He appealed lightly to the squire, for thus he danced on the crater's brink, and had for answer,
'You're a cool scoundrel, Richmond.'
'I choose to respect you, rather in spite of yourself, I fear, sir,' said my father, bracing up.
'Did you hear my conversation with my daughter?'
'I heard, if I may say so, the lion taking his share of it.'
'All roaring to you, was it?'
'Mr. Beltham, we have our little peculiarities; I am accustomed to think of a steam-vent when I hear you indulging in a sentence of unusual length, and I hope it is for our good, as I thoroughly believe it is for yours, that you should deliver yourself freely.'
'So you tell me; like a stage lacquey!' muttered the old man, with surprising art in caricaturing a weakness in my father's bearing, of which I was cruelly conscious, though his enunciation was flowing. He lost his naturalness through forcing for ease in the teeth of insult.
'Grandada, aunty and I will leave you,' said Janet, waxing importunate.
'When I've done,' said he, facing his victim savagely. 'The fellow pretends he didn't understand. She's here to corroborate. Richmond, there, my daughter, Dorothy Beltham, there's the last of your fools and dupes. She's a truthful woman, I'll own, and she'll contradict me if what I say is not the fact. That twenty-five thousand from "Government" came out of her estate.'