Ormond-Butlers, a supercilious dandy, a languid macaroni; plagues me,
damn his impudence, but I can't hate him--no! Hate him? Faith, I owe him
more than any man on earth ... and love him for it--which is strange!"

"Has he an estate in jeopardy?" I inquired.

"Yes. He has a mansion in Albany, too, which he leases. He bought a mile
on the great Vlaic and lives there all alone, shooting, fishing, playing
the guitar o' moony nights, which they say sets the wild-cats wilder.
Mark me, George, a petty mile square and a shooting shanty, and this
languid ass says he means to fight for it. Lord help the man! I told him
I'd buy him out to save him from embroiling us all, and what d' ye
think? He stared at me through his lorgnons as though I had been some
queer, new bird, and, says he, 'Lud!' says he,' there's a world o'
harmless sport in you yet, Sir Lupus, but you don't spell your title
right,' says he. 'Change the a to an o and add an ell for good measure,
and there you have it,' says he, a-drawling. With which he minced off,
dusting his nose with his lace handkerchief, and I'm damned if I see the
joke yet in spelling patroon with an o for the a and an ell for
good measure!"

He paused, out of breath, to pour himself some spirits. "Joke?" he
muttered. "Where the devil is it? I see no wit in that." And he picked
up a fresh pipe from the rack on the table and moistened the clay with
his fat tongue.

We sat in silence for a while. That this Sir George Covert should call
the patroon a poltroon hurt me, for he was kin to us both; yet it seemed
that there might be truth in the insolent fling, for selfishness and
poltroonery are too often linked.

I raised my eyes and looked almost furtively at my cousin Varick. He had
no neck; the spot where his bullet head joined his body was marked only
by a narrow and soiled stock. His eyes alone relieved the monotony of a
stolid countenance; all else was fat.

Sunk in my own reflections, lying back in my arm-chair, I watched
dreamily the smoke pouring from the patroon's pipe, floating away, to
hang wavering across the room, now lifting, now curling downward, as
though drawn by a hidden current towards the unwaxed oaken floor.

No, there was no Ormond in him; he was all Varick, all Dutch, all
patroon.

I had never seen any man like him save once, when a red-faced Albany
merchant came a-waddling to the sea-islands looking for cotton and
indigo, and we all despised him for the eagerness wi