"He is a scoundrel, that fellow!" he shouted. "A week ago I paid sixty thousand roubles for him, and now he extorts more money from me and behaves like this on the top of it all!" He lifted his hands and shook them like Moses when he threw down the stone tablets on the heads of the worshippers of the golden calf. "I will thrash him!" roared the mill-owner. Seeing his excitement, and guessing that a stick in Adler's hand might have deplorable results, the pastor pacified him. "My dear Gottlieb, that is quite unnecessary. Leave it to me, and I will tell Ferdinand either not to come to our house, or to behave in a decent and Christian way." "Johann!" shouted the manufacturer, and when the footman appeared he continued without softening his voice: "Send to the town at once for Ferdinand. I will flog the scoundrel!" The footman looked amazed and frightened, but the pastor gave him a knowing look, and the sagacious Johann went out. "Dear Gottlieb," said Boehme, "Ferdinand is too old to be flogged with a stick, or even to be reprimanded too violently. Excessive severity will not only fail to improve him, but may cause him to lay hands on his own life; he is an ambitious boy." This remark had a sudden effect on Adler. He opened his eyes wide and fell back into a chair. "What is that you are saying, Martin?" he gasped. "Johann! Water!" Johann brought the water, and the old man calmed down by degrees. He gave no more orders to fetch Ferdinand. "Yes, the madcap might do such a thing," he whispered in depression, and dropped his head on his chest. This strong and energetic old man understood that his son had taken the wrong turning and ought to be led back, but he did not know how to do it. Late at night Ferdinand returned home in an excellent temper. He looked for his father in all the rooms, left the doors open, and beat a tattoo on tables and chairs with his walking-stick, singing in a loud and false baritone: "Allons, enfants de la patrie...." He reached the study and stood before his father, with his Scotch cap perched on the back of his head, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and smelling of wine; sparks of mirth, untempered by reason, were burning in his eyes. When he came to the line "Aux armes, citoyens!" his enthusiasm was such that he flourished his cane over his father's head. The old man was not accustomed to people who waved sticks over him. He sprang up from his chair, and looking fiercely at his son, cried: "You are drunk, you scoundrel!" Ferdinand stepped back and said coolly: "Please don't call me a scoundrel, father; if I get accustomed to being called such names at home, it might not make the slightest difference to me if anyone else called me or my father these names. One can get accustomed to anything." The moderate tone and clear exposition did not fail to impress the cotton-spinner. "You are without honour," he said after a while; "you wanted to seduce old Boehme's daughter."