An African Millionaire Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay

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THE EPISODE OF THE GAME OF POK­ER

“Sey­mour,” my broth­er-​in-​law said, with a deep-​drawn sigh, as we left Lake George next day by the Rennse­laer and Sarato­ga Rail­road, “no more Pe­ter Porter for me, _if_ you please! I’m sick of dis­guis­es. Now that we know Colonel Clay is here in Amer­ica, they serve no good pur­pose; so I may as well re­ceive the so­cial con­sid­er­ation and prop­er re­spect to which my rank and po­si­tion nat­ural­ly en­ti­tle me.”

“And which they se­cure for the most part (ex­cept from ho­tel clerks), even in this re­pub­li­can land,” I an­swered briskly.

For in my hum­ble opin­ion, for sound cop­per-​bot­tomed snob­bery, reg­is­tered A1 at Lloyd’s, give _me_ the free-​born Amer­ican cit­izen.

We trav­elled through the States, ac­cord­ing­ly, for the next four months, from Maine to Cal­ifor­nia, and from Ore­gon to Flori­da, un­der our own true names, “Con­firm­ing the church­es,” as Charles face­tious­ly put it–or in oth­er words, look­ing in­to the man­age­ment and con­trol of rail­ways, syn­di­cates, mines, and cat­tle-​ranch­es. We in­quired about ev­ery­thing. And the re­sult of our in­ves­ti­ga­tions ap­peared to be, as Charles fur­ther re­marked, that the Sabeans who so trou­bled the sons of Job seemed to have mi­grat­ed in a body to Kansas and Ne­bras­ka, and that sev­er­al thou­sand head of cat­tle seemed mys­te­ri­ous­ly to van­ish, à la Colonel Clay, in­to the pure air of the prairies just be­fore each brand­ing.

How­ev­er, we were for­tu­nate in avoid­ing the in­cur­sions of the Colonel him­self, who must have mi­grat­ed mean­while on some en­chant­ed car­pet to oth­er hap­py hunt­ing-​grounds.

It was chill Oc­to­ber be­fore we found our­selves safe back in New York, en route for Eng­land. So long a term of free­dom from the Colonel’s depre­da­tions (as Charles fond­ly imag­ined–but I will not an­tic­ipate) had done my broth­er-​in-​law’s health and spir­its a world of good; he was so live­ly and cheer­ful that he be­gan to fan­cy his tor­men­tor must have suc­cumbed to yel­low fever, then rag­ing in New Or­leans, or eat­en him­self ill, as we near­ly did our­selves, on a gen­er­ous mix­ture of clam-​chow­der, ter­rapin, soft-​shelled crabs, Jer­sey peach­es, can­vas-​backed ducks, Cataw­ba wine, win­ter cher­ries, brandy cock­tails, straw­ber­ry-​short­cake, ice-​creams, corn-​dodger, and a ju­di­cious brew com­mon­ly known as a Col­orado corpse-​re­viv­er. How­ev­er that may be, Charles re­turned to New York in ex­cel­lent trim; and, dread­ing in that great city the wiles of his an­tag­onist, he cheer­ful­ly ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion of his broth­er mil­lion­aire, Sen­ator Wren­gold of Neva­da, to spend a few days be­fore sail­ing in the Sen­ator’s mag­nif­icent and new­ly-​fin­ished palace at the up­per end of Fifth Av­enue.

“There, at least, I shall be safe, Sey,” he said to me plain­tive­ly, with a weary smile. “Wren­gold, at any rate, won’t try to take me in–ex­cept, of course, in the reg­ular way of busi­ness.”

Boss-​Nugget Hall (as it is pop­ular­ly chris­tened) is per­haps the hand­somest brown stone man­sion in the Richard­so­ni­an style on all Fifth Av­enue. We spent a de­light­ful week there. The lines had fall­en to us in pleas­ant places. On the night we ar­rived Wren­gold gave a small bach­elor par­ty in our hon­our. He knew Sir Charles was trav­el­ling with­out La­dy Van­drift, and right­ly judged he would pre­fer on his first night an in­for­mal par­ty, with cards and cigars, in­stead of be­ing both­ered with the charm­ing, but still some­what ham­per­ing ad­di­tion of fe­male so­ci­ety.

The guests that evening were no more than sev­en, all told, our­selves in­clud­ed–mak­ing up, Wren­gold said, that per­fect num­ber, an oc­tave. He was a nou­veau riche him­self–the newest of the new–com­mon­ly known in ex­clu­sive old-​fash­ioned New York so­ci­ety as the Gild­ed Squat­ter; for he “struck his reef” no more than ten years ago; and he was there­fore dou­bly anx­ious, af­ter the Amer­ican style, to be “just dizzy with cul­ture.” In his ca­pac­ity of Mæ­ce­nas, he had in­vit­ed amongst oth­ers the lat­est of En­glish lit­er­ary ar­rivals in New York–Mr. Al­ger­non Co­le­yard, the fa­mous po­et, and lead­er of the Bri­ar-​rose school of West-​coun­try fic­tion.

“You know him in Lon­don, of course?” he ob­served to Charles, with a smile, as we wait­ed din­ner for our guests.

“No,” Charles an­swered stolid­ly. “I have not had that hon­our. We move, you see, in dif­fer­ent cir­cles.”

I ob­served by a cu­ri­ous shade which passed over Sen­ator Wren­gold’s face that he quite mis­ap­pre­hend­ed my broth­er-​in-​law’s mean­ing. Charles wished to con­vey, of course, that Mr. Co­le­yard be­longed to a mere lit­er­ary and Bo­hemi­an set in Lon­don, while he him­self moved on a more ex­alt­ed plane of peers and politi­cians. But the Sen­ator, bet­ter ac­cus­tomed to the new-​rich point of view, un­der­stood Charles to mean that _he_ had not the en­trée of that dis­tin­guished co­terie in which Mr. Co­le­yard posed as a shin­ing lu­mi­nary. Which nat­ural­ly made him rate even high­er than be­fore his lit­er­ary ac­qui­si­tion.

At two min­utes past the hour the po­et en­tered. Even if we had not been al­ready fa­mil­iar with his por­trait at all ages in The Strand Mag­azine, we should have recog­nised him at once for a gen­uine bard by his im­pas­sioned eyes, his del­icate mouth, the artis­tic twirl of one gray lock up­on his ex­pan­sive brow, the griz­zled mous­tache that gave point and force to the ge­nial smile, and the two white rows of per­fect teeth be­hind it. Most of our fel­low-​guests had met Co­le­yard be­fore at a re­cep­tion giv­en by the Lo­tus Club that af­ter­noon, for the bard had reached New York but the pre­vi­ous evening; so Charles and I were the on­ly vis­itors who re­mained to be in­tro­duced to him. The li­on of the hour was at­tired in or­di­nary evening dress, with no fop­pery of any kind, but he wore in his but­ton­hole a dain­ty blue flow­er whose name I do not know; and as he bowed dis­tant­ly to Charles, whom he sur­veyed through his eye­glass, the gleam of a big di­amond in the mid­dle of his shirt-​front be­trayed the fact that the Bri­ar-​rose school, as it was called (from his fa­mous epic), had at least suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing mon­ey out of po­et­ry. He ex­plained to us a lit­tle lat­er, in fact, that he was over in New York to look af­ter his roy­al­ties. “The beg­gars,” he said, “on­ly gave me eight hun­dred pounds on my last vol­ume. I couldn’t stand _that_, you know; for a mod­ern bard, mov­ing with the age, can on­ly sing when du­ly wound up; so I’ve run across to in­ves­ti­gate. Put a pen­ny in the slot, don’t you see, and the po­et will pipe for you.”

“Ex­act­ly like my­self,” Charles said, find­ing a point in com­mon. “_I’m_ in­ter­est­ed in mines; and I, too, have come over to look af­ter my roy­al­ties.”

The po­et placed his eye­glass in his eye once more, and sur­veyed Charles de­lib­er­ate­ly from head to foot. “Oh,” he mur­mured slow­ly. He said not a word more; but some­how, ev­ery­body felt that Charles was de­mol­ished. I saw that Wren­gold, when we went in to din­ner, hasti­ly al­tered the cards that marked their places. He had ev­ident­ly put Charles at first to sit next the po­et; he var­ied that ar­range­ment now, set­ting Al­ger­non Co­le­yard be­tween a rail­way king and a mag­azine ed­itor. I have sel­dom seen my re­spect­ed broth­er-​in-​law so com­plete­ly si­lenced.

The po­et’s con­duct dur­ing din­ner was most pe­cu­liar. He kept quot­ing po­et­ry at in­op­por­tune mo­ments.

“Roast lamb or boiled turkey, sir?” said the foot­man.

“Mary had a lit­tle lamb,” said the po­et. “I shall im­itate Mary.”

Charles and the Sen­ator thought the re­mark undig­ni­fied.

Af­ter din­ner, how­ev­er, un­der the mel­low­ing in­flu­ence of some ex­cel­lent Roed­er­er, Charles be­gan to ex­pand again, and grew live­ly and anec­do­tal. The po­et had made us all laugh not a lit­tle with var­ious cap­ital sto­ries of Lon­don lit­er­ary so­ci­ety–at least two of them, I think, new ones; and Charles was moved by gen­er­ous em­ula­tion to con­tribute his own share to the amuse­ment of the com­pa­ny. He was in ex­cel­lent cue. He is not of­ten bril­liant; but when he choos­es, he has a cer­tain dry vein of caus­tic hu­mour which is de­cid­ed­ly fun­ny, though not per­haps strict­ly with­out be­ing vul­gar. On this par­tic­ular night, then, warmed with the ad­mirable Wren­gold cham­pagne–the best made in Amer­ica–he launched out in­to a full and em­broi­dered de­scrip­tion of the var­ious ways in which Colonel Clay had de­ceived him. I will not say that he nar­rat­ed them in full with the same frank­ness and ac­cu­ra­cy that I have shown in these pages; he sup­pressed not a few of the most amus­ing de­tails–on no oth­er ground, ap­par­ent­ly, than be­cause they hap­pened to tell against him­self; and he en­larged a good deal on the sur­pris­ing clev­er­ness with which sev­er­al times he had near­ly se­cured his man; but still, mak­ing all al­lowances for na­tive van­ity in con­ceal­ment and ad­di­tion, he was dis­tinct­ly fun­ny–he rep­re­sent­ed the mat­ter for once in its lu­di­crous rather than in its dis­as­trous as­pect. He ob­served al­so, look­ing around the ta­ble, that af­ter all he had lost less by Colonel Clay in four years of per­se­cu­tion than he of­ten lost by one in­ju­di­cious move in a sin­gle day on the Lon­don Stock Ex­change; while he seemed to im­ply to the sol­id men of New York, that he would cheer­ful­ly sac­ri­fice such a fleabite as that, in re­turn for the amuse­ment and ex­cite­ment of the chase which the Colonel had af­ford­ed him.

The po­et was pleased. “You are a man of spir­it, Sir Charles,” he said. “I love to see this fine old En­glish ad­mi­ra­tion of pluck and ad­ven­ture! The fel­low must re­al­ly have some good in him, af­ter all. I should like to take notes of a few of those sto­ries; they would sup­ply nice ma­te­ri­al for bas­ing a ro­mance up­on.”

“I hard­ly know whether I’m ex­act­ly the man to make the hero of a nov­el,” Charles mur­mured, with com­pla­cence. And he cer­tain­ly didn’t look it.

“_I_ was think­ing rather of Colonel Clay as the hero,” the po­et re­spond­ed cold­ly.

“Ah, that’s the way with you men of let­ters,” Charles an­swered, grow­ing warm. “You al­ways have a sneak­ing sym­pa­thy with the ras­cals.”

“That may be bet­ter,” Co­le­yard re­tort­ed, in an icy voice, “than sym­pa­thy with the worst forms of Stock Ex­change spec­ula­tion.”

The com­pa­ny smiled un­easi­ly. The rail­way king wrig­gled. Wren­gold tried to change the sub­ject hasti­ly. But Charles would not be put down.

“You must hear the end, though,” he said. “That’s not quite the worst. The mean­est thing about the man is that he’s al­so a hyp­ocrite. He wrote me _such_ a let­ter at the end of his last trick–here, pos­itive­ly here, in Amer­ica.” And he pro­ceed­ed to give his own ver­sion of the Quack­en­boss in­ci­dent, en­livened with sundry imag­ina­tive bursts of pure Van­drift fan­cy.

When Charles spoke of Mrs. Quack­en­boss the po­et smiled. “The worst of mar­ried wom­en,” he said, “is–that you can’t mar­ry them; the worst of un­mar­ried wom­en is–that they want to mar­ry you.” But when it came to the let­ter, the po­et’s eye was up­on my broth­er-​in-​law. Charles, I must fain ad­mit, gar­bled the doc­ument sad­ly. Still, even so, some gleam of good feel­ing re­mained in its sen­tences. But Charles end­ed all by say­ing, “So, to crown his mis­de­meanours, the ras­cal shows him­self a whin­ing cur and a dis­gust­ing Phar­isee.”

“Don’t you think,” the po­et in­ter­posed, in his cul­ti­vat­ed drawl, “he may have re­al­ly meant it? Why should not some grain of com­punc­tion have stirred his soul still?–some rem­nant of con­science made him shrink from be­tray­ing a man who con­fid­ed in him? I have an idea, my­self, that even the worst of rogues have al­ways some good in them. I no­tice they of­ten suc­ceed to the end in re­tain­ing the af­fec­tion and fi­deli­ty of wom­en.”

“Oh, I said so!” Charles sneered. “I told you you lit­er­ary men have al­ways an un­der­hand re­gard for a scoundrel.”

“Per­haps so,” the po­et an­swered. “For we are all of us hu­man. Let him that is with­out sin among us cast the first stone.” And then he re­lapsed in­to moody si­lence.

We rose from ta­ble. Cigars went round. We ad­journed to the smok­ing-​room. It was a Moor­ish mar­vel, with Ori­en­tal hang­ings. There, Sen­ator Wren­gold and Charles ex­changed rem­inis­cences of bo­nan­zas and ranch­es and oth­er ex­cit­ing post-​pran­di­al top­ics; while the mag­azine ed­itor cut in now and again with a per­ti­nent in­quiry or a quaint and sar­cas­tic par­al­lel in­stance. It was clear he had an eye to fu­ture copy. On­ly Al­ger­non Co­le­yard sat brood­ing and silent, with his chin on one hand, and his brow in­tent, mus­ing and gaz­ing at the em­bers in the fire­place. The hand, by the way, was re­mark­able for a cu­ri­ous, an­tique-​look­ing ring, ap­par­ent­ly of Egyp­tian or Etr­uscan work­man­ship, with a pro­ject­ing gem of sev­er­al large facets. Once on­ly, in the midst of a game of whist, he broke out with a sin­gle com­ment.

“Hawkins was made an earl,” said Charles, speak­ing of some Lon­don ac­quain­tance.

“What for?” asked the Sen­ator.

“Suc­cess­ful adul­ter­ation,” said the po­et tart­ly.

“Hon­ours are easy,” the mag­azine ed­itor put in.

“And two by tricks to Sir Charles,” the po­et added.

To­wards the close of the evening, how­ev­er–the po­et still re­main­ing moody, not to say pos­itive­ly grumpy–Sen­ator Wren­gold pro­posed a friend­ly game of Swedish pok­er. It was the lat­est fash­ion­able vari­ant in West­ern so­ci­ety on the old gam­bling round, and few of us knew it, save the om­ni­scient po­et and the mag­azine ed­itor. It turned out af­ter­wards that Wren­gold pro­posed that par­tic­ular game be­cause he had heard Co­le­yard ob­serve at the Lo­tus Club the same af­ter­noon that it was a favourite amuse­ment of his. Now, how­ev­er, for a while he ob­ject­ed to play­ing. He was a poor man, he said, and the rest were all rich; why should he throw away the val­ue of a dozen gold­en son­nets just to add one more pin­na­cle to the gild­ed roofs of a mil­lion­aire’s palace? Be­sides, he was half-​way through with an ode he was in­dit­ing to Re­pub­li­can sim­plic­ity. The pris­tine aus­ter­ity of a demo­crat­ic sen­ato­ri­al cot­tage had nat­ural­ly in­spired him with mem­ories of Den­ta­tus, the Fabii, Camil­lus. But Wren­gold, dim­ly aware he was be­ing made fun of some­how, in­sist­ed that the po­et must take a hand with the fi­nanciers. “You can pass, you know,” he said, “as of­ten as you like; and you can stake low, or go it blind, ac­cord­ing as you’re in­clined to. It’s a demo­crat­ic game; ev­ery man de­cides for him­self how high he will play, ex­cept the banker; and you needn’t take bank un­less you want it.”

“Oh, if you in­sist up­on it,” Co­le­yard drawled out, with lan­guid re­luc­tance, “I’ll play, of course. I won’t spoil your evening. But re­mem­ber, I’m a po­et; I have strange in­spi­ra­tions.”

The cards were “squeez­ers”–that is to say, had the suit and the num­ber of pips in each print­ed small in the cor­ner, as well as over the face, for ease of ref­er­ence. We played low at first. The po­et sel­dom staked; and when he did–a few pounds–he lost, with sin­gu­lar per­sis­tence. He want­ed to play for dou­bloons or se­quins, and could with dif­fi­cul­ty be in­duced to con­de­scend to dol­lars. Charles looked across at him at last; the stakes by that time were fast ris­ing high­er, and we played for ready mon­ey. Notes lay thick on the green cloth. “Well,” he mur­mured pro­vok­ing­ly, “how about your in­spi­ra­tion? Has Apol­lo de­sert­ed you?”

It was an un­wont­ed flight of clas­si­cal al­lu­sion for Charles, and I con­fess it as­ton­ished me. (I dis­cov­ered af­ter­wards he had cribbed it from a re­view in that evening’s Crit­ic.) But the po­et smiled.

“No,” he an­swered calm­ly, “I am wait­ing for one now. When it comes, you may be sure you shall have the ben­efit of it.”

Next round, Charles deal­ing and bank­ing, the po­et staked on his card, un­seen as usu­al. He staked like a gen­tle­man. To our im­mense as­ton­ish­ment he pulled out a roll of notes, and re­marked, in a qui­et tone, “I have an in­spi­ra­tion now. _Half-​heart­ed_ will do. I go five thou­sand.” That was dol­lars, of course; but it amount­ed to a thou­sand pounds in En­glish mon­ey–high play for an au­thor.

Charles smiled and turned his card. The po­et turned his–and won a thou­sand.

“Good shot!” Charles mur­mured, pre­tend­ing not to mind, though he de­tests los­ing.

“In­spi­ra­tion!” the po­et mused, and looked once more ab­stract­ed.

Charles dealt again. The po­et watched the deal with boiled-​fishy eyes. His thoughts were far away. His lips moved au­di­bly. “Myr­tle, and kir­tle, and hur­tle,” he mut­tered. “They’ll do for three. Then there’s tur­tle, mean­ing dove; and that fin­ish­es the pos­si­ble. Lau­rel and coral make a very bad rhyme. Try myr­tle; don’t you think so?”

“Do you stake?” Charles asked, severe­ly, in­ter­rupt­ing his rever­ie.

The po­et start­ed. “No, pass,” he replied, look­ing down at his card, and sub­sid­ed in­to mut­ter­ing. We caught a tremor of his lips again, and heard some­thing like this: “Not less but more re­pub­li­can than thou, Half-​heart­ed watch­er by the West­ern sea, Af­ter long years I come to vis­it thee, And test thy feal­ty to that maid­en vow, That bound thee in thy bud­ding prime For Free­dom’s bride–“

“Stake?” Charles in­ter­rupt­ed, in­quir­ing­ly, again.

“Yes, five thou­sand,” the po­et an­swered dream­ily, push­ing for­ward his pile of notes, and nev­er ceas­ing from his mur­mur: “For Free­dom’s bride to all suc­ceed­ing time. Suc­ceed­ing; suc­ceed­ing; weak word, suc­ceed­ing. Couldn’t go five dol­lars on it.”

Charles turned his card once more. The po­et had won again. Charles passed over his notes. The po­et raked them in with a far-​away air, as one who looks at in­fin­ity, and asked if he could bor­row a pen­cil and pa­per. He had a few price­less lines to set down which might oth­er­wise es­cape him.

“This is play,” Charles said point­ed­ly. “_Will_ you kind­ly at­tend to one thing or the oth­er?”

The po­et glanced at him with a com­pas­sion­ate smile. “I told you I had in­spi­ra­tions,” he said. “They al­ways come to­geth­er. I can’t win your mon­ey as fast as I would like, un­less at the same time I am mak­ing vers­es. When­ev­er I hit up­on a good ep­ithet, I back my luck, don’t you see? I won a thou­sand on _half-​heart­ed_ and a thou­sand on _bud­ding_; if I were to back _suc­ceed­ing_, I should lose, to a cer­tain­ty. You un­der­stand my sys­tem?”

“I call it pure rub­bish,” Charles an­swered. “How­ev­er, con­tin­ue. Sys­tems were made for fools–and to suit wise men. Soon­er or lat­er you _must_ lose at such a stupid fan­cy.”

The po­et con­tin­ued. “For Free­dom’s bride to all _en­su­ing_ time.”

“Stake!” Charles cried sharply. We each of us staked.

“_En­su­ing_,” the po­et mur­mured. “To all _en­su­ing_ time. First-​rate ep­ithet that. I go ten thou­sand, Sir Charles, on _en­su­ing_.”

We all turned up. Some of us lost, some won; but the po­et had se­cured his two thou­sand ster­ling.

“I haven’t that amount about me,” Charles said, in that aus­tere­ly net­tled voice which he al­ways as­sumes when he los­es at cards; “but–I’ll set­tle it with you to-​mor­row.”

“An­oth­er round?” the host asked, beam­ing.

“No, thank you,” Charles an­swered; “Mr. Co­le­yard’s in­spi­ra­tions come too pat for my taste. His luck beats mine. I re­tire from the game, Sen­ator.”

Just at that mo­ment a ser­vant en­tered, bear­ing a salver, with a small note in an en­ve­lope. “For Mr. Co­le­yard,” he ob­served; “and the mes­sen­ger said, _ur­gent_.”

Co­le­yard tore it open hur­ried­ly. I could see he was ag­itat­ed. His face grew white at once.

“I–I beg your par­don,” he said. “I–I must go back in­stant­ly. My wife is dan­ger­ous­ly ill–quite a sud­den at­tack. For­give me, Sen­ator. Sir Charles, you shall have your re­venge to-​mor­row.”

It was clear that his voice fal­tered. We felt at least he was a man of feel­ing. He was ob­vi­ous­ly fright­ened. His cool­ness for­sook him. He shook hands as in a dream, and rushed down­stairs for his dust-​coat. Al­most as he closed the front door, a new guest en­tered, just miss­ing him in the vestibule.

“Hal­loa, you men,” he said, “we’ve been tak­en in, do you know? It’s all over the Lo­tus. The man we made an hon­orary mem­ber of the club to-​day is _not_ Al­ger­non Co­le­yard. He’s a bla­tant im­pos­tor. There’s a tele­gram come in on the tape to-​night say­ing Al­ger­non Co­le­yard is dan­ger­ous­ly ill at his home in Eng­land.”

Charles gasped a vi­olent gasp. “Colonel Clay!” he shout­ed, aloud. “And once more he’s done me. There’s not a mo­ment to lose. Af­ter him, gen­tle­men! af­ter him!”

Nev­er be­fore in our lives had we had such a close shave of catch­ing and fix­ing the re­doubtable swindler. We burst down the stairs in a body, and rushed out in­to Fifth Av­enue. The pre­tend­ed po­et had on­ly a hun­dred yards’ start of us, and he saw he was dis­cov­ered. But he was an ex­cel­lent run­ner. So was I, weight for age; and I dashed wild­ly af­ter him. He turned round a cor­ner; it proved to lead nowhere, and lost him time. He dart­ed back again, mad­ly. De­light­ed with the idea that I was cap­tur­ing so fa­mous a crim­inal, I re­dou­bled my ef­forts–and came up with him, pant­ing. He was wear­ing a light dust-​coat. I seized it in my hands. “I’ve got you at last!” I cried; “Colonel Clay, I’ve got you!”

He turned and looked at me. “Ha, old Ten Per Cent!” he called out, strug­gling. “It’s you, then, is it? Nev­er, nev­er to _you_, sir!” And as he spoke, he some­how flung his arms straight out be­hind him, and let the dust-​coat slip off, which it eas­ily did, the sleeves be­ing new and smooth­ly silk-​lined. The sud­den­ness of the move­ment threw me com­plete­ly off my guard, and off my legs as well. I was cling­ing to the coat and hold­ing him. As the sup­port gave way I rolled over back­ward, in the mud of the street, and hurt my back se­ri­ous­ly. As for Colonel Clay, with a ner­vous laugh, he bolt­ed off at full speed in his evening coat, and van­ished round a cor­ner.

It was some sec­onds be­fore I had suf­fi­cient­ly re­cov­ered my breath to pick my­self up again, and ex­am­ine my bruis­es. By this time Charles and the oth­er pur­suers had come up, and I ex­plained my con­di­tion to them. In­stead of com­mend­ing me for my zeal in his cause–which had cost me a barked arm and a good evening suit–my broth­er-​in-​law re­marked, with an un­feel­ing sneer, that when I had so near­ly caught my man I might as well have held him.

“I have his coat, at least,” I said. “That may af­ford us a clue.” And I limped back with it in my hands, feel­ing hor­ri­bly bruised and a good deal shak­en.

When we came to ex­am­ine the coat, how­ev­er, it bore no mak­er’s name; the strap at the back, where the tai­lor pro­claims with pride his hand­icraft, had been care­ful­ly ripped off, and its place was tak­en by a tag of plain black tape with­out in­scrip­tion of any sort. We searched the breast-​pock­et. A hand­ker­chief, sim­ilar­ly name­less, but of finest cam­bric. The side-​pock­ets–ha, what was this? I drew a piece of pa­per out in tri­umph. It was a note–a re­al find–the one which the ser­vant had hand­ed to our friend just be­fore at the Sen­ator’s.

We read it through breath­less­ly:–

“DAR­LING PAUL,–I _told_ you it was too dan­ger­ous. You should have lis­tened to me. You ought _nev­er_ to have im­itat­ed any re­al per­son. I hap­pened to glance at the ho­tel tape just now, to see the quo­ta­tions for Cloete­dorps to-​day, and what do you think I read as part of the lat­est tele­gram from Eng­land? ‘Mr. Al­ger­non Co­le­yard, the fa­mous po­et, is ly­ing on his death-​bed at his home in De­von­shire.’ By this time all New York knows. Don’t stop one minute. Say I’m dan­ger­ous­ly ill, and come away at once. Don’t re­turn to the ho­tel. I am re­mov­ing our things. Meet me at Mary’s. Your de­vot­ed, MAR­GOT.”

“This is _very_ im­por­tant,” Charles said. “This _does_ give us a clue. We know two things now: his re­al name is Paul–what­ev­er else it may be, and Madame Pi­cardet’s is Mar­got.”

I searched the pock­et again, and pulled out a ring. Ev­ident­ly he had thrust these two things there when he saw me pur­su­ing him, and had for­got­ten or ne­glect­ed them in the heat of the mêlée.

I looked at it close. It was the very ring I had no­ticed on his fin­ger while he was play­ing Swedish pok­er. It had a large com­pound gem in the cen­tre, set with many facets, and ris­ing like a pyra­mid to a point in the mid­dle. There were eight faces in all, some of them com­posed of emer­ald, amethyst, or turquoise. But _one_ face–the one that turned at a di­rect an­gle to­wards the wear­er’s eye–was _not_ a gem at all, but an ex­treme­ly tiny con­vex mir­ror. In a mo­ment I spot­ted the trick. He held this hand care­less­ly on the ta­ble while my broth­er-​in-​law dealt; and when he saw that the suit and num­ber of his own card mir­rored in it by means of the squeez­ers were bet­ter than Charles’s, he had “an in­spi­ra­tion,” and backed his luck–or rather his knowl­edge–with per­fect con­fi­dence. I did not doubt, ei­ther, that his odd-​look­ing eye­glass was a pow­er­ful mag­ni­fi­er which helped him in the trick. Still, we tried an­oth­er deal, by way of ex­per­iment–I wear­ing the ring; and even with the naked eye I was able to dis­tin­guish in ev­ery case the suit and pips of the card that was dealt me.

“Why, that was al­most dis­hon­est,” the Sen­ator said, draw­ing back. He wished to show us that even far-​West­ern spec­ula­tors drew a line some­where.

“Yes,” the mag­azine ed­itor echoed. “To back your skill is le­gal; to back your luck is fool­ish; to back your knowl­edge is–“

“Im­moral,” I sug­gest­ed.

“Very good busi­ness,” said the mag­azine ed­itor.

“It’s a sim­ple trick,” Charles in­ter­posed. “I should have spot­ted it if it had been done by any oth­er fel­low. But his pat­ter about in­spi­ra­tion put me clean off the track. That’s the ras­cal’s dodge. He plays the reg­ular con­jur­er’s game of dis­tract­ing your at­ten­tion from the re­al point at is­sue–so well that you nev­er find out what he’s re­al­ly about till he’s sold you ir­re­triev­ably.”

We set the New York po­lice up­on the trail of the Colonel; but of course he had van­ished at once, as usu­al, in­to the thin smoke of Man­hat­tan. Not a sign could we find of him. “Mary’s,” we found an in­suf­fi­cient ad­dress.

We wait­ed on in New York for a whole fort­night. Noth­ing came of it. We nev­er found “Mary’s.” The on­ly to­ken of Colonel Clay’s pres­ence vouch­safed us in the city was one of his cus­tom­ary in­sult­ing notes. It was con­ceived as fol­lows:–

“O ETER­NAL GULLIBLE!–Since I saw you on Lake George, I have run back to Lon­don, and prompt­ly come out again. I had busi­ness to trans­act there, in­deed, which I have now com­plet­ed; the ex­ces­sive at­ten­tions of the En­glish po­lice sent me once more, like great Ori­on, “slop­ing slow­ly to the west.” I re­turned to Amer­ica in or­der to see whether or not you were still im­pen­itent. On the day of my ar­rival I hap­pened to meet Sen­ator Wren­gold, and ac­cept­ed his kind in­vi­ta­tion sole­ly that I might see how far my last com­mu­ni­ca­tion had had a prop­er ef­fect up­on you. As I found you quite ob­du­rate, and as you fur­ther­more per­sist­ed in mis­un­der­stand­ing my mo­tives, I de­ter­mined to read you one more small les­son. It near­ly failed; and I con­fess the ac­ci­dent has af­fect­ed my nerves a lit­tle. I am now about to re­tire from busi­ness al­to­geth­er, and set­tle down for life at my place in Sur­rey. I mean to try just one more small coup; and, when that is fin­ished, Colonel Clay will hang up his sword, like Cincin­na­tus, and take to farm­ing. You need no longer fear me. I have re­alised enough to se­cure me for life a mod­est com­pe­tence; and as I am not pos­sessed like your­self with an im­mod­er­ate greed of gain, I recog­nise that good cit­izen­ship de­mands of me now an ear­ly re­tire­ment in favour of some younger and more de­serv­ing ras­cal. I shall al­ways look back with plea­sure up­on our agree­able ad­ven­tures to­geth­er; and as you hold my dust-​coat, to­geth­er with a ring and let­ter to which I at­tach im­por­tance, I con­sid­er we are quits, and I shall with­draw with dig­ni­ty. Your sin­cere well-​wish­er, CUTH­BERT CLAY, Po­et.”

“Just like him!” Charles said, “to hold this one last coup over my head in ter­rorem. Though even when he has played it, why should I trust his word? A scamp like that may say it, of course, on pur­pose to dis­arm me.”

For my own part, I quite agreed with “Mar­got.” When the Colonel was re­duced to dress­ing the part of a known per­son­age I felt he had reached al­most his last card, and would be well ad­vised to re­tire in­to Sur­rey.

But the mag­azine ed­itor summed up all in a word. “Don’t be­lieve that non­sense about for­tunes be­ing made by in­dus­try and abil­ity,” he said. “In life, as at cards, two things go to pro­duce suc­cess–the first is chance; the sec­ond is cheat­ing.”