a manner of saying

Judge Henry struck the table lightly with his fist. "I knew it!" And he leaned back in his chair with a face of contentment. He had trusted his man, and his man had proved worthy. "Pardon me." Dr. MacBride had a manner of saying "pardon me," which rendered forgiveness well-nigh impossible. The Judge waited for him. "Am I to understand that these--a--cow-boys attempted to mutiny, and were discouraged in this attempt upon finding themselves less skilful at lying than the man they had plotted to depose?" I began an answer. "It was other qualities, sir, that happened to be revealed and asserted by what you call his lying that--" "And what am I to call it, if it is not lying? A competition in deceit in which, I admit, he out did them. "It's their way to--" "Pardon me. Their way to lie? They bow down to the greatest in this?" "Oh," said Miss Wood in my ear, "give him up." The Judge took a turn. "We-ell, Doctor--" He seemed to stick here. Mr. Ogden handsomely assisted him. "You've said the word yourself, Doctor. It's the competition, don't you see? The trial of strength by no matter what test." "Yes," said Miss Wood, unexpectedly. "And it wasn't that George Washington couldn't tell a lie. He just wouldn't. I'm sure if he'd undertaken to he'd have told a much better one than Cornwall's." "Ha-ha, madam! You draw an ingenious subtlety from your books." "It's all plain to me," Ogden pursued. "The men were morose. This foreman was in the minority. He cajoled them into a bout of tall stories, and told the tallest himself. And when they found they had swallowed it whole--well, it would certainly take the starch out of me," he concluded. "I couldn't be a serious mutineer after that."