In two minutes the news was all over town, and the street in front of the house filled with people. The three girls were standing in the door. Mary Jane did have red hair, but that didn’t matter: she was terribly beautiful, and her face was shining, she was so glad her uncles had come. The king opened his arms and Mary Jane jumped into them, and Joanna jumped into the duke’s arms.
Then the two frauds walked slowly to the coffin in the corner. Everybody went quiet, and the men took off their hats. The king and the duke looked in and burst out crying so loud you could almost hear them in New Orleans. Then they knelt down by the coffin and pretended to pray, and the whole crowd began to sob, the poor girls too. I never saw anything so disgusting.
The king made a speech full of tears and nonsense. When he finished, somebody started a hymn, and everybody sang with all their might. Music is a good thing. After all that nonsense, it sounded so honest.
Then the king invited the family’s best friends to supper. The duke only made signs with his hands and said “Goo-goo, goo-goo-goo” like a baby that can’t talk, but the king asked about almost everybody in town, and even their dogs, by name. He let them think Peter had written him all those things, but he had got every one of them from that young man in the canoe.
Mary Jane brought the letter, and the king read it out loud and cried over it. It gave the house and three thousand dollars to the girls, and a business, some land and three thousand dollars to Harvey and William. And it said that six thousand dollars in gold was hidden in the cellar.
The two frauds went down to get it and told me to come with a candle. We shut the cellar door, found the bag and poured it out on the floor. It was a lovely sight, all those gold coins. How the king’s eyes shone! Most people would have been happy with the pile, but they had to count it. It came out four hundred and fifteen dollars short.
“We can spare it,” said the duke.
“Of course we can spare it,” said the king. “But we have to count it in front of everybody, and it has to be all there, or people will suspect us. And when the dead man says six thousand—”
“Then let’s make up the difference,” said the duke, and he began to take coins out of his own pocket. The king did the same. It used up almost all their money, but they made up the six thousand.
“I have another idea,” said the duke. “Let’s count the money upstairs and then give it to the girls.”
“Duke, let me hug you! That’s the best idea a man ever had,” said the king. “Let them come with their suspicions now!”
Upstairs the king counted the gold into twenty piles on the table, and everybody looked at it hungrily. Then he made another speech about his dear dead brother and these poor orphans, and made signs to the duke, who goo-gooed for joy and hugged him about fifteen times.
“Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanna,” said the king, “take the money. Take it all.”
There was more hugging and kissing than I had ever seen, and everybody almost shook the hands off those frauds. Then a big man with a hard face came in, listened a while and laughed right in the king’s face.
“Why, Dr. Robinson,” said one of the men, “haven’t you heard? This is Harvey Wilks.”
The king smiled and held out his hand. “Are you my poor brother’s dear friend and doctor? I—”
“Keep your hands off me!” said the doctor. “You talk like an Englishman, do you? It’s the worst imitation I ever heard. You’re a fraud, that’s what you are!”
Everybody tried to calm him down: Harvey had shown in forty ways that he was Harvey. But the doctor turned to the girls. “I was your father’s friend, and I’m your friend. This man has picked up a few names and facts somewhere, and you take them for proof. Mary Jane Wilks, turn him out. I beg you. Will you?”
Mary Jane stood up straight, and my, she was beautiful! “Here is my answer,” she said. She put the bag of gold in the king’s hands. “Take this six thousand dollars and invest it for me and my sisters any way you want, and don’t give us a receipt.”
Then she put her arm around the king, and Susan and Joanna did the same. Everybody clapped, and the king held his head up and smiled proudly.
“All right,” said the doctor. “I wash my hands of it. But a time is coming when you’ll all feel sick when you think of this day.” And he left.