"Don't be so rude, Fitz," begged his mother.
"Arrest me!" repeated the violent youth, whose dignity had been touched by the threat. "Do it! Why didn't you do it before you came here? You can't scare me! I wasn't brought up in the city to be frightened by a brick house. Why don't you go for a constable, and take me up now? I'd like to have you do it."
"I will do it if you don't behave yourself," said the banker, beginning to be a little ruffled by the violent and unreasonable conduct of Mr. Wittleworth.
"I wish you would! I really wish you would! I should like to know what my friend Choate would say about it."
"How silly you talk!" exclaimed his mother, quite as much disgusted as her stately visitor.
"You may let him badger you, if you like, mother; but he shall not come any odds on me—not if I know it, and I think I do!"
"It is useless for me to attempt to say anything to such a young porcupine," added Mr. Checkynshaw, taking his hat from the table.
Mrs. Wittleworth burst into tears. She had hoped to effect a reconciliation between her son and his employer, upon which her very immunity from blank starvation seemed to depend. The case was a desperate one, and the bad behavior of Fitz seemed to destroy her last hope.
"I will give up now, Fitz, and go to the almshouse," sobbed she.
Fitz was inclined to give up also when this stunning acknowledgment was made in the presence of his great enemy, the arch dragon of respectability.