He said thickly:
"If you go there again and use my name, I'll Well, it's lucky for you
you're not my age. Anyway I'll relieve you of my acquaintanceship in
future. Good-evening!" and he went to the door. Mr. Ventnor had risen.
"Very well," he said loudly. "Good riddance! You wait and see which boot
the leg is on!"
But Bob Pillin was gone, leaving the lawyer with a very red face, a very
angry heart, and a vague sense of disorder in his speech. Not only
Bob Pillin, but his tender aspirations had all left him; he no longer
dallied with the memory of Mrs. Larne, but like a man and a Briton
thought only of how to get his own back, and punish evildoers. The
atrocious words of his young friend, "It's not the conduct of a
gentleman," festered in the heart of one who was made gentle not merely
by nature but by Act of Parliament, and he registered a solemn vow to
wipe the insult out, if not with blood, with verjuice. It was his duty,
and they should d---d well see him do it!
IV
Sylvanus Heythorp seldom went to bed before one or rose before eleven.
The latter habit alone kept his valet from handing in the resignation
which the former habit prompted almost every night.
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