“Then,” continued the old man, chuckling, and rubbing his hands together, and dropping first his stick and then his boots, which Jessie hastened to pick up, “I’ll go and see Mr Shingle to-night, and tell him; and I’ll wait here till Richard Shingle comes home, and I’ll tell him; and there’ll be the devilishest devil of a row about it that ever was. You’ve no business here, and you know it, you scoundrel. She isn’t good enough for you. You’re to marry the fair Violante—the violent girl. There’ll be a storm for you to-night, young fellow; so look out.”
“I’ll trouble you to mind your own business, Mr Hopper,” exclaimed Tom hotly.
“Hey?” said the old fellow, holding a boot up to his right ear, like a speaking trumpet.
“I say, if you get interfering with my affairs, Mr Hopper,” cried Tom angrily, and paying no heed to a whispered remonstrance from Jessie, “I’ll—”
“I can’t hear a word you say: try the right side.”
As he spoke, he held the other boot to his left ear, and leaned forward in an irritating manner, grinning the while at the speaker.
“I say that if you dare to—”
“Tchsh! I can’t hear a word if you mumble like that. Oh, be off with you: I’ve got no time to waste. I’m seventy, and if I’m lucky I’ve got ten years to live. You’re five-and-twenty, and got fifty-five, so you are wasteful of your time, and spend it in running after girls who don’t want you—like your beautiful brother Fred. Bless him! if I had any money to leave I’d put him down in my will for it—an artful, designing scoundrel!”
“Look here, Mr Hopper,” cried Tom hotly, “you can abuse me as much as you like, and tell tales as much as you like, and play the sneak; but because you’ve known me from a child I won’t stand here and hear my brother maligned.”
“There, it’s no use, I can’t hear a word you say,” grumbled the old fellow; “but it don’t matter,—I can see by your manner that you are abusing a poor helpless old man, the friend of your mother and that girl’s father, and you are keeping her back, so that she’ll be late with her parcel, and make her lose the work, and then you’ll be happy.”