He was shaking the hands of Mrs. Daniver and Helena almost before I could present them. Auntie Lucinda bestowed upon him the gaze of a solemn and somewhat tear-stained visage (though I saw distinct approval on her face as she caught sight of the great mansion house among the giant oaks, and witnessed the sophisticatedness of the group on the landing, and the easy courtesy of Edouard himself).
“By Jove! old man!” the latter found time to say to me, “I congratulate you—she’s away beyond her pictures.” He did not mean Mrs. Daniver; and he never had seen Helena before. I could only press his hand and attempt no comment as to the congratulations, for part of that was a matter which yet rested in a sealed envelope in my pocket; and at best it must be three or four days.... But then, with a great flash of arrested intelligence, it was borne in upon me that perhaps, after all, it was not so much a question of the tardy United States mails! Because yon varlet, fat and saucy, and well content with life, already, by some means and for some reason, had outrun the mails. He was here, and we had met. It need not be four days before I could learn my fate.... I reached into my pocket and looked at my sealed orders. No matter what Davidson’s letter held, here was Davidson himself.
“Oh, I say, there, you Harry, confound you!” roared Davidson to me in his great voice above the heads of everybody. “I say, what did I tell you?”
Now I had not the slightest idea what Davidson had told me, nor what he meant by waving a paper over his head. “They’ve signed Dingleheimer for next year! Now what do you think of that? World’s championship, and good old Dingleheimer for next year—I guess that’s pretty poor for them little old Giants, what?” And he smiled like one devoid of all care as well as of all reason.
I myself smiled just a moment later—after I had greeted the Manning ladies, had seen Helena step up and kiss Sally Byington fervently, directly on the cheek, whose too keen coloring I once had heard her decry; had slapped Edouard joyously on the shoulders and pointed to my pirate flag and gloomy black-visaged crew—I say I also smiled suddenly when I felt a hand touch me on the shoulder.
’Polyte, the pilot, stood, cap in hand, and asked me to one side.
“Pardon, Monsieur,” said he, “but those gentilhommes—those fat one—ees eet she’ll was Monsieur Davelson who’ll H’I’ll got letter on heem from those lighthouse, heem?”
“Why, yes, ’Polyte—the letter you said would take four days to get to New Orleans.”
’Polyte smiled sheepishly. “He’ll wouldn’t took four days now, Monsieur! H’I’ll got it h’all those letter here. H’I’ll change the coat on the lighthouse, maybe, h’an H’I’ll got the coat of Guillaume witt’ h’all those letter in her, yass?” And he now handed me the entire packet of letters, which I had supposed left far behind us on the previous day!
I took the letters from him, and handed all of them but one to Edouard’s old body servant to put in the office mail. The remaining one I held in the same hand with its mate: and I motioned Davidson aside to a spot under a live oak as the other began now slowly to move toward the path from the landing up the hill.