“Don’t wait to speak to me about it.  Get up and get out!”

“Mr. Milligan, you’re wrong.  I’m going to stay here and you’re going to protect me.”

“Well, confound your soul!  They ain’t much nerve about you, is there?”

“You run a public place.  You have to protect your patrons from insult.”

“And who began it, then?  Who started walkin’ on Jack’s toes?  Now you come whinin’ to me!  By heck, I hope Jack gets you!”

“You’re a genial soul,” said Donnegan.  “Here’s to you!”

But something in his smile as he sipped his liquor made Milligan sit straighter in his chair.

As for Donnegan, he was thinking hard and fast.  If there were a shooting affair and he won, he would nevertheless run a close chance of being hung by a mob.  He must dispose that mob to look upon him as the defendant and Landis as the aggressor.  He had not foreseen the crisis until it was fairly upon him.  He had thought of Nelly playing Landis along more gradually and carefully, so that, while he was slowly learning that she was growing cold to him, he would have a chance to grow fond of Lou Macon once more.  But even across the width of the room he had seen the girl fire up, and from that moment he knew the result.  Landis already suspected him; Landis, with the feeling that he had been robbed, would do his best to kill the thief.  He might take a chance with Landis, if it came to a fight, just as he had taken a chance with Lewis.  But how different this case would be!  Landis was no dull-nerved ruffian and drunkard.  He was a keen boy with a hair-trigger balance, and in a gunplay he would be apt to beat the best of them all.  Of all this Donnegan was fully aware.  Either he must place his own life in terrible hazard or else he must shoot to kill; and if he killed, what of Lou Macon?

While he smiled into the face of Milligan, perspiration was bursting out under his armpits.

“Mr. Milligan, I implore you to give me your aid.”

“What’s the difference?” Milligan asked in a changed tone.  “If he don’t fight you here he’ll fight you later.”

“You’re wrong, Mr. Milligan.  He isn’t the sort to hold malice.  He’ll come here tonight and try to get at me like a bulldog straining on a leash.  If he is kept away he’ll get over his bad temper.”

Milligan pushed back his chair.

“You’ve tried to force yourself down the throat of The Corner,” he said, “and now you yell for help when you see the teeth.”

He had raised his voice.  Now he got up and strode noisily away.  Donnegan waited until he was halfway across the dance floor and then rose in turn.

“Gentlemen,” he said.

The quiet voice cut into every conversation; the musicians lowered the instruments.

“I have just told Mr. Milligan that I am sure Jack Landis is coming back here to try to kill me.  I have asked for his protection.  He has refused it.  I intend to stay here and wait for him, Jack Landis.  In the meantime I ask any able-bodied man who will do so, to try to stop Landis when he enters.”