Between pictures Harrowby offered an opinion.
"You in America are a jolly lot," he said. "Just fancy our best people in England attending a cinematograph exhibition."
They tried to fancy it, but with his lordship there, they couldn't. Two more pictures ran their filmy lengths, while Mr. Minot sat entranced there in the half dark. It was not the pictures that entranced him. Rather, was it a lady's nearness, the flash of her smile, the hundred and one tones of her voice—all, all again as it had been in that ridiculous automobile—just before the awakening.
After the third picture the lights of the auditorium were turned up, and the hour of vaudeville arrived. On to the stage strolled a pert confident youth garbed in shabby grandeur, who attempted sidewalk repartee. He clipped his jests from barber-shop periodicals, bought his songs from an ex-barroom song writer, and would have gone to the mat with any one who denied that his act was "refined." Mr. Minot, listening to his gibes, thought of the Paddock jest factory and Mrs. Bruce.
When the young man had wrung the last encore from a kindly audience, the drop-curtain was raised and revealed on the stage in gleaming splendor Captain Ponsonby's troupe of trained seals. An intelligent aggregation they proved, balancing balls on their small heads, juggling flaming torches, and taking as their just due lumps of sugar from the captain's hand as they finished each feat. The audience recalled them again and again, and even the peerage was captivated.
"Clever beasts, aren't they?" Lord Harrowby remarked. And as Captain Ponsonby took his final curtain, his lordship added:
"Er—what follows the trained seals?"
The answer to Harrowby's query came almost immediately, and a startling answer it proved to be.
Into the glare of the footlights stepped Mr. Henry Trimmer. His manner was that of the conquering hero. For a moment he stood smiling and bowing before the approving multitude. Then he raised a hand commanding silence.
"My dear friends," he said, "I appreciate this reception. As I said in my handbill of this afternoon, I am working in the interests of justice. The gentleman who accompanies me to your delightful little city is beyond any question whatsoever George Harrowby, the eldest son of the Earl of Raybrook, and as such he is entitled to call himself Lord Harrowby. I know the American people well enough to feel sure that when they realize the facts they will demand that justice be done. That is why I have prevailed upon Lord Harrowby to meet you here in this, your temple of amusement, and put his case before you. His lordship will talk to you for a time with a view to getting acquainted. He has chosen for the subject of his discourse The Old Days at Rakedale Hall. Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor to introduce—the real Lord Harrowby."