"I said, 'You don't even know that he's a Duke—his name's in De Gotha, I grant you, but how do you know he's the man?'"
"What did she say?" demanded Sir Harry.
Hal shrugged his shoulders despairingly.
"She talked—like a woman," he said, with the air of one given to the coining of epigrams. "In so many words told me to mind my own business—in fact, governor, told me to go to the devil."
"Good heavens!" said the scandalized knight.
"Well," modified his son, "she didn't exactly say so, but that was the impression she gave me."
Sir Harry clicked his lips impatiently.
"This is gratitude!" he said bitterly. "After what I've done——" He paused to recollect his acts of beneficence, failed to recall any remarkable feat of generosity on his part, coughed, frowned, and repeated with increased bitterness—"Gratitude, bah!" He relapsed into gloomy silence, then reached out his hand for the document Hal had flourished.
"But this shall end," he said with splendid calmness; "we will bundle out this dam—confounded American Duke and his cowboy friend, bag and baggage. Smith shall serve him with a notice—has he paid his rent?"
"No," shouted Hal gleefully, "it was due the day he left for America and the Yankee person has overlooked it apparently."