Captain Mason had stepped into Rufer's gorgeous saloon as if to collect his rents, and came out wiping his moustache as if he had eaten them, when he was hailed by Aunt Fanny's African page, and ushered into the presence in time to witness a spectacle of materialization that would astound Spiritualists.
Mason, in a puffy sort of way, stood greatly in awe of his aunt—who, in addition to all a man knows, knew all a woman knows—and would have liked to impress her. He began: "Ah, how dee do, aunt? Just been looking at Woodlawn. Company's rather gravelled, eh? Thought to give 'em a lift and take the race-course myself."
"You take Woodlawn!" cried the dowager, absolutely startled out of her discernment by the notion of getting the once-famous racing-park in the family. Then, recognizing the tremendous bounce, she said sharply, "Pshaw! Do you know a young fellow named Nettles?"
"Nettles? Net-tles?" repeated Mason, hesitating, in doubt if it was a proper acquaintance to acknowledge just then. "Well, yes—a clerk or duffer of some sort at Uncle Brown's pork-house. Oh yes, I know the cad—by sight."
"I did not ask if you knew him by scent," said the dowager, who took no pains to conceal her contempt for her nephew. "He is making up to little Sue Brown. Susannah is too silly to see it, and Walter Brown is an obstinate fool. Low people are always trying to make good connections. You can cut him out if you like."
There was a little chuckle of delight under Mason's watch-pocket, as if that dry timepiece laughed like a dice-box at the thought of the little round-eyed girl who had listened to his vaporing with no mere hypocrisy of belief; but he said, "Marry for money! eh, aunty? Not that she isn't a clean little filly, built up from the ground, neat pastern, good shoulders; but marry for money! eh, aunty?"
It was the purest of cant. He knew, his aunt knew, he would as soon think of eating his knife and fork as marrying a piece of furniture that did not feed him.
"Bah! ostrich with your head in the sand!" said his aunt. "You have played Ancient Pistol all your life. I show you where it will win. Will you play?"
Lind looked over his hand: he remembered that he had made Bob fag on the playground, and as he thought of little Sue he believed it feasible; but he saw more tricks in his hand than that one. "Well," said he affectedly, "if it is to keep out an interloper I don't mind; but you said pistols? A man that has seen Perryville, Stone River, Vicksburg, Gettysburg"—Lind got his battles mixed sometimes in the haste of composition—"don't mind saying he has seen enough of bloodshed."
"Pah!" said the dowager in the tone of Hamlet putting down Yorick's skull. "You amuse me to disgust. I'll mop up all the blood spilt with a cambric handkerchief. Will you do it?"