“I call ye a coward and a dirty, contemptible hound, but I don’t intend to let ’ee off with hard words—I mean to give ’ee a few hard blows. You won’t forget Stoke Ferry, I’ll dare be sworn, for many a long day.”
“Ah, you are pugnaciously disposed, are you? Well, we can easily arrange matters. I have a pair of new trigger pistols upstairs, and am ready to give you satisfaction wherever and whenever you please.”
“Satisfaction, ye call it, you audacious varmint. Ah, ah! That’s a queer sort of satisfaction. Because you’ve done me wrong I’m to be shot at with a pistol. No, no, my man—I know a trick worth two of that. This is what I call satisfaction, you impudent monkey.”
He sprang to the fireplace and snatched down a stout ash stick which hung over the mantel-shelf, and which he made whistle a sinister melody.
“One minute, sir, if you please,” said the wretch, who soon began to tremble for the first time. “You accuse me of being a coward and a scoundrel because I have flirted with your wife. Pray may I inquire if you knew Mr. Philip Jamblin—he was murdered in Larchgrove-lane?”
“What if I did? Don’t ’ee say anything agen him.”
“You knew him?”
“Yes. What of that?”
“Did he flirt with anybody? Answer me that.”
“Dall you, if you speak a word agen Philip, I’ll have your life, you cowardly dirty scoundrel. He aint here to take his own part, but I am here, and that’s just as well. Dare you speak of a murdered man to me his bosom friend, by all I hold most sacred, before you leave this room, you shall pay in part for the pain ye’ve made me bear.”