'concern' for speaking as--er--er--mutual friend. As to YOUR statement
of your relations with Miss Hooker, I may state that it is fully
corroborated by the statement of the young lady herself in this very
office yesterday."

"Then what does this impertinent nonsense mean? Why am I summoned here?"
demanded Hotchkiss furiously.

"Because," said the Colonel deliberately, "that statement is
infamously--yes, damnably to your discredit, sir!"

Mr. Hotchkiss was here seized by one of those impotent and inconsistent
rages which occasionally betray the habitually cautious and timid man.
He caught up the Colonel's stick, which was lying on the table. At the
same moment the Colonel, without any apparent effort, grasped it by
the handle. To Mr. Hotchkiss's astonishment, the stick separated in two
pieces, leaving the handle and about two feet of narrow glittering steel
in the Colonel's hand. The man recoiled, dropping the useless fragment.
The Colonel picked it up, fitted the shining blade in it, clicked the
spring, and then rising with a face of courtesy yet of unmistakably
genuine pain, and with even a slight tremor in his voice, said
gravely,--

"Mr. Hotchkiss, I owe you a thousand apologies, sir, that--er--a weapon
should be drawn by me--even through your own inadvertence--under the
sacred protection of my roof, and upon an unarmed man. I beg your
pardon, sir, and I even withdraw the expressions which provoked
that inadvertence. Nor does this apology prevent you from holding me
responsible--personally responsible--ELSEWHERE for an indiscretion
committed in behalf of a lady--my--er--client."