“And if I refuse?”
“Then it will become necessary for me to knock you down whenever I find you in my way. . . .”
“May I ask. . . ?”
“What I am getting out of it for myself? I was foolish enough to believe that you would not look for an interested motive. . . . The position is this. . . . You shirked a responsibility which I have had the pleasure and the privilege of assuming. Your beastly jealousy resents that, and you seem bent on taking up that old responsibility. There are two reasons why you should not do that—first, because it is too late; second, because your attempt to do so is an insult to your wife . . .”
“Keep my wife out of it.”
“If you will tell your wife and ask her permission to make a settlement upon the boy . . .”
“You know I can’t do that. I can’t afford it.”
“Then leave it alone.”
“No.”
“You’ll take the consequences?”