Toppleton's Client; Or, A Spirit in Exile by John Kendrick Bangs (e book reader for pc txt) 📗

"How's that?" he asked, reading it aloud to the exile.[189]

"You're not going to send that, are you?" said the exile in disgust.

"I'm not, eh? Well just you watch me and see," said Toppleton. "Why, Edward, that will be the biggest coup of the lot. He will get that letter, and he will be amused by it, and the more he thinks of it the more he'll like it, and then he'll say to himself, 'why, this man is a character;' and then do you know what will happen, Chatford?"

"I'll be hanged if I do," growled the exile.

"Well, I'll tell you. He will invite all the high panjandrums he knows to that dinner to meet me, and he will tell them that I am an original, and they'll all come, Chatford, just as they would flock to see a seven-humped camel or a dwarf eight feet high, and then I will have Lord Barncastle of Burningford just where I want him. I could browbeat him for weeks alone and never frighten him, but once I let him know that I know his secret, in the presence of his wife and a brilliant company, he will be apprehensive, and, if I mistake not, will be more or less within my reach."

"Lady Barncastle is no longer living," said the exile. "His household is presided over by his daughter."

"Very well," said Hopkins. "We'll dazzle the daughter too."[190]

"Is this the way American lawyers do business generally?" sneered the exile.

"No," returned Toppleton; "there is probably not another American lawyer who would take a case like yours. That's the one respect in which they resemble your English lawyers, but I'll tell you one thing. When they start in to do a thing they do it, unless their clients get too fresh, and then they stop in medias res."

"I hope there is nothing personal in your remarks, Hopkins," said the exile, uneasily.

"That all depends on you," retorted Hopkins. "Despite your croakings and fears, the first step we have taken has proven justifiable. We have accomplished what we set out to accomplish. I am invited to meet the fiend. Score one point for us. Now, when I advance a proposition for the scoring of a second point, you sneer. Well, sneer. I'll win the case for you, just to spite you. This despised note posted to Barncastle, I shall order a blue dress coat with brass buttons on it. I shall purchase, if it is to be found in London, one of those beaver hats on which the fur is knee deep, a red necktie, and a diamond stud. My trousers I shall have cut to fit the contour of my calves like a glove. I shall sport the largest silver watch to be found on the Strand,[191] with a gold chain heavy enough to sustain a weight of five hundred pounds; in short, Chatford, you won't be able to distinguish me from one of Teniel's caricatures of Uncle Sam."

"You won't be able to deceive Barncastle that way. He's seen New Yorkers before."

"Barncastle doesn't know I'm a New Yorker, and he won't find it out. He thinks I'm from the Rocky Mountains, and he knows enough about geography to be aware that the Rocky Mountains aren't within two hours' walk of Manhattan Island. He knows that there is a vast difference between a London gentleman and a son of the soil of Yorkshire, and he doesn't know but what there are a million citizens of our great republic who go about dressed up in fantastic garments similar to those I shall wear to his dinner. If he is surprised, his surprise will add to his interest, and materially contribute to the pleasure of those whom he invites to see the animal the untamed poet of the Rockies. See?"

"Yes, I see," said the exile. "But clothes won't make the illusion complete. You look too much like a gentleman; your manners are too polished. A man like Barncastle will see through you in a minute."

"Again, Chatford, I am sorry that your possessions[192] are nil, for I would like to wager you that your noble other self will do nothing of the sort. I have not been an amateur actor for nothing, and as for manners I can be as bad mannered as any nabob in creation if I try. Don't you worry on that score."

The acceptance of Lord Barncastle's invitation was therefore sent as Hopkins wrote it, and the ensuing days were passed by the young lawyer in preparing the extraordinary dinner suit he had described to his anxious client, who could hardly be persuaded that in taking this step Toppleton was not committing a bit of egregious folly. He could not comprehend how Barncastle upon receipt of Hopkins' note could be anything but displeased at the familiarity of its tone. The idea of a common untitled mortal like Toppleton even assuming to be upon familiar terms with a member of the aristocracy, and especially one so high as Barncastle of Burningford, oppressed him. He would as soon expect an ordinary tradesman to slap the Prince of Wales on the back, and call him by one of his first names, without giving offence, as that Barncastle should tolerate Toppleton's behaviour, and he in consequence was fearful of the outcome.

Toppleton, on the other hand, went ahead[193] with his extraordinary sartorial preparations, serenely confident that the events of the next few days would justify his course. The exile was relieved to find that the plan was of necessity modified, owing to Toppleton's inability to find a typical Uncle Sam beaver in London; but his relief was short-lived, for Hopkins immediately proceeded to remedy this defect by purchasing a green cotton umbrella, which, he said, was perhaps better than the hat as an evidence of eccentricity.

"If I cling to that umbrella all through dinner, Chatford," said Toppleton, with a twinkle in his eye, "preferring rather to part with life, honour, or virtue than lose sight of it, I will simply make an impression upon the minds of that assembled multitude that they'll not forget in a hurry."

"They'll think as I do," sighed the exile. "They'll think you are a craz—"

"What?" asked Toppleton, sharply.

"They'll think you are a genius," returned the exile humbly and quickly too, fearing lest Toppleton should take offence. "Have you—er—have you considered what Barncastle's servants will think of this strange performance? They won't let you into the house, in the first place," he added, to cover his retreat.

"I shall be admitted to the house by Barncastle[194] himself; for I prophesy that his curiosity to meet this Rocky Mountain poet will be so great that he will be at the railway station to greet me in person. Besides," continued Toppleton, "why should I care what his servants think? I never had nor ever knew any one who had a servant whose thoughts were worth thinking. A servant who can think becomes in my country a servant of the people, not the lackey of the individual. Furthermore, I am after high game, and servants form no part of my plan. They are not in it. When I go out on a lion hunt I don't bother my head about or waste my ammunition upon beasts of burden. I am loaded to the muzzle for the purpose of bringing down Barncastle. If he can't be brought down without the humbling of his butler, why, then, his butler must bite the dust. If I become an object of suspicion to the flunkies, I shall not concern myself about it unless they become unpleasant, and if they become unpleasant I shall corrupt them. I'll buy every flunkey in the house, if it costs a five-pound note."

"Well, go your own gait," said the exile, not much impressed by Toppleton's discourse. "If you are not clapped into a lunatic asylum, I shall begin to believe that the age of miracles is still extant; not that I think you crazy, Hopkins,[195] but these others do not know you as well as I do. For my part, I think that by going to Barncastle's as your own handsome, frank, open-hearted self, you will accomplish more than you will in this masquerade."

"Your flattery saves your cause," said Hopkins. "I cannot be indignant, as I ought, with a man who calls me handsome, frank, and open-hearted, but you must remember this: in spite of your long absence from your body, you retain all the commonplace weakness of your quondam individuality. You would have me do the commonplace thing you yourself would have done thirty years ago. If there is a common, ordinary, uninteresting individual in the world, it is the handsome, frank, and open-hearted man. You find him everywhere—in hut and in palace, in village, town, and city. He is the man who goes through life unobserved, who gets his name in the paper three times in his lifetime, and always at somebody else's expense. Once when he is born, once when he marries, and once when he dies, and it is a paid advertisement, not an earned one, each time. The first is paid for by his parents, the second by his father-in-law, the third by his executors. People like him well enough, but no one ever cares enough about him to hate him. His conversation ranges from babies—if he has any[196] himself—through the weather to politics. Beyond these subjects he has nothing to say, and he rarely dines out, save with the parson, the candidate, or the man who wants to get the best of him in a business transaction. He is an idol at home, a zero abroad. Nobody is interested in him, and he would as likely be found dining with the Khedive of Egypt as with Lord Barncastle, and I'll wager that, even if he should in some mysterious manner receive an invitation to lend his gracious presence to the Barncastle board, he would be as little in evidence as an object of interest as the scullery-maid. Were I to accept your advice, Chatford, Barncastle's guests would be bored, Barncastle himself would be disappointed, and your chance of ever becoming the animating spirit of your own body would correspondingly diminish. Only by a bold stroke is success to be obtained. The means I am about adopting are revolting to me as a man of taste, but for the sake of our cause I am willing to stifle my natural desire to appear as a gentleman, to sink my true individuality, and to go as a freak."

"But why do you think you will succeed, Hopkins? Even granting that you make a first-class freak, has it really ever happened that idiocy—I say idiocy here not to imply that I think you are an idiot, understand me—has it[197] ever happened that a freak succeeds with us where that better, truer standard which is represented by you as you really are has failed?"

"Not exactly that way," replied Hopkins. "But this has happened. Your Englishmen have flocked by the tens of thousands to see, and have been interested by an American Wild West show, where tens of hundreds have straggled in to witness the thoughtful Shakespearian productions of our most intellectual tragedians. Barncastle can have a refined, quiet, gentlemanly appearing person at his table three hundred and sixty-five times a year. He can get what I am going to give him but once in a lifetime, so say no more about it. I am set in my determination to stand or fall in the manner I have indicated."

"All right," said the exile. "I've nothing more to say; but there's one thing mighty certain. I'm going with you. I want to witness your triumph."

"Very well," said Toppleton. "Come along. But if you do, leave that infernal whistle of yours home, or there'll be trouble."

"I'm hardly anything else but a whistle. I can't help whistling, you know."

"Then there are only two things to be done. You must either get yourself set to the tune of Yankee Doodle, or stay right here. I'm not[198] going to have my plans upset by any such buoy like tootle-toot as you are when you get excited."

"Perhaps, on the whole, I'd better stay home."

"I think you had," said Toppleton. "You would be sure to whistle before we were out of the woods."

Hopkins and his invisible client had hardly finished this interview when the tailor's boy arrived, bringing with him the fantastic garments Hopkins had ordered, and almost simultaneously there came a second letter from Barncastle of Burningford, which set many of the exile's fears at rest, and gave Toppleton good reason to believe that for the first part of his plan all was plain sailing. Barncastle's note was very short, but it was a welcome one, for it acknowledged the receipt of Toppleton's "characteristically American acceptance to dine," and closed with an expression of Barncastle's hope that Hopkins would become one of his guests for the Christmas holidays at the Hall.

"See, there!" said Hopkins, triumphantly. "That is the way my plans work."

"You are a Napoleon!" ejaculated the exile.

"Not quite," returned Hopkins, drily. "I[199] won't have any Waterloo in mine; but say, Edward, let's try on our Uncle Sam's."

"Let's!" echoed the exile. "I am anxious to see how we look."

"There!" said Toppleton, ten minutes later, as he grasped the green cotton umbrella, and arrayed in the blue dress coat and red tie and other peculiar features