"I came to ask Mr. Ogden for an explanation about his letter of this morning."
"I should think you need no explanations, Colonel Stanburne. You know what passed yesterday evening."
"He knows that well enough," said Mrs. Ogden.
"I should be glad if Lieutenant Ogden would tell me in detail what he thinks that he has to complain of."
"Leaftenant! Leaftenant! nay, there's no more leaftenantin', I reckon. This is Isaac Ogden—plain Isaac Ogden—an' nout elz. He's given up playin' at soldiers. He's a cotton-spinner, or he were one, nobbut his brother an' him quarrelled; and I wish they hadn't done, many a time I do—for our Jacob's as much as ever he can manage, now as he's buildin' a new mill; an' if he gets wed—and there's Hiram Ratcliff's dorther"—Mrs. Ogden might have gone very far into family matters if her son had not perceived (or imagined that he perceived) something like a smile on Colonel Stanburne's face. In point of fact, the Colonel did not precisely smile; but there was a general relaxation of the muscles of his physiognomy from their first expression of severity, betraying an inward tendency to humor.
"Well, sir," broke in Ogden, "I'll tell you what you did, if you want me. It seems that you've set up a new carriage, a four-in-hand, which looks very like a mail coach, and you drove this vehicle yesterday through the streets of Sootythorn, and you saw my mother on the footpath, and you made a signal to her with your whip, as coachmen do, and you allowed her to get inside under the impression that it was a public conveyance, so that you might make a laughing-stock of her with the officers. And"—
"Pardon me," said the Colonel, "it was not"—
"You've asked me to tell you why I sent in my resignation, and I'm telling you. If you stop me, I shalln't begin it over again. Let me say my say, Colonel Stanburne; you may explain it away afterwards at your leisure, if you can. When you got into Whittlecup, and stopped at the Blue Bell, you took my mother's money—and not only that, but you asked for a gratuity for yourself, as driver, to make her ridiculous in the eyes of your friends on the vehicle. I suppose, though your joke may have been a very good one, that you will be able to understand why it is not very pleasing to me, and why I don't choose to remain under you in the militia."
"If the thing had occurred as you have told it"—the Colonel began, but was instantly interrupted by Mrs. Ogden.
"Do you mean to say I didn't tell him right what happened? If anybody knows what happened, I do."