The enmity always smouldering between the two men at this ill-judged interruption almost burst in flame. The stonemason turned upon his offspring, his long upper lip pulled down, for all the world, like a monkey's. He stared a while in virulent silence; and then “Get Gregg!” said he.
The effect of these words was very visible. “He will be gone to his office,” stammered my uncle.
“Get Gregg!” repeated my grandfather.
“I tell you, he will be gone to his office,” reiterated Adam.
“And I tell ye, he's takin' his smoke,” retorted the old man.
“Very well, then,” cried my uncle, getting to his feet with some alacrity, as upon a sudden change of thought, “I will get him myself.”
“Ye will not!” cried my grandfather. “Ye will sit there upon your hinderland.”
“Then how the devil am I to get him?” my uncle broke forth, with not unnatural petulance.
My grandfather (having no possible answer) grinned at his son with the malice of a schoolboy; then he rang the bell.
“Take the garden key,” said Uncle Adam to the servant; “go over to the garden, and if Mr. Gregg the lawyer is there (he generally sits under the red hawthorn), give him old Mr. Loudon's compliments, and will he step in here for a moment?”