The Man from Brodney's - George Barr McCutcheon

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a joke until it is too late, they say. This time it appears to be the American who is slow witted. What I don't understand is why he was leading that confounded band."

      "My word, Chase, everybody in Europe—except you—knows that Brabetz is a crank about music. Composes, directs and all that. Over in Brabetz he supports the conservatory of music, written dozens of things for the orchestra, plays the pipe organ in the cathedral—all that sort of rot, you know. He's a confounded little bounder, just the same. He's mad about music and women and don't care a hang about wine. The worst kind, don't you know. I say, it's a rotten shame she has to marry him. But that's the way of it with royalty, old chap. You Americans don't understand it. They have to marry one another whether they like it or not. But, I say, you'd better come over and stop with me to-night. It will be better if they don't find you just yet."

      Three days later, a man came down to relieve Chase of his office; he was unceremoniously supplanted in the Duchy of Rapp-Thorberg.

      It was the successful pleading of the Princess Genevra that kept him from serving a period in durance vile.

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       Table of Contents

      The granddaughter of Jack Wyckholme, attended by two maids, her husband and his valet, a clerk from the chambers of Bosworth, Newnes & Grapewin, a red cocker, seventeen trunks and a cartload of late novels, which she had been too busy to read at home, was the first of the bewildered legatees to set foot upon the island of Japat. A rather sultry, boresome voyage across the Arabian Sea in a most unhappy steamer which called at Japat on its way to Sidney, depressed her spirits to some extent but not irretrievably.

      She was very pretty, very smart and delightfully arrogant after a manner of her own. To begin with, Lady Agnes could see no sensible reason why she should be compelled to abandon a very promising autumn and winter at home, to say nothing of the following season, for the sake of protecting what was rightfully her own against the impudent claims of an unheard-of American.

      She complacently informed her solicitors that it was all rubbish; they could arrange, if they would, without forcing her to take this abominable step. Upon reflection, however, and after Mr. Bosworth had pointed out the risk to her, she was ready enough to take the step, although still insisting that it was abominable.

      Mr. Saunders was the polite but excessively middle-class clerk who went out to keep the legal strings untangled for them. He was soon to discover that his duties were even more comprehensive.

      It was he who saw to it that the luggage was transferred to the lighter which came out to the steamer when she dropped anchor off the town of Aratat; it was he who counted the pieces and haggled with the boatmen; it was he who carried off the hand luggage when the native dock boys refused to engage in the work; it was he who unfortunately dropped a suitcase upon the hallowed tail of the red cocker, an accident which ever afterward gave him a tenacity of grip that no man could understand; it was he who made all of the inquiries, did all of the necessary swearing, and came last in the procession which wended its indignant way up the long slope to the château on the mountain side.

      If Lady Deppingham expected a royal welcome from the inhabitants of Japat, she was soon to discover her error. Not only was the pictured scene of welcome missing on the afternoon of her arrival, but an overpowering air of antipathy smote her in the face as she stepped from the lighter—conquest in her smile of conciliation. The attitude of the brown-faced Mohammedans who looked coldly upon the fair visitor was far from amiable. They did not fall down and bob their heads; they did not even incline them in response to her overtures. What was more trying, they glared at the newcomers in a most expressive manner. Lady Deppingham's chin was interrupted in its tilt of defiance by the shudder of alarm which raced through her slender figure. She glanced from right to left down the lines of swarthy islanders, and saw nothing in their faces but surly, bitter unfriendliness. They stood stolidly, stonily at a distance, white-robed lines of resentment personified.

      Not a hand was lifted in assistance to the bewildered visitors; not a word, not a smile of encouragement escaped the lips of the silent throng.

      Lady Agnes looked about eagerly in search of a white man's face, but there was none to be seen except in her own party. A moment of panic came to her as she stood there on the pier, almost alone, while Saunders and her husband were engaged in the effort to secure help with the boxes. Behind her lay the friendly ocean; ahead the gorgeous landscape, smiling down upon her with the green glow of poison in its sunny face, dark treachery in its heart. On the instant she realised that these people were her enemies, and that they were the real masters of the island, after all. She found herself wondering whether they meant to settle the question of ownership then and there, before she could so much as set her foot upon the coveted soil at the end of the pier. A hundred knives might hack her to pieces, but even as she shuddered a rush of true British doggedness warmed her blood; after all, she was there to fight for her rights and she would stand her ground. Almost before she realised, the dominant air of superiority which characterises her nation, no matter whither its subjects may roam, crept out above her brief touch of timidity, and she found that she could stare defiantly into the swarthy ranks.

      "Is there no British agent here?" she demanded imperatively, perhaps a little more shrilly than usual.

      No one deigned to answer; glances of indifference, even scorn, passed among the silent lookers-on, but that was all. It was more than her pride could endure. Her smooth cheeks turned a deeper pink and her blue eyes flashed.

      "Does no one here understand the English language?" she demanded. "I don't mean you, Mr. Saunders," she added sharply, as the little clerk set the suitcase down abruptly and stepped forward, again fumbling his much-fumbled straw hat. This was the moment when the red cocker's tail came to grief. The dog arose with an astonished yelp and fled to his mistress; he had never been so outrageously set upon before in all his pampered life. Seizing the opportunity to vent her feelings upon one who could understand, even as she poured soothings upon the insulted Pong, whom she clasped in her arms, Lady Agnes transformed the unlucky Saunders into a target for a most ably directed volley of wrath. The shadow of a smile swept down the threatening row of dark faces.

      Lord Deppingham, a slow and cumbersome young man, stood by nervously fingering his eyeglass. For the first time he felt that the clerk was better than a confounded dog, after all. He surprised every one, his wife most of all, by coolly interfering, not particularly in defence of the clerk but in behalf of the Deppingham dignity.

      "My dear," he said, waving Saunders into the background, "I think it was an accident. The dog had no business going to sleep—" he paused and inserted his monocle for the purpose of looking up the precise spot where the accident had occurred.

      "He wasn't asleep," cried his wife.

      "Then, my dear, he has positively no excuse to offer for getting his tail in the way of the bag. If he was awake and didn't have sense enough—"

      "Oh, rubbish!" exclaimed her ladyship. "I suppose you expect the poor darling to apologise."

      "All this has nothing to do with the case. We're more interested in learning where we are and where we are to go. Permit me to have a look about."

      His wife stared after him in amazement as he walked over to the canvas awning in front of the low dock building, actually elbowing his way through a group of natives. Presently he came back, twisting his left mustache.

      "The fellow in there says that the English agent is employed in the bank. It's straight up this street—by Jove, he called it a street, don't you know," he exclaimed, disdainfully eyeing the narrow, dusty passage ahead. Here and there a rude house or shop stood directly ahead in the middle of the thoroughfare, with happy disregard for effect or convenience.

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