"But, sir—" I ventured. Tears and temper began to rise in me.
"D-don't argue. Do what you're told."
"But, sir—" And then, like a cloud, sullen obstinacy came down upon me. I was certain that he had been longing for an excuse to flog me. The pride and the relish of the martyr supported me as, without telling him that his head had obstructed my view, I walked out to do my message.
Finding the porter in his office, I politely inquired if he could spare a cane for Mr. Fillet; and, at my query, he grinned—the blithering idiot. The cane that he handed me I took, and, being at that moment a youngster who wouldn't have let his spirits sink for all the Fillets in the world, I offered back the cane and suggested:
"I say, are you sure you couldn't lose this?"
"Quite sure, sir."
"Well, look here, do you really think you can manage to part with it?"
"Quite sure, sir."
"Well, don't you think that, for a man of your age, you look rather a fool standing up there and saying 'Quite sure' to everything that's said to you? Don't you think it's rather a fat and silly thing to do?"
I put it to him as man to man.