said he would not feel comfortable unless dressed by a practised hand.
However, he finally concluded that he was such old friends with the Earl
that it would not make any difference how he was dressed. So we took a
cab, he gave the driver some directions, and we started. By and by we
stopped before a large house and got out. I never had seen this man with
a collar on. He now stepped under a lamp and got a venerable paper
collar out of his coat pocket, along with a hoary cravat, and put them
on. He ascended the stoop, and entered. Presently he reappeared,
descended rapidly, and said:
“Come-quick!”
We hurried away, and turned the corner.
“Now we’re safe,” he said, and took off his collar and cravat and
returned them to his pocket.
“Made a mighty narrow escape,” said he.
“How?” said I.
“B’ George, the Countess was there!”
“Well, what of that?–don’t she know you?”
“Know me? Absolutely worships me. I just did happen to catch a glimpse
of her before she saw me–and out I shot. Haven’t seen her for two
months–to rush in on her without any warning might have been fatal.
She could not have stood it. I didn’t know she was in town–thought she
was at the castle. Let me lean on you–just a moment–there; now I am
better–thank you; thank you ever so much. Lord bless me, what an
escape!”
So I never got to call on the Earl, after all. But I marked the house
for future reference. It proved to be an ordinary family hotel, with
about a thousand plebeians roosting in it.
In most things Rogers was by no means a fool. In some things it was
plain enough that he was a fool, but he certainly did not know it.
He was in the “deadest” earnest in these matters. He died at sea, last
summer, as the “Earl of Ramsgate.”