"I'm rather old," suggested Sylvester, smiling on the young man.
"So you are, by Jove—But that aint the thing I want exactly; I want an old castle or two, and a donjon-keep, and that sort of thing.—You understand."
"Something," suggested the grandfather, "in the style of the old revolutionary fort on Fort Hill?"
"No—no—you don't take exactly. I mean something more in the antique—something or other, you see"—here he began twirling his forefinger in the air and sketching an amorphous phantom of some sort, of an altogether unattainable character, "in a word—Jehoshaphat!"
The moment the eye of Mrs. Carrack fell upon the blue and white crockery, the pewter plates which had been in use time out of mind in the family, and the plain knives and forks of steel, she cast on her son a significant glance of mingled surprise and contempt. "Thomas," she said, standing before the place assigned to her, her son doing the same, "the napkins!"
The napkins were brought from a great basket which had accompanied the leathern trunk.
"The other things!"
The other things, consisting of china plates, cups and saucers, and knives and forks of silver for two, were duly laid—Mrs. Carrack and her son having kept the rest of the family waiting the saying of grace by old Sylvester, were good enough to be seated at the old farmer's (Mrs. Carrack's father's) board.
When old Sylvester unclosed his eyes from the delivery of thanks, he discovered at the back of Mrs. Carrack and her son's chairs, the two city servants in livery, with their short cut hair and embroidered coats of the fashion of those worn in English farces on the stage, standing erect and without the motion of a muscle. There is not a doubt but that old Sylvester Peabody was a good deal astonished, although he gave no utterance to his feelings. But when the two young men in livery began to dive in here and there about the table, snapping up the dishes in exclusive service on Mrs. Carrack and Mr. Tiffany Carrack, he could remain silent no longer.
"Boys," he said, addressing himself to the two fine personages in question, "you will oblige me by going into the yard and chopping wood till we are done supper. We shall need all you can split in an hour to bake the pies with."