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“It’s wonderfully ingenious, Colonel, it’s ever so clever and interesting – why, I could play with it all day. What are you going to do with it?”

“Oh, nothing. Patent it and throw it aside.”

“Don’t you do anything of the kind. There’s money in that thing.”

A compassionate look traveled over the Colonel’s countenance, and he said:

“Money – yes; pin money: a couple of hundred thousand, perhaps. Not more.”

Washington’s eyes blazed.

“A couple of hundred thousand dollars! do you call that pin money?”

The colonel rose and tip-toed his way across the room, closed a door that was slightly ajar, tip-toed his way to his seat again, and said, under his breath:

“You can keep a secret?”

Washington nodded his affirmative, he was too awed to speak.

“You have heard of materialization – materialization of departed spirits?”

Washington had heard of it.

“And probably didn’t believe in it; and quite right, too. The thing as practised by ignorant charlatans is unworthy of attention or respect – where there’s a dim light and a dark cabinet, and a parcel of sentimental gulls gathered together, with their faith and their shudders and their tears all ready, and one and the same fatty degeneration of protoplasm and humbug comes out and materializes himself into anybody you want, grandmother, grandchild, brother-in-law, Witch of Endor, John Milton, Siamese twins, Peter the Great, and all such frantic nonsense – no, that is all foolish and pitiful. But when a man that is competent brings the vast powers of science to bear, it’s a different matter, a totally different matter, you see. The spectre that answers that call has come to stay. Do you note the commercial value of that detail?”

“Well, I – the – the truth is, that I don’t quite know that I do. Do you mean that such, being permanent, not transitory, would give more general satisfaction, and so enhance the price – of tickets to the show—”

“Show? Folly – listen to me; and get a good grip on your breath, for you are going to need it. Within three days I shall have completed my method, and then – let the world stand aghast, for it shall see marvels. Washington, within three days – ten at the outside – you shall see me call the dead of any century, and they will arise and walk. Walk? – they shall walk forever, and never die again. Walk with all the muscle and spring of their pristine vigor.”

“Colonel! Indeed it does take one’s breath away.”

“Now do you see the money that’s in it?”

“I’m – well, I’m – not really sure that I do.”

Great Scott, look here. I shall have a monopoly; they’ll all belong to me, won’t they? Two thousand policemen in the city of New York. Wages, four dollars a day. I’ll replace them with dead ones at half the money.

“Oh, prodigious! I never thought of that. F-o-u-r thousand dollars a day. Now I do begin to see! But will dead policemen answer?”

“Haven’t they – up to this time?”

“Well, if you put it that way—”

“Put it any way you want to. Modify it to suit yourself, and my lads shall still be superior. They won’t eat, they won’t drink – don’t need those things; they won’t wink for cash at gambling dens and unlicensed rum-holes, they won’t spark the scullery maids; and moreover the bands of toughs that ambuscade them on lonely beats, and cowardly shoot and knife them will only damage the uniforms and not live long enough to get more than a momentary satisfaction out of that.”

“Why, Colonel, if you can furnish policemen, then of course—”

“Certainly – I can furnish any line of goods that’s wanted. Take the army, for instance – now twenty-five thousand men; expense, twenty-two millions a year. I will dig up the Romans, I will resurrect the Greeks, I will furnish the government, for ten millions a year, ten thousand veterans drawn from the victorious legions of all the ages – soldiers that will chase Indians year in and year out on materialized horses, and cost never a cent for rations or repairs. The armies of Europe cost two billions a year now – I will replace them all for a billion. I will dig up the trained statesmen of all ages and all climes, and furnish this country with a Congress that knows enough to come in out of the rain – a thing that’s never happened yet, since the Declaration of Independence, and never will happen till these practically dead people are replaced with the genuine article. I will re-stock the thrones of Europe with the best brains and the best morals that all the royal sepulchres of all the centuries can furnish – which isn’t promising very much – and I’ll divide the wages and the civil list, fair and square, merely taking my half and—”

“Colonel, if the half of this is true, there’s millions in it – millions.”

“Billions in it – billions; that’s what you mean. Why, look here; the thing is so close at hand, so imminent, so absolutely immediate, that if a man were to come to me now and say, Colonel, I am a little short, and if you could lend me a couple of billion dollars for – come in!”

This in answer to a knock. An energetic looking man bustled in with a big pocket-book in his hand, took a paper from it and presented it, with the curt remark:

“Seventeenth and last call – you want to out with that three dollars and forty cents this time without fail, Colonel Mulberry Sellers.”

The Colonel began to slap this pocket and that one, and feel here and there and everywhere, muttering:

“What have I done with that wallet? – let me see – um – not here, not there— Oh, I must have left it in the kitchen; I’ll just run and—”

“No you won’t – you’ll stay right where you are. And you’re going to disgorge, too – this time.”

Washington innocently offered to go and look. When he was gone the Colonel said:

“The fact is, I’ve got to throw myself on your indulgence just this once more, Suggs; you see the remittances I was expecting—”

“Hang the remittances – it’s too stale – it won’t answer. Come!”

The Colonel glanced about him in despair. Then his face lighted; he ran to the wall and began to dust off a peculiarly atrocious chromo with his handkerchief. Then he brought it reverently, offered it to the collector, averted his face and said:

“Take it, but don’t let me see it go. It’s the sole remaining Rembrandt that—”

“Rembrandt be damned, it’s a chromo.”

“Oh, don’t speak of it so, I beg you. It’s the only really great original, the only supreme example of that mighty school of art which—”

“Art! It’s the sickest looking thing I—”

The colonel was already bringing another horror and tenderly dusting it.

“Take this one too – the gem of my collection – the only genuine Fra Angelico that—”

“Illuminated liver-pad, that’s what it is. Give it here – good day – people will think I’ve robbed a nigger barber-shop.”

As he slammed the door behind him the Colonel shouted with an anguished accent:

“Do please cover them up – don’t let the damp get at them. The delicate tints in the Angelico—”

But the man was gone.

Washington re-appeared and said he had looked everywhere, and so had Mrs. Sellers and the servants, but in vain; and went on to say he wished he could get his eye on a certain man about this time – no need to hunt up that pocket-book then. The Colonel’s interest was awake at once.

“What man?”

“One-armed Pete they call him out there – out in the Cherokee country I mean. Robbed the bank in Tahlequah.”

“Do they have banks in Tahlequah?”

“Yes – a bank, anyway. He was suspected of robbing it. Whoever did it got away with more than twenty thousand dollars. They offered a reward of five thousand. I believe I saw that very man, on my way east.”

“No – is that so?

“I certainly saw a man on the train, the first day I struck the railroad, that answered the description pretty exactly – at least as to clothes and a lacking arm.”

“Why don’t you get him arrested and claim the reward?”

“I couldn’t. I had to get a requisition, of course. But I meant to stay by him till I got my chance.”

“Well?”

“Well, he left the train during the night some time.”

“Oh, hang it, that’s too bad.”

“Not so very bad, either.”

“Why?”

“Because he came down to Baltimore in the very train I was in, though I didn’t know it in time. As we moved out of the station I saw him going toward the iron gate with a satchel in his hand.”

“Good; we’ll catch him. Let’s lay a plan.”

“Send description to the Baltimore police?”

“Why, what are you talking about? No. Do you want them to get the reward?”

“What shall we do, then?”

The Colonel reflected.

“I’ll tell you. Put a personal in the Baltimore Sun. Word it like this:

A. Drop me a line, Pete—

“—Hold on. Which arm has he lost?”

“The right.”

“Good. Now then—

A. Drop me a line, Pete, even if you have to write with your left hand. Address X. Y. Z., General Postoffice, Washington. From YOU KNOW WHO.

“There – that’ll fetch him.”

“But he won’t know who – will he?”

“No, but he’ll want to know, won’t he?”

“Why, certainly – I didn’t think of that. What made you think of it?”

“Knowledge of human curiosity. Strong trait, very strong trait.”

“Now I’ll go to my room and write it out and enclose a dollar and tell them to print it to the worth of that.”

Chapter IV

The day wore itself out. After dinner the two friends put in a long and harassing evening trying to decide what to do with the five thousand dollars reward which they were going to get when they should find One-armed Pete, and catch him, and prove him to be the right person, and extradite him, and ship him to Tahlequah in the Indian Territory. But there were so many dazzling openings for ready cash that they found it impossible to make up their minds and keep them made up. Finally, Mrs. Sellers grew very weary of it all, and said:

“What is the sense in cooking a rabbit before it’s caught?”

Then the matter was dropped, for the time being, and all went to bed. Next morning, being persuaded by Hawkins, the colonel made drawings and specifications and went down and applied for a patent for his toy puzzle, and Hawkins took the toy itself and started out to see what chance there might be to do something with it commercially. He did not have to go far. In a small old wooden shanty which had once been occupied as a dwelling by some humble negro family he found a keen-eyed Yankee engaged in repairing cheap chairs and other second-hand furniture. This man examined the toy indifferently; attempted to do the puzzle; found it not so easy as he had expected; grew more interested, and finally emphatically so; achieved a success at last, and asked:

“Is it patented?”

“Patent applied for.”

“That will answer. What do you want for it?”

“What will it retail for?”

“Well, twenty-five cents, I should think.”

“What will you give for the exclusive right?”

“I couldn’t give twenty dollars, if I had to pay cash down; but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make it and market it, and pay you five cents royalty on each one.”

Washington sighed. Another dream disappeared; no money in the thing. So he said:

“All right, take it at that. Draw me a paper.”

He went his way with the paper, and dropped the matter out of his mind – dropped it out to make room for further attempts to think out the most promising way to invest his half of the reward, in case a partnership investment satisfactory to both beneficiaries could not be hit upon.

He had not been very long at home when Sellers arrived sodden with grief and booming with glad excitement – working both these emotions successfully, sometimes separately, sometimes together. He fell on Hawkins’s neck sobbing, and said:

“Oh, mourn with me my friend, mourn for my desolate house: death has smitten my last kinsman and I am Earl of Rossmore – congratulate me!”

He turned to his wife, who had entered while this was going on, put his arms about her and said – “You will bear up, for my sake, my lady – it had to happen, it was decreed.”

She bore up very well, and said:

“It’s no great loss. Simon Lathers was a poor well-meaning useless thing and no account, and his brother never was worth shucks.”

The rightful earl continued:

“I am too much prostrated by these conflicting griefs and joys to be able to concentrate my mind upon affairs; I will ask our good friend here to break the news by wire or post to the Lady Gwendolen and instruct her to—”

“What Lady Gwendolen?”

“Our poor daughter, who, alas!—”

“Sally Sellers? Mulberry Sellers, are you losing your mind?”

“There – please do not forget who you are, and who I am; remember your own dignity, be considerate also of mine. It were best to cease from using my family name, now, Lady Rossmore.”

“Goodness gracious, well, I never! What am I to call you then?”

“In private, the ordinary terms of endearment will still be admissible, to some degree; but in public it will be more becoming if your ladyship will speak to me as my lord, or your lordship, and of me as Rossmore, or the Earl, or his Lordship, and—”

“Oh, scat! I can’t ever do it, Berry.”

“But indeed you must, my love – we must live up to our altered position and submit with what grace we may to its requirements.”

“Well, all right, have it your own way; I’ve never set my wishes against your commands yet, Mul— my lord, and it’s late to begin now, though to my mind it’s the rottenest foolishness that ever was.”

“Spoken like my own true wife! There, kiss and be friends again.”

“But – Gwendolen! I don’t know how I am ever going to stand that name. Why, a body wouldn’t know Sally Sellers in it. It’s too large for her; kind of like a cherub in an ulster, and it’s a most outlandish sort of a name, anyway, to my mind.”

“You’ll not hear her find fault with it, my lady.”

“That’s a true word. She takes to any kind of romantic rubbish like she was born to it. She never got it from me, that’s sure. And sending her to that silly college hasn’t helped the matter any – just the other way.”

“Now hear her, Hawkins! Rowena–Ivanhoe College is the selectest and most aristocratic seat of learning for young ladies in our country. Under no circumstances can a girl get in there unless she is either very rich and fashionable or can prove four generations of what may be called American nobility. Castellated college-buildings – towers and turrets and an imitation moat – and everything about the place named out of Sir Walter Scott’s books and redolent of royalty and state and style; and all the richest girls keep phaetons, and coachmen in livery, and riding-horses, with English grooms in plug hats and tight-buttoned coats, and top-boots, and a whip-handle without any whip to it, to ride sixty-three feet behind them—”

“And they don’t learn a blessed thing, Washington Hawkins, not a single blessed thing but showy rubbish and un-American pretentiousness. But send for the Lady Gwendolen – do; for I reckon the peerage regulations require that she must come home and let on to go into seclusion and mourn for those Arkansas blatherskites she’s lost.”