Shandygaff | Page 5

"Verne is in town to-day; the English poet, you know. Grandson of old

Jules Verne. I'm going to put him up at my house. I wish you'd take
him around to the club for lunch some day while he's here. He ought to
meet some of the men there. I've been corresponding with him for a
long time, and I--I'm afraid I rather promised to take him round there,
as though I were a member, you know."
"Great snakes!" cried Bolles. "Verne? the author of 'Candle Light'? And
you're going to put him up? You lucky devil. Why, the man's bigger
than Masefield. Take him to lunch--I should say I will; Why, I'll put
him in the colyum. Both of you come round there to-morrow and we'll
have an orgy. I'll order larks' tongues and convolvulus salad. I didn't
know you knew him."
"I don't--yet," said Stockton. "I'm going down to meet his steamer this
afternoon."
"Well, that's great news," said the volatile humourist. And he ran
downstairs to buy the book of which he had so often heard but had
never read.
The sight of Bolles' well-cut suit of tweeds had reminded Stockton that
he was still wearing the threadbare serge that had done duty for three
winters, and would hardly suffice for the honours to come. Hastily he
blue-pencilled his proofs, threw them into the wire basket, and hurried
outdoors to seek the nearest tailor. He stopped at the bank first, to draw
out fifty dollars for emergencies. Then he entered the first clothier's
shop he encountered on Nassau Street.
Mr. Stockton was a nervous man, especially so in the crises when he
was compelled to buy anything so important as a suit, for usually Mrs.
Stockton supervised the selection. To-day his Unlucky star was in the
zenith. His watch pointed to close on two o'clock, and he was afraid he
might be late for the steamer, which docked far uptown. In his haste,
and governed perhaps by some subconscious recollection of the
humourist's attractive shaggy tweeds, he allowed himself to be fitted
with an ochre-coloured suit of some fleecy checked material
grotesquely improper for his unassuming figure. It was the kind of
cloth and cut that one sees only in the windows of Nassau Street.

Happily he was unaware of the enormity of his offence against society,
and rapidly transferring his belongings to the new pockets, he paid
down the purchase price and fled to the subway.
When he reached the pier at the foot of Fourteenth Street he saw that
the steamer was still in midstream and it would be several minutes
before she warped in to the dock. He had no pass from the steamship
office, but on showing his newspaperman's card the official admitted
him to the pier, and he took his stand at the first cabin gangway,
trembling a little with nervousness, but with a pleasant feeling of
excitement no less. He gazed at the others waiting for arriving
travellers and wondered whether any of the peers of American letters
had come to meet the poet. A stoutish, neatly dressed gentleman with a
gray moustache looked like Mr. Howells, and he thrilled again. It was
hardly possible that he, the obscure reviewer, was the only one who had
been notified of Verne's arrival. That tall, hawk-faced man whose
limousine was purring outside must be a certain publisher he knew by
sight.
What would these gentlemen say when they learned that the poet was
to stay with Kenneth Stockton, in New Utrecht? He rolled up the
mustard-coloured trousers one more round--they were much too long
for him--and watched the great hull slide along the side of the pier with
a peculiar tingling shudder that he had not felt since the day of his
wedding.
He expected no difficulty in recognizing Finsbury Verne, for he was
very familiar with his photograph. As the passengers poured down the
slanting gangway, all bearing the unmistakable air and stamp of
superiority that marks those who have just left the sacred soil of
England, he scanned the faces with an eye of keen regard. To his
surprise he saw the gentlemen he had marked respectively as Mr.
Howells and the publisher greet people who had not the slightest
resemblance to the poet, and go with them to the customs alcoves.
Traveller after traveller hurried past him, followed by stewards carrying
luggage; gradually the flow of people thinned, and then stopped
altogether, save for one or two invalids who were being helped down

the incline by nurses. And still no sign of Finsbury Verne.
Suddenly a thought struck him. Was it possible that--the second class?
His eye brightened and he hurried to the gangway, fifty yards farther
down the pier, where the second-cabin passengers were disembarking.
There were more of the latter, and