“Are you giving me your word?” he demanded.
“I’m not promising anything until I can think it over and decide on what’s best to be done, Uncle Deck.”
“You’ll decide now before you leave this office.”
He started toward me, but the key was in the door, and I turned it and stood ready to leave.
“You have come back here to fight me, have you? A Sidney fighting his own and nearest blood kin, eh?” He came close and made threatening gestures. I put my arm across his breast and slowly pushed him back; I gave him good opportunity to note that the arm was a sizable one and mighty hard.
“You plug-hatted dude!” he frothed. “Forgetting the duty you owe to your own because you have had a whirl in the city!”
“I am no dude, Uncle Deck, and calling me names and treating me like a brat, as you used to do, isn’t going to get you anything!”
“You are not standing with your own family.”
“I can be loyal to my family, but I’m not going to-shut my eyes and jump into a row just because you tell me it’s your row.”
I saw that I had produced an impression and he calmed down a bit.