Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "We are what conditions make us, Miss Wellington," he
said.]
PRINCE OR CHAUFFEUR?
A STORY OF NEWPORT
BY
LAWRENCE PERRY
AUTHOR OF "DAN MERRITHEW," "FROM THE DEPTHS OF THINGS," "TWO TRAMPS,"
ETC.
WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS BY
J. V. McFALL
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1911
COPYRIGHT
BY A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1911
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England
Published, March, 1911
TO
MY MOTHER
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE MIDNIGHT EXPRESS
II MISS WELLINGTON ENLARGES HER EXPERIENCE
III PRINCE VASSILI KOLTSOFF
IV THE TAME TORPEDO
V AT TRINITY
VI AN ENCOUNTER WITH A SPY
VII MISS WELLINGTON CROSSES SWORDS WITH A DIPLOMAT
VIII WHEN A PRINCE WOOS
IX ARMITAGE CHANGES HIS VOCATION
X JACK McCALL, AT YOUR SERVICE
XI THE DYING GLADIATOR
XII MISS HATCH SHOWS SHE LOVES A LOVER
XIII ANNE EXHIBITS THE PRINCE
XIV UNDERGROUND WIRES
XV ANNE AND SARA SEEK ADVENTURE
XVI THE ADVENTURE MATERIALIZES
XVII THE NIGHT ATTACK
XVIII ANNE WELLINGTON HAS HER FIRST TEST
XIX AN ENCOUNTER IN THE DARK
XX WITH REFERENCE TO THE DOT
XXI PLAIN SAILOR TALK
XXII THE BALL BEGINS
XXIII THE BALL CONTINUES
XXIV THE BALL ENDS
XXV THE EXPATRIATE
XXVI CONCLUSION
ILLUSTRATIONS
"We are what conditions make us, Miss Wellington,"
he said . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"If you 'll allow me the honor of playing waiter,
I 'll be delighted to serve you in the cabin"
"Is n't it beautiful," murmured Anne. "So different
from being on the _Mayfair_, is n't it?"
To-night she was a professional beauty, "rigged
and trigged" for competition
PRINCE OR CHAUFFEUR?
CHAPTER I
THE MIDNIGHT EXPRESS
John Armitage, Lieutenant U. S. N., followed the porter into the rear
car of the midnight express for Boston, and after seeing his bag
deposited under a lower berth, stood for a minute in frowning
indecision. A half-hour must elapse before the train started. He was
not a bit sleepy; he had, in fact, dozed most of the way from
Washington, and the idea of threshing about in the hot berth was not
agreeable. Finally, he took a short thick pipe from his pocket, and
picking his way gingerly between the funereal swaying curtains and
protruding shoes, he went outside to talk to the porter.
The features of this functionary relaxed, from the ineffable dignity
and self-containment of a dozing saurian, into an expression of open
interest as Armitage ranged alongside, with the remark that it was
cooler than earlier in the evening.
"Ya'as, suh," agreed the porter, "it sut'nly am mighty cooler, jes'
now, suh." He cocked his head at the young officer. "You 's in de
navy, suh, ain't you, suh? I knowed," he added, as Armitage nodded a
bored affirmative, "dat you was 'cause I seen de 'U. S. N.' on yo'
grip. So when dat man a minute ago asked me was dere a navy gen'lman
on my cyar, why I said--"
"Eh!" Armitage turned upon him so quickly that the negro recoiled.
"Asked for me! Who? What did he say? When did he ask?"
"I came outen the cyar after cahying in yo' bag, Majah," replied the
porter, unctuously, "and dey was a man jes' come up an' ask me what I
tole you. 'Ya'as, suh,' says I, 'I jes' took in de Kunnel's bag.' So
he goes in an' den out he comes again, givin' me fifty cents, an'
hoofed it out through de gates, like he was in a hurry."
Armitage regarded the negro strangely.
"What did he look like?" he asked. "Quick!"
"He was a lean, lanky man wid a mustache and eye-glasses. He looked
like a foreigner. He--"
But Armitage had started on a run for the iron gates. In the big
waiting-room there were, perhaps, a score of persons, dozing or
reading, no one of whom resembled the man described by the porter. He
passed across to the telephone booths and as he did so the one for whom
he was searching emerged from the telegraph office, walked rapidly to
the Forty-second Street doors, and jumped into a taxi-cab waiting at
the curb.
And so Armitage missed him. He walked back to the train with a
peculiar smile, emotions of pleasurable excitement and a sense of
something mysterious conflicting.
"Missed him," he said in answer to the porter's look of inquiry.
"Friend of yo's, suh?"
"Well," said the officer, smiling grimly, "I should have liked to shake
hands with him."
His desire would have been keener could he in any way have known the
nature of the message which the curious stranger had sent to a squalid
little house on William Street in Newport:
A. leaves here for torpedo station on midnight train.
Though he did not know it, despatches of a similar nature had been
following or preceding him these past three months, a fact certainly
not uncomplimentary to an officer who had been out of the academy a
scant ten years, whatever the additional aspects.
As it was, Armitage, not given to worrying, dismissed the incident for
the time being and yielded full attention to the voluble porter. The
young officer was from Kentucky, had been raised with negroes, and
understood and liked them thoroughly.
With five minutes remaining before midnight he was about to knock the
fire from his pipe when a bustle at the gate attracted his attention.
A party, two women, their maids, and a footman bearing some luggage,
was approaching the train. The older woman was of distinguished
bearing and evidently in no amiable mood; the younger was smiling,
trying to pacify her.
"Well, mother," she said, as the party stopped at Armitage's car, "the
worst of the ordeal is over. It has all been so funny and quite
exciting, really."
That she was an interesting girl, Armitage could see even in the
ghastly effulgence of the arc lamps. Slightly above the medium height,
with a straight, slim figure, she was, he judged, about twenty-two or
three years old. Her light hair flowed and rippled from under a smart
hat; her face, an expressive oval; her mouth not small, the lips full
and red. Armitage could not tell about the eyes, but considering her
hair and vivid complexion they were, he decided, probably hazel. From
his purely scientific or rather artistic investigation of the girl's
face, he started suddenly to find that those eyes were viewing him with
an unmistakably humorous disdain. But only for a second. Then as
though some mental picture had been vaguely limned in her mind, she
looked at him again, quickly, this time with a curious expression, as
of a person trying to remember, not quite certain whether she should
bow. She did n't. Instead, she turned to her mother, who was
advancing toward the porter, voicing her disapproval of her daughter's
characterization of the situation.
"Funny! exciting!" she exclaimed. "You are quite impossible, Anne.
Porter, is this our car?"
The negro examined the tickets and waved his hand toward the steps.
"Ya'as'm, cyar five; state room A, an' upper 'n lower ten, for dem
ladies," indicating the maids. "Ya'as'm, jes' step dis way."
With a few directions to the footman, who thereupon retraced his steps
to the station, the woman followed her daughter and the maids into the
car. A minute or so later the train was rolling out into the yard with
its blazing electric lights, and Armitage, now hopelessly wakeful, was
in the smoking compartment, regarding an unlighted cigar. Here the
porter found him.
"Say, Gen'ral," he said, "dem folks is of de vehy fust quality. Dey
had got abo'd dey yacht dis ebenin', so dey was sayin', an' somethin'
was broke in de mashinery. So dey come asho' from whar dey went on de
ship at de yacht club station. Dey simply hab got ter get to Newport
to-morrow, kase dey gwine receive some foreign king or other an'--"
"Sam," interrupted Armitage, "did you find out who they are?"
"Ya'as, suh. Ah sut'nly did," was the pompous reply. "Dey is de
Wellingtons."
"Wellington," Armitage regarded the porter gravely. "Sam, I have been
in Newport off and on for some time, but have been too busy to study
the social side. Still, I happen to know you have the honor of having
under your excellent care, the very elect of society."
"Well, dey only gib me fifty cents," grimaced the porter, "an' dat don'
elect 'em to nothin' wid me."
Armitage laughed.
"You were lucky," he said. "You should have paid them for the honor."
The porter shook his head gloomily. "Two bits," he growled. "I don'
see no sassiety partiality in dat."
"No," Armitage reached into his pocket; "Here, Sam, is fifty cents for
hefting that young woman's bag." He paused and smiled. "It is the
nearest I have ever come to paying the bills for such a beautiful
creature. I like the experience. Now don't forget to call me at
Wickford Junction, or the other people either; for when I get them
aboard the _General_ I am going to start a mutiny, throw the mater
overboard, and go to sea. For, Sam, I rather imagine Miss Wellington
glanced at me as she boarded the train."
The porter laughed, pocketing the silver piece, and left Armitage to
his own devices. He sat for a long time, still holding the unlighted
cigar, smiling quizzically. Some underlying, romantic emotion, which
had prompted his vicarious tip to the porter, still thrilled him; and
it was not until the train had flashed by Larchmont, that he went to
his berth.
The full moon was swimming in the east, bathing the countryside in a
light which caused trees and hills, fences and bowlders to stand out in
soft distinctness. Armitage raised the window curtain and lying with
face pressed almost against the pane, watched the ever-changing scenes
of a veritable fairyland. He was anything but a snob. He was not
lying awake because a few select representatives of the Few Hundred
happened to be in his car. Not by a long shot. But that girl, he
admitted, irrespective of caste, was a cause for insomnia, good and
sufficient.
"Anne!" He muttered the name to himself. By George, it fitted her!
He did not know they bred her sort in the Newport cottage colony.
Armitage was sufficiently conceited to believe that he knew a great
deal about girls. He had this one placed precisely. She was a good
fellow, that he would wager, and unaffected and unspoiled, which, if he
were correct in his conjectures, was a wonderful thing, he told
himself, considering the environment in which she had been reared.
"I may be wrong, Anne Wellington," he said to himself, "but I 've an
idea we 're going to know each other better. At any rate, we, speaking
in an editorial sense, shall strive to that end."
He chose to ignore the obvious difficulties which presented themselves
in this regard. Who were the Wellingtons? His great, great
grandfather was signing the Declaration of Independence when the
Wellingtons were shoeing horses or carrying sedan chairs in London.
His father was a United States Senator, and while Ronald Wellington
might own one or two such, he could not own Senator Armitage, nor could
any one else.
The train flashed around the curve into Greenwich and the Sound
appeared in the distance, a vast pool of shimmering silver. Armitage
started.
"That torpedo of mine could start in that creek back there and flit
clean into the Sound and chase a steel hull from here to Gehenna. In
two weeks I 'll prove it."
How had Anne Wellington suggested his torpedo? Or was it the
moonlight? Well, if he set his mind on his torpedo he would surely get
no sleep. It had cost him too many wakeful hours already. He lowered
the curtain and closed his eyes.