ow, so you better hear my side. Last
summer I attended a convention at Galveston, and one hot day I decided
to take a swim, so I hired a suit and a room to cache my six-shooter
in. It was foolish proceedings for a man my age, but the beach was
black with people and I wasn't altogether myself. You see, we'd had an
open poker game running in my room for three days, and I hadn't got any
sleep. I was plumb feverish, and needed a dip. Well, I'm no water-dog,
Dave; I can't swim no better than a tarrapin with its legs cut off, but
I sloshed around some in the surf, and then I took a walk to dreen off
and see the sights. It was right interesting when I got so I could tell
the women from the men--you see I'd left my glasses in the bath-house.

"Now I'd sort of upheld the general intemperance of that poker game for
three days and nights--but I don't offer my condition as an excuse for
what follows. No gentleman ought to lay his indecencies onto John
Barley corn when they're nothing more nor less than the outcroppin's of
his own orneriness. Liquor has got enough to answer for without being
blamed for human depravities. I dare say I was friendlier than I had
any right to be; I spoke to strangers, and some of the girls hollered
at me, but I wouldn't have harmed a soul.

"Well, in the course of my promenade I came to a couple of fellers
setting half-buried in the sand, and just as I was passing one of them
got up--sort of on all-fours and--er--facing away from me--sabe? That's
where the trouble hatched. I reached out and, with nothing but
good-will in my heart, I--sort of pinched this party-sort of on the
hip, or thereabouts. I didn't mean a thing by it, Dave. I just walked
on, smiling, till something run into me from behind. When I got up and
squared around, there was that man we just left cutting didos out of
black paper.

"'What d'you mean by pinching my wife?' he says, and he was r'arin' mad.

"'Your WIFE?' I stammers, and with that he climbs me. Dave, I was weak
with shame and surprise, and all I could do was hold him off. Sure
enough, the man I'd pinched was a long, ga'nt woman with a little black
mustache, and here she came!

"We started in right there. I never saw such a poisonous person as that
woman. She was coiled, her head was up, and her rattles agoing, and so
I finally lit out But I'm sort of fat, and they over-ran me. They bayed
me against the sea-wall, and all I had the heart to do was to hold 'em
off some more.