"I'm a brute, a savage, and want to kick myself," was Hugh's not very
self-complimentary soliloquy, as he went up the stairs. "What did I want
to twit Ad for? Confound my badness!" and having by this time reached
his own door, Hugh sat down to think.




CHAPTER III

HUGH'S SOLILOQUY


"One, two three--yes, as good as four women and a child," he began, "to
say nothing of the negroes, and that is not the worst of it; the hardest
of all is the having people call me stingy, and the knowing that this
opinion of me is encouraged and kept alive by the remarks and
insinuations of my own sister," and in the red gleam of the firelight
the bearded chin quivered for a moment as Hugh thought how unjust 'Lina
was to him, and how hard was the lot imposed upon him.

Then shifting the position of his feet, which had hitherto rested upon
the hearth, to a more comfortable and suggestive one upon the mantel,
Hugh tried to find a spot in which he could economize.

"I needn't have a fire in my room nights," he said, as a coal fell into
the pan and thus reminded him of its existence, "and I won't, either.
It's nonsense for a great hot-blooded clown, like me to be babied with a
fire. I've no tags to braid, no false switches to comb out and hide, no