"Not without external assistance, I'm afraid," said Paradine calmly. "A more awful little liar for your age I never saw!"
"I'm tired of this," said Paul. "Only listen to reason and common sense!"
"Only give me a chance."
"I tell you," protested Paul earnestly, "it's the sober awful truth—I'm not a boy, it's years since I was a boy—I'm a middle-aged man, thrust into this, this humiliating form."
"Don't say that," murmured the other; "it's an excellent fit—very becoming, I assure you."
"Do you want to drive me mad with your clumsy jeers?" cried Paul. "Look at me. Do I speak, do I behave, like an ordinary schoolboy?"
"I really hope not—for the sake of the rising generation," said Uncle Marmaduke, chuckling at his own powers of repartee.
"You are very jaunty to-day—you look as if you were well off," said Paul slowly. "I remember a time when a certain bill was presented to me, drawn by you, and appearing to be accepted (long before I ever saw it) by me. I consented to meet it for my poor Maria's sake, and because to disown my signature would have ruined you for life. Do you remember how you went down on your knees in my private room and swore you would reform and be a credit to your family yet? You weren't quite so well off, or so jaunty then, unless I am very much mistaken."
These words had an extraordinary effect upon Uncle Marmaduke; he turned ashy white, and his quick eyes shifted restlessly as he half rose from his chair and threw away his unfinished cigar.
"You young hound!" he said, breathing hard and speaking under his breath. "How did you get hold of that—that lying story? Your father must have let it out! Why do you bring up bygones like this? You—you're a confounded, disagreeable little prig! Who told you to play an ill-natured trick of this sort on an uncle, who may have been wild and reckless in his youth—was in fact—but who never, never misused his relation towards you as—as an uncle?"