“You know too much!” roared the sailor, rising and thumping the table with his clenched fist.
“Yes, I do know too much for your good—or for the success of your plot,” Brandon replied, with cool sarcasm. “See this?”
He took the bit of newspaper from his pocket and tossed it upon the table before the man.
“What is it?” demanded the sailor, clutching at the clipping.
“The newspaper item stating that the Silver Swan is a derelict, instead of being sunken, as you declared to me. Had I not found it in the woods after you left, I might have still believed your lying yarn, Wetherbee.”
The sailor crumpled the bit of paper in his fist and shook the clenched member in the boy’s face.
“Young man,” he said with emphasis, “ye think ye’re smart; but do ye know that ye’re likely ter git inter trouble ’fore ye get out o’ this place? I don’t ’low no boy ter sass me.”
“I’m sorry for that,” said Brandon, thinking the fellow’s threat but mere bombastic eloquence; “for I reckon you’ll have to stand it.”
His very fearlessness caused the man to hesitate ere he used violence, for it might be that the boy had friends within call. The sailor therefore bit his thick lip in fury, and poured a shower of vituperations upon his visitor’s head.
“Let me tell you something else, also,” continued Brandon. “I propose to have those papers that father gave you.”