Lippincotts Magazine, July 1885 | Page 7

Mabel? What on earth has he got on? He isn't
respectable. I declare to goodness, he has set my heart beating so I

shan't get over it all day," said the startled lady to her daughter-in-law,
who joined her just then.
"Oh, for shame, ma, to give yourself away like that! Fashionable men
wear those costumes altogether now," said Mr. Ketchum, coming up.
"You see, Daisy, that if I shocked him beyond expression yesterday
morning, as you said I should, he has horrified me to death to-day: so I
guess we are quits. Come along: let's go down to see the
trapeze-performance."
Down they went, and, meeting Mr. Ramsay, who was coming up, Job
stopped a moment to tell him to take out any of the horses that he
fancied. "Take the piebalds," said he, "if you'd like to have a drive, and
take some nice girl--Miss Ethel or Bijou Brown--for a two-forty shine."
"Thanks awfully," said Mr. Ramsay. "But I think I had better--that is, I
had rather ask Heathcote."
"You are horribly welcome, but I don't think much of your taste,"
replied Mr. Ketchum, not understanding what a proposition he had
made.
In the lower hall they found the eminent divine, irreproachably clerical
and dignified, and Captain Kendall, just arrived. Sir Robert, hearing
voices, came out, brush in hand, to welcome them, producing quite as
great an impression on them as on Mrs. Ketchum. "I belong to the
working-classes now. Just you come here and see how the fine arts are
prospering in the State of Michigan," said he, and led them into the
boudoir, where he nimbly ran up a step-ladder, laid himself out on the
scaffolding, and, with a bold, free touch, went on sketching a
procession of Cupids which was to go around the base of the small
dome, talking all the while with the utmost animation to the guests
below. "As soon as I get in this fellow riding a dolphin, I shall be
entirely at your service," said he. "No considerations of respect and
attachment to the Church or fear of the Army can influence me just
now."
The two gentlemen begged that he would go on; the ladies came in, and
together they passed an agreeable morning, Sir Robert declaring that on
the scaffold he was entitled to benefit of clergy, and begging the
eminent divine when he left to let him have his ghostly counsel every
day for at least a week. In spite of his eminence, this gentleman had no
very great breadth of view. To sit about on boxes and window-seats,

picnicking in an empty room, while the stranger upon whom he had
come to call lay above him in red pajamas, painting Cupids on the
ceiling, was to his mind monstrously indecorous. It was amusing to see
the dignified way in which he took the pleasantries of the party; and he
made no response to Sir Robert's farewell overture except a bow. "Your
guest is a very entertaining man," he said to Mr. Ketchum, who
accompanied him to the hat-rack, "but is he quite--quite--you
understand?"
"Perfectly so," said Job, with a laugh. "Head and heart both of the best,
as you will find out when you know him better. You are coming back
to dinner, ain't you, to help us out with the fatted calf?"
The dinner was a very elegant affair of twenty-five covers, given to the
guests, the first of a series of entertainments planned in their honor. All
the notable people of the neighborhood were represented at it. The
scandalized divine returned to partake of it, and, seeing Sir Robert in a
dress-suit, dignified, polished, of preternatural respectability, not to say
distinction, looking the pillar of Church and State that he was, and
talking with due gravity of the tariff, free trade, and the like ponderous
subjects, concluded to overlook the mad behavior of the morning, and,
joining him, gave him a long account of the Indian Missions of the
Church. Unconscious of having done anything that might be regarded
as eccentric, Sir Robert was all affability, soon grew interested, asked a
number of questions as to the death-rate among the tribes, the
prevalence of smallpox and cholera among them, the spread of
civilization, confirmed nomadism, traces of Jewish rites, and so on,
thanked him for a "very profitable half-hour," and said he should send a
little check to be applied in any way he might see fit, obliterating
thereby the last trace of the previous prejudice. This, indeed, was
replaced by something very like enthusiasm when there came next day
a slip of paper representing five hundred dollars, also a note from the
donor, saying that he should be glad to know that some portion of the
sum enclosed had gone to an industrial school, if