style="font-size:15px;"> Mr. Clemens and I moved to a position with a clear view of the dockside, and watched the crew busy itself with the details of casting off the sturdy hawsers that tied us to the dock. The engines throbbed more purposefully and, guided by a little red and green tugboat that seemed barely adequate to the task, City of Baltimore backed away from the dock. A cheer went up from the passengers, and the crowd ashore began to wave and blow kisses even more frantically. Then, as we cleared the dock, the tugboat moved up to point our bow downstream, and the band echoed our mood of excitement with the strains of “Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-De-Ay!” I felt a quickening in my blood; at last, I was on my way to Europe!
We were not far down the Hudson when the clouds that had loomed so threateningly over New Jersey began to sprinkle us with rain. The bandleader dismissed his men, and—as much as I wanted to enjoy the last sight of my native country I expected to have for many weeks—I followed Mr. Clemens into our cabin for a little rest before dinner. We had both been up since early in the day, and after partaking of Prinz Karl’s gift of champagne, it was hardly surprising that we felt somewhat fatigued.
Inside, Mr. Clemens seated himself in an easy chair, took off his shoes, and propped his feet on the table in front of him. “Well, I’m looking forward to this,” he said. “A chance to sit back and smoke a few cigars and tell lies, and do nothing in particular until we’re in England. And it looks as if the company won’t be entirely boring, either.”
“I should think not,” I said, settling into a chair opposite him. “Prinz Karl is a lively fellow, for one.”
“Yes, I wonder what his game is. I won’t object to a fellow buying me a bottle of champagne, mind you. But he’s got something up his sleeve, and I’d like to know what it is before it costs me more than just a little time and breath.”
“What on earth do you mean? Are you suggesting he isn’t really a prince?”
“Maybe he is, and maybe he isn’t. Even if he does have a drop or two of royal blood, he might still be a fraud. Why, I’d bet you two bucks of my own money he’s a fraud, though I grant you he’s an entertaining one.”
“How long have you suspected this?” I asked.
“I smelled a rat almost as soon as he started talking about where he comes from. I find it mighty interesting that I lived in Germany for several months, and never heard tell of Ruckgarten until just this afternoon.”
I was astonished. “Why, that’s incredible . . . isn’t it?” I tried to remember whether I had ever heard of such a place, but my geographical knowledge was too spotty to provide the information.
“Maybe,” he said, cupping his chin in his hand. “I suppose it could be some backwoods place of no interest to anybody from the outside world—like Arkansas, say. But the name’s a bit strange, too. Do you know any German?”
“I’m afraid not,” I said. Languages had never been my strong suit, although I had struggled manfully through the requisite courses in Latin.
Mr. Clemens shook his head. “To think a fellow could graduate from Yale, and know so little of any real use . . . Well, I can’t pretend to speak German very fluently, myself, so I shouldn’t give myself airs about it. It can be a real jawbreaker if you’re used to a sensibly organized language like English. But unless I’m mistaken, Ruckgarten means something like ‘back garden.’ Not a likely name for what the prince says used to be an independent principality. I’ll have to ask Kipling about it—if he hasn’t heard of it, there’s no such animal.”
“But what could Prinz Karl expect to accomplish by such a blatant imposture—assuming that’s what it is? Surely, he can’t believe he won’t be exposed!” I rose to my feet, and went to look out our porthole; the rain was still falling, and the sky was darker than ever. Vaguely I could make out the shoreline, and a few buildings in the distance, so we were evidently still within the confines of New York harbor.
I looked back at Mr. Clemens, who spread his hands and shrugged. “I don’t know what he’s up to. That Italian artist, now—he’s as transparent as plate glass. He’s bamboozling the Philadelphians by setting up as an expert in something they don’t know enough about to spot him as a fraud, and getting a free tour of Europe out of it. But Prinz Karl’s got some other game going—and until I figure it out, I’m not about to play high-stakes poker with him.”
“He bought us a magnum of champagne,” I said, trying to reconcile the prince’s generosity with Mr. Clemens’s doubt of his genuineness—a doubt I had no way to refute. My employer had shown himself to be an astute judge of character during the time I had known him. Even so, I liked to think I was a bit more seasoned than the naive young fellow who had come down from Yale to offer himself to Mr. Clemens as a traveling secretary a few short months ago. I could look back with some amusement on my willingness to accept my fellow passengers at face value during our riverboat journey. A certain young lady had pulled the wool over my eyes quite effectively . . . then again, I recalled that she had managed to fool Mr. Clemens as well.
“I haven’t forgotten the champagne,” said my employer. “Hell, I’ll buy the prince a drink or two in return, as long as he doesn’t do anything worse than lie about where he’s from. But I’ll keep a grip on my wallet while I do it, and I advise you to follow suit.”
I had no ready rejoinder to this. Instead, my memory called up the image of my first encounter with Prinz Karl, when he had created a scene at the ticket office. Had he really tried to pay for his passage with a check drawn against insufficient funds in his bank account? Even if he had, he had quickly produced cash to make good the deficiency. Was it simply a misunderstanding, or were his finances more irregular than one would assume from his self-proclaimed status as the younger brother of the heir to a principality—even one that had fallen on hard times? And what, if anything, did he expect to gain from the imposture, if such it was? I searched my brain for answers, but found none.
After a while, Mr. Clemens and I roused ourselves to dress for dinner. The rain continued, and so we made our way to the dining room through an inside passageway. The motion of the ship was more perceptible now. We must have come out of the harbor into the open sea, where one would feel the influence of the ocean waves as well as the stormy weather. While I was by no means uncomfortable, it crossed my mind that many activities I took for granted on dry land would become more difficult on a moving ship—drinking a cup of coffee, for example, or eating soup. I wondered if the ship’s cooks took the weather into account when planning a day’s menu, or if they went ahead, unheeding, with a predetermined bill of fare.
The end of the passageway opened into a larger hallway, where we found a good-sized crowd waiting for the dining room doors to open. There was a buzz of conversation as people introduced themselves to other passengers or simply carried on the usual small talk among strangers brought together for a social occasion. Mr. Clemens’s entry caused a little stir. As people became aware of the famous writer in their midst, heads turned, and there was a noticeable change in the tempo of the conversation. If experience were any guide, the novelty of his presence would soon dissipate, and he would be able to go about his business without constantly being stared at.
Over to one side, I spotted a small group of people my own age. My first instinct was to look for my Yale friends, until I recalled that steerage passengers wouldn’t be allowed in the first-class dining room. (Even so, I wouldn’t have put it past Bertie Parsons to put on his best suit and try to bluff his way in; he had been a great party-crasher in our college days.) But Robert Babson was there, talking loudly, to a group that included his fiancée, Theresa Mercer, and the blond young lady I’d seen with the Babsons earlier that day, and who I guessed was Robert’s sister. Before, seeing her in her street clothes, I had
