“What were they?” Evan burst out. “I will tell you another time. Now undress, and go to bed. When I talk to you, Van, I want a cool head to listen. You do nothing but yawn yard-measures.” The mouth of the weary youth instinctively snapped short the abhorred emblem. “Here, I will help you, Van.” In spite of his remonstrances and petitions for talk, she took off his coat and waistcoat, contemptuously criticizing the cloth of foreign tailors and their absurd cut. “Have you heard from Louisa?” asked Evan. “Yes, yes—about your sisters by-and-by. Now, be good, and go to bed.” She still treated him like a boy, whom she was going to force to the resolution of a man. Dandy’s sleeping-room was on the same floor as Evan’s. Thither, when she had quitted her son, she directed her steps. She had heard Dandy tumble up-stairs the moment his duties were over, and knew what to expect when the bottles had been in his way; for drink made Dandy savage, and a terror to himself. It was her command to him that, when he happened to come across liquor, he should immediately seek his bedroom and bolt the door, and Dandy had got the habit of obeying her. On this occasion he was vindictive against her, seeing that she had delivered him over to his enemy with malice prepense. A good deal of knocking, and summoning of Dandy by name, was required before she was admitted, and the sight of her did not delight him, as he testified. “I’m drunk!” he bawled. “Will that do for ye?” Mrs. Mel stood with her two hands crossed above her apron-string, noting his sullen lurking eye with the calm of a tamer of beasts. “You go out of the room; I’m drunk!” Dandy repeated, and pitched forward on the bed-post, in the middle of an oath. She understood that it was pure kindness on Dandy’s part to bid her go and be out of his reach; and therefore, on his becoming so abusive as to be menacing, she, without a shade of anger, and in the most unruffled manner, administered to him the remedy she had reserved, in the shape of a smart box on the ear, which sent him flat to the floor. He rose, after two or three efforts, quite subdued. “Now, Dandy, sit on the edge of the bed.” Dandy sat on the extreme edge, and Mrs. Mel pursued: “Now, Dandy, tell me what your master said at the table.” “Talked at ’em like a lord, he did,” said Dandy, stupidly consoling the boxed ear. “What were his words?” Dandy’s peculiarity was, that he never remembered anything save when drunk, and Mrs. Mel’s dose had rather sobered him. By degrees, scratching at his head haltingly, he gave the context. “‘Gentlemen, I hear for the first time, you’ve claims against my poor father. Nobody shall ever say he died, and any man was the worse for it. I’ll meet you next week, and I’ll bind myself by law. Here’s Lawyer Perkins. No; Mr. Perkins. I’ll pay off every penny. Gentlemen, look upon me as your debtor, and not my father.’” Delivering this with tolerable steadiness, Dandy asked, “Will that do?”