Eugene Manlove Rhodes

“ No one who has read Antony's speech will ever forget them. Jeff had no need to reiterate here; Antony has done it for him. They were the very heart and blood of it; the master of magic freighted those two words, in their successive differing expression, with praise, uncertainty, doubt, suspicion, invective, certainty, hate, fury, denunciation and revenge. 'Honorable men!' And Thorpe, too, is an honorable man! ”

“ The next words Antony speaks——"
"Wait a minute," said Pringle, eying Beebe. "Let's see if Billy can carry on your argument. Can you, Billy?"
Billy put a shaky finger on the blot. His voice was hoarse with passion.
"‘He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him!’"
"He shall not live," repeated Pringle, "this honorable senator—not if I have to strangle him with my bare hands!"
"I—I suppose you are right," gasped Leo, aghast. "But, suffering saints, he must think we are remarkable men to study out anything so obscure as all that. Why, there isn't one chance in a million for it!" ”

“ In the first place, this is not a case of solving puzzles, with a nickel-plated Barlow knife for a prize, or a book for good little girls. This letter means something; it is the urgent call of a friend in need; we are friends indeed, grown-up men, and it is our business to find out what it means. We have to find out; a man's life is the prize—and more than that, as it turns out. ”