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The Celebrity, Complete

by Winston Churchill · English · Gutenberg #5387 · 330,890 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Celebrity, Complete

Author: Winston Churchill


        
Release date: October 19, 2004 [eBook #5387]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5387

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CELEBRITY, COMPLETE ***



Produced by David Widger





THE CELEBRITY

By Winston Churchill




VOLUME 1.




CHAPTER I

I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he
wore kilts. But I see I shall have to amend that, because he was not a
celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after
I had left New York for the West. In the old days, to my commonplace and
unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never
read me any of his manuscripts, which I can safely say he would have
done had he written any at that time, and therefore my lack of detection
of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of
the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius,
and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact
with the Celebrity. Hence I am constrained to the belief that his
eccentricity must have arrived with his genius, and both after the age
of twenty-five. Far be it from me to question the talents of one upon
whose head has been set the laurel of fame!

When I knew him he was a young man without frills or foibles, with an
excellent head for business. He was starting in to practise law in
a downtown office with the intention of becoming a great corporation
lawyer. He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and
was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover
laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised
to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me. I look
upon notoriety with the same indifference as on the buttons on a man's
shirt-front, or the crest on his note-paper.

When I went West, he fell out of my life. I probably should not have
given him another thought had I not caught sight of his name, in old
capitals, on a daintily covered volume in a book-stand. I had little
time or inclination for reading fiction; my days were busy ones, and
my nights were spent with law books. But I bought the volume out of
curiosity, wondering the while whether he could have written it. I was
soon set at rest, for the dedication was to a young woman of whom I had
often heard him speak. The volume was a collection of short stories.
On these I did not feel myself competent to sit in judgment, for my
personal taste in fiction, if I could be said to have had any, took
another turn. The stories dealt mainly with the affairs of aristocratic
young men and aristocratic young women, and were differentiated to fit
situations only met with in that society which does not have to send
descriptions of its functions to the newspapers. The stories did not
seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing
moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom
they were aimed. They left with me the impression of a well-delivered
stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows
on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.
Their charm to me lay in the manner of the telling, the style, which I
am forced to admit was delightful.

But the book I had bought was a success, a great success, if the
newspapers and the reports of the sales were to be trusted. I read the
criticisms out of curiosity more than any other prompting, and no two of
them were alike: they veered from extreme negative to extreme positive.
I have to confess that it gratified me not a little to find the
negatives for the most part of my poor way of thinking. The positives,
on the other hand, declared the gifted young author to have found a
manner of treatment of social life entirely new. Other critics still
insisted it was social ridicule: but if this were so, the satire was too
delicate for ordinary detection.

However, with the dainty volume my quondam friend sprang into fame. At
the same time he cast off the chrysalis of a commonplace existence. He
at once became the hero of the young women of the country from Portland,
Maine, to Portland, Oregon, many of whom wrote him letters and asked
him for his photograph. He was asked to tell what he really meant by
the vague endings of this or that story. And then I began to hear rumors
that his head was turning. These I discredited, of course. If true, I
thought it but another proof of the undermining influence of feminine
flattery, which few men, and fewer young men, can stand. But I watched
his career with interest.

He published other books, of a high moral tone and unapproachable
principle, which I read carefully for some ray of human weakness,
for some stroke of nature untrammelled by the calling code of polite
society. But in vain.




CHAPTER II

It was by a mere accident that I went West, some years ago, and settled
in an active and thriving town near one of the Great Lakes. The air and
bustle and smack of life about the place attracted me, and I rented an
office and continued to read law, from force of habit, I suppose. My
experience in the service of one of the most prominent of New York
lawyers stood me in good stead, and gradually, in addition to a
heterogeneous business of mines and lumber, I began to pick up a few
clients. But in all probability I should be still pegging away at mines
and lumber, and drawing up occasional leases and contracts, had it not
been for Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, of Philadelphia. Although it has
been specifically written that promotion to a young man comes neither
from the East nor the West, nor yet from the South, Mr. Cooke arrived
from the East, and in the nick of time for me.

I was indebted to Farrar for Mr. Cooke's acquaintance, and this
obligation I have since in vain endeavored to repay. Farrar's profession
was forestry: a graduate of an eastern college, he had gone abroad to
study, and had roughed it with the skilled woodsmen of the Black Forest.
Mr. Cooke, whom he represented, had large tracts of land in these parts,
and Farrar likewise received an income from the state, whose legislature
had at last opened its eyes to the timber depredations and had begun to
buy up reserves. We had rooms in the same Elizabethan building at the
corner of Main and Superior streets, but it was more than a year
before I got farther than a nod with him. Farrar's nod in itself was
a repulsion, and once you had seen it you mentally scored him from
the list of your possible friends. Besides this freezing exterior he
possessed a cutting and cynical tongue, and had but little confidence in
the human race. These qualities did not tend to render him popular in a
Western town, if indeed they would have recommended him anywhere, and
I confess to have thought him a surly enough fellow, being guided by
general opinion and superficial observation. Afterwards the town got to
know him, and if it did not precisely like him, it respected him, which
perhaps is better. And he gained at least a few warm-friends, among whom
I deem it an honor to be mentioned.

Farrar's contempt for consequences finally brought him an unsought-for
reputation. Admiration for him was born the day he pushed O'Meara out
of his office and down a flight of stairs because he had undertaken to
suggest that which should be done with the timber in Jackson County. By
this summary proceeding Farrar lost the support of a faction, O'Meara
being a power in the state and chairman of the forestry board besides.
But he got rid of interference from that day forth.

Oddly enough my friendship with Farrar was an indirect result of the
incident I have just related. A few mornings after, I was seated in my
office trying to concentrate my mind on page twenty of volume ten of
the Records when I was surprised by O'Meara himself, accompanied by
two gentlemen whom I remembered to have seen on various witness stands.
O'Meara was handsomely dressed, and his necktie made but a faint
pretence of concealing the gorgeous diamond in his shirt-front. But his
face wore an aggrieved air, and his left hand was neatly bound in black
and tucked into his coat. He sank comfortably into my wicker chair,
which creaked a protest, and produced two yellow-spotted cigars, chewing
the end of one with much apparent relish and pushing the other at me.
His two friends remained respectfully standing. I guessed at what was
coming, and braced myself by refusing the cigar,--not a great piece of
self-denial, by the way. But a case meant much to me then, and I did
seriously regret that O'Meara was not a possible client. At any rate, my
sympathy with Farrar in the late episode put him out of the question.

O'Meara cleared his throat and began gingerly to undo the handkerchief
on his hand. Then he brought his fist down on the table so that the ink
started from the stand and his cheeks shook with the effort.

“I'll make him pay for this!” he shouted, with an oath.

The other gentlemen nodded their approval, while I put the inkstand in a
place of safety.

“You're a pretty bright young man, Mr. Crocker,” he went on, a look of
cunning coming into his little eyes, “but I guess you ain't had too many
cases to object to a big one.”

“Did you come here to tell me that?” I asked.

He looked me over queerly, and evidently decided that I meant no
effrontery.

“I came here to get your opinion,” he said, holding up a swollen hand,
“but I want to tell you first that I ought to get ten thousand, not a
cent less. That scoundrelly young upstart--”

“If you want my opinion,” I replied, trying to speak slowly, “it is that
Mr. Farrar ought to get ten thousand dollars. And I think that would be
only a moderate reward.”

I did not feel equal to pushing him into the street, as Farrar had done,
and I have now but a vague notion of what he said and how he got there.
But I remember that half an hour afterwards a man congratulated me
openly in the bank.

That night I found a new friend, although at the time I thought Farrar's
visit to me the accomplishment of a perfunctory courtesy to a man who
had refused to take a case against him. It was very characteristic of
Farrar not to mention this until he rose to go. About half-past eight
he sauntered in upon me, placing his hat precisely on the rack, and we
talked until ten, which is to say that I talked and he commented. His
observations were apt, if a trifle caustic, and it is needless to add
that I found them entertaining. As he was leaving he held out his hand.

“I hear that O'Meara called on you to-day,” he said diffidently.

“Yes,” I answered, smiling, “I was sorry not to have been able to take
his case.”

I sat up for an hour or more, trying to arrive at some conclusion
about Farrar, but at length I gave it up. His visit had in it something
impulsive which I could not reconcile with his manner. He surely owed
me nothing for refusing a case against him, and must have known that my
motives for so doing were not personal. But if I did not understand
him, I liked him decidedly from that night forward, and I hoped that his
advances had sprung from some other motive than politeness. And indeed
we gradually drifted into a quasi-friendship. It became his habit, as
he went out in the morning, to drop into my room for a match, and I
returned the compliment by borrowing his coal oil when mine was out.
At such times we would sit, or more frequently stand, discussing the
affairs of the town and of the nation, for politics was an easy and
attractive subject to us both. It was only in a general way that we
touched upon each other's concerns, this being dangerous ground
with Farrar, who was ever ready to close up at anything resembling a
confidence. As for me, I hope I am not curious, but I own to having had
a curiosity about Farrar's Philadelphia patron, to whom Farrar made
but slight allusions. His very name--Farquhar Fenelon Cooke--had an odd
sound which somehow betokened an odd man, and there was more than
one bit of gossip afloat in the town of which he was the subject,
notwithstanding the fact that he had never honored it with a visit. The
gossip was the natural result of Mr. Cooke's large properties in the
vicinity. It has never been my habit, however, to press a friend on such
matters, and I could easily understand and respect Farrar's reluctance
to talk of one from whom he received an income.

I had occasion, in the May of that year, to make a somewhat long
business trip to Chicago, and on my return, much to my surprise, I
found Farrar awaiting me in the railroad station. He smiled his wonted
fraction by way of greeting, stopped to buy a newspaper, and finally
leading me to his buggy, turned and drove out of town. I was completely
mystified at such an unusual proceeding.

“What's this for?” I asked.

“I shan't bother you long,” he said; “I simply wanted the chance to talk
to you before you got to your office. I have a Philadelphia client, a
Mr. Cooke, of whom you may have heard me speak. Since you have been away
the railroad has brought suit against him. The row is about the lands
west of the Washita, on Copper Rise. It's the devil if he loses, for the
ground is worth the dollar bills to cover it. I telegraphed, and he got
here yesterday. He wants a lawyer, and I mentioned you.”

There came over me then in a flash a comprehension of Farrar which I had
failed to grasp before. But I was quite overcome at his suggestion.

“Isn't it rather a big deal to risk me on?” I said. “Better go to
Chicago and get Parks. He's an expert in that sort of thing.” I am
afraid my expostulation was weak.

“I merely spoke of you,” replied Farrar, coolly,--“and he has gone
around to your office. He knows about Parks, and if he wants him he'll
probably take him. It all depends upon how you strike Cooke whether you
get the case or not. I have never told you about him,” he added with
some hesitation; “he's a trifle queer, but a good fellow at the bottom.
I should hate to see him lose his land.”

“How is the railroad mixed up in it?” I asked.

“I don't know much about law, but it would seem as if they had a pretty
strong case,” he answered. He went on to tell me what he knew of the
matter in his clean, pithy sentences, often brutally cynical, as though
he had not a spark of interest in any of it. Mr. Cooke's claim to the
land came from a maternal great-uncle, long since deceased, who had been
a settler in these regions. The railroad answered that they had bought
the land with other properties from the man, also deceased, to whom
the old gentleman was alleged to have sold it. Incidentally I learned
something of Mr. Cooke's maternal ancestry.

We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect
of so large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the
first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad
gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might
have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines. A silver snaffle on a
heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy
waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie,
sufficiently proclaimed his tastes. But I found myself continually
returning to the countenance, and I still think I could have modelled a
better face out of putty. The mouth was rather small, thick-tipped, and
put in at an odd angle; the brown eyes were large, and from their habit
of looking up at one lent to the round face an incongruous solemnity.
But withal there was a perceptible acumen about the man which was
puzzling in the extreme.

“How are you, old man?” said he, hardly waiting for Farrar to introduce
me. “Well, I hope.” It was pure cordiality, nothing more. He seemed to
bubble over with it.

I said I was well, and invited him inside.

“No,” he said; “I like the look of the town. We can talk business here.”

And talk business he did, straight and to the point, so fast and
indistinctly that at times I could scarcely follow him. I answered his
rapid questions briefly, and as best I knew how. He wanted to know
what chance he had to win the suit, and I told him there might be other
factors involved beside those of which he had spoken. Plainly, also,
that the character of his great-uncle was in question, an intimation
which he did not appear to resent. But that there was no denying the
fact that the railroad had a strong thing of it, and a good lawyer into
the bargain.

“And don't you consider yourself a good lawyer?” he cut in.

I pointed out that the railroad lawyer was a man of twice my age,
experience, and reputation.

Without more ado, and before either Farrar or myself had time to resist,
he had hooked an arm into each of us, and we were all three marching
down the street in the direction of his hotel. If this was agony for
me, I could see that it was keener agony for Farrar. And although Mr.
Farquhar Fenelon Cooke had been in town but a scant twenty-four hours,
it seemed as if he knew more of its inhabitants than both of us
put together. Certain it is that he was less particular with his
acquaintances. He hailed the most astonishing people with an easy air
of freedom, now releasing my arm, now Farrar's, to salute. He always
saluted. He stopped to converse with a dozen men we had never seen, many
of whom smelled strongly of the stable, and he invariably introduced
Farrar as the forester of his estate, and me as his lawyer in the great
quarrel with the railroad, until I began to wish I had never heard of
Blackstone. And finally he steered us into the spacious bar of the Lake
House.

The next morning the three of us were off early for a look at the
contested property. It was a twenty-mile drive, and the last eight miles
wound down the boiling Washita, still high with the melting snows of
the pine lands. And even here the snows yet slept in the deeper hollows.
unconscious of the budding green of the slopes. How heartily I wished
Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke back in Philadelphia! By his eternal accounts
of his Germantown stables and of the blue ribbons of his hackneys he
killed all sense of pleasure of the scene, and set up an irritation that
was well-nigh unbearable. At length we crossed the river, climbed the
foot-hills, and paused on the ridge. Below us lay the quaint inn
and scattered cottages of Asquith, and beyond them the limitless and
foam-flecked expanse of lake: and on our right, lifting from the shore
by easy slopes for a mile at stretch, Farrar pointed out the timbered
lands of Copper Rise, spread before us like a map. But the appreciation
of beauty formed no part of Mr. Cooke's composition,--that is, beauty as
Farrar and I knew it.

“If you win that case, old man,” he cried, striking me a great whack
between the shoulder-blades, “charge any fee you like; I'll pay it! And
I'll make such a country-place out of this as was never seen west of New
York state, and call it Mohair, after my old trotter. I'll put a palace
on that clearing, with the stables just over the knoll. They'll beat the
Germantown stables a whole lap. And that strip of level,” he continued,
pointing to a thinly timbered bit, “will hold a mile track nicely.”

Farrar and I gasped: it was as if we had tumbled into the Washita.

“It will take money, Mr. Cooke,” said Farrar, “and you haven't won the
suit yet.”

“Damn the money!” said Mr. Cooke, and we knew he meant it.

Over the episodes of that interminable morning it will, be better to
pass lightly. It was spent by Farrar and me in misery. It was spent by
Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke in an ecstasy of enjoyment, driving over and
laying out Mohair, and I must admit he evinced a surprising genius
in his planning, although, according to Farrar, he broke every sacred
precept of landscape gardening again and again. He displayed the
enthusiasm of a pioneer, and the energy of a Napoleon. And if he were
too ignorant to accord to nature a word of praise, he had the grace
and intelligence to compliment Farrar on the superb condition of the
forests, and on the judgment shown in laying out the roads, which were
so well chosen that even in this season they were well drained and dry.
That day, too, my views were materially broadened, and I received an
insight into the methods and possibilities of my friend's profession
sufficient to instil a deeper respect both for it and for him. The
crowded spots had been skilfully thinned of the older trees to give the
younger ones a chance, and the harmony of the whole had been carefully
worked out. Now we drove under dark pines and hemlocks, and then into
a lighter relief of birches and wild cherries, or a copse of young
beeches. And I learned that the estate had not only been paying the
taxes and its portion of Farrar's salary, but also a considerable amount
into Mr. Cooke's pocket the while it was being improved.

Mr. Cooke made his permanent quarters at the Lake House, and soon became
one of the best-known characters about town. He seemed to enjoy his
popularity, and I am convinced that he would have been popular in
spite of his now-famous quarrel with the railroad. His easy command
of profanity, his generous use of money, his predilection for sporting
characters, of whom he was king; his ready geniality and good-fellowship
alike with the clerk of the Lake House or the Mayor, not to mention his
own undeniable personality, all combined to make him a favorite. He had
his own especial table in the dining-room, called all the waiters by
their first names, and they fought for the privilege of attending him.
He likewise called the barkeepers by their first names, and had his own
particular corner of the bar, where none dared intrude, and where he
could almost invariably be found when not in my office. From this corner
he dealt out cigars to the deserving, held stake moneys, decided all
bets, and refereed all differences. His name appeared in the personal
column of one of the local papers on the average of twice a week, or
in lieu thereof one of his choicest stories in the “Notes about Town”
 column.

The case was to come up early in July, and I spent most of my time,
to the detriment of other affairs, in preparing for it. I was greatly
hampered in my work by my client, who filled my office with his
tobacco-smoke and that of his friends, and he took it very much for
granted that he was going to win the suit. Fortune had always played
into his hands, he said, and I had no little difficulty in convincing
him that matters had passed from his hands into mine. In this I believe
I was never entirely successful. I soon found, too, that he had no ideas
whatever on the value of discretion, and it was only by repeated threats
of absolute failure that I prevented our secret tactics from becoming
the property of his sporting fraternity and of the town.

The more I worked on the case, the clearer it became to me that Mr.
Farquhar Fenelon Cooke's great-uncle had been either a consummate
scoundrel or a lunatic, and that our only hope of winning must be based
on proving him one or the other; it did not matter much which, for my
expectations at best were small. When I had at length settled to this
conclusion I confided it as delicately as possible to my client, who was
sitting at the time with his feet cocked up on the office table, reading
a pink newspaper.

“Which'll be the easier to prove?” he asked, without looking up.

“It would be more charitable to prove he had been out of his mind,” I
replied, “and perhaps easier.”

“Charity be damned,” said this remarkable man. “I'm after the property.”

So I decided on insanity. I hunted up and subpoenaed white-haired
witnesses for miles around. Many of them shook their heads when they
spoke of Mr. Cooke's great-uncle, and some knew more of his private
transactions than I could have wished, and I trembled lest my own
witnesses should be turned against me. I learned more of Mr. Cooke's
great-uncle than I knew of Mr. Cooke himself, and to the credit of my
client be it said that none of his relative's traits were apparent in
him, with the possible exception of insanity; and that defect, if it
existed in the grand-nephew, took in him a milder and less criminal
turn. The old rascal, indeed, had so cleverly worded his deed of sale
as to obtain payment without transfer. It was a trifle easier to avoid
being specific in that country in his day than it is now, and the
document was, in my opinion, sufficiently vague to admit of a double
meaning. The original sale had been made to a man, now dead, whom the
railroad had bought out. The Copper Rise property was mentioned among
the other lands in the will in favor of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, and
the latter had gone ahead improving them and increasing their output in
spite of the repeated threats of the railroad to bring suit. And it was
not until its present attorney had come in and investigated the title
that the railroad had resorted to the law. I mention here, by the way,
that my client was the sole heir.

But as the time of the sessions drew near, the outlook for me was
anything but bright. It is true that my witnesses were quite willing
to depose that his actions were queer and out of the common, but these
witnesses were for the most part venerable farmers and backwoodsmen:
expert testimony was deplorably lacking. In this extremity it was Mr.
Farquhar Fenelon Cooke himself who came unwittingly to my rescue. He had
bought a horse,--he could never be in a place long without one,--which
was chiefly remarkable, he said, for picking up his hind feet as well
as his front ones. However he may have differed from the ordinary run
of horses, he was shortly attacked by one of the thousand ills to which
every horse is subject. I will not pretend to say what it was. I found
Mr. Cooke one morning at his usual place in the Lake House bar holding
forth with more than common vehemence and profanity on the subject of
veterinary surgeons. He declared there was not a veterinary surgeon in
the whole town fit to hold a certificate, and his listeners nodded an
extreme approval to this sentiment. A grizzled old fellow who kept a
stock farm back in the country chanced to be there, and managed to get a
word in on the subject during one of my client's rare pauses.

“Yes,” he said, “that's so. There ain't one of 'em now fit to travel
with young Doctor Vane, who was here some fifteen years gone by. He
weren't no horse-doctor, but he could fix up a foundered horse in a
night as good as new. If your uncle was livin', he'd back me on that,
Mr. Cooke.”

Here was my chance. I took the old man aside, and two or three glasses
of Old Crow launched him into reminiscence.

“Where is Doctor Vane now?” I asked finally.

“Over to Minneapolis, sir, with more rich patients nor he can take care
of. Wasn't my darter over there last month, and seen him? And demned if
he didn't pull up his carriage and talk to her. Here's luck to him.”

I might have heard much more of the stockraiser had I stayed, but I fear
I left him somewhat abruptly in my haste to find Farrar. Only three days
remained before the case was to come up. Farrar readily agreed to go to
Minneapolis, and was off on the first train that afternoon. I would have
asked Mr. Cooke to go had I dared trust him, such was my anxiety to have
him out of the way, if only for a time. I did not tell him about the
doctor. He sat up very late with me that night on the Lake House
porch to give me a rubbing down, as he expressed it, as he might have
admonished some favorite jockey before a sweepstake. “Take it easy, old
man,” he would say repeatedly, “and don't give things the bit before
you're sure of their wind!”

Days passed, and not a word from Farrar. The case opened with Mr.
Cooke's friends on the front benches. The excitement it caused has
rarely been equalled in that section, but I believe this was due less to
its sensational features than to Mr. Cooke, who had an abnormal though
unconscious talent for self-advertisement. It became manifest early that
we were losing. Our testimony, as I had feared, was not strong enough,
although they said we were making a good fight of it. I was racked
with anxiety about Farrar; at last, when I had all but given up hope,
I received a telegram from him dated at Detroit, saying he would arrive
with the doctor that evening. This was Friday, the fourth day of the
trial.

The doctor turned out to be a large man, well groomed and well fed, with
a twinkle in his eye. He had gone to Narragansett Pier for the summer,
whither Farrar had followed him. On being introduced, Mr. Cooke at once
invited him out to have a drink.

“Did you know my uncle?” asked my client.

“Yes,” said the doctor, “I should say I did.”

“Poor old duffer,” said Mr. Cooke, with due solemnity; “I understand he
was a maniac.”

“Well,” said the doctor, while we listened with a breathless interest,
“he wasn't exactly a maniac, but I think I can safely say he was a
lunatic.”

“Then here's to insanity!” said the irrepressible, his glass swung in
mid-air, when a thought struck him, and he put it down again and looked
hard at the doctor.

“Will you swear to it?” he demanded.

“I would swear to it before Saint Peter,” said the doctor, fervently.

He swore to it before a jury, which was more to the point, and we won
our case. It did not even go to the court of appeals; I suppose the
railroad thought it cheaper to drop it, since no right of way was
involved. And the decision was scarcely announced before Mr. Farquhar
Fenelon Cooke had begun work on his new country place, Mohair.

I have oftentimes been led to consider the relevancy of this chapter,
and have finally decided to insert it. I concluded that the actual
narrative of how Mr. Cooke came to establish his country-place near
Asquith would be interesting, and likewise throw some light on that
gentleman's character. And I ask the reader's forbearance for the
necessary personal history involved. Had it not been for Mr. Cooke's
friendship for me I should not have written these pages.




CHAPTER III

Events, are consequential or inconsequential irrespective of their size.
The wars of Troy were fought for a woman, and Charles VIII, of France,
bumped his head against a stone doorway and died because he did not
stoop low enough. And to descend from history down to my own poor
chronicle, Mr. Cooke's railroad case, my first experience at the bar of
any gravity or magnitude, had tied to it a string of consequences then
far beyond my guessing. The suit was my stepping-stone not only to
a larger and more remunerative practice, but also, I believe, to the
position of district attorney, which I attained shortly afterwards.

Mr. Cooke had laid out Mohair as ruthlessly as Napoleon planned the
new Paris; though not, I regret to say, with a like genius. Fortunately
Farrar interposed and saved the grounds, but there was no guardian angel
to do a like turn for the house. Mr. Langdon Willis, of Philadelphia,
was the architect who had nominal charge of the building. He had
regularly submitted some dozen plans for Mr. Cooke's approval, which
were as regularly rejected. My client believed, in common with a great
many other people, that architects should be driven and not followed,
and was plainly resolved to make this house the logical development of
many cherished ideas. It is not strange, therefore, that the edifice
was completed by a Chicago contractor who had less self-respect than Mr.
Willis, the latter having abruptly refused to have his name tacked on to
the work.

Mohair was finished and ready for occupation in July, two years after
the suit. I drove out one day before Mr. Cooke's arrival to look it
over. The grounds, where Farrar had had matters pretty much his own way,
to my mind rivalled the best private parks in the East. The stables were
filled with a score or so of Mr. Cooke's best horses, brought hither
in his private cars, and the trotters were exercising on the track.
The middle of June found Farrar and myself at the Asquith Inn. It was
Farrar's custom to go to Asquith in the summer, being near the forest
properties in his charge; and since Asquith was but five miles from the
county-seat it was convenient for me, and gave me the advantages of
the lake breezes and a comparative rest, which I should not have had
in town. At that time Asquith was a small community of summer residents
from Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, and other western cities, most of
whom owned cottages and the grounds around them. They were a quiet lot
that long association had made clannish; and they had a happy faculty,
so rare in summer resorts, of discrimination between an amusement and a
nuisance. Hence a great many diversions which are accounted pleasurable
elsewhere are at Asquith set down at their true value. It was,
therefore, rather with resentment than otherwise that the approaching
arrival of Mr. Cooke and the guests he was likely to have at Mohair were
looked upon.

I had not been long at Asquith before I discovered that Farrar was
acting in a peculiar manner, though I was longer in finding out what the
matter was. I saw much less of him than in town. Once in a while in the
evenings, after ten, he would run across me on the porch of the inn,
or drift into my rooms. Even after three years of more or less
intimacy between us, Farrar still wore his exterior of pessimism and
indifference, the shell with which he chose to hide a naturally warm and
affectionate disposition. In the dining-room we sat together at the end
of a large table set aside for bachelors and small families of two
or three, and it seemed as though we had all the humorists and
story-tellers in that place. And Farrar as a source of amusement proved
equal to the best of them. He would wait until a story was well under
way, and then annihilate the point of it with a cutting cynicism and set
the table in a roar of laughter. Among others who were seated here was
a Mr. Trevor, of Cincinnati, one of the pioneers of Asquith. Mr. Trevor
was a trifle bombastic, with a tendency towards gesticulation, an art
which he had learned in no less a school than the Ohio State Senate. He
was a self-made man,--a fact which he took good care should not escape
one,--and had amassed his money, I believe, in the dry-goods business.
He always wore a long, shiny coat, a low, turned-down collar, and a
black tie, all of which united to give him the general appearance of a
professional pallbearer.

But Mr. Trevor possessed a daughter who amply made up for his
shortcomings. She was the only one who could meet Farrar on his own
ground, and rarely a meal passed that they did not have a tilt. They
filled up the holes of the conversation with running commentaries,
giving a dig at the luckless narrator and a side-slap at each other,
until one would have given his oath they were sworn enemies. At least
I, in the innocence of my heart, thought so until I was forcibly
enlightened. I had taken rather a prejudice to Miss Trevor. I could find
no better reason than her antagonism to Farrar. I was revolving this
very thing in my mind one day as I was paddling back to the inn after a
look at my client's new pier and boat-houses, when I descried Farrar's
catboat some distance out. The lake was glass, and the sail hung
lifeless. It was near lunch-time, and charity prompted me to head for
the boat and give it a tow homeward. As I drew near, Farrar himself
emerged from behind the sail and asked me, with a great show of
nonchalance, what I wanted.

“To tow you back for lunch, of course,” I answered, used to his ways.

He threw me a line, which I made fast to the stern, and then he
disappeared again. I thought this somewhat strange, but as the boat
was a light one, I towed it in and hitched it to the wharf, when, to my
great astonishment, there disembarked not Farrar, but Miss Trevor. She
leaped lightly ashore and was gone before I could catch my breath, while
Farrar let down the sail and offered me a cigarette. I had learned a
lesson in appearances.

It could not have been very long after this that I was looking over my
batch of New York papers, which arrived weekly, when my eye was arrested
by a name. I read the paragraph, which announced the fact that my friend
the Celebrity was about to sail for Europe in search of “color” for his
next novel; this was already contracted for at a large price, and was
to be of a more serious nature than any of his former work. An interview
was published in which the Celebrity had declared that a new novel was
to appear in a short time. I do not know what impelled me, but I began
at once to search through the other papers, and found almost identically
the same notice in all of them.

By one of those odd coincidents which sometimes start one to thinking,
the Celebrity was the subject of a lively discussion when I reached
the table that evening. I had my quota of information concerning his
European trip, but I did not commit myself when appealed to for an
opinion. I had once known the man (which, however, I did not think it
worth while to mention) and I did not feel justified in criticising him
in public. Besides, what I knew of him was excellent, and entirely apart
from the literary merit or demerit of his work. The others, however,
were within their right when they censured or praised him, and they
did both. Farrar, in particular, surprised me by the violence of his
attacks, while Miss Trevor took up the Celebrity's defence with equal
ardor. Her motives were beyond me now. The Celebrity's works spoke
for themselves, she said, and she could not and would not believe such
injurious reports of one who wrote as he did.

The next day I went over to the county-seat, and got back to Asquith
after dark. I dined alone, and afterwards I was strolling up and down
one end of the long veranda when I caught sight of a lonely figure in a
corner, with chair tilted back and feet on the rail. A gleam of a cigar
lighted up the face, and I saw that it was Farrar. I sat down beside
him, and we talked commonplaces for a while, Farrar's being almost
monosyllabic, while now and again feminine voices and feminine laughter
reached our ears from the far end of the porch. They seemed to go
through Farrar like a knife, and he smoked furiously, his lips tightly
compressed the while. I had a dozen conjectures, none of which I dared
voice. So I waited in patience.

“Crocker,” said he, at length, “there's a man here from Boston, Charles
Wrexell Allen; came this morning. You know Boston. Have you ever heard
of him?”

“Allen,” I repeated, reflecting; “no Charles Wrexell.”

“It is Charles Wrexell, I think,” said Farrar, as though the matter were
trivial. “However, we can go into the register and make sure.”

“What about him?” I asked, not feeling inclined to stir.

The Celebrity

“Oh, nothing. An arrival is rather an occurrence, though. You can hear
him down there now,” he added, tossing his head towards the other end of
the porch, “with the women around him.”

In fact, I did catch the deeper sound of a man's voice among the lighter
tones, and the voice had a ring to it which was not wholly unfamiliar,
although I could not place it.

I threw Farrar a bait.

“He must make friends easily,” I said.

“With the women?--yes,” he replied, so scathingly that I was forced to
laugh in spite of myself.

“Let us go in and look at the register,” I suggested. “You may have his
name wrong.”

We went in accordingly. Sure enough, in bold, heavy characters, was the
name Charles Wrexell Allen written out in full. That handwriting was one
in a thousand. I made sure I had seen it before, and yet I did not know
it; and the more I puzzled over it the more confused I became. I turned
to Farrar.

“I have had a poor cigar passed off on me and deceive me for a while.
That is precisely the case here. I think I should recognize your man if
I were to see him.”

“Well,” said Farrar, “here's your chance.”

The company outside were moving in. Two or three of the older ladies
came first, carrying their wraps; then a troop of girls, among whom
was Miss Trevor; and lastly, a man. Farrar and I had walked to the door
while the women turned into the drawing-room, so that we were brought
face to face with him, suddenly. At sight of me he halted abruptly, as
though he had struck the edge of a door, changed color, and held out
his hand, tentatively. Then he withdrew it again, for I made no sign of
recognition.

It was the Celebrity!

I felt a shock of disgust as I passed out. Masquerading, it must be
admitted, is not pleasant to the taste; and the whole farce, as it
flashed through my mind,--his advertised trip, his turning up here under
an assumed name, had an ill savor. Perhaps some of the things they said
of him might be true, after all.

“Who the devil is he?” said Farrar, dropping for once his indifference;
“he looked as if he knew you.”

I evaded.

“He may have taken me for some one else,” I answered with all the
coolness I could muster. “I have never met any one of his name. His
voice and handwriting, however, are very much like those of a man I used
to know.”

Farrar was very poor company that evening, and left me early. I went
to my rooms and had taken down a volume of Carlyle, who can generally
command my attention, when there came a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I replied, with an instinctive sense of prophecy.

This was fulfilled at once by the appearance of the Celebrity. He
was attired--for the details of his dress forced themselves upon me
vividly--in a rough-spun suit of knickerbockers, a colored-shirt having
a large and prominent gold stud, red and brown stockings of a diamond
pattern, and heavy walking-boots. And he entered with an air of
assurance that was maddening.

“My dear Crocker,” he exclaimed, “you have no idea how delighted I am to
see you here!”

I rose, first placing a book-mark in Carlyle, and assured him that I was
surprised to see him here.

“Surprised to see me!” he returned, far from being damped by my manner.
“In fact, I am a little surprised to see myself here.”

He sank back on the window-seat and clasped his hands behind his head.

“But first let me thank you for respecting my incognito,” he said.

I tried hard to keep my temper, marvelling at the ready way he had
chosen to turn my action.

“And now,” he continued, “I suppose you want to know why I came out
here.” He easily supplied the lack of cordial solicitation on my part.

“Yes, I should like to know,” I said.

Thus having aroused my curiosity, he took his time about appeasing it,
after the custom of his kind. He produced a gold cigarette case, offered
me a cigarette, which I refused, took one himself and blew the smoke in
rings toward the ceiling. Then, raising himself on his elbow, he drew
his features together in such a way as to lead me to believe he was
about to impart some valuable information.

“Crocker,” said he, “it's the very deuce to be famous, isn't it?”

“I suppose it is,” I replied curtly, wondering what he was driving at;
“I have never tried it.”

“An ordinary man, such as you, can't conceive of the torture a fellow in
my position is obliged to go through the year round, but especially in
the summer, when one wishes to go off on a rest. You know what I mean,
of course.”

“I am afraid I do not,” I answered, in a vain endeavor to embarrass him.

“You're thicker than when I used to know you, then,” he returned with
candor. “To tell the truth, Crocker, I often wish I were back at the
law, and had never written a line. I am paying the penalty of fame.
Wherever I go I am hounded to death by the people who have read my
books, and they want to dine and wine me for the sake of showing me off
at their houses. I am heartily sick and tired of it all; you would be if
you had to go through it. I could stand a winter, but the worst comes
in the summer, when one meets the women who fire all sorts of
socio-psychological questions at one for solution, and who have
suggestions for stories.” He shuddered.

“And what has all this to do with your coming here?” I cut in,
strangling a smile.

He twisted his cigarette at an acute angle with his face, and looked at
me out of the corner of his eye.

“I'll try to be a little plainer,” he went on, sighing as one unused to
deal with people who require crosses on their t's. “I've been worried
almost out of my mind with attention--nothing but attention the whole
time. I can't go on the street but what I'm stared at and pointed out,
so I thought of a scheme to relieve it for a time. It was becoming
unbearable. I determined to assume a name and go to some quiet little
place for the summer, West, if possible, where I was not likely to be
recognized, and have three months of rest.”

He paused, but I offered no comment.

“Well, the more I thought of it, the better I liked the idea. I met a
western man at the club and asked him about western resorts, quiet ones.
'Have you heard of Asquith?' says he. 'No,' said I; 'describe it.' He
did, and it was just the place; quaint, restful, and retired. Of course
I put him off the track, but I did not count on striking you. My man
boxed up, and we were off in twenty-four hours, and here I am.”

Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the
Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that
adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought
the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.

“You won't tell anyone who I am, will you?” he asked anxiously.

He even misinterpreted my silences.

“Certainly not,” I replied. “It is no concern of mine. You might come
here as Emil Zola or Ralph Waldo Emerson and it would make no difference
to me.”

He looked at me dubiously, even suspiciously.

“That's a good chap,” said he, and was gone, leaving me to reflect on
the ways of genius.

And the longer I reflected, the more positive I became that there
existed a more potent reason for the Celebrity's disguise than ennui.
As actions speak louder than words, so does a man's character often give
the lie to his tongue.




CHAPTER IV

A Lion in an ass's skin is still a lion in spite of his disguise.
Conversely, the same might be said of an ass in a lion's skin. The
Celebrity ran after women with the same readiness and helplessness that
a dog will chase chickens, or that a stream will run down hill. Women
differ from chickens, however, in the fact that they find pleasure in
being chased by a certain kind of a man. The Celebrity was this kind
of a man. From the moment his valet deposited his luggage in his rooms,
Charles Wrexell Allen became the social hero of Asquith. It is by
straws we are enabled to tell which way the wind is blowing, and I first
noticed his partiality for Miss Trevor from the absence of the lively
conflicts she was wont to have with Farrar. These ceased entirely
after the Celebrity's arrival. It was the latter who now commanded the
conversation at our table.

I was truly sorry for Farrar, for I knew the man, the depth of his
nature, and the scope of the shock. He carried it off altogether too
well, and both the studied lightness of his actions and the increased
carelessness of his manner made me fear that what before was feigned,
might turn to a real bitterness.

For Farrar's sake, if the Celebrity had been content with women in
general, all would have been well; but he was unable to generalize, in
one sense, and to particularize, in another. And it was plain that he
wished to monopolize Miss Trevor, while still retaining a hold upon the
others. For my sake, had he been content with women alone, I should have
had no cause to complain. But it seemed that I had an attraction for
him, second only to women, which I could not account for. And I began
to be cursed with a great deal of his company. Since he was absolutely
impervious to hints, and would not take no for an answer, I was
helpless. When he had no engagement he would thrust himself on me. He
seemed to know by intuition--for I am very sure I never told him--what
my amusement was to be the mornings I did not go to the county-seat, and
he would invariably turn up, properly equipped, as I was making my way
with judge Short to the tennis court, or carrying my oars to the water.
It was in vain that I resorted to subterfuge: that I went to bed early
intending to be away before the Celebrity's rising hour. I found he had
no particular rising hour. No matter how early I came down, I would find
him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or otherwise his man would be
there with a message to say that his master would shortly join me if I
would kindly wait. And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul
that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get,
when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.

Much of this persecution I might have put up with, indeed, had I not
heard, in one way or another, that he was doing me the honor of calling
me his intimate. This I could not stand, and I soberly resolved to
leave Asquith and go back to town, which I should indeed have done if
deliverance had not arrived from an unexpected quarter.

One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the
steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join
him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from
interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with
a fox terrier. Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a
three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone
with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and
I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the
direction of Mohair.

“That must be your friend Cooke,” remarked the Celebrity, looking up.

There could be no doubt of it. With little difficulty I recognized on
the box the familiar figure of my first important client, and beside him
was a lady whom I supposed to be Mrs. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, although
I had had no previous knowledge that such a person existed. The horses
were on a brisk trot, and Mr. Cooke seemed to be getting the best out
of them for the benefit of the sprinkling of people on the inn porch.
Indeed, I could not but admire the dexterous turn of the wrist which
served Mr. Cooke to swing his leaders into the circle and up the hill,
while the liveried guard leaned far out in anticipation of a stumble.
Mr. Cooke hailed me with a beaming smile and a flourish of the whip as
he drew up and descended from the box.

“Maria,” he exclaimed, giving me a hearty grip, “this is the man that
won Mohair. My wife, Crocker.”

I was somewhat annoyed at this effusiveness before the Celebrity, but I
looked up and caught Mrs. Cooke's eye. It was the calm eye of a general.

“I am glad of the opportunity to thank you, Mr. Crocker,” she said
simply. And I liked her from that moment.

Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for
permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads.
So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with
such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on
the veranda. The Celebrity stood by the block, in an amazement which
gave me a wicked pleasure, and it was some minutes before I had the
chance to introduce him.

Mr. Cooke's idea of an introduction, however, was no mere word-formula:
it was fraught with a deeper and a bibulous meaning. He presented the
Celebrity to his wife, and then invited both of us to go inside with him
by one of those neat and cordial paraphrases in which he was skilled. I
preferred to remain with Mrs. Cooke, and it was with a gleam of hope at
a possible deliverance from my late persecution that I watched the two
disappear together through the hall and into the smoking-room.

“How do you like Mohair?” I asked Mrs. Cooke.

“Do you mean the house or the park?” she laughed; and then, seeing my
embarrassment, she went on: “Oh, the house is just like everything else
Fenelon meddles with. Outside it's a mixture of all the styles, and
inside a hash of all the nationalities from Siamese to Spanish. Fenelon
hangs the Oriental tinsels he has collected on pieces of black baronial
oak, and the coat-of-arms he had designed by our Philadelphia jewellers
is stamped on the dining-room chairs, and even worked into the fire
screens.”

There was nothing paltry in her criticism of her husband, nothing she
would not have said to his face. She was a woman who made you feel this,
for sincerity was written all over her. I could not help wondering why
she gave Mr. Cooke line in the matter of household decoration, unless
it was that he considered Mohair his own, private hobby, and that she
humored him. Mrs. Cooke was not without tact, and I have no doubt she
perceived my reluctance to talk about her husband and respected it.

“We drove down to bring you back to luncheon,” she said.

I thanked her and accepted. She was curious to hear about Asquith and
its people, and I told her all I knew.

“I should like to meet some of them,” she explained, “for we intend
having a cotillon at Mohair,--a kind of house-warming, you know. A party
of Mr. Cooke's friends is coming out for it in his car, and he thought
something of inviting the people of Asquith up for a dance.”

I had my doubts concerning the wisdom of an entertainment, the success
of which depended on the fusion of a party of Mr. Cooke's friends and
a company from Asquith. But I held my peace. She shot a question at me
suddenly:

“Who is this Mr. Allen?”

“He registers from Boston, and only came a fortnight ago,” I replied
vaguely.

“He doesn't look quite right; as though he had been set down on the
wrong planet, you know,” said Mrs. Cooke, her finger on her temple.
“What is he like?”

“Well,” I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration,
“he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having
one.”

“So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?”

I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.

“No, I do not,” said I.

“I thought not,” she said, laughing. It must have been my expression
which prompted her next remark.

“I was not making fun of you,” she said, more soberly; “I do not like
Mr. Allen any better than you do, and I have only seen him once.”

“But I have not said I did not like him,” I objected.

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Cooke, quizzically.

At that moment, to my relief, I discerned the Celebrity and Mr. Cooke in
the hallway.

“Here they come, now,” she went on. “I do wish Fenelon would keep
his hands off the people he meets. I can feel he is going to make an
intimate of that man. Mark my words, Mr. Crocker.”

I not only marked them, I prayed for their fulfilment.

There was that in Mr. Cooke which, for want of a better name, I will
call instinct. As he came down the steps, his arm linked in that of
the Celebrity, his attitude towards his wife was both apologetic and
defiant. He had at once the air of a child caught with a forbidden
toy, and that of a stripling of twenty-one who flaunts a cigar in his
father's face.

“Maria,” he said, “Mr. Allen has consented to come back with us for
lunch.”

We drove back to Mohair, Mr. Cooke and the Celebrity on the box, Mrs.
Cooke and I behind. Except to visit the boathouses I had not been to
Mohair since the day of its completion, and now the full beauty of the
approach struck me for the first time. We swung by the lodge, the keeper
holding open the iron gate as we passed, and into the wide driveway,
hewn, as it were, out of the virgin forest. The sandy soil had been
strengthened by a deep road-bed of clay imported from the interior,
which was spread in turn with a fine gravel, which crunched under the
heavy wheels. From the lodge to the house, a full mile, branches had
been pruned to let the sunshine sift through in splotches, but the wild
nature of the place had been skilfully retained. We curved hither and
thither under the giant trees until suddenly, as a whip straightens in
the snapping, one of the ancient tribes of the forest might have sent an
arrow down the leafy gallery into the open, and at the far end we caught
sight of the palace framed in the vista. It was a triumph for Farrar,
and I wished that the palace had been more worthy.

The Celebrity did not stint his praises of Mohair, coming up the drive,
but so lavish were his comments on the house that they won for him a
lasting place in Mr. Cooke's affections, and encouraged my client to
pull up his horses in a favorable spot, and expand on the beauties of
the mansion.

“Taking it altogether,” said he, complacently, “it is rather a neat box,
and I let myself loose on it. I had all these ideas I gathered knocking
about the world, and I gave them to Willis, of Philadelphia, to put
together for me. But he's honest enough not to claim the house. Take,
for instance, that minaret business on the west; I picked that up from
a mosque in Algiers. The oriel just this side is whole cloth from Haddon
Hall, and the galleried porch next it from a Florentine villa. The
conical capped tower I got from a French chateau, and some of the
features on the south from a Buddhist temple in Japan. Only a little
blending and grouping was necessary, and Willis calls himself an
architect, and wasn't equal to it. Now,” he added, “get the effect. Did
you ever see another house like it?”

“Magnificent!” exclaimed the Celebrity.

“And then,” my client continued, warming under this generous
appreciation, “there's something very smart about those colors. They're
my racing colors. Of course the granite's a little off, but it isn't
prominent. Willis kicked hard when it came to painting the oriel yellow,
but an architect always takes it for granted he knows it all, and a--”

“Fenelon,” said Mrs. Cooke, “luncheon is waiting.”

Mrs. Cooke dominated at luncheon and retired, and it is certain that
both Mr. Cooke and the Celebrity breathed more freely when she had gone.
If her criticisms on the exterior of the house were just, those on the
interior were more so. Not only did I find the coat-of-arms set forth on
the chairs, fire-screens, and other prominent articles, but it was even
cut into the swinging door of the butler's pantry. The motto I am afraid
my client never took the trouble to have translated, and I am inclined
to think his jewellers put up a little joke on him when they chose it.
“Be Sober and Boast not.”

I observed that Mrs. Cooke, when she chose, could exert the subduing
effect on her husband of a soft pedal on a piano; and during luncheon
she kept, the soft pedal on. And the Celebrity, being in some degree a
kindred spirit, was also held in check. But his wife had no sooner left
the room when Mr. Cooke began on the subject uppermost in his mind. I
had suspected that his trip to Asquith that morning was for a purpose at
which Mrs. Cooke had hinted. But she, with a woman's tact, had aimed to
accomplish by degrees that which her husband would carry by storm.

“You've been at Asquith sometime, Crocker,” Mr. Cooke began, “long
enough to know the people.”

“I know some of them,” I said guardedly. But the rush was not to be
stemmed.

“How many do you think you can muster for that entertainment of mine?
Fifty? I ought to have fifty, at least. Suppose you pick out fifty, and
send me up the names. I want good lively ones, you understand, that will
stir things up.”

“I am afraid there are not fifty of that kind there,” I replied.

His face fell, but brightened again instantly. He appealed to the
Celebrity.

“How about it, old man?” said he.

The Celebrity answered, with becoming modesty, that the Asquithians were
benighted. They had never had any one to show them how to enjoy life.
But there was hope for them.

“That's it,” exclaimed my client, slapping his thigh, and turning
triumphantly to me, he continued, “You're all right, Crocker, and know
enough to win a damned big suit, but you're not the man to steer a
delicate thing of this kind.”

This is how, to my infinite relief, the Celebrity came to engineer the
matter of the housewarming; and to him it was much more congenial. He
accepted the task cheerfully, and went about it in such a manner as to
leave no doubt in my mind as to its ultimate success. He was a master
hand at just such problems, and this one had a double attraction. It
pleased him to be thought the arbiter of such a worthy cause, while he
acquired a prominence at Asquith which satisfied in some part a craving
which he found inseparable from incognito.

His tactics were worthy of a skilled diplomatist. Before we left Mohair
that day he had exacted as a condition that Mr. Cooke should not appear
at the inn or in its vicinity until after the entertainment. To this my
client readily pledged himself with that absolute freedom from suspicion
which formed one of the most admirable traits of his character. The
Celebrity, being intuitively quick where women were concerned, had
surmised that Mrs. Cooke did not like him; but as her interests in
the affair of the cotillon coincided with those of Mr. Cooke, she was
available as a means to an end. The Celebrity deemed her, from a social
standpoint, decidedly the better part of the Mohair establishment, and
he contrived, by a system of manoeuvres I failed to grasp, to throw her
forward while he kept Mr. Cooke in the background.

He had much to contend with; above all, an antecedent prejudice against
the Cookes, in reality a prejudice against the world, the flesh, and
the devil, natural to any quiet community, and of which Mohair and its
appurtenances were taken as the outward and visible signs. Older people
came to Asquith for simplicity and rest, and the younger ones were
brought there for these things. Nearly all had sufficient wealth to
seek, if they chose, gayety and ostentation at the eastern resorts. But
Asquithians held gayety and ostentation at a discount, and maintained
there was gayety enough at home.

If any one were fitted to overcome this prejudice, it was Mrs. Cooke.
Her tastes and manners were as simple as her gowns. The Celebrity, by
arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at
Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the
track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they
were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.
Their example was followed by others at a time when the master of Mohair
was superintending in person the docking of some two-year-olds, and
equally invisible. These ladies likewise came back to sing Mrs. Cooke's
praises. Mrs. Cooke returned the calls. She took tea on the inn veranda,
and drove Mrs. Short around Mohair in her victoria. Mr. Cooke being seen
only on rare and fleeting occasions, there gradually got abroad a most
curious misconception of that gentleman's character, while over his
personality floated a mist of legend which the Celebrity took good
care not to dispel. Farrar, who despised nonsense, was ironical and
non-committal when appealed to, and certainly I betrayed none of
my client's attributes. Hence it came that Asquith, before the
house-warming, knew as little about Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, the man, as
the nineteenth century knows about William Shakespeare, and was every
whit as curious. Like Shakespeare, Mr. Cooke was judged by his works,
and from these he was generally conceded to be an illiterate and
indifferent person of barbarous tastes and a mania for horses. He was
further described as ungentlemanly by a brace of spinsters who had been
within earshot on the veranda the morning he had abused the Asquith
roads, but their evidence was not looked upon as damning. That Mr. Cooke
would appear at the cotillon never entered any one's head.

Thus it was, for a fortnight, Mr. Cooke maintained a most rigid
seclusion. Would that he had discovered in the shroud of mystery the
cloak of fame!




VOLUME 2.




CHAPTER V

It was small wonder, said the knowing at Asquith, that Mr. Charles
Wrexell Allen should be attracted by Irene Trevor. With the lake breezes
of the north the red and the tan came into her cheeks, those boon
companions of the open who are best won by the water-winds. Perhaps they
brought, too, the spring to the step and the light under the long lashes
when she flashed a look across the table. Little by little it became
plain that Miss Trevor was gaining ground with the Celebrity to the
neglect of the other young women at Asquith, and when it was announced
that he was to lead the cotillon with her, the fact was regarded as
significant. Even at Asquith such things were talked about. Mr. Allen
became a topic and a matter of conjecture. He was, I believe, generally
regarded as a good match; his unimpeachable man-servant argued worldly
possessions, of which other indications were not lacking, while his
crest was cited as a material sign of family. Yet when Miss Brewster,
one of the brace of spinsters, who hailed from Brookline and purported
to be an up-to-date edition of the Boston Blue Book, questioned the
Celebrity on this vital point after the searching manner warranted
by the gravity of the subject, he was unable to acquit himself
satisfactorily. When this conversation was repeated in detail within the
hearing of the father of the young woman in question, and undoubtedly
for his benefit, Mr. Trevor threw shame to the winds and scandalized the
Misses Brewster then and there by proclaiming his father to have been
a country storekeeper. In the eyes of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke the
apotheosis of the Celebrity was complete. The people of Asquith were not
only willing to attend the house-warming, but had been worked up to the
pitch of eagerness. The Celebrity as a matter of course was master of
ceremonies. He originated the figures and arranged the couples, of which
there were twelve from Asquith and ten additional young women. These
ten were assigned to the ten young men whom Mr. Cooke expected in
his private car, and whose appearances, heights, and temperaments the
Celebrity obtained from Mr. Cooke, carefully noted, and compared with
those of the young women. Be it said in passing that Mrs. Cooke
had nothing to do with any of it, but exhibited an almost criminal
indifference. Mr. Cooke had even chosen the favors; charity forbids that
I should say what they were.

Owing to the frequent consultations which these preparations made
necessary the Celebrity was much in the company of my client, which
he came greatly to prefer to mine, and I therefore abandoned my
determination to leave Asquith. I was settling down delightedly to
my old, easy, and unmolested existence when Farrar and I received
an invitation, which amounted to a summons, to go to Mohair and make
ourselves generally useful. So we packed up and went. We made an odd
party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity
dropped in for lunch or dinner. He could not be induced to remain
permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he
appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip
sometimes twice in a day. The fact that Mrs. Cooke treated him with
unqualified disapproval did not dampen his spirits or lessen the
frequency of his visits, nor, indeed, did it seem to create any breach
between husband and wife. Mr. Cooke took it for granted that his friends
should not please his wife, and Mrs. Cooke remarked to Farrar and
me that her husband was old enough to know better, and too old to be
taught. She loved him devotedly and showed it in a hundred ways, but she
was absolutely incapable of dissimulation.

Thanks to Mrs. Cooke, our visit to Mohair was a pleasant one. We were
able in many ways to help in the arrangements, especially Farrar, who
had charge of decorating the grounds. We saw but little of Mr. Cooke and
the Celebrity.

The arrival of the Ten was an event of importance, and occurred the
day of the dance. I shall treat the Ten as a whole because they did not
materially differ from one another in dress or habits or ambition or
general usefulness on this earth. It is true that Mr. Cooke had been
able to make delicate distinctions between them for the aid of the
Celebrity, but such distinctions were beyond me, and the power to make
them lay only in a long and careful study of the species which I could
not afford to give. Likewise the life of any one of the Ten was the life
of all, and might be truthfully represented by a single year, since
each year was exactly like the preceding. The ordinary year, as is
well-known, begins on the first of January. But theirs was not the
ordinary year, nor the Church year, nor the fiscal year. Theirs began in
the Fall with the New York Horse Show. And I am of the opinion, though
open to correction, that they dated from the first Horse Show instead
of from the birth of Christ. It is certain that they were much better
versed in the history of the Association than in that of the Union, in
the biography of Excelsior rather than that of Lincoln. The Dog Show was
another event to which they looked forward, when they migrated to New
York and put up at the country places of their friends. But why go
farther?

The Ten made themselves very much at home at Mohair. One of them told
the Celebrity he reminded him very much of a man he had met in New York
and who had written a book, or something of that sort, which made the
Celebrity wince. The afternoon was spent in one of the stable lofts,
where Mr. Cooke had set up a mysterious L-shaped box, in one arm
of which a badger was placed by a groom, while my client's Sarah, a
terrier, was sent into the other arm to invite the badger out. His
objections exceeded the highest hopes; he dug his claws into the wood
and devoted himself to Sarah's countenance with unremitting industry.
This occupation was found so absorbing that it was with difficulty the
Ten were induced to abandon it and dress for an early dinner, and only
did so after the second peremptory message from Mrs. Cooke.

“It's always this way,” said Mr. Cooke, regretfully, as he watched
Sarah licking the accessible furrows in her face; “I never started in on
anything worth doing yet that Maria did not stop it.”

Farrar and I were not available for the dance, and after dinner we
looked about for a quiet spot in which to weather it, and where we
could be within reach if needed. Such a place as this was the Florentine
galleried porch, which ran along outside the upper windows of the
ball-room; these were flung open, for the night was warm. At one end
of the room the musicians, imported from Minneapolis by Mr. Cooke, were
striking the first discordant notes of the tuning, while at the other
the Celebrity and my client, in scarlet hunting-coats, were gravely
instructing the Ten, likewise in scarlet hunting-coats, as to their
conduct and functions. We were reviewing these interesting proceedings
when Mrs. Cooke came hurrying towards us. She held a letter in her hand.

“You know,” said she, “that Mr. Cooke is forgetful, particularly when
his mind is occupied with important matters, as it has been for some
time. Here is a letter from my niece, Miss Thorn, which he has carried
in his pocket since Monday. We expected her two weeks ago, and had given
her up. But it seems she was to leave Philadelphia on Wednesday, and
will be at that forlorn little station of Asquith at half-past nine
to-night. I want you two to go over and meet her.”

We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station
wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine.
We passed on the way the van of the guests from Asquith. As we reached
the lodge we heard the whistle, and we backed up against one side of the
platform as the train pulled up at the other.

Farrar and I are not imaginative; we did not picture to ourselves any
particular type for the girl we were going to meet, we were simply doing
our best to get to the station before the train. We jumped from the
wagon and were watching the people file out of the car, and I noticed
that more than one paused to look back over their shoulders as they
reached the door. Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after
her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above
the grimy steps, with something of the stately pose which Richter has
given his Queen Louise on the stairway, and the light of the reflector
fell full upon her. She looked around expectantly, and recognizing Mrs.
Cooke's maid, who had stepped forward to relieve hers of the shawls,
Miss Thorn greeted her with a smile which greatly prepossessed us in her
favor.

“How do you do, Jennie?” she said. “Did any one else come?”

“Yes, Miss Marian,” replied Jennie, abashed but pleased,--“these
gentlemen.”

Farrar and I introduced ourselves, awkwardly enough, and we both tried
to explain at once how it was that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Cooke was there
to meet her. Of course we made an absolute failure of it. She scanned
our faces with a puzzled expression for a while and then broke into a
laugh.

“I think I understand,” she said; “they are having the house-warming.”

“She's first-rate at guessing,” said Farrar to me as we fled
precipitately to see that the trunks were hoisted into the basket.
Neither of us had much presence of mind as we climbed into the wagon,
and, what was even stranger, could not account for the lack of it. Miss
Thorn was seated in the corner; in spite of the darkness I could see
that she was laughing at us still.

“I feel very badly that I should have taken you away from the dance,” we
heard her say.

“We don't dance,” I answered clumsily, “and we were glad to come.”

“Yes, we were glad to come,” Farrar chimed in.

Then we relapsed into a discomfited silence, and wished we were anywhere
else. But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, and with
such a hearty enjoyment that instead of getting angry and more mortified
we began to laugh ourselves, and instantly felt better. After that we
got along famously. She had at once the air of good fellowship and
the dignity of a woman, and she seemed to understand Farrar and me
perfectly. Not once did she take us over our heads, though she might
have done so with ease, and we knew this and were thankful. We began to
tell her about Mohair and the cotillon, and of our point of observation
from the Florentine galleried porch, and she insisted she would join us
there. By the time we reached the house we were thanking our stars she
had come. Mrs. Cooke came out under the port-cochere to welcome her.

“Unfortunately there is no one to dance with you, Marian,” she said;
“but if I had not by chance gone through your uncle's pockets, there
would have been no one to meet you.”

I think I had never felt my deficiency in dancing until that moment. But
Miss Thorn took her aunt's hand affectionately in hers.

“My dear Aunt Maria,” said she, “I would not dance to-night if there
were twenty to choose from. I should like nothing better than to look on
with these two. We are the best of friends already,” she added, turning
towards us, “are we not?”

“We are indeed,” we hastened to assure her.

Mrs. Cooke smiled.

“You should have been a man, Marian,” she said as they went upstairs
together.

We made our way to the galleried porch and sat down, there being a lull
in the figures just then. We each took out a cigar and lighted a match;
and then looked across at the other. We solemnly blew our matches out.

“Perhaps she doesn't like smoke,” said Farrar, voicing the sentiment.

“Perhaps not,” said I.

Silence.

“I wonder how she will get along with the Ten?” I queried.

“Better than with us,” he answered in his usual strain. “They're
trained.”

“Or with Allen?” I added irresistibly.

“Women are all alike,” said Farrar.

At this juncture Miss Thorn herself appeared at the end of the gallery,
her shoulders wrapped in a gray cape trimmed with fur. She stood
regarding us with some amusement as we rose to receive her.

“Light your cigars and be sensible,” said she, “or I shall go in.”

We obeyed. The three of us turned to the window to watch the figure, the
music of which was just beginning. Mr. Cooke, with the air of an English
squire at his own hunt ball, was strutting contentedly up and down one
end of the room, now pausing to exchange a few hearty words with some
Presbyterian matron from Asquith, now to congratulate Mr. Trevor on the
appearance of his daughter. Lined against the opposite wall were the
Celebrity and his ten red-coated followers, just rising for the figure.
It was very plain that Miss Trevor was radiantly happy; she was easily
the handsomest girl in the room, and I could not help philosophizing
when I saw her looking up into the Celebrity's eyes upon the seeming
inconsistency of nature, who has armed and warned woman against all but
her most dangerous enemy.

And then a curious thing happened. The Celebrity, as if moved by a
sudden uncontrollable impulse, raised his eyes until they rested on the
window in which we were. Although his dancing was perfect, he lost the
step without apparent cause, his expression changed, and for the moment
he seemed to be utterly confused. But only for the moment; in a trice
he had caught the time again and swept Miss Trevor rapidly down the room
and out of sight. I looked instinctively at the girl beside me. She had
thrown her head forward, and in the streaming light I saw that her lips
were parted in a smile.

I resolved upon a stroke.

“Mr. Allen,” I remarked, “leads admirably.”

“Mr. Allen!” she exclaimed, turning on me.

“Yes, it is Mr. Allen who is leading,” I repeated.

An expression of perplexity spread over her face, but she said nothing.
My curiosity was aroused to a high pitch, and questions were rising to
my lips which I repressed with difficulty. For Miss Thorn had displayed,
purposely or not, a reticence which my short acquaintance with her
compelled me to respect; and, besides, I was bound by a promise not to
betray the Celebrity's secret. I was, however, convinced from what had
occurred that she had met the Celebrity in the East, and perhaps known
him.

Had she fallen in love with him, as was the common fate of all young
women he met? I changed my opinion on this subject a dozen times. Now
I was sure, as I looked at her, that she was far too sensible; again, a
doubt would cross my mind as the Celebrity himself would cross my view,
the girl on his arm reduced to adoration. I followed him narrowly when
in sight. Miss Thorn was watching him, too, her eyes half closed, as
though in thought. But beyond the fact that he threw himself into the
dance with a somewhat increased fervor, perhaps, his manner betokened
no uneasiness, and not even by a glance did he betray any disturbing
influence from above.

Thus we stood silently until the figure was finished, when Miss Thorn
seated herself in one of the wicker chairs behind us.

“Doesn't it make you wish to dance?” said Farrar to her. “It is hard
luck you should be doomed to spend the evening with two such useless
fellows as we are.”

She did not catch his remark at first, as was natural in a person
preoccupied. Then she bit her lips to repress a smile.

“I assure you, Mr. Farrar,” she said with force, “I have never in my
life wished to dance as little as I do now.”

But a voice interrupted her, and the scarlet coat of the Celebrity was
thrust into the light between us. Farrar excused himself abruptly and
disappeared.

“Never wished to dance less!” cried the Celebrity. “Upon my word,
Miss Thorn, that's too bad. I came up to ask you to reconsider your
determination, as one of the girls from Asquith is leaving, and there is
an extra man.”

“You are very kind,” said Miss Thorn, quietly, “but I prefer to remain
here.”

My surmise, then, was correct. She had evidently met the Celebrity,
and there was that in his manner of addressing her, without any formal
greeting, which seemed to point to a close acquaintance.

“You know Mr. Allen, then, Miss Thorn?” said I.

“What can you mean?” she exclaimed, wheeling on me; “this is not Mr.
Allen.”

“Hang you, Crocker,” the Celebrity put in impatiently; “Miss Thorn knows
who I am as well as you do.”

“I confess it is a little puzzling,” said she; “perhaps it is because I
am tired from travelling, and my brain refuses to work. But why in the
name of all that is strange do you call him Mr. Allen?”

The Celebrity threw himself into the chair beside her and asked
permission to light a cigarette.

“I am going to ask you the favor of respecting my incognito, Miss Thorn,
as Crocker has done,” he said. “Crocker knew me in the East, too. I had
not counted upon finding him at Asquith.”

Miss Thorn straightened herself and made a gesture of impatience.

“An incognito!” she cried. “But you have taken another man's name. And
you already had his face and figure!”

I jumped.

“That is so,” he calmly returned; “the name was ready to hand, and so I
took it. I don't imagine it will make any difference to him. It's only a
whim of mine, and with me there's no accounting for a whim. I make it
a point to gratify every one that strikes me. I confess to being
eccentric, you know.”

“You must get an enormous amount of gratification out of this,” she said
dryly. “What if the other man should happen along?”

“Scarcely at Asquith.”

“I have known stranger things to occur,” said she.

The Celebrity smiled and smoked.

“I'll wager, now,” he went on, “that you little thought to find me
here incognito. But it is delicious, I assure you, to lead once more a
commonplace and unmolested existence.”

“Delightful,” said Miss Thorn.

“People never consider an author apart from his work, you know, and
I confess I had a desire to find out how I would get along. And there
comes a time when a man wishes he had never written a book, and a
longing to be sought after for his own sake and to be judged on his own
merits. And then it is a great relief to feel that one is not at the
beck and call of any one and every one wherever one goes, and to know
that one is free to choose one's own companions and do as one wishes.”

“The sentiment is good,” Miss Thorn agreed, “very good. But doesn't it
seem a little odd, Mr. Crocker,” she continued, appealing to me, “that
a man should take the pains to advertise a trip to Europe in order to
gratify a whim of this sort?”

“It is indeed incomprehensible to me,” I replied, with a kind of grim
pleasure, “but you must remember that I have always led a commonplace
existence.”

Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now
beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness
dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it
merited. It was with a palpable relief that he heard the first warning
notes of the figure.

“Am I to understand that you wish me to do my part in concealing your
identity?” asked Miss Thorn, cutting him short as he was expressing
pleasure at her arrival.

“If you will be so kind,” he answered, and departed with a bow. There
was a mischievous mirth in her eye as she took her place in the window.
Below in the ball-room sat Miss Trevor surrounded by men, and I saw her
face lighting at the Celebrity's approach.

“Who is that beautiful girl he is dancing with?” said Miss Thorn.

I told her.

“Have you read his books?” she asked, after a pause.

“Some of them.”

“So have I.”

The Celebrity was not mentioned again that evening.




CHAPTER VI

As an endeavor to unite Mohair and Asquith the cotillon had proved a
dismal failure. They were as the clay and the brass. The next morning
Asquith was split into factions and rent by civil strife, and the porch
of the inn was covered by little knots of women, all trying to talk at
once; their faces told an ominous tale. Not a man was to be seen. The
Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Chicago papers, all of which had previously
contained elaborate illustrated accounts of Mr. Cooke's palatial park
and residence, came out that morning bristling with headlines about
the ball, incidentally holding up the residents of a quiet and retiring
little community in a light that scandalized them beyond measure. And
Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen, treasurer of the widely known Miles Standish
Bicycle Company, was said to have led the cotillon in a manner that left
nothing to be desired.

So it was this gentleman whom the Celebrity was personating! A queer
whim indeed.

After that, I doubt if the court of Charles the Second was regarded
by the Puritans with a greater abhorrence than was Mohair by the
good ladies of Asquith. Mr. Cooke and his ten friends were branded as
profligates whose very scarlet coats bore witness that they were of the
devil. Mr. Cooke himself, who particularly savored of brimstone, would
much better have remained behind the arras, for he was denounced with
such energy and bitterness that those who might have attempted his
defence were silent, and their very silence told against them. Mr. Cooke
had indeed outdone himself in hospitality. He had posted punch-bowls in
every available corner, and so industriously did he devote himself to
the duties of host, as he conceived them, that as many as four of the
patriarchs of Asquith and pillars of the church had returned home more
or less insensible, while others were quite incoherent. The odds being
overwhelming, the master of Mohair had at length fallen a victim to his
own good cheer. He took post with Judge Short at the foot of the
stair, where, in spite of the protests of the Celebrity and of other
well-disposed persons, the two favored the parting guests with an
occasional impromptu song and waved genial good-byes to the ladies. And,
when Mrs. Short attempted to walk by with her head in the air, as though
the judge were in an adjoining county, he so far forgot his judicial
dignity as to chuck her under the chin, an act which was applauded with
much boyish delight by Mr. Cooke, and a remark which it is just as well
not to repeat. The judge desired to spend the night at Mohair, but was
afterwards taken home by main force, and the next day his meals were
brought up to him. It is small wonder that Mrs. Short was looked upon as
the head of the outraged party. The Ten were only spoken of in whispers.
Three of them had been unable to come to time when the last figure was
called, whereupon their partners were whisked off the scene without
so much as being allowed to pay their respects to the hostess. Besides
these offences, there were other minor barbarisms too numerous to
mention.

Although Mrs. Short's party was all-powerful at Asquith, there were some
who, for various reasons, refused to agree in the condemnation of Mr.
Cooke. Judge Short and the other gentlemen in his position were, of
course, restricted, but Mr. Trevor came out boldly in the face of severe
criticism and declared that his daughter should accept any invitation
from Mrs. Cooke that she chose, and paid but little attention to the
coolness resulting therefrom. He was fast getting a reputation for
oddity. And the Celebrity tried to conciliate both parties, and
succeeded, though none but he could have done it. At first he was eyed
with suspicion and disgust as he drove off to Mohair in his Hempstead
cart, and was called many hard names. But he had a way about him which
won them in the end.

A few days later I ran over to Mohair and found my client with the
colored Sunday supplement of a Chicago newspaper spread out before him,
eyeing the page with something akin to childish delight. I discovered
that it was a picture of his own hunt ball, and as a bit of color it was
marvellous, the scarlet coats being very much in evidence.

“There, old man!” he exclaimed. “What do you think of that? Something of
a sendoff, eh?” And he pointed to a rather stout and important gentleman
in the foreground. “That's me!” he said proudly, “and they wouldn't do
that for Farquhar Fenelon Cooke in Philadelphia.”

“A prophet is without honor in his own country,” I remarked.

“I don't set up for a prophet,” said Mr. Cooke, “but I did predict that
I would start a ripple here, didn't I?”

I did not deny this.

“How do I stand over there?” he inquired, designating Asquith by a twist
of the head. “I hear they're acting all over the road; that they think
I'm the very devil.”

“Well, your stock has dropped some, I admit,” I answered. “They didn't
take kindly to your getting the judge drunk, you know.”

“They oughtn't to complain about that,” said my client; “and besides, he
wasn't drunk enough to amount to anything.”

“However that may be,” said I, “you have the credit for leading him
astray. But there is a split in your favor.”

“I'm glad to know that,” he said, brightening; “then I won't have to
import any more.”

“Any more what?” I asked.

“People from the East to keep things moving, of course. What I have
here and those left me at the inn ought to be enough to run through the
summer with. Don't you think so?”

I thought so, and was moving off when he called me back.

“Is the judge locked up, old man?” he demanded.

“He's under rather close surveillance,” I replied, smiling.

“Crocker;” he said confidentially, “see if you can't smuggle him over
here some day soon. The judge always holds good cards, and plays a
number one hand.”

I promised, and escaped. On the veranda I came upon Miss Thorn
surrounded by some of her uncle's guests. I imagine that she was bored,
for she looked it.

“Mr. Crocker,” she called out, “you're just the man I have been wishing
to see.”

The others naturally took this for a dismissal, and she was not long in
coming to her point when we were alone.

“What is it you know about this queer but gifted genius who is here so
mysteriously?” she asked.

“Nothing whatever,” I confessed. “I knew him before he thought of
becoming a genius.”

“Retrogression is always painful,” she said; “but tell me something
about him then.”

I told her all I knew, being that narrated in these pages. “Now,” said
I, “if you will pardon a curiosity on my part, from what you said the
other evening I inferred that he closely resembles the man whose name it
pleased him to assume. And that man, I learn from the newspapers, is Mr.
Charles Wrexell Allen of the 'Miles Standish Bicycle Company.'”

Miss Thorn made a comic gesture of despair.

“Why he chose Mr. Allen's name,” she said, “is absolutely beyond my
guessing. Unless there is some purpose behind the choice, which I do not
for an instant believe, it was a foolish thing to do, and one very apt
to lead to difficulties. I can understand the rest. He has a reputation
for eccentricity which he feels he must keep up, and this notion of
assuming a name evidently appealed to him as an inspiration.”

“But why did he come out here?” I asked. “Can you tell me that?”

Miss Thorn flushed slightly, and ignored the question.

“I met the 'Celebrity,' as you call him,” she said, “for the first time
last winter, and I saw him frequently during the season. Of course I had
heard not a little about him and his peculiarities. His name seems to
have gone the length and breadth of the land. And, like most girls, I
had read his books and confess I enjoyed them. It is not too much to
say,” she added archly, “that I made a sort of archangel out of the
author.”

“I can understand that,” said I.

“But that did not last,” she continued hastily. “I see I have got beside
my story. I saw a great deal of him in New York. He came to call, and I
believe I danced with him once or twice. And then my aunt, Mrs. Rivers,
bought a place near Epsom, in Massachusetts, and had a house party there
in May. And the Celebrity was invited.”

I smiled.

“Oh, I assure you it was a mere chance,” said Miss Thorn. “I mention
this that I may tell you the astonishing part of it all. Epsom is one of
those smoky manufacturing towns one sees in New England, and the 'Miles
Standish' bicycle is made there. The day after we all arrived at my
aunt's a man came up the drive on a wheel whom I greeted in a friendly
way and got a decidedly uncertain bow in return.

“I thought it rather a strange shift from a marked cordiality, and spoke
of the circumstance to my aunt, who was highly amused. 'Why, my dear,'
said she, 'that was Mr. Allen, of the bicycle company. I was nearly
deceived myself.'”

“And is the resemblance so close as that?” I exclaimed.

“So close! Believe me, they are as like as two ices from a mould. Of
course, when they are together one can distinguish the Celebrity from
the bicycle man. The Celebrity's chin is a little more square, and his
nose straighter, and there are other little differences. I believe
Mr. Allen has a slight scar on his forehead. But the likeness was
remarkable, nevertheless, and it grew to be a standing joke with
us. They actually dressed ludicrously alike. The Celebrity became so
sensitive about it that he went back to New York before the party broke
up. We grew to be quite fond of the bicycle man.”

She paused and shifted her chair, which had rocked close to mine.

“And can you account for his coming to Asquith?” I asked innocently.

She was plainly embarrassed.

“I suppose I might account for it, Mr. Crocker,” she replied. Then she
added, with something of an impulse, “After all, it is foolish of me not
to tell you. You probably know the Celebrity well enough to have learned
that he takes idiotic fancies to young women.”

“Not always idiotic,” I protested.

“You mean that the young women are not always idiotic, I suppose. No,
not always, but nearly always. I imagine he got the idea of coming to
Asquith,” she went on with a change of manner, “because I chanced to
mention that I was coming out here on a visit.”

“Oh,” I remarked, and there words failed me.

Her mouth was twitching with merriment.

“I am afraid you will have to solve the rest of it for yourself, Mr.
Crocker,” said she; “that is all of my contribution. My uncle tells me
you are the best lawyer in the country, and I am surprised that you are
so slow in getting at motives.”

And I did attempt to solve it on my way back to Asquith. The conclusion
I settled to, everything weighed, was this: that the Celebrity had
become infatuated with Miss Thorn (I was far from blaming him for that)
and had followed her first to Epsom and now to Asquith. And he had
chosen to come West incognito partly through the conceit which he
admitted and gloried in, and partly because he believed his prominence
sufficient to obtain for him an unpleasant notoriety if he continued
long enough to track the same young lady about the country. Hence he had
taken the trouble to advertise a trip abroad to account for his absence.
Undoubtedly his previous conquests had been made more easily, for my
second talk with Miss Thorn had put my mind at rest as to her having
fallen a victim to his fascinations. Her arrival at Mohair being
delayed, the Celebrity had come nearly a month too soon, and in the
interval that tendency of which he was the dupe still led him by the
nose; he must needs make violent love to the most attractive girl on the
ground,--Miss Trevor. Now that one still more attractive had arrived
I was curious to see how he would steer between the two, for I made no
doubt that matters had progressed rather far with Miss Trevor. And in
this I was not mistaken.

But his choice of the name of Charles Wrexell Allen bothered me
considerably. I finally decided that he had taken it because convenient,
and because he believed Asquith to be more remote from the East than the
Sandwich Islands.

Reaching the inn grounds, I climbed the hillside to a favorite haunt of
mine, a huge boulder having a sloping back covered with soft turf. Hence
I could watch indifferently both lake and sky. Presently, however, I was
aroused by voices at the foot of the rock, and peering over the edge I
discovered a kind of sewing-circle gathered there. The foliage hid me
completely. I perceived the Celebrity perched upon the low branch of
an apple-tree, and Miss Trevor below him, with two other girls, doing
fancy-work. I shall not attempt to defend the morality of my action,
but I could not get away without discovery, and the knowledge that I had
heard a part of their conversation might prove disquieting to them.

The Celebrity had just published a book, under the title of 'The
Sybarites', which was being everywhere discussed; and Asquith, where
summer reading was general, came in for its share of the debate. Why
it was called The Sybarites I have never discovered. I did not read the
book because I was sick and tired of the author and his nonsense, but I
imbibed, in spite of myself, something of the story and its moral from
hearing it talked about. The Celebrity himself had listened to arguments
on the subject with great serenity, and was nothing loth to give his
opinion when appealed to. I realized at once that 'The Sybarites' was
the present topic.

“Yes, it is rather an uncommon book,” he was saying languidly, “but
there is no use writing a story unless it is uncommon.”

“Dear, how I should like to meet the author!” exclaimed a voice. “He
must be a charming man, and so young, too! I believe you said you knew
him, Mr. Allen.”

“An old acquaintance,” he answered, “and I am always reminding him that
his work is overestimated.”

“How can you say he is overestimated!” said a voice.

“You men are all jealous of him,” said another.

“Is he handsome? I have heard he is.”

“He would scarcely be called so,” said the Celebrity, doubtfully.

“He is, girls,” Miss Trevor interposed; “I have seen his photograph.”

“What does he look like, Irene?” they chorused. “Men are no judges.”

“He is tall, and dark, and broad-shouldered,” Miss Trevor enumerated,
as though counting her stitches, “and he has a very firm chin, and a
straight nose, and--”

“Perfect!” they cried. “I had an idea he was just like that. I should go
wild about him. Does he talk as well as he writes, Mr. Allen?”

“That is admitting that he writes well.”

“Admitting?” they shouted scornfully, “and don't you admit it?”

“Some people like his writing, I have to confess,” said the Celebrity,
with becoming calmness; “certainly his personality could not sell an
edition of thirty thousand in a month. I think 'The Sybarites' the best
of his works.”

“Upon my word, Mr. Allen, I am disgusted with you,” said the second
voice; “I have not found a man yet who would speak a good word for him.
But I did not think it of you.”

A woman's tongue, like a firearm, is a dangerous weapon, and often
strikes where it is least expected. I saw with a wicked delight that the
shot had told, for the Celebrity blushed to the roots of his hair, while
Miss Trevor dropped three or four stitches.

“I do not see how you can expect men to like 'The Sybarites',” she said,
with some heat; “very few men realize or care to realize what a small
chance the average woman has. I know marriage isn't a necessary goal,
but most women, as well as most men, look forward to it at some time of
life, and, as a rule, a woman is forced to take her choice of the two or
three men that offer themselves, no matter what they are. I admire a man
who takes up the cudgels for women, as he has done.”

“Of course we admire him,” they cried, as soon as Miss Trevor had
stopped for breath.

“And can you expect a man to like a book which admits that women are the
more constant?” she went on.

“Why, Irene, you are quite rabid on the subject,” said the second voice;
“I did not say I expected it. I only said I had hoped to find Mr. Allen,
at least, broad enough to agree with the book.”

“Doesn't Mr. Allen remind you a little of Desmond?” asked the first
voice, evidently anxious to avoid trouble.

“Do you know whom he took for Desmond, Mr. Allen? I have an idea it was
himself.”

Mr. Allen, had now recovered some of his composure.

“If so, it was done unconsciously,” he said. “I suppose an author must
put his best thoughts in the mouth of his hero.”

“But it is like him?” she insisted.

“Yes, he holds the same views.”

“Which you do not agree with.”

“I have not said I did not agree with them,” he replied, taking up his
own defence; “the point is not that men are more inconstant than
women, but that women have more excuse for inconstancy. If I remember
correctly, Desmond, in a letter to Rosamond, says: 'Inconstancy in a
woman, because of the present social conditions, is often pardonable. In
a man, nothing is more despicable.' I think that is so. I believe that
a man should stick by the woman to whom he has given his word as closely
as he sticks by his friends.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the aggressive second voice, “that is all very well. But
how about the woman to whom he has not given his word? Unfortunately,
the present social conditions allow a man to go pretty far without a
definite statement.”

At this I could not refrain from looking at Miss Trevor. She was bending
over her knitting and had broken her thread.

“It is presumption for a man to speak without some foundation,” said the
Celebrity, “and wrong unless he is sure of himself.”


“But you must admit,” the second voice continued, “that a man has
no right to amuse himself with a woman, and give her every reason to
believe he is going to marry her save the only manly and substantial
one. And yet that is something which happens every day. What do you
think of a man who deserts a woman under those conditions?”

“He is a detestable dog, of course,” declared the Celebrity.

And the cock in the inn yard was silent.

“I should love to be able to quote from a book at will,” said the
quieting voice, for the sake of putting an end to an argument which bid
fair to become disagreeable. “How do you manage to do it?”

“It was simply a passage that stuck in my mind,” he answered modestly;
“when I read a book I pick them up just as a roller picks up a sod here
and there as it moves over the lawn.”

“I should think you might write, Mr. Allen, you have such an original
way of putting things!”

“I have thought of it,” returned the Celebrity, “and I may, some fine
day.”

Wherewith he thrust his hands into his pockets and sauntered off with
equanimity undisturbed, apparently unaware of the impression he had left
behind him. And the Fifth Reader story popped into my head of good King
William (or King Frederick, I forgot which), who had a royal fancy for
laying aside the gayeties of the court and straying incognito among his
plainer subjects, but whose princely origin was invariably detected in
spite of any disguise his Majesty could invent.




CHAPTER VII

I experienced a great surprise a few mornings afterwards. I had risen
quite early, and found the Celebrity's man superintending the hoisting
of luggage on top of a van.

“Is your master leaving?” I asked.

“He's off to Mohair now, sir,” said the valet, with a salute.

At that instant the Celebrity himself appeared.

“Yes, old chap, I'm off to Mohair,” he explained. “There's more sport in
a day up there than you get here in a season. Beastly slow place, this,
unless one is a deacon or a doctor of divinity. Why don't you come up,
Crocker? Cooke would like nothing better; he has told me so a dozen
times.”

“He is very good,” I replied. I could not resist the temptation to add,
“I had an idea Asquith rather suited your purposes just now.”

“I don't quite understand,” he said, jumping at the other half of my
meaning.

“Oh, nothing. But you told me when you came here, if I am not mistaken,
that you chose Asquith because of those very qualities for which you now
condemn it.”

“Magna est vis consuetudinis,” he laughed; “I thought I could stand the
life, but I can't. I am tired of their sects and synods and sermons. By
the way,” said he pulling at my sleeve, “what a deuced pretty girl that
Miss Thorn is! Isn't she? Rollins, where's the cart? Well, good-bye,
Crocker; see you soon.”

He drove rapidly off as the clock struck six, and an uneasy glance he
gave the upper windows did not escape me. When Farrar appeared, I told
him what had happened.

“Good riddance,” he replied sententiously.

We sat in silence until the bell rang, looking at the morning sun on the
lake. I was a little anxious to learn the state of Farrar's feelings in
regard to Miss Trevor, and how this new twist in affairs had affected
them. But I might as well have expected one of King Louis's carp
to whisper secrets of the old regime. The young lady came to the
breakfast-table looking so fresh and in such high spirits that I made
sure she had not heard of the Celebrity's ignoble escape. As the meal
proceeded it was easy to mark that her eye now and again fell across his
empty chair, and glanced inquiringly towards the door. I made up my mind
that I would not be the bearer of evil news, and so did Farrar, so we
kept up a vapid small-talk with Mr. Trevor on the condition of trade
in the West. Miss Trevor, however, in some way came to suspect that
we could account for that vacant seat. At last she fixed her eye
inquiringly on me, and I trembled.

“Mr. Crocker,” she began, and paused. Then she added with a fair
unconcern, “do you happen to know where Mr. Allen is this morning?”

“He has gone over to Mohair, I believe,” I replied weakly.

“To Mohair!” she exclaimed, putting down her cup; “why, he promised to
go canoeing at ten.

“Probably he will be back by then,” I ventured, not finding it in my
heart to tell her the cruel truth. But I kept my eyes on my plate. They
say a lie has short legs. Mine had, for my black friend, Simpson, was at
that instant taking off the fruit, and overheard my remark.

“Mr. Allen done gone for good,” he put in, “done give me five dollars
last night. Why, sah,” he added, scratching his head, “you was on de
poch dis mornin' when his trunks was took away!”

It was certainly no time to quibble then.

“His trunks!” Miss Trevor exclaimed.

“Yes, he has left us and gone to Mohair,” I said, “bag and baggage. That
is the flat truth of it.”

I suppose there is some general rule for calculating beforehand how a
young woman is going to act when news of this sort is broken. I had no
notion of what Miss Trevor would do. I believe Farrar thought she would
faint, for he laid his napkin on the table. She did nothing of the kind,
but said simply:

“How unreliable men are!”

I fell to guessing what her feelings were; for the life of me I could
not tell from her face. I was sorry for Miss Trevor in spite of the fact
that she had neglected to ask my advice before falling in love with the
Celebrity. I asked her to go canoeing with me. She refused kindly but
very firmly.

It is needless to say that the Celebrity did not come back to the inn,
and as far as I could see the desertion was designed, cold-blooded,
and complete. Miss Trevor remained out of sight during the day of his
departure, and at dinner we noticed traces of a storm about her,--a
storm which had come and gone. There was an involuntary hush as she
entered the dining-room, for Asquith had been buzzing that afternoon
over the episode. And I admired the manner in which she bore her
inspection. Already rumors of the cause of Mr. Allen's departure were in
active circulation, and I was astonished to learn that he had been seen
that day seated upon Indian rock with Miss Thorn herself. This piece of
news gave me a feeling of insecurity about people, and about women
in particular, that I had never before experienced. After holding the
Celebrity up to such unmeasured ridicule as she had done, ridicule not
without a seasoning of contempt, it was difficult to believe Miss Thorn
so inconsistent as to go alone with him to Indian rock; and she was
not ignorant of Miss Trevor's experience. But the fact was attested by
trustworthy persons.

I have often wondered what prompted me to ask Miss Trevor again to go
canoeing. To do myself justice, it was no wish of mine to meddle with or
pry into her affairs. Neither did I flatter myself that my poor company
would be any consolation for that she had lost. I shall not try to
analyze my motive. Suffice it to record that she accepted this second
invitation, and I did my best to amuse her by relating a few of my
experiences at the bar, and I told that memorable story of Farrar
throwing O'Meara into the street. We were getting along famously, when
we descried another canoe passing us at some distance, and we both
recognized the Celebrity at the paddle by the flannel jacket of his
college boat club. And Miss Thorn sat in the bow!

“Do you know anything about that man, Miss Trevor?” I asked abruptly.

She grew scarlet, but replied:

“I know that he is a fraud.”

“Anything else?”

“I can't say that I do; that is, nothing but what he has told me.”

“If you will forgive my curiosity,” I said, “what has he told you?”

“He says he is the author of The Sybarites,” she answered, her lip
curling, “but of course I do not believe that, now.”

“But that happens to be true,” I said, smiling.

She clapped her hands.

“I promised him I wouldn't tell,” she cried, “but the minute I get back
to the inn I shall publish it.”

“No, don't do that just yet,” said I.

“Why not? Of course I shall.”

I had no definite reason, only a vague hope that we should get some
better sort of enjoyment out of the disclosure before the summer was
over.

“You see,” I said, “he is always getting into scrapes; he is that kind
of a man. And it is my humble opinion that he has put his head into a
noose this time, for sure. Mr. Allen, of the 'Miles Standish Bicycle
Company,' whose name he has borrowed for the occasion, is enough like
him in appearance to be his twin brother.”

“He has borrowed another man's name!” she exclaimed; “why, that's
stealing!”

“No, merely kleptomania,” I replied; “he wouldn't be the other man if he
could. But it has struck me that the real Mr. Allen might turn up here,
or some friend of his, and stir things a bit. My advice to you is to
keep quiet, and we may have a comedy worth seeing.”

“Well,” she remarked, after she had got over a little of her
astonishment, “it would be great fun to tell, but I won't if you say
so.”

I came to have a real liking for Miss Trevor. Farrar used to smile when
I spoke of this, and I never could induce him to go out with us in the
canoe, which we did frequently,--in fact, every day I was at Asquith,
except of course Sundays. And we grew to understand each other
very well. She looked upon me in the same light as did my other
friends,--that of a counsellor-at-law,--and I fell unconsciously into
the role of her adviser, in which capacity I was the recipient of many
confidences I would have got in no other way. That is, in no other way
save one, and in that I had no desire to go, even had it been possible.
Miss Trevor was only nineteen, and in her eyes I was at least sixty.

“See here, Miss Trevor,” I said to her one day after we had become more
or less intimate, “of course it's none of my business, but you didn't
feel very badly after the Celebrity went away, did you?”

Her reply was frank and rather staggering.

“Yes, I did. I was engaged to him, you know.”

“Engaged to him! I had no idea he ever got that far,” I exclaimed.

Miss Trevor laughed merrily.

“It was my fault,” she said; “I pinned him down, and he had to propose.
There was no way out of it. I don't mind telling you.”

I did not know whether to be flattered or aggrieved by this avowal.

“You know,” she went on, her tone half apologetic, “the day after he
came he told me who he was, and I wanted to stop the people we passed
and inform them of the lion I was walking with. And I was quite carried
away by the honor of his attentions: any girl would have been, you
know.”

“I suppose so,” I assented.

“And I had heard and read so much of him, and I doted on his stories,
and all that. His heroes are divine, you must admit. And, Mr. Crocker,”
 she concluded with a charming naivety, “I just made up my mind I would
have him.”

“Woman proposes, and man disposes,” I laughed. “He escaped in spite of
you.”

She looked at me queerly.

“Only a jest,” I said hurriedly; “your escape is the one to be thankful
for. You might have married him, like the young woman in The Sybarites.
You remember, do you not, that the hero of that book sacrifices himself
for the lady who adores him, but whom he has ceased to adore?”

“Yes, I remember,” she laughed; “I believe I know that book by heart.”

“Think of the countless girls he must have relieved of their affections
before their eyes were opened,” I continued with mock gravity. “Think of
the charred trail he has left behind him. A man of that sort ought to be
put under heavy bonds not to break any more hearts. But a kleptomaniac
isn't responsible, you understand. And it isn't worth while to bear any
malice.”

“Oh, I don't bear any malice now,” she said. “I did at first, naturally.
But it all seems very ridiculous now I have had time to think it over. I
believe, Mr. Crocker, that I never really cared for him.”

“Simply an idol shattered this time,” I suggested, “and not a heart
broken.”

“Yes, that's it,” said she.

“I am glad to hear it,” said I, much pleased that she had taken such a
sensible view. “But you are engaged to him.”

“I was.”

“You have broken the engagement, then?”

“No, I--haven't,” she said.

“Then he has broken it?”

She did not appear to resent this catechism.

“That's the strange part of it,” said Miss Trevor, “he hasn't even
thought it necessary.”

“It is clear, then, that you are still engaged to him,” said I, smiling
at her blank face.

“I suppose I am,” she cried. “Isn't it awful? What shall I do, Mr.
Crocker? You are so sensible, and have had so much experience.”

“I beg your pardon,” I remarked grimly.

“Oh, you know what I mean: not that kind of experience, of course. But
breach of promise cases and that sort of thing. I have a photograph of
him with something written over it.”

“Something compromising?” I inquired.

“Yes, you would probably call it so,” she answered, reddening. “But
there is no need of my repeating it. And then I have a lot of other
things. If I write to break off the engagement I shall lose dignity, and
it will appear as though I had regrets. I don't wish him to think that,
of all things. What shall I do?”

“Do nothing,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. Do not break the engagement, and keep the photograph and
other articles for evidence. If he makes any overtures, don't consider
them for an instant. And I think, Miss Trevor, you will succeed sooner
or later in making him very uncomfortable. Were he any one else I
shouldn't advise such a course, but you won't lose any dignity and
self-respect by it, as no one will be likely to hear of it. He can't
be taken seriously, and plainly he has never taken any one else so. He
hasn't even gone to the trouble to notify you that he does not intend
marrying you.”

I saw from her expression that my suggestion was favorably entertained.

“What a joke it would be!” she cried delightedly.

“And a decided act of charity,” I added, “to the next young woman on his
list.”




CHAPTER VIII

The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than
I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self
again; for, even after she had conquered her love for the Celebrity, the
mortification of having been jilted by him remained. Now she had come to
look upon the matter in its true proportions, and her anticipation of a
possible chance of teaching him a lesson was a pleasure to behold. Our
table in the dining-room became again the abode of scintillating wit and
caustic repartee, Farrar bracing up to his old standard, and the demand
for seats in the vicinity rose to an animated competition. Mr. Charles
Wrexell Allen's chair was finally awarded to a nephew of Judge Short,
who could turn a story to perfection.

So life at the inn settled down again to what it had been before the
Celebrity came to disturb it.

I had my own reasons for staying away from Mohair. More than once as I
drove over to the county-seat in my buggy I had met the Celebrity on a
tall tandem cart, with one of Mr. Cooke's high-steppers in the lead, and
Miss Thorn in the low seat. I had forgotten to mention that my friend
was something of a whip. At such times I would bow very civilly and pass
on; not without a twinge, I confess. And as the result of one of these
meetings I had to retrace several miles of my road for a brief I had
forgotten. After that I took another road, several miles longer, for the
sight of Miss Thorn with him seriously disturbed my peace of mind. But
at length the day came, as I had feared, when circumstances forced me
to go to my client's place. One morning Miss Trevor and I were about
stepping into the canoe for our customary excursion when one of Mr.
Cooke's footmen arrived with a note for each of us. They were from Mrs.
Cooke, and requested the pleasure of our company that day for luncheon.
“If you were I, would you go?” Miss Trevor asked doubtfully.

“Of course,” I replied.

“But the consequences may be unpleasant.”

“Don't let them,” I said. “Of what use is tact to a woman if not for
just such occasions?”

My invitation had this characteristic note tacked on the end of it

“DEAR CROCKER: Where are you? Where is the judge? F. F. C.”

I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very
mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom
relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the
judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less
disturbing. My client welcomed the judge with that warmth of manner
which grappled so many of his friends to his heart, and they disappeared
together into the Ethiopian card-room, which was filled with the
assegais and exclamation point shields Mr. Cooke had had made at the
Sawmill at Beaverton.

I learned from one of the lords-in-waiting loafing about the hall that
Mrs. Cooke was out on the golf links, chaperoning some of the Asquith
young women whose mothers had not seen fit to ostracize Mohair. Mr.
Cooke's ten friends were with them. But this discreet and dignified
servant could not reveal the whereabouts of Miss Thorn and of Mr. Allen,
both of whom I was decidedly anxious to avoid. I was much disgusted,
therefore, to come upon the Celebrity in the smoking-room, writing
rapidly, with, sheets of manuscript piled beside him. And he was quite
good-natured over my intrusion.

“No,” said he, “don't go. It's only a short story I promised for a
Christmas number. They offered me fifteen cents a word and promised to
put my name on the cover in red, so I couldn't very well refuse. It's no
inspiration, though, I tell you that.” He rose and pressed a bell behind
him and ordered whiskeys and ginger ales, as if he were in a hotel. “Sit
down, Crocker,” he said, waving me to a morocco chair. “Why don't you
come over to see us oftener?”

“I've been quite busy,” I said.

This remark seemed to please him immensely.

“What a sly old chap you are,” said he; “really, I shall have to go back
to the inn and watch you.”

“What the deuce do you mean?” I demanded.

He looked me over in well-bred astonishment and replied:

“Hang me, Crocker, if I can make you out. You seem to know the world
pretty well, and yet when a fellow twits you on a little flirtation you
act as though you were going to black his eyes.”

“A little flirtation!” I repeated, aghast.

“Oh, well,” he said, smiling, “we won't quarrel over a definition. Call
it anything you like.”

“Don't you think this a little uncalled for?” I asked, beginning to lose
my temper.

“Bless you, no. Not among friends: not among such friends as we are.”

“I didn't know we were such devilish good friends,” I retorted warmly.

“Oh, yes, we are, devilish good friends,” he answered with assurance;
“known each other from boyhood, and all that. And I say, old chap,” he
added, “you needn't be jealous of me, you know. I got out of that long
ago. And I'm after something else now.”

For a space I was speechless. Then the ludicrous side of the matter
struck me, and I laughed in spite of myself. Better, after all, to deal
with a fool according to his folly. The Celebrity glanced at the door
and drew his chair closer to mine.

“Crocker,” he said confidentially, “I'm glad you came here to-day. There
is a thing or two I wished to consult you about.”

“Professional?” I asked, trying to head him off.

“No,” he replied, “amateur,--beastly amateur. A bungle, if I ever made
one. The truth is, I executed rather a faux pas over there at Asquith.
Tell me,” said he, diving desperately at the root of it, “how does Miss
Trevor feel about my getting out? I meant to let her down easier; 'pon
my word, I did.”

This is a way rascals have of judging other men by themselves.

“Well;” said I, “it was rather a blow, of course.”

“Of course,” he assented.

“And all the more unexpected,” I went on, “from a man who has written
reams on constancy.”

I flatter myself that this nearly struck home, for he was plainly
annoyed.

“Oh, bother that!” said he. “How many gowns believe in their own
sermons? How many lawyers believe in their own arguments?”

“Unhappily, not as many as might.”

“I don't object to telling you, old chap,” he continued, “that I went
in a little deeper than I intended. A good deal deeper, in fact. Miss
Trevor is a deuced fine girl, and all that; but absolutely impossible. I
forgot myself, and I confess I was pretty close to caught.”

“I congratulate you,” I said gravely.

“That's the point of it. I don't know that I'm out of the woods yet. I
wanted to see you and find out how she was acting.”

My first impulse was to keep him in hot water. Fortunately I thought
twice.

“I don't know anything about Miss Trevor's feelings--” I began.

“Naturally not--” he interrupted, with a smile.

“But I have a notion that, if she ever fancied you, she doesn't care a
straw for you to-day.”

“Doesn't she now,” he replied somewhat regretfully. Here was one of the
knots in his character I never could untie.

“Understand, that is simply my guess,” I said. “You must have discovered
that it is never possible to be sure of a woman's feelings.”

“Found that out long ago,” he replied with conviction, and added: “Then
you think I need not anticipate any trouble from her?”

“I have told you what I think,” I answered; “you know better than I what
the situation is.”

He still lingered.

“Does she appear to be in,--ah,--in good spirits?”

I had work to keep my face straight.

“Capital,” I said; “I never saw her happier.”

This seemed to satisfy him.

“Downcast at first, happy now,” he remarked thoughtfully. “Yes, she got
over it. I'm much obliged to you, Crocker.”

I left him to finish his short story and walked out across the circle of
smooth lawn towards the golf links. And there I met Mrs. Cooke and her
niece coming in together. The warm red of her costume became Miss Thorn
wonderfully, and set off the glossy black of her hair. And her skin was
glowing from the exercise. An involuntary feeling of admiration for this
tall, athletic young woman swept over me, and I halted in my steps for
no other reason, I believe, than that I might look upon her the longer.

What man, I thought resentfully, would not travel a thousand miles to be
near her?

“It is Mr. Crocker,” said Mrs. Cooke; “I had given up all hope of ever
seeing you again. Why have you been such a stranger?”

“As if you didn't know, Aunt Maria,” Miss Thorn put in gayly.

“Oh yes, I know,” returned her aunt, “and I have not been foolish enough
to invite the bar without the magnet. And yet, Mr. Crocker,” she went
on playfully, “I had imagined that you were the one man in a hundred who
did not need an inducement.”

Miss Thorn began digging up the turf with her lofter: it was a painful
moment for me.

“You might at least have tried me, Mrs. Cooke,” I said.

Miss Thorn looked up quickly from the ground, her eyes searchingly upon
my face. And Mrs. Cooke seemed surprised.

“We are glad you came, at any rate,” she answered.

And at luncheon my seat was next to Miss Thorn's, while the Celebrity
was placed at the right of Miss Trevor. I observed that his face went
blank from time to time at some quip of hers: even a dull woman may be
sharp under such circumstances, and Miss Trevor had wits to spare. And
I marked that she never allowed her talk with him to drift into deep
water; when there was danger of this she would draw the entire table
into their conversation by some adroit remark, or create a laugh at his
expense. As for me, I held a discreet if uncomfortable silence, save for
the few words which passed between Miss Thorn and me. Once or twice I
caught her covert glance on me. But I felt, and strongly, that there
could be no friendship between us now, and I did not care to dissimulate
merely for the sake of appearances. Besides, I was not a little put out
over the senseless piece of gossip which had gone abroad concerning me.

It had been arranged as part of the day's programme that Mr. Cooke was
to drive those who wished to go over the Rise in his new brake. But the
table was not graced by our host's presence, Mrs. Cooke apologizing for
him, explaining that he had disappeared quite mysteriously. It turned
out that he and the judge had been served with luncheon in the Ethiopian
card-room, and neither threats nor fair words could draw him away.
The judge had not held such cards for years, and it was in vain that
I talked to him of consequences. The Ten decided to remain and watch a
game which was pronounced little short of phenomenal, and my client gave
orders for the smaller brake and requested the Celebrity to drive.
And this he was nothing loth to do. For the edification as well as the
assurance of the party Mr. Allen explained, while we were waiting under
the porte cochere, how he had driven the Windsor coach down Piccadilly
at the height of the season, with a certain member of Parliament and
noted whip on the box seat.

And, to do him justice, he could drive. He won the instant respect of
Mr. Cooke's coachman by his manner of taking up the lines, and clinched
it when he dropped a careless remark concerning the off wheeler. And
after the critical inspection of the horses which is proper he climbed
up on the box. There was much hesitation among the ladies as to who
should take the seat of honor: Mrs. Cooke declining, it was pressed upon
Miss Thorn. But she, somewhat to my surprise, declined also, and it was
finally filled by a young woman from Asquith.

As we drove off I found myself alone with Mrs. Cooke's niece on the seat
behind.

The day was cool and snappy for August, and the Rise all green with a
lavish nature. Now we, plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing
each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold
trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet:
or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and
its curving shore far below us. I had always loved that piece of country
since the first look I had of it from the Asquith road, and the sight
of it rarely failed to set my blood a-tingle with pleasure. But to-day
I scarcely saw it. I wondered what whim had impelled Miss Thorn to get
into this seat. She paid but little attention to me during the first
part of the drive, though a mere look in my direction seemed to afford
her amusement. And at last, half way up the Rise, where the road takes
to an embankment, I got a decided jar.

“Mr. Allen,” she cried to the Celebrity, “you must stop here. Do you
remember how long we tarried over this bit on Friday?”

He tightened the lines and threw a meaning glance backward.

I was tempted to say:

“You and Mr. Allen should know these roads rather well, Miss Thorn.”

“Every inch of them,” she replied.

We must have gone a mile farther when she turned upon me.

“It is your duty to be entertaining, Mr. Crocker. What in the world are
you thinking of, with your brow all puckered up, forbidding as an owl?”

“I was thinking how some people change,” I answered, with a readiness
which surprised me.

“Strange,” she said, “I had the same thing in mind. I hear decidedly
queer tales of you; canoeing every day that business does not prevent,
and whole evenings spent at the dark end of a veranda.”

“What rubbish!” I exclaimed, not knowing whether to be angered or
amused.

“Come, sir,” she said, with mock sternness, “answer the charge. Guilty
or not guilty?”

“First let me make a counter-charge,” said I; “you have given me the
right. Not long ago a certain young lady came to Mohair and found there
a young author of note with whom she had had some previous acquaintance.
She did not hesitate to intimate her views on the character of this
Celebrity, and her views were not favorable.”

I paused. There was some satisfaction in seeing Miss Thorn biting her
lip.

“Well?”

“Not at all favorable, mind you,” I went on. “And the young lady's
general appearance was such as to lead one to suppose her the sincerest
of persons. Now I am at a loss to account for a discrepancy between her
words and her actions.”

While I talked Miss Thorn's face had been gradually turning from mine
until now I saw only the dainty knot at the back of her head. Her
shoulders were quivering with laughter. But presently her face came back
all gravity, save a suspicious gleam of mirth in the eyes.

“It does seem inconsistent, Mr. Crocker; I grant you that. No doubt it
is so. But let me ask you something: did you ever yet know a woman who
was not inconsistent?”

I did not realize I had been side-tracked until I came to think over
this conversation afterwards.

“I am not sure,” I replied. “Perhaps I merely hoped that one such
existed.”

She dropped her eyes.

“Then don't be surprised at my failing,” said she. “No doubt I
criticised the Celebrity severely. I cannot recall what I said. But it
is upon the better side of a character that we must learn to look.
Did it ever strike you that the Celebrity had some exceedingly fine
qualities?”

“No, it did not,” I answered positively.

“Nevertheless, he has,” she went on, in all apparent seriousness. “He
drives almost as well as Uncle Farquhar, dances well, and is a capital
paddle.”

“You were speaking of qualities, not accomplishments,” I said. A
horrible suspicion that she was having a little fun at my expense
crossed my mind.

“Very good, then. You must admit that he is generous to a fault, amiable;
and persevering, else he would never have attained the position he
enjoys. And his affection for you, Mr. Crocker, is really touching,
considering how little he gets in return.”

“Come, Miss Thorn,” I said severely, “this is ridiculous. I don't
like him, and never shall. I liked him once, before he took to writing
drivel. But he must have been made over since then. And what is more,
with all respect to your opinion, I don't believe he likes me.”

Miss Thorn straightened up with dignity and said:

“You do him an injustice. But perhaps you will learn to appreciate him
before he leaves Mohair.”

“That is not likely,” I replied--not at all pleasantly, I fear. And
again I thought I observed in her the same desire to laugh she had
before exhibited.

And all the way back her talk was of nothing except the Celebrity. I
tried every method short of absolute rudeness to change the subject,
and went from silence to taciturnity and back again to silence.
She discussed his books and his mannerisms, even the growth of his
popularity. She repeated anecdotes of him from Naples to St. Petersburg,
from Tokio to Cape Town. And when we finally stopped under the porte
cochere I had scarcely the civility left to say good-bye.

I held out my hand to help her to the ground, but she paused on the
second step.

“Mr. Crocker,” she observed archly, “I believe you once told me you had
not known many girls in your life.”

“True,” I said; “why do you ask?”

“I wished to be sure of it,” she replied.

And jumping down without my assistance, she laughed and disappeared into
the house.




VOLUME 3.




CHAPTER IX

That evening I lighted a cigar and went down to sit on the outermost
pile of the Asquith dock to commune with myself. To say that I was
disappointed in Miss Thorn would be to set a mild value on my feelings.
I was angry, even aggressive, over her defence of the Celebrity. I had
gone over to Mohair that day with a hope that some good reason was at
the bottom of her tolerance for him, and had come back without any hope.
She not only tolerated him, but, wonderful to be said, plainly liked
him. Had she not praised him, and defended him, and become indignant
when I spoke my mind about him? And I would have taken my oath, two
weeks before, that nothing short of hypnotic influence could have
changed her. By her own confession she had come to Asquith with her eyes
opened, and, what was more, seen another girl wrecked on the same reef.

Farrar followed me out presently, and I had an impulse to submit the
problem as it stood to him. But it was a long story, and I did not
believe that if he were in my boots he would have consulted me. Again,
I sometimes thought Farrar yearned for confidences, though it was
impossible for him to confide. And he wore an inviting air to-night.
Then, as everybody knows, there is that about twilight and an
after-dinner cigar which leads to communication. They are excellent
solvents. My friend seated himself on the pile next to mine, and said,

“It strikes me you have been behaving rather queer lately, Crocker.”

This was clearly an invitation from Farrar, and I melted.

“I admit,” said I, “that I am a good deal perplexed over the
contradictions of the human mind.”

“Oh, is that all?” he replied dryly. “I supposed it was worse.
Narrower, I mean. Didn't know you ever bothered yourself with abstract
philosophy.”

“See here, Farrar,” said I, “what is your opinion of Miss Thorn?”

He stopped kicking his feet against the pile and looked up.

“Miss Thorn?”

“Yes, Miss Thorn,” I repeated with emphasis. I knew he had in mind that
abominable twaddle about the canoe excursions.

“Why, to tell the truth,” said he, “I never had any opinion of Miss
Thorn.”

“You mean you never formed any, I suppose,” I returned with some
tartness.

“Yes, that is it. How darned precise you are getting, Crocker! One would
think you were going to write a rhetoric. What put Miss Thorn into your
head?”

“I have been coaching beside her this afternoon.”

“Oh!” said Farrar.

“Do you remember the night she came,” I asked, “and we sat with her on
the Florentine porch, and Charles Wrexell recognized her and came up?”

“Yes,” he replied with awakened interest, “and I meant to ask you about
that.”

“Miss Thorn had met him in the East. And I gathered from what she told
me that he has followed her out here.”

“Shouldn't wonder,” said Farrar. “Don't much blame him, do you? Is that
what troubles you?” he asked, in surprise.

“Not precisely,” I answered vaguely; “but from what she has said then
and since, she made it pretty clear that she hadn't any use for him; saw
through him, you know.”

“Pity her if she didn't. But what did she say?”

I repeated the conversations I had had with Miss Thorn, without
revealing Mr. Allen's identity with the celebrated author.

“That is rather severe,” he assented.

“He decamped for Mohair, as you know, and since that time she has gone
back on every word of it. She is with him morning and evening, and, to
crown all, stood up for him through thick and thin to-day, and praised
him. What do you think of that?”

“What I should have expected in a woman,” said he, nonchalantly.

“They aren't all alike,” I retorted.

He shook out his pipe, and getting down from his high seat laid his hand
on my knee.

“I thought so once, old fellow,” he whispered, and went off down the
dock.

This was the nearest Farrar ever came to a confidence.

I have now to chronicle a curious friendship which had its beginning
at this time. The friendships of the other sex are quickly made, and
sometimes as quickly dissolved. This one interested me more than I care
to own. The next morning Judge Short, looking somewhat dejected after
the overnight conference he had had with his wife, was innocently and
somewhat ostentatiously engaged in tossing quoits with me in front of
the inn, when Miss Thorn drove up in a basket cart. She gave me a bow
which proved that she bore no ill-will for that which I had said about
her hero. Then Miss Trevor appeared, and away they went together. This
was the commencement. Soon the acquaintance became an intimacy, and
their lives a series of visits to each other. Although this new state
of affairs did not seem to decrease the number of Miss Thorn's
'tete-a-tetes' with the Celebrity, it put a stop to the canoe
expeditions I had been in the habit of taking with Miss Trevor, which I
thought just as well under the circumstances. More than once Miss Thorn
partook of the inn fare at our table, and when this happened I would
make my escape before the coffee. For such was the nature of my feelings
regarding the Celebrity that I could not bring myself into cordial
relations with one who professed to admire him. I realize how ridiculous
such a sentiment must appear, but it existed nevertheless, and most
strongly.

I tried hard to throw Miss Thorn out of my thoughts, and very
nearly succeeded. I took to spending more and more of my time at the
county-seat, where I remained for days at a stretch, inventing business
when there was none. And in the meanwhile I lost all respect for myself
as a sensible man, and cursed the day the Celebrity came into the state.
It seemed strange that this acquaintance of my early days should have
come back into my life, transformed, to make it more or less miserable.
The county-seat being several miles inland, and lying in the midst of
hills, could get intolerably hot in September. At last I was driven out
in spite of myself, and I arrived at Asquith cross and dusty. As Simpson
was brushing me off, Miss Trevor came up the path looking cool and
pretty in a summer gown, and her face expressed sympathy. I have never
denied that sympathy was a good thing.

“Oh, Mr. Crocker,” she cried, “I am so glad you are back again! We have
missed you dreadfully. And you look tired, poor man, quite worn out. It
is a shame you have to go over to that hot place to work.”

I agreed with her.

“And I never have any one to take me canoeing any more.”

“Let's go now,” I suggested, “before dinner.”

So we went. It was a keen pleasure to be on the lake again after the
sultry court-rooms and offices, and the wind and exercise quickly
brought back my appetite and spirits. I paddled hither and thither,
stopping now and then to lie under the pines at the mouth of some
stream, while Miss Trevor talked. She was almost a child in her
eagerness to amuse me with the happenings since my departure. This was
always her manner with me, in curious contrast to her habit of fencing
and playing with words when in company. Presently she burst out:

“Mr. Crocker, why is it that you avoid Miss Thorn? I was talking of you
to her only to-day, and she says you go miles out of your way to get out
of speaking to her; that you seemed to like her quite well at first. She
couldn't understand the change.”

“Did she say that?” I exclaimed.

“Indeed, she did; and I have noticed it, too. I saw you leave before
coffee more than once when she was here. I don't believe you know what a
fine girl she is.”

“Why, then, does she accept and return the attentions of the Celebrity?”
 I inquired, with a touch of acidity. “She knows what he is as well, if
not better, than you or I. I own I can't understand it,” I said, the
subject getting ahead of me. “I believe she is in love with him.”

Miss Trevor began to laugh; quietly at first, and, as her merriment
increased, heartily.

“Shouldn't we be getting back?” I asked, looking at my watch. “It lacks
but half an hour of dinner.”

“Please don't be angry, Mr. Crocker,” she pleaded. “I really couldn't
help laughing.”

“I was unaware I had said anything funny, Miss Trevor,” I replied.

“Of course you didn't,” she said more soberly; “that is, you didn't
intend to. But the very notion of Miss Thorn in love with the Celebrity
is funny.”

“Evidence is stronger than argument,” said I. “And now she has even
convicted herself.”

I started to paddle homeward, rather furiously, and my companion said
nothing until we came in sight of the inn. As the canoe glided into the
smooth surface behind the breakwater, she broke the silence.

“I heard you went fishing the other day,” said she.

“Yes.”

“And the judge told me about a big bass you hooked, and how you played
him longer than was necessary for the mere fun of the thing.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you will find in the feeling that prompted you to do that a
clue to the character of our sex.”




CHAPTER X

Mr. Cooke had had a sloop yacht built at Far Harbor, the completion
of which had been delayed, and which was but just delivered. She was,
painted white, with brass fittings, and under her stern, in big,
black letters, was the word Maria, intended as a surprise and delicate
conjugal compliment to Mrs. Cooke. The Maria had a cabin, which was
finished in hard wood and yellow plush, and accommodations for keeping
things cold. This last Mr. Cooke had insisted upon.

The skipper Mr. Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with
a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been
prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht for the month after the offer
of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy.
His son and helper was to receive a sum proportionally exorbitant.
This worthy man sighted Mohair on a Sunday morning, and at nine
o'clock dropped his anchor with a salute which caused Mr. Cooke to
say unpleasant things in his sleep. After making things ship-shape and
hoisting the jack, both father and son rowed ashore to the little church
at Asquith.

Now the butler at Mohair was a servant who had learned, from long
experience, to anticipate every wish and whim of his master, and from
the moment he descried the white sails of the yacht out of the windows
of the butler's pantry his duty was clear as daylight. Such was the
comprehension and despatch with which he gave his commands that the
captain returned from divine worship to find the Maria in profane hands,
her immaculate deck littered with straw and sawdust, and covered to the
coamings with bottles and cases. This decided the captain, he packed
his kit in high dudgeon, and took the first train back to Far Harbor,
leaving the yacht to her fate.

This sudden and inconsiderate departure was a severe blow to Mr. Cooke'
who was so constituted that he cared but little about anything until
there was danger of not getting it. My client had planned a trip to Bear
Island for the following Tuesday, which was to last a week, the party to
bring tents with them and rough it, with the Maria as headquarters. It
was out of the question to send to Far Harbor for another skipper, if,
indeed, one could be found at that late period. And as luck would have
it, six of Mr. Cooke's ten guests had left but a day or so since, and
among them had been the only yacht-owner. None of the four that remained
could do more than haul aft and belay a sheet. But the Celebrity, who
chanced along as Mr. Cooke was ruefully gazing at the graceful lines of
the Maria from the wharf and cursing the fate that kept him ashore with
a stiff wind blowing, proposed a way out of the difficulty. He, the
Celebrity, would gladly sail the Maria over to Bear Island provided
another man could be found to relieve him occasionally at the wheel, and
the like. He had noticed that Farrar was a capable hand in a boat, and
suggested that he be sent for.

This suggestion Mr. Cooke thought so well of that he hurried over to
Asquith to consult Farrar at once, and incidentally to consult me.
We can hardly be blamed for receiving his overtures with a moderate
enthusiasm. In fact, we were of one mind not to go when the subject was
first broached. But my client had a persuasive way about him that was
irresistible, and the mere mention of the favors he had conferred
upon both of us at different periods of our lives was sufficient. We
consented.

Thus it came to pass that Tuesday morning found the party assembled on
the wharf at Mohair, the Four and the Celebrity, as well as Mr. Cooke,
having produced yachting suits from their inexhaustible wardrobes.
Mr. Trevor and his daughter, Mrs. Cooke and Miss Thorn, and Farrar
and myself completed the party. We were to adhere strictly to primeval
principles: the ladies were not permitted a maid, while the Celebrity
was forced to leave his manservant, and Mr. Cooke his chef. I had,
however, thrust into my pocket the Minneapolis papers, which had been
handed me by the clerk on their arrival at the inn, which happened just
as I was leaving. 'Quod bene notandum!'

Thereby hangs a tale!

For the northern lakes the day was rather dead: a little wind lay in the
southeast, scarcely enough to break the water, with the sky an intense
blue. But the Maria was hardly cast and under way before it became
painfully apparent that the Celebrity was much better fitted to lead
a cotillon than to sail a boat. He gave his orders, nevertheless, in
a firm, seamanlike fashion, though with no great pertinence, and thus
managed to establish the confidence of Mr. Cooke. Farrar, after setting
things to rights, joined Mrs. Cooke and me over the cabin.

“How about hoisting the spinnaker, mate?” the Celebrity shouted after
him.

Farrar did not deign to answer: his eye was on the wind. And the boom,
which had been acting uneasily, finally decided to gybe, and swept
majestically over, carrying two of the Four in front of it, and all but
dropped them into the water.

“A common occurrence in a light breeze,” we heard the Celebrity reassure
Mr. Cooke and Miss Thorn.

“The Maria has vindicated her sex,” remarked Farrar.

We laughed.

“Why don't you sail, Mr. Farrar?” asked Mrs. Cooke.

“He can't do any harm in this breeze,” Farrar replied; “it isn't strong
enough to get anywhere with.”

He was right. The boom gybed twenty times that morning, and the
Celebrity offered an equal number of apologies. Mr. Cooke and the Four
vanished, and from the uproarious laughter which arose from the cabin
transoms I judged they were telling stories. While Miss Thorn spent the
time profitably in learning how to conn a yacht. At one, when we had
luncheon, Mohair was still in the distance. At two it began to cloud
over, the wind fell flat, and an ominous black bank came up from the
south. Without more ado, Farrar, calling on me to give him a hand, eased
down the halliards and began to close reef the mainsail.

“Hold on,” said the Celebrity, “who told you to do that?”

“I am very sure you didn't,” Farrar returned, as he hauled out a reef
earing.

Here a few drops of rain on the deck warned the ladies to retire to the
cabin.

“Take the helm until I get my mackintosh, will you, Farrar?” said the
Celebrity, “and be careful what you do.”

Farrar took the helm and hauled in the sheet, while the Celebrity, Mr.
Cooke, and the guests donned their rain-clothes. The water ahead was
now like blue velvet, and the rain pelting. The Maria was heeling to the
squall by the time the Celebrity appeared at the cabin door, enveloped
in an ample waterproof, a rubber cover on his yachting cap. A fool
despises a danger he has never experienced, and our author, with a
remark about a spanking breeze, made a motion to take the wheel. But
Farrar, the flannel of his shirt clinging to the muscular outline of
his shoulders, gave him a push which sent him sprawling against the lee
refrigerator. Well Miss Thorn was not there to see.

“You will have to answer for this,” he cried, as he scrambled to his
feet and clutched the weather wash-board with one hand, while he shook
the other in Farrar's face.

“Crocker,” said Farrar to me, coolly, “keep that idiot out of the way
for a while, or we'll all be drowned. Tie him up, if necessary.”

I was relieved from this somewhat unpleasant task. Mr. Cooke, with his
back to the rain, sat an amused witness to the mutiny, as blissfully
ignorant as the Celebrity of the character of a lake squall.

“I appeal to you, as the owner of this yacht, Mr. Cooke,” the Celebrity
shouted, “whether, as the person delegated by you to take charge of it,
I am to suffer indignity and insult. I have sailed larger yachts than
this time and again on the coast, at--” here he swallowed a portion of a
wave and was mercifully prevented from being specific.

But Mr. Cooke was looking a trifle bewildered. It was hardly possible
for him to cling to the refrigerator, much less quell a mutiny. One who
has sailed the lakes well knows how rapidly they can be lashed to fury
by a storm, and the wind was now spinning the tops of the waves into a
blinding spray. Although the Maria proved a stiff boat and a seaworthy,
she was not altogether without motion; and the set expression on
Farrar's face would have told me, had I not known it, that our situation
at that moment was no joke. Repeatedly, as she was held up to it, a
precocious roller would sweep from bow to stern, until we without coats
were wet and shivering.

The close and crowded cabin of a small yacht is not an attractive
place in rough weather; and one by one the Four emerged and distributed
themselves about the deck, wherever they could obtain a hold. Some
of them began to act peculiarly. Upon Mr. Cooke's unwillingness or
inability to interfere in his behalf, the Celebrity had assumed an
aggrieved demeanor, but soon the motion of the Maria became more and
more pronounced, and the difficulty of maintaining his decorum likewise
increased. The ruddy color left his face, which grew pale with effort.
I will do him the justice to say that the effort was heroic: he whistled
popular airs, and snatches of the grand opera; he relieved Mr. Cooke of
his glasses (of which Mr. Cooke had neglected to relieve himself), and
scanned the sea line busily. But the inevitable deferred is frequently
more violent than the inevitable taken gracefully, and the confusion
which at length overtook the Celebrity was utter as his humiliation was
complete. We laid him beside Mr. Cooke in the cockpit.

The rain presently ceased, and the wind hauled, as is often the case,
to the northwest, which began to clear, while Bear Island rose from the
northern horizon. Both Farrar and I were surprised to see Miss Trevor
come out; she hooked back the cabin doors and surveyed the prostrate
forms with amusement.

We asked her about those inside.

“Mrs. Cooke has really been very ill,” she said, “and Miss Thorn is
doing all she can for her. My father and I were more fortunate. But you
will both catch your deaths,” she exclaimed, noticing our condition.
“Tell me where I can find your coats.”

I suppose it is natural for a man to enjoy being looked after in this
way; it was certainly a new sensation to Farrar and myself. We assured
her we were drying out and did not need the coats, but nevertheless she
went back into the cabin and found them.

“Miss Thorn says you should both be whipped,” she remarked.

When we had put on our coats Miss Trevor sat down and began to talk.

“I once heard of a man,” she began complacently, “a man that was
buried alive, and who contrived to dig himself up and then read his own
epitaph. It did not please him, but he was wise and amended his life. I
have often thought how much it might help some people if they could read
their own epitaphs.”

Farrar was very quick at this sort of thing; and now that the steering
had become easier was only too glad to join her in worrying the
Celebrity. But he, if he were conscious, gave no sign of it.

“They ought to be buried so that they could not dig themselves up,” he
said. “The epitaphs would only strengthen their belief that they had
lived in an unappreciative age.”

“One I happen to have in mind, however, lives in an appreciative age.
Most appreciative.”

“And women are often epitaph-makers.”

“You are hard on the sex, Mr. Farrar,” she answered, “but perhaps
justly so. And yet there are some women I know of who would not write an
epitaph to his taste.”

Farrar looked at her curiously.

“I beg your pardon,” he said.

“Do not imagine I am touchy on the subject,” she replied quickly; “some
of us are fortunate enough to have had our eyes opened.”

I thought the Celebrity stirred uneasily.

“Have you read The Sybarites?” she asked.

Farrar was puzzled.

“No,” said he sententiously, “and I don't want to.”

“I know the average man thinks it a disgrace to have read it. And you
may not believe me when I say that it is a strong story of its kind,
with a strong moral. There are men who might read that book and be a
great deal better for it. And, if they took the moral to heart, it would
prove every bit as effectual as their own epitaphs.”

He was not quite sure of her drift, but he perceived that she was still
making fun of Mr. Allen.

“And the moral?” he inquired.

“Well,” she said, “the best I can do is to give you a synopsis of the
story, and then you can judge of its fitness. The hero is called Victor
Desmond. He is a young man of a sterling though undeveloped character,
who has been hampered by an indulgent parent with a large fortune.
Desmond is a butterfly, and sips life after the approved manner of his
kind,--now from Bohemian glass, now from vessels of gold and silver. He
chats with stage lights in their dressing-rooms, and attends a ball in
the Bowery or a supper at Sherry's with a ready versatility. The book,
apart from its intention, really gives the middle classes an excellent
idea of what is called 'high-life.'

“It is some time before Desmond discovers that he possesses the gift of
Paris,--a deliberation proving his lack of conceit,--that wherever he
goes he unwittingly breaks a heart, and sometimes two or three. This
discovery is naturally so painful that he comes home to his chambers and
throws himself on a lounge before his fire in a fit of self-deprecation,
and reflects on a misspent and foolish life. This, mind you, is where
his character starts to develop. And he makes a heroic resolve, not to
cut off his nose or to grow a beard, nor get married, but henceforth
to live a life of usefulness and seclusion, which was certainly
considerate. And furthermore, if by any accident he ever again involved
the affections of another girl he would marry her, be she as ugly as sin
or as poor as poverty. Then the heroine comes in. Her name is Rosamond,
which sounds well and may be euphoniously coupled with Desmond; and,
with the single exception of a boarding-school girl, she is the only
young woman he ever thought of twice. In order to save her and himself
he goes away, but the temptation to write to her overpowers him, and
of course she answers his letter. This brings on a correspondence.
His letters take the form of confessions, and are the fruits of much
philosophical reflection. 'Inconstancy in woman,' he says, because of
the present social conditions, is often pardonable. In a man, nothing
is more despicable.' This is his cardinal principle, and he sticks to
it nobly. For, though he tires of Rosamond, who is quite attractive,
however, he marries her and lives a life of self-denial. There are men
who might take that story to heart.”

I was amused that she should give the passage quoted by the Celebrity
himself. Her double meaning was, naturally, lost on Farrar, but he
enjoyed the thing hugely, nevertheless, as more or less applicable to
Mr. Allen. I made sure that gentleman was sensible of what was being
said, though he scarcely moved a muscle. And Miss Trevor, with a
mirthful glance at me that was not without a tinge of triumph, jumped
lightly to the deck and went in to see the invalids.

We were now working up into the lee of the island, whose tall pines
stood clean and black against the red glow of the evening sky. Mr. Cooke
began to give evidences of life, and finally got up and overhauled one
of the ice-chests for a restorative. Farrar put into the little cove,
where we dropped anchor, and soon had the chief sufferers ashore; and
a delicate supper, in the preparation of which Miss Thorn showed her
ability as a cook, soon restored them. For my part, I much preferred
Miss Thorn's dishes to those of the Mohair chef, and so did Farrar. And
the Four, surprising as it may seem, made themselves generally useful
about the camp in pitching the tents under Farrar's supervision. But the
Celebrity remained apart and silent.




CHAPTER XI

Our first, night in the Bear Island camp passed without incident, and we
all slept profoundly, tired out by the labors of the day before. After
breakfast, the Four set out to explore, with trout-rods and shot-guns.
Bear Island is, with the exception of the cove into which we had put, as
nearly round as an island can be, and perhaps three miles in diameter.
It has two clear brooks which, owing to the comparative inaccessibility
of the place, still contain trout and grayling, though there are few
spots where a fly can be cast on account of the dense underbrush. The
woods contain partridge, or ruffed grouse, and other game in smaller
quantities. I believe my client entertained some notion of establishing
a preserve here.

The insults which had been heaped upon the Celebrity on the yacht seemed
to have raised rather than lowered him in Miss Thorn's esteem, for these
two ensconced themselves among the pines above the camp with an edition
de luxe of one of his works which she had brought along. They were soon
absorbed in one of those famous short stories of his with the ending
left open to discussion. Mr. Cooke was indisposed. He had not yet
recovered from the shaking up his system had sustained, and he took to
a canvas easy chair he had brought with him and placed a decanter of
Scotch and a tumbler of ice at his side. The efficacy of this remedy
was assured. And he demanded the bunch of newspapers he spied protruding
from my pocket.

The rest of us were engaged in various occupations: Mr. Trevor relating
experiences of steamboat days on the Ohio to Mrs. Cooke; Miss Trevor
buried in a serial in the Century; and Farrar and I taking an
inventory of fishing-tackle, when we were startled by a loud and profane
ejaculation. Mr. Cooke had hastily put down his glass and was staring at
the newspaper before him with eyes as large as after-dinner coffee-cups.

“Come here,” he shouted over at us. “Come here, Crocker,” he repeated,
seeing we were slow to move. “For God's sake, come here!”

In obedience to this emphatic summons I crossed the stream and drew near
to Mr. Cooke, who was busily pouring out another glass of whiskey to
tide him over this strange excitement. But, as Mr. Cooke was easily
excited and on such occasions always drank whiskey to quiet his nerves,
I thought nothing of it. He was sitting bolt upright and held out the
paper to me with a shaking hand, while he pointed to some headlines on
the first page. And this is what I read:

            TREASURER TAKES A TRIP.

       CHARLES WREXELL ALLEN, OF THE MILES STANDISH
      BICYCLE COMPANY, GETS OFF WITH 100,000 DOLLARS.

             DETECTIVES BAFFLED.

        THE ABSCONDER A BACK BAY SOCIAL LEADER.

Half way down the column was a picture of Mr. Allen, a cut made from a
photograph, and, allowing for the crudities of newspaper reproduction,
it was a striking likeness of the Celebrity. Underneath was a short
description. Mr. Allen was five feet eleven (the Celebrity's height),
had a straight nose, square chin, dark hair and eyes, broad shoulders,
was dressed elaborately; in brief, tallied in every particular with the
Celebrity with the exception of the slight scar which Allen was thought
to have on his forehead.

The situation and all its ludicrous possibilities came over me with a
jump. It was too good to be true. Had Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen arrived
at Asquith and created a sensation with the man who stole his name I
should have been amply satisfied. But that Mr. Allen had been obliging
enough to abscond with a large sum of money was beyond dreaming!

I glanced at the rest of it: a history of the well-established company
followed, with all that Mr. Allen had done for it. The picture, by the
way, had been obtained from the St. Paul agent of the bicycle. After
doing due credit to the treasurer's abilities as a hustler there
followed a summary of his character, hitherto without reproach; but his
tastes were expensive ones. Mr. Allen's tendency to extravagance had
been noticed by the members of the Miles Standish Company, and some of
the older directors had on occasions remonstrated with him. But he had
been too valuable a man to let go, and it seems as treasurer he was
trusted implicitly. He was said to have more clothes than any man in
Boston.

I am used to thinking quickly, and by the time I had read this I had an
idea.

“What in hell do you make of that, Crocker?” cried my client, eyeing me
closely and repeating the question again and again, as was his wont when
agitated.

“It is certainly plain enough,” I replied, “but I should like to talk to
you before you decide to hand him over to the authorities.”

I thought I knew Mr. Cooke, and I was not mistaken.

“Authorities!” he roared. “Damn the authorities! There's my yacht, and
there's the Canadian border.” And he pointed to the north.

The others were pressing around us by this time, and had caught the
significant words which Mr. Cooke had uttered. I imagine that if my
client had stopped to think twice, which of course is a preposterous
condition, he would have confided his discovery only to Farrar and
to me. It was now out of the question to keep it from the rest of the
party, and Mr. Trevor got the headlines over my shoulder. I handed him
the sheet.

“Read it, Mr. Trevor,” said Mrs. Cooke.

Mr. Trevor, in a somewhat unsteady voice, read the headlines and
began the column, and they followed breathless with astonishment and
agitation. Once or twice the senator paused to frown upon the Celebrity
with a terrible sternness, thus directing all other eyes to him. His
demeanor was a study in itself. It may be surmised, from what I have
said of him, that there was a strain of the actor in his composition;
and I am prepared to make an affidavit that, secure in the knowledge
that he had witnesses present to attest his identity, he hugely enjoyed
the sensation he was creating. That he looked forward with a profound
pleasure to the stir which the disclosure that he was the author of The
Sybarites would make. His face wore a beatific smile.

As Mr. Trevor continued, his voice became firmer and his manner more
majestic. It was a task distinctly to his taste, and one might have
thought he was reading the sentence of a Hastings. I was standing next
to his daughter. The look of astonishment, perhaps of horror, which I
had seen on her face when her father first began to read had now faded
into something akin to wickedness. Did she wink? I can't say, never
before having had a young woman wink at me. But the next moment her
vinaigrette was rolling down the bank towards the brook, and I was after
it. I heard her close behind me. She must have read my intentions by a
kind of mental telepathy.

“Are you going to do it?” she whispered.

“Of course,” I answered. “To miss such a chance would be a downright
sin.”

There was a little awe in her laugh.

“Miss Thorn is the only obstacle,” I added, “and Mr. Cooke is our hope.
I think he will go by me.”

“Don't let Miss Thorn worry you,” she said as we climbed back.

“What do you mean?” I demanded. But she only shook her head. We were
at the top again, and Mr. Trevor was reading an appended despatch from
Buffalo, stating that Mr. Allen had been recognized there, in the latter
part of June, walking up and down the platform of the station, in a
smoking-jacket, and that he had climbed on the Chicago limited as
it pulled out. This may have caused the Celebrity to feel a trifle
uncomfortable.

“Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Trevor, as he put down the paper. “Mr. Cooke, do you
happen to have any handcuffs on the Maria?”

But my client was pouring out a stiff helping from the decanter, which
he still held in his hand. Then he approached the Celebrity.

“Don't let it worry you, old man,” said he, with intense earnestness.
“Don't let it worry you. You're my guest, and I'll see you safe out of
it, or bust.”

“Fenelon,” said Mrs. Cooke, gravely, “do you realize what you are
saying?”

“You're a clever one, Allen,” my client continued, and he backed away
the better to look him over; “you had nerve to stay as long as you did.”

The Celebrity laughed confidently.

“Cooke,” he replied, “I appreciate your generosity,--I really do. I know
no offence is meant. The mistake is, in fact, most pardonable.”

In Mr. Cooke amazement and admiration were clamoring for utterance.

“Damn me,” he sputtered, “if you're not the coolest embezzler I ever
saw.”

The Celebrity laughed again. Then he surveyed the circle.

“My friends,” he said, “this is certainly a most amazing coincidence;
one which, I assure you, surprises me no less than it does you. You have
no doubt remarked that I have my peculiarities. We all have.

“I flatter thyself I am not entirely unknown. And the annoyances imposed
upon me by a certain fame I have achieved had become such that some
months ago I began to crave the pleasures of the life of a private
man. I determined to go to some sequestered resort where my face was
unfamiliar. The possibility of being recognized at Asquith did not occur
to me. Fortunately I was. And a singular chance led me to take the name
of the man who has committed this crime, and who has the misfortune to
resemble me. I suppose that now,” he added impressively, “I shall have
to tell you who I am.”

He paused until these words should have gained their full effect. Then
he held up the edition de luxe from which he and Miss Thorn had been
reading.

“You may have heard, Mrs. Cooke,” said he, addressing himself to our
hostess, “you may perhaps have heard of the author of this book.”

Mrs. Cooke was a calm woman, and she read the name on the cover.

“Yes,” she said, “I have. And you claim to be he?”

“Ask my friend Crocker here,” he answered carelessly, no doubt exulting
that the scene was going off so dramatically. “I should indeed be in a
tight box,” he went on, “if there were not friends of mine here to help
me out.”

They turned to me.

“I am afraid I cannot,” I said with what soberness I could.

“What!” says he with a start. “What! you deny me?”

Miss Trevor had her tongue in her cheek. I bowed.

“I am powerless to speak, Mr. Allen,” I replied.

During this colloquy my client stood between us, looking from one to the
other. I well knew that his way of thinking would be with my testimony,
and that the gilt name on the edition de luxe had done little towards
convincing him of Mr. Allen's innocence. To his mind there was nothing
horrible or incongruous in the idea that a well-known author should be
a defaulter. It was perfectly possible. He shoved the glass of Scotch
towards the Celebrity, with a smile.

“Take this, old man,” he kindly insisted, “and you'll feel better.
What's the use of bucking when you're saddled with a thing like that?”
 And he pointed to the paper. “Besides, they haven't caught you yet, by a
damned sight.”

The Celebrity waved aside the proffered tumbler.

“This is an infamous charge, and you know it, Crocker,” he cried. “If
you don't, you ought to, as a lawyer. This isn't any time to have fun
with a fellow.”

“My dear sir,” I said, “I have charged you with nothing whatever.”

He turned his back on me in complete disgust. And he came face to face
with Miss Trevor.

“Miss Trevor, too, knows something of me,” he said.

“You forget, Mr. Allen,” she answered sweetly, “you forget that I have
given you my promise not to reveal what I know.”

The Celebrity chafed, for this was as damaging a statement as could well
be uttered against him. But Miss Thorn was his trump card, and she now
came forward.

“This is ridiculous, Mr. Crocker, simply ridiculous,” said she.

“I agree with you most heartily, Miss Thorn,” I replied.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Miss Thorn, and she drew her lips together, “pure
nonsense!”

“Nonsense or not, Marian,” Mr. Cooke interposed, “we are wasting
valuable time. The police are already on the scent, I'll bet my hat.”

“Fenelon!” Mrs. Cooke remonstrated.

“And do you mean to say in soberness, Uncle Fenelon, that you believe
the author of The Sybarites to be a defaulter?” said Miss Thorn.

“It is indeed hard to believe Mr. Allen a criminal,” Mr. Trevor broke in
for the first time. “I think it only right that he should be allowed
to clear himself before he is put to further inconvenience, and perhaps
injustice, by any action we may take in the matter.”

Mr. Cooke sniffed suspiciously at the word “action.”

“What action do you mean?” he demanded.

“Well,” replied Mr. Trevor, with some hesitation, “before we take any
steps, that is, notify the police.”

“Notify the police!” cried my client, his face red with a generous
anger. “I have never yet turned a guest over to the police,” he said
proudly, “and won't, not if I know it. I'm not that kind.”

Who shall criticise Mr. Cooke's code of morality?

“Fenelon,” said his wife, “you must remember you have never yet
entertained a guest of a larcenous character. No embezzlers up to the
present. Marian,” she continued, turning to Miss Thorn, “you spoke as
if you might, be able to throw some light upon this matter. Do you know
whether this gentleman is Charles Wrexell Allen, or whether he is the
author? In short, do you know who he is?”

The Celebrity lighted a cigarette. Miss Thorn said indignantly, “Upon my
word, Aunt Maria, I thought that you, at least, would know better than
to credit this silly accusation. He has been a guest at your house, and
I am astonished that you should doubt his word.”

Mrs. Cooke looked at her niece perplexedly.

“You must remember, Marian,” she said gently, “that I know nothing about
him, where he came from, or who he is. Nor does any one at Asquith,
except perhaps Miss Trevor, by her own confession. And you do not seem
inclined to tell what you know, if indeed you know anything.”

Upon this Miss Thorn became more indignant still, and Mrs. Cooke went on
“Gentlemen, as a rule, do not assume names, especially other people's.
They are usually proud of their own. Mr. Allen appears among us, from
the clouds, as it were, and in due time we learn from a newspaper that
he has committed a defalcation. And, furthermore, the paper contains a
portrait and an accurate description which put the thing beyond doubt. I
ask you, is it reasonable for him to state coolly after all this that he
is another man? That he is a well-known author? It's an absurdity. I was
not born yesterday, my dear.”

“It is most reasonable under the circumstances,” replied Miss Thorn,
warmly. “Extraordinary? Of course it's extraordinary. And too long to
explain to a prejudiced audience, who can't be expected to comprehend
the character of a genius, to understand the yearning of a famous man
for a little quiet.”

Mrs. Cooke looked grave.

“Marian, you forget yourself,” she said.

“Oh, I am tired of it, Aunt Maria,” cried Miss Thorn; “if he takes my
advice, he will refuse to discuss it farther.”

She did not seem to be aware that she had put forth no argument
whatever, save a woman's argument. And I was intensely surprised that
her indignation should have got the better of her in this way, having
always supposed her clear-headed in the extreme. A few words from her,
such as I supposed she would have spoken, had set the Celebrity right
with all except Mr. Cooke. To me it was a clear proof that the Celebrity
had turned her head, and her mind with it.

The silence was broken by an uncontrollable burst of laughter from Miss
Trevor. She was quickly frowned down by her father, who reminded her
that this was not a comedy.

“And, Mr. Allen,” he said, “if you have anything to say, or any evidence
to bring forward, now is the time to do it.”

He appeared to forget that I was the district attorney.

The Celebrity had seated himself on the trunk of a tree, and was blowing
out the smoke in clouds. He was inclined to take Miss Thorn's advice,
for he made a gesture of weariness with his cigarette, in the use of
which he was singularly eloquent.

“Tell me, Mr. Trevor,” said he, “why I should sit before you as a
tribunal? Why I should take the trouble to clear myself of a senseless
charge? My respect for you inclines me to the belief that you are
laboring under a momentary excitement; for when you reflect that I am a
prominent, not to say famous, author, you will realize how absurd it is
that I should be an embezzler, and why I decline to lower myself by an
explanation.”

Mr. Trevor picked up the paper and struck it.

“Do you refuse to say anything in the face of such evidence as that?” he
cried.

“It is not a matter for refusal, Mr. Trevor. It is simply that I cannot
admit the possibility of having committed the crime.”

“Well, sir,” said the senator, his black necktie working out of place
as his anger got the better of him, “I am to believe, then, because you
claim to be the author of a few society novels, that you are infallible?
Let me tell you that the President of the United States himself is
liable to impeachment, and bound to disprove any charge he may be
accused of. What in Halifax do I care for your divine-right-of-authors
theory? I'll continue to think you guilty until you are shown to be
innocent.”

Suddenly the full significance of the Celebrity's tactics struck Mr.
Cooke, and he reached out and caught hold of Mr. Trevor's coattails.
“Hold on, old man,” said he; “Allen isn't going to be ass enough to own
up to it. Don't you see we'd all be jugged and fined for assisting a
criminal over the border? It's out of consideration for us.”

Mr. Trevor looked sternly over his shoulder at Mr. Cooke.

“Do you mean to say, sir, seriously,” he asked, “that, for the sake of
a misplaced friendship for this man, and a misplaced sense of honor,
you are bound to shield a guest, though a criminal? That you intend to
assist him to escape from justice? I insist, for my own protection and
that of my daughter, as well as for that of the others present that,
since he refuses to speak, we must presume him guilty and turn him
over.”

Mr. Trevor turned to Mrs. Cooke, as if relying on her support.

“Fenelon,” said she, “I have never sought to influence your actions when
your friends were concerned, and I shall not begin now. All I ask of you
is to consider the consequences of your intention.”

These words from Mrs. Cooke had much more weight with my client than Mr.
Trevor's blustering demands.

“Maria, my dear,” he said, with a deferential urbanity, “Mr. Allen is my
guest, and a gentleman. When a gentleman gives his word that he is not a
criminal, it is sufficient.”

The force of this, for some reason, did not overwhelm his wife; and her
lip curled a little, half in contempt, half in risibility.

“Pshaw, Fenelon,” said she, “what a fraud you are. Why is it you wish to
get Mr. Allen over the border, then?” A question which might well have
staggered a worthier intellect.

“Why, my dear,” answered my client, “I wish to save Mr. Allen the
inconvenience, not to say the humiliation, of being brought East in
custody and strapped with a pair of handcuffs. Let him take a shooting
trip to the great Northwest until the real criminal is caught.”

“Well, Fenelon,” replied Mrs. Cooke, unable to repress a smile, “one
might as well try to argue with a turn-stile or a weather-vane. I wash
my hands of it.”

But Mr. Trevor, who was both a self-made man and a Western politician,
was far from being satisfied. He turned to me with a sweep of the arm he
had doubtless learned in the Ohio State Senate.

“Mr. Crocker,” he cried, “are you, as attorney of this district, going
to aid and abet in the escape of a fugitive from justice?”

“Mr. Trevor,” said I, “I will take the course in this matter which seems
fit to me, and without advice from any one.”

He wheeled on Farrar, repeated the question, and got a like answer.

Brought to bay for a time, he glared savagely around him while groping
for further arguments.

But at this point the Four appeared on the scene, much the worse for
thickets, and clamoring for luncheon. They had five small fish between
them which they wanted Miss Thorn to cook.




CHAPTER XII

The Four received Mr. Cooke's plan for the Celebrity's escape to Canada
with enthusiastic acclamation, and as the one thing lacking to make the
Bear Island trip a complete success. The Celebrity was hailed with the
reverence due to the man who puts up the ring-money in a prize-fight. He
was accorded, too, a certain amount of respect as a defaulter, which the
Four would have denied him as an author, for I am inclined to the belief
that the discovery of his literary profession would have lowered him
rather than otherwise in their eyes. My client was naturally anxious to
get under way at once for the Canadian border, but was overruled in
this by his henchmen, who demanded something to eat. We sat down to an
impromptu meal, which was an odd affair indeed. Mrs. Cooke maintained
her usual serenity, but said little, while Miss Trevor and I had many a
mirthful encounter at the thought of the turn matters had taken.

At the other end of the cloth were Mr. Cooke and the Four, in wonderful
spirits and unimpaired appetite, and in their midst sat the Celebrity,
likewise in wonderful spirits. His behavior now and again elicited a
loud grunt of disapproval from Mr. Trevor, who was plying his knife and
fork in a manner emblematic of his state of mind. Mr. Allen was laughing
and joking airily with Mr. Cooke and the guests, denying, but not
resenting, their accusations with all the sang froid of a hardened
criminal. He did not care particularly to go to Canada, he said. Why
should he, when he was innocent? But, if Mr. Cooke insisted, he would
enjoy seeing that part of the lake and the Canadian side.

Afterwards I perceived Miss Thorn down by the brookside, washing dishes.
Her sleeves were drawn back to the elbow, and a dainty white apron
covered her blue skirt, while the wind from the lake had disentangled
errant wisps of her hair. I stood on the brink above, secure, as I
thought, from observation, when she chanced to look up and spied me.

“Mr. Crocker,” she called, “would you like to make yourself useful?”

I was decidedly embarrassed. Her manner was as frank and unconstrained
as though I had not been shunning her for weeks past.

“If such a thing is possible,” I replied.

“Do you know a dish-cloth when you see one?”

I was doubtful. But I procured the cloth from Miss Trevor and returned.
There was an air about Miss Thorn that was new to me.

“What an uncompromising man you are, Mr. Crocker,” she said to me. “Once
a person is unfortunate enough to come under the ban of your disapproval
you have nothing whatever to do with them. Now it seems that I have
given you offence in some way. Is it not so?”

“You magnify my importance,” I said.

“No temporizing, Mr. Crocker,” she went on, as though she meant to be
obeyed; “sit down there, and let's have it out. I like you too well to
quarrel with you.”

There was no resisting such a command, and I threw myself on the pebbles
at her feet.

“I thought we were going to be great friends,” she said. “You and Mr.
Farrar were so kind to me on the night of my arrival, and we had such
fun watching the dance together.”

“I confess I thought so, too. But you expressed opinions then that
I shared. You have since changed your mind, for some unaccountable
reason.”

She paused in her polishing, a shining dish in her hand, and looked down
at me with something between a laugh and a frown.

“I suppose you have never regretted speaking hastily,” she said.

“Many a time,” I returned, warming; “but if I ever thought a judgment
measured and distilled, it was your judgment of the Celebrity.”

“Does the study of law eliminate humanity?” she asked, with a mock
curtsey. “The deliberate sentences are sometimes the unjust ones, and
men who are hung by weighed wisdom are often the innocent.”

“That is all very well in cases of doubt. But here you have the
evidences of wrong-doing directly before you.”

Three dishes were taken up, dried, and put down before she answered me.
I threw pebbles into the brook, and wished I had held my tongue.

“What evidence?” inquired she. “Well,” said I, “I must finish, I
suppose. I had a notion you knew of what I inferred. First, let me
say that I have no desire to prejudice you against a person whom you
admire.”

“Impossible.”

Something in her tone made me look up.

“Very good, then,” I answered. “I, for one, can have no use for a man
who devotes himself to a girl long enough to win her affections, and
then deserts her with as little compunction as a dog does a rat it has
shaken. And that is how your Celebrity treated Miss Trevor.”

“But Miss Trevor has recovered, I believe,” said Miss Thorn.

I began to feel a deep, but helpless, insecurity.

“Happily, yes,” I assented.

“Thanks to an excellent physician.”

A smile twitched the corners of her mouth, as though she enjoyed my
discomfiture. I remarked for the fiftieth time how strong her face was,
with its generous lines and clearly moulded features. And a suspicion
entered my soul.

“At any rate,” I said, with a laugh, “the Celebrity has got himself into
no end of a predicament now. He may go back to New York in custody.”

“I thought you incapable of resentment, Mr. Crocker. How mean of you to
deny him!”

“It can do no harm,” I answered; “a little lesson in the dangers of
incognito may be salutary. I wish it were a little lesson in the dangers
of something else.”

The color mounted to her face as she resumed her occupation.

“I am afraid you are a very wicked man,” she said.

Before I could reply there came a scuffling sound from the bank above
us, and the snapping of branches and twigs. It was Mr. Cooke. His
descent, the personal conduction of which he lost half-way down, was
irregular and spasmodic, and a rude concussion at the bottom knocked off
a choice bit of profanity which was balanced on the tip of his tongue.

“Tobogganing is a little out of season,” said his niece, laughing
heartily.

Mr. Cooke brushed himself off, picked up the glasses which he had
dropped in his flight and pushed them into my hands. Then he pointed
lakeward with bulging eyes.

“Crocker, old man,” he said in a loud whisper, “they tell me that is an
Asquith cat-boat.”

I followed his finger and saw for the first time a sail-boat headed for
the island, then about two miles off shore. I raised the glasses.

“Yes,” I said, “the Scimitar.”

“That's what Farrar said,” cried he.

“And what about it?” I asked.

“What about it?” he ejaculated. “Why, it's a detective come for Allen.
I knew sure as hell if they got as far as Asquith they wouldn't stop
there. And that's the fastest sail-boat he could hire there, isn't it?”

I replied that it was. He seized me by the shoulder and began dragging
me up the bank.

“What are you going to do?” I cried, shaking myself loose.

“We've got to get on the Maria and run for it,” he panted. “There is no
time to be lost.”

He had reached the top of the bank and was running towards the group
at the tents. And he actually infused me with some of his red-hot
enthusiasm, for I hastened after him.

“But you can't begin to get the Maria out before they will be in here,”
 I shouted.

He stopped short, gazed at the approaching boat, and then at me.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, of course,” said I, “they will be here in ten minutes.”

The Celebrity stood in the midst of the excited Four. His hair was
parted precisely, and he had induced a monocle to remain in his eye long
enough to examine the Scimitar, his nose at the critical elevation. This
unruffled exterior made a deep impression on the Four. Was the Celebrity
not undergoing the crucial test of a true sport? He was an example alike
to criminals and philosophers.

Mr. Cooke hurried into the group, which divided respectfully for him,
and grasped the Celebrity by the hand.

“Something else has got to be done, old man,” he said, in a voice which
shook with emotion; “they'll be on us before we can get the Maria out.”

Farrar, who was nailing a rustic bench near by, straightened up at this,
his lip curling with a desire to laugh.

The Celebrity laid his hand on my client's shoulder.

“Cooke,” said he, “I'm deeply grateful for all the trouble you wish to
take, and for the solicitude you have shown. But let things be. I'll
come out of it all right.”

“Never,” cried Cooke, looking proudly around the Four as some Highland
chief might have surveyed a faithful clan. “I'd a damned sight rather go
to jail myself.”

“A damned sight,” echoed the Four in unison.

“I insist, Cooke,” said the Celebrity, taking out his eyeglass and
tapping Mr. Cooke's purple necktie, “I insist that you drop this
business. I repeat my thanks to you and these gentlemen for the
friendship they have shown, but say again that I am as innocent of this
crime as a baby.”

Mr. Cooke paid no attention to this speech. His face became radiant.

“Didn't any of you fellows strike a cave, or a hollow tree, or something
of that sort, knocking around this morning?”

One man slapped his knee.

“The very place,” he cried. “I fell into it,” and he showed a rent in
his trousers corroboratively. “It's big enough to hold twenty of Allen,
and the detective doesn't live that could find it.”

“Hustle him off, quick,” said Mr. Cooke.

The mandate was obeyed as literally as though Robin Hood himself had
given it. The Celebrity disappeared into the forest, carried rather than
urged towards his destined place of confinement.

The commotion had brought Mr. Trevor to the spot. He caught sight of
the Celebrity's back between the trees, then he looked at the cat-boat
entering the cove, a man in the stern preparing to pull in the tender.

He intercepted Mr. Cooke on his way to the beach.

“What have you done with Mr. Allen?” he asked, in a menacing voice.

“Good God,” said Mr. Cooke, whose contempt for Mr. Trevor was now
infinite, “you talk as if I were the governor of the state. What the
devil could I do with him?”

“I will have no evasion,” replied Mr. Trevor, taking an imposing posture
in front of him. “You are trying to defeat the ends of justice by
assisting a dangerous criminal to escape. I have warned you, sir, and
warn you again of the consequences of your meditated crime, and I give
you my word I will do all in my power to frustrate it.”

Mr. Cooke dug his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. Here was a
complication he had not looked for. The Scimitar lay at anchor with her
sail down, and two men were coming ashore in the tender. Mr. Cooke's
attitude being that of a man who reconsiders a rash resolve, Mr. Trevor
was emboldened to say in a moderated tone:

“You were carried away by your generosity, Mr. Cooke. I was sure when
you took time to think you would see it in another light.”

Mr. Cooke started off for the place where the boat had grounded. I did
not catch his reply, and probably should not have written it here if I
had. The senator looked as if he had been sand-bagged.

The two men jumped out of the boat and hauled it up. Mr. Cooke waved an
easy salute to one, whom I recognized as the big boatman from Asquith,
familiarly known as Captain Jay. He owned the Scimitar and several
smaller boats. The captain went through the pantomime of an introduction
between Mr. Cooke and the other, whom my client shook warmly by the
hand, and presently all three came towards us.

Mr. Cooke led them to a bar he had improvised by the brook. A pool
served the office of refrigerator, and Mr. Cooke had devised an
ingenious but complicated arrangement of strings and labels which
enabled him to extract any bottle or set of bottles without having to
bare his arm and pull out the lot. Farrar and I responded to the call he
had given, and went down to assist in the entertainment. My client, with
his back to us, was busy manipulating the strings.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “let me make you acquainted with Mr. Drew. You all
know the captain.”

Had I not suspected Mr. Drew's profession, I think I should not have
remarked that he gave each of us a keen look as he raised his head. He
had reddish-brown hair, and a pair of bushy red whiskers, each of which
tapered to a long point. He was broad in the shoulders, and the clothes
he wore rather enhanced this breadth. His suit was gray and almost new,
the trousers perceptibly bagging at the knee, and he had a felt hat,
a necktie of the white and flowery pattern, and square-toed “Congress”
 boots. In short, he was a decidedly ordinary looking person; you would
meet a hundred like him in the streets of Far Harbor and Beaverton. He
might have been a prosperous business man in either of those towns,--a
comfortable lumber merchant or mine owner. And he had chosen just the
get-up I should have picked for detective work in that region. He had
a pleasant eye and a very fetching and hearty manner. But his long
whiskers troubled me especially. I kept wondering if they were real.

“The captain is sailing Mr. Drew over to Far Harbor,” explained Mr.
Cooke, “and they have put in here for the night.”

Mr. Drew was plainly not an amateur, for he volunteered nothing further
than this. The necessary bottles having been produced, Mr. Cooke held up
his glass and turned to the stranger.

“Welcome to our party, old man,” said he.

Mr. Drew drained his glass and complimented Mr. Cooke on the brand,--a
sure key to my client's heart. Whereupon he seated himself between Mr.
Drew and the captain and began a discourse on the subject of his own
cellar, on which he talked for nearly an hour. His only pauses were for
the worthy purpose of filling the detective's or the captain's glass,
and these he watched with a hospitable solicitude. The captain had
the advantage, three to one, and I made no doubt his employer bitterly
regretted not having a boatman whose principles were more strict. At the
end of the hour Captain Jay, who by nature was inclined to be taciturn
and crabbed, waxed loquacious and even jovial. He sang us the songs he
had learned in the winter lumber-camps, which Mr. Cooke never failed
to encore to the echo. My client vowed he had not spent a pleasanter
afternoon for years. He plied the captain with cigars, and explained to
him the mystery of the strings and labels; and the captain experimented
until he had broken some of the bottles.

Mr. Cooke was not a person who made any great distinction between the
three degrees, acquaintance, friendship, and intimacy. When a stranger
pleased him, he went from one to the other with such comparative ease
that a hardhearted man, and no other, could have resented his advances.
Mr. Drew was anything but a hard-hearted man, and he did not object to
my client's familiarity. Mr. Cooke made no secret of his admiration
for Mr. Drew, and there were just two things about him that Mr. Cooke
admired and wondered at, above all else,--the bushy red whiskers. But it
appeared that these were the only things that Mr. Drew was really touchy
about. I noticed that the detective, without being impolite, did his
best to discourage these remarks; but my client knew no such word as
discouragement. He was continually saying: “I think I'll grow some like
that, old man,” or “Have those cut,” and the like,--a kind of humor
in which the captain took an incredible delight. And finally, when a
certain pitch of good feeling had been arrived at, Mr. Cooke reached out
and playfully grabbed hold of the one near him. The detective drew back.
“Mr. Cooke,” said he, with dignity, “I'll have to ask you to let my
whiskers alone.”

“Certainly, old man,” replied my client, anything but abashed. “You'll
pardon me, but they seemed too good to be true. I congratulate you on
them.”

I was amused as well as alarmed at this piece of boldness, but the
incident passed off without any disagreeable results, except, perhaps,
a slight nervousness noticeable in the detective; and this soon
disappeared. As the sun grew low, the Celebrity's conductors straggled
in with fishing-rods and told of an afternoon's sport, and we left the
captain peacefully but sonorously slumbering on the bank.

“Crocker,” said my client to me, afterwards, “they didn't feel like the
real, home-grown article. But aren't they damned handsome?”




CHAPTER XIII

After supper, Captain Jay was rowed out and put to bed in his own bunk
on the Scimitar. Then we heaped together a huge pile of the driftwood
on the beach and raised a blazing beacon, the red light of which I doubt
not could be seen from the mainland. The men made prongs from the soft
wood, while Miss Thorn produced from the stores some large tins of
marshmallows.

The memory of that evening lingers with me yet. The fire colored
everything. The waves dashed in ruby foam at our feet, and even the
tall, frowning pines at our backs were softened; the sting was gone out
of the keen night wind from the north. I found a place beside the gray
cape I had seen for the first time the night of the cotillon. I
no longer felt any great dislike for Miss Thorn, let it be known.
Resentment was easier when the distance between Mohair and Asquith
separated us,--impossible on a yachting excursion. But why should I be
justifying myself?

Mr. Cooke and the Four, in addition to other accomplishments, possessed
excellent voices, and Mr. Drew sang a bass which added much to the
melody. One of the Four played a banjo. It is only justice to Mr. Drew
to say that he seemed less like a detective than any man I have ever
met. He told a good story and was quick at repartee, and after a while
the music, by tacit consent, was abandoned for the sake of hearing him
talk. He related how he had worked up the lake, point by point, from
Beaverton to Asquith, and lightened his narrative with snappy accounts
of the different boatmen he had run across and of the different
predicaments into which he had fallen. His sketches were so vivid that
Mr. Cooke forgot to wink at me after a while and sat spellbound, while I
marvelled at the imaginative faculty he displayed. He had us in roars of
laughter. His stories were far from incredible, and he looked less like
a liar than a detective. He showed, too, an accurate and astonishing
knowledge of the lake which could hardly have been acquired in any other
way than the long-shore trip he had described. Not once did he hint of a
special purpose which had brought him to the island, and it was growing
late. The fire died down upon the stones, and the thought of the
Celebrity, alone in a dark cave in the middle of the island, began to
prey upon me. I was not designed for a practical joker, and I take it
that pity is a part of every self-respecting man's composition. In the
cool of the night season the ludicrous side of the matter did not appeal
to me quite as strongly as in the glare of day. A joke should never be
pushed to cruelty. It was in vain that I argued I had no direct hand in
the concealing of him; I felt my responsibility quite as heavy upon me.
Perhaps bears still remained in these woods. And if a bear should devour
the author of The Sybarites, would the world ever forgive me? Could I
ever repay the debt to the young women of these United States? To speak
truth, I expected every moment to see him appear. Why, in the name of
all his works, did he stay there? Nothing worse could befall him than
to go to Far Harbor with Drew, where our words concerning his identity
would be taken. And what an advertisement this would be for the great
author. The Sybarites, now selling by thousands, would increase its
sales to ten thousands. Ah, there was the rub. The clue to his remaining
in the cave was this very kink in the Celebrity's character. There
was nothing Bohemian in that character; it yearned after the eminently
respectable. Its very eccentricities were within the limits of good
form. The Celebrity shunned the biscuits and beer of the literary clubs,
and his books were bound for the boudoir. To have it proclaimed in the
sensational journals that the hands of this choice being had been locked
for grand larceny was a thought too horrible to entertain. His very
manservant would have cried aloud against it. Better a hundred nights in
a cave than one such experience!

Miss Trevor's behavior that evening was so unrestful as to lead me to
believe that she, too, was going through qualms of sympathy for the
victim. As we were breaking up for the evening she pulled my sleeve.

“Don't you think we have carried our joke a little too far, Mr.
Crocker?” she whispered uneasily. “I can't bear to think of him in that
terrible place.”

“It will do him a world of good,” I replied, assuming a gayety I did not
feel. It is not pleasant to reflect that some day one's own folly might
place one in alike situation. And the night was dismally cool and windy,
now that the fire had gone out. Miss Trevor began to philosophize.

“Such practical pleasantries as this,” she said, “are like infernal
machines: they often blow up the people that start them. And they are
next to impossible to steer.”

“Perhaps it is just as well not to assume we are the instruments of
Providence,” I said.

Here we ran into Miss Thorn, who was carrying a lantern.

“I have been searching everywhere for you two mischief-makers,” said
she. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Heaven only knows how this
little experiment will end. Here is Aunt Maria, usually serene, on the
verge of hysterics: she says he shouldn't stay in that damp cave another
minute. Here is your father, Irene, organizing relief parties and
walking the floor of his tent like a madman. And here is Uncle Fenelon
insane over the idea of getting the poor, innocent man into Canada. And
here is a detective saddled upon us, perhaps for days, and Uncle Fenelon
has gotten his boatman drunk. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,”
 she repeated.

Miss Trevor laughed, in spite of the gravity of these things, and so did
I.

“Oh, come, Marian,” said she, “it isn't as bad as all that. And you talk
as if you hadn't anything to be reproached for. Your own defence of the
Celebrity wasn't as strong as it might have been.”

By the light of the lantern I saw Miss Thorn cast one meaning look at
Miss Trevor.

“What are you going to do about it?” asked Miss Thorn, addressing me.
“Think of that unhappy man, without a bed, without blankets, without
even a tooth-brush.”

“He hasn't been wholly off my mind,” I answered truthfully. “But there
isn't anything we can do to-night, with that beastly detective to notice
it.”

“Then you must go very early to-morrow morning, before the detective
gets up.”

I couldn't help smiling at the notion of getting up before a detective.

“I am only too willing,” I said.

“It must be by four o'clock,” Miss Thorn went on energetically, “and we
must have a guide we can trust. Arrange it with one of Uncle Fenelon's
friends.”

“We?” I repeated.

“You certainly don't imagine that I am going to be left behind?” said
Miss Thorn.

I made haste to invite for the expedition one of the Four, who was quite
willing to go; and we got together all the bodily comforts we could
think of and put them in a hamper, the Fraction not forgetting to add a
few bottles from Mr. Cooke's immersed bar.

Long after the camp had gone to bed, I lay on the pine-needles above the
brook, shielded from the wind by

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