"You are mad, Clayton; you don't know what you are doing. Stop these troops and our streets will run blood. I beg and beseech you to keep cool. Because South Carolina has lost her head, that is no reason why we should. This is not our fight! If my State called me to defend her against foreign invasion, old as I am I would be ready, and so should you. But the Government is part of ourselves, and should not be looked upon as an enemy. You are wrong, I tell you, Clayton." "Wrong or right, they'll have to walk over my dead body if they attempt to cross the streets of this town. That's my right as a citizen, and that I shall maintain. Gentlemen, I have called a meeting at the club at ten o'clock to-night. All of you able to carry a gun will do me the kindness to be present. I'd rather die right here in my tracks than let a lot of low-lived mud-sills who never entered a gentleman's house in their lives come down here at the beck and call of this rail-splitter they've put in the White House and walk over us rough-shod! And you, Horn, a Virginian, defend it! By God, sir, it's enough to make a man's blood boil!" The inventor's eyes flashed. They blazed now as brightly as those of Clayton. Not even a life-long friend had the right to use such language in his presence, or in that of his guests. Richard's figure grew tense with indignation. Confronting the now reckless man, he raised his hand and was about to order him out of the house when Oliver stepped quickly in front of his father. "You are unjust, Colonel Clayton." The words came slowly between the boy's partly closed teeth. "You know nothing of these people. I have lived among them long enough not only to know but to love them. There are as many gentlemen North as South. If you would go among them as I have done, you would be man enough to admit it." The Colonel turned upon him with a snarl: "And so you have become a dirty renegade, have you, and gone back on your blood and your State? That's what comes of sending boys like you away from home!" The guests stood amazed. The spectacle of the most courteous man of his time acting like a blackguard was more astounding than the news he had brought. Even Malachi, at the open door, trembled with fear. As the words fell from his lips Mrs. Horn's firm, clear voice, crying "Shame! Shame!" rang through the room. She had risen from her seat and was walking rapidly to where the Colonel was standing. "Shame, I say, John Clayton! How dare you speak so? What has our young son ever done to you, that you should insult him in his father's house! What madness has come over you?" The horrified guests looked from one to the other. Every eye was fixed on the Colonel, shaking with rage. For a brief instant he faced his hostess, started to speak, checked himself as if some better judgment prevailed, and with upraised hands flung himself from the room, shouting, as he went: "Ten o'clock, gentlemen! Chesapeake Club! Every man with a gun!"