“He’s up stairs,” said the youth. “Do you wish to see him in particular?”
I answered in the affirmative; and Mr Sullivan was called down.
The man I hoped to meet was, when I saw him last, a little man with red hair; but the individual who answered the summons of the shop boy, was a man about six feet in his stockings, with dark hair and a long black beard.
I saw at a glance, that the grocer who had emigrated from Dublin and the man before me were not identical, but entirely different individuals.
“Well, my lad, what do you want?” asked the tall proprietor of the shop, looking down on me with a glance of curious inquiry.
“Nothing,” I stammered out, perhaps more confused than I had ever been before.
“Then what have you had me called for?” he asked, in a tone that did little to aid me in overcoming my embarrassment.
After much hesitation and stammering, I explained to him that from seeing his name over the door, I had hoped to find a man of the same name, with whom I had been acquainted in Ireland, and who had emigrated to America.
“Ah!” said he, smiling ironically. “My father’s great-grandfather came over to America about two hundred and fifty years ago. His name was John Sullivan. Perhaps you mean him?”
I had nothing to say in answer to this last interrogation, and was turning to leave the shop.