"What makes you think so, Washington?"
"Well, I hardly know, but really you can see, yourself, that he doesn't seem to be pining for his last place."
"It's well thought! Soundly deduced. We've done that Thing a favor. But I believe I will pump it a little, in a quiet way, and find out if we are right."
"How long is it going to take to finish him off and fetch him down to date, Colonel?"
"I wish I knew, but I don't. I am clear knocked out by this new detail-- this unforeseen necessity of working a subject down gradually from his condition of ancestor to his ultimate result as posterity. But I'll make him hump himself, anyway."
"Rossmore!"
"Yes, dear. We're in the laboratory. Come--Hawkins is here. Mind, now Hawkins--he's a sound, living, human being to all the family--don't forget that. Here she comes."
"Keep your seats, I'm not coming in. I just wanted to ask, who is it that's painting down there?"
"That? Oh, that's a young artist; young Englishman, named Tracy; very promising--favorite pupil of Hans Christian Andersen or one of the other old masters--Andersen I'm pretty sure it is; he's going to half-sole some of our old Italian masterpieces. Been talking to him?"
"Well, only a word. I stumbled right in on him without expecting anybody was there. I tried to be polite to him; offered him a snack"--(Sellers delivered a large wink to Hawkins from behind his hand), "but he declined, and said he wasn't hungry" (another sarcastic wink); "so I brought some apples" (doublewink), "and he ate a couple of--"
"What!" and the colonel sprang some yards toward the ceiling and came down quaking with astonishment.
Lady Rossmore was smitten dumb with amazement. She gazed at the sheepish relic of Cherokee Strip, then at her husband, and then at the guest again. Finally she said:
"What is the matter with you, Mulberry?"
He did not answer immediately. His back was turned; he was bending over his chair, feeling the seat of it. But he answered next moment, and said:
"Ah, there it is; it was a tack."
The lady contemplated him doubtfully a moment, then said, pretty snappishly:
"All that for a tack! Praise goodness it wasn't a shingle nail, it would have landed you in the Milky Way. I do hate to have my nerves shook up so." And she turned on her heel and went her way.
As soon as she was safely out, the Colonel said, in a suppressed voice:
"Come--we must see for ourselves. It must be a mistake."
They hurried softly down and peeped in. Sellers whispered, in a sort of despair--
It is eating! What a grisly spectacle! Hawkins it's horrible! Take me away--I can't stand--
They tottered back to the laboratory.
CHAPTER XX.
Tracy made slow progress with his work, for his mind wandered a good deal. Many things were puzzling him. Finally a light burst upon him all of a sudden--seemed to, at any rate--and he said to himself, "I've got the clew at last--this man's mind is off its balance; I don't know how much, but it's off a point or two, sure; off enough to explain this mess of perplexities, anyway. These dreadful chromos which he takes for old masters; these villainous portraits--which to his frantic mind represent Rossmores; the hatchments; the pompous name of this ramshackle old crib-- Rossmore Towers; and that odd assertion of his, that I was expected. How could I be expected? that is, Lord Berkeley. He knows by the papers that that person was burned up in the New Gadsby. Why, hang it, he really doesn't know who he was expecting; for his talk showed that he was not expecting an Englishman, or yet an artist, yet I answer his requirements notwithstanding. He seems sufficiently satisfied with me. Yes, he is a little off; in fact I am afraid he is a good deal off, poor old gentleman. But he's interesting--all people in about his condition are, I suppose. I hope he'll like my work; I would like to come every day and study him. And when I write my father--ah, that hurts! I mustn't get on that subject; it isn't good for my spirits.