It was he, then, who had followed me. My heart began to warm with delight, and that singular masquerade of mine came back to me, and I went through it all for them. So great was the amusement of Mr. Pearl that he flirted his feet in the air and laughed, while Mr. McCarthy whacked his wooden leg with the stove poker, and shook his head, and gave an odd cackle. Alas! I cannot tell it now as I did then, for those days I had the heart of youth in me and a voice for joy.
“I've chased you for three weeks,” said the Pearl. “You're like a flea on the body o' the United States. I had a talk with a friend o' your mother, an' set out to bring you back. Made a birch-bark canoe, an' run her down to the St. Lawrence an' up to the end o' the lake. Heard from your mother at Sackett's; she said you were at Baker's and would meet Mr. McCarthy here. You jumped from Baker's to somewhere, an' then to the Falls, an' then here, an' I've been a jump behind you all the way.”
I rose, dumb with surprise, and Mr. Pearl continued:
“I got back to Mill Pond a day or two after you an' Bony lit out. A good deal was bein' said, an' I had to lick a man for sayin' a part of it, which the said language wasn't calculated to improve your reputation. Oh, I tell ye, things have warmed up an' transpired since you went away! I says to 'em that you wasn't any Dan'l Webster, an' that Bony had drawed you into his game. I know you didn't have no more idea o' wrong-doin' than a pickerel has of a vest-pocket. One day I promised to go down to the big river an' see if I could pick ye up. So here I am, an' the next thing in the order of exercises will be new business. We've got to convey ourselves out o' here immediately, if not sooner.”
“I am ready,” I said, rising and putting on my hat.
“We've got to move, an' conversation won't carry us. To get down to plain language, have you any money?”
“Eight dollars and forty-three cents,” I answered.
“The report is accepted,” Mr. Pearl went on. “It is as good as a million dollars. We'll go down to the lake an' take a steamer, get off at Sackett's, walk a few miles, an' proceed with our own steam.”
It was arranged, with the hearty concurrence of H. M. Pearl, Esq., that Mr. McCarthy should go with us.
“It will give me a rest, and I can put some agents at work in your part of the country,” said the latter.