“You talked my mother over, and you married her, and you’ve lived on her ever since, like a gentleman—or like what you think’s a gentleman—you, not worth boy’s pay on a mud-barge! Now see here! I’m not a boy now—or at anyrate I’m not a little one. I’m within half a head as tall as you. I’m not so strong as you now perhaps, and I know I’m not as big. But some day I shall be stronger, because you’re rotting yourself with idleness and booze, and then I’ll give you a bigger hiding than you can carry, for what I saw just now! You look forward to that! Until then, if you put your hand within a foot of my sister again, I’ll brain you with this poker, or I’ll stick something into you,—I’ll go for you with whatever I can lay hold of! Now you remember that!” Johnny’s voice was loud again, and once more Nan appealed. “All right, mother,” he answered, more quietly, “but I’ll make him understand. I shall keep a little more at home in the evenings now, my fine fellow, and I shall take all this table to draw on, whether you like it or not, unless my sister or my mother want to use it. I’ve got more right here than you. And if I go out I’ll ask about your behaviour when I come in. I’ve kept quiet and knuckled under to you, for the sake of peace, and so as not to worry mother. There’s been enough o’ that. If you want rows you shall have ’em! I’ll make you as frightened of me as you are of the p’lice. Ah! you know what I mean!” Johnny had no idea of what he meant himself, but he had been sharp enough to observe the effect of his earlier allusion to the police, and he followed it up. “You know what I mean! You’d look a deal more at home in gaol than here, in a white shirt, eating other people’s victuals!” Mr. Butson decided that bluster would not do just at present. He wondered if Johnny really did know anything, and how much. But surely not, or he would go a good deal farther. Anyway, best be cautious. So Mr. Butson growled, “Oh, all right. Damn lot o’ fuss to make over nothin’. _I_ don’t want no words.” And Bessy, still crying, took hold of her brother’s arm and said, “Don’t say any more, Johnny, please. I—I—p’raps I oughtn’t to ha’ done what I did!” “What you did!” Johnny answered, not so cheaply appeased. “You do what you like, Bess—I’ll see he don’t interfere. He says he don’t want any words—he shan’t have ’em. He’ll have something harder if he touches you! Let go my arm a minute. Go on, you can get up now!” This to Butson, with the black nose. “You’d better go an’ wash yourself. But none o’ your tricks! If you try to lay hold o’ me from behind, or anything like that, you’ll get it, with anything I can catch hold of! So now you know!” And Mr. Henry Butson, growling indistinctly, went out to wash his face, closely watched by Johnny, poker in hand.