Part 14 (2/2)
”He did indeed, and you for my confederate,” chuckled the old gentleman. ”'Mr. Pinckney, of Providence, I believe?' said I. 'No, you don't,' said he; and he put his finger on his nose, like that.”
”James!” said Mrs. Bowdoin.
”_I_ didn't mind--don't know when I've been so flattered--must look like a pretty sharp old boy, after all, though I have been married to you for fifty years.”
”James, it's hardly forty.”
”Well, I thought it was fifty. The last time I did meet Tom Pinckney, he asked if I'd married again. I said you'd give me no chance. 'Better take it when you can,' said he. 'That will I, Tom,' says I. 'I've got one in my mind.'”
”Really, grandpa,” remonstrated young Harley.
”Don't you talk, young man. Didn't I hear of you at another Abolition meeting yesterday? And women spoke, too,--short-haired women and long-haired men. Why can't you leave them both where a wise Providence placed them? Destroy the only free republic the world has ever known for a parcel of well-fed n.i.g.g.e.rs that'll relapse into Voodoo barbarism the moment they're freed!”
”James, the country knows that the best sentiment of Boston is with us.”
”The country doesn't know Boston, then. And as for that crack-brained demagogue cousin of yours, he calls the Const.i.tution a compact with h.e.l.l! I hope I'll live to see him hanged some day.”
”Wendell Phillips is a martyr indeed.”
”Martyr! Humbug! He couldn't get any clients, so he took up a cause.
Why, they say at the club that he”--
”They said at the meeting last night, sir,” interrupted Harley, ”that they'd march up to the club and make you fellows fly the American flag.”
”It's Phillips wants to pull it down,” said the old gentleman.
Mrs. Bowdoin rattled the tea things.
”Don't mind your grandma, Harley, if she is out of temper. She's got a headache this morning. She went to bed with the hot-water bottle under her pillow and the brandy at her feet, and feels a little mixed.”
”James! I never took a brandy bottle upstairs with me in my life. And Harleston knows”--
”Do you suppose he knows as well as I do, who have lived with you for fifty years?”
”And I'll not stay with you to hear my cousin insulted!” Majestic, she rose.
”It's too much of one girl,” chuckled Mr. Bowdoin. ”No wonder men keep a separate establishment.”
”_James!_” Mrs. Bowdoin swept from the room.
”Don't run upstairs alone; consider the butler's feelings!” called her unfeeling spouse after her.
”You're too bad, sir,” said Harley.
”I'm trying to develop her sense of humor; it's the one thing I always said I'd have in a wife. Remember it, when you get married. Why the devil don't you?”
”I have too much sense of humor, sir,” said Harley gravely. ”What is that?” For a noise of much shouting was heard from the Common. Both men rushed to the windows, and saw, surrounded by a maddened crowd, a small company of federal soldiers marching north.
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