The Gentleman from Indiana - Page 129/212

Fisbee told Parker the story after his own queer fashion.

"You see, Mr. Parker," he said, as they sat together in the dust and

litter of the "Herald" office, on Sunday afternoon, "you see, I admit that

my sister-in-law has always withheld her approbation from me, and possibly

her disapproval is well founded--I shall say probably. My wife had also a

considerable sum, and this she turned over to me at the time of our

marriage, though I had no wish regarding it one way or the other. When I

gave my money to the university with which I had the honor to be

connected, I added to it the fund I had received from her, as I was the

recipient of a comfortable salary as a lecturer in the institution and had

no fear of not living well, and I was greatly interested in providing that

the expedition should be perfectly equipped. Expeditions of the magnitude

of that which I had planned are expensive, I should, perhaps, inform you,

and this one was to carry on investigations regarding several important

points, very elaborately; and I am still convinced it would have settled

conclusively many vital questions concerning the derivation of the

Babylonian column, as: whether the lotus column may be without prejudice

said to--but at the present moment I will not enter into that. I fear I

had no great experience in money matters, for the transaction had been

almost entirely verbal, and there was nothing to bind the trustees to

carry out my plans for the expedition. They were very sympathetic, but

what could they do? they begged leave to inquire. Such an institution

cannot give back money once donated, and it was clearly out of character

for a school of technology and engineering to send savants to investigate

the lotus column."

"I see," Mr. Parker observed, genially. He listened with the most

ingratiating attention, knowing that he had a rich sensation to set before

Plattville as a dish before a king, for Fisbee's was no confidential

communication. The old man might have told a part of his history long ago,

but it had never occurred to him to talk about his affairs--things had a

habit of not occurring to Fisbee--and the efforts of the gossips to draw

him out always passed over his serene and absent head.

"It was a blow to my wife," the old man continued, sadly, "and I cannot

deny that her reproaches were as vehement as her disappointment was

sincere." He hurried over this portion of his narrative with a vaguely

troubled look, but the intelligent Parker read poor Mrs. Fisbee's state of

mind between the sentences. "She never seemed to regard me in the same

light again," the archaeologist went on. "She did not conceal from me that

she was surprised and that she could not look upon me as a practical man;

indeed, I may say, she appeared to regard me with marked antipathy. She

sent for her sister, and begged her to take our daughter and keep her from

me, as she did not consider me practical enough-I will substitute for her

more embittered expressions--to provide for a child and instruct it in the

world's ways. My sister-in-law, who was childless, consented to adopt the

little one, on the conditions that I renounced all claim, and that the

child legally assumed her name and should be in all respects as her own

daughter, and that I consented to see her but once a year, in Rouen, at my

brother-in-law's home.