The American Claimant. Mark Twain

are synonymous – Lord Tanzy, of Tollmache?"

      The son did not reply, and the old lord continued:

      "Yes, you confess. That puppy, that shame to his birth and caste, who holds all hereditary lordships and privilege to be usurpation, all nobility a tinsel sham, all aristocratic institutions a fraud, all inequalities in rank a legalized crime and an infamy, and no bread honest bread that a man doesn't earn by his own work – work, pah!" – and the old patrician brushed imaginary labor-dirt from his white hands. "You have come to hold just those opinions yourself, suppose," – he added with a sneer.

      A faint flush in the younger man's cheek told that the shot had hit and hurt; but he answered with dignity:

      "I have. I say it without shame – I feel none. And now my reason for resolving to renounce my heirship without resistance is explained. I wish to retire from what to me is a false existence, a false position, and begin my life over again – begin it right – begin it on the level of mere manhood, unassisted by factitious aids, and succeed or fail by pure merit or the want of it. I will go to America, where all men are equal and all have an equal chance; I will live or die, sink or swim, win or lose as just a man – that alone, and not a single helping gaud or fiction back of it."

      "Hear, hear!" The two men looked each other steadily in the eye a moment or two, then the elder one added, musingly, "Ab-so-lutely cra-zy-ab-solutely!" After another silence, he said, as one who, long troubled by clouds, detects a ray of sunshine, "Well, there will be one satisfaction – Simon Lathets will come here to enter into his own, and I will drown him in the horsepond. That poor devil – always so humble in his letters, so pitiful, so deferential; so steeped in reverence for our great line and lofty-station; so anxious to placate us, so prayerful for recognition as a relative, a bearer in his veins of our sacred blood – and withal so poor, so needy, so threadbare and pauper-shod as to raiment, so despised, so laughed at for his silly claimantship by the lewd American scum around him – ah, the vulgar, crawling, insufferable tramp! To read one of his cringing, nauseating letters – well?"

      This to a splendid flunkey, all in inflamed plush and buttons and knee-breeches as to his trunk, and a glinting white frost-work of ground-glass paste as to his head, who stood with his heels together and the upper half of him bent forward, a salver in his hands:

      "The letters, my lord."

      My lord took them, and the servant disappeared.

      "Among the rest, an American letter. From the tramp, of course. Jove, but here's a change! No brown paper envelope this time, filched from a shop, and carrying the shop's advertisement in the corner. Oh, no, a proper enough envelope – with a most ostentatiously broad mourning border – for his cat, perhaps, since he was a bachelor – and fastened with red wax – a batch of it as big as a half-crown – and – and – our crest for a seal! – motto and all. And the ignorant, sprawling hand is gone; he sports a secretary, evidently – a secretary with a most confident swing and flourish to his pen. Oh indeed, our fortunes are improving over there – our meek tramp has undergone a metamorphosis."

      "Read it, my lord, please."

      "Yes, this time I will. For the sake of the cat:"

      14,042 SIXTEENTH. STREET,

      WASHINGTON, May 2.

      It is my painful duty to announce to you that the head of our illustrious house is no more – The Right Honourable, The Most Noble, The Most Puissant Simon Lathers Lord Rossmore having departed this life ("Gone at last – this is unspeakably precious news, my son,") at his seat in the environs of the hamlet of Duffy's Corners in the grand old State of Arkansas, – and his twin brother with him, both being crushed by a log at a smoke-house-raising, owing to carelessness on the part of all present, referable to over-confidence and gaiety induced by overplus of sour-mash – ("Extolled be sour-mash, whatever that may be, eh Berkeley?") five days ago, with no scion of our ancient race present to close his eyes and inter him with the honors due his historic name and lofty rank – in fact, he is on the ice yet, him and his brother – friends took a collection for it. But I shall take immediate occasion to have their noble remains shipped to you ("Great heavens!") for interment, with due ceremonies and solemnities, in the family vault or mausoleum of our house. Meantime I shall put up a pair of hatchments on my house-front, and you will of course do the same at your several seats.

      I have also to remind you that by this sad disaster I as sole heir, inherit and become seized of all the titles, honors, lands, and goods of our lamented relative, and must of necessity, painful as the duty is, shortly require at the bar of the Lords restitution of these dignities and properties, now illegally enjoyed by your titular lordship.

      With assurance of my distinguished consideration and warm cousinly regard, I remain

      Your titular lordship's

      Most obedient servant,

      Mulberry Sellers Earl Rossmore.

      "Im-mense! Come, this one's interesting. Why, Berkeley, his breezy impudence is – is – why, it's colossal, it's sublime."

      "No, this one doesn't seem to cringe much."

      "Cringe – why, he doesn't know the meaning of the word. Hatchments! To commemorate that sniveling tramp and his, fraternal duplicate. And he is going to send me the remains. The late Claimant was a fool, but plainly this new one's a maniac. What a name! Mulberry Sellers – there's music for you, Simon Lathers – Mulberry Sellers – Mulberry Sellers – Simon Lathers. Sounds like machinery working and churning. Simon Lathers, Mulberry Sel – Are you going?"

      "If I have your leave, father."

      The old gentleman stood musing some time, after his son was gone. This was his thought:

      "He is a good boy, and lovable. Let him take his own course – as it would profit nothing to oppose him – make things worse, in fact. My arguments and his aunt's persuasions have failed; let us see what America can do for us. Let us see what equality and hard-times can effect for the mental health of a brain-sick young British lord. Going to renounce his lordship and be a man! Yas!"

      Chapter II

      COLONEL MULBERRY SELLERS – this was some days before he wrote his letter to Lord Rossmore – was seated in his "library," which was also his "drawing-room" and was also his "picture gallery" and likewise his "work-shop." Sometimes he called it by one of these names, sometimes by another, according to occasion and circumstance. He was constructing what seemed to be some kind of a frail mechanical toy; and was apparently very much interested in his work. He was a white-headed man, now, but otherwise he was as young, alert, buoyant, visionary and enterprising as ever. His loving old wife sat near by, contentedly knitting and thinking, with a cat asleep in her lap. The room was large, light, and had a comfortable look, in fact a home-like look, though the furniture was of a humble sort and not over abundant, and the knickknacks and things that go to adorn a living-room not plenty and not costly. But there were natural flowers, and there was an abstract and unclassifiable something about the place which betrayed the presence in the house of somebody with a happy taste and an effective touch.

      Even the deadly chromos on the walls were somehow without offence; in fact they seemed to belong there and to add an attraction to the room – a fascination, anyway; for whoever got his eye on one of them was like to gaze and suffer till he died – you have seen that kind of pictures. Some of these terrors were landscapes, some libeled the sea, some were ostensible portraits, all were crimes. All the portraits were recognizable as dead Americans of distinction, and yet, through labeling added, by a daring hand, they were all doing duty here as "Earls of Rossmore." The newest one had left the works as Andrew Jackson, but was doing its best now, as "Simon Lathers Lord Rossmore, Present Earl." On one wall was a cheap old railroad map of Warwickshire. This had been newly labeled "The Rossmore Estates." On the opposite wall was another map, and this was the most imposing decoration of the establishment and the first to catch a stranger's attention, because of its great size. It had once borne simply the title SIBERIA; but now the word "FUTURE" had been written in front of that word. There were other additions, in red ink – many cities, with great populations set down, scattered over the vast-country at points where neither cities nor populations exist to-day. One of these cities,