"What Hopper?" was the tart retort, as if Sir Simon's question were superfluous—as indeed the hearer thought it. Mr. Trace had never been a good-tempered man.
"Surely you don't mean the young man who was clerk to you in Liverpool!" cried Sir Simon. "What took him to America?"
Robert Trace raised his eyes from their moody stare on the ground and glanced at his brother-in-law. "You knew Hopper was at Boston with me!"
"Not I. How should I know it? I have never heard of the young man from the time of the break-up at Liverpool."
A minute's perplexed gaze, and then Robert Trace dropped his eyes again. He had made a false move. But that he had supposed Sir Simon knew of his ex-clerk's presence in America, he had certainly not mentioned him.
"Hopper told me, more than once, that he wrote to you from Boston, Simon."
"He never did—to my knowledge. What took him out there?"
"I don't know"—and Mr. Trace's tone changed to quiet civility, the same tone that used to strike on Sir Simon's ear with a false ring. "He walked into the office one morning in Boston, to my great surprise, and asked me if I could help him to employment. It happened that I had been wishing for a clever secretary, or sub-manager, under myself, an Englishman if I could get him; and I put Hopper in the place. He was sharp, intelligent, up to the work, and had served us well in Liverpool."
"And by way of rewarding you, he made ducks and drakes of your money and mine!"
"He turned out as great a rogue as ever stepped," exclaimed Mr. Trace, an acrimonious red tinging his cheeks. "I was obliged to go away from Boston to avoid him. The man nearly worried my life out. He made out a claim, and wanted to enforce it. When he discovered that I had gone to New York, he followed me there. I had a world of trouble with him."