"Seeing that I am engaged, Mr. Flagg," interrupted Giles Sheridan, "perhaps you will excuse me any further controversy on the peculiar merits of Crabbe's combativeness."
"But there was one point not made quite clear to me, and I came back, not to make you angry, for men who give lectures should have good tempers, but to inquire if this Mr. Crabbe was ever kocked down; and if he was, how and in what manner he returned the kindness?" To this question, Giles Sheridan was not inclined to vouchsafe an answer. The nonresistant then said, the principles he had been trying to defend, were being illustrated. "I am an enemy to physical force; but I have gained a victory over you! You won't deny that, I take it?" continued the nonresistant, taking a seat uninvited; and, having placed his feet upon the table, near Giles Sheridan, who was scarce able to restrain his feelings at the want of good breeding therein displayed, threw his hat upon the floor, and said he would wager four dollars and thirty cents, which was all the money he possessed, that he could lecture on the principles of nonresistance, and draw an audience greater by ten per cent. than would come to hear about Mr. Crabbe. "You don't know whether your man had a liking for tobacco and whiskey?" he parenthesized. A look of contempt flashed from Giles Sheridan's eye, as he twirled his fingers, and curtly replied, "I wish, for your own sake, sir, that your tongue did not betray the error of the doctrine you have set up-"
"Oh! there you are!" the nonresistant quickly replied, "establishing by your acts what you have not courage to acknowledge with your lips." Wounded in his feelings, the little deformed man turned away, and commenced inquiring what I thought about several learned, but very heavy reviews that had recently appeared in Putnam's Magazine, a monthly so sensitive of its character for weighty logic, that it never gave ordinary readers anything they could digest. I confessed I was not sufficiently qualified to speak on the subject; to do which, required that a man be a member of that mutual admiration society, beyond whose delicate fingers it seldom circulated. The nonresistant evidently saw my embarrassment, and saying he had but one more question to ask respecting the man Crabbe, continued in the following manner, while Giles Sheridan remained doggedly silent. "Now, look a here! if your Mr. Crabbe had a bin a farmer who had grown a nice field of wheat, which his neighbor's horse, being breachy, had got into, wanting to get the best of that neighbor, would he have killed the horse, or would he have gone to that neighbor and said, 'Neighbor, thy horse is in my wheat, pray come and take him out, that I may not bear thee malice?'" This question, and the quaint manner in which it was put, so conciliated the little deformed man that he could not resist a smile. "I have you there!" exclaimed the nonresistant with a toss of his head.
"It occurs to me that Crabbe never had a farm, hence it would not become me to speak for him. For myself, I had driven the horse out with my dog," replied the other.
"There you are wrong," retorted the nonresistant, "for the dog would have destroyed the wheat, and so carried the devil to the heart of the farmer, that he had gone to law, if, indeed, he had not killed the horse, and by so doing lost all power over his adversary. Whereas, if he had spoken gently of the conduct of the horse, the owner would have been sorely grieved, and set about making good the damage, according to the promptings of his own heart."
The landlord hearing the nonresistant's voice, entered the room and ordered him to begone about his business, and seek some better employment than that of hectoring every traveler who chanced to put up at his inn. But the nonresistant replied that he was not to be insulted by a landlord who professed to keep a temperance house, and sold liquid death daily on the sly; nor would he leave the inn, in which he had a common right, until his own convenience dictated. This so enraged the landlord, that although he was a little man, he seized the nonresistant by the collar, and would have forced him to leave the premises but that the other proved too strong for him. Indeed the nonresistant, notwithstanding his principles, had well nigh divested the landlord of his coat, and done serious damage to his face, and was only ejected from the house by the timely assistance of the hostler and the bar tender.
CHAPTER XIV.
IN WHICH THE TOWN IS THROWN INTO A STATE OF ALARM, AND SUNDRY OTHER THINGS WORTH MENTIONING.
THE nonresistant, resolving to make the street his castle, stood for some minutes making grimaces, and hurling coarse invective at the landlord, who, with sundry idlers, had gathered into the portico. He then took his leave, swearing to have satisfaction of his assailants, as Giles Sheridan, looking out at the window, said he should long remember the fellow for the courtesy he had manifested towards him.
Peace being restored, the landlord, his shirt ruffle in a sad plight, returned to apologize for the disturbance to his guests; while peeping in at the door, I saw Bessie, her black eyes almost swimming in tears, and evidently alarmed for my safety. Again Giles Sheridan spoke up and said: "It can be no good that brought the fellow hither. He must have been begotten under an evil star, and nursed by a virago. The fellow has but to take good care of his invective; and if he adopt the ass instead of the madman, he may in time become an excellent critic." Here he paused, turned his head quickly, and frisked his fingers nervously through his straight, silvery hair. The clerical looking groom, hearing the little deformed man speak thus, led his young bride frightened to bed.