“Talk of British insolence! The man who recommends _that_ (he’s another bloated functionary) says that I shall ‘derive great pleasure from watching the wall going up day by day’! Did you ever dream of such gall? I’ve offered ’em money enough to buy a new set of cars and pension the driver for three generations; but that doesn’t seem to be what they want. They expect me to go to the House of Lords and get a ruling, and build walls between times. Are they _all_ stark, raving mad? One ’ud think I made a profession of flagging trains. How in Tophet was I to know their old Induna from a waytrain? I took the first that came along, and I’ve been jailed and fined for that once already.” “That was for slugging the guard.” “He had no right to haul me out when I was half-way through a window.” “What are you going to do about it?” “Their lawyer and the other official (can’t they trust their men unless they send ’em in pairs?) are coming here to-night. I told ’em I was busy, as a rule, till after dinner, but they might send along the entire directorate if it eased ’em any.” Now, after-dinner visiting, for business or pleasure, is the custom of the smaller American town, and not that of England, where the end of the day is sacred to the owner, not the public. Verily, Wilton Sargent had hoisted the striped flag of rebellion! “Isn’t it time that the humour of the situation began to strike you, Wilton?” I asked. “Where’s the humour of baiting an American citizen just because he happens to be a millionaire—poor devil.” He was silent for a little time, and then went on: “Of course. _Now_ I see!” He spun round and faced me excitedly. “It’s as plain as mud. These ducks are laying their pipes to skin me.” “They say explicitly they don’t want money!” “That’s all a blind. So’s their addressing me as W. Sargent. They know well enough who I am. They know I’m the old man’s son. Why didn’t I think of that before?” “One minute, Wilton. If you climbed to the top of the dome of St. Paul’s and offered a reward to any Englishman who could tell you who or what Merton Sargent had been, there wouldn’t be twenty men in all London to claim it.” “That’s their insular provincialism, then. I don’t care a cent. The old man would have wrecked the Great Buchonian before breakfast for a pipe-opener. My God, I’ll do it in dead earnest! I’ll show ’em that they can’t bulldoze a foreigner for flagging one of their little tinpot trains, and—I’ve spent fifty thousand a year here, at least, for the last four years.” I was glad I was not his lawyer. I re-read the correspondence, notably the letter which recommended him—almost tenderly, I fancied—to build a fourteen-foot brick wall at the end of his garden, and half-way through it a thought struck me which filled me with pure joy.