I thanked him again - strictly in words - and stammered
out:
"Thomas Henry - yes, Thomas Henry was the poor child's name.
I named him for Thomas - er - Thomas Carlyle, the great author,
you know - and Henry - er - er - Henry the Eight. The parents
were very grateful to have a child named Thomas Henry."
"That makes it more singular than ever," murmured my
beautiful friend.
"Does it? Why?"
"Because when the parents speak of that child now,
they always call it Susan Amelia."
That spiked my gun. I could not say anything. I was entirely
out of verbal obliquities; to go further would be to lie,
and that I would not do; so I simply sat still and suffered
- sat mutely and resignedly there, and sizzled - for I
was being slowly fried to death in my own blushes.
Presently the enemy laughed a happy laugh and said:
"I HAVE enjoyed this talk over old times, but you have not.
I saw very soon that you were only pretending to know me,
and so as I had wasted a compliment on you in the beginning,
I made up my mind to punish you. And I have succeeded
pretty well. I was glad to see that you knew George and Tom
and Darley, for I had never heard of them before and therefore
could not be sure that you had; and I was glad to learn
the names of those imaginary children, too. One can get
quite a fund of information out of you if one goes at
it cleverly. Mary and the storm, and the sweeping away
of the forward boats, were facts - all the rest was fiction.
Mary was my sister; her full name was Mary - - - . NOW
do you remember me?"
"Yes," I said, "I do remember you now; and you are as
hard-headed as you were thirteen years ago in that ship,
else you wouldn't have punished me so. You haven't
change your nature nor your person, in any way at all;
you look as young as you did then, you are just as beautiful
as you were then, and you have transmitted a deal
of your comeliness to this fine boy. There - if that
speech moves you any, let's fly the flag of truce,
with the understanding that I am conquered and confess it."
All of which was agreed to and accomplished, on the spot.
When I went back to Harris, I said:
"Now you see what a person with talent and address can do."
"Excuse me, I see what a person of colossal ignorance and
simplicity can do. The idea of your going and intruding
on a party of strangers, that way, and talking for half
an hour; why I never heard of a man in his right mind
doing such a thing before.
