Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/152

 sides, so heartened us that the old chap inflated his chest and began discussing gilt-edged investments with would-be, almost Napoleons of finance in the lobby of the best hotel. Yet beneath it all he felt chagrined to have failed to land on the innermost bull's-eye; and two days after we'd butterflied about the burgh he decided we should run away to Broadway and hold a consolation session with the boss. We were not to go hurriedly, he explained to me, but leisurely and pleasantly, stopping to pluck fancy's flowers here and yon, arriving gradually and in dignified placidity.

"It was owing to this lazy mode of travelling that we two worldlings found ourselves at a point in the Middle West where Time had turned a few handsprings backward, and brought to our startled ken King James of Merry England and the four-flushing usurper, Monmouth. Only, in this replica of Britain's past Mr. Monmouth won out. I reckon that Tiberius Smith was the one mechanic in the whole game of life who could have worked that change in historical events.

"Sounds odd, eh? Somewhat teasing, eh? And yet all the events flowed naturally once you got into the channel; only, Tib was the only man who would ever have waded into such a distorted channel. He was ever a Columbus to the abnormal.

"You see, we had left the autocratic porter and