“Your son says a good many things—to others,” he said quietly.
“Well, you see, that was sheer carelessness. We were told you were a fairly capable man—I beg your pardon?”
“I didn’t speak. Yes?”
“A fairly capable man, and—er—a fairly truthful one. You must give me leave to doubt the fact of your being either the one or the other, Mr. Ormond.”
“Will you kindly tell me why?”
“Er—er—you have no right to take that tone with me, sir.”
“I’ll show you if I have in a minute. Why?”
“Kiliat, my dear fellow, perhaps you had better let me speak———”
“I won’t! Curse it! D’you think I can’t manage the man myself?”
If Ormond had been one whit less angry he must have laughed. But he stood unmoving, with a set to his body that caught Bert Kiliat’s idle attention and brought him up over the paddock side to hear his father say:
. . . “And so it is not only your incessant and puerile demands, annoying though they are. We shall require you to give very good reasons for the extraordinary falling off in the returns———”
“Whew!” whistled young Kiliat, staring on the three. “I say, pater, I told you to go a bit slow with Ormond.”
