"I assure you such is the fact," answered Murray. "I hope to do what I have come here for tonight without injuring anybody, and if you gentlemen will listen to me quietly for a few moments I am confident that the issue will be harmless for all of us."
He cast his cloak and hat upon a chair by the fire, and put his hand upon the vacant one betwixt my father and me.
"May I?" he asked.
My father, still standing, said nothing; and Murray, with a shrug, accepted the silence for consent, sank gracefully into the seat and drew a golden snuff-box, studded with brilliants, from a pocket.
"With your permission," he said, springing the cover.
A fragrant whiff of snuff-tobacco tickled my senses as he offered it generally.
"'Tis excellent stuff," he remarked. "Ripe Rip-Rap. What? None of you? Ah, then——"
He dusted a pinch under his nostrils, inhaled and daintily used his handkerchief, a lace-edged morsel such as women carry.
My father leaned forward across the table, a blaze of hatred in his face.
"'Tis true, then!"