“Not in it! You don’t know whom you are addressing. I’m not only in the game, but I’m in to the finish,” declared Ardmore, sitting upright in his chair. “You’ve got the wrong idea, my friend, if you think you can intimidate me. That jug was given me by a friend, a very old and dear friend——”
“A friend of yourn!”
The keen little gray eyes were blinking rapidly.
“One of the best friends I ever had in this world,” and Ardmore’s face showed feeling. “He and I charged side by side through the bloodiest battles of our Civil War. I will cheerfully give you my watch, or money in any sum, but the jug—I will part with my life first! And now,” concluded Ardmore, “while I should be glad to continue this conversation, my duties call me elsewhere.”
As he rose, the man stood quickly at his side, menacingly.
“Give me thet jug, or I’ll shoot y’u right hyeh in the street.”
“No, you wouldn’t do that, Old Corduroy. I can see that you are kind and good, and you wouldn’t shoot down an unarmed man. Besides, it would muss up the street.”
“Y’u took thet jug from my brother by lyin’ to ’im. He’s telegraphed me to git it, and I’m a-goin’ to do it.”
“Your brother sent you? It was nice of him to ask you to call on me. Why, I’ve known your brother intimately for years.”
“Knowed my brother?” and for the first time the man really seemed to doubt himself. “Wheh did y’u know Bill?”