ses!" ejaculated Sir John, "what in the name of hell are they
after?"

"Your question, stripped of its unnecessary and profane expletives,
seems easy to answer. I imagine that my immoral son has just proposed
to your daughter, and been accepted with--well, unusual emphasis."

"Perhaps you are right. But if he had I don't see anything particularly
immoral about it. If I had never done anything worse than that I
shouldn't feel myself called to go upon my knees and cry _peccavi_.
However, that ain't the point. The point is that a game of this sort
don't at all suit my book, but," here he looked at the clergyman
shrewdly, "why do _you_ come to tell about it? I should have thought
that under all the circumstances _you_ should have been glad. Isobel
isn't likely to be exactly a beggar, you know, so it seems devilish
queer that you should object, as I gather you do; unless it is to the
kissing, which has been heard of before."

"I do object most strongly, Sir John," replied Mr. Knight in his iciest
tones. "I disapprove entirely of your daughter, whose lack of any
Christian feeling is notorious, and whose corrupting influence will, I
fear, make my son as bad as herself."

"Damn her lack of Christian feeling, and damn yours and your impudence
too, you half-drowned church rat! Why don't you call her Jezebel at
once, and have done with it? One of the things I like about her is that
she has the pluck to snap her fingers at such as you and all your
ignorant superstitions. What are you getting at? That is what I want to
know."

"I put aside your insults to which as a clergyman it is my duty to turn
the other cheek," replied Mr. Knight, with a furious gasp. "As to the
rest I am trying to get at the pure and sacred truth."

"You look as though you would do better to get at the pure and sacred
brandy," remarked Sir John, surveying him critically, "but that's your
affair. Now, what is the truth?"

"Alas! that I must say it. I believe my son to be that basest of
creatures, a fortune-hunter. How did he get that money left to him by
another woman?"

"Don't know, I'm sure. Perhaps the old girl found the young chap
attractive, and wished to acknowledge favours received. Such things
have been known. You don't suppose he forged her will, do you?"

"You are ribald, Sir, ribald."

"Am I? Well, and you are jolly offensive. Thank God you weren't my
father. Now, from what I remember of that boy of yours, I shouldn't
have thought that he