fell awry.
“The silkworms procured by this Voorhees (supposedly imported out of Pekin itself) turned out to be no such things. The so-called silk they produced was nothing of the kind, but a luminescent spittle that, once dried, compared with the lowliest doghair as a textile.”
“Sounds like Trichobaris trinotata,” Uncle inserted, “the potato stalk borer.”
“Plucked from the very garden rows of Bergen County!” Bilbo avouched with a sob. “Naturally, the venture soon foundered. But not before I was, perforce, constrained to spend more and more of my time at the factory across the river in New Jersey. Unbeknownst to me, Colonel Burr, that notorious lecher, and also, by happenstance, our attorney in the silkworks matter, used my absences as an opportunity to seduce my wife. I became the laughingstock of Manhattan. Finally, Voorhees eloped to England with the entire funds of the Passaic Silkworks Company. Burr abandoned my wife when it became obvious that a planned divorce would leave her penniless. I was ruined and disgraced!”
Bilbo broke down again, but soon recollected himself.
“For a time,” he continued, “I wandered the wharves of South Street seeking a yardarm from which to hang myself. But what, I fretted, would become of little Bessie, the apple of her father’s eye. We slipped away westward. Ah, the West, gentlemen, that fabled wilderness of opportunity, mother of El Dorados and Hy-Brasils! Our flatboat got as far as the head of this island. Yes, friends, that derelict upon the shoal was our pretty craft, the Yet Hopeful. We ran aground in a raging storm, much as you might had we not (ahem) signaled you—”
“Accosted us,” I corrected him.
“I am not finished.”
“By all means.”
“Where was I?”
“You were stranded here, on this island.”
“Yes. And here we remained. Weeks, months went by. The game was plentiful. Soon it occurred to me: why leave? Why go anywhere? The fact is, gentlemen, I had found in this solitude that elusive peace of mind that all men seek. Fortune blows many a strange wind in this wide world. Here we remain in our happy snug harbor.”
Bilbo dandled a turkey leg and smiled ruefully.
“That story is the most preposterous balderdash I ever heard,” was my commentary.
Uncle coughed into the sleeve of his buffalo robe.
“Why, ’tis the sheerest twaddle,” I persisted.
“You didn’t find it moving?” Bilbo asked, dismayed.
“I do not believe a word of it,” I told him frankly.
He looked into his plate for a moment, visibly absorbing his disappointment.
“Very well,” he finally said. “Perhaps this will suit you better.” He cleared his throat so as to give it a fresh attack. “How well I recall those carefree days of boyhood under the tulip trees on the lawn of dear old Mount Vernon, playing with my little cousins under the watchful eye of my father, His Excellency George Washington—”
“Bilbo,” said I, “you are a most arrant and contemptible fraud.”
“Do you say I represent falsely?”
“I do sir; you are an humbug through and through.”
“I will meet you like a gentleman.”
“I am ready to get your pistols,” said I.
Bilbo glared at me across the succulent viands. His eyes flickered with malice. I did my best to return his gaze, as though my face were a mirror. The clock ticked loudly on the mantle. Neddy growled. Finally, Bilbo blinked. It was like seeing a pair of live coals extinguished under two wet rags. An ominous chortling rose from deep in his throat.
“By Gad, if you ain’t a saucy boy!” he said and erupted in laughter. A great gob of spittle ran down his chin and he farted with abandon, such was his merriment. The dwarf and Bessie also erupted, the one barking and the other honking with glee.
“He is a rude puppy,” Uncle inserted.
“Puppy!” said I. “Mind how you talk, baby brother!”
“Baby brother…?” Bilbo said quizzically. “What is this nonsense? All day long you have been calling this old goat brother.”
“So? What of it?” I retorted, thanking God that he had finally taken the bait. “How could he possibly be your ‘baby brother?’” the villain asked.
“’Tis none of your business,” I said.
“Wait. I see. Madness descends on the poor lad as his hour draws nigh. I’ve seen it before, sad to say.” Then to Uncle: “They go to pieces.”
I kicked Uncle’s foot under the table. He seemed dazed.
“No, ’tis true,” he finally joined in the ruse, to my relief. “What appears to thee a mere saucy stripling of a boy is, in fact, my older brother.”
Bilbo recoiled. “Why, I may be a fraud, but do you take me for numskull as well?”
“Not at all,” Uncle rejoined. “For we bear a secret so strange and marvelous that logic herself trembles at its utterance.”
“A secret? What secret?”
“’Twouldn’t be a secret anymore if we told you, now would it?” I set the hook.
“Let’s have it, by the blistering Jesus!” Bilbo pounded the table with his fist and the entire house shook.
Uncle furrowed his brow, chewed upon his lip, coughed, cleared his throat, and finally gestured to me in deference.
“Well…?” Bilbo pressed me. He brandished his knife. “Speak if you wish to continue breathing!”
“Er … you have heard, I’m sure, the old Spanish legend of the enchanted spring whence—”
“I knew it!” Bilbo cried triumphantly. “The fountain! The fountain of youth!”
“Well, yes, actually—”
“Where? Where!” Bilbo lunged across the table, clutching desperately the folds of my bearskin robe.
“It is hard to describe—”
“You must have a map!”
“There is a map, but—”
“Hand it over this instant!”
“It is in here.” I pointed to my head. “The map is graven only upon my memory.”
“You have been there yourself, though?”
“Why, manifestly so, Bilbo,” I affirmed.
Uncle could not resist muttering, “Thou dunce….”
“You slaver on my supper, Captain.”
Bilbo let go of my robe and sat primly in his own chair. “I am all ears,” he declared.
“Where shall I start?”
“We have … all night.”
“Some years ago,” I began prevaricating, “whilst on a botanical ramble down Zane’s Trace in the Ohio country, I came upon an humble springhole amid a shady grove of ancient beeches—”
“Beeches, you say?”
“Fagus grandifolia,” Uncle inserted.
“I drank of it. Its water was pure, sweet, most of all refreshing to the weary, aged traveler—but no more so than that of a thousand other wilderness springholes tasted in a lifetime of sojourning—”
“Er, just how long in the tooth were you?” Bilbo asked.
“How old was I? Three score and twelve, sir. And this was back