"I almost seem to be out of place myself here," says Felix, with the slightest trace of vexation in his manner.
"Perhaps so; we will discuss that presently. Whoever lives here must conform to my rules. You were smoking in your bedroom last night."
"True, sir."
"I do not allow smoking."
"I will not smoke here again. I'll smoke my cigar in the open air for the future."
"I should prefer your not smoking at all; I don't smoke."
"Why, sir, you wouldn't keep everybody from smoking because you don't smoke? If it were not for tobacco, the revenue of nations would go to—"
"Blazes," he is about to say, but he checks himself in time. There is so little in unison between these two natures, that when they meet it seems to be almost a necessity that they should clash. One is harsh and sour; the other is tolerant and sweet. Felix was more the son of his mother than the son of his father; the sweetness of her nature had come to him with the milk he had drawn from her breast. Father and son had not been brought together for very many years until now, and the experience they have gained of each other is not agreeable to either of them.
"You scarcely need me to tell you," says the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, as his son stopped at the dangerous word, "that your remarks do continual violence to my feelings."
"We certainly don't seem to pull nicely together, father. You have some business matters to speak to me about. Perhaps it will be as well to proceed to them."