"Here she is! I've tried to tell you her story, gentlemen; but there's only one living person can tell that story right, and I'm not that one. If you could have heard her telling it—she in her little cabin on that windy hillside, before her little stove, with the dark coming down and the lights beginning to shine through——"
And that instant, while Tim's arm was across her poor thin shoulders, covered as ever with the worn man's coat—that instant Malone, whose back was to the stage, chose to raise his fateful forefinger.
And Tim waited. And Malone waited.
"That two-faced chairman of yours—he never tipped me off you could fight any way except with your hands."
Not a man left the hall.
Malone turned and faced Tim.
"You win," he said; "but that two-faced chairman of yours—and he ain't any friend of yours—he never tipped me off you could fight any way except with your hands. Speak the rest of your piece. You win!"