somewhere, I believe. If I had known what an experience I must go
through to reach him, I'd have seen him at the devil."
From the bulky figure at the horse's head came a chuckle.
"Humph! Well, Mr. Graves, if the butt of that limb had fetched us,
instead of t'other end, I don't know but you _might_ have seen him
there. I'm Elisha Warren, and that's my house over yonder where the
lights are."
CHAPTER II
"This is your room, Mr. Graves," said Miss Abigail Baker, placing
the lighted lamp on the bureau. "And here's a pair of socks and some
slippers. They belong to Elisha--Cap'n Warren, that is--but he's got
more. Cold water and towels and soap are on the washstand over yonder;
but I guess you've had enough _cold_ water for one night. There's plenty
hot in the bathroom at the end of the hall. After you change your wet
things, just leave 'em spread out on the floor. I'll come fetch 'em by
and by and hang 'em to dry in the kitchen. Come right downstairs when
you're ready. Anything else you want? No? All right then. You needn't
hurry. Supper's waited an hour 'n' a half as 'tis. 'Twon't hurt it to
wait a spell longer."
She went away, closing the door after her. The bewildered, wet and
shivering New Yorker stared about the room, which, to his surprise, was
warm and cozy. The warmth was furnished, so he presently discovered,
by a steam radiator in the corner. Radiators and a bathroom! These were
modern luxuries he would have taken for granted, had Elisha Warren been
the sort of man he expected to find, the country magnate, the leading
citizen, fitting brother to the late A. Rodgers Warren, of Fifth Avenue
and Wall Street.
But the Captain Warren who had driven him to South Denboro in the rain
was not that kind of man at all. His manner and his language were as far
removed from those of the late A. Rodgers as the latter's brown stone
residence was from this big rambling house, with its deep stairs and
narrow halls, its antiquated pictures and hideous, old-fashioned wall
paper; as far removed as Miss Baker, whom the captain had hurriedly
introduced as "my second cousin keepin' house for me," was from the
dignified butler at the mansion on Fifth Avenue. Patchwork comforters
and feather beds were not, in the lawyer's scheme of things, fit
associates for radiators and up-to-date bathrooms. And certainly this
particular Warren was not fitted to be elder brother to the New York
broker who had been Sylvester, Kuhn and G
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