[One Wonderful Night by Louis Tracy]@TWC D-Link bookOne Wonderful Night CHAPTER IV 11/24
"I must have got a bit wound up when I saw the foreign gentleman's nose.
When I went a-whalin' on the _Star of the Sea_ we had a first mate who could man-handle anybody, but even he would have had to use a belayin' pin to stamp his trade-mark in _that_ shape.
Now, the question is--_could_ it have been this here Mr. Curtis? It reely is a pity I was so--so spry on the door." Outside, the chauffeur had announced that he had straightened the levers sufficiently to render them serviceable, and he was directed to make for the Central Hotel, 27th Street, but he had not reached Broadway before the Earl bade him return to Mr.Hughes's residence. What had happened was this--Lord Valletort's recollection of the physique and manner of Jean de Courtois fitted in so ill with the knock-down blow delivered to a portly individual like Ladislas Vassilan that he began to compare the remarks of the elevator man at 1000 59th Street with the confusion in the clergyman's mind on the question of names.
Then, though the light had been dim, and his mind was given more to the recognition of his daughter than of the person accompanying her, he was conscious of a growing conviction that the French music-master was a being of an altogether different species.
Vassilan, too, having regained some degree of self-control, confirmed him in the belief that there must be some error in their reckoning, and agreed that they might save time by interviewing Mr.Hughes again. But when the mild eyes of the minister rested on the Count's truculent visage, and noted his water-soaked and blood-stained clothing, there was a distinct drying up in the fount of information. "No," he said stiffly, in reply to the Earl's request that the marriage license should be produced again, "I regret that I cannot reopen that matter to-night.
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