“Audacious! How dare they be so bold!” he exclaimed, springing to his feet and tearing the paper in fragments, which he scattered upon the floor.
“Considerable kind of uppish, ’pears to me,” said a strange voice, having in its tone the nasal twang peculiar to a certain class of Yankees.
Looking up, Durward saw before him a young man in whose style of dress and freckled face we at once recognize Joel Slocum. Wearying of Cincinnati, as he had before done with Lexington, he had traveled at last to Virginia. Remembering to have heard that his grandmother’s aunt had married, died, and left a daughter in Richmond, he determined, if possible, to find some trace of her. Accordingly, he had come on to that city, making it the theater of his daguerrean operations. These alone not being sufficient to support him, he had latterly turned his attention to literary pursuits, being at present engaged in manufacturing a book after the Sam Slick order, which, to use his own expression, “he expected would have a thunderin’ sale.”
In order to sustain the new character which he had assumed, he came every day to the reading-room, tumbling over books and papers, generally carrying one of the former in his hand, affecting an utter disregard of his personal appearance, daubing his fingers with ink, wiping them on the pocket of his coat, and doing numerous other things which he fancied would stamp him a distinguished person.
On the morning of which we have spoken, Joel’s attention was attracted toward Durward, whose daguerreotype he had seen at Maple Grove, and though he did not recognize the original, he fancied he might have met him before, and was about making his acquaintance, when Durward’s action drew from him the remark we have mentioned. Thinking him to be some impertinent fellow, Durward paid him no attention, and was about leaving, when, hitching his chair a little nearer, Joel said, “Be you from Virginny?”
“No.”
“From York state?”
“No.”
“From Pennsylvany?”
“No.”