although it brought the virtues of their own superior
republican sobriety into greater contrast, they felt a scandal at having
been tricked into attending this gilded funeral of dissipated rank.
Peter Atherly found himself unpopular in his own town. The sober who
drank from his free "Waterworks," and the giddy ones who imbibed at
his "Gin Mill," equally criticised him. He could not understand it; his
peculiar predilections had been accepted before, when they were mere
presumptions; why should they not NOW, when they were admitted facts?
He was conscious of no change in himself since the funeral! Yet the
criticism went on. Presently it took the milder but more contagious form
of ridicule. In his own hotel, built with his own money, and in his own
presence, he had heard a reckless frequenter of the bar-room decline
some proffered refreshment on the ground that "he only drank with his
titled relatives." A local humorist, amidst the applause of an admiring
crowd at the post-office window, had openly accused the postmaster of
withholding letters to him from his only surviving brother, "the Dook of
Doncherknow." "The ole dooky never onct missed the mail to let me
know wot's goin' on in me childhood's home," remarked the humorist
plaintively; "and yer's this dod-blasted gov'ment mule of a postmaster
keepin' me letters back!" Letters with pretentious and gilded coats of
arms, taken from the decorated inner lining of cigar-boxes, were posted
to prominent citizens. The neighboring and unregenerated settlement of
Red Dog was more outrageous in its contribution. The Red Dog "Sentinel,"
in commenting on the death of "Haulbowline Tom," a drunken English
man-o'-war's man, said: "It may not be generally known that our
regretted fellow citizen, while serving on H. M. S. Boxer, was secretly
married to Queen Kikalu of the Friendly Group; but, unlike some of
our prosperous neighbors, he never boasted of his royal alliance, and
resisted with steady British pluck any invitation to share the throne.
Indeed, any allusion to the subject affected him deeply. There are those
among us who will remember the beautiful portrait of his royal bride
tattooed upon his left arm with the royal crest and the crossed flags of
the two nations." Only Peter Atherly and his sister understood the sting
inflicted either by accident or design in the latter sentence. Both
he and his sister had some singular hieroglyphic branded on their
arms,--probably a reminiscence