“There was no other place—that is handy—where the ladies could see it and be comfortably seated, Miss Adelaide.”
“Then there ought to have been a place made, Mr. Bombs, and if there couldn’t have been, then you ought not to have sent it off at all. You know you had not, and I shall always blame you for it. It was very, very wrong.”
“I see!” laughed Bombs. “You are on your blaming expedition this morning, Miss Adelaide. You are right about having a place made, though. There ought to be for large works; and when I get my historical piece done there will be a place on purpose for it—a large place—a sort of a grand amphitheatre something like the old Roman but Americanized and more enjoyable. That’s my ambition. I have got through even with tourbillions.”
CHAPTER XIV.
SCHWARMER’S THREATENED ARREST.
Mr. Schwarmer was a man who talked very bluntly, so he admitted, but he expected to give his hearers the impression that his bluntness was simply a species of noble frankness. The next day but one after Independence Day, he informed the few acquaintances whom he happened to meet at the depot, that he was obliged to return to the city at once for two reasons. The first was a rise in stocks and the second was to see his family off on the steamer, but that he would return on the fifteenth of the month and arrest and punish the chief leaders in the plot which had resulted in the destruction of his property.
For once or rather for the first time in his dealings with the Killsbury community, his bluntness was taken literally and turned to good account. A mass meeting was not called but there was a great deal of calling and consulting among the women of the town. Ruth Cornwallis Norwood was very busy during the interval of expectancy. She set her own wits to work and inspired others to do the same. The result was that rather a novel plan was proposed—“So novel that it was funny,” said the President’s wife; but the more they talked and laughed about it, the more they thought they would try it. They assumed to begin, with that they instead of their husbands were the chief leaders or instigators in the destruction of the Schwarmer property. Ruth was duly charged with and promptly confessed being at the head of the whole affair. Therefore it was resolved that when the dread day came and the dread form of Millionaire Schwarmer was apparent on the Hill, they would not wait to be arrested. They would call on him in a body and deliver themselves up. They reasoned that it would be a pity to put him to the trouble of arresting them singly; besides it would be a great expense to the town. They supposed that the citizens of the town would have to pay for all the arrests and they felt sure that they couldn’t afford to—or at least that they had a right to cut down their own expenses wherever they chose. They had other ideas in their heads also. Some of them could make speeches and delivering themselves up to Mr. Schwarmer gave them a chance.
In an interview with President Hartling, he said: