"Confound you, Piers!" he said.

"I sometimes think that voyage round the world did you more harm than good." "Why, sir ?" said Piers quickly.
Sir Beverley's look left the smiling, baffling face upon the wall and sought his grandson's.

"You were so mad to be off the bearing-rein, weren't you ?" he said.

"So keen to feel your own feet?
I thought it would make a man of you, but I was a fool to do it.

I'd better have kept you on the rein after all." "I should have run away if you had," said Piers.