"You mean you question my telling it?"
"I think it would have been kinder to Mrs. Lorraine if you had cautioned your companion not to tell—and followed your advice yourself."
"Well, I'm damned!" Dolittle sneered. "Learning propriety from a bar-tender."
"It doesn't make a heap of difference where you learn it, so long as you do learn it," said Emerson good-naturedly. "The only trouble with you is you never can learn it—you're too all-fired conceited and satisfied with yourself, my young friend."
Pendleton came suddenly to life.
"Do you hear what they are saying, Porshinger?" he demanded curtly.
His tone angered Porshinger, who had been at loss what he should do.
"Your conversation wasn't likely to drown it!" he retorted.
"And do you propose to sit calmly by and hear a woman maligned, with you named as the guilty party?"
"What if she wasn't maligned?" sneered Porshinger.—"What if it's true?"