It was not so easy as the reverend doctor could have wished, however, for him to look dignifiedly down upon a man who overtopped him by a head and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds of clear bone and muscle.
An evil-disposed person might have added:
“And who had forgotten more before he left college than the Academy principal had ever known in all his born days.”
That was a thing, however, which Dr. Dryer could hardly have imagined of any human being, even while he half-scornfully admitted his new assistant’s greater familiarity with the chemical apparatus and “all that new-fangled trash.”
Brayton had given a decidedly vivid account of Zeb’s valorous behavior on the road, but he had failed to repeat that young worthy’s exact statement of the relations between himself and “old Sol.”
Effie knew very well that he was keeping back something, but he was altogether too new an acquaintance to ask any questions of, and she was compelled to smother her curiosity in a general “wonder” what it could be that made Mr. Brayton’s face look so very much as if he were trying not to laugh.
As for Mrs. Dryer, that lady smiled all the evening on the handsome newcomer, and every time she smiled it seemed to cost her more of an effort. In fact, before the evening was over, George Brayton had one thoroughly rooted enemy in Ogleport, and, when the doctor and his wife found themselves once more alone, the first thing that smote upon his ears was:
“Board with us? That fellow, with all his airs and graces? He board in our house? No, indeed! Let him go to old Mrs. Wood’s, or to anybody that’ll take him. My advice to you is that you get rid of that kind of an assistant as soon as ever you can.”
“Why, Dorothy Jane, my dear——”
“Don’t talk to me, Mr. Dryer. Haven’t I your true interests at heart? Don’t you s’pose I can see what’s coming? It’ll be just like a young minister in a church. Everybody’ll go mad about him. All the girls’ll be setting their caps for him. All the old women’ll be inviting him to tea, so’s to give their daughters a chance. The young men’ll hate him, that’s a comfort. Such a fellow won’t have any control over the boys, neither. Why, he actually laughed twenty times this very evening.”