Purple and apoplectic passion well-nigh stifled Colonel Villiers.
"Stafford, Stafford," he spluttered, "you are witness. These are gross affronts, affronts which shall be wiped out."
"Did you write that letter? Yes or no!" screamed Sir Jasper, shaking the offending document in the Colonel's convulsed countenance.
"I?" cried the Colonel, and struck away Sir Jasper's hand with a furious blow, "I? I write such brimstone nonsense? No, sir! Now, damn you body and soul, Sir Jasper, how dare you ask me such a question?"
"No," said Sir Jasper, "of course not! Ah, I am a fool, Villiers. Forgive me. There's no quarrel between us! No, of course it could not be you! With that nose, that waistcoat, your sixty years! Gad, I am going mad!"
"Why, man," said Stafford, as soon as he could speak for laughing, "Villiers has not so much hair on all his head as you hold in your hand there. Off with your wig, Villiers, off with your wig, and let your bald pate proclaim its shining innocence."
The gallant gentleman thus addressed was by this time black in the face. Panting as to breath, disjointed as to speech, his fury had nevertheless its well-defined purpose.
"I have been insulted, I have been insulted," he gasped; "the matter cannot end here. Sir Jasper, you have insulted me. I am a red-haired man, sir. I shall send a friend to call upon you."
"Nay, then," said Sir Jasper, "since 'tis so between us I will even assure myself that Tom has spoken the truth and give you something to fight for!" He stretched out his hand as he spoke, and plucked the wig from Colonel Villiers' head.
Before him indeed spread so complete an expanse of hairless candour, that further evidence was not necessary; yet the few limp hairs that lingered behind the Colonel's ears, if they had once been ruddy, shone now meekly silver in the candle-light.