The American Claimant | Page 9

"Oh, indeed, yes, a many and a many a time."
He continued to gaze at the chair fascinated, magnetized; and for once
in his life that continental stretch of dry prairie which stood for his
imagination was afire, and across it was marching a slanting flamefront
that joined its wide horizons together and smothered the skies with
smoke. He was experiencing what one or another drowsing,
geographically ignorant alien experiences every day in the year when
he turns a dull and indifferent eye out of the car window and it falls
upon a certain station-sign which reads "Stratford-on-Avon!" Mrs.
Sellers went gossiping comfortably along:
"Oh, they like to hear him talk, especially if their load is getting rather
heavy on one shoulder and they want to shift it. He's all air, you
know,--breeze, you may say--and he freshens them up; it's a trip to the
country, they say. Many a time he's made General Grant laugh--and
that's a tidy job, I can tell you, and as for Sheridan, his eye lights up
and he listens to Mulberry Sellers the same as if he was artillery. You
see, the charm about Mulberry is, he is so catholic and unprejudiced
that he fits in anywhere and everywhere. It makes him powerful good
company, and as popular as scandal. You go to the White House when

the President's holding a general reception--sometime when Mulberry's
there. Why, dear me, you can't tell which of them it is that's holding
that reception."
"Well, he certainly is a remarkable man--and he always was. Is he
religious?"
"Clear to his marrow--does more thinking and reading on that subject
than any other except Russia and Siberia: thrashes around over the
whole field, too; nothing bigoted about him."
"What is his religion?"
"He--" She stopped, and was lost for a moment or two in thinking, then
she said, with simplicity, "I think he was a Mohammedan or something
last week."
Washington started down town, now, to bring his trunk, for the
hospitable Sellerses would listen to no excuses; their house must be his
home during the session. The Colonel returned presently and resumed
work upon his plaything. It was finished when Washington got back.
"There it is," said the Colonel, "all finished."
"What is it for, Colonel?"
"Oh, it's just a trifle. Toy to amuse the children."
Washington examined it.
"It seems to be a puzzle."
"Yes, that's what it is. I call it Pigs in the Clover. Put them in--see if
you can put them in the pen."
After many failures Washington succeeded, and was as pleased as a
child.
"It's wonderfully ingenious, Colonel, it's ever so clever and
interesting--why, I could play with it all day. What are you going to do
with it?"
"Oh, nothing. Patent it and throw it aside."
"Don't you do anything of the kind. There's money in that thing."
A compassionate look traveled over the Colonel's countenance, and he
said:
"Money--yes; pin money: a couple of hundred thousand, perhaps. Not
more."
Washington's eyes blazed.
"A couple of hundred thousand dollars! do you call that pin money?"
The colonel rose and tip-toed his way across the room, closed a door

that was slightly ajar, tip-toed his way to his seat again, and said, under
his breath:
"You can keep a secret?"
Washington nodded his affirmative, he was too awed to speak.
"You have heard of materialization--materialization of departed
spirits?"
Washington had heard of it.
"And probably didn't believe in it; and quite right, too. The thing as
practised by ignorant charlatans is unworthy of attention or respect--
where there's a dim light and a dark cabinet, and a parcel of sentimental
gulls gathered together, with their faith and their shudders and their
tears all ready, and one and the same fatty degeneration of protoplasm
and humbug comes out and materializes himself into anybody you want,
grandmother, grandchild, brother-in-law, Witch of Endor, John Milton,
Siamese twins, Peter the Great, and all such frantic nonsense--no, that
is all foolish and pitiful. But when a man that is competent brings the
vast powers of science to bear, it's a different matter, a totally different
matter, you see. The spectre that answers that call has come to stay. Do
you note the commercial value of that detail?"
"Well, I--the--the truth is, that I don't quite know that I do. Do you
mean that such, being permanent, not transitory, would give more
general satisfaction, and so enhance the price--of tickets to the show--"
"Show? Folly--listen to me; and get a good grip on your breath, for you
are going to need it. Within three days I shall have completed my
method, and then--let the world stand aghast, for it shall see marvels.
Washington, within three days--ten at the outside--you shall see me call
the dead of any century, and they