“We could all see that,” said Mr. Berkeley; “and now I’ll take him down below, and see what can be done for him.”
When Chap returned on deck, washed, combed, and dressed in a complete suit, which had been loaned him by the purser, he was a well-dressed and very gentlemanly-looking person. He did not see the countess that day, as she did not come out from her state-room, but both he and Mr. Berkeley made inquiries about her, and ascertained that she had sustained no injury. But early the next morning, just before the boat reached Sanford, Chap saw the countess on the deck. He went up to her, but she looked at him coldly, and made no sign of recognition; but when he spoke she opened her eyes.
“Are you the boy,” she exclaimed, “who stopped this steamboat for me?”
“And who afterward upset you in the river,” said Chap. “Yes; all of me that isn’t purser of this boat is that boy.”
“But how did you come to run into us that way?” she asked.
Chap then explained how he thought he had been deserted by her, and how, in his anxiety to overtake her, the accident had occurred.
“Well,” said she, when she had asserted that she had no idea of treating him in that dreadful way, “you gave me a bad wetting and a great fright, but you also helped and amused me very much, and, on the whole, I am glad I met you.”
And she cordially shook hands with him.
“And now,” said Chap, as he rejoined Helen, “I’m done with the aristocracy. It will do very well in certain quarters, but republican institutions for me.”
Phil and Phœnix were on the pier when the Humphrey Giles arrived at Sanford. They had received a telegram from John Robinson the day before, sent from a point below on the river, telling them to wait at Sanford for the Giles. They had wondered at the message, and would have waited anyway, as there had been no chance for them to leave. But when Chap, handsomely dressed, appeared on the gang-plank, conducting Helen and Mr. Berkeley, Phil and Phœnix could not have been more astonished had they seen an alligator stand up on its tail and sing “The Last Rose of Summer.”