"Pardon me, sir," I replied (at times we were stiffly formal) and then I placed the chair back against the wall. He resumed his walk muttering something, and suddenly his stiff forensic bearing became lithely natural. "Dan," he said, "do you know what I believe?" and before I had time to reply, he continued: "I believe that wolf is trying to marry my sister. And I want to say this, to go no farther, that if he wins her, I'll cut his throat. Mean it?" he cried, his eyes aflame, "I mean it just as sure as there is a God in Heaven. I have always hated that man. I never told you my first recollection of him. I was playing alone in the yard, sitting under a tree. I was very young, I know, but I remember it well. He came along with a bone which he threw to his dog, and then he bent over me and wiped his greasy hands on my head. I howled in anger, and someone came; my words were so few that I could not set forth my resentment." He strode to the door and then hastily came back. "He is a snake, and May is a bird, and he perhaps can charm her, but if he does, I'll let the blood out of his throat. Father always hated him; of late it seems that he is giving way. But I won't give way." "Mars. Bob, you know what I think of him. One night I tried to kill him, and--" "Hush!" he cried, glaring at me fiercely. "You are old enough to hang." "Flattering growth, looking toward a hopeful majority," I replied. He shot a keen glance at me. "Dan, sometimes you are inspired with a scythe-like wisdom." "My association with you, Mars. Bob--" "That will do. You still have the negro's flattery. But it is an infamous shame that you are not white." "I am, nearly." He stamped his foot hard upon the floor. "Fool, there is no such thing under social law as nearly white. One drop of negro blood would Africanize humanity." "Then one drop of unfortunate blood would make the whole world unjust." "That will do," he said. "If I let you go on you will preach me an abolition sermon." I bowed and he sat down, drawing his chair near to the dying fire and placing his slippered feet against the chimney. He mused for a long time, and then he said, without looking at me. "I have been reading an old man's book, and it impresses upon me the glorious appreciation of youth. To be young and to place the proper estimate upon it--how magnificent!" "But isn't there a danger in such early ripeness?" I asked. "Sir Sage," he said, shifting his feet and crossing them. "Yes, there may be, and you give evidences of it."