"Put it that way if you like," said Levy, with a shrug of his massive shoulders. "It isn't the case, but what does that matter so long as you're 'appy?" "No," said Teddy through his teeth; "nothing matters now that I've come back in time." "In time for what?" "To turn you out of the house if you don't clear out this instant!" The great gross man looked upon his athletic young opponent, and folded his arms with a guttural chuckle. "So you mean to chuck me out, do you?" "By all my gods, if you make me, Mr. Levy! Here's your hat; there's the door; and never you dare to set foot in this house again." The money-lender took his shiny topper, gave it a meditative polish with his sleeve, and actually went as bidden to the threshold of the porch; but I saw the suppression of a grin beneath the pendulous nose, a cunning twinkle in the inscrutable eyes, and it did not astonish me when the fellow turned to deliver a Parthian shot. I was only surprised at the harmless character of the shot. "May I ask whose house it is?" were his words, in themselves notable chiefly for the aspirates of undue deliberation. "Not mine, I know; but I'm the son of the house," returned Teddy truculently, "and out you go!" "Are you so sure that it's even your father's house?" inquired Levy with the deadly suavity of which he was capable when he liked. A groan from Mr. Garland confirmed the doubt implied in the words. "The whole place is his," declared the son, with a sort of nervous scorn--"freehold and everything." "The whole place happens to be _mine_--'freehold and everything!'" replied Levy, spitting his iced poison in separate syllables. "And as for clearing out, that'll be your job, and I've given you a week to do it in--the two of you!" He stood a moment in the open doorway, towering in his triumph, glaring on us all in turn, but at Raffles longest and last of all. "And you needn't think you're going to save the old man," came with a passionate hiss, "like you did the son--_because I know all about you now_!" CHAPTER VIII The State of the Case