“Suppose I won’t go?” said the stranger.
“Then suppose I make you, you vagabond?” cried the enraged landlord.
“You can’t,” said the stranger.
“Now by the mass that beats all the impudence ever I heard of,” cried the landlord. “Here, Gregory—Gregory! My staff! We will have this fellow out in the king’s name. My staff, I say! Was there ever such a rogue to assault my best customers; and then not run away.”
The stranger laughed in spite of himself at this last remark of the landlord’s and turning to the company, he said,—
“Every one here present can witness that I only interfered with this drunken ruffian to prevent him from committing an assault upon a maniac, and his present condition arises partly from intoxication, and partly from falling over a chair in an attempt to attack me.”
“You are a scoundrel,” said the landlord.
“Out with him! Turn him out!” cried the company, with one voice.
“My staff! My staff!” roared the landlord, gathering courage from the unanimous support he seemed likely to receive.
“You need not trouble yourself for your staff,” said the stranger, “I am going, and if you required a staff, I, could lend you mine, friend.”