"He—he told me—he was object—subject to it," he stammered. "Been like it since he was a baby."
He shifted his weight to his other foot and shrugged eloquently the shoulder near the passage.
"What did you do to him?" demanded the captain, in a low, stern voice.
"Me, sir?" said Mr. Walters, with clumsy surprise. "Me, sir? I—I—all I done—all I done—was ta put a door-key down his back."
"Door-key?" roared the captain.
"To—to stop the bleeding, sir," said Mr. Walters, looking at the floor and nervously twisting his cap in his hands. "It's a old-fashioned—"
"That'll do," exclaimed the captain, in a choking voice, "that'll do. I don't want any more of your lies. How dare you come to Mr. Hartley's house and knock his milkman about, eh? How dare you? What do you mean by it?"
Mr. Walters fumbled with his cap again. "I was sitting in the kitchen," he said at last, "sitting in the kitchen—hunting 'igh and low for my baccy-box—when this 'ere miserable, insulting chap shoves his head in at the door and calls the young lady names."
"Names?" said the captain, frowning, and waving an interruption from Hartley aside. "What names?"
Mr. Walters hesitated again, and his brow grew almost as black as the captain's.