"You will frighten the horses presently. Can't you behave yourself with common decency?" exclaimed Valentine, shaking off the hand that had been laid upon his shoulder.
"Let them talk about decorum, As has characters to lose,"
sang the inebriate, chuckling and slapping the boy upon the back.
"If you do not be quiet, I'll get out of this buggy, and leave you to drive home as you can," said Valentine, impatiently.
This seemed to amuse the other very much; he burst out into a peal of laughter, falling back, and clasping his knees, and rolling with the tipsy enjoyment of the joke. When he had laughed himself into a fit of the hiccoughs, and hiccoughed himself into comparative calmness, he still seemed to enjoy the drollery of the idea, and recommenced laughing and singing by fits, and slapping Valentine upon the back.
"I tell you, if you do not quit this, I will get out!" exclaimed the boy, angrily. "You a gentleman!"
This language, instead of rousing Oswald to anger, seemed to strike him as the drollest of speeches, for he fell back into another peal of laughter; and when he had recovered himself he began, not in displeasure, but in a maudlin, jesting way, and with a very thick utterance, to taunt Valentine:
"Why, you ins'lent f'low, do you know who you're talking to? You're a spoiled negro--that is what you are! Now, don't you know, if I wa'n't the most forgivin' f'low in the world, that I'd have you tied up and whipt for such language?"
It is utterly impossible to convey in words any idea of the fierce, savage, almost demoniac glare of hatred and defiance with which that single monosyllable was uttered. But it was lost upon the tipsy master, who replied, nodding and chuckling:
"Yes, you, my little fellow! and I think it will have to be done, too, to bring you to a sense of your condition. Sit down, sir! What the devil do you mean by standing up and looking at me in that way?"
Valentine had risen to his feet, still unconsciously holding the reins, but no longer guiding the horses, who went on their own way, while he stood and glared at his master, with an almost maniacal light blazing from those pale-gray eyes.
"Sit down, sir, I say! What the h--ll do you mean? Sit down, I say, or, by the Lord Harry! I'll do as I've threatened!"