"That was score one on you, Clark," he said to his neighbour. "It doesn't pay to get too fresh even with a parson."
"I don't see that it's any of your pidgin to stick up for those fakirs," retorted the tea-buyer angrily.
"And I don't make it my pidgin," replied McLeod, "but it wasn't up to you to butt in on a man like MacKay the way you did. He gave you what you deserved."
"He needn't have flared up so and brought in all those mock-heroics about what those niggers of his did. I was only jollying him. He made things a great deal worse than they were."
"He didn't make things half as bad as they were, Clark. What about the way the native preacher's daughter was used by the men to whom the preacher gave up his house and his church? Those brown-skins may have no souls. But MacKay believes they have. To my thinking they have a good deal more soul than the white-skins who did what was done there. You fellows went the limit. I wonder that MacKay let you off so easy."
"Oh!—Say!—Damn it, McLeod, that's going too far.—I'll not stand for that.—Say!—Here!—McLeod!—Wait and we'll break a bottle of champagne.—Here!—Boy! One piecee champagne!"
"No, thank you, Clark! It's my watch."
At the door the chief officer paused and called back:
"Say, Doc, when you are done feeding that big body of yours, come up on the bridge."
"All right, Mac. I'll be with you."