The Siege of the Seven Suitors

MY DEAR GOVERNOR:--It was ordered by the franchises of destiny that you become the chief executive of a state in which the telling of tales brightened the hunter's camp-fire and cheered the lonely pioneer's cabin before our people learned the uses of ink; and the supreme fitness of this lies in the fact that you are yourself the best of story-tellers and entitled, for your excellence in this particular, as well as for weightier reasons, to sit at the head of the table in that commonwealth to which we are both bound by many and dear ties.

The morning brings to your mail-box so many demands, necessitating the most varied and delicate balancings and adjustments, that I serve you ill in adding to your burdens the little packet that contains this tale. Pray consider, however, that I have hidden it discreetly beneath a pile of documents touching nearly the state's business; or that I hastily serve it upon you in the highway, an unsanctioned writ from that high court of letters in which I am the least valiant among the bailiffs.

Sincerely yours, M. N.

MACKINAC ISLAND, August 10, 1910.

CONTENTS

I. MY FRIEND WIGGINS IS INTRODUCED II. THE BEGINNING OF MY ADVENTURE III. I FALL INTO A BRIAR PATCH IV. WE DINE IN THE GUN-ROOM V. THE STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF A CHIMNEY VI. I DELIVER A MESSAGE VII. NINE SILK HATS CROSS A STILE VIII. CECILIA'S SILVER NOTE-BOOK IX. I MEET A PLAYFUL GHOST X. MY BEFUDDLEMENT INCREASES XI. I PLAY TRUANT XII. THE RIDDLE OF THE SIBYL'S LEAVES XIII. I DISCOVER TWO GHOSTS XIV. LADY'S SLIPPER XV. LOSS OF THE SILVER NOTE-BOOK XVI. JACK O' LANTERN XVII. SEVEN GOLD REEDS XVIII. TROUBLE AT THE PRESCOTT ARMS XIX. THE GHOST OF ADONIRAM CALDWELL XX. HEZEKIAH PARTITIONS THE KINGDOM

THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS

I

MY FRIEND WIGGINS IS INTRODUCED

I dined with Hartley Wiggins at the Hare and Tortoise on an evening in October, not very long ago. It may be well to explain that the Hare and Tortoise is the smallest and most select of clubs, whose windows afford a pleasant view of Gramercy Park. The club is comparatively young, and it is our joke that we are so far all tortoises, creeping through our several professions without aid from any hare. I hasten to explain that I am a chimney doctor. Wiggins is a lawyer; at least I have seen his name in a list of graduates of the Harvard Law School, and he has an office down-town where I have occasionally found him sedately playing solitaire while he waited for some one to take him out to luncheon. He spends his summers on a South Dakota ranch, from which he derives a considerable income. When tough steaks are served from the club grill, we always attribute them to the cattle on Wiggins's hills. Or if the lamb is ancient, we declare it to be of Wiggins's shepherding. It is the way of our humor to hold Wiggins responsible for things. His good nature is usually equal to the worst we can do to him. He is the kind of fellow that one instinctively indicts without hearing testimony. We all know perfectly well that Wiggins's ranch is a wheat ranch.