"Good news, Dan! I've got a customer for four birds, and he wants them at once."
"Here are two bullfinches and two canaries," replied Dan with a queer smile; "I thought you would have wanted them earlier. I have others ready, if you want more."
"I'll take them by and by," said Solomon Fewster; and then treated Dan to a long account of the late dulness and the expected revival of trade, and to the certain prospect of there being a great demand for Dan's birds presently. Dan listened in silence, and discomfited Solomon Fewster by charging a higher price than usual for the bullfinches and canaries. Solomon Fewster thought it would be fatal to hesitate, and he paid the money with apparent willingness; and Dan gave another queer little smile as he put the money in his pocket. Then Fewster referred to the rumor, and Dan said it was true.
"We shall sail in about a month," said Dan.
"But why go at all?" asked Fewster.
"We are not able to get a living here, sir," said Dan. He did not tell everybody of his fancy about Joshua.
"If that's your only reason," urged Fewster, "stop, and let me be your friend. I promise that you shall never want, especially if--if"--
But he could not get the intended reference to Ellen gracefully off his tongue.
"I understand you, sir," said Dan; "but nothing that you can say can keep us here."
At this point Mr. Marvel entered, and Fewster left. Between the two men there had been an utter absence of cordiality since Fewster's overtures respecting Ellen. Besides, Mr. Marvel had suspected why Fewster's commissions for birds had fallen off, and had made Dan acquainted with his suspicions; and this, indeed, was the reason why Dan, whose eyes were open to Fewster's meanness, had taken a secret pleasure in charging him a high price for his present purchase.