In fifteen minutes they are at Maverick Square. Mr. Starr stops the car at the office of Siemens & Bessemer, and enters. Meets his friend Fothergill.
Fothergill. Bless me, Starr, you are covered with mud! Pottery, eh? Runaway horse, eh? No matter; we are just in time to see Wendell off. William, take Mr. Starr’s hat to be pressed. Put on this light overcoat, Starr. Here is my tweed cap. Now, jump in, and we will go to the “Samaria” to bid Wendell good-by.
And indeed they both found Wendell. Mr. Starr bade him good-by, and advised him a little about the man he was to see in Dresden. He met Herr Birnebaum, and talked with him a little about the chemistry of enamels. Oddly enough, Fonseca was there, the attache, the same whom Clara had taken to drive at Bethlehem. Mr. Starr talked a little Spanish with him. Then they were all rung onshore.
Tableau: departing steamer. crowd waves handkerchiefs.
SCENE III CHRISTMAS—THE END
At Mr. Starr’s Christmas dinner, beside their cousins from Harvard College and their second cousins from Wellesley College and their third cousins from Bradford Academy, they had young Clifford, the head book-keeper. As he came in, joining the party on their way home from church, he showed Mr. Starr a large parcel.
“It’s the ‘Alaska’s’ mail, and I thought you might like to see it.”
“Ah, well!” said Mr. Starr, “it is Christmas, and I think the letters can wait, at least till after dinner.”
And a jolly dinner it was. Turkey for those who wished, and goose for those who chose goose. And when the Washington pie and the Marlborough pudding came, the squash, the mince, the cranberry-tart, and the blazing plum-pudding, then the children were put through their genealogical catechism.
“Will, who is your mother’s father’s mother’s father?”