"D——e, Noah, I had half a mind to buy a commission for you, and make a soldier of you. But you had better remain as you are. That confounded name of Noah Cotton would spoil all. Who ever heard of a gentleman bearing such a cognomen? It is worse than Lord Byronis."
"Amas Cottle, Phœbus, what a name! What could tempt your mother to call you after the old patriarchal navigator! Ha! ha! it was a queer dodge."
"It was my father's name," said I, reddening; for, besides being bitterly mortified and disappointed, I by no means relished the joke; "and my father, though poor, was an honest man!"
"Both cases rather doubtful," said the Squire, laughing to himself. Then, slapping me pretty sharply on the shoulder, he said,—"And what, my lad, do you know of your father?"
"Nothing, personally; to the best of my knowledge I never saw him; but my mother has told me a good deal about him."
"Humph!" said Mr. Carlos. "Did she tell you how much she was attached to Mister Noah Cotton, and how grieved she was to part with such a tender, loving spouse?"
"Sir, Mr. Carlos,—do you mean to insult me by speaking in this jeering way of my parents?"
"Not in the least, Noah; so don't look at me with that fierce black eye, as if you took me for a hare or a pheasant, or, worse than either, for Bill Martin. You ought to know that I am your friend,—have been your friend from a child; and if you continue to conduct yourself as you have done, will befriend you for life."
I looked, I am sure, very foolish, for I felt his words rankling in my heart; and, though I affected to laugh, I strode on by his side in silence; the chain of obligations he had wound around me, and my dependence upon him, tightening about me, and galling me at every step. He certainly saw that I was offended, for, stopping at the gate which led from the park to the Hall-gardens, where our roads separated, he said, rather abruptly,—
"You are angry with me, Noah?"