“Of course,” replied Mr. Norton, “I expect that. Am ready to spend as much time, and money, too, as may be necessary. I am quite at your service.”
“Then take a trip of a week to Niagara, or any other place where you can enjoy yourself, and by the time you return I will be ready to report what I have discovered.”
“Can I not aid you in your proposed search?”
“After that,” replied the Judge. “Is not this your first visit to America?”
“It is, indeed,” said Mr. Norton.
“Then try to make the most of it,” said Judge Danvers. “There’s no telling where you may have to travel before we get through.”
Mr. Ashbel Norton was apparently a gentleman accustomed to having his own way, but he was old enough to know there was little to be gained in a dispute with a lawyer, and so, after answering a legion of what seemed to him unimportant questions, he bowed himself out, promising to return at the end of the week.
“Very curious affair,” growled Judge Danvers, after his new client had departed. “Now I’ve two family mysteries on my hands—one from England, and one from I don’t know where. Well, I’ll set the wires a-working on this one, but, for all that, I won’t neglect the other. I must find that rascal, Montague, and then I must write to Barnaby. No, not that, I must go to see him; but I’d like to find the Major first.”
A busy head was that of the old lawyer that afternoon and evening, what with one case and another; but not one whit more active than had been the brains of the two youngsters, away up there in Ogleport.
At the supper table Brayton remarked to Mrs. Wood: