"I should like to ask you to speak to my little boys and girls!" I said;
"but it's too harrowing to the feelings. I listened to one address this
afternoon."
"The 'Turkey Mogul?' Oh, that isn't my style!" said Mr. Rollin. "I don't
sear their young vision with the prospect of eternal flames. I entice
them with the blandishments of future reward. Let me go in some
day, and I promise you in one brief half hour to destroy the cankering
effect of all that the 'Turkey Mogul' has ever said. At least, I shall
serve as an antidote--a cheerful and allaying antidote to the wormwood of
censorious criticism."
Thus the voluble fisherman ran on, with an air of simple and charming
ingenuousness; while I reflected that here possibly was a light and
aimless creature whom I had mentally convicted of ungracious designs,
that, although his presence in Wallencamp, as a representative of the
great world I believed I had left behind me, was rather _mal a propos_,
it might be that I ought to consider him providentially included in my
field of labor, and as one of the objects of my regenerating care.
Whether Mr. Rollin detected anything of this philanthropic intention I do
not know.
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