'Does the boy know what he's a saying of!' cried the astonished John
Willet.

'Father,' returned Joe, 'I know what I say and mean, well--better than
you do when you hear me. I can bear with you, but I cannot bear the
contempt that your treating me in the way you do, brings upon me from
others every day. Look at other young men of my age. Have they no
liberty, no will, no right to speak? Are they obliged to sit mumchance,
and to be ordered about till they are the laughing-stock of young and
old? I am a bye-word all over Chigwell, and I say--and it's fairer
my saying so now, than waiting till you are dead, and I have got your
money--I say, that before long I shall be driven to break such bounds,
and that when I do, it won't be me that you'll have to blame, but your
own self, and no other.'

John Willet was so amazed by the exasperation and boldness of his
hopeful son, that he sat as one bewildered, staring in a ludicrous
manner at the boiler, and endeavouring, but quite ineffectually, to
collect his tardy thoughts, and invent an answer. The guests, scarcely
less disturbed, were equally at a loss; and at length, with a variety
of muttered, half-expressed condolences, and pieces of advice, rose to
depart; being at the same time slightly muddled with liquor.

The honest locksmith alone addressed a few words of coherent and
sensible advice to both parties, urging John Willet to remember that
Joe was nearly arrived at man's estate, and should not be ruled with
too tight a hand, and exhorting Joe himself to bear with his father's
caprices, and rather endeavour to turn them aside by temperate
remonstrance than by ill-timed rebellion. This advice was received as