"You scum of a shyster! Do you think you can jew me into a dicker?"
Shagarach arose and walked to the window. He was not an equestrian, but natural perception taught him the useful rule to turn his horse's head when he starts to run away. Facing suddenly about, he said:
"I am a Jew, true. Perhaps that is why I do not poison myself with opium."
The young man's cheek grew pale again. The cane dropped and he sunk in his chair.
"Am I to be prosecuted for that also?" The anger in his tones had flickered away to a feeble peevishness. "How do you know?"
"Because you are wearing a light overcoat with the mercury at 80," answered Shagarach, who had glanced at the thermometer in his window. "Because you have the glazed eye of a man in fever, and because you lie like an oriental!"
This time Kennedy made no protest against the insult. He was succumbing to the strain placed upon his shattered nerves by the remorseless man across the table.
"There is your cause of action," said Shagarach, tossing back his letter. Again he dipped his pen in the ink preparing to write.
"What do you want of me?" asked Kennedy.
"Nothing," Shagarach had half-filled the sheet. He was stamping the envelope when the next question slowly came.