-AGENT
WHEN DAN GETS BACK FROM RED-DOG, AN' THE RESULT IS HE UNLOADS HIS
FINDIN'S ON A DEAD KYARD. p. 18.]

"'Which if ever a gov'ment offishul,' exclaims Texas, as he comes
t'arin' into the Red Light one evenin', deemandin' drinks--'which if
ever a gov'ment offishul goes organizin' his own fooneral that a-way,
it's this yere deeboshed postmaster next door!'

"Thar's nothin' said, but we-all knows what's on Texas's mind. That
wife of Dead Shot's, for the fo'th time that day, has gone askin' for
letters.

"'She writes 'em to herse'f,' is the way Missis Rucker lays it down.
'Also, it's doo to the crim'nal besottedness of that egreegious Dead
Shot. The man's shorely love-blind!'

"'You ain't goin' to t'ar into him for that, be you?' Nell asks, her
tones reproachful. 'Him lovin' her like he does shore makes a hit with
me. A limit goes in farobank; but my notion is to take the bridle off
when the game's love.'

"'But all the same he needn't get that lovin' it addles him,' says
Missis Rucker. 'In a way, it's Dead Shot's sole fault, her actin'
like she does. Instead of keepin' them Mexicans to do her work, Dead
Shot ought to make her go surgin' round, an' care for her house
herse'f. Thar ain't nobody needs steady employment more'n a woman.
You-all savvys where it says that Satan finds some mischief still for
idle hands to do? Which you bet that bluff means women--an'
postmasters--every time.'

"Missis Rucker continues along sim'lar lines, mighty inflexible, for
quite a spell. She concloodes by sayin':

"'You keep a woman walsin' round a cook-stove, or wrastlin' a washtub,
or jugglin' pots an' skillets, same as them sleight-of-hand folks at
the Bird Cage Op'ry House, an' she won't be so free to primp an' preen
an' look at herse'f in the glass, an' go gaddin' after letters which
she herse'f's done writ.'

"We-all can't he'p hearin' this yere, seen' we're settin' round the O.
K. dinin' table feedin' at the time; but we stubbornly refooses to be
drawed into any views, Enright settin' us the example. That sagacious
old warchief merely reaches for the salt-hoss, an' never yeeps;
wharupon we maintains ourselves stoodiously yeepless likewise.

"Things goes on swingin' an' rattlin', an' the open-air flirtations
which Dead Shot's wife keeps up with that outcast of a postmaster's
enough to give you a chill. We sets thar, powerless, expectin' a
killin' every minute. An' all the time, like his eyes has took a
layoff, Dead Shot