While speaking, Mr. Saltus had released his hold on the gate. He was anxious to know what animal I would assign to him. Afterward he confessed that he had expected me to say a lion. That would have pleased him too well. Distracting his attention from the exit, I moved nearer to it. Answering "A skunk!" I emphasized it with a sudden bolt through the gate and rushed down stairs to the Casino.
An avalanche overwhelmed us there. Our absence having become prolonged, my brother, with Archibald Clavering Gunter, who warned him of my danger with every step, had searched not only the Casino but the sands. There was a heated scene. The friendship of years snapped like a wish-bone, and I was dragged back to the hotel.
There it might have ended,—would probably have ended, and the biography of Edgar Saltus have fallen into other hands than mine to write, but well-intentioned friends and relatives assisted things so super-abundantly, that what might have died a natural death took on new life and flourished.
Forbidden to speak to Mr. Saltus under penalty of being sent home to my father, it became at once an interesting romance. The following morning there was not a dowager in the hotel unacquainted with my misdeed, and none omitted to add their warning and advice. Hearing of the adventure, and that I was taking a land-slide to perdition and was hell-bent, friends called to warn and save me. Dear old Gunter with genuine kindness of heart came also.
"I am a very busy man just now," he said, "but if you are determined to learn how to write, and will wait till I get this novel off my mind, I will take you in hand and see what I can make of you."
Everyone did their duty. The only one not offering advice was the hotel cat. Not permitted for a moment to leave my brother's side I seemed safe and secure. It was all in the seeming, for Mr. Saltus was a very ingenious man. The early afternoon papers from New York used to reach the Pier about three, boys taking them to all the hotels on the front. One stopped at ours. We were sitting on the veranda at the time, my brother buying a paper as usual. With a knowing wink the newsboy shoved another into my hand. While every one else was reading I unfolded it. A note from Mr. Saltus fell out. It suggested that after I was supposed to be in bed that evening, I slip out, go down a back staircase and meet the writer at a place on the beach he designated. It was urgent. It was more. It suggested that if I did not appear he would drink himself into delirium, and then come to the hotel and have it out with my brother.
Youth is credulous. I met him at the place suggested. After that the newsboy served as a postman. Letters came and went. There was a thrill in doing it under their noses. It came out at last, however. I was returned to my father minus a character and the family warned to watch me very closely.
So fate went on weaving its web, and the karmic links of anterior lives reached out, binding our destiny.