“How about the name—OLIVER SAFFREN?” he cried fiercely, and at last, though I had expected it, I uttered an involuntary exclamation.
“How about it?” he shouted, advancing toward me triumphantly, shaking his forefinger in my face. “Hey? THAT stings some, does it? Sounds kind o’ like a FALSE name, does it? Got ye where the hair is short, that time, didn’t I?”
“Speaking of names,” I retorted, “‘Oil Poicy’ doesn’t seem to ring particularly true to me!”
“It’ll be gud enough fer you, young feller,” he responded angrily. “It may belong t’ me, an’ then again, it maybe don’t. It ain’ gunna git me in no trouble; I’ll luk out f’r that. YOUR side’s where the trouble is; that’s what’s eatin’ into you. An’ I’ll tell you flat-foot, your gittin’ rough ‘ith me and playin’ Charley the Show-Off in front o’ yer lady-friends’ll all go down in the bill. These people ye’ve got so chummy with—THEY’LL pay f’r it all right, don’t you shed no tears over that!”
“You couldn’t by any possibility,” I said deliberately, with as much satire as I could command, “you couldn’t possibly mean that any sum of mere money might be a salve for the injuries my unkind words have inflicted?”
Once more he seemed upon the point of destroying me physically, but, with a slight shudder, controlled himself. Stepping close to me, he thrust his head forward and measured the emphases of his speech by his right forefinger upon my shoulder, as he said:
“You paint THIS in yer pitchers, m’ dear friend; they’s jest as much law in this country as they is on the corner o’ Twenty-thoid Street an’ Fif’ Avenoo! You keep out the way of it, or you’ll git runned over!”
Delivering a final tap on my shoulder as a last warning, he wheeled deftly upon his heel, addressed Miss Elliott briefly, “Glad t’ know YOU, lady,” and striking into the by-path by which he had approached us, was soon lost to sight.
The girl faced me excitedly. “What IS it?” she cried. “It seemed to me you insulted him deliberately—”
“I did.”