property when you got it. I could leave you alone to turn it into Yankee notions,—into ducks and drakes, as they call it here. I should like to see you stamping over it and kicking up its sacred dust in their very faces!"
"You don't know me, Simmons!" said Searle, for all response to this untender benediction.
"I should be very glad to think I did n't, Searle. I have been to no small amount of trouble for you. I have consulted by main force three first-rate men. They smile at the idea. I should like you to see the smile negative of one of these London big-wigs. If your title were written in letters of fire, it would n't stand being sniffed at in that fashion. I sounded in person the solicitor of your distinguished kinsman. He seemed to have been in a manner forewarned and forearmed. It seems your brother George, some twenty years ago, put forth a feeler. So you are not to have the glory of even frightening them."
"I never frightened any one," said Searle. "I should n't begin at this time of day. I should approach the subject like a gentleman."
"Well, if you want very much to do something like a gentleman, you've got a capital chance. Take your disappointment like a gentleman."
I had finished my dinner, and I had become keenly interested in poor Mr. Searle's mysterious claim;
