 | CHAPTER X.
A GENTLEMAN AND SCHOLAR. The Wetherel affair |  |
10. CHAPTER X.
A GENTLEMAN AND SCHOLAR.
“Poloski!” grumbled Wolverton. “What the deuce is he here for? Run
aground on the bottom of his purse and waiting for a chance to gamble, I suppose.
What do you want him up for? I don't believe in him.”
“There is something in blood,” said Edward, remembering, with more than
the pride of his uncle, that he was descended from many recorded Wetherels.
you can only discover what that point is.”
“I never knew one in this country who could be trusted,” asserted Wolverton.
“They are all dead-beats, looking out for a rich marriage or some other
chance to swindle somebody. And to the best of my travelling observation and
study, four-fifths of those in Europe are no better. Poloski at any rate is a
sucker. He is a sponge incarnate.”
“You needn't lend him anything. Tell him you have passed over all your
flush to me. Come let's have him in. He is such a confounded blowhard and
monkey that he is amusing.”
“Send for him,” returned Wolverton, a lazily obliging man, as many idle
people are.
On the arrival of a waiter to answer the bell, Edward despatched him in
search of the distinguished foreigner.
“Tall, light-complexioned fellow,” he explained. “Looks a little like me;
perhaps a good deal.”
“I wouldn't say that,” put in Wolverton when the servant had departed.
“It's a resemblance that isn't recommendatory.”
“I don't brag of it,” laughed the young man. “But I have been taken for
him, and I know he can wear my clothes. Borrowed a tiptop suit once and
never returned it. Fitted him like a glove. Whenever I met him in it, bowing
and grimacing in his ridiculous style, I felt like saying, `How are you, you
jackanapes of a Wetherel, and what are you cutting up those monkey-shines
for?' ”
Presently the noble guest of American entered the room. He was certainly
very like Wetherel; he had the same fair skin and hair, the same resolute blue
eyes and prominent chin, the same height and slenderness; furthermore, he
appeared to be of about the same age, although he was in reality several years
older. The resemblance between the two men did not, however, extend to
expression and manner. Poloski's expression was against him; it had unpleasant
gleams of furtiveness and dexterity; it suggested a man who lives by
his wits. In gesture and style of speaking he was more graceful and animated
than the young American, or than Americans in general. Nor was it quite
just to accuse him of “monkey-shines”; his address, though lively, was human
enough, and fairly agreeable. His accent in English was nearly perfect,
which, I believe, is not a wonderful thing in a Pole.
“How do, Wolverton? How do, Wetherel?” he said in rapid, cheerful,
pleasant tone, at the same time showing his teeth cordially. “So glad to find
you here! What a dull place this is, to be sure! But I am in luck. I was
just thinking how I could pass the evening, and here you are; the riddle is
solved. Thank you, Wolverton; I never refuse a cigar; at least, never yours.
Have you taken tea? So have I. We have the evening before us, and it's all
serene and the goose hangs high, as you Americans say. I like your slang, so
fresh and picturesque, so full of metaphor. All slang is worthy of study; it is
the source and life of language; speech would become dead without it. I read
an essay on the slang of the Teutonic tongues before the Royal Society of Berlin.
I will show it to you some day.”
Wetherel gave Wolverton a glance which was as much as to say, “There
he goes again!” To boast of literary and scholarly attainments was one of the
habits of the Count. He was continually telling you that he had written this
or that elegant or recondite work, and promising to let you see it, only he never
trust), he would usually remark, “I take this for the pleasure of studying the
man's style; the subject is familiar to me.”
“What brings you to the Athens of Connecticut, Count?” asked Wolverton,
easily repressing what desire he had to examine the essay on the “Slang of
the Teutonic Tongues.”
“A young lady,” replied the noble stranger, showing his teeth with a glee
which was close upon triumph. “What else could bring me anywhere? A
lovely and dashing Miss Alice.”
“Family name?” inquired Wetherel.
“I beg your pardon,” smiled the Count, leaning forward apologetically.
“What is her family name?” repeated Wetherel.
“Ah, yes; Dinneford.”
The two Americans exchanged glances, and Alice's second cousin looked
slightly indignant.
“I hoped for her at Newport, but she did not come,” continued Poloski.
“So I learned of her whereabouts and followed her to her retreat. Besides, I
wanted a quiet seashore place. I propose to sail, fish, and pay court to Miss
Dinneford.”
“Nice plan,” observed Wetherel, who had recovered his good humor, seeing
perhaps a chance to make sport of his patrician. “I shouldn't wonder if
you succeeded. You are a Pole, you know, and a long one, and they say the
longest poles knock the persimmons.”
“Is that a slang?” asked Poloski, with the joy of a discoverer. “But I do
not perceive the application. What is a persimmon, and what has a Pole to
do with it?”
“A persimmon is a fruit and a pole is a stick,” explained the young American,
with an indifference which apologized for his poor joke.
But the student of slang was delighted. “Oh! I understand,” he exclaimed.
“A Pole, yes! The longest poles knock the persimmons. Very
good. I shall remember that.”
“I know where you Dulcinea is staying,” continued Wetherel. “If you
want, I will take you to a quiet boarding-place in plain sight of the house
where she is.”
“Will you?” said the gratified Count. “I invite you to lodge there with
me. We will make a summer together; that is, we will make an August together.”
“How are you off for stamps?” prudently inquired the American, not caring
to furnish the funds for both.
“The locker is full of shot,” laughed Poloski, slapping a pocket. “I was
in luck at Newport. Poker is for me a propitious pastime, a game of good fortunes.
By the way, do you care to play to-night—just a little?”
“No, no,” said Wetherel, shaking his head with frank positiveness. “You
are too many for me.”
“Too many for me,” repeated the Count. “Another of your American
slangs; and good—very expressive. Too many for me. Very good.”
“You had better go along with us, Wolverton,” added Wetherel. “The
place I mean is on Lighthouse Point. We can bathe and sail all we like, and
there is fishing among the Thimble Islands. Come, old fellow; say you will.”
“Yes, say you will,” echoed Poloski, catching at the phrase as a new one.
“Where there's a will there's a way. Say you will, and then go it.”
“While you're young,” suggested Edward. “You are in the vein, Poloski.
Tell him to go it while he's young.”
“Yes, go it while you're young,” laughed the Count, enjoying this sort of
talk amazingly; for was it not linguistic exercise and getting a mastery over
slang?
“That will do,” said Wolverton. “I don't mind trying it for a few days.”
He did not care to leave his young friend with Poloski, lest there should be
poker and the funds which he had loaned should evaporate. At the same time
he approved of the selection of Lighthouse Point as a place of sojourn, for the
reasons that it was within easy reach of Sea Lodge, and that it was quite natural
that Edward should want to be near Nestoria, and that good might come
of his being near his uncle.
On the following day, therefore, this trio drove in a hack to the Point and
secured lodgings in the house of one of those seaside farmers who combine
fishing with agriculture and “summer board.” Remembering that the Count
came hither in order to be within flirting reach of the “lovely and dashing”
Miss Alice, and appreciating with due sympathy his fond dreams of walking
daily under her window and gesticulating at it with a sentimental handkerchief,
we can imagine the surprise and discontent with which he learned that
she dwelt on the opposite side of the harbor, divided from his palpitations by
three miles of salt water.
“I thought you told me it was close by,” he remarked with a grin of annoyance.
“In plain sight, I said,” returned Wetherel. “Don't you see it?”
“Yes, I see it. But what is the use? I cannot pay court through a telescope;
and she will not even know that I am here. One might as well be the
man in the moon. How am I ever to reach there?”
“Leander swam the Hellespont, and I will swim this here,” chanted Edward.
“How shockingly you sing,” sulked Poloski. “No Americans have ear or
voice. And the air is utterly common.”
At the same time he resolved that if Wetherel ever should enter the lists of
poker with him he would show him no merey.
“If you don't like swimming, you can sail,” continued the American.
“Take a boat and go over there by moonlight. No young lady could resist it.”
“Delightful!” cried the Count, cheering up at once. “Exquisitely romantic!
My dear Wetherel, you sing charmingly. When will you go?”
Edward reflected for a moment. Should he take this adventurer, this possibly
vulgar impostor, into the neighborhood of his relatives? Well, yes; there
was little likelihood of serious harm resulting; his cousin was sufficiently experienced
in flirtations to be able to take care of herself. Furthermore, why
should he be tender of Alice? The Dinnefords had been injurious to his prospects
in life, as he supposed; and perhaps if they should commit a folly, if
Alice should accept the attentions of this absurd and dubious Count, it might
diminish their noxious influence; the strict and practical old Judge might take
a disgust to them and turn again to favor his nephew. In allowing these
thoughts to rule him he did not see proof that he was a bad fellow; he merely
understood in a careless way that he was justifiably vindictive and intelligently
politic. How element we are apt to be in the matter of charging meanness or
guilt upon ourselves! There is surely some need of an accusing angel.
But in spite of his egoism and his imperfect perception of the beautiful and
Count a warning that the proprieties must be strictly observed, even in paying
suit to a young lady who could be fairly described as “dashing.”
“You must understand, Poloski,” he said, “that this Miss Alice is my second
cousin.”
“You astonish me,” bowed the Count. “I incline to your authority.”
“I don't boast any,” continued Edward. “Her mother and her uncle claim
all there is, I suppose. And besides, I believe that the girl is more than your
match, and that you can't fascinate her.”
“At least permit me to pay her my humble respects,” begged Poloski.
“We will sail over there,” assented Edward. “I have my own reasons for
going. And you may walk by the house once and wave your handkerchief.”
So, one moonlit evening, Wetherel took Poloski in a “sharpy” and piloted
him to the other shore; and there, as we already know, they came upon
Alice Dinneford, lighteartedly watching for adventures.
| CHAPTER X.
A GENTLEMAN AND SCHOLAR. The Wetherel affair | |