第33章

There was a slight awkwardness even to Tembarom in entering the dining-room that evening.He had not seen his fellow boarders, as his restless night had made him sleep later than usual.But Mrs.Bowse had told him of the excitement he had caused.

"They just couldn't eat," she said."They could do nothing but talk and talk and ask questions; and I had waffles, too, and they got stone-cold."The babel of friendly outcry which broke out on his entry was made up of jokes, ejaculations, questions, and congratulatory outbursts from all sides.

"Good old T.T.!" "Give him a Harvard yell! Rah! Rah! Rah!" "Lend me fifty-five cents?" "Where's your tiara?" "Darned glad of it!" "Make us a speech!""Say, people," said Tembarom, "don't you get me rattled or I can't tell you anything.I'm rattled enough already.""Well, is it true?" called out Mr.Striper.

"No," Tembarom answered back, sitting down."It couldn't be; that's what I told Palford.I shall wake up in a minute or two and find myself in a hospital with a peacherino of a trained nurse smoothing 'me piller.' You can't fool ME with a pipe-dream like this.Palford's easier; he's not a New Yorker.He says it IS true, and I can't get out of it.""Whew! Great Jakes!" A long breath was exhaled all round the table.

"What are you, anyhow?" cried Jim Bowles across the dishes.

Tembarom rested his elbow on the edge of the table and began to check off his points on his fingers.

"I'm this, he said: "I'm Temple Temple Barholm, Esquire, of Temple Barholm, Lancashire, England.At the time of the flood my folks knocked up a house just about where the ark landed, and I guess they've held on to it ever since.I don't know what business they went into, but they made money.Palford swears I've got three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.I wasn't going to call the man a liar;but I just missed it, by jings!"

He was trying to "bluff it out." Somehow he felt he had to.He felt it more than ever when a momentary silence fell upon those who sat about the table.It fell when he said "three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year." No one could find voice to make any remark for a few seconds after that.

"Are you a lord--or a duke?" some one asked after breath had recovered itself.

"No, I'm not," he replied with relief."I just got out from under that; but the Lord knows how I did it.""What are you going to do first? " said Jim Bowles.

"I've got to go and 'take possession.' That's what Palford calls it.

I've been a lost heir for nearly two years, and I've got to show myself."Hutchinson had not joined the clamor of greeting, but had grunted disapproval more than once.He felt that, as an Englishman, he had a certain dignity to maintain.He knew something about big estates and their owners.He was not like these common New York chaps, who regarded them as Arabian Nights tales to make jokes about.He had grown up as a village boy in proper awe of Temple Barholm.They were ignorant fools, this lot.He had no patience with them.He had left the village and gone to work in Manchester when he was a boy of twelve, but as long as he had remained in his mother's cottage it had been only decent good manners for him to touch his forehead respectfully when a Temple Barholm, or a Temple Barholm guest or carriage or pony phaeton, passed him by.And this chap was Mr.Temple Temple Barholm himself! Lord save us!

Little Ann said nothing at all; but, then, she seldom said anything during meal-times.When the rest of the boarders laughed, she ate her dinner and smiled.Several times, despite her caution, Tembarom caught her eye, and somehow held it a second with his.She smiled at him when this happened; but there was something restless and eager in his look which made her wish to evade it.She knew what he felt, and she knew why he kept up his jokes and never once spoke seriously.She knew he was not comfortable, and did not enjoy talking about hundreds of thousands a year to people who worked hard for ten or twenty "per."To-morrow morning was very near, she kept thinking.To-morrow night she would be lying in her berth in the steerage, or more probably taking care of her father, who would be very uncomfortable.

"What will Galton do? " Mr.Striper asked.

"I don't know," Tembarom answered, and he looked troubled.Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year might not be able to give aid to a wounded society page.

"What are you going to do with your Freak? " called out Julius Steinberger.

Tembarom actually started.As things had surged over him, he had had too much to think over.He had not had time to give to his strange responsibility; it had become one nevertheless.

"Are you going to leave him behind when you go to England?"He leaned forward and put his chin on his hand.

"Why, say," he said, as though he were thinking it out, "he's spoken about England two or three times.He's said he must go there.By jings! I'll take him with me, and see what'll happen."When Little Ann got up to leave the room he followed her and her father into the hall.

"May I come up and talk it over with you?" he appealed."I've got to talk to some one who knows something about it.I shall go dotty if Idon't.It's too much like a dream."

"Come on up when you're ready," answered Hutchinson."Ann and me can give you a tip or two.""I'm going to be putting the last things in the trunks," said Ann, "but I dare say you won't mind that.The express'll be here by eight in the morning.""0 Lord!" groaned Tembarom.

When he went up to the fourth floor a little later, Hutchinson had fallen into a doze in his chair over his newspaper, and Ann was kneeling by a trunk in the hall, folding small articles tightly, and fitting them into corners.To Tembarom she looked even more than usual like a slight child thing one could snatch up in one's arms and carry about or set on one's knee without feeling her weight at all.An inferior gas-jet on the wall just above her was doing its best with the lot of soft, red hair, which would have been an untidy bundle if it had not been hers.

Tembarom sat down on the trunk next to her.