The old man turned and laid his hand on the baron's shoulder. "I thank you, sir, but I'll attend to this young man." His voice had lost all its rasping quality now. It was low and concentrated, like that of one accustomed to command. "Take your hands off him, gentlemen, if you please. I don't think he has so far lost his senses as to strike a man twice his age and with one arm. Now, sir, you will apologize to me, and to the room, and to your own friends, who must be heartily ashamed of your conduct." At the bottom of almost every Anglo-Saxon is a bed rock of common sense that you reach through the shifting sands of prejudice with the probe of fair play. The young man in the check suit, who was now on his feet, looked the speaker straight in the eye, and, half drunk as he was, held out his hand. "I'm sorry, sir, I offended you. I was speaking to my friends here, and I did not know any Americans were present." "Bravo!" yelled the Doctor. "What did I tell you Todd? That's the kind of stuff! Now, gentlemen, all together--three cheers for the man with the empty sleeve!" Everybody broke out with another shout--all but Todd, who had not made the slightest response to the Doctor's invitation to loosen his legs and his lungs. He did not show the slightest emotion over the fracas, and, moreover, seemed to have become suddenly disgusted with the baron. Then the Doctor grasped the young German by the hand, and said how glad he was to know him, and how delighted he would be if he would join them and "take something,"--all of which the young man accepted with a frank, pleased look on his face. When the room had resumed its normal conditions, all three Englishmen having disappeared, the Doctor, whose enthusiasm over the incident had somehow paved the way for closer acquaintance, introduced me in the same informal way both to the baron and to the hero of the occasion, as "a brother American," and we all sat down beside the old man, his face lighting up with a smile as he made room for us. Then laying his hand on my knee, with the manner of an older man, he said: "I ought not to have given way, perhaps; but the truth is, I'm not accustomed to hear such things at home. I did not know until I got close to him that he had been drinking, or I might have let it pass. I suppose this kind of talk may always go on in the smoking-room of these steamers. I don't know, for it's my first trip abroad, and on the way out I was too ill to leave my berth. To-night is the first time I've been in here. It was bad for me, I suppose. I've been ill all"---- He stopped suddenly, caught his breath quickly, and his hand fell from my knee. For a moment he sat leaning forward, breathing heavily. I sprang up, thinking he was about to faint. The baron started for a glass of water. The old man raised his hand.