"Have you a citation for him?"
The officer winked. "Can you tell me where to find him?"
Mr. Bowdoin saw his chance. "Yes, sir; I can, sir. The last I heard of him, he had gone to Cuba on a filibustering expedition with one General Walker, who has since been hanged; and if you find him, you'll find him in Havana, Cuba, and can serve the citation on him there; though I'm bound to tell you," ended the old gentleman in a louder voice, "my opinion is, he won't care a d—n for you or your citation either!" And Mr. Bowdoin bolted down the stairs.
XI.
So Mr. Bowdoin hurried up the street to the bank, half chuckling, half angry, still. Then (having found that there was a special and very important directors' meeting called at once) he scurried out again upon the street, his papers in his hat, and did the business of the day on 'change. And then he went back to the bank, and asked if Mr. Harleston Bowdoin had got there yet.
Mr. Stanchion told him no. By that time it was after eleven. But Mr. Bowdoin made a rapid calculation of the distance (it never would have occurred to him to take a hack; carriages, in his view, were meant for women, funerals, and disreputable merrymakers), and hastened down to Salem Street.
Old Mrs. Hughson met him at the door, grateful and tearful. Yes, young Mr. Harley (she remembered him well in the old days, and had been jealous of him as a rival of her son) was upstairs. She feared poor McMurtagh was very ill. He had been out of his head for days and days. To Mr. Bowdoin's peppery query why the devil she had not sent for him, Mrs. Hughson had nothing to say. It had never occurred to her, perhaps, that the well-being of such a quaint, dried-up old chap as Jamie could be a matter of moment to his wealthy employers whom she had never known.
"Can I see him?" asked Mr. Bowdoin. But as he spoke, Harley came down the stairs.
"It's heart-breaking," he said. "He thinks he's in the South with her. He was going to meet her, it seems; and the poor old fellow does not know he has not gone."