The American Claimant

  CHAPTER XXV.

  Hawkins went straight to the telegraph office and disburdened hisconscience. He said to himself, "She's not going to give this galvanizedcadaver up, that's plain. Wild horses can't pull her away from him. I'vedone my share; it's for Sellers to take an innings, now." So he sentthis message to New York:

  "Come back. Hire special train. She's going to marry the materializee."

  Meantime a note came to Rossmore Towers to say that the Earl of Rossmorehad just arrived from England, and would do himself the pleasure ofcalling in the evening. Sally said to herself, "It is a pity he didn'tstop in New York; but it's no matter; he can go up to-morrow and see myfather. He has come over here to tomahawk papa, very likely--or buy outhis claim. This thing would have excited me, a while back; but ithas only one interest for me now, and only one value. I can sayto--to--Spine, Spiny, Spinal--I don't like any form of that name!--I cansay to him to-morrow, 'Don't try to keep it up any more, or I shall haveto tell you whom I have been talking with last night, and then you willbe embarrassed.'"

  Tracy couldn't know he was to be invited for the morrow, or he mighthave waited. As it was, he was too miserable to wait any longer; for hislast hope--a letter--had failed him. It was fully due to-day; it hadnot come. Had his father really flung him away? It looked so. It was notlike his father, but it surely looked so. His father was a rathertough nut, in truth, but had never been so with his son--still, thisimplacable silence had a calamitous look. Anyway, Tracy would go tothe Towers and --then what? He didn't know; his head was tired out withthinking--he wouldn't think about what he must do or say--let itall take care of itself. So that he saw Sally once more, he would besatisfied, happen what might; he wouldn't care.

  He hardly knew how he got to the Towers, or when. He knew and cared foronly one thing--he was alone with Sally. She was kind, she was gentle,there was moisture in her eyes, and a yearning something in her face andmanner which she could not wholly hide--but she kept her distance. Theytalked. Bye and bye she said--watching his downcast countenance out ofthe corner of her eye--

  "It's so lonesome--with papa and mamma gone. I try to read, but I can'tseem to get interested in any book. I try the newspapers, but theydo put such rubbish in them. You take up a paper and start to readsomething you thinks interesting, and it goes on and on and on about howsomebody--well, 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 pausedso long that Tracy presently looked up wearily and said:

  "Well?"

  "Oh, I thought you were not listening. Yes, it goes on and on aboutthis Doctor Snodgrass, till you are so tired, and then about his youngerson--the favorite son--Zylobalsamum Snodgrass--"

  Not a sign from Tracy, whose head was drooping again. What supernaturalself-possession! Sally fixed her eye on him and began again, resolvedto blast him out of his serenity this time if she knew how to apply thedynamite that is concealed in certain forms of words when those wordsare properly loaded with unexpected meanings.

  "And next it goes on and on and on about the eldest son--not thefavorite, this one--and how he is neglected in his poor barren boyhood,and allowed to grow up unschooled, ignorant, coarse, vulgar, the comradeof 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 ortwo, and stood before Tracy--his head came slowly up, his meek eyes mether intense ones--then she finished with deep impressiveness--

  "--named Spinal Meningitis Snodgrass!"

  Tracy merely exhibited signs of increased fatigue. The girl was outragedby this iron indifference and callousness, and cried out--

  "What are you made of?"

  "I? Why?"

  "Haven't you any sensitiveness? Don't these things touch any poorremnant of delicate feeling in you?"

  "N--no," he said wonderingly, "they don't seem to. Why should they?"

  "O, dear me, how can you look so innocent, and foolish, and good, andempty, and gentle, and all that, right in the hearing of such things asthose! Look me in the eye--straight in the eye. There, now then, answerme without a flinch. Isn't Doctor Snodgrass your father, and isn'tZylobalsamum your brother," [here Hawkins was about to enter the room,but changed his mind upon hearing these words, and elected for a walkdown town, and so glided swiftly away], "and isn't your name SpinalMeningitis, and isn't your father a doctor and an idiot, like all thefamily for generations, and doesn't he name all his children afterpoisons and pestilences and abnormal anatomical eccentricities of thehuman body? Answer me, some way or somehow--and quick. Why do you sitthere looking like an envelope without any address on it and see megoing mad before your face with suspense!"

  "Oh, I wish I could do--do--I wish I could do something, anything thatwould give you peace again and make you happy; but I know of nothing--Iknow of no way. I have never heard of these awful people before."

  "What? Say it again!"

  "I have never--never in my life till now."

  "Oh, you do look so honest when you say that! It must be true--surelyyou couldn't look that way, you wouldn't look that way if it were nottrue--would you?"

  "I couldn't and wouldn't. It is true. Oh, let us end thissuffering--take me back into your heart and confidence--"

  "Wait--one more thing. Tell me you told that falsehood out of merevanity and are sorry for it; that you're not expecting to ever wear thecoronet of an earl--"

  "Truly I am cured--cured this very day--I am not expecting it!"

  "O, now you are mine! I've got you back in the beauty and glory of yourunsmirched poverty and your honorable obscurity, and nobody shall evertake you from me again but the grave! And if--"

  "De earl of Rossmore, fum Englan'!"

  "My father!" The young man released the girl and hung his head.

  The old gentleman stood surveying the couple--the one with a stronglycomplimentary right eye, the other with a mixed expression done with theleft. This is difficult, and not often resorted to. Presently his facerelaxed into a kind of constructive gentleness, and he said to his son:

  "Don't you think you could embrace me, too?"

  The young man did it with alacrity. "Then you are the son of an earl,after all," said Sally, reproachfully.

  "Yes, I--"

  "Then I won't have you!"

  "O, but you know--"

  "No, I will not. You've told me another fib."

  "She's right. Go away and leave us. I want to talk with her."

  Berkeley was obliged to go. But he did not go far. He remained on thepremises. At midnight the conference between the old gentleman andthe young girl was still going blithely on, but it presently drew to aclose, and the former said:

  "I came all the way over here to inspect you, my dear, with the generalidea of breaking off this match if there were two fools of you, but asthere's only one, you can have him if you'll take him."

  "Indeed I will, then! May I kiss you?"

  "You may. Thank you. Now you shall have that privilege whenever you aregood."

  Meantime Hawkins had long ago returned and slipped up into thelaboratory. He was rather disconcerted to find his late invention,Snodgrass, there. The news was told him that the English Rossmore wascome.

  --"And I'm his son, Viscount Berkeley, not Howard Tracy any more."

  Hawkins was aghast. He said:

  "Good gracious, then you're dead!"

  "Dead?"

  "Yes you are--we've got your ashes."

  "Hang those ashes, I'm tired of them; I'll give them to my father."

  Slowly and painfully the statesman worked the truth into his head thatthis was really a flesh and blood young man, and not the insubstantialresurrection he and Sellers had so long supposed him to be. Then he saidwith feeling--

  "I'm so glad; so glad on Sally's account, poor thing. We took you fora departed materialized bank thief from Tahlequah. This will be a heavyblow to Se
llers." Then he explained the whole matter to Berkeley, whosaid:

  "Well, the Claimant must manage to stand the blow, severe as it is. Buthe'll get over the disappointment."

  "Who--the colonel? He'll get over it the minute he invents a newmiracle to take its place. And he's already at it by this time. But lookhere--what do you suppose became of the man you've been representing allthis time?"

  "I don't know. I saved his clothes--it was all I could do. I am afraidhe lost his life."

  "Well, you must have found twenty or thirty thousand dollars in thoseclothes, in money or certificates of deposit."

  "No, I found only five hundred and a trifle. I borrowed the trifle andbanked the five hundred."

  "What'll we do about it?"

  "Return it to the owner."

  "It's easy said, but not easy to manage. Let's leave it alone till weget Sellers's advice. And that reminds me. I've got to run and meetSellers and explain who you are not and who you are, or he'll comethundering in here to stop his daughter from marrying a phantom.But--suppose your father came over here to break off the match?"

  "Well, isn't he down stairs getting acquainted with Sally? That's allsafe."

  So Hawkins departed to meet and prepare the Sellerses.

  Rossmore Towers saw great times and late hours during the succeedingweek. The two earls were such opposites in nature that they fraternizedat once. Sellers said privately that Rossmore was the most extraordinarycharacter he had ever met--a man just made out of the condensed milk ofhuman kindness, yet with the ability to totally hide the fact from anybut the most practised character-reader; a man whose whole being wassweetness, patience and charity, yet with a cunning so profound, anability so marvelous in the acting of a double part, that many a personof considerable intelligence might live with him for centuries and neversuspect the presence in him of these characteristics.

  Finally there was a quiet wedding at the Towers, instead of a big oneat the British embassy, with the militia and the fire brigades and thetemperance organizations on hand in torchlight procession, as at firstproposed by one of the earls. The art-firm and Barrow were present atthe wedding, and the tinner and Puss had been invited, but the tinnerwas ill and Puss was nursing him--for they were engaged.

  The Sellerses were to go to England with their new allies for a briefvisit, but when it was time to take the train from Washington, thecolonel was missing.

  Hawkins was going as far as New York with the party, and said he wouldexplain 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 later, in England, and then wenton to say:

  The truth is, my dear Hawkins, a mighty idea has been born to me withinthe 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 beattended to with his best promptness and energy, at whatsoever cost tohis affections or his convenience. And first of all a man's dutiesis his duty to his own honor--he must keep that spotless. Mine isthreatened. When I was feeling sure of my imminent future solidity, Iforwarded to the Czar of Russia--perhaps prematurely--an offer for thepurchase of Siberia, naming a vast sum. Since then an episode haswarned me that the method by which I was expecting to acquire thismoney--materialization upon a scale of limitless magnitude--is marredby a taint of temporary uncertainty. His imperial majesty may acceptmy offer at any moment. If this should occur now, I should find myselfpainfully embarrassed, in fact financially inadequate. I could not takeSiberia. This would become known, and my credit would suffer.

  Recently my private hours have been dark indeed, but the sun shinesagain now; I see my way; I shall be able to meet my obligation, andwithout having to ask an extension of the stipulated time, I think. Thisgrand new idea of mine--the sublimest I have ever conceived, will saveme whole, I am sure. I am leaving for San Francisco this moment, to testit, by the help of the great Lick telescope. Like all of my more notablediscoveries and inventions, it is based upon hard, practical scientificlaws; all other bases are unsound and hence untrustworthy. In brief,then, I have conceived the stupendous idea of reorganizing the climatesof the earth according to the desire of the populations interested.That is to say, I will furnish climates to order, for cash or negotiablepaper, taking the old climates in part payment, of course, at a fairdiscount, where they are in condition to be repaired at small cost andlet out for hire to poor and remote communities not able to afford agood climate and not caring for an expensive one for mere display.My studies have convinced me that the regulation of climates and thebreeding of new varieties at will from the old stock is a feasiblething. Indeed I am convinced that it has been done before; done inprehistoric times by now forgotten and unrecorded civilizations.Everywhere I find hoary evidences of artificial manipulation of climatesin bygone times. Take the glacial period. Was that produced by accident?Not at all; it was done for money. I have a thousand proofs of it, andwill some day reveal them.

  I will confide to you an outline of my idea. It is to utilize thespots on the sun--get control of them, you understand, and apply thestupendous energies which they wield to beneficent purposes in thereorganizing of our climates. At present they merely make trouble and doharm in the evoking of cyclones and other kinds of electric storms; butonce under humane and intelligent control this will cease and they willbecome a boon to man.

  I have my plan all mapped out, whereby I hope and expect to acquirecomplete and perfect control of the sun-spots, also details of themethod whereby I shall employ the same commercially; but I will notventure to go into particulars before the patents shall have beenissued. I shall hope and expect to sell shop-rights to the minorcountries at a reasonable figure and supply a good business articleof climate to the great empires at special rates, together withfancy brands for coronations, battles and other great and particularoccasions. There are billions of money in this enterprise, no expensiveplant is required, and I shall begin to realize in a few days--in afew weeks at furthest. I shall stand ready to pay cash for Siberiathe moment it is delivered, and thus save my honor and my credit. I amconfident of this.

  I would like you to provide a proper outfit and start north as soon asI telegraph you, be it night or be it day. I wish you to take up allthe country stretching away from the north pole on all sides for manydegrees south, and buy Greenland and Iceland at the best figure youcan get now while they are cheap. It is my intention to move one of thetropics up there and transfer the frigid zone to the equator. I willhave the entire Arctic Circle in the market as a summer resort nextyear, and will use the surplusage of the old climate, over and abovewhat can be utilized on the equator, to reduce the temperature ofopposition resorts. But I have said enough to give you an idea ofthe prodigious nature of my scheme and the feasible and enormouslyprofitable character of it. I shall join all you happy people in Englandas soon as I shall have sold out some of my principal climates andarranged with the Czar about Siberia.

  Meantime, watch for a sign from me. Eight days from now, we shall bewide asunder; for I shall be on the border of the Pacific, and you farout on the Atlantic, approaching England. That day, if I am alive and mysublime discovery is proved and established, I will send you greeting,and my messenger shall deliver it where you are, in the solitudes ofthe sea; for I will waft a vast sun-spot across the disk like driftingsmoke, and you will know it for my love-sign, and will say "MulberrySellers throws us a kiss across the universe."