"I can do that now, cousin," replied Richard sunnily. "I have
engaged with Slocum."

The old man laid down his knife and fork.

"With Slocum! A Shackford a miserable marble-chipper!"

There was so little hint of the aristocrat in Lemuel Shackford's
sordid life and person that no one suspected him of even self-esteem.
He went as meanly dressed as a tramp, and as careless of contemporary
criticism; yet clear down in his liver, or somewhere in his anatomy,
he nourished an odd abstract pride in the family Shackford. Heaven
knows why! To be sure, it dated far back; its women had always been
virtuous, and its men, if not always virtuous, had always been
ship-captains. But beyond this the family had never amounted to
anything, and now there was so very little left of it. For Richard as
Richard Lemuel cared nothing; for Richard as a Shackford he had a
chaotic feeling that defied analysis and had never before risen to
the surface. It was therefore with a disgust entirely apart from the
hatred of Slocum or regard for Richard that the old man exclaimed, "A
Shackford a miserable marble-chipper!"

"That is better than hanging around the village with my hands in
my pockets. Isn't it?"

"I don't know that anybody has demanded that you should hang
around the village."

"I ought to go away, you mean? But I have found work here, and I