"It is they who will be beaten," said Blundel, "if anything depends on me! Confound it! I shall like to do it."
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
He went home quite eager for the fray, and his eagerness was not allowed to flag. The favorite story came to his ears again and again. Men met him in the streets, and stopped to speak of it; others dropped into his rooms to hear the truth from himself, when he went to his hotel to dine; talkers standing in groups in the lobbies turned to look at him, and when he had passed them returned to their conversation with renewed interest. To the first man who referred to the matter he listened until he had said his say. Then he answered him.
"You want to hear the truth about that," he said, "don't you?"
"That, of course," was the reply.
"And you want to be able to tell the truth about it when you are asked questions?"
"Most certainly."
"Well, then, the truth is that there isn't a word of truth in it from beginning to end; and if you want to tell the truth, say it's a lie, and add that I said so, and I am prepared to say so to every man who wants to interview me; and, what is more, every man who tells another that it is a lie does me a favor that gives him a claim on me."