"
"To build the new wing with?" the son put in, with a gesture of
assent.
"To build the new wing with? Why, certainly not," his father answered
angrily. "Am I to bargain with my son what use I'm to make of my
own property? Mark my words, I won't submit to interference. To
do precisely as I choose with, sir. To roll in if I like! To fling
into the sea, if the fancy takes me!"
Granville Kelmscott stared hard at him. Twelve thousand pounds! What
on earth could his father mean by this whim? he wondered. "Twelve
thousand pounds is a very big sum to fling away from the estate
without a question asked," he retorted, growing hot "It seems to me,
you too closely resemble our ancestors who came over from Holland.
In matters of business, you know, the fault of the Dutch is giving
too little and asking too much."
His father glared at him. That's the worst of this huckstering and
higgling with your own flesh and blood. You have to put up with
such intolerable insults. But he controlled himself, and continued.
The longer he talked, however, the hotter and angrier he became by
degrees. And what made him the hottest and angriest of all was the
knowledge meanwhile that he was doing it every bit for Granville's
own sake; nay, more, that consideration for Granville alone had
brought him originally into this peck of trouble.
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