Perhaps I was not as tactful as I might have been. But he is an
irritating person. One of those people who seem to file your nerves.
In fact there is something almost upsetting' about that mild old
scoundrel. He gives me what the Scots call a "scunner." (You have to
hear a true Scot pronounce it before you get its inner meaning.) And
when, that day, he began talking about his daughter's future being
her father's care, I said--I forget exactly what I said but he
seemed to get the idea all right. It annoyed him. We were both
annoyed. He did not put his feelings into words. He put them into
his eyes instead. And horrid, nasty feelings they were. Quite
murderous.

The duel was interrupted by Li Ho. Li Ho never listens but he always
hears. Seems to have some quieting influence over his "honorable
Boss," too.

But I wish you could have seen the old fellow's eyes, Bones. I think
they might have told some tale to a medical mind. Normally, his eyes
are blurry like the rest of his fatherly face. And their color, I
think, is blue. But just then they looked like no eyes I have ever
seen. A cold light on burnished steel is the only simile I can think
of--perfect hardness, perfect coldness, lustre without depth! The
description is poor, but you may get the idea better if I describe
the effect of the look rather than the look itself. The warm spot in
my heart froze. And it takes something fairly eerie to freeze the
heart at its core.

From this, as a budding psychologist, I draw a conclusion--there was
something abnormal, something not quite human in that flashing look.
The conclusion seems somewhat strained now. But at the time I was