"If you ever like to ride after a good horse----"
the Colonel began.
"Oh, no, no, no; thank you! The better the horse, the more
I should be scared. Tom has told me of your driving!"
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Colonel. "Well! every one
to his taste. Well, good morning, sir!" and he suffered
him to go.
"Who is the old man blowing to this morning?" asked Walker,
the book-keeper, making an errand to Corey's desk.
"My father."
"Oh! That your father? I thought he must be one of your
Italian correspondents that you'd been showing round,
or Spanish."
In fact, as Bromfield Corey found his way at his leisurely
pace up through the streets on which the prosperity
of his native city was founded, hardly any figure could
have looked more alien to its life. He glanced up and down
the facades and through the crooked vistas like a stranger,
and the swarthy fruiterer of whom he bought an apple,
apparently for the pleasure of holding it in his hand,
was not surprised that the purchase should be transacted
in his own tongue.
Lapham walked back through the outer office to his own
room without looking at Corey, and during the day he spoke
to him only of business matters. That must have been
his way of letting Corey see that he was not overcome
by the honour of his father's visit. But he presented
himself at Nantasket with the event so perceptibly on
his mind that his wife asked: "Well, Silas, has Rogers
been borrowing any more money of you? I don't want you
should let that thing go too far.
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