The Daredevil | Page 9

deliver," came in the pleasant voice of that Mr.
William Raines as he raised a very fine hat that made him much better
to look upon than the cap of the steamer, and handed me a large letter. I
took it and came with my head out from under the wave which had
dashed over me.
"Is there anything I can do to help you through the customs?" then
came the nice voice of that Mr. Peter Scudder of Philadelphia from the
other side of me.
"No, with much gratitude to you both; I must wait the arrival of my
Uncle," I made answer to them with my head held very high.
"Then we'll see you at the Ritz for tea at five as per promise," said Mr.
William Raines as he walked away and left Mr. Peter Scudder, who
was assisting the lady from Cincinnati to transport her very lovely dog
to a handsome car which awaited her. She also had I promised to visit
from that great Ritz-Carlton hotel and she smiled in sweet friendliness
to me as I stood with the letter in my hand and watched all of the
friends I had found upon that ship, depart and leave me with not a place
to go. I stood for many minutes motionless and then my eyes perceived
the letter in my hand. Surely it must be opened and read. It was from
the wicked Uncle, I knew, but it might be that it was not of the cruelty
that I had expected. It would excuse him no doubt from arrival in
person for the expected greeting to his relatives, Pierre and myself.
"Go to it, Bob," I advised myself in the language I had heard Mr. Saint
Louis use when he was forced to ask a nice lady, who danced with
disagreeable heaviness, to trot the fox with him because of a friendship
with his mother.
And this is the letter that my eyes read with astonishment, while both
the good Nannette and small shivering Pierre sat with their eyes fixed

upon my countenance:
"My dear nephew Robert:
"Your arrival in America at this time suits me exactly. I need you
immediately in my business. If you had been the girl, instead of the
little one, I would have had to dispose of you some way--even murder.
I have no use for women. Leave the little crippled girl and her nurse,
who I feel sure is an old fool, with my good friend Dr. Mason Burns, of
222 South 32nd St. He has cured more children of hip joint disease than
any man in the world, and he will straighten her out for us and we can
give her away to somebody. I've written him instructions. Leave her
immediately and come down here to me on the first train. The deal is
held up without you. Enclosed is a check for a thousand dollars. If you
are like Henry you'll need it, but keep away from Broadway and the
women. Come on, I say, by next train. Your uncle, Robert Carruthers.
Hayesville, Harpeth."
"The Uncle of America has come to a confusion of the sex between
Pierre and me from a careless memory and the writing of my hand,
which is of a great boldness, but not to be easily read," I explained as I
read the letter aloud to Pierre and Nannette.
It took me just one hour by the clock, sitting there on the pile of
steamer wraps with the small Pierre in the hollow of my arm, to explain
and translate the sense of that letter to old Nannette, and I feel sure she
would have been sitting upon that spot yet immovable rather than let
me depart from her if I had not put all of my time and force upon the
picturing to her of a Pierre who could come down with her later to me
in a condition to run through the gardens of Twin Oaks, which was the
home of his American ancestors. With that vision constantly before her
she let the porter and me insert her into a taxicab and extract her at the
door of the small private hospital of the good Dr. Burns who was to
perform the miracle for the back and hip of small and radiant Pierre.
"But what is it that I do to permit the jeune fille of my beloved mistress
to depart into this city of wicked savages not attended by me? I cannot.
Do not demand it!" were the words with which I left her arguing with

that very sympathetic and sensible doctor of America. He had not
noticed a confusion of sex was between Pierre and me and he had sent
out the check of my wicked Uncle and procured the