I bowed and he nodded with distinct coolness. He was not of happy appearance; he was lean and angular, gray beyond the demand of his years, and it struck me that he must be given to drink, not because he was gray, but because there were puffs under his eyes and broken veins where his skin was stretched over his high cheek-bones. "A devil of an affair, this," he said. "Man met in the public highway and murdered." "Don't put it that way," I spoke up, "for perhaps you are not yet acquainted with the causes that led to it." "No cause, sir, should lead to murder." "I agree with you there, but many a man has been compelled to kill in order to save his own life." He sneered at me. "But has many a man been compelled to stand for hours in a public road, and in order to save his own life shoot down an innocent person? I always held that Alf Jucklin was a dangerous and a desperate man, and everybody knows that he comes of that breed. I never did like him; and he took a dislike to me without cause. Stood near a church in a crowd of men one day when I seemed to be under discussion and declared that a man to be a doctor ought to be smart and to be smart a man must say something to prove the thought within him; and then he asked if any one had ever heard me say anything worth remembering." I felt that he wanted to quarrel with me, and I was in the humor to gratify him. "And did anyone ever hear you say a thing worth remembering?" I asked. "Sir!" he snarled. "You heard what I said. And I take a degree of cool pleasure in telling you before we go further that you can't ride a high horse over me." "A pedagogue's pedantry," he muttered. "A man's truth," I replied. "And by the way," I added, "you appear to be well horsed. Suppose you ride on ahead." "Does this road belong to you, sir?" he demanded, turning a severe brow upon me. "A part of it does, and I am going to ride over that part without annoyance. Do you understand?" "Sir, I can understand impudence even if I can't say a thing worth remembering. But rather than have words with you I will ride on, not to accommodate you, but to preserve my own dignity and self-respect." "Good!" I mockingly cried, "and if you continue to improve in expression I shall after a while be forced to believe that Alf's estimate of you was placed too low." "I thank you, sir, for giving me the opportunity to say that a jury's estimate will hereafter most influence your friend, and that he will be placed high enough."