The weekly intelligencer., 1892-03-26
CHAPTER I.


the deck of one of the White Star
steamers waving last adieu to En-
glish shores. To Judge from the easy
going familiarity which they displayed
IN entering into conversation with each
other and in exchanging opinions as to
fhe probable length of the voyage home,
one might have supposed that they
were all old friends; but far from it.
Up to that time they had been the COM
pletest strangers in the world, with
one exception however, for two of the
group were mother and son, Mrs. Hetty
Waldron and her only child, Capt.
Harry Waldron, U. s. A.
Although still in the twenties, this
young West Pointer had won pair of
captains shoulder-straps for signal
bravery in desperate struggle with
the Apaches, the Indians being ten to
his one.
Mrs. Waldron was a singularly hand
some women, only a shade the other
side of forty, tall, graceful and distin-
guished looking. She, too, seemed born
to command. In fact, she had passed
her whole life among military men, and
had taken on the very color and char
acter of her habitat
"I don't think he's an American" Z"
said Capt. Harry, as his mother pointed
out an notwithstanding man who,
wrapped In his rug, was reclining in a
steamer chair.
"And yet he has Chinese servant"
observed Mrs. Waldron, rs she drew
her sons attention to that individual,
man of about thirty-fiye, yellow as a
lemon and shaped like one of the
squatty vases of his country.
Unless all signs failed, the stolid
gentleman wrapped in the steamer rug
was a son of Albion, British to the tips
of his nails, tall, thin. bony to degree
almost fitting him to be model for q
class in osteology. According as you
looked at him, he was either all neck. all
body or all legs. This specimen of
the Anglo-Saxon race was possibly
somewhat past fifty and stood six feet
several inches above the level of the
sea. A full beard of an indescriba BILE
yellow, a head of hair of the same hue,
q pair of small, deep-set, lynx-like eyes,
nostrils, of great length, and curved
like a hawks beal, and Uranium upon
which any one with the merest snat-
tering of phrenology might have de-
tected the bumps of unqualified mono
mania and extreme pertinacity--such
were, crudely outlined, the head and
front of the man in the steamer chair,
personality which would have de-
lighted the soul of any genial carl
caturist.
The mans attire was, line for
line, of the traditional English cut
and style--a double-visored cap, a
waistcoat buttoned up to his chin, q
jacket with twenty pockets. trousers
of the checkerboard pattern, high
CATERS with nickel buttons, the soles
of his shoes studded with nails and a
gray-white duster, which he kept wound
tightly around his body as If desirous
of aecentuating hi bony build. Who
was this eccentric looking individual?
No one knew. One thing was certain,
however, he had never been seen on
board the Germanic before that day.
The steward, who is supposed to know
everything, could only say that he was
an Englishman booked for New York,
that his name was Joshua Merritt,
which he signed Josh. Merritt, that he
hailed from Liverpool and that he was
accompanied by his body servant, Gin
Chi of Hongkong, a subjectof the En-
peror of the Celestial Empire.
The. moment the steamer had got
under headway Merritt had ordered
Gin-Ghi to arrange his chair on the
sunny side of the vessel, and had not
bndged till 4. when the lunch bell
rang. Back he came at 4:3o, disappear
ing again at to go to dinner, and re-
turning to his post after an hours alb
sence. His attitude and movements
were strikingly like those OF manikin.
He was never seen to turn his eyes to
the right or left, but he kept them
| fixed in the direction the steamer was
taking, as If he were dreaming of the
great Western world soon to rise be-
fore him. AT 10 o'clock to the minute
he arose and -betook himself to the
stateroom. with gait SO balanced and