Melville Capers was accustomed to consider his word as law, and for the sake of peace it generally was such. His anger and astonishment then was great when, as he had just composed himself for a nap, the door of his sitting-room opened, and a small person in dusty knickerbockers walked coolly in.
The fourteen-year-old boy on the sofa had a voice suited to a man, or at least to a youth of much stronger physical development than its owner’s, and when this voice demanded in its fiercest tones, “Why are you intruding here?” it surprised, if it did not intimidate, the visitor.
Now old Oliver Kinsolving had been, according to his neighbors’ dictum, “a man of a great substance”; which meant not so much substance of money, though he was rich enough, but rather substance of character, will power, honesty, and kindliness. It was curious to note how each of his descendants possessed at least one factor of their grandsire’s “substance,” to wit, his will; and little Fritz, though he was the smallest of the flock, was yet to demonstrate that he inherited not the smallest share of this same quality.
The child had said to himself, as he left the dining-room, that he would see every nook and cranny of the big, new home before he went to sleep that night. He was not, therefore, to be balked of his project simply because a big boy on a lounge roared at him. His momentary hesitation vanished, and his retort came so promptly that no hesitation had really been perceived by the questioner.
“I ain’t intruding; I’m ’specting of my grandmother’s house. I should like to know who you are, anyhow.”
“I’ll teach you who I am if you don’t get out of here pretty sudden!”
“Pooh! Who’s afraid?” demanded Fritz, coolly and impudently.
“You. Five seconds, now! Then get!”
“Get yourself!”
“I will,—cripple as I am,—if you don’t leave here instanter!”