"Give me the money, or show me how to get it, or I will have you posted up at every street corner in town. I have your letter here. I shall send it to your friend, the editor of the Sink." The Sink was a scurrilous newspaper, which the virtuous Vinal, always anxious for the morals of the city, had once caused to be prosecuted as a nuisance, for which the editor bore him a special grudge. But Vinal at last was brought to bay. Threats, which Speyer thought irresistible, had lost their power. He threw back the paper, and said desperately, "Do what you will." Speyer made a step forward, and faced his prey. "Will you give me the money?" "By G--, no!" "By G--, you shall!" And Speyer seized him by the breast of his waistcoat. Vinal had been trained in the habits of a gentleman. He had never known personal outrage before. He grew purple with rage. The veins of his forehead swelled like whipcord, and his eyes glittered like a rattlesnake's. "Take off your hand!" The words were less articulated than hissed between his teeth. "Take off your hand." Speyer clutched him with a harder gripe, and shook him to and fro. Quick as lightning, Vinal struck him in the face. Speyer glared and grinned on his victim like an enraged tiger. For a moment, he shook him as a terrier shakes a rat; then flung him backward against the farther side of the room. Here, striking the wall, he fell helpless, among the window curtains and overturned chairs. Speyer would probably have followed up his attack; but at the instant, the servant, who, by a happy accident, was at the side door, in the near neighborhood of the keyhole, ran in in time to save Vinal from more serious discomfiture. Speyer hesitated; turned from one to the other with murder in his look; then, slowly moving backwards, left the room, whence the servant's valor did not mount to the point of following him. CHAPTER LXX. He is composed and framed of treachery, And fled he is upon this villany.--_Much Ado about Nothing_.