b heard the news next morning at a late
breakfast. Major Brent, who had been fishing early up-stream, bore the
news, and delivered it in an incoherent bellow.

"What d'ye mean by that?" demanded Colonel Hyssop, setting down his
cocktail with unsteady fingers.

"Mean?" roared the Major; "I mean that Munn and a lot o' women are
sitting on the river-bank and singing 'Home Again'!"

The news jarred everybody, but the effect of it upon the president,
Peyster Sprowl, appeared to be out of all proportion to its gravity.
That gentleman's face was white as death; and the Major noticed it.

"You'll have to rid us of this mob," said the Major, slowly.

Sprowl lifted his heavy, overfed face from his plate. "I'll attend to
it," he said, hoarsely, and swallowed a pint of claret.

"I think it is amusing," said Agatha Sprowl, looking across the table at
Coursay.

"Amusing, madam!" burst out the Major. "They'll be doing their laundry
in our river next!"

"Soapsuds in my favorite pools!" bawled the Colonel. "Damme if I'll
permit it!"

"Sprowl ought to settle them," said Lansing, good-naturedly. "It may
cost us a few thousands, but Sprowl will do the work this time as he did
it before."

Sprowl choked in his claret, turned a vivid beef-color, and wiped his
chin. His appetite was ruined. He hoped the ruin would stop there.

"What harm will they do?" asked Coursay, seriously--"beyond the
soapsuds?"

"They'll fish, they'll throw tin cans in the water, they'll keep us
awake with their fanatical powwows--confound it, haven't I seen that
sort of thing?" said the Major, passionately. "Yes, I have, at nigger
camp-meetings! And these people beat the niggers at that sort of thing!"

"Leave 'em to me," repeated Peyster Sprowl, thickly, and began on
another chop from force of habit.

"About fifteen years ago," said the Colonel, "there was some talk about
our title. You fixed that, didn't you, Sprowl?"

"Yes," said Sprowl, with parched lips.

"Of course," muttered the Major; "it cost us a cool hundred thousand to
perfect our title. Thank God it's settled."

Sprowl's immense body turned perfectly cold; he buried his face in his
glass and drained it. Then the shrimp-color returned to his neck and
ears, and deepened to scarlet. When the earth ceased reeling before his
apoplectic eyes, he looked around, furtively. Again the scene in
O'Hara's death-chamber came to him; the threat of Munn, who had got
wind of the true situation, and th