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"Colonel Starbottle," he said formally, "desires to express his regrets at this delay, which was unavoidable, as he was obliged to attend his ward, who was leaving by the down coach for Sacramento with Mrs. Pyecroft, this morning." Hamlin, Wynyard, and Beeswinger exchanged glances. "Colonel Starbottle," continued MacKinstry, turning to his principal, "desires to say a word to Mr. Hamlin." As Mr.
Hamlin could not help noticing that for the next two or three days there were many callers at the ranch and that he was obliged in his walks to avoid the highroad on account of the impertinent curiosity of wayfarers. Some of them were of that sex which he would not have contented himself with simply calling "curious." "To think," said Melinda confidently to her mistress, "that that thar Mrs.
There were hollow circles round the sick man's eyes; there was palsy in his trembling limbs; there was dissolution in his feverish breath. "What's up?" he asked huskily and nervously. "I am, and I want YOU to get up too." "I can't, Jack. I'm regularly done up." He reached his shaking hand towards a glass half-filled with suspicious, pungent-smelling liquid; but Mr. Hamlin stayed it.
Jack Hamlin, a gambler, having once silently ridden with her in the same coach, afterward threw a decanter at the head of a confederate for mentioning her name in a barroom. The overdressed mother of a pupil whose paternity was doubtful had often lingered near this astute Vestal's temple, never daring to enter its sacred precincts, but content to worship the priestess from afar.
There was a certain amount of conviction in what he said. He had never met this kind of creature before. He had surpassed even Hamlin's first intuition of his character. He amused and interested him. But Mr. Hamlin was also a man of the world, and knew that Van Loo's reasoning might be good. He put his hands in his pockets, and said gravely, "What IS your little game?"
I was happy out here by myself on the Mound, where every prospect pleases, and 'n' now here I am again, envying you." "Why, son, I I guess I guess we admire you a whole lot more than we let on to. Cheer up, old man! When you're valedictorian and on the debating team and wallop Hamlin you'll laugh at the Gang, and we'll be proud to write home we know you."
They passed the unruffled Jack Hamlin with a smile and a vaguely significant air, as if calling him as a witness to the colonel's madness, and strode out of the room. As the door closed behind them, Mr. Hamlin lightly settled his white waistcoat, and, with his hands on his hips, lounged towards the colonel. "And THEN?" he said quietly. "Eh?" said the colonel.
"Whip my husband!" said she, slowly, in a hollow tone. "Whip him!" she repeated. "Such a thing was never heard of. There must be some mistake." "There must be. There must be," exclaimed Desire again. "It can never be. They are not so wicked. That Hamlin fellow is bad enough, but oh he isn't bad enough for that. They would not dare. God would not permit it. Some one will stop them."
Yet it was not until years later, when he had made a successful "prospect" on Casket Ridge, that he met Mr. Hamlin in San Francisco, and knew how he had played the part of Mercury upon that "heaven-kissing hill." It had been a day of triumph for Colonel Starbottle.
One of them leaned forward, and apparently conveyed to her information regarding Mr. Hamlin's profession in a single epithet. Whether Mr. Hamlin heard it, or whether he recognized in the informant a distinguished jurist from whom, but a few evenings before, he had won several thousand dollars, I cannot say.