"I expected you to wait patiently till I had made further
enquiries and had written you again."

"And you've made further enquiries now?"

"Enquiries! I've committed assaults."

"And you find I've no claim?"

"No claim that one of THESE big bugs will look at. It struck me
at first that you had rather a neat little case. I confess the
look of it took hold of me--"

"Thanks to your liking so to please folks!" Mr. Simmons appeared
for a moment at odds with something; it proved to be with his
liquor. "I rather think your beer's too good to be true," he said
to the waiter. "I guess I'll take water. Come, old man," he
resumed, "don't challenge me to the arts of debate, or you'll
have me right down on you, and then you WILL feel me. My native
sweetness, as I say, was part of it. The idea that if I put the
thing through it would be a very pretty feather in my cap and a
very pretty penny in my purse was part of it. And the
satisfaction of seeing a horrid low American walk right into an
old English estate was a good deal of it. Upon my word, Searle,
when I think of it I wish with all my heart that, extravagant
vain man as you are, I COULD, for the charm of it, put you
through! I should hardly care what you did with the blamed place
when you got it. I could leave you alone to turn it into Yankee
notions--into ducks and drakes as they call 'em here. I should
like to see you tearing round over it and kicking up its sacred