The parson's thick gray eyebrows lowered threateningly over his eyes.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk like that. Which d'you think the more important, soul or body? Oughtn't you, his father, to be the very first to care for the boy's soul? If not, who should? Answer me, sir.”
The little man stood smirking and sucking his eternal twig, entirely unmoved by the other's heat.
“Ye're right, Mr. Hornbut, as ye aye are. But my argiment is this: that I get at his soul best through his leetle carcase.”
The honest parson brought down his stick with an angry thud.
“M'Adam, you're a brute—a brute!” he shouted. At which outburst the little man was seized with a spasm of silent merriment.
“A fond dad first, a brute afterward, aiblins—he! he! Ah, Mr. Hornbut! ye 'ford me vast diversion, ye do indeed, 'my loved, my honored, much-respected friend.”
“If you paid as much heed to your boy's welfare as you do to the bad poetry of that profligate ploughman—”
An angry gleam shot into the other's eyes. “D'ye ken what blasphemy is, Mr. Hornbut?” he asked, shouldering a pace forward.
For the first time in the dispute the parson thought he was about to score a point, and was calm accordingly.