return to
mildness. My father's chest heaved up.

I took advantage of the lull to make myself heard: I did but heap fuel
on fire, though the old man's splenetic impetus had partly abated.

'You Richmond! do you hear him? he swears he's your son, and asks to
be tied to the stake beside you. Disown him, and I'll pay you money and
thank you. I'll thank my God for anything short of your foul blood in
the family. You married the boy's mother to craze and kill her, and
guttle her property. You waited for the boy to come of age to swallow
what was settled on him. You wait for me to lie in my coffin to pounce
on the strongbox you think me the fool to toss to a young donkey ready
to ruin all his belongings for you! For nine-and-twenty years you've
sucked the veins of my family, and struck through my house like a
rotting-disease. Nine-and-twenty years ago you gave a singing-lesson in
my house: the pest has been in it ever since! You breed vermin in the
brain to think of you! Your wife, your son, your dupes, every soul that
touches you, mildews from a blight! You were born of ropery, and you
go at it straight, like a webfoot to water. What's your boast?--your
mother's disgrace! You shame your mother. Your whole life's a ballad o'
bastardy. You cry up the woman's infamy to hook at a father. You swell
and strut on her pickings. You're a cock forced from the smoke of the
dunghill! You shame your mother, damned adventurer! You train your
boy for a swindler after your own pattern; you twirl him in your curst
harlequinade to a damnation as sure as your own. The day you crossed my
threshold the devils danced on their flooring. I've never seen the
sun shine fair on me after it. With your guitar under the windows, of
moonlight nights! your Spanish fopperies and trickeries! your French
phrases and toeings! I was touched by a leper. You set your traps for
both my girls: you caught the brown one first, did you, and flung her
second for t' other, and drove a tandem of 'em to live the spangled
hog you are; and down went the mother of the boy to the place she
liked better, and my other girl here--the one you cheated for her
salvation--you tried to cajole her from home and me, to send her the
same way down. She stuck to decency. Good Lord! you threatened to hang
yourself, guitar and all. But her purse served your turn. For why? You
're a leech. I speak before ladies or I'd rip your town-life to shreds.
Your cause! your romantic history! your fi