I heard it! I heard the words! My door was ajar––my room at the head of the stair––my ears wide and anxious. I heard the words! There was no mistaking what this intruder said. “The club-footed young whelp!” says he. “Is there nothing in the world for you, Top, but that club-footed young whelp?” He said it––I remember that he said it––and to this day, when I am grown beyond the years of childish sensitiveness, I resent the jibe.
“Nothing,” my uncle answered. “Nothing in the world, sir,” he repeated, lovingly, as I thought, “but only that poor club-footed child!”
Sir? ’Twas a queer way to address, thinks I, this man of doubtful quality. Sir? I could not make it out.
“You sentimental fool!”
“Nay, sir,” my uncle rejoined, with spirit. “An they’s a fool in the company, ’tis yourself. I’ve that from the lad, sir, that you goes lacking––ay, an’ will go, t’ the grave!”
“And what, Top,” the stranger sneered, “may this thing be?”
“Ye’ll laugh, sir,” my uncle replied, “when I tells you ’tis his love.”
The man did laugh.
“For shame!” cried my uncle.
He was taking off his wraps––this stranger. They were so many that I wondered. He was a man of 127 quality, after all, it might be. “I tell you, Top,” said he, “that the boy may be damned for all I care. I said damned. I mean damned. There isn’t another form of words, with which I am acquainted, sufficient to express my lack of interest in this child’s welfare. Do you understand me, Top? And do you realize––you obstinate noddy!––that my heart’s in the word? You and I, Top, have business together. It’s a dirty business. It was in the beginning; it is now––a dirty business for us both. I admit it. But can’t we do it reasonably? Can’t we do it alone? Why introduce this ill-born whelp? He’s making trouble, Top; and he’ll make more with every year he lives. Let him shift for himself, man! I care nothing about him. What was his father to me? What was his mother? Make him a cook on a trader. Make him a hand on a Labradorman. Put him before the mast on a foreign craft. What do I care? Let him go! Give him a hook and line. A paddle-punt is patrimony enough for the like of him. Will you never listen to reason? What’s the lad to you? Damn him, say I! Let him––”