“Then just read that.” He flung a newspaper through the crack in Frothingham’s door onto his bed.
Frothingham took the paper and instantly caught the names of Rontivogli and Blickenstern in the largest headlines. He began eagerly upon a three-column article, the most of it under a New York date line.
“Ain’t that cruel?” called Wallingford. “Ain’t it a soaker?”
“Um,” replied Frothingham, too busy to pause.
It was an account of a suit brought by Blickenstern against Rontivogli to collect a note for twenty-five hundred dollars. The “sensation” lay in a document which Blickenstern had attached to the note and had filed with the papers in the suit—a contract, reading:
I, Cosimo di Rontivogli, hereby agree to pay Count Eitel zu Blickenstern twenty-five hundred dollars as soon as he has introduced me to the persons whose names are written upon the back of this contract in my handwriting. And I further agree to pay him an additional twenty-five hundred dollars within one month after I become engaged to an American lady, whether or not I am introduced to her by him. And I further agree to pay him an additional ten thousand dollars within three months after my marriage with an American lady, whether or not he introduced me to her.
(Signed) Cosimo di Rontivogli.
This contract, the newspaper said, was in Rontivogli’s autograph, and was witnessed by two clerks at the Holland House; on the back of the contract, and also in Rontivogli’s autograph, were the names of fifteen fashionable and rich New York women. Frothingham glanced at the names—he knew the bearers of most of them—and hastened on into Blickenstern’s interview. “In Europe,” he had said to the reporter, “I should call the fellow out and kill him. Here, where the duel does not exist, I must take the only redress open to me for his betrayal of my friendship. I asked him to pay only the note. In fact he owes me five thousand, as he is now engaged to a Washington heiress. He is a black rascal. If you will send to Milan you can get a fine tale of how he happened to come to your country. I owe all my American friends an apology for introducing him. I confess with shame that but for me he would have known no one.”
The article went on with an account of Rontivogli’s engagement to “Miss Elsie Pope, one of the best known young women in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York society, the only daughter of Senator John C. Pope, reputed to be the third richest man in the Millionaires’ Club, as the Senate is called.” Then followed Rontivogli’s sweeping denial, and his denunciation of the Prussian as a “blackmailer,” a “notorious card-sharp,” a “thorough scoundrel.”
When Frothingham finished he said, “Gad, what a facer for Miss Pope!”