He was a big, loosely-made man, an easy going man with a kind heart who would have come to financial disaster long ago only for his partner, Niven.
“He’s almost due to be here by now,” said he, taking out his watch and looking at it, “unless the express from Dublin is late.”
“What’ll he be like, do you think?” said Phyl.
“There’s no saying,” replied Mr. Hennessey. “He’s an American and I’ve never had much dealings with Americans except by letter. By all accounts they are sharp business men, but I daresay he is all right. The thing that gets me is his coming over. Americans don’t go thousands of miles for nothing, but if it’s after any hanky-panky business about the property, maybe he’ll find Jack Hennessey as sharp as any American.”
“He’s some sort of a relation of ours,” said Phyl. “Father said he was a sort of cousin.”
“On your mother’s side,” said Hennessey.
“Yes,” said Phyl. Then, after a moment’s pause, “D’you know I’ve often thought of all those people over there and wondered what they were like and how they lived—my mother’s people. Father used to talk of them sometimes. He said they kept slaves.”
“That was in the old days,” said Hennessey. “The slaves are all gone long ago. They used to have sugar plantations and suchlike, but the war stopped all that.”
“It’s funny,” said Phyl, “to think that my people kept slaves—my mother’s people—Oh, if one could only see back, see all the people that have gone before one so long ago— Don’t you ever feel like that?”
Mr. Hennessey never had; his forebears had been liquor dealers in Athlone and he was content to let them lie without a too close inquisition into the romances of their lives.