The American Claimant. Mark Twain

to himself: "What to do is as plain as day, now. My Lord Berkeley is dead – let him stay so. Died creditably, too; that will make the calamity the easier for my father. And I don't have to report to the American Claimant, now. Yes, nothing could be better than the way matters have turned out. I have only to furnish myself with a new name, and take my new start in life totally untrammeled. Now I breathe my first breath of real freedom; and how fresh and breezy and inspiring it is! At last I am a man! a man on equal terms with my neighbor; and by my manhood; and by it alone, I shall rise and be seen of the world, or I shall sink from sight and deserve it. This is the gladdest day, and the proudest, that ever poured it's sun upon my head!"

      Chapter VIII

      "GOD bless my soul, Hawkins!"

      The morning paper dropped from the Colonel's nerveless-grasp.

      "What is it?"

      "He's gone! – the bright, the young, the gifted, the noblest of his illustrious race – gone! gone up in flames and unimaginable glory!"

      "Who?"

      "My precious, precious young kinsman – Kirkcudbright Llanover Marjoribanks Sellers Viscount Berkeley, son and heir of usurping Rossmore."

      "No!"

      "It's true – too true."

      "When?"

      "Last night."

      "Where?"

      "Right here in Washington; where he arrived from England last night, the papers say."

      "You don't say!"

      "Hotel burned down."

      "What hotel?"

      "The New Gadsby!"

      "Oh, my goodness! And have we lost both of them?"

      "Both who?"

      "One-Arm Pete."

      "Oh, great guns, I forgot all about him. Oh, I hope not."

      "Hope! Well, I should say! Oh, we can't spare him! We can better afford to lose a million viscounts than our only support and stay."

      They searched the paper diligently, and were appalled to find that a one-armed man had been seen flying along one of the halls of the hotel in his underclothing and apparently out of his head with fright, and as he would listen to no one and persisted in making for a stairway which would carry him to certain death, his case was given over as a hopeless one.

      "Poor fellow," sighed Hawkins; "and he had friends so near. I wish we hadn't come away from there – maybe we could have saved him."

      The earl looked up and said calmly:

      "His being dead doesn't matter. He was uncertain before. We've got him sure, this time."

      "Got him? How?"

      "I will materialize him."

      "Rossmore, don't – don't trifle with me. Do you mean that? Can you do it?"

      "I can do it, just as sure as you are sitting there. And I will."