“That’s wot ’appens w’en foreigners goes hup against Henglish guns,” he said proudly; and, at once, added disappointedly. “But Hi do wish my aim was better. Hi do wish that.”
Thought in Roseborough usually moved like molasses below zero, even when Roseborough had not been up all night. It should have been easy, otherwise, for Mrs. Witherby or Mrs. Mearely to identify the pseudo prince from some of the phrases in the real prince’s tirade against him. One or two phrases uttered by Prince Adam, however, could not make Mrs. Mearely forget that she had been deceived; nor could they enlighten Mrs. Witherby, who found it more enjoyable to revive all her old suspicions—which dated, and gathered momentum from the absence of Amanda, Jemima and Blake, and the simultaneous appearance of the rose-and-silver gown. She recalled the sly jibes she had been obliged to bear submissively rather than offend Royalty, and her temper flew to the masthead like a regatta display—all primary colours, and chiefly red. She hurled her fury first upon the vagabond:
“Oh, the miserable upstart! The thief! The villain! As to you, Mrs. Mearely, let us see if you’ll hold your head high in Roseborough after the tale I’ll tell. You’ll make a fool of me, will you, with your ‘prince’? Oh, indeed! Let me tell you, you’ll never have a reputation again. I know you. Trying to escape with such tales. You villain! You counterfeiter! Oh! When I think how I’ve scraped and kow-towed to you!” She concluded with a direct attack upon the mock prince, even as she had begun.
“’Im thinkin’ ’e looks like the King of Hengland!” Officer Marks was bellicose about that delusion. “’E’s a himpostor!”
The vagabond was prevented from offering a third interpretation of himself by Mrs. Lee’s advent. She came in, all tender distress, and put her arms about Rosamond as if to protect something precious to herself.
“Oh, my dear. You are all right, unhurt? Susannah Potts stopped just now, and told me of your fright—the excitement—and, oh, such a tale! She was on her way to do a day’s cleaning at the Kilroys, and saw me in my garden, and told me that Maria had sat up in a bedquilt all night at the telephone, and had rung your number twenty-nine times! When one has no telephone one misses a great deal. But you should have sent someone to wake me. It was just your sweet thoughtfulness, not to break an old woman’s sleep.” She patted Rosamond’s cheek.
The vagabond had watched her, from the moment of her appearance, with affectionate eyes. He stepped forward now. Sixteen years had changed him—turned a long, slender boy into a compact broad-shouldered man, written in his face much more than the simple tales of the First Primer. Had they met on the road, she might not have known him. It was not his outward person that she recognized now; but she knew that attitude of head held forward and bent in humility; hands thrust deep into coat pockets, and black eyes, apparently downcast, but in reality gleaming through half-closed lids, while he mutely asked pardon for some outrageous prank, and at the same time flashed the impudent news that he would not undo it if he could, no, not for a wilderness of monkeys.
“Who was the dreadful man,” Mrs. Lee was asking when she caught sight of him. “Why—who—who? Jack! Jack, my dear boy—Oh, my dear boy.” She went to him with open arms and embraced him and crooned over him.
“Yes, Mother Lee. I’m home again.” He kissed her cheek. “But you didn’t tell me that you don’t live here any more! So it was I, Mother Lee. I was the tramp.”
“Oh Jack!” she laughed happily, though her eyes were wet. “And then you told some story and kept it up. Just the same, naughty Jack.” She held his arm in hers as she beamed delightedly at the others. “So now you all know one another, and I needn’t make any introductions. And see how wonderfully it came about, too—just as I longed to have it, Mrs. Mearely! My Jack and Roseborough met without knowing that they were Jack Falcon and Roseborough, and so they found out each other’s true selves at once. How beautiful!”