"Turn him out," roared my father.
The natives advanced, but I whirled the crutch round my head, and in a moment they were both prostrate. As soon as they gained their feet, I attacked them again, until they made their escape out of the room; I then shut the door and turned the key.
"Thank you, my dear sir," said I, returning the crutch to where it was before. "Many thanks for thus permitting me to chastise the insolence of these black scoundrels, whom I take it for granted, you will immediately discharge;" and I again took my seat in the chair, bringing it closer to him.
The rage of the general was now beyond all bounds; the white foam was spluttered out of his mouth, as he in vain endeavoured to find words. Once he actually rose from the sofa, to take the law in his own hands, but the effort seriously injured his leg, and he threw himself down in pain and disappointment.
"My dear father, I am afraid that, in your anxiety to help me, you have hurt your leg again," said I, in a soothing voice.
"Sirrah, sirrah," exclaimed he at last; "if you think that this will do, you are very much mistaken. You don't know me. You may turn out a couple of cowardly blacks, but now I'll show you that I am not to be played with. I discard you for ever—I disinherit—I disacknowledge you. You may take your choice, either to quit this room, or be put into the hands of the police."
"The police, my dear sir! What can the police do?"
"I may call in the police for the assault just committed by your servants, and have them up to Bow Street, but you cannot charge me with an assault."
"But I will, by G—d, sir, true or not true."
"Indeed you would not, my dear father. A De Benyon would never be guilty of a lie. Besides, if you were to call in the police;—I wish to argue this matter coolly, because I ascribe your present little burst of ill-humour to your sufferings from your unfortunate accident. Allowing then, my dear father, that you were to charge me with an assault, I should immediately be under the necessity of charging you also, and then we must both go to Bow Street together. Were you ever at Bow Street, general?" The general made no reply, and I proceeded. "Besides, my dear sir, only imagine how very awkward it would be when the magistrate put you on your oath, and asked you to make your charge. What would you be obliged to declare? That you had married when young, and finding that your wife had no fortune, had deserted her the second day after your marriage. That you, an officer in the army, and the Honourable Captain De Benyon, had hung up your child at the gates of the Foundling Hospital—that you had again met your wife, married to another, and had been an accomplice in concealing her capital offence of bigamy, and had had meetings with her, although she belonged to another. I say meetings, for you did meet her, to receive her directions about me. I am charitable and suspect nothing—others will not be so. Then, after her death, you come home, and inquire about your son. His identity is established,—and what then? not only you do not take him by the hand, in common civility, I might say, but you first try to turn him out of the house, and to give him in charge of the police: and then you will have to state for what. Perhaps you will answer me that question, for I really do not know."