“It’s my house!” flashed the angry answer.
“Your house?” the Judge stammered, again tugging at his beard.
“Yes, sit down.”
The astonished jurist dropped into his chair, his shifting basilisk eyes dancing with a new excitement.
“Your house, your house—why, what—what!”
“Yes and you’re going to vacate it within two weeks.”
“What do you mean, sir?” demanded the Judge, plucking up his courage for a moment.
“I mean that the distinguished jurist, Hugh Butler, who had the honour of presiding over the trial of Jefferson Davis, and now aspires to the leadership of his party in the South, was living in a stolen house when he delivered his famous charge concerning traitors to the grand jury, that morning in Richmond. It is with peculiar personal pleasure that I now brand you to your face—coward, liar, perjurer, thief!”
John paused a moment to watch the effects of his words on his enemy. The cold sweat began to appear in the bald spot above the Judge’s forehead, and his answer came with gasping feeble emphasis:
“I bought this house and paid for it!”