"See here!" Prale cried. "You can't talk to me like that without giving me some explanation! You can't defame me before other men——"
"Defame you?" Shepley cried. "You can't make a tar brush black, sir?"
Rage was seething in Prale now. There was quite a crowd around them, and others were making their way forward.
"I don't pretend to know what is the matter with you, and I don't much care!" he told Shepley. "If your hair wasn't gray, I'd take you out on the sidewalk and smash your face in! Please understand that!"
"Threaten me, will you?"
"I'm not threatening you. I don't fight a man with one foot in the grave."
"Why you——"
"And I don't care to have you address me in public again, either," Sidney Prale went on. "It probably would be an insult."
"Confound you, sir!" Shepley cried.
He reached forward and grasped Prale by the arm. Sidney Prale put up a hand, tore the grasp loose, and tossed Rufus Shepley to one side.