They searched the paper diligently, and were appalled to find that a one-
armed man had been seen flying along one of the halls of the hotel in his
underclothing and apparently out of his head with fright, and as he would
listen to no one and persisted in making for a stairway which would carry
him to certain death, his case was given over as a hopeless one.
“Poor fellow,” sighed Hawkins; “and he had friends so near. I wish we
hadn’t come away from there-maybe we could have saved him.”
The earl looked up and said calmly:
“His being dead doesn’t matter. He was uncertain before. We’ve got him
sure, this time.”
“Got him? How?”
“I will materialize him.”
“Rossmore, don’t–don’t trifle with me. Do you mean that? Can you do
it?”
“I can do it, just as sure as you are sitting there. And I will.”
“Give me your hand, and let me have the comfort of shaking it. I was
perishing, and you have put new life into me. Get at it, oh, get at it
right away.”
“It will take a little time, Hawkins, but there’s no hurry, none in the
world–in the circumstances. And of course certain duties have devolved
upon me now, which necessarily claim my first attention. This poor young
nobleman–”
“Why, yes, I am sorry for my heartlessness, and you smitten with this new
family affliction. Of course you must materialize him first–I quite
understand that.”
“I–I–well, I wasn’t meaning just that, but,–why, what am I thinking
of! Of course I must materialize him. Oh, Hawkins, selfishness is the
bottom trait in human nature; I was only thinking that now, with the
usurper’s heir out of the way But you’ll forgive that momentary weakness,
and forget it. Don’t ever remember it against me that Mulberry Sellers
was once mean enough to think the thought that I was thinking. I’ll
materialise him–I will, on my honor–and I’d do it were he a thousand
heirs jammed into one and stretching in a solid rank from here to the
stolen estates of Rossmore, and barring the road forever to the rightful
earl!
“There spoke the real Sellers–the other had a false ring, old friend.”
“Hawkins, my boy, it just occurs to me–a thing I keep forgetting to
mention-a matter that we’ve got to be mighty careful about.”
“What is that?”
“We must keep absolutely still about these materializations. Mind, not a
hint of them must escape–not a hint. To say nothing of how my wife and
daughter–high-strung, sensitive organizations–might feel about them,
the negroes wouldn’t stay on the place a minute.”
“That’s true, they wouldn’t. It’s well you spoke, for I’m not naturally
discreet with my tongue when I’m not warned.”
Sellers reached out and touched a bell-button in the wall; set his eye
upon the rear door and waited; touched it again and waited; and just as
Hawkins was remarking admiringly that the Colonel was the most
progressive and most alert man he had ever seen, in the matter of
impressing into his service every modern convenience the moment it was
invented, and always keeping breast to breast with the drum major in the
great work of material civilization, he forsook the button (which hadn’t
any wire attached to it,) rang a vast dinner bell which stood on the
table, and remarked that he had tried that new-fangled dry battery, now,
to his entire satisfaction, and had got enough of it; and added:
“Nothing would do Graham Bell but I must try it; said the mere fact of my
trying it would secure public confidence, and get it a chance to show
what it could do. I told him that in theory a dry battery was just a
curled darling and no mistake, but when it come to practice, sho!–and
here’s the result. Was I right? What should you say, Washington
Hawkins? You’ve seen me try that button twice. Was I right?–that’s the
idea. Did I know what I was talking about, or didn’t I?”
“Well, you know how I feel about you, Colonel Sellers, and always have
felt. It seems to me that you always know everything about everything.
If that man had known you as I know you he would have taken your judgment