"What?" asked Jackson, pricking up his ears.

"Don't speak ill of him behind his back, father," interposed Thames.

"If _I_ were your father, young gentleman," returned Jackson, enraged at
the interruption, "I'd teach _you_ not to speak till you were spoken
to."

Thames was about to reply, but a glance from Wood checked him.

"The rebuke is just," said the carpenter; "at the same time, I'm not
sorry to find you're a friend to fair play, which, as you seem to know,
is a jewel. Open that bottle with a blue seal, my dear. Gentlemen! a
glass of brandy will be no bad finish to our meal."

This proposal giving general satisfaction, the bottle circulated
swiftly; and Smith found the liquor so much to his taste, that he made
it pay double toll on its passage.

"Your son is a lad of spirit, Mr. Wood," observed Jackson, in a
slightly-sarcastic tone.

"He's not my son," rejoined the carpenter.

"How, Sir?"

"Except by adoption. Thames Darrell is--"

"My husband nicknames him Thames," interrupted Mrs. Wood, "because he