"Get out nothing!" With a swift movement of his hand Horatio Fielding poured out a full measure of brandy and drank it. "I'd like to know what you've got to do with this thing, anyhow! That's the worst of a little hell of a town like this. Nothing in it but a lot of relics and old-maid men and pussy-cat women spying on a girl because she's young and pretty. That cut-glass icicle with an antique nose asked me so many questions that I thought I'd let her know all the goods wasn't in this part of the world. She walked me around the room three times showing me a bunch of old duffers in wigs and knee-breeches, and half-dressed women with caps or curls. Said she didn't suppose we had family portraits in Nevada. I told her what we did have. If she chose to say I said what she says, she did it because she hates people with money worse than snake poison. All her class is muggy on money. Thinks it common to have it. But they've got a long reach all right, and can be very smirky to the face when they smell the stuff. As for questions--" John being near the window, he took hastily another drink of brandy. "She asked enough to make a catechism. I didn't mind her quizzers. She's on the sour, and I thought I'd help her enjoy herself. I told her I didn't mind Mary Cary's having been an orphan. I was willing to marry her, parents or no parents." /"Willing!"/ John turned. His right arm went out, and from Horatio Fielding's nose blood spurted over the spotted vest, down the legs of his well-creased trousers, and settled on his patent-leather shoes. Howling, he sprang toward the larger man. With his foot John kicked him in the air, and as he came down on the floor stood over him as he would a puppy. "I can't fight you. I'm too much bigger," he said, spitting toward the fireplace. "To shake a rat would be as easy. But I don't promise to keep my hands off much longer. You're a liar! If you didn't say all Miss Brockenborough says you said, you implied it. At college you cheated, and you'd smirch a good name in a minute if your own interests could be helped. I'd rather not have blood on my hands, and I haven't time for a trial, but if you don't get out of this town to-night you'll be shipped out in a box to-morrow. You're got an hour. Are you going?" Horatio Fielding got up, his handkerchief to the bleeding nose. "If it takes the last cent I've got on earth I'll make you pay for this," he said, thickly. He pulled out another handkerchief and put it to his cut lip. "I believe you've broken my nose." "I hope I have. You're lucky it's not your neck." John took a card out of his pocket-book and handed it to the shaking figure. "That's my address in New York. If you want to see me again you can find me without trouble. Next time I'll kill you."