marking each new series in these movements by a busy play with his large seals. There was occasionally a little fierceness in his demeanour, but it was directed chiefly against false opinion, of which there is so much to correct in the world that a man of some reading and experience necessarily has his patience tried. He felt that the Featherstone family generally was of limited understanding, but being a man of the world and a public character, took everything as a matter of course, and even went to converse with Mr Jonah and young Cranch in the kitchen, not doubting that he had impressed the latter greatly by his leading questions concerning the Chalky Flats. If anybody had observed that Mr Borthrop Trumbull, being an auctioneer, was bound to know the nature of everything, he would have smiled and trimmed himself silently with the sense that he came pretty near that. On the whole, in an auctioneering way, he was an honourable man, not ashamed of his business, and feeling that “the celebrated Peel, now Sir Robert,” if introduced to him, would not fail to recognise his importance.
“I don’t mind if I have a slice of that ham, and a glass of that ale, Miss Garth, if you will allow me,” he said, coming into the parlour at half-past eleven, after having had the exceptional privilege of seeing old Featherstone, and standing with his back to the fire between Mrs Waule and Solomon. “It's not necessary for you to go out;—let me ring the bell.”
“Thank you,” said Mary, “I have an errand.”
“Well, Mr Trumbull, you're highly favoured,” said Mrs Waule.
“What, seeing the old man?” said the auctioneer, playing with his seals dispassionately. “Ah, you see he has relied on me considerably.” Here he pressed his lips together, and frowned meditatively.
“Might anybody ask what their brother has been saying?” said Solomon, in a soft tone of humility, in which he had a sense of luxurious cunning, he being a rich man and not in need of it.
“Oh yes, anybody may ask,” said Mr Trumbull, with loud and good-humoured though cutting sarcasm. “Anybody may interrogate. Any one may give their remarks an interrogative turn,” he continued, his sonorousness rising with his style. “This is constantly done by good speakers, even when they anticipate no answer. It is what we call a figure of speech—speech at a high figure, as one may say.” The eloquent auctioneer smiled at his own ingenuity.
“I shouldn’t be sorry to hear he’d remembered you, Mr Trumbull,” said Solomon. “I never was against the deserving. It’s the undeserving I'm against.”
“Ah, there it is, you see, there it is,” said Mr Trumbull, significantly. “It can’t be denied that undeserving people have been legatees, and even residuary legatees. It is so, with testamentary dispositions.” Again he pursed up his lips and frowned a little.
“Do you mean to say for certain, Mr Trumbull, that my brother has left his land away from our family?” said Mrs Waule, on whom, as an unhopeful woman, those long words had a depressing effect.
