We were in his office. I told Wheezer and Scoot to wait for me below. "Perhaps there'd better be no witnesses," I whispered to Scoot, and they got out.
The bright young lawyer takes another look at me after I lock the door and come back to him. "What do you mean to do?" he says.
And I said: "First, I'm going to give you one whale of a beating."
"You lay your hands on me," he says, "and I'll have you up for assault and battery. I'll show every mark in open court."
"I'm going to mark you," I said, "where you won't show them in any open court."
And I did. "And that's only the beginning," I said; but about then he agreed to call in Wheezer and Scoot; and, for instructing us to comport ourselves with dignity before the high court, we thought five hundred was about right, and after another little chat he agreed it was. We gave William T. the same for what he'd done, and he stayed drunk for a week at the Blue Light, which is what we reckoned he would do. But he was his own boss ashore.
Before I was fairly home the wife rushes me over to the little house she'd the option on. Being only two blocks south of the boulevard didn't make any hit with me, for the next thing I could see where she'd be breaking into society. But when I see the baby that I'd left kicking his legs in a baby-carriage—when I see him sprinting around the sun-parlor on his own feet, I begin to see the beauty of sun-parlors. "Take it," I said.
She certainly was tickled. "I always knew," she said, before I had time to say another word, "that all you needed was to apply yourself steadily to make your fortune."
Well, she's a great little woman, and what's the good of hurrying up to break illusions? I waited all of two hours before I told her how I made the price of the house.