w 'em out of bed.
What's the use of it all? Damn it, that's what I say, what's the use? And
now here you go, risking getting a piece of lead thrown in you, all
because of a few names scrawled on a piece of paper. Here it's the first
time you've been back. It's a hell of a home-coming--that's what I say. I
told you you hadn't ought to have come. Now there's the fire. Why not
forget it and burn it up, and then it's over just as neat as neat, and
then we're aboard, and after the pearls again. Why, what must the boy be
thinking of all this? He must be thinking he's got a hell-cat for a
father. That's what he must be thinking."

"That will do," said my father coldly, and he rose slowly from his chair,
and stood squarely in front of me.

"Tie that boy up, Brutus," he commanded. "It is a compliment, my son. My
opinion of you is steadily rising. Tie him up, Brutus. You will find a
rope on the chimney piece."

He stood close to me, evidently pleased at the convulsive anger which had
gripped me. Brutus was still fumbling on the mantlepiece. Ned Aiken's
pipe had dropped from his mouth. It was Mademoiselle who was the first to
intervene.

"Are you out of your senses?" she demanded, seizing him by the arm. "It
is too much, captain, I tell you it is too much. Think what you are
doing, and send the black man off."

"I have been thinking the matter over for some time," replied my father
tranquilly, "and I have determined to do the thing thoroughly. If he
cannot like me, it is better for him to hate me, and may save trouble.
Tie him up, Brutus."

"Bear away!" cried Mr. Aiken harshly. "Mind yourself, sir."

His warning, however, was late in coming. I had sprung at my father
before the sentence was finished. It was almost the only time I knew him
to miscalculate. He must have been taken unaware, for he stepped backward
too quickly, and collided with the very chair he had quitted. It shook
his balance for the moment, so that he thrust a hand behind him to
recover himself, and in the same instant I had the volume of Rabelais. I
leapt for the open doorway, but Ned Aiken was there to intercept me.
Brutus was up behind me with his great hands clamping down on my
shoulders. I turned and hurled the volume in the fireplace.

My father caught it out almost before it landed. With all the
deliberation of a connoisseur examining an old and rare edition, he
turned the pages with his slim fingers. There, as he had said, was
the paper, with th