"Never mind what I said!" he broke out. "I've said something else right
now, and you've heard it, and that settles it."

He walked across the room and threw himself with emphasis into a Morris
chair. But the other man was swiftly upon him. The talon-like fingers
gripped his shoulders, jerked him to his feet, and held him there.

"You've reached the limit, Al, and I want you to understand it. I've tried
to treat you like . . . like my brother, but hereafter I shall treat you
like the thing that you are. Do you understand?"

The anger in his voice was cold. The blaze in his eyes was cold. It was
vastly more effective than any outburst, and Al cringed under it and under
the clutching hand that was bruising his shoulder muscles.

"It is only because of me that you have this house, that you have the food
you eat. Your position? Any other man would have been shown the door a
year ago--two years ago. I have held you in it. Your salary has been
charity. It has been paid out of my pocket. Mary . . . her dresses . . .
that gown she has on is made over; she wears the discarded dresses of her
sisters, of my wife. Charity--do you understand? Your children--they are
wearing the discarded clothes of my children, of the children of my
neighbours who think the clothes went to some orphan asylum. And it is an
orphan asylum . . . or it soon will be."

He emphasized each point with an unconscious tightening of his grip on the
shoulder. Al was squirming with the pain of it. The sweat was starting
out on his forehead.

"Now listen well to me," his brother went on. "In three minutes you will