I've brought It thus far--I'll fetch It right
into the house. You'll see."

He was making all sorts of passes in the air with his hands.

"There! Look at that. I've made It smile! See?"

Quite true. Tracy, out for an afternoon stroll, had come unexpectantly
upon his family arms displayed upon this shabby house-front. The
hatchments made him smile; which was nothing, they had made the
neighborhood cats do that.

"Look, Hawkins, look! I'm drawing It over!"

"You're drawing it sure, Rossmore. If I ever had any doubts about
materialization, they're gone, now, and gone for good. Oh, this is a
joyful day!"

Tracy was sauntering over to read the door-plate. Before he was half way
over he was saying to himself, "Why, manifestly these are the American
Claimant's quarters."

"It's coming--coming right along. I'll slide, down and pull It in. You
follow after me."

Sellers, pale and a good deal agitated, opened the door and confronted
Tracy. The old man could not at once get his voice: then he pumped out a
scattering and hardly coherent salutation, and followed it with--

"Walk in, walk right in, Mr.--er--"

"Tracy--Howard Tracy."

"Tracy--thanks--walk right in, you're expected."

Tracy entered, considerably puzzled, and said:

"Expected? I think there must be some mistake."

"Oh, I judge not," said Sellers, who--noticing that Hawkins had arrived,
gave him a sidewise glance intended to call his close attention to a
dramatic effect which he was proposing to produce by his next remark.
Then he said, slowly and impressively--"I am--YOU KNOW WHO."

To the astonishment of both conspirators the remark produced no dramatic
effect at all; for the new-comer responded with a quite innocent and
unembarrassed air--

"No, pardon me. I don't know who you are. I only suppose--but no doubt
correctly--that you are the gentleman whose title is on the doorplate."

"Right, quite right--sit down, pray sit down." The earl was rattled,
thrown off his bearings, his head was in a whirl. Then he noticed
Hawkins standing apart and staring idiotically at what to him was the
apparition of a defunct man, and a new idea was born to him. He said to
Tracy briskly:

"But a thousand pardons, dear sir, I am forgetting courtesies due to a
guest and stranger. Let me introduce my friend General Hawkins--General
Hawkins, our new Senator--Senator from the latest and grandest addition to
the radiant galaxy of sovereign States, C