I got no further. He jumped backward. The next second I was in the storm-centre. The room was small. Suddenly it became full of arms and legs and hands waving and gesticulating, and fists banging and brandishing; gnashing teeth and a convulsed face in which the eyes actually burned and rained fire; and the language—such a torrent of vilification and denunciation I have never heard, mingled with oaths so intense, so picturesque, so varied that the assortment would have driven an old-time East Indiaman skipper green with jealousy. I was horrified for an instant, then surprised, and after that, if it had not been for my position as the cause of it all, I should have been interested in the exhibition as a performance.
I could hear a stirring and a movement outside. The clerks were evidently aware of the scene. Forms passed rapidly across the ground-glass walls. After a time Rogers controlled himself. Then he said to me in a voice still vibrant with passion:
"Lawson, tell me—put it in short, plain language—do you mean to say that after coming to me of your own accord and agreeing to do certain things, and then returning here to this very office, admitting that you had tricked me; after my overlooking that breach of faith and agreeing to take half the collateral simply because it was all you could raise, and because I desired to assist you—do you mean to say you have the audacity to tell me to my face that the whole thing is a lie and you have imposed on me?"
"I mean, Mr. Rogers, to tell you that Mr. Addicks has just proved to me that he has no bonds; that he is a liar and worse."
"Oh, he is, is he? But does that justify you in coming?—oh!—--"
Again he was off. When he stopped for breath I raised my voice and made it loud and emphatic enough to convince even a man temporarily insane that my part as audience and victim had ended. I said:
"Mr. Rogers, I can't say more than that I apologize for the part I've been made to play in this transaction, and I'll leave your office prepared to take any kind of medicine, however harsh it may be, that you will deal out on account of all this. Not only will I take it, but I'll think you are right in administering it."
Rogers once more got himself under control. I stepped toward the door.
"One minute, Lawson—one minute. What are you going to do? Go back to your associate, that gentlemanly, square-dealing fellow in Philadelphia?"
"Mr. Rogers," I replied, "I ask no mercy at your hands, but there's a limit to the things a man will stand under the mess I'm laboring with. I'm going to do the best I can. What it will be I don't know. There's a deal of money at stake—my friends', the public's, my own—I'm responsible for it. I've made a terrible blunder. I am paying for it, but nothing that has happened has altered my idea of the duty I owe myself and others."