“Do you want me to say I haven’t? Do you want me to lie to you?”
“I want you to keep your mouth shut! Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to!”
“But you did speak to me, didn’t you?”
Johnathan walked over deadly close.
“Nathan,” he said gutturally, “you’re my son—and murder is punishable by hanging. But I swear if you give me any more of your lip, I’m going to send you to the undertaker and I’m going to do it to-night!”
The boy backed away from his father against the wall, as far as he could retreat. He did not answer. He waited.
“Six or eight years ago,” went on Johnathan, when he saw he had browbeaten his boy into silence, “six or eight years ago I told you you were to have nothing to do with girls! Not until you were old enough to know your own mind, became of age and reached years of discretion. You understood me plainly enough then, didn’t you? What? You may answer! What?”
“Yes, sir!”
“And all down the years you’ve understood I insisted on obedience, didn’t you—right down until to-night?”
“Yes, sir!”