Belknap

“ Use your influence like a good fellow, won't you, when the thing is suggested?"
"Only too gladly," I responded, sick at heart, and she returned to the group. Well I knew her motive. She was by way of getting even with the Belknap-Jacksons. As Cousin Egbert in his American fashion would put it, she was trying to pass them a bison. But I was willing enough she should house the dreadful affair. The more private the better, thought I.
A moment later Belknap-Jackson's car appeared at my door, now discharging the Klondike woman, effusively escorted by the Mixer and by Mrs. Belknap-Jackson. ”

“ Belknap’s equal certainty to the contrary?”
Julian was filling his pipe with unsteady fingers in an effort to cover his excitement and pleasure at Berry’s tone of easy, natural camaraderie!
“Yes, Mr. Berry. I am. But I admit my willingness to be proved mistaken by anyone but Mr. Belknap.”
“I’ve remarked that you and Mr. Belknap don’t exactly see eye to eye.” Berry’s lips twitched in a half-smile. “Or is it that you’ve sighted identically, to the point of interference—had you hit on the Dorn solution too? You don’t fancy such a formidable rival, is that it?” ”

“ But with the Honourable George enlisted, both Belknap-Jackson and I considered the opinions of Cousin Egbert to be quite wholly negligible.
Saturday’s Recorder, in its advance notice of the recital, announced that the Belknap-Jacksons of Boston and Red Gap would entertain the artist on the following afternoon at their palatial home in the Pettengill addition, where a select few of the North Side set had been invited to meet him. Belknap-Jackson himself was as a man uplifted. He constantly revised and re-revised his invitation list ”

“ His step has a ring when his foot touches the pavement, and his hand has the true grip, whether it hauls a rebel colonel over the earthworks on the battlefield, or touches the dainty finger-tips of a woman. It is said that Secretary Belknap has a warm place in the Chief Magistrate’s heart, which proves that the feminine element does not enter into the construction of a President. General Belknap is a warrior by inheritance as well as by practice, for ever since the beginning of the Republic the long line of Belknaps have taken up arms in defense of their country. ”

“ Belknap-Jackson softly and politely withdrew at once.
Alone with his lordship, I thought it best to acquaint him instantly with the change in my circumstances, touching lightly upon the matter of my now being an equal with rather most of the North Americans. He listened with exemplary patience to my brief recital and was good enough to felicitate me.
“Assure you, glad to hear it—glad no end. Worthy fellow; always knew it. And equal, of course, of course! Take up their equality by all means if you take ‘em up themselves. ”

“ He passed over the knife. With all his faults, he was too smart a man not to know the fix he was in. Yet I thought I'd clinch it.
"Mr. Belknap," says I, "your goose is cooked. The government army is right outside, as your people could have seen, if they'd had the wit of a mud-turtle. I've come into your lines prepared to do anything necessary, as you can readily imagine. We're going to have a little play-acting now, and you're to guess your part. If you guess wrong—Well, heaven has missed you for some time, and she sha'n't be defrauded any longer." ”

“ On the shore of Oneida Lake is an Indian's grave, where a ball of light is wont to swing and dance. A farmer named Belknap dreamed several times of a buried treasure at this point, and he was told, in his vision, that if he would dig there at midnight he could make it his own. He made the attempt, and his pick struck a crock that gave a chink, as of gold. He should, at that moment, have turned around three times, as his dream directed, but he was so excited that he forgot to. A flash of lightning rent the air and stretched him senseless on the grass. ”

“ Print that now and insult all our best people who received him!"
"Pathetic how little the poor chap understands," sighed Belknap-Jackson. "No sense at all of our plight—naturally, naturally!"
"'A series of entertainments being planned in his honour!'" quavered Mrs. Belknap-Jackson.
"'The most sought-after notable present!'" echoed Mrs. Effie viciously.
Again and again I had essayed to protest my innocence, only to provoke renewed outbursts. I could but stand there with what dignity I retained and let them savage me. Cousin Egbert now spoke again:
"Shucks! What's all the fuss? ”

“ Belknap-Jackson almost tearfully.
“Say, listen here, now; I don’t see as how I’ve done anything wrong,” he feebly protested. “Bill’s human, ain’t he? Answer me that!”
“One sees it all!” This from Belknap-Jackson in bitter and judicial tones. He flung out his hands at Cousin Egbert in a gesture of pitiless scorn. “I dare say,” he continued, “that poor Ruggles was merely a tool in his hands—weak, possibly, but not vicious.”
“May I inquire——” I made bold to begin, but Mrs. Effie shut me off, brandishing the newspaper before me. ”

“ Only by slight degrees, then, did it fall to be noticed that the Honourable George did not hold himself to be too strictly bound by our social conventions as to whom one should be pally with. Thus, on the morrow, at the hour when the Belknap-Jacksons called, he was regrettably absent on what Cousin Egbert called "a hack-ride" with the driver person he had met the day before, nor did they return until after the callers had waited the better part of two hours. Cousin Egbert, as usual, received the blame for this, yet neither of the Belknap-Jacksons nor Mrs. Effie dared to upbraid him. ”

“ Belknap had written Captain Huse that he and his man were quite prepared to rough it and, if need be, could sleep between decks. The “Celtic” is a U. S. supply ship carrying about one hundred and forty men, and bow and stern guns; her officers’ quarters are small, but somehow Captain Huse made Belknap’s party very comfortable. J.’s bunk was in the sick bay, along with Lieutenant Allen Buchanan, Ensigns Wilcox and Spofford and Dr. Martin Donelson, all of our navy. ”

“ The affair was to be confined to the family, his lordship the only guest, this being thought discreet for the night of his arrival in view of the peculiar nature of his mission. Belknap-Jackson had hoped against hope that the Mixer might not be present, and even so late as the day of his lordship's arrival he was cheered by word that she might be compelled to keep her bed with a neuralgia. ”

“ Creature has a way of picking up things not half nasty."
"But each day Belknap-Jackson met him with pressing offers of such entertainment as the town afforded. Three several times he had been obliged to postpone the informal evening affair for a few smart people. Yet, though patient, he was determined. Reluctantly at last he abandoned the design of driving his guest about in the trap, but he insistently put forward the motor-car. He would drive it himself. They would spend pleasant hours going about the country. His lordship continued elusive. To myself he confided that his host was a nagger. ”

“ He was drunk with the feel of power. He feared the superstitions of Yekub no more than he feared those of earth. With that globe in his hands he would be king of Yekub. The worm men would dare deny him nothing, when he held their god as hostage. He reached a hand for the ball -- no longer ivory-hued, but red as blood....
(Frank Belknap Long) Out of the tent into the pale August night walked the body of George Campbell. It moved with a slow, wavering gait between the bodies of enormous trees, over a forest path strewed with sweet scented pine needles. The air was crisp and cold. ”

“ Belknap, in his New Hampshire, gives a sufficient narrative; and Dr. Quint, in his notes to Pike’s Journal (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiv. 124) , indicates the manuscript sources. For the capture of the stockade at Pemaquid, which quickly followed, we have the French side in the Relation of Father Thury, the priest of the mission to the Penobscot Indians, who was in the action, and La Motte-Cadillac’s Mémoire sur l’Acadie, 1692. ”

“ I envy the man who's sure he's right, but the Lord have mercy on his friends. Well, that's what Perez and I arrived at; that we were stacked against a blooming mystery and we'd shoot at the one glimmer of light we had. Mary did care for Sax. Good. Belknap was a fraud. Good. To the devil with the rest of the argument.
However, I didn't reveal my full plan regarding Belknap to my kinsman. I had a hunch that even my likeness to Grandpa De La Tour wouldn't convince him. You see, like most kids, savages, and people not grown up in general, I believed in playing the game as it was played on me. ”

“ Another of my tricks is to wish to be believed in myself, and yet always doubt other people. Well, I lost my grip; I cannot remember all I said to Mary, but I can easily remember that it was all unpleasant. I simply improved on the Almighty's handiwork by making a longer-eared jackass of myself than I was intended to be, winding up as a masterstroke by attacking Belknap. It was only two days before, Perez, that Oriñez had told me the other side of Belknap's Great Work ”

“ Covers were laid in my room for seventy and among these were included not only the members of the North Side set and the entire Bohemian set, but many worthy persons not hitherto socially existent yet who had been friends or well-wishers of the bride.
I am persuaded to confess that in a few of these instances I was not above a snarky little wish to correct the social horizon of Belknap-Jackson; to make it more broadly accord, as I may say, with the spirit of American equality for which their forefathers bled and died on the battlefields of Boston, New York, and Vicksburg. ”

“ They redoubled their attentions to the unfortunate man, seeking to leave him not an unoccupied evening or afternoon. Such was the gravity of the crisis. Belknap-Jackson alone remained finely judicial.
"The situation is of the gravest character," he confided to me, "but we must be wary. The day isn't lost so long as he doesn't appear publicly in the creature's train. For the present we have only unverified rumour. As a man about town Vane-Basingwell may feel free to consort with vicious companions and still maintain his proper standing. ”

“ Egbert has from the first had a curious American tendency to present me to his many friends as 'Colonel.' I am sure he means as little by it as when he calls me 'Bill,' which I have often reminded him is not a name of mine."
"Oh, we understand the poor chap is a social incompetent," said Belknap-Jackson with a despairing shrug. ”

“ We may speak before him as before a babe in arms; the amenities of the situation are forever beyond him."
"I guess I always been able to hold up my head when I felt like it," put in Cousin Egbert, now again both sullen and puzzled. Once more he threw out his encouragement to me: "Don't let 'em run any bluffs, Bill! They can't touch you, and they know it."
"'Touch him,'" murmured Mrs. Belknap-Jackson with an able sneer. "My dear, what a trial he must have been to you. I never knew. He's as bad as the mater, actually." ”

“ Belknap had found employment in a refugee bureau.
He ran down Mme. Lebuc, who was still at her desk in the same big room, facing a row of horse-hair benches packed with tired people waiting their turn for a clothing-ticket or a restaurant card. ”

“ Belknap was pouring himself a thimbleful of Scotch at the tray standing in readiness on the divan table. He tossed it off, and turned over the after flavor on his tongue, as his mind turned over the possible subtleties of Nadia’s remark. She had made it piquant by a twist of inflection. A Polonius as well as a rat—or so the tone implied.
“We were speaking of Bertrand,” she continued abruptly. “Do you not consider him a little secretive about the week-end, conveying that there is a 33 reason why we are here? Why should there need be a reason?” ”

“ Belknap’s ejaculation reminds one of divers interesting matters—of Archimedes, when he leaped from his bath, and ran about naked, for joy, with eureka on his lips, having excogitated the plan, for detecting the fraud, practised upon Hiero.—It also recalls—parvis componere magna—Johnson’s memorable exclamation, upon walking over the graves, at Icolmkill—“To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavored, and would be foolish, if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses ”

“ In a second I saw the play—Brother Belknap's revolution!
That braced me. The victims ran with their arms over their heads for protection; when one dropped his arms and raised his head to cry for help, I recognized Tony Gonzales, the squarest, nicest man in the place. That steadied me more yet. Fifty men to the two!
"Come on, Pedro!" I hollered. We each grabbed a pick-handle, and with that in one hand and a gun in the other, we went to the door.
"Beel," says Pedro, "let us to remain here. They cannot be hurt now, for they run verree fas'. The es-store is a fort. If we stay, we do better." ”

“ But he added quickly with even more irritation, “only don’t you get the idea it’s because I’m afraid of you.”
“Tush, tush!” said Belknap-Jackson.
“No, sir; I apologize, but it ain’t for one minute because I’m afraid of you.”
“Your bare apology is ample; I’m bound to accept it,” replied the other, a bit uneasily I thought.
“Come right down to it,” continued Cousin Egbert, “I ain’t afraid of hardly any person. I can be pushed just so far.” Here he looked significantly at Mrs. Effie. ”