"Really," he said, stiffly, "your behaviour is strange, to put it mildly. May I ask, then, the object of your intru--your visit." "Certainly, if it affords you any satisfaction." Then glancing around the room, and finishing up with a look out of the window, he went on. "Say, cousin Dudley, this is a pretty shebang enough. The object of my visit is this: You've bossed up this show about long enough. Suppose you abdicate now and let me have a turn?" "Have you taken leave of your senses?" "Not much. Have you?" There was a sternness about the speaker's laconic reply which caused Mr Vallance to quail involuntarily. He made a step towards the bell-pull. The other laughed. "No, no. Don't exert yourself. I'm not going yet--and if you bring in all the pap-fed flunkeys and swipe-guzzling stable-hands on your establishment, the poor devils'll only get badly hurt without furthering your object. I mean what I say--you've got to quit sooner or later. If you're wise it'll be sooner." "Indeed! And why?" was the answer, given with cutting politeness. "Well, it's this way. If you agree to clear at once, I'll give you five hundred a year--no, I'll make it six--out of the property for your life. That and the parsonic pickings will keep you in clover. If you mean fighting, I'm your man. But I warn you I'm prepared to plank down ever so many thousands of pounds to get you out--and when I've got you out I'll come down on you for every shilling of arrears, by George, I will!" "Oh, you will?" "You may bet your life on it." For some moments the two men looked full in each other's faces without speaking. The sneer of conscious power on that of the one was matched by the expression of defiance, hatred, mingled with fear, on that of the other. "Well, well," said Mr Vallance at length. "Take your own course. Only, let me remind you that you are in England now, and that in this country we don't settle important matters in any such rough and ready fashion." "Oh don't make any mistake; I'm not going to _hurt_ you, if that's what you're thinking about. You see, I've been knocking around a goodish few years, and now I've a fancy for settling down--settling down _in my own place_, you understand." There was a smug smile of triumph on the parson's face now. His cousin was merely "bouncing" to extort terms. It would come to that in a few minutes. But the look aroused a very demon in the other. His eyes burned like live coals, though when he spoke his voice was under perfect control. "Again, I say, you needn't be afraid," he said. "Everything shall be done in due course of law." "But--but, my good fellow, surely you are aware you haven't a leg to stand on?" "I reckon I'm the best judge of that. See here, most reverend Dudley. Do you remember our last interview, here, in this very room? Safe in the triumph of your successful fraud--fraud, I say, if you prefer it, forgery--you jeered at me, jeered at the man you had robbed. Remember?"