_ 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:
"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 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 to-morrow and see my
father. He has come over here to tomahawk papa, very likely--or 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 to--to--
Spine, Spiny, Spinal--I don't like any form of that name!--I can say to
him to-morrow, '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
hope--a letter--had failed him. It was fully due to-day; 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 son--still, 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 say--let 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 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 and
manner which she could not wholly hide--but she kept her distance. They
talked. Bye and bye she said--watching his downcast countenance out of
the corner of her eye--
"It's so lonesome--with 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
somebody--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 paused
so long that Tracy presently looked up wearily and said:
"Well?"
"Oh, I thought you were not listening. Yes, it goes on and on about this
Doctor Snodgrass, till you are so tired, and then about his younger son--
the favorite son--Zylobalsamum Snodgrass--"
Not a sign from Tracy, whose head was drooping again. What supernatural
self-possession! 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 meanings.
"And next it goes on and on and on about the eldest son--not the
favorite, this one--and 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 Tracy--his head came slowly up, his meek eyes met
her intense ones--then she finished with deep impressiveness--
"--named Spinal Meningitis Snodgrass!"
Tracy merely exhibited signs of increased fatigue. The girl was outraged
by 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 poor
remnant 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, and
empty, and gentle, and all that, right in the hearing of such things as
those! Look me in the eye-straight 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 somehow--and quick. Why do you sit
there looking like an envelope without any address on it and see me going
mad before your face with suspense!"
"Oh, I wish I could do--do--I 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 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--surely
you couldn't look that way, you wouldn't look that way if it were not
true--would you?"
"I couldn't and wouldn't. It is true. Oh, let us end this suffering--
take me back into your heart and confidence--"
"Wait--one more thing. Tell me you told that falsehood out of mere
vanity and are sorry for it; that you're not expecting to ever wear the
coronet 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 your
unsmirched poverty and your honorable obscurity, and nobody shall ever
take 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 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
relaxed 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 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 the former said:
"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."
"Indeed I will, then! May I kiss you?"
"You may. Thank you. Now you shall have that privilege whenever you are
good."
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,
--"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 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 feeling--
"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."
"Who--the 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
time?"
"I don't know. I saved his clothes--it 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 deposit."
"No, I found only five hundred and a trifle. I borrowed the trifle and
banked 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 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 the match?"
"Well, isn't he down stairs getting acquainted with Sally? That's all
safe."
So Hawkins departed to meet and prepare the Sellerses.
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 met--a 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 character-reader; 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 never
suspect the presence in him of these characteristics.
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 art-firm and Barrow were present at
the wedding, and the tinner and Puss had been invited, but the tinner was
ill and Puss was nursing him--for they were engaged.
The Sellerses were to go to England with their new allies for a brief
visit, but when it was time to take the train from Washington,
the colonel was missing.
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 later, in England, and then went
on to say:
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 honor-he must keep that spotless. Mine is
threatened. When I was feeling sure of my imminent future solidity,
I forwarded to the Czar of Russia-perhaps prematurely--an 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 magnitude-is 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 Siberia.
This would become known, and my credit would suffer.
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 mine--the 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 of it, and will some day reveal
them.
I will confide to you an outline of my idea. It is to utilize the spots
on the sun--get 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 man.
I have my plan all mapped out, whereby I hope and expect to acquire
complete and perfect control of the sun-spots, 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 shop-rights 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 days-in a few weeks at furthest.
I shall stand ready to pay cash for Siberia the moment it is delivered,
and thus save my honor and my credit. I am confident of this.
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 climates and arranged with the Czar about
Siberia.
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 sun-spot across the disk like drifting smoke,
and you will know it for my love-sign, and will say "Mulberry Sellers
throws us a kiss across the universe." _