"Oh, I beg pardon, I did not know that you were ashamed of it. I happened to hear Colonel D—— relate the little circumstance not long after the battle; and I thought, from your leaving it out, that you might possibly have forgotten it."
The gentlemen present stared from one to the other and said nothing. Such plain speaking was a novelty even among the excitements of mountain life. The Captain began by having a very white face, and ended with having a very red one.
"Colonel D—— lied, if he said any thing of the kind!" he foamed.
"I will tell him you say so, the next time I meet him," was the cool reply, "and you can try the little question of veracity between yourselves."
"No, I will try it with you!" the Captain almost shouted. "You are the liar—not Colonel D——, and I will shoot you as I would a dog."
"You will be obliged to do it by waylaying me, then," answered the lawyer. "Apart from any objection I may have to duels in the abstract, I certainly am not going out with a gentleman," and he laid a terrible stress upon the word—"a gentleman who picks pockets."
"Gentlemen! gentlemen!" expostulated one or two at that period.
"Recall that word, or I will shoot you on the spot!" cried the Captain, his face now fiery as blood itself, and his hand moving up to his breast as if he really followed the cowardly practice of carrying a revolver there, while meeting in peaceful society. If he had a weapon and momentarily intended to draw it, he desisted, however.
"I will not recall the word, but I will explain it," answered the lawyer. "I heard you confess last night, Captain Hector Coles, in the midst of about half an hour's falsehoods about my poor self, that you had picked my pocket of a handkerchief, the night before in the ten-pin alley. After that and the little indisposition at White-Oak Swamp, I think you will all agree with me, gentlemen, that I am under no obligations to afford that person any satisfaction."
"Coward!" hissed the Captain. At the word a shiver seemed to go over the lawyer's frame, but he only replied: