“You’ve a swell-head,” he repeated, stubbornly, his eyes flashing, “and you’re a—don’t you dare to touch me! I hate you! You’re a bully—that’s what you are!”
“A bully! It’s you that’s the bully. You know darn well that you’re safe in nagging the life out of me—you’re pretty sure that I wouldn’t hurt a little fellow like you. You’re a little coward, Carl Lambert, but I tell you now that if you don’t stop your eternal whining, I’ll—I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” sneered Carl.
“I’ll thrash you until you can’t stand up. Do you understand me?” And once more Paul’s big hand clamped down on his shoulder. Carl’s face went white, and a look of such utter terror superseded the one of rage, that Paul was astonished.
“What on earth is the matter with you?” he repeated, in a milder tone. “Will you tell me what I’ve ever done to you?”
“I hate you! I’ve hated you ever since you came here! Thrash me if you want to! Nothing will ever make me hate you any worse than I do now!”
Paul frowning more in bewilderment than anger stared into his cousin’s pale, distorted face. Then suddenly he asked,
“If you hate me so much, why didn’t you tell Uncle Peter about my playing billiards—for money—with Jeff Roberts?”
Carl did not answer.
“I can’t make you out,” went on Paul, as if he were talking to himself. “You bother the life out of me, you squabble and row from morning to night, and you never say what you’re down on me for. I honestly believe that until recently you had a lot to do with Uncle Peter’s bad opinion of me, and yet—somehow, I don’t believe you hate me as much as you think you do. If you had told Uncle Peter about that business with Jeff Roberts he would certainly—not certainly, perhaps, but very likely—have sent me packing, and you would have been rid of me, and yet you didn’t do it. And it wasn’t as if you weren’t a tell-tale, because you are. And what under the sun makes you say I’ve got a swell-head?”