other
side of you home! And I am sorry I stood there and seen you get married
off and never lifted a finger; I'm darned sorry. I shoulda hollered
misdeal, all right. I know it now." He pulled remorsefully at his wet
mustache, which very much resembled a worn-out sharing brush.

Ford straightened up, dropped a hand upon his thigh, and thereby
discovered another sore spot, which he caressed gently with his palm.

"Say, Bill, you were there, and you saw her. On the square now--what's
she like? And what made me marry her?"

Bill pulled so hard upon his mustache that his teeth showed; his breath
became unpleasantly audible with the stress of emotion. "So help me, I
can't tell you what she's like, Ford," he confessed. "I don't remember
nothing about her looks, except she looked good to me, and I never seen
her before, and her hair wasn't red--I always remember red hair when I
see it, drunk or sober. You see," he added as an extenuation, "I was
pretty well jagged myself. I musta been. I recollect I was real put out
because my name wasn't Frank Ford--By hokey!" He laid an impressive
forefinger upon Ford's knee and tapped several times. "I never knew your
name was rightly Frank Ford Cameron. I always--"

"It ain't." Ford winced and drew away from the tapping process, as if
his knee also was sensitive that morning.

"You told her it was. I mind that perfectly, because I was so su'prised
I swore right out loud and was so damned ashamed I couldn't apologize.
And say! She musta been a real lady or I wouldn't uh felt that way about
it!" Bill glanced triumphantly from one to the other. "Take it from me,
you married a lady, Ford. Drunk or sober, I always make it a point to
speak proper before the ladies--t'other kind don't count--and when I
make a break, you betcher life I remember it. She's a real lady--I'd
swear to that on a stack uh bibles ten feet high!" He settled back and
unbuttoned his steaming coat with the air of a man who has established
beyond question the vital point of an argument.

"Did I tell her so myself, or did I just let it go that way?" Ford, as
his brain cleared, stuck close to his groping for the essential facts.

"Well, now--I ain't dead sure as to that. Maybe Rock'll remember. Kinda
seems to me now, that she asked you if you was really Frank Ford
Cameron, and you said: 'I sure am,' or something like that. The
preacher'd know, maybe. He musta been the only sober one in the
bunch--except the girl. But you