“Successful in copper,” said Newman, “only so-so in railroads, and a hopeless fizzle in oil.”
“It is very disagreeable to know how Americans have made their money. Now you have the world before you. You have only to enjoy.”
“Oh, I suppose I am very well off,” said Newman. “Only I am tired of having it thrown up at me. Besides, there are several drawbacks. I am not intellectual.”
“One doesn’t expect it of you,” Mrs. Tristram answered. Then in a moment, “Besides, you are!”
“Well, I mean to have a good time, whether or no,” said Newman. “I am not cultivated, I am not even educated; I know nothing about history, or art, or foreign tongues, or any other learned matters. But I am not a fool, either, and I shall undertake to know something about Europe by the time I have done with it. I feel something under my ribs here,” he added in a moment, “that I can’t explain—a sort of a mighty hankering, a desire to stretch out and haul in.”
“Bravo!” said Mrs. Tristram, “that is very fine. You are the great Western Barbarian, stepping forth in his innocence and might, gazing a while at this poor effete Old World and then swooping down on it.”
“Oh, come,” said Newman. “I am not a barbarian, by a good deal. I am very much the reverse. I have seen barbarians; I know what they are.”
“I don’t mean that you are a Comanche chief, or that you wear a blanket and feathers. There are different shades.”
“I am a highly civilized man,” said Newman. “I stick to that. If you don’t believe it, I should like to prove it to you.”
Mrs. Tristram was silent a while. “I should like to make you prove it,” she said, at last. “I should like to put you in a difficult place.”