IT was an evening in early August, luminous and warm; the scene, a certain club now emptied of all but a sprinkling of its members; the festival, dinner; and the persons of the play, that gentleman lately known as Count Bunker and his friend the Baron von Blitzenberg. The Count was habited in tweeds; the Baron in evening dress.
"It vas good of you to come up to town jost to see me," said the Baron.
"I'd have crossed Europe, Baron!"
The Baron smiled faintly. Evidently he was scarcely in his most florid humor.
"I vish I could have asked you to my club, Bonker."
"Are you dissatisfied with mine?"
"Oh, no, no! But---- vell, ze fact is, it vould be reported by some one if I took you to ze Regents.
Bonker, she does have me watched!"
"The Baroness?"
"Her mozzer."
"The deuce, Baron!"
The diplomatist gloomily sipped his wine.
"You did hush it all up, eh?" he inquired presently.
"Completely."
"Zank you. I vas so afraid of some scandal!"
"So were they; that's where I had 'em."
"Did zey write in moch anger?"
"No--not very much; rather nice letters, in fact."
The Baron began to cheer up.
"Ach, so! Vas zere any news of--ze Galloshes?"
"Yes, they seem very well. Old Rentoul has caught a salmon. Gallosh hopes to get a fair bag----"
"Bot did zey say nozing about--about Miss Eva?"
"The letter was written by her, you see."
"SHE wrote to YOU! Strange!"
"Very odd, isn't it?"
The Baron meditated for a minute and then inquired--"Vat of ze Maddisons?"
"Well, I gather that Mr. Maddison is erecting an ibis house in connection with the aviary. Ri has gone to Kamchatka, but hopes to be back by the 12th----"
"And Eleanor--no vord of her?"
"It was she who wrote, don't you know."
"Eleanor--and also to you! Bot vy should she?"
"Can't imagine; can you?"
The Baron shook his head solemnly. "No, Bonker, I cannot."
For some moments he pondered over the remarkable conduct of these ladies; and then--"Did you also hear of ze Wallingfords?" he asked.
"I had a short note from them."
"From him, or----"
"Her."
"So! Humph, zey all seem fond of writing letters."
"Why--have you had any too?"
"No; and I do not vant zem."
Yet his immunity did not appear to exhilarate the diplomatist.
"Another bottle of the same," said Bunker aside to the waiter.
. . . . . .
It was an hour later; the scene and the personages the same, but the atmosphere marvellously altered.
"To ze ladies, Bonker!"
"To HER, Baron!"
"To zem both!"
The genial heart, the magnanimous soul of Rudolph von Blitzenberg had asserted their dominion again.
Depression, jealousy, repentance, qualms, and all other shackles of the spirit whatsoever, had fled discomfited.
Now at last he saw his late exploits in their true heroic proportions, and realized his marvellous good fortune in satisfying his aspirations so gloriously. Raising his glass once more, he cried--"Dear Bonker, my heart he does go out to you!
Ach, you have given me soch a treat. Vunce more I schmell ze mountain dew--I hear ze pipes--I gaze into loffly eyes--I am ze noblest part of mineself! Bonker, I vill defy ze mozzer of my wife! I drink to you, my friend, mit hip--hip--hip--hooray!"
"You have more than repaid me," replied the Count, "by the spectacle you have provided. Dear Baron, it was a panorama calculated to convert a continent!"
"To vat should it convert him?" inquired the Baron with interest.
"To a creed even merrier than Socialism, more convivial than Total Abstinence, and more perfectly designed for human needs than Esperanto--the gospel of 'Cheer up.' "
"Sheerup?" repeated the Baron, whose acquaintance with the English words used in commerce and war was singularly intimate, but who was occasionally at fault with terms of less portentous import.
"A name given to the bridge that crosses the Slough of Despond," explained the Count.
The Baron still seemed puzzled. "I am not any wiser," said he.
"Never cease thanking Heaven for that!" cried Bunker fervently. "The man who once dubs himself wise is the jest of gods and the plague of mortals."
With this handsome tribute to the character and attainments of one of these heroes, and the Baronial roar that congratulated the other, our chronicle may fittingly leave them; since the mutual admiration of two such catholic critics is surely more significant than the colder approval of a mere historian.
