"No, I didn't; and don't think trade is the thing for me. I saw a deal of avarice and meanness, and a thief of a clerk got his master to suspect me of dishonesty; so I snapped my fingers at them all, and here I am. But," said the poor young fellow, "I do wish, father, you would put me into something where I can make a little money, so that when this estate comes to be sold, I may be the purchaser."
Colonel Clifford started up in great emotion.
"Sell Clifford Hall, where I was born, and you were born, and everybody was born! Those estates I sold were only outlying properties."
"They were beautiful ones," said Walter. "I never see such peaches now."
"As you did when you were six years old," suggested the Colonel. "No, nor you never will. I've been six myself. Lord knows when it was, though!"
"But, sir, I don't see any such trout, and no such haunts for snipe."
"Do you mean to insult me?" cried the Colonel, rather suddenly. "This is what we are come to now. Here's a brat of six begins taking notes against his own father; and he improves on the Scotch poet—he doesn't print 'em. No, he accumulates them cannily until he is twenty, but never says a word. He loads his gun up to the muzzle, and waits, as the years roll on, with his linstock in his hand, and one fine day at breakfast he fires his treble charge of grape-shot at his own father."
This was delivered so loudly that John feared a quarrel, and to interrupt it, put in his head, and said, mighty innocently:
"Did you call, sir? Can I do anything for you, sir?"
"Yes: go to the devil!"