The brewer was standing with his back to the empty fireplace, with his hands behind the tails of his coat, and his eyes fixed upon a letter which he had just read, and which lay open upon his desk. Rowan advanced with his hand out, and Tappitt, hesitating a little as he obeyed the summons, put out his own and just touched that of his visitor; then hastily he resumed his position, with his arm behind his coattail.
“I have come down,” said Rowan, “because I thought it might be well to have a little chat with you before breakfast.”
The letter which lay open on the desk was from Rowan’s lawyer in London, and contained that offer on Rowan’s part of a thousand a year and retirement, to which Luke still looked as the most comfortable termination of all their difficulties. Luke had almost forgotten that he had, ten days since, absolutely instructed his lawyer to make the offer; but there was the offer made, and lying on Tappitt’s table. Tappitt had been considering it for the last five minutes, and every additional moment had added to the enmity which he felt against Rowan. Rowan, at twenty-five, no doubt regarded Tappitt, who was nearer sixty than fifty, as a very old man; but men of fifty-five do not like to be so regarded, and are not anxious to be laid upon shelves by their juniors. And, moreover, where was Tappitt to find his security for the thousand a year—as he had not failed to remark to himself on his first glance over the lawyer’s letter. Buy him out, indeed, and lay him on one side! He hated Rowan with all his heart;—and his hatred was much more bitter in its nature than that which Rowan was capable of feeling for him. He remembered the champagne; he remembered the young man’s busy calling for things in his own house; he remembered the sneers against the beer, and the want of respect with which his experience in the craft had been treated. Buy him out! No; not as long as he had a five-pound note to spend, or a leg to stand upon. He was strong in his resolution now, and capable of strength, for Mrs. Tappitt was also on his side. Mrs. Rowan had not quite kept her secret as to what had transpired at the inn, and Mrs. Tappitt was certain that Rachel Ray had succeeded. When Tappitt declared that morning that he would fight it out to the last, Mrs. T. applauded his courage.
“Oh! a little chat, is it?” said Tappitt. “About this letter that I’ve just got, I suppose;” and he gave a contemptuous poke to the epistle with one of his hands.
“What letter?” asked Rowan.
“Come now, young man, don’t let us have any humbug and trickery, whatever we may do. If there’s anything I do hate, it’s deceit.”
All Rowan’s wrath returned upon him instantly, redoubled and trebled in its energy. “What do you mean, sir?” said he. “Who is trying to deceive anybody? How dare you speak to me in such language as that?”
“Now, look here, Mr. Rowan. This letter comes from your man in Craven Street, as of course you know very well. You have chosen to put our business in the hands of the lawyers, and in the hands of the lawyers it shall remain. I have been very wrong in attempting to have any dealings with you. I should have known what sort of a man you were before I let you put your foot in the concern. But I know enough of you now, and, if you please, you’ll keep yourself on the other side of those gates for the future. D’ye hear me? Unless you wish to be turned out by the men, don’t you put your feet inside the brewery premises any more.” And Tappitt’s face as he uttered these words was a face very unpleasant to behold.
Luke was so astounded that he could not bethink himself at the moment of the most becoming words in which to answer his enemy. His first idea had prompted him to repudiate all present knowledge of the lawyer’s letter, seeing that the lawyer’s letter had been the ground of that charge against him of deceit. But having been thus kicked out—kicked out as far as words could kick him, and threatened with personal violence should those words not be obeyed, he found himself unable to go back to the lawyer’s letter. “I should like to see any one of your men dare to touch me,” said he.
“You shall see it very soon if you don’t take yourself off,” said Tappitt. Luckily the men were gone to breakfast, and opportunity for violence was wanting.
Luke looked round, and then remembered that he and Tappitt were probably alone in the place. “Mr. Tappitt,” said he, “you’re a very foolish man.”
“I dare say,” said Tappitt; “very foolish not to give up my own bread, and my wife’s and children’s bread, to an adventurer like you.”
“I have endeavoured to treat you with kindness and also with honesty, and because you differ from me, as of course you have a right to do, you think it best to insult me with all the
