“Damn the quack!” replied his master: “no, I didn't.”
“You're beginning this morning,” said the other, losing temper. “You had better keep quiet, keep your distance, if you're wise--that's all.”
“Why didn't you, I ax,” continued Jemmy, walking up to him, with his hands in his coat pocket, and looking coolly, but authoritatively in his face. “I tell you, and if you don't know how to take care of yourself, I do, and I will. I'm all that's left over you now; an' in spite of all I can do, it's a purty account I'd be able to give of you, if I was called on.”
“This to my face!” exclaimed Dick--“this to my face, you villain!”--and, as he spoke, the cane was brandished over Jemmy's head, as if it would descend every moment.
“Ay,” replied Jemmy, without budging, “ay, indeed--an' a purty face it is--a nice face hard drinkin' an' a bad life has left you. Ah! do it if you dare,” he added, as the other swung his staff once or twice, as if about to lay it down in reality; “troth, if you do, I'll know how to act.”
“What would you do, you old cancer--what would you do if I did?”
“Troth, what you'll force me to do some day. I know you will, for heaven an' earth couldn't stand you; an' if I do, it's not me you'll have to blame for it. Ah, that same step you'll drive me to--I see that.”
“What will you do, you old viper, that has been like a blister to me my whole life--what will you do?”
“Send you about your business,” replied Jemmy, coolly, but with all the plenitude of authority in his manner; “send you from about the place, an' then I'll have a quiet house. I'll send you to your youngest daughter's or somewhere, or any where, out of this. So now that you know my determination you had betther keep yourself cool, unless, indeed, you wish to thravel. Oh, then heaven's above, but you wor a bitther sight to me, an' but it was the unlucky day that ever the divil druv you acrass me!”
“Dick,” said the father, “as soon as you go into the office, write a discharge, as bad a one, for that old vagabond, as the English language can enable you to do--for by the light of heaven, he shan't sleep another night under this roof.”
“Shan't I?--we'll see that, though. To the divil I pitch yourself an' your discharge--an' now mark my words: I'll be no longer throubled wid you; you've been all my life a torment and a heart-break to me--a blister of French flies was swan's down, compared to you, but by the book, I'll end it at last--ay, will I--I give you up--I surrendher you as a bad bargain--I wash my hands of you--This is Tuesday mornin', God bless the day and the weather--an' woeful weather it is--but sure it's betther than you desarve, an' I don't doubt but it's you and the likes o' you that brings it on us! Ay, this is Tuesday mornin', an' I now give you warnin' that on Saturday next, you'll see the last o' me--an' don't think that this warnin' is like the rest, or that I'll relint again, as I was foolish enough to do often before. No--my mind's made up--an' indeed--” here his voice sank to a great calmness and philosophy, like a man who was above all human passion, and who could consequently talk in a voice of cool and quiet determination;--“An' indeed,” he added, “my conscience was urgin' me to this for some time past--so that I'm glad things has taken this turn.”