annoyance."

"I don't know why you are telling me all this, Richard," his wife
said calmly. "I did not cast any reflections as to the manner in
which you made your choice. I only said I wished to see the list."

"I do not see that the list concerns you," the mayor said. "Why do
you wish to see it?"

"I wish to see it, Richard, because I suspect that the name of my
Cousin Jack Stilwell is upon it."

"Oh, mother!" cried Alice, who had been listening in surprise to
the conversation, suddenly starting to her feet; "you don't mean
that they have pressed Jack to be a soldier."

"Leave the room, Alice," her father said angrily. "This is no
concern of a child like you." When the door closed behind the girl
he said to his wife:

"Naturally his name is in the list. I selected fifty of the most
worthless fellows in Southampton, and his name was the first which
occurred to me. What then?"

"Then I tell you, Richard," Dame Anthony said, rising, "that you
are a wretch, a mean, cowardly, cruel wretch. You have vented your
spite upon Jack, whom I love as if he were my own son, because he
would not put up with the tyranny of your foreman and yourself.
You may be Mayor of Southampton, you may be a great man in your
own way, but I call you a mean, pitiful fellow. I won't stay in