from his lips. He asked to have little things explained to him--the two
cheque-books, for instance,--and what I thought of doing when this money
was all gone: for he supposed I did not expect the same amount to hand
every two years; unless, he added, I had given him no more than a couple
of years' lease of life when I started for my tour. 'Then the money's
gone!' he summed up; and this was the signal for redemanding
explanations. Had he not treated me fairly and frankly in handing over
my own to me on the day of my majority? Yes.

'And like a fool, you think--eh?'

'I have no such thought in my head, sir.'

'You have been keeping that fellow in his profligacy, and you 're keeping
him now. Why, you 're all but a beggar! . . . Comes to my house,
talks of his birth, carries off my daughter, makes her mad, lets her
child grow up to lay hold of her money, and then grips him fast and pecks
him, fleeces him! . . . You 're beggared--d 'ye know that? He's had
the two years of you, and sucked you dry. What were you about? What
were you doing? Did you have your head on? You shared cheque-books?
good! . . . The devil in hell never found such a fool as you! You
had your house full of your foreign bonyrobers--eh? Out with it! How
did you pass your time? Drunk and dancing?'

By such degrees my grandfather worked himself up to the pitch for his
style of eloquence. I have given a faint specimen of it. When I took
the liberty to consider that I had heard enough, he followed me out of
the library into the hall, where Janet stood. In her presence, he
charged the princess and her family with being a pack of greedy
adventurers, conspirators with 'that fellow' to plunder me; and for a