“Upon my word, you’re amusing this morning, ’squire,” said Horace, looking with aroused interest at the vehement justice. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t your clothes fit you? Come around to the house and I’ll rig you up in some new ones.”
The ’squire began with a torrent of explosive profanity, framed in gestures which almost threatened personal violence. All at once he stopped short, looked vacantly at the floor, and then sat down on his bed, burying his face in his hands. From the convulsive clinching of his fingers among the grizzled, unkempt locks of hair, and the heaving of his chest, Horace feared he was going to have a fit, and, advancing, put a hand on his shoulder.
The ’squire shook it off roughly, and raised his haggard, deeply-furrowed face. It was a strong-featured countenance still, and had once been handsome as well, but what it chiefly said to Horace now was that the old man couldn’t stand many more such nights of it as this last had evidently been.
“Come, ’squire, I didn’t want to annoy you. I’m sorry if I did.”
“You insulted me,” said the old man, with a dignity which quavered into pathos as he added: “I’ve got so low now, by Gawd, that even you can insult me!”
Horace smiled at the impracticability of all this. “What the deuce is it all about, anyway?” he asked. “What have you got against me? I’ve always been civil to you, haven’t I?”
“You’re no good,” was the justice’s concise explanation.
The young man laughed outright. “I daresay you’re right,” he said, pleasantly, as one humors a child. “Now will you come out and have a drink?”
“I’ve not been forty-four years at the bar for nothing—”
“I should think not! Whole generations of barkeepers can testify to that.”