Layton did not hear this alternative with all the conscious security of success, not to say that it was a penalty on failure far more severe and practical than any his fears had ever anticipated. Coldness he was prepared for, disapprobation he might endure, but he was not ready to be treated as a cheat and impostor because he had not satisfied the expectancies of an audience.
“I half regret,” said he, “that I should not have learned something more of your public before making my appearance to them. It may not be, perhaps, too late.”
“Well, I suspect it is too late,” said the other, dryly. “They won't stand folks a-postin' up bills, and then sayin' 'There ain't no performance.' You 're not in the Haymarket, sir, where you can come out with a flam about sudden indisposition, and a lie signed by a 'pottecary.”
“But if I leave the town?”
“I wouldn't say you mightn't, if you had a balloon,” said the other, laughing; “but as to any other way, I defy you!”
Layton was not altogether without the suspicion that Mr. Heron was trying to play upon his fears, and this was exactly the sort of outrage that a mind like his would least tolerate. It was, to be sure, a wild, out-of-the-world kind of place; the people were a rough, semi-civilized-looking set; public opinion in such a spot might take a rude form; what they deemed unequal to their expectations, they might construe as a fraud upon their pockets; and if so, and that their judgment should take the form he hinted at—Still, he was reluctant to accept this version of the case, and stood deeply pondering what line to adopt.
“You don't like it, stranger; now that's a fact,” said Heron, as he scanned his features. “You 've been a-thinkin', 'Oh, any rubbish I like will be good enough for these bark-cutters. What should such fellows know, except about their corn crops and their saw-mills? I needn't trouble my head about what I talk to 'em.' But now, you see, it ain't so; you begin to perceive that Jonathan, with his sleeves rolled up for work, is a smart man, who keeps his brains oiled and his thoughts polished, like one of Platt's engines, and it won't do to ask him to make French rolls out of sawdust!”
Layton was still silent, partly employed in reviewing the difficulty of his position, but even more, perhaps, from chagrin at the tone of impertinence addressed to him.
“Yes, sir,” said Heron, continuing an imaginary dialogue with himself,—“yes, sir; that's a mistake more than one of your countrymen has fallen into. As Mr. Clay said, it 's so hard for an Englishman not to think of us as colonists.”
“I 've made up my mind,” said Layton, at last “I 'll not lecture.”