CHAPTER XXIV.

Next day, sure enough, the cablegram didn't come. This was an immense

disaster; for Tracy couldn't go into the presence without that ticket,

although it wasn't going to possess any value as evidence. But if the

failure of the cablegram on that first day may be called an immense

disaster, where is the dictionary that can turn out a phrase sizeable

enough to describe the tenth day's failure? Of course every day that the

cablegram didn't come made Tracy all of twenty-four hours' more ashamed

of himself than he was the day before, and made Sally fully twenty-four

hours more certain than ever that he not only hadn't any father anywhere,

but hadn't even a confederate--and so it followed that he was a

double-dyed humbug and couldn't be otherwise.

These were hard days for Barrow and the art firm. All these had their

hands full, trying to comfort Tracy. Barrow's task was particularly

hard, because he was made a confidant in full, and therefore had to humor

Tracy's delusion that he had a father, and that the father was an earl,

and that he was going to send a cablegram. Barrow early gave up the idea

of trying to convince Tracy that he hadn't any father, because this had

such a bad effect on the patient, and worked up his temper to such an

alarming degree. He had tried, as an experiment, letting Tracy think he

had a father; the result was so good that he went further, with proper

caution, and tried letting him think his father was an earl; this wrought

so well, that he grew bold, and tried letting him think he had two

fathers, if he wanted to, but he didn't want to, so Barrow withdrew one

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The American Claimant