"I will not smoke here again. I'll smoke my cigar in the open air for the future." "I should prefer your not smoking at all; _I_ don't smoke." "Why, sir, you wouldn't keep everybody from smoking because you don't smoke? If it were not for tobacco, the revenue of nations would go to----" "Blazes," he is about to say, but he checks himself in time. There is so little in unison between these two natures, that when they meet it seems to be almost a necessity that they should clash. One is harsh and sour; the other is tolerant and sweet. Felix was more the son of his mother than the son of his father; the sweetness of her nature had come to him with the milk he had drawn from her breast. Father and son had not been brought together for very many years until now, and the experience they have gained of each other is not agreeable to either of them. "You scarcely need me to tell you," says the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, as his son stopped at the dangerous word, "that your remarks do continual violence to my feelings." "We certainly don't seem to pull nicely together, father. You have some business matters to speak to me about. Perhaps it will be as well to proceed to them." The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell looks among the papers on the table, and says, "Your uncle, as you know, died six weeks ago." "So your letter informed me. Did you see him before he died?" "I have not seen him for years. I did not approve of him; and but for its being understood that he intended to leave you as his heir, I should have declined to be upon friendly terms with him." "He was my mother's brother, and he has been kind to me." "So far as defraying the expenses of your education----" "_All_ my expenses, father," interrupts Felix. "Please to remember that he made me a regular allowance." "By which you intend me to remember also," says the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell with a frown, "that you have been no expense to me." "If you please to put it that way, you can. But I should prefer your thinking that I reminded you of the circumstance in order that you might do justice to the memory of my uncle." "I do not need you to remind me of my duty; I need _no_ reminding of that. It is always before me. The tone of your remarks, and your general bearing towards me, proceed from the stipulation made by your uncle that you should be educated away from me and from this house."