"What business had you to meddle with my property?" demanded Ezekiel, furiously.
"It was a kind of property that don't make any man the richer," replied the youth.
"Who told you to do it?" asked the inebriate, glancing at his wife.
"No one told me, and no one knew anything about it."
"Then I'll teach you to steal my property! I'll take it out of your hide, you rascal."
"There isn't any of it in my hide, and I don't mean there ever shall be."
Ezekiel took down a clothes-stick which was hanging against the wall, and with it he made a dive and a plunge at Robert. The boy was too active to be caught by a man whose footing was none too steady. He easily dodged the blows which were aimed at him, till the tippler, out of breath from his exertions, placed himself before the door to prevent the escape of the culprit, and there rested himself from the fatigue of the onslaught.
"Don't you strike that boy," said Mrs. Taylor, warmly; and she had before essayed to suspend the strife.
"Yes I will! I'll flog him within an inch of his life. I'll teach him to meddle with my property," gasped Ezekiel.
"If you do, I'll leave this house, and never come into it again. I won't have no such goings on where I am," said the woman, warmly and energetically.