"Never mind that for the present," said Sir Thomas. "Don't you remember the old song?—'If she will, she will, you may depend on't. And if she won't she won't; and there's an end on't.' You ought to be a man and pluck up your spirits. Are you going to allow a little girl to knock you about in that way?" Tom only shook his head, and looked as if he was very ill. In truth, the champagne, and the imprisonment, and Ayala together, had altogether altered his appearance. "We've done what we could about it, and now it is time to give it over. Let me hear you say that you will give it over." Tom stood speechless before his father. "Speak the word, and the thing will be done," continued Sir Thomas, endeavouring to encourage the young man.
"I can't," said Tom, sighing.
"Nonsense!"
"I have tried, and I can't."
"Tom, do you mean to say that you are going to lose everything because a chit of a girl like that turns up her nose at you?"
"It's no use my going while things are like this," said Tom. "If I were to get to New York, I should come back by the next ship. As for letters about business, I couldn't settle my mind to anything of the kind."
"Then you're not the man I took you to be," said the father.
"I could be man enough," said Tom, clenching his fist, "if I could get hold of Colonel Stubbs."
"Colonel who?"
"Stubbs! Jonathan Stubbs! I know what I'm talking about. I'm not going to America, nor China, nor anything else, till I've polished him off. It's all very well your abusing me, but you don't know what it is I have suffered. As for being called a man I don't care about it. What I should like best would be to get Ayala on one side and Stubbs on the other, and then all three to go off the Duke of York's Column together. It's no good talking about Travers and Treason. I don't care for Travers and Treason as I am now. If you'll get Ayala to say that she'll have me, I'll go to the shop every morning at eight and stay till nine; and as for the Mountaineers it may all go to the d—— for me." Then he rushed out of the room, banging the door after him.