The Claim Jumpers: A Romance — A Reader’s Guide

They were eager, alert-looking young men, well-muscled, curly of hair, and possessing in common an unabashed carriage of the head which, more plainly than any mere facial resemblance, proved them brothers. They, too, were nursing their knees.

"He must be an unadorned ass," remarked one of the occupants of the window seats, in answer to some previous statement.

"He is not," categorically denied a youth of the mattresses. "My dear Hench, you make no distinctions. I've been talking about the boy's people and his bringing up and the way he acts, whereupon you fly off on a tangent and coolly conclude things about the boy himself. It is not only unkind, but stupid."

Hench laughed. "You amuse me, Jeems," said he; "elucidate."

Jeems let go his knees. The upper part of his body, thus deprived of support, fell backward on the mattress. He then clasped his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling.

"Listen, ye multitude," he began; "I'm an artist. So are you. I'm also a philosopher. You are not. Therefore, I'll deign to instruct you. Ben de Laney has a father and a mother. The father is pompous, conceited, and a bore. The mother is pompous, conceited, and a bore. The father uses language of whose absolutely vapid correctness Addison would have been proud. So does the mother, unless she forgets, in which case the old man calls her down hard. They, are rich and of a good social position. The latter worries them, because they have to keep up its dignity."

"They succeed," interrupted the other brother fervently, "they succeed. I dined there once. After that I went around to the waxworks to get cheered up a bit."

"Quite so, Bertie," replied the philosopher; "but you interrupted me just before I got to my point. The poor old creatures had been married many years before Bennie came to cheer _them_ up. Naturally, Bennie has been the whole thing ever since. He is allowed a few privileges, but always under the best auspices. The rest of the time he stays at home, is told what or what not a gentleman should do, and is instructed in the genealogy of the de Laneys."

"The mother is always impressing him with the fact that he is a de Laney on both sides," interpolated Bert.

"Important, if true, as the newspapers say," remarked the other young man on the window ledge. "What constitutes a de Laney?"

"Hereditary lack of humour, Beck, my boy. Well, the result is that poor Bennie is a sort of----" the speaker hesitated for his word.

"'Willy boy,'" suggested Beck, mildly.

"Something of the sort, but not exactly. A 'willy boy' never has ideas. Bennie has."

"Well, for one thing, he wants to get away. He doesn't seem quite content with his job of idle aristocrat. I believe he's been pestering the old man to send him West. Old man doesn't approve."

"'That the fine bloom of culture will become rubbed off in the contact with rude, rough men, seems to me inevitable,'" mimicked Bert in pedantic tones, "'unless a firm sense of personal dignity and an equally firm sense of our obligations to more refined though absent friends hedges us about with adequate safeguards.'"

The four laughed. "That's his style, sure enough," Jim agreed.

"What does he want to do West?" asked Hench.

"_He_ doesn't know. Write a book, I believe, or something of that sort. But he _isn't_ an ass. He has a lot of good stuff in him, only it will never get a chance, fixed the way he is now."

A silence fell, which was broken at last by Bert.

"Come, Jeems," he suggested; "here we've taken up Hench's valuable idea, but are no farther with it."

He rolled over on his hands and knees. Bert took up a similar position by his side.

"Go!" shouted Hench from the window ledge.

At the word, the two on the mattress turned and grappled each other fiercely, half rising to their feet in the strenuousness of endeavour. Jeems tried frantically for a half-Nelson. While preventing it the wily Bert awaited his chance for a hammer-lock. In the moment of indecision as to which would succeed in his charitable design, a knock on the door put an end to hostilities. The gladiators sat upright and panted.

A young man stepped bashfully into the room and closed the door behind him.

The newcomer was a clean-cut young fellow, of perhaps twenty-two years of age, with regular features, brown eyes, straight hair, and sensitive lips. He was exceedingly well-dressed. A moment's pause followed his appearance. Then:

"Why, it's our old friend, the kid!" cried Jeems.

"Don't let me interrupt," begged the youth diffidently.