"Going to bring his pretty chickens and their dam?" asked the cousin, parting his coat-skirts to the genial influence of the fire.

"No; it's a short visit. They're going into the Virginia mountains for the summer." A manservant came in and said something in a low voice.

"Heigh? What? Why, of course! Certainly! By all means! Show him in! Come in, parson; come in!" called the host to his yet unseen visitor, and he held out his hand for Sewell to take when he appeared at the door. "Glad to see you! I can't get up,--a little gouty to-day,--but Bellingham's on foot. _His_ difficulty is sitting down."

Bellingham gave the minister a near-sighted man's glare through his gla.s.ses, and then came eagerly forward and shook hands. "Oh, Mr. Sewell!

I hope you've come to put up some job on Corey. Don't spare him! With Kanawha Paint Co. at the present figures he merits any demand that Christian charity can make upon him. The man's prosperity is disgraceful."

"I'm glad to find you here, Mr. Bellingham," said Sewell, sitting down.

"Oh, is it double-barrelled?" pleaded Bellingham.

"I don't know that it's a deadly weapon of any kind," returned the minister. "But if one of you can't help me, perhaps the other can."

"Well, let us know what the job is," said Corey. "We refuse to commit ourselves beforehand."

"I shall have to begin at the beginning," said Sewell warningly, "and the beginning is a long way off."

"No matter," said Bellingham adventurously. "The further off, the better. I've been dining with Corey--he gives you a very good dinner now, Corey does--and I'm just in the mood for a deserving case."

"The trouble with Sewell is," said Corey, "that he doesn't always take the trouble to have them deserving. I hope this is interesting, at least."

"I suspect you'll find it more interesting than I shall," said the minister, inwardly preparing himself for the amus.e.m.e.nt which Lemuel's history always created in his hearers. It seemed to him, as he began, that he was always telling this story, and that his part in the affair was always becoming less and less respectable. No point was lost upon his hearers; they laughed till the ladies in the drawing-room above wondered what the joke could be.

"At any rate," said Bellingham, "the fellow behaved magnificently at the fire. I read the accounts of it."

"I think his exploits owe something to the imagination of the reporters," said Sewell. "He tells a different story himself."

"Oh, of course!" said Bellingham.

"Well; and what else?" asked Corey.

"There isn't any more. Simply he's out of work, and wants something to do--anything to do--anything that isn't menial."

"Ah, that's a queer start of his," said Bellingham thoughtfully. "I don't know but I like that."

"And do you come to such effete posterity as we are for help in a case like that?" demanded Corey. "Why, the boy's an Ancestor!"

"So he is! Why, so he is--so he is!" said Bellingham, with delight in the discovery. "Of course he is!"

"All you have to do," pursued Corey, "is to give him time, and he'll found a fortune and a family, and his children's children will be cutting ours in society. Half of our great people have come up in that way. Look at the Blue-book, where our n.o.bility is enrolled; it's the apotheosis of farm-boys, mechanics, insidemen, and I don't know what!"

"But in the meantime this ancestor is now so remote that he has nothing to do," suggested Sewell. "If you give him time you kill him."

"Well, what do you want me to do? Mrs. Corey is thinking of setting up a b.u.t.tons. But you say this boy has a soul above b.u.t.tons. And besides, he's too old."

"Yes."

"Look here, Bromfield," said Bellingham, "why don't you get _him_ to read to you?"

Corey glanced from his cousin to the minister, whose face betrayed that this was precisely what he had had in his own mind.

"Is that the job?" asked Corey.

Sewell nodded boldly.

"He would read through his nose, wouldn't he? I couldn't stand that.

I've stopped talking through mine, you know."

"Why, look here, Bromfield!" said Bellingham for the second time. "Why don't you let me manage this affair for you? I'm not of much use in the world, but from time to time I like to do my poor best; and this is just one of the kind of things I think I'm fitted for. I should like to see this young man. When I read in the newspapers of some fellow who has done a fine thing, I always want to see what manner of man he is; and I'm glad of any chance that throws him in my way."

"Your foible's notorious, Charles. But I don't see why you keep my cigars all to yourself," said Corey.

"My dear fellow," said Bellingham, making a hospitable offer of the cigar-box from the mantel, "you said they'd cut you off."

"Ah, so they have. I forgot. Well, what's your plan?"

"My plan," said Bellingham, "is to have him to breakfast with me, and interview him generally, and get him to read me a few pa.s.sages, without rousing his suspicions. Heigh?"

"I don't know that I believe much in your plan," said Corey. "I should like to hear what my spiritual adviser has to say."

"I shouldn't know what to advise, exactly," said Sewell. "But I won't reject any plan that gives my client a chance."

"Isn't client rather euphuistic?" asked Corey.

"It is, rather. But I've got into the habit of handling Barker very delicately, even in thought. I'm not sure he'll come," added Sewell, turning to Bellingham.

"Oh yes, he will," said Bellingham. "Tell him it's business. There won't be anybody there. Will nine be too late for him?"

"I imagine he's more accustomed to half-past five at home, and seven here."

"Well, we'll say nine, anyway. I can't imagine the cause that would get me up earlier. Here!" He turned to the mantel and wrote an invitation upon his card, and handed it to Sewell. "Please give him that from me, and beg him to come. I really want to see him, and if he can't read well enough for this fastidious old gentleman, we'll see what else he can do. Corey tells me he expects Tom on this summer," he concluded, in dismissal of Lemuel as a topic.

"Ah," said Sewell, putting the card in his pocket, "I'm very glad to hear that."

He had something, but not so much, of the difficulty in overcoming Lemuel's reluctance that he had feared, and on the morning named Lemuel presented himself at the address on Bellingham's card exactly at nine.

He had the card in his hand, and he gave it to the man who opened the street door of the bachelors' apartment house where Bellingham lived.

The man read it carefully over, and then said, "Oh yes; second floor,"

and, handing it back, left Lemuel to wander upstairs alone. He was going to offer the card again at Bellingham's door, but he had a dawning misgiving. Bellingham had opened the door himself, and, feigning to regard the card as offered by way of introduction, he gave his hand cordially, and led him into the cozy room, where the table was already laid for breakfast.

"Glad to see you, glad to see you, Mr. Barker. Give me your coat. Ah, I see you scorn the effeminacy of half-season things. Put your hat anywhere. The advantage of bachelors' quarters is that you _can_ put anything anywhere. We haven't a woman on the premises, and you can fancy how unmolested we are."

Lemuel had caught sight of one over the mantel, who had nothing but her water-colours on, and was called an "Etude;" but he no longer trembled, for evil or for good, in such presences. "That's one of those Romano-Spanish things," said Bellingham, catching the direction of his eye. "I forget the fellow's name; but it isn't bad. We're pretty snug here," he added, throwing open two doors in succession, to show the extent of his apartment.

"Here you have the dining-room and drawing-room and library in one; and here's my bedroom, and here's my bath."

He pulled an easy-chair up toward the low fire for Lemuel. "But perhaps you're hot from walking? Sit wherever you like."

Lemuel chose to sit by the window. "It's very mild out," he said, and Bellingham did not exact anything more of him. He talked at him, and left Lemuel to make his mental inventory of the dense Turkey rugs on the slippery hardwood floor, the pictures on the Avails, the deep, leather-lined seats, the bric-a-brac on the mantel, the tall, coloured chests of drawers in two corners, the delicate china and quaint silver on the table.