His eyes glittered with a sharpened anger, and his dilated nostrils quivered with the indignation that the thought of his elder brother always aroused.
"I want to see the vice-president of the Underground National. I want to see the bridegroom who got half a million on his wedding-day. And I want him to see me. I want him to have a look at the poor devil who has been knocking around from pillar to post for the last two years, who has hidden in dives, and who has been dragged through the slums, and who has been driven from the variety stage, and has served his time more than once. Let him feel the difference; let me help him to feel it!"
"Your own blame!" cried his father. "You had the same chances and threw them all away. And you'll serve another term now—a longer one."
"I guess not," said Marcus. He looked about the room with a sharp and wary eye. It might have been thought that he sought at once both means of offence and means of escape.
There was a rap on the door; Burt's voice was heard outside.
"Here's Mr. Freeze, father. I suppose he can come right in."
Marcus reared his head suddenly.
"It's Burt!" he trumpeted. "He's here! he's here!" He sprang toward? the threshold and clamped his long fingers about his brother's throat. Burt's head struck with force against the wide jamb; he half fell, and his legs and arms writhed in company with his brother's.
"Get them apart, Freeze! Get them apart!" cried Brainard, with a loud roar. "Am I going to see Burt strangled before my very eyes?"
Marcus released his grip and staggered back into the room. He reared himself pantingly against the table. His face was deadly pale, and the perspiration was starting out in beads beneath the dark, disordered locks that lay on his forehead. The screaming of women's voices was heard in the corridor outside, and the light hastening of women's feet.