"You fool!" I cried, "what are you doing?" He clipped me bang in the eye. Saxton was a strong man, weakened by whisky. I was twice as strong and braced with rage. I whirled him around and slammed him on the floor. Something cold pressed against my temple. It was a revolver in the hands of Perez. "Your life for it, if you hurt him," said he. For a second, I meant to quit that place in disgust. Then the size of it took hold of me. It doesn't matter whether a thing is wise or not--in fact, you never can tell whether a thing is wise or not--but if it has a size to it, it suits me. I thought for a minute. There we stood, me holding Saxton, Perez holding me--just that little, cold touch, you'd think might be pleasant on a hot day. "I hope you ain't nervous, Mr. Perez?" says I, to gain time. "What?" says he, kind of befuzzled. "No, I am not nervous." "That's right," says I, hearty. "Don't try to see how hard that trigger pulls, or you'll disturb my thoughts." Then I made up my mind. "Saxton," says I, "if there's a remnant in you of the man you once was, get your friend to leave, and take the licking you deserve." I looked down at him--the man was back again! Talk about your moral suasion, I tell you there's a time when only one thing counts. I'd done more for Arthur Saxton by slamming him down on the floor than the doctors and preachers could have brought about in ten years. He went down _hard_, mind you. Yes, sir, there was the old Saxton, with his forehead frowned up because his head hurt, but the old, kindly, funny little smile on his lips. "Perez," he said, "run away and let the bad little boy get his spanking--although, Bill," he went on, "if it's reformation you're after, I don't need it." He laughed up at me. "You think I'm trying to dodge payment, but, so help me, I'm not, Billy boy." To see him like that, his laughing self again, after the nightmare we'd just been through, set me to sniveling--darn it, I was excited and only a kid, but I cried--yes, I cried. And Perez, he cried. "N-nice way for you to act," says I, "and s-spoil all a poor boy's got to respect." The awful slush of that struck us all, and we broke out into a laugh together--a wibbly kind of laugh, but it served. Arthur got up and dusted his clothes. He shook fearfully. I never saw a man in worse shape and still be able to stand. Two weeks of a steady diet of French brandy on top of trouble will put a man outside the ordinary run, or inside his long home. It was fine, the way he gathered himself. He brought something like what he ought to be out of the wreck in two minutes.