"You never?" Gleazen returned in seeming amazement. "The papers is signed, Seth."
"But I never said that!"
Gleazen turned on my uncle, his eyes blazing. "This from you!" he cried with a crackling oath. "After all I've done! I swear I'll back out now—then where'll you be? What's more, I'll tell what I know."
My uncle in a dazed way looked around the place that up to now had been his own little kingdom and uttered some unintelligible murmur.
"Ah," said Gleazen, "I thought you did." Then, as if Uncle Seth had not broken in upon him, as if he had not retorted at Uncle Seth, as if his low, even voice had not been raised in pitch since he began, he went on, "Or, lads, you can stay. What do you say?"
Still we sat and stared at him.
Sim Muzzy, as usual, was first to speak and last to think. "I'll go," he exclaimed eagerly, "I'll go, for one."
"Good lad," said Gleazen, who, although they were nearly of an age, outrageously patronized him.
With my familiar world torn down about my shoulders, and the patrimony that I long had regarded as mine about to be imperiled in this strange expedition, it seemed that I must choose between a berth in the new vessel and a clerkship with no prospects. It was not a difficult choice for a youth with a leaning toward adventure, nor was I altogether unprepared for it. Then, too, there was something in me that would not suffer me lightly to break all ties with my mother's only brother. After a moment for reflection, I said, "I'll go, for two."
Meanwhile, Arnold Lamont had been studying us all and had seen, I am confident, more than any of us. He had taken time to notice to the full the sudden return of all Cornelius Gleazen's arrogance and the extraordinary meekness of Uncle Seth who, without serious affront, had just now taken words from Gleazen for which he would once have blazed out at him in fury.