MR. Comstock’s arrival at Panama created almost as much stir as did the arrival of the much beloved and respected T. R., for it was rumored among Americans on Ancon Hill that John Drew was in town. “Well, say, the theatrical business must be on the bum,” said the veterans, one to another. “Surely he is not going to play at Edmarrillos.” The subject of their comments—the man who looked like John Drew—had recently come to the Isthmus to work in the timekeeping office at Ancon. “Good morning, Mr. Drew,” said a young clerk, as Mr. Comstock appeared, ready for induction into the mysteries of his new position. “My dear young man,” he replied, “my name is not Drew. I am Arthur Algernon Comstock, of London, of the Surrey Comstocks, grandson of Lord Algernon Percival Fillbois, and nephew of Percival Gibbon Comstock, Lord Bishop of Hounslow.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Comstock,” said the clerk humbly. “We thought you were John Drew, because you look exactly like him.” “Dear me! How very singular,” replied Mr. Comstock. “Why, it is nothing short of libel to compare a brute like myself to such a well-behaved chap as John Drew, and it is iniquitous and unnatural that a Comstock, of Comstock Lodge, Surrey, should even resemble an actor. I am quite amazed, really I am. Dear! dear! how my aunt, the Lady Maria Derald Fillbois, would laugh if she were to know that these Yankee chaps were calling me Mr. Drew. Fastidious chap, John Drew. Here, my dear fellow, have a smoke,” handing the young man his ivory cigar case, lined with gold. It was well filled with cigars of a better quality than were to be found at that time at Panama, and it bore the Comstock coat of arms.

It soon became generally known that there was a lord, or duke, or something of the sort, working in the office of the chief timekeeper, who was a good old sport, likeable, and democratic in his ways, just like an American, only his expressions of speech were a bit queer. From time to time fragments of anecdote were related to me as having come from the well-stored mind of Mr. Comstock. This plainly told me that he was a man of some erudition. There was a very clever toast which he was in the habit of giving when in his cups. It appears to have been written by one Sir Fitzhugh Clavering Comstock, and was said to be both brilliant and mirth-provoking. The most humble of the Americans on Ancon Hill had a copy of it, but, strange to say, I was never permitted to hear the words, and am, therefore, unable to give them to my readers.

It became a popular diversion to listen to the story of Mr. Comstock’s life, as told by himself, and it ran about as follows: “My mother was the Lady Elizabeth Howard Derald Fillbois, a beautiful but delicate woman, and my father was James Percival Comstock, brother of the present Lord Bishop of Hounslow. My father was a perfect devil for sport, poor chap. He, it seems, neglected to cherish my mother, and soon after my birth she died, her family said, of a broken heart. Then my father went to travel on the Continent, and never returned to England again. He died a few years ago, poor old chap. He had many affaires d’amour, poor chap. It quite saddens me to think of them. Really, I wonder how he ever came out of some of them without losing his honor. I became acquainted with him when I myself traveled on the Continent, and I became quite fond of his society. His family and friends got on his nerves, and he abominated his own country people, the English. My brother and myself were taken at the time of my mother’s death by my aunt, the Lady Maria Howard Derald Fillbois, my mother’s only sister, who was a very strong-minded but fascinating woman, and who took a notion to forsake her lover at the altar in the presence of half of the aristocracy of England.

“She was a kindly woman, with a strong sense of humor, but was horribly stingy with us boys. The village folk loved her.

“Well, she had kennels filled with the finest dogs in the United Kingdom, and, oh, horrors! she obliged my brother and myself to pick the fleas from the brutes in order to earn spending money. An old Irishman named Tim Burden stood over us and counted the fleas, for each one of which we received a ha’penny.

“At one time we became so outraged at the indignity that we wrote to our father and complained to him. He, bounder that he was, treacherously sent our letter, with a very complimentary one inclosed, to the Lady Maria. ‘If it were not for the Deceased Wife’s Sister Prohibitive Marriage Law,’ wrote he, ‘I should ask you for your hand and heart in marriage, for your way of managing my sons, the Comstock boys, not only proves you to be a woman of deep penetration, but one with a most logical mind and most practical sense of humor. It is no wonder that you have always been considered to be a female far above the other silly members of your sex.”

“The dogs were named after my aunt’s favorite characters in history, viz., Abraham Lincoln, Lord Byron, Napoleon, Beau Brummel, Nell Gynn, Martha Washington and George Washington, respectively. There were, too, many others whose names I forget.

“We were so keen about earning half-pennies that we spent the greater part of each day hunting fleas, and the dogs, thinking us unselfish in ridding them of such torment, grew to be inordinately fond of us, and it looked at times, indeed, as if the pests were becoming extinct, for we often hunted for them for hours in vain. This last was a discouraging development for us, and we induced old Tim Burden to report for us and complain to our aunt, in the hope that she would give us a few pennies as a token of gratitude, but she would merely look solemn and say:$1‘Is it not good to know that a Comstock has really earned some money by the sweat of his brow, and, in addition, relieved a fellow-being of torment?’ ‘Then you compare us to brutes,’ said my brother on one occasion, he having observed the comparison. ‘No! no!’ replied she, ‘a Comstock could never be compared with nobility to my magnificent, well-bred dogs. Abraham Lincoln is the most noble animal in England. I named him after Lincoln because he saved a little negro child from drowning at Brighton Beach.’

“I subsequently learned that the Comstocks were devils for all kinds of sport. The fire was in my blood at an early age, too, and the Lady Maria knew the symptoms. As we became expert at flea-catching it became less repugnant to us, and in the end we developed an interest in the little pests that quite pleased my aunt. We began to discern the difference in their social and physical habits to a degree which threatened to affect our future. Our aunt now hinted at our becoming naturalists, and, strange to say, my brother actually became one, and to-day is considered an authority not only on the flea, but every variety of insect as well. What a disgusting occupation!

“At the age of 16 I was placed in the counting-house of an American banking firm in London. The banker was a decent fellow, fastidious and all that, not a bit crude, and he had the greatest admiration for the Lady Maria. At 18 I had an affair with a village girl named Anna Shakespeare. She was a very good-looking girl, of a magnetic temperament, and my aunt was rather fond of her. Though of tender years, my young ideas had been shooting rather promiscuously for some time. The girl had taken to the affair ad libitum, and I was making plans to have her come to lodgings in London, as there had been quite some talk in the village at home, which had upset my aunt terribly. Anna was to leave the village secretly, after which we were to repair to our future home. I was delighted with the prospect of having the girl with me, and I went to the meeting place with my heart filled with delightful emotions, when, what do you think? I was met by the bounder of a banker, the Lady Maria, and my uncle, the then Rev. Percival Gibbon Comstock. I was astounded, and stood rooted to the spot, as the novelists say. The perspiration rolled from my forehead in the most disgusting profusion, and I was unable to speak. Lady Maria advanced and held out her hand, upon which I bestowed a clammy kiss. There was a light in her eyes as they met mine. At this moment Anna entered, flushed and excited, but, on finding that my relatives were with me, started to withdraw, when my aunt caught her and held her firmly. ‘You will kiss your sweetheart, Arthur,’ said she, in a bantering tone. I hung my head and looked furtively at Anna. ‘We have come to witness your marriage to Anna,’ said my uncle. ‘Upon my word, you have not,’ said I, waking up. ‘Oh, yes, we have,’ put in my aunt. ‘You have hurt Anna’s character, and, in consequence, she has been made to feel very unhappy. She has lost her young man, and the village folk have slandered her.’ ‘Your under gardener, William,’ I put in, ‘is very anxious to marry Anna.’ ‘That will be better,’ said my Uncle Percival. ‘The time has gone by,’ said my aunt, ‘when under gardeners feel it incumbent upon them to shoulder the responsibilities of their masters.’ The situation was becoming intolerable, when the American laughingly said: ‘Perhaps the young lady has something to say about the matter.’ As he spoke he eyed Anna’s trim form approvingly, and, by Jove! I felt jealous. ‘Arthur sent for me to come up to London, and I came just to see things, and to have a good time. He didn’t say anything about getting married,’ added Anna. ‘What did he say?’ asked the Lady Maria, with calmness. ‘He said he’d always be a friend to me, and that he’d love me almost to death,’ replied Anna. ‘The boy is not unlike any other English boy of his class,’ declared my Uncle Percival. ‘It is hopeful and wholesome in him to develop a fondness for the opposite sex at his age. I was not a saint myself,’ he confessed, with a slight cough. ‘The Comstocks,’ he continued, ‘were always a hot-blooded set of men, and terrific wine-drinkers for centuries, but we have been ever careful to marry with females of our own degree.’ ‘The Shakespeares came from Adam, or whatever other sort of animal was responsible for our being, and so did the brutal and licentious Comstocks,’ said the Lady Maria, with flashing eyes, ‘and what is most needed in the family is blood that has been toned down by buttermilk and water.’ ‘Why, Maria—er—my dear girl, I am astonished at such an outburst from you,’ quoth my uncle. ‘Anna will not have many years to live if she marries Arthur,’ continued my aunt, and as she said this she laid her hand affectionately upon Anna’s arm. ‘Are you willing to marry Arthur, and die while you are still young, Anna?’ ‘Yes, ma’am,’ answered the girl in a low tone. ‘Do you not see that Arthur is horribly ugly; that his nose is out of all proportion to the rest of his face; that his chin denotes innate selfishness, and that his one eye is deformed as a result of the unsightly monocle?’ asked my aunt, with a bubbling sort of a laugh. ‘Arthur is all right,’ said Anna. ‘I think he is very handsome, and I love him very much, and so does your Ladyship.’ ‘Now, Arthur, it is up to you,’ laughed the banker. ‘Marry Anna, and I’ll give you a better job, with more pay.’

“I was silent. The girl’s words had a strange effect upon me. I looked at my aunt, and observed that her eyes were filled with tears. ‘I want to marry Anna,’ I finally said. ‘I love Anna.’ Well, we were married and went to lodgings. My Uncle Percival tied the knot with much reluctance, but he was too much afraid of my aunt’s tongue to seriously object. Lady Maria bought and furnished for us a beautiful little house in a most exclusive quarter, and we lived happily for three years, but at that time Anna died, leaving a boy baby three weeks old. I had just then inherited my mother’s fortune of forty thousand pounds, and I went the way of all the Comstocks. I was intoxicated with the joy and freedom that forty thousand pounds can give a man. I lived on the Continent, spent some time with King Edward, when he traveled as the Earl of Chester, and spent money like water on actresses, and all that sort of thing. For twenty years I was drunk with the freedom that money gives a dissolute man. I courted the beauties of foreign courts, and of course, I was flattered and fooled accordingly.

“About a year ago, while traveling through India, I received a communication from my lawyers to the effect that I was a bankrupt. I hastened back to London, to find myself indeed a beggar. The Lady Maria met me, with Hugh, my son. I had not seen him since he was eight weeks old. My heart went out to him, he looked so much like his mother, my poor, unselfish Anna. He showed his dislike for me, but what could I expect from the child whom I had abandoned when a tiny infant? Ah! my fellows, a licentious youth brings a sad old age, as the saying is. I began to think how to come in touch with my surroundings, as it were, for the first time in twenty years. I wondered what I should do with myself, with old age creeping on, for, on account of having lived a devil of a life for twenty-two years, I felt prematurely old. ‘You have nothing left,’ said my aunt to me one day. ‘Nothing but a few paltry hundred pounds and my clothing and trinkets,’ I replied. ‘You will have to roll up your sleeves and go to work at something,’ she said. ‘Remember, you will have to support yourself for the remainder of your life.’ ‘How, in the name of God, shall I do it?’ I asked. ‘I’m sure I cannot tell,’ answered she. ‘I shall have to take some time to think about it,’ I said, whereupon my aunt only laughed.

“A month later she came to me with a letter which she had just received from her old admirer, the American banker, for whom I had worked when a boy. He advised my aunt that he had procured a billet for me at Panama with the Isthmian Canal Commission. ‘Where is that?’ I asked. ‘Somewhere in South America,’ she replied. ‘How shall I go about getting there?’ I queried, with some exasperation. Then who should happen in but my Uncle Percival, whom I had not seen since the day of my marriage. He had, in the meantime, become Lord Bishop of Hounslow, and had become fat and horribly ugly. Nevertheless, I was glad to see him. ‘What does this Isthmian Canal Company do over at Panama?’ asked my aunt, handing him the letter. ‘Why,’ replied his Lordship, ‘it is an iniquitous company organized by the iniquitous Yankee government to continue to dig that infamous canal, which was commenced by the thieving French, and left unfinished by them.’ ‘Panama is in South America,’ said my aunt. ‘Central America,’ corrected my uncle. ‘What is the object of the canal?’ I asked. ‘Why,’ said my uncle fiercely, ‘its object is to permanently hurt the shipping interests of Great Britain. It is the greatest piece of iniquity that the Yankees have ever been guilty of, and no Comstock should lend himself to the work in any capacity.’ ‘It is Arthur’s last chance to earn an honest living,’ said the Lady Maria calmly, ‘and if it is, as you say, such a piece of iniquity, it may have the effect of holding him, since iniquity is as necessary to a Comstock as is food and drink. You will sail in two days, Arthur,’ she said.

“Well, here I am in this beastly Panama, unloved, unhonored, and seedy, endeavoring to exist on the paltry sum of thirty-five pounds a month. The only gratifying recollection of my whole career is the look of understanding and gratitude which I saw in the eyes of the poor dogs, as I labored to rid them of the horrible and tormenting flea for the paltry pennies of my stingy aunt, the Lady Maria.”