“I do think, and if some one must tell me what I think, let him be a thinking man.”

“John, you cry out for thought, and are the first to strike at it with your dogmatism.  You don’t think—­you dogmatize.”

McGlenn turned to Henry.  “I had two delightful days last week.  John Richmond was out of town.”

“Yes,” said Richmond, putting his feet on a chair.  “Falsehood gallops in riotous pleasure when Truth is absent.  Hold on!  I can stand one wrinkle between your eyes, but I am afraid of two.”

“A man of many accomplishments, but wholly lacking in humor,” said McGlenn, seeming to study Richmond for the purpose of placing an appraisement on him.  “A man who worships Ouida and decries Sir Richard Steele.”

“No, I don’t worship Ouida, but I read her sometimes because she is interesting.  As for Steele, he is decried by your praise.  Say, John, you advised me to change grocers every month, and I don’t know but it would be a good plan.  An old fellow that I have been trading with has sent me a bill for eighty-three dollars.”

“John, he probably takes you for a great man and wants to compliment you.”

“I don’t object to a compliment, but that was flattery,” Richmond, replied, taking his feet off one chair and putting them on another.  “Let’s ride home, John; it’s ’most too slippery to walk.”

“All right.  You have ruined my health already by making me walk with you.  Come on; we’ll go now.”

CHAPTER XVII.

AN OLD MAN WOULD INVEST.

When Henry went home to dinner he found, already seated at the table, old man Colton, Mrs. Colton and Mrs. Brooks.  The old Marylander got away from his soup, got off his chair, and greeted Henry with an effusive display of what might have been his pleasure at seeing the young man, but which had more of the appearance of a palavering pretense.  He bowed, ducked his head first on one side and then on the other—­and his colored handkerchief dangled at his coat-tails.  He found his tongue, which at first he seemed to have lost, and with his bald head bobbing about, he appeared as an aged child, prattling at random.

“Hah, hah, delighted to see you again, my dear young man.  Didn’t know that I was coming when you were so kind as to take lunch with me to-day; ladies came in the afternoon; Brooks couldn’t come with me, but he will be here later on.  Hah, hah, they are taking excellent care of us, you see.  Ah, you sit here by me?  Glad.”

Mrs. Colton was exceedingly feeble, and her daughter appeared as a very old-fashioned girl in a stylish habit—­an old daguerreotype sort of face, smooth, shiny and expressionless.

“We have all been talking about you,” Colton said, as Henry sat down.  “Your mother and sister think you a very wonderful man, and my dear friend Witherspoon”—­

“Brother Colton is from Maryland,” Witherspoon remarked.