The American Claimant.....................................................................................................................................1

Mark Twain ..............................................................................................................................................1

EXPLANATORY ....................................................................................................................................1

THE WEATHER IN THIS BOOK. .........................................................................................................2

CHAPTER I. ............................................................................................................................................2

CHAPTER II. ...........................................................................................................................................6

CHAPTER III........................................................................................................................................10

CHAPTER IV........................................................................................................................................17

CHAPTER V.........................................................................................................................................20

CHAPTER VI........................................................................................................................................24

CHAPTER VII. ......................................................................................................................................26

CHAPTER VIII.....................................................................................................................................28

CHAPTER IX........................................................................................................................................32

CHAPTER X.........................................................................................................................................37

CHAPTER XI........................................................................................................................................41

CHAPTER XII. ......................................................................................................................................47

CHAPTER XIII.....................................................................................................................................51

CHAPTER XIV.....................................................................................................................................57

CHAPTER XV......................................................................................................................................61

CHAPTER XVI.....................................................................................................................................66

CHAPTER XVII ....................................................................................................................................70

CHAPTER XVIII. ..................................................................................................................................75

CHAPTER XIX.....................................................................................................................................79

CHAPTER XX......................................................................................................................................84

CHAPTER XXI.....................................................................................................................................87

CHAPTER XXII. ...................................................................................................................................93

CHAPTER XXIII. ..................................................................................................................................98

CHAPTER XXIV................................................................................................................................103

CHAPTER XXV. .................................................................................................................................109

APPENDIX. WEATHER FOR USE IN THIS BOOK.......................................................................114

The Colonel Mulberry Sellers here reintroduced to the public is the same person who appeared as Eschol

Sellers in the first edition of the tale entitled "The Gilded Age," years ago, and as Beriah Sellers in the

subsequent editions of the same book, and finally as Mulberry Sellers in the drama played afterward by John

The name was changed from Eschol to Beriah to accommodate an Eschol Sellers who rose up out of the vasty

deeps of uncharted space and preferred his requestbacked by threat of a libel suitthen went his way

appeased, and came no more. In the play Beriah had to be dropped to satisfy another member of the race, and

Mulberry was substituted in the hope that the objectors would be tired by that time and let it pass

unchallenged. So far it has occupied the field in peace; therefore we chance it again, feeling reasonably safe,

No weather will be found in this book. This is an attempt to pull a book through without weather. It being the

first attempt of the kind in fictitious literature, it may prove a failure, but it seemed worth the while of some

Many a reader who wanted to read a tale through was not able to do it because of delays on account of the

weather. Nothing breaks up an author's progress like having to stop every few pages to fussup the weather.

Thus it is plain that persistent intrusions of weather are bad for both reader and author.

Of course weather is necessary to a narrative of human experience. That is conceded. But it ought to be put

where it will not be in the way; where it will not interrupt the flow of the narrative. And it ought to be the

ablest weather that can be had, not ignorant, poorquality, amateur weather. Weather is a literary specialty,

and no untrained hand can turn out a good article of it. The present author can do only a few trifling ordinary

kinds of weather, and he cannot do those very good. So it has seemed wisest to borrow such weather as is

necessary for the book from qualified and recognized expertsgiving credit, of course. This weather will be

found over in the back part of the book, out of the way. See Appendix. The reader is requested to turn over

It is a matchless morning in rural England. On a fair hill we see a majestic pile, the ivied walls and towers of

Cholmondeley Castle, huge relic and witness of the baronial grandeurs of the Middle Ages. This is one of the

seats of the Earl of Rossmore, K. G. G. C. B. K. C. M. G., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., who possesses twentytwo

thousand acres of English land, owns a parish in London with two thousand houses on its leaseroll, and

struggles comfortably along on an income of two hundred thousand pounds a year. The father and founder of

this proud old line was William the Conqueror his very self; the mother of it was not inventoried in history by

name, she being merely a random episode and inconsequential, like the tanner's daughter of Falaise.

In a breakfast room of the castle on this breezy fine morning there are two persons and the cooling remains of

a deserted meal. One of these persons is the old lord, tall, erect, squareshouldered, whitehaired,

sternbrowed, a man who shows character in every feature, attitude, and movement, and carries his seventy

years as easily as most men carry fifty. The other person is his only son and heir, a dreamyeyed young

fellow, who looks about twentysix but is nearer thirty. Candor, kindliness, honesty, sincerity, simplicity,

modestyit is easy to see that these are cardinal traits of his character; and so when you have clothed him in

the formidable components of his name, you somehow seem to be contemplating a lamb in armor: his name

and style being the Honourable Kirkcudbright Llanover Marjorihanks Sellers ViscountBerkeley, of

Cholmondeley Castle, Warwickshire. (Pronounced K'koobry Thlanover Marshbanks Sellers Vycount Barkly,

of Chumly Castle, Warrikshr.) He is standing by a great window, in an attitude suggestive of respectful

attention to what his father is saying and equally respectful dissent from the positions and arguments offered.

The father walks the floor as he talks, and his talk shows that his temper is away up toward summer heat.

"Softspirited as you are, Berkeley, I am quite aware that when you have once made up your mind to do a

thing which your ideas of honor and justice require you to do, argument and reason are (for the time being,)

wasted upon youyes, and ridicule; persuasion, supplication, and command as well. To my mind"

"Father, if you will look at it without prejudice, without passion, you must concede that I am not doing a rash

thing, a thoughtless, wilful thing, with nothing substantial behind it to justify it. I did not create the American

claimant to the earldom of Rossmore; I did not hunt for him, did not find him, did not obtrude him upon your

"And has made mine a purgatory for ten years with his tiresome letters, his wordy reasonings, his acres of

"Which you would never read, would never consent to read. Yet in common fairness he was entitled to a

hearing. That hearing would either prove he was the rightful earlin which case our course would be

plainor it would prove that he wasn'tin which case our course would be equally plain. I have read his

evidences, my lord. I have conned them well, studied them patiently and thoroughly. The chain seems to be

"Father, if he is the rightful earl, would you, could youthat fact being establishedconsent to keep his

"You are talking nonsensenonsenselurid idiotcy! Now, listen to me. I will make a confessionif you

wish to call it by that name. I did not read those evidences because I had no occasion toI was made

familiar with them in, the time of this claimant's father and of my own father forty years ago. This fellow's

predecessors have kept mine more or less familiar with them for close upon a hundred and fifty years. The

truth is, the rightful heir did go to America, with the Fairfax heir or about the same timebut

disappearedsomewhere in the, wilds of Virginia, got married, end began to breed savages for the Claimant

market; wrote no letters home; was supposed to be dead; his younger brother softly took possession;

presently the American did die, and straightway his eldest product put in his claimby letterletter still in

existenceand died before the uncle inpossession found timeor maybe inclinationto answer. The

infant son of that eldest product grew uplong interval, you seeand he took to writing letters and

furnishing evidences. Well, successor after successor has done the same, down to the present idiot. It was a

succession of paupers; not one of them was ever able to pay his passage to England or institute suit. The

Fairfaxes kept their lordship alive, and so they have never lost it to this day, although they live in Maryland;

their friend lost his by his own neglect. You perceive now, that the facts in this case bring us to precisely this

result: morally the American tramp is rightful earl of Rossmore; legally he has no more right than his dog.

There was a pause, then the son glanced at the crest carved in the great oaken mantel and said, with a

"Since the introduction of heraldic symbols,the motto of this house has been 'Suum cuique'to every man

his own. By your own intrepidly frank confession, my lord, it is become a sarcasm: If Simon Lathers'

Keep that exasperating name to yourself! For ten years it has pestered my eyeand tortured my ear; till at

last my very footfalls time themselves to the brainracking rhythm of Simon Lathers!Simon Lathers!

Simon Lathers! And now, to make its presence in my soul eternal, immortal, imperishable, you have

"Make this tremendous surrender without even trying the fantastic case in the Lords?"

"By all that is amazing, I believe you are insane, my son. See here have you been training with that ass

againthat radical, if you prefer the term, though the words are synonymousLord Tanzy, of Tollmache?"

"Yes, you confess. That puppy, that shame to his birth and caste, who holds all hereditary lordships and

privilege to be usurpation, all nobility a tinsel sham, all aristocratic institutions a fraud, all inequalities in rank

a legalized crime and an infamy, and no bread honest bread that a man doesn't earn by his own workwork,

pah!"and the old patrician brushed imaginary labordirt from his white hands. "You have come to hold

A faint flush in the younger man's cheek told that the shot had hit and hurt; but he answered with dignity:

"I have. I say it without shameI feel none. And now my reason for resolving to renounce my heirship

without resistance is explained. I wish to retire from what to me is a false existence, a false position, and

begin my life over againbegin it rightbegin it on the level of mere manhood, unassisted by factitious

aids, and succeed or fail by pure merit or the want of it. I will go to America,, where all men are equal and all

have an equal chance; I will live or die, sink or swim, win or lose as just a manthat alone, and not a single

"Hear, hear!" The two men looked each other steadily in the eye a moment or two, then the elder one added,

musingly, "Absolutely crazyabsolutely! "After another silence, he said, as one who, long troubled by

clouds, detects a ray of sunshine," Well, there will be one satisfactionSimon Lathets will come here to

enter into his own, and I will drown him in the horsepond. That poor devilalways so humble in his letters,

so pitiful, so deferential; so steeped in reverence for our great line and loftystation; so anxious to placate us,

so prayerful for recognition as a relative, a bearer in his veins of our sacred blood and withal so poor, so

needy, so threadbare and paupershod as to raiment, so despised, so laughed at for his silly claimantship by

the lewd American scum around himah, the vulgar, crawling, insufferable tramp! To read one of his

This to a splendid flunkey, all in inflamed plush and buttons and kneebreeches as to his trunk, and a glinting

white frostwork of groundglass paste as to his head, who stood with his heels together and the upper half

"Among the rest, an American letter. From the tramp, of course. Jove, but here's a change! No brown paper

envelope this time, filched from a shop, and carrying the shop's advertisement in the corner. Oh, no, a proper

enough envelopewith a most ostentatiously broad mourning borderfor his cat, perhaps, since he was a

bachelorand fastened with red waxa batch of it as big as a halfcrownandandour crest for a

seal!motto and all. And the ignorant, sprawling hand is gone; he sports a secretary, evidentlya secretary

with a most confident swing and flourish to his pen. Oh indeed, our fortunes are improving over thereour

It is my painful duty to announce to you that the head of our illustrious house is no moreThe Right

Honourable, The Most Noble, The Most Puissant Simon Lathers Lord Rossmore having departed this life

("Gone at last this is unspeakably precious news, my son,") at his seat in the environs of the hamlet of

Duffy's Corners in the grand old State of Arkansas,and his twin brother with him, both being crushed by a

log at a smokehouseraising, owing to carelessness on the part of all present, referable to overconfidence

and gaiety induced by overplus of sourmash("Extolled be sourmash, whatever that may be, eh

Berkeley?") five days ago, with no scion of our ancient race present to close his eyes and inter him with the

honors due his historic name and lofty rankin fact, he is on the ice yet, him and his brotherfriends took a

collection for it. But I shall take immediate occasion to have their noble remains shipped to you ("Great

heavens!") for interment, with due ceremonies and solemnities, in the family vault or mausoleum of our

house. Meantime I shall put up a pair of hatchments on my housefront, and you will of course do the same

I have also to remind you that by this sad disaster I as sole heir, inherit and become seized of all the titles,

honors, lands, and goods of our lamented relative, and must of necessity, painful as the duty is, shortly

require at the bar of the Lords restitution of these dignities and properties, now illegally enjoyed by your

With assurance of my distinguished consideration and warm cousinly regard, I remain

"Immense! Come, this one's interesting. Why, Berkeley, his breezy impudence isiswhy, it's colossal,

"Cringewhy, he doesn't know the meaning of the word. Hatchments! To commemorate that sniveling

tramp and his, fraternal duplicate. And he is going to send me the remains. The late Claimant was a fool, but

plainly this new one's a maniac. What a name! Mulberry Sellersthere's music for you, Simon

LathersMulberry SellersMulberry SellersSimon Lathers. Sounds like machinery working and

The old gentleman stood musing some time, after his son was gone. This was his thought:

"He is a good boy, and lovable. Let him take his own courseas it would profit nothing to oppose

himmake things worse, in fact. My arguments and his aunt's persuasions have failed; let us see what

America can do for us. Let us see what equality and hardtimes can effect for the mental health of a

brainsick young British lord. Going to renounce his lordship and be a man! Yas!"

Rossmorewas seated in his "library," which was also his "drawingroom" and was also his "picture

gallery" and likewise his "workshop." Sometimes he called it by one of these names, sometimes by another,

according to occasion and circumstance. He was constructing what seemed to be some kind of a frail

mechanical toy; and was apparently very much interested in his work. He was a whiteheaded man, now, but

otherwise he was as young, alert, buoyant, visionary and enterprising as ever. His loving old wife sat near by,

contentedly knitting and thinking, with a cat asleep in her lap. The room was large, light, and had a

comfortable look, in fact a homelike look, though the furniture was of a humble sort and not over abundant,

and the knickknacks and things that go to adorn a livingroom not plenty and not costly. But there were

natural flowers, and there was an abstract and unclassifiable something about the place which betrayed the

Even the deadly chromos on the walls were somehow without offence; in fact they seemed to belong there

and to add an attraction to the room a fascination, anyway; for whoever got his eye on one of them was

like to gaze and suffer till he diedyou have seen that kind of pictures. Some of these terrors were

landscapes, some libeled the sea, some were ostensible portraits, all were crimes. All the portraits were

recognizable as dead Americans of distinction, and yet, through labeling added, by a daring hand, they were

all doing duty here as "Earls of Rossmore." The newest one had left the works as Andrew Jackson, but was

doing its best now, as "Simon Lathers Lord Rossmore, Present Earl." On one wall was a cheap old railroad

map of Warwickshire. This had been newly labeled "The Rossmore Estates." On the opposite, wall was

another map, and this was the most imposing decoration of the establishment and the first to catch a stranger's

attention, because of its great size. It had once borne simply the title SIBERIA; but now the word "FUTURE"

had been written in front of that word. There were other additions, in red inkmany cities, with great

populations set down, scattered over the vastcountry at points where neither cities nor populations exist

today. One of these cities, with population placed at 1,500,000, bore the name "Libertyorloffskoizalinski,"

and there was a still more populous one, centrally located and marked "Capital," which bore the name

The "mansion"the Colonel's usual name for the housewas a rickety old twostory frame of considerable

size, which had been painted, some time or other, but had nearly forgotten it. It was away out in the ragged

edge of Washington and had once been somebody's country place. It had a neglected yard around it, with a

paling fence that needed straightening up, in places, and a gate that would stay shut. By the doorpost were

several modest tin signs. "Col. Mulberry Sellers, Attorney at Law and Claim Agent," was the principal one.

One learned from the others that the Colonel was a Materializer, a Hypnotizer, a MindCure dabbler; and so

A whiteheaded negro man, with spectacles and damaged white cotton gloves appeared in the presence,

The Colonel and his wife were on their feet in a moment, and the next moment were joyfully wringing the

hands of a stoutish, discouraged looking man whose general aspect suggested that he was fifty years old, but

"Well, well, well, Washington, my boy, it is good to look at you again. Sit down, sit down, and make yourself

at home. There, nowwhy, you look perfectly natural; aging a little, just a little, but you'd have known him

"Oh, yes, Berry, he's just like his pa would have looked if ,he'd lived. Dear, dear, where have you dropped

There was a sudden catch of her voice and a trembling of the lip, the men waiting reverently for her to, get

command of herself and go on; but after a little struggle she turned away, with her apron to her eyes, and

"Seeing you made her think of the children, poor thingdear, dear, they're all dead but the youngest.

But banish care, it's no time for it nowon with the dance, let joy be unconfined is my motto, whether

there's any dance to dance; or any joy to unconfineyou'll be the healthier for it every time,every time,

Washingtonit's my experience, and I've seen a good deal of this world. Comewhere have you

disappeared to all these years, and are you from there, now, or where are you from?"

"Well, yes, if a body may call it that; though it's a pretty strong term for 'dobies and jackass rabbits, boiled

"Oh, I see,you had to comeclaim against the government. Make yourself perfectly easyI'll take care

"Well, good gracious, Washington, why don't you come out and tell me what it is? What, do you want to be

so reserved and distrustful with an old friend like me, for? Don't you reckon I can keep a se'

"Now look here, old friend, I know the human race; and I know that when a man comes to Washington, I

don't care if it's from heaven, let alone CherokeeStrip, it's because he wants something. And I know that as a

rule he's not going to get it; that he'll stay and tryfor another thing and won't get that; the same luck with

the next and the next and the next; and keeps on till he strikes bottom, and is too poor and ashamed to go

back, even to Cherokee Strip; and at last his heart breaksand they take up a collection and bury him.

Theredon't interrupt me, I know what I'm talking about. Happy and prosperous in the Far West wasn't I?

You know that. Principal citizen of Hawkeye, looked up to by everybody, kind of an autocrat, actually a kind

of an autocrat, Washington. Well, nothing would do but I must go Minister to St. James, the Governor and

everybody insisting, you know, and so at last I consentedno getting out of it, had to do it, so here I came. A

day too late, Washington. Think of thatwhat little things change the world's historyyes, sir, the place

had been filled. Well, there I was, you see. I offered to compromise and go to Paris. The President was very

sorry and all that, but that place, you see, didn't belong to the West, so there I was again. There was no help

for it, so I had to stoop a littlewe all reach the day some time or other when we've got to do that,

Washington, and it's not a bad thing for us, either, take it by and large and all around I had to stoop a little

and offer to take Constantinople. Washington, consider thisfor it's perfectly truewithin a month I asked

for China; within another month I begged for Japan; one year later I was away down, down, down,

supplicating with tears and anguish for the bottom office in the gift of the government of the United

StatesFlintPicker in the cellars of the War Department. And by George I didn't get it."

"Yes. Office established in the time of the Revolution, last century. The musketflints for the military posts

were supplied from the capitol. They do it yet; for although the flintarm has gone out and the forts have

tumbled down, the decree hasn't been repealedbeen overlooked and forgotten, you seeand so the

vacancies where old Ticonderoga and others used to stand, still get their six quarts of gunflints a year just

"How strange it seemsto start for Minister to England at twenty thousand a year and fail for flintpicker

"Three dollars a week. It's human life, Washingtonjust an epitome of human ambition, and struggle, and

There was another meditative silence. Then Washington said, with earnest compassion in his voice

"And so, after coming here, against your inclination, to satisfy your sense of patriotic duty and appease a

"Nothing?" The Colonel had to get up and stand, to get room for his amazement to expand. "Nothing,

Washington? I ask you this: to be a perpetual Member and the only Perpetual Member of a Diplomatic Body

It was Washington's turn to be amazed. He was stricken dumb; but the wideeyed wonder, the reverent

admiration expressed in his face were more eloquent than any words could have been. The Colonel's

wounded spirit was healed and he resumed his seat pleased and content. He leaned forward and said

"What was due to a man who had become forever conspicuous by an experience without precedent in the

history of the world?a man made permanently and diplomatically sacred, so to speak, by having been

connected, temporarily, through solicitation, with every single diplomatic post in the roster of this

government, from Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James all the way

down to Consul to a guano rock in the Straits of Sundasalary payable in guanowhich disappeared by

volcanic convulsion the day before they got down to my name in the list of applicants. Certainly something

august enough to be answerable to the size of this unique and memorable experience was my due, and I got it.

By the common voice of this community, by acclamation of the people, that mighty, utterance which brushes

aside laws and legislation, and from whose decrees there is no appeal, I was named Perpetual Member of the

Diplomatic Body representing the multifarious sovereignties and civilizations of the globe near the republican

court of the United States of America. And they brought me home with a torchlight procession."

"You have named the word. Think of it. I frown, and there is war; I smile, and contending nations lay down

"It is nothing. Responsibility is no burden to me; I am used to it; have always been used to it."

"Who, I? Does the Emperor of Russia attend the conclaves of the governors of the provinces? He sits at

"How proud I was an hour ago; how paltry seems my little promotion now! Colonel, the reason I came to

"Give me your hand, my boythis is immense news! I congratulate you with all my heart. My prophecies

stand confirmed. I always said it was in you. I always said you were born for high distinction and would

"Why, Colonel, there's nothing to it. That little narrow, desolate, unpeopled, oblong streak of grass and

gravel, lost in the remote wastes of the vast continentwhy, it's like representing a billiard tablea

"Tuttut, it's a great, it's a staving preferment, and just opulent with influence here."

"And they hadn't any right to elect me; we're not even a territory, there's no Organic Act, the government

"Never mind about that; I'll fix that. I'll rush the thing through, I'll get you organized in no time."

"Will you, Colonel?it's too good of you; but it's just your old sterling self, the same old everfaithful

"It's just as good as done, my boy, just as good as done. Shake hands. We'll hitch teams together, you and I,

Mrs. Sellers returned, now, with her composure restored, and began to ask after Hawkins's wife, and about

his children, and the number of them, and so on, and her examination of the witness resulted in a

circumstantial history of the family's ups and downs and driftings to and fro in the far West during the

previous fifteen years. There was a message, now, from out back, and Colonel Sellers went out there in

answer to it. Hawkins took this opportunity to ask how the world had been using the Colonel during the past

"Oh, it's been using him just the same; it couldn't change its way of using him if it wanted to, for he wouldn't

"Yes, you see, he doesn't change, himselfnot the least little bit in the worldhe's always Mulberry

"Just the same old scheming, generous, goodhearted, moonshiny, hopeful, noaccount failure he always

was, and still everybody likes him just as well as if he was the shiningest success."

"They always did: and it was natural, because he was so obliging and accommodating, and had something

about him that made it kind of easy to ask help of him, or favorsyou didn't feel shy, you know, or have that

"It's just so, yet; and a body wonders at it, too, because he's been shamefully treated, many times, by people

that had used him for a ladder to climb up by, and then kicked him down when they didn't need him any

more. For a time you can see he's hurt, his pride's wounded, because he shrinks away from that thing and

don't want to talk about itand so I used to think now he's learned something and he'll be more careful

hereafterbut laws! in a couple of weeks he's forgotten all about it, and any selfish tramp out of nobody

knows where can come and put up a poor mouth and walk right into his heart with his boots on."

"Oh, no, I'm used to it; and I'd rather have him so than the other way. When I call him a failure, I mean to the

world he's a failure; he isn't to me. I don't know as I want him different much different, anyway. I have to

scold him some, snarl at him, you might even call it, but I reckon I'd do that just the same, if he was

differentit's my make. But I'm a good deal less snarly and more contented when he's a failure than I am

"Him? Oh, bless you, no. He makes a strike, as he calls it, from time to time. Then's my time to fret and fuss.

For the money just flies first come first served. Straight off, he loads up the house with cripples and idiots

and stray cats and all the different kinds of poor wrecks that other people don't want and he does, and then

when the poverty comes again I've got to clear the most of them out or we'd starve; and that distresses him,

Here's old Dan'l and old Jinny, that the sheriff sold south one of the times that we got bankrupted before the

warthey came wandering back after the peace, worn out and used up on the cotton plantations, helpless,

and not another lick of work left in their old hides for the rest of this earthly pilgrimageand we so pinched,

oh so pinched for the very crumbs to keep life in us, and he just flung the door wide, and the way he received

them you'd have thought they had come straight down from heaven in answer to prayer. I took him one side

and said, 'Mulberry we can't have themwe've nothing for ourselveswe can't feed them.' He looked at me

kind of hurt, and said, 'Turn them out?and they've come to me just as confident and trusting asaswhy

Polly, I must have bought that confidence sometime or other a long time ago, and given my note, so to

speakyou don't get such things as a giftand how am I going to go back on a debt like that? And you see,

they're so poor, and old, and friendless, and But I was ashamed by that time, and shut him off, and

somehow felt a new courage in me, and so I said, softly, 'We'll keep themthe Lord will provide.' He was

glad, and started to blurt out one of those overconfident speeches of his, but checked himself in time, and

said humbly, 'I will, anyway.' It was years and years and years ago. Well, you see those old wrecks are here

"Laws! The idea. They would if they could, poor old things, and perhaps they think they do do some of it.

But it's a superstition. Dan'l waits on the front door, and sometimes goes on an errand; and sometimes you'll

see one or both of them letting on to dust around in herebut that's because there's something they want to

hear about and mix their gabble into. And they're always around at meals, for the same reason. But the fact is,

we have to keep a young negro girl just to take care of them, and a negro woman to do the housework and

"It's no name for it. They quarrel together pretty much all the time most always about religion, because

Dan'l's a Dunker Baptist and Jinny's a shouting Methodist, and Jinny believes in special Providences and

Dan'l don't, because he thinks he's a kind of a freethinkerand they play and sing plantation hymns

together, and talk and chatter just eternally and forever, and are sincerely fond of each other and think the

world of Mulberry, and he puts up patiently with all their spoiled ways and foolishness, and soah, well,

they're happy enough if it comes to that. And I don't mindI've got used to it. I can get used to anything,

with Mulberry to help; and the fact is, I don't much care what happens, so long as he's spared to me."

"And rake in the lame, the halt and the blind, and turn the house into a hospital again? It's what he would do.

I've seen aplenty of that and more. No, Washington, I want his strikes to be mighty moderate ones the rest of

"Well, then, big strike or little strike, or no strike at all, here's hoping he'll never lack for friendsand I don't

"Him lack for friends!" and she tilted her head up with a frank pride "why, Washington, you can't name a

man that's anybody that isn't fond of him. I'll tell you privately, that I've had Satan's own time to keep them

from appointing him to some office or other. They knew he'd no business with an office, just as well as I did,

but he's the hardest man to refuse anything to, a body ever saw. Mulberry Sellers with an office! laws

goodness, you know what that would be like. Why, they'd come from the ends of the earth to see a circus like

that. I'd just as lieves be married to Niagara Falls, and done with it." After a reflective pause she

addedhaving wandered back, in the interval, to the remark that had been her text: "Friends? oh, indeed,

no man ever had more; and such friends: Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Johnston, Longstreet, Lee many's the

time they've sat in that chair you're sitting in" Hawkins was out of it instantly, and contemplating it with a

reverential surprise, and with the awed sense of having trodden shod upon holy ground

He continued to gaze at the chair fascinated, magnetized; and for once in his life that continental stretch of

dry prairie which stood for his imagination was afire, and across it was marching a slanting flamefront that

joined its wide horizons together and smothered the skies with smoke. He was experiencing what one or

another drowsing, geographically ignorant alien experiences every day in the year when he turns a dull and

indifferent eye out of the car window and it falls upon a certain stationsign which reads "Stratford

"Oh, they like to hear him talk, especially if their load is getting rather heavy on one shoulder and they want

to shift it. He's all air, you know,breeze, you may sayand he freshens them up; it's a trip to the country,

they say. Many a time he's made General Grant laughand that's a tidy job, I can tell you, and as for

Sheridan, his eye lights up and he listens to Mulberry Sellers the same as if he was artillery. You see, the

charm about Mulberry is, he is so catholic and unprejudiced that he fits in anywhere and everywhere. It

makes him powerful good company, and as popular as scandal. You go to the White House when the

President's holding a general receptionsometime when Mulberry's there. Why, dear me, you can't tell

"Clear to his marrowdoes more thinking and reading on that subject than any other except Russia and

"He" She stopped, and was lost for a moment or two in thinking, then she said, with simplicity, "I think he

Washington started down town, now, to bring his trunk, for the hospitable Sellerses would listen to no

excuses; their house must be his home during the session. The Colonel returned presently and resumed work

"Yes, that's what it is. I call it Pigs in the Clover. Put them insee if you can put them in the pen."

"It's wonderfully ingenious, Colonel, it's ever so clever and interestingwhy, I could play with it all day.

The colonel rose and tiptoed his way across the room, closed a door that was slightly ajar, tiptoed his way

"And probably didn't believe in it; and quite right, too. The thing as practised by ignorant charlatans is

unworthy of attention or respect where there's a dim light and a dark cabinet, and a parcel of sentimental

gulls gathered together, with their faith and their shudders and their tears all ready, and one and the same fatty

degeneration of protoplasm and humbug comes out and materializes himself into anybody you want,

grandmother, grandchild, brotherinlaw, Witch of Endor, John Milton, Siamese twins, Peter the Great, and

all such frantic nonsenseno, that is all foolish and pitiful. But when a man that is competent brings the vast

powers of science to bear, it's a different matter, a totally different matter, you see. The spectre that answers

"Well, Ithethe truth is, that I don't quite know that I do. Do you mean that such, being permanent, not

transitory, would give more general satisfaction, and so enhance the priceof tickets to the show"

"Show? Follylisten to me; and get a good grip on your breath, for you are going to need it. Within three

days I shall have completed my method, and thenlet the world stand aghast, for it shall see marvels.

Washington, within three daysten at the outsideyou shall see me call the dead of any century, and they

will arise and walk. Walk?they shall walk forever, and never die again. Walk with all the muscle and

Great Scott, look here. I shall have a monopoly; they'll all belong to me, won't they? Two thousand

policemen in the city of New York. Wages, four dollars a day. I'll replace them with dead ones at half the

"Oh, prodigious! I never thought of that. Four thousand dollars a day. Now I do begin to see! But will

"Put it any way you want to. Modify it to suit yourself, and my lads shall still be superior. They won't eat,

they won't drinkdon't need those things; they won't wink for cash at gambling dens and unlicensed

rumholes, they won't spark the scullery maids; and moreover the bands of toughs that ambuscade them on

lonely beats, and cowardly shoot and knife them will only damage the uniforms and not live long enough to

"CertainlyI can furnish any line of goods that's wanted. Take the army, for instancenow twentyfive

thousand men; expense, twentytwo millions a year. I will dig up the Romans, I will resurrect the Greeks, I

will furnish the government, for ten millions a year, ten thousand veterans drawn from the victorious legions

of all the agessoldiers that will chase Indians year in and year out on materialized horses, and cost never a

cent for rations or repairs. The armies of Europe cost two billions a year nowI will replace them all for a

billion. I will dig up the trained statesmen of all ages and all climes, and furnish this country with a Congress

that knows enough to come in out of the rain a thing that's never happened yet, since the Declaration of

Independence, and never will happen till these practically dead people are replaced with the genuine article. I

will restock the thrones of Europe with the best brains and the best morals that all the royal sepulchres of all

the centuries can furnishwhich isn't promising very muchand I'll divide the wages and the civil list, fair

"Billions in itbillions; that's what you mean. Why, look here; the thing is so close at hand, so imminent, so

absolutely immediate, that if a man were to come to me now and say, Colonel, I am a little short, and if you

This in answer to a knock. An energetic looking man bustled in with a big pocketbook in his hand, took a

"Seventeenth and last callyou want to out with that three dollars and forty cents this time without fail,

The Colonel began to slap this pocket and that one, and feel here and there and everywhere, muttering:

"What have I done with that wallet?let me seeumnot here, not there Oh, I must have left it in the

"No you won'tyou'll stay right where you are. And you're going to disgorge, toothis time."

Washington innocently offered to go and look. When he was gone the Colonel said:

"The fact is, I've got to throw myself on your indulgence just this once more, Suggs; you see the remittances I

The Colonel glanced about him in despair. Then his face lighted; he ran to the wall and began to dust off a

peculiarly atrocious chromo with his handkerchief. Then he brought it reverently, offered it to the collector,

"Oh, don't speak of it so, I beg you. It's the only really great original, the only supreme example of that

"Illuminated liverpad, that's what it is. Give it heregood day people will think I've robbed a' nigger

Do please cover them updon't let the damp get at them. The delicate tints in the Angelico"

Washington reappeared and said he had looked everywhere, and so had Mrs. Sellers and the servants, but in

vain; and went on to say he wished he could get his eye on a certain man about this timeno need to hunt up

"Onearmed Pete they call him out thereout in the Cherokee country I mean. Robbed the bank in

"Yesa bank, anyway. He was suspected of robbing it. Whoever did it got away with more than twenty

thousand dollars. They offered a reward of five thousand. I believe I saw that very man, on my way east."

"I certainly saw a man on the train, the first day I struck the railroad, that answered the description pretty

"I couldn't. I had to get a requisition, of course. But I meant to stay by him till I got my chance."

"Because he came down to Baltimore in the very train I was in, though I didn't know it in time. As we moved

out of the station I saw him going toward the iron gate with a satchel in his hand."

A. DROP ME A LINE, PETE, EVEN IF YOU HAVE to write with your left hand. Address X. Y. Z., General

"Now I'll go to my room and write it out and enclose a dollar and tell them to print it to the worth of that."

The day wore itself out. After dinner the two friends put in a long and harassing evening trying to decide

what to do with the five thousand dollars reward which they were going to get when they should find One

Armed Pete, and catch him, and prove him to be the right person, and extradite him, and ship him to

Tahlequah in the Indian Territory. But there were so many dazzling openings for ready cash that they found it

impossible to make up their minds and keep them made up. Finally, Mrs. Sellers grew very weary of it all,

Then the matter was dropped, for the time being, and all went to bed. Next morning, being persuaded by

Hawkins, the colonel made drawings and specifications and went down and applied for a patent for his toy

puzzle, and Hawkins took the toy itself and started out to see what chance there might be to do something

with it commercially. He did not have to go far. In a small old wooden shanty which had once been occupied

as a dwelling by some humble negro family he found a keeneyed Yankee engaged in repairing cheap chairs

and other secondhand furniture. This man examined the toy indifferently; attempted to do the puzzle; found

it not so easy as he had expected; grew more interested, and finally emphatically so; achieved a success at

"I couldn't give twenty dollars, if I had to pay cash down; but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make it and market

Washington sighed. Another dream disappeared; no money in the thing. So he said:

"All right, take it at that. Draw me a paper. He went his way with the paper, and dropped the matter out of his

mind dropped it out to make room for further attempts to think out the most promising way to invest his half

of the reward, in case a partnership investment satisfactory to both beneficiaries could not be hit upon.

He had not been very long at home when Sellers arrived sodden with grief and booming with glad

excitementworking both these emotions successfully, sometimes separately, sometimes together. He fell

"Oh, mourn with me my friend, mourn for my desolate house: death has smitten my last kinsman and I am

He turned to his wife, who had entered while this was going on, put his arms about her and said "You will

"It's no great loss. Simon Lathers was a poor wellmeaning useless thing and no account, and his brother

"I am too much prostrated by these conflicting griefs and joys to be able to concentrate my mind upon affairs;

I will ask our good friend here to break the news by wire or post to the Lady Gwendolen and instruct her

"Thereplease do not forget who you are, and who I am; remember your own dignity, be considerate also of

"In private, the ordinary terms of endearment will still be admissible, to some degree; but in public it will be

more becoming if your ladyship will speak to me as my lord, or your lordship, and of me as Rossmore, or the

"But indeed you must, my lovewe must live up to our altered position and submit with what grace we may

"Well, all right, have it your own way; I've never set my wishes against your commands yet, Mulmy lord,

and it's late to begin now, though to my mind it's the rottenest foolishness that ever was."

"ButGwendolen! I don't know how I am ever going to stand that name. Why, a body wouldn't know Sally

Sellers in it. It's too large for her; kind of like a cherub in an ulster, and it's a most outlandish sort of a name,

"That's a true word. She takes to any kind of romantic rubbish like she was born to it. She never got it from

me, that's sure. And sending her to that silly college hasn't helped the matter anyjust the other way.

"Now hear her, Hawkins! RowenaIvanhoe College is the selectest and most aristocratic seat of learning for

young ladies in our country. Under no circumstances can a girl get in there unless she is either very rich and

fashionable or can prove four generations of what may be called American nobility. Castellated

collegebuildingstowers and turrets and an imitation moatand everything about the place named out of

Sir Walter Scott's books and redolent of royalty and state and style; and all the richest girls keep phaetons,

and coachmen in livery, and ridinghorses, with English grooms in plug hats and tightbuttoned coats, and

topboots, and a whiphandle without any whip to it, to ride sixtythree feet behind them"

"And they don't learn a blessed thing, Washington Hawkins, not a single blessed thing but showy rubbish and

unamerican pretentiousness. But send for the Lady Gwendolendo; for I reckon the peerage regulations

require that she must come home and let on to go into seclusion and mourn for those Arkansas blatherskites

"There, theretalk to me in your own tongue, Rossyou don't know any other, and you only botch it when

you try. Oh, don't stareit was a slip, and no crime; customs of a lifetime can't be dropped in a second.

Rossmorethere, now, be appeased, and go along with you and attend to Gwendolen. Are you going to

"I thought as much," my lady muttered, as she left the room. "Wants it so the address will have to appear on

the envelop. It will just make a fool of that child. She'll get it, of course, for if there are any other Sellerses

there they'll not be able to claim it. And just leave her alone to show it around and make the most of it. Well,

maybe she's forgivable for that. She's so poor and they're so rich, of course she's had her share of snubs from

Uncle Dan'l was sent with the telegram; for although a conspicuous object in a corner of the drawingroom

was a telephone hanging on a transmitter, Washington found all attempts to raise the central office vain. The

Colonel grumbled something about its being "always out of order when you've got particular and especial use

for it," but he didn't explain that one of the reasons for this was that the thing was only a dummy and hadn't

any wire attached to it. And yet the Colonel often used itwhen visitors were presentand seemed to get

messages through it. Mourning paper and a seal were ordered, then the friends took a rest.

Next afternoon, while Hawkins, by request, draped Andrew Jackson's portrait with crape, the rightful earl,

wrote off the family bereavement to the usurper in Englanda letter which we have already read. He also,

by letter to the village authorities at Duffy's Corners, Arkansas, gave order that the remains of the late twins

be embalmed by some St. Louis expert and shipped at once to the usurperwith bill. Then he drafted out the

Rossmore arms and motto on a great sheet of brown paper, and he and Hawkins took it to Hawkins's Yankee

furnituremender and at the end of an hour came back with a couple of stunning hatchments, which they

nailed up on the front of the houseattractions calculated to draw, and they did; for it was mainly an idle

and shiftless negro neighborhood, with plenty of ragged children and indolent dogs to spare for a point of

The new earl foundwithout surprisethis society item in the evening paper, and cut it out and scrapbooked

"Receptions! People who don't rightly know him may think he is commonplace, but to my mind he is one of

the most unusual men I ever saw. As for suddenness and capacity in imagining things, his beat don't exist, I

reckon. As like as not it wouldn't have occurred to anybody else to name this poor old rattrap Rossmore

Towers, but it just comes natural to him. Well, no doubt it's a blessed thing to have an imagination that can

always make you satisfied, no matter how you are fixed. Uncle Dave Hopkins used to always say, 'Turn me

into John Calvin, and I want to know which place I'm going to; turn me into Mulberry Sellers and I don't

"It's a beautiful name, beautiful. Pity I didn't think of it before I wrote the usurper. But I'll be ready for him

No answer to that telegram; no arriving daughter. Yet nobody showed any uneasiness or seemed surprised;

that is, nobody but Washington. After three days of waiting, he asked Lady Rossmore what she supposed the

"Oh, it's some notion of hers, you never can tell. She's a Sellers, all throughat least in some of her ways;

and a Sellers can't tell you beforehand what he's going to do, because he don't know himself till he's done it.

She's all right; no occasion to worry about her. When she's ready she'll come or she'll write, and you can't tell

It turned out to be a letter. It was handed in at that moment, and was received by the mother without

trembling hands or feverish eagerness, or any other of the manifestations common in the case of long delayed

answers to imperative telegrams. She polished her glasses with tranquility and thoroughness, pleasantly

"Good hand," he said, "and full of confidence and animation, and goes racing right along. She's brightthat's

"Oh, they're all brightthe Sellerses. Anyway, they would be, if there were any. Even those poor Latherses

would have been bright if they had been Sellerses; I mean full blood. Of course they had a Sellers strain in

thema big strain of it, toobut being a Bland dollar don't make it a dollar just the same."

The seventh day after the date of the telegram Washington came dreaming down to breakfast and was set

Here was the most beautiful young creature he had ever seen in his life. It was Sally Sellers Lady Gwendolen;

she had come in the night. And it seemed to him that her clothes were the prettiest and the daintiest he had

ever looked upon, and the most exquisitely contrived and fashioned and combined, as to decorative

trimmings, and fixings, and melting harmonies of color. It was only a morning dress, and inexpensive, but he

confessed to himself, in the English common to Cherokee Strip, that it was a "corker." And now, as he

perceived, the reason why the Sellers household poverties and sterilities had been made to blossom like the

rose, and charm the eye and satisfy the spirit, stood explained; here was the magician; here in the midst of her

works, and furnishing in her own person the proper accent and climaxing finish of the whole.

"My daughter, Major Hawkinscome home to mourn; flown home at the call of affliction to help the

authors of her being bear the burden of bereavement. She was very fond of the late earlidolized him, sir,

"Hear the man! Mulberry SelMulRossmorehang the troublesome name I can neverif I've heard

"I was thinking ofofI don't know who I was thinking of, and it doesn't make any difference anyway;

"Father, I am going to shake hands with Major Hawkins, and let the introduction work along and catch up at

its leisure. I remember you very well in deed, Major Hawkins, although I was a little child when I saw you

last; and I am very, very glad indeed to see you again and have you in our house as one of us;" and beaming

in his face she finished her cordial shake with the hope that he had not forgotten her.

He was prodigiously pleased by her outspoken heartiness, and wanted to repay her by assuring her that he

remembered her, and not only that but better even than he remembered his own children, but the facts would

not quite warrant this; still, he stumbled through a tangled sentence which answered just as well, since the

purport of it was an awkward and unintentional confession that her extraordinary beauty had so stupefied him

that he hadn't got back to his bearings, yet, and therefore couldn't be certain as to whether he remembered her

In truth the beauty of this fair creature was of a rare type, and may well excuse a moment of our time spent in

its consideration. It did not consist in the fact that she had eyes, nose, mouth, chin, hair, ears, it consisted in

their arrangement. In true beauty, more depends upon right location and judicious distribution of feature than

upon multiplicity of them. So also as regards color. The very combination of colors which in a volcanic

irruption would add beauty to a landscape might detach it from a girl. Such was Gwendolen Sellers.

The family circle being completed by Gwendolen's arrival, it was decreed that the official mourning should

now begin; that it should begin at six o'clock every evening, (the dinner hour,) and end with the dinner.

"It's a grand old line, major, a sublime old line, and deserves to be mourned for, almost royally; almost

imperially, I may say. ErLady Gwendolenbut she's gone; never mind; I wanted my Peerage; I'll fetch it

myself, presently, and show you a thing or two that will give you a realizing idea of what our house is. I've

been glancing through Burke, and I find that of William the Conqueror's sixtyfour natural ah my dear,

would you mind getting me that book? It's on the escritoire in our boudoir. Yes, as I was saying, there's only

St. Albans, Buccleugh and Grafton ahead of us on the listall the rest of the British nobility are in

procession behind us. Ah, thanks, my lady. Now then, we turn to William, and we findletter for XYZ? Oh,

"Last night; but I was asleep before you came, you were out so late; and when I came to breakfast Miss

"Wonderful girl, wonderful; her great origin is detectable in her step, her carriage, her featuresbut what

"M'lord! Just cut it short like that. It's the English way. I'll open it. Ah, now let's see."

The excitement died out of both men's faces. There was a brooding silence for a while, then the younger one

"If we could explain to him in some way, that we are so situated that time is of the utmost importance to

"Yesyes, that's itand so if it would be as convenient for him to come at once it would be a great

accommodation to us, and one which wewhich wewhich wewhwell, which we should sincerely

"Certainlythat'll fetch him. Worded right, if he's a mangot any of the feelings of a man, sympathies and

all that, he'll be here inside of twentyfour hours. Pen and papercome, we'll get right at it."

Between them they framed twentytwo different advertisements, but none was satisfactory. A main fault in

all of them was urgency. That feature was very troublesome: if made prominent, it was calculated to excite

Pete's suspicion; if modified below the suspicionpoint it was flat and meaningless. Finally the Colonel

"I have noticed, in such literary experiences as I have had, that one of the most taking things to do is to

conceal your meaning when you are trying to conceal it. Whereas, if you go at literature with a free

conscience and nothing to conceal, you can turn out a book, every time, that the very elect can't understand.

Then Hawkins resigned also, and the two agreed that they must manage to wait the ten days some how or

other. Next, they caught a ray of cheer: since they had something definite to go upon, now, they could

probably borrow money on the rewardenough, at any rate, to tide them over till they got it; and meantime

the materializing recipe would be perfected, and then good bye to trouble for good and all.

The next day, May the tenth, a couple of things happenedamong others. The remains of the noble Arkansas

twins left our shores for England, consigned to Lord Rossmore, and Lord Rossmore's son, Kirkcudbright

Llanover Marjoribanks Sellers Viscount Berkeley, sailed from Liverpool for America to place the reversion

of the earldom in the hands of the rightful peer, Mulberry Sellers, of Rossmore Towers in the District of

These two impressive shipments would meet and part in midAtlantic, five days later, and give no sign.

In the course of time the twins arrived and were delivered to their great kinsman. To try to describe the rage

of that old man would profit nothing, the attempt would fall so far short of the purpose. However when he

had worn himself out and got quiet again, he looked the matter over and decided that the twins had some

moral rights, although they had no legal ones; they were of his blood, and it could not be decorous to treat

them as common clay. So he laid them with their majestic kin in the Cholmondeley church, with imposing

state and ceremony, and added the supreme touch by officiating as chief mourner himself. But he drew the

Our friends in Washington watched the weary days go by, while they waited for Pete and covered his name

with reproaches because of his calamitous procrastinations. Meantime, Sally Sellers, who was as practical

and democratic as the Lady Gwendolen Sellers was romantic and aristocratic, was leading a life of intense

interest and activity and getting the most she could out of her double personality. All day long in the privacy

of her workroom, Sally Sellers earned bread for the Sellers family; and all the evening Lady Gwendolen

Sellers supported the Rossmore dignity. All day she was American, practically, and proud of the work of her

head and hands and its commercial result; all the evening she took holiday and dwelt in a rich shadowland

peopled with titled and coroneted fictions. By day, to her, the place was a plain, unaffected, ramshackle old

trap just that, and nothing more; by night it was Rossmore Towers. At college she had learned a trade without

knowing it. The girls had found out that she was the designer of her own gowns. She had no idle moments

after that, and wanted none; for the exercise of an extraordinary gift is the supremest pleasure in life, and it

was manifest that Sally Sellers possessed a gift of that sort in the matter of costumedesigning. Within three

days after reaching home she had hunted up some work; before Pete was yet due in Washington, and before

the twins were fairly asleep in English soil, she was already nearly swamped with work, and the sacrificing of

"She's a brick," said Rossmore to the Major; "just her father all over: prompt to labor with head or hands, and

not ashamed of it; capable, always capable, let the enterprise be what it may; successful by nature don't

know what defeat is; thus, intensely and practically American by inhaled nationalism, and at the same time

intensely and aristocratically European by inherited nobility of blood. Just me, exactly: Mulberry Sellers in

matter of finance and invention; after office hours, what do you find? The same clothes, yes, but what's in

The two friends had haunted the general postoffice daily. At last they had their reward. Toward evening the

20th of May, they got a letter for XYZ. It bore the Washington postmark; the note itself was not dated. It

"Because that's no place for a seance. Nothing friendly, nothing sociable about it. And at the same time, a

body that wanted to know who was roosting on that ashbarrel without exposing himself by going near it, or

seeming to be interested in it, could just stand on the street corner and take a glance down the alley and

"Yes, his idea is plain, now. He seems to be a man that can't be candid and straightforward. He acts as if he

"Yes, he has; but he didn't mean to. That alley is a lonesome little pocket that runs along one side of the New

"Why, I just know it. He's got a room that's just across from that lamp post. He's going to sit there perfectly

comfortable behind his shutters at 10.22 tomorrow, and when he sees us sitting on the ashbarrel, he'll say

to himself, 'I saw one of those fellows on the train'and then he'll pack his satchel in half a minute and ship

"Because you won't be holding the ash barrel down, it'll be me. You'll be coming in with an officer and a

requisition in plain clothesthe officer, I meanthe minute you see him arrive and open up a talk with me."

"Well, what a head you have got, Colonel Sellers! I never should have thought of that in the world."

"Neither would any earl of Rossmore, betwixt William's contribution and Mulberryas earl; but it's office

hours, now, you see, and the earl in me sleeps. ComeI'll show you his very room."

They reached the neighborhood of the New Gadsby about nine in the evening, and passed down the alley to

"There you are," said the colonel, triumphantly, with a wave of his hand which took in the whole side of the

"Well, butwhy, Colonel, it's six stories high. I don't quite make out which window you"

"All the windows, all of them. Let him have his. choiceI'm indifferent, now that I have located him. You go

The earl drifted here and there through the swarming lobby, and finally took a waiting position in the

neighborhood of the elevator. During an hour crowds went up and crowds came down; and all complete as to

limbs; but at last the watcher got a glimpse of a figure that was satisfactory got a glimpse of the back of it,

though he had missed his chance at the face through waning alertness. The glimpse revealed a cowboy hat,

and below it a plaided sack of rather loud pattern, and an empty sleeve pinned up to the shoulder. Then the

elevator snatched the vision aloft and the watcher fled away in joyful excitement, and rejoined the fellow

"We've got him, Majorgot him sure! I've seen himseen him good; and I don't care where or when that

man approaches me backwards, I'll recognize him every time. We're all right. Now for the requisition."

They got it, after the delays usual in such cases. By half past eleven they were at home and happy, and went

Among the elevator load which had the suspect for fellowpassenger was a young kinsman of Mulberry

Sellers, but Mulberry was not aware of it and didn't see him. It was Viscount Berkeley.

Arrived in his room Lord Berkeley made preparations for that first and last and allthetime duty of the

visiting Englishmanthe jotting down in his diary of his "impressions" to date. His preparations consisted in

ransacking his "box" for a pen. There was a plenty of steel pens on his table with the ink bottle, but he was

English. The English people manufacture steel pens for nineteentwentieths of the globe, but they never use

any themselves. They use exclusively the prehistoric quill. My lord not only found a quill pen, but the best

one he had seen in several yearsand after writing diligently for some time, closed with the following entry:

"All attempts to mingle with the common people and became permanently one of them are going to fail,

unless I can get rid of it, disappear from it, and reappear with the solid protection of a new name. I am

astonished and pained to see how eager the most of these Americans are to get acquainted with a lord, and

how diligent they are in pushing attentions upon him. They lack English servility, it is truebut they could

acquire it, with practice. My quality travels ahead of me in the most mysterious way. I write my family name

without additions, on the register of this hotel, and imagine that I am going to pass for an obscure and

unknown wanderer, but the clerk promptly calls out, 'Front! show his lordship to foureightytwo!' and

before I can get to the lift there is a reporter trying to interview me as they call it. This sort of thing shall

cease at once. I will hunt up the American Claimant the first thing in the morning, accomplish my mission,

He left his diary on the table, where it would be handy in case any new "impressions" should wake him up in

the night, then he went to bed and presently fell asleep. An hour or two passed, and then he came slowly to

consciousness with a confusion of mysterious and augmenting sounds hammering at the gates of his brain for

admission; the next moment he was sharply awake, and those sounds burst with the rush and roar and boom

of an undammed freshet into his ears. Banging and slamming of shutters; smashing of windows and the

ringing clash of falling glass; clatter of flying feet along the halls; shrieks, supplications, dumb moanings of

despair, within, hoarse shouts of command outside; cracklings and mappings, and the windy roar of

The cry passed on, and the banging. Lord Berkeley sprang out of bed and moved with all possible speed

toward the clothespress in the darkness and the gathering smoke, but fell over a chair and lost his bearings.

He groped desperately about on his hands, and presently struck his head against the table and was deeply

grateful, for it gave him his bearings again, since it stood close by the door. He seized his most precious

He ran down the deserted hall toward the red lamp which he knew indicated the place of a fireescape. The

door of the room beside it was open. In the room the gas was burning full head; on a chair was a pile of

clothing. He ran to the window, could not get it up, but smashed it with a chair, and stepped out on the

landing of the fireescape; below him was a crowd of men, with a sprinkling of women and youth, massed in

a ruddy light. Must he go down in his spectral night dress? Nothis side of the house was not yet on fire

except at the further end; he would snatch on those clothes. Which he did. They fitted well enough, though a

trifle loosely, and they were just a shade loud as to pattern. Also as to hatwhich was of a new breed to him,

Buffalo Bill not having been to England yet. One side of the coat went on, but the other side refused; one of

its sleeves was turned up and stitched to the shoulder. He started down without waiting to get it loose, made

the trip successfully, and was promptly hustled outside the limitrope by the police.

The cowboy hat and the coat but half on made him too much of a centre of attraction for comfort, although

nothing could be more profoundly respectful, not to say deferential, than was the manner of the crowd toward

him. In his mind he framed a discouraged remark for early entry in his diary: "It is of no use; they know a

lord through any disguise, and show awe of himeven something very like fear, indeed."

Presently one of the gaping and adoring halfcircle of boys ventured a timid question. My lord answered it.

Another mental note to be preserved for the diary: "Cowboy. Now what might a cowboy be? Perhaps" But

the viscount perceived that some more questions were about to be asked; so he worked his way out of the

crowd, released the sleeve, put on the coat and wandered away to seek a humble and obscure lodging. He

In the morning, he examined his clothes. They were rather assertive, it seemed to him, but they were new and

clean, at any rate. There was considerable property in the pockets. Item, five onehundred dollar bills. Item,

near fifty dollars in small bills and silver. Plug of tobacco. Hymnbook, which refuses to open; found to

contain whiskey. Memorandum book bearing no name. Scattering entries in it, recording in a sprawling,

ignorant hand, appointments, bets, horsetrades, and so on, with people of strange, hyphenated

nameSixFingered Jake, YoungMan afraidof hisShadow, and the like. No letters, no documents.

The young man musesmaps out his course. His letter of credit is burned; he will borrow the small bills and

the silver in these pockets, apply part of it to advertising for the owner, and use the rest for sustenance while

he seeks work. He sends out for the morning paper, next, and proceeds to read about the fire. The biggest line

in the displayhead announces his own death! The body of the account furnishes all the particulars; and tells

how, with the inherited heroism of his caste, he went on saving women and children until escape for himself

was impossible; then with the eyes of weeping multitudes upon him, he stood with folded arms and sternly

awaited the approach of the devouring fiend; "and so standing, amid a tossing sea of flame and onrushing

billows of smoke, the noble young heir of the great house of Rossmore was caught up in a whirlwind of fiery

The thing was so fine and generous and knightly that it brought the moisture to his eyes. Presently he said to

himself: "What to do is as plain as day, now. My Lord Berkeley is deadlet him stay so. Died creditably,

too; that will make the calamity the easier for my father. And I don't have to report to the American Claimant,

now. Yes, nothing could be better than the way matters have turned out. I have only to furnish myself with a

new name, and take my new start in life totally untrammeled. Now I breathe my first breath of real freedom;

and how fresh and breezy and inspiring it is! At last I am a man! a man on equal terms with my neighbor; and

by my manhood; and by it alone, I shall rise and be seen of the world, or I shall sink from sight and deserve

it. This is the gladdest day, and the proudest, that ever poured it's sun upon my head!"

"He's gone!the bright, the young, the gifted, the noblest of his illustrious racegone! gone up in flames

"My precious, precious young kinsmanKirkcudbright Llanover Marjoribanks Sellers Viscount Berkeley,

"Right here in Washington; where he arrived from England last night, the papers say."

"Hope! Well, I should say! Oh, we can't spare him! We can better afford to lose a million viscounts than our

They searched the paper diligently, and were appalled to find that a one armed man had been seen flying

along one of the halls of the hotel in his underclothing and apparently out of his head with fright, and as he

would listen to no one and persisted in making for a stairway which would carry him to certain death, his case

"Poor fellow," sighed Hawkins; "and he had friends so near. I wish we hadn't come away from theremaybe

"His being dead doesn't matter. He was uncertain before. We've got him sure, this time."

"Give me your hand, and let me have the comfort of shaking it. I was perishing, and you have put new life

"It will take a little time, Hawkins, but there's no hurry, none in the worldin the circumstances. And of

course certain duties have devolved upon me now, which necessarily claim my first attention. This poor

"Why, yes, I am sorry for my heartlessness, and you smitten with this new family affliction. Of course you

"IIwell, I wasn't meaning just that, but,why, what am I thinking of! Of course I must materialize him.

Oh, Hawkins, selfishness is the bottom trait in human nature; I was only thinking that now, with the usurper's

heir out of the way But you'll forgive that momentary weakness, and forget it. Don't ever remember it against

me that Mulberry Sellers was once mean enough to think the thought that I was thinking. I'll materialise

himI will, on my honorand I'd do it were he a thousand heirs jammed into one and stretching in a solid

rank from here to the stolen estates of Rossmore, and barring the road forever to the rightful earl!

"Hawkins, my boy, it just occurs to mea thing I keep forgetting to mentiona matter that we've got to be

"We must keep absolutely still about these materializations. Mind, not a hint of them must escapenot a

hint. To say nothing of how my wife and daughterhighstrung, sensitive organizationsmight feel about

"That's true, they wouldn't. It's well you spoke, for I'm not naturally discreet with my tongue when I'm not

Sellers reached out and touched a bellbutton in the wall; set his eye upon the rear door and waited; touched

it again and waited; and just as Hawkins was remarking admiringly that the Colonel was the most progressive

and most alert man he had ever seen, in the matter of impressing into his service every modern convenience

the moment it was invented, and always keeping breast to breast with the drum major in the great work of

material civilization, he forsook the button (which hadn't any wire attached to it,) rang a vast dinner bell

which stood on the table, and remarked that he had tried that newfangled dry battery, now, to his entire

"Nothing would do Graham Bell but I must try it; said the mere fact of my trying it would secure public

confidence, and get it a chance to show what it could do. I told him that in theory a dry battery was just a

curled darling and no mistake, but when it come to practice, sho!and here's the result. Was I right? What

should you say, Washington Hawkins? You've seen me try that button twice. Was I right?that's the idea.

"Well, you know how I feel about you, Colonel Sellers, and always have felt. It seems to me that you always

know everything about everything. If that man had known you as I know you he would have taken your

"Blame my skin if I hain't gone en forgit dat name agin! Come heah, Jinnyrun heah, honey."

"You take dishyer order de lord gwine to give you I's gwine down suller and study dat name tell I git it."

"Dat don't make no diffunce. When a bell ring for anybody, en old marster tell me to"

The noise of the quarreling presently sank to a murmur in the distance, and the earl added: "That's a trouble

with old house servants that were your slaves once and have been your personal friends always."

"Members of the family is just what they becomeTHE members of the family, in fact. And sometimes

master and mistress of the household. These two are mighty good and loving and faithful and honest, but

hang it, they do just about as they please, they chip into a conversation whenever they want to, and the plain

It was a random remark, but it gave him an ideahowever, nothing could happen without that result.

"What I wanted, Hawkins, was to send for the family and break the news to them."

"O, never mind bothering with the servants, then. I will go and bring them down."

"Yes," he said to himself, "when I've got the materializing down to a certainty, I will get Hawkins to kill

them, and after that they will be under better control. Without doubt a materialized negro could easily be

hypnotized into a state resembling silence. And this could be made permanentyes, and also modifiable, at

willsometimes very silent, sometimes turn on more talk, more action, more emotion, according to what

The two ladies entered, now, with Hawkins, and the two negroes followed, uninvited, and fell to brushing and

dusting around, for they perceived that there was matter of interest to the fore, and were willing to find out

Sellers broke the, news with stateliness and ceremony, first warning the ladies, with gentle art, that a pang of

peculiar sharpness was about to be inflicted upon their heartshearts still sore from a like hurt, still

lamenting a like lossthen he took the paper, and with trembling lips and with tears in his voice he gave

The result was a very genuine outbreak of sorrow and sympathy from all the hearers. The elder lady cried,

thinking how proud that greathearted young hero's mother would be, if she were living, and how

unappeasable her grief; and the two old servants cried with her, and spoke out their applauses and their

pitying lamentations with the eloquent sincerity and simplicity native to their race. Gwendolen was touched,

and the romantic side of her nature was strongly wrought upon. She said that such a nature as that young

man's was rarely and truly noble, and nearly perfect; and that with nobility of birth added it was entirely

perfect. For such a man she could endure all things, suffer all things, even to the sacrificing of her life. She

wished she could have seen him; the slightest, the most momentary, contact with such a spirit would have

ennobled her own character and made ignoble thoughts and ignoble acts thereafter impossible to her forever.

"Yes, that is, they've found several. It must be one of them, but none of them are recognizable."

"I am going down there and identify one of them and send it home to the stricken father."

"Iwell, you know it says none of them are recognizable. I'll send his father one of themthere's probably

Gwendolen knew it was not worth while to argue the matter further, since her father's mind was made up and

there was a chance for him to appear upon that sad scene down yonder in an authentic and official way. So

The earl and Washington started on the sorrowful errand, talking as they walked.

"Oh, no they escaped; they always do; but there's never a one of them that knows enough to fetch out her

"Strangeit's the most unaccountable thing in the world. Experience teaches them nothing; they can't seem

to learn anything except out of a book. In some uses there's manifestly a fatality about it. For instance, take

What'shername, that plays those sensational thunder and lightning parts. She's got a perfectly immense

reputationdraws like a dogfightand it all came from getting burnt out in hotels."

"It didn'tit only made her name familiar. People want to see her play because her name is familiar, but they

don't know what made it familiar, because they don't remember. First, she was at the bottom of the ladder,

"Yesthings to fat up her spindles with so as to be plump and attractive. Well, she got burnt out in a hotel and

"Goodness knowsgiven to her, no doubt, by spoony young flats and sappy old baldheads in the front row.

All the papers were full of it. She struck for higher pay and got it. Well, she got burnt out again and lost all

"Well, if hotel fires are all she's got to depend on to keep up her name, it's a pretty precarious kind of a

"Not with her. No, anything but that. Because she's so lucky; born lucky, I reckon. Every time there's a hotel

fire she's in it. She's always thereand if she can't be there herself, her diamonds are. Now you can't make

"Quarts, she's lost bushels of them. It's got so that the hotels are superstitious about her. They won't let her in.

They think there will be a fire; and besides, if she's there it cancels the insurance. She's been waning a little

"I think she's a fool. If I had $60,000 worth of diamonds I wouldn't trust them in a hotel."

"I wouldn't either; but you can't teach an actress that. This one's been burnt out thirtyfive times. And yet if

there's a hotel fire in San Francisco tonight she's got to bleed again, you mark my words. Perfect ass; they

When they arrived at the scene of the fire the poor old earl took one glimpse at the melancholy morgue and

"It is too true, Hawkinsrecognition is impossible, not one of the five could be identified by its nearest

However, the officers assured the earlfor they knew him, everybody in Washington knew himthat the

position in which these bodies were found made it impossible that any one of them could be that of his noble

young kinsman. They pointed out the spot where, if the newspaper account was correct, he must have sunk

down to destruction; and at a wide distance from this spot they showed him where the young man must have

gone down in case he was suffocated in his room; and they showed him still a third place, quite remote,

where he might possibly have found his death if perchance he tried to escape by the side exit toward the rear.

"As it turns out there was something prophetic in my fears. Yes, it's a matter of ashes. Will you kindly step to

Reverently they got a basket of ashes from each of those now hallowed spots, and carried them home to

consult as to the best manner of forwarding them to England, and also to give them an opportunity to "lie in

state,"a mark of respect which the colonel deemed obligatory, considering the high rank of the deceased.

They set the baskets on the table in what was formerly the library, drawingroom and workshopnow the

Hall of Audienceand went up stairs to the lumber room to see if they could find a British flag to use as a

part of the outfit proper to the lying in state. A moment later, Lady Rossmore came in from the street and

caught sight of the baskets just as old Jinny crossed her field of vision. She quite lost her patience and said:

"Well, what will you do next? What in the world possessed you to clutter up the parlor table with these

"Ashes?" And she came to look. She put up her hands in pathetic astonishment. "Well, I never see de like!"

"Who, me? Clah to goodness it's de fust time I've sot eyes on 'em, Miss Polly. Dat's Dan'l. Dat ole moke is

"Dey ain't no way to 'splain dat. Wen hit's one er deseyer common 'currences, a body kin reckon maybe de

"Oh!" and a shudder shook Lady Rossmore to her foundations. "I see it all. Keep away from themthey're

She was alone with the ashesalone before she could take half a breath. Then she went after Mulberry

Sellers, purposing to make short work with his program, whatever it might be; "for," said she, "when his

sentimentals are up, he's a numskull, and there's no knowing what extravagance he'll contrive, if you let him

alone." She found him. He had found the flag and was bringing it. When she heard that his idea was to have

the remains "lie in state, and invite the government and the public," she broke it up. She said:

"Your intentions are all rightthey always areyou want to do honour to the remains, and surely nobody

can find any fault with that, for he was your kin; but you are going the wrong way about it, and you will see it

yourself if you stop and think. You can't file around a basket of ashes trying to look sorry for it and make a

sight that is really solemn, because the solemner it is, the more it isn'tanybody can see that. It would be so

with one basket; it would be three times so with three. Well, it stands to reason that if it wouldn't be solemn

with one mourner, it wouldn't be with a processionand there would be five thousand people here. I don't

know but it would be pretty near ridiculous; I think it would. No, Mulberry, they can't lie in stateit would

So he gave it up; and not reluctantly, when he had thought it over and realized how right her instinct was. He

concluded to merely sit up with the remains just himself and Hawkins. Even this seemed a doubtful attention,

to his wife, but she offered no objection, for it was plain that he had a quite honest and simplehearted desire

to do the friendly and honourable thing by these forlorn poor relics which could command no hospitality in

this far off land of strangers but his. He draped the flag about the baskets, put some crape on the doorknob,

"Therehe is as comfortable, now, as we can make him in the circumstances. Exceptyes, we must strain a

The wife felt that the housefront was standing about all it could well stand, in that way; the prospect of

another stunning decoration of that nature distressed her, and she wished the thing had not occurred to him..

"But I thought such an honour as that wasn't allowed to any but very very near relations, who"

"Right, you are quite right, my lady, perfectly right; but there aren't any nearer relatives than relatives by

usurpation. We cannot avoid it; we are slaves of aristocratic custom and must submit."

The hatchments were unnecessarily generous, each being as large as a blanket, and they were unnecessarily

volcanic, too, as to variety and violence of color, but they pleased the earl's barbaric eye, and they satisfied

his taste for symmetry and completeness, too, for they left no waste room to speak of on the housefront.

Lady Rossmore and her daughter assisted at the sittingup till near midnight, and helped the gentlemen to

consider what ought to be done next with the remains. Rossmore thought they ought to be sent home with a

"To his father? Oh, noby no means. Think of the shock. Noone at a time; break it to him by degrees."

"Yes, my daughter. Remember, you are young and elastic, but he is old. To send him the whole at once might

well be more than he could bear. But mitigatedone basket at a time, with restful intervals between, he

would be used to it by the time he got all of him. And sending him in three ships is safer anyway. On account

"I don't like the idea, father. If I were his father it would be dreadful to have him coming in thatin that"

"On the installment plan," suggested Hawkins, gravely, and proud of being able to help.

"Yesdreadful to have him coming in that incoherent way. There would be the strain of suspense upon me

all the time. To have so depressing a thing as a funeral impending, delayed, waiting, unaccomplished"

"Oh, no, my child," said the earl reassuringly, "there would be nothing of that kind; so old a gentleman could

"How is that going to make it easier for him? It's a total mistake, to my mind. He ought to be buried all at

"You are all wrong," said the earl. "You will see it yourselves, if you think. Only one of these baskets has got

"Very well, then," said Lady Rossmore, "the thing is perfectly simple bury that one."

"But it is not simple," said the earl, "because we do not know which basket he is in. We know he is in one of

them, but that is all we do know. You see now, I reckon, that I was right; it takes three funerals, there is no

"And three graves and three monuments and three inscriptions?" asked the daughter.

"It could not be done so, father. Each of the inscriptions would give the same name and the same facts and

say he was under each and all of these monuments, and that would not answer at all."

"No," he said, "that is an objection. That is a serious objection. I see no way out."

"It solves the whole problem," he said. "One ship, one funeral, one grave, one monumentit is admirably

conceived. It does you honor, Major Hawkins, it has relieved me of a most painful embarrassment and

distress, and it will save that poor stricken old father much suffering. Yes, he shall go over in one basket."

"Then wait till he sends for his son's remains. If you do that, you will never have to give him the last and

sharpest pain a parent can know I mean, the certainty that his son is dead. For he will never send."

"Because to sendand find out the truthwould rob him of the one precious thing left him, the uncertainty,

the dim hope that maybe, after all, his boy escaped, and he will see him again some day."

"He won't let himself believe the papers; he'll argue against anything and everything that proves his son is

dead; and he will keep that up and live on it, and on nothing else till he dies. But if the remains should

"Oh, my God, they never shall! Polly, you've saved me from a crime, and I'll bless you for it always. Now we

The young Lord Berkeley, with the fresh air of freedom in his nostrils, was feeling invincibly strong for his

new career; and yetand yetif the fight should prove a very hard one at first, very discouraging, very

taxing on untoughened moral sinews, he might in some weak moment want to retreat. Not likely, of course,

but possibly that might happen. And so on the whole it might be pardonable caution to burn his bridges

behind him. Oh, without doubt. He must not stop with advertising for the owner of that money, but must put

it where he could not borrow from it himself, meantime, under stress of circumstances. So he went down

town, and put in his advertisement, then went to a bank and handed in the $500 for deposit.

He hesitated and colored a little; he had forgotten to make a selection. He now brought out the first one that

The first step was accomplished. The money was still under his command and at his disposal, but the next

step would dispose of that difficulty. He went to another bank and drew upon the first bank for the 500 by

check. The money was collected and deposited a second time to the credit of Howard Tracy. He was asked to

leave a few samples of his signature, which he did. Then he went away, once more proud and of perfect

"No help for me now, for henceforth I couldn't draw that money without identification, and that is become

legally impossible. No resources to fall back on. It is work or starve from now to the end. I am readyand

During the, evening, while he was wandering about in one of the outlying districts of the city, he came across

a small brick church, with a bill posted there with these words printed on it: "MECHANICS' CLUB

DEBATE. ALL INVITED." He saw people, apparently mainly of the working class, entering the place, and

he followed and took his seat. It was a humble little church, quite bare as to ornamentation. It had painted

pews without cushions, and no pulpit, properly speaking, but it had a platform. On the platform sat the

chairman, and by his side sat a man who held a manuscript in his hand and had the waiting look of one who is

going to perform the principal part. The church was soon filled with a quiet and orderly congregation of

"The essayist for this evening is an old member of our club whom you all know, Mr. Parker, assistant editor

of the Daily Democrat. The subject of his essay is the American Press, and he will use as his text a couple of

paragraphs taken from Mr. Matthew Arnold's new book. He asks me to read these texts for him. The first is

"'Goethe says somewhere that "the thrill of awe," that is to say, REVERENCE, is the best thing humanity

"'I should say that if one were searching for the best means to efface and kill in a whole nation the discipline

Mr. Parker rose and bowed, and was received with warm applause. He then began to read in a good round

resonant voice, with clear enunciation and careful attention to his pauses and emphases. His points were

The essayist took the position that the most important function of a public journal in any country was the

propagating of national feeling and pride in the national namethe keeping the people "in love with their

country and its institutions, and shielded from the allurements of alien and inimical systems." He sketched the

manner in which the reverent Turkish or Russian journalist fulfilled this functionthe one assisted by the

prevalent "discipline of respect" for the bastinado, the other for Siberia. Continuing, he said:

The chief function of an English journal is that of all other journals the world over: it must keep the public

eye fixed admiringly upon certain things, and keep it diligently diverted from certain others. For instance, it

must keep the public eye fixed admiringly upon the glories of England, a processional splendor stretching its

receding line down the hazy vistas of time, with the mellowed lights of a thousand years glinting from its

banners; and it must keep it diligently diverted from the fact that all these glories were for the enrichment and

aggrandizement of the petted and privileged few, at cost of the blood and sweat and poverty of the

unconsidered masses who achieved them but might not enter in and partake of them. It must keep the public

eye fixed in loving and awful reverence upon the throne as a sacred thing, and diligently divert it from the

fact that no throne was ever set up by the unhampered vote of a majority of any nation; and that hence no

throne exists that has a right to exist, and no symbol of it, flying from any flagstaff, is righteously entitled to

wear any device but the skull and crossbones of that kindred industry which differs from royalty only

businesswisemerely as retail differs from wholesale. It must keep the citizen's eye fixed in reverent docility

upon that curious invention of machine politics, an Established Church, and upon that bald contradiction of

common justice, a hereditary nobility; and diligently divert it from the fact that the one damns him if he

doesn't wear its collar, and robs him under the gentle name of taxation whether he wears it or not, and the

The essayist thought that Mr. Arnold, with his trained eye and intelligent observation, ought to have

perceived that the very quality which he so regretfully missed from our pressrespectfulness, reverence

was exactly the thing which would make our press useless to us if it had itrob it of the very thing which

differentiates it from all other journalism in the world and makes it distinctively and preciously American, its

frank and cheerful irreverence being by all odds the most valuable of all its qualities. "For its

missionoverlooked by Mr. Arnoldis to stand guard over a nation's liberties, not its humbugs and shams."

He thought that if during fifty years the institutions of the old world could be exposed to the fire of a flouting

and scoffing press like ours, "monarchy and its attendant crimes would disappear from Christendom."

Monarchists might doubt this; then "why not persuade the Czar to give it a trial in Russia?" Concluding, he

Well, the charge is, that our press has but little of that old world quality, reverence. Let us be candidly

grateful that it is so. With its limited reverence it at least reveres the things which this nation reveres, as a

rule, and that is sufficient: what other people revere is fairly and properly matter of light importance to us.

Our press does not reverence kings, it does not reverence so called nobilities, it does not reverence

established ecclesiastical slaveries, it does not reverence laws which rob a younger son to fatten an elder one,

it does not reverence any fraud or sham or infamy, howsoever old or rotten or holy, which sets one citizen

above his neighbor by accident of birth: it does not reverence any law or custom, howsoever old or decayed

or sacred, which shuts against the best man in the land the best place in the land and the divine right to prove

property and go up and occupy it. In the sense of the poet Goethethat meek idolater of provincial three

carat royalty and nobilityour press is certainly bankrupt in the "thrill of awe"otherwise reverence;

reverence for nickel plate and brummagem. Let us sincerely hope that this fact will remain a fact forever: for

to my mind a discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human libertyeven as the other

thing is the creator, nurse, and steadfast protector of all forms of human slavery, bodily and mental.

Tracy said to himself, almost shouted to himself, "I'm glad I came to this country. I was right. I was right to

seek out a land where such healthy principles and theories are in men's hearty and minds. Think of the

innumerable slaveries imposed by misplaced reverence! How well he brought that out, and how true it is.

There's manifestly prodigious force in reverence. If you can get a man to reverence your ideals, he's your

slave. Oh, yes, in all the ages the peoples of Europe have been diligently taught to avoid reasoning about the

shams of monarchy and nobility, been taught to avoid examining them, been taught to reverence them; and

now, as a natural result, to reverence them is second nature. In order to shock them it is sufficient to inject a

thought of the opposite kind into their dull minds. For ages, any expression of so called irreverence from

their lips has been sin and crime. The sham and swindle of all this is apparent the moment one reflects that he

is himself the only legitimately qualified judge of what is entitled to reverence and what is not. Come, I

hadn't thought of that before, but it is true, absolutely true. What right has Goethe, what right has Arnold,

what right has any dictionary, to define the word Irreverence for me? What their ideals are is nothing to me.

So long as I reverence my own ideals my whole duty is done, and I commit no profanation if I laugh at theirs.

I may scoff at other people's ideals as much as I want to. It is my right and my privilege. No man has any

Tracy was expecting to hear the essay debated, but this did not happen. The chairman said, by way of

"I would say, for the information of the strangers present here, that in accordance with our custom the subject

of this meeting will be debated at the next meeting of the club. This is in order to enable our members to

prepare what they may wish to say upon the subject with pen and paper, for we are mainly mechanics and

Many brief papers were now read, and several offhand speeches made in discussion of the essay read at the

last meeting of the club, which had been a laudation, by some visiting professor, of college culture, and the

grand results flowing from it to the nation. One of the papers was read by a man approaching middle age,

who said he hadn't had a college education, that he had got his education in a printing office, and had

graduated from there into the patent office, where he had been a clerk now for a great many years. Then he

The essayist contrasted the America of today with the America of bygone times, and certainly the result is

the exhibition of a mighty progress. But I think he a little overrated the collegeculture share in the

production of that result. It can no doubt be easily shown that the colleges have contributed the intellectual

part of this progress, and that that part is vast; but that the material progress has been immeasurably vaster, I

think you will concede. Now I have been looking over a list of inventorsthe creators of this amazing

material developmentand I find that they were not collegebred men. Of course there are exceptionslike

Professor Henry of Princeton, the inventor of Mr. Morse's system of telegraphybut these exceptions are

few. It is not overstatement to say that the imaginationstunning material development of this century, the

only century worth living in since time itself was invented, is the creation of men not collegebred. We think

we see what these inventors have done: no, we see only the visible vast frontage of their work; behind it is

their far vaster work, and it is invisible to the careless glance. They have reconstructed this nation made it

over, that isand metaphorically speaking, have multiplied its numbers almost beyond the power of figures

to express. I will explain what I mean. What constitutes the population of a land?. Merely the numberable

packages of meat and bones in it called by courtesy men and women? Shall a million ounces of brass and a

million ounces of gold be held to be of the same value? Take a truer standard: the measure of a man's

contributing capacity to his time and his peoplethe work he can doand then number the population of

this country today, as multiplied by what a man can now do, more than his grandfather could do. By this

standard of measurement, this nation, two or three generations ago, consisted of mere cripples, paralytics,

dead men, as compared with the men of today. In 1840 our population was 17,000,000. By way of rude but

striking illustration, let us consider, for argument's sake, that four of these millions consisted of aged people,

little children, and other incapables, and that the remaining 13,000,000 were divided and employed as

2,000,000 as ginners of cotton. 6,000,000 (women) as stockingknitters. 2,000,000 (women) as

threadspinners. 500,000 as screw makers. 400,000 as reapers, binders, etc. 1,000,000 as corn shellers.

Now the deductions which I am going to append to these figures may sound extravagant, but they are not. I

take them from Miscellaneous Documents No. 50, second session 45th Congress, and they are official and

trustworthy. Today, the work of those 2,000,000 cottonginners is done by 2,000 men; that of the 6,000,000

stockingknitters is done by 3,000 boys; that of the 2,000,000 threadspinners is done by 1,000 girls; that of

the 500,000 screw makers is done by 500 girls; that of the 400,000 reapers, binders, etc., is done by 4,000

boys; that of the 1,000,000 corn shelters is done by 7,500 men; that of the 40,000 weavers is done by 1,200

men; and that of the 1,000 stitchers of shoe soles is done by 6 men. To bunch the figures, 17,900 persons

today do the abovework, whereas fifty years ago it would have taken thirteen millions of persons to do it.

Now then, how many of that ignorant raceour fathers and grandfatherswith their ignorant methods,

would it take to do our work today? It would take forty thousand millionsa hundred times the swarming

population of Chinatwenty times the present population of the globe. You look around you and you see a

nation of sixty millions apparently; but secreted in their hands and brains, and invisible to your eyes, is the

true population of this Republic, and it numbers forty billions! It is the stupendous creation of those humble

"How grand that is!" said Tracy, as he wended homeward. "What a civilization it is, and what prodigious

results these are! and brought about almost wholly by common men; not by Oxfordtrained aristocrats, but

men who stand shoulder to shoulder in the humble ranks of life and earn the bread that they eat. Again, I'm

glad I came. I have found a country at last where one may start fair, and breast to breast with his fellow man,

rise by his own efforts, and be something in the world and be proud of that something; not be something

During the first few days he kept the fact diligently before his mind that he was in a land where there was

"work and bread for all." In fact, for convenience' sake he fitted it to a little tune and hummed it to himself;

but as time wore on the fact itself began to take on a doubtful look, and next the tune got fatigued and

presently ran down and stopped. His first effort was to get an upper clerkship in one of the departments,

where his Oxford education could come into play and do him service. But he stood no chance whatever.

There, competency was no recommendation; political backing, without competency, was worth six of it. He

was glaringly English, and that was necessarily against him in the political centre of a nation where both

parties prayed for the Irish cause on the housetop and blasphemed it in the cellar. By his dress he was a

cowboy; that won him respectwhen his back was not turnedbut it couldn't get a clerkship for him. But

he had said, in a rash moment, that he would wear those clothes till the owner or the owner's friends caught

sight of them and asked for that money, and his conscience would not let him retire from that engagement

At the end of a week things were beginning to wear rather a startling look. He had hunted everywhere for

work, descending gradually the scale of quality, until apparently he had sued for all the various kinds df work

a man without a special calling might hope to be able to do, except ditching and the other coarse manual

He was mechanically turning over the leaves of his diary, meanwhile, and now his eye fell upon the first

"I myself did not doubt my stamina before, nobody could doubt it now, if they could see how I am housed,

and realise that I feel absolutely no disgust with these quarters, but am as serenely content with them as any

dog would be in a similar kennel. Terms, twentyfive dollars a week. I said I would start at the bottom. I

"What have I been thinking of! This the bottom! Mooning along a whole week, and these terrific expenses

He settled up at once and went forth to find less sumptuous lodgings. He had to wander far and seek with

diligence, but he succeeded. They made him pay in advancefour dollars and a half; this secured both bed

and food for a week. The goodnatured, hardworked landlady took him up three flights of narrow,

uncarpeted stairs and delivered him into his room. There were two doublebedsteads in it, and one single

one. He would be allowed to sleep alone in one of the double beds until some new boarder should come, but

So he would presently be required to sleep with some stranger! The thought of it made him sick. Mrs. Marsh,

the landlady, was very friendly and hoped he would like her housethey all liked it, she said.

"And they're a very nice set of boys. They carry on a good deal, but that's their fun. You see, this room opens

right into this back one, and sometimes they're all in one and sometimes in the other; and hot nights they all

sleep on the roof when it don't rain. They get out there the minute it's hot enough. The season's so early that

they've already had a night or two up there. If you'd like to go up and pick out a place, you can. You'll find

chalk in the side of the chimney where there's a brick wanting. You just take the chalk andbut of course

"Why, of course you haven'twhat am I thinking of? Plenty of room on the Plains without chalking, I'll be

bound. Well, you just chalk out a place the size of a blanket anywhere on the tin that ain't already marked off,

you know, and that's your property. You and your bedmate take turn about carrying up the blanket and

pillows and fetching them down again; or one carries them up and the other fetches them down, you fix it the

way you like, you know. You'll like the boys, they're everlasting sociableexcept the printer. He's the one

that sleeps in that single bedthe strangest creature; why, I don't believe you could get that man to sleep with

another man, not if the house was afire. Mind you, I'm not just talking, I know. The boys tried him, to see.

They took his bed out one night, and so when he got home about three in the morninghe was on a morning

paper then, but he's on an evening one nowthere wasn't any place for him but with the ironmoulder; and

if you'll believe me, he just set up the rest of the nighthe did, honest. They say he's cracked, but it ain't so,

he's Englishthey're awful particular. You won't mind my saying that. Youyou're English?"

"I thought so. I could tell it by the way you mispronounce the words that's got a's in them, you know; such as

saying loff when you mean laff but you'll get over that. He's a right down good fellow, and a little sociable

with the photographer's boy and the caulker and the blacksmith that work in the navy yard, but not so much

with the others. The fact is, though it's private, and the others don't know it, he's a kind of an aristocrat, his

father being a doctor, and you know what style that is in England, I mean, because in this country a doctor

ain't so very much, even if he's that. But over there of course it's different. So this chap had a falling out with

his father, and was pretty high strung, and just cut for this country, and the first he knew he had to get to work

or starve. Well, he'd been to college, you see, and so he judged he was all rightdid you say anything?"

"And there's where he was mistaken. Why, he mighty near starved. And I reckon he would have starved sure

enough, if some jour' printer or other hadn't took pity on him and got him a place as apprentice. So he learnt

the trade, and then he was all rightbut it was a close call. Once he thought he had got to haul in his pride

and holler for his father and why, you're sighing again. Is anything the matter with you?does my

"Yes, you see, he's been over here ten years; he's twentyeight, now, and he ain't pretty well satisfied in his

mind, because he can't get reconciled to being a mechanic and associating with mechanics, he being, as he

says to me, a gentleman, which is a pretty plain lettingon that the boys ain't, but of course I know enough

"Harm in it? They'd lick him, wouldn't they? Wouldn't you? Of course you would. Don't you ever let a man

say you ain't a gentleman in this country. But laws, what am I thinking about? I reckon a body would think

A trim, active, slender and very pretty girl of about eighteen walked into the room now, in the most satisfied

and unembarrassed way. She was cheaply but smartly and gracefully dressed, and the mother's quick glance

at the stranger's face as he rose, was of the kind which inquires what effect has been produced, and expects to

"This is my daughter Hattiewe call her Puss. It's the new boarder, Puss." This without rising.

The young Englishman made the awkward bow common to his nationality and time of life in circumstances

of delicacy and difficulty, and these were of that sort; for, being taken by surprise, his natural, lifelong self

sprang to the front, and that self of course would not know just how to act when introduced to a

chambermaid, or to the heiress of a mechanics' boarding house. His other selfthe self which recognized the

equality of all menwould have managed the thing better, if it hadn't been caught off guard and robbed of

its chance. The young girl paid no attention to the bow, but put out her hand frankly and gave the stranger a

Then she marched to the one washstand in the room, tilted her head this way and that before the wreck of a

cheap mirror that hung above it, dampened her fingers with her tongue, perfected the circle of a little lock of

hair that was pasted against her forehead, then began to busy herself with the slops.

"Well, I must be goingit's getting towards supper time. Make yourself at home, Mr. Tracy, you'll hear the

The landlady took her tranquil departure, without commanding either of the young people to vacate the room.

The young man wondered a little that a mother who seemed so honest and respectable should be so

thoughtless, and was reaching for his hat, intending to disembarrass the girl of his presence; but she said:

"Why, who said you were in the way? Sit downI'll move you when you are in the way."

She was making the beds, now. He sat down and watched her deft and diligent performance.

"What gave you that notion? Do you reckon I need a whole room just to make up a bed or two in?"

"Well no, it wasn't that, exactly. We are away up here in an empty house, and your mother being gone"

"Nobody to protect me? Bless you, I don't need it. I'm not afraid. I might be if I was alone, because I do hate

ghosts, and I don't deny it. Not that I believe in them, for I don't. I'm only just afraid of them."

"Oh, I don't know the how of itthat's too many for me; I only know it's so. It's the same with Maggie Lee."

"I wasn't thinking of her age, I was thinking of the title. The fact is, I came away from England to get away

from artificial formsfor artificial forms suit artificial people onlyand here you've got them too. I'm

sorry. I hoped you had only men and women; everybody equal; no differences in rank."

The girl stopped with a pillow in her teeth and the case spread open below it, contemplating him from under

"If you call a factory girl a young lady, what do you call the President's wife?"

"Well, that puts a better face on it. Certainly there is no harm in a title when it is given to everybody. It is

"Miss Hattie, be frank; confess that that title isn't accorded by everybody to everybody. The rich American

He was surprised and a little disappointed, to see that his admirable shot had produced no perceptible effect.

"What of it?" he said. "Why this: equality is not conceded here, after all, and the Americans are no better off

"Now what an idea. There's nothing in a title except what is put into ityou've said that yourself. Suppose

"I believe so. Instead of speaking of a woman as a lady, you substitute clean and say she's a clean person."

"That's it. In England the swell folks don't speak of the working people as gentlemen and ladies?"

"So if you used the other word there wouldn't be any change. The swell people wouldn't call anybody but

themselves 'clean,' and those others would drop sort of meekly into their way of talking and they wouldn't call

themselves clean. We don't do that way here. Everybody calls himself a lady or gentleman, and thinks he is,

and don't care what anybody else thinks him, so long as he don't say it out loud. You think there's no

"It is a difference I hadn't thought of; I admit that. Stillcalling one's self a lady doesn'ter"

Howard Tracy turned his head to see who it might be that had introduced this remark. It was a short man

about forty years old, with sandy hair, no beard, and a pleasant face badly freckled but alive and intelligent,

and he wore slopshop clothing which was neat but showed wear. He had come from the front room beyond

the hall, where he had left his hat, and he had a chipped and cracked white washbowl in his hand. The girl

"I'll get it for you. You go right ahead and give it to him, Mr. Barrow. He's the new boarderMr.

"Much obliged if you will, Hattie. I was coming to borrow of the boys." He sat down at his ease on an old

trunk, and said, "I've been listening and got interested; and as I was saying, I wouldn't go on, if I were you.

You see where you are coming to, don't you? Calling, yourself a lady doesn't elect you; that is what you were

going to say; and you saw that if you said it you were going to run right up against another difference that

you hadn't thought of: towit, Whose right is it to do the electing? Over there, twenty thousand people in a

million elect themselves gentlemen and ladies, and the nine hundred and eighty thousand accept that decree

and swallow the affront which it puts upon them. Why, if they didn't accept it, it wouldn't be an election, it

would be a dead letter and have no force at all. Over here the twenty thousand wouldbe exclusives come up

to the polls and vote themselves to be ladies and gentlemen. But the thing doesn't stop there. The nine

hundred and eighty thousand come and vote themselves to be ladies and gentlemen too, and that elects the

whole nation. Since the whole million vote themselves ladies and gentlemen, there is no question about that

election. It does make absolute equality, and there is no fiction about it; while over yonder the inequality, (by

decree of the infinitely feeble, and consent of the infinitely strong,) is also absoluteas real and absolute as

Tracy had shrunk promptly into his English shell when this speech began, notwithstanding he had now been

in severe training several weeks for contact and intercourse with the common herd on the common herd's

terms; but he lost no time in pulling himself out again, and so by the time the speech was finished his valves

were open once more, and he was forcing himself to accept without resentment the common herd's frank

fashion of dropping sociably into other people's conversations unembarrassed and uninvited. The process

was, not very difficult this time, for the man's smile and voice and manner were persuasive and winning.

Tracy would even have liked him on the spot, but for the factfact which he was not really aware ofthat

the equality of men was not yet a reality to him, it was only a theory; the mind perceived, but the man failed

to feel it. It was Hattie's ghost over again, merely turned around. Theoretically Barrow was his equal, but it

"I hope in all sincerity that what you have said is true, as regards the Americans, for doubts have crept into

my mind several times. It seemed that the equality must be ungenuine where the signnames of castes were

still in vogue; but those signnames have certainly lost their offence and are wholly neutralized, nullified and

harmless if they are the undisputed property of every individual in the nation. I think I realize that caste does

not exist and cannot exist except by common consent of the masses outside of its limits. I thought caste

created itself and perpetuated itself; but it seems quite true that it only creates itself, and is perpetuated by the

people whom it despises, and who can dissolve it at any time by assuming its mere signnames themselves."

"It's what I think. There isn't any power on earth that can prevent England's thirty millions from electing

themselves dukes and duchesses tomorrow and calling themselves so. And within six months all the former

dukes and duchesses would have retired from the business. I wish they'd try that. Royalty itself couldn't

survive such a process. A handful of frowners against thirty million laughers in a state of irruption: Why, it's

Herculaneum against Vesuvius; it would take another eighteen centuries to find that Herculaneum after the

cataclysm. What's a Colonel in our South? He's a nobody; because they're all colonels down there. No,

Tracy" (shudder from Tracy) "nobody in England would call you a gentleman and you wouldn't call yourself

one; and I tell you it's a state of things that makes a man put himself into most unbecoming attitudes

sometimesthe broad and general recognition and acceptance of caste as caste does, I mean. Makes him do

it unconsciouslybeing bred in him, you see, and never thought over and reasoned out. You couldn't

conceive of the Matterhorn being flattered by the notice of one of your comely little English hills, could

"Well, then, let a man in his right mind try to conceive of Darwin feeling flattered by the notice of a princess.

It's so grotesque that itwell, it paralyzes the imagination. Yet that Memnon was flattered by the notice of

that statuette; he says sosays so himself. The system that can make a god disown his godship and profane

itoh, well, it's all wrong, it's all wrong and ought to be abolished, I should say."

The mention of Darwin brought on a literary discussion, and this topic roused such enthusiasm in Barrow that

he took off his coat and made himself the more free and comfortable for it, and detained him so long that he

was still at it when the noisy proprietors of the room came shouting and skylarking in and began to romp,

scuffle, wash, and otherwise entertain themselves. He lingered yet a little longer to offer the hospitalities of

"Theywell, they call me a cowboy, but that is a fancy. I'm not that. I haven't any trade."

Oh, anythingI mean I would work at, anything I could get to do, but thus far I haven't been able to find an

"Well, of course where a man hasn't a regular trade he's pretty bad off in this world. What you needed, I

reckon, was less book learning and more breadandbutter learning. I don't know what your father could

have been thinking of. You ought to have had a trade, you ought to have had a trade, by all means. But never

mind about that; we'll stir up something to do, I guess. And don't you get homesick; that's a bad business.

We'll talk the thing over and look around a little. You'll come out all right. Wait for meI'll go down to

By this time Tracy had achieved a very friendly feeling for Barrow and would have called him a friend,

maybe, if not taken too suddenly on a straightout requirement to realize on his theories. He was glad of his

society, anyway, and was feeling lighter hearted than before. Also he was pretty curious to know what

vocation it might be which had furnished Barrow such a large acquaintanceship with books and allowed him

Presently the supper bell began to ring in the depths of the house, and the sound proceeded steadily upward,

growing in intensity all the way up towards the upper floors. The higher it came the more maddening was the

noise, until at last what it lacked of being absolutely deafening, was made up of the sudden crash and clatter

of an avalanche of boarders down the uncarpeted stairway. The peerage did not go to meals in this fashion;

Tracy's training had not fitted him to enjoy this hilarious zoological clamor and enthusiasm. He had to

confess that there was something about this extraordinary outpouring of animal spirits which he would have

to get inured to before he could accept it. No doubt in time he would prefer it; but he wished the process

might be modified and made just a little more gradual, and not quite so pronounced and violent. Barrow and

Tracy followed the avalanche down through an ever increasing and ever more and more aggressive stench of

bygone cabbage and kindred smells; smells which are to be found nowhere but in a cheap private boarding

house; smells which once encountered can never be forgotten; smells which encountered generations later are

instantly recognizable, but never recognizable with pleasure. To Tracy these odors were suffocating, horrible,

almost unendurable; but he held his peace and said nothing. Arrived in the basement, they entered a large

diningroom where thirtyfive or forty people sat at a long table. They took their places. The feast had

already begun and the conversation was going on in the liveliest way from one end of the table to the other.

The table cloth was of very coarse material and was liberally spotted with coffee stains and grease. The

knives and forks were iron, with bone handles, the spoons appeared to be iron or sheet iron or something of

the sort. The tea and coffee cups were of the commonest and heaviest and most durable stone ware. All the

furniture of the table was of the commonest and cheapest sort. There was a single large thick slice of bread by

each boarder's plate, and it was observable that he economized it as if he were not expecting it to be

duplicated. Dishes of butter were distributed along the table within reach of people's arms, if they had long

ones, but there were no private butter plates. The butter was perhaps good enough, and was quiet and well

behaved; but it had more bouquet than was necessary, though nobody commented upon that fact or seemed in

any way disturbed by it. The main feature of the feast was a piping hot Irish stew made of the potatoes and

meat left over from a procession of previous meals. Everybody was liberally supplied with this dish. On the

table were a couple of great dishes of sliced ham, and there were some other eatables of minor

importancepreserves and New Orleans molasses and such things. There was also plenty of tea and coffee

of an infernal sort, with brown sugar and condensed milk, but the milk and sugar supply was not left at the

discretion of the boarders, but was rationed out at headquartersone spoonful of sugar and one of condensed

milk to each cup and no more. The table was waited upon by two stalwart negro women who raced back and

forth from the bases of supplies with splendid dash and clatter and energy. Their labors were supplemented

after a fashion by the young girl Puss. She carried coffee and tea back and forth among the boarders, but she

made pleasure excursions rather than business ones in this way, to speak strictly. She made jokes with various

people. She chaffed the young men pleasantly and wittily, as she supposed, and as the rest also supposed,

apparently, judging by the applause and laughter which she got by her efforts. Manifestly she was a favorite

with most of the young fellows and sweetheart of the rest of them. Where she conferred notice she conferred

happiness, as was seen by the face of the recipient; and; at the same time she conferred unhappinessone

could see it fall and dim the faces of the other young fellows like a shadow. She never "Mistered" these

friends of hers, but called them "Billy," "Tom," "John," and they called her "Puss" or "Hattie."

Mr. Marsh sat at the head of the table, his wife sat at the foot. Marsh was a man of sixty, and was an

American; but if he had been born a month earlier he would have been a Spaniard. He was plenty good

enough Spaniard as it was; his face was very dark, his hair very black, and his eyes were not only

exceedingly black but were very intense, and there was something about them that indicated that they could

burn with passion upon occasion. He was stoopshouldered and leanfaced, and the general aspect of him

was disagreeable; he was evidently not a very companionable person. If looks went for anything, he was the

very opposite of his wife, who was all motherliness and charity, good will and good nature. All the young

men and the women called her Aunt Rachael, which was another sign. Tracy's wandering and interested eye

presently fell upon one boarder who had been overlooked in the distribution of the stew. He was very pale

and looked as if he had but lately come out of a sick bed, and also as if he ought to get back into it again as

soon as possible. His face was very melancholy. The waves of laughter and conversation broke upon it

without affecting it any more than if it had been a rock in the sea and the words and the laughter veritable

waters. He held his head down and looked ashamed. Some of the women cast glances of pity toward him

from time to time in a furtive and half afraid way, and some of the youngest of the men plainly had

compassion on the young fellowa compassion exhibited in their faces but not in any more active or

compromising way. But the great majority of the people present showed entire indifference to the youth and

his sorrows. Marsh sat with his head down, but one could catch the malicious gleam of his eyes through his

shaggy brows. He was watching that young fellow with evident relish. He had not neglected him through

carelessness, and apparently the table understood that fact. The spectacle was making Mrs. Marsh very

uncomfortable. She had the look of one who hopes against hope that the impossible may happen. But as the

impossible did not happen, she finally ventured to speak up and remind her husband that Nat Brady hadn't

Marsh lifted his head and gasped out with mock courtliness, "Oh, he hasn't, hasn't he? What a pity that is. I

don't know how I came to overlook him. Ah, he must pardon me. You must indeed MrerBaxter

Barker, you must pardon me. Iermy attention was directed to some other matter, I don't know what. The

thing that grieves me mainly is, that it happens every meal now. But you must try to overlook these little

things, Mr. Bunker, these little neglects on my part. They're always likely to happen with me in any case, and

they are especially likely to happen where a person haserwell, where a person is, say, about three weeks

in arrears for his board. You get my meaning?you get my idea? Here is your Irish stew, anderit gives

me the greatest pleasure to send it to you, and I hope that you will enjoy the charity as much as I enjoy

A blush rose in Brady's white cheeks and flowed slowly backward to his ears and upward toward his

forehead, but he said nothing and began to eat his food under the embarrassment of a general silence and the

"The old man's been waiting for that. He wouldn't have missed that chance for anything."

"It's a brutal business," said Tracy. Then he said to himself, purposing to set the thought down in his diary

"Well, here in this very house is a republic where all are free and equal, if men are free and equal anywhere in

the earth, therefore I have arrived at the place I started to find, and I am a man among men, and on the

strictest equality possible to men, no doubt. Yet here on the threshold I find an inequality. There are people at

this table who are looked up to for some reason or another, and here is a poor devil of a boy who is looked

down upon, treated with indifference, and shamed by humiliations, when he has committed no crime but that

common one of being poor. Equality ought to make men nobleminded. In fact I had supposed it did do

After supper, Barrow proposed a walk, and they started. Barrow had a purpose. He wanted Tracy to get rid of

that cowboy hat. He didn't see his way to finding mechanical or manual employment for a person rigged in

"Well, now if you will not think me too curious, how did you come to mount that hat? Where'd you get it?"

"Well, without going into particulars; I exchanged clothes with a stranger under stress of weather, and I

"I don't know. I supposed the best way to find him would be to continue to wear his clothes, which are

conspicuous enough to attract his attention if I should meet him on the street."

"Oh, very well," said Barrow, "the rest of the outfit, is well enough, and while it's not too conspicuous, it isn't

quite like the clothes that anybody else wears. Suppress the hat. When you meet your man he'll recognize the

rest of his suit. That's a mighty embarrassing hat, you know, in a centre of civilization like this. I don't believe

Tracy agreed to replace the hat with something of a modester form, and they stepped aboard a crowded car

and stood with others on the rear platform. Presently, as the car moved swiftly along the rails, two men

crossing the street caught sight of the backs of Barrow and Tracy, and both exclaimed at once, "There he is!"

It was Sellers and Hawkins. Both were so paralyzed with joy that before they could pull themselves together

and make an effort to stop the car, it was gone too far, and they decided to wait for the next one. They waited

a while; then it occurred to Washington that there could be no use in chasing one horse car with another,

"When you come to think of it, there's no occasion for that at all. Now that I've got him materialized, I can

The hat exchange accomplished, the two new friends started to walk back leisurely to the boarding house.

Then Barrow communed with himself. "Now what odd shapes the notions of romantic people take. Here's a

young, fellow who's read in England about cowboys and adventures on the plains. He comes here and buys a

cowboy's suit. Thinks he can play himself on folks for a cowboy, all inexperienced as he is. Now the minute

he's caught in this poor little game, he's ashamed of it and ready to retire from it. It is that exchange that he

has put up as an explanation. It's rather thin, too thin altogether. Well, he's young, never been anywhere,

knows nothing about the world, sentimental, no doubt. Perhaps it was the natural thing for him to do, but it

Both men were busy with their thoughts for a time, then Tracy heaved a sigh and said,

"Yes, Brady, or Baxter, or whatever it was. The old landlord called him by several different names."

"Oh, yes, he has been very liberal with names for Brady, since Brady fell into arrears for his board. Well,

"Brady is a tinner. He's a young journeyman tinner who was getting along all right till he fell sick and lost his

job. He was very popular before he lost his job; everybody in the house liked Brady. The old man was rather

especially fond of him, but you know that when a man loses his job and loses his ability to support himself

and to pay his way as he goes, it makes a great difference in the way people look at him and feel about him."

Barrow looked at Tracy in a puzzled way. "Why of course it's so. Wouldn't you know that, naturally. Don't

you know that the wounded deer is always attacked and killed by its companions and friends?"

Tracy said to himself, while a chilly and boding discomfort spread itself through his system, "In a republic of

deer and men where all are free and equal, misfortune is a crime, and the prosperous gore the unfortunate to

death." Then he said aloud, "Here in the boarding house, if one would have friends and be popular instead of

"Yes," Barrow said, "that is so. It's their human nature. They do turn against Brady, now that he's unfortunate,

and they don't like him as well as they did before; but it isn't because of any lack in Bradyhe's just as he

was before, has the same nature and the same impulses, but they well, Brady is a thorn in their

consciences, you see. They know they ought to help him and they're too stingy to do it, and they're ashamed

of themselves for that, and they ought also to hate themselves on that account, but instead of that they hate

Brady because he makes them ashamed of themselves. I say that's human nature; that occurs everywhere; this

boarding house is merely the world in little, it's the case all overthey're all alike. In prosperity we are

popular; popularity comes easy in that case, but when the other thing comes our friends are pretty likely to

Tracy's noble theories and high purposes were beginning to feel pretty damp and clammy. He wondered if by

any possibility he had made a mistake in throwing his own prosperity to the winds and taking up the cross of

other people's unprosperity. But he wouldn't listen to that sort of thing; he cast it out of his mind and resolved

Have now spent several days in this singular hive. I don't know quite what to make out of these people. They

have merits and virtues, but they have some other qualities, and some ways that are hard to get along with. I

can't enjoy them. The moment I appeared in a hat of the period, I noticed a change. The respect which had

been paid me before, passed suddenly away, and the people became friendlymore than thatthey became

familiar, and I'm not used to familiarity, and can't take to it right off; I find that out. These people's familiarity

amounts to impudence, sometimes. I suppose it's all right; no doubt I can get used to it, but it's not a

satisfactory process at all. I have accomplished my dearest wish, I am a man among men, on an equal footing

with Tom, Dick and Harry, and yet it isn't just exactly what I thought it was going to be. II miss home. Am

obliged to say I am homesick. Another thing and this is a confessiona reluctant one, but I will make it:

The thing I miss most and most severely, is the respect, the deference, with which I was treated all my life in

England, and which seems to be somehow necessary to me. I get along very well without the luxury and the

wealth and the sort of society I've been accustomed to, but I do miss the respect and can't seem to get

reconciled to the absence of it. There is respect, there is deference here, but it doesn't fall to my share. It is

lavished on two men. One of them is a portly man of middle age who is a retired plumber. Everybody is

pleased to have that man's notice. He's full of pomp and circumstance and self complacency and bad

grammar, and at table he is Sir Oracle and when he opens his mouth not any dog in the kennel barks. The

other person is a policeman at the capitol building. He represents the government. The deference paid to

these two men is not so very far short of that which is paid to an earl in England, though the method of it

It does rather look as if in a republic where all are free and equal, prosperity and position constitute rank.

The days drifted by, and they grew ever more dreary. For Barrow's efforts to find work for Tracy were

"Very well, then, it's impossible to employ you. My men wouldn't stay with me if I should employ a 'scab,' or

Finally, Tracy had a happy thought. He said, "Why the thing for me to do, of course, is to join a tradeunion."

"Well, Yes," Barrow said, "it's sometimes difficultin fact, very difficult. But you can try, and of course it

Therefore Tracy tried; but he did not succeed. He was refused admission with a good deal of promptness, and

was advised to go back home, where he belonged, not come here taking honest men's bread out of their

mouths. Tracy began to realize that the situation was desperate, and the thought made him cold to the

marrow. He said to himself, "So there is an aristocracy of position here, and an aristocracy of prosperity, and

apparently there is also an aristocracy of the ins as opposed to the outs, and I am with the outs. So the ranks

grow daily, here. Plainly there are all kinds of castes here and only one that I belong to, the outcasts." But he

couldn't even smile at his small joke, although he was obliged to confess that he had a rather good opinion of

it. He was feeling so defeated and miserable by this time that he could no longer look with philosophical

complacency on the horseplay of the young fellows in the upper rooms at night. At first it had been pleasant

to see them unbend and have a good time after having so well earned it by the labors of the day, but now it all

rasped upon his feelings and his dignity. He lost patience with the spectacle. When they were feeling good,

they shouted, they scuffled, they sang songs, they romped about the place like cattle, and they generally

wound up with a pillow fight, in which they banged each other over the head, and threw the pillows in all

directions, and every now and then he got a buffet himself; and they were always inviting him to join in.

They called him "Johnny Bull," and invited him with excessive familiarity to take a hand. At first he had

endured all this with good nature, but latterly he had shown by his manner that it was distinctly distasteful to

him, and very soon he saw a change in the manner of these young people toward him. They were souring on

him as they would have expressed it in their language. He had never been what might be called popular. That

was hardly the phrase for it; he had merely been liked, but now dislike for him was growing. His case was not

helped by the fact that he was out of luck, couldn't get work, didn't belong to a union, and couldn't gain

admission to one: He got a good many slights of that small illdefined sort that you can't quite put your finger

on, and it was manifest that there was only one thing which protected him from open insult, and that was his

muscle. These young people had seen him exercising, mornings, after his cold sponge bath, and they had

perceived by his performance and the build of his body, that he was athletic, and also versed in boxing. He

felt pretty naked now, recognizing that he was shorn of all respect except respect for his fists. One night when

he entered his room he found about a dozen of the young fellows there carrying on a very lively conversation

punctuated with horselaughter. The talking ceased instantly, and the frank affront of a dead silence

There was no response. He flushed to the temples but forced himself to maintain silence. He sat there in this

The moment he had disappeared he heard a prodigious shout of laughter break forth. He saw that their plain

purpose had been to insult him. He ascended to the flat roof, hoping to be able to cool down his spirit there

and get back his tranquility. He found the young tinner up there, alone and brooding, and entered into

conversation with him. They were pretty fairly matched, now, in unpopularity and general illluck and

misery, and they had no trouble in meeting upon this common ground with advantage and something of

comfort to both. But Tracy's movements had been watched, and in a few minutes the tormentors came

straggling one after another to the roof, where they began to stroll up and down in an apparently purposeless

way. But presently they fell to dropping remarks that were evidently aimed at Tracy, and some of them at the

tinner. The ringleader of this little mob was a shorthaired bully and amateur prizefighter named Allen, who

was accustomed to lording it over the upper floor, and had more than once shown a disposition to make

trouble with Tracy. Now there was an occasional catcall, and hootings, and whistlings, and finally the

"Well, two generally makes a pair, but sometimes there ain't stuff enough in them to make a whole pair."

"Oh, nothing, the English are all right, onlyI" What was it you said about them?"

Allen came strolling by where the pair were sitting; stopped, and said to the tinner;

"A friend is valuable, sometimesas a protector, you know. What do you reckon would happen if I was to

"Oh, you can, can you? Boys, Johnny Bull can tell us what would happen if I was to snatch this chump's cap

He snatched the cap and struck the youth in the face, and before he could inquire what was going to happen,

it had already happened, and he was warming the tin with the broad of his back. Instantly there was a rush,

"A ring, a ring, make a ring! Fair play all round! Johnny's grit; give him a chance."

The ring was quickly chalked on the tin, and Tracy found himself as eager to begin as he could have been if

his antagonist had been a prince instead of a mechanic. At bottom he was a little surprised at this, because

although his theories had been all in that direction for some time, he was not prepared to find himself actually

eager to measure strength with quite so common a man as this ruffian. In a moment all the windows in the

neighborhood were filled with people, and the roofs also. The men squared off, and the fight began. But

Allen stood no chance whatever, against the young Englishman. Neither in muscle nor in science was he his

equal. He measured his length on the tin time and again; in fact, as fast as he could get up he went down

again, and the applause was kept up in liberal fashion from all the neighborhood around. Finally, Allen had to

be helped up. Then Tracy declined to punish him further and the fight was at an end. Allen was carried off by

some of his friends in a very much humbled condition, his face black and blue and bleeding, and Tracy was at

once surrounded by the young fellows, who congratulated him, and told him that he had done the whole

house a service, and that from this out Mr. Allen would be a little more particular about how he handled

Tracy was a hero now, and exceedingly popular. Perhaps nobody had ever been quite so popular on that

upper floor before. But if being discountenanced by these young fellows had been hard to bear, their lavish

commendations and approval and heroworship was harder still to endure. He felt degraded, but he did not

allow himself to analyze the reasons why, too closely. He was content to satisfy himself with the suggestion

that he looked upon himself as degraded by the public spectacle which he had made of himself, fighting on a

tin roof, for the delectation of everybody a block or two around. But he wasn't entirely satisfied with that

explanation of it. Once he went a little too far and wrote in his diary that his case was worse than that of the

prodigal son. He said the prodigal son merely fed swine, he didn't have to chum with them. But he struck that

out, and said "All men are equal. I will not disown my principles. These men are as good as I am."

Tracy was become popular on the lower floors also. Everybody was grateful for Allen's reduction to the

ranks, and for his transformation from a doer of outrages to a mere threatener of them. The young girls, of

whom there were half a dozen, showed many attentions to Tracy, particularly that boarding house pet Hattie,

And when he said, "I'm glad you think' so, Miss Hattie," she said, still more sweetly,

Ah, here was promotion! He had struck the summit. There were no higher heights to climb in that boarding

In the presence of people, Tracy showed a tranquil outside, but his heart was being eaten out of him by

In a little while he should be out of money, and then what should he do? He wished, now, that he had

borrowed a little more liberally from that stranger's store. He found it impossible to sleep. A single torturing,

terrifying thought went racking round and round in his head, wearing a groove in his brain: What should he

doWhat was to become of him? And along with it began to intrude a something presently which was very

like a wish that he had not joined the great and noble ranks of martyrdom, but had stayed at home and been

content to be merely an earl and nothing better, with nothing more to do in this world of a useful sort than an

earl finds to do. But he smothered that part of his thought as well as he could; he made every effort to drive it

away, and with fair keep it from intruding a little success, but he couldn't now and then, and when it intruded

it came suddenly and nipped him like a bite, a sting, a burn. He recognized that thought by the peculiar

sharpness of its pang. The others were painful enough, but that one cut to the quick when it calm. Night after

night he lay tossing to the music of the hideous snoring of the honest breadwinners until two and three

o'clock in the morning, then got up and took refuge on the roof, where he sometimes got a nap and sometimes

failed entirely. His appetite was leaving him and the zest of life was going along with it. Finally, owe day,

being near the imminent verge of total discouragement, he said to himselfand took occasion to blush

privately when he said it, "If my father knew what my American name is,hewell, my duty to my father

rather requires that I furnish him my name. I have no right to make his days and nights unhappy, I can do

enough unhappiness for the family all by myself. Really he ought to know what my American name is." He

That wouldn't be suggesting anything. His father could understand that as he chose, and doubtless he would

understand it as it was meant, as a dutiful and affectionate desire on the part of a son to make his old father

happy for a moment. Continuing his train of thought, Tracy said to himself, "Ah, but if he should cable me to

come home! IIcouldn't do thatI mustn't do that. I've started out on a mission, and I mustn't turn my

back on it in cowardice. No, no, I couldn't go home, atat least I shouldn't want to go home." After a

reflective pause: "Well, maybeperhapsit would be my duty to go in the circumstances; he's very old and

he does need me by him to stay his footsteps down the long hill that inclines westward toward the sunset of

his life. Well, I'll think about that. Yes, of course it wouldn't be right to stay here. If I well, perhaps I could

just drop him a line and put it off a little while and satisfy him in that way. It would bewell, it would mar

everything to have him require me to come instantly." Another reflective pause then: "And yet if he should

do that I don't know butoh, dear mehome! how good it sounds! and a body is excusable for wanting to

He went to one of the telegraph offices in the avenue and got the first end of what Barrow called the "usual

Washington courtesy," where "they treat you as a tramp until they find out you're a congressman, and then

they slobber all over you." There was a boy of seventeen on duty there, tying his shoe. He had his foot on a

chair and his back turned towards the wicket. He glanced over his shoulder, took Tracy's measure, turned

back, and went on tying his shoe. Tracy finished writing his telegram and waited, still waited, and still

waited, for that performance to finish, but there didn't seem to be any finish to it; so finally Tracy said:

However, he got the shoe tied at last, and came and took the telegram, glanced over it, then looked up

surprised, at Tracy. There was something in his look that bordered upon respect, almost reverence, it seemed

to Tracy, although he had been so long without anything of this kind he was not sure that he knew the signs

"Oh, I don't knowI'll send it to you. Where shall I send it? Give me your address; I'll send it to you soon's it

But Tracy didn't propose to do this. He had acquired the boy's admiration and deferential respect, and he

wasn't willing to throw these precious things away, a result sure to follow if he should give the address of that

boarding house. So he said again that he would call and get the telegram, and went his way.

He idled along, reflecting. He said to himself, "There is something pleasant about being respected. I have

acquired the respect of Mr. Allen and some of those others, and almost the deference of some of them on pure

merit, for having thrashed Allen. While their respect and their deferenceif it is deferenceis pleasant, a

deference based upon a sham, a shadow, does really seem pleasanter still. It's no real merit to be in

correspondence with an earl, and yet after all, that boy makes me feel as if there was."

The cablegram was actually gone home! the thought of it gave him an immense uplift. He walked with a

lighter tread. His heart was full of happiness. He threw aside all hesitances and confessed to himself that he

was glad through and through that he was going to give up this experiment and go back to his home again.

His eagerness to get his father's answer began to grow, now, and it grew with marvelous celerity, after it

began. He waited an hour, walking about, putting in his time as well as he could, but interested in nothing

that came under his eye, and at last he presented himself at the office again and asked if any answer had come

"No, no answer yet," then glanced at the clock and added, "I don't think it's likely you'll get one today."

"Well, you see it's getting pretty late. You can't always tell where 'bouts a man is when he's on the other side,

and you can't always find him just the minute you want him, and you see it's getting about six o'clock now,

"Yes, pretty late, now, half past ten or eleven. Oh yes, you probably won't get any answer tonight."

So Tracy went home to supper. The odors in that supper room seemed more strenuous and more horrible than

ever before, and he was happy in the thought that he was so soon to be free from them again. When the

supper was over he hardly knew whether he had eaten any of it or not, and he certainly hadn't heard any of

the conversation. His heart had been dancing all the time, his thoughts had been faraway from these things,

and in the visions of his mind the sumptuous appointments of his father's castle had risen before him without

rebuke. Even the plushed flunkey, that walking symbol of a sham inequality, had not been unpleasant to his

Tracy shuddered, slightly. He didn't say anything about having visited that place himself. Somehow he didn't

quite relish the memory of that time. The sentiments which had made his former visit there so enjoyable, and

filled him with such enthusiasm, had undergone a gradual change, and they had rotted away to such a degree

that he couldn't contemplate another visit there with anything strongly resembling delight. In fact he was a

little ashamed to go; he didn't want to go there and find out by the rude impact of the thought of those people

upon his reorganized condition of mind, how sharp the change had been. He would have preferred to stay

away. He expected that now he should hear nothing except sentiments which would be a reproach to him in

his changed mental attitude, and he rather wished he might be excused. And yet he didn't quite want to say

that, he didn't want to show how he did feel, or show any disinclination to go, and so he forced himself to go

along with Barrow, privately purposing to take an early opportunity to get away.

After the essayist of the evening had read his paper, the chairman announced that the debate would now be

upon the subject of the previous meeting, "The American Press." It saddened the backsliding disciple to hear

this announcement. It brought up too many reminiscences. He wished he had happened upon some other

In the course of the discussion one of the speakersa blacksmith named Tompkinsarraigned all monarchs

and all lords in the earth for their cold selfishness in retaining their unearned dignities. He said that no

monarch and no son of a monarch, no lord and no son of a lord ought to be able to look his fellow man in the

face without shame. Shame for consenting to keep his unearned titles, property, and privilegesat the

expense of other people; shame for consenting to remain, on any terms, in dishonourable possession of these

things, which represented bygone robberies and wrongs inflicted upon the general people of the nation. He

said, "if there were a laid or the son of a lord here, I would like to reason with him, and try to show him how

unfair and how selfish his position is. I would try to persuade him to relinquish it, take his place among men

on equal terms, earn the bread he eats, and hold of slight value all deference paid him because of artificial

Tracy seemed to be listening to utterances of his own made in talks with his radical friends in England. It was

as if some eavesdropping phonograph had treasured up his words and brought them across the Atlantic to

accuse him with them in the hour of his defection and retreat. Every word spoken by this stranger seemed to

leave a blister on Tracy's conscience, and by the time the speech was finished he felt that he was all

conscience and one blister. This man's deep compassion for the enslaved and oppressed millions in Europe

who had to bear with the contempt of that small class above them, throned upon shining heights whose paths

were shut against them, was the very thing he had often uttered himself. The pity in this man's voice and

words was the very twin of the pity that used to reside in his own heart and come from his own lips when he

The homeward tramp was accomplished in brooding silence. It was a silence most grateful to Tracy's

feelings. He wouldn't have broken it for anything; for he was ashamed of himself all the way through to his

"How unanswerable it all ishow absolutely unanswerable! It is basely, degradingly selfish to keep those

This outburst was from Barrow. It flooded Tracy's demoralized soul with waters of refreshment. These were

the darlingest words the poor vacillating young apostate had ever heardfor they whitewashed his shame for

him, and that is a good service to have when you can't get the best of all verdicts, selfacquittal.

Tracy had been expecting this invitation, and had had his declination all ready: but he was glad enough to

accept, now. Was it possible that a reasonable argument could be made against that man's desolating speech?

He was burning to hear Barrow try it. He knew how to start him, and keep him going: it was to seem to

"Oh, the leaving out of the factor of human nature; requiring another man to do what you wouldn't do

"Why here's what I mean; it's very simple. Tompkins is a blacksmith; has a family; works for wages; and

hard, toofooling around won't furnish the bread. Suppose it should turn out that by the death of somebody

in England he is suddenly an earlincome, half a million dollars a year. What would he do?"

"No, I don't. Fool or no fool, he would grab it. Anybody would. Anybody that's alive. And I've seen dead

"Transmissible ones, yes. But that's nothing. I'm opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer

"I would leave the funeral of my dearest enemy to go and assume its burdens and responsibilities."

"I don't know that I quite get the bearings of your position. You say you are opposed to hereditary nobilities,

"Take one? In a minute I would. And there isn't a mechanic in that entire club that wouldn't. There isn't a

lawyer, doctor, editor, author, tinker, loafer, railroad president, saintland, there isn't a human being in the

"Except you!" Barrow could hardly get the words out, his scorn so choked him. And he couldn't get any

further than that form of words; it seemed to dam his flow, utterly. He got up and came and glared upon

Tracy in a kind of outraged and unappeasable way, and said again, "Except you!" He walked around

himinspecting him from one point of view and then another, and relieving his soul now and then by

exploding that formula at him; "Except you!" Finally he slumped down into his chair with the air of one who

"He's straining his viscera and he's breaking his heart trying to get some lowdown job that a good dog

wouldn't have, and yet wants to let on that if he had a chance to scoop an earldom he wouldn't do it. Tracy,

"Well, I wasn't meaning to puta strain on you, Barrow, I was only meaning to intimate that if an earldom

"ThereI wouldn't give myself any worry about that, if I was you. And besides, I can settle what you would

"Suddenly? What is there sudden about it? It isn't a difficult question is it? Or doubtful? Just measure us on

the only fair linesthe lines of meritand of course you'll admit that a journeyman chairmaker that earns

his twenty dollars a week, and has had the good and genuine culture of contact with men, and care, and

hardship, and failure, and success, and downs and ups and ups and downs, is just a trifle the superior of a

young fellow like you, who doesn't know how to do anything that's valuable, can't earn his living in any

secure and steady way, hasn't had any experience of life and its seriousness, hasn't any culture but the

artificial culture of books, which adorns but doesn't really educate come! if I wouldn't scorn an earldom,

Tracy dissembled his joy, though he wanted to thank the chairmaker for that last remark. Presently a

"But look here, I really can't quite get the hang of your notionsyour, principles, if they are principles. You

are inconsistent. You are opposed to aristocracies, yet you'd take an earldom if you could. Am I to understand

"And you wouldn't blame Tompkins, or yourself, or me, or anybody, for accepting an earldom if it was

"The whole nationany bulk and mass of population anywhere, in any country, that will put up with the

infamy, the outrage, the insult of a hereditary aristocracy which they can't enterand on absolutely free and

"Come, aren't you beclouding yourself with distinctions that are not differences?"

"Indeed I am not. I am entirely clearheaded about this thing. If I could extirpate an aristocratic system by

declining its honors, then I should be a rascal to accept them. And if enough of the mass would join me to

make the extirpation possible, then I should be a rascal to do otherwise than help in the attempt."

"I believe I understandyes, I think I get the idea. You have no blame for the lucky few who naturally

decline to vacate the pleasant nest they were born into, you only despise the allpowerful and stupid mass of

"That's it, that's it! You can get a simple thing through your head if you work at it long enough."

"Don't mention it. And I'll give you some sound advice: when you go back; if you find your nation up and

ready to abolish that hoary affront, lend a hand; but if that isn't the state of things and you get a chance at an

"I never saw such a fellow. I begin to think you've got a good deal of imagination. With you, the idlestfancy

freezes into a reality at a breath. Why, you looked, then, as if it wouldn't astonish you if you did tumble into

Tracy blushed. Barrow added: "Earldom! Oh, yes, take it, if it offers; but meantime we'll go on looking

around, in a modest way, and if you get a chance to superintend a sausagestuffer at six or eight dollars a

week, you just trade off the earldom for a last year's almanac and stick to the sausagestuffing,"

Tracy went to bed happy once more, at rest in his mind once more. He had started out on a high

emprisethat was to his credit, he argued; he had fought the best fight he could, considering the odds against

himthat was to his credit; he had been defeatedcertainly there was nothing discreditable in that. Being

defeated, he had a right to retire with the honors of war and go back without prejudice to the position in the

world's society to which he had been born. Why not? even the rabid republican chairmaker would do that.

He woke refreshed, happy, and eager for his cablegram. He had been born an aristocrat, he had been a

democrat for a time, he was now an aristocrat again. He marveled to find that this final change was not

merely intellectual, it had invaded his feeling; and he also marveled to note that this feeling seemed a good

deal less artificial than any he had entertained in his system for a long time. He could also have noted, if he

had thought of it, that his bearing had stiffened, over night, and that his chin had lifted itself a shade. Arrived

in the basement, he was about to enter the breakfast room when he saw old Marsh in the dim light of a corner

of the hall, beckoning him with his finger to approach. The blood welled slowly up in Tracy's cheek, and he

"I refuse to stop and think. It doesn't interest me. If it interests you, speak out."

"Well, then," said Marsh, raising his voice to a slightly angry pitch," You forgot to pay your board

Oh, yes, this heir to an annual million or so had been dreaming and soaring, and had forgotten that pitiful

three or four dollars. For penalty he must have it coarsely flung in his face in the presence of these

peoplepeople in whose countenances was already beginning to dawn an uncharitable enjoyment of the

Tracy's hand went down into his pocket with angry decision. Butit didn't come out. The color began to ebb

out of his face. The countenances about him showed a growing interest; and some of them a heightened

satisfaction. There was an uncomfortable pausethen he forced out, with difficulty, the words:

"Robbed, is it? That's your tune? It's too oldbeen played in this house too often; everybody plays it that

can't get work when he wants it, and won't work when he can get it. Trot out Mr. Allen, somebody, and let

him take a toot at it. It's his turn next, he forgot, too, last night. I'm laying for him."

One of the negro women came scrambling down stairs as pale as a sorrel horse with consternation and

"It's jes' so, jes' as I tells youen Misto Summer's socks is gone, en Misto Naylor's yuther shirt."

"Today is it? Sundayand you out of work? I like that. Comewhere are you going to get the money?"

Old Marsh was caught out, with the surprise of it. The idea was so immense, so extravagant, that he couldn't

"A cablegramthink of it, ladies and gents, he's expecting a cablegram! He's expecting a cablegramthis

duffer, this scrub, this bilk! From his fathereh? Yeswithout a doubt. A dollar or two a wordoh, that's

nothingthey don't mind a little thing like thatthis kind's fathers don't. Now his father iserwell, I

The crowd fell back aghastaghast at the sublimity of the young loafer's "cheek." Then they burst into a

laugh that made the windows rattle. Tracy was too angry to realize that he had done a foolish thing. He said:

"Wait a minute, your lordship," said Marsh, bowing low, "where is your lordship going?"

"I mean that I didn't begin to keep boardinghouse yesterday. It means that I am not the kind that can be

taken in by every hackdriver's son that comes loafing over here because he can't bum a living at home. It

"Don't, Mr. Tracy, please." She turned to her husband and said, "Do bridle your tongue. What has he done to

be treated so? Can't you see he has lost his mind, with trouble and distress? He's not responsible."

"Thank your kind heart, madam, but I've not lost my mind; and if I can have the mere privilege of stepping to

"Sending! That beats everything. If there's anybody that's fool enough to go on such a chuckleheaded

"Yes, he's come off and forgot his crown, that he wears Sundays. He's cabled over to his pappy to send it."

"You step out and get that cablegram, Barrow; his majesty's a little lame today."

"Oh stop," cried Barrow; "give the man a chance." He turned, and said with some severity, "Tracy, what's the

matter with you? What kind of foolishness is this you've been talking. You ought to have more sense."

"Oh; don't talk so. I'm your friend in trouble and out of it, before your face and behind your back, for

anything in reason; but you've lost your head, you see, and this moonshine about a cablegram"

"Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Brady. Here, I'll give you a Written order for it. Fly, now, and fetch

Brady flew. Immediately the sort of quiet began to steal over the crowd which means dawning doubt,

misgiving; and might be translated into the words, "Maybe he is expecting a cablegrammaybe he has got a

father somewheremaybe we've been just a little too fresh, just a shade too 'previous'!"

Loud talk ceased; then the mutterings and low murmurings and whisperings died out. The crowd began to

crumble apart. By ones and twos the fragments drifted to the breakfast table. Barrow tried to bring Tracy in;

Mrs. Marsh and Hattie tried, offering gentle and kindly persuasions; but he said;

Even old Marsh began to have suspicions that maybe he had been a trifle too "brash," as he called it in the

privacy of his soul, and he pulled himself together and started toward Tracy with invitation in his eyes; but

Tracy warned him off with a gesture which was quite positive and eloquent. Then followed the stillest quarter

of an hour which had ever been known in that house at that time of day. It was so still, and so solemn withal,

that when somebody's cup slipped from his fingers and landed in his plate the shock made people start, and

the sharp sound seemed as indecorous there and as out of place as if a coffin and mourners were imminent

and being waited for. And at last when Brady's feet came clattering down the stairs the sacrilege seemed

unbearable. Everybody rose softly and turned toward the door, where stood Tracy; then with a common

impulse, moved a step or two in that direction, and stopped. While they gazed, young Brady arrived, panting,

and put into Tracy's hand,sure enoughan envelope. Tracy fastened a bland victorious eye upon the

gazers, and kept it there till one by one they dropped their eyes, vanquished and embarrassed. Then he tore

open the telegram and glanced at its message. The yellow paper fell from his fingers and fluttered to the floor,

The humorist of the house, the tall, rawboned Billy Nash, caulker from the navy yard, was standing in the

rear of the crowd. In the midst of the pathetic silence that was now brooding over the place and moving some

few hearts there toward compassion, he began to whimper, then he put his handkerchief to his eyes and

buried his face in the neck of the, bashfulest young fellow in the company, a navyyard blacksmith, shrieked

"Oh, pappy, how could you!" and began to bawl like a teething baby, if one may imagine a baby with the

So perfect was that imitation of a child's cry, and so vast the scale of it and so ridiculous the aspect of the

performer, that all gravity was swept from the place as if by a hurricane, and almost everybody there joined in

the crash of laughter provoked by the exhibition. Then the small mob began to take its revengerevenge for

the discomfort and apprehension it had brought upon itself by its own too rash freshness of a little while

before. It guyed its poor victim, baited him, worried him, as dogs do with a cornered cat. The victim

answered back with defiances and challenges which included everybody, and which only gave the sport new

spirit and variety; but when he changed his tactics and began to single out individuals and invite them by

name, the fun lost its funniness and the interest of the show died out, along with the noise.

"Never mind, nowleave him alone. You've no account with him but a money account. I'll take care of that

The distressed and worried landlady gave Barrow a fervently grateful look for his championship of the

abused stranger; and the pet of the house, a very prism in her cheap but ravishing Sunday rig, blew him a kiss

from the tips of her fingers and said, with the darlingest smile and a sweet little toss of her head:

"You're the only man here, and I'm going to set my cap for you, you dear old thing!"

It took a good deal of argument and persuasionthat is to say, petting, under these disguisesto get Tracy

to entertain the idea of breakfast. He at first said he would never eat again in that house; and added that he

had enough firmness of character, he trusted, to enable him to starve like a man when the alternative was to

When he had finished his breakfast, Barrow took him to his room, furnished him a pipe, and said cheerily:

"Now, old fellow, take in your battleflag out of the wet, you're not in the hostile camp any more. You're a

little upset by your troubles, and that's natural enough, but don't let your mind run on them anymore than you

can help; drag your thoughts away from your troubles by the ears, by the heels, or any other way, so you

manage it; it's the healthiest thing a body can do; dwelling on troubles is deadly, just deadlyand that's the

"Don't! There's just pure heartbreak in that tone. It's just as I say; you've got to get right down to it and

"They're easy words to say, Barrow, but how am I going to amuse, entertain, divert a mind that finds itself

suddenly assaulted and overwhelmed by disasters of a sort not dreamed of and not provided for? Nono, the

bare idea of amusement is repulsive to my feelings: Let us talk of death and funerals."

"Nonot yet. That would be giving up the ship. We'll not give up the ship yet. I'm going to amuse you; I sent

Brady arrived with a box, and departed, after saying" They're finishing one up, but they'll be along as soon as

Barrow took a frameless oil portrait a foot square from the box, set it up in a good light, without comment,

and reached for another, taking a furtive glance at Tracy, meantime. The stony solemnity in Tracy's face

remained as it was, and gave out no sign of interest. Barrow placed the second portrait beside the first, and

stole another glance while reaching for a third. The stone image softened, a shade. No. 3 forced the ghost of a

smile, No. 4 swept indifference wholly away, and No. 5 started a laugh which was still in good and hearty

The pictures were fearful, as to color, and atrocious as to drawing and expression; but the feature which

squelched animosity and made them funny was a feature which could not achieve its full force in a single

picture, but required the wonderworking assistance of repetition. One loudly dressed mechanic in stately

attitude, with his hand on a cannon, ashore, and a ship riding at anchor in the offing,this is merely odd; but

when one sees the same cannon and the same ship in fourteen pictures in a row, and a different mechanic

"Well, they are not the achievement of a single intellect, a single talentit takes two to do these miracles.

They are collaborations; the one artist does the figure, the other the accessories. The figure artist is a

German shoemaker with an untaught passion for art, the other is a simple hearted old Yankee sailorman

whose possibilities are strictly limited to his ship, his cannon and his patch of petrified sea. They work these

things up from twentyfivecent tintypes; they get six dollars apiece for them, and they can grind out a

"They actually doand quite willingly, too. And these abortionists could double their trade and work the

women in, if Capt. Saltmarsh could whirl a horse in, or a piano, or a guitar, in place of his cannon. The fact

is, he fatigues the market with that cannon. Even the male market, I mean. These fourteen in the procession

are not all satisfied. One is an old "independent" fireman, and he wants an engine in place of the cannon;

another is a mate of a tug, and wants a tug in place of the ship and so on, and so on. But the captain can't

make a tug that is deceptive, and a fire engine is many flights beyond his power."

"This is a most extraordinary form of robbery, I never have heard of anything like it. It's interesting."

"Yes, and so are the artists. They are perfectly honest men, and sincere. And the old sailorman is full of

sound religion, and is as devoted a student of the Bible and misquoter of it as you can find anywhere. I don't

know a better man or kinder hearted old soul than Saltmarsh, although he does swear a little, sometimes."

"You'll have the chance. I guess I hear them coming, now. We'll draw them out on their art, if you like."

The artists arrived and shook hands with great heartiness. The German was forty and a little fleshy, with a

shiny bald head and a kindly face and deferential manner. Capt. Saltmarsh was sixty, tall, erect, powerfully

built, with coalblack hair and whiskers, and he had a well tanned complexion, and a gait and countenance

that were full of command, confidence and decision. His horny hands and wrists were covered with

tattoomarks, and when his lips parted, his teeth showed up white and blemishless. His voice was the

effortless deep bass of a church organ, and would disturb the tranquility of a gas flame fifty yards away.

"It is very bleasant dot you like dem," said Handel, the German, greatly pleased. "Und you, Herr Tracy, you

"Schon!" cried the German, delighted. "You hear, Gaptain? Here is a chentleman, yes, vot abbreviate unser

"Well, sir, we're thankful for a compliment yet, though they're not as scarce now as they used to be before we

"It's so. It ain't enough to know how to reef a gasket, you got to make the mate know you know it. That's

reputation. The good word, said at the right time, that's the word that makes us; and evil be to him that evil

"He is born mit dose cannon in him. He tondt haf to do noding, his chenius do all de vork. Of he is asleep,

and take a pencil in his hand, out come a cannon. Py crashus, of he could do a clavier, of he could do a guitar,

of he could do a vashtub, it is a fortune, heiliger Yohanniss it is yoost a fortune!"

"Well, it is an immense pity that the business is hindered and limited in this unfortunate way."

"You've said it, Mr. Tracy!Hindered? well, I should say so. Why, look here. This fellow here, No. 11, he's

a hackman,a flourishing hackman, I may say. He wants his hack in this picture. Wants it where the cannon

is. I got around that difficulty, by telling him the cannon's our trademark, so to speakproves that the picture's

our work, and I was afraid if we left it out people wouldn't know for certain if it was a

"What, Captain? You wrong yourself, indeed you do. Anyone who has once seen a genuine

SaltmarshHandel is safe from imposture forever. Strip it, flay it, skin it out of every detail but the bare color

"still say to himself again as he had, said a hundred times before, the art of the SaltmarshHandel is an art

apart, there is nothing in the heavens above or in the earth beneath that resembles it,"

"Py chiminy, nur horen Sie einmal! In my life day haf I never heard so brecious worts."

"So I talked him out of the hack, Mr. Tracy, and he let up on that, and said put in a hearse, thenbecause

he's chief mate of a hearse but don't own itstands a watch for wages, you know. But I can't do a hearse any

more than I can a hack; so here we arebecalmed, you see. And it's the same with women and such. They

"Yescannon, or cat, or any little thing like that, that you heave into whoop up the effect. We could do a

prodigious trade with the women if we could foreground the things they like, but they don't give a damn for

artillery. Mine's the lack," continued the captain with a sigh, "Andy's end of the business is all right I tell you

"Yoost hear dot old man! He always talk 'poud me like dot," purred the pleased German.

"Look at his work yourself! Fourteen portraits in a row. And no two of them alike."

"Now that you speak of it, it is true; I hadn't noticed it before. It is very remarkable. Unique, I suppose."

"I should say so. That's the very thing about Andyhe discriminates. Discrimination's the thief of

timefortyninth Psalm; but that ain't any matter, it's the honest thing, and it pays in the end."

"Yes, he certainly is great in that feature, one is obliged to admit it; butnow mind, I'm not really

The captain's face was knocked expressionless by this remark. It remained quite vacant while he muttered to

himself" Technique techniquepolytechniquepyrotechnique; that's it, likelyfireworks too much

"Well, yes, he does pile it on pretty loud; but they all like it, you knowfact is, it's the life of the business.

Take that No. 9, there, Evans the butcher. He drops into the stoodio as sobercolored as anything you ever

see: now look at him. You can't tell him from scarlet fever. Well, it pleases that butcher to death. I'm making

a study of a sausagewreath to hang on the cannon, and I don't really reckon I can do it right, but if I can, we

"Unquestionably your confederateI mean youryour fellowcraftsman is a great colorist"

"in fact a quite extraordinary colorist; a colorist, I make bold to say, without imitator here or abroadand

with a most bold and effective touch, a touch like a battering ram; and a manner so peculiar and romantic,

and extraneous, and ad libitum, and heartsearching, that thathehe is an impressionist, I presume?"

"It accounts for it allallthere's something divine about his art, soulful, unsatisfactory, yearning, dim

hearkening on the void horizon, vaguemurmuring to the spirit out of ultramarine distances and far

sounding cataclysms of uncreated spaceoh, if heif, hehas he ever tried distemper?"

"Dot's him, dot's him!der fery dog. Wy, py Chorge, dot dog he would eat baint yoost de same like"

"Well, never mind that, now'vast heavingI never saw such a man. You start him on that dog and he'll

dispute a year. Blamed if I haven't seen him keep it up a level two hours and a half."

The artists presently took their leave. Then Barrow put his hands on Tracy's shoulders and said:

"Look me in the eye, my boy. Steady, steady. Thereit's just as I thoughthoped, anyway; you're all right,

thank goodness. Nothing the matter with your mind. But don't do that againeven for fun. It isn't wise. They

wouldn't have believed you if you'd been an earl's son. Why, they couldn'tdon't you know that? What ever

possessed you to take such a freak? But never mind about that; let's not talk of it. It was a mistake; you see

"Well, just drop it out of your, mind; it's no harm; we all make them. Pull your courage together, and don't

brood, and don't give up. I'm at your back, and we'll pull through, don't you be afraid."

When he was gone, Barrow walked the floor a good while, uneasy in his mind. He said to himself, "I'm

troubled about him. He never would have made a break like that if he hadn't been a little off his balance. But I

know what being out of work and no prospect ahead can do for a man. First it knocks the pluck out of him

and drags his pride in the dirt; worry does the rest, and his mind gets shaky. I must talk to these people.

Noif there's any humanity in themand there is, at bottom they'll be easier on him if they think his

troubles have disturbed his reason. But I've got to find him some work; work's the only medicine for his

The moment Tracy was alone his spirits vanished away, and all the misery of his situation was manifest to

him. To be moneyless and an object of the chairmaker's charitythis was bad enough, but his folly in

proclaiming himself an earl's son to that scoffing and unbelieving crew, and, on top of that, the humiliating

resultthe recollection of these things was a sharper torture still. He made up his mind that he would never

His father's answer was a blow he could not understand. At times he thought his father imagined he could get

work to do in America without any trouble, and was minded to let him try it and cure himself of his

radicalism by hard, cold, disenchanting experience. That seemed the most plausible theory, yet he could not

content himself with it. A theory that pleased him better was, that this cablegram would be followed by

another, of a gentler sort, requiring him to come home. Should he write and strike his flag, and ask for a ticket

home? Oh, no, that he couldn't ever do. At least, not yet. That cablegram would come, it certainly would. So

he went from one telegraph office to another every day for nearly a week, and asked if there was a cablegram

for Howard Tracy. No, there wasn't any. So they answered him at first. Later, they said it before he had a

chance to ask. Later still they merely shook their heads impatiently as soon as he came in sight. After that he

He was down in the lowest depths of despair, now; for the harder Barrow tried to find work for him the more

"Look here. I want to make a confession. I have got down, now, to where I am not only willing to

acknowledge to myself that I am a shabby creature and full of false pride, but am willing to acknowledge it to

you. Well, I've been allowing you to wear yourself out hunting for work for me when there's been a chance

open to me all the time. Forgive my pridewhat was left of it. It is all gone, now, and I've come to confess

that if those ghastly artists want another confederate, I'm their manfor at last I am dead to shame."

"Not as badly as they. No, I don't claim that, for I am not a genius; in fact, I am a very indifferent amateur, a

slouchy dabster, a mere artistic sarcasm; but drunk or asleep I can beat those buccaneers."

"Shake! I want to shout! Oh, I tell you, I am immensely delighted and relieved. Oh, just to workthat is life!

No matter what the work is that's of no consequence. Just work itself is bliss when a man's been starving

for it. I've been there! Come right along; we'll hunt the old boys up. Don't you feel good? I tell you I do."

The freebooters were not at home. But their "works" were, displayed in profusion all about the little ratty

studio. Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in frontit was Balaclava come

"Here's the uncontented hackman, Tracy. Buckle todeepen the seagreen to turf, turn the ship into a

The artists arrived just as the last touch was put on. They stood transfixed with admiration.

"My souls but she's a stunner, that hearse! The hackman will just go all to pieces when he sees that won't he

"Oh, it is sphlennid, sphlennid! Herr Tracy, why haf you not said you vas a so sublime aartist? Lob' Gott, of

The arrangements were soon made. Tracy was taken into full and equal partnership, and he went straight to

work, with dash and energy, to reconstructing gems of art whose accessories had failed to satisfy. Under his

hand, on that and succeeding days, artillery disappeared and the emblems of peace and commerce took its

placecats, hacks, sausages, tugs, fire engines, pianos, guitars, rocks, gardens, flowerpots,

landscapeswhatever was wanted, he flung it in; and the more out of place and absurd the required object

was, the more joy he got out of fabricating it. The pirates were delighted, the customers applauded, the sex

began to flock in, great was the prosperity of the firm. Tracy was obliged to confess to himself that there was

something about work,even such grotesque and humble work as thiswhich most pleasantly satisfied a

something in his nature which had never been satisfied before, and also gave him a strange new dignity in his

The Unqualified Member from Cherokee Strip was in a state of deep dejection. For a good while, now, he

had been leading a sort of life which was calculated to kill; for it had consisted in regularly alternating days

of brilliant hope and black disappointment. The brilliant hopes were created by the magician Sellers, and they

always promised that now he had got the trick, sure, and would effectively influence that materialized

cowboy to call at the Towers before night. The black disappointments consisted in the persistent and

At the date which this history has now reached, Sellers was appalled to find that the usual remedy was

inoperative, and that Hawkins's low spirits refused absolutely to lift. Something must be done, he reflected; it

was heartbreaking, this woe, this smileless misery, this dull despair that looked out from his poor friend's

face. Yes, he must be cheered up. He mused a while, then he saw his way. He said in his most conspicuously

"Eruhby the way, Hawkins, we are feeling disappointed about this thingthe way the materializee is

"Very well; so far, so good. Now for the basis of the feeling. It is not that your heart, your affections are

concerned; that is to say, it is not that you want the materializee Itself. You concede that?"

"Very well, again; we are making progress. To sum up: The feeling, it is conceded, is not engendered by the

mere conduct of the materializee; it is conceded that it does not arise from any pang which the personality of

the materializee could assuage. Now then, "said the earl, with the light of triumph in his eye, "the inexorable

logic of the situation narrows us down to this: our feeling has its source in the moneyloss involved.

"Very well. When you've found out the source of a disease, you've also found out what remedy is

The old, old seduction was in that airy, confident tone and those significant wordsusually called pregnant

words in books. The old answering signs of faith and hope showed up in Hawkins's countenance, and he said:

"Washington, have you the impression that I have no resources but those I allow the public and my intimate

"Is it likely, do you think, that a man moved by nature and taught by experience to keep his affairs to himself

and a cautious and reluctant tongue in his head, wouldn't be thoughtful enough to keep a few resources in

"That's it. You see you didn't even know that I had one. Come along. I've got a little trick there that I want to

show you. I've kept it perfectly quiet, not fifty people know anything about it. But that's my way, always been

my way. Wait till you're ready, that's the idea; and when you're ready, zzip!let her go!"

"Well, Colonel, I've never seen a man that I've had such unbounded confidence in as you. When you say a

thing right out, I always feel as if that ends it; as if that is evidence, and proof, and everything else."

"Thank you, my boy. You shan't repent it. And you can't." Arrived in the " laboratory," the earl continued,

"Now, cast your eye around this roomwhat do you see? Apparently a junkshop; apparently a hospital

connected with a patent officein reality, the mines of Golconda in disguise! Look at that thing there. Now

"Of course you couldn't. It's my grand adaptation of the phonograph to the marine service. You store up

profanity in it for use at sea. You know that sailors don't fly around worth a cent unless you swear at

themso the mate that can do the best job of swearing is the most valuable man. In great emergencies his

talent saves the ship. But a ship is a large thing, and he can't be everywhere at once; so there have been times

when one mate has lost a ship which could have been saved if they had had a hundred. Prodigious storms,

you know. Well, a ship can't afford a hundred mates; but she can afford a hundred Cursing Phonographs, and

distribute them all over the vesseland there, you see, she's armed at every point. Imagine a big storm, and a

hundred of my machines all cursing away at oncesplendid spectacle, splendid!you couldn't hear

yourself think. Ship goes through that storm perfectly sereneshe's just as safe as she'd be on shore."

"Yesbecause every word it collars, it keepskeeps it forever. Never wears out. Any time you turn the

crank, out it'll come. In times of great peril, you can reverse it, and it'll swear backwards. That makes a sailor

"Yes, if he chooses. Or I'll furnish them already loaded. I can hire an expert for $75 a month who will load a

hundred and fifty phonographs in 150 hours, and do it easy. And an expert can furnish a stronger article, of

course, than the mere average uncultivated mate could. Then you see, all the ships of the world will buy them

ready loadedfor I shall have them loaded in any language a customer wants. Hawkins, it will work the

grandest moral reform of the 19th century. Five years from now, all the swearing will be done by

machineryyou won't ever hear a profane word come from human lips on a ship. Millions of dollars have

been spent by the churches, in the effort to abolish profanity in the commercial marine. Think of itmy

name will live forever in the affections of good men as the man, who, solitary and alone, accomplished this

"O, it is grand and beneficent and beautiful. How did you ever come to think of it? You have a wonderful

"O, it's no troubleperfectly simple. If you want to load it up loud and strong, you stand right over it and

shout. But if you leave it open and all set, it'll eavesdrop, so to speakthat is to say, it will load itself up with

any sounds that are made within six feet of it. Now I'll show you how it works. I had an expert come and load

this one up yesterday. Hello, it's been left openit's too badstill I reckon it hasn't had much chance to

The plaintive song began again, mingled with a low, gradually rising wail of cats slowly warming up toward

(Renewal of furious catfight for a moment. The plaintive voice on a high fierce key, "Scat, you devils"and

"Well, never mindlet it go. I've got some sailorprofanity down in there somewhere, if I could get to it.

"O, thanks, thanks; you are just as generous as ever. Ah, it's the grandest invention of the age!"

"Ah, well; we live in wonderful times. The elements are crowded full of beneficent forcesalways have

beenand ours is the first generation to turn them to account and make them work for us. Why Hawkins,

everything is usefulnothing ought ever to be wasted. Now look at sewer gas, for instance. Sewer gas has

always been wasted, heretofore; nobody tried to save up sewergasyou can't name me a man. Ain't that so?

"Should want to save it up? Well, I'll tell you. Do you see this little invention here?it's a decomposerI

call it a decomposer. I give you my word of honor that if you show me a house that produces a given quantity

of sewergas in a day, I'll engage to set up my decomposer there and make that house produce a hundred

"Want to? Listen, and you'll see. My boy, for illuminating purposes and economy combined, there's nothing

in the world that begins with sewer gas. And really, it don't cost a cent. You put in a good inferior article of

plumbing,such as you find everywhereand add my decomposer, and there you are. Just use the ordinary

gas pipesand there your expense ends. Think of it. Why, Major, in five years from now you won't see a

house lighted with anything but sewergas. Every physician I talk to, recommends it; and every plumber."

"O, yes, more or less, but everything iscoal gas, candles, electricity there isn't anything that ain't."

"Well, no, not a first rate one. Polly's prejudiced, and she won't let me put it in here; but I'm playing my cards

to get it adopted in the President's house, and then it'll godon't you doubt it. I shall not need this one for the

present, Washington; you may take it down to some boardinghouse and give it a trial if you like."

Washington shuddered slightly at the suggestion, then his face took on a dreamy look and he dropped into a

trance of thought. After a little, Sellers asked him what he was grinding in his mental mill.

"Well, this. Have you got some secret project in your head which requires a Bank of England back of it to

"Well, then how did you happen to drop onto that idea in this curious fashion? It's just mindreading, that's

what it is, though you may not know it. Because I have got a private project that requires a Bank of England

at its back. How could you divine that? What was the process? This is interesting."

"There wasn't any process. A thought like this happened to slip through my head by accident: How much

would make you or me comfortable? A hundred thousand. Yet you are expecting two or three ofthese

inventions of yours to turn out some billions of moneyand you are wanting them to do that. If you wanted

ten millions, I could understand thatit's inside the human limits. But billions! That's clear outside the

The earl's interest and surprise augmented with every word, and when Hawkins finished, he said with strong

"It's wonderfully reasoned out, Washington, it certainly is. It shows what I think is quite extraordinary

penetration. For you've hit it; you've driven the centre, you've plugged the bullseye of my dream. Now I'll

tell you the whole thing, and you'll understand it. I don't need to ask you to keep it to yourself, because you'll

see that the project will prosper all the better for being kept in the background till the right time. Have you

"Well, I've been posting myself a good while. That's a great and, splendid nation, and deserves to be set free."

He paused, then added in a quite matteroffact way, " When I get this money I'm going to set it free."

"Dear me, when you are going to drop a remark under a man's chair that is likely to blow him out through the

roof, why don't you put some expression, some force, some noise unto it that will prepare him? You shouldn't

flip out such a gigantic thing as this in that colorless kind of a way. You do jolt a person up, so. Go on, now,

I'm all right again. Tell me all about it. I'm all interestyes, and sympathy, too."

"Well, I've looked the ground over, and concluded that the methods of the Russian patriots, while good

enough considering the way the boys are hampered, are not the best; at least not the quickest. They are trying

to revolutionize Russia from within; that's pretty slow, you know, and liable to interruption all the time, and

is full of perils for the workers. Do you know how Peter the Great started his army? He didn't start it on the

family premises under the noses of the Strelitzes; no, he started it away off yonder, privately,only just one

regiment, you know, and he built to that. The first thing the Strelitzes knew, the regiment was an army, their

position was turned, and they had to take a walk. Just that little idea made the biggest and worst of all the

despotisms the world has seen. The same idea can unmake it. I'm going to prove it. I'm going to get out to one

"Yes, as soon as I get the money. I don't care what the price is, I shall take it. I can afford it, and I will. Now

then, consider this and you've never thought of it, I'll warrant. Where is the place where there is

twentyfive times more manhood, pluck, true heroism, unselfishness, devotion to high and noble ideals,

adoration of liberty, wide education, and brains, per thousand of population, than any other domain in the

"Nobody ever thinks of it. But it's so, just the same. In those mines and prisons are gathered together the very

finest and noblest and capablest multitude of human beings that God is able to create. Now if you had that

kind of a population to sell, would you offer it to a despotism? No, the despotism has no use for it; you would

lose money. A despotism has no use for anything but human cattle. But suppose you want to start a

"Well, I should say so! There's Siberia with just the very finest and choicest material on the globe for a

republic, and more comingmore coming all the time, don't you see! It is being daily, weekly, monthly

recruited by the most perfectly devised system that has ever been invented, perhaps. By this system the whole

of the hundred millions of Russia are being constantly and patiently sifted, sifted, sifted, by myriads of

trained experts, spies appointed by the Emperor personally; and whenever they catch a man, woman or child

that has got any brains or education or character, they ship that person straight to Siberia. It is admirable, it is

wonderful. It is so searching and so effective that it keeps the general level of Russian intellect and education

"Well, it's what they say anyway. But I think, myself, it's a lie. And it doesn't seem right to slander a whole

nation that way, anyhow. Now, then, you see what the material is, there in Siberia, for a republic." He paused,

and his breast began to heave and his eye to burn, under the impulse of strong emotion. Then his words began

to stream forth, with constantly increasing energy and fire, and he rose to his feet as if to give himself larger

freedom. "The minute I organize that republic, the light of liberty, intelligence, justice, humanity, bursting

from it, flooding from it, flaming from it, will concentrate the gaze of the whole astonished world as upon the

miracle of a new sun; Russia's countless multitudes of slaves will rise up and march, march!eastward, with

that great light transfiguring their faces as they come, and far back of them you will seewhat will you

He stood a moment bereft of earthy consciousness by his exaltation; then consciousness returned, bringing

"I must ask you to pardon me, Major Hawkins. I have never used that expression before, and I beg you will

"You see, Washington, it is an error which I am by nature not liable to. Only excitable people, impulsive

people, are exposed to it. But the circumstances of the present caseI being a democrat by birth and

The earl stopped suddenly, his frame stiffened, and he began to stare speechless through the curtainless

"Sure as you're born. Keep perfectly still. I'll apply the influence I'll turn on all my force. I've brought It

Quite true. Tracy, out for an afternoon stroll, had come unexpectantly upon his family arms displayed upon

this shabby housefront. The hatchments made him smile; which was nothing, they had made the

"You're drawing it sure, Rossmore. If I ever had any doubts about materialization, they're gone, now, and

Tracy was sauntering over to read the doorplate. Before he was half way over he was saying to himself,

"It's comingcoming right along. I'll slide, down and pull It in. You follow after me."

Sellers, pale and a good deal agitated, opened the door and confronted Tracy. The old man could not at once

get his voice: then he pumped out a scattering and hardly coherent salutation, and followed it with

"Oh, I judge not," said Sellers, whonoticing that Hawkins had arrived, gave him a sidewise glance

intended to call his close attention to a dramatic effect which he was proposing to produce by his next

To the astonishment of both conspirators the remark produced no dramatic effect at all; for the new comer

"No, pardon me. I don't know who you are. I only supposebut no doubt correctlythat you are the

"Right, quite rightsit down, pray sit down." The earl was rattled, thrown off his bearings, his head was in a

whirl. Then he noticed Hawkins standing apart and staring idiotically at what to him was the apparition of a

"But a thousand pardons, dear sir, I am forgetting courtesies due to a guest and stranger. Let me introduce my

friend General HawkinsGeneral Hawkins, our new SenatorSenator from the latest and grandest addition

to the radiant galaxy of sovereign States, Cherokee Strip"(to himself, "that name will shrivel him

up!"but it didn't, in the least, and the Colonel resumed the introduction piteously disheartened and

Said the Colonel to himself, "This phantom lies like an expert. Purifying this kind by fire don't work. I'll

sound him a little further, give him another chance or two to work his gift." Then aloudwith deep irony

"Visiting our great country for recreation and amusement, no doubt. I suppose you find that traveling in the

"I haven't been West, and haven't been devoting myself to amusement with any sort of exclusiveness, I assure

"Artist!" said Hawkins to himself, thinking of the rifled bank; "that is a name for it!"

"Are you an artist?" asked the colonel; and added to himself, "now I'm going to catch him."

"I've got him!" said Sellers to himself. Then aloud, "This is fortunate. Could I engage you to restore some of

No shuffling, no evasion, no embarrassment, even under this crucial test. The Colonel was nonplussed. He

led Tracy to a chromo which had suffered damage in a former owner's hands through being used as a lamp

The colonel bent a look of reproach upon Tracy, allowed it to sink home, then resumed as if there had been

"This del Sarto is perhaps the only original of that sublime master in our country. You see, yourself, that the

work is of such exceeding delicacy that the riskcoulderwould you mind giving me a little example of

Watercolor materialsrelics of Miss Sally's college lifewere brought. Tracy said he was better in oils,

but would take a chance with these. So he was left alone. He began his work, but the attractions of the place

were too strong for him, and he got up and went drifting about, fascinated; also amazed.

Meantime the earl and Hawkins were holding a troubled and anxious private consultation. The earl said:

"Yesit worries me, too. And another thing troubles methe apparition is English. How do you account for

"Honestly, I don't know, Hawkins, I don't really know. It is very confusing and awful."

"The clothes are right, there's no getting around it. What are we going to do? We can't collect, as I see. The

"Well, it may be that that is not objectionable. You see it isn't less than is called for, it is more, and so,"

But he saw that this argument was weak, and dropped it. The friends sat brooding over their perplexities

some time in silence. Finally the earl's face began to glow with an inspiration, and he said, impressively:

"Hawkins, this materialization is a grander and nobler science than we have dreamed of. We have little

imagined what a solemn and stupendous thing we have done. The whole secret is perfectly clear to me, now,

clear as day. Every man is made up of heredities, longdescended atoms and particles of his ancestors. This

present materialization is incomplete. We have only brought it down to perhaps the beginning of this

"What do you mean, Colonel!" cried Hawkins, filled with vague alarms by the old man's awecompelling

"But it's true, Hawkins, I know it. Look at the facts. This apparition is distinctly Englishnote that. It uses

good grammarnote that. It is an Artistnote that. It has the manners and carriage of a gentleman note

"Never resurrected a rag of that burglar but the clothes, not a solitary rag of him but the clothes."

"I mean exactly this. The materialization was immature, the burglar has evaded us, this is nothing but a

"I know it. I know it, Senator; I feel it as deeply as anybody could. But we've got to submiton moral

grounds. I need money, but God knows I am not poor enough or shabby enough to be an accessory to the

punishing of a man's ancestor for crimes committed by that ancestor's posterity."

"But Colonel!" implored Hawkins; "stop and think; don't be rash; you know it's the only chance we've got to

get the money; and besides, the Bible itself says posterity to the fourth generation shall be punished for the

sins and crimes committed by ancestors four generations back that hadn't anything to do with them; and so

The Colonel was struck with the strong logic of this position. He strode up and down, and thought it painfully

"There's reason in it; yes, there's reason in it. And so, although it seems a piteous thing to sweat this poor

ancient devil for a burglary he hadn't the least hand in, still if duty commands I suppose we must give him up

"I would," said Hawkins, cheered and relieved, "I'd give him up if he was a thousand ancestors compacted

"Lord bless me, that's just what he is," said Sellers, with something like a groan, "it's exactly what he is;

there's a contribution in him from every ancestor he ever had. In him there's atoms of priests, soldiers,

crusaders, poets, and sweet and gracious womenall kinds and conditions of folk who trod this earth in old,

old centuries, and vanished out of it ages ago, and now by act of ours they are summoned from their holy

peace to answer for gutting a onehorse bank away out on the borders of Cherokee Strip, and it's just a

"Oh, don't talk like that, Colonel; it takes the heart all out of me, and makes me ashamed of the part I am

"It's perfectly simple; a child would have thought of it. He is all right, not a flaw in him, as far as I have

carried the work. If I've been able to bring him as far as the beginning of this century, what's to stop me now?

"Land, I never thought of that!" said Hawkins all ablaze with joy again. "It's the very thing. What a brain you

"It will wholly disappear. He will speak Cherokee Stripand other forms of profanity."

The Colonel said in his most impressive manner: "Hawkins, he will be wholly under my command. I will

make him confess every crime he ever committed. There must be a thousand. Do you get the idea?"

"Prodigious conception! I never saw such ahead for seeing with a lightning glance all the outlying

"It is nothing; it comes natural to me. When his time is out in one jail he goes to the next and the next, and we

shall have nothing to do but collect the rewards as he goes along. It is a perfectly steady income as long as we

live, Hawkins. And much better than other kinds of investments, because he is indestructible."

"Look?why it is. It will not be denied that I have had a pretty wide and comprehensive financial

experience, and I do not hesitate to say that I consider this one of the most valuable properties I have ever

"O, Colonel, the wasting grind and grief of poverty! If we could realize immediately. I don't mean sell it all,

"See how you tremble with excitement. That comes of lack of experience. My boy, when you have been

familiar with vast operations as long as I have, you'll be different. Look at me; is my eye dilated? do you

notice a quiver anywhere? Feel my pulse: plunkplunkplunksame as if I were asleep. And yet, what is

passing through my calm cold mind? A procession of figures which would make a financial novice drunk just

the sight of them. Now it is by keeping cool, and looking at a thing all around, that a man sees what's really in

it, and saves himself from the novice's unfailing mistakethe one you've just suggestedeagerness to

realize. Listen to me. Your idea is to sell a part of him for ready cash. Now mine isguess."

"Because you are not a financier. Say he has committed a thousand crimes. Certainly that's a low estimate. By

the look of him, even in his unfinished condition, he has committed all of a million. But call it only a

thousand to be perfectly safe; five thousand reward, multiplied by a thousand, gives us a dead sure cash basis

"And the property indestructible. Perpetually fruitfulperpetually; for a property with his disposition will go

"Let it whirl, it won't do it any harm. Now that matter is all fixed leave it alone. I'll get up the company and

issue the stock, all in good time. Just leave it in my hands. I judge you don't doubt my ability to work it up for

"All right, then. That's disposed of. Everything in its turn. We old operators, go by order and systemno

helterskelter business with us. What's the next thing on the docket? The carrying on of the

materializationthe bringing it down to date. I will begin on that at once. I think

"Why, my dear boy, once in my power, always in my power. It may go and come freely. I can produce it here

"Yes, I shall give it all the painting it wants to do, and we and the family will make it as comfortable and

contented as we can. No occasion to restrain its movements. I hope to persuade it to remain pretty quiet,

though, because a materialization which is in a state of arrested development must of necessity be pretty soft

The earl pointed significantlyand interrogatively toward the sky. Hawkins started; then settled into deep

"Well, I hardly know, but really you can see, yourself, that he doesn't seem to be pining for his last place."

"It's well thought! Soundly deduced. We've done that Thing a favor. But I believe I will pump it a little, in a

"How long is it going to take to finish him off and fetch him down to date, Colonel?"

"I wish I knew, but I don't. I am clear knocked out by this new detail this unforeseen necessity of working

a subject down gradually from his condition of ancestor to his ultimate result as posterity. But I'll make him

"Yes, dear. We're in the laboratory. ComeHawkins is here. Mind, now Hawkinshe's a sound, living,

"Keep your seats, I'm not coming in. I just wanted to ask, who is it that's painting down there?"

"That? Oh, that's a young artist; young Englishman, named Tracy; very promisingfavorite pupil of Hans

Christian Andersen or one of the other old mastersAndersen I'm pretty sure it is; he's going to halfsole

"Well, only a word. I stumbled right in on him without expecting anybody was there. I tried to be polite to

him; offered him a snack"(Sellers delivered a large wink to Hawkins from behind his hand), "but he

declined, and said he wasn't hungry" (another sarcastic wink); "so I brought some apples" (doublewink), "and

"What!" and the colonel sprang some yards toward the ceiling and came down quaking with astonishment.

Lady Rossmore was smitten dumb with amazement. She gazed at the sheepish relic of Cherokee Strip, then at

He did not answer immediately. His back was turned; he was bending over his chair, feeling the seat of it. But

"All that for a tack! Praise goodness it wasn't a shingle nail, it would have landed you in the Milky Way. I do

hate to have my nerves shook up so." And she turned on her heel and went her way.

It is eating! What a grisly spectacle! Hawkins it's horrible! Take me awayI can't stand

Tracy made slow progress with his work, for his mind wandered a good deal. Many things were puzzling

him. Finally a light burst upon him all of a suddenseemed to, at any rateand he said to himself, "I've got

the clew at lastthis man's mind is off its balance; I don't know how much, but it's off a point or two, sure;

off enough to explain this mess of perplexities, anyway. These dreadful chromos which he takes for old

masters; these villainous portraitswhich to his frantic mind represent Rossmores; the hatchments; the

pompous name of this ramshackle old crib Rossmore Towers; and that odd assertion of his, that I was

expected. How could I be expected? that is, Lord Berkeley. He knows by the papers that that person was

burned up in the New Gadsby. Why, hang it, he really doesn't know who he was expecting; for his talk

showed that he was not expecting an Englishman, or yet an artist, yet I answer his requirements

notwithstanding. He seems sufficiently satisfied with me. Yes, he is a little off; in fact I am afraid he is a

good deal off, poor old gentleman. But he's interestingall people in about his condition are, I suppose. I

hope he'll like my work; I would like to come every day and study him. And when I write my fatherah,

that hurts! I mustn't get on that subject; it isn't good for my spirits. Somebody comingI must get to work.

It's the old gentleman again. He looks bothered. Maybe my clothes are suspicious; and they arefor an

artist. If my conscience would allow me to make a change, but that is out of the question. I wonder what he's

making those passes in the air for, with his hands. I seem to be the object of them. Can he be trying to

The colonel muttered to himself, "It has an effect on him, I can see it myself. That's enough for one time, I

reckon. He's not very solid, yet, I suppose, and I might disintegrate him. I'll just put a sly question or two at

him, now, and see if I can find out what his condition is, and where he's from."

"Don't let me disturb you, Mr. Tracy; I only want to take a little glimpse of your work. Ah, that's finethat's

very fine indeed. You are doing it elegantly. My daughter will be charmed with this. May I sit down by you?"

Tracy laughed and said they were not ethereal enough to be very easily discommoded.

The colonel asked a number of cautious and wellconsidered questions questions which seemed pretty odd

and flighty to Tracybut the answers conveyed the information desired, apparently, for the colonel said to

"It's a good job as far as I've got, with it. He's solid. Solid and going to last, solid as the real thing.

It's wonderfulwonderful. I believe I couldpetrify him." After a little he asked, warily "Do you prefer

The colonel was startled, and said to himself, "There's no uncertain ring about that. It indicates where he's

He sat thinking, and thinking, and watching the brush go. At length he said to himself, "Yes, it certainly

seems to account for the failure of my endeavors in poor Berkeley's case. He went in the other direction.

Sally Sellers entered from the street, now, looking her divinest, and the artist was introduced to her. It was a

violent case of mutual love at first sight, though neither party was entirely aware of the fact, perhaps. The

Englishman made this irrelevant remark to himself, "Perhaps he is not insane, after all." Sally sat down, and

showed an interest in Tracy's work which greatly pleased him, and a benevolent forgiveness of it which

convinced him that the girl's nature was cast in a large mould. Sellers was anxious to report his discoveries to

Hawkins; so he took his leave, saying that if the two "young devotees of the colored Muse" thought they

could manage without him, he would go and look after his affairs. The artist said to himself, "I think he is a

little eccentric, perhaps, but that is all." He reproached himself for having injuriously judged a man without

Of course the stranger was very soon at his ease and chatting along comfortably. The average American girl

possesses the valuable qualities of naturalness, honesty, and inoffensive straightforwardness; she is nearly

barren of troublesome conventions and artificialities, consequently her presence and her ways are

unembarrassing, and one is acquainted with her and on the pleasantest terms with her before he knows how it

came about. This new acquaintanceshipfriendship, indeed progressed swiftly; and the unusual swiftness

of it, and the thoroughness of it are sufficiently evidenced and established by one noteworthy fact that

within the first half hour both parties had ceased to be conscious of Tracy's clothes. Later this consciousness

was reawakened; it was then apparent to Gwendolen that she was almost reconciled to them, and it was

apparent to Tracy that he wasn't. The reawakening was brought about by Gwendolen's inviting the artist to

stay to dinner. He had to decline, because he wanted to live, nowthat is, now that there was something to

live forand he could not survive in those clothes at a gentleman's table. He thought he knew that. But he

And whither did he go? He went straight to a slopshop and bought as neat and reasonably wellfitting a suit

of clothes as an Englishman could be persuaded to wear. He saidto himself, but at his conscience"I

know it's wrong; but it would be wrong not to do it; and two wrongs do not make a right."

This satisfied him, and made his heart light. Perhaps it will also satisfy the readerif he can make out what it

The old people were troubled about Gwendolen at dinner, because she was so distraught and silent. If they

had noticed, they would have found that she was sufficiently alert and interested whenever the talk stumbled

upon the artist and his work; but they didn't notice, and so the chat would swap around to some other subject,

and then somebody would presently be privately worrying about Gwendolen again, and wondering if she

were not well, or if something had gone wrong in the millinery line. Her mother offered her various reputable

patent medicines, and tonics with iron and other hardware in them, and her father even proposed to send out

for wine, relentless prohibitionist and head of the order in the District of Columbia as he was, but these

kindnesses were all declined thankfully, but with decision. At bedtime, when the family were breaking up

for the night, she privately looted one of the brushes, saying to herself, "It's the one he has used, the most."

The next morning Tracy went forth wearing his new suit, and equipped with a pink in his buttonholea

daily attention from Puss. His whole soul was full of Gwendolen Sellers, and this condition was an

inspiration, artwise. All the morning his brush pawed nimbly away at the canvases, almost without his

awarityawarity, in this sense being the sense of being aware, though disputed by some

authoritiesturning out marvel upon marvel, in the way of decorative accessories to the portraits, with a

felicity and celerity which amazed the veterans of the firm and fetched out of them continuous explosions of

Meantime Gwendolen was losing her morning, and many dollars. She supposed Tracy was coming in the

forenoona conclusion which she had jumped to without outside help. So she tripped down stairs every

little while from her workparlor to arrange the brushes and things over again, and see if he had arrived. And

when she was in her workparlor it was not profitable, but just the other wayas she found out to her

She had put in her idle moments during the last little while back, in designing a particularly rare and capable

gown for herself, and this morning she set about making it up; but she was absent minded, and made an

irremediable botch of it. When she saw what she had done, she knew the reason of it and the meaning of it;

and she put her work away from her and said she would accept the sign. And from that time forth she came

no more away from the Audience Chamber, but remained there and waited. After luncheon she waited again.

A whole hour. Then a great joy welled up in her heart, for she saw him coming. So she flew back up stairs

thankful, and could hardly wait for him to miss the principal brush, which she had mislaid down there, but

knew where she had mislaid it. However, all in good time the others were called in and couldn't find the

brush, and then she was sent for, and she couldn't find it herself for some little time; but then she found it

when the others had gone away to hunt in the kitchen and down cellar and in the woodshed, and all those

other places where people look for things whose ways they are not familiar with. So she gave him the brush,

and remarked that she ought to have seen that everything was ready for him, but it hadn't seemed necessary,

because it was so early that she wasn't expectingbut she stopped there, surprised at herself for what she

was saying; and he felt caught and ashamed, and said to himself, "I knew my impatience would drag me here

before I was expected, and betray me, and that is just what it has done; she sees straight through meand is

Gwendolen was very much pleased, on one account, and a little the other way in another; pleased with the

new clothes and the improvement which they had achieved; less pleased by the pink in the buttonhole.

Yesterday's pink had hardly interested her; this one was just like it, but somehow it had got her immediate

attention, and kept it. She wished she could think of some way of getting at its history in a properly colorless

"Whatever a man's age may be, he can reduce it several years by putting a brightcolored flower in his

buttonhole. I have often noticed that. Is that your sex's reason for wearing a boutonniere?"

"I fancy not, but certainly that reason would be a sufficient one. I've never heard of the idea before."

"Oh no," he said, simply, "they are given to me. I don't think I have any preference."

"They are given to him," she said to herself, and she felt a coldness toward that pink. "I wonder who it is, and

what she is like." The flower began to take up a good deal of room; it obtruded itself everywhere, it

intercepted all views, and marred them; it was becoming exceedingly annoying and conspicuous for a little

thing. "I wonder if he cares for her." That thought gave her a quite definite pain.

She had made everything comfortable for the artist; there was no further pretext for staying. So she said she

would go, now, and asked him to summon the servants in case he should need anything. She went away

unhappy; and she left unhappiness behind her; for she carried away all the sunshine. The time dragged

heavily for both, now. He couldn't paint for thinking of her; she couldn't design or millinerize with any heart,

for thinking of him. Never before had painting seemed so empty to him, never before had millinerizing

seemed so void of interest to her. She had gone without repeating that dinnerinvitationan almost

unendurable disappointment to him. On her partwell, she was suffering, too; for she had found she couldn't

invite him. It was not hard yesterday, but it was impossible today. A thousand innocent privileges seemed to

have been filched from her unawares in the past twentyfour hours. Today she felt strangely hampered,

restrained of her liberty. Today she couldn't propose to herself to do anything or say anything concerning

this young man without being instantly paralyzed into nonaction by the fear that he might "suspect." Invite

And so her afternoon was one long fret. Broken at intervals. Three times she had to go down stairs on

errandsthat is, she thought she had to go down stairs on errands. Thus, going and coming, she had six

glimpses of him, in the aggregate, without seeming to look in his direction; and she tried to endure these

electric ecstasies without showing any sign, but they fluttered her up a good deal, and she felt that the

naturalness she was putting on was overdone and quite too frantically sober and hysterically calm to deceive.

The painter had his share of the rapture; he had his six glimpses, and they smote him with waves of pleasure

that assaulted him, beat upon him, washed over him deliciously, and drowned out all consciousness of what

he was doing with his brush. So there were six places in his canvas which had to be done over again.

At last Gwendolen got some peace of mind by sending word to the Thompsons, in the neighborhood, that she

was coming there to dinner. She wouldn't be reminded, at that table, that there was an absentee who ought to

be a presenteea word which she meant to look out in the dictionary at a calmer time.

About this time the old earl dropped in for a chat with the artist, and invited him to stay to dinner. Tracy

cramped down his joy and gratitude by a sudden and powerful exercise of all his forces; and he felt that now

that he was going to be close to Gwendolen, and hear her voice and watch her face during several precious

The earl said to himself, "This spectre can eat apples, apparently. We shall find out, now, if that is a specialty.

I think, myself, it's a specialty. Apples, without doubt, constitute the spectral limit. It was the case with our

first parents. No, I am wrongat least only partly right. The line was drawn at apples, just as in the present

case, but it was from the other direction." The new clothes gave him a thrill of pleasure and pride. He said to

Sellers said he was pleased with Tracy's work; and he went on and engaged him to restore his old masters,

and said he should also want him to paint his portrait and his wife's and possibly his daughter's. The tide of

the artist's happiness was at flood, now. The chat flowed pleasantly along while Tracy painted and Sellers

carefully unpacked a picture which he had brought with him. It was a chromo; a new one, just out. It was the

smirking, selfsatisfied portrait of a man who was inundating the Union with advertisements inviting

everybody to buy his specialty, which was a threedollar shoe or a dresssuit or something of that kind. The

old gentleman rested the chromo flat upon his lap and gazed down tenderly upon it, and became silent and

meditative. Presently Tracy noticed that he was dripping tears on it. This touched the young fellow's

sympathetic nature, and at the same time gave him the painful sense of being an intruder upon a sacred

privacy, an observer of emotions which a stranger ought not to witness. But his pity rose superior to other

considerations, and compelled him to try to comfort the old mourner with kindly words and a show of

"Ah, more than that, far more than thata relative, the dearest I had on earth, although I was never permitted

to see him. Yes, it is young Lord Berkeley, who perished so heroically in the awful conflagration, what is the

It was a little startling to be so suddenly brought face to face, so to speak, with a person one has heard so

"Without doubt, yes. I never saw him, but you can easily see the resemblance to his father," said Sellers,

holding up the chromo and glancing from it to the chromo misrepresenting the Usurping Earl and back again

"Well, noI am not sure that I make out the likeness. It is plain that the Usurping Earl there has a great deal

of character and a long face like a horse's, whereas his heir here is smirky, moonfaced and characterless."

"We are all that way in the beginningall the line," said Sellers, undisturbed. "We all start as moonfaced

fools, then later we tadpole along into horsefaced marvels of intellect and character. It is by that sign and by

that fact that I detect the resemblance here and know this portrait to be genuine and perfect. Yes, all our

"Yes, yes, he was a fool, without any doubt. Examine the face, the shape of the head, the expression. It's all

"Wobbler. A person that's always taking a firm stand about something or otherkind of a Gibraltar stand, he

thinks, for unshakable fidelity and everlastingnessand then, inside of a little while, he begins to wobble; no

more Gibraltar there; no, sir, a mighty ordinary commonplace weakling wobblingaround on stilts. That's

Lord Berkeley to a dot, you can see it look at that sheep! But,why are you blushing like sunset! Dear sir,

"Oh, no indeed, no indeed. Far from it. But it always makes me blush to hear a man revile his own blood." He

said to himself, "How strangely his vagrant and unguided fancies have hit upon the truth. By accident, he has

described me. I am that contemptible thing. When I left England I thought I knew myself; I thought I was a

very Frederick the Great for resolution and staying capacity; whereas in truth I am just a Wobbler, simply a

Wobbler. Wellafter all, it is at least creditable to have high ideals and give birth to lofty resolutions; I will

allow myself that comfort." Then he said, aloud, "Could this sheep, as you call him, breed a great and

selfsacrificing idea in his head, do you think? Could he meditate such a thing, for instance, as the

renunciation of the earldom and its wealth and its glories, and voluntary retirement to the ranks of the

"Could he? Why, look at himlook at this simpering selfrighteous mug! There is your answer. It's the very

"Is that to happen with all myI mean would that happen to all his high resolutions?"

"Then this creature was fortunate to die! Suppose, for argument's sake, that I was a Rossmore, and"

"Because it's not a supposable case. To be a Rossmore at your age, you'd have to be a fool, and you're not a

fool. And you'd have to be a Wobbler, whereas anybody that is an expert in reading character can see at a

glance that when you set your foot down once, it's there to stay; and earthquake can't wobble it." He added to

himself, "That's enough to say to him, but it isn't half strong enough for the facts. The more I observe him,

now, the more remarkable I find him. It is the strongest face I have ever examined. There is almost

superhuman firmness here, immovable purpose, iron steadfastness of will. A most extraordinary young man."

"Some time I want to ask your advice about a little matter, Mr. Tracy. You see, I've got that young lord's

"Yesin baskets. Some time you will be going home; and if you wouldn't mind taking them along"

"Yescertainly. I don't mean now; but after a while; afterbut look here, would you like to see them?"

Gwendolen's face began to take on a sort of apprehensive 'WhathaveI done expression.'

Gwendolen's face betrayed a dawning hopefulness and she saidwith a tone of reluctance which hadn't the

"Oh, is it the Thompsons? That simplifies itsets everything right. We can fix it without spoiling your

"NoI won't have it. You are a good hardworking darling child, and your father is not the man to

Gwendolen was ready to cry with venation. But there was nothing to do but start; which she was about to do

when her father hit upon an idea which filled him with delight because it so deftly covered all the difficulties

"I've got it, my love, so that you won't be robbed of your holiday and at the same time we'll be pretty

satisfactorily fixed for a good time here. You send Belle Thompson hereperfectly beautiful creature,

Tracy, perfectly beautiful; I want you to see that girl; why, you'll just go mad; you'll go mad inside of a

minute; yes, you send her right along, Gwendolen, and tell herwhy, she's gone!" He turnedshe was

already passing out' at the gate. He muttered, "I wonder what's the matter; I don't know what her mouth's

doing, but I think her shoulders are swearing. Well," said Sellers blithely to Tracy, "I shall miss her parents

always miss the children as soon as they're out of sight, it's only a natural and wisely ordained partialitybut

you'll be all right, because Miss Belle will supply the youthful element for you and to your entire content; and

we old people will do our best, too. We shall have a good enough time. And you'll have a chance to get better

acquainted with Admiral Hawkins. That's a rare character, Mr. Tracyone of the rarest and most engaging

characters the world has produced. You'll find him worth studying. I've studied him ever since he was a child

and have always found him developing. I really consider that one of the main things that has enabled me to

master the difficult science of character reading was the livid interest I always felt in that boy and the

"Yes, a most wonderful character. Concealmentthat's the basis of it. Always the first thing you want to do

is to find the keystone a man's character is built onthen you've got it. No misleading and apparently

inconsistent peculiarities can fool you then. What do you read on the Senator's surface? Simplicity; a kind of

rank and protuberant simplicity; whereas, in fact, that's one of the deepest minds in the world. A perfectly

honest manan absolutely honest and honorable man and yet without doubt the profoundest master of

"O, it's devilish!" This was wrung from the unlistening Tracy by the anguished thought of what might have

"No, I shouldn't call it that," said Sellers, who was now placidly walking up and down the room with his

hands under his coattails and listening to himself talk. " One could quite properly call it devilish in another

man, but not in the Senator. Your term is rightperfectly rightI grant thatbut the application is wrong.

It makes a great difference. Yes, he is a marvelous character. I do not suppose that any other statesman ever

had such a colossal sense of humor, combined with the ability to totally conceal it. I may except George

Washington and Cromwell, and perhaps Robespierre, but I draw the line there. A person not an expert might

be in Judge Hawkins's company a lifetime and never find out he had any more sense of humor than a

A deepdrawn yardlong sigh from the distraught and dreaming artist, followed by a murmured, "Miserable,

"Well, no, I shouldn't say that about it, quite. On the contrary, I admire his ability to conceal his humor even

more if possible than I admire the gift itself, stupendous as it is. Another thingGeneral Hawkins is a

thinker; a keen, logical, exhaustive, analytical thinker perhaps the ablest of modern times. That is, of

course, upon themes suited to his size, like the glacial period, and the correlation of forces, and the evolution

of the Christian from the caterpillarany of those things; give him a subject according to his size, and just

stand back and watch him think! Why you can see the place rock! Ah, yes, you must know him; you must get

Dinner was kept waiting for a while for Miss Thompson, but as Gwendolen had not delivered the invitation

to her the waiting did no good, and the household presently went to the meal without her. Poor old Sellers

tried everything his hospitable soul could devise to make the occasion an enjoyable one for the guest, and the

guest tried his honest best to be cheery and chatty and happy for the old gentleman's sake; in fact all hands

worked hard in the interest of a mutual good time, but the thing was a failure from the start; Tracy's heart was

lead in his bosom, there seemed to be only one prominent feature in the landscape and that was a vacant

chair, he couldn't drag his mind away from Gwendolen and his hard luck; consequently his distractions

allowed deadly pauses to slip in every now and then when it was his turn to say something, and of course this

disease spread to the rest of the conversationwherefore, instead of having a breezy sail in sunny waters, as

anticipated, everybody was bailing out and praying for land. What could the matter be? Tracy alone could

Meanwhile they were having a similarly dismal time at the Thompson house; in fact a twin experience.

Gwendolen was ashamed of herself for allowing her disappointment to so depress her spirits and make her so

strangely and profoundly miserable; but feeling ashamed of herself didn't improve the matter any; it only

seemed to aggravate the suffering. She explained that she was not feeling very well, and everybody could see

that this was true; so she got sincere sympathy and commiseration; but that didn't help the case. Nothing

helps that kind of a case. It is best to just stand off and let it fester. The moment the dinner was over the girl

excused herself, and she hurried home feeling unspeakably grateful to get away from that house and that

Will he be gone? The thought arose in her brain, but took effect in her heels. She slipped into the house,

threw off her things and made straight for the dining room. She stopped and listened. Her father's

voicewith no life in it; presently her mother'sno life in that; a considerable vacancy, then a sterile

remark from Washington Hawkins. Another silence; then, not Tracy's but her father's voice again.

"He's gone," she said to herself despairingly, and listlessly opened the door and stepped within.

"White?" exclaimed Sellers. "It's gone like a flash; 'twasn't serious. Already she's as red as the soul of a

watermelon! Sit down, dear, sit downgoodness knows you're welcome. Did you have a good time? We've

had great times hereimmense. Why didn't Miss Belle come? Mr. Tracy is not feeling well, and she'd have

She was content now; and out from her happy eyes there went a light that told a secret to another pair of eyes

there and got a secret in return. In just that infinitely small fraction of a second those two great confessions

were made, received, and perfectly, understood. All anxiety, apprehension, uncertainty, vanished out of these

Sellers had had the most confident faith that with the new reinforcement victory would be at this last moment

snatched from the jaws of defeat, but it was an error. The talk was as stubbornly disjointed as ever. He was

proud of Gwendolen, and liked to show her off, even against Miss Belle Thompson, and here had been a

great opportunity, and what had she made of it? He felt a good deal put out. It vexed him to think that this

Englishman, with the traveling Briton's everlasting disposition to generalize whole mountain ranges from

single samplegrains of sand, would jump to the conclusion that American girls were as dumb as himself

generalizing the whole tribe from this single sample and she at her poorest, there being nothing at that table to

inspire her, give her a start, keep her from going to sleep. He made up his mind that for the honor of the

country he would bring these two together again over the social board before long. There would be a different

result another time, he judged. He said to himself, with a deep sense of injury, "He'll put in his diarythey

all keep diarieshe'll put in his diary that she was miraculously uninterestingdear, dear, but wasn't she! I

never saw the likeand yet looking as beautiful as Satan, tooand couldn't seem to do anything but paw

bread crumbs, and pick flowers to pieces, and look fidgety. And it isn't any better here in the Hall of

Audience. I've had enough; I'll haul down my flag the others may fight it out if they want to."

He shook hands all around and went off to do some work which he said was pressing. The idolaters were the

width of the room apart; and apparently unconscious of each other's presence. The distance got shortened a

little, now. Very soon the mother withdrew. The distance narrowed again. Tracy stood before a chromo of

some Ohio politician which had been retouched and chainmailed for a crusading Rossmore, and Gwendolen

was sitting on the sofa not far from his elbow artificially absorbed in examining a photograph album that

The "Senator" still lingered. He was sorry for the young people; it had been a dull evening for them. In the

goodness of his heart he tried to make it pleasant for them now; tried to remove the ill impression necessarily

left by the general defeat; tried to be chatty, even tried to be gay. But the responses were sickly, there was no

starting any enthusiasm; he would give it up and quitit was a day specially picked out and consecrated to

But when Gwendolen rose up promptly and smiled a glad smile and said with thankfulness and blessing,

He was about to begin a remark whenwhen he didn't. We have all been there. He didn't know how he knew

his concluding to stay longer had been a mistake, he merely knew it; and knew it for dead certain, too. And so

he bade goodnight, and went mooning out, wondering what he could have done that changed the atmosphere

that way. As the door closed behind him those two were standing side by side, looking at that doorlooking

at it in a waiting, secondcounting, but deeply grateful kind of way. And the instant it closed they flung their

Nobody heard this remark, because Hawkins, who bred it, only thought it, he didn't utter it. He had turned,

the moment he had closed the door, and had pushed it open a little, intending to reenter and ask what ill

advised thing he had done or said, and apologize for it. But he didn't reenter; he staggered off stunned,

Five minutes later he was sitting in his room, with his head bowed within the circle of his arms, on the

tablefinal attitude of grief and despair. His tears were flowing fast, and now and then a sob broke upon the

"I knew her when she was a little child and used to climb about my knees; I love her as I love my own, and

nowoh, poor thing, poor thing, I cannot bear it! she's gone and lost her heart to this mangy materializee!

Why didn't we see that that might happen? But how could we? Nobody could; nobody could ever have

dreamed of such a thing. You couldn't expect a person would fall in love with a waxwork. And this one

He went on grieving to himself, and now and then giving voice to his lamentations.

"It's done, oh, it's done, and there's no help for it, no undoing the miserable business. If I had the nerve, I

would kill it. But that wouldn't do any good. She loves it; she thinks it's genuine and authentic. If she lost it

she would grieve for it just as she would for a real person. And who's to break it to the family! Not II'll die

first. Sellers is the best human being I ever knew and I wouldn't any more think ofoh, dear, why it'll break

his heart when he finds it out. And Polly's too. This comes of meddling with such infernal matters! But for

this, the creature would still be roasting in Sheol where it belongs. How is it that these people don't smell the

brimstone? Sometimes I can't come into the same room with him without nearly suffocating."

"Well, there's one thing, sure. The materializing has got to stop right where it is. If she's got to marry a

spectre, let her marry a decent one out of the Middle Ages, like this onenot a cowboy and a thief such as

this protoplasmic tadpole's going to turn into if Sellers keeps on fussing at it. It costs five thousand dollars

cash and shuts down on the incorporated company to stop the works at this point, but Sally Sellers's

He heard Sellers coming, and got himself to rights. Sellers took a seat, and said:

"Well, I've got to confess I'm a good deal puzzled. It did certainly eat, there's no getting around it. Not eat,

exactly, either, but it nibbled; nibbled in an appetiteless way, but still it nibbled; and that's just a marvel. Now

the question is, what does it do with those nibblings? That's itwhat does it do with them? My idea is that

we don't begin to know all there is to this stupendous discovery yet. But time will showtime and

But he couldn't get Hawkins interested; couldn't make him talk to amount to anything; couldn't drag him out

of his depression. But at last he took a turn that arrested Hawkins's attention.

"I'm coming to like him, Hawkins. He is a person of stupendous characterabsolutely gigantic. Under that

placid exterior is concealed the most daredevil spirit that was ever put into a manhe's just a Clive over

again. Yes, I'm all admiration for him, on account of his character, and liking naturally follows admiration,

you know. I'm coming to like him immensely. Do you know, I haven't the heart to degrade such a character

as that down to the burglar estate for money or for anything else; and I've come to ask if you are willing to let

"I'll never forget you for this, Hawkins," said the old gentleman in a voice which he found it hard to control.

"You are making a great sacrifice for me, and one which you can ill afford, but I'll never forget your

Sally Sellers immediately and vividly realized that she was become a new being; a being of a far higher and

worthier sort than she had been such a little while before; an earnest being, in place of a dreamer; and

supplied with a reason for her presence in the world, where merely a wistful and troubled curiosity about it

had existed before. So great and so comprehensive was the change which had been wrought, that she seemed

to herself to be a real person who had lately been a shadow; a something which had lately been a nothing; a

purpose, which had lately been a fancy; a finished temple, with the altarfires lit and the voice of worship

ascending, where before had been but an architect's confusion of arid working plans, unintelligible to the

"Lady" Gwendolen! The pleasantness of that sound was all gone; it was an offense to her ear now. She said:

"I may call you simply Gwendolen? You will allow me to drop the formalities straightway and name you by

"Therethat is better. I hate pinkssome pinks. Indeed yes, you are to call me by my first name without

It was as far as she could get. There was a pause; his intellect was struggling to comprehend; presently it did

manage to catch the idea in time to save embarrassment all around, and he said gratefully

"Yespart of it. Butdon't kiss me when I am talking, it makes me forget what I was going to say. You can

The girl's soul was suddenly invaded by a creepy apprehension, a quite definite sense of suspicion and alarm.

"Answer me truly, on your honor. You are not seeking to marry me on account of my rank?"

The shot almost knocked him through the wall, he was so little prepared for it. There was something so finely

grotesque about the question and its parent suspicion, that he stopped to wonder and admire, and thus was he

saved from laughing. Then, without wasting precious time, he set about the task of convincing her that he had

been lured by herself alone, and had fallen in love with her only, not her title and position; that he loved her

with all his heart, and could not love her more if she were a duchess, or less if she were without home, name

or family. She watched his face wistfully, eagerly, hopefully, translating his words by its expression; and

when he had finished there was gladness in her heart a tumultuous gladness, indeed, though outwardly she

was calm, tranquil, even judicially austere. She prepared a surprise for him, now, calculated to put a heavy

strain upon those disinterested protestations of his; and thus she delivered it, burning it away word by word as

the fuse burns down to a bombshell, and watching to see how far the explosion would lift him:

"Listenand do not doubt me, for I shall speak the exact truth. Howard Tracy, I am no more an earl's child

To her joyand secret surprise, alsoit never phased him. He was ready, this time, and saw his chance. He

cried out with enthusiasm, "Thank heaven for that!" and gathered her to his arms.

"You make me the proudest girl in all the earth," she said, with her head pillowed on his shoulder. "I thought

it only natural that you should be dazzled by the titlemaybe even unconsciously, you being Englishand

that you might be deceiving yourself in thinking you loved only me, and find you didn't love me when the

deception was swept away; so it makes me proud that the revelation stands for nothing and that you do love

"It is only you, sweetheart, I never gave one envying glance toward your father's earldom. That is utterly true,

"Thereyou mustn't call me that. I hate that false name. I told you it wasn't mine. My name is Sally

Sellersor Sarah, if you like. From this time I banish dreams, visions, imaginings, and will no more of them.

I am going to be myselfmy genuine self, my honest self, my natural self, clear and clean of sham and folly

and fraud, and worthy of you. There is no grain of social inequality between us; I, like you, am poor; I, like

you, am without position or distinction; you are a struggling artist, I am that, too, in my humbler way. Our

bread is honest bread, we work for ourliving. Hand in hand we will walk hence to the grave, helping each

other in all ways, living for each other, being and remaining one in heart and purpose, one in hope and

aspiration, inseparable to the end. And though our place is low, judged by the world's eye, we will make it as

high as the highest in the great essentials of honest work for what we eat and wear, and conduct above

reproach. We live in a land, let us be thankful, where this is all sufficient, and no man is better than his

"I am not through yet. I am going to purge myself of the last vestiges of artificiality and pretence, and then

start fair on your own honest level and be worthy mate to you thenceforth. My father honestly thinks he is an

earl. Well, leave him his dream, it pleases him and does no one any harm: It was the dream of his ancestors

before him. It has made fools of the house of Sellers for generations, and it made something of a fool of me,

but took no deep root. I am done with it now, and for good. Fortyeight hours ago I was privately proud of

being the daughter of a pinchbeck earl, and thought the proper mate for me must be a man of like degree; but

todayoh, how grateful I am for your love which has healed my sick brain and restored my sanity!I

"Matter? Oh, nothingnothing. I was only going to say"but in his flurry nothing occurred to him to say,

for a moment; then by a lucky inspiration he thought of something entirely sufficient for the occasion, and

brought it out with eloquent force: "Oh, how beautiful you are! You take my breath away when you look like

It was well conceived, well timed, and cordially deliveredand it got its reward.

"Let me see. Where was I? Yes, my father's earldom is pure moonshine. Look at those dreadful things on the

wall. You have of course supposed them to be portraits of his ancestors, earls of Rossmore. Well, they are

not. They are chromos of distinguished Americansall moderns; but he has carried them back a thousand

years by relabeling them. Andrew Jackson there, is doing what he can to be the late American earl; and the

newest treasure in the collection is supposed to be the young English heirI mean the idiot with the crape;

"Because his conduct in his last moments, when the fire was sweeping around him shows that he was a man.

Tracy was strongly moved by these compliments, and it seemed to him that the girl's lovely lips took on anew

"It is a pity he could not know what a gracious impression his behavior was going to leave with the dearest

"Oh, I almost loved him! Why, I think of him every day. He is always floating about in my mind."

Tracy felt that this was a little more than was necessary. He was conscious of the sting of jealousy. He said:

"It is quite right to think of himat least now and thenthat is, at intervalsin perhaps an admiring

He was ashamedand at the same time not ashamed. He was jealousand at the same time he was not

jealous. In a sense the dead man was himself; in that case compliments and affection lavished upon that

corpse went into his own till and were clear profit. But in another sense the dead man was not himself; and in

that case all compliments and affection lavished there were wasted, and a sufficient basis for jealousy. A tiff

was the result of the dispute between the two. Then they made it up, and were more loving than ever. As an

affectionate clincher of the reconciliation, Sally declared that she had now banished Lord Berkeley from her

mind; and added, "And in order to make sure that he shall never make trouble between us again, I will teach

myself to detest that name and all that have ever borne it or ever shall bear it."

This inflicted another pang, and Tracy was minded to ask her to modify that a little just on general principles,

and as practice in not overdoing a good thingperhaps he might better leave things as they were and not risk

bringing on another tiff. He got away from that particular, and sought less tender ground for conversation.

"I suppose you disapprove wholly of aristocracies and nobilities, now that you have renounced your title and

This answer fell just at the right time and just in the right place, to save the poor unstable young man from

changing his political complexion once more. He had been on the point of beginning to totter again, but this

prop shored him up and kept him from floundering back into democracy and rerenouncing aristocracy. So

he went home glad that he had asked the fortunate question. The girl would accept a little thing like a genuine

earldom, she was merely prejudiced against the brummagem article. Yes, he could have his girl and have his

Sally went to bed happy, too; and remained happy, deliriously happy, for nearly two hours; but at last, just as

she was sinking into a contented and luxurious unconsciousness, the shady devil who lives and lurks and

hides and watches inside of human beings and is always waiting for a chance to do the proprietor a malicious

damage, whispered to her soul and said, "That question had a harmless look, but what was back of it? what

The shady devil had knifed her, and could retire, now, and take a rest; the wound would attend to business for

Why should Howard Tracy ask that question? If he was not trying to marry her for the sake of her rank, what

should suggest that question to him? Didn't he plainly look gratified when she said her objections to

aristocracy had their limitations? Ah, he is after that earldom, that gilded shamit isn't poor me he wants.

So she argued, in anguish and tears. Then she argued the opposite theory, but made a weak, poor business of

it, and lost the case. She kept the arguing up, one side and then the other, the rest of the night, and at last fell

asleep at dawn; fell in the fire at dawn, one may say; for that kind of sleep resembles fire, and one comes out

Tracy wrote his father before he sought his bed. He wrote a letter which he believed would get better

treatment than his cablegram received, for it contained what ought to be welcome news; namely, that he had

tried equality and working for a living; had made a fight which he could find no reason to be ashamed of, and

in the matter of earning a living had proved that he was able to do it; but that on the whole he had arrived at

the conclusion that he could not reform the world singlehanded, and was willing to retire from the conflict

with the fair degree of honor which he had gained, and was also willing to return home and resume his

position and be content with it and thankful for it for the future, leaving further experiment of a missionary

sort to other young people needing the chastening and quelling persuasions of experience, the only logic sure

to convince a diseased imagination and restore it to rugged health. Then he approached the subject of

marriage with the daughter of the American Claimant with a good deal of caution and much painstaking art.

He said praiseful and appreciative things about the girl, but didn't dwell upon that detail or make it prominent.

The thing which he made prominent was the opportunity now so happily afforded, to reconcile York and

Lancaster, graft the warring roses upon one stem, and end forever a crying injustice which had already lasted

far too long. One could infer that he had thought this thing all out and chosen this way of making all things

fair and right because it was sufficiently fair and considerably wiser than the renunciationscheme which he

had brought with him from England. One could infer that, but he didn't say it. In fact the more he read his

When the old earl received that letter, the first part of it filled him with a grim and snarly satisfaction; but the

rest of it brought a snort or two out of him that could be translated differently. He wasted no ink in this

emergency, either in cablegrams or letters; he promptly took ship for America to look into the matter himself.

He had staunchly held his grip all this long time, and given no sign of the hunger at his heart to see his son;

hoping for the cure of his insane dream, and resolute that the process should go through all the necessary

stages without assuaging telegrams q other nonsense from home, and here was victory at last. Victory, but

stupidly marred by this idiotic marriage project. Yes, he would step over and take a hand in this matter

During the first ten days following the mailing of the letter Tracy's spirits had no idle time; they were always

climbing up into the clouds or sliding down into the earth as deep as the law of gravitation reached. He was

intensely happy or intensely miserable by turns, according to Miss Sally's moods. He never could tell when

the mood was going to change, and when it changed he couldn't tell what it was that had changed it.

Sometimes she was so in love with him that her love was tropical, torrid, and she could find no language

fervent enough for its expression; then suddenly, and without warning or any apparent reason, the weather

would change, and the victim would find himself adrift among the icebergs and feeling as lonesome and

friendless as the north pole. It sometimes seemed to him that a man might better be dead than exposed to

The case was simple. Sally wanted to believe that Tracy's preference was disinterested; so she was always

applying little tests of one sort or another, hoping and expecting that they would bring out evidence which

would confirm or fortify her belief. Poor Tracy did not know that these experiments were being made upon

him, consequently he walked promptly into all the traps the girl set for him. These traps consisted in

apparently casual references to social distinction, aristocratic title and privilege, and such things. Often Tracy

responded to these references heedlessly and not much caring what he said provided it kept the talk going and

prolonged the seance. He didn't suspect that the girl was watching his face and listening for his words as one

who watches the judge's face and listens for the words which will restore him to home and friends and

freedom or shut him away from the sun and human companionship forever. He didn't suspect that his careless

words were being weighed, and so he often delivered sentence of death when it would have been just as

handy and all the same to him to pronounce acquittal. Daily he broke the girl's heart, nightly he sent her to the

Some people would have put this and that together and perceived that the weather never changed until one

particular subject was introduced, and that then it always changed. And they would have looked further, and

perceived that that subject was always introduced by the one party, never the other. They would have argued,

then, that this was done for a purpose. If they could not find out what that purpose was in any simpler or

But Tracy was not deep enough or suspicious enough to think of these things. He noticed only one particular;

that the weather was always sunny when a visit began. No matter how much it might cloud up later, it always

began with a clear sky. He couldn't explain this curious fact to himself, he merely knew it to be a fact. The

truth of the matter was, that by the time Tracy had been out of Sally's sight six hours she was so famishing for

a sight of him that her doubts and suspicions were all consumed away in the fire of that longing, and so

always she came into his presence as surprisingly radiant and joyous as she wasn't when she went out of it.

In circumstances like these a growing portrait runs a good many risks. The portrait of Sellers, by Tracy, was

fighting along, day by day, through this mixed weather, and daily adding to itself ineradicable signs of the

checkered life it was leading. It was the happiest portrait, in spots, that was ever seen; but in other spots a

damned soul looked out from it; a soul that was suffering all the different kinds of distress there are, from

stomach ache to rabies. But Sellers liked it: He said it was just himself all overa portrait that sweated

moods from every pore, and no two moods alike. He said he had as many different kinds of emotions in him

It was a kind of a deadly work of art, maybe, but it was a starchy picture for show; for it was life size, full

length, and represented the American earl in a peer's scarlet robe, with the three ermine bars indicative of an

earl's rank, and on the gray head an earl's coronet, tilted just a wee bit to one side in a most gallus and

winsome way. When Sally's weather was sunny the portrait made Tracy chuckle, but when her weather was

Late one night when the sweethearts had been having a flawless visit together, Sally's interior devil began to

work his specialty, and soon the conversation was drifting toward the customary rock. Presently, in the midst

of Tracy's serene flow of talk, he felt a shudder which he knew was not his shudder, but exterior to his breast

"Oh, my darling, what have I donewhat have I said? It has happened again! What have I done to wound

"What have you done? I will tell you what you have done. You have unwittingly revealedoh, for the

twentieth time, though I could not believe it, would not believe it!that it is not me you love, but that foolish

"Oh, Howard, Howard, the things you have uttered when you were forgetting to guard your tongue, have

"Things I have uttered when I was forgetting to guard my tongue? These are hard words. When have I

remembered to guard it? Never in one instance. It has no office but to speak the truth. It needs no guarding

"Howard, I have noted your words and weighed them, when you were not thinking of their significanceand

"Do you mean to say you have answered the trust I had in you by using it as an ambuscade from which you

could set snares for my unsuspecting tongue and be safe from detection while you did it? You have not done

This was an aspect of the girl's conduct which she had not clearly perceived before. Was it treachery? Had

"Oh, forgive me," she said, " I did not know what I was doing. I have been so torturedyou will forgive me,

you must; I have suffered so much, and I am so sorry and so humble; you do forgive me, don't you? don't

turn away, don't refuse me; it is only my love that is at fault, and you know I love you, love you with all my

heart; I couldn't bear tooh, dear, dear, I am so miserable, and I sever meant any harm, and I didn't see

where this insanity was carrying me, and how it was wronging and abusing the dearest heart in all the world

to meandandoh, take me in your arms again, I have no other refuge, no other home and hope!"

There was reconciliation againimmediate, perfect, allembracingand with it utter happiness. This would

have been a good time to adjourn. But no, now that the cloudbreeder was revealed at last; now that it was

manifest that all the sour weather had come from this girl's dread that Tracy was lured by her rank and not

herself, he resolved to lay that ghost immediately and permanently by furnishing the best possible proof that

"Let me whisper a little secret in your eara secret which I have kept shut up in my breast all this time. Your

rank couldn't ever have been an enticement. I am son and heir to an English earl!"

The girl stared at himone, two, three moments, maybe a dozenthen her lips parted:

"You?" she said, and moved away from him, still gazing at him in a kind of blank amazement.

"What have you done?. You have certainly made a most strange statement. You must see that yourself."

"Well," with a timid little laugh, "it may be a strange enough statement; but of what consequence is that, if it

"Oh, not for a moment! You should not say that. I have not deserved it. I have spoken the truth; why do you

"Oh!" It wasn't a groan, exactly, but it was an intelligible enough expression of the fact that he saw the point

"You have seemed to conceal nothing from me that I ought to know concerning yourself, and you were not

privileged to keep back such a thing as this from me a moment afterafterwell, after you had determined

"Its true, it's true, I know it! But there were circumstancesin in the waycircumstances which"

"Well, you see," he said, pleadingly, "you seemed so bent on our traveling the proud path of honest labor and

honorable poverty, that I was terrifiedthat is, I was afraidofofwell, you know how you talked."

"Yes, I know how I talked. And I also know that before the talk was finished you inquired how I stood as

"I don't see any way out of it. It was a mistake. That is in truth all it was, just a mistake. No harm was meant,

no harm in the world. I didn't see how it might some time look. It is my way. I don't seem to see far."

"An Earl's son! Do earls' sons go about working in lowly callings for their bread and butter?"

"Do earls' sons sink their degree in a country like this, and come sober and decent to sue for the hand of a

born child of poverty when they can go drunk, profane, and steeped in dishonorable debt and buy the pick

and choice of the millionaires' daughters of America? You an earl's son! Show me the signs."

"I thank God I am not ableif those are the signs. But yet I am an earl's son and heir. It is all I can say. I

She was about to soften again, but his closing remark made her bring her foot down with smart vexation, and

"Oh, you drive all patience out of me! Would you have one believe that you haven't your proofs at hand, and

yet are what you say you are? You do not put your hand in your pocket nowfor you have nothing there.

You make a claim like this, and then venture to travel without credentials. These are simply incredibilities.

He cast about in his mind for a defence of some kind or otherhesitated a little, and then said, with difficulty

"I will tell you just the truth, foolish as it will seem to you to anybody, I supposebut it is the truth. I had

an idealcall it a dream, a folly, if you willbut I wanted to renounce the privileges and unfair advantages

enjoyed by the nobility and wrung from the nation by force and fraud, and purge myself of my share of those

crimes against right and reason, by thenceforth comrading with the poor and humble on equal terms, earning

with my own hands the bread I ate, and rising by my own merit if I rose at all."

The young girl scanned his face narrowly while he spoke; and there was something about his simplicity of

manner and statement which touched her touched her almost to the danger point; but she set her grip on

the yielding spirit and choked it to quiescence; it could not be wise to surrender to compassion or any kind of

sentiment, yet; she must ask one or two more questions. Tracy was reading her face; and what he read there

"An earl's son to do that! Why, he were a man! A man to love!oh, more, a man to worship!"

"But he never lived! He is not born, he will not be born. The self abnegation that could do thateven in

utter folly, and hopeless of conveying benefit to any, beyond the mere examplecould be mistaken for

greatness; why, it would be greatness in this cold age of sordid ideals! A momentwaitlet me finish; I

The fat was in the fire again. The girl felt so outraged that it was difficult for her to speak.

"How can you venture such a brazen thing! You know that he is dead, and you know that I know it. Oh, to

rob the living of name and honors for a selfish and temporary advantage is crime enough, but to rob the

"Oh, listen to mejust a worddon't turn away like that. Don't go don't leave me, sostay one moment.

"On my honor I am what I say! And I will prove it, and you will believe, I know you will. I will bring you a

"It is true. I did not think of it. Oh, my God, I do not know any way to do; I do everything wrong. You are

going?and you won't say even goodnightor goodbye? Ah, we have not parted like this before."

"Oh, I want to run andno, go, now." A pausethen she said, "You may bring the message when it comes."

He was gone; and none too soon; her lips were already quivering, and now she broke down. Through her

"Oh, he is gone. I have lost him, I shall never see him any more. And he didn't kiss me goodbye; never even

offered to force a kiss from me, and he knowing it was the very, very last, and I expecting he would, and

never dreaming he would treat me so after all we have been to each other. Oh, oh, oh, oh, what shall I do,

what shall I do! He is a dear, poor, miserable, goodhearted, transparent liar and humbug, but oh, I do love

him so!" After a little she broke into speech again. "How dear he is! and I shall miss him so, I shall miss

him so! Why won't he ever think to forge a message and fetch it?but no, he never will, he never thinks of

anything; he's so honest and simple it wouldn't ever occur to him. Oh, what did possess him to think he could

succeed as a fraudand he hasn't the first requisite except duplicity that I can see. Oh, dear, I'll go to bed and

give it all up. Oh, I wish I had told him to come and tell me whenever he didn't get any telegramand now

Next day, sure enough, the cablegram didn't come. This was an immense disaster; for Tracy couldn't go into

the presence without that ticket, although it wasn't going to possess any value as evidence. But if the failure

of the cablegram on that first day may be called an immense disaster, where is the dictionary that can turn out

a phrase sizeable enough to describe the tenth day's failure? Of course every day that the cablegram didn't

come made Tracy all of twentyfour hours' more ashamed of himself than he was the day before, and made

Sally fully twentyfour hours more certain than ever that he not only hadn't any father anywhere, but hadn't

even a confederateand so it followed that he was a double dyed humbug and couldn't be otherwise.

These were hard days for Barrow and the art firm. All these had their hands full, trying to comfort Tracy.

Barrow's task was particularly hard, because he was made a confidant in full, and therefore had to humor

Tracy's delusion that he had a father, and that the father was an earl, and that he was going to send a

cablegram. Barrow early gave up the idea of trying to convince Tracy that he hadn't any father, because this

had such a bad effect on the patient, and worked up his temper to such an alarming degree. He had tried, as an

experiment, letting Tracy think he had a father; the result was so good that he went further, with proper

caution, and tried letting him think his father was an earl; this wrought so well, that he grew bold, and tried

letting him think he had two fathers, if he wanted to, but he didn't want to, so Barrow withdrew one of them

and substituted letting him think he was going to get a cablegramwhich Barrow judged he wouldn't, and

was right; but Barrow worked the cablegram daily for all it was worth, and it was the one thing that kept

And these were bitter hard days for poor Sally, and mainly delivered up to private crying. She kept her

furniture pretty damp, and so caught cold, and the dampness and the cold and the sorrow together undermined

her appetite, and she was a pitiful enough object, poor thing. Her state was bad enough, as per statement of it

above quoted; but all the forces of nature and circumstance seemed conspiring to make it worseand

succeeding. For instance, the morning after her dismissal of Tracy, Hawkins and Sellers read in the associated

press dispatches that a toy puzzle called Pigs in the Clover, had come into sudden favor within the past few

weeks, and that from the Atlantic to the Pacific all the populations of all the States had knocked off work to

play with it, and that the business of the country had now come to a standstill by consequence; that judges,

lawyers, burglars, parsons, thieves, merchants, mechanics, murderers, women, children, babieseverybody,

indeed, could be seen from morning till midnight, absorbed in one deep project and purpose, and only

oneto pen those pigs, work out that puzzle successfully; that all gayety, all cheerfulness had departed from

the nation, and in its place care, preoccupation and anxiety sat upon every countenance, and all faces were

drawn, distressed, and furrowed with the signs of age and trouble, and marked with the still sadder signs of

mental decay and incipient madness; that factories were at work night and day in eight cities, and yet to

supply the demand for the puzzle was thus far impossible. Hawkins was wild with joy, but Sellers was calm.

"That's just the way things go. A man invents a thing which could revolutionize the arts, produce mountains

of money, and bless the earth, and who will bother with it or show any interest in it? and so you are just as

poor as you were before. But you invent some worthless thing to amuse yourself with, and would throw it

away if let alone, and all of a sudden the whole world makes a snatch for it and out crops a fortune. Hunt up

that Yankee and collect, Hawkins half is yours, you know. Leave me to potter at my lecture."

This was a temperance lecture. Sellers was head chief in the Temperance camp, and had lectured, now and

then in that interest, but had been dissatisfied with his efforts; wherefore he was now about to try a new plan.

After much thought he had concluded that a main reason why his lectures lacked fire or something, was, that

they were too transparently amateurish; that is to say, it was probably too plainly perceptible that the lecturer

was trying to tell people about the horrid effects of liquor when he didn't really know anything about those

effects except from hearsay, since he had hardly ever tasted an intoxicant in his life. His scheme, now, was to

prepare himself to speak from bitter experience. Hawkins was to stand by with the bottle, calculate the doses,

watch the effects, make notes of results, and otherwise assist in the preparation. Time was short, for the ladies

would be along about noonthat is to say, the temperance organization called the Daughters of

The time kept slipping alongHawkins did not returnSellers could not venture to wait longer; so he

attacked the bottle himself, and proceeded to note the effects. Hawkins got back at last; took one

comprehensive glance at the lecturer, and went down and headed off the procession. The ladies were grieved

to hear that the champion had been taken suddenly ill and violently so, but glad to hear that it was hoped he

As it turned out, the old gentleman didn't turn over or show any signs of life worth speaking of for

twentyfour hours. Then he asked after the procession, and learned what had happened about it. He was

sorry; said he had been "fixed" for it. He remained abed several days, and his wife and daughter took turns in

sitting with him and ministering to his wants. Often he patted Sally's head and tried to comfort her.

"Don't cry, my child, don't cry so; you know your old father did it by mistake and didn't mean a bit of harm;

you know he wouldn't intentionally do anything to make you ashamed for the world; you know he was trying

to do good and only made the mistake through ignorance, not knowing the right doses and Washington not

there to help. Don't cry so, dear, it breaks my old heart to see you, and think I've brought this humiliation on

you and you so dear to me and so good. I won't ever do it again, indeed I won't; now be comforted, honey,

But when she wasn't on duty at the bedside the crying went on just the same; then the mother would try to

"Don't cry, dear, he never meant any harm; it was all one of those happens that you can't guard against when

you are trying experiments, that way. You see I don't cry. It's because I know him so well. I could never look

anybody in the face again if he had got into such an amazing condition as that apurpose; but bless you his

intention was, pure and high, and that makes the act pure, though it was higher than was necessary. We're not

humiliated, dear, he did it under a noble impulse and we don't need to be ashamed. There, don't cry any more,

Thus, the old gentleman was useful to Sally, during several days, as an explanation of her tearfulness. She felt

thankful to him for the shelter he was affording her, but often said to herself, "It's a shame to let him see in

my cryings a reproachas if he could ever do anything that could make me reproach him! But I can't

confess; I've got to go on using him for a pretext, he's the only one I've got in the world, and I do need one so

As soon as Sellers was out again, and found that stacks of money had been placed in bank for him and

Hawkins by the Yankee, he said, "Now we'll soon see who's the Claimant and who's the Authentic. I'll just go

over there and warm up that House of Lords." During the next few days he and his wife were so busy with

preparations for the voyage that Sally had all the privacy she needed, and all the chance to cry that was good

Sally had also had a chance to do another thing. That was, to make up her mind that life was not worth living

upon the present terms. If she must give up her impostor and die; doubtless she must submit; but might she

not lay her whole case before some disinterested person, first, and see if there wasn't perhaps some saving

way out of the matter? She turned this idea over in her mind a good deal. In her first visit with Hawkins after

her parents were gone, the talk fell upon Tracy, and she was impelled to set her case before the statesman and

take his counsel. So she poured out her heart, and he listened with painful solicitude. She concluded,

"Don't tell me he is an impostor. I suppose he is, but doesn't it look to you as if he isn't? You are cool, you

know, and outside; and so, maybe it can look to you as if he isn't one, when it can't to me. Doesn't it look to

The poor man was troubled, but he felt obliged to keep in the neighborhood of the truth. He fought around the

present detail a little while, then gave it up and said he couldn't really see his way to clearing Tracy.

"That is, youyou feel a little certain, but not entirelyoh, not entirely, Mr. Hawkins!"

"It's a pity to have to say itI do hate to say it, but I don't think anything about it, I know he's an impostor."

"Oh, now, Mr. Hawkins, you can't go that far. A body can't really know it, you know. It isn't proved that he's

Should he come out and make a clean breast of the whole wretched business? Yesat least the most of itit

ought to be done. So he set his teeth and went at the matter with determination, but purposing to spare the girl

"Now I am going to tell you a plain tale; one not pleasant for me to tell or for you to hear, but we've got to

This was so wholly unexpected that it at once obstructed the narrative; Hawkins was not even sure that he had

"I don't know that I quite understand. Do you mean to say that if he was all right and proper otherwise you'd

"You'd be entirely satisfied with him and wouldn't care for his not being an earl's son,that being an earl's

"Not the least value that I would care for. Why, Mr. Hawkins, I've gotten over all that daydreaming about

earldoms and aristocracies and all such nonsense and am become just a plain ordinary nobody and content

with it; and it is to him I owe my cure. And as to anything being able to add a value to him, nothing can do

that. He is the whole world to me, just as he is; he comprehends all the values there arethen how can you

"She's pretty far gone." He said that to himself. He continued, still to himself, "I must change my plan again; I

can't seem to strike one that will stand the requirements of this most variegated emergency five minutes on a

stretch. Without making this fellow a criminal, I believe I will invent a name and a character for him

calculated to disenchant her. If it fails to do it, then I'll know that the next rightest thing to do will be to help

"I'm glad of it; I like it better, myself. Well, then, I'll tell you about this man Snodgrass."

"Snodgrass. Snodgrass. No, I could not endure that. I could not get used to it. No, I should call him by his

"His initials? I don't care anything about his initials. I can't call him by his initials. What do they stand for?"

"Well, you see, his father was a physician, and hehewell he was an idolater of his profession, and

"I never heard such an infamous name! Nobody can ever call a person thata person they love. I wouldn't

call an enemy by such a name. It sounds like an epithet." After a moment, she added with a kind of

"I am glad of that, because that is transmissible. What do you think was the matter with him, then?"

"Well, I don't really know. The family used to run a good deal to idiots, and so, maybe"

"Suspected!" said Sally, with irritation. "Would one suspect there was going to be a dark time if he saw the

constellations fall out of the sky? But that is enough about the idiot, I don't take any interest in idiots; tell me

Very well, then, this one was the eldest, but not the favorite. His brother, Zylobalsamum"

"Waitgive me a chance to realize that. It is perfectly stupefying. Zylowhat did you call it?"

"Then it's anatomical. I knew it was one or the other. Yes, I remember, now, it is anatomical. It's a

"Well, go on; and if you come to any more of them, omit the names; they make one feel so uncomfortable."

"Very well, then. As I said, this one was not a favorite in the family, and so he was neglected in every way,

never sent to school, always allowed to associate with the worst and coarsest characters, and so of course he

"He? It's no such thing! You ought to be more generous than to make such a statement as that about a poor

young stranger whowhowhy, he is the very opposite of that! He is considerate, courteous, obliging,

modest, gentle, refined, cultivatedoh, for shame! how can you say such things about him?"

"I don't blame you, Sallyindeed I haven't a word of blame for you for being blinded byyour

"Minor defects? Do you call these minor defects? What are murder and arson, pray?"

"It is a difficult question to answer straight offand of course estimates of such things vary with

environment. With us, out our way, they would not necessarily attract as much attention as with you, yet they

"With disapproval. Who are those Puritans you are talking about? But waithow did you come to know so

"Sally, it isn't hearsay evidence. That is the serious part of it. I knew that familypersonally."

"Knew Zylo, as we used to call him, and knew his father, Dr. Snodgrass. I didn't know your own Snodgrass,

but have had glimpses of him from time to time, and I heard about him all the time. He was the common talk,

"On account of his not being a houseburner or an assassin, I suppose. That would have made him

"Oh, how preposterous! There are not enough people in Cherokee Strip to give anybody a reputation, good or

bad. There isn't a quorum. Why the whole population consists of a couple of wagon loads of horse thieves."

Sally's eyes burned and her breath came quick and fast, but she kept a fairly good grip on her anger and did

not let it get the advantage of her tongue. The statesman sat still and waited for developments. He was content

with his work. It was as handsome a piece of diplomatic art as he had ever turned out, he thought; and now,

let the girl make her own choice. He judged she would let her spectre go; he hadn't a doubt of it in fact; but

anyway, let the choice be made, and he was ready to ratify it and offer no further hindrance.

Meantime Sally had thought her case out and made up her mind. To the major's disappointment the verdict

"He has no friend but me, and I will not desert him now. I will not marry him if his moral character is bad;

but if he can prove that it isn't, I willand he shall have the chance. To me he seems utterly good and dear;

I've never seen anything about him that looked otherwise except, of course, his calling himself an earl's son.

Maybe that is only vanity, and no real harm, when you get to the bottom of it. I do not believe he is any such

person as you have painted him. I want to see him. I want you to find him and send him to me. I will implore

"Very well; if that is your decision I will do it. But Sally, you know, he's poor, and"

"Oh, I don't care anything about that. That's neither here nor there. Will you bring him to me?"

"Oh, dear, it's getting toward dark, now, and so you'll have to put it off till morning. But you will find him in

Sally mused a moment alone, then said earnestly, "I love him in spite of his name!" and went about her

Hawkins went straight to the telegraph office and disburdened his conscience. He said to himself, "She's not

going to give this galvanized cadaver up, that's plain. Wild horses can't pull her away from him. I've done my

share; it's for Sellers to take an innings, now." So he sent this message to New York:

Meantime a note came to Rossmore Towers to say that the Earl of Rossmore had just arrived from England,

and would do himself the pleasure of calling in the evening. Sally said to herself, "It is a pity he didn't stop in

New York; but it's no matter; he can go up tomorrow and see my father. He has come over here to

tomahawk papa, very likelyor buy out his claim. This thing would have excited me, a while back; but it

has only one interest for me now, and only one value. I can say toto Spine, Spiny, SpinalI don't like

any form of that name!I can say to him tomorrow, 'Don't try to keep it up any more, or I shall have to tell

you whom I have been talking with last night, and then you will be embarrassed.'"

Tracy couldn't know he was to be invited for the morrow, or he might have waited. As it was, he was too

miserable to wait any longer; for his last hopea letterhad failed him. It was fully due today; it had not

come. Had his father really flung him away? It looked so. It was not like his father, but it surely looked so.

His father was a rather tough nut, in truth, but had never been so with his sonstill, this implacable silence

had a calamitous look. Anyway, Tracy would go to the Towers and then what? He didn't know; his head

was tired out with thinking he wouldn't think about what he must do or saylet it all take care of itself. So

that he saw Sally once more, he would be satisfied, happen what might; he wouldn't care.

He hardly knew how he got to the Towers, or when. He knew and cared for only one thinghe was alone

with Sally. She was kind, she was gentle, there was moisture in her eyes, and a yearning something in her

face and manner which she could not wholly hidebut she kept her distance. They talked. Bye and bye she

"It's so lonesomewith papa and mamma gone. I try to read, but I can't seem to get interested in any book. I

try the newspapers, but they do put such rubbish in them. You take up a paper and start to read something you

thinks interesting, and it goes on and on and on about how somebodywell, Dr. Snodgrass, for instance"

Not a movement from Tracy, not the quiver of a muscle. Sally was amazed what command of himself he

must have! Being disconcerted, she paused so long that Tracy presently looked up wearily and said:

"Oh, I thought you were not listening. Yes, it goes on and on about this Doctor Snodgrass, till you are so

Not a sign from Tracy, whose head was drooping again. What supernatural selfpossession! Sally fixed her

eye on him and began again, resolved to blast him out of his serenity this time if she knew how to apply the

dynamite that is concealed in certain forms of words when those words are properly loaded with unexpected

"And next it goes on and on and on about the eldest sonnot the favorite, this oneand how lie is neglected

in his poor barren boyhood, and allowed to grow up unschooled, ignorant, coarse, vulgar, the comrade of the

community's scum, and become in his completed manhood a rude, profane, dissipated ruffian"

That head still drooped! Sally rose, moved softly and solemnly a step or two, and stood before Tracyhis

head came slowly up, his meek eyes met her intense onesthen she finished with deep impressiveness

Tracy merely exhibited signs of increased fatigue. The girl was outraged by this iron indifference and

"Haven't you any sensitiveness? Don't these things touch any poor remnant of delicate feeling in you?"

"O, dear me, how can you look so innocent, and foolish, and good, and empty, and gentle, and all that, right

in the hearing of such things as those! Look me in the eyestraight in the eye. There, now then, answer me

without a flinch. Isn't Doctor Snodgrass your father, and isn't Zylobalsamum your brother," [here Hawkins

was about to enter the room, but changed his mind upon hearing these words, and elected for a walk down

town, and so glided swiftly away], "and isn't your name Spinal Meningitis, and isn't your father a doctor and

an idiot, like all the family for generations, and doesn't he name all his children after poisons and pestilences

and, abnormal anatomical eccentricities of the human body? Answer me, some way or somehowand quick.

Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it and see me going mad before your

"Oh, I wish I could dodoI wish I could do something, anything that would give you peace again and

make you happy; but I know of nothing I know of no way. I have never heard of these awful people

"Oh, you do look so honest when you say that! It must be truesurely you couldn't look that way, you

"I couldn't and wouldn't. It is true. Oh, let us end this suffering take me back into your heart and

"Waitone more thing. Tell me you told that falsehood out of mere vanity and are sorry for it; that you're

"O, now you are mine! I've got you back in the beauty and glory of your unsmirched poverty and your

honorable obscurity, and nobody shall ever take you from me again but the grave! And if"

The old gentleman stood surveying the couplethe one with a strongly complimentary right eye, the other

with a mixed expression done with the left. This is difficult, and not often resorted to. Presently his face

The young man did it with alacrity. "Then you are the son of an earl, after all," said Sally, reproachfully.

Berkeley was obliged to go. But he did not go far. He remained on the premises. At midnight the conference

between the old gentleman and the young girl was still going blithely on, but it presently drew to a close, and

"I came all the way over here to inspect you, my dear, with the general idea of breaking off this match if there

were two fools of you, but as there's only one, you can have him if you'll take him."

Meantime Hawkins had long ago returned and slipped up into the laboratory. He was rather disconcerted to

find his late invention, Snodgrass, there. The news was told him: that the English Rossmore was come,

Slowly and painfully the statesman worked the truth into his head that this was really a flesh and blood young

man, and not the insubstantial resurrection he and Sellers had so long supposed him to be. Then he said with

"I'm so glad; so glad on Sally's account, poor thing. We took you for a departed materialized bank thief from

Tahlequah. This will be a heavy blow to Sellers." Then he explained the whole matter to Berkeley, who said:

"Well, the Claimant must manage to stand the blow, severe as it is. But he'll get over the disappointment."

"Whothe colonel? He'll get over it the minute he invents a new miracle to take its place. And he's already

at it by this time. But look here what do you suppose became of the man you've been representing all this

"I don't know. I saved his clothesit was all I could do. I am afraid he lost his life."

"Well, you must have found twenty or thirty thousand dollars in those clothes, in money or certificates of

"No, I found only five hundred and a trifle. I borrowed the trifle and banked the five hundred."

"It's easy said, but not easy to manage. Let's leave it alone till we get Sellers's advice. And that reminds me.

I've got to run and meet Sellers and explain who you are not and who you are, or he'll come thundering in

here to stop his daughter from marrying a phantom. But suppose your father came over here to break off

Rossmore Towers saw great times and late hours during the succeeding week. The two earls were such

opposites in nature that they fraternized at once. Sellers said privately that Rossmore was the most

extraordinary character he had ever meta man just made out of the condensed milk of human kindness, yet

with the ability to totally hide the fact from any but the most practised characterreader; a man whose whole

being was sweetness, patience and charity, yet with a cunning so profound, an ability so marvelous in the

acting of a double part, that many a person of considerable intelligence might live with him for centuries and

Finally there was a quiet wedding at the Towers, instead of a big one at the British embassy, with the militia

and the fire brigades and the temperance organizations on hand in torchlight procession, as at first proposed

by one of the earls. The artfirm and Barrow were present at the wedding, and the tinner and Puss had been

The Sellerses were to go to England with their new allies for a brief visit, but when it was time to take the

Hawkins was going as far as New York with the party, and said he would explain the matter on the road.

The explanation was in a letter left by the colonel in Hawkins's hands. In it he promised to join Mrs. Sellers

The truth is, my dear Hawkins, a mighty idea has been born to me within the hour, and I must not even stop

to say goodbye to my dear ones. A man's highest duty takes precedence of all minor ones, and must be

attended to with his best promptness and energy, at whatsoever cost to his affections or his convenience. And

first of all a man's duties is his duty to his own honorhe must keep that spotless. Mine is threatened. When I

was feeling sure of my imminent future solidity, I forwarded to the Czar of Russiaperhaps prematurelyan

offer for the purchase of Siberia, naming a vast sum. Since then an episode has warned me that the method by

which I was expecting to acquire this money materialization upon a scale of limitless magnitudeis marred

by a taint of temporary uncertainty. His imperial majesty may accept my offer at any moment. If this should

occur now, I should find myself painfully embarrassed, in fact financially inadequate. I could not take

Recently my private hours have been dark indeed, but the sun shines main, now; I see my way; I shall be able

to meet my obligation, and without having to ask an extension of the stipulated time, I think. This grand new

idea of minethe sublimest I have ever conceived, will save me whole, I am sure. I am leaving for San

Francisco this moment, to test it, by the help of the great Lick telescope. Like all of my more notable

discoveries and inventions, it is based upon hard, practical scientific laws; all other bases are unsound and

hence untrustworthy. In brief, then, I have conceived the stupendous idea of reorganizing the climates of the

earth according to the desire of the populations interested. That is to say, I will furnish climates to order, for

cash or negotiable paper, taking the old climates in part payment, of course, at a fair discount, where they are

in condition to be repaired at small cost and let out for hire to poor and remote communities not able to afford

a good climate and not caring for an expensive one for mere display. My studies have convinced me that the

regulation of climates and the breeding of new varieties at will from the old stock is a feasible thing. Indeed I

am convinced that it has been done before; done in prehistoric times by now forgotten and unrecorded

civilizations. Everywhere I find hoary evidences of artificial manipulation of climates in bygone times. Take

the glacial period. Was that produced by accident? Not at all; it was done for money. I have a thousand proofs

I will confide to you an outline of my idea. It is to utilize the spots on the sunget control of them, you

understand, and apply the stupendous energies which they wield to beneficent purposes in the reorganizing of

our climates. At present they merely make trouble and do harm in the evoking of cyclones and other kinds of

electric storms; but once under humane and intelligent control this will cease and they will become a boon to

I have my plan all mapped out, whereby I hope and expect to acquire complete and perfect control of the

sunspots, also details of the method whereby I shall employ the same commercially; but I will not venture to

go into particulars before the patents shall have been issued. I shall hope and expect to sell shoprights to the

minor countries at a reasonable figure and supply a good business article of climate to the great empires at

special rates, together with fancy brands for coronations, battles and other great and particular occasions.

There are billions of money in this enterprise, no expensive plant is required, and I shall begin to realize in a

few daysin a few weeks at furthest. I shall stand ready to pay cash for Siberia the moment it is delivered,

I would like you to provide a proper outfit and start north as soon as I telegraph you, be it night or be it day. I

wish you to take up all the country stretching away from the north pole on all sides for many degrees south,

and buy Greenland and Iceland at the best figure you can get now while they are cheap. It is my intention to

move one of the tropics up there and transfer the frigid zone to the equator. I will have the entire Arctic Circle

in the market as a summer resort next year, and will use the surplusage of the old climate, over and above

what can be utilized on the equator, to reduce the temperature of opposition resorts. But I have said enough to

give you an idea of the prodigious nature of my scheme and the feasible and enormously profitable character

of it. I shall join all you happy people in England as soon as I shall have sold out some of my principal

Meantime, watch for a sign from me. Eight days from now, we shall be wide asunder; for I shall be on the

border of the Pacific, and you far out on the Atlantic, approaching England. That day, if I am alive and my

sublime discovery is proved and established, I will send you greeting, and my messenger shall deliver it

where you are, in the solitudes of the sea; for I will waft a vast sunspot across the disk like drifting smoke,

and you will know it for my lovesign, and will say "Mulberry Sellers throws us a kiss across the universe."