spoke was Harvey Green, and this not for a minute
after the father and his child had vanished through the door.

"If I was in your place, landlord"--his voice was cold and
unfeeling--"I'd pitch that fellow out of the bar-room the next time he
stepped through the door. He's no business here, in the first place;
and, in the second, he doesn't know how to behave himself. There's no
telling how much a vagabond like him injures a respectable house."

"I wish he would stay away," said Simon, with a perplexed air.

"I'd make him stay away," answered Green.

"That may be easier said than done," remarked Judge Lyman. "Our friend
keeps a public-house, and can't just say who shall or shall not come
into it."

"But such a fellow has no business here. He's a good-for-nothing sot.
If I kept a tavern, I'd refuse to sell him liquor."

"That you might do," said Judge Lyman; "and I presume your hint will
not be lost on our friend Slade."

"He will have liquor, so long as he can get a cent to buy it with,"
remarked one of the company; "and I don't see why our landlord here,
who has gone to so much expense to fit up a tavern, shouldn't have the
sale of it as well as anybody else. Joe talks a little freely
sometimes; but no one can say that he is quarrelsome. You've got to
take him as he is, that's all."

"I am one," retorted Harvey Green, with a slightly ruffled manner, "who
is never disposed to take people as they are when they choose to render
themselves disagreeable. If I was Mr. Slade, as I remarked in the
beginning, I'd pitch that fellow into the road the next time he put his
foot over my door step."

"Not if I were present," remarked the other, coolly.

Green was on his feet in a moment, and I saw, from the flash of his
eyes, that he was a man of evil passions. Moving a pace or two in the
direction of the other, he said sharply.

"What is that, sir?"

The individual against whom his anger was so suddenly aroused was
dressed plainly, and had the appearance of a working man. He was stout
and muscular.

"I presume you heard my words. They were spoken distinctly," he
replied, not moving from where he sat, nor seeming to be in the least
disturbed. But there was a cool defiance in the tones of his voice and
in the steady look of his eyes.

"You're an impertinent fellow, and I'm half tempted to chastise you."

Green had scarcely finished the sentence, ere he was lying full length
upon the floor. The other had sprung upon