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 out of his head with fright, and as he would listen to no one and persisted in making for a stairway which would carry him to certain death, his case was given over as a hopeless one. “Poor fellow,” sighed Hawkins; “and he had friends so near. I wish we hadn’t come away from there—maybe we could have saved him.” The earl looked up and said calmly: “His being dead doesn’t matter. He was uncertain before. We’ve got him sure, this time.” “Got him? How?” “I will materialize him.” “Rossmore, don’t—don’t trifle with me. Do you mean that? Can you do it?” “I can do it, just as sure as you are sitting there. And I will.” “Give me your hand, and let me have the comfort of shaking it. I was perishing, and you have put new life into me. Get at it, oh, get at it right away.” “It will take a little time, Hawkins, but there’s no hurry, none in the world—in the circumstances. And of course certain duties have devolved upon me now, which necessarily claim my first attention. This poor young nobleman—” “Why, yes, I am sorry for my heartlessness, and you smitten with this new family affliction. Of course you must materialize him first—I quite understand that.” “I—I—well, I wasn’t meaning just that, but,—why, what am I thinking of! Of course I must materialize him. Oh, Hawkins, selfishness is the bottom trait in human nature; I was only thinking that now, with the usurper’s heir out of the way. But you’ll forgive that momentary weakness, and forget it. Don’t ever remember it against me that Mulberry Sellers was once mean enough to think the thought that I was thinking. I’ll materialise him—I will, on my honor—and I’d do it were he a thousand heirs jammed into one and stretching in a solid rank from here to the stolen estates of Rossmore, and barring the road forever to the rightful earl! “There spoke the real Sellers—the other had a false ring, old friend.” “Hawkins, my boy, it just occurs to me—a thing I keep forgetting to mention—a matter that we’ve got to be mighty careful about.” “What is that?” “We must keep absolutely still about these materializations. Mind, not a hint of them must escape—not a hint. To say nothing of how my wife and daughter—high-strung, sensitive organizations—might feel about them, the negroes wouldn’t stay on the place a minute.” “That’s true, they wouldn’t. It’s well you spoke, for I’m not naturally discreet with my tongue when I’m not warned.”