Alfred could but squeeze the other's hand as he turned away, his heart too full for him to speak.
“I like your father, sir,” resumed Quackinboss; “he's a grand fellow, and if it war n't for some of his prejudices about the States, I 'd say I never met a finer man.”
Young Layton saw well how by this digression the American was adroitly endeavoring to draw the conversation into another direction, and one less pregnant with exciting emotions.
“Yes, sir, he ain't fair to us,” resumed the Colonel. “He forgets that we 're a new people, and jest as hard at work to build up our new civilization as our new cities.”
“There's one thing he never does, never can forget,—that the warmest, fastest friend his son ever met with in life came from your country.”
“Well, sir, if there be anything we Yankees are famed for, it is the beneficial employment of our spare capital. We don't sit down content with three-and-a-half or four per cent interest, like you Britishers, we look upon that as a downright waste; and it's jest the same with our feelin's as our dollars, though you of the old country don't think so. We can't afford to wait thirty, or five-and-thirty years for a friendship. We want lively sales, sir, and quick returns. We want to know if a man mean kindly by us afore we 've both of us got too old to care for it. That 's how I come to like you first, and I war n't so far out in thinkin' that I 'd made a good investment.”
Alfred could only smile good-humoredly at the speech, and the other went on,—
“You Britishers begin by givin' us Yankees certain national traits and habits, and you won't let us be anything but what you have already fashioned us in your own minds. But, arter all, I'd have you to remember we are far more like your people of a century back than you yourselves are. We ain't as mealy-mouthed and as p'lite and as smooth-tongued as the moderns. But if we 're plain of speech, we are simple of habit; and what you so often set down as rudeness in us ain't anything more than our wish to declare that we ain't in want of any one's help or assistance, but we are able to shift for ourselves, and are independent.”
Quackinboss arose, as he said this, with the air of a man who had discharged his conscience of a load. He had often smarted under what he felt to be the unfair appreciation of the old doctor for America, and he thought that by instilling sounder principles into his son's mind, the seed would one day or other produce good fruit.
From this he led Alfred to talk of his plans for the future. It was his father's earnest desire that he should seek collegiate honors in the university which had once repudiated himself. The old man did not altogether arraign the justice of the act, but he longed to see his name once more in a place of honor, and that the traditions of his own triumphs should be renewed in his son's.