"The man's mad!" cried Sir Wilton with a harsh laugh.
"What's he been doing? What was that row?"
Sidney's manner with his father was subtly disrespectful; he seldom addressed him by that name, enjoyed arguing with him (having the clearer head), and argued in slang. Yet his tongue was as dexterous and plausible as it was always smooth, and he was a difficult boy to convict of a specific rudeness.
"There's some method in his madness," was his comment on the father's account of the work accomplished under his eyes.
"But he says he's going to build it up again!"
"I wonder if he will," speculated Sidney.
"What—by himself?"
"Yes."
"Of course he won't. No man could. He's a lunatic."
They were walking home. Sidney said nothing for some paces. Then he asked an innocent question. It was a little way of his.