ient servant,
Mulberry Sellers Earl Rossmore.

"Im-mense! Come, this one's interesting. Why, Berkeley, his breezy
impudence is--is--why, it's colossal, it's sublime."

"No, this one doesn't seem to cringe much."

"Cringe--why, he doesn't know the meaning of the word. Hatchments! To
commemorate that sniveling tramp and his, fraternal duplicate. And he is
going to send me the remains. The late Claimant was a fool, but plainly
this new one's a maniac. What a name! Mulberry Sellers--there's music
for you, Simon Lathers--Mulberry Sellers--Mulberry Sellers--Simon
Lathers. Sounds like machinery working and churning. Simon Lathers,
Mulberry Sel--Are you going?"

"If I have your leave, father."

The old gentleman stood musing some time, after his son was gone. This
was his thought:

"He is a good boy, and lovable. Let him take his own course--as it would
profit nothing to oppose him--make things worse, in fact. My arguments
and his aunt's persuasions have failed; let us see what America can do
for us. Let us see what equality and hard-times can effect for the
mental health of a brain-sick young British lord. Going to renounce his
lordship and be a man! Yas!"

CHAPTER II.

COLONEL MULBERRY SELLERS--this was some days before he wrote his letter
to Lord Rossmore--was seated in his "library," which was also his
"drawing-room" and was also his "picture gallery" and likewise his
"work-shop." Sometimes he called it by one of these names, sometimes by
another, according to occasion and circumstance. He was constructing
what seemed to be some kind of a frail mechanical toy; and was apparently
very much interested in his work. He was a white-headed man, now, but
otherwise he was as young, alert, buoyant, visionary and enterprising as
ever. His loving old wife sat near by, contentedly knitting and
thinking, with a cat asleep in her lap. The room was large, light, and
had a comfortable look, in fact a home-like look, though the furniture
was of a humble sort and not over abundant, and the knickknacks and
things that go to adorn a living-room not plenty and not costly. But
there were natural flowers, and there was an abstract and unclassifiable
something about the place which betrayed the presence in the house of
somebody with a happy taste and an effective touch.

Even the deadly chromos on the walls were somehow without offence;
in fact they seemed to belong there and to