as _I_ say,
sir, go and see for yourself, or, if you can't do that, send your son.
Is n't that young man there your son?"

The young Englishman turned and acknowledged the allusion to himself by
the coldest imaginable bow, and that peculiarly unspeculative stare so
distinctive in his class and station.

"I 'm unreasonable proud to see you again, sir," said the Yankee,
rising.

"Too much honor!" said the other, stiffly.

"No, it ain't,--no honor whatever. It's a fact, though, and that's
better. Yes, sir, I like _you!_"

The young man merely bowed his acknowledgment, and looked even more
haughty than before. It was plain, however, that the American attached
little significance to the disdain of his manner, for he continued in
the same easy, unembarrassed tone,--

"Yes, sir, I was at Lucerne that morning when you flung the boatman into
the lake that tried to prevent your landing out of the boat I saw how
you buckled to your work, and I said to myself, 'There 's good stuff
there, though he looks so uncommon conceited and proud.'"

"Charley is ready enough at that sort of thing," said the father,
laughing heartily; and, indeed, after a moment of struggle to maintain
his gravity, the young man gave way and laughed too.

The American merely looked from one to the other, half sternly, and
as if vainly trying to ascertain the cause of their mirth. The elder
Englishman was quick to see the awkwardness of the moment, and apply a
remedy to it.

"I was amused," said he, good-humoredly, "at the mention of what had
obtained for my son your favorable opinion. I believe that it's only
amongst the Anglo-Saxon races that pugnacity takes place as a virtue."

"Well, sir, if a man has n't got it, it very little matters what other
qualities he possesses. They say courage is a bull-dog's property; but
would any one like to be lower than a bull-dog? Besides, sir, it is what
has made _you_ great, and _us_ greater."

There was a tone of defiance in this speech evidently meant to provoke
a discussion, and the young man turned angrily round to accept the
challenge, when a significant look from his father restrained him.
With a few commonplace observations dexterously thrown out, the old man
contrived to change the channel of conversation, and then, reminded
by his watch of the lateness of the hour, he apologized for a hasty
departure, and took his leave.

"Well, was I right?" said the young man, as he walked along at his
father's s