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"Mr. Burt," said Abel, "I am sure you will excuse me when you understand the object of my call; although I am fully aware of the liberty I am taking in intruding upon your valuable time and the many important cares which must occupy the attention of a gentleman so universally known, honored, and loved in the community as you are, Sir." "Did you come here to compliment me, Sir?" asked Mr. Burt.
Her nature was too positive for idle, sentimental dreaming. Feeling that she was approaching one of the crises of her life, she faced it resolutely and intelligently. She went over the past weeks from the time she had first met Burt under the Gothic willow arch, and tried to analyze not only the power he had over her, but also the man himself.
One man as he took a piece of cut sugar out of a barrel, said he had long suspected that Burt liked his toddy. Another fellow, picking a mouthful off a codfish, remarked that you couldn't always tell about these confounded ministers.
But Boniface Newt was aware of the possibilities in the case of Alfred, and therefore tried to recover himself and consider the chances. "What do you know about this fellow?" said he, petulantly, to his wife. "I don't know any thing in particular," she sobbed. "Do you know whether he has money, or whether his father has?" "No; but old Mr. Burt is his grandfather." "What! his mother's father?"
"You have spoken to our friend here about the business?" Girdlestone asked, nodding his head in the direction of Burt. "Yes. I have made it all clear." "Five hundred pounds down, and a free passage to Africa," said Burt. "An energetic man like you can do a great deal in the colonies with five hundred pounds," Girdlestone remarked.
He was slender and wiry of build, quick and nervous in his movements, yet they were almost noiseless, and he walked with the padded soft-footedness of the preying animal. Bruce Burt lounged to the cabin door and looked after "Slim" Naudain as he went to the river. Then he stepped outside, stooping to avoid striking his head.
Well, good-bye, my dear, and keep writing me tremendous letters, won't you; for I do love you dearly. Your loving daughter, Mae felt a great deal better when she had finished the letter, and, like a volatile girl as she was, buttoned her Burt boots and Paris gloves, singing gaily a dash from Trovatore in a very light-hearted manner.
And Aunty May just nodded her head, and we didn't say anything more for a long time and I lay still thinking about Uncle Burt and wondering how it would seem to be him, and lame. I said, "Will he use a crutch?" but Aunty May didn't know. She hoped not. And now, would I please get well, and be ready for her to hand me over whole to Uncle Burt.
Poor devils like us, Burt, have to do the work, and then are thrown aside as you would throw your pick aside when you are done with it. When he sells out in London and makes his pile, it won't much matter to him that the three men who helped him are starving in Griqualand." "Won't he give us somethin' at partin'?" asked Burt, the navvy.
That is not my nature, Burt. If I have power over you, I shall show it in another way." She would never forget his look as he listened to these words, nor his humility as he lowered his head upon her shoulder, and murmured, "I am not worthy of this." It touched the deepest and tenderest chord in her heart.
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