"While you can remain here and fight for other people's hen-coops, eh?"
"No, sir; only to take up the common quarrel and stand for that liberty which we inherited from those who now seek to dispossess us."
"Quite an orator!" he observed, grimly. "The Ormonds were formerly more ready with their swords than with their tongues."
"I trust I shall not fail to sustain their traditions," I said, controlling my anger with a desperate effort.
He burst out into a hollow laugh.
"There you go, red as a turkey-cock and madder than a singed tree-cat! George, can't you let me plague you in comfort! Dammy, it's undutiful! For pity's sake! let me sneer--let me gibe and jeer if it eases me."
I glared at him, half inclined to laugh.
"Curse it!" he said, wrathfully, "I'm serious. You don't know how serious I am. It's no laughing matter, George. I must do something to ease me!" He burst out into a roar, swearing in volleys.
"D' ye think I wish to appear contemptible?" he shouted. "D' ye think I like to sit here like an old wife, scolding in one breath and preaching thrift in the next? A weak-kneed, chicken-livered, white-bellied old bullfrog that squeaks and jumps, plunk! into the puddle when a footstep falls in the grass! Am I not a patroon? Am I not Dutch? Granted I'm fat and slow and a glutton, and lazy as a wolverine. I can fight like one, too! Don't make any mistake there, George!"
His broad face flushed crimson, his little, green eyes snapped fire.