“Are you thinking of debating with him?”
Stone answered in the affirmative.
“Can’t you get out of it in some honorable way?”
Stone replied that he was not wanting “out of it.”
“But you may want out of it,” was Treat’s not very assuring reply.
“Why, is he not fair in debate? Is he not a gentleman?”
“Yes,” answered Treat, “so much so that all your people who know him love to be with him and hear him talk.” And the conversation drifted into other channels. But Doctor Stone, being from Missouri, waited to be shown. And the debate was held according to schedule.
About this time Doctor Stone was enjoying no small degree of notoriety. He had debated with a Methodist minister in southern Illinois, and so completely mastered him that he acknowledged his defeat in sack cloth and ashes, and joined the Christian Church. Stone was taking advantage of his newly-acquired popularity in waging a relentless war against the “sects,” as he termed them, when some of the Pedo-Baptists secured Newgent to meet him in debate. And the challenge was brought to the great, self-important Doctor Stone.
“Newgent!” said this supposed Goliath with a contemptuous sneer. “He can’t debate. He’s an Irish peddler who used to sell table-cloths in my father’s neighborhood.” The committee informed him that they were willing to risk their case with the Irish peddler. However, Stone’s visit to Doctor Treat to get information concerning the Irishman would indicate that his contempt was more feigned than real.