t afterwards you went out to the bar and had another drink--all
this takin' place in the hotel dining-room, and Mother McGrew down with
neuralagy and not bein' present--and one drink leads to another, you
know. I come in then, and the bunch was drinkin' luck to you fast as Sam
could push the bottles along. Then you went back to the lady--and if you
don't know what took place you can search me--and pretty soon Bill said
you'd took her and her grip to the depot. Anyway, when you come back,
you wasn't troubled with no attack of politeness!

"You went in the air with Bill, first," continued Sandy, testing with
his finger the temperature of the water in the basin, "and bawled him
out something fierce for standing by and seeing you make a break like
that without doing something. You licked him--and then Rock bought in
because some of your remarks kinda included him too. I d' know," said
Sandy, scratching his unshaven jaw reflectively, "just how the fight did
go between you 'n' Rock. You was both using the whole room, I know. Near
as I could make out, you--or maybe it was Rock--tromped on Big Jim's
bunion. This cold spell's hard on bunions--and Big Jim went after you
both with blood in his eye.

"After that"--Sandy spread his arms largely--"it was go-as-you-please.
Sam and me was the only ones that kept out, near as I can recollect, and
when it thinned up a bit, you had Aleck down and was pounding the liver
outa him, and Big Jim was whanging away at you, and Rock was clawin' Jim
in the back of the neck, and you was all kickin' like bay steers in
brandin' time. I reached in under the pile and dragged you out by one
leg and left the rest of 'em fighting. They never seemed to miss you
none." He grinned. "Jim commenced to bump Aleck's head up and down on
the floor instead of you--and I knew he didn't have nothing against
Aleck."

"Bill--"

"Bill, he'd quit right in the start." Sandy's grin became a laugh.
"Seems like pore old Bill always gits in bad when you commence on your
third pint. You wasn't through, though, seems like. You was going to
start in at the beginning and en-core the whole performance, and you
started out after Bill. Bill, he was lookin' for a hole big enough to
crawl into by that time. But you run into the preacher. And you licked
him to a fare-you-well and had him crying real tears before I or anybody
else could stop you."

"What'd I lick him for?" Ford inquired in a tone of deep
discouragement.

Sandy's