CHAPTER II.

COLONEL MULBERRY SELLERS--this was some days before he wrote his

letter to Lord Rossmore--was seated in his "library," which was also his

"drawing-room" and was also his "picture gallery" and likewise his

"work-shop." Sometimes he called it by one of these names, sometimes by

another, according to occasion and circumstance. He was constructing

what seemed to be some kind of a frail mechanical toy; and was apparently

very much interested in his work. He was a white-headed man, now, but

otherwise he was as young, alert, buoyant, visionary and enterprising as

ever. His loving old wife sat near by, contentedly knitting and

thinking, with a cat asleep in her lap. The room was large, light, and

had a comfortable look, in fact a home-like look, though the furniture

was of a humble sort and not over abundant, and the knickknacks and

things that go to adorn a living-room not plenty and not costly. But

there were natural flowers, and there was an abstract and unclassifiable

something about the place which betrayed the presence in the house of

somebody with a happy taste and an effective touch.

Even the deadly chromos on the walls were somehow without offence;

in fact they seemed to belong there and to add an attraction to the room

--a fascination, anyway; for whoever got his eye on one of them was like

to gaze and suffer till he died--you have seen that kind of pictures.

Some of these terrors were landscapes, some libeled the sea, some were

ostensible portraits, all were crimes. All the portraits were

recognizable as dead Americans of distinction, and yet, through labeling

The American Claimant