The American Claimant
CHAPTER VI.
In the course of time the twins arrived and were delivered to theirgreat kinsman. To try to describe the rage of that old man would profitnothing, the attempt would fall so far short of the purpose. Howeverwhen he had worn himself out and got quiet again, he looked the matterover and decided that the twins had some moral rights, although they hadno legal ones; they were of his blood, and it could not be decorous totreat them as common clay. So he laid them with their majestic kin inthe Cholmondeley church, with imposing state and ceremony, and added thesupreme touch by officiating as chief mourner himself. But he drew theline at hatchments.
Our friends in Washington watched the weary days go by, while theywaited for Pete and covered his name with reproaches because of hiscalamitous procrastinations. Meantime, Sally Sellers, who was aspractical and democratic as the Lady Gwendolen Sellers was romantic andaristocratic, was leading a life of intense interest and activity andgetting the most she could out of her double personality. All day longin the privacy of her work-room, Sally Sellers earned bread for theSellers family; and all the evening Lady Gwendolen Sellers supported theRossmore dignity. All day she was American, practically, and proudof the work of her head and hands and its commercial result; all theevening she took holiday and dwelt in a rich shadow-land peopled withtitled and coroneted fictions. By day, to her, the place was a plain,unaffected, ramshackle old trap-- just that, and nothing more; by nightit was Rossmore Towers. At college she had learned a trade withoutknowing it. The girls had found out that she was the designer of herown gowns. She had no idle moments after that, and wanted none; for theexercise of an extraordinary gift is the supremest pleasure in life, andit was manifest that Sally Sellers possessed a gift of that sort in thematter of costume-designing. Within three days after reaching home shehad hunted up some work; before Pete was yet due in Washington, andbefore the twins were fairly asleep in English soil, she was alreadynearly swamped with work, and the sacrificing of the family chromos fordebt had got an effective check.
"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 bynature--don't know what defeat is; thus, intensely and practicallyAmerican by inhaled nationalism, and at the same time intensely andaristocratically European by inherited nobility of blood. Just me,exactly: Mulberry Sellers in matter of finance and invention; afteroffice hours, what do you find? The same clothes, yes, but what's inthem? Rossmore of the peerage."
The two friends had haunted the general post-office daily. At last theyhad their reward. Toward evening on the 20th of May, they got a letterfor XYZ. It bore the Washington postmark; the note itself was not dated.It said:
"Ash barrel back of lamp post Black horse Alley. If you are playingsquare go and set on it to-morrow morning 21st 10.22 not sooner notlater wait till I come." The friends cogitated over the note profoundly.Presently the earl said:
"Don't you reckon he's afraid we are a sheriff with a requisition?"
"Why, m'lord?"
"Because that's no place for a seance. Nothing friendly, nothingsociable about it. And at the same time, a body that wanted to know whowas roosting on that ash-barrel without exposing himself by going nearit, or seeming to be interested in it, could just stand on the streetcorner and take a glance down the alley and satisfy himself, don't yousee?"
"Yes, his idea is plain, now. He seems to be a man that can't be candidand straightforward. He acts as if he thought we--shucks, I wish he hadcome out like a man and told us what hotel he--"
"Now you've struck it! you've struck it sure, Washington; he has toldus."
"Has he?"
"Yes, he has; but he didn't mean to. That alley is a lonesome littlepocket that runs along one side of the New Gadsby. That's his hotel."
"What makes' you think that?"
"Why, I just know it. He's got a room that's just across from that lamppost. He's going to sit there perfectly comfortable behind his shuttersat 10.22 to-morrow, and when he sees us sitting on the ash-barrel, he'llsay to himself, 'I saw one of those fellows on the train'--and thenhe'll pack his satchel in half a minute and ship for the ends of theearth."
Hawkins turned sick with disappointment:
"Oh, dear, it's all up, Colonel--it's exactly what he'll do."
"Indeed he won't!"
"Won't he? Why?"
"Because you won't be holding the ash barrel down, it'll be me. You'llbe coming in with an officer and a requisition in plain clothes--theofficer, I mean--the minute you see him arrive and open up a talk withme."
"Well, what a head you have got, Colonel Sellers! I never should havethought of that in the world."
"Neither would any earl of Rossmore, betwixt William's contribution andMulberry--as earl; but it's office hours, now, you see, and the earl inme sleeps. Come--I'll show you his very room."
They reached the neighborhood of the New Gadsby about nine in theevening, and passed down the alley to the lamp post.
"There you are," said the colonel, triumphantly, with a wave of his handwhich took in the whole side of the hotel. "There it is--what did I tellyou?"
"Well, but--why, Colonel, it's six stories high. I don't quite make outwhich window you--"
"All the windows, all of them. Let him have his choice--I'm indifferent,now that I have located him. You go and stand on the corner and wait;I'll prospect the hotel."
The earl drifted here and there through the swarming lobby, and finallytook a waiting position in the neighborhood of the elevator. During anhour crowds went up and crowds came down; and all complete as tolimbs; but at last the watcher got a glimpse of a figure that wassatisfactory--got a glimpse of the back of it, though he had missedhis chance at the face through waning alertness. The glimpse revealed acowboy hat, and below it a plaided sack of rather loud pattern, and anempty sleeve pinned up to the shoulder. Then the elevator snatchedthe vision aloft and the watcher fled away in joyful excitement, andrejoined the fellow-conspirator.
"We've got him, Major--got him sure! I've seen him--seen him good; andI don't care where or when that man approaches me backwards, I'llrecognize him every time. We're all right. Now for the requisition."
They got it, after the delays usual in such cases. By half past eleventhey were at home and happy, and went to bed full of dreams of themorrow's great promise.
Among the elevator load which had the suspect for fellow-passenger was ayoung kinsman of Mulberry Sellers, but Mulberry was not aware of it anddidn't see him. It was Viscount Berkeley.