'To the deuce, your infancy! I know too much about your age. Just hark, you Richmond! none of your “I was a child” to provoke compassion from women. I mean to knock you down and make you incapable of hurting these poor foreign people you trapped. They defy you, and I'll do my best to draw your teeth. Now for the annuity. You want one to believe 'you thought you frightened “Government,” eh?'
'Annual proof was afforded me, sir.'
'Oh! annual! through Mr. Charles Adolphus Bannerbridge, deceased!'
Janet stepped up to my aunt Dorothy to persuade her to leave the room, but she declined, and hung by me, to keep me out of danger, as she hoped, and she prompted me with a guarding nervous squeeze of her hand on my arm to answer temperately when I was questioned:
'Harry, do you suspect Government paid that annuity?'
'Not now, certainly.'
'Tell the man who 'tis you suspect.'
My aunt Dorothy said: 'Harry is not bound to mention his suspicions.'
'Tell him yourself, then.'
'Does it matter—?'