Farrar a hand with the ropes, and it was O'Meara
who caught the one I flung ashore and wound it around a pile. The people
pressed around, peering at our party on the Maria, and I heard McCann
exhorting them to make way. And just then, as he was about to cross the
plank, they parted for some one from behind. A breathless messenger
halted at the edge of the wharf. He held out a telegram.

McCann seized it and dived into the cabin, followed closely by my client
and those of us who could push after. He tore open the envelope, his eye
ran over the lines, and then he began to slap his thigh and turn around
in a circle, like a man dazed.

"Whiskey!" shouted Mr. Cooke. "Get him a glass of Scotch!"

But McCann held up his hand.

"Holy Saint Patrick!" he said, in a husky voice, "it's upset I am,
bottom upwards. Will ye listen to this?"

"'Drew is your man. Reddish hair and long side whiskers, gray
clothes. Pretends to represent summer hotel syndicate. Allen at
Asquith unknown and harmless.

"' (Signed.) Everhardt."'

"Sew me up," said Mr. Cooke; "if that don't beat hell!"

CHAPTER XXI

In this world of lies the good and the bad are so closely intermingled
that frequently one is the means of obtaining the other. Therefore, I
wish very freely to express my obligations to the Celebrity for any share
he may have had in contributing to the greatest happiness of my life.

Marian and I were married the very next month, October, at my client's
palatial residence of Mohair. This was at Mr. Cooke's earnest wish: and
since Marian was Mrs. Cooke's own niece, and an orphan, there seemed no
good reason why my client should not be humored in the matter. As for
Marian and me, we did not much care whether we were married at Mohair or
the City of Mexico. Mrs. Cooke, I think, had a secret preference for
Germantown.

Mr. Cooke quite over-reached himself in that wedding. "The knot was
tied," as the papers expressed it, "under a huge bell of yellow roses."
The paper also named the figure which the flowers and the collation and
other things cost Mr. Cooke. A natural reticence forbids me to repeat
it. But, lest my client should think that I undervalue his kindness,
I will say that we had the grandest wedding ever seen in that part of the
world. McCann was there, and Mr. Cooke saw to it that he had a punchbowl
all to himself in which to drink our healths: Judge Short was there,
still followed by the conjugal eye: and Sena