"Yes, he was!" Hammond reiterated, quickly.
"And you tried to induce him to sign such an important document as that when he was drunk?" Marvin asked the question in a slow, concise tone and looked up at the judge to gather the impression made by Hammond's evident duplicity.
The deep water into which Hammond had walked was making itself felt and he tried to wade toward shore.
"I never tried to get him to sign! He didn't sign it!" he snapped.
"No, he wasn't drunk enough for that! He wasn't drunk at all. He was as sober as he is at this moment!"
"You mean to call me a liar?" Hammond, his red neck swelling over the top of his collar, and his small, close-together black eyes flashing angrily, got up and made a threatening move toward his questioner.
Marvin, although much smaller, did not flinch. "No, I mean to prove it," he answered.
Judge Townsend made a quieting gesture to Hammond, who sat down in the witness-chair again as Marvin went on with his rapid-fire.
"Now you called Mr. Jones a liar, didn't you?"
"Yes," was Hammond's gruff reply. "And everybody who knows him says the same thing!"