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Page 35
"I am prepared, your Majesty," said Elizabeth, addressing Cleopatra, "to
accept from this time on the gentleman's word. The little that he has
already told us is hall-marked with truth. I should like to ask, however,
one more question, and that is how our gentleman friends expected to
embark us upon this voyage without letting us into the secret?"
"Oh, as for that," replied Kidd, with a deep-drawn sigh of relief, for he
too had noticed the gradual evaporation of his arm and the incipient
etherization of his cranium--"as for that, it was simple enough. There was
to have been a day set apart for ladies' day at the club, and when you
were all on board we were quietly to weigh anchor and start. The fact that
you had anticipated the day, of your own volition, was telephoned by my
scouts to me at my headquarters, and that news was by me transmitted by
messenger to Sir Walter at Charon's Glen Island, where the long-talked-of
fight between Samson and Goliath was taking place. Raleigh immediately
replied, '_Good! Start at once. Paris first. Unlimited credit. Love to
Elizabeth._' Wherefore, ladies," he added, rising from his chair and
walking to the door--"wherefore you are here and in my care. Make
yourselves comfortable, and with the aid of the fashion papers which you
have already received prepare yourselves for the joys that await you. With
the aid of Madame R�camier and Baedeker's _Paris_, which you will find in
the library, it will be your own fault if when you arrive there you
resemble a great many less fortunate women who don't know what they want."
With these words Kidd disappeared through the door, and fainted in the
arms of Sir Henry Morgan. The strain upon him had been too great.
"A charming fellow," said Portia, as the pirate disappeared.
"Most attractive," said Elizabeth.
"Handsome, too, don't you think?" asked Helen of Troy.
"And truthful beyond peradventure," observed Xanthippe, as she reflected
upon the words the captain had attributed to Socrates. "I didn't believe
him at first, but when he told me what my sweet-tempered philosopher had
said, I was convinced."
"He's a sweet child," interposed Mrs. Noah, fondly. "One of my favorite
grandchildren."
"Which makes it embarrassing for me to say," cried Cassandra, starting up
angrily, "that he is a base caitiff!"
Had a bomb been dropped in the middle of the room, it could not have
created a greater sensation than the words of Cassandra.
"What?" cried several voices at once. "A caitiff?"
"A caitiff with a capital K," retorted Cassandra. "I know that, because
while he was telling his story I was listening to it with one ear and
looking forward into the middle of next week with the other--I mean the
other eye--and I saw--"
"Yes, you saw?" cried Cleopatra.
"I saw that he was deceiving us. Mark my words, ladies, he is a base
caitiff," replied Cassandra--"a base caitiff."
"What did you see?" cried Elizabeth, excitedly.
"This," said Cassandra, and she began a narration of future events which I
must defer to the next chapter. Meanwhile his associates were endeavoring
to restore the evaporated portions of the prostrated Kidd's spirit anatomy
by the use of a steam-atomizer, but with indifferent success. Kidd's
training had not fitted him for an intellectual combat with superior
women, and he suffered accordingly.
[Illustration: KIDD'S COMPANIONS ENDEAVORING TO RESTORE EVAPORATED
PORTIONS OF HIS ANATOMY WITH A STEAM-ATOMIZER]
X
A WARNING ACCEPTED
"It is with no desire to interrupt my friend Cassandra unnecessarily,"
said Mrs. Noah, as the prophetess was about to narrate her story, "that I
rise to beg her to remember that, as an ancestress of Captain Kidd, I hope
she will spare a grandmother's feelings, if anything in the story she is
about to tell is improper to be placed before the young. I have been so
shocked by the stories of perfidy and baseness generally that have been
published of late years, that I would interpose a protest while there is
yet time if there is a line in Cassandra's story which ought to be
withheld from the public; a protest based upon my affection for posterity,
and in the interests of morality everywhere."
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