“Ah!” said Max, with a heavy sigh—“all proof of what I say—the violence, the excitement, these strange outbursts. My poor brother!”
He took out his handkerchief, and applied it to his eyes.
Dick looked at him for a moment, then at his wife and child, and then his face grew longer and his hand played nervously about his face.
“But, I say, Max,” he cried, “you don’t mean this. I’m as right in the upper story as you are.”
Max shook his head.
“My dear Richard,” he said, “I’d give my right hand to know you were. This is dreadful.”
“Dreadful? It’s worse than dreadful,” cried Mrs Shingle, catching her husband’s arm. “Dick, make him leave the house.”
“My dear Mrs Shingle,” said Max deprecatingly, “this is folly. You only excite him terribly.”
“Excite him?”
“Yes, my dear,” said Dick, wiping the perspiration from his face, “it do excite me a deal. I don’t know that Max ain’t right; but he won’t be hard on me—Max won’t. I have felt a little—little confused and upset, you know, about my business sometimes.”