“Can you direct me to the house of Mr. Samuel Adams?” he asked of the town crier.
“Oh yes, you go through Mackerel Lane[12] to Cow Lane and through that to Purchase Street, and you will see an orchard with apple and pear trees and a big house with stairs outside leading up to a platform on the roof; that’s the house. Do you know Sam?”
“No, I never have seen Mr. Adams.”
Samuel Adams.
“Well, if you run across a tall, good-looking man between forty-five and fifty, with blue eyes, who wears a red cloak and cocked hat, and who looks as if he wasn’t afeard of the king, the devil, or any of his imps, that is Maltster Sam. We call him Maltster Sam because he once made malt for a living, but didn’t live by it because it didn’t pay. He’s a master hand in town meetings. He made it red-hot for Bernard, and he’ll make it hotter for Sammy Hutchinson if he don’t mind his p’s and q’s. Sam is a buster, now, I tell you.”
Robert drove through Cow Lane and came to the house. He rapped at the front door, which was opened by a tall man, with a pleasant but resolute countenance, whose clothes were plain and getting threadbare. His hair was beginning to be gray about the temples, and he wore a gray tie wig.
“This is Mr. Adams, is it not?” Robert asked.
“That is my name; what can I do for you?”