"Ah! And now the Lady Rosalind! They don't tell ages in this book, do they? Don't put the price-tags on, either. Rosalind—well, she just can't help it when you come to study the dope-sheet. On form, I'd back the Lady Rosalind to be a front runner in any company. Ow! Nothing like class—and nothing to it but class!"
The boatman bethought himself of the telegram stowed away in his pocket. Now he examined it again. He sat back in his chair and laughed until that article of furniture creaked.
"Time to go to bed," he said, rising abruptly. "To-morrow may be a right busy day. Who knows?"
He was crawling under his blankets when another thought came to him. Returning to the table, he tore from the Social Register the sacred page devoted to the house of Chalmers. It was closely printed, with marginal notes and annotations.
"I'm going to start a picture-gallery, just to brighten up the shack," he told himself.
After a careful study of the four walls of his cabin, he selected a spot directly opposite the door, and there he securely fastened the printed page into place with pins. Beneath it he affixed the telegram, which had come to him from New York, addressed only to "Sam," and in care of the obscure little hotel where he had found it awaiting him. The telegram said:
Five million. Unattached. Bidding brisk.
There was no signature.
The boatman stepped back, surveyed his work, and grinned. Then he darted to a corner shelf, devoted to a motley collection of odds and ends, and returned with a piece of chalk. Underneath the page from Hamersly's and its appended telegram he printed in bold letters:
PORTRAIT OF A LADY