“Meaning whom?” asked Noah, half rising.
Noah's words had the fiber of triumph; he put his question as might he who had trapped that result which he went seeking from the start.
“Who?” retorted the other; “who, save that Peg O'Neal who was as common as the streets she walked.”
“You lie; you rogue and dog of Henry Clay, you lie!”
Noah fair spat out the words; it was as though they came freighted with the venom of the viper.
Catron growled an oath and leaped towards Noah. He was met flush in the face with a glass of whiskey which Noah in most casual fashion had just poured. I had foreseen Noah's purpose; I'd heard him say he drank no spirits.
For the moment Catron was stopped, the bite and anguish of the alcohol in his eyes making him as a blind man. As Noah threw the liquor, I seized him by the wrist; so far it had been gentleman's work; I did not want him to spoil his position by throwing the glass.
“Don't grip so hard,” warned Noah, making not the least of struggle; “don't grip so hard. I shall anon need this hand for what is in store; that grasp like a hand-vise will weaken it for a sword, or shake it for a pistol.”
Never was I more played upon and pleased than by the coolness of Noah, who showed as steady, not to say indifferent, as he who acts a part in a theater.
“I shall have your life for this!” screamed Catron, who, in the hands of friends and still blind of the whiskey, was carried to another room.