Christopher grew pale to the lips. "What do you mean, you scoundrel?" he cried, taking a single step forward. "Come, come, let's go easy," said Sam Murray persuasively, rising from his chair at the table. "Now that this little business is all settled there's no need for another word. I haven't much opinion of words myself, anyhow. They're apt to set fire to a dry tongue, that's what I say." "What do you mean?" repeated Christopher, without swerving from his steady gaze. Tom Spade glanced in at the open door, and, catching Fletcher's eye, hurriedly retreated. A small boy with a greasy face came in and gathered up the glasses with a clanking noise. "What do you mean, you coward?" demanded Christopher for the third time. He had not moved an inch from the position he had first assumed, but the circle about his mouth showed blue against the sunburn on his face. Fletcher raised his hand and spoke suddenly with a snort. "Oh, you needn't kick so about swallowing it," he said. "Everybody knows that your grandfather never paid a debt he owed, and your father was mighty little better. He was only saved from becoming a thief by being a drunkard." He choked over the last word, for Christopher, with an easy, almost leisurely movement, had struck him full in the mouth. The young man's arm was raised again, but before it fell Sam Murray caught it back. "I say, Tom, there's the devil to pay here!" he shouted, and Tom Spade rushed hurriedly through the doorway. "Now, now, that'll never do, Mr. Christopher," he reasoned, with a deference he would never have wasted upon Fletcher. "Why, he's old enough to be yo' pa twice over."
A white fleck was on Fletcher's beard, and as he wiped it away he spoke huskily. "It's a clear case of assault and I'll have the law on him," he said. "Sam Murray, you saw him hit me square in the face."
"Bless your life, I wasn't looking, suh," responded Sam pleasantly. "I miss a lot in this life by always happening to look the other way."
"I'll have the law on you," cried Fletcher again, shaking back his heavy eyebrows.
"You're welcome to have every skulking hound in the county on me," Christopher replied, loosening Sam Murray's restraining grasp. "If I can settle you I reckon I can settle them; but the day you open your lying mouth to me again I'll shoot you down as I would a mad dog—and wash my hands clean afterward!"
He looked round for his harvest hat, picked it up from the floor where it had fallen, and walked slowly out of the room.
In the broad noon outside he staggered an instant, dazzled by the glare.
"Had a drop too much, ain't you, Mr. Christopher?" a voice inquired at his side, and, looking down, he saw Sol Peterkin sitting on a big wooden box just outside the store.
"Not too much to mind my own business," was his curt reply.
"Oh, no harm's meant, suh, an' I hope none's taken," responded the little man good-naturedly. "I saw you walk kinder crooked, that was all, an'it came to me that you might be needin' an arm toward home. Young gentlemen will be gentlemen, that's the truth, suh, an' in my day I reckon I've steadied the legs of mo' young beaux than you could count on your ten fingers. Good Lord, when it comes to thinkin' of those Christmas Eve frolics that we had befo' the war! Why, they use to say that you couldn't get to the Hall unless you swam your way through apple toddy. Jest to think! an' here I've been settin' an' countin' the bundles goin' up thar now—"