The American Claimant

She had made everything comfortable for the artist; there was no further pretext for staying. So she said she would go, now, and asked him to summon the servants in case he shou...

Hawkins went straight to the telegraph office and disburdened his conscience. He said to himself, “She’s not going to give this galvanized cadaver up, that’s plain. Wild horses...

During the first few days he kept the fact diligently before his mind that he was in a land where there was “work and bread for all.” In fact, for convenience’ sake he fitted it...

Mrs. Sellers returned, now, with her composure restored, and began to ask after Hawkins’s wife, and about his children, and the number of them, and so on, and her examination of...

Next day, sure enough, the cablegram didn’t come. This was an immense disaster; for Tracy couldn’t go into the presence without that ticket, although it wasn’t going to possess...

Tracy wrote his father before he sought his bed. He wrote a letter which he believed would get better treatment than his cablegram received, for it contained what ought to be we...

The days drifted by, and they grew ever more dreary. For Barrow’s efforts to find work for Tracy were unavailing. Always the first question asked was, “What Union do you belong...

Presently the supper bell began to ring in the depths of the house, and the sound proceeded steadily upward, growing in intensity all the way up towards the upper floors. The hi...

Five minutes later he was sitting in his room, with his head bowed within the circle of his arms, on the table—final attitude of grief and despair. His tears were flowing fast,...

The young Lord Berkeley, with the fresh air of freedom in his nostrils, was feeling invincibly strong for his new career; and yet—and yet—if the fight should prove a very hard o...

The moment Tracy was alone his spirits vanished away, and all the misery of his situation was manifest to him. To be moneyless and an object of the chairmaker’s charity—this was...

“Strange—it’s the most unaccountable thing in the world. Experience teaches them nothing; they can’t seem to learn anything except out of a book. In some cases there’s manifestl...

Tracy went to bed happy once more, at rest in his mind once more. He had started out on a high emprise—that was to his credit, he argued; he had fought the best fight he could,...

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...

No answer to that telegram; no arriving daughter. Yet nobody showed any uneasiness or seemed surprised; that is, nobody but Washington. After three days of waiting, he asked Lad...

It is a matchless morning in rural England. On a fair hill we see a majestic pile, the ivied walls and towers of Cholmondeley Castle, huge relic and witness of the baronial gran...

Washington shuddered slightly at the suggestion, then his face took on a dreamy look and he dropped into a trance of thought. After a little, Sellers asked him what he was grind...

Barrow took a frameless oil portrait a foot square from the box, set it up in a good light, without comment, and reached for another, taking a furtive glance at Tracy, meantime....

“The clothes _are_ right, there’s no getting around it. What are we going to do? We can’t collect, as I see. The reward is for a one-armed American. This is a two-armed Englishm...

So Tracy went home to supper. The odors in that supper room seemed more strenuous and more horrible than ever before, and he was happy in the thought that he was so soon to be f...

Tracy made slow progress with his work, for his mind wandered a good deal. Many things were puzzling him. Finally a light burst upon him all of a sudden—seemed to, at any rate—a...

The day wore itself out. After dinner the two friends put in a long and harassing evening trying to decide what to do with the five thousand dollars reward which they were going...

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 o...

Arrived in his room Lord Berkeley made preparations for that first and last and all-the-time duty of the visiting Englishman—the jotting down in his diary of his “impressions” t...

In the course of time the twins arrived and were delivered to their great kinsman. To try to describe the rage of that old man would profit nothing, the attempt would fall so fa...

Telegram: “She’s going to marry the materializee”—Interview between Tracy and Sally—Arrival of the usurping earl—“You can have him if you’ll take him”—A quiet wedding at the Tow...

Viscount Berkeley jots down his “impressions” to date with a quill pen—The destruction of the New Gadsby by fire—Berkeley loses his bearings and escapes with his journaled “impr...

Arrival of the remains of late Claimant and brother in England —The usurping earl officiates as chief mourner, and they are laid with their kindred in Cholmondeley church—Sally...

A Yankee makes an offer for “Pigs in the Clover”—By the death of a relative Sellers becomes the rightful Earl of Rossmore and consequently the American Clairnant—Gwendolen is se...

Mrs. Sellers pronounces the colonel “the same old scheming, generous, good-hearted, moonshiny, hopeful, no-account failure he always was”—He takes in Dan’l and Jinny—The colonel...

Gwendolen’s letter—Her arrival at home—Hawkins is introduced, to his great pleasure—Communication from the bank thief—Hawkins and Sellers have to wait ten days longer before get...

Tracy writes to his father—The rival houses to be united by his marriage to Sally Sellers—The earl decides to “step over and take a hand”—“The course of true love,” etc., as usu...

The usual actress and her diamonds in the hotel fire—The colonel secures three baskets of ashes—Mrs. Sellers forbids their lying in state—Generous hatchments—The ashes to be sen...

The colonel’s grief at the loss of both Berkeley and one-armed Pete—Materialization—Breaking the news to the family—The colonel starts to identify and secure a body (or ashes) t...

Time drags heavily for all concerned—Success of “Pigs in the Clover”—Sellers is “fixed” for his temperance lecture— Colonel and Mrs. Sellers start for Europe—Interview of Hawkin...

No work for Tracy—Cheaper lodgings secured—Sleeping on the roof—“My daughter Hattie”—Tracy receives further “impressions” from Hattie (otherwise “Puss”)—Mr. Barrow appears—And o...

The colonel’s project to set Russia free—“I am going to buy Siberia”—The materializee turns up—Being an artist he is invited to restore the colonel’s collection—Which he forthwi...

Colonel Mulberry Sellers and his art gallery—He receives a visit from Washington Hawkins—Talking over old times —Washington informs the colonel that he is the congressional dele...

No further cablegram—“If those ghastly artists want a confederate, I’m their man”—Tracy taken into partnership—Disappointments of materialization —The phonograph adapted to mari...

A boarding—house dinner—“No money, no dinner” for Mr. Brady—“How did you come to mount that hat?”—A glimpse of (the supposed) one-armed Pete—Extract from Tracy’s diary