Uncle Jack turned to the fire, and warmed first one foot, then the other. This comfortable ceremony performed, he again faced the company—and resumed musingly, and as if answering some imaginary observations—
"Yes, yes—you are right there—and a deuced unlucky speculation it proved too. But I was overruled by that fellow Peck. Says I to him—says I—'Capitalist! pshaw—no popular interest there—it don't address the great public! Very confined class the capitalists; better throw ourselves boldly on the people. Yes,' said I, 'call it the anti-Capitalist.' By Jove, sir, we should have carried all before us! but I was overruled. The Anti-Capitalist!—what an idea! Address the whole reading world then, sir: everybody hates the capitalist—everybody would have his neighbour's money. The Anti-Capitalist!—sir, we should have gone off, in the manufacturing towns, like wildfire. But what could I do?"—
"John Tibbets," said my father solemnly, "capitalist or anti-capitalist, thou hadst a right to follow thine own bent, in either—but always provided it had been with thine own money. Thou see'st not the thing, John Tibbets, in the right point of view; and a little repentance, in the face of those thou hast wronged, would not have misbecome thy father's son, and thy sister's brother!"—
Never had so severe a rebuke issued from the mild lips of Austin Caxton; and I raised my eyes with a compassionate thrill, expecting to see John Tibbets gradually sink and disappear through the carpet.
"Repentance!" cried Uncle Jack, bounding up, as if he had been shot. "And do you think I have a heart of stone, of pummy-stone!—do you think I don't repent? I have done nothing but repent—I shall repent to my dying day."
"Then there is no more to be said, Jack," cried my father, softening, and holding out his hand.
"Yes!" cried Mr Tibbets, seizing the hand, and pressing it to the heart he had thus defended from the suspicion of being pummy—"yes—that I should have trusted that dunder-headed, rascally, curmudgeon Peck: that I should have let him call it The Capitalist, despite all my convictions, when the Anti——"
"Pshaw!" interrupted my father, drawing away his hand.
"John," said my mother gravely, and with tears in her voice, "you forget who delivered you from prison,—you forget whom you have nearly consigned to prison yourself,—you forg—"
"Hush, hush!" said my father, "this will never do; and it is you who forget, my dear, the obligations I owe to Jack. He has reduced my fortune one half, it is true; but I verily think he has made the three hearts, in which lie my real treasures, twice as large as they were before. Pisistratus, my boy, ring the bell."