"I could not do that,—unless he asked me."
"I can't say that he asked you, Everett. I would say so, in spite of its being a lie, if I didn't fear that your father might say something unkind, so that the lie would be detected by both of you."
"And yet you ask me to go and dine there!"
"Yes, I do. It's only going away if he does cut up rough. And if he takes it well,—why then,—the whole thing is done."
"If he wants me, he can ask me."
"You talk about it, my boy, just as if a father were the same as anybody else. If I had a father with a lot of money, by George he should knock me about with his stick if he liked, and I would be just the same the next day."
"Unfortunately I am of a stiffer nature," said Everett, taking some pride to himself for his stiffness, and being perhaps as little "stiff" as any young man of his day.
That evening, after dinner in Manchester Square, the conversation between the father-in-law and the son-in-law turned almost exclusively on the son and brother-in-law. Little or nothing was said about the election, and the name of Arthur Fletcher was not mentioned. But out of his full heart the father spoke. He was wretched about Everett. Did Everett mean to cut him? "He wants you to withdraw some name you called him," said Lopez.
"Withdraw some name,—as he might ask some hot-headed fellow to do, of his own age, like himself; some fellow that he had quarrelled with! Does he expect his father to send him a written apology? He had been gambling, and I told him that he was a gambler. Is that too much for a father to say?" Lopez shrugged his shoulders, and declared that it was a pity. "He will break my heart if he goes on like this," said the old man.
"I asked him to come and dine to-day, but he didn't seem to like it."