Chapter XI: Anxiety in America

When Mr. Hobbs's young friend left him to go to Dorincourt Castle and become Lord Fauntleroy, and the grocery-man had time to realise that the Atlantic Ocean lay between himself and the small companion who had spent so many agreeable hours in his society, he began to feel very lonely indeed. At first it seemed to Mr. Hobbs that Cedric was not really far away, and would come back again; that some day he would look up from his paper and see the lad standing in the doorway, in his white suit and red stockings, and with his straw hat on the back of his head, and would hear him say in his cheerful little voice: "Hello, Mr. Hobbs! This is a hot day--isn't it?" But as the days passed on and this did not happen, Mr. Hobbs felt very dull and uneasy. He did not even enjoy his newspaper as much as he used to. He would take out his gold watch and open it and stare at the inscription; "From his oldest friend, Lord Fauntleroy, to Mr. Hobbs. When this you see, remember me." At night, when the store was closed, he would light his pipe and walk slowly along until he reached the house where Cedric had lived, on which there was a sign that read, "This House to Let"; and he would stop near it and look up and shake his head, and puff at his pipe very hard, and after a while walk mournfully back again.

This went on for two or three weeks before a new idea came to him. He would go to see Dick. He smoked a great many pipes before he arrived at the conclusion, but finally he did arrive at it. He would go to see Dick. He knew all about Dick. Cedric had told him, and his idea was that perhaps Dick might be some comfort to him in the way of talking things over.

So one day when Dick was very hard at work blacking a customer's boots, a short, stout man with a heavy face and a bald head, stared for two or three minutes at the bootblack's sign, which read:

"Professor Dick Tipton
Can't be beat."

He stared at it so long that Dick began to take a lively interest in him, and when he had put the finishing touch to his customer's boots, he said:

"Want a shine, sir?"

The stout man came forward deliberately and put his foot on the rest.

"Yes," he said.

Then when Dick fell to work, the stout man looked from Dick to the sign and from the sign to Dick.

"Where did you get that?" he asked.

"From a friend o' mine," said Dick,--"a little feller. He was the best little feller ye ever saw. He's in England now. Gone to be one o' those lords."

"Lord--Lord--" asked Mr. Hobbs, with ponderous slowness, "Lord Fauntleroy--Goin' to be Earl of Dorincourt!"

Dick almost dropped his brush.

"Why, boss!" he exclaimed, "d'ye know him yerself?"

"I've known him," answered Mr. Hobbs, wiping his warm forehead, "ever since he was born. We were lifetime acquaintances--that's what _we_ were."

It really made him feel quite agitated to speak of it. He pulled the splendid gold watch out of his pocket and opened it, and showed the inside of the case to Dick.

"'When this you see, remember me,'" he read. "That was his parting keepsake to me. I'd ha' remembered him," he went on, shaking his head, "if he hadn't given me a thing. He was a companion as _any_ man would remember."

It proved that they had so much to say to each other that it was not possible to say it all at one time, and so it was agreed that the next night Dick should make a visit to the store and keep Mr. Hobbs company.

This was the beginning of quite a substantial friendship. When Dick went up to the store, Mr. Hobbs received him with great hospitality. He gave him a chair tilted against the door, near a barrel of apples, and after his young visitor was seated, he made a jerk at them with the hand in which he held his pipe, saying:

"Help yerself."

Then they read, and discussed the British aristocracy; and Mr. Hobbs smoked his pipe very hard and shook his head a great deal.

He seemed to derive a great deal of comfort from Dick's visit. Before Dick went home, they had a supper in the small back room; they had biscuits and cheese and sardines, and other things out of the store, and Mr. Hobbs solemnly opened two bottles of ginger ale, and pouring out two glasses, proposed a toast.

"Here's to _him_!" he said, lifting his glass, "an' may he teach 'em a lesson--earls an' markises an' dooks an' all!"

After that night, the two saw each other often, and Mr. Hobbs was much more comfortable and less desolate. They read the _Penny Story Gazette_, and many other interesting things, and gained a knowledge of the habits of the nobility and gentry which would have surprised those despised classes if they had realised it. One day Mr. Hobbs made a pilgrimage to a book-store down town, for the express purpose of adding to their library. He went to a clerk and leaned over the counter to speak to him.

"I want," he said, "a book about earls."

"What!" exclaimed the clerk.

"A book," repeated the grocery-man, "about earls."

"I'm afraid," said the clerk, looking rather queer, "that we haven't what you want."

"Haven't?" said Mr. Hobbs, anxiously. "Well, say markises then--or dooks."

"I know of no such book," answered the clerk.

Mr. Hobbs was much disturbed. He looked down on the floor,--then he looked up.

"None about female earls?" he inquired.

"I'm afraid not," said the clerk, with a smile.

"Well," exclaimed Mr. Hobbs, "I'll be jiggered!"

He was just going out of the store, when the clerk called him back and asked him if a story in which the nobility were chief characters would do. Mr. Hobbs said it would--if he could not get an entire volume devoted to earls. So the clerk sold him a book called _The Tower of London_, written by Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and he carried it home.

When Dick came they began to read it. It was a very wonderful and exciting book, and the scene was laid in the reign of the famous English queen who is called by some people Bloody Mary. And as Mr. Hobbs heard of Queen Mary's deeds and the habit she had of chopping people's heads off, putting them to the torture, and burning them alive, he became very much excited. He took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at Dick.

"Why, he ain't safe!" he said. "He ain't safe! If the women folks can sit up on their thrones an' give the word for things like that to be done, who's to know what's happening to him this very minute?"

"Well," said Dick, though he looked rather anxious himself; "ye see this 'ere un isn't the one that's bossin' things now. I know her name's Victory, an' this un here in the book,--her name's Mary."

"So it is," said Mr. Hobbs, still mopping his forehead; "so it is,--but still it doesn't seem as if 'twas safe for him over there with those queer folks. Why, they tell me they don't keep the Fourth o' July!"

He was privately uneasy for several days; and it was not until he received Fauntleroy's letter and had read it several times, both to himself and to Dick, and had also read the letter Dick got about the same time, that he became composed again.

But they both found great pleasure in their letters. They read and re-read them, and talked them over and enjoyed every word of them. And they spent days over the answers they sent, and read them over almost as often as the letters they had received.

One day they were sitting in the store doorway together, and Mr. Hobbs was filling his pipe, whilst Dick told him all about his life and his elder brother, who had been very good to him after their parents had died. The brother's name was Ben, and he had managed to get quite a decent place in a store. "And then," said Dick, "blest if he didn't go an' marry a gal, a regular tiger-cat. She'd tear things to pieces, when she got mad. Had a baby just like her; 'n' at last Ben went out West with a man to set up a cattle ranch."

"He oughtn't to 've married," Mr. Hobbs said solemnly, as he rose to get a match.

As he took the match from its box, he stopped and looked down on the counter.

"Why!" he said, "if here isn't a letter! I didn't see it afore. The postman must have laid it down when I wasn't noticin', or the newspaper slipped over it."

He picked it up and looked at it carefully.

"It's from _him_!" he exclaimed. "That's the very one it's from!"

He forgot his pipe altogether. He went back to his chair quite excited, and took his pocket-knife and opened the envelope.

"I wonder what news there is this time," he said.

And then he unfolded the letter and read as follows:

"Dorincourt Castle.

"My dear Mr. Hobbs.

"I write this in a great hury becaus i have something curous to
tell you i know you will be very mutch suprised my dear frend
when i tel you. It is all a mistake and i am not a lord and i
shall not have to be an earl there is a lady whitch was marid to
my uncle bevis who is dead and she has a little boy and he is
lord fauntleroy becaus that is the way it is in England and my
name is Cedric Errol like it was when I was in New York and all
the things will belong to the other boy i thought at first i
should have to give him my pony and cart but my grandfarther says
i need not my grandfarther is very sorry i am not rich now becaus
when your papa is only the youngest son he is not very rich i am
going to learn to work so that I can take care of dearest i have
been asking Wilkins about grooming horses preaps i might be a
groom or a coachman. I thort i would tell you and Dick right away
becaus you would be intrusted so no more at present with love
from

"your old frend
"Cedric Errol (Not lord Fauntleroy)."

Mr. Hobbs fell back in his chair, the letter dropped on his knee, his penknife slipped to the floor, and so did the envelope.

"Well!" he ejaculated, "I am jiggered!"

He was so dumfounded that he actually changed his exclamation. It had always been his habit to say, "I _will_ be jiggered," but this time he said, "I _am_ jiggered." Perhaps he really _was_ jiggered. There is no knowing.

"Well," said Mr. Hobbs. "It's my opinion it's all a put-up job o' the British 'ristycrats to rob him of his rights because he's an American. They're trying to rob him! that's what they're doing, and folks that have money ought to look after him."

And he kept Dick with him until quite a late hour to talk it over, and when that young man left he went with him to the corner of the street; and on his way back he stopped opposite the empty house for some time, staring at the "To Let," and smoking his pipe in much disturbance of mind.