"That settles the question, Harry," he shouted to the amateur carpenter, a smile and a frown struggling for supremacy on his upturned face. "There never was a Bergan, from first to last, who could have done that!"
"Do not speak so disrespectfully of our common ancestors, uncle! As if they had not the use of their hands!"
"Humph! It's plain that you have the use of yours, and of your head, too! How in the world did you reach that dizzy altitude?"
Bergan laughed. "'Where there's a will there's a way.' What should you say to the chimney?"
"I really cannot answer that question as it stands. There is a mistake in the terms."
"I did not 'get up;' I came down." And Bergan glanced at a great oak-bough, swinging full ten feet above his head.
The Major uttered a cry of admiration. "You are a Bergan, and no mistake!" he cried, emphasizing the statement with an oath. "You've got the real, old, brave Bergan stuff in you, Harry, and I'm proud of you, in spite of your tinkering. But that bough is now out of your reach; you cannot come down by that route."
"A new one will be more interesting. And the chimney has a most capacious throat; the builders must have contemplated the passage of other things than smoke."
"Harry! you'll break your neck! Don't you dare to come down till I send you a ladder! At the same time, I'll order the carpenter to finish up that job, if it must be done."
"He will be too late, uncle; I am just laying the last shingle."
"Speak lower, you scamp! lest the old portraits under your feet should hear you and blush."
"Their thanks would be much more to the point--especially Sir Harry's," coolly replied Bergan. "Two hours ago, the water from this very leak was pouring in a stream down his long ancestral nose; you would have said the picture had an influenza."
The Major emitted a sound between a laugh and a growl, and vanished.
Poor Brick was even more scandalized by his young master's plebeian readiness with his hands. The very ease with which Bergan performed his self-imposed, and, for the most part, unaccustomed tasks, misled the dusky spectator. To be sure, Brick was a little comforted to observe that those agile hands knew the trick of the ivory piano-keys full well, and could evolve soulful melody from the flute, that they were not ignorant of the mysteries of sketching, and betrayed a scholarly familiarity with books and papers, pen and ink; yet he doubted if even these gracious accomplishments could wash from them the stain of that dreadful manual labor in which they were erewhile engaged,--the only redeeming feature of which was that it was not done for bread.