against him.' I am not speaking idly, as you will learn to your cost.
Yet, when I come on an errand of mercy, you have the impudence to charge
me with blackmail. You are in for a great awakening. Be sure of that!"

And Isidor G. Ingerman walked out, leaving Grant uncomfortably aware that
he had not seen the last of an implacable and bitter enemy.

It was something new and very disturbing for a writer to find himself in
the predicament of a man with an absolutely clear conscience yet
perilously near the meshes of the criminal law. He had often analyzed
such a situation in his books, but fiction diverged so radically from
hard fact that the sensation was profoundly disconcerting, to say the
least. He did not go to the post office. He was not equal to any more
verbal fire-works that evening. So he lit a pipe, and reviewed Ingerman's
well-rounded periods very carefully, even taking the precaution to jot
down exact, phrases. He analyzed them, and saw that they were capable of
two readings. Of course, it could not be otherwise. The plausible rascal
must have conned them over until this essential was secured. Grant even
went so far as to give them a grudging professional tribute. They held a
canker of doubt, too, which it was difficult to dissect. Their veiled
threats were perplexing. While their effect, as apart from literal
significance, was fresh in his mind, he made a few notes of different
interpretations.

He went to bed rather early, but could not sleep until the small hours.
Probably his rest, such as it was, would have been even more disturbed
had he been able to accompany Ingerman to the Hare and Hounds Inn.

A small but select company had gathered in the bar parlor. The two hours
between eight and ten were the most important of the day to the landlord,