 OF THE FOLLOWING FORTNITE I FIND IT DIFFICULT TO WRITE COHERENTLY. I FOUND MYSELF IN A STEADY WORLD OF RECEPTIONS, LUNCHENS, DINNERS, TEES, AND ASSEMBLYS OF RATHER A PRETENTIUS CHARACTER, AT THE GREATER NUMBER OF WHICH I WAS ABLIGED TO APPEAR AS THE GUEST OF HONOR. It began with the reception of Mrs. Flood, at which I may be said to have made my first formal bow to the smarter element of red-gap, followed by the dinner of the Mrs. Ballard, with whom I had formed acquaintance on that first memorable evening. I was doing this time like a babe at blind play with a set of chessmen not knowing king from pawn, for one rule of the game. Senator Flood, who was but a member of their provincial assembly, I discovered, sought an early opportunity to felicitate me on my changed estate, though he seemed not a little amused by it. Good work! he said. You know, I was afraid our having an English valet would put me in bad with voters this fall, they're already saying I wear silk stockings, since I've been abroad. My wife did buy me six pair, but I've never worn any. Shows how people talk, though, and even now they'll probably say I'm making up to the British army, but it's better than having a valet in the house. The plain people would never stand my having a valet, and I know it. I thought this most remarkable that his constituency should resent his having proper house service. American politics were then more debased than even we of England had dreamed. Good work! he said again. And say, take out your papers, become one of us, be a citizen. Nothing better than an American citizen on God's green earth. Read the Declaration of Independence. Here, from a book case at his hand, he reached me a volume. Read and reflect, my man. Become a citizen of a country where true worth has always its chance, and one may hope to climb to any heights whatsoever. Quite like an advertisement, he talked. But I read their so-called Declaration, finding it snarky in the extreme, and with no end of silly rot about equality. In no way at all did it solve the problems by which I had been so suddenly confronted. Social lines in the town seemed to have been drawn by no rule whatever. There were actually tradesmen who seemed to matter enormously. On the other hand there were those of undoubted qualifications, like Mrs. Pettengill, for example, and Cousin Egbert, who deliberately chose not to matter, and mingled as freely with the Bohemian set, as they did with the county families. Thus one could never be quite certain whom one was meeting. There was the tuttle person. I had learned from Mrs. Effie in Paris that he was an Indian, accounting for much that was startling in his behaviour there. Yet, despite his being an aborigine, I now learned that his was one of the county families, and he and his white American wife were guests at that first dinner. Throughout the meal both Cousin Egbert and he winked atrociously at me whenever they could catch my eye. There was again an English person calling himself Hobbes, a baker to whom Cousin Egbert presented me full of delight at the idea that as compatriots we were bound to be congenial. Yet it needed only a glance at a moment's listening to the fellow's execrable cockney dialect to perceive that he was distinctly low class, and I was immensely relieved upon inquiry to learn that he affiliated only with the Bohemian set. I felt a marked antagonism between us at that first meeting. The fellow eyed me with frank suspicion, and displayed a taste for low chaffing, which I felt bound to rebuke. He it was, I may now disclose, who later began a fashion of referring to me as Lord Algy, which I found in the worst possible taste. Set himself up for a gentleman, does he, he ain't no more a gentleman than what I be. This speech of his reported to me will show how impossible the creature was. He was simply a person one does not know, and I was not long in letting him see it. And there was the woman who was to play so active a part in my later history, of whom it will be well to speak at once. I had remarked her on the main street before I knew her identity. I am bound to say she stood out from the other woman of red gap, by reason of a certain dash, not to say beauty, rather above medium height, and of pleasingly full figure. Her face was pecklessly alert, with long lashed eyes of a peculiar green, a small nose, the least bit raised, a lifted chin, and an abundance of a yellowish hair. But it was the expertness of her gowning that really held my attention at that first view, and the fact that she knew what to put on her head. For the most part the ladies I had met were well enough gotten up, yet looked curiously all wrong, lacking a genius for harmony of detail. This person, I repeat, displayed a taste that was faultless, a knowledge of the peculiar needs of her face and figure that was unimpeachable. Rather with regret it was I found her to be a Mrs. Kenner, the leader of the Bohemian set, and then came the further items that marked her as one that could not be taken up. Perhaps a summary of these may be conveyed when I say that she had long been known as Klondike Kate. She had, some years before, it seemed, been a dancing person in the far Alaska North, and had there married the proprietor of one of the resorts, in which she desported herself, a man who had accumulated a very sizable fortune in his public house, and who was shot to death by one of his patrons, who had alleged unfairness in a game of chants. The widow had then purchased a townhouse in Redgap, and had quickly gathered about her what was known as the Bohemian set. The county families, of course, refusing to know her. After that first brief study of her I could more easily account for the undercurrents of bitterness I had felt in Redgap society. She would be, I saw, a dangerous woman in any situation where she was opposed. There was that about her, a sort of daring disregard of the established social order. I was not surprised to learn that the men of the community strongly favoured her, especially the younger dancing set, who were not restrained by domestic considerations. Small wonder, then, that the women of the old noblesse, as I may call them, were outspokenly bitter in their comments upon her. This I discovered when I attended an afternoon meeting of the ladies' onwards and upwards club, which I had been told would be devoted to a study of the English Lake poets, and where, it having been discovered that I read rather well, I had consented to favour the assembly with some of the more significant bits from these bards. The meeting, I regret to say, after a formal enough opening, was diverted from its original purpose, the time being occupied in a quite heated discussion of a so-called Dutch supper the Klondike person had given the evening before, the same having been attended, it seemed, by the husbands of at least three of those present, who had gone incognito, as it were, at no time during the ensuing two hours was there a moment that seemed opportune for the introduction of some of our noblest verse, and so, by often painful stages, did my education progress. At the country club I played golf with Mr. Jackson. At social affairs I appeared with the flouts, I played bridge, I danced the more dignified dances, and though there was no proper church in the town, only dissenting chapels, Methodist, Presbyterian, and such outlandish persuasions, I attended services each Sabbath, and more than once had tea with what at home would have been the vicar of the parish. It was now, when I had begun to feel a bit at ease in my queer foreign environment, that Mr. Belnap Jackson broached his ill-starred plan for amateur theatricals. At the first suggestion of this I was immensely taken with the idea, suspecting that he would perhaps present Hamlet, a part to which I have devoted long and intelligent study, and to which I feel that I could bring something which has not yet been imparted to it, by even the most skilled of our professional actors. But, at my suggestion of this, Mr. Belnap Jackson informed me that he had already played Hamlet himself the year before, leaving nothing further to be done in that direction, and he wished now to attempt something more difficult, something more over, that would appeal to the little group of thinking people about us. He would have a little theatre of ideas, as he phrased it, and he had chosen for his first offering a play entitled Ghosts by the Foreign Dramatist Ibsen. I suspected at first that this might be a farce where a supposititious ghost brings about absurd predicaments in a country house. Having seen something along these lines, but her reading of the thing enlightened me as to its character, which, to put it bluntly, is rather thick, there is a strain of immorality running through it, which I believe cannot be too strongly condemned if the world is to be made better, and this is rendered the more repugnant to right-thinking people by the fact that the participants are middle-class persons who converse in quite commonplace language such as one may hear any day in the home. Wrongdoing is surely never so objectionable as when it is indulged in by common people and talked about in ordinary language, and the language of this play is not staged language at all. Immorality, such as one gets in Shakespeare, is of so elevated a character that one accepts it, the language having a grandeur incomparably above what any person was ever capable of in private life, being always elegant and unnatural. Though I felt this strongly, I was in no position to urge my objections, and at length consented to take a part in the production, reflecting that the people depicted were really foreigners, and the part I would play was that of a clergyman whose behaviour throughout is above reproach. For himself Mr. Jackson had chosen the part of Oswald, a youth who goes quite dotty at the last, for reasons which are better not talked about. His wife was to play the part of a serving maid who was rather a baggage. While Mrs. Judge Ballard was to enact his mother, I may say in passing I have learned that the plays of this foreigner are largely concerned with people who have been queer at one time or another, so that one's patented is often uncertain, though they always pay for it by going off in the head before the final curtain. I mean to say there is too much neighbourhood scandal in them. There remained but one part to fill that of the father of the serving maid, an uncouth sort of drinking man, quite low class, who in my opinion should never have been allowed on the stage at all, since no mortal lesson is taught by him. It was in the casting of this part that Mr. Jackson showed himself of a forgiving nature. He offered it to cousin Egbert, saying he was the true type with his weak, disolid face, and that types were all the rage in theatricals. At first the latter heatedly declined the honour, but after being urged and brow-beaten for three days by Mrs. Effie, he somewhat sullenly consented, being shown that there were not many lines for him to learn. From the first I think he was rendered quite miserable by the ordeal before him, yet he submitted to the rehearsals with a rather pathetic desire to please, and for a time all seemed well. Many an hour found him mugging away at the book, earnestly striving to memorise the part, or as he quaintly expressed it, that their peace they want me to speak. But as the day of our performance drew near, it became evident, to me at least, that he was in a desperately black state of mind. As best I could I cheered him with words of praise, but his eye met mine blankly at such times, and I could see him shudder poignantly, while waiting the moment of his entrance. And still all might have been well, I fancy, but for the extremely conscientious views of Mr. Jackson in the matter of our costuming and make-up. With his lines fairly learned, cousin Egbert, on the night of our dress rehearsal, was called upon first to dawn the garb of the foreign carpenter he was to enact, the same involving shorts and grey woollen hose to his knees, at which he protested violently. So far as I could gather, his modesty was affronted by this revelation of his lower legs. Being at length persuaded to this sacrifice, he next submitted his face to Mr. Jackson, who adjusted it to a laboring person's beard and eyebrows, crimsoning the cheeks and nose heavily with grease-paint, and crowning all with an unkempt wig. The result, I am bound to say, was artistic in the extreme. No one would have suspected the identity of cousin Egbert, and I had hopes that he would feel a new courage for his part when he beheld himself. Instead, however, after one quick glance into the glass, he emitted a gasp of horror that was most eloquent, and thereafter refused to be comforted, holding himself aloof and glaring hideously at all who approached him, rather like a mad dog he was. Half an hour later, when all was ready for our first act, cousin Egbert was not to be found. I need not dwell upon the annoyance this occasion, nor upon how a substitute in a person of our halls, custodian or janitor, was impressed to read the part. Suffice it to tell briefly that cousin Egbert, costumed and bedisoned as he was, had fled not only the theatre, but the town as well. Search for him on the motto was unveiling, not until the second day did it become known that he had been seen at day-break forty miles from Red Gap, goading a spent horse into the wilds of the adjacent mountains. Our informant disclosed that one side of his face was still bearded, and that he kept glancing back over his shoulder at frequent intervals, as if fearful of pursuit. Something of his frantic state may also be gleaned from the circumstance that the horse he rode on was one he had found hitched in a side street near the hall, its ownership being unknown to him. For the rest it may be said that our performance was given as scheduled, announcement being made of the sudden illness of Mr. Egbert flout, and his part being read from the book in a rich and cultivated voice by the superintendent of the high school. Our efforts were received with respectful attention by a large audience, among whom I noted many of the Bohemian set, and this I took as a special tribute to our merits. Mr. Belknap Jackson, however, to whom I mentioned the circumstance, was a pessimistic. I fear, said he, we have not heard the last of it. I'm sure they came for no good purpose. They were quite orderly in their behaviour. I suggested, which is why I suspect to them, that Kenner woman harps the baker, the others of their set. They're not thinking, people, I daresay, they never consider social problems seriously, and you may have noticed that they announce an amateur minstrel performance for the weekends. I'm quite convinced that they mean to be vulgar to the last extreme. There has been so much talk of the behaviour of the wretched flout, a fellow who really has no place in our modern civilisation. He should be compelled to remain on his ranch. And indeed these suspicions proved to be only too well founded. That which followed was so atrociously personal, that in any country but America we could have had an action against them. As Mr. Belknap Jackson so bitterly said when all was over, our boasted liberty has degenerated into licence. It is best told in a few words. This affair of the minstrel performance, which I understood was to be an entertainment wherein the participants darkened themselves to resemble black amours. Naturally, I did not attend. It being agreed that the best people should signify their disapproval by staying away. But the disgraceful affair was recounted to me in all its details by more than one of the large audience that assembled. In the so-called grand first part, there seemed to have been little that was flagrantly insulting to us, although in their exchange of conundrums, which is a peculiar feature of this form of entertainment, certain names were bandied about, with a freedom that voted no good. It was in the after-piece that the Poultrons gave free play to their vilest fancies, our piece having been announced as Ghosts, a Drama for Thinking People. This part was entitled on their programme, Clothes, a Drama for Drinking People, a transposition that should perhaps suffice to show the dreadful lengths to which they went. Yet I feel that the thing should be set down in fall. The stage was set, as our own had been, but it would scarce be credited that the canner woman in male attire had made herself up in a curiously accurate resemblance to Belknap Jackson, as he had rendered the part of Oswald, copying not alone his wig, moustache and fashion of speech, but appearing in a golfing suit which was recognised by those present as actually belonging to him. Nor was this the worst, for the fellow Hobbes had copied my own dress and make-up, and persisted in speaking in an exaggerated manner alleged to resemble mine. This, of course, was the most shocking bad taste, and while it was quite to have been expected of Hobbes, I was indeed rather surprised that the entire assembly did not leave the auditorium and discussed the moment they perceived his base intention. But it was Cousin Egbert whom they had chosen to rag most unmercifully, and they were not long in displaying their clumsy attempts at humour. As the curtain went up, they were searching for him, affecting to be unconscious of the presence of their audience, and declaring that the play couldn't go on without him. "'Have you tried all the saloons?' asked one, to which another responded. "'Yes, and he's been in all of them. But now he has fled. The sheriff has put bloodhounds on his trail, and promises to have him here, dead or alive. Then, while we are waiting,' declared the character supposed to represent myself, I will tell you how we's wed upon both the female characters fell to their knees shrieking, "'Not that! My God, not that!' While Oswald sneered viciously and muttered, "'Serves me right for leaving Boston!' To show the infamy of the thing I must here explain that at several social gatherings, in an effort which I still believe was praiseworthy, I had told an excellent wheeze which runs, "'Have you heard the story of the three holes in the ground?' "'I mean to say, I would ask this in an interested manner, as if I were about to relate the anecdote, and upon being answered, "'No, I would exclaim with mock seriousness. "'Well, well, well, this had gone rippingly, almost quite every time I had favoured a company with it. Hardly any one of my hitters failing to get the joke at a second telling. I mean to say, the three holes in the ground being three wells uttered in rapid succession. "'Of course, if one doesn't see it at once, or finds it a bit subtle, it's quite silly to attempt to explain it, because logically there is no adequate explanation. It is merely a bit of nonsense, and that's quite all to it. But these boors now fell upon it with their coarse humour. The fellow Hobbes, pretending to get it all wrong by asking if they had heard the story about the three wells, and the others replying, "'No, tell us the whole thing, which made utter nonsense of it, whereupon they all began to cry, "'Well, well, well, out each other, until interrupted by a terrific noise in the wings, which was followed by the entrance of the supposed cousin Egbert, a part enacted by the cab driver who had conveyed us from the station the day of our arrival. Dragged on he was by the sheriff and two of the town constables, the latter being armed with fouling pieces and the sheriff holding two large dogs in leash. The character himself was heavily manacled and madly rattled his chains, his face being disguised to resemble cousin Egbert's after the beard had been adjusted. "'Here he is,' exclaimed the supposed sheriff. The dogs ran him into the third hole, left by the well-diggers, and we lured him out by making a noise like sourdough. Dirting this speech I am told, the character snarled continuously and tried to bite his captors. At this the woman, who had so deplored horribly, unsexed herself for the character of Mr. Bellnap Jackson, as he had played Oswald, approached the prisoner and smartly drew forth a handful of his beard which she stuffed into a pipe and proceeded to smoke, after which they pretended that the play went on. But no more than a few speeches had been uttered when the supposed cousin Egbert eluded his captors and emitting a loud shriek of horror, leaped headlong through the window at the back of the stage, his disappearance being followed by the sounds of breaking glass, as he was supposed to fall to the street below. "'How lovely,' exclaimed the mimic Oswald. "'Perhaps he has broken both his legs so he can't run off any more,' at which the fellow Hobbs remarked in his affected tones. "'That sort of thing would never do with us,' this I learned aroused much laughter, the idea being that the remark had been one which I am supposed to make in private life, though I daresay I have never uttered anything remotely like it.' "'The fellow is quite impossible,' continued the spurious Oswald, with a doubtless rather clever imitation of Mr. Belknap Jackson's manner. "'If he is killed, feed him to the goldfish, and let one of the dogs read his part. We must get along with this play. Now, then, ah, why did I ever leave Boston where everyone is nice and proper?' to which his supposed mother replied with feigned emotion. "'It was because of your father, my poor boy. Ah, what I had to endure through those years when he cursed and spoke disrespectfully of our city. Scissors and white aprons,' he would cry out, "'Why is Boston? But I bore it all for your sake, and now you two are smoking. You will go the same way. But promise me, mother,' returns Oswald, "'Promise me, if I ever get dusty in the garret, that Lord algae here will tell me one of his funny wheezes and put me out of pain. You could not bear to hear me knocking Boston, as poor father did. And I feel it coming. Already my mother in law has bluffed me into admitting that red gap has a right to be on the same map with Boston, if it's a big map. And this was the coarsely wretched buffoonery that refined people were expected to sit through. Yet, worse, followed. For at their climax the mimic Oswald having gone quite off his head, the Hobbes person, still with the preposterous affectation of taking me off in speech and manner, was persuaded by the stricken mother to sing. "'Sing that dear old plantation melody from London?' she cried, so that my poor boy may know there are worse things than death. And all this witless piffle because of a quite natural misunderstanding of mine. I have before referred to what I supposed was an American plantation melody which I had heard a black sing at Brighton, meaning one of the English blacks who colour themselves for the purpose. But on reciting the lines at an evening affair, when the American folk-songs were under discussion, I was told that it could hardly have been written by an American at all, but doubtless by one of our own composers, who had taken too little trouble with his facts. I mean to say, the song as I had it, betrayed misapprehensions, both of a geographical and faunal nature. But I am certain that no one thought the worse of me for having been deceived, and I had supposed the thing forgotten. Yet now, what did I hear, but that a garbled version of this song had been supposedly sung by myself, the Hobbes person meantime mincing across the stage and gesturing with a monocle, which he had somehow procured, the words being quite simply. A way down south in Michigan, where I was a slave so happy and so gay, it was there I mowed the cotton and the cane. I used to hunt the elephants, the tigers and giraffes, and the alligators at the break of day. But the blooming engines prowled about my cabin every night, so I'd take down me banjo and I'd play, and I'd sing a little song, and I'd make them dance with glee on the banks of the Ohio far away. I mean to say, there was nothing to make a dust about, even if the song were not of a true American origin. Yet I was told that the creature who sang it received hearty applause, and even responded to an encore. CHAPTER 10 I NEED HARDLY SAY THAT THIS PUBLIC RIDICUAL LEFT ME DAYS. Desperately I recalled our calm and orderly England where such things would not be permitted. There we are born to our stations and are not allowed to forget them. We matter from birth or we do not matter, and that's all to it. Here there seemed to be no stations to which it was born. The effect was sheer anarchy, and one might ridicule anyone, whomesoever, as was actually said in that snarky manifesto drawn up by the rebel leaders at the time our colonies revolted. All men are created free and equal, than which absurdity could go no farther. Yet the lower middle classes seemed to behave quite as if it were true. And now, through no fault of my own, another awkward circumstance was threatening to call further attention to me, which was highly undesirable at this moment, when the cheap one-and-six Hobbes fellow had so pointedly singled me out for his loathsome buffoonery. Some ten days before, walking alone at the edge of town, one calm afternoon, where I might commune with nature, of which I have always been fond, I noted a humble vine-clad cot, in the kitchen-garden of which there toiled a youngish, neat-figured woman, whom I at once recognized as a person who did occasional charring for the flouts, on the occasion of their dinners or receptions, as she had appeared to be cheerful and competent, of respectful manners, and a quite marked intelligence. I made nothing of stopping at her gate for a moment's chat, feeling a quite decided relief in the thought that here was one, with whom I need make no pretense, her social position being sharply defined. We spoke of the day's heat, which was bland, of the vegetables which she watered with a lawn-hose, particularly of the tomatoes, of which she was pardonably proud, and of the flowering vine which shielded her piazza from the sun, and when she presently, and with due courtesy, invited me to enter, I very affably did so, finding the atmosphere of the place reposeful, and her conversation of a character that I could approve. She was dressed in a blue print gown that suited her no end, the sleeves turned back over her capable arms, her brown hair was arranged with scrupulous neatness, her face was pleasantly flushed from her agricultural labours, and her blue eyes flashed a friendly welcome, and a pleased acknowledgement of the compliments I made her on the garden. Altogether she was a person with whom I had once felt myself at ease, and a relief, I confess it was, after the strain of my high social endeavours. After a tour of the garden I found myself in the cool twilight of her little parlor, where she begged me to be seated while she prepared me a dish of tea, which she did in the adjoining kitchen, to a cheerful accompaniment of song, quite with an honest, unpretentious good-heartedness. Glad I was for the moment to forget the social rankers of the town, the affronted dignities of the north side set, and the pernicious activities of the Bohemians. For here all was of a simple humanity, such as I would have found in a farmer's cottage at home. As I rested in the parlor I could not but approve its general air of comfort and good taste, its clean-flowered wallpaper, the pair of stuffed birds on the mantel, the comfortable chairs, the neat carpets, the pictures, and on a slender-legged stand the globe of goldfish. These I noted within a special pleasure, for I have always found an intense satisfaction in their silent companionship. Of the pictures I noted particularly a life-sized drawing in black and white in a large gold frame of a man whom I divined was the deceased husband of my hostess. There was also a spirited reproduction of the stag at bay, and some charming colored prints of villagers, children, and domestic animals in their lighter moments. T. being presently ready, I genially insisted that it should be served in the kitchen where it had been prepared, though to this my hostess at first stoutly objected, declaring that the room was in no suitable state. But this was a mere womanish hypocrisy as the place was spotless, orderly, and in fact quite meticulous in its neatness. The tea was astonishingly excellent. So few Americans I had observed having the faintest notion of the real meaning of tea. And I was offered with it bread and butter and a genuinely satisfying compote of plums, of which my hostess confessed herself the fabricator, having, as she quaintly phrased the thing, put it up. And so over this collation we chatted for quite all of an hour. The lady did, as I have intimated, a bit of charring, a bit of plain sewing, and also derived no small revenue from her vegetables and fruit, thus managing, as she owned the freehold of the premises, to make a decent living for herself and child. I have said that she was cheerful and competent, and these epithets kept returning to me as we talked. Her husband, she spoke of him as poor Judson, had been a Carter and odd job-fellow, decent enough, I daresay, but hardly the man for her, I thought, after studying his portrait. There was a sort of foppish weakness in his face, and indeed his going seems to have worked her no hardship, nor to have left any incurable sting of loss. Three cups of the almost perfect tea I drank, as we talked of her own simple affairs, and of the town at large, and at length of her child, who awakened noisily from slumber in an adjacent room, and came voraciously to partake of food. It was a male child of some two-and-a-half years, rather suggesting the generous good nature of the mother, but in the most shocking condition, a thing I should have spoken strongly to her about it once had I known her better. Queer it seemed to me that a woman of her apparently sound judgment should let her offspring reach this terrible state without some effort to alleviate it. The poor thing, to be blunt, was grossly corpulent, legs, arms, body, and face being wretedly fat, and yet she now fed it a large slice of bread, thickly spread with butter, and loaded to overflowing with the fattening sweet. Banting of the strictest sort was, of course, what it needed. I have had but the slightest experience with children, but there could be no doubt of this. If its figure was to be maintained, its waistline was quite impossible, and its eyes, as it owlishly scrutinized me over its superfluous food, showed from a face already quite as puffy as the honourable George's. I did indeed venture so far as suggesting that food, at untimely hours, made for a two-rounded outline. But to my surprise the mother took this as a tribute to the creature's grace, crying, Yes, he wasms, wasms, a fatty old sing, with an air of most fatuous pride, and followed this by announcing my name to it with concerned precision. Ruggums! it exclaimed promptly, getting the name all wrong, and staring at me with cold detachment. Then, Ruggums, Ruggums, Ruggums! as if it were a game, but still stuffing itself meanwhile. There was a sort of horrid fascination in the sight, but I strove as well as I could to keep my gaze from it, and the mother and I again talked of matters at large. I come now to speak of an incident which made this quite harmless visit memorable and entailed unforeseen consequences of an almost quite serious character. As we sat at tea there stalked into the kitchen a nondescript sort of dog, a creature of fairish size, of a rambling structure, so to speak, coloured a puzzling grayish-brown with underlying hints of yellow, with vast drooping ears, and a long and most saturnine countenance. Quite a shock it gave me when I looked up to find the beast staring at me with what I took to be the most hearty disapproval. My hostess paused in silence as she noted my glance. The beast then approached me, sniffed at my boots inquiringly, then at my hands with increasing animation, and at last leaped into my lap and had licked my face before I could prevent it. I need hardly say that this attention was embarrassing and most distasteful, since I have never held with dogs. They are doubtless well enough in their place, but there is a vast deal of sentiment about them that is silly, and outside the hunting field the most finely bred of them are too apt to be noisy nuisances. When I say that the beast in question was quite an American talk, obviously of no breeding whatever, my dismay will be readily imagined. Rather impulsively I confess, I threw him to the floor with a stern, be gone, sir, where at he merely crawled to my feet and whimpered, looking up into my eyes with the most horrid and sickening air of devotion. Hit upon, to my surprise, my hostess Galey called out. Why, look at Mr. Barker, he's actually taken up with you right away, and him usually so suspicious of strangers. Only yesterday he bit an agent that was calling with silver polish to sell, bit him in the leg, so I had to buy some from the poor fellow. And now see, he's as friendly with you as you could wish. They do say that dogs know when people are all right. Look at him trying to get into your lap again. And indeed the beast was again fawning upon me in the most abject manner, licking my hands and seeming to express for me some hideous admiration. Seeing that I repulsed his advances none too gently, his owner called to him. Down, Mr. Barker, down, sir. Get out! Get out! She continued, seeing that he paid her no attention, and then she thoughtfully seized him by the collar and dragged him to a safe distance where she held him. He nevertheless continuing to regard me with the most servile affection. Ruggums, rugums, rugums! Exploded the child at this, excitedly waving the crust of its bread. Behave, Mr. Barker, called his owner again. The gentleman probably doesn't want you climbing all over him. The remainder of my visit was somewhat marred by the determination of Mr. Barker, as he was indeed quite seriously called, to force his monstrous affections upon me, and by the well-meant, but often careless, efforts of his mistress to restrain him. She indeed appeared to believe that I would feel immensely pleased at these tokens of his liking. As I took my leave after sincere expressions of my pleasure in the call, the child, with its face one fearful smear of jam, again waved its crust and shouted, Ruggums! While the dog was plainly bent on departing with me, not until he had been secured by a rope to one of the porch stanchions could I safely leave, and as I went he howled dismally after violent efforts to chew the detaining rope apart. I finished my stroll with the greatest satisfaction, for during the entire hour I had been unable to forget the manifold cares of my position. Again it seemed to me that the portrait in the little parlor was not that of a man who had been entirely suited to this worthy and energetic young woman, highly deserving she seems, and when I knew her better, as I made no doubt I should, I resolved to instruct her in the matter of a more suitable diet for her offspring. The present one, as I have said, carrying quite too large a preponderance of animal fats. Also I am used upon the extraordinary tolerance she accorded to the sad face but too demonstrative, Mr. Barker. He had been named, I fancied, by someone with a primitive sense of humour, I mean to say, he might have been facetiously called Barker, because he actually barked a bit, though adding the Mr. to it seemed to be rather forcing the poor drowlery. At any rate I was glad to believe I should see little of him in his free state, and yet it was precisely the curious fondness of this brute for myself that now added to my embezzements. On two succeeding days I paused briefly at Mrs. Judson's in my afternoon strolls, finding the lady as wholesomely reposable as ever in her effect upon my nature, but finding the unspeakable dog each time more lavish of his disgusting affection for me. Then one day when I had made back to the town and was in fact traversing the main commercial third affair in a dignified manner, I was made aware that the brute had broken away to follow me. Close at my heels he sulked. Strong words hissed under my breath would not repulse him, and to blows I durst not proceed, for I suddenly divined that his juxtaposition to me was exciting amused comment among certain other natives who observed us. The fellow Hobbs, in the doorway of his bake-shop, was especially offensive, bursting into a shout of boorish laughter, and directing to me the attention of a nearby group of loungers who likewise professed to become entertained. So situated I was, of course, obliged to affect unconsciousness of the awful beast, and he was presently running joyously at my side as if secure in my approval, or perhaps his brute intelligence divined that for the moment I durst not turn upon him with blows. Or did the true perversity of the situation at once occur to me? Not until we had gained one of the residence avenues did I realize the significance of the ill-concealed metterment we had aroused. It was not that I had been followed by a random kerr, but by one known to be the dog of the lady I had called upon, I mean to say, the creature had advertised my acquaintance with his owner in a way that would lead base-minds to misconstrue its extent. Thirdly maddened by this thought, and being now safely beyond close observers, I turned upon the animal to give it a hearty drubbing with my stick, but it drew quickly off as if divining my intention, and when I hurled the stick at it, retrieved it, and brought it to me quite as if it forgave my hostility, discovering at length that this method not only availed nothing, but was bringing faces to neighbouring windows, and that it did not the slightest good to speak strongly to the beast, I had perforce to accompany it to its home, where I had the satisfaction of seeing its owner once more secure it firmly with the rope. Thus far a trivial annoyance, one might say, but when the next day the creature bounded up to me as I escorted homeward to ladies from the onwards and upwards club, leaping upon me with extravagant manifestations of delight, and trailing a length of gnawed rope, it will be seen that the thing was little short of serious. It's Mr. Barker, exclaimed one of the ladies, regarding me brightly. At a cutlery shop I then bought a stout chain, escorted the brute to his home and saw him tethered. The thing was rather getting on me. The following morning he waited for me at the fouled door, and was beside himself with rapture when I appeared. He had slipped his collar. And once more I saw him moored, each time I had apologised to Mrs. Stutson for seeming to attract her pet from home, for I could not bring myself to say that the beast was highly repugnant to me, and least of all could I intimate that his public devotion to me would be seized upon by the coarser, village wits, to her disadvantage. I never saw him so fascinated with anyone before, explained the lady, as she once more adjusted his leash. But that afternoon, as I waited in the trap for Mr. Jackson before the post office, the beast seemed to appear from out the earth to leap into the trap beside me. After a rather undignified struggle I ejected him, went upon he followed the trap madly to the country club, and made a farce of my golf game by retrieving the ball after every drive. This time I learned that Child had released him. It is enough to add that for those remaining days until the present the unspeakable creatures mad infatuation for me had made my life well nigh a torment to say nothing of its being a matter of low public jesting. Hardly did I dare show myself in the business centers, for as surely as I did the animal found me and crawled to fawn upon me, affecting his release each day in some novel manner. Each morning I looked abroad from my window unarising, more than likely detecting his outstretched form on the walk below, patiently awaiting my appearance. And each night I was liable to dreams of his coming upon me, a monstrous creature, sad-faced, but eager, tireless, resolute, determined to have me for his own. Musing desperately over this impossible state of affairs I was now surprised to receive a letter from the wretched cousin Egbert, sent by the hand of the total person. It was written in pencil on ruled sheets, apparently torn from a cheap notebook, quite as if proper pens and decent stationery were not to be had, and ran as follows. Dear friend Bill, well Bill, I know God hates a quitter, but I guess I got a streak of yellow in me wider than the calm stock load. I was kicking at my stirrups even before I seen that bunch of whiskers, and when I took a flash of them and seen he was intending I should go out before folks without any regular pants on. I says I can be pushed just so far. Well Bill, I have beat it like a bat out of hell, as I guess you know by this time, and I would like to seen them catch me as I had a good bronc. If you know whose bronc it was, tell him I will make it all OK. The bronc will be all right when he rests up some. Well Bill, I'm here on the ranch where everything is nice, and I would never come back unless certain parties agree to do what is right. I would not speak pieces that way for the president of the US if he asked me to on his bended knees. Well Bill, I wish you would come out here yourself where everything is nice. You can't tell what that bunch of crazies would be wanting you to do next thing with false whiskers and no right pants. I would tell them I can be pushed just so far, and now I will go out to the ranch with sourdough for some time where things are nice. Well Bill, if you will come out, Jeff Tuttle will bring you in's day when he comes with more grub, and you will find everything nice. I have told Jeff to bring you, so no more at present, with kind regards and hoping to see you here soon, your true friend E. G. Foud. P. S. Mrs. Effie said she would broaden me out. Maybe she did because I felt pretty flat. Ha ha. Truth to tell, this wild suggestion at once appealed to me. I had an impulse to withdraw for a season from the social coral, to seek repose among the glens and gorges of this cattle plantation, and there tried to adjust myself more intelligently to my strange new environment. In the meantime I hoped something might happen to the dog of Mrs. Judson, or he might perhaps, in my absence, outlive his curious mania for me. Mrs. Effie, whom I now consulted after reading the letter of Cousin Egbert, proved to be in favor of my going to him to make one last appeal to his higher nature. If only he'd stick out there in the brush where he belongs, I'd let him stay, she explained. But he won't stick. He gets tired after a while and drops in perhaps on the very night when we're entertaining some of the best people at dinner. And of course we're obliged to have him. Though he's dropped whatever manners I've taught him and picked up his old rough talk, and he eats until you wonder how he can. It's awful. Sometimes I've wondered if it couldn't be adenoids. There's a lot of talk about those just now, some very select people have them, and perhaps their what kept him back and made him so hopelessly low in his taste. But I just know he'd never go to a doctor about them. For heaven's sake, use what influence you have to get him back here and to take his rightful place in society. I had a profound conviction that he would never take his rightful place in society, be it the fault of adenoids or whatever. That low passion of his were being pally with all sorts, made it seem that his sense of values must have been at fault from birth. And yet I could not bring myself to abandon him utterly. For as I have intimated, something in the fellow's nature appealed to me. I accordingly murmured my sympathy discreetly, and set about preparations for my journey. Feeling instinctively that Cousin Egbert would not now be dressing for dinner, I omitted evening clothes from my box, including only a morning suit and one of form-fitting tweeds which I fancied would do me well enough. But no sooner was my box packed than the total person informed me that I could take no box, whatever. It appeared that all luggage would be strapped to the backs of animals and thus transported. Even so, when I had reduced myself to one park riding suit and a small bundle of necessary adjuncts, I was told that the golf sticks must be left behind. It appeared there would be no golf. And so, quite early one morning I started on this curious pilgrimage from what was called a feed corral in a low part of the town. Here the total person had assembled a goods-train of a half-dozen animals, the luggage being adjusted to their backs by himself and two assistants, all using language of the most disgraceful character throughout the process. The total person I had half expected to appear garbed in his native dress. Mrs. Effie had once more referred to that Indian Jeff Tuttle, but he wore instead, as did his two assistants, the outing or lounge suit of the western desperado. Nor, though I listened closely, could I hear him exclaim, uh, uh, in moments of emotional stress, as my reading had informed me that the Indian frequently does. The two assistants, solemn-faced, ill-groomed fellows bore the curious American names of Hank and Buck, and furiously chewed the tobacco-plant at all times. After betraying a momentary interest in my smart riding suit, they paid me little attention, at which I was well pleased, for their manners were often repellent, and their abrupt direct fashion of speech quite disconcerting. The total person welcomed me heartily and himself adjusted the saddle to my mount, expressing the hope that I would get my feel of scenery, and volunteering the information that my destination was one sleep away. CHAPTER X Although fond of rural surroundings, and always interested in nature, the adventure in which I had become involved is not one I can recommend to a person of refined taste. I found it little enough to my own taste, even during the first two hours of travel when we kept to the beaten thoroughfare, for the sun was hot, the dust stifling, and the language with which the goods animals were berated course in the extreme. Yet from this plain roadway and a country of rolling down and heather, which was at least not terrifying, our leader, the total person, swerved all at once into an untried jungle, in what at the moment I supposed to be a fit of absent-mindedness, following a narrow path that led up a fearsomely slanted incline, among trees and boulders of granite thrown about in the greatest disorder. He was followed, however, by the goods animals, and by the two cow-persons, so that I soon saw the new course must be intended. The mountains were now literally quite everywhere, some higher than others, but all of a rough appearance, and uninviting in the extreme. The narrow path, moreover, became more and more difficult, and seemed altogether quite insane with its twistings and fearsome declivities. One's first thought was that at least a bit of road-metal might have been put upon it, but there was no sign of this throughout our toilsome day, nor did I once observe a rustic seat along the way, although I saw an abundance of suitable nooks for these. Need I say, in all England there is not an estate so poorly kept up. There being no halt made for luncheon, I began to look forward to tea-time. But what was my dismay to observe that this hour also passed unnoted? Not until night was drawing upon us did our caravan halt beside a tarn, and here I learned that we would sup and sleep. Although it was distressing to observe how remote we were from proper surroundings, there was no shelter and no modern conveniences, not even a wash-hand stand, or a water-jug. There was, of course, no central heating and no electricity for one's smoothing iron, so that one's clothing must become quite disreputable for want of pressing. Also the informal manner of cooking and eating was not what I had been accustomed to, and the idea of sleeping publicly on the bare ground was repugnant in the extreme. I mean to say there was no V. en team. Truly it was a coarser type of wilderness than that which I had encountered near New York City. The animals being unladen were fitted with a species of leather bracelet about their forefeet and allowed to stray at their will. A fire was built and coarse wood made ready. It is hardly a thing to speak of, but their manner of preparing tea was utterly depraved, the leaves being flung into a tin of boiling water and allowed to stew. The result was something that I imagine etchers might use in making lines upon their metal plates. But for my days fast I should have been unequal to this, or to the crude output of their frying pans. Yet I was indeed glad that no sign of my dismay had escaped me, for the cow-persons, hank and buck, as I discovered, had given unusual care to the repast on my account, and I should not have liked to seem unappreciative. Quite by accident I overheard the honest fellows quarreling about an oversight. They had it seemed left the finger-balls behind. Each was bitterly blaming the other for this, claiming to feel that the meal could not go forward. I had not to be told that they would not ordinarily carry finger-balls for their own use, and that the forgotten utensils must have been meant solely for my comfort. Accordingly, when the quarrel was at its highest, I broke in upon it, protesting that the oversight was of no consequence, and that I was quite prepared to roughen it with them in the best of good fellowship. They were unable to conceal their chagrin at my having overheard them, and slunk off abashed to the cooking-fire. It was plain that under their repellent exteriors they concealed veins of the finest chivalry, and I took pains during the remainder of the evening to put them at their ease, asking them many questions about their wild life. Of the dangers of the jungle by which we were surrounded, the most formidable it seemed was not the grisly bear of which I had read, but an animal quaintly called the High Behind, which lurks about camping places such as ours, and is often known to attack men in its search for tinned milk, of which it is inordinately fawned. The spore of one of these beasts had been detected near our camp-fire by the cow-person called Buck, and he now told us of it, though having at first resolved to be silent rather than alarm us. As we carried a supply of the animal's favourite food, I was given two of the tins, with instructions to hurl them quickly at any High Behind that might approach during the night, my companions arming themselves in a similar manner. It appears that the beast has—tushes—similar in shape to tin-openers, with which it deftly bites into any tins of milk that may be thrown at it. The person called Hank had once escaped with his life only by means of a tin of milk which had caught on the sabre-like tushes of the animal pursuing him, thus rendering him harmless and easy of capture. Needless to say, I was greatly interested in this animal of the quaint name and resolved to remain on watch during the night in the hope of seeing one. But at this juncture we were rejoined by the tuttle-person who proceeded to recount to Hank and Buck a highly-coloured version of my regrettable encounter with Mr. C. Belnap Jackson back in the New York wilderness, whereat they both lost interest in the High Behind, and greatly embarrassed me with their congratulations upon this lesser matter. Cousin Egbert, it seemed, had most indiscreetly talked of the thing, which was now a matter of common gossip in red gap. There after I could get from them no further information about the habits of the High Behind, nor did I remain awake to watch for one as I had resolved to, the fatigues of the day proving too much for me. But doubtless none approached during the night, as the two tins of milk with which I was armed were untouched when I awoke at dawn. Again we set off after a barbarous breakfast, driving our laden animals ever deeper into the mountain fastness, until it seemed that none of us could ever emerge, for I had ascertained that there was not a compass in the party. There was now a certain new friendliness in the manner of the two cowpersons toward me. Born it would seem of their knowledge of my assault upon Belnap Jackson. And I was somewhat at a loss to know how to receive this. Well intentioned, though it was, I mean to say, they were undoubtedly of the servant class, and of course one must remember one's own position, but I at length decided to be quite friendly and American with them. The truth must be told that I was now feeling in quite a bit of funk, and should have welcomed any friendship offered me. I even found myself remembering with rather impensive tolerance the attentions of Mr. Barker, though doubtless back in red gap I should have found them as loathsome as ever. My hump was due, I made no doubt, first to my precarious position in the wilderness, but more than that to my anomalous social position, for it seemed to me now that I was neither fish nor fowl. I was no longer a gentleman's man. The familiar boundaries of that office had been swept away. On the other hand I was most emphatically not the gentleman I had set myself up to be, and I was weary of the pretense. The friendliness of these uncouth companions then proved doubly welcome, for with them I could conduct myself in a natural manner, happily forgetting my former limitations, and my present quite fictitious dignities. I even found myself talking to them of cricket as we rode, telling them I had once hit an eight, fully run out it was and not an overthrow, though I dare say it meant little to them. I also took pains to describe to them the correct method of brewing tea, which they promised thereafter to observe, though this I fear they did from mere politeness. Our way continued adventurously upward until mid-afternoon, when we began an equally adventurous descent through a jungle of pine trees, not a few of which would have done credit to one of our own parks. Though there were, of course, too many of them here to be at all effective, indeed it may be said that from a scenic standpoint everything through which we had passed was overdone, mountains, rocks, streams, trees, all sounding a characteristic American note of exaggeration. Then at last we came to the wilderness abode of Cousin Egbert. A rude hut of native logs it was, set in this highland glen beside a tarn. From afar we described its smoke, and presently in the doorway observed Cousin Egbert himself, who waved cheerfully at us. His appearance gave me a shock. Quite aware of his inclination to laxness, I was yet unprepared for his present state. Never indeed have I seen a man so badly turned out. True evidently unshaven since his disappearance. He was gotten up in a faded flannel shirt, open at the neck, and without the sign of cravat. A pair of overalls, also faded, and quite wretchedly spotty, and boots of the most shocking description. Yet in spite of this dreadful tenue he greeted me without embarrassment, and indeed with a kind of artless pleasure. Truly the man was impossible. And when I observed the placard he had allowed to remain on the waistband of his overalls, boastfully alleging their indestructibility, my sympathies flew back to Mrs. Effie. There was a cartoon emblazoned on this placard, depicting the futile efforts of two teams of stout horses, each attached to a leg of the garment, to wrench it in twain. I mean to say, one might be reduced to overalls, but this blatant emblem was not a thing any gentleman need have retained. And again, observing his foot gear, I was glad to recall that I had included a plentiful supply of boot cream in my scanty luggage. Three of the goods animals were now unladen, their burden of provisions being piled beside the door, while Cousin Egbert chatted gaily with the cowpersons and the Indian Tuttle, after which these three took their leave, being madly bent, it appeared, upon penetrating still farther into the wilderness to another cattle farm. Then left alone with Cousin Egbert, I was not long in discovering that, as strictly speaking, he had no establishment, not only were there no servants, but there were no drains, no water taps, no ice machine, no scullery, no central heating, no electric wiring. His hut consisted of but a single room, and this without a floor, other than the packed earth, while the appointments were such as in any civilized country would have indicated the direst poverty. Two beds of the rudest description stood in opposite corners, and one end of the room was almost wholly occupied by a stone fireplace of primitive construction, over which the owner now hovered in certain feats of cookery. Thanks to my famished state, I was in no mood to criticize his efforts, which he presently set forth upon the rough deal table in a hearty but quite in elegant manner. The meal I am bound to say was more than welcome to my now indiscriminating palate, though at a less urgent moment I should doubtless have found the bread soggy, and the beans a pernicious mass. There was a stew of venison, however, which only the most skillful hands could have bettered, though how the man had obtained a deer was beyond me, since it was evident he possessed no shooting or deer-stalking costume. As to the tea, I made bold to speak my mind, and succeeded in brewing some for myself. Throughout the repast, Cousin Egbert was constantly attentive to my needs, and was more cheerful of Domina than I had ever seen him. The hunted look about his eyes, which had heretofore always distinguished him, was now gone, and he bore himself like a free man. Yes, sir, he said, as we smoked over the remains of the meal, you stay with me, and I'll give you one swell little time. I'll do the cooking, and between wiles we can sit right here and play cribbage day in and day out. You can get a taste of real life without moving. I saw then, if never before, that his deeper nature would not be aroused. Doubtless my passing success with him in Paris had marked the very highest stage of his spiritual development. I did not need to be told now that he had left off sock suspenders for ever, nor did I waste words in trying to recall him to his better self. Indeed, for the moment I was too overwhelmed by fatigue even to remonstrate about his wretched lounge suit, and I early fell asleep on one of the beds, while he was still engaged in washing the metal dishes upon which we had eaten, singing the while the doleful ballad of Rosalie the prairie flower. It seems but a moment later that I awoke, for Cousin Egbert was again busy among the dishes. But I saw that another day had come, and his song had changed to one equally sad but quite different. In the hazel del minelli sleeping, he sang, though in a low voice and quite cheerfully. Indeed, his entire repertoire of ballads was confined to the saddest themes, chiefly of desirable maidens taken off untimely, either by disease or accident. Besides Rosalie the prairie flower, there was lovely Annie Lyle, over whom the willows waved, and earthly music could not waken. Another named sweet Alice Ben Bolt, lying in the churchyard, and still another, Lily Dale, who was pictured beneath the trees in the flowery veil, with the wild rose blossoming or the little green grave. His face was indeed sad as he rendered these woeful ballads, and yet his voice and manner were of the cheeriest, and I dare say he sang without reference to their real tragedy. It was a school of American balladry quite at variance with the cheerful optimism of those I had heard from the bell-knap Jackson phonograph, where the persons are not dead at all, but are gaily calling upon one another to come on and do a folk dance, or hear a band, or crawl under, things of that sort. As cousin Egbert bent over a frying pan in which ham was cooking, he crooned softly. In the hazel del my Nellie sleeping, Nellie loved so long, while my lonely, lonely watch I'm keeping, Nellie lost and gone. I could attribute his choice only to that natural perversity which prompted him always to do the wrong thing, for surely this affecting verse was not meant to be sung at such a moment. Attempting to arise, I became aware that the two days journey had left me sadly lame and way-worn, also that my face was burned from the sun, and that I had been awakened too soon. Fortunately I had with me a shilling jar of Ridley's society complexion food, the all weather wonder, which I applied to my face with cooling results, and I then felt able to partake of a bit of the breakfast which cousin Egbert now brought to my bedside. The ham was, of course, not cooked correctly, and the tea was again a mere corrosive, but so anxious was my host to please me that I refrained from any criticism, though at another time I should have told him straight what I thought of such cookery. When we had both eaten, I slept again, to the accompaniment of another sad song, and the muted rattle of the pans as cousin Egbert did the scullery work, and it was long past the lunch hour when I awoke, still lame from the saddle, but greatly refreshed. It was now that another blow befell me. For upon arising and searching through my kit, I discovered that my razors had been left behind. By any thinking man the effect of this oversight will be instantly perceived. Already low in spirits, the prospect of going unshaven could but aggravate my funk. I surrendered to the wave of homesickness that swept over me. I wanted London again, London with its yellow fog and greasy pavements. I wished to buy cockles off a barrow. I longed for toasted crumpets. And most of all I longed for my old rightful station. Longed to turn out a gentleman, longed for the honourable George and our peaceful, if sometimes precarious existence, among people of the right sort. The continued shocks since that fateful night of the cards had told upon me. I knew now that I had not been meant for adventure. Yet here I had turned up in the most savage of lands after leading a life of dishonest pretense in a station to which I had not been born. And for I knew not how many days I should not be able to shave my face. But here again a ferment stirred in my blood some electric thrill of anarchy which had come from association with these Americans. A strange lawless impulse toward their quite absurd ideals of equality. A monstrous ambition to be in myself someone that mattered. Instead of that pretended Colonel Ruggles, who I now recalled was today promised to bridge at the home of Mrs. Judge Ballard, where he would talk of hunting in the shires, of the royal enclosure at Ascot, of Hurlingham and Ronley, of Coes in June, of the excellence of the cupboards at Chains-Watton. No doubt it was a sort of madness, now seized me, consequent upon the lack of shaving utensils. I wondered desperately if there was a true place for me in this life. I had tasted their equality that day of debauch in Paris. But obviously the sensation could not permanently be maintained upon spirits. Perhaps I might obtain a post in a bank. I might become a shop assistant, bag man, even a press man. These moody and unwholesome thoughts were clouding my mind as I surveyed myself in the wrinkled mirror which seemed to suffice the uncritical cousin Egbert for his toilet. It hung between the portrait of a champion middleweight crouching in position, and the calendar advertisement of a brewery, which, as I could not fancy cousin Egbert being in the least concerned about the day of the month, had too evidently been hung on his wall because of the colored lithograph of a blonde creature in theatrical undress who smirked most immorally. Studying the curiously wavy effect this glass produced upon my face, I chance to observe in a corner of the frame a printed card with the heading Take Courage. To my surprise the thing when I had read it capped my black musings upon my position in a rather uncanny way. Briefly it recited the humble beginnings of a score or more of the world's notable figures. Demosthenes was the son of a cutler. It began. Horace was the son of a shopkeeper. Virgil's father was a supporter. Cardinal Woolsey was the son of a butcher. Shakespeare, the son of a wool stapler. Followed the obscure parentage of such well-known persons as Milton, Napoleon, Columbus, Cromwell, even Muhammad was noted as a shepherd and camel-driver, though it seemed rather questionable taste to include in the list one whose religion, as to family life, was rather scandalous. More to the point was the citation of various Americans who had sprung from humble beginnings. Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Garfield, Edison. It is true that there was not, apparently, a gentleman servant among them. They were rail-splitters, boatmen, tailors, artisans of sorts. But the combined effect was rather overwhelming. From the first moment of my encountering the American social system, it seemed I had been by way of becoming a rabid anarchist. That is, one feeling that he might become a gentleman, regardless of his birth. And here were the disconcerting facts concerning a score of notables to confirm me in my heresy. It was not a thing to be spoken lightly of in loose discussion. But there can be no doubt that at this moment I coldly questioned the soundness of our British system, the vital matter of which is to teach that there is a difference between men and men. To be sure it will have been seen that I was not myself, having for a quarter year been subjected to a series of nervous shocks, and having had my mind contaminated moreover by being brought into daily contact with this unthinking American equality in the person of Cousin Egbert, who I make bold to assert, had never for one instant since his doubtless obscure birth considered himself the superior of any human being whatsoever. This much I advanced for myself in extinuation of my lawless imaginings. But of them I can abate no jot. It was all at once clear to me, monstrous as it may seem, that nature and the British Empire were at variance in their decrees, and that somehow a system was base which taught that one man is necessarily inferior to another. I dare say it was a sort of poisonous intoxication, that I should all at once declare his lordship, Tenth Earl of Brinstead, and Marmadu Gruggles, are two men. One has made an acceptable peer, and one an acceptable valet, yet the twain are equal. And the system which has made one inferior socially to the other is false, and bad, and cannot endure. For a moment I repeat, I saw myself a gentleman in the making, a clear fairway without bunkers from tea to green, meeting my equals with a friendly eye, and then the illuminating shock, for I unconsciously added to myself, regarding my inferiors with the kindly tolerance. It was there I caught myself, so much a part of the system was I, that although I could readily conceive a society in which I had no superiors, I could not picture one in which I had not inferiors. The same poison that ran in the veins of their lordships ran also in the veins of their servants. I was indeed it appeared hopelessly inoculated. Again I read the card, Horace was the son of a shopkeeper. But I made no doubt that after he became a popular and successful writer of Latin verse, he looked down upon his own father. Only could it have been otherwise, I thought, had he been born in this fermenting America to no station whatever, and left to achieve his rightful one. So I mused thus licentiously, until one clear conviction possessed me, that I would no longer pretend to the social superiority of one Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles. I could concede no inferiority in myself, but I would not again, before red gaps county families, vaunt myself as other than I was. That this was more than a vagrant fancy on my part will be seen when I aver that suddenly, strangely, alarmingly, I no longer cared that I was unshaven, and must remain so for an untold number of days. I welcomed the unhandsome stubble that now projected itself upon my face. I curiously wished all at once to be as badly gotten up as Cousin Egbert, with as little thought for my station in life. I would no longer refrain from doing things because they were not done. My own taste would be the law. It was at this moment that Cousin Egbert appeared in the doorway with four trout from the stream nearby, though how he had managed to snare them I could not think, since he possessed no correct equipment for angling. I fancy I rather overwhelmed him by exclaiming, Hello, sourdough! Since never before had I addressed him in any save a formal fashion. And it is certain I embarrassed him by my next proceeding, which was to grasp his hand and shake it heartily. An action that I could explain no more than he, except that the violence of my self-communion was still upon me, and required an outlet. He grinned amiably, then regarded me with a shrewd eye and demanded if I had been drinking. This, I said, I am drunk with this, and held the card up to him. But when he took it, interestingly, he merely read the obverse side which I had not observed until now. Go to Epstein's for everything you wear," it said in large type, and added, the square-deal mammoth store. The carry and I stalk, he said, still a bit puzzled by my tone, though I generally trade at the red front. I turned the card over for him, and he studied the list of humble-born notables, though from a point of view peculiarly his own. I don't see, he began, what right they got to rake up all that stuff about people that's dead and gone, who cares what their folks was. And he added, Horus was the son of a shopkeeper. Horus, who? Plainly the matter did not excite him, and I saw it would be useless to try to convey to him what the items had meant to me. I mean to say I'm glad to be here with you," I said. I knew you'd like it," he answered. Everything is nice here. America is some country," I said. She is, she is, he answered. And now you can bile up a pot of tea in your own way while I clean these here fish for supper. I made the tea. I regret to say that there was not a tea cozy in the place. Indeed, the linen, silver, and general table equipment were sadly deficient. But in my reckless mood I made no comment. Your tea smells good, but it ain't got no kick to it," he observed over his first cup. When I had drenched my insides with tea, I sort of wanted to take a hold. And still I made no effort to set him right. I now saw that in all true essentials he did not need me to set him right. For so uncouth a person he was strangely commendable and worthy. As we sipped our tea in companionable silence, I, busy with my new and disturbing thoughts, a long shout came to us from the outer distance. Cousin Egbert brightened, I'm darned if that ain't ma pettengill," he exclaimed. She's rid over from the arrow-head. We rushed to the door, and in the distance, riding down upon a set terrific speed, I indeed beheld the mixer. A moment later she reigned in her horse before us and horsely rumbled her greetings. I had last seen her at a formal dinner where she was rather formidablely done out in black velvet and diamonds. Now she appeared in a startling tenue of khaki riding britches and flannel shirt, with one of the wide-brimmed cow-person's hats. Even at the moment of greeting her I could not but reflect how shocked our dear queen would be at the sight of this riding-habit. She dismounted with hearty explanations of how she had left her round up and ridden over to visit, having heard from the tuttle-person that we were here. Cousin Egbert took her horse and she entered the hut, where, to my utter amazement, she at once did a feminine thing. Though from her garb one at a little distance might have thought her a man, a portly, floored, carelessly attired man, she made it once for the wrinkled mirror, where, after anxiously scanning her burned face for an instant, she produced powder and puff from a pocket of her shirt and daintly powdered her generous blob of a nose. Having achieved this to her apparent satisfaction she unrolled a bundle she had carried at her saddle and donned a riding-skirt, buttoning it about the waist and smoothing down its folds before I could retire. There now! she boomed as if some satisfying finality had been brought about. Such was the mixer, that sort of thing would never do with us. And yet I suddenly saw that she, like Cousin Egbert, was strangely commendable and worthy. I mean to say I no longer felt it was my part to set her right in any of the social niceties. Some curious change had come upon me. I knew then that I should no longer resist America.