“You touch a man of God and I’ll put the law on you. The sheriff’s office is just next door. I’ll have you——”
Ravenal whirled him round, seized the collar of his grimy coat, peeled it dexterously off, revealing what was, perhaps, as ’maculate a shirt as ever defiled the human form. The Ravenal lip curled in disgust.
“If cleanliness is next to godliness,” he remarked, swiftly turning back his own snowy cuffs meanwhile, “you’ll be shovelling coal in hell.” And swung. The minister was taller and heavier than this slight and dandified figure. But Ravenal had an adrenal advantage, being stimulated by the fury of his anger. The godly one lay, a soiled heap, among his soiled wares. The usual demands of the victor.
“Take that thing out of the window! . . . Apologize to me! . . . Apologize publicly for defaming a lady!”
The man crept groaning to the window, plucked the picture, with its offensive caption, from amongst the miscellany there, handed it to Ravenal in response to a gesture from him. “Now then, I think you’re pretty badly bruised, but I doubt that anything’s broken. I’m going next door to the sheriff. You will write a public apology in letters corresponding to these and place it in your filthy window. I’ll be back.”
He resumed his coat, picked up the malacca cane, blithely sought out the sheriff, displayed the sign, heard that gallant Kentuckian’s most Southern expression of regard for Captain Andy Hawks, his wife and gifted daughter, together with a promise to see to it that the written apology remained in the varmint’s window throughout the day and until the departure of the Cotton Blossom. Ravenal then went his elegant and unruffled way up the sunny sleepy street.
By noon the story was known throughout the village, up and down the river for a distance of ten miles each way, and into the back-country, all in some mysterious word-of-mouth way peculiar to isolated districts. Ravenal, returning to the boat, was met by news of his own exploit. Business, which had been booming for this month or more, grew to phenomenal proportions. Ravenal became a sort of legendary figure on the rivers. Magnolia went to her mother. “I am never allowed to talk to him. I won’t stand it. You treat him like a criminal.”
“What else is he?”
“He’s the——” A long emotional speech, ringing with words such as hero, gentleman, wonderful, honourable, nobility, glorious—a speech such as Schultzy, in his show-boat days as director, would have designated as a so-and-so-and-so-and-so-and-so-and-so.
Ravenal went to Captain Andy. I am treated as an outcast. I’m a Ravenal. Nothing but the most honourable conduct. A leper. Never permitted to speak to your daughter. Humiliation. Prefer to discontinue connection which can only be distasteful to the Captain and Mrs. Hawks, in view of your conduct. Leaving the Cotton Blossom at Cairo.