ss his steaming forehead.

"I remember that he called her 'Ittikins, Pittikins, Popsy-sweet.'
Thought I'd die laughing at that trial! Did you sling in any names
like that, Ivory? You being so prominent now and settled down and
having money in the bank, them kind of names, if you wrote mushy like
that, will certainly tickle folks something tremendous."

A student in physiognomy might have read that memory was playing havoc
with Buck's resolution. Avery was knitting his brows in deep
reflection, knuckling his forehead.

"Seems as if," he went on, slowly, "she told me you called her
something like 'Sweety-tweety,' or 'Tweeny-weeny Girlikins'--something
like that. How them newspapers do like to string out things--funny
kind of things, when a man is prominent and well known, and has got
money in the bank! Folks can't help laughing--they just naturally
can't, Ive! You'll be setting there in court, looking ugly as a gibcat
and her lawyer reading them things out. Them cussed lawyers have a
sassy way of----"

Buck got up, kicked his chair off onto the ground, and in choler
uncontrollable, clacked his fists under Avery's nose and barked:

"Twit me another word--just one other word--and I'll drive that old
nose of yourn clear up into the roof of your head!"

Then he locked his store door and stumped away across the field to the
big barn, where the remains of Buck's Leviathan Circus reposed in
isolated state.

No one knows by just what course of agonized reasoning he arrived at
his final decision, but at dusk he came back to the store. With the
dumb placidity of some ruminant, Avery was sitting in his same place
on the platform of the emporium.

"Brick," said Ivory, humbly, "I've been thinking back and remembering
what I wrote to her--and it's all of it pretty clear in my mind,
'cause I never wrote love letters to anyone else. And I can't face it.
I couldn't sit in court and hear it. I couldn't sit here on this
platform in my own home place and face the people afterward. I
couldn't start on the road with a circus and have the face to stand
before the big tent after it and bark like I used to. They'd grin me
out of business. I'd be backed into the stall. No, I can't do it. Go
down and see what she'll compromise on."

Avery came back after two hours and loomed in the dusk before the
platform. He fixed his eyes on the plug hat that was still lowered in
the attitude of despondency.

"I wrassled with her, Ivory, just the sa