“I tell ye you’re taking too much on yourself!” he began to shout menacingly. “Get about your business and don’t act the fool! You needn’t think you’re going to be God A’mighty because you’ve got up a bit earlier for once in a way and been down to th’ shop before breakfast.”
Three.
In all his demeanour there was not the least indication of weakness. He might never have sat down on the stairs and cried! He might never have submitted feebly and perhaps gladly to the caresses of Clara and the soothings of Auntie Hamps! Impossible to convince him that he was cut off from the world! Impossible even to believe it! Was this the man that Edwin and the Bank manager and the doctor and all the others had been disposing of as though he were an automaton accurately responsive to external suggestion?
“Look here,” Edwin knew that he ought to say. “Let it be clearly understood once for all—I’m the boss now! I have the authority in my pocket and you must sign it, and quick too! I shall do my best for you, but I don’t mean to be bullied while I’m doing it!”
But he could not say it. Nor could his heart emotionally feel it.
He turned away sheepishly, and then he faced his father again, with a distressed, apologetic smile.
“Well then,” he asked, “who is going to sign cheques?”
“I am,” said Darius.
“But you know what the doctor said! You know what you promised him!”