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Show ling Tommy wA. Birmingham ?G2!lC-W.N.U.S,lc. .1 ' in London the ! r""VrT Tommy" ? : " ."r "Undo Bill." h'rj by Lord Norh.y.. i 'Id of th. Brltl.h for-him for-him (Norh.y.) i-l L! k marriage to Ca- & ltro:t . K"8 wi.au- '" Alnncl, Frocoplu. """"LCi th". 1. oil In pro- Tu-trla. and with an nil on th. throne th. w" Mld ..cured 'r 3Sn" '!i mm Viola T.mple, 1. '"Vhu. "tic "r tht pr,0p" " patriarch. M.nelaus, '!" Kcleilotleal dignitary ';,,'! rl " ! hrtlly in favor of ',U ilr.tlon of th. monarchy, Sm "n.rou.lynnanc.d 15 ..ilraenL Calypso Is mak-T mak-T C dancln in the "Maa-M "Maa-M Berlin cabaret. Norheys to .nt.rtain th. Idea of Viola Temple, to whom f ,V. r.tly engaged. "Uncle I, ', ur Emily urge, him to 5 i passport from Lord f' (or a certain Janet h ,tror,g-mlnd.d female v"lt Ly'trla in h; mt.reit. of a society for ,'rid Pc JW chu,rc,h Ieav?" Berlin "Unci. B111 ' asRln .led to by hi. .later to find ..ruin curat, (name not given) rtoh.. le" Ms parish in Ireland ". . visit to Berlin, and cannot , found. Lord Norh.y. and Viola .-nple disappear from London, precoplus Cable receives infor-tlon infor-tlon that Norheys, with the ., has left there on his ,,t to Lystria. but Norhey. ap-rl ap-rl with the former Viola Temple, now his wife. Th. Question Ques-tion It, "Who Is the man who has ' .( to Lystria with th. Princess Cilypso?" Caslmlr Introduces blmielf, tnd Janet Church, vainly . f Kfklnf from the British consu- i lin t passport to Lystria, became be-came acquainted with the two , men In the Adlon hotel. Tommy slitakes Caslmlr for a hotel tbid and refuses him admission it hi! room. Caslmlr Insist, on Tommr dining at the Mascott.. Tommy again meets Janet in a tikphont booth, where he had pie in an att.mpt to escape from Caslmlr. Jan.t Church, thinking Caslmlr can be instru-Ettl instru-Ettl In securing her passport, P tries Tommy to Introduce her. 5 Hi finally agrees, she to pos. a. 'i his aunt. Tommy and Janet visit He Mascotte that evening. When Tommy arrives at the Mascotte I Is astonished at the attention Ivenhlm by the head waiter and Mi aids. Calypso dances before tot diners and 'at the end of her 1 performance she throw, a not. ii to Tommy. CHAPTER IX 10 Tunny picked up the note. Before he could open it he was mre that Janet Church was stand-:; stand-:; beside him. In the excitement Sith followed the princess' dance it bad managed to leave her lmm-''i lmm-''i table and make her way unhin-iwett unhin-iwett across the room. "Von promised," she said, "to induce in-duce roe to Count Caslmlr." Tommy remembered the promise, --umbered also the form the intro-'".llon intro-'".llon was to take. In the midst ' the fantastic unreality of all that happening to him there seemed "Mng absurd in introducing Janet Wisely as be bed promised. Cas-wai Cas-wai sitting beside him smiling littly. "Tbls," laid Tommy, "Is my aunt. Jl:w roe to Introduce her to you." Tl'f count stood up, bowed, took ' hand and kissed It. He IJ,rt not the slightest sign of ever "h seen her before, though he st have recollected the pink ; ng gown and quilted slippers In wridor In the morning. He did" "' w to feel that Janet in her ;:.v frock was out of place at the 2,c;,,le- By not so much as the " of on eyelid did he show his , ',ment that Tommy had ;t an aunt with him to Berlin. ' ffl vy gUd to meet you, Count hi(T' ald Janet. "There's r "i? I want you to do for me. , s"r you can do It if you will, u I dare gay you know, act-continental act-continental representative of t'k-r,mun for the promoUon of Inn ThrUgh the Unlon ' ns,l Churches." bl'"kntlMWCd "EaIn- Not eTen i;jif . UKe of Shakespeare was hlV , 8 1uottlon suituble to Th r,ne" Bpeech- Patriarch of Lystria," said ChrNn ' ,ne of ,he leaders of the ,,,,, m to enHst in our move- Unfortunately, our Foreign l'slllllr cl Tnmrny Tlgllnoed aPPeallngly at S'iiin Eudden appearance of klHon le' ,a"nt sfarted him. Her inn..!. lmerest'ng the patriarch bewMi" Wh'Ch h had never Kktn L? 110 reply to the un-i,r un-i,r "ui. He turned and walked "! Wdemi8""11'111 at the Mascotte tvh Ver' The men and S C fJ!ad dlned or "PPei out fit th6lr ,nbles and his u the' room- Tommy H denaH,y ,hrUsh the Proces-Mac. Proces-Mac. . u Pe0Dle and found a Nwrttor there WaS stI" ontMh the Pr'nss had Ch'P'ate' and "ad: ' Temm. London marry at th, words. He did not know any one called Viola Temple. He had certainly no Intention Inten-tion of marrying any one of that name. Indeed, I do not think he ever heard the name before. Of course, , It was well enough known In "London, "Lon-don, and since her friendship with Lord Norheys became notorious, the lady's picture had been in all the Illustrated Il-lustrated papers. But Tommy lived In a remote corner of Ireland. He heard no social or theatrical gossip, and seldom saw a paper except the Irish Times, which does not publish pictures of dancing girls. Nor did he understand why the girl in the Mascotte by far the prettiest pret-tiest of all he had seen should have singled hlm out among the men present pres-ent to be the recipient of this note and this odd command. If Viola Temple hnd to be mnrried, there must surely be some one more suited suit-ed for the Job than he was. He remembered re-membered the scornful glances which the girl had cast at him while she danced and the mocking "obeisances of her curtsies. He wondered why on earth she did these things and what she could possibly know about him. Then slowly a little understanding, a mere glimmer, came to him. Caslmlr had promised that he should meet a lady at the Mascotte, had indeed brought him there for the purpose. Well, he had met Calypso. Caslmlr, speaking to hlm Just before be-fore the dance, had called her a princess, Princess Calypso. The title was no doubt a picturesque exaggeration exaggera-tion Intended as an advertisement. Tommy had heard of some one known as the "Queen of Song." Perhaps Calypso was the "Princess of Dancing," Danc-ing," though he did not think that she deserved the title. The whole tiling was puzzling, confusing, con-fusing, utterly incomprehensible. Yet Tommy was glad that he had come to the Mascotte, very glad that he had seen the girl. She was Tommy always becomes Incoherent when he tries to speak of his first feelings about Calypso. I do not wonder. He had all his life been accustomed ac-customed to women like my sister Emily, some of them older than Emily, Em-ily, many of them of course younger. But all of them wise, sensible, respectable, re-spectable, like Jaeger underclothing, which though wholesome is not exciting. ex-citing. Calypso was utterly different. differ-ent. If I were to compare her to a garment but I do not know enough about clothes to do that, and I am told that the best of these things are . not exhibited In shop windows. The fact Is that Tommy, then and there, suddenly, abruptly, hopelessly, fell In love with Calypso. I do not profess to understand love at first sight. The six or seven love affairs I have experienced in life have all been gradual, a growth of feeling so slow that the lady had generally passed out of my reach gone to Nice or Monte Carlo or somewhere for the winter before I found out that I was In love with her. But I am not a skeptic about the reality of these sudden passions. No senslbfe man cas fee. Literature gives us the cases of Borneo falling In love with Juliet, of Fanny Squeers falling in love with Nicholas Nickleby, and many others. In real life at the moment mo-ment I can only recall Garibaldi and Anita, but that is good enough. He fell in love when he was looking at her for the first time at a great distance dis-tance through a telescope. Tommy had a better excuse than that. Caslmlr tapped Tommy on the arm. "His majesty," he said, "wishes to speak to you." Tommy looked round. The room was almost clear of visitors, who had streamed off to finish a night's pleasure pleas-ure In the Palais de Dance next door. Waiters were busy clearing away the debris of meals from the tables. Most of the lights had been put out. Janet Church was standing by herself her-self beside the table where she had been introduced to Caslmir. Tommy saw no one whom he recognized except ex-cept the little head waiter. He was seated by himself at a table in a corner of the room with a bottle of champagne in front of him. Thus, it may be supposed, head waiters relax re-lax themselves and recuperate after their tolls are over. "His majesty waits," said Caslmlr. He was standing very erect with his hands at his sides in a military attitude, of attention. With a side glance he Indicated the head waiter. Tommy felt that he was living through some confused 'tond fantnstlc dream dancing girls transformed into princesses and head waiters Into In-to kings. Or perhaps it seemed wildly Improbable this might be part of the evening's entertainment at the Mascotte, an original kind of harlequinade. He walked slowly over to the table ta-ble at which the head waiter sat. He was greeted with friendly cordiality. "Sit down, my dear boy. Please sit down and have another glass of wine." Tommy stared at him In amazement. amaze-ment. Not at all In this familiar fashion had the head waiter treated him earlier In the evening. Then he glanced at Cnsimlr who was standing stiffly to attention. "Theres such divinity doth hedge a king" said Cnsimlr. "Explain, Caslmir," said the head waiter. "Lord Norheys does not understand." un-derstand." "Please," said Caslmlr, "yon are in the presence of King Wladlslaws of Lystria." "But I don't keep np any pretense of etiquette here," .aid the kiw. though Cuslmlr lnsl.tj on behaving a If we were .till in Lytrl Do sit down." Up to that moment Tommy had never heard the name of the king of Lystria. It was a very small s Ute, and although It took the rong side in the war, nobody paid much attention to it. He sat down. How did you like Calypso's danc- wm ra'd the klne- "Not much, eh? Well I don't think much of it myself. my-self. In fact, she wouldn't be dancing danc-ing here If she wasn't . princess, lhats what makes It worth while to employ her. These nouveaux riches are amazingly fond of royalty. In fact," he dropped his voice to a confidential whisper "I should never have got the Job of head waiter here f I hadn't agreed to Calypso's dancing. danc-ing. That's how It happens that she's here. Her salary Isn't much. But my Job as hend waiter However, we can talk of that later on. What I want to say to you now is that you'll have to be very careful with Calypso. She's got her knife Into you about that other girl." He chuckled pleasantly, and refilled re-filled his own glass and Tommy's. I don't mind a bit myself, of course," he said, "and Caslmlr doesn't mind. But Calypso I Why did you allow Miss Temple to write that letter to her? It's made things a bit difficult, you know. You'll have to reason with her a little. Pitch it strong. You might tell her perhaps that Miss Temple is over forty, and squints. That would soften things down a bit." "I shall say," said Tommy, "that I never heard of SIIss Temple in my life until this evening." "If you can get her to believe that" said the king doubtfully. "But I don't know. I never could get her mother to believe that. And Calyp- , so is very like her in some ways. 1 But perhaps you'll be more successful success-ful than I was. By the way, I suppose sup-pose Miss Temple can dance. Do you think It might help to do away with any feeling of grievance that she may have Do you think that she'd care for an engagement here, in Calypso's place? We couldn't say she was a princess ; but we might advertise ad-vertise her as the Marchioness of Norheys. Do you think she'd care for It?" "I don't know her," said Tommy, "so I can't tell." The king looked at him with twinkling eyes. "You do it very well," he said, "far better than ever I did." "Before you say anything more," said Tommy, "I want to tell you that you're mistaken about who I am. I'm not Lord Norheys, or Lord anything any-thing else. I'm Reverend Thomas A. Norreys, a curate." "That's good," said the king, "distinctly "dis-tinctly original. I never thought of it. But you'll have to be very careful. care-ful. It's not only Calypso. There's the patriarch too. You don't know him yet. But you will. He used to worry the life out of me about well, about any Miss Temple I happened hap-pened to be interested in at the time. And Calypso says she'll tell him directly di-rectly she sees him. But perhaps you know how to manage the clergy. I never could." "I've just told you that I am a clergyman myself." "Well," said the king, "that may be all right. In fact, the patriarch will be pleased about it, if he hears nothing about Miss Temple. But if Calypso tells him, then I am afraid your being a clergyman will only make it worse, from his point of view. Simply from his point of view, of course. I don't mind a bit myself. In fact, I prefer clergymen with some little human failings. I'd have liked the patriarch better and got on better with him If there'd ever been -well, a Hagar, or some one of that sort. But there wasn't." (TO BB CONTINUED.) |
