CHAPTER III.


Claudius told his old landlord--his _philister_, as he would have called
him--that he was going away on his customary foot tour for a month or
so. He packed a book and a few things in his knapsack and joined Mr.
Barker. To Claudius in his simplicity there was nothing incongruous in
his travelling as a plain student in the company of the
exquisitely-arrayed New Yorker, and the latter was far too much a man of
the world to care what his companion wore. He intended that the Doctor
should be introduced to the affectionate skill of a London tailor before
he was much older, and he registered a vow that the long yellow hair
should be cut. But these details were the result of his showman's
intuition; personally, he would as readily have travelled with Claudius
had he affected the costume of a shoeblack. He knew that the man was
very rich, and he respected his eccentricity for the present. To
accomplish the transformation of exterior which he contemplated, from
the professional and semi-cynic garb to the splendour of a swell of the
period, Mr. Barker counted on some more potent influence than his own.
The only point on which his mind was made up was that Claudius must
accompany him to America and create a great sensation.

"I wonder if we shall meet her," remarked Mr. Barker reflectively, when
they were seated in the train.

"Whom?" asked Claudius, who did not intend to understand his companion's
chaff.