‘Your father’s house,’ I corrected. ‘Call him, and I will give explanations.’ ‘Damn your explanations! Get out of the house, you puppy; or I’ll have the servants up, and have you ducked in the horse-pond.’ ‘Bah!’ I said. ‘There’s not one of them would lay hands on me at your bidding. Call your father, I say, or I will go and find him myself.’ He broke out in a succession of oaths, using language I had heard in the streets of London, but nowhere else. I stood perfectly still, and watchful. All at once he turned and went into the gallery, over the balustrade of which he shouted, ‘Martin! Go and tell my father to come here--to the armoury--at once. Tell him there’s a fellow here out of his mind.’ I remained quiet, with my scabbard in one hand, and the rapier in the other--a dangerous weapon enough, for it was, though slight, as sharp as a needle, and I knew it for a bit of excellent temper. Brotherton stood outside waiting for his father. In a few moments I heard the voice of the old man. ‘Boys! boys!’ he cried; ‘what is all this to do?’ ‘Why, sir,’ answered Geoffrey, trying to be calm, ‘here’s that fellow Cumbermede confesses to have stolen the most valuable of the swords out of the armoury--one that’s been in the family for two hundred years, and says he means to keep it.’ I just caught the word _liar_ ere it escaped my lips: I would spare the son in his father’s presence. ‘Tut! tut!’ said Sir Giles. ‘What does it all mean? You’re at your old quarrelsome tricks, my boy! Really you ought to be wiser by this time!’ As he spoke, he entered panting, and with the rubicund glow beginning to return upon a face from which the message had evidently banished it. ‘Tut! tut!’ he said again, half starting back as he caught sight of me with the weapon in my hand--‘What is it all about, Mr Cumbermede? I thought _you_ had more sense!’ ‘Sir Giles,’ I said, ‘I have not confessed to having stolen the sword--only to having taken it.’ ‘A very different thing,’ he returned, trying to laugh. ‘But come now; tell me all about it. We can’t have quarrelling like this, you know. We can’t have pot-house work here.’ ‘That is just why I sent for you, Sir Giles,’ I answered, replacing the rapier on the wall. ‘I want to tell you the whole story.’ ‘Let’s have it, then.’ ‘Mind, I don’t believe a word of it,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ said his father, sharply. ‘Mr Brotherton,’ I said, ‘I offered to tell the story to Sir Giles--not to you.’ ‘You offered!’ he sneered. ‘You may be compelled--under different circumstances by-and-by, if you don’t mind what you’re about.’ ‘Come now--no more of this!’ said Sir Giles. Thereupon I began at the beginning, and told him the story of the sword, as I have already given it to my reader. He fidgeted a little, but Geoffrey kept himself stock-still during the whole of the narrative. As soon as I had ended Sir Giles said,