"Oh, don't ask me. You ought to know."
"But I don't. I haven't said a word or done a thing that you should give me the bad eye."
"Rachel," said the old man, "it seems to me that the more he reads the more slang he uses. The 'bad eye!' That belongs to the police court."
"Then it is not a quotation from Balzac."
"Never you mind about quotations. I have quoted before you were born—and I knew, sir, from what source. But I won't stay to be browbeaten. I will leave you."
"By the way," Howard called after him, "if you want a pipe of good tobacco step into my room. You'll find a fresh can on the table."
"I don't want any of your tobacco, sir; I don't want anything you've got."
Bradley might have thought that in this family the joke was overworked, that is, had he been prepared to think anything. But he was not. His mind was aglow from the light beside him, and his ideas, if at that moment he had any, were as gold fishes in a globe, swimming round and round.
Florence went to the piano. Howard stood beside her. Mrs. Elbridge went out. It was time, and she knew it. William appeared at the door. "I thought you said that your tobacco was on the table in your room. What right have you got—what cause have I ever given you to deceive me in that way?"
"You said you didn't want any of my tobacco."