Ralph was angry, or he would not have spoken as he did. As Percy had been discovered taking tarts and cakes from the counters of a pastry shop in Eastport only a few weeks before, and as he had been threatened with arrest for so doing, the squire's son reddened at once.
"See here, Ralph Nelson, don't you dare to talk to me like that!" he stormed.
"I have more grounds to talk than you, Percy Paget!"
"No, you haven't, you low upstart!"
"Hold on, Percy, I am no upstart!"
"Yes, you are. What was your father? Only a poor boatman on the lakes."
"He was a hard-working man, and an honest one," returned Ralph, warmly.
"Oh, of course, and you were all next door to beggars until my father took pity on him, and gave him the job on the bridge."
"It was the committee, and not your father, who gave him the situation."
"Well, it was the same thing, for the committee have to do as my father says."