And here he sat, the patroon, sucking his pipe, nursing his stomach; too cautious, too thrifty to stand like a man, even for the honor of his own roof-tree!  Lord! how mean, how sordid did he look to me, sulking there, his mottled double-chin crowded out upon his stock, his bow-legs wide to cradle the huge belly, his small eyes obstinately a-squint and partly shut, which lent a gross shrewdness to the expanse of fat, almost baleful, like the eye of a squid in its shapeless, jellied body!

“What are your plans?” he said, abruptly.

I told him that, through Sir George, I had placed my poor services at the State’s disposal.

“You mean the rebel State’s disposal?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you are ready to enlist?”

“Quite ready, Sir Lupus.”

“Only awaiting summons from Clinton and Schuyler?” he sneered.

“That is all, sir.”

“And what about your properties in Florida?”

“I can do nothing there.  If they confiscate them in my absence, they might do worse were I to go back and defy them.  I believe my life is worth something to our cause, and it would be only to waste it foolishly if I returned to fight for a few indigo-vats and canefields.”

“While you can remain here and fight for other people’s hen-coops, eh?”

“No, sir; only to take up the common quarrel and stand for that liberty which we inherited from those who now seek to dispossess us.”

“Quite an orator!” he observed, grimly.  “The Ormonds were formerly more ready with their swords than with their tongues.”

“I trust I shall not fail to sustain their traditions,” I said, controlling my anger with a desperate effort.

He burst out into a hollow laugh.

“There you go, red as a turkey-cock and madder than a singed tree-cat!  George, can’t you let me plague you in comfort!  Dammy, it’s undutiful!  For pity’s sake! let me sneer—­let me gibe and jeer if it eases me.”

I glared at him, half inclined to laugh.

“Curse it!” he said, wrathfully, “I’m serious.  You don’t know how serious I am.  It’s no laughing matter, George.  I must do something to ease me!” He burst out into a roar, swearing in volleys.

“D’ ye think I wish to appear contemptible?” he shouted.  “D’ ye think I like to sit here like an old wife, scolding in one breath and preaching thrift in the next?  A weak-kneed, chicken-livered, white-bellied old bullfrog that squeaks and jumps, plunk! into the puddle when a footstep falls in the grass!  Am I not a patroon?  Am I not Dutch?  Granted I’m fat and slow and a glutton, and lazy as a wolverine.  I can fight like one, too!  Don’t make any mistake there, George!”

His broad face flushed crimson, his little, green eyes snapped fire.

“D’ ye think I don’t love a fight as well as my neighbor?  D’ ye think I’ve a stomach for insults and flouts and winks and nudges?  Have I a liver to sit doing sums on my thumbs when these impudent British are kicking my people out of their own doors?  Am I of a kidney to smile and bow, and swallow and digest the orders of Tory swashbucklers, who lay down a rule of conduct for men who should be framing rules of common decency for them?  D’ ye think I’m a snail or a potato or an empty pair o’ breeches?  Damnation!”