“You do not believe me, sir?” demanded Jefferson, the blood boiling slowly to his large face.

“No,” said Hamilton; “I do not.”

Jefferson brought his mighty fist down upon the table with a bang.”  Sir!” he exclaimed, his husky voice unpleasantly strained, “I have stood enough from you.  Are you aware that you have called me a liar, sir?  I have suffered at your hands since the day I set foot in this country.  I left the peace and retirement that I love, to come forth in response to a demand upon my duty, a demand I have ever heeded, and what has been my reward?  The very first act I was tricked into committing was a crime against my country—­”

“Were you in your dotage, sir?” thundered Hamilton, springing to his feet, and bringing his own hand down with such violence that the lead in his cuff dented his wrist.  “Was your understanding enfeebled with age, that you could not comprehend the exhaustive explanation I made of the crisis in this country’s affairs?  Did I not give you twenty-four hours in which to think it over?  What were you doing—­muddling your brains with French wines?—­that you could not reason clearly when relieved of my baleful fascination?  Were you not protected on the following day by two men, who were more your friends than mine?  I proposed a straightforward bargain, which you understood as well then as you do now.  You realized to the full what the interests of the country demanded, and in a rare moment of disinterested patriotism you agreed to a compromise in which you saw no detriment to yourself.  What you did not anticipate was the irritation of your particular State, and the annoyance to your vanity of permitting a younger man to have his way.  Now let me hear no more of this holding a candle, and the tricking of an open mind by a wily one, unless you are willing to acknowledge that your brain was too weak to grasp a simple proposition; in which case you had better resign from public office.”

“I know that is what you are trying to force me to do,” gasped Jefferson, almost speechless between rage and physical fear; for Hamilton’s eyes were flashing, his body curved as if he meditated immediate personal violence.  “But I’ll not do it, sir, any more than I or anyone else will be deluded by the speciousness of your language.  You are an upstart.  You have no State affinities, you despise them for a very good reason—­you come from God knows where—­I do not even know the name of the place.  You are playing a game.  You care nothing for the country you were not born in.  Unless you can be king, you would treat it as your toy.”

“For your absurd personalities I care nothing,” said Hamilton, reseating himself.  “They are but the ebullitions of an impotence that would ruin and cannot.  But take heed what you write, for in injuring the Secretary of the Treasury you injure the prosperity of the country; and if you push me too far, I’ll expose you and make you infamous.  Here comes the President.  For God’s sake bottle your spite for the present.”