the hotel of the
+Honourable George, whence I wished to remove my belongings. I should
+have preferred to go alone, but I was too fearful of what he might do
+to himself or his clothes in my absence.
+
+We found the Honourable George still in bed, as I had feared. He had,
+it seemed, been unable to discover his collar studs, which, though I
+had placed them in a fresh shirt for him, he had carelessly covered
+with a blanket. Begging Cousin Egbert to be seated in my room, I did a
+few of the more obvious things required by my late master.
+
+"You'd leave me here like a rat in a trap," he said reproachfully,
+which I thought almost quite a little unjust. I mean to say, it had
+all been his own doing, he having lost me in the game of drawing
+poker, so why should he row me about it now? I silently laid out the
+shirt once more.
+
+"You might have told me where I'm to find my brown tweeds and the body
+linen."
+
+Again he was addressing me as if I had voluntarily left him without
+notice, but I observed that he was still mildly speckled from the
+night before, so I handed him the fruit-lozenges, and went to pack my
+own box. Cousin Egbert I found sitting as I had left him, on the edge
+of a chair, carefully holding his hat, stick, and gloves, and staring
+into the wall. He had promised me faithfully not to fumble with his
+cravat, and evidently he had not once stirred. I packed my box
+swiftly--my "grip," as he called it--and we were presently off once
+more, without another sight of the Honourable George, who was to join
+us at tea. I could hear him moving about, using rather ultra-frightful
+language, but I lacked heart for further speech with him at the
+moment.
+
+An hour later, in the Floud drawing-room, I had the supreme
+satisfaction of displaying to Mrs. Effie the happy changes I had been
+able to effect in my charge. Posing him, I knocked at the door of her
+chamber. She came at once and drew a long breath as she surveyed him,
+from varnished boots, spats, and coat to top-hat, which he still wore.
+He leaned rather well on his stick, the hand to his hip, the elbow
+out, while the other hand lightly held his gloves. A moment she
+looked, then gave a low cry of wonder and delight, so that I felt
+repaid for my trouble. Indeed, as she faced me to thank me I could see
+that her eyes were dimmed.
+
+"Wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Now he looks like some one!" And I
+distinctly perceived that only just in time did she repress an impulse
+to grasp me by the hand. Under the circumstances I am not sure that I
+wouldn't have overlooked the lapse had she yielded to it. "Wonderful!"
+she said again.
+
+{Illustration: "WONDERFUL! NOW HE LOOKS LIKE SOME ONE"}
+
+Hereupon Cousin Egbert, much embarrassed, leaned his stick against the
+wall; the stick fell, and in reaching down for it his hat fell, and in
+reaching for that he dropped his gloves; but I soon restored him to
+order and he was safely seated where he might be studied in further
+detail, especially as to his moustaches, which I had considered rather
+the supreme touch.
+
+"He looks exactly like some well-known clubman," exclaimed Mrs. Effie.
+
+Her relative growled as if he were quite ready to savage her.
+
+"Like a man about town," she murmured. "Who would have thought he had
+it in him until you brought it out?" I knew then that we two should
+understand each other.
+
+The slight tension was here relieved by two of the hotel servants who
+brought tea things. At a nod from Mrs. Effie I directed the laying out
+of these.
+
+At that moment came the other Floud, he of the eyebrows, and a cousin
+cub called Elmer, who, I understood, studied art. I became aware that
+they were both suddenly engaged and silenced by the sight of Cousin
+Egbert. I caught their amazed stares, and then terrifically they broke
+into gales of laughter. The cub threw himself on a couch, waving his
+feet in the air, and holding his middle as if he'd suffered a sudden
+acute dyspepsia, while the elder threw his head back and shrieked
+hysterically. Cousin Egbert merely glared at them and, endeavouring
+to stroke his moustache, succeeded in unwaxing one side of it so that
+it once more hung limply down his chin, whereat they renewed their
+boorishness. The elder Floud was now quite dangerously purple, and the
+cub on the couch was shrieking: "No matter how dark the clouds, remember
+she is still your stepmother," or words to some such silly effect as
+that. How it might have ended I hardly dare conjecture--perhaps Cousin
+Egbert would presently have roughed them--but a knock sounded, and it
+became my duty to open our door upon other guests, women mostly;
+Americans in Paris; that sort of thing.
+
+I served the tea amid their babble. The Honourable George was shown up
+a bit later, having done to himself quite all I thought he might in
+the matter of dress. In spite of serious discrepancies in his attire,
+however, I saw that Mrs. Effie meant to lionize him tremendously. With
+vast ceremony he was presented to her guests--the Honourable George
+Augustus Vane-Basingwell, brother of his lordship the Earl of
+Brinstead. The women fluttered about him rather, though he behaved
+moodily, and at the first opportunity fell to the tea and cakes quite
+wholeheartedly.
+
+In spite of my aversion to the American wilderness, I felt a bit of
+professional pride in reflecting that my first day in this new service
+was about to end so auspiciously. Yet even in that moment, being as
+yet unfamiliar with the room's lesser furniture, I stumbled slightly
+against a hassock hid from me by the tray I carried. A cup of tea was
+lost, though my recovery was quick. Too late I observed that the
+hitherto self-effacing Cousin Egbert was in range of my clumsiness.
+
+"There goes tea all over my new pants!" he said in a high, pained
+voice.
+
+"Sorry, indeed, sir," said I, a ready napkin in hand. "Let me dry it,
+sir!"
+
+"Yes, sir, I fancy quite so, sir," said he.
+
+I most truly would have liked to shake him smartly for this. I saw
+that my work was cut out for me among these Americans, from whom at
+their best one expects so little.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+
+As I brisked out of bed the following morning at half-after six, I
+could not but wonder rather nervously what the day might have in store
+for me. I was obliged to admit that what I was in for looked a bit
+thick. As I opened my door I heard stealthy footsteps down the hall
+and looked out in time to observe Cousin Egbert entering his own room.
+It was not this that startled me. He would have been abroad, I knew,
+for the ham and eggs that were forbidden him. Yet I stood aghast, for
+with the lounge-suit of tweeds I had selected the day before he had
+worn his top-hat! I am aware that these things I relate of him may not
+be credited. I can only put them down in all sincerity.
+
+I hastened to him and removed the thing from his head. I fear it was
+not with the utmost deference, for I have my human moments.
+
+"It's not done, sir," I protested. He saw that I was offended.
+
+"All right, sir," he replied meekly. "But how was I to know? I thought
+it kind of set me off." He referred to it as a "stove-pipe" hat. I
+knew then that I should find myself overlooking many things in him. He
+was not a person one could be stern with, and I even promised that
+Mrs. Effie should not be told of his offence, he promising in turn
+never again to stir abroad without first submitting himself to me and
+agreeing also to wear sock-suspenders from that day forth. I saw,
+indeed, that diplomacy might work wonders with him.
+
+At breakfast in the drawing-room, during which Cousin Egbert earned
+warm praise from Mrs. Effie for his lack of appetite (he winking
+violently at me during this), I learned that I should be expected to
+accompany him to a certain art gallery which corresponds to our
+British Museum. I was a bit surprised, indeed, to learn that he
+largely spent his days there, and was accustomed to make notes of the
+various objects of interest.
+
+"I insisted," explained Mrs. Effie, "that he should absorb all the
+culture he could on his trip abroad, so I got him a notebook in which
+he puts down his impressions, and I must say he's done fine. Some of
+his remarks are so good that when he gets home I may have him read a
+paper before our Onwards and Upwards Club."
+
+Cousin Egbert wriggled modestly at this and said: "Shucks!" which I
+took to be a term of deprecation.
+
+"You needn't pretend," said Mrs. Effie. "Just let Ruggles here look
+over some of the notes you have made," and she handed me a notebook of
+ruled paper in which there was a deal of writing. I glanced, as
+bidden, at one or two of the paragraphs, and confess that I, too, was
+amazed at the fluency and insight displayed along lines in which I
+should have thought the man entirely uninformed. "This choice work
+represents the first or formative period of the Master," began one
+note, "but distinctly foreshadows that later method which made him at
+once the hope and despair of his contemporaries. In the 'Portrait of
+the Artist by Himself' we have a canvas that well repays patient
+study, since here is displayed in its full flower that ruthless
+realism, happily attenuated by a superbly subtle delicacy of brush
+work----" It was really quite amazing, and I perceived for the first
+time that Cousin Egbert must be "a diamond in the rough," as the
+well-known saying has it. I felt, indeed, that I would be very pleased
+to accompany him on one of his instructive strolls through this
+gallery, for I have always been of a studious habit and anxious to
+improve myself in the fine arts.
+
+"You see?" asked Mrs. Effie, when I had perused this fragment. "And
+yet folks back home would tell you that he's just a----" Cousin Egbert
+here coughed alarmingly. "No matter," she continued. "He'll show them
+that he's got something in him, mark my words."
+
+"Quite so, Madam," I said, "and I shall consider it a privilege to be
+present when he further prosecutes his art studies."
+
+"You may keep him out till dinner-time," she continued. "I'm shopping
+this morning, and in the afternoon I shall motor to have tea in the
+Boy with the Senator and Mr. Nevil Vane-Basingwell."
+
+Presently, then, my charge and I set out for what I hoped was to be a
+peaceful and instructive day among objects of art, though first I was
+obliged to escort him to a hatter's and glover's to remedy some minor
+discrepancies in his attire. He was very pleased when I permitted him
+to select his own hat. I was safe in this, as the shop was really
+artists in gentlemen's headwear, and carried only shapes, I observed,
+that were confined to exclusive firms so as to insure their being worn
+by the right set. As to gloves and a stick, he was again rather
+pettish and had to be set right with some firmness. He declared he had
+lost his stick and gloves of the previous day. I discovered later that
+he had presented them to the lift attendant. But I soon convinced him
+that he would not be let to appear without these adjuncts to a
+gentleman's toilet.
+
+Then, having once more stood by at the barber's while he was shaved
+and his moustaches firmly waxed anew, I saw that he was fit at last
+for his art studies. The barber this day suggested curling the
+moustaches with a heated iron, but at this my charge fell into so
+unseemly a rage that I deemed it wise not to insist. He, indeed,
+bluntly threatened a nameless violence to the barber if he were so
+much as touched with the iron, and revealed an altogether shocking
+gift for profanity, saying loudly: "I'll be--dashed--if you will!" I
+mean to say, I have written "dashed" for what he actually said. But at
+length I had him once more quieted.
+
+"Now, sir," I said, when I had got him from the barber's shop, to the
+barber's manifest relief: "I fancy we've time to do a few objects of
+art before luncheon. I've the book here for your comments," I added.
+
+"Quite so," he replied, and led me at a rapid pace along the street in
+what I presumed was the direction of the art museum. At the end of a
+few blocks he paused at one of those open-air public houses that
+disgracefully line the streets of the French capital. I mean to say
+that chairs and tables are set out upon the pavement in the most
+brazen manner and occupied by the populace, who there drink their
+silly beverages and idle away their time. After scanning the score or
+so of persons present, even at so early an hour as ten of the morning,
+he fell into one of the iron chairs at one of the iron tables and
+motioned me to another at his side.
+
+When I had seated myself he said "Beer" to the waiter who appeared,
+and held up two fingers.
+
+"Now, look at here," he resumed to me, "this is a good place to do
+about four pages of art, and then we can go out and have some
+recreation somewhere." Seeing that I was puzzled, he added: "This
+way--you take that notebook and write in it out of this here other
+book till I think you've done enough, then I'll tell you to stop." And
+while I was still bewildered, he drew from an inner pocket a small,
+well-thumbed volume which I took from him and saw to be entitled "One
+Hundred Masterpieces of the Louvre."
+
+"Open her about the middle," he directed, "and pick out something that
+begins good, like 'Here the true art-lover will stand entranced----'
+You got to write it, because I guess you can write faster than what I
+can. I'll tell her I dictated to you. Get a hustle on now, so's we can
+get through. Write down about four pages of that stuff."
+
+Stunned I was for a moment at his audacity. Too plainly I saw through
+his deception. Each day, doubtless, he had come to a low place of this
+sort and copied into the notebook from the printed volume.
+
+"But, sir," I protested, "why not at least go to the gallery where
+these art objects are stored? Copy the notes there if that must be
+done."
+
+"I don't know where the darned place is," he confessed. "I did start
+for it the first day, but I run into a Punch and Judy show in a little
+park, and I just couldn't get away from it, it was so comical, with
+all the French kids hollering their heads off at it. Anyway, what's
+the use? I'd rather set here in front of this saloon, where everything
+is nice."
+
+"It's very extraordinary, sir," I said, wondering if I oughtn't to cut
+off to the hotel and warn Mrs. Effie so that she might do a heated
+foot to him, as he had once expressed it.
+
+"Well, I guess I've got my rights as well as anybody," he insisted.
+"I'll be pushed just so far and no farther, not if I never get any
+more cultured than a jack-rabbit. And now you better go on and write
+or I'll be--dashed--if I'll ever wear another thing you tell me to."
+
+He had a most bitter and dangerous expression on his face, so I
+thought best to humour him once more. Accordingly I set about writing
+in his notebook from the volume of criticism he had supplied.
+
+"Change a word now and then and skip around here and there," he
+suggested as I wrote, "so's it'll sound more like me."
+
+"Quite so, sir," I said, and continued to transcribe from the printed
+page. I was beginning the fifth page in the notebook, being in the
+midst of an enthusiastic description of the bit of statuary entitled
+"The Winged Victory," when I was startled by a wild yell in my ear.
+Cousin Egbert had leaped to his feet and now danced in the middle of
+the pavement, waving his stick and hat high in the air and shouting
+incoherently. At once we attracted the most undesirable attention from
+the loungers about us, the waiters and the passers-by in the street,
+many of whom stopped at once to survey my charge with the liveliest
+interest. It was then I saw that he had merely wished to attract the
+attention of some one passing in a cab. Half a block down the
+boulevard I saw a man likewise waving excitedly, standing erect in the
+cab to do so. The cab thereupon turned sharply, came back on the
+opposite side of the street, crossed over to us, and the occupant
+alighted.
+
+He was an American, as one might have fancied from his behaviour, a
+tall, dark-skinned person, wearing a drooping moustache after the
+former style of Cousin Egbert, supplemented by an imperial. He wore a
+loose-fitting suit of black which had evidently received no proper
+attention from the day he purchased it. Under a folded collar he wore
+a narrow cravat tied in a bowknot, and in the bosom of his white shirt
+there sparkled a diamond such as might have come from a collection of
+crown-jewels. This much I had time to notice as he neared us. Cousin
+Egbert had not ceased to shout, nor had he paid the least attention to
+my tugs at his coat. When the cab's occupant descended to the pavement
+they fell upon each other and did for some moments a wild dance such
+as I imagine they might have seen the red Indians of western America
+perform. Most savagely they punched each other, calling out in the
+meantime: "Well, old horse!" and "Who'd ever expected to see you here,
+darn your old skin!" (Their actual phrases, be it remembered.)
+
+The crowd, I was glad to note, fell rapidly away, many of them
+shrugging their shoulders in a way the French have, and even the
+waiters about us quickly lost interest in the pair, as if they were
+hardened to the sight of Americans greeting one another. The two were
+still saying: "Well! well!" rather breathlessly, but had become a bit
+more coherent.
+
+"Jeff Tuttle, you--dashed--old long-horn!" exclaimed Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Good old Sour-dough!" exploded the other. "Ain't this just like old
+home week!"
+
+"I thought mebbe you wouldn't know me with all my beadwork and my new
+war-bonnet on," continued Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Know you, why, you knock-kneed old Siwash, I could pick out your hide
+in a tanyard!"
+
+"Well, well, well!" replied Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Well, well, well!" said the other, and again they dealt each other
+smart blows.
+
+"Where'd you turn up from?" demanded Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Europe," said the other. "We been all over Europe and Italy--just
+come from some place up over the divide where they talk Dutch, the
+Madam and the two girls and me, with the Reverend Timmins and his wife
+riding line on us. Say, he's an out-and-out devil for cathedrals--it's
+just one church after another with him--Baptist, Methodist,
+Presbyterian, Lutheran, takes 'em all in--never overlooks a bet. He's
+got Addie and the girls out now. My gosh! it's solemn work! Me? I
+ducked out this morning."
+
+"How'd you do it?"
+
+"Told the little woman I had to have a tooth pulled--I was working it
+up on the train all day yesterday. Say, what you all rigged out like
+that for, Sour-dough, and what you done to your face?"
+
+Cousin Egbert here turned to me in some embarrassment. "Colonel
+Ruggles, shake hands with my friend Jeff Tuttle from the State of
+Washington."
+
+"Pleased to meet you, Colonel," said the other before I could explain
+that I had no military title whatever, never having, in fact, served
+our King, even in the ranks. He shook my hand warmly.
+
+"Any friend of Sour-dough Floud's is all right with me," he assured
+me. "What's the matter with having a drink?"
+
+"Say, listen here! I wouldn't have to be blinded and backed into it,"
+said Cousin Egbert, enigmatically, I thought, but as they sat down I,
+too, seated myself. Something within me had sounded a warning. As well
+as I know it now I knew then in my inmost soul that I should summon
+Mrs. Effie before matters went farther.
+
+"Beer is all I know how to say," suggested Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Leave that to me," said his new friend masterfully. "Where's the boy?
+Here, boy! Veesky-soda! That's French for high-ball," he explained.
+"I've had to pick up a lot of their lingo."
+
+Cousin Egbert looked at him admiringly. "Good old Jeff!" he said
+simply. He glanced aside to me for a second with downright hostility,
+then turned back to his friend. "Something tells me, Jeff, that this
+is going to be the first happy day I've had since I crossed the state
+line. I've been pestered to death, Jeff--what with Mrs. Effie after me
+to improve myself so's I can be a social credit to her back in Red
+Gap, and learn to wear clothes and go without my breakfast and attend
+art galleries. If you'd stand by me I'd throw her down good and hard
+right now, but you know what she is----"
+
+"I sure do," put in Mr. Tuttle so fervently that I knew he spoke the
+truth. "That woman can bite through nails. But here's your drink,
+Sour-dough. Maybe it will cheer you up."
+
+Extraordinary! I mean to say, biting through nails.
+
+"Three rousing cheers!" exclaimed Cousin Egbert with more animation
+than I had ever known him display.
+
+"Here's looking at you, Colonel," said his friend to me, whereupon I
+partook of the drink, not wishing to offend him. Decidedly he was not
+vogue. His hat was remarkable, being of a black felt with high crown
+and a wide and flopping brim. Across his waistcoat was a watch-chain
+of heavy links, with a weighty charm consisting of a sculptured gold
+horse in full gallop. That sort of thing would never do with us.
+
+"Here, George," he immediately called to the waiter, for they had
+quickly drained their glasses, "tell the bartender three more. By
+gosh! but that's good, after the way I've been held down."
+
+"Me, too," said Cousin Egbert. "I didn't know how to say it in
+French."
+
+"The Reverend held me down," continued the Tuttle person. "'A glass of
+native wine,' he says, 'may perhaps be taken now and then without
+harm.' 'Well,' I says, 'leave us have ales, wines, liquors, and
+cigars,' I says, but not him. I'd get a thimbleful of elderberry wine
+or something about every second Friday, except when I'd duck out the
+side door of a church and find some caffy. Here, George, foomer,
+foomer--bring us some seegars, and then stay on that spot--I may want
+you."
+
+"Well, well!" said Cousin Egbert again, as if the meeting were still
+incredible.
+
+"You old stinging-lizard!" responded the other affectionately. The
+cigars were brought and I felt constrained to light one.
+
+"The State of Washington needn't ever get nervous over the prospect of
+losing me," said the Tuttle person, biting off the end of his cigar.
+
+I gathered at once that the Americans have actually named one of our
+colonies "Washington" after the rebel George Washington, though one
+would have thought that the indelicacy of this would have been only
+too apparent. But, then, I recalled, as well, the city where their
+so-called parliament assembles, Washington, D. C. Doubtless the
+initials indicate that it was named in "honour" of another member of
+this notorious family. I could not but reflect how shocked our King
+would be to learn of this effrontery.
+
+Cousin Egbert, who had been for some moments moving his lips without
+sound, here spoke:
+
+"I'm going to try it myself," he said. "Here, Charley, veesky-soda! He
+made me right off," he continued as the waiter disappeared. "Say,
+Jeff, I bet I could have learned a lot of this language if I'd had
+some one like you around."
+
+"Well, it took me some time to get the accent," replied the other with
+a modesty which I could detect was assumed. More acutely than ever was
+I conscious of a psychic warning to separate these two, and I resolved
+to act upon it with the utmost diplomacy. The third whiskey and soda
+was served us.
+
+"Three rousing cheers!" said Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Here's looking at you!" said the other, and I drank. When my glass was
+drained I arose briskly and said:
+
+"I think we should be getting along now, sir, if Mr. Tuttle will be
+good enough to excuse us." They both stared at me.
+
+"Yes, sir--I fancy not, sir," said Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Stop your kidding, you fat rascal!" said the other.
+
+"Old Bill means all right," said Cousin Egbert, "so don't let him
+irritate you. Bill's our new hired man. He's all right--just let him
+talk along."
+
+"Can't he talk setting down?" asked the other. "Does he have to stand
+up every time he talks? Ain't that a good chair?" he demanded of me.
+"Here, take mine," and to my great embarrassment he arose and offered
+me his chair in such a manner that I felt moved to accept it.
+Thereupon he took the chair I had vacated and beamed upon us, "Now
+that we're all home-folks, together once more, I would suggest a bit
+of refreshment. Boy, veesky-soda!"
+
+"I fancy so, sir," said Cousin Egbert, dreamily contemplating me as
+the order was served. I was conscious even then that he seemed to be
+studying my attire with a critical eye, and indeed he remarked as if
+to himself: "What a coat!" I was rather shocked by this, for my suit
+was quite a decent lounge-suit that had become too snug for the
+Honourable George some two years before. Yet something warned me to
+ignore the comment.
+
+"Three rousing cheers!" he said as the drink was served.
+
+"Here's looking at you!" said the Tuttle person.
+
+And again I drank with them, against my better judgment, wondering if
+I might escape long enough to be put through to Mrs. Floud on the
+telephone. Too plainly the situation was rapidly getting out of hand,
+and yet I hesitated. The Tuttle person under an exterior geniality was
+rather abrupt. And, moreover, I now recalled having observed a person
+much like him in manner and attire in a certain cinema drama of the
+far Wild West. He had been a constable or sheriff in the piece and had
+subdued a band of armed border ruffians with only a small pocket
+pistol. I thought it as well not to cross him.
+
+When they had drunk, each one again said, "Well! well!"
+
+"You old maverick!" said Cousin Egbert.
+
+"You--dashed--old horned toad!" responded his friend.
+
+"What's the matter with a little snack?"
+
+"Not a thing on earth. My appetite ain't been so powerful craving
+since Heck was a pup."
+
+These were their actual words, though it may not be believed. The
+Tuttle person now approached his cabman, who had waited beside the
+curb.
+
+"Say, Frank," he began, "Ally restorong," and this he supplemented
+with a crude but informing pantomime of one eating. Cousin Egbert was
+already seated in the cab, and I could do nothing but follow. "Ally
+restorong!" commanded our new friend in a louder tone, and the cabman
+with an explosion of understanding drove rapidly off.
+
+"It's a genuine wonder to me how you learned the language so quick,"
+said Cousin Egbert.
+
+"It's all in the accent," protested the other. I occupied a narrow
+seat in the front. Facing me in the back seat, they lolled easily and
+smoked their cigars. Down the thronged boulevard we proceeded at a
+rapid pace and were passing presently before an immense gray edifice
+which I recognized as the so-called Louvre from its illustration on
+the cover of Cousin Egbert's art book. He himself regarded it with
+interest, though I fancy he did not recognize it, for, waving his
+cigar toward it, he announced to his friend:
+
+"The Public Library." His friend surveyed the building with every sign
+of approval.
+
+"That Carnegie is a hot sport, all right," he declared warmly. "I'll
+bet that shack set him back some."
+
+"Three rousing cheers!" said Cousin Egbert, without point that I could
+detect.
+
+We now crossed their Thames over what would have been Westminster
+Bridge, I fancy, and were presently bowling through a sort of
+Battersea part of the city. The streets grew quite narrow and the
+shops smaller, and I found myself wondering not without alarm what
+sort of restaurant our abrupt friend had chosen.
+
+"Three rousing cheers!" said Cousin Egbert from time to time, with
+almost childish delight.
+
+Debouching from a narrow street again into what the French term a
+boulevard, we halted before what was indeed a restaurant, for several
+tables were laid on the pavement before the door, but I saw at once
+that it was anything but a nice place. "Au Rendezvous des Cochers
+Fideles," read the announcement on the flap of the awning, and truly
+enough it was a low resort frequented by cabbies--"The meeting-place
+of faithful coachmen." Along the curb half a score of horses were
+eating from their bags, while their drivers lounged before the place,
+eating, drinking, and conversing excitedly in their grotesque jargon.
+
+We descended, in spite of the repellent aspect of the place, and our
+driver went to the foot of the line, where he fed his own horse.
+Cousin Egbert, already at one of the open-air tables, was rapping
+smartly for a waiter.
+
+"What's the matter with having just one little one before grub?" asked
+the Tuttle person as we joined him. He had a most curious fashion of
+speech. I mean to say, when he suggested anything whatsoever he
+invariably wished to know what might be the matter with it.
+
+"Veesky-soda!" demanded Cousin Egbert of the serving person who now
+appeared, "and ask your driver to have one," he then urged his friend.
+
+The latter hereupon addressed the cabman who had now come up.
+
+"Vooley-voos take something!" he demanded, and the cabman appeared to
+accept.
+
+"Vooley-voos your friends take something, too?" he demanded further,
+with a gesture that embraced all the cabmen present, and these, too,
+appeared to accept with the utmost cordiality.
+
+"You're a wonder, Jeff," said Cousin Egbert. "You talk it like a
+professor."
+
+"It come natural to me," said the fellow, "and it's a good thing, too.
+If you know a little French you can go all over Europe without a bit
+of trouble."
+
+Inside the place was all activity, for many cabmen were now accepting
+the proffered hospitality, and calling "votry santy!" to their host,
+who seemed much pleased. Then to my amazement Cousin Egbert insisted
+that our cabman should sit at table with us. I trust I have as little
+foolish pride as most people, but this did seem like crowding it on a
+bit thick. In fact, it looked rather dicky. I was glad to remember
+that we were in what seemed to be the foreign quarter of the town,
+where it was probable that no one would recognize us. The drink came,
+though our cabman refused the whiskey and secured a bottle of native
+wine.
+
+"Three rousing cheers!" said Cousin Egbert as we drank once more, and
+added as an afterthought, "What a beautiful world we live in!"
+
+"Vooley-voos make-um bring dinner!" said the Tuttle person to the
+cabman, who thereupon spoke at length in his native tongue to the
+waiter. By this means we secured a soup that was not half bad and
+presently a stew of mutton which Cousin Egbert declared was "some
+goo." To my astonishment I ate heartily, even in such raffish
+surroundings. In fact, I found myself pigging it with the rest of
+them. With coffee, cigars were brought from the tobacconist's
+next-door, each cabman present accepting one. Our own man was plainly
+feeling a vast pride in his party, and now circulated among his
+fellows with an account of our merits.
+
+"This is what I call life," said the Tuttle person, leaning back in
+his chair.
+
+"I'm coming right back here every day," declared Cousin Egbert
+happily.
+
+"What's the matter with a little drive to see some well-known objects
+of interest?" inquired his friend.
+
+"Not art galleries," insisted Cousin Egbert.
+
+"And not churches," said his friend. "Every day's been Sunday with me
+long enough."
+
+"And not clothing stores," said Cousin Egbert firmly. "The Colonel
+here is awful fussy about my clothes," he added.
+
+"Is, heh?" inquired his friend. "How do you like this hat of mine?" he
+asked, turning to me. It was that sudden I nearly fluffed the catch,
+but recovered myself in time.
+
+"I should consider it a hat of sound wearing properties, sir," I said.
+
+He took it off, examined it carefully, and replaced it.
+
+"So far, so good," he said gravely. "But why be fussy about clothes
+when God has given you only one life to live?"
+
+"Don't argue about religion," warned Cousin Egbert.
+
+"I always like to see people well dressed, sir," I said, "because it
+makes such a difference in their appearance."
+
+He slapped his thigh fiercely. "My gosh! that's true. He's got you
+there, Sour-dough. I never thought of that."
+
+"He makes me wear these chest-protectors on my ankles," said Cousin
+Egbert bitterly, extending one foot.
+
+"What's the matter of taking a little drive to see some well-known
+objects of interest?" said his friend.
+
+"Not art galleries," said Cousin Egbert firmly.
+
+"We said that before--and not churches."
+
+"And not gents' furnishing goods."
+
+"You said that before."
+
+"Well, you said not churches before."
+
+"Well, what's the matter with taking a little drive?"
+
+"Not art galleries," insisted Cousin Egbert. The thing seemed
+interminable. I mean to say, they went about the circle as before. It
+looked to me as if they were having a bit of a spree.
+
+"We'll have one last drink," said the Tuttle person.
+
+"No," said Cousin Egbert firmly, "not another drop. Don't you see the
+condition poor Bill here is in?" To my amazement he was referring to
+me. Candidly, he was attempting to convey the impression that I had
+taken a drop too much. The other regarded me intently.
+
+"Pickled," he said.
+
+"Always affects him that way," said Cousin Egbert. "He's got no head
+for it."
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," I said, wishing to explain, but this I was not let
+to do.
+
+"Don't start anything like that here," broke in the Tuttle person,
+"the police wouldn't stand for it. Just keep quiet and remember you're
+among friends."
+
+"Yes, sir; quite so, sir," said I, being somewhat puzzled by these
+strange words. "I was merely----"
+
+"Look out, Jeff," warned Cousin Egbert, interrupting me; "he's a devil
+when he starts."
+
+"Have you got a knife?" demanded the other suddenly.
+
+"I fancy so, sir," I answered, and produced from my waistcoat pocket
+the small metal-handled affair I have long carried. This he quickly
+seized from me.
+
+"You can keep your gun," he remarked, "but you can't be trusted with
+this in your condition. I ain't afraid of a gun, but I am afraid of a
+knife. You could have backed me off the board any time with this
+knife."
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" asked Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," I began, for this was drawing it quite too thick,
+but again he interrupted me.
+
+"We'd better get him away from this place right off," he said.
+
+"A drive in the fresh air might fix him," suggested Cousin Egbert.
+"He's as good a scout as you want to know when he's himself."
+Hereupon, calling our waiting cabman, they both, to my embarrassment,
+assisted me to the vehicle.
+
+"Ally caffy!" directed the Tuttle person, and we were driven off, to
+the raised hats of the remaining cabmen, through many long, quiet
+streets.
+
+"I wouldn't have had this happen for anything," said Cousin Egbert,
+indicating me.
+
+"Lucky I got that knife away from him," said the other.
+
+To this I thought it best to remain silent, it being plain that the
+men were both well along, so to say.
+
+The cab now approached an open square from which issued discordant
+blasts of music. One glance showed it to be a street fair. I prayed
+that we might pass it, but my companions hailed it with delight and at
+once halted the cabby.
+
+"Ally caffy on the corner," directed the Tuttle person, and once more
+we were seated at an iron table with whiskey and soda ordered. Before
+us was the street fair in all its silly activity. There were many
+tinselled booths at which games of chance or marksmanship were played,
+or at which articles of ornament or household decoration were
+displayed for sale, and about these were throngs of low-class French
+idling away their afternoon in that mad pursuit of pleasure which is
+so characteristic of this race. In the centre of the place was a
+carrousel from which came the blare of a steam orchestrion playing the
+"Marseillaise," one of their popular songs. From where I sat I could
+perceive the circle of gaudily painted beasts that revolved about this
+musical atrocity. A fashion of horses seemed to predominate, but there
+was also an ostrich (a bearded Frenchman being astride this bird for
+the moment), a zebra, a lion, and a gaudily emblazoned giraffe. I
+shuddered as I thought of the evil possibilities that might be
+suggested to my two companions by this affair. For the moment I was
+pleased to note that they had forgotten my supposed indisposition, yet
+another equally absurd complication ensued when the drink arrived.
+
+"Say, don't your friend ever loosen up?" asked the Tuttle person of
+Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Tighter than Dick's hatband," replied the latter.
+
+"And then some! He ain't bought once. Say, Bo," he continued to me as
+I was striving to divine the drift of these comments, "have I got my
+fingers crossed or not?"
+
+Seeing that he held one hand behind him I thought to humour him by
+saying, "I fancy so, sir."
+
+"He means 'yes,'" said Cousin Egbert.
+
+The other held his hand before me with the first two fingers spread
+wide apart. "You lost," he said. "How's that, Sour-dough? We stuck him
+the first rattle out of the box."
+
+"Good work," said Cousin Egbert. "You're stuck for this round," he
+added to me. "Three rousing cheers!"
+
+I readily perceived that they meant me to pay the score, which I
+accordingly did, though I at once suspected the fairness of the game.
+I mean to say, if my opponent had been a trickster he could easily
+have rearranged his fingers to defeat me before displaying them. I do
+not say it was done in this instance. I am merely pointing out that it
+left open a way to trickery. I mean to say, one would wish to be
+assured of his opponent's social standing before playing this game
+extensively.
+
+No sooner had we finished the drink than the Tuttle person said to me:
+
+"I'll give you one chance to get even. I'll guess your fingers this
+time." Accordingly I put one hand behind me and firmly crossed the
+fingers, fancying that he would guess them to be uncrossed. Instead of
+which he called out "Crossed," and I was obliged to show them in that
+wise, though, as before pointed out, I could easily have defeated him
+by uncrossing them before revealing my hand. I mean to say, it is not
+on the face of it a game one would care to play with casual
+acquaintances, and I questioned even then in my own mind its
+prevalence in the States. (As a matter of fact, I may say that in my
+later life in the States I could find no trace of it, and now believe
+it to have been a pure invention on the part of the Tuttle person. I
+mean to say, I later became convinced that it was, properly speaking,
+not a game at all.)
+
+Again they were hugely delighted at my loss and rapped smartly on the
+table for more drink, and now to my embarrassment I discovered that I
+lacked the money to pay for this "round" as they would call it.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," said I discreetly to Cousin Egbert, "but if you
+could let me have a bit of change, a half-crown or so----" To my
+surprise he regarded me coldly and shook his head emphatically in the
+negative.
+
+"Not me," he said; "I've been had too often. You're a good smooth
+talker and you may be all right, but I can't take a chance at my time
+of life."
+
+"What's he want now?" asked the other.
+
+"The old story," said Cousin Egbert: "come off and left his purse on
+the hatrack or out in the woodshed some place." This was the height of
+absurdity, for I had said nothing of the sort.
+
+"I was looking for something like that," said the other "I never make
+a mistake in faces. You got a watch there haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, sir," I said, and laid on the table my silver English
+half-hunter with Albert. They both fell to examining this with
+interest, and presently the Tuttle person spoke up excitedly:
+
+"Well, darn my skin if he ain't got a genuine double Gazottz. How did
+you come by this, my man?" he demanded sharply.
+
+"It came from my brother-in-law, sir," I explained, "six years ago as
+security for a trifling loan."
+
+"He sounds honest enough," said the Tuttle person to Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Yes, but maybe it ain't a regular double Gazottz," said the latter.
+"The market is flooded with imitations."
+
+"No, sir, I can't be fooled on them boys," insisted the other.
+"Blindfold me and I could pick a double Gazottz out every time. I'm
+going to take a chance on it, anyway." Whereupon the fellow pocketed
+my watch and from his wallet passed me a note of the so-called French
+money which I was astounded to observe was for the equivalent of four
+pounds, or one hundred francs, as the French will have it. "I'll
+advance that much on it," he said, "but don't ask for another cent
+until I've had it thoroughly gone over by a plumber. It may have moths
+in it."
+
+It seemed to me that the chap was quite off his head, for the watch
+was worth not more than ten shillings at the most, though what a
+double Gazottz might be I could not guess. However, I saw it would be
+wise to appear to accept the loan, and tendered the note in payment of
+the score.
+
+When I had secured the change I sought to intimate that we should be
+leaving. I thought even the street fair would be better for us than
+this rapid consumption of stimulants.
+
+"I bet he'd go without buying," said Cousin Egbert.
+
+"No, he wouldn't," said the other. "He knows what's customary in a
+case like this. He's just a little embarrassed. Wait and see if I
+ain't right." At which they both sat and stared at me in silence for
+some moments until at last I ordered more drink, as I saw was expected
+of me.
+
+"He wants the cabman to have one with him," said Cousin Egbert,
+whereat the other not only beckoned our cabby to join us, but called
+to two labourers who were passing, and also induced the waiter who
+served us to join in the "round."
+
+"He seems to have a lot of tough friends," said Cousin Egbert as we
+all drank, though he well knew I had extended none of these
+invitations.
+
+"Acts like a drunken sailor soon as he gets a little money," said the
+other.
+
+"Three rousing cheers!" replied Cousin Egbert, and to my great chagrin
+he leaped to his feet, seized one of the navvies about the waist, and
+there on the public pavement did a crude dance with him to the strain
+of the "Marseillaise" from the steam orchestrion. Not only this, but
+when the music had ceased he traded hats with the navvy, securing a
+most shocking affair in place of the new one, and as they parted he
+presented the fellow with the gloves and stick I had purchased for him
+that very morning. As I stared aghast at this _faux pas_ the navvy,
+with his new hat at an angle and twirling the stick, proceeded down the
+street with mincing steps and exaggerated airs of gentility, to the
+applause of the entire crowd, including Cousin Egbert.
+
+"This ain't quite the hat I want," he said as he returned to us, "but
+the day is young. I'll have other chances," and with the help of the
+public-house window as a mirror he adjusted the unmentionable thing
+with affectations of great nicety.
+
+"He always was a dressy old scoundrel," remarked the Tuttle person.
+And then, as the music came to us once more, he continued: "Say,
+Sour-dough, let's go over to the rodeo--they got some likely looking
+broncs over there."
+
+Arm in arm, accordingly, they crossed the street and proceeded to the
+carrousel, first warning the cabby and myself to stay by them lest
+harm should come to us. What now ensued was perhaps their most
+remarkable behaviour at the day. At the time I could account for it
+only by the liquor they had consumed, but later experience in the
+States convinced me that they were at times consciously spoofing. I
+mean to say, it was quite too absurd--their seriously believing what
+they seemed to believe.
+
+The carrousel being at rest when we approached, they gravely examined
+each one of the painted wooden effigies, looking into such of the
+mouths as were open, and cautiously feeling the forelegs of the
+different mounts, keeping up an elaborate pretence the while that the
+beasts were real and that they were in danger of being kicked. One
+absurdly painted horse they agreed would be the most difficult to
+ride. Examining his mouth, they disputed as to his age, and called the
+cabby to have his opinion of the thing's fetlocks, warning each other
+to beware of his rearing. The cabby, who was doubtless also
+intoxicated, made an equal pretence of the beast's realness, and
+indulged, I gathered, in various criticisms of its legs at great
+length.
+
+"I think he's right," remarked the Tuttle person when the cabby had
+finished. "It's a bad case of splints. The leg would be blistered if I
+had him."
+
+"I wouldn't give him corral room," said Cousin Egbert. "He's a bad
+actor. Look at his eye! Whoa! there--you would, would you!" Here he
+made a pretence that the beast had seized him by the shoulder. "He's a
+man-eater! What did I tell you? Keep him away!"
+
+"I'll take that out of him," said the Tuttle person. "I'll show him
+who's his master."
+
+"You ain't never going to try to ride him, Jeff? Think of the wife and
+little ones!"
+
+"You know me, Sour-dough. No horse never stepped out from under me
+yet. I'll not only ride him, but I'll put a silver dollar in each
+stirrup and give you a thousand for each one I lose and a thousand for
+every time I touch leather."
+
+Cousin Egbert here began to plead tearfully:
+
+"Don't do it, Jeff--come on around here. There's a big five-year-old
+roan around here that will be safe as a church for you. Let that pinto
+alone. They ought to be arrested for having him here."
+
+But the other seemed obdurate.
+
+"Start her up, Professor, when I give the word!" he called to the
+proprietor, and handed him one of the French banknotes. "Play it all
+out!" he directed, as this person gasped with amazement.
+
+Cousin Egbert then proceeded to the head of the beast.
+
+"You'll have to blind him," he said.
+
+"Sure!" replied the other, and with loud and profane cries to the
+animal they bound a handkerchief about his eyes.
+
+"I can tell he's going to be a twister," warned Cousin Egbert. "I
+better ear him," and to my increased amazement he took one of the
+beast's leather ears between his teeth and held it tightly. Then with
+soothing words to the supposedly dangerous animal, the Tuttle person
+mounted him.
+
+"Let him go!" he called to Cousin Egbert, who released the ear from
+between his teeth.
+
+"Wait!" called the latter. "We're all going with you," whereupon he
+insisted that the cabby and I should enter a sort of swan-boat
+directly in the rear. I felt a silly fool, but I saw there was nothing
+else to be done. Cousin Egbert himself mounted a horse he had called a
+"blue roan," waved his hand to the proprietor, who switched a lever,
+the "Marseillaise" blared forth, and the platform began to revolve. As
+we moved, the Tuttle person whisked the handkerchief from off the eyes
+of his mount and with loud, shrill cries began to beat the sides of
+its head with his soft hat, bobbing about in his saddle, moreover, as
+if the beast were most unruly and like to dismount him. Cousin Egbert
+joined in the yelling, I am sorry to say, and lashed his beast as if
+he would overtake his companion. The cabman also became excited and
+shouted his utmost, apparently in the way of encouragement. Strange to
+say, I presume on account of the motion, I felt the thing was becoming
+infectious and was absurdly moved to join in the shouts, restraining
+myself with difficulty. I could distinctly imagine we were in the
+hunting field and riding the tails off the hounds, as one might say.
+
+In view of what was later most unjustly alleged of me, I think it as
+well to record now that, though I had partaken freely of the
+stimulants since our meeting with the Tuttle person, I was not
+intoxicated, nor until this moment had I felt even the slightest
+elation. Now, however, I did begin to feel conscious of a mild
+exhilaration, and to be aware that I was viewing the behaviour of my
+companions with a sort of superior but amused tolerance. I can account
+for this only by supposing that the swift revolutions of the carrousel
+had in some occult manner intensified or consummated, as one might
+say, the effect of my previous potations. I mean to say, the continued
+swirling about gave me a frothy feeling that was not unpleasant.
+
+As the contrivance came to rest, Cousin Egbert ran to the Tuttle
+person, who had dismounted, and warmly shook his hand, as did the
+cabby.
+
+"I certainly thought he had you there once, Jeff," said Cousin Egbert.
+"Of all the twisters I ever saw, that outlaw is the worst."
+
+"Wanted to roll me," said the other, "but I learned him something."
+
+It may not be credited, but at this moment I found myself examining
+the beast and saying: "He's crocked himself up, sir--he's gone tender
+at the heel." I knew perfectly, it must be understood, that this was
+silly, and yet I further added, "I fancy he's picked up a stone." I
+mean to say, it was the most utter rot, pretending seriously that way.
+
+"You come away," said Cousin Egbert. "Next thing you'll be thinking
+you can ride him yourself." I did in truth experience an earnest
+craving for more of the revolutions and said as much, adding that I
+rode at twelve stone.
+
+"Let him break his neck if he wants to," urged the Tuttle person.
+
+"It wouldn't be right," replied Cousin Egbert, "not in his condition.
+Let's see if we can't find something gentle for him. Not the roan--I
+found she ain't bridle-wise. How about that pheasant?"
+
+"It's an ostrich, sir," I corrected him, as indeed it most distinctly
+was, though at my words they both indulged in loud laughter, affecting
+to consider that I had misnamed the creature.
+
+"Ostrich!" they shouted. "Poor old Bill--he thinks it's an ostrich!"
+
+"Quite so, sir," I said, pleasantly but firmly, determining not to be
+hoaxed again.
+
+"Don't drivel that way," said the Tuttle person.
+
+"Leave it to the driver, Jeff--maybe he'll believe _him_," said
+Cousin Egbert almost sadly, whereupon the other addressed the cabby:
+
+"Hey, Frank," he began, and continued with some French words, among
+which I caught "vooley-vous, ally caffy, foomer"; and something that
+sounded much like "kafoozleum," at which the cabby spoke at some
+length in his native language concerning the ostrich. When he had
+done, the Tuttle person turned to me with a superior frown.
+
+"Now I guess you're satisfied," he remarked. "You heard what Frank
+said--it's an Arabian muffin bird." Of course I was perfectly certain
+that the chap had said nothing of the sort, but I resolved to enter
+into the spirit of the thing, so I merely said: "Yes, sir; my error;
+it was only at first glance that it seemed to be an ostrich."
+
+"Come along," said Cousin Egbert. "I won't let him ride anything he
+can't guess the name of. It wouldn't be right to his folks."
+
+"Well, what's that, then?" demanded the other, pointing full at the
+giraffe.
+
+"It's a bally ant-eater, sir," I replied, divining that I should be
+wise not to seem too obvious in naming the beast.
+
+"Well, well, so it is!" exclaimed the Tuttle person delightedly.
+
+"He's got the eye with him this time," said Cousin Egbert admiringly.
+
+"He's sure a wonder," said the other. "That thing had me fooled; I
+thought at first it was a Russian mouse hound."
+
+"Well, let him ride it, then," said Cousin Egbert, and I was
+practically lifted into the saddle by the pair of them.
+
+"One moment," said Cousin Egbert. "Can't you see the poor thing has a
+sore throat? Wait till I fix him." And forthwith he removed his spats
+and in another moment had buckled them securely high about the throat
+of the giraffe. It will be seen that I was not myself when I say that
+this performance did not shock me as it should have done, though I
+was, of course, less entertained by it than were the remainder of our
+party and a circle of the French lower classes that had formed about
+us.
+
+"Give him his head! Let's see what time you can make!" shouted Cousin
+Egbert as the affair began once more to revolve. I saw that both my
+companions held opened watches in their hands.
+
+It here becomes difficult for me to be lucid about the succeeding
+events of the day. I was conscious of a mounting exhilaration as my
+beast swept me around the circle, and of a marked impatience with many
+of the proprieties of behaviour that ordinarily with me matter
+enormously. I swung my cap and joyously urged my strange steed to a
+faster pace, being conscious of loud applause each time I passed my
+companions. For certain lapses of memory thereafter I must wholly
+blame this insidious motion.
+
+For example, though I believed myself to be still mounted and whirling
+(indeed I was strongly aware of the motion), I found myself seated
+again at the corner public house and rapping smartly for drink, which
+I paid for. I was feeling remarkably fit, and suffered only a mild
+wonder that I should have left the carrousel without observing it.
+Having drained my glass, I then remember asking Cousin Egbert if he
+would consent to change hats with the cabby, which he willingly did.
+It was a top-hat of some strange, hard material brightly glazed.
+Although many unjust things were said of me later, this is the sole
+incident of the day which causes me to admit that I might have taken a
+glass too much, especially as I undoubtedly praised Cousin Egbert's
+appearance when the exchange had been made, and was heard to wish that
+we might all have hats so smart.
+
+It was directly after this that young Mr. Elmer, the art student,
+invited us to his studio, though I had not before remarked his
+presence, and cannot recall now where we met him. The occurrence in
+the studio, however, was entirely natural. I wished to please my
+friends and made no demur whatever when asked to don the things--a
+trouserish affair, of sheep's wool, which they called "chapps," a
+flannel shirt of blue (they knotted a scarlet handkerchief around my
+neck), and a wide-brimmed white hat with four indentations in the
+crown, such as one may see worn in the cinema dramas by cow-persons
+and other western-coast desperadoes. When they had strapped around my
+waist a large pistol in a leather jacket, I considered the effect
+picturesque in the extreme, and my friends were loud in their approval
+of it.
+
+I repeat, it was an occasion when it would have been boorish in me to
+refuse to meet them halfway. I even told them an excellent wheeze I
+had long known, which I thought they might not, have heard. It runs:
+"Why is Charing Cross? Because the Strand runs into it." I mean to
+say, this is comic providing one enters wholly into the spirit of it,
+as there is required a certain nimbleness of mind to get the point, as
+one might say. In the present instance some needed element was
+lacking, for they actually drew aloof from me and conversed in low
+tones among themselves, pointedly ignoring me. I repeated the thing to
+make sure they should see it, whereat I heard Cousin Egbert say.
+"Better not irritate him--he'll get mad if we don't laugh," after
+which they burst into laughter so extravagant that I knew it to be
+feigned. Hereupon, feeling quite drowsy, I resolved to have forty
+winks, and with due apologies reclined upon the couch, where I drifted
+into a refreshing slumber.
+
+Later I inferred that I must have slept for some hours. I was awakened
+by a light flashed in my eyes, and beheld Cousin Egbert and the Tuttle
+person, the latter wishing to know how late I expected to keep them
+up. I was on my feet at once with apologies, but they instantly
+hustled me to the door, down a flight of steps, through a court-yard,
+and into the waiting cab. It was then I noticed that I was wearing the
+curious hat of the American Far-West, but when I would have gone back
+to leave it, and secure my own, they protested vehemently, wishing to
+know if I had not given them trouble enough that day.
+
+In the cab I was still somewhat drowsy, but gathered that my
+companions had left me, to dine and attend a public dance-hall with
+the cubbish art student. They had not seemed to need sleep and were
+still wakeful, for they sang from time to time, and Cousin Egbert
+lifted the cabby's hat, which he still wore, bowing to imaginary
+throngs along the street who were supposed to be applauding him. I at
+once became conscience-stricken at the thought of Mrs. Effie's
+feelings when she should discover him to be in this state, and was on
+the point of suggesting that he seek another apartment for the night,
+when the cab pulled up in front of our own hotel.
+
+Though I protest that I was now entirely recovered from any effect
+that the alcohol might have had upon me, it was not until this moment
+that I most horribly discovered myself to be in the full cow-person's
+regalia I had donned in the studio in a spirit of pure frolic. I mean
+to say, I had never intended to wear the things beyond the door and
+could not have been hired to do so. What was my amazement then to find
+my companions laboriously lifting me from the cab in this impossible
+tenue. I objected vehemently, but little good it did me.
+
+"Get a policeman if he starts any of that rough stuff," said the
+Tuttle person, and in sheer horror of a scandal I subsided, while one
+on either side they hustled me through the hotel lounge--happily
+vacant of every one but a tariff manager--and into the lift. And now I
+perceived that they were once more pretending to themselves that I was
+in a bad way from drink, though I could not at once suspect the full
+iniquity of their design.
+
+As we reached our own floor, one of them still seeming to support me
+on either side, they began loud and excited admonitions to me to be
+still, to come along as quickly as possible, to stop singing, and not
+to shoot. I mean to say, I was entirely quiet, I was coming along as
+quickly as they would let me, I had not sung, and did not wish to
+shoot, yet they persisted in making this loud ado over my supposed
+intoxication, aimlessly as I thought, until the door of the Floud
+drawing-room opened and Mrs. Effie appeared in the hallway. At this
+they redoubled their absurd violence with me, and by dint of tripping
+me they actually made it appear that I was scarce able to walk, nor do
+I imagine that the costume I wore was any testimonial to my sobriety.
+
+"Now we got him safe," panted Cousin Egbert, pushing open the door of
+my room.
+
+"Get his gun, first!" warned the Tuttle person, and this being taken
+from me, I was unceremoniously shoved inside.
+
+"What does all this mean?" demanded Mrs. Effie, coming rapidly down
+the hall. "Where have you been till this time of night? I bet it's
+your fault, Jeff Tuttle--you've been getting him going."
+
+They were both voluble with denials of this, and though I could scarce
+believe my ears, they proceeded to tell a story that laid the blame
+entirely on me.
+
+"No, ma'am, Mis' Effie," began the Tuttle person. "It ain't that way
+at all. You wrong me if ever a man was wronged."
+
+"You just seen what state he was in, didn't you?" asked Cousin Egbert
+in tones of deep injury. "Do you want to take another look at him?"
+and he made as if to push the door farther open upon me.
+
+"Don't do it--don't get him started again!" warned the Tuttle person.
+"I've had trouble enough with that man to-day."
+
+"I seen it coming this morning," said Cousin Egbert, "when we was at
+the art gallery. He had a kind of wild look in his eyes, and I says
+right then: 'There's a man ought to be watched,' and, well, one thing
+led to another--look at this hat he made me wear--nothing would
+satisfy him but I should trade hats with some cab-driver----"
+
+"I was coming along from looking at two or three good churches," broke
+in the Tuttle person, "when I seen Sour-dough here having a kind of a
+mix-up with this man because of him insisting he must ride a kangaroo
+or something on a merry-go-round, and wanting Sour-dough to ride an
+ostrich with him, and then when we got him quieted down a little,
+nothing would do him but he's got to be a cowboy--you seen his
+clothes, didn't you? And of course I wanted to get back to Addie and
+the girls, but I seen Sour-dough here was in trouble, so I stayed
+right by him, and between us we got the maniac here."
+
+"He's one of them should never touch liquor," said Cousin Egbert; "it
+makes a demon of him."
+
+"I got his knife away from him early in the game," said the other.
+
+"I don't suppose I got to wear this cabman's hat just because he told
+me to, have I?" demanded Cousin Egbert.
+
+"And here I'd been looking forward to a quiet day seeing some
+well-known objects of interest," came from the other, "after I got my
+tooth pulled, that is."
+
+"And me with a tooth, too, that nearly drove me out of my mind," said
+Cousin Egbert suddenly.
+
+I could not see Mrs. Effie, but she had evidently listened to this
+outrageous tale with more or less belief, though not wholly credulous.
+
+"You men have both been drinking yourselves," she said shrewdly.
+
+"We had to take a little; he made us," declared the Tuttle person
+brazenly.
+
+"He got so he insisted on our taking something every time he did,"
+added Cousin Egbert. "And, anyway, I didn't care so much, with this
+tooth of mine aching like it does."
+
+"You come right out with me and around to that dentist I went to this
+morning," said the Tuttle person. "You'll suffer all night if you
+don't."
+
+"Maybe I'd better," said Cousin Egbert, "though I hate to leave this
+comfortable hotel and go out into the night air again."
+
+"I'll have the right of this in the morning," said Mrs. Effie. "Don't
+think it's going to stop here!" At this my door was pulled to and the
+key turned in the lock.
+
+Frankly I am aware that what I have put down above is incredible, yet
+not a single detail have I distorted. With a quite devilish ingenuity
+they had fastened upon some true bits: I had suggested the change of
+hats with the cabby, I had wished to ride the giraffe, and the Tuttle
+person had secured my knife, but how monstrously untrue of me was the
+impression conveyed by these isolated facts. I could believe now quite
+all the tales I had ever heard of the queerness of Americans.
+Queerness, indeed! I went to bed resolving to let the morrow take care
+of itself.
+
+Again I was awakened by a light flashing in my eyes, and became aware
+that Cousin Egbert stood in the middle of the room. He was reading
+from his notebook of art criticisms, with something of an oratorical
+effect. Through the half-drawn curtains I could see that dawn was
+breaking. Cousin Egbert was no longer wearing the cabby's hat. It was
+now the flat cap of the Paris constable or policeman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+
+The sight was a fair crumpler after the outrageous slander that had
+been put upon me by this elderly inebriate and his accomplice. I sat
+up at once, prepared to bully him down a bit. Although I was not sure
+that I engaged his attention, I told him that his reading could be
+very well done without and that he might take himself off. At this he
+became silent and regarded me solemnly.
+
+"Why did Charing Cross the Strand? Because three rousing cheers," said
+he.
+
+Of course he had the wheeze all wrong and I saw that he should be in
+bed. So with gentle words I lured him to his own chamber. Here, with a
+quite unexpected perversity, he accused me of having kept him up the
+night long and begged now to be allowed to retire. This he did with
+muttered complaints of my behaviour, and was almost instantly asleep.
+I concealed the constable's cap in one of his boxes, for I feared that
+he had not come by this honestly. I then returned to my own room,
+where for a long time I meditated profoundly upon the situation that
+now confronted me.
+
+It seemed probable that I should be shopped by Mrs. Effie for what she
+had been led to believe was my rowdyish behaviour. However dastardly
+the injustice to me, it was a solution of the problem that I saw I
+could bring myself to meet with considerable philosophy. It meant a
+return to the quiet service of the Honourable George and that I need
+no longer face the distressing vicissitudes of life in the back blocks
+of unexplored America. I would not be obliged to muddle along in the
+blind fashion of the last two days, feeling a frightful fool. Mrs.
+Effie would surely not keep me on, and that was all about it. I had
+merely to make no defence of myself. And even if I chose to make one I
+was not certain that she would believe me, so cunning had been the
+accusations against me, with that tiny thread of fact which I make no
+doubt has so often enabled historians to give a false colouring to
+their recitals without stating downright untruths. Indeed, my
+shameless appearance in the garb of a cow person would alone have cast
+doubt upon the truth as I knew it to be.
+
+Then suddenly I suffered an illumination. I perceived all at once that
+to make any sort of defence of myself would not be cricket. I mean to
+say, I saw the proceedings of the previous day in a new light. It is
+well known that I do not hold with the abuse of alcoholic stimulants,
+and yet on the day before, in moments that I now confess to have been
+slightly elevated, I had been conscious of a certain feeling of
+fellowship with my two companions that was rather wonderful. Though
+obviously they were not university men, they seemed to belong to what
+in America would be called the landed gentry, and yet I had felt
+myself on terms of undoubted equality with them. It may be believed or
+not, but there had been brief spaces when I forgot that I was a
+gentleman's man. Astoundingly I had experienced the confident ease of
+a gentleman among his equals. I was obliged to admit now that this
+might have been a mere delusion of the cup, and yet I wondered, too,
+if perchance I might not have caught something of that American spirit
+of equality which is said to be peculiar to republics. Needless to say
+I had never believed in the existence of this spirit, but had
+considered it rather a ghastly jest, having been a reader of our own
+periodical press since earliest youth. I mean to say, there could
+hardly be a stable society in which one had no superiors, because in
+that case one would not know who were one's inferiors. Nevertheless, I
+repeat that I had felt a most novel enlargement of myself; had, in
+fact, felt that I was a gentleman among gentlemen, using the word in
+its strictly technical sense. And so vividly did this conviction
+remain with me that I now saw any defence of my course to be out of
+the question.
+
+I perceived that my companions had meant to have me on toast from the
+first. I mean to say, they had started a rag with me--a bit of
+chaff--and I now found myself rather preposterously enjoying the
+manner in which they had chivied me. I mean to say, I felt myself
+taking it as one gentleman would take a rag from other gentlemen--not
+as a bit of a sneak who would tell the truth to save his face. A
+couple of chaffing old beggars they were, but they had found me a
+topping dead sportsman of their own sort. Be it remembered I was still
+uncertain whether I had caught something of that alleged American
+spirit, or whether the drink had made me feel equal at least to
+Americans. Whatever it might be, it was rather great, and I was
+prepared to face Mrs. Effie without a tremor--to face her, of course,
+as one overtaken by a weakness for spirits.
+
+When the bell at last rang I donned my service coat and, assuming a
+look of profound remorse, I went to the drawing-room to serve the
+morning coffee. As I suspected, only Mrs. Effie was present. I believe
+it has been before remarked that she is a person of commanding
+presence, with a manner of marked determination. She favoured me with
+a brief but chilling glance, and for some moments thereafter affected
+quite to ignore me. Obviously she had been completely greened the
+night before and was treating me with a proper contempt. I saw that it
+was no use grousing at fate and that it was better for me not to go
+into the American wilderness, since a rolling stone gathers no moss. I
+was prepared to accept instant dismissal without a character.
+
+She began upon me, however, after her first cup of coffee, more mildly
+than I had expected.
+
+"Ruggles, I'm horribly disappointed in you."
+
+"Not more so than I myself, Madam," I replied.
+
+"I am more disappointed," she continued, "because I felt that Cousin
+Egbert had something in him----"
+
+"Something in him, yes, Madam," I murmured sympathetically.
+
+"And that you were the man to bring it out. I was quite hopeful after
+you got him into those new clothes. I don't believe any one else could
+have done it. And now it turns out that you have this weakness for
+drink. Not only that, but you have a mania for insisting that other
+men drink with you. Think of those two poor fellows trailing you over
+Paris yesterday trying to save you from yourself."
+
+"I shall never forget it, Madam," I said.
+
+"Of course I don't believe that Jeff Tuttle always has to have it
+forced on him. Jeff Tuttle is an Indian. But Cousin Egbert is
+different. You tore him away from that art gallery where he was
+improving his mind, and led him into places that must have been
+disgusting to him. All he wanted was to study the world's masterpieces
+in canvas and marble, yet you put a cabman's hat on him and made him
+ride an antelope, or whatever the thing was. I can't think where you
+got such ideas."
+
+"I was not myself. I can only say that I seemed to be subject to an
+attack." And the Tuttle person was one of their Indians! This
+explained so much about him.
+
+"You don't look like a periodical souse," she remarked.
+
+"Quite so, Madam."
+
+"But you must be a wonder when you do start. The point is: am I doing
+right to intrust Cousin Egbert to you again?"
+
+"Quite so, Madam."
+
+"It seems doubtful if you are the person to develop his higher
+nature."
+
+Against my better judgment I here felt obliged to protest that I had
+always been given the highest character for quietness and general
+behaviour and that I could safely promise that I should be guilty of
+no further lapses of this kind. Frankly, I was wishing to be shopped,
+and yet I could not resist making this mild defence of myself. Such I
+have found to be the way of human nature. To my surprise I found that
+Mrs. Effie was more than half persuaded by these words and was on the
+point of giving me another trial. I cannot say that I was delighted at
+this. I was ready to give up all Americans as problems one too many
+for me, and yet I was strangely a little warmed at thinking I might
+not have seen the last of Cousin Egbert, whom I had just given a
+tuckup.
+
+"You shall have your chance," she said at last, "and just to show you
+that I'm not narrow, you can go over to the sideboard there and pour
+yourself out a little one. It ought to be a lifesaver to you, feeling
+the way you must this morning."
+
+"Thank you, Madam," and I did as she suggested. I was feeling
+especially fit, but I knew that I ought to play in character, as one
+might say.
+
+"Three rousing cheers!" I said, having gathered the previous day that
+this was a popular American toast. She stared at me rather oddly, but
+made no comment other than to announce her departure on a shopping
+tour. Her bonnet, I noted, was quite wrong. Too extremely modish it
+was, accenting its own lines at the expense of a face to which less
+attention should have been called. This is a mistake common to the
+sex, however. They little dream how sadly they mock and betray their
+own faces. Nothing I think is more pathetic than their trustful
+unconsciousness of the tragedy--the rather plainish face under the
+contemptuous structure that points to it and shrieks derision. The
+rather plain woman who knows what to put upon her head is a woman of
+genius. I have seen three, perhaps.
+
+I now went to the room of Cousin Egbert. I found him awake and
+cheerful, but disinclined to arise. It was hard for me to realize that
+his simple, kindly face could mask the guile he had displayed the
+night before. He showed no sign of regret for the false light in which
+he had placed me. Indeed he was sitting up in bed as cheerful and
+independent as if he had paid two-pence for a park chair.
+
+"I fancy," he began, "that we ought to spend a peaceful day indoors.
+The trouble with these foreign parts is that they don't have enough
+home life. If it isn't one thing it's another."
+
+"Sometimes it's both, sir," I said, and he saw at once that I was not
+to be wheedled. Thereupon he grinned brazenly at me, and demanded:
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"Well, sir," I said, "she was highly indignant at me for taking you
+and Mr. Tuttle into public houses and forcing you to drink liquor, but
+she was good enough, after I had expressed my great regret and
+promised to do better in the future, to promise that I should have
+another chance. It was more than I could have hoped, sir, after the
+outrageous manner in which I behaved."
+
+He grinned again at this, and in spite of my resentment I found myself
+grinning with him. I am aware that this was a most undignified
+submission to the injustice he had put upon me, and it was far from
+the line of stern rebuke that I had fully meant to adopt with him, but
+there seemed no other way. I mean to say, I couldn't help it.
+
+"I'm glad to hear you talk that way," he said. "It shows you may have
+something in you after all. What you want to do is to learn to say no.
+Then you won't be so much trouble to those who have to look after
+you."
+
+"Yes, sir," I said, "I shall try, sir."
+
+"Then I'll give you another chance," he said sternly.
+
+I mean to say, it was all spoofing, the way we talked. I am certain he
+knew it as well as I did, and I am sure we both enjoyed it. I am not
+one of those who think it shows a lack of dignity to unbend in this
+manner on occasion. True, it is not with every one I could afford to
+do so, but Cousin Egbert seemed to be an exception to almost every
+rule of conduct.
+
+At his earnest request I now procured for him another carafe of iced
+water (he seemed already to have consumed two of these), after which
+he suggested that I read to him. The book he had was the well-known
+story, "Robinson Crusoe," and I began a chapter which describes some
+of the hero's adventures on his lonely island.
+
+Cousin Egbert, I was glad to note, was soon sleeping soundly, so I
+left him and retired to my own room for a bit of needed rest. The
+story of "Robinson Crusoe" is one in which many interesting facts are
+conveyed regarding life upon remote islands where there are
+practically no modern conveniences and one is put to all sorts of
+crude makeshifts, but for me the narrative contains too little
+dialogue.
+
+For the remainder of the day I was left to myself, a period of peace
+that I found most welcome. Not until evening did I meet any of the
+family except Cousin Egbert, who partook of some light nourishment
+late in the afternoon. Then it was that Mrs. Effie summoned me when
+she had dressed for dinner, to say:
+
+"We are sailing for home the day after to-morrow. See that Cousin
+Egbert has everything he needs."
+
+The following day was a busy one, for there were many boxes to be
+packed against the morrow's sailing, and much shopping to do for
+Cousin Egbert, although he was much against this.
+
+"It's all nonsense," he insisted, "her saying all that truck helps to
+'finish' me. Look at me! I've been in Europe darned near four months
+and I can't see that I'm a lick more finished than when I left Red
+Gap. Of course it may show on me so other people can see it, but I
+don't believe it does, at that." Nevertheless, I bought him no end of
+suits and smart haberdashery.
+
+When the last box had been strapped I hastened to our old lodgings on
+the chance of seeing the Honourable George once more. I found him
+dejectedly studying an ancient copy of the "Referee." Too evidently he
+had dined that night in a costume which would, I am sure, have
+offended even Cousin Egbert. Above his dress trousers he wore a
+golfing waistcoat and a shooting jacket. However, I could not allow
+myself to be distressed by this. Indeed, I knew that worse would come.
+I forebore to comment upon the extraordinary choice of garments he had
+made. I knew it was quite useless. From any word that he let fall
+during our chat, he might have supposed himself to be dressed as an
+English gentleman should be.
+
+He bade me seat myself, and for some time we smoked our pipes in a
+friendly silence. I had feared that, as on the last occasion, he would
+row me for having deserted him, but he no longer seemed to harbour
+this unjust thought. We spoke of America, and I suggested that he
+might some time come out to shoot big game along the Ohio or the
+Mississippi. He replied moodily, after a long interval, that if he
+ever did come out it would be to set up a cattle plantation. It was
+rather agreed that he would come should I send for him. "Can't sit
+around forever waiting for old Nevil's toast crumbs," said he.
+
+We chatted for a time of home politics, which was, of course, in a
+wretched state. There was a time when we might both have been won to a
+sane and reasoned liberalism, but the present so-called government was
+coming it a bit too thick for us. We said some sharp things about the
+little Welsh attorney who was beginning to be England's humiliation.
+Then it was time for me to go.
+
+The moment was rather awkward, for the Honourable George, to my great
+embarrassment, pressed upon me his dispatch-case, one that we had
+carried during all our travels and into which tidily fitted a quart
+flask. Brandy we usually carried in it. I managed to accept it with a
+word of thanks, and then amazingly he shook hands twice with me as we
+said good-night. I had never dreamed he could be so greatly affected.
+Indeed, I had always supposed that there was nothing of the
+sentimentalist about him.
+
+So the Honourable George and I were definitely apart for the first
+time in our lives.
+
+It was with mingled emotions that I set sail next day for the foreign
+land to which I had been exiled by a turn of the cards. Not only was I
+off to a wilderness where a life of daily adventure was the normal
+life, but I was to mingle with foreigners who promised to be quite
+almost impossibly queer, if the family of Flouds could be taken as a
+sample of the native American--knowing Indians like the Tuttle person;
+that sort of thing. If some would be less queer, others would be even
+more queer, with queerness of a sort to tax even my _savoir
+faire_, something which had been sorely taxed, I need hardly say,
+since that fatal evening when the Honourable George's intuitions had
+played him false in the game of drawing poker. I was not the first of
+my countrymen, however, to find himself in desperate straits, and I
+resolved to behave as England expects us to.
+
+I have said that I was viewing the prospect with mingled emotions.
+Before we had been out many hours they became so mingled that, having
+crossed the Channel many times, I could no longer pretend to ignore
+their true nature. For three days I was at the mercy of the elements,
+and it was then I discovered a certain hardness in the nature of
+Cousin Egbert which I had not before suspected. It was only by
+speaking in the sharpest manner to him that I was able to secure the
+nursing my condition demanded. I made no doubt he would actually have
+left me to the care of a steward had I not been firm with him. I have
+known him leave my bedside for an hour at a time when it seemed
+probable that I would pass away at any moment. And more than once,
+when I summoned him in the night to administer one of the remedies
+with which I had provided myself, or perhaps to question him if the
+ship were out of danger, he exhibited something very like irritation.
+Indeed he was never properly impressed by my suffering, and at times
+when he would answer my call it was plain to be seen that he had been
+passing idle moments in the smoke-room or elsewhere, quite as if the
+situation were an ordinary one.
+
+It is only fair to say, however, that toward the end of my long and
+interesting illness I had quite broken his spirit and brought him to
+be as attentive as even I could wish. By the time I was able with his
+assistance to go upon deck again he was bringing me nutritive wines
+and jellies without being told, and so attentive did he remain that
+I overheard a fellow-passenger address him as Florence Nightingale.
+I also overheard the Senator tell him that I had got his sheep,
+whatever that may have meant--a sheep or a goat--some domestic animal.
+Yet with all his willingness he was clumsy in his handling of me; he
+seemed to take nothing with any proper seriousness, and in spite of my
+sharpest warning he would never wear the proper clothes, so that I
+always felt he was attracting undue attention to us. Indeed, I should
+hardly care to cross with him again, and this I told him straight.
+
+Of the so-called joys of ship-life, concerning which the boat
+companies speak so enthusiastically in their folders, the less said
+the better. It is a childish mind, I think, that can be impressed by
+the mere wabbly bulk of water. It is undoubtedly tremendous, but
+nothing to kick up such a row about. The truth is that the prospect
+from a ship's deck lacks that variety which one may enjoy from almost
+any English hillside. One sees merely water, and that's all about it.
+
+It will be understood, therefore, that I hailed our approach to the
+shores of foreign America with relief if not with enthusiasm. Even
+this was better than an ocean which has only size in its favour and
+has been quite too foolishly overrated.
+
+We were soon steaming into the harbour of one of their large cities.
+Chicago, I had fancied it to be, until the chance remark of an
+American who looked to be a well-informed fellow identified it as New
+York. I was much annoyed now at the behaviour of Cousin Egbert, who
+burst into silly cheers at the slightest excuse, a passing steamer, a
+green hill, or a rusty statue of quite ungainly height which seemed to
+be made of crude iron. Do as I would, I could not restrain him from
+these unseemly shouts. I could not help contrasting his boisterousness
+with the fine reserve which, for example, the Honourable George would
+have maintained under these circumstances.
+
+A further relief it was, therefore, when we were on the dock and his
+mind was diverted to other matters. A long time we were detained by
+customs officials who seemed rather overwhelmed by the gowns and
+millinery of Mrs. Effie, but we were at last free and taken through
+the streets of the crude new American city of New York to a hotel
+overlooking what I dare say in their simplicity they call their Hyde
+Park.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+
+I must admit that at this inn they did things quite nicely, doubtless
+because it seemed to be almost entirely staffed by foreigners. One
+would scarce have known within its walls that one had come out to
+North America, nor that savage wilderness surrounded one on every
+hand. Indeed I was surprised to learn that we were quite at the edge
+of the rough Western frontier, for in but one night's journey we were
+to reach the American mountains to visit some people who inhabited a
+camp in their dense wilds.
+
+A bit of romantic thrill I felt in this adventure, for we should
+encounter, I inferred, people of the hardy pioneer stock that has
+pushed the American civilization, such as it is, ever westward. I
+pictured the stalwart woodsman, axe in hand, braving the forest to
+fell trees for his rustic home, while at night the red savages prowled
+about to scalp any who might stray from the blazing campfire. On the
+day of our landing I had read something of this--of depredations
+committed by their Indians at Arizona.
+
+From what would, I take it, be their Victoria station, we three began
+our journey in one of the Pullman night coaches, the Senator of this
+family having proceeded to their home settlement of Red Gap with word
+that he must "look after his fences," referring, doubtless, to those
+about his cattle plantation.
+
+As our train moved out Mrs. Effie summoned me for a serious talk
+concerning the significance of our present visit; not of the
+wilderness dangers to which we might be exposed, but of its social
+aspects, which seemed to be of prime importance. We were to visit, I
+learned, one Charles Belknap-Jackson of Boston and Red Gap, he being a
+person who mattered enormously, coming from one of the very oldest
+families of Boston, a port on their east coast, and a place, I
+gathered, in which some decent attention is given to the matter of who
+has been one's family. A bit of a shock it was to learn that in this
+rough land they had their castes and precedences. I saw I had been
+right to suspect that even a crude society could not exist without its
+rules for separating one's superiors from the lower sorts. I began to
+feel at once more at home and I attended the discourse of Mrs. Effie
+with close attention.
+
+The Boston person, in one of those irresponsibly romantic moments that
+sometimes trap the best of us, had married far beneath him, espousing
+the simple daughter of one of the crude, old-settling families of Red
+Gap. Further, so inattentive to details had he been, he had neglected
+to secure an ante-nuptial settlement as our own men so wisely make it
+their rule to do, and was now suffering a painful embarrassment from
+this folly; for the mother-in-law, controlling the rather sizable
+family fortune, had harshly insisted that the pair reside in Red Gap,
+permitting no more than an occasional summer visit to his native
+Boston, whose inhabitants she affected not to admire.
+
+"Of course the poor fellow suffers frightfully," explained Mrs. Effie,
+"shut off there away from all he'd been brought up to, but good has
+come of it, for his presence has simply done wonders for us. Before he
+came our social life was too awful for words--oh, a _mixture_!
+Practically every one in town attended our dances; no one had ever
+told us any better. The Bohemian set mingled freely with the very
+oldest families--oh, in a way that would never be tolerated in London
+society, I'm sure. And everything so crude! Why, I can remember when
+no one thought of putting doilies under the finger-bowls. No tone to
+it at all. For years we had no country club, if you can believe that.
+And even now, in spite of the efforts of Charles and a few of us,
+there are still some of the older families that are simply sloppy in
+their entertaining. And promiscuous. The trouble I've had with the
+Senator and Cousin Egbert!"
+
+"The Flouds are an old family?" I suggested, wishing to understand
+these matters deeply.
+
+"The Flouds," she answered impressively, "were living in Red Gap
+before the spur track was ever run out to the canning factory--and I
+guess you know what that means!"
+
+"Quite so, Madam," I suggested; and, indeed, though it puzzled me a
+bit, it sounded rather tremendous, as meaning with us something like
+since the battle of Hastings.
+
+"But, as I say, Charles at once gave us a glimpse of the better
+things. Thanks to him, the Bohemian set and the North Side set are now
+fairly distinct. The scraps we've had with that Bohemian set! He has a
+real genius for leadership, Charles has, but I know he often finds it
+so discouraging, getting people to know their places. Even his own
+mother-in-law, Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill--but you'll see to-morrow
+how impossible she is, poor old soul! I shouldn't talk about her, I
+really shouldn't. Awfully good heart the poor old dear has, but--well,
+I don't see why I shouldn't tell you the exact truth in plain
+words--you'd find it out soon enough. She is simply a confirmed
+_mixer_. The trial she's been and is to poor Charles! Almost no
+respect for any of the higher things he stands for--and temper? Well,
+I've heard her swear at him till you'd have thought it was Jeff Tuttle
+packing a green cayuse for the first time. Words? Talk about words!
+And Cousin Egbert always standing in with her. He's been another awful
+trial, refusing to play tennis at the country club, or to take up
+golf, or do any of those smart things, though I got him a beautiful
+lot of sticks. But no: when he isn't out in the hills, he'd rather sit
+down in that back room at the Silver Dollar saloon, playing cribbage
+all day with a lot of drunken loafers. But I'm so hoping that will be
+changed, now that I've made him see there are better things in life.
+Don't you really think he's another man?"
+
+"To an extent, Madam, I dare say," I replied cautiously.
+
+"It's chiefly what I got you for," she went on. "And then, in a
+general way you will give tone to our establishment. The moment I saw
+you I knew you could be an influence for good among us. No one there
+has ever had anything like you. Not even Charles. He's tried to have
+American valets, but you never can get them to understand their place.
+Charles finds them so offensively familiar. They don't seem to
+realize. But of course you realize."
+
+I inclined my head in sympathetic understanding.
+
+"I'm looking forward to Charles meeting you. I guess he'll be a little
+put out at our having you, but there's no harm letting him see I'm to
+be reckoned with. Naturally his wife, Millie, is more or less
+mentioned as a social leader, but I never could see that she is really
+any more prominent than I am. In fact, last year after our Bazaar of
+All Nations our pictures in costume were in the Spokane paper as 'Red
+Gap's Rival Society Queens,' and I suppose that's what we are, though
+we work together pretty well as a rule. Still, I must say, having you
+puts me a couple of notches ahead of her. Only, for heaven's sake,
+keep your eye on Cousin Egbert!"
+
+"I shall do my duty, Madam," I returned, thinking it all rather
+morbidly interesting, these weird details about their county families.
+
+"I'm sure you will," she said at parting. "I feel that we shall do
+things right this year. Last year the Sunday Spokane paper used to
+have nearly a column under the heading 'Social Doings of Red Gap's
+Smart Set.' This year we'll have a good two columns, if I don't miss
+my guess."
+
+In the smoking-compartment I found Cousin Egbert staring gloomily into
+vacancy, as one might say, the reason I knew being that he had vainly
+pleaded with Mrs. Effie to be allowed to spend this time at their
+Coney Island, which is a sort of Brighton. He transferred his stare to
+me, but it lost none of its gloom.
+
+"Hell begins to pop!" said he.
+
+"Referring to what, sir?" I rejoined with some severity, for I have
+never held with profanity.
+
+"Referring to Charles Belknap Hyphen Jackson of Boston, Mass.," said
+he, "the greatest little trouble-maker that ever crossed the
+hills--with a bracelet on one wrist and a watch on the other and a
+one-shot eyeglass and a gold cigareet case and key chains, rings,
+bangles, and jewellery till he'd sink like lead if he ever fell into
+the crick with all that metal on."
+
+"You are speaking, sir, about a person who matters enormously," I
+rebuked him.
+
+"If I hadn't been afraid of getting arrested I'd have shot him long
+ago."
+
+"It's not done, sir," I said, quite horrified by his rash words.
+
+"It's liable to be," he insisted. "I bet Ma Pettengill will go in with
+me on it any time I give her the word. Say, listen! there's one good
+mixer."
+
+"The confirmed Mixer, sir?" For I remembered the term.
+
+"The best ever. Any one can set into her game that's got a stack of
+chips." He uttered this with deep feeling, whatever it might exactly
+mean.
+
+"I can be pushed just so far," he insisted sullenly. It struck me then
+that he should perhaps have been kept longer in one of the European
+capitals. I feared his brief contact with those refining influences
+had left him less polished than Mrs. Effie seemed to hope. I wondered
+uneasily if he might not cause her to miss her guess. Yet I saw he was
+in no mood to be reasoned with, and I retired to my bed which the
+blackamoor guard had done out. Here I meditated profoundly for some
+time before I slept.
+
+Morning found our coach shunted to a siding at a backwoods settlement
+on the borders of an inland sea. The scene was wild beyond
+description, where quite almost anything might be expected to happen,
+though I was a bit reassured by the presence of a number of persons of
+both sexes who appeared to make little of the dangers by which we were
+surrounded. I mean to say since they thus took their women into the
+wilds so freely, I would still be a dead sportsman.
+
+After a brief wait at a rude quay we embarked on a launch and steamed
+out over the water. Mile after mile we passed wooded shores that
+sloped up to mountains of prodigious height. Indeed the description of
+the Rocky Mountains, of which I take these to be a part, have not been
+overdrawn. From time to time, at the edge of the primeval forest, I
+could make out the rude shelters of hunter and trapper who braved
+these perils for the sake of a scanty livelihood for their hardy wives
+and little ones.
+
+Cousin Egbert, beside me, seemed unimpressed, making no outcry at the
+fearsome wildness of the scene, and when I spoke of the terrific
+height of the mountains he merely admonished me to "quit my kidding."
+The sole interest he had thus far displayed was in the title of our
+craft--_Storm King_.
+
+"Think of the guy's imagination, naming this here chafing dish the
+_Storm King_!" said he; but I was impatient of levity at so
+solemn a moment, and promptly rebuked him for having donned a cravat
+that I had warned him was for town wear alone; whereat he subsided and
+did not again intrude upon me.
+
+Far ahead, at length, I could descry an open glade at the forest edge,
+and above this I soon spied floating the North American flag, or
+national emblem. It is, of course, known to us that the natives are
+given to making rather a silly noise over this flag of theirs, but in
+this instance--the pioneer fighting his way into the wilderness and
+hoisting it above his frontier home--I felt strangely indisposed to
+criticise. I understood that he could be greatly cheered by the flag
+of the country he had left behind.
+
+We now neared a small dock from which two ladies brandished
+handkerchiefs at us, and were presently welcomed by them. I had no
+difficulty in identifying the Mrs. Charles Belknap-Jackson, a lively
+featured brunette of neutral tints, rather stubby as to figure, but
+modishly done out in white flannels. She surveyed us interestedly
+through a lorgnon, observing which Mrs. Effie was quick with her own.
+I surmised that neither of them was skilled with this form of glass
+(which must really be raised with an air or it's no good); also that
+each was not a little chagrined to note that the other possessed one.
+
+Nor was it less evident that the other lady was the mother of Mrs.
+Belknap-Jackson; I mean to say, the confirmed Mixer--an elderly person
+of immense bulk in gray walking-skirt, heavy boots, and a flowered
+blouse that was overwhelming. Her face, under her grayish thatch of
+hair, was broad and smiling, the eyes keen, the mouth wide, and the
+nose rather a bit blobby. Although at every point she was far from
+vogue, she impressed me not unpleasantly. Even her voice, a
+magnificently hoarse rumble, was primed with a sort of uncouth
+good-will which one might accept in the States. Of course it would
+never do with us.
+
+I fancied I could at once detect why they had called her the "Mixer."
+She embraced Mrs. Effie with an air of being about to strangle the
+woman; she affectionately wrung the hands of Cousin Egbert, and had
+grasped my own tightly before I could evade her, not having looked for
+that sort of thing.
+
+"That's Cousin Egbert's man!" called Mrs. Effie. But even then the
+powerful creature would not release me until her daughter had called
+sharply, "Maw! Don't you hear? He's a _man_!" Nevertheless she
+gave my hand a parting shake before turning to the others.
+
+"Glad to see a human face at last!" she boomed. "Here I've been a
+month in this dinky hole," which I thought strange, since we were
+surrounded by league upon league of the primal wilderness. "Cooped up
+like a hen in a barrel," she added in tones that must have carried
+well out over the lake.
+
+"Cousin Egbert's man," repeated Mrs. Effie, a little ostentatiously, I
+thought. "Poor Egbert's so dependent on him--quite helpless without
+him."
+
+Cousin Egbert muttered sullenly to himself as he assisted me with the
+bags. Then he straightened himself to address them.
+
+"Won him in a game of freeze-out," he remarked quite viciously.
+
+"Does he doll Sour-dough up like that all the time?" demanded the
+Mixer, "or has he just come from a masquerade? What's he represent,
+anyway?" And these words when I had taken especial pains and resorted
+to all manner of threats to turn him smartly out in the walking-suit
+of a pioneer!
+
+"Maw!" cried our hostess, "do try to forget that dreadful nickname of
+Egbert's."
+
+"I sure will if he keeps his disguise on," she rumbled back. "The old
+horned toad is most as funny as Jackson."
+
+Really, I mean to say, they talked most amazingly. I was but too glad
+when they moved on and we could follow with the bags.
+
+"Calls her 'Maw' all right now," hissed Cousin Egbert in my ear, "but
+when that begoshed husband of hers is around the house she calls her
+'Mater.'"
+
+His tone was vastly bitter. He continued to mutter sullenly to
+himself--a way he had--until we had disposed of the luggage and I was
+laying out his afternoon and evening wear in one of the small detached
+houses to which we had been assigned. Nor did he sink his grievance on
+the arrival of the Mixer a few moments later. He now addressed her as
+"Ma" and asked if she had "the makings," which puzzled me until she
+drew from the pocket of her skirt a small cloth sack of tobacco and
+some bits of brown paper, from which they both fashioned cigarettes.
+
+"The smart set of Red Gap is holding its first annual meeting for the
+election of officers back there," she began after she had emitted twin
+jets of smoke from the widely separated corners of her set mouth.
+
+"I say, you know, where's Hyphen old top?" demanded Cousin Egbert in a
+quite vile imitation of one speaking in the correct manner.
+
+"Fishing," answered the Mixer with a grin. "In a thousand dollars'
+worth of clothes. These here Eastern trout won't notice you unless you
+dress right." I thought this strange indeed, but Cousin Egbert merely
+grinned in his turn.
+
+"How'd he get you into this awfully horrid rough place?" he next
+demanded.
+
+"Made him. 'This or Red Gap for yours,' I says. The two weeks in New
+York wasn't so bad, what with Millie and me getting new clothes,
+though him and her both jumped on me that I'm getting too gay about
+clothes for a party of my age. 'What's age to me,' I says, 'when I
+like bright colours?' Then we tried his home-folks in Boston, but I
+played that string out in a week.
+
+"Two old-maid sisters, thin noses and knitted shawls! Stick around in
+the back parlour talking about families--whether it was Aunt Lucy's
+Abigail or the Concord cousin's Hester that married an Adams in '78
+and moved out west to Buffalo. I thought first I could liven them up
+some, _you_ know. Looked like it would help a lot for them to get
+out in a hack and get a few shots of hooch under their belts, stop at
+a few roadhouses, take in a good variety show; get 'em to feeling
+good, understand? No use. Wouldn't start. Darn it! they held off from
+me. Don't know why. I sure wore clothes for them. Yes, sir. I'd get
+dressed up like a broken arm every afternoon; and, say, I got one
+sheath skirt, black and white striped, that just has to be looked at.
+Never phased them, though.
+
+"I got to thinking mebbe it was because I made my own smokes instead
+of using those vegetable cigarettes of Jackson's, or maybe because I'd
+get parched and demand a slug of booze before supper. Like a Sunday
+afternoon all the time, when you eat a big dinner and everybody's
+sleepy and mad because they can't take a nap, and have to set around
+and play a few church tunes on the organ or look through the album
+again."
+
+"Ain't that right? Don't it fade you?" murmured Cousin Egbert with
+deep feeling.
+
+"And little Lysander, my only grandson, poor kid, getting the fidgets
+because they try to make him talk different, and raise hell every time
+he knocks over a vase or busts a window. Say, would you believe it?
+they wanted to keep him there--yes, sir--make him refined. Not for me!
+'His father's about all he can survive in those respects,' I says.
+What do you think? Wanted to let his hair grow so he'd have curls.
+Some dames, yes? I bet they'd have give the kid lovely days. 'Boston
+may be all O.K. for grandfathers,' I says; 'not for grandsons,
+though.'
+
+"Then Jackson was set on Bar Harbor, and I had to be firm again. Darn
+it! that man is always making me be firm. So here we are. He said it
+was a camp, and that sounded good. But my lands! he wears his full
+evening dress suit for supper every night, and you had ought to heard
+him go on one day when the patent ice-machine went bad."
+
+"My good gosh!" said Cousin Egbert quite simply.
+
+I had now finished laying out his things and was about to withdraw.
+
+"Is he always like that?" suddenly demanded the Mixer, pointing at me.
+
+"Oh, Bill's all right when you get him out with a crowd," explained
+the other. "Bill's really got the makings of one fine little mixer."
+
+They both regarded me genially. It was vastly puzzling. I mean to say,
+I was at a loss how to take it, for, of course, that sort of thing
+would never do with us. And yet I felt a queer, confused sort of
+pleasure in the talk. Absurd though it may seem, I felt there might
+come moments in which America would appear almost not impossible.
+
+As I went out Cousin Egbert was telling her of Paris. I lingered to
+hear him disclose that all Frenchmen have "M" for their first
+initial, and that the Louer family must be one of their wealthiest,
+the name "A. Louer" being conspicuous on millions of dollars' worth of
+their real estate. This family, he said, must be like the Rothschilds.
+Of course the poor soul was absurdly wrong. I mean to say, the letter
+"M" merely indicates "Monsieur," which is their foreign way of
+spelling Mister, while "A Louer" signifies "to let." I resolved to
+explain this to him at the first opportunity, not thinking it right
+that he should spread such gross error among a race still but
+half-enlightened.
+
+Having now a bit of time to myself, I observed the construction of
+this rude homestead, a dozen or more detached or semi-detached
+structures of the native log, yet with the interiors more smartly done
+out than I had supposed was common even with the most prosperous of
+their scouts and trappers. I suspected a false idea of this rude life
+had been given by the cinema dramas. I mean to say, with pianos,
+ice-machines, telephones, objects of art, and servants, one saw that
+these woodsmen were not primitive in any true sense of the word.
+
+The butler proved to be a genuine blackamoor, a Mr. Waterman, he
+informed me, his wife, also a black, being the cook. An elderly
+creature of the utmost gravity of bearing, he brought to his
+professional duties a finish, a dignity, a manner in short that I have
+scarce known excelled among our own serving people. And a creature he
+was of the most eventful past, as he informed me at our first
+encounter. As a slave he had commanded an immensely high price, some
+twenty thousand dollars, as the American money is called, and two
+prominent slaveholders had once fought a duel to the death over his
+possession. Not many, he assured me, had been so eagerly sought after,
+they being for the most part held cheaper--"common black trash," he
+put it.
+
+Early tiring of the life of slavery, he had fled to the wilds and for
+some years led a desperate band of outlaws whose crimes soon put a
+price upon his head. He spoke frankly and with considerable regret of
+these lawless years. At the outbreak of the American war, however,
+with a reward of fifty thousand dollars offered for his body, he had
+boldly surrendered to their Secretary of State for War, receiving a
+full pardon for his crimes on condition that he assist in directing
+the military operations against the slaveholding aristocracy.
+Invaluable he had been in this service, I gathered, two generals,
+named respectively Grant and Sherman, having repeatedly assured him
+that but for his aid they would more than once in sheer despair have
+laid down their swords.
+
+I could readily imagine that after these years of strife he had been
+glad to embrace the peaceful calling in which I found him engaged. He
+was, as I have intimated, a person of lofty demeanour, with a vein of
+high seriousness. Yet he would unbend at moments as frankly as a child
+and play at a simple game of chance with a pair of dice. This he was
+good enough to teach to myself and gained from me quite a number of
+shillings that I chanced to have. For his consort, a person of
+tremendous bulk named Clarice, he showed a most chivalric
+consideration, and even what I might have mistaken for timidity in one
+not a confessed desperado. In truth, he rather flinched when she
+interrupted our chat from the kitchen doorway by roundly calling him
+"an old black liar." I saw that his must indeed be a complex nature.
+
+From this encounter I chanced upon two lads who seemed to present the
+marks of the backwoods life as I had conceived it. Strolling up a
+woodland path, I discovered a tent pitched among the trees, before it
+a smouldering campfire, over which a cooking-pot hung. The two lads,
+of ten years or so, rushed from the tent to regard me, both attired in
+shirts and leggings of deerskin profusely fringed after the manner in
+which the red Indians decorate their outing or lounge-suits. They were
+armed with sheath knives and revolvers, and the taller bore a rifle.
+
+"Howdy, stranger?" exclaimed this one, and the other repeated the
+simple American phrase of greeting. Responding in kind, I was bade to
+seat myself on a fallen log, which I did. For some moments they
+appeared to ignore me, excitedly discussing an adventure of the night
+before, and addressing each other as Dead Shot and Hawk Eye. From
+their quaint backwoods speech I gathered that Dead Shot, the taller
+lad, had the day before been captured by a band of hostile redskins
+who would have burned him at the stake but for the happy chance that
+the chieftain's daughter had become enamoured of him and cut his
+bonds.
+
+They now planned to return to the encampment at nightfall to fetch
+away the daughter, whose name was White Fawn, and cleaned and oiled
+their weapons for the enterprise. Dead Shot was vindictive in the
+extreme, swearing to engage the chieftain in mortal combat and to cut
+his heart out, the same chieftain in former years having led his
+savage band against the forest home of Dead Shot while he was yet too
+young to defend it, and scalped both of his parents. "I was a mere
+stripling then, but now the coward will feel my steel!" he coldly
+declared.
+
+It had become absurdly evident as I listened that the whole thing was
+but spoofing of a silly sort that lads of this age will indulge in,
+for I had seen the younger one take his seat at the luncheon table.
+But now they spoke of a raid on the settlement to procure "grub," as
+the American slang for food has it. Bidding me stop on there and to
+utter the cry of the great horned owl if danger threatened, they
+stealthily crept toward the buildings of the camp. Presently came a
+scream, followed by a hoarse shout of rage. A second later the two
+dashed by me into the dense woods, Hawk Eye bearing a plucked fowl.
+Soon Mr. Waterman panted up the path brandishing a barge pole and
+demanding to know the whereabouts of the marauders. As he had
+apparently for the moment reverted to his primal African savagery, I
+deliberately misled him by indicating a false direction, upon which he
+went off, muttering the most frightful threats.
+
+The two culprits returned, put their fowl in the pot to boil, and
+swore me eternal fidelity for having saved them. They declared I
+should thereafter be known as Keen Knife, and that, needing a service,
+I might call upon them freely.
+
+"Dead Shot never forgets a friend," affirmed the taller lad, whereupon
+I formally shook hands with the pair and left them to their childish
+devices. They were plotting as I left to capture "that nigger," as
+they called him, and put him to death by slow torture.
+
+But I was now shrewd enough to suspect that I might still be far from
+the western frontier of America. The evidence had been cumulative but
+was no longer questionable. I mean to say, one might do here somewhat
+after the way of our own people at a country house in the shires. I
+resolved at the first opportunity to have a look at a good map of our
+late colonies.
+
+Late in the afternoon our party gathered upon the small dock and I
+understood that our host now returned from his trouting. Along the
+shore of the lake he came, propelled in a native canoe by a hairy
+backwoods person quite wretchedly gotten up, even for a wilderness.
+Our host himself, I was quick to observe, was vogue to the last
+detail, with a sense of dress and equipment that can never be
+acquired, having to be born in one. As he stepped from his frail craft
+I saw that he was rather slight of stature, dark, with slender
+moustaches, a finely sensitive nose, and eyes of an almost austere
+repose. That he had much of the real manner was at once apparent. He
+greeted the Flouds and his own family with just that faint touch of
+easy superiority which would stamp him to the trained eye as one that
+really mattered. Mrs. Effie beckoned me to the group.
+
+"Let Ruggles take your things--Cousin Egbert's man," she was saying.
+After a startled glance at Cousin Egbert, our host turned to regard me
+with flattering interest for a moment, then transferred to me his
+oddments of fishing machinery: his rod, his creel, his luncheon
+hamper, landing net, small scales, ointment for warding off midges, a
+jar of cold cream, a case containing smoked glasses, a rolled map, a
+camera, a book of flies. As I was stowing these he explained that his
+sport had been wretched; no fish had been hooked because his guide had
+not known where to find them. I here glanced at the backwoods person
+referred to and at once did not like the look in his eyes. He winked
+swiftly at Cousin Egbert, who coughed rather formally.
+
+"Let Ruggles help you to change," continued Mrs. Effie. "He's awfully
+handy. Poor Cousin Egbert is perfectly helpless now without him."
+
+So I followed our host to his own detached hut, though feeling a bit
+queer at being passed about in this manner, I mean to say, as if I
+were a basket of fruit. Yet I found it a grateful change to be serving
+one who knew our respective places and what I should do for him. His
+manner of speech, also, was less barbarous than that of the others,
+suggesting that he might have lived among our own people a fortnight
+or so and have tried earnestly to correct his deficiencies. In fact he
+remarked to me after a bit: "I fancy I talk rather like one of
+yourselves, what?" and was pleased as Punch when I assured him that I
+had observed this. He questioned me at length regarding my association
+with the Honourable George, and the houses at which we would have
+stayed, being immensely particular about names and titles.
+
+"You'll find us vastly different here," he said with a sigh, as I held
+his coat for him. "Crude, I may say. In truth, Red Gap, where my
+interests largely confine me, is a town of impossible persons. You'll
+see in no time what I mean."
+
+"I can already imagine it, sir," I said sympathetically.
+
+"It's not for want of example," he added. "Scores of times I show them
+better ways, but they're eaten up with commercialism--money-grubbing."
+
+I perceived him to be a person of profound and interesting views, and
+it was with regret I left him to bully Cousin Egbert into evening
+dress. It is undoubtedly true that he will never wear this except it
+have the look of having been forced upon him by several persons of
+superior physical strength.
+
+The evening passed in a refined manner with cards and music, the
+latter being emitted from a phonograph which I was asked to attend to
+and upon which I reproduced many of their quaint North American
+folksongs, such as "Everybody Is Doing It," which has a rare native
+rhythm. At ten o'clock, it being noticed by the three playing dummy
+bridge that Cousin Egbert and the Mixer were absent, I accompanied our
+host in search of them. In Cousin Egbert's hut we found them, seated
+at a bare table, playing at cards--a game called seven-upwards, I
+learned. Cousin Egbert had removed his coat, collar, and cravat, and
+his sleeves were rolled to his elbows like a navvy's. Both smoked the
+brown paper cigarettes.
+
+"You see?" murmured Mr. Belknap-Jackson as we looked in upon them.
+
+"Quite so, sir," I said discreetly.
+
+The Mixer regarded her son-in-law with some annoyance, I thought.
+
+"Run off to bed, Jackson!" she directed. "We're busy. I'm putting a
+nick in Sour-dough's bank roll."
+
+Our host turned away with a contemptuous shrug that I dare say might
+have offended her had she observed it, but she was now speaking to
+Cousin Egbert, who had stared at us brazenly.
+
+"Ring that bell for the coon, Sour-dough. I'll split a bottle of
+Scotch with you."
+
+It queerly occurred to me that she made this monstrous suggestion in a
+spirit of bravado to annoy Mr. Belknap-Jackson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+
+There are times when all Nature seems to smile, yet when to the
+sensitive mind it will be faintly brought that the possibilities are
+quite tremendously otherwise if one will consider them pro and con. I
+mean to say, one often suspects things may happen when it doesn't look
+so.
+
+The succeeding three days passed with so ordered a calm that little
+would any but a profound thinker have fancied tragedy to lurk so near
+their placid surface. Mrs. Effie and Mrs. Belknap-Jackson continued to
+plan the approaching social campaign at Red Gap. Cousin Egbert and the
+Mixer continued their card game for the trifling stake of a shilling a
+game, or "two bits," as it is known in the American monetary system.
+And our host continued his recreation.
+
+Each morning I turned him out in the smartest of fishing costumes and
+each evening I assisted him to change. It is true I was now compelled
+to observe at these times a certain lofty irritability in his
+character, yet I more than half fancied this to be queerly assumed in
+order to inform me that he was not unaccustomed to services such as I
+rendered him. There was that about him. I mean to say, when he sharply
+rebuked me for clumsiness or cried out "Stupid!" it had a perfunctory
+languor, as if meant to show me he could address a servant in what he
+believed to be the grand manner. In this, to be sure, he was so oddly
+wrong that the pathos of it quite drowned what I might otherwise have
+felt of resentment.
+
+But I next observed that he was sharp in the same manner with the
+hairy backwoods person who took him to fish each day, using words to
+him which I, for one, would have employed, had I thought them merited,
+only after the gravest hesitation. I have before remarked that I did
+not like the gleam in this person's eyes: he was very apparently a not
+quite nice person. Also I more than once observed him to wink at
+Cousin Egbert in an evil manner.
+
+As I have so truly said, how close may tragedy be to us when life
+seems most correct! It was Belknap-Jackson's custom to raise a view
+halloo each evening when he returned down the lake, so that we might
+gather at the dock to oversee his landing. I must admit that he
+disembarked with somewhat the manner of a visiting royalty, demanding
+much attention and assistance with his impedimenta. Undoubtedly he
+liked to be looked at. This was what one rather felt. And I can fancy
+that this very human trait of his had in a manner worn upon the
+probably undisciplined nerves of the backwoods josser--had, in fact,
+deprived him of his "goat," as the native people have it.
+
+Be this as it may, we gathered at the dock on the afternoon of the
+third day of our stay to assist at the return. As the native log craft
+neared the dock our host daringly arose to a graceful kneeling posture
+in the bow and saluted us charmingly, the woods person in the stern
+wielding his single oar in gloomy silence. At the moment a most poetic
+image occurred to me--that he was like a dull grim figure of Fate that
+fetches us low at the moment of our highest seeming. I mean to say, it
+was a silly thought, perhaps, yet I afterward recalled it most
+vividly.
+
+Holding his creel aloft our host hailed us:
+
+"Full to-day, thanks to going where I wished and paying no attention
+to silly guides' talk." He beamed upon us in an unquestionably
+superior manner, and again from the moody figure at the stern I
+intercepted the flash of a wink to Cousin Egbert. Then as the frail
+craft had all but touched the dock and our host had half risen, there
+was a sharp dipping of the thing and he was ejected into the chilling
+waters, where he almost instantly sank. There were loud cries of alarm
+from all, including the woodsman himself, who had kept the craft
+upright, and in these Mr. Belknap-Jackson heartily joined the moment
+his head appeared above the surface, calling "Help!" in the quite
+loudest of tones, which was thoughtless enough, as we were close at
+hand and could easily have heard his ordinary speaking voice.
+
+The woods person now stepped to the dock, and firmly grasping the
+collar of the drowning man hauled him out with but little effort, at
+the same time becoming voluble with apologies and sympathy. The
+rescued man, however, was quite off his head with rage and bluntly
+berated the fellow for having tried to assassinate him. Indeed he put
+forth rather a torrent of execration, but to all of this the fellow
+merely repeated his crude protestations of regret and astonishment,
+seeming to be sincerely grieved that his intentions should have been
+doubted.
+
+From his friends about him the unfortunate man was receiving the most
+urgent advice to seek dry garments lest he perish of chill, whereupon
+he turned abruptly to me and cried: "Well, Stupid, don't you see the
+state that fellow has put me in? What are you doing? Have you lost
+your wits?"
+
+Now I had suffered a very proper alarm and solicitude for him, but the
+injustice of this got a bit on me. I mean to say, I suddenly felt a
+bit of temper myself, though to be sure retaining my control.
+
+"Yes, sir; quite so, sir," I replied smoothly. "I'll have you right as
+rain in no time at all, sir," and started to conduct him off the dock.
+But now, having gone a little distance, he began to utter the most
+violent threats against the woods person, declaring, in fact, he would
+pull the fellow's nose. However, I restrained him from rushing back,
+as I subtly felt I was wished to do, and he at length consented again
+to be led toward his hut.
+
+But now the woods person called out: "You're forgetting all your
+pretties!" By which I saw him to mean the fishing impedimenta he had
+placed on the dock. And most unreasonably at this Mr. Belknap-Jackson
+again turned upon me, wishing anew to be told if I had lost my wits
+and directing me to fetch the stuff. Again I was conscious of that
+within me which no gentleman's man should confess to. I mean to say, I
+felt like shaking him. But I hastened back to fetch the rod, the
+creel, the luncheon hamper, the midge ointment, the camera, and other
+articles which the woods fellow handed me.
+
+With these somewhat awkwardly carried, I returned to our still
+turbulent host. More like a volcano he was than a man who has had a
+narrow squeak from drowning, and before we had gone a dozen feet more
+he again turned and declared he would "go back and thrash the
+unspeakable cad within an inch of his life." Their relative sizes
+rendering an attempt of this sort quite too unwise, I was conscious of
+renewed irritation toward him; indeed, the vulgar words, "Oh, stow
+that piffle!" swiftly formed in the back of my mind, but again I
+controlled myself, as the chap was now sneezing violently.
+
+"Best hurry on, sir," I said with exemplary tact. "One might contract
+a severe head-cold from such a wetting," and further endeavoured to
+sooth him while I started ahead to lead him away from the fellow. Then
+there happened that which fulfilled my direst premonitions. Looking
+back from a moment of calm, the psychology of the crisis is of a
+rudimentary simplicity.
+
+Enraged beyond measure at the woods person, Mr. Belknap-Jackson yet
+retained a fine native caution which counselled him to attempt no
+violence upon that offender; but his mental tension was such that it
+could be relieved only by his attacking some one; preferably some one
+forbidden to retaliate. I walked there temptingly but a pace ahead of
+him, after my well-meant word of advice.
+
+I make no defence of my own course. I am aware there can be none. I
+can only plead that I had already been vexed not a little by his
+unjust accusations of stupidity, and dismiss with as few words as
+possible an incident that will ever seem to me quite too indecently
+criminal. Briefly, then, with my well-intended "Best not lower
+yourself, sir," Mr. Belknap-Jackson forgot himself and I forgot
+myself. It will be recalled that I was in front of him, but I turned
+rather quickly. (His belongings I had carried were widely
+disseminated.)
+
+Instantly there were wild outcries from the others, who had started
+toward the main, or living house.
+
+"He's killed Charles!" I heard Mrs. Belknap-Jackson scream; then came
+the deep-chested rumble of the Mixer, "Jackson kicked him first!" They
+ran for us. They had reached us while our host was down, even while my
+fist was still clenched. Now again the unfortunate man cried "Help!"
+as his wife assisted him to his feet.
+
+"Send for an officer!" cried she.
+
+"The man's an anarchist!" shouted her husband.
+
+"Nonsense!" boomed the Mixer. "Jackson got what he was looking for. Do
+it myself if he kicked me!"
+
+"Oh, Maw! Oh, Mater!" cried her daughter tearfully.
+
+"Gee! He done it in one punch!" I heard Cousin Egbert say with what I
+was aghast to suspect was admiration.
+
+Mrs. Effie, trembling, could but glare at me and gasp. Mercifully she
+was beyond speech for the moment.
+
+Mr. Belknap-Jackson was now painfully rubbing his right eye, which was
+not what he should have done, and I said as much.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir, but one does better with a bit of raw beef."
+
+"How dare you, you great hulking brute!" cried his wife, and made as
+if to shield her husband from another attack from me, which I submit
+was unjust.
+
+"Bill's right," said Cousin Egbert casually. "Put a piece of raw steak
+on it. Gee! with one wallop!" And then, quite strangely, for a moment
+we all amiably discussed whether cold compresses might not be better.
+Presently our host was led off by his wife. Mrs. Effie followed them,
+moaning: "Oh, oh, oh!" in the keenest distress.
+
+At this I took to my own room in dire confusion, making no doubt I
+would presently be given in charge and left to languish in gaol,
+perhaps given six months' hard.
+
+Cousin Egbert came to me in a little while and laughed heartily at my
+fear that anything legal would be done. He also made some ill-timed
+compliments on the neatness of the blow I had dealt Mr.
+Belknap-Jackson, but these I found in wretched taste and was begging
+him to desist, when the Mixer entered and began to speak much in the
+same strain.
+
+"Don't you ever dare do a thing like that again," she warned me,
+"unless I got a ringside seat," to which I remained severely silent,
+for I felt my offence should not be made light of.
+
+"Three rousing cheers!" exclaimed Cousin Egbert, whereat the two most
+unfeelingly went through a vivid pantomime of cheering.
+
+Our host, I understood, had his dinner in bed that night, and
+throughout the evening, as I sat solitary in remorse, came the mocking
+strains of another of their American folksongs with the refrain:
+
+    "You made me what I am to-day,
+    I hope you're satisfied!"
+
+I conceived it to be the Mixer and Cousin Egbert who did this and,
+considering the plight of our host, I thought it in the worst possible
+taste. I had raised my hand against the one American I had met who was
+at all times vogue. And not only this: For I now recalled a certain
+phrase I had flung out as I stood over him, ranting indeed no better
+than an anarchist, a phrase which showed my poor culture to be the
+flimsiest veneer.
+
+Late in the night, as I lay looking back on the frightful scene, I
+recalled with wonder a swift picture of Cousin Egbert caught as I once
+looked back to the dock. He had most amazingly shaken the woods person
+by the hand, quickly but with marked cordiality. And yet I am quite
+certain he had never been presented to the fellow.
+
+Promptly the next morning came the dreaded summons to meet Mrs. Effie.
+I was of course prepared to accept instant dismissal without a
+character, if indeed I were not to be given in charge. I found her
+wearing an expression of the utmost sternness, erect and formidable by
+the now silent phonograph. Cousin Egbert, who was present, also wore
+an expression of sternness, though I perceived him to wink at me.
+
+"I really don't know what we're to do with you, Ruggles," began the
+stricken woman, and so done out she plainly was that I at once felt
+the warmest sympathy for her as she continued: "First you lead poor
+Cousin Egbert into a drunken debauch----"
+
+Cousin Egbert here coughed nervously and eyed me with strong
+condemnation.
+
+"--then you behave like a murderer. What have you to say for
+yourself?"
+
+At this I saw there was little I could say, except that I had coarsely
+given way to the brute in me, and yet I knew I should try to explain.
+
+"I dare say, Madam, it may have been because Mr. Belknap-Jackson was
+quite sober at the unfortunate moment."
+
+"Of course Charles was sober. The idea! What of it?"
+
+"I was remembering an occasion at Chaynes-Wotten when Lord Ivor
+Cradleigh behaved toward me somewhat as Mr. Belknap-Jackson did last
+night and when my own deportment was quite all that could be wished.
+It occurs to me now that it was because his lordship was, how shall I
+say?--quite far gone in liquor at the time, so that I could without
+loss of dignity pass it off as a mere prank. Indeed, he regarded it as
+such himself, performing the act with a good nature that I found quite
+irresistible, and I am certain that neither his lordship nor I have
+ever thought the less of each other because of it. I revert to this
+merely to show that I have not always acted in a ruffianly manner
+under these circumstances. It seems rather to depend upon how the
+thing is done--the mood of the performer--his mental state. Had Mr.
+Belknap-Jackson been--pardon me--quite drunk, I feel that the outcome
+would have been happier for us all. So far as I have thought along
+these lines, it seems to me that if one is to be kicked at all, one
+must be kicked good-naturedly. I mean to say, with a certain
+camaraderie, a lightness, a gayety, a genuine good-will that for the
+moment expresses itself uncouthly--an element, I regret to say, that
+was conspicuously lacking from the brief activities of Mr.
+Belknap-Jackson."
+
+"I never heard such crazy talk," responded Mrs. Effie, "and really I
+never saw such a man as you are for wanting people to become
+disgustingly drunk. You made poor Cousin Egbert and Jeff Tuttle act
+like beasts, and now nothing will satisfy you but that Charles should
+roll in the gutter. Such dissipated talk I never did hear, and poor
+Charles rarely taking anything but a single glass of wine, it upsets
+him so; even our reception punch he finds too stimulating!"
+
+I mean to say, the woman had cleanly missed my point, for never have I
+advocated the use of fermented liquors to excess; but I saw it was no
+good trying to tell her this.
+
+"And the worst of it," she went rapidly on, "Cousin Egbert here is
+acting stranger than I ever knew him to act. He swears if he can't
+keep you he'll never have another man, and you know yourself what that
+means in his case--and Mrs. Pettengill saying she means to employ you
+herself if we let you go. Heaven knows what the poor woman can be
+thinking of! Oh, it's awful--and everything was going so beautifully.
+Of course Charles would simply never be brought to accept an
+apology----"
+
+"I am only too anxious to make one," I submitted.
+
+"Here's the poor fellow now," said Cousin Egbert almost gleefully, and
+our host entered. He carried a patch over his right eye and was not
+attired for sport on the lake, but in a dark morning suit of quietly
+beautiful lines that I thought showed a fine sense of the situation.
+He shot me one superior glance from his left eye and turned to Mrs.
+Effie.
+
+"I see you still harbour the ruffian?"
+
+"I've just given him a call-down," said Mrs. Effie, plainly ill at
+ease, "and he says it was all because you were sober; that if you'd
+been in the state Lord Ivor Cradleigh was the time it happened at
+Chaynes-Wotten he wouldn't have done anything to you, probably."
+
+"What's this, what's this? Lord Ivor Cradleigh--Chaynes-Wotten?" The
+man seemed to be curiously interested by the mere names, in spite of
+himself. "His lordship was at Chaynes-Wotten for the shooting, I
+suppose?" This, most amazingly, to me.
+
+"A house party at Whitsuntide, sir," I explained.
+
+"Ah! And you say his lordship was----"
+
+"Oh, quite, quite in his cups, sir. If I might explain, it was that,
+sir--its being done under circumstances and in a certain entirely
+genial spirit of irritation to which I could take no offence, sir. His
+lordship is a very decent sort, sir. I've known him intimately for
+years."
+
+"Dear, dear!" he replied. "Too bad, too bad! And I dare say you
+thought me out of temper last night? Nothing of the sort. You should
+have taken it in quite the same spirit as you did from Lord Ivor
+Cradleigh."
+
+"It seemed different, sir," I said firmly. "If I may take the liberty
+of putting it so, I felt quite offended by your manner. I missed from
+it at the most critical moment, as one might say, a certain urbanity
+that I found in his lordship, sir."
+
+"Well, well, well! It's too bad, really. I'm quite aware that I show a
+sort of brusqueness at times, but mind you, it's all on the surface.
+Had you known me as long as you've known his lordship, I dare say
+you'd have noticed the same rough urbanity in me as well. I rather
+fancy some of us over here don't do those things so very differently.
+A few of us, at least."
+
+"I'm glad, indeed, to hear it, sir. It's only necessary to understand
+that there is a certain mood in which one really cannot permit one's
+self to be--you perceive, I trust."
+
+"Perfectly, perfectly," said he, "and I can only express my regret
+that you should have mistaken my own mood, which, I am confident, was
+exactly the thing his lordship might have felt."
+
+"I gladly accept your apology, sir," I returned quickly, "as I should
+have accepted his lordship's had his manner permitted any
+misapprehension on my part. And in return I wish to apologize most
+contritely for the phrase I applied to you just after it happened,
+sir. I rarely use strong language, but----"
+
+"I remember hearing none," said he.
+
+"I regret to say, sir, that I called you a blighted little mug----"
+
+"You needn't have mentioned it," he replied with just a trace of
+sharpness, "and I trust that in future----"
+
+"I am sure, sir, that in future you will give me no occasion to
+misunderstand your intentions--no more than would his lordship," I
+added as he raised his brows.
+
+Thus in a manner wholly unexpected was a frightful situation eased
+off.
+
+"I'm so glad it's settled!" cried Mrs. Effie, who had listened almost
+breathlessly to our exchange.
+
+"I fancy I settled it as Cradleigh would have--eh, Ruggles?" And the
+man actually smiled at me.
+
+"Entirely so, sir," said I.
+
+"If only it doesn't get out," said Mrs. Effie now. "We shouldn't want
+it known in Red Gap. Think of the talk!"
+
+"Certainly," rejoined Mr. Belknap-Jackson jauntily, "we are all here
+above gossip about an affair of that sort. I am sure--" He broke off
+and looked uneasily at Cousin Egbert, who coughed into his hand and
+looked out over the lake before he spoke.
+
+"What would I want to tell a thing like that for?" he demanded
+indignantly, as if an accusation had been made against him. But I saw
+his eyes glitter with an evil light.
+
+An hour later I chanced to be with him in our detached hut, when the
+Mixer entered.
+
+"What happened?" she demanded.
+
+"What do you reckon happened?" returned Cousin Egbert. "They get to
+talking about Lord Ivy Craddles, or some guy, and before we know it
+Mr. Belknap Hyphen Jackson is apologizing to Bill here."
+
+"No?" bellowed the Mixer.
+
+"Sure did he!" affirmed Cousin Egbert.
+
+Here they grasped each other's arms and did a rude native dance about
+the room, nor did they desist when I sought to explain that the name
+was not at all Ivy Craddles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+
+Now once more it seemed that for a time I might lead a sanely ordered
+existence. Not for long did I hope it. I think I had become resigned
+to the unending series of shocks that seemed to compose the daily life
+in North America. Few had been my peaceful hours since that fatal
+evening in Paris. And the shocks had become increasingly violent. When
+I tried to picture what the next might be I found myself shuddering.
+For the present, like a stag that has eluded the hounds but hears
+their distant baying, I lay panting in momentary security, gathering
+breath for some new course. I mean to say, one couldn't tell what
+might happen next. Again and again I found myself coming all over
+frightened.
+
+Wholly restored I was now in the esteem of Mr. Belknap-Jackson, who
+never tired of discussing with me our own life and people. Indeed he
+was quite the most intelligent foreigner I had encountered. I may seem
+to exaggerate in the American fashion, but I doubt if a single one of
+the others could have named the counties of England or the present
+Lord Mayor of London. Our host was not like that. Also he early gave
+me to know that he felt quite as we do concerning the rebellion of our
+American colonies, holding it a matter for the deepest regret; and
+justly proud he was of the circumstance that at the time of that
+rebellion his own family had put all possible obstacles in the way of
+the traitorous Washington. To be sure, I dare say he may have boasted
+a bit in this.
+
+It was during the long journey across America which we now set out
+upon that I came to this sympathetic understanding of his character
+and of the chagrin he constantly felt at being compelled to live among
+people with whom he could have as little sympathy as I myself had.
+
+This journey began pleasantly enough, and through the farming counties
+of Philadelphia, Ohio, and Chicago was not without interest. Beyond
+came an incredibly large region, much like the steppes of Siberia, I
+fancy: vast uninhabited stretches of heath and down, with but here and
+there some rude settlement about which the poor peasants would eagerly
+assemble as our train passed through. I could not wonder that our own
+travellers have always spoken so disparagingly of the American
+civilization. It is a country that would never do with us.
+
+Although we lived in this train a matter of nearly four days, I fancy
+not a single person dressed for dinner as one would on shipboard. Even
+Belknap-Jackson dined in a lounge-suit, though he wore gloves
+constantly by day, which was more than I could get Cousin Egbert to
+do.
+
+As we went ever farther over these leagues of fen and fell and rolling
+veldt, I could but speculate unquietly as to what sort of place the
+Red Gap must be. A residential town for gentlemen and families, I had
+understood, with a little colony of people that really mattered, as I
+had gathered from Mrs. Effie. And yet I was unable to divine their
+object in going so far away to live. One goes to distant places for
+the winter sports or for big game shooting, but this seemed rather
+grotesquely perverse.
+
+Little did I then dream of the spiritual agencies that were to insure
+my gradual understanding of the town and its people. Unsuspectingly I
+fronted a future so wildly improbable that no power could have made me
+credit it had it then been foretold by the most rarely endowed gypsy.
+It is always now with a sort of terror that I look back to those last
+moments before my destiny had unfolded far enough to be actually
+alarming. I was as one floating in fancied security down the calm
+river above their famous Niagara Falls--to be presently dashed without
+warning over the horrible verge. I mean to say, I never suspected.
+
+Our last day of travel arrived. We were now in a roughened and most
+untidy welter of mountain and jungle and glen, with violent tarns and
+bleak bits of moorland that had all too evidently never known the
+calming touch of the landscape gardener; a region, moreover, peopled
+by a much more lawless appearing peasantry than I had observed back in
+the Chicago counties, people for the most part quite wretchedly gotten
+up and distinctly of the lower or working classes.
+
+Late in the afternoon our train wound out of a narrow cutting and into
+a valley that broadened away on every hand to distant mountains.
+Beyond doubt this prospect could, in a loose way of speaking, be
+called scenery, but of too violent a character it was for cultivated
+tastes. Then, as my eye caught the vague outlines of a settlement or
+village in the midst of this valley, Cousin Egbert, who also looked
+from, the coach window, amazed me by crying out:
+
+"There she is--little old Red Gap! The fastest growing town in the
+State, if any one should ask you."
+
+"Yes, sir; I'll try to remember, sir," I said, wondering why I should
+be asked this.
+
+"Garden spot of the world," he added in a kind of ecstasy, to which I
+made no response, for this was too preposterous. Nearing the place our
+train passed an immense hoarding erected by the roadway, a score of
+feet high, I should say, and at least a dozen times as long, upon
+which was emblazoned in mammoth red letters on a black ground,
+"_Keep Your Eye on Red Gap!_" At either end of this lettering was
+painted a gigantic staring human eye. Regarding this monstrosity with
+startled interest, I heard myself addressed by Belknap-Jackson:
+
+"The sort of vulgarity I'm obliged to contend with," said he, with a
+contemptuous gesture toward the hoarding. Indeed the thing lacked
+refinement in its diction, while the painted eyes were not Art in any
+true sense of the word. "The work of our precious Chamber of
+Commerce," he added, "though I pleaded with them for days and days."
+
+"It's a sort of thing would never do with us, sir," I said.
+
+"It's what one has to expect from a commercialized bourgeoise," he
+returned bitterly. "And even our association, 'The City Beautiful,' of
+which I was president, helped to erect the thing. Of course I resigned
+at once."
+
+"Naturally, sir; the colours are atrocious."
+
+"And the words a mere blatant boast!" He groaned and left me, for we
+were now well into a suburb of detached villas, many of them of a
+squalid character, and presently we had halted at the station. About
+this bleak affair was the usual gathering of peasantry and the common
+people, villagers, agricultural labourers, and the like, and these at
+once showed a tremendous interest in our party, many of them hailing
+various members of us with a quite offensive familiarity.
+
+Belknap-Jackson, of course, bore himself through this with a proper
+aloofness, as did his wife and Mrs. Effie, but I heard the Mixer
+booming salutations right and left. It was Cousin Egbert, however, who
+most embarrassed me by the freedom of his manner with these persons.
+He shook hands warmly with at least a dozen of them and these hailed
+him with rude shouts, dealt him smart blows on the back and, forming a
+circle about him, escorted him to a carriage where Mrs. Effie and I
+awaited him. Here the driver, a loutish and familiar youth, also
+seized his hand and, with some crude effect of oratory, shouted to the
+crowd.
+
+"What's the matter with Sour-dough?" To this, with a flourish of their
+impossible hats, they quickly responded in unison,
+
+"He's all right!" accenting the first word terrifically.
+
+Then, to the immense relief of Mrs. Effie and myself, he was released
+and we were driven quickly off from the raffish set. Through their
+Regent and Bond streets we went, though I mean to say they were on an
+unbelievably small or village scale, to an outlying region of detached
+villas that doubtless would be their St. John's Wood, but my efforts
+to observe closely were distracted by the extraordinary freedom with
+which our driver essayed to chat with us, saying he "guessed" we were
+glad to get back to God's country, and things of a similar intimate
+nature. This was even more embarrassing to Mrs. Effie than it was to
+me, since she more than once felt obliged to answer the fellow with a
+feigned cordiality.
+
+Relieved I was when we drew up before the town house of the Flouds.
+Set well back from the driveway in a faded stretch of common, it was
+of rather a garbled architecture, with the Tudor, late Gothic, and
+French Renaissance so intermixed that one was puzzled to separate the
+periods. Nor was the result so vast as this might sound. Hardly would
+the thing have made a wing of the manor house at Chaynes-Wotten. The
+common or small park before it was shielded from the main thoroughfare
+by a fence of iron palings, and back of this on either side of a
+gravelled walk that led to the main entrance were two life-sized stags
+not badly sculptured from metal.
+
+Once inside I began to suspect that my position was going to be more
+than a bit dicky. I mean to say, it was not an establishment in our
+sense of the word, being staffed, apparently, by two China persons who
+performed the functions of cook, housemaids, footmen, butler, and
+housekeeper. There was not even a billiard room.
+
+During the ensuing hour, marked by the arrival of our luggage and the
+unpacking of boxes, I meditated profoundly over the difficulties of my
+situation. In a wilderness, beyond the confines of civilization, I
+would undoubtedly be compelled to endure the hardships of the pioneer;
+yet for the present I resolved to let no inkling of my dismay escape.
+
+The evening meal over--dinner in but the barest technical sense--I sat
+alone in my own room, meditating thus darkly. Nor was I at all cheered
+by the voice of Cousin Egbert, who sang in his own room adjoining. I
+had found this to be a habit of his, and his songs are always dolorous
+to the last degree. Now, for example, while life seemed all too black
+to me, he sang a favourite of his, the pathetic ballad of two small
+children evidently begging in a business thoroughfare:
+
+    "Lone and weary through the streets we wander,
+      For we have no place to lay our head;
+    Not a friend is left on earth to shelter us,
+      For both our parents now are dead."
+
+It was a fair crumpler in my then mood. It made me wish to be out of
+North America--made me long for London; London with a yellow fog and
+its greasy pavements, where one knew what to apprehend. I wanted him
+to stop, but still he atrociously sang in his high, cracked voice:
+
+    "Dear mother died when we were both young,
+      And father built for us a home,
+    But now he's killed by falling timbers,
+      And we are left here all alone."
+
+I dare say I should have rushed madly into the night had there been
+another verse, but now he was still. A moment later, however, he
+entered my room with the suggestion that I stroll about the village
+streets with him, he having a mission to perform for Mrs. Effie. I had
+already heard her confide this to him. He was to proceed to the office
+of their newspaper and there leave with the press chap a notice of our
+arrival which from day to day she had been composing on the train.
+
+"I just got to leave this here piece for the _Recorder_," he
+said; "then we can sasshay up and down for a while and meet some of
+the boys."
+
+How profoundly may our whole destiny be affected by the mood of an
+idle moment; by some superficial indecision, mere fruit of a transient
+unrest. We lightly debate, we hesitate, we yawn, unconscious of the
+brink. We half-heartedly decline a suggested course, then lightly
+accept from sheer ennui, and "life," as I have read in a quite
+meritorious poem, "is never the same again." It was thus I now toyed
+there with my fate in my hands, as might a child have toyed with a
+bauble. I mean to say, I was looking for nothing thick.
+
+"She's wrote a very fancy piece for that newspaper," Cousin Egbert
+went on, handing me the sheets of manuscript. Idly I glanced down the
+pages.
+
+"Yesterday saw the return to Red Gap of Mrs. Senator James Knox Floud
+and Egbert G. Floud from their extensive European tour," it began.
+Farther I caught vagrant lines, salient phrases: "--the well-known
+social leader of our North Side set ... planning a series of
+entertainments for the approaching social season that promise to
+eclipse all previous gayeties of Red Gap's smart set ... holding the
+reins of social leadership with a firm grasp ... distinguished for her
+social graces and tact as a hostess ... their palatial home on Ophir
+Avenue, the scene of so much of the smart social life that has
+distinguished our beautiful city."
+
+It left me rather unmoved from my depression, even the concluding
+note: "The Flouds are accompanied by their English manservant, secured
+through the kind offices of the brother of his lordship Earl of
+Brinstead, the well-known English peer, who will no doubt do much to
+impart to the coming functions that air of smartness which
+distinguishes the highest social circles of London, Paris, and other
+capitals of the great world of fashion."
+
+"Some mess of words, that," observed Cousin Egbert, and it did indeed
+seem to be rather intimately phrased.
+
+"Better come along with me," he again urged. There was a moment's
+fateful silence, then, quite mechanically, I arose and prepared to
+accompany him. In the hall below I handed him his evening stick and
+gloves, which he absently took from me, and we presently traversed
+that street of houses much in the fashion of the Floud house and
+nearly all boasting some sculptured bit of wild life on their
+terraces.
+
+It was a calm night of late summer; all Nature seemed at peace. I
+looked aloft and reflected that the same stars were shining upon the
+civilization I had left so far behind. As we walked I lost myself in
+musing pensively upon this curious astronomical fact and upon the
+further vicissitudes to which I would surely be exposed. I compared
+myself whimsically to an explorer chap who has ventured among a tribe
+of natives and who must seem to adopt their weird manners and customs
+to save himself from their fanatic violence.
+
+From this I was aroused by Cousin Egbert, who, with sudden dismay
+regarding his stick and gloves, uttered a low cry of anguish and
+thrust them into my hands before I had divined his purpose.
+
+"You'll have to tote them there things," he swiftly explained. "I
+forgot where I was." I demurred sharply, but he would not listen.
+
+"I didn't mind it so much in Paris and Europe, where I ain't so very
+well known, but my good gosh! man, this is my home town. You'll have
+to take them. People won't notice it in you so much, you being a
+foreigner, anyway."
+
+Without further objection I wearily took them, finding a desperate
+drollery in being regarded as a foreigner, whereas I was simply alone
+among foreigners; but I knew that Cousin Egbert lacked the subtlety to
+grasp this point of view and made no effort to lay it before him. It
+was clear to me then, I think, that he would forever remain socially
+impossible, though perhaps no bad sort from a mere human point of
+view.
+
+We continued our stroll, turning presently from this residential
+avenue to a street of small unlighted shops, and from this into a
+wider and brilliantly lighted thoroughfare of larger shops, where my
+companion presently began to greet native acquaintances. And now once
+more he affected that fashion of presenting me to his friends that I
+had so deplored in Paris. His own greeting made, he would call out
+heartily: "Shake hands with my friend Colonel Ruggles!" Nor would he
+heed my protests at this, so that in sheer desperation I presently
+ceased making them, reflecting that after all we were encountering the
+street classes of the town.
+
+At a score of such casual meetings I was thus presented, for he seemed
+to know quite almost every one and at times there would be a group of
+natives about us on the pavement. Twice we went into "saloons," as
+they rather pretentiously style their public houses, where Cousin
+Egbert would stand the drinks for all present, not omitting each time
+to present me formally to the bar-man. In all these instances I was at
+once asked what I thought of their town, which was at first rather
+embarrassing, as I was confident that any frank disclosure of my
+opinion, being necessarily hurried, might easily be misunderstood. I
+at length devised a conventional formula of praise which, although
+feeling a frightful fool, I delivered each time thereafter.
+
+Thus we progressed the length of their commercial centre, the
+incidents varying but little.
+
+"Hello, Sour-dough, you old shellback! When did you come off the
+trail?"
+
+"Just got in. My lands! but it's good to be back. Billy, shake hands
+with my friend Colonel Ruggles."
+
+I mean to say, the persons were not all named "Billy," that being used
+only by way of illustration. Sometimes they would be called "Doc" or
+"Hank" or "Al" or "Chris." Nor was my companion invariably called
+"shellback." "Horned-toad" and "Stinging-lizard" were also epithets
+much in favour with his friends.
+
+At the end of this street we at length paused before the office, as I
+saw, of "The Red Gap _Recorder_; Daily and Weekly." Cousin Egbert
+entered here, but came out almost at once.
+
+"Henshaw ain't there, and she said I got to be sure and give him this
+here piece personally; so come on. He's up to a lawn-feet."
+
+"A social function, sir?" I asked.
+
+"No; just a lawn-feet up in Judge Ballard's front yard to raise money
+for new uniforms for the band--that's what the boy said in there."
+
+"But would it not be highly improper for me to appear there, sir?" I
+at once objected. "I fear it's not done, sir."
+
+"Shucks!" he insisted, "don't talk foolish that way. You're a peach of
+a little mixer all right. Come on! Everybody goes. They'll even let me
+in. I can give this here piece to Henshaw and then we'll spend a
+little money to help the band-boys along."
+
+My misgivings were by no means dispelled, yet as the affair seemed to
+be public rather than smart, I allowed myself to be led on.
+
+Into another street of residences we turned, and after a brisk walk I
+was able to identify the "front yard" of which my companion had
+spoken. The strains of an orchestra came to us and from the trees and
+shrubbery gleamed the lights of paper lanterns. I could discern tents
+and marquees, a throng of people moving among them. Nearer, I observed
+a refreshment pavilion and a dancing platform.
+
+Reaching the gate, Cousin Egbert paid for us an entrance fee of two
+shillings to a young lady in gypsy costume whom he greeted cordially
+as Beryl Mae, not omitting to present me to her as Colonel Ruggles.
+
+We moved into the thick of the crowd. There was much laughter and
+hearty speech, and it at once occurred to me that Cousin Egbert had
+been right: it would not be an assemblage of people that mattered, but
+rather of small tradesmen, artisans, tenant-farmers and the like with
+whom I could properly mingle.
+
+My companion was greeted by several of the throng, to whom he in turn
+presented me, among them after a bit to a slight, reddish-bearded
+person wearing thick nose-glasses whom I understood to be the pressman
+we were in search of. Nervous of manner he was and preoccupied with a
+notebook in which he frantically scribbled items from time to time.
+Yet no sooner was I presented to him than he began a quizzing sort of
+conversation with me that lasted near a half-hour, I should say. Very
+interested he seemed to hear of my previous life, having in full
+measure that naive curiosity about one which Americans take so little
+pains to hide. Like the other natives I had met that evening, he was
+especially concerned to know what I thought of Red Gap. The chat was
+not at all unpleasant, as he seemed to be a well-informed person, and
+it was not without regret that I noted the approach of Cousin Egbert
+in company with a pleasant-faced, middle-aged lady in Oriental garb,
+carrying a tambourine.
+
+"Mrs. Ballard, allow me to make you acquainted with my friend Colonel
+Ruggles!" Thus Cousin Egbert performed his ceremony. The lady grasped
+my hand with great cordiality.
+
+"You men have monopolized the Colonel long enough," she began with a
+large coquetry that I found not unpleasing, and firmly grasping my arm
+she led me off in the direction of the refreshment pavilion, where I
+was playfully let to know that I should purchase her bits of
+refreshment, coffee, plum-cake, an ice, things of that sort. Through
+it all she kept up a running fire of banter, from time to time
+presenting me to other women young and old who happened about us, all
+of whom betrayed an interest in my personality that was not
+unflattering, even from this commoner sort of the town's people.
+
+Nor would my new friend release me when she had refreshed herself, but
+had it that I must dance with her. I had now to confess that I was
+unskilled in the native American folk dances which I had observed
+being performed, whereupon she briskly chided me for my backwardness,
+but commanded a valse from the musicians, and this we danced together.
+
+I may here say that I am not without a certain finesse on the
+dancing-floor and I rather enjoyed the momentary abandon with this
+village worthy. Indeed I had rather enjoyed the whole affair, though I
+felt that my manner was gradually marking me as one apart from the
+natives; made conscious I was of a more finished, a suaver formality
+in myself--the Mrs. Ballard I had met came at length to be by way of
+tapping me coquettishly with her tambourine in our lighter moments.
+Also my presence increasingly drew attention, more and more of the
+village belles and matrons demanding in their hearty way to be
+presented to me. Indeed the society was vastly more enlivening, I
+reflected, than I had found it in a similar walk of life at home.
+
+Rather regretfully I left with Cousin Egbert, who found me at last in
+one of the tents having my palm read by the gypsy young person who had
+taken our fees at the gate. Of course I am aware that she was probably
+without any real gifts for this science, as so few are who undertake
+it at charity bazaars, yet she told me not a few things that were
+significant: that my somewhat cold exterior and air of sternness were
+but a mask to shield a too-impulsive nature; that I possessed great
+firmness of character and was fond of Nature. She added peculiarly at
+the last "I see trouble ahead, but you are not to be downcast--the
+skies will brighten."
+
+It was at this point that Cousin Egbert found me, and after he had
+warned the young woman that I was "some mixer" we departed. Not until
+we had reached the Floud home did he discover that he had quite
+forgotten to hand the press-chap Mrs. Effie's manuscript.
+
+"Dog on the luck!" said he in his quaint tone of exasperation, "here
+I've went and forgot to give Mrs. Effie's piece to the editor." He
+sighed ruefully. "Well, to-morrow's another day."
+
+And so the die was cast. To-morrow was indeed another day!
+
+Yet I fell asleep on a memory of the evening that brought me a sort of
+shamed pleasure--that I had falsely borne the stick and gloves of
+Cousin Egbert. I knew they had given me rather an air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+
+I have never been able to recall the precise moment the next morning
+when I began to feel a strange disquietude but the opening hours of the
+day were marked by a series of occurrences slight in themselves yet so
+cumulatively ominous that they seemed to lower above me like a cloud
+of menace.
+
+Looking from my window, shortly after the rising hour, I observed a
+paper boy pass through the street, whistling a popular melody as he
+ran up to toss folded journals into doorways. Something I cannot
+explain went through me even then; some premonition of disaster
+slinking furtively under my casual reflection that even in this remote
+wild the public press was not unknown.
+
+Half an hour later the telephone rang in a lower room and I heard Mrs.
+Effie speak in answer. An unusual note in her voice caused me to
+listen more attentively. I stepped outside my door. To some one she
+was expressing amazement, doubt, and quick impatience which seemed to
+culminate, after she had again, listened, in a piercing cry of
+consternation. The term is not too strong. Evidently by the unknown
+speaker she had been first puzzled, then startled, then horrified; and
+now, as her anguished cry still rang in my ears, that snaky
+premonition of evil again writhed across my consciousness.
+
+Presently I heard the front door open and close. Peering into the
+hallway below I saw that she had secured the newspaper I had seen
+dropped. Her own door now closed upon her. I waited, listening
+intently. Something told me that the incident was not closed. A brief
+interval elapsed and she was again at the telephone, excitedly
+demanding to be put through to a number.
+
+"Come at once!" I heard her cry. "It's unspeakable! There isn't a
+moment to lose! Come as you are!" Hereupon, banging the receiver into
+its place with frenzied roughness, she ran halfway up the stairs to
+shout:
+
+"Egbert Floud! Egbert Floud! You march right down here this minute,
+sir!"
+
+From his room I heard an alarmed response, and a moment later knew
+that he had joined her. The door closed upon them, but high words
+reached me. Mostly the words of Mrs. Effie they were, though I could
+detect muffled retorts from the other. Wondering what this could
+portend, I noted from my window some ten minutes later the hurried
+arrival of the C. Belknap-Jacksons. The husband clenched a crumpled
+newspaper in one hand and both he and his wife betrayed signs to the
+trained eye of having performed hasty toilets for this early call.
+
+As the door of the drawing-room closed upon them there ensued a
+terrific outburst carrying a rich general effect of astounded rage.
+Some moments the sinister chorus continued, then a door sharply opened
+and I heard my own name cried out by Mrs. Effie in a tone that caused
+me to shudder. Rapidly descending the stairs, I entered the room to
+face the excited group. Cousin Egbert crouched on a sofa in a far
+corner like a hunted beast, but the others were standing, and all
+glared at me furiously.
+
+The ladies addressed me simultaneously, one of them, I believe, asking
+me what I meant by it and the other demanding how dared I, which had
+the sole effect of adding to my bewilderment, nor did the words of
+Cousin Egbert diminish this.
+
+"Hello, Bill!" he called, adding with a sort of timid bravado: "Don't
+you let 'em bluff you, not for a minute!"
+
+"Yes, and it was probably all that wretched Cousin Egbert's fault in
+the first place," snapped Mrs. Belknap-Jackson almost tearfully.
+
+"Say, listen here, now; I don't see as how I've done anything wrong,"
+he feebly protested. "Bill's human, ain't he? Answer me that!"
+
+"One sees it all!" This from Belknap-Jackson in bitter and judicial
+tones. He flung out his hands at Cousin Egbert in a gesture of
+pitiless scorn. "I dare say," he continued, "that poor Ruggles was
+merely a tool in his hands--weak, possibly, but not vicious."
+
+"May I inquire----" I made bold to begin, but Mrs. Effie shut me off,
+brandishing the newspaper before me.
+
+"Read it!" she commanded in hoarse, tragic tones. "There!" she added,
+pointing at monstrous black headlines on the page as I weakly took it
+from her. And then I saw. There before them, divining now the enormity
+of what had come to pass, I controlled myself to master the following
+screed:
+
+    RED GAP'S DISTINGUISHED VISITOR
+
+    Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles of London and Paris, late of the
+    British army, bon-vivant and man of the world, is in our midst
+    for an indefinite stay, being at present the honoured house
+    guest of Senator and Mrs. James Knox Floud, who returned from
+    foreign parts on the 5:16 flyer yesterday afternoon. Colonel
+    Ruggles has long been intimately associated with the family
+    of his lordship the Earl of Brinstead, and especially with
+    his lordship's brother, the Honourable George Augustus
+    Vane-Basingwell, with whom he has recently been sojourning
+    in la belle France. In a brief interview which the Colonel
+    genially accorded ye scribe, he expressed himself as delighted
+    with our thriving little city.
+
+    "It's somewhat a town--if I've caught your American slang,"
+    he said with a merry twinkle in his eyes. "You have the garden
+    spot of the West, if not of the civilized world, and your
+    people display a charm that must be, I dare say, typically
+    American. Altogether, I am enchanted with the wonders I have
+    beheld since landing at your New York, particularly with the
+    habit your best people have of roughing it in camps like that
+    of Mr. C. Belknap-Jackson among the mountains of New York, where
+    I was most pleasantly entertained by himself and his delightful
+    wife. The length of my stay among you is uncertain, though I
+    have been pressed by the Flouds, with whom I am stopping, and
+    by the C. Belknap-Jacksons to prolong it indefinitely, and in
+    fact to identify myself to an extent with your social life."
+
+    The Colonel is a man of distinguished appearance, with the
+    seasoned bearing of an old campaigner, and though at moments
+    he displays that cool reserve so typical of the English
+    gentleman, evidence was not lacking last evening that he can
+    unbend on occasion. At the lawn fete held in the spacious
+    grounds of Judge Ballard, where a myriad Japanese lanterns
+    made the scene a veritable fairyland, he was quite the most
+    sought-after notable present, and gayly tripped the light
+    fantastic toe with the elite of Red Gap's smart set there
+    assembled.
+
+    From his cordial manner of entering into the spirit of the
+    affair we predict that Colonel Ruggles will be a decided
+    acquisition to our social life, and we understand that a
+    series of recherche entertainments in his honour has already
+    been planned by Mrs. County Judge Ballard, who took the
+    distinguished guest under her wing the moment he appeared
+    last evening. Welcome to our city, Colonel! And may the warm
+    hearts of Red Gap cause you to forget that European world of
+    fashion of which you have long been so distinguished an
+    ornament!
+
+In a sickening silence I finished the thing. As the absurd sheet fell
+from my nerveless fingers Mrs. Effie cried in a voice hoarse with
+emotion:
+
+"Do you realize the dreadful thing you've done to us?"
+
+Speechless I was with humiliation, unequal even to protesting that I
+had said nothing of the sort to the press-chap. I mean to say, he had
+wretchedly twisted my harmless words.
+
+"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" demanded Mrs. Belknap-Jackson,
+also in a voice hoarse with emotion. I glanced at her husband. He,
+too, was pale with anger and trembling, so that I fancied he dared not
+trust himself to speak.
+
+"The wretched man," declared Mrs. Effie, addressing them all, "simply
+can't realize--how disgraceful it is. Oh, we shall never be able to
+live it down!"
+
+"Imagine those flippant Spokane sheets dressing up the thing," hissed
+Belknap-Jackson, speaking for the first time. "Imagine their
+blackguardly humour!"
+
+"And that awful Cousin Egbert," broke in Mrs. Effie, pointing a
+desperate finger toward him. "Think of the laughing-stock he'll
+become! Why, he'll simply never be able to hold up his head again."
+
+"Say, you listen here," exclaimed Cousin Egbert with sudden heat;
+"never you mind about my head. I always been able to hold up my head
+any time I felt like it." And again to me he threw out, "Don't you let
+'em bluff you, Bill!"
+
+"I gave him a notice for the paper," explained Mrs. Effie plaintively;
+"I'd written it all nicely out to save them time in the office, and
+that would have prevented this disgrace, but he never gave it in."
+
+"I clean forgot it," declared the offender. "What with one thing and
+another, and gassing back and forth with some o' the boys, it kind of
+went out o' my head."
+
+"Meeting our best people--actually dancing with them!" murmured Mrs.
+Belknap-Jackson in a voice vibrant with horror. "My dear, I truly am
+so sorry for you."
+
+"You people entertained him delightfully at your camp," murmured Mrs.
+Effie quickly in her turn, with a gesture toward the journal.
+
+"Oh, we're both in it, I know. I know. It's appalling!"
+
+"We'll never be able to live it down!" said Mrs. Effie. "We shall have
+to go away somewhere."
+
+"Can't you imagine what Jen' Ballard will say when she learns the
+truth?" asked the other bitterly. "Say we did it on purpose to
+humiliate her, and just as all our little scraps were being smoothed
+out, so we could get together and put that Bohemian set in its place.
+Oh, it's so dreadful!" On the verge of tears she seemed.
+
+"And scarcely a word mentioned of our own return--when I'd taken such
+pains with the notice!"
+
+"Listen here!" said Cousin Egbert brightly. "I'll take the piece down
+now and he can print it in his paper for you to-morrow."
+
+"You can't understand," she replied impatiently. "I casually mentioned
+our having brought an English manservant. Print that now and insult
+all our best people who received him!"
+
+"Pathetic how little the poor chap understands," sighed
+Belknap-Jackson. "No sense at all of our plight--naturally,
+naturally!"
+
+"'A series of entertainments being planned in his honour!'" quavered
+Mrs. Belknap-Jackson.
+
+"'The most sought-after notable present!'" echoed Mrs. Effie
+viciously.
+
+Again and again I had essayed to protest my innocence, only to provoke
+renewed outbursts. I could but stand there with what dignity I
+retained and let them savage me. Cousin Egbert now spoke again:
+
+"Shucks! What's all the fuss? Just because I took Bill out and give
+him a good time! Didn't you say yourself in that there very piece that
+he'd impart to coming functions an air of smartiness like they have
+all over Europe? Didn't you write them very words? And ain't he
+already done it the very first night he gets here, right at that there
+lawn-feet where I took him? What for do you jump on me then? I took
+him and he done it; he done it good. Bill's a born mixer. Why, he had
+all them North Side society dames stung the minute I flashed him;
+after him quicker than hell could scorch a feather; run out from under
+their hats to get introduced to him--and now you all turn on me like a
+passel of starved wolves." He finished with a note of genuine
+irritation I had never heard in his voice.
+
+"The poor creature's demented," remarked Mrs. Belknap-Jackson
+pityingly.
+
+"Always been that way," said Mrs. Effie hopelessly.
+
+Belknap-Jackson contented himself with a mere clicking sound of
+commiseration.
+
+"All right, then, if you're so smart," continued Cousin Egbert. "Just
+the same Bill, here, is the most popular thing in the whole Kulanche
+Valley this minute, so all I got to say is if you want to play this
+here society game you better stick close by him. First thing you know,
+some o' them other dames'll have him won from you. That Mis' Ballard's
+going to invite him to supper or dinner or some other doings right
+away. I heard her say so."
+
+To my amazement a curious and prolonged silence greeted this amazing
+tirade. The three at length were regarding each other almost
+furtively. Belknap-Jackson began to pace the floor in deep thought.
+
+"After all, no one knows except ourselves," he said in curiously
+hushed tones at last.
+
+"Of course it's one way out of a dreadful mess," observed his wife.
+
+"Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles of the British army," said Mrs. Effie in a
+peculiar tone, as if she were trying over a song.
+
+"It may indeed be the best way out of an impossible situation,"
+continued Belknap-Jackson musingly. "Otherwise we face a social
+upheaval that might leave us demoralized for years--say nothing of
+making us a laughingstock with the rabble. In fact, I see nothing else
+to be done."
+
+"Cousin Egbert would be sure to spoil it all again," objected Mrs.
+Effie, glaring at him.
+
+"No danger," returned the other with his superior smile. "Being quite
+unable to realize what has happened, he will be equally unable to
+realize what is going to happen. We may speak before him as before a
+babe in arms; the amenities of the situation are forever beyond him."
+
+"I guess I always been able to hold up my head when I felt like it,"
+put in Cousin Egbert, now again both sullen and puzzled. Once more he
+threw out his encouragement to me: "Don't let 'em run any bluffs,
+Bill! They can't touch you, and they know it."
+
+"'Touch him,'" murmured Mrs. Belknap-Jackson with an able sneer. "My
+dear, what a trial he must have been to you. I never knew. He's as bad
+as the mater, actually."
+
+"And such hopes I had of him in Paris," replied Mrs. Effie, "when he
+was taking up Art and dressing for dinner and everything!"
+
+"I can be pushed just so far!" muttered the offender darkly.
+
+There was now a ring at the door which I took the liberty of
+answering, and received two notes from a messenger. One bore the
+address of Mrs. Floud and the other was quite astonishingly to myself,
+the name preceded by "Colonel."
+
+"That's Jen' Ballard's stationery!" cried Mrs. Belknap-Jackson. "Trust
+her not to lose one second in getting busy!"
+
+"But he mustn't answer the door that way," exclaimed her husband as I
+handed Mrs. Effie her note.
+
+They were indeed both from my acquaintance of the night before.
+Receiving permission to read my own, I found it to be a dinner
+invitation for the following Friday. Mrs. Effie looked up from hers.
+
+"It's all too true," she announced grimly. "We're asked to dinner and
+she earnestly hopes dear Colonel Ruggles will have made no other
+engagement. She also says hasn't he the darlingest English accent. Oh,
+isn't it a mess!"
+
+"You see how right I am," said Belknap-Jackson.
+
+"I guess we've got to go through with it," conceded Mrs. Effie.
+
+"The pushing thing that Ballard woman is!" observed her friend.
+
+"Ruggles!" exclaimed Belknap-Jackson, addressing me with sudden
+decision.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Listen carefully--I'm quite serious. In future you will try to
+address me as if I were your equal. Ah! rather you will try to address
+me as if you were _my_ equal. I dare say it will come to you
+easily after a bit of practice. Your employers will wish you to
+address them in the same manner. You will cultivate toward us a manner
+of easy friendliness--remember I'm entirely serious--quite as if you
+were one of us. You must try to be, in short, the Colonel Marmaduke
+Ruggles that wretched penny-a-liner has foisted upon these innocent
+people. We shall thus avert a most humiliating contretemps."
+
+The thing fair staggered me. I fell weakly into the chair by which I
+had stood, for the first time in a not uneventful career feeling that
+my _savoir faire_ had been overtaxed.
+
+"Quite right," he went on. "Be seated as one of us," and he amazingly
+proffered me his cigarette case. "Do take one, old chap," he insisted
+as I weakly waved it away, and against my will I did so. "Dare say
+you'll fancy them--a non-throat cigarette especially prescribed for
+me." He now held a match so that I was obliged to smoke. Never have I
+been in less humour for it.
+
+"There, not so hard, is it? You see, we're getting on famously."
+
+"Ain't I always said Bill was a good mixer?" called Cousin Egbert, but
+his gaucherie was pointedly ignored.
+
+"Now," continued Belknap-Jackson, "suppose you tell us in a chatty,
+friendly way just what you think about this regrettable affair." All
+sat forward interestedly.
+
+"But I met what I supposed were your villagers," I said; "your small
+tradesmen, your artisans, clerks, shop-assistants, tenant-farmers, and
+the like, I'd no idea in the world they were your county families.
+Seemed quite a bit too jolly for that. And your press-chap--preposterous,
+quite! He quizzed me rather, I admit, but he made it vastly different.
+Your pressmen are remarkable. That thing is a fair crumpler."
+
+"But surely," put in Mrs. Effie, "you could see that Mrs. Judge
+Ballard must be one of our best people."
+
+"I saw she was a goodish sort," I explained, "but it never occurred to
+me one would meet her in your best houses. And when she spoke of
+entertaining me I fancied I might stroll by her cottage some fair day
+and be asked in to a slice from one of her own loaves and a dish of
+tea. There was that about her."
+
+"Mercy!" exclaimed both ladies, Mrs. Belknap-Jackson adding a bit
+maliciously I thought, "Oh, don't you awfully wish she could hear him
+say it just that way?"
+
+"As to the title," I continued, "Mr. Egbert has from the first had a
+curious American tendency to present me to his many friends as
+'Colonel.' I am sure he means as little by it as when he calls me
+'Bill,' which I have often reminded him is not a name of mine."
+
+"Oh, we understand the poor chap is a social incompetent," said
+Belknap-Jackson with a despairing shrug.
+
+"Say, look here," suddenly exclaimed Cousin Egbert, a new heat in his
+tone, "what I call Bill ain't a marker to what I call you when I
+really get going. You ought to hear me some day when I'm feeling
+right!"
+
+"Really!" exclaimed the other with elaborate sarcasm.
+
+"Yes, sir. Surest thing you know. I could call you a lot of good
+things right now if so many ladies wasn't around. You don't think I'd
+be afraid, do you? Why, Bill there had you licked with one wallop."
+
+"But really, really!" protested the other with a helpless shrug to the
+ladies, who were gasping with dismay.
+
+"You ruffian!" cried his wife.
+
+"Egbert Floud," said Mrs. Effie fiercely, "you will apologize to
+Charles before you leave this room. The idea of forgetting yourself
+that way. Apologize at once!"
+
+"Oh, very well," he grumbled, "I apologize like I'm made to." But he
+added quickly with even more irritation, "only don't you get the idea
+it's because I'm afraid of you."
+
+"Tush, tush!" said Belknap-Jackson.
+
+"No, sir; I apologize, but it ain't for one minute because I'm afraid
+of you."
+
+"Your bare apology is ample; I'm bound to accept it," replied the
+other, a bit uneasily I thought.
+
+"Come right down to it," continued Cousin Egbert, "I ain't afraid of
+hardly any person. I can be pushed just so far." Here he looked
+significantly at Mrs. Effie.
+
+"After all I've tried to do for him!" she moaned. "I thought he had
+something in him."
+
+"Darn it all, I like to be friendly with my friends," he bluntly
+persisted. "I call a man anything that suits me. And I ain't ever
+apologized yet because I was afraid. I want all parties here to get
+that."
+
+"Say no more, please. It's quite understood," said Belknap-Jackson
+hastily. The other subsided into low mutterings.
+
+"I trust you fully understand the situation, Ruggles--Colonel
+Ruggles," he continued to me.
+
+"It's preposterous, but plain as a pillar-box," I answered. "I can
+only regret it as keenly as any right-minded person should. It's not
+at all what I've been accustomed to."
+
+"Very well. Then I suggest that you accompany me for a drive this
+afternoon. I'll call for you with the trap, say at three."
+
+"Perhaps," suggested his wife, "it might be as well if Colonel Ruggles
+were to come to us as a guest." She was regarding me with a gaze that
+was frankly speculative.
+
+"Oh, not at all, not at all!" retorted Mrs. Effie crisply. "Having
+been announced as our house guest--never do in the world for him to go
+to you so soon. We must be careful in this. Later, perhaps, my dear."
+
+Briefly the ladies measured each other with a glance. Could it be, I
+asked myself, that they were sparring for the possession of me?
+
+"Naturally he will be asked about everywhere, and there'll be loads of
+entertaining to do in return."
+
+"Of course," returned Mrs. Effie, "and I'd never think of putting it
+off on to you, dear, when we're wholly to blame for the awful thing."
+
+"That's so thoughtful of you, dear," replied her friend coldly.
+
+"At three, then," said Belknap-Jackson as we arose.
+
+"I shall be delighted," I murmured.
+
+"I bet you won't," said Cousin Egbert sourly. "He wants to show you
+off." This, I could see, was ignored as a sheer indecency.
+
+"We shall have to get a reception in quick," said Mrs. Effie, her eyes
+narrowed in calculation.
+
+"I don't see what all the fuss was about," remarked Cousin Egbert
+again, as if to himself; "tearing me to pieces like a passel of
+wolves!"
+
+The Belknap-Jacksons left hastily, not deigning him a glance. And to
+do the poor soul justice, I believe he did not at all know what the
+"fuss" had been about. The niceties of the situation were beyond him,
+dear old sort though he had shown himself to be. I knew then I was
+never again to be harsh with him, let him dress as he would.
+
+"Say," he asked, the moment we were alone, "you remember that thing
+you called him back there that night--'blighted little mug,' was it?"
+
+"It's best forgotten, sir," I said.
+
+"Well, sir, some way it sounded just the thing to call him. It sounded
+bully. What does it mean?"
+
+So far was his darkened mind from comprehending that I, in a foreign
+land, among a weird people, must now have a go at being a gentleman;
+and that if I fluffed my catch we should all be gossipped to rags!
+
+Alone in my room I made a hasty inventory of my wardrobe. Thanks to
+the circumstance that the Honourable George, despite my warning, had
+for several years refused to bant, it was rather well stocked. The
+evening clothes were irreproachable; so were the frock coat and a
+morning suit. Of waistcoats there were a number showing but slight
+wear. The three lounge-suits of tweed, though slightly demoded, would
+still be vogue in this remote spot. For sticks, gloves, cravats, and
+body-linen I saw that I should be compelled to levy on the store I had
+laid in for Cousin Egbert, and I happily discovered that his top-hat
+set me quite effectively.
+
+Also in a casket of trifles that had knocked about in my box I had the
+good fortune to find the monocle that the Honourable George had
+discarded some years before on the ground that it was "bally
+nonsense." I screwed the glass into my eye. The effect was tremendous.
+
+Rather a lark I might have thought it but for the false military
+title. That was rank deception, and I have always regarded any sort of
+wrongdoing as detestable. Perhaps if he had introduced me as a mere
+subaltern in a line regiment--but I was powerless.
+
+For the afternoon's drive I chose the smartest of the lounge-suits, a
+Carlsbad hat which Cousin Egbert had bitterly resented for himself,
+and for top-coat a light weight, straight-hanging Chesterfield with
+velvet collar which, although the cut studiously avoids a fitted
+effect, is yet a garment that intrigues the eye when carried with any
+distinction. So many top-coats are but mere wrappings! I had, too,
+gloves of a delicately contrasting tint.
+
+Altogether I felt I had turned myself out well, and this I found to be
+the verdict of Mrs. Effie, who engaged me in the hall to say that I
+was to have anything in the way of equipment I liked to ask for.
+Belknap-Jackson also, arriving now in a smart trap to which he drove
+two cobs tandem, was at once impressed and made me compliments upon my
+tenue. I was aware that I appeared not badly beside him. I mean to
+say, I felt that I was vogue in the finest sense of the word.
+
+Mrs. Effie waved us a farewell from the doorway, and I was conscious
+that from several houses on either side of the avenue we attracted
+more than a bit of attention. There were doors opened, blinds pushed
+aside, faces--that sort of thing.
+
+At a leisurely pace we progressed through the main thoroughfares. That
+we created a sensation, especially along the commercial streets, where
+my host halted at shops to order goods, cannot be denied. Furore is
+perhaps the word. I mean to say, almost quite every one stared. Rather
+more like a parade it was than I could have wished, but I was again
+resolved to be a dead sportsman.
+
+Among those who saluted us from time to time were several of the
+lesser townsmen to whom Cousin Egbert had presented me the evening
+before, and I now perceived that most of these were truly persons I
+must not know in my present station--hodmen, road-menders, grooms,
+delivery-chaps, that sort. In responding to the often florid
+salutations of such, I instilled into my barely perceptible nod a
+certain frigidity that I trusted might be informing. I mean to say,
+having now a position to keep up, it would never do at all to chatter
+and pal about loosely as Cousin Egbert did.
+
+When we had done a fairish number of streets, both of shops and
+villas, we drove out a winding roadway along a tarn to the country
+club. The house was an unpretentious structure of native wood,
+fronting a couple of tennis courts and a golf links, but although it
+was tea-time, not a soul was present. Having unlocked the door, my
+host suggested refreshment and I consented to partake of a glass of
+sherry and a biscuit. But these, it seemed, were not to be had; so
+over pegs of ginger ale, found in an ice-chest, we sat for a time and
+chatted.
+
+"You will find us crude, Ruggles, as I warned you," my host observed.
+"Take this deserted clubhouse at this hour. It tells the story. Take
+again the matter of sherry and a biscuit--so simple! Yet no one ever
+thinks of them, and what you mean by a biscuit is in this wretched
+hole spoken of as a cracker."
+
+I thanked him for the item, resolving to add it to my list of curious
+Americanisms. Already I had begun a narrative of my adventures in this
+wild land, a thing I had tentatively entitled, "Alone in North
+America."
+
+"Though we have people in abundance of ample means," he went on, "you
+will regret to know that we have not achieved a leisured class. Barely
+once in a fortnight will you see this club patronized, after all the
+pains I took in its organization. They simply haven't evolved to the
+idea yet; sometimes I have moments in which I despair of their ever
+doing so."
+
+As usual he grew depressed when speaking of social Red Gap, so that we
+did not tarry long in the silent place that should have been quite
+alive with people smartly having their tea. As we drove back he
+touched briefly and with all delicacy on our changed relations.
+
+"What made me only too glad to consent to it," he said, "is the sodden
+depravity of that Floud chap. Really he's a menace to the community. I
+saw from the degenerate leer on his face this morning that he will not
+be able to keep silent about that little affair of ours back there.
+Mark my words, he'll talk. And fancy how embarrassing had you
+continued in the office for which you were engaged. Fancy it being
+known I had been assaulted by a--you see what I mean. But now, let him
+talk his vilest. What is it? A mere disagreement between two
+gentlemen, generous, hot-tempered chaps, followed by mutual apologies.
+A mere nothing!"
+
+I was conscious of more than a little irritation at his manner of
+speaking of Cousin Egbert, but this in my new character I could hardly
+betray.
+
+When he set me down at the Floud house, "Thanks for the breeze-out," I
+said; then, with an easy wave of the hand and in firm tones, "Good
+day, Jackson! See you again, old chap!"
+
+I had nerved myself to it as to an icy tub and was rewarded by a glow
+such as had suffused me that morning in Paris after the shameful
+proceedings with Cousin Egbert and the Indian Tuttle. I mean to say, I
+felt again that wonderful thrill of equality--quite as if my superiors
+were not all about me.
+
+Inside the house Mrs. Effie addressed the last of a heap of
+invitations for an early reception--"To meet Colonel Marmaduke
+Ruggles," they read.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+
+Of the following fortnight I find it difficult to write coherently. I
+found myself in a steady whirl of receptions, luncheons, dinners,
+teas, and assemblies of rather a pretentious character, at the greater
+number of which I was obliged to appear as the guest of honour. It
+began with the reception of Mrs. Floud, at which I may be said to have
+made my first formal bow to the smarter element of Red Gap, followed
+by the dinner of the Mrs. Ballard, with whom I had formed acquaintance
+on that first memorable evening.
+
+I was during this time like a babe at blind play with a set of chess
+men, not knowing king from pawn nor one rule of the game. Senator
+Floud--who was but a member of their provincial assembly, I
+discovered--sought an early opportunity to felicitate me on my changed
+estate, though he seemed not a little amused by it.
+
+"Good work!" he said. "You know I was afraid our having an English
+valet would put me in bad with the voters this fall. They're already
+saying I wear silk stockings since I've been abroad. My wife did buy
+me six pair, but I've never worn any. Shows how people talk, though.
+And even now they'll probably say I'm making up to the British army.
+But it's better than having a valet in the house. The plain people
+would never stand my having a valet and I know it."
+
+I thought this most remarkable, that his constituency should resent
+his having proper house service. American politics were, then, more
+debased than even we of England had dreamed.
+
+"Good work!" he said again. "And say, take out your papers--become one
+of us. Be a citizen. Nothing better than an American citizen on God's
+green earth. Read the Declaration of Independence. Here----" From a
+bookcase at his hand he reached me a volume. "Read and reflect, my
+man! Become a citizen of a country where true worth has always its
+chance and one may hope to climb to any heights whatsoever." Quite
+like an advertisement he talked, but I read their so-called
+Declaration, finding it snarky in the extreme and with no end of silly
+rot about equality. In no way at all did it solve the problems by
+which I had been so suddenly confronted.
+
+Social lines in the town seemed to have been drawn by no rule
+whatever. There were actually tradesmen who seemed to matter
+enormously; on the other hand, there were those of undoubted
+qualifications, like Mrs. Pettengill, for example, and Cousin Egbert,
+who deliberately chose not to matter, and mingled as freely with the
+Bohemian set as they did with the county families. Thus one could
+never be quite certain whom one was meeting. There was the Tuttle
+person. I had learned from Mrs. Effie in Paris that he was an Indian
+(accounting for much that was startling in his behaviour there) yet
+despite his being an aborigine I now learned that his was one of the
+county families and he and his white American wife were guests at that
+first dinner. Throughout the meal both Cousin Egbert and he winked
+atrociously at me whenever they could catch my eye.
+
+There was, again, an English person calling himself Hobbs, a baker, to
+whom Cousin Egbert presented me, full of delight at the idea that as
+compatriots we were bound to be congenial. Yet it needed only a glance
+and a moment's listening to the fellow's execrable cockney dialect to
+perceive that he was distinctly low-class, and I was immensely
+relieved, upon inquiry, to learn that he affiliated only with the
+Bohemian set. I felt a marked antagonism between us at that first
+meeting; the fellow eyed me with frank suspicion and displayed a taste
+for low chaffing which I felt bound to rebuke. He it was, I may now
+disclose, who later began a fashion of referring to me as "Lord Algy,"
+which I found in the worst possible taste. "Sets himself up for a
+gentleman, does he? He ain't no more a gentleman than wot I be!" This
+speech of his reported to me will show how impossible the creature
+was. He was simply a person one does not know, and I was not long in
+letting him see it.
+
+And there was the woman who was to play so active a part in my later
+history, of whom it will be well to speak at once. I had remarked her
+on the main street before I knew her identity. I am bound to say she
+stood out from the other women of Red Gap by reason of a certain dash,
+not to say beauty. Rather above medium height and of pleasingly full
+figure, her face was piquantly alert, with long-lashed eyes of a
+peculiar green, a small nose, the least bit raised, a lifted chin, and
+an abundance of yellowish hair. But it was the expertness of her
+gowning that really held my attention at that first view, and the fact
+that she knew what to put on her head. For the most part, the ladies I
+had met were well enough gotten up yet looked curiously all wrong,
+lacking a genius for harmony of detail.
+
+This person, I repeat, displayed a taste that was faultless, a
+knowledge of the peculiar needs of her face and figure that was
+unimpeachable. Rather with regret it was I found her to be a Mrs.
+Kenner, the leader of the Bohemian set. And then came the further
+items that marked her as one that could not be taken up. Perhaps a
+summary of these may be conveyed when I say that she had long been
+known as Klondike Kate. She had some years before, it seemed, been a
+dancing person in the far Alaska north and had there married the
+proprietor of one of the resorts in which she disported herself--a man
+who had accumulated a very sizable fortune in his public house and who
+was shot to death by one of his patrons who had alleged unfairness in
+a game of chance. The widow had then purchased a townhouse in Red Gap
+and had quickly gathered about her what was known as the Bohemian set,
+the county families, of course, refusing to know her.
+
+After that first brief study of her I could more easily account for
+the undercurrents of bitterness I had felt in Red Gap society. She
+would be, I saw, a dangerous woman in any situation where she was
+opposed; there was that about her--a sort of daring disregard of the
+established social order. I was not surprised to learn that the men of
+the community strongly favoured her, especially the younger dancing
+set who were not restrained by domestic considerations. Small wonder
+then that the women of the "old noblesse," as I may call them, were
+outspokenly bitter in their comments upon her. This I discovered when
+I attended an afternoon meeting of the ladies' "Onwards and Upwards
+Club," which, I had been told, would be devoted to a study of the
+English Lake poets, and where, it having been discovered that I read
+rather well, I had consented to favour the assembly with some of the
+more significant bits from these bards. The meeting, I regret to say,
+after a formal enough opening was diverted from its original purpose,
+the time being occupied in a quite heated discussion of a so-called
+"Dutch Supper" the Klondike person had given the evening before, the
+same having been attended, it seemed, by the husbands of at least
+three of those present, who had gone incognito, as it were. At no time
+during the ensuing two hours was there a moment that seemed opportune
+for the introduction of some of our noblest verse.
+
+And so, by often painful stages, did my education progress. At the
+country club I played golf with Mr. Jackson. At social affairs I
+appeared with the Flouds. I played bridge. I danced the more dignified
+dances. And, though there was no proper church in the town--only
+dissenting chapels, Methodist, Presbyterian, and such outlandish
+persuasions--I attended services each Sabbath, and more than once had
+tea with what at home would have been the vicar of the parish.
+
+It was now, when I had begun to feel a bit at ease in my queer foreign
+environment, that Mr. Belknap-Jackson broached his ill-starred plan
+for amateur theatricals. At the first suggestion of this I was
+immensely taken with the idea, suspecting that he would perhaps
+present "Hamlet," a part to which I have devoted long and intelligent
+study and to which I feel that I could bring something which has not
+yet been imparted to it by even the most skilled of our professional
+actors. But at my suggestion of this Mr. Belknap-Jackson informed me
+that he had already played Hamlet himself the year before, leaving
+nothing further to be done in that direction, and he wished now to
+attempt something more difficult; something, moreover, that would
+appeal to the little group of thinking people about us--he would have
+"a little theatre of ideas," as he phrased it--and he had chosen for
+his first offering a play entitled "Ghosts" by the foreign dramatist
+Ibsen.
+
+I suspected at first that this might be a farce where a supposititious
+ghost brings about absurd predicaments in a country house, having seen
+something along these lines, but a reading of the thing enlightened me
+as to its character, which, to put it bluntly, is rather thick. There
+is a strain of immorality running through it which I believe cannot be
+too strongly condemned if the world is to be made better, and this is
+rendered the more repugnant to right-thinking people by the fact that
+the participants are middle-class persons who converse in quite
+commonplace language such as one may hear any day in the home.
+
+Wrongdoing is surely never so objectionable as when it is indulged in
+by common people and talked about in ordinary language, and the
+language of this play is not stage language at all. Immorality such as
+one gets in Shakespeare is of so elevated a character that one accepts
+it, the language having a grandeur incomparably above what any person
+was ever capable of in private life, being always elegant and
+unnatural.
+
+Though I felt this strongly, I was in no position to urge my
+objections, and at length consented to take a part in the production,
+reflecting that the people depicted were really foreigners and the
+part I would play was that of a clergyman whose behaviour throughout
+is above reproach. For himself Mr. Jackson had chosen the part of
+Oswald, a youth who goes quite dotty at the last for reasons which are
+better not talked about. His wife was to play the part of a
+serving-maid, who was rather a baggage, while Mrs. Judge Ballard was
+to enact his mother. (I may say in passing I have learned that the
+plays of this foreigner are largely concerned with people who have
+been queer at one time or another, so that one's parentage is often
+uncertain, though they always pay for it by going off in the head
+before the final curtain. I mean to say, there is too much
+neighbourhood scandal in them.)
+
+There remained but one part to fill, that of the father of the
+serving-maid, an uncouth sort of drinking-man, quite low-class, who,
+in my opinion, should never have been allowed on the stage at all,
+since no moral lesson is taught by him. It was in the casting of this
+part that Mr. Jackson showed himself of a forgiving nature. He offered
+it to Cousin Egbert, saying he was the true "type"--"with his weak,
+dissolute face"--and that "types" were all the rage in theatricals.
+
+At first the latter heatedly declined the honour, but after being
+urged and browbeaten for three days by Mrs. Effie he somewhat sullenly
+consented, being shown that there were not many lines for him to
+learn. From the first, I think, he was rendered quite miserable by the
+ordeal before him, yet he submitted to the rehearsals with a rather
+pathetic desire to please, and for a time all seemed well. Many an
+hour found him mugging away at the book, earnestly striving to
+memorize the part, or, as he quaintly expressed it, "that there piece
+they want me to speak." But as the day of our performance drew near it
+became evident to me, at least, that he was in a desperately black
+state of mind. As best I could I cheered him with words of praise, but
+his eye met mine blankly at such times and I could see him shudder
+poignantly while waiting the moment of his entrance.
+
+And still all might have been well, I fancy, but for the extremely
+conscientious views of Mr. Jackson in the matter of our costuming and
+make-up. With his lines fairly learned, Cousin Egbert on the night of
+our dress rehearsal was called upon first to don the garb of the
+foreign carpenter he was to enact, the same involving shorts and gray
+woollen hose to his knees, at which he protested violently. So far as
+I could gather, his modesty was affronted by this revelation of his
+lower legs. Being at length persuaded to this sacrifice, he next
+submitted his face to Mr. Jackson, who adjusted it to a labouring
+person's beard and eyebrows, crimsoning the cheeks and nose heavily
+with grease-paint and crowning all with an unkempt wig.
+
+The result, I am bound to say, was artistic in the extreme. No one
+would have suspected the identity of Cousin Egbert, and I had hopes
+that he would feel a new courage for his part when he beheld himself.
+Instead, however, after one quick glance into the glass he emitted a
+gasp of horror that was most eloquent, and thereafter refused to be
+comforted, holding himself aloof and glaring hideously at all who
+approached him. Rather like a mad dog he was.
+
+Half an hour later, when all was ready for our first act, Cousin
+Egbert was not to be found. I need not dwell upon the annoyance this
+occasioned, nor upon how a substitute in the person of our hall's
+custodian, or janitor, was impressed to read the part. Suffice it to
+tell briefly that Cousin Egbert, costumed and bedizened as he was, had
+fled not only the theatre but the town as well. Search for him on the
+morrow was unavailing. Not until the second day did it become known
+that he had been seen at daybreak forty miles from Red Gap, goading a
+spent horse into the wilds of the adjacent mountains. Our informant
+disclosed that one side of his face was still bearded and that he had
+kept glancing back over his shoulder at frequent intervals, as if
+fearful of pursuit. Something of his frantic state may also be gleaned
+from the circumstance that the horse he rode was one he had found
+hitched in a side street near the hall, its ownership being unknown to
+him.
+
+For the rest it may be said that our performance was given as
+scheduled, announcement being made of the sudden illness of Mr. Egbert
+Floud, and his part being read from the book in a rich and cultivated
+voice by the superintendent of the high school. Our efforts were
+received with respectful attention by a large audience, among whom I
+noted many of the Bohemian set, and this I took as an especial tribute
+to our merits. Mr. Belknap-Jackson, however, to whom I mentioned the
+circumstance, was pessimistic.
+
+"I fear," said he, "we have not heard the last of it. I am sure they
+came for no good purpose."
+
+"They were quite orderly in their behaviour," I suggested
+
+"Which is why I suspect them. That Kenner woman, Hobbs, the baker, the
+others of their set--they're not thinking people; I dare say they
+never consider social problems seriously. And you may have noticed
+that they announce an amateur minstrel performance for a week hence.
+I'm quite convinced that they mean to be vulgar to the last
+extreme--there has been so much talk of the behaviour of the wretched
+Floud, a fellow who really has no place in our modern civilization. He
+should be compelled to remain on his ranche."
+
+And indeed these suspicions proved to be only too well founded. That
+which followed was so atrociously personal that in any country but
+America we could have had an action against them. As Mr.
+Belknap-Jackson so bitterly said when all was over, "Our boasted
+liberty has degenerated into license."
+
+It is best told in a few words, this affair of the minstrel
+performance, which I understood was to be an entertainment wherein the
+participants darkened themselves to resemble blackamoors. Naturally, I
+did not attend, it being agreed that the best people should signify
+their disapproval by staying away, but the disgraceful affair was
+recounted to me in all its details by more than one of the large
+audience that assembled. In the so-called "grand first part" there
+seemed to have been little that was flagrantly insulting to us,
+although in their exchange of conundrums, which is a peculiar feature
+of this form of entertainment, certain names were bandied about with a
+freedom that boded no good.
+
+It was in the after-piece that the poltroons gave free play to their
+vilest fancies. Our piece having been announced as "Ghosts; a Drama
+for Thinking People," this part was entitled on their programme,
+"Gloats; a Dram for Drinking People," a transposition that should
+perhaps suffice to show the dreadful lengths to which they went; yet I
+feel that the thing should be set down in full.
+
+The stage was set as our own had been, but it would scarce be credited
+that the Kenner woman in male attire had made herself up in a
+curiously accurate resemblance to Belknap-Jackson as he had rendered
+the part of Oswald, copying not alone his wig, moustache, and fashion
+of speech, but appearing in a golfing suit which was recognized by
+those present as actually belonging to him.
+
+Nor was this the worst, for the fellow Hobbs had copied my own dress
+and make-up and persisted in speaking in an exaggerated manner alleged
+to resemble mine. This, of course, was the most shocking bad taste,
+and while it was quite to have been expected of Hobbs, I was indeed
+rather surprised that the entire assembly did not leave the auditorium
+in disgust the moment they perceived his base intention. But it was
+Cousin Egbert whom they had chosen to rag most unmercifully, and they
+were not long in displaying their clumsy attempts at humour.
+
+As the curtain went up they were searching for him, affecting to be
+unconscious of the presence of their audience, and declaring that the
+play couldn't go on without him. "Have you tried all the saloons?"
+asked one, to which another responded, "Yes, and he's been in all of
+them, but now he has fled. The sheriff has put bloodhounds on his
+trail and promises to have him here, dead or alive."
+
+"Then while we are waiting," declared the character supposed to
+represent myself, "I will tell you a wheeze," whereupon both the
+female characters fell to their knees shrieking, "Not that! My God,
+not that!" while Oswald sneered viciously and muttered, "Serves me
+right for leaving Boston."
+
+To show the infamy of the thing, I must here explain that at several
+social gatherings, in an effort which I still believe was
+praiseworthy, I had told an excellent wheeze which runs: "Have you
+heard the story of the three holes in the ground?" I mean to say, I
+would ask this in an interested manner, as if I were about to relate
+the anecdote, and upon being answered "No!" I would exclaim with mock
+seriousness, "Well! Well! Well!" This had gone rippingly almost quite
+every time I had favoured a company with it, hardly any one of my
+hearers failing to get the joke at a second telling. I mean to say,
+the three holes in the ground being three "Wells!" uttered in rapid
+succession.
+
+Of course if one doesn't see it at once, or finds it a bit subtle,
+it's quite silly to attempt to explain it, because logically there is
+no adequate explanation. It is merely a bit of nonsense, and that's
+quite all to it. But these boors now fell upon it with their coarse
+humour, the fellow Hobbs pretending to get it all wrong by asking if
+they had heard the story about the three wells and the others
+replying: "No, tell us the hole thing," which made utter nonsense of
+it, whereupon they all began to cry, "Well! well! well!" at each other
+until interrupted by a terrific noise in the wings, which was followed
+by the entrance of the supposed Cousin Egbert, a part enacted by the
+cab-driver who had conveyed us from the station the day of our
+arrival. Dragged on he was by the sheriff and two of the town
+constables, the latter being armed with fowling-pieces and the sheriff
+holding two large dogs in leash. The character himself was heavily
+manacled and madly rattled his chains, his face being disguised to
+resemble Cousin Egbert's after the beard had been adjusted.
+
+"Here he is!" exclaimed the supposed sheriff; "the dogs ran him into
+the third hole left by the well-diggers, and we lured him out by
+making a noise like sour dough." During this speech, I am told, the
+character snarled continuously and tried to bite his captors. At this
+the woman, who had so deplorably unsexed herself for the character of
+Mr. Belknap-Jackson as he had played Oswald, approached the prisoner
+and smartly drew forth a handful of his beard which she stuffed into a
+pipe and proceeded to smoke, after which they pretended that the play
+went on. But no more than a few speeches had been uttered when the
+supposed Cousin Egbert eluded his captors and, emitting a loud shriek
+of horror, leaped headlong through the window at the back of the
+stage, his disappearance being followed by the sounds of breaking
+glass as he was supposed to fall to the street below.
+
+"How lovely!" exclaimed the mimic Oswald. "Perhaps he has broken both
+his legs so he can't run off any more," at which the fellow Hobbs
+remarked in his affected tones: "That sort of thing would never do
+with us."
+
+This I learned aroused much laughter, the idea being that the remark
+had been one which I am supposed to make in private life, though I
+dare say I have never uttered anything remotely like it.
+
+"The fellow is quite impossible," continued the spurious Oswald, with
+a doubtless rather clever imitation of Mr. Belknap-Jackson's manner.
+"If he is killed, feed him to the goldfish and let one of the dogs
+read his part. We must get along with this play. Now, then. 'Ah! why
+did I ever leave Boston where every one is nice and proper?'" To which
+his supposed mother replied with feigned emotion: "It was because of
+your father, my poor boy. Ah, what I had to endure through those years
+when he cursed and spoke disrespectfully of our city. 'Scissors and
+white aprons,' he would cry out, 'Why is Boston?' But I bore it all
+for your sake, and now you, too, are smoking--you will go the same
+way."
+
+"But promise me, mother," returns Oswald, "promise me if I ever get
+dusty in the garret, that Lord Algy here will tell me one of his funny
+wheezes and put me out of pain. You could not bear to hear me knocking
+Boston as poor father did. And I feel it coming--already my
+mother-in-law has bluffed me into admitting that Red Gap has a right
+to be on the same map with Boston if it's a big map."
+
+And this was the coarsely wretched buffoonery that refined people were
+expected to sit through! Yet worse followed, for at their climax, the
+mimic Oswald having gone quite off his head, the Hobbs person, still
+with the preposterous affectation of taking me off in speech and
+manner, was persuaded by the stricken mother to sing. "Sing that dear
+old plantation melody from London," she cried, "so that my poor boy
+may know there are worse things than death." And all this witless
+piffle because of a quite natural misunderstanding of mine.
+
+I have before referred to what I supposed was an American plantation
+melody which I had heard a black sing at Brighton, meaning one of the
+English blacks who colour themselves for the purpose, but on reciting
+the lines at an evening affair, when the American folksongs were under
+discussion, I was told that it could hardly have been written by an
+American at all, but doubtless by one of our own composers who had
+taken too little trouble with his facts. I mean to say, the song as I
+had it, betrayed misapprehensions both of a geographical and faunal
+nature, but I am certain that no one thought the worse of me for
+having been deceived, and I had supposed the thing forgotten. Yet now
+what did I hear but that a garbled version of this song had been
+supposedly sung by myself, the Hobbs person meantime mincing across
+the stage and gesturing with a monocle which he had somehow procured,
+the words being quite simply:
+
+    "Away down south in Michigan,
+      Where I was a slave, so happy and so gay,
+    'Twas there I mowed the cotton and the cane.
+    I used to hunt the elephants, the tigers, and giraffes,
+      And the alligators at the break of day.
+    But the blooming Injuns prowled about my cabin every night,
+      So I'd take me down my banjo and I'd play,
+    And I'd sing a little song and I'd make them dance with glee,
+      On the banks of the Ohio far away."
+
+I mean to say, there was nothing to make a dust about even if the song
+were not of a true American origin, yet I was told that the creature
+who sang it received hearty applause and even responded to an encore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+
+I need hardly say that this public ridicule left me dazed. Desperately
+I recalled our calm and orderly England where such things would not be
+permitted. There we are born to our stations and are not allowed to
+forget them. We matter from birth, or we do not matter, and that's all
+to it. Here there seemed to be no stations to which one was born; the
+effect was sheer anarchy, and one might ridicule any one whomsoever.
+As was actually said in that snarky manifesto drawn up by the rebel
+leaders at the time our colonies revolted, "All men are created free
+and equal"--than which absurdity could go no farther--yet the lower
+middle classes seemed to behave quite as if it were true.
+
+And now through no fault of my own another awkward circumstance was
+threatening to call further attention to me, which was highly
+undesirable at this moment when the cheap one-and-six Hobbs fellow had
+so pointedly singled me out for his loathsome buffoonery.
+
+Some ten days before, walking alone at the edge of town one calm
+afternoon, where I might commune with Nature, of which I have always
+been fond, I noted an humble vine-clad cot, in the kitchen garden of
+which there toiled a youngish, neat-figured woman whom I at once
+recognized as a person who did occasional charring for the Flouds on
+the occasion of their dinners or receptions. As she had appeared to be
+cheerful and competent, of respectful manners and a quite marked
+intelligence, I made nothing of stopping at her gate for a moment's
+chat, feeling a quite decided relief in the thought that here was one
+with whom I need make no pretence, her social position being sharply
+defined.
+
+We spoke of the day's heat, which was bland, of the vegetables which
+she watered with a lawn hose, particularly of the tomatoes of which
+she was pardonably proud, and of the flowering vine which shielded her
+piazza from the sun. And when she presently and with due courtesy
+invited me to enter, I very affably did so, finding the atmosphere of
+the place reposeful and her conversation of a character that I could
+approve. She was dressed in a blue print gown that suited her no end,
+the sleeves turned back over her capable arms; her brown hair was
+arranged with scrupulous neatness, her face was pleasantly flushed
+from her agricultural labours, and her blue eyes flashed a friendly
+welcome and a pleased acknowledgment of the compliments I made her on
+the garden. Altogether, she was a person with whom I at once felt
+myself at ease, and a relief, I confess it was, after the strain of my
+high social endeavours.
+
+After a tour of the garden I found myself in the cool twilight of her
+little parlour, where she begged me to be seated while she prepared me
+a dish of tea, which she did in the adjoining kitchen, to a cheerful
+accompaniment of song, quite with an honest, unpretentious
+good-heartedness. Glad I was for the moment to forget the social
+rancors of the town, the affronted dignities of the North Side set,
+and the pernicious activities of the Bohemians, for here all was of a
+simple humanity such as I would have found in a farmer's cottage at
+home.
+
+As I rested in the parlour I could not but approve its general air of
+comfort and good taste--its clean flowered wall-paper, the pair of
+stuffed birds on the mantel, the comfortable chairs, the neat carpet,
+the pictures, and, on a slender-legged stand, the globe of goldfish.
+These I noted with an especial pleasure, for I have always found an
+intense satisfaction in their silent companionship. Of the pictures I
+noted particularly a life-sized drawing in black-and-white in a large
+gold frame, of a man whom I divined was the deceased husband of my
+hostess. There was also a spirited reproduction of "The Stag at Bay"
+and some charming coloured prints of villagers, children, and domestic
+animals in their lighter moments.
+
+Tea being presently ready, I genially insisted that it should be
+served in the kitchen where it had been prepared, though to this my
+hostess at first stoutly objected, declaring that the room was in no
+suitable state. But this was a mere womanish hypocrisy, as the place
+was spotless, orderly, and in fact quite meticulous in its neatness.
+The tea was astonishingly excellent, so few Americans I had observed
+having the faintest notion of the real meaning of tea, and I was
+offered with it bread and butter and a genuinely satisfying compote of
+plums of which my hostess confessed herself the fabricator, having, as
+she quaintly phrased the thing, "put it up."
+
+And so, over this collation, we chatted for quite all of an hour. The
+lady did, as I have intimated, a bit of charring, a bit of plain
+sewing, and also derived no small revenue from her vegetables and
+fruit, thus managing, as she owned the free-hold of the premises, to
+make a decent living for herself and child. I have said that she was
+cheerful and competent, and these epithets kept returning to me as we
+talked. Her husband--she spoke of him as "poor Judson"--had been a
+carter and odd-job fellow, decent enough, I dare say, but hardly the
+man for her, I thought, after studying his portrait. There was a sort
+of foppish weakness in his face. And indeed his going seemed to have
+worked her no hardship, nor to have left any incurable sting of loss.
+
+Three cups of the almost perfect tea I drank, as we talked of her own
+simple affairs and of the town at large, and at length of her child
+who awakened noisily from slumber in an adjacent room and came
+voraciously to partake of food. It was a male child of some two and a
+half years, rather suggesting the generous good-nature of the mother,
+but in the most shocking condition, a thing I should have spoken
+strongly to her about at once had I known her better. Queer it seemed
+to me that a woman of her apparently sound judgment should let her
+offspring reach this terrible state without some effort to alleviate
+it. The poor thing, to be blunt, was grossly corpulent, legs, arms,
+body, and face being wretchedly fat, and yet she now fed it a large
+slice of bread thickly spread with butter and loaded to overflowing
+with the fattening sweet. Banting of the strictest sort was of course
+what it needed. I have had but the slightest experience with children,
+but there could be no doubt of this if its figure was to be
+maintained. Its waistline was quite impossible, and its eyes, as it
+owlishly scrutinized me over its superfluous food, showed from a face
+already quite as puffy as the Honourable George's. I did, indeed,
+venture so far as suggesting that food at untimely hours made for a
+too-rounded outline, but to my surprise the mother took this as a
+tribute to the creature's grace, crying, "Yes, he wuzzum wuzzums a
+fatty ole sing," with an air of most fatuous pride, and followed this
+by announcing my name to it with concerned precision.
+
+"Ruggums," it exclaimed promptly, getting the name all wrong and
+staring at me with cold detachment; then "Ruggums-Ruggums-Ruggums!" as
+if it were a game, but still stuffing itself meanwhile. There was a
+sort of horrid fascination in the sight, but I strove as well as I
+could to keep my gaze from it, and the mother and I again talked of
+matters at large.
+
+I come now to speak of an incident which made this quite harmless
+visit memorable and entailed unforeseen consequences of an almost
+quite serious character.
+
+As we sat at tea there stalked into the kitchen a nondescript sort of
+dog, a creature of fairish size, of a rambling structure, so to speak,
+coloured a puzzling grayish brown with underlying hints of yellow,
+with vast drooping ears, and a long and most saturnine countenance.
+
+Quite a shock it gave me when I looked up to find the beast staring at
+me with what I took to be the most hearty disapproval. My hostess
+paused in silence as she noted my glance. The beast then approached
+me, sniffed at my boots inquiringly, then at my hands with increasing
+animation, and at last leaped into my lap and had licked my face
+before I could prevent it.
+
+I need hardly say that this attention was embarrassing and most
+distasteful, since I have never held with dogs. They are doubtless
+well enough in their place, but there is a vast deal of sentiment
+about them that is silly, and outside the hunting field the most
+finely bred of them are too apt to be noisy nuisances. When I say that
+the beast in question was quite an American dog, obviously of no
+breeding whatever, my dismay will be readily imagined. Rather
+impulsively, I confess, I threw him to the floor with a stern,
+"Begone, sir!" whereat he merely crawled to my feet and whimpered,
+looking up into my eyes with a most horrid and sickening air of
+devotion. Hereupon, to my surprise, my hostess gayly called out:
+
+"Why, look at Mr. Barker--he's actually taken up with you right away,
+and him usually so suspicious of strangers. Only yesterday he bit an
+agent that was calling with silver polish to sell--bit him in the leg
+so I had to buy some from the poor fellow--and now see! He's as
+friendly with you as you could wish. They do say that dogs know when
+people are all right. Look at him trying to get into your lap again."
+And indeed the beast was again fawning upon me in the most abject
+manner, licking my hands and seeming to express for me some hideous
+admiration. Seeing that I repulsed his advances none too gently, his
+owner called to him:
+
+"Down, Mr. Barker, down, sir! Get out!" she continued, seeing that he
+paid her no attention, and then she thoughtfully seized him by the
+collar and dragged him to a safe distance where she held him, he
+nevertheless continuing to regard me with the most servile affection.
+
+{Illustration: "WHY, LOOK AT MR. BARKER--HE'S ACTUALLY TAKEN UP WITH
+YOU RIGHT AWAY, AND HIM USUALLY SO SUSPICIOUS OF STRANGERS"}
+
+"Ruggums, Ruggums, Ruggums!" exploded the child at this, excitedly
+waving the crust of its bread.
+
+"Behave, Mr. Barker!" called his owner again. "The gentleman probably
+doesn't want you climbing all over him."
+
+The remainder of my visit was somewhat marred by the determination of
+Mr. Barker, as he was indeed quite seriously called, to force his
+monstrous affections upon me, and by the well-meant but often careless
+efforts of his mistress to restrain him. She, indeed, appeared to
+believe that I would feel immensely pleased at these tokens of his
+liking.
+
+As I took my leave after sincere expressions of my pleasure in the
+call, the child with its face one fearful smear of jam again waved its
+crust and shouted, "Ruggums!" while the dog was plainly bent on
+departing with me. Not until he had been secured by a rope to one of
+the porch stanchions could I safely leave, and as I went he howled
+dismally after violent efforts to chew the detaining rope apart.
+
+I finished my stroll with the greatest satisfaction, for during the
+entire hour I had been enabled to forget the manifold cares of my
+position. Again it seemed to me that the portrait in the little
+parlour was not that of a man who had been entirely suited to this
+worthy and energetic young woman. Highly deserving she seemed, and
+when I knew her better, as I made no doubt I should, I resolved to
+instruct her in the matter of a more suitable diet for her offspring,
+the present one, as I have said, carrying quite too large a
+preponderance of animal fats. Also, I mused upon the extraordinary
+tolerance she accorded to the sad-faced but too demonstrative Mr.
+Barker. He had been named, I fancied, by some one with a primitive
+sense of humour, I mean to say, he might have been facetiously called
+"Barker" because he actually barked a bit, though adding the "Mister"
+to it seemed to be rather forcing the poor drollery. At any rate, I
+was glad to believe I should see little of him in his free state.
+
+And yet it was precisely the curious fondness of this brute for myself
+that now added to my embarrassments. On two succeeding days I paused
+briefly at Mrs. Judson's in my afternoon strolls, finding the lady as
+wholesomely reposeful as ever in her effect upon my nature, but
+finding the unspeakable dog each time more lavish of his disgusting
+affection for me.
+
+Then, one day, when I had made back to the town and was in fact
+traversing the main commercial thoroughfare in a dignified manner, I
+was made aware that the brute had broken away to follow me. Close at
+my heels he skulked. Strong words hissed under my breath would not
+repulse him, and to blows I durst not proceed, for I suddenly divined
+that his juxtaposition to me was exciting amused comment among certain
+of the natives who observed us. The fellow Hobbs, in the doorway of
+his bake-shop, was especially offensive, bursting into a shout of
+boorish laughter and directing to me the attention of a nearby group
+of loungers, who likewise professed to become entertained. So
+situated, I was of course obliged to affect unconsciousness of the
+awful beast, and he was presently running joyously at my side as if
+secure in my approval, or perhaps his brute intelligence divined that
+for the moment I durst not turn upon him with blows.
+
+Nor did the true perversity of the situation at once occur to me. Not
+until we had gained one of the residence avenues did I realize the
+significance of the ill-concealed merriment we had aroused. It was not
+that I had been followed by a random cur, but by one known to be the
+dog of the lady I had called upon. I mean to say, the creature had
+advertised my acquaintance with his owner in a way that would lead
+base minds to misconstrue its extent.
+
+Thoroughly maddened by this thought, and being now safely beyond close
+observers, I turned upon the animal to give it a hearty drubbing with
+my stick, but it drew quickly off, as if divining my intention, and
+when I hurled the stick at it, retrieved it, and brought it to me
+quite as if it forgave my hostility. Discovering at length that this
+method not only availed nothing but was bringing faces to neighbouring
+windows, and that it did not the slightest good to speak strongly to
+the beast, I had perforce to accompany it to its home, where I had the
+satisfaction of seeing its owner once more secure it firmly with the
+rope.
+
+Thus far a trivial annoyance one might say, but when the next day the
+creature bounded up to me as I escorted homeward two ladies from the
+Onwards and Upwards Club, leaping upon me with extravagant
+manifestations of delight and trailing a length of gnawed rope, it
+will be seen that the thing was little short of serious.
+
+"It's Mr. Barker," exclaimed one of the ladies, regarding me brightly.
+
+At a cutlery shop I then bought a stout chain, escorted the brute to
+his home, and saw him tethered. The thing was rather getting on me.
+The following morning he waited for me at the Floud door and was
+beside himself with rapture when I appeared. He had slipped his
+collar. And once more I saw him moored. Each time I had apologized to
+Mrs. Judson for seeming to attract her pet from home, for I could not
+bring myself to say that the beast was highly repugnant to me, and
+least of all could I intimate that his public devotion to me would be
+seized upon by the coarser village wits to her disadvantage.
+
+"I never saw him so fascinated with any one before," explained the
+lady as she once more adjusted his leash. But that afternoon, as I
+waited in the trap for Mr. Jackson before the post-office, the beast
+seemed to appear from out the earth to leap into the trap beside me.
+After a rather undignified struggle I ejected him, whereupon he
+followed the trap madly to the country club and made a farce of my
+golf game by retrieving the ball after every drive. This time, I
+learned, the child had released him.
+
+It is enough to add that for those remaining days until the present
+the unspeakable creature's mad infatuation for me had made my life
+well-nigh a torment, to say nothing of its being a matter of low
+public jesting. Hardly did I dare show myself in the business centres,
+for as surely as I did the animal found me and crawled to fawn upon
+me, affecting his release each day in some novel manner. Each morning
+I looked abroad from my window on arising, more than likely detecting
+his outstretched form on the walk below, patiently awaiting my
+appearance, and each night I was liable to dreams of his coming upon
+me, a monstrous creature, sad-faced but eager, tireless, resolute,
+determined to have me for his own.
+
+Musing desperately over this impossible state of affairs, I was now
+surprised to receive a letter from the wretched Cousin Egbert, sent by
+the hand of the Tuttle person. It was written in pencil on ruled
+sheets apparently torn from a cheap notebook, quite as if proper pens
+and decent stationery were not to be had, and ran as follows:
+
+    DEAR FRIEND BILL:
+
+    Well, Bill, I know God hates a quitter, but I guess I got
+    a streak of yellow in me wider than the Comstock lode. I was
+    kicking at my stirrups even before I seen that bunch of whiskers,
+    and when I took a flash of them and seen he was intending I
+    should go out before folks without any regular pants on, I says
+    I can be pushed just so far. Well, Bill, I beat it like a bat
+    out of hell, as I guess you know by this time, and I would like
+    to seen them catch me as I had a good bronc. If you know whose
+    bronc it was tell him I will make it all O.K. The bronc will be
+    all right when he rests up some. Well, Bill, I am here on the
+    ranche, where everything is nice, and I would never come back
+    unless certain parties agree to do what is right. I would not
+    speak pieces that way for the President of the U.S. if he ask
+    me to on his bended knees. Well, Bill, I wish you would come
+    out here yourself, where everything is nice. You can't tell what
+    that bunch of crazies would be wanting you to do next thing with
+    false whiskers and no right pants. I would tell them "I can be
+    pushed just so far, and now I will go out to the ranche with
+    Sour-dough for some time, where things are nice." Well, Bill,
+    if you will come out Jeff Tuttle will bring you Wednesday when
+    he comes with more grub, and you will find everything nice. I
+    have told Jeff to bring you, so no more at present, with kind
+    regards and hoping to see you here soon.
+
+                          Your true friend,
+
+                                           E.G. FLOUD.
+
+    P.S. Mrs. Effie said she would broaden me out. Maybe she did,
+    because I felt pretty flat. Ha! ha!
+
+Truth to tell, this wild suggestion at once appealed to me. I had an
+impulse to withdraw for a season from the social whirl, to seek repose
+among the glens and gorges of this cattle plantation, and there try to
+adjust myself more intelligently to my strange new environment. In the
+meantime, I hoped, something might happen to the dog of Mrs. Judson;
+or he might, perhaps, in my absence outlive his curious mania for me.
+
+Mrs. Effie, whom I now consulted, after reading the letter of Cousin
+Egbert, proved to be in favour of my going to him to make one last
+appeal to his higher nature.
+
+"If only he'd stick out there in the brush where he belongs, I'd let
+him stay," she explained. "But he won't stick; he gets tired after
+awhile and drops in perhaps on the very night when we're entertaining
+some of the best people at dinner--and of course we're obliged to have
+him, though he's dropped whatever manners I've taught him and picked
+up his old rough talk, and he eats until you wonder how he can. It's
+awful! Sometimes I've wondered if it couldn't be adenoids--there's a
+lot of talk about those just now--some very select people have them,
+and perhaps they're what kept him back and made him so hopelessly low
+in his tastes, but I just know he'd never go to a doctor about them.
+For heaven's sake, use what influence you have to get him back here
+and to take his rightful place in society."
+
+I had a profound conviction that he would never take his rightful
+place in society, be it the fault of adenoids or whatever; that low
+passion of his for being pally with all sorts made it seem that his
+sense of values must have been at fault from birth, and yet I could
+not bring myself to abandon him utterly, for, as I have intimated,
+something in the fellow's nature appealed to me. I accordingly
+murmured my sympathy discreetly and set about preparations for my
+journey.
+
+Feeling instinctively that Cousin Egbert would not now be dressing for
+dinner, I omitted evening clothes from my box, including only a
+morning-suit and one of form-fitting tweeds which I fancied would do
+me well enough. But no sooner was my box packed than the Tuttle person
+informed me that I could take no box whatever. It appeared that all
+luggage would be strapped to the backs of animals and thus
+transported. Even so, when I had reduced myself to one park
+riding-suit and a small bundle of necessary adjuncts, I was told that
+the golf-sticks must be left behind. It appeared there would be no
+golf.
+
+And so quite early one morning I started on this curious pilgrimage
+from what was called a "feed corral" in a low part of the town. Here
+the Tuttle person had assembled a goods-train of a half-dozen animals,
+the luggage being adjusted to their backs by himself and two
+assistants, all using language of the most disgraceful character
+throughout the process. The Tuttle person I had half expected to
+appear garbed in his native dress--Mrs. Effie had once more referred
+to "that Indian Jeff Tuttle"--but he wore instead, as did his two
+assistants, the outing or lounge suit of the Western desperado, nor,
+though I listened closely, could I hear him exclaim, "Ugh! Ugh!" in
+moments of emotional stress as my reading had informed me that the
+Indian frequently does.
+
+The two assistants, solemn-faced, ill-groomed fellows, bore the
+curious American names of Hank and Buck, and furiously chewed the
+tobacco plant at all times. After betraying a momentary interest in my
+smart riding-suit, they paid me little attention, at which I was well
+pleased, for their manners were often repellent and their abrupt,
+direct fashion of speech quite disconcerting.
+
+The Tuttle person welcomed me heartily and himself adjusted the saddle
+to my mount, expressing the hope that I would "get my fill of
+scenery," and volunteering the information that my destination was
+"one sleep" away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+
+Although fond of rural surroundings and always interested in nature,
+the adventure in which I had become involved is not one I can
+recommend to a person of refined tastes. I found it little enough to
+my own taste even during the first two hours of travel when we kept to
+the beaten thoroughfare, for the sun was hot, the dust stifling, and
+the language with which the goods-animals were berated coarse in the
+extreme.
+
+Yet from this plain roadway and a country of rolling down and heather
+which was at least not terrifying, our leader, the Tuttle person,
+swerved all at once into an untried jungle, in what at the moment I
+supposed to be a fit of absent-mindedness, following a narrow path
+that led up a fearsomely slanted incline among trees and boulders of
+granite thrown about in the greatest disorder. He was followed,
+however, by the goods-animals and by the two cow-persons, so that I
+soon saw the new course must be intended.
+
+The mountains were now literally quite everywhere, some higher than
+others, but all of a rough appearance, and uninviting in the extreme.
+The narrow path, moreover, became more and more difficult, and seemed
+altogether quite insane with its twistings and fearsome declivities.
+One's first thought was that at least a bit of road-metal might have
+been put upon it. But there was no sign of this throughout our
+toilsome day, nor did I once observe a rustic seat along the way,
+although I saw an abundance of suitable nooks for these. Needless to
+say, in all England there is not an estate so poorly kept up.
+
+There being no halt made for luncheon, I began to look forward to
+tea-time, but what was my dismay to observe that this hour also passed
+unnoted. Not until night was drawing upon us did our caravan halt
+beside a tarn, and here I learned that we would sup and sleep,
+although it was distressing to observe how remote we were from proper
+surroundings. There was no shelter and no modern conveniences; not
+even a wash-hand-stand or water-jug. There was, of course, no central
+heating, and no electricity for one's smoothing-iron, so that one's
+clothing must become quite disreputable for want of pressing. Also the
+informal manner of cooking and eating was not what I had been
+accustomed to, and the idea of sleeping publicly on the bare ground
+was repugnant in the extreme. I mean to say, there was no _vie
+intime_. Truly it was a coarser type of wilderness than that which
+I had encountered near New York City.
+
+The animals, being unladen, were fitted with a species of leather
+bracelet about their forefeet and allowed to stray at their will. A
+fire was built and coarse food made ready. It is hardly a thing to
+speak of, but their manner of preparing tea was utterly depraved, the
+leaves being flung into a tin of boiling water and allowed to
+_stew_. The result was something that I imagine etchers might use
+in making lines upon their metal plates. But for my day's fast I
+should have been unequal to this, or to the crude output of their
+frying-pans.
+
+Yet I was indeed glad that no sign of my dismay had escaped me, for
+the cow-persons, Hank and Buck, as I discovered, had given unusual
+care to the repast on my account, and I should not have liked to seem
+unappreciative. Quite by accident I overheard the honest fellows
+quarrelling about an oversight: they had, it seemed, left the
+finger-bowls behind; each was bitterly blaming the other for this,
+seeming to feel that the meal could not go forward. I had not to be
+told that they would not ordinarily carry finger-bowls for their own
+use, and that the forgotten utensils must have been meant solely for
+my comfort. Accordingly, when the quarrel was at its highest I broke
+in upon it, protesting that the oversight was of no consequence, and
+that I was quite prepared to roughen it with them in the best of good
+fellowship. They were unable to conceal their chagrin at my having
+overheard them, and slunk off abashed to the cooking-fire. It was
+plain that under their repellent exteriors they concealed veins of the
+finest chivalry, and I took pains during the remainder of the evening
+to put them at their ease, asking them many questions about their wild
+life.
+
+Of the dangers of the jungle by which we were surrounded the most
+formidable, it seemed, was not the grizzly bear, of which I had read,
+but an animal quaintly called the "high-behind," which lurks about
+camping-places such as ours and is often known to attack man in its
+search for tinned milk of which it is inordinately fond. The spoor of
+one of these beasts had been detected near our campfire by the
+cow-person called Buck, and he now told us of it, though having at
+first resolved to be silent rather than alarm us.
+
+As we carried a supply of the animal's favourite food, I was given two
+of the tins with instructions to hurl them quickly at any high-behind
+that might approach during the night, my companions arming themselves
+in a similar manner. It appears that the beast has tushes similar in
+shape to tin openers with which it deftly bites into any tins of milk
+that may be thrown at it. The person called Hank had once escaped with
+his life only by means of a tin of milk which had caught on the
+sabrelike tushes of the animal pursuing him, thus rendering him
+harmless and easy of capture.
+
+Needless to say, I was greatly interested in this animal of the quaint
+name, and resolved to remain on watch during the night in the hope of
+seeing one, but at this juncture we were rejoined by the Tuttle
+person, who proceeded to recount to Hank and Buck a highly coloured
+version of my regrettable encounter with Mr. C. Belknap-Jackson back
+in the New York wilderness, whereat they both lost interest in the
+high-behind and greatly embarrassed me with their congratulations upon
+this lesser matter. Cousin Egbert, it seemed, had most indiscreetly
+talked of the thing, which was now a matter of common gossip in Red
+Gap. Thereafter I could get from them no further information about the
+habits of the high-behind, nor did I remain awake to watch for one as
+I had resolved to, the fatigues of the day proving too much for me.
+But doubtless none approached during the night, as the two tins of
+milk with which I was armed were untouched when I awoke at dawn.
+
+Again we set off after a barbarous breakfast, driving our laden
+animals ever deeper into the mountain fastness, until it seemed that
+none of us could ever emerge, for I had ascertained that there was not
+a compass in the party. There was now a certain new friendliness in
+the manner of the two cow-persons toward me, born, it would seem, of
+their knowledge of my assault upon Belknap-Jackson, and I was somewhat
+at a loss to know how to receive this, well intentioned though it was.
+I mean to say, they were undoubtedly of the servant-class, and of
+course one must remember one's own position, but I at length decided
+to be quite friendly and American with them.
+
+The truth must be told that I was now feeling in quite a bit of a funk
+and should have welcomed any friendship offered me; I even found
+myself remembering with rather a pensive tolerance the attentions of
+Mr. Barker, though doubtless back in Red Gap I should have found them
+as loathsome as ever. My hump was due, I made no doubt, first, to my
+precarious position in the wilderness, but more than that to my
+anomalous social position, for it seemed to me now that I was neither
+fish nor fowl. I was no longer a gentleman's man--the familiar
+boundaries of that office had been swept away; on the other hand, I
+was most emphatically not the gentleman I had set myself up to be, and
+I was weary of the pretence. The friendliness of these uncouth
+companions, then, proved doubly welcome, for with them I could conduct
+myself in a natural manner, happily forgetting my former limitations
+and my present quite fictitious dignities.
+
+I even found myself talking to them of cricket as we rode, telling
+them I had once hit an eight--fully run out it was and not an
+overthrow--though I dare say it meant little to them. I also took
+pains to describe to them the correct method of brewing tea, which
+they promised thereafter to observe, though this I fear they did from
+mere politeness.
+
+Our way continued adventurously upward until mid-afternoon, when we
+began an equally adventurous descent through a jungle of pine trees,
+not a few of which would have done credit to one of our own parks,
+though there were, of course, too many of them here to be at all
+effective. Indeed, it may be said that from a scenic standpoint
+everything through which we had passed was overdone: mountains, rocks,
+streams, trees, all sounding a characteristic American note of
+exaggeration.
+
+Then at last we came to the wilderness abode of Cousin Egbert. A rude
+hut of native logs it was, set in this highland glen beside a tarn.
+From afar we descried its smoke, and presently in the doorway observed
+Cousin Egbert himself, who waved cheerfully at us. His appearance gave
+me a shock. Quite aware of his inclination to laxness, I was yet
+unprepared for his present state. Never, indeed, have I seen a man so
+badly turned out. Too evidently unshaven since his disappearance, he
+was gotten up in a faded flannel shirt, open at the neck and without
+the sign of cravat, a pair of overalls, also faded and quite wretchedly
+spotty, and boots of the most shocking description. Yet in spite of
+this dreadful tenue he greeted me without embarrassment and indeed
+with a kind of artless pleasure. Truly the man was impossible, and when
+I observed the placard he had allowed to remain on the waistband of his
+overalls, boastfully alleging their indestructibility, my sympathies
+flew back to Mrs. Effie. There was a cartoon emblazoned on this placard,
+depicting the futile efforts of two teams of stout horses, each attached
+to a leg of the garment, to wrench it in twain. I mean to say, one might
+be reduced to overalls, but this blatant emblem was not a thing any
+gentleman need have retained. And again, observing his footgear, I was
+glad to recall that I had included a plentiful supply of boot-cream in
+my scanty luggage.
+
+Three of the goods-animals were now unladen, their burden of
+provisions being piled beside the door while Cousin Egbert chatted
+gayly with the cow-persons and the Indian Tuttle, after which these
+three took their leave, being madly bent, it appeared, upon
+penetrating still farther into the wilderness to another cattle farm.
+Then, left alone with Cousin Egbert, I was not long in discovering
+that, strictly speaking, he had no establishment. Not only were there
+no servants, but there were no drains, no water-taps, no ice-machine,
+no scullery, no central heating, no electric wiring. His hut consisted
+of but a single room, and this without a floor other than the packed
+earth, while the appointments were such as in any civilized country
+would have indicated the direst poverty. Two beds of the rudest
+description stood in opposite corners, and one end of the room was
+almost wholly occupied by a stone fireplace of primitive construction,
+over which the owner now hovered in certain feats of cookery.
+
+Thanks to my famished state I was in no mood to criticise his efforts,
+which he presently set forth upon the rough deal table in a hearty but
+quite inelegant manner. The meal, I am bound to say, was more than
+welcome to my now indiscriminating palate, though at a less urgent
+moment I should doubtless have found the bread soggy and the beans a
+pernicious mass. There was a stew of venison, however, which only the
+most skilful hands could have bettered, though how the man had
+obtained a deer was beyond me, since it was evident he possessed no
+shooting or deer-stalking costume. As to the tea, I made bold to speak
+my mind and succeeded in brewing some for myself.
+
+Throughout the repast Cousin Egbert was constantly attentive to my
+needs and was more cheerful of demeanour than I had ever seen him. The
+hunted look about his eyes, which had heretofore always distinguished
+him, was now gone, and he bore himself like a free man.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, as we smoked over the remains of the meal, "you
+stay with me and I'll give you one swell little time. I'll do the
+cooking, and between whiles we can sit right here and play cribbage
+day in and day out. You can get a taste of real life without moving."
+
+I saw then, if never before, that his deeper nature would not be
+aroused. Doubtless my passing success with him in Paris had marked the
+very highest stage of his spiritual development. I did not need to be
+told now that he had left off sock-suspenders forever, nor did I waste
+words in trying to recall him to his better self. Indeed for the
+moment I was too overwhelmed by fatigue even to remonstrate about his
+wretched lounge-suit, and I early fell asleep on one of the beds while
+he was still engaged in washing the metal dishes upon which we had
+eaten, singing the while the doleful ballad of "Rosalie, the Prairie
+Flower."
+
+It seemed but a moment later that I awoke, for Cousin Egbert was again
+busy among the dishes, but I saw that another day had come and his
+song had changed to one equally sad but quite different. "In the hazel
+dell my Nellie's sleeping," he sang, though in a low voice and quite
+cheerfully. Indeed his entire repertoire of ballads was confined to
+the saddest themes, chiefly of desirable maidens taken off untimely
+either by disease or accident. Besides "Rosalie, the Prairie Flower,"
+there was "Lovely Annie Lisle," over whom the willows waved and
+earthly music could not waken; another named "Sweet Alice Ben Bolt"
+lying in the churchyard, and still another, "Lily Dale," who was
+pictured "'neath the trees in the flowery vale," with the wild rose
+blossoming o'er the little green grave.
+
+His face was indeed sad as he rendered these woful ballads and yet his
+voice and manner were of the cheeriest, and I dare say he sang without
+reference to their real tragedy. It was a school of American balladry
+quite at variance with the cheerful optimism of those I had heard from
+the Belknap-Jackson phonograph, where the persons are not dead at all
+but are gayly calling upon one another to come on and do a folkdance,
+or hear a band or crawl under--things of that sort. As Cousin Egbert
+bent over a frying pan in which ham was cooking he crooned softly:
+
+    "In the hazel dell my Nellie's sleeping,
+      Nellie loved so long,
+    While my lonely, lonely watch I'm keeping,
+      Nellie lost and gone."
+
+I could attribute his choice only to that natural perversity which
+prompted him always to do the wrong thing, for surely this affecting
+verse was not meant to be sung at such a moment.
+
+Attempting to arise, I became aware that the two days' journey had
+left me sadly lame and wayworn, also that my face was burned from the
+sun and that I had been awakened too soon. Fortunately I had with me a
+shilling jar of Ridley's Society Complexion Food, "the all-weather
+wonder," which I applied to my face with cooling results, and I then
+felt able to partake of a bit of the breakfast which Cousin Egbert now
+brought to my bedside. The ham was of course not cooked correctly and
+the tea was again a mere corrosive, but so anxious was my host to
+please me that I refrained from any criticism, though at another time
+I should have told him straight what I thought of such cookery.
+
+When we had both eaten I slept again to the accompaniment of another
+sad song and the muted rattle of the pans as Cousin Egbert did the
+scullery work, and it was long past the luncheon hour when I awoke,
+still lame from the saddle, but greatly refreshed.
+
+It was now that another blow befell me, for upon arising and searching
+through my kit I discovered that my razors had been left behind. By
+any thinking man the effect of this oversight will be instantly
+perceived. Already low in spirits, the prospect of going unshaven
+could but aggravate my funk. I surrendered to the wave of homesickness
+that swept over me. I wanted London again, London with its yellow fog
+and greasy pavements, I wished to buy cockles off a barrow, I longed
+for toasted crumpets, and most of all I longed for my old rightful
+station; longed to turn out a gentleman, longed for the Honourable
+George and our peaceful if sometimes precarious existence among people
+of the right sort. The continued shocks since that fateful night of
+the cards had told upon me. I knew now that I had not been meant for
+adventure. Yet here I had turned up in the most savage of lands after
+leading a life of dishonest pretence in a station to which I had not
+been born--and, for I knew not how many days, I should not be able to
+shave my face.
+
+But here again a ferment stirred in my blood, some electric thrill of
+anarchy which had come from association with these Americans, a
+strange, lawless impulse toward their quite absurd ideals of equality,
+a monstrous ambition to be in myself some one that mattered, instead
+of that pretended Colonel Ruggles who, I now recalled, was to-day
+promised to bridge at the home of Mrs. Judge Ballard, where he would
+talk of hunting in the shires, of the royal enclosure at Ascot, of
+Hurlingham and Ranleigh, of Cowes in June, of the excellence of the
+converts at Chaynes-Wotten. No doubt it was a sort of madness now
+seized me, consequent upon the lack of shaving utensils.
+
+I wondered desperately if there was a true place for me in this life.
+I had tasted their equality that day of debauch in Paris, but
+obviously the sensation could not permanently be maintained upon
+spirits. Perhaps I might obtain a post in a bank; I might become a
+shop-assistant, bag-man, even a pressman. These moody and unwholesome
+thoughts were clouding my mind as I surveyed myself in the wrinkled
+mirror which had seemed to suffice the uncritical Cousin Egbert for
+his toilet. It hung between the portrait of a champion middle-weight
+crouching in position and the calendar advertisement of a brewery
+which, as I could not fancy Cousin Egbert being in the least concerned
+about the day of the month, had too evidently been hung on his wall
+because of the coloured lithograph of a blond creature in theatrical
+undress who smirked most immorally.
+
+Studying the curiously wavy effect this glass produced upon my face, I
+chanced to observe in a corner of the frame a printed card with the
+heading "Take Courage!" To my surprise the thing, when I had read it,
+capped my black musings upon my position in a rather uncanny way.
+Briefly it recited the humble beginnings of a score or more of the
+world's notable figures.
+
+"Demosthenes was the son of a cutler," it began. "Horace was the son
+of a shopkeeper. Virgil's father was a porter. Cardinal Wolsey was the
+son of a butcher. Shakespeare the son of a wool-stapler." Followed the
+obscure parentage of such well-known persons as Milton, Napoleon,
+Columbus, Cromwell. Even Mohammed was noted as a shepherd and
+camel-driver, though it seemed rather questionable taste to include in
+the list one whose religion, as to family life, was rather scandalous.
+More to the point was the citation of various Americans who had sprung
+from humble beginnings: Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Garfield, Edison. It
+is true that there was not, apparently, a gentleman's servant among
+them; they were rail-splitters, boatmen, tailors, artisans of sorts,
+but the combined effect was rather overwhelming.
+
+From the first moment of my encountering the American social system,
+it seemed, I had been by way of becoming a rabid anarchist--that is,
+one feeling that he might become a gentleman regardless of his
+birth--and here were the disconcerting facts concerning a score of
+notables to confirm me in my heresy. It was not a thing to be spoken
+lightly of in loose discussion, but there can be no doubt that at
+this moment I coldly questioned the soundness of our British system,
+the vital marrow of which is to teach that there is a difference
+between men and men. To be sure, it will have been seen that I was not
+myself, having for a quarter year been subjected to a series of
+nervous shocks, and having had my mind contaminated, moreover, by
+being brought into daily contact with this unthinking American
+equality in the person of Cousin Egbert, who, I make bold to assert,
+had never for one instant since his doubtless obscure birth considered
+himself the superior of any human being whatsoever.
+
+This much I advance for myself in extenuation of my lawless
+imaginings, but of them I can abate no jot; it was all at once clear
+to me, monstrous as it may seem, that Nature and the British Empire
+were at variance in their decrees, and that somehow a system was base
+which taught that one man is necessarily inferior to another. I dare
+say it was a sort of poisonous intoxication--that I should all at once
+declare:
+
+"His lordship tenth Earl of Brinstead and Marmaduke Ruggles are two
+men; one has made an acceptable peer and one an acceptable valet, yet
+the twain are equal, and the system which has made one inferior
+socially to the other is false and bad and cannot endure." For a
+moment, I repeat, I saw myself a gentleman in the making--a clear
+fairway without bunkers from tee to green--meeting my equals with a
+friendly eye; and then the illumining shock, for I unconsciously added
+to myself, "Regarding my inferiors with a kindly tolerance." It was
+there I caught myself. So much a part of the system was I that,
+although I could readily conceive a society in which I had no
+superiors, I could not picture one in which I had not inferiors. The
+same poison that ran in the veins of their lordships ran also in the
+veins of their servants. I was indeed, it appeared, hopelessly
+inoculated. Again I read the card. Horace was the son of a shopkeeper,
+but I made no doubt that, after he became a popular and successful
+writer of Latin verse, he looked down upon his own father. Only could
+it have been otherwise, I thought, had he been born in this fermenting
+America to no station whatever and left to achieve his rightful one.
+
+So I mused thus licentiously until one clear conviction possessed me:
+that I would no longer pretend to the social superiority of one
+Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles. I would concede no inferiority in myself,
+but I would not again, before Red Gap's county families vaunt myself
+as other than I was. That this was more than a vagrant fancy on my
+part will be seen when I aver that suddenly, strangely, alarmingly, I
+no longer cared that I was unshaven and must remain so for an untold
+number of days. I welcomed the unhandsome stubble that now projected
+itself upon my face; I curiously wished all at once to be as badly
+gotten up as Cousin Egbert, with as little thought for my station in
+life. I would no longer refrain from doing things because they were
+"not done." My own taste would be the law.
+
+It was at this moment that Cousin Egbert appeared in the doorway with
+four trout from the stream nearby, though how he had managed to snare
+them I could not think, since he possessed no correct equipment for
+angling. I fancy I rather overwhelmed him by exclaiming, "Hello,
+Sour-dough!" since never before had I addressed him in any save a
+formal fashion, and it is certain I embarrassed him by my next
+proceeding, which was to grasp his hand and shake it heartily, an
+action that I could explain no more than he, except that the violence
+of my self-communion was still upon me and required an outlet. He
+grinned amiably, then regarded me with a shrewd eye and demanded if I
+had been drinking.
+
+"This," I said; "I am drunk with this," and held the card up to him.
+But when he took it interestedly he merely read the obverse side which
+I had not observed until now. "Go to Epstein's for Everything You
+Wear," it said in large type, and added, "The Square Deal Mammoth
+Store."
+
+"They carry a nice stock," he said, still a bit puzzled by my tone,
+"though I generally trade at the Red Front." I turned the card over
+for him and he studied the list of humble-born notables, though from a
+point of view peculiarly his own. "I don't see," he began, "what right
+they got to rake up all that stuff about people that's dead and gone.
+Who cares what their folks was!" And he added, "'Horace was the son of
+a shopkeeper'--Horace who?" Plainly the matter did not excite him, and
+I saw it would be useless to try to convey to him what the items had
+meant to me.
+
+"I mean to say, I'm glad to be here with you," I said.
+
+"I knew you'd like it," he answered. "Everything is nice here."
+
+"America is some country," I said.
+
+"She is, she is," he answered. "And now you can bile up a pot of tea
+in your own way while I clean these here fish for sapper."
+
+I made the tea. I regret to say there was not a tea cozy in the place;
+indeed the linen, silver, and general table equipment were sadly
+deficient, but in my reckless mood I made no comment.
+
+"Your tea smells good, but it ain't got no kick to it," he observed
+over his first cup. "When I drench my insides with tea I sort of want
+it to take a hold." And still I made no effort to set him right. I now
+saw that in all true essentials he did not need me to set him right.
+For so uncouth a person he was strangely commendable and worthy.
+
+As we sipped our tea in companionable silence, I busy with my new and
+disturbing thoughts, a long shout came to us from the outer distance.
+Cousin Egbert brightened.
+
+"I'm darned if that ain't Ma Pettengill!" he exclaimed. "She's rid
+over from the Arrowhead."
+
+We rushed to the door, and in the distance, riding down upon us at
+terrific speed, I indeed beheld the Mixer. A moment later she reigned
+in her horse before us and hoarsely rumbled her greetings. I had last
+seen her at a formal dinner where she was rather formidably done out
+in black velvet and diamonds. Now she appeared in a startling tenue of
+khaki riding-breeches and flannel shirt, with one of the wide-brimmed
+cow-person hats. Even at the moment of greeting her I could not but
+reflect how shocked our dear Queen would be at the sight of this
+riding habit.
+
+She dismounted with hearty explanations of how she had left her
+"round-up" and ridden over to visit, having heard from the Tuttle
+person that we were here. Cousin Egbert took her horse and she entered
+the hut, where to my utter amazement she at once did a feminine thing.
+Though from her garb one at a little distance might have thought her a
+man, a portly, florid, carelessly attired man, she made at once for
+the wrinkled mirror where, after anxiously scanning her burned face
+for an instant, she produced powder and puff from a pocket of her
+shirt and daintily powdered her generous blob of a nose. Having
+achieved this to her apparent satisfaction, she unrolled a bundle she
+had carried at her saddle and donned a riding skirt, buttoning it
+about the waist and smoothing down its folds--before I could retire.
+
+"There, now," she boomed, as if some satisfying finality had been
+brought about. Such was the Mixer. That sort of thing would never do
+with us, and yet I suddenly saw that she, like Cousin Egbert, was
+strangely commendable and worthy. I mean to say, I no longer felt it
+was my part to set her right in any of the social niceties. Some
+curious change had come upon me. I knew then that I should no longer
+resist America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+
+With a curious friendly glow upon me I set about helping Cousin Egbert
+in the preparation of our evening meal, a work from which, owing to
+the number and apparent difficulty of my suggestions, he presently
+withdrew, leaving me in entire charge. It is quite true that I have
+pronounced views as to the preparation and serving of food, and I dare
+say I embarrassed the worthy fellow without at all meaning to do so,
+for too many of his culinary efforts betray the fumbling touch of the
+amateur. And as I worked over the open fire, doing the trout to a
+turn, stirring the beans, and perfecting the stew with deft touches of
+seasoning, I worded to myself for the first time a most severe
+indictment against the North American cookery, based upon my
+observations across the continent and my experience as a diner-out in
+Red Gap.
+
+I saw that it would never do with us, and that it ought, as a matter
+of fact, to be uplifted. Even then, while our guest chattered gossip
+of the town over her brown paper cigarettes, I felt the stirring of an
+impulse to teach Americans how to do themselves better at table. For
+the moment, of course, I was hampered by lack of equipment (there was
+not even a fish slice in the establishment), but even so I brewed
+proper tea and was able to impart to the simple viands a touch of
+distinction which they had lacked under Cousin Egbert's
+all-too-careless manipulation.
+
+As I served the repast Cousin Egbert produced a bottle of the brown
+American whiskey at which we pegged a bit before sitting to table.
+
+"Three rousing cheers!" said he, and the Mixer responded with "Happy
+days!"
+
+As on that former occasion, the draught of spirits flooded my being
+with a vast consciousness of personal worth and of good feeling toward
+my companions. With a true insight I suddenly perceived that one might
+belong to the great lower middle-class in America and still matter in
+the truest, correctest sense of the term.
+
+As we fell hungrily to the food, the Mixer did not fail to praise my
+cooking of the trout, and she and Cousin Egbert were presently
+lamenting the difficulty of obtaining a well-cooked meal in Red Gap.
+At this I boldly spoke up, declaring that American cookery lacked
+constructive imagination, making only the barest use of its
+magnificent opportunities, following certain beaten and
+all-too-familiar roads with a slavish stupidity.
+
+"We nearly had a good restaurant," said the Mixer. "A Frenchman came
+and showed us a little flash of form, but he only lasted a month
+because he got homesick. He had half the people in town going there
+for dinner, too, to get away from their Chinamen--and after I spent a
+lot of money fixing the place up for him, too."
+
+I recalled the establishment, on the main street, though I had not
+known that our guest was its owner. Vacant it was now, and looking
+quite as if the bailiffs had been in.
+
+"He couldn't cook ham and eggs proper," suggested Cousin Egbert. "I
+tried him three times, and every time he done something French to 'em
+that nobody had ought to do to ham and eggs."
+
+Hereupon I ventured to assert that a too-intense nationalism would
+prove the ruin of any chef outside his own country; there must be a
+certain breadth of treatment, a blending of the best features of
+different schools. One must know English and French methods and yet be
+a slave to neither; one must even know American cookery and be
+prepared to adapt its half-dozen or so undoubted excellencies. From
+this I ventured further into a general criticism of the dinners I had
+eaten at Red Gap's smartest houses. Too profuse they were, I said, and
+too little satisfying in any one feature; too many courses,
+constructed, as I had observed, after photographs printed in the back
+pages of women's magazines; doubtless they possessed a certain
+artistic value as sights for the eye, but considered as food they were
+devoid of any inner meaning.
+
+"Bill's right," said Cousin Egbert warmly. "Mrs. Effie, she gets up
+about nine of them pictures, with nuts and grated eggs and scrambled
+tomatoes all over 'em, and nobody knowing what's what, and even when
+you strike one that tastes good they's only a dab of it and you
+mustn't ask for any more. When I go out to dinner, what I want is to
+have 'em say, 'Pass up your plate, Mr. Floud, for another piece of the
+steak and some potatoes, and have some more squash and help yourself
+to the quince jelly.' That's how it had ought to be, but I keep eatin'
+these here little plates of cut-up things and waiting for the real
+stuff, and first thing I know I get a spoonful of coffee in something
+like you put eye medicine into, and I know it's all over. Last time I
+was out I hid up a dish of these here salted almuns under a fern and
+et the whole lot from time to time, kind of absent like. It helped
+some, but it wasn't dinner."
+
+"Same here," put in the Mixer, saturating half a slice of bread in the
+sauce of the stew. "I can't afford to act otherwise than like I am a
+lady at one of them dinners, but the minute I'm home I beat it for the
+icebox. I suppose it's all right to be socially elegant, but we hadn't
+ought to let it contaminate our food none. And even at that New York
+hotel this summer you had to make trouble to get fed proper. I wanted
+strawberry shortcake, and what do you reckon they dealt me? A thing
+looking like a marble palace--sponge cake and whipped cream with a few
+red spots in between. Well, long as we're friends here together, I may
+say that I raised hell until I had the chef himself up and told him
+exactly what to do; biscuit dough baked and prized apart and buttered,
+strawberries with sugar on 'em in between and on top, and plenty of
+regular cream. Well, after three days' trying he finally managed to
+get simple--he just couldn't believe I meant it at first, and kept
+building on the whipped cream--and the thing cost eight dollars, but
+you can bet he had me, even then; the bonehead smarty had sweetened
+the cream and grated nutmeg into it. I give up.
+
+"And if you can't get right food in New York, how can you expect to
+here? And Jackson, the idiot, has just fired the only real cook in Red
+Gap. Yes, sir; he's let the coons go. It come out that Waterman had
+sneaked out that suit of his golf clothes that Kate Kenner wore in the
+minstrel show, so he fired them both, and now I got to support 'em,
+because, as long as we're friends here, I don't mind telling you I
+egged the coon on to do it."
+
+I saw that she was referring to the black and his wife whom I had met
+at the New York camp, though it seemed quaint to me that they should
+be called "coons," which is, I take it, a diminutive for "raccoon," a
+species of ground game to be found in America.
+
+Truth to tell, I enjoyed myself immensely at this simple but
+satisfying meal, feeling myself one with these homely people, and I
+was sorry when we had finished.
+
+"That was some little dinner itself," said the Mixer as she rolled a
+cigarette; "and now you boys set still while I do up the dishes." Nor
+would she allow either of us to assist her in this work. When she had
+done, Cousin Egbert proceeded to mix hot toddies from the whiskey, and
+we gathered about the table before the open fire.
+
+"Now we'll have a nice home evening," said the Mixer, and to my great
+embarrassment she began at once to speak to myself.
+
+"A strong man like him has got no business becoming a social
+butterfly," she remarked to Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Oh, Bill's all right," insisted the latter, as he had done so many
+times before.
+
+"He's all right so far, but let him go on for a year or so and he
+won't be a darned bit better than what Jackson is, mark my words. Just
+a social butterfly, wearing funny clothes and attending afternoon
+affairs."
+
+"Well, I don't say you ain't right," said Cousin Egbert thoughtfully;
+"that's one reason I got him out here where everything is nice. What
+with speaking pieces like an actor, I was afraid they'd have him
+making more kinds of a fool of himself than what Jackson does, him
+being a foreigner, and his mind kind o' running on what clothes a man
+had ought to wear."
+
+Hereupon, so flushed was I with the good feeling of the occasion, I
+told them straight that I had resolved to quit being Colonel Ruggles
+of the British army and associate of the nobility; that I had
+determined to forget all class distinctions and to become one of
+themselves, plain, simple, and unpretentious. It is true that I had
+consumed two of the hot grogs, but my mind was clear enough, and both
+my companions applauded this resolution.
+
+"If he can just get his mind off clothes for a bit he might amount to
+something," said Cousin Egbert, and it will scarcely be credited, but
+at the moment I felt actually grateful to him for this admission.
+
+"We'll think about his case," said the Mixer, taking her own second
+toddy, whereupon the two fell to talking of other things, chiefly of
+their cattle plantations and the price of beef-stock, which then
+seemed to be six and one half, though what this meant I had no notion.
+Also I gathered that the Mixer at her own cattle-farm had been
+watching her calves marked with her monogram, though I would never
+have credited her with so much sentiment.
+
+When the retiring hour came, Cousin Egbert and I prepared to take our
+blankets outside to sleep, but the Mixer would have none of this.
+
+"The last time I slept in here," she remarked, "mice was crawling over
+me all night, so you keep your shack and I'll bed down outside. I
+ain't afraid of mice, understand, but I don't like to feel their feet
+on my face."
+
+And to my great dismay, though Cousin Egbert took it calmly enough,
+she took a roll of blankets and made a crude pallet on the ground
+outside, under a spreading pine tree. I take it she was that sort. The
+least I could do was to secure two tins of milk from our larder and
+place them near her cot, in case of some lurking high-behind, though I
+said nothing of this, not wishing to alarm her needlessly.
+
+Inside the hut Cousin Egbert and I partook of a final toddy before
+retiring. He was unusually thoughtful and I had difficulty in
+persuading him to any conversation. Thus having noted a bearskin
+before my bed, I asked him if he had killed the animal.
+
+"No," said he shortly, "I wouldn't lie for a bear as small as that."
+As he was again silent, I made no further approaches to him.
+
+From my first sleep I was awakened by a long, booming yell from our
+guest outside. Cousin Egbert and I reached the door at the same time.
+
+"I've got it!" bellowed the Mixer, and we went out to her in the chill
+night. She sat up with the blankets muffled about her.
+
+"We start Bill in that restaurant," she began. "It come to me in a
+flash. I judge he's got the right ideas, and Waterman and his wife can
+cook for him."
+
+"Bully!" exclaimed Cousin Egbert. "I was thinking he ought to have a
+gents' furnishing store, on account of his mind running to dress, but
+you got the best idea."
+
+"I'll stake him to the rent," she put in.
+
+"And I'll stake him to the rest," exclaimed Cousin Egbert delightedly,
+and, strange as it may seem, I suddenly saw myself a licensed
+victualler.
+
+"I'll call it the 'United States Grill,'" I said suddenly, as if by
+inspiration.
+
+"Three rousing cheers for the U.S. Grill!" shouted Cousin Egbert to
+the surrounding hills, and repairing to the hut he brought out hot
+toddies with which we drank success to the new enterprise. For a
+half-hour, I dare say, we discussed details there in the cold night,
+not seeing that it was quite preposterously bizarre. Returning to the
+hut at last, Cousin Egbert declared himself so chilled that he must
+have another toddy before retiring, and, although I was already
+feeling myself the equal of any American, I consented to join him.
+
+Just before retiring again my attention centred a second time upon the
+bearskin before my bed and, forgetting that I had already inquired
+about it, I demanded of him if he had killed the animal. "Sure," said
+he; "killed it with one shot just as it was going to claw me. It was
+an awful big one."
+
+Morning found the three of us engrossed with the new plan, and by the
+time our guest rode away after luncheon the thing was well forward and
+I had the Mixer's order upon her estate agent at Red Gap for admission
+to the vacant premises. During the remainder of the day, between games
+of cribbage, Cousin Egbert and I discussed the venture. And it was now
+that I began to foresee a certain difficulty.
+
+How, I asked myself, would the going into trade of Colonel Marmaduke
+Ruggles be regarded by those who had been his social sponsors in Red
+Gap? I mean to say, would not Mrs. Effie and the Belknap-Jacksons feel
+that I had played them false? Had I not given them the right to
+believe that I should continue, during my stay in their town, to be
+one whom their county families would consider rather a personage? It
+was idle, indeed, for me to deny that my personality as well as my
+assumed origin and social position abroad had conferred a sort of
+prestige upon my sponsors; that on my account, in short, the North
+Side set had been newly armed in its battle with the Bohemian set. And
+they relied upon my continued influence. How, then, could I face them
+with the declaration that I meant to become a tradesman? Should I be
+doing a caddish thing, I wondered?
+
+Putting the difficulty to Cousin Egbert, he dismissed it impatiently
+by saying: "Oh, shucks!" In truth I do not believe he comprehended it
+in the least. But then it was that I fell upon my inspiration. I might
+take Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles from the North Side set, but I would
+give them another and bigger notable in his place. This should be none
+other than the Honourable George, whom I would now summon. A fortnight
+before I had received a rather snarky letter from him demanding to
+know how long I meant to remain in North America and disclosing that
+he was in a wretched state for want of some one to look after him. And
+he had even hinted that in the event of my continued absence he might
+himself come out to America and fetch me back. His quarter's
+allowance, would, I knew, be due in a fortnight, and my letter would
+reach him, therefore, before some adventurer had sold him a system for
+beating the French games of chance. And my letter would be compelling.
+I would make it a summons he could not resist. Thus, when I met the
+reproachful gaze of the C. Belknap-Jacksons and of Mrs. Effie, I
+should be able to tell them: "I go from you, but I leave you a better
+man in my place." With the Honourable George Augustus Vane-Basingwell,
+next Earl of Brinstead, as their house guest, I made no doubt that the
+North Side set would at once prevail as it never had before, the
+Bohemian set losing at once such of its members as really mattered,
+who would of course be sensible of the tremendous social importance of
+the Honourable George.
+
+Yet there came moments in which I would again find myself in no end of
+a funk, foreseeing difficulties of an insurmountable character. At
+such times Cousin Egbert strove to cheer me with all sorts of
+assurances, and to divert my mind he took me upon excursions of the
+roughest sort into the surrounding jungle, in search either of fish or
+ground game. After three days of this my park-suit became almost a
+total ruin, particularly as to the trousers, so that I was glad to
+borrow a pair of overalls such as Cousin Egbert wore. They were a tidy
+fit, but, having resolved not to resist America any longer, I donned
+them without even removing the advertising placard.
+
+With my ever-lengthening stubble of beard it will be understood that I
+now appeared as one of their hearty Western Americans of the roughest
+type, which was almost quite a little odd, considering my former
+principles. Cousin Egbert, I need hardly say, was immensely pleased
+with my changed appearance, and remarked that I was "sure a live
+wire." He also heartened me in the matter of the possible disapproval
+of C. Belknap-Jackson, which he had divined was the essential rabbit
+in my moodiness.
+
+"I admit the guy uses beautiful language," he conceded, "and probably
+he's top-notched in education, but jest the same he ain't the whole
+seven pillars of the house of wisdom, not by a long shot. If he gets
+fancy with you, sock him again. You done it once." So far was the
+worthy fellow from divining the intimate niceties involved in my
+giving up a social career for trade. Nor could he properly estimate
+the importance of my plan to summon the Honourable George to Red Gap,
+merely remarking that the "Judge" was all right and a good mixer and
+that the boys would give him a swell time.
+
+Our return journey to Red Gap was made in company with the Indian
+Tuttle, and the two cow-persons, Hank and Buck, all of whom professed
+themselves glad to meet me again, and they, too, were wildly
+enthusiastic at hearing from Cousin Egbert of my proposed business
+venture. Needless to say they were of a class that would bother itself
+little with any question of social propriety involved in my entering
+trade, and they were loud in their promises of future patronage. At
+this I again felt some misgiving, for I meant the United States Grill
+to possess an atmosphere of quiet refinement calculated to appeal to
+particular people that really mattered; and yet it was plain that,
+keeping a public house, I must be prepared to entertain agricultural
+labourers and members of the lower or working classes. For a time I
+debated having an ordinary for such as these, where they could be shut
+away from my selecter patrons, but eventually decided upon a tariff
+that would be prohibitive to all but desirable people. The rougher or
+Bohemian element, being required to spring an extra shilling, would
+doubtless seek other places.
+
+For two days we again filed through mountain gorges of a most awkward
+character, reaching Red Gap at dusk. For this I was rather grateful,
+not only because of my beard and the overalls, but on account of a hat
+of the most shocking description which Cousin Egbert had pressed upon
+me when my own deer-stalker was lost in a glen. I was willing to
+roughen it in all good-fellowship with these worthy Americans, but I
+knew that to those who had remarked my careful taste in dress my
+present appearance would seem almost a little singular. I would rather
+I did not shock them to this extent.
+
+Yet when our animals had been left in their corral, or rude enclosure,
+I found it would be ungracious to decline the hospitality of my new
+friends who wished to drink to the success of the U.S. Grill, and so I
+accompanied them to several public houses, though with the shocking
+hat pulled well down over my face. Also, as the dinner hour passed, I
+consented to dine with them at the establishment of a Chinese, where
+we sat on high stools at a counter and were served ham and eggs and
+some of the simpler American foods.
+
+The meal being over, I knew that we ought to cut off home directly,
+but Cousin Egbert again insisted upon visiting drinking-places, and I
+had no mind to leave him, particularly as he was growing more and more
+bitter in my behalf against Mr. Belknap-Jackson. I had a doubtless
+absurd fear that he would seek the gentleman out and do him a
+mischief, though for the moment he was merely urging me to do this. It
+would, he asserted, vastly entertain the Indian Tuttle and the
+cow-persons if I were to come upon Mr. Belknap-Jackson and savage him
+without warning, or at least with only a paltry excuse, which he
+seemed proud of having devised.
+
+"You go up to the guy," he insisted, "very polite, you understand, and
+ask him what day this is. If he says it's Tuesday, sock him."
+
+"But it is Tuesday," I said.
+
+"Sure," he replied, "that's where the joke comes in."
+
+Of course this was the crudest sort of American humour and not to be
+given a moment's serious thought, so I redoubled my efforts to detach
+him from our honest but noisy friends, and presently had the
+satisfaction of doing so by pleading that I must be up early on the
+morrow and would also require his assistance. At parting, to my
+embarrassment, he insisted on leading the group in a cheer. "What's
+the matter with Ruggles?" they loudly demanded in unison, following
+the query swiftly with: "He's all right!" the "he" being eloquently
+emphasized.
+
+But at last we were away from them and off into the darker avenue, to
+my great relief, remembering my garb. I might be a living wire, as
+Cousin Egbert had said, but I was keenly aware that his overalls and
+hat would rather convey the impression that I was what they call in
+the States a bad person from a bitter creek.
+
+To my further relief, the Floud house was quite dark as we approached
+and let ourselves in. Cousin Egbert, however, would enter the
+drawing-room, flood it with light, and seat himself in an easy-chair
+with his feet lifted to a sofa. He then raised his voice in a ballad
+of an infant that had perished, rendering it most tearfully, the
+refrain being, "Empty is the cradle, baby's gone!" Apprehensive at
+this, I stole softly up the stairs and had but reached the door of my
+own room when I heard Mrs. Effie below. I could fancy the chilling
+gaze which she fastened upon the singer, and I heard her coldly
+demand, "Where are your feet?" Whereupon the plaintive voice of Cousin
+Egbert arose to me, "Just below my legs." I mean to say, he had taken
+the thing as a quiz in anatomy rather than as the rebuke it was meant
+to be. As I closed my door, I heard him add that he could be pushed
+just so far.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+
+Having written and posted my letter to the Honourable George the
+following morning, I summoned Mr. Belknap-Jackson, conceiving it my
+first duty to notify him and Mrs. Effie of my trade intentions. I also
+requested Cousin Egbert to be present, since he was my business
+sponsor.
+
+All being gathered at the Floud house, including Mrs. Belknap-Jackson,
+I told them straight that I had resolved to abandon my social career,
+brilliant though it had been, and to enter trade quite as one of their
+middle-class Americans. They all gasped a bit at my first words, as I
+had quite expected them to do, but what was my surprise, when I went
+on to announce the nature of my enterprise, to find them not a little
+intrigued by it, and to discover that in their view I should not in
+the least be lowering myself.
+
+"Capital, capital!" exclaimed Belknap-Jackson, and the ladies emitted
+little exclamations of similar import.
+
+"At last," said Mrs. Belknap-Jackson, "we shall have a place with tone
+to it. The hall above will be splendid for our dinner dances, and now
+we can have smart luncheons and afternoon teas."
+
+"And a red-coated orchestra and after-theatre suppers," said Mrs.
+Effie.
+
+"Only," put in Belknap-Jackson thoughtfully, "he will of course be
+compelled to use discretion about his patrons. The rabble, of
+course----" He broke off with a wave of his hand which, although not
+pointedly, seemed to indicate Cousin Egbert, who once more wore the
+hunted look about his eyes and who sat by uneasily. I saw him wince.
+
+"Some people's money is just as good as other people's if you come
+right down to it," he muttered, "and Bill is out for the coin.
+Besides, we all got to eat, ain't we?"
+
+Belknap-Jackson smiled deprecatingly and again waved his hand as if
+there were no need for words.
+
+"That rowdy Bohemian set----" began Mrs. Effie, but I made bold to
+interrupt. There might, I said, be awkward moments, but I had no doubt
+that I should be able to meet them with a flawless tact. Meantime, for
+the ultimate confusion of the Bohemian set of Red Gap, I had to
+announce that the Honourable George Augustus Vane-Basingwell would
+presently be with us. With him as a member of the North Side set, I
+pointed out, it was not possible to believe that any desirable members
+of the Bohemian set would longer refuse to affiliate with the smartest
+people.
+
+My announcement made quite all the sensation I had anticipated.
+Belknap-Jackson, indeed, arose quickly and grasped me by the hand,
+echoing, "The Honourable George Augustus Vane-Basingwell, brother of
+the Earl of Brinstead," with little shivers of ecstasy in his voice,
+while the ladies pealed their excitement incoherently, with "Really!
+really!" and "Actually coming to Red Gap--the brother of a lord!"
+
+Then almost at once I detected curiously cold glances being darted at
+each other by the ladies.
+
+"Of course we will be only too glad to put him up," said Mrs.
+Belknap-Jackson quickly.
+
+"But, my dear, he will of course come to us first," put in Mrs. Effie.
+"Afterward, to be sure----"
+
+"It's so important that he should receive a favourable impression,"
+responded Mrs. Belknap-Jackson.
+
+"That's exactly why----" Mrs. Effie came back with not a little
+obvious warmth. Belknap-Jackson here caught my eye.
+
+"I dare say Ruggles and I can be depended upon to decide a minor
+matter like that," he said.
+
+The ladies both broke in at this, rather sputteringly, but Cousin
+Egbert silenced them.
+
+"Shake dice for him," he said--"poker dice, three throws, aces low."
+
+"How shockingly vulgar!" hissed Mrs. Belknap-Jackson.
+
+"Even if there were no other reason for his coming to us," remarked
+her husband coldly, "there are certain unfortunate associations which
+ought to make his entertainment here quite impossible."
+
+"If you're calling me 'unfortunate associations,'" remarked Cousin
+Egbert, "you want to get it out of your head right off. I don't mind
+telling you, the Judge and I get along fine together. I told him when
+I was in Paris and Europe to look me up the first thing if ever he
+come here, and he said he sure would. The Judge is some mixer, believe
+me!"
+
+"The 'Judge'!" echoed the Belknap-Jacksons in deep disgust.
+
+"You come right down to it--I bet a cookie he stays just where I tell
+him to stay," insisted Cousin Egbert. The evident conviction of his
+tone alarmed his hearers, who regarded each other with pained
+speculation.
+
+"Right where I tell him to stay and no place else," insisted Cousin
+Egbert, sensing the impression he had made.
+
+"But this is too monstrous!" said Mr. Jackson, regarding me
+imploringly.
+
+"The Honourable George," I admitted, "has been known to do unexpected
+things, and there have been times when he was not as sensitive as I
+could wish to the demands of his caste----"
+
+"Bill is stalling--he knows darned well the Judge is a mixer," broke
+in Cousin Egbert, somewhat to my embarrassment, nor did any reply
+occur to me. There was a moment's awkward silence during which I
+became sensitive to a radical change in the attitude which these
+people bore to Cousin Egbert. They shot him looks of furtive but
+unmistakable respect, and Mrs. Effie remarked almost with tenderness:
+"We must admit that Cousin Egbert has a certain way with him."
+
+"I dare say Floud and I can adjust the matter satisfactorily to all,"
+remarked Belknap-Jackson, and with a jaunty affection of
+good-fellowship, he opened his cigarette case to Cousin Egbert.
+
+"I ain't made up my mind yet where I'll have him stay," announced the
+latter, too evidently feeling his newly acquired importance. "I may
+have him stay one place, then again I may have him stay another. I
+can't decide things like that off-hand."
+
+And here the matter was preposterously left, the aspirants for this
+social honour patiently bending their knees to the erstwhile despised
+Cousin Egbert, and the latter being visibly puffed up. By rather
+awkward stages they came again to a discussion of the United States
+Grill.
+
+"The name, of course, might be thought flamboyant," suggested
+Belknap-Jackson delicately.
+
+"But I have determined," I said, "no longer to resist America, and so
+I can think of no name more fitting."
+
+"Your determination," he answered, "bears rather sinister
+implications. One may be vanquished by America as I have been. One may
+even submit; but surely one may always resist a little, may not one?
+One need not abjectly surrender one's finest convictions, need one?"
+
+"Oh, shucks," put in Cousin Egbert petulantly, "what's the use of all
+that 'one' stuff? Bill wants a good American name for his place. Me? I
+first thought the 'Bon Ton Eating House' would be kind of a nice name
+for it, but as soon as he said the 'United States Grill' I knew it was
+a better one. It sounds kind of grand and important."
+
+Belknap-Jackson here made deprecating clucks, but not too directly
+toward Cousin Egbert, and my choice of a name was not further
+criticised. I went on to assure them that I should have an
+establishment quietly smart rather than noisily elegant, and that I
+made no doubt the place would give a new tone to Red Gap, whereat they
+all expressed themselves as immensely pleased, and our little
+conference came to an end.
+
+In company with Cousin Egbert I now went to examine the premises I was
+to take over. There was a spacious corner room, lighted from the front
+and side, which would adapt itself well to the decorative scheme I had
+in mind. The kitchen with its ranges I found would be almost quite
+suitable for my purpose, requiring but little alteration, but the
+large room was of course atrociously impossible in the American
+fashion, with unsightly walls, the floors covered with American cloth
+of a garish pattern, and the small, oblong tables and flimsy chairs
+vastly uninviting.
+
+As to the gross ideals of the former tenant, I need only say that he
+had made, as I now learned, a window display of foods, quite after the
+manner of a draper's window: moulds of custard set in a row, flanked
+on either side by "pies," as the natives call their tarts, with
+perhaps a roast fowl or ham in the centre. Artistic vulgarity could of
+course go little beyond this, but almost as offensive were the
+abundant wall-placards pathetically remaining in place.
+
+"Coffee like mother used to make," read one. Impertinently intimate
+this, professing a familiarity with one's people that would never do
+with us. "Try our Boston Baked Beans," pleaded another, quite
+abjectly. And several others quite indelicately stated the prices at
+which different dishes might be had: "Irish Stew, 25 cents";
+"Philadelphia Capon, 35 cents"; "Fried Chicken, Maryland, 50 cents";
+"New York Fancy Broil, 40 cents." Indeed the poor chap seemed to have
+been possessed by a geographical mania, finding it difficult to submit
+the simplest viands without crediting them to distant towns or
+provinces.
+
+Upon Cousin Egbert's remarking that these bedizened placards would
+"come in handy," I took pains to explain to him just how different the
+United States Grill would be. The walls would be done in deep red; the
+floor would be covered with a heavy Turkey carpet of the same tone;
+the present crude electric lighting fixtures must be replaced with
+indirect lighting from the ceiling and electric candlesticks for the
+tables. The latter would be massive and of stained oak, my general
+colour-scheme being red and brown. The chairs would be of the same
+style, comfortable chairs in which patrons would be tempted to linger.
+The windows would be heavily draped. In a word, the place would have
+atmosphere; not the loud and blaring, elegance which I had observed in
+the smartest of New York establishments, with shrieking decorations
+and tables jammed together, but an atmosphere of distinction which,
+though subtle, would yet impress shop-assistants, plate-layers and
+road-menders, hodmen, carters, cattle-persons--in short the
+middle-class native.
+
+Cousin Egbert, I fear, was not properly impressed with my plan, for he
+looked longingly at the wall-placards, yet he made the most loyal
+pretence to this effect, even when I explained further that I should
+probably have no printed menu, which I have always regarded as the
+ultimate vulgarity in a place where there are any proper relations
+between patrons and steward. He made one wistful, timid reference to
+the "Try Our Merchant's Lunch for 35 cents," after which he gave in
+entirely, particularly when I explained that ham and eggs in the best
+manner would be forthcoming at his order, even though no placard
+vaunted them or named their price. Advertising one's ability to serve
+ham and eggs, I pointed out to him, would be quite like advertising
+that one was a member of the Church of England.
+
+After this he meekly enough accompanied me to his bank, where he
+placed a thousand pounds to my credit, adding that I could go as much
+farther as I liked, whereupon I set in motion the machinery for
+decorating and furnishing the place, with particular attention to
+silver, linen, china, and glassware, all of which, I was resolved,
+should have an air of its own.
+
+Nor did I neglect to seek out the pair of blacks and enter into an
+agreement with them to assist in staffing my place. I had feared that
+the male black might have resolved to return to his adventurous life
+of outlawry after leaving the employment of Belknap-Jackson, but I
+found him peacefully inclined and entirely willing to accept service
+with me, while his wife, upon whom I would depend for much of the
+actual cooking, was wholly enthusiastic, admiring especially my
+colour-scheme of reds. I observed at once that her almost exclusive
+notion of preparing food was to fry it, but I made no doubt that I
+would be able to broaden her scope, since there are of course things
+that one simply does not fry.
+
+The male black, or raccoon, at first alarmed me not a little by reason
+of threats he made against Belknap-Jackson on account of having been
+shopped. He nursed an intention, so he informed me, of putting
+snake-dust in the boots of his late employer and so bringing evil upon
+him, either by disease or violence, but in this I discouraged him
+smartly, apprising him that the Belknap-Jacksons would doubtless be
+among our most desirable patrons, whereupon his wife promised for him
+that he would do nothing of the sort. She was a native of formidable
+bulk, and her menacing glare at her consort as she made this promise
+gave me instant confidence in her power to control him, desperate
+fellow though he was.
+
+Later in the day, at the door of the silversmith's, Cousin Egbert
+hailed the pressman I had met on the evening of my arrival, and
+insisted that I impart to him the details of my venture. The chap
+seemed vastly interested, and his sheet the following morning
+published the following:
+
+    THE DELMONICO OF THE WEST
+
+    Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles of London and Paris, for the past
+    two months a social favourite in Red Gap's select North Side
+    set, has decided to cast his lot among us and will henceforth
+    be reckoned as one of our leading business men. The plan of
+    the Colonel is nothing less than to give Red Gap a truly elite
+    and recherche restaurant after the best models of London and
+    Paris, to which purpose he will devote a considerable portion
+    of his ample means. The establishment will occupy the roomy
+    corner store of the Pettengill block, and orders have already
+    been placed for its decoration and furnishing, which will be
+    sumptuous beyond anything yet seen in our thriving metropolis.
+
+    In speaking of his enterprise yesterday, the Colonel remarked,
+    with a sly twinkle in his eye, "Demosthenes was the son of a
+    cutler, Cromwell's father was a brewer, your General Grant was
+    a tanner, and a Mr. Garfield, who held, I gather, an important
+    post in your government, was once employed on a canal-ship, so
+    I trust that in this land of equality it will not be presumptuous
+    on my part to seek to become the managing owner of a restaurant
+    that will be a credit to the fastest growing town in the state.
+
+    "You Americans have," continued the Colonel in his dry, inimitable
+    manner, "a bewildering variety of foodstuffs, but I trust I may
+    be forgiven for saying that you have used too little constructive
+    imagination in the cooking of it. In the one matter of tea,
+    for example, I have been obliged to figure in some episodes
+    that were profoundly regrettable. Again, amid the profusion of
+    fresh vegetables and meats, you are becoming a nation of tinned
+    food eaters, or canned food as you prefer to call it. This,
+    I need hardly say, adds to your cost of living and also makes
+    you liable to one of the most dreaded of modern diseases, a
+    disease whose rise can be traced to the rise of the tinned-food
+    industry. Your tin openers rasp into the tin with the result
+    that a fine sawdust of metal must drop into the contents and
+    so enter the human system. The result is perhaps negligible in
+    a large majority of cases, but that it is not universally so
+    is proved by the prevalence of appendicitis. Not orange or
+    grape pips, as was so long believed, but the deadly fine rain
+    of metal shavings must be held responsible for this scourge.
+    I need hardly say that at the United States Grill no tinned
+    food will be used."
+
+    This latest discovery of the Colonel's is important if true.
+    Be that as it may, his restaurant will fill a long-felt want,
+    and will doubtless prove to be an important factor in the social
+    gayeties of our smart set. Due notice of its opening will be
+    given in the news and doubtless in the advertising columns of
+    this journal.
+
+Again I was brought to marvel at a peculiarity of the American press,
+a certain childish eagerness for marvels and grotesque wonders. I had
+given but passing thought to my remarks about appendicitis and its
+relation to the American tinned-food habit, nor, on reading the chap's
+screed, did they impress me as being fraught with vital interest to
+thinking people; in truth, I was more concerned with the comparison of
+myself to a restaurateur of the crude new city of New York, which
+might belittle rather than distinguish me, I suspected. But what was
+my astonishment to perceive in the course of a few days that I had
+created rather a sensation, with attending newspaper publicity which,
+although bizarre enough, I am bound to say contributed not a little to
+the consideration in which I afterward came to be held by the more
+serious-minded persons of Red Gap.
+
+Busied with the multitude of details attending my installation, I was
+called upon by another press chap, representing a Spokane sheet, who
+wished me to elaborate my views concerning the most probable cause of
+appendicitis, which I found myself able to do with some eloquence,
+reciting among other details that even though the metal dust might be
+of an almost microscopic fineness, it could still do a mischief to
+one's appendix. The press chap appeared wholly receptive to my views,
+and, after securing details of my plan to smarten Red Gap with a
+restaurant of real distinction, he asked so civilly for a photographic
+portrait of myself that I was unable to refuse him. The thing was a
+snap taken of me one morning at Chaynes-Wotten by Higgins, the butler,
+as I stood by his lordship's saddle mare. It was not by any means the
+best likeness I have had, but there was a rather effective bit of
+background disclosing the driveway and the facade of the East Wing.
+
+This episode I had well-nigh forgotten when on the following Sunday I
+found the thing emblazoned across a page of the Spokane sheet under a
+shrieking headline: "Can Opener Blamed for Appendicitis." A secondary
+heading ran, "Famous British Sportsman and Bon Vivant Advances Novel
+Theory." Accompanying this was a print of the photograph entitled,
+"Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles with His Favourite Hunter, at His English
+Country Seat."
+
+Although the article made suitable reference to myself and my
+enterprise, it was devoted chiefly to a discussion of my tin-opening
+theory and was supplemented by a rather snarky statement signed by a
+physician declaring it to be nonsense. I thought the fellow might have
+chosen his words with more care, but again dismissed the matter from
+my mind. Yet this was not to be the last of it. In due time came a New
+York sheet with a most extraordinary page. "Titled Englishman Learns
+Cause of Appendicitis," read the heading in large, muddy type. Below
+was the photograph of myself, now entitled, "Sir Marmaduke Ruggles and
+His Favourite Hunter." But this was only one of the illustrations.
+From the upper right-hand corner a gigantic hand wielding a tin-opener
+rained a voluminous spray of metal, presumably, upon a cowering wretch
+in the lower left-hand corner, who was quite plainly all in. There
+were tables of statistics showing the increase, side by side of
+appendicitis and the tinned-food industry, a matter to which I had
+devoted, said the print, years of research before announcing my
+discovery. Followed statements from half a dozen distinguished
+surgeons, each signed autographically, all but one rather bluntly
+disagreeing with me, insisting that the tin-opener cuts cleanly and,
+if not man's best friend, should at least be considered one of the
+triumphs of civilization. The only exception announced that he was at
+present conducting laboratory experiments with a view to testing my
+theory and would disclose his results in due time. Meantime, he
+counselled the public to be not unduly alarmed.
+
+Of the further flood of these screeds, which continued for the better
+part of a year, I need not speak. They ran the gamut from serious
+leaders in medical journals to paid ridicule of my theory in
+advertisements printed by the food-tinning persons, and I have to
+admit that in the end the public returned to a full confidence in its
+tinned foods. But that is beside the point, which was that Red Gap had
+become intensely interested in the United States Grill, and to this I
+was not averse, though I would rather I had been regarded as one of
+their plain, common sort, instead of the fictitious Colonel which
+Cousin Egbert's well-meaning stupidity had foisted upon the town. The
+"Sir Marmaduke Ruggles and His Favourite Hunter" had been especially
+repugnant to my finer taste, particularly as it was seized upon by the
+cheap one-and-six fellow Hobbs for some of his coarsest humour, he
+more than once referring to that detestable cur of Mrs. Judson's, who
+had quickly resumed his allegiance to me, as my "hunting pack."
+
+The other tradesmen of the town, I am bound to say, exhibited a
+friendly interest in my venture which was always welcome and often
+helpful. Even one of my competitors showed himself to be a dead sport
+by coming to me from time to time with hints and advice. He was an
+entirely worthy person who advertised his restaurant as "Bert's
+Place." "Go to Bert's Place for a Square Meal," was his favoured line
+in the public prints. He, also, I regret to say, made a practice of
+displaying cooked foods in his show-window, the window carrying the
+line in enamelled letters, "Tables Reserved for Ladies."
+
+Of course between such an establishment and my own there could be
+little in common, and I was obliged to reject a placard which he
+offered me, reading, "No Checks Cashed. This Means You!" although he
+and Cousin Egbert warmly advised that I display it in a conspicuous
+place. "Some of them dead beats in the North Side set will put you
+sideways if you don't," warned the latter, but I held firmly to the
+line of quiet refinement which I had laid down, and explained that I
+could allow no such inconsiderate mention of money to be obtruded upon
+the notice of my guests. I would devise some subtler protection
+against the dead beet-roots.
+
+In the matter of music, however, I was pleased to accept the advice of
+Cousin Egbert. "Get one of them musical pianos that you put a nickel
+in," he counselled me, and this I did, together with an assorted
+repertoire of selections both classical and popular, the latter
+consisting chiefly of the ragging time songs to which the native
+Americans perform their folkdances.
+
+And now, as the date of my opening drew near, I began to suspect that
+its social values might become a bit complicated. Mrs. Belknap-Jackson,
+for example, approached me in confidence to know if she might reserve
+all the tables in my establishment for the opening evening, remarking
+that it would be as well to put the correct social cachet upon the
+place at once, which would be achieved by her inviting only the
+desirable people. Though she was all for settling the matter at once,
+something prompted me to take it under consideration.
+
+The same evening Mrs. Effie approached me with a similar suggestion,
+remarking that she would gladly take it upon herself to see that the
+occasion was unmarred by the presence of those one would not care to
+meet in one's own home. Again I was non-committal, somewhat to her
+annoyance.
+
+The following morning I was sought by Mrs. Judge Ballard with the
+information that much would depend upon my opening, and if the matter
+were left entirely in her hands she would be more than glad to insure
+its success. Of her, also, I begged a day's consideration, suspecting
+then that I might be compelled to ask these three social leaders to
+unite amicably as patronesses of an affair that was bound to have a
+supreme social significance. But as I still meditated profoundly over
+the complication late that afternoon, overlooking in the meanwhile an
+electrician who was busy with my shaded candlesticks, I was surprised
+by the self-possessed entrance of the leader of the Bohemian set, the
+Klondike person of whom I have spoken. Again I was compelled to
+observe that she was quite the most smartly gowned woman in Red Gap,
+and that she marvellously knew what to put on her head.
+
+She coolly surveyed my decorations and such of the furnishings as were
+in place before addressing me.
+
+"I wish to engage one of your best tables," she began, "for your
+opening night--the tenth, isn't it?--this large one in the corner will
+do nicely. There will be eight of us. Your place really won't be half
+bad, if your food is at all possible."
+
+The creature spoke with a sublime effrontery, quite as if she had not
+helped a few weeks before to ridicule all that was best in Red Gap
+society, yet there was that about her which prevented me from rebuking
+her even by the faintest shade in my manner. More than this, I
+suddenly saw that the Bohemian set would be a factor in my trade which
+I could not afford to ignore. While I affected to consider her request
+she tapped the toe of a small boot with a correctly rolled umbrella,
+lifting her chin rather attractively meanwhile to survey my freshly
+done ceiling. I may say here that the effect of her was most
+compelling, and I could well understand the bitterness with which the
+ladies of the Onwards and Upwards Society had gossiped her to rags.
+Incidently, this was the first correctly rolled umbrella, saving my
+own, that I had seen in North America.
+
+"I shall be pleased," I said, "to reserve this table for you--eight
+places, I believe you said?"
+
+She left me as a duchess might have. She was that sort. I felt almost
+quite unequal to her. And the die was cast. I faced each of the three
+ladies who had previously approached me with the declaration that I
+was a licensed victualler, bound to serve all who might apply. That
+while I was keenly sensitive to the social aspects of my business, it
+was yet a business, and I must, therefore, be in supreme control. In
+justice to myself I could not exclusively entertain any faction of the
+North Side set, nor even the set in its entirety. In each instance, I
+added that I could not debar from my tables even such members of the
+Bohemian set as conducted themselves in a seemly manner. It was a
+difficult situation, calling out all my tact, yet I faced it with a
+firmness which was later to react to my advantage in ways I did not
+yet dream of.
+
+So engrossed for a month had I been with furnishers, decorators, char
+persons, and others that the time of the Honourable George's arrival
+drew on quite before I realized it. A brief and still snarky note had
+apprised me of his intention to come out to North America, whereupon I
+had all but forgotten him, until a telegram from Chicago or one of
+those places had warned me of his imminence. This I displayed to
+Cousin Egbert, who, much pleased with himself, declared that the
+Honourable George should be taken to the Floud home directly upon his
+arrival.
+
+"I meant to rope him in there on the start," he confided to me, "but I
+let on I wasn't decided yet, just to keep 'em stirred up. Mrs. Effie
+she butters me up with soft words every day of my life, and that
+Jackson lad has offered me about ten thousand of them vegetable
+cigarettes, but I'll have to throw him down. He's the human flivver.
+Put him in a car of dressed beef and he'd freeze it between here and
+Spokane. Yes, sir; you could cut his ear off and it wouldn't bleed. I
+ain't going to run the Judge against no such proposition like that."
+Of course the poor chap was speaking his own backwoods metaphor, as I
+am quite sure he would have been incapable of mutilating
+Belknap-Jackson, or even of imprisoning him in a goods van of beef. I
+mean to say, it was merely his way of speaking and was not to be taken
+at all literally.
+
+As a result of his ensuing call upon the pressman, the sheet of the
+following morning contained word of the Honourable George's coming,
+the facts being not garbled more than was usual with this chap.
+
+    RED GAP'S NOTABLE GUEST
+
+    En route for our thriving metropolis is a personage no
+    less distinguished than the Honourable George Augustus
+    Vane-Basingwell, only brother and next in line of
+    succession to his lordship the Earl of Brinstead, the
+    well-known British peer of London, England. Our noble
+    visitor will be the house guest of Senator and Mrs.
+    J. K. Floud, at their palatial residence on Ophir Avenue,
+    where he will be extensively entertained, particularly by
+    our esteemed fellow-townsman, Egbert G. Floud, with whom
+    he recently hobnobbed during the latter's stay in Paris,
+    France. His advent will doubtless prelude a season of
+    unparalleled gayety, particularly as Mr. Egbert Floud
+    assures us that the "Judge," as he affectionately calls
+    him, is "sure some mixer." If this be true, the gentleman
+    has selected a community where his talent will find ample
+    scope, and we bespeak for his lordship a hearty welcome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+
+I must do Cousin Egbert the justice to say that he showed a due sense of
+his responsibility in meeting the Honourable George. By general consent
+the honour had seemed to fall to him, both the Belknap-Jacksons and Mrs.
+Effie rather timidly conceding his claim that the distinguished guest
+would prefer it so. Indeed, Cousin Egbert had been loudly arrogant in
+the matter, speaking largely of his European intimacy with the "Judge"
+until, as he confided to me, he "had them all bisoned," or, I believe,
+"buffaloed" is the term he used, referring to the big-game animal that
+has been swept from the American savannahs.
+
+At all events no one further questioned his right to be at the station
+when the Honourable George arrived, and for the first time almost
+since his own homecoming he got himself up with some attention to
+detail. If left to himself I dare say he would have donned frock-coat
+and top-hat, but at my suggestion he chose his smartest lounge-suit,
+and I took pains to see that the minor details of hat, boots, hose,
+gloves, etc., were studiously correct without being at all assertive.
+
+For my own part, I was also at some pains with my attire going
+consciously a bit further with details than Cousin Egbert, thinking it
+best the Honourable George should at once observe a change in my
+bearing and social consequence so that nothing in his manner toward me
+might embarrassingly publish our former relations. The stick, gloves,
+and monocle would achieve this for the moment, and once alone I meant
+to tell him straight that all was over between us as master and man,
+we having passed out of each other's lives in that respect. If
+necessary, I meant to read to him certain passages from the so-called
+"Declaration of Independence," and to show him the fateful little card
+I had found, which would acquaint him, I made no doubt, with the great
+change that had come upon me, after which our intimacy would rest
+solely upon the mutual esteem which I knew to exist between us. I mean
+to say, it would never have done for one moment at home, but finding
+ourselves together in this wild and lawless country we would neither
+of us try to resist America, but face each other as one equal native
+to another.
+
+Waiting on the station platform with Cousin Egbert, he confided to the
+loungers there that he was come to meet his friend Judge Basingwell,
+whereat all betrayed a friendly interest, though they were not at all
+persons that mattered, being of the semi-leisured class who each day
+went down, as they put it, "to see Number Six go through." There was
+thus a rather tense air of expectancy when the train pulled in. From
+one of the Pullman night coaches emerged the Honourable George,
+preceded by a blackamoor or raccoon bearing bags and bundles, and
+followed by another uniformed raccoon and a white guard, also bearing
+bags and bundles, and all betraying a marked anxiety.
+
+One glance at the Honourable George served to confirm certain fears I
+had suffered regarding his appearance. Topped by a deer-stalking
+fore-and-aft cap in an inferior state of preservation, he wore the
+jacket of a lounge-suit, once possible, doubtless, but now demoded,
+and a blazered golfing waistcoat, striking for its poisonous greens,
+trousers from an outing suit that I myself had discarded after it came
+to me, and boots of an entirely shocking character. Of his cravat I
+have not the heart to speak, but I may mention that all his garments
+were quite horrid with wrinkles and seemed to have been slept in
+repeatedly.
+
+Cousin Egbert at once rushed forward to greet his guest, while I
+busied myself in receiving the hand-luggage, wishing to have our guest
+effaced from the scene and secluded, with all possible speed. There
+were three battered handbags, two rolls of travelling rugs, a
+stick-case, a dispatch-case, a pair of binoculars, a hat-box, a
+top-coat, a storm-coat, a portfolio of correspondence materials, a
+camera, a medicine-case, some of these lacking either strap or handle.
+The attendants all emitted hearty sighs of relief when these articles
+had been deposited upon the platform. Without being told, I divined
+that the Honourable George had greatly worried them during the long
+journey with his fretful demands for service, and I tipped them
+handsomely while he was still engaged with Cousin Egbert and the
+latter's station-lounging friends to whom he was being presented. At
+last, observing me, he came forward, but halted on surveying the
+luggage, and screamed hoarsely to the last attendant who was now
+boarding the train. The latter vanished, but reappeared, as the train
+moved off, with two more articles, a vacuum night-flask and a tin of
+charcoal biscuits, the absence of which had been swiftly detected by
+their owner.
+
+It was at that moment that one of the loungers nearby made a peculiar
+observation. "Gee!" said he to a native beside him, "it must take an
+awful lot of trouble to be an Englishman." At the moment this seemed
+to me to be pregnant with meaning, though doubtless it was because I
+had so long been a resident of the North American wilds.
+
+Again the Honourable George approached me and grasped my hand before
+certain details of my attire and, I fancy, a certain change in my
+bearing, attracted his notice. Perhaps it was the single glass. His
+grasp of my hand relaxed and he rubbed his eyes as if dazed from a
+blow, but I was able to carry the situation off quite nicely under
+cover of the confusion attending his many bags and bundles, being
+helped also at the moment by the deeply humiliating discovery of a
+certain omission from his attire. I could not at first believe my eyes
+and was obliged to look again and again, but there could be no doubt
+about it: the Honourable George was wearing a single spat!
+
+I cried out at this, pointing, I fancy, in a most undignified manner,
+so terrific had been the shock of it, and what was my amazement to
+hear him say: "But I _had_ only one, you silly! How could I wear
+'em both when the other was lost in that bally rabbit-hutch they put
+me in on shipboard? No bigger than a parcels-lift!" And he had too
+plainly crossed North America in this shocking state! Glad I was then
+that Belknap-Jackson was not present. The others, I dare say,
+considered it a mere freak of fashion. As quickly as I could, I
+hustled him into the waiting carriage, piling his luggage about him to
+the best advantage and hurrying Cousin Egbert after him as rapidly as
+I could, though the latter, as on the occasion of my own arrival,
+halted our departure long enough to present the Honourable George to
+the driver.
+
+"Judge, shake hands with my friend Eddie Pierce." adding as the
+ceremony was performed, "Eddie keeps a good team, any time you want a
+hack-ride."
+
+"Sure, Judge," remarked the driver cordially. "Just call up Main 224,
+any time. Any friend of Sour-dough's can have anything they want night
+or day." Whereupon he climbed to his box and we at last drove away.
+
+The Honourable George had continued from the moment of our meeting to
+glance at me in a peculiar, side-long fashion. He seemed fascinated
+and yet unequal to a straight look at me. He was undoubtedly dazed, as
+I could discern from his absent manner of opening the tin of charcoal
+biscuits and munching one. I mean to say, it was too obviously a mere
+mechanical impulse.
+
+"I say," he remarked to Cousin Egbert, who was beaming fondly at him,
+"how strange it all is! It's quite foreign."
+
+"The fastest-growing little town in the State," said Cousin Egbert.
+
+"But what makes it grow so silly fast?" demanded the other.
+
+"Enterprise and industries," answered Cousin Egbert loftily.
+
+"Nothing to make a dust about," remarked the Honourable George,
+staring glassily at the main business thoroughfare. "I've seen larger
+towns--scores of them."
+
+"You ain't begun to see this town yet," responded Cousin Egbert
+loyally, and he called to the driver, "Has he, Eddie?"
+
+"Sure, he ain't!" said the driver person genially. "Wait till he sees
+the new waterworks and the sash-and-blind factory!"
+
+"Is he one of your gentleman drivers?" demanded the Honourable George.
+"And why a blind factory?"
+
+"Oh, Eddie's good people all right," answered the other, "and the
+factory turns out blinds and things."
+
+"Why turn them out?" he left this and continued: "He's like that
+American Johnny in London that drives his own coach to Brighton, yes?
+Ripping idea! Gentleman driver. But I say, you know, I'll sit on the
+box with him. Pull up a bit, old son!"
+
+To my consternation the driver chap halted, and before I could
+remonstrate the Honourable George had mounted to the box beside him.
+Thankful I was we had left the main street, though in the residence
+avenue where the change was made we attracted far more attention than
+was desirable. "Didn't I tell you he was some mixer?" demanded Cousin
+Egbert of me, but I was too sickened to make any suitable response.
+The Honourable George's possession of a single spat was now flaunted,
+as it were, in the face of Red Gap's best families.
+
+"How foreign it all is!" he repeated, turning back to us, yet with
+only his side-glance for me. "But the American Johnny in London had a
+much smarter coach than this, and better animals, too. You're not up
+to his class yet, old thing!"
+
+"That dish-faced pinto on the off side," remarked the driver, "can
+outrun anything in this town for fun, money, or marbles."
+
+"Marbles!" called the Honourable George to us; "why marbles? Silly
+things! It's all bally strange! And why do your villagers stare so?"
+
+"Some little mixer, all right, all right," murmured Cousin Egbert in a
+sort of ecstasy, as we drew up at the Floud home. "And yet one of them
+guys back there called him a typical Britisher. You bet I shut him up
+quick--saying a thing like that about a plumb stranger. I'd 'a' mixed
+it with him right there except I thought it was better to have things
+nice and not start something the minute the Judge got here."
+
+With all possible speed I hurried the party indoors, for already faces
+were appearing at the windows of neighbouring houses. Mrs. Effie, who
+met us, allowed her glare at Cousin Egbert, I fancy, to affect the
+cordiality of her greeting to the Honourable George; at least she
+seemed to be quite as dazed as he, and there was a moment of
+constraint before he went on up to the room that had been prepared for
+him. Once safely within the room I contrived a moment alone with him
+and removed his single spat, not too gently, I fear, for the nervous
+strain since his arrival had told upon me.
+
+"You have reason to be thankful," I said, "that Belknap-Jackson was
+not present to witness this."
+
+"They cost seven and six," he muttered, regarding the one spat
+wistfully. "But why Belknap-Jackson?"
+
+"Mr. C. Belknap-Jackson of Boston and Red Gap," I returned sternly.
+"He does himself perfectly. To think he might have seen you in this
+rowdyish state!" And I hastened to seek a presentable lounge-suit from
+his bags.
+
+"Everything is so strange," he muttered again, quite helplessly. "And
+why the mural decoration at the edge of the settlement? Why keep one's
+eye upon it? Why should they do such things? I say, it's all quite
+monstrous, you know."
+
+I saw that indeed he was quite done for with amazement, so I ran him a
+bath and procured him a dish of tea. He rambled oddly at moments of
+things the guard on the night-coach had told him of North America, of
+Niagara Falls, and Missouri and other objects of interest. He was
+still almost quite a bit dotty when I was obliged to leave him for an
+appointment with the raccoon and his wife to discuss the menu of my
+opening dinner, but Cousin Egbert, who had rejoined us, was listening
+sympathetically. As I left, the two were pegging it from a bottle of
+hunting sherry which the Honourable George had carried in his
+dispatch-case. I was about to warn him that he would come out spotted,
+but instantly I saw that there must be an end to such surveillance. I
+could not manage an enterprise of the magnitude of the United States
+Grill and yet have an eye to his meat and drink. I resolved to let
+spots come as they would.
+
+On all hands I was now congratulated by members of the North Side set
+upon the master-stroke I had played in adding the Honourable George to
+their number. Not only did it promise to reunite certain warring
+factions in the North Side set itself, but it truly bade fair to
+disintegrate the Bohemian set. Belknap-Jackson wrung my hand that
+afternoon, begging me to inform the Honourable George that he would
+call on the morrow to pay his respects. Mrs. Judge Ballard besought me
+to engage him for an early dinner, and Mrs. Effie, it is needless to
+say, after recovering from the shock of his arrival, which she
+attributed to Cousin Egbert's want of taste, thanked me with a wealth
+of genuine emotion.
+
+Only by slight degrees, then, did it fall to be noticed that the
+Honourable George did not hold himself to be too strictly bound by our
+social conventions as to whom one should be pally with. Thus, on the
+morrow, at the hour when the Belknap-Jacksons called, he was
+regrettably absent on what Cousin Egbert called "a hack-ride" with the
+driver person he had met the day before, nor did they return until
+after the callers had waited the better part of two hours. Cousin
+Egbert, as usual, received the blame for this, yet neither of the
+Belknap-Jacksons nor Mrs. Effie dared to upbraid him.
+
+Being presented to the callers, I am bound to say that the Honourable
+George showed himself to be immensely impressed by Belknap-Jackson,
+whom I had never beheld more perfectly vogue in all his appointments.
+He became, in fact, rather moody in the presence of this subtle
+niceness of detail, being made conscious, I dare say, of his own
+sloppy lounge-suit, rumpled cravat, and shocking boots, and despite
+Belknap-Jackson's amiable efforts to draw him into talk about hunting
+in the shires and our county society at home, I began to fear that
+they would not hit it off together. The Honourable George did,
+however, consent to drive with his caller the following day, and I
+relied upon the tandem to recall him to his better self. But when the
+callers had departed he became quite almost plaintive to me.
+
+"I say, you know, I shan't be wanted to pal up much with that chap,
+shall I? I mean to say, he wears so many clothes. They make me writhe
+as if I wore them myself. It won't do, you know."
+
+I told him very firmly that this was piffle of the most wretched sort.
+That his caller wore but the prescribed number of garments, each vogue
+to the last note, and that he was a person whom one must know. He
+responded pettishly that he vastly preferred the gentleman driver with
+whom he had spent the afternoon, and "Sour-dough," as he was now
+calling Cousin Egbert.
+
+"Jolly chaps, with no swank," he insisted. "We drove quite almost
+everywhere--waterworks, cemetery, sash-and-blind factory. You know I
+thought 'blind factory' was some of their bally American slang for the
+shop of a chap who made eyeglasses and that sort of thing, but nothing
+of the kind. They saw up timbers there quite all over the place and
+nail them up again into articles. It's all quite foreign."
+
+Nor was his account of his drive with Belknap-Jackson the following
+day a bit more reassuring.
+
+"He wouldn't stop again at the sash-and-blind factory, where I wished
+to see the timbers being sawed and nailed, but drove me to a country
+club which was not in the country and wasn't a club; not a human
+there, not even a barman. Fancy a club of that sort! But he took me to
+his own house for a glass of sherry and a biscuit, and there it wasn't
+so rotten. Rather a mother-in-law I think, she is--bally old booming
+grenadier--topping sort--no end of fun. We palled up immensely and I
+quite forgot the Jackson chap till it was time for him to drive me
+back to these diggings. Rather sulky he was, I fancy; uppish sort.
+Told him the old one was quite like old Caroline, dowager duchess of
+Clewe, but couldn't tell if it pleased him. Seemed to like it and
+seemed not to: rather uncertain.
+
+"Asked him why the people of the settlement pronounced his name
+'Belknap Hyphen Jackson,' and that seemed to make him snarky again. I
+mean to say names with hyphen marks in 'em--I'd never heard the hyphen
+pronounced before, but everything is so strange. He said only the
+lowest classes did it as a form of coarse wit, and that he was wasting
+himself here. Wouldn't stay another day if it were not for family
+reasons. Queer sort of wheeze to say 'hyphen' in a chap's name as if
+it were a word, when it wasn't at all. The old girl, though--bellower
+she is--perfectly top-hole; familiar with cattle--all that sort of
+thing. Sent away the chap's sherry and had 'em bring whiskey and soda.
+The hyphen chap fidgeted a good bit--nervous sort, I take it. Looked
+through a score of magazines, I dare say, when he found we didn't
+notice him much; turned the leaves too fast to see anything, though;
+made noises and coughed--that sort of thing. Fine old girl. Daughter,
+hyphen chap's wife, tried to talk, too, some rot about the season
+being well on here, and was there a good deal of society in London,
+and would I be free for dinner on the ninth?
+
+"Silly chatter! old girl talked sense: cattle, mines, timber, blind
+factory, two-year olds, that kind of thing. Shall see her often. Not
+the hyphen chap, though; too much like one of those Bond Street
+milliner-chap managers."
+
+Vague misgivings here beset me as to the value of the Honourable
+George to the North Side set. Nor could I feel at all reassured on the
+following day when Mrs. Effie held an afternoon reception in his
+honour. That he should be unaware of the event's importance was to be
+expected, for as yet I had been unable to get him to take the Red Gap
+social crisis seriously. At the hour when he should have been dressed
+and ready I found him playing at cribbage with Cousin Egbert in the
+latter's apartment, and to my dismay he insisted upon finishing the
+rubber although guests were already arriving.
+
+Even when the game was done he flatly refused to dress suitably,
+declaring that his lounge-suit should be entirely acceptable to these
+rough frontier people, and he consented to go down at all only on
+condition that Cousin Egbert would accompany him. Thereafter for an
+hour the two of them drank tea uncomfortably as often as it was given
+them, and while the Honourable George undoubtedly made his impression,
+I could not but regret that he had so few conversational graces.
+
+How different, I reflected, had been my own entree into this county
+society! As well as I might I again carried off the day for the
+Honourable George, endeavouring from time to time to put him at his
+ease, yet he breathed an unfeigned sigh of relief when the last guest
+had left and he could resume his cribbage with Cousin Egbert. But he
+had received one impression of which I was glad: an impression of my
+own altered social quality, for I had graced the occasion with an
+urbanity which was as far beyond him as it must have been astonishing.
+It was now that he began to take seriously what I had told him of my
+business enterprise, so many of the guests having mentioned it to him
+in terms of the utmost enthusiasm. After my first accounts to him he
+had persisted in referring to it as a tuck-shop, a sort of place where
+schoolboys would exchange their halfpence for toffy, sweet-cakes, and
+marbles.
+
+Now he demanded to be shown the premises and was at once duly
+impressed both with their quiet elegance and my own business acumen.
+How it had all come about, and why I should be addressed as "Colonel
+Ruggles" and treated as a person of some importance in the community,
+I dare say he has never comprehended to this day. As I had planned to
+do, I later endeavoured to explain to him that in North America
+persons were almost quite equal to one another--being born so--but at
+this he told me not to be silly and continued to regard my rise as an
+insoluble part of the strangeness he everywhere encountered, even
+after I added that Demosthenes was the son of a cutler, that Cardinal
+Wolsey's father had been a pork butcher, and that Garfield had worked
+on a canal-boat. I found him quite hopeless. "Chaps go dotty talkin'
+that piffle," was his comment.
+
+At another time, I dare say, I should have been rather distressed over
+this inability of the Honourable George to comprehend and adapt
+himself to the peculiarities of American life as readily as I had
+done, but just now I was quite too taken up with the details of my
+opening to give it the deeper consideration it deserved. In fact,
+there were moments when I confessed to myself that I did not care
+tuppence about it, such was the strain upon my executive faculties.
+When decorators and furnishers had done their work, when the choice
+carpet was laid, when the kitchen and table equipments were completed
+to the last detail, and when the lighting was artistically correct,
+there was still the matter of service.
+
+As to this, I conceived and carried out what I fancy was rather a
+brilliant stroke, which was nothing less than to eliminate the fellow
+Hobbs as a social factor of even the Bohemian set. In contracting with
+him for my bread and rolls, I took an early opportunity of setting the
+chap in his place, as indeed it was not difficult to do when he had
+observed the splendid scale on which I was operating. At our second
+interview he was removing his hat and addressing me as "sir."
+
+While I have found that I can quite gracefully place myself on a level
+with the middle-class American, there is a serving type of our own
+people to which I shall eternally feel superior; the Hobbs fellow was
+of this sort, having undeniably the soul of a lackey. In addition to
+jobbing his bread and rolls, I engaged him as pantry man, and took on
+such members of his numerous family as were competent. His wife was to
+assist my raccoon cook in the kitchen, three of his sons were to serve
+as waiters, and his youngest, a lad in his teens, I installed as
+vestiare, garbing him in a smart uniform and posting him to relieve my
+gentleman patrons of their hats and top-coats. A daughter was
+similarly installed as maid, and the two achieved an effect of
+smartness unprecedented in Red Gap, an effect to which I am glad to
+say that the community responded instantly.
+
+In other establishments it was the custom for patrons to hang their
+garments on hat-pegs, often under a printed warning that the
+proprietor would disclaim responsibility in case of loss. In the one
+known as "Bert's Place" indeed the warning was positively vulgar:
+"Watch Your Overcoat." Of course that sort of coarseness would have
+been impossible in my own place.
+
+As another important detail I had taken over from Mrs. Judson her
+stock of jellies and compotes which I had found to be of a most
+excellent character, and had ordered as much more as she could manage
+to produce, together with cut flowers from her garden for my tables.
+She, herself, being a young woman of the most pleasing capabilities,
+had done a bit of charring for me and was now to be in charge of the
+glassware, linen, and silver. I had found her, indeed, highly
+sympathetic with my highest aims, and not a few of her suggestions as
+to management proved to be entirely sound. Her unspeakable dog
+continued his quite objectionable advances to me at every opportunity,
+in spite of my hitting him about, rather, when I could do so
+unobserved, but the sinister interpretation that might be placed upon
+this by the baser-minded was now happily answered by the circumstance
+of her being in my employment. Her child, I regret to say, was still
+grossly overfed, seldom having its face free from jam or other smears.
+It persisted, moreover, in twisting my name into "Ruggums," which I
+found not a little embarrassing.
+
+The night of my opening found me calmly awaiting the triumph that was
+due me. As some one has said of Napoleon, I had won my battle in my
+tent before the firing of a single shot. I mean to say, I had looked
+so conscientiously after details, even to assuring myself that Cousin
+Egbert and the Honourable George would appear in evening dress, my
+last act having been to coerce each of them into purchasing varnished
+boots, the former submitting meekly enough, though the Honourable
+George insisted it was a silly fuss.
+
+At seven o'clock, having devoted a final inspection to the kitchen
+where the female raccoon was well on with the dinner, and having noted
+that the members of my staff were in their places, I gave a last
+pleased survey of my dining-room, with its smartly equipped tables,
+flower-bedecked, gleaming in the softened light from my shaded
+candlesticks. Truly it was a scene of refined elegance such as Red Gap
+had never before witnessed within its own confines, and I had seen to
+it that the dinner as well would mark an epoch in the lives of these
+simple but worthy people.
+
+Not a heavy nor a cloying repast would they find. Indeed, the bare
+simplicity of my menu, had it been previously disclosed, would
+doubtless have disappointed more than one of my dinner-giving
+patronesses; but each item had been perfected to an extent never
+achieved by them. Their weakness had ever been to serve a profusion of
+neutral dishes, pleasing enough to the eye, but unedifying except as a
+spectacle. I mean to say, as food it was noncommittal; it failed to
+intrigue.
+
+I should serve only a thin soup, a fish, small birds, two vegetables,
+a salad, a sweet and a savoury, but each item would prove worthy of
+the profoundest consideration. In the matter of thin soup, for
+example, the local practice was to serve a fluid of which, beyond the
+circumstance that it was warmish and slightly tinted, nothing of
+interest could ever be ascertained. My own thin soup would be a
+revelation to them. Again, in the matter of fish. This course with the
+hostesses of Red Gap had seemed to be merely an excuse for a pause. I
+had truly sympathized with Cousin Egbert's bitter complaint: "They
+hand you a dab of something about the size of a watch-charm with two
+strings of potato."
+
+For the first time, then, the fish course in Red Gap was to be an
+event, an abundant portion of native fish with a lobster sauce which I
+had carried out to its highest power. My birds, hot from the oven,
+would be food in the strictest sense of the word, my vegetables cooked
+with a zealous attention, and my sweet immensely appealing without
+being pretentiously spectacular. And for what I believed to be quite
+the first time in the town, good coffee would be served.
+Disheartening, indeed, had been the various attenuations of coffee
+which had been imposed upon me in my brief career as a diner-out among
+these people. Not one among them had possessed the genius to master an
+acceptable decoction of the berry, the bald simplicity of the correct
+formula being doubtless incredible to them.
+
+The blare of a motor horn aroused me from this musing, and from that
+moment I had little time for meditation until the evening, as the
+_Journal_ recorded the next morning, "had gone down into history."
+My patrons arrived in groups, couples, or singly, almost faster than
+I could seat them. The Hobbs lad, as vestiare, would halt them for
+hats and wraps, during which pause they would emit subdued cries of
+surprise and delight at my beautifully toned ensemble, after which,
+as they walked to their tables, it was not difficult to see that they
+were properly impressed.
+
+Mrs. Effie, escorted by the Honourable George and cousin Egbert, was
+among the early arrivals; the Senator being absent from town at a
+sitting of the House. These were quickly followed by the
+Belknap-Jacksons and the Mixer, resplendent in purple satin and
+diamonds, all being at one of my large tables, so that the Honourable
+George sat between Mrs. Belknap-Jackson and Mrs. Effie, though he at
+first made a somewhat undignified essay to seat himself next the
+Mixer. Needless to say, all were in evening dress, though the
+Honourable George had fumbled grossly with his cravat and rumpled his
+shirt, nor had he submitted to having his beard trimmed, as I had
+warned him to do. As for Belknap-Jackson, I had never beheld him more
+truly vogue in every detail, and his slightly austere manner in any
+Red Gap gathering had never set him better. Both Mrs. Belknap-Jackson
+and Mrs. Effie wielded their lorgnons upon the later comers, thus
+giving their table quite an air.
+
+Mrs. Judge Ballard, who had come to be one of my staunchest adherents,
+occupied an adjacent table with her family party and two or three of
+the younger dancing set. The Indian Tuttle with his wife and two
+daughters were also among the early comers, and I could not but marvel
+anew at the red man's histrionic powers. In almost quite correct
+evening attire, and entirely decorous in speech and gesture, he might
+readily have been thought some one that mattered, had he not at an
+early opportunity caught my eye and winked with a sly significance.
+
+Quite almost every one of the North Side set was present, imparting to
+my room a general air of distinguished smartness, and in addition
+there were not a few of what Belknap-Jackson had called the "rabble,"
+persons of no social value, to be sure, but honest, well-mannered
+folk, small tradesmen, shop-assistants, and the like. These plain
+people, I may say, I took especial pains to welcome and put at their
+ease, for I had resolved, in effect, to be one of them, after the
+manner prescribed by their Declaration thing.
+
+With quite all of them I chatted easily a moment or two, expressing
+the hope that they would be well pleased with their entertainment. I
+noted while thus engaged that Belknap-Jackson eyed me with frank and
+superior cynicism, but this affected me quite not at all and I took
+pains to point my indifference, chatting with increased urbanity with
+the two cow-persons, Hank and Buck, who had entered rather
+uncertainly, not in evening dress, to be sure, but in decent black as
+befitted their stations. When I had prevailed upon them to surrender
+their hats to the vestiare and had seated them at a table for two,
+they informed me in hoarse undertones that they were prepared to "put
+a bet down on every card from soda to hock," so that I at first
+suspected they had thought me conducting a gaming establishment, but
+ultimately gathered that they were merely expressing a cordial
+determination to enter into the spirit of the occasion.
+
+There then entered, somewhat to my uneasiness, the Klondike woman and
+her party. Being almost the last, it will be understood that they
+created no little sensation as she led them down the thronged room to
+her table. She was wearing an evening gown of lustrous black with the
+apparently simple lines that are so baffling to any but the expert
+maker, with a black picture hat that suited her no end. I saw more
+than one matron of the North Side set stiffen in her seat, while Mrs.
+Belknap-Jackson and Mrs. Effie turned upon her the chilling broadside
+of their lorgnons. Belknap-Jackson merely drew himself up austerely.
+The three other women of her party, flutterers rather, did little but
+set off their hostess. The four men were of a youngish sort, chaps in
+banks, chemists' assistants, that sort of thing, who were constantly
+to be seen in her train. They were especially reprobated by the
+matrons of the correct set by reason of their deliberately choosing to
+ally themselves with the Bohemian set.
+
+Acutely feeling the antagonism aroused by this group, I was
+momentarily discouraged in a design I had half formed of using my
+undoubted influence to unite the warring social factions of Red Gap,
+even as Bismarck had once brought the warring Prussian states together
+in a federated Germany. I began to see that the Klondike woman would
+forever prove unacceptable to the North Side set. The cliques would
+unite against her, even if one should find in her a spirit of
+reconciliation, which I supremely doubted.
+
+The bustle having in a measure subsided, I gave orders for the soup to
+be served, at the same time turning the current into the electric
+pianoforte. I had wished for this opening number something attractive
+yet dignified, which would in a manner of speaking symbolize an
+occasion to me at least highly momentous. To this end I had chosen
+Handel's celebrated Largo, and at the first strains of this highly
+meritorious composition I knew that I had chosen surely. I am sure the
+piece was indelibly engraved upon the minds of those many
+dinner-givers who were for the first time in their lives realizing
+that a thin soup may be made a thing to take seriously.
+
+Nominally, I occupied a seat at the table with the Belknap-Jacksons
+and Mrs. Effie, though I apprehended having to be more or less up and
+down in the direction of my staff. Having now seated myself to soup, I
+was for the first time made aware of the curious behaviour of the
+Honourable George. Disregarding his own soup, which was of itself
+unusual with him, he was staring straight ahead with a curious
+intensity. A half turn of my head was enough. He sat facing the
+Klondike woman. As I again turned a bit I saw that under cover of her
+animated converse with her table companions she was at intervals
+allowing her very effective eyes to rest, as if absently, upon him. I
+may say now that a curious chill seized me, bringing with it a sudden
+psychic warning that all was not going to be as it should be. Some
+calamity impended. The man was quite apparently fascinated, staring
+with a fixed, hypnotic intensity that had already been noted by his
+companions on either side.
+
+With a word about the soup, shot quickly and directly at him, I
+managed to divert his gaze, but his eyes had returned even before the
+spoon had gone once to his lips. The second time there was a soup
+stain upon his already rumpled shirt front. Presently it became only
+too horribly certain that the man was out of himself, for when the
+fish course was served he remained serenely unconscious that none of
+the lobster sauce accompanied his own portion. It was a rich sauce,
+and the almost immediate effect of shell-fish upon his complexion
+being only too well known to me, I had directed that his fish should
+be served without it, though I had fully expected him to row me for it
+and perhaps create a scene. The circumstance of his blindly attacking
+the unsauced fish was eloquent indeed.
+
+The Belknap-Jacksons and Mrs. Effie were now plainly alarmed, and
+somewhat feverishly sought to engage his attention, with the result
+only that he snapped monosyllables at them without removing his gaze
+from its mark. And the woman was now too obviously pluming herself
+upon the effect she had achieved; upon us all she flashed an amused
+consciousness of her power, yet with a fine affectation of quite
+ignoring us. I was here obliged to leave the table to oversee the
+serving of the wine, returning after an interval to find the situation
+unchanged, save that the woman no longer glanced at the Honourable
+George. Such were her tactics. Having enmeshed him, she confidently
+left him to complete his own undoing. I had returned with the serving
+of the small birds. Observing his own before him, the Honourable
+George wished to be told why he had not been served with fish, and
+only with difficulty could be convinced that he had partaken of this.
+"Of course in public places one must expect to come into contact with
+persons of that sort," remarked Mrs. Effie.
+
+"Something should be done about it," observed Mrs. Belknap-Jackson,
+and they both murmured "Creature!" though it was plain that the
+Honourable George had little notion to whom they referred. Observing,
+however, that the woman no longer glanced at him, he fell to his bird
+somewhat whole-heartedly, as indeed did all my guests.
+
+From every side I could hear eager approval of the repast which was
+now being supplemented at most of the tables by a sound wine of the
+Burgundy type which I had recommended or by a dry champagne. Meantime,
+the electric pianoforte played steadily through a repertoire that had
+progressed from the Largo to more vivacious pieces of the American
+folkdance school. As was said in the press the following day, "Gayety
+and good-feeling reigned supreme, and one and all felt that it was
+indeed good to be there."
+
+Through the sweet and the savoury the dinner progressed, the latter
+proving to be a novelty that the hostesses of Red Gap thereafter
+slavishly copied, and with the advent of the coffee ensued a
+noticeable relaxation. People began to visit one another's tables and
+there was a blithe undercurrent of praise for my efforts to smarten
+the town's public dining.
+
+The Klondike woman, I fancy, was the first to light a cigarette,
+though quickly followed by the ladies of her party. Mrs.
+Belknap-Jackson and Mrs. Effie, after a period of futile glaring at
+her through the lorgnons, seemed to make their resolves
+simultaneously, and forthwith themselves lighted cigarettes.
+
+"Of course it's done in the smart English restaurants," murmured
+Belknap-Jackson as he assisted the ladies to their lights. Thereupon
+Mrs. Judge Ballard, farther down the room, began to smoke what I
+believe was her first cigarette, which proved to be a signal for other
+ladies of the Onwards and Upwards Society to do the same, Mrs. Ballard
+being their president. It occurred to me that these ladies were grimly
+bent on showing the Klondike woman that they could trifle quite as
+gracefully as she with the lesser vices of Bohemia; or perhaps they
+wished to demonstrate to the younger dancing men in her train that the
+North Side set was not desolately austere in its recreation. The
+Honourable George, I regret to say, produced a smelly pipe which he
+would have lighted; but at a shocked and cold glance from me he put it
+by and allowed the Mixer to roll him one of the yellow paper
+cigarettes from a sack of tobacco which she had produced from some
+secret recess of her costume.
+
+Cousin Egbert had been excitedly happy throughout the meal and now
+paid me a quaint compliment upon the food. "Some eats, Bill!" he
+called to me. "I got to hand it to you," though what precisely it was
+he wished to hand me I never ascertained, for the Mixer at that moment
+claimed my attention with a compliment of her own. "That," said she,
+"is the only dinner I've eaten for a long time that was composed
+entirely of food."
+
+This hour succeeding the repast I found quite entirely agreeable, more
+than one person that mattered assuring me that I had assisted Red Gap
+to a notable advance in the finest and correctest sense of the word,
+and it was with a very definite regret that I beheld my guests
+departing. Returning to our table from a group of these who had called
+me to make their adieus, I saw that a most regrettable incident had
+occurred--nothing less than the formal presentation of the Honourable
+George to the Klondike woman. And the Mixer had appallingly done it!
+
+"Everything is so strange here," I heard him saying as I passed their
+table, and the woman echoed, "Everything!" while her glance enveloped
+him with a curious effect of appraisal. The others of her party were
+making much of him, I could see, quite as if they had preposterous
+designs of wresting him from the North Side set to be one of
+themselves. Mrs. Belknap-Jackson and Mrs. Effie affected to ignore the
+meeting. Belknap-Jackson stared into vacancy with a quite shocked
+expression as if vandals had desecrated an altar in his presence.
+Cousin Egbert having drawn off one of his newly purchased boots during
+the dinner was now replacing it with audible groans, but I caught his
+joyous comment a moment later: "Didn't I tell you the Judge was some
+mixer?"
+
+"Mixing, indeed," snapped the ladies.
+
+A half-hour later the historic evening had come to an end. The last
+guest had departed, and all of my staff, save Mrs. Judson and her male
+child. These I begged to escort to their home, since the way was
+rather far and dark. The child, incautiously left in the kitchen at
+the mercy of the female black, had with criminal stupidity been
+stuffed with food, traces of almost every course of the dinner being
+apparent upon its puffy countenance. Being now in a stupor from
+overfeeding, I was obliged to lug the thing over my shoulder. I
+resolved to warn the mother at an early opportunity of the perils of
+an unrestricted diet, although the deluded creature seemed actually to
+glory in its corpulence. I discovered when halfway to her residence
+that the thing was still tightly clutching the gnawed thigh-bone of a
+fowl which was spotting the shoulder of my smartest top-coat. The
+mother, however, was so ingenuously delighted with my success and so
+full of prattle concerning my future triumphs that I forbore to
+instruct her at this time. I may say that of all my staff she had
+betrayed the most intelligent understanding of my ideals, and I bade
+her good-night with a strong conviction that she would greatly assist
+me in the future. She also promised that Mr. Barker should thereafter
+be locked in a cellar at such times as she was serving me.
+
+Returning through the town, I heard strains of music from the
+establishment known as "Bert's Place," and was shocked on staring
+through his show window to observe the Honourable George and Cousin
+Egbert waltzing madly with the cow-persons, Hank and Buck, to the
+strains of a mechanical piano. The Honourable George had exchanged his
+top-hat for his partner's cow-person hat, which came down over his
+ears in a most regrettable manner.
+
+I thought it best not to intrude upon their coarse amusement and went
+on to the grill to see that all was safe for the night. Returning from
+my inspection some half-hour later, I came upon the two, Cousin Egbert
+in the lead, the Honourable George behind him. They greeted me
+somewhat boisterously, but I saw that they were now content to return
+home and to bed. As they walked somewhat mincingly, I noticed that
+they were in their hose, carrying their varnished boots in either
+hand.
+
+Of the Honourable George, who still wore the cow-person's hat, I began
+now to have the gravest doubts. There had been an evil light in the
+eyes of the Klondike woman and her Bohemian cohorts as they surveyed
+him. As he preceded me I heard him murmur ecstatically: "Sush is
+life."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+
+Launched now upon a business venture that would require my unremitting
+attention if it were to prosper, it may be imagined that I had little
+leisure for the social vagaries of the Honourable George, shocking as
+these might be to one's finer tastes. And yet on the following morning
+I found time to tell him what. To put it quite bluntly, I gave him
+beans for his loose behaviour the previous evening, in publicly ogling
+and meeting as an equal one whom one didn't know.
+
+To my amazement, instead of being heartily ashamed of his
+licentiousness, I found him recalcitrant. Stubborn as a mule he was
+and with a low animal cunning that I had never given him credit for.
+"Demosthenes was the son of a cutler," said he, "and Napoleon worked
+on a canal-boat, what? Didn't you say so yourself, you juggins, what?
+Fancy there being upper and lower classes among natives! What rot! And
+I like North America. I don't mind telling you straight I'm going to
+take it up."
+
+Horrified by these reckless words, I could only say "Noblesse oblige,"
+meaning to convey that whatever the North Americans did, the next Earl
+of Brinstead must not meet persons one doesn't know, whereat he
+rejoined tartly that I was "to stow that piffle!"
+
+Being now quite alarmed, I took the further time to call upon
+Belknap-Jackson, believing that he, if any one, could recall the
+Honourable George to his better nature. He, too, was shocked, as I had
+been, and at first would have put the blame entirely upon the
+shoulders of Cousin Egbert, but at this I was obliged to admit that
+the Honourable George had too often shown a regrettable fondness for
+the society of persons that did not matter, especially females, and I
+cited the case of the typing-girl and the Brixton millinery person,
+with either of whom he would have allied himself in marriage had not
+his lordship intervened. Belknap-Jackson was quite properly horrified
+at these revelations.
+
+"Has he no sense of 'Noblesse oblige'?" he demanded, at which I quoted
+the result of my own use of this phrase to the unfortunate man. Quite
+too plain it was that "Noblesse oblige!" would never stop him from
+yielding to his baser impulses.
+
+"We must be tactful, then," remarked Belknap-Jackson. "Without
+appearing to oppose him we must yet show him who is really who in Red
+Gap. We shall let him see that we have standards which must be as
+rigidly adhered to as those of an older civilization. I fancy it can
+be done."
+
+Privately I fancied not, yet I forbore to say this or to prolong the
+painful interview, particularly as I was due at the United States
+Grill.
+
+The _Recorder_ of that morning had done me handsomely, declaring
+my opening to have been a social event long to be remembered, and
+describing the costumes of a dozen or more of the smartly gowned
+matrons, quite as if it had been an assembly ball. My task now was to
+see that the Grill was kept to the high level of its opening, both as
+a social ganglion, if one may use the term, and as a place to which
+the public would ever turn for food that mattered. For my first
+luncheon the raccoons had prepared, under my direction, a
+steak-and-kidney pie, in addition to which I offered a thick soup and
+a pudding of high nutritive value.
+
+To my pleased astonishment the crowd at midday was quite all that my
+staff could serve, several of the Hobbs brood being at school, and the
+luncheon was received with every sign of approval by the business
+persons who sat to it. Not only were there drapers, chemists, and
+shop-assistants, but solicitors and barristers, bankers and estate
+agents, and all quite eager with their praise of my fare. To each of
+these I explained that I should give them but few things, but that
+these would be food in the finest sense of the word, adding that the
+fault of the American school lay in attempting a too-great profusion
+of dishes, none of which in consequence could be raised to its highest
+power.
+
+So sound was my theory and so nicely did my simple-dished luncheon
+demonstrate it that I was engaged on the spot to provide the
+bi-monthly banquet of the Chamber of Commerce, the president of which
+rather seriously proposed that it now be made a monthly affair, since
+they would no longer be at the mercy of a hotel caterer whose ambition
+ran inversely to his skill. Indeed, after the pudding, I was this day
+asked to become a member of the body, and I now felt that I was
+indubitably one of them--America and I had taken each other as
+seriously as could be desired.
+
+More than once during the afternoon I wondered rather painfully what
+the Honourable George might be doing. I knew that he had been promised
+to a meeting of the Onwards and Upwards Club through the influence of
+Mrs. Effie, where it had been hoped that he would give a talk on
+Country Life in England. At least she had hinted to them that he might
+do this, though I had known from the beginning that he would do
+nothing of the sort, and had merely hoped that he would appear for a
+dish of tea and stay quiet, which was as much as the North Side set
+could expect of him. Induced to speak, I was quite certain he would
+tell them straight that Country Life in England was silly rot, and
+that was all to it. Now, not having seen him during the day, I could
+but hope that he had attended the gathering in suitable afternoon
+attire, and that he would have divined that the cattle-person's hat
+did not coordinate with this.
+
+At four-thirty, while I was still concerned over the possible
+misadventures of the Honourable George, my first patrons for tea began
+to arrive, for I had let it be known that I should specialize in this.
+Toasted crumpets there were, and muffins, and a tea cake rich with
+plums, and tea, I need not say, which was all that tea could be.
+Several tables were filled with prominent ladies of the North Side
+set, who were loud in their exclamations of delight, especially at the
+finished smartness of my service, for it was perhaps now that the
+profoundly serious thought I had given to my silver, linen, and
+glassware showed to best advantage. I suspect that this was the first
+time many of my guests had encountered a tea cozy, since from that day
+they began to be prevalent in Red Gap homes. Also my wagon containing
+the crumpets, muffins, tea cake, jam and bread-and-butter, which I now
+used for the first time created a veritable sensation.
+
+There was an agreeable hum of chatter from these early comers when I
+found myself welcoming Mrs. Judge Ballard and half a dozen members of
+the Onwards and Upwards Club, all of them wearing what I made out to
+be a baffled look. From these I presently managed to gather that their
+guest of honour for the afternoon had simply not appeared, and that
+the meeting, after awaiting him for two hours, had dissolved in some
+resentment, the time having been spent chiefly in an unflattering
+dissection of the Klondike woman's behaviour the evening before.
+
+"He is a naughty man to disappoint us so cruelly!" declared Mrs. Judge
+Ballard of the Honourable George, but the coquetry of it was feigned
+to cover a very real irritation. I made haste with possible excuses. I
+said that he might be ill, or that important letters in that day's
+post might have detained him. I knew he had been astonishingly well
+that morning, also that he loathed letters and almost practically
+never received any; but something had to be said.
+
+"A naughty, naughty fellow!" repeated Mrs. Ballard, and the members of
+her party echoed it. They had looked forward rather pathetically, I
+saw, to hearing about Country Life in England from one who had lived
+it.
+
+I was now drawn to greet the Belknap-Jacksons, who entered, and to the
+pleasure of winning their hearty approval for the perfection of my
+arrangements. As the wife presently joined Mrs. Ballard's group, the
+husband called me to his table and disclosed that almost the worst
+might be feared of the Honourable George. He was at that moment, it
+appeared, with a rabble of cow-persons and members of the lower class
+gathered at a stockade at the edge of town, where various native
+horses fresh from the wilderness were being taught to be ridden.
+
+"The wretched Floud is with him," continued my informant, "also the
+Tuttle chap, who continues to be received by our best people in spite
+of my remonstrances, and he yells quite like a demon when one of the
+riders is thrown. I passed as quickly as I could. The spectacle
+was--of course I make allowances for Vane-Basingwell's ignorance of
+our standards--it was nothing short of disgusting; a man of his
+position consorting with the herd!"
+
+"He told me no longer ago than this morning," I said, "that he was
+going to take up America."
+
+"He _has_!" said Belknap-Jackson with bitter emphasis. "You
+should see what he has on--a cowboy hat and chapps! And the very
+lowest of them are calling him 'Judge'!"
+
+"He flunked a meeting of the Onwards and Upwards Society," I added.
+
+"I know! I know! And who could have expected it in one of his lineage?
+At this very moment he should be conducting himself as one of his
+class. Can you wonder at my impatience with the West? Here at an hour
+when our social life should be in evidence, when all trade should be
+forgotten, I am the only man in the town who shows himself in a
+tea-room; and Vane-Basingwell over there debasing himself with our
+commonest sort!"
+
+All at once I saw that I myself must bear the brunt of this scandal. I
+had brought hither the Honourable George, promising a personage who
+would for once and all unify the North Side set and perhaps
+disintegrate its rival. I had been felicitated upon my master-stroke.
+And now it seemed I had come a cropper. But I resolved not to give up,
+and said as much now to Belknap-Jackson.
+
+"I may be blamed for bringing him among you, but trust me if things
+are really as bad as they seem, I'll get him off again. I'll not let
+myself be bowled by such a silly lob as that. Trust me to devote
+profound thought to this problem."
+
+"We all have every confidence in you," he assured me, "but don't be
+too severe all at once with the chap. He might recover a sane balance
+even yet."
+
+"I shall use discretion," I assured him, "but if it proves that I have
+fluffed my catch, rely upon me to use extreme measures."
+
+"Red Gap needs your best effort," he replied in a voice that brimmed
+with feeling.
+
+At five-thirty, my rush being over, I repaired to the neighbourhood
+where the Honourable George had been reported. The stockade now
+contained only a half-score of the untaught horses, but across the
+road from it was a public house, or saloon, from which came
+unmistakable sounds of carousing. It was an unsavoury place,
+frequented only by cattle and horse persons, the proprietor being an
+abandoned character named Spilmer, who had once done a patron to death
+in a drunken quarrel. Only slight legal difficulties had been made for
+him, however, it having been pleaded that he acted in self-defence,
+and the creature had at once resumed his trade as publican. There was
+even public sympathy for him at the time on the ground that he
+possessed a blind mother, though I have never been able to see that
+this should have been a factor in adjudging him.
+
+I paused now before the low place, imagining I could detect the tones
+of the Honourable George high above the chorus that came out to me.
+Deciding that in any event it would not become me to enter a resort of
+this stamp, I walked slowly back toward the more reputable part of
+town, and was presently rewarded by seeing the crowd emerge. It was
+led, I saw, by the Honourable George. The cattle-hat was still down
+upon his ears, and to my horror he had come upon the public
+thoroughfare with his legs encased in the chapps--a species of
+leathern pantalettes covered with goat's wool--a garment which I need
+not say no gentleman should be seen abroad in. As worn by the
+cow-persons in their daily toil they are only just possible, being as
+far from true vogue as anything well could be.
+
+Accompanying him were Cousin Egbert, the Indian Tuttle, the
+cow-persons, Hank and Buck, and three or four others of the same rough
+stamp. Unobtrusively I followed them to our main thoroughfare, deeply
+humiliated by the atrocious spectacle the Honourable George was making
+of himself, only to observe them turn into another public house
+entitled "The Family Liquor Store," where it seemed only too certain,
+since the bearing of all was highly animated, that they would again
+carouse.
+
+At once seeing my duty, I boldly entered, finding them aligned against
+the American bar and clamouring for drink. My welcome was heartfelt,
+even enthusiastic, almost every one of them beginning to regale me
+with incidents of the afternoon's horse-breaking. The Honourable
+George, it seemed, had himself briefly mounted one of the animals,
+having fallen into the belief that the cow-persons did not try
+earnestly enough to stay on their mounts. I gathered that one
+experience had dissuaded him from this opinion.
+
+"That there little paint horse," observed Cousin Egbert genially,
+"stepped out from under the Judge the prettiest you ever saw."
+
+"He sure did," remarked the Honourable George, with a palpable effort
+to speak the American brogue. "A most flighty beast he was--nerves all
+gone--I dare say a hopeless neurasthenic."
+
+And then when I would have rebuked him for so shamefully disappointing
+the ladies of the Onwards and Upwards Society, he began to tell me of
+the public house he had just left.
+
+"I say, you know that Spilmer chap, he's a genuine murderer--he let me
+hold the weapon with which he did it--and he has blind relatives
+dependent upon him, or something of that sort, otherwise I fancy
+they'd have sent him to the gallows. And, by Gad! he's a witty
+scoundrel, what! Looking at his sign--leaving the settlement it reads,
+'Last Chance,' but entering the settlement it reads, 'First Chance.'
+Last chance and first chance for a peg, do you see what I mean? I
+tried it out; walked both ways under the sign and looked up; it worked
+perfectly. Enter the settlement, 'First Chance'; leave the settlement,
+'Last Chance.' Do you see what I mean? Suggestive, what! Witty! You'd
+never have expected that murderer-Johnny to be so subtle. Our own
+murderers aren't that way. I say, it's a tremendous wheeze. I wonder
+the press-chaps don't take it up. It's better than the blind factory,
+though the chap's mother or something is blind. What ho! But that's
+silly! To be sure one has nothing to do with the other. I say, have
+another, you chaps! I've not felt so fit in ages. I'm going to take up
+America!"
+
+Plainly it was no occasion to use serious words to the man. He slapped
+his companions smartly on their backs and was slapped in turn by all
+of them. One or two of them called him an old horse! Not only was I
+doing no good for the North Side set, but I had felt obliged to
+consume two glasses of spirits that I did not wish. So I discreetly
+withdrew. As I went, the Honourable George was again telling them that
+he was "going in" for North America, and Cousin Egbert was calling
+"Three rousing cheers!"
+
+Thus luridly began, I may say, a scandal that was to be far-reaching
+in its dreadful effects. Far from feeling a proper shame on the
+following day, the Honourable George was as pleased as Punch with
+himself, declaring his intention of again consorting with the cattle
+and horse persons and very definitely declining an invitation to play
+at golf with Belknap-Jackson.
+
+"Golf!" he spluttered. "You do it, and then you've directly to do it
+all over again. I mean to say, one gets nowhere. A silly game--what!"
+
+Wishing to be in no manner held responsible for his vicious pursuits,
+I that day removed my diggings from the Floud home to chambers in the
+Pettengill block above the Grill, where I did myself quite nicely with
+decent mantel ornaments, some vivacious prints of old-world
+cathedrals, and a few good books, having for body-servant one of the
+Hobbs lads who seemed rather teachable. I must admit, however, that I
+was frequently obliged to address him more sharply than one should
+ever address one's servant, my theory having always been that a
+serving person should be treated quite as if he were a gentleman
+temporarily performing menial duties, but there was that strain of
+lowness in all the Hobbses which often forbade this, a blending of
+servility with more or less skilfully dissembled impertinence, which I
+dare say is the distinguishing mark of our lower-class serving people.
+
+Removed now from the immediate and more intimate effects of the
+Honourable George's digressions, I was privileged for days at a time
+to devote my attention exclusively to my enterprise. It had thriven
+from the beginning, and after a month I had so perfected the minor
+details of management that everything was right as rain. In my
+catering I continued to steer a middle course between the British
+school of plain roast and boiled and a too often piffling French
+complexity, seeking to retain the desirable features of each. My
+luncheons for the tradesmen rather held to a cut from the joint with
+vegetables and a suitable sweet, while in my dinners I relaxed a bit
+into somewhat imaginative salads and entrees. For the tea-hour I
+constantly strove to provide some appetizing novelty, often, I
+confess, sacrificing nutrition to mere sightliness in view of my
+almost exclusive feminine patronage, yet never carrying this to an
+undignified extreme.
+
+As a result of my sound judgment, dinner-giving in Red Gap began that
+winter to be done almost entirely in my place. There might be small
+informal affairs at home, but for dinners of any pretension the
+hostesses of the North Side set came to me, relying almost quite
+entirely upon my taste in the selection of the menu. Although at first
+I was required to employ unlimited tact in dissuading them from
+strange and laboured concoctions, whose photographs they fetched me
+from their women's magazines, I at length converted them from this
+unwholesome striving for novelty and laid the foundations for that
+sound scheme of gastronomy which to-day distinguishes this
+fastest-growing town in the state, if not in the West of America.
+
+It was during these early months, I ought perhaps to say, that I
+rather distinguished myself in the matter of a relish which I
+compounded one day when there was a cold round of beef for luncheon.
+Little dreaming of the magnitude of the moment, I brought together
+English mustard and the American tomato catsup, in proportions which
+for reasons that will be made obvious I do not here disclose, together
+with three other and lesser condiments whose identity also must remain
+a secret. Serving this with my cold joint, I was rather amazed at the
+sensation it created. My patrons clamoured for it repeatedly and a
+barrister wished me to prepare a flask of it for use in his home. The
+following day it was again demanded and other requests were made for
+private supplies, while by the end of the week my relish had become
+rather famous. Followed a suggestion from Mrs. Judson as she
+overlooked my preparation of it one day from her own task of polishing
+the glassware.
+
+"Put it on the market," said she, and at once I felt the inspiration
+of her idea. To her I entrusted the formula. I procured a quantity of
+suitable flasks, while in her own home she compounded the stuff and
+filled them. Having no mind to claim credit not my own, I may now say
+that this rather remarkable woman also evolved the idea of the label,
+including the name, which was pasted upon the bottles when our product
+was launched.
+
+"Ruggles' International Relish" she had named it after a moment's
+thought. Below was a print of my face taken from an excellent
+photographic portrait, followed by a brief summary of the article's
+unsurpassed excellence, together with a list of the viands for which
+it was commended. As the International Relish is now a matter of
+history, the demand for it having spread as far east as Chicago and
+those places, I may add that it was this capable woman again who
+devised the large placard for hoardings in which a middle-aged but
+glowing bon-vivant in evening dress rebukes the blackamoor who has
+served his dinner for not having at once placed Ruggles' International
+Relish upon the table. The genial annoyance of the diner and the
+apologetic concern of the black are excellently depicted by the
+artist, for the original drawing of which I paid a stiffish price to
+the leading artist fellow of Spokane. This now adorns the wall of my
+sitting-room.
+
+It must not be supposed that I had been free during these months from
+annoyance and chagrin at the manner in which the Honourable George was
+conducting himself. In the beginning it was hoped both by
+Belknap-Jackson and myself that he might do no worse than merely
+consort with the rougher element of the town. I mean to say, we
+suspected that the apparent charm of the raffish cattle-persons might
+suffice to keep him from any notorious alliance with the dreaded
+Bohemian set. So long as he abstained from this he might still be
+received at our best homes, despite his regrettable fondness for low
+company. Even when he brought the murderer Spilmer to dine with him at
+my place, the thing was condoned as a freakish grotesquerie in one
+who, of unassailable social position, might well afford to stoop
+momentarily.
+
+I must say that the murderer--a heavy-jowled brute of husky voice, and
+quite lacking a forehead--conducted himself on this occasion with an
+entirely decent restraint of manner, quite in contrast to the
+Honourable George, who betrayed an expansively naive pride in his
+guest, seeming to wish the world to know of the event. Between them
+they consumed a fair bottle of the relish. Indeed, the Honourable
+George was inordinately fond of this, as a result of which he would
+often come out quite spotty again. Cousin Egbert was another who
+became so addicted to it that his fondness might well have been called
+a vice. Both he and the Honourable George would drench quite every
+course with the sauce, and Cousin Egbert, with that explicit
+directness which distinguished his character, would frankly sop his
+bread-crusts in it, or even sip it with a coffee-spoon.
+
+As I have intimated, in spite of the Honourable George's affiliations
+with the slum-characters of what I may call Red Gap's East End, he had
+not yet publicly identified himself with the Klondike woman and her
+Bohemian set, in consequence of which--let him dine and wine a Spilmer
+as he would--there was yet hope that he would not alienate himself
+from the North Side set.
+
+At intervals during the early months of his sojourn among us he
+accepted dinner invitations at the Grill from our social leaders; in
+fact, after the launching of the International Relish, I know of none
+that he declined, but it was evident to me that he moved but
+half-heartedly in this higher circle. On one occasion, too, he
+appeared in the trousers of a lounge-suit of tweeds instead of his
+dress trousers, and with tan boots. The trousers, to be sure, were of
+a sombre hue, but the brown boots were quite too dreadfully
+unmistakable. After this I may say that I looked for anything, and my
+worst fears were soon confirmed.
+
+It began as the vaguest sort of gossip. The Honourable George, it was
+said, had been a guest at one of the Klondike woman's evening affairs.
+The rumour crystallized. He had been asked to meet the Bohemian set at
+a Dutch supper and had gone. He had lingered until a late hour,
+dancing the American folkdances (for which he had shown a surprising
+adaptability) and conducting himself generally as the next Earl of
+Brinstead should not have done. He had repeated his visit, repairing
+to the woman's house both afternoon and evening. He had become a
+constant visitor. He had spoken regrettably of the dulness of a
+meeting of the Onwards and Upwards Society which he had attended. He
+was in the woman's toils.
+
+With gossip of this sort there was naturally much indignation, and yet
+the leaders of the North Side set were so delicately placed that there
+was every reason for concealing it. They redoubled their attentions to
+the unfortunate man, seeking to leave him not an unoccupied evening or
+afternoon. Such was the gravity of the crisis. Belknap-Jackson alone
+remained finely judicial.
+
+"The situation is of the gravest character," he confided to me, "but
+we must be wary. The day isn't lost so long as he doesn't appear
+publicly in the creature's train. For the present we have only
+unverified rumour. As a man about town Vane-Basingwell may feel free
+to consort with vicious companions and still maintain his proper
+standing. Deplore it as all right-thinking people must, under present
+social conditions he is undoubtedly free to lead what is called a
+double life. We can only wait."
+
+Such was the state of the public mind, be it understood, up to the
+time of the notorious and scandalous defection of this obsessed
+creature, an occasion which I cannot recall without shuddering, and
+which inspired me to a course that was later to have the most
+inexplicable and far-reaching consequences.
+
+Theatrical plays had been numerous with us during the season, with the
+natural result of many after-theatre suppers being given by those who
+attended, among them the North Side leaders, and frequently the
+Klondike woman with her following. On several of these occasions,
+moreover, the latter brought as supper guests certain representatives
+of the theatrical profession, both male and female, she apparently
+having a wide acquaintance with such persons. That this sort of thing
+increased her unpopularity with the North Side set will be understood
+when I add that now and then her guests would be of undoubted
+respectability in their private lives, as theatrical persons often
+are, and such as our smartest hostesses would have been only too glad
+to entertain.
+
+To counteract this effect Belknap-Jackson now broached to me a plan of
+undoubted merit, which was nothing less than to hold an afternoon
+reception at his home in honour of the world's greatest pianoforte
+artist, who was presently to give a recital in Red Gap.
+
+"I've not met the chap myself," he began, "but I knew his secretary
+and travelling companion quite well in a happier day in Boston. The
+recital here will be Saturday evening, which means that they will
+remain here on Sunday until the evening train East. I shall suggest to
+my friend that his employer, to while away the tedium of the Sunday,
+might care to look in upon me in the afternoon and meet a few of our
+best people. Nothing boring, of course. I've no doubt he will arrange
+it. I've written him to Portland, where they now are."
+
+"Rather a card that will be," I instantly cried. "Rather better class
+than entertaining strolling players." Indeed the merit of the proposal
+rather overwhelmed me. It would be dignified and yet spectacular. It
+would show the Klondike woman that we chose to have contact only with
+artists of acknowledged preeminence and that such were quite willing
+to accept our courtesies. I had hopes, too, that the Honourable George
+might be aroused to advantages which he seemed bent upon casting to
+the American winds.
+
+A week later Belknap-Jackson joyously informed me that the great
+artist had consented to accept his hospitality. There would be light
+refreshments, with which I was charged. I suggested tea in the Russian
+manner, which he applauded.
+
+"And everything dainty in the way of food," he warned me. "Nothing
+common, nothing heavy. Some of those tiny lettuce sandwiches, a bit of
+caviare, macaroons--nothing gross--a decanter of dry sherry, perhaps,
+a few of the lightest wafers; things that cultivated persons may
+trifle with--things not repugnant to the artist soul."
+
+I promised my profoundest consideration to these matters.
+
+"And it occurs to me," he thoughtfully added, "that this may be a time
+for Vane-Basingwell to silence the slurs upon himself that are
+becoming so common. I shall beg him to meet our guest at his hotel and
+escort him to my place. A note to my friend, 'the bearer, the
+Honourable George Augustus Vane-Basingwell, brother of his lordship
+the Earl of Brinstead, will take great pleasure in escorting to my
+home----' You get the idea? Not bad!"
+
+Again I applauded, resolving that for once the Honourable George would
+be suitably attired even if I had to bully him. And so was launched
+what promised to be Red Gap's most notable social event of the season.
+The Honourable George, being consulted, promised after a rather sulky
+hesitation to act as the great artist's escort, though he persisted in
+referring to him as "that piano Johnny," and betrayed a suspicion that
+Belknap-Jackson was merely bent upon getting him to perform without
+price.
+
+"But no," cried Belknap-Jackson, "I should never think of anything so
+indelicate as asking him to play. My own piano will be tightly closed
+and I dare say removed to another room."
+
+At this the Honourable George professed to wonder why the chap was
+desired if he wasn't to perform. "All hair and bad English--silly
+brutes when they don't play," he declared. In the end, however, as I
+have said, he consented to act as he was wished to. Cousin Egbert, who
+was present at this interview, took somewhat the same view as the
+Honourable George, even asserting that he should not attend the
+recital.
+
+"He don't sing, he don't dance, he don't recite; just plays the piano.
+That ain't any kind of a show for folks to set up a whole evening
+for," he protested bitterly, and he went on to mention various
+theatrical pieces which he had considered worthy, among them I recall
+being one entitled "The Two Johns," which he regretted not having
+witnessed for several years, and another called "Ben Hur," which was
+better than all the piano players alive, he declared. But with the
+Honourable George enlisted, both Belknap-Jackson and I considered the
+opinions of Cousin Egbert to be quite wholly negligible.
+
+Saturday's _Recorder_, in its advance notice of the recital,
+announced that the Belknap-Jacksons of Boston and Red Gap would
+entertain the artist on the following afternoon at their palatial home
+in the Pettengill addition, where a select few of the North Side set
+had been invited to meet him. Belknap-Jackson himself was as a man
+uplifted. He constantly revised and re-revised his invitation list; he
+sought me out each day to suggest subtle changes in the very artistic
+menu I had prepared for the affair. His last touch was to supplement
+the decanter of sherry with a bottle of vodka. About the caviare he
+worried quite fearfully until it proved upon arrival to be fresh and
+of prime quality. My man, the Hobbs boy, had under my instructions
+pressed and smarted the Honourable George's suit for afternoon wear.
+The carriage was engaged. Saturday night it was tremendously certain
+that no hitch could occur to mar the affair. We had left no detail to
+chance.
+
+The recital itself was quite all that could have been expected, but
+underneath the enthusiastic applause there ran even a more intense
+fervour among those fortunate ones who were to meet the artist on the
+morrow.
+
+Belknap-Jackson knew himself to be a hero. He was elaborately cool. He
+smiled tolerantly at intervals and undoubtedly applauded with the
+least hint of languid proprietorship in his manner. He was heard to
+speak of the artist by his first name. The Klondike woman and many of
+her Bohemian set were prominently among those present and sustained
+glances of pitying triumph from those members of the North Side set so
+soon to be distinguished above her.
+
+The morrow dawned auspiciously, very cloudy with smartish drives of
+wind and rain. Confined to the dingy squalor of his hotel, how gladly
+would the artist, it was felt, seek the refined cheer of one of our
+best homes where he would be enlivened by an hour or so of contact
+with our most cultivated people. Belknap-Jackson telephoned me with
+increasing frequency as the hour drew near, nervously seeming to dread
+that I would have overlooked some detail of his refined refreshments,
+or that I would not have them at his house on time. He telephoned
+often to the Honourable George to be assured that the carriage with
+its escort would be prompt. He telephoned repeatedly to the driver
+chap, to impress upon him the importance of his mission.
+
+His guests began to arrive even before I had decked his sideboard with
+what was, I have no hesitation in declaring, the most superbly dainty
+buffet collation that Red Gap had ever beheld. The atmosphere at once
+became tense with expectation.
+
+At three o'clock the host announced from the telephone:
+"Vane-Basingwell has started from the Floud house." The guests
+thrilled and hushed the careless chatter of new arrivals.
+Belknap-Jackson remained heroically at the telephone, having demanded
+to be put through to the hotel. He was flushed with excitement. A
+score of minutes later he announced with an effort to control his
+voice: "They have left the hotel--they are on the way."
+
+The guests stiffened in their seats. Some of them nervously and for no
+apparent reason exchanged chairs with others. Some late arrivals
+bustled in and were immediately awed to the same electric silence of
+waiting. Belknap-Jackson placed the sherry decanter where the vodka
+bottle had been and the vodka bottle where the sherry decanter had
+been. "The effect is better," he remarked, and went to stand where he
+could view the driveway. The moments passed.
+
+At such crises, which I need not say have been plentiful in my life, I
+have always known that I possessed an immense reserve of coolness.
+Seldom have I ever been so much as slightly flustered. Now I was
+calmness itself, and the knowledge brought me no little satisfaction
+as I noted the rather painful distraction of our host. The moments
+passed--long, heavy, silent moments. Our host ascended trippingly to
+an upper floor whence he could see farther down the drive. The guests
+held themselves in smiling readiness. Our host descended and again
+took up his post at a lower window.
+
+The moments passed--stilled, leaden moments. The silence had become
+intolerable. Our host jiggled on his feet. Some of the quicker-minded
+guests made a pretence of little conversational flurries: "That second
+movement--oh, exquisitely rendered!... No one has ever read Chopin so
+divinely.... How his family must idolize him!... They say.... That
+exquisite concerto!... Hasn't he the most stunning hair.... Those
+staccato passages left me actually limp--I'm starting Myrtle in
+Tuesday to take of Professor Gluckstein. She wants to take
+stenography, but I tell her.... Did you think the preludes were just
+the tiniest bit idealized.... I always say if one has one's music, and
+one's books, of course--He must be very, _very_ fond of music!"
+
+Such were the hushed, tentative fragments I caught.
+
+The moments passed. Belknap-Jackson went to the telephone. "What? But
+they're not here! Very strange! They should have been here half an
+hour ago. Send some one--yes, at once." In the ensuing silence he
+repaired to the buffet and drank a glass of vodka. Quite distraught he
+was.
+
+The moments passed. Again several guests exchanged seats with other
+guests. It seemed to be a device for relieving the strain. Once more
+there were scattering efforts at normal talk. "Myrtle is a strange
+girl--a creature of moods, I call her. She wanted to act in the moving
+pictures until papa bought the car. And she knows every one of the new
+tango steps, but I tell her a few lessons in cooking wouldn't--Beryl
+Mae is just the same puzzling child; one thing one day, and another
+thing the next; a mere bundle of nerves, and so sensitive if you say
+the least little thing to her ... If we could only get Ling Wong
+back--this Jap boy is always threatening to leave if the men don't get
+up to breakfast on time, or if Gertie makes fudge in his kitchen of an
+afternoon ... Our boy sends all his wages to his uncle in China, but I
+simply can't get him to say, 'Dinner is served.' He just slides in and
+says, 'All right, you come!' It's very annoying, but I always tell the
+family, 'Remember what a time we had with the Swede----'"
+
+I mean to say, things were becoming rapidly impossible. The moments
+passed. Belknap-Jackson again telephoned: "You did send a man after
+them? Send some one after him, then. Yes, at once!" He poured himself
+another peg of the vodka. Silence fell again. The waiting was terrific.
+We had endured an hour of it, and but little more was possible to any
+sensitive human organism. All at once, as if the very last possible
+moment of silence had passed, the conversation broke loudly and
+generally: "And did you notice that slimpsy thing she wore last
+night? Indecent, if you ask me, with not a petticoat under it, I'll
+be bound!... Always wears shoes twice too small for her ... What men
+can see in her ... How they can endure that perpetual smirk!..." They
+were at last discussing the Klondike woman, and whatever had befallen
+our guest of honour I knew that those present would never regain their
+first awe of the occasion. It was now unrestrained gabble.
+
+The second hour passed quickly enough, the latter half of it being
+enlivened by the buffet collation which elicited many compliments upon
+my ingenuity and good taste. Quite almost every guest partook of a
+glass of the vodka. They chattered of everything but music, I dare say
+it being thought graceful to ignore the afternoon's disaster.
+
+Belknap-Jackson had sunk into a mood of sullen desperation. He drained
+the vodka bottle. Perhaps the liquor brought him something of the
+chill Russian fatalism. He was dignified but sodden, with a depression
+that seemed to blow from the bleak Siberian steppes. His wife was
+already receiving the adieus of their guests. She was smouldering
+ominously, uncertain where the blame lay, but certain there was blame.
+Criminal blame! I could read as much in her narrowed eyes as she
+tried for aplomb with her guests.
+
+My own leave I took unobtrusively. I knew our strangely missing guest
+was to depart by the six-two train, and I strolled toward the station.
+A block away I halted, waiting. It had been a time of waiting. The
+moments passed. I heard the whistle of the approaching train. At the
+same moment I was startled by the approach of a team that I took to be
+running away.
+
+I saw it was the carriage of the Pierce chap and that he was driving
+with the most abandoned recklessness. His passengers were the
+Honourable George, Cousin Egbert, and our missing guest. The great
+artist as they passed me seemed to feel a vast delight in his wild
+ride. He was cheering on the driver. He waved his arms and himself
+shouted to the maddened horses. The carriage drew up to the station
+with the train, and the three descended.
+
+The artist hurriedly shook hands in the warmest manner with his
+companions, including the Pierce chap, who had driven them. He
+beckoned to his secretary, who was waiting with his bags. He mounted
+the steps of the coach, and as the train pulled out he waved
+frantically to the three. He kissed his hand to them, looking far out
+as the train gathered momentum. Again and again he kissed his hand to
+the hat-waving trio.
+
+It was too much. The strain of the afternoon had told even upon my own
+iron nerves. I felt unequal at that moment to the simplest inquiry,
+and plainly the situation was not one to attack in haste. I mean to
+say, it was too pregnant with meaning. I withdrew rapidly from the
+scene, feeling the need for rest and silence.
+
+As I walked I meditated profoundly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+
+From the innocent lips of Cousin Egbert the following morning there
+fell a tale of such cold-blooded depravity that I found myself with
+difficulty giving it credit. At ten o'clock, while I still mused
+pensively over the events of the previous day, he entered the Grill in
+search of breakfast, as had lately become his habit. I greeted him
+with perceptible restraint, not knowing what guilt might be his, but
+his manner to me was so unconsciously genial that I at once acquitted
+him of any complicity in whatever base doings had been forward.
+
+He took his accustomed seat with a pleasant word to me. I waited.
+
+"Feeling a mite off this morning," he began, "account of a lot of
+truck I eat yesterday. I guess I'll just take something kind of
+dainty. Tell Clarice to cook me up a nice little steak with plenty of
+fat on it, and some fried potatoes, and a cup of coffee and a few
+waffles to come. The Judge he wouldn't get up yet. He looked kind of
+mottled and anguished, but I guess he'll pull around all right. I had
+the chink take him up about a gallon of strong tea. Say, listen here,
+the Judge ain't so awful much of a stayer, is he?"
+
+Burning with curiosity I was to learn what he could tell me of the day
+before, yet I controlled myself to the calmest of leisurely
+questioning in order not to alarm him. It was too plain that he had no
+realization of what had occurred. It was always the way with him, I
+had noticed. Events the most momentous might culminate furiously about
+his head, but he never knew that anything had happened.
+
+"The Honourable George," I began, "was with you yesterday? Perhaps he
+ate something he shouldn't."
+
+"He did, he did; he done it repeatedly. He et pretty near as much of
+that sauerkraut and frankfurters as the piano guy himself did, and
+that's some tribute, believe me, Bill! Some tribute!"
+
+"The piano guy?" I murmured quite casually.
+
+"And say, listen here, that guy is all right if anybody should ask
+you. You talk about your mixers!"
+
+This was a bit puzzling, for of course I had never "talked about my
+mixers." I shouldn't a bit know how to go on. I ventured another
+query.
+
+"Where was it this mixing and that sort of thing took place?"
+
+"Why, up at Mis' Kenner's, where we was having a little party:
+frankfurters and sauerkraut and beer. My stars! but that steak looks
+good. I'm feeling better already." His food was before him, and he
+attacked it with no end of spirit.
+
+"Tell me quite all about it," I amiably suggested, and after a
+moment's hurried devotion to the steak, he slowed up a bit to talk.
+
+"Well, listen here, now. The Judge says to me when Eddie Pierce comes,
+'Sour-dough,' he says, 'look in at Mis' Kenner's this afternoon if you
+got nothing else on; I fancy it will repay you.' Just like that.
+'Well,' I says, 'all right, Judge, I fancy I will. I fancy I ain't got
+anything else on,' I says. 'And I'm always glad to go there,' I says,
+because no matter what they're always saying about this here Bohemian
+stuff, Kate Kenner is one good scout, take it from me. So in a little
+while I slicked up some and went on around to her house. Then hitched
+outside I seen Eddie Pierce's hack, and I says, 'My lands! that's a
+funny thing,' I says. 'I thought the Judge was going to haul this here
+piano guy out to the Jackson place where he could while away the
+tejum, like Jackson said, and now it looks as if they was here. Or
+mebbe it's just Eddie himself that has fancied to look in, not having
+anything else on.'
+
+"Well, so anyway I go up on the stoop and knock, and when I get in the
+parlour there the piano guy is and the Judge and Eddie Pierce, too,
+Eddie helping the Jap around with frankfurters and sauerkraut and beer
+and one thing and another.
+
+"Besides them was about a dozen of Mis' Kenner's own particular
+friends, all of 'em good scouts, let me tell you, and everybody
+laughing and gassing back and forth and cutting up and having a good
+time all around. Well, so as soon as they seen me, everybody says,
+'Oh, here comes Sour-dough--good old Sour-dough!' and all like that,
+and they introduced me to the piano guy, who gets up to shake hands
+with me and spills his beer off the chair arm on to the wife of Eddie
+Fosdick in the Farmers' and Merchants' National, and so I sat down and
+et with 'em and had a few steins of beer, and everybody had a good
+time all around."
+
+The wonderful man appeared to believe that he had told me quite all of
+interest concerning this monstrous festivity. He surveyed the
+mutilated remnant of his steak and said: "I guess Clarice might as
+well fry me a few eggs. I'm feeling a lot better." I directed that
+this be done, musing upon the dreadful menu he had recited and
+recalling the exquisite finish of the collation I myself had prepared.
+Sausages, to be sure, have their place, and beer as well, but
+sauerkraut I have never been able to regard as an at all possible food
+for persons that really matter. Germans, to be sure!
+
+Discreetly I renewed my inquiry: "I dare say the Honourable George was
+in good form?" I suggested.
+
+"Well, he et a lot. Him and the piano guy was bragging which could eat
+the most sausages."
+
+I was unable to restrain a shudder at the thought of this revolting
+contest.
+
+"The piano guy beat him out, though. He'd been at the Palace Hotel for
+three meals and I guess his appetite was right craving."
+
+"And afterward?"
+
+"Well, it was like Jackson said: this lad wanted to while away the
+tejum of a Sunday afternoon, and so he whiled it, that's all. Purty
+soon Mis' Kenner set down to the piano and sung some coon songs that
+tickled him most to death, and then she got to playing ragtime--say,
+believe me, Bill, when she starts in on that rag stuff she can make a
+piano simply stutter itself to death.
+
+{Illustration: MIS' KENNER SET DOWN TO THE PIANO AND SUNG SOME COON
+SONGS THAT TICKLED HIM MOST TO DEATH}
+
+"Well, at that the piano guy says it's great stuff, and so he sets
+down himself to try it, and he catches on pretty good, I'll say that
+for him, so we got to dancing while he plays for us, only he don't
+remember the tunes good and has to fake a lot. Then he makes Mis'
+Kenner play again while he dances with Mis' Fosdick that he spilled
+the beer on, and after that we had some more beer and this guy et
+another plate of kraut and a few sausages, and Mis' Kenner sings 'The
+Robert E. Lee' and a couple more good ones, and the guy played some
+more ragtime himself, trying to get the tunes right, and then he
+played some fancy pieces that he'd practised up on, and we danced some
+and had a few more beers, with everybody laughing and cutting up and
+having a nice home afternoon.
+
+"Well, the piano guy enjoyed himself every minute, if anybody asks
+you, being lit up like a main chandelier. They made him feel like he
+was one of their own folks. You certainly got to hand it to him for
+being one little good mixer. Talk about whiling away the tejum! He
+done it, all right, all right. He whiled away so much tejum there he
+darned near missed his train. Eddie Pierce kept telling him what time
+it was, only he'd keep asking Mis' Kenner to play just one more rag,
+and at last we had to just shoot him into his fur overcoat while he
+was kissing all the women on their hands, and we'd have missed the
+train at that if Eddie hadn't poured the leather into them skates of
+his all the way down to the dee-po. He just did make it, and he told
+the Judge and Eddie and me that he ain't had such a good time since he
+left home. I kind of hated to see him go."
+
+He here attacked the eggs with what seemed to be a freshening of his
+remarkable appetite. And as yet, be it noted, I had detected no
+consciousness on his part that a foul betrayal of confidence had been
+committed. I approached the point.
+
+"The Belknap-Jacksons were rather expecting him, you know. My
+impression was that the Honourable George had been sent to escort him
+to the Belknap-Jackson house."
+
+"Well, that's what I thought, too, but I guess the Judge forgot it, or
+mebbe he thinks the guy will mix in better with Mis' Kenner's crowd.
+Anyway, there they was, and it probably didn't make any difference to
+the guy himself. He likely thought he could while away the tejum there
+as well as he could while it any place, all of them being such good
+scouts. And the Judge has certainly got a case on Mis' Kenner, so
+mebby she asked him to drop in with any friend of his. She's got him
+bridle-wise and broke to all gaits." He visibly groped for an
+illumining phrase. "He--he just looks at her."
+
+The simple words fell upon my ears with a sickening finality. "He just
+looks at her." I had seen him "just look" at the typing-girl and at
+the Brixton milliner. All too fearfully I divined their preposterous
+significance. Beyond question a black infamy had been laid bare, but I
+made no effort to convey its magnitude to my guileless informant. As I
+left him he was mildly bemoaning his own lack of skill on the
+pianoforte.
+
+"Darned if I don't wish I'd 'a' took some lessons on the piano myself
+like that guy done. It certainly does help to while away the tejum
+when you got friends in for the afternoon. But then I was just a
+hill-billy. Likely I couldn't have learned the notes good."
+
+It was a half-hour later that I was called to the telephone to listen
+to the anguished accents of Belknap-Jackson.
+
+"Have you heard it?" he called. I answered that I had.
+
+"The man is a paranoiac. He should be at once confined in an asylum
+for the criminal insane."
+
+"I shall row him fiercely about it, never fear. I've not seen him
+yet."
+
+"But the creature should be watched. He may do harm to himself or to
+some innocent person. They--they run wild, they kill, they burn--set
+fire to buildings--that sort of thing. I tell you, none of us is
+safe."
+
+"The situation," I answered, "has even more shocking possibilities,
+but I've an idea I shall be equal to it. If the worst seems to be
+imminent I shall adopt extreme measures." I closed the interview. It
+was too painful. I wished to summon all my powers of deliberation.
+
+To my amazement who should presently appear among my throng of
+luncheon patrons but the Honourable George. I will not say that he
+slunk in, but there was an unaccustomed diffidence in his bearing. He
+did not meet my eye, and it was not difficult to perceive that he had
+no wish to engage my notice. As he sought a vacant table I observed
+that he was spotted quite profusely, and his luncheon order was of the
+simplest.
+
+Straight I went to him. He winced a bit, I thought, as he saw me
+approach, but then he apparently resolved to brass it out, for he
+glanced full at me with a terrific assumption of bravado and at once
+began to give me beans about my service.
+
+"Your bally tea shop running down, what! Louts for waiters, cloddish
+louts! Disgraceful, my word! Slow beggars! Take a year to do you a
+rasher and a bit of toast, what!"
+
+To this absurd tirade I replied not a word, but stood silently
+regarding him. I dare say my gaze was of the most chilling character
+and steady. He endured it but a moment. His eyes fell, his bravado
+vanished, he fumbled with the cutlery. Quite abashed he was.
+
+"Come, your explanation!" I said curtly, divining that the moment was
+one in which to adopt a tone with him. He wriggled a bit, crumpling a
+roll with panic fingers.
+
+"Come, come!" I commanded.
+
+His face brightened, though with an intention most obviously false. He
+coughed--a cough of pure deception. Not only were his eyes averted
+from mine, but they were glassed to an uncanny degree. The fingers
+wrought piteously at the now plastic roll.
+
+"My word, the chap was taken bad; had to be seen to, what! Revived, I
+mean to say. All piano Johnnies that way--nervous wrecks, what!
+Spells! Spells, man--spells!"
+
+"Come, come!" I said crisply. The glassed eyes were those of one
+hypnotized.
+
+"In the carriage--to the hyphen chap's place, to be sure. Fainting
+spell--weak heart, what! No stimulants about. Passing house! Perhaps
+have stimulants--heart tablets, er--beer--things of that sort. Lead
+him in. Revive him. Quite well presently, but not well enough to go
+on. Couldn't let a piano Johnny die on our hands, what! Inquest,
+evidence, witnesses--all that silly rot. Save his life, what! Presence
+of mind! Kind hearts, what! Humanity! Do as much for any chap. Not let
+him die like a dog in the gutter, what! Get no credit, though----" His
+curiously mechanical utterance trailed off to be lost in a mere husky
+murmur. The glassy stare was still at my wall.
+
+I have in the course of my eventful career had occasion to mark the
+varying degrees of plausibility with which men speak untruths, but
+never, I confidently aver, have I beheld one lie with so piteous a
+futility. The art--and I dare say with diplomat chaps and that sort it
+may properly be called an art--demands as its very essence that the
+speaker seem to be himself convinced of the truth of that which he
+utters. And the Honourable George in his youth mentioned for the
+Foreign Office!
+
+I turned away. The exhibition was quite too indecent. I left him to
+mince at his meagre fare. As I glanced his way at odd moments
+thereafter, he would be muttering feverishly to himself. I mean to
+say, he no longer _was_ himself. He presently made his way to the
+street, looking neither to right nor left. He had, in truth, the dazed
+manner of one stupefied by some powerful narcotic. I wondered
+pityingly when I should again behold him--if it might be that his poor
+wits were bedevilled past mending.
+
+My period of uncertainty was all too brief. Some two hours later, full
+into the tide of our afternoon shopping throng, there issued a
+spectacle that removed any lingering doubt of the unfortunate man's
+plight. In the rather smart pony-trap of the Klondike woman, driven by
+the person herself, rode the Honourable George. Full in the startled
+gaze of many of our best people he advertised his defection from all
+that makes for a sanely governed stability in our social organism. He
+had gone flagrantly over to the Bohemian set.
+
+I could detect that his eyes were still glassy, but his head was
+erect. He seemed to flaunt his shame. And the guilty partner of his
+downfall drove with an affectation of easy carelessness, yet with a
+lift of the chin which, though barely perceptible, had all the effect
+of binding the prisoner to her chariot wheels; a prisoner, moreover,
+whom it was plain she meant to parade to the last ignominious degree.
+She drove leisurely, and in the little infrequent curt turns of her
+head to address her companion she contrived to instill so finished an
+effect of boredom that she must have goaded to frenzy any matron of
+the North Side set who chanced to observe her, as more than one of
+them did.
+
+Thrice did she halt along our main thoroughfare for bits of shopping,
+a mere running into of shops or to the doors of them where she could
+issue verbal orders, the while she surveyed her waiting and drugged
+captive with a certain half-veiled but good-humoured insolence. At
+these moments--for I took pains to overlook the shocking scene--the
+Honourable George followed her with eyes no longer glassed; the eyes
+of helpless infatuation. "He looks at her," Cousin Egbert had said. He
+had told it all and told it well. The equipage graced our street upon
+one paltry excuse or another for the better part of an hour, the woman
+being minded that none of us should longer question her supremacy over
+the next and eleventh Earl of Brinstead.
+
+Not for another hour did the effects of the sensation die out among
+tradesmen and the street crowds. It was like waves that recede but
+gradually. They talked. They stopped to talk. They passed on talking.
+They hissed vivaciously; they rose to exclamations. I mean to say,
+there was no end of a gabbling row about it.
+
+There was in my mind no longer any room for hesitation. The quite
+harshest of extreme measures must be at once adopted before all was
+too late. I made my way to the telegraph office. It was not a time for
+correspondence by post.
+
+Afterward I had myself put through by telephone to Belknap-Jackson.
+With his sensitive nature he had stopped in all day. Although still
+averse to appearing publicly, he now consented to meet me at my
+chambers late that evening.
+
+"The whole town is seething with indignation," he called to me. "It
+was disgraceful. I shall come at ten. We rely upon you."
+
+Again I saw that he was concerned solely with his humiliation as a
+would-be host. Not yet had he divined that the deluded Honourable
+George might go to the unspeakable length of a matrimonial alliance
+with the woman who had enchained him. And as to his own disaster, he
+was less than accurate when he said that the whole town was seething
+with indignation. The members of the North Side set, to be sure, were
+seething furiously, but a flippant element of the baser sort was quite
+openly rejoicing. As at the time of that most slanderous minstrel
+performance, it was said that the Bohemian set had again, if I have
+caught the phrase, "put a thing over upon" the North Side set. Many
+persons of low taste seemed quite to enjoy the dreadful affair, and
+the members of the Bohemian set, naturally, throughout the day had
+been quite coarsely beside themselves with glee.
+
+Little they knew, I reflected, what power I could wield nor that I had
+already set in motion its deadly springs. Little did the woman dream,
+flaunting her triumph up and down our main business thoroughfare, that
+one who watched her there had but to raise his hand to wrest the
+victim from her toils. Little did she now dream that he would stop at
+no half measures. I mean to say, she would never think I could bowl
+her out as easy as buying cockles off a barrow.
+
+At the hour for our conference Belknap-Jackson arrived at my chambers
+muffled in an ulster and with a soft hat well over his face. I
+gathered that he had not wished to be observed.
+
+"I feel that this is a crisis," he began as he gloomily shook my hand.
+"Where is our boasted twentieth-century culture if outrages like this
+are permitted? For the first time I understand how these Western
+communities have in the past resorted to mob violence. Public feeling
+is already running high against the creature and her unspeakable set."
+
+I met this outburst with the serenity of one who holds the winning
+cards in his hand, and begged him to be seated. Thereupon I disclosed
+to him the weakly, susceptible nature of the Honourable George,
+reciting the incidents of the typing-girl and the Brixton milliner. I
+added that now, as before, I should not hesitate to preserve the
+family honour.
+
+"A dreadful thing, indeed," he murmured, "if that adventuress should
+trap him into a marriage. Imagine her one day a Countess of Brinstead!
+But suppose the fellow prove stubborn; suppose his infatuation dulls
+all his finer instincts?"
+
+I explained that the Honourable George, while he might upon the spur
+of the moment commit a folly, was not to be taken too seriously; that
+he was, I believed, quite incapable of a grand passion. I mean to say,
+he always forgot them after a few days. More like a child staring into
+shop-windows he was, rapidly forgetting one desired object in the
+presence of others. I added that I had adopted the extremest measures.
+
+Thereupon, perceiving that I had something in my sleeve, as the saying
+is, my caller besought me to confide in him. Without a word I handed
+him a copy of my cable message sent that afternoon to his lordship:
+
+    _"Your immediate presence required to prevent a monstrous
+    folly."_
+
+He brightened as he read it.
+
+"You actually mean to say----" he began.
+
+"His lordship," I explained, "will at once understand the nature of
+what is threatened. He knows, moreover, that I would not alarm him
+without cause. He will come at once, and the Honourable George will be
+told what. His lordship has never failed. He tells him what perfectly,
+and that's quite all to it. The poor chap will be saved."
+
+My caller was profoundly stirred. "Coming here--to Red Gap--his
+lordship the Earl of Brinstead--actually coming here! My God! This is
+wonderful!" He paused; he seemed to moisten his dry lips; he began
+once more, and now his voice trembled with emotion: "He will need a
+place to stay; our hotel is impossible; had you thought----" He
+glanced at me appealingly.
+
+"I dare say," I replied, "that his lordship will be pleased to have
+you put him up; you would do him quite nicely."
+
+"You mean it--seriously? That would be--oh, inexpressible. He would be
+our house guest! The Earl of Brinstead! I fancy that would silence a
+few of these serpent tongues that are wagging so venomously to-day!"
+
+"But before his coming," I insisted, "there must be no word of his
+arrival. The Honourable George would know the meaning of it, and the
+woman, though I suspect now that she is only making a show of him,
+might go on to the bitter end. They must suspect nothing."
+
+"I had merely thought of a brief and dignified notice in our press,"
+he began, quite wistfully, "but if you think it might defeat our
+ends----"
+
+"It must wait until he has come."
+
+"Glorious!" he exclaimed. "It will be even more of a blow to them." He
+began to murmur as if reading from a journal, "'His lordship the Earl
+of Brinstead is visiting for a few days'--it will surely be as much as
+a few days, perhaps a week or more--'is visiting for a few days the C.
+Belknap-Jacksons of Boston and Red Gap.'" He seemed to regard the
+printed words. "Better still, 'The C. Belknap-Jacksons of Boston and
+Red Gap are for a few days entertaining as their honoured house guest
+his lordship the Earl of Brinstead----' Yes, that's admirable."
+
+He arose and impulsively clasped my hand. "Ruggles, dear old chap, I
+shan't know at all how to repay you. The Bohemian set, such as are
+possible, will be bound to come over to us. There will be left of it
+but one unprincipled woman--and she wretched and an outcast. She has
+made me absurd. I shall grind her under my heel. The east room shall
+be prepared for his lordship; he shall breakfast there if he wishes. I
+fancy he'll find us rather more like himself than he suspects. He
+shall see that we have ideals that are not half bad."
+
+He wrung my hand again. His eyes were misty with gratitude.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+
+Three days later came the satisfying answer to my cable message:
+
+    _"Damn! Sailing Wednesday_.--BRINSTEAD."
+
+Glad I was he had used the cable. In a letter there would doubtless
+have been still other words improper to a peer of England.
+
+Belknap-Jackson thereafter bore himself with a dignity quite
+tremendous even for him. Graciously aloof, he was as one carrying an
+inner light. "We hold them in the hollow of our hand," said he, and
+both his wife and himself took pains on our own thoroughfare to cut
+the Honourable George dead, though I dare say the poor chap never at
+all noticed it. They spoke of him as "a remittance man"--the black
+sheep of a noble family. They mentioned sympathetically the trouble
+his vicious ways had been to his brother, the Earl. Indeed, so
+mysteriously important were they in allusions of this sort that I was
+obliged to caution them, lest they let out the truth. As it was, there
+ran through the town an undercurrent of puzzled suspicion. It was
+intimated that we had something in our sleeves.
+
+Whether this tension was felt by the Honourable George, I had no means
+of knowing. I dare say not, as he is self-centred, being seldom aware
+of anything beyond his own immediate sensations. But I had reason to
+believe that the Klondike woman had divined some menace in our
+attitude of marked indifference. Her own manner, when it could be
+observed, grew increasingly defiant, if that were possible. The
+alliance of the Honourable George with the Bohemian set had become, of
+course, a public scandal after the day of his appearance in her trap
+and after his betrayal of the Belknap-Jacksons had been gossiped to
+rags. He no longer troubled himself to pretend any esteem whatever for
+the North Side set. Scarce a day passed but he appeared in public as
+the woman's escort. He flagrantly performed her commissions, and at
+their questionable Bohemian gatherings, with their beer and sausages
+and that sort of thing, he was the gayest of that gay, mad set.
+
+Indeed, of his old associates, Cousin Egbert quite almost alone seemed
+to find him any longer desirable, and him I had no heart to caution,
+knowing that I should only wound without enlightening him, he being
+entirely impervious to even these cruder aspects of class distinction.
+I dare say he would have considered the marriage of the Honourable
+George as no more than the marriage of one of his cattle-person
+companions. I mean to say, he is a dear old sort and I should never
+fail to defend him in the most disheartening of his vagaries, but he
+is undeniably insensitive to what one does and does not do.
+
+The conviction ran, let me repeat, that we had another pot of broth on
+the fire. I gleaned as much from the Mixer, she being one of the few
+others besides Cousin Egbert in whose liking the Honourable George had
+not terrifically descended. She made it a point to address me on the
+subject over a dish of tea at the Grill one afternoon, choosing a
+table sufficiently remote from my other feminine guests, who
+doubtless, at their own tables, discussed the same complication. I was
+indeed glad that we were remote from other occupied tables, because in
+the course of her remarks she quite forcefully uttered an oath, which
+I thought it as well not to have known that I cared to tolerate in my
+lady patrons.
+
+"As to what Jackson feels about the way it was handed out to him that
+Sunday," she bluntly declared, "I don't care a----" The oath quite
+dazed me for a moment, although I had been warned that she would use
+language on occasion. "What I do care about," she went on briskly, "is
+that I won't have this girl pestered by Jackson or by you or by any
+man that wears hair! Why, Jackson talks so silly about her sometimes
+you'd think she was a bad woman--and he keeps hinting about something
+he's going to put over till I can hardly keep my hands off him. I just
+know some day he'll make me forget I'm a lady. Now, take it from me,
+Bill, if you're setting in with him, don't start anything you can't
+finish."
+
+Really she was quite fierce about it. I mean to say, the glitter in
+her eyes made me recall what Cousin Egbert had said of Mrs. Effie, her
+being quite entirely willing to take on a rattlesnake and give it the
+advantage of the first two assaults. Somewhat flustered I was, yet I
+hastened to assure her that, whatever steps I might feel obliged to
+take for the protection of the Honourable George, they would involve
+nothing at all unfair to the lady in question.
+
+"Well, they better hadn't!" she resumed threateningly. "That girl had
+a hard time all right, but listen here--she's as right as a church.
+She couldn't fool me a minute if she wasn't. Don't you suppose I been
+around and around quite some? Just because she likes to have a good
+time and outdresses these dames here--is that any reason they should
+get out their hammers? Ain't she earned some right to a good time,
+tell me, after being married when she was a silly kid to Two-spot
+Kenner, the swine--and God bless the trigger finger of the man that
+bumped him off! As for the poor old Judge, don't worry. I like the old
+boy, but Kate Kenner won't do anything more than make a monkey of him
+just to spite Jackson and his band of lady knockers. Marry him? Say,
+get me right, Bill--I'll put it as delicate as I can--the Judge is too
+darned far from being a mental giant for that."
+
+I dare say she would have slanged me for another half-hour but for the
+constant strain of keeping her voice down. As it was, she boomed up
+now and again in a way that reduced to listening silence the ladies at
+several distant tables.
+
+As to the various points she had raised, I was somewhat confused.
+About the Honourable George, for example: He was, to be sure, no
+mental giant. But one occupying his position is not required to be.
+Indeed, in the class to which he was born one well knows that a mental
+giant would be quite as distressingly bizarre as any other freak. I
+regretted not having retorted this to her, for it now occurred to me
+that she had gone it rather strong with her "poor old Judge." I mean
+to say, it was almost quite a little bit raw for a native American to
+adopt this patronizing tone toward one of us.
+
+And yet I found that my esteem for the Mixer had increased rather than
+diminished by reason of her plucky defence of the Klondike woman. I
+had no reason to suppose that the designing creature was worth a
+defence, but I could only admire the valour that made it. Also I found
+food for profound meditation in the Mixer's assertion that the woman's
+sole aim was to "make a monkey" of the Honourable George. If she were
+right, a mesalliance need not be feared, at which thought I felt a
+great relief. That she should achieve the lesser and perhaps equally
+easy feat with the poor chap was a calamity that would be, I fancied,
+endured by his lordship with a serene fortitude.
+
+Curiously enough, as I went over the Mixer's tirade point by point, I
+found in myself an inexplicable loss of animus toward the Klondike
+woman. I will not say I was moved to sympathy for her, but doubtless
+that strange ferment of equality stirred me toward her with something
+less than the indignation I had formerly felt. Perhaps she was an
+entirely worthy creature. In that case, I merely wished her to be
+taught that one must not look too far above one's station, even in
+America, in so serious an affair as matrimony. With all my heart I
+should wish her a worthy mate of her own class, and I was glad indeed
+to reflect upon the truth of my assertion to the Mixer, that no unfair
+advantage would be taken of her. His lordship would remove the
+Honourable George from her toils, a made monkey, perhaps, but no
+husband.
+
+Again that day did I listen to a defence of this woman, and from a
+source whence I could little have expected it. Meditating upon the
+matter, I found myself staring at Mrs. Judson as she polished some
+glassware in the pantry. As always, the worthy woman made a pleasing
+picture in her neat print gown. From staring at her rather absently I
+caught myself reflecting that she was one of the few women whose hair
+is always perfectly coiffed. I mean to say, no matter what the press
+of her occupation, it never goes here and there.
+
+From the hair, my meditative eye, still rather absently, I believe,
+descended her quite good figure to her boots. Thereupon, my gaze
+ceased to be absent. They were not boots. They were bronzed slippers
+with high heels and metal buckles and of a character so distinctive
+that I instantly knew they had once before been impressed upon my
+vision. Swiftly my mind identified them: they had been worn by the
+Klondike woman on the occasion of a dinner at the Grill, in
+conjunction with a gown to match and a bluish scarf--all combining to
+achieve an immense effect.
+
+My assistant hummed at her task, unconscious of my scrutiny. I recall
+that I coughed slightly before disclosing to her that my attention had
+been attracted to her slippers. She took the reference lightly,
+affecting, as the sex will, to belittle any prized possession in the
+face of masculine praise.
+
+"I have seen them before," I ventured.
+
+"She gives me all of hers. I haven't had to buy shoes since baby was
+born. She gives me--lots of things--stockings and things. She likes me
+to have them."
+
+"I didn't know you knew her."
+
+"Years! I'm there once a week to give the house a good going over.
+That Jap of hers is the limit. Dust till you can't rest. And when I
+clean he just grins."
+
+I mused upon this. The woman was already giving half her time to
+superintending two assistants in the preparation of the International
+Relish.
+
+"Her work is too much in addition to your own," I suggested.
+
+"Me? Work too hard? Not in a thousand years. I do all right for you,
+don't I?"
+
+It was true; she was anything but a slacker. I more nearly approached
+my real objection.
+
+"A woman in your position," I began, "can't be too careful as to the
+associations she forms----" I had meant to go on, but found it quite
+absurdly impossible. My assistant set down the glass she had and quite
+venomously brandished her towel at me.
+
+"So that's it?" she began, and almost could get no farther for mere
+sputtering. I mean to say, I had long recognized that she possessed
+character, but never had I suspected that she would have so inadequate
+a control of her temper.
+
+"So that's it?" she sputtered again, "And I thought you were too
+decent to join in that talk about a woman just because she's young and
+wears pretty clothes and likes to go out. I'm astonished at you, I
+really am. I thought you were more of a man!" She broke off, scowling
+at me most furiously.
+
+Feeling all at once rather a fool, I sought to conciliate her. "I have
+joined in no talk," I said. "I merely suggested----" But she shut me
+off sharply.
+
+"And let me tell you one thing: I can pick out my associates in this
+town without any outside help. The idea! That girl is just as nice a
+person as ever walked the earth, and nobody ever said she wasn't
+except those frumpy old cats that hate her good looks because the men
+all like her."
+
+"Old cats!" I echoed, wishing to rebuke this violence of epithet, but
+she would have none of me.
+
+"Nasty old spite-cats," she insisted with even more violence, and went
+on to an almost quite blasphemous absurdity. "A prince in his palace
+wouldn't be any too good for her!"
+
+"Tut, tut!" I said, greatly shocked.
+
+"Tut nothing!" she retorted fiercely. "A regular prince in his palace,
+that's what she deserves. There isn't a single man in this one-horse
+town that's good enough to pick up her glove. And she knows it, too.
+She's carrying on with your silly Englishman now, but it's just to pay
+those old cats back in their own coin. She'll carry on with him--yes!
+But marry? Good heavens and earth! Marriage is serious!" With this
+novel conclusion she seized another glass and began to wipe it
+viciously. She glared at me, seeming to believe that she had closed
+the interview. But I couldn't stop. In some curious way she had
+stirred me rather out of myself--but not about the Klondike woman nor
+about the Honourable George. I began most illogically, I admit, to
+rage inwardly about another matter.
+
+"You have other associates," I exclaimed quite violently, "those
+cattle-persons--I know quite all about it. That Hank and Buck--they
+come here on the chance of seeing you; they bring you boxes of candy,
+they bring you little presents. Twice they've escorted you home at
+night when you quite well knew I was only too glad to do it----" I
+felt my temper most curiously running away with me, ranting about
+things I hadn't meant to at all. I looked for another outburst from
+her, but to my amazement she flashed me a smile with a most enigmatic
+look back of it. She tossed her head, but resumed her wiping of the
+glass with a certain demureness. She spoke almost meekly:
+
+"They're very old friends, and I'm sure they always act right. I don't
+see anything wrong in it, even if Buck Edwards has shown me a good
+deal of attention."
+
+But this very meekness of hers seemed to arouse all the violence in my
+nature.
+
+"I won't have it!" I said. "You have no right to receive presents from
+men. I tell you I won't have it! You've no right!"
+
+"Haven't I?" she suddenly said in the most curious, cool little voice,
+her eyes falling before mine. "Haven't I? I didn't know."
+
+It was quite chilling, her tone and manner. I was cool in an instant.
+Things seemed to mean so much more than I had supposed they did. I
+mean to say, it was a fair crumpler. She paused in her wiping of the
+glass but did not regard me. I was horribly moved to go to her, but
+coolly remembered that that sort of thing would never do.
+
+"I trust I have said enough," I remarked with entirely recovered
+dignity.
+
+"You have," she said.
+
+"I mean I won't have such things," I said.
+
+"I hear you," she said, and fell again to her work. I thereupon
+investigated an ice-box and found enough matter for complaint against
+the Hobbs boy to enable me to manage a dignified withdrawal to the
+rear. The remarkable creature was humming again as I left.
+
+I stood in the back door of the Grill giving upon the alley, where I
+mused rather excitedly. Here I was presently interrupted by the dog,
+Mr. Barker. For weeks now I had been relieved of his odious
+attentions, by the very curious circumstance that he had transferred
+them to the Honourable George. Not all my kicks and cuffs and beatings
+had sufficed one whit to repulse him. He had kept after me, fawned
+upon me, in spite of them. And then on a day he had suddenly, with
+glad cries, become enamoured of the Honourable George, waiting for him
+at doors, following him, hanging upon his every look. And the
+Honourable George had rather fancied the beast and made much of him.
+
+And yet this animal is reputed by poets and that sort of thing to be
+man's best friend, faithfully sharing his good fortune and his bad,
+staying by his side to the bitter end, even refusing to leave his body
+when he has perished--starving there with a dauntless fidelity. How
+chagrined the weavers of these tributes would have been to observe the
+fickle nature of the beast in question! For weeks he had hardly
+deigned me a glance. It had been a relief, to be sure, but what a
+sickening disclosure of the cur's trifling inconstancy. Even now,
+though he sniffed hungrily at the open door, he paid me not the least
+attention--me whom he had once idolized!
+
+I slipped back to the ice-box and procured some slices of beef that
+were far too good for him. He fell to them with only a perfunctory
+acknowledgment of my agency in procuring them.
+
+"Why, I thought you hated him!" suddenly said the voice of his owner.
+She had tiptoed to my side.
+
+"I do," I said quite savagely, "but the unspeakable beast can't be
+left to starve, can he?"
+
+I felt her eyes upon me, but would not turn. Suddenly she put her hand
+upon my shoulder, patting it rather curiously, as she might have
+soothed her child. When I did turn she was back at her task. She was
+humming again, nor did she glance my way. Quite certainly she was no
+longer conscious that I stood about. She had quite forgotten me. I
+could tell as much from her manner. "Such," I reflected, with an
+unaccustomed cynicism, "is the light inconsequence of women and dogs."
+Yet I still experienced a curiously thrilling determination to protect
+her from her own good nature in the matter of her associates.
+
+At a later and cooler moment of the day I reflected upon her defence
+of the Klondike woman. A "prince in his palace" not too good for her!
+No doubt she had meant me to take these remarkable words quite
+seriously. It was amazing, I thought, with what seriousness the lower
+classes of the country took their dogma of equality, and with what
+naive confidence they relied upon us to accept it. Equality in North
+America was indeed praiseworthy; I had already given it the full
+weight of my approval and meant to live by it. But at home, of course,
+that sort of thing would never do. The crude moral worth of the
+Klondike woman might be all that her two defenders had alleged, and
+indeed I felt again that strange little thrill of almost sympathy for
+her as one who had been unjustly aspersed. But I could only resolve
+that I would be no party to any unfair plan of opposing her. The
+Honourable George must be saved from her trifling as well as from her
+serious designs, if such she might have; but so far as I could
+influence the process it should cause as little chagrin as possible to
+the offender. This much the Mixer and my charwoman had achieved with
+me. Indeed, quite hopeful I was that when the creature had been set
+right as to what was due one of our oldest and proudest families she
+would find life entirely pleasant among those of her own station. She
+seemed to have a good heart.
+
+As the day of his lordship's arrival drew near, Belknap-Jackson became
+increasingly concerned about the precise manner of his reception and
+the details of his entertainment, despite my best assurances that no
+especially profound thought need be given to either, his lordship
+being quite that sort, fussy enough in his own way but hardly formal
+or pretentious.
+
+His prospective host, after many consultations with me, at length
+allowed himself to be dissuaded from meeting his lordship in correct
+afternoon garb of frock-coat and top-hat, consenting, at my urgent
+suggestion, to a mere lounge-suit of tweeds with a soft-rolled hat and
+a suitable rough day stick. Again in the matter of the menu for his
+lordship's initial dinner which we had determined might well be
+tendered him at my establishment. Both husband and wife were rather
+keen for an elaborate repast of many courses, feeling that anything
+less would be doing insufficient honour to their illustrious guest,
+but I at length convinced them that I quite knew what his lordship
+would prefer: a vegetable soup, an abundance of boiled mutton with
+potatoes, a thick pudding, a bit of scientifically correct cheese, and
+a jug of beer. Rather trying they were at my first mention of this--a
+dinner quite without finesse, to be sure, but eminently nutritive--and
+only their certainty that I knew his lordship's ways made them give
+in.
+
+The affair was to be confined to the family, his lordship the only
+guest, this being thought discreet for the night of his arrival in
+view of the peculiar nature of his mission. Belknap-Jackson had hoped
+against hope that the Mixer might not be present, and even so late as
+the day of his lordship's arrival he was cheered by word that she
+might be compelled to keep her bed with a neuralgia.
+
+To the afternoon train I accompanied him in his new motor-car, finding
+him not a little distressed because the chauffeur, a native of the
+town, had stoutly--and with some not nice words, I gathered--refused
+to wear the smart uniform which his employer had provided.
+
+"I would have shopped the fellow in an instant," he confided to me,
+"had it been at any other time. He was most impertinent. But as usual,
+here I am at the mercy of circumstances. We couldn't well subject
+Brinstead to those loathsome public conveyances."
+
+We waited in the usual throng of the leisured lower-classes who are so
+naively pleased at the passage of a train. I found myself picturing
+their childish wonder had they guessed the identity of him we were
+there to meet. Even as the train appeared Belknap-Jackson made a last
+moan of complaint.
+
+"Mrs. Pettengill," he observed dejectedly, "is about the house again
+and I fear will be quite well enough to be with us this evening." For
+a moment I almost quite disapproved of the fellow. I mean to say, he
+was vogue and all that, and no doubt had been wretchedly mistreated,
+but after all the Mixer was not one to be wished ill to.
+
+A moment later I was contrasting the quiet arrival of his lordship
+with the clamour and confusion that had marked the advent among us of
+the Honourable George. He carried but one bag and attracted no
+attention whatever from the station loungers. While I have never known
+him be entirely vogue in his appointments, his lordship carries off a
+lounge-suit and his gray-cloth hat with a certain manner which the
+Honourable George was never known to achieve even in the days when I
+groomed him. The grayish rather aggressive looking side-whiskers first
+caught my eye, and a moment later I had taken his hand.
+Belknap-Jackson at the same time took his bag, and with a trepidation
+so obvious that his lordship may perhaps have been excusable for a
+momentary misapprehension. I mean to say, he instantly and crisply
+directed Belknap-Jackson to go forward to the luggage van and recover
+his box.
+
+A bit awkward it was, to be sure, but I speedily took the situation in
+hand by formally presenting the two men, covering the palpable
+embarrassment of the host by explaining to his lordship the astounding
+ingenuity of the American luggage system. By the time I had deprived
+him of his check and convinced him that his box would be admirably
+recovered by a person delegated to that service, Belknap-Jackson,
+again in form, was apologizing to him for the squalid character of the
+station and for the hardships he must be prepared to endure in a crude
+Western village. Here again the host was annoyed by having to call
+repeatedly to his mechanician in order to detach him from a gossiping
+group of loungers. He came smoking a quite fearfully bad cigar and
+took his place at the wheel entirely without any suitable deference to
+his employer.
+
+His lordship during the ride rather pointedly surveyed me, being
+impressed, I dare say, by something in my appearance and manner quite
+new to him. Doubtless I had been feeling equal for so long that the
+thing was to be noticed in my manner. He made no comment upon me,
+however. Indeed almost the only time he spoke during our passage was
+to voice his astonishment at not having been able to procure the
+London _Times_ at the press-stalls along the way. His host made
+clucking noises of sympathy at this. He had, he said, already warned
+his lordship that America was still crude.
+
+"Crude? Of course, what, what!" exclaimed his lordship. "But naturally
+they'd have the _Times_! I dare say the beggars were too lazy to
+look it out. Laziness, what, what!"
+
+"We've a job teaching them to know their places," ventured
+Belknap-Jackson, moodily regarding the back of his chauffeur which
+somehow contrived to be eloquent with disrespect for him.
+
+"My word, what rot!" rejoined his lordship. I saw that he had arrived
+in one of his peppery moods. I fancy he could not have recited a
+multiplication table without becoming fanatically assertive about it.
+That was his way. I doubt if he had ever condescended to have an
+opinion. What might have been opinions came out on him like a rash in
+form of the most violent convictions.
+
+"What rot not to know their places, when they must know them!" he
+snappishly added.
+
+"Quite so, quite so!" his host hastened to assure him.
+
+"A--dashed--fine big country you have," was his only other
+observation.
+
+"Indeed, indeed," murmured his host mildly. I had rather dreaded the
+oath which his lordship is prone to use lightly.
+
+Reaching the Belknap-Jackson house, his lordship was shown to the
+apartment prepared for him.
+
+"Tea will be served in half an hour, your--er--Brinstead," announced
+his host cordially, although seemingly at a loss how to address him.
+
+"Quite so, what, what! Tea, of course, of course! Why wouldn't it be?
+Meantime, if you don't mind, I'll have a word with Ruggles. At once."
+
+Belknap-Jackson softly and politely withdrew at once.
+
+Alone with his lordship, I thought it best to acquaint him instantly
+with the change in my circumstances, touching lightly upon the matter
+of my now being an equal with rather most of the North Americans. He
+listened with exemplary patience to my brief recital and was good
+enough to felicitate me.
+
+"Assure you, glad to hear it--glad no end. Worthy fellow; always knew
+it. And equal, of course, of course! Take up their equality by all
+means if you take 'em up themselves. Curious lot of nose-talking
+beggars, and putting r's every place one shouldn't, but don't blame
+you. Do it myself if I could--England gone to pot. Quite!"
+
+"Gone to pot, sir?" I gasped.
+
+"Don't argue. Course it has. Women! Slasher fiends and firebrands!
+Pictures, churches, golf-greens, cabinet members--nothing safe.
+Pouring their beastly filth into pillar boxes. Women one knows.
+Hussies, though! Want the vote--rot! Awful rot! Don't blame you for
+America. Wish I might, too. Good thing, my word! No backbone in
+Downing Street. Let the fiends out again directly they're hungry. No
+system! No firmness! No dash! Starve 'em proper, I would."
+
+He was working himself into no end of a state. I sought to divert him.
+
+"About the Honourable George, sir----" I ventured.
+
+"What's the silly ass up to now? Dancing girl got him--yes? How he
+does it, I can't think. No looks, no manner, no way with women. Can't
+stand him myself. How ever can they? Frightful bore, old George is.
+Well, well, man, I'm waiting. Tell me, tell me, tell me!"
+
+Briefly I disclosed to him that his brother had entangled himself with
+a young person who had indeed been a dancing girl or a bit like that
+in the province of Alaska. That at the time of my cable there was
+strong reason to believe she would stop at nothing--even marriage, but
+that I had since come to suspect that she might be bent only on making
+a fool of her victim, she being, although an honest enough character,
+rather inclined to levity and without proper respect for established
+families.
+
+I hinted briefly at the social warfare of which she had been a storm
+centre. I said again, remembering the warm words of the Mixer and of
+my charwoman, that to the best of my knowledge her character was
+without blemish. All at once I was feeling preposterously sorry for
+the creature.
+
+His lordship listened, though with a cross-fire of interruptions.
+"Alaska dancing girl. Silly! Nothing but snow and mines in Alaska."
+Or, again, "Make a fool of old George? What silly piffle! Already done
+it himself, what, what! Waste her time!" And if she wasn't keen to
+marry him, had I called him across the ocean to intervene in a vulgar
+village squabble about social precedence? "Social precedence silly
+rot!"
+
+I insisted that his brother should be seen to. One couldn't tell what
+the woman might do. Her audacity was tremendous, even for an American.
+To this he listened more patiently.
+
+"Dare say you're right. You don't go off your head easily. I'll rag
+him proper, now I'm here. Always knew the ass would make a silly
+marriage if he could. Yes, yes, I'll break it up quick enough. I say
+I'll break it up proper. Dancers and that sort. Dangerous. But I know
+their tricks."
+
+A summons to tea below interrupted him.
+
+"Hungry, my word! Hardly dared eat in that dining-coach. Tinned stuff
+all about one. Appendicitis! American journal--some Colonel chap found
+it out. Hunting sort. Looked a fool beside his silly horse, but seemed
+to know. Took no chances. Said the tin-opener slays its thousands.
+Rot, no doubt. Perhaps not."
+
+I led him below, hardly daring at the moment to confess my own
+responsibility for his fears. Another time, I thought, we might chat
+of it.
+
+Belknap-Jackson with his wife and the Mixer awaited us. His lordship
+was presented, and I excused myself.
+
+"Mrs. Pettengill, his lordship the Earl of Brinstead," had been the
+host's speech of presentation to the Mixer.
+
+"How do do, Earl; I'm right glad to meet you," had been the Mixer's
+acknowledgment, together with a hearty grasp of the hand. I saw his
+lordship's face brighten.
+
+"What ho!" he cried with the first cheerfulness he had exhibited, and
+the Mixer, still vigorously pumping his hand, had replied, "Same
+here!" with a vast smile of good nature. It occurred to me that they,
+at least, were quite going to "get" each other, as Americans say.
+
+"Come right in and set down in the parlour," she was saying at the
+last. "I don't eat between meals like you English folks are always
+doing, but I'll take a shot of hooch with you."
+
+The Belknap-Jacksons stood back not a little distressed. They seemed
+to publish that their guest was being torn from them.
+
+"A shot of hooch!" observed his lordship "I dare say your shooting
+over here is absolutely top-hole--keener sport than our popping at
+driven birds. What, what!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+
+At a latish seven, when the Grill had become nicely filled with a
+representative crowd, the Belknap-Jacksons arrived with his lordship.
+The latter had not dressed and I was able to detect that
+Belknap-Jackson, doubtless noting his guest's attire at the last
+moment, had hastily changed back to a lounge-suit of his own. Also I
+noted the absence of the Mixer and wondered how the host had contrived
+to eliminate her. On this point he found an opportunity to enlighten
+me before taking his seat.
+
+"Mark my words, that old devil is up to something," he darkly said,
+and I saw that he was genuinely put about, for not often does he fall
+into strong language.
+
+"After pushing herself forward with his lordship all through tea-time
+in the most brazen manner, she announces that she has a previous
+dinner engagement and can't be with us. I'm as well pleased to have
+her absent, of course, but I'd pay handsomely to know what her little
+game is. Imagine her not dining with the Earl of Brinstead when she
+had the chance! That shows something's wrong. I don't like it. I tell
+you she's capable of things."
+
+I mused upon this. The Mixer was undoubtedly capable of things.
+Especially things concerning her son-in-law. And yet I could imagine
+no opening for her at the present moment and said as much. And Mrs.
+Belknap-Jackson, I was glad to observe, did not share her husband's
+evident worry. She had entered the place plumingly, as it were,
+sweeping the length of the room before his lordship with quite all the
+manner her somewhat stubby figure could carry off. Seated, she became
+at once vivacious, chatting to his lordship brightly and continuously,
+raking the room the while with her lorgnon. Half a dozen ladies of the
+North Side set were with parties at other tables. I saw she was
+immensely stimulated by the circumstance that these friends were
+unaware of her guest's identity. I divined that before the evening was
+over she would contrive to disclose it.
+
+His lordship responded but dully to her animated chat. He is never
+less urbane than when hungry, and I took pains to have his favourite
+soup served quite almost at once. This he fell upon. I may say that he
+has always a hearty manner of attacking his soup. Not infrequently he
+makes noises. He did so on this occasion. I mean to say, there was no
+finesse. I hovered near, anxious that the service should be without
+flaw.
+
+His head bent slightly over his plate, I saw a spoonful of soup
+ascending with precision toward his lips. But curiously it halted in
+mid-air, then fell back. His lordship's eyes had become fixed upon
+some one back of me. At once, too, I noted looks of consternation upon
+the faces of the Belknap-Jacksons, the hostess freezing in the very
+midst of some choice phrase she had smilingly begun.
+
+I turned quickly. It was the Klondike person, radiant in the costume
+of black and the black hat. She moved down the hushed room with
+well-lifted chin, eyes straight ahead and narrowed to but a faint
+offended consciousness of the staring crowd. It was well done. It was
+superior. I am able to judge those things.
+
+Reaching a table the second but one from the Belknap-Jacksons's, she
+relaxed finely from the austere note of her progress and turned to her
+companions with a pretty and quite perfect confusion as to which chair
+she might occupy. Quite awfully these companions were the Mixer,
+overwhelming in black velvet and diamonds, and Cousin Egbert,
+uncomfortable enough looking but as correctly enveloped in evening
+dress as he could ever manage by himself. His cravat had been tied
+many times and needed it once more.
+
+They were seated by the raccoon with quite all his impressiveness of
+manner. They faced the Belknap-Jackson party, yet seemed unconscious
+of its presence. Cousin Egbert, with a bored manner which I am certain
+he achieved only with tremendous effort, scanned my simple menu. The
+Mixer settled herself with a vast air of comfort and arranged various
+hand-belongings about her on the table.
+
+Between them the Klondike woman sat with a restraint that would
+actually not have ill-become one of our own women. She did not look
+about; her hands were still, her head was up. At former times with her
+own set she had been wont to exhibit a rather defiant vivacity. Now
+she did not challenge. Finely, eloquently, there pervaded her a
+reserve that seemed almost to exhale a fragrance. But of course that
+is silly rot. I mean to say, she drew the attention without visible
+effort. She only waited.
+
+The Earl of Brinstead, as we all saw, had continued to stare. Thrice
+slowly arose the spoon of soup, for mere animal habit was strong upon
+him, yet at a certain elevation it each time fell slowly back. He was
+acting like a mechanical toy. Then the Mixer caught his eye and nodded
+crisply. He bobbed in response.
+
+"What ho! The dowager!" he exclaimed, and that time the soup was
+successfully resumed.
+
+"Poor old mater!" sighed his hostess. "She's constantly taking up
+people. One does, you know, in these queer Western towns."
+
+"Jolly old thing, awfully good sort!" said his lordship, but his eyes
+were not on the Mixer.
+
+Terribly then I recalled the Honourable George's behaviour at that
+same table the night he had first viewed this Klondike person. His
+lordship was staring in much the same fashion. Yet I was relieved to
+observe that the woman this time was quite unconscious of the interest
+she had aroused. In the case of the Honourable George, who had frankly
+ogled her--for the poor chap has ever lacked the finer shades in these
+matters--she had not only been aware of it but had deliberately played
+upon it. It is not too much to say that she had shown herself to be a
+creature of blandishments. More than once she had permitted her eyes
+to rest upon him with that peculiarly womanish gaze which, although
+superficially of a blank innocence, is yet all-seeing and even shoots
+little fine arrows of questions from its ambuscade. But now she was
+ignoring his lordship as utterly as she did the Belknap-Jacksons.
+
+To be sure she may later have been in some way informed that his eyes
+were seeking her, but never once, I am sure, did she descend to even a
+veiled challenge of his glance or betray the faintest discreet
+consciousness of it. And this I was indeed glad to note in her.
+Clearly she must know where to draw the line, permitting herself a
+malicious laxity with a younger brother which she would not have the
+presumption to essay with the holder of the title. Pleased I was, I
+say, to detect in her this proper respect for his lordship's position.
+It showed her to be not all unworthy.
+
+The dinner proceeded, his lordship being good enough to compliment me
+on the fare which I knew was done to his liking. Yet, even in the very
+presence of the boiled mutton, his eyes were too often upon his
+neighbour. When he behaved thus in the presence of a dish of mutton I
+had not to be told that he was strongly moved. I uneasily recalled now
+that he had once been a bit of a dog himself. I mean to say, there was
+talk in the countryside, though of course it had died out a score of
+years ago. I thought it as well, however, that he be told almost
+immediately that the person he honoured with his glance was no other
+than the one he had come to subtract his unfortunate brother from.
+
+The dinner progressed--somewhat jerkily because of his lordship's
+inattention--through the pudding and cheese to coffee. Never had I
+known his lordship behave so languidly in the presence of food he
+cared for. His hosts ate even less. They were worried. Mrs.
+Belknap-Jackson, however, could simply no longer contain within
+herself the secret of their guest's identity. With excuses to the deaf
+ears of his lordship she left to address a friend at a distant table.
+She addressed others at other tables, leaving a flutter of sensation
+in her wake.
+
+Belknap-Jackson, having lighted one of his non-throat cigarettes,
+endeavoured to engross his lordship with an account of their last
+election of officers to the country club. His lordship was not
+properly attentive to this. Indeed, with his hostess gone he no longer
+made any pretence of concealing his interest in the other table. I saw
+him catch the eye of the Mixer and astonishingly intercepted from her
+a swift but most egregious wink.
+
+"One moment," said his lordship to the host. "Must pay my respects to
+the dowager, what, what! Jolly old muggins, yes!" And he was gone.
+
+I heard the Mixer's amazing presentation speech.
+
+"Mrs. Kenner, Mr. Floud, his lordship--say, listen here, is your right
+name Brinstead, or Basingwell, like your brother's?"
+
+The Klondike person acknowledged the thing with a faintly gracious
+nod. It carried an air, despite the slightness of it. Cousin Egbert
+was more cordial.
+
+"Pleased to meet you, Lord!" said he, and grasped the newcomer's hand.
+"Come on, set in with us and have some coffee and a cigar. Here, Jeff,
+bring the lord a good cigar. We was just talking about you that
+minute. How do you like our town? Say, this here Kulanche Valley----" I
+lost the rest. His lordship had seated himself. At his own table
+Belknap-Jackson writhed acutely. He was lighting a second
+cigarette--the first not yet a quarter consumed!
+
+At once the four began to be thick as thieves, though it was apparent
+his lordship had eyes only for the woman. Coffee was brought. His
+lordship lighted his cigar. And now the word had so run from Mrs.
+Belknap-Jackson that all eyes were drawn to this table. She had
+created her sensation and it had become all at once more of one than
+she had thought. From Mrs. Judge Ballard's table I caught her glare at
+her unconscious mother. It was not the way one's daughter should
+regard one in public.
+
+Presently contriving to pass the table again, I noted that Cousin
+Egbert had changed his form of address.
+
+"Have some brandy with your coffee, Earl. Here, Jeff, bring Earl and
+all of us some lee-cures." I divined the monstrous truth that he
+supposed himself to be calling his lordship by his first name, and he
+in turn must have understood my shocked glance of rebuke, for a bit
+later, with glad relief in his tones, he was addressing his lordship
+as "Cap!" And myself he had given the rank of colonel!
+
+The Klondike person in the beginning finely maintained her reserve.
+Only at the last did she descend to vivacity or the use of her eyes.
+This later laxness made me wonder if, after all, she would feel bound
+to pay his lordship the respect he was wont to command from her class.
+
+"You and poor George are rather alike," I overheard, "except that he
+uses the single 'what' and you use the double. Hasn't he any right to
+use the double 'what' yet, and what does it mean, anyway? Tell us."
+
+"What, what!" demanded his lordship, a bit puzzled.
+
+"But that's it! What do you say 'What, what' for? It can't do you any
+good."
+
+"What, what! But I mean to say, you're having me on. My word you
+are--spoofing, I mean to say. What, what! To be sure. Chaffing lot,
+you are!" He laughed. He was behaving almost with levity.
+
+"But poor old George is so much younger than you--you must make
+allowances," I again caught her saying; and his lordship replied:
+
+"Not at all; not at all! Matter of a half-score years. Barely a
+half-score; nine and a few months. Younger? What rot! Chaffing again."
+
+Really it was a bit thick, the creature saying "poor old George" quite
+as if he were something in an institution, having to be wheeled about
+in a bath-chair with rugs and water-bottles!
+
+Glad I was when the trio gave signs of departure. It was woman's craft
+dictating it, I dare say. She had made her effect and knew when to go.
+
+"Of course we shall have to talk over my dreadful designs on your poor
+old George," said the amazing woman, intently regarding his lordship
+at parting.
+
+"Leave it to me," said he, with a scarcely veiled significance.
+
+"Well, see you again, Cap," said Cousin Egbert warmly. "I'll take you
+around to meet some of the boys. We'll see you have a good time."
+
+"What ho!" his lordship replied cordially. The Klondike person flashed
+him one enigmatic look, then turned to precede her companions. Again
+down the thronged room she swept, with that chin-lifted,
+drooping-eyed, faintly offended half consciousness of some staring
+rabble at hand that concerned her not at all. Her alert feminine foes,
+I am certain, read no slightest trace of amusement in her unwavering
+lowered glance. So easily she could have been crude here!
+
+Belknap-Jackson, enduring his ignominious solitude to the limit of his
+powers, had joined his wife at the lower end of the room. They had
+taken the unfortunate development with what grace they could. His
+lordship had dropped in upon them quite informally--charming man that
+he was. Of course he would quickly break up the disgraceful affair.
+Beginning at once. They would doubtless entertain for him in a quiet
+way----
+
+At the deserted table his lordship now relieved a certain sickening
+apprehension that had beset me.
+
+"What, what! Quite right to call me out here. Shan't forget it.
+Dangerous creature, that. Badly needed, I was. Can't think why you
+waited so long! Anything might have happened to old George. Break it
+up proper, though. Never do at all. Impossible person for him. Quite!"
+
+I saw they had indeed taken no pains to hide the woman's identity from
+him nor their knowledge of his reason for coming out to the States,
+though with wretchedly low taste they had done this chaffingly. Yet it
+was only too plain that his lordship now realized what had been the
+profound gravity of the situation, and I was glad to see that he meant
+to end it without any nonsense.
+
+"Silly ass, old George, though," he added as the Belknap-Jacksons
+approached. "How a creature like that could ever have fancied him!
+What, what!"
+
+His hosts were profuse in their apologies for having so thoughtlessly
+run away from his lordship--they carried it off rather well. They were
+keen for sitting at the table once more, as the other observant diners
+were lingering on, but his lordship would have none of this.
+
+"Stuffy place!" said he. "Best be getting on." And so, reluctantly,
+they led him down the gauntlet of widened eyes. Even so, the tenth
+Earl of Brinstead had dined publicly with them. More than repaid they
+were for the slight the Honourable George had put upon them in the
+affair of the pianoforte artist.
+
+An hour later Belknap-Jackson had me on by telephone. His voice was
+not a little worried.
+
+"I say, is his lordship, the Earl, subject to spells of any sort? We
+were in the library where I was showing him some photographic views of
+dear old Boston, and right over a superb print of our public library
+he seemed to lose consciousness. Might it be a stroke? Or do you think
+it's just a healthy sleep? And shall I venture to shake him? How would
+he take that? Or should I merely cover him with a travelling rug? It
+would be so dreadful if anything happened when he's been with us such
+a little time."
+
+I knew his lordship. He has the gift of sleeping quite informally when
+his attention is not too closely engaged. I suggested that the host
+set his musical phonograph in motion on some one of the more audible
+selections. As I heard no more from him that night I dare say my plan
+worked.
+
+Our town, as may be imagined, buzzed with transcendent gossip on the
+morrow. The _Recorder_ disclosed at last that the Belknap-Jacksons
+of Boston and Red Gap were quietly entertaining his lordship, the
+Earl of Brinstead, though since the evening before this had been news
+to hardly any one. Nor need it be said that a viciously fermenting
+element in the gossip concerned the apparently cordial meeting of his
+lordship with the Klondike person, an encounter that had been watched
+with jealous eyes by more than one matron of the North Side set. It
+was even intimated that if his lordship had come to put the creature
+in her place he had chosen a curious way to set about it.
+
+Also there were hard words uttered of the Belknap-Jacksons by Mrs.
+Effie, and severe blame put upon myself because his lordship had not
+come out to the Flouds'.
+
+"But the Brinsteads have always stopped with us before," she went
+about saying, as if there had been a quite long succession of them. I
+mean to say, only the Honourable George had stopped on with them,
+unless, indeed, the woman actually counted me as one. Between herself
+and Mrs. Belknap-Jackson, I understood, there ensued early that
+morning by telephone a passage of virulent acidity, Mrs. Effie being
+heard by Cousin Egbert to say bluntly that she would get even.
+
+Undoubtedly she did not share the annoyance of the Belknap-Jacksons at
+certain eccentricities now developed by his lordship which made him at
+times a trying house guest. That first morning he arose at five sharp,
+a custom of his which I deeply regretted not having warned his host
+about. Discovering quite no one about, he had ventured abroad in
+search of breakfast, finding it at length in the eating establishment
+known as "Bert's Place," in company with engine-drivers, plate-layers,
+milk persons, and others of a common sort.
+
+Thereafter he had tramped furiously about the town and its environs
+for some hours, at last encountering Cousin Egbert who escorted him to
+the Floud home for his first interview with the Honourable George. The
+latter received his lordship in bed, so Cousin Egbert later informed
+me. He had left the two together, whereupon for an hour there were
+heard quite all over the house words of the most explosive character.
+Cousin Egbert, much alarmed at the passionate beginning of the
+interview, suspected they might do each other a mischief, and for some
+moments hovered about with the aim, if need be, of preserving human
+life. But as the uproar continued evenly, he at length concluded they
+would do no more than talk, the outcome proving the accuracy of his
+surmise.
+
+Mrs. Effie, meantime, saw her opportunity and seized it with a cool
+readiness which I have often remarked in her. Belknap-Jackson,
+distressed beyond measure at the strange absence of his guest, had
+communicated with me by telephone several times without result. Not
+until near noon was I able to give him any light. Mrs. Effie had then
+called me to know what his lordship preferred for luncheon. Replying
+that cold beef, pickles, and beer were his usual mid-day fancy, I
+hastened to allay the fears of the Belknap-Jacksons, only to find that
+Mrs. Effie had been before me.
+
+"She says," came the annoyed voice of the host, "that the dear Earl
+dropped in for a chat with his brother and has most delightfully
+begged her to give him luncheon. She says he will doubtless wish to
+drive with them this afternoon, but I had already planned to drive him
+myself--to the country club and about. The woman is high-handed, I
+must say. For God's sake, can't you do something?"
+
+I was obliged to tell him straight that the thing was beyond me,
+though I promised to recover his guest promptly, should any
+opportunity occur. The latter did not, however, drive with the Flouds
+that afternoon. He was observed walking abroad with Cousin Egbert, and
+it was later reported by persons of unimpeachable veracity that they
+had been seen to enter the Klondike person's establishment.
+
+Evening drew on without further news. But then certain elated members
+of the Bohemian set made it loosely known that they were that evening
+to dine informally at their leader's house to meet his lordship. It
+seemed a bit extraordinary to me, yet I could not but rejoice that he
+should thus adopt the peaceful methods of diplomacy for the
+extrication of his brother.
+
+Belknap-Jackson now telephoning to know if I had heard this
+report--"canard" he styled it--I confirmed it and remarked that his
+lordship was undoubtedly by way of bringing strong pressure to bear on
+the woman.
+
+"But I had expected him to meet a few people here this evening," cried
+the host pathetically. I was then obliged to tell him that the
+Brinsteads for centuries had been bluntly averse to meeting a few
+people. It seemed to run in the blood.
+
+The Bohemian dinner, although quite informal, was said to have been
+highly enjoyed by all, including the Honourable George, who was among
+those present, as well as Cousin Egbert. The latter gossiped briefly
+of the affair the following day.
+
+"Sure, the Cap had a good time all right," he said. "Of course he
+ain't the mixer the Judge is, but he livens up quite some, now and
+then. Talks like a bunch of firecrackers going off all to once, don't
+he? Funny guy. I walked with him to the Jacksons' about twelve or one.
+He's going back to Mis' Kenner's house today. He says it'll take a lot
+of talking back and forth to get this thing settled right, and it's
+got to be right, he says. He seen that right off." He paused as if to
+meditate profoundly.
+
+"If you was to ask me, though, I'd say she had him--just like that!"
+
+He held an open hand toward me, then tightly clenched it.
+
+Suspecting he might spread absurd gossip of this sort, I explained
+carefully to him that his lordship had indeed at once perceived her to
+be a dangerous woman; and that he was now taking his own cunning way
+to break off the distressing affair between her and his brother. He
+listened patiently, but seemed wedded to some monstrous view of his
+own.
+
+"Them dames of that there North Side set better watch out," he
+remarked ominously. "First thing they know, what that Kate Kenner'll
+hand them--they can make a lemonade out of!"
+
+I could make but little of this, save its general import, which was of
+course quite shockingly preposterous. I found myself wishing, to be
+sure, that his lordship had been able to accomplish his mission to
+North America without appearing to meet the person as a social equal,
+as I feared indeed that a wrong impression of his attitude would be
+gained by the undiscerning public. It might have been better, I was
+almost quite certain, had he adopted a stern and even brutal method at
+the outset, instead of the circuitous and diplomatic. Belknap-Jackson
+shared this view with me.
+
+"I should hate dreadfully to have his lordship's reputation suffer for
+this," he confided to me.
+
+The first week dragged to its close in this regrettable fashion.
+Oftener than not his hosts caught no glimpse of his lordship
+throughout the day. The smart trap and the tandem team were constantly
+ready, but he had not yet been driven abroad by his host. Each day he
+alleged the necessity of conferring with the woman.
+
+"Dangerous creature, my word! But dangerous!" he would announce.
+"Takes no end of managing. Do it, though; do it proper. Take a high
+hand with her. Can't have silly old George in a mess. Own brother,
+what, what! Time needed, though. Not with you at dinner, if you don't
+mind. Creature has a way of picking up things not half nasty."
+
+But each day Belknap-Jackson met him with pressing offers of such
+entertainment as the town afforded. Three times he had been
+obliged to postpone the informal evening affair for a few smart
+people. Yet, though patient, he was determined. Reluctantly at last he
+abandoned the design of driving his guest about in the trap, but he
+insistently put forward the motor-car. He would drive it himself. They
+would spend pleasant hours going about the country. His lordship
+continued elusive. To myself he confided that his host was a nagger.
+
+"Awfully nagging sort, yes. Doesn't know the strain I'm under getting
+this silly affair straight. Country interesting no doubt, what, what!
+But, my word! saw nothing but country coming out. Country quite all
+about, miles and miles both sides of the metals. Seen enough country.
+Seen motor-cars, too, my word. Enough of both, what, what!"
+
+Yet it seemed that on the Saturday after his arrival he could no
+longer decently put off his insistent host. He consented to accompany
+him in the motor-car. Rotten judging it was on the part of
+Belknap-Jackson. He should have listened to me. They departed after
+luncheon, the host at the wheel. I had his account of such following
+events as I did not myself observe.
+
+"Our country club," he observed early in the drive. "No one there, of
+course. You'd never believe the trouble I've had----"
+
+"Jolly good club," replied his lordship. "Drive back that way."
+
+"Back that way," it appeared, would take them by the detached villa of
+the Klondike person.
+
+"Stop here," directed his lordship. "Shan't detain you a moment."
+
+This was at two-thirty of a fair afternoon. I am able to give but the
+bare facts, yet I must assume that the emotions of Belknap-Jackson as
+he waited there during the ensuing two hours were of a quite
+distressing nature. As much was intimated by several observant
+townspeople who passed him. He was said to be distrait; to be smoking
+his cigarettes furiously.
+
+At four-thirty his lordship reappeared. With apparent solicitude he
+escorted the Klondike person, fetchingly gowned in a street costume of
+the latest mode. They chatted gayly to the car.
+
+"Hope I've not kept you waiting, old chap," said his lordship
+genially. "Time slips by one so. You two met, of course, course!" He
+bestowed his companion in the tonneau and ensconced himself beside
+her.
+
+"Drive," said he, "to your goods shops, draper's, chemist's--where was
+it?"
+
+"To the Central Market," responded the lady in bell-like tones, "then
+to the Red Front store, and to that dear little Japanese shop, if he
+doesn't mind."
+
+"Mind! Mind! Course not, course not! Are you warm? Let me fasten the
+robe."
+
+I confess to have felt a horrid fascination for this moment as I was
+able to reconstruct it from Belknap-Jackson's impassioned words. It
+was by way of being one of those scenes we properly loathe yet
+morbidly cannot resist overlooking if opportunity offers.
+
+Into the flood tide of our Saturday shopping throng swept the car and
+its remarkably assembled occupants. The street fair gasped. The
+woman's former parade of the Honourable George had been as nothing to
+this exposure.
+
+"Poor Jackson's face was a study," declared the Mixer to me later.
+
+I dare say. It was still a study when my own turn came to observe it.
+The car halted before the shops that had been designated. The Klondike
+person dispatched her commissions in a superbly leisured manner,
+attentively accompanied by the Earl of Brinstead bearing packages for
+her.
+
+Belknap-Jackson, at the wheel, stared straight ahead. I am told he
+bore himself with dignity even when some of our more ingenuous
+citizens paused to converse with him concerning his new motor-car. He
+is even said to have managed a smile when his passengers returned.
+
+"I have it," exclaimed his lordship now. "Deuced good plan--go to that
+Ruggles place for a jolly fat tea. No end of a spree, what, what!"
+
+It is said that on three occasions in turning his car and traversing
+the short block to the Grill the owner escaped disastrous collision
+with other vehicles only by the narrowest possible margin. He may have
+courted something of the sort. I dare say he was desperate.
+
+"Join us, of course!" said his lordship, as he assisted his companion
+to alight. Again I am told the host managed to illumine his refusal
+with a smile. He would take no tea--the doctor's orders.
+
+The surprising pair entered at the height of my tea-hour and were
+served to an accompaniment of stares from the ladies present. To this
+they appeared oblivious, being intent upon their conference. His
+lordship was amiable to a degree. It now occurred to me that he had
+found the woman even more dangerous than he had at first supposed. He
+was being forced to play a deep game with her and was meeting guile
+with guile. He had, I suspected, found his poor brother far deeper in
+than any of us had thought. Doubtless he had written compromising
+letters that must be secured--letters she would hold at a price.
+
+And yet I had never before had excuse to believe his lordship
+possessed the diplomatic temperament. I reflected that I must always
+have misread him. He was deep, after all. Not until the two left did I
+learn that Belknap-Jackson awaited them with his car. He loitered
+about in adjacent doorways, quite like a hired fellow. He was
+passionately smoking more cigarettes than were good for him.
+
+I escorted my guests to the car. Belknap-Jackson took his seat with
+but one glance at me, yet it was eloquent of all the ignominy that had
+been heaped upon him.
+
+"Home, I think," said the lady when they were well seated. She said it
+charmingly.
+
+"Home," repeated his lordship. "Are you quite protected by the robe?"
+
+An incautious pedestrian at the next crossing narrowly escaped being
+run down. He shook a fist at the vanishing car and uttered a stream of
+oaths so vile that he would instantly have been taken up in any
+well-policed city.
+
+Half an hour later Belknap-Jackson called me.
+
+"He got out with that fiend! He's staying on there. But, my God! can
+nothing be done?"
+
+"His lordship is playing a most desperate game," I hastened to assure
+him. "He's meeting difficulties. She must have her dupe's letters in
+her possession. Blackmail, I dare say. Best leave his lordship free.
+He's a deep character."
+
+"He presumed far this afternoon--only the man's position saved him
+with me!" His voice seemed choked with anger. Then, remotely, faint as
+distant cannonading, a rumble reached me. It was hoarse laughter of
+the Mixer, perhaps in another room. The electric telephone has been
+perfected in the States to a marvellous delicacy of response.
+
+I now found myself observing Mrs. Effie, who had been among the
+absorbed onlookers while the pair were at their tea, she having
+occupied a table with Mrs. Judge Ballard and Mrs. Dr. Martingale.
+Deeply immersed in thought she had been, scarce replying to her
+companions. Her eyes had narrowed in a way I well knew when she
+reviewed the social field.
+
+Still absorbed she was when Cousin Egbert entered, accompanied by the
+Honourable George. The latter had seen but little of his brother since
+their first stormy interview, but he had also seen little of the
+Klondike woman. His spirits, however, had seemed quite undashed. He
+rarely missed his tea. Now as they seated themselves they were joined
+quickly by Mrs. Effie, who engaged her relative in earnest converse.
+It was easy to see that she begged a favour. She kept a hand on his
+arm. She urged. Presently, seeming to have achieved her purpose, she
+left them, and I paused to greet the pair.
+
+"I guess that there Mrs. Effie is awful silly," remarked Cousin Egbert
+enigmatically. "No, sir; she can't ever tell how the cat is going to
+jump." Nor would he say more, though he most elatedly held a secret.
+
+With this circumstance I connected the announcement in Monday's
+_Recorder_ that Mrs. Senator Floud would on that evening entertain
+at dinner the members of Red Gap's Bohemian set, including Mrs. Kate
+Kenner, the guest of honour being his lordship the Earl of Brinstead,
+"at present visiting in this city. Covers," it added, "would be laid
+for fourteen." I saw that Cousin Egbert would have been made the
+ambassador to conduct what must have been a business of some delicacy.
+
+Among the members of the North Side set the report occasioned the
+wildest alarm. And yet so staunch were known to be the principles of
+Mrs. Effie that but few accused her of downright treachery. It seemed
+to be felt that she was but lending herself to the furtherance of some
+deep design of his lordship's. Blackmail, the recovery of compromising
+letters, the avoidance of legal proceedings--these were hinted at. For
+myself I suspected that she had merely misconstrued the seeming
+cordiality of his lordship toward the woman and, at the expense of the
+Belknap-Jacksons, had sought the honour of entertaining him. If, to do
+that, she must entertain the woman, well and good. She was not one to
+funk her fences with the game in sight.
+
+Consulting me as to the menu for her dinner, she allowed herself to be
+persuaded to the vegetable soup, boiled mutton, thick pudding, and
+cheese which I recommended, though she pleaded at length for a chance
+to use the new fish set and for a complicated salad portrayed in her
+latest woman's magazine. Covered with grated nuts it was in the
+illustration. I was able, however, to convince her that his lordship
+would regard grated nuts as silly.
+
+From Belknap-Jackson I learned by telephone (during these days, being
+sensitive, he stopped in almost quite continuously) that Mrs. Effie
+had profusely explained to his wife about the dinner. "Of course, my
+dear, I couldn't have the presumption to ask you and your husband to
+sit at table with the creature, even if he did think it all right to
+drive her about town on a shopping trip. But I thought we ought to do
+something to make the dear Earl's visit one to be remembered--he's
+_so_ appreciative! I'm sure you understand just how things
+are----"
+
+In reciting this speech to me Belknap-Jackson essayed to simulate the
+tone and excessive manner of a woman gushing falsely. The fellow was
+quite bitter about it.
+
+"I sometimes think I'll give up," he concluded. "God only knows what
+things are coming to!"
+
+It began to seem even to me that they were coming a bit thick. But I
+knew that his lordship was a determined man. He was of the bulldog
+breed that has made old England what it is. I mean to say, I knew he
+would put the woman in her place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+
+Echoes of the Monday night dinner reached me the following day. The
+affair had passed off pleasantly enough, the members of the Bohemian
+set conducting themselves quite as persons who mattered, with the
+exception of the Klondike woman herself, who, I gathered, had
+descended to a mood of most indecorous liveliness considering who the
+guest of honour was. She had not only played and sung those noisy
+native folksongs of hers, but she had, it seemed, conducted herself
+with a certain facetious familiarity toward his lordship.
+
+"Every now and then," said Cousin Egbert, my principal informant,
+"she'd whirl in and josh the Cap all over the place about them funny
+whiskers he wears. She told him out and out he'd just got to lose
+them."
+
+"Shocking rudeness!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Oh, sure, sure!" he agreed, yet without indignation. "And the Cap
+just hated her for it--you could tell that by the way he looked at
+her. Oh, he hates her something terrible. He just can't bear the sight
+of her."
+
+"Naturally enough," I observed, though there had been an undercurrent
+to his speech that I thought almost quite a little odd. His accents
+were queerly placed. Had I not known him too well I should have
+thought him trying to be deep. I recalled his other phrases, that Mrs.
+Effie was seeing which way a cat would leap, and that the Klondike
+person would hand the ladies of the North Side set a lemon squash. I
+put them all down as childish prattle and said as much to the Mixer
+later in the day as she had a dish of tea at the Grill.
+
+"Yes, Sour-dough's right," she observed. "That Earl just hates the
+sight of her--can't bear to look at her a minute." But she, too,
+intoned the thing queerly.
+
+"He's putting pressure to bear on her," I said.
+
+"Pressure!" said the Mixer; and then, "Hum!" very dryly.
+
+With this news, however, it was plain as a pillar-box that things were
+going badly with his lordship's effort to release the Honourable
+George from his entanglement. The woman, doubtless with his
+compromising letters, would be holding out for a stiffish price; she
+would think them worth no end. And plainly again, his lordship had
+thrown off his mask; was unable longer to conceal his aversion for
+her. This, to be sure, was more in accordance with his character as I
+had long observed it. If he hated her it was like him to show it when
+he looked at her. I mean he was quite like that with almost any one. I
+hoped, however, that diplomacy might still save us all sorts of a
+nasty row.
+
+To my relief when the pair appeared for tea that afternoon--a sight no
+longer causing the least sensation--I saw that his lordship must have
+returned to his first or diplomatic manner. Doubtless he still hated
+her, but one would little have suspected it from his manner of looking
+at her. I mean to say, he looked at her another way. The opposite way,
+in fact. He was being subtle in the extreme. I fancied it must have
+been her wretched levity regarding his beard that had goaded him into
+the exhibitions of hatred noted by Cousin Egbert and the Mixer.
+Unquestionably his lordship may be goaded in no time if one
+deliberately sets about it. At the time, doubtless, he had sliced a
+drive or two, as one might say, but now he was back in form.
+
+Again I confess I was not a little sorry for the creature, seeing her
+there so smartly taken in by his effusive manner. He was having her on
+in the most obvious way and she, poor dupe, taking it all quite
+seriously. Prime it was, though, considering the creature's designs;
+and I again marvelled that in all the years of my association with his
+lordship I had never suspected what a topping sort he could be at this
+game. His mask was now perfect. It recalled, indeed, Cousin Egbert's
+simple but telling phrase about the Honourable George--"He looks at
+her!" It could now have been said of his lordship with the utmost
+significance to any but those in the know.
+
+And so began, quite as had the first, the second week of his
+lordship's stay among us. Knowing he had booked a return from Cooks, I
+fancied that results of some sort must soon ensue. The pressure he was
+putting on the woman must begin to tell. And this was the extreme of
+the encouragement I was able to offer the Belknap-Jacksons. Both he
+and his wife were of course in a bit of a state. Nor could I blame
+them. With an Earl for house guest they must be content with but a
+glimpse of him at odd moments. Rather a barren honour they were
+finding it.
+
+His lordship's conferences with the woman were unabated. When not
+secluded with her at her own establishment he would be abroad with her
+in her trap or in the car of Belknap-Jackson. The owner, however, no
+longer drove his car. He had never taken another chance. And well I
+knew these activities of his lordship's were being basely misconstrued
+by the gossips.
+
+"The Cap is certainly some queener," remarked Cousin Egbert, which
+perhaps reflected the view of the deceived public at this time, the
+curious term implying that his lordship was by way of being a bit of a
+dog. But calm I remained under these aspersions, counting upon a
+clean-cut vindication of his lordship's methods when he should have
+got the woman where he wished her.
+
+I remained, I repeat, serenely confident that a signal triumph would
+presently crown his lordship's subtly planned attack. And then, at
+midweek, I was rudely shocked to the suspicion that all might not be
+going well with his plan. I had not seen the pair for a day, and when
+they did appear for their tea I instantly detected a profound change
+in their mutual bearing. His lordship still looked at the woman, but
+the raillery of their past meetings had gone. Too plainly something
+momentous had occurred. Even the woman was serious. Had they fought to
+the last stand? Would she have been too much for him? I mean to say,
+was the Honourable George cooked?
+
+I now recalled that I had observed an almost similar change in the
+latter's manner. His face wore a look of wildest gloom that might have
+been mitigated perhaps by a proper trimming of his beard, but even
+then it would have been remarked by those who knew him well. I
+divined, I repeat, that something momentous had now occurred and that
+the Honourable George was one not least affected by it.
+
+Rather a sleepless night I passed, wondering fearfully if, after all,
+his lordship would have been unable to extricate the poor chap from
+this sordid entanglement. Had the creature held out for too much? Had
+she refused to compromise? Would there be one of those appalling legal
+things which our best families so often suffer? What if the victim
+were to cut off home?
+
+Nor was my trepidation allayed by the cryptic remark of Mrs. Judson as
+I passed her at her tasks in the pantry that morning:
+
+"A prince in his palace not too good--that's what I said!"
+
+She shot the thing at me with a manner suspiciously near to flippancy.
+I sternly demanded her meaning.
+
+"I mean what I mean," she retorted, shutting her lips upon it in a
+definite way she has. Well enough I knew the import of her uncivil
+speech, but I resolved not to bandy words with her, because in my
+position it would be undignified; because, further, of an unfortunate
+effect she has upon my temper at such times.
+
+"She's being terrible careful about _her_ associates," she
+presently went on, with a most irritating effect of addressing only
+herself; "nothing at all but just dukes and earls and lords day in and
+day out!" Too often when the woman seems to wish it she contrives to
+get me in motion, as the American saying is.
+
+"And it is deeply to be regretted," I replied with dignity, "that
+other persons must say less of themselves if put to it."
+
+Well she knew what I meant. Despite my previous clear warning, she had
+more than once accepted small gifts from the cattle-persons, Hank and
+Buck, and had even been seen brazenly in public with them at a cinema
+palace. One of a more suspicious nature than I might have guessed that
+she conducted herself thus for the specific purpose of enraging me,
+but I am glad to say that no nature could be more free than mine from
+vulgar jealousy, and I spoke now from the mere wish that she should
+more carefully guard her reputation. As before, she exhibited a
+surprising meekness under this rebuke, though I uneasily wondered if
+there might not be guile beneath it.
+
+"Can I help it," she asked, "if they like to show me attentions? I
+guess I'm a free woman." She lifted her head to observe a glass she
+had polished. Her eyes were curiously lighted. She had this way of
+embarrassing me. And invariably, moreover, she aroused all that is
+evil in my nature against the two cattle-persons, especially the Buck
+one, actually on another occasion professing admiration for "his wavy
+chestnut hair!" I saw now that I could not trust myself to speak of
+the fellow. I took up another matter.
+
+"That baby of yours is too horribly fat," I said suddenly. I had long
+meant to put this to her. "It's too fat. It eats too much!"
+
+To my amazement the creature was transformed into a vixen.
+
+"It--it! Too fat! You call my boy 'it' and say he's too fat! Don't you
+dare! What does a creature like you know of babies? Why, you wouldn't
+even know----"
+
+But the thing was too painful. Let her angry words be forgotten.
+Suffice to say, she permitted herself to cry out things that might
+have given grave offence to one less certain of himself than I. Rather
+chilled I admit I was by her frenzied outburst. I was shrewd enough to
+see instantly that anything in the nature of a criticism of her
+offspring must be led up to, rather; perhaps couched in less direct
+phrases than I had chosen. Fearful I was that she would burst into
+another torrent of rage, but to my amazement she all at once smiled.
+
+"What a fool I am!" she exclaimed. "Kidding me, were you? Trying to
+make me mad about the baby. Well, I'll give you good. You did it. Yes,
+sir, I never would have thought you had a kidding streak in you--old
+glum-face!"
+
+"Little you know me," I retorted, and quickly withdrew, for I was then
+more embarrassed than ever, and, besides, there were other and graver
+matters forward to depress and occupy me.
+
+In my fitful sleep of the night before I had dreamed vividly that I
+saw the Honourable George being dragged shackled to the altar. I trust
+I am not superstitious, but the vision had remained with me in all its
+tormenting detail. A veiled woman had grimly awaited him as he
+struggled with his uniformed captors. I mean to say, he was being
+hustled along by two constables.
+
+That day, let me now put down, was to be a day of the most fearful
+shocks that a man of rather sensitive nervous organism has ever been
+called upon to endure. There are now lines in my face that I make no
+doubt showed then for the first time.
+
+And it was a day that dragged interminably, so that I became fair off
+my head with the suspense of it, feeling that at any moment the worst
+might happen. For hours I saw no one with whom I could consult. Once I
+was almost moved to call up Belknap-Jackson, so intolerable was the
+menacing uncertainty; but this I knew bordered on hysteria, and I
+restrained the impulse with an iron will.
+
+But I wretchedly longed for a sight of Cousin Egbert or the Mixer, or
+even of the Honourable George; some one to assure me that my horrid
+dream of the night before had been a baseless fabric, as the saying
+is. The very absence of these people and of his lordship was in itself
+ominous.
+
+Nervously I kept to a post at one of my windows where I could survey
+the street. And here at mid-day I sustained my first shock. Terrific
+it was. His lordship had emerged from the chemist's across the street.
+He paused a moment, as if to recall his next mission, then walked
+briskly off. And this is what I had been stupefied to note: he was
+clean shaven! The Brinstead side-whiskers were gone! Whiskers that had
+been worn in precisely that fashion by a tremendous line of the Earls
+of Brinstead! And the tenth of his line had abandoned them. As well, I
+thought, could he have defaced the Brinstead arms.
+
+It was plain as a pillar-box, indeed. The woman had our family at her
+mercy, and she would show no mercy. My heart sank as I pictured the
+Honourable George in her toils. My dream had been prophetic. Then I
+reflected that this very circumstance of his lordship's having
+pandered to her lawless whim about his beard would go to show he had
+not yet given up the fight. If the thing were hopeless I knew he would
+have seen her--dashed--before he would have relinquished it. There
+plainly was still hope for poor George. Indeed his lordship might well
+have planned some splendid coup; this defacement would be a part of
+his strategy, suffered in anguish for his ultimate triumph. Quite
+cheered I became at the thought. I still scanned the street crowd for
+some one who could acquaint me with developments I must have missed.
+
+But then a moment later came the call by telephone of Belknap-Jackson.
+I answered it, though with little hope than to hear more of his
+unending complaints about his lordship's negligence. Startled
+instantly I was, however, for his voice was stranger than I had known
+it even in moments of his acutest distress. Hoarse it was, and his
+words alarming but hardly intelligible.
+
+"Heard?--My God!--Heard?--My God!--Marriage! Marriage! God!" But here
+he broke off into the most appalling laughter--the blood-curdling
+laughter of a chained patient in a mad-house. Hardly could I endure it
+and grateful I was when I heard the line close. Even when he attempted
+vocables he had sounded quite like an inferior record on a
+phonographic machine. But I had heard enough to leave me aghast.
+Beyond doubt now the very worst had come upon our family. His
+lordship's tremendous sacrifice would have been all in vain. Marriage!
+The Honourable George was done for. Better had it been the
+typing-girl, I bitterly reflected. Her father had at least been a
+curate!
+
+Thankful enough I now was for the luncheon-hour rush: I could distract
+myself from the appalling disaster. That day I took rather more than
+my accustomed charge of the serving. I chatted with our business
+chaps, recommending the joint in the highest terms; drawing corks;
+seeing that the relish was abundantly stocked at every table. I was
+striving to forget.
+
+Mrs. Judson alone persisted in reminding me of the impending scandal.
+"A prince in his palace," she would maliciously murmur as I
+encountered her. I think she must have observed that I was bitter, for
+she at last spoke quite amiably of our morning's dust-up.
+
+"You certainly got my goat," she said in the quaint American fashion,
+"telling me little No-no was too fat. You had me going there for a
+minute, thinking you meant it!"
+
+The creature's name was Albert, yet she persisted in calling it
+"No-no," because the child itself would thus falsely declare its name
+upon being questioned, having in some strange manner gained this
+impression. It was another matter I meant to bring to her attention,
+but at this crisis I had no heart for it.
+
+My crowd left. I was again alone to muse bitterly upon our plight.
+Still I scanned the street, hoping for a sight of Cousin Egbert, who,
+I fancied, would be informed as to the wretched details. Instead, now,
+I saw the Honourable George. He walked on the opposite side of the
+thoroughfare, his manner of dejection precisely what I should have
+expected. Followed closely as usual he was by the Judson cur. A spirit
+of desperate mockery seized me. I called to Mrs. Judson, who was
+gathering glasses from a table. I indicated the pair.
+
+"Mr. Barker," I said, "is dogging his footsteps." I mean to say, I
+uttered the words in the most solemn manner. Little the woman knew
+that one may often be moved in the most distressing moments to a jest
+of this sort. She laughed heartily, being of quick discernment. And
+thus jauntily did I carry my knowledge of the lowering cloud. But I
+permitted myself no further sallies of that sort. I stayed expectantly
+by the window, and I dare say my bearing would have deceived the most
+alert. I was steadily calm. The situation called precisely for that.
+
+The hours sped darkly and my fears mounted. In sheer desperation, at
+length, I had myself put through to Belknap-Jackson. To my
+astonishment he seemed quite revived, though in a state of feverish
+gayety. He fair bubbled.
+
+"Just leaving this moment with his lordship to gather up some friends.
+We meet at your place. Yes, yes--all the uncertainty is past. Better
+set up that largest table--rather a celebration."
+
+Almost more confusing it was than his former message, which had been
+confined to calls upon his Maker and to maniac laughter. Was he, I
+wondered, merely making the best of it? Had he resolved to be a dead
+sportsman? A few moments later he discharged his lordship at my door
+and drove rapidly on. (Only a question of time it is when he will be
+had heavily for damages due to his reckless driving.)
+
+His lordship bustled in with a cheerfulness that staggered me. He,
+too, was gay; almost debonair. A gardenia was in his lapel. He was
+vogue to the last detail in a form-fitting gray morning-suit that had
+all the style essentials. Almost it seemed as if three valets had been
+needed to groom him. He briskly rubbed his hands.
+
+"Biggest table--people. Tea, that sort of thing. Have a go of
+champagne, too, what, what! Beard off, much younger appearing? Of
+course, course! Trust women, those matters. Tea cake, toast, crumpets,
+marmalade--things like that. Plenty champagne! Not happen every day!
+Ha! ha!"
+
+To my acute distress he here thumbed me in the ribs and laughed again.
+Was he, too, I wondered, madly resolved to be a dead sportsman in the
+face of the unavoidable? I sought to edge in a discreet word of
+condolence, for I knew that between us there need be no pretence.
+
+"I know you did your best, sir," I observed. "And I was never quite
+free of a fear that the woman would prove too many for us. I trust the
+Honourable George----"
+
+But I had said as much as he would let me. He interrupted me with his
+thumb again, and on his face was what in a lesser person I should
+unhesitatingly have called a leer.
+
+"You dog, you! Woman prove too many for us, what, what! Dare say you
+knew what to expect. Silly old George! Though how she could ever have
+fancied the juggins----"
+
+I was about to remark that the creature had of course played her game
+from entirely sordid motives and I should doubtless have ventured to
+applaud the game spirit in which he was taking the blow. But before I
+could shape my phrases on this delicate ground Mrs. Effie, the
+Senator, and Cousin Egbert arrived. They somewhat formally had the air
+of being expected. All of them rushed upon his lordship with an
+excessive manner. Apparently they were all to be dead sportsmen
+together. And then Mrs. Effie called me aside.
+
+"You can do me a favour," she began. "About the wedding breakfast and
+reception. Dear Kate's place is so small. It wouldn't do. There will
+be a crush, of course. I've had the loveliest idea for it--our own
+house. You know how delighted we'd be. The Earl has been so charming
+and everything has turned out so splendidly. Oh, I'd love to do them
+this little parting kindness. Use your influence like a good fellow,
+won't you, when the thing is suggested?"
+
+"Only too gladly," I responded, sick at heart, and she returned to the
+group. Well I knew her motive. She was by way of getting even with the
+Belknap-Jacksons. As Cousin Egbert in his American fashion would put
+it, she was trying to pass them a bison. But I was willing enough she
+should house the dreadful affair. The more private the better, thought
+I.
+
+A moment later Belknap-Jackson's car appeared at my door, now
+discharging the Klondike woman, effusively escorted by the Mixer and
+by Mrs. Belknap-Jackson. The latter at least, I had thought, would
+show more principle. But she had buckled atrociously, quite as had her
+husband, who had quickly, almost merrily, followed them. There was
+increased gayety as they seated themselves about the large table, a
+silly noise of pretended felicitation over a calamity that not even
+the tenth Earl of Brinstead had been able to avert. And then
+Belknap-Jackson beckoned me aside.
+
+"I want your help, old chap, in case it's needed," he began.
+
+"The wedding breakfast and reception?" I said quite cynically.
+
+"You've thought of it? Good! Her own place is far too small. Crowd, of
+course. And it's rather proper at our place, too, his lordship having
+been our house guest. You see? Use what influence you have. The affair
+will be rather widely commented on--even the New York papers, I dare
+say."
+
+"Count upon me," I answered blandly, even as I had promised Mrs.
+Effie. Disgusted I was. Let them maul each other about over the
+wretched "honour." They could all be dead sports if they chose, but I
+was now firmly resolved that for myself I should make not a bit of
+pretence. The creature might trick poor George into a marriage, but I
+for one would not affect to regard it as other than a blight upon our
+house. I was just on the point of hoping that the victim himself might
+have cut off to unknown parts when I saw him enter. By the other
+members of the party he was hailed with cries of delight, though his
+own air was finely honest, being dejected in the extreme. He was
+dressed as regrettably as usual, this time in parts of two
+lounge-suits.
+
+As he joined those at the table I constrained myself to serve the
+champagne. Senator Floud arose with a brimming glass.
+
+"My friends," he began in his public-speaking manner, "let us remember
+that Red Gap's loss is England's gain--to the future Countess of
+Brinstead!"
+
+To my astonishment this appalling breach of good taste was received
+with the loudest applause, nor was his lordship the least clamorous of
+them. I mean to say, the chap had as good as wished that his lordship
+would directly pop off. It was beyond me. I walked to the farthest
+window and stood a long time gazing pensively out; I wished to be away
+from that false show. But they noticed my absence at length and called
+to me. Monstrously I was desired to drink to the happiness of the
+groom. I thought they were pressing me too far, but as they quite
+gabbled now with their tea and things, I hoped to pass it off. The
+Senator, however, seemed to fasten me with his eye as he proposed the
+toast--"To the happy man!"
+
+I drank perforce.
+
+"A body would think Bill was drinking to the Judge," remarked Cousin
+Egbert in a high voice.
+
+"Eh?" I said, startled to this outburst by his strange words.
+
+"Good old George!" exclaimed his lordship. "Owe it all to the old
+juggins, what, what!"
+
+The Klondike person spoke. I heard her voice as a bell pealing through
+breakers at sea. I mean to say, I was now fair dazed.
+
+"Not to old George," said she. "To old Ruggles!"
+
+"To old Ruggles!" promptly cried the Senator, and they drank.
+
+Muddled indeed I was. Again in my eventful career I felt myself
+tremble; I knew not what I should say, any _savoir faire_ being
+quite gone. I had received a crumpler of some sort--but what
+_sort?_
+
+My sleeve was touched. I turned blindly, as in a nightmare. The Hobbs
+cub who was my vestiare was handing me our evening paper. I took it
+from him, staring--staring until my knees grew weak. Across the page
+in clarion type rang the unbelievable words:
+
+    BRITISH PEER WINS AMERICAN BRIDE
+
+    His Lordship Tenth Earl of Brinstead to Wed One of Red Gap's
+    Fairest Daughters
+
+My hands so shook that in quick subterfuge I dropped the sheet, then
+stooped for it, trusting to control myself before I again raised my
+face. Mercifully the others were diverted by the journal. It was
+seized from me, passed from hand to hand, the incredible words read
+aloud by each in turn. They jested of it!
+
+"Amazing chaps, your pressmen!" Thus the tenth Earl of Brinstead,
+while I pinched myself viciously to bring back my lost aplomb. "Speedy
+beggars, what, what! Never knew it myself till last night. She would
+and she wouldn't."
+
+"I think you knew," said the lady. Stricken as I was I noted that she
+eyed him rather strangely, quite as if she felt some decent respect
+for him.
+
+"Marriage is serious," boomed the Mixer.
+
+"Don't blame her, don't blame her--swear I don't!" returned his
+lordship. "Few days to think it over--quite right, quite right. Got to
+know their own minds, my word!"
+
+While their attention was thus mercifully diverted from me, my own
+world by painful degrees resumed its stability. I mean to say, I am
+not the fainting sort, but if I were, then I should have keeled over
+at my first sight of that journal. But now I merely recovered my glass
+of champagne and drained it. Rather pigged it a bit, I fancy. Badly
+needing a stimulant I was, to be sure.
+
+They now discussed details: the ceremony--that sort of thing.
+
+"Before a registrar, quickest way," said his lordship.
+
+"Nonsense! Church, of course!" rumbled the Mixer very arbitrarily.
+
+"Quite so, then," assented his lordship. "Get me the rector of the
+parish--a vicar, a curate, something of that sort."
+
+"Then the breakfast and reception," suggested Mrs. Effie with a
+meaning glance at me before she turned to the lady. "Of course,
+dearest, your own tiny nest would never hold your host of friends----"
+
+"I've never noticed," said the other quickly. "It's always seemed big
+enough," she added in pensive tones and with downcast eyes.
+
+"Oh, not large enough by half," put in Belknap-Jackson, "Most charming
+little home-nook but worlds too small for all your well-wishers." With
+a glance at me he narrowed his eyes in friendly calculation. "I'm
+somewhat puzzled myself--Suppose we see what the capable Ruggles has
+to suggest."
+
+"Let Ruggles suggest something by all means!" cried Mrs. Effie.
+
+I mean to say, they both quite thought they knew what I would suggest,
+but it was nothing of the sort. The situation had entirely changed.
+Quite another sort of thing it was. Quickly I resolved to fling them
+both aside. I, too, would be a dead sportsman.
+
+"I was about to suggest," I remarked, "that my place here is the only
+one at all suitable for the breakfast and reception. I can promise
+that the affair will go off smartly."
+
+The two had looked up with such radiant expectation at my opening
+words and were so plainly in a state at my conclusion that I dare say
+the future Countess of Brinstead at once knew what. She flashed them a
+look, then eyed me with quick understanding.
+
+"Great!" she exclaimed in a hearty American manner. "Then that's
+settled," she continued briskly, as both Belknap-Jackson and Mrs.
+Effie would have interposed "Ruggles shall do everything: take it off
+our shoulders--ices, flowers, invitations."
+
+"The invitation list will need great care, of course," remarked
+Belknap-Jackson with a quite savage glance at me.
+
+"But you just called him 'the capable Ruggles,'" insisted the fiancee.
+"We shall leave it all to him. How many will you ask, Ruggles?" Her
+eyes flicked from mine to Belknap-Jackson.
+
+"Quite almost every one," I answered firmly.
+
+"Fine!" she said.
+
+"Ripping!" said his lordship.
+
+"His lordship will of course wish a best man," suggested
+Belknap-Jackson. "I should be only too glad----"
+
+"You're going to suggest Ruggles again!" cried the lady. "Just the man
+for it! You're quite right. Why, we owe it all to Ruggles, don't we?"
+
+She here beamed upon his lordship. Belknap-Jackson wore an expression
+of the keenest disrelish.
+
+"Of course, course!" replied his lordship. "Dashed good man, Ruggles!
+Owe it all to him, what, what!"
+
+I fancy in the cordial excitement of the moment he was quite sincere.
+As to her ladyship, I am to this day unable to still a faint suspicion
+that she was having me on. True, she owed it all to me. But I hadn't a
+bit meant it and well she knew it. Subtle she was, I dare say, but
+bore me no malice, though she was not above setting Belknap-Jackson
+back a pace or two each time he moved up.
+
+A final toast was drunk and my guests drifted out. Belknap-Jackson
+again glared savagely at me as he went, but Mrs. Effie rather
+outglared him. Even I should hardly have cared to face her at that
+moment.
+
+And I was still in a high state of muddle. It was all beyond me. Had
+his lordship, I wondered, too seriously taken my careless words about
+American equality? Of course I had meant them to apply only to those
+stopping on in the States.
+
+Cousin Egbert lingered to the last, rather with a troubled air of
+wishing to consult me. When I at length came up with him he held the
+journal before me, indicating lines in the article--"relict of an
+Alaskan capitalist, now for some years one of Red Gap's social
+favourites."
+
+"Read that there," he commanded grimly. Then with a terrific
+earnestness I had never before remarked in him: "Say, listen here! I
+better go round right off and mix it up with that fresh guy. What's he
+hinting around at by that there word 'relict'? Why, say, she was
+married to him----"
+
+I hastily corrected his preposterous interpretation of the word, much
+to his relief.
+
+I was still in my precious state of muddle. Mrs. Judson took occasion
+to flounce by me in her work of clearing the table.
+
+"A prince in his palace," she taunted. I laughed in a lofty manner.
+
+"Why, you poor thing, I've known it all for some days," I said.
+
+"Well, I must say you're the deep one if you did--never letting on!"
+
+She was unable to repress a glance of admiration at me as she moved
+off.
+
+I stood where she had left me, meditating profoundly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+
+Two days later at high noon was solemnized the marriage of his
+lordship to the woman who, without a bit meaning it, I had so
+curiously caused to enter his life. The day was for myself so crowded
+with emotions that it returns in rather a jumble: patches of
+incidents, little floating clouds of memory; some meaningless and one
+at least to be significant to my last day.
+
+The ceremony was had in our most nearly smart church. It was only a
+Methodist church, but I took pains to assure myself that a ceremony
+performed by its curate would be legal. I still seem to hear the
+organ, strains of "The Voice That Breathed Through Eden," as we neared
+the altar; also the Mixer's rumbling whisper about a lost handkerchief
+which she apparently found herself needing at that moment.
+
+The responses of bride and groom were unhesitating, even firm. Her
+ladyship, I thought, had never appeared to better advantage than in
+the pearl-tinted lustreless going-away gown she had chosen. As always,
+she had finely known what to put on her head.
+
+Senator Floud, despite Belknap-Jackson's suggestion of himself for the
+office, had been selected to give away the bride, as the saying is. He
+performed his function with dignity, though I recall being seized with
+horror when the moment came; almost certain I am he restrained himself
+with difficulty from making a sort of a speech.
+
+The church was thronged. I had seen to that. I had told her ladyship
+that I should ask quite almost every one, and this I had done,
+squarely in the face of Belknap-Jackson's pleading that discretion be
+used. For a great white light, as one might say, had now suffused me.
+I had seen that the moment was come when the warring factions of Red
+Gap should be reunited. A Bismarck I felt myself, indeed. That I acted
+ably was later to be seen.
+
+Even for the wedding breakfast, which occurred directly after the
+ceremony, I had shown myself a dictator in the matter of guests.
+Covers were laid in my room for seventy and among these were included
+not only the members of the North Side set and the entire Bohemian
+set, but many worthy persons not hitherto socially existent yet who
+had been friends or well-wishers of the bride.
+
+I am persuaded to confess that in a few of these instances I was not
+above a snarky little wish to correct the social horizon of
+Belknap-Jackson; to make it more broadly accord, as I may say, with
+the spirit of American equality for which their forefathers bled and
+died on the battlefields of Boston, New York, and Vicksburg.
+
+Not the least of my reward, then, was to see his eyebrows more than
+once eloquently raise, as when the cattle-persons, Hank and Buck,
+appeared in suits of decent black, or when the driver chap Pierce
+entered with his quite obscure mother on his arm, or a few other
+cattle and horse persons with whom the Honourable George had palled up
+during his process of going in for America.
+
+This laxity I felt that the Earl of Brinstead and his bride could
+amply afford, while for myself I had soundly determined that Red Gap
+should henceforth be without "sets." I mean to say, having frankly
+taken up America, I was at last resolved to do it whole-heartedly. If
+I could not take up the whole of it, I would not take up a part. Quite
+instinctively I had chosen the slogan of our Chamber of Commerce:
+"Don't Knock--Boost; and Boost Altogether." Rudely worded though it
+is, I had seen it to be sound in spirit.
+
+These thoughts ran in my mind during the smart repast that now
+followed. Insidiously I wrought among the guests to amalgamate into
+one friendly whole certain elements that had hitherto been hostile.
+The Bohemian set was not segregated. Almost my first inspiration had
+been to scatter its members widely among the conservative pillars of
+the North Side set. Left in one group, I had known they would plume
+themselves quite intolerably over the signal triumph of their leader;
+perhaps, in the American speech, "start something." Widely scattered,
+they became mere parts of the whole I was seeking to achieve.
+
+The banquet progressed gayly to its finish. Toasts were drunk no end,
+all of them proposed by Senator Floud who, toward the last, kept
+almost constantly on his feet. From the bride and groom he expanded
+geographically through Red Gap, the Kulanche Valley, the State of
+Washington, and the United States to the British Empire, not omitting
+the Honourable George--who, I noticed, called for the relish and
+consumed quite almost an entire bottle during the meal. Also I was
+proposed--"through whose lifelong friendship for the illustrious groom
+this meeting of hearts and hands has been so happily brought about."
+
+Her ladyship's eyes rested briefly upon mine as her lips touched the
+glass to this. They conveyed the unspeakable. Rather a fool I felt,
+and unable to look away until she released me. She had been wondrously
+quiet through it all. Not dazed in the least, as might have been
+looked for in one of her lowly station thus prodigiously elevated; and
+not feverishly gay, as might also have been anticipated. Simple and
+quiet she was, showing a complete but perfectly controlled awareness
+of her position.
+
+For the first time then, I think, I did envision her as the Countess
+of Brinstead. She was going to carry it off. Perhaps quite as well as
+even I could have wished his lordship's chosen mate to do. I observed
+her look at his lordship with those strange lights in her eyes, as if
+only half realizing yet wholly believing all that he believed. And
+once at the height of the gayety I saw her reach out to touch his
+sleeve, furtively, swiftly, and so gently he never knew.
+
+It occurred to me there were things about the woman we had taken too
+little trouble to know. I wondered what old memories might be coming
+to her now; what staring faces might obtrude, what old, far-off,
+perhaps hated, voices might be sounding to her; what of remembered
+hurts and heartaches might newly echo back to make her flinch and
+wonder if she dreamed. She touched the sleeve again, as it might have
+been in protection from them, her eyes narrowed, her gaze fixed. It
+queerly occurred to me that his lordship might find her as difficult
+to know as we had--and yet would keep always trying more than we had,
+to be sure. I mean to say, she was no gabbler.
+
+The responses to the Senator's toasts increased in volume. His final
+flight, I recall, involved terms like "our blood-cousins of the
+British Isles," and introduced a figure of speech about "hands across
+the sea," which I thought striking, indeed. The applause aroused by
+this was noisy in the extreme, a number of the cattle and horse
+persons, including the redskin Tuttle, emitting a shrill, concerted
+"yipping" which, though it would never have done with us, seemed
+somehow not out of place in North America, although I observed
+Belknap-Jackson to make gestures of extreme repugnance while it
+lasted.
+
+There ensued a rather flurried wishing of happiness to the pair. A
+novel sight it was, the most austere matrons of the North Side set
+vying for places in the line that led past them. I found myself trying
+to analyze the inner emotions of some of them I best knew as they
+fondly greeted the now radiant Countess of Brinstead. But that way
+madness lay, as Shakespeare has so aptly said of another matter. I
+recalled, though, the low-toned comment of Cousin Egbert, who stood
+near me.
+
+"Don't them dames stand the gaff noble!" It was quite true. They were
+heroic. I recalled then his other quaint prophecy that her ladyship
+would hand them a bottle of lemonade. As is curiously usual with this
+simple soul, he had gone to the heart of the matter.
+
+The throng dwindled to the more intimate friends. Among those who
+lingered were the Belknap-Jacksons and Mrs. Effie. Quite solicitous
+they were for the "dear Countess," as they rather defiantly called her
+to one another. Belknap-Jackson casually mentioned in my hearing that
+he had been asked to Chaynes-Wotten for the shooting. Mrs. Effie, who
+also heard, swiftly remarked that she would doubtless run over in the
+spring--the dear Earl was so insistent. They rather glared at each
+other. But in truth his lordship had insisted that quite almost every
+one should come and stop on with him.
+
+"Of course, course, what, what! Jolly party, no end of fun. Week-end,
+that sort of thing. Know she'll like her old friends best. Wouldn't be
+keen for the creature if she'd not. Have 'em all, have 'em all.
+Capital, by Jove!"
+
+To be sure it was a manner of speaking, born of the expansive good
+feeling of the moment. Yet I believe Cousin Egbert was the only
+invited one to decline. He did so with evident distress at having to
+refuse.
+
+"I like your little woman a whole lot," he observed to his lordship,
+"but Europe is too kind of uncomfortable for me; keeps me upset all
+the time, what with all the foreigners and one thing and another. But,
+listen here, Cap! You pack the little woman back once in a while. Just
+to give us a flash at her. We'll give you both a good time."
+
+"What ho!" returned his lordship. "Of course, course! Fancy we'd like
+it vastly, what, what!"
+
+"Yes, sir, I fancy you would, too," and rather startlingly Cousin
+Egbert seized her ladyship and kissed her heartily. Whereupon her
+ladyship kissed the fellow in return.
+
+"Yes, sir, I dare say I fancy you would," he called back a bit
+nervously as he left.
+
+Belknap-Jackson drove the party to the station, feeling, I am sure,
+that he scored over Mrs. Effie, though he was obliged to include the
+Mixer, from whom her ladyship bluntly refused to be separated. I
+inferred that she must have found the time and seclusion in which to
+weep a bit on the Mixer's shoulder. The waist of the latter's purple
+satin gown was quite spotty at the height of her ladyship's eyes.
+
+Belknap-Jackson on this occasion drove his car with the greatest
+solicitude, proceeding more slowly than I had ever known him do. As I
+attended to certain luggage details at the station he was regretting
+to his lordship that they had not had a longer time at the country
+club the day it was exhibited.
+
+"Look a bit after silly old George," said his lordship to me at
+parting. "Chap's dotty, I dare say. Talking about a plantation of
+apple trees now. For his old age--that sort of thing. Be something new
+in a fortnight, though. Like him, of course, course!"
+
+Her ladyship closed upon my hand with a remarkable vigour of grip.
+
+"We owe it all to you," she said, again with dancing eyes. Then her
+eyes steadied queerly. "Maybe you won't be sorry."
+
+"Know I shan't." I fancy I rather growled it, stupidly feeling I was
+not rising to the occasion. "Knew his lordship wouldn't rest till he
+had you where he wanted you. Glad he's got you." And curiously I felt
+a bit of a glad little squeeze in my throat for her. I groped for
+something light--something American.
+
+"You are some Countess," I at last added in a silly way.
+
+"What, what!" said his lordship, but I had caught her eyes. They
+brimmed with understanding.
+
+With the going of that train all life seemed to go. I mean to say,
+things all at once became flat. I turned to the dull station.
+
+"Give you a lift, old chap," said Belknap-Jackson. Again he was
+cordial. So firmly had I kept the reins of the whole affair in my
+grasp, such prestige he knew it would give me, he dared not broach his
+grievance.
+
+Some half-remembered American phrase of Cousin Egbert's ran in my
+mind. I had put a buffalo on him!
+
+"Thank you," I said, "I'm needing a bit of a stretch and a
+breeze-out."
+
+I wished to walk that I might the better meditate. With
+Belknap-Jackson one does not sufficiently meditate.
+
+A block up from the station I was struck by the sight of the
+Honourable George. Plodding solitary down that low street he was,
+heeled as usual by the Judson cur. He came to the Spilmer public house
+and for a moment stared up, quite still, at the "Last Chance" on its
+chaffing signboard. Then he wheeled abruptly and entered. I was moved
+to follow him, but I knew it would never do. He would row me about the
+service of the Grill--something of that sort. I dare say he had
+fancied her ladyship as keenly as one of his volatile nature might.
+But I knew him!
+
+Back on our street the festival atmosphere still lingered. Groups of
+recent guests paused to discuss the astounding event. The afternoon
+paper was being scanned by many of them. An account of the wedding was
+its "feature," as they say. I had no heart for that, but on the second
+page my eye caught a minor item:
+
+    "A special meeting of the Ladies Onwards and Upwards Club is
+    called for to-morrow afternoon at two sharp at the residence
+    of Mrs. Dr. Percy Hailey Martingale, for the transaction of
+    important business."
+
+One could fancy, I thought, what the meeting would discuss. Nor was I
+wrong, for I may here state that the evening paper of the following
+day disclosed that her ladyship the Countess of Brinstead had
+unanimously been elected to a life honorary membership in the club.
+
+Back in the Grill I found the work of clearing the tables well
+advanced, and very soon its before-dinner aspect of calm waiting was
+restored. Surveying it I reflected that one might well wonder if aught
+momentous had indeed so lately occurred here. A motley day it had
+been.
+
+I passed into the linen and glass pantry.
+
+Mrs. Judson, polishing my glassware, burst into tears at my approach,
+frankly stanching them with her towel. I saw it to be a mere overflow
+of the meaningless emotion that women stock so abundantly on the
+occasion of a wedding. She is an almost intensely feminine person, as
+can be seen at once by any one who understands women. In a goods box
+in the passage beyond I noted her nipper fast asleep, a mammoth
+beef-rib clasped to its fat chest. I debated putting this abuse to her
+once more but feared the moment was not propitious. She dried her eyes
+and smiled again.
+
+"A prince in his palace," she murmured inanely. "She thought first he
+was going to be as funny as the other one; then she found he wasn't. I
+liked him, too. I didn't blame her a bit. He's one of that kind--his
+bark's worse than his bite. And to think you knew all the time what
+was coming off. My, but you're the Mr. Deep-one!"
+
+I saw no reason to stultify myself by denying this. I mean to say, if
+she thought it, let her!
+
+"The last thing yesterday she gave me this dress."
+
+I had already noted the very becoming dull blue house gown she wore.
+Quite with an air she carried it. To be sure, it was not suitable to
+her duties. The excitements of the day, I suppose, had rendered me a
+bit sterner than is my wont. Perhaps a little authoritative.
+
+"A handsome gown," I replied icily, "but one would hardly choose it
+for the work you are performing."
+
+"Rubbish!" she retorted plainly. "I wanted to look nice--I had to go
+in there lots of times. And I wanted to be dressed for to-night."
+
+"Why to-night, may I ask?" I was all at once uncomfortably curious.
+
+"Why, the boys are coming for me. They're going to take No-no home,
+then we're all going to the movies. They've got a new bill at the
+Bijou, and Buck Edwards especially wants me to see it. One of the
+cowboys in it that does some star riding looks just like Buck--wavy
+chestnut hair. Buck himself is one of the best riders in the whole
+Kulanche."
+
+The woman seemed to have some fiendish power to enrage me. As she
+prattled thus, her eyes demurely on the glass she dried, I felt a deep
+flush mantle my brow. She could never have dreamed that she had this
+malign power, but she was now at least to suspect it.
+
+"Your Mr. Edwards," I began calmly enough, "may be like the cinema
+actor: the two may be as like each other as makes no difference--but
+you are not going." I was aware that the latter phrase was heated
+where I had merely meant it to be impressive. Dignified firmness had
+been the line I intended, but my rage was mounting. She stared at me.
+Astonished beyond words she was, if I can read human expressions.
+
+"I am!" she snapped at last.
+
+"You are not!" I repeated, stepping a bit toward her. I was conscious
+of a bit of the rowdy in my manner, but I seemed powerless to prevent
+it. All my culture was again but the flimsiest veneer.
+
+"I am, too!" she again said, though plainly dismayed.
+
+"No!" I quite thundered it, I dare say. "No, no! No, no!"
+
+The nipper cried out from his box. Not until later did it occur to me
+that he had considered himself to be addressed in angry tones.
+
+"No, no!" I thundered again. I couldn't help myself, though silly rot
+I call it now. And then to my horror the mother herself began to weep.
+
+"I will!" she sobbed. "I will! I will! I will!"
+
+"No, no!" I insisted, and I found myself seizing her shoulders, not
+knowing if I mightn't shake her smartly, so drawn-out had the woman
+got me; and still I kept shouting my senseless "No, no!" at which the
+nipper was now yelling.
+
+She struggled her best as I clutched her, but I seemed to have the
+strength of a dozen men; the woman was nothing in my grasp, and my
+arms were taking their blind rage out on her.
+
+Secure I held her, and presently she no longer struggled, and I was
+curiously no longer angry, but found myself soothing her in many
+strange ways. I mean to say, the passage between us had fallen to be
+of the very shockingly most sentimental character.
+
+"You are so masterful!" she panted.
+
+"I'll have my own way," I threatened; "I've told you often enough."
+
+"Oh, you're so domineering!" she murmured. I dare say I am a bit that
+way.
+
+"I'll show you who's to be master!"
+
+"But I never dreamed you meant this," she answered. True, I had most
+brutally taken her by surprise. I could easily see how, expecting
+nothing of the faintest sort, she had been rudely shocked.
+
+"I meant it all along," I said firmly, "from the very first moment."
+And now again she spoke in almost awed tones of my "deepness." I have
+never believed in that excessive intuition which is so widely boasted
+for woman.
+
+"I never dreamed of it," she said again, and added: "Mrs. Kenner and I
+were talking about this dress only last night and I said--I never,
+never dreamed of such a thing!" She broke off with sudden
+inconsequence, as women will.
+
+We had now to quiet the nipper in his box. I saw even then that,
+domineering though I may be, I should probably never care to bring the
+child's condition to her notice again. There was something about
+her--something volcanic in her femininity. I knew it would never do.
+Better let the thing continue to be a monstrosity! I might, unnoticed,
+of course, snatch a bun from its grasp now and then.
+
+Our evening rush came and went quite as if nothing had happened. I may
+have been rather absent, reflecting pensively. I mean to say, I had at
+times considered this alliance as a dawning possibility, but never had
+I meant to be sudden. Only for the woman's remarkably stubborn
+obtuseness I dare say the understanding might have been deferred to a
+more suitable moment and arranged in a calm and orderly manner. But
+the die was cast. Like his lordship, I had chosen an American
+bride--taken her by storm and carried her off her feet before she knew
+it. We English are often that way.
+
+At ten o'clock we closed the Grill upon a day that had been historic
+in the truest sense of the word. I shouldered the sleeping nipper. He
+still passionately clutched the beef-rib and for some reason I felt
+averse to depriving him of it, even though it would mean a spotty
+top-coat.
+
+Strangely enough, we talked but little in our walk. It seemed rather
+too tremendous to talk of.
+
+When I gave the child into her arms at the door it had become half
+awake.
+
+"Ruggums!" it muttered sleepily.
+
+"Ruggums!" echoed the mother, and again, very softly in the still
+night: "Ruggums--Ruggums!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That in the few months since that rather agreeable night I have
+acquired the title of Red Gap's social dictator cannot be denied. More
+than one person of discernment may now be heard to speak of my
+"reign," though this, of course, is coming it a bit thick.
+
+The removal by his lordship of one who, despite her sterling
+qualities, had been a source of discord, left the social elements of
+the town in a state of the wildest disorganization. And having for
+myself acquired a remarkable prestige from my intimate association
+with the affair, I promptly seized the reins and drew the scattered
+forces together.
+
+First, at an early day I sought an interview with Belknap-Jackson and
+Mrs. Effie and told them straight precisely why I had played them both
+false in the matter of the wedding breakfast. With the honour granted
+to either of them, I explained, I had foreseen another era of cliques,
+divisions, and acrimony. Therefore I had done the thing myself, as a
+measure of peace.
+
+Flatly then I declared my intention of reconciling all those formerly
+opposed elements and of creating a society in Red Gap that would be a
+social union in the finest sense of the word. I said that contact with
+their curious American life had taught me that their equality should
+be more than a name, and that, especially in the younger settlements,
+a certain relaxation from the rigid requirements of an older order is
+not only unavoidable but vastly to be desired. I meant to say, if we
+were going to be Americans it was silly rot trying to be English at
+the same time.
+
+I pointed out that their former social leaders had ever been inspired
+by the idea of exclusion; the soul of their leadership had been to
+cast others out; and that the campaign I planned was to be one of
+inclusion--even to the extent of Bohemians and well-behaved
+cattle-persons---which I believed to be in the finest harmony with
+their North American theory of human association. It might be thought
+a naive theory, I said, but so long as they had chosen it I should
+staunchly abide by it.
+
+I added what I dare say they did not believe: that the position of
+leader was not one I should cherish for any other reason than the
+public good. That when one better fitted might appear they would find
+me the first to rejoice.
+
+I need not say that I was interrupted frequently and acridly during
+this harangue, but I had given them both a buffalo and well they knew
+it. And I worked swiftly from that moment. I gave the following week
+the first of a series of subscription balls in the dancing hall above
+the Grill, and both Mrs. Belknap-Jackson and Mrs. Effie early enrolled
+themselves as patronesses, even after I had made it plain that I alone
+should name the guests.
+
+The success of the affair was all I could have wished. Red Gap had
+become a social unit. Nor was appreciation for my leadership wanting.
+There will be malcontents, I foresee, and from the informed inner
+circles I learn that I have already been slightingly spoken of as a
+foreigner wielding a sceptre over native-born Americans, but I have
+the support of quite all who really matter, and I am confident these
+rebellions may be put down by tact alone. It is too well understood by
+those who know me that I have Equality for my watchword.
+
+I mean to say, at the next ball of the series I may even see that the
+fellow Hobbs has a card if I can become assured that he has quite
+freed himself from certain debasing class-ideals of his native
+country. This to be sure is an extreme case, because the fellow is
+that type of our serving class to whom equality is unthinkable. They
+must, from their centuries of servility, look either up or down; and I
+scarce know in which attitude they are more offensive to our American
+point of view. Still I mean to be broad. Even Hobbs shall have his
+chance with us!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is late June. Mrs. Ruggles and I are comfortably installed in her
+enlarged and repaired house. We have a fowl-run on a stretch of her
+free-hold, and the kitchen-garden thrives under the care of the
+Japanese agricultural labourer I have employed.
+
+Already I have discharged more than half my debt to Cousin Egbert, who
+exclaims, "Oh, shucks!" each time I make him a payment. He and the
+Honourable George remain pally no end and spend much of their abundant
+leisure at Cousin Egbert's modest country house. At times when they
+are in town they rather consort with street persons, but such is the
+breadth of our social scheme that I shall never exclude them from our
+gayeties, though it is true that more often than not they decline to
+be present.
+
+Mrs. Ruggles, I may say, is a lady of quite amazing capacities
+combined strangely with the commonest feminine weaknesses. She has
+acute business judgment at most times, yet would fly at me in a rage
+if I were to say what I think of the nipper's appalling grossness.
+Quite naturally I do not push my unquestioned mastery to this extreme.
+There are other matters in which I amusedly let her have her way,
+though she fondly reminds me almost daily of my brutal self-will.
+
+On one point I have just been obliged to assert this. She came running
+to me with a suggestion for economizing in the manufacture of the
+relish. She had devised a cheaper formula. But I was firm.
+
+"So long as the inventor's face is on that flask," I said, "its
+contents shall not be debased a tuppence. My name and face will
+guarantee its purity."
+
+She gave in nicely, merely declaring that I needn't growl like one of
+their bears with a painful foot.
+
+At my carefully mild suggestion she has just brought the nipper in
+from where he was cattying the young fowls, much to their detriment.
+But she is now heaping compote upon a slice of thickly buttered bread
+for him, glancing meanwhile at our evening newspaper.
+
+"Ruggums always has his awful own way, doesn't ums?" she remarks to
+the nipper.
+
+Deeply ignoring this, I resume my elocutionary studies of the
+Declaration of Independence. For I should say that a signal honour of
+a municipal character has just been done me. A committee of the
+Chamber of Commerce has invited me to participate in their exercises
+on an early day in July--the fourth, I fancy--when they celebrate the
+issuance of this famous document. I have been asked to read it,
+preceding a patriotic address to be made by Senator Floud.
+
+I accepted with the utmost pleasure, and now on my vine-sheltered
+porch have begun trying it out for the proper voice effects. Its
+substance, I need not say, is already familiar to me.
+
+The nipper is horribly gulping at its food, jam smears quite all about
+its countenance. Mrs. Ruggles glances over her journal.
+
+"How would you like it," she suddenly demands, "if I went around town
+like these English women--burning churches and houses of Parliament
+and cutting up fine oil paintings. How would that suit your grouchy
+highness?"
+
+"This is not England," I answer shortly. "That sort of thing would
+never do with us."
+
+"My, but isn't he the fierce old Ruggums!" she cries in affected alarm
+to the now half-suffocated nipper.
+
+Once more I take up the Declaration of Independence. It lends itself
+rather well to reciting. I feel that my voice is going to carry.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ruggles of Red Gap, by Harry Leon Wilson
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