"’T is not so wintry here as the shore must look at home," continued Dickson. "Damn that coxcomb on the quarter-deck! he ’s more than the devil himself could stand for company!" Wallingford, instead of agreeing in his present disaffection, turned about, and stood fronting the speaker. He looked Dickson straight in the eye, as if daring him to speak again, whereat Dickson remained silent. The lieutenant stood like a prince. "I see that I intrude," said the other, rallying his self-consequence. "You have even less obligation to Captain Paul Jones than you may think," he continued, dropping his voice and playing his last trump. "I overheard, by accident, some talk of his on the terrace with a certain young lady whom your high loftiness might not allow me to mention. He called you a cursed young spy and a Tory, and she implored him to protect you. She said you was her old playmate, and that she wanted you got out o’ the way o’ trouble. He had his arm round her, and he said he might be ruined by you; he cursed you up hill and down, while she was a-pleadin’. ’Twas all for her sake, and your mother’s bein’ brought into distress"— Dickson spoke rapidly, and edged a step or two away; but his shoulder was clutched as if a panther’s teeth had it instead of a man’s hand. "I’ll kill you if you give me another word!" said Roger Wallingford. "If I knew you told the whole truth, I should be just as ready to drop you overboard." "I have told the truth," said Dickson. "I know you are n’t above eavesdropping," answered Wallingford, with contempt. "If you desire to know what I think of your sneaking on the outside of a man’s house where you have been denied entrance, I am willing to tell you. I heard you were there that night." "You were outside yourself, to keep me company, and I’m as good a gentleman as Jack Hamilton," protested Dickson. "He went the rounds of the farms with a shoemaker’s kit, in the start of his high fortunes." "Mr. Hamilton would mend a shoe as honestly in his young poverty as he would sit in council now. So he has come to be a rich merchant and a trusted man." There was something in Wallingford’s calm manner that had power to fire even Dickson’s cold and sluggish blood. "I take no insults from you, Mr. Lieutenant!" he exclaimed, in a black rage, and passed along the deck to escape further conversation. There had been men of the crew within hearing. Dickson had said what he wished to say, and a moment later he was thinking no less highly of himself than ever. He would yet compass the downfall of the two men whom he hated. He had already set them well on their way to compass the downfall of each other. It made a man chuckle with savage joy to think of looking on at the game.