With the tail of my eye, as the phrase is, I knew that there was a turning of faces toward me then, and my lady drew herself more erect.
"Ho!" cried the bully. "Here's a fane how-de-do about nothing! You want to learn manners, young man. I reckon you have n't travelled much, else you would know that gentlemen setting down together at table are not supposed to be so mighty high-toned as to want nothin' to do with each other."
I heard him to an end, and, laying down my spoon, "With gentlemen—yes," I said, "there can be no objection to talk, even though your remark is an evasion of the matter at present. But seeing you have gone out of your way to blame my manners, I will make bold to say I don't like yours."
The girl stepped forward a pace and, "Sir, sir," she began to me and the bully was glaring on me and crying out, "Gentlemen! 'between gentlemen' you say, and what you insinuate with that?"
But I waved aside the girl and to him I began:
"I have been in this country some time, sir, and I may tell you that I find you at the top of one list in my mental notes. Up to to-night I have never seen a woman insulted in the West——" and then, as is a way I have and I suppose shall have a tendency to till the end of my days, though I ever strive to master it (and indeed find the periods between the loss of that mastery constantly lengthening), I suddenly "flared up."
To say more in a calm voice was beyond me and I cried out: "But I want no more talk from you, sir; understand that."
"Ho!" he began. "You——"
But I interrupted him with: "No more, sir; understand!"
And then in a tone which I dare say savoured very much as though I thought myself quite a little ruler of men, I said: "I have told you twice now not to say more to me. I only tell you once more."