They howled him down. But by this time the defenders of my uncle were howling, too.
“This meeting is going to break up in a free fight if a stop isn’t put to this jawing,” said Dodovah Vose. He jumped up on the settee and made himself heard. “I move we adjourn!”
The apprehensive moderator put the motion, the judge’s friends carried it, and the meeting was dissolved.
My uncle leaped off the platform and came raging at me through the crowd.
“It’s you—you damnation imp of Gehenna! Racing and chasing over this town yesterday! I had a line on you. Saving that old whelp from what was coming to him!” He put his hands over his head and wriggled his fingers. “God! I don’t know what you have done—you got that money by robbing a bank, probably. But you have done it—you have jumped up and down on your family! You have got to answer to me!”
Men pushed away in panic and left us in a ring. But I had no notion of entertaining the old goggle-eyes of Levant by fisticuffs with my uncle. I folded my arms.
“According to your reckoning, Uncle Deck, I have owed you something for a long time. I want to stand square with you! Go ahead and collect!”
He did not seem to understand at once.
“Go ahead and beat me up! I won’t raise a finger.” Yes, I would have taken the beating—I knew inside of me that I did owe my uncle something of the sort.
“Not by a dam-site, he sha’n’t beat you up,” declared Dodovah Vose. “I saved you from him once,” he said, careless of revelations, “and I’ll save you again.”