"Aren't you taking anything, sir?" asked Anthony. "Who, me? Yes, yes, of course. Why, let me see--bring me a pitcher of beer." He added as the servant disappeared: "Never could get a taste for Scotch, and rye doesn't seem to be--er--good form. Eh, Anthony?" "Nonsense," frowned the son, "haven't you a right to be comfortable in your own house?" "Come, come!" rumbled John Woodbury. "A young fellow in your position can't have a boor for a father, eh?" It was apparently an old argument between them, for Anthony stared gloomily at the fire, making no attempt to reply; and he glanced up in relief when the servant entered with the liquor. John Woodbury, however, returned to the charge as soon as they were left alone again, saying: "As a matter of fact, I'm about to set you up in an establishment of your own in New York." He made a vastly inclusive gesture. "Everything done up brown--old house--high-class interior decorator, to get you started with a splash." "Are you tired of Long Island?" "_I'm_ not going to the city, but you will." "And my work?" "A gentleman of the class you'll be in can't callous his hands with work. I spent my life making money; you can use your life throwing it away--like a gentleman. But"--he reached out at this point and smashed a burly fist into a palm hardly less hard--"but I'll be damned, Anthony, if I'll let you stay here in Long Island wasting your time riding the wildest horses you can get and practising with an infernal revolver. What the devil do you mean by it?" "I don't know," said the other, musing. "Of course the days of revolvers are past, but I love the feel of the butt against my palm--I love the kick of the barrel tossing up--I love the balance; and when I have a six-shooter in my hand, sir, I feel as if I had six lives. Odd, isn't it?" He grew excited as he talked, his eyes gleaming with dancing points of fire. "And I'll tell you this, sir: I'd rather be out in the country where men still wear guns, where the sky isn't stained with filthy coal smoke, where there's an horizon wide enough to breathe in, where there's man-talk instead of this damned chatter over tea-cups--" "Stop!" cried John Woodbury, and leaned forward, "no matter what fool ideas you get into your head--you're going to be a _gentleman_!" The swaying forward of that mighty body, the outward thrust of the jaws, the ring of the voice, was like the crashing of an ax when armoured men meet in battle. The flicker in the eyes of Anthony was the rapier which swerves from the ax and then leaps at the heart. For a critical second their glances crossed and then the habit of obedience conquered. "I suppose you know, sir." The father stared gloomily at the floor. "You're sort of mad, Anthony?"