clever, half-educated fellow: he did not sin from ignorance, but had wit
enough to have bad principles, and he was as impudent as if he had lived
all his life in the best society. He was not frightened at the banker's
drab breeches and imposing air--not he! The Duke of Wellington would
not have frightened Luke Darvil, unless his grace had had the constables
for his /aides-de-camp/.

The banker, to use a homely phrase, was "taken aback."

"Look you here, Mr. What's-your-name!" said Darvil, swallowing a glass
of the raw alcohol as if it had been water--"look you now--you can't
humbug me. What the devil do you care about my daughter's
respectability or comfort, or anything else, grave old dog as you are!
It is my daughter herself you are licking your brown old chaps at!--and,
'faith, my Alley is a very pretty girl--very--but queer as moonshine.
You'll drive a much better bargain with me than with her."

The banker coloured scarlet--he bit his lips and measured his companion
from head to foot (while the latter lolled on the sofa), as if he were
meditating the possibility of kicking him down-stairs. But Luke Darvil
would have thrashed the banker and all his clerks into the bargain. His
frame was like a trunk of thews and muscles, packed up by that careful
dame, Nature, as tightly as possible; and a prizefighter would have
thought twice before he had entered the ring against so awkward a
customer. The banker was a man prudent to a fault, and he pushed his
chair six inches back, as he concluded his survey.

"Sir," then said he, very quietly, "do not let us misunderstand each
other. Your daughter is safe from your control--if you molest her, the
law will protect--"