would have been careful not to answer in any fashion save one. He had a trick of holding his hands in front of him, fidgeting a piece of paper between his fingers. His voice was, like himself, small and insignificant; but, when he chose, it had a singularly penetrating quality, which, for some reason, reminded me of the sound of sawing wood. He kept his eyes fixed almost continually on my face, glancing hungrily from feature to feature, as if desirous not to miss the movement of a muscle. Altogether he was like some pertinacious terrier who worried, not only in the way of business, but also for sport. I should like to have taken him by the scruff of the neck and shaken him.
He wanted to know if Edwin Lawrence had been a friend of mine; how long I had known him, what I knew about him, when I had seen him last. I told him about the game of cards, but, somewhat to my surprise, he made no allusion to my loss, nor the terms on which we parted.
And here began my blundering. I wished the Court to understand that, at parting, we were on the worst possible terms, and that I was in just the proper mood for committing murder. But Jordan—that was the little terrier fellow—would have none of it. He told me to confine myself to answering his questions; and that I
