Overnight, Mrs. Charlton Denyse (wife of an erstwhile Charley Dennis who
had made his pile in the wheat-pit) was a busy person. Scenting social
prestige, of which she was avid, in connection with Cecily Wayne, she
had sought to establish herself as the natural protectress of
unchaperoned maidenhood and had met with a well-bred, well-timed, and
well-placed snub.
Thick of skin, indeed, must they be who venture into the New York social
scramble, and Mrs. Denyse shared at least one characteristic of the
rhinoceros. Nothing daunted by her failure with the daughter, she
proceeded to invest a part of the Dennis pile in wireless messages to
Henry Clay Wayne, on the basis of her kinship with Remsen Van Dam. In
the course of time these elicited replies. Mrs. Denyse was well
satisfied. She was mingling in the affairs of the mighty.
She was also mingling in the affairs of the Tyro. To every one on board
whom she knew--and she was expert in making or claiming
acquaintance--she expanded upon the impudence of a young nobody named
Smith who was making up to Cecily Wayne, doubtless with a hope of
capturing her prospective millions. Among others, she approached Judge
Enderby, and that dry old Machiavelli congratulated her upon her
altruistic endeavors to keep the social strain of the ship pure and
undefiled, promising his help. He it was who suggested her appealing to
the captain.
As I have indicated, Judge Enderby in his unprofessional hours had an
elfish and prank-some love of mischief.
Quite innocent of plots and stratagems formulating about him, the Tyro
tried all the various devices made and provided for the killing of time
on shipboard, but found none of them sufficiently lethal. At dinner he
had caught a far glimpse of Little Miss Grouch seated at the captain's
table between Lorf Guenn and the floppy-eared scion of the house of
Sperry. Later in the evening he had passed her once and she had given
him the most casual of nods. He went to bed with a very restless wonder
as to what was going to happen in the morning, when she had promised to
walk with him again.
Nothing happened in the morning. Nothing, that is, except an uncertain
bobble of sea, overspread by a wind-driven mist which kept the wary
under cover. The Tyro tramped endless miles at the side of the
indefatigable Dr. Alderson; he patrolled the deck with a more anxious
watchfulness than is expected even of the ship's lookout; he peered into
nooks and corners; he studied the plan of the leviathan for possible
refuges; he pervaded the structure like a lost dog. Useless. All
useless. No Little Miss Grouch anywhere to be seen.
At noon he had given up hope and stood leaning against a stanchion in
morose contemplation of a school of porpoises. They were very playful
porpoises. They seemed to be actually enjoying themselves. That there
should be joy anywhere in that gray and colorless world was, to the
Tyro, a monstrous thing. Then he turned and beheld Little Miss Grouch.
She sat, muffled up in a steamer chair, just behind him. Only her eyes
appeared, bright and big under the quaintly slanted brows; but that was
enough. The Tyro was under the impression that the sun had come out.
"Hel-_lo_!" he cried. "How long have you been there?"
"One minute, exactly."
"Isn't it a glorious day?" said the Tyro, meaning every word of it.
"No; it isn't," she returned, with conviction. "I think this is a very
queer-acting ship."
"No! Do you? Why, I supposed all ships acted this way."
"Well, they don't. I don't like it. I haven't been feeling a bit well."
The Tyro expressed commiseration and sympathy.
"_You_ look disgustingly fit," she commented.
"I? Never felt so well in my life. A minute ago, I won't say. But
now--I could burst into poetry."
"Do," she urged.
"All right, I will. Listen. It's a limerick. I made it up out of the
fullness of my heart, and it's about myself but dedicated to you.
"There once was a seaworthy child
Whose feelings could never be riled.
While the porpoises porped--"
"There's no such word as 'porped,'" she interrupted.
"Yes, there is. There has to be. Nothing else in the world acts like a
porpoise; therefore there must be a word meaning to act like a porpoise;
and that word is the verb 'to porp.'"
"You're an ingenious lunatic," she allowed.
"Dangerous only when interrupted. I will now resume my lyric:--
"While the porpoises porped
And the passengers torped--"
"The passengers _what_-ed?"
"Torped. What you've been doing this morning."
"I haven't!" she denied indignantly.
"Of course you have. You've been in a torpor, haven't you? Well, to be
in a torpor, is to torp. Now I'm going to do it all over again, and if
you interrupt this time, I'll _sing_ it.
"There once was a seaworthy child
Whose feelings could never be riled.
While the porpoises porped
And the passengers torped,
_He_ sat on the lee rail and smiled."
"Beautiful!" she applauded. "I feel much better already."
"Don't you think a little walk would put you completely on your feet?"
he inquired.
"On yours, more probably." She smiled up at him. "Come and sit down and
tell me: are you a poet, or a lunatic, or a haberdasher, or what kind of
a--a Daddleskink are you?"
"Haberdasher? Why should I be a haberdasher?"
"An acquaintance of yours has been talking--trying to talk to me about
you. She said you were."
"Mrs. Denyse?"
"She seems a fearfully queer person, and quite excited about you. There
was something about you and a necktie, and--and Mr. Van Dam, and then I
escaped."
"Oh! The necktie. Why, yes, I suppose I am a sort of haberdasher, come
to think of it."
"I'm glad you're not ashamed of your business if you are of your name.
You told her it was Smith."
"Did I? I don't remember that I did, exactly. Even so, what would be the
use of wasting a really good name on her? She wouldn't appreciate it."
"Mr. De Dalesquinc--"
"Daddleskink," corrected the Tyro firmly.
"Very well," she sighed. "Daddleskink, then. Wasn't that Dr. Alderson,
the historian, that you were walking with yesterday?"
"Yes. Do you know him?"
"Only by correspondence. He did some research work on my house."
"_Your_ house. Do you inhabit a prehistoric ruin, that Alderson should
take an interest in it?"
"I call it mine. It isn't really--yet. It doesn't belong to anybody."
"Then why not just go and grab it? Squatter sovereignty, I believe they
call the process."
"I thought it was called jumping a claim. Somebody has a claim on it.
But that doesn't count. I always get what I want."
"Without trying?"
"Yes," she purred.
"Unfortunate maiden!"
"What?"
"I said 'unfortunate maiden.' Life must be fearfully dull for you."
"It isn't dull at all. It's delightful!"
"As witness day before yesterday. Were you getting what you wanted
then?"
"I wanted a good cry, and I got it. And I don't want to talk about it.
If you're going to be stupid--"
"Tell me about the prehistoric ruin," he implored hastily.
"It isn't a ruin at all. It's the cunningest, quaintest, homiest little
old house in all New York."
"I'm sorry," he said in the tone of one who reluctantly thwarts
another's project.
"What are you sorry about?" She drew down the slanted brows with a
delicious effect of surprise.
"I'm sorry; but you can't have that house."
"Why not?"
"It's mine."
"Now, you take any other house in New York that you want," she cajoled.
"Fifth Avenue is still nice. Any one can live on Fifth Avenue, though.
But to have a real house on Battery Place--that's different."
"My idea exactly."
She sat bolt upright. "You aren't serious. You don't mean the
mosaic-front house with the little pillars?"
"The oldest house left on Battery Place. That's it."
"And you claim it's yours?"
"Practically. I don't exactly own it--"
"Then you never will. I've wished it in," she announced with the
calmness of finality.
"Think how good for you it would be not to get something you wanted. The
tonic effect of a life-size disappointment--"
"No," she said, shaking her head violently, "it wouldn't be good for me
at all. I should cry and become a red-nosed mess again.
_I'm--going--to--have--that--house._ Why, Mr. Dad--Mr. Smi--Mr. Man,"
she cried, with a gesture of desperation, "I've owned that house in my
mind for five years."
"Five years! I've owned it for five generations."
"Are you claiming that it's your family place?"
"It is. Is it yours? Are you my long-lost cousin, by any chance? Welcome
to my arms--coat of arms, I mean."
"What would that be?" she inquired mischievously, "a collar-button,
fessed--"
"Bending above a tearful maiden rampant. The legend, 'Stand on your own
feet; if you don't, somebody else will.'"
"I don't _think_ I can boast any cousin named Daddleskink," she
observed. "Anyway, we're not New Yorkers. We came from the West."
"Where the money is made," he commented.
"To the East where it is spent," she concluded.
"Why spend it buying other people's houses?"
"Daddleskink Manor," ruminated the girl, in mocking solemnity. "Shall
you restore the ancient glory of the name? By the way, Dr. Alderson's
researches don't seem to have brought your clan to light, in the records
of the house."
"Oh, my interest is on my mother's side," said the Tyro hastily. "That's
why I'm buying the property."
"You're not!" said the girl, with a little stamp of her foot. Her
companion moved back apprehensively. "Can you pay a million dollars for
it?"
"No. Can you?"
"Never mind. Dad said he'd get it for me if--if--well, he promised to,
anyway."
"If you'd marry the marionette who recently faded from view?"
"Ye--yes."
"Far be it from me," said the Tyro modestly, "to enter the lists against
so redoubtable a champion on such short notice. Still, if you _are_
marrying real estate, rather than wealth, intellect, or beauty, I may
mention that I've got an option on that very house, and that it will
cost me pretty much every cent I've made since I left college to pay for
it."
"That you've made? Haven't you got any money of your own?"
"Whose do you suppose the money I've made is?"
"But anything to _live_ on, I mean. Do you have to work?"
"Oh, no. The poorhouse is contiguous and hospitable. But I've always had
a puerile prejudice against pauperdom as a career."
"You know what I mean," she accused. "Haven't your people got money?"
"Enough. And they can use what they have. Why should they waste it on
me?"
"But the men I know don't have to work," said the young lady.
There was nothing patronizing or superior in her tone, but the curiosity
with which she regarded her companion was in itself an irritant.
"Oh, well," he said, "after you've bought an old historic house and
maybe a coat of arms, I dare say you'll come to know some decent
citizens by and by."
"You mustn't think I have any feeling about your working," she explained
magnanimously. "Lots of nice men do. I know that. Only I don't happen
to know them. Young men, I mean. Of course dad works, but that's
different. I suppose Mrs. Denyse told you who dad is."
"She did. But I didn't know any more after she got through telling than
before."
The slanted brows went up to a high pitch of incredulity. "Where in the
world do you live?"
"Why, I've been in the West mostly for some years. My work has kept me
there."
"Oh, your haberdashery isn't in New York?"
"My haber--er--well--no; that is, I don't depend on the--er--trade
entirely. I'm a sort of a kind of a chemist, too."
"In a college?" inquired the young lady, whose impressions of chemistry
as a pursuit were derived chiefly from her schooldays.
"Mainly in mining-camps. Far out of the world. That's why I don't know
who you and your father are."
"Don't you really? Well, never mind us. Tell me more about your work,"
she besought, setting the feminine pitfall--half unconsciously--into
which trapper and prey so often walk hand in hand.
He answered in the words duly made and provided for such occasions: "Not
much to tell," and, as the natural sequence, proceeded to tell it,
encouraged by her interested eyes, at no small length.
Little Miss Grouch was genuinely entertained. From the young men whom
she knew she had heard sundry tales of the wild, untamed portions of our
country, but these gilded ones had peeked into such places from the
windows of transcontinental trains, or lingered briefly in them on
private-car junkets, or used them as bases of supply for luxurious
hunting-trips. Here was a youth--he looked hardly more--who had gone out
in dead earnest and fought the far and dry West for a living, and, as
nearly as she could make out from this gray-eyed Othello's modest
narrative, had won his battle all along the line.
I am violating no confidence in stating that this was the beginning of
trouble for Little Miss Grouch, though she was far from appreciating her
danger at the time, or of realizing that her dire design of vengeance
was becoming diluted with a very different sentiment.
"So," concluded the narrator, "here I am, a tenderfoot of the ocean,
having marketed my ore-reducing process for a sufficient profit to give
me a vacation, and also to permit of my buying a little old house on the
Battery."
"I'm sorry," said Little Miss Grouch, imitatively.
"What are you sorry for?"
"Your disappointment. Still, disappointment is good for the soul.
Anyway, I'm not going to quarrel with you now. You're too brutal. I
think I'm feeling better. How do I look?"
"Like a perfect wond--hum!" broke off the Tyro, nearly choking over his
sudden recollection of the terms of acquaintance. "I can't see any
improvement."
"Perhaps walking would help. They say the plainest face looks better
under the stimulus of exercise. Is your foot fit to walk on?"
"It's fit for me to walk on," said the Tyro cautiously.
"Come along, then," and she set out at a brisk, swinging stride which
told its own tale of pulsing life and joyous energy. After half a dozen
turns, she paused to lean over the rail which shuts off the carefully
caged creatures of the steerage from the superior above.
"My grandfather came over steerage," she remarked casually. "I don't
think I should like it."
A big-eyed baby, in its mother's sturdy arms below, caught sight of her
and crowed with delight, stretching up its arms.
"Oh," she cried with a little intake of the breath, "look at that
adorable baby!"
As she spoke the Tyro surprised in her face a change; a look of infinite
wistfulness and tenderness, the yearning of the eternal mother that
rises in every true woman when she gazes upon the child that might have
been her own; and suddenly a great longing surged over his soul and
mastered him for the moment. But the baby was lisping something in
German.
"What is it saying?" Little Miss Grouch asked.
[Illustration: "OH, LOOK AT THAT ADORABLE BABY!"]
"'Pretty-pretty,' substantially," translated the Tyro, recovering
himself. "Madam," he continued, addressing the mother, "it is evident
that your offspring suffers from some defect of vision. I advise you to
consult an oculist at once."
"_Bitte?_" said the mother, a broad-shouldered, deep-chested young
madonna.
"He says," explained Little Miss Grouch, "that it is a beautiful baby,
with a wonderful intelligence and unusually keen eyes. What is her
name?"
"Karl, lady," said the mother.
"Let's adopt Karl," said the corrected one, to the Tyro. "We'll come
here every day, and bring him nougats and candied violets--"
"And some pâté de foie gras, and brandied peaches, and dry Martini
cocktails," concluded the Tyro. "And then there'll be a burial at sea.
What do you think a baby's stomach is, beautiful--er--example of
misplaced generosity? Oranges would be more to the purpose."
"Very well, oranges, then. And we'll come twice a day and meet our
protégé here."
Thus it was arranged in the course of a talk with the mother. She was
going back to the Fatherland, she explained, to exhibit her wonderful
babe to its grandparents. And if the beautiful lady (here the Tyro shook
his head vigorously) thought the captain wouldn't object, the youngster
could be handed up over the rail for an occasional visit, and could be
warranted to be wholly contented and peaceful. The experiment was tried
at once, with such success that the Tyro was presently moved to complain
of being wholly supplanted by the newcomer. Thereupon Little Miss Grouch
condescended to resume the promenade.
"As our acquaintance bids fair to be of indefinite duration--" began the
Tyro, when she cut in:--
"Why indefinite?"
"Since it is to last until I belie my better judgment and basely recant
my opinion as to your looks."
"You were nearly caught while we were discussing our protégé. Well, go
on."
"I think you'd best tell me a little about yourself."
"Oh, my life is dull compared with yours," she returned. "Our only
interesting problem has been a barn-storming of the doors of New York
Society."
"And did you break in?"
For a moment her eyes opened wide. Then she remembered his confessed
ignorance and laughed.
With such reservations as she deemed advisable, she sketched briefly for
him one of those amazing careers so typical of the swiftly changing
social conditions of America.
As she talked, he visualized her father, keen, restless, resolute, a
money-hunter, who had bred out of a few dollars many dollars, and out of
many dollars an overwhelming fortune; her mother, a woman of clean,
fine, shrewd, able New England stock (the Tyro, being of the old
America, knew the name at once); and the daughter, born to moderate
means, in the Middle West, raised luxuriously on the basis of waxing
wealth, educated abroad and in America in a school which shields its
pupils from every reality of life and forces their growth in a hothouse
atmosphere specially adapted to these human orchids, and then presented
as a finished product for the acceptance of the New York circle which,
by virtue of much painful and expensive advertising in the newspapers,
calls itself Society.
Part of this she told him, qualifying the grossness of the reality by
her own shrewd humor; part he read between the lines of the
autobiography.
What she did not reveal to him was that she was the most flattered and
pampered heiress of the season; courted by the great and shining ones,
fawned on by the lesser members of the charmed circle, the pet and
plaything of the Sunday newspapers--and somewhat bored by it all.
The siege of society had been of farcical ease. Not her prospective
millions nor her conquering loveliness, either of which might eventually
have gained the entrée for her, would have sufficed to set her on the
throne. Shrewd social critics ascribed her effortless success to what
Lord Guenn called her "You-be-d----d" air.
The fact is, there was enough of her New England mother in Cecily to
keep her chin up. She never fawned. She never truckled. She was direct
and honest, and free from taint of snobbery, and a society perhaps the
most restlessly, self-distrustfully snobbish in the world marveled and
admired and accepted. Gay, high-spirited, kind in her somewhat
thoughtless way, clever, independent of thought and standard, with a
certain sweet and wistful vigor of personality, Cecily Wayne ruled,
almost as soon as she entered; ruled--and was lonely.
For the Puritan in her demanded something more than her own circle gave
her. And, true to the Puritan character, she wanted her price. That
price was happiness. Hence she had fled from Remsen Van Dam.
"But what's become of your promenade deck court?" inquired the Tyro,
when he found his attempts to elicit any further light upon her
character or career ineffective.
"Scattered," she laughed. "I told them I wouldn't be up until after
luncheon. Aren't you flattered?"
"I'm grateful," he said. "But don't forget that we have to call on Karl
at four o'clock."
"Well, come and rescue me then from the 'court,' as you call it. Now I
must make myself pretty--I mean less homely--for luncheon."
Leaden clogs held back the hands of the Tyro's watch after luncheon.
Full half an hour before the appointed time he was on deck, a
forehandedness which was like to have proved his undoing, for Judge
Enderby, who had taken a fancy to the young man and was moreover amused
by the incipient romance, swooped down upon him and inveigled him into a
walk. Some five minutes before the hour, the Joyous Vision appeared, and
made for her deck-throne attended by her entire court, including several
new accessions.
Judge Enderby immediately tightened his coils around his captive.
Brought up in a rigid school of courtesy toward his elders, the Tyro
sought some inoffensive means of breaking away; but when the other
hooked an arm into his, alleging the roll of the vessel,--though not in
the least needing the support,--he all but gave up hope. For an
interminable quarter of an hour the marplot jurist teased his captive.
Then, with the air of one making a brilliant discovery, he said:--
"Why, there's your homely little friend."
"Who?" said the Tyro.
"Little Miss--what was it you called her?--oh, yes, Miss Grouch. Strange
how these plain girls sometimes attract men, isn't it? Look at the
circle around her. Suppose we join it."
The Tyro joyfully assented. The Queen welcomed Judge Enderby graciously,
and ordered a chair vacated for him; young Mr. Sperry, whose chair it
was, obeying with ill grace. The Tyro she allowed to stand, vouchsafing
him only the most careless recognition. Was he not a good ten minutes
late? And should the Empress of Hearts be kept waiting with impunity?
Punishment, mild but sufficient for a lesson, was to be the portion of
the offender. She gave him no opportunity to recall their appointment.
And with a quiet suggestion she set young Sperry on his trail.
Now Mr. Diedrick Sperry, never notable for the most amiable of moods and
manners, was nourishing in his rather dull brain a sense of injury, in
that he had been ousted from his point of vantage. As an object of
redress the Tyro struck him as eminently suitable. From Mrs. Denyse he
had heard the story of the pushing young "haberdasher," and his
suspicions identified the newcomer.
"Say, Miss Cecily," he said, "why 'n't you interdoose your friend to
us?" In defense of the Sperry accent, I may adduce that, by virtue of
his wealth and position he had felt at liberty to dispense with the
lesser advantages of education and culture; therefore he talked the
language of Broadway.
"What? To all of you?" she said lazily. "Oh, it would take much too
long."
"Well, to me, anyway," insisted the rather thinly gilded youth. "I bin
hearin' about him."
"Very well: Mr. Sperry, Mr. Daddleskink."
She pronounced the abominable syllables quite composedly. But upon Mr.
Sperry they produced an immediate effect.
"Wha-at!" he cried with a broad grin. "What's the name?"
"Daddleskink," explained the Tyro mildly. "An umlaut over the K, and the
final Z silent as in 'buzz.'"
"Daddleskink," repeated the other. "Daddle--Haw! haw! haw!!"
"Cut it, Diddy!" admonished young Journay, giving him a surreptitious
dig in the ribs. "Your work is coarse."
Temporarily the trouble-seeker subsided, but presently above the
conversation, which had again become general, his cackling voice was
heard inquiring from Judge Enderby:--
"Say, Judge, how do you catch a diddleskink? Haw--haw--haw!"
This was rather further than the Empress intended that reprisals for
_lèse-majesté_ should go. Still, she was curious to see how her strange
acquaintance would bear himself under the test. She watched him from the
corner of an observant eye. Would he be disconcerted by the brusqueness
of the attack? Would he lose his temper? Would he cheapen himself to
answer in kind? What _would_ he do or say?
Habituation to a rough, quick-action life had taught the Tyro to keep
his wits, his temper, and his speech. No sign indicated that he had
heard the offensive query. He stood quietly at ease, listening to some
comments of Lord Guenn on the European situation. Judge Enderby,
however, looked the questioner up and down with a disparaging regard and
snorted briefly. Feeling himself successful thus far, Sperry turned from
a flank to a direct onset.
"Know Mrs. Denyse, Mr. Gazink?" he asked.
"I've met her."
"How? When you were peddlin' neckties and suspenders?"
"No," said the Tyro quietly.
"Doin' much business abroad?" pursued the other.
"No; I'm not here on business. It's a pleasure trip," explained the
victim pleasantly.
"Gents' furnishin's must be lookin' up. Go every year?" Mr. Sperry was
looking for an opening.
"This is my first trip."
"Your first!" cried the other. "Why, I bin across fifteen times." He
conceived the sought-for opening to be before him. "So you're out
cuttin' a dash. A sort of haberdash, hey? Haw--haw--haw!" He burst into
a paroxysm of self-applausive mirth over his joke, in which a couple of
satellites near at hand joined. "Haw--haw--haw!" he roared, stimulated
by their support.
The Tyro slowly turned a direct gaze upon his tormentor. "The Western
variety of your species," he observed pensively, "pronounce that
'hee-haw' rather than 'haw-haw.'"
There was a counter-chuckle, with Judge Enderby leading. Mr. Sperry's
mirth subsided. "Say, what's the chap mean?" he appealed to Journay.
"Oh, go eat a thistle," returned that disgusted youth. "He means you're
an ass, and you are. Serves you right."
Sperry rose and hulked out of the circle. "I'll see you on deck--later,"
he muttered to the Tyro in passing.
Little Miss Grouch turned bright eyes upon him. "Mr. Daddleskink is not
addicted to haberdashery exclusively. He also daddles in--"
"Real estate," put in the Tyro.
"Fancy his impudence!" She turned to Lord Guenn. "He wants to buy _my_
house."
"Not the house on the Battery?" said one of the court.
"I say, you know," put in Lord Guenn. "I have a sort of an interest in
that house. Had a great-grandfather that was taken in there when he was
wounded in one of the colonial wars. The Revolution, I believe you call
it."
"Then I suppose you will put in a claim, too, Bertie," said Miss Grouch,
and the familiar friendliness of her address caused the Tyro a little
unidentified and disconcerting pang.
"Boot's on the other leg," replied the young Englishman. "The house has
a claim on us, for hospitality. We paid it in part to old Spencer
Forsyth--he was my revered ancestor's friend--when he came over to
England after the war. Got a portrait of him now at Guenn Oaks.
Straight, lank, stern, level-eyed, shrewd-faced old boy--regular
whackin' old Yankee type. I beg your pardon," he added hastily.
"What for?" asked the Tyro with bland but emphatic inquiry.
Lord Guenn was not precisely slug-witted.
"Stupid of me," he confessed heartily. "What should an American
gentleman be but of Yankee type? You know,"--he regarded the Tyro
thoughtfully,--"his portrait at Guenn Oaks looks a bit like you."
Little Miss Grouch shot a glance of swift interest and curiosity at the
Tyro.
"Very likely," he said. "I'm a Yankee, too, and the type persists.
Speaking of types, there's the finest young German infant in the
steerage that ever took first prize in a baby-show."
As strategy this gained but half its object. Up rose Little Miss Grouch
with the suggestion that they all make a pilgrimage to see the
Incomparable Infant of her adoption. Much disgruntled, the Tyro brought
up the rear. Judge Enderby drew him aside as they approached the
steerage rail.
"Young man, are you a fighter?"
"Me? I'm the white-winged dove of peace."
"Then I think I'll warn young Sperry that if he molests you I'll see
that--"
"Wait a moment, judge. Don't do that."
"Why not?"
"I don't like the notion. A man ought to be able to take care of
himself."
"But he's twice your weight. And he's got a record for beating up
waiters and cabbies about New York. Now, my boy," the judge slid a
gaunt hand along the other's shoulder and paused. The hand also paused;
then it gripped, slid along, gripped again.
"Where did you get those muscles?" he demanded.
"Oh, I've wrestled a bit--foot and horseback both," said the other,
modestly omitting to mention that he had won the cowboy equine
wrestling-match at Denver two years before.
"Hum! That'll be all right. But why did you tell those people your name
was Daddleskink?"
"I didn't. Little Miss--Miss Wayne did."
"So she did. Mystery upon mystery. Well, I'm only the counsel in this
case; but it isn't safe, you know, to conceal anything from your
lawyer."
At this point the voice of royalty was heard demanding the Tyro. The
baby, he was informed, wished to see him. If this were so, that Infant
Extraordinary showed no evidence of it, being wholly engrossed with the
fascinations of his new mother-by-adoption. However, the chance was
afforded for the reigning lady to inform her slave that there was to be
dancing that evening in the grand salon, and would he be present?
He would! By all his gods, hopes, and ambitions he would!
As he turned by his liege lady's side, an officer approached and
accosted him.
"The captain would like to see you in his cabin at once, if you please."
* * * * *
Among those present at the evening's dance was _not_ Alexander Forsyth
Smith, _alias_ Sanders Daddleskink. Great was the wrath of Little Miss
Grouch.