"Oh, Aunt Hannah, the Lord has commanded, 'Thou shalt not steal.'"
"It wouldn't have been stealing; it would have been borrowing."
"But I know Patrick Henry and John Hancock wouldn't have borrowed what didn't belong to them!"
"Plague take Patrick Hancock and John Henry, I say! I believe they are turning your head! What have them dead and buried old people to do with folks that are alive and starving?"
"Oh, Aunt Hannah! scold me as much as you please, but don't speak so of the great men!" said Ishmael, to whom all this was sheer blasphemy and nothing less.
"Great fiddlesticks' ends! No tea yesterday, and no tea for breakfast this morning, and no tea for supper to-night! And I laying helpless with the rheumatism, and feeling as faint as if I should sink and die; and my head aching ready to burst! And I would give anything in the world for a cup of tea, because I know it would do me so much good, and I can't get it! And you have money in your pocket and won't buy it for me! No, not if I die for the want of it! You, that I have been a mother to! That's the way you pay me, is it, for all my care?"
"Oh, Aunt Hannah, dear, I do love you, and I would do anything in the world for you; but, indeed, I am sure Patrick Henry—"
"Hang Patrick Henry! If you mention his name to me again I'll box your ears!"
Ishmael dropped his eyes to the ground and sighed deeply.
"After all I have done for you, ever since you were left a helpless infant on my hands, for you to let me lie here and die, yes, actually die, for the want of a cup of tea, before you will spend one quarter of a dollar to get it for me! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oo-oo-oo!"