"Steady--go slow! If you don't take care you'll have a fit--you know you have been drinking."
Possibly because he had given way to such a sudden access of rage, Mr. Patterson again went through all his former disagreeable physical experiences, while his nephew smiled. He sat inarticulate and gasping, incapable alike of speech or movement. When, after a prolonged interval, the faculty of speech returned, his voice had grown huskier than ever; he spoke slowly, with a pause between each word.
"All right, my lad--laugh, but you won't laugh last. You're not going to put me in the cart, as your swindler of a father did; I'm going to put you there. I warned you what would be the result of your attempting to have any more traffic with my girl, so you've yourself to thank for whatever happens."
He stopped, as if he found a difficulty in saying much at once. When he continued, while his tones were a little clearer, they were more bitter. "Directly I get home I'm going to tell my girl what kind of man you are, and what kind of man your delectable father was. When she knows, I'll wager you a trifle that she never willingly speaks to you again; she'll despise herself for ever having spoken to you at all; she'll treat you in the future as if you had never been. She has her faults, but she resembles her father on one point--she has no use for a thief, and especially for a thief who is the son of a thief."
Another pause; this time, apparently, not so much for the sake of gaining breath as to enable his words to have their full effect on the smiling young man at the other end of the carriage. If he looked for some sign of their having touched him on a sensitive spot, he found none; the young man continued to smile. Possibly because he suspected that it might be the other's intention to irritate, he kept himself the more in hand. Leaning back in his seat, laying his parti-coloured silk handkerchief across his knee, for the first time he wore an appearance of ease, and he also began to smile.
"However, since I'm a cautious man, and you never can be certain what trick a blackguard will play upon a girl, I'll make assurance doubly sure; I'll take steps which will render it impossible for you to play a trick on my girl. The first thing to-morrow morning I'll take out a warrant for your arrest as a forger and a thief, and I'll give instructions to have it executed at once; so, you see, I'm better than my word, as I generally am. I warned you that if you dared to force yourself upon my girl again I'd have you gaoled, and I will. But I didn't undertake to give you a chance to show the police a clean pair of heels; yet I'm giving you one. If, between this and to-morrow morning--say, at ten--you can make yourself scarce, you can. But you'll have to be spry, because I give you my word that if the police do let the scent go cold it won't be for want of my urging them after you. You may run to earth if you like, but they'll dig you out. Don't you flatter yourself on your dodging powers; they'll get the handcuffs on your wrists."
Picking up his handkerchief with his finger-tips, Mr. Patterson let it fall again across his knee, smiling broadly as if in the enjoyment of a joke.
"And don't you flatter yourself that you'll come under the First Offenders Act--you won't, I'll take care of that. I've a list locked up in a drawer at the office the details of which, when they are produced in court, will surprise you. No jury will recommend you to mercy after hearing that, and no judge will listen to them if they do. You'll be sentenced to a long term of imprisonment as sure as you are sitting there. You'll be branded as a felon for the rest of your life. I'll teach you, you thief, to try to associate as an equal with that girl of mine."
Again he picked up his handkerchief; on this occasion to wipe his lips. But this time he did not return it to his knee; he continued to hold it in his hand--indeed, he waved it affably towards Elmore.
"I owed your father one--such a one! But he never gave me a chance of paying him. Now I owe you one--also such a one--and I'll pay you both together--by gad, I will! Oh, you may keep on smiling, you brassbound blackguard; I hope you'll find the reality as amusing as you seem to find the prospect. When you feel a policeman's hand upon your shoulder and handcuffs on your wrists, then you'll stop smiling. Make no mistake; for you there's only one way of escape, and that's your father's--suicide."