“Your epithet of 'Jackson Jew,'” responded Noah, quietly, “I take for myself, and am much flattered thereby. And you are also to remember there are weapons other than words which one may cross with me whenever one's valor arouses to that pitch. Jew, yes! my ancestors were poets, lawgivers--they read the stars, and collected the wisdom and the learning of the world, when the slant-skulled fore-fathers of upstairs I might indicate went clothed of sheepskin and club, ate their meat raw, and saved their fire to pray to.” All this flowed from Noah in tones modulate and sweet. I began to wonder at my fair-haired friend; not unskilled in colloquy of this sort, it beat upon me that Noah, himself, was wanting an encounter. “If I were to own my way,” said Catron, paying no heed to Noah's intimation of a stone-age savagery as the state of his forebears. “If I might have my way, I'd exclude every shoe-lace Jew from the country.” “Doubtless; if you were to have but your own way,” purred Noah. “And yet, observe the injustice you propose. The Jew is as much the American as you. My father fought for this country; I have fought for it; the Jews found and gave one-third of that money which won the Revolution. The Jews wasted their treasure and their blood like water for independence, while folk one wots of were filling the roles of Royalists and upholding the hands of the King.” There now fell out a deal of talk to little purpose, I thought, and I was on the tip of telling Noah so, when someone from over my shoulder flung a remark. “You are he,” said this man--his name was Witherspoon, and he a Clay Kentuckian--“you are he,” addressing Noah, “who had this country stricken from the muster of Christian nations. You caused the Bey of Tunis to make the decision.” “I but caused the Bey to expound our constitution,” said Noah, looking carelessly back at Witherspoon. While I was turning these last remarks in my mind, and gnawing the enigma they offered, Catron broke forth with a cataract of malediction upon the General, and Noah and any and all who stood the former's supporters. It was a flood of abuse that told strongly for the ruffian's muddy powers. “And now this precious Jackson of yours,”--these were Catron's closing words--“this murderer! this thief of other men's wives! would insult the decency of our capitol with a courtesan in his cabinet.” “Meaning whom?” asked Noah, half rising. Noah's words had the fiber of triumph; he put his question as might he who had trapped that result which he went seeking from the start. “Who?” retorted the other; “who, save that Peg O'Neal who was as common as the streets she walked.” “You lie; you rogue and dog of Henry Clay, you lie!” Noah fair spat out the words; it was as though they came freighted with the venom of the viper.