He stood aside to let his visitor pass, wondering again where it was that he had originally seen the man. He hated to forget a face and personality which should have been unforgettable. He ushered Mr. Gunn into the drawing-room, still pondering.
“So there you are, pop,” said the lady. “Say, pop, isn’t it dandy? Mr. Shotter’s an American.”
Mr. Gunn’s frank eyes lit up with gratification.
“Ah! Then you are a man of sentiment, Mr. Shotter. You will understand. You will not think it odd that a man should cherish all through his life a wistful yearning for the place where he was born.”
“Not at all,” said Sam politely, and might have reminded his visitor that the feeling, a highly creditable one, was shared by practically all America’s most eminent song writers.
“Well, that is how I feel, Mr. Shotter,” said the other bluffly, “and I am not ashamed to confess it. This house is very dear to me. I was born in it.”
“So Miss Gunn was telling me.”
“Ah, she has told you? Yes, Mr. Shotter, I am a man who has seen men and cities. I have lived in the hovels of the poor, I have risen till, if I may say so, I am welcomed in the palaces of the rich. But never, rich or poor, have I forgotten this old place and the childhood associations which hallow it.”
He paused. His voice had trembled and sunk to a whisper in those last words, and now he turned abruptly and looked out of a window. His shoulders heaved significantly for an instant and something like a stifled sob broke the stillness of the room. But when a moment later he swung round he was himself again, the tough, sturdy old J. Felkin Haggenbakker—or, rather, Thomas G. Gunn—who was so highly respected, and perhaps a little feared, at the Rotary Club in Pittsburgh.
“Well, I must not bore you, Mr. Shotter. You are, no doubt, a busy man. Let me be brief. Mr. Shotter, I want this house.”