He dwelt on the last word significantly. He took his hat from the table and went and stood by the door.
When the lawyer had begun to speak the Captain hooked himself forward in his chair, his fingers clutching air, his face working with rage.
“It was the only thing that King Bradish told me that I didn’t believe,” he shouted. “One of the Look family hired as a lawyer by my father? I swore it wasn’t so! If it is so, damme if I don’t make you all sick here in this place. If it is so——”
“It certainly is so, Captain,” broke in the Squire, stepping back into the room. “You will kindly refrain from making any more comments on the matter. Come to my office with me.”
“Comments!” shouted the seaman. “Comments! I ain’t got language enough to make comments! Old Dan’l Webster in his palmiest days couldn’t talk fast enough to express it. I’ll bet a thousand to one I know what the trouble is with you, father. I’ll bet it’s just as King said it was. That skin lawyer has got next to you and robbed you—he and his brother, the two of ’em! There’s a good reason for your not havin’ money to protect your own son if the Look family has got their claws in here. Do you hear me, Sylvene? A thousand to one the dogs have ruined this family! Why didn’t you send the old man to the lunatic asylum before you let him ram us underground this way?”
In his fury he had been clutching up the papers on the table and throwing them about. Now he suddenly bent forward with goggling eyes, his hands on the arms of the chair, and stared long at some slips of paper that he had uncovered.
He picked them up one after the other, his hands trembling so violently that the sheets crackled.
“Four notes runnin’ to Phineas Look and signed by Collamore Willard!” he yelled. “Four notes and each for five thousand dollars. Four notes! Look at ’em!”
He staggered up and thrust them under the astonished gaze of Sylvena, but with one stride the Squire was there and ripped them from his grasp.
“He has robbed us, Sylvene! He’s robbed us,” the Captain went on, mouthing like a madman. “He’s got all our money and put us in debt to him beside. The thief! The land pirate!”