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Kent Knowles: Quahaug

by Joseph Crosby Lincoln · English · Gutenberg #5980 · 717,369 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Kent Knowles: Quahaug

Author: Joseph Crosby Lincoln


        
Release date: June 6, 2006 [eBook #5980]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2023

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5980

Credits: Don Lainson; David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG ***




KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG


By Joseph C. Lincoln



1914



CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I.     Which is not a chapter at all

II.    Which repeats, for the most part, what Jim Campbell said to me and
       what I said to him

III.   Which, although it is largely family history, should not be skipped
       by the reader

IV.    In which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia sail together

V.     In which we view, and even mingle slightly with, the upper classes

VI.    In which we are received at Bancroft's Hotel and I receive a letter

VII.   In which a dream becomes a reality

VIII.  In which the pilgrims become tenants

IX.    In which we make the acquaintance of Mayberry and a portion of
       Burgleston Bogs

X.     In which I break all previous resolutions and make a new one

XI.    In which complications become more complicated

XII.   In which the truth is told at last

XIII.  In which Hephzy and I agree to live for each other

XIV.   In which I play golf and cross the channel

XV.    In which I learn that all abbeys are not churches

XVI.   In which I take my turn at playing the invalid

XVII.  In which I, as well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, am surprised

XVIII. In which the pilgrimage ends where it began

XIX.   Which treats of quahaugs in general





KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG



CHAPTER I

Which is Not a Chapter at All


It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history. Perhaps I
should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I shouldn't. He has gotten
me out of a difficulty--or into one; I am far from certain which.

Ordinarily--I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling
romances, which is, or was, my trade--I swear I never have called it
a profession--the beginning of a story is the least of the troubles
connected with its manufacture. Given a character or two and a
situation, the beginning of one of those romances is, or was, pretty
likely to be something like this:

“It was a black night. Heavy clouds had obscured the setting sun and
now, as the clock in the great stone tower boomed twelve, the darkness
was pitchy.”

That is a good safe beginning. Midnight, a stone tower, a booming clock,
and darkness make an appeal to the imagination. On a night like that
almost anything may happen. A reader of one of my romances--and
readers there must be, for the things did, and still do, sell to some
extent--might be fairly certain that something WOULD happen before the
end of the second page. After that the somethings continued to happen as
fast as I could invent them.

But this story was different. The weather or the time had nothing to do
with its beginning. There were no solitary horsemen or strange wayfarers
on lonely roads, no unexpected knocks at the doors of taverns, no
cloaked personages landing from boats rowed by black-browed seamen with
red handkerchiefs knotted about their heads and knives in their
belts. The hero was not addressed as “My Lord”; he was not “Sir
Somebody-or-other” in disguise. He was not young and handsome; there was
not even “a certain something in his manner and bearing which hinted of
an eventful past.” Indeed there was not. For, if this particular yarn or
history or chronicle which I had made up my mind to write, and which I
am writing now, had or has a hero, I am he. And I am Hosea Kent Knowles,
of Bayport, Massachusetts, the latter the village in which I was born
and in which I have lived most of the time since I was twenty-seven
years old. Nobody calls me “My Lord.” Hephzy has always called me
“Hosy”--a name which I despise--and the others, most of them, “Kent” to
my face and “The Quahaug” behind my back, a quahaug being a very common
form of clam which is supposed to lead a solitary existence and to
keep its shell tightly shut. If anything in my manner had hinted at a
mysterious past no one in Bayport would have taken the hint. Bayporters
know my past and that of my ancestors only too well.

As for being young and handsome--well, I was thirty-eight years old last
March. Which is quite enough on THAT subject.

But I had determined to write the story, so I sat down to begin it. And
immediately I got into difficulties. How should I begin? I might begin
at any one of a dozen places--with Hephzy's receiving the Raymond and
Whitcomb circular; with our arrival in London; with Jim Campbell's visit
to me here in Bayport; with the curious way in which the letter reached
us, after crossing the ocean twice. Any one of these might serve as a
beginning--but which? I made I don't know how many attempts, but not
one was satisfactory. I, who had begun I am ashamed to tell you how many
stories--yes, and had finished them and seen them in print as well--was
stumped at the very beginning of this one. Like Sim Phinney I had
worked at my job “a long spell” and “cal'lated” I knew it, but here
was something I didn't know. As Sim said, when he faced his problem, “I
couldn't seem to get steerage way on her.”

Simeon, you see--He is Angeline Phinney's second cousin and lives in
the third house beyond the Holiness Bethel on the right-hand side of the
road--Simeon has “done carpentering” here in Bayport all his life. He
built practically every henhouse now gracing or disgracing the backyards
of our village. He is our “henhouse specialist,” so to speak. He has
even been known to boast of his skill. “Henhouses!” snorted Sim; “land
of love! I can build a henhouse with my eyes shut. Nowadays when another
one of them foolheads that's been readin' 'How to Make a Million Poultry
Raisin'' in the Farm Gazette comes to me and says 'Henhouse,' I say,
'Yes sir. Fifteen dollars if you pay me cash now and a hundred and
fifteen if you want to wait and pay me out of your egg profits. That's
all there is to it.'”

And yet, when Captain Darius Nickerson, who made the most of his money
selling fifty-foot lots of sand, beachgrass and ticks to summer
people for bungalow sites--when Captain Darius, grown purse-proud and
vainglorious, expressed a desire for a henhouse with a mansard roof and
a cupola, the latter embellishments to match those surmounting his own
dwelling, Simeon was set aback with his canvas flapping. At the end of
a week he had not driven a nail. “Godfrey's mighty!” he is reported to
have exclaimed. “I don't know whether to build the average cupola and
trust to a hen's fittin' it, or take an average hen and build a cupola
round her. Maybe I'll be all right after I get started, but it's where
to start that beats me.”

Where to start beat me, also, and it might be beating me yet, if I
hadn't dropped in at the post-office and heard Asaph Tidditt telling
a story to the group around the stove. After he had finished, and,
the mail being sorted, we were walking homeward together, I asked a
question.

“Asaph,” said I, “when you start to spin a yarn how do you begin?”

“Hey?” he exclaimed. “How do I begin? Why, I just heave to and go to
work and begin, that's all.”

“Yes, I know, but where do you begin?”

“At the beginnin', naturally. If you was cal'latin' to sail a boat race
you wouldn't commence at t'other end of the course, would you?”

“_I_ might; practical people wouldn't, I suppose. But--what IS the
beginning? Suppose there were a lot of beginnings and you didn't know
which to choose.”

“Oh, we-ll, in that case I'd just sort of--of edge around till I found
one that--that was a beginnin' of SOMETHIN' and I'd start there. You
understand, don't you? Take that yarn I was spinnin' just now--that one
about Josiah Dimick's great uncle's pig on his mother's side. I mean
his uncle on his mother's side, not the pig, of course. Now I hadn't no
intention of tellin' about that hog; hadn't thought of it for a thousand
year, as you might say. I just commenced to tell about Angie Phinney,
about how fast she could talk, and that reminded me of a parrot
that belonged to Sylvanus Cahoon's sister--Violet, the sister's name
was--loony name, too, if you ask ME, 'cause she was a plaguey sight
nigher bein' a sunflower than she was a violet--weighed two hundred and
ten and had a face on her as red as--”

“Just a minute, Ase. About that pig?”

“Oh, yes! Well, the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the parrot
reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to roost in the
pigpen nights--wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you nor I would--and
that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs fetched Josiah's
uncle's pig to mind and there I was all ready to start on the yarn. It
pretty often works out that way. When you want to start a yarn and you
can't start--you've forgot it, or somethin'--just begin somewhere, get
goin' somehow. Edge around and keep edgin' around and pretty soon you'll
fetch up at the right place TO start. See, don't you, Kent?”

I saw--that is, I saw enough. I came home and this morning I began the
“edging around” process. I don't seem to have “fetched up” anywhere in
particular, but I shall keep on with the edging until I do. As Asaph
says, I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with the Saturday morning
of last April when Jim Campbell, my publisher and my friend--which is
by no means such an unusual combination as many people think--sat on the
veranda of my boathouse overlooking Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past,
present and, more particularly, my future.



CHAPTER II

Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and What
I Said to Him


“Jim,” said I, “what is the matter with me?”

Jim, who was seated in the ancient and dilapidated arm-chair which
was the finest piece of furniture in the boathouse and which I always
offered to visitors, looked at me over the collar of my sweater. I used
the sweater as I did the arm-chair when I did not have visitors. He was
using it then because, like an idiot, he had come to Cape Cod in April
with nothing warmer than a very natty suit and a light overcoat. Of
course one may go clamming and fishing in a light overcoat, but--one
doesn't.

Jim looked at me over the collar of my sweater. Then he crossed
his oilskinned and rubber-booted legs--they were my oilskins and my
boots--and answered promptly.

“Indigestion,” he said. “You ate nine of those biscuits this morning; I
saw you.”

“I did not,” I retorted, “because you saw them first. MY interior is in
its normal condition. As for yours--”

“Mine,” he interrupted, filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch, “being
accustomed to a breakfast, not a gorge, is abnormal but satisfactory,
thank you--quite satisfactory.”

“That,” said I, “we will discuss later, when I have you out back of the
bar in my catboat. Judging from present indications there will be some
sea-running. The 'Hephzy' is a good, capable craft, but a bit cranky,
like the lady she is named for. I imagine she will roll.”

He didn't like that. You see, I had sailed with him before and I
remembered.

“Ho-se-a,” he drawled, “you have a vivid imagination. It is a pity you
don't use more of it in those stories of yours.”

“Humph! I am obliged to use the most of it on the royalty statements you
send me. If you call me 'Hosea' again I will take the 'Hephzy' across
the Point Rip. The waves there are fifteen feet high at low tide. See
here, I asked you a serious question and I should like a serious answer.
Jim, what IS the matter with me? Have I written out or what is the
trouble?”

He looked at me again.

“Are you in earnest?” he asked.

“I am, very much in earnest.”

“And you really want to talk shop after a breakfast like that and on a
morning like this?”

“I do.”

“Was that why you asked me to come to Bayport and spend the week-end?”

“No-o. No, of course not.”

“You're another; it was. When you met me at the railroad station
yesterday I could see there was something wrong with you. All this
morning you've had something on your chest. I thought it was the
biscuits, of course; but it wasn't, eh?”

“It was not.”

“Then what was it? Aren't we paying you a large enough royalty?”

“You are paying me a good deal larger one than I deserve. I don't see
why you do it.”

“Oh,” with a wave of the hand, “that's all right. The publishing of
books is a pure philanthropy. We are in business for our health, and--”

“Shut up. You know as well as I do that the last two yarns of mine which
your house published have not done as well as the others.”

I had caught him now. Anything remotely approaching a reflection upon
the business house of which he was the head was sufficient to stir
up Jim Campbell. That business, its methods and its success, were his
idols.

“I don't know any such thing,” he protested, hotly. “We sold--”

“Hang the sale! You sold quite enough. It is an everlasting miracle
to me that you are able to sell a single copy. Why a self-respecting
person, possessed of any intelligence whatever, should wish to read the
stuff I write, to say nothing of paying money for the privilege, I can't
understand.”

“You don't have to understand. No one expects an author to understand
anything. All you are expected to do is to write; we'll attend to the
rest of it. And as for sales--why, 'The Black Brig'--that was the last
one, wasn't it?--beat the 'Omelet' by eight thousand or more.”

“The Omelet” was our pet name for “The Queen's Amulet,” my first offence
in the literary line. It was a highly seasoned concoction of revolution
and adventure in a mythical kingdom where life was not dull, to say the
least. The humblest character in it was a viscount. Living in Bayport
had, naturally, made me familiar with the doings of viscounts.

“Eight thousand more than the last isn't so bad, is it?” demanded Jim
Campbell combatively.

“It isn't. It is astonishingly good. It is the books themselves that
are bad. The 'Omelet' was bad enough, but I wrote it more as a joke than
anything else. I didn't take it seriously at all. Every time I called
a duke by his Christian name I grinned. But nowadays I don't grin--I
swear. I hate the things, Jim. They're no good. And the reviewers are
beginning to tumble to the fact that they're no good, too. You saw the
press notices yourself. 'Another Thriller by the Indefatigable Knowles'
'Barnacles, Buccaneers and Blood, not to Mention Beauty and the
Bourbons.' That's the way two writers headed their articles about 'The
Black Brig.' And a third said that I must be getting tired; I wrote as
if I was. THAT fellow was right. I am tired, Jim. I'm tired and sick
of writing slush. I can't write any more of it. And yet I can't write
anything else.”

Jim's pipe had gone out. Now he relit it and tossed the match over the
veranda rail.

“How do you know you can't?” he demanded.

“Can't what?”

“Can't write anything but slush?”

“Ah ha! Then it is slush. You admit it.”

“I don't admit anything of the kind. You may not be a William
Shakespeare or even a George Meredith, but you have written some mighty
interesting stories. Why, I know a chap who sits up till morning to
finish a book of yours. Can't sleep until he has finished it.”

“What's the matter with him; insomnia?”

“No; he's a night watchman. Does that satisfy you, you crossgrained
old shellfish? Come on, let's dig clams--some of your own blood
relations--and forget it.”

“I don't want to forget it and there is plenty of time for clamming. The
tide won't cover the flats for two hours yet. I tell you I'm serious,
Jim. I can't write any more. I know it. The stuff I've been writing
makes me sick. I hate it, I tell you. What the devil I'm going to do for
a living I can't see--but I can't write another story.”

Jim put his pipe in his pocket. I think at last he was convinced that I
meant what I said, which I certainly did. The last year had been a year
of torment to me. I had finished the 'Brig,' as a matter of duty, but if
that piratical craft had sunk with all hands, including its creator, I
should not have cared. I drove myself to my desk each day, as a horse
might be driven to a treadmill, but the animal could have taken no less
interest in his work than I had taken in mine. It was bad--bad--bad;
worthless and hateful. There wasn't a new idea in it and I hadn't one
in my head. I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which
might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had failed,
had now reached the point where that had failed, too. Campbell's surmise
was correct; with the pretence of asking him to the Cape for a
week-end of fishing and sailing I had lured him there to tell him of my
discouragement and my determination to quit.

He took his feet from the rail and hitched his chair about until he
faced me.

“So you're not going to write any more,” he said.

“I'm not. I can't.”

“What are you going to do; live on back royalties and clams?”

“I may have to live on the clams; my back royalties won't keep me very
long.”

“Humph! I should think they might keep you a good while down here. You
must have something in the stocking. You can't have wasted very much in
riotous living on this sand-heap. What have you done with your money,
for the last ten years; been leading a double life?”

“I've found leading a single one hard enough. I have saved something, of
course. It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I told you that. It's
myself; I'm no good. Every author, sometime or other, reaches the point
where he knows perfectly well he has done all the real work he can
ever do, that he has written himself out. That's what's the matter with
me--I'm written out.”

Jim snorted. “For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles,” he demanded, “how old
are you?”

“I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but--”

“Thirty-eight! Why, Thackeray wrote--”

“Drop it! I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you do.
I'm no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at thirty-eight
than he was when he died--yes, older than he would have been if he had
lived twice as long. So far as feeling and all the rest of it go, I'm a
second Methusaleh.”

“My soul! hear the man! And I'm forty-two myself. Well, Grandpa, what do
you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's Home?”

“I expect--” I began, “I expect--” and I concluded with the lame
admission that I didn't expect him to do anything. It was up to me to do
whatever must be done, I imagined.

He smiled grimly.

“Glad your senility has not affected that remnant of your common-sense,”
 he declared. “You're dead right, my boy; it IS up to you. You ought to
be ashamed of yourself.”

“I am, but that doesn't help me a whole lot.”

“Nothing will help you as long as you think and speak as you have this
morning. See here, Kent! answer me a question or two, will you? They may
be personal questions, but will you answer them?”

“I guess so. There has been what a disinterested listener might call
a slightly personal flavor to your remarks so far. Do your worst. Fire
away.”

“All right. You've lived in Bayport ten years or so, I know that. What
have you done in all that time--besides write?”

“Well, I've continued to live.”

“Doubted. You've continued to exist; but how? I've been here before.
This isn't my first visit, by a good deal. Each time I have been
here your daily routine--leaving out the exciting clam hunts and the
excursions in quest of the ferocious flounder, like the one we're
supposed--mind, I say supposed--to be on at the present moment--you
have put in the day about like this: Get up, bathe, eat, walk to the
post-office, walk home, sit about, talk a little, read some, walk some
more, eat again, smoke, talk, read, eat for the third time, smoke, talk,
read and go to bed. That's the program, isn't it?”

“Not exactly. I play tennis in summer--when there is anyone to play with
me--and golf, after a fashion. I used to play both a good deal, when I
was younger. I swim, and I shoot a little, and--and--”

“How about society? Have any, do you?”

“In the summer, when the city people are here, there is a good deal
going on, if you care for it--picnics and clam bakes and teas and lawn
parties and such.”

“Heavens! what reckless dissipation! Do you indulge?”

“Why, no--not very much. Hang it all, Jim! you know I'm no society man.
I used to do the usual round of fool stunts when I was younger, but--”

“But now you're too antique, I suppose. Wonder that someone hasn't
collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something. So you don't 'tea'
much?”

“Not much. I'm not often invited, to tell you the truth. The summer
crowd doesn't take kindly to me, I'm afraid.”

“Astonishing! You're such a chatty, entertaining, communicative cuss on
first acquaintance, too. So captivatingly loquacious to strangers. I can
imagine how you'd shine at a 'tea.' Every summer girl that tried to talk
to you would be frost-bitten. Do you accept invitations when they do
come?”

“Not often nowadays. You see, I know they don't really want me.”

“How do you know it?”

“Why--well, why should they? Everybody else calls me--”

“They call you a clam and so you try to live up to your reputation. I
know you, Kent. You think yourself a tough old bivalve, but the most
serious complaint you suffer from is ingrowing sensitiveness. They do
want you. They'd invite you if you gave them half a chance. Oh, I know
you won't, of course; but if I had my way I'd have you dragged by main
strength to every picnic and tea and feminine talk-fest within twenty
miles. You might meet some persevering female who would propose
marriage. YOU never would, but SHE might.”

I rose to my feet in disgust.

“We'll go clamming,” said I.

He did not move.

“We will--later on,” he answered. “We haven't got to the last page
of the catechism yet. I mentioned matrimony because a good, capable,
managing wife would be my first prescription in your case. I have one
or two more up my sleeve. Tell me this: How often do you get away from
Bayport? How often do you get to--well, to Boston, we'll say? How many
times have you been there in the last year?”

“I don't know. A dozen, perhaps.”

“What did you do when you went?”

“Various things. Shopped some, went to the theater occasionally, if
there happened to be anything on that I cared to see. Bought a good many
books. Saw the new Sargent pictures at the library. And--and--”

“And shook hands with your brother fossils at the museum, I suppose.
Wild life you lead, Kent. Did you visit anybody? Meet any friends or
acquaintances--any live ones?”

“Not many. I haven't many friends, Jim; you know that. As for the wild
life--well, I made two visits to New York this year.”

“Yes,” drily; “and we saw Sothern and Marlowe and had dinner at the
Holland. The rest of the time we talked shop. That was the first visit.
The second was more exciting still; we talked shop ALL the time and you
took the six o'clock train home again.”

“You're wrong there. I saw the new loan collections at the Metropolitan
and heard Ysaye play at Carnegie Hall. I didn't start for home until the
next day.”

“Is that so. That's news to me. You said you were going that afternoon.
That was to put the kibosh on my intention of taking you home to my wife
and her bridge party, I suppose. Was it?”

“Well--well, you see, Jim, I--I don't play bridge and I AM such a
stick in a crowd like that. I wanted to stay and you were mighty kind,
but--but--”

“All right. All right, my boy. Next time it will be Bustanoby's, the
Winter Garden and a three A. M. cabaret for yours. My time is coming.
Now--Well, now we'll go clamming.”

He swung out of the arm-chair and walked to the top of the steps leading
down to the beach. I was surprised, of course; I have known Jim Campbell
a long time, but he can surprise me even yet.

“Here! hold on!” I protested. “How about the rest of that catechism?”

“You've had it.”

“Were those all the questions you wanted to ask?”

“Yes.”

“Humph! And that is all the advice and encouragement I'm to get from
you! How about those prescriptions you had up your sleeve?”

“You'll get those by and by. Before I leave this gay and festive scene
to-morrow I'm going to talk to you, Ho-se-a. And you're going to listen.
You'll listen to old Doctor Campbell; HE'LL prescribe for you, don't
you worry. And now,” beginning to descend the steps, “now for clams and
flounders.”

“And the Point Rip,” I added, maliciously, for his frivolous treatment
of what was to me a very serious matter, was disappointing and
provoking. “Don't forget the Point Rip.”

We dug the clams--they were for bait--we boarded the “Hephzy,” sailed
out to the fishing grounds, and caught flounders. I caught the most of
them; Jim was not interested in fishing during the greater part of the
time. Then we sailed home again and walked up to the house. Hephzibah,
for whom my boat is named, met us at the back door. As usual her
greeting was not to the point and practical.

“Leave your rubber boots right outside on the porch,” she said. “Here,
give me those flatfish; I'll take care of 'em. Hosy, you'll find dry
things ready in your room. Here's your shoes; I've been warmin' 'em. Mr.
Campbell I've put a suit of Hosy's and some flannels on your bed. They
may not fit you, but they'll be lots better than the damp ones you've
got on. You needn't hurry; dinner won't be ready till you are.”

I did not say anything; I knew Hephzy--had known her all my life. Jim,
who, naturally enough, didn't know her as well, protested.

“We're not wet, Miss Cahoon,” he declared. “At least, I'm not, and I
don't see how Kent can be. We both wore oilskins.”

“That doesn't make any difference. You ought to change your clothes
anyhow. Been out in that boat, haven't you?”

“Yes, but--”

“Well, then! Don't say another word. I'll have a fire in the
sittin'-room and somethin' hot ready when you come down. Hosy, be
sure and put on BOTH the socks I darned for you. Don't get thinkin' of
somethin' else and come down with one whole and one holey, same as you
did last time. You must excuse me, Mr. Campbell. I've got saleratus
biscuits in the oven.”

She hastened into the kitchen. When Jim and I, having obeyed orders
to the extent of leaving our boots on the porch, passed through that
kitchen she was busy with the tea-kettle. I led the way through the
dining-room and up the front stairs. My visitor did not speak until we
reached the second story. Then he expressed his feelings.

“Say, Kent” he demanded, “are you going to change your clothes?”

“Yes.”

“Why? You're no wetter than I am, are you?”

“Not a bit, but I'm going to change, just the same. It's the easier
way.”

“It is, is it! What's the other way?”

“The other way is to keep on those you're wearing and take the
consequences.”

“What consequences?”

“Jamaica ginger, hot water bottles and an afternoon's roast in front of
the sitting-room fire. Hephzibah went out sailing with me last October
and caught cold. That was enough; no one else shall have the experience
if she can help it.”

“But--but good heavens! Kent, do you mean to say you always have to
change when you come in from sailing?”

“Except in summer, yes.”

“But why?”

“Because Hephzy tells me to.”

“Do you always do what she tells you?”

“Generally. It's the easiest way, as I said before.”

“Good--heavens! And she darns your socks and tells you what--er lingerie
to wear and--does she wash your face and wipe your nose and scrub behind
your ears?”

“Not exactly, but she probably would if I didn't do it.”

“Well, I'll be hanged! And she extends the same treatment to all your
guests?”

“I don't have any guests but you. No doubt she would if I did. She
mothers every stray cat and sick chicken in the neighborhood. There,
Jim, you trot along and do as you're told like a nice little boy. I'll
join you in the sitting-room.”

“Humph! perhaps I'd better. I may be spanked and put to bed if I don't.
Well, well! and you are the author of 'The Black Brig!' 'Buccaneers and
Blood!' 'Bibs and Butterscotch' it should be! Don't stand out here in
the cold hall, Hosy darling; you may get the croup if you do.”

I was waiting in the sitting-room when he came down. There was a roaring
fire in the big, old-fashioned fireplace. That fireplace had been
bricked up in the days when people used those abominations, stoves. As a
boy I was well acquainted with the old “gas burner” with the iron urn
on top and the nickeled ornaments and handles which Mother polished so
assiduously. But the gas burner had long since gone to the junk dealer.
Among the improvements which my first royalty checks made possible were
steam heat and the restoration of the fireplace.

Jim found me sitting before the fire in one of the two big “wing” chairs
which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects were sold
at auction. I should not have acquired them as cheaply if Captain Cyrus
Whittaker had been at home when the auction took place. Captain Cy loves
old-fashioned things as much as I do and, as he has often told me since,
he meant to land those chairs some day if he had to run his bank account
high and dry in consequence. But the Captain and his wife--who used to
be Phoebe Dawes, our school-teacher here in Bayport--were away visiting
their adopted daughter, Emily, who is married and living in Boston, and
I got the chairs.

At the Barclay auction I bought also the oil painting of the bark
“Freedom”--a command of Captain Elkanah Barclay, uncle of the late
Darius--and the set--two volumes missing--of The Spectator, bound in
sheepskin. The “Freedom” is depicted “Entering the Port of Genoa, July
10th, 1848,” and if the port is somewhat wavy and uncertain, the
bark's canvas and rigging are definite and rigid enough to make up.
The Spectator set is chiefly remarkable for its marginal notes; Captain
Elkanah bought the books in London and read and annotated at spare
intervals during subsequent voyages. His opinions were decided and his
notes nautical and emphatic. Hephzibah read a few pages of the
notes when the books first came into the house and then went to
prayer-meeting. As she had announced her intention of remaining at home
that evening I was surprised--until I read them myself.

Jim came downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out for
him. I made no comment upon his appearance. To do so would have been
superfluous; he looked all the comments necessary.

I waved my hand towards the unoccupied wing chair and he sat down. Two
glasses, one empty and the other half full of a steaming mixture, were
on the little table beside us.

“Help yourself, Jim,” I said, indicating the glasses. He took up the one
containing the mixture and regarded it hopefully.

“What?” he asked.

“A Cahoon toddy,” said I. “Warranted to keep off chills, rheumatism,
lumbago and kindred miseries. Good for what ails you. Don't wait; I've
had mine.”

He took a sniff and then a very small sip. His face expressed genuine
emotion.

“Whew!” he gasped, choking. “What in blazes--?”

“Jamaica ginger, sugar and hot water,” I explained blandly. “It
won't hurt you--longer than five minutes. It is Hephzy's invariable
prescription.”

“Good Lord! Did you drink yours?”

“No--I never do, unless she watches me.”

“But your glass is empty. What did you do with it?”

“Emptied it behind the back log. Of course, if you prefer to drink it--”

“Drink it!” His “toddy” splashed the back log, causing a tremendous
sizzle.

Before he could relieve his mind further, Hephzy appeared to announce
that dinner was ready if we were. We were, most emphatically, so we went
into the dining-room.

Hephzy and Jim did most of the talking during the meal. I had talked
more that forenoon than I had for a week--I am not a chatty person,
ordinarily, which, in part, explains my nickname--and I was very willing
to eat and listen. Hephzy, who was garbed in her best gown--best weekday
gown, that is; she kept her black silk for Sundays--talked a good deal,
mostly about dreams and presentiments. Susanna Wixon, Tobias Wixon's
oldest daughter, waited on table, when she happened to think of it, and
listened when she did not. Susanna had been hired to do the waiting and
the dish-washing during Campbell's brief visit. It was I who hired
her. If I had had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in the
household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea. “Pity if I can't do housework
for two folks,” she declared. “I don't care if you can afford it.
Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is a sinful
extravagance.” As Susanna's services had been already engaged for the
weekend she could not discharge her, but she insisted on doing all the
cooking herself.

Her conversation, as I said, dealt mainly with dreams and presentiments.
Hephzibah is not what I should call a superstitious person. She doesn't
believe in “signs,” although she might feel uncomfortable if she broke a
looking-glass or saw the new moon over her left shoulder. She has a most
amazing fund of common-sense and is “down” on Spiritualism to a degree.
It is one of Bayport's pet yarns, that at the Harniss Spiritualist
camp-meeting when the “test medium” announced from the platform that he
had a message for a lady named Hephzibah C--he “seemed to get the name
Hephzibah C”--Hephzy got up and walked out. “Any dead relations I've
got,” she declared, “who send messages through a longhaired idiot like
that one up there”--meaning the medium,--“can't have much to say that's
worth listenin' to. They can talk to themselves if they want to, but
they shan't waste MY time.”

In but one particular was Hephzy superstitious. Whenever she dreamed of
“Little Frank” she was certain something was going to happen. She had
dreamed of “Little Frank” the night before and, if she had not been
headed off, she would have talked of nothing else.

“I saw him just as plain as I see you this minute, Hosy,” she said to
me. “I was somewhere, in a strange place--a foreign place, I should say
'twas--and there I saw him. He didn't know me; at least I don't think he
did.”

“Considering that he never saw you that isn't so surprising,” I
interrupted. “I think Mr. Campbell would have another cup of coffee if
you urged him. Susanna, take Mr. Campbell's cup.”

Jim declined the coffee; said he hadn't finished his first cup yet. I
knew that, of course, but I was trying to head off Hephzy. She refused
to be headed, just then.

“But I knew HIM,” she went on. “He looked just the same as he has when
I've seen him before--in the other dreams, you know. The very image of
his mother. Isn't it wonderful, Hosy!”

“Yes; but don't resurrect the family skeletons, Hephzy. Mr. Campbell
isn't interested in anatomy.”

“Skeletons! I don't know what you're talkin' about. He wasn't a
skeleton. I saw him just as plain! And I said to myself, 'It's little
Frank!' Now what do you suppose he came to me for? What do you suppose
it means? It means somethin', I know that.”

“Means that you weren't sleeping well, probably,” I answered. “Jim,
here, will dream of cross-seas and the Point Rip to-night, I have no
doubt.”

Jim promptly declared that if he thought that likely he shouldn't mind
so much. What he feared most was a nightmare session with an author.

Hephzibah was interested at once. “Oh, do you dream about authors, Mr.
Campbell?” she demanded. “I presume likely you do, they're so mixed up
with your business. Do your dreams ever come true?”

“Not often,” was the solemn reply. “Most of my dream-authors are
rational and almost human.”

Hephzy, of course, did not understand this, but it did have the effect
for which I had been striving, that of driving “Little Frank” from her
mind for the time.

“I don't care,” she declared, “I s'pose it's awful foolish and silly of
me, but it does seem sometimes as if there was somethin' in dreams, some
kind of dreams. Hosy laughs at me and maybe I ought to laugh at myself,
but some dreams come true, or awfully near to true; now don't they.
Angeline Phinney was in here the other day and she was tellin' about her
second cousin that was--he's dead now--Abednego Small. He was constable
here in Bayport for years; everybody called him 'Uncle Bedny.' Uncle
Bedny had been keepin' company with a woman named Dimick--Josiah
Dimick's niece--lots younger than he, she was. He'd been thinkin' of
marryin' her, so Angie said, but his folks had been talkin' to him,
tellin' him he was too old to take such a young woman for his third
wife, so he had made up his mind to throw her over, to write a letter
sayin' it was all off between 'em. Well, he'd begun the letter but
he never finished it, for three nights runnin' he dreamed that awful
trouble was hangin' over him. That dream made such an impression on him
that he tore the letter up and married the Dimick woman after all. And
then--I didn't know this until Angie told me--it turned out that she
had heard he was goin' to give her the go-by and had made all her
arrangements to sue him for breach of promise if he did. That was the
awful trouble, you see, and the dream saved him from it.”

I smiled. “The fault there was in the interpretation of the dream,” I
said. “The 'awful trouble' of the breach of promise suit wouldn't have
been a circumstance to the trouble poor Uncle Bedny got into by marrying
Ann Dimick. THAT trouble lasted till he died.”

Hephzibah laughed and said she guessed that was so, she hadn't thought
of it in that way.

“Probably dreams are all nonsense,” she admitted. “Usually, I don't pay
much attention to 'em. But when I dream of poor 'Little Frank,' away off
there, I--”

“Come into the sitting-room, Jim,” I put in hastily. “I have a cigar or
two there. I don't buy them in Bayport, either.”

“And who,” asked Jim, as we sat smoking by the fire, “is Little Frank?”

“He is a mythical relative of ours,” I explained, shortly. “He was born
twenty years ago or so--at least we heard that he was; and we haven't
heard anything of him since, except by the dream route, which is not
entirely convincing. He is Hephzy's pet obsession. Kindly forget him, to
oblige me.”

He looked puzzled, but he did not mention “Little Frank” again, for
which I was thankful.

That afternoon we walked up to the village, stopping in at Simmons's
store, which is also the post-office, for the mail. Captain Cyrus
Whittaker happened to be there, also Asaph Tidditt and Bailey Bangs and
Sylvanus Cahoon and several others. I introduced Campbell to the crowd
and he seemed to be enjoying himself. When we came out and were walking
home again, he observed:

“That Whittaker is an interesting chap, isn't he?”

“Yes,” I said. “He is all right. Been everywhere and seen everything.”

“And that,” with an odd significance in his tone, “may possibly help to
make him interesting, don't you think?”

“I suppose so. He lives here in Bayport now, though.”

“So I gathered. Popular, is he?”

“Very.”

“Satisfied with life?”

“Seems to be.”

“Hum! No one calls HIM a--what is it--quahaug?”

“No, I'm the only human clam in this neighborhood.”

He did not say any more, nor did I. My fit of the blues was on again
and his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my work and my
future, troubled me and made me more despondent. I began to lose faith
in the “prescription” which he had promised so emphatically. How could
he, or anyone else, help me? No one could write my stories but myself,
and I knew, only too well, that I could not write them.

The only mail matter in our box was a letter addressed to Hephzibah.
I forgot it until after supper and then I gave it to her. Jim retired
early; the salt air made him sleepy, so he said, and he went upstairs
shortly after nine. He had not mentioned our talk of the morning, nor
did he until I left him at the door of his room. Then he said:

“Kent, I've got one of the answers to your conundrum. I've diagnosed one
of your troubles. You're blind.”

“Blind?”

“Yes, blind. Or, if not blind altogether you're suffering from the worse
case of far-sightedness I ever saw. All your literary--we'll call it
that for compliment's sake--all your literary life you've spent writing
about people and things so far off you don't know anything about them.
You and your dukes and your earls and your titled ladies! What do you
know of that crowd? You never saw a lord in your life. Why don't you
write of something near by, something or somebody you are acquainted
with?”

“Acquainted with! You're crazy, man. What am I acquainted with, except
this house, and myself and my books and--and Bayport?”

“That's enough. Why, there is material in that gang at the post-office
to make a dozen books. Write about them.”

“Tut! tut! tut! You ARE crazy. What shall I write; the life of Ase
Tidditt in four volumes, beginning with 'I swan to man' and ending with
'By godfrey'?”

“You might do worse. If the book were as funny as its hero I'd undertake
to sell a few copies.”

“Funny! _I_ couldn't write a funny book.”

“Not an intentionally funny one, you mean. But there! There's no use to
talk to you.”

“There is not, if you talk like an imbecile. Is this your brilliant
'prescription'?”

“No. It might be; it would be, if you would take it, but you won't--not
now. You need something else first and I'll give it to you. But I'll
tell you this, and I mean it: Downstairs, in that dining-room of yours,
there's one mighty good story, at least.”

“The dining-room? A story in the dining-room?”

“Yes. Or it was there when we passed the door just now.”

I looked at him. He seemed to be serious, but I knew he was not. I hate
riddles.

“Oh, go to blazes!” I retorted, and turned away.

I looked into the dining-room as I went by. There was no story in sight
there, so far as I could see. Hephzy was seated by the table, mending
something, something of mine, of course. She looked up.

“Oh, Hosy,” she said, “that letter you brought was a travel book from
the Raymond and Whitcomb folks. I sent a stamp for it. It's awfully
interesting! All about tours through England and France and Switzerland
and everywhere. So cheap they are! I'm pickin' out the ones I'm goin' on
some day. The pictures are lovely. Don't you want to see 'em?”

“Not now,” I replied. Another obsession of Hephzy's was travel. She,
who had never been further from Bayport than Hartford, Connecticut, was
forever dreaming of globe-trotting. It was not a new disease with her,
by any means; she had been dreaming the same things ever since I had
known her, and that is since I knew anything. Some day, SOME day she
was going to this, that and the other place. She knew all about these
places, because she had read about them over and over again. Her
knowledge, derived as it was from so many sources, was curiously mixed,
but it was comprehensive, of its kind. She was continually sending
for Cook's circulars and booklets advertising personally conducted
excursions. And, with the arrival of each new circular or booklet, she
picked out, as she had just done, the particular tours she would go on
when her “some day” came. It was funny, this queer habit of hers, but
not half as funny as the thought of her really going would have been. I
would have as soon thought of our front door leaving home and starting
on its travels as of Hephzy's doing it. The door was no more a part and
fixture of that home than she was.

I went into my study, which adjoins the sitting-room, and sat down at my
desk. Not with the intention of writing anything, or even of considering
something to write about. That I made up my mind to forget for this
night, at least. My desk chair was my usual seat in that room and I took
that seat as a matter of habit.

As a matter of habit also I looked about for a book. I did not have to
look far. Books were my extravagance--almost my only one. They filled
the shelves to the ceiling on three sides of the study and overflowed in
untidy heaps on the floor. They were Hephzy's bugbear, for I refused to
permit their being “straightened out” or arranged.

I looked about for a book and selected several, but, although they were
old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them. I tried and
tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a lonely hour,
failed to interest me with his chatter. Perhaps Campbell's pointed
remarks concerning lords and ladies had its effect here. Old Samuel
loved to write of such people, having a wide acquaintance with them, and
perhaps that very acquaintance made me jealous. At any rate I threw the
volume back upon its pile and began to think of myself, and of my work,
the very thing I had expressly determined not to do when I came into the
room.

Jim's foolish and impossible advice to write of places and people I knew
haunted and irritated me. I did know Bayport--yes, and it might be true
that the group at the post-office contained possible material for many
books; but, if so, it was material for the other man, not for me. “Write
of what you know,” said Jim. And I knew so little. There was at least
one good yarn in the dining-room at that moment, he had declared. He
must have meant Hephzibah, but, if he did, what was there in Hephzibah's
dull, gray life-story to interest an outside reader? Her story and mine
were interwoven and neither contained anything worth writing about. His
fancy had been caught, probably, by her odd combination of the romantic
and the practical, and in her dream of “Little Frank” he had scented a
mystery. There was no mystery there, nothing but the most commonplace
record of misplaced trust and ingratitude. Similar things happen in so
many families.

However, I began to think of Hephzy and, as I said, of myself, and to
review my life since Ardelia Cahoon and Strickland Morley changed its
course so completely. And now it seems to me that, in the course of
my “edging around” for the beginning of this present chronicle--so
different from anything I have ever written before or ever expected to
write--the time has come when the reader--provided, of course, the
said chronicle is ever finished or ever reaches a reader--should know
something of that life; should know a little of the family history of
the Knowles and the Cahoons and the Morleys.



CHAPTER III

Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped by
the Reader


Let us take the Knowleses first. My name is Hosea Kent Knowles--I said
that before--and my father was Captain Philander Kent Knowles. He was
lost in the wreck of the steamer “Monarch of the Sea,” off Hatteras. The
steamer caught fire in the middle of the night, a howling gale blowing
and the thermometer a few degrees above zero. The passengers and crew
took to the boats and were saved. My father stuck by his ship and went
down with her, as did also her first mate, another Cape-Codder. I was
a baby at the time, and was at Bayport with my mother, Emily Knowles,
formerly Emily Cahoon, Captain Barnabas Cahoon's niece. Mother had a
little money of her own and Father's life was insured for a moderate
sum. Her small fortune was invested for her by her uncle, Captain
Barnabas, who was the Bayport magnate and man of affairs in those days.
Mother and I continued to live in the old house in Bayport and I went
to school in the village until I was fourteen, when I went away to a
preparatory school near Boston. Mother died a year later. I was an only
child, but Hephzibah, who had always seemed like an older sister to me,
now began to “mother” me, the process which she has kept up ever since.

Hephzibah was the daughter of Captain Barnabas by his first wife. Hephzy
was born in 1859, so she is well over fifty now, although no one would
guess it. Her mother died when she was a little girl and ten years later
Captain Barnabas married again. His second wife was Susan Hammond, of
Ostable, and by her he had one daughter, Ardelia. Hephzy has always
declared “Ardelia” to be a pretty name. I have my own opinion on that
subject, but I keep it to myself.

At any rate, Ardelia herself was pretty enough. She was pretty when a
baby and prettier still as a schoolgirl. Her mother--while she lived,
which was not long--spoiled her, and her half-sister, Hephzy, assisted
in the petting and spoiling. Ardelia grew up with the idea that most
things in this world were hers for the asking. Whatever took her fancy
she asked for and, if Captain Barnabas did not give it to her, she
considered herself ill-used. She was the young lady of the family and
Hephzibah was the housekeeper and drudge, an uncomplaining one, be
it understood. For her, as for the Captain, the business of life was
keeping Ardelia contented and happy, and they gloried in the task.
Hephzy might have married well at least twice, but she wouldn't think
of such a thing. “Pa and Ardelia need me,” she said; that was reason
sufficient.

In 1888 Captain Barnabas went to Philadelphia on business. He had
retired from active sea-going years before, but he retained an interest
in a certain line of coasting schooners. The Captain, as I said, went to
Philadelphia on business connected with these schooners and Ardelia
went with him. Hephzibah stayed at home, of course; she always stayed
at home, never expected to do anything else, although even then her
favorite reading were books of travel, and pictures of the Alps, and of
St. Peter's at Rome, and the Tower of London were tacked up about her
room. She, too, might have gone to Philadelphia, doubtless, if she had
asked, but she did not ask. Her father did not think of inviting her.
He loved his oldest daughter, although he did not worship her as he did
Ardelia, but it never occurred to him that she, too, might enjoy the
trip. Hephzy was always at home, she WAS home; so at home she remained.

In Philadelphia Ardelia met Strickland Morley.

I give that statement a line all by itself, for it is by far the most
important I have set down so far. The whole story of the Cahoons and the
Knowleses--that is, all of their story which is the foundation of this
history of mine--hinges on just that. If those two had not met I should
not be writing this to-day, I might not be writing at all; instead of
having become a Bayport “quahaug” I might have been the Lord knows what.

However, they did meet, at the home of a wealthy shipping merchant named
Osgood who was a lifelong friend of Captain Barnabas. This shipping
merchant had a daughter and that daughter was giving a party at her
father's home. Barnabas and Ardelia were invited. Strickland Morley was
invited also.

Morley, at that time--I saw a good deal of him afterward, when he was
at Bayport and when I was at the Cahoon house on holidays and
vacations--was a handsome, aristocratic young Englishman. He was
twenty-eight, but he looked younger. He was the second son in a
Leicestershire family which had once been wealthy and influential but
which had, in its later generations, gone to seed. He was educated, in
a general sort of way, was a good dancer, played the violin fairly well,
sang fairly well, had an attractive presence, and was one of the most
plausible and fascinating talkers I ever listened to. He had studied
medicine--studied it after a fashion, that is; he never applied himself
to anything--and was then, in '88, “ship's doctor” aboard a British
steamer, which ran between Philadelphia and Glasgow. Miss Osgood had met
him at the home of a friend of hers who had traveled on that steamer.

Hephzy and I do not agree as to whether or not he actually fell in love
with Ardelia Cahoon. Hephzy, of course, to whom Ardelia was the most
wonderfully beautiful creature on earth, is certain that he did--he
could not help it, she says. I am not so sure. It is very hard for me to
believe that Strickland Morley was ever in love with anyone but himself.
Captain Barnabas was well-to-do and had the reputation of being much
richer than he really was. And Ardelia WAS beautiful, there is no doubt
of that. At all events, Ardelia fell in love, with him, violently,
desperately, head over heels in love, the very moment the two were
introduced. They danced practically every dance together that evening,
met surreptitiously the next day and for five days thereafter, and
on the sixth day Captain Barnabas received a letter from his daughter
announcing that she and Morley were married and had gone to New York
together. “We will meet you there, Pa,” wrote Ardelia. “I know you will
forgive me for marrying Strickland. He is the most wonderful man in the
wide world. You will love him, Pa, as I do.”

There was very little love expressed by the Captain when he read the
note. According to Mr. Osgood's account, Barnabas's language was a
throwback from the days when he was first mate on a Liverpool packet.
That his idolized daughter had married without asking his consent
was bad enough; that she had married an Englishman was worse. Captain
Barnabas hated all Englishmen. A ship of his had been captured and
burned, in the war time, by the “Alabama,” a British built privateer,
and the very mildest of the terms he applied to a “John Bull” will not
bear repetition in respectable society. He would not forgive Ardelia.
She and her “Cockney husband” might sail together to the most tropical
of tropics, or words to that effect.

But he did forgive her, of course. Likewise he forgave his son-in-law.
When the Captain returned to Bayport he brought the newly wedded pair
with him. I was not present at that homecoming. I was away at prep
school, digging at my examinations, trying hard to forget that I was
an orphan, but with the dull ache caused by my mother's death always
grinding at my heart. Many years ago she died, but the ache comes back
now, as I think of her. There is more self-reproach in it than
there used to be, more vain regrets for impatient words and wasted
opportunities. Ah, if some of us--boys grown older--might have our
mothers back again, would we be as impatient and selfish now? Would we
neglect the opportunities? I think not; I hope not.

Hephzibah, after she got over the shock of the surprise and the pain
of sharing her beloved sister with another, welcomed that other for
Ardelia's sake. She determined to like him very much indeed. This wasn't
so hard, at first. Everyone liked and trusted Strickland Morley at first
sight. Afterward, when they came to know him better, they were not--if
they were as wise and discerning as Hephzy--so sure of the trust. The
wise and discerning were not, I say; Captain Barnabas, though wise and
shrewd enough in other things, trusted him to the end.

Morley made it a point to win the affection and goodwill of his
father-in-law. For the first month or two after the return to Bayport
the new member of the family was always speaking of his plans for the
future, of his profession and how he intended soon, very soon, to look
up a good location and settle down to practice. Whenever he spoke
thus, Captain Barnabas and Ardelia begged him not to do it yet, to wait
awhile. “I am so happy with you and Pa and Hephzy,” declared Ardelia.
“I can't bear to go away yet, Strickland. And Pa doesn't want us to; do
you, Pa?”

Of course Captain Barnabas agreed with her, he always did, and so the
Morleys remained at Bayport in the old house. Then came the first of the
paralytic shocks--a very slight one--which rendered Captain Barnabas,
the hitherto hale, active old seaman, unfit for exertion or the cares of
business. He was not bedridden by any means; he could still take short
walks, attend town meetings and those of the parish committee, but he
must not, so Dr. Parker said, be allowed to worry about anything.

And Morley took it upon himself to prevent that worry. He spoke no more
of leaving Bayport and settling down to practice his profession. Instead
he settled down in Bayport and took the Captain's business cares upon
his own shoulders. Little by little he increased his influence over the
old man. He attended to the latter's investments, took charge of
his bank account, collected his dividends, became, so to speak, his
financial guardian. Captain Barnabas, at first rebellious--“I've always
bossed my own ship,” he declared, “and I ain't so darned feeble-headed
that I can't do it yet”--gradually grew reconciled and then contented.
He, too, began to worship his daughter's husband as the daughter herself
did.

“He's a wonder,” said the Captain. “I never saw such a fellow for money
matters. He's handled my stocks and things a whole lot better'n I ever
did. I used to cal'late if I got six per cent. interest I was doin'
well. He ain't satisfied with anything short of eight, and he gets it,
too. Whatever that boy wants and I own he can have. Sometimes I think
this consarned palsy of mine is a judgment on me for bein' so sot
against him in the beginnin'. Why, just look at how he runs this house,
to say nothing of the rest of it! He's a skipper here; the rest of us
ain't anything but fo'most hands.”

Which was not the exact truth. Morley was skipper of the Cahoon house,
Ardelia first mate, her father a passenger, and the foremast hand
was Hephzy. And yet, so far as “running” that house was concerned the
foremast hand ran it, as she always had done. The Captain and Ardelia
were Morley's willing slaves; Hephzy was, and continued to be, a free
woman. She worked from morning until night, but she obeyed only such
orders as she saw fit.

She alone did not take the new skipper at his face value.

“I don't know what there was about him that made me uneasy,” she has
told me since. “Maybe there wasn't anything; perhaps that was just the
reason. When a person is SO good and SO smart and SO polite--maybe the
average sinful common mortal like me gets jealous; I don't know. But
I do know that, to save my life, I couldn't swallow him whole the way
Ardelia and Father did. I wanted to look him over first; and the more I
looked him over, and the smoother and smoother he looked, the more sure
I felt he'd give us all dyspepsy before he got through. Unreasonable,
wasn't it?”

For Ardelia's sake she concealed her distrust and did her best to get
on with the new head of the family. Only one thing she did, and that
against Motley's and her father's protest. She withdrew her own little
fortune, left her by her mother, from Captain Barnabas's care and
deposited it in the Ostable savings bank and in equally secure places.
Of course she told the Captain of her determination to do this before
she did it and the telling was the cause of the only disagreement,
almost a quarrel, which she and her father ever had. The Captain was
very angry and demanded reasons. Hephzibah declared she didn't know that
she had any reasons, but she was going to do it, nevertheless. And
she did do it. For months thereafter relations between the two were
strained; Barnabas scarcely spoke to his older daughter and Hephzy shed
tears in the solitude of her bedroom. They were hard months for her.

At the end of them came the crash. Morley had developed a habit
of running up to Boston on business trips connected with his
father-in-law's investments. Of late these little trips had become more
frequent. Also, so it seemed to Hephzy, he was losing something of
his genial sweetness and suavity, and becoming more moody and less
entertaining. Telegrams and letters came frequently and these he read
and destroyed at once. He seldom played the violin now unless Captain
Barnabas--who was fond of music of the simpler sort--requested him to do
so and he seemed uneasy and, for him, surprisingly disinclined to talk.

Hephzy was not the only one who noticed the change in him. Ardelia
noticed it also and, as she always did when troubled or perplexed,
sought her sister's advice.

“I sha'n't ever forget that night when she came to me for the last
time,” Hephzy has told me over and over again. “She came up to my room,
poor thing, and set down on the side of my bed and told me how worried
she was about her husband. Father had turned in and HE was out, gone
to the post-office or somewheres. I had Ardelia all to myself, for a
wonder, and we sat and talked just the same as we used to before she was
married. I'm glad it happened so. I shall always have that to remember,
anyhow.

“Of course, all her worry was about Strickland. She was afraid he was
makin' himself sick. He worked so hard; didn't I think so? Well, so far
as that was concerned, I had come to believe that almost any kind of
work was liable to make HIM sick, but of course I didn't say that to
her. That somethin' was troublin' him was plain, though I was far enough
from guessin' what that somethin' was.

“We set and talked, about Strickland and about Father and about
ourselves. Mainly Ardelia's talk was a praise service with her husband
for the subject of worship; she was so happy with him and idolized
him so that she couldn't spare time for much else. But she did speak a
little about herself and, before she went away, she whispered somethin'
in my ear which was a dead secret. Even Father didn't know it yet,
she said. Of course I was as pleased as she was, almost--and a little
frightened too, although I didn't say so to her. She was always a frail
little thing, delicate as she was pretty; not a strapping, rugged,
homely body like me. We wasn't a bit alike.

“So we talked and when she went away to bed she gave me an extra hug and
kiss; came back to give 'em to me, just as she used to when she was a
little girl. I wondered since if she had any inklin' of what was goin'
to happen. I'm sure she didn't; I'm sure of it as I am that it did
happen. She couldn't have kept it from me if she had known--not that
night. She went away to bed and I went to bed, too. I was a long while
gettin' to sleep and after I did I dreamed my first dream about 'Little
Frank.' I didn't call him 'Little Frank' then, though. I don't seem to
remember what I did call him or just how he looked except that he looked
like Ardelia. And the next afternoon she and Strickland went away--to
Boston, he told us.”

From that trip they never returned. Morley's influence over his wife
must have been greater even than any of us thought to induce her to
desert her father and Hephzy without even a written word of explanation
or farewell. It is possible that she did write and that her husband
destroyed the letter. I am as sure as Hephzy is that Ardelia did not
know what Morley had done. But, at all events, they never came back
to Bayport and within the week the truth became known. Morley had
speculated, had lost and lost again and again. All of Captain Barnabas's
own money and all intrusted to his care, including my little nest-egg,
had gone as margins to the brokers who had bought for Morley his
worthless eight per cent. wildcats. Hephzy's few thousands in the
savings bank and elsewhere were all that was left.

I shall condense the rest of the miserable business as much as I can.
Captain Barnabas traced his daughter and her husband as far as the
steamer which sailed for England. Farther he would not trace them,
although he might easily have cabled and caused his son-in-law's arrest.
For a month he went about in a sort of daze, speaking to almost no
one and sitting for hours alone in his room. The doctor feared for
his sanity, but when the breakdown came it was in the form of a second
paralytic stroke which left him a helpless, crippled dependent, weak and
shattered in body and mind.

He lived nine years longer. Meanwhile various things happened. I managed
to finish my preparatory school term and, then, instead of entering
college as Mother and I had planned, I went into business--save the
mark--taking the exalted position of entry clerk in a wholesale drygoods
house in Boston. As entry clerk I did not shine, but I continued to keep
the place until the firm failed--whether or not because of my connection
with it I am not sure, though I doubt if my services were sufficiently
important to contribute toward even this result. A month later I
obtained another position and, after that, another. I was never
discharged; I declare that with a sort of negative pride; but when I
announced to my second employer my intention of resigning he bore the
shock with--to say the least--philosophic fortitude.

“We shall miss you, Knowles,” he observed.

“Thank you, sir,” said I.

“I doubt if we ever have another bookkeeper just like you.”

I thanked him again, fighting down my blushes with heroic modesty.

“Oh, I guess you can find one if you try,” I said, lightly, wishing to
comfort him.

He shook his head. “I sha'n't try,” he declared. “I am not as young and
as strong as I was and--well, there is always the chance that we might
succeed.”

It was a mean thing to say--to a boy, for I was scarcely more than that.
And yet, looking back at it now, I am much more disposed to smile and
forgive than I was then. My bookkeeping must have been a trial to his
orderly, pigeon-holed soul. Why in the world he and his partner put up
with it so long is a miracle. When, after my first novel appeared,
he wrote me to say that the consciousness of having had a part, small
though it might be, in training my young mind upward toward the success
it had achieved would always be a great gratification to him, I did not
send the letter I wrote in answer. Instead I tore up my letter and his
and grinned. I WAS a bad bookkeeper; I was, and still am, a bad business
man. Now I don't care so much; that is the difference.

Then I cared a great deal, but I kept on at my hated task. What else was
there for me to do? My salary was so small that, as Charlie Burns, one
of my fellow-clerks, said of his, I was afraid to count it over a bare
floor for fear that it might drop in a crack and be lost. It was my only
revenue, however, and I continued to live upon it somehow. I had a
small room in a boarding-house on Shawmut Avenue and I spent most of my
evenings there or in the reading-room at the public library. I was not
popular at the boarding-house. Most of the young fellows there went
out a good deal, to call upon young ladies or to dance or to go to the
theater. I had learned to dance when I was at school and I was fond of
the theater, but I did not dance well and on the rare occasions when
I did accompany the other fellows to the play and they laughed and
applauded and tried to flirt with the chorus girls, I fidgeted in my
seat and was uncomfortable. Not that I disapproved of their conduct; I
rather envied them, in fact. But if I laughed too heartily I was sure
that everyone was looking at me, and though I should have liked to
flirt, I didn't know how.

The few attempts I made were not encouraging. One evening--I was
nineteen then, or thereabouts--Charlie Burns, the clerk whom I have
mentioned, suggested that we get dinner downtown at a restaurant and “go
somewhere” afterward. I agreed--it happened to be Saturday night and I
had my pay in my pocket--so we feasted on oyster stew and ice cream and
then started for what my companion called a “variety show.” Burns, who
cherished the fond hope that he was a true sport, ordered beer with his
oyster stew and insisted that I should do the same. My acquaintance with
beer was limited and I never did like the stuff, but I drank it with
reckless abandon, following each sip with a mouthful of something else
to get rid of the taste. On the way to the “show” we met two young
women of Burns' acquaintance and stopped to converse with them. Charlie
offered his arm to one, the best looking; I offered mine to the discard,
and we proceeded to stroll two by two along the Tremont Street mall of
the Common. We had strolled for perhaps ten minutes, most of which
time I had spent trying to think of something to say, when Burns'
charmer--she was a waitress in one of Mr. Wyman's celebrated “sandwich
depots,” I believe--turned and, looking back at my fair one and myself,
observed with some sarcasm: “What's the matter with your silent partner,
Mame? Got the lock-jaw, has he?”

I left them soon after that. There was no “variety show” for me that
night. Humiliated and disgusted with myself I returned to my room at the
boarding-house, realizing in bitterness of spirit that the gentlemanly
dissipations of a true sport were never to be mine.

As I grew older I kept more and more to myself. My work at the office
must have been a little better done, I fancy, for my salary was raised
twice in four years, but I detested the work and the office and all
connected with it. I read more and more at the public library and began
to spend the few dollars I could spare for luxuries on books. Among my
acquaintances at the boarding-house and elsewhere I had the reputation
of being “queer.”

My only periods of real pleasure were my annual vacations in summer.
These glorious fortnights were spent at Bayport. There, at our old home,
for Hephzibah had sold the big Cahoon house and she and her father were
living in mine, for which they paid a very small rent, I was happy.
I spent the two weeks in sailing and fishing, and tramping along the
waved-washed beaches and over the pine-sprinkled hills. Even in Bayport
I had few associates of my own age. Even then they began to call me “The
Quahaug.” Hephzy hugged me when I came and wept over me when I went away
and mended my clothes and cooked my favorite dishes in the interval.
Captain Barnabas sat in the big arm-chair by the sitting-room window,
looking out or sleeping. He took little interest in me or anyone
else and spoke but seldom. Occasionally I spent the Fourth of July or
Christmas at Bayport; not often, but as often as I could.

One morning--I was twenty-five at the time, and the day was Sunday--I
read a story in one of the low-priced magazines. It was not much of a
story, and, as I read it, I kept thinking that I could write as good
a one. I had had such ideas before, but nothing had come of them. This
time, however, I determined to try. In half an hour I had evolved a
plot, such as it was, and at a quarter to twelve that night the story
was finished. A highwayman was its hero and its scene the great North
Road in England. My conceptions of highwaymen and the North Road--of
England, too, for that matter--were derived from something I had read
at some time or other, I suppose; they must have been. At any rate,
I finished that story, addressed the envelope to the editor of the
magazine and dropped the envelope and its inclosure in the corner
mail-box before I went to bed. Next morning I went to the office as
usual. I had not the faintest hope that the story would be accepted. The
writing of it had been fun and the sending it to the magazine a joke.

But the story was accepted and the check which I received--forty
dollars--was far from a joke to a man whose weekly wage was half that
amount. The encouraging letter which accompanied the check was best of
all. Before the week ended I had written another thriller and this, too,
was accepted.

Thereafter, for a year or more, my Sundays and the most of my evenings
were riots of ink and blood. The ink was real enough and the blood
purely imaginary. My heroes spilled the latter and I the former.
Sometimes my yarns were refused, but the most of them were accepted and
paid for. Editors of other periodicals began to write to me requesting
contributions. My price rose. For one particularly harrowing and
romantic tale I was paid seventy-five dollars. I dressed in my best that
evening, dined at the Adams House, gave the waiter a quarter, and saw
Joseph Jefferson from an orchestra seat.

Then came the letter from Jim Campbell requesting me to come to New York
and see him concerning a possible book, a romance, to be written by me
and published by the firm of which he was the head. I saw my employer,
obtained a Saturday off, and spent that Saturday and Sunday in New York,
my first visit.

As a result of that visit began my friendship with Campbell and my first
long story, “The Queen's Amulet.” The “Amulet,” or the “Omelet,” just as
you like, was a financial success. It sold a good many thousand copies.
Six months later I broke to my employers the distressing news that their
business must henceforth worry on as best it could without my aid; I was
going to devote my valuable time and effort to literature.

My fellow-clerks were surprised. Charlie Burns, head bookkeeper now, and
a married man and a father, was much concerned.

“But, great Scott, Kent!” he protested, “you're going to do something
besides write books, ain't you? You ain't going to make your whole
living that way?”

“I am going to try,” I said.

“Great Scott! Why, you'll starve! All those fellows live in garrets and
starve to death, don't they?”

“Not all,” I told him. “Only real geniuses do that.”

He shook his head and his good-by was anything but cheerful.

My plans were made and I put them into execution at once. I shipped my
goods and chattels, the latter for the most part books, to Bayport and
went there to live and write in the old house where I was born. Hephzy
was engaged as my housekeeper. She was alone now; Captain Barnabas had
died nearly two years before.

Among the Captain's papers and discovered by his daughter after his
death was a letter from Strickland Morley. It was written from a town in
France and was dated six years after Morley's flight and the disclosure
of his crookedness. Captain Barnabas had never, apparently, answered the
letter; certainly he had never told anyone of its receipt by him. The
old man never mentioned Morley's name and only spoke of Ardelia during
his last hours, when his mind was wandering. Then he spoke of and asked
for her continually, driving poor Hephzibah to distraction, for her love
for her lost sister was as great as his.

The letter was the complaining whine of a thoroughly selfish man. I can
scarcely refer to it without losing patience, even now when I understand
more completely the circumstances under which it was written. It was not
too plainly written or coherent and seemed to imply that other letters
had preceded it. Morley begged for money. He was in “pitiful straits,”
 he declared, compelled to live as no gentleman of birth and breeding
should live. As a matter of fact, the remnant of his resources, the
little cash left from the Captain's fortune which he had taken with him
had gone and he was earning a precarious living by playing the violin in
a second-rate orchestra. “For poor dead Ardelia's sake,” he wrote, “and
for the sake of little Francis, your grandchild, I ask you to extend
the financial help which I, as your heir-in-law, might demand. You may
consider that I have wronged you, but, as you should know and must know,
the wrong was unintentional and due solely to the sudden collapse of
the worthless American investments which the scoundrelly Yankee brokers
inveigled me into making.”

If the money was sent at once, he added, it might reach him in time to
prevent his yielding to despondency and committing suicide.

“Suicide! HE commit suicide!” sniffed Hephzy when she read me the
letter. “He thinks too much of his miserable self ever to hurt it. But,
oh dear! I wish Pa had told me of this letter instead of hidin' it away.
I might have sent somethin', not to him, but to poor, motherless Little
Frank.”

She had tried; that is, she had written to the French address, but
her letter had been returned. Morley and the child of whom this letter
furnished the only information were no longer in that locality. Hephzy
had talked of “Little Frank” and dreamed about him at intervals ever
since. He had come to be a reality to her, and she even cut a child's
picture from a magazine and fastened it to the wall of her room beneath
the engraving of Westminster Abbey, because there was something about
the child in the picture which reminded her of “Little Frank” as he
looked in her dreams.

She and I had lived together ever since, I continuing to turn out, each
with less enthusiasm and more labor, my stories of persons and places of
which, as Campbell said but too truly, I knew nothing whatever. Finally
I had reached my determination to write no more “slush,” profitable
though it might be. I invited Jim to visit me; he had come and the
conversation at the boathouse and his remarks at the bedroom door were
all the satisfaction that visit had brought me so far.

I sat there in my study, going over all this, not so fully as I have
set it down here, but fully nevertheless, and the possibility of
finding even a glimmer of interest or a hint of fictional foundation in
Hephzibah or her life or mine was as remote at the end of my thinking as
it had been at the beginning. There might be a story there, or a part of
a story, but I could not write it. The real trouble was that I could not
write anything. With which, conclusion, exactly what I started with, I
blew out the lamp and went upstairs to bed.

Next morning Jim and I went for another sail from which we did not
return until nearly dinner-time. During that whole forenoon he did not
mention the promised “prescription,” although I offered him plenty of
opportunities and threw out various hints by way of bait.

He ignored the bait altogether and, though he talked a great deal and
asked a good many questions, both talk and questions had no bearing on
the all-important problem which had been my real reason for inviting
him to Bayport. He questioned me again concerning my way of spending my
time, about my savings, how much money I had put by, and the like, but
I was not particularly interested in these matters and they were not his
business, to put it plainly. At least, I could not see that they were.

I answered him as briefly as possible and, I am afraid, behaved rather
boorishly to one, who next to Hephzy, was perhaps the best friend I had
in the world. His apparent lack of interest hurt and disappointed me
and I did not care if he knew it. My impatience must have been apparent
enough, but if so it did not trouble him; he chatted and laughed and
told stories all the way from the landing to the house and announced to
Hephzy, who had stayed at home from church in order to prepare and
cook clam chowder and chicken pie and a “Queen pudding,” that he had an
appetite like a starved shark.

When, at last, that appetite was satisfied, he and I adjourned to the
sitting-room for a farewell smoke. His train left at three-thirty and
it lacked but an hour of that time. He had worn my suit, the one which
Hephzibah had laid out for him the day before, but had changed to his
own again and packed his bag before dinner.

We camped in the wing chairs and he lighted his cigar. Then, to my
astonishment, he rose and shut the door.

“What did you do that for?” I asked.

He came back to his chair.

“Because I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle,” he replied, “and
I don't want anyone, not even a Cape Cod cousin, butting in. Kent, I
told you that before I went I was going to prescribe for you, didn't I?
Well, I'm going to do it now. Are you ready for the prescription?”

“I have been ready for it for some time,” I retorted. “I began to think
you had forgotten it altogether.”

“I hadn't. But I wanted it to be the last word you should hear from me
and I didn't want to give you time to think up a lot of fool objections
to spring on me before I left. Look here, I'm your doctor now; do you
understand? You called me in as a specialist and what I say goes. Is
that understood?”

“I hear you.”

“You've got to do more than hear me. You've got to do what I tell you.
I know what ails you. You've buried yourself in the mud down here. Wake
up, you clam! Come out of your shell. Stir around. Stop thinking about
yourself and think of something worth while.”

“Dear! dear! hark to the voice of the oracle. And what is the something
worth while I am to think about; you?”

“Yes, by George! me! Me and the dear public! Here are thirty-five
thousand seekers after the--the higher literature, panting open-mouthed
for another Knowles classic. And you sit back here and cover yourself
with sand and seaweed and say you won't give it to them.”

“You're wrong. I say I can't.”

“You will, though.”

“I won't. You can bet high on that.”

“You will, and I'll bet higher. YOU write no more stories! You! Why,
confound you, you couldn't help it if you tried. You needn't write
another 'Black Brig' unless you want to. You needn't--you mustn't write
anything UNTIL you want to. But, by George! you'll get up and open your
eyes and stir around, and keep stirring until the time comes when you've
found something or someone you DO want to write about. THEN you'll
write; you will, for I know you. It may turn out to be what you call
'slush,' or it may not, but you'll write it, mark my words.”

He was serious now, serious enough even to suit me. But what he had said
did not suit me.

“Don't talk nonsense, Jim,” I said. “Don't you suppose I have thought--”

“Thought! that's just it; you do nothing but think. Stop thinking.
Stop being a quahaug--a dead one, anyway. Drop the whole business, drop
Bayport, drop America, if you like. Get up, clear out, go to China, go
to Europe, go to--Well, never mind, but go somewhere. Go somewhere and
forget it. Travel, take a long trip, start for one place and, if you
change your mind before you get there, go somewhere else. It doesn't
make much difference where, so that you go, and see different things.
I'm talking now, Kent Knowles, and it isn't altogether because it pays
us to publish your books, either. You drop Bayport and drop writing. Go
out and pick up and go. Stay six months, stay a year, stay two years,
but keep alive and meet people and give what you flatter yourself is
a brain house-cleaning. Confound you, you've kept it shut like one of
these best front parlors down here. Open the windows and air out. Let
the outside light in. An idea may come with it; it is barely possible,
even to you!”

He was out of breath by this time. I was in a somewhat similar condition
for his tirade had taken mine away. However, I managed to express my
feelings.

“Humph!” I grunted. “And so this is your wonderful prescription. I am to
travel, am I?”

“You are. You can afford it, and I'll see that you do.”

“And just what port would you recommend?”

“I don't care, I tell you, except that it ought to be a long way off.
I'm not joking, Kent; this is straight. A good long jaunt around the
world would do you a barrel of good. Don't stop to think about it, just
start, that's all. Will you?”

I laughed. The idea of my starting on a pleasure trip was ridiculous. If
ever there was a home-loving and home-staying person it was I. The bare
thought of leaving my comfort and my books and Hephzy made me shudder. I
hadn't the least desire to see other countries and meet other people. I
hated sleeping cars and railway trains and traveling acquaintances. So I
laughed.

“Sorry, Jim,” I said, “but I'm afraid I can't take your prescription.”

“Why not?”

“For one reason because I don't want to.”

“That's no reason at all. It doesn't make any difference what you want.
Anything else?”

“Yes. I would no more wander about creation all alone than--”

“Take someone with you.”

“Who? Will you go, yourself?”

He shook his head.

“I wish I could,” he said, and I think he meant it. “I'd like nothing
better. I'D keep you alive, you can bet on that. But I can't leave the
literature works just now. I'll do my best to find someone who will,
though. I know a lot of good fellows who travel--”

I held up my hand. “That's enough,” I interrupted. “They can't travel
with me. They wouldn't be good fellows long if they did.”

He struck the chair arm with his fist.

“You're as near impossible as you can be, aren't you,” he exclaimed.
“Never mind; you're going to do as I tell you. I never gave you bad
advice yet, now did I?”

“No--o. No, but--”

“I'm not giving it to you now. You'll go and you'll go in a hurry. I'll
give you a week to think the idea over. At the end of that time if I
don't hear from you I'll be down here again, and I'll worry you every
minute until you'll go anywhere to get rid of me. Kent, you must do it.
You aren't written out, as you call it, but you are rusting out, fast.
If you don't get away and polish up you'll never do a thing worth while.
You'll be another what's-his-name--Ase Tidditt; that's what you'll be. I
can see it coming on. You're ossifying; you're narrowing; you're--”

I broke in here. I didn't like to be called narrow and I did not like
to be paired with Asaph Tidditt, although our venerable town clerk is a
good citizen and all right, in his way. But I had flattered myself that
way was not mine.

“Stop it, Jim!” I ordered. “Don't blow off any more steam in this
ridiculous fashion. If this is all you have to say to me, you may as
well stop.”

“Stop! I've only begun. I'll stop when you start, and not before. Will
you go?”

“I can't, Jim. You know I can't.”

“I know you can and I know you're going to. There!” rising and laying a
hand on my shoulder, “it is time for ME to be starting. Kent, old man, I
want you to promise me that you will do as I tell you. Will you?”

“I can't, Jim. I would if I could, but--”

“Will you promise me to think the idea over? Think it over carefully;
don't think of anything else for the rest of the week? Will you promise
me to do that?”

I hesitated. I was perfectly sure that all my thinking would but
strengthen my determination to remain at home, but I did not like to
appear too stubborn.

“Why, yes, Jim,” I said, doubtfully, “I promise so much, if that is any
satisfaction to you.”

“All right. I'll give you until Friday to make up your mind. If I don't
hear from you by that time I shall take it for granted that you have
made it up in the wrong way and I'll be here on Saturday. I'll keep the
process up week in and week out until you give in. That's MY promise.
Come on. We must be moving.”

He said good-by to Hephzy and we walked together to the station. His
last words as we shook hands by the car steps were: “Remember--think.
But don't you dare think of anything else.” My answer was a dubious
shake of the head. Then the train pulled out.

I believe that afternoon and evening to have been the “bluest” of all my
blue periods, and I had had some blue ones prior to Jim's visit. I was
dreadfully disappointed. Of course I should have realized that no advice
or “prescription” could help me. As Campbell had said, “It was up to
me;” I must help myself; but I had been trying to help myself for months
and I had not succeeded. I had--foolishly, I admit--relied upon him to
give me a new idea, a fresh inspiration, and he had not done it. I was
disappointed and more discouraged than ever.

My state of mind may seem ridiculous. Perhaps it was. I was in good
health, not very old--except in my feelings--and my stories, even the
“Black Brig,” had not been failures, by any means. But I am sure that
every man or woman who writes, or paints, or does creative work of any
kind, will understand and sympathize with me. I had “gone stale,” that
is the technical name for my disease, and to “go stale” is no joke. If
you doubt it ask the writer or painter of your acquaintance. Ask him if
he ever has felt that he could write or paint no more, and then ask
him how he liked the feeling. The fact that he has written or painted a
great deal since has no bearing on the matter. “Staleness” is purely a
mental ailment, and the confident assurance of would-be doctors that its
attacks are seldom fatal doesn't help the sufferer at the time. He knows
he is dead, and that is no better, then, than being dead in earnest.

I knew I was dead, so far as my writing was concerned, and the advice
to go away and bury myself in a strange country did not appeal to me. It
might be true that I was already buried in Bayport, but that was my
home cemetery, at all events. The more I thought of Jim Campbell's
prescription the less I felt like taking it.

However, I kept on with the thinking; I had promised to do that. On
Wednesday came a postcard from Jim, himself, demanding information.
“When and where are you going?” he wrote. “Wire answer.” I did not wire
answer. I was not going anywhere.

I thrust the card into my pocket and, turning away from the frame of
letter boxes, faced Captain Cyrus Whittaker, who, like myself, had come
to Simmons's for his mail. He greeted me cordially.

“Hello, Kent,” he hailed. “How are you?”

“About the same as usual, Captain,” I answered, shortly.

“That's pretty fair, by the looks. You don't look too happy, though,
come to notice it. What's the matter; got bad news?”

“No. I haven't any news, good or bad.”

“That so? Then I'll give you some. Phoebe and I are going to start for
California to-morrow.”

“You are? To California? Why?”

“Oh, just for instance, that's all. Time's come when I have to go
somewhere, and the Yosemite and the big trees look good to me. It's this
way, Kent; I like Bayport, you know that. Nobody's more in love with
this old town than I am; it's my home and I mean to live and die here,
if I have luck. But it don't do for me to stay here all the time. If I
do I begin to be no good, like a strawberry plant that's been kept in
one place too long and has quit bearin.' The only thing to do with that
plant is to transplant it and let it get nourishment in a new spot. Then
you can move it back by and by and it's all right. Same way with me.
Every once in a while I have to be transplanted so's to freshen up. My
brains need somethin' besides post-office talk and sewin'-circle gossip
to keep them from shrivelin'. I was commencin' to feel the shrivel,
so it's California for Phoebe and me. Better come along, Kent. You're
beginnin' to shrivel a little, ain't you?”

Was it as apparent as all that? I was indignant.

“Do I look it?” I demanded.

“No--o, but I ain't sure that you don't act it. No offence, you
understand. Just a little ground bait to coax you to come on the
California cruise along with Phoebe and me, that's all.”

It was not likely that I should accept. Two are company and three a
crowd, and if ever two were company Captain Cy and his wife were those
two. I thanked him and declined, but I asked a question.

“You believe in travel as a restorative, you do?” I asked.

“Hey? I sartin do. Change your course once in awhile, same as you change
your clothes. Wearin' the same suit and cruisin' in the same puddle all
the time ain't healthy. You're too apt to get sick of the clothes and
puddle both.”

“But you don't believe in traveling alone, do you?”

“No,” emphatically, “I don't, generally speakin.' If you go off by
yourself you're too likely to keep thinkin' ABOUT yourself. Take
somebody with you; somebody you're used to and know well and like,
though. Travelin' with strangers is a little mite worse than travelin'
alone. You want to be mighty sure of your shipmate.”

I walked home. Hephzibah was in the sitting-room, reading and knitting
a stocking, a stocking for me. She did not need to use her eyes for the
knitting; I am quite sure she could have knit in her sleep.

“Hello, Hosy,” she said, “been up to the office, have you? Any mail?”

“Nothing much. Humph! Still reading that Raymond and Whitcomb circular?”

“No, not that one. This is one I got last year. I've been sittin' here
plannin' out just where I'd go and what I'd see if I could. It's the
next best thing to really goin'.”

I looked at her. All at once a new idea began to crystallize in my mind.
It was a curious idea, a ridiculous idea, and yet--and yet it seemed--

“Hephzy,” said I, suddenly, “would you really like to go abroad?”

“WOULD I? Hosy, how you talk! You know I've been crazy to go ever since
I was a little girl. I don't know what makes me so. Perhaps it's the
salt water in my blood. All our folks were sailors and ship captains.
They went everywhere. I presume likely it takes more than one generation
to kill off that sort of thing.”

“And you really want to go?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why haven't you gone? You could afford to take a moderate-priced
tour.”

Hephzy laughed over her knitting.

“I guess,” she said, “I haven't gone for the reason you haven't, Hosy.
You could afford, it, too--you know you could. But how could I go and
leave you? Why, I shouldn't sleep a minute wonderin' if you were wearin'
clothes without holes in 'em and if you changed your flannels when the
weather changed and ate what you ought to, and all that. You've been
so--so sort of dependent on me and I've been so used to takin' care of
you that I don't believe either of us would be happy anywhere without
the other. I know certain sure _I_ shouldn't.”

I did not answer immediately. The idea, the amazing, ridiculous
idea which had burst upon me suddenly began to lose something of its
absurdity. Somehow it began to look like the answer to my riddle. I
realized that my main objection to the Campbell prescription had been
that I must take it alone or with strangers. And now--

“Hephzy,” I demanded, “would you go away--on a trip abroad--with me?”

She put down the knitting.

“Hosy Knowles!” she exclaimed. “WHAT are you talkin' about?”

“But would you?”

“I presume likely I would, if I had the chance; but it isn't likely
that--where are you goin'?”

I did not answer. I hurried out of the sitting-room and out of the
house.

When I returned I found her still knitting. The circular lay on the
floor at her feet. She regarded me anxiously.

“Hosy,” she demanded, “where--”

I interrupted. “Hephzy,” said I, “I have been to the station to send a
telegram.”

“A telegram? A TELEGRAM! For mercy sakes, who's dead?”

Telegrams in Bayport usually mean death or desperate illness. I laughed.

“No one is dead, Hephzy,” I replied. “In fact it is barely possible that
someone is coming to life. I telegraphed Mr. Campbell to engage passage
for you and me on some steamer leaving for Europe next week.”

Hephzibah turned pale. The partially knitted sock dropped beside the
circular.

“Why--why--what--?” she gasped.

“On a steamer leaving next week,” I repeated. “You want to travel,
Hephzy. Jim says I must. So we'll travel together.”

She did not believe I meant it, of course, and it took a long time to
convince her. But when at last she began to believe--at least to the
extent of believing that I had sent the telegram--her next remark was
characteristic.

“But I--I can't go, Hosy,” declared Hephzibah. “I CAN'T. Who--who would
take care of the cat and the hens?”



CHAPTER IV

In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together


The week which began that Wednesday afternoon seems, as I look back to
it now, a bit of the remote past, instead of seven days of a year ago.
Its happenings, important and wonderful as they were, seem trivial and
tame compared with those which came afterward. And yet, at the time,
that week was a season of wild excitement and delightful anticipation
for Hephzibah, and of excitement not unmingled with doubts and
misgivings for me. For us both it was a busy week, to put it mildly.

Once convinced that I meant what I said and that I was not “raving
distracted,” which I think was her first diagnosis of my case, Hephzy's
practical mind began to unearth objections, first to her going at all
and, second, to going on such short notice.

“I don't think I'd better, Hosy,” she said. “You're awful good to ask me
and I know you think you mean it, but I don't believe I ought to do it,
even if I felt as if I could leave the house and everything alone. You
see, I've lived here in Bayport so long that I'm old-fashioned and funny
and countrified, I guess. You'd be ashamed of me.”

I smiled. “When I am ashamed of you, Hephzy,” I replied, “I shall be on
my way to the insane asylum, not to Europe. You are much more likely to
be ashamed of me.”

“The idea! And you the pride of this town! The only author that ever
lived in it--unless you call Joshua Snow an author, and he lived in the
poorhouse and nobody but himself was proud of HIM.”

Josh Snow was Bayport's Homer, its only native poet. He wrote the
immortal ballad of the scallop industry, which begins:


     “On a fine morning at break of day,
      When the ice has all gone out of the bay,
      And the sun is shining nice and it is like spring,
      Then all hands start to go scallop-ING.”


In order to get the fullest measure of music from this lyric gem you
should put a strong emphasis on the final “ing.” Joshua always did and
the summer people never seemed to tire of hearing him recite it. There
are eighteen more verses.

“I shall not be ashamed of you, Hephzy,” I repeated. “You know it
perfectly well. And I shall not go unless you go.”

“But I can't go, Hosy. I couldn't leave the hens and the cat. They'd
starve; you know they would.”

“Susanna will look after them. I'll leave money for their provender. And
I will pay Susanna for taking care of them. She has fallen in love with
the cat; she'll be only too glad to adopt it.”

“And I haven't got a single thing fit to wear.”

“Neither have I. We will buy complete fit-outs in Boston or New York.”

“But--”

There were innumerable “buts.” I answered them as best I could. Also
I reiterated my determination not to go unless she did. I told of
Campbell's advice and laid strong emphasis on the fact that he had said
travel was my only hope. Unless she wished me to die of despair she must
agree to travel with me.

“And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to go
abroad,” I added, as a final clincher.

“I know it. I know I have. But--but now when it comes to really
goin' I'm not so sure. Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in
prayer-meetin' that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but when he
was taken down with influenza he made his folks call both doctors here
in town and one from Harniss. I don't know whether I want to go or not,
Hosy. I--I'm frightened, I guess.”

Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.

“Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth,” it
read. “Hearty congratulations on your good sense. Who is your companion?
Write particulars.”

The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections. The fares had been
paid and she was certain they must be “dreadful expensive.” All that
money could not be wasted, so she accepted the inevitable and began
preparations.

I did not write the “particulars” requested. I had a feeling that
Campbell might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer one
and, although my mind was made up and his opinion could not change it,
I thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in New York before
telling him. So I wrote a brief note stating that my friend and I would
reach New York on the morning of the tenth and that I would see him
there. Also I asked, for my part, the name of the steamer he had
selected.

His answer was as vague as mine. He congratulated me once more upon my
decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he called my
“foreign junket,” and gave some valuable advice concerning the necessary
outfit, clothes, trunks and the like. “Travel light,” he wrote. “You can
buy whatever else you may need on the other side. 'Phone as soon as you
reach New York.” But he did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for
what port she was to sail.

So Hephzy and I were obliged to turn to the newspapers for information
upon those more or less important subjects, and we speculated and
guessed not a little. The New York dailies were not obtainable in
Bayport except during the summer months and the Boston publications did
not give the New York sailings. I wrote to a friend in Boston and he
sent me the leading journals of the former city and, as soon as they
arrived, Hephzy sat down upon the sitting-room carpet--which she had
insisted upon having taken up to be packed away in moth balls--to look
at the maritime advertisements. I am quite certain it was the only time
she sat down, except at meals, that day.

I selected one of the papers and she another. We reached the same
conclusion simultaneously.

“Why, it must be--” she began.

“The Princess Eulalie,” I finished.

“It is the only one that sails on the tenth. There is one on the
eleventh, though.”

“Yes, but that one is the 'Plutonia,' one of the fastest and most
expensive liners afloat. It isn't likely that Jim had booked us for the
'Plutonia.' She would scarcely be in our--in my class.”

“Humph! I guess she isn't any too good for a famous man like you, Hosy.
But I would look funny on her, I give in. I've read about her. She's
always full of lords and ladies and millionaires and things. Just the
sort of folks you write about. She'd be just the one for you.”

I shook my head. “My lords and ladies are only paper dolls, Hephzy,” I
said, ruefully. “I should be as lost as you among the flesh and blood
variety. No, the 'Princess Eulalie' must be ours. She runs to Amsterdam,
though. Odd that Jim should send me to Holland.”

Hephzy nodded and then offered a solution.

“I don't doubt he did it on purpose,” she declared. “He knew neither you
nor I was anxious to go to England. He knows we don't think much of the
English, after our experience with that Morley brute.”

“No, he doesn't know any such thing. I've never told him a word about
Morley. And he doesn't know you're going, Hephzy. I've kept that as
a--as a surprise for him.”

“Well, never mind. I'd rather go to Amsterdam than England. It's nearer
to France.”

I was surprised. “Nearer to France?” I repeated. “What difference does
that make? We don't know anyone in France.”

Hephzibah was plainly shocked. “Why, Hosy!” she protested. “Have you
forgotten Little Frank? He is in France somewhere, or he was at last
accounts.”

“Good Lord!” I groaned. Then I got up and went out. I had forgotten
“Little Frank” and hoped that she had. If she was to flit about Europe
seeing “Little Frank” on every corner I foresaw trouble. “Little Frank”
 was likely to be the bane of my existence.

We left Bayport on Monday morning. The house was cleaned and swept
and scoured and moth-proofed from top to bottom. Every door was
double-locked and every window nailed. Burglars are unknown in Bayport,
but that didn't make any difference. “You can't be too careful,” said
Hephzy. I was of the opinion that you could.

The cat had been “farmed out” with Susanna's people and Susanna herself
was to feed the hens twice a day, lock them in each night and let them
out each morning. Their keeper had a carefully prepared schedule as to
quantity and quality of food; Hephzy had prepared and furnished it.

“And don't you give 'em any fish,” ordered Hephzy. “I ate a chicken once
that had been fed on fish, and--my soul!”

There was quite an assemblage at the station to see us off. Captain
Whittaker and his wife were not there, of course; they were near
California by this time. But Mr. Partridge, the minister, was there and
so was his wife; and Asaph Tidditt and Mr. and Mrs. Bailey Bangs and
Captain Josiah Dimick and HIS wife, and several others. Oh, yes! and
Angeline Phinney. Angeline was there, of course. If anything happened in
Bayport and Angeline was not there to help it happen, then--I don't know
what then; the experiment had never been tried in my lifetime.

Everyone said pleasant things to us. They really seemed sorry to have us
leave Bayport, but for our sakes they expressed themselves as glad. It
would be such a glorious trip; we would have so much to tell when we got
back. Mr. Partridge said he should plan for me to give a little talk to
the Sunday school upon my return. It would be a wonderful thing for the
children. To my mind the most wonderful part of the idea was that he
should take my consent for granted. _I_ talk to the Sunday school! I,
the Quahaug! My knees shook even at the thought.

Keturah Bangs hoped we would have a “lovely time.” She declared that it
had been the one ambition of her life to go sight-seeing. But she should
never do it--no, no! Such things wasn't for her. If she had a husband
like some women it might be, but not as 'twas. She had long ago given up
hopin' to do anything but keep boarders, and she had to do that all by
herself.

Bailey, her husband, grinned sheepishly but, for a wonder, he did not
attempt defence. I gathered that Bailey was learning wisdom. It was
time; he had attended his wife's academy a long while.

Captain Dimick brought a bag of apples, greenings, some he had kept in
the cellar over winter. “Nice to eat on the cars,” he told us. Everyone
asked us to send postcards. Miss Phinney was especially solicitous.

“It'll be just lovely to know where you be and what you're doin,” she
declared.

When the train had started and we had waved the last good-bys from the
window Hephzibah expressed her opinion concerning Angeline's request.

“I send HER postcards!” she snapped. “I think I see myself doin' it! All
she cares about 'em is so she can run from Dan to Beersheba showin' 'em
to everybody and talkin' about how extravagant we are and wonderin' if
we borrowed the money. But there! it won't make any difference. If I
don't send 'em to her she'll read all I send to other folks. She
and Rebecca Simmons are close as two peas in a pod and Becky reads
everything that comes through her husband's post-office. All that aren't
sealed, that is--yes, and some that are, I shouldn't wonder, if they're
not sealed tight.”

Her next remark was a surprising one.

“Hosy,” she said, “how much they all think of you, don't they. Isn't it
nice to know you're so popular.”

I turned in the seat to stare at her.

“Popular!” I repeated. “Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for your
brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it shows
signs of softening.”

She did not resent my candor; she paid absolutely no attention to it.

“I don't mean popular with everybody, rag, tag and bobtail and all,
like--well, Eben Salters,” she went on. “But the folks that count all
respect and like you, Hosy. I know they do.”

Mr. Salters is our leading local statesman--since the departure of the
Honorable Heman Atkins. He has filled every office in his native village
and he has served one term as representative in the State House at
Boston. He IS popular.

“It is marvelous how affection can be concealed,” I observed, with
sarcasm. Hephzy was back at me like a flash.

“Of course they don't tell you of it,” she said. “If they did you'd
probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and not speak to
'em again. But they do like you, and I know it.”

It was useless to carry the argument further. When Hephzy begins
chanting my praises I find it easier to surrender--and change the
subject.

In Boston we shopped. It seems to me that we did nothing else. I
bought what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat and
traveling cap included. It did not take me long; fortunately I am of the
average height and shape and the salesmen found me easy to please. My
shopping tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent the remainder
of the afternoon at a bookseller's. There was a set of “Early English
Poets” there, nineteen little, fat, chunky volumes, not new and shiny
and grand, but middle-aged and shabby and comfortable, which appealed to
me. The price, however, was high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought
not to afford it. Then the bookseller himself, who also was fat and
comfortably shabby, and who had beguiled from me the information that I
was about to travel, suggested that the “Poets” would make very pleasant
reading en route.

“I have found,” he said, beaming over his spectacles, “that a little
book of this kind,” patting one of the volumes, “which may be carried in
the pocket, is a rare traveling companion. When you wish his society
he is there, and when you tire of him you can shut him up. You can't do
that with all traveling companions, you know. Ha! ha!”

He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him. Humor of that kind is
expensive, for I bought the “English Poets” and ordered them sent to my
hotel. It was not until they were delivered, an hour later, that I
began to wonder what I should do with them. Our trunks were likely to be
crowded and I could not carry all of the nineteen volumes in my pockets.

Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return until
nearly seven. She returned weary and almost empty-handed.

“But didn't you buy ANYTHING?” I asked. “Where in the world have you
been?”

She had been everywhere, so she said. This wasn't entirely true, but I
gathered that she had visited about every department store in the city.
She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh dear! they did cost
so much.

“There was one traveling coat that I did want dreadfully,” she said.
“It was a dark brown, not too dark, but just light enough so it wouldn't
show water spots. I've been out sailing enough times to know how your
things get water-spotted. It fitted me real nice; there wouldn't have to
be a thing done to it. But it cost thirty-one dollars! 'My soul!' says
I, 'I can't afford THAT!' But they didn't have anything cheaper that
wouldn't have made me look like one of those awful play-actin' girls
that came to Bayport with the Uncle Tom's Cabin show. And I tried
everywhere and nothin' pleased me so well.”

“So you didn't buy the coat?”

“BUY it? My soul Hosy, didn't I tell you it cost--”

“I know. What else did you see that you didn't buy?”

“Hey? Oh, I saw a suit, a nice lady-like suit, and I tried it on. That
fitted me, too, only the sleeves would have to be shortened. And it
would have gone SO well with that coat. But the suit cost FORTY dollars.
'Good land!' I said, 'haven't you got ANYTHING for poor folks?' And you
ought to have seen the look that girl gave me! And a hat--oh, yes, I saw
a hat! It was--”

There was a great deal more. Summed up it amounted to something like
this: All that suited her had been too high-priced and all that she
considered within her means hadn't suited her at all. So she had bought
practically nothing but a few non-essentials. And we were to leave for
New York the following night and sail for Europe the day after.

“Hephzy,” said I, “you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and I'll
go with you.”

Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and various
other things. With each purchase Hephzy's groans and protests at my
reckless extravagance grew louder. At last I had an inspiration.

“Hephzy,” said I, “when we meet Little Frank over there in France, or
wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed with
your appearance, won't you? These things cost money of course, but we
must think of Little Frank. He has never seen his American relatives and
so much depends on a first impression.”

Hephzy regarded me with suspicion. “Humph!” she sniffed, “that's the
first time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little Frank.
All right, I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign poorhouses are
more comfortable than ours, that's all. If you make me keep on this way,
I'll fetch up in one before the first month's over.”

We left for New York on the five o'clock train. Packing those “Early
English Poets” was a confounded nuisance. They had to be stuffed here,
there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and Hephzibah prophesied
evil to come.

“Books are the worse things goin' to make creases,” she declared.
“They're all sharp edges.”

I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the very
start. They might prove delightful traveling companions, as the bookman
had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to sit on.

We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby hotel.
I should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the steamer, but I
was not sure--absolutely sure--which steamer it was to be. The “Princess
Eulalie” almost certainly, but I did not dare take the risk.

Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that night.

“Just think, Hosy!” she cried, “this is the last night either of us will
spend on dry land.”

“Heavens! I hope it won't be as bad as that,” I retorted. “Holland is
pretty wet, so they say, but we should be able to find some dry spots.”

She did not laugh. “You know what I mean,” she observed. “To-morrow
night at twelve o'clock we shall be far out on the vasty deep.”

“We shall be on the 'Princess Eulalie,'” I answered. “Go to sleep.”

Neither of us spoke the truth. At twelve the following night we were
neither “far out on the vasty deep” nor on the “Princess Eulalie.”

My first move after breakfast was to telephone Campbell at his city
home. He hailed me joyfully and ordered me to stay where I was, that is,
at the hotel. He would be there in an hour, he said.

He was five minutes ahead of his promise. We shook hands heartily.

“You are going to take my prescription, after all,” he crowed. “Didn't
I tell you I was the only real doctor for sick authors? Bully for you!
Wish I was going with you. Who is?”

“Come to my room and I'll show you,” said I. “You may be surprised.”

“See here! you haven't gone and dug up another fossilized bookworm like
yourself, have you? If you have, I refuse--”

“Come and see.”

We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked to my room. I opened
the door.

“Hephzy,” said I, “here is someone you know.”

Hephzy, who had been looking out of the window of her room, hurried in.

“Well, Mr. Campbell!” she exclaimed, holding out her hand, “how do you
do? We got here all right, you see. But the way Hosy has been wastin'
money, his and mine, buyin' things we didn't need, I began to think one
spell we'd never get any further. Is it time to start for the steamer
yet?”

Jim's face was worth looking at. He shook Hephzibah's hand mechanically,
but he did not speak. Instead he looked at her and at me. I didn't speak
either; I was having a thoroughly good time.

“Had we ought to start now?” repeated Hephzibah. “I'm all ready but
puttin' on my things.”

Jim came out of his trance. He dropped the hand and came to me.

“Are you--is she--” he stammered.

“Yes,” said I. “Miss Cahoon is going with me. I wrote you I had selected
a good traveling companion. I have, haven't I?”

“He would have it so, Mr. Campbell,” put in Hephzy. “I said no and kept
on sayin' it, but he vowed and declared he wouldn't go unless I did.
I know you must think it's queer my taggin' along, but it isn't any
queerer to you than it is to me.”

Jim behaved very well, considering. He did not laugh. For a moment I
thought he was going to; if he had I don't know what I should have done,
said things for which I might have been sorry later on, probably. But he
did not laugh. He didn't even express the tremendous surprise which he
must have felt. Instead he shook hands again with both of us and said it
was fine, bully, just the thing.

“To tell the truth, Miss Cahoon,” he declared, “I have been rather
fearful of this pet infant of ours. I didn't know what sort of helpless
creature he might have coaxed into roaming loose with him in the wilds
of Europe. I expected another babe in the woods and I was contemplating
cabling the police to look out for them and shoo away the wolves. But
he'll be all right now. Yes, indeed! he'll be looked out for now.”

“Then you approve?” I asked.

He shot a side-long glance at me. “Approve!” he repeated. “I'm crazy
about the whole business.”

I judged he considered me crazy, hopelessly so. I did not care. I agreed
with him in this--the whole business was insane and Hephzibah's going
was the only sensible thing about it, so far.

His next question was concerning our baggage. I told him I had left it
at the railway station because I was not sure where it should be sent.

“What time does the 'Princess Eulalie' sail?” I asked.

He looked at me oddly. “What?” he queried. “The 'Princess Eulalie'?
Twelve o'clock, I believe, I'm not sure.”

“You're not sure! And it is after nine now. It strikes me that--”

“Never mind what strikes you. So long as it isn't lightning you
shouldn't complain. Have you the baggage checks? Give them to me.”

I handed him the checks, obediently, and he stepped to the telephone
and gave a number. A short conversation followed. Then he hung up the
receiver.

“One of the men from the office will be here soon,” he said. “He will
attend to all your baggage, get it aboard the ship and see that it is
put in your staterooms. Now, then, tell me all about it. What have you
been doing since I saw you? When did you arrive? How did you happen to
think of taking--er--Miss Cahoon with you? Tell me the whole.”

I told him. Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking chair
and asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes. She was
decidedly fidgety. When she went to Boston she usually reached the
station half an hour before train time, and to sit calmly in a hotel
room, when the ship that was to take us to the ends of the earth was to
sail in two hours, was a reckless gamble with Fate, to her mind.

The man from the office came and the baggage checks were turned over to
him. So also were our bags and our umbrellas. Campbell stepped into
the hall and the pair held a whispered conversation. Hephzy seized the
opportunity to express to me her perturbation.

“My soul, Hosy!” she whispered. “Mr. Campbell's out of his head, ain't
he? Here we are a sittin' and sittin' and time's goin' by. We'll be too
late. Can't you make him hurry?”

I was almost as nervous as she was, but I would not have let our
guardian know it for the world. If we lost a dozen steamers I shouldn't
call his attention to the fact. I might be a “Babe in the Wood,” but he
should not have the satisfaction of hearing me whimper.

He came back to the room a moment later and began asking more questions.
Our answers, particularly Hephzy's, seemed to please him a great deal.
At some of them he laughed uproariously. At last he looked at his watch.

“Almost eleven,” he observed. “I must be getting around to the office.
Miss Cahoon will you excuse Kent and me for an hour or so? I have his
letters of credit and the tickets in our safe and he had better come
around with me and get them. If you have any last bits of shopping to
do, now is your opportunity. Or you might wait here if you prefer. We
will be back at half-past twelve and lunch together.”

I started. Hephzy sprang from the chair.

“Half-past twelve!” I cried.

“Lunch together!” gasped Hephzy. “Why, Mr. Campbell! the 'Princess
Eulalie' sails at noon. You said so yourself!”

Jim smiled. “I know I did,” he replied, “but that is immaterial. You are
not concerned with the 'Princess Eulalie.' Your passages are booked
on the 'Plutonia' and she doesn't leave her dock until one o'clock
to-morrow morning. We will meet here for lunch at twelve-thirty. Come,
Kent.”

I didn't attempt an answer. I am not exactly sure what I did. A few
minutes later I walked out of that room with Campbell and I have a hazy
recollection of leaving Hephzy seated in the rocker and of hearing her
voice, as the door closed, repeating over and over:

“The 'Plutonia'! My soul and body! The 'Plutonia'! Me--ME on the
'Plutonia'!”

What I said and did afterwards doesn't make much difference. I know I
called my publisher a number of disrespectful names not one of which he
deserved.

“Confound you!” I cried. “You know I wouldn't have dreamed of taking a
passage on a ship like that. She's a floating Waldorf, everyone says so.
Dress and swagger society and--Oh, you idiot! I wanted quiet! I wanted
to be alone! I wanted--”

Jim interrupted me.

“I know you did,” he said. “But you're not going to have them. You've
been alone too much. You need a change. If I know the 'Plutonia'--and
I've crossed on her four times--you're going to have it.”

He burst into a roar of laughter. We were in a cab, fortunately, or his
behavior would have attracted attention. I could have choked him.

“You imbecile!” I cried. “I have a good mind to throw the whole thing up
and go home to Bayport. By George, I will!”

He continued to chuckle.

“I see you doing it!” he observed. “How about your--what's her
name?--Hephzibah? Going to tell her that it's all off, are you? Going
to tell her that you will forfeit your passage money and hers? Why, man,
haven't you a heart? If she was booked for Paradise instead of Paris
she couldn't be any happier. Don't be foolish! Your trunks are on the
'Plutonia' and on the 'Plutonia' you'll be to-night. It's the best thing
that can happen to you. I did it on purpose. You'll thank me come day.”

I didn't thank him then.

We returned to the hotel at twelve-thirty, my pocket-book loaded with
tickets and letters of credit and unfamiliar white paper notes bearing
the name of the Bank of England. Hephzibah was still in the rocking
chair. I am sure she had not left it.

We lunched in the hotel dining-room. Campbell ordered the luncheon and
paid for it while Hephzibah exclaimed at his extravagance. She was
too excited to eat much and too worried concerning the extent of her
wardrobe to talk of less important matters.

“Oh dear, Hosy!” she wailed, “WHY didn't I buy another best dress. DO
you suppose my black one will be good enough? All those lords and
ladies and millionaires on the 'Plutonia'! Won't they think I'm dreadful
poverty-stricken. I saw a dress I wanted awfully--in one of those Boston
stores it was; but I didn't buy it because it was so dear. And I didn't
tell you I wanted it because I knew if I did you'd buy it. You're so
reckless with money. But now I wish I'd bought it myself. What WILL all
those rich people think of me?”

“About what they think of me, Hephzy, I imagine,” I answered, ruefully.
“Jim here has put up a joke on us. He is the only one who is getting any
fun out of it.”

Jim, for a wonder, was serious. “Miss Cahoon,” he declared, earnestly,
“don't worry. I'm sure the black silk is all right; but if it wasn't
it wouldn't make any difference. On the 'Plutonia' nobody notices other
people's clothes. Most of them are too busy noticing their own. If Kent
has his evening togs and you have the black silk you'll pass muster.
You'll have a gorgeous time. I only wish I was going with you.”

He repeated the wish several times during the afternoon. He insisted on
taking us to a matinee and Hephzy's comments on the performance seemed
to amuse him hugely. It had been eleven years, so she said, since she
went to the theater.

“Unless you count 'Uncle Tom' or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some
of those other plays that come to Bayport,” she added. “I suppose I'm
making a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's nothin'
but make-believe, but I can't help it. Isn't it splendid, Hosy! I wonder
what Father would say if he could know that his daughter was really
travelin'--just goin' to Europe! He used to worry a good deal, in his
last years, about me. Seemed to feel that he hadn't taken me around and
done as much for me as he ought to in the days when he could. 'Twas just
nonsense, his feelin' that way, and I told him so. But I wonder if he
knows now how happy I am. I hope he does. My goodness! I can't realize
it myself. Oh, there goes the curtain up again! Oh, ain't that pretty! I
AM actin' ridiculous, I know, Mr. Campbell,' but you mustn't mind. Laugh
at me all you want to; I sha'n't care a bit.”

Jim didn't laugh--then. Neither did I. He and I looked at each other
and I think the same thought was in both our minds. Good, kind,
whole-souled, self-sacrificing Hephzibah! The last misgiving, the last
doubt as to the wisdom of my choice of a traveling companion vanished
from my thoughts. For the first time I was actually glad I was going,
glad because of the happiness it would mean to her.

When we came out of the theater Campbell reached down in the crowd to
shake my hand.

“Congratulations, old man,” he whispered; “you did exactly the right
thing. You surprised me, I admit, but you were dead right. She's a
brick. But don't I wish I was going along! Oh my! oh my! to think of you
two wandering about Europe together! If only I might be there to see and
hear! Kent, keep a diary; for my sake, promise me you'll keep a diary.
Put down everything she says and read it to me when you get home.”

He left us soon afterward. He had given up the entire day to me and
would, I know, have cheerfully given the evening as well, but I would
not hear of it. A messenger from the office had brought him word of the
presence in New York of a distinguished scientist who was preparing a
manuscript for publication and the scientist had requested an interview
that night. Campbell was very anxious to obtain that manuscript and I
knew it. Therefore I insisted that he leave us. He was loathe to do so.

“I hate to, Kent,” he declared. “I had set my heart on seeing you on
board and seeing you safely started. But I do want to nail Scheinfeldt,
I must admit. The book is one that he has been at work on for years and
two other publishing houses are as anxious as ours to get it. To-night
is my chance, and to-morrow may be too late.”

“Then you must not miss the chance. You must go, and go now.”

“I don't like to. Sure you've got everything you need? Your tickets and
your letters of credit and all? Sure you have money enough to carry you
across comfortably?”

“Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'”

“Well, all right, then. When you reach London go to our English
branch--you have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand--and
whatever help you may need they'll give you. I've cabled them
instructions. Think you can get down to the ship all right?”

I laughed. “I think it fairly possible,” I said. “If I lose my way, or
Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone you.”

“The latter would be safer and much less expensive. Well, good-by,
Kent. Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to forget
literature. Write often and keep in touch with me. Good-by, Miss Cahoon.
Take care of this--er--clam of ours, won't you. Don't let anyone eat him
on the half-shell, or anything like that.”

Hephzy smiled. “They'd have to eat me first,” she said, “and I'm pretty
old and tough. I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you worry.”

“I don't. Good luck to you both--and good-by.”

A final handshake and he was gone. Hephzy looked after him.

“There!” she exclaimed; “I really begin to believe I'm goin'. Somehow
I feel as if the last rope had been cast off. We've got to depend on
ourselves now, Hosy, dear. Mercy! how silly I am talkin'. A body would
think I was homesick before I started.”

I did not answer, for I WAS homesick. We dined together at the hotel.
There remained three long hours before it would be time for us to take
the cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf. I suggested another theater, but
Hephzy, to my surprise, declined the invitation.

“If you don't mind, Hosy,” she said, “I guess I'd rather stay right here
in the room. I--I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to sit still
and think. Perhaps it's just as well. After waitin' eleven years to go
to one theater, maybe two in the same day would be more than I could
stand.”

So we sat together in the room at the hotel--sat and thought. The
minutes dragged by. Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed and
roared. I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on the
sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or pleasure of
its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or pleasure might
be and why they hurried so. There were many single ones, of course,
and occasionally groups of three or four, but couples were the most
numerous. Husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts, each with his or
her life and interests bound up in the life and interests of the other.
I envied them. Mine had been a solitary life, an unusual, abnormal kind
of life. No one had shared its interests and ambitions with me, no one
had spurred me on to higher endeavor, had loved with me and suffered
with me, helping me through the shadows and laughing with me in the
sunshine. No one, since Mother's death, except Hephzy and Hephzy's love
and care and sacrifice, fine as they were, were different. I had missed
something, I had missed a great deal, and now it was too late. Youth and
high endeavor and ambition had gone by; I had left them behind. I was
a solitary, queer, self-centered old bachelor, a “quahaug,” as my
fellow-Bayporters called me. And to ship a quahaug around the world is
not likely to do the creature a great deal of good. If he lives through
it he is likely to be shipped home again tougher and drier and more
useless to the rest of creation than ever.

Hephzibah, too, had evidently been thinking, for she interrupted my
dismal meditations with a long sigh. I started and turned toward her.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“Oh, nothin',” was the solemn answer. “I was wonderin', that's all. Just
wonderin' if he would talk English. It would be a terrible thing if
he could speak nothin' but French or a foreign language and I couldn't
understand him. But Ardelia was American and that brute of a Morley
spoke plain enough, so I suppose--”

I judged it high time to interrupt.

“Come, Hephzy,” said I. “It is half-past ten. We may as well start at
once.”

Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze of
flashing signs and illuminated shop windows. But --th street, at the
foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship Company were
located, was black and dismal. It was by no means deserted, however.
Before and behind and beside us were other cabs and automobiles bound in
the same direction. Hephzy peered out at them in amazement.

“Mercy on us, Hosy!” she exclaimed. “I never saw such a procession of
carriages. They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you can see. It
is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that they don't crawl
along the way a funeral does. I'm glad of that, anyhow. I wish I didn't
FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be buried. I don't know why I do. I
hope it isn't a presentiment.”

If it was she forgot it a few minutes later. The cab stopped before a
mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in uniform opened
the door. The wide street was crowded with vehicles and from them were
descending people attired as if for a party rather than an ocean voyage.
I helped Hephzy to alight and, while I was paying the cab driver, she
looked about her.

“Hosy! Hosy!” she whispered, seizing my arm tight, “we've made a
mistake. This isn't the steamboat; this is--is a weddin' or somethin'.
Look! look!”

I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and
those who wore them. For a moment I, too, was certain there must be a
mistake. Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway the flashing
electric sign of the “Trans-Atlantic Navigation Company.”

“No, Hephzy,” said I; “I guess it is the right place. Come.”

I gave her my arm--that is, she continued to clutch it with both
hands--and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway, past
a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles of golf
sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and faced another
and smaller door.

“Lift this way! This way to the lift!” bawled a voice.

“What's a lift?” whispered Hephzy, tremulously, “Hosy, what's a lift?”

“An elevator,” I whispered in reply.

“But we can't go on board a steamboat in an elevator, can we? I never
heard--”

I don't know what she never heard. The sentence was not finished. Into
the lift we went. On either side of us were men in evening dress and
directly in front was a large woman, hatless and opera-cloaked, with
diamonds in her ears and a rustle of silk at every point of her persons.
The car reeked with perfume.

The large woman wriggled uneasily.

“George,” she said, in a loud whisper, “why do they crowd these lifts
in this disgusting way? And WHY,” with another wriggle, “do they permit
PERSONS with packages to use them?”

As we emerged from the elevator Hephzy whispered again.

“She meant us, Hosy,” she said. “I've got three of those books of yours
in this bundle under my arm. I COULDN'T squeeze 'em into either of the
valises. But she needn't have been so disagreeable about it, need she.”

Still following the crowd, we passed through more wide doorways and into
a huge loft where, through mammoth openings at our left, the cool air
from the river blew upon our faces. Beyond these openings loomed an
enormous something with rows of railed walks leading up its sides.
Hephzibah and I, moving in a sort of bewildered dream, found ourselves
ascending one of these walks. At its end was another doorway and,
beyond, a great room, with more elevators and a mosaic floor, and
mahogany and gilt and gorgeousness, and silk and broadcloth and satin.

Hephzy gasped and stopped short.

“It IS a mistake, Hosy!” she cried. “Where is the steamer?”

I smiled. I felt almost as “green” and bewildered as she, but I tried
not to show my feelings.

“It is all right, Hephzy,” I answered. “This is the steamer. I know it
doesn't look like one, but it is. This is the 'Plutonia' and we are on
board at last.”

Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the lights
of New York grow fainter behind us.

Hephzibah drew a deep breath.

“It is so,” she said. “It is really so. We ARE, aren't we, Hosy.”

“We are,” said I. “There is no doubt of it.”

“I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again.”

“I wonder.”

“Do you think HE--Do you think Little Frank--”

“Hephzy,” I interrupted, “if we are going to bed at all before morning,
we had better start now.”

“All right, Hosy. But you mustn't say 'go to bed.' Say 'turn in.'
Everyone calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel.”



CHAPTER V

In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes


It is astonishing--the ease with which the human mind can accustom
itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange. Nothing could have been
more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean voyage and
the “Plutonia.” And yet before three days of that voyage were at an end
we were accustomed to both--to a degree. We had learned to do certain
things and not to do others. Some pet illusions had been shattered,
and new and, at first, surprising items of information had lost their
newness and come to be accepted as everyday facts.

For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore monocles,
something, which I, of course, had known to be true but which had seemed
nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a “dress-up” game for
children and amateur actors. The “English swell” in the performances of
the Bayport Dramatic Society always wore a single eyeglass, but he also
wore Dundreary whiskers and clothes which would have won him admittance
to the Home for Feeble-Minded Youth without the formality of an
examination. His “English accent” was a combination of the East Bayport
twang and an Irish brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance
and behavior. No one in his senses could have accepted him as anything
human and the eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity.

And yet, here on the “Plutonia,” were at least a dozen men, men of
dignity and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were
used to them. The first evening before we left port, one or two were in
evidence; the next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were more. The
fact that they were on an English ship, bound for England, brought the
monocles out of their concealment, as Hephzy said, “like hoptoads after
the first spring thaw.” Her amazed comments were unique.

“But what good are they, Hosy?” she demanded. “Can they see with 'em?”

“I suppose they can,” I answered. “You can see better with your
spectacles than you can without them.”

“Humph! I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far as
that goes. I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all. Take that
man there,” pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow ulster,
whom the irreverent smoking-room had already christened “The Duke
of Labrador.” “Look at him! He didn't wear a sign of one until this
mornin'. If he needed it to see with he'd have worn it before, wouldn't
he? Don't tell me! He wears it because he wants people to think he's a
regular boarder at Windsor Castle. And he isn't; he comes from Toronto,
and that's only a few miles from the United States. Ugh! You foolish
thing!” as the “Duke of Labrador” strutted by our deck-chairs; “I
suppose you think you're pretty, don't you? Well, you're not. You look
for all the world like a lighthouse with one window in it and the lamp
out.”

I laughed. “Hephzy,” said I, “every nation has its peculiarities and the
monocle is an English national institution, like--well, like tea, for
instance.”

“Institution! Don't talk to me about institutions! I know the
institution I'd put HIM in.”

She didn't fancy the “Duke of Labrador.” Neither did she fancy tea at
breakfast and coffee at dinner. But she learned to accept the first. Two
sessions with the “Plutonia's” breakfast coffee completed her education.

“Bring me tea,” she said to our table steward on the third morning.
“I've tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm
gettin' too old to keep on experimentin' with my health. Bring me tea
and I'll try to forget what time it is.”

We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the afternoon.
Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest. She watched her
fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something to say concerning
their behavior.

“Did you hear that, Hosy?” she whispered, as we sat together in the
“Lounge,” sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the
inevitable plum cake. “Did you hear what that woman said about her
husband?”

I had not heard, and said so.

“Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and she
was sure he had been washed overboard. 'Where is Edward?' she kept
askin'. 'Poor Edward! What WILL he do? Where is he?' I was gettin' real
anxious, and then it turned out that she was afraid that, if he didn't
come soon, he'd miss his tea. My soul! Hosy, I've been thinkin' and do
you know the conclusion I've come to?”

“No,” I replied. “What is it?”

“Well, it sounds awfully irreverent, but I've come to the conclusion
that the first part of the Genesis in the English scriptures must be
different than ours. I'm sure they think that the earth was created in
six days and, on the seventh, Adam and Eve had tea. I believe it for an
absolute fact.”

The pet illusion, the loss of which caused her the most severe shock,
was that concerning the nobility. On the morning of our first day afloat
the passenger lists were distributed. Hephzibah was early on deck.
Fortunately neither she nor I were in the least discomfited by the
motion of the ship, then or at any time. We proved to be good sailors;
Hephzibah declared it was in the blood.

“For a Knowles or a Cahoon to be seasick,” she announced, “would be a
disgrace. Our men folks for four generations would turn over in their
graves.”

She was early on deck that first morning and, at breakfast she and I had
the table to ourselves. She had the passenger list propped against the
sugar bowl and was reading the names.

“My gracious, Hosy!” she exclaimed. “What, do you think! There are five
'Sirs' on board and one 'Lord'! Just think of it! Where do you suppose
they are?”

“In their berths, probably, at this hour,” I answered.

“Then I'm goin' to stay right here till they come out. I'm goin' to see
'em and know what they look like if I sit at this table all day.”

I smiled. “I wouldn't do that, Hephzy,” said I. “We can see them at
lunch.”

“Oh! O--Oh! And there's a Princess here! Princess
B-e-r-g-e-n-s-t-e-i-n--Bergenstein. Princess Bergenstein. What do you
suppose she's Princess of?”

“Princess of Jerusalem, I should imagine,” I answered. “Oh, I see!
You've skipped a line, Hephzy. Bergenstein belongs to another person.
The Princess's name is Berkovitchky. Russian or Polish, perhaps.”

“I don't care if she's Chinese; I mean to see her. I never expected to
look at a live Princess in MY life.”

We stopped in the hall at the entrance to the dining-saloon to examine
the table chart. Hephzibah made careful notes of the tables at which the
knights and the lord and the Princess were seated and their locations.
At lunch she consulted the notes.

“The lord sits right behind us at that little table there,” she said,
excitedly. “That table for two is marked 'Lord and Lady Erkskine.' Now
we must watch when they come in.”

A few minutes later a gray-haired little man, accompanied by a
middle-aged woman entered the saloon and were seated at the small table
by an obsequious steward. Hephzy gasped.

“Why--why, Hosy!” she exclaimed. “That isn't the lord, is it? THAT?”

“I suppose it must be,” I answered. When our own Steward came I asked
him.

“Yes, sir,” he answered, with unction. “Yes, sir, that is Lord and Lady
Erkskine, sir, thank you, sir.”

Hephzy stared at Lord and Lady Erkskine. I gave our luncheon order,
and the steward departed. Then her indignant disgust and disappointment
burst forth.

“Well! well!” she exclaimed. “And that is a real live lord! That is!
Why, Hosy, he's the livin' image of Asaph Tidditt back in Bayport. If
Ase could afford clothes like that he might be his twin brother. Well! I
guess that's enough. I don't want to see that Princess any more. Just as
like as not she'd look like Susanna Wixon.”

Her criticisms were not confined to passengers of other nationalities.
Some of our own came in for comment quite as severe.

“Look at those girls at that table over there,” she whispered. “The two
in red, I mean. One of 'em has got a little flag pinned on her dress.
What do you suppose that is for?”

I looked at the young ladies in red. They were vivacious damsels and
their conversation and laughter were by no means subdued. A middle-aged
man and woman and two young fellows were their table-mates and the group
attracted a great deal of attention.

“What has she got that flag pinned on her for?” repeated Hephzy.

“She wishes everyone to know she's an American exportation, I suppose,”
 I answered. “She is evidently proud of her country.”

“Humph! Her country wouldn't be proud of her, if it had to listen to
her the way we do. There's some exports it doesn't pay to advertise, I
guess, and she and her sister are that kind. Every time they laugh I
can see that Lady Erkskine shrivel up like a sensitive plant. I hope she
don't think all American girls are like those two.”

“She probably does.”

“Well, IF she does she's makin' a big mistake. I might as well believe
all Englishmen were like this specimen comin' now, and I don't believe
that, even if I do hail from Bayport.”

The specimen was the “Duke of Labrador,” who sauntered by, monocle in
eye, hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the “Oxford stoop”
 which he must have spent time and effort in acquiring. Hephzibah shook
her head.

“I wish Toronto was further from home than it is,” she declared. “But
there! I shan't worry about him. I'll leave him for Lord Erkskine and
his wife to be ashamed of. He's their countryman, or he hopes he is.
I've got enough to do bein' ashamed of those two American girls.”

It may be gathered from these conversations that Hephzy and I had been
so fortunate as to obtain a table by ourselves. This was not the case.
There were four seats at our table and, according to the chart of the
dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a “Miss Rutledge of New
York” and the other by “A. Carleton Heathcroft of London.” Miss Rutledge
we had not seen at all. Our table steward informed us that the lady was
“hindisposed” and confined to her room. She was an actress, he added.
Hephzy, whose New England training had imbued her with the conviction
that all people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable
as acquaintances, was quite satisfied. “Of course I'm sorry she isn't
well,” she confided to me “but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our
table. I shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk to her
as I would to an ordinary person. I COULDN'T! All I should be able to
think of was what she wore, or didn't wear, when she was actin' her
parts. I expect I'm old-fashioned, but when I think of those girls
in the pictures outside that theater--the one we didn't go
to--I--well--mercy!”

The “pictures” were the posters advertising a popular musical comedy
which Campbell had at first suggested our witnessing the afternoon of
our stay in New York. Hephzibah's shocked expression and my whispered
advice had brought about a change of plans. We saw a perfectly
respectable, though thrilling, melodrama instead. I might have
relieved my relative's mind by assuring her that all actresses were not
necessarily attired as “merry villagers,” but the probable result of my
assurance seemed scarcely worth the effort.

A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage, in
a professional way, at any rate. He was a slim and elegant gentleman,
dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly bored with life
in general and our society in particular. He sported one of Hephzibah's
detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when he spoke at all, with a languid
drawl and what I learned later was a Piccadilly accent. He favored us
with his company during our first day afloat; after that we saw him
amid the select group at that much sought--by some--center of shipboard
prominence, “the Captain's table.”

Oddly enough Hephzibah did not resent the Heathcroft condescension and
single eyeglass as much as I had expected. She explained her feeling in
this way.

“I know he's dreadfully high and mighty and all that,” she said. “And
the way he said 'Really?' when you and I spoke to him was enough to
squelch even an Angelina Phinney. But I didn't care so much. Anybody,
even a body as green as I am, can see that he actually IS somebody when
he's at home, not a make-believe, like that Toronto man. And I'm glad
for our waiter's sake that he's gone somewhere else. The poor thing
bowed so low when he came in and was so terribly humble every time Mr.
Heathcroft spoke to him. I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you'
when I was told that the food was 'rotten bad.' I never thought 'rotten'
was a nice word, but all these English folks say it. I heard that pretty
English girl over there tell her father that it was a 'jolly rotten
mornin',' and she's as nice and sweet as she can be. Well, I'm
learnin' fast, Hosy. I can see a woman smoke a cigarette now and not
shiver--much. Old Bridget Doyle up in West Bayport, used to smoke a
pipe and the whole town talked about it. She'd be right at home in that
sittin'-room they call a 'Lounge' after dinner, wouldn't she?”

My acquaintance with A. Carleton Heathcroft, which appeared to have
ended almost as soon as it began, was renewed in an odd way. I was in
the “Smoke-Room” after dinner the third evening out, enjoying a cigar
and idly listening to the bidding for pools on the ship's run, that
time-honored custom which helps the traveling gentleman of sporting
proclivities to kill time and lose money. On board the “Plutonia,” with
its unusually large quota of millionaires and personages, the bidding
was lively and the prices paid for favored numbers high. Needless to say
I was not one of the bidders. My interest was merely casual.

The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an international
reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers to higher bids, was
clever and amusing. I was listening to it and smiling at the jokes when
a voice at my elbow said:

“Five pounds.”

I turned and saw that the speaker was Heathcroft. His monocle was in his
eye, a cigarette was between his fingers and he looked as if he had
been newly washed and ironed and pressed from head to foot. He nodded
carelessly and I bowed in return.

“Five pounds,” repeated Mr. Heathcroft.

The auctioneer acknowledged the bid and proceeded to urge his audience
on to higher flights. The flights were made and my companion capped each
with one more lofty. Eight, nine, ten pounds were bid. Heathcroft bid
eleven. Someone at the opposite side of the room bid twelve. It seemed
ridiculous to me. Possibly my face expressed my feeling; at any rate
something caused the immaculate gentleman in the next chair to address
me instead of the auctioneer.

“I say,” he said, “that's running a bit high, isn't it?”

“It seems so to me,” I replied. “The number is five hundred and
eighty-six and I think we shall do better than that.”

“Oh, do you! Really! And why do you think so, may I ask?”

“Because we are having a remarkably smooth sea and a favorable wind.”

“Oh, but you forget the fog. There's quite a bit of fog about us now,
isn't there.”

I wish I could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying “Isn't there.” I
can't, however; there is no use trying.

“It will amount to nothing,” I answered. “The glass is high and there
is no indication of bad weather. Our run this noon was five hundred and
ninety-one, you remember.”

“Yes. But we did have extraordinarily good weather for that.”

“Why, not particularly good. We slowed down about midnight. There was
a real fog then and the glass was low. The second officer told me it
dropped very suddenly and there was a heavy sea running. For an hour
between twelve and one we were making not much more than half our usual
speed.”

“Really! That's interesting. May I ask if you and the second officer are
friends?”

“Scarcely that. He and I exchanged a few words on deck this morning,
that's all.”

“But he told you about the fog and the--what is it--the glass, and all
that. Fancy! that's extremely odd. I'm acquainted with the captain in
a trifling sort of way; I sit at his table, I mean to say. And I assure
you he doesn't tell us a word. And, by Jove, we cross-question him, too!
Rather!”

I smiled. I could imagine the cross-questioning.

“I suppose the captain is obliged to be non-committal,” I observed.
“That's part of his job. The second officer meant to be, I have no
doubt, but perhaps my remarks showed that I was really interested in
ships and the sea. My father and grandfather, too, for that matter were
seafaring men, both captains. That may have made the second officer more
communicative. Not that he said anything of importance, of course.”

Mr. Heathcroft seemed very interested. He actually removed his eyeglass.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “You know something about it, then. I thought it was
extraordinary, but now I see. And you think our run will be better than
five hundred and eighty?”

“It should be, unless there is a remarkable change. This ship makes over
six hundred, day after day, in good weather. She should do at least six
hundred by to-morrow noon, unless there is a sudden change, as I said.”

“But six hundred would be--it would be the high field, by Jove!”

“Anything over five hundred and ninety-four would be that. The numbers
are very low to-night. Far too low, I should say.”

Heathcroft was silent. The auctioneer, having forced the bid on number
five hundred and eighty-six up to thirteen pounds ten, was imploring his
hearers not to permit a certain winner to be sacrificed at this absurd
figure.

“Fourteen pounds, gentlemen,” he begged. “For the sake of the wife
and children, for the honor of the star spangled banner and the union
jack,--DON'T hesitate--don't even stammer--below fourteen pounds.”

He looked in our direction as he said it. Mr. Heathcroft made no sign.
He produced a gold cigarette box and extended it in my direction.

“Will you?” he inquired.

“No, thank you,” I replied. “I will smoke a cigar, if you don't mind.”

He did not appear to mind. He lighted his cigarette, readjusted his
monocle, and stared stonily at the gesticulating auctioneer.

The bidding went on. One by one the numbers were sold until all were
gone. Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the “high field,” that
is, any number above five hundred and ninety-four, were in order. My
companion suddenly came to life.

“Ten pounds,” he called.

I started. “For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft,” I protested, “don't let
anything I have said influence your bidding. I may be entirely wrong.”

He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.

“You may wish to bid yourself,” he drawled. “Careless of me. So sorry.
Shall I withdraw the bid?”

“No, no. I'm not going to bid. I only--”

“Eleven pounds I am offered, gentlemen,” shouted the auctioneer. “Eleven
pounds! It would be like robbing an orphan asylum. Do I hear twelve?”

He heard twelve immediately--from Mr. Heathcroft.

Thirteen pounds were bid. Evidently others shared my opinion concerning
the value of the “high field.” Heathcroft promptly raised it to
fourteen. I ventured another protest. So far as effect was concerned I
might as well have been talking to one of the smoke-stacks. The bidding
was lively and lengthy. At last the “high field” went to Mr. A. Carleton
Heathcroft for twenty-one pounds, approximately one hundred and five
dollars. I thought it time for me to make my escape. I was wondering
where I should hide next day, when the run was announced.

“Greatly obliged to you, I'm sure,” drawled the fortunate bidder. “Won't
you join me in a whisky and soda or something?”

I declined the whisky and soda.

“Sorry,” said Mr. Heathcroft. “Jolly grateful for putting me right,
Mr.--er--”

“Knowles is my name,” I said. He might have remembered it; I remembered
his perfectly.

“Of course--Knowles. Thank you so much, Knowles. Thank you and the
second officer. Nothing like having professional information--eh, what?
Rather!”

There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that he was going to win. There
was more than a doubt in mine. I told Hephzy of my experience when I
joined her in the Lounge. My attempts to say “Really” and “Isn't it” and
“Rather” in the Heathcroft manner and with the Heathcroft accent pleased
her very much. As to the result of my unpremeditated “tip” she was quite
indifferent.

“If he loses it will serve him good and right,” she declared. “Gamblin's
poor business and I sha'n't care if he does lose.”

“I shall,” I observed. “I feel responsible in a way and I shall be
sorry.”

“'SO sorry,' you mean, Hosy. That's what that blunderin' steward said
when he stepped on my skirt and tore the gatherin' all loose. I told him
he wasn't half as sorry as I was.”

But at noon next day, when the observation was taken and the run posted
on the bulletin board the figure was six hundred and two. My “tip”
 had been a good one after all and A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire,
was richer by some seven hundred dollars, even after the expenses of
treating the “smoke-room” and feeing the smoke-room steward had been
deducted. I did not visit the smoke-room to share in the treat. I feared
I might be expected to furnish more professional information. But that
evening a bottle of vintage champagne was produced by our obsequious
table steward. “With Mr. 'Eathcroft's compliments, sir, thank you, sir,”
 announced the latter.

Hephzibah looked at the gilt-topped bottle.

“WHAT in the world will we do with it, Hosy?” she demanded.

“Why, drink it, I suppose,” I answered. “It is the only thing we can do.
We can't send it back.”

“But you can't drink the whole of it, and I'm sure I sha'n't start in to
be a drunkard at my age. I'll take the least little bit of a drop, just
to see what it tastes like. I've read about champagne, just as I've read
about lords and ladies, all my life, but I never expected to see either
of 'em. Well there!” after a very small sip from the glass, “there's
another pet idea gone to smash. A lord looks like Ase Tidditt, and
champagne tastes like vinegar and soda. Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink
that sour stuff all my life I'd probably look like Asaph, too. No wonder
that Erkskine man is such a shriveled-up thing.”

I glanced toward the captain's table. Mr. Heathcroft raised his glass.
I bowed and raised mine. The group at that table, the captain included,
were looking in my direction. I judged that my smoke-room acquaintance
had told them of my wonderful “tip.” I imagined I could see the
sarcastic smile upon the captain's face. I did not care for that kind of
celebrity.

But the affair had one quite unexpected result. The next forenoon as
Hephzibah and I were reclining in our deck-chairs the captain himself,
florid-faced, gray-bearded, gold-laced and grand, halted before us.

“I believe your name is Knowles, sir,” he said, raising his cap.

“It is,” I replied. I wondered what in the world was coming next. Was he
going to take me to task for talking with his second officer?

“Your home is in Bayport, Massachusetts, I see by the passenger list,”
 he went on. “Is that Bayport on Cape Cod, may I ask?”

“Yes,” I replied, more puzzled than ever.

“I once knew a Knowles from your town, sir. He was a seafaring man
like myself. His name was Philander Knowles, and when I knew him he was
commander of the bark 'Ranger.'”

“He was my father,” I said.

Captain Stone extended his hand.

“Mr. Knowles,” he declared, “this is a great pleasure, sir. I knew
your father years ago when I was a young man, mate of one of our ships
engaged in the Italian fruit trade. He was very kind to me at that time.
I have never forgotten it. May I sit down?”

The chair next to ours happened to be unoccupied at the moment and
he took it. I introduced Hephzibah and we chatted for some time. The
captain appeared delighted to meet the son of his old acquaintance.
Father and he had met in Messina--Father's ship was in the fruit trade
also at that time--and something or other he had done to help young
Stone had made a great impression on the latter. I don't know what the
something was, whether it was monetary help or assistance in getting out
of a serious scrape; Stone did not tell me and I didn't ask. But, at any
rate, the pair had become very friendly there and at subsequent meetings
in the Mediterranean ports. The captain asked all sorts of questions
about Father, his life, his family and his death aboard the sinking
“Monarch of the Seas.” Hephzibah furnished most of the particulars. She
remembered them well.

Captain Stone nodded solemnly.

“That is the way the master of a ship should die,” he declared. “Your
father, Mr. Knowles, was a man and he died like one. He was my first
American acquaintance and he gave me a new idea of Yankees--if you'll
excuse my calling them that, sir.”

Hephzy had a comment to make.

“There are SOME pretty fair Yankees,” she observed, drily. “ALL the good
folks haven't moved back to England yet.”

The captain solemnly assured her that he was certain of it.

“Though two of the best are on their way,” I added, with a wink at
Hephzy. This attempt at humor was entirely lost. Our companion said he
presumed I referred to Mr. and Mrs. Van Hook, who sat next him at table.

“And that leads me to ask if Miss Cahoon and yourself will not join us,”
 he went on. “I could easily arrange for two places.”

I looked at Hephzy. Her face expressed decided disapproval and she shook
her head.

“Thank you, Captain Stone,” I said; “but we have a table to ourselves
and are very comfortable. We should not think of troubling you to that
extent.”

He assured us it would not be a trouble, but a pleasure. We were firm in
our refusal, however, and he ceased to urge. He declared his intention
of seeing that our quarters were adequate, offered to accompany us
through the engine-rooms and the working portions of the ship whenever
we wished, ordered the deck steward, who was all but standing on his
head in obsequious desire to oblige, to take good care of us, shook
hands once more, and went away. Hephzibah drew a long breath.

“My goodness!” she exclaimed; “sit at HIS table! I guess not! There's
another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van Hooks. I'd
look pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there, wouldn't I! A hen
is all right in her place, but she don't belong in a peacock cage. And
they drink champagne ALL the time there; I've watched 'em. No thank you,
I'll stay in the henyard along with the everyday fowls.”

“Odd that he should have known Father,” I observed. “Well, I suppose the
proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that this is a small
world. That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would say.”

“It's what I say, too,” declared Hephzy, with emphasis. “Well, it's
awful encouraging for us, isn't it.”

“Encouraging? What do you mean?”

“Why, I mean about Little Frank. It makes me feel surer than ever that
we shall run across him.”

I suppressed a groan. “Hephzy,” said I, “why on earth should the fact
that Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe that we shall
meet a person we never knew at all?”

“Hosy, how you do talk! If you and I, just cruisin' this way across
the broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin Philander
thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to suppose we'll meet
a child who was born twenty-one years ago? I should say 'twas! Hosy,
I've had a presentiment about this cruise of ours: We're SENT on it;
that's what I think--we're sent. Oh, you can laugh! You'll see by and
by. THEN you won't laugh.”

“No, Hephzy,” I admitted, resignedly, “I won't laugh then, I promise
you. If _I_ ever reach the stage where I see a Little Frank I promise
you I sha'n't laugh. I'll believe diseases of the brain are contagious,
like the measles, and I'll send for a doctor.”

The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening. He came
over to our table and chatted for some time. His visit caused quite a
sensation. Shipboard society is a little world by itself and the ship's
captain is the head of it. Persons who would, very likely, have passed
Captain Stone on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly without recognizing him now
toadied to him as if he were a Czar, which, in a way, I suppose he is
when afloat. His familiarity with us shed a sort of reflected glory upon
Hephzy and me. Several of our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening
for the first time.

A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues; the
smoke-room was his accustomed haunt. But the next forenoon as I leaned
over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the antics of the
“Stokers' Band” which was performing for the benefit of the second-class
with an eye toward pennies and small silver from all classes, Heathcroft
sauntered up and leaned beside me. We exchanged good-mornings. I thanked
him for the wine.

“Quite unnecessary, Knowles,” he said. “Least I could do, it seems to
me. I pulled quite a tidy bit from that inside information of yours;
I did really. Awfully obliged, and all that. You seem to have a wide
acquaintance among the officers. That captain chap tells us he knew your
father--the sailor one you told me of, you understand.”

Having had but one father I understood perfectly. We chatted in a
inconsequential way for a short time. In the course of our conversation
I happened to mention that I wrote, professionally. To my surprise
Heathcroft was impressed.

“Do you, really!” he exclaimed. “That's interesting, isn't it now! I
have a cousin who writes. Don't know why she does it; she doesn't get
her writings printed, but she keeps on. It is a habit of hers. Curious
dissipation--eh, what? Does that--er--Miss--that companion of yours,
write also?”

I laughed and informed him that writing was not one of Hephzibah's bad
habits.

“Extraordinary woman, isn't she,” he said. “I met her just now, walking
about, and I happened to mention that I was taking the air. She said she
wouldn't quarrel with me because of that. The more I took the better
she would like it; she could spare about a gale and a quarter and not
feel--What did she call it? Oh yes, 'scrimped.' What is 'scrimped,' may
I ask?”

I explained the meaning of “scrimped.” Heathcroft was much amused.

“It WAS blowing a bit strong up forward there,” he declared. “That was a
clever way of putting it, wasn't it?”

“She is a clever woman,” I said, shortly.

Heathcroft did not enthuse.

“Oh,” he said dubiously. “A relative of yours, I suppose.”

“A cousin, that's all.”

“One's relatives, particularly the feminine relatives, incline toward
eccentricity as they grow older, don't you think. I have an aunt down in
Sussex, who is queer. A good sort, too, no end of money, a big place
and all that, but odd. She and I get on well together--I am her pet, I
suppose I may say--but, by Jove, she has quarreled with everyone else in
the family. I let her have her own way and it has convinced her that I
am the only rational Heathcroft in existence. Do you golf, Knowles?”

“I attempt something in that line. I doubt if my efforts should be
called golf.”

“It is a rotten game when one is off form, isn't it. If you are down
in Sussex and I chance to be there I should be glad to have you play an
eighteen with me. Burglestone Bogs is the village. Anyone will direct
you to the Manor. If I'm not there, introduce yourself to my aunt. Lady
Kent Carey is the name. She'll be jolly glad to welcome you if you
tell her you know me. I'm her sole interest in life, the greenhouses
excepted, of course. Cultivating roses and rearing me are her hobbies.”

I thought it improbable that the golfers of Burglestone Bogs would ever
be put to shame by the brilliancy of my game. I thanked him, however.
I was surprised at the invitation. I had been under the impression,
derived from my reading, that the average Englishman required an
acquaintance of several months before proffering hospitality. No doubt
Mr. Heathcroft was not an average Englishman.

“Will you be in London long?” he asked. “I suppose not. You're probably
off on a hurricane jaunt from one end of the Continent to the other. Two
hours at Stratford, bowing before Shakespeare's tomb, a Derby through
the cathedral towns, and then the Channel boat, eh? That's the American
way, isn't it?”

“It is not our way,” I replied. “We have no itinerary. I don't know
where we may go or how long we shall stay.”

Evidently I rose again in his estimation.

“Have you picked your hotel in London?” he inquired.

“No. I shall be glad of any help you may be kind enough to give along
that line.”

He reflected. “There's a decent little hotel in Mayfair,” he said, after
a moment. “A private sort of shop. I don't use it myself; generally put
up at the club, I mean to say. But my aunt and my sisters do. They're
quite mad about it. It is--Ah--Bancroft's--that's it, Bancroft's Hotel.
I'll give you the address before I leave.”

I thanked him again. He was certainly trying to be kind. No doubt the
kindness was due to his sense of obligation engendered by what he called
my “professional information,” but it was kindness all the same.

The first bugle for luncheon sounded. Mr. Heathcroft turned to go.

“I'll see you again, Knowles,” he said, “and give you the hotel street
and number and all that. Hope you'll like it. If you shouldn't the
Langham is not bad--quiet and old-fashioned, but really very fair.
And if you care for something more public and--Ah--American, there are
always the Savoy and the Cecil. Here is my card. If I can be of any
service to you while you are in town drop me a line at my clubs, either
of them. I must be toddling. By, by.”

He “toddled” and I sought my room to prepare for luncheon.

Two days more and our voyage was at an end. We saw more of our friend
the captain during those days and of Heathcroft as well. The former
fulfilled his promise of showing us through the ship, and Hephzy and I,
descending greasy iron stairways and twisting through narrow passages,
saw great rooms full of mighty machinery, and a cavern where perspiring,
grimy men, looking but half-human in the red light from the furnace
mouths, toiled ceaselessly with pokers and shovels.

We stood at the forward end of the promenade deck at night, looking out
into the blackness, and heard the clang of four bells from the shadows
at the bow, the answering clang from the crow's-nest on the foremast,
and the weird cry of “All's well” from the lookouts. This experience
made a great impression on us both. Hephzy expressed my feeling exactly
when she said in a hushed whisper:

“There, Hosy! for the first time I feel as if I really was on board a
ship at sea. My father and your father and all our men-folks for ever
so far back have heard that 'All's well'--yes, and called it, too,
when they first went as sailors. Just think of it! Why Father was only
sixteen when he shipped; just a boy, that's all. I've heard him say
'All's well' over and over again; 'twas a kind of byword with him. This
whole thing seems like somethin' callin' to me out of the past and gone.
Don't you feel it?”

I felt it, as she did. The black night, the quiet, the loneliness, the
salt spray on our faces and the wash of the waves alongside, the high
singsong wail from lookout to lookout--it WAS a voice from the past, the
call of generations of sea-beaten, weather-worn, brave old Cape Codders
to their descendants, reminding the latter of a dead and gone profession
and of thousands of fine, old ships which had plowed the ocean in the
days when “Plutonias” were unknown.

We attended the concert in the Lounge, and the ball on the promenade
deck which followed. Mr. Heathcroft, who seemed to have made the
acquaintance of most of the pretty girls on board, informed us in the
intervals between a two-step and a tango, that he had been “dancing
madly.”

“You Americans are extraordinary people,” he added. “Your dances are
as extraordinary as your food. That Mrs. Van Hook, who sits near me
at table, was indulging in--what do you call them?--oh, yes, griddle
cakes--this morning. Begged me to try them. I declined. Horrid things
they were. Round, like a--like a washing-flannel, and swimming in
treacle. Frightful!”

“And that man,” commented Hephzy, “eats cold toast and strawberry
preserves for breakfast and washes 'em down with three cups of tea. And
he calls nice hot pancakes frightful!”

At ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish
coast through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we dropped
anchor abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village which was to
be our landing place. The sun was shining dimly by this time and the
rounded hills and the mountains beyond them, the green slopes dotted
with farms and checkered with hedges and stone walls, the gray stone
fort with its white-washed barrack buildings, the spires and chimneys
of the village in the hollow--all these combined to make a picture which
was homelike and yet not like home, foreign and yet strangely familiar.

We leaned over the rail and watched the trunks and boxes and bags and
bundles shoot down the slide into the baggage and mail-boat which lay
alongside. Hephzy was nervous.

“They'll smash everything to pieces--they surely will!” she declared.
“Either that or smash themselves, I don't know which is liable to happen
first. Mercy on us! Did you see that? That box hit the man right in the
back!”

“It didn't hurt him,” I said, reassuringly. “It was nothing but a
hat-box.”

“Hurt HIM--no! But I guess likely it didn't do the hat much good. I
thought baggage smashin' was an American institution, but they've got
some experts over here. Oh, my soul and body! there goes MY trunk--end
over end, of course. Well, I'm glad there's no eggs in it, anyway.
Josiah Dimick always used to carry two dozen eggs to his daughter-in-law
every time he went to Boston. He had 'em in a box once and put the box
on the seat alongside of him and a big fat woman came and sat--Oh! that
was your trunk, Hosy! Did you hear it hit? I expect every one of those
'English Poets' went from top to bottom then, right through all your
clothes. Never mind, I suppose it's all part of travelin'.”

Mr. Heathcroft, looking more English than ever in his natty top coat,
and hat at the back of his head, sauntered up. He was, for him, almost
enthusiastic.

“Looking at the water, were you?” he queried. “Glorious color, isn't it.
One never sees a sea like that or a sky like that anywhere but here at
home.”

Hephzy looked at the sea and sky. It was plain that she wished to
admire, for his sake, but her admiration was qualified.

“Don't you think if they were a little brighter and bluer they'd be
prettier?” she asked.

Heathcroft stared at her through his monocle.

“Bluer?” he repeated. “My dear woman, there are no skies as blue as the
English skies. They are quite celebrated--really.”

He sauntered on again, evidently disgusted at our lack of appreciation.

“He must be color-blind,” I observed. Hephzy was more charitable.

“I guess likely everybody's home things are best,” she said. “I suppose
this green-streaked water and those gray clouds do look bright and blue
to him. We must make allowances, Hosy. He never saw an August mornin' at
Bayport, with a northwest wind blowin' and the bay white and blue to the
edge of all creation. That's been denied him. He means well, poor thing;
he don't know any better.”

An hour later we landed from the passenger tender at a stone pier
covered with substantial stone buildings. Uniformed custom officers and
uniformed policemen stood in line as we came up the gang-plank. Behind
them, funny little locomotives attached to queer cars which appeared to
be all doors, puffed and panted.

Hephzibah looked about her.

“Yes,” she said, with conviction. “I'm believin' it more and more all
the time. It is England, just like the pictures. How many times I've
seen engines like that in pictures, and cars like that, too. I never
thought I'd ride in 'em. My goodness me? Hephzibah Jane Cahoon, you're
in England--YOU are! You needn't be afraid to turn over for fear of
wakin' up, either. You're awake and alive and in England! Hosy,” with a
sudden burst of exuberance, “hold on to me tight. I'm just as likely to
wave my hat and hurrah as I am to do anything. Hold on to me--tight.”

We got through the perfunctory customs examination without trouble. Our
tickets provided by Campbell, included those for the railway journey to
London. I secured a first-class compartment at the booking-office and
a guard conducted us to it and closed the door. Another short delay and
then, with a whistle as queer and unfamiliar as its own appearance, the
little locomotive began to pull our train out of the station.

Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme content.

“And now,” said I, “for London. London! think of it, Hephzy!”

Hephzy shook her head.

“I'm thinkin' of it,” she said. “London--the biggest city in the world!
Who knows, Hosy? France is such a little ways off; probably Little Frank
has been to London a hundred times. He may even be there now. Who knows?
I shouldn't be surprised if we met him right in London. I sha'n't be
surprised at anything anymore. I'm in England and on my way to London;
that's surprise enough. NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that.”



CHAPTER VI

In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter


It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock. The long
train journey was a delight. During the few hours of daylight and dusk
we peered through the car windows at the scenery flying past; at the
villages, the green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim farms.

“Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted,” declared Hephzy.
“There aren't any waste places at all. What do they do with their spare
land?”

“They haven't any,” I answered. “Land is too valuable to waste. There's
another thatched roof. It looks like those in the pictures, doesn't it.”

Hephzy nodded. “Just exactly,” she said. “Everything looks like the
pictures. I feel as if I'd seen it all before. If that engine didn't
toot so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was a picture.
But it isn't--it isn't; it's real, and you and I are part of it.”

We dined on the train. Night came and our window-pictures changed
to glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches of
darkness. At length the lights became more and more frequent and began
to string out in long lines marking suburban streets. Then the little
locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and we rolled slowly under
a great train shed--Paddington Station and London itself.

Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone wanderers
not exactly sure what we should do next. About us the busy crowd jostled
and pushed. Relatives met relatives and fathers and mothers met sons and
daughters returning home after long separations. No one met us, no
one was interested in us at all, except the porters and the cabmen.
I selected a red-faced chunky porter who was a decidedly able person,
apparently capable of managing anything except the letter h. The
acrobatics which he performed with that defenceless consonant were
marvelous. I have said that I selected him; that he selected me would be
nearer the truth.

“Cab, sir. Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” he said. “Leave that to me, sir.
Will you 'ave a fourwheeler or a hordinary cab, sir?”

I wasn't exactly certain what a fourwheeler might be. I had read about
them often enough, but I had never seen one pictured and properly
labeled. For the matter of that, all the vehicles in sight appeared to
have four wheels. So I said, at a venture, that I thought an ordinary
cab would do.

“Yes, sir; 'ere you are, sir. Your boxes are in the luggage van, I
suppose, sir.”

I took it for granted he meant my trunks and those were in what I, in my
ignorance, would have called a baggage car:

“Yes, sir,” said the porter. “If the lidy will be good enough to wait
'ere, sir, you and I will go hafter the boxes, sir.”

Cautioning Hephzy not to stir from her moorings on any account I
followed my guide to the “luggage van.” This crowded car disgorged
our two steamer trunks and, my particular porter having corraled a
fellow-craftsman to help him, the trunks were dragged to the waiting
cab.

I found Hephzy waiting, outwardly calm, but inwardly excited.

“I saw one at last,” she declared. “I'd about come to believe there
wasn't such a thing, but there is; I just saw one.”

“One--what?” I asked, puzzled.

“An Englishman with side-whiskers. They wasn't as big and long as those
in the pictures, but they were side-whiskers. I feel better. When you've
been brought up to believe every Englishman wore 'em, it was kind of
humiliatin' not to see one single set.”

I paid my porters--I learned afterward that, like most Americans, I had
given them altogether too much--and we climbed into the cab with our
bags. The “boxes,” or trunks, were on the driver's seat and on the roof.

“Where to, sir?” asked the driver.

I hesitated. Even at this late date I had not made up my mind exactly
“where to.” My decision was a hasty one.

“Why--er--to--to Bancroft's Hotel,” I said. “Blithe Street, just off
Piccadilly.”

I think the driver was somewhat astonished. Very few of his American
passengers selected Bancroft's as a stopping place, I imagine. However,
his answer was prompt.

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” he said. The cab rolled out of the station.

“I suppose,” said Hephzy, reflectively, “if you had told him or that
porter man that they were everlastin' idiots they'd have thanked you
just the same and called you 'sir' four times besides.”

“No doubt they would.”

“Yes, sir, I'm perfectly sure they would--thank you, sir. So this is
London. It doesn't look such an awful lot different from Boston or New
York so far.”

But Bancroft's, when we reached it, was as unlike a Boston or New
York hotel as anything could be. A short, quiet, eminently respectable
street, leading from Piccadilly; a street fenced in, on both sides, by
three-story, solid, eminently respectable houses of brick and stone. No
signs, no street cars, no crowds, no glaring lights. Merely a gas
lamp burning over the fanlight of a spotless white door, and the words
“Bancroft's Hotel” in mosaic lettering set in a white stone slab in the
pavement.

The cab pulled up before the white door and Hephzy and I looked out of
the window. The same thought was in both our minds.

“This can't be the place,” said I.

“This isn't a hotel, is it, Hosy?” asked Hephzy.

The white door opened and a brisk, red-cheeked English boy in uniform
hastened to the cab. Before he reached it I had seen the lettering in
the pavement and knew that, in spite of appearances, we had reached our
destination.

“This is it, Hephzy,” I said. “Come.”

The boy opened the cab door and we alighted. Then in the doorway of
“Bancroft's” appeared a stout, red-faced and very dignified person, also
in uniform. This person wore short “mutton-chop” whiskers and had the
air of a member of the Royal Family; that is to say, the air which a
member of the Royal Family might be expected to have.

“Good evening, sir,” said the personage, bowing respectfully. The bow
was a triumph in itself; not too low, not abject in the least, not
familiar; a bow which implied much, but promised nothing; a bow which
seemed to demand references, but was far from repellant or bullying.
Altogether a wonderful bow.

“Good evening,” said I. “This is Bancroft's Hotel, is it not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I wish to secure rooms for this lady and myself, if possible.”

“Yes, sir. This way, sir, if you please. Richard,” this to the boy and
in a tone entirely different--the tone of a commanding officer to a
private--“see to the gentleman's luggage. This way, sir; thank you,
sir.”

I hesitated. “The cabman has not been paid,” I stammered. I was a trifle
overawed by the grandeur of the mutton-chops and the “sir.”

“I will attend to that, sir. If you will be good enough to come in,
sir.”

We entered and found ourselves in a narrow hall, old-fashioned, homelike
and as spotless as the white door. Two more uniforms bowed before us.

“Thank you, sir,” said the member of the Royal Family. It was with
difficulty that I repressed the desire to tell him he was quite welcome.
His manner of thanking me seemed to imply that we had conferred a favor.

“I will speak to Mr. Jameson,” he went on, with another bow. Then he
left us.

“Is--is that Mr. Bancroft?” whispered Hephzy.

I shook my head. “It must be the Prince of Wales, at least,” I whispered
in return. “I infer that there is no Mr. Bancroft.”

It developed that I was right. Mr. Jameson was the proprietor of the
hotel, and Mr. Jameson was a pleasant, refined, quiet man of middle age.
He appeared from somewhere or other, ascertained our wants, stated that
he had a few vacant rooms and could accommodate us.

“Do you wish a sitting-room?” he asked.

I was not sure. I wanted comfort, that I knew, and I said so. I
mentioned, as an afterthought, that Mr. Heathcroft had recommended
Bancroft's to me.

The Heathcroft name seemed to settle everything. Mr. Jameson summoned
the representative of royalty and spoke to him in a low tone. The
representative--his name, I learned later, was Henry and he was butler
and major-domo at Bancroft's--bowed once more. A few minutes later we
were shown to an apartment on the second floor front, a room large,
old-fashioned, furnished with easy-chairs, tables and a big, comfortable
sofa. Sofa and easy-chairs were covered with figured, glazed chintz.

“Your sitting-room, sir,” said Henry. “Your bedrooms open hoff it, sir.
The chambermaid will 'ave them ready in a moment, sir. Richard and the
porter will bring up your luggage and the boxes. Will you and the lady
wish supper, sir? Thank you, sir. Very good, sir. Will you require a
fire, sir?”

The room was a trifle chilly. There was a small iron grate at its
end, and a coal fire ready to kindle. I answered that a fire might be
enjoyable.

“Yes, sir,” said Henry. “Himmediately, sir.”

Soon Hephzy and I were drinking hot tea and eating bread and butter and
plum cake before a snapping fire. George, the waiter, had brought us the
tea and accessories and set the table; the chambermaid had prepared the
bedrooms; Henry had supervised everything.

“Well,” observed Hephzy, with a sigh of content, “I feel better
satisfied every minute. When we were in the hack--cab, I mean--I
couldn't realize we weren't ridin' through an American city. The houses
and sidewalks and everything--what I could see of 'em--looked so much
like Boston that I was sort of disappointed. I wanted it to be more
different, some way. But this IS different. This may be a hotel--I
suppose likely 'tis--but it don't seem like one, does it? If it wasn't
for the Henry and that Richard and that--what's his name? George--and
all the rest, I should think I was in Cap'n Cyrus Whittaker's
settin-room back home. The furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and the
pictures look like those he has, and--and everything looks as stiff and
starched and old-fashioned as can be. But the Cap'n never had a Henry.
No, sirree, Henry don't belong on Cape Cod! Hosy,” with a sudden burst
of confidence, “it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first. If I
hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have thought Henry
was one sure. Do you really think it's right for me to call him by his
Christian name? It seems sort of--sort of irreverent, somehow.”

I wish it were possible for me to describe in detail our first days at
Bancroft's. If it were not for the fact that so many really important
events and happenings remain to be described--if it were not that the
most momentous event of my life, the event that was the beginning of the
great change in that life--if that event were not so close at hand, I
should be tempted to linger upon those first few days. They were strange
and wonderful and funny to Hephzibah and me. The strangeness and the
wonder wore off gradually; the fun still sticks in my memory.

To have one's bedroom invaded at an early hour by a chambermaid who,
apparently quite oblivious of the fact that the bed was still occupied
by a male, proceeded to draw the curtains, bring the hot water and fill
the tin tub for my bath, was astonishing and funny enough, Hephzibah's
comments on the proceeding were funnier still.

“Do you mean to tell me,” she demanded, “that that hussy was brazen
enough to march right in here before you got up?”

“Yes,” I said. “I am only thankful that I HADN'T got up.”

“Well! I must say! Did she fetch the water in a garden waterin'-pot,
same as she did to me?”

“Just the same.”

“And did she pour it into that--that flat dishpan on the floor and tell
you your 'bawth' was ready?”

“She did.”

“Humph! Of all the--I hope she cleared out THEN?”

“She did.”

“That's a mercy, anyhow. Did you take a bath in that dishpan?”

“I tried.”

“Well, I didn't. I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer. I'd have felt as
if I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water and pour
it over me. Don't these English folks have real bathtubs for grown-up
people?”

I did not know, then. Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel possessed
several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I preferred. Being an
American I did so prefer. Most of the guests, being English, preferred
the “dishpans.”

We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as
matters of course. We learned to order breakfast the night before and
to eat it in our sitting-room. We tasted a “grilled sole” for the
first time, and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as “fried
flatfish” we liked the taste. We became accustomed to being waited upon,
to do next to nothing for ourselves, and I found that a valet who
laid out my evening clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my
neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished, was a rather convenient
person to have about. Hephzy fumed a good deal at first; she declared
that she felt ashamed, an able-bodied woman like her, to sit around
with her hands folded and do nothing. She asked her maid a great many
questions, and the answers she received explained some of her puzzles.

“Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?” she observed, referring
to the maid. “Eight shillin's--two dollars a week, that's what she gets.
And your valet man doesn't get any more. I can see now how Mr. Jameson
can afford to keep so much help at the board he charges. I pay that
Susanna Wixon thing at Bayport three dollars and she doesn't know enough
to boil water without burnin' it on, scarcely. And Peters--why in the
world do they call women by their last names?--Peters, she's the maid,
says it's a real nice place and she's quite satisfied. Well, where
ignorance is bliss it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but _I_
wouldn't fetch and carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an
everyday body like me, for two dollars a week.”

We learned that the hotel dining-room was a “Coffee Room.”

“Nobody with sense would take coffee there--not more'n once, they
wouldn't,” declared Hephzy. “I asked Peters why they didn't call it the
'Tea Room' and be done with it. She said because it was the Coffee Room.
I suppose likely that was an answer, but I felt a good deal as if I'd
come out of the same hole I went in at. She thanked me for askin' her,
though; she never forgets that.”

We became accustomed to addressing the lordly Henry by his Christian
name and found him a most obliging person. He, like everyone else,
had instantly recognized us as Americans, and, consequently, was
condescendingly kind to strangers from a distant and barbarous country.

“What SORT of place do they think the States are?” asked Hephzy. “That's
what they always call home--'the States'--and they seem to think it's
about as big as a pocket handkerchief. That Henry asked me if the red
Indians were numerous where we lived. I said no--as soon as I could say
anything; I told him there was only one tribe of Red Men in town and
they were white. I guess he thought I was crazy, but it don't make any
difference. And Peters said she had a cousin in a place called Chicago
and did I know him. What do you think of that?”

“What did you tell her?” I inquired.

“Hey? Oh, I told her that, bein' as Chicago was a thousand miles from
Bayport, I hadn't had time to do much visitin' there. I told her the
truth, but she didn't believe it. I could see she didn't. She thinks
Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Boston are nests of wigwams
in the same patch of woods and all hands that live there have been
scalped at least once. SUCH ignorance!”

Henry, at my request, procured seats for us at one of the London
theaters. There we saw a good play, splendidly acted, and Hephzy laughed
and wept at the performance. As usual, however, she had a characteristic
comment to make.

“Why do they call the front seats the 'stalls'?” she whispered to me
between the acts. “Stalls! The idea! I'm no horse. Perhaps they call 'em
that because folks are donkeys enough to pay two dollars and a half
for the privilege of sittin' in 'em. Don't YOU be so extravagant again,
Hosy.”

One of the characters in the play was supposed to be an American
gentleman, and his behavior and dress and speech stirred me to
indignation. I asked the question which every American asks under
similar circumstances.

“Why on earth,” I demanded, “do they permit that fellow to make such
a fool of himself? He yells and drawls and whines through his nose and
wears clothes which would make an American cry. That last scene was
supposed to be a reception and he wore an outing suit and no waistcoat.
Do they suppose such a fellow would be tolerated in respectable society
in the United States?”

And now it was Hephzy's turn to be philosophical.

“I guess likely the answer to that is simple enough,” she said. “He's
what they think an American ought to be, even if he isn't. If he behaved
like a human bein' he wouldn't be the kind of American they expect on
the stage. After all, he isn't any worse than the Englishmen we have in
the Dramatic Society's plays at home. I haven't seen one of that kind
since I got here; and I've given up expectin' to--unless you and I go to
some crazy asylum--which isn't likely.”

We rode on the tops of busses, we visited the Tower, and Westminster
Abbey, and Saint Paul's. We saw the Horse Guard sentinels on duty in
Whitehall, and watched the ceremony of guard changing at St. James's.
Hephzy was impressed, in her own way, by the uniforms of the “Cold
Streams.”

“There!” she exclaimed, “I've seen 'em walk. Now I feel better. When
they stood there, with those red jackets and with the fur hats on their
heads, I couldn't make myself believe they hadn't been taken out of a
box for children to play with. I wanted to get up close so as to see if
their feet were glued to round pieces of wood like Noah's and Ham's and
Japhet's in the Ark. But they aren't wood, they're alive. They're men,
not toys. I'm glad I've seen 'em. THEY are satisfyin'. They make me more
reconciled to a King with a Derby hat on.”

She and I had stood in the crowd fringing the park mall and seen King
George trot by on horseback. His Majesty's lack of crown and robes and
scepter had been a great disappointment to Hephzy; I think she expected
the crown at least.

I had, of course, visited the London office of my publishers, in Camford
Street and had found Mr. Matthews, the manager, expecting me. Jim
Campbell had cabled and written of my coming and Matthews' welcome was a
warm one. He was kindness itself. All my financial responsibilities were
to be shifted to his shoulders. I was to use the office as a bank, as a
tourist agency, even as a guide's headquarters. He put his clerks at my
disposal; they would conduct us on sight-seeing expeditions whenever
and wherever we wished. He even made out a list of places in and about
London which we, as strangers, should see.

His cordiality and thoughtfulness were appreciated. They made me feel
less alone and less dependent upon my own resources. Campbell had
arranged that all letters addressed to me in America should be forwarded
to the Camford Street office, and Matthews insisted that I should write
my own letters there. I began to make it a practice to drop in at
the office almost every morning before starting on the day's round of
sight-seeing.

Bancroft's Hotel also began to seem less strange and more homelike.
Mr. Jameson, the proprietor, was a fine fellow--quiet, refined, and
pleasant. He, too, tried to help us in every possible way. His wife, a
sweet-faced Englishwoman, made Hephzy's acquaintance and Hephzy liked
her extremely.

“She's as nice as she can be,” declared Hephzy. “If it wasn't that she
says 'Fancy!' and 'Really!' instead of 'My gracious!' and 'I want to
know!' I should think I was talking to a Cape Codder, the best kind
of one. She's got sense, too. SHE don't ask about 'red Indians' in
Bayport.”

Among the multitude of our new experiences we learned the value of
a judicious “tip.” We had learned something concerning tips on the
“Plutonia”; Campbell had coached us concerning those, and we were
provided with a schedule of rates--so much to the bedroom steward, so
much to the stewardess, to the deck steward, to the “boots,” and all the
rest. But tipping in London we were obliged to adjust for ourselves, and
the result of our education was surprising.

At Saint Paul's an elderly and impressively haughty person in a black
robe showed us through the Crypt and delivered learned lectures before
the tombs of Nelson and Wellington. His appearance and manner were
somewhat awe-inspiring, especially to Hephzy, who asked me, in a
whisper, if I thought likely he was a bishop or a canon or something.
When the round was ended and we were leaving the Crypt she saw me put a
hand in my pocket.

“Mercy sakes, Hosy,” she whispered. “You aren't goin' to offer him
money, are you? He'll be insulted. I'd as soon think of givin' Mr.
Partridge, our minister, money for takin' us to the cemetery to see the
first settlers' gravestones. Don't you do it. He'll throw it back at
you. I'll be so ashamed.”

But I had been watching our fellow-sight-seers as they filed out,
and when our time came I dropped two shillings in the hand of the
black-robed dignitary. The hand did not spurn the coins, which I--rather
timidly, I confess--dropped into it. Instead it closed upon them tightly
and the haughty lips thanked me, not profusely, not even smilingly, but
thanked me, nevertheless.

At our visit to the Law Courts a similar experience awaited us. Another
dignified and elderly person, who, judging by his appearance, should
have been a judge at least, not only accepted the shilling I gave him,
but bowed, smiled and offered to conduct us to the divorce court.

“A very interesting case there, sir, just now,” he murmured,
confidingly. “Very interesting and sensational indeed, sir. You and the
lady will enjoy it, I'm sure, sir. All Americans do.”

Hephzy was indignant.

“Well!” she exclaimed, as we emerged upon the Strand. “Well! I must say!
What sort of folks does he think we are, I'd like to know. Divorce
case! I'd be ashamed to hear one. And that old man bein' so wicked and
ridiculous for twenty-five cents! Hosy, I do believe if you'd given him
another shillin' he'd have introduced us to that man in the red robe and
cotton wool wig--What did he call him?--Oh, yes, the Lord Chief Justice.
And I suppose you'd have had to tip HIM, too.”

The first two weeks of our stay in London came to an end. Our plans were
still as indefinite as ever. How long we should stay, where we should go
next, what we should do when we decided where that “next” was to be--all
these questions we had not considered at all. I, for my part, was
curiously uninterested in the future. I was enjoying myself in an idle,
irresponsible way, and I could not seem to concentrate my thoughts upon
a definite course of action. If I did permit myself to think I found my
thoughts straying to my work and there they faced the same impassable
wall. I felt no inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that
I should never write again. Thinking along this line only brought back
the old feeling of despondency. So I refused to think and, taking Jim's
advice, put work and responsibility from my mind. We would remain in
London as long as we were contented there. When the spirit moved we
would move with it--somewhere--either about England or to the Continent.
I did not know which and I did not care; I did not seem to care much
about anything.

Hephzy was perfectly happy. London to her was as wonderful as ever. She
never tired of sight-seeing, and on occasions when I felt disinclined
to leave the hotel she went out alone, shopping or wandering about the
streets.

She scarcely mentioned “Little Frank” and I took care not to remind her
of that mythical youth. I had expected her to see him on every street
corner, to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young Englishmen
and made to ask ridiculous questions which might lead to our being taken
in charge as a pair of demented foreigners. But my forebodings were not
realized. London was so huge and the crowds so great that even Hephzy's
courage faltered. To select Little Frank from the multitude was a task
too great, even for her, I imagine. At any rate, she did not make the
attempt, and the belief that we were “sent” upon our pilgrimage for that
express purpose she had not expressed since our evening on the train.

The third week passed. I was growing tired of trotting about. Not tired
of London in particular. The gray, dingy, historic, wonderful old city
was still fascinating. It is hard to conceive of an intelligent person's
ever growing weary of the narrow streets with the familiar names--Fleet
Street, Fetter Lane, Pudding Lane and all the rest--names as familiar
to a reader of history or English fiction as that of his own town. To
wander into an unknown street and to learn that it is Shoreditch, or to
look up at an ancient building and discover it to be the Charterhouse,
were ever fresh miracles to me, as I am sure they must be to every
book-loving American. No, I was not tired of London. Had I come there
under other circumstances I should have been as happy and content
as Hephzy herself. But, now that the novelty was wearing off, I was
beginning to think 

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