for your own father, rest his soul!' 'My father
wasn't a Dutchman,' Jimmy says; givin' me his lip to me face. 'He didn't
talk out against the Pope,' he says. 'Nor the Pris'dint,' he says. 'He
wasn't a stinkin' Socialist,' he says--usin' them very words! 'No,' I
says, 'he was a Demycrat--and what's ut to you? All men'll be blatherin'
polytics after hours,' I says. 'Heinze manes no harm by ut, no more nor
the rest. 'Tis just his talk,' I says. And after that we had more words,
and I laid me palm to his head."

"Oh!" cried Susan.

"I'll not take lip from a son of mine, Susan Blake; nor from you, wid
all your grand clothes! I've seen you too often lackin' a modest stitch
to your back!"

I hastened to intervene.

"We'll not trouble you longer, Mrs. Heinze, if you'll only be good
enough to tell me where Jimmy is now. He was very kind to Susan once,
and she wants to thank him in some way. I've a proposition to make
him--which might be to his advantage."

"Oh--so that's ut at last! Well, Susan Blake, you've had the grand luck
for the likes of you! But you're too late. Jimmy's gone."

"Gone?"

"'Tis the gratitude I get for raisin' him! Gone he is, wid what he'd
laid by--twinty-sivin dollars--and no word to nobody. There's a son for
ye!"

"But--oh, Mrs. Heinze--gone _where_?"

"West. That's all I know," said Mrs. Heinze. "He left a line to say he'd
gone West. We've not had a scrap from him since. If he comes to a bad
end----"

"Jimmy won't come to a bad end!" struck in Susan sharply. "He did just
right to leave you. Good-by." With that she seized my arm and swept me
with her from the room.

"Glory be to God! Susan Blake--the airs of her now!" followed us
shrilly, satirically, down the stairs.

VIII

Maltby's visit came to an end, and for the first time I did not regret
his departure. For some reason, which perhaps purposely I left
unanalyzed, Maltby was beginning to get a trifle on my nerves. But let
that pass. Once he was gone, Phil Farmer drew a long breath and plunged
with characteristic thoroughness into his comprehensive scheme for the
education of Susan. Her enthusiasm for this scheme was no less
contagious than his own, and I soon found myself yielding to her wish to
stay on in New Haven through the summer, and let in for daily lessons at
regular hours--very much to my astonishment, the role of schoolmaster
being one which I had always flattered myself I was temperamentally
unfitted to sustain.

I s