[Richard Tanner]

I was playing in a cardroom around where I live yesterday and ran into a situation that I was fairly unfamiler with.
Ok little background, it's a 1/2 NL game, table seats 10 (9 were playing at the time) and of those 9, three were the house players/game hosts. The host that will come into play later has done some things in the past that I would consider angle shooting (ex. He'll say "what did he show" on alot of hands in the hopes that the dealer will expose cards that weren't shown in any case [idealy the dealer would not show them, but in a busy game mistakes can happen]). This game is also prone to alot of soft play and things that you certainly wouldn't find in a casino (ex. giving the last bet back to a player that made a bad call into his buddy and the like).
In addition the the hosts, one of the players was a friend of said host that had come from out of town (i.e he wasn't a regular). On one particular hand the host and his friend got into it with raises before the flop and a bet and call afterwards. On the turn and river it had become obvious that the friend had made his hand and that the host had missed almost completely and yet called bets upwards of 150 on each street (the friend had trip nines shown down after a river call and the Host mucked mumbling about having had buttom pair).
As the Host was mucking, I asked quietly (he was sitting next to me) "what did you have there". My question had two reasons 1) Human curiousity/info gathering but really it was about 2) my suspecion of the host basically chip dumping to his friend in order to keep him in the game and give him a little gift. I didn't ask for his hand to be turned over as I didn't want to make a big deal about it without having all the facts, I just wanted to see if my suspicions were justified.
After I asked the question he snapped "I lost 300 on the hand that's what I had", and the other host told me never to ask another player about their hand. I, for one, don't care about the outcome of a hand, I try to answer all my opponents questions (if I feel like I should) as politely as possible, and if I don't want to answer I just say "I don't want to share what I had" or something akin to that.
I feel like I might have been out of line asking him instead of just asking the dealer to see his hand (although that would've started WW3) because I'm uncomfortable, but tolorent, of all the oddities that already go on in this game, but this would've been the straw that broke the camels back.
If you read this far then I figure I should reward you by getting to the point. My question to you has two parts, first, did I do something wrong by trying keep my thoughts quiet and just ask the player and second, is there anyway, short of just cashing out and not returning, to deal with something like this.
Thanks

Cody