"It is quite possible, I think!" said Dick, coldly.
Aaron Mawdster gave him a sharp glance. It was difficult to reckon up this haughty schoolboy, whose pride seemed unbendable.
"Very good, sir; this way, if you please."
Dick followed the printer into his office, resolved now to battle no longer against the inclination to be rid of this man's veiled tyranny. Better by far to owe money to a friendly bookmaker than to a blackmailing enemy!
"Now, young man, I had a letter the other day from my poor son, who still complains of vile ill-treatment and lack of protection. My heart bleeds for his sufferings. I am a kind and generous man, Mr. Forge, as Moston people have good reason to know, but I can be a ruthless foe when I choose."
"I know that," Dick commented, without moving a muscle of his face.
"Oh, you know it, do you, Mr. Head-in-the-air! Very well. For positively the last time, do you intend taking my misjudged and ill-used boy under your wing?"
"On the contrary, Mr. Mawdster, I gave the impudent young cub a well-earned thrashing with a stick yesterday!"
Dick might have hurled a hand-grenade at the wall with less effect than this calmly-blunt declaration produced on the printer. Aaron Mawdster's face passed from its wonted pallor to an angry purple.
"You dared to strike my poor weak boy—you, twice his size, beat him with a stick?" A volley of oaths, in the worst slang of a slum pothouse, relieved his feelings here. "Then, you great, hulking bully, I'll cast you in the dust and trample on you!"