The Earl of Rossmore _vs_. the American Claimant—Viscount Berkeley
proposes to change places with the Claimant—The Claimant’s letter—Lord
Berkeley decides to visit America
CHAPTER II.
Colonel Mulberry Sellers and his art gallery—He receives a visit from
Washington Hawkins—Talking over old times —Washington informs the
colonel that he is the congressional delegate from Cherokee Strip.
CHAPTER III.
Mrs. Sellers pronounces the colonel “the same old scheming, generous,
good-hearted, moonshiny, hopeful, no-account failure he always was”—He
takes in Dan’l and Jinny—The colonel originates “Pigs in the Clover”—He
offers one of his art treasures to propitiate Suggs—One-armed Pete; the
bank thief
CHAPTER IV.
A Yankee makes an offer for “Pigs in the Clover”—By the death of a
relative Sellers becomes the rightful Earl of Rossmore and consequently
the American Clairnant—Gwendolen is sent for from school—The remains of
the late Claimant and brother to be shipped to England—Hawkins and
Sellers nail the hatchments on “Rossmore Towers"
CHAPTER V.
Gwendolen’s letter—Her arrival at home—Hawkins is introduced, to his
great pleasure—Communication from the bank thief—Hawkins and Sellers
have to wait ten days longer before getting the reward—Viscount
Berkeley and the late Claimant’s remains start simultaneously from
England and America
CHAPTER VI.
Arrival of the remains of late Claimant and brother in England —The
usurping earl officiates as chief mourner, and they are laid with their
kindred in Cholmondeley church—Sally Sellers a gifted
costume-designer—Another communication from the bank thief—Locating him
in the New Gadsby—The colonel’s glimpse of one—armed Pete in the
elevator—Arrival of Viscount Berkeley at the same hotel
CHAPTER VII.
Viscount Berkeley jots down his “impressions” to date with a quill
pen—The destruction of the New Gadsby by fire—Berkeley loses his
bearings and escapes with his journaled “impressions” only—Discovery
and hasty donning of one-armed Pete’s abandoned wardrobe—Glowing and
affecting account in the morning papers of the heroic death of the heir
of Rossmore—He will take a new name and start out “incog"
CHAPTER VIII.
The colonel’s grief at the loss of both Berkeley and one-armed
Pete—Materialization—Breaking the news to the family—The colonel starts
to identify and secure a body (or ashes) to send to the bereaved father
CHAPTER IX.
The usual actress and her diamonds in the hotel fire—The colonel
secures three baskets of ashes—Mrs. Sellers forbids their lying in
state—Generous hatchments—The ashes to be sent only when the earl sends
for them
CHAPTER X.
Lord Berkeley deposits the $500 found in his appropriated
clothes—Attends “Mechanics’ Debating Club”—Berkeley (_alias_ Tracy) is
glad he came to this country
CHAPTER XI.
No work for Tracy—Cheaper lodgings secured—Sleeping on the roof—“My
daughter Hattie”—Tracy receives further “impressions” from Hattie
(otherwise “Puss”)—Mr. Barrow appears—And offers to help Tracy find
work
CHAPTER XII.
A boarding—house dinner—“No money, no dinner” for Mr. Brady—“How did
you come to mount that hat?”—A glimpse of (the supposed) one-armed
Pete—Extract from Tracy’s diary
CHAPTER XIII.
Tracy and trades-unions—Unpopularity with fellow-boarders—Which changes
to popularity on his punishing Allen—The cablegram
CHAPTER XIV.
“Mechanics’ Debating Club” again—Tracy is comforted by Barrow’s
remarks—“Fool or _no_ fool, he would grab it”—“Earldom! oh, yes, take
it if it offers"
CHAPTER XV.
“You forgot to pay your board”—“I’ve been robbed “—Mr. Allen among the
missing, likewise other things—The cablegram: “Thanks”—Despair of
Tracy—“You’ve got to amuse your mind"
CHAPTER XVI.
The collaborative art collection—The artists—“The cannon’s our
trademark”—Tracy’s mind _is_ amused
CHAPTER XVII.
No further cablegram—“If those ghastly artists want a confederate, I’m
their man”—Tracy taken into partnership—Disappointments of
materialization —The phonograph adapted to marine service —Utilization
of wasted sewer gas
CHAPTER XVIII.
The colonel’s project to set Russia free—“I am going to buy
Siberia”—The materializee turns up—Being an artist he is invited to
restore the colonel’s collection—Which he forthwith begins
CHAPTER XIX.
The perplexities and nobilities of materialization—The materializee
eats a couple of apples—Horror of Hawkins and Sellers—It must be a
mistake"
CHAPTER XX.
Tracy’s perplexities with regard to the Claimant’s sanity—The Claimant
interviews him—Sally Sellers meets Tracy —A violent case of love at
first sight—Pinks
CHAPTER XXI.
Empty painting; empty millinerizing—Tracy’s work satisfactory—
Sellers’s new picture of Lord Berkeley—“He is a wobbler”—The
unsuccessful dinner—parties—“They flung their arms about each other’s
necks"
CHAPTER XXII.
“The materializing has got to stop where it is”—Sally Sellers
repudiates “Lady Gwendolen”—The late Lord Berkeley Sally’s hero—“The
shady devil [Doubt] had knifed her"
CHAPTER XXIII.
Tracy writes to his father—The rival houses to be united by his
marriage to Sally Sellers—The earl decides to “step over and take a
hand”—“The course of true love,” etc., as usual—“You an earl’s son!
show me the signs"
CHAPTER XXIV.
Time drags heavily for all concerned—Success of “Pigs in the
Clover”—Sellers is “fixed” for his temperance lecture— Colonel and Mrs.
Sellers start for Europe—Interview of Hawkins and Sally—Tracy an
impostor
CHAPTER XXV.
Telegram: “She’s going to marry the materializee”—Interview between
Tracy and Sally—Arrival of the usurping earl—“You can have him if
you’ll take him”—A quiet wedding at the Towers—Sellers does not join
the party to England—Preparing to furnish climates to order
APPENDIX.
The weather in this book
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
“He was constructing what seemed to be some kind of frail mechanical toy.”
“It must try your patience pretty sharply sometimes.”
One-armed Pete
“Father, I am going to shake hands with Major Hawkins.”
“Must he go down in his spectral night dress?”
“Clah to goodness it’s de fust time I’ve sot eyes on ’em.”
Parker, assistant editor of the _Democrat_
“How do you do?”
“Both were so paralyzed with joy.”
“It had already happened.”
“His thoughts had been far away from these things.”
“Fool or _no_ fool, he would grab it.”
“No. 5 started a laugh.”
Capt. Saltmarsh and brother of the brush
Wasted sewer gas
“Eastward with that great light transfiguring their faces.”
It was a violent case of mutual love at first sight
“Time dragged heavily for both, now.”
“Oh, my God, she’s kissing it!”
“The shady devil had knifed her.”
“You an earl’s son! Show me the signs.”
“My father!”
“Finally there was a quiet wedding at the Towers.”
EXPLANATORY
The Colonel Mulberry Sellers here re-introduced 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 T. Raymond.
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 request—backed by threat of a libel suit—then 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, this time, under shelter of
the statute of limitations.
MARK TWAIN.
Hartford, 1891.
THE WEATHER IN THIS BOOK.
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 dare-devil person to try it, and the author was in just
the mood.
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 fuss-up 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, poor-quality,
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 experts—giving 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 and help
himself from time to time as he goes along.
CHAPTER I.
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 twenty-two thousand acres
of English land, owns a parish in London with two thousand houses on
its lease-roll, 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, square-shouldered, white-haired,
stern-browed, 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 dreamy-eyed young
fellow, who looks about twenty-six but is nearer thirty. Candor,
kindliness, honesty, sincerity, simplicity, modesty—it 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 Marjoribanks Sellers
Viscount-Berkeley, 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.
“Soft-spirited 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 you—yes, 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 notice. He
found himself, he injected himself into our lives—”
“And has made mine a purgatory for ten years with his tiresome letters,
his wordy reasonings, his acres of tedious evidence,—”
“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 earl—in which case our course would be plain—or it
would prove that he wasn’t—in 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 complete,
no important link wanting. I believe he is the rightful earl.”
“And I a usurper—a—nameless pauper, a tramp! Consider what you are
saying, sir.”
“Father, _if_ he is the rightful earl, would you, could you—that fact
being established—consent to keep his titles and his properties from
him a day, an hour, a minute?”
“You are talking nonsense—nonsense—lurid idiocy! Now, listen to me. I
will make a confession—if you wish to call it by that name. I did not
read those evidences because I had no occasion to—I 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 time—but disappeared—somewhere in the wilds of Virginia, got
married, and 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 claim—by letter—letter still in existence—and died
before the uncle in-possession found time—or maybe
inclination—to—answer. The infant son of that eldest product grew
up—long interval, you see—and _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 now—are you satisfied?”
There was a pause, then the son glanced at the crest carved in the
great oaken mantel and said, with a regretful note in his voice:
“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 eye—and tortured my ear; till at last my very footfalls time
themselves to the brain-racking rhythm of _Simon Lathers!—Simon
Lathers! —Simon Lathers!_ And now, to make its presence in my soul
eternal, immortal, imperishable, you have resolved to—to—what is it you
have resolved to do?”
“To go to Simon Lathers, in America, and change places with him.”
“What? Deliver the reversion of the earldom into his hands?”
“That is my purpose.”
“Make this tremendous surrender without even trying the fantastic case
in the Lords?”
“Ye—s—” with hesitation and some embarrassment.
“By all that is amazing, I believe you are insane, my son. See here
—have you been training with that ass again—that radical, if you prefer
the term, though the words are synonymous—Lord Tanzy, of Tollmache?”
The son did not reply, and the old lord continued:
“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 work—_work_, pah!”—and
the old patrician brushed imaginary labor-dirt from his white hands.
“You have come to hold just those opinions yourself, I suppose,”—he
added with a sneer.
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 shame—I 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 again—begin it right—begin 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 man—that alone, and not a single helping gaud or
fiction back of it.”
“Hear, hear!” The two men looked each other steadily in the eye a
moment or two, then the elder one added, musingly, “Ab-so-lutely
cra-zy—ab-solutely!” After another silence, he said, as one who, long
troubled by clouds, detects a ray of sunshine, “Well, there will be one
satisfaction—Simon Lathers will come here to enter into his own, and I
will drown him in the horsepond. The poor devil—always so humble in his
letters, so pitiful, so deferential; so steeped in reverence for our
great line and lofty-station; 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 pauper-shod as to
raiment, so despised, so laughed at for his silly claimantship by the
lewd American scum around him—ah, the vulgar, crawling, insufferable
tramp! To read one of his cringing, nauseating letters—well?”
This to a splendid flunkey, all in inflamed plush and buttons and
knee-breeches as to his trunk, and a glinting white frost-work of
ground-glass paste as to his head, who stood with his heels together
and the upper half of him bent forward, a salver in his hands:
“The letters, my lord.”
My lord took them, and the servant disappeared.
“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 envelope—with a most ostentatiously broad mourning
border—for his cat, perhaps, since he was a bachelor—and fastened with
red wax—a batch of it as big as a half-crown—and—and—our crest for a
seal!—motto and all. And the ignorant, sprawling hand is gone; he
sports a secretary, evidently—a secretary with a most confident swing
and flourish to his pen. Oh indeed, our fortunes are improving over
there—our meek tramp has undergone a metamorphosis.”
“Read it, my lord, please.”
“Yes, this time I will. For the sake of the cat:”
14,042 SIXTEENTH. STREET,
WASHINGTON, May 2.
_My Lord_—
It is my painful duty to announce to you that the head of our
illustrious house is no more—The 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 smoke-house-raising, owing to carelessness on the part of all
present, referable to over-confidence and gaiety induced by overplus of
sour-mash—(“Extolled be sour-mash, 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
rank—in fact, he is on the ice yet, him and his brother—friends took up
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 house-front,
and you will of course do the same at your several seats.
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 titular
lordship.
With assurance of my distinguished consideration and warm cousinly
regard, I remain
Your titular lordship’s
Most obedient servant,
_Mulberry Sellers Earl Rossmore_.
“Im-mense! Come, this one’s interesting. Why, Berkeley, his breezy
impudence is—is—why, it’s colossal, it’s sublime.”
“No, this one doesn’t seem to cringe much.”
“Cringe—why, 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_
Sellers—there’s music for you, Simon Lathers—Mulberry Sellers—Mulberry
Sellers—Simon Lathers. Sounds like machinery working and churning.
Simon Lathers, Mulberry Sel—Are you going?”
“If I have your leave, father.”
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 course—as it would
profit nothing to oppose him—make 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 hard-times can effect for the
mental health of a brain-sick young British lord. Going to renounce his
lordship and be a man! Yas!”