If I choose to tell the justices, you cannot prevent it." (He turned round in a flare of anger.) "Do you think I shall tell the justices ?" Robin said nothing.
"Do you think I shall tell the justices ?" roared the old man insistently.
"No, sir.

Now I do not." The other growled gently and sank back.
"But if you think that I will permit my son to flout and to my face in my own hall, and not to trust his own father--why, you are immeasurably mistaken, sir.

So I ask you again how far you intend to thwart and disobey me." A kind of despair surged up in the boy's heart--despair at the fruitlessness of this ironical and furious sort of talk; and with the despair came boldness.
"Father, will you let me speak outright, without thinking that I mean to insult you?
I do not; I swear I do not.

Will you let me speak, sir ?" His father growled again a sort of acquiescence, and Robin gathered his forces.

He had prepared a kind of defence that seemed to him reasonable, and he knew that his father was at least just.