“I—I don’t understand, sir. I think Mr. Hilliard is at home, sir. Second floor, sir. Shall I show you up?”
A door above opened and shut. A short, fat gentleman, slightly bald, of at least fifty winters, came briskly down, looking forward with a very friendly curiosity in his eyes. He began smiling cheerfully at them, and his pleasant face, with a snow-white mustache, grew pleasanter at each step. In his hand was a telegram envelope.
“Mr. Hilliard,” said the man, stepping aside.
“Aha, boys!” he exclaimed, hurrying across the thick Turkish rug and presenting a fat, white hand, “here you are, I declare, safe and sound! You sent me this message here, which somebody has taken the trouble to mix up on the way, so that I can’t get the hang of it, though otherwise I should have given you up. Come in, come right in!” he went on, cordially clasping a hand of each. “This is Philip Touchtone, and this Gerald, according to friend Marcy’s description. You’re both very welcome. My, what’s the matter? O, your cab! Cripps, pay the cab—here—and, Cripps, tell Barney to call at ten to-morrow morning to take us to that Halifax boat.”
Literally open-mouthed in bewilderment, Philip and Gerald allowed the hospitable little gentleman do as he pleased, and to stand pumping their hands up and down.
“Excuse me, sir,” Philip began, stammering, “but—but there is certainly some mistake. You are surely not the gentleman we met on the train to-day—and—”
“Train? Of course not!” laughed the irrepressible stranger. “I’ve been laid up in the house with malaria since I wrote Marcy. But you’re you, Philip Touchtone; and you are Gerald Saxton; and I am myself, Frederick Hilliard, the only and actual, at your service. If any body has been playing me, he’s some oddity—doing a poor copy of an indifferent original. My dear boy, you stare at me as if I were a ghost!”
A cloud was eddying in Philip’s head. Not till afterward did he think how droll his question must have sounded. But he asked, very solemnly, “Has there—been a fire—in this building?”
“A fire? In such a hot September as this!” chuckled the merry gentleman. “Bless your heart, my dear fellow, nowhere but in the kitchen, I trust! Does the hall strike you as damp? Don’t know but what it is. Bring those things up-stairs, George,” he added to his own servant, who appeared from above. “Follow me, boys. My rooms are on the second floor. How did you leave Miss Beauchamp? and how are Mr. Fisher and old General Sawtelle and Mr. Lorraine?”