"Very well, then. You're a minor, and therefore I can't sue you in the County Court. I knew of that risk when I took your job on, but I trusted to your honour as a gentleman."
"You shall be paid every farthing in the end."
"So you say! But I'm not prepared to wait. Either you'll pay now, on the nail, or you'll protect my boy from insult and injury!"
"I have already explained that I can do neither."
The two faced each other angrily now. No quarter was asked or given.
"Is that your last word, Mr. Forge?"
"Quite!"
"Then your blood be on your own stupid head. A fortnight from to-day, when your next number is due to be published, I shall go to your headmaster and tell him how you've let me in! Politely ask him, I shall, to write to your people about it, or to give me their address so's I can write them myself."
At once Dick's thoughts turned home in alarm to his distressed aunt and disdainful stepmother. There were strong reasons, of a different character, why neither should know of his humiliating bother.
"Oh, don't do that, Mr. Mawdster, please!" he pleaded.