A strong smell of paraffin was the first thing he noticed as he looked down the ladder; the next was the sight of Mr. Biron calmly emptying a can of the oil upon the loose straw and firewood which the cellar contained.
Startled by the sudden light and noise above, Mr. Biron dropped the can as the trap-door opened, and then Bram saw that in his left hand he held a box of matches.
“Tha fool, tha drunken fool, coom up wi’ ye!” shouted Elshaw, as he stretched down a strong arm and pulled Theodore up by his coat collar.
Bram had expected his captive to stagger, and so he did. He had expected him to stammer and to stare; and he did these things also. But Bram had seen a good deal of drunkenness in his time, and he was not easy to deceive.
Suddenly holding the slender little man at arm’s length from him, and looking steadily into his eyes with a black frown on his own face, he shouted in a voice which might have roused the village—
“Why, you d——d old rascal, what villainy have you been up to? You’re as sober as I am!”
CHAPTER VI. MR. BIRON’S CONDESCENSION.
When Mr. Theodore Biron found himself pulled up the steps of his cellar, and roughly shaken by the very person who had disarmed him on the previous evening, his rage was such that he lost his usual airy self-possession completely, and betrayed himself in the most unworthy manner.
“Who are you, sir? And how dare you interfere with me in this way?” stammered he, as he tried in vain to release himself from the determined grasp of the young clerk.