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Page 32
IX
CAPTAIN KIDD MEETS WITH AN OBSTACLE
"Excuse me, your Majesty," remarked Helen of Troy as Cleopatra accorded
permission to Captain Kidd to speak, "I have not been introduced to this
gentleman nor has he been presented to me, and I really cannot consent to
any proceeding so irregular as this. I do not speak to gentlemen I have
not met, nor do I permit them to address me."
"Hear, hear!" cried Xanthippe. "I quite agree with the principle of my
young friend from Troy. It may be that when we claimed for ourselves all
the rights of men that the right to speak and be spoken to by other men
without an introduction was included in the list, but I for one have no
desire to avail myself of the privilege, especially when it's a
horrid-looking man like this."
Kidd bowed politely, and smiled so terribly that several of the ladies
fainted.
"I will withdraw," he said, turning to Cleopatra; and it must be said that
his suggestion was prompted by his heartfelt wish, for now that he found
himself thus conspicuously brought before so many women, with falsehood on
his lips, his courage began to ooze.
"Not yet, please," answered the chair-lady. "I imagine we can get about
this difficulty without much trouble."
"I think it a perfectly proper objection too," observed Delilah, rising.
"If we ever needed etiquette we need it now. But I have a plan which will
obviate any further difficulty. If there is no one among us who is
sufficiently well acquainted with the gentleman to present him formally to
us, I will for the time being take upon myself the office of ship's barber
and cut his hair. I understand that it is quite the proper thing for
barbers to talk, while cutting their hair, to persons to whom they have
not been introduced. And, besides, he really needs a hair-cut badly. Thus
I shall establish an acquaintance with the captain, after which I can with
propriety introduce him to the rest of you."
"Perhaps the gentleman himself might object to that," put in Queen
Elizabeth. "If I remember rightly, your last customer was very much
dissatisfied with the trim you gave him."
"It will be unnecessary to do what Delilah proposes," said Mrs. Noah, with
a kindly smile, as she rose up from the corner in which she had been
sitting, an interested listener. "I can introduce the gentleman to you all
with perfect propriety. He's a member of my family. His grandfather was
the great-grandson a thousand and eight times removed of my son Shem's
great-grandnephew on his father's side. His relationship to me is
therefore obvious, though from what I know of his reputation I think he
takes more after my husband's ancestors than my own. Willie, dear, these
ladies are friends of mine. Ladies, this young man is one of my most
famous descendants. He has been a man of many adventures, and he has been
hanged once, which, far from making him undesirable as an acquaintance,
has served merely to render him harmless, and therefore a safe person to
know. Now, my son, go ahead and speak your piece."
The good old spirit sat down, and the scruples of the objectors having
thus been satisfied, Captain Kidd began.
"Now that I know you all," he remarked, as pleasantly as he could under
the circumstances, "I feel that I can speak more freely, and certainly
with a great deal less embarrassment than if I were addressing a gathering
of entire strangers. I am not much of a hand at speaking, and have always
felt somewhat nonplussed at finding myself in a position of this nature.
In my whole career I never experienced but one irresistible impulse to
make a public address of any length, and that was upon that unhappy
occasion to which the greatest and grandest of my great-grandmothers has
alluded, and that only as the chain by which I was suspended in mid-air
tightened about my vocal chords. At that moment I could have talked
impromptu for a year, so fast and numerously did thoughts of the uttermost
import surge upward into my brain; but circumstances over which I had no
control prevented the utterance of those thoughts, and that speech is
therefore lost to the world."
"He has the gift of continuity," observed Madame R�camier.
"Ought to be in the United States Senate," smiled Elizabeth.
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