n man as you are, I
COULD, for the charm of it, put you through! I should hardly care what
you did with the blamed place when you got it. I could leave you alone
to turn it into Yankee notions--into ducks and drakes as they call 'em
here. I should like to see you tearing round over it and kicking up its
sacred dust in their very faces!"

"You don't know me one little bit," said Mr. Searle, rather shirking,
I thought, the burden of this tribute and for all response to the
ambiguity of the compliment.

"I should be very glad to think I didn't, sir. I've been to no small
amount of personal inconvenience for you. I've pushed my way right up
to the headspring. I've got the best opinion that's to be had. The best
opinion that's to be had just gives you one leer over its spectacles. I
guess that look will fix you if you ever get it straight. I've been
able to tap, indirectly," Mr. Simmons went on, "the solicitor of your
usurping cousin, and he evidently knows something to be in the wind. It
seems your elder brother twenty years ago put out a feeler. So you're
not to have the glory of even making them sit up."

"I never made any one sit up," I heard Mr. Searle plead. "I shouldn't
begin at this time of day. I should approach the subject like a
gentleman."

"Well, if you want very much to do something like a gentleman you've got
a capital chance. Take your disappointment like a gentleman."

I had finished my dinner and had become keenly interested in poor Mr.
Searle's unencouraging--or unencouraged--claim; so interested that I
at last hated to hear his trouble reflected in his voice without being
able--all respectfully!--to follow it in his face. I left my place, went
over to the fire, took up the evening paper and established a post of
observation behind it.

His cold counsellor was in the act of choosing a soft chop from the
dish--an act accompanied by a great deal of prying and poking with that
gentleman's own fork. My disillusioned compatriot had pushed away his
plate; he sat with his elbows on the table, gloomily nursing his head
with his hands. His companion watched him and then seemed to wonder--to
do Mr. Simmons justice--how he could least ungracefully give him up.
"I say, Searle,"--and for my benefit, I think, taking me for a native
ingenuous enough to be dazzled by his wit, he lifted his voice a little
and gave it an ironical ring--"in this country it's the inestimable
privilege of a loyal citizen, under whatsoev