Bart had heard of Ranney as a man of strong, profound, ingenious mind, with much power of sarcasm, and who had formed a partnership with Wade, on the retirement of Mr. Giddings from the bar. He stood a little in awe of him, whose good opinion he would have gladly secured, but who, he had a presentiment, would not understand him. Indeed, he was quite certain he did not understand himself.
The young men had been fellow-students for two years, had many things in common, and were strong friends.
Bart soon found that they had a slender view of his law reading, and spoke slightingly of Ford as a lawyer. They had both diligently studied to the lower depths of the law, had a fair appreciation of their acquisitions, and would not overestimate the few months of solitary reading of a boy in the country.
Bart did not mention his studies, and only answered modestly his brother's inquiries, who closed the subject for the time by saying that if he was serious in his desire to study law, "he would either arrange to take him to Painesville in the Fall, or have his friend Ranney take him in hand." Bart was pleased with the idea of being with either; and possibly he may have wondered whether whoever took him in hand would not have that hand full.
The young men strolled off to his sugar-camp during the forenoon, lounged learnedly about, evincing little interest in the camp and surroundings, although the deepening season had filled the woods with flowers and birds; and Bart wondered whether "Coke on Littleton," and executory devises, and contingent remainders, had produced in them their natural consequences. He watched to see whether new maple sugar was sweet to them, and on full reflection doubted if it was.
They did not interfere with his work, and sauntered back to an early dinner, and Bart saw no more of them until night.
He closed out his work early for the day, and spent the evening with them and his mother.
Henry naturally inquired about his old acquaintances, and Bart answered graphically. He was in a mood of reckless gayety. He took them up, one after another, and in a few happy strokes presented them in ludicrous caricature, irresistible for its hits of humor, and sometimes for wit, and sometimes sarcasm—a stream of sparkle and glitter, with queer quotations of history, poetry, and Scripture, always apt, and the latter not always irreverent. Ranney had a capacity to enjoy a medley, and both of the young men abandoned themselves to uncontrollable laughter; and even the good mother, who tried in vain to stop her reckless son, surprised herself with tears streaming down her cheeks. Bart, for the most part, remained grave, and occasionally Edward helped him out with a suggestion, or contributed a dry and pungent word of his own.
As the fit subsided, Henry, half serious and half laughing, turned to him: "Oh, Bart, I thought you had reformed, and become considerate and thoughtful, and I find that you are worse than ever."
"But, Henry, what's the use of having neighbors and acquaintances and friends, if one cannot serve them up to his guests; and only think, I've gone about for six months with the odds and ends of 'flat, stale and unprofitable' things accumulating in and about him—the said Bart—until, as a sanitary measure, I had to utter them."