CHARLES GASPILLER.
I HAD avoided writing my name in the register of the hotel, for I did not wish to leave any recorded traces of my presence in the city. It occurred to me that perhaps Lilian had told her name to her new-made friends, but they would soon be in the tropics, and out of the reach of detectives. I regarded myself as very shrewd, and I could not exactly see how it was possible for any one to obtain a trace of me, after the steamer had departed.
I had given my name at the steamer office as Charles Gaspiller, and the money for my bill of exchange was to be drawn in London under this appellation. I don’t know how I happened to select this name. It was a French word which probably came back to my memory from my studies at the high school; but I had forgotten its meaning, though I could read French tolerably well. When I came to ascertain its signification, I was not a little surprised to find that it exactly fitted my case, for it means “to waste, to squander, to lavish.” It was entirely by accident that I chose this word, and I certainly should not have done so had I been aware that it covered my case so exactly.
But if I succeeded in concealing my identity from others, I could not hide it from my wife. If I was Mr. Gaspiller, she must of necessity be Mrs. Gaspiller. We were not at all fitted to pass ourselves off as French people, for my pronunciation had been so neglected at school, that I could hardly speak a word of the language with which I was tolerably familiar by the eye. Lilian knew still less of it. I knew that double l in French had a liquid sound, and I called the word Gas-pee-ay. It would be singular that I should have a French name, pronounced with a French accent, and yet not be able to speak the language. I was afraid I had made an unpleasant bed for myself. But I determined as soon as I reached Paris to master the language.
How could I have the assurance to tell Lilian that her name was Gaspiller, and not Glasswood. I might convince her that the latter was too commonplace to travel in Europe upon—indeed she was already convinced of that, for she often, in her lively manner, made fun of the cognomen. I could assure her that, while I was not to blame for my name, the word was so inconsistent, absurd and contradictory, that it would subject me to ridicule. It was no part of my purpose to tell her I was a defaulter, an exile from home, a fugitive from justice. It would break her gentle heart. Yet I was not sure that it would not come to this.
After I had completed all my preparations, I was in her presence with my bill of exchange and my passage receipt in my pocket. She was talking with the lady who was going to Havana when I entered. She looked at me, and as soon as she recognized me, she commented merrily upon the change which the loss of my whiskers made in my appearance. She rose from her chair, but her friend talked so fast that she could not at once leave her. I knew how anxious she was to know the final answer of the great banking-house to which I had alluded. Upon that depended the voyage to Europe. As soon as she could decently do so, she tore herself away from her companion, and sat down on the sofa at my side.
“Are you going, Paley, or not?” she asked, with breathless eagerness.
In answer to this inquiry I inadvertently pulled out the receipt for the passage money, which constituted the ticket. I did not at the moment think that it ran in favor of “Charles Gaspiller,” for I was not quite ready to tell her that I had changed my name.
“What is this, Paley?” she asked, blankly. “I don’t understand it.”
“Don’t you, my dear? Why, it is our ticket for a passage in the steamer to Liverpool,” I replied, cheerfully.