e door and returned to his pursuit of making human beings either
whole or dead.
"And now, Roberta Carruthers, no longer Marquise of Grez and Bye, you
are in your America, and let's see you do some hustling," as remarked
that Mr. Saint Louis to Mr. Peter Scudder at cards.
And while that very swift taxi conveyed me to the large station that
is as beautiful as a cathedral I did some what I name "tall thinking."
What would be the result of my womanly arrival in that State of
Harpeth of my wicked Uncle? Would he be forced to murder me as his
letter had said? And if in his anger over the mistake he had made from
my letter, written in that very bold and difficult handwriting, he
should turn from me, and the good Nannette and Pierre as well, what
would I then do? All must be enacted that a cure for Pierre be
obtained. With great energy I had been thinking, but I did not know
what it was that I should do to prevent his anger when I arrived to
him as a woman until suddenly the good Doctor Burns' kindness in
marking the resemblance of me to my father in his extreme youth made
an entry into my brain and was received with the greatest welcome by
the daredevil who there resides.
"Very well, Robert Carruthers, who is no longer the beautiful Marquise
of Grez and Bye, you will be that husky nephew to your wicked Uncle in
the State of Harpeth whom he 'needs in his business.' What is it that
you lack of a man's estate save the clothes, which you have money in
your pockets to obtain after you have purchased the ticket upon the
railway train?"
A decision had been made and action upon it had begun in less than a
half hour after the purchase of the ticket for the State of Harpeth
had been accomplished.
As my father had taught me observation in hunting, I had remarked a
large shop for the clothing of men upon the Sixth Avenue near to the
station. I made my way into it and by a very nice fiction of an
invalid brother whom I was taking to the South of America I was able
to buy for a few dollars less than was in my pocket two most
interesting bags of apparel for a handsome young man of fashion. The
man who assisted me to buy was very large, with a head only ornamented
with a drapery of gray hair around the edges, and he spoke much of
what his son deemed suitable to make appearance in the prevailing
mode.
"He's at tea at the Ritz-Carlton with a lady friend this afternoon,
and I wish you could have saw him when he left the store to me
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