"But I got a worse knock down than that. Says she, 'Mr. Growther, I will not dispute all the hard things you have said of yourself (you see I had beat her on that line of argerment); I won't dispute all that you say (and I felt a little sot up agin, for I didn't know what she was a-drivin' at), but,' says she, 'I think you've got some natural feelin's. Suppose you had a little son, and while he was out in the street a wicked man should carry him off and treat him so cruelly that, instead of growin' to be strong and fine-lookin', he should become a puny, deformed little critter. Suppose at last you should hear where he was, and that he was longin' to escape from the cruel bands of his harsh master, who kept on a-treatin' of him worse and worse, would you, his father, go and coolly look at him and say, "If you was only a handsome boy, with a strong mind in a strong body, I'd deliver you out of this tyrant's clutches and take you back to be my son again; but since you are a poor, weak, deformed little critter, that can never do much, or be much, I'll leave you here to be abused and tormented as before"--is that what you would do, Mr. Growther?' "Well, she spoke it all so earnest and real-like that I got off my guard, and I jist riz right up from my cheer, and I got hold of my heavy old cane there, and it seemed as if my hair stood right up on end, I was that mad at the old curmudgeon that had my boy, and I half shouts, 'No! that ain't what I'd do, I'd go for that cuss that stole my boy, and for every blow he'd given the little chap, I'd give him a hundred.' "'But what would you do with the poor little boy?' she asks. At that I began to choke, my feelin's was so stirred up, and moppin' my eyes, I said, 'Poor little chap, all beaten and abused out o' shape! What would I do with him? Why, I couldn't do 'nuff for him in tryn' to make him forget all the hard times he'd had.' Then says she, 'You would twit the child with bein' weak, puny, and deformed, would you?' I was now hobblin' up and down the room in a great state of excitement, and says I, 'Mrs. Arnot, mean a man as I am, I wouldn't treat any human critter so, let alone my own flesh and blood, that had been so abused that it makes my heart ache to think on't.'