“Never, sir!” exclaimed Richard, stopping Gibbs in his enumeration of the places on the highway of infamy where they had supped together. “I once knew a scoundrel who led astray a wealthy merchant’s son and broke the father’s heart; you are something like that aristocratic sneak, but you are not he. The man I mean was a swell, wore light kid gloves, and splendid shirts. They did say he wore stays, and thought himself a woman killer; _you_ are not that man, but some blear-eyed, shambling vagabond who would impose upon a gentleman in order that he may give you a night’s lodging in the station house.” “You infernal damned scoundrel,” said Gibbs, rushing towards the cool satirical friend of former days; “you miserable mushroom huxter!” Richard Tallant was by far the strongest man of the two, and he felled Gibbs to the ground with ease. “Now, shall I ring the bell and have you pitched into the street, or will you get up and go home to dinner, or go to your club and have devilled chops and champagne--eh?” Gibbs gathered himself together and stood before his victor, clenching his hands and teeth, and trembling with passion. “I will go,” he said, hissing out the words as if they scorched him. “The cat will mew; the dog will have his day.” Mr. Tallant rang the bell. A servant came on the instant. “Show this fellow to the door; if ever he presumes to make his appearance here again thrust him into the street and give him in charge of the police.” “Yes, sir,” said the man, “this way.” Gibbs followed his guide muttering, and nervously clutching his fingers. “Now then, old ragamuffin,” said the servant when they were in the hall, “hoff yer go.” Hunger, as Zimmermann says, is the mother of impatience and anger, and never had mother a more worthy son than Shuffleton Gibbs. It was hunger which had driven him to make that third application to his friend; hunger and thirst; hunger for money as much as hunger for food. He had neither money nor credit, even in the stews, where he had exhausted both, when he made this last appeal to Richard Tallant. But he got money somehow that night, and he swore an awful oath that he would wreak a terrible revenge on the head of this vile scoundrel. The red-eyed, low-browed, crouching gin drinkers who sat with him at the midnight orgie--even they noticed the satanic malignity of Gibbs’s countenance, as it worked and writhed under a passion too deep for words; they knew that, whatever it might import, that awful oath would not be broken. They fairly clanked their glasses and knocked their skinny knuckles upon the table to see Gibbs so much excited, and the women, with witch-like grimaces, pledged his “health” and wished him “luck.”