companion, the black bottle, at his elbow, and filled his pipe, and seemed
to feel a certain sullen, genial, fierce, brutal, kindly mood enough, and
looked at Septimius with a sort of friendship, as if he had as lief shake
hands with him as knock him down.

"Now for a talk about business," said he.

Septimius thought, however, that the doctor's talk began, at least, at a
sufficient remoteness from any practical business; for he began to
question about his remote ancestry, what he knew, or what record had been
preserved, of the first emigrant from England; whence, from what shire or
part of England, that ancestor had come; whether there were any memorial
of any kind remaining of him, any letters or written documents, wills,
deeds, or other legal paper; in short, all about him.

Septimius could not satisfactorily see whether these inquiries were made
with any definite purpose, or from a mere general curiosity to discover
how a family of early settlement in America might still be linked with the
old country; whether there were any tendrils stretching across the gulf of
a hundred and fifty years by which the American branch of the family was
separated from the trunk of the family tree in England. The doctor partly
explained this.

"You must know," said he, "that the name you bear, Felton, is one formerly
of much eminence and repute in my part of England, and, indeed, very
recently possessed of wealth and station. I should like to know if you are
of that race."

Septimius answered with such facts and traditions as had come to his
knowledge respecting his family history; a sort of history that is quite