David Dwight Wells

“ The city is watched by our own special corps of detectives, and the instant 'The Purple Kangaroo' is used in a suspicious sense we arrest the spies and unravel the plot."
"But, good heavens, man! You don't understand—" began Banborough.
"I understand it all. I tell you the Daily Leader will not shrink from its duty. It'll leave no stone unturned to hound the offenders down. I dare say they may be making arrests even now, and once started, we'll never pause till every Spanish sympathiser who has knowledge of the plot is under lock and key."
"Stop! Stop!" cried Cecil. ”

“ Unwilling at first to believe her senses, she rushed to her brother's room and then to Miss Arminster's. Alas! in each apartment the traces of hasty packing and missing hand-luggage gave damning evidence of the fact. She rushed downstairs, bursting with her dreadful intelligence. In the hall she met Cecil, delightedly waving a telegram in his hand.
"Hurrah! Aunt Matilda!" he shouted. "Such news! 'The Purple Kangaroo' has reached its twentieth edition, and a truce is declared between the United States and Spain! Where are the others? I must tell them that the war is over." ”

“ Miss Matilda was blatantly good, an intolerant virtue that accounted for multitudes of sins in other people. Her one ambition was to bring up the Bishop in the way she thought he should go, and hitherto she had been wonderfully successful. All through his married life she had resided at the palace and been the ruling power, and when his wife had died twenty years before, snuffed out by the cold austerity of the Bishop's sister and the ecclesiastical monotony of Blanford, Miss Matilda had assumed the reins of power, and had never laid them down. ”

“ Whereat the good citizens had flung broadcast their national emblem to express a patriotic enthusiasm they did not feel, while the wiser heads among them were already whispering that the war was not merely unjustifiable, but might be expensive.
All these matters, important as they doubtless were, did not interest Cecil Banborough, and indeed were quite dwarfed by the fact that this uncalled-for war had diverted the press from its natural functions, and for the time being had thrown utterly into the shade his new sensational novel, "The Purple Kangaroo." ”

“ Mackintosh, "I don't know as it does. I should have said your palace was about as good a sample of all-round peacefulness as there is going."
"Ha," said his Lordship, "it hadn't occurred to me."
"That's just like you men. You never know when you're well off. Now with your palace and Jonah you ought to be content."
The Bishop sighed.
"Dear lady," he said, "I admit my faults. The palace I indeed possess temporarily, but Jonah—ah, what would Jonah be without you! If I have left my work once in the past month to ask your advice, I have left it a hundred times." ”

“ Suddenly the Quaker laid a detaining hand upon Banborough's shoulder, saying:
"Take care, boss; here come the cops! I'll play the leading rôle, and you follow the cues."
They all paused and stood listening, while the rapid beat of a horse's hoofs came to their ears, and a second later a Concord waggon, loaded down with policemen, swung into view round the corner of the road, and presently drew up beside them.
"Thee hast come in good time, friend," said the Quaker to the chief officer. "We have watched thy prisoners overlong already." ”

“ You're the most reckless drivers I ever saw."
"I'm awfully sorry," said Banborough, approaching the door to help her out. "But circumstances didn't leave us much choice."
"Apparently not," she replied, and a moment later stood in their midst, looking even more bewitching than usual in her dishevelled condition. Then as she drew a long breath, inhaling the fresh woodland air, and realising all the joy of her restored freedom, the eternal feminine reasserted itself, and, seizing both of Spotts's hands, she cried impetuously: "Look at me, Alvy, and tell me if my hat is straight." ”

“ I've taken a real liking to you, because you can look me straight in the eye, and I know you're worth a dozen of those chaps one sees hanging round a theatre; and if you behave yourself nicely, you won't find you've got a better friend than Betsy Mackintosh." And she squeezed his hand with an honest fervour that many a man might have envied.
Cecil thanked her for her confidence in him, and turned to have a few words with Miss Arminster, who had been constantly in his mind. ”

“ Spotts, who led the way, wasted no time in explanation, but making one dash at the burly baggage-master who confronted him, gave him a blow that sent him flying backwards. At the same instant he managed to trip up his assistant, causing the two men to come down on the floor together, bringing with them in their fall two bicycles and half a dozen crates of eggs.
Grasping any light luggage he could seize, Friend Othniel added this to the heap, while Spotts, throwing open the great door in the side of the car, cried:
"Jump for all you're worth!" ”

“ New York Tribune: "One of the cleverest musical novels we know, and it is particularly creditable in that it holds nothing of the hysterical gush with which the feminine writer usually fills fiction of this kind.... The study of the group of singers at the Royal Opera in a minor German city is astonishingly well done, and so is the portrait of the great tenor's peasant wife ... so unmistakably true that she must have been drawn from life ... an uncommonly attractive and interesting novel." ”

“ Miss Arminster wants to marry you."
"Well, isn't that a question between Miss Arminster and myself?"
"Naturally. But then she's married pretty frequently, hasn't she? Of course, if all her husbands are dead—" [Pg 280]
"Oh, no," said Spotts. "I don't think she's ever lost a husband."
"But you surely can't contemplate—" began Cecil.
"Well, you see," contended the actor, "this is the first time she's ever asked me to marry her, and one can't be so ungallant as to refuse a lady." ”

“ Resistance is quite useless. I've plenty of men awaiting my signal on deck."
Violet, who in the light of this last remark suddenly understood the position, burst into peals of laughter.
"You'll find it's no laughing matter," cried the journalist angrily.
"I insist upon your instantly explaining your outrageous conduct," said the Bishop.
"I can do that in a very few words," replied Marchmont. "As an American representative, and authorised agent of the Daily Leader, the people's bulwark of defence, I arrest you both as Spanish spies."
"He must be mad!" ejaculated his Lordship. ”

“ The palace would form an excellent background for the sensational exposure he hoped to make. If he could only get the Bishop into a corner, he would be quite satisfied.
"Well, what?" she demanded sharply, impatient at his unfinished sentence.
"Unless," he continued, hedging carefully—"unless your nephew felt that it was quite sufficient to have explained things to his father. Doubtless the Bishop knows all about his son's friends."
"The Bishop knows a great deal too much for a man in his position," snapped his sister.
"Quite so," thought the journalist, "and doesn't confide it to you." ”

“ There's no evidence of her ever having been through the divorce court. Indeed, she may never have been married to more than one man at the same time."
"But how to account—"
"For the mortality in husbands? Well, fortunately, we're not required to do that."
"I will not have my dear brother stricken down in his prime!" gasped Miss Matilda.
"Oh, I don't suppose she's necessarily fatal. Still, as mistress of Blanford—"
The Bishop's sister arose in her wrath. For the first time in her existence she wanted to swear, but contented herself by remarking:
"That young woman leaves the palace to-day!" ”

“ All the way from Blanford to Dullhampton the Bishop was in the best of spirits, much on the principle of a naughty boy who, having played truant, means to enjoy his holiday to the full, well knowing that he will be caned when it is over. Indeed his Lordship became positively skittish, and Miss Arminster was obliged to squelch him a little, as that young lady, for excellent reasons of her own, had no more intention of becoming the mistress of Blanford than she had of wedding the author of "The Purple Kangaroo." ”

“ As his Lordship and Miss Arminster appeared, the crew approached, expecting a speech.
"I hardly know what to say," began the Bishop to Violet.
"Let me speak to them, will you?" she asked, her eyes sparkling. "I understand human nature pretty well. I have to, in my profession."
His Lordship nodded assent, and a moment later she had sprung on to the cabin hatch, a most entrancing little figure, and instantly [Pg 263] commanded the attention and admiration of her audience. ”

“ But somehow the book doesn't sell."
"Advertising, my boy—that's the word."
"The traditions of the firm forbid it," objected Banborough.
"Traditions! What's any country less than a thousand years old got to do with traditions?" spluttered Marchmont. "I knew a Chicago author who got a divorce every time he produced a new novel. They sold like hot cakes." ”

“ Nothing could be better," replied his adviser, who, like all men who have risen in their profession, had attained an infinite knowledge of human nature.
"And you will be so kind as to write me a note, stating your opinion—about the rest—and—er—immunity from letters—and all that," said the Bishop, depositing with studied thoughtlessness a double fee on the table, "for the benefit of my—my family. She is—they are—I mean—that is, she might not realise the importance of absolute rest, and"—as a brilliant thought occurred to him—"and you'll give me a prescription." ”

“ I can't always call you by your title."
"Call me Josephus," he said.
"No, I couldn't call you that, either. It's too dreadful. I'll call you Joe."
The Bishop beamed with joy.
"And I," he faltered, "may I call you Violet?" [Pg 230]
"No," she said, "I don't think it's proper in a man of your position."
"But if you call me—Joe—"
"Well!" she cried, laughing, "we'll make a compromise. Suppose you call me 'the Leopard'?"
"To be sure," he said. "Mrs. Mackintosh spoke of you as that—er—quadruped. But what does it mean?"
"You want to know a great deal too much for a man of your age. ”

“ On the whole, I think I'll marry Mr. Spotts. He's nice—and handy." [Pg 277]
"But mightn't he have something to say?" began Banborough.
"Probably," admitted Violet; "but he generally does what he's told, and as he isn't married to any one else, I dare say he'll prove amenable when he understands the position. I'll try and see him this morning, and," as a brilliant idea struck her, "your father shall perform the ceremony. I never was married by a Bishop before. Won't it be jolly!"
"You surely can't seriously intend—" began Cecil. ”

“ I tell you what it is, Marchmont, the public will wake up to the merits of 'The Purple Kangaroo' some day. Why doesn't the Daily Leader notice it?"
"My dear Cecil, give me the space and I'll write a critique the fulsome flattery of which will come up to even your exacting demands. But just at present we're so busy arousing popular enthusiasm that we really haven't time."
"You never do have time," replied Banborough, a trifle petulantly, "except for sleeping after lunch." ”

“ Baffled in his first attempt, Marchmont sought other means of information, for there is always a weak spot in every defence, and a man of far less keen perception than the reporter would have had little difficulty in finding the most favourable point of attack. So it is not surprising that after a little cogitation he went in search of Miss Matilda, whom he had met the day before when he had returned with the party from the abbey. He found that lady on the lawn knitting socks for the heathen, and deserted for the nonce by the faithful Smith. ”

“ The sharp ring of the engine-room bell from the liner's bridge was the only reply vouchsafed him, and a moment later the big ship forged ahead, her captain very red in the face and swearing like a trooper: for the most precious thing on board a racer of that class is time, and the "Homing Pigeon" had been wasting it. ”

“ Perhaps three minutes had elapsed when the actor came out, running quietly towards him so as not to attract attention. The street was well-nigh deserted, and no one seemed to have noticed the movements of the Black Maria.
"Walk slowly till we're round the corner, and then drive for all you're worth!" gasped Spotts, springing on to the seat beside him. ”