American Claimant, now. Yes, nothing
could be better than the way matters have turned out. I have only to
furnish myself with a new name, and take my new start in life totally
untrammeled. Now I breathe my first breath of real freedom; and how
fresh and breezy and inspiring it is! At last I am a man! a man on equal
terms with my neighbor; and by my manhood; and by it alone, I shall rise
and be seen of the world, or I shall sink from sight and deserve it.
This is the gladdest day, and the proudest, that ever poured it's sun
upon my head!"

CHAPTER VIII.

"GOD bless my soul, Hawkins!"

The morning paper dropped from the Colonel's nerveless-grasp.

"What is it?"

"He's gone!--the bright, the young, the gifted, the noblest of his
illustrious race--gone! gone up in flames and unimaginable glory!"

"Who?"

"My precious, precious young kinsman--Kirkcudbright Llanover Marjoribanks
Sellers Viscount Berkeley, son and heir of usurping Rossmore."

"No!"

"It's true--too true."

"When?"

"Last night."

"Where?"

"Right here in Washington; where he arrived from England last night, the
papers say."

"You don't say!"

"Hotel burned down."

"What hotel?"

"The New Gadsby!"

"Oh, my goodness! And have we lost both of them?"

"Both who?"

"One-Arm Pete."

"Oh, great guns, I forgot all about him. Oh, I hope not."

"Hope! Well, I should say! Oh, we can't spare him! We can better
afford to lose a million viscounts than our only support and stay."

They searched the paper diligently, and were appalled to find that a
one-armed man had been seen flying along one of the halls of the hotel
in his underclothing and apparently out of his head with fright, and as
he would listen to no one and persisted in making for a stairway which
would carry him to certain death, his case was given over as a hopeless
one.

"Poor fellow," sighed Hawkins; "and he had friends so near. I wish we
hadn't come away from there--maybe we could have saved him."

The earl looked up and said calmly:

"His being dead doesn't matter. He was uncertain before. We've got him
sure, this time."

"Got him? How?"

"I will materialize him."

"Rossmore, don't--don't trifle with me. Do you mean that? Can you do
it?"

"I can do it, just as sure as you are sitting there. And I will."

"Give me your hand, and let me have the comfort of shaking it. I was
perishing, and you have put new life into me. Get at it, oh, get at