Ruggles of Red Gap

by Harry Leon Wilson

  Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and DistributedProofreaders

  RUGGLES of RED GAP

  By Harry Leon Wilson

  1915

  {Illustration: "I TAKE IT YOU FAILED TO WIN THE HUNDRED POUNDS, SIR?"}

  {Dedication}TO HELEN COOKE WILSON

  CHAPTER ONE

  At 6:30 in our Paris apartment I had finished the Honourable George,performing those final touches that make the difference between a manwell turned out and a man merely dressed. In the main I was notdissatisfied. His dress waistcoats, it is true, no longer permit theinhalation of anything like a full breath, and his collars clasp tooclosely. (I have always held that a collar may provide quite ampleroom for the throat without sacrifice of smartness if the depth be atleast two and one quarter inches.) And it is no secret to either theHonourable George or our intimates that I have never approved hisfashion of beard, a reddish, enveloping, brushlike affair never nicelyenough trimmed. I prefer, indeed, no beard at all, but he stubbornlyrefuses to shave, possessing a difficult chin. Still, I repeat, he wasnot nearly impossible as he now left my hands.

  "Dining with the Americans," he remarked, as I conveyed the hat,gloves, and stick to him in their proper order.

  "Yes, sir," I replied. "And might I suggest, sir, that your choice bea grilled undercut or something simple, bearing in mind the undoubtedeffects of shell-fish upon one's complexion?" The hard truth is thatafter even a very little lobster the Honourable George has a way ofcoming out in spots. A single oyster patty, too, will often spot himquite all over.

  "What cheek! Decide that for myself," he retorted with a lame effortat dignity which he was unable to sustain. His eyes fell from mine."Besides, I'm almost quite certain that the last time it was themelon. Wretched things, melons!"

  Then, as if to divert me, he rather fussily refused the correctevening stick I had chosen for him and seized a knobby bit ofthornwood suitable only for moor and upland work, and brazenly quitediscarded the gloves.

  "Feel a silly fool wearing gloves when there's no reason!" heexclaimed pettishly.

  "Quite so, sir," I replied, freezing instantly.

  "Now, don't play the juggins," he retorted. "Let me be comfortable.And I don't mind telling you I stand to win a hundred quid this veryevening."

  "I dare say," I replied. The sum was more than needed, but I had causeto be thus cynical.

  "From the American Johnny with the eyebrows," he went on with a quitepathetic enthusiasm. "We're to play their American game ofpoker--drawing poker as they call it. I've watched them play for neara fortnight. It's beastly simple. One has only to know when to bluff."

  "A hundred pounds, yes, sir. And if one loses----"

  He flashed me a look so deucedly queer that it fair chilled me.

  "I fancy you'll be even more interested than I if I lose," he remarkedin tones of a curious evenness that were somehow rather deadly. Thewords seemed pregnant with meaning, but before I could weigh them Iheard him noisily descending the stairs. It was only then I recalledhaving noticed that he had not changed to his varnished boots, havingstill on his feet the doggish and battered pair he most favoured. Itwas a trick of his to evade me with them. I did for them each day allthat human boot-cream could do, but they were things no sensitivegentleman would endure with evening dress. I was glad to reflect thatdoubtless only Americans would observe them.

  So began the final hours of a 14th of July in Paris that must ever bememorable. My own birthday, it is also chosen by the French as one onwhich to celebrate with carnival some one of those regrettable eventsin their own distressing past.

  To begin with, the day was marked first of all by the breezing in ofhis lordship the Earl of Brinstead, brother of the Honourable George,on his way to England from the Engadine. More peppery than usual hadhis lordship been, his grayish side-whiskers in angry upheaval and hisinflamed words exploding quite all over the place, so that theHonourable George and I had both perceived it to be no time foradmitting our recent financial reverse at the gaming tables of Ostend.On the contrary, we had gamely affirmed the last quarter's allowanceto be practically untouched--a desperate stand, indeed! But there wasthat in his lordship's manner to urge us to it, though even so heappeared to be not more than half deceived.

  "No good greening me!" he exploded to both of us. "Tell in aflash--gambling, or a woman--typing-girl, milliner, dancing person,what, what! Guilty faces, both of you. Know you too well. My word,what, what!"

  Again we stoutly protested while his lordship on the hearthrug rockedin his boots and glared. The Honourable George gamely rattled someloose coin of the baser sort in his pockets and tried in return for aglare of innocence foully aspersed. I dare say he fell short of it.His histrionic gifts are but meagre.

  "Fools, quite fools, both of you!" exploded his lordship anew. "And,make it worse, no longer young fools. Young and a fool, people makeexcuses. Say, 'Fool? Yes, but so young!' But old and a fool--not aword to say, what, what! Silly rot at forty." He clutched hisside-whiskers with frenzied hands. He seemed to comb them to a morebristling rage.

  "Dare say you'll both come croppers. Not surprise me. Silly oldGeorge, course, course! Hoped better of Ruggles, though. Rugglesdifferent from old George. Got a brain. But can't use it. Have oldGeorge wed to a charwoman presently. Hope she'll be a worker. Need tobe--support you both, what, what!"

  I mean to say, he was coming it pretty thick, since he could not haveforgotten that each time I had warned him so he could hasten to savehis brother from distressing mesalliances. I refer to the affair withthe typing-girl and to the later entanglement with a Brixton millinerencountered informally under the portico of a theatre in Charing CrossRoad. But he was in no mood to concede that I had thus far shown ascrupulous care in these emergencies. Peppery he was, indeed. Hegathered hat and stick, glaring indignantly at each of them and thenat us.

  "Greened me fair, haven't you, about money? Quite so, quite so! Nothear from you then till next quarter. No telegraphing--no beggingletters. Shouldn't a bit know what to make of them. Plenty you got tolast. Say so yourselves." He laughed villainously here. "Morning,"said he, and was out.

  "Old Nevil been annoyed by something," said the Honourable Georgeafter a long silence. "Know the old boy too well. Always tell whenhe's been annoyed. Rather wish he hadn't been."

  So we had come to the night of this memorable day, and to theHonourable George's departure on his mysterious words about thehundred pounds.

  Left alone, I began to meditate profoundly. It was the closing of aday I had seen dawn with the keenest misgiving, having had reason tobelieve it might be fraught with significance if not disaster tomyself. The year before a gypsy at Epsom had solemnly warned me that agreat change would come into my life on or before my fortiethbirthday. To this I might have paid less heed but for its disquietingconfirmation on a later day at a psychic parlour in Edgware Road.Proceeding there in company with my eldest brother-in-law, aplate-layer and surfaceman on the Northern (he being uncertain aboutthe Derby winner for that year), I was told by the person for a trifleof two shillings that I was soon to cross water and to meet manystrange adventures. True, later events proved her to have beenpsychically unsound as to the Derby winner (so that my brother-in-law,who was out two pounds ten, thereby threatened to have an actionagainst her); yet her reference to myself had confirmed the words ofthe gypsy; so it will be plain why I had been anxious the whole ofthis birthday.

  For one thing, I had gone on the streets as little as possible, thoughI should naturally have done that, for the behaviour of the French onthis bank holiday of theirs is repugnant in the extreme to the saneEnglish point of view--I mean their frivolous public dancing andmarked conversational levity. Indeed, in their soberest moments, theyhave too little of British
weight. Their best-dressed men areapparently turned out not by menservants but by modistes. I will notsay their women are without a gift for wearing gowns, and their chefshave unquestionably got at the inner meaning of food, but as a peopleat large they would never do with us. Even their language is not basedon reason. I have had occasion, for example, to acquire their word forbread, which is "pain." As if that were not wild enough, theymispronounce it atrociously. Yet for years these people have beenseparated from us only by a narrow strip of water!

  By keeping close to our rooms, then, I had thought to evade what ofevil might have been in store for me on this day. Another evening Imight have ventured abroad to a cinema palace, but this was no timefor daring, and I took a further precaution of locking our doors.Then, indeed, I had no misgiving save that inspired by the last wordsof the Honourable George. In the event of his losing the game of pokerI was to be even more concerned than he. Yet how could evil come tome, even should the American do him in the eye rather frightfully? Intruth, I had not the faintest belief that the Honourable George wouldwin the game. He fancies himself a card-player, though why he should,God knows. At bridge with him every hand is a no-trumper. I need notsay more. Also it occurred to me that the American would be a personnot accustomed to losing. There was that about him.

  More than once I had deplored this rather Bohemian taste of theHonourable George which led him to associate with Americans as readilyas with persons of his own class; and especially had I regretted hisintimacy with the family in question. Several times I had observedthem, on the occasion of bearing messages from the HonourableGeorge--usually his acceptance of an invitation to dine. Too obviouslythey were rather a handful. I mean to say, they were people who couldperhaps matter in their own wilds, but they would never do with us.

  Their leader, with whom the Honourable George had consented to gamethis evening, was a tall, careless-spoken person, with a narrow, darkface marked with heavy black brows that were rather tremendous intheir effect when he did not smile. Almost at my first meeting him Idivined something of the public man in his bearing, a suggestion,perhaps, of the confirmed orator, a notion in which I was somehowfurther set by the gesture with which he swept back his carelesslyfalling forelock. I was not surprised, then, to hear him referred toas the "Senator." In some unexplained manner, the Honourable George,who is never as reserved in public as I could wish him to be, hadchummed up with this person at one of the race-tracks, and hadthereafter been almost quite too pally with him and with the verycurious other members of his family--the name being Floud.

  The wife might still be called youngish, a bit florid in type,plumpish, with yellow hair, though to this a stain had been applied,leaving it in deficient consonance with her eyebrows; these shadinggrayish eyes that crackled with determination. Rather on the largeside she was, forcible of speech and manner, yet curiously eager, Ihad at once detected, for the exactly correct thing in dress anddeportment.

  The remaining member of the family was a male cousin of the so-calledSenator, his senior evidently by half a score of years, since I tookhim to have reached the late fifties. "Cousin Egbert" he was called,and it was at once apparent to me that he had been most direlysubjugated by the woman whom he addressed with great respect as "Mrs.Effie." Rather a seamed and drooping chap he was, with mild,whitish-blue eyes like a porcelain doll's, a mournfully drooped graymoustache, and a grayish jumble of hair. I early remarked his huntedlook in the presence of the woman. Timid and soft-stepping he wasbeyond measure.

  Such were the impressions I had been able to glean of these altogetherqueer people during the fortnight since the Honourable George had solawlessly taken them up. Lodged they were in an hotel among the mostexpensive situated near what would have been our Trafalgar Square, andI later recalled that I had been most interestedly studied by theso-called "Mrs. Effie" on each of the few occasions I appeared there.I mean to say, she would not be above putting to me intimate questionsconcerning my term of service with the Honourable George AugustusVane-Basingwell, the precise nature of the duties I performed for him,and even the exact sum of my honourarium. On the last occasion she hadremarked--and too well I recall a strange glitter in her competenteyes--"You are just the man needed by poor Cousin Egbert there--youcould make something of him. Look at the way he's tied that cravatafter all I've said to him."

  The person referred to here shivered noticeably, stroked his chin in amanner enabling him to conceal the cravat, and affected nervously tobe taken with a sight in the street below. In some embarrassment Iwithdrew, conscious of a cold, speculative scrutiny bent upon me bythe woman.

  If I have seemed tedious in my recital of the known facts concerningthese extraordinary North American natives, it will, I am sure, beforgiven me in the light of those tragic developments about to ensue.

  Meantime, let me be pictured as reposing in fancied security from allevil predictions while I awaited the return of the Honourable George.I was only too certain he would come suffering from an acute aciddyspepsia, for I had seen lobster in his shifty eyes as he left me;but beyond this I apprehended nothing poignant, and I gave myself upto meditating profoundly upon our situation.

  Frankly, it was not good. I had done my best to cheer the HonourableGeorge, but since our brief sojourn at Ostend, and despite the almostcontinuous hospitality of the Americans, he had been having, to put itbluntly, an awful hump. At Ostend, despite my remonstrance, he hadstaked and lost the major portion of his quarter's allowance intesting a system at the wheel which had been warranted by the personwho sold it to him in London to break any bank in a day's play. He hadmeant to pause but briefly at Ostend, for little more than a test ofthe system, then proceed to Monte Carlo, where his proposed terrificwinnings would occasion less alarm to the managers. Yet at Ostend thesystem developed such grave faults in the first hour of play that wewere forced to lay up in Paris to economize.

  For myself I had entertained doubts of the system from the moment ofits purchase, for it seemed awfully certain to me that the vendorwould have used it himself instead of parting with it for a couple ofquid, he being in plain need of fresh linen and smarter boots, to saynothing of the quite impossible lounge-suit he wore the night we methim in a cab shelter near Covent Garden. But the Honourable George hadnot listened to me. He insisted the chap had made it all enormouslyclear; that those mathematical Johnnies never valued money for its ownsake, and that we should presently be as right as two sparrows in acrate.

  Fearfully annoyed I was at the denouement. For now we were in Paris,rather meanly lodged in a dingy hotel on a narrow street leading fromwhat with us might have been Piccadilly Circus. Our rooms were rathera good height with a carved cornice and plaster enrichments, but thefurnishings were musty and the general air depressing, notwithstandingthe effect of a few good mantel ornaments which I have long made it arule to carry with me.

  Then had come the meeting with the Americans. Glad I was to reflectthat this had occurred in Paris instead of London. That sort of thinggets about so. Even from Paris I was not a little fearful that news ofhis mixing with this raffish set might get to the ears of hislordship either at the town house or at Chaynes-Wotten. True, hislordship is not over-liberal with his brother, but that is smallreason for affronting the pride of a family that attained its earldomin the fourteenth century. Indeed the family had become importantquite long before this time, the first Vane-Basingwell having beenbeheaded by no less a personage than William the Conqueror, as Ilearned in one of the many hours I have been privileged to browse inthe Chaynes-Wotten library.

  It need hardly be said that in my long term of service with theHonourable George, beginning almost from the time my mother nursedhim, I have endeavoured to keep him up to his class, combating acertain laxness that has hampered him. And most stubborn he is, andwilful. At games he is almost quite a duffer. I once got him to playoutside left on a hockey eleven and he excited much comment, some ofwhich was of a favourable nature, but he cares little for hunting orshooting and, though it is scarce a matter to be goss
iped of, heloathes cricket. Perhaps I have disclosed enough concerning him.Although the Vane-Basingwells have quite almost always married theright people, the Honourable George was beyond question born queer.

  Again, in the matter of marriage, he was difficult. His lordship,having married early into a family of poor lifes, was now long awidower, and meaning to remain so he had been especially concernedthat the Honourable George should contract a proper alliance. Henceour constant worry lest he prove too susceptible out of his class.More than once had he shamefully funked his fences. There was thedistressing instance of the Honourable Agatha Cradleigh. Quite allthat could be desired of family and dower she was, thirty-two yearsold, a bit faded though still eager, with the rather immensely highforehead and long, thin, slightly curved Cradleigh nose.

  The Honourable George at his lordship's peppery urging had at lastconsented to a betrothal, and our troubles for a time promised to beover, but it came to precisely nothing. I gathered it might have beenbecause she wore beads on her gown and was interested in uplift work,or that she bred canaries, these birds being loathed by the HonourableGeorge with remarkable intensity, though it might equally have beenthat she still mourned a deceased fiance of her early girlhood, acurate, I believe, whose faded letters she had preserved and wouldread to the Honourable George at intimate moments, weeping bitterlythe while. Whatever may have been his fancied objection--that is thetime we disappeared and were not heard of for near a twelvemonth.

  Wondering now I was how we should last until the next quarter'sallowance. We always had lasted, but each time it was a different way.The Honourable George at a crisis of this sort invariably spoke ofentering trade, and had actually talked of selling motor-cars,pointing out to me that even certain rulers of Europe had franklyentered this trade as agents. It might have proved remunerative had heknown anything of motor-cars, but I was more than glad he did not, forI have always considered machinery to be unrefined. Much I preferredthat he be a company promoter or something of that sort in the city,knowing about bonds and debentures, as many of the best of ourfamilies are not above doing. It seemed all he could do withpropriety, having failed in examinations for the army and the church,and being incurably hostile to politics, which he declared silly rot.

  Sharply at midnight I aroused myself from these gloomy thoughts andbreathed a long sigh of relief. Both gipsy and psychic expert hadfailed in their prophecies. With a lightened heart I set about thepreparations I knew would be needed against the Honourable George'sreturn. Strong in my conviction that he would not have been able toresist lobster, I made ready his hot foot-bath with its solution ofbrine-crystals and put the absorbent fruit-lozenges close by, togetherwith his sleeping-suit, his bed-cap, and his knitted night-socks.Scarcely was all ready when I heard his step.

  He greeted me curtly on entering, swiftly averting his face as I tookhis stick, hat, and top-coat. But I had seen the worst at one glance.The Honourable George was more than spotted--he was splotchy. It wasas bad as that.

  "Lobster _and_ oysters," I made bold to remark, but he affectednot to have heard, and proceeded rapidly to disrobe. He accepted thefoot-bath without demur, pulling a blanket well about his shoulders,complaining of the water's temperature, and demanding three of thefruit-lozenges.

  "Not what you think at all," he then said. "It was that cursedbar-le-duc jelly. Always puts me this way, and you quite well knowit."

  "Yes, sir, to be sure," I answered gravely, and had the satisfactionof noting that he looked quite a little foolish. Too well he knew Icould not be deceived, and even now I could surmise that the lobsterhad been supported by sherry. How many times have I not explained tohim that sherry has double the tonic vinosity of any other wine andmay not be tampered with by the sensitive. But he chose at present tomake light of it, almost as if he were chaffing above his knowledge ofsome calamity.

  "Some book Johnny says a chap is either a fool or a physician atforty," he remarked, drawing the blanket more closely about him.

  "I should hardly rank you as a Harley Street consultant, sir," Iswiftly retorted, which was slanging him enormously because he hadturned forty. I mean to say, there was but one thing he could take meas meaning him to be, since at forty I considered him no physician.But at least I had not been too blunt, the touch about the HarleyStreet consultant being rather neat, I thought, yet not too subtle forhim.

  He now demanded a pipe of tobacco, and for a time smoked in silence. Icould see that his mind worked painfully.

  "Stiffish lot, those Americans," he said at last.

  "They do so many things one doesn't do," I answered.

  "And their brogue is not what one could call top-hole, is it now? Howoften they say 'I guess!' I fancy they must say it a score of times ina half-hour."

  "I fancy they do, sir," I agreed.

  "I fancy that Johnny with the eyebrows will say it even oftener."

  "I fancy so, sir. I fancy I've counted it well up to that."

  "I fancy you're quite right. And the chap 'guesses' when he awfullywell knows, too. That's the essential rabbit. To-night he said 'Iguess I've got you beaten to a pulp,' when I fancy he wasn't guessingat all. I mean to say, I swear he knew it perfectly."

  "You lost the game of drawing poker?" I asked coldly, though I knew hehad carried little to lose.

  "I lost----" he began. I observed he was strangely embarrassed. Hestrangled over his pipe and began anew: "I said that to play the gamesoundly you've only to know when to bluff. Studied it out myself, andjolly well right I was, too, as far as I went. But there's further togo in the silly game. I hadn't observed that to play it greatly onemust also know when one's opponent is bluffing."

  "Really, sir?"

  "Oh, really; quite important, I assure you. More important than onewould have believed, watching their silly ways. You fancy a chap'sbluffing when he's doing nothing of the sort. I'd enormously haveliked to know it before we played. Things would have been so awfullydifferent for us"--he broke off curiously, paused, then added--"foryou."

  "Different for me, sir?" His words seemed gruesome. They seemed opento some vaguely sinister interpretation. But I kept myself steady.

  "We live and learn, sir," I said, lightly enough.

  "Some of us learn too late," he replied, increasingly ominous.

  "I take it you failed to win the hundred pounds, sir?"

  {Illustration: "I TAKE IT YOU FAILED TO WIN THE HUNDRED POUNDS, SIR?"}

  "I have the hundred pounds; I won it--by losing."

  Again he evaded my eye.

  "Played, indeed, sir," said I.

  "You jolly well won't believe that for long."

  Now as he had the hundred pounds, I couldn't fancy what the deuce andall he meant by such prattle. I was half afraid he might be having meon, as I have known him do now and again when he fancied he could getme. I fearfully wanted to ask questions. Again I saw the dark,absorbed face of the gipsy as he studied my future.

  "Rotten shift, life is," now murmured the Honourable George quite asif he had forgotten me. "If I'd have but put through that Monte Carloaffair I dare say I'd have chucked the whole business--gone to SouthAfrica, perhaps, and set up a mine or a plantation. Shouldn't havecome back. Just cut off, and good-bye to this mess. But no capital.Can't do things without capital. Where these American Johnnies havethe pull of us. Do anything. Nearly do what they jolly well like to.No sense to money. Stuff that runs blind. Look at the silly beggarsthat have it----" On he went quite alarmingly with his tirade. Almostas violent he was as an ugly-headed chap I once heard ranting when Iwent with my brother-in-law to a meeting of the North Brixton RadicalClub. Quite like an anarchist he was. Presently he quieted. After along pull at his pipe he regarded me with an entire change of manner.Well I knew something was coming; coming swift as a rocketingwoodcock. Word for word I put down our incredible speeches:

  "You are going out to America, Ruggles."

  "Yes, sir; North or South, sir?"

  "North, I fancy; somewhere on the West coast--Ohio, Omaha, one
of thoseIndian places."

  "Perhaps Indiana or the Yellowstone Valley, sir."

  "The chap's a sort of millionaire."

  "The chap, sir?"

  "Eyebrow chap. Money no end--mines, lumber, domestic animals, thatsort of thing."

  "Beg pardon, sir! I'm to go----"

  "Chap's wife taken a great fancy to you. Would have you to do for thefunny, sad beggar. So he's won you. Won you in a game of drawingpoker. Another man would have done as well, but the creature was keenfor you. Great strength of character. Determined sort. Hope you won'tthink I didn't play soundly, but it's not a forthright game. Thinkthey're bluffing when they aren't. When they are you mayn't think it.So far as hiding one's intentions, it's a most rottenly immoral game.Low, animal cunning--that sort of thing."

  "Do I understand I was the stake, sir?" I controlled myself to say.The heavens seemed bursting about my head.

  "Ultimately lost you were by the very trifling margin of superioritythat a hand known as a club flush bears over another hand consistingof three of the eights--not quite all of them, you understand, onlythree, and two other quite meaningless cards."

  I could but stammer piteously, I fear. I heard myself make a wretchedfailure of words that crowded to my lips.

  "But it's quite simple, I tell you. I dare say I could show it you ina moment if you've cards in your box."

  "Thank you, sir, I'll not trouble you. I'm certain it was simple. Butwould you mind telling me what exactly the game was played for?"

  "Knew you'd not understand at once. My word, it was not too ballysimple. If I won I'd a hundred pounds. If I lost I'd to give you up tothem but still to receive a hundred pounds. I suspect the Johnny'sconscience pricked him. Thought you were worth a hundred pounds, andguessed all the time he could do me awfully in the eye with his poker.Quite set they were on having you. Eyebrow chap seemed to think it ajolly good wheeze. She didn't, though. Quite off her head at havingyou for that glum one who does himself so badly."

  Dazed I was, to be sure, scarce comprehending the calamity that hadbefallen us.

  "Am I to understand, sir, that I am now in the service of theAmericans?"

  "Stupid! Of course, of course! Explained clearly, haven't I, about theclub flush and the three eights. Only three of them, mind you. If theother one had been in my hand, I'd have done him. As narrow a squeakas that. But I lost. And you may be certain I lost gamely, as agentleman should. No laughing matter, but I laughed with them--exceptthe funny, sad one. He was worried and made no secret of it. They weregood enough to say I took my loss like a dead sport."

  More of it followed, but always the same. Ever he came back to thesickening, concise point that I was to go out to the Americanwilderness with these grotesque folk who had but the most elementarynotions of what one does and what one does not do. Always he concludedwith his boast that he had taken his loss like a dead sport. He becamevexed at last by my painful efforts to understand how, precisely, thedreadful thing had come about. But neither could I endure more. I fledto my room. He had tried again to impress upon me that three eightsare but slightly inferior to the flush of clubs.

  I faced my glass. My ordinary smooth, full face seemed to haveshrivelled. The marks of my anguish were upon me. Vainly had I lockedmyself in. The gipsy's warning had borne its evil fruit. Sold, I'dbeen; even as once the poor blackamoors were sold into Americanbondage. I recalled one of their pathetic folk-songs in which thewretches were wont to make light of their lamentable estate; a thing Ihad often heard sung by a black with a banjo on the pier at Brighton;not a genuine black, only dyed for the moment he was, but I had neverlost the plaintive quality of the verses:

  "Away down South in Michigan, Where I was so happy and so gay, 'Twas there I mowed the cotton and the cane----"

  How poignantly the simple words came back to me! A slave, day afterday mowing his owner's cotton and cane, plucking the maize from thesavannahs, yet happy and gay! Should I be equal to this spirit? TheHonourable George had lost; so I, his pawn, must also submit like adead sport.

  How little I then dreamed what adventures, what adversities, whatignominies--yes, and what triumphs were to be mine in those backblocks of North America! I saw but a bleak wilderness, a distressingcontact with people who never for a moment would do with us. Ishuddered. I despaired.

  And outside the windows gay Paris laughed and sang in the dance, everunheeding my plight!