But the cold shrugs, the averted faces which he had met all afternoon still preyed on his mind, and, under the stimulus of a fresh drink, he opened the floodgates of his wrath.
"They're a lot of spineless jellyfish in this town," he drawled.

"They all believe I killed Whitmore.

Well, I'm not saying whether I did or not.

But suppose I did kill him?
Ain't a man got the right to defend his home?
What's this country coming to when a viper can sneak into another man's house and steal his wife?
The papers say that I went around threatening to kill him.

Well, I did.