CHAPTER IX.

THE TIPSY MAGNATE.

I was shocked and mortified to see my employer in such a terrible state of intoxication. He had been growing worse and worse from the moment he came into the state-room, on board of the Ucayga. He had narrowly escaped being crushed beneath the train, and my heart beat wildly as I realized the peril of his situation.

“What zye about, Wolfz?” said he, as I hastened to the assistance of the inebriate. “What’d zye go off and leave me here for--dzeh?”

“Why did you get out of the cars, sir?”

“To dzee what’s the matter.”

“Let me help you, sir.”

“I don’t zwant any help.”

“Hurry up,” said the conductor, from the platform of the rear car. The colonel tried to get up alone, but he could not. The brakeman and myself each took an arm, and lifted him up. With considerable difficulty, we got him into the car, for he seemed to have sense enough left to know that he was intoxicated, and was not willing to be assisted, lest it should be regarded as an acknowledgment of the fact. He apparently wished to conceal his condition, obvious as it was. We put him in his seat, and he tried to stiffen up his relaxed muscles, and appear like a sober man. If he had not been a pitiable spectacle, he would have been a ludicrous one; though many in the car, who had no special interest in his fate, laughed at his silly and stupid struggles to conceal his condition.

As talking was rather a difficult achievement for him, he kept still till the train arrived at Grass Springs. I told him we had reached our destination, and he rose unsteadily to his feet. He insisted upon walking alone, and repulsed all my efforts to assist him. By holding on to the chains and the railings on the platform, he succeeded in getting out of the car; but it was simply impossible for him to walk, and he would have fallen if I had not taken his arm. I called a carriage, and assisted him to a seat in it. People stared, smiled, and jeered at the magnate of Centreport in this unhappy condition, and I was glad enough to get him out of sight. I told the driver to convey us to the hotel, where I intended to take a private room for him, and let him sleep off the effects of his debauch, or, at least, keep out of sight until he was in condition to be seen.

Of the circumstances which had excited the indignation of Colonel Wimpleton I knew but little. He had somehow discovered that Waddie and Grace were together. I had ascertained that Tommy Toppleton had come down with Grace to meet Waddie on the Horse Shoe. They had started after the steamer left for Ucayga, and I had not seen their departure. I was to procure a boat, as I understood the plan, and convey the colonel to the island, where he could interfere with the “courting” which was alleged to be in progress; but in his present condition I had no idea of doing anything of the kind. I seated myself in the carriage with him.

“Now, where’s--where’s--yes--where’s Waddie?” said he, with much difficulty; for he was so tipsy that his tongue almost refused to perform its office.

“I don’t know where he is. We will go up to the hotel and inquire,” I replied.

“That’s zright--the hotel.”

The driver, as I had directed him, stopped at the side door of the house, on his arrival. The landlord opened it, and I whispered to him that I wanted a private apartment for the colonel. With his assistance I conducted the drunken magnate to the room, and seated him on a sofa.

“Hadn’t you better lie down, sir?” I asked, when the landlord had left me alone with him.

“Lie dzown!” exclaimed he, with a convulsive jerk of the head; “what for?”

“You don’t seem to be very well to-day,” I suggested.

“No; not--not very well. I’ve been dzick--dzick all day to-day. I took a little brandy for my--brandy for my stomach’s sake,” stammered he.

“Perhaps if you lie down you will feel better.”

“I dzon’t know--but you are right, Wolfz. I’m dzick. Did you dzell the folks--the folks on the dzrain that--I was--that I was--I was dzick?”

“No, sir; I did not tell them so; but they could not help seeing that something was the matter with you.”

“I dz’pose they did. I’ll lie down, Wolfz.”

He sprang to his feet, and, with a desperate effort, attempted to throw off his coat. He did not succeed, but pitched over upon his face on the bed. I pulled his coat off; while he lay in this position, and, rolling him over, placed him in as comfortable a posture as I could. After covering him with a blanket, I seated myself on the sofa, to consider the situation. I was unwilling to believe that the great man had ever been in such a deplorable condition before. His coat lay on the chair where I had thrown it. I could see the neck of the flask protruding from the pocket. I think I inherited from my mother a spite against bottles used to contain liquor. By this time the colonel was asleep, and I took the flask from the coat. It was about one third filled, and I had no doubt the inebriate had consumed the other two thirds. I went to the window, and poured it out upon the ground. I had once performed a similar service for my father, and I had no scruples in doing it for the magnate of Centreport, as he was, just then, by the force of circumstances, in my care. Screwing on the stopple of the flask, I restored it to the pocket where I had found it. My patient could now drink no more till he left the room.

He slept very soundly, snoring heavily in his drunken stupor. Slumber was the best thing in the world for him, and I left him “to fight it out on this line.” I decided to take a boat and go over to the Horse Shoe, to ascertain for my own sake, rather than the colonel’s, the nature of the relations which had so violently disturbed my employer. I had a pair of eyes, and I flattered myself I could tell, by his actions, whether Waddie had become suddenly interested in Grace. I knew that he had seldom seen her, and had hardly spoken to her since the reconciliation with her brother. But in such matters those who are most deeply concerned are often the blindest, and it was possible that my friend, and in some sense my _protégé_, had unwittingly stepped between me and my hopes.

Colonel Wimpleton would probably sleep soundly for a couple of hours, at least, and I went to the office to request the landlord to look out for him during my absence, and especially not to furnish him with any more liquor, if he could possibly avoid it.

“I’m going over to the Horse Shoe,” I began.

“Didn’t you come down to join the party here?” he asked, interrupting me.

“What party?”

“Why, the young gentlemen and young ladies.”

“Whom do you mean?”

“Mr. Toppleton and Mr. Wimpleton.”

“Are they here?” I replied.

“They have been here these two hours; the ladies longer than that.”

“Who are the ladies?”

“Miss Wimpleton and Miss Toppleton.”

“Is Miss Wimpleton here?” I inquired, gaining a crumb of comfort from the suggestion, for it might be Tommy and Minnie whose progressive tendencies had excited the alarm of the colonel.

“Yes, they are both here. They ordered dinner for six, but Tom Walton seems to be the only other person present.”

“Don’t tell them I am here, if you please,” I added. “I wouldn’t have Waddie and his sister see their father in his present condition for anything in the world.”

“I never saw the colonel so bad before,” said the landlord, shaking his head.

“He will sleep it off, after a while, I hope,” I replied. “Then Waddie and Tommy are not on the Horse Shoe?”

“No; they were going there, and met with an accident.”

“What was that?” I asked, with no little anxiety; for I could not forget that Grace was one of the party.

“The Raven upset in the squall this forenoon, and Miss Wimpleton came pretty near getting drowned.”

“Indeed! Was Miss Toppleton with her?”

“No; she was in the Belle, with her brother. Tommy Toppleton jumped overboard, and swam to Miss Wimpleton’s assistance, or it would have been all over with her. Tom Walton picked them up. The ladies came right over here, and my wife and daughters gave them some clothes, while they dried and ironed their own.”

“I am glad they got out of the scrape so well.”

“They were lucky.”

“I didn’t like the looks of that Raven, when she came down from Hitaca,” I added. “She didn’t look as though she knew how to stay right side up.”

“Tom Walton says the boat is crank, but it was not her fault. The other fellow with Waddie--”

“Who was that?--Nick Van Wolter?”

“Yes, that’s the one. He put three or four half hitches in the main sheet, so that Waddie could not cast it off when the squall came up. They sent him back with the Raven; and I reckon they wanted to get rid of him,” said the landlord, with a sly twinkle in his eye.

“Why so?”

“I suppose they did not like the looks of him, after he had caused the boat to be capsized,” laughed mine host. “But I reckon that Tommy Toppleton is a little sweet with the Wimpleton girl, since he helped her out of the water.”

I did not care to encourage the landlord in speaking on this delicate topic. I confess I was pleased to learn that there was nothing as yet to implicate Waddie in the “courting.” I could not understand how Colonel Wimpleton had obtained his hint of these proceedings. Possibly he had no suggestion of them, except the fact that the party were at the Springs. Waddie had sent Nick Van Wolter home with the Raven, but I was confident she had not arrived when I left Centreport. I concluded that the colonel’s suspicions simply grew out of his knowledge that his son and daughter were with the son and daughter of his great enemy.

I learned from the landlord that the party were then at dinner. I was anxious to know more of the relations of the suspected lovers; but I was fully determined to conceal from Waddie and his sister the fact that their father was in the house. The Belle was my boat, and Tom Walton had been running her on shares for me, intending to purchase her as soon as he was able to do so. He regarded himself as under great obligations to me, not only for the use of the boat, but because I had given him employment during the winter on board of the steamer. I could confide in him, and I asked the landlord to inform him privately that I was in the house, and wished to see him as soon as he had finished his dinner.