“I s'pose you're not going to leave a gal that's to have a matter of a million of dollars to be a stage-player? She ain't need to rant, and screech, and tear herself to pieces at ten or fifteen dollars a night and a free benefit.”
“First to find her, then to assert her rights,” said the doctor.
“How are we to find her?” asked Alfred.
“I will charge myself with that task, but we must be active too,” said the doctor. “I half suspect that I see the whole intrigue,—why this woman was separated from the young girl, why this fellow Trover was sent across the Atlantic, and what means that story of the large fortune so suddenly left to Winthrop.”
“I only know him slightly, sir,” said Quackinboss, breaking in, “but no man shall say a word against Harvey P. Winthrop in my hearing.”
“You mistake me,” rejoined the doctor. “It would be no impugnment of my honesty that some one bequeathed me an estate,—not that I think the event a likely one. So far as I can surmise, Winthrop is the only man of honor amongst them.”
“Glad to bear you say so, sir,” said the Colonel, gravely. “It's a great victory over national prejudices when a Britisher gets to say so much for one of our people. It's the grand compensation you always have for your inferiority, to call our sharpness roguery.”
It was a critical moment now, and it needed all Alfred's readiness and address to separate two combatants so eager for battle. He succeeded, however, and, after some commonplace conversation, contrived to carry his father away, on pretence of an engagement.
“You should have let me smash him,” muttered the old man, bitterly, as he followed him from the room. “You should have given me fifteen minutes,—ay, ten. I 'd not have asked more than ten to present him with a finished picture of his model Republican, in dress, manner, morals, and demeanor. I'd have said, 'Here is what I myself have seen—'”
“And I would have stopped you,” broke in Alfred, boldly, “and laid my hand on Quackinboss's shoulder, and said, 'Here is what I have known of America. Here is one who, without other tie than a generous pity, nursed me through the contagion of a fever, and made recovery a blessing to me by his friendship after,—who shared heart and fortune with me when I was a beggar in both.'”