"Don't go after him on that!" Enoch's voice was peremptory. "If he's done evil to some one else, throw the light of day on his crime, but if by his weakness you mean only some sin he commits against himself, keep off. A man, even a crook, has a right to that much privacy."
"Did Brown ever have decency toward a man's seclusion?" demanded Curly.
"No!" half shouted Enoch. "But to punish him don't turn yourself into the same kind of a skunk he is. Kill him if you have to. Don't be a filthy scandal monger like Brown!"
"You speak as if you knew the gentleman," grunted Mack.
"I don't know him," retorted Enoch, "except as the world knows him."
"Then you don't know him, or Fowler either," said Curly. "But I happen to have discovered something that both those gentlemen have been mixed up in, in Mexico, something—oh, by Jove, but it's racy!"
"You've managed to keep it to yourself, so far," said Mack.
"Meaning I'd better continue to do so! Only so long as it serves my purpose, Mack. When I get ready to raise hell about Fowler's and Brown's ears, no consideration for decency will stop me. I'll be just as merciful to them as they were to Harry. No more! I'll string their dirty linen from the Atlantic to the Pacific. His and Brown's! But I want money enough to do it right. No little piker splurge they can buy up! I'll have those two birds weeping blood!"
Enoch moistened his lips. "What's the story, Curly?" he asked evenly.
Curly filled and lighted his pipe. But before he could answer Enoch,
Mack said;