The upshot was that another Act of Parliament was obtained by the influence of the said powerful railway company, authorising this line, station, and agreement. It was now argued that this Act and agreement would override the original building leases; especially as the railway company were prepared to prove that they had not yet reaped any reasonable benefit, and, unless the leases were extended, would be serious losers. As they had immense interest in the House, they were likely enough to gain their point. Here were two more Gordian knots, Numbers 4 and 5!
Then there was the list of claimants to the estate, which had now been swelled from all parts of the world, and the series of suits and pleas, and Heaven knows what other litigation threatened by them, making Gordian knot Number 6. Finally, the estate was in Chancery. Knot Number 7.
Here was a pleasant prospect for the heir! To put all the rest on one side, on the day that the building leases expired, and he stepped forward to claim his rights, the building societies would present him with the following neat little bill:—
Societies 1, 2, 3, 4:— To loans advanced for completion of Railway £123,000 To Interest on same at 4 percent 50,000 To Loans advanced for completion of Houses, and Purchase of Estates 240,000 To Interest on same at 3 percent 38,000 To Private Loans on Bills [to Sternhold Baskette] at 5 percent 20,000 To Interest on same at 5 percent 3,000 Total £474,000
Societies 5, 6, 7, 8:— To Private Loans on Bills [to Marese Baskette] at 8 and 10 percent £65,000 To Interest on same 11,000 To Paper Transactions as per Bill of Particulars, due 80,000 To Advance on Railway Extension, as per Parliamentary Act 118,000 Total £304,000 Total of Bills to meet before taking possession of property on expiration of leases, £778,000.
“After all,” said Marese to Theodore, as they planned and schemed, and smoked cigars at 120 shillings the hundred, “after all, old fellow, this is but one year’s income if I could only get possession. And I believe we could finance the thing and raise the money without difficulty, if it were not for those cursed, hateful claimants from America and elsewhere. The Jews fight shy on account of the title difficulty. If we could but get rid of those claimants!”
XII
There was once a very wise man who invented what was considered a saying almost inspired, which was afterwards inculcated as a most important lesson by mighty princes upon their sons, and continues to be constantly quoted in our day with approval—it is, that “Unity is strength.” But the strength of the claimants to the Baskette estate consisted in the number of their scattered forces.
All that Marese, the heir, could have desired was that by some means they could be condensed into one person, and thus destroyed at a blow. They had increased as the years went by in a geometrical ratio, till the total formed a small battalion.
When the idea of making claims upon the estate first arose in America, there were already quite fifty families who in one way or another thought they had “rights.” About a dozen visited Stirmingham, and all but drove poor old Sternhold frantic. That was a generation ago, and the tribe had nearly trebled. Mothers of children who had the remotest possible chance of a share in the prize took care to have them christened Baskette or Sternhold. There were Sternhold Baskette Browns, Baskette Johnsons, Baskette Stirmingham Slicks, English Baskette Williamsons, and every possible combination of Baskette.
Those who, either by the male or female side, really could show some species of proof that they were descended from the seventeen squatters who were transhipped to the States now numbered no less than one hundred and forty-three individuals—men, women, and children. To distinguish themselves from other claimants, they called themselves “The True Swampers.”
But in addition to these, there was a host of other Baskettes, who in one way or another foisted in their names. There were Baskets, Bascots, Buscots, Biscuits, Buschcotts, Bosquettes—every conceivable variation of spelling from every State and territory, who declared that they were related to the parent stem of Will Baskette, the squatter, who was shot by old Sibbold. These might be called for distinction the pseudo-Baskettes.
Then among the True Swampers there was an inner circle, who professed to have prominent “rights” on account of their progenitors having been more nearly related to the original Will Baskette. They argued that the others were not true Baskettes, and had only adopted that name from the chief, while they were real blood Baskettes.
In addition, there was another host of people who made a virtue of proclaiming that they were not named Baskette. They did not profess to be named Baskette—they did not take a name which was not theirs! They were Washingtons, Curries, Bolters, Gregorys, Jamesons, and so on. But they had claims because their father’s wives were of the Baskette blood.
Finally, there was another subdivision who loudly maintained that half of the original cotters who landed in New York were not Baskettes, but Gibbs, Webbes, Colborns, and so on, and that they were the descendants of these people. And there were some who went the length of declaring that they were descended from two alleged illegitimate sons of old Romy Baskette!
The Baskette Battalion was therefore made up of—1st. The Pure Blood Baskettes; 2nd. The True Swampers; 3rd. Demi-Baskettes, who
