“Think? I know he's a dishonest man. You say that you parted friends. He is no friend of yours or mine.”
Then he told of his encounter with young Bob Wood.
“I had some trouble with his father many years ago,” said Quincy. “What did he do to you?”
“Nothing to me. He insulted a young lady, and I took her part. Tom was going to help me but I arranged to handle him, in a very unscientific way though.”
“It was a rough and tumble of the worst sort,” interjected Tom. “I was afraid they'd bite each other before they got through.”
“Quincy,” said his father, “you must take boxing lessons. When occasion requires, it is the gentleman's weapon.”
The mention of Mary Dana naturally led to a rehearsal of the Wood case, and all Mary had done in helping Quincy at the beginning of the search for his father.
“I think I see which way the wind blows,” laughed his father, while Quincy blushed to the roots of his hair, “and I want to meet the young lady who did so much to bring us all together again.”
Alice was proud of her son. He resembled her, having light hair and blue eyes; a decided contrast to his father whose skin had been darkened by Italian suns, who had dark eyes, dark hair frosted at the ends, and a heavy beard, cut in Van Dyke fashion. Few, if any, would have recognized in him the young man who more than twenty-three years before had taken passage on the Altonia, looking forward to a pleasant trip and an early return to his native land.
Alice explained to her son her apparent lack of affection for him in allowing him to be separated from her so long.