People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1893 — A LITTLE COMEDY OF ERRORS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A LITTLE COMEDY OF ERRORS

By S. S. MORTON.

[Copyrighted 1891. by S. S. Morton, and published by special arrangement.]

CHAPTER I. ..Egan—Why look you cold on me! You know Be well Ant S.—l never saw you in my life till now. —Comedy of Errors.

HE Clement house, sir! Here you are.” The hackman, descending nimbly from his elevated perch to the smooth •white pavement of flag stones, threw open the carriage door and stood surveying the solitary fare whom he had triumphantly captured at the railway station fifteen minutes before.

The fare started up as if from a fit of profound abstraction. “The Clement house?” he repeated, glancing up at the hotel with its wide stone portico supported by massive pillars and ornamented with its usual quota of smoking, staring, well-dressed idlers. “Well, driver, what did we agree upon? Seventy-five cents—and here it is.” The money, in glittering silver pieces, was handed out and eagerly transferred to the hackman’s pocket; then the gentleman, with a small portmanteau in his hand, emerged from the carriage and walked leisurely up the steps of the hoteh He was a handsome man, tall, slender and elegant in figure, and he carried himself with a condescending air, as very handsome men are apt to do. He was enveloped in a long,loose ulster, evidently donned to protect his expensive broadcloth from the dust of travel; a soft black hat rested upon his auburn curls. His dark gray eyes were keen and slightly quizzical in expression; his whole countenance, though delicate in features and complexion, denoted strength, determination and reckless daring, with a touch of genuine mirthfulness to which, however, the dark sweeping mustache that he wore gave an odd contradiction by the indescribably mournful droop that it took. He had scarcely ascended the hotel steps when he was accosted on all sides by the assembled gentleman. “North! North! Ye gods and little fishes, if it isn’t North back again!” arose a chorus of astonished voices, as the group of idlers suspended all other conversation in order to question the newcomer. “Why, what does this mean, North? Back before anyone has had time to miss you!” said one, as he held his cigar aloft and hastily adjusted his eyeglasses. “Come back to get a better start?” “Afraid your friends wouldn’t be able to survive your absence?” “Forgot something, perhaps?” suggested one brilliant genius, thus bringing himself out in bold relief against the background of vague and unsatisfactory conjecture. “Was it your heart, North? Inquire up on Delaplaine street, and it will no doubt be returned and no questions asked!” Thus the running fire of banter went on. The victim of it, halted thus unceremoniously on the very steps of the liotel, stood in bewildered silence for a moment without attempting any response. But after the first pause of utter astonishment he recovered himself and found voice to speak. “Gentlemen,” he exclaimed, in tones that expressed a well-bred surprise and annoyance, “this is a curious misapprehension! I assure you it is a case of mistaken identity. lam not the person whom you evidently think me to be. I have not the honor of knowing you, and indeed I never saw you before.” The gentlemen addressed looked blank in their turn for an instant; then a derisive laugh swept around the circle. “Hear! hear!” cried two or three, applaudingly. “ ‘Mistaken identity’—‘not the person we think him to be!’ ” echoed mockingly from lip to lip. “Didn’t we bid you good-by only four hours ago, fairly bowed down with grief because you assured us that you would be gone for two whole weeks? And now here you are back again like the proverbial penny!” “What do you mean?” demanded the newcomer, with a perceptible increase of bewilderment and indignation. “I never was at the Clement house, never was in X before in my life!” Upon this declaration the laughter and protests broke out afresh. “Oh, I say, North, you’ve carried this far enough!” cried the brilliant genius who had previously distinguished himself. "Have you suddenly lost your senses, or do you imagine that we have all taken leave of ours? It is no use, you know, your trying to deny your own identity, when here are a dozen of your daily associates and intimate friends all ready to swear to it.” “I assure you, gentlemen—” the voice had the inflection of rising anger, but it was quickly drowned in the laughing comments of the others. “Come, come, North,” testily interposed the gentleman with the eyeglasses, “you’ve perjured yourself quite enough. Where’s the use, you know? You surely can’t think of carrying this poor little farce any farther. Aren’t you Ollin North, attorney at law? Anjswer me that!”

“Allan North, attorney at law?” repeated the gentleman, an additional wave of perplexity sweeping over his face. “Why, yes, to be sure I am; but —” A roar of laughter interrupted him. “Well done, North! Capital!” cried the applauding crowd. “When are you going on the stage? That facial expression is fine! You’ll make your mark as a first-class comedian!” “Really, this is preposterous—l protest,” began the stranger, rallying once more; when suddenly a voice thin and weak, but evidently the voice of one in authority, interposed: “What’s the circus?” lisped Col. Dayton, the gentlemanly manager, as with his incongruous combination of two hundred pounds avoirdupois and a small voice delicately pitched on the tone of C above, he advanced upon the scene. “Col. Dayton, just look at this gentleman and tell us who he is!” cried a dozen laughing voices before the stranger could speak. “This gentleman?” repeated the benign and astonished colonel, his round blue eyes roving over the group

and then fixing themselves like two animated interrogation points upon North. “Why, you don’t say so—you here, Mr. North? What’s up? Back to stay? Concluded not to go east after all? Nothing happened, I hope?” For as he watched the face of the man whom he was addressing a growing perplexity and uneasiness became apparent in the colonel’s countenance and manner. “You would think something had happened, colonel, if you could hear him talk. He is actually trying to make us believe that he never was at the Clement house before, and that he doesn’t know one of us! What’s your opinion of the case, colonel —temporary mental aberration?” The good colonel stared curiously at North for an instant, then broke into a musical little laugh that shook him gently from head to foot. An expression of calm despair swept over North’s countenance as the notes of mirth were taken up and loudly echoed by the others. Suddenly checking himself in his laughter, possibly because of the expression he caught in North’s eye, the colonel coughed asthmatically for a moment, and drawing a large handkerchief from his pocket he mopped his flushed face with it, glancing furtively at North the while from behind the ambush of snowy cambric. He was still chuckling with suppressed merriment when he finally spoke again, as everyone was evidently waiting for him to do.

“ That’s not so bad now, gentlemen—not so bad!” declared the polonel, who had a happy appreciation of humor, however absurd or whimsical it might be, and an amiable habit of sympathizing with any nonsense that might be afloat. “Glad to see you here again, anyway, Mr. North. You’ll have the same "rooms again, I suppose? They haven’t been taken yet, you see. Kept ’em for you all this time!” This w’as said with renewed chuckling and an air of good-naturedly, though clumsily, carrying on the pleasantry that Mr. North had originated. “Confound them all!” thought the latter in despair. “Whoever heard of such a case? How dare they dispute my word? Oaths and protestations seem to have no more weight than a feather against their own stupid preconceived ideas. I begin to feel my reason tottering, my memory failing me! Where did I ever see these idiots before? It’s all nonsense; I never saw them in my life! And yet lam certainly Allan North, attorney at law. How could they know me so well if they had never seen me before? Was I here four hours ago? Am I their old friend and comrade? Or am I dreaming—bewitched? No, no! It is a case of mistaken identity; I am clearly the unhappy victim of some other fellow’s good fortune his strange and unaccountable resemblance to me. The same name, too; what & singular coincidence! Upon my word, this savors of comedy, and, since it is forced upon me, I’ll take my role and see what I can make of it. I’m in the hands of these harmless lunatics who think they know who I am better than I do myself; so I’ll humor them for the present. It’s a queer entanglement, but protestations are useless unless the other fellow should turn up and settle the question; and, so far as I can see, the best thing for me to do is to drift I with this tide which I have found it So

impossible to stem, and let the results take care of themselves.- It cannot do any harm. How could anyone blame me for it, under the circumstances? And, really, I might as well combine a little innocent amusement with the important business that calls me to X . Unless I am vastly mistaken, this promises to be the most diverting experience I ever happened upon!” This soliloquy flashed through North’s mind in a very brief time, during which he stood abstractedly in the center of the group whose chaffing remarks he only half heard or comprehended; and as it reached this definite conclusion he resigned himself to his fate with a sense of reckless enjoyment. “Certainly, colonel,” he said, having caught the title, though the name of the gentlemanly manager had escaped him, “the same rooms, by all means. By the way, shall I register?” “As you please, Mr. North; as you please. When will you leave off jesting?” And the expression of vague uneasiness again appeared on Col. Dayton’s round, rosy face. “Just step into the office a minute, anyway. The clerk’s got a letter that was sent up after you left this morning. You didn’t tell us where your correspondence should.be forwarded to, so we were in something of a puzzle to decide—” The rest of the sentence was lost in the colonel’s puffing endeavor to open the heavy swing-door. Allan North, attorney at law, was glad to escape from the hilarious crowd on the hotel steps and followed the colonel into the office. But here another difficulty confronted him, when a dainty missive bearing a lady’s chirography was placed in his hand. True, the envelope was addressed simply to “Mr. North, Clement House, City,” and was not he that gentleman? But then, very probably at the time the letter was written he was not within one hundred miles of the Clement house and had never even heard of the place. It may appear to the cool, dispassionate reader that North’s proper course at this point was too obvious to admit of any hesitation or mental debate. Nevertheless he did hesitate; and he did argue within himself what line of action he should adopt. Refuse to take the letter? That would give rise to renewed questions, explanations and ridicule, which, in view of his late trying experiences, he did not wish to provoke. How would it do, for instance— His reflections were suddenly arrested by the discovery that the envelope was not sealed. A vague sense of relief came to his mind, as if he now saw an easy and justifiable solution of the difficulty. “Anoversight, of course,” ho thought, still contemplating the creamy envelope that he held, from which arose a faint exquisite perfume as of withered rose leaves; “but there cannot be anything very private or personal about this correspondence or the fair writer would not have been so careless. After all, whom is it for if not for me? Who is the man whose perfect counterpart I seem to be?” He paused in his speculations. A sudden suspicion darted like lightning into his mind, then as suddenly was dismissed. “Oh, no, that is impossible!” he mentally declared the next instant. “Quite out of the question. And yet the name— No, no! It cannot be! There must be some other explanation of the mystery. I will glance over this letter when I get to my room and see if it affords any clew to the solution.” With this decision he turned to the books and registered in dashing but somewhat illegible characters: “A. North, New York.” “And now, colonel,” he said, turning around to that gentleman, “where are you going to put me?” “Where am I going to put you?” The colonel’s amazed countenance was a study as he repeated the question. “What on earth are you thinking about, Mr. North? Your rooms are precisely as you left them this morning. Here Sam,” summoning a colored porter, “take Mr. North’s valise up to 54.” A few minutes later North found himself in the suite assigned to him, evidently the apartment of his mysterious double. He proceeded with much curiosity to survey his new domains. There was nothing in the appointments that especially attracted his at-

tention, except a large black walnut writing table. The many drawers that it contained were locked, as he discovered when he attempted to open them. The pigeonholes were empty; a few books were ranged neatly beneath them. Everything indicated a careful preparation for the absence of the owner. Having ascertained that his surroundings were entirely non-committal, North surrendered himself once more to baffled speculations, which he pursued from the depths of a luxurious lounging chair. “If a man is not what he thinks himself,” he began, speaking aloud, as he frequently did in soliloquy, “but what the world thinks him to be, then I am entitled to the possession of this room, the use of all it contains, all the prerogatives of the rightful tenant. And yet I solemnly affirm that I never was in this deluded place before in the

whole course of my natural existence! I Isn’t that a curious contradiction of | facts and appearances? However, this j will all come out right some time. I There is nothing so crooked that time ; cannot make it straight; and why should I trouble myself about a misap- : prehension for which I am in no degree I responsible? I will pursue the even tenor of my way, neither aggressively asserting my own identity nor endeavoring to assume that of my mysterious double; and then, come what may, the dear public, and not I,will be to blame.” At this point in his soliloquy he suddenly recollected the letter in his pocket. “Ah!” he exclaimed, drawing it forth hastily and once more examining the address, “this is one of the prerogatives! An open letter is supposed to be designed for the perusal of the general public. ‘Mr. North, Clement House, City.’ Well, I am certainly that gentleman, so here goes! I shall see what my fair unknown correspondent has to say.” Very little, but entirely to the point, as he discovered on glancing hastily over these delicately traced lines: “Mrs. Maynard will be at home this afternoon at twoo'olock. Will it bo convenient for Mr. North to call at that hour?” At the toptof the sheet he now noticed the handsomely engraved address: “No. 83 Delaplaine street.” "Maynard— Mrs. Maynard,” mused North, abstractedly, dropping the hand that still held the perfumed sheet in its listless grasp and frowning at the carpet as if he expected to find somewhere amid its warp and woof the thread that should unravel this mystery. “Where have I heard that name lately? It seems to me I ought to know. Two o’clock—‘this afternoon at two o’clock.’ ” He drew out his watch suddenly and consulted it. “It is now precisely 12:30. . H’m! ‘No. 33 Delaplaine street.’ (And pray, where may that be?) ‘Will it bo convenient’ (oh, very convenient, but how about the expediency?) ‘for Mr. ' North to call at that hour?’ Short and sweet; and eminently unsatisfactory. No light whatever from this source. ' The mystery only grows deeper, my | position more involved. Shall I call on Mrs. Maynard, or not? It would bo a piece of unparalleled daring! To go, 1 or not to go; that is the question!” [to be continued.]

HIS ROUND BLUE EYES FIXING THEMSELVES UPON NORTH.

HE SUDDENLY RECOLLECTED THE LETTER.