"Miss Swartz, I love Amelia, and we've been engaged almost all our

lives," Osborne said to his partner; and during all the dinner, George

rattled on with a volubility which surprised himself, and made his

father doubly nervous for the fight which was to take place as soon as

the ladies were gone.

The difference between the pair was, that while the father was violent

and a bully, the son had thrice the nerve and courage of the parent,

and could not merely make an attack, but resist it; and finding that

the moment was now come when the contest between him and his father was

to be decided, he took his dinner with perfect coolness and appetite

before the engagement began. Old Osborne, on the contrary, was

nervous, and drank much. He floundered in his conversation with the

ladies, his neighbours: George's coolness only rendering him more

angry. It made him half mad to see the calm way in which George,

flapping his napkin, and with a swaggering bow, opened the door for the

ladies to leave the room; and filling himself a glass of wine, smacked

it, and looked his father full in the face, as if to say, "Gentlemen of

the Guard, fire first." The old man also took a supply of ammunition,

but his decanter clinked against the glass as he tried to fill it.

After giving a great heave, and with a purple choking face, he then

began. "How dare you, sir, mention that person's name before Miss

Swartz to-day, in my drawing-room? I ask you, sir, how dare you do it?"

"Stop, sir," says George, "don't say dare, sir. Dare isn't a word to

be used to a Captain in the British Army."

"I shall say what I like to my son, sir. I can cut him off with a

shilling if I like. I can make him a beggar if I like. I WILL say what

I like," the elder said.

"I'm a gentleman though I AM your son, sir," George answered haughtily.

"Any communications which you have to make to me, or any orders which

you may please to give, I beg may be couched in that kind of language

which I am accustomed to hear."

Whenever the lad assumed his haughty manner, it always created either

great awe or great irritation in the parent. Old Osborne stood in

secret terror of his son as a better gentleman than himself; and

perhaps my readers may have remarked in their experience of this Vanity

Fair of ours, that there is no character which a low-minded man so much

mistrusts as that of a gentleman.

"My father didn't give me the education you have had, nor the

advantages you have had, nor the money you have had. If I had kept the

company SOME FOLKS have had through MY MEANS, perhaps my son wouldn't

have any reason to brag, sir, of his SUPERIORITY and WEST END AIRS

(these words were uttered in the elder Osborne's most sarcastic tones).

But it wasn't considered the part of a gentleman, in MY time, for a man

to insult his father. If I'd done any such thing, mine would have

kicked me downstairs, sir."




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