e dropped and snarled. "Who's master here? Is it me, or is it the
cat? D'ye think as I can't turn ye all out of it neck and crop, if I've
a mind? You and Edwin, and the lot of ye! And to-night too! Give me
some money now, and quicker than that! I've got nought but sovereigns
and notes. I'll go down and get the spawn myself--ay! and order the
earth too! I'll make it my business to show my childer--But I mun have
some change for my car fares." He breathed heavily.

"I'm sure Edwin won't like it," Maggie murmured.

"Edwin! Hast told Edwin?" Darius also murmured, but it was a murmur of
rage.

"No, I haven't. Edwin's got quite enough on his hands as it is, without
any other worries."

There was the noise of a sudden movement, and of a chair falling.

"Bugger you all!" Darius burst out with a fury whose restraint showed
that he had unsuspected reserves of strength. And then he began to
swear. Edwin, like many timid men, often used forbidden words with much
ferocity in private. Once he had had a long philosophic argument with
Tom Orgreave on the subject of profanity. They had discussed all
aspects of it, from its religious origin to its psychological results,
and Edwin's theory had been that it was only improper by a purely
superstitious convention, and that no man of sense could possibly be
offended, in himself, by the mere sound of words that had been deprived
of meaning. He might be offended on behalf of an unreasoning
fellow-listener, such as a woman, but not personally. Edwin now
discovered that his theory did not hold. He was offended. He was
almost horrified. He had never in his life till that moment heard
Darius swear. He heard him now. He considered himself to be a fairly
first-class authority on swearing; he thought that he was familiar with
all the sacred words and with all the combinations of them. He was
mistaken. His father's profanity was a brilliant and appalling
revelation. It comprised words which were strange to him, and strange
perversions that renewed the vigour of decrepit words. For Edwin, it
was a whole series of fresh formulae, brutal and shameless beyond his
experience, full of images and similes of the most startling candour,
and drawing its inspiration always from the sickening bases of life.
Darius had remembered with ease the vocabulary to which he was hourly
accustomed when he began life as a man of seven. For more than fifty
years he had carried within himself