"Use your common sense, Pelton, and don't shriek like a fish-wife," ordered
Ridgway sharply. "No sane man floats a leaky ship. Go to drydock and patch
up your reputation, and in a few years you'll come out as good as new."
All his unprincipled life Pelton had compromised with honor to gain the
coveted goal he now saw slipping from him. A kind of madness of despair
surged up in him. He took a step threateningly toward the seated man, his
hand slipping back under his coat-tails toward his hip pocket. Acridly his
high voice rang out.
"As a Southern gentleman, seh, I refuse to tolerate the imputations you
cast upon me. I demand an apology here and now, seh."
Ridgway was on his feet and across the room like a flash.
"Don't try to bully ME, you false alarm. Call yourself a Southern
gentleman! You're a shallow scurvy impostor. No more like the real article
than a buzzard is like an eagle. Take your hand from under that coat or
I'll break every bone in your flabby body."
Flabby was the word, morally no less than physically. Pelton quailed under
that gaze which bored into him like a gimlet.
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