Chapter IV

_El Mogreb Alaska_, that enterprising sheet, duly announced the arrival of the Duke's party. "Unfortunately," said the journal, "one member of the Duke's entourage, the Rt. Hon. the Lord Tupping, was left behind at Gibraltar through some mistake as to the hour of the sailing of the _Gibel Musa_."

From which it may be gathered that Tuppy had fallen from grace. He came on by the next boat--two days later, with a tentative grievance. That is to say, it was a grievance that he was prepared, to withdraw in the absence of any reproach on the part of the Duke.

Tuppy had been spending a day with a friend who was Deputy-Adjutant Something or other to the forces.

"I didn't mistake the hour, Monty, old feller," he explained eagerly, "I was down on the dashed pier, with all my traps, gazin' pensively at the lappin' waves an' the sea-gulls circlin' on rigid pinions an' all that, waitin' for you, when it occurred to me that you were a doosid long time comin'. So I drove to your hotel an' found you'd left the day before."

They sat in the big hall of the Continental Hotel. From the narrow street without, came the sing-song intonation of young Islam at its lessons, and the pattering of laden donkeys. Tuppy talked to the Duke but was looking elsewhere.

Hank had found some countrywomen of his, and surrounded by all that was best and beautiful in Ohio, was solemnly narrating for their especial benefit a purely fanciful description of a Moorish harem. One face in that circle attracted Tuppy strangely.

"Then there's the laundry wife who does the washin', an' the cook wife who does the cooking, an' the washin'-up wife, an' the sock wife who darns the socks----"

"Oh, Mr. Hankey, you're jollying us?"

"No, sir," said Hank firmly, "when I was American Minister at Fez in '82...."

Tuppy's explanations, having been satisfactorily exploited, the Duke listened with amusement to the procession of unfounded statements Hank was leading forth for the benefit of the fair Americans.

"Do you know, Mr. Hankey," said one suddenly, "we really don't believe a word you're saying. For one thing I'm sure you was never the favourite of the Sultan or we should have read about it in the New York Sunday papers. And I'm certain you never married the Sultan's daughter, Fatima, because you'd just be ashamed to confess it to a lot of nice American girls. You're just a new-comer like the American we met on the Fez Road who asked our guide where the nearest Beer Hall was."

A shriek of laughter greeted this innocent jest. Hank sat up, his lazy voice became immediately incisive.

"On the Fez Road--an American?"

"He was a man with white eyes," said a voice.

"Oh, Mamie, how unkind! still his eyes _did_ look white."

Hank shot a swift glance at the Duke, and the latter nodded.

"I suppose," drawled Hank, "it would be a mighty improper question to ask where this freeborn citizen of God's country is stayin' in Tangier."

But nobody knew. They had met the man by accident, they had seen him once in the Great Sok, more than this they could not say.

Hank had picked up a servant, none other than Rabbit.

Rabbit is a well-known figure in Tangier society. A waif of the streets, a bravo, an adventurer, a most amusing child of nature was this Rabbit--so-called because of a certain facial resemblance to bunny. It may be said of Rabbit that he disobeyed most commands of the Prophet. He drank, gambled, and was on friendly terms with the _giaour_. None the less he rose at inconvenient hours of the night, tucked a praying carpet under his arm and hied him to his orisons. Rabbit had curious likes and dislikes; he was not everybody's man.

His world had two names. The world that treated him well, and to whom he attached himself, was "Mr. Goodman"; the world repugnant had a name which has no exact equivalent in the English language, but which in German would be "Mr. Shameless-dog-burnt-in-pitch-and-consigned-to-the underworld." Hank was the time being his "Mr. Goodman," and to Rabbit Hank delegated the task of discovering Bill.

Rabbit discharged his task in three minutes. His procedure was simple.

He strolled into the market place and found a small boy in tattered jelab and very industriously kicking another small boy. Having impartially smacked the heads of both, he sent them on their errand of discovery. Then he went off to sleep. In an hour's time Rabbit presented himself before Hank in a picturesque condition of exhaustion and reported that Mr. Bill Slewer was staying at a little hotel near the _Kasbah_. It was not exactly an hotel, said Rabbit frankly, but a House of Experience, where strangers threw a Main with Fate.

"The difficulty with Bill will be his unexpectedness," said the Duke, "there is no place in the world more suitably situated for the springing of a surprise than Tangier."

"Where's Tuppy?" he asked.

"Tuppy has found an ideal," said Hank, "something worshipful. Did I introduce you to that pretty little girl from Drayton, Ohio?"

"You introduced me to several pretty little girls from Drayton, Ohio," said the Duke.

"I mean the one that talks."

The Duke drew a long breath.

"The description is inadequate," he said, "do you mean the one that sometimes doesn't talk?"

Hank ignored the slight to his kindred.

"The curious thing about it is that she hasn't a dollar an' Tuppy knows it. Her father is just a plain American gentleman with a contempt for millionaires: I doubt if his capital value runs into six figures--dollars I mean."

"Have you been matchmaking?" asked the Duke severely, and Hank blushed.

"I've no use for lords an' suchlike foolishness," he confessed, "but Tuppy has possibilities." His declaration in Tuppy's favour coincided with one made by that worthy on his own behalf.

He had at little trouble secured an introduction to the laughing girl who had acted as Hank's interlocutor.

Now, on the back of a gaily caparisoned mule, he was returning from an excursion to the suburbs, and the girl who rode the donkey at his side was listening demurely whilst Tuppy spoke upon his favourite subject--which was Tuppy.

"You must understand, Miss Boardman," he said, "that mine is a blighted life: I'm a piece of humanity's flotsam, a pathetic chunk of wreckage on the sea of human existence."

"Oh, no, Lord Tupping," murmured the girl.

"It's true," said Tuppy gloomily, "saddled by rank an' bridled by circumstance" (this was his pet figure), "I've been outdistanced an' outfaced in the Marathon of Life. My whole nature, naturally pure an' confidin', has been warped an' distorted by a variety of conditions, an' even the early grave to which I would extend a fervent welcome--steady, you beast." He jerked back the reins of his prancing mule, readjusted his hat and eye-glass and proceeded--"The merciful dissolution for which I yearned was denied me, an' doomed to tread the thorny path that leads to oblivion--I'll knock your head off if you don't keep quiet--doomed to stalk, if I may use the expression--a sad shadow amidst the laughin' throng, I've become a wretched, embittered creature."

"Oh, no, Lord Tupping!" dissented the girl.

"Sometimes," Tuppy proceeded recklessly, "I'm in such a dashed horridly low state that I don't care _what_ happens--when I would gladly change places with fellers goin' out to war, an' all that sort of thing. I _did_ volunteer for the Boer war, but my stupid man forgot to post the letter."

"How splendid!" said the girl with her eyes sparkling, "have you ever been to war, Lord Tupping?"

"Not exactly _to_ war," said Tuppy carefully, "_in_ the wars, yes; but not _to_ war."

Earlier in the afternoon he had gently broken to her the story of his _mesalliance_.

"I was a boy at the time an' she was a prima donna." He could not bring himself to own up to a strong woman. "We parted practically at the church door," he went on with melancholy relish, "information came to me that she was already married. I dropped her--or rather I gave her the opportunity of droppin' me."

"How chivalrous! it must have been a painful experience."

"It was," said Tuppy emphatically, "more painful for me than for her."

They threaded a way through the crowd in the Great Sok.

"Now, Miss Boardman," said Tuppy, "you know all that is to be known about me. I've told you," he said moodily, "more than I've ever told any feller."

Tuppy believed, when he said this, he was speaking the truth. It was the surest sign of his confidence and friendship, that he added to the history of his life--a history filed in most newspaper offices, and which appeared at regular intervals in the New York journals, indeed, every time that the strong lady changed her husband--the assurance that he had told his hearer "more than he had ever told anybody else." In this Tuppy was not singular.

But to the girl at his side, it was all very new, and all very, very tragic, and there were tears in her eyes as her cavalier led the way down the hill to the town.

In spite of his confidence she was ill-prepared for the proposal that followed.

It was after dinner, when the cool breezes from the Atlantic made life bearable; when the sea was bathed in moonlight and the shadowy Spanish hills bulked mistily on the ocean's rim, that Tuppy declared himself.

"Miss Boardman," he said suddenly--they were watching the sea from the terrace of the Cecil--"d'ye know I'm nearly a beggar, broke to the wide, unsympathetic world, up to my neck in debt." The attack was sudden and the girl was alarmed.

"Lord Tuppy--I'm--I'm sorry," she stammered.

"That's all right," said Tuppy easily, "don't let that worry you. But I wanted to tell you. An' there's another startlin' statement I want to make, I've been talkin' with your father."

"Have you?" faltered the girl.

"I have," said Tuppy firmly, "I asked him straight out if he was one of those millionaires that grow as thick as huckleberries in America."

For a moment only the girl suspected his motive.

"I was frank with him," said Tuppy, "so doosid frank that he nearly chucked me out of the window, but wiser councils prevailed, as dear old Milton says, an' he listened--Miss Boardman, you're not rich."

She made no reply.

"So that's why I'm goin' to ask you to come an' share a ninety pounds a year baronial castle in the suburbs of London. I've got a little income, enough to pay the rent an' buy a library subscription--will you take me?"

All this Tuppy said with an assumption of firmness that he was far from feeling.

"There's nothin' in me--I'm a reed an' a rotter."

"Indeed you mustn't say that!" she pleaded.

"I am," said Tuppy resolutely, "I'm a long worm that has no turnin', but I offer you the homage of my declinin' years--is it a bet?"

His voice shook. Tuppy was ever ready to be stirred by his own emotions.

"The title ain't much good to you, an' it ain't much good to me," he said huskily, "it's a barren possession. An unpawnable asset that has come unsullied through the ages--I offer it to you," his voice broke, "for what it is worth."

She accepted him, whereupon, I believe, Tuppy broke down and they wept together.