There was one feature in the project which could not but gratify Layton; it enabled him to show his gratitude for the brotherly affection he had met with, and he accepted the suggestion at once. The first gleam of animation that had lighted his eyes for many a day was when planning out the line of reading he intended them to follow. Taking less eras of history than some of the great men who had illustrated them, he thought how such characters would be sure to interest one whose views of life were eminently practical, and so a great law-giver, a legislator, a great general, or orator, was each evening selected for their reading. If it were not out of our track, we might tell here how much Layton was amused by the strange, shrewd commentaries of his companion on the characters of a classic age; or how he enjoyed the curious resemblances Quackinboss would discover between the celebrities of Athens and Rome and the great men of his own country. And many a time was the reader interrupted by such exclamations as, “Ay, sir, just what J. Q. Adams would have said!” or, “That 's the way our John Randolph would have fixed it!”
But Quackinboss was not satisfied with the pleasure thus afforded to himself, for, with native instinct, he began to think how all such stores of knowledge and amusement might be utilized for the benefit of the possessor.
“You must come to the States, Layton,” he would say. “You must let our people hear these things. They 're a main sharp, wide-awake folk, but they ain't posted up about Greeks and Romans. Just mind me, now, and you'll do a fine stroke of work, sir. Give them one of these pleasant stories out of that fellow there, Herod—Herod—what d'ye call him?”
“Herodotus?”
“Ay, that's he; and then a slice out of one of those slapping speeches you read to me t' other night. I'm blessed if the fellow did n't lay it on like Point Dexter himself; and wind up all with what we can't match, a comic scene from Aristophanes. You see I have his name all correct. I ain't christened Shaver if you don't fill your hat with Yankee dollars in every second town of the Union.”
Layton burst out into a hearty laugh at what seemed to him a project so absurd and impossible; but Quackinboss, with increased gravity, continued,—
“Your British pride, mayhap, is offended by the thought of lecturin' to us Western folk; but I am here to tell you, sir, that our own first men—ay, and you 'll not disparage them—are a-doin' it every day. It's not play-actin' I 'm speaking of. They don't go before a crowded theatre to play mimic with face or look or voice or gesture. They 've got a something to tell folk that's either ennobling or instructive. They've got a story of some man, who, without one jot more of natural advantages than any of those listening there, made himself a name to be blessed and remembered for ages. They've to show what a thing a strong will is when united with an honest heart; and how no man, no matter how humble he be, need despair of being useful to his fellows. They 've got many a lesson out of history to give a people who are just as ambitious, just as encroaching, and twice as warlike as the Athenians, about not neglecting private morality in the search after national greatness. What is the lecturer but the pioneer to the preacher? In clearing away ignorance and superstition, ain't he making way for the army of truth that's coming up? Now I tell you, sir, that ain't a thing to be ashamed of!”
Layton was silent; not convinced, it is true, but restrained, from respect for the other's ardor, from venturing on a reply too lightly. Quackinboss, after a brief pause, went on:—
“Well, it is possible what I said about the profit riled you. Well, then, don't take the dollars; or take them, and give them, as some of our Western men do, to some object of public good,—if you 're rich enough.”
“Rich enough! I'm a beggar,” broke in Layton, bitterly, “I 'm at this instant indebted to you for more than, perhaps, years of labor may enable me to repay.”