“Stop! I don’t allow you to speak to me in that way.”
“No offence, brother Nathan!”
“Brother Lemuel, I never allow a fool to offend me. I put him in his place—that’s all.”
The distant barking of a dog became audible from the lane by which the house was approached. The sound seemed to annoy Benjulia. “What’s that?” he asked.
Lemuel saw his way to making some return for his brother’s reception of him.
“It’s my dog,” he said; “and it’s lucky for you that I have left him in the cab.”
“Why?”
“Well, he’s as sweet-tempered a dog as ever lived. But he has one fault. He doesn’t take kindly to scientific gentlemen in your line of business.” Lemuel paused, and pointed to his brother’s hands. “If he smelt that, he might try his teeth at vivisecting You.”
The spots of blood which Ovid had once seen on Benjulia’s stick, were on his hands now. With unruffled composure he looked at the horrid stains, silently telling their tale of torture.
“What’s the use of washing my hands,” he answered, “when I am going back to my work?”