my father, the squire, is the best-known man on Romney Marsh."
"Then," ordered the seadog curtly, "fetch him along here quick!"
"Really, sir," retorted Denis hotly, "I do not think you would afford him sufficient interest. He has not the honour of your acquaintance, and I am bound to consider that he'll have no great zeal to make it!"
"Nor I, neither," said Mr. Mipps, who had been looking round the kitchen door. "I don't like his looks."
The infuriated officer was inside the kitchen like a hurricane, glaring at the little sexton with all the condensed fury of the British navy.
"What's this?" he said, addressing himself again to Denis, who had followed him into the kitchen to be quit of the crowd of seamen. "I suppose you'll tell me that this shrivelled up little monkey is a squire's son too, eh?"
"A squire's son!" repeated the sexton. "Oh, well, if I is, I ain't come into my title yet."
"Don't you play the fool with me, sir!" thundered the King's man.
"And don't you try the swagger with me, sir!" volleyed back the sexton.
"The swagger with you, sir?" exploded the officer.
"Right, sir," exclaimed the sexton, "that's what I said—the swagger, sir!"
