He stammered something about meaning no harm.
"You called my friend a drunken blackguard.

I am going to hear the accusation in detail." George stood up to his full height, a terrible figure to the shrinking clerk, who repeated his former words with a faltering tongue.
He heard him out quietly, and then stared coolly down on the people.

He felt himself master of the situation.

The enemy had played into his hands, and in the shape of a sweating clerk sat waiting on his action.
"You have heard what this man has to tell you.

I ask you as men, as folk of this countryside, if it is true ?" It was the real speech of the evening, which was all along waiting to be delivered instead of the frigid pedantries on the paper.