"Is this your gratitude for what I have done for the family?" asked the major, knitting his brow into a knot of wrinkles.
"Yes, sir; this is my gratitude. Do you think, because you allowed my father to put his cottage on your land, that you and your son have the right to insult my sister?" demanded Paul with considerable energy.
"No one insulted her, you young reprobate!" interposed the father. "Is a civil and gentlemanly invitation an insult?"
"If he had stopped there, we should have had no trouble."
"But she refused the invitation."
"She had as much right to decline it as any lady in Westport would have."
"Was it treating a member of my family properly, after all I have done for you?" demanded the major more calmly, but with a terrible havoc in his tender feelings.
"You have had a good deal to say about what you have done for us, Major Billcord. The land on which that cottage stands," continued Paul, pointing to it, "is not worth ten dollars. At ten per cent, the ground rent would be one dollar a year, or two dollars for the two years it has stood there. I have done work enough for you in the shape of errands, taking care of your boat, and in other ways, to pay for the land twice over. I have carried the first black bass of the season to your house, when I could have sold the fish for a dollar apiece, for two years. As I look at the question of gratitude, there is a balance of at least twenty dollars in my favor; but I give it to you with all my heart, and I don't claim the privilege of insulting your daughter for what I have done."
"You are a glib-talking puppy, and there is no more reason or common sense in you than there is in a heifer calf. I have had enough of you, and so has my son," responded the major, choking with wrath over the unanswerable argument of the poor dependent.