"I don't mind if I have a slice of that ham, and a glass of that ale,
Miss Garth, if you will allow me," he said, coming into the parlor at
half-past eleven, after having had the exceptional privilege of seeing
old Featherstone, and standing with his back to the fire between Mrs.
Waule and Solomon.
"It's not necessary for you to go out;--let me ring the bell."
"Thank you," said Mary, "I have an errand."
"Well, Mr. Trumbull, you're highly favored," said Mrs. Waule.
"What! seeing the old man?" said the auctioneer, playing with his seals
dispassionately. "Ah, you see he has relied on me considerably." Here
he pressed his lips together, and frowned meditatively.
"Might anybody ask what their brother has been saying?" said Solomon,
in a soft tone of humility, in which he had a sense of luxurious
cunning, he being a rich man and not in need of it.
"Oh yes, anybody may ask," said Mr. Trumbull, with loud and
good-humored though cutting sarcasm. "Anybody may interrogate. Any
one may give their remarks an interrogative turn," he continued, his
sonorousness rising with his style. "This is constantly done by good
speakers, even when they anticipate no answer. It is what we call a
figure of speech--speech at a high figure, as one may say." The
eloquent auctioneer smiled at his own ingenuity.
"I shouldn't be sorry to hear he'd remembered you, Mr. Trumbull," said
Solomon. "I never was against the deserving. It's the undeserving I'm
against."
"Ah, there it is, you see, there it is," said Mr. Trumbull,
significantly. "It can't be denied that undeserving people have been
legatees, and even residuary legatees. It is so, with testamentary
dispositions." Again he pursed up his lips and frowned a little.
"Do you mean to say for certain, Mr. Trumbull, that my brother has left
his land away from our family?" said Mrs. Waule, on whom, as an
unhopeful woman, those long words had a depressing effect.
"A man might as well turn his land into charity land at once as leave
it to some people," observed Solomon, his sister's question having
drawn no answer.
"What, Blue-Coat land?" said Mrs. Waule, again. "Oh, Mr. Trumbull, you
never can mean to say that. It would be flying in the face of the
Almighty that's prospered him."
While Mrs. Waule was speaking, Mr. Borthrop Trumbull walked away from
the fireplace towards the window, patrolling with his fore-finger round
the inside of his stock, then along his whiskers and the curves of his
hair. He now walked to Miss Garth's work-table, opened a book which
lay there and read the title aloud with pompous emphasis as if he were
offering it for sale: