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"We only have plain and simple things, but they are wholesome, sir. Dainties are poor things to work on. I told that to his Royal Highness when he was here last fall. He was speaking to me on the merits of roast beef " "It's a fine day," said Mr. Hopper. "So it is," Mr. Cluyme assented.
"I meet the new arrivals," he said. "If you'll come along with me, Mr. Nelsen..." He was dark, and medium large, and he had a genial way. He looked like a hopper an asteroid-miner the tough, level-headed kind that adjusts to space and keeps his balance. "Name's Ed Huth," he continued, as they walked to the reception dome. "Canadian. Good, international crowd here however long you mean to stay.
For Virginia had of late been going to the store with the Colonel, who spent his mornings turning over piles of dusty papers, and Mr. Hopper had always been at his desk. After this, Virginia even strove to be kind to him, but it was uphill work. The front door never closed after one of his visits that suspicion was not left behind. Antipathy would assert itself.
I told him you were well acquainted with me, and I had no doubt you would permit me to search your house without any legal process." Friend Hopper listened patiently, perfectly well aware that the whole statement was a sham. When the constable paused for a reply, he opened the door, and said very concisely, "Thou art at liberty to go about thy business."
Alarmed by the popular excitement, and by the perseverance with which he was followed up, he exclaimed in agitated tones, "Mon Dieu! What is it you do want? I will do anything you do want." "I want thee to bestow freedom on that unfortunate woman and her child," replied Friend Hopper. He promised that he would do so; and he soon after made out papers to that effect, which were duly recorded.
"Law," said Stephen. "Gosh!" exclaimed Mr. Hopper, "I want to know." In reality he was a bit chagrined, having pictured with some pleasure the Boston aristocrat going from store to store for a situation. "You didn't come here figurin' on makin' a pile, I guess." "A what?" "A pile." Stephen looked down and over Mr. Hopper attentively.
What's strange, he's a sensible young fellow, too. About once in a century we come across a fellow like that in Tammany politics. James J. Martin, leader of the Twenty-seventh, is also something of a hightoner and publishes a law paper, while Thomas E. Rush, of the Twenty-ninth, is a lawyer, and Isaac Hopper, of the Thirty-first, is a big contractor.
To be humbled meant, in Mr. Hopper's philosophy, to lose one's money. It was thus he gauged the importance of his acquaintances; it was thus he hoped some day to be gauged. And he trusted and believed that the time would come when he could give his fillip to the upper rim of fortune's wheel, and send it spinning downward. Mr. Hopper was drinking his tea and silently forming an estimate.
An acquaintance once cautioned him against a prisoner, whose temper was extremely violent and revengeful, and who had been heard to swear that he would take the life of some of the keepers. Soon after this warning, Friend Hopper summoned the desperate fellow, and told him he was wanted to pile a quantity of lumber in the cellar.
Then, as they glided past the door, Stephen was disagreeably conscious of some one gazing down from above, and he recalled Eliphalet Hopper and his position. The sneer from Eliphalet's seemed to penetrate like a chilly draught. All at once, Virginia felt her partner gathering up his strength, and by some compelling force, more of wild than of muscle, draw her nearer.
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