“Let go—let go my arm!” frothed the frenzied youth, struggling furiously in the other’s grasp. “You don’t know him as I do. I know where to find him—he has an appointment to-night with my—— Let go, I say! If he is not at the rectory, he means to swindle me. Let go, Mose; or I’ll strike you! I will have what’s coming to me, or I’ll have his life!”
With the infuriated words ringing from his lips he wrenched himself free, and before he could be prevented he had thrown down the bar from across the door and fled like a madman down the hall stairs.
“Wayward fool!” exclaimed Flood, thoroughly disgusted, yet anticipating no serious results from the passionate threats. “He is a crazy ass when in liquor.”
“I should say so.”
“Bruce, I am going out for about an hour. If he returns before I come in, ask him to wait for me. I have a few words of advice for his foolish ears.”
“Very well, sir.”
A strange place is a faro-bank. The excitement had passed, and the game was again in progress. Not a man had moved from his seat at the table.
With features in no way betraying his feelings, Moses Flood put on his coat and hat, took a heavy, ironwood cane from a stand in one corner, and signed for Green to accompany him to the door. On the threshold he paused for a moment, fixing his piercing eyes upon those of the humpback, and said, barely above his breath, yet with indescribable intensity:
“Remember, John! Not one word!”
“Never, sir; so help me God!”