But they noticed my absence at length and called
to me. Monstrously I was desired to drink to the happiness of the
groom. I thought they were pressing me too far, but as they quite
gabbled now with their tea and things, I hoped to pass it off. The
Senator, however, seemed to fasten me with his eye as he proposed the
toast--"To the happy man!"
I drank perforce.
"A body would think Bill was drinking to the Judge," remarked Cousin
Egbert in a high voice.
"Eh?" I said, startled to this outburst by his strange words.
"Good old George!" exclaimed his lordship. "Owe it all to the old
juggins, what, what!"
The Klondike person spoke. I heard her voice as a bell pealing through
breakers at sea. I mean to say, I was now fair dazed.
"Not to old George," said she. "To old Ruggles!"
"To old Ruggles!" promptly cried the Senator, and they drank.
Muddled indeed I was. Again in my eventful career I felt myself
tremble; I knew not what I should say, any _savoir faire_ being
quite gone. I had received a crumpler of some sort--but what
_sort?_
My sleeve was touched. I turned blindly, as in a nightmare. The Hobbs
cub who was my vestiare was handing me our evening paper. I took it
from him, staring--staring until my knees grew weak. Across the page
in clarion type rang the unbelievable words:
BRITISH PEER WINS AMERICAN BRIDE
His Lordship Tenth Earl of Brinstead to Wed One of Red Gap's
Fairest Daughters
My hands so shook that in quick subterfuge I dropped the sheet, then
stooped for it, trusting to control myself before I again raised my
face.
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