"Make 'im!" said Stott, with a curl of his lip, "make 'im! You try it on!"
I knew I was acting a part, but I wanted to provoke more information. "Well! Why not?" I said.
"'Cos 'e'd look at you—that's why not," replied Stott, "and you can't no more face 'im than a dog can face a man. I shan't stand it much longer."
"Curious," I said, "very curious."
"Oh! he's a blarsted freak, that's what 'e is," said Stott, getting to his feet and beginning to pace moodily up and down.
I did not interrupt him. I was thinking of this man who had drawn huge crowds from every part of England, who had been a national hero, and who, now, was unable to face his own child. Presently Stott broke out again.
"To think of all the trouble I took when 'e was comin'," he said, stopping in front of me. "There was nothin' the missus fancied as I wouldn't get. We was livin' in Stoke then." He made a movement of his head in the direction of Ailesworth. "Not as she was difficult," he went on thoughtfully. "She used to say 'I mussent get 'abits, George.' Caught that from me; I was always on about that—then. You know, thinkin' of learnin' 'im bowlin'. Things was different then; afore 'e came." He paused again, evidently thinking of his troubles.
Sympathetically, I was wondering how far the child had separated husband and wife. There was the making of a tragedy here, I thought; but when Stott, after another period of pacing up and down, began to speak again I found that his tragedy was of another kind.
"Learn 'im bowling!" he said, and laughed a mirthless laugh. "My Gawd! it 'ud take something. No fear; that little game's off. And I could a' done it if he'd been a decent or'nery child, 'stead of a blarsted freak. There won't never be another, neither. This one pretty near killed the missus. Doctor said it'd be 'er last.... With an 'ead like that, whacher expect?"
"Can he walk?" I asked.