for those Arkansas blatherskites she’s lost.”
“My darling! Blatherskites? Remember–noblesse oblige.”
“There, there–talk to me in your own tongue, Ross–you don’t know any
other, and you only botch it when you try. Oh, don’t stare–it was a
slip, and no crime; customs of a life-time can’t be dropped in a second.
Rossmore–there, now, be appeased, and go along with you and attend to
Gwendolen. Are you going to write, Washington?–or telegraph?”
“He will telegraph, dear.”
“I thought as much,” my lady muttered, as she left the room. “Wants it
so the address will have to appear on the envelop. It will just make a
fool of that child. She’ll get it, of course, for if there are any other
Sellerses there they’ll not be able to claim it. And just leave her
alone to show it around and make the most of it. Well, maybe she’s
forgivable for that. She’s so poor and they’re so rich, of course she’s
had her share of snubs from the livery-flunkey sort, and I reckon it’s
only human to want to get even.”
Uncle Dan’l was sent with the telegram; for although a conspicuous object
in a corner of the drawing-room was a telephone hanging on a transmitter,
Washington found all attempts to raise the central office vain. The
Colonel grumbled something about its being “always out of order when
you’ve got particular and especial use for it,” but he didn’t explain
that one of the reasons for this was that the thing was only a dummy and
hadn’t any wire attached to it. And yet the Colonel often used it–when
visitors were present–and seemed to get messages through it. Mourning
paper and a seal were ordered, then the friends took a rest.
Next afternoon, while Hawkins, by request, draped Andrew Jackson’s
portrait with crape, the rightful earl, wrote off the family bereavement
to the usurper in England–a letter which we have already read. He also,
by letter to the village authorities at Duffy’s Corners, Arkansas, gave
order that the remains of the late twins be embalmed by some St. Louis
expert and shipped at once to the usurper–with bill. Then he drafted
out the Rossmore arms and motto on a great sheet of brown paper, and he
and Hawkins took it to Hawkins’s Yankee furniture-mender and at the end
of an hour came back with a couple of stunning hatchments, which they
nailed up on the front of the house–attractions calculated to draw, and
they did; for it was mainly an idle and shiftless negro neighborhood,
with plenty of ragged children and indolent dogs to spare for a point of
interest like that, and keep on sparing them for it, days and days
together.
The new earl found-without surprise–this society item in the evening
paper, and cut it out and scrapbooked it:
By a recent bereavement our esteemed fellow citizen, Colonel
Mulberry Sellers, Perpetual Member-at-large of the Diplomatic Body,
succeeds, as rightful lord, to the great earldom of Rossmore, third
by order of precedence in the earldoms of Great Britain, and will
take early measures, by suit in the House of Lords, to wrest the
title and estates from the present usurping holder of them. Until
the season of mourning is past, the usual Thursday evening
receptions at Rossmore Towers will be discontinued.
Lady Rossmore’s comment-to herself:
“Receptions! People who don’t rightly know him may think he is
commonplace, but to my mind he is one of the most unusual men I ever saw.
As for suddenness and capacity in imagining things, his beat don’t exist,
I reckon. As like as not it wouldn’t have occurred to anybody else to
name this poor old rat-trap Rossmore Towers, but it just comes natural to
him. Well, no doubt it’s a blessed thing to have an imagination that can
always make you satisfied, no matter how you are fixed. Uncle Dave
Hopkins used to always say, ‘Turn me into John Calvin, and I want to know
which place I’m going to; turn me into Mulberry Sellers and I don’t
care.'”
The rightful earl’s comment-to himself:
“It’s a beautiful name, beautiful. Pity I didn’t think of it before I
wrote the usurper. But I’ll be ready for him when he answers.”