"I don't want any advice from you," said Tom in a bitter monotone. I have heard it mentioned by an expert that a super-heated steam-boiler is likely to explode with the first escape of steam, the slight relief of pressure precipitating the catastrophe. Tom had resolved not to speak a word to Lockwood, but his wounded and indignant pride had brooded over Rachel's rejection the livelong night, and now the air of patronage in Lockwood drew from him this beginning; then his own words aggravated his feelings, and speech became an involuntary explosion. "You called me down-stairs," he said, "and got me into this scrape. Do you think I don't know what it was for? You took pains to have word about it go where it would do me the most harm." "I didn't do any such thing," said Lockwood. "You did," said Tom. "You told Ike Albaugh Saturday. You're a cold-blooded villain, and if you cross my path again I'll shoot you." By this time he was talking loud enough for all in the store to hear. The villager who wanted nails had sidled a little closer to the center of the explosion, the young man tilting to and fro on the threshold of the front door had come inside the store and was deeply engaged in studying the familiar collection of pearl buttons, colored sewing-silks, ribbons, and other knick-knacks in the counter showcase, while the carpenter had forgotten his haste, and turning about stood now with his tool-box under his arm, looking at Tom Grayson and Lockwood with blunt curiosity. "That's a nice way to treat me, I must say," said Lockwood, in a kind of whine of outraged friendship. "You'd 'a' gone home bareheaded and in your shirt-sleeves and your stocking-feet, if 't hadn't 'a' been fer me." "I'd 'a' gone home with my money in my pocket, if you and Dave Sovine hadn't fixed it up between you to fleece me. I 'xpect you made as much out of it as Dave did. You've got me out 'v your way now. But you look out! Don't you cross my track again, George Lockwood, or I'll kill you!"