Out of a Labyrinth

by Lawrence L. Lynch

"Mistaken youth, your conformity with my wishes is but now begun."

"You can't bully me, now," he retorted. "I have married the girl, and that's enough."

"It is not enough! it is not all that you will do."

"You are a liar."

I took him by the shoulders, and lifting him fairly off his feet shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then I popped him down upon the chair he had refused to occupy, and said:

"There, you impudent little dunce, if you want to call me any more names, don't hesitate. Now, hear me; you will do precisely what I bid you, now, and hereafter, or you will exchange that smart plaid suit for one adorned with horizontal stripes, and I'll have that curly pate of yours as bare as a cocoanut."

"The law,"—he began.

"The law may permit you to break the marriage vow you have just taken, but I will not."

"You?" incredulously.