Sylvester assented. The old man launched out into an invective against all the ne'er-do-weels of Ayresford who procreated large families which they could not support and spent their small earnings in drink. The brutes! Boiling oil was too dreamy a death for them. As Sylvester knew that any man of them would, if bidden, have licked his father's boots, he smoked his pipe imperturbably, unaffected by this outburst of ferocity.
“I suppose all this is pretty parochial,” said Matthew, at length, “but it's a bit of the cosmos, anyhow.”
There was a knock at the door, and one of his clerks appeared with a small leather-covered book. Matthew took it from him and laid it on the table.
“Take all this stuff to Mr. Findlay,” he said, indicating a pile of papers. The clerk gathered them up and withdrew.
Matthew continued his parable, but his fingers played with the banker's pass-book.
“Excuse me for a moment, while I see how the balance stands,” he said at last.
Sylvester nodded and stretched himself comfortably behind the morning paper. A few moments passed. Then suddenly he heard a choking sound and the violent creak of a chair. He started to his feet. There was his father fallen limp over the arm of the chair, while from his nerveless fingers a strip of pink paper fluttered to the ground.