THE NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY.
Lord Lymington, M.P., relates the following amusing tale of his experience with an inquiring and hospitable gentleman in Arkansas:—“He introduced himself to me very kindly on learning that I was a traveller and an Englishman,
and offered me the hospitalities of the town. It was very obliging of him, but unfortunately I could not stay, so we had a chat while I was waiting for the train. During this chat his eye fell on a portmanteau of mine which I had caused to be marked, for convenience sake and easy identification, with the cabalistic figures 120. This he scanned for some time with ill-concealed curiosity, and finally, turning to me, said rather abruptly, ‘If I am not mistaken, you are a nobleman, are you not?’ I admitted that such was my unhappy lot. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘I presume that number there on your valise is what they call in the nobility armorial bearings, is it not—in fact, your crest?’ ‘Hardly that,’ I modestly replied. ‘A number is only borne as a crest, I believe, by much more illustrious persons—for example, the Beast in the Apocalypse.’ ‘Oh!’ he replied, and then, after meditating a moment or two, asked, ‘Have your family been long in England?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they have been there for some time. But why do you ask?’ ‘Perhaps the number refers,’ he replied, ‘to the number of generations, just as they recite them in the Old Testament, you know?’ ‘Yes,’ I unhesitatingly and with prompt mendacity replied, ‘that is exactly it, and I don’t see how you hit it so cleverly.’ He smiled all over with delight as the train rushed up, and waved kind farewells to me as long as we were in sight.”