Queechy Volume Ii Part 60

"He is, Sir," said the servant, admitting him rather hesitatingly.

"I wish to see him a few moments on business."

"It is no hour for business," said the voice of Mr. Lewis from over the bal.u.s.ters ? "I can't see anybody to-night."

"I ask but a few minutes," said Mr. Carleton. "It is important."

"It may be anything!" said Thorn. "I wont do business after twelve o'clock."

Mr. Carleton desired the servant to carry his card, with the same request, to Mr. Thorn the elder.

"What's that?" said Thorn, as the man came up stairs ? "my father? ? Pshaw! _he_ can't attend to it. Well, walk up, Sir, if you please! ? may as well have it over and done with it."

Mr. Carleton mounted the stairs and followed the young gentleman into an apartment, to which he rapidly led the way.

"You've no objection to this, I suppose?" Thorn remarked, as he locked the door behind them.

"Certainly not," said Mr. Carleton, coolly, taking out the key and putting it in his pocket ? "my business is private ? it needs no witnesses."

"Especially as it so nearly concerns yourself," said Thorn, sneeringly.

"Which part of it, Sir?" said Mr. Carleton, with admirable breeding. It vexed, at the same time that it constrained Thorn.

"I'll let you know, presently!" he said, hurriedly proceeding to the lower end of the room, where some cabinets stood, and unlocking door after door in mad haste.

The place had somewhat the air of a study ? perhaps Thorn's private room. A long table stood in the middle of the floor, with materials for writing, and a good many books were about the room, in cases and on the tables, with maps, and engravings, and portfolio's, and a nameless collection of articles ? the miscellaneous gathering of a man of leisure and some literary taste.

Their owner presently came back from the cabinets with tokens of a very different kind about him.

"There, Sir!" he said, offering to his guest a brace of most inhospitable-looking pistols ? "take one, and take your stand, as soon as you please ? nothing like coming to the point at once!"

He was heated and excited even more than his manner indicated.

Mr. Carleton glanced at him, and stood quietly examining the pistol he had taken. It was already loaded.

"This is a business that comes upon me by surprise," he said, calmly. "I don't know what I have to do with this, Mr. Thorn."

"Well, I do," said Thorn, "and that's enough. Take your place, Sir! You escaped me once, but " ? and he gave his words dreadful emphasis ? "you wont do it the second time!"

"You do not mean," said the other, "that your recollection of such an offence has lived out so many years?"

"No, Sir! No Sir!" said Thorn ? "it is not that. I despise it, as I do the offender. You have touched me more nearly."

"Let me know ill what," said Mr. Carleton, turning his pistol's mouth down upon the table, and leaning on it.

"You know already ? what do you ask me for?" said Thorn, who was foaming; "if you say you don't, you lie heartily. I'll tell you nothing but out of _this_."

"I have not knowingly injured you, Sir ? in a whit."

"Then a Carleton may be a liar," said Thorn, "and you are one ? I dare say not the first. Put yourself there, Sir, will you?"

"Well," said Guy, carelessly, "if it is decreed that I am to fight, of course there's no help for it; but as I have business on hand that might not be so well done afterwards, I must beg your attention to that in the first place."

"No, Sir," said Thorn, "I'll attend to nothing ? I'll hear nothing from you. I know you! I'll not hear a word. I'll see to the business! Take your stand."

"I will not have anything to do with pistols," said Mr.

Carleton, coolly, laying his out of his hand; "they make too much noise."

"Who cares for the noise?" said Thorn. "It wont hurt you; and the door is locked."

"But people's ears are not," said Guy.

Neither tone, nor att.i.tude, nor look, had changed in the least its calm gracefulness. It began to act upon Thorn.

"Well, in the devil's name, have your own way," said he, throwing down his pistol too, and going back to the cabinets at the lower end of the room ? "there are rapiers here, if you like them better ? _I_ don't ? the shortest the best for me ?

but here they are ? take your choice."

Guy examined them carefully for a few minutes, and then laid them both, with a firm hand upon them, on the table.

"I will choose neither, Mr. Thorn, till you have heard me. I came here to see you on the part of others ? I should be a recreant to my charge if I allowed you or myself to draw me into anything that might prevent my fulfilling it. That must be done first."

Thorn looked with a lowering brow on the indications of his opponent's eye and att.i.tude; they left him plainly but one course to take.

"Well, speak and have done," he said, as in spite of himself; "but I know it already."

"I am here as a friend of Mr. Rossitur."

"Why don't you say a friend of somebody else, and come nearer the truth?" said Thorn.

There was an intensity of expression in his sneer, but pain was there as well as anger; and it was with even a feeling of pity that Mr. Carleton answered ?

"The truth will be best reached, Sir, if I am allowed to choose my own words."

There was no haughtiness in the steady gravity of this speech, whatever there was in the quiet silence he permitted to follow. Thorn did not break it.

"I am informed of the particulars concerning this prosecution of Mr. Rossitur ? I am come here to know if no terms can be obtained."

"No!" said Thorn ? "no terms ? I wont speak of terms. The matter will be followed up now till the fellow is lodged in jail, where he deserves to be."

"Are you aware, Sir, that this, if done, will be the cause of very great distress to a family who have not deserved it?"

"That can't be helped," said Thorn. "Of course, it must cause distress, but you can't act upon that. Of course, when a man turns rogue, he ruins his family ? that's part of his punishment ? and a just one."

"The law is just," said Mr. Carleton, "but a friend may be merciful."

"I don't pretend to be a friend," said Thorn, viciously, "and I have no cause to be merciful. I like to bring a man to public shame when he has forfeited his t.i.tle to anything else; and I intend that Mr. Rossitur shall become intimately acquainted with the interior of the State's prison."

"Did it ever occur to you that public shame _might_ fall upon other than Mr. Rossitur, and without the State prison?"

Thorn fixed a somewhat startled look upon the steady powerful eye of his opponent, and did not like its meaning.