"Tie that boy up, Brutus," he commanded. "It is a compliment, my son. My opinion of you is steadily rising. Tie him up, Brutus. You will find a rope on the chimney piece."
He stood close to me, evidently pleased at the convulsive anger which had gripped me. Brutus was still fumbling on the mantlepiece. Ned Aiken's pipe had dropped from his mouth. It was Mademoiselle who was the first to intervene.
"Are you out of your senses?" she demanded, seizing him by the arm. "It is too much, captain, I tell you it is too much. Think what you are doing, and send the black man off."
"I have been thinking the matter over for some time," replied my father tranquilly, "and I have determined to do the thing thoroughly. If he cannot like me, it is better for him to hate me, and may save trouble. Tie him up, Brutus."
"Bear away!" cried Mr. Aiken harshly. "Mind yourself, sir."
His warning, however, was late in coming. I had sprung at my father before the sentence was finished. It was almost the only time I knew him to miscalculate. He must have been taken unaware, for he stepped backward too quickly, and collided with the very chair he had quitted. It shook his balance for the moment, so that he thrust a hand behind him to recover himself, and in the same instant I had the volume of Rabelais. I leapt for the open doorway, but Ned Aiken was there to intercept me. Brutus was up behind me with his great hands clamping down on my shoulders. I turned and hurled the volume in the fireplace.
My father caught it out almost before it landed. With all the deliberation of a connoisseur examining an old and rare edition, he turned the pages with his slim fingers. There, as he had said, was the paper, with the same red seals that I had admired the previous evening. He placed it slowly in his inside pocket, and tossed the book on the floor.
"Now here's a pretty kettle of fish," said Mr. Aiken.
My father was watching me thoughtfully.
"Take your hands off him, Brutus," he said, "and bring out the horse."