Looking after him, something brought back to Waddy’s mind that sentence the old man had uttered a little while before:
“When dying once gets into a family, there’s no knowing where it will stop.”
He felt dimly that he had listened to a prophecy.
CHAPTER IX
THE NABOB RE-ENTERS CIVILISATION
IT was a lovely afternoon, two days after the events narrated in the last chapter, when a shabby stranger might have been seen slowly pacing the pavement that leads from one of those gates where a stream of ardent pilgrims disembogues into the purlieus of the Athens of America; pacing with reverent sloth up toward the Acropolis where, like fanes of gods still alive and kicking, tower the Boston State House, the Boston Anthenæum, and nobler than all, behind granite propylæa, the Boston Tremont House.
I said a shabby stranger might have been seen; he might, had anyone looked. But no one looks at shabby strangers, a fact for which this one was deeply grateful, for his name was Ira Waddy, and he was encased in a suit of Dan’l’s clothes. He was still gloomy after his wreck, indisposed for the hospitalities of his commercial correspondents, not unwilling to visit his old haunts, himself unknown.
His first point was of course Dullish Court, his childhood’s home; but it had changed beyond his recognition. Here, in place of the little shop, were the great Waddy Buildings, erected by his order and already trebled in value. The income of this unmortgaged property was of itself town house, country house, horses, dinners, balls, fashion and respect, the kingdoms of this world and another. Dullish Court had enlarged its borders for better perspective of these stupendous granite structures. Boston thought them more important than Mont Blanc, the Temple of Solomon, Karnac, or the Coliseum, and ciceroned the unsuspecting stranger thither.
“There, sir; what do you think of that, sir? We are plain, sir; but we are solid, sir—solid, sir, as the godlike Daniel said of us. All belong to one man. Boston boy, sir—went away with nothing; now worth millions!” and the liquid l’s of that luxurious word dwelt upon the cicerone’s tongue most Spanishly.