The Lightning Conductor Discovers AmericaWilliamson, C. N. (Charles Norris)
General
The Lightning Conductor Discovers America
Williamson, C. N. (Charles Norris)
Automobiles -- Fiction
I told you that he looks as an Italian prince ought to look and seldom
does; but he claims American citizenship. He sailed from New York in the
_Lusitania_, and was among those saved. Far from advertising this
adventure, the hero of it would apparently have kept silence if he
could; but it leaked out somehow in Ireland, Whiffits doesn't quite know
how. In any case, at the time of taking passage on the _Arabic_ back to
America, months later, paragraphs about the man's _Lusitania_ experience
appeared in the papers. He was catechized at the consulate when trying
to get a passport for the United States, and it came out then that there
was no Peter Storm on board the _Lusitania_. Our Mystery explained,
however, that in the third class there was a passenger registered as
"Peter Sturm." The name, according to him, was spelled wrongly at the
time. Nobody has since contradicted this statement, so it has been given
the benefit of the doubt. Once more the man's luck bobbed up on board
the _Arabic_, where he was saved again, and behaved well, rescuing a lot
of people. What he did in that way on the _Lusitania_ isn't known; but
the searchlight of fame was turned full upon him after the _Arabic_, and
has never ceased to play around his head. By the by, the said head was
wounded in the _Arabic_ affair, and bears a scar which runs down over
the left temple and is rather becoming. Also he got pneumonia from
exposure, and lay dangerously ill for some time. Several persons whose
lives he saved wanted to give him money, but he refused to accept. He
was nursed at a hospital in Ireland, and when he grew strong enough he
found work, in order to pay his own way to America. What he is going to
turn his hand to over there he doesn't seem to know, or won't tell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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