Christopher and Columbus

Various things had happened, however, before this morning of the great day was reached, and Mr. Twist had had some harassing experiences.

One of the first things he had done after the visit to Los Angeles was to take steps in the matter of the guardianship.  He had written to Mrs. Bilton that he was the Miss Twinklers’ guardian, though it was not at that moment true.  It was clear, he thought, that it should be made true as quickly as possible, and he therefore sought out a lawyer in Acapulco the morning after the interview.  This was not the same lawyer who did his estate business for him; Mr. Twist thought it best to have a separate one for more personal affairs.

On hearing Mr. Twist’s name announced, the lawyer greeted him as an old friend.  He knew, of course, all about the teapot, for the Non-Trickler was as frequent in American families as the Bible and much more regularly used; but he also knew about the cottage at the foot of the hills, what it had cost—­which was little—­and what it would cost—­which was enormous—­before it was fit to live in.  The only thing he didn’t know was that it was to be used for anything except an ordinary pied-à-terre.  He had heard, too, of the presence at the Cosmopolitan of the twins, and on this point, like the rest of Acapulco, was a little curious.

The social column of the Acapulco daily paper hadn’t been able to give any accurate description of the relationship of the Twinklers to Mr. Twist.  Its paragraph announcing his arrival had been obliged merely to say, while awaiting more detailed information, that Mr. Edward A. Twist, the well-known Breakfast Table Benefactor and gifted inventor of the famous Non-Trickler Teapot, had arrived from New York and was staying at the Cosmopolitan Hotel with entourage; and the day after this the lawyer, who got about a bit, as everybody else did in that encouraging climate, happening to look in at the Cosmopolitan to have a talk with a friend, had seen the entourage.

It was in the act of passing through the hall on its way upstairs, followed by a boy carrying a canary in a cage.  Even without the boy and the canary it was a conspicuous object.  The lawyer asked his friend who the cute little girls were, and was interested to hear he was beholding Mr. Edward A. Twist’s entourage.  His friend told him that opinion in the hotel was divided about the precise nature of this entourage and its relationship to Mr. Twist, but it finally came to be generally supposed that the Miss Twinklers had been placed in his charge by parents living far away in order that he might safely see them put to one of the young ladies’ finishing schools in that agreeable district.  The house Mr. Twist was taking was not connected in the Cosmopolitan mind with the Twinklers.  Houses were always being taken in that paradise by wealthy persons from unkinder climates.  He would live in it three months in the year, thought the Cosmopolitan, bring his mother, and keep in this way an occasional eye on his charges.  The hotel guests regarded the Twinklers at this stage with nothing but benevolence and goodwill, for they had up to then only been seen and not heard; and as one of their leading characteristics was a desire to explain, especially if anybody looked a little surprised, which everybody usually did quite early in conversation with them, this was at that moment, the delicate moment before Mrs. Bilton’s arrival, fortunate.

The lawyer, then, who appreciated the young and pretty as much as other honest men, began the interview with Mr. Twist by warmly congratulating him, when he heard what he had come for, on his taste in wards.

Mr. Twist received this a little coldly, and said it was not a matter of taste but of necessity.  The Miss Twinklers were orphans, and he had been asked—­he cleared his throat—­asked by their relatives, by, in fact, their uncle in England, to take over their guardianship and see that they came to no harm.

The lawyer nodded intelligently, and said that if a man had wards at all they might as well be cute wards.

Mr. Twist didn’t like this either, and said briefly that he had had no choice.

The lawyer said, “Quite so.  Quite so,” and continued to look at him intelligently.

Mr. Twist then explained that he had come to him rather than, as might have been more natural, to the solicitor who had arranged the purchase of the cottage because this was a private and personal matter—­

“Quite so.  Quite so,” interrupted the lawyer, with really almost too much intelligence.

Mr. Twist felt the excess of it, and tried to look dignified, but the lawyer was bent on being friendly and frank.  Friendliness was natural to him when visited for the first time by a new client, and that there should be frankness between lawyers and clients he considered essential.  If, he held, the client wouldn’t be frank, then the lawyer must be; and he must go on being so till the client came out of his reserve.

Mr. Twist, however, was so obstinate in his reserve that the lawyer cheerfully and unhesitatingly jumped to the conclusion that the entourage must have some very weak spots about it somewhere.

“There’s another way out of it of course, Mr. Twist,” he said, when he had done rapidly describing the different steps to be taken.  There were not many steps.  The process of turning oneself into a guardian was surprisingly simple and swift.

“Out of it?” said Mr. Twist, his spectacles looking very big and astonished.  “Out of what?”

“Out of your little difficulty.  I wonder it hasn’t occurred to you.  Upon my word now, I do wonder.”

“But I’m not in any little diff—­” began Mr. Twist.

“The elder of these two girls, now—­”

“There isn’t an elder,” said Mr. Twist.

“Come, come,” said the lawyer patiently, waiting for him to be sensible.

“There isn’t an elder,” repeated Mr. Twist, “They’re twins.”

“Twins, are they?  Well I must say we manage to match up our twins better than that over here.  But come now—­hasn’t it occurred to you you might marry one of them, and so become quite naturally related to them both?”

Mr. Twist’s spectacles seemed to grow gigantic.

“Marry one of them?” he repeated, his mouth helplessly opening.

“Yep,” said the lawyer, giving him a lead in free-and-easiness.

“Look here,” said Mr. Twist suddenly gathering his mouth together, “cut that line of joke out.  I’m here on serious business.  I haven’t come to be facetious.  Least of all about those children—­”

“Quite so, quite so,” interrupted the lawyer pleasantly.  “Children, you call them.  How old are they?  Seventeen?  My wife was sixteen when we married.  Oh quite so, quite so.  Certainly.  By all means.  Well then, they’re to be your wards.  And you don’t want it known how recently they’ve become your wards—­”

“I didn’t say that,” said Mr. Twist.

“Quite so, quite so.  But it’s your wish, isn’t it.  The relationship is to look as grass-grown as possible.  Well, I shall be dumb of course, but most things get into the press here.  Let me see—­” He pulled a sheet of paper towards him and took up his fountain pen.  “Just oblige me with particulars.  Date of birth.  Place of birth.  Parentage—­”

He looked up ready to write, waiting for the answers.

None came.

“I can’t tell you off hand,” said Mr. Twist presently, his forehead puckered.

“Ah,” said the lawyer, laying down his pen.  “Quite so.  Not known your young friends long enough yet.”

“I’ve known them quite long enough,” said Mr. Twist stiffly, “but we happen to have found more alive topics of conversation than dates and parents.”

“Ah.  Parents not alive.”

“Unfortunately they are not.  If they were, these poor children wouldn’t be knocking about in a strange country.”

“Where would they be?” asked the lawyer, balancing his pen across his forefinger.

Mr. Twist looked at him very straight.  Vividly he remembered his mother’s peculiar horror when he told her the girls he was throwing away his home life for and breaking her heart over were Germans.  It had acted upon her like the last straw.  And since then he had felt everywhere, with every one he talked to, in every newspaper he read, the same strong hostility to Germans, so much stronger than when he left America the year before.

Mr. Twist began to perceive that he had been impetuous in this matter of the guardianship.  He hadn’t considered it enough.  He suddenly saw innumerable difficulties for the twins and for The Open Arms if it was known it was run by Germans.  Better abandon the guardianship idea than that such difficulties should arise.  He hadn’t thought; he hadn’t had time properly to think; he had been so hustled and busy the last few days….

“They come from England,” he said, looking at the lawyer very straight.

“Ah,” said the lawyer.

Mr. Twist wasn’t going to lie about the twins, but merely, by evading, he hoped to put off the day when their nationality would be known.  Perhaps it never would be known; or if known, known later on when everybody, as everybody must who knew them, loved them for themselves and accordingly wouldn’t care.

“Quite so,” said the lawyer again, nodding.  “I asked because I overheard them talking the other day as they passed through the hall of your hotel.  They were talking about a canary.  The r in the word seemed a little rough.  Not quite English, Mr. Twist?  Not quite American?”

“Not quite,” agreed Mr. Twist.  “They’ve been a good deal abroad.”

“Quite so.  At school, no doubt.”

He was silent a moment, intelligently balancing his pen on his forefinger.

“Then these particulars,” he went on, looking up at Mr. Twist,—­“could you let me have them soon?  I tell you what.  You’re in a hurry to fix this.  I’ll call round to-night at the hotel, and get them direct from your young friends.  Save time.  And make me acquainted with a pair of charming girls.”

“No,” said Mr. Twist.  He got on to his feet and held out his hand.  “Not to-night.  We’re engaged to-night.  To-morrow will be soon enough.  I’ll send round.  I’ll let you know.  I believe I’m going to think it over a bit.  There isn’t any such terrible hurry, anyhow.”

“There isn’t?  I understood—­”

“I mean, a day or two more or less don’t figure out at much in the long run.”

“Quite so, quite so,” said the lawyer, getting up too.  “Well, I’m always at your service, at any time.”  And he shook hands heartily with Mr. Twist and politely opened the door for him.

Then he went back to his writing-table more convinced than ever that there was something very weak somewhere about the entourage.

As for Mr. Twist, he perceived he had been a fool.  Why had he gone to the lawyer at all?  Why not simply have announced to the world that he was the Twinkler guardian?  The twins themselves would have believed it if he had come in one day and said it was settled, and nobody outside would ever have dreamed of questioning it.  After all, you couldn’t see if a man was a guardian or not just by looking at him.  Well, he would do no more about it, it was much too difficult.  Bother it.  Let Mrs. Bilton go on supposing he was the legal guardian of her charges.  Anyway he had all the intentions of a guardian.  What a fool he had been to go to the lawyer.  Curse that lawyer.  Now he knew, however distinctly and frequently he, Mr. Twist, might say he was the Twinkler guardian, that he wasn’t.

It harassed Mr. Twist to perceive, as he did perceive with clearness, that he had been a fool; but the twins, when he told them that evening that owing to technical difficulties, with the details of which he wouldn’t trouble them, the guardianship was off, were pleased.

“We want to be bound to you,” said Anna-Felicitas her eyes very soft and her voice very gentle, “only by ties of affection and gratitude.”

And Anna-Rose, turning red, opened her mouth as though she were going to say something handsome like that too, but seemed unable after all to get it out, and only said, rather inaudibly, “Yes.”