“Have a weed, Craig, and I’ll give you a synopsis of the game for to-night’s desperate play, which of course is to be carried out within the classic shades of the Midway Plaisance.”
When both of them are comfortably settled, and the cigars pronounced excellent, Samson Cereal opens fire upon the peculiar subject that must next demand their attention—the plotting of the Oriental, Aroun Scutari.
“How the devil they learned of it—except through that treacherous valet of mine, who has, it seems, gone hand and glove with this pirate, on account of some Turkish dancer he’s fallen in love with—I’m at a loss to know; but they seem to understand that I have an engagement in the Midway with two gentlemen this evening. They are bent on seeing it by electric light. What their object is I really don’t know, but I suspect they mean to reproduce something of the sort, it has proved so popular—perhaps on the stages of the East; it may be within the grounds of the Mid-winter Exposition at San Francisco. That’s not my business. They are both friends, and I’m under obligations to them.
“Since they request me to accompany them, I have agreed. Besides, I never tire of seeing the Congress of Nations, though, truth to tell, as you yourself know, my boy, I have no reason to look upon anything Turkish with love.
“This duty takes me there, and by the exercise of a little diplomacy I may be inveigled into some trap, for there are many unsuspected ones in that same Plaisance, don’t forget it. This is only the prelude. Listen to what follows, and for devilish ingenuity it takes the cake:
“The valet—I ought to call him varlet, for if ever a treacherous dog lived, it is this same Anthony Wayne whom I have loaded with favors—this valet now plays his miserable part in the drama.
“He is a penman—he can imitate my fist to perfection, and I have more than once in a joke plainly told him this faculty and gift would get him into trouble yet. He will write a note in my hand, and himself be the bearer to Dorothy.”
“The deuce! does that miserable Turk still hope to run away with her? I see very plainly I—that is, your pardon, sir, someone—will have to wring his neck for him yet,” bursts out Aleck with much animation, and not a little confusion at seeing the smile on Samson’s face.
“Glad to relegate that task to you, Craig, if the proper occasion arises. Now with regard to this note—what will it contain, you ask? Some startling intelligence for Dorothy—nothing more nor less than the fact that I have been injured in a personal encounter with my old enemy Scutari, who is used up worse than myself, and that I am being taken care of by—who do you think?”
“Marda, the fortune teller of Cairo Street—once your wife and her mother! Would they use such a lever as that to open her heart and blind her eyes?” says Craig, frowning.