But Queed, being a scientist by passion, never took anybody's word for anything. He always went to the original sources of information, and found out for himself. It was a year now since he had begun saturating himself in the annals of the State and the South, and he had scoured the field so effectually that Colonel Cowles himself had been known to appeal to him on a point of history, though the Colonel had forty years' start on him, and had himself helped to make that history.
Therefore Queed knew that Nicolovius, by taking the case of one soldier in ten, perhaps, or twenty or fifty, and offering it as typical of the whole, was bitterly caricaturing history; and he wondered why in the world the old man cared to do it.
"My own reading of the recent history of the South," said Queed, "can hardly sustain such a view."
"You have only to read further to be convinced."
"But I thought you yourself never read recent history."
Nicolovius flung him a sharp look, which the young man, staring thoughtfully at the floor, missed. The old professor laughed.
"My dear boy! I read it on the lips of Major Brooke, I read it daily in the newspapers, I read it in such articles as your Colonel Cowles wrote about this very Reunion. I cannot get away from history in the making, if I would. Ah, there is the supper bell--I'm quite ready for it, too. Let us go down."
They went down arm in arm. On the stairs Nicolovius said: "These Southern manifestations interest me because, though extreme, they are after all so absurdly typical of human nature. I have even seen the same sort of thing in my own land."
Queed, though he knew the history of Ireland very well, could not recall any parallel to the United Confederate Veterans in the annals of that country. Still, a man capable of distorting history as Nicolovius distorted it could always find a parallel to anything anywhere.
When the meal was about half over, Queed said:--
"You slept badly last night, didn't you?"
"Yes--my old enemy. The attack soon passed. However, you may be sure that it is a comfort at such times to know that I am not alone."
"If you should need any--ahem--assistance, I assume that you will call me," said Queed, after a pause.
"Thank you. You can hardly realize what your presence here, your companionship and, I hope I may say, your friendship, mean to me."