‘There was nothing to give in about, uncle.’

‘There never is,’ said Dan.  ’There never is.  That’s the point.  Still, thou’rt nigh crying, wench.’

‘I’m not, uncle,’ she contradicted, the tears falling on to the apple.

‘And Harold’s using bad language all up Trafalgar Road, I lay,’ Dan added.

‘It was all Harold’s fault,’ said Maud.

’Why, in course it were Harold’s fault.  But nowt’s worth a quarrel, my dear—­nowt.  I remember Harold’s grandfeyther—­he were th’ second of us, your grandfeyther were the eldest, and I were the youngest—­I remember Harold’s grandfeyther chasing his wife all over th’ town wi’ a besom a week after they were married.’

‘With a besom!’ murmured Maud, pained and forgetting to cry.  ‘Harold’s grandfather, not mine?’

‘Wi’ a besom,’ Dan repeated, nodding.  ’They never quarrelled again—­ne’er again.  Th’ old woman allus said after that as quarrels were for fools.  And her was right.’

‘I don’t see Harold chasing me across Bursley with a besom,’ said Maud primly.  ’But what you say is quite right, you dear old uncle.  Men are queer—­I mean husbands.  You can’t argue with them.  You’d much better give in—­’

‘And have your own way after all.’

‘And perhaps Harold was—­’

Harold’s step could be heard in the hall.

‘Oh, dear!’ cried Maud.  ‘What shall I do?’

‘I’m not feeling very well,’ whispered Uncle Dan weakly.  ’I have these ’ere attacks sometimes.  There’s only one thing as’ll do me any good—­brandy.’

And his head fell over one side of the chair, and he looked precisely like a corpse.

‘Maud, what are you doing?’ almost shouted Harold, when he came into the room.

She was putting a liqueur-glass to Uncle Dan’s lips.

‘Oh, Harold,’ she cried, ’uncle’s had an attack of some sort.  I’m giving him some brandy.’

‘But you mustn’t give him brandy,’ said Harold authoritatively to her.

‘But I must give him brandy,’ said Maud.  ’He told me that brandy was the only thing to save him.’

‘Nonsense, child!’ Harold persisted.  ’Uncle told me all about these attacks.  They’re perfectly harmless so long as he doesn’t have brandy.  The doctors have warned him that brandy will be fatal.’

’Harold, you are absolutely mistaken.  Don’t you understand that uncle has only this minute told me that he must have brandy?’

And she again approached the glass to the pale lips of the old man.  His tasselled Turkish smoking-cap had fallen to the floor, and the hemisphere of his bald head glittered under the gas.

‘Maud, I forbid you!’ And Harold put a hand on the glass.  ’It’s a matter of life and death.  You must have misunderstood uncle.’

‘It was you who misunderstood uncle,’ said Maud.  ’Of course, if you mean to prevent me by brute force—­’

They both paused and glanced at Daniel, and then at each other.