“An’ ye’re goin’ ter give ’em ter him?”

“Perhaps,” James replied, indifferently—­“if he thinks they’re worth what I do.”

“But Misther Robert has paid ye already, hasn’t he?  Hasn’t these new prosperity things come out iv Misther Robert’s pay?”

“He’s got what he’s paid for,” James asserted.  “These new tips come to me while I was workin’ on my own account.  They’re worth the coin to either side.”

“That’s phwat ye meant when ye said there was more prosperity comin’?”

“Sure.”

“An’ if Misther Robert don’t pay ye ye’er price, ye’ll sell ’em ter th’ other feller who says his wife ain’t his wife?”

“Business is business,” James replied, sagely.

The elder Riley’s lips came close together as he rose quietly yet quickly from his chair.  In a moment more he had seized James by the collar, and with a sudden, violent action, made easier by the recumbent attitude, deposited the younger man in a heap on the floor.  Too surprised by the unexpectedness of the attack, James made no defence, and before he could even attempt to rise from his humiliating position the old man stood over him, shaking his fist in his face.

“Ye damn dirty spalpeen, lie there f’r a time, will ye?  I’ll break ivery bone in ye’er body if ye even make a move ter git up.  Do ye think I’ve spint me life f’r nothin’ better than ter rear up a blackmailer an’ th’ like iv ye?  Do ye think me an’ th’ ol’ woman, God rist her soul, slaved th’ flesh off our bones f’r nothin’ better than ter raise a brat who’d sell th’ man whose hand was always out f’r me an’ mine?  It’s ye’er fa-ather talkin’ ter ye now, James Riley, an’ it’s ye’er fa-ather who’s goin’ ter scrape off some iv thim fine airs thim Tammany thieves an’ blacklegs has learned ye.  It’s manny th’ time I’ve licked ye good, Jimmie, when ye was a la-ad, an’ it’s agin I’ll do it if I has ter, ter learn ye honesty.  Now git up an’ set in that chair an’ do phwat I tell ye, if ye know phwat’s best f’r ye.”

James Riley rose from the floor and sat obediently in the chair his father indicated.  Had he chosen to assert his strength, the elder man would have been but a child in opposition; but the fire which flashed from those angry eyes, and the tone in which his father’s scathing castigation was administered, took him back twenty years when the same angry flash and the same convincing tones were backed up by a physical force which made them worthy of respect.  James Riley was again the offending boy, and his father—­stern, severe, unrelenting in his own ideas of right and wrong—­held him in a grip he could not break.

“Set there, damn ye,” the elder Riley repeated, breathing hard from excitement and from the unusual exertion.  “Now tell me phwat ye found out when ye was workin’ on ye’er own account.”

James tried desperately to summon courage enough to oppose his father’s will, but to no avail.

“I’ve mixed a bit with Buckner—­the first husband—­that’s all.”