Chapter 8

There was a slight awkwardness even to Tembarom in entering the dining-room that evening. He had not seen his fellow boarders, as his restless night had made him sleep later than usual. But Mrs. Bowse had told him of the excitement he had caused.

"They just couldn't eat," she said. "They could do nothing but talk and talk and ask questions; and I had waffles, too, and they got stone-cold."

The babel of friendly outcry which broke out on his entry was made up of jokes, ejaculations, questions, and congratulatory outbursts from all sides.

"Good old T. T.!" "Give him a Harvard yell! Rah! Rah! Rah!" "Lend me fifty-five cents?" "Where's your tiara?" "Darned glad of it!" "Make us a speech!"

"Say, people," said Tembarom, "don't you get me rattled or I can't tell you anything. I'm rattled enough already."

"Well, is it true?" called out Mr. Striper.

"No," Tembarom answered back, sitting down. "It couldn't be; that's what I told Palford. I shall wake up in a minute or two and find myself in a hospital with a peacherino of a trained nurse smoothing 'me piller.' You can't fool me with a pipe-dream like this. Palford's easier; he's not a New Yorker. He says it is true, and I can't get out of it."

"Whew! Great Jakes!" A long breath was exhaled all round the table.

"What are you, anyhow?" cried Jim Bowles across the dishes.

Tembarom rested his elbow on the edge of the table and began to check off his points on his fingers.

"I'm this, he said: "I'm Temple Temple Barholm, Esquire, of Temple Barholm, Lancashire, England. At the time of the flood my folks knocked up a house just about where the ark landed, and I guess they've held on to it ever since. I don't know what business they went into, but they made money. Palford swears I've got three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. I wasn't going to call the man a liar; but I just missed it, by jings!"

He was trying to "bluff it out." Somehow he felt he had to. He felt it more than ever when a momentary silence fell upon those who sat about the table. It fell when he said "three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year." No one could find voice to make any remark for a few seconds after that.

"Are you a lord--or a duke?" some one asked after breath had recovered itself. "No, I'm not," he replied with relief. "I just got out from under that; but the Lord knows how I did it."

"What are you going to do first? " said Jim Bowles.

"I've got to go and 'take possession.' That's what Palford calls it. I've been a lost heir for nearly two years, and I've got to show myself."

Hutchinson had not joined the clamor of greeting, but had grunted disapproval more than once. He felt that, as an Englishman, he had a certain dignity to maintain. He knew something about big estates and their owners. He was not like these common New York chaps, who regarded them as