"Are ye joking with me, Meejor Pendennis?" cried Jack Costigan. "Are ye thrifling with the feelings of a father and a gentleman?"
"I am telling you the honest truth," said Major Pendennis. "Every shilling my brother had, he left to his widow: with a partial reversion, it is true, to the boy. But she is a young woman, and may marry if he offends her—or she may outlive him, for she comes of an uncommonly long-lived family. And I ask you, as a gentleman and a man of the world, what allowance can my sister, Mrs. Pendennis, make to her son out of five hundred a year, which is all her fortune—that shall enable him to maintain himself and your daughter in the rank befitting such an accomplished young lady?"
"Am I to understand, sir, that the young gentleman, your nephew, and whom I have fosthered and cherished as the son of me bosom, is an imposther who has been thrifling with the affections of me beloved child?" exclaimed the general, with an outbreak of wrath.—"Have you yourself been working upon the feelings of the young man's susceptible nature to injuice him to break off an engagement, and with it me adored Emily's heart? Have a care, sir, how you thrifle with the honor of John Costigan. If I thought any mortal man meant to do so, be heavens I'd have his blood, sir—were he old or young."
"Mr. Costigan!" cried out the major.
"Mr. Costigan can protect his own and his daughter's honor, and will, sir," said the other. "Look at that chest of dthrawers, it contains heaps of letthers that that viper has addressed to that innocent child. There's promises there, sir, enough to fill a band-box with; and when I have dragged the scoundthrel before the courts of law, and shown up his perjury and his dishonor, I have another remedy in yondther mahogany case, sir, which shall set me right, sir, with any individual—ye mark me words, Major Pendennis—with any individual who has counseled your nephew to insult a soldier and a gentleman. What? Me daughter to be jilted, and me gray hairs dishonored by an apothecary's son. By the laws of heaven, sir, I should like to see the man that shall do it."
"I am to understand, then, that you threaten in the first place to publish the letters of a boy of eighteen to a woman of eight-and-twenty: and afterward to do me the honor of calling me out," the major said, still with perfect coolness.
"You have described my intentions with perfect accuracy, Meejor Pendennis," answered the captain, as he pulled his ragged whiskers over his chin.
"Well, well; these shall be the subjects of future arrangements, but before we come to powder and ball, my good sir—do have the kindness to think with yourself in what earthly way I have injured you? I have told you that my nephew is dependent upon his mother, who has scarcely more than five hundred a year."
"I have my own opinion of the correctness of that assertion," said the captain.
"Will you go to my sister's lawyers, Messrs. Tatham here, and satisfy yourself?"