“May I inquire——” I made bold to begin, but Mrs. Effie shut me off, brandishing the newspaper before me.
“Read it!” she commanded in hoarse, tragic tones. “There!” she added, pointing at monstrous black headlines on the page as I weakly took it from her. And then I saw. There before them, divining now the enormity of what had come to pass, I controlled myself to master the following screed:
RED GAP’S DISTINGUISHED VISITOR
Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles of London and Paris, late of the
British army, bon-vivant and man of the world, is in our midst
for an indefinite stay, being at present the honoured house
guest of Senator and Mrs. James Knox Floud, who returned from
foreign parts on the 5:16 flyer yesterday afternoon. Colonel
Ruggles has long been intimately associated with the family
of his lordship the Earl of Brinstead, and especially with
his lordship’s brother, the Honourable George Augustus
Vane-Basingwell, with whom he has recently been sojourning
in la belle France. In a brief interview which the Colonel
genially accorded ye scribe, he expressed himself as delighted
with our thriving little city.
“It’s somewhat a town—if I’ve caught your American slang,”
he said with a merry twinkle in his eyes. “You have the garden
spot of the West, if not of the civilized world, and your
people display a charm that must be, I dare say, typically
American. Altogether, I am enchanted with the wonders I have
beheld since landing at your New York, particularly with the
habit your best people have of roughing it in camps like that
of Mr. C. Belknap-Jackson among the mountains of New York, where
I was most pleasantly entertained by himself and his delightful
wife. The length of my stay among you is uncertain, though I
have been pressed by the Flouds, with whom I am stopping, and
by the C. Belknap-Jacksons to prolong it indefinitely, and in
fact to identify myself to an extent with your social life.”
The Colonel is a man of distinguished appearance, with the
seasoned bearing of an old campaigner, and though at moments
he displays that cool reserve so typical of the English
gentleman, evidence was not lacking last evening that he can
unbend on occasion. At the lawn fête held in the spacious
grounds of Judge Ballard, where a myriad Japanese lanterns
made the scene a veritable fairyland, he was quite the most
sought-after notable present, and gayly tripped the light
fantastic toe with the élite of Red Gap’s smart set there
assembled.
From his cordial manner of entering into the spirit of the
affair we predict that Colonel Ruggles will be a decided
acquisition to our social life, and we understand that a
series of recherché entertainments in his honour has already
been planned by Mrs. County Judge Ballard, who took the
distinguished guest under her wing the moment he appeared
last evening. Welcome to our city, Colonel! And may the warm
hearts of Red Gap cause you to forget that European world of
fashion of which you have long been so distinguished an
ornament!
In a sickening silence I finished the thing. As the absurd sheet fell from my nerveless fingers Mrs. Effie cried in a voice hoarse with emotion:
“Do you realize the dreadful thing you’ve done to us?”
Speechless I was with humiliation, unequal even to protesting that I had said nothing of the sort to the press-chap. I mean to say, he had wretchedly twisted my harmless words.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” demanded Mrs. Belknap-Jackson, also in a voice hoarse with emotion. I glanced at her husband. He, too, was pale with anger and trembling, so that I fancied he dared not trust himself to speak.
“The wretched man,” declared Mrs. Effie, addressing them all, “simply can’t realize—how disgraceful it is. Oh, we shall never be able to live it down!”
“Imagine those flippant Spokane sheets dressing up the thing,” hissed Belknap-Jackson, speaking for the first time. “Imagine their blackguardly humour!”
“And that awful Cousin Egbert,” broke in Mrs. Effie, pointing a desperate finger toward him. “Think of the laughing-stock he’ll become! Why, he’ll simply never be able to hold up his head again.”