"Where? why, there!"
"That's no son of mine," said Philip, trembling with resentment.
"No such wretch as that, has any claim on me. My children are
pleasant to look at, and they wait upon me, and get my meat and
drink ready, and are useful to me. I've a right to it! I'm
eighty-seven!"
"You're old enough to be no older," muttered William, looking at
him grudgingly, with his hands in his pockets. "I don't know what
good you are, myself. We could have a deal more pleasure without
you."
"MY son, Mr. Redlaw!" said the old man. "MY son, too! The boy
talking to me of MY son! Why, what has he ever done to give me any
pleasure, I should like to know?"
"I don't know what you have ever done to give ME any pleasure,"
said William, sulkily.
"Let me think," said the old man. "For how many Christmas times
running, have I sat in my warm place, and never had to come out in
the cold night air; and have made good cheer, without being
disturbed by any such uncomfortable, wretched sight as him there?
Is it twenty, William?"
"Nigher forty, it seems," he muttered. "Why, when I look at my
father, sir, and come to think of it," addressing Redlaw, with an
impatience and irritation that were quite new, "I'm whipped if I
can see anything in him but a calendar of ever so many years of
eating and drinking, and making himself comfortable, over and over
again.
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