bravissimo.

If we can't forbid him, we will frighten him.

Go on, my good fellow ..." and then, "Come, go on ..." I looked at his great bulk of a body.

It came into my head dimly that I wanted him to strike me, to give me an excuse--anything to end the scene violently, with a crash and exclamations of fury.
"You absolutely refuse to pay any attention ?" I said.
"Oh, absolutely," he answered.
"You know that I can do something, that I can expose you." I had a vague idea that I could, that the number of small things that I knew to his discredit and the mass of my hatred could be welded into a damning whole.

He laughed a high-pitched, hysterical laugh.