this
solemn silence, and let me know what your game is.'

He spoke with careless impertinence, and let himself drop on to a chair.
The others remained standing, and Mr. Daffy broke into vehement speech.

'I have come here, Charles, to ask what you mean by disgracing yourself and
dishonouring my name. Only yesterday, for the first time, I heard of the
life you are leading. Is this how you repay me for all the trouble I took
to have you well educated, and to make you an honest man? Here I find you
living in luxury and extravagance--and how? On stolen money--money as much
stolen as if you were a pickpocket or a burglar! A pleasant thing for me to
have all my friends talking about Charles Daffy, the bookmaker and the
moneylender! What _right_ have you to dishonour your father in this way? I
ask, what _right_ have you, Charles?'

Here the speaker, who had struggled to gasp his last sentence, was overcome
with a violent fit of coughing. He tottered back and sank on to a sofa.

'Are you here to look after him?' asked Charles of Mr. Lott, crossing his
legs and nodding towards the sufferer. 'If so, I advise you to take him
away before he does himself harm. You're a _lot_ bigger than he is and
perhaps have more sense.'

The timber-merchant stood with legs slightly apart, holding his stick and
the riding-whip horizontally with both hands. His eyes were fixed upon
young Mr. Daffy, and his lips moved in rather an ominous way; but he made
no reply to Charles's smiling remark.

'Mr. Lott,' said the tailor, in a voice still broken by pants and coughs,
'will you speak or me? Will you say what you think of him?'

'You'll have to be quick about it,' interposed Charles, with a glance at
his watch. 'I can give you five minutes; you can say a _lot_ in that time,
if you're sound of wind.'

The timber-merchant's eyes were very wide, and his cheeks unusually red.
Abruptly he turned to Mr. Daffy.

'Do you know _my_ idea?'

But just as he spoke there sounded a knock at the door, and the smart
maidservant cried out that a gentleman wished to see her master.

'Who is it?' asked Charles.

The answer came from the visitor himself, who, pushing the servant aside,
broke into the room. It was a young man of no very distinguished
appearance, thin, red-haired, with a pasty complexion and a scrubby
moustache; his clothes were approaching shabbiness, and he had an unwashed
look, due in part to hasty travel on this hot day. Streaming with sweat,