“Arrest me?” demanded Jennison, as white as his collar. “Arrest me?”
Mr. Banger stood with his mouth open, most unmannerly.
“Yes,” retorted the red-haired man; “here’s the writ—‘Winthrop Jennison, otherwise called John A. Belmont, otherwise called Murray Nicoll, otherwise called Gray Hurd. Forgery in Boston.’ You know, I guess. The others in it have all been looked after. No trouble, please. Billy!”
What did Mr. Jennison-Belmont-Nicoll-Hurd do? He held out his wrists mechanically. They were suitably embellished. Then he turned to Mr. Banger, Gerald, and Touchtone. His look, as much as his odd words (which were the beginning of that day’s memorable disconcertment of the luckless proprietor of the Kossuth House), showed that he knew thoroughly that the “double life” and the relics of such local respect as was left in this place, near the house of his ancestors, were forever shattered.
“I bid you good-day, Mr. Banger,” he said, smiling with all his fine teeth. “I shall leave Mr. Touchtone to tell his story again. It is, likely, a perfectly true one. At least, I withdraw mine as being—substantially incorrect. Please remember that, Mr. Touchtone. You have beaten in this fight. I shall not trouble you again. Good-morning.”
He turned, with his easiest manner, to the officers in plain clothes, muttering something.
If an evil spirit had suddenly risen before Mr. Banger—or, for that matter, before the two lads still facing him, Gerald holding Philip’s arm in a desperate grip—Mr. Banger could not have been more frightened and mute. He gasped. Then he ejaculated, with difficulty, “Mr. Jennison! You don’t—” But as the Jennison party moved away Gerald leaned forward and uttered a cry.
“Philip! They’re coming yonder! Look at them! Papa! Papa! Mr. Marcy! Both of them!”
And then, as those two gentlemen, in flesh and blood indeed, came running from the hotel up the path toward them, Marcy hurrahing and waving his hat, Saxton calling out, “Gerald, Gerald! my son!” and when Philip found himself seized in a mighty hug by Mr. Marcy, with a general turmoil and uproar and hand-shaking and questioning beginning in a most deafening and delightful manner—then he did something that he never did afterward. He staggered to the arbor-steps, holding Mr. Marcy’s big hand, and exclaiming with something like a laugh, “Well, here you are—at last! We’d nearly—given you up! We’re—not left to ourselves any more!” Then the stress of responsibility was over, and he dropped on the step, unconscious.