cin' Turner person to the door, 'an' if you-all ever shows your
villifyin' nose inside this hostelry ag'in I'll fill you full of
buckshot.'

"To be shore, that crack about buckshot ain't nothin' more'n vain
hyperbole, Rucker not possessin' the spunk of bull-snakes. The Turner
person, however, lets him get away with it, an' submits tamely to be
buffaloed, which of itse'f shows he ain't got the heart of a horned
toad. The eepisode does Rucker a heap of good, though, an' he puffs up
immoderate. Given any party he can buffalo, an' the way that
weak-minded married man expands his chest, an' takes to struttin', is
a caution to cock partridges. An' all the time, a jack-rabbit, of
ordinary resolootion an' force of character, would make Rucker take to
a tree or go into a hole.

"Is the Turner person p'isened?

"No more'n I be. Which it's simple that alarmist's heated imagination,
aggravated by what deloosions is born of the nosepaint he gets in
Red Dog before ever he makes his Wolfville deboo at all. Two hookers
of Old Jordan from Black Jack renders him so plumb well he's
reedic'lous.

"Most likely you-all'd go thinkin' now that, havin' let sech a
hooman failure as Rucker put it all over him, this Turner person'd lie
dormant a spell, an' give his se'f-respect a chance to ketch its
breath. Not him. It's no longer away than second drink time the same
evenin' when he locks gratooitous horns with Black Jack. To this last
embroglio thar is--an' could be--no deefense, Jack bein' so amiable
that havin' trouble with him is like goin' to the floor with your
own image in the glass. Which he's shorely a long sufferin'
barkeep, Jack is. Mebby it's his genius for forbearance, that a-way,
which loores this Turner person into attemptin' them outrages on his
sens'bilities.

"The Turner person stands at the bar, sloppin' out the legit'mate
forty drops. With nothin' said or done to stir him up, he cocks his
eye at Jack--for all the world like a crow peerin into a bottle--an'
says,

"'Which your feachers is displeasin' to me, an' I don't like your
looks.'

"Jack keeps on swabbin' off the bar for a spell, an' all as mild as
the month of May.

"'Is that remark to be took sarkastic?' he asks at last, 'or shall we
call it nothin' more'n a brainless effort to be funny?'

"'None whatever!' retorts the Turner person; 'that observation's made
in a serious mood. Your countenance is ondoubted the facial failure of
the age, an' I requests that