"Oh, you are igh," laughed Ernie.
"I am Al-fred to me own folk and Mr. Caspar to the rest," answered Alf, dogged and unbending.
"Come, Alf, shake hands with your brother!" scolded his mother.
Alf, his eyes still averted, extended a surly hand mechanically from the shoulder.
Ern, white and flashing, took the hand.
"There's for my brother!" he said. "And there's for Alf!" and tossed it from him.
Then he went out.
His bag was still in the hall. He was about to take it up when his father called him from the study.
"You're going to stop here?" he asked; and Ernie detected a touch of the old anxiety in his voice, a suggestion of the old tremulousness in his face and figure.
In all the tuzzles between the two brothers, Alf had over Ern the incalculable material advantage of the man who is not a gentleman over the man who is.