CHAPTER XII.
TOPPLETON MAKES A FAIR START.
A FEW weeks later Toppleton was able to report progress to his invisible client. He had the sonnet to Barncastle of Burningford and was much pleased with it, because, in spite of the fact that it was two lines too long, he was confident that it would prove very fetching to the man to whom it was addressed.
"You ought to take out those two extra lines, though," said the exile.
"Barncastle is a great stickler for form, and he will be antagonized at once by your violation of the rules."
"Not a bit of it," returned Toppleton. "Those lines stay right there, and I"ll tell you why. In the first place Barncastle, as an Englishman, will see in the imperfect sonnet something that will strike him as a bit of American audacity, which will be very pleasing to him, and will give him something to talk about. As a Briton you are probably aware that your countrymen are very fond of discovering outrages of that sort in the work of those over the sea, because it is a sort of convincing proof that the American as a writer is still an inferior, and that England"s controlling interest in the Temple of Immortality is in no danger of pa.s.sing into alien hands. In the second place, he will be so pleased with the extra amount of flattery that is crammed into those two lines that he will not have the heart to criticize them; and thirdly, as one who knows it all, he will be prompted to send for me to come to him, in order that he may point out to me in a friendly spirit one or two little imperfections in what he will call my otherwise exquisite verse. I tell you what it is, Edward," said Toppleton, pausing a moment, "I never devoted myself with any particular a.s.siduity to Latin, Greek, or mathematics, but when it comes to human nature, I am, as we New Yorkers say, a daisy, which means that I am the flower upon which you may safely bet as against the field."
"You certainly have an ingenious mind, Hopkins," returned the exile, "and I hope it will all go as you say, but I fear, Hopkins, I fear."
"Wait and see," was Hopkins" confident reply, and being unable to do otherwise the exile obeyed.
In three days the sonnet was printed, and so fixed that it appeared to be a clipping from the _Rocky Mountain Quarterly Review, a Monthly Magazine_.
"That"ll strike him as another interesting Americanism," said Hopkins, with a chuckle. "There is no people on earth but my own who would dare publish a quarterly twelve times a year."
To the sonnet was appended the name "Hopkins Parkerberry Toppleton;"
Parkerberry being a novelty introduced into the signature by the young lawyer, not because he was at all ent.i.tled to it, but for the proper reason, as he said, that no American poet was worth a nickel who hadn"t three sections to his name. A note with a distinctly western flavour to it was penned, and with the "decoy" sonnet went that night to Burningford Castle addressed to "His Excellency, Lord Barncastle," and then Toppleton and the exile sat down to await the result.
They had not many days to wait, for within a week of the dispatch of the poem and the note Hopkins, on reaching the office one morning, found the exile in a great state of excitement over a square envelope lying on the floor immediately under the letter slot Hopkins had had made in the door.
"It"s come, Hopkins, it"s come!" cried the exile.
"What"s come?" queried Hopkins, calmly.
"The letter from Barncastle. I recognize my handwriting. It came last night about five minutes after you left the office, and I have been in a fever of excitement to learn its contents ever since. Do open it at once. What does he say?"
"Be patient, Edward, don"t get so excited. Suppose you were to have an apoplectic stroke!"
"I can"t be patient, and I can"t have apoplexy, so do hurry. What do I say?"
"Seems to me," returned Hopkins, picking up the letter and slowly opening it, "it seems to me you are getting confused. But let"s see; what _does_ Barncastle say? H"m!" he said, reading the note.
""Barncastle Hall, Fenwick Morton, Mascottonton-on-the-Barbundle, December 19th, 189--. Hopkins Parkerberry Toppleton, Esquire, 17, Temple, London. Dear Sir,--I have to thank you for your favour and enclosure of the 13th inst. Your sonnet is but one of a thousand gratifying evidences I am daily receiving that I have managed to win to no inconsiderable degree the good will of your countrymen. It is also evidence to me that you are a young man of much talent in the line of original versification, since, apart from the sentiment you express, your sonnet is one of the most original I have ever seen, not only for its length, but also for the wonderful mixture of your metaphor. It is truly characteristic of your great and growing country, and I cannot resist your nave appeal to be permitted to meet the unworthy object of its praise. I should be gratified to have you to dinner at Barncastle Hall, at eight o"clock on the evening of December 23rd, 189--. Kindly inform me by return post if your engagements will permit us to have the pleasure of having you with us on that evening. Believe me to be, with sentiments of regard, ever, my dear sir, faithfully yours, BARNCASTLE.""
"By heavens!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the exile, in delighted accents, "you"ve got there, Hopkins, you"ve got there. You"ll go, of course?"
"Well, rather," returned Toppleton; "and to carry out the illusion, as well as to pique his interest in America, I"ll wear a blue dress coat.
But first let me reply."
"Dear Barncastle," he wrote. "I"ll be there. Yours for keeps,--TOPPLETON."
"How"s that?" he asked, reading it aloud to the exile.
"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."
"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 bra.s.s b.u.t.tons 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, 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 are nil, for I would like to wager you that your n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed 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 unt.i.tled mortal like Toppleton even a.s.suming 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 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 a.s.sembled mult.i.tude 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 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, 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 un.o.bserved, 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt, 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 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. n.o.body 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-cla.s.s 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 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."