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Page 71
"I am the Child of the Public, and her betrothed husband!"
O Heavens! what a yell of laughter, of hurrahings, of satisfaction with
a _d�nouement_, rang through the house, and showed that all was well.
Burrham caught the moment, and started his band, this time
successfully,--I believe with "See the Conquering Hero." The doors, of
course, had been open long before. Well-disposed people saw they need
stay no longer; ill-disposed people dared not stay; the blue-coated men
with buttons sauntered on the stage in groups, and I suppose the worst
rowdies disappeared as they saw them. I had made my single speech, and
for the moment I was a hero.
I believe the mayor would have liked to kiss me. Burrham almost did.
They overwhelmed me with thanks and congratulations. All these I
received as well as I could,--somehow I did not feel at all
surprised,--everything was as it should be. I scarcely thought of
leaving the stage myself, till, to my surprise, the mayor asked me to go
home with him to dinner.
Then I remembered that we were not to spend the rest of our lives in
Castle Garden. I blundered out something about Miss Jones, that she had
no escort except me, and pressed into her room to find her. A group of
gentlemen was around her. Her veil was back now. She was very pale, but
very lovely. Have I said that she was beautiful as heaven? She was the
queen of the room, modestly and pleasantly receiving their felicitations
that the danger was over, and owning that she had been very much
frightened.
"Until," she said, "my friend, Mr. Carter, was fortunate enough to guess
that I was here. How he did it," she said, turning to me, "is yet an
utter mystery to me."
She did not know till then that it was I who had shared with her the
profits of the cyclop�dias.
As soon as we could excuse ourselves, I asked some one to order a
carriage. I sent to the ticket-office for my valise, and we rode to the
St. Nicholas. I fairly laughed as I gave the hackman at the hotel door
what would have been my last dollar and a half only two hours before. I
entered Miss Jones's name and my own. The clerk looked, and said,
inquiringly,--
"Is it Miss Jones's trunk which came this afternoon?"
I followed his finger to see the trunk on the marble floor. Rowdy Rob
had deserted it, having seen, perhaps, a detective when he reached
Piermont. The trunk had gone to Albany, had found no owner, and had
returned by the day boat of that day.
Fausta went to her room, and I sent her supper after her. One kiss and
"Good night" was all that I got from her then.
"In the morning," said she, "you shall explain."
It was not yet seven, I went to my own room and dressed, and tendered
myself at the mayor's just before his gay party sat down to dine. I met,
for the first time in my life, men whose books I had read, and whose
speeches I had by heart, and women whom I have since known to honor;
and, in the midst of this brilliant group, so excited had Mr. A---- been
in telling the strange story of the day, I was, for the hour, the lion.
I led Mrs. A---- to the table; I made her laugh very heartily by telling
her of the usher's threats to me, and mine to him, and of the disgrace
into which I fell among the three thousand six hundreds. I had never
been at any such party before. But I found it was only rather simpler
and more quiet than most parties I had seen, that its good breeding was
exactly that of dear Betsy Myers.
As the party broke up, Mrs. A---- said to me,--
"Mr. Carter, I am sure you are tired, with all this excitement. You say
you are a stranger here. Let me send round for your trunk to the St.
Nicholas, and you shall spend the night here. I know I can make you a
better bed than they."
I thought as much myself, and assented. In half an hour more I was in
bed in Mrs. A----'s "best room."
"I shall not sleep better," said I to myself, "than I did last night."
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