"Have to cough your way through, my boy!" he said, as he swayed back and forth, the hard cough hacking in his throat.
As he had said yesterday, there was only one thing to do: he must have that five thousand dollars which was to be handed over by the old seigneur.

This time he did not attempt to find excuses; he called the thing by its proper name.
"Well, it's stealing, or it's highway robbery, no matter how one looks at it," he said to himself.

"I wonder what's the matter with me.

I must have got started wrong somehow.

Money to spend, playing at soldiering, made to believe I'd have a pot of money and an estate, and then told one fine day that a son and heir, with health in form and feature, was come, and Esau must go.