The children liked him, too; when they got the
clew to his intention, and found that he was not quite serious in many of
the things he said, they thought he was great fun. They were always glad
when their father brought him home on the occasion of Fulkerson's visits
to Boston; and Mrs. March, though of a charier hospitality, welcomed
Fulkerson with a grateful sense of his admiration for her husband. He had
a way of treating March with deference, as an older and abler man, and of
qualifying the freedom he used toward every one with an implication that
March tolerated it voluntarily, which she thought very sweet and even
refined.
"Ah, now you're talking like a man and a brother," said Fulkerson. "Why,
March, old man, do you suppose I'd come on here and try to talk you into
this thing if I wasn't morally, if I wasn't perfectly, sure of success?
There isn't any if or and about it. I know my ground, every inch; and I
don't stand alone on it," he added, with a significance which did not
escape March. "When you've made up your mind I can give you the proof;
but I'm not at liberty now to say anything more. I tell you it's going to
be a triumphal march from the word go, with coffee and lemonade for the
procession along the whole line.
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