After a little while he remembered that Hyde might possibly do the thing which he had resolved not to do. Involuntarily he did Hyde this justice, and he said to himself, "if there is anything in the letter intended for me, which determines its ownership, Hyde will bring it. He will understand that I have the answer to his proposal, and demand it from me--and whether I shall feel in a mood to give it to him, will depend on the manner in which the demand is made. If he is in one of his lordly ways he will get no satisfaction from me. I am not apt to give myself, nor anything I have, away; in fact it will be best not to see him--if he holds a letter of mine he may keep it. I know its tenor and I am not eager to know the very words in which my lady says 'No.' HO! HO! HO!" he laughed, "I will go to the Swamp; my scented rival in his perfumed clothing, will hardly wish the smell of the tanning pits to come between him and his gentility." The thought of Hyde's probable visit and this way of escaping it made him laugh again; but it was a laughter that had that something terrible in it which makes the laughter of the insane and drunken and cruel, worse than the bitterest lamentation. He felt a sudden haste to escape himself, and seizing his hat walked rapidly to his father's office. Peter looked up as he entered, and the question in his eyes hardly needed the simple interrogatary-- "Well then?" "It is 'No.' I shall go to Boston early in the morning. I wish to go over the business with Blume and Otis, and to possess myself of all particulars." "I have just heard that General Hyde came back this morning. He is now the Right Honourable the Earl of Hyde, and his son is, as you know, Lord George Hyde. Has this made a difference?" "It has not. Let us count up what is owing to us. After all there is a certain good in gold." "That is the truth. I am an old man and I have seen what altitudes the want of gold can abase, and what impossible things it makes possible. In any adversity gold can find friends." "I shall count every half-penny after Blume and Otis." "Be not too strict--too far east is west. You may lose all by demanding all." Then the two men spent several hours in going over their accounts, and during this time no one called on Rem and he received no message. When he returned home he found affairs just as he had left them. "So far good," he thought, "I will let sleeping dogs lie. Why should I set them baying about my affairs? I will not do it"--and with this determination in his heart he fell asleep.