“When did they let him out?” whispered the college boy; and then, “Oughtn’t we to do something?”

“Yis, me son,” whispered Costigan.  “We ought to sit still and learn a thing or two.”

The fat man cleaned his plate with a crust of bread stuck on the point of a knife.  There was nothing more to eat in the way of substantials, and he debated pouring a little more of the sauce on his plate and mopping it with a bit of bread still uneaten.  Considering the pro and con of this extra tid-bit, he glanced up and saw the gaunt man standing in the doorway.

Simpson dropped the knife from his shaking hand and started up with a cry that died away in a gurgle, an inhuman, nightmare croak.  He looked about wildly, like a rat in a trap, then backed towards the wall.  The men about the table got up, then cleared away in a circle, leaving the fat man.  It was all like a dream to the college boy, who had never seen a thing of the kind before and could not realize now that it was happening.  Rodney advanced, never once relaxing the look in which he seemed to hold his enemy as in a vise.  Simpson was like a man bewitched.  Once, twice, he made a grab for his revolver, but his right hand seemed to have lost power to heed the bidding of his will.  Rodney, now well towards the centre of the room, waited, with a suggestion of ceremony, for Simpson to get his six-shooter.

It was one of those moments in which time seems to have become petrified.  The limp-clad proprietress of the eating-house, made curious by the sudden silence, looked in from the kitchen.  Simpson, his eyes wandering like a trapped rat, saw, and called, through teeth that chattered in an ague of fear, “Ree—­memm—­her thth—­there’s la—­dies p—­present!  For Gawd’s sake, remember t—­there’s ladies p—­present!”

The pale man looked towards the kitchen, and, seeing the woman, he gave Simpson a look in which there was only contempt.  “You’ve hid behind the law once, and this time it’s petticoats.  The open don’t seem to have no charm for you.  But—­” He didn’t finish, there was no need to.  Every one knew and understood.  He put up his revolver and walked into the street.

The men broke into shouts of laughter, loud and ringing, then doubled up and had it out all over again.  And their noisy merriment was as clear an indication of the suddenly lifted strain, at the averted shooting, as it was of their enjoyment of the farce.  Simpson, relieved of the fear of sudden death, now sought to put a better face on his cowardice.  Now that his enemy was well out of sight, Simpson handled his revolver with easy assurance.

“Put ut up,” shouted Costigan, above the general uproar. “’Tis toime to fear a revolver in the hands av Simpson whin he’s no intinsions av shootin’.”

Simpson still attempted to harangue the crowd, but his voice was lost in the general thigh-slapping and the shouts and roars that showed no signs of abating.  But when he caught a man by the coat lapel in his efforts to secure a hearing, that was another matter, and the man shook him off as if his touch were contagion.  Simpson, craving mercy on account of petticoats, evading a meeting that was “up to him,” they were willing to stand as a laughing-stock, but Simpson as an equal, grasping the lapels of their coats, they would have none of.