“Yes, you sit there talking, when your duty is to follow and bring your niece back from disgrace,” cried the young man furiously.
“Thank you for teaching me my duty, my lad. You have had so much more experience than I. All the same, Duncan Leslie, my hot-headed Scot, I am going to sleep on it, and that’s what I advise you to do. There; be reasonable, man. You know you are not in a condition for dispassionate judgment.”
“I tell you any one could judge this case,” said Leslie hotly.
“And I tell you, my dear boy, that it would have puzzled Solomon.”
“Will you go in search of her directly?”
“Will I go out in the dark, and run my head against the first granite wall? No, my boy, I will not.”
“Then I must.”
“What, run your head against a wall?”
“Bah!”
“Look here, Leslie, I’ve watched you, my lad, for long enough past. I saw you take a fancy to my darling niece Louy; and I felt as if I should like to come behind and pitch you off the cliff. Then I grew more reasonable, for I found by careful watching that you were not such a bad fellow after all, and what was worse, it seemed to me that, in spite of her aunt’s teaching, Louy was growing up into a clever sensible girl, with only one weakness, and that a disposition to think a little of you.”