I will!'
'Tut, tut,' said Tom, 'you needn't waste words or threats. I wish you
to understand--plainly because I would rather keep clear of you and
everything that concerns you: not because I have the least apprehension
of your doing me any injury: which would be weak indeed--that I am no
party to the contents of that letter. That I know nothing of it. That I
was not even aware that it was to be delivered to you; and that I had it
from--'
'By the Lord!' cried Jonas, fiercely catching up the chair, 'I'll knock
your brains out, if you speak another word.'
Tom, nevertheless, persisting in his intention, and opening his lips to
speak again, Jonas set upon him like a savage; and in the quickness and
ferocity of his attack would have surely done him some grievous injury,
defenceless as he was, and embarrassed by having his frightened sister
clinging to his arm, if Merry had not run between them, crying to
Tom for the love of Heaven to leave the house. The agony of this poor
creature, the terror of his sister, the impossibility of making himself
audible, and the equal impossibility of bearing up against Mrs Gamp, who
threw herself upon him like a feather-bed, and forced him backwards down
the stairs by the mere oppression of her dead weight, prevailed.
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