Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-17
CHAPTER VI.

In the course of time the twins arrived
and were delivered to their great kinsman.
To try to describe the rage of that old man
would profit nothing, the attempt would
fall so far short of the purpose. However,
when he had worn himself out and got
quiet again, be looked the matter over and
decided that the twins had some moral
rights although they had no legal ones;
they were of his blood, and it could not be
decorous to treat them as common clay. So
he laid them with their majestic kin in the
Cholmondeley church, with imposing state
and ceremony, and added the supreme
touch by officiating as chief mourner hinc-
eelE But ne drew the line at hatchments.
Our friends in Washington watched the
weary days 60 BY, while they waited for
Pete, and covered his name with reproaches
because Of his calamitous pTocrastinations.
Meantime Sally Sellers, who was as practi-
cal and democratic as the Lady Gwendolen
Sellers was romantic and aristocratic, was
leading q life of intense interest and activ-
5tv, and getting the most she could out of
her double personality. All day long in
the privacy of her work-room Sally Sellers
earned bread for the Sellers family, and all
the evening Lady Gwendolen Sellers sup
ported the Rossmore dignity. All day she
vas American, practically, and proud of
the work OF her head and hands, and its
commercial results; all the evening she
took holiday and dwelt in a rich shadow
land peopled with titled and coreneted
Gc;ions. By day, to her, the place was q
plain, unaffected, ramshsckle old trap-just
shat, and nothing more; bv night it was
RossmoTe Towers. AT college she had
learned a trade without knowing it. The
girls had found out that she was the de-
Eigner Of her own gowns. She had no
idle moments after that, and wanted
none; for the exercise of an eXtraordi-
nary gift is the supremest pleasure
in life and i was manifest that Sally Sell
ers possessed q gift of that sort in the matter
Of costume designing. Within three days
after reaching home she had hunted up
some work: before Pete was vet due in
Washington, and before the twins were
fairly asleep in English soil she was already
nearly swamped with work, and the sacri-
ficing Of the family chromos FOR debt had
got an effective check.
"She's a brick, said Rossmore to the
Major; 'just her father all over; prompt to
labor with head or hands, and not ashamed
Of it; capable, always capable, let the enter
prise be what it may; successful by nature
don't know what defeat is; thus, intensely
and practically American by inhaled nation
slism, and at the same time intensely and
aristocratically European by inherited no.
biiity OF blood. just me, exactly; Mulberry
Sellers in matters of finance and invention;
after Office hours what do you find? The
same clothes, yes; but what's in them?
Rossmorc of the peerage."
The two friends had haunted the general
postoffice daily. At last they had their re-
ward. Toward evening the Goth of May
they got a letter for XYZ It bore the
Washington postmark; the note itself was
not dated. 1t said:
Ash barrel back of lamp post Black horse
alley. If you are playing square go and set
on it tomorrow morning 2lss 1922 not sooner
not later wait till come.
The friends cogitated over the note pro-
foundly. Presently the Earl said:
Don't you reckon he's afraid we are a
sheriff with requisition?'
"Whv, m'lord?"
because that's no place for seance.
Nothing friendly, nothing sociable about 1t.
And at the same time, body that wanted
10 know who was roosting on that ash bar
rel, without exposing himself by going near
1t or seeming to be interested in ii, could
just stand on the street corner and take a
glance down the alley and satisfy himself,
don't you see?"
eyes, his idea is plain, now. He seems to
be a man that can't be candid and straight
forward. He acts as if he thought we
shucks, wish he had come out like q man
and told Us what hotel he"
Now you've struck it, you've struck it
sure, Washington; he has told u.s."
"Has he?''
eyes, he has; but he didn't mean to-
That alley is lonesome little pocket that
runs along one side of the new Gadsby.
That's his hotel"
What makes YOU think that?"
"Why, 1 just know it. He's got Q boom
that's just across from that lamp post He's
going to sit there perfectly comfortable be-
hind his shutters at 1922 to-morros, and