Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/364

350 however, seemed to fasten me with his eye as he proposed the toast—"To the happy man!"

I drank perforce.

"A body would think Bill was drinking to the Judge," remarked Cousin Egbert in a high voice.

"Eh?" I said, startled to this outburst by his strange words.

"Good old George!" exclaimed his lordship. "Owe it all to the old juggins, what, what!"

The Klondike person spoke. I heard her voice as a bell pealing through breakers at sea. I mean to say, I was now fair dazed.

"Not to old George," said she. "To old Ruggles!"

"To old Ruggles!" promptly cried the Senator, and they drank.

Muddled indeed I was. Again in my eventful career I felt myself tremble; I knew not what I should say, my savoir faire being quite gone. I had received a crumpler of some sort—but what sort?

My sleeve was touched. I turned blindly, as in a nightmare. The Hobbs cub who was my vestiare was handing me our evening paper. I took it from him, staring—staring until my knees grew weak. Across the page in clarion type rang the unbelievable words:

My hands so shook that in quick subterfuge I dropped the sheet, then stooped for it, trusting to control myself