Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich | Page 8

"Oh, extremely so--quite uncontrollable."
On which the titled visitor was all excitement to start for Wisconsin at once, even before
Mr. Boulder's invitation was put in words.
And when he returned a week later, all tanned and wearing bush-whackers' boots, and
covered with wolf bites, his whole available fortune was so completely invested in Mr.
Boulder's securities that you couldn't have shaken twenty-five cents out of him upside
down.
Yet the whole thing had been done merely incidentally round a big fire under the
Wisconsin timber, with a dead wolf or two lying in the snow.
So no wonder that Mr. Fyshe did not propose to invite Mr. Boulder to his little dinner. No,
indeed. In fact, his one aim was to keep Mr. Boulder and his log house hidden from the
Duke.
And equally no wonder that as soon as Mr. Boulder read of the Duke's arrival in New
York, and saw by the Commercial Echo and Financial Undertone that he might come to
the City looking for investments, he telephoned at once to his little place in
Wisconsin--which had, of course, a primeval telephone wire running to it--and told his
steward to have the place well aired and good fires lighted; and he especially enjoined
him to see if any of the shanty men thereabouts could catch a wolf or two, as he might
need them.
"Is no one else coming then?" asked the rector.
"Oh yes. President Boomer of the University. We shall be a party of four. I thought the
Duke might be interested in meeting Boomer. He may care to hear something of the

archaeological remains of the continent."
If the Duke did so care, he certainly had a splendid chance in meeting the gigantic Dr.
Boomer, the president of Plutoria University.
If he wanted to know anything of the exact distinction between the Mexican Pueblo and
the Navajo tribal house, he had his opportunity right now. If he was eager to hear a short
talk--say half an hour--on the relative antiquity of the Neanderthal skull and the gravel
deposits of the Missouri, his chance had come. He could learn as much about the stone
age and the bronze age, in America, from President Boomer, as he could about the gold
age and the age of paper securities from Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Boulder.
So what better man to meet a duke than an archaeological president?
And if the Duke should feel inclined, as a result of his American visit (for Dr. Boomer,
who knew everything, understood what the Duke had come for), inclined, let us say, to
endow a chair in Primitive Anthropology, or do any useful little thing of the sort, that was
only fair business all round; or if he even was willing to give a moderate sum towards the
general fund of Plutoria University--enough, let us say, to enable the president to dismiss
an old professor and hire a new one-that surely was reasonable enough.
The president, therefore, had said yes to Mr. Fyshe's invitation with alacrity, and had
taken a look through the list of his more incompetent professors to refresh his memory.
The Duke of Dulham had landed in New York five days before and had looked round
eagerly for a field of turnips, but hadn't seen any. He had been driven up Fifth Avenue
and had kept his eyes open for potatoes, but there were none. Nor had he seen any
shorthorns in Central Park, nor any Southdowns on Broadway. For the Duke, of course,
like all dukes, was agricultural from his Norfolk jacket to his hobnailed boots.
At his restaurant he had cut a potato in two and sent half of it to the head waiter to know
if it was Bermudian. It had all the look of an early Bermudian, but the Duke feared from
the shading of it that it might be only a late Trinidad. And the head waiter sent it to the
chef, mistaking it for a complaint, and the chef sent it back to the Duke with a message
that it was not a Bermudian but a Prince Edward Island. And the Duke sent his
compliments to the chef, and the chef sent his compliments to the Duke. And the Duke
was so pleased at learning this that he had a similar potato wrapped up for him to take
away, and tipped the head waiter twenty-five cents, feeling that in an extravagant country
the only thing to do is to go the people one better. So the Duke carried the potato round
for five days in New York and showed it to everybody. But beyond this he got no sign of
agriculture out of the place at all. No one who entertained him seemed to know what the
beef that they gave him