that gave
him water on the kneepan. It ought to have been a warning to Doodums,
but he was plumb infatuated, and went around pretending that he'd been
kicked by a horse. After that the boys used to make Honeybunch mighty
mad when she came out of dark corners with Doodums, by feeling him to
see if any of his ribs were broken. Still he didn't take the hint, and
in the end she led him to the altar.

We started in to give them a lovely shivaree after the wedding,
beginning with a sort of yell which had been invented by the only
fellow in town who had been to college.

As I remember, it ran something like this:

_Hun, hun, hunch!
Bun, bun, bunch!
Funny, funny!
Honey, honey!
Funny Honeybunch!_

But as soon as we got this off, and before we could begin on the
dishpan chorus, Honeybunch came at us with a couple of bed-slats and
cleaned us all out.

Before he had married, Doodums had been one of half a dozen half-baked
sports who drank cheap whisky and played expensive poker at the
Dutchman's; and after he'd held Honeybunch in his lap evenings for a
month, he reckoned one night that he'd drop down street and look in on
the boys. Honeybunch reckoned not, and he didn't press the matter, but
after they'd gone to bed and she'd dropped off to sleep, he slipped
into his clothes and down the waterspout to the ground. He sat up till
two o'clock at the Dutchman's, and naturally, the next morning he had
a breath like a gasoline runabout, and looked as if he'd been
attending a successful coon-hunt in the capacity of the coon.

Honeybunch smelt his breath and then she smelt a mouse, but she wasn't
much of a talker and she didn't ask any questions--of him. But she had
brother Jim make some inquiries, and a few days later, when Doodums
complained of feeling all petered out and wanted to go to bed early,
she was ready for him.

Honeybunch wasn't any invalid, and when she went to bed it was to
sleep, so she rigged up a simple little device in the way of an alarm
and dropped off peacefully, while Doodums pretended to.

When she began to snore in her upper register and to hit the high C,
he judged the coast was clear, and leaped lightly out of bed. Even
before he'd struck the floor he knew there'd been a horrible mistake
somewhere, for he felt a tug as if he'd hooked a hundred-pound
catfish. There was an awful ripping and tearing sound, something
fetched loose, and his wife was sitting up in bed blinking at him in