Page:Taylor - In the Dwellings of the Wilderness.djvu/176

 so that Merritt stared at him in sheer amazement.

"See here! Don't say that to me again; understand? Why, do you know what you're inviting me to do? Play the coward—run away and hide my head in the sand; make a worse spectacle of myself than I am already. That's what you're asking me to do! But I won't—by Heaven, I won't! Don't think that because I'm useless and not worth my salt I'll let a man—any man—insult me"

But, on the word, his voice changed and hesitated; his torrent of speech checked. He said with a certain timidity which sat very strangely on him—a deprecating humility not good to hear:

"I—I don't mean that, Merritt, upon