“Throw your leg over!” Galt cried out. “Ah, that's a beauty! Now, beat him till he takes it back!” Lionel needed no such advice. His little fists moved like the spokes of a turning wheel. A shrill howl of defeat rose from the conquered bully, and he uttered a prolonged scream of genuine alarm. Then emerged from a side door of the Weston house no less a personage than the Congressman himself, and he ran across the grass, taking flower-pots and beds of roses at long leaps. Reaching the fighters, he grasped Lionel by the collar of his blouse and drew him off of his cowering son. And as he held him, squirming like a cat, he turned on Galt. “Damn it, man!” he cried, in breathless fury, “what do you mean by standing here and encouraging this brat to fight my boy?” “Why, I only wanted to see fair play, that's all,” Galt replied, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “I happened to hear your big bully of a son dare the little one to fight him, and he brought it on by insulting the little fellow's mother. God bless him, he didn't need my advice. He could whip two such whelps as yours, and never half try! He hasn't a cowardly bone in his body! He was all there!” “Well, it seems to me, _you_ are in a pretty business!” Weston retorted, white with rage. “I might be even more active than I am, Weston,” Galt said, with cold significance, “and if you are not satisfied with the part I have taken, you only have to say the word. You know that well enough.” The Congressman was taken aback. There was something in the unruffled tone and meaning stare of his neighbor's eyes that perplexed and quelled him. He now turned upon his sniffling offspring. “You go in the house!” he said, angrily. “You are always picking at some child under your size. I have noticed it.” Weston was a politician before anything else, and the thought of turning against him a man who controlled as many votes as did the president of the greatest railway in the State was not particularly inviting. “I didn't mean to offend you, Galt,” he said, as his boy limped away, still mopping his eyes with his fists. “I reckon I got hot because it was my own flesh and blood. Of course, it was natural for you to sympathize with the smaller of the two.” “That's the way _I_ felt about it, Weston,” Galt said, staring coldly at the speaker. “I have nothing at all to apologize for.” “Well, I'll see that Grover behaves himself better in future,” the Congressman said, still with his political eye open to advantages. “Of course, it would be natural for a child like mine to pick up remarks floating about among older people in regard to the mother of--” “We'll let that drop, _too_, Weston!” Galt snarled. His lip quivered ominously as he glanced significantly at Lionel, who was listening attentively, the blood from a bruised nose trickling down to his chin and neck. “All right, I understand,” the Congressman said; and he moved awkwardly away, wondering what manner of man the frigid and reticent Galt was, after all.